Technical Vision for Qt 6 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.qt.io/blog/2019/08/07/technical-vision-qt-6/ <comment><USER2> "Make JavaScript an optional feature of QML." and "Support compiling QML to efficient C++ and native code."

Yes! These two things are what's been on the very top of my wishlist ever since QML/QtQuick was first released.

<comment><USER3> I would love this!

In fact the QML format would not even be a terrible way to write non-UI applications, I'd think. Something like

        MySqlDataBase {
          id: default_db
          host: ...
        }

        UserController {
          items_per_page: 20

          formatter: UserFormatter {}

          repository: Repository {
            table: "users"
            database: default_db
          }
        }

is definitely more easier to follow than the linear version

        auto default_db = std::make_shared<MySqlDataBase>("...");
        auto userformatter = std::make_shared<UserFormatter>();
        auto repository = std::make_shared<Repository>("users", default_db);
        auto controller = std::make_shared<UserController>(20, userformatter, repository);

especially when you do some kind of constructor injection with nested objects. The declarative tree structure of QML is great.

<comment><USER4> It doesn't look as bad if you skip the intermediate variable declarations, since you're not re-using those variables elsewhere.

(the QML structure only works as long as this is the case, e.g clear nesting of instances)

<comment><USER2> > clear nesting of instances

You can have references (default_db in the example) to instances to have indirectly nested instances too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for supporting CMake and deprecating qmake. Not that cmake is the best tool ever, but having to deal with several build systems in the same project has always been a nightmare.

<comment><USER4> Would have hoped they would use bazel instead. It's open-source, and so much easier to deal with than CMake.

<comment><USER6> Are you kidding me, bazel is written in Java...

<comment><USER7> so what? Bazel spawns a server, the next invocation is really fast.

<comment><USER8> You're not helping your case! Spawning a server (a JVM-based one at that!) to be able to get reasonably performant builds is horrifying!

As a simple example, I hack on a Qt app on a Raspberry Pi (it has a tiny display on it and I run a dashboard). It's only got 512MB of RAM and spinning up a JVM server to run my builds will likely cause it to run out of RAM. I'm not the world's biggest fan of CMake, but it sure solves a lot of problems while being quite lightweight. And I'll take it over qmake, mostly because I know CMake well enough and haven't ever really gotten into the guts of qmake. CMake is more general purpose.

<comment><USER7> I don't get why are you saying it's horrifying. It keeps cached copy of the build graph, among other things, so subsequent invocations of the build systems, there is less to read cold again. It's pretty good design. Also the server dies after some time (controlled by some default). MOC/UIC/RCC would've integrated much easier there, than what's right now.

<comment><USER8> How much memory does that take, vs something like CMake that starts cold? I can see why you'd want to do that if you have an absolutely massive dependency graph for your build, but outside of a few select companies, that's probably not the case.

<comment><USER7> Honestly I haven't measured, ballpark figure would be hundreth megabytes to gigabyte. Given that it's standard on dev/build machines to have more than 8GB I don't see it as a problem. Memory is cheaper these days than developer's time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I hope they fix QtDesigner to not be hot garbage. Elementary operations such as trying to move some controls to a container that has zero size is totally unintuitive (you need to alt+drag to the container in the widget tree view - note that nothing else needs that) and not always possible (the widget tree view doesn't scroll so if the container is out of view you can't move stuff there - the fact that selecting something in the form automatically selects it in the widget tree view _and scrolls it_ doesn't help at all there), or simply pasting widgets in a container without breaking the existing layout (literally, the program tells you to "break" the layout... meaning to remove the existing layout). Or something like making a widget invisible (the visible property is not exposed in the property editor and if you force it to be enabled and mark the widget as invisible then the widget doesn't show up in the editor :-P).

And some widgets are simply missing or accessible through obscure ways (e.g. instead of QSplitter being in the Containers group in the widget box, it is only accessible by ctrl+clicking two controls under a parent container that has no layout and right clicking and selecting selecting Layout horizontally/vertically (two menus) - WTF, what is wrong with simply letting me drop QSplitter in the form and then place controls manually? I can already do that perfectly fine after i perform the magic incantation to bring it in - though of course i cannot change the splitter position from within the form editor, because that would be too convenient i suppose).

I've seen form designers from open source projects written by a single developer in their free time that are more polished than that. The only thing worse is writing those UIs by hand.

<comment><USER10> I prefer writing UI by hand, rather than using Qt Designer. In C++, I figured out a few simple macros to automatically redefine `auto w` and `auto l` to refer to the parent widget and layout.

Is there a reason Qt Designer generates .cpp files which append a child to the parent _after_ the child is fully fleshed out, rather than when the child is first constructed? Does the latter approach create too many relayouts, or did it do that in the past? I tried to replicate that design quirk in my code, and had to use RAII to "add child to parent at end of scope", even though I don't want the destructors to run if an exception occurs during UI layout.

<comment><USER11> I doubt order matters much. Typically you call setupUI() and then show(), so the widget is hidden during initialization. I don't think any layout work actually occurs until the widget becomes visible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "should as such not be disruptive to our users" and "Elements of artificial intelligence will be more commonly used in applications and devices, and we will need to have easy ways to integrate with those." told me everything I need to keep away.

Focus QT! What do you want? Do that well.

<comment><USER13> I mean, the second one makes sense to me. Medical loves QT, and I can see them wanting easier integration of visual recognition models (think "detects breast cancer on an MRI" models) with the GUI. I could totally see wanting to really easily plug and unplug different models and overlaying their results, bringing you full circle to the GUI. Basically easier integration with complex heavily multipass GPGPU visual results.

<comment><USER12> Can you explain what you mean? Normally you just send in the pic to Tensorflow that then uses the gpu, where would QT enter the picture that would be more than two lines of code?

<comment><USER14> TensorFlow needs a lot of scaffolding for managing the lifecycle of data/&c. A big attraction of Qt is that it is often more like writing Java than C++.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm converting a 500KLOC C++ consumer app from Win32 to Qt so it can also run on macOS. All the app-specific code remains the same. I'm very pleased with how easy it is to design dialogs. Qt is better than anything Microsoft has to offer; what would entice me to forego portability?

<comment><AUTHOR> Have a try at WPF/WinUI, Blend tooling and the myriad of companies selling ready made components.

Otherwise, yes Qt is the best option for cross platform C++ code.

<comment><USER15> @pjmlp Thanks for the suggestion. I can see using WPF/WinUI for corporate-type apps where it will run under Windows on thousands of desks. However, if WPF/WinUI doesn't run on macOS, there is no incentive to use it for consumer products. When I do customer presentations, the number one question is "When will it run on the Mac?"

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe sooner than we would expect, but it will take a while still.

[https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/calling-all-net- deskto...](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/calling-all-net-desktop-and- mobile-developers/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's good to see language compatibility mentioned, and I hope they follow through with it.

There were really fantastic Common Lisp bindings for Qt4, but they relied on a tool called "Smoke", which stopped working with Qt5. My understanding is Smoke was used to create the early Python binding, but a different mechanism was used for the Python bindings in Qt5. For some reason the new technique wasn't as easy to use from other languages, so a lot of alternative language bindings stagnated on Qt4.

I don't know if it's improved lately, but between using C++, the non-standard moc pre-processor, qmake, and little support from Qt itself, it's really hard to generate bindings for Qt now.

<comment><USER17> Here's a quick history lesson. Long ago Smoke was created by one guy, Richard Dale, to do bindings for Ruby (QtRuby). Smoke was generic enough to be used for other languages like Lisp and also the .Net CLI. Language bindings other than Python didn't really catch on and the community needed to make it all viable and self sustaining didn't emerge. It was mostly one person's passion project and they didn't get any real help. So it died.

PyQt (Python) came from a small one man company in the UK called Riverbank Computing. It is mature and has been around for a long time. It used a custom tool called SIP for the bindings. Last time I checked it was still around.

In the Qt Nokia era, a team was assembled by Qt to create official Python bindings to compete with PyQt. IIRC they used Swig to do it. Then they lost funding for a few years before being revived in some form at which point they were busy moving to their own home grown binding generator.

<comment><USER18> And that binding generator is called Shiboken, which was motivated by boost::python and the same idea behind the binding generator written for Java in the old days (from QtJambi).

At the moment Shiboken is more general, and mature and can be used even for C++ projects (which are not related to Qt). [https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_for_Python/Shiboken](https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_for_Python/Shiboken)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> These changes are very welcome, but in my opinion are too little too late. Qt has missed the boat with the current developer mindset. While I want Qt to 'win', as the end result is superior to say an electron app, most developers are willing to sacrifice usability and add bloat by using electron. Or simply paint them selves into a corner with a native SDK.

Qt has a massive uphill battle to try and stay relevant. Like it or not, there's a reason why electron apps and native ui sdks become the zeitgeist. While reusability is often cited as the main reason why electron has become the cross platform defacto, there's a lot more to it than that.

Personally, the difference between using electron and Qt is black and white. Looking at setting up alone, With Qt you have to struggle to compile a massive library which inevitably won't work. After sinking hours into compiling it, you're confronted with a unknown markup language and toolchain just to get a window displaying. And the documentation is incomplete, and to top it all off the minor versioning differences will cause your app to break in spectacular ways. Compare this to electron, where everything just works out the box, and with npm you have every single library you could ever think of. Microsoft and Apple roll out the red carpet for developers to make ui development super easy, so making two apps with a shared library is often just as tempting.

The way I'd try and save qt would be to make a react-native binding a first class citizen and ditch QML/js engines. I'd also remove the custom tool chains and release extensions for VSCode/Atom that outputted jsx that could get interoperated by a virtual dom. developers would kill for that.

<comment><USER20> I respect your comment, but I think it's a narrow look at what Qt is and what it's used for.

You mentioned "native UI SDKs" having become preferrable, but keep in mind that in many scenarios, Qt _is_ the native UI.

On desktop Linux there isn't a lower level toolkit Qt is translating to, but also in the many embedded products Qt is used on: Car and aviation infotainment (a prominent example is Mercedes-Benz' MBUX OS, but there's literally dozens of these built on Qt and shipping), medical equipment, industrial machines (e.g. the entire HMI sector), kiosk systems, coffee makers, ... Qt is an excellent choice for these, often the only one, and the web stack is very unattractive there due to performance/hardware overhead, quality, security, etc. They're product use cases in industry, with a lot of available very high-paying jobs.

And it's worth keeping in mind that the use cases I cited above by and large pay better than making desktop software does today, unless you're an entrenched player like Autodesk (which uses Qt doe many of its apps). In the only "this pays for a decently sized staff of engineers" desktop app products that are new that I can think of, Qt is also still doing well - say, Pix4D's apps for drone mapping/photogrammetry - because they likewise solve hard problems where you don't want to deal with the web API abstraction/quality barrier and performance overhead.

My bottom line here is: Right now, and very likely ten years from now, if you are good at at Qt you're probably going to work in a very good and stable job at a solid business. I don't see this being the case for Electron developers, and I know where I'd rather be.

As for making desktop apps, if your experience is "Looking at setting up alone, With Qt you have to struggle to compile a massive library which inevitably won't work" it shouldn't be ignored and the developer experience should be improved - tooling, build system and getting modules to devs are all mentioned in this blog. However, I have to say this has never been my experience - between Qt being packaged in Linux distros and the SDK installer on other platforms it's never been hard to set up Qt for me.

<comment><USER17> > My bottom line here is: Right now, and very likely ten years from now, if > you are good at at Qt you're probably going to work in a very good and > stable job at a solid business. I don't see this being the case for Electron > developers, and I know where I'd rather be.

What?! If you're specialising in Qt then your skills are tied to Qt and you are tied to the health of the Qt job market. Those skills are not very transferable. On the other hand, 90% of the skills needed for Electron development are web technologies which are relevant to the massive web related job market. I know where I'd rather be.

<comment><USER21> > Those skills are not very transferable.

I think you are very wrong. Qt is just a bunch of C++ with preprocessing. Knowing C++ is a very transferable skill.

<comment><USER17> Yes, I'm fully aware of what C++ is. I'm talking about Qt skills specifically.

My point is that in Electron development, the Electron specific skills is very small part of development. Most of the skills and tools used are also widely used elsewhere in industry. This is not the case for Qt work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm looking forward to doing a comparison of Qt 6 and Electron in terms of both usability and performance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Easy just watch React Native for Windows talk at Microsoft BUILD 2019.

Electron has 700% performance lost over UWP/C++, which is the baseline.

Expect similar results when comparing against Qt.

<comment><USER23> I had to search for the video, but I guess you are talking about this?

[https://youtu.be/TZnajQqqKV8?t=2894](https://youtu.be/TZnajQqqKV8?t=2894)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, that one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Would there be a chance of rust integration with these stronger types they mention?

<comment><USER25> There are a couple of projects attempting Rust integration with QML. In particular, I forked Jos van den Oever's seemingly unmaintained bindings generator:

[https://gitlab.com/rhn/rust-qt-bindings- generator](https://gitlab.com/rhn/rust-qt-bindings-generator)

It's for Qt5, and I think I know how to achieve strong typing (just turn everything into different QObjects, they don't get converted), but haven't implemented that idea yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> HN hug of death? [https://archive.is/VVpgQ](https://archive.is/VVpgQ)

I just hope they gonna keep memory footprint as low as possible so I can keep bashing electron devs.

<comment><USER27> > I just hope they gonna keep memory footprint as low as possible so I can > keep bashing electron devs.

well, they want to focus on microcontrollers apparently :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I hope QML/js crap will be abandoned, and C++ API will be prioritized.

<comment><USER29> C++ (and even Rust) is not the best language to build UIs. Even if your app heavily uses C/C++ to do heavy computations, "scripting" language will be preferable for "glue code". QML is not a crazy new idea, for example Tk used Tcl.

And due to C++ API, Qt has poor language bindings, compared to GTK and many others with C API.

<comment><USER30> I believe you're incorrect, C++ is a good language for building UIs, as proven by the plethora of UI libraries and frameworks built in C++ for pretty much all platforms. This is visible when comparing PyQt and C++: yes, PyQt is easier to get into, has nicer syntax, but C++ offers more power. Even hot- loading UIs, a typical scripting language advantage is supported.

Declarative UI languages do have some advantages compared to regular programming languages, but that's unrelated to the claim you made.

Bindings are not C++'s problem, they're the problem of the other languages which try to use UI frameworks written in C++, like Rust, which still doesn't have any decent UI library.

<comment><AUTHOR> They have the graphics layer written in C++, but get used from managed languages.

QML, Swift, Android, UWP, WPF, Forms, Blueprints, Unity, React Native.

<comment><USER31> I've worked on two products with touchscreen UIs now and I can safely say this is exactly how I want to do things. Have a tight core engine but with a flexible declarative language that I can get imperative with. And make it easy for me to declare connections between the model and the view without specifying data types. And give me a way to work with a statically typed language when that's beneficial.

QML is way faster to develop in than C++. And it hides a lot of signal/slot boilerplate that doesn't matter. And I can still write C++ classes that interface with QML when I want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I hope for the overlap of their TypedQML with TypeScript. I am a C++ dev by career and had recently an opportunity to use TypeScript. It's quite nice. It has it's warts as it's structural typing, because of limitations within implementation goals - type erasure and being JavaScript but with types. As much as I would like to see TypeScript Native it's probably to difficult to marry JavaScriptness with relative ease of compilation to C++. Hopefully Qt effort could be extended beyond Qt itself and that would be something I would look forward to.

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder whether Qt could get rid of the C++ moc preprocessor. There are wonderful native signal-slot libraries for C++, and RTTI, introspection and reflection are either there or about to be standarized.

</comment><comment><USER34> Can someone please show me how to style a qt app relatively easily? I've built qt applications, and making some effort to make it look passable takes twice as much time as actual programming. QSS just sucks in making luxurious feeling interfaces, and this is where electron succeeds. Its much easier to make your own 'widgets' and have a great feeling application at the expense of ram and performance on electron. If Qt fixes styling, I would be onboard 100%. Performance is amazing and I like being able to develop one codebase for all operating systems.

<comment><USER35> This is geared towards qtquick (not widgets) applications, but to create a general theme you can use this pattern:

[https://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-5.11/qtquickcontrols2-flatstyl...](https://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-5.11/qtquickcontrols2-flatstyle- imports-theme-theme-qml.html)

Then before the engine is loaded in main.cpp call

qmlRegisterSingleton( QUrl(QStringLiteral("qrc:/Theme.qml")), "mycustomname.theme", 1, 0, "Theme");

Then in a qml file:

import mycustomname.theme 1.0

This allows you to do something like:

Rectangle { width: 100 height: 100 color: Theme.mainColor }

You can also do things like set the application font which would be done in main.cpp before the engine is loaded:

QFont appFont("NameOfLoadedFont); appFont.setPixelSize(16); QGuiApplication::setFont(appFont);

You would need to load the font, which you can do in the Theme.qml file:

property FontLoader someFont: FontLoader { source: "qrc:/locationOfFont/Font" name: "NameOfLoadedFont" }

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Any ideas in Flutter or React that might be useful to have in Qt?

<comment><USER37> Where did this question come from?

<comment><USER38> GUI frameworks borrow ideas and innovations from each other all the time. It's a totally normal thing, and hence an obvious question.

<comment><USER37> Yes, but I would expect that there is a particular aspect of a framework one might be interested in seeing adopted in another framework. But asking what a random framework X has to offer for framework Y, when framework X wasn't mentioned anywhere previously is unexpected. It's like seeing under the release notes of a new linux kernel version a question "any ideas from windows that might be useful in linux?". I'm probably overthinking it. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I hoped there would be more focus on how their web assembly support will be improved (specifically, how they intend to handle the narrow viewports of mobile devices).

Web Assembly QT enables a really nice way for customers to mess with an app without installing anything on their systems. It works with Q5\ _, but a still has much to be improved.

\_ with a bit of modification to QT's output.

</comment><comment><USER40> Their tricky licensing makes using Qt for personal projects a non-starter and anything commercial really hard to justify.

If they streamlined the licensing and created (C)sensible language bindings then it would be great. I tried the python bindings and they were problematic. Can't even imagine using one of the unsupported bindings.

</comment><comment><USER41> They should add official Rust bindings.

<comment><USER42> is it possible to have safe bindings for something like Qt? never understood if that's a thing or not since I've heard FFI usage is inherently unsafe.

<comment><USER41> I assume if the logic is wrapped into something that handles it correctly, you can declare it as safe, even if inside it's unsafe.

<comment><USER43> Yeah, unsafe doesn't have to pollute callers (async in C# is a good example of something that does)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I have given up on Qt since it doesn't work efficiently with X11. GTK works OK though.

<comment><USER45> Eh? X11 is probably Qt's best target, and it's one of the most popular toolkits for building X11 applications. What made you think it wasn't efficient?

<comment><USER46> Check out [https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-50338](https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-50338)

They made a choice that was good for local rendering but because it sends full bitmaps to the X server to display it uses a lot of bandwidth which killed performance when forwarding X applications over the network.

I'm _personally_ of the opinion that today's X is only accidentally network transparent and a bad remote desktop solution but I don't deny that it's part of a lot of peoples' workflows.

<comment><USER45> Right, that makes sense. I didn't know they removed QT_GRAPHICSSYSTEM=native in Qt5. I'm of the same opinion as you, but I can see why it would be a problem for some. (For some reason we still had to use Solaris X terminals in my first year of university.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Does that mean all current KDE applications will soon become binary incompatible with the future KDE libraries that will be based on Qt 6?

<comment><USER38> KDE applications and KDE libraries will be updated together. How else could it be?

It won't be soon, either. Qt is aiming for a first release of Qt 6 by the end of 2020.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Why a scene graph? I had the same question about GTK 4 and have yet to see any sensible answer.

<comment> iso-8859-1 Declarative layouting is in fashion, which works well with scene graphs.

GUI frameworks have usually been tied to inheritance-based object oriented systems.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is fashion because on modern GPUs is easier to optimise what actually needs to be done, and combine passes as well.

During the early days of GUI development, immediate mode won because scene graphs are more demanding in regards to memory consumption, and graphic chips were quite limited anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> How about direct support for modern, UI-focused languages like Swift and Kotlin?

</comment><comment><USER50> Any cheaper licensing options for us embedded folk?

</comment><comment><USER51> Could someone please please fix vncserver to properly display applications using qt?

</comment><comment><USER52> Have you considered rewriting it in Rust?

<comment><USER42> Honestly at this point they should just rewrite it in Javascript and focus on javascript bindings. Javascript is simply more productive and friendlier for devs to work with. This would allow Qt to compete with Electron for how well my hands are kept warm by my laptop during the winter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> What Qt needs is more Electron.

Please show me one major new desktop application written today which uses Qt. Major meaning used by millions of people.

<comment><USER30> Popular doesn't mean good. In fact Electron is born out of the idea that developer productivity and comfort is everything and performance is a secondary concern.

These apps seem to be popular with device manufacturers. I have the displeasure of using two such apps, both have crap usability and custom UIs that don't make any effort to integrate with the platform. One of them doesn't even respond to the quit shortcut.

<comment><USER53> > These apps seem to be popular with device manufacturers.

All apps written by device manufacturers are crap, regardless of what they are written in. It has nothing to do with Electron, just with the fact that they only know how to do hardware, and are clueless on the software side.

<comment><USER30> The apps function correctly, it's the UI that is the problem.

It's modern looking, but obviously not native and doesn't respect some platform idioms or shortcuts, so all in all it's a subpar experience. This is completely related to Electron and would not happen for a native app, where the framework takes care of the look & feel and integration.

If every app were written like this, we'd end up with scores of slightly inconsistent apps, all of them trying to be unique and cool and resulting in a mediocre platform. i.e. Windows.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Best Browsers of 2018 – Move Over Chrome - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/best-browsers-of-2018-how-i-broke-my-chrome-addiction-and-the-beauty-of-modern-browsers-28f20d0fa517 <comment><USER2> I don't really like Safari either, but I find the snippy "this is trash" followed by no real criticism to be unnecessarily dismissive.

This heavily pushed Brave for its ad-fighting, but most browsers can accept things like uMatrix/uBlock Origin, which ultimately provides even more control, so is it really that important of a benefit of Brave?

Also "Move Over Chrome" is an interesting way to frame these "reviews" since two of the top-rated options in the list are... Chrome and Chromium.

I'm having trouble really understanding what this article is trying to get at</comment>


Show HN: Choosic – Tinder for new music - <AUTHOR> http://www.producthunt.com/posts/choosic

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN!,

We created a simple app that's like a mashup between Hype Machine, Last.fm and Tinder. Every music recommendation you like is saved to your playlist.

It basically aggregates content from over 600 tastemakers, then runs the tracks through our own recommendation engine before delivering it to our users.

I'd love to hear your thoughts! [http://choosic.co](http://choosic.co)

</comment><comment><USER2> Cool idea but I wish it wasn't restricted to Facebook login.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry man, I'll sort that out :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So...it's Pandora? Or maybe Last.fm...Or is it Rdio?

<comment><AUTHOR> :P We see ourselves as more of a discovery tool rather than a streaming service (I know streaming is inevitable). What we want to offer is a fast way to discover new music for those who get bored of their music collections. Because we are getting the tracks straight from tastemakers, it normally means the majority of the music is not yet available on Spotify, Rdio etc, so we stream it from Soundcloud. Hope that helps. Sorry for the essay.</comment></comment>


Peter Thiel funding herpes vaccine test outside of US safety rules – TheHill - <AUTHOR> http://thehill.com/policy/technology/348336-peter-thiel-funds-herpes-vaccine-testing-avoiding-us-safety-rules <comment><USER2> What's the problem they're just Micromorts after all...unless it's someone you know. maybe some of the people funding it should be part of the study.</comment>


Ask HN: Want to learn the epidemiology/virology behind COVID19. Where do I look? - <AUTHOR> I would appreciate insightful articles that go in depth but explain concepts in a layman's language. Thanks! <comment><USER2> You can start from wikipedia[1] and especially checkout references part.

Unfortunately as you go deep it's really hard to find articles in layman's language. I think it's because articles in layman's language are more targeting the average reader.

I hope someone can comment with a good article.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019)

</comment><comment><USER3> there is a lot of jargon to it and the background information could easily fill an average bookcase.

wikipedia is a good place to start as the inline links help with complex concepts

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2)</comment>


The sad state of website password standards - <AUTHOR> http://www.johnmyleswhite.com/notebook/2014/01/02/the-sad-state-of-website-password-standards/

<comment><USER2> Great summary and essential for every new and existing product. It's a shame how many brand-new startups still limit the password length for example. Really, it's one of the first things users do. Don't establish a relationship with a mistake, it's a burning bridge.</comment>


Betaworks, a New York Tech Incubator, Has Grown a Following - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/technology/start-ups/03betaworks.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss <comment><USER2> Interesting that the piece calls YC an incubator as well. I think for the lack of a better word, the definition of an incubator has changed considerably since the late '90s. Neither YC nor Betaworks are incubators in the same sense that Idealab was (no sharing of people, or HR, or accounting) but more sharing of wisdom, ideas, technology (in the form of APIs).

Overall, it seems like a decent way to "incubate" startups which are otherwise long, lonely journeys of massive highs and lows.

<comment><USER3> I've seen a change from people saying "incubator" to people saying "seed accelerator."

<comment><USER4> I'm calling these Lean Incubators. You may attend my conference next year for only $4500 per ticket.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> calling idealabs an incubator is the same as Mcdonalds trying out McPizza in the canadian markets. idealabs does not take in outside ideas/entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER6> Yeah I applied for a job there once, it appeared like they run a dozen little startups with one set of funding. Didn't seem like an incubator.</comment></comment>


How We Found a Missing Scala Class - <AUTHOR> https://heapanalytics.com/blog/engineering/missing-scala-class-noclassdeffounderror <comment><USER2> FYI this domain is blocked by default for uBlock users.

<comment><USER3> Wild-assed kazinator guess: probably be a substring/regex match on "analytics". Must be a tracking domain!

<comment><USER4> It's on the Pete Lowe Adserver list directly, since Heap is in fact a tracking system and domain: [https://pgl.yoyo.org/as/serverlist.php?showintro=0;hostforma...](https://pgl.yoyo.org/as/serverlist.php?showintro=0;hostformat=hosts)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Heap CTO here – would love to answer any questions you have.

This was my first exposure to btrace, which a super useful swiss army knife for JVM debugging. That made this a worthwhile adventure for sure.

<comment><USER5> Great article. I had been hunting down a similar issue in Java 8 with maven dependencies. I was getting the same error, but confirmed that the dependent jars were correctly included on the classpath. I eventually gave up and decided to take a different programming approach that did not include these missing classes, but I think I will revisit it to see if a class loader is getting closed somehow.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ooh, check it out and let me know what you find! It would make me really happy if this post helped someone debug something when they had previously hit a dead end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _NoClassDefFoundError? But it's right there!_

Although in this case the cause was very different, it reminds me of an old "trap for young players" with loading shared libraries dynamically --- the library itself can exist and be readable and executable, and yet attempting to load it fails with a "file not found" error. This happens when one of its _dependencies_ , directly or indirectly, is missing.

<comment><USER7> I ran across another similar-yet-very-different example of this once in a completely different language.

In my case, we added a new class, it worked fine on dev, then failed on staging (and would have failed in production if we'd let it go that far). This was confusing, because we were using Vagrant to ensure our dev and staging environments were identical. What could be going on?

Well, our linux VMs were being _hosted_ in OS X, with shared folders for the code, and by default OS X volumes are _not_ case sensitive. Meanwhile the linux staging and production environments were using actual linux filesystems, which _were_ case sensitive. So someone added a new class MyFancyClass, then tried to import it as MyFancyclass, and it worked great in dev since the underlying FS of the host OS could find the file, then failed on staging.

A fun debugging ride, and a good reminder that 1) having dev and staging the same is really important and 2) that might be harder than you think. :)

<comment><USER8> > a good reminder that 1) having dev and staging the same is really important

Actually, I think it proves that having staging and PROD the same is particularly important.

<comment><USER7> Oh yes, that too!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It sounds like you have a lot of operation issues due to the technologies that you used. I mean, at least you aren't doing your backend in node, but running an actor system on top of an actor system is going to be brutal to properly analyze once you actually have scale.

What sort of process do you have for picking trendy technologies vs tested ones, and how much do you talk to people who have built large scale systems before implementing things like scala?

<comment><USER10> Yeah... Reading this, it smacked of a possible combination of poor tool choice and over-engineering (which I've been guilty of plenty). I built a video processing/workflow application in Scala with Akka a few years ago and debugging that was hard enough, eventually it was refactored to a simpler Kotlin/Spring application... Actor systems are great for certain use cases but you can really hurt the transparency of your app if you aren't careful. I can't imagine maintaining the OP's application at scale for this use case, but maybe they have someone smarter than me!

<comment><USER11> Counterpoint: debugging erlang systems in production is a cakewalk. The tracing and introspection tools that come bundled in OTP make tracking problems down really easy. It's _really_ hard to go back to systems that don't have erlang level visibility, so much so that it's kind of a crutch sometimes.

This is an ecosystem problem and not something inherent in a program using an actor abstraction.

<comment><USER10> Ah yes, that is a great point. Erlang/OTP were designed to be used as actor systems, whereas the actor implementations in Scala and other JVM languages/frameworks are at least one level of abstraction above that. Definitely agreed on Erlang/OTP having a wonderful set of tools for debugging/visibility, but I still stand by my assessment that OPs problems are from over-engineering (and secondarily from the ecosystem).

<comment><USER11> Definitely. In the handful of instances I've seen akka used, regular jvm abstractions would have been simpler and more coherent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why doesn't java just spit out a classLoaderClosed error?

<comment><USER13> Yes, believe that was the bad part from JMV implementation!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I keep running in this type of problems all the time with our developers. Please keep it simple. Take a step back and ask yourself, do i need all this stuff, is this the best approach. Often they just blindly accept all the external libs. For me as an old school guy, i don't trust all those dependencies at all.

</comment><comment><USER15> How do you lose a class in a programming language?!

<comment><USER16> The title is misleading. The class was there all along, the NoClassDefFoundError was thrown because the class loader was closed when trying to load a class.

<comment><USER17> But why can you even do that?

<comment><USER18> It says right there in the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The moment the article mentioned "Fat jar" I knew that'd be the problem.

I don't recommend using any type of fat jar plugin (like OneJar) or even Google Guice for that matter. Custom class loaders are a nightmare.

Thanks to Docker containers, you should never really need a far jar again. Just find a decent Docker packager for your build system (sbt, gradle, etc.) and it can plop all your dependencies in there in a nice, isolated container that uses the standard class loader.

<comment><USER20> What is problematic about Fat jars?

The problem seemed to be Flink's implementation to unload the FatJar's classloader when erroring. This would have happened with slim jars as well, wouldnt it?

I also dont see how docker relates exactly, you can have hundreds of library jars in a classpath with standard classloaders, no docker required

<comment><USER21> Also Scala's lambdas create new anonymous classes, but Java's lambdas are kind of bootstrapped static methods in the existing class file.

It does get converted to a class at runtime, but then it's long past the classloader anyway.

<comment><USER22> Scala 2.12 lambdas compile to Java 8 lambdas.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


World without sand: The race to save a precious resource - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23731650-300-world-without-sand-the-race-to-save-a-precious-resource/ <comment><USER2> Just yet another resource that's being used up. There ain't no such thing as unlimited growth on a finite planet.

Add it to the ever-growing list: Water, food, land, fish, oil, etc, etc, etc.

Too many people = not enough resources.</comment>


Show HN: Inoffice – Voice chat for remote teams to encourage small talks - <AUTHOR> https://www.inoffice.chat <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone, My company has allowed us to work remotely since the pandemic and although it's great but I do miss the office small talks I used to have with my colleague. The asynchronous nature of tools like Teams and Slack makes it unsuited for small conversations so after a 2 days hack I created [https://www.inoffice.chat](https://www.inoffice.chat).

There are some things that make it different from other solutions.

\- It is voice only. The reason for this is because I believe voice is less intrusive than video and not everyone is on their best looks when working remotely.

\- No calling concept, you can just click a button and voice chat instantly. I want to make the process of talking to your colleague as friction less as possible.

\- See who is talking with who and join instantly. Just like in real office, I'm hoping this would encourage you to talk more with your colleague. I hope you guys give it a try. Thanks!</comment>


The Paradox of the Proof - <AUTHOR> http://projectwordsworth.com/the-paradox-of-the-proof/?src=longreads

<comment><USER2> Significant discussion:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5685166></comment>


Humans are driven to endlessly acquire. - <AUTHOR> http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/loves_labors_and_costs/ <comment><USER2> After reading this review three times in the last half hour, between several different small mundane tasks that were best completed with distractions, I found myself coming away with three distinct impressions.

The first time, I latched on to the anti consumer consumption element. This is the core of the book being reviewed, and I saw my values in it. I live in a small apartment, and could have more space if I wanted, but my sense is that I would then have more stuff. And while I want technology to serve as extension of me, I know I don't need more stuff.

On the second read, I latched on to the evolutionary angle. I thought about how much I like Jared Diamond writings, and how cool it would be to have a better understanding of the evolutionary mechanics underlying consumerist tendencies. I thought of Mad Men, and the historical arc of marketing and consumption.

On the third read, I saw it not as a book about consumption, marketing or evolution. Instead: narcissim and self-marketing.

I'm on the fence about whether or not to order the book.

<comment><USER3> I agree that the motives of the author are self-serving.

In the ideas themselves, I saw a less-than-creative Darwinistic rehashing of Hobbes.

From The Leviathan, Chp. VIII. -

"From this equality of ability ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end (which is principally their own conservation, and sometimes their delectation only) endeavour to destroy or subdue one another. And from hence it comes to pass that where an invader hath no more to fear than another man's single power, if one plant, sow, build, or possess a convenient seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared with forces united to dispossess and deprive him, not only of the fruit of his labour, but also of his life or liberty. And the invader again is in the like danger of another.

And from this diffidence of one another, there is no way for any man to secure himself so reasonable as anticipation; that is, by force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men he can so long till he see no other power great enough to endanger him: and this is no more than his own conservation requireth, and is generally allowed. Also, because there be some that, taking pleasure in contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest, which they pursue farther than their security requires, if others, that otherwise would be glad to be at ease within modest bounds, should not by invasion increase their power, they would not be able, long time, by standing only on their defence, to subsist. And by consequence, such augmentation of dominion over men being necessary to a man's conservation, it ought to be allowed him.

Again, men have no pleasure (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company where there is no power able to overawe them all. For every man looketh that his companion should value him at the same rate he sets upon himself, and upon all signs of contempt or undervaluing naturally endeavours, as far as he dares (which amongst them that have no common power to keep them in quiet is far enough to make them destroy each other), to extort a greater value from his contemners, by damage; and from others, by the example.

So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory.

The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men's persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "And, like its prequel, Spent's almost monomaniacal focus on sexual selection to the exclusion of other evolutionary processes is its greatest weakness."

I almost always intuit this when reading layman's books on evolutionary psychology. As if the work tries to reduce too much stuff down to sexual selection.

Perhaps it's something it shares with the social sciences in general. I mean, whatever it is that really draws me in but ends up disappointing me with a hint of a dirty feeling.

</comment><comment><USER5> From the description I got an Impression that this can be good introduction into buddhism for western people. One dissapointment that in tis essay the author, as I can see , misuse word "schizophrenic" , assuming that it means dissociative personality disorder, which is wrong. Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder, it is about hllucinations, paranoia and delusions, not multiple personality.

<comment><USER6> While you are correct regarding the current clinical interpretation of "schizophrenic", the root of the word is the greek "skhizein", which literally means "to split". When the word was introduced into psychology, then, it meant "to split the mind". The word seeped into common usage because of its etymology. It was probably helped along by the common conflation with multiple personality disorder, but that doesn't make it wrong to use the word in this manner. If anything, the discipline of psychology is at fault for abusing the word, isn't it?

<comment><USER7> The great thing about precise definitions of English words is there are so many to choose from.</comment></comment></comment>


FloatingTime, a Google App Engine application for time management: Private beta for YC users only - <AUTHOR> http://floatingtime.com/ Sign up now and I'll let you in on the private beta. I'm looking for some feedback. All you need is a Google account to sign in. <comment><USER2> Why is this better than RescueTime? And why am I going to want to tell it what I'm doing? I'm obviously only going to tell it what I'm doing when I'm not wasting time... [edit: krschultz posted the same thing while I was typing...]

</comment><comment><USER3> "FloatingTime is in private beta. We will let you know as soon as we have an opening."

Meh...

<comment><USER4> Didn't work for me, either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What is the advantage over RescueTime?

<comment><USER6> you could say the same thing about Hacker News vs Reddit, for instance.

the guy/gal clearly just launched. i thought the philosophy of this group is to get something out there quickly even if it doesn't have all the features you'd like to implement on day one.

besides, there's always room for alternatives.

<comment><USER2> I agree that you should launch early. But you need to launch with a product that is different and better than your competition on day one. It doesn't have to include all your features, but at least one or two that show how you're different and better. Otherwise users won't return to your site when you do launch those unique features.</comment></comment></comment>


Before the Iron Age, Most Iron Came from Space - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/before-iron-age-most-iron-came-from-space-meteorite-egyptian-bronze <comment><USER2> I'm a bit confused. The article says that archaeologists thought that pre-Iron Age iron use came from isolated early development of iron ore smelting, because archaeologists did not believe Bronze Age people understood that meteorites were rocks that fell from the sky.

So what? Iron meteorites differ from "normal" Earth rocks in several ways visually and they are denser [1]. All a Bonze Age group would need to learn is that rocks that look a certain way and weight a lot are good places to find iron. They don't need to know that they fell from the sky.

[1] [https://geology.com/meteorites/meteorite- identification.shtm...](https://geology.com/meteorites/meteorite- identification.shtml)

<comment><USER3> I was confused too at first, but reading it the second time it seems the article is about a scientist trying to prove some of the earliest iron artifacts were made out of iron rocks from meteorites.

> "The main contribution of Jambon's approach is that he has developed a > method that allows us to test this hypothesis nondestructively," says > Martinón-Torres. Jambon was particularly interested in searching these > artifacts for nickel, which is not found in smelted iron. By contrast, > meteoritic iron is usually high in nickel and cobalt.

In the article, the author said archeologists:

> Humans didn't really master the process and produce iron at a large scale > until around 1200 B.C

and then she went to note

> Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, who died in 1324 B.C., for example, was buried > with an iron headrest....

> Egyptian hieroglyphics referred to iron as being "from the sky,"

So was headrest made out of an iron from a meteorite, or was it extracted from an ore on Earth (through smelting)?

Okay... that seems fair. But when was that Egytian reference made? Before 1200BC or before 1324BC?

To add more confusion, later in the article:

> It has been thought, for example, that the iron used by the Egyptians came > from an early smelting industry in Anatolia, where the Hittites may have > started to work iron as early as 1500 B.C.

To summarize based on my understanding:

1\. Extracting iron from an ore did not happen at large scale until 1200BC

2\. But some smelting started as early as 1500BC

3\. Iron artifacts were recovered from pharaoh Tutankhamun who died in 1324BC had.

4\. Numerous references to "falling from rhe sky" from numerous civilizations, including some "iron hunting" trading.

5\. So were some of the early iron artifacts made out of iron meteorite or were they made out of an iron ore?

While the main objective seems "clear" to me, the whole article is too confusing and hard to follow through. If my summary is right, ugh, I advise everyone to writr the outline in bullet points.

(Incidentally, just noticed there's a submission on writing essays on HN right now)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history- archaeology/peop...](http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history- archaeology/people-arctic-worked-meteorite-iron-1200-years-ago-002573)

The history of Arctic peoples working extraterrestrial iron.

<comment><USER5> I don't see why you're downvoted.

It's true arctic peoples used found iron which came from meteorites. Another item rare in the arctic and even more useful than iron was wood. Driftwood was prized for building since trees don't exist above the arctic circle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Would be neat if early humans became infected with an Andromeda strain-like bacteria from inhaling meteorite dust. Maybe from the same source that seeded life on earth originally.

After the alien bacteria took up residence in the human gut, it enhanced the human brain, creating the modern human.

 _Andromeda Strain 50,000 B.C. (2019)_

<comment><USER7> Great movie (1971). Saw for first time when I was about 8 and it freaked me out then and still does to this day. Did not see the remake.

<comment><USER8> 601 SYSTEM OVERLOAD makes for an excellent HTTP extension error code on bloated mobile web pages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The metal of the gods, sent down from the heavens.

<comment><USER10> "And We also sent down iron in which there lies great force and which has many uses for mankind…" (Quran 57:25)

published in a book 1400 years old

<comment><USER11> Which in turn is over 1,200 years after a meteorite fall was described in the chronicle Ch'un-Ch'iu, traditionally considered to have been written by Confucius ([http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1994Metic..29..864Y](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1994Metic..29..864Y) ).

Or about nearly 2,000 years after "a new term for iron [was] developed [in Egyptian] which literally translates as 'iron from the sky'." ([http://www.ironfromthesky.org/?page_id=2](http://www.ironfromthesky.org/?page_id=2) )

<comment><USER12> They found recently that Egyptians used metal from meteorites to make daggers for royalty.

[https://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/02/africa/king-tut-dagger- me...](https://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/02/africa/king-tut-dagger- meteorite/index.html)

<comment><USER11> The CNN article doesn't seem to add any more detail than was already present in the Atlas Obscura article. Both cite the same paper, which is [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/maps.12664/full](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/maps.12664/full) .

AO has a better picture of the dagger, and mentions that the other two iron items in Tutankhamun's tomb were also likely of meteoric origin, and different meteors at that. The CNN article has an annoying auto-play video.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13>
      "these coveted, precocious artifacts"
      should be
      "these coveted, precious artifacts"

There was a lot of disbelief in this article about our ancestors using metal from meteorites. Iron from meteorites has been used for at 6,000 years.

      Ferrous metallurgy is the metallurgy of iron and its alloys.
      It began far back in prehistory. The earliest surviving iron
      artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in Egypt, were made
      from meteoritic iron-nickel.[1]

      [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrous_metallurgy

<comment><USER14> "Precocious" means roughly "premature", or "appearing before its time". So the word is used correctly here to talk about Iron artifacts appearing before they 'should' in the Iron Age.

<comment><USER13> Ah. I see how that was used. It was another nod to the disbelief of people's knowledge prior to the iron age. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Anyone know why this was flagged?

<comment><USER16> Nope. More and more good articles are being flagged unfairly: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15991851](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15991851)

We don't have a vouch button to counter bad flags.

<comment><USER17> I don't know if pointing to one of the many bitcoin/blockchain/ico submissions is a great example of an article being flagged unfairly. I can easily imagine there are people on the site who feel there are already plenty of such submissions every day with the same discussions rehashed over and over. I don't know why _this_ particular submission was flagged but to come up with a plausible explanation for the one you linked to doesn't take much imagination.

If you do think something has been flagged unfairly, contact the mods. Depending on what they see, they may take action.

<comment><USER16> Did you read it? It's thorough and substantive. Yes, it involves Bitcoin, but why equate topic fatigue with flagworthiness?

<comment><USER17> I'm not saying it's justified, I'm just saying I can imagine members doing it. Once saturation is reached, it's understandable that people aren't going to take the time to vet each submission as closely, even if we wish they would. And again, if the same discussion is played out over and over, even if it's a well-written and substantive piece, it's not necessarily a good submission for HN. And with respect to stimulating intellectual curiosity, yes, fatigue can be a reasonable proxy for flag-worthiness.

<comment><USER16> It's not the same discussion. The article is about a potential 51% attack against BCH, which as far as I know no one else is talking about.

It's kind of strange to say it's understandable and therefore ok. Trolling is understandable too, but it's still against the rules.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The case against democracy - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/07/the-case-against-democracy <comment><AUTHOR> This is it, people. Now the smug, condescending elite calls for oligarchy.They don't get the lesson, no, on the contrary: it's all because of these stupid hillbillies. This is making me sick.

Maybe they should check NYTimes exit polls numbers: Trump won because he made huge progress among Black, Asian and Hispanics compared to Romney. He did better with women, too.</comment>


Is the world really better than ever? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/jul/28/is-the-world-really-better-than-ever-the-new-optimists <comment><USER2> In the book Sapiens, the author makes a rather well researched and convincing argument that humans truly had their best times as hunter/gatherers. Generally if you were part of a tribe, you ate and survived and likely even reproduced. You were probably physically in decent shape but you were at the mercy of things like, larger predators, weather and disease. Humanity as a whole is CURRENTLY at their most prosperous, but for an individual human today whether or not you are better off is very very dependent on where you live. We live in a bubble in the West. And statistics are misleading to the plight of those not living in cosy, developed resource hungry nations. Further, we really need to work hard to maintain what we have. We need to reduce our population, depletion of resource and carbon footprint to not screw it up what's good. The questions is not whether the earth can support more humans, but if humanity NEEDS more humans to continue prospering. If we are to survive as a race and continue to prosper, our greatest innovations, whether or social or technological, will be around using less or being more efficient in deploying what we have.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're interested in this topic, I did lots of data analysis to show the nature of the skew in death coverage vs actual deaths in the New York Times:

[https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html](https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html)

[https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror- films.html](https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html)

My own view is that much of the mismatch between coverage and reality can be explained by media economics, where reader interest and media incentives encourage the coverage of extreme events. And while my data focuses on traditional media, I wouldn't be surprised if social media has a much greater skew.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd recommend the book The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker. The article reminded me of it, but Pinker demonstrates why violence in our society has decreased over time (even though many people would intuitively think it's the opposite).

<comment><USER5> It's always fascinating to me that when this question comes up (are we going downhill or uphill?) the answer inevitably turns to violence. Is violence the pinnacle of evil? Is nothing worse than violence? What about mental illness? Isolation? Separation from your family? Lack of meaningful cultural practices?</comment></comment>


Google says the Pixel has the best smartphone camera ever. Here's its proof - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/7/13207382/google-pixel-xl-camera-photography-samples <comment><USER2> No proof needed. I fully trust DxOMark in that area and I think that iPhone got some serious competition with Pixel.</comment>


Where can I discuss about my ideas? - <AUTHOR>

I have a lot of ideas crossing my mind lately. I need people to comment on them. I can't figure out myself whether they are useful or not. I'm too focused, one might say. Friends and family aren't an option, because they're just not interested. I don't blame them. I want honest opinions from complete strangers. Where do you discuss about your idea(s)? <comment><USER2> Can you code? Try and build small prototypes. Many people think 'talk is cheap, ideas aren't worth much'.

Then post some progress to a blog and cross post to social media.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can discuss them anywhere. However, given the simple nature of the question I am wondering if there is some missing subtext here.

One common concern I have heard when folks ask this particular question is that someone will 'steal' their idea and run with it, ruining the chances of fame and fortune.

The truth is, ideas are like offspring, they are always more attractive to the progenitor than they are to the unrelated viewer. Many times when an idea is shared in a collective, a number of people will assert that it is a 'stupid' idea, and for folks who did not originally have that idea they will read or hear those comments and believe them more strongly than your assertion that it is a good idea.

Further, an idea expression is rarely communicated as clearly as an example of an idea does. So just talking about ideas rarely gets them stolen (except perhaps in the case of movie scripts)

Ideas are by their nature _unproven_ , which is to say their merits are a matter of opinion rather than rigor, so few people feel compelled to rip them off or otherwise attempt to develop them.

I had the pleasure of working with Bill Joy at Sun Microsystems for several years, and one of the things that struck me about him was his ability to stretch the idea box way out of shape. He proposed some truly horrible ideas, but in the discussion enabled folks to step outside their own limitations and come up with some great things. Certainly not all of Bill's ideas were horrible, but wide ranging discussions were empowering on several levels which one would not have predicted.

So if you've got some ideas that you're wondering about, talking about them with others, any others, will help you develop them. Its one of the great things enthusiast clubs are good for, robust discussions about ideas related to club activities.

</comment><comment><USER4> What about creating some polls and using Amazon Mechanical Turk to get opinions? You can read something about this approach here: [http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2009/10/29/crowdsourcing- your-p...](http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2009/10/29/crowdsourcing-your-product- name/)

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://whynot.net/> is a good place to start.

My dog rental business idea was shot to pieces.. (its still a great idea)..<http://goo.gl/yLNtU> but it got 5000 views. years back

Yahoo Answers...

Final one, is to find the community that your idea is relevant to, post it on the forums of the web sites that serve it. .. so if you idea is relevant to people who make high temperature adhesives go to Adhesives World and look there, if you are writing about fashion accessories for Ruby on Rails developers go there, more work but more useful..

good luck

Richard Lucas

</comment><comment><USER6> You need to work out whether you want opinions from potential customers or from industry peers.

Arguably both are important when considering any startup idea.

I can't help you find the potential customers, but when it comes to peers it is important to have a strong network of industry friends, contacts and mentors. If you don't have that to bounce an idea of then you're going to come equally stuck later on down the road when you need to lean on a network for potential hires, business advice, etc.

A strong contact network you can rely on is a key part of success.

</comment><comment><USER7> why not publishing them in a personal blog and sending links in various social platforms, like HN or google+?

although with HN, lots of topics remain neglected, especially if they appear in non-US daytime

<comment><USER8> _lots of topics remain neglected_ \-- Breaking your idea down into two or three pieces as a series of posts to your blog and linking them from HN can overcome this, and it might help you organise your ideas better.

 _Postscript_ \- Per HN noise factor: do be aware that most HN readers are not as excited about your idea as you are.

<comment><USER7> ... and it will pollute HN's topic flow even more :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How far have you gone in developing these ideas?

If they are in the form of a simple web page, and you've got some sort of tracking in place, then feel free to post on here, I'm sure you'll get some valuable feedback.

Oh, and I've just dropped you a quick email if you want to chat over Skype or whatever!

<comment><AUTHOR> They're just ideas floating around in my head. I want to make sure I'm not reinventing the weel.

<comment><USER7> if you start posting at G+, feel free to add me, will be glad to share thoughts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You could stop by #startups on irc.freenode.net. Discussion is a lot less 'serious' than here though, at times.

</comment><comment><USER11> There aren't that many outlets. Most of my discussions of the type you're describing have been with co-workers. This would make for a useful online community.

</comment><comment><USER12> Try the Startup Guild

<http://startupguild.net/>

</comment><comment><USER13> Hi Naf,

I love thinking through new ideas and I would be glad to help.

You can see some parts of the framework I use to evaluate ideas in my past comments.

Shoot me an email if you think I can help.

cheers, <USER13>
</comment><comment><USER14> Post them here.

</comment><comment><USER15> email me if you like. I'm only one data point but more than happy to offer some friendly feedback

</comment><comment><USER8> sed -i~ $comment_title s/discuss about my/discuss my/

This niggling comment will self-destruct in a few minutes.</comment>


GitHub starts blocking developers in countries facing US trade sanctions - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/github-starts-blocking-developers-in-countries-facing-us-trade-sanctions/ <comment><AUTHOR> There was also a related discussion earlier, "GitHub blocked my account and they think I'm developing nuclear weapons", though it has since been flagged.

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20537841](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20537841)

<comment><USER2> Also related:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20493699](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20493699)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20531039](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20531039)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20526039](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20526039)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very naive question: When a company wants to circumvent a national legislation (say for instance tax legislation) they frequently create affiliates in other countries. Can't the same be done to circumvent trading ban, or is it prevented somehow?

<comment><USER4> That's what Huawei did, which can be risky if Uncle Sam decides to take a closer look.

</comment></comment><comment> em-bee _US sanctions apply to its online hosting service, GitHub.com, but its paid- for on-premise software -- aimed at enterprise users -- may be an option for users in those circumstances_

why is only the hosted site restricted, but enterprise on-premises version seemingly ok?

aren't the sanctions supposed to impede business too?

</comment><comment><USER5> It's too bad these developers live in countries with such nasty governments that it has come to this. Perhaps their governments will change course?</comment>


UX Apprentice - <AUTHOR> http://uxapprentice.com/ <comment><USER2> This is a great site for getting introduced to UX Design. I just finished a course at General Assembly. Here is my final project: ux.thrivestreams.com</comment>


How We Used a Python Script to Find Our Domain Name Yipit - <AUTHOR> http://viniciusvacanti.com/2010/11/08/how-we-used-a-python-script-to-find-our-domain-name-yipit/

<comment><USER2> Is there any chance - at some point - to create a new TLD that only registered trademark owners can use?</comment>


Steve Bannon: 'we're going to war in the South China Sea  no doubt' - <AUTHOR> http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2067457/steve-bannon-were-going-war-south-china-sea-no-doubt <comment><USER2> This is truly terrifying, and that's not a word I use lightly. First putting Iran 'on notice' and now China. It's like they don't realise they're not just mouthing off in a bar, they're declaring war against countries that are capable of wiping the floor with them.

<comment><USER3> Maybe they could handle one. But they're simultaneously picking fights with China and Iran while saying they'll also fight Isis.

Meanwhile alienating all their allies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Quote is from an interview 11 months ago, well before he was Trump's chief strategist.</comment>


JavaScript library to express concurrency patterns - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/yosbelms/getjs <comment><AUTHOR> Motivation:

This library started as a research project for [https://github.com/yosbelms/cor](https://github.com/yosbelms/cor). It got frozen months ago, but suddenly I got motivated after read [https://medium.com/@theflapjack103/the-way-of-the- gopher-669...](https://medium.com/@theflapjack103/the-way-of-the- gopher-6693db15ae1f). This lib shows that JavaScript also owns resources to deal with concurrency.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is cool. I've Seen a few other projects that do something similar: [https://github.com/ubolonton/js-csp](https://github.com/ubolonton/js-csp) and [https://github.com/jlongster/js-csp](https://github.com/jlongster/js-csp).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, js-csp is a great project. The main difference is that unlike js-csp, Getjs is bases on promises, is like a mix of co and js-csp</comment></comment>


Reddit Terminal Viewer development is shutting down - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/michael-lazar/rtv/issues/696 <comment><USER2> > More concerning, I no longer wish to support reddit as a platform. > Widespread astroturfing, manufactured controversy, politics, bullying, > incessant nitpicking and arguing.

Ever since starting a project to collect and analyse the reddit firehose, I've had a series of eye opening experiences about just how _manufactured_ the popular reddit content is. Every day, comments and posts with hundreds to thousands of upvotes get deleted by moderators because they don't fit the desired narrative. A small ring of moderators are in control of most default subs. A small ring of accounts make up for more than 50% of regular front-page content.

If you ever want to take a glimpse at the amount of manipulation going on, point something like snew.notabug.io at a popular politics or askreddit thread.

Reddit is a platform for pushing manufactured consent/controversy and guerilla advertising. It is not a platform for open speech. The reddit content that most users see often does not represent the views of the userbase.

Here's a random post I picked from an old analysis notebook where most of top 10% of comments were deleted, and then the post itself was deleted when new comments started mentioning the censorship. Should give some idea about the magnitude and scope of what's going on [https://imgur.com/a/2C5Kn2R](https://imgur.com/a/2C5Kn2R)

<comment><USER3> To preface: I have over 650,000 reddit karma, mostly collected from 2014-2017. Roughly 150,000 of this is from posts, the rest comments.

I completely agree that mods can push their own agenda about their subreddits; they have almost completely unfettered control of their subreddits, and the admins almost never intervene. But I don't agree that there's an argument to be made for the actual posters of content; it's simply a numbers game, as well as a good amount of "gaming" the system; e.g. posting during high-volume times, crossposting content, etc. I think the calls of shilling on Reddit are significantly more pronounced than shilling itself actually is, as I myself have posted content on multiple occasions and then been called a shill, when in reality I simply found whatever product interesting or useful or otherwise. On one occasion I was offered a free product _after_ making a post about it (I declined). I've never made a post that I've received any kind of compensation for, but I have made posts advertising non-profit events that I organized as a volunteer.

I have a group of friends that I've been on Reddit, and all of them have 100,000+ karma, and a couple with over a million, and they have somewhat shared the sentiment. I don't want to sound like I'm saying there's no astroturfing at all, because there definitely is, but there's this culture of calling anything with any kind of recognizable product in it an advertisement, when it can be explained much less conspiratorially.

<comment><USER2> What are your thoughts about accounts such as u/mvea consistently hitting the front page on a daily basis, often with links that were posted by other accounts earlier but only gained traction when posted by this account?

What are your thoughts on accusations that admins are able to adorn comments with gold/silver for free and manipulate comment priority? What are your thoughts on the fact that any discussion about this on default reddit gets nuked?

There are broadly two kinds of manipulation on reddit. One is by outsider parties - the state sponsored propaganda, the guerilla ad campaigns, etc. The other is by the core moderation and admin team who appear to be actively shaping front page content through selective promotion of desirable and deletion of undesirable content even if it does not break rules. My above screenshot of a 50k upvote post being nuked due to anti-chinese sentiment is an example of #2, I think you're talking about #1 which is not so prevalent lately.

<comment><USER4> > What are your thoughts about accounts such as u/mvea consistently hitting > the front page on a daily basis, often with links that were posted by other > accounts earlier but only gained traction when posted by this account?

Not the guy you replied to but here's my take on this. Users like gallowboob and mvea have been known to post and repost the same content multiple times. If it doesn't get traction within the first few minutes, they delete that and try again. On some other subreddits like EvilBuildings, the mods frequently prune the subreddit's front page which lets posts with a lower number of upvotes hit /r/all more easily. This kind of manipulation was also being done by some other subreddits which led the admins to step in and stop them from showing up on the front page

<comment><USER3> It's this; I'm guilty of doing it, and I believe there is a comment from /u/GallowBoob of him admitting it, but I can't find it. Sometimes a post just doesn't take off simply by bad luck, and it's easier to try again rather than to comb for new content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > More concerning, I no longer wish to support reddit as a platform. > Widespread astroturfing, manufactured controversy, politics, bullying, > incessant nitpicking and arguing. I don't like how people treat each other > on the platform, and I don't like how it makes me feel when I use it.

Don't think this has to do with Reddit so much as the way we interact with each other online, in general.

<comment><USER6> The barrier of entry for someone to go and write counter-productive / aggressive / abrasive comments online is very low now.

In the past you had to have half a brain to even be online. I don't mean internet connection wise, I mean to set it up and find stuff.

What scares me the most is "justice by social media". People felt wrong doing against them burning torches and calling for pitchforks online, instead of getting a lawyer and getting justice. It's a lot easier, but it then snowballs into a raging fury of everyone strongly or mildly related to the issue chiming in, demanding justice. Then is justice served? no.

<comment><USER7> "...but it then snowballs into a raging fury of everyone strongly or mildly related to the issue chiming in, demanding justice."

I think mobs often mistake vengeance for justice.

<comment><USER8> Your average _individual_ mistakes vengeance for justice. Read almost any thread in r/AmItheAsshole. The top comments will be the most vindictive, knee- jerk-y reaction you'll ever see.

<comment><USER9> > _Your average individual mistakes vengeance for justice._

I think it's far graver than that, sadly: A cacophony of kangaroo courts, all yelling into echo chambers.

Worse, though, is the failure to delineate between an individual's actions and those who have nothing to do with the 'x' thing in question.

More egregiously, as a result of that aforementioned failure, even family members of those "suspected" for 'x' thing are ripe targets for abuse; which is entirely ignoring the premise that the individual in question could ultimately be innocent, in the end[0].

It seems that this group of individuals (en masse) demands its pound of flesh and its going to get it, no matter _who_ it comes from.

I'd say that's far worse than simply mistaking vengeance for justice.

[0] - [https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-falsely-accuses- sunil...](https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-falsely-accuses-sunil- tripathi-of-boston-bombing-2013-7?r=US&IR=T)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I always marvel that Reddit has seemed not have learned even one lesson from Digg.

They are literally making the same exact mistakes, and its leading to the same exact results...karma whoring, piling on, ingroup/outgroup ete etc.

It seems beyond comprehension to me that they wouldn't have thoroughly looked at the rise and fall of Digg and not made every effort not to follow the same path.

<comment><USER11> > They are literally making the same exact mistakes,

I haven't seen them make a formal system whereby publishers can pay to have their content autosubmitted and promoted to the front page. That was what killed Digg.

<comment><USER10> Ok..yes I'll admit I never even knew that Digg did that.

I thought Digg's vote system was simply being gamed by bad actors. The idea that someone at Digg thought it would be even a reasonably good thing to have the system you describe is totally bonkers.

<comment><USER11> Nice little summary here [https://searchengineland.com/digg-v4-how-to- successfully-kil...](https://searchengineland.com/digg-v4-how-to-successfully- kill-a-community-50450) It was really was an astonishingly cack-handed set of decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder what the "next reddit" is going to look like...

<comment><USER13> Hopefully we go back to forums, where the format is more conducive to conversation rather than snarky one-liners and memes.

This whole nested comment format becomes completely unreadable once you have more than two people involved in a comment thread, and the fact that submissions can't survive more than 36 hours guarantees that no deeper conversations would ever happen even if the comment format could support them.

On forums, there are discussion threads that last for years and the format makes them much easier to read from start to finish.

<comment><USER14> What forums do you peruse? The ones I run through are generally okay, but mechanisms of voting, liking, and rewarding post count of users, seem to increase low effort posting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A phenomenaly good and useful app, though I agree completey as to Reddit's faults.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's always sad when the original maintainer gets burnt out and refuses to put in the effort to transfer ownership but que sera sera - i'm glad forking exists as a concept in Code management

<comment><USER17> What would transfer ownership even mean? Its open source, anyone can continue maintaining it without asking permission.

<comment><USER18> Not under the same name and URL.

<comment><USER19> > _Why not transfer ownership to someone else?_

> _Frankly, I don 't want to put the work into vetting a new maintainer or > transferring ownership to an organization. Stuff like this scares me._

he addressed why he chose not to transfer ownership.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wikibook-Bot – Automatic Generation of a Wikipedia Book - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1812.10937v1 <comment><USER2> FYI: If you put a bunch of text files (with formatting in the markdown convention) in a folder, that is, a github repo and add _config.yml with the octobook-book-2018 remote theme you will get a book "automagically" build (and hosted on a content delivery network) all for free thanks to GitHub (Pages). See [https://github.com/octobook](https://github.com/octobook) and for more details the talk notes on octobook [https://github.com/geraldb/talks/blob/master/octobook.md](https://github.com/geraldb/talks/blob/master/octobook.md) Cheers. Prost.

</comment><comment><USER3> TIL there are not just Wikibooks [1] but also Wikipedia books [2]. TFA is about the latter (but calls them Wikibooks).

I guess the difference is that Wikibooks are written from scratch and expected to have a coherent structure like a normal book, whereas Wikipedia books only need to link to existing Wikipedia articles, so they're easier to create.

[1] [https://en.wikibooks.org](https://en.wikibooks.org)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Books](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Books)

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a fascinating idea, which rings very similar to the idea of "trails" as described in Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think"([https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as- we-m...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may- think/303881/)): the creative forging of trails through existing works as a way to generate new knowledge, except in this cases its done automatically by a machine! Even more interesting would be an editor interface to allow a natural intelligence (ie a person) to make edits in the trail, rather than in the ultimately-produced book.

</comment><comment><USER5> There's a surprisingly large amount of research done based on Wikipedia. Those interested might want to check out the Research Newsletter: [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter](https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter).

By the way, I found this linked in the sidebox that might be more understandable to laymen: [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612726/this- algorithm-bro...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612726/this-algorithm- browses-wikipedia-to-auto-generate-textbooks/)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is not a new idea...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OmniScriptum#Wikipedia_content](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OmniScriptum#Wikipedia_content)

[http://www.chrisrand.com/blog/2010/02/odd-tale- alphascript-p...](http://www.chrisrand.com/blog/2010/02/odd-tale-alphascript- publishing-betascript-publishing/)

Also discussed on HN before: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1183986](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1183986)</comment>


Pentagon's complete Vietnam war document released - <AUTHOR> http://www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers/

<comment><AUTHOR> Related link: [http://m.ocregister.com/news/report-304223-nixon- library.htm...](http://m.ocregister.com/news/report-304223-nixon-library.html)

"There is a huge significance to improving accessibility to government documents," library Director Tim Naftali said shortly after the library opened Monday morning. "We are in the business of civic literacy, of making history available to the people."

<comment><USER2> If they don't, wikileaks will make them available anyway, sooner or later</comment></comment>


ASK HN: Should TV stay as it is? - <AUTHOR>

I wonder... And have wondered for quite a while, why does the tv-channels/companies work as they've done for almost 100 years?
In Sweden we have an fee called Radiotjänst which everyone in Sweden has to pay monthly(they say it's optional but if you own a tv-receiver you have to pay. TV-receiver according to them = TV, smartphones, tablets, internet, computers yea everyone ha to pay it). Then there is an fee for getting a plan with channels and on top of that there is commercials so what exactly do we pay for? Do we actually pay $100 monthly to watch commercials? In my logic it should be either free and profitable by commercials or a paid service with no commercials.
How do you feel, do you agree or disagree? Should services you pay for actually contain commercials? <comment><USER2> I rarely watch broadcast television. Most of what I do watch is via Netflix streaming. I think this model works well, though presently Netflix offers only a portion of theoretically available content.</comment>


Alternate Reality Game: The Hunted - <AUTHOR>

This just kind of popped into my head - after discussing with a friend he doesn't think people would register for it. I am curious as to what you guys think.
The game would have to start on a small regional scale, at least, possibly offering national and global levels of play.
A person registers with the site, uploads a photo of themself, and they are now "The Hunted." Anyone else who comes across the site can register, upload a photo of themselves, and join the hunt.
When a Hunter believes they have spotted the Hunted they ask that person one question, "Are you the hunted?" In which, the Hunted must answer truthfully. If so, the Hunter passes on a unique ID (number, email address, username, etc) which the Hunted enters into the website.
The Hunter, now becomes the Hunted, and gameplay resumes.
Some incentives might need to be in order (cash/prize rewards for finding the Hunted) but how do you monetize the gameplay to support those prizes? Sponsorship opportunities on the website, sponsored clues/events?
Of course, there is the possibility of ending up in an infinite loop in which a group of friends maintain control of the Hunted position. Some safeguards would have to be put into place to guard against that.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> So I sign up with my ex girlfriends details and you sic a bunch of stalkers on her. Brilliant idea, can't see any problems.</comment>


SendGrid: 5 Years of Scaling Our Technology and Our People - <AUTHOR> http://sendgrid.com/blog/looking-5-years-scaling-technology-people/

<comment><USER2> interesting article, albeit like on any real insights. No real details on how the tech was scaled or how they grew to 250 people. I was surprised that their volume in 5 years is 270+ billion emails. That's a pretty impressive number whichever way you look at it.</comment>


ThinkGeek now selling Optimus Maximus Keyboard (113 LCD screen keys) - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/9836/

<comment><USER2> Engadget review: [http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/22/optimus-maximus-at- long-l...](http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/22/optimus-maximus-at-long-last-we- bring-one-home-to-test/)

Take away: "Typing on it, well, sucks."

<comment><USER3> Interesting. Any word on when they'll add hydraulics?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I think the Optimus Maximus is a fantastic looking product, I've got to ask who has the money for this? Does anybody here own it yet or plan on purchasing it?

<comment><USER5> I've got to assume that something like this is at the level of a 1980's handheld cell phone with regards to price at the moment (and maybe tech?).

And just like the 80's cell phone, the only people I've heard online (as a group) considering these keyboards have been doctors (specifically radiologists and radiation oncologists). Basically they are people with a) lots of cash and b) a great need for complicated software and c) little time and patience to learn useful things like keyboard shortcuts, they way programmers,etc would.

Now I just wonder if we'll see drug dealers picking these up...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You know I used to want this keyboard a lot, but now I would happily settle for one of those super thin aluminum mac ones. This isn't quite in vogue anymore.

<comment><USER7> I have a thin mac keyboard. If you want to stare at your keyboard all day, it's mind-blowing awesome. For typing and coding, not so much.

<comment><USER8> That's interesting. I tested about 30 keyboards before I settled on it. The decision was almost entirely feel and I love it. I type/code ~6 hours a day on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> daniel-cussen Most geeks don't look at their keyboards.

<comment><USER9> Accept no substitutes:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_Keyboard>

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the link! I'd always just called them "clicky keyboards" and wondered why you could never find them anymore...

<comment><USER9> Just don't spill water on them. I destroyed my last one with a wayward cup of water and have been using a crap logitech one since.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The shape and the size of the keys is more important that what is displayed on them.

<comment><USER12> Not if you're a design student. Nobody _uses_ things developed in design school, they're only for being looked at. (According to my friend in design school, they fail if they don't develop something that "looks different". Apparently none of them have ever read Norman.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> See -- there are good reasons to take all that money from venture capitalists! ;-)

</comment><comment><USER14> The current price is ridiculous. Sell it for $100 and people will actually buy it.

<comment><USER15> That's right, the _current_ price is ridiculous. But I think given the tremendous advantages to such a technology (my keyboards hardly ever displayed the "right" labels out of the box), we can expect it to become a commodity in the near future (10-15 years?).

Now, I think there's a little problem with this keyboard... looking up at your keys all the time is not the most productive way to use a keyboard. They market it to geeks, yet I think consumers would find it useful the most.

<comment><USER16> I prefer to think in 10-15 years we won't use keyboards (but I guess I wouldn't bet on it - they've been surprisingly hard to replace).

<comment><USER17> What would we be using instead?

<comment><USER18> hand tracking, eye tracking and speech recognition are coming on strong with all the power todays computers have.

I don't think the keyboard will ever go away, but a lot of things will be way faster just with hand signals, and subvocalization dictation.

<comment><USER12> I think I disagree. I can't imagine writing code or a book with voice recognition, even assuming 100% accuracy. The initial dictation isn't the hard part, it's editing that's hard. What commands will we use? "Change that last foo to bar?" That still seems pretty tedious.

I could do without the mouse, though. I would rather press a link with my finger than move my hand all the way over to the mouse, then point, then click.

<comment><USER19> clearly we need some sort of voice versions of vim and emacs

<comment><USER12> Even then, it's still faster to press the keys for moving around. But maybe your editor could be in command mode by default, and you could import words by speaking. That might be cool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Rather than having a hundred little tiny LCDs, they should have figured out a way to have one large display and some sort of ingenious key assembly/lens system. Seems it would be more economical.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm hard enough on my keyboards that I would be really scared of using this.

</comment><comment><USER22> Let me know how it works. I can't afford that.

</comment><comment><USER23> you could use a 7inch touch screen LCD for way less, and have even greater control</comment>


USB Killer V2.0: test USB ports against power surge attacks - <AUTHOR> https://www.usbkill.com/ <comment><USER2> As a security researcher it saddens me that a device like this is being marketed as anything of use in a pen-test. It is at the end of the day a destructive device and nothing more. It's a device to physically destroy computing platforms and is otherwise useless in the demonstration of any threat vector which can be reasonably mitigated. "But wait, it shows a lack of surge protection in USB implementations and manufactures should take steps to include that level of protection" you might say. Well, no. This is an edge case and one which cannot be solved.

In the real world, surges of this nature on a USB buss only happen as a result of a device like this and from nothing else. Yes, there are power surges, but those are typically from the AC power grid feeding your home.

Ultimately, if a malicious actor is willing to plug a device into a USB port which through the introduction of high voltage into the buss will fry the hardware there's nothing that can be done.

Today this device introduces a 200V spike; however, there's nothing holding it back from doing a 2,000V spike or even a 200,000V spike. There are no technologies available today which can stop high voltage from frying computers because at some point, with high enough voltage not only will the MOV or TVS diode burn out, but the voltage will arc to other components.

Making dubious claims that manufacturers can take steps to mitigate the risk is well, dubious. It's like claiming we must all buy protective clothing because we could be tazed while ignoring the fact a tazer proof shirt leaves a fair amount of the body still exposed. This is not a legitimate pen-testing tool, it is a destructive device. Is it good to know that it's possible for someone to fry a computer via the USB buss? Yes it is because that knowledge could be used to catch a miscreant. Is use of this device any different than smashing a computer, kiosk, or point of sales terminal with a baseball bat? No, it's the same.</comment>