GitHub Desktop is now available  - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/2046-github-desktop-is-now-available <comment><USER2> Its a shame that a Linux version is not included. A significant volume of developers work on Linux. If doing a multi platform application, why exclude it?

<comment><USER3> As strange as it sounds the lack of a decent git GUI is one of the reasons I don't feel comfortable using Linux as my main development environment (not the only reason of course).

It's a big pitty neither Github nor Atlassian (the big "git" players, in my mind) seem inclined to release a GUI client for Linux.

<comment><USER4> Try the Magit package for Emacs [1]. You don't have to know (much) Emacs to use it, and it's a really great client.

[1]: [https://github.com/magit/magit](https://github.com/magit/magit)

<comment><USER5> Magit is AWESOME. It's easily saved me an hour each day (when using git heavily).

<comment><USER6> Which parts do you enjoy the most ?

<comment><USER5> It's super easy to create a new branch and push it upstream (especially when creating PRs).

I know I could write a script to do that for me, but there's something so nice about having little things like that already baked in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Github probably considers the "depth" of git use by the average user to be one of its KPIs. Git is extremely powerful, if you are only doing checkouts and commits you are under-utilizing the tool and also underutilizing the service.

So it's smart for Github to build tools that lower the bar for a) understanding git, and b) using git's more powerful features.

Useful metrics would be things like the percentage of users who use the pull request flow, use it with at least one comment per pull request, have pull requests that get revised, etc. etc.

I'd guess that part of the growth potential driving Github's valuation is the notion that git's power features add significant productivity/value and that github is uniquely positioned to let a significantly large number of developers and teams make optimal use of those features for development and collaboration.

<comment><USER8> I'm a beginner here so sorry for if it's a stupid question. I work with GitFlow and the only things I use are commits and checkouts, but for what do you use Git?

About which powerful features are you talking about, does anyone have a link with some more in depth informations?

<comment><USER9> Some features I use: Cherry-picking commits across branches. Merging branches. Rebases for forward-porting your work onto a new upstream. Bisects for determining which commit introduced a bug. Push/pull for sharing. Format-patch for sending patches around. Submodules.

<comment><USER10> Two of these I haven't done: Cherry-picking (well I did once, it went so wrong I had to reset the repository), and Bisects. That sounds very useful.

<comment><USER9> If you want to get a deeper understanding of what git's doing, read gitcore- tutorial(7). It's pretty easy to understand git's internals, and once you know them, it's easier to understand what the user commands are actually doing. Then, if something goes wrong, it's much easier to recover.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> While I find this initiative fantastic, it's a bit frustrating that Github, a company that lives on source code being open, does not publish the code of tools like this one.

<comment><USER12> Github lives on companies and individuals that pay for private repositories hosted on Github's proprietary (read: not open source) software-as-a-service hosted infrastructure. While git itself is open source, almost nothing else that Github does is open.

<comment><USER13> I consider these kinds of companies 2nd Generation Open Source companies ... whereas the first generation of open source companies had an open source product and made their money off maintenance, the 2nd gen often have a bunch of components that are developed open source, but sell a closed source glue/package of all those components.

Companies like CoreOS, Mesosphere, all fall under this umbrella, where you could technically glue all their open source components together to form their main product, but it would take you quite a bit of time to support.

Github is sort of like this. They contribute a ton to open source, and are built mostly out of open source components (that ARE open source). But their website is really just a glue to all their infrastructure, and that's closed source.

<comment><USER14> That's a really great summary. It's an interesting alternative way for companies to produce a fair amount of open source contributions and still make money. I can definitely see this with other companies including ones that specialize in continuous integration and other services that developers are interested in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I tried GitHub for Windows but found it a bit dumbed down. Switched over to Atlasian's Source Tree and never looked back.

<comment><USER16> SourceTree is really nice overall. To name a few things, I prefer its view of history, its hunk selection UI, and its commit message box (GitHub's is tiny and can't be made much bigger). It's also nice that it supports Mercurial.

I had some problems with it keeping changes synced with the file system, though (on Mac OS). E.g., I'd change something in my editor and SourceTree wouldn't pick it up until I reopened the repository in SourceTree.

I also prefer a single window like GitHub's app, but that is a minor annoyance. The non-syncing made SourceTree unusable after a while, and I went back to GitHub for Mac.

I wish Atlassian would put out an update, because I'd prefer to switch back.

<comment> nevi-me Every week or 3 when I restart my machine and reopen SourceTree, it tells me that there's an update. Maybe the issue that you're talking about hasn't been logged or they're not working on it.

I'll try GH Desktop, but for the past few months mine's been broken where it loses my repos, so I've been using ST exclusively :)

<comment><USER16> Are you on Windows? I'm pretty sure the Mac version hasn't been updated in quite some time. I just downloaded a fresh copy, and it's the same version I downloaded a while back: 188.8.131.52.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is this related to the recent Github For Windows redesign? It used to be a great product, but the last version made some really odd UI changes and the whole thing became 10x slower.

Github For Windows used to be as important to my workflow as my code editor. I absolutely loved the "click to select which lines to commit" feature, and I'm pretty sure it improved the quality of my commits drastically. And it was constantly improving.

A few weeks ago came a new version that changed everything. Previous updates used to be incremental, but this one seemed to replace everything at once. Overall the UI was still good, even though important parts became hidden behind tabs. But the performance... Oh god the performance. Syncing repos became a multi-minute operation. Listing commits went from instantaneous to taking several seconds. It became so unusable I switched back to Linux for development.

</comment><comment><USER18> The Windows app is still WPF-based and still uses ClickOnce for its installer. The web page claims that this is a new unified app, replacing GitHub for Mac and GitHub for Windows. But it seems to me that there are still two separate apps. I had expected something like a desktop app using web technologies via Electron, like Atom.

<comment><USER19> Please no. GitHub for Mac is an extremely solid, smooth, light little native app and I would hate to see it vanish in favor of a heavy chromium-based monstrosity. I don't use Windows but if I did I'd prefer a WPF or .NET app over a chrome wrapper there, too.

Common core+separate native UIs will always be the best sort of cross platform app in my eyes.

<comment><USER18> I'm sure you're right about a native Cocoa app feeling nicer than a Chromium- based one. But on Windows, WPF is notorious for poor performance; a Chromium- based app might actually be better on that platform.

<comment><USER19> Would .NET be preferable to WPF?

<comment><USER20> WPF is a .NET GUI framework. WinForms is too, but it's a simple wrapper for the Win32 API, so it performs much better.

<comment><USER19> Thanks for the clarification!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> When I saw "Desktop" in the name, I was really hoping this also brought some of the web features to the app. Things such as being able to view/edit the wiki, or issues of the repo. I wonder if that is in their long term plans for the app at all? That would be really awesome.

<comment><USER22> So much this.

Github for Mac is quite good already for commiting and pull-requesting. I could stop using my browser (for Github, at least) if they put issue management (open, close, view, comments) in there too. Would be awesome and a more unified experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Why don't you support the Linux platform?

At this time, we're focused on optimizing the Mac and Windows experience. We're always thinking about potential improvements for the diverse needs of our users, though!"

[https://help.github.com/desktop/faq/articles/why-don-t- you-s...](https://help.github.com/desktop/faq/articles/why-don-t-you-support- the-linux-platform/)

Something tells me that the Linux version will come up later.

<comment><USER24> Once the universe has cooled to absolute zero, that is a corporate non answer. "Go away" dressed up in a party frock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'd love to see more development in the Git GUI space; a GUI really enabled git adoption and comprehension on my team. SourceTree has been my go-to for over a year now and it generally gets the job done, but it can be flakey at times (on Windows) and it seems like Atlassian has taken a hiatus from active development. I hope Atlassian takes up the reins again - this tool is pretty essential for me and I'd be happy to pay for it.

<comment><USER26> I'm Tim, a dev at Atlassian. I just thought I'd chime in to let you know we are absolutely taking up the reins on SourceTree again! In fact, we're in the process of growing out our team. You can read a little more about it on the ST blog from earlier this year: [http://blog.sourcetreeapp.com/2015/02/25/were- just-getting-s...](http://blog.sourcetreeapp.com/2015/02/25/were-just-getting- started-with-sourcetree). We are aware of the performance issues affecting Windows users with certain repository shapes and have our backlog prioritized accordingly.

I haven't had much of a chance to play with GitHub Desktop yet, but it can only be a good thing for the users of all Git clients - nothing like a bit of healthy competition :) However, SourceTree's focus will remain on providing the best possible experience for professional teams using Git (and Mercurial).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've heard numerous times that Linux's lackluster popularity is due 'chicken and egg' problem in the application space. If a company that gets the maximum possible percentage of Linux users is not willing to support the application for Linux then we can't expect anyone else will even attempt. May be because Linux users are 'smarter' and better off with CLI ;)

</comment><comment><USER28> For Mac or Windows....

it is just insulting that GitHub continues to Treat linux has a second class citizen when with out Linux Git would not be a project...

<comment><USER29> In their defense, I don't see many linux users choosing GUI app over command line to handle git (unless they have it integrated in their IDE)

<comment><USER30> I use git primarily on Linux, but I don't use an IDE. I frequently use 'git gui' to prepare commits - I particularly like the ability to select individual lines from a diff to include in a commit, breaking apart multiple changes to the same file when necessary. I also use gitk a lot. I'm very comfortable using the command line, but it's not correct to assume that command line users wouldn't want a GUI tool as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> My initial impression is that I like it, but I'm confused what "git sync" is. I've never done a "sync" before so I'm uncertain what will happen when I click the button.

Seriously, I get it, people don't love git's choice of verbs and syntax. Picking different ones arbitrarily helps no one however.

</comment><comment><USER32> Hmm.. are there really no good cross platform GUI toolkits? Why is Linux being ignored often even by companies that target developers?

<comment><USER19> I'd say that part of the problem is that there is no "right" way to develop for Linux. There's a multitude of choices available at every turn when developing software for Linux, and while this is its strength, it's also its weakness. On Windows and especially OS X there are established "right ways" that can easily be deferred to.

Trying to provide support for Linux software could also potentially be nightmarish given the innumerable factors at play. There's no end to the number of ways any given Linux box may be set up.

<comment><USER32> But Github has electron (atom shell) :-). Maybe it's not mature enough for production yet :-)

<comment><USER19> The problem with Electron (and other Chromium/WebKit wrappers) is that they produce apps that are a lot heavier than those built with native UI toolkits (Cocoa, Qt, GTK+, etc). That might be ok for some types of apps, but I wouldn't want a git client that requires resources on the order of a Chrome tab (300MB+ memory and high CPU usage).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I've always wanted something where I can see the status of all my projects at once:

\- Have other people committed things to origin on any of my repos?

\- Do I have uncommitted changes on any of my repos?

\- Notifications for when people push

Basically this but focusing more on collaboration.

<comment><USER34> > \- Do I have uncommitted changes on any of my repos?

I wanted to know that too, so I made [https://github.com/shurcooL/gostatus](https://github.com/shurcooL/gostatus) for my Go repos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is confusing to me. Why is it "GitHub Desktop is now available" rather "GitHub Desktop App Updated"?

What is actually new here? I know the native GitHub GUI app has been available for a number of years before now.

</comment><comment><USER36> Can't access my Windows desktop to look now, but I thought I've had Github Desktop running on my PC for awhile now. Was this previously in beta?

</comment><comment><USER37> i wish they would make a decent mobile web interface, the current one is just painful to use. i always have to switch to desktop mode.

<comment><USER38> Yes, the mobile web interface is quite bad. I mean, it's not horrible; it does the most basic things, but it requires more than one click to see very important things, like commit messages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Can I do anything with this that I can't already do from the website, or is it just the same tools with a nicer native UI? In other words, is this somehow bridging the gap between the site and the git CLI (which could be useful for some of my less tech-savvy collaborators)?

</comment><comment><USER40> What's the advantage to SourceTree? aside from nicer ui.

I wish it had the code review, commenting, issue tracking of the web app in a desktop application, all in one place. It's a pain to move constantly between the editor, CLI/SourceTree and Github web app for everyday tasks.

<comment><USER41> I don't even think that this new client supports anything but GitHub. Their previous Windows client didn't.

<comment><USER42> Yes, it did, but it had very basic functionality. The new client still supports non-GitHub repositories (tried with private GitLab repos).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I've been using Github on Mac for a while now. It won't do all the fancy things that the CLI will, but I love it for the ability to break up large bunches of files into separate commits, for when I forget to commit for a while or my local repo gets a little messy.

<comment><USER44> Isn't this something you could do easily via an IDE or, say, magit?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> So does anyone know what they used to build the 'unified' app UI? If I remember rightly they used WPF on Windows in earlier versions. Is the UI now abstracted using a third-party framework/inhouse framework?

<comment><USER46> If it's using WPF, does that mean that it requires .NET?

<comment><USER47> Yep. Though AFAIK .NET is included with Windows these days

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I've been using the beta for a while and have found it to be quite nice.

Simple operations are quick and intuitive. If you need anything more advanced, a git shell for the current project is just 2 clicks away.

Having all the visual diffs readily available in the client before committing is quite convenient, as is being able to push your branch and open a pull request for it at the press of a button.

I'm hoping issues and PR management is next on the plate. You can open PRs from the client right now, but to review and merge them you'd still need to open a browser.

</comment><comment><USER49> Hasn't this been available for a while now? I know I'd been using it for at least a few months up until recently. I made the switch to Sourcetree the other day and haven't looked back. I never realize how infuriating not being able to see changes in a repo at a glance without clicking into it was until I suddenly could.

Can't speak to any more advanced differences though. I'm still very, very new to git.

</comment><comment><USER50> What to do with the scary message? Does this affect the OS version of git or just the version that this Github application uses?

        OS X 10.9 and later includes Git, so GitHub Desktop will no longer install Git as part of its command line tools.

        The version of Git you have installed through GitHub Desktop is no longer supported. It's recommended that you uninstall it as soon as possible.

</comment><comment><USER51> I wonder why, after downloading and installing the GitHub Desktop application I should use my GitHub account and password to connect the client to GitHub (with no other way available)?

Would it not have been better if GitHub Desktop was a seperate application that gets permissions (for example via OAuth 2.0) as an application in the "Authorized applications" section of the GitHub profile?

Or am I missing something here?

</comment><comment><USER52> There's an UX/affordance issue with merges.

Took me a while to figure out how do do them via the UI, it's not immediately obvious that the side pane (which tries to take you to the web site for submitting pull requests) has nothing to do with local merges, which are now accomplished via an option that only appears when you're comparing branches (on the new timeline/graph thingy).

</comment><comment><USER53> Is there a way to clone BitBucket repositories from inside Github Desktop? It looks like they've locked it down to clone from Github only.

<comment><USER54> There doesn't seem to be a way to do so, but if you open a repository cloned elsewhere everything works just fine. It even prompts for your Bitbucket password if you try to push.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Just downloaded it and tried it out. Looks pretty nice, but the history view isn't populating when I try to use it for github enterprise projects (I did login successfully). I'm just seeing a completely black rectangle and no commits.

One theory I have is that our default upstream branch isn't master, but I'm not sure where to set that in the app. Anyone else noticed this?

</comment><comment><USER56> Well, that update turned the app into flickering, unresponsive mess on my Mac (10.11). And I have to use some sort of old school contact form to report a bug to _GitHub_? I'm a bit incredulous.

I like GitHub for the basic "see what you're committing and commit it" work flow, using the command line otherwise, but I suppose I'll switch to Sourcetree for now.

</comment><comment><USER57> Oh wonderful. Installed it, and now none of the git repos I pointed it to are recognized by git command line anymore :/

</comment><comment><USER58> I really like the GitHub desktop app. Although, I honestly I could care less about the fancy new graph feature. I would rather they had added a couple of simpler, more useful features:

• the ability to organize repos by organization or with custom folders/lists

• the option to open a repo in a new window by right-clicking on one from the list in the left column

</comment><comment><USER59> I use Atlassian Sourcetree as a git GUI on Windows. Does GitHub Desktop do anything different / better?

<comment><USER54> The client itself is very streamlined. Push/Pull operations are swept into a single Sync operation. Merging is as easy as selecting a branch from a dropdown and clicking a button. Things like that.

On the downside, utilities like tagging, blame and stash do not seem to exist. The account linking system from the old GitHub client hasn't changed and you can't clone from anywhere that isn't GitHub. Revision history is a bit ~too~ simplified and you can't really see at a glance what branches are deriving from where, and you can only see the history of one branch at a time.

I'm sure newbie developers on Github might appreciate the simplified UX/UI, but it's missing a ton of features that are useful in an environment with multiple devs.

<comment><USER60> > Push/Pull operations are swept into a single Sync operation.

This feature drove me nuts with their old client. One day they're going to realize that it throws away a very useful Git feature.

A few years ago we tried setting up marketing's content creators on the Mac GitHub client. After that, far too many conversations went like this:

"Try pulling the new changes."

"Um... pull?"

"Right, sorry, forgot. Hit sync to pull down the new changes."

"But won't that push my mods?"

"I suppose... I don't know."

"I don't want to push my stuff yet."

"OK, dammit. Open a terminal..."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The new layout looks great!

But there's an immediately obvious bug, the middle pane keeps resizing to become wider every time you switch between repos.

Also, one large repo I had simply shows 0 commits. It worked just fine before. And another even larger repo works fine.

<comment><USER34> An update, I tried to remove the problematic git repo and re-added it, and now history shows up okay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> It has been out for a while (I guess in beta form), atleast for Windows.

Still using GitExtensions. This has a nice interface for hobby projects, but when working with "enterprise" huge projects at work - it lags noticeably.

</comment><comment><USER62> What's the difference between this and the former "Github" app?

</comment><comment><USER63> The new tutorial is pretty spiffy. It teaches you the branch-commit-pull request workflow by actually taking you through the process on a mock repo!

</comment><comment><USER64> I was really hoping this would be a native app for the collaborative/social aspects of github.

</comment><comment><USER65> In Options -> Privacy, why is the 'Help us improve by sending anonymous usage data' checked by default?

Shouldn't it be opt-in and not opt-out?

</comment><comment><USER66> This is awesome!

</comment><comment><USER67> those wankers should work on getting diffs to actually show on their site.

hate when i have to code review some contributor and the site just says "oh, i will not bother showing any change on that file"... so i have to download their branch, run diff on the awesome `meld`, which kicks their visualization anyway, but then the only good thing about github: inline comments on code reviews... goes away. i have to either email or add lose comments on the code review panel with what i think.

but hey, now we can have the same crappy experience on (selected) desktops! hooray! well, at least you managed to get me to write an offense on a public forum. that is something. you wankers.</comment>


FlyElephant as a tool for calculations in C++, R, Python, or Octave - <AUTHOR> http://flyelephant.net/blog/flyelephant-as-a-tool-for-calculations-in-c-r-python-or-octave/ <comment><USER2> Thank you for info!

</comment><comment><USER3> it is very interesting!</comment>


Harvard student loses Facebook gig for app that shows flaws - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/Harvard-student-s-app-leads-to-loss-of-Facebook-6442170.php

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10051613](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10051613)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10053262](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10053262)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10054978](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10054978)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10056503](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10056503)</comment>


The interest graph takes center stage (Post social graph) - <AUTHOR> http://sociallayer.tumblr.com/post/3708081088/the-interest-graph-takes-center-stage-post-social

<comment><USER2> Is it just me, or is this pretty much content-free?</comment>


Storage device writes atom-by-atom - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36824902 <comment><USER2> Several submissions of this item:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12116686](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12116686) (nature.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12116615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12116615) (gizmodo.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12116577](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12116577) (sciencenewsline.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12116127](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12116127) (wsj.com)

Which will win the race for votes?</comment>


Show HN: Open-Source Rails Point of Sale - <AUTHOR> http://websitescenes.github.io/pushvendor/

<comment><USER2> Neat project. A couple code-reviewish notes:

* why use protected_attributes in an new Rails 4 project? I'm curious what motivated this decision.

* if you're destroying records, you'll want to look into using the :dependent option to has_many to make sure you clean things up. However, you may want to carefully consider where in the app "deletion" actually makes sense; anything that winds up in an accounting system probably shouldn't be deletable at all.

* get the tests running. The version on Github has a controller test for "ZusersController" which doesn't appear to exist in the application...

* a minor thing, but it'll drive future contributors crazy: hard tabs vs. soft tabs. Ruby code is usually two-space soft-tabs, but even if you don't agree with that at least be _consistent_. There are files on GH that are a riot of mixed tabs (configurations_controller.rb is a notable example) and nobody's got time for that.

I'm not the best at catching replies on HN, but ping me on Github (same username) if you want to discuss further.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for someone pointing this out. There are a lot of places in the code that could use some cleaning up. The overall frontend code structure is a little lacking:

* There's a "main.js", and a bunch of empty .coffee files that were presumably generated via a generator. Choose one frontend language and use it.

* Vendor libs should go in vendor/assets/javascripts. This codebase has assets/javascripts/vendor, and then random vendor libs that aren't even in that folder, they're just in "javascripts".

* The frontend code is going to quickly become jquery soup. There's no structure, all code executes on all pages.

* Very minor, but OS specific files should be omitted from git (like .DS_Store)

* Test coverage seems pretty low

* The secret token is public in the git repo (Why not use secrets.yml and keep it out of SCM to be safe?)

There are a myriad of other minor issues as well. It's a good idea for a project, and would help a lot of entrepreneurs out of done properly, but there are some glaring code quality issues here that worry me about the project as it grows.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also really great feedback. I have been programming for only three years so I am still learning much of what you describe. I will be cleaning out the unused template files very soon. Good point on jQuery firing on each page, although I am not really sure why it matters if it has no effect. Processing time? There are no tests but I hope to add some soon. (I have never written any, so I will have to learn)

<comment><USER4> For the JQuery, it is more about separation of concerns and keeping a maintainable an clear codebase. If all of your JQuery is in one file and somehow a small change to one part breaks another page's code that can be very difficult to catch/fix. It's just good form in general to separate it out.

You're also right about performance. Loading unnecessary stuff on a page is just going to slow everything down.

It's a great idea and also being a relatively new starter myself I can relate. Hopefully you can take all the feedback everyone is giving and make your project better!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there any screenshot or publicly accesible demo ? The linked page doesn't give much information

<comment><AUTHOR> When I actually finish, I will do all that stuff. I would say I am about 80% done. Trying to figure out how to make it easily extendible. I will probably use generators to facilitate custom module generation. Once those are done. I will write docs, etc. I may have jumped the gun by posting it here in its current form; Still I thought someone might find it interesting.

<comment><USER6> I have been involved in writing Unicenta POS an open source java point of sale, have you looked at it?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's awesome! I am glad there are people addressing this issue out there. With that said, I have to say that I am not interested in java at all. I think that java is one of the limiting factors of current point of sale systems. I prefer the web based approach and think that this is the future of retail sales. With that said, there are obvious detractions to a web based approach, like having to have an internet connection but I think that is acceptable.

<comment><USER7> Not necessarily an Internet connection, but definitely a local network. Before we caved in and started using Quickbooks across the board for both invoicing and POS retail in our storefront, the bosses had me whip together a custom POS based on parts of OpenBravo and OpenPOS. I was running a virtualized, modified OpenBravo ERP server that was connected to the front register running a heavily modified OpenPOS front end. It was quirky, buggy, and ugly, but even if we lost Internet we could still operate as long as the LAN stayed up.

Now we're using Quickbooks for everything, because our accounting office wanted easier reporting. It's a nightmare, but at least we have good outside support across the board, instead of me being on call 24/7.

I'd love to give your project a shot in my spare time, and see if it might be useful for inventory management if nothing else. Quickbooks sucks in that area without their expensive add-ons.

<comment><AUTHOR> Inventory features are almost non-existent so far. That's going to be addressed very soon. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I found this project really interesting. Forked it. It might be interesting to create platforms like this for the very commmon uses-cases: ecommecrce, blogging, CMS. Currently there are solutions for all this use cases in the rails community but imo they are pretty directed. I mean, they are "difficult" to modify. I would like something like rails composer where you can configure the basic elements of the platform without custom generators.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is something I'm 100% behind. As a developer who works integrating with point of sales systems this is an industry ripe for disruption. The pain of integrating is killing innovation in retail. Whether it will be open source or someone like square I look forward to an industry standard in the future.

<comment><USER10> I couldn't agree more. A few years back I wrote integrations for various Micros/Aloha POS systems, and it was painful. The industry as a whole seems to be stuck in the 90's.

<comment><USER11> could you talk some more on what is so painful about this ? I'm looking to join a startup that is looking to play in this space (in India) and I'm wondering, from a noob POS guys/experienced developer perspective, what the challenges are ?

is it that vendor docs are poor or is it something else ? I would like to think that system software integration is always trickier than .. say web API integrations.

<comment><USER12> Of curse is it.

I have a iOS app that integrate with several ERPs/POS ([http://elmalabarista.com/bestseller](http://elmalabarista.com/bestseller)) that is used in my country.

In first place, API???? What the hell is that? No kid, POS/ERPs don't know what a true API is. Is direct access to the DB, plan text files, and a lot of hyper-pain talking directly to the developers of that systems. And good look doing data archeology of all of that.

Because this I'm also building a POS for the iOS (in late stage, but is hard to do this solo). One of the innovations it have? The customer table is called: drum-drum-drum "Customer". Seriously, after dozens of integrations mine is the only one that the tables have names that make sense. And the fields. And the data type of that fields ( _cough_ a database have a datetime field? _cough_ ).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is awesome, looking forward to the progress and contributing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Contributing!? Really? That would be awesome. I have not worked with others via Github before and would be very interested in doing so.</comment></comment>


How to find someone technical to build your idea (or not) - <AUTHOR> http://alexn.id.au/2012/12/13/how-to-find-someone-technical-to-build-your-idea/

<comment><USER2> Some would say that this article is harsh; I suspect that it's actually often far worse in reality. That is, I routinely get asked by "founders" who the best Rails developers in the room are, and they will then proceed to rudely interrupt them from technical discussions and offer them 1-2% equity to build their vague concept from the ground up.

This is insulting to everyone involved, even the "founder". (I keep air- quoting "founder" because these days everyone is a "founder" in the same way everyone with a Digital Rebel XTi is a "photographer". Meanwhile, none of my developer friends would ever refer to themselves as a "hacker" outside of technical circles that understand you don't mean you hack the Pentagon.)

Someone in this community could/should set up a site with an obvious URL that serves as a checklist for what someone who wants to be a hustler/product girl should have in order before approaching a technical individual:

\- be able to coherently relay the meat of a concept in 5-10 words

\- demonstrate how they plan to fund it and be prepared to explain what they are putting up

\- explain where they are at in their efforts to learn basic coding

\- show that they have done research into competition and bonus points for real customer development

\- wireframes or mockups, preferably presented with the disclaimer that you're excited to see how your input will change and improve their concept

Likewise, there can be a second URL that developers can hand out that will save the same purpose as "rejection line" numbers that girls give to lame guys in clubs. You can tell a founder who isn't taking a hint to contact you and it will explain why they are wasting both of your time.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure its really as hard as people make it out to be to find technical people to implement your idea.

IF you have a reasonable amount of money. Seems like quite a few people are looking for someone to do it on a volunteer or partial-volunteer basis (or 'equity', which in a lot of cases is practically the same thing). Or they have $500 or $1000 and think that is actually somehow sufficient.

As a matter of fact, if someone has an idea that isn't completely ridiculous, I will probably strongly consider helping them, IF they have enough money to actually pay for it AND I can build it with my favorite tools of the moment (Node.js/CoffeeScript/HTML5). I may have time starting in the next few weeks since a couple of client projects are slowing down. Send me some information about your idea and budget etc. -- email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER4> I found this rather amusing as I am technical and was at that meeting. oddly enough only one person activly tried to talk to me, the CEO of genie8, and he didnt need another technical guy (as far as I could tell). Based on that one conversation I would have happily worked on his idea.

Here is a tip, devs arent scary and wont bite. We are curious and if you show some (any) attempt to get started you gain massive credibility. Try actually talking to others and not just the mentors, especially when at these sort of events. You never know you mind be able to build the relationship faster then you think.

I honstly think had someone talked to me and had shown some interest in what I was doing at that meetup I could have ended up working on their idea or reccomended someone to them.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not even technical and the quantity of those group B ideas that get thrown at me is ridiculous.

Best one so far: "ebooks, like they do with mp3s." That was in 2009, so he missed the boat by a little bit, but I bet the guy is now walking around telling people he thought of ebooks "before anyone else" and just couldn't find the right person to help him build it.</comment>


7 VCS Reviewed - <AUTHOR> http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/09/18/the-top-7-open-source-version-control-systems/

<comment><USER2> The title is a little misleading...

Should read: 7 Version Control Systems Reviewed.</comment>


The Looming End of Payless ShoeSource - <AUTHOR> https://theoutline.com/post/7342/payless-shoesource-shutting-down-appreciation <comment><USER2> The missing factor is that when shoe production was completely sourced to a few companies in China (70% of US market), nearly all shoes turned to shit. So Payless wasn't really differentiated itself from any other value brand.

The end of Payless is just another private equity story, and poor kids will just get a smaller variety of shitty shoes from WalMart, TJMaxx, or Dollar General.

The majority of us get screwed in other ways, as we pay more for increasingly lousy footwear.

<comment><USER3> Never been to PayLess, is it any good, or rather was it?

Also, should mention TJMaxx has decent stuff. Never bought shoes there but I get pants, shirts, and random stuff for the house. My wife gets plenty of clothes there though.

<comment><USER4> Payless has been my favorite shop for years.

I buy shoes that look like leather loafers but as basically as floppy as slippers. _This is exactly what I want and need_. They are respectable enough to wear in work situations but I can also use them for martial arts or any other physical activity. Basically, they're nearly as good as barefoot, which isn't practical for various reasons.

I find it ironic that a lot of folks buy $120 "toe shoes" when they learn of the value of nearly barefoot ... when they could just buy the proper cheap shoes instead.

(Edit, I've studied bodywork, balance system and such. The arch supports and such of "good shoes" are arguably actually back for most people, interfering with the natural rhythm of walking, etc).

<comment><USER5> Can you give any links or pic of those shoes?

<comment><USER4> You may google this:

[https://www.google.com/search?&q=%22toe+shoes%22+&ie=utf-8&o...](https://www.google.com/search?&q=%22toe+shoes%22+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)

<comment><USER5> No, I meant the shoes you buy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article doesn't mention this, but it looks like this happened after a leveraged buyout by private equity firms in 2012 (similar to other big retail chains like Toys R Us or Sports Authority)

<comment><USER7> Here's a great video about Payless [https://youtu.be/GJ35lCrOYC0](https://youtu.be/GJ35lCrOYC0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > we racked up hours roaming fluorescent lit aisles, inhaling the smell of > off-gassing pleather.

Funny. And if I had to bet on one term that could completely change the materials of which consumer products are made, possibly sparking a consumer materials revolution, "off-gassing" would be it. Once you learn about it, it's always there, nagging you to ventilate or throw out.

In fact I'd say that along with terms like "gaslighting" and "toxic relationship" enjoying recent prominence, times have never been better for terms capturing the psychological rejection of toxins driving humans headlong toward life change.

<comment><USER9> It's "out-gassing", as the plasticizers leach out of the vinyl. The "new car smell".

<comment><USER8> As an industrial specialist term, sure. I'm not sure if you've noticed but the term "off-gassing" now has a more general meaning & life of its own outside of that domain. I've heard people use it for situations up to and including stinky clothes and flatulence over the last few years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Shoes is one of those things I almost never need to buy, now that I'm an adult and fully grown. Even the very cheapest ones can last me 10 years or more without wearing out.

Actually, it's the Nikes that wear out much faster, it seems.

PS:(edit) I walk around a decent amount and even go running 6 to 9 miles per week. Even a super cheap pair of running shoes won't show any holes in it for 4+ years at least. The Nike ones I had started falling apart in just in less than 2 years.

And yes, I do have about 10 pairs, but tend to stick to 4-5 pair at a time time. and I don't throw them away until the wear is so low that an actual hole forms or even multiple holes/rips form. most of time just get some plimsolls, those tend to last forever.

<comment><USER11> What brand are you wearing?

<comment><USER3> Not OP but I got a pair of Clark's in 2010 that I still wear. Granted they are sandals, but of anything that is even more impressive, I used to go through sandals once a season.

And don't get me started on the poor state of common flipflop

<comment><USER11> oh excuse my french but fuck-an-a clarks are amazing. The pair I bought mine at (which actually still somehow work) was from a mall which is now demolished and has since turned into a condominium with a park.

Yes, the store left, the mall was abandoned, it got leveled, a new building was placed there and that was a few years ago. I still have the damn sandals. I wore them yesterday.

I tried moving on from them around 2012 using a pair of sandals from DSW and those went to tatters so I went into my closet and brought the old clarks back out and now years later they still work.

I should go and hunt out another pair.

There should be a review website with an incredibly high barrier to entry that is designed to make sure there's completely unsolicited reviews for products. Avoiding abuse and spam is definitely hand-waving here but that site would be great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _In those days, anywhere you found a Payless, you found kids who knew they were getting subpar shoes, but also knew to appreciate them because they were better than not getting new shoes at all._

Yup. That's exactly it. ( I wore my fair share of really crappy gym-class shoes, too.)

<comment><USER13> My FIL grew up dirt poor in a developing country and was frequently short of food and shoes to wear. His favorite things in America are fast food and Payless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The point about both helping create the race to the bottom and also catering to those it leaves behind is, I think, an important and often overlooked one.

It's why Walmart is beloved in many of the small southern towns where I grew up. Sure it relentlessly exploited poor people elsewhere, but when you're poor yourself you can't help but be grateful for its low prices. And the belief that finally, finally someone is giving _you_ the good end of that deal is terribly reassuring-- like maybe, for once, someone has your back.

This, of course, quickly assumes a political dimension. At the time conservatives (many of whom now back Trumpian protections, how times change) railed against the so-called "latte liberals" who supposedly fought Walmart from the comfort of their Mercedes-- not that anyone knew one of them personally, of course. And we, the rank and file, ate it up: we needed our cheap shoes, our cheap food, etc.

Now, as a liberal, when I hear people advocating for the breakup of Amazon or Google, I can't help but think back to how I would have felt about that when I was poorer, and when I didn't have the option of simply paying more for a better cause. I think I would have fought quite hard to keep my costs low, possibly to the point of voting against many of my other interests or beliefs. And especially in this era of polarization and high-stakes politics, I'm not sure it's a good idea to bet on people in general viewing that differently.

<comment><USER15> This sums up well Trump's ascension: there are a lot of people who have real needs and real opinions, and whose votes count as much as someone's in California or New York. An environment where we insist on leaving those voices unheard is what enables someone to have extreme influence.

<comment><USER16> Those voices are far from unheard. If anything, they've been the dominant political voices for the past 40 years. Sure, California and NYC's cultural output is the loudest voice in the country. But, politically speaking, they're largely ignored. Obviously ignored by Republicans, but the timid national Democratic leadership will also ignore them in their relentless centrism.

The political system makes it pretty easy to ignore the liberal coastal areas. Republicans benefit enormously from the unevenness of the Senate, House seat allocations, and the Electoral College. And then in the states they control, they put their finger on the scale via gerrymandering. Democrats can ignore the coasts too because who else are they going to vote for?

Though the greatest irony of all is that those rural and poor voters in the flyover states are also ignored in terms of their real needs. Their party tosses them cultural red meat regularly, but defunds the things they need: schools, roads, and various safety net programs which are often the only thing keeping the rural poor afloat.

<comment><USER17> Are Democrats centrist? One of the things I learn the deeper I dig into how European countries are structured is that they're more right leaning than American liberals assume. Let's take Spain. If we adopted Spain's tax structure, income taxes would go down by about a trillion dollars, while consumption taxes (paid for primarily by middle class and poor people), would go up two trillion dollars. Spain's abortion laws are stricter than any southern state's (elective abortion legal only up to 14 weeks). On gay marriage, Spain legalized it about 10 years before, but then the government tried to repeal that law a few years later. The constitutional court ruling permanently protecting gay marriage came just two years before the one in the US. The Spanish minimum wage works out to about 6 euro per hour. Like the US and almost all of Europe, many industries were privatized in the 1990s and 2000s, and unlike the US the passenger rail system is in the midst of privatization.

<comment><USER18> Spain isn't really the model Americans think about in terms of Europe though. That the country that was literally a Fascist dictatorship until the mid 1970s has some right wing views isn't exactly a surprise. It's Scandinavia that's the model the US left wants to copy.

<comment><USER17> Sweden has corporate taxes slightly lower than under Trump's tax law. It collects 6% of revenue from corporate taxes, versus 9% in the US. It collects much less of it's revenue from progressive income taxes than the US does, and much more from regressive consumption and payroll taxes. Sweden's capital gains rate is only moderately higher than the US's (flat 30% versus 23.8% in the top brackets). There are no inheritance taxes. In short, if the US adopted Sweden's tax code, taxes on lower income and middle class people would go up much more than on rich people. (In fact, the tax burden in Sweden is almost perfectly flat.) Sweden has school choice including subsidization of religious schools. Elective abortion is legal only up to 18 weeks. Deregulation and privatization are extensive. For example, Stockholm's metro system is operated under contract by for-profit corporations. Sweden has no ban on fully automatic weapons or high capacity magazines.

These are really fundamental differences, particularly in the area of taxes (and that's true not just for Sweden and Spain, but most European countries). In Europe, there is an expansive welfare state with lots of benefits for the middle class, but the middle class are also the ones that pay for it, through high payroll and sales taxes. In the US, replacing sales taxes with a 20% VAT (the OECD average) would raise an extra $700 billion according to CBO estimates. Enough to pay for socialized health care and education. But nobody on the left is proposing that. Every proposal focuses on raising taxes on corporations and the rich to pay for middle class benefits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > My middle school was a cruel place where girls would sneak up behind you and > grab the collar of your shirt to see if it was a "real" Esprit, or if you'd > just sewed a tag onto the pocket of a knock-off (which I totally did).

I'm male, and an equivalent of this would happen in high school in my country as well (late '90s). What is it about human society that causes others to try to bully someone on the basis of their consumption choices? Kids have been brand-aware for generations now, but to use these arbitrary perceptions of brand value to shame someone who doesn't have access to them, is beyond grotesque.

</comment><comment><USER20> they saved me a bunch of money when I had to buy dance shoes for my daughter. Sorry to see them go.

<comment><USER21> I got my dance shoes there too. It will be hard to find a shoe that is comparable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm starting to notice that I need to replace shoes at a rate of nearly once every year. Granted, I buy cheap sneakers from Marshalls/TJ Maxx and spend 4 winter months walking across semi-icy rock salt laden streets.

Part of me wants to buy walking shoes over the $75 mark to figure out if they last longer, but the other part feels that at that price point, they aren't designed to last any longer than the sub-$50 brands.</comment>


WikiLeaks Will Unveil Major Bank Scandal in Early 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2010/11/29/exclusive-wikileaks-will-unveil-major-bank-scandal/ <comment><USER2> Okay, I'm bored with the wikileaks hype machine now. If you're gonna leak something go ahead and leak it, don't build it up for months on end and then reveal something disappointingly prosaic, like you have the last few times.

<comment><USER3> While I agree with you that the content of the last few releases have been fascinating but mostly inconsequential. The reason given for staggering the releases is a good one: _if you released it all at the same time, each individual issue would not get as much attention._ Assange also states that Wikileaks makes a promise (among other promises such as to protect their identity) to its informants to try to achieve the maximum possible impact on the world due to their leak.

<comment><USER4> It could also be a way to spread the ideology of leaking information. I'm sure there is more than just a strategy to leak the information they have, but to add momentum to the whole idea. Undertaking such a controversial objective could be backed up by a belief. It seems giving the sensitive nature one would assume there are larger objectives involved than the attention created, or it could be as simple as that.

You can stop an organization, but an idea........

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > He confirmed that WikiLeaks has damaging, unpublished material from > pharmaceutical companies, finance firms (aside from the upcoming bank > release), and energy companies, just to name a few industries.

The thing that I dislike most about this is Wikileaks alone gets to choose the conversations we have based solely on what they decide to publish. While it was understandable for anything that might actually be life threatening, it doesn't feel right for other types of information.

I don't believe Wikileaks is an objective enough steward to get to decide all of the conversations we are going to have about information that was leaked to them. If you want me to believe you are impartial, dump it all; otherwise, you are trying to manipulate me just like Fox News does.

<comment><USER6> > Wikileaks alone gets to choose the conversations we have based solely on > what they decide to publish.

There's an entire ecosystem of media (ranging from MSM to bloggers) that sets the conversations. Picking out one small element and giving it this massive importance really isn't accurate. It's true that they editorialize by choosing what to cover and what not to. So do all news media. Don't you remember the NY times sitting on the warrantless wiretapping story for over a year?

If you don't like the messages being pushed you have one option -- start using your own printing press. Create another site dedicated to publishing leaks,with your own editorial policy, such as "publish everything as soon as you get it".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> World Events To Unveil Major Bank Scandal in Late 2008

<comment><USER8> which one?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The full-article version of this is currently on the front page: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1952037>

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm having a hard time imagining what could be more scandalous than enriching the super-rich, looting the middle class and leaving the US economy in the shitter for years to come. That's old news.

<comment><USER11> Actual black-on-white proof that they are aware of doing just that and want to do just that?

This is your little editorialization, some people agree, some don't.

</comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 Are there good reasons to wait to release the documents other than to maximize publicity and fund-raising abilities?

<comment><USER12> They've been redacting information in every leak so far.

I'm not sure who could get killed if some bank information is public, but if they have a lot of documents, this could take some time.

<comment><USER13> Get it wrong and they could quite easily cause a run and bring down a bank. That'd be unlikely to cause deaths but could very easily cause personal and corporate bankruptcies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If this doesn't literally bring down a major bank, it's already been overhyped (and it was just announced).

</comment><comment><USER4> Leaking US Government data could seen as a threat to US interests. Now leaking business information could be seen a threat to many interests.

Now It's easy to play the shift blame game if anything happened to the people behind Wikileaks. In the beginning it would have been easy to assume it was the US government taking convert action. Now who knows how many ways this could be twisted to hide the actions of any acting party.

Governments love secrets. Corporations love money.

If your going to play information warfare you might want to do a little bit of risk assessment.

<comment><USER15> I would assume those behind Wikileaks have a system in place such that information they already have will be released one way or another even if something happened to them.

<comment><USER16> Wikileaks has had an encrypted file on their server titled 'insurance' for a while now. See: [http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/wikileaks- insurance...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/wikileaks-insurance- file/)

<comment><USER17> Seems to me they could use a service similar to <http://deadmansswitch.org/> for extra insurance. Diversify your insurance.

<comment><USER12> I'm sure something like that is in control of the password.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm sad they didn't release this first.

Despite all the shouting, I haven't hear of anything terribly scandalous in the diplomatic cables.

I strongly suspect that despite the revelations of 2008, the banking system would yield some notably juicy tidbits.

<comment><USER3> Not all of the quarter million cables have been leaked, if I recall correctly.

<comment><USER19> That's a large understatement, only a few hundred have been leaked.

Update: "Currently released so far... 278 / 251,287"

<http://cablegate.wikileaks.org>

<comment><USER3> Pretty sure (but can't find source at the moment) that that number only reflects the cables on the wikileaks website itself. The number of cables released to newspapers is significantly higher but not a quarter million.

<comment><USER20> According to a Guardian video I watched yesterday, all of their (the Guardian's) stories so far have been based on "a couple of hundred" cables, which seems to suggest the media does not have to full set yet either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > He confirmed that WikiLeaks has damaging, unpublished material from > pharmaceutical companies, finance firms (aside from the upcoming bank > release), and energy companies, just to name a few industries.

It's almost as if Forbes is sending out a big heads up to various Republican power interests to say, "Ok, he's coming after you guys next." Could serve as a call to action for some.

</comment><comment><USER22> Oh Wikileaks, first we learn that the USA thinks poorly of Iran, and now we learn that the banks are corrupt.

Shock. Horror.

</comment><comment><USER23> The solution to the wikileaks hype parade: Someone needs to start leaking stuff from wikileaks.

</comment><comment><USER24> What worries me is that while the government may inefficiently try to haul Assange into court and call him a terrorist, the banking & finance elite may just decide he should have an "accident." I wouldn't put it past them.

<comment><USER25> From the goverments point of view, he is a terrorist at worse and a thief and criminal at best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hilarious to see the questions about Mudge in there. The interviewer is a sharp guy.

</comment><comment><USER27> Waiting for WikiLeaks clones all around the world!

</comment><comment><USER28> Haha, Error establishing a database connection.

[http://img.skitch.com/20101130-brk11r16h3cy86ryxd9sbitr7e.jp...](http://img.skitch.com/20101130-brk11r16h3cy86ryxd9sbitr7e.jpg)</comment>


Secret Formula: How To Write Viral Content For Your Website - <AUTHOR> http://www.virtuosimedia.com/articles/secret-formula-how-to-write-viral-content-for-your-website

<comment><USER2> Thanks - lots of handy links, including one [[http://www.seomoz.org/blog/reddit-stumbleupon-delicious- and-...](http://www.seomoz.org/blog/reddit-stumbleupon-delicious-and-hacker- news-algorithms-exposed)] to "Reddit, Stumbleupon, Del.icio.us and Hacker News Algorithms Exposed!"

The formula for HN (as of July '08): (p - 1) / (t + 2)^1.5 where: p = votes (points) from users. t = time since submission in hours.

p is subtracted by 1 to negate submitters vote. age factor is (time since submission in hours plus two) to the power of 1.5.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment, kakooljay. That was one of my favorite links that I found in writing the article as well.</comment></comment>


Every Color Has A Name - <AUTHOR> http://chir.ag/projects/name-that-color/ <comment><USER2> If you are colorblind, you may be interested in the <http://www.colblindor.com/color-name-hue/> app by Daniel Fluck.

Daniel is colorblind and contacted me to help him build an app that would let colorblind users identify the base hue for any RGB color. While my app gives fancy names like "Amethyst Smoke" and "Cobalt" it isn't helpful to users with colorblindness. Daniel's app says the base hue is "Violet" and "Blue." What I learnt about colorblindness is that it's not always absolute. You can have Tritanomaly (blue-weakness) where everything looks just a bit off, not completely red/green. See here: <http://www.colblindor.com/coblis-color- blindness-simulator/>

</comment><comment><USER3> A _comprehensive_ app of this kind would be really interesting. Like if it supported X color names, Windows color names, web color names (from very generic 16 "web-safe" color names to more specific like color names supported by Firefox 3.0), and translation features:

"What's the equivalent of a red-hued version of color named X of palette A in palette B?"

Would be great to only have to learn one color name set in detail and then have access to pretty much every color name in every system (of course it would support approximation too).

</comment><comment><USER4> more source material <http://blog.doloreslabs.com/topics/colors/>

</comment><comment><USER5> Not quite every see Disco 69165A, 691650 many others

It's a clever idea though, kind of like colr.org

<comment><USER6> You mean <http://www.colr.org> ? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm sure this is honest, but it really strikes me as a random name generator attached to interpolations between the standard 16 colors :).

<comment><USER8> I don't know about all or even most of these colors but a few names to color combos I know from elsewhere. For instance 'cornflower blue' the default, was a color I was playing with the other day.

<comment><USER9> Cornflower Blue is truly a storied color.

It is the default rendering clear color for the XNA Framework. Everyday, many budding game developers take their first steps into programming with this soothing blank screen: <http://images.google.com/images?q=cornflower+blue+xna>

<comment><USER2> I set that as the default color because of Fight Club quote "Can I get this in Cornflower Blue?" It's mentioned multiple times in Palahniuk's novels.

> <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/quotes> Narrator: [voiceover] It > must've been Tuesday. He was wearing his cornflower-blue tie.

If anyone's interested, here is my JS library with the code + color names that is used in this app: <http://chir.ag/projects/ntc/>

<comment><USER9> A few customers thought we might have been referencing Fight Club, but I don't think it was conscious. I think whoever coded the base game template just liked that color :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


NASA Reveals 'Breathtaking' Selfie from Mars That Is Unlike Any Before - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/nasa-mars-curiosity-selfie-photo-image-rover-picture-space-a9171081.html <comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7525](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7525)

Sorry, should have linked to JPLs site, much less intense than the chaos that is the Independent.</comment>


How LEDs are Made - <AUTHOR> https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-leds-are-made/all <comment><USER2> _I could do this in my basement!_

Years ago I answered a "for sale" newspaper ad for used office desks and some test equipment. I showed up at the address and it was a small dingy old building and most of the employees seemed to be 55+ year-old women. When I asked what they did and was told they made diodes, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Like he did, I assumed that all electronics parts manufacturing was high-tech, cleanroom work, etc. But here were little old ladies putting pieces together.

I had a similar epiphany years later when a friend told me he was buying a thermocouple manufacturing business for $20,000!!! The business consisted of two senior citizens who wanted to retire. No high-speed pick&place robots working in inert argon atmospheres, just two old people putting wire in jigs and spot-welding them together (probably in an inert atmosphere, though).

The same thing repeats itself over and over: a huge amount of what we think of as sophisticated technology is being done by hand, or by ancient machinery, in dirty, poorly lit corners of the US.

<comment><USER3> I ised to work in electronic subcontract engineering. They had some automation (little pick and place machine with oven and screen printer; a flow oven for populated PCBs) but there was a lot of work done by hand.

It was a terrible time of my life and it informs a lot of my opinion about poor management and inefficient working and about ISO900x quality assurance systems.

<comment><USER4> ISO9000 just means you must document that management crap on it's employees. As long as your crappy processes are documented, you are good-to-go.

<comment><USER5> Passing these management craps are not completely meaningless. Sometimes, people do realise what was the problem during the process of producing these management craps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The title here is slightly misleading- this isn't how LEDs are made, it is how LED dies are packaged. The more difficult part of all of this is creating the dies themselves, which is requires a clean room and all the automated tools I'm sure most people here were expecting to see.

<comment><USER7> this is a good link, although still high level: [http://www.edisontechcenter.org/LED.html](http://www.edisontechcenter.org/LED.html)

and a lab to get a better feel for how band gaps affect the spectrum: [http://electron6.phys.utk.edu/phys250/Laboratories/Light%20e...](http://electron6.phys.utk.edu/phys250/Laboratories/Light%20emitting%20diodes.htm)

<comment><USER8> Good links indeed. And interesting. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm surprised by how manual the whole process is. I think labour is so expensive in the west that any manufacturing of small low value items is incredibly highly automated (see youtube for lots of videos of how huge automated production lines work). There's no way you could employ someone to manually bond 80 LEDs a minute in the west and still have a competitive product.

<comment><USER2> I'm not so sure. Let's assume you're paying someone $15/hour and she actually costs you $25/hour. Assuming a 10 minute break every hour (that's gotta be tiring work and you want to hold onto your employees), then that's 2500/(80 * 50) = 0.625 _cents_ of labor cost per LED. I don't know what all the other costs are, but that one operation seems surprisingly cheap.

<comment><USER3> I'm stupid. EDIT: I am! Thanks for the corrections!!

<comment><USER10> > We were told they can align over 80 per minute or about 40,000 per day.

<comment><USER11> Wow that's impressive

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Trick of the eye there for a moment. I thought that girl in the photo had a robot LED making arm.

<comment><USER13> Yeah me too. I had to do a double take.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very surprising how manual this is, unless this is just for the purpose of showing how the LEDs are made. I would have expected everything in this process to be automated since electronic component manufacturing is very high volume.

Also amazing how small the components (LED dies) are.

<comment><USER15> Everyone else has moved on to 0402-sized surface mount LEDs a long time ago. Could this manual process just be because nobody is building the old through- hole LEDs in massive quantities?

<comment><USER3> For people who don't know 0402 is:

> 0402 (1005 metric): 1.0 mm × 0.5 mm (0.039 in × 0.020 in).

<comment><USER2> And they suck to do manually. I started this morning off by hand-stuffing some PC boards with (among other parts) 19x 0402 resistors per board.

There was a reason I did it before I had any coffee!

<comment><USER3> The company I ised to work for would sometimes buy components from RS. They'd supply them in strips of 10, 50, or 100.

The pick and place machine needed blank strip of about ten components (just for lead-in on the cassete).

Transfering components from one tape to another was really annoying. And one of the bosses just did not understand that the fractions of a penny saved were obliterated by time wasted moving components over.

And until you've had to do something like that you can't really understand the benefit of $60 Swedish tweezers.

<comment><USER4> Yep #00 Swiss tweezers. Nothing like them. The feel of the #00 is just right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Am I the only person that thought the shape of the metal inside an LED was a significant part of the function?

I am sure if I thought about it I would have realized that it is just support for the silicon. I guess I never thought about it that much until today.

<comment><USER17> If you look closely, you'll see it's actually in the shape of a reflector - usually a cone. Also not shown is that some higher-power leds use a blob of silicone around the chip to protect the bond wire during thermal expansion -- the cone helps hold the silicone while curing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Similar process, but for USB drives: [http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=2946](http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=2946)

</comment><comment><USER19> This is clearly an old process - when was the last time you saw a 7-segment display, or those big red round thru-hole LEDs, outside of hobby electronics?

I'd be very curious to see how this process differs from the high-power lighting LED manufacturing process (e.g. CREE), which is a more modern technology by several decades. I would guess there is much more of the automation people are expecting...

<comment><USER20> "when was the last time you saw a 7-segment display, or those big red round thru-hole LEDs"

Every HP common slot server PSU has one of those round through hole LEDs on it. I have an HP server sitting here (DL580) that has two 7 segment displays on its motherboard. These things are definitely still used in modern products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Am I the only one that thought Alicia had a bionic arm at first glance?

<comment><USER22> I want those short ties. That's awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> And so this makes an interesting point, LED shapes are controlled by the mold makers, but when do we get just a flat thin LED and you can 3D print the shape you want on top? :-)

<comment><USER2> Make a trip to your local Michael's or other art/craft store and you can do it today. Silicon sealant to make a mold + liquid molding acrylic and you're off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder how the LED dies are made?

<comment><USER25> Same as regular chips: in a grid on a wafer, then cut and pick&placed.

Don't forget: yield goes up when the die shrinks because the defects are typically small spots. The smaller the die the better you pixelate the defects.

The wafers are only 2 inch diameter to avoid yield loss due to edge effects: at the edge of the wafer you have lowest quality components (optical ring effects)

<comment><USER26> I doubt that they 2-inch wafers to avoid yield loss from edge effects. The ratio of area to perimeter _rises_ as you increase the wafer size. Perhaps the reasons they use 2-inch wafers are for better uniformity, better flexibility, or lower capital investment.

<comment><USER25> Probably uniformity & capital. The profit margins on LED aren't what they used to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If this is the manufacturing process and its price, why are LED light bulbs still expensive? (Serious question.)

<comment><USER28> These are not the type of LEDs used in modern light LED light bulbs. They produce a tiny amount of light (maybe 5 lumens each, with a 60W equivalent requiring 800 lumens), don't work well with a heat sink, and aren't particularly efficient. Separately, a lot more goes into an LED light bulb than just the LED.

Here's a teardown with cost estimates for a recent 800 lumen Cree 60W equivalent, where they come up with an $8 Bill of Materials for a bulb that retails for $13: [http://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/3212/cree- ba19-...](http://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/3212/cree- ba19-08027omf-12de26-1u100-led-light-bulb-teardown)

<comment><USER29> Home Depot has been selling those lamps for $4.97ea for quite a few months now. They're a very nice replacement for the traditional A19 60W incandescents.

My only complaint, and it's a tiny one, is that they only dim to about 10% before cutting off entirely. There's also a small dark spot on the spot of the bulb opposite the socket, but in practice that's been a non-issue for all my use cases.

<comment><USER28> In the US, the price varies state by state, and reflects a variety of subsidies used to encourage the switch over from incandescents. Thus for certain bulbs (like this one) the production cost is often higher than the selling price. Some details for California here: [http://www.designingwithleds.com/rebated-cree-philips-led- bu...](http://www.designingwithleds.com/rebated-cree-philips-led-bulbs-8-ca- temporarily/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Neat!

Now, I'd like to see someone do something like this for solar panels.

</comment><comment><USER31> Isn't the word "dyes" the right one to use here? Instead of "dies"?

<comment><USER32> They're talking about this kind of "die": [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_%28integrated_circuit%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_%28integrated_circuit%29) ; "dyes" are substances used to color things. (See: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye) )

The book referenced as the first source on the "die" wikipedia link claims:

> The plural of die is dice. However, it has become standard practice in the > industry to use "die" as the plural.

As a native speaker of English, I'd find any of "die", "dies", or "dice" to be pretty reasonable as long as it's clear what's referred to from context. (I'd prefer "dies" over "dice" if it's not immediately clear that you're not talking about playing dice, for example.)</comment></comment>


Sorry, Michigan tech startups… [A complete reveal of tech startup scene in MI] - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Unicorn_Tech_Startup/sorry-michigan-tech-startups-78dc4b6ea5 <comment><USER2> "Most people in Michigan who get in tech is to get a good paycheck, not to start a company or change the world for better."

This rubs me the wrong way. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this. Not everyone can afford the risk of starting a business. And most tech companies are not changing the world for the better, they're just trying to make money, like every business. For most people, their job is just that, a job.</comment>


Court OKs Barring High IQs for Cops - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95836 <comment><USER2> If his IQ were any higher, he might have considered intentionally doing poorly on the IQ test. I guess he's just in no man's land.

<comment><USER3> He could also work somewhere that thinks that a high IQ is an asset. I doubt this is the only crazy HR policy. If turnover is so bad that they've resorted to things like this, it can't be a good sign.

<comment><AUTHOR> It also shows they have been enforcing the same policy for HR.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know."

<comment><USER2> Sherlock was a private detective. Note the private bit.</comment></comment>


Interactive HTML5 Presentation - <AUTHOR> http://apirocks.com/html5/html5.html#slide1

<comment><USER2> Sorry guy - it doesn't resize to fit my screen, wants to store things on my computer without telling me what it is, and as I move through the presentation, the slides move further and further to the left, preventing me from actually reading them. But going full-screen shows the edges of the next and previous slides.</comment>


The iPad at Work: Observations from a Programmer, Designer and QA Expert - <AUTHOR> http://intridea.com/2010/5/11/the-ipad-at-work

<comment><USER2> I guess I need to somehow stop, but so far I haven't been able to not think 'some mild version of Stockholm syndrome' whenever someone says something like, "Many users have lamented over the lack of multitasking, but for me, this 'missing' feature is a bonus all on its own" like that last person in this blog post.

People can't be this unaware that they can turn notifications off and just work on one thing when that is what they want. Is it that they can't bring themselves to do it? Maybe some people need someone else to exert their willpower for them.

Come on, HN, give me another viable perspective on this before this one calcifies in my head.

<comment><USER3> I think the word "multitasking" gets way overloaded in these discussions. In this case, it's _not_ that people are happy that their other applications' processes aren't continuing to be preemptively scheduled by the kernel. They're happy that all iPad apps always take up the whole screen. There's certainly a cost to that, but many feel there's a benefit, too.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, the connotation has certainly drifted from the technical source of the term, taking on the weight of a whole interaction style. Imho, OS's should put controls on applications like mixers have on channels: "mute" and "solo".

A bit off topic, the application of such technical terms to other things, like people, has a bit of fascination to me. Mostly because so much of how we get along in the world and our perceptions/reasoning in general are shaped by the vocabulary we adopt to describe. Anger as heat, a person builds a head of steam, blows their top. Did the experience of anger change when that metaphor took hold? Now people might multitask whereas before they might have thought of it as juggling tasks. The first seems so much more astute; the second not like something to be done with anything important. Ok, I'm seriously procrastinating, now... sorry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So a company that produces iPhone apps think the iPad is awesome, there is a shock.

</comment><comment><USER5> One interesting quote from the article (the only interesting part for me):

 _It's like the iPad was a device we never knew that we needed. Until Apple gave it to us._

That is the job of effective advertising, to make us need products that we didn't need before. Apple is good at this. I know I don't really need an iPad, and am determined to wait until the second generation comes out, yet I can't help but marvel at the effectiveness of Apple advertising and media coverage which makes it seem like the iPad is something everyone "needs".

<comment><USER6> I think the Apple fayboyism may be coloring some of these statements. The idea of a touch-screen tablet is hardly new, and many people, myself included, have been waiting for someone to develop a device like the iPad for years. Look at all of the hype that surrounded the CrunchPad announcement, even when we rightly assumed it was vaporware.

Apple isn't really an innovation company. They're great at executing on ideas that no one else has yet turned into a viable product, which puts them on the cutting edge. But they've never came up with something entirely new and created demand for it where none previously existed.

And I can find plenty of points at which the iPad falls short of my tablet wish-list, but that didn't stop me from getting one.

<comment><USER7> > many people, myself included, have been waiting for someone to develop a > device like the iPad for years.

Of all these people, every one of them decided to passively wait, instead of taking on the task themselves?

As far as Apple innovating, IMHO, they are the current masters of producing analog interfaces for digital systems. They have to charge a premium for it, because it's harder. But plenty of people are apparently willing to pay that premium for that interface, instead of the cheapest microcontroller and a minimal number of momentary switches, so Apple wins. I don't know if choosing their own strategy instead of following the race to the bottom is innovative or not, but it certainly leads to products that stand out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So they interviewed a Director, Designer, and a Manager. Have any coders on here tried integrating an ipad into their life?

I've read a few people discussing how they've making their laptop strictly a "code" only machine and the ipad for web-browsing/other things. I personally want something I can write and draw notes in, think of it as the digital whiteboard you conceptualize your code with. I've avoided just getting a tablet pc because they're too heavy, bulky and make me deal with a mouse- derived os (windows) to do things.

I'm really looking forward to the hp/palm, notion ink offerings.

<comment><USER9> I'm a coder and I have an iPad.

I haven't yet used my iPad for coding. I don't think I will. I do have a really great ssh/vpn app for the iPhone/iPad, so in a pinch, I can get to my servers and make a fix or check a log file. But other than that, I don't expect to use my iPad for coding. I'm just too bound to emacs and a keyboard to see it being a reasonable use of the iPad.

However, for almost _everything_ else, I've been using and preferring the iPad. I had already relegated all RSS feed reading, Twitter and Facebook (anything that could distract me from coding) to my iPhone. Now using the iPad, I'm even more efficient with my time and the experience is more enjoyable. And as a general entertainment device, the iPad wins across my entire family: my wife and 5 year old daughter both love it.

All that said, there are definitely some areas in which I feel the iPad is deficient. I expect these to be resolved over time, but it's something to consider:

\- Google Docs just doesn't work on the iPad. Considering how much I use Google Docs, this is a major blow to the usefulness of the iPad.

\- The email client is weak. If you get a large amount of email or are on several mailing lists, then you'll still fallback on using some other web or desktop email client. I really wish I could use the iPad as my main email device, but its just not suitable yet.

\- GMail for the iPad is actually decent except for one bug: you can't properly scroll when composing long emails that span one vertical screen space. Again, this just makes GMail useless on occasion.

\- Some multitasking would be great. Honestly, I like the focus you get when you're dealing with one app at a time. But I would really like to be always signed into Skype and GTalk. I would like to be able to load more than one web page at a time and switch between them without requiring them to reload (ok, that's more a memory problem than a multitasking problem).

Also, I got the wifi-only version thinking I wouldn't really want or need the 3G version. Now I would strongly recommend the 3G version if you can afford it. The iPad is just so much more mobile than a laptop that I take it everywhere if I can. The battery life is amazingly great for a device like this. So having access everywhere would make the iPad even better.

<comment><USER10> _\- GMail for the iPad is actually decent except for one bug: you can't properly scroll when composing long emails that span one vertical screen space. Again, this just makes GMail useless on occasion._

I don't have an iPad, but is this an issue of the non-obvious "use two fingers to scroll a textarea" that I and others deal with on iPhones?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wait, people who get paid to make iPad apps like the iPad? No way! Next you're going to tell me that Senators who get campaign funding from Con Agra generally vote in favor of agricultural subsidies.

</comment><comment><USER12> Who cares? Whats the point of writing even more drivel about the iPad, it really doesn't matter. The fanboys already have one, and the people who don't want them or don't care certainly won't have their mind changed with this fluff.

edit: haha, I bet I was downvoted by the guy who wrote and submitted the article. It is drivel, dude.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can promise you that I didn't downvote you! Not my style :)

Maybe hard to believe, but the three people I interviewed for the article were really that in love with their iPads. Maggie (QA) actually came to me with the idea for the article, because she wanted to talk about how she was using it professionally. So I got a couple people together that were also using it for work to give their opinions as well. But I do wish now I had tried to balance out the article with more opinions. Another guy at our company came out with a post on his personal blog last week, in favor of the kindle over the iPad, and I should have asked him to contribute to the article!

Thanks for reading though, I really enjoy the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yea. Rah. Rah. iPad.

<comment><USER14> There is a new generation of tablets upon us, expect to hear about them (from many manufacturers) a lot in the coming months.

<comment><USER15> I can't wait to hear about all the copy-cat tablets with crappy UI/UX, horrible battery life, and operating systems that were not meant for the form factor! Oh, oh, I hope they have flash too so I can get angry and throw it at the wall when it crashes constantly. Give me as many features as possible. Kill the iPad!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can someone mentor me for algorithmic programming? - <AUTHOR>

Hi!
I'm a 14 year old kid from India. I have recently cleared ZCO(Zonal Computing Olympiad). I'm preparing for INOI now. Can someone mentor me and help me learn algorithms ?
Mainly, I need help learning graph theory and dynamic programming. In graph theory, I know the basic concepts like pdfs, bfs and dijkstra and floyd-warshall. But when it comes to using the skills in questions, I fail and am unable to do so. DP is more like my weakest point. So, can someone help me ? I can't really pay much, as my family isn't from a very high economic background, but help from the HN community will be really appreciated.
You may contact me at maverick[dot]nalin[at]gmail[dot]com or via facebook or other contact details my user ID page...
P.S. Hoping this doesn't violate HN laws... <comment><USER2> For that age, my best advice is stay in school and prepare for college. Take as much math, computer science, and statistics as offered by your school.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Can nobody provide me any kind of help[other than upvotes]? Maybe you guys can refer me to someone whose willing to help me in my journey ?

<comment><USER3> Have you tried talking to someone who has taken part in this Olympiad before for help? I think you need a local mentor.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ya, but none of them are really willing to do so, plus, the standard of questions of the Olympiad has risen highly over the last few years. I'm searching for anyone willing to help me learn algprithms and also provide support to me during problem solving...

<comment><USER3> Best of luck. Awesome to be studying this stuff at only 14. If I could help I would but I only touched on those subjects 15 years ago so you probably already know more than me!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


MoMA's Digital Art Vault - <AUTHOR> http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2015/04/14/momas-digital-art-vault

<comment><USER3> I think it's great to see museum thinking more about long term storage of digital art - this is a topic that I believe will become more important in the 10 years to come, as more artist create digital or online works of art - <USER2> might even be interesting opportunities for services that preserve digital art for collectors

</comment><comment><USER4> It's good that they're planning for their future storage needs to increase drastically. I suspect that 1.2 petabytes will seem like a gross underestimate in 2025, though :)

</comment><comment><USER5> 1.2 million gigabytes ... doesn't seem all that radical. Bigger than my home storage, but only by 500 times. I also have RAID and remote backups with provable error protection.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder where it comes from. I would guess that it's a few small works like software and games, and then a lot of high-res digital transfers of films, scans of 2-D work, and photos of sculptures and installations.

<comment><USER6> Some of it's 4K video I think.

<comment><AUTHOR> For sure. I wouldn't be surprised if they had 8K scans of some things, too. I would be curious how much compression their archival system does on top of whatever original format was used.

<comment><USER7> FFV1 has been gaining popularity as an archival (lossless) video codec. It gets about 2:1 compression. I would guess that higher-res scans would compress better because neighboring pixels would look more similar, but I haven't seen any actual data supporting that. Lossless audio codecs like FLAC also get about 2:1 compression, so I'd use that as a rule of thumb for archival audio & video in general.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is HN laggy at certain times of day? - <AUTHOR>

My (android) browser frequently crashes on HN. I occasionally entertain the paranoid thought that perhaps I have been slowbanned. This evening, it seems to be loading faster and not crashing my browser. Is this a known issue with the site, perhaps tied to traffic load? <comment><USER2> The site literally _crashes_ your browser? I've never heard of that happening.

HN is busiest (and thus slowest) from roughly 9 to 11 pacific time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the delayed reply. HN is again making my browser crazy and my browser crashed the last time I tried to reply. As I was saying: I am not absolutely certain the occasional outright crash is caused by hn. I am absolutely certain that hn routinely causes me to get a message that my browser is not responding and asking if I wish to force close or wait. This sometimes occurs every single time I click on anything here. It occurs if it is the only window I have open. It is sometimes pretty extreme and frustrating.

Would that be 9am to 11pm Pacific time?

Thanks.

<comment><USER2> I don't know what the cause might be, unfortunately. But the site is lightly loaded and thus pretty fast now, so if you can reproduce the problem now, it's something weird on your end.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is mostly better than usual this evening, but not gone. It is a not infrequent issue generally, but noticeably way worse on hn.

Thanks.

<comment><USER3> Is this "android" browser on a phone? If so, which phone is it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Tablet, not phone. 7" Samsung Galaxy.

Thanks.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Open sourcing Embedding Projector: a tool for visualizing high dimensional data - <AUTHOR> https://research.googleblog.com/2016/12/open-sourcing-embedding-projector-tool.html <comment><USER2> I'm really happy to see this. I demonstrated an (in some ways) more advanced version of this a few years ago in my talk on TED.com - see the last few minutes of [http://ted.com/talks/jeremy_howard_the_wonderful_and_terrify...](http://ted.com/talks/jeremy_howard_the_wonderful_and_terrifying_implications_of_computers_that_can_learn)

Unfortunately back when I was at Enlitic we never got around to open sourcing this, but I hoped my demo would encourage people to explore tools built on projections. There's great potential to rapidly label data and improve models using these kinds of tools. I'm certainly hoping to find time to return to this myself sometime soon.

<comment><USER3> Do you know what the best options are currently for the labelling part? I'm looking for a tool to highlight phrases to train an entity recognition. IBM has something, but it's pretty expensive, and I'm not sure what this would be called.

<comment><USER4> Not entirely sure what you are looking for, but have you seen [https://demos.explosion.ai/displacy- ent/](https://demos.explosion.ai/displacy-ent/)?

<comment><USER3> This is right sort of UI. I want to be able to highlight text and say what type of entity is selected to train a new model.

It needs to be more of a workflow based system though, so you can upload 10s of thousands of documents and tag them as quickly as is reasonable.

<comment><USER4> I think BRAT can do that: [http://brat.nlplab.org/index.html](http://brat.nlplab.org/index.html)

I've never used it for doing the annotation myself though.

There are a few other possible tools here: [https://omictools.com/text- annotation-category](https://omictools.com/text-annotation-category)

<comment><USER3> This looks like what I need, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks cool, but couldn't quickly try it out. The website for Projector caused Chrome to crash- it showed a "WebGL hit a snag" error.

[http://projector.tensorflow.org/](http://projector.tensorflow.org/)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the feedback. What version of chrome and what OS are you using?

<comment><USER5> Version 54.0.2840.99 m on Windows 10.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there a TF project to build (word) embeddings suitable for this? Gensim is so easy to use, but the added flexibilty of TF could be useful.

<comment><USER7> I couldn't find one, but from what I gather from the docs[1] you can give it basically any tsv file of high dimensional data. You can have a dig around in the repo here[2].

[1][https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/master/how_tos/embedding...](https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/master/how_tos/embedding_viz/index.html) [2][https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/tree/master/tensorf...](https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/tree/master/tensorflow/tensorboard/components/vz_projector)</comment></comment>