Shopping for Spy Gear: Catalog Advertises N.S.A. Toolbox - <AUTHOR> http://spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back-doors-for-numerous-devices-a-940994.html <comment><USER2> Somehow I doubt Al Qaeda is using Juniper, but our allies (read: economic adversaries) are.

I hope the companies listed -- Dell, Cisco, Juniper, IBM, Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, et al -- are happy with themselves. The government's mantra has historically been similar to that of Microsoft's: embrace, extend, extinguish. The US Government is no different and they'll happily throw every company under the bus for the smallest advantage over their adversaries.

America's rivalry with China is continually climbing higher and higher, and we're getting dragged along whether we like it or not. The unshakable intertwining of private and public industries, the scorched-earth economic policies where private industry is consumed for the benefit of the public, the unlimited spying powers -- all to stay ahead of China.

The real kicker is that this kind of spying power compounds on itself -- as soon as we get Juniper gear exploited then we can move onto infiltrating Seagate's intranets, and then we can use Seagate exploits to more easily dig into hard-drives accessible by us/in custody by us. We may never be able to make a distinction between which tech companies have been exploited and which are wilfully/maliciously passing vulnerability information to the US Government.

<comment><USER3> >I hope the companies listed -- Dell, Cisco, Juniper, IBM, Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, et al -- are happy with themselves.

I'm not going to say that these companies are fantastic. I'm just not, but I will say that perhaps this isn't really their fault.

Let's say that BIND has a critical vulnerability that allows people to snoop on the requests made. Does that make the ISC guilty of giving the NSA access to every BIND DNS server on the internet?

No, it doesn't.

<comment><USER4> The question is whether these exploits are accidents or the result of companies giving in to pressure from the NSA.

If the Snowden revelations are to be believed, at least some of the exploits were the result of giving into NSA pressure.

But the problem with this is that it breaks the chain of trust that a company has with it's customers. Once you know the NSA is applying pressure secretly to force some vulnerabilities to remain open, how can you know they aren't doing that with any given vulnerability.

<comment><USER5> My guess is that it's all of the above. You're talking about a massive, compartmentalized organization.

I'm sure that different groups approach their data acquisition activities with multiple channels, if for no reason other than to prevent other NSA people from knowing about to what they are doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This new information puts American companies at even more risk of lost sales since given two companies, American Company and Foreign Company, the NSA is always going to have a massive advantage in penetrating the American company to get as much information they want to produce these backdoors. Whenever they fail to remotely access the company networks containing the IP for all the equipment they want to target, they have many more options available to physically access the network of these companies, possibly going as far as having a mole working at the companies, exfiltrating the IP they need to produce the tools in the catalog or even deliberately putting in backdoors.

This is probably the most damning information I've seen of NSA activities. This is anti-American activity since it clearly harms US economic interests. This coupled with the policy that spying on foreigners is fair-game is enough reason to give any foreign government or company enough reason never to purchase equipment from US tech companies.

As an engineer in the US, this makes my blood boil. I really hope that this new information generates more interest in open-source network software and hardware.

<comment><USER7> Juniper were making good inroads into the corporate firewall market at the expense of Checkpoint. It'll be interesting to see whether this sees a move back to Checkpoint as the firewall product of choice.

<comment><USER8> Another reason to consider pfSense (which could use a crowdfunded secaudit like TrueCrypt).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> After all these years of free software proponents advocating for open source BIOSes and getting mocked for their supposed impracticality, we see the truth.

<comment><USER10> NSA is not exploiting or pre-backdooring the BIOS, it's just reflashing it with an malicious payload to keep the system infection alive. No amount of open source anything would make them unable to do this.

<comment><USER11> In fact, the things that would make it difficult to do this are routinely criticized by "open source" partisans as tools for suppressing Linux.

<comment><USER12> The things that make it difficult to do this are only obstacles to adversaries that don't have access to Intel's secret keys. If you have those, by design you can both bypass secure boot and reflash the BIOS with whatever code you like, and the very same restrictions that stop normal users from doing those things also make it impossible for them to detect that it's happened. The NSA has an entire well-funded division dedicated to helping enable eavesdropping by retrieving information like those keys.

Those security features are genuinely only useful for stopping people from installing Linux and open BIOSes. They can only protect computers from their users, not from the NSA.

<comment><USER13> Exactly. Lavabit example is 100% clear: one user is enough for three letter agencies to get the court request for all the private keys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The NSA must have an enormous pile of unkown exploits to facilitate all that. I wonder how they prevent other US agencies and government networks to be vulnerable to the exploits the NSA uses itself, or if they even bother trying to do that.

Leaving pretty much the entire IT infrastructure vulnerable seems like a very dangerous strategy.

<comment><USER15> It is fascinating that if they just would inform vendors on their security vulnerabilities and have them patched, that this would probably make us more secure than the eavesdropping they can do with the exploits.

<comment><USER16> It depends on the resources involved.

A big assumption that lots of bug-hunters make, that "this is one of the last bugs, and once fixed, the product will be much more secure." But there are always more bugs. If you assume that are more exploitable bugs beyond the one you are fixing now, it means that the vendors and customers have to spend time and money patching things, and won't really be any more secure afterwards.

Also "if I found it, so can The Bad Guys" is something that applies to individuals and small research teams. It's not necessarily the case that when the NSA finds something that other people are going to find it, too.

Also, unlike most security researchers, the NSA has the resources to monitor if other people are exploiting the vulnerabilities they found.

I'm not saying that the country _wouldn 't_ be safer if the NSA disclosed these vulnerabilities to vendors. I'm only saying that many of the common heuristics that researchers assume as true may not be, and especially not when applied to the NSA.

<comment><USER17> _...there are always more bugs._

True but trivial. It's much more instructive to pay attention to the _rate_ at which vulnerabilities are discovered. For e.g. qmail that rate is very close to zero per decade. For less secure products the rate varies over time; some researchers have noted a sort of "honeymoon" period that protects new code. Packages that don't in some sense eventually "settle down" after that period ends might ought to be replaced. Or perhaps they are important or unimportant enough to mitigate their vulnerabilities through other means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The damage that this does to US software and hardware manufacturers and service providers like hosting companies is incalculable. The NSA is providing a strong ongoing incentive to buy your hardware offshore and host your servers offshore. As an American entrepreneur I'm horrified by the long term implications of this. It seems for all the mathematicians they employ they're unable to see that the long term cost of these programs far outweighs the short term benefits.

<comment><USER19> The NSA also got Huawei's stuff too. I highly doubt a Chinese company was cooperating with the NSA. Really,it seems like the NSA just went after market leaders and developed exploits against those systems. As far as this article suggests, they had no internal help in doing so.

Not using US equipment probably does little. The solution is to make secure equipment that is harder to exploit. Moreover, the argument can be made that if the NSA can find these issues, so can others that the US government considers a threat to national security.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is it.

Literally everything is infected.

Again, either the NSA goes (and you know that won't happen) or information technology goes or democracy as we know it goes.

Everyone, take your pick now.

<comment><USER21> This is effectively a weapons system, and any country with budget can build the same system or better. To stop the NSA would be unilateral disarmament, without reason to expect others to cut back on their infowar programs.

<comment><USER6> Or you know maybe we can demand that this unit actively try to help these companies improve the security of everything in the catalog so that we are all secure. Knowingly allowing vulnerabilities to persist in equipment that a US citizen or US corporation purchases from companies like Juniper Networks or Cisco is akin to leaving them unprotected and defenseless against malicious adversaries.

We're not asking for disarmament. We're asking for de-weaponization by retasking the TAO and the unit that produces these products to work on defensive activities instead of offensive activities. For a long time many, except those considered tin-foil hatters, viewed the NSA as fundamentally providing a useful service to protect Americans and American companies. Now it's clear the tin-foil hatters were right and that the NSA is essentially an offensive organization and that even American citizens and companies are victims of those offensive capabilities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So essentially an internal, military-grade Metasploit.

It's not surprising that NSA would develop and maintain a strong repertoire of exploits for popular infrastructure. What else did you think an organization tasked "to produce foreign signals intelligence information" was doing with all those computer security experts on staff?

Is there evidence that NSA was _planting_ backdoors or that US tech firms were cooperating? Isn't it more likely that NSA was simply discovering (and possibly purchasing) 0-days just like everyone else?

They can do that with foreign equipment just as easily. Switching to non-US hardware is just irrational.

</comment><comment><USER23> Stallman was right. Again. [http://stallman.org/stallman- computing.html](http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html)

Trust nothing. Everything is a lie.

</comment><comment><USER24> Anyone have a copy of the suposed catalog? I didn't find a source in the article.

<comment><USER20> If WikiLeaks had gotten a copy from Snowden, you would have had this catalog now.

<comment><USER24> It is pretty ridiculous that the press is somewhat exempt from providing sources for their statements.

Wikileaks would have been much better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How on earth could this possibly be verified?

If I was the NSA right now, I would be "leaking" tons of fake, and fantastic, stories about myself in order to discredit any legitimate concerns.

I can imagine the talking heads now "well what else were these conspiracy theorists wrong about? Personally I'm glad somebody is out the protecting our freedom."

etc.

<comment><USER26> From the reporting, it looks like they had official documents with an actual price list for various exploits, along with details about what they entailed ("rigged monitor cable", "USB nubs"). What exactly do you consider to be 'verified'? Alexander or Clapper standing up and owning up to it? Good luck with that...

<comment><USER27> There is little Jake Appelbaum (one of the listed authors of this piece) won't do or say for media attention and public credibility.

Documents would be plausible. "Trust us, we've read them" from someone widely known to lie and steal is another matter entirely.

Entirely unsubstantiated rumors on the internets suggest that Jake got a talk pulled this week from the CCC hacker conference presently underway in Hamburg (which he keynoted last year) that was due to explore his motives and relationship with the US government, as he is the only US citizen publicly affiliated with Wikileaks and has not yet been charged, arrested, or imprisoned (and Wikileaks has not really done anything damaging to the US government since CM/Cablegate).

Don't believe everything you read.

<comment><USER28> You've made a number of accusations toward Appelbaum, a well respected researcher, without providing any evidence. This generally is a sign that someone is acting in bad faith.

Care to provide sources, or does the person asking me not to believe everything I read expect me to take his claims on faith and "entirely unsubstantiated rumor"?

<comment><USER27> > a well respected researcher

He's only well respected outside of the security research community. Those inside know him better than that.

> This generally is a sign that someone is acting in bad faith.

Indeed, this is why many people directly affected by his harassment, backstabbing, and general underhanded techniques employed in his pursuit of fame and glory choose to ignore him rather than directly and publicly address his treachery.

Unfortunately, that means his past goes unreported.

I hold lay opinions of my reputation in little regard, so I (unlike many friends of mine) have no issue saying what I know.

It's all hearsay by the time it gets to you, though, as I'm the first hop away with many of these reports. I'm not interested in opening myself up to a libel suit.

For a general impression of his behavior, please go review his own posts on the noisebridge mailing list archives. Don't take my word for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This sorts news makes me shake my head. The scammers are trying to get in, the NSA is in, and now every other state security organisation will feel if they don't try to get in they will be falling behind.

All I want is to do is keep clients safe and out of all this cross-fire.

</comment><comment><USER26> With a proper oversight regime and individualized warrants, I can see this being an acceptable use of NSA power. With the absurd degree of intrusive latitude the NSA possesses now, it just makes it easier for them to violate civil liberties on a massive scale. Very few people can avoid being compromised by backdoors in these devices and companies, the same way very few people can avoid the physical threat of government aggression. The difference is that the latter has a far more robust system of controls to ensure it is used judiciously and ethically. Until the former has the same, we need to do everything we can to limit or invalidate the NSA's power.

</comment><comment><USER30> How did this get submitted when the exact same link was posted 2 hours ago? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6979240](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6979240)

<comment><USER31> It seems spiegel.de vs www.spiegel.de wasn't caught by HNs duplicate URL detection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This article feels like it may be somewhat misleading around the use of the term "back door".

If the NSA has infact backdoored all of those products, kudos for keeping it quiet for this long!

if however these products have vulnerabilities in them, like all software does, and the NSA have access to these vulnerabilities (like numerous other people do), it's not quite as devious.

In that case they didn't have a super-secret backdoor installed with no-one noticing, but in fact discovered that the window wasn't locked, and kept that a secret.

</comment><comment><USER33> Mostly OT: besides the technical details, I'm interested in seeing the actual descriptive text for these items. In my mind, the tone would be something similar to this parody [http://www.teamfortress.com/sniper_vs_spy/day04_english.htm](http://www.teamfortress.com/sniper_vs_spy/day04_english.htm)

</comment><comment><USER34> Can't wait to get Google Glass...

<comment><USER35> To which the NSA's answer will be, "Yo, dawg, we heard you like spying..."</comment></comment>


"Monads," huh? Bro, have you even read Leibniz? - <AUTHOR> http://mrh.io/monads-leibniz/ <comment><USER2> I know what a monad is from Leibniz.

I know what a monad is in APL. (APL is the second computer language I learned, following Fortran IV.)

I know that "Monads come out of the sky and they stand there." from Yes.

dictionary.com tells me that monad is

1\. Biology.

any simple, single-celled organism.

any of various small, flagellate, colorless ameboids with one to three flagella, especially of the genus Monas.

2\. Chemistry.

an element, atom, or group having a valence of one. Compare dyad (def 3), triad (def 2a).

3\. Philosophy.

(in the metaphysics of Leibniz) an unextended, indivisible, and indestructible entity that is the basic or ultimate constituent of the universe and a microcosm of it.

(in the philosophy of Giordano Bruno) a basic and irreducible metaphysical unit that is spatially and psychically individuated.

any basic metaphysical entity, especially having an autonomous life.

4\. a single unit or entity.

I liked this article. It was well-written and easy to understand. I thought I might have learned something about a stumbling block which I encounter every time I try to learn what FP is about.

coolsunglasses then says that the article is all wrong but gives very little information about what FP monads really are.

> It's a useful pattern that can be reified in a sufficiently expressive type > system.

Is that not usually called a template?

All of my programs were functional. If they didn't function, I would not have been paid.

</comment><comment><USER3> >small functions that lift types from simple to complex.

That's not what Monad is.

Monad isn't core to FP, but it's a convenient way to express some common things in functional programs.

>In the Haskell language, and many other modern languages, the definition is more complex. Here, a monad is also function, but it is a special type of function. Monads typically "lift" a primitive variable types (Integer, String, etc), to more complex types (MutableString, NullableInt).

This is completely wrong.

>we can define the Haskell monads as that which takes one singular state and outputs another.

This is also wrong.

>Thus, we can arrive at a definition of the computer science monad as a fundamental unit of computation.

It's not at all fundamental to computation. It's a useful pattern that can be reified in a sufficiently expressive type system.

There's no relationship between Leibniz monads and the Monad you see in FP. Sorry.</comment>


Android Devices Vulnerability: Baidu Wrote the Code, but Google Made It Possible - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/millions-android-devices-vulnerable-remote-hijacking-baidu-wrote-code-google-made <comment><USER2> > Android's Permission System Was Broken…

No, it's still is broken until Google starts _enforcing_ the new permission model on app developers. Until then it's more of a "wouldn't it be nice if all those developers enabling 20+ permissions for their apps in the past would just switch to the new model where the users can block many of them?" kind of thing.

<comment><USER3> This is just wrong, what are you talking about.

Even if an old app asks you for 20+ permissions, you can manually disable every one of them afterwards, if you want.</comment></comment>


We should start working less to prepare for automation - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1642115/workplace-automation-will-help-us-embrace-the-four-day-workweek/ <comment><USER2> With this logic, should we stop working altogether to prepare for death?</comment>


Leaked OPCW report suggests Syria gas attack was 'staged' - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptwEIX3yHeI <comment><USER2> For those who don't want to watch this on YouTube, whether this source is at all credible I have no idea, but at least it's text;

[https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/confirmed-chemical- weapon...](https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/confirmed-chemical-weapons- assessment-contradicting-official-syria-narrative-is-authentic-fbcbf7ef281a)

Something from a more "mainstream" site;

[https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/douma-syria-opcw- chemic...](https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/douma-syria-opcw-chemical- weapons-chlorine-gas-video-conspiracy-theory-russia-a8927116.html)</comment>


Baidu Announces Breakthrough In Speech Recognition - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2014/12/18/baidu-announces-breakthrough-in-speech-recognition-claiming-to-top-google-and-apple/print/

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8769067](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8769067)</comment>


How to Tell If You Should Hire an InfoSec Person with a Music Degree - <AUTHOR> https://danielmiessler.com/blog/tell-hire-infosec-person-music-degree/ <comment><USER2> I like the tone in which this article is presented. Slight sass but still strongly on point. No unnecessary fluff or tangential information.

I also like the flowchart at the very top. I didn't know that a music degree holder was involved in a InfoSec related case. Had I heard about this from a different source, I too might have said "oh maybe that why."

<comment><AUTHOR> The CSO of Equifax has music degrees, and many people in the infosec community are basically shaming the company, and her, over it.

And maybe she deserves shame. Not sure. But if so it wouldn't be for her degree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Not infosec, but in general tech fields, I have absolutely observed this to be the case. I work with a Philosophy PhD and a person with a no degree, and both are excellent at their job. (Of course my judgement might limited because I have an MFA in Screenwriting.)

</comment><comment><USER4> I have personally gone through something like this. I have a degree in Biotechnology and stammer a bit too, which normally doesn't matter in conversations.

There are some employers who question my ability based on stammering while others on my Biotech degree. Even with 8+ years of IT experience, it hasn't gone away. I once had an employer who knew that I stammer a bit make me jump through 5 rounds of interview only to say - well you stammer so not a good fit. While there was one who refused to consider my resume because "non-CS".

I have compiled a personal blacklist of such companies.</comment>


Ask HN: What best alternatives for Macbook Pro 2015? - <AUTHOR> I've never actually purchased a Macbook - Companies I've worked at mostly provided it to me. I've been using Macbook without actually buying one.
Lately, I feel that my usage on this machine has advanced beyond work that it warrants purchasing it for my own. 1) Personal writing 2) Personal development/research for fun.(I haven't done this on company's laptop for obvious reasons, but the desire has been growing) 3) "the" laptop of the house - it's the central hub that most of my bluetooth devices connect, I do my e-mails on it, I manage my NAS on it, etc.
Essentially I'm looking for a lifestyle laptop - one you take to the coffee shop. to The issue is that I don't feel like purchasing any of the newer model beyond the 2015 (one with lightning ports and USB-2.0 ports). To me, that was the peak macbook - both in build quality and usability. I strongly dislike the touch bar, flimsy keyboards, lack of ports, magsafe, and so on. It would need to be durable and supportable.
The issue is the alternative and the longevity of it after 3-4 years. I clearly do not agree with the Apple's philosophy with their new line of products and I doubt they'll change course.
1) What current alternative to Macbook Pro(2017) do I have at the similar price point?
2) Has Linux improved substantially since 2016 in terms of usability?
- Obviously yes, but how much of "hand-wrangling" do I need to go through to make it usable?
3) I can't imagine I'm the only one in this shoe. What has everyone's experience been?
4) Specifically, I'm looking for this spec -
https://support.apple.com/kb/SP715
Is there a version that is more recent than this version, while maintaining the same quality(ports,  good keyboard, no touch bar, etc)? Also, is it worth getting a 15 inch?
I'll leave the previous discussions from HN as a postscript and my thoughts why I felt the need to post a new question. <comment><AUTHOR> Postscript - Previous discussions on this topic that I found useful while posting this question -

1)"Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?" \- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12820778](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12820778)

I decided to discard this one as this was posted in 2016 - 3 years old and most products mentioned were outdated.

2) "Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?" \- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16785507](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16785507)

I felt many of my frustrations echoed in the thread. There were a lot of mentions of Thinkpad and Lenovo series with linux - As a proud Dell owner for 7 years(may its rusty soul rest in peace) I am certainly intrigued and wanted to get a fresh take on it.

3) "Ask HN: Is the new MacBook Pro worth its value for a developer?" \- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17894252](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17894252)

This thread essentially re-affirmed my aversion to the latest Macbook Pro models. I saw new hires using the later versions and I can repeat most sentiments expressed in that thread in my voice.

4) "Ask HN: Best robust laptop for everyday software development" \- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18022809](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18022809)

PascLeRasc's comment ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18024812](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18024812)) pretty much echos my sentiment and my reasoning to get a 2015. I wanted to see if there were other alternatives or if it makes sense to get a 4-year-old model in 2019.

Thanks

<comment><USER2> I have a late 2014 MBP and I am also looking at changing soon. The new XPS (7590) came out recently and the reviews are pretty good. It seems to be well compatible with Linux too[1]

[1][https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/cec0vr/experience_run...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/cec0vr/experience_running_linux_on_dell_xps_15_7590/)</comment></comment>


Orbital makes Music on the Web (overview video) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3DOmRgnsEQ

<comment><USER2> these kinds of tools will bring out some _huge_ real musical talent in kids playing with them...

music is about to take off on some great tangents.

-bowerbird</comment>


Customers say they've been locked out of their Amazon Prime accounts - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-closes-users-accounts-customers-fight-back-2018-4 <comment><USER2> I had this happen to me last year and was never able to get it resolved. Like some in the article, the deletion of my account was incomplete- my wishlist were still there, I could place orders from an Android device where I was still signed in on the app, and to this day I have a dash button that will order from my supposedly deleted account.

</comment><comment><USER3> Funny... It took me about 2 weeks and multiple emails back and forth to close my account, and then it took Amazon almost a year to completely forget about me (I hope). Apparently if you don't want your account closed they can nuke it much faster.

</comment><comment><USER4> Anyone here on HN affected?</comment>


The iPhone 8 is reportedly selling worse than the iPhone 7 - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2017/10/17/iphone-7-outselling-iphone-8/#OqIw6HwCROqc <comment><USER2> So this is a modern iPhone X "Osborne" effect on the 8? People who are willing to pay for a high end phone are waiting for the iPhone X, and price sensitive customers are going to save with an iPhone 7, and the 8 is squeezed out of sales...</comment>


Alphabet Announces Second Quarter 2020 Results [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/2020Q2_alphabet_earnings_release.pdf?cache=a881c38 <comment><AUTHOR> Revenue only down 2% from q2 2019 which is not as bad as I thought it was going be as I would assume ad budgets would have gotten slashed hard. Google cloud is up from 2.1 billion to 3 which is a nice 42% growth rate year over year and despite gsuite being included in that, that growth is probably coming a lot from actual cloud.

Oh, and they just authorized another whopping 28 billion dollar stock buyback.

<comment><USER2> The less happy news is:

\- Margins dropped from 24% to 17%. [page 1]

\- Diluted EPS dropped from 14.21 to $10.13. [page 1]

\- They now have 20,000 more employees to pay out of their reduced income. [page 2]</comment></comment>


Very strange Nokia Lumia 2520 ad - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7xVrI-tUIQ

<comment><USER2> Will no one learn the lesson of the Palm Pre Creepy Woman ads?

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3OfYkJbyLw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3OfYkJbyLw)

</comment><comment><USER3> Creep mode >>Activate<<!

That guy should get his own movie.

</comment><comment><USER4> At least it's amusing :)</comment>


Show HN: Launching energy tracking and automation web app - <AUTHOR> http://unplu.gg

<comment><USER2> Holy image size. Pretty cool idea, and it seems like you've put a lot of time into the site, but I recommend hiring a designer to clean everything up. A site is often the first impression of a company, and if I came across this on my own I would have immediately left.

Some things right off the top of my head:

\- Don't use a giant 650kb image for the main content block. This can be broken down a lot into smaller images and css. I would even have a sign up form or large sign up button as part of this block too.

\- Use sans-serif fonts, I usually go with something like Open Sans

\- Don't use grey text on a grey background. I would maybe put a white background for the middle 960px of the page to give more focus to the content.

Hope this helps a bit, and if you have questions or want some more advice feel free to message me.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the clear feedback.

We will be taking it into account as we revamp the landing page - which is naturally on the short-term roadmap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi, it isn't really clear what the product is. How does it interface with my meter or other hardware? Do I need to buy the app and a power monitor? How does it communicate with my existing home network, or the internet? The copy is written by a non-native English speaker, there are subtle problems with the language, that plus the graphic design needs to be tightened up. The overall marketing needs to be more serious-- I think the product sector is more like banking or health care, in that there are major safety and privacy concerns. So you need marketing that conveys that you're serious people, that the hardware won't catch on fire or electrocute me, and that the API and my home network are secure.

<comment><USER5> Agree 100%. Do I need to buy something? I don't know. Can I just download the app and connect it to existing hardware in my house? If I need to buy a monitor first, why wouldn't I use the software that that comes with?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I just signed up using a custom userid/pwd (not FB login) and did not connect any social network account to unplu.gg and I noticed that my picture is showing up in the profile.

How did that happen?

<comment><AUTHOR> You probably have your email connected to a gravatar account with your picture.

<comment><USER6> That's it. Was confirmed by Antonio from unplu.gg.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is great! Last year, I worked on a project during a hackathon to build an energy meter and gamify saving electricity by building a game where the user is fighting vampires. The more electricity users saved in the real world, the more virtual energy they built up in the game to be able to defend against waves of vampire attacks.

Once products like this become mainstream, it'll be nice to see developers work on more polished ideas that use energy usage data in interesting and meaningful ways.

<comment><USER8> One thing that I like that the Nest (<http://www.nest.com/>) has done is they give you a green leaf if you set the temperature at an energy saving level. Then each month or so they email you how many green leaves you've accumulated and how you are doing compared to the average in your area. While this is not a full blown "game" it definitely triggered my competitive side and I've tried to turn down the thermostat to get as many green leaves as possible.

<comment><USER9> Rather than seeing what kind of punishing temperatures one can endure to please their thermostat, other options are available that I consider more intelligent. An attic fan, thicker insulation, whole-house fan, window maintenance, sealing air gaps, etc. While there is the demographic that has an empty house while they're gone at work, most have a family, pets, etc. that should not be subject to varying extremes of temperatures. Instead of focusing on when to adjust temperature for human conditions for the sake of saving energy (and money), the house should probably be sealed better to _retain_ the temperature with minimal machinery involvement. The Nest is a cool gadget, but very limited in actual value in its current implementation.

<comment><USER8> Very true, It would be like trying to pump more blood into a bleeding patient and calling it good when the rate you are pumping in matches the rate at which its exiting the gaping wound. I live in an apartment building so the relatively small space and little bits that I can do to increase insulation make the Nest perfect for my application. Also being able to turn my heat on while I'm driving home is a huge win.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I recommend putting Amazon (or other) affiliate links to purchase the hardware you support. I don't have such hardware but am interested in it. I would have gladly clicked your links to check it out. Instead I now have to copy and paste into search.

</comment><comment><USER11> Any info or thoughts about supporting Green Button exports?

<comment><USER3> There is an API already to export data. Currently it doesn't use the Greenbutton format, but is something to be considered in the future.

<comment><USER11> I was more thinking of the ability to import my greenbutton data to gain insights

<comment><USER3> We already parse that type of data, if it is from tendril connect.

Where you thinking about uploading a simple file?

If you would like to help us understand your use case, can you send a quick email to mail at unplu dot gg ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> how is this different from WattVision.com?

<comment><USER3> <http://unplu.gg> is hardware agnostic.

The data can be collected from a range of sensors like The Energy Detective or Current Cost. That is the current best selling point.

The rest is vision of what this service can be. And our focus in that regard seems very differente, although only a part of that vision is represented in the current state of the app.

Hopefully we will be back in a couple of months showing a couple of disruptive new features.</comment></comment>


The Silicon Valley elite's latest status symbol: Chickens - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/03/02/feature/the-silicon-valley-elites-latest-status-symbol-chickens/ <comment><USER2> Hit piece of an article from an East coaster. It doesn't take much traveling to realize that people in California like all organic, chicken, and organic food as something normal/part of their lifestyle, independent of their income.

Heck, I know plenty of folks in either Oakland or Berkley, that do raise their own animals.

Being in SV, or an engineer, has anything to do it. The only constrain is to have a back yard. When that is not possible, than people start growing organic in communal farms.

There are few of them in Brooklyn as well, even one in East Village (done on an abandoned lot).

<comment><USER3> It doesn't take much traveling to realize that people in the Northeast are basically interchangeable with folks in the Bay Area, and that we have plenty of backyard animals here, too.

(I lived in Berkeley and Palo Alto for a decade, back in New England now, have always kept chickens. Had goats in Palo Alto, will have them again in New England when we move to a house with bigger yard.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> is it just me or is homesteading becoming popular again? jerry brown is retiring to an off-grid ranch. off-grid ranches, homes and homesteads are becoming more popular. locally grown greens are more popular which flirts with homesteading and is totally different from the centralized farm model of the past. and me and a lot of people ive known all seem to have come upon living away from the city, growing a little food and keeping some chickens, as an attractive prospect. i think this trend may grow into something much larger

<comment><USER5> I definitely feel a trend going on for small-scale agriculture. But unlike in olden times where it might have been a way to reduce a (lower class) family's grocery bill, now it's more of a hobby for rich boys that probably in most cases does not make any economical sense.

<comment><USER6> Small scale agriculture is actually very profitable if you do it right. I know farmer making $100,000/year off half an acre within city of Vancouver, and while that's definitely a bit of an outlier, shows that it's very very possible to have profitable small scale agriculture. In fact, most of the big farmers I know are drowning in debt. Sometimes scale is a burden.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In Senegal, Africa, a similar thing is happening with sheeps. They, however, have taken it to a whole new level. People breed them and ask for exorbitant prices, say $1,000 for a lamb before they are born. Peple negogiate prices sometimes pre-conception. These sheeps have names, some are known locally or regionally. Nowadays it is not uncommon to hear a seller tell you "This is so and so, the grandson of so and do and so and so."

<comment><USER8> I would love to read about this, especially if it included photos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's tough to read the tech workers quoted in the article talking about how they're doing things that farmers did long ago, like figuring out how to maximize egg yield to chicken feed.

I can't believe I find it so difficult to relate to people who have many of the same interests and presumably backgrounds as I do.

<comment><USER10> As with most stories about tech workers' ridiculous extravagance, they are really talking about tech executives, investors, and entrepreneurs. It's not surprising at all that ICs are as culturally distant from senior management in tech as everywhere else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not in SV and the market where I make my living doesn't have nearly the high salaries or costs, but I've considered getting chickens a few times. I didn't plan to do it for health reasons, environmental reasons, or any sort of activism. I considered it because working in tech consistently makes me feel very far removed from the kind of lives that many people lived only two generations ago and having backyard chickens has always appealed to me as a way to slow down a bit and do something that's completely different from my usual routine of going to work in a corporate office all day and feeling like everything I do is completely ephemeral.

I've been very blessed to get into tech and have a nice living for the last 20 years but some days I really wonder what it would be like to live an existence that wasn't almost completely dedicated to technology. The reason I've never followed through on chickens is because I suspect that having them won't really evoke the kind of connection to simpler times that I crave.

I don't really enjoy articles like this. Am I supposed to decide that all backyard chickens are anachronistic foolishness or only that it's silly if it's taken to the extreme presented here? If people get pleasure out of backyard chickens that's nice, regardless of whether they feed them scraps or grilled salmon. I can think of many other pastimes that are far more pernicious.

<comment><USER6> Have you tried growing your own food as a way to get that connection back?

For me, ive found it an invaluable way to "get out of my head" and calm down my mind. It's very peaceful, plus you get to eat fresh food. But mostly I do it to stay grounded, pun partially intended

<comment><USER11> I did try that about ten years ago and while I enjoyed it a little I had problems with pests ranging from slugs to deer. I also had a bit of a black thumb and my veggies never turned out that well. Part of the reason I've never taken the plunge with chickens is because I worry I'd make a bad farmer. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Alert: hit piece !

It's true that there is an obscene amount of money in SV, and it has chiefly been accumulated by building out the modern surveillance state to the detriment of wider society.

But given that the mainstream critique seems to be inevitably descending into this type of populist rabble rousing over the petty, the result is not going to be productive nor pretty.

</comment><comment><USER13> This title would benefit strongly from an apostrophe.

</comment><comment><USER14> Whenever I visit my mother-in-law's house, she always prepares fresh chicken for us, and by that I mean she keeps a few live ones (provided by a farm, she doesn't raise them) in a storage locker outside of her apartment that she then kills with her hands when they are going to be eaten. She doesn't even live in a rural area, china is just flexible like that.

I looked into it here, but it seems like keeping live chickens in your storage space is a nono in most USA cities.

<comment> xkcd-sucks Ducks are much more quiet, but they do require some water

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So chickens are the new horses when even the rich can't afford pastures

</comment><comment><USER16> Huh. Here in the remote-work mid-south, chickens are commonplace. The eggs just taste better.

I guess every locale has advantages and disadvantages. For me, winter weather gets extra weighting.

</comment><comment><USER17> Chinese families in Silicon Valley have literally been doing this for years, out of frugality and not status-seeking. They also do group buys of meat direct from the farm.

</comment><comment><USER18> Allow me to dissect the subtle bragging in the opening:

> Excelling at his work, Land said, requires an obsessive focus on it

"I excel at my work."

> But maintaining that passion — especially with his fourth child on the way — > means knowing when to detach

"I'm excellent at my job, despite having more kids than average (i.e., probably more family obligations than _you_ ). And also, I find time to ' _detach_ '. I'm awesome at my job _and_ find time to chill out."

> relaxing with a glass of wine in the back yard alongside his wife, kids and > the family's 13 chickens and three sheep

"Despite working in Silicon Valley, where a 1100sqft home with no yard costs $2m, I have a wine-worthy backyard with enough grounds even for sheep and chickens."

This just reeks of the I'M ALWAYS WINNING attitude so pervasive in Silicon Valley, buried in an article about chickens ffs.

<comment><USER19> Please don't use uppercase for emphasis in HN comments, regardless of how annoying something is. It's basically yelling, and the site guidelines ask you not to: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).</comment></comment>


Golang port of simdjson: parsing gigabytes of JSON per second - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/minio/simdjson-go <comment><USER2> If speed matters, perhaps you shouldn't be using JSON in the first place...</comment>


Miniature Norwegian enclosed velomobile could replace cars - <AUTHOR> http://ebiketips.road.cc/content/news/podbike-electric-four-wheeler-coming-to-the-streets-in-late-2018-1415 <comment><USER2> LOL not with the Sinclair C5 still on our mind. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5)

<comment><USER3> Sometimes there's a Newton or two before you get to iphone.

<comment><USER4> I suspect just like the iPhone needed a good mobile network to become successful this would need an extensive cycleway network.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Note: Hyperbolic HN headline is wildly divergent from the headline on the linked article: "Podbike electric four wheeler coming to the streets in late 2018"

</comment><comment><USER6> Limited to EU speeds and power for cycles, which is 250w and pedal assist up to 15.5mph.

So not all that useful.

<comment><USER7> Well, yes and no. 15.5mph is almost 25 km/h. Anecdata, but my car average speed during the city drives is around 35 km/h. 25 km/h doesn't seem that bad to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting that it doesn't have a direct drive, instead a motor on each rear wheel and a generator on the pedals.</comment>


Show HN: Server Monitoring powered by 21.co and Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> https://www.globespotter.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is a very simple monitoring service to send you an email/text if your server goes down. The interesting part is that it is powered by the nodes on the 21.co Grid Computing network who are paid in Bitcoin to report the status and latency info. Let me know if you have any feedback about it or any thoughts...</comment>


Show HN: A Modern HN Client (iOS) - <AUTHOR>

There are many like it but this one is mine: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pivit/id705715915?mt=8
Seriously, though, this Hacker News reader is better than what's out there, or I wouldn't have spent time on it.
How? Most importantly, it utilizes the background refresh APIs, so content is always up to date. Pull to refresh is there, but you probably won't need it. The more addicted you are, the more often it updates. So if you check every few hours, you'll always get the current front page.
Complementing this, it helps you see not only what you've read but what you've decided not to. I kept wasting precious milliseconds re-scanning titles that I wasn't interested in. Pivit fixes that by showing a little orange indicator to the left of an article if it's new to you. Stuff you've already read is dimmed.
It also uses a new text rendering engine (Text Kit) to respects system font settings, for the senior devs out there...
If that's not enough, well, it's the only client sporting a modern iOS7-native design, with beautiful typography.
It does not currently offer posting or account mumbo jumbo, but I'll add that if it gets any traction.
Try it out today and let me know what you think. I built it mostly for me, but also for you. Free today, a buck tomorrow. <comment><USER2> First reaction: I only see 4 submissions per screenful, on my iPhone 4s. I'd prefer more density.

news:yc shows me 5 submissions per screen, and the description of each submission includes age, number of comments, points, and submitter username. (I could probably do without the points -- the rest I need.)

I don't care for comment threads to be collapsed by default. Especially when I open one comment thread, I have to then keep touching again to see further subcomments -- that doesn't work for me.

Thanks for the free trial. I wouldn't have tried it otherwise.

And thanks for building another HN client. I don't really care much for any of the ones I've tried. What I'd really like is the Alien Blue reddit client for HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't care for any others save one, so it was worth a shot even though there's a ton of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm pretty pleased with my discovery of Minihack for iOS. The UI is the best I've seen and I love the integration with Readability.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't seem to be able to view the actual submission text for the Ask HNs, just the comments. I like how you don't use readability or any of that, just load the page. And also, is there a way to add Open in Chrome to the share button?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good idea for Chrome users, I'll look into it.

<comment><USER4> Awesome, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The link to Support ([http://support.imagistapp.com/](http://support.imagistapp.com/)) seems borked for me</comment>


Ask HN: what do you use for hep documentation in your web app? - <AUTHOR>

A cms? Blog software? Hardcore? <comment><AUTHOR> That was supposed to say "hardcode". Thank you autofill.</comment>


Ask HN: Workplace has Poor Knowledge Management – How to deal with it? - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
I got a pretty decent desktop support gig a few months ago and while on the whole it's been pretty great, I feel like my development is stagnating because the place has pisspoor knowledge management. Every process or procedure or general knowledge/bit of info is in a series of non-curated OneNote books that are written by anyone and everyone. Furthermore, there are a million ways to do one task and everyone is certain that THEIR method is the right way.
At this point, I've dropped the ball on a few things, missed some simple steps in certain important processes because the documentation was basically written in crayon, and people are starting to resent me for having to pick up the slack when I mess up.
We are a few months away from rolling out ServiceNow and I've been granted access as Knowledge admin in effort to build out the knowledge base. This is great, but in the meantime, people think I suck, and I'm starting to believe them. Halp! <comment><USER2> I was the NCOIC of Knowledge Management for a US Army Sustainment Command many years ago. In order for any knowledge sharing program to be effective it must be supported (strongly) by senior leadership. This is the single most important consideration to your knowledge management proposal.

In order to have a mediocre knowledge management program there must be a knowledge sharing policy, some level of enforcement, and some form of centralization. Enforcement could be as indirect as a criteria of employee annual review. The knowledge products must also be centralized, or in uniform locations, or both. They are worthless if nobody knows where they are.

An excellent knowledge management program is an essential part of the organization's culture. I really believe the only difference between a novice developer and an expert developer comes down to: writing and data structure. There is no better way to improve planning and technical writing than practice writing good documentation. Practice writing good documentation also changes how you think about code, organization, and planning.

In order to achieve an excellent knowledge management program employees should be empowered and rewarded for putting things in writing and producing excellent technical documents. Knowledge sharing must be an essential part of the organization's culture and business process. Culture comes from strong leadership at the top.

\--

I feel your pain. My current employer also has poor knowledge discipline. Almost nothing is in writing. The documentation is old and all over the place. It leaves you with the feeling that nobody knows that is going on. The biggest problem in this instance is that the employer is operationally focused in a very extreme way and that is the cultural quality that is most rewarded. This, in practice, means you are more rewarded for your level of involvement than for what you produce or for what you document. As a result employees strive for visibility and want to be seen as in a hurry and nothing is in writing.</comment>


CDC and HSS agencies get lists of banned words: transgender, fetus, diversity - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/cdc-gets-list-of-forbidden-words-fetus-transgender-diversity/2017/12/15/f503837a-e1cf-11e7-89e8-edec16379010_story.html <comment><USER2> How does this compare with previous administration's vocabulary limits? Words fall in and out of favor all the time.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1984</comment>


Iceland Pursues a User-Generated Constitution - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/iceland_pursues_user-generated_constitution.php#.TfG_vv5tcv0;hackernews <comment><USER2> This is heart warming.

I encourage anyone interested in this approach of government to watch the documentary, "us now" [1] [2].

[1] <http://vodo.net/usnow>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_Now>

</comment><comment><USER3> Iceland's a small country. Following wikipedia statistics, 318000*0.02 = 6360 people would be expected to contribute maximum. Excluding people of non-voting age, and considering that even less have the expertise to contribute, the number of people involved is not much higher than the size of a parliament + advisories.

Also, what about groups that will be misrepresented in the authoring process (e.g. women contribute much less in wikipedia)? I 'm very sceptical about the whole "wisdom of the crowds" politics here.

<comment><USER4> While your critic is interesting, let me just point out how this way of doing democracy is far superior to any western country.

<comment><USER3> It's not criticism, i m just skeptical if this model can be scaled to big countries.

<comment><USER4> I share your skepticism. You see, I have been thinking a lot a bout democracy, decentralization and recent Iceland politics.

My conclusion is that the smaller you go, the more democratic olitics are. Period.

I share my criticism of the political globalisation, just to be laughed of afterward, but I still believe that the smaller, the most democratic, as is explified in a great way by Iceland.

<comment><USER5> Does that work when you look at small countries of the World? I would have to look but I am thinking "no".

Edit: Found this:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_system_of_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_system_of_government)

<comment><USER4> Of course, the country has to be free from any corporation control. It has to be not that interesting in term of ressources.

Of all the small countries, this leaves, well, ahem... Iceland.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


It's Official: Meebo Raises $25 Million From Jafco, Time Warner and KTB - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/30/its-official-meebo-raises-25-million-from-jafco-time-warner-and-ktb/ <comment><USER2> For Meebo to really monetize all their traffic they'll have to start extracting information from conversations. Google and Facebook already do this to an occasionally creepy effect, notice the content of your talk/messages and your ads are often identical.

They'd be better off providing this demographic information to a third party advertiser than trying to sell anything on their own platform.

I love Meebo, and use it every day, but there's no way I'm going to click an ad in an IM window. As soon as AIM started throwing ads up I ditched their client and went with GAIM(pidgin now), I'd do the same thing with Meebo if they started plastering crap blinking ringtone ads all over.

</comment><comment><USER3> How could you monetize something like Meebo? Virtual goods...advertising?

<comment><USER4> They have a rich platform that is network and context agnostic. If they earn a strong position in the IM world, they will have a plethora of ways to leverage their position: business services (thing online support for consumer facing companies), branded experiences, and yes, advertising.

I think they're well on their way to have a firm position in the space. They've got a great product and Time Warner is investing, which is tellingly great for Meebo / tellingly ominous for AOL.</comment></comment>


The secrets of Node's success - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/06/node-javascript-success.html <comment><USER2> got excited by it as everyone else. turns out working within a forced async environment is a major pain in the butt.</comment>


How Economics Rode Maths to Become the New Astrology - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/how-economists-rode-maths-to-become-our-era-s-astrologers <comment><USER2> Mathiness has been a problem for a long time, I first became aware of it in the 1980's. There's little grounding of it, and not enough rigor in connecting it to events and states of the world to be able to compare economic models.

Since the behavior of humans is difficult to model and not "rational" in many cases, there are additional challenges to doing much useful in the way of economic modelling. Behavioral economics in the small may have some predictive power, but good luck forecasting fashion trends.

Plus, and maybe this is a flame inducer, there is a huge overlap with politics.</comment>


California's New Employment Laws for 2016 - <AUTHOR> https://casetext.com/posts/californias-new-employment-laws-for-2016 <comment><USER2> LEAVES OF ABSENCE

1\. School Activities Leave (SB 579): employees have more flexibility to take time off for school or child care related activities

2\. National Guard Leave and Protections (AB 583): affects members of the National Guard, of other states, ordered to leave California private employment

DISCRIMINATION AND RETALIATION PROTECTIONS

1\. Gender Wage Equality SB 358 (Fair Pay Act): Self explanatory

2\. Whistleblower and Anti-Retaliation Protections (AB 1509): extends provisions preventing retaliation against whistleblowing

3\. Reasonable Accommodation and Retaliation (AB 987): prohibits retaliation or discriminating against employees requesting accommodation for disability or religious beliefs

4\. State Contracts (SB 703): state agencies cannot enter into contracts above $100,000 with contractors who discriminate in benefits based on an employee's gender identity

WAGE AND HOUR

1\. Piece-Rate Employees (AB 1513): new rules for employers with piece-rate employees

2\. Wage Garnishment Restrictions (SB 501): reduces prohibited weekly disposable earning amounts garnished pursuant to a withholding order

HIRING

1\. Unlawful Use of E-Verify (AB 622): employers cannot improperly use E-Verify systems

2\. Grocery Workers (AB 359): when stores change hands, new owners must hire eligible first employer's workers for a 90-day transition period

WORKERS' COMPENSATION (SB 623): cannot exclude injured workers from benefits based on citizenship or immigration status.</comment>


Ask HN: Finding a job for the rest of my life - <AUTHOR> I'm facing a dilemma. How do I find a job I could love for the rest of my life? One that keeps me interested, fulfilled, happy, content. Or, alternatively, what can I do to make money that will let me be me on my own time. Its come to the time in my life when I need to take a sincere look at where my life is heading, and how I plan on living it. Some people call it growing up.
I've been slowly on a mission to discover things about myself. Why I don't like certain things, what things I really love. The only problem is, the result doesn't provide a clear solution to the problem of what I should try doing with my life.
The things I've discovered:
I love learning. It goes beyond mere excitement and borders on a psychological need. Maybe that is the wrong word, it is a need. I could go to school for the rest of my life. I ache to go back to classes, just for the idea that to sit in them would be fun. Even in my college days I hardly skipped class. I didn't always do the homework, but I went to class anyways. I would read through my textbooks for fun. I go to the library and read books about subjects I don't really need to know. I read in general, and I love every minute of it. I love exploring new places just to see them and eating new foods just because I wonder what its like to try them.
I would describe myself as a polymath, but that implies a certain amount of acclaimed accomplishment that goes along with the learning. Taking the time to be famous at something has never appealed to me, mostly because that time could be used to learn something new. But one of the best days in my intellectual life was finding the definition of that word, because it meant I was not alone in the world and that other people were like me.
I love thinking through problems. It's the one thing I'm not humble about, I'm good at it. Thinking excites me, and thinking through things incites me more. I originally wrote "solve problems." But that isn't true. I love thinking of the solutions. But once the solution is thought of, I become disinterested. It requires someone else to put the solution into effect. To build the gadget, write-up the paper, complete the process. The problem is solved in my mind, but until someone else does the work it can't really be said to be truly solved. But the thinking, ah, the thinking. That is truly where my mind can expand, can envision. I'm definitely a vision guy. I ask way too many questions, but I'm extremely good at throwing away useless information and working out a way to solve something, to get somewhere, to chose a path that will likely work.
I hate writing. I hate it with a mix of guilt and resignation. It took me forever to find this out, but again, it was such a relief. Every time I realized I did not like what I was doing, it was this. School was a blast until the night before papers were due. Tests? Sure, love em. Studying, of course! But papers? Writing? That's where I get bogged down. I finally figured out that it was the ONLY thing I ever procrastinated on. Why? Because deep down I don't like it. I end up disliking the jobs I have when writing becomes heavily involved. My thoughts have already moved on, they're going new places and solving new problems. Putting the old thoughts into writing both bores and paralyzes me.
So what should I do with my life? How do I find something that will fulfill me? I've thought of academics. Being in a constant learning environment would be fun. I've though of those idea companies, where you solve problems, but I admit to a problem with execution. They both want you to solve the problem and execute the solution. I know I'll hate those parts. So what's out there for me?
I have found one thing that works, and that's to take drudgery work. I worked in a factory, and I didn't mind it. My current occupation is a big step up, I make a ton more money, but it's the same. You do the same thing over and over for hours. Its enough that I can play close attention to what I need to do, but at the same time a little part of my brain can be thinking through things, solving little problems, or just dreaming up big ideas. It allows me to be me and still make the money I need. By the way, it not that I'm lazy. I've worked my share of long hours, both in factories during school and in my current occupation. I don't mind the long hours as long as I don't mind the work.
Sorry this is so long. Thank you to everyone who replies. <comment><USER3> The job description you want is basically "tenured professor". Unfortunately, getting there is tough, and requires that you "close" at least one major project (your Ph.D).

I was like this all through school and college. I hated writing. I loved learning. I absorbed all these textbooks, aced the tests, rarely finished a project (or my homework), and hated writing.

But sometime in college, I'd made a commitment to redo the backend of a volunteer website I cared about very much. And I felt like I'd be letting all my friends down if I just gave up on it.

That first completed project was torture. I never wanted to see the code I'd written again, and wanted nothing to do with the website after I'd worked out some of the worst bugs. But the second completed project (a Netbeans plugin for my job) was easier, and third (Write Yourself a Scheme in 48 Hours) was easier still. The 4th got harder again, and I needed help to finish it, but then I did a bunch of other websites that were fairly easy.

The part of the brain that "gets things done" seems to be different from the part that's "smart". (I've heard the former called "executive function", and it often doesn't develop until your 20s.) And it's like a muscle - it gets stronger by exercising it. I've found it also gets tired like a muscle - <USER2> usually work in bursts of 1-2 weeks, and then I need a week or two where I have a light workload and am basically just learning new things. But a whole bunch of these cycles, over several years, can add up to a decent number of accomplishments.

The real hump is that first completed project. And I don't really know a way around that other than to keep coming back to it and refuse to give up.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have been getting better as I get older. But I also worry about letting people down. In my industry (the legal field) you just can't take a chance you'll let somebody down. I don't want to be that guy. There's too much riding on the work.

So I do the drudge work. I know I can get it done. It some ways it makes me feel better because I don't have to worry about getting over the hump.

One of my options is simply increasing the amount of money I get paid for doing something I know I can do. Then do my own thing on my own time. I call it drudge work, but in reality its something that requires a set of specialized knowledge or special education, but has to to be repeated over and over again (hence the drudge part).

Maybe I need to come up with ideas of thing I can learn that people will pay me very well for because they need to be done over and over again and nobody likes doing them, but are hard enough to require specialized knowledge.

<comment><USER3> How about letting people know, honestly, what your strengths and weaknesses are and then letting prospective employers make the choice about whether they want to take the risk of hiring you?

Basically every time I've grown as a person has been because I took the risk of letting people down, and then felt I _couldn't_ let them down and so completed the task. If you never put yourself in that position, how're you going to grow?

You'd be surprised how many people are willing to take that risk, because oftentimes it does pan out, and they get a pretty substantial return on their investment.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would take more chances if I wasn't in the legal field. I did take more chances before. But saying "your app won't be done on schedule" isn't the same as saying "you're going to jail because we didn't file your appeal on time."

An even bigger question is if it worked for you. Goes getting over the hump turn the job into something fulfilling and enjoyable, or does it just make it easier to get over the next hump.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something. Richard Feynman

\--- in my case, it's fish & plant (started an aquarium ~ 3 years ago)

it reinvigorated my interests in chemistry (made my own PMDD fertilizer) ... soon i found myself browing wikipedias for KNO3, pH, nitrification, etc

it's about harmonius ecosystem ... focus on plant -> it improves water quality for fish which in turn feed the plant with waste

simplicity too (i abandon pump+filter+lighting+fert to soil+plant+sun+mulm) ... yes at the end i abandon my chemistry and my knowledge (nature always amazes me ... how little i know)

watching the fish and plant grow is like letting nature writing history for you ... unparallel to any books written by human

so i dunno about u ... maybe pick a hobby (preferrably ones that actionable, no theory -> see Feynman) and if u can make a business / startup out of it, even better

</comment><comment><USER5> I would focus on finding a job you can do well for the next three to five years, building on gaius' point that you won't be the same person in 10 years.

I wonder if it's not writing but finishing something and having it judged that's the problem (a roundabout way of saying perfectionism). If it is writing--which I doubt given the fluency of the prose in your question-- perhaps you would make a good counselor or coach or salesperson: someone whose job involves listening, influencing, and verbal improvisation.

It could be that you draw your energy from interacting with people (and learning) and you should look for jobs that have a significant component of that.

I think most jobs will reward learning (at least learning that leads to excellence in execution not just an accumulation of facts) so I would focus less on learning as you can normally work that into most jobs you take on.

<comment><USER6> As a developer, I am always learning, but many times I don't care to learn anymore about computers. Those are the times that I look forward to going home, and picking up a book about whatever I'm trying to learn about.

<comment><USER5> I agree that a lifelong commitment to learning can be a source of ongoing enjoyment. I didn't mean to imply that he should focus all of his learning activities on his job, or job related topics. What I had meant to convey was that learning was normally a component of most jobs. I also agree that taking a break from the computer and work related topics by reading a book is a great way to recharge and learn something new.

<comment><USER6> Hi skmurphy. I didn't disagree. Just adding my 2 cents to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _How do I find a job I could love for the rest of my life?_

You can't. You in 10 years may - probably will - be a different person. You have to make choices now that keep your options open, yet at the same time don't get paralyzed by indecision. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER8> "I love thinking through problems."

"I'm definitely a vision guy. I ask way too many questions, but I'm extremely good at throwing away useless information and working out a way to solve something, to get somewhere, to chose a path that will likely work."

From these quotes alone I can see what "career" you are most likely fit for: an entrepreneur.

Think of a problem, think of how you can solve it, think how solving this problem would lead to benefits (profit).

Now, you don't need to dread the word "execution" because I am not going to use it in relation to you. Rather, think back to what you said:

"It requires someone else to put the solution into effect."

Delegate to others for execution. I work with people who are ultimately much more smarter than me, but what separates me from them is that I can bind together the individual outputs of all members of our group into our unified goal.

Learn the art of the persuasion and negotiation (and this can only be learned by taking place in reality, not in your head). This is the most important thing in the beginning - how are you going to get others to follow you into the unknown?

<comment><AUTHOR> And thats exactly what drew me to entrepreneurship in the first place. I love learning about it. I have notebooks full of business plans, product ideas, silly problems I've tried to solve (how to monetize twitter anyone :) T-shirt ideas, marketing plans, brand strategies. Almost all of them unfinished.

I love the idea of putting a vision into action with the help of other people. But I understand I can't skip steps. You don't get to be at the top without showing you can bust your ass as a grunt.

Sometimes I think I should start a company and just hang a sign on the door saying "Problem solver." Then tell people to name a problem and a price they'd pay to have it solved, and I'd call them when I've got it figured out. Seriously, its kind of a dream job.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interesting thing on Google's hiring practices:

"I like to hire people who have two traits. They're smart, and they get things done."

"Smart people who aren't closers tend to flail. Small startups get rid of these people fast because they stand out. But sometimes they can find a place to hide in larger organizations where they fester like a cancer."

I freely admit thats me. And that the problem. I don't want to be a cancer. I know I don't execute, and I don't expect to get paid for failing at it. Which is probably why I'm working drudge work. I know I won't let anyone down. It allows me peace of mind with what I do.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> By the way, Thanks to all of you for taking the time to read this post and compose your replies.

</comment><comment><USER9> nice block of text for someone purporting to "hate writing" :D

in any case, i don't think there's a job that distinctively encompasses "learner/problemsolver" sans the execution of the actual fix itself :(

you need to be independently wealthy and be a designer/projectmanager and commission your own ideas into reality to fill the niche role that you've defined

<comment><AUTHOR> I get things done when I'm interested in the answer. But once my interest stops, it grinds to a halt. And I mean grinds. I have so many unfinished things. Screen plays, novels, business plans, blog posts, ideas.</comment></comment>


Serverless Components - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/serverless/components <comment><USER2> Ugh, while I appreciate the work that goes into these tools and see the value, I hate the needlessly critical language about "irrelevant" details and "bloated" cloud infrastructure.

These components are lightweight and simple and trivially easy to use because they are lightweight and simple and cover trivial use cases. But if you build anything beyond the trivial you will eventually have to get into the weeds, and the details are no longer irrelevant, and the "bloat" will happen to your beautiful lightweight and simple Serverless configuration.

There's no need to ridicule the inevitable complexity of complexity to sell this stuff. It's just pointless negativity.

<comment><USER3> "Complexity is inevitable" is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

<comment><USER2> I think you misread what I wrote.

<comment><USER3> Not all infrastructure configuration options are relevant to every use-case. By focusing on specific use-cases, you can hide "irrelevant" config options. This is a fact.

The full statement from the source material says bloated cloud infrastructure "configurations", referring to verbose configuration files. Needlessly critical? It depends on your experience with these.

These, serverless, cloud, and more are abstractions. Fortunately, if the abstraction doesn't fit your needs, you aren't forced to use them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's interesting that lambda still requires a nosql db for good perf. The example they link to from this article uses dynamodb. Not a great choice for a general purpose web app, where sql would be a better choice for many use cases.

[https://github.com/serverless/components/tree/master/templat...](https://github.com/serverless/components/tree/master/templates/8-fullstack- application)

It's cool that aws has the data api for lambda to connect to aurora serverless. But then you're stuck with MySQL instead of postgres, and also stuck with ~100ms db access times.

[https://www.jeremydaly.com/aurora-serverless-data-api-a- firs...](https://www.jeremydaly.com/aurora-serverless-data-api-a-first-look/)

<comment><USER5> What makes DynamoDB a bad choice for a web app? Seems to be where it excels.

<comment><USER4> It's difficult to model relationships. You have to design a hashing strategy manually to avoid hotspots. Most web frameworks are based on sql. The api is extremely verbose and there isn't the same level of maturity for abstractions which simplify it. Indexes are much more complicated [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerg...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerguide/SQLtoNoSQL.Indexes.html) In general, the tooling is less mature. You can run a fake dynamodb locally, but not the exact same engine.

There are certainly use cases where nosql is very helpful - heavy writes, as a denormalized cache, simpler non relational data models etc [http://highscalability.com/blog/2010/12/6/what-the-heck- are-...](http://highscalability.com/blog/2010/12/6/what-the-heck-are-you- actually-using-nosql-for.html)

<comment><USER5> I feel like we might be diverging on what "a general purpose web app" represents.

I've never really seen those issues unless there is a more extreme circumstance.

In my read of "web app", in most cases you want to push/data in and out of the database. And modelling 1:1 and 1:n relationships is pretty natural in my experience. Deeply nested relationships are a pain, but they're usually a pain in SQL too. Document-orientation helps here a bit, but with some drawbacks. Where I think it does fall over completely is analytics, and OLAP-like work.

I guess hotspots can be an issue. However, that implies considerable related transaction volume, which I'd argue DynamoDB _can_ excel at.

If you're using a framework like Rails - then sure, DynamoDB is out. But so is Lambda. The pattern of SPA (React/etc), Lambda, and DynamoDB is what's emerging instead of those frameworks. Definitely agree it can't cover many cases, but covers a lot of ground for me

<comment><USER4> Right, I'm talking about many to many relationships. Those are a pain to deal with in non relational databases. It's possible, just not the simplest tool for the task. This is a great strength of sql, especially when coupled with a good orm used wisely. Also, don't underestimate the power of frameworks like rails, django et al for productivity.

Most apps I write for my own business, or see in production at companies I work for use a mix of sql and nosql depending on what they are doing. Mongo seems quite popular for heavy write loads, while still supporting some indexing and querying. It's great for fan out also.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As someone who's always late to the party on these things (I just picked up Docker this year! Yay!) this seems like exactly what I've been missing when trying to pick up serverless.

Granted I haven't really tried building anything yet, but part of that is that I needed a way to get an overview what could even be done. This seems like a nice way to get introduced.

<comment><USER7> Serverless is fantastic for event-driven workloads at arbitrary scale. There are definitely some things to learn about serverless runtimes, but beyond that there isn't much complexity aside from the large hill to climb which is understanding IAM.

Here are a lot more examples: [https://github.com/serverless/examples](https://github.com/serverless/examples)

And if you'd rather define the infrastructure side as code vs YAML, you might want to check out Pulumi as well: [https://github.com/pulumi/examples](https://github.com/pulumi/examples)

<comment><USER8> > arbitrary scale

If you have arbitrary funds.

Point is serverless costs more per unit deliverable

<comment><USER9> Asymptotically, yes. But if you factor in development time, infrastructure management and security concerns, the point where serverless really "costs more" may be very high indeed.

<comment><USER8> I would love to hear the argument that serverless impacts cost of security concerns at all. I'm not warm to the idea that it also impacts development time, but I'd love to hear that argument too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Responding to some of the questions regarding "Why Serverless Components?"

When the Serverless Framework was created in 2015, there were only few use- cases you could do with a serverless architecture (an architecture built on auto-scaling, pay-per-execution cloud services, like AWS Lambda) because the services that had serverless qualities were few and immature.

Since then, a growing number of new and existing cloud services have "serverless" qualities. These days, "serverless" seems less of a fad, and more of an important chapter in the story of the cloud, as it evolves as an abstraction over infrastructure.

It's likely large and small cloud vendors will continue to introduce serverless cloud services to the market. All of which will continue to expand the number of use-cases you can do with a serverless architecture.

The Serverless Framework's initial application model is a great abstraction for many use-cases, and it helped hundreds of thousands of people start building serverless applications, easily.

Now, it's time to expand that model. Serverless Components represent multiple models, all designed around specific use-cases. This approach can better suit the growing number of serverless use-cases we're seeing. Additionally, as students of developer tooling and infrastructure provisioning, we've learned that by first knowing the use-case, you can build better infra/app automation that's faster, more stable and more relevant. There are many innovations we seek to introduce with the Serverless Components paradigm.

Overall, the "serverless" movement is about building applications with radically low overhead. As software eats the world, this trend seems to have come at an appropriate time. Serverless cloud services will continue to emerge and mature. Fortunately for us, they represent the greatest building blocks of all time. Who knows, perhaps a new golden era of software development is upon us.

Either way, Serverless Components is here to make it even easier for every developer to deliver radically low cost/overhead software.

</comment><comment><USER10> I develop and maintain an app using the serverless framework. I have set up db, API gateway, functions, queues and custom domains through it and love how easy it is to get going but also how powerful the framework has shown to be in terms of configuring the underlying services.

With that in mind - you already have a system that is highly configurable and easy to figure out - I really have a hard time figuring out what the purpose of Serverless Components is - is it mainly the sharing Components part?

<comment><USER11> What all services/db/frameworks are you using?

<comment><USER10> My backend is all on AWS, while my frontend is on Netlify.

The backend is a simple event based system. I am using Lambda (.NET Core), DynamoDB and SQS on the backend. Frontend API calls trigger Lambdas, which either schedule or create SQS messages, that fan out to a number of Lambdas. For domain management I use serverless-domain-manager which is able to create subdomains in AWS Route 53 and create mappings between CloudFront and Route 53 DNS.

I have two deploy stages, dev and prod, which automatically deploy to their separate instances and subdomains. This is all setup in a single serverless.yml file and deployed through AWS CloudFormation (which Serverless allows me to know practically nothing about and still deploy my changes).

GitLab CI/CD builds, tests and deploys my dev stage on commit to develop branch, while the prod deploy is a manual job in GitLab from the master branch. Netlify also automatically deploys the frontend on commit.

So I guess that is my tech stack :)

Edit: Also, these services are practically free until you hit a substantial amount of resource consumption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I really respect the idea behind Serverless Framework. However, thanks to cloud providers it's impossible to build a cloud agnostic solution with it. You always end up creating resources that aren't cloud agnostic alongside your serverless template.

<comment><USER3> Serverless Components will really help here. Please stay tuned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I recommend folks try out knative, which allows you to wrap up pretty much anything in a container, and deploy the container in serverless fashion. In GCP it manifests as Cloud Run, which has been great for me so far :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Excited to see this on HN!

Many common use-cases (APIs, Websites, Websocket backends, Scheduled tasks) are perfect for serverless architectures.

Serverless Components give you a React-like experience to deploy them more easily than ever.

\---

Short video preview: [https://twitter.com/goserverless/status/1156977112147845120](https://twitter.com/goserverless/status/1156977112147845120)

\---

Here's a quick-start guide...

Install Serverless Framework __

• npm i -g serverless

• [https://github.com/serverless/serverless](https://github.com/serverless/serverless)

\---

Pick a template:

• Serverless Fullstack App - [https://github.com/serverless/components/tree/master/templat...](https://github.com/serverless/components/tree/master/templates/8-fullstack- application)

• Serverless Websockets Backend - [https://github.com/serverless/components/tree/master/templat...](https://github.com/serverless/components/tree/master/templates/7-backend- websocket)

• Serverless API Backend - [https://github.com/serverless/components/tree/master/templat...](https://github.com/serverless/components/tree/master/templates/6-backend- monolith)

• Serverless Website - [https://github.com/serverless/components/tree/master/templat...](https://github.com/serverless/components/tree/master/templates/4-website)

• Scheduled Task - [https://github.com/serverless/components/tree/master/templat...](https://github.com/serverless/components/tree/master/templates/3-scheduled- task)

• & More - [https://github.com/serverless/components/tree/master/templat...](https://github.com/serverless/components/tree/master/templates/3-scheduled- task)

\---

 __Make sure you have AWS credentials set up __

•[https://github.com/serverless/components#credentials](https://github.com/serverless/components#credentials)

\---

Hopefully these enable everyone to build more and manage less.

Enjoy,

Team @ Serverless.com

<comment><USER14> > React-like experience

Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? As a user of both serverless and react I'm afraid I'm failing to see your point here.

Other than that - exciting stuff. I've been eagerly waiting for the ability to build some more powerful abstractions, preferably with as little yaml as possible. :)

<comment><USER3> Sure.

Serverless components can be used declaratively (YAML) or programmatically (JavaScript).

It's the JavaScript experience that takes a lot of inspiration from React when you wish to write your own reusable Serverless Component.

[https://github.com/serverless/components#reusability](https://github.com/serverless/components#reusability)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Duotones – Instant duotone effect generator made with SVG/Canvas - <AUTHOR> https://duotones.co <comment><USER2> Interesting project for sure.

I really enjoy the results.</comment>


iOS 13 Autocorrect Is Drunk - <AUTHOR> https://daringfireball.net/2019/09/ios_13_autocorrect_is_drunk <comment><USER2> I've noticed autocorrect on Android has been getting worse for me too. It's almost as if the 'naive' early solutions worked alright, but in the efforts to make the keyboard 'smarter' it's just gotten much worse. That's been my take anyways.</comment>


WSL 2 is now available in Windows Insiders - <AUTHOR> https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/wsl-2-is-now-available-in-windows-insiders/ <comment><USER2> The source code Microsoft's fork of the kernel can be downloaded here:

[https://thirdpartysource.microsoft.com/download/Windows%20Su...](https://thirdpartysource.microsoft.com/download/Windows%20Subsystem%20for%20Linux%20v2/May%202019/WSLv2-Linux- Kernel-master.zip)

</comment><comment><USER3> Does this mean that other virtualization software like virtual box will no longer work?

<comment><USER4> Correct, as WSL 2 requires Hyper-V.

<comment><USER5> It looks like virtualbox 6 supports using hyper-v as the virtualization engine: [https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E97728_01/F12470/html/hyperv- inte...](https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E97728_01/F12470/html/hyperv-integ.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yes! I hope this lights a fire under Apple's butt.

<comment><USER7> Why? WSL 2 is a regression from WSL 1.

WSL 2 is just a Linux kernel inside a VM with some VMWare-like drivers for filesystem and network access.

WSL 1 made Windows an alternative implementation of the Linux kernel. Every process was a native Windows process, syscalls trapped into the Windows kernel, etc. Operations like open, read, and write ultimately operated on the NTFS volume directly, without being serialized across an IPC channel.

But this no doubt scared the bejebus out of some Microsoft executives as it would have put the final nail in the coffin of Windows as a target for back- end server development--you'd just use POSIX and Linux-specific interfaces because they'd be available everywhere, and in fact you wouldn't even need to recompile your applications.

<comment><USER8> More like they don't want to spend resources anymore after reports of bugs, slow filesystem performance, missing syscall, etc. Piggybacking Linux kernel developement is cheaper and less hassle.

<comment><USER7> 1) If WSL is a proper product they'll be supporting it no matter what.

2) Filesystem performance is even slower with WSL 2. I'm sure this will improve, but they could have expended that energy on WSL 1, where it would have been categorically easier and more efficient. On the other hand, a virtio filesystem device was recently finalized so if they wanted to go the VM route they really didn't have to do _anything_ but wait another couple months, at most.

3) They're maintaining a fork of the Linux kernel, which is significant work by itself. The syscall surface of Linux is quite small relative to the whole kernel. Most syscalls can be trivially implemented (and were, in WSL!) as thin wrappers around native NT capabilities. Many of the rest are comparatively easy to reimplement, especially once you have a fixed target to emulate. In terms of pace of development, they don't really need to do any better than RHEL, where enterprises are happy with Linux kernels and features years behind the tip of Linus' branch. And, frankly, if WSL 1 saw wide uptake it could have actually competed with mainline Linux in terms of the features and behaviors people depended on. If, for example, Microsoft refused to implement something like JIT'd BPF, it may have blunted and even stopped BPF momentum.

WSL 1 was interesting and potentially a game changer. WSL 2 is destined to disappear because there's very little value Microsoft can add which would require them to invest in WSL 2. The existing VM ecosystem, including their own generic VM framework, is more than adequate and will continue to only get better, regardless of WSL. All the problems are solved or are currently being solved by platform-independent, Linux-independent virtio specifications. Microsoft just needs to implement them in their hypervisor framework and they'll work with Linux, OpenBSD, and other OSs.

I think it's clear as day what happened: WSL 1 was a threat to the Windows API so it got axed. It was too radical even for Satya Nadella's Microsoft.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


JS11: A compact version of JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://js11.org

<comment><USER2> It seems like a cross between CoffeeScript and JavaScript, leaning towards the JS side. I haven't tried it, but some of the new features it adds seem interesting (like the ability to use "if var isn't value { }"). I like that it translates 1:1, so that you don't have to hunt down strange errors in code that you didn't organize. However, the automatic semicolon insertion a) is already in JS, in some cases, and b) could get obnoxious.

<comment><USER3> Good points. Although, the semi-colon insertion is only partial... it mops up the edge cases where JS doesn't usually insert them (such as if a ( appears after a block or group on a previous line). It's made specifically for people who do "normal" (aka K&R) style JavaScripting and want to get rid of semi- colons altogether, but can't usually because of the annoying exceptions.</comment></comment>


Tiny Faces, free crowd-sourced avatars (Built with Vapor) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/maximedegreve/TinyFaces <comment><AUTHOR> Pretty neat idea. Love how simple it is to implement, just one GET request.</comment>


Programmers Need to Learn Statistics or I Will Kill Them All (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://zedshaw.com/archive/programmers-need-to-learn-statistics-or-i-will-kill-them-all/ <comment><USER2> As a programmer I'll admit to you right now - I don't know shit about statistics. I took the course during my degree - it was like a shaman was cursing me. Never gonna catch me talking shit about stats. This post just validated everything I felt about it.

<comment><USER3> (I think?) I agree, but this post didn't make me want to learn more about stats.

This might be because for me it feels like 20% knowledge will work for 80% of situations. Maybe it's a fundamental disconnect; am I going to mess around R when Python works and is more general purpose (but to be fair, there's loads of brilliant Python stats code out there).

At least the standard deviation tip makes sense to me. Yay?

Edit: Man, tried to read up on some stuff and stats is hard. I'm definitely going to go easy on the performance guys in future. Any more tips for getting better at this kind of analysis?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This could use a (2015) tag.

The article is a bit rambling, but it achieves its objective of convincing me that (1) the hand-waving that sometimes passes for statistical analysis is not good enough and (2) it's realistic to do better and expect better.

<comment><AUTHOR> > This could use a (2015) tag.

Whoops. Edited.

> The article is a bit rambling

Sort of, yeah. The tone is certainly distracting some readers from the message.

But I believe the message is very important, especially as data-* is becoming more and more popular. More and more tools measuring performance or platforms claiming amazing performance, spread of analytical tools, data science going mainstream, etc.

Often enough, fundamentally flawed analysis brings more harm than benefit. It does mean that you shouldn't try anything unless you are an expert in stats. The issue often is with overconfidence and ignorance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> >Oh, and you wonder why I say, "he"? I never have this problem with female programmers.

Programmers need to stop virtual signaling with gender in absolutely everything or I will kill them all.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think Zed Shaw should get off of his high horse. He knows a little about statistics, and think he knows plenty.

A distribution that cannot go negative (a real world system), cannot be a normal distribution because normal distributions must extend infinitely in both directions. If your standard deviation is small enough though, a normal distribution can be a fitting model.

> Almost all of the queries performed great, except one query that had sub- > second response on average, but a 60 second standard deviation!

If the average response is < 1 sec than a 60 second standard deviation means that many responses are being made before the query is sent.

Moving from just using averages and thinking about properly measuring is a good start, but assuming that all distributions are normal is nearly as bad.

<comment><USER7> > If the average response is < 1 sec than a 60 second standard deviation means > that many responses are being made before the query is sent.

Imagine if 99.99% of queries take 1 millisecond, and the remaining 0.01% of queries take 6000 seconds. Then the mean is 0.6010 seconds and the standard deviation is 59.997 seconds.

(Muphry's law strikes again...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> >Oh, and you wonder why I say, "he"? I never have this problem with female programmers.

gedrap, please don't post sexist material on HN.</comment>