Sniffing tool for capturing WiFi location data disclosed by iOS devices - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hubert3/iSniff-GPS

<comment><USER2> It isn't only iOS devices that do this. All operating systems probe for SSIDs that they have been previously associated with, thats what makes devies like the WiFi Pineapple possible [0].

[0] <http://hakshop.myshopify.com/products/wifi-pineapple>

<comment><USER3> However, Apple devices do do "optimization" to get on the network quickly. If you previously associated with a SSID, it'll get reconnected much faster.

See <http://cafbit.com/entry/rapid_dhcp_or_how_do>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I had to install aircrack-ng. Upon doing so and watching for about 30 minutes, I saw my MacBook Pro and iPhone 5 both leak an uncomfortable amount of probes for SSID's my devices have attached to. The thing is, quite a few SSID names are unique enough it nailed the specific devices I had attached to and through Apple's geo-coordinate database, their coordinates.

If the author is reading I just sent a pull request for a defect in the 'SSID Search' page. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER5> I didn't realize looking for SSIDs was an active process. Why wouldn't it just listen for broadcast SSIDs? Is this only for hidden ones?

Regardless, headline should not single out iOS unless this is iOS specific - maybe it is? Readme says: "iPhones, iPads and other wireless devices"

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm curious to know if this is an iOS only issue. It seems to me that any device that remembers past SSIDs would look for them actively. That way the user gets on their preferred network whenever it's available. Then anyone with access to a database with GPS coordinates for base stations would be able to achieve the same effect, no?

</comment><comment><USER7> Mobile phones are rife with security concerns, and this article is merely another in a long list.

This is why I choose to purchase pre-paid (burner) type devices, which have the added bonus of not locking me into any restrictive "contracts."

<comment><USER8> Whether or not your phone is disposable seems not to be relevant to this attack, such as it is. Your device will still leak information suggesting where you have recently been.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I see why this is interesting, but how or when would it be practical or useful?

<comment><USER10> You could install this in a retail store to get competitive intel on where your customers have previously browsed or been

<comment><USER9> Something like this seems... illegal. Isn't this type of data farming only allowed after explicit permission of the user?

<comment><USER11> What would be illegal about it? The phone is advertising the MACs, just the same as if you wore a shirt that had your home address on it.

<comment><USER12> Storing personally identifiable data about people is covered and controlled by EU Data Protection law. Broadly, you have to have a legitimate, legal, proportional reason for storing personal data on people. You probably need their consent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Headline is hyperbole. According to the linked page, iOS devices leak some network information and it _may_ be possible to analyse this to establish where the device's owner lives.

<comment><USER14> How is this a hyperbole? The device broadcasts MAC address of previously connected, which is easily converted into geographical coordinates.

<comment><USER15> as far as I remember this is a feature, the wifi connection stack on osx is trying to connect to recent wifis first with the mac address because that is much faster than trying to get a new lease and so on

<comment><USER16> It also causes occasional IP-address conflicts. Had this happening before and traced it to an iPhone using an IP-address it did not have a DHCP lease for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _" Presented at Blackhat USA July 2012, code published on Github 2012-08-31."_

Old news.</comment>


Irrelevant Things Matter in Economic Behavior - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/upshot/unless-you-are-spock-irrelevant-things-matter-in-economic-behavior.html

<comment><USER2> If you enjoyed this article, I highly recommend Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, in which Thaler and insights like the one highlighted in this article feature prominently.

I also happened to stumble across this gem yesterday: Michael Lewis writing on Kahneman and his influence on Moneyball, the book and the revolution:

[http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/12/michael- lewis-201112](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/12/michael-lewis-201112)

I was impressed by Kahneman's humility, although not at all surprised after reading the book.

One of these days, I'd like to start a discussion about Kahneman's recommendations for doing interviews from Thinking Fast and Slow. Just waiting for the right "Interviews are broken" thread, I guess.

Finally, in fairness to the article at hand, I should probably check out Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics when it comes out.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe a better title would be "People have a funny sense of what is relevant." That is, people have complicated ways of placing value on things. In the case of scaling the test to 137 points so the average comes out closer to 100 is silly in some ways it satisfies the students conditioning to thinking a 100 is a great score. I find the example sad in several ways (Is the teacher testing to material above what is being taught? Do the students care more about the score than actually learning something? probably...) but wanting a 100 is not irrelevant to the students.

I just bought a blue car. The color makes no difference in the performance of the car. That doesn't mean it was irrelevant to me.

</comment><comment><USER4> Just had a discussion of this article and book a few days ago on HN

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9557598](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9557598)</comment>


I wrote a self-hosting C compiler in 40 days (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.sigbus.info/how-i-wrote-a-self-hosting-c-compiler-in-40-days.html <comment><USER2> That's about how long it took me to write a self-compiling C compiler and basic runtime library for a simulation environment for a new instruction set architecture back in '98 (it eventually became the Cray X-1). Although I did start with a working C preprocessor left over from an earlier project, and in many ways the preprocessor can be the hardest part to get right.

Bringing up a compiler in a simulated environment has its advantages over real metal. Seeing instruction traces with computed values is awesome for debugging.

</comment><comment><USER3> > At first the compiler was about 20 lines long, and the only thing that was > able to do is to read an integer from the standard input and then emit a > program that immediately exits with the integer as exit code.

I always find it hard to find the absolute minimum functionality i can implement so I usually just attack the problem hard, fail, and keep repeating until I have enough broken functionality, then I start adding tests and refactoring.

Can I ask what is your day job? :)

<comment><USER4> I've heard it called a walking skeleton. This is what I try to do early because I think it aides greatly in data structure design.

<comment><USER5> I've heard it as a "skewer", because you're penetrating every necessary layer.

<comment><USER5> Just kidding, it's actually a Spike: [http://wiki.c2.com/?SpikeSolution](http://wiki.c2.com/?SpikeSolution)

<comment><USER6> I've always used the phrase "driving a wire all the way through", but I like "spike" better, especially if other people will know what it means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Previously discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10731002](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10731002).

</comment><comment><USER8> "In x86 calling convention, structs are copied to the stack and their pointers are passed to functions. But in x86-64, you have to destructure a struct into multiple pieces of data and pass them via registers. It's complicated, so I'll leave it alone for now. It's rare that you want to pass a struct as a value instead of passing a pointer to a struct."

Would anyone care to explain this? It makes no sense at all to me. Why would the 64-bit architecture restrict passing a large object on the stack?

Thanks.

<comment><USER9> Performance. Storing to and retrieving from registers are typically much faster than writing to and then accessing memory. It's like keeping things in your 16 hands vs. keeping them in your backpack en transit. I believe this to be Linux-specific, as the BSDs have a different ABI that relies solely on the stack.

Some notes:

[http://www.int80h.org/bsdasm/#default-calling- convention](http://www.int80h.org/bsdasm/#default-calling-convention)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the explanation everyone. I suppose it was my fault for interpreting "have to" as an absolute requirement rather than a preferred method.

<comment><USER10> It is a requirement in the sense that if the C code passes the aggregate parameter by value, the compiler is required to generate the assembler code to pass via the registers [1].

[1] inlining, calls to static functions and whole program optimization do give the compilers freedom to pick a different calling convention of course.

<comment><USER11> I still don't understand this. If a blob of C code passes a large structure by value, doesn't it go on the stack? Why would the compiler be required to pass such an object only via the registers?

<comment><USER12> It's generally expected that functions compiled with different compilers (for the same target architecture) can call each other. This only works if the compilers agree on where function arguments go; since they are all required to do it in the same way, it's better to require everyone to do it the fast way rather than requiring everyone to do it the slow way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So does this mean that we can put to rest the 'trusting trust' paradigm? As in, use 8cc to bootstrap our way into compiling gcc without using gcc?

<comment><USER14> Indeed, a small trusted compiler is part of the solution. There's still _some_ subtlety in how you use it, though: [http://www.dwheeler.com/trusting- trust/dissertation/html/whe...](http://www.dwheeler.com/trusting- trust/dissertation/html/wheeler-trusting-trust-ddc.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What isn't stated is whether or not this new compiler requires libc from the one used to compile it. Assuming a new CPU, the bootstrap code must be written in assembly (assuming an assembler has been written to translate the .asm source into machine code). Writing a C compiler in C with no way to bootstrap is "cheating".

<comment><USER15> > Assuming a new CPU, the bootstrap code must be written in assembly [...].

Not really, thanks to cross-compilation. Only a small number of CPUs has really required bootstrapping with direct machine code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> For me, one of the most rewarding task in learning a programming language is writing a compiler that can compile itself though more complex programming languages like Haskell and perl6 are very challenging but doable.</comment>


Building an Offline Page for Theguardian.com - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/info/developer-blog/2015/nov/04/building-an-offline-page-for-theguardiancom <comment><USER2> I am not up to date on this kind of technology, but reading the article, this sound terrible! Not the guardians implementation, but the concept of locally "caching", though I would call it installing, executable code, that can then intercept network requests and basically do whatever it wants? Why would we think this is a good idea?

I am not surprised by Chrome doing something like this. But firefox too? I hope this will be opt-in.

<comment><USER3> Service workers have been around for a while. As far as I know their capabilities are restricted to the domain that includes them. So the guardian website can only intercept network requests made from itself.

<comment><USER2> Well, just goes to show you how out of date I am! Though after reading up on it, I still don't like it much. It makes the web behave in ways I don't expect it to and I don't really see why anyone would really need this, unless they want to fundamentally change the way the web is expected to work.

<comment><USER4> You can check "about:serviceworkers" on Firefox, and see how many sites install a worker when visiting their page. Spoilers: a whole lot of them

<comment><USER5> Mine shows none. Could be because of permanent private browsing. Do people still run browser on their personal computer without permanent private browsing enabled?

<comment><USER6> Do people still run browsers? I wouldn't know because I access the web exclusively using telnet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Old 2015

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been reading an offline version of the guardian for my whole life, it's pretty nifty.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you clear your cache while your Internet connection is off, this won't work.</comment>


ChrysaLisp - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/vygr/ChrysaLisp/blob/master/README.md <comment><USER2> Worth covering a few things about the project.

I wasn't trying to create a Lisp, at least not at first. I started with a simple VP (Virtual Processor) macro set for NASM in order to look again at some issues raised by my old Taos OS back in the 90's.

More of a personal project to work out some angst to start with.

I used the macro set to create a simple task switcher and get myself to the stage of creating a simulation of a multi-cpu network like the old Transputer days. I wanted to play around with various routing and task distribution ideas. That's probably when ChrysaLisp was just called AsmKernel and the first link appeared on Hacker News, with a 'but what is it...' set of comments.

Around this time I was having issues keeping the compilation performance up due to trying to get NASM macros to do what I wanted. I contacted the NASM forums to ask if there was any chance of getting some extra features added to NASM, but that wasn't to happen. And that's when I decided to write my own assembler.

I've been having a long running debate with a friend, Darren, about Lisp for many years :) He's crazy about it and has always been pushing me to try it. So I decided to create a Lisp interpreter and code the assembler using that Lisp interpreter. And looking through the project commits you'll see how that work went.

Pretty soon I had a reasonable Lisp, all be it with my own brand of quirks. And I quickly managed to port over the VP assembler source to the new format. Lisp style () but apart from that pretty much just raw VP assembler. And yes, Darren, Lisp was good and the assembler was crazy powerful being written in Lisp ! So Darren won me round to Lisp.

The next stage was that I wanted to be able to have a slightly higher level to code in, for prototype assembler functions, and that's when I used the Lisp to add higher level support for stack variables and a C like syntax for expression parsing. The idea here was not to create a full blown C/C++ compiler, but to let me hammer out assembler code without worrying about register numbers and so forth. But I was always intent on converting the time critical functions to the lower level raw VP code.

I had also been experimenting with a GUI based on a software compositer I wrote back in 1990, and so that got included in the project, and eventually I got that hooked up to the Lisp so I could create GUI apps in Lisp with no assembler. Most of the time in these apps is spent in VP coded optimised functions anyway.

Along the way I've coded up the VP macro set for the ARM64. Which got me up and running on the Raspberry PI. And recently I've pushed towards a Windows port after some nudging from one of the projects recent followers.

There is still lots to do, and many many things I'd like to clean up. But It's been a labour of love so far as well as personal therapy :)

Regards

Chris

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, thanks for sharing this & for jumping into the comments. Truly inspiring!

edit: is there any way people can help you in a way that makes sense for you?

<comment><USER2> Yes, go grab a copy and start playing with some simple apps. I'd love others to get more involved. Expanding the demo apps and maybe adding useful features to the class libs. Maybe tweaking the VP optimiser with some extra cases. New platform ports like the Windows port soon to come. New UI widgets etc. I'm open to any ideas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Related:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15466124](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15466124)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15527936](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15527936)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9806607](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9806607)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=vygr](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=vygr)

... and I think a few other cool threads if anyone wants to dig them up.

</comment><comment><USER2> Hi folks. Chris Hinsley here. Thanks for the interest again. Sorry the README is a bit of a jumble. I'm just heading home from work ATM I'll try answer questions best I can once I get back. Regards Chris

</comment><comment><USER4> This looks very cool, but I agree with the other comments that the README.md needs a better top level description.

From looking at the code, this looks like an attempt to recapture a stand- alone Lisp operations system and Lisp development system. I had a Lisp Machine in the 1980s, so projects like this and also Mezzano interest me.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. The description on the top-level repo page needs to be line 1 in the Readme.

<comment><USER6> [https://github.com/vygr/ChrysaLisp/commit/82a08a62c74ce71c8a...](https://github.com/vygr/ChrysaLisp/commit/82a08a62c74ce71c8ab9d59e9718437927aeeaf5)

Fixed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> it looks like a big deal of work... is it just for hobbists or aimed also for some kind of professional? if the latter applies, there is a lot of work missing with the readme (starting by catchy headlines/marketing eye catchers, etc).

Any opinion article worth reading about this programming language and how it compares over the rest of Lisps?

</comment><comment><USER8> I wish this had much better readme... What is this? And why is this important/interesting..?

<comment><USER9> Agreed. The first sentence in a readme should always be what it is, does and why... even when it seems super obvious from the name (which is definitely not the case this time around anyway).

<comment><USER10> repository description is a start: " Parallel OS, with GUI, Terminal, OO Assembler, Class libraries, C-Script compiler, Lisp interpreter and more... "

<comment><USER8> Honestly, that seems like a string of unrelated things glued together. I don't want to be mean of course, it's just confusing (though if the project is all of that, the documentaiton might be reflective of the confusing state of the project).

<comment><USER6> You might want to go learn a bit of history:

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> From a glance at the readme, my assumption is that this is a ray tracer.

<comment> phoe-krk From the repo description at [https://github.com/vygr/ChrysaLisp](https://github.com/vygr/ChrysaLisp):

> Parallel OS, with GUI, Terminal, OO Assembler, Class libraries, C-Script > compiler, Lisp interpreter and more...

<comment><USER11> This is why I think the main repo page would have been a better link than the Readme, which lacks that short description.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Terry 2.0?

<comment><USER13> My mind went there too. Also to LISP machines of yore. And Smalltalk virtual machines.</comment></comment>


The Development of the C Language - <AUTHOR> http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html <comment><USER2> Most of the work of my PhD thesis was done in BCPL. I was fluent in that when I switched to it from Pascal in 1985.

I using Pascal (which I'd learned in my undergraduate CS course in 1980) to write a game to play CoNeutron (although it was called Neutron then) for a competition, when I found some bizarre behavior. I tracked down a bug in the compiler and duly reported it. It was ignored, of course (compiler bugs are never compiler bugs, but are always bugs in the users program - didn't you know?) so I made an appointment to see Martin Richards.

I provided a 10 line program that demonstrated the bug, he ran it in the system level debugged, and confirmed it. He then said - "Well, that won't get fixed, why don't you use BCPL instead?" A naive translation into BCPL gained me a factor of 10 in performance, and I was hooked.

Oh, and I won the tournament. Which was nice.

I later "progressed" to C, but still miss BCPL. It had it awkwardnesses, but it had a certain charm.

</comment><comment><USER3> I always find it amusing that C - the language which pretty much runs _everything_ nowadays - still has broken precedence for the &/&& operators because people didn't want to break backwards compatibility when there were a handful of thousand-line programs written in it...

<comment><USER4> There is a quote like that for make - they were going to fix the spaces/tab thing but by then there were several dozen users

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just for the record (since I have recently stumbled upon and read up on the BCPL stuff): Martin Richards web site at the University of Cambridge contains valuable resources on BCPL (<http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mr10/index.html>), including (relatively) recently updated manuals.

</comment><comment><USER6> Reading this I immediately turned to my bookshelf to confirm that my K&R book was still there.

<comment><USER4> It's still there - you just have to be careful because copies of K&R can eat other language books left in range.</comment></comment>


Why Entrepreneurs Should Write - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/08/why-entrepreneurs-should-write.php

<comment><USER2> readwriteweb is really turning into a spambot...</comment>


What do you think of mobile game startups? - <AUTHOR>

I have realized using the newest tools myself and an artist could put out 2-4 good/cool games a year for Android and iPhone. I was wondering what HN thought about starting a startup with that fact as the base. Also is YC interested in game companies? <comment><USER2> In order to be really successful on iOS you have to make an extraordinarily excellent game (which is hard to do), license some intellectual property that your audience is already familiar with, or have a large marketing budget you can use to buy your way to prominent placement.

On Android there's a bit more opportunity - if you move quickly, you can do alright by ripping off iOS game concepts that haven't been ported over yet. Monetization is still pretty bleak vs. iOS.

Funding's available to companies who've already had some successes (although in that case you really shouldn't need to take it) or to new teams with a track record at other companies.

There are a _ton_ of people doing this - you'll face a lot of competition. I wouldn't let that stop you if you're super-passionate about the field and your ideas.

I know of one YC company doing exactly this and doing well, although they got there after a pivot - they were accepted on the basis of something completely different.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is really excellent insight. I think we are going to build one game first to see how our development and success rate go and if there is any traction there we will look toward an incubator. I feel like being involved with incubators such as YC gives a sense of legitimacy that would allow us to build games for larger companies or license material that would otherwise be unavailable to us as a startup. I am not familiar with licensing though so I could be wrong.

<comment><USER2> The biggest issue with licensing is the upfront - generally the people you're licensing from will want a guaranteed minimum paid in advance against future royalties.

The second biggest issue with licensing is dealing with the people you're licensing from, who are rightly concerned about the impact of your game on their brand.

Third biggest issue is the legal fees - you'll need a lawyer who knows their way around such contracts.

I've got no idea whether Y Combinator's reputation would help with content licensing or not.

<comment><AUTHOR> In all honesty I would be happier making my own games. I am just thinking other possible directions if people don't take to the games I create as a way to stay in the field. So far writing game code is the most fun I have had programming. I also don't want to join a studio as I see little benefit to not being part of a founding team when it takes such small groups to create games with the newest tools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think they're viable in terms of business prospects as long as you can get good games out consistently. I'm currently working at a startup that puts out mobile apps, we're currently moving into the gaming market.

Not sure about any funding, though.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry this was meant for ask HN but posted from my phone so it went to the wrong place.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you like games a lot, do it!</comment>


Ask HN: Lets talk stats - <AUTHOR>

We all know a good metrics driven analytic tool can be the backbone to any web business.   What are some good tools that you use to learn, analyze and optimize your traffic and leads? <comment><USER2> Even though it is off sometimes by as much as 100% and has many shortcomings I have yet to find something better than Google Analytics, but I'm sure that you are already familiar with that.

I keep a spreadsheet on the side with most of the key indicators as well.

If the situation asks for it I'll write some quick and dirty script to analyze a chunk of the log files.

And long ago I had a little program that would send out a packet on a UDP port to my desktop pc, and a second program that would toggle the sound port every time a packet arrived at that port. That made for interesting sounds, it's amazing what you can pick up that way.

("Hey, we just got linked somewhere big")

</comment><comment><USER3> I got a lot more out of Google Analytics after I discovered events and user defined values. For an app I have, someone passing a link to a friend is an event. If that app is used embedded in Facebook rather than MySpace, I can segment based on user defined values.</comment>


Show HN: HobJunt – The close friends job board - <AUTHOR> https://hobjunt.com/?ref=tylerhayes <comment><AUTHOR> Hey I'm Tyler Hayes, [https://twitter.com/thetylerhayes](https://twitter.com/thetylerhayes). Former cofounder of Bebo (acq. Twitch last year) and used to PM at Disqus.

Basically I made this because I ran an email list for 3 years helping friends get hired. The email list was getting unwieldy already and with this pandemic, just seemed like a lot more people could use something like this than just my personal friends.

So I turned my email list into a product. It's a "close friends job board" called HobJunt.

It lists people who are looking, not jobs

Just launched the site a few days ago. We have 50 people listed and about 500 people on the distribution lists.

I'd love all thoughts & feedback!

p.s. if you're jobhunting or hiring, reply here or DM me on Twitter (DMs open) and I'll help you write & edit your listing.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I retain more information from podcasts? - <AUTHOR> I listen to a lot of podcasts, mostly when commuting. Any tips for retaining more of the information?
I suspect that the only way is to treat podcasts like lectures: take notes then process them like you would lecture notes (spaced repetition etc).
It seems like I'd have to listen to the podcasts twice. First listen for interesting content I want to retain, then actually note it down.
Can anyone suggest a better approach? <comment><USER2> I listen to a lot of podcasts also. I try to retain a lot of info from them. The method I have been using (which does not work if you're driving) is while I'm listening, when I hit something interesting, I open up my iOS notes and make a note of it.

When I have free time at night, I go through those notes and do research and create Anki flash cards. This method works well.</comment>


Apple has 91% of market for $1,000+ PCs, says NPD - <AUTHOR> http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-has-91-of-market-for-1000-PCs-says-NPD/1248313624 <comment><USER2> The article title seems to confuse everybody, especially if you read the comments.

* Apple has 91% of _revenue_ when > $1000 is being spent * They only have 7% of the market

The way I read this: there's a _ton_ of cheap machines out there, and they ain't Macs. (Duh.)

Is it me, or does it seem like Microsoft is still not avoiding becoming the "budget" system? I can't see this working out in the long term, if they want to continue to avoid being a commodity. (You know, charging lots of $$ for upgrades.)

Something tells me the next year is going to be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not terribly surprising, considering a big factor for those who buy Windows is the price.</comment>


Is blockchain technology safe to develop decentralized finance system? - <AUTHOR> "As developers begin to understand how to harness the power of Blockchain technology as it relates to decentralized finance, they will be able to enhance the transparency, efficiency, and accessibility of over-the-counter financial transactions even further."
 Is this true that DeFi can be achieved through blockchain technology? <comment><USER2> As this type of technology becomes more advanced and widely adopted, it has the ability to promote global financial diversity that ultimately allows everybody to profit. In this sense, therefore, DeFi is essential in creating a truly autonomous financial economy in which everybody has the same opportunity to unlock the value of their assets and invest accordingly. Currently, there are companies like Nuts, which provides an accessible, distributed ledger that secures non-standardized trading and provides the transparency needed to safeguard every transaction.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes possible, realistic not so sure, there are few things to consider:

1\. permissionless vs permissioned implentations

2\. the blockchain being safe vs all the other software and processes that go into a full system being safe.

3\. End user experience and expectations, game theory, economics, competing with existing institutions</comment>


The Ivy League Doesn't Need Taxpayers' Help - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ivy-league-doesnt-need-taxpayers-help-1476652968 <comment><USER3> > The 94 schools with endowments over a billion dollars averaged 7.2% growth > from 2005-15

I'm not sure what point the authors are trying to make here. The S&P 500 (with reinvested dividends) returned ~7.4% annually over the same period [0].

> That works out to roughly $2 million per student.

Clearly this is a deceptive comparison. The institutions do not have $2mm to spend on each student every year. The endowment is intended to provide for each student the institution educates in perpetuity. Spending unsustainably destroys endowments, and subsequently their beneficiaries [1].

> Yet between 2010 and 2014, according to the same study, these schools > received some $30 billion of taxpayer contracts, grants, direct payments, > student assistance and tax exemption. In other words, federal cash and > subsidies over that time averaged nearly $102,000 per student each year.

Excluding the student assistance funding, the other aid provided to the schools is not necessarily relevant in a discussion about 'skyrocketing tuition'. The universities mentioned fulfill other essential roles, such as basic research, which immensely benefit society. The money allocated to these schools through the mechanisms mentioned, like grants, directly fund this work. Pretending it is being spent on undergraduate tuition is dishonest.

[0] [https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return- calculator/](https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/)

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/12/business/ransacking-the- en...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/12/business/ransacking-the-endowment-at- new-york-city-opera.html)

<comment><USER4> I agree - using grants and contracts as part of their total number is incredibly deceptive. Much of that has nothing to do with undergraduate students, and research grants have very, very little to do with the cost of tuition.

<comment><USER5> Deceptive comparison is the thing to do for msm these days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Taking money away from top universities. This is an idea who's time has come?

The positive externality provided by MIT, Caltech and Stanford alone in startups generated by people attracted from all over the world is G8 level wealth.

Take the funding away because it's not doing anything useful. Research. Understanding. Cures.

The WSJ has always had blow-hard editorials, but it's hard to imagine them writing this utter pile of excrement pre-Murdoch. We need to call it the Fox- WSJ just so we can be clear about its former reputation's place in the modern world.

</comment><comment><USER7> Like one of the starred comments on the article points out, the government should get out of the business of education loans. Industry can easily pay for students they think are valuable.

the govt should enable companies to have some sort of contract that enables a bright student to avail free education (sponsored by the company) in exchange of some duration of work with that sponsor (at market level wages).

This certainly will steer education towards what the market needs. Anything that is not in clear demand could still be funded by the endowments.

<comment><USER8> I disagree that industry is far-sighted enough to know what to invest in. Curriculum decided by market needs sounds like a nightmare.

<comment><USER9> Really? Curriculum decided by government committees sounds so much worse. University computer science curricula lags behind industry by at least five years, a sizable portion of coding bootcamp students are actually CS grads because they complete their degrees without competitive and employable skills.

<comment><USER8> There are important functions of colleges and universities outside of vocational training. If vocational training is all your after you should skip schools for a market solution like bootcamps.

<comment><USER10> Around here most universities advertise themselves as vocational training with slogans like " an education for the real world".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The schools are extremely valuable to americans as research centers and hubs of networks of power. There is ultimately no reason why Stanford or Harvard couldn't move to India or China if there were higher quality students willing to pay vastly more than American families can. The universities have the prestige, we don't. We are beneficiaries of their prestige, not the other way around.

So no, I don't agree with that article. Invest in success MORE not less.

<comment><USER12> A university is more than a name. Harvard or Stanford aren't going anywhere.

<comment><USER13> But if Americans take the perspective that their premier universities should contribute tax dollars, whilst other countries fund their universities, American universities will have marginally less resources. This will compound, because international moguls who can donate to a good school in country A (and have 20℅ taxed off the top) or in country B (and have none taxed) might well prefer country B.

The end result is a plummet in the Ivy League's international standing. Academics are remarkably focused on their research; prestige and nation matter little to many of thr top ones. What attracts academics are resources and colleagues. Without resources, the colleagues become worse, so both wither. Suddenly you'll have American politicians wondering why their schools aren't the best anymore.

<comment><USER12> That's a nice work of speculative fiction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Tax-exempt endowments seems like the absolute most logical loophole to close (perhaps a minimum size, but the point stands). They're some of the largest institutional investors in the country, yet they're taxed like a non-profit. Even if donations aren't taxed, just treat the endowments like any other institutional investor.

NOTE: This should not in any way rule out additional tax reform, whatever your preferred mechanism. The point is to treat multibillion dollar institutional investors like multibillion dollar institutional investors, however we wind up choosing.

<comment><USER15> > They're some of the largest institutional investors in the country, yet > they're taxed like a non-profit.

Is there a reason we _shouldn 't_ treat major educational institutions as non- profits, assuming we accept the concept of non-profits in the first place? (Note that the rules for non-profits already require spending a certain amount of the endowment every year.)

<comment><USER16> I think the argument is that they are much less accessible to students with less privileged backgrounds.

If one views the subsidy associated with the non-profit status as a form of education spending, it's fair to ask whether that is the best use of that money.

<comment><USER17> > I think the argument is that they are much less accessible to students with > less privileged backgrounds.

That's exactly backward though. The Ivy League schools all have need-blind admissions and meet 100% of demonstrated financial need (for U.S. students)

<comment><USER18> And yet the median income of the students parents at ivy league is something like $125k while the median income in America is more like $50k right?

<comment><USER19> It would be shocking to me if the profile of students applying to Ivy League schools _didn 't_ skew substantially high on median family income, highest degree attained by parents, and SAT scores.

Successful parents breed (read: raise) successful children. Surely not in every case, but in aggregate. As a successful graduate of a small tech school in Cambridge, I was aided by my parents' educational bent, bias, and investments of time and money. They were aided by their parents, just as my wife and I will aid our children.

<comment><USER20> Even if your tuition to Harvard or Yale was $0/semester, you still need to live nearby to attend. And if you're going to succeed, you're not going to want to have to take a minwage job in order to eat/stay warm/have clothes. Having the money to set up a student in a completely separate apartment (or whatever) means you're more likely to be in that $125k range than not.

<comment><USER21> This is "not even wrong."

Residential life is part of the package of top-tier universities - you live in the dorms first year by default, and are usually required to. When students migrate to nearby apartments depends, and is sometimes never.

Financial aid offices "meet demonstrated need" and don't typically differentiate between tuition, fees, and room and board.

If a student with a full ride moves off, financial aid cuts them a check for living expenses. Sometimes this amount is calculated based on the expectation that the student will work a campus job (with govt-subsidized wages - <USER2> Study) and sometimes not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Related: I wish more schools could/would adopt the Ivy League's financial aid model. Free (with room and board) if your family makes under ~$65k, and you only pay a small percentage if your family makes up to $150k - depending on the school.

Stanford is free (excluding room and board) for families making under $125k - [http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/01/pf/college/stanford- financia...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/01/pf/college/stanford-financial- aid/)

<comment><USER23> I went to an Ivy League college, and my parents are by no means rich, or even upper middle class. What happened was the college tried to use any excuse they could possibly find to deny "financial aid". One time I was denied because of a rounding error in my parents' tax returns. _Literally_ a rounding error. The only reason I managed to graduate was because a lawyer I happened to know threatened to sue the school.

If the Ivies want to say, "we're a school for the rich, tuition is $XXXK, put up the cash or don't come here", that is 100% their right as private institutions. But if they promise that aid will be provided to anyone who needs it, and they then revoke that promise on a whim when someone is already partway through their degree, they are lying bastards and need to be called out on it.

<comment><USER13> You speak of the Ivies as a group which has wronged you, but I don't necessarily think your experience is representative of the group as a whole.

Certainly my experience at another Ivy has been that this one goes out of their way to make sure students are funded, and will usually accept even egregiously late paperwork with no reduction in financial aid.

<comment><USER24> I would further posit that, in addition to differences among the various schools, you are often times at the whim of individual financial aid officers, who have full authority to accept or reject the applications they are processing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It would mean for one thing, that universities would have to change the way they fundraise and accept donations. A lot of endowment funds are earmarked for particular purposes. Which could be anything from an endowed professorship to a large donation for a new building. Not too long ago, Harvard got $400 million for a new engineering school. Would that same donor have been happy to give the same amount for a scholarship fund? Probably not. I work in university publishing. We have a fund that helps defray the production costs of some books. It was endowed to us for that purpose, and the funds can only be used for that. College endowments are made up of hundreds of such funds. While it would be great if we had bigger scholarship funds, people who think universities should spend down their endowments have no idea how these things actually work.

And at least some portion of the government spending is going to pay tuition, at least for graduate students getting RA stipends. That money comes out of research funds.

</comment><comment><USER26> I received most of my financial aid for my Ivy League education from federal grants (my family made < $60k). I wouldn't have had the opportunity to attend an Ivy League college without federal aid.

</comment><comment><USER27> A while ago, the Stanford dean wrote an open letter about the decreasing amount of funding for the UC system. In this letter, the dean mentioned the value the UC system provides to Stanford, the research community in general, and the state of California.

However, the Stanford Dean also said something interesting, he said that Stanford can't provide an education on the scale that the UC system does. While I agree Stanford can't match the entire UC system on scale, I have to ask, why not on a scale similar to a UC Campus?

UC Berkeley, for example, has over 27,000 undergraduates, with a vastly higher percentage of low income students than Stanford or any Ivy. At Stanford and Harvard, total undergrad enrollment is below 8,000. As a result, Berkeley educates more low income students than the entire ivy leave combined. This is true of a number of UC campuses.

It's clear that the elite privates have decided to keep their undergraduate populations very small. Even if they do improve the percentage of low income students, the scale is so minuscule that they can't really be large scale agents of social mobility.

So, why aren't Stanford and Harvard enrolling 25,000 undergraduates? If UCB and UCLA can do this, why can't they? These institutions do enroll comparable numbers of graduate students, the big gap is in undergrads.

[http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2014/10/13/why-elite-private- unive...](http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2014/10/13/why-elite-private-universities- get-more-per-pupil-government-money/)

Because these universities get a huge amount of money from the government, and a massive tax exemption, they end up being far more heavily subsidized per student than even the elite public universities, with far less restrictions on how they are allowed to operate.

I'm not absolutely against the exemption in theory, but really, why should Harvard and Stanford get to keep this massively valuable tax exemption if they're going to refuse to scale, offloading the massively important task of educating large numbers of students to state supported universities. Really, if you look at the public funding (including the favored tax status) Harvard and Stanford are essentially state supported institutions.

I'd say, privates need to either scale like UCB and UCLA, or lose the exemption.

</comment><comment><USER28> Who are these authors? The feds aren't "paying universities not to sped their endowments" they are paying them to take more students. All that will happen is that universities will cut funding for financial aid. Rule number one for any university endowment is that you never ever ever touch the endowment to fund ops [0]. Ever. Because the second you do the internal politics of the university go completely insane with everyone trying to get a slice of it for their pet projects. You especially don't use it to fund students tuitions. There are many people who can pay full ride for all their children. Do we really want to go back to living in a world where the vast majority of students who go to elite universities are there because their family has money? Because that is the world that this would create.

0\. In fact I'd say that this is rule number one for trying to build ANY kind of lasting institution.

</comment><comment><USER29> Ban all this crap, eliminate parent income calculations, and put a flat price on things. Let students get their financial aid externally. It's a conflict of interest on the part of the school to pick and choose who they're giving it to. While you're at it, get rid of student loan subsidies (i.e. Government guarantees) and allow student loans to be be washed away by bankruptcy.

After the initial shock of the bubble bursting when he band-aid is ripped off, you'll have a sustainable education cost structure with the added benefit that the altruism is externalized and insulated from the institutions.

<comment><USER30> And just say 'too bad' to the kids who can't afford it or get a loan because they have no co-signer with good enough credit?

<comment><USER29> No they can get free money from charities or loans from non profits. I'm saying it's not the governments job to do it. Nor is it a good idea for the schools to do it either. If they want to have a fund that provides money for a specific school, have it external to school and provide it to the students that attend that school. Otherwise you're hiding the costs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anyone have link to full article?

<comment><USER31> Click the "web" link under the article title, then click on the first result.

<comment><USER22> ooo thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I haven't read the article (can't get past the paywall), but based solely on the headline, if we do have to tax exempt somebody, I would rather it be the Ivy League colleges, than the university attached to the Alabama football team, or the UNC effort to exploit a loophole to get unpaid labor for its football operations.

(I want to reiterate I am only commenting on the headline, since this is a pet peeve of mine, and the article may completely refute or be unrelated to my comment).

<comment><USER33> I think the folks here prefer discussion of the articles rather than the headlines, but I'll hold off on downvoting your comment.

I don't even know what the pet peeve is that you mention: it's unclear from how you structured that bit of your writing.

<comment><USER34> Well then they should post articles that don't have paywalls.

<comment><USER19> That's what the web link is for. Click it and then click the top search result.

In this case, you can thank a Google policy for forcing access to paywalled articles in order to be indexed.

<comment><USER32> Thanks. I wasn't aware of the web links.

That's good to know.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Making 3-D imaging 1,000 times better – MIT News - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2015/algorithms-boost-3-d-imaging-resolution-1000-times-1201 <comment><USER2> I find it interesting polarized light is taking off now that we can manufacture cheap polarized sensors of sufficient resolution.</comment>


Upper-income people still don't realize they're upper-income - <AUTHOR> http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2011/04/upper-income_pe.html

<comment><USER2> Consdier any family of two engineers in silicon valley. If they graduated from college and joined successful companies, after a decade or so they will be making over 150k each, for a family income of 300k.

But yet they still work 50+ hours a week each, maybe 60 if they are checking email at nights and on the weekends. How have their lives changed between the interview and now? Not much. Meals are still prepared at home or work. Weekends most likely still mean riding bike or going to a movie. Any talk of family causes worry about taking time away from the career or delaying their hopes to be founders. Vacations disrupt work schedules, and the catching up afterward cause more headache then they are worth.

This level of wealth is different than what we hear about from the days of robber barons or Mad Men. Its even different than what anyone images when they prepare for undergraduate school. There is no luxury lifestyle with a condo downtown and home in the country. There are no two hour martini lunches. There are no personal chefs or nannies. You don't spend more time in leisure than at work. You always spend more of your time doing something you wish you could delegate, but you do it because you know it has to get done.

And maybe that is because wealth is very transient in tech. In five years your 100k+ job could be just as easily gone as become a 200k job. But more likely I would think that in tech high income comes with higher responsibilities. More wealth means more work, not less. And that is not about to change.

Perhaps this is the same in all sectors consistently creating new wealth; bio, pharma, engineering and tech. If so I think it is not surprising to see that families in the 200-500k range don't think they're wealthy when their current income level crosses a certain mark, because it has little immediate, and maybe little permanent, affect.

<comment><USER3> I think the people in the 250k range are having a philosophical argument about what it means to be wealthy. And the working class are arguing numbers.

I get it. They can have a decent income and not live a "rich" lifestyle, but they probably have a house, investments, kids in nice schools, they probably travel, eat at nice restaurants, etc. It's not wealthy, but they're not broke. I think that was the idea of a progressive tax. It increases as you move up the ladder. We're all debating the cutoff point.

<comment><USER2> My thesis was the opposite of your statement; those at the cut-off point are not travelling, they are not eating a nice restaurants, and they do not have kids let alone kids in good schools. They are working longer and harder than they did at the beginning of their career, and hence do not have a feeling of having obtained wealth.

To restate, I posit that while they have recently acquired a high income; with that has not come wealth in any sense that has made an impact on their lifestyle.

Concretely, having a 30 year mortgage on a 1500 foot house isn't a significant change from a 900 sq ft apartment. A 6% pay decrease for a 401k account might not be noticable, but when an investment can't be touched for 29 years there isn't a feeling of wealth attached to it.

I would assume that 10 years at this salary level may change that, but with the transient nature of tech this is not something that it assumed by most. I am also working under the assumption that that the distribution of people with earnings in this range is skewed towards those having reached it within the last decade.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't remember the source, but there was a great article that discussed a similar topic and showed that the income inequality isn't _really_ that skewed unless you look at those making above some threshold (maybe top 0.1% of the population or so). For example, the average income for any percentile of the population is a fairly straight function until you hit around 99 percentile, after which there is a sharp discontinuity rising higher.

This wasn't the original source but you can take a look here: <http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/pikettyqje.pdf> (Excuse my Berkeley bias, but Emmanuel Saez has produced great works in this field).

As you can see, the action is in the top 1 percentile, and the _real action_ is in the top 0.01 percentile.

In other words, those in the top 5 percentile do not feel rich because there are people who are _much MUCH_ richer than they are, due to the discontinuity you can see. So those making 240k are only four times as rich (less, after taxes) as those making 60k despite being nearly 50 percentile away. In contrast, those making tens or hundreds of millions are two orders of magnitude richer than those making 240k despite being less than 5 percentile away. Plus, most of their taxes are in the form of capital gains on stocks and dividends.

Crazy world, huh?

This leads me to a different point, which is that politicians' focus on 250,000 as some threshold for "rich" masks the bigger inequality. In my opinion, those making 250k or so are hard-working households who mostly "deserve" what they earn as families of doctors, lawyers, engineers even; and that the real inequality manifests itself above the million dollar threshold. The reason I say that is, a family with decent opportunities, a strong work ethic (since youth) and a decent set of brains can reach those levels through just hard work and persistence, while getting above the 1 million threshold is either reserved for severe luck, entrepreneurship (also heavily influenced by luck), inheritance, or politics.

So my point is that upper income people don't feel rich ('realize they're upper-income') because they are so close to those earning tens to hundreds of times more. In that context, all of us are in their shadows.

<comment><USER3> I hate to rain on your parade...

 _As you can see, the action is in the top 1 percentile, and the real action is in the top 0.01 percentile._

It doesn't so much matter how people feel. It matters what the reality is. If you make 250k there are millions of people who make much less than you do. The top 5% in a country of 310 million is a lot of people.

I'm not necessarily even favoring dramatically increasing taxes on the lower threshold of rich people, but I don't want to pretend like the life of a family that makes 250k+ and a family that makes 60k are very similar. This issue is about self-awareness, not "the other guys".

<comment><USER2> What are the significant differences between these two families that we shouldn't pretend to gloss over?

I grew up extremely poor, my father making around 18k a year at the time he was required to provide his tax statements for a student loan.

There were no high profile private schools in my area, and so I attended school with the children of doctors, lawyers, bankers, and the local newscaster. While they often had newer clothes, I don't think our childhood experience or family situation were much different.

And now, when I look to start a family of my own, I cant see how having a family income of 4x that of my parents is going to induce any significant change.

Perhaps if I make it to 10x my fathers wage I'll see these difference you speak of, but as of now I don't see them.

<comment><USER3> Well I have a friend who makes more in 1 day than I pay in rent.

He talks about being broke all of the time, but doesn't mention the fact that he's always traveling, has bought 3 cars in a year and lives in a large house and he started and shut down a business within 1 year. He doesn't think he has money, but that's because he spends it. If he could afford those things, so can other people in his bracket.

If he saved all of his money he might complain about his poor lifestyle, but for some reason he doesn't seem to realize that they're all choices. He could have easily bought a house half the size and price. It would stil be large. The article was right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From a statistical standpoint, it'd be interesting not to talk, as the article does, in terms of raw percentile, but based on region, normalized by the cost of living index.

A couple making $250k in Medford, OR would probably be considered fairly well off, but in NY, NY that would not take you very far at all.

</comment><comment><USER6> "upper-income" is way too broad of a term

If people really want to compare, then they should rank their wealth as a percentile.

ie. instead say, your income is in the 20% percentile (meaning you have more annual income than 80% of other people in the nation)

It's probably a nice problem to have but I cannot imagine working at a job that paid me $250k a year, I'd keep asking myself how the hell I am worth that much - I'd put 10% of it as cash in a safe and open it once in awhile and freak-out just looking at it.

</comment><comment><USER7> To talk about the average income in Manhattan is nonsense. Big parts of Manhattan are untouchable by someone making less than several million a year. Other large parts are populated by families dependent on food stamps. There is no "average" neighborhood in Manhattan. As a statistician, the writer has to know that was a straw-man argument.

</comment><comment><USER8> "but only 6 percent say that they personally pay too little." (in taxes).

No one is stopping people who feel this way from writing a check to the government. They'll take your money just fine.

</comment><comment><USER9> First some facts: The upper 5% of the population pays 75% of all federal revenue, even though they only account for about 25% of the GDP Almost 60% pay no income tax The real US tax rate is already one of the highest in the world The corporate tax is #2 to Japan

Now the ramifications are that the US is already seeing a capital flight out of the country and that trend will only pickup until the Tax Code is fixed.

We should have a flat tax and a VAT.

</comment><comment><USER10> The two assertions, taken alone, are not contradictory. If Joe makes $250,000 a year, he may think that _he_ pays too much in taxes, but that the entire portion of society that makes over $200,000 pays too little. It could be that he thinks that only the top 0.1% pays too little, and everyone else pays slightly too much.

Also, what is "upper-income"? Is that the top 50% of earners? The top 1%?</comment>


Building a Devops team - <AUTHOR> http://agilesysadmin.net/building-a-devops-team

<comment><USER2> I just created this account to comment on this. I am a generalist. I started out as a hardware and software designer, but then focused on software for many years. Later moving from Development to Operations where I can write code and deal with sys admin stuff at the same. Writing monitoring tools, installation packages, automation for release and builds, as well reading all the developers code that gets checked into the Source Code repository. Troubleshooting servers, permissions, network issues, software bugs in websites, client/server apps, SQL... whatever it took.

I got my previous first job about 8 years and I remember the person hiring me saying that they wanted "specialists". I firmly replied I am a generalist. I didn't hear back for a month or 2 but then got the call that I was hired. For the first few years, the generalist mentality was actually how things ran. Everybody was expected to dive into code, databases, server, etc. Suddenly, they said that silos were forming and in order to improve the organization, a re-org was needed and you had your various teams of architects, dev, support & ops, DBAs, Q&A, project management, etc..you get the idea.

A year after this process the whole team spirit was crushed. The whole "not our problem, it's that team's problem" starting gaining ground. People that were once team mates were now (using the someone eles's words) throwing problems over the wall back and forth. People also threatened management that if they ever got put on team 'X', they're quitting. Yup, they made specialists out of the wrong people. If only they had just left the generalist structure be. For me, understanding something from the beginning to the end is VERY important. How can someone write programs if they don't understand how security is handled on the web server, or how SQL statements affect performance, or how deployment is done? I think having an assembly like structure (specialists) can work, but it's not as responsive as a generalist structure. Products will get shipped with less silly mistakes if you know what the destination looks like. Release and deployment is so misunderstood by many developers. People need to get their hands dirty.

I have since left that organization and I'm now back to a generalist position where I can get my hands dirty. It's tough because you're starting from scratch again and trying to hire once again. Hiring is hard. Typically, new organizations need generalists more than established ones. That is not to say that established organizations should have less of a use for them. I tried to change the shift from specialists to generalists at my previous work, but you start hurting your career if you're constantly grinding it out with upper management. You have to know when to let go.

I really like this term Devops. Because you Developers do need to be able to understand Operations, and vice versa.

<comment><USER3> I often wonder how developers are actually able to develop without being able to throw together the entire stack they use without following a detailed tutorial.

<comment><USER2> @r00fus: You hit it on the nail. I was actually involved in creating all of the initial reports for upper management for statistical purposes (metrics). It's because management had no clue what anyone was doing because the team grew too quick too fast. I was fortunate at looking at the numbers of 30+ developers. Everybody had to enter their time. Even if you spent 10 minutes reading email, you enter it. I am not exaggerating. All the numbers were bullshit. Everybody made sure to have 7.5 hours. All the numbers were padded. The metrics didn't actually reflect the truth, just how people padded their numbers.

@devicenull: I have done that as well. You basically program using the "leap of faith" methodology. You're never 100% sure that what you wrote won't break something. You rely on others to validate your work. Assuming the "others" know what to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really like his interview process. Having you actually install WordPress and troubleshoot a broken MySQL installation, while having full access to Google and other resources, is much closer to real sysadmin work than the type of interviewing that Google and the rest of the tech elite seem to like.

I am so sick of getting asked basic administrivia that you never need to know in your daily job, or can easily be googled within 3 seconds. Our brains have selective memory - we remember what is important to us.

If I have to sit through one more interview being asked about esoteric junk like the structure of an inode on disk or how to code an algorithm that you never use outside of a CompSci course in University I'm going to hang up on the interviewer.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've always thought this type of person was called a 'generalist'. I like devops a bit better.

The problem I've found being a devops-type person is that hiring managers have a hard time figuring out what you do and why you're valuable (author of post excluded).

I've received comments that my resume is too unfocused -- they'd ask if I wanted to be a sys admin or a developer, to which I'd answer "both!"

</comment><comment><USER6> Could the timing be worse? "Brian Henerey heads up Operations Engineering in the Online Technology Group at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe." talking about devops? It's almost as fun as Sony's scheduled tweets, inviting to play online while their network was down. Whatever he wrote in this article, I'd be thinking about their security problems and how they relate to what he's promoting...

</comment><comment><USER7> Great articles, including those from the links.

I have troubles in finding such a position, even though I focus on start-ups only.

</comment><comment><USER8> Just wondering: how much do they pay? I'm asking this because 1) people with the skill set they're looking for are extremely rare 2) tend to be self- employed or startuppers 3) might leave any moment if the conditions they're looking for are not met.

So what's the kind of money you're offering to retain these guys?

<comment><USER9> Disclaimer: I've previously worked with the owner of the linked blog, but not in the environment being discussed in this post.

I can't give you the specifics for the employer (Sony) mentioned in the blog post, but I can offer answers based as my own experience. I went back to freelancing/self-employed about 5 years ago following 7 years of being in a full-time job. At the time it was primarily motivated by the rates I'd seen advertised for roles similar to what I was already doing, with grand plans of building a team of other contractors that I'd farm work out to and skim a % off the top and ultimately build a successful dev shop of my own. I quickly realised the economics and scale required to make that happen, so instead focussed on just making sure I had enough work to keep myself busy. What I've realised in that time is:

* Demand definitely exceeds supply at the moment. I've constantly had more paying work than I have time available to do it.

* We (developers) get paid stupidly good for what we do. Not movie star/sports person good, but still pretty amazing given there is very little risk to our health and much of it can be self taught.

* Primarily chasing the money is almost always destined to end in disaster.

I spent the better part of 3 years working with Stephen (the author of the linked blog) for a client. Almost everyone there was self-employed, and most had been there for longer than I had. I was definitely getting paid below market rates, but I stayed there for that long because:

* They were honest and open about everything in the business, I never felt like I was being screwed over or that my contribution was undervalued.

* The working environment was flexible, I had Monday's off (which as a contractor is actually another 20% hit on your weekly rate), and my performance was measured by delivering rather than face-time and adherence to a schedule.

* It was just a generally great place to be.

I've since worked for clients where the environment has been just the opposite. The worst places have always been the highest paying, they've always been cashflow rich and figure money can solve all their problems. If I've had any complaints about the way things were done and said I was leaving, they'd throw more money at me. I'd justify accepting it at the time, and then start to feel dirty about the fact you're just whoring yourself out. I can't be the only one to have conclusion, the fact I've worked with so many talented people happily earning less than their potential I think confirms that.

Because lets be honest, I could be earning 50% of what "market rates" are these days and still be a hell of a long way from the poverty line.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that while great developers might be rare, I think great developers that are primarily motivated by their daily rate are even rarer. If you (as an employer) are aware that all your employees, whether they are contractors or not, might leave at any moment if you're not offering them an enjoyable place to work... well then I think you're half way there. Then build it, and they will come :)

<comment><USER10> So, do you actually have any numbers to answer the grandparent's question? I'm guessing $80,000 USD + benefits (or equivalent) at a minimum.

<comment><USER9> No, and I obviously didn't make my point clearly enough. It was to stop thinking that you have to offer a minimum of $x to attract people. I tolerated a 49% drop in effective pay rate to work somewhere I loved.

Offer a really great place to work, at a minimum.

<comment><USER8> It's your life and you make the calls but why couldn't you just work half the time then? You'd get the same money and 12 or so days off every month. You can do plenty of interesting work during that spare time.

<comment><USER9> Because I've seen plenty of people try that (myself included) and it's rarely worked as planned. If you've got an interesting idea that you _genuinely_ I think being tied up doing something else for 8 hours a day is just an excuse. You can either fit it in to your down time, or quit completely and be truly motivated to get it done.

Instead I opted to have a long weekend every week, and spend my days doing something I enjoyed for people I liked for an amount of money that let me live a still very comfortable lifestyle in what is reportedly one of the most expensive cities in the world. I've still got a tonne of time to do interesting work, and a family that is happy I'm not coming home complaining about "the office".

<comment><USER2> >a family that is happy I'm not coming home complaining about "the office"

That was why I quit my last job. I was emotionally invested. Couldn't help it. When you come home and 90% of the time you're complaining to your family about work - it's time to leave.

My current job is a 10 minute walk. 9 to 5. And I'm paid well. I come home quickly and have plenty of time to spend on whatever I want. And right now, it's my family.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


TOPLAP 15th Anniversary 84 Hour Live Coding Stream - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/eulerroom/live/ <comment><AUTHOR> This features graphical and musical artists performing "live coding" sets. This concept is new to me, curious if any HN'ers here have experimented with any live coding techniques or groups?</comment>


The Impact of YouTube Removing Community-Contributed Closed Captions - <AUTHOR> https://datahorde.org/?p=1196 <comment><AUTHOR> For a tl;dr:

While YouTube assures us that it's a very few number of channels which rely on community contributions, this paints a very blurry picture of how many users are reliant on these.

Not to mention use cases which aren't available to any of the alternative caption providers:

1) When a user uploads their captions or Google generates them, it's often a one-time process. If there's a mistake, no one is going to go back to fix it. But with community contributions, users can build off of previous work by correcting one another, not unlike how Wikipedia works.

2) Even though community contributions carry the risk of sabotage, they also provide viewers with the power to moderate. Someone snuck in a joke on a video you were watching? Just go into the caption editor and edit it out! Community Contributions spare channels of having to moderate these manually by relegating the task to channel viewers.

3) Where automated captions are stuck with plain text, and uploaders are limited by the time they're willing to invest to stylize their captions, there are people out there waiting to tap into their potential. YouTube supports a plethora of caption/subtitle formats, which a seasoned captioner can use to add color, formatting and emphasis!

4) In translation, there are times when we don't want it to be too precise. An example could be explaining the meaning of a word, the wordplay in a joke… And although there are techniques to recognize proper names, there are sentences that automated translation is not designed to handle. For an illustrated version of this explanation see The Impact of YouTube Removing Community- Contributed Closed Captions</comment>


Twitter's Bootstrap hit 100,000 stars on GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/stargazers <comment><USER3> Bootstrap is a lovely little thing. I use it for all new projects, as it kindly stops me from being nerd-sniped by CSS features and cross-browser comparability quirks. I usually end up needing to supplement it or replace it eventually, but it gives you so much for so little.

<comment><USER4> This!! All my little dashboards and apps I use bootstrap for them initially. Once they've come to a suitable position where the bootstrap framework gets in the way by being a little clunky/big/not specialised enough in certain ways/just looking boring (:D) I go ahead and rip it out. But that feels like the whole point of a framework called bootstrap right? Like its name is literally its purpose :).

<comment><USER5> How do you rip it out if half of the HTML code is written only to suit Bootstrap?

<comment><USER6> I'd like to know, too. I've been using bootstrap in a couple of places and every time we change a page to use it, it feels like it'll be 10 times harder to rip it out later.

Does anyone know of an scss-based UI framework, where I can just call mixins into my css? Or is that even possible with bootstrap?

Adapting html to a UI framework's code feels like a completely upside down approach.

<comment><USER4> Ok this is an excellent question. The way I do it is by first converting stuff to semantic names. If it's a somewhat serious project I'm likely to have done that from very early on. I use a method similar to [https://www.sitepoint.com/sass-semantically-extend- bootstrap...](https://www.sitepoint.com/sass-semantically-extend-bootstrap/) to do this.

Later, I start converting this stuff to be what I actually want in either a custom CSS or by integrating some other framework.

Note though. I explicitly mentioned this is for my little dashboards and apps. When I start this process, pages will look broken from time to time and there might be pages that look Frankensteined. I've never done this on a serious app although I want to do that for one client I'm consulting for. Since I wrote all the code myself, here's my speculation on how I'll do it.

Since I have a fairly structured way of arranging my divs and my forms, I'm going to hack together a parser using beautifulsoup/htmlparser to get the bootstrap stuff out and convert those to semantic names. So it'll be something that goes through a file, and then tells me it found a div.row here (show me the surrounding lines to get me an idea of where it is) and then ask me to input the semantic name. It'll spew out the sass files I want and change the jinja templates.

From there I'm going to attempt to plug in material just because I like it so much :D

<comment><USER6> That seems like a lot of trouble to go through, to use a UI framework which is supposed to save you time. :/

Do you have any recommendations on a better, leaner scss UI toolkit?

<comment><USER4> No I'm afraid I don't. You are right that this is a lot of pain for a UI framework that's supposed to save you time. But because I've done this a few times over it's become fairly simple once it's coupled together with some vim macros and snippets. But it's not a very good workflow that someone else can adopt quickly. I just found bootstrap to be super comfortable to get started and I also built some generators that auto generate templates for me when I work on my little projects. When I wrote those I made them to use bootstrap and I can't be bothered going back to change them now

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Bootstrap is great and I'mma letchu finish, but [http://semantic- ui.com/](http://semantic-ui.com/) is my favorite and I think everyone should go take a quick look.

You might just like it too.

<comment><USER8> It's kind of ... heavy? Comparing minified files:

Bootstrap [1]: 118 KB

SemanticUI [2]: 537 KB

Don't forget to add the JavaScript. I know GZip is a thing, but still...

[1] [https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/blob/master/dist/css/boots...](https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/blob/master/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css)

[2] [https://github.com/Semantic-Org/Semantic-UI- CSS/blob/master/...](https://github.com/Semantic-Org/Semantic-UI- CSS/blob/master/semantic.min.css)

<comment><USER9> If you are using LESS or Sass, it's really not hard at all to only include the parts of Bootstrap that you need. In my experiences, I often need just need maybe half of it and don't bother much with the Javascript stuff. I don't think Bootstrap really has performance or size as a first priority. It's really just a big toolkit, ready to go so you can whip out a functioning app.

<comment><USER10> This is true of a lot of frameworks. I've honestly not been a huge bootstrap fan, and Foundation 5 and 6 also can be built with SASS and you can easily remove components you don't use.

If you're trying to maximize compatibility while also get designs up quickly, any modern framework is preferable to no framework at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Bootstrap? No one uses it any more, it's too popular.

\-- HN whenever Bootstrap comes up (paraphrasing Yogi Berra).

</comment><comment><USER12> While we're plugging our favourite Bootstrap alternatives, I just want to give a shoutout to Bourbon: [http://bourbon.io/](http://bourbon.io/)

I find it a lot more flexible than Bootstrap, but equally useful for fundamentals and cross-browser support. It is also less opinionated about the HTML markup and styling, at the cost of requiring more setup (rather than just, say applying classes) than Bootstrap. But with the additional modules of Neat, Bitters, and Refills, you can get the same sort of UI suite going quite easily.

<comment><USER13> This is apples vs. hammer comparison. Totally different tools for different purposes.

Bootstrap is for copy-paste website/app sketching and bourbon is for speeding up SASS coding. I tried it, but I ended up using 1-2 functions of it, so it got dropped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Please, stop referring to it as "Twitter" Bootstrap. The "Twitter" part has been ditched since - idk - <USER2>

<comment><USER15> In fairness, the Github org is still called "twbs".

<comment><USER14> It's not "still" called "twbs".

It was called "twbs" when they moved the project out of the "twitter" organization as a way of saying "hey! we love our past at twitter!" :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Loved it, but doesn't it look like development has stagnated with version 4 still being in alpha?

<comment><USER17> There was a discussion about this a couple of weeks ago [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12435425](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12435425)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Well deserved!

I remember that before BootStrap came to the scene, we used to work with BluePrint CSS. BluePrint gave a nice canvas and concealed all the IE6 related issues. However, once Google Chrome became mainstream, it was time to move up to the next level. BootStrap emerged to the scene and completely won over so many hearts. The world is a better place because of BootStrap! Many many thanks for the team that put this together.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is this number 1? I remember there was a rankings page but I can't seem to find it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Second (in terms of stars); "FreeCodeCamp" has over 170k, because part of its onboarding encourages you to star the repo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> That's more than double the stars jQuery has: [https://github.com/jquery/jquery](https://github.com/jquery/jquery)

</comment><comment><USER21> Wait, are we talking about SemanticUI or Bootstrap here?

<comment><AUTHOR> Bootstrap - was this meant as a comment thread reply?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Bootstrap is awesome, but initial loading of my apps was taking a while. I reconfigured to use the Skeleton framework. Not nearly as feature packed, but works amazing well at a very tiny fraction of Bootstrap's size.

[http://getskeleton.com/](http://getskeleton.com/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I just like the neat and intuitive column block classes. I would have never done something so organized myself.

</comment><comment><USER24> Which project has most stars? Is there a list?

<comment><USER25> [https://github.com/search?q=stars:%3E1&s=stars&type=Reposito...](https://github.com/search?q=stars:%3E1&s=stars&type=Repositories)

<comment><USER26> I'm surprised how many stars Font-Awesome has. If you consider that using fonts for icons is an anti-pattern the fact that a font icon is so popular is mind boggling.

p.s. don't get me wrong I use it myself

<comment><USER27> Unfortunately styling SVGs is still not particularly convenient yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Foundation 6 > Bootstrap 3. Especially if you need easier customizability.

<comment><USER29> Doesn't Foundation require jQuery? Seems like it's a non-starter for anything written in the past 2 years. Maybe Bootstrap does too, I haven't used it in ages.

<comment><USER30> Really? I've subscribed to a few web SAAS apps recently and they all seem to have most of their requisite jquery (in one case, quite a bit of the whole thing) compiled into their app.js.

What are people doing? Going commando?

<comment><USER31> Using React, other frameworks with virtual DOMs. jQuery isn't as useful for managing vDOM's :)

<comment><USER30> Fair enough. I don't do a lot of event dispatching (well, bubbling), so I haven't found it a clear win for my use case, but it's only 10k more than jQuery (gzipped), so I can see that it would be good for a lot of them. As I move to something more componentized instead of the goulash I have now, I suspect that this will change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Well deserved, congrats!

</comment><comment><USER33> Love it. Just gave it the 101120th star.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm also one of 100,000

</comment><comment><USER35> Well, NOW I'll use it

</comment><comment><USER36> 1 star for every KB it takes up?</comment>


Munich Detonates WWII Bomb - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/08/munich-detonates-one-its-many-wwii-era-bombs/56313/

<comment><USER2> Interesting that this made it to the front page of Hacker News.

</comment><comment><USER3> Pardon my ignorance, but how involved was Munich in the entire WWII conflict? It was not too close to the front (especially to the west) and the closest bordering nations were allies.

<comment><USER4> Munich is the home of BMW, and a major industrial centre of the southern part of Germany. As such it was a desirable target for the Allied war effort. According to Wikipedia, 42% of the city was destroyed during the bombing campaign:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#The_Battle_of_Britain_and_the_Blitz)

</comment></comment><comment> hendrik-xdest Here is a better recording: <http://vimeo.com/48399328>

</comment><comment><USER5> Weird. Here's a story about a WW2 bomb near Amsterdam's airport from today too: [http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/29/world/europe/netherlands-a...](http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/29/world/europe/netherlands- airport-bomb/index.html?hpt=hp_t3)

</comment><comment><USER6> Another one at Amsterdam Airport, must be the season, like the mushrooms:

[http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/29/world/europe/netherlands-a...](http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/29/world/europe/netherlands- airport-bomb/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I am guessing either this type of bomb wasn't designed to create shrapnel, or they removed the casing beforehand somehow?

<comment> hendrik-xdest They did not. I've read in a German newspaper today that a piece of the metal casing has been found 300 meters off, near one of the main roads of Munich. They coated the bomb in straw and sandbags to minimize the shrapnel as best as possible, though.

<comment><USER8> The straw was there to prevent shrapnel damage. Unfortunatel the straw ignited and started fires in a couple of surrounding buildings.

You can find a lot of pictures in german newspapers and magazines, i.e.: [http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/bombenfund-experten- spreng...](http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/bombenfund-experten-sprengen- blindgaenger-fotostrecke-86715.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Branching Is Easy. So? Git-flow Is Not Agile. - <AUTHOR> http://whilefalse.blogspot.com/2013/02/branching-is-easy-so.html

<comment><USER2> The great thing about git is branching is so cheap it can replace what would be committing under other VCSes. Developing a new feature necessarily involves stages where the code is unsuitable for release, if you're doing it right - you should have tests or, better, language support that will prevent you from releasing something nonfunctional, and the feature will go through nonfunctional stages (even accepting that you can and should implement it as piecemeal as possible). You should of course be merging as often as possible, as often as you can deploy - which might be hourly or better, if you have a good continuous deployment setup - but it's still valuable to be able to make commits at a finer granularity than that. So you use branches for that grouping (and I think 1 branch = 1 "feature" = 1 deployment is a good model), and commits for finer-grained history.</comment>


Why Retweet works the way it does - <AUTHOR> http://evhead.com/2009/11/why-retweet-works-way-it-does.html <comment><USER2> There wasn't anything exclusive about doing something easy like a conventional retweet button, and this upgrade. They should have done the former then the latter.

The main advantage, by far, of this retweet implementation, is that twitter controls everything. The value of the retweet data is astounding. It might make their service viable - compared to the tyranny of chronological views of everyone that could be their downfall.

We need to find good content, and bubble it up. You can't just have realtime to do realtime search. You need content. Currently, twitter has an extremely poor estimate of what is good.

Let me take this opportunity to also gripe that favorites should be MUCH more prominent. They need to incentivize them by showing a count or usernames next to each tweet. And let me reorder tweets based on their being marked a favorite.

<comment><USER3> I agree with your statement about favorites. I think, if they promoted them, they would be a great way to help rank content. I think this, combined with retweets could really help bubble stuff up to the surface.

Part of the issue with retweets is that the whole network will become more noisy and people will have to get used to that, I think this is partly a mistake. It could be fixed by allowing users to favorite cool things and retweet things they REALLY wanted to surface.

<comment><USER2> They could make a setting to only show retweets if more than N people have retweeted it. I'd love a similar setting for my current stream that relies on favorites.

Come to think of it, I could make that in a few hours...

<comment><USER4> You have seen <http://favstar.fm> right? Let me know if I can make it more useful to you. Try the 'my favstar list' feature there - it does what you're talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Besides the commenting thing, something I haven't seen covered elsewhere is that I won't have any idea WHO retweeted the thing that shows up in my timeline. The authority (and, indeed, just the personality) of the person recommending the tweet has a lot to do with whether or not I care, or what my expectations for a link in that retweet might be.

EDIT: looks like the screenshot in ev's post was misleading-- it does show who retweeted:

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/10/hate-it-or-love-it- twit...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/10/hate-it-or-love-it-twitters-new- retweet-style-rolling-out/)

<comment><USER6> Isn't it supposed to add "retweeted by x (and x others)" down at the bottom by "from web"?

I thought that's how I read that it was going to work... I don't have the feature yet, so I can't tell you.

<comment><USER5> the screenshot in ev's post didn't show that, but now I see that the screenshot on Techcrunch does. That makes me feel a bit better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've always been skeptical of Retweeting. As the article mentions, it's responsible for diluting the quality of your news stream. Any value-add from the sentiment of a Retweet is offset by the sheer noise-to-signal ratio and redundancy from repetition.

The new feature is a step forward. It seems that it formalizes the Retweet syntax into, what is essentially, a vote for a Tweet. This is primarily what Retweeting has come to mean anyway.

I hope this encourages more original content on Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER8> My biggest issue to the new retweet feature is that I can no longer add a comment with my retweets. Most of the time this is a deal-breaker for me.

<comment><USER9> You can always retweet the old-school way. It is not deprecated.

<comment><USER10> It can never be deprecated only banned (i.e if twitter doesn't accept tweets with "RT" in them)

<comment><USER11> They are 100% not going to do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As someone data mining Twitter, I have no problems with this and it makes my life 100x easier. Matching up RTs before and tracking them was hell.

<comment><USER13> Not sure if it will help you much - people will still continue to RT the old way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think this is great but again ill be waiting for them to allow comments in the retweets. For now I may just be quoting instead of retweeting.

</comment><comment><USER15> My twitter doesn't have this retweet functionality. I guess they haven't launched that feature yet?

<comment><USER2> They are rolling it out to some users.

<comment><USER15> I read that, but the blog post is dated September 21st. I guess I expected their beta testing of the feature to last only a couple of weeks and that they would have enabled it for everyone by now.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the date on the post is wrong. If you go to the main page, the date is 11/10.

<comment><USER15> Ah, that makes much more sense now. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Official: Russian weapon 27 times faster than speed of sound - <AUTHOR> https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/official-russian-weapon-27-times-faster-speed-sound-60033030 <comment><USER2> Similarly, at the time when the Soviets constructed the supersonic P-700 Granit missile, the US did not have defense technology sufficient to defend against it. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-700_Granit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-700_Granit)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's gone from there.

Maybe point to [https://www.apnews.com/ffb2032c9c034433bc6d42a62fc41177](https://www.apnews.com/ffb2032c9c034433bc6d42a62fc41177)</comment>