How to Download Online Videos - <AUTHOR> https://vidmatedown.blogspot.com/2019/06/vidmate-apk.html <comment><USER2> I feel there is a clear lack of information other than just downloading the application to figure it out on your own. I think this is obviously not for me as youtube-dl/ffmpeg works just fine

Also, this is blatant self promotion.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, but can I download more RAM?</comment>


Keeping Instagram up with over a million new users in twelve hours - <AUTHOR> http://instagram-engineering.tumblr.com/post/20541814340/keeping-instagram-up-with-over-a-million-new-users-in <comment><USER2> What kind of instances are you guys running for Redis/memcached? I am a bit surprised on the numbers here, but to be fair I don't do much in the virtualization world. With low cpu overhead, it sounds like you might be saturating the number of interrupts on the network card if it's not a bandwidth issue. Memcache can usually push 100-300k/s on an 8-core Westmere (could go higher if you removed the big lock). Redis on the other hand with pinned processes to each physical core can do about 500,000/s. We (Twitter) saw saturation around 100,000~ on CPU0, what tipped us off was ksoftirq spinning at 100%. If you have a modern server and network card, just pin each IRQ for every TX/RX queue to an individual physical core.

<comment><AUTHOR> Those are really useful numbers--I think a lot of it can be chalked up to virtualization, but we should definitely explore more around IRQ pinning for queues. Any good starting points / reading, are you mostly using taskset?

<comment><USER3> Why do you guys use both memcache and Redis ? Redis also has LRU cache functionality.

<comment><USER2> Because in-house we have a custom version of memcache. We rewrote memcache's slab allocator, and for some use cases, is better at memory efficiency than Redis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A slight tangent, since I saw that instagram are using both Graphite and Munin- Collectd just added a plugin to send metrics to Graphite. You might want to try it for tracking your machine stats over time.

<http://collectd.org/wiki/index.php/Plugin:Write_Graphite> <http://collectd.org/>

<comment><USER5> Along the same lines, are you doing anything special with munin to make it fast? We've had performance issues with the RRDs and graph generation that led us to pipe metrics to graphite with collectd.

<comment><AUTHOR> We've had to split munin across three masters (by machine role) because the graphing job was just locking on IO. Munin 2.0 moved over to all-dynamic CGI graphing, but I haven't gotten the chance to play with it yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Isn't there a risk with EBS snapshots that the snapshot of a live instance could have been taken while your db engine was in the middle of a transaction and leave the data in the newly spun instance in an inconsistent state?

Is it that EBS snapshots are engineered to prevent this? Or just that it's not likely to happen in practice?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, there is--we take all of our snapshots from a slave, and we stop the slave before taking a snapshot, then XFS-freeze all drives, then take the snapshot, to ensure it's consistent.

<comment><USER7> Are EBS snapshots not block-level atomic? In _theory_ you should get a PITR image without stopping anything, assuming that:

1) The file system correctly orders or journals operations (I'm not familiar with XFS, but this is the case with FFS2/FreeBSD, ZFS, ext3/4 journaling, etc).

2) The database system correctly orders or journals operations, and properly fsync(s) to disk (which postgreSQL does)

Of course, there's no harm to an abundance of caution with something like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> They are, but we software-RAID our EBS drives to get better write throughput, _and_ we put the Write-Ahead Logs (WALs) on a different RAID from the main database, so when you have both of those going on, you need something else to atomically snapshot our PG databases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Congratulations. Really impressive how solid you handled the Android onslaught.

</comment><comment><USER9> We use statsd, graphite, redis and node as well. You might be interested some of my projects relating to these:

<https://github.com/gflarity/nervous> <https://github.com/gflarity/response> <https://github.com/gflarity/qdis>

</comment><comment><USER10> Why use Graphite instead of Ganglia? Ganglia uses RRDs. It's been around forever, it's fairly low on resource use, it's fast, and you can generate custom graphs like with Graphite. I actually ended up doing some graphs with google charts and ganglia last time I messed with it. (Also, nobody has really simple tools to tell you which of your 3,000 cluster nodes has red flags in real time and spit them into a fire-fighting irc channel so we had to write those ourselves in python)

 _"Takeaway: if read capacity is likely to be a concern, bringing up read- slaves ahead of time and getting them in rotation is ideal"_

Sorry but this is not 'ideal', this is Capacity Planning 101. If you're launching a new product which you expect to be very popular, take your peak traffic and double or quadruple it and build out infrastructure to handle it ahead of time. I thought this was the whole point of the "cloud"? Add a metric shit-ton of resources for a planned peak and dial it down after.

<comment><USER11> _Sorry but this is not 'ideal', this is Capacity Planning 101. If you're launching a new product which you expect to be very popular, take your peak traffic and double or quadruple it and build out infrastructure to handle it ahead of time. I thought this was the whole point of the "cloud"? Add a metric shit-ton of resources for a planned peak and dial it down after._

Paul is nice so we are nice.

Last time I checked, I haven't built a service with +20mm users. I Googled you. I don't think you have built a service with +20mm users.

Programming is hard. Scaling is harder.

Let's have some empathy here. I bet the Instagram team has parents and siblings and significant others and friends that they haven't seen in a while. I bet they have responsibilities that they have neglected to keep the service up. I'd rather not poop on their head when they are trying to scale their service by millions of users.

This stuff is hard. Leaving a comment on a news aggregation service is easy.

<comment><USER10> I'm sorry that my comments come off as harsh, but the original line struck me as so completely basic it's like something you would tell someone who had never worked in IT. They clarified later that they had tried to plan ahead but came up a little short, which I can understand; no estimation is perfect.

I have no idea how many users Sportsline had but it was a bunch. Peaks of 64k hits per second on the dynamic layer, up to 8 gigabits sustained traffic in one datacenter... it was pretty ugly on firefighting days. I don't mean to poop on them, but if they're as big as they seem to be I hold them to a higher standard than a 6 month old start-up fresh out of college.

I agree it's hard. The fact that they were able to handle the traffic they did with only a small amount of downtime is a testament to the fact that they did have their shit together (as well they should with the number of users they had already).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hello!

Question about quality insta-photos on Android.

I have JPG from SGS2 - <http://kia4sale.narod.ru/insta/01.jpg>

This is <http://kia4sale.narod.ru/insta/02.jpg> instaphoto (Earlybird) from Android version

This is [http://distilleryimage9.instagram.com/662ade7483ce11e19e4a12...](http://distilleryimage9.instagram.com/662ade7483ce11e19e4a12313813ffc0_7.jpg) \- instaphoto from SGS2 JPG but on iPhone 4.

Question: why instaphoto on Android version in blurry?

Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER13> What OS are you deploying on EC2?

<comment><AUTHOR> We use Ubuntu, running Natty Narwhal. Every Ubuntu version before that had some (unique) bugs that would bite us under load. Natty has been by far the most stable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Thanks for OpenSourcing Node2dm. I think I'll take that for a spin this weekend.

</comment><comment><USER15> Im curious to know what kind of EC2 instance they are running the master Postgresql on and if they've had any write bottle necks. Im using Postgres for an app, and am worried about running into write issues.

</comment><comment><USER16> What sort of hosting do you use for your main Pg (and Redis) instances?

<comment><USER17> They use Amazon EC2 there's some more info here: [http://instagram- engineering.tumblr.com/post/12202313862/sto...](http://instagram- engineering.tumblr.com/post/12202313862/storing-hundreds-of-millions-of- simple-key-value-pairs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> PGFouine is nice, but it needs a major do-over. It would be good written with a plpgsql backend running against database loaded csv log files, so that it could handle huge logs, unlike now.

</comment><comment><USER19> I am curious to find out why there was a need to develop your own C2DM server - what was lacking in Google's C2DM server? I am a C2DM newbie so pardon my ignorance.

</comment><comment><USER3> It looks like you guys use Redis for a lot of different functionality. It would be great to see an article on how you guys use Redis.

</comment><comment><USER20> > We use the counters to track everything from number of signups per second.

Per second... It must be quite a moment when you reach this point.

<comment><USER21> To put it in perspective : there are less than 5 human births per seconds.

So if they want to keep their counter greater than that for a long time, they'll probably have to extend their market beyond humans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Very interesting read, but doesn't New Relic do all these things for you? Maybe it's not possible to use with their setup?

<comment><USER23> I'm interested in comparing statsd to a commercial product like New Relic as well.

-C

<comment><USER24> Statsd and NewRelic are very different.

NewRelic gives you mainly a predefined set of metrics, where you just have to install the agent to get them. Then. There's an additional module where you can send your own set of metrics and display them.

Statsd on the contrary is 'only' a tool to collect and then display metrics. You have to define everything you eant to measure yourself (or use plugins to your app).

So these two are definitely related, but better used for different (although overlapping) jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Does anyone has some info on the architecture required to maintain a service like this? Servers, db, etc?

<comment><USER26> [http://instagram- engineering.tumblr.com/post/13649370142/wha...](http://instagram- engineering.tumblr.com/post/13649370142/what-powers-instagram-hundreds-of- instances-dozens-of)

<comment><USER25> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> are you guys sharding redis? or does it all fit in a single machine?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have a variety of Redis machines, some of them are in a consistent hash ring (the ones we're using for caching); some are using modulo-based hashing (the ones where losing data on adding more machines isn't an option), and some are just single-node installs.

<comment><USER28> How do you handle write replication? I haven't found any good document on how to do this (meaning, if the Redis master goes down, a slave should be promoted to master immediately).

<comment><AUTHOR> You can hypothetically use something like hearbeatd to do it; we run every Redis master with an attached slave and manually failover for now.

For a small team like ours, we prefer solutions that are easy to reason about and get back into a healthy state (it would take one server deploy to point all appservers at new Redis master), rather than fully automated failover and the "fun" split-brain issues that ensue. Of course that may change as we build out our Ops team, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Great stuff, love node2dm, and didn't know about statsd + graphite.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! This was my first node.js project, would love any feedback on it.

<comment><USER29> Also, any reason you guys are not using MixPanel for storing events as well, besides of the costs?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Thought about adding a tool like newrelic.com to your toolset?

<comment><AUTHOR> NewRelic's product screenshots look really nice, but 1) the hosted nature and 2) the price were turnoffs. We might revisit it at some point, though--there are a few features in there that would be awesome to have.

<comment><USER30> I think New Relic saves us money - the amount of optimizations we've done because of them is just crazy and by now would have saved us a couple servers and hardware upgrades at least.

Their sales dudes like startups, we were only lightly funded when we started using them - garth@newrelic could probably help you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> What percentage of processing power is spent on making me look like a hipster?

<comment><USER32> Pretty sure that all happens on the client (your phone).</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which Non-Macbook notebook would you recommend? - <AUTHOR>

Hey All,
Need recommendations for a Non-Macbook notebook with these 2 chief requirements:
1. Longest battery uptime. 2. Excellent build quality.
Appreciate all the help I can get.
PS: I've got nothing against the Macbooks, its just that I live in LinuxLand and I'm in love with Ubuntu 10.04. <comment><USER2> Lenovo Thinkpad X series:

<http://shop.lenovo.com/us/notebooks/thinkpad/x-series>

Superb build quality, ultraportable (< 3 lbs), long battery life (up to 11hrs).

<comment><USER3> Be careful with video drivers... some of them are incompatible with Linux due to custom tweaks (such as 50hz monitors)

<comment><USER4> <http://www.thinkwiki.org/> is a good resource for figuring out Linux compatibility.

I also recommend Thinkpads. The T and W series are good too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sony Z series.

13 inch laptop // dual SSD's // Gaming graphics card // 1080P resolution (wow- in a 13) // 11 hours battery life // .75 inches thick (iirc)

<comment><USER6> I'm planning on getting one of these as soon as I can get a US-model, configurable one with the 1920x1080 screen (it's currently only available with the 1600x900 screen). Looks like an awesome dev laptop!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm in the same position as you, looking for a good linux laptop. Haven't found one yet.

I had a chance to play with Thinkpad t410 and x201 and I have to say they weren't as good as I expected. There was very strange whining noise emitting from the cpu area and displays were just awful. I heard that the noise problem persists with newer Core i3/i5/i7 Thinkpads.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've always found Dell to have decent hardware at a reasonable price. They also have an N series which comes with FreeDOS so you don't have to pay the extra MS tax.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have heard good things about System76:

<http://www.system76.com/index.php?cPath=28>

A bit pricey, but apparently superb build quality.

<comment><USER9> Not updated configuration options though. Core i series not available yet (for the ultra thin ones)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Haven't yet used them, but these guys <http://laclinux.com/gnu/Laptop> sell and support Lenovo Thinkpads with GNU/Linux installed and swear by them.

</comment><comment><USER11> Also looking for a Linux laptop.

Any recommendations/feedback for ASUS models? I'm looking into the K501D-X3 laptop.

<comment><USER12> I have had an Asus N61JQ for the last couple of months. 300GB HD, 4GB RAM 1333mhz, Quad core i7 1.6ghz, and ATI 5730 w/ 1GB. good solid build quality, noisy keyboard that didn't come w/ a backlight. decent system for $999. Plays well with linux as well. I bought one of their netbook models and that's been pretty solid as well.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does anybody use Wells Fargo? - <AUTHOR>

Are they blood sucking vermin, or have I just had a run of bad luck. I was hit with a late fee for a bill I mailed  6 days before it was due. I can just picture the envelope sitting in their mail room for a few days, aging until ripe for picking. <comment><USER2> ... I do, never had an issue. Of course, I also don't pay Wells Fargo for anything, so there's no reason they'd have my mail sitting in a mail room.

</comment><comment><USER3> Three words - Online Bill Pay.</comment>


I've never seen such a copy of my work - <AUTHOR> http://saulosantana.com/?p=2562

<comment><USER2> I don't read tabloids, but to me both look highly generic.

<comment> jack-r-abbit I was thinking the same thing. I've seen all those elements in other papers before. I guess the issue is that they used all the same elements in all the same ways. _shrug_

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My network blocks this website:

> Location: [http://saulosantana.com/?p=2562](http://saulosantana.com/?p=2562)

> Access has been blocked as the threat Troj/PhoexRef-A has been found on this > website.

> sophos web protection

<comment><USER4> Mine as well.

> Location: [http://saulosantana.com/?p=2562](http://saulosantana.com/?p=2562) > > Access has been blocked as the threat Troj/PhoexRef-A has been found on > this website. > sophos web protection

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You see these exact same design tropes throughout all newspapers around the world. Remove the language and it looks like three different papers I know in Australia and half a dozen in the UK.

Or is this guy claiming to be the source for all newspaper graphic design from the last 10+ years?

</comment><comment><USER6> Isn't this out of the designers hands by now? Doesn't Bild own the design and isn't it their problem to enforce its copyright?

</comment><comment><USER7> If this guy has so much pride in his work & the years of research it took to produce it, why does he want it limited to a single mediocre German tabloid?

<comment><USER8> Please don't blame the victim. This is a legitimate grievance. The polish paper very obviously stole his work.

<comment><USER9> "copied" the work is a more accurate word. Not to say that it isn't bad (it is).

<comment> SG- Yes, he 'copied' it and likely got paid for it too, it wasn't just going in some personal stash of movies and music on his hard drive.

<comment><USER10> The brief probably said 'make it look like Bild'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > [...] to figure out the best solutions for the biggest sunday newspaper in > Europe, and they copied just like this?

Really? IS build Sunday's newspaper in Europe? No wonder the EU is about to dissolved, then.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you land the first online clients? - <AUTHOR>

Long story short, my girlfriend and me have been living in the US for the last year, but in a couple of months we'll move back to Spain.
I'll continue working on my current project, but my girlfriend will need to enter the labour market. Right now the unemployment rate in Spain is at 24.8% (53% for under 25), so I think our best bet is to set up her own company (like somebody said "when jobs are scarce, create your own" ).
She is a graphic designer so we have set up a website with two landing pages offering Logo and Business Card design services.
It is a crowded space, but I think it's not totally impossible to make a full spanish salary (around $1200/month) in the long term.
BEING SAID THAT, I'd like to ask for some methods to land the first clients that may worked for you in the past.
Although our budget is tiny, our initial approach is to start some adwords campaigns and keep optimizing landing pages and ad copies to see if we're able to reach a profitable cost-per-conversion.
The website for the new graphic design studio is http://mylidias.com
So, How do you land the first clients for your recently launched online service? <comment><USER2> Second on the website. I mean no offence, but the current design of the website would cause me to never hire your girlfriend. The logo font is pretty bad and the design is too wide. Make it really simple and responsive.

I'd recommend doing away with the categories that you design for and just include a page with sample work basically a portfolio.

If someone is looking for a graphic designer they are going to be turned off if your website looks pretty bad :( The logo also needs some work if you expect someone to pay you to design a logo.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't see why it's better to create a general portfolio app. Then what's the strategy to get new clients? I mean, the purpose of the categories is to have landing pages that rank on google and have good score for adwords

<comment><USER2> I get that but maybe put those keywords as examples of things you do. I'd imagine you want to take any design work possible so at least make sure you have an easy process to make inquiries. Also your pages are basically the same which just strikes me as kind of weird.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Check out <http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/> \- for around 7$/month you can apply for jobs even if you're not US-based. There are some Graphic design jobs your girlfriend could apply to.

In the beginning use sites like these and your personal contacts to get a few jobs. Adwords seems not really fitting for your budget at least in the beginning! Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thx, freelanceswitch.com looks awesome, it has plenty of jobs she could apply for. We'll start there for sure

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't tell what but there is something wrong with the website may be the design.

You should may be display some sample on the home page. Also, you can try to go to/sponsor some local hackathons/startup weekends/... Those people might be your target.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: <http://mylidias.com/custom-business-card-design/>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> ok guys, got it

First of all we need to improve the website and corporate image, cause that's what we sell.</comment>


How Web-Savvy Edupunks Are Transforming American Higher Education - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/node/1325728/print <comment><USER2> I co-founded (and since left) eduFire, one of the companies mentioned in the sidebar to this article:

[http://origin-www.fastcompany.com/magazine/138/5-startups- to...](http://origin-www.fastcompany.com/magazine/138/5-startups-to- watch.html)

It's amazing to see how many people have become aware of the massive opportunity to revolutionize education since we started eduFire in Jan 07. In 07, the institutions weren't going to innovate, most VCs (esp Bay area folks) had no idea about the size of the edu opportunity or customer willingness to pay.

Two years later we've got USV's hackedu conference, articles in FC, edu reform making the national agenda, and all kinds of interesting edu companies being funded. Interesting times!

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like the most important aspect of higher education from a student's perspective is the community you build while you are there. Nothing stimulates thought like being surrounded by intelligent, motivated individuals.

Social interaction over the internet is becoming richer, and surely it will play a vital role in changing the face of education. My fear is that the credentials-based hiring practices that are rampant among employers will pervert what could otherwise be a useful extension of quality education to the masses.

</comment><comment><USER4> How is "open content" more revolutionary than textbooks? In other words, why hasn't e.g. the widespread availability of math textbooks lead to a revolution in math education, putting price pressure on a math degree from, say, Harvard or U. Chicago?

<comment><USER5> Good point. Few thoughts that inspire people to get into it and could lead to a revolution: 1\. Textbooks are fairly static unlike websites 2\. Websites are more easily accessible 3\. Books are boring to most people 4\. Websites are not

Why your point is interesting to me: The main problem in my opinion is the lack of interest in learning in general. Until a learning method appears that will actually inspire people to want to learn, no change will take place.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: MFA for SSH. Any recommendations/experiences? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN! My employer(University) has enacted a security policy that mandates MFA on any public facing SSH servers.
So far, I have found Authy(1) (whose SSH integration seems unmaintained?) and Duo (2)
Any experiences or recommendations to share?
(1) - https://github.com/authy/authy-ssh
(2) - https://duo.com/pricing/duo-mfa <comment><USER2> Currently using a early generation Yubikeys. Guide from here is quite easy to follow.

[https://developers.yubico.com/yubico- pam/](https://developers.yubico.com/yubico-pam/)

I do like the solution as having no ongoing costs.</comment>


A Comparison of Approaches to Advertising Measurement at Facebook [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/gordon_b/files/kellogg_fb_whitepaper.pdf <comment><USER2> Gordon, Zettelmeyer, Bhargava, and Chapsky "found some evidence that PSA's as controls would lead an advertiser to draw the incorrect conclusion about the true lift of an ad campaign."[1]

[1] You can't tell me not to cite! ;)</comment>


Ask YC: Good domain registrar & web hosting provider - <AUTHOR>

Which domain registrar and web hosting service do you think is reliable and cost-effective?<p>I'm need a website for my startup and my budget is low. (I'm a university student.) <comment><USER2> Domain Info: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=150561> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=377301> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=186369> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=339823>

Web Hosting Info: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=323251> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=230778>

searchyc.com is your friend!

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends on what type of website you're hosting. If you're going to host something simple like a wordpress blog or static content, I would suggest <https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/>. You only pay for the bandwidth that you use, as opposed to a normal monthly payment plan where you have a fixed amount of bandwidth. They have nice privacy protection options and you can also use them to register domains (I think $8.95 for a year).

The downside with nearly free speech is that you can't host persistent processes there, which means no Rails, Django, etc. apps. For my Django apps I've been using Webfaction, which I've been pretty happy with. The cheapest tier is a shared hosting environment for $9.95 a month, or $8.95 if you lock in for a year. That tier gives you enough memory and bandwidth to prototype and launch your apps with a small user base, and then if you need to, you can just upgrade your account.

Oh wait, I just noticed that you're a university student! You should check to see what your options are for hosting your website on the university network. Most schools give students free hosting options. I know plenty of people who host their websites on university accounts for free, although once you start getting hammered with traffic you might have to switch to a commercial host. You might have to go through the process of setting up your own server rather than just taking advantage of the pre-installed configuration you would get from a shared hosting environment like webfaction. But then again, learning how to configure apache can't hurt.

<comment><USER4> I second nearlyfreespeech. Their pricing is _extremely affordable_ for smaller sites. Mine is hosted there, and I still haven't payed _anything_. Though slicehost would probably be more sensible if you're expecting heavy traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Godaddy works fine for domains.

I also used them for hosting for the 18 months of my business, on a rinky-dink $4 a month shared hosting Linux account. It looks like its $5 now. No major complaints over that period, although for 10 days there were sporadic issues with an EXE getting corrupted on disk.

I'd still be there if I hadn't caught Rails fever, which is not that feasible on a shared host (even if you can do it, the other people on your server can't, and you'll probably suffer for it). If you also catch Rails fever, run, do not walk, towards getting a VPS -- I recommend Slicehost.

</comment><comment><USER6> Namecheap for domains: <http://www.namecheap.com> Media Temple for hosting: <http://mediatemple.net>

</comment><comment><USER7> Check <http://www.freehostia.com/compare-hosting-plans.html>

<comment><USER8> <http://ibn-alhajjaj.freehostia.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> domain register : <https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/> 9$

host <http://www.slicehost.com> : 20$

Both are cheap, reliable and have great ui's.

<comment><USER10> I came in here to make the exact same recommendations. I'm guessing you're going to see this combination recommended a lot in this thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> shared hosts are for personal sites only, for a startup you'll need a VPS which does not oversells its capacity ... the (only) one i've found it's slicehost</comment>


SF engineer came to money and now wants wife to sign a post-nuptial agreement - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/7m7i5x/my_31f_husband_36m_of_3_years_came_into_a_lot_of/ <comment><USER2> I don't know what their relationship is like, and I don't know what prompted this, but I can't help but feel like this guy is making a huge mistake.

I understand prenups for rich people because you never know why someone is really with you, but if you are with someone _before_ getting rich, that is one of the few things you can never have again. If the relationship is good I don't know why you suddenly make it all about money and drive a possibly irreparable wedge between you. And for what? Because if things go sideways you might lose half? Half of rich is still rich and it's a small risk to take for the chance at a lifelong loving partner. Some things are worth more than money.

<comment><USER3> _> And for what? Because if things go sideways you might lose half? Half of rich is still rich and it's a small risk to take for the chance at a lifelong loving partner. Some things are worth more than money._

And if they have no plans of leaving then refusing taking half when they go shouldn't be a problem - right?

Perspective matters.

<comment><USER4> No, asking for the postnup is a first-strike. Before that point, there was no reason to assume that there was a problem in the relationship. Asking for the postnup introduces distrust into the dynamic.

If I were the spouse being asked to sign the document, I'd say, "Nope, let's get divorced right now and split the money in half. After that, if you want me in your life, feel free to court me again."

<comment><USER5> > Asking for the postnup introduces distrust into the dynamic.

What he is doing is just good business practice: He wants to keep the business as free as possible of liabilities. Her not willing to sign is what introduces distrust: It implies that she at least want to leave her the optinion open to run away with money from his business.

<comment><USER6> If one's adherence to business practices are more important than one's marriage, then one's priorities are broken.

<comment><USER5> > If one's adherence to business practices are more important than one's > marriage, then one's priorities are broken.

If the wife is not supportive of the business ventures of the husband, I see no future in the marriage.

<comment><USER7> Your answers seem to be coming from the perspective that the business is more important than the marriage. That's not a perspective that many people here share; your one-line replies that assume your perspective aren't going to go very far to persuade people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When I first saw the title, I thought this guy was a jerk. My success is my wife's success.

But if it is a business and she would get half of his interest in the business, couldn't that cause hardships on the other partners and allow her to make decisions that are detrimental to the business?

Could he have her sign a fair postnup saying she would get half of any financial interests in the business but no voting rights or that the partners would have automatic rights to buy her out?

I could see all sorts of ways that this could be fair to her but still protect his partners.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure you need a prenup for that. You can agree in a shareholders agreement that there is a requirement to offer the shares up for sale (at fair market value) to the other shareholders in the event of the shareholder passing away. Not sure about Delaware law, but this works in most of Europe.

Alternatively there could be a provision of swapping "Shares B" for "Shares A" or similar with different voting or veto rights. I think this is also possible in the US, since something similar was done for Facebook? Mark has special voting rights but his inheritors will not?

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure, but I think a forced sale requirement would be problematic in the US since it would impose a unilateral obligation on the survivor/divorcee that had not been bargained for by them.

I question the probity of such arrangements as well as special voting or non- voting stock. This is exactly the sort of thing that leads people to conclude that capitalism is rigged.

<comment><USER8> Why does that make the system "rigged"? If you start a tech firm with four developers and one of the lawyers get a divorce, do you want his ex to have any voting rights when it comes to strategy?

<comment><USER10> It seems like your comment has several unspoken assumptions that I'm unclear on, but yeah, I do. Insofar as financial instruments are fungible/transferable, they ought to be transparently so. Once you start creating different classes of financial interest, some with decision-making power and some without, you're creating a tiered system and those with the decision power are both incentivized and empowered to put their own interests over others'.

The basic notion of capitalism is that property rights + free markets = optimal economic growth. As soon as you start creating different classes of ownership you're signalling that that's a actually a fiction.

<comment><USER8> _Insofar as financial instruments are fungible /transferable, they ought to be transparently so. On_

It's not about the financial instruments. I'm making the assumption that a "side project" that the spouse did with a few of his friends wasn't capital intensive, and it was knowledge based. As a software developer, if I were to start a business, it wouldn't be capital intensive at all. I would need partners that brought a set of skills to the table - maybe a few developers and a person with a marketing background or industry connections. The only costs besides time would be a bunch of AWS resources. The "investments" in my company wouldn't be financial, they would be expertise. Why would one assume that the person's spouse would have the expertise to make intelligent strategic decisions on the direction of the company? What if it were a law firm?

Do you think that Carl Icahn or Baine Capital have the same set of incentives as the employees or the founders of a company? They want to make their money and get out, their time horizon is a lot shorter.

The same could be said of the spouse of a founder. As founders, we would be more likely to care about the long term vision of the company. The spouse may just want to make any money she can right now.

If Mark Zuckerburg hadn't kept a controlling interest in Facebook, would it be where it is today? What if he had sold a controlling interest to Yahoo under pressure from the VCs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Terrible.

One of the hardest things in life is making a side project successful. The people that is with you at the hard times is part of your team and should be with you in the good times.

This man probably has already a mistress. When you have a couple tens of millions in the bank and people know you have it you start attracting dangerous women, I would say professionals, gorgeous women that have experience manipulating men with sex, the PUA(Pick up artist of their sex).

If you were not very good with women before marrying, and even if you are you are extremely vulnerable to them. The same will happen with men like bankers that will stalk you all day the moment you enter a couple million in a bank for doing an operation, they will even cry for you doing with your money what they say is much better for you(which is what is better for them).

IMHO the best strategy is most people not knowing what you are worth. Drive a normal car, wear normal clothing, have a normal house, if you can. I wear normal clothing but drive a Tesla.

<comment><USER5> > This man probably has already a mistress. When you have a couple tens of > millions in the bank and people know you have it you start attracting > dangerous women, I would say professionals, gorgeous women that have > experience manipulating men with sex, the PUA(Pick up artist of their sex).

I would rather argue that this should actually be a strong reason for her to trust him. If he meets another women, he can never be sure that she is not into him for the money. On the other hand for the existing wife he knows that she did not marry him for the money. This fact alone should give him a very strong incentive to trust the existing wife instead of any other woman that he now meets. So the wife knows that he has a strong disincentive to leave her.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The top answer nails it: the husband's only real option is divorce if she refuses to sign, thereby bringing about the very thing he's trying to avoid.

But I'd guess here's a good chance she can talk him down, as I'm picturing one of his tech bro's going, "dude, you _totally_ need a post-nup. This guy I knew..."

<comment><USER13> That was my guess as well: his business partner or one of their investors is pressuring him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> He mysteriously does not see her as a contributor to his success or is a d*ck. The impact a person has in our lives obviously cannot be calculated, but cannot be simply ignored. If they have been together for six fricking years, how can he dismiss her influence on him? Considering they have a functional relationship, she probably has been helping him on infinite occasions, from domestic chores to emotional support.

This guy is being ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER15> Maybe I'm just too ruthless, but I don't see how I, in the wife's position, would ever agree to this. Especially considering there's going to be a huge amount of temptation for the husband to cheat now; at least get paid if he gives in and things go sideways.

Too harsh?

<comment><USER16> Not at all. There's no reason for her to sign it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> He made a financial agreement with his wife to share 50-50. That's what a marriage is, it's a legally binding contract. If he wanted a pre-nup, he should have gotten one _before_ entering into that contract, i.e. the marriage.

But he didn't.

And he wants to alter the terms of the deal now, as a post-nup? After years of partnership? Oh hell no.

If I were his wife, I would seriously consider leaving him over this. Walk, with "his" assets that were always his-and-hers.

<comment><USER18> > If I were his wife, I would seriously consider leaving him over this. Walk, > with "his" assets that were always his-and-hers

People like you are exactly why people want to sign pre-nups in the first place.

> He made a financial agreement with his wife to share 50-50. That's what a > marriage is, it's a legally binding contract.

If it was always clearly cut as a 50-50 split set in stone, there would be no need for as many divorce lawyers.

> And he wants to alter the terms of the deal now, as a post-nup? After years > of partnership? Oh hell no.

People want to alter the terms of the deal all the time, a divorce is usually one of those alterations, most frequently initiated by women. After years of partnership. Why this is surprising to _anyone_ is beyond me. Is it really that different in California?

You are correct in one thing though - he probably shouldn't have gotten married to begin with.

<comment><USER19> > People like you

Taking HN threads into personal attack is a sure way to make a flamewar worse. Please have the self-control to resist this when commenting here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER20> Isn't he just being factual though? The comment he replied to was also a personal attack of sorts on the husband from the story.

<comment><USER19> "Just being factual" isn't a valid defense. Even if one assumes 100% factiness, that's not all that matters. There are infinitely many facts. Which one chooses, how one expresses them, and what their likely effect is in context, are just three of the other issues at play.

As for the GP comment, I can see why it would feel that way but I didn't read it that way myself. There's obviously a lot of interpretation involved in these things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> His move makes sense if he plans to quit his wife. He knows she will get half of what he has, so before he makes a move, he tries to see if she would accept to sign a post-nup. What's the risk?

Another explanation is that we have an incomplete/distorted explanation from the wife, and that she may have misunderstood the post-nup. If what he's working on is getting significant funding, during due-diligence the lack of pre-nup may appear as a problem.

Anyway, I'm not making any judgment on any of the parties, human relationships are such intricate machines...

<comment><USER22> Why on earth would the existence or not of a pre-nup affect funding? The funds go to the business not the individual and wouldn't form part of their finances if there was a divorce. No due-diligence is going to raise the lack of a pre- nuptial agreement as a reason to withhold investment.

<comment><USER23> Half his (vested) shares would go to his wife, in the event of a divorce. As a shareholder, she would have the right to vote on certain matters.

I don't think it makes sense for her to sign a standard post-nup, however, I think it does make sense to account for the fact that the husband wants to make sure he keeps control of his shares in a business he's currently building.

<comment><USER21> Exactly this. There are ways to do mitigate this problem without going through a post-nup though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I feel like the comments here on HN are really missing at least one important angle. Frankly, I think it comes from a too closed definition of marriage and relationships.

What a marriage is legally is far from reflective of most relationships. It's easy to say "well don't get married then", but there are huge reasons that legal marriage is important for couples when it comes to things like taxes, healthcare, and more. Realistically, people of many sorts need the benefits of legal marriage.

For that reason, I am a huge proponent of modifying the marriage agreement to each personal case (aka a prenup, but also defining what your relationship is and not just defaulting to the societal norm. That's a conversation to be had long before marriage, but revisited at that stage.). For example, relationships don't have to be lifelong. If a marriage lasts happily for 30 years and then gets stale, that's not ideal but congrats on the 30 years of great partnership! What about people who have either romantic or sexual feelings for multiple people? I am sure that polyamorous families run into many legal issues, and while not terribly common, highlights a stark case of differing relationship style. There are many much smaller variants that can have legal implications in the context of traditional legal marriage. The idea that marriage is lifelong, unconditional, monogamous, and means sharing absolutely everything is just not going to work for a lot of people.

To me, it sounds like this couple was happy, got married, and skipped this conversation. Now that a business risk is in play if a divorce happens, it sounds like they need to have it. It sounds like the husband here did not approach this well at all, but I think that a fine agreement could be reached given the right setup of legal advice and information and making sure that the wife is not pressured into it here, which if it happened, is terrible on his part. From the full story, I am inclined toward a relatively charitable reading of the agreement. I'm obviously a person reading one side of the story over the internet, so I could easily be wrong in this case.

</comment><comment><USER25> I feel bad for this couple. If I had to choose between my life partner and my business partners, it would not even be a question. Marriage is the ultimate partnership. If you aren't willing to share everything, good and bad, then maybe it's not for you. I mean, most people even say that in their freaking vows! I hope she refuses to sign and he wises up and apologizes.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is why I was upfront with my girlfriend (now fiancé) from the VERY beginning. I said I would never marry her, nor anyone, ever, without a pre- nub. Period.

Her money is hers, mine is mine. We will forever operate like that.

<comment><USER27> I've always wondered about the timing to bring up such a topic. How "very beginning" is very beginning for you, if you wouldn't mind sharing?

<comment><USER26> We talked about marriage early in our relationship (within the first month). The conversation was more about marriage in the abstract sense than it was about OUR (potential at the time) marriage.

I've always been a blunt, upfront person. Transparent as a plane glass window. Since we were talking about marriage, I just threw in a casual "when I get married, there 100% will be a pre-nub or it's not happening". As well as a few other "hard stops".

As time went on the marriage conversations became more about US getting married... OUR marriage. I made sure at nearly every point to remind her of my "hard stops". They're the kind of thing you never want to be vague about, and are worth stating VERY early in the relationship, in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Every time we hit a new phase in life, our fears come out.

My guess is that this guy might be feeling insecure knowing that his wife could divorce him.

He's clearly pursued a life that is about making money and intends to keep doing so, so there is a good chance he equates having money (or both to being lovable / worthy of Love on some deep level.

He may be trying to arrive at feeling secure in his romantic relationship the only way he knows how -- via a business deal.

He's missing an incredible opportunity to be vulnerable with her and discover his true worth, inside.

</comment><comment><USER29> Several of the comments mention they know about startups that have been destroyed by a divorce when a party without any knowledge of the company got stock/control. Is this a real thing that has happened? Does anyone have direct experience with it?

<comment><USER27> Yes there are even recent news articles about such situations not just startups.

I think some major sports team owner had a forced liquidation like this recently.

That being said post nups are weird to me, so the terms really should be spelled out to surviving prevent a business scenario but to give her some amount of compensation maybe? Idk.

<comment><USER30> Could you provide some of those situations? Was that the only thing that sunk it, or were those companies in trouble already?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> To me, post and pre-nuptial agreements merely reinforce the idea that either you or your partner or both don't trust each other and are together out of mere convenience. If that were the case, why not just stay unmarried?

BTW, the level of support for the husband, among the hacker news community, so far, is pretty astounding, contrasting with the support the wife receives on reddit. Not to paint with a broad brush but I think this really says something about the kind of people running things in tech, not to mention all the stuff women had to put up with in the news the past couple of years with regards to any tech workplace.

<comment><USER24> I am strongly against that first statement.

My current partner and I have what we both deem a great romantic relationship and friendship. We plan to get married for legal benefits and stay together for some time. We could care less what it says about our relationship, but there are simply legal things that make sense. It's likely we will never divorce. But we both can envision worlds where divorce happens. If it happens after 30 years of great partnership, so be it. It doesn't invalidate those great years we had. But if it does happen, we would want a fair and just split after it. Not based on 50/50, and not necessarily based on "yours is yours, mine is mine". Neither of us would want to leave the other in financial trouble, but if one of us made much more than the other, we both agree that it would be fairer to give that person some sort of better split, so long as it does not dramatically hurt the others remaining life. It'd also depend on the life goals of each of us from that point and who would need the money more for their respective goals. What we find fair may be different than others, but given the scope of the agreement it's really only about what we both see as fair.

We trust each other 100%. We could probably act on this type of agreement without a lawyer. But no one ever knows how divorce will go down, so why not put it in writing?

All of this isn't to say that there can't be nefarious reasons at work here and is not to invalidate or ignore the terrible way tech treats women. But this is not a categorical thing, and it really comes down to the specific agreement and the two people involved, presuming neither side is coerced or uninformed about the agreement.

<comment><USER31> "My current partner and I plan to get married for legal benefits and stay together for some time."

Comes off sounding like a business transaction, which is fine if that's how you plan to leverage the idea of marriage, but then again it probably should be properly labeled as a joint business venture/partnership where people have written agreements to protect each other's assets in case of things going badly between them.

<comment><USER24> It has a romantic and friendship aspect as well though, as the primary purpose over the legal benefits, which are a distant third to those two. Bad wording on my part, sorry. Editing to be clearer. Anyone that knows us would see us externally as any other couple in terms of relationship style unless we have specifically talked about our relationship more with them.

My point is that people leverage the legal construct of marriage in many ways, and prenups enable that. To say that a prenup is inherently a sign of lack of trust is far from accurate.

In practice, I agree it does often point to that, but there are plenty of counterexamples. I would argue it works as such a good indicator due to how many bad relationships are out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So I'm not trying to scam anyone, but is there a way for a business arrangement to be made that doesn't incur this risk? I know you can put together a buy/sell agreement and have successorship/rights of first refusal documents, but is there a legal way a married person can protect assets from their partner if they wanted to, without going into complicated trusts and shit?

</comment><comment><USER32> >"protect himself and his work"

From what? The other spouse or the legal system? Most would assume it is protection from the other spouse. To verify, one could offer to sign a prenup that splits everything 50/50, i.e., that codifies what would happen under community property law. This provides the benefit of clarifying how a separation would occur to protect the spouses and their work from the legal system.

If protection from the legal system is sought, then the 50/50 prenup should be agreeable.

If protection from the other spouse is sought, then what is the first spouse (the one demanding the prenup) going to give up in order to gain that protection?

If the first spouse is demanding a one-sided prenup that only benefits the first spouse, then it can be argued that the first spouse has broken a marriage vow by seeking to enrich his or her self at the expense of the other. [1]

[1] None of this is legal advice and should not be used as such.

<comment><USER33> Pre-nups can get thrown out of courts if a court decides it was signed under "duress". E.g. less than 6 months before the marriage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> [https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/7m7i5x/my_31...](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/7m7i5x/my_31f_husband_36m_of_3_years_came_into_a_lot_of/drry353/)

This Reddit comment is pretty spot on regarding this case.

</comment><comment><USER35> Sounds like risk management. I presume he wants to stay married but also wants to protect his business ventures by getting her to agree to a maximum payout. I've known many wealthy men who were completely financially destroyed by divorce. There is often no clean way of splitting a business and having to liquidate cash to buy the partner out can often sink the company.

On a related note, I consider Amber Heard as a risk to the whole Mars mission and get a bit nervous when I hear rumors of them getting back together. I wonder if I'm the only one.

Edit: I grew up in farming country and by far the biggest risk to farms there is divorce. This is insane given all of the other risks in farming.

</comment><comment><USER36> TBH if you have a side project or a company a prenup is pretty much a must it's the only way to ensure you remain in control over it regardless of how financially successful it is.

I'm not particularly wealthy (as in millions/not have to worry about working for the rest of my life) but have a high income and had a few side projects and I would never consider a marriage without a prenup to protect both myself and my partner from vindictive practices and petty behavior.

The divorce scheme today is simply too messy without prenups.

<comment><USER37> I've been told that it's not uncommon for CA judges to throw prenups away in cases where, say, one of the two partners started a company and vested a huge chunk of shares, but the other partner would be getting none of that on divorce according to the prenup. In this case California community property laws overrode the prenup. In fact, having dealt with a prenup myself, I've been told not to even bother with a pre-nup as it was supposedly "unenforceable" according to my legal counsel.

Any basis to this or is this just a scary story?

<comment><USER38> I know someone who's prenup was invalid because other party claimef didn't understand what she was singing. It's very very unlikely that ur prenup will be thrown if it's deemed unfair.

<comment><USER37> I believe the judge will want to see that both parties had qualified legal counsel at the time of signing the prenup, otherwise it might not be considered valid.

I suppose with enough money at stake and enough animosity between the two parties, it is always advantageous to claim to not have understood the original contract. Worst case you lost a bunch of money in legal fees, best case you win big.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The answer is simple to me: the wife should get a lawyer and file for divorce and half or more of the assets. If the hopefully-soon-to-be ex-husband thinks he can talk her into a post-nuptial agreement, then he also probably thinks he can talk her down from her share of the money.

Given what was described, she needs to aggressively defend herself.

</comment><comment><USER40> Could someone help explain this to me? I don't understand why the wife shouldn't sign. As far as I can tell from the post, she didn't help create any aspect of the apps that her husband made which made them rich. I don't understand why she would be entitled to half given that she did not contribute half.

<comment><USER13> I can't tell if you are serious or not but... Nothing happens in a vacuum. Would he have had the time or opportunity to work on side projects without his wife handling some aspect of their domestic situation, for example? But the bigger picture is that a married couple is a single entity legally speaking as far as property and finances are concerned. Judges in many jurisdictions completely ignore pre-nups for this very reason.

<comment><USER40> Was serious. Thanks for the response. My parents always kept separate bank accounts, always seemed to have clearly defined separations between who owned what. Separate cars, separate car payments. Separate careers, separate everything. I always got the sense that my parents were two separate individuals in a partnership. I don't think either of them would have a problem signing a postnup solidifying that.

<comment><USER13> My parents did it like this: my father's salary went into their joint account and my mother's salary went into her own account. Huh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> To put this in a slightly different light, suppose you entered a contract with a startup and got some equity. Now suppose the owner decided he wanted your equity back in case you left the company. How's that make you feel? (Any similarities to Zygna is purely coincidental.)

</comment><comment><USER42> It reminded me how we failed to raise funding and one of the investors said that doing business together with my wife was a red flag for him because "wives ruin startups."

Probably it was the same for others but they didn't say it explicitly. Oh, well.

</comment><comment><USER43> The problem is in perspective, right? She says it feels like he doesn't trust her when asking for the post-nup, but coming from his side a post-nup would enable him to feel more at ease with her, enabling a higher level of trust. Saying no to signing the post-nup is saying "You were right not to trust me".

<comment><USER5> Because of the liability that no post-nup causes, not signing it is a clear message: "I am sabotaging your business ventures".

<comment><USER30> No, it really isn't. Because if she signed, then he's basically free to cheat on her at will, and there really isn't anything she can do about it. If she were to divorce, she would be out in the cold.

Why, apparently, is it acceptable for him to have a "contingency plan", but not her?

<comment><USER5> > No, it really isn't. Because if she signed, then he's basically free to > cheat on her at will, and there really isn't anything she can do about it.

As far as I understand the Reddit post, the post-nuptial agreement is only about his new business venture and not about other, existing assets. So he still has something to lose, if they divorce.

<comment><USER44> No, she didn't specify what it was about.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: HackerNewsAPI – how do I get the list of the top Ask HN stories? - <AUTHOR>

Hi!! I am learning to use HackerNews API (https://github.com/HackerNews/API).
It has the list of top 100 stories, but I don't see the list of top 100 "Ask HN" or "Show HN" stories.
Does anyone know how can I retrieve them? <comment><USER2> You can't do bulk requests and/or searches using the official Hacker News API.

Use the previous Algolia API instead: [https://hn.algolia.com/api](https://hn.algolia.com/api)

</comment><comment><USER3> I use the Algolia API and it works well:

[http://social.gnod.com/hn?search=ask+hn](http://social.gnod.com/hn?search=ask+hn)

</comment><comment><USER4> This is on our list to add.</comment>


What's Your Philosophy?: 15 Great Courses, Videos and Resources - <AUTHOR> https://www.mysliderule.com/blog/intro-to-philosophy-online-courses/

<comment><USER2> As a Theology Major in undergrad and graduate school I have always felt people need to drop their preconceived ideas of philosophy and bad teachers on the subject and just have their minds blown away.

It is the best way to really learn how to think is combining philosophy and logical math thinking. Only problem is your view of things will be different then most people since they think emotionally and selfishly.</comment>


The sound in Havana- doesnt this look like ADSL DMT ? - <AUTHOR> http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-sound-in-havana-what-americans-heard-in-cuba-attacks/ar-AAtmGFF?ocid=spartandhp <comment><AUTHOR> I posted this to see if anyone else thinks this too, it looks like Discrete Multi-Tone that is used in DSL, to me.</comment>


The Most Common Mistakes Young People Make - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/most-common-mistakes-young-people-make-james-altucher

<comment><USER2> That seemed more an aimless rant than an actual article about mistakes. Hell I even agree with some of what I will generously call points. Unfortunately I now feel bad that I share a "camp" with this loudmouth.</comment>


Bach, the Master Recycler - <AUTHOR> https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/12/20/bach-master-recycler/ <comment><USER3> The concept that artist should come up with new ideas and create something new is narrow. Seeking perfection in somee restricted style and going deeper instead of different is also creativity.

The way I see Bach is that he mastered, refined and perfected the style. People who came afterwards had no choice but do something different. Others are climbing different peaks because Bach stands at the top of Mt. Baroque.

Mozart and Beethoven are geniuses. They started something that has been never perfected. Bach's music does not feel like a work of genius, it feels goodlike and nonhuman.

<comment><USER4> > _Bach 's music does not feel like a work of genius_

Speak for yourself.

> Mozart and Beethoven

Both geniuses, for sure. But they didn't create the styles they composed in any more than Bach did.

There was _classical_ music (in the sense in which Mozart is "classical" and Bach and Brahms aren't) before Mozart. Some of it was written by Bach's sons, in fact.

There was quite Beethoven-like music written before Beethoven -- most notably by Haydn, who to my ears is much more Beethoven-like than Mozart is.

None of that detracts from the greatness of Mozart and Beethoven -- or of Bach. Artists don't exist in isolation, even if they're geniuses.

<comment><USER5> I think when the parent said 'does not feel like a work of a genius', he was saying that it's 'non-human, god-like (typo?)'. The parent likely meant it's above genius which can only be human.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It is documented that Bach was a great improviser, much like his contemporary Handel, and others who came after him (Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann). Improvisation has since been lost in the Classical World but is alive and well in the Jazz world. In Jazz, the term 'vocabulary' is often used to describe styles or influences within the genre. With Bach, he literally built and refined the language from which all other vocabularies stemmed from.

<comment><USER7> Bach was a church organist, and improvisation absolutely hasn't been lost in the church organ world. Basic improvisation is a skill expected of every organist: this morning I needed to "cover the action" when the offertory hymn didn't last as long as the offertory itself. But in the hands of a master - <USER2> English cathedral organist, or a French titulaire, particularly Saint-Sulpice or Notre Dame - it's high art in its own right.

<comment><USER8> The improvisation concerts at American Guild of Organists conventions are mind-blowing. Performers are given a tune and improvise a work (toccata, theme and variations, etc.) on the spot. Even knowing the tricks they're using—such as having a general outline mapped out ahead of time that can be used with any tune—I'm still in awe.

I got pretty good at improvising (and sightreading) when I was the primary organist at my church. Not having much time to practice (young kids, a different full time job), I did what I had to to get by.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This makes sense to me as a musician, and also as an artist or craftsperson. I feel like I've done so many prior works, they deserve to be revisited and reworked and at some point, you might as well. I may feel like there's certain elements of past work that could benefit from attention with my current, improved skill set, or that something that felt finished previously seems incomplete now. Another motivator could be that an older work feels underexposed. At other times I might pull out an old work because it contains elements of a current trend, or I think the style is ripe to come back into fashion. You see this with modern musicians, too - artists often remake songs from their early demos or first albums later on with better production, a different style or a new perspective.

I would imagine that many people reading about Bach's way of reusing rhythms and notes would think of coding. Parody as described in the article sounds like he was using his old rhythms like a template, or macro. This metaphor works great since it's hardly even a metaphor. Musical notation, with its rigid and limited format, resembles a programming language much more closely than conversational language.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yes Bach reused themes. He still composed a tremendous quantity and his arrangements, counterpoint and sequences remain unmatched IMO

<comment><USER11> He re-used more than themes; often entire movements of large-scale works were re-worked, including for the Christmas Oratorio, as discussed in this article. (I sing baroque music professionally and just sang the Christmas Oratorio a couple weeks back; it's a personal favorite.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The walrus was paul: everyone recycles.</comment>


Stop Breaking the Web - <AUTHOR> http://ponyfoo.com/articles/stop-breaking-the-web

<comment><USER2> Jeremy Keith talked about progressive enhancement with some similar thoughts: [https://adactio.com/journal/7706](https://adactio.com/journal/7706)

It's a problem that I hope can be solved sooner than later. As powerful as Angular et al are, I go to so many sites that don't load any content at all because I use NoScript (FF) or ScriptSafe (Chrome) and I can tell these sites are not at all using progressive enhancement.</comment>


How army rations helped change food - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170515-how-army-rations-helped-change-food <comment><USER2> HN readers who served in armed forces, if you ever got a chance to trade rations with armed forces of other nations, which nation's military rations impressed you the most (either in a good or bad way)? And as a tangent, if you also got to eat in the field kitchens of other nations' armed forces, which nation's field kitchen impressed you the most (in a good or bad way)?

I've heard praise from US armed forces services members for French, Dutch, and New Zealand rations before, curious about others' experiences.

<comment><USER3> There are several YouTube channels devoted to reviewing military rations from all around the world.

<comment><USER4> "Let's get it on a plate. [. . .] Alright!"

A recent video about a United Arab Emirates 24hr Ration: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMSse6J-wfU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMSse6J-wfU)

<comment><USER5> That's one of my favourite youtube channels. I'm not sure why.

I think his review of Israeli rations might be an example of a less appetising ration - a lot of olives and a lot of tuna.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryh_HgKoy54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryh_HgKoy54)

<comment><USER6> Hah, I'm a big fan of his as well. It's a very small and weird internet world. I never thought that MREs would be something that's interesting enough to subscribe to.

It's ironic because he's a gourmet of the ultimate pre-packaged food. And he's so infectiously enthusiastic about it, even when something tastes nasty he's so upbeat about it.

"Hmm... yeah... that definitely tastes a little off... (another bite, chews thoughtfully) yeah that's definitely starting to go... /nods sagely as he chews."

"(opens bulging can of creamed corn) Oh yeah that stuff definitely has botulism... the smell is AWFUL! /shit eating grin"

<comment><USER7> "Oh. Ugh. _Hmmm..._ Yeah, that's bad. It's like cardboard infused with old gym socks and a bit of...lemon, maybe? _another obvious crunch of him taking a bite_ "

It's very much like he treats his mouth as an instrument of historical study. If he doesn't taste it, how will anyone _know?_ Given he avoids eating things he thinks will certainly make him sick, it seems more "weird, but strangely admirable" than "demented". At least, to me.

Occasionally, _very_ occasionally, you'll hear him hit a point where the food is so awful that he goes, "Why am I eating this?" But even then, it seems like a damn fair question, so you feel for the guy. :D There's a reason my friends and I nicknamed the channel, "Steve, Don't Eat It!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of my favorite cheeses - Cougar Gold - was developed with military funding. Typical cheeses will build up carbon dioxide gasses, which makes putting cheese into a sealed container problematic. Washington State University was doing research into making can-able cheeses without that gaseous build-up in the 1940s, and got a grant for it.

<comment><USER9> TIL that Washington State University makes and sells[0] its own cheese from its own dairy herd.

[0] [http://cougarcheese.wsu.edu/DirectionsWEB/webcart_itemBuy.ph...](http://cougarcheese.wsu.edu/DirectionsWEB/webcart_itemBuy.php?itemid=100)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> And it all started with Nicolas Appert.

> In 1795 the French military offered a cash prize of 12,000 francs for a new > method to preserve food. After some 14 or 15 years of experiment, Appert > submitted his invention and won the prize in January 1810 on condition that > he make the method public

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

<comment><USER11> Just curious, how much money is this in today's dollars (or Euros)?

<comment><USER10> The online calculator I found only goes back to the middle of 1901, so 12,000 FF back then is worth about 47,110 Euros today. Going back earlier than 1901 would require some interesting historic research. But a guess would be that it would have been serious money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You can see a list of rations from around the world here [http://imgur.com/gallery/BvExp9V](http://imgur.com/gallery/BvExp9V) [http://imgur.com/gallery/USkcw](http://imgur.com/gallery/USkcw)

<comment><USER13> There's an entire community of ration reviewers on youtube, one of the best is gundog. If you watch enough videos they'll start to reference each other in trades of hard to get rations.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/gundog4314](https://www.youtube.com/user/gundog4314)

You can also just buy them, they aren't cheap though

[http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m5...](http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313.TR12.TRC2.A0.H0.Xmilitary+ration.TRS0&_nkw=military+ration&_sacat=0)

I've eaten a few of the U.S. ones. Most of the menus are surprisingly good. The thing that blew my mind the first time was the flameless heater. If you're clever with it you end up with a nice hot meal. Kind of amazing considering they specifically don't want to use any chemical preservatives, but still have long life and thermal range stability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> A lot of medical breakthroughs also come out of the military.

The Military: A strangely civilizing force for reasons most people are largely unaware of.

<comment><USER15> The entire field of plastic and reconstructive surgery basically came out of The Great War.

<comment><USER14> I read or heard somewhere that a lot of modern brain surgery techniques came out of Vietnam. Thanks to the basically new invention of military helicopters, they could rapidly medivac people who previously would have just died in the field with no hope of survival. They had people out cold with dirt in their hair, etc, and they began doing things like going in through the mouth which was cleaner, had less hard structures between it and the brain than the scalp and generally healed up better.

I also saw a video, probably a TED talk, by a guy who was asked by the military to revolutionize prostheses for military members who had lost an arm. He initially said that their ambitious goal for improved functionality could not be done. They inundated him with stats on people who had lost an arm serving their country. Their punchline was the number of soldiers who had lost both arms. At that point he caved and accepted this crazy sounding, "impossible" task which led to radical improvements in the tech, iirc.

<comment><USER16> Probably Dean Kamen: [https://www.ted.com/talks/dean_kamen_previews_a_new_prosthet...](https://www.ted.com/talks/dean_kamen_previews_a_new_prosthetic_arm)

possibly [https://www.ted.com/talks/todd_kuiken_a_prosthetic_arm_that_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/todd_kuiken_a_prosthetic_arm_that_feels)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's amazing how many of these things were only understood and put into widespread practice in the past one or two centuries. Wide-ranging aspects of modern life are impacted by the fact that we can depend on grocery stores with quality food, and it's all too easy to take for granted how this changes the way we live compared to our recent ancestors.

</comment><comment><USER18> Although mentioned near the end of the article, the beginnings of food canning are fascinating (if you're into that sort of thing): [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canning#History_and_developm...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canning#History_and_development_of_canning)

<comment><USER19> I happened to be researching this for a book a few months back. I noticed at the time that article on Wikipedia appears to be missing a bit of history although much of that missing information actually appears elsewhere on Wikipedia (and is sourced).

Canning seems to have originated with the Dutch navy in the mid-1700s and there was a small salmon canning industry in Holland by the end of that century.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There was a 99% Invisible episode about this: [http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/war-and- pizza/](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/war-and-pizza/)

<comment><USER21> The 99PI episode is great. It goes into a bit more detail about how it's not only important to develop these food technologies but also get the overall food industry to adopt them as well.

If a war _does_ happen, the manufacturers are already prepared to ramp up ration production.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Well, this is a subset of the things the military has given us. It has also given us duct tape, for example. And NASA gave us velcro.

The common theme here, it seems to me, is that when people are working in hostile environments for high stakes, problems which are normally easy, such as preparing and storing food, fixing leaks, or keeping things put, can become insurmountable barriers which warrant a great deal of ingenuity and investment. The solutions found in those contexts can apply to the rest of us and make the problem easier.

So I would expect, for example, long range spaceflight to yield medical advances in self-diagnosis and treatment.

</comment><comment><USER7> "Under high pressure, microorganisms burst, and the food is sterilised, a process that today yields preservative-free lunch meats, packaged guacamole that stays green under its wrapper, and fresh-tasting bottled juices (the process is sometimes called cold pasteurisation)."

A confusing bit of nomenclature, as "cold pasteurisation" is also used to refer to using ionizing radiation on food for the same purposes.

</comment><comment><USER23> I ate a lot of UK ration packs in the UK and while I certainly had favourites, they were remarkably good

<comment><USER6> I recently stumbled on a youtube channel of a guy who goes through and samples food from various ancient ration packs. Even 50 years down the road, many of them are still edible and very tasty.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2FOcFiqLeE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2FOcFiqLeE)

This is such a weird, niche thing but it's actually fascinating to me. The internet is a weird, weird place.

edit: Hah, someone else posted a link to another of his reviews of a UAE ration, and another reviewer who does the same thing with MREs. Turns out the internet is a smaller world than I imagined.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> French, German, Dutch, Korean. French wins hands down for yummyness.

</comment><comment><USER25> Why do BBC articles do so well here?</comment>