Schools Out, Forever - <AUTHOR> http://avandamiri.com/2010/02/17/schools-out-forever.html

<comment><USER2> Yet another helpful individual mistaking university for some kind of career training centre...

Universities are not there to get you a career, a high paying job, etc. I'll grant you that they've been mis-represented to many people, often by greedy people who wanted to boost the ranks of students to make money (another good reason why universities shouldn't be for-profit).

There are many purposes served by universities, and one of them may occasionally, as an added bonus, to help you in landing a great job. But the primary purposes of universities, and degrees, are:

\- Research/Academic study

\- To train the next generation of researchers/academics

\- To give people who want to study a subject in a formal setting the opportunity to do so

\- Allow 18-ish teenagers to mature into quasi-adults in an environment, surrounded by smart people, that will expand their minds and make them better people.

"Getting you a job" is not, and should not be, an objective of university. Most jobs should not require a degree, either. The fact that unrelated degrees are being used as a front-line filtering system is tragic. If universities themselves are to blame for this failure of perception management, it is doubly tragic - it may destroy their primary reasons for existence in the end.

<comment><USER3> I'd say universities are to blame. My alma mater's main selling point is its co-op program. Instead of 4 years of straight classes, you have 5 years total split up as follows:

\- freshman year as normal

\- the next 3 years are spent with 6 month classes/6 months co-op with some local company

\- senior year as normal

My alma mater is not alone in this kind of marketing though. How many commercials do you see (especially during noon and in the late evening) about going back to school so you can make more money/land a better job?

<comment><USER4> And a lot of those commercials are for trade schools teaching welding, health care instrument management (mri, phlebotomy, nuclear)... Not traditional universities, so the unis, which are much more expensive than those schools, are really hurting right now. People are going to the University of Phoenix online to learn vb.net instead of Harvard to learn "computer science".

<comment><USER5> I really doubt Harvard or any of the other top schools are hurting for applicants. When I was entering school, Harvard and MIT were taking <15% of their applicants, which leaves quite a bit of wiggle room.

<comment><USER4> Havard, in this case, is a metaphor for "traditional universities"

<comment><USER5> I realize, could you point to an article about university admissions dropping? I haven't happened across anything saying that universities are in trouble, for any reason other than their endowments getting decimated due to the financial crisis.

<comment><USER4> Simple as a google search: [http://www.google.com/search?q=%2B%22declining%20enrollment%...](http://www.google.com/search?q=%2B%22declining%20enrollment%22%20%2Buniversities&hl=en&ned=ca&tab=nw)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thank's Avand, your article is really hip and all. I'd really like to agree with it, and then go about back behind the school yard and smoke a cigarette and tell The Man go to hell.

However, I really can't do that.

Let's start with your high school experience. Going to a prep school in Boston means you (most likely, not assuredly) come from a privileged background. I went to a high school prep school too, and like you, I wanted to have the "too cool for school" attitude.

That didn't really happen though, instead of being bored, I got something that was challenging (athletics, which I sucked at). Yea, it was way cool at the time to pretend that all those classes I was acing (well almost, shouldn't have slept through AP Chem as much as I did), didn't matter and that I knew what I wanted to do as a jock 17 year old. Looking back, I was damned lucky to have such good classes and not be in some (unfortunately) underfunded public school. And also, it turns out now that I'm glad someone forced me to take French, I'm heading to France next month to work with a client. Didn't see that one coming as a 17 year old either.

Avand, likewise your take on college is quaint. I understand now that you've been successful with no college degree it's cool to keep rolling with the same theme of "skoolz lame!" It's actually kinda shame you're so biased though that you think college is just about increasing the number of facts you know, otherwise I'd bet you'd do well at the real point of college- giving you the tools to think about difficult problems in a number of different ways.

But that's cool, I've met plenty of intelligent/motivated/successful people who didn't go to or complete college (or went all the way and got a PhD). However, if you really were the intelligent person, motivated person you claim to be, I don't think you'd be half-assing it just taking night classes and then writing with such supposed authority on how college is worthless.

Here's what it really comes down to- you seem to be doing well marching to your own song, Avand, and that's great, keep it up! However, don't confuse your half-finished experiences as showing that school is worthless and expensive. You simply don't have any real authority to talk on the subject.

<comment><USER7> > Thank's Avand, your article is really hip and all. I'd really like to agree > with it, and then go about back behind the school yard and smoke a cigarette > and tell The Man go to hell.

I almost didn't read the post because you made it sound like mindless rebellion. The tone of discussion was a bit higher than you made it out to be.

> Here's what it really comes down to- you seem to be doing well marching to > your own song, Avand, and that's great, keep it up!

In all seriousness - can you cut this out? You've got valid and good points, but adding snark/sarcasm doesn't help them. I've seen more of this lately here on HN, and I don't think it's a good trend. There's a lot of valid critique/counterexamples of the author's post, and I'd really enjoy hearing more of your perspective and others who disagree, but the sarcasm/snark takes away from the point more than adds.

<comment><USER8> > In all seriousness - can you cut this out? You've got valid and good points, > but adding snark/sarcasm doesn't help them.

Maybe I have a tin-ear, but the "keep it up" seemed genuine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You know what you can do as a university student in a technical discipline which can't really be done for free searching the internet? Participate in real research, guided and mentored by real-life scientists. Do lab-based classes. Ask questions of your professors. Have deep conversations with your fellow students and with your lecturers during office hours.

Yeah, if you only want to try to absorb the material in a totally passive way, and if you would never speak up in class, then you might as well just watch video lectures on-line and read the books and do stuff on your own. But if you choose to really take advantage of the university environment, you get a lot more than just the facts presented in the courses. I'm sure it's possible to have a career with just your own experiences and self-study. But I don't think you should be so sure you're better off than a peer who got their degree and all the various experiences that can come with it.

By the way, I'm not sure whether you think it's the norm for engineers to not have formal training. Of the seven engineers on my team, all have at least an undergrad degree in CS or a related field, 3 have PhDs and 1 has a Masters.

<comment><USER10> What I did as an CS Undergraduate is teach CS classes to other undergraduates.

When I first did it as a sophomore I got credit for developing the labwork & teaching it for 10 weeks, and got paid as a TA to grade what I assigned. My ~25 students were my classmates in the other sections of the full-time course.

My Junior year I got credit for teaching a 10-week FPGA tutorial to a group of 5 students that were doing it as the 'project' portion of their CS course. My Senior year I informally helped my professor/coworker develop the robotics portion of a non-CS class I was taking, and tutored the other students.

<comment><USER11> ^copy and pasted from resume

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I went to a school that taught me, among other things, how to use apostrophes, how to make web sites with readable text, how to avoid phrases like "kitchen of education", and how to make a poll that shows results when I vote instead of thanking me for voting.

If you're some sort of mindless soulless fuck who equates everything in life to "will this help me get a job?", then skip school. It won't teach you what you want to know, and I don't want to be bothered dealing with you.

The questions you ought to be asking:

\- What _don't_ I know yet? What do I not even realize I don't know?

\- Who are the sorts of people I want to spend the rest of my life with? Where do I feel comfortable?

\- Given the ideas I have, what can I do? How can I combine these with other ideas to make something extraordinary?

Here's what school gives you that the Internet doesn't. Faces. Instinctive responses. Chemistry. Nobody knows better than I how easy it is to build a brand for yourself online. In person, you don't get a brand. You get a person. You can judge people more accurately, both people who're good at public image and people who suck at it and would look like shit if you found them completely at random.

Frankly, Avand, you don't have the credentials to get away with saying shit like this. Not as confidently as you're saying it. Looking at your resume, I'm not seeing anything that would stand out particularly if I saw it from an undergraduate resume. You're not a good writer and you haven't got a good grip on aesthetics. Do something smart before you start bashing my education.

<comment><USER13> This is the type of post that is contributing to the decline of HN. It's mean spirited and inflamatory, veiled by a thin layer of actual argument. You critize the author for a lack of credentials, yet claim that _no one knows better than you_ how to create a brand online? Let's see your credentials then, because apparently you are God's gift to earth.

Quite frankly _no one_ had the credentials to write a post like yours. It doesn't matter if you are right about the article. What a joke.

<comment><USER14> I also don't agree with the tone of the reply; however, I sympathize with his irritation. I share it. I agree with you that the reply should be re-thought: one shouldn't post on HN with anger, but with a contribution to the conversation that is likely to generate intelligent discussion.

Edit: "re-through" to "re-thought"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _School's Out, Forever_. "School is out" contracts to "School's out", with an apostrophe to indicate the contraction.

I could not bring myself to read an article about education being pointless that has a grammatical mistake in the title, no less. If you make that mistake _while slagging on education,_ I simply cannot give your opinions any weight.

<comment><USER16> Your response illustrates an all too common failure of formal education: holding formalities in greater regard than practical matters.

Language is usage is language. Not only was clarity not hurt, the point of the title I took away was a reference to the Alice Cooper song lyric, which as _spoken_ (sung) language, contains no apostrophe.

<comment><USER15> I disagree. Clarity _was_ hurt. This title suggests multiple schools "out", which doesn't make a lot of sense (did the schools band together to out their gay friend? Or a corrupt politician?). Yes, obviously I can figure out what he meant. But there's a jarring half-second of confusion that disrupts my thinking, slows down my reading, and distracts me from what is being communicated.

I'm not rabid about grammar - the rules should be a bit malleable, depending on context. But most grammar exists so that we can understand each other. If you have poor grammar, I will have a harder time understanding you and we will have a harder time working together. In fact, I will be less likely to want to talk to you, because I could instead be talking to people with good grammar, and when I talk to them I don't have to pause for those cognitive potholes where I have to puzzle out what they're trying to say.

<comment><USER16> _But there's a jarring half-second of confusion that disrupts my thinking, slows down my reading, and distracts me from what is being communicated._

I would suggest that it's your literalism (or, perhaps, if not grammar rabies, then at least excessive focus on it) that's the issue here, not the presence or absence of a punctuation mark in a transliteration of a song lyric.

The author _may_ be guilty of not being conservative in what he sends, but your guilt, in not being liberal in what you accept, is, to me, much clearer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I would love to do this, but in my country it is impossible to get a (decent) job without a degree. How do you get at least an internship as, say, a high school graduate with mediocre grades and nothing to your name? You show them your open-source projects? I think HR is technically illiterate and will be more impressed by any degrees you have.

<comment><USER18> Exactly. How do you get that internship as a high school dropout? Thinking back to high school, I couldn't even get a job at McDonalds (probably deemed too nerdy for customer service). My parents aren't computer programmers, and did not know anyone in the field.

I also had a similar attitude for the first half of my university studies. I figured I could already program quite well, thank you very much, and classes were a waste of time. So, after failing a bunch of classes, I decided to go work for a year. Got a job hacking on an awful mess of PHP code.

Then I actually got interested in school. It turns out just because something is hard doesn't mean it's a waste of time. Hardware is actually interesting, as is theoretical CS. Now that I want to learn more, I can't get into grad school because of my too cool for school attitude earlier.

<comment><USER19> Hmm, I had the same problem with those fast food/ supermarket customer service jobs in my teens. Got to the point where I was like well I wouldn't want one of these jobs even if they came after me.

I kinda find it funny now that I probably still wouldn't be able to get one of these lowly paid casual service positions.

I have a mate who takes uni the same way, clearly smart enough to pass programing classes easy judging by what he's done programming for fun, but just doesn't seem to care or apply himself enough assuming it will be really easy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My experience: I'm a college dropout. I have 96 credit hour and am one class shy of my associates degree. I feel like I did get a lot of value from the liberal arts portion of my education. I was exposed to a lot of different ideas and disciplines that I may never have studied in any other setting.

My major was computer science, and that was the rub. I came to college already somewhat accomplished as a developer. I had published a small shareware game on one of those value-ware CD's you would pick up at the register at WalMart. I knew the basics and had already learned some very hard lessons. I suffered through the introductory course material largely doing independent study projects (thanks Dr. Forbes!).

My moment of crisis came in a computer org. class. I was really looking forward to taking this particular class. It was supposed to give me some more detailed exposure to the hardware side of things. Instead we spent literally half of the semester counting in different number systems. At that point I had enough. I wanted to actually solve real problems and do real things.

Thankfully I had my opportunity. I took a job with the local behemoth tech. company. I was given the opportunity to write a book on basic game programming (I didn't execute on this very well... I just wasn't responsible enough at 21 to do it properly). That book opened the door to my first real job at a very small startup. Quickoffice was my first chance to shine, and over the 6 years I was there I feel like I took full advantage of it. Now I'm an entrepreneur, and things have gone well so far.

The point being: I never completed my degree, but I do feel like I got what I needed out of college. I learned how to learn. I learned to appreciate classic literature and to more completely examine the culture of the world around me. I became a scientist with a deep understanding of the scientific method. Those are all invaluable assets to me today.

However, my lack of a degree has not proven to be much of hindrance thus far. I hope it never is:)

</comment><comment><USER21> If you're an incredibly self-motivated and intelligent person when your 17 or 18 and you are passionate about learning and excelling, then sure, skip university if that's what you want.

I'd venture to say it's more rare than not to find someone who could successfully utilize 4 years and $150,000 in an unstructured environment. It's unfortunate that this is the case, but I just don't think it happens very often given the emotional maturity of many high school students.

I "did well" in high school because it wasn't difficult to do well by grading standards. College was when it all clicked and I developed a passion for learning. Obviously this is my experience, but I see this sort of thing in those around me (and many that still, even after college, wouldn't know how to use that money in a truly beneficial manner). University often puts you in the company of some intelligent individuals in a learning environment, as well as the opportunity to meet some great mentors that help mature.

</comment><comment><USER22> I am a dropout myself and I am doing OK for the moment but I still would propose to question your own readyness to being so judgemental. I think of education being something highly individual and complex (e.g. I regard my time at university very inspiring and influential). Everybody should be able to 'roll their own' in order to achieve ones respective goals - which fortunately these days is possible for most of us. It is great that you found your very own hack to tackle the issue but try to stay open to other approaches too - most importantly try not to make too many generalizations. I know that can be hard but it could perhaps result in real inner peace.

</comment><comment><USER23> I suspect his perceived correlation between the quality of the programmer and lack of education has quite a bit of selection bias.

I have coworkers with and without advanced degrees. There are lots of good and bad ones in both groups, and I get along with most just fine. But I strongly suspect that I'd have trouble working with anyone with a chip the size of the one perched on his shoulder. Which means that he's going to drive away the good educated people, and confirm his own preconception about quality. And he's going to create a lot of problems for himself down the road.

As a concrete example of what I am talking about, consider his four man team story. Given that he posted that with his real name, the engineer who he didn't like is going to be a burned bridge. Any educated software developer he knows who reads that will wonder, "What does he think of me?" There go a few more bridges. Anyone considering hiring him is likely to Google his name. If they turn up this then any interviewers with an education are likely to be turned off.

Technology in whatever town you're in tends to be a small community. You wind up working with the same people over and over again. A knack for making lots of people dislike you isn't a good thing.

Perhaps in several years he'll learn enough to be able to take that advice. After suffering for a bit. Kind of like how he has slowly recognized that a lot of what he refused to learn in school was actually something that is reasonable to learn.

</comment><comment><USER14> Some of the things you point out are largely true, in your 20's, if your only concerns are "getting a job" and making money. However, a good liberal arts degree confers a number of benefits in many areas of knowledge, and provides a foundation of education and articulateness that is quite helpful throughout one's lifetime. There are, of course, many bad liberal arts programs that confer little of these benefits.

I have a couple of friends who forwent college for similar reasons, and they did make more money early on. However, as time passes, they find that there is a pay and advancement ceiling that is lower for them than for their higher educated coworkers. They are also more fearful of losing the income they have painstakingly built up, are more rooted in their company, generally have not saved and don't have a lot of equity (especially with the current housing market), and don't use their monetary head start to now get the education that would help them. They then complain to me that they've hit the pay ceiling and are watching their (always less qualified) over-educated co-workers advance and make more money for doing less. I am sympathetic but skeptical.

There is also a smugness in posts like these that rub people like me the wrong way. It is easy when things are going well for you to look around and say everyone else is doing something wrong. I encourage you to look deeper.

</comment><comment><USER24> I did not get much in the way of programming out of my Math/CS degree, other than socially accepted (encouraged, even) time to fiddle with my own projects.

I did get an clear benefit out of the institution of university, in socialization and in closed-world long term interaction with other like- minded, intelligent people.

i.e. Courses were often a waste of time, University was not.

</comment><comment><USER25> If I were given a chance to do it over, I think I'd beg to be allowed to unschool for k-12, and then go to university. University was where it started getting relevant/interesting (to me, anyway).

I'm not knocking education in itself, just... so much time wasted while the teacher organizes things, disciplines people, and they managed to take interesting subjects and make them utterly boring.

There are probably great schools out there, but the 7 different schools I went to were not very inspiring.

</comment><comment><USER26> Degrees are overrated to some extent. Not all university graduates are successful, competent and motivated, but there is a correlation.

</comment><comment><USER27> It's true that blind faith in the system is not the ideal recipe for success, however it's also true that being able to buckle down and do something you don't like or see the purpose of is very useful, especially when you're young.

</comment><comment><USER28> I homeschooled my kids. Articles like this are fairly popular on homeschool lists. My two favorite examples of successful people without college degrees are Bill Gates and Madonna. You clearly don't need a degree to have financial and career success. However, I have always told my sons that because they are homeschooled, their best shot at career success is to start their own business. If you want/need to work for The Man, a degree not only helps but can be essential (unless you are content being stuck in some entry level job for all eternity). Also, there are certain careers that require a formal education (doctor, college professor, etc). So it depends in part on what you want to do with your life.

</comment><comment><USER29> I think this post's argument really needs to be turned on its head. So _what_ if your degree(s) are irrelevant to the activity that pays your bills. Even if you count starting from kindergarten, an American of no more than average life expectancy is going to spend way more years out of school than in school in his or her life. In other words, no matter what you do, chances are excellent the years you spent in school will eventually become more or less irrelevant to the entire rest of your life.</comment>


Show HN: NotesTab - A notes app with real-time syncing for iOS, OS X & Windows 8 - <AUTHOR>

We built NotesTab as we couldn't find a note taking app that we liked. Either they were too bloated with needless features or were overly simple like those made by Apple. We wanted something that balanced features with simplicity and could sync seamlessly across platforms - so we made NotesTab - a handy note taking app that fits nicely into your daily workflow.
We've already got updates in the works, but wanted to see what fellow HN'ers thought of what we've made so far.
Find out more here: http://www.notestab.com
App links:
iPhone/iPad: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notestab/id502287001?ls=1&mt=8
Mac (Lite): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notestab-pro/id506772307?ls=1&mt=12
Mac (Pro): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notestab-pro/id506772307?mt=12
Windows 8: http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/notestab/b44bcc73-9b6a-4d35-9d72-ce3aa308f095 <comment><USER2> Clickable links:

NotesTab: <http://www.notestab.com>

iPhone/iPad: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notestab/id502287001?ls=1...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notestab/id502287001?ls=1&mt=8)

Mac (Lite): [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notestab- pro/id506772307?ls=...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notestab- pro/id506772307?ls=1&mt=12)

Mac (Pro): [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notestab- pro/id506772307?mt=...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notestab- pro/id506772307?mt=12)

Windows 8: [http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en- us/app/notestab/b44bcc73...](http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en- us/app/notestab/b44bcc73-9b6a-4d35-9d72-ce3aa308f095)

</comment><comment> simba-hiiipower nice work; some feedback on the windows 8 version:

\- note titles should be editable directly (currently the note takes the title of whatever my first line of text is; feels odd)

\- support for bullets and numbering would be nice (lack of these was immediately apparent when creating my first note)

\- being able to pin individual notes to my start screen would also be nice (a very basic feature, common among w8 apps)

and i know this is subjective, but relating to the design, i'd highly recommend removing the colour gradient from the app tile; it's particularly pronounced and feels very inconsistent with the design principals of the os

also, i really like the idea of charging to enable syncing across devices, though i (personally) find it less appealing than i otherwise would given there is no companion app for windows phone.. any thoughts on a wp8 release? _as an aside, i think it would be interesting to hear how that goes given the similarities between the two platforms and supposed ease in porting code from one to the other_

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback. We will make sure those suggestions are incorporated in the future update.

As for the colour gradient, not sure exactly what you mean.

No plans for wp8 at the moment, Android is next on the list.

<comment> simba-hiiipower always glad to help; and i really am enjoying the product by the way.

regarding the colour gradient comment: i was referring to the background of the app tile/icon.. it fades from a dark yellowish to a light brownish, a fairly pronounced shift. while there's nothing wrong with that generally speaking, it tends to contrast (in my _opinion_ , in a bad way) the 'metro' design common to the os where gradients are typically avoided, or less pronounced if used, in favour of flatter design (solid colours)..

regarding the wp8 version: totally understand you have to prioritize. if you ever do get around to it, would love to hear your thoughts on the process of porting from w8 to wp8.

all the best

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks great, but your apps look a lot like the equivalent Simplenote and Notational Velocity apps with some skeumorphism slapped on.

Can you go into more detail about how your app is different than the SimpleNote/NV combo?

Any plans for an Android client?

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your comment.

There are a fair few differences:

\- We have native apps all under our brand for iOS, Mac and Windows 8.

\- UI Themes

\- Text styling support

\- Distraction free full screen mode for Mac

\- Starring notes to pin them to the top of your list

\- Anchor the Mac app to the top of your screen - great for copy/pasting during research

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really like the design of both the app and the website. Nice job!

If you don't mind me asking, how did you manage the cross platform dev?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot! Regarding cross platform development, we built native apps for each one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks nice. Any plans on adding password protection? For me it's a must have for any note taking app.</comment>


Problem Details for HTTP APIs - <AUTHOR> http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-appsawg-http-problem-00

<comment><USER2> What if there were two reasons to forbid the request?

<comment><USER3> > What if there were two reasons to forbid the request?

Just return the first. Most languages only have support for one error at a time (think exceptions in Python/C++/Java/C#/…, return codes in C) so returning more than one error ends up being really difficult to an API: what do you do? Raise some sort of MultipleErrors exception? (then how do you catch this?); take the first? (what was the point of multiple, then?)

The same complexity exists on the server-side: you have to maintain some sort of "errors thus far" state, instead of just doing what is probably the language-natural thing: raise an exception that'll get translated to JSON.

The only real case I've found for multiple errors is form-field validation, when multiple fields don't validate. I've found it's sufficient to just bottle them into a "ValidationError" and return that: it can contain a list of fields and their issues. The rest of the API can then continue to benefit from a simpler interface.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why can't apps modify the original HTTP error message, for example using "403 Not Enough Credit" instead of "403 Forbidden", in their first use case?

<comment><USER5> Strictly speaking, they can, but then you're parsing strings to figure out what exactly is wrong...

<comment><USER4> It doesn't preclude putting computer-readable data in the body of the response.

Their example is the error 'You do not have enough credit'. Surely their web server should be sending '403 You do not have enough credit' and not '403 Forbidden' ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like the idea but I wonder how it plays together with "human-friendly" APIs that return error codes and HTML. Should you use Accept: headers to signify that you want a machine-readable error message?

<comment><USER7> You could definitely use content negotiation to present human-friendly errors if you were exposing HTML out of the API itself. But otherwise the concept of "human friendly" APIs seems a little weird to me. Likewise, the idea that error codes are more friendly than links to error entities also seems way more developer- / human-friendly. Random per-application error codes seem like a really bad idea to me, if you have the need to expose more information about a group of errors, the right way seems like this approach - link to a common error object, which itself contains classification details

<comment><USER6> You are right that this is no good idea in the general case. But I think there are a few endpoints that have "pretty printing" outputs for developers enabled if text/html is in the accept list. At least the (internal) deviantart API did have that some time ago.

I agree that the whole thing can be solved nicely with content negotiation.</comment></comment></comment>


The ACL is dead (Talk at CUSEC by Zed Shaw) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cusec.net/2009/01/05/zed-shaw-the-acl-is-dead-cusec-2008/

<comment><USER2> Does anyone have a link to a similar implementation, library, or paper of the ACL replacement / rules engine Zed talked about?

I'm dying to dive more deeply into this, but have little domain expertise right now. Any pointers are greatly appreciated.

<comment><USER3> He literally implemented Sarbanes-Oxley with assistance from the lawyers who could read his Ruby.

Ie, if you want source code, get the legislation, make the objects it mentions, then write rules in the same order.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for replying.

I realize my initial request was a bit unclear. I'm not so much interested in the specific rules/legislation, but rather in a (canonical) implementation of a rules engine of that type. I get the basic functionality, but how does it come together elegantly?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> ...a few months old, but packed with info

sorry if it's a re-submission

<comment><USER4> Yup...

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=420650>

Don't be sorry; people might have missed the original posting (or never heard of it). Sometimes, it is nice to see old posts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> When did HN become Zed's Greatest Hits?</comment>


Show HN: Logr. The minimalist Python blogging solution. - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/BrewerHimself/Logr

<comment><USER2> "If you wanted an article named An Introduction to Software Engineering to appear in the Software category, the location of the file would look like this:

        /articles/Software/intro_to_software_engineering.md"

And if an article fits in more than one category, would you put soft links to that article in various other category directories?

I might not have made the categories implemented as directories, although I understand your desire for simple as possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't considered that some posts may fall into multiple categories, but I'll give it some thought. In the mean time, just choose whichever category works better.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm very interested in hearing some feature requests or any issues you notice. Feel free to post here so others can comment on your comment.</comment>


iOS 8 reviewed - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/09/ios-8-thoroughly-reviewed/ <comment><USER2> Credit where credit is due, the lack of customisable keyboards was a major gripe of mine when people asked me why I'd never buy an iOS device.

A Swype-like keyboard (I actually use Google Keyboard's Swype mode, even though I own Swype) is a "must have" on my phone and has been for over three and a half years (since Swype beta was available on the original Galaxy Note).

While there are definitely thumb typists who can type quite fast, for me personally Swyping is significantly faster than tapping. I refuse to go back to that, it is bad enough things like passwords require tapping (although thanks to LastPass working with Chrome on Android, that too might be a thing of the past).

Now all we need is Microsoft to get with the program. Windows 8/8.1 still lacks a Swype-like keyboard and third party keyboards don't really exist. Kind of sucks on the Surface (you don't ALWAYS have the keyboard cover on).

<comment><USER3> My usage case is probably a very edge case, but my biggest complaint with Android 3rd party keyboard ecosystem is how hard and inconsistent is to switch between third party keyboards. I like SwiftKey, but I use about three languages daily and SwiftKey is not good enough for two other languages I use (Japanese, Thai), so I have to use other keyboard.

Switching between multiple keyboards in Android is totally pain. This was over a year ago, but back then I have drag down the notification area, choose Change Keyboard, select keyboard I want to use and go back to typing (maybe optionally switch the layout to the correct one before that) instead of a single button press. Some keyboard do provide a way to switch to other keyboard, but they're mostly non-obvious (e.g. in Google Japanese IME, you have to long press the layout switch [A/あ] button for few seconds, then choose "Change keyboard"). Even though most non-English keyboards also provide English layout, but most of time they're simply half-baked or just downright bad.

I don't know how Apple designed their third party keyboard API, but I truly hope they have some kind of guideline regarding the keyboard switcher, and that third party keyboards in iOS are per-language so all non-English keyboards out there don't ended up implementing a half-baked English keyboard. Either way, I'm really happy to see SwiftKey coming to iOS, even more so when my favorite Japanese IME (ATOK) announced they're going to release a keyboard for iOS.

<comment><USER4> You can switch keyboards just like you would when changing from English to Emoji, etc.

<comment><USER5> you can switch keyboard layouts like that (i.e. swiftkey english to swiftkey japanese), but he wanted to (my example) change from aosp keyboard for japanese to swiftkey for english. This is often also possible, but the way differs for keyboards.

i believe aosp keyboard put a button left to space which you can long-press in order to get the switch keyboard popup. but his biggest gripe was probably the settings which default for some keyboards after changing the standard...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really wish I could block ads somehow on my iPad Air. I'm pretty invested in the Apple ecosystem and use an LTE iPad Air almost every day on public transit, and the inability to block ads really makes mobile Safari a shitty experience. I mean, I'd never run (and I'm sure a lot of people here don't either) a desktop browser without some sort of ad blocking going on. That and being able to have two apps run side by side would be a great boost to my commuting productivity, but I've long since resigned that I'll finally have to move ecosystems if I want any of that.

<comment><USER7> _I 'd never run (and I'm sure a lot of people here don't either) a desktop browser without some sort of ad blocking going on_

I'd actually be interested to see an HN poll on this. I do not run an ad blocker and frankly I find most complaints about ads online to be totally overblown. Years ago there was a hellish amount of pop-ups, pop-overs and pop- unders, but these days I really don't have many problems, and I'm happy to support the sites I use.

<comment><USER8> It's also worth noting that ABP is an absolute pig, on either Firefox or Chrome. I found that memory consumption and machine churn significantly dropped when I simply removed it and lived with ads. I've done no empirical measures on this, but am convinced that the cure is worse than the disease.

<comment><USER9> I'm using HTTP Switchboard which uses much less memory has offers a lot more control over what to block and what to allow through, but it does take a bit more configuration than ABP.

<comment><USER10> µBlock is from the same author and a whole lot easier to use:

[https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe I'm just a corner case, but the "Spotlight, multitasking" section didn't address whether Apple has changed the refresh settings when multitasking between apps. Not a day goes by that I don't switch between open apps (say, Mail and Safari) only to watch the browser content disappear under my fingers while it decides to hit the network and refresh the screen with the same content. This is especially frustrating when out of network/wifi range which happens frequently in NYC.

<comment><USER12> That simply mean that the app was killed usually for memory reasons, you see the old content because the app shows you a screenshot that was taken before going in the background, and then starts again, thus refreshing

<comment><USER13> Who cares _why_ it happens? I've gone back and forth between iOS and Android over the years and it never happens to me on my Android devices. Both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses obviously, but this used to piss me off to no end on iOS.

<comment><USER14> It's kinda strange, honestly: 2011's state-of-the-art Android phones (Galaxy S2) had 1GB RAM, and yet Apple is still stuck on that maximum, while Android has long moved on to 2GB on flagships. Kind of a shame :(

<comment><USER15> And yet they continue to pack more power into a smaller package. So how do you explain it? Ram is cheap and small. Yes it uses power but not all that much and certainly it would be worth it for a more powerful device.

The only logical explanation I can come to is... more RAM won't make a meaningful impact on the experience. More ram is the cure-all on a desktop but that's not apples-to-apples.

<comment><USER16> >And yet they continue to pack more power into a _smaller_ package.

Well, not this time =p

<comment><USER17> The A8 is fabbed using a new 20nm process, so part of the phone is more power in a smaller package.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The feature I'm most excited about is full-speed Nitro javascript engine outside safari. The impact for Cordova, web views and 3rd party browsers should be awesome.

[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/06/09/ios-8-webkit](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/06/09/ios-8-webkit)

<comment><USER19> The Nitro engine is available only to the new WKWebView component, but that component has a bug [1] which prevents it from loading local files. This means that Cordova must continue using the old UIWebView, which means no Nitro boost at least until 8.1 or possibly later (however long it will take to fix that bug).

[1] [http://www.openradar.me/radar?id=5839348817723392](http://www.openradar.me/radar?id=5839348817723392)

<comment><USER20> This bug, which continues to cripple HTML5 apps on the App Store but not ones accessed in Safari, seems almost too perfect to be unintentional.

<comment><USER21> But Safari doesn't load local files, so the bug wouldn't be noticed there. Makes perfect sense.

<comment><USER20> The point of including WKWebView in the iOS 8 SDK is to make it accessible to non-Safari apps. They must have actually _tested_ this new component.

I don't doubt that there is probably an explanation that makes sense, but based on what we know, the least malicious explanation is that they forgot to test WKWebView with local files, which doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER7> "They must have actually tested this new component."

Honestly, with Apple sometimes I wonder. Safari had so, so many bugs when iOS7 launched that I no longer believe they spend a meaningful amount of time testing Safari before launch.

<comment><USER22> I agree completely. IOS7 screwed over html5 devs so hard. IOS8 is just as bad. Putting overflow:hidden on a text area in IOS8 Safari makes it so the user can no longer scroll within to edit the text at the top. It also causes it to draw extremely weird on the screen (you see the border appear way above it). Putting a height of auto on an input is causing Safari to pop the keyboard open when trying to scroll (the page and happen to touch that element). File uploading is completely messed up too ([http://blog.fineuploader.com/2014/09/10/ios8-presents- seriou...](http://blog.fineuploader.com/2014/09/10/ios8-presents-serious- issues-that-prevent-file-uploading/)). We also have issues clicking buttons when the app is using a cache manifest and saved to the home screen. I will be having a few drinks over the next few weeks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> To pick on just one point of this massive article: The quick actions on notifications are going to be very useful. I hope other OSs implement them too (I'm a WP user myself). They're unobtrusive, and they can make the entire phone feel more natural. They also enable new kinds of quick interaction: imagine an 'OK' button on a text message that lets the sender know you've seen it, without the need to send a message saying just that yourself.

<comment><USER7> Android has had them for some time, and as you say, they are fantastic.

When implemented. It's a weakness of Android that few developers take advantage of all the features - I suspect a lot of apps are made iOS-first, so if a feature isn't available in iOS, it isn't implemented on Android. I hope that iOS gaining this feature will mean it is used a lot more on Android, too.

<comment><USER24> Yes, though they are more limited in Android: they are just buttons that can jump to the app (= launch a specific intent). On the contrary, the new iOS notifications can have a real interaction; e.g.: you can answer to a message within the notification itself and never switch context.

<comment><USER7> Yes and no - Android also allows apps to draw standalone windows on top of the OS, like this one does:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.everything...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.everythingandroid.smspopup&hl=en)

So it isn't quite the same, but nor does it require switching apps.

<comment><USER24> AFAICT, that's because it's a SMS application, so it's got a special hook being called when a SMS arrives. For normal notifications (delivered through GCM), that's not possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's ironic - the addition of extensions, custom keyboards and the like was possibly going to be enough to bring me back to iOS from Android - I always preferred the hardware, just wanted a little more flexibility from my software.

But now Apple has totally ditched the 4" hardware factor - the main reason I liked the hardware so much. To me, Apple has lost an edge by doing that.

<comment><USER25> eh, totally ditched? the 5s and 5c remains available.

<comment><USER26> Apple's iPhone support cycle is such that there are significant downsides to getting a device from an older generation.

For example: The iPhone 4S was released in October 2011. In October 2013, Apple released iOS 7. While iOS 7 supports the 4S, it increases RAM overhead to the point that switching from app A to app B kills app A the vast majority of the time. (This is terribly annoying when you're writing, you switch to a web browser to look something up, and when you switch back the thing you were writing disappears.)

The user adoption rate of new OSes is ridiculously high. This means you will have maybe 3-6 months after the new OS comes out before apps no longer support the old one.

<comment><USER27> Really? iPhone 4S can't handle iOS7? I'm using an iPhone 4 on iOS7 without any problems whatsoever, and I'm a heavy user+developer.

<comment><USER28> 32GB model?

The 8GB really bogs down and the 16GB has noticeable lag.

<comment><USER29> Aren't the differences only in storage?

<comment><USER30> Presumably that also affects the amount of swap space available.

<comment><USER31> iOS doesn't swap like traditional OSes, although it does persist a small cache of metadata about running app instances. The file system is not particularly fast, though, so I could see low space conditions (that might trigger reclamation or defragmentation) slowing things down in general.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Let's not forget APNG.

[https://twitter.com/stuartparmenter/status/51207180752061644...](https://twitter.com/stuartparmenter/status/512071807520616448)

</comment><comment><USER33> I hadn't heard about the "family sharing" thing. My wife and I use the same Apple ID, because we're not going to buy apps twice. Mostly it works fine, every once in awhile we run into a hiccup though. If the family sharing works well it'd be a nice help.

</comment><comment><USER34> Has anyone considered if the iPhone is a good choice of you are a Gmail user?

I have noticed that the Gmail app load time, on the iPhone, is unusably slow but it is one of the apps I need to use daily.

<comment><USER35> Is there a specific reason you are using the Gmail app instead of the OS provided mail app?

<comment><USER33> For me it's because I've come to rely on the Gmail tabs (primary/social/promotions/updates), which the built-in Mail app just ignored. I could probably duplicate the effort with folders (though I use those also, in parallel to the tabs), but I just started using the Gmail app instead which handled it all fine.

<comment><USER36> There's that - and the fact that Gmail app can prevent the non-Primary tabs from sending notifications.

Also there's search... Mail.app does not handle search well for Gmail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This update requires 1.1GB download and 5.5 GB Free space to install!.

Did iOS7 also have similar requirement? I dont record that happened last time.

<comment><USER38> iOS did have a sizable requirement, although I forget how much space was required to do the install. I had many friends who had difficulty upgrading due to it.

<comment><USER37> Because I remember iOS7 had the quickest update rate ever. It slows down the Internet as well as router around places.

However to have that kind of update rate their iPhone must have been able to update, I am not so sure everyone had 5GB free space

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > Mobile Safari also picks up support for WebGL, an API that has been > supported in recent mobile versions of Chrome and Internet Explorer for a > while now.

For me, that's the feature of iOS 8 I'm most excited about.

I'm really looking forward to do some hobby graphics/game development using Go and have that run on my iOS device.

<comment><USER40> WebGL support on iOS 8 is the best new feature for me.

It looks like there are still some limitations that Apple could fix: [http://codeflow.org/entries/2014/jun/08/some-issues-with- app...](http://codeflow.org/entries/2014/jun/08/some-issues-with-apples-ios- webgl-implementation/)

about 75% of all user already have a browser with WebGL support: [http://webglstats.com/](http://webglstats.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Now that the iPhone has a big screen, there's only one feature it's missing before I'd be happy to trade in my Android: background camera upload syncing for Dropbox that doesn't cut out after 10 minutes.

Edit: would appreciate an explanation for the downvote. Does iOS already allow this and I missed it?

</comment><comment><USER42> As a Blackberry user, I was just thinking today how I could never go back to the iPhone. Multitasking is much faster on the BB10 OS. No button mashing and drilling down menus - not like I remember with the iPhone.

Of course, the iPhone has it's strengths too, but I just want to get work done.

<comment><USER43> A Blackberry strikes me as more of an impediment to work these days, but then I guess that's why the market exists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> "This update cannot be installed because it requires at least 6.9 GB of storage."

That's over _half_ of the maximum available capacity on my 16 GB model. No wonder they're releasing 128 GB iPhones now.

<comment><USER44> That is simply the "slack" space needed to download iOS 8 and install it inline on your phone. The OS does not consume 6.9 GB of your 16 GB model. See the Ars Technica review

<comment><USER39> I know that (it still does consume more than iOS 7 did, but not 6.9 GB of course). But it's pretty inconvenient to have to delete more than half of the contents of my device for the update.

<comment><USER44> Then don't update over-the-air. If you plug your iPhone into your computer and update via iTunes you don't have to delete anything from your device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Would you install it on an iPad 2 with iOS6?

<comment><USER45> I've been using it on my iPad 3, which is functionally slower than the iPad 2, and it's fine.

The biggest annoyance is the password screen animation doesn't really work at all, and I'm sure other animations aren't as fast as they could be but the login is the only place I notice it. The iPad 2 has more GPU/pixel so I wouldn't expect it to be worse.

Apps work fine, Safari is better than ever.</comment></comment>


iminlikewithyou: Hot or Not for the Web Savvy - <AUTHOR> http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/iminlikewithyou-hot-or-not-for-the-web-savvy21115.html <comment><USER2> can someone plz hook me up with an invite? nicholas.s.barnes at gmail

thx!!

<comment><USER3> sent... remember to post your invites here when you get them.</comment></comment>


Oracle-Sun merger foes head East - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestandard.com/news/2010/01/18/oracle-sun-merger-foes-head-east

<comment><USER2> > so-called "linking exception", that releases MySQL under the Apache Software > License 2.0, an open source license

The author failed to note that MySQL is _already_ free software under the GPL. Monty just wants to make another proprietary fork. At this point I'm surprised Sun hasn't sent lawyers after him for trying to damage the asset he just sold them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Summary: After selling MySQL for $1billion, Monty would like to have access to the code again to build another business off it.</comment>


The real problem with self-driving cars - <AUTHOR> https://www.cringely.com/2018/03/26/the-real-problem-with-self-driving-cars/ <comment><USER2> Question: Can a NN dream about accident scenarios, and thus be more carefull- if a scenery is "scary" ?</comment>


Reshaping the Architecture of Memory - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/technology/11storage.html?ex=1347163200&en=06735ea6e1637b46&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

<comment><USER2> Another trend in memory technology that I have not seen the mainstream media talk about is the "memory-bandwidth gap." Memory technology has kept pace with Moore's law (in the case of SRAM) or has failed to do so (in the case of DRAM) whereas fiberoptic technology has outpaced Moore's law. The result has been routers (which need lots of memory to buffer packets) that are slower than the pipes that feed into them. So far, these observations have been restricted to the networking research crowd. It would be interesting to see a blog/mainstream media article that talks about the commercial impact of this trend in the face of the Youtube fueled streaming media explosion.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would have voted for this one twice - very exciting research. I'm especially fond of the 3rd dimension, especially if it gives us 100x the storage at massively faster speeds.

<comment><USER4> I'm fond of the 3rd dimension, too. Without it, life would just be so... flat.</comment></comment>


Show HN: I Have a Digital Dream - <AUTHOR> https://www.normanmatrix.eu <comment><AUTHOR> I would deeply appreciate feedback from all the great thinkers and realizers on Hacker News! I am more of a dreamer and intuitionist..</comment>


Pause - Quarterly curated magazine with the best music news from around the web. - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pause-quarterly-magazine-curated/id811245379?mt=8

<comment><USER2> Looks like a beautiful app. Quarterly though? That doesn't seem to jibe with typical content consumption. I would likely forget I had this app every 3 months.

</comment><comment><USER3> great to see Pause featured by Apple in the iTunes App Store again</comment>


Visualize JavaScript Code Flow with TraceGL - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/news/2013/04/tracegl Very impressive stuff! <comment><USER2> Amazing stuff, I've played with it this morning and it's a great way to debug applications. Whereas you can normally only step forward, you can step back in your debugging session which is pretty awesome.

</comment><comment><USER3> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5595249></comment>


LoRa+WiFi ClusterDuck Protocol by Project OWL for Disaster Relief - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-foundation-open-sources-disaster-relief-iot-firmware-project-owl/ <comment><AUTHOR> > _Project OWL (Organization, Whereabouts, and Logistics) creates a mesh > network of Internet of Things (IoT) devices called DuckLinks. These Wi-Fi- > enabled devices can be deployed or activated in disaster areas to quickly > re-establish connectivity and improve communication between first responders > and civilians in need._

> _In OWL, a central portal connects to solar- and battery-powered, water- > resistant DuckLinks. These create a Local Area Network (LAN). In turn, these > power up a Wi-Fi captive portal using low-frequency Long-range Radio (LoRa) > for Internet connectivity. LoRA has a greater range, about 10km, than > cellular networks._

...

> _You don 't actually need a DuckLink device. The open-source OWL firmware > can quickly turn a cheap wireless device into a DuckLink using the -- I > swear I'm not making this up -- ClusterDuck Protocol. This is a mesh network > node, which can hook up to any other near-by Ducks._

> _OWL is more than just hardware and firmware. It 's also a cloud-based > analytic program. The OWL Data Management Software can be used to facilitate > organization, whereabouts, and logistics for disaster response._

Homepage: [http://clusterduckprotocol.org/](http://clusterduckprotocol.org/)

GitHub: [https://github.com/Code-and-Response/ClusterDuck- Protocol](https://github.com/Code-and-Response/ClusterDuck-Protocol)

The Linux Foundation > Code and Response [https://www.linuxfoundation.org/projects/code-and- response/](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/projects/code-and-response/)

GitHub: [https://github.com/code-and-response](https://github.com/code-and- response)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> An opkg (for e.g. OpenWRT) with this mesh software would make it possible to use WiFi/LTE routers with a LoRa transmitter/receiver connected over e.g. USB or Mini-PCIe.

... cc'ing from [https://twitter.com/westurner/status/1238859774567026688](https://twitter.com/westurner/status/1238859774567026688) :

OpenWRT is a Make-based embedded Linux distro w/ LuCI (Lua + JSON + UCI) web interface).

#OpenWRT runs on RaspberryPis, ARM, x86, ARM, MIPS; there's a Docker image. OpenWRT Supported Devices: [https://openwrt.org/supported_devices](https://openwrt.org/supported_devices)

OpenWRT uses opkg packages: [https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/additional- software/opkg](https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/additional-software/opkg)

I searched for "Lora" in OpenWRT/packages: lora-gateway-hal opkg package: [https://github.com/openwrt/packages/blob/master/net/lora- gat...](https://github.com/openwrt/packages/blob/master/net/lora-gateway- hal/Makefile)

lora-packet-forwarder opkg package (w/ UCI integration): [https://github.com/openwrt/packages/pull/8320](https://github.com/openwrt/packages/pull/8320)

[https://github.com/xueliu/lora-feed](https://github.com/xueliu/lora-feed) :

> _Semtech packages and ChirpStack [(LoRaserver)] Network Server stack for > OpenWRT_

> _> [In addition to providing node2node/2net connectivity, #batman-adv can > bridge VLANs over a mesh (or link), such as for "trusted" client, guest, > IoT, and mgmt networks. It provides an easy-to-configure alternative to > other approaches to "backhaul", […]] [https://openwrt.org/docs/guide- > user/network/wifi/mesh/batman](https://openwrt.org/docs/guide- > user/network/wifi/mesh/batman) _

> _I have a few different [quad-core, MIMO] ARM devices without 4G. TIL that > the @GLiNetWifi devices ship with OpenWRT firmware (and a mobile config app) > and some have 1-2 (Mini-PCIe) 4G w / SIM slots. Also, @turris_cz has OpenWRT > w/ LXC in the kernel build. > [https://t.co/Rz0Uu5uHJQ](https://t.co/Rz0Uu5uHJQ) _</comment>


How do you think the internet will be in 5 to 10 years? - <AUTHOR>

How do you think the internet, the web, will be in 5 to 10 years?<p>I've been thinking about it for some weeks now, and I bet for the ubiquitous internet with devices with a certain degree of awareness of their environment. I.e. GPS with traffic reports/weather forecast/any-service, bus stops that broadcast the wait time for the next bus, helper systems for disabled people...<p> <comment><USER2> "bus stops that broadcast the wait time for the next bus"

We already have that in the UK, though admitedly its not too reliable!

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, here in Barcelona we have something similar too. On some stops a display shows the expected time and on the rest you can send an SMS.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I occasionally use it too. have you seen the new buses that announce which stop you're arriving at (like in the metro)?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes! but the system is still being tested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've heard some people propose that it will be 3-dimensional. Apparently some government agencies have created their own Intranets in 3D claiming it makes it easier to find stuff (not sure if I believe this or not...). If it's true, though, then I wouldn't be surprised to see it on the consumer web in the near to medium-term future.

<comment><USER5> True 3D doesn't make sense for a lot of kinds of data. Images are inherently planar.

My limited hope is that the web can be as peppy as today's desktop interfaces. The elephant in the room of "Web 2.0" is how slow lots of implementations of asynchronous server communication are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 1\. Increased bandwidth ... enough bandwidth to make it no longer a factor

2\. Increased wi-fi coverage ... a free planet-wide wi-fi service?

3\. Better mobile hardware ... a mobile device that is smaller than a laptop, larger than an iphone, and more useful than either.

<comment><USER7> I think a 12" laptop is small enough. Smaller than that and you can't type comfortably.

<comment><USER4> I think BlackBerry users would beg to differ. I've seen some people typing pretty darn fast on those things, and I wouldn't have thought it possible. It's all about habituation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Less Gratuitous Flash, more Information Appliance.

</comment><comment><USER9> once we get high quality speech recognition for videos where transcripts can be made and searched and when bandwidth in the US stops being pathetic and catches up with the rest of the world, then text will take a backseat to video and typical pages will start looking more and more like joost.</comment>


Ask HN: Where do companies like outpan and semantics3 get their data from? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Outpan here,

We use a combination of polite massive-scale web crawling and user contribution. We had an in-house web crawler for years until recently when we released it as a stand-alone service.</comment>


Announcing Sift Science: fight fraud with large-scale machine learning - <AUTHOR> http://blog.siftscience.com/announcing-sift-science-fight-fraud-with-large-scale-machine-learning/ <comment><USER2> I'm kind of wondering how this will (or can) fit from a deployment set of concerns (cross-silos, compliance & audit, handling CDNs, etc.) into large- scale environments like eBay or Paypal and whether the fraud models are appropriate for most that do business online. As a crude example, I might care about fraud in blog spam from SEO blackhats, which is not the same as credit card fraud patterns but both translate into real dollar loss for some businesses. Granted, the founders are ex-Googlers so perhaps this was done yesterday, but the way they present themselves and with their current customer list they make it look like it's mostly for direct financial transaction based sites. I'm suspecting things are overly simplified but I find it pretty hard to believe that inserting some Javascript snippets into a page could actually help when fraudsters could eventually start bypassing that JS (see: web scrapers). The API docs seem awful naive in number of possible cases.

With that said, congratulations on the launch, I know this is not an easy problem to handle and I think you actually have fulfilled a major goal of ease-of-use for online fraud detection systems. The only comparable systems I've heard of are ridiculously expensive beasts of enterprise software or custom-grown for the company with incredible barriers to entry. Best of luck to you guys.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Devon -- thanks for the thoughtful comments!

Most of our customers do use Sift Science for financial fraud, but because it's a machine learning system, you can train it to detect other types of bad behavior like spam. We have customers in production using us to detect spam, fake inventory, and duplicate accounts. If you have a use-case that doesn't quite seem to fit, let me know and we can figure out how to train our system to recognize that type of behavior: email@example.com.

If a fraudster bypasses the JS, we still have REST events such as transactions (or any other custom event sent from the backend). Seeing a user who has REST events but no Javascript events is a suspicious signal in itself, so fraudsters can't circumvent the system by just turning off JS.

FWIW, we're on some pretty major sites that we can't announce, so we've gone through a bunch of compliance, audit, security, and other concerns already.

<comment><USER3> Can you explain better what exactly you do?

It seems that you use ML to pinpoint fraud (or better, undesired behaviour) in $WEBSITE.

So that could be fraud detection because they login from one country, ship to another and buy a certain combination of items.

Or that could be "spam fighting" because they create an account with X and Y characteristics and post similar things.

Am I right in my perception? (and you could use this not only for 'bad behaviour' but for good behaviour as well)

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right on. In theory, you could train our system to recognize good behavior if you sent us enough $label events, but most of the patterns we have today are really optimized around detecting bad behavior.

<comment><USER4> Could you develop a little more how duplicate accounts could be detected?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An article will appear a year from now..."Perpetrating fraud with large-scale machine learning."

Just kidding ;)...Looks awesome and easy-to-use, congrats on launching.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm the OP and I work at Sift Science. Let me know if you have questions!

<comment><USER6> Is it possible to run this stuff on certain purchases say like gift cards or would that reduce effectiveness of the software? If its looking for patterns in ordering, and i only feed in gift card purchases, it would have nothing to compare against. Reason I am asking, we have almost 0% fraud/charge back rate since you can only by our physical product via a subscription model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> While I'm currently evaluating and very excited about Sift Science, what are some of the competitors in this space? I'm only aware of CPA Detective Max Mind miniFraud.

<comment><AUTHOR> The two biggest anti-fraud vendors are Accertify and ReD. You might also look at ThreatMetrix, 41st Parameter, and Iovation, who do primarily device identification.

Let us know what you think!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Where did you get your initial data when you were starting up?

<comment><AUTHOR> We were lucky to find some early beta customers like Airbnb, Uber, and Listia, who were all looking for what we were building and willing to take a risk with a startup. In general, getting the first two or three customers is one of the hardest parts of building a B2B startup. Might make a good blog post one day!

<comment><USER8> I'd love to read such a post and best of luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I sat in your ACM presentation the other day at Stanford. It was really awesome. Thanks for coming by and best of luck!

<comment><USER10> Glad to hear it! I had a lot of fun coming back to campus. Good luck to you too!

carl @ sift

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Who, exactly, is "am9icytiNjRAc2lmdHNjaWVuY2UuY29t" (listed as a contact on the Jobs page)?

<comment><USER9> hint hint hint: echo 'am9icytiNjRAc2lmdHNjaWVuY2UuY29t' | base64 -D

<comment><USER12> trxblazr, you have demonstrated poor judgement. Sift Science is trying to make a small attempt at filtering some of the inevitable spam that results from a public job posting. You spoiled it. Why? For what purpose? To show how smart you are?

Sift Science does not look like some arrogant company that has cooked up their own broken security system, and that deserves to be poked at this way. It is not a public service to defeat this quiz, a quiz that some people would have been happier solving on their own so as to have a fair shot at apply for the job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Congrats from the Balanced team! You guys are doing great work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Any plans on working with major e-commerce platform providers?

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely! What would be your top choices? And what's your ideal integration experience?</comment></comment>


Curated List of Common Lisp frameworks, libraries and other shiny stuff - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kozross/awesome-cl

<comment><USER2> "Expat: This is a lax, permissive non-copyleft free software license, compatible with the GNU GPL. It is sometimes ambiguously referred to as the MIT License."

In case anyone else wondered.</comment>


Are Psychiatric Drugs Causing A Rise of Mental Illness in America? - <AUTHOR> http://www.alternet.org/health/146659/are_prozac_and_other_psychiatric_drugs_causing_the_astonishing_rise_of_mental_illness_in_america

<comment><USER2> This sounds like an important book. The key point is this:

 _[The scientific literature on psychiatric drugs] is remarkably consistent in the story it tells. Although psychiatric medications may be effective over the short term, they increase the likelihood that a person will become chronically ill over the long term._

Most people nowadays think that psychiatry finally established itself on a scientific footing with the biochemical model of mental illness and associated drug treatments. If this guy's right, then the biochemical model and associated drugs are just the latest chapter in a long history of pseudo- scientific barbarism, this time founded on a massive conflict of interest.

This part is positively Orwellian:

 _At some later point, however, as the chemical imbalance story repeatedly fell apart, psychiatrists in the research community understood that they were telling a "fib." I can still remember -- this was the summer of 1998 -- when I questioned a prominent academic psychiatrist about whether the chemical imbalance story was really "true" and he replied by stating that it was a "useful metaphor" that "helped patients understand why they needed to take their medication."_

</comment><comment><USER3> More people being diagnosed with mental illness doesn't mean there is more mental illness, does it? Social acceptability and understanding has increased since the 50s and 80s, so we should expect to see a lot more mental illness, even if nothing else changed, right?

The other points about psych meds making symptoms worse is true - the rx info for Ritalin and so on clearly list severe issues such as psychosis as a side effect. Perhaps the problem lies in patients not receiving proper care and follow up.

<comment><AUTHOR> If I'm reading it correctly, the article isn't claiming there are more people being diagnosed with mental illness, but rather that there are more people severely enough incapacitated that they can't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whenever I hear about people making claims against the current psychiatric model, I look closely to see if they are associated with the CCHR ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Commission_on_Human_Ri...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Commission_on_Human_Rights)). They basically believe that psychiatrists are purposefully poisoning us as part of a campaign of eugenics...

Not to say that this guy might not be right, but it triggers my scepticism alarms.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you read the article the author actually criticizes CCHR. In any event he's not arguing that psych meds shouldn't be used at all, but rather their long term health effects should be taken into consideration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Do any of the people that came up with this have any relationship with Scientology? I'm completely serious - Scientologists _hate_ psychiatry and psychiatric drugs.

If there's no connection with those nutters, I'm very sorry for having raised the issue at all. But you gotta know these things before you can trust what you're reading.

<comment><USER2> From the article:

 _Big Pharma and its partners in establishment psychiatry have smartly used Scientology to defuse criticism of their medications. I honestly believe that if Scientology weren't around, then our society could have a much more rational discussion about our drug-based paradigm of care._</comment></comment>


The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution (part 1) - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/2009/08/31/the-customer-development-manifesto-reasons-for-the-revolution-part-1/

<comment><USER2> _Most startup code ends up on the floor._

Scary thought. I worked too hard to let this happen.

And it's a very easy trap to fall into. When I'm coding, I don't want to talk to customers. And when I'm talking to customers, I don't want to code. Gotta find a way to interweave them sensibly.

<comment><USER3> Sounds like you need to follow the maker/manager schedule described here <http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html></comment></comment>


Reza Rahman: Why I Left Oracle - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rahmannet.net/2016/03/why-i-left-oracle.html <comment><USER2> Hmm thats similar to why I left Amazon. I was tasked with mundane tasks like localizing strings for huge marketing faq pages. I wrote scripts to give the 900 odd strings numerical locale ids. But my manager who all my code had to pass through for code review wanted individually described and named ids. For what other reason than he was a corporate drone with Java abstractions for factories of factories of DatabaseQueryCreator that invoked DatabaseQueryBuilder etc etc I do not know. I will never work for another corp where I dont feel like a magician in terms of programming and tooling efficiency. It was absolutely dreadful and loathing to march to my death as a creative and intellectual. Fuck drone work and fuck drone managers and executives who try to serve it up only because they hate themselves too much to embrace the beauty of the discipline of hip and efficient software engineering</comment>


How to find the right designer - <AUTHOR> http://www.attackofdesign.com/how-to-find-the-right-designer/ <comment><USER2> i used this exact method to find the designer i hired about a month ago.

overall, it worked out, but it was a frustrating process. i was aiming for some specifics: a female designer who was up to date on HTML5/CSS3 and ideally had some wedding stuff in her portfolio.

i probably contacted no less than 25 people (through their websites) over the course of two weeks, and was met with either a lack of response, note saying they weren't accepting work, couldn't start soon enough, or for one reason or another i reconsidered.

eventually i found someone who is now doing some really great work, but it wasn't a fast process.

it's important to carefully check out portfolios, because while most things look good on Dribbble, a nice icon or logo doesn't necessarily translate into solid web design skill. i spent a lot of time validating pages (and pages linked in their portfolio), looking for design elements i liked and didn't like, and overall indications that they'd be good for me to work with. that way, once i hired my designer, i knew what to look out for (e.g. press the issue of validating HTML).

all in all -- Dribbble was a good place to find designers, but i still had to do diligence on my end to find the right one for my project. that's basically echoing the point of the article, but it's worth repeating.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious: are there reasons you were searching for a female designer specifically? (Unless I'm misinterpreting that sentence, that is.)

<comment><USER2> yup. i'm working on a site for weddings and wanted a female perspective

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dribbble? Really?

Dribbble is neat and all, but using it to find a designer is like picking a book by looking at the lower lefthand corner of the cover--it doesn't tell you anything. You might find a designer who is good at fancy effects in photoshop, but it won't tell you much about UX, architecture, coding experience, etc.

Dribbble could be the start of your browsing experience, but should by no means be viewed as the go-to place.

<comment><USER5>
      - I hate cats - the hair, the smell...
      - Oh, you just don't know a good recipe

Same with Dribbble. All good designers have links to their portfolios full of uncropped samples of their work. _Most_ of good designers on Dribbble also have Pro accounts meaning that their "shots" typically have full-size versions attached to them and the shots are organized into the projects.

Nobody is saying that one needs to pick a designer because of that one 400x300 shot that looks awesome. What the OP meant is that Dribbble is a great visual directory of a metric ton of _really_ good designers.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for explaining my own point better than I could!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Where can you go to look for a UX/UI designer that can help with the usability of your website? Dribble is ok to showcase a nice logo, a nice button etc, but fails for non-cosmetic driven design.

</comment><comment><USER8> Quick plug: I'm working on a startup called Lean Designs to help developers who struggle with web design create beautiful sites. In a nutshell, it's an HTML5-based WYSIWYG editor that exports to professional HTML/CSS. I invite you all to check it out:

<http://www.leandesigns.com>

<comment><USER9> Even if you never become a customer, watching Lean Designs develop via its blog is amazing! It's too bad LD will be a huge success because matt1 is a programmer I'd love to have on my team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a designer I found the article a bit of a throw away. Firstly designer can describe a wide range of talent — anybody from a branding expert to an HTML/CSS production jockey. The way you'd search for each of those roles is quite different, it's like the difference between a Unix admin and a Object C programmer who knows iOS.

I think the main problem that many non-designers have when hiring talent is that they don't understand the process of a designer, so they don't know how to manage a designer. I also think there's the sin of going the cheap route and then being unhappy with the results.

</comment><comment><USER11> What about designers who can code? I think that's a major consideration in hiring a web designer.

If you get one who can't code, how well do they understand what is possible or easy in the browser? How well will they work with the coder you have to hire?

A lot of times you can get a decent frontend person who designs and codes for less than you can hire a coder and a designer.

<comment><USER12> Depends on what you want them to code. Any great designer who works on the web can write HTML & CSS, else they're not a great designer. If you want them to know Rails, Python, or PHP and help you with middle-tier integration, then that's probably a more difficult task.

<comment><USER13> "Any great designer who works on the web can write HTML & CSS, else they're not a great designer."

Couldn't disagree more. I've worked with so many amazing interactive designers at agencies who didn't know much about coding but because of the division of labor managed to execute some killer sites.

I'm not arguing that designers like myself shouldn't know code but rather that amazing web designers who don't know code do exist.

<comment><USER12> You can't design for the web (or for any medium) without knowing its constraints. If a "web designer" doesn't know HTML or CSS then how can they adequately design for the web as a platform when they don't know how it works?

<comment><USER14> Because they use the web everyday.

At my old company, we taught designers contraints about web elements and what could typically be styled and executed. This relationship between front-end dev and web designer was pretty key. I never coded but because of my usage of the web, I knew the constraints.

Those designers ended up designing some of the most used sites in the United States.

When working at an agency, one rarely ever touches code because the client either has a team to deal with it OR there are full-time front-end devs.

But hey, if those designers who multiplied revenue for ecommerce sites and increased viewership for content sites are bad web designers, then I'll take those scrubs anyday.

<comment><USER15> I've seen a lot of "web designer" who treat a website like a regular printing product. Only really understanding the constrains _and_ the possibilities enables you to stuff that is really built for the web, not adapted to it. I think it would be rather unlikely for a designer w/o any coding expirience to think of stuff like this: <http://www.designmadeingermany.de/magazin/5/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Coroflot.com and behance.net are good resources too.

Generally speaking, talented designers (and hackers) enjoy working on interesting projects. If your idea is better than anything they're currently working on, they might work for equity. That's how I approach it anyway.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you're looking to hire a logo or icon designer, Dribble is the place to be. However, crafting the perfect 300x400 teaser has little to do with web design.

Do you want to hire a window decorator, or someone who will help you solve the hard problem of making your app easier to use? Think carefully. You might not want a real web designer. A graphic designer is certainly a safer hire--they won't futz with your codebase, anyway!

<comment><USER6> The truth of the matter is that Dribbble has the best designers out there. And yes, that includes great user experience designers (<http://dribbble.com/rogie>), and even great front-end coders (<http://dribbble.com/simurai>).

I think a lot of people mistakenly assume that a "user experience designer" has to create ugly mockups and clumsy prototypes. The best user experience designers are just designers that do their job well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> There's a decent mix of dev/design talent on Forrst</comment>


A letter to myself as a fresh software engineer - <AUTHOR> https://www.florio.dev/20200328-letter-to-myself/ <comment><USER2> > There is no point in reinventing the wheel.

I wish there was a better way to phrase this. I understand the spirit of this advice but in software we don't get better compilers if we stick with the first compiler that gets invented.

I've reinvented many things simply to learn how they work. Sometimes I get ideas about how to do things better. Sometimes I do it for the challenge ( _I bet I could do that_ ). Sometimes I find that I can cut out 2/3 of the code, half the features, and get a system that is easier to maintain and remove errors from.

It's hard to become a better software engineer if all you do is glue together libraries. It's hardly ever appropriate to write your own database from scratch in a production application. But it's also hard to understand how to write your own database if you never write one yourself.

<comment><USER3> > But it's also hard to understand how to write your own database if you never > write one yourself.

You just took NIH to a whole new level.

<comment><USER4> That isn't NIH. In fact it is often the opposite of NIH. It is a pre-requisite of becoming a true expert in the technologies that you are using.

NIH is writing your own database and using it in production.

But understanding how to write a database makes it easier to understand why your existing database works the way it does, and what its quirks should be.

For example suppose that you have a slow query. You EXPLAIN ANALYZE to get a query plan. Now what? It really helps if you can say, "What would a program to do this look like? How fast would it be?" And then be able to say, "And if I was to write a program to do this, how would I do it? How fast would that be?" And then if the second is faster you can ask, "How can I get the database to do what I think it should do?" (Hint, in most databases with temporary tables and indexes on them, you can force your desired query plan to within a factor of 2.)

That exercise really helps in optimization. But that exercise is only available to people who know how a database actually works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't have a problem with reinventing the wheel if that's what you know you're doing. Other people have already pointed out the many good reasons why you would want to do that. What I do have a problem with is people who reinvent the wheel because they couldn't be bothered to check if someone had already invented it.

</comment><comment> a-ve Agree with the points made here but

>There is no point in reinventing the wheel.

There's a difference in a wheel made out of stone and one made of carbon fiber.

<comment><USER6> I remember a poster illustrating this point. It was essentially the iconic "evolution of man" scenario but for the wheel; the caption was along the lines of "Sometimes It's Necessary".

Something very much like this: shorturl.at/lpQVW

<comment><USER7> FYI, your link is not working.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I agree in various degrees with most of the letter, except one point I strongly disagree: compare with others.

First, comparing to others will motivate you to get better, have a positive target you want to reach: "I want to be as good as Jake" was my model when I was in college, Jake was at that time the best IT expert I met for a decade.

Second, because you need to know where you are and what is going around you. You need to know your peers and how you are qualified versus them, how productive and appreciated you are and how are you paid. You may be motivated to do something when you find the new colleague still in college is earning as much as you do after 10 years just because the company wants to promote women and "reverse the wage gap", so they give female college students positions and wages equal or higher than top rated senior engineers that are male. Just saying, I saw many such cases.

<comment><USER9> When I think of the things that bring me joy, comparing myself to others doesn't come up.

<comment><USER8> Then you prefer to live in a bubble and not having any idea how you perform versus others? It's a great way to become the last of the pack and get fired while believing you are so much better than yourself a month ago.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the most reliable email provider? - <AUTHOR> I've heard of people having Gmail accounts suspended and recently my iCloud email address stopped receiving messages due to a billing issue. I have work and school emails, but I would like something longterm and reliable (preferably a third party provider). Does anyone have any suggestions? <comment><USER2> Get your own domain and host your own email on that. I use a small, family run ISP, and while there are the occasional outages because they can't be available 24/7, there is always someone I can talk to if there are problems.

The main problem with every big provider is that there is no one to talk to if something is wrong, and sometimes the people you _do_ end up talking with are about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

With your own domain you then have a long-term solution, as you can migrate the domain to a different host if necessary. You can even host the domain and then redirect your email to someone recognisable, like fastmail, protonmail, or even gmail, changing the redirect if/when needed.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are several recommendations for alternate e-mail providers in the comments of this article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21247759](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21247759) (Search for "fastmail", "protonmail", "tutanota", etc. to find the relevant subthreads.)

I've been using fastmail.com for years, and have found it to be very reliable. (As with many e-mail providers, you can use it with your own domain.)

You mentioned work e-mail. That's the least reliable e-mail of all for anything non-work-related, since (1) you lose access to it immediately if you're fired or laid off, or if the company closes, and (2) you have absolutely no expectation of privacy (your employer can read or delete your messages on a system that it owns - the messages are its property, not yours).

</comment><comment><USER4> Another vote for Fastmail. I've been using it with my own domain for the last couple of years with zero problems.

</comment><comment><USER5> You could run your own mail server easily if it was just send/receive. But you need spam/virus protection and that's 99% of the time spent on it.

You could subscribe to something like SpamHero and have it check the emails for you. That's the only service I know. Does anyone know about good alternatives?

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm super happy with Runbox.com both from service prospective, business model and location

</comment><comment><USER7> Fastmail has been rock solid for my personal email for a number of years.

<comment><USER8> Another vote for fastmail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Besides anecdotes, do you know how reliable Gmail is?

<comment><USER10> Gmail is great if you don't mind having a multi-billion conglomerate profiting off your email data.</comment></comment>