Learn Perl the Hard Way - <AUTHOR> http://greenteapress.com/perl/index.html

<comment><USER2> This book is fairly out of date, being almost 9 years old now. I wouldn't recommend it.

A better choice for programmers wanting to learn Perl is chromatic's Modern Perl (<http://onyxneon.com/books/modern_perl/>).

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks like a good introduction to the core of Perl programming, however I would recommend "Modern Perl" by Chromatic. It's free (and legal) for the PDF version.

Why do I recommend "Modern Perl" instead? Because it: (1) contains new language features added to Perl in the last 9 years (2) covers how to use Moose for OOP (3) shows how to use new Perl 6 features in Perl 5 (4) clearly explains the _right_ way to do things (5) covers how to write tests (6) demonstrates that the Perl language continues to evolve and is a modern and effective programming language

And in the end, "Modern Perl" shows you how to write maintainable and effective Perl code. Great book, and you can get the PDF for free here: <http://onyxneon.com/books/modern_perl/>

</comment><comment><USER4> I have put up exercises from Learn Python the hard way into Learn Javascript the hard way. <http://learnjs.info>

<comment><USER5> I downvoted you mostly because I wasn't sure why you were talking about making Python exercises into a Javascript emulator/learner tool when the thread is about Perl.. but then, I wanted to cancel my vote but was unable to.

<comment><USER6> So why was he talking about making Python exercises into a Javascript emulator/learner tool when the thread is about Perl?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are two issues in this thread.

First, a confusion: this book has nothing to do with Zed Shaw's Learn X the Hard Way series. (I have no idea if Zed ever heard the title even. He may have come to it - the title - completely independently.) _This_ book predates Zed's series, and has a very different goal. Zed's book, as I understand it, targets novices. The difficulty in the title is that you must do all the exercises and learn from a lot of repetition and trying things on your own (as well as looking up docs, further examples, etc. online). The Downey book, on the other hand, is aimed at people with a programming or CS background who want to learn Perl rapidly. The difficulty is that he moves very fast and assumes you can handle things like a fairly dense Markov text generator by page 26.

Second, a lot of people say (assume?) that the book is out of date because it's from 2003. Actually, _for its goal_ , I think that's wrong. If you are an experienced programmer who wants to rapidly learn Perl's core syntax, I think this is still a good place to start. You certainly might follow it up with _Modern Perl_ or lots of readings in _perldoc_ and _perldelta_ , but the core syntax and features of Perl 5 have not actually changed that much I think. I can't think of any book that covers as much, with as many examples in such a short book. It's also very clearly written.

<comment><USER8> I came up with the title, started my book, then found the perl book. So this perl book isn't like my books at all and predates them by many years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Higher Order Perl" is the book I learned most how to write functional _python_ code.

Yes. I haven't read not a single python book. "Dive into python", "Essential Python", LPHW was boring.

I recommend HOP for every programmer.

</comment><comment><USER10> Written in 2003!</comment>


Writing a SQL database from scratch in Go - <AUTHOR> https://notes.eatonphil.com/database-basics.html <comment><USER2> Unexpected, but welcome, to see the first part in the series on here right now. I just published the second part [0] today, featuring binary expressions and WHERE filtering. It also updates the REPL to use a prettier table-printing library and a readline implementation.

The repo [1] has some additional bare notes on architecture and links to similar, more mature projects (primarily go-mysql-server and ramsql).

[0] [https://notes.eatonphil.com/database-basics-expressions- and-...](https://notes.eatonphil.com/database-basics-expressions-and- where.html)

[1] [https://github.com/eatonphil/gosql](https://github.com/eatonphil/gosql)

<comment><USER3> This is great. Do you plan on continuing this blog series? If so I hope you post it here. Cheers.

<comment><USER2> Definitely! I typically do post here. There are also links for various ways to subscribe on the site itself (e.g. twitter, email).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great blog post!

I'd just like to add for the curious, that usually you'd use goyacc for parsing SQL.

And most serious SQL projects in Go have started with the SQL parser from vitess and adapted it to their use case (which is just funny trivia, but for anything big, I recommend it, did the same for OctoSQL [0]).

[0]: [https://github.com/cube2222/octosql](https://github.com/cube2222/octosql)

<comment><USER5> Why did all of the Golang SQL parsers come from Vitess? I would love to know more about this history.

Was it because they were the first and people just started using it or is it the best for some reason?

<comment><USER2> SQL is a humongous spec. Any serious project would rather piggy-back off an existing parser. Most of the interesting parts for most people is implementing backends against in-memory, disk, S3, HDFS, etc.

<comment><USER2> Also, a contributor to dolthub shared on Reddit last time this post came up that they originally wrote their own SQL frontend but gave up because it was so much to maintain and get correct. They ended up going with go-mysql-server which uses vitess.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/fgwwlx/database_bas...](https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/fgwwlx/database_basics_writing_a_sql_database_from/fk84dq9/?context=3)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Probably the first article Ive ever read about lexical parsing with code that i have actually understood - and I dont even program in golang. Great job.

<comment><USER7> Lexical analysis using these bespoke methods (writing the finite state machine) is so tedious and error prone. I don't have that much experience but I just went through crafting interpreters and replaced this same module with [https://github.com/J-F-Liu/pom](https://github.com/J-F-Liu/pom), which is a parser combinator library, and it was way easier.

<comment><USER8> _which is a parser combinator library, and it was way easier_

I like parser combinators but a word of warning.

A lot of parser combinators (not all) have problems with recursive grammar such as Json and SQL [1].

For instance, a JSON map can contain a JSON map and this can lead to stack overflows when defining the grammar.

[1] [https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/understanding- parser...](https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/understanding-parser- combinators-4/#5-parsing-array)

<comment><USER7> thanks for the link will take a look. like i said i don't have that much experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _selectKeyword keyword = "select"_

I don't work with Go, so this may be a requirement of the language that I don't know, but whenever I see lines like this, it automatically brings up the question _why?_ \--- do you really expect to need to rename the SELECT keyword? Especially when it's named "selectKeyword". Why not just use the string constant? Ditto for the others like "leftparenSymbol" \--- I see there's explicit character constants in some of the other code too... it reminds me of the classic anti-pattern like "int five = 5;".

Also, you may find the full SQL grammars interesting to look through --- they are quite a bit more complex than the subset presented in the article: [https://ronsavage.github.io/SQL/](https://ronsavage.github.io/SQL/)

<comment><USER10> Another reason is that by providing an identifier for this string literal, misspellings of it can be detected by the compiler whereas there is nothing tying separate string literals together.

<comment><USER9> I can hardly imagine a case where you would misspell "select" and not notice it at some point, nor use it in more than one place (the keyword detector) in the parser.

<comment><USER11> The pattern (which I employ only sometimes) is to have almost all literals defined in this way. Perhaps SELECT isn't likely to be the word you misspell, but I'm a careless typist and make 10 typos a minute. Taking this added step helps your editor save you from yourself.

<comment><USER12> Having standards like that and keeping them helps a lot. Next time you have a different keyword, you don't have to think "does it deserve a constant?" \- all of them do.

Similar to how linters stop you from overthinking indentation in specific cases, or some naming standards, and later rename/reformat-wars.

<comment><USER9> _all of them do._

That's what leads to dogmatic cargo-culting. Good software is written by thinking about the circumstances and doing what makes the most sense, not by mindless rule-following that don't always make sense.

I don't know why someone would be so worried about typos and introduce _more_ verbosity and redundancy in the process; but then again, I don't use an IDE and I've never had this problem.

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure you're really making the argument you think here...

Good software may mean thinking about circumstances like "we're dealing with lots of text parsing and have seen bugs from typos in common keywords" and doing what makes most sense: "let's prevent those in the future, but using constants for keywords". It's only cargo culting if you don't know why you're doing something.

Setting a rule so you don't have to debate something later is a valid solution and may still offset some redundancies introduced this way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Curious - would Rust be more appropriate than Go for such a task?

<comment><USER14> rust would be more appropriate if your intention was to use this in production. Databases ad GC don't mix well. (its done but it makes tuning a nightmare)

As much as I love rust, its learning curve is high and I'm sure Op doesn't want to spend half his article teaching all the intricacies of types and the borrow checker. Go is easy to learn over a weekend so its probably a better medium for illustrating the concepts as everything is laid out simply.

<comment><USER15> A garbage collector is not inherently incompatible with a low-latency database. I was generally very happy with the performance of Go's garbage collector enough to have built Prometheus, the time series database, on it back in 2012, when the collector was considerably more naive.

[https://blog.golang.org/ismmkeynote](https://blog.golang.org/ismmkeynote)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Do you know about a tutorial or a book that helps write Database from scratch either in Java or C?

<comment><AUTHOR> Check out this (in C): [https://cstack.github.io/db_tutorial/](https://cstack.github.io/db_tutorial/) also a list here [https://github.com/danistefanovic/build-your- own-x](https://github.com/danistefanovic/build-your-own-x)

<comment><USER16> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Are you going to add persistence in an upcoming part?

<comment><USER2> Probably! That's the most interesting and most difficult part so it may take me a while.</comment></comment>


Should the Web Have DRM? - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/2017/02/14/letsLoveTheWeb.html <comment><AUTHOR> references _" A battle rages for the future of the Web"_: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13637435](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13637435)</comment>


Voter Suppression in Wisconsin - <AUTHOR> http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/voter-suppression-wisconsin-election-2016/ <comment><USER2> So not having a valid ID and trying to vote counts as vote suppression? How can anyone argue that voting without showing a valid state ID is even an option?

<comment><USER3> I hope voter IDs become mandatory in the near future, but it's got to be rolled out ethically:

1\. They have to be free 2\. They have to be "accessible" for the rural population 3\. They have to be adequately communicated in advance of elections (1+ years, not 1+ months) 4\. The process needs to be simple - require proof of citizenship or an ID that requires proof of citizenship.

I think there'd be no problem with having a few people stationed in post offices to do this. I'd imagine a fair amount of supporters would volunteer to do it if it meant improving the integrity of our elections.</comment></comment>


Mysterious Inheritance: A new biography of J.B.S. Haldane - <AUTHOR> https://theamericanscholar.org/mysterious-inheritance/#.XvvZcEBFzBi <comment><USER2> Haldane's essay on "Being the Right Size" is very interesting.

[http://www.phys.ufl.edu/courses/phy3221/spring10/HaldaneRigh...](http://www.phys.ufl.edu/courses/phy3221/spring10/HaldaneRightSize.pdf)

Be forewarned though, Marvel's Ant Man will see even less believable and you might annoy your friends if you ask how he is able to see when he shrinks.

<comment> jonah-archive This is a great essay. If the topic interests you, D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's classic work On Growth And Form is also a worthwhile read: [https://archive.org/details/ongrowthform00thom](https://archive.org/details/ongrowthform00thom)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I read this story by J. B. S. Haldane when I was a kid and have never forgotten it.

[http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/rats.pdf](http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/rats.pdf)

<comment><USER3> I'm thinking I may read it to my kids as their bedtime story tomorrow night. I'll have to include some editorial explanations since the idea of marrying one's daughter off as a prize seems a bit odd now, although when I first read this at age seven or so, I don't think it occurred to me that it was odd.

<comment><USER4> I think it's about being young, you just tend to take all kinds of things in your stride. I'd guess that's because there's just so much you don't know yet that it's just normal to stumble over new things and concepts all of the time. So odd, surprising things are just not that odd or surprising.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Stephen Gould on Haldane:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20021025161902/http://www.stephe...](https://web.archive.org/web/20021025161902/http://www.stephenjaygould.org/people/john_haldane.html)

Haldane: "Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."

</comment><comment><USER6> The old biography is pretty good.by Ronald Clark. JBS was a Humanist, communist, self-experimentor, lifelong scientist. Often wrong headed. Also worth reading about is JD Bernal, AV Jones, Solly Zuckrmann, and PMS Blackett and the rest of 'the boffins'

<comment><USER7> see also [https://blogs.harvard.edu/sj/tag/statistics/](https://blogs.harvard.edu/sj/tag/statistics/) for Haldane, "The Faking of Genetical Results", Eureka #6

"But I shouldn't worry too much about the higher orders. The only examiner who is likely to spot that you haven't done them is Haldane, and he'll probably be interned as a Red before you send your thesis in."</comment></comment>


Microsoft Flight Simulator In-Depth Preview (4K) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOPIjzzH1G8 <comment><USER2> Wow, this got me pumped. Needs 2019 in the title though.</comment>


OMGPOP CEO Hired Back Everyone He Laid Off And Made Sure They Cashed In - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-incredible-story-of-how-laid-off-omgpop-workers-got-hired-back-just-in-time-to-cash-in-on-the-big-sale-2012-4?op=1

<comment><USER2> Good story and a good guy, he will have no shortage of hackers in whatever future ideas he wants to bring to life. Reputations like that are golden in this industry.

<comment><USER3> Wat?

This is the same CEO who publically bagged one of his employees on Twitter: [http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-04/02/draw- somethin...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-04/02/draw-something- ceo-tweets)

Obviously reputation means squat, since nobody seems to remember these things past the current news cycle. What are the chances that this is a PR puff piece to try and salvage his reputation amongst developers?

<comment><USER2> I generally don't read these kind of stories so I did not know the history, thank you for the link. I still think what he did here outweighs a unsavory twitter post about an individual. There could be a lot of dynamics to a single relationship, while not cool, the post very well could have been accurate, for all I know. What I do know though is bringing a bunch of developers back on so that they can get a deserved payout is a pretty honorable move in my book. It very well could be a PR stunt but it is a pretty costly one if that is the case, though not out of the realm of possibility, I cant see someone worrying that much about a bad twitter comment.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Gantt, schedule, timeline and calendar components all in one - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/neuronetio/gantt-schedule-timeline-calendar <comment><USER2> You should add a comment to the thread giving the backstory of how you came to work on this, and explaining what's different about it. That tends to seed discussion in a good direction.

If you do that, email us at firstname.lastname@example.com and we'll put this submission in the second-chance pool (described at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380)).</comment>


GDrive is coming, 1GB free storage - <AUTHOR> http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2010/01/gdrive-is-coming.html

<comment><USER3> I hope they've figured out that customer support is more than a half-baked web portal.

I can already see the submissions coming in the first time someone even _thinks_ Google has lost one of their files and ends up having to deal with the atrocious Google support machine.

</comment><comment><USER4> Who wants to start taking bets for when Google buys Dropbox.

<comment><USER5> The Dropbox guys have done a hell of a job and I use it everyday. I could see Google, maybe even MS buying them. The flip side is Google has more than enough resources to make it themselves and they could make it fit natively into G Apps. DropBox also has a lot of expanding to do - sharing other folders, etc. and it may be wiser for them to continue growing. I think a more flexible payment structure could make them a lot more money too.

<comment><USER6> My take on a dropbox purchase would be to get an existing customer base - <USER2> of which pay for extra space. I guess google doesn't have an issue getting customers though.

<comment><USER7> Maybe Zoho should buy it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Existing thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1047977>

<comment><AUTHOR> Mea culpa, I didn't see that link. This article is not from the official Google blog. It adds screenshots of uploaded files and an interesting link to a rumored early description of the storage system, which makes me wonder where Google is heading with this storage system at only 1GB, since it's clear that others already offer much more storage.

Anyway, what is the usual habit for similar stories? should I delete this link to clean up HN?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> 1GB?? That's almost a joke.

Great, I can store 1/16th of my $50 thumbdrive online.

<comment><USER10> It is a joke. Dropbox and Zumo Drive both give you twice that for free; it's amazing that _Google_ with its millions of servers and 7 something GB Gmail accounts can't do better than a lousy 1GB free.

<comment><USER11> True, but that means you can store 1/8th of your $50 thumbdrive there. Where Google wins is the cost of buying additional storage, which is an order of magnitude cheaper than Dropbox.

On the other hand, it doesn't look like Google offers synchronization so its utility as a backup environment is quite limited.

<comment><USER12> > it doesn't look like Google offers synchronization so its utility as a > backup environment is quite limited.

Actually, my beef with all these services is the opposite: they rarely provide support to mount plain old drives under windows. It's always some crappy web interface or custom client that synchs stuff around which makes it non- interoperable with every other program I use that just wants to save something to the file system and know that it got to the cloud. I really don't get it - Windows supports WebDAV - what is so freakin hard about this?

I really wish they would just give me a network drive to save to and let _me_ worry about finding some synchronization software to mirror stuff there if that turns me on.

<comment><USER13> I wish Windows supported WebDAV in a sane way. They seemed keen to do so around Windows XP, but they apparently changed plans. They have two stacks, the more standards-compliant one (Web Folders) is deprecated and won't run in many new versions of Windows and the old one is way too buggy and suffering from bit-rot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I use git and github for my cloud storage. And I try to do as much writing as I can in plain-text documents so I get nice version histories. And there's nothing better for (text) documents with more than one contributor.

</comment><comment><USER15> Note that this article does not cite an official source.

<comment><USER16> Yes it does. [http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/01/upload-and-store- your...](http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/01/upload-and-store-your-files- in-cloud.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Again?</comment>


Jepsen: MongoDB 3.6.4 - <AUTHOR> http://jepsen.io/analyses/mongodb-3-6-4 <comment><USER2> > This interpretation hinges on interpreting successful sub-majority writes as > not necessarily successful: rather, a successful response is merely a > suggestion that the write has probably occurred, or might later occur, or > perhaps will occur, be visible to some clients, then un-occur, or perhaps > nothing will happen whatsoever.

> We note that this remains MongoDB's default level of write safety.

This sounds pretty scary. How does it compare to other distributed dbs, like Riak? My understanding is that Riak lets you specify how many nodes a write must succeed on to be considered successful. Are its responses more reliable? Is this just a "distributed computing is hard" situation?

<comment><USER3> > Is this just a "distributed computing is hard" situation?

I think this is "gaming performance benchmarks and being right is hard".

MongoDB has spent a lot of effort on making sure it looks good in benchmarks, and that includes using worse defaults than any other distributed data-store I know of.

As long as MongoDB continues to wish to "win" at performance benchmarks by so much, they'll have trouble being able to provide a correct distributed system by default.

<comment><USER2> This isn't about distribution, but someone once wrote about getting PostgreSQL upsert performance to be better than MongoDB's by disabling some of PostgreSQL's safety features.

[https://markandruth.co.uk/2016/01/08/how-we-tweaked- postgres...](https://markandruth.co.uk/2016/01/08/how-we-tweaked-postgres- upsert-performance-to-be-2-3-faster-than-mongodb)

This made me laugh. Snarky interpretation: "yeah, we can go fast and sloppy, too. We just usually don't."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Thus far, causal consistency has generally been limited to research projects > ... MongoDB is one of the first commercial databases we know of which > provides an implementation.

Cosmos DB provides session consistency (looks like an another name for causal consistency) at least since 2014 [1].

Cosmos DB's session guarantees [2]: consistent prefix, monotonic reads, monotonic writes, read-your-writes, write-follows-reads.

Mongo DB's causal consistency guarantees [3]: monotonic reads, monotonic writes, read-your-writes, write-follows-reads.

Doubt that four years later still qualities as one of the first.

[1] [https://www.infoq.com/news/2014/08/microsoft-azure- documentd...](https://www.infoq.com/news/2014/08/microsoft-azure-documentdb)

[2] [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos- db/consistency...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos- db/consistency-levels)

[3] [https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/core/read-isolation- consiste...](https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/core/read-isolation-consistency- recency/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Causal and session are definitely similar, but I'm not entirely sure if causal implies consistent prefix, and conversely, I think causal miiight have stronger implications than just the intersection of MR, MW, RYW, and WFR. Because we weren't entirely certain whether we could make that claim regarding Cosmos, we opted to be conservative.

<comment><USER4> I agree it's hard for me too to be precise about naming in academic sense. But this published paper "Writes: the dirty secret of causal consistency" says that both Cosmos DB and MongoDB have causal consistency so I don't know.. At least Cosmos DB and MongoDB provide the same guarantees for session/causal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought "Jepsen.io" was just Kyle Kingsbury. Interesting that there's new author for this analysis. (Also might explain the lack of memes, which I always liked.)

<comment><USER6> Hi, new author here. :) Kyle was clear that I could write it however I wanted to, but I opted for the more formal tone used in recent analyses.

<comment><USER7> Nice job!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Completely unrelated to the core of the article, does someone know which program was used for the sketches/diagrams?

<comment><USER6> I used procreate on an iPad pro.

<comment><USER8> Thank you for both comments! I'll look into that app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is off topic, and I might get downvoted, but I realized I am teed up waiting for the "mongoDB hate" comments to role in... seems to be not a lot of love on HN for MongoDB.

I wonder what positive use cases people have used Mongo for? I've used it for a few small/medium sized projects without problem myself.

<comment><USER10> Mongo works well as a straight-up JSON store for store-and-retrieve use cases (with no analytics). It is horizontally scalable, avoids the overhead of relational databases, has indexing capabilities, and provides a strong consistency model. The big improvement came with WiredTiger, which addressed many of the issues that plagued earlier versions of Mongo.

I've seen high-speed machine data stored in Mongo for logging and visualization purposes. It's an improvement over writing csv files to disk.

However, if you ever need to perform non-trivial analytics, Mongo's weaknesses quickly become obvious. For machine learning, typically you would want to first ETL the data into a dataframe-like structure (which is a structure native to SQL databases).

<comment><USER11> Actually MongoDB is quite popular in the analytics space. It has a unique trick with Spark/Hadoop where its data gets represented as a single wide table. This allows you to use it as an analytical/ML feature store which is not possible with anything other than Cassandra.

Also not sure where you get the idea dataframes are unique to SQL databases because that's completely wrong. HBase and Cassandra were even the original big data databases and they aren't relational. And Spark can manifest almost any database as a dataframe.

<comment><USER10> > not sure where you get the idea dataframes are unique to SQL databases

I'm not sure I said this.

> HBase and Cassandra were even the original big data databases and they > aren't relational.

They also had trouble doing joins and many other query operations which are common in analytics. Presto addresses this somewhat.

> And Spark can manifest almost any database as a dataframe.

Which entails a translation layer from whatever non-tabular form that data was (e.g. JSON) into a dataframe-like structure, rather keeping it in its native form, which reinforces my point. You still need to somehow transform data into tabular form. (ETL is just a batch way of doing this transformation; you can have live transformations of course, with accompanying overheads)

BI tools also generally require data to be in tabular form, which entails the use of a translation layer. The Mongo BI connector is one such translator.

> Actually MongoDB is quite popular in the analytics space.

I work in this space, interact regularly with vendors, and monitor the space actively for strategic developments. This does not track with my observations.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the best online CS program? - <AUTHOR>

Thinking about it.  Have some college.  Would like to complete a degree.  Would appreciate feedback on the quality and value of the various universities offering 100% online programs.<p>I have a ton of self-taught programming under my belt: Assembler (various), C, C++, Forth, Lisp, Objective-C, PHP, Verilog.  Implemented real time embedded systems from scratch, genetic solvers, real time image processing in hardware, Windows applications, iOS, and more.  I am very interested in the possibility of translating accumulated knowledge into credits towards a degree if possible. <comment><USER2> University of Illinois has a good program, but it is a degree completion program so you have to already be well on your way. I have heard UMUC's program is ok as well.</comment>


IT firms lose billions after NSA scandal - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/it-firms-lose-billions-after-nsa-scandal-exposed-by-whistleblower-edward-snowden-9028599.html?

<comment><USER2> Some people say it's misguided to pull your data out of the US, because it's within US law to spy on foreign communications; there's supposedly some irony in that you make it more likely to expose your data outside the US.

But as we've seen, the NSA does not distinguish between US and non-US communication; they spy on everyone, everywhere, with the exact same technologies and practices.

In addition to traditional espionage within and without the US, the NSA legally compels US companies to hand over data; they don't have to go to any extraordinary lengths to get data, just compel it.

So you should at least make them work for it, and take your data outside the US. Added benefit, there is at least a theoretical chance of improving technology, practices and law outside the US to the point that _mass_ surveillance is no longer economical. But it will always be legal for the NSA to compel data from US companies.</comment>


Video Game Keyboard Diagrams - <AUTHOR> http://isometricland.net/keyboard/keyboard.php <comment><USER2> Hah, reminds me of keyboard overlays from old games, which you could actually put on top of your keyboard, e.g: [https://www.c64-wiki.com/images/9/92/Gunshipoverlay.jpg](https://www.c64-wiki.com/images/9/92/Gunshipoverlay.jpg)

Obviously, back in the day, keyboards were one-size-fits-all...

<comment><AUTHOR> > _C64 /C128 GUNSHIP CONTROL_

Awesome! Think, it would be cool to contribute more flightsim games keyboard bindings to «Video Game Keyboard Diagrams» database ;)

FTR, I would like to contribute[0] _YSFlight Simulator_ [1] key assignments[2].

[0] [https://github.com/mjhorvath/Video-Game-Keyboard- Diagrams/wi...](https://github.com/mjhorvath/Video-Game-Keyboard- Diagrams/wiki/Contributing)

[1] [https://ysflight.org/download/](https://ysflight.org/download/)

[2] [https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewtopic.php?f=284&t=3938](https://forum.ysfhq.com/viewtopic.php?f=284&t=3938)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is _its repo on GitHub_.[0]

Read its wiki-docs.[1]

For report any bugs and/or feature requests use its issues tracker.[2]

[0] [https://github.com/mjhorvath/Video-Game-Keyboard- Diagrams](https://github.com/mjhorvath/Video-Game-Keyboard-Diagrams)

[1] [https://github.com/mjhorvath/Video-Game-Keyboard- Diagrams/wi...](https://github.com/mjhorvath/Video-Game-Keyboard- Diagrams/wiki)

[2] [https://github.com/mjhorvath/Video-Game-Keyboard- Diagrams/is...](https://github.com/mjhorvath/Video-Game-Keyboard- Diagrams/issues)

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of the awesome looking Optimus Maximus Keyboard from 2007: [https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/maximus/](https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/maximus/)

I always thought that'd be the future of keyboards, but instead we got the touchbar.

<comment><USER4> it was a really, really bad keyboard and it was insanely expensive

perhaps modern e-ink could make a better product, but I think the real reason we don't have keyboards like that is because keyboards are at their best when you aren't looking at them. a good old (and free) cheat-sheet works well because you really only need to keep it out on your desk for about two weeks.

<comment><USER5> I think e-ink is promising here specifically because you don't have to keep supplying power to the display just to keep an image visible. You could have a separate 'key cap programmer" that would update the display for an individual keycap and that updated display would stick until you reprogram it again.

Next step would be to integrate such a keycap programmer into each switch on a keyboard, so that the keyboard could program all its keycaps in one go without requiring the user to pull the cap / program it / reinsert it.

\----

On the topic of whether or not you need to look at a keyboard's keys in order to use it: sure, maybe you or I - who are used to touch-typing - might be able to get by on a Das Keyboard or whatever, but ordinary people (that is: people who are not typing enthusiasts ;) ) benefit greatly from having keyboard keys labeled, and _especially_ benefit from having keyboard keys labeled with common shortcuts for whatever applications they're using. This sort of thing could have immediate practical applications in point-of-sale, warehousing, data entry, and everywhere else where people who may or may not be technologically-savvy still need to use computers for their job duties (and sure, we could just declare "well if they use computers for their jobs then tech-savviness should be a job requirement" like the Hacker News elitists we are, but the real world doesn't work that way, nor should it, in my opinion; user-hostility is a design _flaw_ , not a feature).

Really, this would be a high-tech replacement for both 1) custom-printed keys and 2) employees taping hand-written legends to their keys.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It doesn't let me select a game. After picking the layout and theme, all games are still greyed out.

<comment><USER7> Select the US layout, not all of the games seem to have all layouts available.

<comment><USER8> I could only get it to work when I chose the keyboard layout and theme with the <> diamond symbol next to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For StarCraft 2, just use the grid layout. I don't understand how anyone would want to use anything but the grid layout. It's very easy to learn: not only do the key match with the displayed icons' positions, but the key is labelled in the icon.

<comment><USER10> I tried grid, but I couldn't ever unlearn the muscle memory of other games. A for attack, S for stop, H for hold position, P for patrol is burned into my hands at this point, trying to overwrite that is fruitless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Apart from other suggestions, what I need the most is a search functionality (search box) to find the games I want.

This could even further be pushed by giving a Steam library link and automatically create diagrams for all the games in a user's library.

</comment><comment><USER12> Control of games, especially keyboard control, has long been an interest of mine... Many games go to great length to help the player control the game properly/optimally, yet many games fall short and can be improved by simple AutoHotkey programs, or more complicated xlib programs.

</comment><comment><USER13> Choosing the Witcher 3 appears to give you the control scheme for Civilization

<comment><USER14> Amusingly, it seems to be half-half, creating interesting results like a digits row 1-7 being: Religion, Continent, Appeal, Settler, Government, Political, Axii Sign.

Also WASD being Great Works, Attack, Move Backwards and Strafe Right.

<comment><USER15> This sounds like a game design challenge! Design a game that uses the controls and theme of this weird controls mashup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm confused to when this was built. Because the SVG code looks modern, but some of the games are completely dead MMOs (like Earth & Beyond). Seems to be a mix of early 2000s games and then games from the last couple years.

<comment><USER17> There are games from the 90s. So? People still play them, just as they read book from before they were born.

Changelog says the project started in 2004.

<comment><USER5> The comment was specifically about dead MMOs - i.e. MMOs that are no longer playable because servers no longer exist for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> 0-_-0 I just started Elite:Dangerous and this is a lifesaver

</comment><comment><USER18> I had the idea to make a web site like this years ago, but it wasn't nearly this cool, even in my imagination. Nicely done!</comment>


The Hidden Cost of Adding New Features - <AUTHOR> http://blog.virali.ca/2013/02/the-hidden-cost-of-adding-new-features/ <comment><USER2> _"To solve this we've been brainstorming and thinking which features or tweaks we can make. But the problem is that we came up with lots of ideas and we don't know which one to choose.

We can send an email asking our clients which one they like best (but I don't think we will have lots of feedback). Or we can think the features as little MVPs with minimum goals and remove them if they don't work out."_

Don't do either. If you're not getting traction with your core product, it's time to go talk to your customers. You may have a great product, but _something_ isn't clicking for them, and adding more and more features isn't going to make that any better. And how are you going to know which feature is "the one"?

I worked for a great product manager who once said "even if you tweak something and now you're doing 300% better, that just means that before you were 300% wrong".

Talk to your customers!</comment>


Why Do Americans Hate Android And Love Apple? - <AUTHOR> http://readwrite.com/2013/01/29/why-do-americans-hate-android-and-love-apple <comment><USER2> In America, people were burned badly by a bunch of Android craptabs two years ago. For example, the now-gone Borders sold the hell out of the Cruz Tablet, which was simply a piece of shit. The parade of craptabs have continued, with Archos producing a Retina-class tablet -- the 97 Titanium -- that is simply junk.

</comment><comment><USER3> Might be a simpler explanation: iPhone had the longest head-start in the US.

Users, developers, and designers all have an iPhone bias because, for a few years, it was the only new-generation smartphone.

For many users, there is simply no reason to switch. iPhone is a really nice product.

Tablets are a more-competitive situation. I can see someone switching to a Nexus 10 or Asus from an iPad. But there, again, Apple has a huge head start, and many users will find too little reason to switch.</comment>


Our New Privacy Policy - You Own Your Data, and We Don't Sell It - <AUTHOR> https://everyme.com/blog/our_new_privacy_policy

<comment><USER2> That is really a fantastic example of proper execution of full transparency. Privacy concerns are increasing and the best way to combat that is for the company to be fully transparent. But executing full transparency in a way that is meaningful to users is really difficult when it is hidden in a policy dense with legalese.

These guys are doing an excellent job of explaining what can be pretty confusing to an average user in plain and simple language.

</comment><comment><USER3> While this is all nice and fluffy, the company can switch its privacy policy whenever it wants and it's not going to tell you about it if it moves in a negative direction. They only tell you about it when it's a good PR move, like here. This applies to any site; I'm not trying to pick on this company in particular. I'm just pointing out that this is meaningless PR brownie points, so let's not get carried away.

<comment><USER4> That's a very good point. I was looking for some kind of notice period for changes but this was all I found from the privacy policy: "If we ever make changes to our policy, you can easily see exactly what's changed on our Github page."

Tomorrow the policy might look very different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think the average consumer cares about their data being sold. There is a vocal minority of users that cares about online privacy, but I don't this isn't going to cause a mass exodus from Facebook. Seems more like a publicity stunt to me.

<comment><USER6> I doubt the average consumer knows how much data is even collected about them, let alone what happens to it. Viewed this way, one shouldn't assume that they don't care.

Also, it may well be a 'minority of users' who care about privacy _at the moment_ but this may change over the coming years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are privacy policies any more binding than terms of service? I rarely look at either as a consumer, and for most of my projects, i'm reluctant to even include them. My last ToS was "dont do anything you know you shouldnt do". I imagine popular sites/services might be under more scrutiny, but I still struggle with justifying even having policies or terms at all if they arent enforcable. Maybe its just a PR thing. Or plausible deniability for civil lawsuits and stuff.

<comment><USER8> Before we wrote our new policy, I looked into this myself because I wondered if we could do without. In the US/Canada and some other places, it's not necessary to have a Privacy Policy (in the EU, it is) depending on what your site does. However, if a user is providing you with data, it is required by privacy laws to let the user know what you will do with it, what you are soliciting from them, and other basic things. For example, EU laws require that we alert the user that we use cookies to keep sessions for users, and how they may turn them off. I would love to have left out things that are obvious but we are required to include certain sections.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Man, could these guys be riding Facebook any harder? Haters are most assuredly going to hate.

</comment><comment><USER10> The avatar image is triggering a mixed content error. It also seems strange to display a 556x720 image at 25x25.

</comment><comment><USER11> exactly like google's terms, minus the legalese

<comment><USER12> Surely google can't be credited with not selling data to advertisers?

<comment><USER11> <http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/> please read "information we share" section

<comment><USER8> I am one of the authors of our new policy. Please read that part of their policy carefully:

"We do not share personal information with companies, organizations and individuals outside of Google unless one of the following circumstances apply:"

"We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google when we have your consent to do so. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information."

Sensitive personal information: "This is a particular category of personal information relating to confidential medical facts, racial or ethnic origins, political or religious beliefs or sexuality."

All other personal data can be shared on an opt-out basis if they would like - it doesn't say anything to the contrary about this.

You could read Facebook's policy and make the same comment: "We do not share any of your information with advertisers (unless, of course, you give us permission)."

And, of course, one of the ways you can give them permission may be by using the site. It doesn't explicitly say how you give them permission anywhere on the policy.

On our new Policy, we state the facts simply. We don't sell your data in any case, and the only time we ever give it up is when we are being forced to by law. Big companies use legalese to hide and otherwise obscure facts from you and to grant themselves rights to your data that they shouldn't have.

Anyway, I'm not a lawyer and if you don't like our policy, don't use our site (as with any site). Whether or not I'm right or not about Google or Facebook's policy and what they intend, I still don't really understand how mentioning whether Google has a similar policy is relevant to the discussion at hand. We decided to write our own policy because we thought it was doing right by our users, and we encourage others to do the same. Our policy was not written to attack Google or any other company specifically and there's nothing in there that should lead you to interpret it that way.

<comment><USER11> No. it's not opt out. it's "how do you want to share it?". Tell me where exactly this "opt-out" is, i would like to know.

No, I don't give permission by using the site. That's blatanly dishonest to say that. They already mention that already.

I understand you wrote the new TOS, but I'm not sure how you are understanding Goog's TOS. It's always opt-in. probably the only opt out i know of is from their search crawler for websites.

<comment><USER13> Sorry for saying so, but this seems like a weird axe to grind. I think your initial comment got downvoted because it seemed sort of like a backhanded criticism; but now it seems sort of like you just wanted to show that you'd read Google's TOS. I am still not sure what Google's TOS has to do with EveryMe's TOS.

Either way, "opt-in" or "opt-out" is in this case a technical distinction. EveryMe's sharing of data isn't opt-anything. They don't do it. Period. Doesn't that constitute a difference?

<comment><USER11> i would say it's a difference, but opt-in is always a good way to go. I always (atleast, i think so) I make most optins consciously).

I would say everyme has a good TOS/Priv Stmt, compared to google, if it says "this privacy policy stands forever, and will not be changed". I know you can't promise that, and I will not ask you to, but that's only case where I would have more trust for keeping the data with you compared to google's. Or I would trust goog's policies better it addresses the legal aspect of it, while being humanly readable and understandable.

The only thing that differentiates you (as in everyme, most references are same)and goog is they have to cover base for billions of people they are handling.

Even if it's snarky (though I didn't make it so), why would someone downvote it rather than disagree with a comment (HN guidelines please). Please downvote if it doesn't add to discussion. What we had above is discussion.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Investor wants to invest but doesn't want to lead a round. What now? - <AUTHOR>

Long story short: Running a project/start up with a friend for about a year, we looked for funding right away while we were building a mvp (not sure if that was a good idea, but w/e) but then cooled off and focused more on product stuff. Because of that we haven't really been focusing on raising about 6 months.
We could probably keep going on like this indefinitely with out raising and keep trying to grow.
Should we suck it up and start looking for more people to join in a possible round? Or just keep focusing on what we're doing now?
Were in nyc, and we're still trying to figure out how to work the area so trying to go back and do what didn't work last time doesn't seem that appealing (even though we have one person who wants to fund us in a round with others). <comment><USER2> Is it a professional investor? Have they led before? Do they actively invest?

If the answer is yes to at least any one or more of the questions, move on, they aren't seriously going to invest. When you unpack the statement, they are really saying, "We aren't willing to put our money where our mouth is." Then, they add something like, "If you find a lead, come back to us." What they are really saying is, "If someone who is better at this than we are, more famous / notable than we are or can put together a syndicate of people we are interested in getting to know, then we MIGHT invest."

Your best bet is to get back to work and / or find serious investors.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your insight!

No to all three. He contacted us out of the blue a while back and we've just kept in contact. He did assume that we had other people in a round (but we haven't really been talking to anyone for a long time haha).

Yeah when he told us, I immediately thought : "Oh thats nice, nothing has changed". We're going to keep in touch so thats that i guess.

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think this happens more often than most people think. Brad Feld gives some good advice on how to handle these situations: [http://www.askthevc.com/wp/archives/2008/06/ive-got- angels-w...](http://www.askthevc.com/wp/archives/2008/06/ive-got-angels-who- want-to-invest-but-not-lead-now-what.html)

Best of luck and let us know how it turns out!

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! This helps a lot, Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is pretty common. Leading the round can be a pain. It's a lot of work for the investor because they need to get the other investors onboard to syndicate the deal. I've heard this first hand and its annoying as well as confusing. Good luck, keep going.</comment>


Yorapi - scott-yorapi http://yorapi.com <comment><AUTHOR> You have a bug:

> quick

ERROR: quick - Command not recognized!

<comment><USER2> Also, 'help' with any command seems to do the same.</comment></comment>


How can I advance in my current role? - <AUTHOR> I've been a PHP guy for about 3 years now and my current job title is mid level PHP developer.
I've been working on many different softwares in the past 2 years using Redis, ElasticSearch, All cool PHP frameworks ( Symfony, Laravel , ... ) , and on different platforms, AWS, GCloud .
But where should i head to become a senior ? I'm into back end stuff more than front end ( lets say HTML and JS ) . I like to advance, I don't want a fancy job title , I want be a senior by skills, But i don't know where to head to ?
Do u have any suggestion about new language/framework/tool set that should go after ?
Edit: Any idea about Go/Node/Scala/Elixir ? <comment><USER2> You will more then likely still be seen as a mid level developer for several years by company HR groups until you add more of the enterprise senior level skill sets to your resume experience. This will normally involve you conducting the development of software in high traffic sites, dealing with load balancing million+ visitor websites across several servers being served behind a top tier CDN, handling large scale caching on the code and database level, managing multiple terabytes or petabytes of storage, working with integrating Akamai into sites along with their security features and API, etc.

You will normally also be an expert at certain database technology included PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB, MongoDB, and caching technology Memcached, Redis, Zend Optimizer, OpCache, etc.

You will also need to be able to engineer solutions that scale appropriately including hardware and software, train other developers and sometimes system administrators, work with senior management, write tons of detailed documentation, conduct security reviews, developer interviews, and more. Also conducting performance optimizations at the high and low level is also standard as you might have to write custom php extensions in C for functionality you might need or want more of a speed boost out that is not offered by default.

Once you get to this level most of your job will involve many questions from other developers or senior managers about higher level engineering and architectural work as you almost find yourself in a managerial type role. This will normally involve more reading and writing development guidelines, helping with writing policy, security documentation and guidelines.

Just remember, learning the programming language and a framework is only a small part of becoming a senior developer. Only until you have the skill set to do the upper tier work that is in high demand and low supply will you then be in the senior developer / engineer group. It is not hard to make it there, but it does take some time and experience. As getting the jobs that involve more development and hard high end integration work are very competitive and normally have some very high requirements for entry.

I recommend checking out the senior developer and engineering jobs at large companies to get a better idea of what many companies are looking for and start working towards those goals, especially if the companies are close to you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for your detailed answer. I was looking exactly for this kinda of advice :) I'll remember your golden words.

Management bits doesn't really interest me but knowing what are so called enterprise skills are and where should i head to was really important to me. Well answered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Go/Node/Scala/Elixir all are good choices - Go for scalable distributed multi node deployment architectures.

There is nothing called _senior_ skills. As long as you cover a-z in given project from css, caching to backups an monitoring. you're pro.</comment>


Ask HN: How to start with C++ in 2018 - <AUTHOR> I find myself interested in implementing an OGR driver (http://www.gdal.org/ogr_drivertut.html). But, this task dictates knowing some C++. My normal approach would be to try and cowboy through, and look at some existing code. I'll still be doing this, but I also figured it would be nice to learn some first principles.
I keep reading HN comments that suggest writing C++ code has become more pleasant in recent years, and so I'd like some recommendations for how to learn some C++ that embodies these niceties.
I'm not a total novice programmer, but I am much more familiar with FP than OOP, so something that starts off fairly gently is probably best. <comment><USER2> Get this - [https://www.amazon.com/Tour-C- Depth/dp/0321958314](https://www.amazon.com/Tour-C-Depth/dp/0321958314). If you are stuck at any point ask on /r/cpp, people there are very friendly and knowledgeable.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a couple of pointers to books on C++11, C++14 in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12123469](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12123469)</comment>


I am starting a company in Chile - <AUTHOR> http://amix.dk/blog/post/19617

<comment><USER3> _"each startup receives $40.000 USD subsidy (no equity). This is a huge deal for me as you usually have to give a lot of equity in seed rounds for relative small amounts of capital. With this program you don't give away any equity, which should make most founders happy ;-)"_

it's not a bad deal but you're completely missing the point of taking money from american or european 'bootstrap' companies: it's about the connections, the press, bonding with a group of entrepreneurs who will eventually become captains of industry, etc.

i would argue that companies that launch via YCombinator are also getting their money for free because, on launch day, their valuations go up more than the percentage paul et al. takes.

as for living in Chile for a while... i'm all for that!

<comment><USER4> " _it's not a bad deal but you're completely missing the point of taking money from american or european 'bootstrap' companies_ "

Maybe. But they're not mutually exclusive and maybe the Chilean fund even helps with the startup incubators, because you can apply to something like YC or Techstars afterwards if you still have 100% equity to give away. Plus the good programs have gotten so competitive that it's harder to get in with just an idea, it's better to show traction and customer validation first.

As someone that interviewed for YC this week and didn't make it in, I can say that going to the Chilean program appeals to me for exactly those reasons, since I'd be able to reapply to YC after having worked on my project (stacyplease.com) full-time rather than continuing to burn nights and weekends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That sounds really interesting. I've lived in Argentina for 6 Months, next to the Chilean border, and now I'm really wondering if I shouldn't move to Chile instead of boring myself to death here in France.

Many of my Argentine friends in the IT field moved to Chile too. But almost everything IT is connected copper mining there (at various degrees), and I'm not sure it that interesting.

<comment><USER6> Have you even come to Chile? You should either come or read more, because even though the mining industry is huge, by no means everything IT is related to mining. There's a very healthy and continuously growing startup/entrepreneurship community, with big organizations pushing to help them along, including the government, with programs like Startup Chile. BTW, GoaP is coming to Chile next week: <http://geeksonaplane.com/destinations/santiago/> (I'll be participating in some of those activities).

<comment><USER5> I spent 2 week-end there (Valparaiso and Santiago), so I'm not really informed. But all my friends who emigrated from Argentina to Chile (that's 5 people) are now working at service companies related to the mining industry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Start-Up Chile started 9 months ago and Junar is the only one of 23 companies that has attracted investment, and it is an Argentine company. No entrepreneur from the USA has been successful.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other organizations try to solve problems by identifying a specific point of intervention and applying their efforts against a theory of change. Unfortunately, Start-Up Chile refuses to identify a specific point of intervention, as Steve Blank advised after his visit to Chile last December:

        My sense is that Chile has not yet "declared a major." Saying that you support entrepreneurship and innovation is a start, but the sentence needs to be finished. Entrepreneurship and innovation in what field? …. alternative energy? materials science? food science? cellulose outputs? video games and film? South American web commerce hub? automated mining? UAV's?

Start-Up Chile lacks focus and rejects Steve Blank:

        We accept projects from all business scopes ranging from biotech to energy to mobile and beyond. Throughout the 2010 pilot phase, there have been a number of Start-Up Chile participants who exemplify the diversity that the program strives to seek.

The second part of the Gates Foundation principle, applying efforts against a theory of change, implies that the government should justify intervention into a healthy free market by identifying the supposed "market failure"; in other words, telling a story that describes a process in which the intervention will be phased out and the free market revives. More: <http://brophyworld.com/startup-companies-in-chile/>

<comment><USER8> Curious as to what you mean by successful. Are you saying the 22 other startups declared failure/died? Are you talking about attracting investment in Latin America? I'm guessing a lot of those companies came back to the US to search here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> All the best. Wedoist looks useful. We too got selected. Hope to see you there :) I considered plurk to be one of the coolest things around the time when I started using it. For reasons unknown I stopped using it later. But lots of respect to you, would be a pleasure to meet you and work in the same work space as you!

</comment><comment><USER10> That's great! I lived in Chile for six months in 2009 and loved it. Startup community there is thriving too.

</comment><comment><USER11> Well I'm chilean and I don't want to be rude but if you've got those $40k USD for Wedoist I think the government is dilapidating our money.

<comment><USER12> I'm not Chilean, but I live here and I've discussed this with Chileans and people abroad. First, the money is not that much (especially for people from richer countries). Second, the idea is not that they are buying a company, but that they are bootstrapping an attitude. And I think that is working. Look at startechconf, dynlangchile, huevapi, first tuesday, etc etc...

PS Are you guys here? Drop me an email when you arrive if you need anything (email@example.com) although I am not well-connected here it's always nice to chat in English (I'm a programmer - work from home for an American company...).

<comment><USER6> I'm chilean, and I very much agree with you. I'm not sure about the strength or real impact in the long run, since this depends on the government and government changes every 4 years. In any case, I think it's a great initiative and would never say they are wasting our money.

PS: I'm the founder of a chilean startup, I have a few contacts here and there, and would love to keep connecting with other hackers and startup enthusiasts. My contact info is in my profile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm chilean, working from home for american clients, I have never been really interested in the local startup scene because, well, there was nothing of that a few years ago really, but things are changing and I'm glad we now have this initiatives and we're slowly starting to attract talent! we got the infrastructure but what we really need is to attract foreign talent / entrepreneurs, and to _keep_ good local talent. I wish you the best!

<comment><USER12> does HN do meetups? there seem to be a few people here from santiago - <USER2> could meet for a meal or drink some time? posting to here because you don't have any contact info in your profile :o)

<comment><USER13> hey Andrew, I'm not aware of specific HN meetups in the area but I'll be glad to join you for a meal or drink, I have updated my contact info and going to reach you over email, I'm not in Santiago because I love Viña del Mar ;) but we are just a bus ride away and I do have go hit Santiago in 2 weeks anyway :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why the US hasn't done this on a 1000x bankroll (1.2 Bill) is absolutely beyond me....

<comment><USER15> The US doesn't need to monetarily attract new startups, it just needs to get the visa/immigration nightmare the hell out of the way.

<comment><USER14> I completely agree on your point regarding the visa/immigration BS. Some of the best talent I work with is from south america or eastern Europe. They are ALL in this boat, and it's heartbreaking to see (and makes me feel like I have something I shouldn't, when a lot of these people are just more talented than I).

The US does need to monetarily attract new start-ups.

Our brightest minds are still going to the IB/PE firms of NYC and sucking money out of a zero-sum system instead of creating something worthwhile. Give them incentive to create (in terms of personal cash reward) in the same way the banks do, and you have something.

<comment><USER16> Spending a few billions on startups (who would spend it?) would not alter the long term balance between startups and wall street.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hey Amir! Congrats :D I too was selected (heading in June like you) -> search for ez4u (portugal) in the pdf file :D we should keep in touch: twitter: @zemariamm, email zemariamm at gmail dot com

</comment><comment><USER18> Congratulations and good luck

Just one point of feedback - can you add an about page to the site with company info, bios etc? I looked for it and couldn't find it

<comment><USER19> Like noted in the blog post Wedoist has been something I have worked on in my spare time... Hence the lack of company info, bios etc. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I looked into Chile, but it's a surprisingly high tax place. It seems higher than even Canada in all measures.

<comment><USER12> for real? i pay 10% of what i receive (income) each month and get a chunk back at the end of the year. there's also a sales tax. and that's it.

<comment><USER20> So if you made $200k annually you would still pay the same %10? (I'm trying to find out the practical upper limits.). I based the higher taxation on the %20 payroll tax, but if the limit are low then it doesn't do much it seems. Also when I read the somewhat confusing tax document, there are pretty nasty taxes for foreign income and such, which would seem to apply for expats.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world> [http://www.sii.cl/aprenda_sobre_impuestos/estudios/sistemren...](http://www.sii.cl/aprenda_sobre_impuestos/estudios/sistemrenta_ingles.htm)

<comment><USER12> as far as i can tell the numbers in wikipedia are completely off: the "10% pension" is (1) still your money (it's a personal fund, not a social security system); (2) capped at $300 a month; and (3) completely _optional_ if you're self-employed; i pay less than $100 for _optional_ health insurance monthly (no idea where 7% comes from).

also, your link to sii doesn't work, but my understanding is that if you are paid from abroad and it's wired to you each month, and you convert it to pesos locally, it's just income and charged at the same rate as any other income.

in general the tax system is very transparent and open - it's easy to be self employed and you just pay 10% monthly as i described. at the end of the year chilean banks declare your interest etc etc, you get a web page that lists everything that you click "ok" on, and then you get a refund.

i have no idea about $200,000 a year salaries. i am just describing normal life working for an american company as a contractor (ie self employed from the chilean pov). frankly, if you earn that much, or you're looking for some kind of tax haven, pay someone for some advice instead of reciting stuff from wikipedia that you don't have the context to understand.

<comment><USER12> [both pension and health fund are private, in case that wasn't clear]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What are living costs like in Chile?

<comment><USER12> There's a post on Quora by someone who shall remain anonymous that goes into this in some detail: [https://www.quora.com/Hows-life-in-Santiago- Chile/answers/80...](https://www.quora.com/Hows-life-in-Santiago- Chile/answers/80206)

<comment><USER11> I'm chilean but I'm also an anglo-celt so I can say that's a very accurate description of how is life in Santiago of Chile. I encourage you to read it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How does Brazil compare to Chile for startup environment?</comment>


Google wants to see if computers can feel "regret" - <AUTHOR> http://scienceblog.com/44306/programming-regret-into-google/

<comment><USER2> No, but we know they have schadenfreude :)</comment>


MyTomorrows Raises €4.5M to Give Patients Access to Development-Stage Drugs - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/07/right-to-try/

<comment><USER2> Give patients unregulated access to under-tested, possibly lethal, drugs?

What could go wrong?

<comment><USER3> There's obviously potential downside, but for people with serious illnesses there's potential upside.

For example: If you've got a disease that's going to kill you and unlikely helped by current medication/therapies, then dying a bit early is a small downside, not dying for however many more decades, on the other hand, is a huge upside.

In this case, the upside/downside is asymmetrical in _favour_ of the upside! It would be logical to take 'under-tested, possibly lethal, drugs'.

<comment><USER4> > not dying for however many more decades, on the other hand, is a huge > upside.

Looking at modern controversial cancer drugs we see that people get maybe six months of extra life, at very great expense, and these are the good drugs. The not so good drugs are even more expensive and provide perhaps two weeks extra life.

<comment><USER3> I agree! Current drugs aren't very effective, and there is a lot of room for upside in future therapies.

<comment><USER4> You missed the point that the very best newest cancer drugs are really expensive and if they're good give you an extra six months of life, and if they're not good give you perhaps an extra fortnight of low quality life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here are my thoughts ( VC @ Balderton ) on why we invested, for what it's worth: [https://medium.com/@jp_wise/the-hard-thing-about-hard- things...](https://medium.com/@jp_wise/the-hard-thing-about-hard-things-in- healthtech-66b0d37b428a)

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand how a startup will help here. The problem is regulatory hurdles (good or bad): there are laws that prevent patients from buying medicine before it's been thoroughly vetted. Will this company lobby to change those laws? Or is this an Uber situation where the fact that it's a VC-funded startup means that regulations magically don't apply.</comment>


Many GMail accounts being mysteriously disabled - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Problem-solving/browse_thread/thread/530927a08717557d/42f90d55ac9e6ff9?lnk=raot <comment><USER2> I experienced this exact "Retrying" choke to my account where Gmail kept retrying an action and I kept rushing it by continually pressing my Inbox link. Funny to see others experienced this.

Back on the 5th when this happened, I read in the Gmail Help that they disable accounts for unusual activity, and my guess is this continual retrying caused some sort of system flag on my account.

Despite being pissed I simply waited for my account to check-out as clear and it was unlocked the day after (the 6th). Looks like Gmail overall had a system-wide failure that caused these lockouts.</comment>


Hackathon in Melbourne on 06/05/12  FIT - <AUTHOR> http://www.meetup.com/Coders-Hackers-Founders/

<comment><AUTHOR> We're having a mini-hackathon in Melbourne, FL on the FIT campus. If you're a local hacker, would like to learn some cool new tech or just a HN reader, please stop by, it's FREE!

We'll be building apps to help non-profits organize volunteers locally.

Worthy cause + geeks + code = fun evening!</comment>


Streaming YouTube music made simple by Google Chrome – Streamus - <AUTHOR> http://streamus.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> The Hindu ( Jan 30, 2014 ) - [http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp- features/tp-metroplu...](http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp- metroplus/personalised-youtube/article5631994.ece)</comment>


Empty bottles quickly with a whirlpool trick (2012) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.themodernnomad.com/independent/whirlpool/ <comment><USER2> There is a much faster way, using cavitation.. from Bill Beaty of the awesome [http://amasci.com/](http://amasci.com/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77gWkl0ZUC8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77gWkl0ZUC8)

<comment><USER3> "Ooh, cool fancy ice cubes! They look like shards of broken glass!"

"That's 'cause they _are_ shards of broken glass."

"...on second thought, I'm not really _that_ thirsty."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I remembered seeing something along these lines a while ago, didn't realise it was as far back as 2012 though: [https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/sv6kw/which_is_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/sv6kw/which_is_the_fastest_way_to_empty_a_5_gallon_jug/)

I guess it's something that many people rediscover on a semi-regular basis.

<comment><USER5> I remember seeing the trick on Tomorrow's World (a UK science TV programme) back in the 90s. Can't find a link to the particular episode though.

<comment><USER6> I was doing this in the mid eighties... think a teacher showed me it but can't remember... didn't have tv.

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure I saw it featured in an article in _Highlights for Children_ during the 80s.

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

<comment><USER8> I learned it in australia many years ago from these guys: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYBw7k_8EbE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYBw7k_8EbE)

<comment><USER7> Do Australians commonly say "elephant" to count seconds as the presenters do? In the U.S. it's usually "one-thousand" or "Mississippi". (I guess I can imagine that Australians wouldn't say "Mississippi"!)

<comment><USER2> I've never heard of "elephant", no. (Sydney here)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is it really faster when you account for the time needed to first create the whirlpool?

Conveniently, the emptying "race" in the video only starts after the whirlpool has been created!

<comment><USER10> Time it yourself by spinning the bottle right after you begin pouring, and you will notice that it is still faster. ;)

<comment><USER11> So is there a way to do this trick without your hand touching the liquid?

<comment><USER12> Yes

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLeYYMT-3BM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLeYYMT-3BM)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I feel like this is more than just air flow. You're adding energy into the bottle by causing the water to spin in a whirlpool. It seems like that energy would also help push the water out of the bottle through path of least resistance dynamics (the open end of the bottle).

<comment><USER14> The counter-argument there is that after you've swirled it, each water particle has to travel a longer path to get out of the neck, because it's corkscrewing rather than going in a straight line.

<comment><USER13> Except for the fact that those particles are moving faster (velocity)...

<comment><USER14> Yeah, they're going faster on a longer path. It's not immediately obvious which factor would win.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "By creating a whirlpool inside the bottle, you've set up a corridor of air connecting the inside of the bottle with the outside air."

It didn't appear to me that the small vortex in the video actually reached all the way down to the mouth of the bottle.

<comment><USER16> It didn't when she still had her hand on it, but as soon as the water began to drain, the funnel/vortex immediately connected the mouth with the air pocket at the top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I discovered this bottling gallons of homebrew beer and cider.</comment>


Fireflies (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://ncase.me/fireflies/ <comment><USER2> I revisit Fireflies from time to time, but everything on [https://ncase.me/](https://ncase.me/) is wonderful. I particularly like [https://ncase.me/door/](https://ncase.me/door/).

Nicky's site elevates the web beyond "magazines/newspapers/leaflets on a network-connected screen". It reminds you that the web can be a rich and interactive medium with stories told and ideas taught with love and with care.

It feels like there's a gap in the market for tools that help people to build richer experiences and "playable articles" like these.

So many content management systems and platforms seem stuck in the "your website is a brochure but online" mindset. In the same way that PowerPoint seems to encourage crappy presentations, traditional tools for website creation often do the same for websites. Coupled with the sheer difficulty of creating and maintaining a website, it's no wonder that blogs and personal sites feel like they're in decline.

I'd love to see more tools that let users build sites that aren't just linked pages whose most interactive feature is a contact form or search field. The only one I can think of that's close is [https://glitch.com/](https://glitch.com/). Are there others I've missed?

<comment><USER3> Spoilers for /door:

I wondered how the author encouraged me to find a solution for the second map that made reach the target by walking around the obstacle to the left side and returning around the right side (and symmetric).

Turns out that if you try to walk back around the left side, the clock is artifically made to run much quicker. Nice.

<comment><USER4> This actually annoyed me. Feels like the game is cheating.

<comment><USER2> It would be kind of creepy (and confusing) if it allowed an "I C U" result, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nicky Case is amazing. His interactive game to explain segregation in cities is very eye opening as well. [https://ncase.me/polygons/](https://ncase.me/polygons/)

<comment><USER6> I'd like to see a model like that adapted for vaccinations. So you can easily see the risk (for infants/elderly) dramatically increase as vaccination rates decrease a tiny bit.

<comment><USER7> Have you tried this: [http://vax.herokuapp.com/game](http://vax.herokuapp.com/game) ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This makes me really sad. Right after I went off to college, my parents moved to a new, secluded neighborhood in its infancy -- only a handful of homes there. Our house was the one right next to a tall meadow, protected by a deep forest and a pond. During those summers, you could gaze into the meadow and witness thousands of fireflies putting on a show --- every day, the 4th of July. Occasionally, you could witness huge rafters of turkeys (many dozens) slowly making their way through the fields, their true numbers hidden by low hanging fog.

Then in my last couple years of college, the neighborhood matured further into development. The developers slowly turned the woods into meadows, the meadows into dirt fields, the dirt fields into streets, foundations, and lawns. That was the end of the fireflies; the end of the turkeys; the end of the natural beauty that once lurked there.

</comment><comment><USER9> Needs a (2017).

Previously on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14452832](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14452832)

<comment><USER10> Added (2017), thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What happens if you fix a couple of fireflies on one end of the volume to have a slow clock speed, and a couple on the other side to have higher clock speed? (Also freezing their random motion)

What do the fireflies in between do? Would the faster clockspeed win out and entrain them? Do you get chaotic behaviour?

Very cool page.

</comment><comment><USER12> Cool js demo, certainly worth reposting. Since he credits Steven Strogatz here's the link to Steven's 2008 TED on synchronicity and emergent behavior.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSNrKS- sCE0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSNrKS-sCE0)

</comment><comment><USER13> As cool as this is, and it is, this is probably the least interesting thing on the [https://ncase.me](https://ncase.me) website.

It's well worth spending an afternoon just going through some of the stuff presented there

My two favorites: [https://ncase.me/crowds/](https://ncase.me/crowds/) [https://ncase.me/trust/](https://ncase.me/trust/)

</comment><comment><USER14> 20 or 30 years ago, Scientific American published (in the paper magazine) a firefly circuit you could build to see this coupled oscillation happen with physical hardware. I always wanted to build a couple of hundred or so and plaster a room with them, but that's always been ETOOMUCHEFFORT.

It's probably worth an update.

</comment><comment><USER15> Love this kind of complex behavior emerging from simple rules kind of thing.</comment>


Programming is an easy way to procrastinate - <AUTHOR> http://maxkle.in/programming-is-a-way-to-procrastinate/

<comment><USER2> Surely the other point is that "wanting to be rich" isn't a good start.

"wanting to be successful, create something useful and have fun" is a far better mindset to have.

Do something because you love it. Not because you believe it'll make you rich.

I don't really agree with the conclusion here particularly, maybe there are _some_ people like that, but there's a sure fire way to be successful.

      * Create something that solves a problem
      * Get people to use it
      * Work out how to monetize it

Seems that the average software developer can do 1 and 2 pretty easily without stretching themselves. 3 may be a little more work, but once you have 1 and 2, it's not hard to try a few models and see what works.

I'm sure some software developers do fall into the trap of developing something that only solves their own problem, and no one elses, and maybe that's the 'procrastinating' bit.

<comment><USER3> I don't think #1's easy at all. I think identifying real problems is actually incredibly hard. Sure it's easy to dream problems up ("you know, I think my pet needs a microblogging service...) But to identify real problems requires a reasonable amount of domain specific knowledge. For developers, their primary domain tends to be ... software development. And at least for me, there's something strangely unpleasant about work that's so meta/recursive. Not to mention, you might be up against open source, if you're trying to build a saleable product.

I mean if you've done your homework on #1, #2 should flow from it, minus bureaucracy/long sales cycles/etc. And so should #3. If you've really solved a real problem, people should see your value.

<comment><USER2> Yeah ok, not easy, but doable. Anyone here could start a "community for fish tank owners" and make a ton of money from it.

The problem can be fairly mundane and not even unique. You just have to do it well, be enthusiastic and put your all into it.

Also, it's fairly likely you may need to try out 100 ideas, maybe more, before you find one that is good.

It's _way_ easier to try 100 ideas until one succeeds, than doing a comprehensive 'on paper' analysis of ideas and assessing the risk of each one, building the one you've chosen, launching it and finding that it falls flat.

I seriously shy away from "saleable product", so my thoughts are purely from a conventional ad supported website model.

<comment><USER4> > Anyone here could start a "community for fish tank owners" and make a ton of > money from it.

I highly doubt that it would as easy as you make it seem.

Communities have critical mass and if you do not have a very good reason for people to switch or tap in to an existing userbase then you'll be surprised how hard this really is. I'm actually surprised that you think that 'doing it well and putting your all in to it' would be enough to make it work, that's suspiciously close to 'built it and they will come'.

<comment><USER2> It's fairly easy:

      * Create a website, get affiliate links setup for
        selling fishtanks etc
      * Create cool content people will stay around for
      * Setup mailing list to further monetize etc
      * Start spending money on adwords etc to get people to join
      * Start optimizing to make sure you make more money than
        you spend

That's only one way, but it's pretty sure to work if you stay on the ball.

<comment><USER5> _Create cool content people will stay around for_

And that's the hard part. You might as well have said "Write a best-seller," though the barrier of entry is a bit lower.

<comment><USER2> It depends. You can make money simply finding people who want stuff, and pointing them at stuff.

Having content can just be an optional extra which brings repeat sales.

<comment><USER5> And how does one find the stuff people want?

s/best-seller/better money-making algorithm/

Just like _every_ entrepreneur. And what, 90% of them fail? Yep, it sure is easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is so spot on. A lot of people seem to have the mental model of: "hey! i love programming!" dot dot dot (several miles of dots) "hey! i want to be rich!" - "i can program my way to being rich!" No, you can't. You need to design, program, market, and sell, minimally, your way to being rich. Actually, you need to OUTdesign, OUTprogram, OUTmarket, and OUTsell your way to being rich.

I get the feeling a lot of people here have built thing after thing they throw on the scrap heap because after they're done building it, it's like "ah crap, I have to like, MARKET this thing now?"

Maybe I'm just projecting...

</comment><comment><USER6> Interestingly enough, this goes somewhat against the PG essays "How to do what you love" and "Good and Bad Procrastination" which I just recently read.

I guess he has a point in that there are problems that have to be dealt with and you should go peak into unknown areas from time to time, but generally, I think I have to disagree based on the stuff I learned from PG. Finding someone that loves doing what oneself is avoiding (procrastinating) should be a better solution than self-punishment (I second virtualmice's comment.)

Also, I don't like his tone. It's not quite written as a rant but sure sounds like one.

<comment><USER7> " _They want to mindlessly program, or read blogs that tell them how they will get rich.

That's like a girl watching TV all the time and saying she's training to become an actress._"

I thought that finished on a really bad note, and was an unnecessary low blow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "For a software developer, software development is the easiest job in the world."

-should be replaced with-

"For a software developer, software development can be the most satisfying job in the world."

Maybe his observations are accurate, but his conclusions are way off. He neglects to mention the psychological shift from the highly abstract mathematical world to the real social world that can really be a difficulty for many people.

<comment><USER9> I agree with the change and, like most posts, there is a bit of exaggeration there, but it's easier to get rich if you can do this.

Alternately, you find a co-partner or someone else to off-source the work to. However, as other posters have attested to, finding good assistants can often be an equally difficult problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How to make a million dollars, and not pay any taxes! First,...make a million dollars. Then, Don't Pay Any Taxes! - Steve Martin</comment>


Hacker News vs. Google+ - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2012/02/05/the-hacker-news-vs-google/

<comment><USER2> _1\. Programmers often have an attitude of "I can code, you can't, so I am defacto better than you." This often comes out in Hacker News comments._

While this observation is somewhat anecdotal, I can sympathize with the sentiment. But the real reason that commenters on Hacker News might appear conceited or condescending is because they usually comment to disagree. If they do comment to express their agreement, they are encouraged to do so only when they have a non-trivial contribution to make. And this focus on a high signal-to-noise-ratio (even though it may consist of far more disagreement) on HN is not by happenstance, it is by design (achieved through guidelines, self- selection, and curation).

The comment thread on Google+ referred to by the OP, is largely an echo chamber of low-on-signal assent, with the odd nugget in the rough. And while this isn't a bad thing for a marketer trying to cultivate and engage a large audience, it would be toxic for Hacker News as a community.

While the most insightful commentary generally lies in a well reasoned, thoughtfully worded counterargument, it's always hard to deal with being judged or disagreed with; especially in public. This may be exacerbated when an argument is worded poorly (see <http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html>). Unfortunately, the odds of either happening on Hacker News, are far higher.

</comment><comment><USER3> In a rant essentially about people generalizing and forcing their own world views onto others' words, the man sure likes to generalise and force his own world views onto others' words.

<comment><USER4> scobble likes to think of himself as a visionary that contributes pearls of wisdom that shape the reality of the lesser people (us). and if you do not think that his pearls are worth something, then you are stupid/arrogant/etc

i will never understand how he managed to have gained some significance in the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would agree that the most-upvoted comment on the other thread was pretty rude and if it had been about me and I had read it I would have felt pretty insulted myself. (It's kind of a shame that it was phrased in such a way.) Also he's probably right that we are more likely to celebrate each other for our programming abilities and a similar world view: this is human nature.

But the vast majority of the comments weren't unpleasant and it's a little unfair to paint everybody as not having the same views publicly as they do 'anonymously'. How would he know? It seems that even without anonymity people can be fairly offensive... ;)

While I wasn't aware that this was about our allegiances, it's Robert Scoble's choice if he wishes to identify with Google+ over Hacker News. I just looked at the comments on Google+ and Facebook, and I'd say that the discussion on Hacker News was far more vibrant and reasoned -- but it was definitely slanted towards a 'hackers' world-view.

...anyway, I sure hope Scoble will pick up my phone calls. :(

</comment><comment><USER6> I read through the entire HN thread from yesterday and did not find anything offensive or even that rude in any of the comments (bar perhaps the top comment). But even the top comment was calling out the posters opinion on Scoble's revisionist recollection of events which Scoble doesn't respond to, he only complains that HN has a bad attitude.

The reason I like HN is that there are people here who will happily and readily call out bullshit when they see it, and even if they are wrong, the HN community can debate their opinion - seldom is someone flat out wrong, they will generally have some kernel of truth/value in what they say.

If you read the Google+ comments (which I did yesterday as well), there is very little 'high value' comments there. Between the pandering 'I agree with you Scoble' to 'I don't know what to do' comments, there is a lack of intellectual discussion about the topic.

Scoble wanted to call out how 'toxic' HN is, but all he's done is convince me further that HN is the place to go for smart discussion.</comment>