Ask HN: What's your preferred toolset for developing desktop GUI applications? - <AUTHOR> I'm an C++ embedded firmware developer day to day, also competent with Python/Javascript. I've been working on a nodejs website for the past year or so, so I've got a feel for designing basic web gui's with HTML/CSS/JS.
For my next project I was thinking about trying to build a touch friendly code editor/browser. I've never built a desktop GUI application before, so I thought it might interesting to see what most people in the community prefer to use. I'm working on Windows, but cross platform capability would be ideal.
From my preliminary investigation, QT seems to be the standard choice. I'm not sure how suitable it is for a touch friendly application. Electron also seems like a possibility, though I've read it can be slow and resource hungry.
What do/would you use? <comment><USER2> I've made a couple GUI applications at work. They're quite simple, it's just a pretty wrapper to my otherwise boring terminal scripts because they need extra parameters.

For this I've used Qt framework for C++ and it is absolutely fantastic. I love the framework, QtEditor IDE, syntax, everything about it. I dropped my other IDEs (CodeBlocks and Visual Studio) and continued to use their IDE when writing pure C/C++ as well.

I've never touched the Qt framework before, but after watching a series on Youtube[1] and coding along I got the hang of it. It's very intuitive, easy to learn, yet extremely powerful.

[1]: "C++ Qt Programming" by VoidRealms - [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2D1942A4688E9D63](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2D1942A4688E9D63)

</comment><comment><USER3> I haven't tried anything outside of Qt, but I thought I'd mention that it is touch-screen friendly. You can get a CSS/JS-like way of creating and describing GUIs using QML, and Qt supports multi touch events.

</comment><comment><USER4> I dont do GUIs, but if i would, i would use [http://electron.atom.io/](http://electron.atom.io/)</comment>


A description of a simple Ray Tracer (1995) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwmalone/p/rt95.pdf

<comment><USER2> Everybody should try implementing a ray tracer at least once in their programming career. The math is well-documented, and the wow factor is pretty great.

It also is a rabbit-hole of optimizations and modularity; you can always add on yet-another-cool-thing, and so never become bored. :)

<comment><USER3> I fully agree, I had written one and eventually ended up using it in a parallel programming class to modify it into a parallel program. It was a lot of fun and the wow factor was definitely there. Since then I've ported it to java when I learned the language. Added features now and then over the years when I wanted to try something new.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How handy is this? I need to get a simple Ray Tracer working by the end of the month for a course. :)

Thanks! heh.

<comment><AUTHOR> I highly recommend Ray Tracing from Ground Up by Kevin Suffern. The book assumes no prior knowledge.

[http://www.raytracegroundup.com/](http://www.raytracegroundup.com/)

I took the raytracing course taught by Kevin at UTS. It was great.

<comment><USER4> Thank you! This is really great stuff.

Totally unrelated, I noticed I got downvoted. I hope it didn't seem like I'm going to cheat or anything. I was just looking for good reference material.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> simple.</comment>


Show HN: See your friendships over time (Foursquare app) - <AUTHOR> http://alongside.co/

<comment><AUTHOR> if you don't have foursquare - this is what mine looks like <http://alongside.co/u/nSXxUZ7>

<comment><USER2> Unfortunate timing:

> Application Offline for Maintenance

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is one of the most nostalgic/introspective scrolls I've had infront of my computer in quite some time. thank you.</comment>


Uber Bookings Now Down 80% - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/7120d9 <comment><USER2> Does this mean Uber will lose less money than it did in previous quarters?

</comment><comment><USER3> I've spent $1700 on uber eats since this covid thing started.

Restaurants need help and drivers do too. I would normally think this amount of money for 6 weeks of food is nuts but I'm glad I can help.

Keeping the economy going as much as possible is really important, IMO.

<comment><USER4> Are you not concerned about kitchen staff acting as vectors? Honest question.

<comment><USER5> There is no hard evidence that COVID-19 is transmitted on food. Furthermore, restaurants in developed countries have to follow rigorous health and safety practices when preparing and distributing food. Those practices, which include hand washing, reduce the risk of virus transmission even further. Keep in mind that the transmission of disease via food is something that health authorities have been tackling for decades.

<comment><USER6> Isn't one of the theorized initial vectors people in China eating bat or pangolin?

<comment><USER4> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Uber driver in San Francisco here.

Yeah, down 80% seems accurate. The last several weeks have been better than the initial start of Quarantine. There were entire days where I did not give a single ride.

The airport lot used to have 250-300 cars waiting. Now there are around 10. The only place I have found any consistency is waiting at the local Safeway. I've gone from 12 hrs driving = $250 to 12 hours driving = $125.

It will be better soon.

</comment><comment><USER8> This seems in line with the March 19th investor call: [https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/19/21186865/uber-rides- decli...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/19/21186865/uber-rides-decline- coronavirus-seattle-sf-la-nyc)

<comment><USER9> From that article:

> Khosrowshahi said the company modeled "an extreme edge case" in which trip > volume plummeted 80 percent.

We are now in "extreme edge case" territory.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> @dang Any reason this post vanished from the front-page? Seemed to be relatively active and not all that stale at 21 minutes at the time of this comment.

<comment><USER10> Does HN have an @ functionality? I wasn't aware that there was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> That is to be expected. Uber makes what little it does on Uber Eats. Lyft probably doesn't even make that. Same with Airbnb, they are probably making 0 right now.

</comment><comment><USER12> I just saw a TV ad from Uber thanking me for NOT riding with Uber during this time.

You're... welcome?

</comment><comment><USER13> Non-paywall link: [https://archive.vn/xj2db](https://archive.vn/xj2db)

</comment><comment><USER14> So how is this going to play out? Negative pricing like in oil?

<comment><USER15> Negative pricing will not work in passenger transportation. Even zero pricing would result in overcrowding.

<comment><USER16> Are you saying that pricing drives demand? It seems to me that demand is driven by people who have places to go. Pricing can reduce demand, but it can't increase it beyond the base amount. Not unless people start just telling their uber driver to go around the city because they just like being inside of a car.

<comment><USER15> It can, even to the point of inability to serve passengers demanding for an actual need. There are situations people taking public transport just because it is free and they have time. I mean, if there were a free taxi, I can hail it and pick my friends and acquittances randomly into it and drop them at random places.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Good resources to learn Chaos Theory - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Steven Strogatz's _Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos_ [1] is a great introduction.

[1]: [https://westviewpress.com/books/nonlinear-dynamics-and- chaos...](https://westviewpress.com/books/nonlinear-dynamics-and-chaos/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Chaos: Making A New Science -- James Gleick

I can't recommend this book enough. Go get it right now. It's worth it.</comment>


Ask HN: Why can't we comment on YC jobs postings? - <AUTHOR> It seems odd we can't post comments on the YC job postings. It would be a good way to provide quick feedback to these companies and to connect with potential hires. I have tried sending emails to several with no response. The monthly `Who is Hiring` posts seems to provide a good means of discussion around open positions listed. I would assume YC companies could get similar feedback and potentially make a hirable connection faster than forcing that person through a normal hiring funnel, which, I have found for most of these small YC companies gets you absolutely nowhere. <comment><USER2> Cause comments on job posts are negative, scornful and often seek to repay rejection.

</comment><comment><USER3> The job listings of YC companies aren't intellectually interesting. Hence, I suspect that the odds of producing quality comments is rather low. This is probably why Monster.com and StackOverflow Careers don't have comments sections either.</comment>


Viral Marketing for mobile services - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mjelly.com/2009/01/viral-marketing-on-mobile.html

<comment><AUTHOR> To date mobile sites and apps have really suffered from an inability to effectively use viral marketing. However, this is no longer the case - Heysan! is one of the mobile startups pioneering viral marketing on mobile. Big up!</comment>


Show HN: Coronavirus Headlines - <AUTHOR> https://coronavirus.rehab/news/?source=newsapi <comment><USER2> I admire building the website, it was launched just a couple of hours after the author made a comment "I'm going to build this" in another thread.

That said the content of the news section itself is not HN material. It's latest unfiltered, breaking news many news outlets already cover. The website got submitted 3 times in 24 hours and I'd argue as marketing channel HN is saturated with coronavirus related news.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just what the world needs, Fox News as source for Coronavirus news. Item number 2 right now.</comment>


New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring - <AUTHOR> https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5349 <comment><USER3> I really hate the new tariff.

There is no need to be going into a trade war against not only traditionally our rivals but also our allies now too.

The economy is recovering and I believe it may now be heading toward a recession.

Here's the quick data on job created in raw number without the quality of the job to show that it is recovering since the 2008 recession:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact- checker/wp/2017/12/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact- checker/wp/2017/12/14/comparing-the-trump-economy-to-the-obama- economy/?utm_term=.2eed815c4901)

So the question is why do we need this tradewar? It only introduce instability and fear in our market and we have never really recover from 2008 recession yet. The quality of job suck by the way.

It's protectionism and it does not make our country competitive at all.

<comment><USER4> So why not free trade? I hate the idea of tariffs, but when your "allies" have had non reciprocal tariffs something needs to be done. I think all of this would go away if all tariffs against US products were removed

<comment><USER5> So you believe that the US is a victim of protectionism in these countries without having protectionism of it's own? That's a pretty hard position to back with evidence.

For example US farm subsidies are significant and supply management is common in many areas, but the rhetoric around Canadian dairy supply management recently has been amplified far beyond even it's wildest possible impact. And this with a country with extraordinarily balanced trade, if anything probably a deficit. The history of trade between the two countries is littered with spats about US protecting this, Canada protecting that, but on the whole very balanced. Pretending otherwise may make for good politics (i guess that remains to be seen) but it isn't based on evidence or good policy work.

<comment><USER4> I believe nobody should have tariffs. Understanding that is never going to happen, it should at least be a starting ppoint

<comment><USER6> I'm glad that you believe it, but it's not a reasonable position. The primary reason for some U.S. tariffs is the legitimate reason of national security. We provide tariffs on certain foods, mineral resources, and military products because we want to guarantee that we do not loose production ability. Should we suddenly find ourselves in a world war, we would not be creating these production lines from scratch. Therefore, tariffs are always a balancing act between being nice to our friends and ensuring we keep some level of production available.

<comment><USER7> Well, frankly I don't think it's a disadvantage. It's difficult to move out from the equilibrium of countries mistrusting each other, but I think what you describe is actually an utopia. If we manage to destroy all tariffs and make countries lose parts of their production abilities, we'd make war unthinkable, which is a net good. The US would never start an all-out war because it would starve, and whomever specialized in the agricultural products supplanting the US productive capability would never start a war because they cannot build weapons.

Of course there are huge problems with this -- what happens if whomever makes your food goes tits up, involuntarily (natural disasters, coups, ...) or voluntarily (maliciously attacking)? Who guarantees the system? How? Etc... --, if there weren't I wouldn't call it utopia. But I think raising the costs of war beyond the unreasonable is a net gain.

Note: I'm fully aware that this is an extremist and probably next to impossible position, no one has to remind me that. I just contest the fact that the objection "but then we could not go around and kill people" isn't a particularly good counter-argument for no trade barriers.

<comment><USER8> The European Union is an attempt at this utopia.

There are no tariffs on food, steel or similar between the member states. All states subsidise food production, but not steel.

<comment><USER9> You did not mention that since the founding of the EU, there has not been a single war between member states. Compare that to european history and you see the most important thing about the EU. I can live with all the things there are rightfully to be criticized about the EU, in exchange for peace in continental europe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Out of all possible trade barriers, I think tariffs are generally the better option.

The alternative is subsidies, quotas or "unofficial" barriers like product safety rules or other burry-you-in-bureaucracy setups. Tariffs bring in taxes (as opposed to costing the public) They're easier to understand. This one makes Chinese microwaves x% more expensive. It's clearer who is paying for it (consumers) and who benefits, as opposed to pretending a policy is intended to protect consumers. Importantly, they are easier to change. Politicians can make a decision and do it. With other options, it's harder to implement patches or predict the results of any change.

Basically, they're simpler, more explicit and more honest than any other approach. ..if you've already decided to have trade barriers.

<comment><USER3> I disagree.

Wavepool, Maytag, etc.. Americans washer and dryer cloth machines pushed for Tariff from the Obama administration to fight against Samsung and other. The tariff target machine coming out from specific countries so Samsung and other moved to other South Eastern companies such as Vietnam.

So the American companies pushed for tariff for all incoming washing machine that aren't American. Trump administration gave that to them. The result is Samsung and other moved to America for manufacturing. But these companies got HUGE tax breaks incentive to move their company to their states while the American companies aren't getting anything.

This is on top of the prices of metal going up. There is a $100 extra on top of washing/drying machines now.

I'm not a libertarian but The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith states that all country will have certain expertise they are just good at. Wether it is because the geography that enable them to be better than other or other things, because they're good at certain thing, countries should play to their strength and trade for what they need.

Samsung and other non USA companies are just better than US manufacturer in building washing/drying machine. That's just a fact and this tariff thing is only costing the consumer. The consumers are the losers.

These are the sources before the effect of the tariffs:

[https://www.assemblymag.com/articles/94166-washing- machine-t...](https://www.assemblymag.com/articles/94166-washing-machine- tariffs-deliver-a-mixed-bag)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/business/trump-tariffs- wa...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/business/trump-tariffs-washing- machines-solar-panels.html)

I don't recall where I got the sources of LG and Samsung moving to USA but it could be PBSnews.

<comment><USER11> "I'm not a libertarian but The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith states that all country will have certain expertise they are just good at. Whether it is because the geography that enable them to be better than other or other things, because they're good at certain thing, countries should play to their strength and trade for what they need."

And I am not against free trade (well, with reservations), but I think this idea has been proven wrong historically. I think countries that try to do a bit of everything, be self-sufficient, and perhaps specialize only in some very specific areas are generally more successful.

Just look at the U.S. as an example - if they followed Smith's advice, they would still continue to trade cotton. This advice will never let countries to build up an industrial base. (Or funny you mentioned LG - they were originally a textile corporation but the government forced them into electric industry.)

In my view, a country should have as many diverse industries as much it can keep all the specialists busy (the same is true for companies, by the way). That means to try to produce locally everything that is sufficiently consumed locally.

The reason why is that there are strong network effects in diversification. It's great if you e.g. produce agricultural machinery and you can talk directly to the farmer, who is going to use it. If you sell this machinery to people on the other side of the planet, with a cultural barrier, this gets much trickier.

<comment><USER12> _Just look at the U.S. as an example - if they followed Smith 's advice, they would still continue to trade cotton._

The US is (still) the third largest cotton producer in the world.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_production_in_the_Unite...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_production_in_the_United_States) [https://www.npr.org/2013/12/02/248243399/technology- subsidie...](https://www.npr.org/2013/12/02/248243399/technology-subsidies- make-us-cotton-king)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am a small electronic board manufacturer in US. I buy bare PCB boards from China and populate them here. Usually the parts are bought from Digikey, Mouser or other distributor. Adding a 25% tax will not incentivize any American company to start produce parts here.It is way to little and to late. If 10 boards are $2 in China, are maybe $30 in US , so even you put 100% import tax, the China price is still competitive. The law is unfairly hitting the small US companies. Sparkfun , Adafruit will be hit, but not Apple or HP because they are finishing the product in China. The only ones winning from this is the US government that is getting 25% of the money . This is definitely not creating jobs.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's creating manufacturing jobs in China. If Trump had instead put a 25%tax on assembled electronics and not components then Apple et al would have an incentive to move manufacturing back to the US - and Adafruit and Sparkfun would not be effected

On the other hand I'm a small open source hardware manufacturer in New Zealand, I manufacture and ship from China - because I couldn't make a competitive product is I built or shipped stuff from here, I live at the end of the world's supply chain - NZ has almost no trade barriers, removed all govt subsidies propping up industry decades ago - we do have free-trade agreements with China - this new regime is good for me Trump's 25% trade barrier let's me compete better against American competitors, driving up their costs but not mine.

Remember you (in the US) have a higher standard of living than China - it's why your labour costs more - frankly you can't compete (and as their standard of living rises China can't compete with Vietnam .... we're already seeing that) - this is how 3rd world countries become 1st world ones, it's how China is building a middle class, which is a good thing, countries with large happy middle classes have a lot to lose and don't like to go to war.

Long term this process will tend to drag the US and China's standards of living to similar levels, if you can keep growth happening in the US at higher rates than China then you may see no change, if you stifle jobs you'll see it drop. Short term this is a problem, longer term looking at the bigger picture it's probably a good thing, a safer world

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Reading the comments I think people are forgetting this is a cooercive and retaliatory tariff on China, not a merchantislist policy. Is someone going to change their whole supply chain if this gets resolved in 3-6 months? The US is arguing that effectively China has been waging a trade war with the US and has merchantialist and nationalistic economic policies that make it difficult for US companies to compete.

<comment><USER15> So why institute a tariff that makes it harder for US companies to compete, by excusing finished products in order not to piss off consumers?

<comment><USER16> To change trade policy between the competing governments. Whether it's an effective policy we will have to wait and see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > "The impact of this cost hike will be felt throughout the industry, but most > sharply by educators, especially those serving under-funded school > districts."

I am not sure what stance to take on the tariffs, but I'm pretty sure manufacturing will feel the cost hike WAYYYY more than educators. Schools probably buy, at max, tens of thousands of dollars worth. Manufacturing buys millions of dollars. These are hyperbolic sentiments.

</comment><comment><USER18> A repost of my comment from few months ago:

When it comes to trade war topic these days, most Western commentators completely miss that a trade war is what China was preparing for the last three decades. They well expected somebody like Trump eventually coming, as well as economic pressure on a scale even bigger than what the West puts on North Korea and banana republics. They totally understood that the West will not play nice with them forever, nor that the unprecedentedly long period of good weather in the global economy will last forever.

There is zero questions about China's economic policy being very strategic, and deliberate. Chinese state conglomerates may look to just littering around the world with money, but analyze it more, and you see a pattern, one that is very much like a game of Go - victory by limiting enemy moves.

They buy ally countries, strategically - they buy resource supplying countries, often with major holds on markets of vital commodities.

Their tech purchases - mostly underappreciated market leaders with industry wide influence. Kuka - the only company you can say to be Tier 1 in robotics, all other competitors combined will not be an equivalent for it. I has almost complete dominance over major heavy industries. Lattice Semi - the one and only FPGA company that can threaten the Xilinx-Altera duopoly. And so on and on and on.

Their domestic tech development - even more so. People talk about China dominating consumer goods manufacturing without realisation that it has even bigger hold of manufacturing machinery industry - manufacturing can't really leave China with Chinese made manufacturing equipment being locked down.

The whole industry you can call "Manufacturing machinery 2.0" is a domestic Chinese development. Biotech - China quietly ate the market for genetic engineering reagents, as well as much for complex organic chemistry. There are megatons of biotech startups in the West, but they all feel that they will eventually have to move to China to have any chance to scale - <USER2> they are already a Chinese property.

Military allies - well, there things are even more obvious.

Major trade agreements - same. Their idea is to bind any major developing market niche to Chinese economy before the West even realizes its emergence.

Their idea - to make it so that if somebody wants to do anything any much big being impossible without involving a Chinese company or state institution at some part of the process - to make it "You can't do that without China"

<comment><USER4> The US tried to do that for a long time in the Middle East and South America. China may be underestimating just how unstable these regions are. It's all fun and strategy until the Taliban starts blowing up your infrastructure because its haram

<comment><USER19> The difference is that outside China, Chinese leaders doesn't try to push for a model. They don't push for things like Human Right, Intellectual Right, Representative Democracy ...

<comment><USER4> I'm skeptical they'll be able to convince tribal Africa that cell phone towers are not haram. Islamic terrorist in Africa made cell site construction a very profitable business until they stopped all together in some areas

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm neutral on the tariffs, I am(or was) actually excited about China getting into the memory market to help keep the other memory makers honest... but it's important to have an alternative source of those components in case there would be trouble between the US and China. There needs to be a way to nudge businesses to have a source of components out of China.

<comment><USER21> Perhaps the US dependence on China for some products neutralises the chance of trouble between the US and China.

<comment><USER22> Considering that China immediately retaliates against the US by putting a tariff on their own food supply I doubt they care about US dependence at all. After all they are the ones with the big trade surplus that refuse to play fair and they are using the surplus on strategic investments on critical infrastructure to increase US dependence on China.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think this is a great example of hampering technical manufacturing growth in the US.

<comment><USER4> I think the win-win outcome is that China is forced to innovate more and the US is force to manufacture more. Both countries have been too reliant on each other for too long now

<comment><USER24> It will be a good outcome that China opens its market more to the world, which is actually to the interests of the Chinese consumers, they already want foreign goods and now it is more affordable and would probably force their domestic companies to up their own game finally to face the competition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Tariffs are anti-competitive, a tax on the economy, and go against all sound economic theories. I am out of the market, you should be too.

<comment><USER26> Tariffs do not go against all sound economic theories lol.

<comment><USER27> Just most of them. Certainly there are some edge cases where the other country's tariffs are so egregious the damage to the home country's citizens/ economy is helped by the tariff and they can be used to prevent dumping, but in anything close to ideal markets/ classical economics, tariffs are more likely to impose a cost on the host country's consumers while giving most of the benefit to a small group.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't support these tarrifs. I would, however, support tarrifs on offshoring. Let's say a company replaces a team of onshore programmers with offshore ones to "save money". They should have tarrifs/taxes imposed on them, so that those savings evaporate into thin air. That would both prevent exploitation of desperate workers overseas and protect jobs here.

</comment><comment><USER29> Apart from some steep farm/dairy tariffs, what are the huge tariffs that other countries impose on US exports?

I thought the gist of this whole debate was that the US administration somehow thought VATs applied abroad somehow made US products less competitive and therefore was in fact a tariff? I do realize this sounds too dumb even for the current administration so I may be wrong.

<comment><USER30> I'm not sure quite what you are looking for, but you can browse tariff rates at the WTO website [http://tariffdata.wto.org/](http://tariffdata.wto.org/) . It would be nice to find a better source, though.

For example, China has a 65% tariff on cereals such as wheat and rice, a 50% tariff on sugar, a 57% tariff on some tobacco products, and a 50% tariff on some fertilizers. (This is for other WTO members, or "most favored nation (MFN)".)

The United States has WTO MFN tariffs of 132-164% on some peanuts and peanut products (e.g., peanut butter), and 350% on some tobacco products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> After reading a bit about the history of tax in the USA, I was surprised to learn that in the very beginning federal government was mostly funded by tariffs.

So.. Extra tariffs will bring extra tax revenue. Will federal government cut income/corporate taxes to adjust for it? Or perhaps any paid tariff can be written off of tax bill?

<comment><USER32> > So.. Extra tariffs will bring extra tax revenue

In the short term. In the long term, that's far from clear. The world economy is rather different now than it was when America was a fledgling economy being exploited by the Brits

<comment><USER33> And I've seen some articles/papers suggesting that protectionist policies can make sense for an emerging/developing economy to make sure that established/developed economies don't usurp that growth by blocking them from moving up the value chain.

So it may have been good policy back when America was a fledgling economy being exploited by the Brits.

<comment><USER34> I believe that is the way that S.Korea developed it's economy. Specifically, they raise tariffs on automobiles to boast their own automotive industry.

I think this book explains that: [https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans- Secret-History-Capital...](https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret- History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> My personal belief is that this can go either way. If the tariffs go hand in hand with other policies they may bring business back to the US or it can go the other way. It requires a well thought out strategy. I have my doubts that the US has such a strategy but we'll have to see.

</comment><comment><USER36> Curious how will this affect the Chinese sellers (both fake and genuine goods) on Amazon/Ebay?

<comment> oh-kumudo Larger sellers would count the tariffs into the pricing, or you can test your luck to see whether customs will pick your package or not.

<comment><USER37> Customs will rarely pick your package, I received a letter that some items were confiscated 6 months after I was reshipped and received them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This reminds me of how Hynix was able to evade anti-dumping duties by both EU and US in the mid-2000s by using the Eugene, Oregon and later Wuxi, China fabs.

</comment><comment><USER39> Hmmm, I wonder what the long-term effects of this will be if the tariffs stay in place for a while. 25% is a huge bump.

I can see two major effects:

1) Lots of the "last screw" manufacturing will move to other countries and then imported into the US. Due to IP concerns it will probably move to countries with good IP protections such as the EU, Canada, Australia, NZ, etc. I can't say much for the other countries but it would be a boon to Canada (longer term anyway, it will be painful in the short term) providing diversification from the natural resource economy that Canada has too much of, and an incentive for the top talent to stop coming down to the US for the most interesting jobs.

2) Except in the case where US production is more than 25% more expensive than offshore, the domestic US industry for these components and raw materials will grow (this is probably Trump's goal). The "last screw" manufacturing that stays within the US will be much more expensive due to the higher input costs.

Since I am inclined to believe that the quantity of talent/expertise for high- tech manufacturing is higher outside the US than in, the effect of #1 will be much larger than the effect of #2. But I could be wrong, the US has pretty fantastic network effects and world-class talent, I wouldn't discount their ability to innovate just yet.

</comment><comment><USER40> A day later, Germany offers to scrap the 10% auto tariff. I bet there are more to come.

</comment><comment><USER41> Wow; that Brazilian network card. It has three Z80 CPU's on it.

</comment><comment><USER42> Anyone able and willing (and brave enough) to explain like I'm five why Trump's decisions could possibly be rational and helpful as opposed to just reactionary and impulsive, as they appear to be?

<comment><USER43> I don't think it's controversial to say the decisions are rational and helpful, as long as you remember to include "to certain entities".

Winners:

•Manufacturers of Steel, Aluminum, Electronic Components in US.

•Consumers of goods under retaliatory tariffs (pork chops are now going to cost Americans a little less because the Chinese aren't going to import as many).

Losers:

•Consumers of Steel, etc., including manufacturers of assemblies, and retail consumers.

•Producers of goods for export that are subject to retaliatory tariffs.

If you look under "chicken tax" you'll see these kinds of battles are neither new, nor did they ever completely go away.

It's widely agreed that more Americans will lose their jobs from these policies than will be hired, but if we're somehow at full employment, that might not bear out. I don't see that happening, but if you believe in magic...

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> These new tariffs are posturing. Trump seems to understand how to negotiate and is willing to take short term hardship for long term gain.

We need to have balanced trade agreements. Not balanced in the sense of trade amount, but balanced in the sense of tariffs and subsidies.

Access to US consumers is a big bargaining chip. If China won't deal, there are other countries that will.

I think we all understood we had an unhealthy relationship with China.

<comment><USER45> > _Access to US consumers is a big bargaining chip_

Which is why finished consumer products are not part of the new tariffs, so companies that make stuff in China and ship it to the US are better off than companies buying parts in China and assembling in the US? Or was there a big push of end-product tariffs before that didn't make headlines?

In most cases, buying all your parts locally is fairly impractical. (The documentation of various "fair trade" electronics projects is often interesting in that regard, since they often are willing to accept higher prices from trustworthy local sources, and often find that only a few things can be gotten locally at all, and often only in specialist variants, e.g. high-precision parts, with matching prices). Maybe it'll be enough push to restart some component industries, but I'm skeptical.

<comment><USER44> I think you're making an assumption that the ongoing trade negotiations is static. It's not. Today it's parts, tomorrow it could be fully assembled goods.

If you're going to negotiate, you don't play all your cards at once.

I don't think the end state of the negotiations is protectionist tariffs for the US, it's to get China to drop their protectionist tariffs. If we reach that end goal, how is that a bad thing?

<comment><USER45> It just seems odd to put tariffs on things that'll hurt local industries and make life harder for companies that have moved at least some production steps into your country (after lots of talk to encourage companies to do that, and apparently at least some successes doing that) over those that operate entirely outside.

> _I don't think the end state of the negotiations is protectionist tariffs > for the US_

We'll see, at least some of the recent tariffs seem to be exactly that, e.g. the steel and aluminium tariffs against the EU (which are now countered by the EU with tariffs on american exports) to limit their exports to the US, all the while complaining about Canada doing the same for agricultural products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> There seems to be a lot of groupthink on HN. Pretty much every comment in this thread that views tariffs remotely positively is being downvoted. I view them slightly negatively, but protectionism (not necessarily tariffs) does help struggling or new industries develop if coupled with good export policies (see China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan for examples), so the idea that tariffs have no arguments for them seems a little farfetched to me.

<comment><USER32> Another word for "groupthink" is "consensus"

<comment><USER47> Consensus implies reasoned thought. Groupthink is mob rule.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> If the cost of food doubles, your cost of a meal out doesn't double, but merely increases by a lesser amount.

This is a 25% bump, a portion of which will be borne by the manufacturer, seller, shipper, and money handler.

I don't see how it's even close to possible for customs to intercept 50% of the mail coming in from China to ensure they've paid the tariffs.

So, things will range from unenforceable and unenforced, to a minor price increase, so small most of us would never notice. Akin to a minor currency fluctuation that everybody who doesn't use or peg to the US dollar has to deal with already.

If you can afford the time to be a maker, this will not impact anything at the end of the day.

<comment><USER48> This is just wrong. If the cost of food doubles, then price of eating merely increases by small amount ?? Where did you get that fact? Any studies??

<comment><USER49> Your $25 steak dinner cost about $6 in foodstuffs. If a tariff raises the cost of that raw material to $8, it would be absurd for that entire meal to now cost $32. Much of the cost in restaurant prices is wages, and rent, and other overhead, not the actual food.

<comment><USER50> You are correct, but most restaurants just multiple the food cost by 4 to set the price. It is rather silly, but that is the way the industry works.

<comment><USER43> I don't think it's silly to come up with a pricing method that is simple and uniform to apply.

However, "4" can just as easily morph to "3" or "5" if the fundamental costs change industrywide.

<comment><USER50> It is silly because food cost is only one part of the cost of providing a meal. Really all of the costs should be dumped into a program which spits out exactly what to charge for each menu item.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Nutritional Impossibility of Australia - <AUTHOR> http://www.ediblegeography.com/the-nutritional-impossibility-of-australia/ <comment><USER2> Title far more interesting than actual article.

<comment><USER3> I disagree. While a bit cursory, it's a good little pick-me-up before I start the work day. Makes me thankful of modern medical knowledge.

Why isn't there a YC-funded space amenity startup?

<comment><USER4> We're a long ways away from being able to make a space startup on the kind of money that YC offers. It may not be completely impossible, but we'd need a hell of a lot bigger space economy for it to work. Right now private enterprise still can't put a person into space, let alone build anything like a space economy.

In fact, I have a hard time convincing any VC of an elevator pitch of the form "We're going to take your money, do [space thing X], then sell it to NASA!" That last step is just not going to happen, in general, regardless of what [space thing X] is, at least not with any probability that will entice a VC.</comment></comment></comment>


How do you go about your daily organization? - <AUTHOR> I'm wondering how other programmers go about their daily task organization. Do you use just pen & paper to write down your to do's for the day or do you use software for that? What about time tracking? Are there any tools you can recommend?
Personally I tend to get carried away with a task from time to time and spend way too much time with it. Organizing helps me a lot to counteract that.
Another issue is time tracking. In general I find it always a little annoying having to spend the last 15 minutes of the day with some company time tracking software. How do you deal with that? <comment><USER2> I use emacs orgmode as a task manager. I also use the time tracking features of org. It was the best investment in my productivity and peace of mind. I use org since 2006.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm curious what is org? Do you have a link you can share?

<comment><USER3> [http://orgmode.org/](http://orgmode.org/)

Org mode is an emacs extension that defines a plain-text format in which you can take notes. It also includes a rather extensive system to manage and schedule tasks and todos (cf. the "Org Agenda").

It has a rather steep learning curve however, especially if you're new to emacs too. From what I know about it so far, I really like the premise and philosophy behind it, but I haven't managed to fully switch to an org-based setup for scheduling yet.

I would also be interested in what others here use to access/modify their schedule. Since I can't use Emacs for work, an option to quickly access it from my phone would be rather crucial, and the options I've found so far are mostly quite minimalistic...

I'm thinking some (basic) self-hosted, web-based tooling to manage the schedule in a Git-Repo would be very useful.

<comment> 97-109-107 Did you take a look at orgzly [http://www.orgzly.com/](http://www.orgzly.com/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


CueCat - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat <comment><USER2> The CueCat actually has a connection to the Oak Island Money Pit ([http://www.oakislandmoneypit.com/](http://www.oakislandmoneypit.com/)).

The inventor of the CueCat, J. Hutton Pulitzer (formerly J. Jovan Philyaw) is prominently featured on the tv show The Curse of Oak Island and claims to have found a "magical" Roman Sword off the island's coast: [http://www.inquisitr.com/2704626/oak-island-roman-sword-j- hu...](http://www.inquisitr.com/2704626/oak-island-roman-sword-j-hutton- pulitzer-jeffrey-jovan-philyaw/)

Factoring that the CueCat lost investors $185M I think it would be fair to say that it's also a "Money Pit".

</comment><comment><USER3> I remember when these first came out. There was a lively small hacker scene around these, with people "declawing" them so they could be used as regular keyboard wedge barcode scanners. When Digital Convergence folded, I got my buddy at Radio Shack to hold aside a bunch for me that were never distributed. So I had a box of like 15 of these things. I think I still do somewhere.

Around 2004 I was helping out with a first-year science fiction convention and we needed barcode scanners for the art show and convention store but couldn't afford to buy really nice ones on a shoestring budget. So we used CueCats. They're slow compared to the nicer flash scanners, but worked pretty well. :)

Every time I see a QR code, I think of CueCats and wonder if anyone actually scans them. Seems like that "fad" has started to fade recently.

<comment><USER4> > Every time I see a QR code, I think of CueCats and wonder if anyone actually > scans them.

[http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com](http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com)

<comment><USER5> Am I the only one who doesn't see any pictures, people, scanners, or QR codes? Or am I not getting the joke, because maybe no one scans QR codes?

<comment><USER6> Yes, that is the joke.

<comment><USER7> Okay... But to be fair there are valid uses of qr codes. In the last month I've used them for my vr giggles (easy method for registering your specific vr set with some certain vr software) and for going in concerts (qr code saved in iPhone wallet app)

<comment><USER8> I had a similar reaction. I like the joke the site is making, it's well done. I had a good laugh the first time I saw it, and I've shared it with friends. Jokes are often huge exaggerations though.

QR Codes definitely have valid use cases, and I'm wondering if they aren't also somewhat 'ahead of their time'. They are useful ways to transfer contexts in the physical world. VR, and especially AR (Augmented Reality), is about combining the physical world with the digital one.

I'm imagining a future where not very many people "see" QR codes, but rather have AR devices like we have cellphones now, and they simply see the relevant content in place over the QR code or similar. I think of use cases like glancing down the street at a bus stop, seeing live updates of a NCAA bracket on a poster on the wall, those sorts of things.

I think a lot of the problem with QR codes is simply the friction of using them. I could see them used much more if you could simply open a website by literally pointing a phone at them (e.g. without any setup, opening apps).

When we have persistent AR at all times, the friction could be non-existent, you already see the information in place.

There's also the possibility that location and motion tracking are good enough that they can always be virtual, but I feel like the real world reference and 'binding' cues are important. We'll see how things unfold.

<comment><USER9> «I think a lot of the problem with QR codes is simply the friction of using them. I could see them used much more if you could simply open a website by literally pointing a phone at them (e.g. without any setup, opening apps).»

Partly why about the only case where I've found QR codes particularly useful is the Xbox One with Kinect. Voice command "Xbox Use a Code" and then hold it up for the Kinect camera, maybe walk it forward a bit. Not a lot of friction and Xbox One QR codes almost all mention the "Xbox Use a Code" voice command. (Remembering the days of the Xbox 360 where nearly every game had at least one packed in code and you typically just typed them in with the soft keyboard and your gamepad, the Xbox One QR codes are a genuine improvement if you have a Kinect, though at this point in the lifecycle pack in codes seem a little less common and digital only purchases a more common preference for myself.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I remember the Digital Convergence guys -- they were actually an infomercial company who did a show, "Net Talk Live!" (punctuation and all) that was targeted at the AOL set. Their other product was something called, IIRC, "Concerto," which was an app that required you to connect your PC's mic-in to your TV, whereupon you would occasionally hear an ear-blasting squelch of noise during _Friends_ , and your PC would suddenly send your browser to a webpage. It wasn't exactly a _graceful_ user experience.

You could argue that they were just too far ahead of curve from an engineering and core technology perspective -- wavelet fingerprinting techniques and Shazam were still far in the future -- but I also believe that the CC's failure is instructive in its own right; by attempting to piggyback on existing media without recontextualizing their presentation and consumption, you ended up with a user-hostile experience that added no value for either the consumer or the creator.

<comment><USER11> I'm pretty sure my local tv station WFAA would integrate this into their news broadcast year ago. After the news anchor would finish their story, they would pause and you would hear the tone play. If your computer was setup it would take you to their website to read more about the story.

At least i think i remember this, it was a long time ago.

Edit :

Yep i remembered correctly.

"WFAA is the first TV outlet to introduce the broadcast application, on-air audio cues that send PCs immediately to relevant pages on the Internet without consumer intervention..."

[http://adage.com/article/news/cuecat-kindles- controversy/566...](http://adage.com/article/news/cuecat-kindles- controversy/56600/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "fails to solve a problem which never existed."

Yeah, I got one of these in the mail, but couldn't make it work. Also could never figure out what it was for, really. Saved me some keystrokes in my browser? Apparently, the value was too skewed towards the advertisers and marketers, with too little value for consumers to be adopted.

QR code readers are effectively the same thing, as far as I can tell. I never find myself using those either.

<comment><USER13> At least with QR codes you don't need a special scanner, it doesn't need to be plugged into anything and you have the scanner (phone) with you all the time.

But I've never used one either.

<comment><USER14> But you kind of do, because as far as I know, you need an app. QR codes has some major promise initially, but it hinged on becoming built into the camera apps of phones, which never happened, so forget it

<comment><USER15> If you're security conscious, you might use QR codes for MFA, i.e.: [https://userify.com/tour/](https://userify.com/tour/) (scroll down)

but then Red Hat's FreeOTP has a QR code scanner built in. (Google Authenticator does not and needs a third-party one that wants a ton of permissions..)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I still have my PS/2 version one somewhere. Was a great way to catalogue books and DVDs back in the day.

Amusing to see some of the same mistakes being made now by Augmented Reality platforms. If I have to download a proprietary app in order to interact with your advert, I'm probably not going to bother.

<comment><USER17> The difference now, as opposed to back then, is the proprietary apps are lead capture or advertising delivery platforms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The CueCat is infamous. Joel Spolsky had a great take on it:

      http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000037.html

Best quote: "The number of dumb things going on here exceeds my limited ability to grok all at once."

I got one at Radio Shack but never did much with it. I think it went to recycling some time ago.

<comment><USER19> I thought of Joel's article immediately. The funny thing is though that it's now trivial to have a "CueCat" on your smartphone. In a vague way, it was a great idea. It was just too far ahead of its time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The "Legacy" section is the interesting part, along with the quote: "You have to wonder about a business plan based on the notion that people want to interact with a soda can"

QR codes are still slapped onto everything, but I doubt that they are used much. It's the same logic, only with phones rather than a dedicated barcode scanner. Why do manufactures think that people would want to scan QR codes?

<comment><USER21> I've had an iPhone for 5 years, an android 3 years before that, and I still have no idea how I'm supposed to scan a QR code. Does any arbitrary QR reader app work for every QR code? Is QR scanning natively supported in any way?

<comment><USER15> > Does any arbitrary QR reader app work for every QR code?

Yes, basically.

> Is QR scanning natively supported in any way?

No idea for every phone, but not native to Android or IOS AFAIK. Probably Google Goggles, but that's not built-in usually. We recommend FreeOTP for MFA at Userify[1] (plug: SSH key management) which has a built-in QR code scanner/reader, but Google Authenticator needs a specific third-party (and permission-greedy) app.

1\. [https://userify.com](https://userify.com)

<comment><USER22> I also use FreeOTP, but be aware that it stores the keys in plaintext.

That was the reason I chose it actually - it gives me a way to encrypt and back up my codes in one fell swoop - but it is definitely a risk to be aware of on a rooted device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> CueCat was funded under one of the late 90s trendy buzz-concepts: media bridging. The idea was that there would emerge ways of linking new and old media.

Of course the obvious way was to print a hyperlink, but evidently investors thought people would rather scan barcodes.

Like many late 90s goofy ideas, it did resurface in a more successful form later: the QR code. But that had to wait until everyone had a little handheld smart terminal.

</comment><comment><USER24> "The CueCat was invented by J. Jovan Philyaw, who changed his name to J. Hutton Pulitzer"

This line made opening the wikipedia article more than worthwhile!

<comment><USER25> I just googled "J. Jovan Philyaw", and the first link is a transcript of his interview. Oh boy

[http://jhuttonpulitzer.blogspot.com/](http://jhuttonpulitzer.blogspot.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Surely I'm not the only person with a box of these in storage, just in case I need a bar code reader in the future? :)

</comment><comment><USER26> Short discussion, 7 years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720435](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720435)

</comment><comment><USER27> I've got a handful of these in a drawer at home. I remember rushing to RadioShack to get one as a kid with such excitement. Followed by disappointment that there wasn't much to do with it. I picked the other ones up at the Goodwill soon after.

My computer at the time if I recall had the big DIN connector instead of PS2 so I had to get a DIN->PS2 and a PS2->DIN connector to put this thing inline with my keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER28> I got one for free by paying for a lifetime account at LibraryThing. (Don't know if they still do this - I signed up 7-8 years ago.) Supposed to make scanning barcoded/ISBNs easier, although Ive never used it. :)

</comment><comment><USER29> The creator (Dave Mathews) talking about it on ThisWeekInStartups (2011) [https://youtu.be/Z8Tczfk1saQ?t=359](https://youtu.be/Z8Tczfk1saQ?t=359)

</comment><comment><USER30> I have one of these on my desk. I have fought the Linux kernel drivers for it for far too long and now it is just here as a red light in the night.

</comment><comment><USER31> Heheh. I have one of these in a box at my parents' house. I had forgotten entirely about it.</comment>


DuckDuckGo TTY Search - <AUTHOR> https://duckduckgo.com/tty/ <comment><USER2> Previously posted: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4880240](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4880240)

And then there's this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19606101](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19606101)

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool, but I can't get a keyboard up on mobile (FF, Chrome on Android).</comment>


How should I go about the next step of my startup? - <AUTHOR> Hi everybody, this is my first post and I am seeking some valuable advice.
I am running Coachius - A niche social platform for coaches and mentors.
Coaching community is diversely booming and is very much underserved. In U.S alone, only life coaching is estimated to be a 6B$ sector.
I wanted to develop a platform to give coaches and people who are looking for coaching to connect at a social level, discuss and engage for sessions.
With this in mind I developed an MVP - http://test.coachius.info
What do you think about the idea and the MVP? What do you think my next steps should involve? (keep pitching?, go live quickly? focus more on monetization?)
Thanks to all of you in advance. <comment><USER3> I worked with a client last year that was coaching small businesses and my team worked with them to help those clients get off the ground with basic marketing sites launched etc. I'd say that you are at least on to something targeting that market as we found it much larger than anticipated. We have since stopped working directly building the "students" products (unless they have a real engineering problem to solve) but we have made (and are adding more) a few specific solutions that serve the broader community and have brought those to market.

What I learned is that the educational, mentoring, and advice part of the market is quite large with people on both sides willing (if not anxious) to pay money to learn things that others take for granted (be it how to provide the advice or in getting the advice). Linking those two communities together is of significant value, and making it so that they can communicate more effectively seems very valid. Now what that means in terms of potential opportunity, I don't know exactly, but I can tell you we see some of the products we have (and are launching) in the space easily growing into a very nice sized business that do not require investment backing and are profitable from very early on. Our specific focus is very much on delivering the content and marketing the content and solutions versus a social media based forum, although we are integrated to most social media outlets.

As for advice, launch something quickly, get some buy in from people willing to actually pay for it and get some traction. If you are seeking investment you'll need to prove traction anyway so that is the first thing to focus on IMO.

Good luck and have fun!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much Davis, for the insightful comment.

It is indeed a big and underestimated market waiting with full of untapped opportunities.

Currently the site is entirely free - I was thinking of gaining traction first and then monetizing it.

So would you advice me to go ahead and launch it, or keep it at stealth mode and raise money - so I can quit my day job and fully focus on this?

<comment><USER3> I'd advise that you launch with a minimal set of features and get people on the platform and make additions to it as you go. There is a saying, you should be at least slightly embarrassed by your version 1. Can't remember who said it, but man it so works, it also is a great motivator to improve.

I personally don't believe in stealth mode without some very special circumstances, and this wouldn't be one of them. The times I would say stealth is good is for serial founders that have credibility to raise money privately and keep the wraps on something until it launches. And even then, they likely have some large clients committed already and are already on a solid path.

So my 2 cents, don't quit your day job. Launch the site, get some traction, get feedback, don't hide it, promote promote promote. Once you have some traction and have people talking a little about it, then you can start to think about a pitch deck and trying to raise money (if that is your goal). Although there is "easy" money as some say, it isn't that easy really, you still have to have fundamentals in place or have a track record proving you can do it. If you get a little traction though, it isn't unrealistic to have a small group or a high net worth person provide you some seed capital to try and accelerate the pace.

Personally, I wouldn't go the raise money route initially, I'd first start off trying to make money with the platform. Bootstrap it, see what happens. The go big or go home attitude isn't necessarily wrong, but the majority of businesses are not launched or founded that way. They start small and build up. Nothings stops those businesses from being as large as a VC backed business (though money does equal velocity), and you can always attract money at a later date, usually under more favorable terms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Firstly, congratulations on finding a large enough industry you are passionate about.

Pick a niche in the coaching industry based on the following conditions.

1\. The niche must be small enough such that there is no current market leader (or market leader can be displaced)

2\. The niche is big enough that there are enough customers to validate the idea.

3\. You have some unfair advantage in that niche. For e.g. You have experience in business coaching or you have access to customers in the fitness coaching, or you have a close friend working in relationship coaching.

Then, validate your idea by talking to customers in that niche. Build and market your app till you are the market leader in that niche. After that, you can decide to pick and dominate another niche (or all of them)

Benefits of this approach

1\. By sticking to a small niche, you can make something that resonates with the customers. It is much easier validating a product built for a very specific purpose.

2\. By starting with a small niche, your goal will also be small. So it will be easier to figure out whether you are on the right track.

3\. You will be able to become the market leader in a small niche much faster than you can become the market leader in the coaching industry. Once you have validated your business in the niche, it is much easier raising funding for the larger goal.

</comment><comment><USER5> Will your service save your target customers time and make their lives easier or make their work more effective? If so, charge for it! Even if only a small amount, don't undersell yourself. If its not worth paying for, they probably won't use it for free either. You should definitely consider a free trial if nothing else but keep it in their minds that your service offers value. If you have paying customers you will also be much more likely to devote yourself to improving the service and seeing it through to full fruition. If a prospect converts to being a paid customer, they will be invested in using the platform and continuing to validate what you are doing.

<comment><AUTHOR> It will make indeed their lives not only easier but also will let them find more clients, and for clients more coaches.

But on the other hand without the users the value of the platform is next to nothing.

That's why in the MVP I have developed all the social features that are commonly available - A professional profile (linkedin) live chat and messaging, notifications (facebook) and groups for forum chat.

My aim was to develop a community first to whom I can sell the further services much easier.

Do you think this is flawed? (fremium model?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe look at some accelerator programmes etc and work with their startups, the reason I say this is that they are always missing maybe 1 or more person and if they have a full team they might be missing some specific skills which a mentor could give them.

</comment><comment><USER7> Find a single customer and get them to pay for your service.

When they say no, find another one.

Repeat until you have a bunch of customers.

Coding and hiring will be required to accomplish the above tasks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi @blairanderson, thanks for your comment.

Currently the site is completely free and not even launched yet.

The dilemma I am having is to continue implementing features to charge for vs. launching it as it is and seeing what happens, what user feedbacks are - <USER2> then develop those services.

<comment><USER8> Launch it. Launch launch launch.

Let customers tell you what features they need.</comment></comment></comment>


Running Lisp in Production (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://tech.grammarly.com/blog/running-lisp-in-production <comment><USER2> Previous discussions from last year: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16860646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16860646) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16679963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16679963)

(Common) Lisp usually gets more use than exposure, so it's nice to see large- scale Lisp success stories. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, as it's one of my two favourite languages (the other one being, _of course_ , C).

Edit: APL is a close third, but let's be realistic.

<comment><USER3> I did not realize common lisp was still in use and was therefore planning on learning Clojure instead. Which is better to learn then?

<comment><USER4> [http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html)

<comment><USER2> "On Lisp" is a good book but perhaps too advanced for an introduction, whereas his "ANSI Common Lisp"[0] is better suited to the purpose. Barski's "Land of Lisp" has also received positive feedback.[1]

I'd be interested to see what others consider a suitable general learning path for Lisp.

[0] [http://www.paulgraham.com/acl.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/acl.html)

[1] [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9781593272814.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9781593272814.do)

<comment><USER5> The usual starting book is 'Practical Common Lisp' by Peter Seibel. Some advanced stuff then in 'Common Lisp Recipes' by Edi Weitz. Some older advanced stuff with examples: Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming, Cases Studies in Common Lisp (PAIP) by Peter Norvig.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "but we value choice and freedom over rules and processes." Who could argue with that? It can sound pretty defensive though, like we know we have a bunch of nearly random stuff that few people can really understand and manage but, hey, freedom. Lisp has always been interesting and there's always one or two companies in any time interval that are successful, and wildly so, using it. It could also be as much skill, great execution and a market.

<comment><USER7> It's easy to argue against, and many companies' higher ups successfully do and thus can mandate a monolanguage policy. For Grammarly, I still see them posting occasionally in the monthly who's-hiring threads for Lisp roles, I think they're doing fine.

I wonder if they've since run into more implementation specific issues and have shelled out for one of the proprietary Lisps. SBCL is always improving, though.

<comment><USER8> My experience is that mono-language policies (or similar tight, top-down controlling of the language stack) are simply a matter of time. All companies enforce that as they mature.

I have been working for two companies that adopted Clojure and Scala early on. They all have, within a period of two to three years, enforced a Java only monoculture with no new projects being written in the aforementioned languages.

The reasons were key engineers leaving for greener pastures and experiencing difficulties with staffing: Not being able to find (cheap) experienced developers, or failing to do in house training due to the lack of interest.

This might be hard to believe, considering that the average HN user would jump of excitement at the chance to learn something new, but then again, those languages were introduced with the JVM as the main selling point, meaning working mostly with Java developers, who are notorious for their resistance to learn _anything_.

<comment><USER9> > mono-language policies (or similar tight, top-down controlling of the > language stack) are simply a matter of time. All companies enforce that as > they mature.

Yea, that would be my cue to leave.

<comment><USER10> Indeed. Pick the right tool for the job.

Picking the tool just because it gets you lots of cheap disposable developers simply means you end up with lots of cheap disposable code.

Good for the current quarter's C-suite bonuses, no doubt; maybe not so much for long-term business continuity when that code is critical to continuing business operations.

Something something price of everything and value of nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Grammarly is essentially an opt-in keylogger for your browser. To put it generously, it is hilariously insecure by design. Furthermore, I don't believe that most of their users _understand_ that the plugin "phones home" continuously to function.

Hey, at least the developers get to tinker with fun languages while spying on people!

<comment><USER12> While true, I believe the whole intent is to use machine learning on real text to improve the customer's experience. For the customer, this is a feature rather than the bug. It is not how I would prefer to interface with grammar checking, mind you, but I think they have been transparent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> At Amazon I've seen Clojure used successfully as a DSL in a larger service. The scaffolding is Java and the DSL parts are Clojure.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is grammarly still using Lisp? How's it going?

<comment><USER15> Want to know as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone in the HN crowd know of any other brand-name orgs using Lisp?

<comment><USER17> Apple, eBay, Intuit, Oracle, and Red Hat (among many large and smaller-but- still-largish companies) use Clojure according to the Clojure site.

[https://clojure.org/community/companies](https://clojure.org/community/companies)

<comment><USER18> Another related link - [https://clojure.org/community/success_stories](https://clojure.org/community/success_stories)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Being a client-server application, it allows to run its backend on the > remote machine and connect to it from your local Emacs (or Vim, if you must, > with SLIMV).

I have used Slimv and found it quite enjoyable on Vim. Has anyone here tried Vlime? Has anyone tried both? Which one of the two do you recommend?

</comment><comment><USER19> They still do not provide a per-subscription API for integration, which is plain stupid for 2019. It would be awesome to have it integrated with Vim, Emacs, whatever you like.

<comment><USER20> You could probably just crack open the browser extension, prettify it, and send a few sample requests to get the hang of whatever API is used pretty quickly. I doubt it will provide one, as there aren't many users demanding it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This sounds kind of like an absolutely miserable experience. Can someone point out why a company would choose lisp over some other language which is just as fast performance wise?

<comment><USER8> There aren't many dynamic languages with that level of performance and maturity.

Their problem wasn't choosing Lisp, but not paying for ACL :)

<comment><USER22> Allegro is nice. It's fast, and has a great development environment. I used it all the time years ago.

I recently decided to screw around with Lisp again and have been using SBCL with Atom via the Slime plugin, but it's not very good. I can't evaluate functions from the editor, nor can I copy-paste multiline functions into the repl. It's very frustrating.

<comment><USER7> Are you using the right slime plugin? I haven't tried it yet (I'm happy with vim+slimv) but I saw a thread on the CL subreddit last month that stated "atom-slime is now replaced by Slima which is more complete".

I've given Allegro a spin, and LispWorks too. I liked Allegro's UI better, but both just give off the "We designed our UI in the 90s, updated to the WinXP plastic chrome at one point in the early 2000s, and haven't touched it since!" vibe. It's just not very pleasant, especially with a big screen... I use Eclipse at work for my Java day job (IntelliJ is also an option but Eclipse is fine for me) and it makes me sad that its UX with all its clunkiness and compromises to be a mega plugin-extendable open source IDE still feels better than the IDEs that just need to support Lisp. If either Lisp company would offer a subscription license model similar to IntelliJ's along with even vague promises of modernizing the UX (like it's not a good sign when your product landing page literally still has a Windows XP screenshot [http://www.lispworks.com/products/lispworks.html](http://www.lispworks.com/products/lispworks.html) ) I'd start paying immediately, but I suspect most of their revenue is from the core Lisp image, their side products (I've heard AllegroGraph is amazing if you need that sort of thing), and various customer support contracts for not just the products but bespoke extensions / feature requests. That is to say, very little from the editor itself. Yeah you can always use their Lisp with emacs/slime but then part of the point is lost. ;)

<comment><USER5> > Windows XP screenshot

There are a bunch of oldish things in it, but the backend is relatively native - so the application has a newer look on new systems.

They also improve the CAPI GUI layer with releases with new features.

[http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/lw71/RNIG/html/readme...](http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/lw71/RNIG/html/readme.htm)

[http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/lw70/RNIG/html/readme...](http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/lw70/RNIG/html/readme-131.htm)

There are a bunch of new IDE features, like visual profiler output, Code Coverage tool, support for remote debugging, ...

You'd have to read the release notes to find all that stuff. All in all it is a very feature-rich system...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft Sued Over 'Mafia-Like' Anti-Piracy Raid - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-sued-over-mafia-like-anti-piracy-raid-120621/

<comment><USER2> Don't want to face "mafia" tactics? Don't pirate software.

I admit I've used a few cracked programs for fun and personal use in the past.... but ANYTHING for business/profit use, I buy proper licenses.</comment>


Where you can find us all (if you're looking) - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> For the next few days, I live in Padova, Italy, but we're moving to Innsbruck, Austria where my wife found a good job doing research(*), and hopefully I will have some time to work on my own ideas.

Personally, I'm not convinced that the bay area is the be all and end all for startups. Maybe for classic style VC fueled all or nothing deals, but for those more interested in living cheaply and bootstrapping something, as long as you have a line on the good tech people in your area, perhaps you can make a go of it. Perhaps it's even easier to get a few of them on board, because there are relatively less other interesting things going on.

Europe definitely isn't conducive to startups though, even registering a company is quite expensive. I think if I were to head back to the states, I might pick someplace... not too isolated, but sort of "second tier". Portland, Oregon would be great..maybe someplace like Tucson in Arizona, Boulder Colorado, and so on.

(*) Biotech/medical - now _there_ is a field where high capital requirements and lots of regulations mean that startups really can't happen without massive investments and thus tend to cluster very tightly in certain areas - bay area, san diego, boston.

<comment><USER3> You won't be too far from what I expect will be _the_ startup location of the next decade: Bratislava, Slovakia.

Why?

\-- Pro government business.

\-- Massive investment in infrastructure from european businesses moving manufacturing there

\-- highly educated and motivated workforce

\-- low costs

\-- relatively centrally located, and close to Austria, Lichtenstein, and Switzerland banking centers.

\-- Low tax rates and regulation rates.

I'm sure some of the other eastern european countries are contenders, and might be better... but innovation is going to start concentrating in eastern europe, as they join the EU, the entrepreneurs will move to get less burdensome regulation while staying in the EU.

The US will probably retain some advantages, but we're making it harder and harder for people to come to the US to live and work.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I read some interesting comments by some of the contributors on this site, that made mention of how cool it would be if we could all meet up somewhere. I decided to see who felt like putting themselves on the map... literally.

I've driven 6 hours to meet a potential partner face to face. I've flown across the continent to "ask" for an interview with a dream employer. If anyone out there is as passionate about meeting the dreamers of today and leaders of tomorrow, please feel free to say so.

Let me begin: I'm Andrew and I'm in Toronto (yes, Canadians take risks too)

At the very least, many of you will find yourselves in the same city as others on this site and to me that's about as good an excuse to have a 2am coffee as any I can think of.

I've got a bit of a selfish motivation in that I'm looking for partner #3 and I think face-to-face is the best way to see how well the ideas flow and personalities mesh (and if we're lucky, clash!).

<comment><USER3> Canadians take risks? Who knew!? (My personal porfolio, %90 of it is companies located in Vancouver and listed in TSX or TSX-V.) Canada is the premier public fundraising country in the world, I believe. (The US stifles innovation with onerous SEC regulation... so Canada, which has smaller population, is the place to do your reverse merger, or buy shelf companies, etc.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I had intended to be fecicious but thank you for pointing out some oft- overlooked truths.

<comment><USER3> I know, just trying to spread the word...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm in Seattle. Have a co-founder, not really looking for one.

Always willing to meet for coffee, though.

Am _not_ moving to the Bay Area.

<comment><USER4> "Always willing to meet for coffee, though."

Me too. What are you doing after work today? I'm on the Ave right now. See my profile for contact info.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I live in a small town called Golden in Colorado. I will be moving to the Bay area this summer. I don't think you have to live there to start something brilliant, but there are some great funding opportunities. I hope to go to Florence, Italy one day :)

</comment><comment><USER6> I am in Columbus, OH...:D

Yes, yes, I know... Definitely a shortage of risk takers here... Currently working on a few ideas for a startup, and all the while, looking for something interesting to work on if somebody else has one...

<comment><USER7> Hey! I'm in Columbus, too; I just graduated from OSU and I'm now working on my Masters. Hit me up at bmintern on GMail if you want to talk, or meet sometime. I have a feeling that there are more of us here in Columbus than we think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My name is Brandon and I live in Tulsa OK. While it's not on the list of top startup cities there are quite a few great tech people here thanks to the University of Tulsa. ;)

</comment><comment><USER9> Seattle, baby.

Well... near Seattle, baby.

</comment><comment><USER10> Currently Tokyo with "strong ties" to Southern and Northern California. No one else is here, right?

</comment><comment><USER4> Seattle, at the UW. I already have a great cofounder, but I'd like to meet up for coffee.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm located in Munich, Germany working on a search application using Common Lisp.

</comment><comment><USER12> near Columbus, GA. Currently working on a tenant griping site (launching later this week; I'll probably post about it), and trying to figure out this whole "revenue" thing. :)

</comment><comment><USER13> I live in Chapel Hill, NC and I am very sad - THE TAR HEELS LOST!

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm from Melbourne, looking for something interesting.

</comment><comment><USER15> Zurich, Switzerland - you can reach me over gmail.

</comment><comment><USER16> The vast suburbia outside the city of Los Angeles.

</comment><comment><USER17> Portland, OR - Moving to the Bay Area ASAP though

<comment><USER18> Why ASAP? I am thinking of relocating from Chicago to either Portland, San Francisco, or Seattle. I had been leaning towards Portland, for no particular reason. I'd love to hear your thoughts on why you want to leave Portland.

<comment><USER17> The startup community is nonexistent, its definitely no San Francisco when it comes to being around young energetic people who are doing exciting things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Portland, OR. Maybe moving to SanFran.

</comment><comment><USER20> Gainesville, FL

</comment><comment><USER21> Ithaca, NY

</comment><comment><USER22> Boston, MA</comment>


How To Install WGET in OSX  - <AUTHOR> http://www.withoutink.com/terminal/how-to-install-wget-in-osx/ <comment><USER2> ...or use curl.

<comment><USER3> wget does recursive fetches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Or run

>fink install wget

That's how I got it.

<comment><USER5> Or for those who dislike fink:

>brew install wget

(readme at <http://github.com/mxcl/homebrew> )

(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1095793> and <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=840317> )</comment></comment>


After the Techcrunch Bump - <AUTHOR> http://redeye.firstround.com/2008/01/after-the-techc.html <comment><USER2> Good article. I am surprised very few people talk about engagement and quality of traffic on a website.

We've always tracked PV/UV ratio as a measure of quality of our product and audience vis-a-vis competitors.</comment>


Machine Learning over 1M hotel reviews - <AUTHOR> https://blog.monkeylearn.com/machine-learning-1m-hotel-reviews-finds-interesting-insights/ <comment><USER2> "Interestingly, 'Internet' doesn't really rise above 70% in any hotel class, indicating that internet access is as bad in 3 star hotels as in 5 star hotels. One would expect that more expensive hotels would provide a better internet service, but If you've ever stayed at a 5 star hotel you know that's not usually the case..."

The more stars the Hotel has the more likely you have to pay for WiFi. If I have to pay for it, I expect it to perform better than if it's free. So I'm going to diss it harder if it is not fast and consistent.

<comment><USER3> More stars tend to mean more expensive, usually where most corporate travel would stay. Those wifi? they write it off on their expense rewards or get it for free with hotel reward cards. They rest of normal folks wanting to stay at very nice hotel pay for it. They charge for it because people pay, same way airlines charge for every stupid thing today and people pay.

<comment><USER4> I have consistently and for a long time wondered what "corporate travel" is thinking of when they offer a list of accommodations. Then again, I sort of hate "very nice hotels". They look like TV soap opera sets which is annoying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are some amazing hotels in London. I've had some amazing experiences. My own observation may be anecdotal but i think this comes down to what each dollar gets you for your money. $150 in London gets you an average hotel. $150 in Bangkok gets you something top notch. Chances are most of the analysis has been done at fixed price points, not accounting for relative value. That would explain why London rates poorer.

<comment><USER6> Berlin, Lisbon, Budapest and Bruxelles are some of those cities where you can stay at a 5-star extremely cheap.

London's the worst for it; I have never been happy with the cheaper 5-star (less than 260 GBP/night) hotels there. Maybe if you stay at Mandarin Oriental...

On the other hand the restaurants are a great value, especially lunch menus: save the 100 GBP on the 5-star hotel and spend 55 GBP (+12.5% "optional" gratuity) on a 3-course lunch menu, with 2 glasses of wine and coffee at an amazing 2-Michelin-star restaurant like "The Square". You'll still have enough for a last-minute good half-price theatre ticket at tkts.co.uk in the evening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can corroborate some of the high level factoids in this. I work for a company with a large set of hotel sentiment data that should be a superset of the data in the linked post. It's probably around 35M reviews over several major sites.

82% of sentiments being positive sounds plausible. Ours is somewhat lower but still well over 50%. I think it's in the 70s. Practically speaking, I've had some really frustrating conversations with people in the industry trying to explain that a hotel can have positive sentiment and still be way below average for a given cohort.

Wifi sucks - that matches our data. Within the most common entities we extract, the only thing worse than wifi is "maintenance", which has a much lower occurrence rate. Unsurprisingly, nobody really talks about maintenance unless something's broken. Location is generally highly rated. Surprisingly to me, so is "service" and equivalents.

Anecdotally, the croissant thing sounds correct. A lot of reviewers use the example of cold croissants to describe an unimpressive continental breakfast.

<comment><USER8> Ah, hotel Wi-Fi... maybe it's not as good as the one at home because... "in theory" you don't need it as much?

Like, if you are a family on vacation @ beautiful Aruba, maybe management thinks that you will spend time on the beach, or golfing, or in spa or using any other of their 60+ carefully tended-to amenities?

Perhaps they can't imagine the whole family sitting in their hotel room for 14 hours a day with 4 iDevices spread across Netflix/Youtube/Twitch, everyone complaining that they can't get more than 720p.

Lol, who knows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The cross-group results are close enough that you _really_ need to use confidence intervals for the proportions, even with the large sample size. Especially because sentiment analysis does not perfectly classify positivity/negativity.

On a semi-related note, TripAdvisor will likely not appreciate you scraping 1M reviews, especially since even their officially-sanctioned API explicitly says "you can't use this for data analysis." ([https://developer- tripadvisor.com/content-api/request-api-ac...](https://developer- tripadvisor.com/content-api/request-api-access/))

</comment><comment><USER10> Isn't it an overreach to make absolute statements from sentiment analysis? There are some bold claims in this article that can only stand if the authors corrected for anchoring, confirmation bias, and herd behaviour.

<comment><USER11> I also believe that people with bad experiences tend to review hotels more often than those with good experiences. That would bias the entire data set in one way or the other (obviously this has nothing to do with the quality of the tool being presented).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A more accurate conclusion would be that London's bad hotels are a popular option.

During my tour around Europe, I quickly realized that all the hotels in the City of London (other than extremely expensive ones) are very cheap but also awful.

</comment><comment><USER13> How do we feel that they stole that data against the TOS?

<comment><USER14> When I was in second grade, there was a rule in the school library that grades 1-3 were only allowed in section A, grades 4-6 were allowed in section B. I regularly crawled around the barricade so I could read the Hardy Boys books and the Great Brain stories that were squirrelled away there. I got caught several times and bawled out, but I never felt bad.

But I still feel worse about that than this TOS violation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is this a really great example of Machine Learning? It seems most of the work could have been done with common data stores and a bit of coding.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra They could have provided richer graphs, more of them, or at least a link towards a firehose of results. Maybe I'm missing something?

<comment><USER9> As is the trend in 2016, the article serves as promotional content marketing for the startup OP works for, by using data that cannot be questioned.

It is a personal pet peeve and one of the reasons I make all my statistical analyses open source. (That being said, in this case, the OP does have a notebook available on GitHub)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Out of how many cities? They only present 7.

</comment><comment><USER17> I found this line interesting:

"Some trial and error followed for getting the best model for the data"

Unlike AI a human can do that at a glance, with no prior training.

<comment><USER18> "with no prior training"

is a false statement, the prior training is life and learning to read and having human experiences. For example if all reviews were in english and the human only spoke Mandarin they would need "prior training" before being able to preform the task.

<comment><USER17> I don't mean training on the dataset. I mean training on the model, i.e. knowing what to pick to train on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Based on my own personal experiences... fuck London. People are rude and indifferent to you. The hostels are all retarded, overpriced pubs. British food is terrible. Everything is overpriced, even by NY/SF/European standards. Even the UK hates Londoners

<comment><USER20> Gee, I wonder why people are rude to you?

It is my experience that the people are cold and indifferent, but once they warm up to you, you have a fantastic relationship with them that is above superficial and stands the test of time.

<comment><USER19> Well, when your UK friends from other parts of the commonwealth tear into Londoners worse than you do, perhaps the problem is indeed with them?

When you're passing through it is hard to get to know anyone.

London is by far the worst treatment I have seen from anyone in the western world, rich or poor. Even city Dutch are nicer and more kind.

<comment> throwaway-hn123 No, the problem is with you.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Robot Operating System (ROS) has moved out of academics - <AUTHOR> https://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-hottest-thing-in-robotics-is-an-open-source-project-youve-never-heard-of/ <comment><USER2> A related thread from 2018: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17916456](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17916456)

Three smaller threads from 2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15890213](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15890213)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15749546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15749546)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15530813](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15530813)

Quite small from 2016, but nicely counters the OP's baity title: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12080752](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12080752)

2013: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6867480](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6867480)

A similar article from last year: [https://svrobo.org/a-history-of-ros-robot- operating-system/](https://svrobo.org/a-history-of-ros-robot-operating- system/)

(via [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20490740](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20490740), but no comments there)

</comment><comment><USER3> There is some really good discussion on this in the 2018 thread, but I'd really like to see a ROS 3 that conforms a little more to the more widely-used alternatives to the stuff they had to roll for themselves back in the day.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. There are countless things in ROS1 which feel like a less polished version of X. I believe ROS2 is trying to use a more commodity stack for IPC and serde.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Kind of a weird choice for the name, the title of the piece is "The hottest thing in robotics is an open source project you've never heard of" and "The Robot Operating System (ROS) has moved out of academics" is a sub-section (and makes more sense as such, since it's in contrast to ROS's origins, not any recent event). Aside from letting you know ROS exists this piece is fairly free of content, but I guess it's a neat thing to be aware of.

</comment><comment><USER6> I didn't know it was considered as more academic, seeing as I saw it in production on some next level stuff. At least it was dockerized and I didn't have to wrangle it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Is ROS any easier and more reliable than it used to be? I've tried a few times, out of curiosity, to tinker with it, but have never been able to get the thing to work well enough to go through tutorials.

</comment><comment><USER8> Genuinely curious, a lot of people kind of crap on ROS but what would be a better alternative?

<comment><USER9> I always found Oxford's MOOS to be easier to work with. That plus something like MIT's IvP Helm objective controller will get you an autonomous mobile platform very quickly.

<comment><USER10> Cool thing about ROS is that is works for all sorts of robots, while MOOS [0] is focussed on autonomous marine vehicles. With ROS, I can have motion planning for a manipulator in hours, then put in on a mobile robot with whatever sort of locomotion etc all in the same system.

[0] [https://oceanai.mit.edu/ivpman/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Helm.MOOS...](https://oceanai.mit.edu/ivpman/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Helm.MOOSIvPIntroduction)

<comment><USER9> > _MOOS [0] is focussed on autonomous marine vehicles_

Core MOOS is just an efficient low-overhead IPC middleware, exactly like core ROS but, in my experience, smaller and faster and easier to use. You can use it for literally any communication between multiple distributed processes, robotic or otherwise. I think ROS became more successful at first because of better branding and promotion by Willow Garage. Now it's all network effects.

MIT's Ocean AI lab, by virtue of being an Ocean AI lab, uses MOOS for marine vehicles, but other groups have used it for other things as well.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What's the point of pgbouncer2 (postgresql) - <AUTHOR> http://www.depesz.com/2012/12/02/what-is-the-point-of-bouncing/

<comment><AUTHOR> i didn't have the need to use pgbouncer yet, so i never really figured out its cons. (nearly) no prepared statements is a big down, but if you design your db with functions (i.e. you only do "select get_my_data();"), it fortunately doesn't matter.</comment>


Ask HN: Where do you get your stock images? - <AUTHOR>

The best site I've found so far is http://123rf.com/<p>It seems to have a good selection and its significantly cheaper than other sites I've checked. Anyone have other suggestions? <comment><USER2> If you're gonna go down the free route...I've always wondered about Flickr's API...it depends for what purposes though and does stem close to legal issues, but its still powerful.</comment>


Why start: I just couldn't sit back - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@michaelspitzerrubenstein/why-start-i-just-couldnt-sit-back-2c1de71ad31d <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, I'd love your feedback on the site, too: [http://shakingnews.com/](http://shakingnews.com/)

It's very much a work-in-progress but would appreciate your guidance on how to improve it.</comment>