The Strange Blissfulness of Storms - <AUTHOR> http://earth.nautil.us/article/429/the-strange-blissfulness-of-storms <comment><USER3> Given a modicum of physical security, storms may well make many people feel better because they are do-or-die moments ( or feel like them).

That report you have to file with your boss next week? The fight with your partner? The stupid irritating thing your kid won't stop doing? Completely and totally irrelevant, now.

You have no ambiguities about what the goal is, and you know that you don't need to justify this to anyone: it's a storm, you have to get through it.

That's actually a weird kind of freedom: where most choices have been removed from you by powers well outside anyone's control, which bear you no personal malice, you just have to roll with it, and nobody can fault you for that, and sometimes that feels great.

<comment><USER4> That sounds a bit related (but maybe not quite the same as) the concept of benign masochism.

You're also making me wonder: if we have a sort of "baseline happiness" then maybe we also have a "baseline fear and worry", and perhaps it is healthy for our minds to have an outlet to apply that fear to. Something concrete and external to apply the nagging worry in our heads to

<comment><USER3> benign masochism sounds more like [https://kellycordes.com/2009/11/02/the-fun- scale/](https://kellycordes.com/2009/11/02/the-fun-scale/) to me.

<comment><USER4> Without further context I can understand why that is one expected meaning of the term, but a quick skim read suggests it's not the same thing.

The TL;DR of benign masochism is getting the upsides of feeling in danger _without_ actually being in danger. It is one of the explanations for why people can learn to like spicy foods, for example: it is harmless pain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Calming sounds of storms are great to relax to, reading a book or having a rainy day activity are quite nice.

However, storms are loved probably because when it storms predators are also hiding, it is a moment of peace in the animal kingdom.

It also means that the ecosystem is getting life from water, plants will grow and there will be food to eat.

Just like the Sun rising everyday, it is comforting to have something that contributes to being alive show up.

<comment><USER6> I also wonder if some of the blissfulness is from modern amenities that protect us from storms, like strong houses or cars. It may not have been so blissful scrambling up a tree on the savanna or hiding in a cave where other predators might take refuge.

For storms this is a maybe but for bad winter weather, I think it's likely. Hard to see why we would find winter weather calming except by contrast to safe, warm protections surrounding us. The romantic ideal of being in outer space aboard a ship like the Enterprise is similar too.

<comment><USER7> The only mildly concerning thing about a thunderstorm in a hot weather are the lightings, which very rarely actually hit anything. It's actually nice to get some time out of the excruciating heat.

<comment><USER8> When I moved into a 17th century farm in the Swedish countryside I quickly learned to dread the sound of thunder, especially when not at home. The reason was to be found in the rather ancient and dilapidated power and telephone distribution networks which lacked - and still lack - things like overcurrent protection. The effect this gave on anything electronic in the house was, to put it mildly, not pretty. Lightning did not have to strike the power or telephone line, it was enough for a strike anywhere near one of these to cause an electronic-frying pulse to be delivered. I had a stack of ADSL modems to swap out fried ones after which I repaired or 'fixed' (as in disabled fried non-essential bits) those which weren't beyond fixing and added them back to the stack. When I finally got tired of repairing fried pieces of equipment I installed my own overcurrent protection system on the incoming power line after which the misery stopped. Initially it stopped because of the sudden and suspicious absence of thunderstorms, leading to all sorts of superpowers being ascribed to that grey metal cabinet I hung on the wall. Now, with that box and a glassfiber connection instead of the old copper phone line Thor is mostly welcome again, just as long as he refrains from starting forest fires - <USER2> which we've had 2 this summer, not on but ever closer to our land...

<comment><USER9> Reminds me of back in the late 90s, any time there was a thunderstorm, the clerks at the public library would go around and unplug all the computers. Anguish and misery for all us kids awaiting our turns on the precious internet terminals we'd signed up for hours in advance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In Dutch we have a verb that feels suspiciously related to this: _uitwaaien_ \- "uit" means "out", "waaien" is the verb for the wind blowing. "Uitwaaien" means to take a walk in rough weather to let the wind clear out the thoughts in your head.

<comment><USER10> In Ukrainian we have a similar провітритись, literally meaning "let wind blow through self". I suspect that many Slavic languages have the same.

I wonder if English has something of that nature as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have noticed the effect of the weather on my moods. Only a particular kind of weather: basically rain, or the heavy overcast clouds that precede a rainstorm. Not any cloudy day, only if there's a strong likelihood of heavy rain.

It is noticeable enough that I can tell if the weather is like that when I wake up in the morning, before opening the curtains to look outside.

The feeling I get from that weather is kind of depressive, a bit lazy.

Putting these things together, some years ago I came to the idea that perhaps it's evolution's way of persuading me to stay at home, keep warm and dry and not catch a cold. I call it a "cave day"... instinct says: stay in cave.

This is distinct from the exhilaration of a storm.

Possibly related is the nice cozy feeling of being warm and dry in the middle of a downpour. I particularly like it if you can hear the rain, such as when under and iron roof or in a tent.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have on several occasions run out into the weather, to experience first-hand the raw elemental power of a storm. It is an utterly exhilarating and awe- inspiring experience. It's a shame that where I live, weather systems are rarely energetic enough to develop into severe thunderstorms. On the other hand I'm glad we don't have hurricanes or tornados…

<comment><USER13> even a fool knows to come in out of the rain ;)

<comment><USER12> Rain does not get through proper clothing. As the saying goes, there's no bad weather, only insufficient equipment :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I can relate to that. Once i ran along an electrified (with overhead wires) rail line, located somewhere up the slope of a valley during a thunderstorm. I've been soaked wet by the (warm) rain, but it wasn't uncomfortable. I could look down into the valley over the rail line from the way on which i ran between the pine/spruce trees. Lightning came at least every few seconds, thunder was rolling and cracking all the times, some lightnings struck the poles of the overhead wire. With blue/purple/white tendrils/webs. Everything looked like being illuminated by a stroboscope. The air was a mix of ozone and pine. I felt weightless, like i could fly. Ecstatic. Suspended from time.

Very different from when i did for example extreme fast bicycling with Lucifer from Alan Parsons Project on my headphones in endless loop.

Whole other level, for maybe 20 minutes, after which i had to turn back because of the way, and the thunderstorm moving onwards.

</comment><comment><USER15> > Breathing in the ions could also activate the vomeronasal organ, a piece of > nose anatomy thought to detect pheromones, and somehow send a positive > message to the brain.

I wonder if this is what happens when you can smell that a storm is coming or its about to rain?

The effects of a storm are pretty interesting. I was going to argue that it would be hard to say that storms would have an impact of most people because most people do not care or are not mindful of what's going on. If it is a major storm you don't have an option. Which can lead to being mindful and aware of what's going on around you. Like a cold shower in the morning will bring you to the present. During a storm you are thinking about the now.

The weather and strong storms have always been exciting to watch. I still haven't seen a tornado, but that is on my bucket list to see.

</comment><comment><USER16> Well yeah it does make me happy when I'm safe inside. Certainly not when I'm out in it!

<comment><USER17> I'm the opposite, nothing gets me out of the house as a big, extremely windy and wet storm; I adore walking during a storm :)

<comment><USER12> I guess it's also somewhat different, psychologically, when you do it intentionally, rather than having no other option than endure the storm unprotected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I recall a moment from my teen years. I was riding a bicycle with my much younger brother through remote fields. And a thunderstorm was rapidly approaching with lightnings striking the ground closer and closer. That was not blissful at all.

</comment><comment><USER18> This also explains the beneficial effects of pets.

After all, negative ions are cat-ions.

</comment><comment><USER19> Well, applied to myself I'd say: The running helps, also the feeling that you should not be doing something else then just wait until it is finished. We hardly feel that we need to survive anything anymore, it may be something that lifts the spirit because simply a will to survive is important. This Blissfulness does not really surprise me.

<comment><USER20> A big power cut also helps sometimes. Suddenly, people are out, neighbours and strangers are talking to each other, and there is a weird blissfulness.

And then everything goes back to normal, and people go back to avoiding each other.

<comment><USER21> I have a theory that the less resources that are available the friendlier people are. Camping, power outages, rural communities, people are easier to approach and talk to when there's less stuff available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone have a view on air ionisers and their usefulness with regards to mood?

From what I gather, commercial units are sold based on how well they remove odours but nothing much is mentioned about mood elevation. Can the benefit be had from buying a $100 machine or is this just goop science being sold in an electronic box?

<comment><USER23> I'm interested in this as well. I bought an ion air cleaner 20 years ago and it welded the dust particles to the walls wherever anything was touching the wall. Had to repaint. Not sure if there are models that work.</comment></comment>


Company Caught in Texas Data Center Raid Loses Suit Against FBI - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/company-caught.html <comment><USER2> If the data has legitimate evidentiary value, the FBI should be taking images of the drives then returning the full servers to service... and not the other way around, where innocent companies only get disk images back.

What's more, with the right equipment and staff, this could have been done onsite at the colo facility, in the first 24-48 hours, turning machines back on as soon as the FBI had a forensic copy of their persistent storage.

<comment><USER3> I'll go ahead and play devil's advocate here for a moment and look at it from the FBI's point of view. I can imagine that they would rather keep the original equipment and make copies for the involved parties. What if they missed something during the copy or the machines were modified in some strange way? They don't really want to blow their case.

I agree that they should do it onsite, however, and not make them wait days or weeks to get it back. It's a lame excuse to seize that many machines just in case without the ability to assist the businesses to keep operating, especially in the current economic environment we're in.

<comment><USER2> Yes, I'm sure that's their reasoning. But we'd never accept it if, for example, they shut down an entire office building or mall because of a crime in just one tenant's space, or even a crime by the landlord... on the off chance a tiny bit of evidence might be in one of the corners of the building.

They get away with it here because the data center is out of view and the losses are abstract. But the costs they're imposing on third parties, just to save themselves a little trouble and risk of misidentifying evidence, are unreasonable.

<comment><USER4> Residences are protected against overly broad search and seizure through the procedure of getting a warrant. A warrant is for a specific address. The police can't go and cordon off the whole block just because they want to make sure they get one house.

There needs to be some sort of analogous procedure for datacenters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a good example of the FBI's answer to the question "Is it better that guilty man go free than 1,000 innocent men be punished?" The FBI is doing their job to get the 1 or few guilty parties (allegedly - they're innocent until proven otherwise), but in the process hurting many others.

If anything I think that the FBI should have at least provided more aid to the innocent parties. Honestly, making them supply their own drives to recover their data? That's pretty low in my book.

</comment><comment> patrickg-zill If the FBI allowed them to have access to their data by copying the hard drives over, why not let them have the rest of the system back? After all, the original hard drive is the only part of the system that retains data/evidence.

<comment><USER6> Our servers actually have a full embedded ARM Linux installation to support IPMI[1]. It has a separate processor, power management, flash storage, et al, and operates independently of the installed OS. The onboard IPMI module runs as long as the machine is connected to a power source.

The card can be re-flashed from the running OS, and actually runs a number of open source network daemons with known vulnerabilities.

It can interact with the BIOS, provide network access to the console, access the network via the host's ethernet chipset, supply the OS with pseudo-disk devices (CD-ROM, floppy) ...

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Platform_Management...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Platform_Management_Interface)

<comment> patrickg-zill Yes, a lot of servers have this. My point was more along the idea that as long as the FBI has the drives, they don't need anything else - so they should return everything except the original drives.

<comment><USER7> Wouldn't the FBI need to secure any onboard storage, including an embedded computer running Linux? Can they (currently) guarantee that they've found all locations on which evidence could be stored?

<comment> patrickg-zill IPMI servers and related devices like Sun's LOM and HP's iLO have little to no storage space, perhaps a few MB of flash.

You can set up a limited number of users, like 16, and cannot store or access random data (i.e. you cannot use it like a 1GB USB drive). Of course, you could image that data, as there are tools under Linux etc. that let you read the IPMI / LOM / iLO information.

<comment><USER6> The management modules are often considerably more powerful than what is necessarily exposed via IPMI -- A number of SuperMicro's IPMI modules have more than a few megabytes of flash, and do run an embedded version of Linux.

The module's capabilities are not all that different from OpenWRT; they run Linux, have a network connection, provide a web UI including a 'VNC' server for the VGA console, run (IIRC) net-snmp ...

If I wanted to obscure my intentions, I definitely would leverage such non- obvious embedded systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Someone in that company needs to read the tao of backup. Section 3 - separation

<http://www.taobackup.com/>

</comment><comment><USER9> more reason to have at least a daily backup of your site on S3. Unless you are hosting trillions of TBs, its affordable enough as an offsite backup solution

<comment><USER2> What if they seize S3?

<comment><USER5> I think Amazon will have a better shot at either avoiding that or preventing outages from that.

<comment><USER2> Too bad you have to be a multi-billion-dollar corporation to be free from heavy-handed enforcement actions.

<comment><USER10> Actually a canny data-center operator might be able to offer a limited free service to something like a hospital, allowing them to argue that a wholesale shutdown might threaten lives. Done just right, the hospital gets a free service and the data-center gets protection.

<comment><USER11> Although the FBI have shown themselves to be quite capable of shutting down 911 service, which might threaten lives.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A Code Reference for Web Developers - mr-ravioli http://www.codebase.cc I created a quick code reference for web developers that allows simultaneous searching of the HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery documentations. Why? Because I think it is convenient to have the most important front-end language documentations in one searchable database.
Source Code: https://github.com/mr-ravioli/codebase
This is my very first attempt to develop a web application so I would be grateful for feedback. <comment><AUTHOR> Really cool idea, and great implementation

I think the things you have references for right now already have pretty good documentation, but if you take some of the things that have relatively difficult documentation (and some of the frameworks that documentation is more actively sought for), you would have an even better tool

for example, adding Django docs would be a life saver, because search on their official site is horrible.

<comment> mr-ravioli Thanks for your feedback.

That's a good point. I was thinking of adding the Python documentation anyway so I guess adding both Python and Django would make perfect sense.</comment></comment>


PureCSS-Lace: A drawing hand-coded entirely in HTML and CSS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cyanharlow/purecss-lace <comment><USER2> I'm stunned that the raw CSS for this is just 43KB, un-minified.</comment>


How a Car Engine Works - <AUTHOR> http://animagraffs.com/how-a-car-engine-works/ <comment><USER2> I'm changing my career slightly from full stack development to repairing and restoring old tractors and farming. I have a 1952 Case SC, a 1957 Fordson Major, and a 1946 Ford 2N in various conditions. I'm building a shop to work on them. Basically its an excuse to buy a sand blaster and paint room. Buy them for $500 and sell them for $3500 restored, pay for the tools and the next project tractor. Hopefully picking up a 1970 Ford 3600 this week. Old Diesels fascinate me.

<comment><USER3> I'm halfway through a similar transition to farming. It's funny how sometimes a new task can be an excuse to buy more tools. I'd be interested in reading more from you about your new work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I learned how they worked by taking one apart, putting it back together, and got it to run (it was a junkyard car). My auto shop teacher told me he was amazed, because I was a nerd and nerds had no mechanical aptitude.

<comment><USER5> Did you take a class in high school? Wish there was a place for adults to learn without a full fledged college course or certificate program.

<comment><USER6> Get a VW Bug or an ATV with an air-cooled, four-stroke engine. Buy a good torque-wrench, a socket set, some allen wrenches, and a proper disassembly/reassembly manual and get to work!

I have removed every rolling part of my ATV. It's quite strange to go 65MPH knowing that you put all the parts together... I am still alive so far, ha. :)

<comment><USER5> Last few cars I've owned seem to be designed to prevent the owner from even looking under the hood. They don't seem to design them for easy user access anymore. But then again, I came across a computer from ASUS the other day that said you void the warranty if you open up your case. WTF???

<comment><USER7> On the plus side, you have far more to work with these days than a Haynes manual. You'll have Youtube videos, discussion forum posts on every job, 'borrow a tool' programs from stores/libraries, a range of parts-suppliers competing for your dollars that will ship to your door...

<comment><USER8> Indeed. After looking in the right places I was able to get the 300-page shop manual for my motorcycle. Everything is very well diagramed and OEM parts are readily available online for not much money.

<comment><USER6> In my limited experience, OEM is __horrible __, unless it is the only option.

<comment><USER9> This is funny because there is a brand called "OEM" at parts stores that sells chinese junk.

I am all about finding the original parts that the dealer will sell, but on the aftermarket at reasonable prices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> semi-extrinsic The animations are nice, but it wouldn't hurt to step up the level of detail: there's no mention of ECU, MAF sensor, lambda sensors, injector pulse duration, throttle body, crankshaft sensor, flywheel, turbocharging, connection to accelerator pedal, etc..

But the most annoying detail is showing a distributor on a fuel injected engine. Come on, this isn't 1986, at least show us a dual coil pack wasted spark system.

<comment><USER10> That's nice and all, but until one understands the four stroke cycle, the rest of what you mention is noise. Suck, squeeze, bang, blow: until you know that, knowing what a lambda sensor is just uses up space that could be used learning Rust instead.

I mean, get real, anyone capable of understanding injector dwell is probably not clicking that link. It's not for the likes of you and me. What's next, go leave comments on the "Idiot's Guide to How Computers Work" about how it's not complete if they don't explain pointers?

<comment> semi-extrinsic My biggest gripe is not including the link to the accelerator pedal. If you don't know how pushing the pedal makes the engine spin faster, do you even have a basic understanding of how engines work?

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I'll give you that one. I think it does open a can of complexity, though, what with explaining intake vacuum and all. OTOH, it would solve the mystery for those that know what the accelerator cable attaches to, but have no idea how opening a plate makes "vroom vroom" noises.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The timing chain and the camshaft seems really inefficient; I'm looking forward to when camless designs become more mainstream. Koenigsegg (among others, I assume) has been working on this tech [0][1].

0: [http://blog.caranddriver.com/koenigseggs-camshaft-less- engin...](http://blog.caranddriver.com/koenigseggs-camshaft-less-engine- explained-watch-it-in-action-video/)

1: [https://youtu.be/Bch5B23_pu0](https://youtu.be/Bch5B23_pu0)

<comment><USER12> It _is_ really inefficient. A lot of energy is wasted compressing the valve springs to open the valves. This is a problem if you try to make a high- revving engine, for instance, in order to get better fuel efficiency at low speeds and good power at high rpms: to allow high-rpm operation, you need stiffer valve springs, but this significantly affects your fuel economy.

They've been working on camless valve actuation for decades. I read an article about a prototype system back in 1992. The article then said that the power requirements of the solenoids was a big problem. I'm not sure what the problem is these days. As you noted, Koenigsegg has a working prototype in an actual car (not on a test stand, connected to mains power, like the one in the article in 1992), and it seems to work fine. There's probably some kind of problems with reliability.

<comment><USER13> _This is a problem if you try to make a high-revving engine, for instance, in order to get better fuel efficiency at low speeds and good power at high rpms: to allow high-rpm operation, you need stiffer valve springs, but this significantly affects your fuel economy._

The alternative is to just not design for high RPM; the most efficient internal combustion engines are huge low-speed two-stroke diesels used for ships and stationary generators.

<comment><USER14> Large marine diesels have very low RPM. Some of them red-line at 102 RPM, and normally operate much less than that. A typical passenger cars idles at 1200RPM and redlines around 6-7K RPM.

Then again a single piston in the marine engine weighs 2x of an entire car so they can easily do things that one wouldn't bother to do on a smaller engine.

<comment><USER12> >A typical passenger cars idles at 1200RPM

No, they don't. 750rpm is pretty typical these days. They'll idle at higher speeds when cold, though, to warm up faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The Cartoon Network version.[1] Not bad, actually.

And, inevitably, the Jam Handy / Chevrolet film on engines.[2] There's a whole series of these, with ones for suspensions, transmissions, differentials, lubrication, and frames.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQj00NTFXew](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQj00NTFXew)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKbSloJ5o7o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKbSloJ5o7o)

<comment><USER16> Those videos aged really, really well (the 1930s ones)

</comment></comment><comment> ju-st If you like designing engines and cars then look at this game [http://store.steampowered.com/app/293760](http://store.steampowered.com/app/293760)

</comment><comment><USER17> What software do they use to make these animations? Does anyone know?

<comment><USER18> Blender, Flash professional, Photoshop and Illustrator. [https://www.behance.net/gallery/10749619/How-A-Car-Engine- Wo...](https://www.behance.net/gallery/10749619/How-A-Car-Engine- Works-\(animated-infographic\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Previous Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6332385](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6332385)

</comment><comment><USER20> Most of my guy friends really like cars. They know good amounts about different parts of the cars.

I've never enjoyed reading about them. So, I've never tried learning much about them. It also takes alot of time.

I wish there were more of these type of animated illustration. I've scanned it for a few minutes and I grasped the concept it was trying to show me relatively faster than anything I've ever encountered.

<comment><USER21> Theres a whole site full of them if you click the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have a question: exactly what causes the piston to come back after the intake/power stroke? Let me write what I guess I have understood -

1\. The intake stroke piston movement may be considered to be caused by gravity and/or atmospheric pressure

2\. The power stroke piston movement may be considered to be caused by gravity and/or atmospheric pressure and/or the expansion due to explosion all taken together

Correct me if I am wrong.

But what baffles me is this: what causes the piston movement during the compression stroke and exhaust stroke? Any expert here to enlighten me on this?

edit: typo

<comment><USER23> If you can find a pull-start gas engine lawn mower, you can learn lots from it. These things generally have a single piston. The pull string that you use to start it gets it moving in the right direction, and once it starts running on its own, it's momentum that brings it back around for another go.

Also keep in mind that this single piston engine is _two-stroke_ and not four as in the article.

Back to four stroke engines: Momentum and the firing of other pistons keeps the whole thing cycling back around. The more pistons you have, the more there are firing between each revolution of a given piston (and thus overcoming resistance and supplementing that momentum) and thus the more power available to drive the vehicle.

<comment><USER24> This is a great explanation. I'd add one small clarification:

> Back to four stroke engines: Momentum and the firing of other pistons keeps > the whole thing cycling back around

The firing of other pistons helps, but really, momentum alone is sufficient. There are tons of single-cylinder, 4 stroke motorcycle, scooter, and off- highway engines out there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Wow! What a straightforwardly cool and enriching post. I've had a vague idea of how engines work (as well as turbochargers) but somehow I've never bothered to get it straight.

</comment><comment><USER26> Does anyone know what software was used to render the animations? His interview with Adobe suggests that he makes 3D models in Blender, but I'm not sure about the renderer.

</comment><comment><USER27> How a gun works is also an amazing piece of artwork: [http://animagraffs.com/how-a-handgun- works-1911-45/](http://animagraffs.com/how-a-handgun-works-1911-45/)

</comment><comment><USER28> Single piston engine technology looks pretty promising as it has proven to be 30% more efficient than 4 piston combustible engine.

[https://youtu.be/JoQkTIfAB2U](https://youtu.be/JoQkTIfAB2U)

<comment><USER29> Doesn't TFA say that opposed pistons were used in the classic VW bug ("Flat Four"), suggesting there's a good reason they aren't used elsewhere?

<comment><USER12> As the other poster said, they have advantages and disadvantages. Subarus and Posches use them (though in the Porsches, they're flat-6 engines, not flat-4).

The big advantage is center of gravity: their shape lets them sit basically flat, near the ground, and since engines are the heaviest part of a car, this gives the car a lower center of gravity, which is good for handling.

The main disadvantage is mechanical complexity: instead of all the cylinders lined up in a row, with the crankshaft on one side and the valves and dual cams on the other, you have two banks of pistons, each with their own camshafts. So now instead of two camshafts, two camshaft gears, and one timing belt/chain, you need double all those. This of course increases cost too.

Flat-fours also tend to have rather distinctive exhaust notes, which not everyone finds pleasing.

Another notable place flat-4 engines are used is in small aircraft. Lycoming and Continental engines for small (e.g. Cessna) airplanes and helicopters are all flat-4.

<comment><USER30> Porsche now makes a flat 4 engine again- the new Boxster/Cayman engines are turbo 4.

On the cost issue, Porsche famously tried to cut costs for the 996/Boxster gen 1 by using a common cylinder head casting for both sides. This was done by flipping it over for the other side. The only problem with this was providing the drive for the camshaft from the rear of the engine. To do this, they created an intermediate shaft operating at the rear of the engine. This worked ok but it couldn't have an oil fed bearing, so they used a roller bearing. This caused a failure rate if something like 5% of engines, and caused a class action suit that Porsche had to settle.

The other advantage of boxer engines is their suitability for air cooling and packaging. In fact, Porsche produced an aircraft version of the flat 6 but it ended up being too exprensive to build and run, despite outperforming a lycoming by a long way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I like the animation on this site: [http://auto.howstuffworks.com/engine1.htm](http://auto.howstuffworks.com/engine1.htm)

</comment><comment><USER32> It may be karma-bait, but it's very nice looking karma-bait.

OTOH, no inline six, which is the platonic ideal of the ICE.

As such, I can't up vote this.

<comment><USER33> No rotary either!

<comment><USER34> My previous car was a Mazda RX-8, and my current car is a Nissan LEAF. I feel under-represented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Watercooling on an enthusiast/gaming PC and a car's radiator + waterpump definitely has its similarities.

</comment><comment><USER36> When I click and drag the mouse, it doesn't rotate or zoom the model. Am I using it wrong? ;)

<comment><USER21> Yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Suck, squish, bang, blow.

</comment><comment><USER38> Brilliant post;

<comment><USER39> Second that. We should thank Jake for all those amazing Animagraffs on his site. Those are a lot of work to produce.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> It was only worth a few points each time its submitted. If you're going to post something a few years old, then put the date in the title.</comment>


Building Startup Sales Teams - <AUTHOR> http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/10155/Building-Startup-Sales-Teams-Tips-For-Founders.aspx

<comment><USER2> For a startup, I think #1 should always be, "Everyone is a sales person."

<comment><USER3> Working out sales strategy has turned out to be the most difficult thing for our startup for precisely this reason - none of us are sales people! My partner and I are both very introverted, and although we have a great product (i think), we're having a hell of a time with PR, marketing and sales.

Laundry lists like in the linked post are useful to reflect upon, but don't give great specifics. I think that sales is a very human skill and undertaking, and it may be something you have or don't have.

Does anyone have any resources that have helped them learn?</comment></comment>


True Colors of Travel Bliss Revealed - <AUTHOR> http://blog.foundersnetwork.com/2012/09/travel-like-a-local-for-travel-bliss/

<comment><USER2> My AVG detects an exploit on this site. Isn't this a well know site?</comment>


I got my Facebook Ad in front of 8k people with 0 sales. Why? - <AUTHOR> http://www.conversionsurge.com/facebook-ads-how-i-got-zero-sales-from-8k-people/

<comment><USER2> From the rest of your copy it seems you are probably already quite confident as to the reasons for your poor performance.

From my reading I wouls say the actual banner image is most likely the issue. There was nothing on the banner which would let me know this was a local event at my local library and would be suitable for me as a local small business orator.

I think the current banner image didn't stand out and even if I read it I would assume it was an online course or product.

Would be good to see your conversion funnel as that would show where the biggest drop came.

Well written article by the way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, evolve. I think you're right about the current banner which is also what James mentioned. I will definitely keep that in mind for my next ad!

As for the conversion funnel, that is a good point and something I probably should have put in the article. Based on what I was seeing in GA, the drop off from my landing page to Eventbrite's registration page was 62%. Yet once they left my site I could not track them any more or see why they weren't signing up. GA just told me the number of times the registration page was shown.

And incidentally, that page had the exact same copy as my landing page (since people could also view the event in Eventbrite's network, I wanted to communicate the same message).

Drives me crazy that I cannot figure out what the issue was! Any recommendations on other ticketing/purchasing services for events like this are welcome :)

</comment></comment><comment> james-skemp Good read, but didn't need to tell me to watch the video at the end of the post; I know it was long because I read it (on the bus, which is also why video wasn't an option).

I'll also agree with evolve2k; your first ad graphic was far superior. The second looked like it was rushed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point re: video James. Appreciate the feedback on the ad graphic too...it was a bit rushed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So, you're an expert with Google's tools and want to set up a workshop... so of course your first choice is to go use Facebook...

</comment><comment><USER4> This was a surprisingly good tutorial on how to set up and run an ad campaign over FB.</comment>


Facebook is broken. - <AUTHOR> http://sefsar.com/post/19716878409/its-broken

<comment><USER2> Dramatic words, but fortunately there's a decisive solution. Opt out.

But is there really _no_ value in what FB offers?

For my part, it keeps me connected to friends from school and university and other important activities in life. It reminds me to connect and stay connected. This is valuable - otherwise I can get too focused on work and networking and the random stream of what's latest and loudest.

The UI widgets are not the point. The relationships are.</comment>


Instagram-Famous Teen Shows the Dark Backstory of Her Perfect Selfies - <AUTHOR> http://www.teenvogue.com/story/essena-oneill-instagram-selfies-backstory <comment><USER2> She had to pose is what I'm getting from this. Granted, I'm not one of those people who thinks modelling is simple, but I'm not following what is severely dark about that.

<comment><USER3> Apparently it took over her life, became an obsession. Social media made it easy to collect acclaim and popularity on a massive scale. Massive compared to what physical, real life offered.

<comment><USER2> Right, so like modelling, which is not exactly an obscure occupation. That she did it using instagram doesn't make much difference there.

I think it's important to point out that I am an old man, not a teenager, so overdramatizing things doesn't boost my engagement.

<comment><USER4> Modeling is not an obsession, it's a job. You do it when you're young, smoke a lot of cigarettes etc, and then you move on. It's like grad school but with even more skeezy old guys.

(Now, math modeling may become an obsession...)

edit: just to be clear, oldmanjay, I am not making any comments about old guys in general! some of my best friends are old guys!

<comment><USER5> _" Modeling is not an obsession, it's a job."_

Becoming a model is an obsession for some young women. For models, it's a gig job, and getting gigs is hard. Only the top 100 or so models worldwide make real money. If you're in LA, you probably know some actress/model/waitress types. I had a friend whose career peak, after years of work, was one McDonalds' commercial that got nationwide distribution.

Below the top tier, the work is not that great. There's trade show work as a booth babe. There's catalog modeling ("OK, the next one is the blue sweater, #6522, and hurry it up, we have 20 more to do before lunch").

<comment><USER4> Totally agreed. Hence the comparison with graduate school: you often have to work other jobs to support the effort, you've got a dream you'll make it big, you realize the toll it's taking on your life, and you probably stop doing it eventually. Even if you "make it," you're probably not a top model (a prof at Princeton) but instead a commercial model (prof at directional state U or small Midwestern religious school). Below the top tier, the work is not what you were sold on in grad school, but you do get to make money doing something you kind of or really like. (Please quit if you don't like it at all.)

Even American literature has way better job security and pension prospects than modeling, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> She's trying to create a movement out of it: [http://www.letsbegamechangers.com](http://www.letsbegamechangers.com). I'm not sure how I feel about this, if it's sincere and genuine or just a marketing ploy. Hopefully the former.

<comment><USER7> Wow. Is she advocating for complete removal of social media from the web? Good. It has done nothing good for anyone.

<comment><USER8> Not sure if this is sarcasm. Job opportunities, facilitating protests/revolutions, artistic collaborations, ...

<comment><USER7> Not at all. See my reply to your sibling comment. Add to your list massive government and corporate spying.

<comment><USER8> That's fine and I agree to some extent. But you said 'nothing good for anyone.' Some organizations abusing social media doesn't nullify the good things that have happened because of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article strikes me as a person who begged for attention via social media changing their tactics and begging for attention by being anti-social media. That is to say, this strikes me as quite vapid.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is a total ploy. There is a link to "cool products".

This is the ULTIMATE in viral marketing. By removing herself from Instagram, she has done a humble-brag to get attention. By highlighting the issues she has with her quite attractive photos, she actually gets _more_ attention, and can become a thought-leader and thus product pusher for marketing firms.

The difference is that the marketing firms will now be new-age companies. From her info page [1]:

"I wish to create a platform that acts to spread new age messages of conscious living, addition to technology, minimise the celebrity culture, promote veganism, plant based nutrition, environmental awareness, social issues, gender equality, controversial art etc."

Look, I'm probably just cynical, but this seems to be a self-promotion vehicle by an attractive teenage girl.

1\. [http://www.letsbegamechangers.com/info/](http://www.letsbegamechangers.com/info/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I think perhaps the most relevant bit is that celebrity can feed a hunger you didn't know existed, and drive you off balance unexpectedly. She isn't the first, nor the last, young women to get sucked in. What is perhaps unique here is that she didn't have a sleezy promoter or other manipulative type who suckered her into the life, instead she did it to herself by putting herself out there on Instagram. All the angst and none of the side benefits of being this week's hot fashion model.

</comment><comment><USER6> And now she is on The Guardian's front page: [http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/nov/03/instagram- star-...](http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/nov/03/instagram-star-essena- oneill-quits-2d-life-to-reveal-true-story-behind-images)

</comment><comment><USER12> Uh oh! Someone _lied_ on the internet, and then felt bad about it!

</comment><comment><USER13> Some people are more attractive, cooler, more interesting, than others. It's not some evil plot by the corporations to make us feel bad about ourselves. These people are really out there. The left wing narrative that all bad things that happen to us stem from some structural power imbalance in our society, is blind to this fact of nature. So they need strange stories like this to explain away the apparent differences in how popular and cool people are.

<comment><USER9> You'd don't think corporations use marketing to intentionally make people feel bad about themselves?

<comment><USER13> Maybe some do, but there is a distinction between intentionally making people feel bad about themselves, and advertisements that simply holding up some look or personality as attractive/cool. Some people might _interpret_ the latter as an attempt to make people feel bad about themselves, but I respectfully disagree.

When it comes to intentionally making people feel bad about themselves, I don't see much of this, since negative advertising is not very popular. Most advertising I see is motivational/aspirational, i.e. showing people an image that people believe they can attain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What is dark about this?

</comment><comment><USER15> "BREAKING: Young woman called 'brave' for tearing down walls she alone put up"</comment>


Linkedin's Response to My "Phishing with Intro" Post - <AUTHOR> http://jordan-wright.github.io/blog/2013/11/01/linkedins-response-to-my-phishing-with-intro-post/ <comment><USER2> Someone's obviously champing at the bit to write the comment about t-shirts versus bug bounties. Before they write that, they should consider that a company that doesn't already have a bounty can't simply create one on the spot; those programs need to be reviewed by counsel.

I think it's inevitable that most tech companies are going to end up offering formal bounty programs, but you should remember that only a select few do today.

<comment><USER3> Even if they did, would they actually award the bounty even though the bug was directly taken to a blog post, and not reported to them first?

I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that there generally was a tacit agreement that you only get the bounty if you don't go public with it before it's fixed.

<comment><USER4> You're right - I don't think you qualify for a bounty if you write a blog post and then the team contacts you. Usually there are strict requirements including a responsible disclosure to the company directly.

<comment><USER5> please don't parrot nonsense like "responsible" disclosure; it mangles language to normalize behavior these companies want (what's the opposite of responsible? Not letting companies sit around and procrastinate while users are or may be being exploited is therefore irresponsible.)

I'm not necessarily saying people shouldn't disclose first, but labeling it as responsible is grating.

<comment><USER6> so it's optimistic disclosure? assume that the vendor will respond responsibly.

<comment><USER7> How about private (or partial) disclosure? As opposed to just `disclosure', or public disclosure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > "Linkedin isn't that kind of company"

But it _is_ the kind of company that set up this massive MITM hole in the first place, and thought it was a good idea to "offer" this "feature" to unsuspecting targets, er, "users".

They may have fixed this "bug", but the bug that is the feature itself remains, and it can only be fixed in one way...

<comment><USER9> I get the snark. But using their own words against them is very disingenuous.

Recognizing people for being good people, as the author did, should be completely separate from a product that you believe is a bad product.

<comment><USER10> _using their own words against them is very disingenuous._

How is that disingenuous? Was the accusation not sincere?

<comment><USER9> Disingenuous meaning not truthful, which it was not.

<comment><USER10> That's not what the word means.

 _1\. Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating

2\. Pretending to be unaware or unsophisticated;

3\. Unaware or uninformed; naive._

Generally it is used to mean untruthful _on purpose, with an intent to deceive_ , usually by acting as if you're unaware of something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > he made it immediately clear that he didn't call to ask me to take down the > post – "Linkedin isn't that kind of company".

I'm very glad to hear this.

Disappointed (in general) that this even needs to be noted, but glad to hear it. Unfortunately, this is not something that can be taken for granted.

</comment><comment><USER12> Seems like they handled this very well. Maybe more security teams are being especially cautious after the Yahoo security reporting fiasco. While I still don't agree with the basic concept behind Intro, I think they handled this appropriately.

</comment><comment><USER13> I would prefer an actual check or some sort of evaluation of the time he spent on the phone/email trying to explain the fix to linked in. Sending him a bunch of advertising materials with logos all over them is kind of disrespectful I think.

<comment><USER14> The guy could certainly have just ignored the phone call, just because the company contacts you does not mean you need to help them (even if they are being nice).

While I think that a bug bounty is the RIGHT thing to do in this scenario, the security guy likely couldn't just decide on his own to give out thousands of dollars, so something is better than nothing, and if the expectation was nothing, then well, sounds decent to me.

<comment><USER2> I think that is literally true; that is, I think that a security person at a large company would be in serious trouble if they paid someone for reporting a security vulnerability out of their own pockets. There are legal implications to opening up a bug bounty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If LinkedIn sent me this box of self-aggrandising cruft I'd be geniunely pissed at them for imposing onto me the responsibility for its disposal.

<comment><USER16> It's like the Mitch Hedberg bit: "Whenever I walk, people try to hand me out flyers. And when someone tries to hand me out a flyer, it's kinda like they're saying, 'Here—you throw this away.'"

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is there a reason why LinkedIn couldn't have run the IMAP proxy on the device itself, instead of having email pass through their remote servers?

<comment><USER18> Apps can't elect to be started up when the phone boots, nor can they count on avoiding being killed if the user is running a graphically intense game or something.

<comment><USER19> Except VoIP apps, since we want all apps with that capability to start on boot even if we only use them once a month, and we don't want any others to start on boot even if we use them daily. iOS regulations are so stupid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've never really liked Linkedin's product that much, but they addressed this issue in a very mature way - instead of rebuking it in a press release or arguing with him, they fixed the issue and thanked him. I'm impressed.

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't want to be cynical but when I read small token of appreciation, I thought it would be something more than just branded stuff from the company. You could argue that all they could send was LinkedIn marketing material but it just rubs me the wrong way when companies put out their branded trinkets as "gifts".

Please just give me the money. I'll decide which companies I will do free advertising for.

<comment><USER22> Meh, that's why it's a _token_ of appreciation. If I were the guy, I'd be more offended by money than by some marketing trinket; sending me money implies they thought my involvement was worth that amount of money, and it's unlikely they would send enough to correspond to a reasonable hourly rate. Sending a trinket with no monetary value makes no such implication; it's purely a social gesture, not an economic one.

On the other hand, if some company wants to thank me for something in the future with something more than tradeshow swag, I would not turn down a nice bottle of whisk[e]y, just sayin'.

<comment><USER21> You have a point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is the way a business should be run. LinkedIn gets a +1 in my book

<comment><USER24> agreed, a+

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Everyone makes mistakes. It looks like LinkedIn's team handled this in a professional manner. I can dig it.

</comment><comment><USER26> I missed the original "Phishing with Intro" post. After reading it now, and the update, from the description it sounds like all they did was randomize the ids to make it hard to target the LinkedIn content with CSS. But surely it's still possible, no? The content is injected at the head of the body, so just target it using sibling selectors. You can't override any !important style this way (as the ID selector takes precedence), but maybe you could find a non-!important-specified style that can still be used to affect it. Heck, maybe just set a -webkit-transform that collapses the height to 0.

</comment><comment><USER27> That's a pretty awesome tshirt, least LinkedIn security did a good job with their response and some awesome swag.

</comment><comment><USER28> So they rewarded you by sending you merchandising for their company.

I was hoping that at the very least, they'd offer you a job.

<comment><USER29> 1\. Finding one security problem is not necessarily enough to qualify for a job offer

2\. They sent him a trophy. It wasn't just any ball pen with the company logo but a nice, topical t-shirt

As someone else pointed out - he disclosed the vulnerability publicly before informing LinkedIn. Most companies wouldn't have given him anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> They should have paid the guy - not send cheap trinkets. And also no chump change as well. He went out of his way to even help them roll-out the hot fix.

Don't be a 'cheap kind of company' linkedin. Pay up.

</comment><comment><USER31> Bollocks.</comment>


Does releasing failed clinical trial data jeopardize ongoing trials? - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2014/01/27/did-roches-press-release-jeopardize-the-ongoing-clinical-trials-for-its-schizophrenia-drug-bitopertin/

<comment><USER2> The same argument can be used for successful clinical trials. Should pharmaceutics hold all the clinical trials results for 100 years and only sell black box medicine pills?

To be clear, I think that more transparency is good, and the lack of publication of unsuccessful studies is a problem because it causes a strong bias in metastudies and border cases.</comment>


Great Ideas in Theoretical Computer Science - <AUTHOR> http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-080-great-ideas-in-theoretical-computer-science-spring-2008/

<comment><USER2> The name of this course is amusingly similar to one offered at CMU, "Great Theoretical Ideas in Computer Science", the content seems similar as well. Perhaps MIT was inspired by it?

[1]: <http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/course/15-251/>

<comment><USER3> Check the dates: the MIT course is "As taught in 2008".

<comment><USER4> CMU's "Great Theoretical Ideas in Computer Science" (formerly known as "How to Think Like a Computer Scientist") dates back to at least 2003 and possibly earlier. It's fairly infamous. It would not be surprising if MIT's drew inspiration from it, nor would it be wrong if it did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for posting. As a self-trained hacker, it's nice sometimes to get read up on broadly-applicable theories in computer science from a current university pedagogy perspective.</comment>


Systemd Is Not Magic Security Dust - <AUTHOR> https://www.agwa.name/blog/post/systemd_is_not_magic_security_dust <comment><USER2> Systemd makes it easy to add additional limitations to every service you're running. More easily restrict all your services (NTP client, DNS caching server, etc).

It adds an easy to use method to restrict all of the daemons and services that someone might be running. Further, because the unit files are often shipped with the daemon/service, it'll do this by default on every install. Not just to the ones which have been looked at by a sysadmin. So a standard RHEL server by default has more restrictions than before.

The examples are pretty unconvincing IMO. The article talks about an email server. Systemd will provide an easy method to not have one service read the other one. In the examples it talks about email server and a web server. But completely ignores that someone will not just target that specific service, you could just as well compromise the NTP client and then move from there to another service.

Obviously systemd is just one small layer and security is not a yes/no thing. But why then talk specifically about systemd? The article seems to suggest that it's better to not use these abilities. This goes against the usual defence in depth security IMO.

<comment><USER3> >Systemd makes it easy to add additional limitations to every service you're running

So does chroot. And so does jails. And posix capabilities. And cgroups...

<comment><USER2> It seems you skipped the bit where I said that those restrictions are often shipped by upstream and as such applied to everyone by default? It's one thing to lock down your machine(s), systemd allows to lock down loads of services for everyone.

It's not perfect, it doesn't do everything. But is your suggestion really not to make use of systemd abilities because maybe something else could be used? How does this not go against the defence in depth theory?

Try and use (filesystem) capabilities. Now apply that security fix: capability is gone. Further, that was just a change made to your machine(s).

It seems much easier to improve the security on all fronts instead of going for some idealistic super safe solution that either takes ages or doesn't happen.

Example: pretty nice to restrict that Jabber daemon written in Java from accessing too much of the filesystem.

<comment><USER3> Well, posix capabilities can be packaged upstream do that. So can Capsicum, for that matter. And so can chroot...

<comment><USER4> If only there were a free POSIX-ish OS that did privilege separation and chroot for daemons by default. Perhaps some enterprising Canadian developer could base it on the BSD kernel.

<comment><USER3> Well then, there's your proof.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The author of this blogpost is publicly insulting David Strauss (the systemd contributor to whom he responds) on twitter: [https://twitter.com/__agwa/status/782643469034528769](https://twitter.com/__agwa/status/782643469034528769)

<comment><USER6> To be fair, he's doing so while referencing a response from that developer that was just as insulting. I don't want to get into a debate over whether two wrongs make a right, but the flow was "Systemd is not good", followed by a reply of "you're just a child throwing a tantrum", __then __followed by the insulting tweets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I quite like systemd on my newer notebooks, hate it on servers. Different users (DWH != 1-person desktop installation) have different requirements.

@munin[0] did a pretty good illustration on why both pro/con systemd camps might be right about their reasons:

→ So, systemd is kind of a perfect microcosm of all the 'problematic' behavior in tech, all at the same time. It's a project that is dedicated to novelty and a specific set of goals - mostly speed-centric - above all else. And, to its credit, it -does- make certain linux systems boot faster than other, competing init systems. However. First, the way in which systemd has progressed has taken specific advantage of certain problems in the open-source community. Namely, that there are many projects that have little or no attention paid to them, despite being infrastructurally critical.

→ So there is little desire by various linux distributors to make the effort to maintain them - and when someone shows up offering to replace and maintain that functionality, taking the responsibility off the already overworked maintainers' plate? That's attractive.

→ Open source maintainers are always in a deep technical deficit trying to get these old bits and pieces maintained, so they're eager to get the help, and don't look too closely at what his 'help' entails.

→ And unfortunately, what this 'help' entails is the highly toxic systemd community - and I use 'community' in the loosest sense, because it really works out to being a sort of cult, spearheaded by a specific individual with the ultimate power of acceptance or rejection over anyone else's participation in the project.

→ Which is really unfortunate, because that guy's got an ego the size of Manhattan. And he continually refuses to take criticism over his design and implementation choices - take a look at what's left of any bug reports.

→ I say "what's left" because he has a history of purging anything he considers to be "un-useful" \- that is, critical - from the archives

→ Now, certainly, you -could- go ahead and fork the project! Except now you have a giant codebase and no community to work with to fix it. You could always convince the distros to abandon it! ...except you're now up against a bunch of overworked people who, frankly, won't care. And, worse, now that it's a de-facto 'standard' in the linux world, you have a whole lot of institutional inertia to work against to try to replace it, and - unlike when they replaced init - a dedicated group of people who are utterly convinced they're doing the right things advocating against rolling back the changes. And, worse, there -are- some good points. SysVInit -is- grody as all get-out.

→ However, because of their dedication to novelty above all else, they're making not only all the same mistakes sysvinit had to learn...

→ [ And because of ego, rejecting these mistakes as being 'un-useful criticism' ]

→ But they're making whole new kinds of mistakes - things like [https://cfp.systemd.io/en/systemdconf_2016/public/events/21](https://cfp.systemd.io/en/systemdconf_2016/public/events/21) … which is just -staggeringly- WTF.

→ It's this whole fun trend of "fail fast" that, sure, looks great in a startup producing some new kind of app for making your phone go yawp

→ But it's not -really- a very good model for infrastructural type concerns - the things that need to be, by reason of their importance - conservative and slow to change. You want your infra to be -reliable-, not "full-featured" \- at least if you've any sense.

→ So: You have the trend-chasing guys who show up to solve "all your problems" at the cost of making mistakes that could be seen a mile away. Eventually leaving you far worse off and making a huge mess that will be -extremely- expensive to fix when a reckoning comes. All in the name of some "change" that's needed from the status quo and without understanding why the status was quo. What's the solution here? Well, for one thing, take a look at the fine print when Mephistopheles shows up offering to take care of all your problems. It's too late for Linux - most Linuces are pretty much doomed at this point into becoming utter travesties that make WinMe look reasonable. Though the Devuan and Alpine folks seem to have some good impetus behind them.

→ Consider carefully what consequences are going to show up from adopting these new and nifty 'features'.

→ Consider that there is a very large difference in requirements between core infrastructure and user-facing things.

→ [ Because user-facing things can fail fast and be updated fast, but core infra is much more expensive and time-consuming to do either ]

[0] Source: [https://twitter.com/munin/status/781257878321582080](https://twitter.com/munin/status/781257878321582080)

Sorry about the above format, was too lazy to do a 'storify' or 'tweetlonger' also hoping he puts that into a blog.

<comment><USER4> Can't stand it on servers. It takes an absurd amount of effort to just get a deterministic non-parallel service initiation. And the whole "systemctl start foo.service && systemctl status foo.service" bit to make sure it actually started is such a regression it's mind-boggling. Plus it hates the fact that I use a static /dev tree (that's the only way I've found to do it on a server while keeping my sanity).

On my laptop, it's fine, I guess, though even there I aesthetically dislike parallel service initiation; I'm glad Jessie still lets you replace it with a real init system, though I wish epoch [1] were packaged.

[1] [http://universe2.us/epoch.html](http://universe2.us/epoch.html)

<comment><USER8> > _deterministic non-parallel service initiation_

When is this a problem?

> _systemctl start foo.service && systemctl status foo.service_

If you need to do that, the problem is with _foo.service_ , not systemd. If foo.service fails to start, the right way, then "systemd start foo" _will_ fail. This is true of any init system: if a service starts but then bails out after success has been reported to the user, it's too late to change that.

> static /dev tree

What's insanity-causing about a dynamic /dev tree "on a server"?

<comment><USER4> > When is this a problem?

You're joking, right?

Sysadmins _need_ a deterministic boot order, period. If I want services to activate on a request I'll use inetd, but I haven't wanted that in years.

> If you need to do that, the problem is with foo.service, not systemd.

This isn't about assigning blame, this is about my server being usable. If a service fails to start I need the command that called it to fail also.

> What's insanity-causing about a dynamic /dev tree "on a server"?

Again, it's non-deterministic. Worse yet, it's declaratively configured in a million and one udev rules instead of one imperative run control script (which would at least be better, though still a bad idea) I need the devices on my servers to always have the same names and numbers, and obviously a static tree which doesn't expose any surface for my error or somebody else's attack is strictly better than a configurable system that does expose those surfaces.

My run control scripts start the services that need to be started, in the order they need to be started, one at a time, because at 3 am with the alarms going off, that is transparent to me or to whoever has replaced me after the tragic bus accident. Sysadmins get this, which is why so much of the pushback against systemd came from us. Distribution maintainers love systemd, and I get that, but I'm not a distribution maintainer. So now my site-local imperative run control scripts replace an upstream declarative config system rather than a distro-maintained set of run control scripts. C'est la vie.

<comment><USER9> > My run control scripts start the services that need to be started, in the > order they need to be started, one at a time, because at 3 am with the > alarms going off, that is transparent to me or to whoever has replaced me > after the tragic bus accident.

If your services need to be started in a particular order to work your services are broken.

I've seen this sort of setup over and over again. Some custom 'startservices.pl' script that starts services "one at a time" in the "right order" like application server -> web server.

Then one day the DBA restarts the database that lives on another box, the app server crashes and the entire site is down.

So you get paged at 3am and run your startservices.pl script to fix the site. Great job, pat yourself on the back.

Meanwhile, a site run by admins that use process supervision had a 5 second outage until the app server process was restarted automatically.

You can tell systemd that one service depends on another, but it shouldn't really be needed. This doesn't even have anything to do with systemd. You can do the same thing using runit.

> Sysadmins get this, which is why so much of the pushback against systemd > came from us.

..."us". No. You don't speak for everyone.

<comment><USER4> > If your services need to be started in a particular order to work your > services are broken.

Umm... that's possibly the silliest thing I've read on HN, which is going a ways.

I don't know about you, but I like for my web server to come up _after_ the NFS share it reads from is mounted. YMMV.

<comment><USER9> > I like for my web server to come up after the NFS share it reads from is > mounted.

Why does this matter? Your load balancer or service discovery layer should detect that the web server is not functioning properly and take it out of rotation. What do you do when your NFS server has an outage?

Even if you DID care about that sort of thing, systemd has a RequiresMountsFor option:

      RequiresMountsFor=

        Takes a space-separated list of absolute paths. Automatically adds dependencies of type Requires= and After= for all mount units required to access the specified path.

Or with something like runit you would just do

      #!/bin/sh
      # web/run
      if [ -d /web/root ] ; then
        exit 2
      fi

      .. normal start commands here

That way if the box comes up before the NFS server the web server process will still properly start on its own as soon as NFS comes back up.

I'm sure your hacked up scripts handle this scenario or anything else that can go wrong. Or maybe you get paged at 3am every few days when something breaks. YMMV.

<comment><USER4> Hm. You seem to have a lot invested in convincing me that the systems I've been using for over a decade don't actually work. _shrug_.

Yes, I agree there are complicated ways that systemd and other rc systems can, largely, emulate the flexibility I get from writing a bash script to start the services I want started. I just don't really want them.

<comment><USER9> > You seem to have a lot invested in convincing me that the systems I've been > using for over a decade don't actually work.

Yes, I used to work with people like you. "What's wrong with this method? we've been using these scripts for 10 years!"

And every time the database restarts the app server crashes and the site goes down. And for 10 years this has been seen as perfectly normal. After all, it's so simple! At 3am all someone has to do is login and run some site specific bash scripts that someone hacked together 10 years ago.

<comment><USER4> > And every time the database restarts the app server crashes and the site > goes down.

Nope. I've also never had these phantom poorly behaved forking daemons leaving orphan processes all over the process space that people claim drove them to systemd. Like I said, YMMV. What I've built works really, really well, and can be picked up tomorrow by anybody who knows sh.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Berlin, 1918–1919: Käthe Kollwitz, Witness to History - <AUTHOR> https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/10/15/kathe-kollwitz-witness-to-history/ <comment><USER2> If there would be time travel "Witness the history tours" Berlin at that time would be a frequent destination.

Around that time so much fundamental stuff changed at once in the Europe.

In 1913 there was one square kilometer in Vienna where Freud, Jung, Hitler, Trotsky, Stalin and Tito lived. Hitler and Trotsky were regulars in the the same cafe. Then there was WWI. Albert Einstein was becoming famous, quantum mechanics was being discovered. Einstein and Henri Bergson debated 1920 in Paris.

<comment><USER3> One of the weird things about history compared to the present is just how few people there were around. Population has more or less uniformly quadrupled over the past 100 years, and doubled in the 100 years before that. Everything is much more diffuse than it once was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Käthe Kollwitz work is nothing short of being remarkable German expressionism. IMO arguably more impressive that Egon Schiele and her work and prints are still affordable. [https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/65625953_kathe- kollwitz...](https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/65625953_kathe- kollwitz-1867-1945-woodcut-proletariat)

<comment><USER5> Check out Ernst Barlach for more awesome expressionism from that period, both sculptural and drawn.

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ernst+barlach&t=iphone&ia=images&i...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ernst+barlach&t=iphone&ia=images&iax=images)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a book of her prints. The way she is able to capture faces is astonishing. They're not highly detailed, but it just looks like the person is in front of you. They have a photographic quality while almost looking like charcoal sketches. Amazing.

</comment><comment><USER7> I recently read Jason Lutes' Berlin trilogy; they're beautiful graphic novels, set in the early to mid thirties. Highly recommend as a portrait of a precarious time.

One point that stood out to me was the low level street violence amongst the various factions - communists and fascists - which meant that both sides had readymade, active militias. And the unaffiliated ultimately siding with the law and order group looking to make Germany great again.

Of course, had the communists won out, we may have seen another Stalinist type country, as that was the popular strain of communism at the time...

<comment><USER8> I dont think there were fascists fighting the communist revolutionaies in Germany in 1918-1919. The fascist parties arose in the 1920's in response to the communists.

<comment><USER9> He was talking about a graphic novel set in the 30s.

There were definitely right-wing militias in the period you're talking about though. Just not what we'd call NAZI or fascist.

<comment><USER10> "Fascism" as a political description originates with Benito Mussolini's movement, around 1919:

[https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=fascism](https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=fascism)

<comment><USER9> Yes, but not recognized that way in Germany at the time.

It was nationalist right wing militias that killed Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht (Spartakusbund)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Handheld with AVR - <AUTHOR> http://rossum.posterous.com/avr-homebrew-device-with-iphone-aspirations A man that built a handhel with AVR microcontroller. No doubt that is amazing project. <comment><USER2> It says that the images never "linger" i RAM, that they go direct from SD card to the screen. That sounded like magic, which made made me check out the ILI9325 LCD controller (<http://www.ilitek.com/products-txt.asp?ck=17>), and I was relieved to learn that the screen controller features a 172800-byte frame buffer. So, the CPU has 4 KB of RAM, and the display has almost 169 KB. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Written in C++ (w/classes) and compiled using avr-gcc. Board schematics, code, makefile and specs -- all open-source. A lot to look at and learn from. Very generous. Thank you. Well done.

</comment><comment><USER4> Amazing work on both the hardware and software. Kudos.</comment>


Anatomy of a $60 video game - <AUTHOR> http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/02/anatomy-of-a-60-dollar-video-game.html <comment><USER2> The data is three years old. Is their newer data? What about electronic delivery methods like Stream?</comment>


Can the planet afford the exorbitant power demands of machine learning? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/16/can-planet-afford-exorbitant-power-demands-of-machine-learning <comment><USER2> Maybe we should use people as a power source:)</comment>


They may have the money, but we have the tools of technology - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/e2d93386555f

<comment><USER2> "GOV.UK increased signups to the organ donations register by 10,000 every month with just a bit of clever A/B testing as a side project."

Interesting.</comment>


Lifetimes of cryptographic hash functions - <AUTHOR> https://valerieaurora.org/hash.html <comment><USER2> Zooko Wilcox privately showed some data at the Decentralized Web Summit suggesting that if you extend these results with newer data, the apparent pattern changes: up until around SHA-1, hash algorithms would eventually break, but since SHA-256, we "figured out how to build them right" and now they can be expected to last "forever."

I don't know if his conclusion is right, and unfortunately he hasn't published it, but it at least seems plausible to me. A cryptographic hash function shouldn't be a ticking time bomb if you have the right theoretical basis.

</comment><comment><USER3> >If you are using compare-by-hash to generate addresses for data that can be supplied by malicious users, you should have a plan to migrate to a new hash every few years. ..

I'm not a crypto expert, but it seems to me that the field is maturing and you can expect a plateau where hash functions like sha-256 or sha3-256 will be around for a long time. 256-bit key length is large enough to resist even quantum computers if the algorithm is OK.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it makes sense to make assumptions about what the landscape will look like years from now. (And note that SHA-256 already has a strength- reduction published.)

Better to write your code _today_ to assume that you may need to swap out the hash function later. Not _that_ hard; just treat it as opaque, and design your protocols and storage formats to allow migrating to a new hash in the future.</comment></comment>