Show HN: Hacky – Hacker News app for Mac - <AUTHOR> http://www.hackyapp.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, app developer here. I hope some of you may like my little app. To prevent too much ranting here are some quick answers to possible questions:

Q: The Hacker News website provides much more functionality than your app.

A: That's right. The app isn't made to replace the Hacker News website. It's made for frequent readers like me who want a quick and friendly-on-the-eye way to access the stories.

Q: I want your app but I don't want to pay for it.

A: No problem, Hacky is open source! Just get a copy of the source on GitHub and build it on your machine.

Q: Why are you then charging money for it in the first place?

A: Personally I like getting my apps via Mac App Store. It means easy updating and restoring. Unfortunately providing an app in the MAS isn't free for the developer as he has to purchase a Developer Certificate from Apple. (Additionally a developer likes to buy a beer from time to time)

Relevant Links:

Website: <http://www.hackyapp.com>

Mac App Store: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacky/id584949645?ls=1&m...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacky/id584949645?ls=1&mt=12)

GitHub: <https://github.com/eliaskg/Hacky>

Edit: Here, have some Promo Codes:

      NPLEWFH4PT6X
      XNLHAXHPA3FN
      FRAAR3RL797W
      MHLW7MH9EYYP
      KPM36X9KY4EN

<comment><USER2> I love the application. The thing I love most is your "license".

I thought to distribute some app in the same way too: "can you build it? It's free if you don't want to pay for it."

<comment><USER3> Yes, it's a good idea and I like it too. It's OSS but you may pay for the convenience of getting the app perfectly packaged for your OS.

Other OSS projects use that model (I can think of Todo.txt Android app, for example).

But I'm not sure that it works exactly like "can you build it? It's free if you don't want to pay for it". OSS is about distribution. Anybody can build your app and distribute it legally (in this case Hacky is LGPL, it wouldn't be too difficult to comply with the license), even do it for a fee.

It's more paying for "the extras" straight to the developers. Call it support, iTunes, packaging, or just making things easier for people that don't want or don't have the time to get the hands dirty.

<comment><USER4> I like the model too and you got me thinking. Is there any standard licence model where you allow people to have and use the source but not to redistribute it "as is"?

<comment><USER5> That sounds like what Microsoft did (and got slammed for) with their Shared Source license.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love the fact that the 'screenshot' on the website is a real-time representation of the Hacker News front page at that point of time. Nice!

<comment><USER7> Didn't notice that until you pointed it out, but indeed - that is a terrific little bit of functionality on the website.

Nicely done OP - I'm sure that's one of the many little details you worked hard on and it's appreciated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice app. Just a few UI and code comments.

The titlebar is too big in my opinion. I'm writing an app with a thicker than usual titlebar and had a look around a number of apps before deciding on the exact height. I found the best height to be 36px. This allows for nicely a nicely spaced title and traffic lights, but isn't too large. Clear for Mac goes for a titlebar a bit bigger than this, but Hacky is far larger.

The bottom bar seems like it's only there to place the "Mark all as read" button. Could this button be instead placed on the titlebar? If not, I think it's the wrong type of button to use in this context. I believe the correct button style is "Round Textured" as listed in Interface Builder.

Despite these two comments, I actually really like the user interface. It looks good and is generally well thought out.

A few comments on the project, it might be worth using CocoaPods. This is entirely up to you, but I know for a fact that INAppStoreWindow and AFNetworking are in the database, and it might make handling dependency updates easier. Not using CocoaPods isn't necessarily a bad thing at all though.

Having had a quick look at the code, and having compiled it, there are a lot of compiler warnings! A few can be fixed just be configuring the project correctly, adding frameworks that AFNetworking wants for additional functionality, etc, but a few issues surrounding your mixed use of instance variables and properties that will generate their own.

There is also an issue with declaring a method as taking NSUInteger pointers, and yet using it for normal NSUIntegers, and then assigning to NSUInteger properties. It works, but it's an easy fix and pointer issues can be annoying to debug later on if they start to cause errors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome feedback! It's noted and will be investigated as soon as I have time ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice Idea! Purchased in the MAS.

Since you seem to want to make it better, Let me give you a few suggestions. I like where you're going, but get the sense you want to improve it, so in that spirit-

It feels more like an RSS reader than a dedicated app. Because it doesn't have deep API integration (or even write support), there's not much that I get that I don't get with a dedicated HN RSS reader.

Take a look at Envelope for Reddit for an example of how you might do a deeper integration. Beyond adding posting support, you could also build on the fact that it's a client-app, and add additional local-only feature, such as killfiles or filters, etc.

Low-hanging fruit would be to display comments inline, rather than just linking off to the website, and letting you read/reply/post to individual threads.

GL, I hope you keep going with it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Looks great. I have a suggestion though: Beyond individually marking stories as read and the 'mark all as read' button, also offer a quick way to breeze through the list and mark lots of them as read. By 'read', I mean 'don't show them to me again next time'. I usually narrow down 5-8 articles from the home page I want to read and know that I don't care about the others.

Or, introduce a 'star' system where I can create a list of articles I want to check out later. I may not actually want to send them to Instapaper, so keeping a local 'to read' list via starring articles would come in handy.

Ideally, that should be synced to my iCloud account, since I read from multiple Macbooks.

<comment><USER10> I just compiled a build and tried it out. It looks like marking something as read right now just affects the dot icon next to a story with no way to filter out read stories, even after a refresh.

Having different hotkeys for mark as read and unread was a little confusing. I would just have Command M toggle between the two. Then you can use the up/down arrow keys to navigate the stories and then quickly mark them. If you accidentally mark the wrong story, you don't need to find Shift to undo that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A few more ideas:

\- Growl/Notification center notices for new stories (optionally configurable by a certain points threshold).

\- Subscribe to certain topics (keyword based searches). Only get notified when certain topics have stories.

\- Ignore stories by user.

\- Search (both locally and offer to use hnsearch.com)

\- List new submissions (separate tab?).

\- Comments/open hotkeys (previously mentioned here, I see).

\- Minimize to Mac OS menu with an icon indicating new stories (follows your notification threshold and/or topic subscriptions).

\- Tab to monitor your own submissions.

<comment><USER11> > Subscribe to certain topics

Love the idea.

> List new submissions (separate tab?).

Or sort by new submissions.

\- restore app position and size

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The site looks a bit weird on a retina display btw.

<http://i.imgur.com/efSh1hv.jpg>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the info! Should be fixed. Chrome (somehow) handeled the media queries differently.

<comment><USER2> You could also fix the top corners, if watch closer the pieces overflow the radius ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This post made my day. I've been after a Hacker News app for Mac for ages now.

Edit: have now bought it, it's fantastic. Really glad you made it open-source too. Are there any plans to integrate comments, upvoting, etc?

Edit 2: One more thing: it would be great if the app would show the number of unread stories even when closed. Reminders.app does this.

</comment><comment><USER14> I love the live hacker news feed on the front page, nice touch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Glad, someone noticed ;)

<comment><USER15> It freaked me out for a second as I went to check the HN website and back to your screenshot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I just bought this -- it's really nice.

Maybe you'd consider doing a free app store version with ads, combined with a $2.99 (reslly, should be more like $5-10 once you add more features) version?

Random feature ideas:

Filtering based on keywords or a tagging system or poster id.

Doing something which tracks your own comments would be nice. i.e. if you upvote or comment on a story, it somehow marks it in Hacky as well and keeps tracking.

Also, "show new comments since I last read the article" might be nice.

I guess this might go against the "simple, doesn't need to be logged in" design philosophy so far.

</comment><comment><USER17> Great little app. Love the duo of Github and the Mac App Store. I also love my apps straight from the app store.

Maybe something little to add to the app are more key-bindings. I'm used to be able to open an url from Twitter apps just by using the right arrow. This would be great to be added to your app. With or without the option to open the website in the background.

</comment><comment><USER18> Bought it... needs a bit more functionality, but it's a good start!

I'd be fascinated to hear how many downloads you got through the app store and other sources after this post. i.e. are such 'niche' apps sustainable, financially? And what percentage of people liked the convenience of the app store, or wanted to contribute, such that they actually bought the app?

RS

</comment><comment><USER19> As a fellow Cocoa dev, may I ask why you're using PXListView? AppKit has a view-based table view now (since 10.7?) that covers the same feature set.

Moreover, PX has not been maintained since 2011, and there is a bunch of issues and pull requests that are being ignored. There are some forks that fix things, but no canonical one.

PS: Nice app, good work!

</comment><comment><USER20> This is awesome :)

Would anyone be interested in something like this for Windows? If so I'd be willing to code it up in Adobe AIR.

<comment><USER21> Sure. As far as I know[1], there are no Hacker News readers for Windows 8 ('metro app').

[1] - [http://windows.microsoft.com/en- US/windows/search#q=hacker+n...](http://windows.microsoft.com/en- US/windows/search#q=hacker+news)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Great job Elias! Just purchased. It would be great if you can add a "send to pocket" feature.

</comment><comment><USER23> I just don't see the point, it's lacking in basic features and there's nothing wrong with a browser tab in my opinion. Best if luck, but I try not to replace perfectly functional web pages with apps.

</comment><comment><USER24> You should have kept reader free so that people actually download the app and keep features like commenting and ranking from app paid. Anywayz great work I will be sticking to site itself.

</comment><comment><USER25> Lovely interface,I am mostly on browser so happy with Chrome Extension.

I wish you all the best and yes, I loved the _license_ you're offering. Eventually it's gonna help a _developer_ anyway ;)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to say that I'm really overwhelmed by the love you guys are giving Hacky. I actually thought it would be either ignored completely or bashed to the ground. ;) You rock!

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm going to take a look at the source but I am also buying it from the AppStore as there is no way that I can convince myself that you don't deserve $2.99 from me for this app.

Awesome work!

</comment><comment><USER27> Any screenshots of the comment screen? As that is where I spend most of the time, would be nice to know how it works before making the decision to buy this.

<comment><USER28> No comment screen in the current version ; it opens HN in your web browser instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Killer work! Major kudos for making it open source and releasing it on the App Store. I think that's the perfect solution for quality niche apps like yours.

</comment><comment><USER30> You can have a beer on me! Just bought. Good work :)

</comment><comment><USER31> Your app may not be intended to replace the website but it doesn't actually work. That's the problem with your app; it isn't functional.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is great. My 1.274 pence: have the "unread" icons below the list numbers so the alignment doesn't go all out of whack.

</comment><comment><USER33> Is there any kind of a licence model for things like this? (code is up on github, but on sale at the mac store)

<comment><USER34> There is nothing wrong with selling open source software. On the contrary, it's rather encouraged by the community:

<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I just downloaded Hacky from app store now but the app doesn't work. Are there any problems for using in Japan.

</comment><comment> slash-dot I'd add j/k keyboard shortcuts and the ability to view comments within the app. Otherwise great work!

</comment><comment><USER36> Beautiful app, nice work. But if you're reading hacker news this much, how do you get anything done?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just click "Mark all as read" all the time :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Just purchased, nice work! This is a great minimalistic way to scan the headlines.

</comment><comment><USER38> Just bought it - greetings from berlin!

I like it!

The possibility to make it horizontally smaller would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER39> Nice work, Elias. I like it.

</comment><comment><USER40> It would be better if it could stay on the menubar, like the istat menus.

</comment><comment><USER41> Anyone know a good site to read HN on an iPhone? (Not an app.)

<comment><USER42> Try <http://ihackernews.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'll happily pay for this with "Send to Pocket" included :)

</comment><comment><USER44> $2.99 for just links to site? :/

</comment><comment><USER45> Pretty please port this to iOS too. Please.

Please.

Please?

<comment><AUTHOR> There already are really great apps for iOS.

If you want a native one, check out <https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/news- yc/id434787119?mt=8>

If you prefer a web app take a look at <http://hackerwebapp.com>

<comment><USER46> I would highly recommend against News:yc, if only because of it's meager integration with read-later services. (Exclusively IP.)

Although it is, from what I've seen, the best client on iOS, it is still inferior to and more laborious than the web experience.

<comment><USER16> What other read-later services are worth supporting? The built-in Safari thing seems kind of lame.

<comment><USER46> Pocket is in far wider use, and thus seems like a natural addition. Pinboard, although a relatively unknown service, would also be appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> What's up with the lack of contrast on the text?

I blame Apple for the trend, although you could tell apart sites and blogs developed by Mac using developers by that trademark gray on white text.

<http://contrastrebellion.com/>

<comment><USER48> You do realise Apple's site is listed as an example of a site with good contrast on contrastrebellion.com?</comment></comment>


Tech cos, labor advocates, think tanks call for reforms to social safety net - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/12/tech-companies-labor-advocates-and-think-tankers-of-all-stripes-call-for-sweeping-reforms-to-the-social-safety-net/ <comment><USER2> If we want all workers to have these benefits, why aren't we doing a 'single payer' style system where contributing to it is a form of tax dependent on worker utilization?

<comment><USER3> Yup, generally speaking in Canada self-employed people still can contribute to and get health care, (un)employment insurance, and a government-run pension.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Basic income is the only solution in the medium to long term, we might as well start planning the foundation for it now.

<comment><USER5> If they can deny climate change, you can bet your bottom dollar they can deny the necessity of basic income. If only people had a 'be bloody logical for one God damned moment' switch on the back of their heads...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> One way to do this for the "gig economy" is to provide benefits through a union. That's how Hollywood works.[1][2] Employment is short term, but pension credits build up with the union.

But most of these new "gig economy" operations are ordinary employers. Few people, if any, drive for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and FedEx Ground on different days. FedEx just lost on this issue.

[1] [https://www.iatsenbf.org/assets/IATSE-Pension-Plan-C- SPD.pdf](https://www.iatsenbf.org/assets/IATSE-Pension-Plan-C-SPD.pdf) [2] [http://iatse.net/us-organizing/your-health](http://iatse.net/us- organizing/your-health)

<comment><USER7> But many drive for lyft and uber at the same time. Or 4 different delivery companies at a time. They have multiple apps open at once, and once they get a job turn off the other apps until they are ready for their next job.

So if you job dispatch from multiple corporations, work for a random 2-60 hours per week, provide your own car and determine your scheduling, then what are you?

<comment><USER8> Don't both Lyft and Uber try and discourage you from working for both, as well as penalizing people who work too few hours a week through their fee schedule, and completely controlling the prices customers pay drivers?

<comment><USER7> I have no idea, I'm just going on my experience from conversations & observations as a customer. People do definitely use multiple apps.

As far as a controlled price, that is why you want multiple apps, so there is competition pushing for efficiency.

As a customer it would be far more annoying to use the app if you had to screw around with a price auction every time you wanted a pickup. If I set a price too low, I could be waiting a long time for a ride, if I set a price too high I lose money. The automatic price system makes it far faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Or you know, just do social democracy properly like most of the western world.

</comment><comment><USER10> The lawsuits are nothing to do with these companies _wanting_ to provide more benefits and everything about them not classifying their workers as employees because they _don 't want_ to provide benefits.

This is just Uber et al. wanting to escape legal culpability for their regulatory arbitrage.

<comment><USER11> If you read the article, you'll clearly see that they want to provide something, as long as it doesn't obligate them to provide a huge package. I assume their reasons for wanting this are to compete for employees.

See, the current regulation is a very odd copenhagen theory of ethics type mess. It bans providing a small packages of benefits - either provide a big one or provide nothing.

<comment><USER10> >If you read the article, you'll clearly see that they want to provide something

I know they said that. I just don't believe it for a second.

They want a new legal designation for their employees that does not require them to provide any benefits at all. They claim that despite this new-found freedom from legal culpability they will _definitely_ provide some benefits. Honest.

But don't _force_ us to provide benefits or anything.

The current status of their drivers as contractors opens them up to an awful lot of legal risk which they'd like to mitigate, ideally without it costing them anything other than an easily broken promise.

<comment><USER11> People irrationally overvalue benefits (relative to money). Plus many benefits are tax advantaged aUnd they are also easier for big players to provide.

If they were allowed to provide limited benefits without being obligated to provide full benefits, it would provide a barrier to entry for competitors. How will Gett (a little guy competing with Uber in Manhattan below 110th only) find drivers if it can't provide benefits?

Economics >> moral posturing.

<comment><USER10> >People irrationally overvalue benefits

People giving their own opinions irrationally undervalue citations.

>Plus many benefits are tax advantaged aUnd they are also easier for big players to provide.

I guess that explains why Uber is fighting tooth and nail not to provide any benefits at all rather than embracing a new competitive advantage. Oh wait.

>If they were allowed to provide limited benefits without being obligated to provide full benefits, it would provide a barrier to entry for competitors.

As opposed to the regulatory arbitrage they do where their early entrance to new markets depends upon the vast amount of cash they spend on lobbying and unchallenged legal loopholes.

>Economics >> moral posturing.

What passes for supposedly objective economics these days is mostly disguised moral posturing. Some entire schools including Monetarism and Chicago pretty much only do that which is why they have a horrible prediction record.

Other supposedly objective economic reasoning leads to bizarre conclusions like the idea that Uber would lobby hard _against_ legal reforms that would give them a competitive advantage.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The 19th Century plug that's still being used - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35253398 <comment><USER2> Sometimes you have to break backwards compatibility to move forward and get better technology, and as painful as it is, and as controversial as it is, switching to a new standard is often the right thing to do.

That said, if you're breaking backwards compatibility to move to _proprietary_ technology, you are not working to move us to a new standard. You're breaking from the old standard to create a balkanized set of non-standard technology. Doesn't matter if it's technically superior--if you're not letting people use it for free, you're intentionally creating a worse ecosystem at the expense of consumers and every other vendor.

<comment><USER3> > That said, if you're breaking backwards compatibility to move to > _proprietary_ technology, you are not working to move us to a new standard.

Agreed. And it's likely not technically or physically superior anymore with the new USB 3.1 plugs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that the thickest component in an iPhone is the camera, not the headphones socket. So removing the socket won't make the phone any thinner, unless Apple goes for a wedge-shaped design, perhaps.

Arguments about "high-resolution" audio notwithstanding (there's no need for anything better than "CD quality", you can't hear the difference), I understand that Apple wants to drive technology forward and that wireless audio over bluetooth "should" be the future.

But ultimately I feel like the 3.5mm connector is just too entrenched. My headphones use it. My car uses it. Even crazy things like the Square card reader use it.

No, it's not ideal, but it is everywhere, and universal.

Surely there will be an adapter, but I fear that the adapter will probably have a DAC _and_ an amp in it, and unless they make the adapter bulky, I can't imagine that a teeny-tiny DAC/amp will sound as good as the one currently inside the iPhone.

<comment> brian-armstrong You make a good point about the Square reader. This would put Apple in a good position to obsolete Square's POS devices, possibly so they can get in the business?

<comment><USER5> Square already has a wireless reader which is currently used for chip cards as well as NFC payments (including Apple Pay). This reader does not currently have a mag stripe reader on it, but I imagine it won't be a huge leap to add it if future iPhone and iPads get rid of the 3.5mm port.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ultimately the new iPhones will come with the new headphones and they will be undoubtedly superb with many third party headphones including Beats.

Much like the non standard power adapter, Apple users will just go along with it and, in most cases, not grumble in the least with their new Apple bling.

Undoubtedly there will be adapters too, more like a dongle for the old headphones. Apple being Apple could make such adapters only work if they are genuine Apple. Again, users will accept this like they accept ethernet and monitor dongles on their laptops now.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's time to get rid of connectors on phones. Inductive charging is here. Bluetooth stereo headphones are here. They all have WiFi and a cellular link. White iDweeb earbuds are last-cen. Get rid of the holes, hermetically seal the unit, and make the thing completely waterproof.

<comment><USER8> Having tried several Bluetooth audio devices over the last couple of years, I'm not sure we're really ready. I've got a Bluetooth speaker in my car that turns itself off in cold weather, an indoor one that talks to iPads and Androids but not Surfaces, and a pair of bluetooth headphones in a box somewhere that are great as long as you like your music sprinkled with random moments of silence. The less half-baked components on the critical between my MP3s and my ear sockets, the better.

<comment><USER7> "And in my day we had _wires_ to our speakers." Progress marches on.

<comment><USER9> I prefer engineered simplicity over progress-in-the-name-of-progress. No, wires aren't going away. Because at the end of the day, your speakers are driven by analog signal transmitted via the same wires you abhor; Anything between the DAC and an analogue system (amplifier + speaker) is superfluous, unneeded, bad design, malintent. Oh and I'd love to see 100W RMS speakers driven wirelessly. You could probably boil tea on the excess microwaves.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


EC key generation is broken in all OpenSSL versions - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/msg37790.html

<comment><USER2> Nothing much to see here.

ECC private keys are just random numbers. The reported issue is that, if the random number happens to be encodable in fewer bytes than expected, the spec says that it should be padded with leading zeros, but OpenSSL doesn't do that.

For example, if you generate 32-bit random numbers, you expect a few to be only three bytes long (and even a few to be two or one). The difference is whether you write 0x123456 or 0x00123456. There's no security impact. At worst, an OpenSSL-generated ECC key might be rejected by other code.

Since OpenSSL has been doing this forever (based on the report) in practice this means that we should update the spec :)

<comment><USER3> _At worst, an OpenSSL-generated ECC key might be rejected by other code._

Private keys are almost certainly kept private so the amount of software that handles them is relatively limited (I'd bet that the majority of the time it's OpenSSL), but how about _public_ ECC keys? As I understand it, they could be embedded in certificates and signed, in which case a signature verifier that uses the "correct" encoding might fail. However, AFAIK almost all SSL certificates out there use RSA and ECC is pretty rare, so this problem has little impact.

<comment><USER2> ECC public keys use a different encoding (X9.62). There's nothing in the report that suggests a problem there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If I'm reading this correctly it's only an encoding problem (which seems better than generating weak keys, etc.)? What are the security implications?

<comment><USER5> Other implementations that do strict checks of the spec could reject keys generated by openssl. This could lead to connection failures and in some cases a retry on a less secure (or insecure) channel. Given that EC deployment on TLS is rare anyway this will probably not happen very often.

<comment><USER2> This reported issue is with private key serialisation, not with public keys. So any issues would be at server startup time, when loading keys, rather than with connecting clients.

<comment><USER5> Ah okay. Thanks for that correction, that makes any security implications beyond "something doesn't work/start at all" even more unlikely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> key _serialization_ ; fixing the headline would make this much less linkbaity.

<comment><USER7> I flagged the story for the same reason. It'd be one thing if it were actually interesting, but obviously it's on the front page because people are reacting to the headline.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which library would you like to see ported on language X? - <AUTHOR> As a practice exercise for every language, porting a library is a great way to have a better grasp of a language while filling a gap for its developers needs
It gives your learning project a real meaning and therefore helps with your motivation to learn.
I'm trying to build a list of libraries having this potential.
Which library made you think "I wish it was ported on language X" ? <comment><USER2> I would like to see a stream processing library ported to pure Python. For example, Java 8 Stream API, Scala Stream API, Spark RDD API, jOOL API. They're all similar.

That is, I would like to have an iterator in Python in which I could do:

        from statistics import mean
        from niceportedlib import Stream

        salaries = Stream([]) # Some data here
        mean_salary_by_department = salaries.group_by(lambda v: v['department']).map_values(statistics.mean)

Pandas does help, but is not pure Python (has native dependencies).

<comment><USER3> The streamz library ([http://streamz.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](http://streamz.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)) might be what you're looking for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> numpy/scipy to golang

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it for performance/architecture improvements that could provide Go over Python or just for the sake of having a high level scientific library available in Go ? or both ?

<comment><USER5> The high performance parts of numpy and scipy aren't written in Python anyway so Go wouldn't be that much of an improvement. It's just that Go is a language better suited for professional software (imo).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Expect to Haskell</comment>


Fisrt ICS tablet is mips based for $99  - <AUTHOR> http://www.osnews.com/story/25397/MIPS_99_Tablet_is_First_Ice_Cream_Sandwich_Tablet first android phone has always been with ARM, now MIPS becomes the first one for ICS Tablet release, and ATOM support is also ready, what else left? <comment><USER2> It looks like the minimum support price for a tablet. The $35 Indian tablet "Aakash" will face heat.</comment>


Human Scale Problems - <AUTHOR> http://david-smith.org/blog/2013/03/18/human-scale-problems/

<comment><USER2> Google Reader closing might actually end up being a good thing. It's also bringing up the often talked about issue of free services versus paid, with more people willing to pay for a service than I thought.

On Feed Wrangler: since the author has been working on it for a few months now, it would have been better if he had given us a tech preview of what he's planning. Asking me to sign up for updates when I don't even know what the product looks or what features are on his mind, is like asking me to trust a stranger to my phone number.</comment>


Amazon closing Texas facility over tax dispute - <AUTHOR> http://www.dallasnews.com/business/headlines/20110210-amazon.com-shutters-irving-office-after-tax-dispute.ece

<comment><USER2> Why does Amazon care? Does Texas not, like other states, charge a use tax which would cause Amazon's Texas customers to pay the same amount as if sales tax were applied?

<comment><USER3> Nobody pays the use tax, because nobody's heard of it, and nobody makes you pay it. Also, Texas doesn't have an income tax, only property tax, so Texas wouldn't have a chance of enforcing it short of major invasions of privacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> States really are drooling at the prospect of collecting sales tax from online vendors.

Here's to hoping Amazon can continue to fight them off.</comment>


Show HN: Graphql-directives-middlewares - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/alakarteio/graphql-directives-middlewares <comment><AUTHOR> Hi!

I wrote this library because it allows us to use graphql directives (server side) like middlewares.

-> gql declaration order is preserved

-> implementation is simplified

Feel free to open github issues if you know better solutions</comment>


Show HN: Create Interactive Coding Tutorials in Visual Studio Code - <AUTHOR> https://codelines.dev/home <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN. Our goal with Codelines is to create a tool that makes it easy to share programming knowledge between developers. We've created a code editor plugin that let you create and read interactive coding tutorials/walkthroughs in your IDE. We believe the way we share programming knowledge on the Internet is hugely ignored. But it's a real problem that developers face every day. How many times have you seen a snippet of code that could solve your problem but the API was now deprecated, or just simple things like code highlighting and being able to see a bigger code context.

Walkthroughs created with our plugin are full projects combined with text so it gives you a lot of benefits. That way you can execute the code and at the same time be able to read the "story" behind the code.

We are interested in what people on HN think about this. Feel free to ask any questions.

<comment><USER2> The idea sounds cool, but I'm struggling to know exactly what this does or how to use it. The descriptions on the website are very brief and kind of vague, and the screenshots are quite small. The only feature that's really clear to me is running the terminal commands. But, like I said, sounds cool, just wish I could gain more info as to what it is without having to install it and use it.</comment></comment>


Balboa – an end-to-end encrypted Slack alternative, written in ClojureScript - <AUTHOR> https://www.balboa.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, Balboa dev here,

Just as a bit of background of where we're coming from: we've been working on Balboa for the past year or so, after realizing that there wasn't a good end- to-end collaboration product out there that we felt we could use with our clients. In terms of how we're a "Slack alternative", we think Slack is a fantastic product, especially in terms of workflow, so we decided to model our chat interface off their good work. As you'll quickly see, we're not nearly as feature-rich at Slack at this point (nor are we aimed at the same audience). Features that define Slack, like search, are harder to pull off in an end-to- end system, but they're areas of growing research, and we're excited to try our hand there.

Also, we wanted to just give a shout-out to some technologies we've had the pleasure of using:

1) Clojure. Our entire backend is in Clojure, and our frontend, Clojurescript.

2) Zerotier. A great and simple way to get our backend services to talk to one another with end-to-end encryption.

3) Emscripten/Asm.js for transpiled, fast in-app crypto.

4) Skein/Threefish and TweetNaCl.

5) Cassandra and Redis for our data store and key management, respectively.

6) ZeroMQ for communicating between our services.

Thanks to all involved in the projects above who are helping us get to secure collaboration!

</comment><comment><USER2> Skein -- interesting choice. I always liked the ARX construction in skein, and it's cool to see it in Javascript through emscripten.

</comment><comment><USER3> sick. i'm going to start using this now for my team. we are spread out over 3 countries (including occasional trips to China...). we just need file sharing, chat and the basics for now. looking forward to the roll out in search function and others.</comment>


Managing Remote Teams: A Psychological Perspective - <AUTHOR> https://blog.stephsmith.io/best-practices-managing-remote-teams/ <comment><AUTHOR> So I've been working remotely for the past 3 years and whenever I search for things like "tips for managing virtual teams" or "flexible workforce tips", I get back super vague listicles with advice like "hire well", or "engage often". While true, I've always found the results incredibly unhelpful.

This made me want to create a "deeper" article about some of the psychology that I think influences remote teams, along with some thoughts around what leaders can do to combat some of the pitfalls.

I decided to combine my viewpoints with three of my favourite books: Give and Take, Algorithms to Live By, and the Four Tendencies.

I'm interested to hear what other remote workers think. Does remote work influence the give/take balance? Do we need to be more intentional about how we're designing remote systems? Do you think we can learn anything from the four tendencies data?

PS: If anyone has links to articles that dig deep into the psychology of remote work, I'd love to read them.</comment>


Multiple Heap Buffer Overflows In the Windows DNS Client - <AUTHOR> https://www.bishopfox.com/blog/2017/10/a-bug-has-no-name-multiple-heap-buffer-overflows-in-the-windows-dns-client/ <comment><USER2> I've been working on [https://github.com/bluejekyll/trust- dns](https://github.com/bluejekyll/trust-dns) for a bit over two years now. About a year ago a new contributor added Windows build support and testing with AppVeyor, which was awesome.

Originally I started this project more for server side stuff, but recently have been very focused on a full resolver which could be used as a replacement for the OS system resolver.

A question for HN, what would you like to see in this context that would make a replacement resolver on Windows something you'd use? To be clear, it's not something you could use dropin right now, it can only be used as an internal library to Rust at-the-moment, but I've been planning to start working on a daemon that could act as a caching system resolver in the next little bit.

<comment><USER3> On Linux, I'd really love a caching resolver that _saves its cache persistently_. I don't understand why the machine's power-on state has anything to do with the validity of the DNS cache; if the entries were good at shutdown time they ought to be good enough in a few seconds when I boot again.

<comment><USER2> That's very feasible, as I already have the persistence layer from the server component. So that could be reused easily. It's also portable, so would work on all the currently supported platforms, Linux, macOS and Windows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The important bit is kind of buried in the middle:

 _It is important to note that as the record is malformed, it should not traverse any sane DNS resolvers. Because of this, the issue can only be triggered if the victim(s) are accepting DNS responses directly from the attacker-controlled server. Typically, this would require an active Man-in- the-Middle attack._

<comment><USER5> A way to protect yourself is to manually specify DNS servers - to your own, or a trusted public one like 184.108.40.206 or 22.214.171.124. It's buried in the network settings, but DNS servers can be specified even if you're getting your IP from DHCP.

This attack only works if you're getting DNS info from a malicious/compromised source. So if you're on a coffee shop WiFi, it creates another layer of complexity - the attacker would have to rewrite/spoof the DNS packets instead of simply serving the malformed packets directly.

<comment><USER6> Isn't that 220.127.116.11 or does Google also have a public DNS server on 184.108.40.206?

<comment><USER7> Google Public DNS IPs are 126.96.36.199 and 18.104.22.168.

Source: [https://developers.google.com/speed/public- dns/](https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's been many, many years since I earned my MCSx certs and, fortunately, I rarely touch a Windows box these days so I am very likely wrong... but it seems to me that the following scenario is possible.

A domain controller also acts as a DNS server. "Forwarders" can be configured, or the DC can "go direct" and perform (recursive) resolution on a client's behalf. A client that could be convinced (should be relatively easy?) to issue a certain DNS request (which would be sent to the DC) would cause a malicious response (assuming a malicious authoritative DNS server) to be sent to the DC. In the case where the DC is an affected (unpatched) Windows 2012 server, this would result in a compromise of the DC.

Sounds feasible, in theory. I don't know enough about this issue to say for certain, though.

</comment><comment><USER9> How similar is this to the dnsmasq stuff earlier this month?

Behind the Masq: Yet More DNS and DHCP Vulnerabilities | [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15383574](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15383574) (Oct 2017, 117 comments)

</comment><comment><USER10> >The DNS caching service that handles the storage of DNS responses automatically restarts when it crashes, and it won't notify the user of the crash.

Programmer one: "It keeps crashing!"

Programmer two: "Just remove the bit that tells the user it crashed and ship it!"

<comment><USER11> No one: "Just spam the user with error messages they won't understand and can't fix!"

<comment><USER10> Also no one: "let's fix it so it won't crash constantly"

<comment><USER11> Lots of engineers: "Just make it restart so it self-heals"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Black & Decker Questioned Success and Discovered a New Market - <AUTHOR> http://citizentekk.com/2013/07/15/how-black-decker-questioned-success-and-discovered-a-new-market/

<comment><AUTHOR> Nearly 70 years before the term "Big Data", B&D discovered a brand new market segment by paying attention to customer behavior</comment>


Twill.io – an awesome CMS for your Laravel project - <AUTHOR> https://twill.io <comment><USER2> Interesting top level domain choice. Twilio might come knocking

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, that's what I thought as well. It's a nice OSS package though.</comment></comment>


Open Deals angel funding application (Is this legitimate?) - <AUTHOR> http://www.open-deals.com/

<comment><USER2> I work at Angelsoft which also runs Open-Deals.com

If you are looking for funding your first stop should be your local Angel group. There is no substitution for that. Our CEO, David S. Rose, Chairman of the New York Angels, would give you the same advice.

After 4 years in the Angel Investment industry, we have consolidated most of the worlds groups onto a single platform called Angelsoft. Go to most any Angel group website and click apply, you will be brought to an application page powered by Angelsoft.

We received hundreds of emails from entrepreneurs asking us how they can apply to all of the groups using our system. In response, we created open-deals.com which allows you to do just that. It is an open directory built into Angelsoft that allows Angels to browse through deals, and refer ones that interest them into their own group for further review. You can see what open-deals.com looks like from an Angel prospective here: [http://blog.angelsoft.net/2008/04/17/sneak-peek-what-does- op...](http://blog.angelsoft.net/2008/04/17/sneak-peek-what-does-opendeals- look-like-to-investors/)

The challenge came in protecting the Angels that use our system from an avalanche of poor quality deals. Angel groups told us that one of the ways they filter out poor quality deals is by charging a submission fee. The theory is that if you are serious enough to pay $250, you are more likely to be a serious entrepreneur.

I hope that clears up some confusion. Feel free to ask questions, I will be monitoring this discussion,

Jason Schwartz Community Manager

</comment><comment><USER3> It looks dubious. I hadn't heard of them before this. And the reference to 400 angel groups seems misleading, because they're presumably local groups.

Never pay to pitch, basically.

<comment><USER4> Could be that it looks dubious, but it's actually really legit.

I'm a startup (BricaBox.com) in the incubator downstairs from AngelSoft. My roommate has been working on their biz dev for the past two years (I found him the job on CL actually) -- so I know first hand that they really did go out and spend two years and get all these big, legit angel groups on their platform (think: Basecamp for Angel networks).

Anywho, now that they have these groups using the platform, they're opening it up for us to be submit deals, solving the problem I'm sure many of you feel: networking outside your local network (I know tons of angels in NYC, but even as close as Philly I know no one!).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I went on an interview at their company a while back and they seemed legitimate. They are NY based with like 10 employees as of 4 or 5 months ago.

</comment><comment><USER6> I tend to be skeptical about almost any of the pay-to-play things like this. The Angel scene seems to be very much about personal connections and face time. I don't think you can replace that with a $250 a month service. It seems like if you were really bent on dropping money on this sort of thing that you'd be better digging up one of the consultants that pimps your product for you to their investor network.

<comment><USER7> That sounds about right.

In my experience, angels don't usually think of themselves as "angel investors", and definitely wouldn't join any program like this one.

<comment><USER4> I think this is where you're missing it. The angels are already on this platform... because it's what they use to manage deal flow.

<comment><USER8> Just wanted to provide more details on what innonate said, I do bizdev for Angelsoft on the west coast and in the north east (Boston).

For 2 years now, my life has consisted of selling and training angel group managers and fund managers on how to use Angelsoft to manage their dealflow, screen deals, and do due diligence.

As for what babyshake said,yes, many investors operate as "loan wolves" and might not even identify themselves as "angels". To make our vision possible, the best approach to attract investors in mass was focusing on "angel networks" or "angel groups", where a group of investors would band together to spread risk and get better deal flow.

These groups are typically non profit, and don't have much infrastructure, so they were in dire need of a tool like Angelsoft, and very willing to work closely with us to come up with something for their needs.

The benefits of using Angelsoft for this groups range from having one central location for all of their data, to being able to syndicate deals across all the groups on the platform.

Now that almost all these groups are on Angelsoft and I'm starting to focus more on VCs, Jason has been working on ways to make this platform even more useful to entrepreneurs.

If you've got any further questions about Angels, don't hesitate to ask!

<comment><USER9> Do Angels/VCs pay?

<comment><USER10> VCs pay (because they are for-profit entities with operating budgets that are funded by management fees), angel groups don't pay (because they are typically non-profit, or informal, associations of individuals).

Individual angels don't pay (they get it through their groups), and entrepreneurs don't pay to submit to individual angel groups or to use the site's funding management tools.

The only time entrepreneurs pay is if they decide they want to broaden their funding search by making their plan available to all 450+ groups at the same time, instead of applying to a targeted few individually.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


India is set to launch a scale model of a reusable spacecraft on Monday - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-22/modi-s-mini-shuttle-set-to-blast-into-elon-musk-s-race-for-space <comment><USER2> It's launched already, deemed successful.

[http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/india- successfully-...](http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/india-successfully- launches-reusable-launch-vehicle/article8635448.ece?homepage=true)

<comment><USER3> Such a poorly worded article, replete with grammatical errors.

No close-up pictures of the "shuttle." Strange. (And I'm not talking about a generic long range picture of a rocket taking off either.)

The episode has the smell of government propaganda.

<comment><USER4> I don't understand the downvotes. There's always a place for contrasting opinions, and /especially/ when they're expressed politely, they deserve a polite response.

I have the same doubts. I'd love to see a picture of the real thing.

<comment><USER5> How to downvote. I am not able to see the downvote option in the comment section.

<comment><USER6> There's a karma/points threshold before you can see the downvote option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Official Link : [http://www.isro.gov.in/technology-development- programmes/reu...](http://www.isro.gov.in/technology-development- programmes/reusable-launch-vehicle-technology-demonstration-program-rlv-td)

(Posted here before : [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11751458](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11751458))

<comment><USER8> A direct link to images : [http://www.isro.gov.in/rlv-td/reusable-launch- vehicle-techno...](http://www.isro.gov.in/rlv-td/reusable-launch-vehicle- technology-demonstrator-rlv-td-images)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "The final version will take at least 10-15 years to get ready."

This was at the bottom of the Hindu article. How does this compare with SpaceX and Blue Origin's timelines ?

<comment><USER10> SpaceX is within 1-2 years of the Falcon Heavy; same timeline for the Dragon 2 capsule (reusable) for carrying humans into and out of space. Blue Origin's timeline to orbit is a quite a bit longer and filled with a lot more question marks.

With that said, there is value for India in having their own cheap space launch system which can't be blocked off by the US on a whim.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. Even if the launch vehicle were to fail, there's a large amount of value for India in building up the significant infrastructure (both technological and intellectual) involved in having broad space capabilities. In the next five or so years India will pass France to become the fifth largest economy in nominal terms; in the next 15-20 years they'll probably overtake the UK, Germany and Japan to move into third place. It definitely makes sense for them to keep investing in space regardless of the outcome on something like this vehicle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Some news outlets have been calling it a "space shuttle", which is highly inaccurate considering that this has no plans of being for human use. I'm happy with the progress ISRO has made but lying/deception will not help anybody.

<comment><USER12> It could be just ignorance. I would bet that the journalist thought that space shuttle is a fancy word for rocket.

<comment><USER11> It is a mix of ignorance and trying to exaggerate/sensationalize everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Indian Space Research Organization or ISRO plans to test two more such prototypes before the final version which will be about six times larger at around 40 metres and will take off around 2030. src :[http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/india-all-set-to-launch- its-o...](http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/india-all-set-to-launch-its-own- space-shuttle-today-1408943)

</comment><comment><USER14> Video would be cool. Something I really like is being able to watch all these launches, famous or otherwise. On Youtube, you can go all the way to the Saturn SA-1 launch: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0-8Pd7fK9w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0-8Pd7fK9w). Fantastic stuff.

</comment><comment><USER15> some people in india are saying this might be a lousy propaganda, no one knows what, you can never be 100% sure of what modi government says (or does).

But, let's say I have enough money and man-power to build a nintendo-ds and a hygienic toilet, moreover assume, I don't have either. Also assume, I go outside my home to take a dump on the street (or behind a bush), but I also want to play super-mario-bros on the nintendo-ds at the same time. which one should I build first? obviously the toilet, right?

before making a reusable spacecraft, we should spend some rupees on making some good toilets --

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixJgY2VSct0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixJgY2VSct0)

we should be more serious about prioritizing the issues that we want to spend the tax-payers' money on.

<comment><USER16> Every country -- even the poorest -- can afford to do multiple things well at the same time. Both sanitation and space exploration have their own benefits.

As a Nigerian economist once said, "we are not a poor country; we are a poorly managed country".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> 'Everything went according to the projectory, he said adding that the winged space plane will not be recovered from the sea.' \- Is that okay? Do a lot of missions around the world consider sea a dumping ground?

<comment><USER18> The ocean, for spacecraft first stages, yes. Rocket launches are so infrequent and the ocean so large that it seems irrelevant, and in any case there's no practical alternative for a nation that's just getting started with spaceflight.

<comment><USER19> India has been launching from 1960s. It is not "a nation that's just getting started with spaceflight"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Cool! The more common reusable rockets become, the more we can assume their cost benefits and apply them to even more ambitious space projects.

</comment><comment><USER21> Rather than focusing on competition between different organizations we should focus on development happening in space science in recent years.

</comment><comment><USER22> kudos

</comment><comment><USER3> My suggestion to India: focus on encouraging the would-be Elon Musks in your population. Give them permission to do it. Remove the barriers to them doing it.

You'll get there much faster if the private sector were doing it.

<comment><USER3> Wow -- people are downvoting such basic commonsense.

<comment><USER23> because it is a pathetic comment. Thank you

<comment><USER24> Your comments have repeatedly broken the site guidelines. We ban accounts that do this, so please follow them from now on. That means posting civilly and substantively, or not at all.

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

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


China offers Elon Musk permanent residency - <AUTHOR> https://www.france24.com/en/20190110-china-offers-elon-musk-permanent-residency <comment><USER2> But not the citizenship?

<comment><USER3> It is practically impossible for non-ethnic Chinese to obtain citizenship of PRC, and China doesn't acknowledge dual citizenship, so even offered, Musk would have no reason to accept that.

<comment><USER4> It's hard but it's not "practically impossible". One route is to get permanent residency in Hong Kong first, then apply for Chinese citizenship there, which is much easier than directly applying in China.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fair offer. I wish the Congress could learn from Beijing on this.

<comment><USER6> You know Musk wasn't born in the US right? He came here for college from South Africa. And he's not a permanent resident like what China offered... he has full us citizenship just like someone who was born here.

<comment><USER7> AFAIK Musk can do everything a born US citizen can do except for running for presidency, right?

<comment><USER8> *Being elected. He could run and get write-in votes, he just couldn't be sworn in.

<comment><USER9> I kind of love the ridiculousness of the idea of someone who cannot be sworn in running anyway.

<comment><USER10> Like when dead people win elections. A dead guy won a seat in the Nevada legislature this past November.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rhythm & Hues bankruptcy reveals vfx biz crisis - <AUTHOR> http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118066108/

<comment><USER2> Rhythm & Hues is in a strategic position which several of the Hollywood majors have to support, or the competition between these studios is going to seriously heat up.

R&H is the #1 studio in the world for digital animals: they did almost all the coca cola polar bears ads and "Babe the Talking Pig" nearly 20 years ago! Since that time they have dominated in the digital animal arena, doing pretty much every quality realistic digital animal in a major release film since, including "The Life of PI" (which is expected to get Best Visual Effects this year.)

Now look at the VFX studios left: ImageWorks is Sony's, ILM is Disney's, Weta is Peter Jackson's... What about Universal, Warner Bros, Paramount, Fox, & Paramount? They will have no one 'of scale' to produce their cute, talking animal pictures... This may seem minor, but it's not. Not at all. If is in the serious interest of these non-VFX studio owning film studios to keep R&H alive and well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Things won't stabilize until VFX workers unionize and negotiate with the Producer's Guild collectively for pay, benefits, and residuals. The money is there to make this work; what's missing is the bargaining power.

I'm not a particularly pro-union guy in general, but given the way the film industry is currently structured, it's not really optional. They'll have to do it or they'll just continue to go bankrupt.

<comment><USER4> Uhh, no. The last thing the US VFX industry needs right now is to become more expensive.

The problem is not artists being screwed over pay & benefits, the problem is that most VFX shops are struggling to stay in the black, period. In part this is due to overseas competition and expensive bidding processes, but also shops taking on work at or below cost in an effort to keep people employed.

<comment><USER5> I don't see the contradiction really - if there's pressure to take on work below cost, then what's missing is bargaining power. I am _very_ much not a union guy (I tried on 3 separate occasions to join the SF chapter of IATSE and they refused to even process an application), so I hope the answer is something other than a typical union structure. On the other hand it's become increasingly difficult to make a living as a technical professional in this industry, given the relentless downward pressure on wages.

<comment><USER4> Right, and that lack of bargaining power is because in these days of hefty PCs and standardized software studios can always find other VFX shops, either in the US or abroad, to do a "good enough" job for less.

There's zero chance of requiring studios to only use unionized VFX shops, so unionizing them will simply make them either less competitive (need to charge more to cover guaranteed benefits) or more prone to bankruptcy (cannot meet commitments to workers if there's a shortage of work)

<comment><USER5> I'm not arguing for unionizing them, although I can't help noting that other unions & guilds manage to negotiate deals with the studios.

What I'm pointing out is that having VFX shops crumble under financial pressure from studios doesn't do the studios any good either. Ultimately it's not about the hardware or software, but about the skill of the people using it. Given that R&H is a leader in its field and still went down, something is wrong with the business model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I was at NetApp I got to work a bit with the WETA Digital guys (Lord of the Rings vfx) and I was amazed at how cut throat this business was. I saw them bringing something that was absolutely critical to the success of the film and yet they had no pricing authority at all on their services it seemed like.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder what role Hollywood Accounting [[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hollywood_accounti...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hollywood_accounting&oldid=537592477)] is playing in all this?

<comment><USER5> Technical departments are not typically paid in points on studio films.</comment></comment>


Lockdown LUNACY: the thinking person's guide - <AUTHOR> https://jbhandleyblog.com/home/lockdownlunacy <comment><USER2> > Generation Rescue is a nonprofit organization that advocates the > scientifically disproven[3] view that autism and related disorders are > primarily caused by environmental factors, particularly > vaccines.[4][5][6][7] The organization was established in 2005 by Lisa and > J.B. Handley. Today, Generation Rescue is known as a platform for Jenny > McCarthy's autism related anti-vaccine advocacy.[6][8]

</comment><comment><USER3> Absolutely a must-read.

Destroys all the shibboleths.

</comment><comment><USER4> This article is well written and well referenced. A must read IMO.

</comment><comment><USER5> This website is just rendering a blank page on Safari ios13

</comment><comment><USER6> Maybe he's right about the lockdown but I must raise an Anti-vaxxer alert. FWIW.

<comment><USER7> You're right but that's basically an ad hominem.

> of an argument or reaction directed against a person rather than the > position they are maintaining.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This dude is a "vaccines cause autism" guy. While the article appears to be well put together, I'd have to make sure he isn't cherry picking results before I believe it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow this is a really long, detailed, and referenced piece of writing.

Thanks for sharing!</comment>


Space Colony Art from the 1970s - <AUTHOR> https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/space-colony-art-from-the-1970s/ <comment><USER3> Oh man - I feel a lot of history with these images - they actually inspired one of the first online businesses I tried to make.

I wanted to put one of these images on my wall, but they were niche enough that I couldn't find anybody selling them. I printed one myself using Zazzle, but then I started thinking that it would be cool to create a place where anybody could share cool niche images they found and have them automatically be available as a poster. I built my site - [https://postercoop.com](https://postercoop.com) \- over a couple of months at the beginning of last year.

Per probably the second-most common fate of hacker projects (after not getting finished at all), I lost interest before doing much marketing or figuring out any sort of product/market fit, but it definitely an empowering experience to at least see a project through to going live on the internet and learn for myself that "build it and they will come" is for the most part a wishful fantasy :D

<comment><USER4> Cool site! Just ordered an awesome poster of the star-birthing region in the Orion Nebula ([https://postercoop.com/posters/45/](https://postercoop.com/posters/45/)).

Thanks for building and sharing your project.

<comment><USER5> From the description on that poster

"The artist's share of profits from sales of this poster will be donated to NASA."

How, Though? You can't donate to NASA

<comment><USER6> You can order pizzas for employees?

<comment><USER7> Potentially... I vaguely remember my anti-corruption training, and the dollar limits for receiving gifts and meals were fairly low.

<comment><USER8> So work with the pizza place to get a special 95% discount then hand them cash "not related to the order". For something that's obviously a good faith contribution everyone involved will err toward the side of rubber stamping it as ok.

The rules are just a rule of thumb that we can apply evenly at scale to avoid corruption. When there's legitimately no corruption happening the rules get more flexible. If it ever becomes an issue HR will frown (because rules) but legal will apply the duck test and conclude that ~$10 pizza/person paid for by someone who doesn't need/want/isn't in a position to benefit from preferential treatment is not corruption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We are so driven by settling other planets, which of course I think we should do, that we forget that space habitats might be a more economical and also healthier first step into space.

Apart from the ones depicted in these images I'm more in favour with starting with cheaper techniques where we could wire up an initial station to a wire/tether, and put a weight (or another small station) at the other end, have them spin around to reproduce gravity.

Then we can move these pieces closer to asteroid belts to get resources.

A planet on the other hand is a gravity-well: it will always cost us energy and money to get out of such wells. My point is that we should start in pieces, and not necessarily put all our efforts to reach a planet. There can be many other steps in between.

<comment><USER10> From what I understand, a structure needs to be quite massive to get meaningful gravity from a rotating hull unless you attempt to approach ludicrously unsafe angular velocity which would make repair / docking a big challenge. In _The Expanse_ , Ceres station was spun up over many, many years and still only achieved about 1/3G. Not to use a fictional universe as a basis for science but afaik they at least tried to do the math correctly.

<comment><USER11> I think it doesn't need to be massive, it just needs to have massive radius. Could be as simple as having a really long and strong wire between two habitation modules. And you can start small (low distance, slow spin, little gravity) and increase gradually.

Expanse is neat, but spinning asteroids isn't realistic. The idea is that the acceleration at the surface of Ceres is 1/3g, pointing _outwards_ (i.e. you fall "out" into space). That would imply that the ground/rocks etc literally floats away in space. Unless the surface is structurally strong enough to resist that (unlikely with most asteroids, many of which are literally rubble piles [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubble_pile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubble_pile) ) the whole things would just disintegrate.

<comment><USER10> Very interesting point about the wire. Seems like a great idea and definitely worth exploring, but imagine if that wire got cut ;)

> but spinning asteroids isn't realistic

Ceres isn't an asteroid. It's a dwarf planet. It's not a pile of rubble. It's big enough to be round from its own gravity. The only object in the asteroid belt with that status, actually.

> That would imply that the ground/rocks etc literally floats away in space

Yea, but they considered that and planned accordingly. The entire station is underground and the surface is heavily reinforced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For more, you can check the artists websites.

Don Davis: [http://www.donaldedavis.com/PARTS/allyours.html](http://www.donaldedavis.com/PARTS/allyours.html)

Rick Guidice: [http://rickguidice.com/nasaart.html](http://rickguidice.com/nasaart.html)

Roy Scarfo: [http://www.royscarfo.com/](http://www.royscarfo.com/)

<comment><USER13> Sidenote: Rick Guidice also did art for Atari's gaming systems.

[http://rickguidice.com/illustration/atariart.html](http://rickguidice.com/illustration/atariart.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some of these arise from of Gerard O'Neill work on space colonies. I saw these in National Geographic in the late 70s they were hugely inspirational to me.

Note while Musk advocates settling Mars Bezos has indicated a preference for space colonies such as O'Neills.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder)

<comment><USER15> Dreams of Elysian Fields.

None of these Arks are going to support billions.

<comment><USER11> Unless we terraform a planet, we'll need domes (artificial habitats with roofs filled with air) anyways. The difference between a planetary and space settlement is then just the (reinforced) floor, and you gain having 0 delta-v launch costs.

<comment><USER16> > The difference between a planetary and space settlement is then just the > (reinforced) floor, and you gain having 0 delta-v launch costs.

Anywhere intended for long-term habitation needs to be surrounded by 5m of metal or 10m of dirt (or a proper magnetosphere), and even a small amount of gravity can make life a lot more convenient in terms of having an up and down direction, not having to sleep next to a fan etc.

To my mind somewhere like Phobos makes the most sense for the first space colonies - enough dirt available to build things, not enough delta-v cost to matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> O'Neill cylinders were the template for space colonies in the Mobile Suit Gundam anime, going all the way back to the series premiere in 1979. One of many details which lent the show an air of gritty realism, despite its colorful giant robot fights.

<comment><USER18> Gundam continues to mix these gritty realistic space ideas with cool fighting robots. I wish more sci-fi shows would do this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't think it makes much sense for us to build earth-like environments in space. It totally negates the benefits of being in a zero-g environment.

I think it is more likely that our biology will be forced to adapt to space than the other way around. I can imagine a future where humans live in individual pods while hooked up to virtual reality systems that can simulate all the necessary needs of the person within the pod, while the pod traverses shared space near lagrange points to collect necessary resources. It'd be a sort of "cell" in a larger multi-cellular collective surrounding our local star; much like endosymbiosis lead to mitochondria when eukaryotes first evolved, humans will merge with machines to become space-faring cellular life.

</comment><comment><USER20> Alexis Gilliland wrote some really excellent fiction around the counter- rotating cylinders design. "The Revolution from Rosinante", "Long Shot for Rosinante", and "The Pirates of Rosinante", published by Del Rey in '81 and '82\. They are still as fresh today as when he wrote them. He got the Campbell award in '82, and the Hugo in 1980, 1983, 1984 and 1985 for fan art.

His Mitusbishi Dragon-Scale Mirror design cannot be ignored.

[http://www.isfdb.org/cgi- bin/ea.cgi?Alexis_A._Gilliland](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi- bin/ea.cgi?Alexis_A._Gilliland)

</comment><comment><USER21> There's an under appreciated problem with spinning space stations: they would be set off balance by uneven distribution of weight around the ring. This would make small scale rings a bit problematic because people and stuff need to move around. Rings the size of halo would have enough mass that the movement of people wouldn't be enough to matter.

<comment><USER22> In the book/TV series "The Expanse", they actually spin up massive asteroids and live inside tunnels, effectively like a ring but made of rock, to offset the fact that it doesn't have enough gravity otherwise. Neat concept, although will likely end in failure.

<comment><USER23> In reality those asteroids would tear themselves to pieces when spun up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> matt-attack I'm almost positive one of those was from _National Geographic's Our Universe_. When I was a kid I must have read it a hundred times. The drawings were truly awe inspiring. In fact just googling it and seeing the cover art brought back so many memories.

A book could never mean as much again in this age.

<comment><USER24> One of the reasons I loved the Mass Effect games was that their design team had clearly been looking at these same pictures, especially when they built the Presidium.

As a kid, I would look at those pictures and imagine my life in the future looking like this. Instead, in the real future, I play video games where I can wander around these kinds of spaces virtually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Love this art, especially the retro sci-fi look in general. Some similarities to share:

NASA's own "visions of the future" poster series: [https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/visions-of-the- future/](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/visions-of-the-future/)

Futuristic concept artists like Syd Mead: [https://www.google.com/search?q=syd+mead+art&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=syd+mead+art&tbm=isch)

"Never Built" series based on city building proposals, starting with Los Angeles: [https://www.google.com/search?q=never+built+los+angeles&tbm=...](https://www.google.com/search?q=never+built+los+angeles&tbm=isch)

</comment><comment><USER25> How 'serious' were these pictures?

Was this something they were seriously expecting in the coming years?

I'm mindful of the fact that man had basically gone from just achieving orbit, to landing on the moon in a decade, so anything could have seemed possible at that stage.

<comment><USER26> Until Kennedy radically accelerated the schedule for the first moon landing and set that as a singular goal, the plans for the space program involved almost as much infrastructure building as exploration. Here's a 1955 television program where Wernher von Braun presents an earlier, more complicated plan for a Moon mission, complete with a nuclear-powered toroidal space station: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXIDFx74aSY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXIDFx74aSY)

<comment><USER27> That's a great find. A noteworthy (to me) feature was the height of the orbit -- they're at ~1000 miles above the Earth's surface. This indicates that they were unaware of the Van Allen belts, which makes sense, in 1955, no artificial satellites had yet been launched.

Edit: Also noticed the dramatized mission has a "free-return" trajectory, no maneuver required at the moon to get back to Earth.

<comment><USER26> They also had a lot of enthusiasm for nuclear energy. Apollo itself used fuel cells and the later space stations all used solar power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Loved the space colony with the hang glider.

That one caused me to consider a 2001-style rotating space station — would it be possible to ride your bike counter to the rotation of the wheel and cancel the centripetal force?

I reasoned that you could but that your direction of travel, tangential to the inner surface of the wheel, would still keep you "grounded".

A simple ramp though should allow you to launch yourself "hub ward".

Am I missing something?

<comment><USER29> No I think you nailed it. It all depends on the rotation speed but in principle it should be possible to do that.

That can either be seen as a flaw or as a feature depending on which side you look at it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> So optimistic. I loved the 70's. It was what drew me into the idea of a "brave new future" (no sarcasm intended).

</comment><comment><USER30> Higher resolution images are available from [http://marsforthemany.com/news/technology/space-station- art-...](http://marsforthemany.com/news/technology/space-station-art-from- the-1970s/)

</comment><comment><USER31> I just came across this guy who seems to have drawn a lot through the years: [http://www.mccallstudios.com/the-space- frontier/](http://www.mccallstudios.com/the-space-frontier/)

<comment><USER32> Robert McCall! A classic, who made "The Prologue and the Promise", a picture I've used as a desktop background for quite a while (nice to make it span several screens).

[http://www.mccallstudios.com/includes/uploads/2015/10/0037-0...](http://www.mccallstudios.com/includes/uploads/2015/10/0037-005_the_prologue_and_the_promise.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Hey I'm just thinking this through, but wouldn't you get atmospheric disturbances with a cylinder of not-gigantic size? Air currents that go antispinwise would experience lift due to coriolis effect, while air currents going spinwise would experience a downdraft. Would that not lead to the development of sideways tornadoes? Just a thought.. The ring or cylinder might have to have a really large circumference to avoid those kinds of things.

</comment><comment><USER34> This artwork reminds me of a book from my childhood, the 'Usborne Book of the Future'. In addition to being richly illustrated, it predicted a lot of the technology we would have today, as well as described problems society might face in the future.

It's archived online here: [https://archive.org/details/Usborne_Book_of_the_Future_1979_...](https://archive.org/details/Usborne_Book_of_the_Future_1979_pointlessmuseum)

</comment><comment><USER35> Some of the illustrations remind me of a book at my school library titled "50 Facts About Space":

[https://www.amazon.com/Facts-about-Space-Mark- Lambert/dp/033...](https://www.amazon.com/Facts-about-Space-Mark- Lambert/dp/0330267299)

These visions of gigantic space colonies were fantastic. I don't know if I could bear to live on one in RL, I'd be too worried about the micrometeorites.

</comment><comment><USER36> Many of those images were also published in O'Neill's book, The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Colon...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Colonies_in_Space)

</comment><comment> pi-victor You mean retro Elisyum maybe :)

Also, how did we get from this cool stuff to zombie apocalypse, dystopian society and barren wastelands in our sci-fi?

<comment><USER37> This graph shows an important reason why Sci-Fi has a lot less cool stuff today than in the sixties:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NASA-Budget- Federal.svg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NASA-Budget-Federal.svg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I remember seeing some of these as a kid in the 70's. Great stuff. Also a lot of art by Chris Foss:

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1848566980/ref=ox_sc_saved_im...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1848566980/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_5?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1)

</comment><comment><USER39> And for modern space art: [http://spacehabs.com/](http://spacehabs.com/)

</comment><comment><USER33> I actually think a ring or cylinder in space is a more practical idea than colonizing mars, because 1) you can get 1g earth gravity, 2) transportation to any other floating habitat or asteroid in the inner solar system is easy, 3) you have to build some kind of pressurized dome on mars anyway and 4) it's easier to resupply from earth

</comment><comment><USER40> The first eight images were published in T.A. Heppenheimer's _Colonies in Space_ , now available online.

[https://space.nss.org/colonies-in-space-by-t-a- heppenheimer/](https://space.nss.org/colonies-in-space-by-t-a-heppenheimer/)

<comment><USER41> I had that book. I was in 7th grade when it was published.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> People raised in Space are going to wonder what we found so enticing about living dirtside, "Fun to visit, but why anyone lives like that is beyond me. We have perfect weather, a beautiful environment, and we're already halfway to anywhere we want to go."

<comment><USER43> Well, a snowstorm can be beautiful, perfect weather - to feel alive.

A sunny beach is nice. But all day, every day?

Boooring.

I like to travel. I like to see new things, experience new situations - <USER2> small space station where I would have to live forever, I would consider a hell in prison.

Unless that space station travels around the planets ... where you can visit and explore them ..

<comment><USER44> Presumably the station would orbit earth, and so you'd just wait until you were over the place you wanted to visit and then head down to earth for a week, and the trip would be the same hassle no matter where you were going!

<comment><USER14> There's no reason to think they'd only orbit Earth!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> The view from Cooper Station at the end of the movie _Interstellar_, of a baseball hit out of the park into the window of an upside-down house reminded me of O'Neill space colonies. I don't recall whether this was a cylinder or torus.

</comment><comment><USER46> I follow 70s Sci-Fi Art account on twitter for this kind of art [https://twitter.com/70sscifiart](https://twitter.com/70sscifiart)

I often use some of the book cover art pictures as my phone wallpaper.

</comment><comment><USER47> I always loved how the show Babylon 5 used a similar design for their space station.

</comment><comment><USER48> I grew up reading kids sci-fi with those kinds of pictures... makes me nostalgic!

</comment><comment><USER49> I don't think these kind of colonies would be effective without a strong shield like the earth atmosphere and magnetic field, and the ability to take a hit from a high speed space object.

</comment><comment><USER50> I used to use one of these as my wallpapers. A friend was bugged that had been using it for years so he gave me a nice print of it and I switched to a different image from this archive :P

</comment><comment><USER51> What do they do with all the single use plastic containers?

</comment><comment><USER52> These images make me want to play space orbital sim city.

</comment><comment><USER53> Plus the moon colonies needed to mine materials and launch them to L4 and L5 with a catapult, to be caught by a spacecraft with a "catcher".

</comment><comment><USER54> The Russians had good art too: [https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-soviet-artists- imagined-communis...](https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-soviet-artists-imagined- communist-life-in-space-1558140402)

Sadly reality is never that good

<comment><USER26> I like how they have helicopters on the moon. I guess it might make sense if you're in a dome filled with air.

<comment><USER55> Probably not, unless those rotors we're spinning really slowly; you wouldn't need nearly as powerful a helicopter in such a weak gravity...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I remember seeing these in some book when I was a kid... pre-internet... thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER57> This reminds of Larry Niven's Ringworld! Although not identical configurations.

</comment><comment><USER58> I remember having books with such art as a little kid. Im so old.

</comment><comment><USER59> This needs some syd mead

</comment><comment><USER60> Obligatory reference to Isaac Arthur's youtube channel where you often see this artwork

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g)

</comment><comment><USER61> Is the cylinder design related to the Rama?

</comment><comment><USER62> as seen in Halo and Mass Effect

</comment><comment><USER54> And just because I'm drunk, some music: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIN_cpdLyw4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIN_cpdLyw4)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIN_cpdLyw4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIN_cpdLyw4)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCsd5V5axQQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCsd5V5axQQ)

Ban me if you want

<comment><USER63> It would be more apt to use futuristic music from the 1970s [https://youtu.be/AHNUQOhEkAo](https://youtu.be/AHNUQOhEkAo) There was already enough electronic music to form whole genres, like New Age (Space Music) and Space Disco.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> to me, colonialization of other planets seem like alchemy of our times. Every basic item is missing in Mars and will people be willing to survive in domes and astronaut type suits for their entire lives? Then there is a matter of what type of meaningful work people will engage in? what type of education to give to kids? Which currency to pay them in? What nationality would they have? Are they a new country?</comment>


Caganer - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caganer

<comment><USER2> Catalan here. Check out another Catalan Christmas tradition: Tió, a log that defecates gifts [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ti%C3%B3_de_Nadal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ti%C3%B3_de_Nadal)

Bon Nadal, Merry Christmas.</comment>


The Netflix Tech Blog: Stream-Processing with Mantis - <AUTHOR> http://techblog.netflix.com/2016/03/stream-processing-with-mantis.html <comment><USER2> I'm currently porting the linked outlier detection system to Mantis at Netflix and I could not be more excited about the things this platform enables. It provides a platform on which I can run analytical code, scale it, add new data sources. I think about as little ops as possible, I'm now monitoring jobs instead of services, my code base is even more focused on the analytical task and not supporting infrastructure.

Rx* is a great paradigm for data applications, something I feel is a serious advantage over similar software like Samza. Their choice to use the JVM has allowed me to write analytics in Scala, and I've been mulling over the idea of writing Clojure on top of Mantis as well but not having a use case is stopping me. I have for some time been pushing to have the opportunity to move more of my products onto this platform internally at Netflix.

Cheers Ben, Chris, Neeraj, Nick, Sharma, and Justin!</comment>


Comics Code Authority - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_code <comment><USER2> I know some people like to make fun of the Comics Code Authority, but given that comic books have always been intended primarily as entertainment for children I'm not sure what the big deal is. It was voluntary, and the restrictions required in order to get approved don't seem entirely unreasonable for children's entertainment.

<comment><USER3> FTA: Comics analyst Scott McCloud, on the other hand, later commented that it was as if, in drawing up the code, "the list of requirements a film needs to receive a G rating was doubled, and there were no other acceptable ratings!"

Also, no child would be able to afford collecting comics from that era... Instead, those comics are most certainly "targeted" at adults now.</comment></comment>