Notes on Various Virtualization options - <AUTHOR> http://e1ven.com/2010/02/23/virtual-notes/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a set of quick notes I made while testing a few options for Virtualization.

For my needs, it looks like OpenVZ will probably be fine- It's not nearly as powerful as Vmware or Xen, but it has nearly native performance.

I very well may start building my machines with OpenVZ even if they only run one VM- The flexibility for restarts, migrations, and backups is very, very nice.</comment>


The thrill of launch - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinkvitamin.com/features/webapps/the-thrill-of-launch

<comment><USER2> One thing I'm not quite clear on with regards to OpenID is how I can be sure that my identity provider can't log in to my sites. I feel like I must not understand OpenID correctly. It seems to me that all the power rests in the hands of the identity provider; that is, the users have to trust the provider both to safeguard their data and to not use it in the way the user did not want (government gets warrant and checks out user's personal activity by asking provider to log them in).

Am I totally missing something here? I looked all over Clickpass's site, and while not having to login everywhere is convenient, I'd much rather know that I'm the only one who has the credentials to authenticate as myself. If I'm wrong, I think something should be said on the Clickpass site about how users can know their information is still in their own hands. If I'm right, I don't think I could ever get on board with a site like Clickpass, and I don't understand how others can do it so readily.

</comment><comment><USER3> While people are reading this, just wanted to say that I haved fixed it so you can be logged out of Clickpass and still use the Clickpass dropdown to log in to news.yc with your own OpenID.

We are going to do some stuff to make that even easier going forward. Let me know if you have any issues with that...

</comment><comment><USER4> Great post! That rush of adrenaline probably already makes it worth creating your own startup.

Nice tips, certainly some things to consider when launching. But in the end you can probably never be prepared enough. But where would the fun be?

</comment><comment><USER5> I was thrilled last night when I got clickpass integrated into ourdoings.com. I still have some work to do to be friendly to OpenID in general.

I'm a little bummed I won't be able to watch them live when they go on justin.tv today. Hopefully I'll be able to catch the recording later.

<comment><USER6> Awesome - we're thrilled to be on there, you've done a text-book perfect install :)

In a true co-incidence, Clickpass is also in the Guardian today: [http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/digitalcontent/2008/03/elevator_...](http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/digitalcontent/2008/03/elevator_pitch_clickpass_bring.html)

Sometimes you just get lucky ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> this was one of the coolest stories I've read in a long time, very fun and nicely done.</comment>


Jobs quote of "A 3G iPhone later next year" should kill demand for iPhone 1.0 - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.zdnet.com/Berlind/?p=782

<comment><USER2> I don't understand this. But I can't say I am surprised. 3G is a must in European and Asian countries if apple would like to compete with Nokia.

Apple always had a penchant for trying harder after victories, I believe this is another case of lets tear apart the market before somebody else plays catch up. I think they did something similar with the Ipods.

<comment><USER3> O2 is having to dig up and reactivate old 2G broadcast hardware in the UK JUST for the iPhone. Yes, a 2G phone is definitely a step back for most European and Asian mobile phone users.

But they do have a cool solution using the Cloud WiFi service. O2 iPhones automatically hop between WiFi routers on the Cloud network as you move between nodes (seamless to the user).</comment></comment>


13 Spills. 30 Days. Nearly 1.2 Million Toxic Gallons - <AUTHOR> https://www.commondreams.org/further/2013/04/12-3

<comment><USER2> Put some numbers on it! It will look sciencey!

Math does not work when applied to the data.

Most of the volume is from 60000 barrels stolen from pipelines (people drilling holes in the pipes and catching in buckets), undoubtedly some portion spilled. That is almost 3,000,000 gallons. The rest of the data is lost in the fudge factor that brings that down. (Two of the spill events are from about 10 gallons each, probably should list every car accident that splits a gas tank.)

1.2 million gallons sounds like a lot. In the US we've recently added vapor recovery devices to our cars to condense the gasoline out of the air in the tank. That keeps ~1 gallon per car per year out of the environment. The equivalent of making all of these spills every two days, but it is invisible. (That's why you may have stopped seeing vapor recovery nozzles at the filling station, your car is doing the work now.)

<comment><USER3> Dismissed like an industry spokesman!

These pipelines are ecologically dangerous, primarily because (a) they are aging (many are over 50 years old) and (b) we don't, as a country, do a very good job of holding oil companies responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of their equipment.

Oil is a dirty business, literally, and just outright dismissing spills as little more than a numbers problem is as criminal as exploiting the problem for a cheap headline.

Check out this article on the recent spill in Arkansas:

[http://www.apr.org/post/arkansas-oil-spill-sheds-light- aging...](http://www.apr.org/post/arkansas-oil-spill-sheds-light-aging- pipeline-system)

"According to federal statistics, they have on average 280 significant spills a year...Federal data show that on average over the past decade, nearly 3.5 million gallons of oil spilled from pipelines each year."

This is for the US only. That's a considerable problem that should be addressed. You may be willing to accept a damaged environment and write off spilled oil as "theft" (which I doubt is a big problem in the US). I think we should be doing everything possible to keep our planet clean and safe, even if it costs a few extra dollars.

<comment><USER2> _3.5 million gallons of oil spilled from pipelines each year_ , or 2% of what consumers were leaking from their gas tanks until just a few years ago. A drop in a bucket is .000625%, so I can't use that phrase and "two thousand drops in a bucket" doesn't have quite the right ring…

 _criminal_? You publicly defame me as a criminal‽ Maybe you meant to say _irresponsible_ or something similar that doesn't so directly involve libel laws. Let's save _criminal_ for where it belongs, like BP's Deepwater Horizon spill.

I reject your assertion: _we don't, as a country, do a very good job of holding oil companies responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of their equipment_ unless you can provide evidence. The EPA oversees cleanups which are notoriously expensive, deterring pipeline companies from accepting leaks as a cost of doing business. (The one I'm familiar with cost about $1000/gallon of leaked oil (mostly to experts and analysts, not so much to the guy with the shovel and buckets). Small leak, probably makes it on the high side per gallon.)

For another data point, when BP blew out some lines in Alaska in 2006 they spilled about 6000 barrels and were ultimately fined $20M. I'd like that fine to be higher, 20 times the value of the spilled product seems low.

Forgive a paragraph where I read about the Alaskan Pipeline, it's Saturday, the official day of HN meanderings:

I wanted to put a number about what percent of the Trans Alaskan pipeline oil leaks out, but I'm not finding a catalog of spills. From 1977 to 2010 it moved 16 billion barrels of oil, but I'm not finding the other half. There is a list at wikipedia, but it misses the 2006 BP spill, so I don't trust it to be complete. In 1978 someone blew a hole in the pipeline and leaked 16000 barrels, in 2001 some drunken numbnut with a rifle shot a hole in a weld and leaked 6000 barrels. He got 16 years in jail and was sentenced to pay $17M for the cleanup. I'm guessing he's still working that off. Unless they find more oil, or figure out how to make the pipeline work at lower than designed flow rates, the company that owns it has to remove all traces of the pipeline. Current projections suggest 2032 as the year for that decision.

Back on topic:

• Keep leaks to a minimum, but don't panic.

• Oil seeps are natural phenomena. The planet has survived millions of years with them.

• A pipeline leak screws up the local environment, but can be cleaned, and make sure to fine the pipeline folk enough that they don't want it to happen.

• Trucking the oil instead of using pipelines would be worse for the environment (I boldly propose without bothering to check the data).

• You know that car owners and farmers used to use their used motor oil as weed killer, right? Kept the weeds in the ditch down by dumping the oil in the drainage ditch. We have survived that, which was probably several times more oil per year than pipeline leaks. Heck I drove a Ford that leaked oil faster than my share of global pipeline leaks.

On barely related good news: The local gas company is _finally_ addressing the methane leak they've had going in my yard for two years. It got big enough to attract their attention.

<comment><USER3> A couple of problems. You didn't really address any of these issues. Apparently to you dumping a little oil in a ditch or some tar in a bog is equivalent to dumping millions of galleons into lakes, rivers, and oceans. Did you know that with all those beautiful stories of Exxon and others cleaning up oil spills, washing off baby ducks and sea lions, that most of them die? A 1996 study by UC Davis found that in the years following an oil spill in 1990, only 10% of pelicans that were "saved" from the spill survived beyond two years (while nearly 100% of a control group were still alive)?

Furthermore, You probably need a dictionary for Christmas. I didn't even suggest you were something as harsh as irresposible. My use of the word "criminal" in no way implicates you as a criminal, nor implies an illegal act. "Criminal" in this context is a synonym for shameful or disgraceful. So cool your jets.

I'm not sure what you're arguing beyond that. Somehow a couple of anecdotes makes for proof that we're hard on oil companies? We nowhere near make it painful on the oil industry. A company reporting billions in pure profit doesn't feel anything from a $20m fine. And how does that $20m compare to the $10-50 billion the oil industry got in subsidies alone that year? Looks more and more like a slap on the wrist to me. Some poor schlub got 16 years for leaking 6000 barrels, but no one at BP or Haliburton--knowingly installing bad blowout valves and other cost-cutting measures--did any jail time for loosing almost 5 million barrels into the Gulf? There's much more evidence for leniency on our part than accountability.

I'm just so tired of no one wanting to do better in this country. Be it guns, energy, education, poverty: it's everyone else's problem, it's just the way it is, and there's nothing we can do about it. I guess we're the Not-So-Greatest Generation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find this a little odd - firstly, by far the largest volume of oil in the chart is the theft of 60,000 barrels per day reported by Shell from their pipeline in Nigeria. But theft != spill - presumably the oil was used for the same kinds of things it's normally used for, and wasn't tipped on the ground.

Secondly, the volume of the Shell thefts alone is 2.5m gallons per day, so either it wasn't actually added into the total (so why mention it?) or they got their math wrong.

Finally, 1.2m gallons sure seems like a lot, until you read that it's 2 Olympic swimming pools. Given the amount of oil processed around the world in a month I'm surprised we don't spill more of it.

BTW, Google never ceases to amaze me - I never expected it to understand "1185000 gallons in barrels of oil".

<comment><USER5> The actual quote was _"after suffering a reported theft of 60,000 barrels of oil per day from its Nembe Creek Trunkline pipeline, Shell Nigeria shuts off the pipe for 9 days to repair damage."_

which to me sounds like damage caused by the thefts is causing (some undefined amount) of leakage/wastage, that they're trying to fix.

If they're including the full 60k barrel as 'spillage' in their graphs then it's definitely somewhat disingenuous, as you say.

<comment><USER4> That's a good point. I did a little Googling for news on the matter, and it seems like the thefts were made by drilling holes in the pipeline [1], and the amount stolen accounts for almost half of the 150,000 barrels-per-day capacity of the pipeline. Shell shut the pipeline down both due to the leaks and to the monetary losses ($100m in a week) incurred.

So, I'm not sure - it seems pretty clear that the 60,000 barrels a day was theft, and not a spill, but presumably there's leakage after clandestinely drilling holes in high pressure oil lines. I don't know if pipeline theft should be included in a list of oil industry screw-ups, unless you want to expand the term to include thieves and black-marketeers (not that Shell are saints in the Niger Delta, there's almost certainly blood on their hands [2])

[1] [http://www.voanews.com/content/shell-to-shut-down-major- pipe...](http://www.voanews.com/content/shell-to-shut-down-major-pipeline-in- nigeria/1631767.html)

[2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Saro-Wiwa>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Add another one: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvbcQHbgPwE>

<comment><USER7> And another: [http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2013/04/11/...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2013/04/11/sk- truck-crash.html)

Seems this is more frequent then people are aware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _13 Spills. 30 Days. Nearly 1.2 Million Toxic Gallons_

And $300 billion in economic wealth.</comment>


One Day at Panda Express - <AUTHOR> http://www.eater.com/a/panda-express-one-day <comment><AUTHOR> Quite a nice article about running a fast-food chain, although this feels like an ad piece to me.</comment>


Facebook and YouTube's 'Platform' Excuse Is Dying - shaki-dora https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/06/facebook-and-youtubes-platform-excuse-dying/591466/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm always surprised that compainies operate under this... If you can't control your content (as a creator) how is it a free speech platform?

</comment><comment><USER2> Simultaneously complains about them allowing too much, and having too many rules.

<comment><USER3> That's because those companies simultaneously claim to be neutral platforms and act as publishers enforcing restrictive and arbitrary rules.</comment></comment>


Pronunciation errors that made the English language what it is today - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/11/pronunciation-errors-english-language/ <comment><USER2> Spanish speaker here (es-ar to be more precise).

Are some of this changes unique to English? What are the differences with other languages?

For example, in Spanish the oral and written forms of word are almost identical (with the "usual" pronunciation table). This is not as strict as in German (where you must use another "usual" pronunciation table and also say every "t" that is in the middle of a 10 consonant raw, we sometimes skip a few letters in Spanish).

The speaked and written forms of the word in Spanish had changed. It's very difficult to read texts from 1800 (or 1600). But we usually change the written form of the word after the oral form has changed (with a lot of complains about how the young generation is destroying the language).

For example, now in Argentina we usually say "ciudá" instead of "ciudad" (phonetically "see-oo-DA" instad of "see-oo-DAD"). I think that in a few years we will drop the "d" of the written form.</comment>


Ask HN: Showcasing side projects on resume - <AUTHOR> For the past decade I've been a database administrator. Last year we got word that in a few years our datacenter will close (I'm a US Gov't contractor), so I've picked up some additional skills like python, javascript, node.js, etc.  I work with AWS for the contract and utilize it for some web applications I've written.<p>How can I showcase that on a resume? <comment><USER2> > How can I showcase that on a resume?

In the resume, order them by most awesome first. Don't bother putting the broken ones in. If possible, and if they are open source, put the source code on github. Put up an online demo, or link them to the real thing. Then put both repo and demo links in the resume, along with a 2-3 sentence summary of what the app does. Don't run around the bush, get straight to the point of the app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome advice. Thank you for it, lollipop25

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Create a "RELEVANT PROJECTS" section and add them in there. If someone asks, you can say "These are the projects that I develop on my own time for learning purposes". It can never hurt.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, codegeek

<comment><USER3> np. Most importantly, always tailor your Resume to match against specific job requirements if you know in advance. For example, if your side project is more relevant for the position you are applying for, stress on it a bit more. Of course, don't exaggerate or lie but the point is that a Good Resume is your door to getting that interview and that's it. So you need to convince the person looking at your Resume that you are worthy of an interview. Obviously, the more they can relate with what is on your Resume, higher the chance for you to get an interview.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've got a github - I put maybe a paragraph under a personal profile running through the things I'm working on and what they all do (briefly mentioning the stack they use).

It seems to work ok and good employers will take a look at your github, if you do pass through to an interview it's something they can easily talk to you about.

I realise a lot of the things you'll have worked on you probably can't release. I'd still mention them for the same reason (talking points). I like to make sure people have a few conversation starters to talk to me about to break the ice, and it usually leads on to you selling yourself better.

</comment><comment><USER5> Agree with codegeek and would add to assure you don't sound like you can do everything. When I see a resume that has a variety of skills I don't think versatility, I think, "what do I call this person for". Don't be a jack-of- all-trades because then you're a master of none.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your time. I'm going to write some web apps, contribute to the company's github and see where that takes me.

<comment><USER4> One trap I've fallen into in the past doing this is trying to make the "perfect" github. It could easily become a full time job - you really need a few goals you want to meet and to reassess them regularly

<comment><AUTHOR> That's excellent advice - I did some soul searching after reading this and wrote down some concrete goals I want to accomplish before applying for the position I have in mind.

Thank you, yarper.

<comment><USER5> Best of luck to you, concrete goals are a great start.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Socket programming tutorial in C for beginners - Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.binarytides.com/blog/beginners-guide-to-socket-programming-in-c-on-linux/

<comment><USER2> Awesome site! Thanks for all the tutorials.</comment>


China 'social credit': Beijing sets up huge system - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186 <comment><USER2> Its huge social experiment. Beijing probably thinks there is no risk for them, you can just modify the system until it works or end it if it goes bad. But messing with social order can have unforeseen consequences.

I can see at least three scenarios:

1\. It eventually works well and cements the power structures. Those in power can't get low scores. Wast majority of population aligns their behaviour with the incentives provided by the credit. Effective caste system emerges.

2\. It somewhat works but people eventually hack around it and corrupt it. Social credit becomes the new center of corruption that weakens Beijing. Shady people get ahead faster than before.

3\. There is a sudden blowback that is too fast to counter and is spreads trough the whole nation. For example: Too many people are forbidden from traveling during the new year to their families. They and their families protest and that lowers their credit even more. Angry people start to push back and Bejing loses control...

</comment><comment><USER3> If this system is not criticized more, countries will soon begin to look at it with envy, regardless of whether or not they think it will be a positive addition to their societies, but primarily because it will be a great way to _control_ those societies. So if their people don't attack it, they might see it as an invitation to implement it at home, too.</comment>


Spice up your JavaScript with currying - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@riccardoodone/spice-up-your-javascript-5314bf28f3e5 <comment><USER2> Am I the only person that absolutely hates this style of programming? Explicitly passing arguments makes it much clearer to the reader what that function does without having to go investigate the arguments it's expecting. Similarly, while with map, filter, reduce, we're familiar with the arguments they'll invoke our fn with, in other cases additional readability is lost by not being able to name the arguments.

I would go further and argue that my favorite functions actually expect objects with keys as parameters, so then it becomes clear what key the function is expecting, and what value I'm passing from my business logic that I'd like to represent that value.

        http({
          method: 'post',
          url: company.url.complaints
        })

I can tell by reading this code that I'm passing in a url and an http method without knowing anything about the function's arguments or positions, and I have explicitly mapped what value from my business logic I would like associated with a specific argument key.

JS and Python, among others, have destructuring/kwargs to help this style of programming be less verbose and equally self descriptive.

The other thing I really dislike about currying and positional arguments is that it's very hard to change the function interface. Using keyed arguments makes it trivial to add additional functionality to functions later without breaking any existing code.

I just really can't get past the opinion that people are deluding themselves into taking certain aspects of functional programming and not realizing exactly how inconvenient it becomes to understand what's happening without inspecting the interface of every function.

<comment><USER3> You are not alone...</comment></comment>


Should Robot Drivers Kill to Save a Child's Life? - <AUTHOR> http://www.livescience.com/47402-should-robot-drivers-kill-to-save-a-childs-life.html

<comment><USER2> Why is this child unsupervised in the middle of a dangerous road in the middle of nowhere?

Call me an asshole but something about Darwinism.

Other fun thoughts:

* What if my child is in the car with me?

* What if I'm pregnant?

* What if I'm a doctor on my way to save the live of a dangerously ill child?

* What if another car comes a minute later, programmed to do the same? Is the child worth two adult lives?

* Would standardization of occupant-killing behavior lead to the weaponization of such highway-children? Would placing children suchly be treated as attempted mass murder?

* Replace the car with a freight train. Why doesn't the conductor detonate an explosive designed to derail the train before it hits the child?

* Why is this occupant-killing car not equipped with an ejection seat?

</comment><comment><USER3> No question, I would swerve to my death in order to save a child's life. My robot surrogate should do the same.

<comment><USER2> I'm curious why you feel you should answer for some parent's negligence with your life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What about the 3rd option? Drive slow on a narrow winding road, and brake when you see the child.

<comment><USER5> This is the fundamental robot-driver issue. If they are any better than human drivers, its because they have fast reactions and great skill. Traffic density can be increased, and trip time reduced.

But that leads directly into this issue. What happens when humans are on the road (children, legacy human drivers)? Does the whole system collapse to a minimum level to take them into account? Everything slows down; congestion and slow trips return.

<comment><USER4> But that's the real game. Instead of programming a computer to prioritize lives, it makes more sense to program it to find a balance to optimize reaction times.

On a winding road, where you have little visibility it makes sense to go slower. On a freeway, you can go faster.

<comment><USER5> Any time you add humans, you can't go faster. They can change lanes unpredictably, or hit the brakes for no reason, or fall asleep. You have to go slowly (for a robot) all the time with people present.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It is my car, so it should spare my life. At least, that's how I would program my own car.</comment>


Ask HN: Web Devs, What is this feature? - <AUTHOR> Hey guys and gals
On any gitbooks (for example: https://codegangsta.gitbooks.io/building-web-apps-with-go/content/go_makes_things_simple/index.html). When you hover over a paragraph a little ' + ' icon comes up allowing yo to leave a comment on that specific paragraph
What is the feature called and is there a JS library or something for it?
Thanks in advance :) <comment><USER2> One way to investigate this would be using the developer tools in your browser. Usually the F12 key brings them up in the major browsers.

One of the great things about javascript and the web is that it is possible to 'dissassemble' most code at least partially.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks</comment></comment>


The Oxford degree that runs Britain - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/feb/23/ppe-oxford-university-degree-that-rules-britain?CMP=fb_gu <comment><USER3> It sounds like PPE basically does what Oxford designed it to do. Before PPE would be bureaucrats and ministers studied Greek and Latin. Then Oxford decided they may need training in something more practical.

Throw in some stats and basic data analysis and I think you have a pretty good training regimen for people who want to go to Whitehall and Parliament

<comment><USER4> PPE isn't perfect, but as far as a preparation for government goes, it's better than any other degree I've seen. I'd like to see it include slightly more mathematics -- economics has become significantly more quantitative over the decades, and PPE hasn't kept up -- but it's still vastly ahead of a degree in law, which seem to be the most common preparation for political careers in North America.

 _Before PPE would be bureaucrats and ministers studied Greek and Latin._

Some of them, I'm sure; but I think the highest density of Greats has always been in the House of Lords.

<comment><USER5> _PPE isn 't perfect, but as far as a preparation for government goes, it's better than any other degree I've seen._

Doesn't that make the implicit assumption that _any_ degree is good preparation for government, though?

<comment><USER6> There's upside and downsides.

A good place to look at a non-political example of this phenomenon is submarine captains. A US submarine captain is by training a nuclear engineer first and foremost. It dominates the training and career path. In the Royal Navy, captains are more rounded and while they have plenty of training in that area, they have a more liberal education. That impacts leadership style and other things. Both courses are effective, just different.

Politics are similar. Your typical US politician is an attorney with a feeder degree in political science, history, etc. More MBAs too. Staffers usually have politically focused degrees as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of my school friends did PPE at Oxford (where else?). I don't like him or the world that he is in. It goes beyond 'sense of entitlement'.

The other 'OxBridge' university - Cambridge - also has something to offer public life. The 'Cambridge Footlights':

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

So every funny comedian on the BBC graduated from Cambridge going via this am- dram society.

You have to choose one's parents quite carefully. Mine were not pushing me to do PPE at Oxford, my friend's parent's knew exactly what they were doing, they had their son lined up for an upper middle class wealthy life from the start.

<comment><USER8> That is really eye-opening. You look at the list of people who came and went through Footlights, and it's like reading a Who's Who of modern British comedy.

On one hand, clearly Cambridge is doing _something_ right, since British comedy has been the world's gold standard for decades. But on the other hand you can't help but wonder how much latent national talent went untapped, simply because the people holding it weren't "Oxbridge material."

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure that's as true as it used to be. A lot of great modern British comedians weren't members (though may have been Oxbridge): Chris Morris, Stewart Lee, Charlie Brooker, Armando Iannucci, Bill Bailey, Simon Pegg, Steve Coogan, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ricky Gervais. There is an argument that Footlights continues to dominate a particular strain of "awkward Englishness" style comedy, i.e. Fry & Webb, Hugh Laurie, and to a lesser extent Richard Ayoade. But I don't see these as _the_ defining characters of British comedy at the moment.

<comment><USER10> I don't know if it's as true or not now, but the entertainers have become much posher recently: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/12170357/...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/12170357/Half- of-Britains-best-actors-privately-educated.html)

When actors and pop stars come from such elevated heights, I always get the impression that they are slick and professional - but much blander. For instance, the music of the 60s and 70s - when classes were mixing more - <USER2> more dynamism.

<comment><USER11> Pop used to be one of the few ways creative and intelligent working class kids could become millionaires.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Entrenched thinking in the UK is why certain degrees seem to be the 'correct' or desirable ones for any given field or why the route in life seems to be cut out for people who take a certain degree.

In countries other than the UK, I've heard of many people entering the programming field through a non-CompSci degree, but here if you don't have some kind of related degree you wouldn't get considered for a job in that particular field. This goes for many other fields, not just programming. But not here (UK). Out-of-box thinking just isn't the way industry operates here and that's never a good thing, to always operate in a very predictable way to create a weakness in the system.

<comment><USER13> I wanted to do Compsci at university (I'm in my second term of my first year now), but I missed out by a few marks. I was offered Electronic and Computer Engineering (which is what I'm doing now at a UK uni), though the kind of jobs I want to do are almost entirely programming, and not necessarily embedded programming.

I don't know what my job prospects are like; hell, I don't even know what electronic engineers do.

<comment><USER14> I graduated with a degree in electronic and computer engineering in 1996 in the U.K.

We did minimal software: a bit of Ada, Prolog, Z and Occam, 6502 assembler. Nothing substantial really. Tons of math, analog electronics and microprocessor design.

I had a deep interest in electronics but went straight into software development. The degree gave me a valuable foundation, it has been tremendously useful at various points in my career. And in side-projects. It gave me an understanding of what lies beneath. And a skillset that many software dev contemporaries did not have. Some of the most interesting software is the stuff that connects to the physical world.

Never worked in the UK. Spent a bunch of time in Germany now I'm in California, via Massachusetts.

I wouldn't worry :-)

<comment><USER13> Thank you for your insight. My worry is more to do with fear of not being able to make my 40% pass mark for this year. There's simply so much to know and learn, from the analogue (which I find the hardest) to the programming (which I find the easiest). Unfortunately the analogue stuff is the highest weighted out of all of the modules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When people say that success depends "not on what you know, but on who you know", Oxford PPE is the textbook example.

It's the degree for people who don't want to have a career doing anything other than working in the politics/economics/media bubble.

It is also perhaps the strongest argument ever made that no-one should be allowed to hold high political office without having spent a significant amount of time doing something outside that bubble.

<comment><USER15> Trump doesn't fit that model and I'd guess if you're here you're no trump fan. So it's not a panacea.

<comment><USER5> On the contrary, Trump is just about the perfect example of the dangers of PPE: he's a man who enjoyed advantages early on that most people will never have, who has consequently spent his entire career in an artificial bubble almost totally unrelated to the experience of most normal people, who has learned to speak confidently about almost any subject regardless of whether he actually knows or understands very much about that subject, and who as result of those attributes has now risen to a level of power he is utterly unqualified to wield.

<comment><USER16> So he's an outlier in the bubble, but still in the bubble? It sounds about right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _PPE, he wrote, "gives no training in scholarship, only refining to a high degree of perfection the ability to write short dilettantish essays on the basis of very little knowledge: ideal training for the social engineer"._

A degree in dinner parties! Sounds like fun, and not altogether unlike HN sometimes...

</comment><comment><USER18> So there it's PPE's, here it's Harvard and Stanford MBA's and law graduates and military officers. All with a slight stench of illegitimacy. Most being ignored by those pushing society forward.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is there an equivalent in the tech industry? Stanford SymSys?

[http://www.businessinsider.com/stanford-symbolic-systems- maj...](http://www.businessinsider.com/stanford-symbolic-systems-major- alumni-2016-1)

</comment><comment><USER20> "To its proliferating critics, PPE is not a solution to Britain's problems; it is a cause of them."

Have you been mis-sold PPE? Time's running out to do something about it...

<comment><USER21> Brexit was not caused by PPE...

<comment><USER22> It's a joke about PPI, not Brexit...

<comment><USER21> Ah, I may not get those ads...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Git is a Harrier Jump Jet. And not in a good way - <AUTHOR> http://reprog.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/git-is-a-harrier-jump-jet-and-not-in-a-good-way/ <comment><USER2> Is this serious?

Can't commit like you expect?

        git commit -a

Alternatively stage a commit

        git add filename
        #then commit it
        git commit -m "commit message"

worst _Git's just version control._ As I recall version control is pretty important to the software developer toolbox. I know its pretty important to mine.

If it takes you that long to get up and running with Git, I can't imagine what kind of developer you are.

Edit: I should add an addendum to this: I don't mean this as a personal attack, I'm just kind of incredulous about all this talk about version control is hard. I have used cvs, svn, mercurial and git and I never found them particular hard to get up and running with them. All source control has its pain points, but usually getting started on a project that has already been using it, or a new project isn't one of these points.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, seems he isn't around people who know git. E.g.:

      Me: Why?  I already added them before, why do I need to add them again?

      They: You just do, OK?

The answer isn't "You just do," neither is it complicated. You need to re-add files _after you've further modified them_ , because you aren't adding files, you're adding changes to files at the time you added it.

After all, why should your VCS assume that your file layout consistently and meaningfully aligns with your changes? I've found it's much more meaningful to cut up a body of work into several commits after the fact using a tool like GitX.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Version control is hard, let's go shopping!_

Kidding aside, arguments like this just do not hold water. If the tool doesn't fit your needs profile, use something else.

<comment><USER5> I agree. Also, I use git for small projects due to it's ease to set up. Subversion takes far too much work to just start using. I sit down, create a folder, code in it, and git init and I have all of my code in version control. I agree it doesn't degrade easily, but like the above comment states, if it doesn't work, either fix it or use something else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow. Generally, I've really loved the Reinvigorated Programmer. This feels like it was written by someone else, or is some kind of joke.

The guy who dedicates three posts to loop invariants and formal (ish) reasoning practices thinks git is hard?

I feel like this post is from some kind of bizarro-world. Even more so since I'm reading on my phone, so there are no sushi pictures!

<comment><USER7> There's only one sushi-picture in there, and two cheesy ones of other things. The One ring and an aircraft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Using Git--for simple things--is not that hard. Seriously, it would take 10 minutes to write shell scripts that simulate Subversion's behavior if one wanted to. It would take far less time than writing a blog post about it, even with only a cursory knowledge of Git.

Further, the tendency of some developers to bitch about using any tool outside their comfort area is annoying. Guess what, users of open source software: unless you're programming using assembly, you use the tools you do because people decided to try something a little bleeding-edge, adventurous, and new. The idea that developers should always "stick with what works" and resist change (even if they don't always like it) is kind of freeloading. Some day, the tools one is using now will be obsolete for the purpose it's being used for now. Be ready to accept change.

That said, the OP should try Mercurial if he wants something with a slightly shallower learning curve.

<comment><USER9> Version control software, like, say, file systems, is not an area where most people _should_ be "adventurous". They should just work, and mostly keep the hell out of your way.

<comment><USER7> And Git just works. At least on the same level as not expecting "rm -rf /" to "read mail really fast".

<comment><USER9> It works, yes, but there is truth in what that guy says. It's fiddly, and often not obvious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think you can sum up that article as "Git is terrible because I couldn't figure it out."

</comment><comment><USER11> If you're only using 3% of git's facilities, then you're doing it wrong. You're probably doing it wrong because you don't understand the other 97%. That's OK, but don't pretend that the stuff you don't understand is useless.

Almost every time I learn something new about git, it is something that is immediately useful.

</comment><comment><USER12> Git is a harrier jump jet when you need it, and a motorcycle the rest of the time.

It is perfect for little "6 file projects". Try getting started so quickly like this in CVS or subversion:

      git init
      git add .
      git commit -a -m "My own repo"

Bam, done. Now you can just do git commit -a whenever you need to add something new. Sure, the index might feel strange to some people, just skip it with -a.

<comment><USER13> And for reduced typing, you can even alias it in your .gitconfig:

        [alias]
          cam = commit -a -m

Then you can just type 'git cam "look what I changed!"'

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anecdotally, everyone I know who's been taught git with no prior VCS experience has had no problem with learning it.

</comment><comment><USER15> Git has certain usability issues, although this article didn't seem to cover them. For example, previewing changes about to be pulled from a remote repository, or resolving conflicts after a bad pull, are complex and counter- intuitive operations.

But internally Git is incredibly simple and well designed. It just needs some polish to make all common use cases intuitive for the casual user. The UI should always guide the user how to proceed in unclear situations. Common use cases should have simple shortcuts, instead of requiring 2 or 3 separate commands.

</comment><comment><USER16> As someone who doesn't understand version control extremely well I can say I don't have much of a clue when it comes to CVS and all the configuring to make it behave normally but git is extremely easy for someone who only needs a little version control. If you don't get it read this <http://progit.org/book/ch2-0.html> otherwise it just seems like a rant by someone who just doesn't want to try and learn something new (over CVS).

<comment><USER7> Yes. The times I used CVS or subversion were more frustrating than learning git. Especially with all the server setting up you (used to?) had to do. And all the warnings about never using the filesystem-native renaming tools.

Git can get complicated later on, when you are doing complicated things. But on easy things, git is easy enough.

(And so are darcs and mercurial and the other modern version control systems.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow. I'm surprised at the one-sided-ness of comments here at HN. I read the article and totally agreed. I've been trying to deal with all the complexity of working copy/index/local repostory/remote repository/other remote repositories, merging changes back and forth, and umpteen other things, for a good few months now. It's genuinely Hard (TM).

I _have_ definitely done occasionally awesome things, like amending commits with small noticed typos before pushing, stashing is totally awesome, cheap branches are mostly convenient. But there's _so many_ layers, and nothing (that I've yet discovered) that lays it out in a manner that makes it easy to understand.

I've a lot of past experience with Subversion. I used SVK for a while, so I could get local dev branches and commits without pushing to the central repository. But git continually confuses me. Plenty of it is un-learning other VCSs (no, to get rid of that mistaken change, I don't revert the file, I checkout the file. revert is a command but it does wholly other things.) Not to mention the many names for things. Local, staged, cached, indexed?

Yowza.

<comment><USER6> Personally, I think that git is hard to learn if you try to think of it in terms of your previous VCS. As you say, you have a lot of svn experience, so maybe that's the issue.

Really, at its core, git is incredibly simple. That's one of the reasons that it's hard. It's just a DAG of changesets, and every command lets you manipulate that graph, or give points on the graph names.

Anyway, I'd echo several people's sentiments here: <http://progit.org> is a really good explanation, and also fairly short.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm a recent convert to Git. Yes, it's confusing to newcomers. So is Subversion and all the rest. I just don't think there is any version control tool where the commands are totally intuitive, and there probably never will be.

The good news is that as more people flock to Git, they'll create better tools. Look at some of the wonderful things people have created for Subversion; for instance, the beautiful Mac client Versions, which is aimed at web designers rather than programmers. There's no reason something similar can't be built for Git. The average user shouldn't have to use the command line. Once those tools are in place, it won't matter how unintuitive Git's terminology is.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't use git but am considering it. So I was hoping this article might point out a few things I should beware of before getting started.

Instead, all it provides is one, single, minor example of a potential issue: you can't commit the same way as CVS or subversion.

Not sure why it took the author so many words to get around to saying that. And if there are other problems with git, I'm not sure why the author doesn't mention them.

<comment><USER20> It's kind of laughable, because you just need to add a flag - "git commit -a" to do what he wants.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right. The entire article is about how you need to do "git add" before committing.

I can tell you read it _reaaally_ carefully.

<comment><USER20> Umm, my point is that you don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I found the fossil dvcs referenced in a comment interesting. <http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/index.wiki>

</comment><comment><USER22> Buried in a bit of a rant is a very good point about using the right tool for the job, though I'm doubtful this was the actual intention of the post.

</comment><comment><USER23> Git is a Harrier jet all right. I just got into it and keep thinking to myself, "This thing can turn on a dime, Macross Zero-style!"

<comment><USER24> I was just thinking that maybe it's a Harrier since you can easily tilt the thrust the wrong way and end up screwed. But you can always get back to where you were, so perhaps it's a Harrier with a time machine.

<comment><USER7> At least unless you are doing something like --force or --hard. But you should be smelling that those commands do something potentially non-recoverable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Unlearning CVS/svn is the truly difficult part of learning git.

These complaints could only come from someone who has used CVS/svn in the past and expects git to work exactly the same way.

Are there any extant articles of someone who has never used source control at all before having these problems with git specifically and not other SCMs?

</comment><comment><USER26> <http://book.git-scm.com/>

<http://progit.org/book/>

</comment><comment><USER7> Was there any genuine content in there?</comment>


On the Origin of Extinction - <AUTHOR> http://www.publicbooks.org/on-the-origin-of-extinction/ <comment><USER2> This feels like a summary of the book "The Sixth Extinction" but it's not mentioned anywhere in the article...Any connection?</comment>


Book Notes: Smart Choices – a Practical Guide to Making Better Life Decisions - <AUTHOR> http://www.jasonshen.com/2012/book-notes-smart-choices-a-practical-guide-to-making-better-life-decisions/

<comment><USER2> Nice article, Jason.

With regards to this point:

 _The most common ... mistake people make ... is that they just don't think about it._

... while that is true, I think the root problem is that people don't _think about it for themselves_.

In other words, people are apt to use analogies or proxies to simplify the decision process. This is useful short-hand for a lot of things in life (no need to think too much about uber), but leaves much to be desired for pivotal decisions. Silicon Valley is an echo chamber ... are you ideas really your own? or are you parroting someone else?

I think Elon Musk says it best in his interview with Kevin Rose: <http://youtu.be/g92rP1Mi_oQ>

His main point is to take time to think from first principals (e.g. the raw materials of rockets cost less than <1% of the finished product ... therefore, something is wrong!) and to try to come to your own conclusions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks Jason for the notes. I too highlight important bits and pieces that I read and type them up later. Having a cliff notes document on each book is useful if I ever need to go back and find some specific detail (I know this seems redundant in that I could just read the kindle version and use the highlight feature but there's something about books in paper form that I can't drop).

Does anyone know of a good website that has similar cliff notes on books? Maybe one where you can read notes by others and contribute your own. Thanks

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, actually this wiki is a good one. Just added my summary here: <http://bookoutlines.pbworks.com/w/page/14422658/FrontPage>

<comment><USER3> This is great, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems like good advice when having to make weightier decisions, but when it comes to decisons of the heart, not so much.

On a related note, I remember hearing about a study (this is going back almost a decade now) showing that those who live in poverty were often found to have poor decision-making skills.

The findings sounds both obvious and patently unfair, but I wonder if anyone else has heard of a study like that. A link would be great.

<comment><USER5> A quick Google search turns up several interesting studies. Here's a link to a good APA overview of a few of them: [http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/willpower- poverty-financial.pd...](http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/willpower-poverty- financial.pdf)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Secure Dropbox alternatives? - <AUTHOR>

What secure synchronozing services with roughly the same features as Dropbox are there? <comment><USER3> Wuala: <http://www.wuala.com>

Data is encrypted with your password on the client side, your password never leaves your PC. They published a paper on their security implemenation: [http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4032...](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4032481)

It allows to synchronize multiple folders and it gives access to a certain number of previous versions. You can also share folders with friends, publicly or via a secret link.

It's cross-platform: Win, Mac, Linux.

I'm a happy customer since more than a year (it's free up to 2GB though) and I wonder why so few people know about it.

<comment><USER4> Problem with this approach is sharing and key management.

If you want to send something to someone, that means you need to securely communicate the key to them first or take the SpiderOak approach of "We guarantee security locally but if you share a file = file is shared unencrypted".

<comment><USER3> True, but if you both are friends on Wuala you can do it easily.

Provided that no man in the middle attacks take place during the "friendship" operation :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> On OSX, you just have to put all your files in a 256-bit AES encrypted sparsebundle disk image in your dropbox folder.

</comment><comment><USER6> tarsnap is the only one that stands out in terms of security.

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

<comment><AUTHOR> But thats backup only and theres no real Windows client.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are other services which advertise security, but nothing where you actually are likely to audit the code. Even if their security model is better than what Dropbox is now using, you have to factor in availability issues (Dropbox seems more solid as a business than a lot of the others), functionality, etc. You also need to trust the entire development process, release engineering, and knowing your binaries correspond to the source code. It's not easy.

There is a slight benefit to "must ship trojaned software to recover passphase, then decrypt" vs. "just access data server-side", but in practice, if your threat is the government, there's not a huge difference. If your threat is a server break-in by a third party, then there's some difference.

Overall, probably the best bet, if you don't run your own servers, is Dropbox plus your choice of well tested encryption on top. As for your best well- tested encryption, that's a hard problem too -- Truecrypt has a pretty wide following and some versions have been audited, and source is published. For general purpose use on Macs, I just use Apple's encryption -- it's probably ok, but as far as I know, hasn't really been analyzed by third parties (I'd be happy to NDA and look at it). I rationalize it as if Apple is subverted, and I use OSX, I'm fucked even if third party disk encryption software itself is safe.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it possible to use Truecrypt in Dropbox without issues?

<comment><USER8> Sure. But you remove the benefit of syncing small diffs; you pretty much have to sync the entire truecrypt volume.

<comment><USER9> My (former) home network backup solution had a truecrypt volume created locally, and rsync'ed to my offsite backup provider (rsync.net). It did not have to send the entire volume for small diffs; in my experience, Truecrypt keeps local changes local in the volume.

<comment><USER8> That's a good point; thanks. I'm not sure if Dropbox diffs at sub-file level - perhaps it does.

The short story is that Dropbox + Truecrypt work fine, but may not (or may!) be optimal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I personally use SpiderOak[^1], which gives 2GB for free and 100GB/month for 10$ (5$ for edu accounts), and encrypts your data locally, before sending it to the cloud.

Moreover they don't even store your password in the server (sign in is locally handled), and they claim to have a zero-knowledge policy. As other said, you have to ultimately trust them; however the want to release under an open source license their client software, so one should be able, eventually, to check their claims.

[^1]: [https://spideroak.com/download/referral/b26d996944aeed4254f6...](https://spideroak.com/download/referral/b26d996944aeed4254f695cbe7501fea) (careful, it's a referral)

Edit: removed the link inline.

</comment><comment> iso8859-1 lsyncd, unison

See reddit threads:

* [http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/iad3q/7_good_dropbox_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/iad3q/7_good_dropbox_alternatives_for_linux/)

* [http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/nzdco/i_like_dropb...](http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/nzdco/i_like_dropbox_is_there_an_open_source_alternative/)

* [http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/im8fc/vbox_open_sourc...](http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/im8fc/vbox_open_source_dropbox_alternative/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Wuala - <http://wuala.com/>

All files get encrypted and are stored redundantly. No one unauthorized - <USER2> even Wuala as the provider - can access the files.

<comment><USER12> Does wuala have physical ownership and exclusive, secure physical access to their own servers or is it up on the cloud? If it's cloud, access prevention from snoopy authority cannot be guaranteed, since a single loose warrant could tap every box.

If someone wants to encrypt their data, then they'd probably want to know the physical security around the box holding their data too. Stallman's probably mentioned this at some point.

<comment><USER11> I don't know all details but what I know:

\- Wuala runs on dedicated machines in (i think three) different data centers. It isn't their own data center though.

\- Data is encrypted on the client side.

\- Wuala is hosted outside of the US or US jurisdiction

<comment><USER3> Yep, servers are in europe.

They say in their FAQ that their servers are in secure server farm in Switzerland, Germany and France.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really like JungleDisk (<https://www.jungledisk.com/>). They have a Mac, Linux and Windows client and encrypt all files locally before uploading to cloud storage providers. You can choose between S3 or Rackspace for your storage.

</comment><comment><USER14> Dropbox + encfs. Works fine for me on all platforms (Windows/OS X/Linux). It has some rough edges though: File update notifications will refer to the encrypted file, and the browser interface will only show you encrypted file names as well.

</comment><comment><USER15> I use SugarSync. They just had (or maybe still have) a 50% off deal. If you want I can give you a referral. Free to try and can easily get more space by referring others.

</comment><comment><USER16> <http://www.boxcryptor.com/> does client-side encryption for DropBox.

Runs on Win, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've looked at this previously but

* It seems to be closed source

* The German government is involved (Close friends with the US)

<comment><USER16> Yes, it is closed source.

The German gov is involved?! Ha ha, the North Koreans as well?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> TitanFile is great! They also sent an email out to customers this week with a preview of their new version and it looked like it had a much nicer UI as well.

<comment><USER4> TitanFile solves the problem of secure file sharing and tracking (accountability) as the data is secured end-to-end, there is notification of receipt/download (who accessed the files, where from, at what time etc) and ability to set files as read-only (access only from the browser window over SSL connection) as well as verify identity of recipient before giving them access to the files (2 factor authentication) without requiring recipient to have a TitanFile account.

Dropbox kicks ass as "file system of the internet" but sharing files with people in a secure and private way with dropbox is a big pain.

With next release we will integrate with dropbox and Google Docs as well.

Disclaimer: I am from TitanFile

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Egnyte : www.egnyte.com

Hybrid Storage with multiple access methods : Web, Desktop (Win/Mac), Mobile & FTP.

Flexible subfolder sync with versioning

</comment><comment><USER19> You could roll your own with something like: <https://github.com/bazaarlabs/gitdocs>

</comment><comment><USER20> Bitcasa is using local encryption:

<http://www.bitcasa.com>

</comment><comment><USER21> we use Egnyte (<http://www.egnyte.com>) at our office, it does file sync like Dropbox, except more secure and scalable.

</comment><comment><USER22> After dropbox, I use sugarsync and I'm really happy with it

</comment><comment><USER23> TrustDEX for enterprise usage</comment>


The Shock Doctrine - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine <comment><USER2> > In the book, Klein argues that neoliberal free market policies (as advocated > by the economist Milton Friedman) have risen to prominence in some developed > countries because of a deliberate strategy of "shock therapy".

I don't think the author of this book understands the views of Milton Friedman very well.

<comment><USER3> What makes you think that? I haven't read the book, but the Wikipedia article didn't really elaborate on its economic content.

<comment><USER4> This covers a lot of the issues in question:

[https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/bp102.pdf](https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/bp102.pdf)</comment></comment></comment>


Accepting Applications For Better Mobile News - <AUTHOR> http://blog.parsely.com/post/32734944656/accepting-applications-for-better-mobile-news

<comment><USER2> This points to something I've been talking about with college founders to be: when you think about building something for something you yourself use (i.e. a smartphone) - think about how YOU use that thing.

I would posit that most of what I and average mid-adopters use their smart phones for is mobile web and/or apps that exist on the web first. Mobile web, Google, Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are all web first or mobile web. Apps are great, but if you're building a native app first ask yourself: why? Is it because you think the App Store is the only place people find things on smartphones or do you NEED native functionality?

<comment><USER2> Geo-location/push notifications or massive speed upgrades are great reasons. Not saying there aren't great reasons. But the mobile web is an active fucking place y'all.

<comment><USER3> I'm just a lowly webapp developer, but geo-location is trivially easy in HTML5. Is there something I'm missing?

<comment><USER2> Not nearly as good as native for precise location. Although there's been some speculation that can be overcome, but yeah.

<comment><USER4> Huh? The HTML5 geolocation API will provide the exact same results that the native one will, especially if you use the enableHighAccuracy flag.

<comment><USER2> Not been my experience at all, but I am probably doing it wrong!

<comment><USER4> using getCurrentPosition() will have extremely variable results, but watchPositition() will return regular results as it gets more and more accurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been looking for a news app that I like for iPhone for a while now. The NYTimes app was my go-to, until they made it subscription only (I would happily pay for the app if they would just let me). I thought Flipboard held some promise, but I found it too gimmicky. Other news apps I've tried just didn't do it for me.

Honestly, most of the news I get on my phone comes from Twitter (well, Tweetbot to be more precise). When I want to hit up a news site, I go to Evening Edition (<http://evening-edition.com>).

<comment><USER6> I primarily use Tweetbot and Flipboard, both of which give you articles in a browser window. People are so acclimated to the way the web (currently) works, I think they prefer this dynamic. Reading an online article is more ingrained in us than arbitrary apps that come up with fancy interfaces for the content, when all we want is the content in a standard wrapper. Apps are still young, maybe some patterns will start to emerge in the interfaces that will change the OP numbers, but I have a feeling the pattern will be apps that point to browsers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> 1\. Tabs

2\. Readability, Apple Reader, etc

3\. AdBlock

When News companies get control of the native app, they use that control to fuck the user. The user prefers the browser where he is less fuckable.

I read a lot of news and I use Safari with Apple Reader for almost all of it. I've tried the mobile apps and they are often buggy on top of having many obnoxious properties.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm going to say the reason is more simple. Opening tabs is a nicer user experience than opening up one app after another.

<comment><USER9> Yes, yes, yes! Browsers, even mobile browsers which are still fairly rudimentary[1], have evolved a whole host of useful interactions like loading new tabs in the background to "fork" your session, using bookmarks and history to return to a previous state, back/forward/reload buttons, links that you can copy into email or other web pages, etc. These might not seem very interesting because we take them for granted these days, but it's really powerful that they work across every site and can be further customized on the client side by browsers or add-ons.

People complain that web apps don't behave "natively" and need to reinvent things that native apps get for free. This is true. But native apps also need to reinvent things like bookmarking and tabs that web apps get for free -- or in most cases they simply live without these things and people miss them without realizing it.

I like that some of the web's UI language like the back button is finding its way into operating systems like Android, at the same time that native app capabilities are finding their way into browsers. But browsers still have the edge in "advanced" navigation.

[1] disclosure: I'm a mobile Firefox developer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This was talked about on HN before, but some of the problems/solutions mentioned about not just mobile news, but online news in general:

1\. S/N (signal to noise ratio) of news aggregators.

2\. Monetization: Sponsored posts? (Techmeme) Intrusive ads?

3\. Mobile first: Think readability.com

4\. Opportunity discovery: News to startup founders was leveraging emerging trends before others became aware of them.

5\. Personalized news: I think personalization is the reason why zerply.com, dreamforge.me, vastrm.com are doing well right now.

Self-plug: I'm trying to solve the mobile news problem with <http://dinopost.com> but I need help. Anyone interested in working with me and applying to a future YC class with this? (Open to pivots).

Edit: Subscription box broken. Email me, addy in HN profile.

</comment><comment><USER11> For a long time now I've wondered why newspaper groups don't come together and build a common walled garden tablet. Android tablets are starting to get very cheap, why not fork android, build your own "news" app store with some very basic rules e.g.

1) only news based services + perhaps twitter & facebook for sharing 2) no free content

Newspapers offer their customers the readers at a subsidised price maybe $19.99 or similar and adopt a "tablet" first doctrine for news.

Might be a way to get people to pay for news...

</comment><comment><USER12> I can tell you why I use the NY times mobile site instead of the Android app on my Galaxy Nexus: the ads. The ad on the mobile app stays on the screen when you scroll the content. It's frequently an obnoxious color that distracts from the article. In the browser, the ads are similar but as you scroll down they leave the screen.

Simple, but it's enough to make me abandon their Android app.

</comment><comment><USER13> Does browser access include with RSS feed accessing? Because news aggregators are clearly superior in this sense; why check 10 different apps when one can use 1 app to check the raw data that those other 10 provide?

</comment><comment><USER14> "The ideal news reading app would collate content from multiple frequently read sites." By Jove! I think he's on to something. Someone call Dave Winer...</comment>


Goorm-The new Cloud IDE service is considered a perfect alternative to c9 - <AUTHOR> We are a Korean startup. Our goormIDE service is a new cloud IDE service like Cloud9 or codeanywhere. Since Cloud9 is end of old service after june, a lot of U.S. users were migrated to our service. It is used not only for actual service development but also for education in some universities. We want to grow by communicating with more world-wide developers!  There is a free tier, so feel free to use it and give us a lot of feedback. <comment> d--b A link would be useful.

<comment><USER2> Indeed.

[https://ide.goorm.io/](https://ide.goorm.io/)</comment></comment>


Castle: Reinventing Storage for Big Data (OSCON Talk) - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/acunu/castle-reinventing-storage-for-big-data

<comment><USER2> I was there for this presentation today. Interesting stuff. Looks like it could address some of the issues we are seeing w/ Cassandra today.</comment>


Ask HN: Notification of responses on HN? - <AUTHOR>

Why doesn't HN have the equivalent of the orangered envelopes that reddit has?<p>Seems like a bit of a fundamental flaw to me. e.g. I often get cases where I only realize days later that someone responded to my post. By that time everyone has moved on from the topic. On reddit I usually respond within minutes since the UI notifies me in a convenient way. <comment><USER2> Yes it should be implemented!

hnnotify.com/how</comment>


Ed, man! !man ed - <AUTHOR> http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html <comment><USER2> I've read that before, but this was the first time that I noticed the file size for /usr/bin/emacs.</comment>


Here & There — a horizonless projection in Manhattan - <AUTHOR> http://schulzeandwebb.com/hat/

<comment><USER2> This map would be good for finding things very close, or very far away, but the area in the middle is not well represented.

</comment><comment><USER3> I really like this map projection. But I'm having a hard time finding a real life use case for it. It's not very good at local items, so a walking mall situation (over a few blocks) doesn't work very well. The projection is inherently fixed to a point in physical space (ie, it's not very good printed and carried around, and relies on a certain orientation).

Does anybody have a good use case for this map projection?

<comment><USER4> being able to better appreciate how monumental manhattan is?

seriously. look at it. humans built that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So the ringworld engineers were originally from New York?

</comment><comment><USER6> This makes me dizzy... and I'm not really sure what the use case is.

<comment><USER7> I believe the use case is "looking nice on the wall". :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is civilization below Astor Place you know.</comment>


LXC, Docker, and the future of software delivery (LinuxCon) - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/dotCloud/linuxcon-docker

<comment><USER3> I still don't buy the idea of the Linux container as a universal way to do anything. It depends on your kernel [opposite of what the slides claim], it depends on your apps, it depends on your dependencies, it depends on your architecture, etc.

The one phrase that's correct is _" it's chroot on steroids"_. That is in fact exactly what it is. The exception is, it's even _less_ portable than just a chroot environment. Docker adds extra features on top of the chroot, but that's basically its core functionality.

So the first thing you have to ask yourself is: does my software need to be run in a chroot environment or a VM isolated from all other applications? If no, you very well may not need this _at all_ for your software deployment. If anything, Docker images create a bigger burden on your deployment as you have these large images to distribute, modify, manage. Of course they built in some fancy network transmission magic to make it only copy changed parts of an image, but this is still wildly less efficient than traditional means, and you still have to fuck around with the image to make it incorporate your changes before you push it.

If the big selling point is "commoditization", keep in mind that basically everyone rolls their own environment and customizes their deployment. It's the natural order of having your own architecture that fits your application. The one thing that's never going to happen, is you taking Docker images from the internet and never modifying them. This universal container system goes out the window the first minute you have to start modifying everything to fit edge cases, which is always going to happen.

<comment><USER4> > _Docker images create a bigger burden on your deployment as you have these > large images to distribute, modify, manage_

Compared to what, though? Of course if your environment is homogenous enough that you can express your application as, say a Jar or a gem - then you are part of the lucky few and may indeed not need docker, because you share enough context with your target infrastructure that a lot of the bits are already implicitly deployed. (In other words: someone else had to move a big-ass system image around so that you don't have to).

But the typical application stack is not like that. It is heterogeneous and custom, and the only practical way to ship it reliably is to ship the entire system with it, because you've run your tests on a particular libc, postgres and ruby, built by a particular gcc, etc. In that case, your options are limited: 1) ship a VM or 2) ship system packages.

And if your current options are indeed to either ship a VM or system packages - then Docker suddenly doesn't seem that heavyweight after all :)

<comment><USER3> Compared to, for example, using separate systems to manage the development, change management, approval, deployment, bug tracking, revision control, and other aspects of making a change to production.

The Docker image may include several of those subsystems, or cross multiple of them, and so it now needs to be flexible enough to change one or several of those parts before it can be pushed to production to fix a bug. And what production environment will it be applied to? And is it possible that indeed you will have several images that are almost the same, except for key parts that can't be easily handled by yet-another overlay? (How many overlays will you have? Will you eventually stop adding overlays and redo the image to include the fix? What else will that affect?)

Complex systems require complex interaction, and Docker images do not allow for that; they are monolithic, all-or-nothing changes which can only be "modified" by either remaking the entire image (expensive), or adding another layer of overhead on top, which I don't think anyone has ever investigated to find bottlenecks or overhead problems.

To put it in simpler terms: Cfengine delivering a single change on a single file to a dynamically-assigned set of nodes is a lot faster, lower overhead, and direct than deploying a Docker change.

<comment><USER4> > _Complex systems require complex interaction, and Docker images do not allow > for that_

Unless you compose a complex system by composing multiple containers - <USER2> is the whole point of containers.

> _they are monolithic, all-or-nothing changes_

Compiling a binary is also a monolithic, all-or-nothing change. If you dig deep enough there is always such a change. In the operation of distributed systems (which you claim to be an expert of) that is a desirable property.

> _which can only be "modified" by either remaking the entire image > (expensive)"_

Docker caches build steps. Which means it only rebuilds the layers which need to be rebuilt.

Typically this means the application code is rebuilt when the developer pushes a new version, while the underlying layers are left untouched. You know... the same "rebuilding" your ghetto deployment script currently does.

> _or adding another layer of overhead on top, which I don 't think anyone has > ever investigated to find bottlenecks or overhead problems._

We have been using aufs layers as the build mechanism for lxc containers at dotCloud for roughly 3 years. In that time we've probably deployed half a million containers, and served a few hundred million uniques (and I'm being conservative). These containers included app servers, databases, and everything in between.

So, yeah, they've been "investigated" for bottlenecks and overhead problems.

<comment><USER3> 1\. You don't understand what I mean by complex system, and i'm talking about changes to a single file in a container. Running a new container does not change the old container.

2\. Compiling a binary is not a 'monolithic change' (?), it is a static configuration with dynamic elements. And please quote the line where I called myself an expert of anything.

3\. Uh, I don't have a "ghetto deployment script", but thank you for the kind words. Like I was saying before, your only option is to continue adding on more unions every time you change a file, which _I bet_ will lead to performance degradation, if not just general application headaches in the future. If somehow Docker also prevents the need to stop and restart the container when adding a new layer (which should be possible with Union), that's great too! It still leaves a world of cruft behind in the form of old filesystem layers and a maintenance hassle.

Awesome, you have real world performance numbers! So how many layers can you add to a container without it going down before there's performance degredation? How does it affect memory, or disk space from added layers? Does aufs have an upper bound on the number of layers, or any other metrics? Would love to see some numbers on this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Slide #40: _Typical Workflow_ is, very much like some other aspects of docker (use of specific filesystems, use of entire filesystems within containers, etc.), a false general case that is in fact unsuited to many people's requirements.

Slide #44: _Docker roadmap_ towards _1.0_ seems to dodge the question of significant differences in function with regards the apparent plan to adopt a variety of storage backends with different capabilities, use of different virtualization environments as targets, etc.

I support docker as a project but I still really think you guys need to stop and ponder your architecture and goals before charging along too far. For projects to survive long term and be useful sometimes separating concerns is necessary, and I would suggest that's perhaps not being done well at present with some one-size-fits-all assumptions that are pretty anti unix philosophy ( _do one thing and do it well_ ). What is the one thing? Is that really a general need? In all cases? What does a user lose with this abstraction? Rather than increasing scope, what would happen if you tried lopping those bits off entirely?</comment>


How Two Facebook Engineers Could Decide the Presidential Election - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/join-scout/how-two-facebook-engineers-could-decide-the-presidential-election-6e038d34a2b4#.a5b2bpexz <comment><USER2> Well, just like the average individual voter, Facebook should have every right to convince and persuade people to vote for its candidate, by filtering the news.</comment>


Google says it's designing Duplex with 'disclosure built-in' - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/google-says-its-designing-duplex-with-disclosure-built-in/ <comment><USER2> Nice, much more sympathetic in this way.</comment>


Ask HN: Algorithmic trading for hackers - <AUTHOR> I'm looking to learn more about algorithmic trading, but can't seem to find a good starting point.
Can someone recommend a book or course aimed at programmers?
I'm looking for the SICP of algo trading: does such a thing exist? <comment><USER2> Let me state flat out that I don't think there are any good books about algorithmic trading all all.

Most will talk at surface level about what they are doing but non will give you a start to finish example that can be deployed with a brokerage like interactive brokers.

Trading & Exchanges I see was recommended. I'd skip it, most(All?) trading strategies that the average person will come up with won't be market micro structure related, and if it is then I'm going to flat out state that you've lost before you started.

If you really want to get into it, then please don't start with machine learning.

I've said this many times but ask your self

\- "what machine learning techniques could I apply that 100 fresh PHD's haven't done on their first week at a hedge fund?"

\- "What data source do you have that the average hedge fund doesn't have access to"?

\- "What market insight do you have that someone whose done this for years doesn't have?"

If after all that you still want to get started then honestly your best bet is to start with quantopian. Don't look at market data changes at a granularity of less than 1 day until you can create a strategy on your own that makes money.

Quantopian can give you access to a backtesting platform and clean market data, which is the step most people get stuck on, and usually quit at.

Once you've found a strategy that makes money, put your money into an account with Interactive brokers, If after 3 months you still want to continue then start looking at market data slices of less than one day.

Tl/DR

\- first step is don't

\- second step is to focus on time slices of 1 day or more

\- third, put your own money into action on you strategy for 3 months

\- fourth step, there is a very small chance you'll make it this far, look at time slices of less than a day. At this point you can start to apply machine learning and build your own software. Even at this stage you are more likely to be an ATM for a hedge fund than you are to make money.

Good luck

<comment><USER3> But you could also ask yourself if there is a niche you can occupy as an individual investor that a hedge fund is unable to occupy, due to say, corporate risk management guidelines or minimum size of positions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Trading and Exchanges is recommended everywhere and I'm about a third of the way through it. Chollida is absolutely right when he says that any individual running strategies that are microstructure related is going to get robbed (the hardware, baseline software, and colo requirements are all massive). That said it's an interesting read and if you're willing to accept that the productivity per page for the immediate future is low it's enjoyable.

Quantopian is the easy way to get into algo trading if you want to attempt to make money doing it solo. They seem pretty focused on long-short strategies (rank all stocks, buy top x, short bottom x) from what I've been reading but I don't know enough other kinds of strategies to know if they're more optimized for that. They have some really good videos and iPython notebooks on intro concepts including basic trading strategies as well as relevant statistical math.

* I've never done algo trading professionally so this is a mix of "I read it online" and "my friend who works in it told me"

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://www.stockfighter.io/](https://www.stockfighter.io/) is not exactly what you are looking for, but interesting ;)

</comment><comment><USER6> There is [https://www.udacity.com/course/machine-learning-for- trading-...](https://www.udacity.com/course/machine-learning-for-trading-- ud501). I haven't personally taken the course though so I can't speak to the quality.

</comment><comment><USER7> Trading & Exchanges by Harris

Algorithmic Trading & DMA by Johnson

Both are dated now but still good foundational books.

</comment><comment><USER8> "The Evaluation and Optimization of Trading Strategies" by Robert Pardo</comment>


EU should ban AI-powered citizen scoring and mass surveillance - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/26/18759447/eu-ai-ethical-policy-recommendations-ban-mass-scoring-surveillance <comment><USER2> The focus on technology such as AI is confusing the matter. What matters is how people are treated, not which technology was used to treat them good or bad.

The discussion should be about when citizen scoring or mass surveillance is justified, which it could be. If the answer is that citizen scoring or mass surveillance never is justified, then technology does not matter. If the answer is "sometimes, under condition X", then it may be less important if the scoring and surveillance is done using technology labelled as A.I. or biological neural networks, than how the results are used, by whom and for what purpose.

</comment><comment><USER3> > What matters is how people are treated.

Couldn't agree more. Use AI, cameras, people, or even a random dice roll to decide how to treat your customers or citizens.

If you mistreat _any_ of them, expect to be giving them compensation through the courts though.</comment>