Stanford Class on Deep Multi-Task and Meta-Learning - <AUTHOR> https://cs330.stanford.edu/ <comment><USER2> The field of meta-learning is still very immature though. I can see why you would already want to start a scholarly discourse on the topic, but I am not sure how useful these techniques are for the students involved. They are still very ad hoc and often unprincipled.

This is a good article on the topic: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.03477](https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.03477)

<comment><USER3> This is Stanford, they aren't teaching the next generation of applied ML practicioners -- they are teaching the next generation of theorists. This is a perfect class for that and getting their students ahead of everyone else. I'm jealous of them.

<comment><USER4> Assuming 330 is undergraduate level, they're teaching the full gambit of practitioners, theorists, and future drop outs.

<comment><USER5> 300 series are advanced graduate classes. As an undergrad the sight of a 300 is horrifying.

<comment><USER6> It's surprising to me - 300+ level courses were part of my undergrad required coursework - of course I wasn't studying at Stanford. Are course numbers standardized across academia or unique to an institution?

<comment><USER7> Course numbers are not standardized, although there are common numbering schemes. There are some uncommon ones such as MIT's, which uses a number and a dot instead of a subject name. And I've never known what institution the typical "CS 101" numbering scheme applies to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Asking as someone who does not work with AI but has taken a couple of courses in ML:

What new things will I be able to do after this course?

(in a practical sense, the technical description on the course page I can read myself)

<comment><USER9> At glance, It looks like ongoing research of Multi-Task and Meta-Learning will be discussed. Some new tricks on the architecture of NN, Few new methods to train, and some theoretical setting of the area. I will be looking forward to seeing whole series. Maybe share some notes or summary of videos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Good to see Chelsea Finn end up at Stanford. I had breakfast with her and her parents in 2013 when she was an undergraduate at MIT and it was fun to hear what options she was thinking about for her career.

I took a look at the course outline, and except for AutoML, it appears to be a one stop shop for learning multi-task and meta-learning. I just bookmarked the lectures on youtube.

</comment><comment><USER11> Humans observe an object once, such as a cup for drinking water, and we immediately grasp its "cupness". We can identify infinite varieties of cups despite variations in morphology, design, utility and context. Simply based on a single learning instance. This absence of any neural theory of inference is at the crux of the problem ;)

Shortcut Learning in Deep Neural Networks

[https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.07780](https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.07780)

<comment><USER12> > _Humans observe an object once, such as a cup for drinking water, and we > immediately grasp its "cupness_"

 _Adults_ do (i.e. the agents pretrained holistic model of its entire observed physical context). By reducing the phenomenon to the single observation, you're conveniently ignoring the early childhood phases spent exploring shapes/3d-geometry that enable this very ability of inference. this isn't fair, because regarding humans, the line between training-phase and trained model is very blurry, whereas a statistical model is trained when the weights are set and done.

Brute forcing through 2d-projections of 3d-objects (further denormalized through camera-artifacts etc.) until something sticks in a convoluted (heh) composition of arbitrarily initialized set of nodes and connections is _obviously_ far different from the physical exploration kids do. Comparing the models resulting from the latter with the former is, in a word, absurd.

Through exploration, humans develop a model of physics itself, from which the nature of _cupness_ can be inferred (which is, in fact, the magic term).

Deep learning alone won't get us there, but it'll probably give us the components that enable us to simulate this intricate process happening in kids brains.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that that's what a lot of the smart people researching general intelligence are working on (because that's what I would do, excuse my hybris).

<comment><USER11> Good discussion! I'll just respond here, but plenty of though-provoking points all around ;)

I think what I was looking at was the result that has been often observed, that progress in AI research roughly tracks with hardware developments. Looking at AlphaGo to AlphaZero to MuZero. Training time for self-play increases. But parallelism in the tensor units of the hardware is an order of magnitude faster. It's great for problem domains like autonomous vehicles, contactless payments in retail stores and fraud detection in the data center. But what about generalizability? What about the black box communicating how it has learned? Will it be suitable for next-gen applications like robots designed to assist humans in space expansion?

I attended an event in NYC around the creative use of AI by a new breed of emerging artists like Mario Kliegmann from Germany. ArtBreeder can train a GAN on a single input sample and generate paintings in the style of Fragonard or Picasso or Rothko. And someone made a remark along the lines of: "if this had existed in the 1960s, we wouldn't have need Warhol to invent Pop Art!". But in reality, Andy Warhol experimented with a wide variety of media and techniques. From film to "oxidation art". And it struck me that was the truly creative part of the process. One that arises from a place other than rational optimization on a single task or even multiple known tasks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This looks super cool! Prof. Finn has been doing a lot of interesting research in RL and meta-learning for several years, it's great to get a chance to learn this material directly from her.</comment>


Teaching quantum computing to a (really smart) toddler - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@_NicT_/quibbling-over-qubits-f2ca1b87f470#.fq37k2e81 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi so this is my first submission to Hacker News. I don't know if there are rules against posting your own work in this forum, if so I apologize. Have been reading a bit here and there on quantum computers for a while and thought it would be fun to try and consolidate key concepts and terms into a blog post, hope some here may enjoy.

<comment><USER2> Hi Nic, no rules against self-posting as long as it's interesting articles like yours and not just self promotion.

I know a bit about quantum computing too so I did a high-level fact checking of your post without finding any bugs. Impressed you managed to do math equations on medium. It is a bit long though... saved to continue later.

On a different note and for a different perspective, you should check out this excellent review paper by Sara Robinson, _Emerging Insights on Limitations of Quantum Computing Shape Quest for Fast Algorithms_ : [https://www.siam.org/pdf/news/100.pdf](https://www.siam.org/pdf/news/100.pdf) It's an old article, but all the points she raises are still valid. I think it's going to be REALLY hard to get large number of coherent qubits to do computations.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree this post was a little longer than what I usually write, obviously I was't going to achieve a comprehensive overview but I wanted to touch on as many of key points as I could without going overboard. I tried to make up for length by incorporating some humorous elements in the second half and limiting math equations to the minimum necessary for elementary concepts. It reads better if you use the soundtrack :)

The detailed challenges of extending coherence time are mostly hidden to those whose primarily research tools are search engines and textbooks such as myself. This is the realm of proprietary tech, all I can do is speculate based on the credibility of those making large investments in the space that those in the know see potential.

<comment><AUTHOR> PS just added a few more more graphics / some humorous elements to first half of post, it was a little dry, I think it reads better now.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Review the journalistic integrity of news items - <AUTHOR> https://pressrise.org <comment><USER2> +1: I like the layout and usability and hope it does well.

-1: I worry it fundamentally misunderstands why we're inundated with bad stories in some aggregators (especially political news). But I'm glad someone took a shot, and I don't think there's an quick and easy solution.

If the problem was just clickbait and spam, then I think this site would work well. The trouble isn't with marketers and sites though, it's with us.

Consider cognitive biases like the hostile media effect: [https://www.pressrise.org/comments/trump-cites-story-of- gene...](https://www.pressrise.org/comments/trump-cites-story-of-general-who- dipped-bullets-in-pigs-blood-to-deter-muslims)

Even if you have a carefully calibrated stream of neutral/moderate sources, most people will still perceive that stream as biased. If you give them tools to do so, they will fight to correct that imagined bias. The system is in an unstable equilibrium. So as soon as one side gets the edge, bias will rush that direction as the opponents flee, and the remaining more extreme positions pull the stream ever further one direction.

If that's the case, then an implementation to correct for this needs constant education about avoiding cognitive biases. Reminders like so: [http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/) (Note: knowing some of the controversies with the LW crowd, I'm not convinced "thinking about cognitive bias" is really sufficient.)

Maybe I'm wrong though and this site will rise beyond these challenges. I hope someone does. Good luck!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi! I wrote this. Signups only require a username and password, so please feel free to try it out and let me know if you find any bugs. :)

You can find general information about it on the "About" page: [https://www.pressrise.org/about](https://www.pressrise.org/about)

Basically it's a news aggregator that takes reviews from users, and ranks stories based on their journalistic integrity. It also has an aggregator-style commenting system.

If you're curious about the tech stack, it's written in Ruby, on the Rails framework. The frontend is Bootstrap/jQuery soup. It's hosted on Heroku, and also uses S3 for thumbnails.

Feedback is appreciated, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER3> The idea of rating the news makes sense. I'm not sure reporting the average of ratings is better than displaying their range.

It might make sense to encourage descriptions of the ratings. Knowing why a person made the rating provides context for evaluating it's relevance to me.

Over the long haul, it may make sense to pick a theme for the stories [as is the case with Hacker News]. Something more factual than politics, maybe?

Good luck.</comment>


Ask HN: Is removing. HTML, .php, etc...bad for SEO in 2020? - <AUTHOR> I just removed my websites .html extension and is affecting gloriously my traffic, I would say.
Should I submit the new url on Google Search console?
The site. - https://www.colorsandfonts.com
Is hosted on netlify.
thank you
/ Mike <comment><USER2> The problem is not the lack of extensions, but the fact you changed existing URLs. So now every existing URL looks like a dead link, which google does not like. Make sure you 301 any existing URLs to the new ones (should be fairly easy since it's an obvious structure of extension to no extension)

</comment><comment><USER3> Have you just removed the extensions, or have you permanently redirected the traffic, marked both urls as same, etc.

There are third-party-documented changes to the algorithm, like [https://moz.com/google-algorithm-change](https://moz.com/google-algorithm- change) where you can see what matters these days.

Things like extensions should be meaningless for decades now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, well, 2 days ago actually. I have redesign the whole site and I uncluded that.

Ok..I was wondering if I should go to the Google Search Console and ask it to crawl them again...

<comment><USER4> Yes resubmit to google search console. Google will index them anyway at some point but better to resubmit yourself. Also make sure robots.txt is setup correctly as needed.

Note: I noticed you still have an old sitemap.xml that shows the .html urls. I am not sure how that affects things but you may want to do a new sitemap as well ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok.Will definately do that...

I haven't thought about the XML actually, good catch.

Well, robots.txt should be fine though or you mean I should be changing because I removed the .html extension.

Thank you for helping out.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nuke Scan - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mattbierner.com/nuke-scan/ <comment><USER2> A lot of these old film and paper records of nuclear tests are literally rotting away. This is a problem for researchers in the area (who do stuff like designing optimal strategies for first responders to a nuclear attack), because it's the only data we have and it's very unlikely there will ever be any more atmospheric nuclear tests. There's been a big scramble in the last few years to digitize and preserve this data, as well as to declassify as much of it as possible for researchers to use.

[https://str.llnl.gov/october-2017/spriggs](https://str.llnl.gov/october-2017/spriggs)

</comment><comment><USER3> Biophysics people use a digital equivalent to this. In in vitro DNA replication experiments, one of the building blocks of DNA is made to be fluorescent so as it is added to the long DNA chain being synthesised you can visually observe it's progress (under a fancy microscope). If you take a 1-pixel slice for each millisecond and stich them together you get a kind of graph of fluorescence extending in length over time. Some incredible insights into DNA replication have been made using this technique.

<comment><USER4> Those would be Kymographs: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kymograph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kymograph)

[https://www.google.com/search?q=fluorescence+Kymograph&tbm=i...](https://www.google.com/search?q=fluorescence+Kymograph&tbm=isch)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Minor nit: you may want to ensure your blog software isn't making "fi" and "fl" into ligatures within your code blocks, because it makes them look funny and can break copy-paste.

</comment><comment><USER6> Broken link [https://blog.mattbierner.com/nuke- scan/playlist](https://blog.mattbierner.com/nuke-scan/playlist)

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvGO_dWo8VfcmG166wKRy...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvGO_dWo8VfcmG166wKRy5z-GlJ_OQND5)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the same author/artist: [https://blog.mattbierner.com/theremin-x- proposal/](https://blog.mattbierner.com/theremin-x-proposal/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Is this just analogue M-mode?

<comment><USER9> Sort of, yeah. It's because of the same kind of limitation: You can't get the whole image at the desired framerate, so you only get a small slice of it over time. You can see the same technique applied in sonars, some kinds of radar etc.</comment></comment>


Device to curb microplastic emissions wins James Dyson award - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/17/device-to-curb-microplastic-emissions-wins-james-dyson-award <comment><AUTHOR> So if it becomes possible to fit a device that collects micro particles, I guess the next step is to design the car such that it collects it automatically?

Which means - assuming this holds ground - we could imagine a future where local laws enforce that new vehicles are fitted with these.</comment>


Google Chrome Extensions: Developer Documentation - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/index.html <comment><USER2> I'm so glad! I've been waiting to get AdBlock Plus and Developer Tools for Chrome forever. Chrome is a pretty quick browser. It's like FF when it first came out but with some Opera mixed in - most notably the page previews that show up in blank tabs. I just hope Google doesn't let Chrome go the way of FF and get fat and useless.</comment>


MRI disabled every iOS device in facility - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/9mk2o7/mri_disabled_every_ios_device_in_facility/e7g5rcw/ <comment><USER2> I wonder if you could test this theory using helium gas from one of those cylinders they use to inflate balloons. Put an iPhone in a bag, inflate it with helium, and see if it malfunctions.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This sounds like a great plot device in a sci-fi or spy novel. What other (human livable) environments will certain computer clocks not work in?</comment>


Matt Damon's Commencement Address at MIT - Gabriel-Lewis http://news.mit.edu/2016/matt-damon-commencement-address-0603 <comment><AUTHOR> Have you noticed that our society holds actors in the highest esteem above all categories of occupation?

<comment><USER2> Kind of a weird criticism to level at Matt Damon. Whether you agree with his politics or not, he's clearly extremely smart. He dropped out of Harvard and wrote an Oscar-winning movie script. He talks about theories with professors and hangs out with the President.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe it's a weird criticism because it isn't. How do you read my observation as criticism?

<comment><USER3> It definitely reads as veiled criticism, yes.

<comment><AUTHOR> OK well give your responses and time to think about it, yes I suppose in the back of my head I am thinking "what the?".

If I was at MIT I would want the speech to be from someone respected for their achievement in the world of intellectual endeavor.

It feels like it cheapens the institution to bring in an actor.

Now I will say I like Matt Damon's acting, and as far as Hollywood stars go, he comes across to me as if not the smartest, then one of the smartest, and that is certainly something to offset the cheapening of the MIT address.

My original observation remains the same though - actors are at the top of our society in terms of the amount of attention and adoration given by the community, sports stars a close second.

And may I say "The Martian" ..... well no-one does onscreen intellect/science like Matt Damon. What a great movie.

I think maybe somewhere deep down the thing that bothers me about this is that MIT is saying in an indirect way "if you can act really smart then you are on equal footing with people who are really smart". i.e. we value "the appearance of smart".

<comment><USER4> As an MIT alumnus, I think this is an excellent commencement speech.

Broadly, though, you're right -- we Americans do love our screen stars.

<comment><USER5> It's also worth noting that he most likely didn't quite right the speech. He had helpers write the speech. Everyone gets helpers to write/help write speeches.

My favorite example is Steve Jobs calling a lot of people to get help on writing the commencement speech from folks like Aaron Sorkin and others (yes, the same Sorkin that made the Steve Jobs movie which framed him not an entirely positive light).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > But again, the point is not to become some kind of well- rounded, high- > minded voyeur. The point is to try to eliminate your blind spots — the > things that keep us from grasping the bigger picture.[...] And that's when > we can really start to understand ourselves better ... and begin to solve > some problems.

While it seems rather intuitive on its face, I liked this comment. Too many people move forward discounting new informtion while reinforcing their beliefs. I took the living on display to mean following a path you think others find highest leverge and not neccessarily the individual.

This is as much a defect in personality as it is in scientific thinking, which he seems to touch on later. He says along the lines of `really smart people make really big mistakes`, this is because people make mistakes. Honestly, it had the stay hungry stay foolish vibe. I found it interesting, was worth the read.

edit: After some contemplation, I think the meta point that I found interesting is that (as examined downthread) the contrast between Kim Kardashian and Elon Musk, for example, seems to speak to one of the core themes of this address. I would be forced to admit that if Elon Musk gave this speech, I would certainly consider the information more valubale than if Kim Kardashian did. However, the point I believe Damon makes is that, the information itself is also important.

</comment><comment><USER3> >>Not every problem has a high-tech solution.

Something the HN crowd should be reminded of regularly.

</comment><comment><USER7> Fat-heads Rule: [http://www15.uta.fi/koskivoimaa/henkilot/kuvat/29a9a37.jpg](http://www15.uta.fi/koskivoimaa/henkilot/kuvat/29a9a37.jpg)

Finnish General Arno Pajari possibly not related to Matt "John Pajari" Damon. Accused of war-crimes by Russians in 1944.

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting choice...I thought maybe he had gone to MIT but apparently he dropped out from Harvard. I wonder what led to him being chosen (and I say that as a fan of his)?

<comment><USER9> Probably Good Will Hunting.

<comment><USER10> More likely connections between the water.org people and the MIT Corporation board. The MIT D-Lab has goals and approaches closely related to water.org's.

See [https://d-lab.mit.edu](https://d-lab.mit.edu) for more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why has every commencement address turned into a political speech? Politics is like a disease that has slowly taken over ever facet of life.

</comment><comment><USER12> It was really a surprisingly powerful ending...</comment>


Real-time UK Bus Data Ruby Gem - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/maxehmookau/UkBuses

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately the local First Bus monopoly doesn't provide real-time data, even though they have WiFi on all their buses (so therefore adding real-time location-data would likely be trivial - if they don't have it privately already, which I strongly suspect they do).

From what I've been told they don't provide this data because they don't want people to figure out how late their services run, and that information could also be used by local councils to do performance analysis (since local council subsidies their services massively, making competition impossible, assuming competition could get a licence at all).

Basically the local bus company acts in a selfish way and we all get to stand in the rain for an extra ten minutes as a direct result of that.

<comment><USER3> In Leeds, First Bus do give real-time info. Wonder why it's different here...

<comment><USER2> Do they have competition in Leeds?

Either way, the local council could have forced them to.

<comment><USER4> Sadly not massively, the local arriva service is lacking and there is centre bus which seems to be running sheds with wheels. First have a good 80% of the routes in Leeds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This looks really nice (and helpful!), however:

What are the ethics surrounding scraping unsuspecting websites, these days? Have you seen the proper TfL APIs? ([http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/businessandpartners/t...](http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/businessandpartners/tfl- live-bus-and-river-bus-arrivals-api-documentation.pdf))

<comment><USER6> TFL is London only though. It will only provide information for a small part of the UK. Is there an API which provides live data for all of the UK in one?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not AFAIK. I've attempted to get data out of Brighton & Hove buses before. But again, they represent a tiny minority of the UK population. Traveline's data is the closest I've come to blanket coverage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This looks pretty neat, could see some good applications being built with this over the Google Maps API!

One thing to note, is that I can't see whether the Gem handles the source being 403/404'd for example, is that something that is handled by the source?

And it was great reading the code, I'm new to Ruby and currently writing my first Gem, it looks like a highly viable route for bus tracking (no pun intended!), very pretty code!

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently not no. The data is scraped from a site and not read from a nicely formatted API. This is definitely a todo though. Add an issue or better yet, add a pull request :)

<comment><USER8> TFL provide proper APIs

[http://www.tfl.gov.uk/businessandpartners/syndication/defaul...](http://www.tfl.gov.uk/businessandpartners/syndication/default.aspx)

<comment><AUTHOR> Only for London. While that may appeal to many people, most people in the UK don't live in TFL's area. Traveline are much harder to get API data out of.

<comment><USER9> You can email them to ask for a test API key up to 1000 hits a day. If you sign a contract you can use 180,000 API hits every six month period for free. Beyond that there is a cost of £1.50 per 1000 API hits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I recommend that you do not use this. Traveline provide an official API with up to 180,000 free requests in a six month period.

<http://travelinedata.org.uk/nextbuses.htm>

<comment><AUTHOR> I would recommend that you don't use that. This data should be open. It should be quickly accessible. I don't want to have to email someone to ask permission to access data that should be freely available. There's no reason this data shouldn't be more easily available and that's what this gem does. Though I admit, web scraping is never the best way to access data.

<comment><USER9> Traveline are paying another company to extract and normalise the data from the myriad of real time data feeds different bus companies use. Of course, ideally they would all be using open standards. But they aren't. I don't understand why you feel entitled to data which costs Traveline money to produce.

<comment><AUTHOR> Everyone is entitled to this data. The fact buses are late where I live are a given, if I asked traveline to give me the data so that I could measure how late my buses are, they would decline. Opening data can only help to increased accountability which can only lead to better services for customers. If your data brings your company in to disrepute and your way of fixing that is to hide the data, you're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER9> _if I asked traveline to give me the data so that I could measure how late my buses are, they would decline_

No they would not. They will give the data to anyone. They didn't even want my name before they gave me test access of up to 1000 API hits a day (which would be sufficient for the personal usage you describe). The data itself is provided under the open government licence which allows you to do pretty much anything you want with it. As far as I can tell, there are no restrictions beyond this on what applications are allowed to use the API. Really, you should email them and ask them. I got a very quick response.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady Does this work with all bus services in the UK? I can't find a list of which are supported.

<comment><USER9> It will give you information for any bus stop, but not all of them have realtime data. Some use the timetable. You can ask Traveline for a list of areas where there is realtime data. For some reason the information is not published.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any tech recruiter willing to review my code challenge? - <AUTHOR> I've completed a code challenge for a company. I was a small project that you could develop in two weeks. After I submitted my results, two days later I got an email from their recruiter saying that my project did not meet all their requirements and they wouldn't nice forward with my application. I thanked them and ask them to elaborate where I feel through, they didn't answer. Anyway, its a Python / Django project. I was thinking if anyone care to look and give pointers about the project. <comment><USER2> So this wasn't a code challenge so much as a paid project, correct? Did they pay you? No coding challenge should take that long unless it is a paid project.

If you have the requirements they gave you and the project it should be relatively easy to see where you might have gone wrong.

Sadly many times companies use a coverall excuse like this instead of being direct about the reason. I wouldn't get too concerned about it, so many times the rejections are not about your capabilities but their peculiarities.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with you 100%. I'm just interested now on the opinion of a professional to get some tips on my project. Maybe I did something wrong. Or my tests weren't that good...

<comment><USER2> If you want, I'd be happy to see if I can give you some feedback, I 100% respect and understand the need for it.

To be transparent, I do not write Python daily (I am a CTO daily), but I have been doing this work for a very long time and routinely do code reviews across multiple languages, including Python. I can't promise a super quick response, but I could give you one in a few days. If you are interested shoot me an email, it is in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> what's your email? I'll send to you

never mind, saw on your profile</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are there any hackathons for non-students and non-graduate-students? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Location context would also help in this situation, I'm sure there are local hackathons that'd allow anyone.

Also, make sure you check out the Startup Digest ([http://startupdigest.com](http://startupdigest.com)) for your location to see what hackathons are happening.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're in the Chicago area, you might be interested in an upcoming civic hackathon that we're hosting.

[http://drinkndev.com](http://drinkndev.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> This seems like the perfect hackathon for me. unfortunately it is in Chicago =[

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes. I see lots of hackathons all the time that don't care about student status. Have you tried to find them in your area and failed?

</comment><comment><USER5> Check meetup.com, challenge post, and hacker league. Hackathons are taking over the world.

<comment><AUTHOR> I completely forgot about Hacker League! I must have unsubscribed because majority of the events were for students. I might check them out again. Ive never heard of ChallengePost, thanks for the suggestion

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is far too many hackathons for non-students, such as AngelHack, BattleHack, Startup Weekend (arguable to whether an hackathon) amongst many more.

A lot of student hackathons accept dropouts too on a case-by-case basis. But there's hackathons for all :)

</comment><comment><USER7> There are tons. Check challengepost and hackathon.io

<comment><AUTHOR> I have not heard of hackathon.io. what a simple name!</comment></comment>


More Concurrency: Improved Locking in PostgreSQL - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2015/10/13/more-concurrency-improved-locking-in-postgresql.html <comment><USER2> Summary: a short intro to reducing DB lock contention with "SELECT ... FOR UPDATE OF x FOR SHARE OF y", and the upcoming Postgres 9.5's "SELECT ... SKIP LOCKED".

It's a decent heads up about these features, but there are some editing errors and an odd emphasis on multiple CPUs, while DB row locks are the limiting factor in the examples. I'm having trouble interpreting the final paragraph. ("Keep in mind: If you only got a single CPU, concurrency will be a problem. Therefore is essential to do things in a way that many CPUs can do their share of work at the very same time.")</comment>


Andrei Alexandrescu, co-creator of D, compares D, Go and Rust - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/Which-language-has-the-brightest-future-in-replacement-of-C-between-D-Go-and-Rust-And-Why/answer/Andrei-Alexandrescu?share=1 <comment><USER2> already posted three times today; here is the earliest with comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10538190](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10538190)

<comment><USER3> Please stop doing this unless the post you're linking to has a significant thread. I've explained HN's policy about reposts to you twice recently, so it should be clear:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10531885](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10531885)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10537405](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10537405)</comment></comment>


Google Maps Moves the World's Borders Depending on Who's Looking - <AUTHOR> http://www.popsci.com/does-google-create-worlds-borders?dom=rss-default&src=syn <comment><USER2> Here's a list of disputed territories from another maps provider. The political view is just another parameter in their API.

[https://developer.here.com/rest- apis/documentation/geocoder/...](https://developer.here.com/rest- apis/documentation/geocoder/topics/political-views.html)</comment>


"My Customers Would Have Asked For a Faster Horse" - <AUTHOR> http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/07/28/ford-faster-horse/

<comment><AUTHOR> This post is a follow-up to <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2747106>. The author of <http://quoteinvestigator.com> does a really good job of tracking these things down.

</comment><comment><USER2> Even if Henry Ford did say that, it's still an if.

i.e. Henry Ford did NOT ask his customers, at best he guessed at what they might respond.

I wrote about this here: <http://contrast.ie/blog/faster-horses> (Which was previously picked up by HN)</comment>


Metagames and Containers - <AUTHOR> http://www.sleepoversf.com/metagames-and-containers/

<comment><AUTHOR> The mechanic is pretty cool, I unlocked all 23 boxes and only when prompted did I realise what had happened. I wonder how this could be applied beyond blog posts</comment>


Google infects the Gboard spacebar with it's logo - <AUTHOR> https://support.google.com/android/thread/39069097?hl=en <comment><AUTHOR> So annoying</comment>


LibreOffice is now available for Haiku - <AUTHOR> https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/libreoffice-is-now-available-for-haiku/6917 <comment><USER2> Tried Haiku recently and was much impressed with speed and stability but without being able to scale to 1920x1080 and having no multi-user capacity it's hard to see how this fits into modern computing environment.. still, one can hope the project sees improvements - I've tracked Haiku along with ReactOS for potential real world usage for years now.. so.. any day now.

EDIT: congratulations with LibreOffice port, that does make a difference in terms of usability.

<comment><USER3> > having no multi-user capacity it's hard to see how this fits into modern > computing environment

Depends on what you mean by "modern computing environment". I mean, my computers are mine, an no-one else uses them. I know very few people that share their computer with other users (but maybe it's just my bubble).

Another story entirely for those who use a smartphone/tablet for their personal computing (the target use of Haiku).

<comment><USER4> >I mean, my computers are mine, an no-one else uses them.

That's only half of what a multi-user system does though. The other half is about fine-grained privilege management.

One of the reasons (not the only reason by any stretch but a contributing factor certainly) why Windows has so many more problems with viruses than other OS's is that under windows you're basically either a user or an admin, there's no in between. Crucially, there's also nothing lower.

Under linux[1] systems, it's totally possible to define a user that can read and write from one specific folder in the file system tree but not it's ancestor nodes, read from the keyboard but not the mouse and _absolutely nothing else_. All of those problems that windows has with random programs being keyloggers are eminently solvable on linux because you can make a custom user that cannot use networking or listen to the keyboard as appropriate, and then launch the process using that user.

Anyway, how well used all these capabilities are depends a lot on the person administering the linux system, but windows is extremely reactive in this fashion. Desktop linux users tend not to run outgoing firewalls, for example, they just don't allow software that they don't trust to access the network.

[1] anyone know how to write star-nix on hacker news without it making everything italics?

<comment><USER5> > That's only half of what a multi-user system does though. The other half is > about fine-grained privilege management.

Useful in a networked corporate environment, a lot less so on a personal computer.

> All of those problems that windows has with random programs being keyloggers > are eminently solvable on linux because you can make a custom user that > cannot use networking or listen to the keyboard as appropriate, and then > launch the process using that user.

You can do that on Windows and have been able to since at least Vista. the only reason I disqualify XP is that I wrote a keylogger for it so I know for a fact that you can grab raw keyboard input from any user session. Even before that though NTFS offered a fine grained access control mechanism for files and folders.

> Desktop linux users tend not to run outgoing firewalls, for example, they > just don't allow software that they don't trust to access the network.

My experience is that they just don't run software that wasn't sourced from their distribution's package repositories. That is certainly an advantage of the appstore model, but you have to admit it is significantly more limiting that being able to get the latest version of something by downloading it from the vendor's website.

<comment><USER4> >My experience is that they just don't run software that wasn't sourced from their distribution's package repositories. That is certainly an advantage of the appstore model, but you have to admit it is significantly more limiting that being able to get the latest version of something by downloading it from the vendor's website.

It would be very limiting if it were reality, yes. I frequently download packages that aren't part of the default distro repo though. There's lots of PPA's, and I also install a lot of software just by extracting it into a directory in my home folder and running it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some day there will be a backlash against UX design that fetishizes minimalism, hiding features, and rearranging the deck chairs every six months. And on that day, when the masses go searching for a simple, organic interface that has logical menus and often used functionality exposed by buttons, I like to imagine that Haiku will be waiting there to salve the weary souls of my fellow travers.

<comment><USER7> If you don't like modern UIs, I'd recommend Linux today. The main Ubuntu has all the crazy UI changes that I stopped following long time ago, but all the old stuff is still in repos.

For example, this is blackbox 0.60.0 window manager, released around 2000: [https://www.linux.org.ru/gallery/screenshots/19788](https://www.linux.org.ru/gallery/screenshots/19788)

Almost 20 years later, the "blackbox" package is still around: [https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/blackbox](https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/blackbox) . You can install it, choose it in the dropdown from the login screen and start using it. Or get a version of Ubuntu with this stuff pre-configured (like xubuntu or lubuntu)

And the best part? You have all the modern software -- browsers, editors, compilers. You can be fully productive _and_ enjoy the stable UI

<comment><USER6> I'm running bits and pieces of XFCE (via Xubuntu) with XMonad and dmenu :-)

That said, what document viewer do I use when I want to read a PDF? Evince was the standard GTK/Gnome option, but it has hamburgerized everything to a state of being unusable. I recently discovered Atril, but I literally have to search DuckDuckGo for "evince xfce mate" every time I need to remember what it's called.

Both Firefox and Chromium have buried everything in hamburger obfuscation land as well. I could name more.

In short, even with my significantly customized Linux desktop, UX-ism still bites me. Yes I can find alternatives for a lot of things. No, I don't imagine Haiku being productive for me in the near term. But... Haiku does offer something of a complete thesis of how desktop UI should work. That desktop UI is firmly situated in the 1990s, but I'm increasingly of the opinion that is a good thing.

<comment><USER7> For PDF, try qpdfview or xpdf (you cannot get any more old-style than that!)

For images, you can always try feh or imagemagic's "display". Or if you want a bit more UI, "geeque" (which is based on gimageview, and still has not changed the design much)

For web browsers, I am afraid you don't have many options if you want to use modern web apps. The web evolves too fast for that. There are still independent browsers (like netsurf), but I gave up on them and just use chrome.

I doubt that Haiku can ever be practical, unless you live completely offline. Even PDF format keeps evolving -- version 2.0 was released in 2017 -- so you cannot keep maintaining versions just for a single OS.

And once you start porting entire programs from different platforms (like LibreOffice), the platform's unique UI traits will slowly disappear. Who will notice the unique kernel if it has POSIX compat layer and GTK?

<comment><USER8> > I doubt that Haiku can ever be practical, unless you live completely > offline. Even PDF format keeps evolving -- version 2.0 was released in 2017 > -- so you cannot keep maintaining versions just for a single OS.

There have been platform-independent PDF handling libraries for over a decade now. The Haiku-native PDF viewer, BePDF, uses one internally to handle PDF files. So that's not a problem, really.

> And once you start porting entire programs from different platforms (like > LibreOffice), the platform's unique UI traits will slowly disappear. Who > will notice the unique kernel if it has POSIX compat layer and GTK?

BeOS was roughly POSIX compliant, and Haiku is even more so.

Yes, we would greatly prefer native apps to ports (we're not all that different from the macOS fanatics in that way), but we don't have the critical mass for that at the moment. But the kernel isn't and was never the truly "unique" bit; it was built to disappear behind the UI, really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a massive achievement. Being able to run a modern browser and an Office Suite makes it a viable desktop alternative in the coming future. I'm happy to see variety in the desktop OS space once again!

</comment><comment><USER10> What makes Haiku better for personal computing, from the end-user perspective? Or to put it in another perspective, who is the eventual target user for Haiku? I'd like to find an excuse to test it out even knowing it's in alpha stages, but this seems to be missing from the FAQs. The only noteworthy statement is that it is fast, efficient, and easy to use. I'm not sure if those are sticking points for most users.

<comment><USER8> I guess the "Why not Linux?" part of our FAQ is as much of an excuse as one can make, besides pure curiosity of course: [https://www.haiku- os.org/about/faq#why-not-linux](https://www.haiku-os.org/about/faq#why-not- linux)

> Linux-based distributions stack up software – the Linux kernel, the X Window > System, and various DEs with disparate toolkits such as GTK+ and Qt – that > do not necessarily share the same guidelines and/or goals. This lack of > consistency and overall vision manifests itself in increased complexity, > insufficient integration, and inefficient solutions, making the use of your > computer more complicated than it should actually be.

> Instead, Haiku has a single focus on personal computing and is driven by a > unified vision for the whole OS. That, we believe, enables Haiku to provide > a leaner, cleaner and more efficient system capable of providing a better > user experience that is simple and uniform throughout.

<comment><USER11> Why not *BSD?

<comment><USER8> BSD only has one less layer as an "external" system (the initial userland libraries and utilities). X11, the desktop environment, etc. are still "stacked up."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I learned about the Haiku project in 2009, when I was in college. I was impressed by the community and I'm still a little sad that the hardware we wanted to use for prototyping (a tablet PC) got stuck in customs for a long time, so that we couldn't build the prototype we wanted (based on the Haiku OS).

I'm still very impressed by the community, and I wish you all the best!

</comment><comment><USER13> So, I looked into NewOS, the kernel that Haiku is based off of. It hasn't been updated in 10 years (I gather that Haiku's fork has taken most of the attention, so that's neither here or there). That said, I found this amusing:

> The system currently can be built to run on the follwing systems: > Intel > IA-32 (x86) - Tested on desktops through 4-way servers > Sega Dreamcast - > Hitachi SH-4 > PPC based machines - G3/G4 Macs, Pegasos

Sega Dreamcast!

<comment><USER14> The SH-4 is actually still supported by mainline GCC

<comment><USER13> Almost everything is still supported by mainline GCC. I don't know, it's a weird choice to me, given that BeOS never AFAICT supported Dreamcast either.

<comment><USER5> The Dreamcast has a pretty big homebrew scene because it was super trivial to run your own code on an unmodded console and it also ran some form of Windows CE. It was probably low-hanging fruit to add it and someone thought it'd be cool, though actually doing testing on the DC will give you a good idea of how much your changes are affecting the performance and resource utilization.

<comment><USER14> Renesas also still sells SH2/4 chips

[https://www.renesas.com/en-us/products/microcontrollers- micr...](https://www.renesas.com/en-us/products/microcontrollers- microprocessors/superh.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> You mean to tell me

LibreOffice is on Haiku

Haiku is complete

<comment><USER16> Almost, you got one too many syllables in the second sentence.

<comment><USER15> Don't think I didn't wrestle long and hard on whether Libre is one syllable or two.

<comment><USER17> How does one pronounce it anyway? Is it lib-rey or liber (like liver)

<comment><USER15> I just anglicize the french.

So in french Leeb-grre (kind of like a throaty r, sounds a bit "gruh" but short)

and in enlish Leeb-ru' (kind of like a very short "ruh"). More like Libra truncated.

Its half way between a consonant and a vowel so I was torn. Glad we're facing the big issues here.

<comment><USER18> Agree. Libre is a french word.

<comment><USER19> And Spanish :) [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/libre#Etymology](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/libre#Etymology)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wrote a thing about Haiku a bit ago

[https://navjack27.netlify.com/post/a-modern-os- haikuos-/](https://navjack27.netlify.com/post/a-modern-os-haikuos-/)

<comment><USER21> > A big issue with Haiku is that there really isn't a modern web browser > available right now.

The web browsers available to Haiku are all based on a recent version of WebKit (As of now we have merged commits from upstream dating from 2018), the same engine in Safari and it also allowed QtWebKit-based apps to run, previously Otto browser and Qupzilla until they migrated to QtWebEngine (based on the Blink engine which we don't have yet). So to me, that seems to be modern for a web browser that has HTML5 and can also play YouTube videos.

Also, I have just replied to your comment on a recent 64 bit Haiku nightly in WebPositive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Somewhat off-topic: does anyone know how to make that BeOS/Haiku window decoration (B Ⅱ) work in KDE5?

[https://cn.pling.com/img/hive/content- pre2/5965-2.png](https://cn.pling.com/img/hive/content-pre2/5965-2.png)

[https://discuss.haiku- os.org/uploads/default/original/2X/e/e...](https://discuss.haiku- os.org/uploads/default/original/2X/e/ecc6b18f7b41f02fe88276c49b438757addfc4f5.jpg)

<comment><USER23> I don't know about KWin, but there is a BeOS-like XFCE theme [1] so you might be able to swap KWin with XFWM and use that.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/emP3Jk4.png](https://i.imgur.com/emP3Jk4.png) (not my shot)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Out of curiosity, does anyone run Haiku full time? I remember seeing a video on it a few years ago, but wasn't sure if it would do everything I wanted.

<comment><USER8> A few developers do, and I know of one company that deploys Haiku commercially (TuneTracker: [http://tunetrackersystems.com/](http://tunetrackersystems.com/)).

I haven't reached that point myself; I'm still missing WiFi support on my laptop (hence why there's so many commits from me working on that area of the system recently ;) But I'm getting close.

<comment><USER24> I'm interested in this; how much work is it typically to port a package over?

EDIT: I'm asking specifically a command-line package.

<comment><USER8> Depends on the package. CLI tools that already work both Linux and some *BSD usually are pretty easy to port, often requiring only a small set of patches. GUI tools that use Qt shouldn't be too tricky either (the LibreOffice port is based on the Qt backend.) Other than that, it varies greatly by application.

HaikuPorts ([https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports](https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports)) is what handles the bulk of the work to get applications up and running. I guess the Ninja recipe ([https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/dev- uti...](https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/dev- util/ninja/ninja-1.8.2.recipe)) and patchset ([https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/dev- uti...](https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/dev- util/ninja/patches/ninja-1.8.2.patchset)) are pretty typical for a CLI app, and the Qupzilla recipe ([https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/www- cli...](https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/www- client/qupzilla/qupzilla-1.8.9.recipe)) and patchset ([https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/www- cli...](https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/www- client/qupzilla/patches/qupzilla-1.8.9.patchset)) are roughly typical for a Qt app.

If you have some specific application you're trying to port, joining Freenode#haiku and then asking around may be worth your time. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Man, Haiku grew a lot since I tried to use it last time! Neat!

</comment><comment><USER26> what's in haiku OS that's not in Linux? Is it like a bundled linux OS?

<comment><USER5> Haiku is a recreation of BeOS built on the NewOS kernel (not Linux). BeOS (and therefore Haiku) had some neat features like a database built into the FS, was designed to take advantage of multiprocessor systems, and put a lot of effort into providing great multimedia capabilities.

From my perspective, the project seemed to have been taken over by Linux Desktop people, introduced a package manager, and I completely lost interest in it. In that respect, it's basically a much less functional Linux distro.

<comment><USER27> This is the first time in my life that I've heard negative words about package managers in general. What's the downside? You can always just download and compile from source yourself if your so against it right

<comment><USER28> > What's the downside?

It didn't come from the Apple gods. The same ones who made two attempts to rewrite an OS with preemption and protected memory support before punting and buying one instead. Clearly they know best about how to structure an OS.

<comment><USER29> In a post about the non-Apple-related open source clone of the non-Apple- related BeOS, someone starts a thread about how much they don't like the style of package managers that come from Linux, which I am _fairly_ sure is, again, not related to Apple, this is relevant how?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is amazing news!

</comment><comment><USER31> TIL: Haiku OS is still around.

</comment><comment><USER32> Last time I heard about this OS was when it was mentioned in XKCD[0]. Out of curiosity I downloaded the image, installed it on a VM and played around a little. Later I forgot about it almost completely.

Nice to see that this project didn't die and is making some decent progress.

[0][https://3d.xkcd.com/806/](https://3d.xkcd.com/806/)

</comment><comment><USER33> Bravo guys.

</comment><comment><USER34> For context re: Haiku OS (I had not heard of it before)

From the project home page [0]:

> Haiku is an open-source operating system that specifically targets personal > computing. Inspired by the BeOS, Haiku is fast, simple to use, easy to learn > and yet very powerful.

From the wiki page [1]:

> Haiku is a free and open-source operating system compatible with the now > discontinued BeOS. Its development began in 2001, and the operating system > became self-hosting in 2008. The first alpha release was made in September > 2009, and the most recent was November 2012; development is ongoing as of > 2018 with nightly releases.

[0] [https://www.haiku-os.org/](https://www.haiku-os.org/)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_(operating_system)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_\(operating_system\))

<comment><USER8> It's called "Haiku" not "Haiku OS". :)

And see also our FAQ, since a lot of these questions wind up getting asked on these HN threads: [https://www.haiku-os.org/about/faq/](https://www.haiku- os.org/about/faq/)

<comment><USER34> Sorry about that! Reminds me of _Tor not TOR_. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> a killer app would be docker

<comment><USER3> For a desktop operating system? I don't see why. Are there any use-cases of docker on the desktop I'm not seeing?

<comment><USER15> Maybe the idea is that once you have docker, you have all the environments (ubuntu, wordpress or anything else).

Is that how it works?

<comment><USER36> Still doesn't answer GP's question - what's the point of Docker on a desktop OS? Why would you run WordPress on the desktop? The only real reason I can think of would be for developers.

<comment><USER15> Well if you run Ubuntu, you would get Ubuntu desktop (Gnome or Unity or whatever it is now), right?

But yes, I was thinking developers.

<comment><USER3> At that point I may just be running Ubuntu, no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> anyone notice real lag on an otherwise fastish Mac OSX build? Or perhaps add some insight to why that happens?

</comment><comment><USER38> As much as I wanted to love Libre Office I just couldn't stand the UI. Menus behind menus and bazillion buttons everywhere. Craved in and got an office license.

<comment><USER30> I totally get you, because for me it is the other way 'round - I despise the ribbon bar vigorously, and when all the other applications picked it up, I felt like some higher power was mocking me. ;-)

At least as of version 6, LibreOffice actually has a ribbon bar-mode, but enabling it was non-trivial, and disabling it was even harder. I hated it even more than the MS Office ribbon bar; but I am obviously biased. It would be interesting to hear from someone who likes the ribbon bar how LibreOffice's version compares against MS?</comment></comment>


The State of macOS for Software Developers - <AUTHOR> https://nextjournal.com/kommen/the-state-of-macos-for-software-developers <comment><USER2> Personally I don't find the "Vista-like" pop-ups that bad. It's a minor annoyance when setting up a new app, but otherwise I hardly ever see it. And how often do you install new apps on macOS anymore?

<comment><USER3> It's not just about installing apps, it's also about apps accessing some resource, for example contacts, photos, or the filesystem. It happens often enough to be more than just a minor annoyance.</comment></comment>


Download HTC Home Time and Weather Gadget for Windows 7 - <AUTHOR> http://beingpc.com/2010/10/download-htc-home-time-and-weather-gadget-for-windows-7/ HTC Home – is a free open-source widget for Windows. It shows time and weather on your desktop, like on HTC communicators. <comment><AUTHOR> Which widget are you using</comment>


NYC BigApps Opens Today - <AUTHOR> http://www.nycbigapps.com/

<comment><USER2> The data for this is really interesting too.

Can be found at <http://www.nyc.gov/html/datamine/html/home/home.shtml></comment>


Mozilla blocks UAE bid to become an internet security guardian - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-mozilla-idUSKCN1U42CA <comment><USER2> I've been watching the emails roll in on the mailing list regarding this for awhile now [1], and this article seems to take some liberties in order to make the story more sensational than it really is. I highly suggest anyone interested read the linked thread.

In that thread, Nadim Kobeissi of Symbolic Software makes some valid criticisms of the article:

> _The article makes the following claims:_

> _Mozilla blocked the United Arab Emirates government (not DarkMatter!),from > becoming an "Internet security guardian" or "Internet security gatekeeper", > as a result of the Reuters report on DarkMatter. I have no idea what that > means._

> _Mozilla blocked the United Arab Emirates from becoming a "globally > recognized Internet security watchdog". Again, I am not sure what that means > or how that represents DarkMatter's attempts to justify its CA status._

> _Mozilla cited the existence of "credible evidence" to Reuters, despite us > establishing in this thread that no evidence whatsoever has been presented > so far and that we're still waiting for it._

Earlier today, Nadim Kobeissi also had a fairly thought provoking critique on the current decision making process regarding inclusions in light of this decision, which I think raise some valid concerns and is worth taking to heart.

[1][https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.security...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.security.policy/nnLVNfqgz7g%5B151-175%5D)

<comment><USER3> Shouldn't the default be that an entity wishing to be a CA be untrusted and it has to present sufficient everdence to be regarded as trustworthy? Given the dangers of a rouge CA vs the smaller downside of it failing to be regarded as trusted it seems that if there is any rational doubt as to trustworthiness then you shouldn't add it to the trusted list.

<comment><USER2> Valid point and definitely discussed in the mailing list by people much more intelligible on the subject than I. I was more pointing out that the article doesn't really capture the actual conversation on the mailing list.</comment></comment></comment>


Obscure Indian cyber firm spied on politicians, investors worldwide - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-cyber-mercenaries-exclusive/exclusive-obscure-indian-cyber-firm-spied-on-politicians-investors-worldwide-idUSKBN23G1GQ <comment><USER2> >They sent malicious emails to the targeted parties tricking them to share their login information.

This is a reminder how naive we can be interacting with malicious individuals on the internet. Are there any useful platforms that teach internet safety in everyday life?

<comment><USER3> In most cases, forcing staff to use two-factor authentication is enough to block most of attempts. Employees can still leak their passcode onc (even though stealing codes is more difficult), but there is much less risk of persistent compromise.

<comment><USER4> 2FA is important of course, but it is in no way a panacea. Especially SMS or TOTP MFA. It is near-trivial to add a phase to phishing that captures the second factor as well. Tools like [https://github.com/kgretzky/evilginx2](https://github.com/kgretzky/evilginx2) support it out-of-the-box.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well one think I noticed with unscribing a email newsletter than after doing it you start to lots of mails and got to know unscribing something is a way to indicate that email is active. My two cents. So now just click spam and let email provider run some machine learning and pattern to figure out it's a spam.</comment>


ITunes 11 Is Out - <AUTHOR> http://apple.com/itunes/

<comment><USER2> What's with that ugly image ? <http://i.imgur.com/QDi1u.png></comment>


How to clean up your $HOME with simple hacks - <AUTHOR> https://nulltime.net/blog/2017/01/home-sweet-home <comment><USER2> "Yes, every single directory has its own first letter."

I do that as well, but I prefer to capitalize the first letter of directory names so that they sort to the top of a directory listing. I also keep all file names completely lowercase and I never use spaces.</comment>


Show HN: Fireworks Mobile iPhone Prototyping Suite - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mediafederation.com/blog/fireworks-iphone-prototyping-solution/

<comment><USER2> Great job! Rich symbols (and their javascript api in general) are underutilized by users of Fireworks, great to see things like this coming out.

Editing the different fields of a rich symbol in FW isn't a very good experience though, in terms of responsiveness. Not sure if Adobe cares enough to fix that.</comment>


23andMe UK - <AUTHOR> https://www.23andme.com/en-gb/ <comment><USER2> I absolutely love the idea of this.

I just think that I'll end up in a database that, despite any promise to the contrary now, will probably end up being used against me at some point in the future (targeted marking / denying of health insurance / whatever else). Which I really don't love.

And I hate to be cynical, but it strikes me that becoming the Google of genomes is ultimately going to make far, far more cash than selling a kit that tests for genetic problems.

Don't be evil, and all that.

<comment><USER3> No one stops you from entering a fake name. At least they didn't when I ordered some kits a couple of years ago.

<comment><USER2> I suppose I'd be more interested if you could buy the kit from a supermarket, and each kit had a unique code and password you could enter online to check for your results. So once the sample is posted, the only thing that connects it to me (without a probably unfeasible amount of detective work) would be my IP address. (And my DNA, obviously...)

<comment><USER4> Hmm... that would come off as pretty suspicious; it would make it very easy to get away with DNA testing other people against their will.

<comment><USER5> The 23andme kit requires a substantial amount of spit, so it would be hard to trick someone into giving you their DNA.

In terms of doing DNA testing behind someone's back, paternity testing is DNA testing, and only requires a sample of the DNA. You can buy those kits at walmart already. Search for Identigene DNA Paternity Test Kit.

<comment><USER6> This kit lets you collect material by yourself. Some other kits/companies require a doctor/nurse signature that they did take material from someone who matched a photo id.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A cautionary tale...

I bought an Ancestry(.com) DNA test a number of years ago. The product had the advantage that it was integrated in to their genealogical research platform (a subscription service). When you found a match in the database you could click straight through to that members family tree

.... then they shut down the "old" platform entirely, gave me X days to download my data, and told me to get lost. Visiting the site today we see "The AncestryDNA product is not currently available for purchase outside of the United States"

Furthermore, their "all new" tests are focused, like 23andMe, on telling you about more gimmicky crap like your health, ethnicity, and ancient migratory ancestry, and not helping you find distant cousins you can work with. Really sad.

I cancelled my ~$160 annual subscription on principle after that

<comment><USER8> Off topic but have you found any services that are good for tracing one's lineage?

I would pay a considerable amount, probably capped at 10k, for a service that was able to provide me with an accurate, detailed and thorough description of my personal lineage...but I can't seem to find any services that offer it.

<comment><USER6> I ordered from BritainsDNA for the lineage. I'm expecting the results this month. It was 50% off in a Vouchercloud deal, £74.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've had one of these 23andMe kits sitting at home for a while now. I find the information they can give you very interesting and I'm curious to do it. But part of me can't overcome the fear of this data sitting around on a companies servers forever. With me having no way of knowing what they're doing with it. Maybe I'm just too paranoid.

<comment><USER10> You can opt-out of the long-term storage.

<comment><USER11> Just as you can delete emails in Gmail or delete your Facebook account ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Has anyone submitted something other than a human sample? I have to wonder if anyone has submitted a bovine or dog sample as a joke.

<comment><USER13> Expensive joke

<comment><USER14> I've seen more expensive devices smashed on YouTube as a joke.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If I'm in the US, is there any way to proxy into my full health results?

<comment><USER16> Of course, they're just calling SNPs and using published GWAS studies to estimate disease risk. You can get your "raw genome" text file from 23andMe and convert to e.g. VCF format for use in a bioinformatics tool like the variant effect predictor.

Besides, really the most interesting health-related alleles are the simplest: ApoE, BRCA1 — no complicated algo is needed to interpret those associations.

<comment><USER17> Is there an easy way (or introductory guide) for someone not familiar with bioinformatics tools?

<comment><USER18> [http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Promethease](http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Promethease)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The pricing doesn't make much sense. It's $99 in the US, and $195 in the UK (125 pounds). It's cheaper to order the US version to the UK.

<comment><USER20> The shipping used to be $90 I think (because it's tracked there and back international delivery).

I suspect if they want to develop the UK sales at all, they will need to adhere to certain regulations regarding what information they give out, rather like what the FDA does. This means treating UK customers slightly differently, which incurs additional expense. I'm not hugely surprised.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I really would like to get my DNA anaylsed out of pure curiosity, but I'm also afraid I might discover something I would have been better not knowing.

<comment><USER22> Such as?

<comment><USER16> Such as a 20x heightened risk of developing Alzheimer's relative to baseline (as determined by your ApoE variant).

<comment><USER23> Yikes, are you worried?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Has there been any update on their Health Reports being supported again? That's the killer feature that I'm waiting for them to turn back on.

<comment> k-mcgrady Personally I'd be much more comfortable taking the results and doing my own research or getting a Doctor's advice. I don't see how they can ever turn that feature back on when the risk of people blindly following the advice (and the chances of it being incorrect) are high enough.

<comment><USER24> The power to do data analysis and then inform their users of potential trouble is, in my mind, the entire point of their service.

It doesn't have to be provided as 'advice' but rather a general statement such as '...other members have genetic markers that indicate a propensity toward heard disease; you share these same genetic markers and should be aware of potential issues in this regard.

<comment> k-mcgrady That sounds fine with me actually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sadly not an alternative if you weren't too comfortable with your genetic data being stored in the US. From the .uk privacy policy:

>By agreeing to our Privacy Statement and Terms of Service, you consent to the storing and processing of your personal information, including sensitive information, in the USA and countries outside of the country you live in.

</comment><comment><USER25> When this will be available in the rest of EU countries? Do they have to register the service in each country separately?

</comment><comment><USER10> I am in the UK and had previously purchased from the US. This morning I got an e-mail offering me health reports (based on my previous test results). Very nice.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady I'm interested in doing this. Can someone who has already done it give me an idea of the kind of things I might discover which I can actually act upon? Although it would be interesting paying £125 for a list of things that might happen isn't very appealing unless I can work to mitigate them or use the advice to improve my life in some way. Considering the privacy implications the benefit needs to be pretty big.

<comment><USER26> [https://www.23andme.com/en-gb/health/reports/](https://www.23andme.com/en- gb/health/reports/)

For each disease, they will tell you what the average risk of developing it is, and then they will tell you what they think YOUR risk, based on your DNA.

For example, average woman will develop breast cancer, say 3%, but you might be at elevated risk, say 8% because you have the BRCA1 mutation.

As far as changed behavior, for most cases you're unlikely to do much, except perhaps go to the doctor a bit earlier to get a mammogram.

[Apologies for using female examples, if that's not your gender.]

<comment> k-mcgrady Definitely interesting. I just need to figure out whether the benefits of knowing those things and paying attention to catch them early is worth the cost of potentially constantly stressing out and over reacting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Full health reports have been made available again in Canada for a month now.

[http://www.23andme.ca/](http://www.23andme.ca/)

</comment><comment><USER28> This ought to turn up more relatives in relative finder!

</comment><comment><USER29> A functional way to show middle finger to FDA.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm curious, have companies like this ever been subpoenaed for their data as part of a fishing expedition to catch a criminal or find the father of a child for child support, etc?

To example, there's been a few examples where they found someone through relative('s) DNA for murders in the past, but DNA was voluntarily given.

<comment><USER31> If one gives their DNA voluntarily (for a particular case) and they are cleared of any wrong doing, is their DNA information still kept on file by law enforcement?

<comment><USER32> England has an extensive DNA database (largest in the world) and it's hard to get taken off it, even if you voluntarily give your DNA. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7532856.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7532856.stm)

> Innocent people who volunteer to give a DNA sample during a police inquiry, > for instance to help narrow a police search in a major murder investigation, > also have their details kept on record.

Most people don't volunteer their DNA; it's taken off them when they're arrested, and it's kept even if they're not convicted. It's even kept if they're released without charge, although there are time limits for that after a 2008 case. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/7764069.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/7764069.stm)</comment></comment></comment>


How To Send Email When You're Dead - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/5975597/Emails-sent-by-dead.html

<comment><USER2> ... and when you are done with the emails, here is a sure method to freak everyone at your funeral. Ask to be buried with your mobile and have your best friend ring you, just about when you down. For a bit of extra buzz he can pretend you have answered! If you really lucky - assuming a dead person can be lucky - your dead blog can get slashdot!

PS. Will not work with cremation.</comment>


Ask HN: What kind of music you listen to when coding? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> It various, from something electronic as The Glitch Mob, to the popular Chemical Brothers to something spacy as The Orb.

According to last.fm:

I'm into electronic, ambient, minimal, techno and dubstep, including: The Chemical Brothers, Underworld, Paul Kalkbrenner, Solar Fields, Moby, Max Richter, James Blake, Prodigy, Burial, Johnny Cash, Asaf Avidan & the Mojos, Bonobo, Mono/Poly, Modeselektor, Take, Four Tet, Flying Lotus, The Orb, ZZT, Amon Tobin, Glen Porter, The Glitch Mob, Pogo, Emika, Siriusmo, Matmos, Free the Robots, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Pantha du Prince, Nicolas Jaar, Skream, Kosheen, Ellen Allien, LCD Soundsystem, Apparat, Daft Punk, Jon Hopkins, Kraftwerk, Eartha Kitt, The Flashbulb, Proem, Aphex Twin, Robot Koch, Caribou, Massive Attack, Gold Panda, Nosaj Thing, 2econd Class Citizen, Helios.

</comment><comment><USER3> According to iTunes: Arcade Fire, Ben Gibbard, Death Cab, Flaming Lips, Fleet Foxes, Jay-Z, Kanye West, MIA, Macklemore, Massive Attack, Metric, Shabazz Palaces, Spoon, TV on the Radio, The Decemberists, Vampire Weekend, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, among others.

</comment><comment><USER4> Any kind is fine for me. I usually randomly play music while coding.</comment>


Ask YC: Need advice on direction of site. - <AUTHOR>

I launched my site 2 months back (subavatar.com) as a Commenter Avatar + Profile + Comment History + Karma service.  Based on the initial feedback I dropped the Karma part and changed the domain name (from ipkarma.com to subavatar.com). making it like Gravatar with profile + comment tracking.  Now I'm having thoughts about dropping the avatar part.  What direction going forward do you suggest I take ? <comment><USER2> I looked around the site, and thought it was confusing. I saw the avatar stuff, but I didn't see much about the comment tracking which is more interesting to me.

I like the idea of co-comment and integrating to work with any comment system, but ti seems to fail often.

Disqus and Intense Debate are cool, but I don't really want to have to switch over my blogs and other systems to just get comment tracking. I don't care as much about the karma of comments I guess.

So I would perhaps focus on that, because as a blogger and someone writting an app, I am unlikely to change the code of my systems to support your avatars, I would be happy if the comment tracking worked by default. Then I might point out the service to readers on my blog or make a link by the comments like "track these comments with subavatar"

On your page I would show example screen shots of the avatars and comment tracking in action on some site. I couldn't get a very good feel of what the avatars were like. Perhaps have a link to your own avatar to let people see what the whole profiles look like.

Good luck

<comment><AUTHOR> I realised by analysing user feedback that the comment tracking is the main USP of the site. Subavatar supports fallback avatars, if you only want to use the comment tracking feature with your current avatar service.

My profile <http://subavatar.com/user/6e00c923a13ce323523d417e40c1537e>

The initial release had an elaborate system generated avatar system (Identicon), but found them very cold, inhuman and controversial (some of them looked like swastikas). I've converted them to a simple color coded placeholder now.

PS all avatars are linked to their profiles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't know what an avatar service is. Is it a picture of me? I think other people might not know what an avatar service is either.</comment>


Getting into bioinformatics with no masters/phd - <AUTHOR> hi, I'm a jr web developer. I started to take a course online a while back Finding Hidden Messages in DNA (Bioinformatics 1) through Coursera. when I start to research jobs in bioinformatics it looked like a master's degree is expected. is that right? do you think it is reasonable to find an entry level job if you finish an online certificate for bioinformatics or that's just not enough knowledge?<p>is the pay typically lower than other software jobs (it looked like many employers were universities)? what kinds of problems are typically being solved by bioinformatics? thank you. <comment><USER2> With your background you are unlikely to get a research job in bioinformatics. Think of it this way. A MSc program is at least 1 year long. The course you took is 5 weeks.

You are more likely to find a support position, writing software for a bioinformatics group.

Pay is typically lower. As you point out, most people hiring are at universities. Further (and my experience is out of date so it might have changed), in general programmers are typically better paid than researchers. In science-oriented companies, the decision makers are often people with a science background, often PhD, so often 6+ years of graduate school.

It can be hard for them to accept that someone with a BS + 2 years of work experience has a market value higher than a newly minted PhD.

I haven't done bioinformatics for a long time, and I never did much in the first place. My experience was that the typical problem solving is "parse the output of program X so the output can be fed into program Y". This was back in the days when Perl was the main programming language in bioinformatics.</comment>


How to avoid emails being sent to bulk Folders? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> STOP sending emails right away, until you've corrected the problem. Every email that you send now that gets flagged as SPAM is being counted against your IP addresses and domain name. You are making the problem worse in your testing.

Sign up for a Tuffmail account, as well as accounts from similar services. Make sure that the SPAM filtering is set to the MAX for each account. Make sure that the SPAM filtering message headers are turned on. Then, do all your testing my sending to these accounts. Observe the headers set by SpamAssassin and other spam filters. They will tell you exactly what is going wrong.

Send the absolute bare minimum of email that will get the job done.

In particular, don't use email to send invites. I, and other people I know, file invites and similar requests as SPAM specifically to cause problems for sites like yours. I promise you that if I get any email from your website, it will be forwarded to SpamCop and other places, whether or not my friends requested you to send it to me.

Check your IP addresses of your servers to make sure they are not on any blacklists. Similarly, check the blacklists to make sure your domain name itself isn't on them.

Make sure that your mail server has a domain name, a static IP address, and make sure that the reverse DNS resolves back to its domain name. This is needed to get past ESMTP ELHO filters.

Make sure that you have a valid and restrictive SenderID/SPF record in your domain's DNS.

Make sure that the syntax of all your SMTP commands is compliant with the SMTP specification. Make sure the syntax of your messages are compliant with RFC2822, MIME, and related standards.

Ensure that you are using the following in the SMTP handshake (square brackets used instead of Less-Than and Greater-Than to get through the filters on this site):

EHLO onista.com

MAIL FROM:[email@example.com]

Make sure that the From: header is an address from your domain: From: XXXX [email@example.com]

If you refuse to do that (because you want to forge your user's email address in the From: header):

From: Joe Blow

Sender: XXXX [email@example.com]

Avoid HTML MIME messages. If you refuse to avoid HTML messages, avoid messages with images. If you refuse to avoid messages with images, then embed the images in the MIME message instead of hotlinking them to your site.

Implement the recently-finalized DKIM standard.

Ensure that your WHOIS information for your domain is accurate, up to date, and has contact email addresses with your domain name in them.

Pay money to GoodMail and related services. You WILL have to do this eventually, because you WILL be sending a lot of email that people simply don't want to receive.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yahoo used to have a nice whitelisting program (as recent as 3-4 months ago) where you'd send an application to firstname.lastname@example.com, and that seemed to do the trick for making sure messages went into the Inbox instead of bulkmail. I tried to find the site with the form and some info for you, but for some reason I can't find it now. =/

I did come across this article that may give you some help: [http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/original/abuse/abuse-5...](http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/original/abuse/abuse-58.html)

AOL has a pretty good system setup for monitoring and reporting why your emails are getting marked as spam. If I remember right Hotmail has a program where you can pay for priority delivery. And I could never figure out a way to ensure delivery on GMail.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the information. Ae you referring to the form at <http://help.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/mail/cgi_bulkmail> (This link was at bottom of the article that you gave me). I submitted the form. Hope Yahoo will help us.

Yes, Gmail is really a challenge. I am trying to play around our email headers to see if it helps, but so far no luck.

Will test on hotmail and AOL soon.

Thanks again.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi Everybody,

We are working on developing Social Marketplace called Onista (<http://www.onista.com)> and we are in QA cycle right now on our test server. Most of the emails that our application is generating for users (like Invite emails or registration emails) are being delivered to bulk/spam folders on yahoo and gmail. Any idea on how can we fix the issue?

Thanks in advance.

</comment><comment><USER4> See: [http://bliki.rimuhosting.com/space/knowledgebase/linux/mail/...](http://bliki.rimuhosting.com/space/knowledgebase/linux/mail/mail+not+going+through)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> bls, Thank you very much for all the suggestions. GREAT information.</comment>


TaskCurrent Is a To-Do App Full of Things You Want to Do - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5898275/taskcurrent-is-a-to+do-app-full-of-things-you-want-to-do-and-skills-youd-like-to-learn

<comment><USER2> Very interesting. Looks like a new way of consuming content in general, not just the usual things that would be on my to-do list.</comment>


Ex-GM vice chair blasts Tesla, supporters 'like members of a religious cult' - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/26/ex-gm-vice-chair-blasts-tesla-saying-supporters-like-members-of-a-religious-cult.html <comment><USER2> While I deeply respect Bob Lutz's accomplishments in the auto industry it's clear to me that he's sadly lost touch with reality. He's quite simply lived past his time.

Note that this comes out the day Tesla declared a profit and the stock went up.</comment>