Amazon is pressing shoppers to buy AmazonBasics batteries instead of Energizer - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/MarketplacePuls/status/1094296624589955074 <comment><USER2> I'd happily try Amazon batteries over Duracell alkaline batteries, since my experience with Duracell is that they frequently start leaking (while still on my shelf, unused) long before their "10 year" expiration dates. (Energizer too, but less frequently.) Certainly not worth a premium price for the brand name, in my experience.

Also, I just tried searching for "Duracell AA" on Amazon, and there were no references to any Amazon products on the first page of search results. (I even tried again after explicitly searching for "AmazonBasics batteries", and still no Amazon products on the first page of "Duracell AA" results).

</comment><comment><USER3> "Amazon unapologetically suggests to save money and buy AmazonBasics instead."

Why would they need to apologize? this tweet comes across as a criticism but i honestly cant imagine how anyone could see something wrong with this.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, that seems like a weird thing to criticize. Brick-and-mortar stores sell their house brands side by side with name brands all the time. Why shouldn't Amazon?</comment></comment>


Scientists Study Atmosphere of Venus Through Transit Images - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/scientists-study-venus-atmosphere-through-transit <comment><USER2> This is from the transit that took place on June 5, 2012. (I write this because I thought this report concerned a _new_ transit; measured perhaps from some space probe.)</comment>


The Global Legacy of Quebec's Subsidized Child Daycare - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/12/affordable-daycare-subsidized-child-care-working-mom-quebec/579193/ <comment><USER2> The article doesn't mention it, but proper child care infrastructure is critical to attracting and retaining qualified people. Having a partner absent from the paid workforce for a decade is terrible for your finances and marital harmony.</comment>


Wrong information on Google flight card meant we missed our flight - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jan/19/tigerair-google-flight-card-delay <comment><USER2> I's so important for everyone to understand that Google can only approximate describing the real world in a structured way based on vast inputs of unstructured data with minimal human attention.

Twice that I can remember, I've gone to a restaurant that existed on Google maps but when I got there I saw had been long closed. That's my fault, Google isn't to blame because there were stale web pages somewhere indicating these restaurants still existed.

But the more Google represents itself as presenting truth without significant qualification, the more they do so with their signature lack of humility or accountability, the more disingenuous it becomes.

I'm skeptical of Google and apparently even I still sometimes make the mistake of assuming its data is correct. How many people don't understand even the basics of how Google gets its data and don't distinguish between the real world and the representation of the world in a database so vast that it could never be vetted?

<comment><USER3> Google clearly has sources of data besides scraping the web.

I think the right way of looking at this is that if the information you're getting is critical, you should verify it. Consider Google's notification that your flight was delayed as a 99% chance of your flight being delayed (though it is likely much better).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use Google to introduce my new rock climbers to the principle of "Climb the cliff, not the guidebook."

A group of 20 year olds are standing around their cars. "All right. Does every car have someone who knows the way to the car park for Beginner Cliff?" They all nod.

I drive to the car park, and wait for 5 minutes. My phone rings. "Hey, we're driving along the freeway, and we can see Beginner Cliff on the other side of Whopping Great Valley, but Google told us to drive here." I give them directions, and remind them that they said they knew the route. We repeat this for the other cars.

I sit back and read a book, and everyone else turns up 15 minutes later.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm amazed that there is a flight delay lawyer.

</comment><comment><USER6> Right, what I have learned is that just because a flight might be late for you doesn't mean you can be late for it...

</comment><comment><USER7> Flight delays have to be reported when it delays the arrival at destination time. I think you should generally assume the flight loads on time or as soon as possible after that, even in a delay situation.

</comment><comment><USER8> the letter to the columnist is ambiguous and did not say if the consumer knew the email was from google or from the airline or from the agent. I can only imagine the consumer could not tell the difference and simply assumed that the advice came directly from the airline.

I have not seen this 'email' myself but I know that if the itinerary was present in my gmail inbox the flight details, i get the flight card on the google search engine when searching for the flight. definitely not in the form of an email.

</comment><comment><USER9> Avoid the problem: if you receive a flight delay notification, check the airline's flight status website. Flight logistics are complicated and in constant flux.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I myself faced this issue when google told different arriving-departing terminals at transit. Called the airport and re-verified that it was wrong.</comment>


Electron.js considered harmful - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/electron-is-cancer-b066108e6c32 <comment><USER2> Spend less time caring about other people's choices that don't affect you. You'll be much happier.

</comment><comment><USER3> How else are you going to make desktop applications? using native GUI? CSS is supreme in layout.</comment>


Ebay history of Norway attacker Anders Behring Breivik  - <AUTHOR>

His ebay profile page:<p>http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=andrewbrei&ftab=AllFeedback<p>"The Sunday Telegraph, which said it investigated thousands of online transactions over a seven-month period, has reported that Anders Behring Breivik used eBay to procure sulphur powder, which the newspaper described as a key ingredient for the bomb that exploded in Oslo, killing eight people. The Sunday Telegrah also said that Breivik, under the username "andrewbrei," used eBay to order a drill press vice, a full-face respirator and a "hazmat" suit." <comment><USER2> And before eBay, terrorists used hardware stores and agricultural suppliers. Nothing new here, all that's changed is the name of the vendor.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, given that eBay is public and we now know what to look for, anyone worried about this can datamine the site to see which users are buying lots of suspicious items.</comment>


Quick thought: Problem with new niche e-commerce stores - <AUTHOR>

They tout curation and design, not superior logistics, pricing or geography. The former is REALLY hard to defend. <comment><USER2> Can you restate this in the form of a question?</comment>


Belgian woman blindly drove 900 miles across Europe due to broken GPS - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262149/Belgian-woman-67-picking-friend-railway-station-ends-Zagreb-900-miles-away-satnav-disaster.html#ixzz2VFgec3jk

<comment><USER2> Somehow, I doubt that a map would have helped this woman much.

<comment><USER3> Yep, feels like early stage dementia to me. Quite a sad story.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Infographic Cheat Sheet - <AUTHOR> http://cheatsheetone.com/infographic/

<comment><AUTHOR> Please provide your feedback, questions or suggestions. Coupon code HN50off will get you 50% off. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Suggestion: Perhaps you should let people get a taste of how valuable the cheat sheet could be.

For example you say "You can even start creating it after reading the first page."

Maybe give that page away for free with no strings attached. If that first page is really that valuable, they are likely to be consider forking over cash for the rest.

You could also consider giving away an additional page (or 2) in exchange for an email address to further sweeten the pot as well as providing another opportunity for the person to judge the value they would get for paying for the rest.</comment></comment>


4 Powerful Ways to Stamp Out Misogyny on the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/4-powerful-ways-to-stamp-out-misogyny-on-the-internet.html?cid=sf01001

<comment><AUTHOR> Will hacker news ever be able to stamp out misogyny in this community? I really hope so. Whenever an article gets posted about my startup (we're a women led team) the comments section get's real sexist really quickly - <USER2> forward to the day that finally changes.</comment>


Coroutines in D - <AUTHOR> http://octarineparrot.com/article/view/getting-more-fiber-in-your-diet

<comment><USER2> I get a little confused there. He starts out talking about doing 2 things at once, walking and breathing.

Then modifies it so you are only breathing after you start walking. So it's not really doing the same thing any more.

Then goes on to say you want to do both things, but don't need to do both at once... And it looks like the fibers simply call each other and wait until they are finished doing what they do.

How is this better than just calling the methods? It doesn't seem be easier to read, and doesn't seem to be multi-threaded.</comment>


Ask HN: When to learn AJAX? - <AUTHOR>

I read through several Javascript tutorials last week. This weekend I've been reading/experimenting with a bunch of JQuery stuff.<p>Now, on the JQuery site, a good number of the articles mention AJAX. I don't know anything about AJAX (yet). What should I know about it to start out, and when should I start learning it? (After JQuery or now.) <comment><USER2> AJAX, how it's commonly referred to now, is simply the process of loading content from an external page into a Javascript variable. Most of the time it's not even AJAX anymore, but rather AJAJ (Asynchronous Javascript and JSON). In terms of getting started there really isn't much to learn, especially if you have some experience with jQuery.

The big thing you need to remember is the A: Asynchronous. Especially if you're new to programming, this won't make any sense to you. As you use it you'll just get frustrated about why it works the way it does. It takes a bit of experience to learn to use it well, so give it some time. Remember these two key tips: 1\. The code following your AJAX call should not be dependent on the content you are loading. Javascript will continue running line by line after the AJAX request is sent, NOT after the content has been loaded. If any code is dependent on the loaded content, it belongs in the return function. 2\. The return function for an AJAX call only has the data from the page it loaded, it cannot* see the variables you defined before you made the request.

Other than that, just realize that the true power of AJAX comes from the data you're loading in. You can use it to create an <iframe> of sorts that simply loads pre-built HTML files into a div, but that's not all that exciting. If you use something like PHP to process and load data, you can start to make some very cool applications. If you're looking for a good learning project, I would recommend creating a simple "shoutbox" that works completely with AJAX, including periodic refreshes to check for new comments.

If you don't know what a shoutbox is: <http://www.shoutmix.com/main/> Some jQuery functions to check out: .load(), .post(), .get(), .ajax()

*: A lot of times, your return function WILL be able to see variables you defined before the AJAX request because they ended up in the global scope. I'd recommend that you don't rely on this unless your making the variable global on purpose. Otherwise, there's a lot of potential for a debugging nightmare.

<comment><USER3> "You can use it to create an <iframe> of sorts that simply loads pre-built HTML files into a div, but that's not all that exciting. If you use something like PHP to process and load data, you can start to make some very cool applications."

The prototypical example for use of AJAX is to submit a HTML form without ever leaving the page (or at least, do something equivalent), for example the vote buttons on forums like, well, this one here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ajax isn't complicated at all. It's basically HTTP requests via javascript. The request returns an XHR object (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMLHttpRequest>).

Now along with this feature comes some differences from regular HTTP, but you can read those up in an article. Just remember the concept.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Knowing" Ajax isn't a skill, like riding a bike or knowing what the $() operator does - it's understanding a concept.

In short, it's a term that describes a design pattern where some Javascript makes an asynchronous HTTP request in the background without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page, receives the response, and then does something with that information.

Now that you've got what it means, the question becomes "How do I implement that?", which is much easier to deal with. For this, just keep digging through the jQuery examples and tutorials (if that's the Javascript route you're taking). Find a trivial example, get it running on your host, and then start experimenting with it. Once that's down, repeat with a more complex example. Read some more articles from different authors. Make your own examples. Repeat.

As for the broader question of when you should learn it (or anything else), the answer for things like this is always the same: when you feel in the mood for learning something new.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been working on a hobby project to do an ajax site from scratch, and after a month of flailing I've decided to make a conventional site first and then ajaxify it. If you get bogged down after a couple of weeks you might want to make the switch back to nonajax sooner than I did.

If anybody has tips on debugging ajax I'd love to hear them ...

<comment><USER7> "tips on debugging ajax"

Use a good browser tool (like FireBug or Chrome's Developer Tools). These can show you the Ajax requests and responses as well as any errors.

jquery.inspect is a good jQuery plugin for exposing the structure of JavaScript objects: <http://github.com/ssoper/jquery-inspect>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> One thing that will be very important: XmlHttpRequest.

I recommend this post, it helped me to understand the basics: [http://everythingsysadmin.com/2010/06/learning-ajax-after- ig...](http://everythingsysadmin.com/2010/06/learning-ajax-after- ignoring-i.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> if your going to create web apps, you need to know ajax, its the way forward for interactive rich apps, jquery is a javascript library(the most poplaur one i think), and it has built in ajax function. jquery makes it incredbily easy to deal ajax. so yeh defo learn jquery, its important and mad easy!!

EDIT: sorry i forgot to mention what ajax is, ajax is a way to communicate with your server without having to relaod the page, getting instant feedback i.e. like commenting on facebook.

</comment><comment><USER10> Javascript is an asynchronous languaje, as soon as you learn how to take advantaje of that you would have a better understaning of javascript. So my recomendation, is to learn Ajax as soon as posible.

Using jQuery is a great way to do it because it that the problem of browser compatibility.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you are learning jQuery, then doing AJAX with jQuery is extremely easy.

First, you have to learn how code a server side application that send JSON or XML encoded data.

Then you can load it with jquery using .ajax like so:

        $.ajax({url: 'yoururl.com/script',

            data: 'field1': 'myval',

            success: function(data)

            {

                //call to server worked, json/xml has been auto

                //inflated into the data object
            },

            error: function()

            {

                //the call failed, maybe a 404 or 500 error.

            });

That's it! You'll want to then manipulate your DOM accordingly, such as disabling any 'buttons' setting progress status, etc.</comment>


Hola VPN turns 7 Milion users into legitimate botnet network - <AUTHOR> https://thehacktimes.com/hola-vpn-turns-7-milion-users-into-legitimate-botnet-network/ <comment><USER2> Seems like nobody respect their users today ...</comment>


O'Reilly Previews Freebase ("appears to be a bastard child of wikipedia and the Open Directory Project") - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/03/freebase_will_p_1.html <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I admire Daniel Hillis greatly, perhaps irrationally.

That said, Metaweb sounds amazing. If it takes off, it will be not so much a useful product in itself, but an enabling technology for an entirely new class of products. Imagine the possibilities that arise from having a relatively complete, constantly evolving ontology of everything. All of those nifty tricks that computational linguists and proof theoreticians can do over finite domains, using very limited ontologies, become possible for all sorts of other applications. Armed with an ontology that closely matches the real world, it is finally possible to write code that can reason about the real world, rather than just throw Bayes law at it and hope something useful falls out.</comment>


Show HN: Evergig – Multi-angle concerts by aggregating fan footage from the web - <AUTHOR> http://www.evergig.com

<comment><USER2> Wow, great concept... I just spent 1 hour watching live concerts!!</comment>


Give the Gift of Code this holiday season (ecards for your non-coding buddies) - <AUTHOR> http://checkthis.com/learnstreet-goc5

<comment><AUTHOR> All 8 are here: <http://checkthis.com/user/jdaudier> I'd love to hear more ideas.</comment>


Man Denies He's Bitcoin Founder - <AUTHOR> http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BITCOIN_FOUNDER_DENIAL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-03-06-19-35-06 <comment><USER2> I will forever mark the name, Leah McGrath Goodman and Newsweek editorial staff in my mind as a toxic journalist and TMZ-styled publication after this event.

Granted, I don't think Leah McGrath Goodman and Newsweek did anything illegal by breaking this story. I don't think it's wrong for Goodman to attempt to contact Satoshi's relatives over the phone.

What really crossed the line for me was Leah McGrath Goodman and Newsweek's decision to post the photo of the house, with the car's plate info on it.

Why would you do this? What relavence if any did this have to the story?

Showing of the house with car license plate resulted in identifying his address really easily. Let's face it. She wouldn't have done this to Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos even though they are far more famous, rich and public. She did this to this guy only because he's reclusive and powerless.

<comment><USER3> > I don't think Leah McGrath Goodman and Newsweek did anything illegal

I wouldn't be so sure. Both may be subject to tort liability if Dorian Nakamoto != Satoshi Nakamoto. See my tweet: [https://twitter.com/declanm/status/441711365888040960](https://twitter.com/declanm/status/441711365888040960)

And a response by an attorney who works on Internet issues: [https://twitter.com/SeanFlaim/status/441727448539873281](https://twitter.com/SeanFlaim/status/441727448539873281)

<comment><USER4> He has a colorable claim but no chance of winning. The founder of a cryptocurrency which now boasts of a >$1 billion market is legitimately a matter of the public interest, even if it's not the right guy.

This principle has been established many times by people who were mistaken for criminal defendants (not always defendants with the same name), including the Boston U student who killed himself shortly before the Boston Marathon bombing.

<comment><USER3> Ah, but how many cases involved that particular California law being invoked by the plaintiff?

<comment><USER4> "Legitimate public interest" is a _defense_ to a tort. It is used by the publication to defend itself from an invasion of privacy claim. It can't be used by a plaintiff (except as a defense to a counterclaim by the defendant).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ok, I'm sorry but there are some serious inconsistencies here.

Leah McGrath Goodman said that after she asked him about BitCoin he promptly stopped emailing her. The timeline is unclear, but it seems like this was before Goodman contacted his family members. Why would she contact his family members if she was directly talking to him and they could blow her pretext of wanting to talk about model trains?

This strongly suggests that he knew enough about BitCoin to be chased away by the question. He uses English and American spellings, just like Satoshi's mailing list postings. He has a computer engineering background.

When she came to his house he said, verbatim, exactly what happened with BitCoin - "I'm not involved in that anymore." And something to the effect of "That's been handed over to others, I have no involvement with that anymore." This, if it was said, strongly suggests to me that this is in fact Satoshi.

Given that this would be catastrophe for both the journalist and Newsweek if it turned out to be wrong, and they must have seen some compelling evidence if they went forward with the story - I'm skeptical about Dorian Nakamoto's denial here.

<comment><USER6> I agree as much as one can. Unless there are outright fabrications in the Newsweek story, you really can not then start denying his role after he seemed to be admitting it. The chance of a random guy just admitting his role, being eccentric and really smart in this area and then later denying it -- and then not being the guy behind Bitcoin, seems implausible.

That said, if the guy wants his privacy, we can afford it to him, and if the only way to do that is to pretend he isn't the founder, so be it. So that is how I am going to interpret these denials and those agreeing with them.

<comment><USER3> Another possibility is that the Newsweek reporter was overly convinced she was right, and ignored inconsistencies that disagreed with her premise. We don't have audio of the exchange where Dorian Nakamoto allegedly quasi-admitted to being involved in Bitcoin. I could be wrong, of course, but misquotes do happen.

<comment><USER7> My theory: Dorian thought the reporter was asking him about his past at the defense contractor. Doing work for a defense contractor sometimes gets you crap, so maybe he was trying to distance himself from _that_ , like, "No, I _used_ to work for a company that did potentially evil for the government, I'm no longer involved with it". I know some people who did work for defense, and they're not very open about it.

The reason why he thought the reporter was asking about his work at a defense contractor vs. bitcoin? Plain ole' miscommunication... Leah perhaps presented herself in an unconfident, possibly suspicious manner like she's out to get him and the guy's like "nope, not gonna get into this". And to be fair, English _is_ this guy's second language.

<comment><USER3> Take a look at the writethru. That's it.

[http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-exclusive-man-denies- hes-b...](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-exclusive-man-denies-hes-bitcoin- founder)

<comment><USER8> That or he's trying to remain "anonymous" after being outed. Which is totally reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Textbook case of repulsively inane "journalism". Newsweek senior writer Leah McGrath Goodman was assigned the task to write a juicy story by outing the Bitcoin inventor. Here's how she went about it, as a diligent professional: starting from the assumption that Satoshi Nakamoto was literally his real name, she went scouring a database that contained the registration cards of naturalized U.S. citizens (for the record, Nakamoto is the ~400th most common Japanese name).

A Satoshi Nakamoto then turned up whose profile and background offered a potential match (as he used to be an engineering contractor and had shown libertarian views in the past), if you were willing to ignore a lot of facts (such as his less-than-native mastery of English). She then interviewed the man's family, fabricated a few quotes implying involvement with Bitcoin, and published a clickbait story destroying the man's privacy.

Well at least, Dorian Nakamoto got a free lunch out of it.

<comment><USER9> Interestingly, it seems Satoshi just spoke out to state that he is not Dorian Nakamoto: [http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open- sour...](http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open- source?commentId=2003008%3AComment%3A52186)

<comment><USER9> It is remarkable that there was no such denial when Nick Szabo was widely outed as a likely Satoshi in tech blogs and the press a few months ago: [http://likeinamirror.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/satoshi- nakamo...](http://likeinamirror.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/satoshi-nakamoto-is- probably-nick-szabo/)

<comment><USER10> Szabo didn't have reporters camping outside of his house. Besides, Szabo is a ghost anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Man says X, later claims not X. Bitcoin enthusiasts declare total victory for not X, call for tar and feathering of company that published X.

No harm in giving this some time and seeing if "Man Denies He's Bitcoin Founder" turns out to filed next to[1] "Man Denies Connection to Olympic Bombing" or next to "OJ Announces Search For Real Killers".

[1] pedantry disclaimer: not meant as perfect analogies

<comment><USER3> Except there's no evidence he said X in the first place. See the AP's writethru.

<comment><USER11> Gonna file your comment under "Bitcoin enthusiasts declare total victory for not X"

On what planet is this not evidence:

 _" Newsweek writer Leah McGrath Goodman, who spent two months researching the story, told the AP: "I stand completely by my exchange with Mr. Nakamoto. There was no confusion whatsoever about the context of our conversation -- and his acknowledgment of his involvement in Bitcoin."_

<comment><USER3> An audio recording is evidence. What you quoted back to me is the possibly flawed recollection of a reporter who's in the unenviable position of defending a very high-profile cover story used to relaunch a national magazine. That reporter is no longer a disinterested observer. The AP, to a first approximation, is.

<comment><USER11> Discount it however you want, her _testimony is a form of evidence_ [1]. To say there is "no evidence" is simply and flatly false.

[1] That's a quote from here:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testimony](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testimony)

<comment><USER3> First, we're not in a courtroom with the witness under oath. Second, because we're not, we can't cross-examine the witness. Third, even if we could and her recollection is as you say, the balance of evidence would remain heavily tilted against Dorian == Satoshi. Sorry. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> According to the Newsweek article this Satoshi Nakamoto:

1\. Dropped all contact with the reporter when the topic of Bitcoin was brought up over email.

2\. Called the cops when the reporter went to his house to ask him about Bitcoin.

3\. Said to the reporter: "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it," "It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection."

Someone here is lying, because a person who only heard of Bitcoin three weeks ago doesn't do and say those things.

<comment><USER13> Could also be interpreted:

1\. Dropped all contact when it was clear the person had misrepresented themselves and thought he was Satoshi.

2\. Called the cops when this stranger came to his home to persist in this line of questioning.

3\. Reporter says he said this, but also the cop just happens to be familiar with bitcoin and quip something appropriate. It could easily be a paraphrase of this man saying he's no longer involved in the govt projects we know him to be involved in, and he has no connection with them.

Why didn't the reporter record this exchange? Seems elementary when you're ambushing the guy. And has no one contacted the cop involved to see what he said or knows?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Based on other investigative efforts people have undertaken, the kind of level of complexity Bitcoin has in its underlying code-base shows that there might have been more than one person responsible for Bitcoin. It's unfortunate this has happened to a guy who is not related to Bitcoin at all. Pictures of his house, location, his full name and even going as far as documenting that he's between in and out of jobs over the years was uncalled for in my opinion.

Do editors and journalists not read what is being published? Feels like we've all been transformed back 7 to 10 years ago where this kind of "investigative journalism" was prevalent and hardly investigative at all. NewsWeek either need to put up some conclusive proof or retract everything they've said and give mr Satoshi an apology.

It'll be interesting if from a legal perspective Dorian Satoshi has a case against NewsWeek considering this has already gone to print. If it causes Satoshi's life to crumble, make it hard for him to get employment, subjects him to harassment from armchair Internet investigators and whatnot, he might have some kind of case. But having said that, this would mean if it went to court, he would have to offer up access to info that NewsWeek and others don't have and if he is the real Satoshi, it would come back to bite him.

The real question is, if this is the real Satoshi, why isn't he using his incredible stash of Bitcoin to live a little more comfortably? Hiding in plain sight perhaps. Just let the poor guy be. Nobody should be subject to this kind of speculative journalism. It's the Boston bombing situation all over again.

Edit: the real Satoshi responded to his original announcement here, his first communication in 5 years: [http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin- open-sour...](http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open- source?commentId=2003008%3AComment%3A52186) — a simple one liner.

<comment><USER15> The new Satoshi Nakamoto communication is really interesting. There have been quite a lot of stories over time supposedly identifying the real Nakamoto, and there was complete silence over this.

So... did Newsweek get the real Nakamoto who is panicking now? Or did they get the wrong guy, and the real guy feels like _this time_ (rather than those previous times) he has to step in to protect the innocent?

It's not really evidence in any direction.

<comment><USER14> It is a rather interesting situation. Especially when you take into consideration how quickly the real Satoshi Nakamoto issued the statement saying he wasn't Dorian Nakamoto when this isn't exactly the first story to come out supposedly identifying the man behind the mask of Bitcoin. The statement was also issued rather quickly, but I can see why though in a non- conspiracy kind of way.

The man being targeted by NewsWeek is old and just because he says he's not the real Satoshi won't stop conspiracy nut jobs from stalking him and trying to find out the truth. Pictures of his home and location, children's photos and names have been plastered all over the Internet, I really feel for the guy even if he is the real Satoshi.

This whole situation highlights while the real Satoshi will probably never come out of secrecy if this situation is anything to go by. Not only that, but given NSA's extensive surveillance program, he would no doubt be subjected to more focused observation than others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Man, it's a good thing HN didn't fly off the handle and start obsessing over this man and try to invade his privacy using the excuse that NewsWeek started it and that makes it okay.

That would've been pretty embarrassing.

<comment><USER17> That was not my impression of the HN comments in the least. Most HN commenters seemed to think it was an egregious invasion of his privacy from what I read.

<comment><USER18> HN in a nutshell:

This was an egregious invasion of his privacy! Look, these postings from years ago on various message boards don't match his writing style -- these Amazon reviews don't match the style either -- his INS form doesn't match the timeline as close as expected -- From the streetview of his house, it doesn't look like the house of a hundred-millionaire -- this transaction made 3 years ago to buy juice in New York is off too -- I can't believe Newsweek invaded his privacy!

<comment><USER19> It's almost as if there was more than person on HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Looks like Newsweek is going to have to deal with some pretty heavy fallout, seeing as they've already gone to print: [https://twitter.com/KiraBind/status/441683373665554433/photo...](https://twitter.com/KiraBind/status/441683373665554433/photo/1)

<comment><USER21> If by fallout you mean tons of revenue, then I agree.

<comment><USER22> I'm thinking more like a huge lawsuit.

<comment><USER23> Libel? Slander? Where's the suit? If this guy actually is Satoshi the last thing in the world he wants is to be on a witness stand.

Opening a case against Newsweek lets them subpoena all sorts of records that they aren't entitled to with out a case, primarily because the truth is a defence to slander / libel, and if this guy loses then he's forever Satoshi.

Also it's going to be pretty difficult to prove that he suffered damages from the article.

<comment><USER24> >Also it's going to be pretty difficult to prove that he suffered damages from the article.

It depends on what the fallout from it is, in terms of internet attention. If he's not "the real Satoshi" and he starts getting harassed because of this article, I'd say he has a pretty decent case: If the statement "is false, caused harm, and was made without adequate research", then most non-celebrity citizens have a pretty strong case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> AP's writethru with more details is now up: [http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-exclusive-man-denies- hes-b...](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-exclusive-man-denies-hes-bitcoin- founder)

Key excerpt: He also said a key portion of the piece — where he is quoted telling the reporter on his doorstep before two police officers, "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it" — was misunderstood. Nakamoto said he is a native of Beppu, Japan who came to the U.S. when he was 10. He speaks both English and Japanese, but his English isn't flawless. Asked if he said the quote, Nakamoto responded, "no." "I'm saying I'm no longer in engineering. That's it," he said of the exchange. "And even if I was, when we get hired, you have to sign this document, contract saying you will not reveal anything we divulge during and after employment. So that's what I implied."

</comment><comment><USER25> I do not believe him. There are just too many coincidences there. This is not a common name. What are the chances you find someone that has the math and engineering knowledge to create bitcoin and has not been busy with anything else during the relevant period among the "several" people that newsweek found having that name in the entire world.

He is probably scared for his life and scared for the safety of his family. And it might be with good reason. So I am not going to bother him or anything, but lets be honest: he is probably the guy.

I think the bitcoin community will help him regain his anonymity. It is in their interest that the mystery of Satoshi survives. I am sure he is a great person but the face of Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto just does not seem to inspire billion dollar valuations.

<comment><USER26> Eh do you think it is an uncommon name and scared for his life? Are Bill Gates or Warren Buffet paralyzed with fear?

<comment><USER25> It would be very difficult to rob Bill Gates or Warren Buffet and get away with it. Their money is mostly in the records of various banks, brokerage houses, corporations etc. It would be very difficult to steal that without being immediately traced.

It seems much easier to steal bitcoin. None of the significant bitcoin thieves have been caught thus far, and we are talking large sums being stolen.

Regarding his name being uncommon, I have to admit, I know little of Japanese names or how common they are. I trusted the Newsweek article which suggested the name was very uncommon and they also kind of suggested that they checked all the Satoshi Nakamotos they could find on record. But of course they may be wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So Newsweek, returning to print newsstands after several years, runs with a cover story that is debunked on the internet in a matter of hours?

Is this not a perfect metaphor for the print journalism industry? Can we bet on when Print Newsweek 2.0 _also_ goes belly-up?

<comment><USER13> It's not a very good metaphor at all, especially when the story first appeared online, and was (edit: possibly)debunked by a massive news corporation that has been in print for decades. If it turns out this guy isn't Satoshi, it's just plain good reporting by the AP. As for Newsweek, that would be it, I think. They'd be a laughing stock.

<comment><USER4> I'm reminded of the time the AP said that a Boston U student (who we now know had been dead for several weeks) was the likely suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, blindly regurgitating the rumors on reddit.

It turns out they were wrong about something far worse than claiming that some guy created Bitcoin. And yet, the AP is still around today...and is now being cited by the tech community as a paragon of journalism.

<comment><USER28> Can you link to a source regarding your claim that the AP wrongly implicated Sunil Tripathi in the Boston Marathon bombings? I couldn't find anything on Google, either by searching the entire internet or just ap.org.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I would like to take this opportunity to also deny that I had anything to do with the development of Bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER30> The original article claims of an encounter with Satoshi with the police present that mention he handed Bitcoin off. Wouldn't it make sense for Leah to get that officer to go on public record corroborating her story? Or can officers not do that?

</comment><comment><USER31> Wait, two hour exclusive for that? What else did they talk about? Off-record proof that he wasn't the man, I suppose?

<comment><USER3> AP is likely to do a writethru. That's their style. Patience.

<comment><USER32> For those of us that aren't journalists, what's a writethru?

<comment><USER3> Oh, sorry. Wire services often will update their stories multiple times, especially if the news is timely. That gives their subscribers (especially newspapers with early print deadlines) something to work with, and the promise of more later. It also can carry bragging rights, important in inter-newsroom rivalries, about being first to publish.

I've worked in newsrooms with direct AP feeds and I've seen as many as a dozen writethrus with major AP stories. On the internal feeds, at least, they're marked with version numbers and a terse explanation of what changed.

I'm mildly surprised that AP hasn't published a writethru on their own website. It's been over an hour. Perhaps they have on their direct feeds, not sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Classic question of identity combined with he said, she said.

I look forward to hearing the Ship of Theseus discussed in court.

</comment><comment><USER33> This man has had a stroke and cancer.

People need to leave him the hell alone.

</comment><comment><USER34> What about the article that was posted earlier today about the shop keeper who had this Satoshi visit his store and spend bitcoins? If that was true then it would breach this guys claim that he only learnt about bitcoin three weeks ago.

Edit: link to previous article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7354326](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7354326)

<comment><USER16> The shop keeper on the other side of the country that once had an Asian man come in about three years ago and buy two crepes without giving his name or letting his photo be taken?

<comment><USER35> What wasn't mentioned was the owner's wife's _crepey_ photographic memory.

<comment><USER36> I see what you did there

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Readers who believe Dorian != Satoshi: What would you have to see to convince you that Dorian == Satoshi?

Readers who believe Dorian == Satoshi: What would you have to see to convince you that Dorian != Satoshi?

The hallmark of a good belief system is that your beliefs are falsifiable -- there exists some hypothetical set of experiments which could return unexpected results that would make you change your beliefs.

</comment><comment><USER22> Well, duh, what else was he going to say? Confess??

</comment><comment><USER38> Apparently there was a car chase (kind of) involved:

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/06/satoshi_n...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/06/satoshi_nakamoto_car_chase_bitcoin_creator_pursued_by_media_as_joe_bel_bruno.html)

</comment><comment><USER39> Hahaha...well played!

This guy, whoever he is, is definitely one step ahead of the rest of us.

Anyone with a modicum of intelligence would know that it's effectively impossible to remain truly anonymous in this day and age. So what do you do if you want to be left alone? Either you make sure you have enough "insurance" that no one would risk messing with you, or you play the system against itself: leak just enough information to lead people down your trail but not so much that the trail can't equally plausibly be denied. It's all rather reminiscent of Vinnie "The Chin" Gigante's decades-long ruse of feigned insanity to avoid prosecution.

 _Side note_ : I think the last high-profile anonymous figure that managed to remain truly anonymous for any length of time was "Deep Throat", and he did all of his talking pre-internet.

<comment><USER26> This is strange ... Really ... But I thought I'd say, have you ever thought that some people may have succeeded in being "anonymous" or hidden by the simple that you have not heard of them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm holding to my comment!

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6828576](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6828576)

>I am only certain of one thing when it comes to bitcoin, the creator(s) are not Japanese.

<comment><USER41> I still claim that Satoshi Nakamoto is the NSA. Clearly this was one of their fall guys. Terrible people, the NSA, setting up innocent bystanders as scapegoats.

<comment><USER15> What is your story for the thought processes/internal processes at NSA that would have led to the creation of Bitcoin by them? I'm genuinely curious because it seems pretty out of character for an organization whose task is to protect the established elite to go out of their way to create something extremely creative that could endanger the established elite.

<comment><USER41> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6206086](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6206086)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6804870](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6804870)

The plausibility depends a lot on the competence you anticipate from such processes. But such contradicting signals of competence are pretty typical of large organizations, especially ones that are silo-ed to some degree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> So is there any way to verify either account, beyond nudging the benefit of the doubt in the company with higher journalistic integrity's favor (AP)?

<comment><USER42> The two stories arent mutually exclusive.

According to Newsweek the man acknowledged that he had worked on bitcoin: "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it"

AP says the main is denying he ever worked on bitcoin.

He very well could have said both of those things.

<comment><USER3> Imagine this: Dorian Nakamoto was a former DoD contractor working on classified project and was not Mr. Bitcoin.

A woman started (from his perspective) stalking him, emailing him under false pretenses, phoning him, calling his son, and then showing up at his house in person. He called the cops to keep this stalker (again, from his perspective) away from his house. She yelled some questions at him from a distance and he might have thought she was asking about DoD work. "No longer involved and cannot discuss" is a reasonable answer. As well as: Don't come back.

I asked Newsweek's editor in chief a few hours ago about any recording: [https://twitter.com/declanm/status/441713108763951104](https://twitter.com/declanm/status/441713108763951104)

No response.

<comment><USER42> I knew I should be weary of the writer after this:

"Satoshi Nakamoto's 2008 online proposal also hints at his age, with the odd reference to "disk space" \- something that hasn't been an issue since the last millennium"

1\. Showing great concern for the small details, side cases, resource conservation is a timeless and ageless sign of a good programmer.

2\. Disk space is most certainly still an issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> why are we up voting these threads? so someone posts this fancy story about the bitcoin founder he finally found, which for all we know could be false.

yet, we have nothing better to up vote than every major news outlets satoshi nakamoto story.

<comment><USER44> Because AP is the only news service that has been granted an interview.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> From article "exclusive two-hour interview" but then no link?

<comment><USER3> AP almost certainly audio recorded it (at every news organization I've worked for it would be standard practice). But that doesn't mean they'll post the audio, or that there was video.

Also: they'll do a writethru soon enough.

<comment><USER3> Update: writethru is up with important details.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Need feedback on our automated Facebook Ad scaler idea - <AUTHOR> http://www.adopilot.info <comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys please let me know your feedback. Thanks!</comment>


How Meals Win Wars - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/how-meals-win-wars/276448/ <comment><USER2> Disclamer - I don't really "enjoy" food, and I would happily live on soylent green if it was available - to get done with it and save time. I don't know how my personal experience may apply - a large university hospital is not the army. But after reading the article, it reminds me so many things.

Common meals, especially when you work in a high pressure environmenss, do create something special - something even above "team spirit", a kind of zen moment that provides a unity of purpose.

I remember when 10 years ago I worked as a medical resident in the ICU, and the SAMU (french helimed, basically, if you are really badly damaged, we fly a physician, a paramed and a nurse in a chopper, to right where you are).

It was physically quite demanding: when the times are slow, residents for example had to check the expiration dates, reload doses of the drugs that had been put to use in the kits, test the batteries of the various devices, etc. Boring.

But when you hear a beep, or when your team name is called, you go. You run to the chopper, or to the ICU if they are low on personel and have to give you other assignements.

Anytime in between the beep/run/equipment maintainance, you try to sleep and eat - anyway you can. Back when I did it, it was either in 8h cycles (in one sane departement) or in 24h cycles (everywhere else- a law was voted, but didn't help a lot. too bad)

Anyway, one of the "advantages" of working in 8h rotations or doing a straight 24h was that we also had access to food, 24/7 - made daily by a cook around 11am-1pm and conditioned in small portions, but also industrial food of various kind (things you stuff your pocket with if you worry about fainting when your blood glucose sinks too low, but that you'll do your best _NOT TO EAT_.)

When we were lucky and could get a meal at 1pm, you could just ask the cook what he could do for you, depending on what he had, and he usually made it, in minutes - that's magic when all your thoughts are one something else.

I still remember - you've got fish today? Put some butter over it, fry it, then add me french fries on the side! Then 2 minutes the food come, it's good, and I start taking about the patient issues with a senior who also ordered specials: eggs, upside down, and a raw steak.

The stuff made by the cook, regardless of what it was, was simply better because it provided an emotional connection too. Even when it was conditioned in small portions for when the cook had to leave, it had been prepared by a team member we knew and truste to make the better with what was available.

There's no way to express that.

How you feel : you are tired, it's 1 or 2 am, you are hungry, you know you still have to work 6 more hours, and you are angry because of something - anything. The nurse misread something. A patient died. A test you expected wasn't ready - anything bad. You are concerned.

Then half the team go and share a meal in the break room, and it's like another world. The hassle goes away. You think about what you will do differently, thanks to the inspiration provided by these few minutes of comfort. And the guys or girls you had problems with, or even entered in a shouting match with - well, at that magic time of the day, everything is laid flat, and everyone understand and forgives. That's where the so called "team player spirit" grows.

The chef is not there, but his food made that happen. I still have my opinions about food, but a place with a 24/7 on site chef, that I could place a high value on.

<comment><USER3> With all due respect, being a combat soldier and being a doctor are not the same thing. I was a combat soldier and I have tremendous respect for doctors and the difficult work that they do. There is a difference in the two jobs, however. The critical difference lies in those moments when you need to perform. What is on the line is your life and those of your friends, every single time you go out. There are people who sort of turn off their minds, but that is bad. Their reactions are dull and they are not thinking about possible ambushes (or mistakes that they can make). The state that you are in at that moment in time, you arent really thinking about what you had for breakfast or that you are looking forward to that steak when you get back.

<comment><USER4> I think he was talking about the formation of camraderie through specific shared pleasant experiences under general conditions of very high stress.

Social groups like soldiers, ICU teams, police paramilitary units, firefighters and so forth tend to have similar social psychology dynamics. A good book to read on decision-making under extreme conditions is _Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions_ by Gary Klein.

<comment> terry-a relevant xkcd: <http://xkcd.com/810/>

<comment><USER4> In which we learn that I am an artificial intelligence who enjoys reading, and recommending to others, books on various topics.

beep boop viagra

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The point of midrats is not "fourth meal", but "people don't work 9-5" -- it's for when you work at night (becomes lunch), or have to leave at 4am (so it's breakfast), etc.

Each meal in Iraq cost about $45/person. Not sure what it was in Afghanistan.

<comment><USER6> WTF? That meal cost seems insane. Did you fly in grassfed beef fillet every day and have it prepared by ninjas or something? Didn't you eat the local food?

<comment><USER4> It'd be the all-up cost. Delivering sorta-fresh food to the far side of the planet in regions where people try to blow up your food trucks is expensive.

You think food is bad? Look up the all-up cost for fuel.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, it was almost all transport and security and staff, not food. Although, they did have some good food (it ranged from public high school at worst to high-end corporate cafeteria at best; varied by base and time).

Surf and turf (although food safety required them to overcook steaks) one night a week. Ice cream. Generally a line with lots of choices for entree. Mostly it was frozen stuff from the equivalent of Sysco, but mid-range, not the absolute cheapest it could be.

An order of magnitude better than MREs or the meals at US bases.

Absolutely none of it was from Iraq or Afghanistan; there was some bought from approved vendors in Kuwait/UAE and trucked/flown in. Fresh fruit and veg for Afghanistan flew from Bahrain 3-5 days/week.

The big improvement was putting RO water purification in country, rather than trucking bottled water (used for all potable use) from far away. The standard unit of water was a 12-pack of 1.5L bottles, later a 24 pack of 20oz bottles, or one level up from that, a pallet (you could just call a guy and have him drop a pallet of water on base anywhere you wanted).

<comment><USER6> That's fascinating.

Btw, I think everyone should read the essay about you, gives new meaning to in the trenches tech experience: <http://www.rezendi.com/travels/bbbb.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _That night marked the beginning of a transformation for the battalion of soldiers. ... Sleepy midnight chow became a teeming communion of comrades ..._

In this case a meal was the center of a transformation, but could another popular shared recurring activity have worked?

Say, for startups, a game room, or a pizza and trivia night?

<comment><USER8> _trivia night_

Just to bring a personal anecdote why meals are less problematic: Trivia night would be the fastest way to push me away. I hate made up, faked up bonding events that have no other intention than to force me in a social gathering. At least try coming up with something creative, e.g. Lego night or something like that.

<comment><USER5> I think there's value in bonding events, but they should be bottom-up -- the team should just pick things they collectively enjoy doing and do those.

There are also plenty of things I enjoy doing which I wouldn't want to do with coworkers, for EoE/HR/etc. reasons. Or just because they're not particularly inclusive; if you have a team with a few 22 year old Mormons, a 45 year old ex-hippie, some bikers, "normal nerds", etc., the favorite activities of each aren't likely to overlap, but some kind of mutually fun things still probably exist. Meals are a pretty easy bet on a safe activity, modulo religious/dietary restrictions.

<comment><USER4> Steve McConnell says Microsoft units were given morale budgets and expected to spend it.

On anything. Rent a movie theatre for the team to watch a new movie. Buy a candyfloss machine. Pretty much _anything_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cutting food for soldiers in a crazy hellish warzone just seems pennywise and poundfoolish. Even if you don't believe all that the article talks about, why short change your million dollar soldiers on food that can make them more effective?

<comment><USER10> I don't think the reasoning here is related to money, for once. As I understand it MREs are actually fairly expensive to procure through the logistics system even in CONUS (something on the order of $10 each).

The MSNBC article that is linked mentions the cause as being simply that the soldiers and Marines pulling security have to be the last ones there, so they need to start moving the support staff (including cooks) out earlier.

They're probably already almost maxing-out the airlift and sealift they're able to provide to take servicemembers and materiel back _out_ of Afghanistan, which would give a plausible reason for why the cooks have to start leaving half a year in advance of the rest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It seems like the military could easily raise morale a lot this way. They already put so much money into the war, why not purchase one less $90,000 missile and instead fund a big comfort-food meal every other night?

<comment><USER3> A missile has a better chance of saving that soldiers life than a smidgen of morale. Speaking as former military, these perks are things that you get used to (and thus dont really value much, especially food) and dont really do much for you when your life is on the line.

<comment><USER11> But there are tons of those missiles. Are they in danger of running out? There's gotta be a surplus of some ordnance that could be better spent as food. I know the budget doesn't really work that way, but it's pretty surreal how much money is consumed in a war. One bomb could put pay for a scholarship for a lot of those soldiers.

<comment><USER4> Military logistics is a hard problem. There's no market telling you what to produce and in what quantities. How do you know in advance that it would be better to have 30,000 mortar heads in your local base stockpile vs access to a loitering B-52 two days in the week?

Answer: you don't. You can't. You basically have to make elaborate guesses and accept that you will be wrong a lot of the time, with all the concomittant waste that comes along with it. Especially since some such tradeoffs take decades to fully play out (eg. the JSF would be great in a war against an advanced industrial enemy ... which ... who?).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Australia's most famous general, Sir John Monash, was famous amongst soldiery in his day for ensuring that soldiers never fought without a hot meal.

In the freezing cold trenches of WW1, you have to admit that would count for a lot, as a gesture.

Before he was a soldier, he was a civil engineer. Small armies create interesting leaders.

</comment><comment><USER12> Not much research done by the journalist:

"Observationally: Cooks seem to put 10 or so basic meals into rotation"

More like exactly 19.

<http://nsrdec.natick.army.mil/media/fact/food/UGR.htm>

Also the characterization of the cook misses the point that the difference isn't the dude's motivational direction, but his effort. All .mil chefs I met tried their absolute best, its just "the best" is not so great in the sandbox without heroic effort, heroic effort as seen in that one E-5's efforts. As an Army REMF I always ate pretty well indeed.

Its interesting that the nicknames never change, in that you can change the name to UGR-B, or whatever, all you want, but the troops will eternally call then T-Rats as in tray rations (as far as I know they're still calling then T-Rats, maybe its recently changed)

Interestingly the average civilian doesn't eat all that many meals either. I've probably eaten a lot of grilled chicken caesars salad over the years. Homemade chicken fajitas with homemade guacamole last night, like practically once a month.</comment>


Ask YC: market for small-ish profitable projects? - <AUTHOR>

The recent 37sigs post made me think. I know there's a market for projects that are making, say, 1 or 2K a month, you can sell them for say, 10-30K.
But if you are making 20K, or even 5K a month with a project, is there a market for those? Are there people with deep enough pockets to buy those? I'm assuming you'd want at least 20 times monthly revenue, so a minimum price of 5*20=100K. At these prices, does it make sense for people to buy your projects?
Or is your best alternative to just keep running these yourself? (I suspect the answer is 2, but I'm not sure).
I can think of few people (none, really) who would spend 100K on buying a profitable Saas product. Am I mistaken? <comment><USER2> Not enough meat to cover the legal, accounting, and other costs. Hey, lifestyle businesses can be fun and good to the developer. If it isn't fun then there are some hidden costs and hassles that would make it even less attractive. Maybe someone could bundle a bunch of these and sell it like mortgages ;>}

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi. As per @geekfactor, we do sell a considerable number of premium sites on Flippa. We work to attract more qualified high-end buyers to these listings via tools such as our weekly premium A-List newsletter (see <https://flippa.com/a-list>). These sites tend to sell from $10K through to over $300K. Hope that helps. Do not hesitate to let our support team know if you need any help with a specific listing.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if a valid business model in this case would be to get someone involved via profit sharing. I wouldn't find $Xk/month worth while to devote the time needed to improve the product (otherwise I'd be doing freelance), but if I was offered 50% of the profit above what the current profit levels are, then that might be a fun project to take on on the side that would incentivize me to make the product as profitable as possible.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would definitely be interested in buying something like this, or even smaller as long as it was something of decent quality. There should be a marketplace for lifestyle- midsize businesses that wasn't full of junk like flippa.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think this is a good idea and I'm not aware of anything. I have a number of projects which are in the region of $5000-$6000 per month and selling would be of interest. Sometimes fresh blood might also accelerate the project.

</comment><comment><USER7> 5-20k/mo is enough to hire someone else to run a site like this full-time so that you don't have to. (assuming "yourself" really does mean one person)

</comment><comment><USER8> Flippa has listing in that price range. Click on "High End" on the home page.</comment>


Review my HTML5 game - <AUTHOR> http://nuclearcarrot.com/html5/frantic/ I noticed the standard of most HTML5 games is quite low. The only popular shoot em up out there was Crystal Galaxy and while it looks pretty I dont think its much fun to play. So I wrote my own. Uses graphics from the open Tyrian project.<p>Any feedback welcome. <comment><USER2> I'd love to hear some more details about the design decisions you made and any performance tradeoffs you ran into.

Otherwise, it's a great start. Some things you might consider:

* Better explosions. You can get pretty good effects with expanding/contracting colored circles, or using an animated sprite. I'm not sure what would be more efficient in html5. For an example check out the explosions in [http://mochiland.com/articles/flash-game-friday-death-vs-mon...](http://mochiland.com/articles/flash-game-friday-death-vs-monstars)

* Reduce the size of the player's collision box. Most 'bullet hell' shooters actually use a box much smaller than the player sprite to give the player a bit of leeway as they try to dodge bullets.

* There's a pretty big size mismatch between the player and the enemies, maybe even that out a bit? The small enemies are cool because you can have a lot in a wave, but as a player the small enemies felt frustratingly hard to hit sometimes.

* Bullet image sprites. Guessing there's a performance issue here but I thought I'd suggest it anyways just in case you haven't tried it. A nice bullet sprite will make enemy bullets easier to read and easier for the player to dodge.

<comment><USER3> very nicely done. I agree with the last part of this comment. The enemy bullets are a little off.

The player laser beam is awesome :P

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks for he feedback everyone.

Design decisions: Dont rotate images - this really kills performance.

Try not to scale images - My rough performance tests said: draw 1 scaled image = draw 3 images.

As you guessed, Bullet images sprites were not done for performance reasons. I might try and add them again and see what it looks like.

I'll experiment with bigger enemies / explosion images / collision box changes.

I'll write up an article in the future covering my decisions in more detail. And yes I hate it when HTML5 games kill my CPU I was going to make sure this one didn't do that.

andy

</comment><comment><USER4> Impressive! Was really surprised at how little it taxed my system, usually I see my CPU graph shoot straight up. Would love to know how you optimized it as that's the biggest drawback with most HTML5 games I play.

</comment><comment><USER5> Looked great! Maybe you can write up a post or article about how you made it?

</comment><comment><USER6> It's an inspiring demo of what can be done in HTML5. Also a fun game.

</comment><comment><USER7> To be honest, I prefer your "Cat & Mouse"...

</comment><comment><USER8> edit: perhaps you should change 'cursors' to 'arrow-keys' or some variant in the instructions.

</comment><comment><USER9> Won't work on iPad etc.</comment>


Ask HN: What Happened to Coin (YC W13) - <AUTHOR>

Can't seem to find any recent news about them and their site doesn't say much. <comment><USER2> I've recently gotten my beta tester card and I've been happily using it for over a month. They are ramping up distribution soon. Thats all I know.</comment>


Ask HN: Please, review my poetry website (Poeticous.com). - <AUTHOR>

It is a site for those interested in poetry where people can read poems, analyses, translations, recitations, etc, in English and Spanish. It's also a place to post your own work, if you are a poet.<p>Thanks!! <comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.poeticous.com></comment>


Verizon Wireless Picks Urban Airship for Push Notifications - <AUTHOR> http://blog.urbanairship.com/blog/2010/09/21/verizon-wireless-picks-urban-airship-for-push-notifications/

<comment><USER2> Congrats on Urban Airship. That's a great sign for the viability of their business and reassuring for their clients.

</comment><comment><USER3> Holy Shit! I'm _really_ happy for the Urban Airship guys, this is a pretty big account/partnership for them.</comment>


Show HN: A soccer goal alert service for Yo app - <AUTHOR> http://yo-goal.herokuapp.com

<comment><USER2> Like the idea. Does it alert me who scored the goals, who got carded and who got injured ? Good info for fantasy players :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the late reply... At the moment the service is just about the goals and the (live) score. But if it works out, I could imagine to offer more information like cards, scorers etc.</comment></comment>


OS X Mavericks GM Seed available to Developers - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/osx/whats-new/ <comment><USER3> I thought for sure I'd come in here and find that someone had posted a solution:

After redeeming the GM code from the Mac Dev Center in the App Store, a message is displayed:

 _OS X v10.9 is already installed on this computer. Use the Updates page to install the 10.9 update or if you would like to download the full OS X installer click Continue._

The last developer preview of Mavericks was build 13A584, GM is build 13A598. However, using the App Store to check for updates returns no updates available (well, iPhoto, iTunes, and Command Line Tools have been updated today, but no Mavericks update).

It seems like I'll have to download the full (5.29 GB) setup image (bigger than a DVD, I don't think that was the case with 10.8?) to update to this release..

<comment><USER4> Nope. Highest rated comment is sarcastic, uninformative garbage.

<comment><USER5> Not exactly on topic, but the biggest usability flaw in HN is the inability to minimise a post (and its child comments), coupled with no hiding of child comments a million levels deep (this I'm fine with, if you could hide posts). Having to scroll down half a page to see what other discussions are happening around a link really blows.

<comment><USER6> If you're using Chrome I suggest installing HN Collapse:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news- collap...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news- collapse/bbkfcamiocfccgmcjngdljolljhifdph)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow, multiple display support? Are you sure Apple? Don't you want to wait a couple years more to see if this whole 'multiple screen setup' is not just some sort of a fad?

<comment><USER8> To be fair, OS X always worked well with multiple displays (I would know), but it's their intentionally and needlessly crippled full screen mode that made the combination useless. And don't worry, they still haven't "solved" this completely.

<comment><USER9> >To be fair, OS X always worked well with multiple displays (I would know),

As I work with multiple displays, I think you're sugar-coating it to say it works "well." In fact, Apple knows how horrible it is. That's part of the reason they are displaying the full-screen support as a major upgrade with their new OS release. It is currently so bad, that not only do I find myself frustrated, the PR and dev teams at Apple want to shout about their fix from the rooftops.

<comment><USER8> Did you read the rest of my comment? Was I really "sugarcoating" it when I said they intentionally and needlessly crippled full screen?

<comment><USER10> Even without using full screen mode the multi display support is passable at best. There is no way to turn off any of the connected displays, which is a problem when giving presentations or even when just connecting my mac to the TV so we can watch a film with friends - mac's display needs to stay on, there is no way to turn it off.

<comment><USER11> Laptops will output to external screen while closed, and all connected monitors brightness can be adjusted independently (to off if need be).

Exactly what can't be done?

<comment><USER10> Yes they will, except that they will automatically enter sleep unless they are plugged in, which is not always the case. And I am not going to change my power settings to not sleep with the lid closed just so I can turn the display off - it's daft, there should be an option to do that in the displays menu. And even if you turn the brightness all the way down the display is still active, it's just the backlight that is off.

<comment><USER12> This is a good point, but doesn't seem to be like a very big one. (I'd like to be able to turn off my tablet display when I'm not using it.)

It seems to me that Apple's emphasis has been on using one screen well and applications like FCPX that use privileged APIs to use fullscreen well across monitors, but developers who use multiple displays in more complicated ways are pretty much stuck with third party solutions (I use SizeUp, and I used to use Cinch). This doesn't solve the issue you mention, but I'm very happy with it otherwise -- and when Apple incorporates the features of nice third-party utilities into the OS it gets lambasted from the other side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Multiway video chat removal in favour of more FaceTime seems like an interesting choice (well, not the consolidation on FaceTime), but it'd be nice to see Apple develop FaceTime along with iMessage to be better.

Google has done a really good job overall of doing useful things with making Hangouts one thing that is really useful (and to be honest I think if they want something to really drive adoption of Google as a social platform it'd be hammering that shit for other platforms so Hangouts is the default messaging platform no matter what device you're on).

If Google did what Apple has done with iMessage blending with standard SMS it'd be brilliant. Conversely it'd be nice to see Apple making FaceTime less like video chat with a face, and broadening it to be useful in more situations.

<comment><USER14> Mavericks still supports multiperson video chat.

<comment><USER13> Huh. Not according to the "What's New?" link on the site. Unless I'm misunderstanding what they're talking about (a distinct possibility)

<comment><USER15> Legacy iChat is essentially bolted to the new Messages app, muti-person video chat is still supported over AIM/Jabber/Bonjour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> LinkedIn baked into an OS? Wonderful...

<comment><USER17> You must _really_ hate android!

<comment><USER18> ...why? What LinkedIn integration does Android have?

<comment><USER17> It has Google integration to the point of being obnoxious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Ruby 2.0 out-of-the-box. woohoo! \o/

<comment><USER20> Oh you reminded me last time I upgraded my OSX. Ruby and RVM always have problem with me upgrading the system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I usually don't bother with beta OS's or GM seeds (unless they're in a VM!) on my "daily" machine, but I'm curious to know whether the GM seed can be updated to the release version/10.9.1 and onwards?

I'm not sure on Apple's history here re: OS X GM seeds.

<comment><USER22> GM Seed means quite literally what it says. It's the build that will be released to customers if nothing showstopping crops up.

<comment><USER23> It says quite literally that it is the Golden Master, I don't know how you literally read all that other stuff into it.

<comment><USER24> "Golden Master" is what went to CD/DVD printing when we still had those.

GM = "the build that will be released to customers"

Seed = "if nothing showstopping crops up."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I am actually looking forward to this release. No real features but hints of new behind-the-scenes improvements make me think this will bring some needed Snow Leopard-like refinement to Mountain Lion. Here's hoping they can fix fullscreen with multiple monitors especially!

</comment><comment><USER26> how long does it usually take from GM to official release?

<comment><USER27> The pattern seems to be the day following the Q4 earnings release. So look for it in the second half of the month.

[http://9to5mac.com/2013/09/06/apples-os-x-mavericks- release-...](http://9to5mac.com/2013/09/06/apples-os-x-mavericks-release- planned-for-end-of-october/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> a) What's the killer feature that I have to have, to make me tolerate the upgrade process (or wipe & reinstall, which I usually do)? ... and please don't tell me to go look at Apple's website to see the list of features ... I'm looking for some comments based on first-hand experience here.

b) does Mail.app still keep corrupting mailboxes?

c) homebrew / LaTeX / emacs still works?

oh hell maybe I'll just go install Debian

oh wait ... I have a retina display ...

<comment><USER3> The upgrade process is 100% painless. You run the upgrade, it reboots your PC, and then it reboots it back into your desktop. No questions asked. OS X is absolutely not designed to be wiped and reinstalled, that's your problem if you do. While I have to format my Windows computers once a year for various reasons, I've been using OS X unformatted since the day I got my first MacBook in '06\. Just used the migrate utility once when upgrading to my new rMBP. If you usually wipe and reinstall, that's on you.

Homebrew's been working great for me throughout the entire Mavericks beta. The last time Mail.app corrupted my inbox was probably on Snow Leopard, everything's been good since.

<comment><USER28> "The last time Mail.app corrupted my inbox was probably on Snow Leopard, everything's been good since."

That's great for you. It hasn't been my experience. Seems like every few days I find a message here and there in my archive that's been corrupted.

I'm using Mountain Lion but my mail server is OS X Lion ... maybe that's the issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The feature I want the most? Safari's new web inspector.

Everything else is just icing on the cake.

<comment><USER18> This might be the greatest advertisement against tying browser releases to OS releases. Mad.

<comment><USER30> The new Safari is coming to 10.7/8 also

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Yes! It's downloading. Just in time with my second HDD cable delivery - <USER2> upgrade my Mac Mini to SSD today! Seeds: 95 [154 MB / s] Leech: 411 [100 MB / s]

<comment><USER32> Do you mean, you are pirating it? No good, mate. No good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Any effect on homebrew?

<comment><USER34> There were major problems early in the DP cycle, but they resolved themselves as of DP4. However, you do need to have the standalone command-line tools installed to populate _/ usr/include_: it's empty otherwise, and Xcode doesn't provide a CLT package anymore (edit: not entirely accurate, see comments below).

Once _/ usr/include_ is populated, you shouldn't have much of a problem with most Homebrew packages.

<comment><USER24> > Xcode doesn't provide a CLT package anymore.

It does, but it doesn't install them under /usr anymore (unless you tell it to by calling `xcode-select --install`). See the homebrew discussion on the subject: [https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/issues/20427](https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/issues/20427)

<comment><USER34> You're right: Xcode includes its own set of CLTs namespaced under _/ Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.9.sdk/_, but that's useless for anything expecting FHS.

What _xcode-select --install_ will do is the same thing as downloading and installing the standalone CLT package manually, but in a manner similar to how X11 used to be distributed: OS X will request permission to download the standalone CLT package and install it: [http://i.imgur.com/O1CIGCP.png](http://i.imgur.com/O1CIGCP.png)

It also doesn't currently work (it'll error out saying it's not available on the Software Update Server). Assuming that's fixed by release, it will save a trip to the web browser to download it manually.

<comment><USER35> > It also doesn't currently work (it'll error out saying it's not available on > the Software Update Server)

For what it's worth, It was previously working in earlier betas

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I hope they create a formal support lifecycle for Mac OS X.

</comment><comment><USER37> Are there any benchmarks out on how the battery life compares to previous versions of OS X?

</comment><comment><USER38> Finally, tabbed Finder ftw!

</comment><comment><USER39> Watch out kids, they got energy saving maps now ... on more than one display. That's gonna be huge!</comment>


Rare footage of SR-71 Blackbirds - <AUTHOR> https://taskandpurpose.com/sr-71-blackbird-rare-video/ <comment><USER2> Here's a first-hand unverified heresay report from a grey-beard who worked for Tektronix back in the day: on assignment he drove out to China Lake for some high level troubleshooting, his vehicle came to a large gated facility and upon reaching the inner gate, he noticed a fleet of SR-71s, all with the same tail numbers. He was quickly escorted off the premesis and sent packing.

This is the same guy who personally claims we were actively experimenting with directed energy weapons using the San Onofre nuclear plant and that he personally saw the damaged tail of another YF12/SR-71 that had been hit by a Russian laser weapon.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here is an omegataupodcast episode about flying this thing:

[http://omegataupodcast.net/91-flying-the- sr-71/](http://omegataupodcast.net/91-flying-the-sr-71/)

Episode 091 – Flying the SR-71 Blackbird (March 31, 2012, 7:27 PM)

"In this episode we discuss the world's fastest and highest flying jet-powered aircraft ever built, the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Our guest is Col. (Ret) Richard Graham, a former SR-71 pilot. Our conversation is loosely based on his book Flying the SR-71, and we discuss the challenge of flying the SR-71. As a consequence of its unique capabilities and its engine and inlet design, the aircraft posed a number of very specific challenges on the pilot."

</comment><comment><USER4> The original article, from July of 2017, can be found on Task and Purpose. While it still has a lot of advertising, at least there isn't a big popup telling you to disable your ad-blocker.

[https://taskandpurpose.com/sr-71-blackbird-rare- video/](https://taskandpurpose.com/sr-71-blackbird-rare-video/)

Mods, maybe we could update the link and throw a (2017) on this?

<comment><USER5> This one has a big popup shouting "SIGNING UP FOR TASK & PURPOSE IS SIGNING UP TO BE A PART OF OUR COMMUNITY" right in your face though.

Screw that. Here are the direct links to the Youtube videos embedded in the "article".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIPOVuJrOF0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIPOVuJrOF0) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SwyJTJagq8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SwyJTJagq8) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ3kJbv3oVI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ3kJbv3oVI) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol7Tcza6wi0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol7Tcza6wi0) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxGbmAtfaX8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxGbmAtfaX8) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKNS4DTj3io](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKNS4DTj3io) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrhJ3vFD3fE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrhJ3vFD3fE) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ- XDNl8u_4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ-XDNl8u_4) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w61qCsDg7II](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w61qCsDg7II) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USsKznwIQxI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USsKznwIQxI) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwnRQKZh9Ec](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwnRQKZh9Ec) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpHiGQQZ2bM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpHiGQQZ2bM)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Still one of the most impressive planes I know. It has to be fuelled in flight because before heat expansion closes the gaps between all metal parts, the fuel tanks would leak their contents. So you take off with just enough fuel to reach the tanker.

<comment><USER7> Every interview with an A12 or SR71 pilot on YouTube touches on this and says they did that because of tire pressure not leaks.

<comment><USER8> Do you have a source? I've checked several online sources, and they all indicate the body leaking fuel until thermal expansion took place is accurate.

<comment><USER7> Am on phone so can't go double checking, but I believe it was definitely explained in this one:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MGdxpqqsHl8](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MGdxpqqsHl8)

(Well worth watching the whole thing!)

The planes definitely leaked at low temp eg on the apron but not much at all; just a few drips.

The problem was the tires were gonna burst if you aborted a takeoff with a full fuel load and had to land immediately. It was a weight problem.

Murray takes about it at length and even says he has a tire at home in the garage.

He also hands around other bits of the plane so people can see the honeycomb etc.

<comment><USER8> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I adored this plane in middle school (roughly around the time when the X-men were rolling around in one), but the body style, it's speed, everything about it just screamed mystery and power.

It doesn't have the same appeal to me now, but I still think it was such an elegant design in comparison to the stealth bomber.

</comment><comment><USER10> I remember being in middle school and watching them bank right over the school after lifting off from Beale. Cool stuff.

<comment><USER11> Yep, me too. Did you grow up in Marysville?

<comment><USER10> My father was stationed at Beale and I went to school in Wheatland.

<comment><USER12> Pirate checking in, watched them light up playing tether ball on lone tree.

Father was U2 pilot

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> is it only me or is that site horribly broken? i had to scroll to videos are reload the page for them to load?

<comment><USER14> Works fine on my phone.</comment></comment>


Three things we don't understand about climate change - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@aarnegranlund/three-things-we-dont-understand-about-climate-change-c59338a1c435 <comment><USER2> A brilliantly written article.</comment>


Porphyromonas gingivalis in Alzheimer's disease brains: Evidence for causation - <AUTHOR> http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau3333 <comment><USER2> Does regularly using mouthwash, specifically hydrogen-peroxide as a wash, kill this bacteria?

\---

Here is an NIH article on that idea... although I am not sure of its conclusions as of yet - but some interesting language regarding this interaction:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22745271](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22745271)</comment>


Show HN: A media sharing platform with reputation-based votes - <AUTHOR> http://knowed.com <comment><AUTHOR> I've worked on this for a couple of years now... it's a network for members to share links to articles, videos, and stories with a unique* voting system built in.

*votes depend on reputation.. and each vote has more/less power based on how much the community trusts you for that topic. No 2 votes can really ever be equal, by design.

The idea is to show the value of something based on whether the person giving feedback actually KNOWS what they're talking about. Fake news, opinionated facts, viral garbage... right now, I think this tool is needed.

I taught myself a few different programming languages just to develop this thing.. AND traded an exorbitant amount of sleep to finish building it.

BUT, there is no need to be overly gentle with your feedback... please, let me know what you think.

Thank you, and enjoy!</comment>


Startup Sales Hiring: How Should You Measure Your First Salesperson's Success? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.salestie.com/2011/04/startup-sales-hiring-part-3-how-should-you-measure-your-first-salespersons-success/

<comment><USER2> I haven't seen this blog before, but I'd love to get other startup sales blogs that are worthing checking out.

Anyone have any good leads?

<comment><USER3> There's really not much out there about startup sales, unfortunately. Besides the SalesTie blog, the best I've seen is Mark Suster's blog at <http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/> \- He seems to blog about startup sales issues pretty often.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Flykit - Operation Planning App for Drone Pilots - <AUTHOR> http://flykit.app <comment><USER2> I did not expect this to be a weather app

<comment><AUTHOR> We are not looking at it as a weather app since we plan to add other features as well, but you are right, it can be confusing. I tried to update the title but seems I cannot update the title now. On the other hand, I'm slightly curious, what did you actually imagine this to be?

<comment><USER2> I thought it was going to be related to planning the coordination of people and drones for commercial, multi-drone "missions".</comment></comment></comment>


Array Programming with NumPy - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2649-2 <comment><USER2> Everyone uses numpy, but not because they want to or the API itself provides some massive value. They use it because unless you're calling into C for literally every operation, Python is far too slow to get any scientific computing work done.

And because of this, numpy has to be much larger and less orthogonal. It needs to provide a wide range of functions that ensure that the user will never have to drop into regular Python and suffer a 100x performance hit. This is unfortunate, and prevents numpy by having the beauty and orthogonality of true array languages like apl, j, or kdb+/q.

This problem makes it difficult for new scientific users of Python to write fast code. Everything can be fast and then you add one if statement and the performance falls off a cliff. I've helped many people in various labs as this is a recurring problem that researchers face.

As such, the ease of use that Python supposedly has for scientific computing is a lie. The APIs are extremely complex, from numpy to Pandas to statsmodel and scikit. And they have to be, because scientific Python can't compose code due to performance reasons.

In contrast, Julia is much easier to learn, easier to use, and is pretty much better than Python for scientific applications in every way imaginable. In other words, it is strictly superior. The performance is consistently fast and array manipulation is built into the core language, unlike with Python. You are free to write Julia code instead of shelling out to C.

I'll probably get down voted, but Python should not be used for new scientific computing projects. I've had tons of experience with ml/financial Python and after trying Julia, I'll never go back willingly. The difference in speed, complexity, ergonomics, and expressivity is so stark it's hard to imagine why anyone would choose Python for a greenfield scientific computing project in 2020, especially since Julia can trivially access all of Python's ecosystem.

<comment><USER3> I think you may be overgeneralizing. If the speed of number crunching is the only concern, then sure, few scientists would use Python, R, or MATLAB. This is not the case in reality. Whether you would run into speed limit of course depends on the size of the problem. It's fine to use a "slow" scripting language to process a small data set on a personal laptop. And I suspect that this is what most everyday numpy users do.

Once you move to the other end of the spectrum where the size of the problem requires a supercomputer, that is when the Python ecosystem becomes clunky and painful. I think that could be an area that Julia shines in. But even that, I'm not sure if Julia is a clear winner yet, as the field is still largely dominated by C, C++, and Fortran.

Also, check ref. 56 in the article. They did cite Julia, among others.

<comment><USER2> The point is that Julia is easier to use and faster than Python for just about any scientific task. Even if Python is fast enough for you (which it probably isn't), it's harder to use and less expressive than Julia. This is why I consider it strictly inferior: it is not better at anything at all, only worse.

Python is so slow it is even unusable on trivially small data sets. Also it uses a massive amount of ram. I loaded a 2gb csv file the other day in Pandas, and it consumed over 40gb of ram. That's totally unacceptable in my view.

<comment><USER3> > The point is that Julia is easier to use and faster than Python for just > about any scientific task.

Try to make a plot. Last time I checked, the time to first plot was still a pain point of Julia.

> it's harder to use and less expressive than Julia.

I agree that Julia is more expressive because it's a Lisp in disguise. This is definitely a plus. But in practice, I don't find Python to be "harder to use." There is good consistency among the mainstream packages in terms of API. For example, if you have a NumPy function np.mean, you can assume that Pandas would have a method .mean() for the DataFrame, and Dask would have that for DaskArray as well. Not always, but things are moving toward that direction.

> I loaded a 2gb csv file the other day in Pandas, and it consumed over 40gb > of ram.

Have you tried the `engine='c'` option when calling pandas.read_csv? Pretty sure there is also another option of chunking that may be useful.

<comment><USER4> Time to first plot is still painful even in julia 1.5, sure.

But after paying that startup cost, the speed boost can be transformative in terms of the flexibility and dynamism that it buys. I've been using Pluto.jl lately, and interactive data analysis feels like way less of a burden than working in jupyter.

As to harder to use, writing fast vectorized numpy code can take a lot of mental effort. For one project I ended up forcing things into this 5-D array broadcasting mess, where in julia it's way simpler to just write intuitive code that's performant without bending over backwards to avoid explicit loops. For numpy code you can "just" drop down to cython, but for pytorch you can get stuck with thinking up some clever broadcasting solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've come to the realization that the real relationship of Python and Numpy is not a language/library relationship, but a script/engine relationship, similar to writing scripts in a game or map editor.

Numpy is not just a helping hand to python; instead, it is this efficient, giant, comprehensive engine, and python is merely the interface used to feed it data, operate it, and read from it.

Of course, under the hood, it's still just language and library. But the mental model is quite different.

</comment><comment><USER6> The real value of NumPy is that it sets the standard for what we expect in an array processing interface. Of course NumPy did not invent the idea, it builds on many others, but it is the de facto standard for what we expect. In time, another language or array processing library will probably replace Python / NumPy/SciPy, but due to the convenience of the API, I predict whatever takes over will look a lot like NumPy.

</comment><comment><USER7> Finally I can take NumPy seriously now that it's been published.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think it's cool that NumPy is being recognized in Nature, but I'm a little surprised that "the NumPy paper" wasn't published 10-ish years ago...

<comment><USER9> Back then travis was still licking wounds over leaving academia.</comment></comment>


Gender is not a spectrum (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-gender-is-a-spectrum-is-a-new-gender-prison <comment><USER2> Really awesome read. I agree that a boxless world is what we should be aiming for. But right now, isn't that unrealistic? Isn't it the ability to define cisgender a way for trans and other non-binary conforming folks to also organize and protest, which is very necessary right now in our social climate. Similarly, when people argue that there is no race, but the human race? The reality is that oppression does exist because one group has more privileges and can often determine the rights of the other group. So while we should strive for boxlessness, maybe the ability to define these labels right now is necessary for anti-oppression movements.</comment>