Front end tooling is borked big time - <AUTHOR> I dabble in front end development, and every time I have to do a project, I am amazed at how incredibly bad the process is. The tools in fashion change every few months (grunt, gulp, webpack, babel,browserify). Frameworks deprecate and remove stuff every few months (looking at you react). How do full time front end devs keep up with this nonsense? We seriously need a moratorium on this crap. <comment><USER2> Go for the more simple, stable tooling and frameworks. They might not be as fancy and they can look unmaintained because they implemented all of the features they needed to add, and mainly only need to fix bugs.

</comment><comment><USER3> > How do full time front end devs keep up with this nonsense?

I'm not a full time front-end dev, but I find the trick is to keep an eye on what's going on, play about with the bits you find interesting when you have time, but remember that keeping up doesn't necessariily need to involve using any of it - you don't need to use any of it until you're good and ready, just be aware where things are moving when it's time.

I'm developing React apps at work at the moment and my experience of it is that it's easy to ugrade React because they usually deprecate a release ahead and they don't release all that frequently. Meanwhile, I've only played about a bit with Mithril and Vue, took inspiration from Ember's tooling and am keeping a wary eye on Angular 2 because it'll probably end up getting used somewhere where I work.

Extracting all your tools out into your own tooling also helps - all my Webpack/Babel/Karma config and dependencies for React apps, React components and regular npm modules is in one tool and my complete ESLint config is in another. Neither is using the latest and greatest of anything (currently still on Babel@5, npm@2, Webpack@1 and ESLint@1) but when I'm good and ready to upgrade I only need to do it once.

</comment><comment><USER4> How do the tools change every month? If you're starting projects from scratch, pick one tool and stick with it.

If you're jumping on different projects, well the people that set them up used different tools. It's no different than jumping between a .NET C# app, a Rails app, or a Spring MVC app.

</comment><comment><USER5> Probably the best bet nowadays is Ember.js. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. It works out of the box and you can focus on your application. And no crap. Matured, robust, scalable, faster than others (the new Glimmer 2 is 3x times faster than React...), huge add-on ecosystem. Easy to learn, great tutorials and guide. No more problem at all. ;)

</comment><comment><USER6> Yes you're more than welcome to use "mature" tools that haven't changed in a while.

But if you spend a lot of time in the Frontend then it becomes fairly obvious about switching to new tools and frameworks. Builds tools are starting with better defaults, react is making it much easier to build intricate UIs without complexity.

</comment><comment><USER7> I had a similar reaction. For personal projects I use Mithril [http://mithriljs.org/](http://mithriljs.org/) which is pure JS. Solved the problems I had with setting up the tool-chain and works in a similar way to react.

</comment><comment><USER8> There's a name for this: "Javscript Fatigue"

</comment><comment><USER9> Just use vanilla js! Or neapolitan if you prefer.</comment>


Ask HN: How to get a tech job in AI/DL or similar – 21y/o need advice - <AUTHOR> I am currently doing an traineeship as a system administrator at a medium-sized company in germany. after that i will have completed my apprenticeship. i think it's great here, but i wonder how to get the jobs/positions which deals with artificial intelligence or deep learning. i think it's really interesting. i'm currently 21 years old and very interested in technology - i'm working part-time in affiliate marketing and building websites on my own.
how to get into this kind of jobs? do i need a bachelor or something similar? can someone give me an advice? maybe someone has asked the same question before.
I'm still at the beginning of my career but I want to make sure that I have a successful way to go. My company does not work in the area of AI/DL, so there would be no possibility here ...
best thanks and greetings from germany <comment><USER2> Hi there, 26y/o here. Firstly, as advice for 21 guy, try a lot of things just like you are doing right now, to be honest it is unlikely you have a clear vision of you future career at this young age.

You haven't stated how much deep learning skill you have right now. Or you want to do research or try to be good at implementing stuff. I could be biased but I would suggest unrevealing your motivation and interest more before deciding next step. (Machine learning was really really hyped here in Japan, every student remotely related to CS like mechanical engineering studied deep learning and wanted to work on it. It was honestly over-hyped.)Not saying it is not important.

I can't say anything about Germany since I don't live there. As for Japan, there are several start-ups hiring machine-learning talent, I have seen Germans here as well. But you still need a college degree in most cases.

Good luck, if you like new technology try block-chain as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your answer :)

Here in Germany it has also arrived, but probably not as at yours.... or I know the wrong people :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi, 30y/o here from germany. My advice would be to take a bachelor/master in computer science. During the bachelor degree you learn basic mathematical principles like linear algebra or discrete maths. This is not only important for implementing ML/DL/AI algorithms, it also helps you to read and understand research papers. Also, most universities in germany offer deep learning courses in their master degrees. So, take the bachelor for basic stuff and specialize in the master.

You could also try to learn more about ML/DL and AI by taking the various online courses out there on the internet, like Andrew Ng Coursera machine learning course. You can also take a look at kaggle.com, there are some ml challenges and code examples.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the answer :) I'm gonna check the pages out ...

Without a bachelor's/master's degree, it seems difficult to get started, correct?

<comment><USER2> 1.I was at the top engineering school in japan but the deep learning curriculum was heavily based on the popular on line one. Basically the top professor can not spare time to dive into making curriculum. So unless you go to the top tier universities in Germany, learning on line is the fastest.

2\. I can not comprehend why you can't learn most of the stuff on the course. basic math stuff are also included in them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I need to this ask's answer.</comment>


P.J. Plauger on copyright [comp.lang.c] - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/browse_thread/thread/bfd54e0003af5267?hl=en

<comment><AUTHOR> Just a clarification: You have to read the whole thread, otherwise the subject I chose does not make sense. Here is the post where Plauger actually defends copyright:

[http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/msg/810d733c01e55...](http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/msg/810d733c01e557f8?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER2> Good to see they spent all that time on something pointless. P.J. should grow up. This does nothing to further knowledge and innovation, it only harms it.</comment>


You can't detox your body. It's a myth - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/05/detox-myth-health-diet-science-ignorance?CMP=fb_gu <comment><USER2> Hmm. Well, although there is certainly plenty of snake oil sold on the market, you CAN detox your body just like you can "tox" it.

If you smoke and drink and eat poorly every day, you are putting toxins into your system.

If you stop doing this, your system will "detox".

But you don't need a product to do it -- fasting is probably the most effective way.

The possible benefits/drawbacks of this is another matter.

But don't pretend like there aren't toxins we put into our system, or that if we stop adding more toxins that the level of toxins in our system won't reduce. Because it will. And that is detoxification.

<comment><USER3> That isn't detoxification, it's excretion. The article even says it:

"If toxins did build up in a way your body couldn't excrete ..."

<comment><USER4> Strictly uninformed logic hear, but it seems considering "excretion" and "detoxification" mutually exclusive concepts is not correct. If you were putting toxins (of any definition) into your body, slightly faster than your liver/skin/lungs could remove them, they would slowly build up. Perhaps they would make you feel sick before they killed you. Or perhaps the filter rate is proportional to the current level, so you reach an equilibrium at a point that makes you feel ill, but doesn't kill you.

If all this is in any way valid, then we might hypothesize that simply stopping putting "toxins" into your body for a period would allow a daily net loss as your body filtered them out. This would not require any special "cleanse", but simply living strictly on foods/drinks that did not contain whatever stuff you were trying to eliminate. This might allow them to decrease to a level where you felt better. Perhaps after that you would go back to your old life-style and let the "toxins" build up again, or you could input them at a level that your body could eliminate them.

Apart from aversion to the now coopted phrase "cleanse", could someone with actual knowledge say whether any of this conjecture aligns with actually physiology/metabolism?

<comment><USER3> Please don't project your ignorance and confusion on others. It is arrogant.

To be more precise, the article defines detox as: "the idea that you can flush your system of impurities and leave your organs squeaky clean and raring to go", and further adds that this "is a scam." It then goes into details. You say you are uninformed on the topic, yet refuse to accept the article's own definition. Then at the end your comment implies that neither the author of the article nor I have "actual knowledge" on the topic.

Excretion is what your body does. It excretes dead cells, it excretes urea, it excretes CO2, it excretes all sorts of other waste products that it creates itself, as well as those that enter the body, like cellulose and alcohol.

If you want to expand the definition of detoxification to include breathing, taking a leak or a dump, throwing up, etc. then what term do you use for the products and methods that the detox industry, practitioners, and advocates use? You see that distinction in the article: "there are two types of detox: one is respectable and the other isn't." You don't have one. Instead, that expanded definition only really helps to confuse the issue.

You observe "If you were putting toxins (of any definition) into your body, slightly faster than your liver/skin/lungs could remove them, they would slowly build up." .. That is absolutely true.

If you are exposed to carbon monoxide then removing yourself (or since you've probably falling unconscious, being moved) to some place without CO will help your body recover, and being given O2 can help.

It's also irrelevant. You are granting the premise of the detox industry by assuming there is a build-up of toxins in the first place! It's not a "of any definition", it's that they can't list the toxins and show that the treatment leads to a decrease in those levels and has a positive health outcome.

The OP wrote "fasting is probably the most effective way" to detox. That's wrong. The most effective way to lower your levels of X, for a wide range of X, is to stop being exposed to X. If you have a build-up of tar in your lungs from smoking, then fasting will do diddly-squat.

And the same applies to all sorts of things that _aren 't_ toxins, like allergens, or sunlight (which can cause a sunburn) or flashing lights (which may trigger a seizure) or open spaces (which may cause a panic attack).

<comment><USER4> I post questions, born of ignorance, that I wish to be corrected or informed about. Most of what I know, I've learned by this method.

If I come across as supporting the detox industry, I apologize, as I didn't mean to. I don't. The article merely brought up other thoughts that I hoped to learn more about.

<comment><USER3> No, you didn't come across as supporting the detox industry. You came across as arrogant or lazy. Your own willful ignorance does not give you superior claim to reject the statements of others; which is what you did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I agree with the article, except it's missing another type of useful detox -- chelation therapy. It's generally used with heavy metal poisoning.

I have a friend who ate way too much sushi and had seriously elevated mercury levels. Eventually her body cleared the mercury out on it's own, but I believe she went through a initial round of mild chelation therapy.

<comment><USER3> Chelation therapy has only been shown effective for acute and higher exposure poisoning. Chelating agents have serious side effects. For low exposures the best solution is to avoid or remove the source of the exposure.

Quoting from [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3846980/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3846980/) (italics mine):

> _Chelation treatment of asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic patients is > unlikely to benefit patients and may actually cause harm_ , as discussed > elsewhere in this publication. Patients seek clear cause–effect > relationships for their "poisoning," but it is not always possible to > determine the cause of symptoms. Physicians should seek a thorough diagnosis > in spite of the pressure to find a simple environmental culprit. Internet > advertising by marketers of "toxic testings" have made testing and treatment > popular in some alternative medicine practices and has encouraged some > people with health problems to seek these treatments. However, it is not > possible to remove all "toxins" from the body, and treatments remove > essential elements as well. Furthermore, _the efficacy of chelation > treatment has not been generally demonstrated for all but severe recent > acute exposures to a few metals_. In addition to concerns about short-term > adverse impacts that may result from chelation, public health practitioners > are also concerned about the potential subtle and latent effects that have > not been characterized.

> In responding to citizen's requests for information, public health officials > are often confronted by extremely emotional appeals to solve personal health > problems. Commercial laboratory marketings "toxin testing" offer hope that > there is another treatment option. They also appear to prey on the guilt of > caregivers, suggesting that not every treatment option has been tried until > chelation products are used. However, no assessment of the true risks and > benefits of chelation treatments are being provided.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the clarification. I learned about chelation therapy in a chemistry class, many years ago, and didn't know a lot about it's actual use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wish quacks like Dr. Oz would stop promoting this 'detox' fantasy.

<comment><USER7> This is mentioned in the article as well, but I believe the real issue is the automatic credibility given to people that possess credentials.

Many people seem perfectly happy to put their health and life in the hands of a medical professional and do a minimal amount of work/research for themselves.

For example, given the popularity of the below drugs, few seem to ask:

'Do I really need to kill my liver cells to lower my cholesterol?' (statins)

'If we don't know how these antidepressants work, and some studies show they don't work, why am I taking them?'

<comment><USER8> > 'Do I really need to kill my liver cells to lower my cholesterol?' (statins)

A small number of people taking statin drugs (<1% for atorvastatin, the most popular drug in the class) experience abnormal liver enzyme levels, and the drugs are contraindicated in the case that a patient has existing liver disease. But that's hardly destroying one's liver cells in the majority of people.

<comment><USER7> Maybe I should have been more general:

'Why am I taking {drug} for {condition} with [serious possible side effects] when I could simply change my diet and activity level?'

MOST of the health issues we are prescribing drugs for are treatable/curable with lifestyle changes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sweating detoxifies (far infrared saunas being best). Cilantro, chlorella and activated charcoal are natural chlelation agents.

<comment><USER3> As the article points out, when pressed, advocates can rarely specify which toxins are removed, or point to studies which demonstrate effectiveness in humans.

Take cilantro for example. Quoting from [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3654245/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3654245/) :

> (iv) Cilantro (leaves of Coriandrum sativum), a popular culinary and > medicinal herb, gained attention when a soup was reported to enhance mercury > excretion following dental amalgam removal and remains popular despite > limited evidence [46]. In animals, it decreased lead absorption into bone > and inhibition of the delta-aminolevulinic acid dehydratase (ALAD) enzyme > [47]. Less encouragingly, in a recent trial in 3- to 7-year old children > exposed to lead, a cilantro extract was as effective as placebo in > increasing renal excretion (improvements across treatment and placebo groups > were ascribed to improved diet during the intervention) [48].

See the "limited evidence" and "as effective as placebo"?

The same review article points to [https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jts/36/1/36_1_121/_arti...](https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jts/36/1/36_1_121/_article) concerning chlorella and methyl mercury. (That paper in turn cites other several animal studies for cadmium, lead, and dioxins.)

If you read that paper, you'll see it was dosed at 4 mg Hg/kg body weight, which is rather acute, and measured across 6 mice. The results can't simply be extrapolated to humans.

So, where is your evidence which shows that cilantro and chlorella are effective chelation agents for humans?</comment></comment>


How to Make a Memex - <AUTHOR> https://srconstantin.posthaven.com/how-to-make-a-memex <comment><USER2> I just recently learned about using two square brackets in OneNote to make arbitrary links to existing pages or instantly create a new page on demand. It is quite similar to the linking in [[roam]] but the later offers up a drop- down of pages with similar names to click from, while the former just does an exact string match.

I'm not sure which I prefer, but it has helped me in my OneNote uses recently.

Having starte my personal memex journey with onenote 2010 and blending in the likes of mempad, notewiki, and dokuwiki for specific use cases, I'm feeling like I am close but not quite arrived at a program I can trust to feed more than the work notes of the day.

The ideal app is a combination of Onenote, dokuwiki, and mempad, and seeing as I've not discovered the app that has all the following features yet, I may end up writing it for myself.

1\. Rich text support without required markup (but can convert markdown to RTF on the fly would be a nice bonus). Links need to be drop-dead simple to create, even two square backets feels like it could be simplified. Maybe I go for NoteWiki stye camelCase or PascalCase words?

Winner: Onenote

Losers: Notewiki, dokuwiki

2\. Offline first saving of files to a single encryptable file. I'm thinking if I end up writing something, it would be an scrypt encrypted sqlite database with a different file extension. Using the sqlite format enables later mobile apps to have a common save format.

Winner: mempad

Loser: OneNote, Dokuwiki

3\. True image / audio / table support. This program doesn't have to necessarily support the creation of these assets out the gate, but I should be able to copy/paste them into it and have them saved and retrieved safely. A file picker dialog box should be something I CAN use but never should have to.

Winner: Onenote

Loser: Mempad, Dokuwiki

4\. Full export to HTML with files placed in relative directories. A Microsoft Binder-like solution could be a bonus.

Winner: Dokuwiki?

Loser: ?

5\. Entire sqlitedb search for a given term

Winner: Onenote, Dokuwiki, Mempad

Thanks for skimming the wishlist. I've heard of notion (too online), CherryTree (no mobile app), NoteWiki (no images), and a couple more, but if you think you have a program that addresses most of these, I'd love to hear it.

</comment><comment><USER3> So uhm, how does Roam differ from regular wikis, beyond supposedly-better keyboard interaction...?

The problem with any wiki-like app, in my usage, is search capabilities and the need for constant maintenance. Stuffing stuff in is usually pretty easy; it's getting value out in the long term, that is the issue.

<comment><USER4> If conventional wikis are a framing hammer, roam is a nail gun. It's not just about the outcome, but about the ergonomics of creating the outcome. Lowering the friction of wiki creation leads to more and better wikis, even if you change nothing else (although they do).

Roam has easy bracket syntax for turning a word into a tag, which creates a sort of intermediate index page for that concept, linking out and showing snippets of its usage across all other documents, and allowing you to maintain that content in a single place. The two-way/retroactive nature of this is really helpful compared to e.g. notion where if I reference page A on page B, I have to manually create a link on page B to page A, creating a fragile web of unmaintainable connections. Roam does this out of the box.

I find the graph stuff visually interesting but mostly uninteresting _for now_ , but the potential is huge. Once the graph has weighting and filtering, I think it's going to be wildly useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tried Roam for a bit but an online-only option when most of my notes are work related isn't something I can do.

I did just get an email from them about "Beautiful creations of the RoamCult"

RoamCult? Come on. Calling your users a "cult" isn't cool or edgy or endearing in any way. It's weird. Stop.

</comment><comment><USER6> Roam looks fun, having played around with it briefly. There doesn't seem to be a way of getting it offline though (data export is possible) which is a bit of a killer for a note taking app, at least for me. I don't mind so much about privacy issues, but having to be online especially to review things would be a big problem e.g. during travel.

<comment><USER7> _Roam_ very much reminds me of Natrificial's "Brain", which I first installed in mid-1999 and used extensively during my early university days.

It seems that the product is still up and running at www.thebrain.com (or at the very least, something very similar to it)

Here is the original announcement of Natrificial's product way back in January 1998: [https://www.wired.com/1998/11/when-your-computer-gets-a- brai...](https://www.wired.com/1998/11/when-your-computer-gets-a-brain/)

Basically it was a kind of brainstorming/network software, but it could store documents, notes, and URLs at nodes. This was fairly innovative (for the time) and useful.

Crucially, it offered standalone .brn files for storage and exchange.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I installed a Memex-inspired extension on my browser, but I don't use it. Most of the time I forget it's there. [https://getmemex.com/](https://getmemex.com/) [https://github.com/WorldBrain/Memex](https://github.com/WorldBrain/Memex)

FWIW, what I really want is a timeline that shows my browsing history.

<comment><USER9> I attempted to bundle firefox history to memacs, and remember it used to work ok-ish, but of course, you have to be using the whole emacs,org-mode suite.

I can't guarantee how well it works nowadays cause I forgot to add the cron job last time I reinstalled my system. It seems there's always something you have to remember (and I forget).

\- [https://github.com/novoid/Memacs/blob/master/docs/memacs_fir...](https://github.com/novoid/Memacs/blob/master/docs/memacs_firefox_history.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I loved the concept of "automatic bi-directional tagging" so much that I created a sorta-clone of Roam here: [https://github.com/neutralinsomniac/exocortex](https://github.com/neutralinsomniac/exocortex)

It's still WIP, but I use it every day for my personal notes.

</comment><comment><USER11> Roam looks pretty nice, but TFA argues pretty effectively for a _private_ memex.

How does the author reconcile that with putting their intimate thoughts into Roam aka someone else's computer?

</comment><comment><USER12> I love the references to the Memex in Stross's _Laundry Files_ series.

<comment><USER13> "you mean he actually _built_ one?!"

"unlike you, mr. howard, i'm concerned about Van Eck interference"

<comment><USER12> I love that interaction. Angleton is a prick, but also an excellent teacher.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I use TiddlyWiki on a webdav server. With syncthing I sync with android, mac, windows and my VR headset with Firefox Reality. It also supports mindmaps.

<comment><USER15> Someone has made a TiddyWiki extension to give it the sort of bidirectional linking of Roam: [https://giffmex.org/gifts/tiddlyblink.html](https://giffmex.org/gifts/tiddlyblink.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very cool, just started playing around with roam because of this.

There seems to be a lot of overlap with Project Xanadu and the related ideas. I've been playing with this idea for a while and there's been a handful of partial implementations [0]. A personal memex-style device has been a dream of mine for a few years now allowing for composition of pages and collection of various snippets with links back to the original sources.

The main issue with transclusion (inlining portions of versioned docs) of documents is that the documents need to be versioned and permanently accessible (otherwise linkrot and broken documents happen). It would be nice to apply this to the web in general, but it goes against it's nature (and is fundamentally incompatible with styling).

Markdown + Gitfs is the obvious choice here as it's simple, well supported and extensible. Most importantly it's decoupled from the interface/viewer itself. That and you get access to anything in a git repo out of the box. I've done some basic work on this [1][2] but life got busy.

[0] [http://lain.gboards.ca/cgi- bin/view.cgi?url=../docs/demos/do...](http://lain.gboards.ca/cgi- bin/view.cgi?url=../docs/demos/doc.xan.org)

[1] [https://github.com/germ/XanaDown](https://github.com/germ/XanaDown)

[2] [https://github.com/germ/germ.xan](https://github.com/germ/germ.xan)

</comment><comment><USER17> There's an explosion in "markdown-plus" formats.

I've been toying with the idea of tags and internal links in my Huge Text File but I don't give nearly enough mind to a consistent syntax even after toying with custom syntax coloring etc. I'm not even sure what goes in the text file — it's getting cluttered with longform essays when it once was basically a phone number list before smartphones.

</comment><comment><USER18> maybe someone is interested in a not so well known predecessor to Bush's Memex, Goldbergs 'Statistical Machine' [http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/statistical.htm...](http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/statistical.html)

"Bush seems to have said little in his published work about the antecedents of his Memex or of his microfilm rapid selector" \- Buckland wrote a nice article summing it up: [http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/goldbush.html](http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/goldbush.html)

Shameless plug: Goldberg's life story and his search/pattern detection machine was the main inspiration to create Revealer - [https://revealer.cc](https://revealer.cc)

<comment><USER19> The top navigation isn't shown on mobile (Firefox Preview), so I was left wondering "ok ... so what is it actually?" for a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Can't believe no one has mentioned org-mode yet.

Org-mode is a mode for marked-up plain text files in emacs that gives you note taking, outlining, to-do lists, scheduling, project management, time tracking, and journaling. It's really a good candidate for a private Memex, and you can store it however you want, not just on someone else's computer. There are mobile apps for it as well, and somewhat less-capable compatibility modes for vim and VSCode.

The only shortcoming I see for it as a personal Memex is the weak support for binary content (images, audio, word processing documents). It does support binary attachments, but they're not presented very well.

<comment><USER21> This site sometimes feels like the Truman show, where each user has to pretend they're not just recycling the same three scripts.

<comment><USER22> I've been collecting the most frequently used tropes on hn. It includes such fan favorites

\- website caused mobile phone to implode

\- this math book has too much math

\- this math doesn't have enough math

\- cockroach db offends me in my soul

\- org-mode does my dishes and tucks me in every night

\- functional programming is the messiah

\- functional programming is the devil

\- software interviews are like being on a cattle car in Poland in the late 1930s

\- people that can't pass software interviews shouldn't be allowed to reproduce

\- ...

Once I get enough I'll build a bot that can simulate hn for me and then I'll never come here again

<comment><USER23> One I'm guilty of: JavaScript desktop applications are not desktop applications.

<comment><USER22> Will add to the list! Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's interesting that nobody has mentioned TiddlyWiki; what does its saving story look like in the world of the modern featurectomy-ridden browser landscape?

<comment><USER25> I'm running [https://github.com/djmaze/tiddlywiki- docker](https://github.com/djmaze/tiddlywiki-docker) on a Digital Ocean instance. You can mount a volume where it will maintain all of your tiddlers as separate files - no downloading required (and since your config options are saved as tiddlers, those are persisted as well). For backups, I run a daily cron job to git add/commit/push from that volume to a private repo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Since everyone is recommending note apps, I'll throw a plug in for Bear, if you have a MBP and an iPhone. Syncs via iCloud, and it's just simple, Markdown oriented notes with a simple tagging system. Good enough search. Haven't really needed anything else and it actually exports pretty nicely to various formats (Word, pdf, html, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER24> What is the user interface flow like in Roam for factoring part of a page out into a new page, or otherwise creating a new page linked to the current one? If a Roam screencast already exists I'm not finding it.

</comment><comment><USER27> Or, you could build an actual Memex. [https://trevor.smith.name/memex/](https://trevor.smith.name/memex/)</comment>


Google Gets Practical about the Dangers of AI - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601750/google-gets-practical-about-the-dangers-of-ai/ <comment><USER2> This is one of the biggest problems for a newcomer like OpenAI: They can collaborate on this paper, along with other researchers, from Stanford and Berkeley. But at the end of the day, bloggers are going to claim this is a Google news item, because Google news gets them pageviews.</comment>


How PARC Saved Xerox - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2015/03/21/how-parc-saved-xerox/

<comment><USER2> If you're a computer person who grew up in the 80's or 90's, you probably understand a lot about the history of the industry, especially on Apple, Microsoft and the internet. But if you happen to know only a little about PARC and SRI International you would do yourself a huge service to spend some time on youtube around those subjects. Most of what happened over those decades was started in those circles.

<comment><USER3> A lot of us living in the Bay Area at the time saw a lot of dynamic research some of which through apple, etc was commercialized, some through the companies them selves. Ibm almaden and HP research had a lot going on at the time as well.

<comment><USER4> I remember the advances being made by companies like Wang and MIPS in the 80's and early 90's - things which seem so foreign and distant today, yet still we're working towards them. Wang, for example, had some amazing document/image-management features which are still yet to be realized in the modern era. When I think about all the tech that Wang put into making a decent system, how it was all taken for granted - and subsequently lost as new markets emerged to ruin the company - its astonishing!

It makes me wonder what sort of things we're taking for granted today which will be re-invented in the decades to come, spiced up with a bit of marketing- boy fairy dust, and rolled out to the masses for consumption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> i highly recommend michael hiltzik's "dealers of lightning" [[http://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC- Computer/...](http://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC- Computer/dp/0887309895)]. it's one of the two best history of computing books i've read (tied with katie hafner's "where wizards stay up late")</comment>


How to Become a Professional Photographer - <AUTHOR> http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/go-pro.htm

<comment><USER2> I like this advice: "A person who studied stage lighting in college and worked in Hollywood discovered that almost no one makes it in the fun job of lighting. The people who make more money more regularly are those who become lighting salesmen."</comment>


Careerpal explainer [video] - <AUTHOR>

does the explainer video get the message across in a clear & concise manner? http://youtu.be/801PlkcFhp8 <comment><USER2> Clickable [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=801PlkcFhp8&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=801PlkcFhp8&feature=youtu.be)

Wow, it's so loud! As an explainer video, it's fine. You get the point across of what you're doing.</comment>


Just Curious - Why Are Only Some Stories Nofollowed? - <AUTHOR>

I love reading hackernews, but just noticed a Curious quirk.  The story links appear to have random nofollow tags assigned to them. In this screenshot, 4 out of 30 homepage links are nofollowed.   http://www.img7.com/images/hakckernew.jpg<p>I'm just wondering if this  random or editorially controlled. <comment><USER2> They're all links that have collected fewer than 10 votes. (I don't know what the exact threshold is.)</comment>


Will Apple Unveil Its Own Bit Currency? - <AUTHOR> http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2015/06/apple-is-your-new-bank.html

<comment><USER2> "No bank needed. Apple is the bank."

If Apple is the bank, the blockchain is redundant. If the blockchain is redundant, Apple is...just a bank, subject to the same regulation as the rest.

</comment><comment><USER3> If Apple issues its own bit currency, they will run into problems with politicians that want to control currencies. Make "karma points" or something would be better</comment>


The dark $ide of silicon startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.noemi.ro/the-dark-side-of-silicon-startups/ <comment><USER2> I agree these complaints are widespread in corporate America. In fact, I think these issues are worse OUTSIDE of the startup world.

Most of the founders I deal with pay their employees before the founders themselves get a dime of salary. Sure the founders get the bulk of the equity. But they also give their employees equity awards, even though the employees get paid a salary, as well (i.e. they don't take on the same risk).

In comparison, in generic corporate America, the people on top get substantially more guaranteed cash compensation, in addition to any stock awards.

In addition, I've had plenty of startup clients who did all sorts of generous things for their employees that were not required. For example, when getting acquired, I have had clients give special cash bonuses to employees to ensure they get a sufficient "upside" in the transaction (beyond what the employee was entitled to from their stock or options). I just haven't seen that type of behavior in more "mature" corporations.

<comment><AUTHOR> In corporate America, young people don't get tricked into working severely underpaid for equity that very often doesn't turn into a lot, and sometimes the employees don't even realize they have to BUY the options and when it comes down to it, can't afford them. #Realtalk

In corporate America, it's not great, but it's less of a shill because people aren't pretending to save the world.

<comment><USER3> > In corporate America, young people don't get tricked into working severely > underpaid for equity

No, they just get tricked into working severely underpaid for cash. Unfair compensation is unfair compensation. Fraudulent valuations are fraudulent. It has nothing to do with silicon valley vs corporate America it has to do with fraud and people taking unfair advantage of information differentials.

<comment><USER2> Well, I would say information differentials + a huge power imbalance. And I would add to that a huge cultural shift vs. decades ago in terms of what is considered "acceptable" and "moral" as relates to relative compensation of rank-and-file workers vs. executives. (One can debate the extent to which these cultural shifts are also the result of policy shifts.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Did anyone else start reading the text at the top, only to scroll down a bit and realize it's a two-column article? This seems like a very strange layout for a web page.

</comment><comment><USER5> I certainly don't see this as exclusive to Silicon Valley. I think it's widespread in corporate America.

<comment><AUTHOR> Again - maybe my experience is different, but I was never told in corporate america that I should sacrifice my free time for my company because we were saving the world. I was underpaid (ish) but I was never abused. Startups get away with a lot more because of the stereotype that they are different.

<comment><USER3> You're generalizing from your anecdotal experience of a handful of specific positions to "all of corporate America" which I think is a false generalization. Exploitative salaries are the norm. This is why unemployement holds firm in the mid single digits, even as the economy grows: to give employers a tool with which to frighten employees into accepting salaries that give the employer high margins on labor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Dunno how bad it can be elsewhere but even third-rate dev shops using ASP.NET can be pretty damn bad. I mean staying in the office until 7pm every night, and getting nasty phone calls on Christmas eve.

<comment><USER7> Dealer's choice: [http://www.hubcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/good- cheap...](http://www.hubcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/good-cheap- fast-2a.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've worked with several startup clients over the past year. It is a mixed bag like anywhere in life there are some jerks, some unethical, some selfish, and some overly self important arrogant types.Treating workers, clients, your customers, or anyone badly is not good for business and gets a company nowhere over the long term. Of course, there are companies that can have success in spite of having abusive, unethical leadership, but over the longterm no one wants to work with crappy people for long.

I worked for an abusive, arrogant, child for over two years. I learned much from witnessing his bad behavior and the negative effect it has on anyone that works with him or around him. Despite what a pain it was to deal with this nutcase, in the end I came to pity and feel sorry for him. He is a sad, miserable, petty, mentally ill, child that lashes out at everyone, and essentially spends more time trying to figure out ways to screw his clients and workers out of money than offer anything of value himself. Screwing people and being a jerk is no way to go thru life. These types need mental help.

Turns out this type of behavior hasn't exactly made him a successful business leader. It has simply enabled him to piggyback on others hard-work, shiest his workers, startup clients (and in turn their investors). So in a way he has had a measure of success at screwing people out of money. But over the longterm no one respects him and no one wants to work with him (clients included). By any measure this type is not successful in business or in life, yet crappy greedy mid 40 types behave this way because they no other way and they would rather try to screw a few sheckles out of their clients & colleagues than figure out ways to offer something of value.

Don't let these fools get you down they are a dime a dozen, narcissistic talentless bozo's apparently grow on trees out here in LA. It is a learning lesson to deal with one of these types, as you learn what not to do, how not to act, and how to avoid being sucked into the crappy vortex that is working with these types.</comment>


Travis Scott Virtual Concert on Fortnite Breaks Record with 12M Attendees - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/24/fortnite-hosted-a-psychedelic-travis-scott-concert-and-12-3m-people-watched/ <comment><USER2> I'm hopeful that the virtual concert becomes much more commonplace at the end of all this. I'm a fan of tiny desk and KEXP live concerts, and think it would be great if musicians could earn money from online "live" music.

<comment><USER3> It really seems like this global health crisis has helped push this to become an accepted reality. I love it

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Travis Scott is apparently a rapper, in case anyone else was wondering.

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

<comment><USER5> He's known for being particularly maximalist and experimental in his videos and media presence, which HNers might find interesting from a technical perspective:

[https://www.travisscott.com/video/](https://www.travisscott.com/video/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is happening again tonight at 9PM Pacific if anyone wants to join.

</comment><comment><USER7> Think Epic could do this in near real time with like a motion capture suit or something? That way the artist can interact with the audience more than just kinda dancing.

<comment><USER8> A very similar event was done in 2019 with Lindsey Stirling and WaveVR, so the tech is certainly there.

[https://vrscout.com/news/lindsey-stirling-vr- concert-400k-vi...](https://vrscout.com/news/lindsey-stirling-vr- concert-400k-viewers/)</comment></comment>


Quantum Gravity Lacks Symmetry, New Study Confirms - <AUTHOR> https://sparkonit.com/2019/06/21/quantum-gravity-lacks-symmetry/ <comment><USER2> Word-for-word copy of the original press release: [https://www.ipmu.jp/en/20190619-symmetry](https://www.ipmu.jp/en/20190619-symmetry)

Paper: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.05337](https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.05337)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> <Researchers say the finding has several important consequences, and in particular, it goes to show that protons are stable against decaying into other elementary particles. And that magnetic monopoles exist.></comment>


Microsoft is finally leading the way in mobile, 4 years too late - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2015/04/30/windows-10-continuum-phones/

<comment><USER2> Pretty snarky article. I think Microsoft have done a great job, new leadership has injected a new sense of purpose into the company that seemed to be lost for a little while under Balmers direction. While it might be "4 years too late" for the Mashable author, I am a firm believer that it is never too late to change (unless you're dead).

The developments not only in mobile, but the entire Microsoft ecosystem are not to be scoffed at. We are seeing a company rise back to the top, after spending years of being the butt of the internets joke and ridicule.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best company technical blogs you read and why? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> [http://strongloop.com](http://strongloop.com) is good, they have regular postings about node.js</comment>


Strings, bytes, runes and characters in Go - <AUTHOR> http://blog.golang.org/strings <comment><USER2> Some people here seem to think that indexing, measuring and slicing operations based on runes (code points) instead of bytes (UTF-8 code units) by default would be to be a good idea. It's not - you get the worst of both worlds: indexing is not a constant-time operation and a code point is _still_ not a user-perceived character, because combining character sequences consist of multiple code points, even normalization doesn't help in general.

Other languages like C# seem to be different on the surface, but in fact they index and measure by code units as well (2 byte UTF-16 code units), not by code points.

<comment><USER3> > and a code point is still not a user-perceived character

How about indexing, measuring and slicing operations based on user-perceived characters, then?

<comment><USER4> I think the number of displayed characters is even font-dependent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No distinction between string and byte array? I foresee all the fun of python 3 in go's future. Those of us programming in the real world need to deal with legacy character sets in strings obtained from elsewhere, and it's no fun at all to discover that what you thought was a string is actually an array of SJIS or iso8859-1 bytes.

<comment><USER6> It sounds like you've decided to dislike go without ever having actually used it for anything in the "real world".

There is a difference between a string and a byte array. A string is a string. A byte array is a []byte (byte slice). You have to explicitly cast from one to another. Neither are inherently utf8. A string is represented by a byte array under-the-hood, and string literals in your code are read as utf8 encoded. Strings themselves are not necessarily utf8 encoded, and if you need to use a different encoding there's libraries for that (unless you're using something really esoteric).

<comment><USER5> So what do you get when you read a file, or when a file is uploaded to your web server? What happens if you write a function that accepts a string as a parameter, but haven't noticed that you're implicitly assuming the string is utf8? (e.g. a function that formats one string using another - if the encodings are different you'll end up with a string that's invalid for either encoding, no?)

The distinction between a string with one encoding and a string with another is subtle but vitally important - exactly the sort of thing a type system should take care of.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a library in one of the Go subrepositories that handles transformation from other encodings to UTF-8: [https://code.google.com/p/go/source/browse?repo=text#hg%2Fen...](https://code.google.com/p/go/source/browse?repo=text#hg%2Fencoding)

If you're expecting to get data in other other encodings you could put together some detection and transformation at the point of ingress and convert to UTF-8 encoded text for the rest of your application.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Julia uses the same strategy, but indexing an utf8 string returns the rune rather than the byte. If you try to get a byte in the middle of a rune representation, it raises an error.

The `next(string, index)` function used for the iteration protocol works like the `utf8.DecodeRuneInString()` shown in the example, but it returns the next valid index rather than the character width.

<comment><USER8> Rust has a similar approach (in that it raises an error when you attempt to do something not on a rune boundary), although `string[index]` still returns a byte rather than a character but strong static typing means that it isn't a huge problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Coming from C# it seems odd that a string would index on byte and not char(rune) and that it is essentially a read only byte array. If you wanted a byte array why wouldn't you use a byte array, why have strings and byte arrays?

In C# you can encode/decode strings to byte arrays based on your desired encoding, but a string is composed of characters, it's in memory representation is abstracted.

Is this a performance or zero copy thing? Not having to encode/decode to get to the bytes?

<comment><USER10> As someone's already pointed out, C# strings are composed of UTF-16 codepoints not characters - this means that if you have a character outside the basic multilingual plane it'll be represented as two codepoints using a surrogate, and the character count in the C# string will be wrong (the same is true of Java and JS for example)

That's a hard problem, and avoiding it in every situation would require scanning the strings for surrogates beforehand, when you might never need to know that information. Go makes it explicit that knowing the exact character position and string length in characters comes at a cost.

There's a good discussion of this on Tim Bray's blog: [http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/04/26/UTF](http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/04/26/UTF)

<comment><USER11> Just for fun, here's Go handling a char outside the BMP (😃, U+1F603):

[http://play.golang.org/p/qg7POYAAOL](http://play.golang.org/p/qg7POYAAOL)

<comment><USER12> [https://github.com/mnemnion/emojure/](https://github.com/mnemnion/emojure/)

You can even export them without Capital letters ;-)

<comment><USER11> I did run into at least one eminently reasonable use of how Go source is defined to be in UTF-8. Comments in the crypto libs just use math symbols where they're handy, like this in crypto/rsa[1]:

      // Check that de ≡ 1 mod p-1, for each prime.
      // This implies that e is coprime to each p-1 as e has a multiplicative
      // inverse. Therefore e is coprime to lcm(p-1,q-1,r-1,...) =
      // exponent(ℤ/nℤ). It also implies that a^de ≡ a mod p as a^(p-1) ≡ 1
      // mod p. Thus a^de ≡ a mod n for all a coprime to n, as required.

Sadly, the spec requires identifiers to be just Unicode letters and digits, so we will never experience the power and glory of emoji function names in Go.

[1] [http://golang.org/src/pkg/crypto/rsa/rsa.go](http://golang.org/src/pkg/crypto/rsa/rsa.go)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That blog post is an example of good technical writing.

<comment><USER14> After following the development of Go for awhile, I've come to idolize Rob Pike's terse, accurate communication style.

<comment><USER15> Check out his books too: The Unix Programming Environment and The Practice of Programming. Both co-authored by Brian Kernighan.</comment></comment></comment>


Hone your tone of voice: A linguistic perspective on how to talk to customers - <AUTHOR> https://unbabel.com/blog/tone-of-voice-linguistic-perspective/ <comment><USER2> We have too much of this saccharin sweet but vacuous tech support. What you really need to do is.

1) Be polite even when they are not. (The authors approach of doing this makes you sound like a teenager trying to take the car on a date, skip it)

2) hear what the customer is really saying not what you think they are saying. Don't immediately bucket them.

3) Calm the customer down. "Yes Ma'am, I don't know why it isn't working but we are going to fix it. I just need to ask a few questions..."

4) Don't waste the customer's time. This is a big one. Your staff should not be constantly calling for a manager. They should be trained before they go online.

Everything else is just trying to cover for the fact that you can't seem to do your job. If you are rude, gruff, and speak with a funny accent they will love you if you solve their problem.

<comment><USER3> I started off my career in tech as a support technician - worked on both end user/consumer product and business/corporate client support.

I can say without a doubt #3 and #4 are the absolute most important things a support technician can do - and do _fast_ after answering the call.

I had so many irate customers - just like my wife is with me when it's her turn to call the phone company(!). The second they believed I was going to fix their problem _and_ not waste their time - we would be on the same team.

Corollary - try hard to never, ever, EVER pass a customer to someone else. I would tell them my name, their case number and tell them if they call back to ask for me ..and then more or less demand in the case notes that the next technician pass them back to me (caveat: as long as the customer was ok with that).

I look so fondly on my time doing tech support - but geeze was it rough emotionally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting point about using a person's name. I've always associated that with a slightly patronising manner, which makes me wonder what're they after.

An old boss used to drive me up the wall, as any vaguely difficult conversation he wanted to have would be peppered with my name - it can easily go too far and rapidly become false

<comment><USER5> I absolutely hate people using my name in conversation. As you say, it feels patronizing, and to me it also feels fake and manipulative, especially in the context of customer support.

It's interesting to me how much advice about communication involves using a person's name. Do most people like hearing their name dropped frequently in conversations with strangers or near-strangers? Or is this one of those weird unproven "truths of the business" that get repeated because they sound good rather than because there's hard data backing up their effectiveness?

(I am not saying no hard data exists; I've just never seen any and the anecdotes I've heard indicate the opposite, so I'm curious.)

<comment><USER6> Using a name feels even more unnatural when done incorrectly. For example, I get this all the time:

 _I would be happy to help you with this Mr. Nick_

I have no idea why this happens — are there countries in which people call each other "Mr. [first name]"?

<comment><USER7> This seems to be common in the Philippines, home to many call centers. Many Filipinos are also prone to overusing Sir, to the point that one person I worked with used to refer to my colleagues as Sir John, Sir Bob etc (and no, this was not tongue in cheek).

<comment><USER8> I'm from the Philippines. I can't say 'Mr. First Name' is common but I totally agree that 'Sir' is overused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe it's just me, but 'negative' politeness has always been my default conversation mode. I didn't even know what it was until a few months ago, or that people studied 'politeness strategies'. Being deferential with words leaves open the opportunity for dialogue, and doesn't bite you in the ass if you're mistaken. Of course, it can be appropriate to be more direct in certain circumstances, and tone can change the perception of modal statements from sincere to patronizing very easily. Still, to me, it seems like people are more willing to seriously consider direct statements when it's not your usual attitude. "This person is very careful about making definite statements, and they seem very confident about what they just said". When what you want isn't to manipulate people but to have them open their mind to the possibility that what you're saying is true, that train of thought (and I know this exists because I've thought so myself several times) is very valuable.

<comment><USER10> This attorney Wayne Jarvis's approach.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRzxJZrm3iU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRzxJZrm3iU)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> In the cultural context where I come from (Estonia), using ones name while NOT being friends is a sure way to sound very passive aggressive. Doing this in a formal dialogue pretty much guarantees that the person on the receiving end will consider the other party to be very much a dick. I am pretty sure that it's not just Estonia, but Finland too.

<comment><USER12> Yep, I'm from Finland and to me, using a person's name in a potential conflict situation just feels like trying to make the problem personal. In the article's examples, like "I'm not entirely sure we can do that, Liam", I hear an unspoken "you fool" at the end.

<comment><AUTHOR> That reminds me of "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _What's the real meaning behind the words they're using? ... Put yourself in their shoes and understand the problem you need to solve._

I've found it to my great advantage to let the customer know that _I can_ (hold the ability), and that _I will_ (choose to) help them. This needs to be spoken as well as using the correct tone. Nothing is more frustrating to a client than to feel like they are not being heard. Of course, you have to back this up with actions.

Sometimes I have a customer who is really a trouble maker, I tend to shut them down quickly because I've dealt with their type before. But I feel like there must be a better way. I know it'll end the same (they won't agree with my pricing, terms, support, yadda) but maybe a better parting of ways.

<comment><USER14> Following the 80/20 on everything. You'll get 80% of your business from 20% of your customers, and you'll get 80% of all problems from 20% of your customers. Figure out who is in the 20% of problem customers who isn't in the 20% of profit customers, and fire them. Even better if you can refer them to your competitors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is a POV baked into these suggestions that isn't called out. I would retitle the article "10 ways to Weaken your tone of voice."

All of these are ways to make your voice less direct, less straightforward, more deferent.

These can be good tools in your toolbox, but success in using them is entirely context-dependent.

<comment><USER16> If you are customer-facing then you are not necessarily in a position of power. However, I've found success in getting the customer to listen and take action based on my recommendations by mirroring the mentioned tone and vocab. In this manner you essentially assume an indirect position of power without offending the customer.

I think the author is writing from this context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The number of times I've been faced with condescending comments from developers of mobile and web apps here and on reddit is pretty amazing to me. The presumption of cluelessness on the part of most developers faced with any kind of non-praise feedback is stark and amazing. I can understand why it exists -- since the degree of cluelessness out there is quite amazing -- but it's pretty much anathema to anything in good customer service.

 _Could you just_

Sorry, but that phrase is _not_ necessarily softer. It can also be quite harsh!

<comment><USER18> > Could you just

Yeah, that's a really bad example - the "just" adds a tone of impatience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> What this article misses is adapting diction to the customer (at least in non offensive ways.) For example, in my business I deal with a lot of mental health professionals that tend to use a lot more bigger words. I match my word choices to their own diction and tone, "educated collegues conversing." While when I am dealing with therapy clients, it's more variable: For a customer that uses words common in the South (such as y'all,) I will flow with that, for European customers, I become more clear and deliberate with my word choices, as an example. Having been a long term expat, that ability to adapt English diction to the audience has been invaluable — just don't be patronizing or rude obviously. Just match the other person and stay within their vocabulary and diction comfort level. That's very powerful and it works.

</comment><comment><USER20> Most of my irritation with customer service here in India arises out of pure and unbridled stupidity, or dishonesty, particularly with some notorious companies.

I remember a few years ago I wanted to cancel my internet connection and the agent argued that I had a bill due, which I hadn't paid because I was told I didn't need to pay until their services were restored (their fiber was damaged for several months).

Eventually I said I didn't want to cancel, but I wanted to know the status of my complaint, which I had filed a few months prior when the fiber was damaged. The agent said that there was a record of me confirming that my connectivity had been restored (an obvious lie or fabrication).

Then I said I wanted to issue a new complaint that my connection wasn't working.

At this point, almost seamlessly I was told that my area had no connectivity due to a fiber cable that was damaged a few months ago.

That is around the time when I become irate, at which point I was begrudgingly told that payment was not needed.

<comment><USER21> My experience with Airtel has been that a well-written and firm email describing my intention for a complaint is very effective. Also a simple "I will not pay for your service if you don't resolve this" gets you very far with customer service.

I'm waiting for the rumored Jio fiber thing to fuck up Airtel's business, just like they did with the mobile services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The article raises some good points, but it's worth considering that even if you take note of everything written here and everything ever written about striking the right tone of voice as a customer service agent, you may still end up sounding patronising, repetitive or dismissive. Because your communication will often be surrounded by some wider context. Consumer services aimed at less technical customers are well-known for this sort of thing - addressed them by name? Check. Sprinkled in some positive words? Check. But none of that matters if you've gotten their name wrong or are replying in exactly the same tone to every customer in a public forum. Your attempts at improving communications just end up making people frustrated.

<comment><USER23> Know. Your. Audience.

It's amazing how often people forget this detail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> As someone working in a customer facing role for a lot of my tech career, most of it is sound advice. The one missing item that isn't is deescalating urgent situations by not assigning blame during the interaction.

</comment><comment><USER25> Realistically customer service is done by a team rather than one individual and the members of that team will vary in ability. Tactics are therefore needed to get the company tone of voice right regardless of who is on the phones and tickets on a given day.

Customer service need support too. If a customer service team is well supported and not considered lowest of the low within the company then they will naturally project a more confident and enthusiastic tone than if they are not supported, not considered worthy and seemingly at a never ending queue of work that can never be done to their own or the customers satisfaction.

How to achieve this? A high level of automation helps. A contact us page that has relevant boxes is a good start, if you know that they will need something sent to them in the post or proof of purchase details then you can ask for that up front and have an automated response that puts their ticket on hold emailing them for missing details. These emails can be in a template where the tone of voice is well considered and polite, not the text speak of a busy customer service agent.

Reducing time on the phone is also important, if you need to send a code to someone, e.g. a coupon code for goodwill reasons, then you can make that code a simple mix of letters and numbers that take less time to dictate over the phone, unambiguous (no '1's, 'l's) and you can also embed a digit that the customer service can easily check for validity. 'A23S45J' will be easier to dictate than 'XJWR-TYWE-RE3T-TTT3', taking a lot less than half the time. Furthermore, the 'A' in 'A23S45J' could be the code for January and 'S' \+ 'J' could be the initials of that particular customer service agent, so, in aggregate you know who in the team is giving out the freebees (or converting angry customers into happy ones).

Supporting the customer service team also requires having good answers, so if you have a duff product and lots of people complaining about it then you don't want to have the customer service team taking the customer side and 'going rogue' against the company in off-piste ways. Or, on the flipside, having the customer service team getting angry with the customers in this unsolvable situation.

There also needs to be useful metrics, 'quality circles' to make sure that new areas of complaint can be solved in a structured manner and also some mechanism for feedback from the support desk to other company departments, e.g. design. It is no good if the guys in design take six months to learn of a new product flaw.

The more you can get the customer service team to feel that they are winning and are valued then the more confident and enthusiastic they will be. This tone will naturally be projected to customers and, if you get that right then there is no reason for a formerly angry customer to not right a rave review, to become a fan of the product and for their online review to be valued to the customer service team as well as to other potential customers.

As for using the customer's name, if a customer service agent is on top of their game, i.e. enthusiastic and confident rather than overwhelmed, then they will be far more inclined to develop a personal 'bond' with the customer to solve their problem and use their name as a matter of course. It should be a pleasure to pick up the phone in less than three rings for a customer service agent rather than phones ringing off the hook with every call prefaced by fear and dread.

If problems can't be solved then no amount of couched faux language and name dropping will help the situation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, that's almost another article on itself. Great inputs!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Solve. My. Fucking. Problem. Now.

I bought your product or service. Possibly out of choice. Very likely not. It's failed. That's on you. It's often failed multiple times / repeatedly.

Don't waste my time. Don't patronise me. And fix the fucking problem.

<comment><USER21> Sometimes the customer is wrong and it's not an issue with the service. And sometimes the customer is rude. I won't expect any human being to accept rude behavior from anybody.

<comment><USER26> Organisations are often _systemically rude_ , whether by evolution or design. This is not occult knowledge.

And not all organisations are bad at customer support. I'm also aware that solutions aren't always immediately forthcoming. But it should be possible to move toward resolution on a continuous track, respecting the customer's tiime, intelligence (if indicated), and humanity.

Endless holds, bureaucratic busywork, front-line incompetence, inability to retain state on aan issue, etc., are all failures.

Counterexamples: Apple will schedule support calls or call back rather than keep customers on hold. Various no-hasssle return or exchange policies reduce customer risk or aapprehension. I frequently find far more competence among field techs than phone support, even in notorious areas such as residential / SOHO telecoms, as the techs directly interface with both equipment and customers. I've known enterprise software and hardware vendors who go all-out in ensuring customer satisfaction (though you frequently pay up front for this).

Invert these instances, and you'll find what I was calling out above.

And very little of the competence has to do with voice-honing. _It comes from knowing how to do the fucking job and being authorised and expected to do just that._

It means training, retaining, equipping, respecting, and rewarding support staff for doing just this.

And not resorting to cheap, manipulative, ineffective, gimmicks.</comment></comment></comment>


Scraping Tinder selfies to make a dataset for AI experiments - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/28/someone-scraped-40000-tinder-selfies-to-make-a-facial-dataset-for-ai-experiments/ <comment><USER2> > _"I have often been disappointed," he writes of other facial data sets. "The > datasets tend to be extremely strict in their structure, and are usually too > small. Tinder gives you access to thousands of people within miles of you. > Why not leverage Tinder to build a better, larger facial dataset?"_

This guy sounds like a caricature of the exact kind of socially unaware techie who blithely implements dystopian-powering software, because having data and writing code is all that matters apparently. Privacy law admittedly isn't the simplest concept but you have to wonder how blissfully solipsistic someone has to be to write a simple script that scrapes proprietary data without asking himself, "this is so easy, I wonder why no one else has had this idea?"

And then he released the data under CC0, just to add insult to injury by making CC look unethical.

<comment><USER3> CC aside (which I'm not sure he has the right to release Tinder's data under any arbitrary license of his choosing, CC or otherwise), I'm actually ok with security and privacy vulnerabilities being openly exposed in this way. Some random hacker in his garage figures out how to do it and just does, and makes it completely public. The general public is so complacent about this stuff, it feels like events like this, or the fappening, motivate them far more than most advocacy does, while doing far less harm than a govt agency using it in secret could.

<comment><USER4> Now I feel bad for doing this exact thing with Tinder to create a data-set for determining age based on facial features...

At least I didn't publicize it after and removed it when I was done

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a serious ethical violation in my opinion. Like the sjsu student in that article, I am extremely uncomfortable with people of suspect moral compas analyzing my face without my consent. As a Bay Area frequent user of tinder, I do actually feel violated. Only one of my photos is public on my profile but with that you can find my name, my college, and then using basic data engineering you can find my phone number and address. Using face recognition you could theoretically scour the web for nudes or suspect information and stalk, blackmail or worse. I hope someone drops the hammer on this person to send a message and prevent future occurrences of this

<comment><USER6> I do not believe that it would be possible to prevent this sort of behavior by force. Any script kiddie could pull this off, and there are more born every day. Some of them barely even understand Western values, let alone have an incentive to value them.

Rather than (edit: in addition to) relying on protection, we should rely on personal safety practices. Using our own portraits as avatars may have been a mistake, in hindsight. I will recommend to my friends, that they teach their children to use a photo of their favorite toy or something, instead of their own face.

<comment><USER7> Tinder is very cut throat. The whole social network values people based on their appearances. When I was single I had written a bot on their v1 API when Tinder was first on app store. I was curious of their security and social dynamics. No intent to release anything in public.

I had then created 5 different profiles of same picture, with different shades of skin color. Interesting results. I came to the conclusion that tinder wasn't for me. I had to try good ol' face to face interactions.

I'm sure Tinder and snapchat are a trove of data to help study the science of human mating. Releasing a dataset online is crazy although I wonder what would happen if tinder got hacked and their data published on bittorrent like the fapgate with celebrities that happened a while ago.

A security disaster like that is just waiting to happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am still waiting for someone to scrape all the images of naked people on reddit/imgur and do some classification based on the subreddit from which the image comes from. (For those who don't know: a lot of porn subreddits are _highly_ specific to a certain topic which might help for classification)

<comment><USER9> That is not the same case morally as Tinder because photos posted on Reddit are _public_ and have no expectation of privacy. (also, it's not technically complex to get the image URLs from the Reddit data dumps, albeit getting the images themselves _will_ likely hit a ToS violation)

<comment><USER10> Really? Does this apply even if the photo is posted without the consent of photographer or subject?

(because we already had that, and it was a fiasco)

<comment><USER9> I said not-the-same-case; the legality is still incredibly complicated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Data set no longer exists, Tinder probably sent a C&D. I did something similar with FB a while ago -- scraped all photos of people that "Liked" a certain topic. It's no longer possible.

Definitely feels wrong having such easy access to people's pictures; it leads to interesting questions: is your face PII? Do you have ownership rights to your face? What about facial recognition algorithms that use pictures you upload to FB, Instagram, Tinder, etc. to generate, e.g., Haar cascades?

<comment><USER12> Basic copyright protections mean you have zero rights to random photos you grab from some internet service. It's probably ok to just download them, but doing _anything_ with them creates a derivative work which you cannot distribute without permission.

My point is, this kind of thing is already illegal.

<comment><USER11> What about services that use my face for things like facial recognition (without explicit consent)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Question unrelated to the article, but related to that link: is anyone else developing a knee-jerk reaction to just leaving a web site the moment they ask you to turn ad-block off?

<comment><USER14> I used to, but now I disable Javascript by default and only enable it on websites that demonstrably benefit from it. The result is, the ad-block blocking scripts never run.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Let's not forget that pictures like this are used for social engineering attacks in domains ranging from finance to prostitution to blackmail. I honestly don't care about the researcher (assuming he doesn't release the data set publicly). It's the responsibility of Facebook, Tinder, and similar sites which profit from such images, to go to extreme measures to protect them even if it incurs significant costs such as counter scraping.

</comment><comment><USER16> Nowadays scraping is the Uber of data collection . You will be fraught with legal problems with the dataset and people will block you if you become a big enough problem.

<comment><USER17> "you wouldn't download an image"

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Am I the only one who is greatly disturbed by the ethics of this? I don't think he had those user's consent, nor permission from Tinder.

</comment><comment><USER19> Experiments without informed consent. While Tinder _might_ have something in their T&C which requires that they're allowed to look at the data, it isn't ethical for third parties to scrape and use that same data without informed consent.

Interestingly though, I wouldn't think the same of an instagram scrape. Probably because insta is public by design, while tinder is expected to be local, requires a login and ostensibly is for the purpose of looking for companionship.

<comment><USER20> > Probably because insta is public by design

There's a difference between public and public domain. Just because something is public, doesn't mean you are free to use it as you wish. You _may_ still require permission to use it for tasks beyond the originally intended purpose.

<comment><USER19> See, I agree and disagree with that. People on tinder are probably reasonably expecting that their pictures are used for meeting up with locals for the purposes of dating. The debate about whether this is a reasonable expectation isn't really what I'm on about. (Obviously, as techie types, we have a different understanding of how private this stuff really is)

On instagram, it is a broadcasting and publishing platform and it is very clear that by posting a photo, on a non-private-account the photo can be seen and generally browsed by others.

A researcher who conducts a study of "looking at" 400k public instagram photos is doing a different thing than spoofing their location and auto-swiping through 400k lonely hearts.

Obviously people disagree with this since I'm getting downvotes for my position. This is certainly my opinion But I do feel like running a study against one isn't unethical while the other is.

Of course, that should be caveated that "republishing" the scraped data is unreasonable in both cases (IMO). I also think things like this artist [http://fortune.com/2015/05/26/instagram-copyright- art/](http://fortune.com/2015/05/26/instagram-copyright-art/) are reprehensible... but that's art, not science and doesn't actually have the same expectation to abide by ethical principles.

<comment><USER20> > On instagram, it is a broadcasting and publishing platform and it is very > clear that by posting a photo, on a non-private-account the photo can be > seen and generally browsed by others.

The keyword is published for "browsing" and other things which are codified. You can't use it for mining data without consent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is an ugly thread. Just a heads up =)

</comment><comment><USER22> Pretty tasteless array name in there: `for hoe in hoes:` which exposes the base mentality of the coder.

<comment><USER23> Well, it's probably more showing of a sense of humor.

<comment><USER11> I'm pretty liberal about stuff like this and I honestly think it's pretty tasteless also.

I've often said that the sexism issue in tech is overblown (due to various agendas at work) but when you see shit like this (especially in the context of Tinder, a dating app), it's just hard to deny :/</comment></comment></comment>


TC is 1 week behind on announcing crunchies nominees - <AUTHOR> http://crunchies2008.techcrunch.com/2008/12/15/crunchies-tickets-are-live-voting-will-launch-later-this-week/

<comment><USER2> You just submit everything blind on the TechCrunch RSS, don't you?</comment>


New transistors: An alternative to silicon and better than graphene - <AUTHOR> http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-transistors-alternative-silicon-graphene.html

<comment><USER2> Wow, never thought I'd see molybdenum in this context. When I worked at a light-aircraft production plant, I saw molybdenum all over the place; from drill bits to grease. Some parts were made from alloys containing molybdenum. Anything that was on the outside of the aircraft, and needed to be high- strength usually contained molybdenum. MoS2 was also in a lot of the grease we used. It has an interesting failure condition. Even if you overheat it, a small coating remains, which can help extend the ability of the component to function well outside of normal parameters. This is a really good thing in aircraft.

One thing they didn't mention in the article is heat resistance. Mo is fare more heat tolerant. Far, far better than Si. I know there is a difference in melting point and the efficient transmission of electrons, but given the other qualities of Mo, I'd think we could push chips made from this material a little further.</comment>


Why Software Projects Fail - <AUTHOR> https://beyondvital.com/blog/why-software-projects-fail

<comment><USER2> Beyondvital! Great post Jon.</comment>


UserBenchmark gets banned from major subreddits - <AUTHOR> https://www.notebookcheck.net/UserBenchmark-gets-banned-from-major-subreddit-due-to-drama-generation.461875.0.html <comment><USER2> UB stores passwords in plaintext, and emails them around.

[https://plaintextoffenders.com/post/183587319928/userbenchma...](https://plaintextoffenders.com/post/183587319928/userbenchmarkcom- software-popular-pc-performance)

[https://github.com/plaintextoffenders/plaintextoffenders/blo...](https://github.com/plaintextoffenders/plaintextoffenders/blob/master/offenders.csv#L8)</comment>


Bitcoin is an Inflationary Currency - <AUTHOR> http://mywintermute.wordpress.com/

<comment><USER2> Even though mining will continue for the indefinite future, the total amount of BTC that will ever be circulated is capped. And the rate at which new coins are mined will decrease dramatically in the next few years - to the point where they will have little impact on what is already in circulation.

<comment><USER3> I think the point is, it will behave the same as an inflationary currency for the next century. Many new people to bitcoin do not realise this.</comment></comment>


Why I Fired My Father From the Family Business - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/112437/why-i-fired-my-father-from-the-family-business

<comment><USER2> Not _exactly_ the same but in an episode of Mixergy last week Gary Vaynerchuk spilled the beans on how he let Corkd "go" because of tensions between him and his father. So he sorta fired the business from the family, I guess. Worth a listen.</comment>