Oregon's Tsunami Risk - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/oregons-tsunami-risk-between-the-devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea <comment><USER3> As bad as it sounds for the coast, if/when the big one hits, a tsunami will be the least of the region's problems.

That's because a magnitude 9 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone is predicted to have effects well inland. E.g. most of Portland's bridges won't survive. The recently constructed Tilikum Crossing is up to modern earthquake standards, probably the new Sellwood Bridge, but the older bridges aren't. Those older bridges include all the interstate highway bridges.

How long can the Portland Metro area survive without electricity and without water and with much of the road infrastructure unusable because of damaged bridges?

A strong earthquake along the subduction zone can also affect the entire Washington Coast and Seattle. It could also affect Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia.

Does anyone believe that FEMA could cope with a disaster like that? I don't. If and when the big one hits, a lot of people will be in for a lot of hurt.

This is generally known in the area. E.g. my daughter learned about it in a high school geology class. The high risk area is "anything west of I-5". But, as the article points out, the politicians have opted for Gollum's "I'm not listening" attitude.

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

<comment><USER4> It wouldn't be on FEMA at that point. You would have the nearest Carrier group and the Army/national guard moving in to provide support. And, as disappointing as this is to say, because you're an actual US state it would not be anything like how we treated Puerto Rico.

<comment><USER5> > because you're an actual US state it would not be anything like how we > treated Puerto Rico.

Tell that to New Orleans.

<comment><USER6> Yep, it's not about statehood, it's about something else, something "skin deep"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is from the 2015 Pulitzer winning author of "The Next Big One", about the eventual mega-earthquake in the Pacific Northwest.

[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really- big-...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one)

<comment><USER8> This new article is best read after reading the 2015 article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Short term economic gains now, with deferred death-tolls later, sounds like business as usual then when it comes to earthquake risks.

<comment><USER10> What economic gains are to be had?

<comment><USER11> I imagine EdwardDiego is referencing the economic gains made by not spending the funds to appropriately prepare for the disastor...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Cannon Beach is the "Goonies" beach, and it's spectacular.

This type of regulation feels ominously similar to the choices made in areas like Paradise California, which burned last year. Too little respect for the urban-wildland interface.

It's hard to truly appreciate the scale of natural events until you're in the middle of one. Even a mild earthquake is a vivid reminder of the scale.

<comment><USER13> My dad's family lived in Cannon Beach when the tsunami of '64 hit. It innundated downtown, destroying some buildings, and tore others off their foundations. My dad was home when the house floated away...

And that was caused by a quake in Alaska.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If building tsunami-resistant buildings is too expensive, are there alternative options? E.g. mandate that everybody has easy access to an enormous ball of expanded polypropylene, with a hollow center and a tunnel big enough for entry. EPP is very tough and impact resistant, so it might save the occupant while it's floating in the tsunami. I don't know if it would actually work, but has anybody even studied this type of idea?

<comment><USER15> Wouldn't good ol' fashioned fallout shelter technology suffice, save for a few use case specific alterations?

You won't be underwater forever. How long does it take for a tsunami to recede?

<comment><USER16> There's material design, shape and reinforcements to consider, but a tube would probably be a decent start. Requiring such a think, along with a alert system (loud sirens/speakers) in the region should probably also be a requirement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> general background info [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_subduction_zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_subduction_zone)

An important detail is:

``` forty-one subduction zone earthquakes on the Cascadia subduction zone in the past 10,000 years, suggesting a general average earthquake recurrence interval of only 243 years ```

With the last being in the year 1700 which puts the next firmly in the overdue with respect to average interval but not beyond the range of observed variance.

Infrastructure related folks in the area might want to look into [https://www.shakealert.org/](https://www.shakealert.org/)

<comment><USER18> The average is surprisingly unimportant for rare event detection like this. The San Andreas fault, for instance, is overdue by that logic. But it could easily be decades away from another big one.

Coincidentally Wikipedia suggests the San Andreas daily erupted today?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've lived in Cannon Beach, OR. And while I respect the quality of this Journalists work (she did win a Pulitzer), the perpetrated fear-mongering on this topic is disappointing.

Millions of people live on or near fault lines, yet we don't see calls to prevent building Fire/Police/Hospitals simply because "they would perish too."

The Oregon Coast is no exception. Those who live there, service personnel included, do so because they love the region, despite being reminded daily with all the "Tsunami Warning" signs up and down the PCH 101.

<comment><USER20> Isnt it a little different? The area threatened by tsunami maybe be less than a mile from the coast. If there's a nearby hill, less. It should not be a tremendous burden to keep your hospital a mile inland, or a hundred feet up the hill. Those who choose to live in the area can make a plan to briskly walk uphill when they feel tremors or hear sirens.

The area threatened by a major earthquake may extend for hundreds of miles and elevation is no defense. We have no choice but to locate public facilities in that area.

<comment><USER19> Risk of forest fires are far more imminent. More people are prepared to run _down_ the hill than up on any given day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The fact of the matter is that people, despite knowing the tsunami risks, have decided to live in the tsunami-inundation zone. These people probably should also have fair access to public services. I know some writers in some media circles tend to think that government should be a heavy handed nanny. But even when people make a supposedly bad decision, like living on the Oregon coast, they are still tax paying citizens who deserve access to the services they pay for.

<comment><USER22> A lot of the inundation zone is fairly narrow, in many places the mountains get fairly close to the ocean. I would bet that in most areas it is possible to have public services within a reasonable distance while locating those services on ground that is high enough to be [relatively] safe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> For the curious here's a tsunami inundation/evac map of the Pacific Northwest coast: [http://nvs.nanoos.org/TsunamiEvac](http://nvs.nanoos.org/TsunamiEvac)

</comment><comment><USER24> The good news is that Oregon, according to the article, also gave up on its climate change bill. This means that many of those coastal buildings might already be under water by time a tsunami strikes, avoiding the problem.

<comment><USER25> "Gave up" in this case consists of a certain party's legislative membership fleeing to Idaho to deny quorum.

<comment><USER26> >"Gave up" in this case consists of a certain party's legislative membership fleeing to Idaho to deny quorum.

Umm... no. They returned in time to continue the session. It didn't pass because there weren't enough _Democrats_ who supported the bill.

>The move seemingly ended a fight that has strained relationships in the statehouse since the first days of the session. HB 2020 would create an overall cap on Oregon's greenhouse gas emissions and would charge companies for their pollution.

>But the bill saw backlash from industries that felt added costs would put them at a competitive disadvantage, and from citizens who chafed at an expected increase in gas and energy costs. _Ultimately the pushback was apparently enough to convince three Democratic senators to oppose the bill_ , meaning it would likely not have enough votes to pass.

[https://www.opb.org/news/article/as-republicans-return- senat...](https://www.opb.org/news/article/as-republicans-return-senate-moves- at-blistering-pace/)

 _Edit:_ Probably violating HN guidelines, but: I provided a reliable source, yet am being heavily downvoted without any counterpoint or counterreference. What's the issue with my comment?

<comment><USER27> I don't get why they fled the state then. Don't even put it up for a vote?

<comment><USER26> >I don't get why they fled the state then. Don't even put it up for a vote?

It's not an either or. The bill may have been one of the motives to flee. The reality in the end, though, was that their tactic didn't defeat the bill. They came back before the end of the session. There was a quorum, but the Democrats realized they didn't have enough votes.

My point is that claiming there wasn't a quorum, given how productive the end of the session was[0], is simply false.

[0]They passed 100 bills in the last two days.

[https://www.opb.org/news/article/oregon-legislative- session-...](https://www.opb.org/news/article/oregon-legislative-session- concludes-final-day-sine-die-house-senate/)

<comment><USER22> You're getting downvoted on both comments because you're being disingenuous and partisan. The GOP senators absolutely refused to return to Salem until they were positive the bill would not pass if they allowed quorum. They would have stayed away indefinitely if necessary.

Does not bode well for the future of our democracy. I guess we will see what the future holds.

<comment><USER23> Defensively upvoted BeetleB because the comment is literally and factually true and I see nothing disingenuous or partisan about it, nor would I venture into such intent-divining, mind-reading territory. You're correct about the intent of the Republican embargo, but your point is about what would have happened. BeetleB's comment is about what did happen. If we're all champions of rational discussion on HN then surely there's room for that much subtlety, not to mention plain facts. Not enough Democrats supported the bill; they declared it dead; Republicans decided in light of that, they could stop their stonewalling (and in my opinion, dereliction of duty). It's a technicality, and it's technically true.

<comment><USER28> BeetleB is being disingenuous, the GOP fled and would not return until they were sure the bill died. There were other things that needed voting on- the climate bill was publicly dropped so that the missing senators would come back and they could vote on other issues. Putting the blame for this bill failing to pass on anyone but these senators is disingenuous by omission.

<comment><USER23> It's all part of the story. Talking about the Niña doesn't mean I absolve the Pinta and the Santa María from whatever Columbus' expedition did. It does probably mean I'm talking about the Niña at the moment and am not terribly interested in the blame game. (No one else wants a time-out from that tedium huh?)

OK well if we're going to play the blame game, and we don't like disingenuously omitting things, then why shield from blame those 3 Democrats who switched sides? Why shield from blame the leadership who could've stayed the course, maybe found a way to wait the Republicans out forever? (It's not like "rules" or "procedures" apply anymore, so why not?)

You never know, someone you claim is a Republican partisan could just be the most disappointed liberal you ever saw, fed up with how weak and ineffectual their _supposed_ representatives in various bodies are, even despite having majorities in those bodies. Am I automatically a Republican for saying something like "Obama isn't liberal _enough_?" Of course not. And those who claim that criticism of the leadership is disloyal/traitorous share that trait with fascists.

<comment><USER26> >You never know, someone you claim is a Republican partisan could just be the most disappointed liberal you ever saw, fed up with how weak and ineffectual their supposed representatives in various bodies are, even despite having majorities in those bodies.

Or, you know, just someone who values the truth. :-)

There doesn't have to be a complex narrative behind my actions, and nor do I have to be on either the Democrats or the Republican's side to point out when a statement is false.

<comment><USER22> If you value the truth why did you exclude so much of it?

<comment><USER26> Here is the first comment in the thread:

>The good news is that Oregon, according to the article, also gave up on its climate change bill.

Here is the next:

>"Gave up" in this case consists of a certain party's legislative membership fleeing to Idaho to deny quorum.

And then came mine:

>Umm... no. They returned in time to continue the session. It didn't pass because there weren't enough _Democrats_ who supported the bill.

And then eventually you ask me:

>If you value the truth why did you exclude so much of it?

The first two comments were clearly omitting an important fact, so I contributed to the conversation by providing _excluded_ truths. Furthermore, my comment implicitly acknowledged that the senators ran away to prevent a quorum, by acknowledging that they returned. In case there was any doubt, I made that _explicit_ in my next comment.

Not to mention that my (initial) comment contained more information, and actually provided a source. And in all these comments criticizing mine, _no one else has even bothered to provide a source to support their claims_.

So what did I exclude, and why am I the one being asked? Why not hold the original commenters to the same standard?

As I said, at the end of the legislative session:

1\. There was quorum.

2\. No one was stalling the bill at that point.

3\. The Democrats chose not to have a vote on the bill because of actions by _their own party members_. Whatever tactics the Republicans initially used to stall the bill, at the end the Democrats contributed to the failure in getting the bill passed.

(For anyone still reading, and confused about my original comments - <USER2> scores were well into the negatives, although they no longer are so.)

<comment><USER27> Can you share where the fact that Democrats didn't support it is documented? I'm open to hearing this is the truth, and I'm also wanting to disprove my assumption this is a Republican talking point. I will definitely read what you provide.

<comment><USER26> >Can you share where the fact that Democrats didn't support it is documented?

It's right in my original comment, with the link:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20355418](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20355418)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> There is something for people outside Oregon to do. Google Maps and hotel booking sites could delist hotels in the inundation zone. (Or at least put a big warning.)

<comment><USER29> Perhaps downvoters could explain why they don't care about keeping tourists safe? This might seem mean, but it's the logical consequence of taking this threat seriously.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe it's google maps taking moral stances. There will be a lot of people who'd like google maps to delist or rename things to suit an agenda, well intentioned or otherwise so it's probably best if google stay out of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not surprising, this governor of ours is pretty lousy.</comment>


America's newest nuclear plant shows why nuclear power is dying in the U.S - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-america-s-newest-nuke-plant-20151011-column.html <comment><USER2> This is my favorite book on the state of atomic energy: [http://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Accidents-Meltdowns- Disasters-M...](http://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Accidents-Meltdowns-Disasters- Mountains/dp/1605986801). The book looks at the history of atomic accidents from an engineering perspective right up to Fukushima. The author is a nuclear engineer and understands the systems he talks about.

Interestingly I came away from a book about atomic disasters being pretty pro nuclear, at least more so than I was before reading the book. Here are my main take aways:

\- The US needs to start back up the waste reprocessing program. Jimmy Carter banned this in the hopes of setting a good example for other countries (one of the byproducts being plutonium). But everyone else continues to process nuclear waste except for the US and it just makes the waste storage problem that much harder. 95% of the fuel that comes out of a rector is harmless U-238. We should only be burying a tiny fraction of what we currently bury.

\- We need to start innovating beyond PWR and BWR reactors. Things like liquid metal fuel reactors have the nice property of not having to worry about them melting down because they are already melted.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'll keep saying nuclear is one of the best technologies we can use for power generation. In addition to the fact that the falures at Fukushima, TMI, and Chernobyl were all caused by HUMANS interfering with engineering plans and systems, or not being trained proeprly (Fukushima designers called for higher seawalls, overrulled; TMI was human error massively compounding a simple mechanical failure which could have been recovered from _; Chernobyl had key safety systems disabled). There are several newer, much safer designs that when used with proper training and engineers being listened to, can provide us with very clean power with stability and land use that solar and wind can 't match. You combine that with wind/solar/water during the day, and you have yourself an amazingly clean power grid that works 24/7.

_ I was 1, living in Pittsburgh. My father was called in among many others to help determine how to recover.

<comment><USER4> The problem is we don't even know what it means to deal with waste for 10,000 years. If the Romans had used nuclear power, we'd still be guarding their waste. And they likely would have put it somewhere really out of the way - like London. If some of the technologies that can transmute waste intro shorter lived stuff come to fruition, fantastic. But until then nuclear power is just the worst kind of deficit spending, kicking the unknown and huge costs way into the future.

<comment><USER5> London wasn't out of the way. Londinium ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londinium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londinium)) was the heart of their administration, the provincial capital, and a commercial center as well, which could merit imperial visits. Romans storing nuclear waste there would make about as much sense as Americans storing nuclear waste in Okinawa or Baghdad or Kabul (that is, none).

Somewhere out of the way then would be like the Sahara, which not coincidentally, is still out of the way; and desert regions are also where it's usually proposed to store waste.

<comment><USER6> I'm actually pretty sure if the U.S. thought it could get away with shipping it's nuclear waste to Kabul, it would do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Last week I sat in a meeting with representatives from half a dozen startups attempting GenIV fission reactors, along with a public utility that's investing in that type of work.

They said their main problem was the NRC. It has regulations designed for large light-water reactors. If you're attempting, say, a small modular molten- salt reactor, you have to pay several hundred million dollars up front for an extensive, detailed design and regulations to fit. Then the NRC makes one binary decision: if you're lucky they approve you, in which case all you have so far is a piece of paper that allows you to build something. If you're unlucky they deny and leave you with nothing.

Not surprisingly, it's hard to find investors in this environment. They said if we at least had a phased approach, so they can get some assurance for investors, it'd be an improvement. Even better would be a more flexible regime similar to Canada's.

<comment><USER8> Why do you think Canada hasn't built a nuclear power reactor in 30 years? [0]

If Canada's system is better, then there must be another problem here that's shared with the US and Canada. Since neither is actively expanding nuclear power.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Canada#Curren...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Canada#Current_power_reactors)

<comment><USER7> Terrestrial Energy is developing a molten salt reactor in Canada.

Meanwhile Terrapower is building their prototype in China, which is developing half a dozen advanced reactor types and currently building a couple dozen conventional reactors.

<comment><USER8> Hmm... one project that's currently in the conceptual design phase, and won't start preparing blueprints until late 2016 (if everything goes as planned).

One exception is hardly a vibrant industry that the US needs to copy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> well four new reactors are being built in the South East, two in South Carolina and two in Georgia. They are scheduled to be online in 2018 and 2019 adding about 1200mw per reactor.

Far from dead they do however show that we aren't even trying to be at the forefront of the technology anymore. While the AP1000 reactors are more modern they are still old school in many senses.

We still need a good solid base power source, renewable sources tend to be highly weather dependent and cover a large area to generate power. It is not reasonable to claim we can store it through batteries to replace the power currently provided by coal, gas, and nuclear. Unless some breakthrough storage means comes out its not going to happen

<comment><USER10> > They are scheduled to be online in 2018 and 2019.

Unfortunately as is universally the case with nuclear construction (see the debacle in the UK as well), both reactors recently announced significant delays of ~18 months and at least an additional billion in cost overruns. There may be an economical way to build nuclear but we clearly don't have it.

[http://www.power-eng.com/articles/2015/05/delays-at- vogtle-v...](http://www.power-eng.com/articles/2015/05/delays-at-vogtle-v-c- summer-still-not-threatening-nuclear-ptc.html)

[http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/energy/2015/03/uti...](http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/energy/2015/03/utility- says-latest-delays-to-georgia-nuclear.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You know, if we hadn't had such a "Nukes are bad, m'kay" moment in the 70s, we wouldn't be limping along with so many old, past-their-prime plants now, and there'd have been more incentive to continue refining designs for nuclear power. What plants we have are less efficient than they could be, and are pushing up against their designed lifetimes.

Damn hippies

<comment><USER12> Wrong. The Cold War was why we built the nucular power stations we did. The uranium in those tens of thousands of nucular weapons came from somewhere - nucular power plants. Electricity was a mere by-product. None of those power plants were viable without there being the aspect of the Cold War imperative.

So it is the war-mongers and not the hippies to blame for whatever happened to nucular power.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, the breeder reactors in the first generation were terrible and not good for much other than making A-bomb material.

That doesn't really have anything to do with the dozens of nuke plants that were canceled in the 70s, at the height of the Cold War, and the virtual (and in some countries, legal) moratorium on new construction that was pushed by anti-nuclear activists. Well-intentioned people dedicated to saving the world made things worse us and held back technological progress at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not a very well informed article, but it starts from a bad premise and just follows it along. The big reveal of _" But flaws in the program were becoming clear: nuclear plants were expensive to build, produced waste that was impossible to dispose of safely and generated power far more expensive than had been projected."_

Is not even wrong, but I don't expect the author to do any research about the costs of nuclear power, nor to track down cost inflators (regulatory delay, post start regulation changes) or disposal methods (reprocessing, vitrification, incineration) or cost per megawatt.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's not dying: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4)

<comment><USER15> Cool, when can I look forward to a power plant using such a design?

<comment><USER16> 10 years and $2-4 billion later, if nothing goes wrong. Which is exactly why nuclear is dead.

<comment><USER17> "... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win..." -JFK

We used to see difficulties like that as a _challenge_ we could overcome, instead of running away in fear of risk.

<comment><USER16> > We used to see difficulties like that as a challenge we could overcome, > instead of running away in fear of risk.

Why build a reactor on earth that isn't cost competitive when you can better use the one in the sky?

It is a challenge. Train Americans to install solar and wind across the country. Install it. Problem solved.

<comment><USER17> See the other posts in this thread, where this has already been covered: _solar and wind are not a replacement for coal_. By rejecting nuclear, you are _choosing_ coal, de facto, for the base load.

Why build a reactor? Because it's _safer_ than solar, and cheaer in the long run. Why do you want a power source that kills more people per kWh?

Nuclear has very low running costs (practically no fuel) and a lot of the startup costs are temporary (new design approval). Intermittent technologies like solar and wind need expensive extra redundency and battery storage. Show me the batteries you are going to use, at a price cheaper than _both_ coal and nuclear, Not some vaporware future technology, something we can buy right now. (the grid isn't a battery, even though most people using solar right now use the grid as if it was).

Nuclear isn't easy or cheap, but it's the _least worst_ method we have for generating power. Other technologies will always have niche uses, of course, but choosing to wait for some mythical future technology to become available is choosing to let coal plants continue polluting the world.

<comment><USER16> > By rejecting nuclear, you are choosing coal, de facto, for the base load.

I'm not. I'm picking natural gas, which while still a fossil fuel, is much cleaner and releases far less CO2 per kwh generated.

Nuclear still takes a decade to build. A decade. I don't have to show you the batteries _today_ , as long as they're built and in production in the next 10 years, _which they will be_. The Tesla Gigafactory will produce 50GWh of battery capacity _per year_ : [http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/corner-office- mar...](http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/corner-office- marketplace/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-future-runs-batteries)

Nuclear isn't the least worst method. Solar, wind, and batteries are the least worst method.

> but choosing to wait for some mythical future technology to become available > is choosing to let coal plants continue polluting the world.

Safe nuclear is this mythical future technology you speak of.

<comment><USER17> > releases far less CO2

That's not a small amount. Nuclear releases 0 CO2.

> 50GWh of battery capacity per year:

Thank you for making my point for me. At that rate, we might have enough battery power (assuming no replacements) in a _century_ or two. We need TWh capacity, not GWh, to change the world over to intermittent generation sources.

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

> Safe nuclear is this mythical future technology you speak of.

Of course not. Nothing is without risk. Do I need to remind you of the problems natural gas can cause?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_San_Bruno_pipeline_explos...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion)

[http://www.news.com.au/world/cctv-footage-shows-natural- gas-...](http://www.news.com.au/world/cctv-footage-shows-natural-gas-plant- explosion/story-fndir2ev-1226535030467)

You have a strange sense of "least worst", given incidentsw like these happen fairly regularly in the oil and gas industries. Nuclear hasn't killed anywhere near this many people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Meanwhile in the UK, Hinkley Point C is in trouble for requiring far too much subsidy (guaranteed price of £90/MWh): [http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2420378/report-hsbc- rai...](http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2420378/report-hsbc-raises- concerns-over-hinkley-point-nuclear-subsidies)

</comment><comment><USER19> I keep hoping we'll try a thorium or non plutonium producing reactor design.</comment>


Which letters are best to guess on Wheel of Fortune? - <AUTHOR> http://daveshort.org/blog/2009/08/19/how-to-win-or-maybe-not-on-wheel-of-fortune/

<comment><AUTHOR> I would have assumed that the show's producers would choose phrases at random, and thus follow normal letter distributions, so as but that doesn't seem to be the case.

</comment><comment><USER2> If you want to give away as little money as possible, remove all occurrences of C D M and A. It seems like that's all anyone ever guesses.</comment>


Apple switches from Bing to Google for Siri web search on iOS and Mac Spotlight - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/25/apple-switches-from-bing-to-google-for-siri-web-search-results-on-ios-and-spotlight-on-mac/ <comment><USER2> Bing is still poor for obscure searches, e.g. today Im searching for other poor folks dealing with ebay's API and the message "Invalid store category name" in quotes. Bing 0, DuckDuckGo 0, Google plenty. Reality is most of my tech searches are like this and hence I can't give up Google, or I can at cost of either my time or my clients. It be nice to have another search engine with depth of Google but nothing comes close, it's like the old days of Yahoo directory vs AltaVista, you could never find the serialz on Yahoo.

<comment><USER3> While Bing was poor for tech related searches in the earlier days, I find it's no longer true. Are you sure it's 0 results on Bing? I get a bunch of relevant-looking results, and they're all different from what Google gave me (just the first page):

[https://www.bing.com/search?q=%22Invalid+store+category+name...](https://www.bing.com/search?q=%22Invalid+store+category+name%22)

Some weird personalization thing? Interested in seeing what others see when they click that link...

<comment><USER4> I get no results following your link.

<comment><USER5> I got no results either, then I decided to switch my country/region to US English which resulted in a lot of results.

Rather strange to localize results so much (especially when the alternatives are showing many results vs. showing no results)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They need to get this switched over for voice activated Siri, no one in the history of the planet has wanted their hands-free, verbal question answered with a screen full of Bing search results...complete waste.

<comment><USER7> 99% of my Siri usage is "Hey Siri, google search for X." I'm happy that they'll be switching.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really wish they'd let me set Siri to search DuckDuckGo.

<comment><USER9> I could almost see Apple buying DuckDuckGo, given that a) Apple cares about their users' privacy, and b) Apple cares about having control over the entire user experience. DuckDuckGo would fit right in with both of those core pieces of Apple (no pun intended).

I don't think it'll actually happen, but it doesn't seem _too_ far-fetched.

<comment><USER10> Apple doesn't care about it's users' privacy. It only ever started making a big deal about privacy when people started criticizing Google for hoarding too much personal info and using it to target ads, which people think is evil. Apple doesn't do these things (it's not Apple's business model), so they began heavily marketing "privacy" as something you'd get from them and not the competition. They make sort of okay attempts at privacy, but since they don't collect a lot, they don't need to do a lot, and many of the things they have done have been weak, easily exploitable, or hacked. "Privacy" for Apple is a marketing term like "unbelievable," "magic," and "revolutionary."

<comment><USER11> Disagree strongly. Apple pays a serious price for their privacy stance, which they would rather not pay. Doing machine learning on-device makes it less effective. Apple's directions aren't as good as they could be because Maps randomly segments trips and masks its users identity. Apple's App Store revenues are lower because they limit how apps can identify users.

This difference is deeper than business models. Compare Google's Hands Free with Apple Pay for example: the same business model (collecting interchange fees) but Apple's approach preserves user's privacy at the cost of some convenience, while Google's is arguably more convenient but informs both Google and the merchant as soon as you enter into the store.

<comment><USER12> Apple Genius just asked me for my username and password to my MacBook so he could type it into some service form for repairs. I don't think asking for that info is really compatible with "we care about privacy"

<comment><USER13> There are a lot of things that employees in the retail stores do that isn't very "Apple". I suspect that's partially from not having as strong culture fit selection in hiring, partially from lack of understanding (when it comes to security, it's a nuanced subject) and partially from the realities of being productive in a retail environment.

<comment><USER12> the form was an official Apple form for repairs. they are going to replace my keyboard and screen. they said they needed the password to test. I asked why not just boot from a USB drive and they said they could not do that. I didn't ask why they couldnt just swap a drive for testing.

they didn't offer this option I had to suggest it but basically I'll have to reformat the drive before taking it in for service.

<comment><USER14> Create a separate account for them, and make sure you have FileVault turned on so your home folder is encrypted.

I've managed to get this concept across to authorised repairers who don't speak english (and I don't speak Thai).

<comment><USER15> Exactly. Or just enable the guest account. That's what I always do.

<comment><USER14> I assume they _might_ want admin permissions honestly.

Having said that, prior to my recent visit (failing mbp fan) my trips had always been for failing/failed discrete graphics (about 5 trips on 2 different generations of 17" mbp) so a reinstall is inevitable because making macOS work properly after a mainboard replacemnt is more work than reinstalling from scratch

<comment><USER16> It so easy to get admin rights on a Mac anyway.

\- Boot into single user mode...

# mount -uw /

# rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

# reboot

Reboot the machine and it walks you through a re-run of setting up the OS X set up assistant, which allows creation of an admin account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why doesn't Apple open their checkbook and start their own search engine. I mean, really open it. It's not like they don't have the money and it's not like this is a logical step.

They can't start small, meaning the need users to train the SE? What else can it be. Of course they can't put live a horrible version...

<comment><USER18> Have you seen their attempts with Maps. I can't imagine how the search would go. They already have so much bad press with Maps, I'm sure they don't want more added to it.

<comment><USER19> Have you used Apple Maps recently? It's not that bad anymore. Just because they had bad press about it 5 years ago doesn't mean the product is still stuck in 2012.

<comment><USER20> From time to time I still accidentally open Apple Maps on my iPhone while searching for some place (tube station, restaurant, store) and almost immediately close it and use Google Maps. Apple Maps is still much worse, the UX is worse and it's much more difficult for me to find things on the map.

Especially tube stations are much more visible on Google maps and I often use tube stations for orientation. On Apple Maps stations are very light color and hard to spot. The same with other landmarks.

I don't understand why they don't do some user testing and find out what UX practices are the reason why Google Maps is so much easier to use and replicate that. They've had years do do this.

<comment><USER21> From my experience it depends a lot on the country. Apple Maps was for me excellent in China or Japan and terrible in Thailand for example.

Both Google and Apple buy basic maps info from third party and the quality depends a lot on the deal they get. For example it is not possible to save area offline in Google Maps for Thailand due to some legal issues I guess.

Google has much more user engagement and stars and recommendations give Google a big advantage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've been trying to use bing as a primary and google as a backup for a few months now. IME, Bing is good 60-70% of the time, but often times I'm exploratory-searching and bing is pretty much useless here. Google, manages to somehow find the right link, especially when I am guessing the keywords. On a side note, Google often tells me theres million+ results (e.g. [https://www.google.com/search?q=SIEMENS+pc+based+automation](https://www.google.com/search?q=SIEMENS+pc+based+automation) ) and then shows me only 10 pages of 10 each. Seems like over the years Google has been pruning the results quite a bit.

<comment><USER23> I went all the way to page 10. At the bottom, it reads :

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 100 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, but that still doesn't show all the supposedly millions of results. Last time I checked it was capped at a few hundred (not this specific query).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Poor Bing, I never thought I'd find myself rooting for Microsoft, but here I am.

</comment><comment><USER25> I have heard from ex-Bing engineers that Microsoft had deprioritized search R&D a couple of years ago. Since then there has been an exodus of engineers from that group.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is great. Maybe I'll start using this feature again.

But, my god, would it kill them to implement a few different search engines and let us choose?

</comment><comment><USER27> I wonder how this will work with apples recent fight against online advertisers. If google does track users but it is all anonymous from the advertisers perspective, does that mean Apple is okay with it?

<comment><USER28> Maybe thats the reason they went back with Google now they didnt want Google to have apple customer data for competitive reason but now that they have a system in place to block that they have gone with the best search engine.

<comment><USER29> I doubt that google would pay $3B for just anonymous search texts. They must be tracking you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Bing gives obvious inferior results when I have been using it

</comment><comment><USER31> Wonder how much Google paid them.

<comment><USER32> $3 billion is the number in the article.

<comment><USER33> With the amount of data Apple has from Siri I'm constantly surprised they don't at least have a stab at building a search engine, possibly one with very fine grained privacy/accuracy controls.

<comment><USER34> I don't think Apple does "fine grained controls"

<comment><USER35> For the specific context of privacy, they have had more fine-grained controls than Android since the inception of the appstore, until release of Android 6.0 where Android AFAIK has caught up.

<comment><USER36> Almost, but still not. There's still no way to revoke android.permission.INTERNET

And if you revoke any permission to any Google apps, all of them will refuse to do shit, and you can't even place calls without giving Google access to your location, body sensors, bluetooth, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Privacy cancelled.

<comment><USER38> read...the....article

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Is this a response to Bill Gates saying he's switching to Android?</comment>


Inori/GPCS4: A Playstation 4 emulator just begin - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Inori/GPCS4 <comment><USER2> It's worth noting that there's another credible PS4 emulator project that's been around for a while: Orbital [1].

I don't bring this up to suggest that GPCS4 isn't important or innovative, but to look at the big picture. Orbital is emulating PS4 at a low level and trying to actually run the PS4 operating system; its first "hype" screenshot was of the recovery mode prompting to push the PS button on the not-yet-emulated controller. Following Orbital, I've felt for a while that there would basically be a two-pronged approach where Orbital enables reverse-engineering and another emulator leverages those insights to enable a higher-performance approach for actually playing games. GPCS4 looks a lot like it could become that other emulator.

[1] [https://github.com/AlexAltea/orbital](https://github.com/AlexAltea/orbital)

<comment><USER3> Just out of curiosity, is it really still an emulator when the processor architecture is the same as the host machine and all you're really doing is breaking through layers of encryption and lockouts? The ps4 runs on an AMD x86 cpu, would the instruction set not be the same as most PCs?

Not that these aren't still cool projects I'm happy to see being worked on, but I always think of emulators as emulating one type of architecture on top of another.

Maybe I'm wrong about all this, but your comment just made me think of this.

<comment><USER4> The PS4 isn't a PC at all though. It's missing a bunch of core components, it has different memory maps and instead of a traditional motherboard chipset, it has a separate ARM controller that does crazy stuff.

Checkout the Fail0ver video on porting Linux to the PS4. It's really interesting.

<comment><USER5> Here's a link to the talk & blog post: [https://fail0verflow.com/blog/2016/console- hacking-2016-post...](https://fail0verflow.com/blog/2016/console- hacking-2016-postscript)

<comment><USER6> I remember watching that talk and thinking it was interesting but also that the guy was a little harsh on Sony. Sure the engineers at Sony may have done some weird choices in some places, but I think they likely had their reasons for doing things the way that they did. And at the end of the day, Sony delivered a console that works well for its intended purpose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is really neat! It's not very frequent that you see this new of a project running commercial games out of the gate.

Chinese universities are helping some of the _most_ gifted students I've seen in years get sunlight here in the West. I can't tell you how many amazing repos I've found that were by students of Chinese universities that come out swinging with impressive projects. I wish this was more a trend in the States, and I have to wonder why it isn't. Possibly because people who speak English fluently are flooded with blog posts and internet forum comments browbeating them into avoiding difficult things?

<comment><USER5> I know the dev and he isn't actually a student, his GitHub profile was just not updated.

Not to say that there aren't many university students interested in challenging topics like emulator development - I am one myself and know several other students in the emudev scene.

Anyway, university doesn't play a big role for most people, you don't learn many relevant things regarding that there anyway (other than bare essentials). You learn by doing. Just need to be curious enough to motivate you. That's true for most programming topics, not just emudev.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's not easy to tell, how are they addressing the lack of decryption keys, if at all? I know you can treat a hacked PS4 as a decryption oracle but that's sort of a fundamental limitation to emulation, not having the decryption keys for executables.

<comment><USER9> Are the game encrypted or signed?

<comment><USER5> Both games and the firmware are encrypted with several layers of encryption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not so much fun as ps1,2,3 emulation as this all is too familiar pc tech. Nice work nonetheless though!

<comment><USER5> Still gotta emulate a very modern AMD GPU :) Just the shader translation (from GCN -> SPIR-V so it can be passed to the host gfx driver) is quite a challenging task actually.

Not to mention the fact that the PS4 has an APU and utilizes Uniform memory access (UMA). A simplified explanation is that both the GPU and CPU can read/write the same memory (with _very_ high bandwidth compared to conventional PCs), which will likely make optimizing high-end games that take advantage of this difficult.

<comment><USER11> Can PCs theoretically achieve the same with integrated graphics?

<comment><USER12> On paper it would be possible but at the very least the graphics drivers are going to get in your way (on purpose, for robustness and other reasons) so you'd need to be running like... a custom kernel module or custom graphics driver to do this. It's not safe to let a regular user-mode application do what a PS4 game can do. (The PS4 does security at a hypervisor level instead, and generally your game is not about to steal credit card numbers from another user-mode process on the console like it could on a desktop PC)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wish I could give up my PS4 and switch to my monster of a gaming PC. Only really looking forward to The Last Of Us 2 and gotta keep it hanging around. Would be sweet if they supported an official emulator where your games work if you already bought the hardware

<comment><USER14> > _where your games work if you already bought the hardware_

I think that's called 'remote play'.

Also the principle with consoles in the first place is dodging the headaches of the PCs' configuration zoo. Emulation, ahem, doesn't fit in with this course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is it conceivable to be able to play PS4 games on other platforms? I.e. what are the theoretical minimum performance costs of emulating PS4?

<comment><USER16> CPU is just x86-64, so on PC no emulation of that is necessary. More problematic is translation of custom graphics API (Gnm/Gnmx) and shading language (PSSL), but similar feats were done before (DirectX->OpenGL wined3d, DirectX->Vulkan DXVK, etc.) so it should be doable. Game performance might be hurt because they could have assumed that CPU<>GPU transfers are very fast, on PS4 it is UMA with single memory.

Though I wonder how feasible would be trying to pull graphics driver from PS4 firmware and make it to work with Radeon HD7000 series GPU.

<comment><USER17> PSSL doesn't need to be emulated, it's compiled offline to machine code binaries for the GPU. The DirectX -> OpenGL wined3d backend is similar inspirit, but the bytecode (DXBC) in D3D is a much, much higher level, so better compilation is possible. Untangling machine code into good shading language is not easy.

Additionally, GNM is a lot lower level than even something like Vulkan, and you can pass pointers directly between the CPU and GPU, they share the same memory space. It's this that makes emulating things tricky.

> Though I wonder how feasible would be trying to pull graphics driver from > PS4 firmware

There is no "graphics driver", in the traditional sense.

<comment><USER18> > PSSL doesn't need to be emulated

...which makes the job much harder. Shading languages aren't terribly complicated; implementing a compiler from one to native spir-v/whatever is a reasonable task. Translating from one shader bytecode to another is a more involved operation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What implementation techniques are used, and which OS/GOUs does it run on?</comment>


Use your smartphone as remote controller for your HTML5 games - <AUTHOR> http://xsteer.com/

<comment><USER2> Zero latency?

Cool idea nevertheless =)

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool and useful!</comment>


The Pauseless GC Algorithm [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/vee05/full_papers/p46-click.pdf <comment><USER2> Based on hardware from Azul Systems: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azul_Systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azul_Systems)</comment>


Ask HN: What share of software you use is American? - <AUTHOR> How much of the software you use daily is backed by a US-based company? Has the number been changing over the years?<p>Given that we all are in the same information bubble, I wonder if we are over- or underestimating the lead of the US software industry. <comment> open-source-ux The interesting question for me is: big vs small companies. Can small companies successfully carve a slice out of a industry dominated by large companies? Has that happened? Or do big companies still dominate?

Anyway, to your actually question...I like to keep an eye on visual design or illustration apps, and the picture is quite varied.

Adobe continues to dominate with their suite of creative apps. But they are playing catch-up in some areas. Sketch (Netherlands) and now Figma (US) both dominate apps for UI design. Adobe XD is popular (Adobe made it free to encourage adoption) but it doesn't enjoy the same "mindshare" among designers and it doesn't appear to be displacing Sketch or Figma.

On the iPad, Procreate (Australia) has become incredibly popular for digital illustration. Adobe recently launched their own digital app called Fresco clearly taking aim at Procreate. It's too early to see how Fresco will do, but I can't see it displacing the popularity of Procreate.

I also can't see Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign losing any significant market share, but the Affinity suite of apps (Designer, Photo and Publisher) made by Serif (UK) has been hugely successful. I sense some designers (many?) would like to ditch Adobe if they could find suitable alternatives.

There is no real competitor to After Effects for professional 2D motion graphics, but there is a promising new 2D animation tool called Cavalry made by Mainframe (UK). It's in beta so too early to know what will happen. Blackmagic Design (Australia) make a combined video editor and compositing tool called DaVinci Resolve which does let you create motion graphics. DaVinci Resolve is a professional-level editor using in the film and TV industry.

There are dozens of other paining and drawing apps that have carved out a niche. For comics, Clip Studio Paint (Japan) is popular. Other drawing tools from Japan include MediBang Paint and Paint Tool SAI which are popular for creating manga.

So to sum up, Adobe still dominates, but smaller companies are gaining popularity and usage.</comment>


Chrome Remote Desktop for Linux - <AUTHOR> https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/chrome/8PMxG69VJ6o <comment><USER2> Do features like Chrome Remote Desktop give anyone else goosebumps?

I love that Chrome automatically updates with security and performance updates. But an IT professional and someone who is security conscious, it's concerning that users' web browsers automatically install new attack vectors.

I'm sure the NSA, every other three letter agency, and skillful botnet programmers and hackers are just tickled that Chrome is opening up new avenues for infection.

Here's the how-to if you have some spare Google account credentials:

1\. Install Chrome and sign in with target's credentials

2\. Enable Chrome extension sync

3\. Install Chrome remote access extension

4\. Wait

5\. ???

6\. Profit!

Welp, at least Chrome for Windows has group policies to control (some) of this, but the policies often lag behind the new features. Chrome for Linux users? I guess they're SOL. Hope your company's administrators have init.d locked down or something to prevent Chrome from installing its hooks into your system during a regular apt-get/yum update.

 _Edited in P.S.:_ Google, are you there? Are you listening? As a system administrator, what would tickle me would be the ability to freeze the attack surface area of user's machines. i.e.: they can't install new extensions and apps, they won't have any features that add new remote access features enabled, etc. I would like to be able to say, "I trust my ability to lock down Google Chrome 37", configure that, and not have to worry about an automatic update annihilating my security policies.

Finally, automatic extension updates give me the creeps. At any moment, _bam_ , suddenly my users' harmless extension is now owned by Shady Joe's Botnets 'R' Us, and their passwords, web traffic, and safety is compromised.

<comment><USER3> Hello, I'm one of the engineers on the team.

Extension sync doesn't automatically enable remote access to your machine. User must explicitly enable access on each machine that needs to be accessible (and to do that the user must be administrator).

Also the remoting service needs to be installed separately from chrome - it's not part of the extension. It's not possible to package native binaries with chrome apps/extensions, by design (except for NPAPI plugins, but extensions with NPAPI plugins are not synced and NPAPI support is being removed from Chrome).

On Linux you can disable automatic update both chrome and CRD. Just set repo_reenable_on_distupgrade to false in /etc/default/google-chrome and /etc/default/chrome-remote-desktop

<comment><USER2> If I could still edit it, I would correct my post to say that a user that has not activated remote desktop does have to enable it manually.

But there is still _no way_ to control Chrome's surface area in the future, and features like this give me the heebie-jeebies. Two things:

1\. Users that have already enable Chrome Remote Desktop don't need to authorize the set of computers that can access it remotely. You authorize one endpoint, but not the other. And since Chrome will occasionally install new extensions and apps in its regular updates, there's no notification for a lay user to know why they got "Chrome Remote Desktop". For that matter, anyone with access to a Google account can leverage one Chrome sync feature to gain access to others (mainly: from an extensions into completely owning their machine), allowing them to leverage Google account access into a much greater vulnerability on remote physical machines. Passwords, open tabs, history, form data, credit card information.

Let me walk you through this. Alice is using her computer at work. Eve has obtained Alice's credentials, and sets up a Chrome account on a machine and enables full sync, and installs the Chrome Remote Desktop extension on her computer.

Alice sees a new extension appear on her computer. Why is it there? Alice is never informed, and Google adds new apps and extensions with updates occasionally, so Alice proceeds to install Chrome Remote Desktop. Why not? Chrome seemed to think it was safe to put on her front page or in her app bar. Eve can pin it to her bookmark bar with a title like "Connect from home!", or even install multiple bookmarks to do this:

"Connect from home" "now today" "with Google Chrome" "Remote Desktop!"

Now it's just a matter of time. Eve could also use her access to the account to synchronize new extensions silently and in the background, allowing them to siphon off passwords and credit card numbers, even if Alice disallowed those items from synchronizing. Extensions are simply _too powerful_ and the automatic update feature makes every extension from a third party developer a ticking time bomb.

2\. You don't really offer a great way of blocking increases to the attack surface area of Chrome. You offer a way to totally turn off all _Google Chrome_ automatic updates, but woe is the administrator that tries to use your policy tools to lock down Chrome. As Chrome is becoming an operating system unto itself, I find myself at a loss to understand why policies for this new operating system lag behind. Your suggestion doesn't prevent Chrome from automatically updating or synchronizing new extensions, and doesn't provide the average user with protection from a hijacked Chrome account. Disabling Chrome's automatic updates, if anything, makes them _less secure_.

No, what I want is the ability to lock Chrome's surface area to a particular version, not lock Chrome to the version itself. I want to see ways to limit my liability as an administrator to what I know and understand - and the Chrome team seems to think they know better than I do how to keep lay users safe. I disagree - given the fact that me, the security paranoid user, has already been bit by Chrome's security policies, I have no hope that they will avoid the same fate.

<comment><USER4> Now it's just a matter of time for what? For Alice to enable remote access on her machine and set the mandatory pin? How does this help Eve?

Moreover, your scenario presupposes that Eve has Alice's Google credentials. At that point, Alice is already owned. Given that most of a user's information is online instead of on a particular device these days, accessing Alice's desktop is not significantly useful. Eve can already pretend to be Alice and send trojans to her friends and then pretend to be Alice's friends and send trojans to her.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish there was a better way for deal with screen resolution. I know that scrolling is a pain, but I'd still prefer it to default to the resolution of the physical display attached to the host computer. (Actually, I'd _really_ prefer it to adopt the resolution of the client machine, a la MS Remote Desktop, but that probably introduces a lot of complexity).

<comment><USER6> _I 'd really prefer it to adopt the resolution of the client machine_

Even broader: any resolution you want. I genuinely have always wondered what is at the bottom of this problem. Why is it that on an otherwise so versatile and configurable OS it is seemingly so hard to change the resolution when logged in remotely? Is it something in X that makes it like that? Was it originally never meant for headless use? Having used, and cursed the fixed resolution of, VNC for years I still remember the first time I used rdp on Windows, my jaw was like on the floor. That is how it should be: logging in without being bound to a hardware screen, and in a seperate session (latter needs a fix though since the default client on non-server windows doesn't allow it)

<comment><USER7> There are several versions of VNC that support xrandr resizing. Arch documents this working with TigerVNC [0]. Additionally, you can use xrdp + x11rdp.

[0] [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/xrandr#Using_xrandr_wit...](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/xrandr#Using_xrandr_with_VNC)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm really confused. I've been using this extension to take remote control of my mom's computer, running Ubuntu, for like 2 years or so. And it didn't require to install a .deb besides the extension. Am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER9> Finally. Now all 3 of my environments are now supported. I can start downloading games/movies at work and get home to a fully installed game or movie ready to go.

<comment><USER10> You could use a torrent client with a web interface and Steam's remote install feature.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the first time I got to know about it from frequenting r/Chrome for help with customization.

Just like all most Google products it looks like it requires both parties to be logged into their Google accounts, so concerns about Google's privacy policies are still valid with it.

PS. Does it use websockets?

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice to see this was finally added. I remember trying this when I got a Chromebook earlier in the year and was really surprised and puzzled to see the lack of support on Linux. There's even a year+ old thread about it that didn't look good: [https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/VT2_wL...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/VT2_wLZ3ppc) Great to see support now!

</comment><comment><USER12> I tried it, had issues installing it, here's what I did:

1) Tried sudo dpkg -i chrome-remote-desktop_current_amd64.deb 2) It complained about missing dependencies. 3) I tried aptitude and one of its choices was to remove the Linux kernel, nah. 4) So I ran my trusty Synaptic and it immediately detected the broken package, I clicked Fix, Apply, and it worked fine.

It seems quite responsive.

</comment><comment><USER13> How does this differ from running a VNC client inside _any_ browser?

<comment><AUTHOR> It probably has its own intermediate proxy which doesn't require firewall configuration? It is probably better optimized as well.

<comment><USER14> It probably has its own intermediate proxy with a "lawful" intercept interface (i.e. pies everything to the NSA). Well, I wouldn't be surprised if that conspiracy theory would be true.

<comment><USER15> I wouldn't be surprised if that's a load of bullshit.

<comment><USER14> Well, I don't know about that, but it is law that services over a certain size have to have a lawful intercept interface (e.g. Skype has one) and it is know that this interface gets abused by secret services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Awesome to have this, will definitely set this up on my desktop.

Kind of crazy that this got released and we still don't have a Google Drive client for Linux.

</comment><comment><USER17> Anyone know how to get this running on Linux Mint?

<comment><USER18> [https://plus.google.com/+NickMossie/posts/TB32wTtMSZS](https://plus.google.com/+NickMossie/posts/TB32wTtMSZS)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> What an interesting way to encourage users to stay logged into Chrome all the time. Who needs cookies anyway? [http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732480770...](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324807704579083723267549160)

<comment><USER20> Ironically, that story is behind a paywall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Yeah baby!!! For _LINUX_ , woot!

Love it when linux gets cool tools like that.</comment>


Apple's 'Let's Talk iPhone' keynote liveblog - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/04/apples-lets-talk-iphone-keynote-liveblog/

<comment><USER2> "Remind me to call my wife when I leave for work" - <http://imgur.com/Y3Y3s> His wife, geofence setup. Blows my mind.

<comment><USER3> "my wife" is Almost Certainly* explicitly flagged in his address book, either as an alias or through a "relationship" field. he didn't show you that part. (the same is likely true of the geofence, though a location-aware algorithm could probably do a better job inferring where your work is than who your wife is.)

* a term of art meaning "certainly"

<comment><USER4> I have no problem with that. This a great demonstration of what Apple does best - optimizing products to fit the needs of most users. Google already has the voice tech in place, but often fails to follow through on the usability front. A perennially annoying example for me is when I'm on the road somewhere, bring up Maps, and ask for directions from wherever-I-am to 'home'; it doesn't know where 'home' is. This is even more annoying, because there is a 'home' tag in Maps, but it doesn't get searched on. Likewise, there's no easy way to tell it that one person is my wife, another person is my business partner, a third person is my nemesis and so on.

Apple are leveraging a culture of paying attention to detail to overcome technical handicaps, but it's hard to quantify or A/B test that, and most firms aren't comfortable with a budget line item called 'magic.'

<comment><USER5> To add to the frustration, Google _knows_ where "home" is for me, even without me telling - Latitude inferred it. Can't ask Google Mobile Maps for directions to home, though.

<comment><USER6> Note: if you are nocturnal and work at an office, Google will frequently decide your office is "home" and your apartment is "work".

<comment><USER5> For those rare cases, you can override the definitions on Latitude web site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Siri, take a memo: Beat up Martin."

Siri: Eat up Martha.

<comment><USER8> The Newton experience all over again!

</comment></comment><comment> buff-a Fuck this is a shitty way to have to view an event in this century.

<comment><USER9> Save time. Wait 'til it's over, and then find out everything you actually want to know when someone posts a summary.

Do we have a summary so far? There's an iPhone 5, I assume? How does it differ from the iPhone 4?

<comment><USER10> iPhone 4S, differences are better camera, A5 processor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The verge is updating pretty quickly [http://live.thisismynext.com/Event/Apple_iPhone_5_event_live...](http://live.thisismynext.com/Event/Apple_iPhone_5_event_live_blog)

heh, they didn't ripoff that guy that did the watch version of the nano, but instead complemented with "16 new clock faces."

</comment><comment><USER11> Ars has a pretty good liveblog going as well: <http://live.arstechnica.com/Event/iPhone_5>

<comment><AUTHOR> That one's updating much more quickly, though has fewer photos.

 _EDIT_ seems to be fixed now _EDIT2_ yet, there seems to be a darth of images again... engadget still has them _EDIT3_ OK, engadget is offline _EDIT4_ engadget is back (am I really blogging bloggers?)

<comment><USER12> None of the blogs are working. A 1:n medium like Twitter is your last resort. There has to be a better way to do this.

<comment><USER13> Like for Apple to actually live stream the event....

...nope, back to clicking refresh and killing live blog servers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> At thisismynext.com from the former Engadget crew:

[http://live.thisismynext.com/Event/Apple_iPhone_5_event_live...](http://live.thisismynext.com/Event/Apple_iPhone_5_event_live_blog)

</comment><comment><USER15> Both GSM & CDMA. This is going to be one of the huge factors for the 4S & 5\. If I can now play Verizon, Sprint, & AT&T off against each other then this may be a big, big win for US consumers.

<comment><USER16> This also means that Verizon's iPhones lose one of their biggest downsides, that whole worldwide compatability thing.

<comment><USER15> Yeah. I wonder how things like carrier lock are going to work on this new model. If I have Verizon service in the US and go to Europe can I drop in a local SIM card and use that? If so what is to prevent me from using that same feature when I am back in the US? Hmmmm....

<comment><USER17> Verizon's other world phones (Like the Droid 2 World) have a 'US only lock'. It will lock out USA SIM cards, but it otherwise unlocked everywhere else. It's also subsidized. I think that is a very fair way to do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> On a tangent: I miss Steve! These guys may be good but from the photos here most seem to be reading from a prompter screen and they just don't seem to have the look-into-your-eyes "believe me, this is the greatest thing ever" stare that Steve Jobs could do. Also, the black turtleneck may be untouchable, but rumpled blue shirt? Doesn't that shout blue collar corporate manager?

</comment><comment><USER19> Seems like apple.com is down hard:

Access Denied

You don't have permission to access "<http://www.apple.com/> on this server. Reference #18.cc896783.1317755134.6ee996bd

Edit: That only lasted a minute... it is back up.

<comment><USER20> I'm still getting that. Somewhere, a sysadmin has had better days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Anyone else disappointed with the announcement? Looks like a pretty standard upgrade.

<comment><USER22> This upgrade reminds me of the upgrade from the Blackberry 9700 to the Blackberry 9780. In both cases: camera is considerably improved, processor and/or memory modestly improved, more interface eye (or ear) candy. It's no wonder that many people seem to be disappointed, given all the associated hype.

The iPhone 4 seemed like a huge step up from prior models to me thanks to a 326 PPI display, a much faster processor, and a variety of other reasons. I guess even Apple acknowledges this given the naming convention of going from 4 to 4s. Not enough of a change to warrant iPhone 5.

<comment><USER23> It's odd you reach to Blackberry, here.

This is just like the iPhone 3G > iPhone 3GS transition. Doing a new enclosure every year would be pretty taxing, so they take a year off. Incremental hardware improvements meanwhile. The funny bit is they barely needed to do this much — iPhone 4 was still selling steadily.

<comment><USER22> I own a Blackberry 9700 which was a nice phone when it came out but have been underwhelmed by the 9780 and in some ways even the 9900 (no autofocus camera, no UMA). That's why it's the first thing I thought of.

I think I would prefer an iPhone if it were on T-mobile or if not that, at least the option to buy an unlocked iPhone at a reasonable price that worked at reasonable speed on T-mobile. Not so with today's announcements. An iPhone 3G can be purchased unlocked for $375, or an iPhone 4 for $549 but both are very slow on T-mobile at EDGE data speeds.

An exciting announcement for me personally would not have been a new enclosure, but rather the ability to run on T-mobile at fast speeds, all at a reasonable price. Wishful thinking, I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Saw this on Engadget:

1:26PM That got applause. People seem desperate to clap for something. That was it.

Pretty much sums up what we have seen so far

<comment><USER25> "2:02PM Phil's taking a shot against the Atrix, Thrill, and Inspire 4G. "The iPhone 4S is just as fast as these phones.""

Wow. "Guys, this is awesome! Our new phone is just as fast as an Android phone that came out a year ago!" (The Atrix, about to be supplanted by the Atrix 2).

<comment><USER26> > Wow. "Guys, this is awesome! Our new phone is just as fast as an Android > phone that came out a year ago!" (The Atrix, about to be supplanted by the > Atrix 2).

He was pretty clearly using them as examples of "4G" phones when it comes to data transfer speeds and nothing more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is Siri specific to iPhone 4S, or will it be a part of iOS 5? It sounded like it is only a part of iPhone 4S, but it seems like it's all software. Perhaps the iPhone 4 isn't powerful enough to do the voice recognition seamlessly?

<comment><USER28> From what I hear the A5 in the 4S has some hardware components not available before - including a hardware DSP and image processor. That's what's powering Siri and the newfangled fast-camera features.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm surprised so many live blogs have gone down considering how tame the rumors leading up to this event have been.

</comment><comment><USER30> CNN live video stream: [http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/cvplive/cvpstream4#/video/c...](http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/cvplive/cvpstream4#/video/cvplive/cvpstream4)

</comment><comment><USER31> If Siri works as advertised, that's... pretty cool.

<comment><USER32> Yeah. I remember the Wolfram Alpha video demo - it looked amazing and natural, but when you got to use the real thing 95% of your queries didn't work at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Does anybody know if the GSM concept of unlocked has an analog in CDMA? IOW, if I buy my new 4S factory unlocked, can I use it on Verizon OR Sprint? I'm assuming yes, because it really looks like a single SKU, but I don't know.

<comment><USER34> [http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iph...](http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone/iphone4/about_unlocked?mco=MjU5MTk4Nzc) (this is the text of a popup window on the unlocked iPhone page).

 _The unlocked iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S will not work with CDMA-based carriers such as Verizon Wireless or Sprint._

Sounds like that's a no-go for the 4S. Which sucks because my wife wants to replace her Android phone, but we're not upgrade eligible from Verizon yet. So that means I'm going to have to pay same price as the unlocked phone, but it's going to have the GSM side locked out if I ever want to sell it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> No iPhone 5! Some people are seriously losing on their announcement bets.

<comment><USER35> Much worse, AAPL is going to take a big plunge - no matter how awesome and flashy the 4S features are. After the HUGE pre-event hype and blabla, everyone is only going to take "What, NO iPhone 5????" away from this, sadly.

<comment><USER36> Unfortunately, I have to agree, I am a 3GS owner and was waiting for the 5. The thing that I keep thinking is with this being the first big announcement since Steve left the company they really needed to show the world that they where going to keep hitting home runs. While the 4S is an nice upgrade, it is in no way the home-run I would have expected to show that they are no worse for wear without Steve. I was very surprised when I learned that it would not be a 4G phone, that would have at least been an easy win for getting people to make the upgrade decision. My wife picked up an Atrix almost a year ago and it was 4G. I know the coverage is still growing and there are areas that do not have it, but it is not like 4G is not standard equipment on the higher end Android phones. To me that was the biggest miss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> These guys got a live stream for most of the keynote last time:

<http://www.ustream.tv/channel/applelivekeynotes>

<comment><USER38> 140,000 users viewing a black screen (broken video). lol that's a lot. hope it works soon.

the total views is going up at like 1500/second

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm having a hard time separating the wheat fromt the chaff in all that camera talk, is anyone familiar with these changes/sensors (since I suspect they're not unique to Apple devices)?

<comment><USER28> I'm an amateur photog, and I'm excited about the camera:

\- backlit sensor = better low-light pictures, with dramatically less noise

\- faster lens, hopefully with better clarity (less haziness that's characteristic of phone cameras)... but we'll see how well it actually works out

\- and most importantly, _fast_. I know I hate using my phone's camera since by the time I pull it out and the phone lets me take my first picture, the moment's already passed. The whole "1 second to first picture, 0.5s between shots" I think is going to be HUGE. It's going to get people using their cell phones as cameras a lot more than than they are now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Apparently, the HN dup-check differentiates on the trailing slash:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3071680>

</comment><comment><USER40> Hmm, everything seems pretty expected till now. Dual core processor, better graphics, "4G" support, better camera. Roll out the speech tech and nfc !

<comment><USER41> >Hmm, everything seems pretty expected till now

Except its called iPhone 4S and not iPhone 5!

<comment><USER42> The "iPhone 4S" name was a pretty common rumor, so it is not unexpected. Given the iPhone's "tick-tock" release schedule (3G->3GS->4->4S), I was not surprised.

<comment><USER43> well but since yesterday all you knew was 1 -> 3G -> 3GS -> (first real redesign) Iphone 4

Easy to say in hindsight and based on the rumors, but still they didnt really have a tick-tock release cycle before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> the friend tracking feature seems similar to Glympse, which I've used a lot:

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

sharing your location for a set time is really useful

<comment><USER45> I guess with all the toddlers supposedly owning iPods/iPhones/iPads, this has some valid use cases. But actively supporting personal surveillance systems seems like a weird move to me after the media hubbub about the location cache.

<comment><USER15> Yes, this is something people legitimately want. There are lots of occasions where I will go somewhere with friends/spouse and want to wander but occasionally sync up or know where someone else is. It sure beats SMSing "where R U" messages back and forth.

<comment><USER45> I guess I edited my posting while your were answering, sorry about that.

I clarified that I am actually more worried about the public reaction to this rather than legitimate use cases. Not really worried, just, why not leave it at a third party app?

To answer my own question, Apple's solution has probably both more polish and more lock-in power, just as with iMessage vs WhatsApp & Co.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> For all you devs here, the GM seed dropped on the iOS dev center today.

</comment><comment><USER47> Clearly the most 'non event' keynote from Apple in the last few years.

</comment><comment><USER48> No iPhone 5..Bummer!

</comment><comment><USER49> It seems that ScribbleLive isn't keeping up anymore :/

</comment><comment><USER50> Engadget and Ars keep going down. Ugh.

</comment><comment><USER51> iPhone 4S? I want the iPhone 5 :(

<comment><USER33> Once Apple can put the tech that would justify a jump from 4 to 5 and retain their (50% of ASP!) margin, they will.

Idly, I wonder if they're getting a sufficient cut from the carriers to make the 3GS at no cost profitable, or if rather this is what they mean to do with their cash hoard: chase market share AND increase profitability.

 _DISCLAIMER_ : I used to work for Apple. I have no specific knowledge about the phone.

<comment><USER52> The prices you saw are the carrier subsidized prices. The carriers buy the phones from apple and then subsidize the cost, and try to make a profit over the length of the contract.

The presentation was a little bit sloppy, because previous presentations would have footnoted that these were _with a new 2 year contract_ prices, not "we're selling these phones at these prices".

<comment><USER33> I understand that part. I'm just amazed that the demand for the 3GS is sufficient, and AT&T desperate enough, for Apple to retain the tooling to build them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> apple releases their iphones every year, but sales them with a 2year contract. Hmm, it seems like they are forcing you to use outdated hardware.

</comment><comment><USER54> I am just wondering what the fuck has happened to Microsoft.Seems like apple picked kinect and ran with it. Gates must be very restless today.

<comment><USER55> Kinect? I am confused. I didn't see anything even vaguely related to Kinect in this keynote.

Also, Gates hasn't been working at Microsoft full-time since 2008.

<comment><USER54> kinect was the one of the first device to sucessfully use natural language processing for controllerless entertainment which already works pretty well in the context but MS never thought of probably extending and integrating the tech with other products.

[http://digitizor.com/2011/06/17/microsoft-kinect-sdk- windows...](http://digitizor.com/2011/06/17/microsoft-kinect-sdk-windows/)

Strong point of MS was integration of different technologies but ever since Gates stopped taking interest in MS they have lost it. Now they have uncapitalized half assed implementation of technology laying around in silos.

Note: I am well aware of when Gates stopped working with MS. Even before stopping to work, he stopped taking interest in MS's future vision atleast years before that.

<comment><USER3> [http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en- us/howto/wp7/basics...](http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en- us/howto/wp7/basics/use-speech-on-my-phone.aspx)

and Kinect voice commands are of equal sophistication.

<comment><USER54> Exactly but seems like crowd here is completely oblivious to anything non Apple. Post Gates Microsoft have just lost it.

<comment><USER3> nerds haven't been all-about-the-Windows-ecosystem for a decade or more, if indeed they ever were.

Microsoft has had dominance over personal computing for so long because people aren't by and large nerds, and computers weren't fashion statements until recently.

and Microsoft's still trying to catch up with "computer fashion."</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why is apple still successful even without Steve jobs? - <AUTHOR> http://www.swayso.com/business/Apple-was-not-just-Steve-jobs-or-Steve-Jobs-Created-a-Strong-Base-Apples-continued-success-after-Jobs-death-proves

<comment><USER2> Its too early to tell or say anything concrete. Ask this question again two years from now.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It was over blown that Steve is what apple is about</comment>


13 Stripes and 51 Stars - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2256250/ A mathematician figures out the best way to jam an extra star onto the American flag. How would you do it? <comment><USER2> I like the Brazilian solution of positioning the stars on the flag as they appear in the sky.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Brazil>

I was a bit disappointed when the Brazilian soccer squad won their fifth world title and didn't put the stars in a Southern Cross formation on their uniform.

</comment><comment><USER3> uhm "The United States Army Institute of Heraldry has plans for flags with up to 56 stars" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Institute_of...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Institute_of_Heraldry) <http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/>

<comment><USER4> Six more? Puerto Rico, DC, British Columbia, Baja California, Cuba, and...?

It's interesting to see all the areas worldwide that have, at one time or another and with varying degrees of seriousness, been proposed as new US states. See:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/51st_state>

<comment><USER5> Britain?

<comment><USER6> Might as well add Sicily, then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Different, but I really like the proposed circular formation for 51 stars. [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/US_...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/US_51-star_alternate_flag.svg/800px- US_51-star_alternate_flag.svg.png)

Of course if we adopted it, some right-wingers would say it means were going commie, or something like it.

<comment><USER3> The blue area seems to be a little small. Why do you say "Of course if we adopted it, some right-wingers would say it means were going commie, or something like it."? I have seen a lot of original 13-star circular flags in the possession of people that would self-describe as being on the right.

<comment><USER8> I think it's because of who proposed it: the New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico, according to Wikipedia in the "51st State" article.

I like the arrangement, too, but I can see why its provenance might taint it in some eyes. That's unfortunate; it's a much more pleasant arrangement than the one we currently have.

I could also see people objecting to changing the US's hundred-odd-year tradition of having ugly and grating arrangements of stars. :) And the circular star arrangement _is_ something one tends to see flown by sinister US successor states like those in _Fallout_ and _Jericho_...

<comment><USER9> The New Progressive Party is the right-wing party in Puerto Rico. It was founded by Republicans and most of its leadership is affiliated with the Republicans.

It's the left-wing parties of Puerto Rico that are the ones that favor free association or independence instead of statehood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder why there are no valid patterns for 87 stars?

<comment><USER10> Same with 69 stars, must be a mathematical error not a actual arrangement problem.

<comment><USER11> You could have uneven rows for 69:

      * * * * * * * * *
       * * * * * * * *
        * * * * * * *
        * * * * * * *
        * * * * * * *
        * * * * * * *
        * * * * * * *
       * * * * * * * *
      * * * * * * * * *

(Copied from my reddit comment: [http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/cd6v6/a_mathematician_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/cd6v6/a_mathematician_figures_out_the_best_way_to_jam/c0rrd71))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sad that Puerto Rico might become a state before DC

<comment><USER13> Why does DC need to become a state?

<comment><USER14> <http://www.dcvote.org/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So, what did we do when we had 29 states?

<comment><USER15> Answer Here: <http://www.ushistory.org/betsy/flagfact.html>

Neither one are patterns he put into the algorithm.

<comment><USER16> That site is s.l.o.w. for me. Wikipedia has the same chart (without the extra trivia, though) here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> No solution for 87?</comment>


Show HN: Lone Tech Lover in NYC, Free Pass to Maker Faire If You Go with Him - <AUTHOR> https://www.purpella.com/events/detail/53253

<comment><AUTHOR> My startup which aims to help people discover unique and meaningful events, and most importantly, to find a group of people with similar interests to go with!</comment>


5 Challenges Millennials Face at Work and How to Deal with Them - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/contributors/5-challenges-millennials-face-work-deal/#.tnw_k93IE858#.tnw_W5s9TvyW#.tnw_UG5p8JSa <comment><USER2> This article seems pretty basic in my opinion, those are really the biggest challenges a millennial has at work??</comment>


The loneliest (and only) job I could ever imagine… the life of startup founder - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@blueboxjesse/the-loneliest-job-i-could-ever-imagine-688ab63072a9

<comment><USER2> I personally found EO tremendously useful when I was running Hashrocket and battling my own partner drama and depression in 2010:

Jesse: "I was fortunate to be introduced in 2010 to Entrepreneurs Organization (EO): a sort of AA for Entrepreneurs. Joining EO turned out to be one of the most pivotal decisions I've made in the last 5 years. Within EO, each member is assigned to a forum of about 9 other business owners. Each forum meets monthly and all content shared is completely confidential. Further, EO has adopted Gestalt communication, so members share their experiences over advice. The day I discovered a horrid truth that would change my path for 2013 happened to be the same day as my EO Forum meeting, and having that support network there with me as I processed the emotional torrent seething through my body was invaluable."</comment>


Show HN: The Cloud Resume Challenge - <AUTHOR> https://cloudresumechallenge.dev/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN.

I made a dedicated homepage for the Cloud Resume Challenge [0], which has been making the rounds for the last few weeks.

Basically it's a project anyone can complete to level up their cloud skills - but I'm specifically looking for people between jobs or new to the industry whose resumes I can boost to help them get a job in the cloud.

I do believe that if you can, in good faith, complete the Cloud Resume Challenge, you will already have more useful skills than a lot of people who graduate from university computer science programs. Specifically: you will understand something about full-stack software development, version control, infrastructure as code, automation, continuous integration and delivery, cloud services and "serverless", application security, and networking. And you'll have learned by doing, because I didn't give you enough instructions to figure any of this out without going down some late-night rabbit holes. Most importantly, you will have demonstrated the number-one skill in a cloud engineer's toolbox: the ability to learn fast and google well.

Would love your thoughts!

[0] [https://cloudirregular.substack.com/p/the-cloud-resume- chall...](https://cloudirregular.substack.com/p/the-cloud-resume-challenge)</comment>


Ask HN: Python resources? - <AUTHOR>

I would like advice from HN on the best Python resources . I want to become a Python master so please refer me to the best IDE for Python and also some great tutorials or screencasts to learn the language. Python is very beautiful language and I want to learn it the right way I want to use it to build full blown sophisticated web applications with it so some good frameworks would be nice also, thanks. Also I seem to notice this community loves Python a lot just curious why Python more than X language. <comment><USER2> I've found "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Python" quite helpful: [http://docs.python-guide.org/en/latest](http://docs.python- guide.org/en/latest)

And if you're a Windows user wanting to use Python modules that are partly implemented in C, I recommend downloading them in binary form: [http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs](http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs)

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool. I'd suggest you start here: [http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/](http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear a lot of good things about Zed Shaw. I'll check that out now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Learn to Program: The Fundamentals - Coursera's Python class is starting Aug 19th. [https://www.coursera.org/#course/programming1](https://www.coursera.org/#course/programming1)

</comment><comment><USER5> check out [http://www.realpython.com](http://www.realpython.com) (disclaimer: I am the creator)

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks fun I will check it out.</comment></comment>


How the Startup Mentality Failed Kids in San Francisco - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/willie-brown-middle-school-startup-mentality-failed/ <comment><USER2> I don't think tech can crack education. All the iPads in the world couldn't replace a good teacher and good environment. We need to better support teachers over anything else. If all the money that was raised for the school went to teacher salaries, supplies, healthy cafeterias and likewise I'm sure the school would perform better

<comment><USER3> Couldn't agree more! if this money would have been invested in teachers and teacher training, history might have been different.

I think that we as a society forgot the role of a teacher, for long time, teachers just repeated what was in books, and this should not be their job!!! They should teach how to learn, understand and discuss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Spend large amounts of money on bespoke design firms and a giant celebrity "launch" with every imaginable feature all at once, instead of starting small, building a product people use, and iterating? Does not sound like the startup mentality, at least not for a successful startup.</comment>


Warden – my open source and cross-platform tool for simplified monitoring - <AUTHOR> http://piotrgankiewicz.com/2016/05/09/warden-screencast-1-introduction-and-app-example/ <comment><USER2> If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good "Show HN".

Show HN Guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, seems to be a good idea to try to post it also here!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> are you aware of [https://github.com/hassox/warden](https://github.com/hassox/warden) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I wasn't but it's a Ruby library while mine is written in the C#. And the usage seems to be rather different. The name might be ambiguous though.</comment></comment>


A site that lists the remote jobs from all the most popular remote job websites - <AUTHOR> I always wanted to work from anywhere and originally started working as a web dev getting jobs from sites like Upwork. I was always looking for a way to be the first to apply to the best job so I created a job aggregator website https://ditchtheoffice.co which automatically lists all of the remote & online jobs from all of the most popular job boards.
At the moment it lists all jobs that are listed as 100% remote from these job boards:
Part/full time boards:
FlexJobs, Simply Hired, Jobspresso, Stackoverflow, Virtual Vocations, We Work Remotely, Working Nomads, Remote.co
Also, we have an option to search freelance jobs on these sites (haven't got Upwork yet, waiting for API access):
Freelancer, Guru, People Per Hour
I'm looking to keep adding more job sites as soon as possible, if you have any favourite sites that you want listed let me know and I'll see if I can get them added! <comment><USER2> Can you add a filter for category? I should be able to click on Node.js category and only see other jobs tagged with that like Stack Overflows tag functionality.

I also built a job board just to learn JavaScript. It is sitting on github rotting. It might be worth something to you. [0]

[0] [https://github.com/adam-s/simplejobs/blob/master/server/cont...](https://github.com/adam-s/simplejobs/blob/master/server/controllers/job.listings.controller.js)

</comment><comment><USER3> I like this, 1 things I think you should do though.

Replace where the listing came from with the company the job is for, it's initially confusing (is this job at stack overflow or something?), as a user I don't really care where it's listed only what the job is and who it's for.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm looking for freelance sites too!</comment>