America: Why are you so afraid of skilled immigrants? - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/31/america-why-are-you-so-afraid-of-skilled-immigrants/ <comment><USER2> 1\. Normally, when a market has a shortage, the prices go up until equilibrium is re-established. In this case, however, the market just seeks satisfaction elsewhere. 2\. Income pressure leads to young people who are deciding on a career path choosing something that is less influenced by overseas wages, reducing our future engineer supply. 3\. There is very likely a big surplus of older engineers who are automatically overlooked in favor of cheaper, more controllable immigrant workers.

<comment><USER3> Also keep in mind that older engineers tend to have family and kids. NYC and SF are not exactly regions that people with kids are quick to relocate to. This somewhat explains the shortage in these regions while there isn't a problem in other more suburban regions.

If you have a spouse and kids, you need a much greater increase in income to move to an urban area. One big mitigating factor is the school system in these areas. Most schools are either excellent or terrible and most parents don't want to move unless they can be sure that they can put their kids in the best schools (often you only get this choice by paying for private school).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My experience has shown their isn't a shortage of talented native engineers. There is however a shortage of companies willing to pay them a real wage. Hence they get H1-B's pay them substantially less money and essentially hold them hostage for a few years.

Most of the time this is just a way for companies to depress wages. Of course my experience is only in IT other engineering disciplines maybe different.

</comment><comment><USER5> It is a location issue. Demand is high but in few places, and supply is fine, but exhausted in those high demand places and underutilized elsewhere.

Americans seem obsessed with rising house prices as though they are good thing. But every time house prices rise it makes people far more "sticky" and harder to move around. That doesn't benefit anyone (except a few lottery winners). As a thought experiment would be it be better if house prices were around a dollar or a million dollars? Even if salaries dropped a bit.

The solutions are apparent:

* Make location less of an issue. Have national high speed and pervasive network bandwidth. People being (virtually) in the same room helps a lot whether they are employees or family.

* That also makes training and education easier since its quality can be separated from the student's location

* Encourage demand in other places - I'm not in favour of subsidies but getting rid of impediments is a good idea

* Celebrate when housing prices go down not up as that enables mobility and rebalancing supply/demand

* Single payer national health service not tied to employers. When people move their family needs to move. Remove health from the considerations.

Immigration is good. You get to select the best and the brightest. This benefits the country and the immigrants.

If the US does not do this, then other countries will.

</comment><comment><USER6> While Mr Wadwha certainly has every right to express his opinion, I do feel that he frequently casts his opponents in the most negative light possible (in previous articles, he has often used the term "xenophobe"). In this article, he is somewhat kinder: "Detractors insist that there is no engineer shortage and that America should close its doors to foreigners because they take jobs away from citizens."

The US currently takes 1.2 million immigrants legally into the country every year. Many people who object to the H1B visa have absolutely no problem with this - they are just opposed to a specialized visa designed to bring in more engineers when wage growth does not suggest a shortage. This is a long, long way from wanting to "close its doors to foreigners."

Next, Mr Wadhwa claims that "if Bernstein spent any time talking to Silicon Valley executives or reading tech blogs like TechCrunch, he would learn that wages are indeed going up and that there is, in fact, a war for talent. These are already some of the highest paying jobs in the country—with salaries commonly in the six figures."

I find this to be a particularly weak argument. Is Mr Wadhwa saying that we should just take silicon valley executives' word for it, and maybe read some tech blogs? No need to bother with actually looking at or measuring wage growth? I'm also surprised that Mr Wadhwa thinks that "six figures" is particularly impressive in San Francisco or New York, especially considering the high wages available to the "best and brightest" in other fields.

</comment><comment><USER7> U.S. trade policies seem designed to put "low-skilled" workers in direct competition with low-wage workers around the world, while protecting "skilled" workers from international competition. For instance, health care costs might be lower if foreign doctors could more easily practice medicine in the United States, and if Americans could more easily seek lower-cost treatment outside the U.S. I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that skilled workers, who generally are wealthier and better-educated, have greater access to the levers of power and to protectionist tools, than unskilled workers do. Think of the AMA for doctors, the ABA for lawyers, and opinion journals and TV shows for journalists.

<comment><USER6> I agree in large part - and I actually think this contributes to the low-ish level of interest Americans have for graduate study in science and engineering. The AMA and ABA are definitely cartel-like organizations - and by getting a degree in these fields, and American can (to some extent) gain protection from foreign competition. The opposite is true for engineering - not only is there no protection, but the US actually created a specific visa to bring in higher numbers of engineers that we'd normally get from the standard immigration system. In short, the US has pursued public policy designed (unintentionally, perhaps) to discourage its own citizens from pursuing engineering in favor of other degree paths.

<comment><USER7> Do you favor more or less protection for engineering workers? If more, would you also favor more protection for lower-skilled and manufacturing workers (many of whom are actually highly-skilled)? Is there any class of worker who doesn't deserve protection?

<comment><USER6> I don't think the issue is protection so much as whether we should go out of our way to create a specific visa program designed to bring STEM workers to the US.

I think this is a very complex issue - the US should make a greater effort to attract highly skilled and educated immigrants. However, I think that focusing too narrowly on one specific segment of the economy can end up stifling wage growth and suppressing the market signals that might have attracted more US citizens to the field.

<comment><USER7> Americans already enjoy blanket worker protection, since you can't legally work here without some kind of visa. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and I'm not saying it's different from labor policy in other nations. But it's a fact, and it does prop up U.S. wages. H1B visas do have the effect of eroding that protection and lowering domestic wages. That also may not necessarily be a bad thing, but it's also a fact.

One way that it may be a good thing is that it lowers the cost of engineering services for the rest of us, the same way low-wage workers overseas provide us with cheap manufactured goods, and low-wage farm workers provide us with cheap food. If I.T. wage growth exceeds productivity growth in that sector (I'm not saying it does, I'm saying if it does), then we're being overcharged for I.T. services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Rule #1 (more or less) of Economics: Free Trade (including open borders and free movement of people) is key to long-term growth. It's not a zero-sum game. Everyone wins.

Rule #1 (more or less) of Politics: Blame the foreigner. They're trying to steal from us.</comment>


Free (Almost) JWT eBook - <AUTHOR> https://auth0.com/resources/ebooks/jwt-handbook <comment><USER2> After reading the pitfalls and mitigations section, I'm starting to wonder why JWTs/JWEs/etc are even adopted despite these attacks demonstrated by many cryptographers mentioned in this book. Since JWTs allow for a choice of algorithms (algorithm agility) to sign/verify the tokens, it allows room for many developers to shoot themselves in the foot in securing these tokens, hence the multiple vulnerabilities documented in this book.

It's worth looking at better alternatives that are more cryptographically secure and have sane defaults than JWTs these days. I'd rather use either PASETO [0], Branca [1] or Fernet [2] Tokens at this point.

[0] [https://paseto.io/](https://paseto.io/)

[1] [https://branca.io/](https://branca.io/)

[2] [https://github.com/fernet/spec/](https://github.com/fernet/spec/)</comment>


Near Field Communications: a technology primer - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/guides/2011/02/near-field-communications-a-technology-primer.ars <comment><USER2> My main concern with NFC is the security, and I must say I'm not reassured by the "Security" section of this article:

> NFC is considered to be inherently secure since two physical devices must be > brought together in such a short range.

I don't see how that makes it "inherently secure". In the first page, it's written that "the spec does allow for maximum distances of up to 20cm, though 4cm or less is common", I don't know how small NFC readers can be, but if I keep my NFC-enabled card in my pocket someone in a crowded bus or subway could certainly be close enough to gather the data.

Next, they go on to say that "encrypted communication is not a requirement of the NFC specification". Wow. I do hope credit cards and such at least are/will be using encryption.

I don't quite get their last concern however:

> Probably the largest possible threat for most users will be theft of an NFC > device. If someone steals an NFC-enabled credit card, for instance, there's > nothing to stop them from waving it at compatible pay terminals until the > card is reported stolen.

This is not really a problem of the NFC technology per se, if my current visa is stolen it can be abused on online websites the same way. Does it mean that NFC forbids the use of a PIN to allow the transaction? If so, I think it's braindead, it's easy to steal cell phones and if it means that you can go to any ATM and empty my account if you can steal mine, I definitely don't want to use that.

<comment><USER3> It's 1-factor security, so it will only ever be as secure as 1-factor; if you can steal it you have access. I can take someone's debit card to the bank drive-up window and empty the account, so yeah, I wouldn't worry about if you carry a debit card around.

<comment><USER4> Debit cards are 2-factor.

<comment><USER3> i can use a debit card in stores and online without a pin, and take money out of the bank without a pin at the drive-thru. if all i need is a card that's one factor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hook up a few loops of speaker wire into a necklace. Connect the wires to the audio port of a cell phone, stick a tiny magnet in the ear canal. The small audio current will cause the magnet to vibrate and transmit sound. This has been used for cheating on exams for a number of years.

<comment><USER6> Well, theoretically. I've tried this with an amplifier and the signal is still weak and unreliable. The magnet needs to lie against your eardrum to get a good signal and the sound is very thin. I'd be impressed if someone has ever used this method successfully during an exam (even solving the reception problem, you'd still need to have a way to get the correct information played back).</comment></comment>


One-third of senior Americans don't use computers - <AUTHOR> https://seungin-lyu.com/one-third-of-senior-americans-don-t-use-computers/ <comment><USER2> There are some people you just cannot train to use a computer. We all have that relative that has a computer and doesn't know much about using it.

I remember they bought Video Professor disks and could not get the disks to work. Now there is Youtube, but you got a lot of nonsense in Youtube as well.

My mother cannot figure out her own password for email, so she could not read it. We tried teaching her but she is too old to learn it or something. We don't want to use a weak password and get her email hacked. We do all of the Internet requests for her on my PC that reads her email for her.

There are also the poor that cannot afford computers and are lucky to have a smartphone.

There is no cure, it is a learning disability.</comment>


Show HN: Caret – Better Markdown Editor for the Desktop - <AUTHOR> http://caret.io/ <comment><USER2> I tried the application, and it looks great!

One thing Caret gets right that other Markdown editors (Macdown is what I currently use) don't is wordcount. In Caret, the document wordcount is always visible in the upper right corner, and if I select some text, the wordcount for the selection is displayed again. Others have mentioned the lack of live- preview as a deal-breaker, but I'm ok with this because of the easy, obvious shortcut. My main purpose with Markdown editors is writing READMEs and blog posts, and I usually don't keep live-preview open as I'm writing.

The one missing feature to keep me from pre-ordering is detection of jekyll YAML headers.

<comment><USER3> Why is so important for you the wordcount feature? I don't get it.

<comment><USER4> I'm with antback on this one. You write as many words as are needed to convey your message. Unless you are a journalist or a student, why does it matter?

Also, if you're serious about word count and other metadata about your document then you should look into Marked 2. It's got that and much more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Any Markdown editor worth its salt should have a permanent live preview without having to be pressing Contrl + P all the time.

The lack of good desktop Markdown editors used to haunt me, until I started building one my own and realized how poor the support for Markdown in C++ was.

<comment><USER6> For me, the point of Markdown (and LaTeX for that matter) is that I can focus on just the writing, not what my document will look like.

<comment><USER7> Really, you can focus on writing with LaTeX? Are we talking about paragraph after paragraph of text or scientific writing with images and formulas and code, because after writing my thesis in LaTeX my experience has been different. I've lost a huge amount of time trying to adjust images, debugging compilations errors, etc.

Of course the document looks clean as it should and stands out from the rest, but still, I wasn't able to _focus on writing_ , I had to always double-check for errors. VIM plugin for latex helped a great deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> drew-y The big thing I would like to see in Markdown editors like this is a pdf export. It'd be nice to be able to send a rendered markdown document to people without them needing to open a web browser to view it. There is a similar open source project here: [https://github.com/dvcrn/markright](https://github.com/dvcrn/markright)

<comment><USER6> It'd be nice to have it be part of the editor, but `pandoc document.md -o document.pdf` does the trick.

[http://pandoc.org/getting-started.html](http://pandoc.org/getting- started.html)

<comment><USER8> That's fine for a single document, but definitely doesn't work for an entire directory structure worth of Markdown files

<comment><USER6> Are you serious? Try `ls *.md | xargs -I {} pandoc {} -o {}.pdf`

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Serious question: why is this not implemented a Vim/Sublime/Atom/Emacs plugin?

<comment><USER10> People writing in markdown aren't necessarily developers that want all the extra baggage.

Atom already ships with a markdown preview pane as well.

<comment><USER11> With the exception of Atom, aren't those all just text editors when not extended? (Another serious question; I don't know for sure.) If so, what would be the extra baggage beyond a markdown only editor?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For _Mac_ , not _Desktop_.

<comment><USER13> Currently, but Windows and Linux are coming, according to the page.

<comment><USER14> Until they ship something, that promise is completely useless for users of those platforms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What annoys me about the flurry of Markdown editors for OS X is that they're almost all electron/webkit based and as such, notoriously heavy. Doing a quick test with a 3KB Markdown file with 7 different editors (including Caret), I'm finding that they all take between 60MB-130MB of memory.

RAM may be at a surplus now, but in my mind there's no reason for such a light task to be that resource intensive. What'd I'd really like to see is a sort of "sublime" approach to markdown editing — a cross-platform, ultra-light, lean and mean editor written in C++. If all of the functionality Sublime Text encompasses only requires ~30MB of memory, something as specialized as a Markdown editor ought to be able to be chopped down to two-thirds or even half of that.

</comment><comment><USER16> I just want to say great job with this. Really really enjoying using it so far today. More than happy to preorder.

Well done, looking forward to 2.0!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, we put a lot of love (and effort) into it so it makes us very happy to hear this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Too bad it is not based on CommonMark. They made a great effort to make a standard.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are moving in that direction. Please, consider that this is still a beta.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So, it shows your text as a hybrid of plain _and_ rich text?

Cool. I tried to write a similar app.

But I couldn't find a rich-text-view API that didn't eat all my CPU all the time.

OP: How did you manage to solve that issue? Or do you just ignore it and let the CPU go crazy?

</comment><comment><USER19> For you vim lovers and Mac users out there, Marked 2 [1] in live reload mode works pretty great. For vim I like the vim-markdown plugin [2].

I get live preview, 9 different styles, code formatting, the ability to export to word, PDF, HTML, ODT, and RTF...and for blogging you get a word count at the bottom. It even analyzes your text for writing style like passive voice, long words, etc.

[1] - [http://marked2app.com/](http://marked2app.com/) [2] - [https://github.com/plasticboy/vim- markdown](https://github.com/plasticboy/vim-markdown)

</comment><comment><USER20> Getting a 404 on `[http://cdn.caret.io/Caret.dmg`](http://cdn.caret.io/Caret.dmg`) \- Has anyone else been able to download this morning? I also pre-ordered.

</comment><comment><USER21> Any chance this will have a plugin language for exporters? I desperately want something like MarkdownPad but with the ability to write an exporter for BBCode.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm quite happy with VS Code and this Markdown CSS theme:

[https://github.com/mahonnaise/vs-code-markdown- theme](https://github.com/mahonnaise/vs-code-markdown-theme)

The automatic table formatting was pretty cool though (even if it's purely cosmetic).

</comment><comment><USER23> What exactly makes this any better than MacDown (OSX), and Markdown Pad 2 (Windows)? Both have side live preview, and accomplish pretty much everything. There could be some QOL improements in them, but I don't see how caret.io is much better.

<comment><USER6> Some of the shortcuts look better thought out in Caret (in particular the inline file browser), but mostly, it just looks slicker. For 5 bucks, I don't expect it to be "much better", just a little better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What Markdown is lacking, in my opinion, is a standard that was curated by the community.

<comment><USER25> What about [http://commonmark.org](http://commonmark.org)?

<comment><USER24> I like the spirit of that effort, but it has a checkered history; it was born out of input from a private working group without input from the community [1]. I'm fundamentally against this philosophy as an open source advocate.

[1] [http://blog.codinghorror.com/standard-flavored- markdown/](http://blog.codinghorror.com/standard-flavored-markdown/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I can highly recommend ReText. [https://github.com/retext- project/retext](https://github.com/retext-project/retext)

</comment><comment><USER6> Guess we can't keep waiting for the vaporware that is Mou 1.0.

<comment><USER27> Will MacDown fit the bill for the time being?

[http://macdown.uranusjr.com/](http://macdown.uranusjr.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> [http://trymarkdown.com](http://trymarkdown.com)

* Live preview

* Saves content in LocalStorage so it can persist closing the browser

</comment><comment><USER29> It's really bizarre that there are so many Desktop Markdown Editors. And they even cost money!

Really bizarre.

</comment><comment><USER30> The only feature I think is actually pretty useful is the autocomplete of the title underlines.

</comment><comment><USER31> Is this free?

<comment><AUTHOR> The beta is free. The stable release is going to cost $10.</comment></comment>


Marks of a Great Designer - <AUTHOR> http://www.kedronrhodes.com/5-marks-of-a-great-designer/ <comment><USER2> The question shouldn't be what makes a great designer, but what makes a great client. Behind any great designer is a client that really gets it. If you look at the very best designers like Paul Rand you'll often find that they have patrons like Steve Jobs who really get design. A great client can make an average designer do amazing things, but a bad client can make a great designer do terrible work.</comment>


Try Something New - <AUTHOR> https://weblister.co <comment><USER2> Please change the title to something more descriptive, preferably the title of the post. Something like

" _Weblister: Monitor Your Website Uptime and Analytics for your website traffic_ "

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have combine website uptime monitoring and analytics. What would you like to use?</comment>


Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol-idUSKBN17C0D8 <comment><USER2> [2017]</comment>


Ask HN: is this the "missing link" or am i hallucinating? - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
I am 80% complete with a web app I'm hoping to launch in early fall that I'm calling Pinjot.com. What it is is a responsive (works nice on any screen) forum where users can post "jots" (threaded conversations or links to external sites) and other users can reply/vote/etc.
My secret sauce is this: every combination of place/group is its own seperate forum and is indexed for easy finding.
So if you go to chicago.pinjot.com/general you are posting to the general group in Chicago. Chicago.pinjot.com/chessplayers, Chicago.pinjot.com/jobs, /personals, /anything and going to Chicago.pinjot.com will list any /groups people have posted to.
But its not limited to cities. U can go to anywhere.pinjot.com. Illinois, Midwest, eastcoast, usa, northamerica, www.
There is no other system I can find like this and I think its what we all need to target specificaly the people we wish to reach.
Is this the greatest idea ever or am I just dillusional and should cut my losses now, as its tearing my family apart and destroying my life trying to make this a reality...
Thanks. <comment><USER2> From my experience, I believe having a stable life and a supportive family is very important to business success. They provide you with a strong foundation, and a way to weather the emotional lows and highs that come with startups. So, I would definitely give higher priority to family and life.

Moreover, I understand from reading others' experiences that for them "success" (however they defined it) took much longer to arrive than they had anticipated in the beginning. So, if you are counting on the "success" of your idea to make everything OK with your family again, be aware that that success, if it arrives, may arrive too late to undo the damage.

Finally, money is important, but so are your relationships. If relationships are good, I can still be content with my life, even blissful, even if I was earning below my potential. So, unless I were in a situation in which my family was already starving to death, I would not destroy my family trying to "make it big."

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Wise words.

My family has been supportive over the past 14 months while I mapped this thing out, learned to program, design it, etc.

It's just at a point now where I have to chose leaving my day job to make the site my day job and its too risky without at least throwing the idea out there first to see if there's any response.

Thanks!

<comment><USER3> Compliments on the internet are not validation! Fishing for them is an easy route to false positives and big heartbreak.

Don't quit your day job before launching -- that's the only way to get real data about whether it may work or not.

<comment><AUTHOR> Launching may be the only way for real data but how does one find out if an idea is even worth putting the time into? Other people talk about all this testing they do and pre-signups... Are they just aquiring these people through search results/real world marketing/agencies?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ideas like this can't be judged good or bad in a vacuum. If user acquisition works, then it was genius. If not, then a flop. But I don't think it can be predicted in advance. Can you scope down and get v1 out the door in days instead of weeks? All the risk is in adoption & execution -- I don't think anyone here is going to be able to offer useful advice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ya...I am trying. I think the responsiveness is a huge selling point and that's like building 6 different sites at once, so the going is slow. I'm alone and only have 2 days a week to commit. Now that I learned how to program enough to get it functional, things are speeding up.

Was just hoping for a little validation that maybe someone in a vacuum thinks it'd be neat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The idea isn't new, but it's the execution that counts.</comment>


Play Strength, a Rdio Feature Concept - <AUTHOR> http://avandamiri.com/2012/11/29/play-strength-a-rdio-feature-concept.html

<comment><USER2> EN (which powers the Rdio create station feature that rolled out recently) has similarity data and popularity data for songs & artists natively.

Popularity of a single song: [http://developer.echonest.com/api/v4/song/search?api_key=FIL...](http://developer.echonest.com/api/v4/song/search?api_key=FILDTEOIK2HBORODV&format=json&results=1&artist=radiohead&title=karma%20police&bucket=song_hotttnesss)

List of songs by an artist ordered by popularity

[http://developer.echonest.com/api/v4/song/search?api_key=FIL...](http://developer.echonest.com/api/v4/song/search?api_key=FILDTEOIK2HBORODV&format=json&results=10&artist=radiohead&bucket=song_hotttnesss&sort=song_hotttnesss- desc)

Since we have Rdio in our Rosetta ID space, you can natively use Rdio IDs and get them back in your calls:

[http://developer.echonest.com/api/v4/song/search?api_key=FIL...](http://developer.echonest.com/api/v4/song/search?api_key=FILDTEOIK2HBORODV&format=json&results=10&artist=radiohead&bucket=song_hotttnesss&sort=song_hotttnesss- desc&bucket=id:rdio-US&bucket=tracks&limit=true)

<comment><AUTHOR> #awesomesauce

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Music listening is completely subjective based on the smallest of changes within any given moment. Sure, the ideas of play strength/stars/constant radio/genre/BPM all helps in culling a mood, but it will never go all the way (without some sort of brain connection device).

I may create a playlist one day based upon a certain artist (with similar artists in the mix) however the next day I may want to listen to something a bit heavier, making those playlists irrelevant no matter how far I've drilled down my preference list.

While Play Strength is a good concept, it's still just a feature that can become just as underused or overused as a star count.

Instead of focusing on how 'perfectly-automatic' we can make a playlist based on features such as genre, BPM & play strength, we should be focusing on tools that help better understand our moods, the environment around us & the energy and vibes we intend to create from the music itself. The Effect > The Cause.

<comment><AUTHOR> Selecting music to play at any given moment is entirely human. Play Strength was not intended to make music selection automatic.

I think humans can make better decisions with data. Play Strength attempts to expose insights already locked inside your music library.

For example, one of the big changes in driving some hybrid vehicles is a real- time monitor of how power is flowing in and out of the battery. I think just _seeing_ that data changes your driving habits.

That's what I was going for with Play Strength. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Killer feature(idea): Work with a Kinect sensor on a feedback loop to update the playlist based on number of people, size of the room, acoustics, aggregate playlist taste of people who "check-in" to the room so their tastes gets included (you're a good host right?). I imagine it would bring a more social component to the playlist and put that social component to use.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're blowing my mind here. Really good stuff.

What I think is really cool is that all this stuff is coming. There are a lot of stakeholders deeply invested in seeing these ideas come to fruition.

To the future! Cheers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very neat ideas here. I love the idea of helping Rdio choose what to play next by this combination of your recent plays combined popularity as defined by other users.

I also appreciate that many of the UI changes for these features are very subtle.

I just wonder how many users would actually find these features useful. I had to explain the concept of the "Collection" of a few people recently, which scared me since it's one of Rdio's core features!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind thoughts!

I agree, the whole concept of a cloud-based music library is very new. Forget music, the concept of the cloud is new! I'm looking forward to a holiday filled with questions like, "where is it, who owns it, is it secure?"

Once people are comfortable with the paradigm shift, will really be cooking with gas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I once had the idea of using markov chains to help build playlists. I find the order of songs can be very important, and that way I could build a more random playlist based liking song B after song A, and just keep going.

The problem was two fold, one, I really love whole albums when done right. So that most of the music I listen to is album based. The markov chain is pointless then. Two, I would need a really big data set to make it worthwhile. Rdio has that data set (or possibly even Echo Nest).

</comment><comment><USER7> I love posts like this having spent a decent bit of time designing a music queuing UI myself. I think number 4 is really interesting if you could get the recommendations right. And you could do it in addition to play strength.

</comment><comment><USER8> I like the idea of using stars to indicate favorite tracks. iTunes has a 5 star rating system that I use to keep my music organized and I wish Rdio had the same.

<comment><AUTHOR> I need something more binary. Deciding between three and four stars seems totally arbitrary.

<comment><USER9> It's all about optimizing recommendations. If you just have a star or not starred. There's a chance the service will recommend a song you will likely hate (now you could be clever here and factor in skips). So now we have Hate, Love, Unrated. This works except for your OCD users will want to rate everything. And the more ratings you have, the better your recommendations will be.

<comment><USER5> What about Hate, Like, Love and unrated?

I always liked the idea of being able to specifically call out those few liked tracks that are a just a _little_ more special :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Future Is Without Apps - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/fwd-thoughts/the-future-is-without-apps-ddf43ec52aab#.rspwt3paf <comment><USER2> >> On top of all, what we really need is a platform-agnostic solution to app streaming that truly overcomes content delivery and discoverability problems.

Hilarious.

Yeah, it's called HTML/CSS and we should have been leaning into HTML5 starting in 2008 like the original plan was. Alas, there is too much money in apps, so now here we are.</comment>


ResearchGate Tackles Social Networking for Scientists - <AUTHOR> http://techonomy.com/2013/06/with-35-million-and-a-fan-in-bill-gates-researchgate-tackles-social-networking-for-scientists/

<comment><USER2> ResearchGate sounds like a political scandal.</comment>


Bookmarks2 - The simplest bookmarking service in the Web - <AUTHOR> http://bookmarks2.com/ Manage your bookmarks the most convenient and easiest way. It's absolutly Free. There is nothing superfluous, only that you really need. Try it and make sure in this! <comment><USER2> Nice simple service!

</comment><comment><USER3> Hm. I liked this.</comment>


First internationalized top-level domains now live - <AUTHOR> http://blog.icann.org/2010/05/idn-cctlds/

<comment><USER2> My app's crappy URL validation completely fails IDNs, though that's not really an issue for me now. Can anybody point to a good resource on validating these IDNs (besides RFC 3490)?</comment>


Show HN: Compare Covid death probabilities to skydiving and other activities - <AUTHOR> https://death-proba-website.appspot.com/ <comment><USER2> Mine was estimated at .007% which it said was equivalent to: 14 dives of scuba diving

Is scuba diving really that dangerous? Curious where you get the data from.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, the data is coming from the wikipedia page linked at the bottom. I haven't tried to check if the data was correct or not. But for scuba diving, the page refers to a study by British Sub-Aqua Club. "UK Diving Fatalities Review" and states that there are 5 'micromort' per dive, which means 5 death for one million dives, which is a frequency of death per dive of 0.0005%.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Utra-simple app telling for instance that a 40-49 male, if infected, has probability of dying equal to 75 jumps of skydiving</comment>


Digg Users Are Doing Their Best To Kill An Acquisition - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/09/digg-users-are-doing-their-best-to-kill-an-acquisition/ <comment><USER2> > or if Microsoft tried to turn it in to a Windows program, I would switch to > Reddit. I like Digg more, but either of those scenarios would kill Digg for > me.

I find it hilarious that, even as bad as reddit's gotten, it could be anyone's second choice over Digg. At least reddit has the capacity to still be interesting. Digg, on the other hand, makes me want to kick a Golden Retriever.

<comment><USER3> It's not the Golden Retrievers fault it's coded to retrieve every piece of crap that hits the ground.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If i were Rose, i would've sold last year or perhaps even around the time when he was all hyped up on the cover of businessweek. As far as I can see, digg doesn't really have any real content besides its collection of asinine comments that it's accumulated now and links to LOLCATS images.

No offense, the same model seems to be working at hacker news here - but digg has gone beyond it's useful life. It's one of those things where the community has exceeded it's critical mass and wisdom of the crowds eventually becomes a really dumb idea.

<comment><USER5> >digg has gone beyond it's useful life

If you're looking for intellectual discourse it has. But if you have 10 minutes to kill at work, it can be really entertaining. It's more educational than primetime network TV, if nothing else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It is pretty tough to see why Microsoft wants Digg. It already has an exclusive on advertising. Plus it isn't clear how they would grow it any faster than Rose and Co. Plus while, I don't believe 90% of the we would leave threats I think some of its core users would want to look elsewhere.</comment>


Ask HN: Feedback on My Site/Startup Concept - <AUTHOR> Hey everyone!
I'm working on a media related site/startup at the moment, and I'd like some feedback from the community here in regards to the concept and the potential for it in future.
Basically, the concept is this. A user created gaming news platform where you can post news, reviews, guides and other content related to games and make money off of it. So in short, something akin to a news version  of Medium for the gaming market.
To try out the concept, I have reworked an existing gaming site I had running into a prototype of the idea. This can be found at https://gamingreinvented.com
At the moment, the site is pretty basic. You can post content, see roughly how popular it is, choose how its monetised and earn a share of the ad revenue. There's also integration with a forum section and other related features, but that's something that's more a part of the WordPress modification I'm using.
There's also the option for paid subscriptions, which is going to be tied into content monetisation. I have some interest in this from my current audience.
The style is really simplistic too. Blame the fact I'm not a designer for that (I've worked in a few agencies as a developer). If it ever catches on, I'll hire someone to actually design a more professional theme with some sort of actual character to it.
Either way, more features are planned in future.
You'll be able to post video and audio content, as well as livestreams. Quickly post content through a mobile app in seconds (because even solutions like Medium and Reddit seem to favour those with a lot of free time). Get access to press only materials and anonymous submissions through SecureDrop as a normal writer.
Basically, I want something that's more of a true hybrid between open publishing and traditional journalism. Where the normal contributor gets the same benefits as a professional journalist.
I look forward to any feedback you may have. <comment><AUTHOR> Jeez, I write too much. Sorry if it doesn't make sense, I had to cut out about 1000 characters to fit the 2000 character limit for a self post on Hacker News.</comment>


Backing Out of a Term Sheet - <AUTHOR> http://cdixon.org/2010/02/03/backing-out-of-a-term-sheet/

<comment><USER2> I think this will become much less common now that word spreads so much faster among founders. We've only twice had VCs break a termsheet with a YC funded startup, and both firms are now blackballed to varying degrees. There's also a third VC I would probably never refer a startup to because of a termsheet he broke with the previous startup of some guys we later funded.

<comment><USER3> If you made this list of three VCs public, it would place much greater pressure on VCs to never, ever do this. Having a term sheet pulled is low probability, but it can all but kill the chances of closing a round.

<comment><USER4> Libel, etc, I imagine.

<comment><USER3> The truth is an absolute defense.

(Yes, I know it's impolitic - and Chris does the same "all the people I know will be told" line - but as one of those crazy transparency > feelings people, it'd be my preferred outcome. I only spent one year on the VC side in my short career, but I'd have resigned if we ever even thought about pulling this stunt.)

<comment><USER5> > The truth is an absolute defense.

In the US. Not in the UK. I don't know about other countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How is it going to haunt the VC if he doesn't name them?

<comment><USER7> Because when any YC startup (or anyone who has an audience with pg) asks him about AcmeVC, he'll tell them to stay away.

Paul is pretty connected, and the community isn't _that_ big.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Recommend a Boston Area Technology Lawyer? - <AUTHOR>

I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a good (and ideally, reasonably priced) technology lawyer in the Boston area? Specifically, someone who can handle contracts, licensing, and other legal concerns for a technology consultancy?<p>Also, any tips on how to approach evaluating a lawyer?  Thanks! <comment><USER2> Goodwin Procter. But they are not cheap.</comment>


A Golden Ticket That Fast-Tracks a Drug Through the FDA - <AUTHOR> http://khn.org/news/a-golden-ticket-that-fast-tracks-a-drug-through-the-fda/ <comment><USER2> Wow. It's similar to selling indulgences, except the taxpayers don't reap much of the benefit.</comment>


Ask HN: Can I cancel an already accepted job offer? - <AUTHOR> Well, I'm not a fan of these kind of things but I accepted an offer a week ago with company A. I signed the contract and I'm supposed to start in a few weeks from now. Problem, I just got an offer from company B, which I prefer and would like to go ahead and accept the offer.<p>How would you handle this situation? <comment><USER2> Of course you can. It's kind of a dick move, but your ultimate responsibility is to yourself and your career.

I would handle it diplomatically but firmly, and stress to Company A that it has nothing to do with them, and that you'd love to maintain a relationship despite the awkward position you've put them in.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good advice. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's a small world.

Your hiring manager, the people you interviewed with (6-8 people probably?), and some of the management at company A will know you rescinded your signed offer.

What are the chances that one of those folks ends up working a company with a job you're applying for 4 or 5 years from now when your application comes through?

</comment><comment><USER4> Is the contract "at-will"? If so, you can just quit before you start.

If you want to be a little nicer about it, say that you have a competing offer and if they don't match walk.

You don't owe them anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice, the contract is "at-will".

Even if they match the offer I still prefer company B :/

<comment><USER4> Well, quit with apologies. "Due to circumstances outside my control, I'm unable to join at this time. I'm very sorry."

The sooner you get back to them the sooner they can find one of their other candidates.</comment></comment></comment>


Zombie Company - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_company <comment><AUTHOR> >"Zombie companies are indebted businesses that, although generating cash, after covering running costs, fixed costs (wages, rates, rent) they only have enough funds to service the interest on their loans, but not the debt itself.[1] As such they generally depend on banks (creditors) for their continued existence, effectively putting them on never-ending life support."

Comment: I am not a finance person, but the pattern above sure sounds a whole lot like revolving credit to me, that is, what revolving credit is to credit cards, this seems to be with respect to corporations, to big businesses...

Also, let's remember an old economic identity: _One man 's debt is another man's free money (or interest, if you prefer that term)..._

That is, something that looks _terrible_ from one perspective -- looks _great_ from another perspective that is 180 degrees reversed... the perspective of the lender...</comment>


Show HN: Host Your Docs. Simple. Versioned. Fancy - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/randombenj/docat <comment><USER2> Are you planning on making it similar to [https://www.gitbook.com/](https://www.gitbook.com/) but self-hosted?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not realy, the main intent was to host static documentation for different projects and versions. But in theory you could also build your markdown files with something like [https://www.mkdocs.org/](https://www.mkdocs.org/) and then publish them to your docat instance.</comment></comment>


Abelian sandpile model - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abelian_sandpile_model <comment><USER2> Great article on sandpiles, [http://nautil.us/issue/23/dominoes/the-amazing- autotuning-sa...](http://nautil.us/issue/23/dominoes/the-amazing-autotuning- sandpile)

</comment><comment><USER3> Things like this make me wish I'd gone into math or physics instead.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wrote a Javascript visualization of this (using React) some time ago:

[http://mperdikeas.github.io/stack-piling-and- tumbling/index....](http://mperdikeas.github.io/stack-piling-and- tumbling/index.html)

(click "start dropping grain" to start)

Github repo: [https://github.com/mperdikeas/js-react-stack-piling-and- tumb...](https://github.com/mperdikeas/js-react-stack-piling-and-tumbling)

</comment><comment><USER5> Also on numberphile: [https://youtu.be/1MtEUErz7Gg](https://youtu.be/1MtEUErz7Gg)

</comment><comment><USER6> ...as mentioned over here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17886529](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17886529)</comment>


The A-10 Warthog May Be Kept Out of Retirement by Law - <AUTHOR> http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-a-10-warthog-may-be-kept-out-of-retirement-by-law-1773923092 <comment><USER2> This is something congress really shouldn't be doing.

For example, how much of the scope ambition and scope creep for the F 35 came from congressional meddling?

Someone recognized for their expertise in infantry strategy and tactics should be placed in charge of close air support procurement, given a preliminary budget to try to meet and then be given free reign to figure out what they can get from that budget.

<comment><USER3> What would be reasonable is the Air Force pulling its head out its ass and just giving the CAS role back to the Army, since they hate it so much. Seriously, just give the Army the CAS roles, and the Air Force can go zoom around in their shiny supersonic invisible aircraft, and the soldiers and marines on the ground can get the close air support they so need from an organization not doing everything it can to stop giving them that support.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that the CAS mission the A-10 performs is effectively impossible against any modern enemy with modern missile systems and manpads. The A-10 is for shooting up poor brown people we're messing with for no particular reason, not for fighting a real war.

The solution here is to get rid of the A-10 and simply not do "nation building" and counter-insurgency in poor countries. We don't need the A-10 because it's useless for any war worth fighting in today's world.

<comment><USER5> It really isn't. The A10 is basically a flying tank meant to be hit and survive. The Iraqi army of desert storm was a "modern enemy" with pretty decent soviet gear at the time. US gear was just that much better due to us spending such an obnoxious amount of our GDP on our military. A manpad doesn't have remotely explosive power of the AA that hit the A10 in this video, don't believe me? See the pictures yourself:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7JM82fa5ZY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7JM82fa5ZY)

There are literally dozens and dozens of similar stories. The A10 is simply put the most effective CAS tool the US Military has or ever had. CAS is a very important part of US warfare and just because they might be against an enemy with better anti-air doesn't negate the need for boots on the ground, which require CAS for maximum survivability. Most likely the Stealth B2s or RQ-170 Sentinel would be sent in first to quickly take out as much of the AAA as possible.

Disclaimer: I'm a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom II, and flew the Shadow 200 TUAV. I targeted several times for A10s and have heard the BRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTT up close.

<comment><USER6> >The A10 is basically a flying tank meant to be hit and survive.

Like Dale Storr's OA-10, which took a single Strela hit and went down? The A-10 is certainly more likely to be mission killed by MANPADS and AAA than other aircraft (which are liable to be destroyed outright), but those that survive are not useful for combat--Kim Campbell's A-10 was grazed by a Shilka and rendered combat ineffective; after she landed it in manual reversion, it was shipped back to the US and required months of intensive repair. That's great if your objective function is maximizing the number of airframes that are eventually flyable again after being damaged, but godawful if your goal is to actually use them to perform CAS.

>The A10 is simply put the most effective CAS tool the US Military has or ever had.

I completely agree with this, but tools only benefit you /if you can use them/. A-10s cannot survive in contested airspace, and if the not-at-all- fearsome Iraqi Army spanking them so hard that they ended up with a 10,000 foot hard deck didn't clue politicians in on that, maybe a few videos of modern SHORAD like the Pantsir which are available for $peanuts will.

>just because they might be against an enemy with better anti-air doesn't negate the need for boots on the ground, which require CAS for maximum survivability

The CAS you get is better than the CAS you don't. If your primary CAS tool is the A-10, then being against an enemy with even the slightest anti-air capability means that you don't get any CAS at all.

>Most likely the Stealth B2s or RQ-170 Sentinel would be sent in first to quickly take out as much of the AAA as possible

The RQ-170 is a phenomenally expensive unarmed recon drone that the US operates a handful of. The B-2 is useful for striking an enormous number of fixed targets, but is not designed or intended to be employed in a SEAD/DEAD role against anything more mobile than theater-level air defenses. No SEAD weapon in the world is capable of striking air defenses that it isn't fired at, and as a result anything flying at low level is vulnerable to SHORAD whose operators use the advanced tactic of parking it in a treeline and waiting until they hear a jet to engage it.

<comment><USER5> First off, fantastic reply, thanks for taking the time to write it. The typical US strategy is utter dominance of the sea, air, and night. I really do see drones + tomahawks taking out much of the AAA in addition to long range bombers like the B2. Even if stealth isn't effective, a hoard of Tomahawks is going to give any advanced adversary a hard time. The newer Block IV Tomahawks ones are smarter and quite a bit more lethal. The suckers can loiter for up to 30 minutes on station in a holding pattern and be set to all hit targets at the same time. Hitting 4-5 targets is cool, but hitting 20+ at the same time is quite devastating. In the opening of the war in Afghanistan if I recall they launched a cruise missile every 12 seconds on average for 48 hours. Also, they'll use drones (again like the RQ-170, or its classified and armed bigger brother) to find AAA, where it is worth sacrificing a few to sniff out the well hidden AAA. Hiding in the tree lines won't do much to hide from modern UAVs (as I can attest as a former UAV pilot). With the Shadow I could see footprints through wet grass at night with the thermals (as it detected a +/\- 0.1 degree C temperature variation).

So in summary, I think you're entirely right. The A10 was meant to be survivable in contested airspace of yesteryear, but gen 5 and the coming gen 6 fighers along with modern AAA would obliterate it. Even not entirely modern but very advanced AAA like maybe the S400, which Iran has, would knock out an A10 no problem. But the US wouldn't willingly put boots on the ground without utter dominance of the air first. You only need CAS when you have boots on the ground, so I see it ultimately as a moot point. China isn't stupid enough to go toe to toe to war with the US, as we'd both suffer heavy heavy casualties. They're doing a better job of simply asserting their strength economically and through cyber means, which they're better at than us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And now we have two problems! Yes its a problem to keep an old plane flying but it does the job. But the bigger problem is the turd costing us an arm and leg to build that doesn't do the job. Its so idiotic things have to be done in such a round about way. Just cancel the F-35 and spend the money on something useful to society.

</comment><comment><USER3> The Air Force has proven they hate doing CAS. The CAS role should be removed from the Air Force and given back to the Army.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think people are unfair to the air force on the A-10. Obviously discontinuing it should be reconsidered, but they've made massive investment in standardizing on a handful of modern planes instead of zillion overspecialized vehicles. The F-35, for all its frustrations, is a staggering piece of technology.

Plus, consider that this is a plane expected to take fire. Everyone loves he story of the A-10 that kept flying with half a wing blown off... But imagine being the crew. I'm sure they'd rather be in a vehicle that wasn't hit in the first place, or controlling it remotely.

That said, the biggest failing has been ignoring the new role of NATO in the ME.

But yes, there should be a joint project for a fixed-wing CAS gunship drone to replace the A-10. The Avenger weapon is overkill, you could build a vehicle half its size around a Vulcan. Do the same role as an A-10, but without risking crew and the other a smaller, modern, cheaper vehicle.

<comment><USER9> > The F-35, for all its frustrations, is a _staggering piece of technology._

It's staggering alright.

<comment><USER8> It's an invisible supersonic vectored thrust vtol jet fighter. That's goddamned science fiction. The fact that it even exists is remarkable... which makes the debacle of its development unsurprising.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They seem to be very popular with both pilots and ground crews so I say if the people risking their lives are comfortable with it then more power to them. I'm not going to arm-chair-general that away and neither should the law makers.

(They should be planning ahead though for replacement because that comfort won't last forever).

</comment><comment><USER11> There should be parts of the armed services that are stuck in various decades. So you could join the 1980's air force for example, but you weren't allowed to use any equipment made after 1990. For each conflict the Pentagon would decide which decade's forces would be most effective.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why not scrap the USAF instead? It all breaks down into mission support and drones in the long run? So why not scrap the organization that warps the strategic decisions ? Give everything ground mission related to the army, break everything that is strategic, as in supply, and the useless ICBMs of the sky to the new drone Department.

</comment><comment><USER13> How is it that a bunch of elected people without much military knowledge "know" more about these things than the men/women in uniform, with decades of experience?

<comment><USER14> The Airforce does not want the A-10

The Army and Marines are begging to keep it

I trust the Army and Marines more than the fucking Airforce

<comment><USER15> The people that actually have to support and operate it don't want it, the people whose mission it supports but who don't bear the support burden do want it.

In each case, there are structural biases that favor those decisions even if they aren't right on balance.

<comment><USER16> The Army has indicated repeatedly that it _is_ willing to bear the support burden for tasks that are important to it.

For example, the Caribou and more recently the C-27 light transports that were taken from them and reallocated.

In 1960s the US Army was investigating organic fast-moving CAS aircraft, they tested the F-5A, G.91 and A-4 but were told that it was unacceptable. They even faced restrictions on arming the OV-1 Mohawk for which they paid every cent.

They want it, they will pay for it but the blue-suits have the document that says 'no'.

<comment><USER15> Still, they don't have the experience of supporting it, and there's plenty of evidence that that prosuces a bias to discount the burden. That said, I've addressed the Key West agreements elsewhere in this thread: they aren't a constraint when we're talking about Congressional options. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11601834](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11601834)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


3 mindset changes that improved our productivity when building a SaaS - <AUTHOR> http://iztoksmolic.com/3-mindset-changes-startup/

<comment><USER2> You have to find a problem customers have and you can solve. If they aren't feeling any need they won't bother using your product. You can create a need, but in the niche you have selected I doubt that will be possible on the short run.

Stick to the problem and find out what's the easiest solution to solve the problem. Make it an MVP, let users use your product and start from there. Then improve iteratively, using customer feedback and gathered data to steer you into the right direction. Don't even think about features yourself. Don't talk about feature priotorization or taking risks if you don't have a very clear picture of the problem domain.

I am happy you wrote this down, but even with your "lessons learned" you are way too product and development focussed. Get our of the building!

PS. A suggestion is perhaps to reconsider the name ply. It is so common that it will be very hard to find your website, even with some additional keywords. "Ply jobs" even gets you listed as #9!</comment>


Why Big Data Mining / Analytics is the New Gold Rush - <AUTHOR> http://smartdatacollective.com/hkotadia1/46202/why-big-data-mining-analytics-new-gold-rush

<comment><USER2> Nobody can argue against decision making using facts. Earlier data was "pulled" (surveys, ...), now its "pushed" (social networks, comments on blogs, ...).

Latter has led to tipping the balance of amount of data thats available to make meaningful conclusions.

Lastly computing power is dirt cheap and easily accessible.</comment>


Google kicks out popular open source app(s) with fake excuses - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/959#issuecomment-505645577 <comment><AUTHOR> We need your help. Google is doing evil :(

Google is sending in June messages about limiting access (read NO access) to some apps using oauth accessing gmail. Of course under privacy pretext, and of course they won't do this is apps 'comply' and udnergo verification process.

Currently it hit (among others) very popular sms backup + ([https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus](https://github.com/jberkel/sms- backup-plus)) app which allows to backup and restore calls metadata and sms (with content) to gmail.

Develeoper of the app complied and submited app for verification process, but of course it was denied by Google. Whole verification process announced from them is another corporate mambo-jumbo = read lie.

Google guys, please help from inside. Why your company is doing this?

p.s. it does not applies only to gsuite, but to all gmail.

</comment><comment><USER2> I use SMS Backup+ because Google doesn't have a native way to do this. Now they take it away? Very lame of Google.

</comment><comment><USER3> SMS Backup+ is a wonderful app, not only to backup sms messages, but also by creating a searchable archive of sms-es in your Gmail account. Why on earth kill off such a useful and popular app for no good reason at all???

</comment><comment><USER4> Have been using this app for 10 years, and it's precious open source stuff. It would be rather silly and unfair to let this go.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd like to upvote this so jberkel can be allowed a solution. I (and many, many others) do not want SMS Backup+ to end.</comment>


American Airlines Mechanics Intentionally Delayed My Flight - <AUTHOR> https://onemileatatime.com/american-mechanics-delaying-flights/ <comment><USER2> A worker intentionally delaying something vs a worker stopping being a "hero" can be hard for an outsider to discern and they should withhold judgement unless they know the full story.

Here is a software analogy. Suppose you have a team of developers with crappy management. They are constantly changing requirements, not giving enough resources etc. Yet your team has made this work by working extra, maybe coming in on weekends when you don't have to, being available to work on vacation even though you don't have to, etc.

Eventually, you get tired of being treated like crap, and you decide that you are going to work according to what your company states is your contract. Instead of working on nights and weekends, you put in a normal days work through the week. Your team stops working on vacations and takes true vacations. While working, you work hard and smart, but you do not bring your work home.

Now the company can accuse you of deliberately slowing down the pace of software development. However, what you are doing is entirely reasonable.

In the same way, maybe the mechanics were resorting to heroics beyond what their contract actually required so that the flights were not delayed. Maybe after being crapped on by management, they decided that they would stop doing heroics and just do what was required by their contracts. If that was the case, I personally can find no fault in their behavior. It is stupid and wrong to expect employees to go above and beyond for a company when that level of dedication is not reciprocated by the company.

I am not saying that the above is the case, but due to my knowledge of how corporate management works, I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the workers.

<comment> em-bee planes don't get taken out of service by non-action. that takes deliberate action. this is not workers refusing to do overtime, but doing extra work to spite the company.

the equivalent would be to file, discuss and work on irrelevant bugs. declaring unimportant issues as blockers, intentionally derailing meetings with bikeshed arguments, etc...

i am not saying that the employees have no reason for their action. if the work conditions are bad, then their action may be justified. (though personally i believe that being adversarial is not helping to achieve positive change, but that is a different topic)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I really hate stuff like this. Bad things happen some percentage of the time when you're doing any thing complicated. And the sort of paradox is that in a large enough sample, rare events happen all the time.

Air travel is pretty close to commodotized now. Yes, Spirit is "worse" than the rest (although I admire their fee structure and their transparency around it, honestly) and Southwest is probably the best (information that does me no good on most of the routes I fly, unfortunately). But past that, differences between airlines are incredibly marginal. And yet, people find patterns in the noise, and if they've had a bad experience with an airline, they tend to dislike them, no matter that most airlines have roughly the same level of delays and cancellations, and all of them have the same awful customer service.

Plus, if you're not flying between two hub cities, you're likely flying on a regional carrier that has American Airline livery on the planes but is a separate company:

[https://www.aa.com/i18n/customer-service/about- us/american-a...](https://www.aa.com/i18n/customer-service/about-us/american- airlines-group.jsp)

<comment><USER4> Well put

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I only flew American once in my adult life. Just rude/grumpy people at the gate. I fly almost on a weekly basis and they made me check the carry-on that always fits fine on United/Alaska/Southwest claiming it was too big. And they were not polite about it.

Out of the Bay Area it seems like Alaska is the best domestic option, then United. AA is probably the last airline I'd fly after that experience.

</comment><comment><USER6> So american management(amd shareholders) chose to continue with the delays instead of paying their mechanics better?

<comment><USER7> Applying a reductionist approach to labor relations is a fool's errand.</comment></comment>


I track my boyfriend's movements because I want to trust him more, not less - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/i-track-my-boyfriends-movements-because-i-want-to-trust-him-more-not-less-9994583.html

<comment><USER2> Why would you date someone in the first place if you needed to track them in order to trust them?

And if you feel that way about everyone, please go get counseling!

</comment><comment><USER3> I cringed more and more as i read this article. I started to wonder if maybe it was an onion piece. Nope. I wish it was.

But, as for the actual tracking and all, I'd be ok with that. Maybe not with a girlfriend, but long-term girlfriend or wife? sure. But maybe GPS isn't the best solution - having access to the calendar though does help answer the "where are you" question. But it should never be to address issues of trust - you've got bigger fish to fry at that point.

</comment><comment><USER4> The guy that consented to that must be even more insecure than she is... What a couple.

</comment><comment><USER5> Focusing on trust is sad and a little concerning, but find my friends or the google equivalent really does remove so much minutiae and unneeded communication with a partner.

It sets better expectations when meeting or going somewhere, and love using it. No more "how long until you get here?" or "Have you made it yet?" especially useful while driving to avoid texting.

Our use has nothing to do with trust, but saving time when meeting up in various places across the city. It's a great deal of convenience for some people, nothing more.

</comment><comment><USER6> This reads like something out of The Onion.

</comment><comment><USER7> Different strokes for different folks and all that. I'm not sure I could handle all the questions, personally, since I like to wander about randomly. As it happens, I think my sister and parents have me on "Find Friends" but they've given up trying to understand my life...

</comment><comment><USER8> Hmm... ok, I guess I can see how some people would be OK with this. But I'd never go for it. My relationship with this woman would last right up until the first time she asked me to turn this on.

It isn't about having anything to hide, it's just a matter of principle. Nobody needs to know where I am every second of every day. Never mind the stupid conversations that would emerge from random observations:

"Why were you on Greer Street today, people only go there to buy drugs?"

"No, I just took a short-cut through there on my way to $FOO, and stopped at a convenience store to get gas"

"Oh, mm... ok, I guess that sounds semi-plausible."

"WTF, don't worry about it, I just went to get gas."

"Why are you being so defensive if you weren't really buying drugs?"

...

...

</comment><comment><USER9> If anybody "demands access" to anything, just feel free to kick them out of your life (or install a fake GPS app and have some fun traveling around the world).

</comment><comment><USER10> It's such a ridiculous headline. "I want to trust him more" aka "I don't trust him".

</comment><comment><USER11> I fear this lady is a bunny boiler.

<comment><USER12> I'm going to regret asking this, but wtf is a bunny boiler?

<comment><USER13> Reference from Fatal Attraction [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bunny+Boiler](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bunny+Boiler)</comment></comment></comment>


How to Achieve Supersonic Project Velocity - <AUTHOR> https://www.silasreinagel.com/blog/2018/08/13/supersonic-project-velocity/ <comment><USER2> Those are some really good points. As for being motivated a good one that isn't mentioned is determination not to fail. That one has the effect of cutting the fat and going down higher yield paths.

What I need, on an individual level, is to be able to get things done faster. It's a weird industry sometimes because you can work hard on something and find out later there was a much easier way. But how much time do you spend looking for the right path to head down before you put your head down and start coding? I hate the idea of working hard and happy on something when there is a much better way that I don't know about or even worse, that I ignored.</comment>


Designers vs. Engineers - <AUTHOR> http://tumble.unwieldy.net/post/2581395544/designers-vs-engineers

<comment><USER2> I've had a similar experience. My work right now can be roughly described as engineering. However I've had a brief experience of trying to market myself as an artist/photographer about three years ago (I did photography as a hobby). People in the arts community are very picky when it comes to design. I had to learn nearly everything by myself. I found that as I was learning more about design, my outlook about art in general started to change, which in turn started to affect my photography (i.e. my content). Design is a very subtle thing. It is a mistake to think about design as "making things pretty." Design is communication. Everything you do reveals something about yourself. Design is about taking control of what the choices you make reveal about yourself.

A lot of engineers I know have the attitude (it's almost a cliche to say it) that "design is unnecessary; things don't have to be pretty." They say that because they have never experienced _great_ design or have never had a chance to work with _great_ designers. Great designers do not make things pretty; making things pretty for its own sake is frowned upon in the design community. This is not the 19th century when design amounted to putting in as much ornament as you could fit. The best 20th century design was closer to "information design" than to decoration.

Some of the greatest designers of the 20th century were also engineers and architects. Charles Eames was an expert in structural engineering and materials science, which gave him a distinctive edge (Charles and Ray introduced many new materials such as plywood, fiberglass into their furniture designs). Muller Brockmann (inventor of the "grid") was extremely precise (as well as concise) with his poster layouts -- as precise as any engineer is with the blueprints.

A related tendency some engineers have is that they dismiss the expertise of people who went to a design school or an art school. They assume (incorrectly) that whatever they themselves "like" will also be liked by other people. In this regard, I blame engineers more than I blame designers. Designers (at least all the good ones) understand that engineering is a complex domain and that they have to listen to the words of people who have studied it and/or are doing it professionally. Engineers, on the other hand, have this tendency to look down on art and design as "soft" subjects, to view them as unnecessary, and they tend to be dismissive of people who studied it. This attitude is self-defeating, however, since it only contributes to the proliferation of bad designs, which in turn gives the advantage to good designs because they start to be seen as "rare" and distinctive.

<comment><USER3> "A related tendency some engineers have is that they dismiss the expertise of people who went to a design school or an art school. They think (incorrectly) that whatever they themselves "like" will also be liked by other people....Engineers, on the other hand, have this tendency to look down on art and design as "soft" subjects, to view them as unnecessary, and they tend to be dismissive of people who studied it."

I agree, whole hearted-ly. But I also think that, with effort, those opinions can be changed.

I have a similar background as the Author - brief stint in a Fine Arts school, went to college for Graphic/Web Design, transitioned into web and desktop development. I work in a "Enterprise Java" shop with tons of guys with Computer Engineering Degrees that think like this.

When I was hired it was like "here comes this girl talking about making things look pretty, blah blah". But I found after I just designed some apps (simple to use, nice-looking) and users started complimenting it, they started to change their minds. After awhile explaining to them what makes for good designs (simplicity, subtlety, small details, alignment, etc.) and why, a lot of those things started to work their way into our products.

In my opinion, most people that don't appreciate good design just haven't been exposed to the knowledge to appreciate it or just need to see concrete benefits.

Edit: It also helps win them over faster if you can write good code behind the designs too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I enjoyed this post, it's a good kick-off for a discussion, but I don't think it quite gets at the real point of contention between designers and developers (btw, the original post is clearly about more than just software, whereas my response is more or less limited to software and especially web application development).

"To an engineer, design seems like an unnecessary and tangental part of the creation process. "It just needs to work," we say, "it doesn't need to be pretty!""

I don't personally know any programmers who would say this (with full recognition that everyone's personal experience can be unrepresentative). What I have heard developers say (well, not quite so bluntly), is "I don't need designers to help me create software, I just need them to pretty it up at the end." This, of course, trivializes the designer's role in the development process.

Some designers take an approach that marginalizes programmers just as badly - "I don't need programmers to help me create software, I just need them to code up my vision."

I actually _have_ seen both approaches result in usable software. Intricate wireframes to the nth detail finally handed over to an antisocial programmer who just codes it up has worked. Programmers who write an ap, and then hand it off to a "designer" who pretties it up with nice fonts and borders has worked. But it's better when they work together throughout the process, and it's best when all members of the team have skills in both areas.

To me, this is actually one of those situations where the more you can get into a single head, the better. The programmers are probably in a slightly stronger situation, since they can ship and they all have _some_ ability to create UI, whereas I know a lot of designers who simply _can't_ code. So the designers with no programming skkills _can't_ write software without the help of a programmer, whereas a programmer with poor design skills would probably just write crappy software.

But ultimately, I think the problem here is notion that designer and programmer are exclusive terms. People will lean one way or the other, but you just can't score a zero in one of these two categories.

</comment><comment><USER5> While I agree with the author's general points, the examples were very general and vague; for example, he uses the bike design seemingly to show a designer who was uncoupled from engineering, yet I would bet this bike design was created by engineers, as hubless wheels are an engineering fascination.

Also, using Google circa 1999 as an example of great design through engineering is way behind the times. Look up what Douglas Bowman had to say about his tenure as Design Director at Google, and you will find quantification outrules design qualification at Google – if they can't measure it, it's worse by definition.

Today, Google is a UI mess, as they haven't changed with the times, and keep adding content to their once clean design. (Even KISS sites need to be refreshed).

Finally, he missed the opportunity to dispel another Engineers' myth about design, by lauding the addition of the Google logotype as exemplary design – as if slapping a new logo onto an engineer's layout somehow transforms a Plain Jane site into high design. We're not in 1999 anymore, and the bar is higher.

Overall, the assertions are correct, however, I feel that the author could have taken the time to come up with better/deeper examples to help prove his points.

<comment><USER6> "Today, Google is a UI mess, as they haven't changed with the times, and keep adding content to their once clean design. (Even KISS sites need to be refreshed)."

Its not just the Google homepage; Android's UI is outright hideous, and while 99% of what matters in a search engine is results, a smartphone is too multifaceted in function to neglect a clean, working, uniform UI to organize the chaos of features into something that people can figure out.

I suspect this is why Android hasn't moved beyond the fellow nerds in my circle of friends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great post, as an engineer I've never really thought about learning design principles and have usually just found designs I like and basically copied them (or purchased something off theme forest).

Where do you recommend an engineer should go to learn the basics of good design/typography etc?

<comment><USER8> The book that changed my outlook (as an engineer) and got me started on the road to appreciating good design is The Non-Designer's Design Book ([http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin- Willia...](http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin- Williams/dp/0321534042/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294074978&sr=8-1)). It taught me the basics of what makes a good design vs a poor design-- but beware, after reading this you will notice (and be annoyed by) poor design forever :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Questions about whether design is necessary or affordable are quite beside > the point: design is inevitable. The alternative to good design is bad > design, not no design at all. - Douglas Martin: > (<http://www.stcsig.org/usability/resources/pith.html>)</comment>


"I made an unofficial Reddit desktop app with Discord rich presence open-source" - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Zaydme/Reddit-client-unofficial <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the original post:

[https://old.reddit.com/r/opensource/comments/dn7ixl/i_made_a...](https://old.reddit.com/r/opensource/comments/dn7ixl/i_made_an_unofficial_reddit_desktop_app_with/)

(I hope you all use only old reddit)

</comment><comment><USER2> Desktop apps are cool and everything but I've been absolutely loving TUIR (Reddit cli client).

I wish that rich cli clients made something of a comeback.</comment>


Sizing Up Servers: Intel's Skylake-SP Xeon versus AMD's EPYC 7000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/11544/intel-skylake-ep-vs-amd-epyc-7000-cpu-battle-of-the-decade/ <comment><USER2> This looks like a solid if not amazing comeback of AMD into the server market. Sure, single threaded performance may not beat Skylake-SP, nor will the LINPACK (and most wide SIMD/FMA-heavy works) performance, but that still leaves most of the HPC/engineering applications that either do not have workload that lends itself to heavy vectorization or are simply not tuned for it (and won't be overnight).

All in all, whhen you have a server that seems so close in performance to Intel for _less money_ and consuming _less power_ , I can't imagine that EPYC won't see broad adoption and Intel won't be squeezed.

I'm glad AMD is back and there is renewed competition in the server market!

<comment><USER3> Not to mention AMD has a very clear Roadmap for Zen IPC as well as node. Compared to Intel which has been delay after delay or rename. There will be Zen+ next year on 7nm, and 7nm+ in 2019. Not sure if they are the same on Server, but they are suppose to fit in the same socket on Desktop.

<comment><USER2> Good point, it looks like they have a decent path forward and hopefully they take good advantage of the new nodes and the available room for refining the uarch.

Socket compatibility would be wise, I hope at least the Zen+

I'm hoping they soon get back to competing aggressively at high-end HPC too, perhaps they could spend some area on Zen+ on better FP SIMD, or even flexible width SIMD (though the latter would be more realistic on the 7nm successor).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very nice analysis. A couple of things stand out:

1\. The mesh interconnect looks like a big loser for the smaller parts. It's a big jump up in complexity (there's an academic paper floating around which describes the guts of an early-stage version) and seems to be a power and performance drain. I can't imagine they got the clock speeds they wanted out of it. Sure, it's probably necessary for the high-core-count SKUs, but the ring bus probably would have done a lot better for the smaller ones.

2\. There's almost nothing in here for high-end workstations (which typically have launched with the server parts). Sure, AMD has Threadripper coming soon, but this looks like Intel's full lineup... so where are the parts? We've bought plenty of Xeon E5-1650s and 1660s around here, and it doesn't look like there's anything here to replace them. That's unexpected. The "Gold 5122" (ugh what a silly name) is comparable, but at $1221 is priced just about double what an E5-1650v4 runs.

Workstations are a bit of an interesting case because their loads look a lot more like a "gaming desktop" than a server: a few cores loaded most of the time with occasional bursts of high-thread-count loads. That typically favors big caches, fewer cores, and aggressive clock boosting. If you're only running max thread count every now and then, you can afford a huge frequency hit when you do. But since these are business systems we try to avoid anything that doesn't say "Xeon" on it (or "Opteron", in years past) as reliability is paramount. To see nothing here from Intel in this launch is discouraging, to say the least. I have an upgrade budget and it looks like it'll be heading nVidia's way at this point.

<comment><USER5> > _2\. There 's almost nothing in here for high-end workstations (which > typically have launched with the server parts). Sure, AMD has Threadripper > coming soon, but this looks like Intel's full lineup... so where are the > parts?_

Wasn't that launched last month with LGA 2066, [http://www.anandtech.com/show/11550/the-intel-skylakex- revie...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/11550/the-intel-skylakex-review- core-i9-7900x-i7-7820x-and-i7-7800x-tested)? Sure, those do not wear the Xeon name, but that platform has cpus that are comparable to Xeon E5-1650 and 1660s. And there are additional cpus with higher core count announced.

<comment><USER4> That line doesn't support ECC though, so it's a pretty poor choice for a production workstation. And the LGA2066 platform has power delivery and thermal issues [1], likely due to the launch getting pushed up and mainboard vendors not having enough time to get things right. Gaming customers can tolerate a bit of flakiness from their systems, but Intel's enterprise (i.e., Xeon) customers will scream bloody murder if Skylake-SP launches in anywhere near as bad a state as Skylake-X did.

[1]: [http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/-intel-skylake-x- overclo...](http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/-intel-skylake-x-overclocking- thermal-issues,5117.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A nitpick regarding the comment on the 8XXX series which is targeted pretty much only for 8 socket systems (or 4 in non-fully populated configs).

> This pricing seems crazy, but it is worth pointing out a couple of things. > The companies that buy these parts, namely the big HPC clients, do not pay > these prices.

We in HPC would not touch these outside big memory systems which is even niche for us. The consumers of these are far more likely to be those with data warehouse style needs (a.k.a Oracle customers).

Much like the rest of the world 2 socket systems in HPC are by far the most common.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you want to try using the new Skylake chips, DigitalOcean just launched high-CPU droplets that run the Intel Skylake 8168 [https://blog.digitalocean.com/introducing-high-cpu- droplets/](https://blog.digitalocean.com/introducing-high-cpu-droplets/)

<disclaimer, I work for DO>

<comment> dis-sys do you guys have anything AMD Epyc based available? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So the single thread performance isn't _amazing_. The power consumption and multithreaded benchmarks AMD quoted were mostly correct.

Looks pretty solid. Sure not everything scales linearly with corecount but if your task does, it looks like AMD might be worth considering.

</comment><comment><USER9> Looks like die-to-die latency isn't all that great on EPYC, as expected:

"What does this mean to the end user? The 64 MB L3 on the spec sheet does not really exist. In fact even the 16 MB L3 on a single Zeppelin die consists of two 8 MB L3-caches. There is no cache that truly functions as single, unified L3-cache on the MCM; instead there are eight separate 8 MB L3-caches."

Also:

"AMD's unloaded latency is very competitive under 8 MB, and is a vast improvement over previous AMD server CPUs. Unfortunately, accessing more 8 MB incurs worse latency than a Broadwell core accessing DRAM. Due to the slow L3-cache access, AMD's DRAM access is also the slowest. The importance of unloaded DRAM latency should of course not be exaggerated: in most applications most of the loads are done in the caches. Still, it is bad news for applications with pointer chasing or other latency-sensitive operations."

I was kind of expecting this, but it's still disappointing to see. Looks like if you need a lot of L3, Intel is still the best/only option. Not to say that AMD hasn't made massive improvements though - and it's also worth noting that while AMD's memory latency is generally worse, throughput is also typically better than Intel.

<comment><USER10> The L3 issue isn't quite that simple. Sure if your dataset fits in Intel's L3 that's great. Problem is that a single shared L3 (for the same amount of effort/transistors) has much lower bandwidth than smaller separate L3s.

So a dual socket AMD has 8 zeppelin chips and 16 8MB L3 caches. I'd be quite surprised if intel could match the bandwidth of those 16 L3 caches. Additionally if there is enough cache misses AMD has a 33% advantage in both outstanding memory references (16 at a time in a dual socket) and bandwidth.

Basically both architectures are HUGELY complicated. Even minor things like which compiler/which compiler flags can make a big difference. Now more than ever it's important to benchmark your workload, any simple rule of thumb is likely to be useless.

<comment><USER11> Intel's new chips allow you to logically dedicate segments of l3 to different programs/VMs.

[https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/introduction-to- ca...](https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/introduction-to-cache- allocation-technology)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> EPYC sure does look good on paper. But the big question in my mind is how will OEMs react to it. Will it be offered on equal footing in actual server systems from major brands (HP, Dell etc)? Most people won't be buying CPUs by themselves, so the list prices are mostly moot point. I do seem to recall that K8-era Opterons didn't do as well on the market as they could have been based on the HW alone. I fear we might see a reprise of that play again.

<comment><USER13> One difference this time around is that AMD can make a good business just selling to Apple(servers), Facebook, AWS, GCP and Azure. As long as they hit their use cases they can create a good, sustainable revenue base. They also have a semi-custom division for tailoring their offerings, which the big cloud providers would definitely expect at the volumes they purchase in. Also, it's a good tool for them to use as leverage when negotiating with Intel.

<comment><USER14> > a good business just selling to Apple(servers), Facebook, AWS, GCP and Azure

How can other clients get in on this? My CS department (UK university) is wanting to replace servers (and extend ML capacity) and I've been making them wait until AMD availability becomes clearer (but I can only do that for so long...).

There's definitely a market here - if anyone from AMD happens to be reading this and would like to demo... though I'm not sure our volume would be quite the same scale as the above.

<comment><USER15> You are (like us) most likely too small. Unless you are buying 1,000 machines at a time you don't get there :( Waiting one more quarter for AMD servers to arrive from the major vendors is a good idea. But if your spend is in the millions then you can probably get the contracts (if needed for budget rules) and test systems now, especially if you ask the cluster builders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> dis-sys There are some interesting numbers there on the "memory subsystem: bandwidth" page. Basically Skylake-SP has a pretty low single thread bandwidth (12G/sec) to start with, that is just 40% of what you can get using a single pinned thread on Epyc, but it increases almost linearly when you have more threads.

Wondering other than some sparse matrix applications known to be memory bandwidth bound, what kind of performance impact this is going to cause. Is there any real memory bandwidth bound applications other than ML/AI stuff used by those Internet big names?

<comment><USER2> Many if not most HPC/sci. comp applications are memory bound (or actually their implementations are). [ref missing, but google around and you'll find plenty]

More and more applications are drifting into the memory-bound regime, especially with the wider SIMD instruction sets increasing arithmetic throughput while memory throughput lags behind.

My back-of-the-envelope calculation (with a guesstimated AVX512 clock) gives a 12 FLOPS/byte for a big Skylake chip like the 8176 while this was around 9 FLOPS/byte for Broadwell. I'm not entirely sure about the instruction throughput of Zen, but it looks like the 7601 should be around 4-5 FLOPS/byte (that's worst-case with mixed FMA+ADD workload based checked Agner F's manual [1] IIUC).

Of course this does not consider NUMA and other effects, but given the above a lot of applications will benefit from the great bandwidth advantage of EPYC.

[1] [http://www.agner.org/optimize/microarchitecture.pdf](http://www.agner.org/optimize/microarchitecture.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "With the double DRAM supported parts, the 30% premium seems rather high. We were told from Intel that 'only 0.5% of the market actually uses those quad ranked and LR DRAMs', although that more answers the fact that the base support is 768GB, not that the 1.5GB parts have an extra premium."

AFAIK, GitLab's server proposal included them. They will probably not use 128GB TSV LR-DIMMs immediately though. I think the price gap between 32GB RDIMMs and 64GB LR-DIMMs are falling right now right?

</comment><comment><USER17> Integrated QuickAssist tech is an underrated feature here, and should speed up response times for web servers.

</comment><comment><USER18> What's the bottom line for someone like me building simple cloud applications without specific hardware requirements? I tend to look at CPUs as black boxes. Will my Digital Ocean / Linode / whatever VMs soon have a better price- performance ratio?</comment>


Facebook is not worth $33B - <AUTHOR> https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2585-facebook-is-not-worth-33000000000 <comment><USER2> Missing __[2010] __flare.

</comment><comment><USER3> great look-back. Love reading these and putting things into context. you can only connect the dots looking backward</comment>


Tripadvisor lays off 25% of workforce - <AUTHOR> https://skift.com/2020/04/28/tripadvisor-lays-off-25-percent-of-global-workforce-closes-some-offices/ <comment><USER2> Tripadvisor has been worse than useless in a lot of places for a while now. Even back in 2015 when I went to India every place was gaming it hard. In Costa Rica a hostel we stayed at offered free shots in exchange for a TA review.

Like Yelp, review sites are a weird niche where if you get too big, your subjects start working to game the system, and the value of your product begins to degrade. Stack Overflow has experienced a similar effect.

<comment><USER3> I mean, if gaming it gives you a chance at an extra 10%, 20%, 30% of business, why wouldn't you?

Unless you make the penalty for gaming the system a 'black hole' approach (ie, you no longer show up on searches), people will game the system hard.

<comment><USER2> Of course. But that's why as a user the service degrades to a point where it's worse than nothing at all.

I stayed in a place in India with glowing Trip Advisor reviews that had rat turds on the bed. When I checked some of the reviewers, I noticed they were cranking out very similar boilerplate reviews for properties all over the place. Almost every place I stayed at in India begged me to write positive reviews for them. I know TA has since tried to clean a lot of this up.

But if you can find a less popular source of reviews which isn't worth someone's time to game - then you get a much better chance at an authentic rating/reviews.

<comment><USER4> I was almost stranded in Colorado while driving during a snowstorm. I reached out to my girlfriend and asked her to help me look up motels as I didn't have good internet service.

She said that a small motel near me had great reviews. "This was the best part of our trip to Colorado!". 4.5 stars on TripAdvisor.

I decided to check in. It was clearly immediately a mistake. There were so many red flags - from the weaving, amphetamine addled check in clerk, to the smoke stained room with ripped, stained bedsheets, and how the proprietor didn't even give me a room key. The room door could not be locked from the inside - the knob was smooth and no deadbolt. There's no way those reviews could be legitimate. The hotel was terrifying and I left after 20 minutes and filed a CC chargeback.

I looked it up myself and the place had 1.5 stars on Yelp, 2 on Google, 5 on Facebook and as mentioned, 4.5 on TripAdvisor. Upon reading and comparing, the Facebook and TA reviews seemed obviously fake. Yelp contained stories of the manager talking to the children of guests at the vending machine in an incoherent way and asking 'if they'd seen Billy' and various other disturbing stories.

I looked into the manager, Wayne, and found his Facebook page. It was filled with references to Satan worship, group sex and demonic possession. The necklace he wore which I thought was a Star of David was actually a pentagram, as displayed in his collection on FB. He had photos of his dog that he claimed depicted demonic possession on his FB page, as well as photos of their satanic altar at the motel.

So, my conclusion was that TripAdvisor and Facebook are very, very bad at preventing false reviews compared to Yelp or Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like TripAdvisor. It's been amazing on trips around EU and such. Sad to hear about the layoffs :(

<comment><USER6> Same, despite what people have been saying on gaming reviews, I found the best coverage through Europe in terms of local reviews for smaller places. There were even heated arguments with the owners on how a particular dish was mangled or not, and I took this to represent authenticity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Tripadvisor has become pretty bad anyway. There are so many great experiences in any new city, but Tripadvisor is pushing hard on the ones that benefit them, rather than me.

</comment><comment><USER8> My travel experience in the UK was immeasurably better without TripAdvisor results in a google search. As soon as I removed TA's results I found [https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/](https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/) which is a terrific way to explore the Scottish Highlands.

</comment><comment><USER9> Surprised it is only 25 percent as there is minimal or no travel around most of the world (with maybe some in China).

</comment><comment><USER10> this is just the beginning... and add nothing to do with covid.

</comment><comment><USER11> I fear this is only just the beginning...</comment>


Myths of the American Revolution (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/myths-of-the-american-revolution-10941835/?all <comment><USER2> I would certainly include "the war was between the US and Britain" as one of those myths. Many historians see the American revolutionary war as an extension of the 7 year war between France and Britain -- France supplied the navy, the material, the money, and the leadership (Lafayette). America provided the cannon fodder. France spent so much on the American revolutionary war that they bankrupted themselves, leading to their own revolution a few years later.

It's funny. Whenever France is mentioned in a political thread, inevitably a joke is made about the ineffectiveness of the French military. Most commenters don't realize that joke is grounded in American insecurity about their own founding myth.

<comment><USER3> Revolutionary war, not civil war. And the French joke is about France being quickly overrun in WWII, followed by being kicked out of a colony by the natives (Vietnam) at a time when the US war machine was seeing victory everywhere. That the US was kicked out by the same ex-colony is generally forgotten amongst the general projection of power they otherwise enjoyed around the globe.

<comment><USER4> > That the US was kicked out by the same ex-colony…

Except that we weren't. We won the Vietnam War: when we left, North Vietnam had pledged to allow the people of South Vietnam to decide their destiny.

Then they broke their promise and invaded, the Congress refused to aid South Vietnam, and that was all she wrote.

<comment><USER5> Finishing a war with exit conditions that you can't enforce doesn't really sound like winning in any meaningful sense.

<comment><USER4> Well, we promised to assist if North Vietnam broke its promises, but after Watergate the Congress felt it could break that promise. It really was a terrible time.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


HBase: Big Data Arrays Loading via Bulk Load - <AUTHOR> http://blog.thumbtack.net/2013/11/hbase-big-data-arrays-loading-via-bulk.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I would like to share with you my experience of using HBase, namely to tell you about bulk loading.</comment>


Opening a new chapter of my work in AI – Andrew Ng resigns from Baidu - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@andrewng/opening-a-new-chapter-of-my-work-in-ai-c6a4d1595d7b#.jjonag52h <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13928638](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13928638)</comment>