Ask HN: Disqus or something else for site comments? - <AUTHOR>

I'm reviving my moribund personal website, an information and resource-linking site mostly about education reform and homeschooling, and I think as I bring the site into the HTML5 generation I should revive commenting on the site. The last time I tried allowing commenting, I got a lot of drive-bys from people griping about the point of view expressed on some pages of the site, but never LEARNED anything new from the comments. I enjoy intellectually vital online communities (like HN, of course), so I'm thinking of giving a second go to accepting public comments on my website.
What's the best technology framework for website comments that tends to build a good, civil, informative community? I've heard friends recommend Disqus, but I visit surprisingly few sites with Disqus comments enabled, so I don't know much about Disqus. As I visited the Disqus website yesterday using Chrome with Ghostery installed, I couldn't even read the site's home page (!), so then I viewed it with IE to see what is going on there. Do you like Disqus? Do you like something else better? What is a good set of software features and administrative practices to maximize the chance of civil, informative discussion on a website that starts off with a controversial, minority point of view?
Thanks for all of your suggestions. <comment><USER2> I have taken a look at Juvia (an open source alternative to Disqus), but have not moved forward with it:

<https://github.com/phusion/juvia>

I am still with Disqus. The biggest problem I have with Disqus is that it is a 3rd party service, meaning:

\- I do not control my own blog's data, as I did with wordpress

\- third parties can peer into the identities of my visitors, eavesdrop on their comments, modify those comments, etc

\- my otherwise static website now has a new vector for injecting exploits (i.e. via Disqus dependencies)

\- Ghostery rightly blocks Disqus... and this gives me a moment's pause

I have seen SMTP-based static comments for Jeckyl:

<https://github.com/mpalmer/jekyll-static-comments>

...but this actually introduces a .php dependency! At any rate, I am eager to hear about other alternatives in the self-hosted comment space, particularly those that are compatible with static blog workflows.

</comment><comment><USER3> We looked very heavily at Disqus for comments on a product I worked on that was released recently, and decided against it in favor of rolling our own commenting system. Ultimately, what it came down to was that we could build an equivalent system that met our needs for less than they wanted in a contract. I'm sure that there are things Disqus does that would show improvements over our homegrown commenting system, but ultimately it just wasn't worth it. A basic comment system just isn't that hard to write, and it's hard to imagine a scenario when added functionality in your product's comment system would justify paying for an external system but that functionality isn't important enough to justify building it yourself.

</comment><comment><USER4> Tim Bray rolled his own blog years ago and has continued to, last I knew, manage the comments himself.

<http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/>

It may not be what your after. And it may/will not be specific technology. But as an example of method, for someone who's reasonably well known and gets some decent traffic, it might be of interest.

Aside from or in conjunction with this, I'd lean towards plain text and no linkification. Those who are going to communicate well, will do just fine with this. And competent people know how to copy/paste or drag a link when there's an interest. (Although, I suppose, "mobile"... ah, well.)

P.S. Rereading your post, I better notice "HTML5" and things that lead me to believe you may be after a more dynamic interaction.

Nonetheless, I've been increasingly of the opinion that "less is more" when it comes to commenting infrastructure particularly with respect to e.g. formatting and "fancy features".

HN is kind of an example of this. A minimal "Markdown-ish" set of formatting features, and basic linkification; beyond that, it's up to the comment author to make things work. And identity is more by established reputation than by a specific, on-site mechanism.</comment>


Microsoft curls too - <AUTHOR> https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/01/13/microsoft-curls-too/ <comment><AUTHOR> Seems to have been reposted here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140799](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140799)

Check that link for discussions, this post was 10 hours older but meh.</comment>


Pebble Steel - <AUTHOR> https://getpebble.com/steel? <comment><USER2> Obviously subjective, but I think the design is hideous. It reminds me of tacky faux-professional 80s watches. In fact, doing a search for "80s watches" brings this up pretty quickly: [http://modculture.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/02/2...](http://modculture.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/02/29/casio_retro.jpg)

Which is exactly what comes to mind for me. I think it really works against what they're going for with the product.

<comment><USER3> Design has really never been Pebble's strong point.

Secondly (call me close-minded) I honestly don't get what use/niche 'Smart Watches' fill.

Got a notification? Whip out your phone.

Got a notification and need to respond? Whip out your phone.

Got a notification and need to respond but are 10 meters away from your phone? Sprint like hell to your phone...or conversely, wait till you find your way back to your phone.

Got a notification but don't want to obnoxiously check your phone in front of your significant other/friend/coworker/familymemeber/human? Newsflash: You're still being obnoxious when you check your watch/Glass.

Want to change your music? Come on, your phone lockscreen does that in one button touch too.

Want to check your "team's score"? Google Now. NFL app. Lockscreen changers. Etc.

Want to personalize your watch? Let me link you to a personalized watch store. [http://www.amazon.com/Watches-Mens-Womens-Kids- Accessories/b...](http://www.amazon.com/Watches-Mens-Womens-Kids- Accessories/b?ie=UTF8&node=377110011)

Want to have a watch that works underwater? See above link.

Want to customize your watchband? See above above link.

Want to read it in sunlight? ...

Want to wake up (assuming you charge it at some other time) with it's gentle vibrations? Lots of smartphone apps ( and of course Jawbone Up, Nike Fuel Band, FitBit, etc) do that as well.

Want to know the time? Well...Sure.

I just don't really understand the rationale behind smart-watches [as they currently stand].

[Edit: I've read the below comments and I now understand.]

<comment><USER4> > Whip out your phone.

Well that scenario is more like this:

Fish your phone out of your pocket or bag, unlock the screen, pull down the notification bar, navigate to the app...

vs

Look at your wrist.

Pebble is quite convenient especially when you're on the go. Walking while staring at your phone is quite hazardous. Also, when my phone is in my pocket, I usually don't hear it ring but I definitely feel when something strapped to my wrist vibrates.

<comment><USER5> Does it really matter if you hear it or not though?

My phone is in my pocket. I don't need to respond to every minor notification. The only important one is when it rings and it makes a lot of noise then as well.

<comment><USER6> It does to me. I have notifications set up to appear from things I care about - and now I can see them instantly, which means I'm not pulling my phone out of my pocket to check for them when they haven't actually appeared yet, just in case.

<comment><USER5> I just remember stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> After clicking through I opened Facebook and was served a "suggested story" offering me $15 off a Pebble "Today Only" via retargeting ([http://imgur.com/qcH42af](http://imgur.com/qcH42af)).

Clicked through and got this message that the promotion "isn't active." ([http://imgur.com/pOt9KsR](http://imgur.com/pOt9KsR))

Stop burning money, team Pebble. You're welcome.

</comment><comment><USER8> Watches >$20 will always be jewelry first and functionality second. This is a step in the right direction but I think they can do better.

I think we need a round face. Years of watch making tells us its clearly more attractive and what most consumers prefer, and a round display will be more 'revolutionary' then just a tiny smart phone on your wrist.

<comment><USER9> I was a watchmaker before I started hacking on code and realized it had a better future. Yes, one of those guys with a loupe and tweezers, and even an itty bitty lathe assembling small parts in the back corner of some old shop.

Watches greater than $20 is (hopefully) every single fucking watch in existence. You're deluding yourself if you think that manufacturing costs of these things will become so low you could buy one instead of lunch, and have it work at least until dinner the same day. If you want a quality, but commoditized watch at a bargain price, you'll be looking at $150 to $250, which will last you for 4 or 5 years, and can be serviced when needed. (Isn't this place the same place that bemoans Apple every time a new iPad or MacBook Air comes out on how unserviceable they are?)

Watches over $300 are arguably jewelry (and I'm being very generous here). Watches over $1,000 are starting to become timepieces, and people still pay good money for high quality watches that can last generations. The watch on my wrist right now is has been running constantly for over 10 years old, and has been serviced once (basically an oil change). What other mechanical device have you ever owned that has run constantly for ~5 years and not needed service? Your car can barely go 50 hours of continuous use at 65MPH before it's recommended to change the oil.

And round face? Really? Years (centuries, actually) of watchmaking have given us a round face because watches have always been manufactured on a lathe, which has a habit of producing round objects. Round faces are not "clearly more attractive". In fact, marketing of high end watches suggest that a half convex rectangle (width sides are straight, length sides are convex) is the most attractive watch shape, which is precisely what the Pebble is.

Sorry for the rant, but seriously, $20 is the worst number you could have pulled out of your ass, along with the round shape statement. Listen, I own, and probably dislike the Pebble (as a watch) just as much as anyone else that dislikes it, but your comment here is just completely uneducated and lacks any facts whatsoever.

<comment><USER10> There are also digital quartz watches. Here's one that is certainly under $20: [http://www.amazon.com/Casio-F91W-1-Classic-Resin- Digital/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Casio-F91W-1-Classic-Resin- Digital/dp/B000GAWSDG/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> $249 is a lot of money - you're talking the cost of a subsidized high-end phone for something that has less functionality. My intuition tells me smart- watches wont sell in big BIG numbers unless:

\- It's a phone, therefore it can be subsidized by the carriers

\- It almost does everything a smartphone can, including having a lot of screen real-estate, but only costs ~$250 unsubsidized. Perhaps like a flexible iPod touch that wraps around your wrist

If someone can come up with a $200+ wrist-mounted device that sells in the millions but doesn't meet the same level of functionality as a smartphone then I'll gladly eat my Fitbit.

<comment><USER12> I had the same feeling as well. Especially since I intuitively compare it to the only other e-ink technology I know: the Kindle.

<comment><USER13> Clarification: Pebble and Kindle do not use the same display technology.

Kindle is e-ink. Pebble is e-paper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Specification Clarification: The display is a low-power LCD. Pebble insists on calling it "e-paper" in the specs, likely to make people think it's related to the more advanced e-ink display you'd find in ereaders. It's just a low-power gray-scale LCD that loses image whenever power isn't applied to it. Still a cool product. Just a disingenuous spec listing.

<comment><USER15> To be exact, it's a SHARP Memory LCD. [http://www.adafruit.com/products/1393](http://www.adafruit.com/products/1393) for DIYers.

It's still closer to e-paper in look and feel (readable without backlight but backlightable, for instance) than what people associate with the word "LCD screen", which is probably what the marketing/spec is trying to convey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Having been an early Kickstarter backer and wearer for some time now I jumped at the opportunity to get the new Steel version (black in my case). The reasons:

\- The Pebble has replaced my desire to wear one of my 8 other (yes, I'm one of those people) watches - this really is a case of function over form for those who dislike the look.

\- I'm addicted to the notifications - especially of incoming calls and SMS (or at least addicted to the feeling that I didn't miss them)

\- My current resin Pebble is already showing signs of wear, the strap holder never really did it's function and the screen is now a swirly mess of fine scratches and buff marks that hopefully the new Corning GorillaGlass will remedy.

Those who make throwaway comments about the need/want for a Pebble watch should really be those who have had the opportunity to wear one for a week or so and see the convenience it brings if you're already tethered to the world by your smart-phone.

</comment><comment><USER17> I have a Pebble, and I love it. One of the best purchases I have made for the value it adds. I wish that Pebble would come out with a watch design that is more feminine. My wife really wants one, but she thinks the current pebbles are too masculine.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm 22 and never wore a watch while growing up, but I've been using a Pebble for about 3 months. I really like it.

It's been most helpful when I'm skiing, biking, or flying RC planes. Checking messages at a glance is awesome. I also use it for navigating music while driving.

Probably the biggest affect of using the Pebble has been having its function as a watch - somewhat ironic. If I forget it, I'm constantly looking at my bare wrist to check the time.

I wanted to see a microphone for Siri/Google Now integration in the next hardware revision. Pebble Steel isn't that impressive to me - but I see where someone might want a fancier Pebble, rather than just a fancier band.

</comment><comment><USER19> Typo toward the bottom: "CES 2014 Announcment" (missing an 'e')

</comment><comment><USER20> THAT PAGE HAS TOO MUCH UPPERCASE COPY

Seriously, though, it's kind of tiring to read.

<comment><USER21> Haha I came here to say just that. Are all 42 of those words above the fold really important enough to be upper case? Literally this entire page is UPPERCASE COPY of different sizes. I'm imagining their designer looks like this: [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_yodqvnVBUBM/TUs3JCu2glI/AAAAAAAAAq...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_yodqvnVBUBM/TUs3JCu2glI/AAAAAAAAAq8/KQYanH_X4Ps/s1600/angry+guy.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Sorry

Because of its privacy settings, this video cannot be played here."

</comment><comment><USER23> 5-7 day battery life is really short for a watch.

I guess you don't have to set the time if it runs out of juice tho?

<comment><USER24> When compared to other "smartwatches" like the Galaxy Gear, 5-7 days is an eternity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Have they fixed the issue where the screen looks like an oil spill in certain light?

</comment><comment><USER26> Pebble for MEN.</comment>


The Google Long Term Game Is Brilliant - <AUTHOR> http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2013/01/the-google-long-game-is-brilliant.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FeldThoughts+%28Feld+Thoughts%29

<comment><USER3> Mirror: [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-google-long-game-is- brill...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-google-long-game-is- brilliant-2013-1)

</comment><comment><USER4> It's hard to say if G+ long-term game is brilliant. Although its easy to say Android and Chrome are obvious longterm winners.

G+ still seems forced down our throats. It's the only google product that I've felt forced to use. Just goes to show you how desperate google is to get involved in the social game. We willingly use Chrome, Google, gmail, and android because they are great products.

I still don't think G+ offers something in social that we don't already have. Though G+ is a nice product. Ultimately I think it will find its niche and never become as big as Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder what he'll say if and when some algorithm fucks up and he's unable to login to his account.

I like Google for many reasons, but I don't trust their accounts, and using a different account for each service removes much of the benefits.

<comment><USER6> I've been using Google for many years and never had this happen.

I'm not sure what you mean by a different account for each service removes the benefits. At this point all of the services I use are under one account - <USER2> main email address. They are all nicely integrated.

My only complaint is that I can't alias all of my other email addresses off the main one, having a "single Google identity". So - if someone else uses one of my other email addresses to share a doc with me, I have to either logout/login or re-request the share using the doc I want (which is the path I use).

<comment><USER7> > I have to either logout/login or re-request the share using the doc I want > (which is the path I use).

Have you tried multiple sign-in?

[http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a...](http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1721977)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Chrome sync is incredibly underrated in my opinion. I've got my browsing history, bookmarks, Chrome apps and open tabs from my work and home desktops, my laptop and my phone all together seamlessly.

Of course, Google does too though...

<comment><USER9> In what way is it superior to Firefox sync, for example?

Personally, I don't want my work PC cluttered with random bookmarks from leisurely browsing at home - and if I did, I'd put them on Wuala, where my stuff is client side encrypted (FF claims that too by the way).

<comment><USER8> Convenience mostly, I always had trouble getting the secret code for the Firefox sync to work and I use Chrome everywhere anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> tl;dr: It's AOL all over again...

<comment><USER6> How so? Having lived through AOL, I don't see the parallel in any way, shape, or form.

<comment><USER9> People locking themselves into one service provider for everything voluntarily, being completely dependent on it, subsequently missing out on better alternatives outside that walled garden until it blows up.

<comment><USER6> I think our definitions of "service provider" and "walled gardens" are different. There's nothing about Google that prevents me from using any service that I want and even thought they are integrating many things in more tightly, I still have an incredible range of motion for things outside G+, as well as integrated with it.

I know this is a religious argument - I've tangled with it 9,341,759 times over the years. No one ever wins it - time is the grand determinant.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Inductor resonance and self-resonance experiments (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://g3ynh.info/zdocs/magnetics/appendix/self_res/gallery.html <comment><USER2> His page on variable inductors had me going "ohhh" quite a few times.

If anybody knows about non mechanical / solid state variable caps / inductors, I was trying to find how to learn about them.

<comment><USER3> > solid state variable caps

Varicaps are only good for low power and are kind of nonlinear, but it's a voltage controlled capacitance.

I think for lower frequencies, a capacitor bank that's switched is the best bet.

In terms of inductors, AFAIK other than an inductor matrix it doesn't exist, but i think you can build a virtual inductor using a GIC.

<comment><USER4> Diodes exhibit capacitance that varies with respect to their DC bias. I know this is used in GHz RF applications.

Using opamps to create virtual reactive components (capacitors, or inductors) that would otherwise be impractical to build directly (too high of value) is an interesting trick.

<comment><USER3> > Diodes exhibit capacitance that varies with respect to their DC bias. I know > this is used in GHz RF applications.

Oops, I meant to say varactor, not varicap. And this is used for VHF and up as well.

The GIC-based filters are used a lot for high-Q parametric filters often in audio or general scientific stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for reminding me about this. His whole website is practically a reference text for RF engineering, now is the perfect time to dive back in.

</comment><comment><USER6> You can also simulate these kind of experiments using EM solvers.

<comment><USER5> Are there any particular ones that you would recommend?

<comment><USER7> I use CST often, and used it for helical resonators, specifically the Eigenmode solver. The latest version should do an eigenmode analysis with open boundaries, which you'd need for coils. My resonator was in a cavity.</comment></comment></comment>


MIT-created programming language Julia 1.0 debuts - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-developed-julia-programming-language-debuts-juliacon-0827 <comment><USER2> See also discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17719489](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17719489)

</comment><comment><USER3> What other languages are "MIT-created"? I think of Lisp, Scheme, CLU, Logo, MDL, and Planner offhand, but those are all ancient. I'm sure there have been some in the last 30 years.</comment>


Free Programming Books - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/vhf/free-programming-books/blob/master/free-programming-books.md <comment><USER2> There seems to be a big trend toward authors publishing programming books for free online and offering hard copies that you buy, too. In general, if someone offers me a free product and a paid one, I'll stick with free. No surprise there. But coding books are an interesting exception.

I find it much easier to learn a new language when I'm using a book instead of reading it for free online. A book is a single-purpose device; you can only use it to learn about one topic, or set of topics. It doesn't vibrate, notify me of emails and text or encourage me to go on other tangents. For a goal such as learning R or Haskell, which requires a lot of mental energy, having this extra focus makes a big difference.

<comment><USER3> Yea, I like physical books too, but I have wasted hours on figuring out code examples with typos.

<comment><USER4> I agree, but i've noticed that digital books have code typos too. Now, there are authors that will update them to do fixes. Some hard copies have online section that you can go and download "fixed" pages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An awesome list! I saw this list on stack overflow before it was transferred to Github. It really does save you loads of time as compared to searching for books using Google.

Another fantastic resource, [http://pineapple.io/](http://pineapple.io/)

Edit: not sure why i've been downvoted? is it because I recommended another resource?

</comment><comment><USER6> A fine, curated list.

As with most meta-topical lists, there is virtually no profit in browsing through it. Time may be wasted a-plenty, though.

Bring a question about technology X with you, go straight to section X and then _consult_ with the search engine of your choice (or a hacker friend, idealy) which book to actually read.

Hint: some of those have wikipedia-pages, like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher- Order_Perl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher-Order_Perl) and others hide the books behind an email signup front (one is a strong signal for quality, the other, perhaps, not so much).

<comment><USER7> Totally agree, Btw, HOP is coming just after SICP in my favourites. Great that you mentioned it :). It's great way of seeing same concepts applied to more day to day stuff like html parsing, walking directories, or regexps.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm digging into "Is Parallel Programming Hard, And, If So, What Can You Do About It?" [https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/paulmck/perfb...](https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/paulmck/perfbook/perfbook-1c-e1.pdf) and liking it!

<comment><USER8> when accessing this site through Firefox I get "Peer's Certificate has been revoked." Chrome works fine though.

<comment><USER9> If the certificate has been revoked (as it should be if it is older than a day), it is actually Firefox that is working fine in this context. Probably heartbleed fallout.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Dumb question here: Any way to maybe download all the PDF/HTML books in one big collection? I could imagine it being pretty huge, but I might interested in downloading it.

<comment><USER5> Good idea. This would solve the issue of broken links or domains that have reached their EOF.

Having all the books does not translate to using them. I used to keep plenty of books that I knew I would never use.

Tip: Pick the subject you really want to learn, then use the list for that specific subject.

One good book can teach you a lot more than 3-4 poorly written books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Original HN post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6533997](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6533997)

</comment><comment><USER12> The link is great but how many times it was posted here ?

<comment><USER13> It wouldn't be a bad thing to repost it every now and again. Which reminds me, people are as burried in bookmarks as they are in email. Solution = new startup?

<comment><USER5> Definitely not a bad idea to repost good links. A solution could be a startup, but that's just producing another bookmarking system and reinventing the wheel. I guess that's why there is search on HN.

I would like to propose for a solution to this. To avoid reposts, why doesn't HN create a "Sticky" of good resources like these? It would definitely reduce reposts and also act as a "Go to" link for X(Technology/Tool/Books).

Everyday new people find out about HN and having a link where people can refer to for "typical HN" FAQ's would be great. Just my $0.02.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is this easily available in a single torrent? If not I see no reason of not just getting Gentoomen library.

[http://books.gentoomen.org/](http://books.gentoomen.org/)

</comment><comment><USER15> It's not clear to me what the policy is on links to copyright violating offers, e.g., "jQuery: Novice to Ninja: New Kicks and Tricks - SitePoint". SitePoint.com is currently asking $29 for that eBook, and graciously appears not to be applying DRM. Unfortunately, the phrase "really free" in CONTRIBUTING.md does not really resolve the question.

So what version of "free" does the list intend?

<comment><USER14> Probably free as in freedom or "libre" as our lord and savior rms would call it. DRM-free is almost free but not quite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> My favorite free programming books are anything by Beej. His networking[0] and C[1] books are simply phenomenal.

0 - [http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/](http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/)

1 - [http://beej.us/guide/bgc/](http://beej.us/guide/bgc/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Not all of them are books, some of them are long blog posts some just web pages.

</comment><comment><USER18> Does this github project handle the scenario where some of the URLs become dead links or some of the domains expire? Automatically, these links/domains need not be shown to the user.

<comment><USER19> Hi, repo owner here. Yep, I'm doing my best to keep dead links out. See this issue for example : [https://github.com/vhf/free-programming- books/issues/850](https://github.com/vhf/free-programming-books/issues/850)

<comment><USER20> Hi, missing Project Oberon (see projectoberon.com). Also, should credit Wirth as author of Compiler Construction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Man, people should write ore books on Flask framework. :(

<comment><USER22> I'm not sure that's true. Books can create a DRY problem. When a project moves fast enough, any books written about it have a short window during which they're relevant. After which time they can do as much harm as good, between the info being out of date, or wrong, causing confusion with new developers, diverting them from the official docs, etc.

Flask is pretty small and simple, so books are less necessary than they would be for other types of projects. As long as its own documentation remains good that's going to be the best option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I need a good book on emulation, i wan't to write an old console emulator. Anyone know a good material for that?

Thanks

<comment><USER24> Really, the hard part about writing an emulator is getting the documentation on the system you are trying to emulate. What console are you trying to write an emulator for?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Quite simply a phenomenal resource and one of the best links I have ever seen posted on HN.

</comment><comment><USER26> Thanks much. The collection of this many resources in one place has improved my life.

</comment><comment><USER27> Nice. But how do I decide which to start reading and in which order to continue?

<comment><USER6> As with all things: necessity dictates, curiosity nudges.

If you come without baggage (project idea, interest in FP, what-have-you), you'll need to come back later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> wow, great link thanks for that, i wish they were exportable to PDF, i too prefer physical (paper) books, but was given an e-reader for xmas and have been reading lots of pdf's on it.

</comment><comment><USER29> Great! I'd love to read something on [http://ceylon-lang.org](http://ceylon- lang.org) or [http://kotlin.jetbrains.org](http://kotlin.jetbrains.org)

<comment><USER30> Go for Scala (Scalaz lib) AND Clojure: could save you some time.

<comment><USER29> I've been using and loving Scala for more than a year now as my main language. I was just curious to hear about these others, that's all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Great resource, thanks!

[From someone else who's not seen it before]

</comment><comment><USER32> very good ollection

</comment><comment><USER33> Skimming through this list was jaw dropping.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm moving over to MongoDB (NoSQL), but an EXTREMELY awesome book that I have in my collection is SQL Hacks. It's published by O'Reilly. It's an extremely awesome book on optimizing SQL queries appropriately. It's not in this list, but I definitely recommend it!!!!

<comment><USER35> "free-programming-books". It's not on the list because it's not (unless you know something I don't).</comment></comment>


The "sewing machine" for minimally invasive neural recording - <AUTHOR> https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/578542v1.full <comment><USER2> Wait, what? A minimally invasive _craniotomy_? Cutting open the skull generally isn't thought to be minimally invasive. Cool technique but a rather crazy title given that the paper barely touches on invasiveness. Much better would be "biocompatible" or "mechanically stable" or "long-lasting."

<comment><USER3> You still need a craniotomy, but the dura remains mostly intact. Rodent dura is a lot thinner than in primates though, so it'll be interesting to see whether it works in larger animals. I'd also like to see some actual data showing that these electrodes last longer. People can keep Utah arrays going for a few years, even though the implantation surgery is more invasive. (craniotomy + duratomy + pneumatic insertion).

Still, it's nice to see some innovation that might eventually work in large animals and humans, instead of yet another thing that only works in transgenic mice.

<comment><USER4> Utah arrays overwhelmingly fail within the first year: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868924/figure/...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868924/figure/F5/)

<comment><USER3> If the array works at all, we've been reliably able to get /something/ for at least a year and sometimes much more, which I guess isn't too inconsistent with that.

Still, a lot of our problems haven't been brain-related; instead, there's an infection or mechanical damage to the connector pedestal/wire bundle. I'm not sure that the sewing machine by itself will be able to sidestep those sorts of problems.

I would be _very_ happy to see better alternatives. I'm just not ready to switch based on this.

<comment><USER2> Agreed, I've seen the same. Take that graph with a grain of salt and take a look at the failure modes table below it. Lots of monkey issues (about a quarter) and some totally unrelated things (like experiment termination).

Some labs/surgeons/methods have better success than others.

The big thing the sewing machine will do is (likely) reduce mechanical strain at the tissue-electrode interface and hopefully improve upon those handful of failures due to scar tissue encapsulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anything that requires craniotomy will not scale to persons apart from patients with no alternatives and some biohacking freaks with no sense of danger.

Looks cool on paper, but they will have to find an alternative route to make it stick (no pun intended).

<comment><USER6> The abstract only mentions clinical and research use cases, it doesn't sound like they're expecting it to "stick" as a consumer electronics device in its current form.

<comment><USER5> My comment was not specific for the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Before reading this article I didn't think we'd ever see something viable out of Neuralink ([https://www.neuralink.com/](https://www.neuralink.com/)) but now I'm not so sure.

<comment><USER8> The first and last author both work(ed) at Neuralink.

<comment><USER7> Sorry realized that quickly after adding the edit, so I removed it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can we change the title to use the word "less" instead of "minimally"?

Their paper's title is kind of clickbait. This isn't minimally invasive -- it might be a bit less invasive than other methods, but it's still considered an invasive interface.

</comment><comment><USER10> [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-11/team- link...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-11/team-linked-to- elon-musk-neuralink-outline-brain-monitor-system)

</comment><comment><USER11> I was hoping for a Hellraiser-looking network of pins sticking into the skull, but they actually sew right into the brain-skull membrane!

Why exactly is this necessary? Does this fulfill an existing need or does it require a few decades of dystopia before reaching maturity?

<comment><USER3> This is mostly meant for neuroscience research in animals.

The brain contains about 86B neurons, which use chemical and electrical signals to process information. Neuroscientists want to know what these cells are doing in healthy brains, and how that processing and signalling goes wrong in diseases. One way--arguably the best way--to do this is to implant animals with electrodes that record activity of nearby neurons, and see how it varies during different conditions (different behaviors, sensory inputs, drug treatments, etc). For obvious reasons, this should be as humane and non- invasive as possible, thus...this.

Humans also occasionally get electrodes implanted, either for deep brain stimulation (the most effective treatment for Parkinson's Disease) or to find the source (focus) of epileptic activity in the brain. This could potentially help with that too, though the deep brain targets are much, much further into the brain than the results reported here.

<comment><USER12> > This is mostly meant for neuroscience research in animals.

Exactly! And thank you, nice summary.

It should be noted, with respect to other comments here as well, that in animals the cranial vault re-closes 4-8 weeks after a craniotomy/craniectomy (rats). Dead neurons basically never grow back. Hence 'minimally invasive' refers to the attempt to minimize the brain insult and injury.

<comment><USER3> A nice paper deserves a nice summary! I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes, as Utah arrays have been around for ~25 years and haven't changed much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That is absolutely terrifying.

</comment><comment><USER14> Just OT and jet still X-files-themed, but wasn't there a media-promotion a few days ago, pointing to 'future-tec', where people can breath in vaccinations through the nose or nanobots, doing '1st aid' at the mall...? (-;

<comment><USER15> Add optogenetics for partypeople... ^^

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I find this article obviously hypes this technology, downplays that it is not surprisingly the military, DARPA, who are no doubt bringing us shooting autonomous robots that eventually will have accidents not unlike the already multiple times a year random violence events. That robot went haywire! No one has any responsibility besides this bad, bad, glitchy technology that we unfortunately depend on completely.

I would bet at least some coinage that some or another branch of intelligence networks is already testing this stufff on people who have essentially been disappeared. If they are outright stealing the kidneys of falun gong people, what human sacrifice would china not make to be able to stick a fork in someone's mind and read it?

And if CHINA is doing it, well then everybody else has to keep up!

Good times.

It's bizarre to me that anyone could write an article about this subject and not talk about the mother of all interrogation tools.

We need to defend the right to have an independent mind. If there are black sites and disappeared people, and the spy agencies can pretty much all go hog wild at the moment, where is the governing body that is going to potentially threaten spooks from abusing people horrifically with this stuff?

As I understand it, 5g will have enough bandwidth to have a decent throughput to fingernail sized devices. With a few electrodes could they outright puppet someone?

Why do so few tech articles ever talk about human rights and hype things without even basic analysis? Or it's the same, 'some critics say, it might be bad. oh well.'

And every time, 5 years later, 'oh it turns out google maps actually made a database of everyone's location who used it and then lied about doing that until it was no longer possible. Our motto is don't be evil. Well, not anymore. We don't have to do this interview. GUARDS!'</comment>


Show HN: Bigtyper.com – simple, big text on any screen - <AUTHOR> http://bigtyper.com/ <comment><USER2> Two problems (tried it on mobile) : \- "Yay" didn't display well, with the first "Y" cropped \- couldn't use the back button to go back to hn

Looks like a simple, handy tool :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Actually use this all the time! Haha simple yet effect. Some may say "just like the Unix philosophy'...</comment>


Facebook is testing blogging function like Medium.com - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/notes/10205980772611637/

<comment><USER2> I remembered when Facebook first debuted and people were slowly migrating away from MySpace and LiveJournal. Facebook did have a blogging feature which I used, but then Facebook starting hiding useful old features (Notes, Events, Photos, Groups, etc) as they focused more on status updates and I quickly stopped blogging with Notes.

Funny to see Facebook come full circle on so many bad decisions made during their "copy Twitter, make everything public" phase.

</comment><comment><USER3> it will be very disruptive for Wordpress's casual bloggers.</comment>


Sign up for Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://signupforfacebook.org/ <comment><USER2> Bug report: even though the cursor indicates you aren't allowed, you can still click the button without accepting all of the "I'm OK with this" buttons.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also, at the end suggest 'what to do if you're not OK with this:

 _Options for:_ Organising and running groups

Communicating with friends and family

Sharing photos

Keeping up with the news

Other social media options for Business

Also need an associated site for 'Sign Out of Facebook'

 _How to:_

Provide contact details to important people to keep in touch, Communicate with non-users (for group admins), Set up and use email/IM groups (for users and admins), Download your data, Share photos, Keep up with news,

etc

Keep that traction going :)

</comment><comment><USER4> When laid out like that it's horrendous isn't it. Great idea. Their business model is based upon abusing your trust isn't it.

</comment><comment><USER5> You do realise that Google does all this and more. Why is Facebook suddenly any more evil?

Google knows where you live, Google knows what you did in that location, Google __knows __much more.

Why do people get upset when Facebook obviously is doing the same? They all are.

Google knows everything Facebook knows and more, and they are BUILT on selling that information to advertisers.

<comment><USER6> my opinion is that Facebook gets a darker rap for all this b/c they're famously more aggressive at engineering addiction. Maybe Google works just as hard at this, but it's pretty plain that FB's put a lot of effort into inducing the sort of addictions to social media that many feel are making life worse for a lot of people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sign up for Facebook button still takes me to FB even though it's disabled. FYI

</comment><comment><USER8> This site is on GitHub so that people can provide feedback there.

I'm sure there's a lot more content and news related to the deviousness and maliciousness of Facebook missing on this site right now.

</comment><comment><USER9> Clever.

</comment><comment><USER10> there's no way this lasts right?

<comment><USER11> Facebook will definitely get this site taken down quickly. There is something called the Trademark Clearinghouse and registrars work together with them.

[http://www.trademark-clearinghouse.com/](http://www.trademark- clearinghouse.com/)

IANAL but whatever trademark equivalent of fair use exists if any I don't think OP site falls under it even.

I mean, the site is a valid criticism and it's clever and I applaud them but no I don't think it will last a whole lot more than some few hours more at tops.

<comment><USER12> I thought parodies were allowed

<comment><USER13> I doubt this would be considered a parody, but there might be grounds for defense based on the idea that it's criticism. The domain name they picked is problematic, though, since it could make it seem like they're affiliated with Facebook. Adding a big disclaimer to the top to point out they're not might be a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Forgot about email accounts and contacts.

Cant remember what year it was but at some point FB removed each members personal email address and replaced it with a email@example.com address.

This cut off the possibility that members might try to contact other members via personal email, and instead redirected all their communications through Facebooks servers.

Facebook needed to see those communications because... why not?

<comment><USER15> While this is technically true, the history of how it came about seems forgotten already:

It was ironically done for privacy. Users actual e-mails were shared with friends, and people had too many "friends", causing their e-mail to be leaked. After a bit of trial and error on hiding the e-mails from scraping, they eventually hid all e-mails by default and only exposed the @facebook.com emails. The original idea of people only having 'real' friends turned out to not work. You can't trust your Facebook "friends", which should be alarmingly clear for everyone by now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> [https://imgur.com/a/7nxyJ](https://imgur.com/a/7nxyJ)

How does this make it to HN

<comment><USER13> In my experience, Cisco Umbrella flags quite a few sites as malicious that absolutely aren't. Most of the flagged sites I've noticed have come from a HN posting.</comment></comment>


Ubiquity tutorial: Command-line web plugin for Firefox - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Ubiquity/Ubiquity_0.1_User_Tutorial#Welcome <comment><AUTHOR> I just went through the tutorial and I really like the interface. I think it's really well done and I will likely use it heavily. The interface is very hacker-intuitive, especially if you are used to using shell commands.

In fact, I think that this sort of interface applied to shell commands (and vim) would be a really useful improvement.

</comment><comment><USER2> Something slightly related: YubNub, social command-line for the web

<http://yubnub.org/>

And also: Firefox keyword searches

[http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_:_Tips:_Quick_searches_:_L...](http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_:_Tips:_Quick_searches_:_List_of_Quick_searches)

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there a roadmap somewhere? Seems like there's lots of obvious improvements that could be added. For example, chaining so you can "highlight and email to ..." (or "highlight | email to ..." if you prefer)</comment>


Opposition to Facebook's new internet.org - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/talk/facebooks-internetorg-evil/ <comment><USER2> This is an important topic that should be top of mind for all of us and discussed on a regular basis. Facebook is trying hard to become like AOL in the mid 90s. Total control from soup to nuts. Zuckerberg and his team are very clever and calculated in their approach (as any of us might be in their position, similarly incentivized and with no malicious intentions). But we will all be worse off if they are successful. The open web is one of the few things in life I've found worth really fighting for.

<comment><USER3> No one doubts that the open web is a good thing. But no where in your entire post do you address the apparent upside of Internet.org: people who wouldn't be able to afford or access the Internet can access at least some parts of it. I think at that point the argument against Internet.org isn't as black and white. You can make an argument that in the _long run_ it might be a bad thing but you have to acknowledge that at least in the near term it is providing some benefit.

<comment><USER4> Right, but if you look at the adoption curves of technology, empirically, the long run comes quite quickly, so it is questionable that accelerating technology adoption is worth the long term monopoly leverage it brings.

EDIT: this is especially true considering Internet.org, despite its pitch, does not actually bring much to the connectivity infrastructure. It works in places where mobile connectivity infrastructure _already exists_ , just (presumably) not affordable enough. It is purely an economic arbitrage game, not infrastructure development.

EDIT2: I also speculate that competition between big players (e.g. Google vs Facebook) will not help resolve the problem either. Since all incumbents benefit from stuff like this, and almost all newcomers lose, big guys have few incentives to break down such paradigms after they are built up (very much like gerrymandering that Democrats and Republicans both like as it benefits them all).

<comment><USER5> You seem to be misinformed regarding infrastructure. Please research facebook's Aquila before posting.

<comment><USER6> I googled it up, and from the dates on news reports, it looks like it's been stuck in "ready for testing" limbo for months and there are zero meaningful specs or details on the drone itself published.

I also found Tim Berners-Lee trashing the buisness model, and philanthropist Bill Gates pointing out there are more important problems to solve in the developing world before connectivity.

I didn't think I could be more negative on Facebook's shitty internet.org, but now I am. Thanks for encouraging me to do the research!

<comment><USER7> > philanthropist Bill Gates pointing out there are more important problems to > solve in the developing world before connectivity.

Perhaps 'connectivity' is what Mark Zuckerberg is good at solving. We all should be doing things we are good at if its not harming anyone. At this moment people just have theories that internet.org might not be a good thing. People can be wrong, only time will tell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article is written from the point of view of a tech savvy but it's completely missing empathy. IMHO It completely misses the point. The idea of internet.org as I understand it is not to allow everyone, everywhere to see cat videos. But rather to show people the value of connectivity.

Most people that are not connected do not see a value on it. They think it won't help them in any way in their lives, that's a rich kid thing. The idea of the project I believe is to provide a free taste of limited functionality, to open that door to new opportunities. Then decide whether the value is worth it or not, and purchase an internet plan as his/her requirements dictate. It's a sort of "internet" literacy that wants to be spread. Feel free to actually check what the internet.org package offers, and imagine how it can help someone appreciate the value of being connected.

Right now due to lack of knowledge people without any access to internet have no idea how their crippling their own future, and their children's future. I believe the idea of internet.org is to provide some sort of basic free services that may help people decide whether full internet connectivity is for them or not, and try to change the "that's a thing only for rich/tech/lazy/young people" mentality that may prevail in rural areas for example.

In full disclosure I worked for fb for 1.5 years and haven't worked for them for half a year. These are my personal opinions .

<comment><USER8> You describe your belief of the idea of internet.org really well - it's the same one as most people have. The article spends half of itself describing how this idea is a myth. The article is saying that this Good Idea is, if you look at it, devoid of any humanitarian, charitable and not for profit motives.

It's not that the article is missing empathy, it's that the article describes how Internet.org is devoid of empathy.

<comment><USER9> Maybe I'm just a sociopathic misanthrope, but I _don 't care_ if the motives are humanitarian, charitable, full of empathy, and otherwise warm-fuzzy-non- profit-y.

So this criticism seems utterly irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm pretty sure most of these counter points are Facebook team accounts.

Reasonable short term counterpoints to opposing Internet.org exist —more access and faster. Facebook is leveraging those counter points into a market strategy that undermines one of the central value propositions of the current open internet.

It's defensible; it's not all bad. But its not ideal; it is distinctively bad in a serious way.

Ideally Facebook would promote access to the open web, rather than undermine it by promoting access to the Facebook version.

<comment><USER3> _It 's defensible; it's not all bad._

You're one of the few exceptions to admit that it isn't all bad. Most arguments against internet.org refuse to acknowledge the pros of it and thereby in my view are not objective or honest.

<comment><USER11> OTOH, I have found that all of them agree that universal access is important. Haven't seen any one of them saying "the poor people should not get the free data!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Once you understand what this is, you realize how disgusting it is. This isn't a charity to "help connect people" nor a fair business exchange. This is It's a land grab on a developing market. A way to break into India early on and establish a monopoly of internet companies (before Indians are able to build theirs). Meaning less competition and nearly no way for India to profitably have its own. Africa's largest social network Mxit already shut down when it couldn't compete with Facebook and Twitter. What chance are home grown indian social networks going to have with Internet.org land grab scheme?

In the still-early days of internet at least 3 companies had Free Dial-Up Internet service suplimented with ads. They gave you access to ALL of the internet and simply put an ad banner on the bottom of the screen at all times you were connected. We had Net-Zero (FREE dialup internet with Ads), K-mart Blue-Light (FREE dialup with ads), and Juno (FREE dial up with ads). All three of them went off of the FREE ad based model eventually because it was unsustainable (downloads and Napster required larger and larger amounts of bandwidth). This wouldn't work today due to ad blockers and torrents. Internet.org doesn't even give you access to the whole internet. So the only way for this to pay off is for Facebook and Co to become a monopoly in India.

You might not care because it's an American company expanding its influence abroad, but how would you feel if China did the same to us in the USA? And we had no chance of ever developing Facebook?

</comment><comment><USER13> Yes, Facebook has had an amazing growth in India in the last year (more than any other country).

Facebook connects people and there are a billion people in India so it only makes sense to get them online or better yet get them online while keeping them in a walled garden for as long as possible so they can reap the maximum rewards out of it.

Facebook portrays this as a humanitarian effort to bring poor people online (see internet.org ads on YouTube which portrays this as giving people free electricity) but it's only for their own benefit in the long run.

It's sad to see that Facebook is trying to kill the same thing which made it what it is. Zuckerberg should wonder what it would be if 20% of India was still using MySpace because they offered it for free in 2009 and didn't give them any option to sign up for Facebook.

<comment><USER14>
        > Facebook portrays this as a humanitarian effort ...
        > but it's only for their own benefit in the long run.

Sounds like every government aid agency ever. Perhaps you should also ask India to start refusing handouts from USAID, DFID, AusAID and so on...?

<comment><USER15> If the aid they're receiving will ultimately be more harmful than helpful? Yes. It is one thing to be self-interested, and another to be duplicitous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not-really-rhetorical question: how much less contentious would internet.org be, if it were [branded] say... facebook.net?

IMO quite a bit. The substantive criticisms would be unchanged; but two accelerants would be removed from the fire: the insinuation that the service 'is' the internet or some substantive subset of it; and that it is a charitable undertaking first and foremost.

<comment><USER17> IIRC the product is not longer called internet.org anyway; it's now called "free basics."

<comment><USER18> It's still a "project of Internet.org", alongside Facebook's Internet- providing drone things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> We've had this discussion before. This is merely rebranding and we all know what internet.org is really about. And can we please stop being shocked by any of it? Facebook is a corporation, it is not a charity, it needs to make money since it promised its investors bucketloads of gold.

That being said, I feel that these discussions do little other than blame Facebook. What we need is a good alternative that _does_ provide a full internet connection albeit at low speeds to people in developing regions of the world and the only way that I see we can possibly achieve this is to have good legislation. I remember having just a dial up modem, and that was enough for me to move up the social ladder; information can bring about social mobility.

Right now, the _value_ of the internet is evident to most people in government, all that we need to do is catalyze the process of making internet a fundamental right in most developing countries, or at least making internet _available_ and _affordable_ to everyone even if that means giving tax cuts to people.

<comment><USER8> > We've had this discussion before.

> Can we please stop being shocked by any of it

No. Please do not shut down discussion, anytime. This kills the open internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The article gives one point of view. The argument seem to imply that, this free internet is worse than no internet at all. I am not sure I buy into that yet. What I do think will be great is if the Govt of India and internet.org can quickly iterate over this plan, see what is working and what is not working and come up with regulations.

Mr. Mahesh made a comment about something that Comcast wanted to do was outlawed - which is essentially regulations. I think if India can quickly iterate and regulate with this new internet.org, that might be the solution to the problem.

</comment><comment><USER21> A partial article but nontheless the point has been made. It seems to me like facebook is being more and more agressive as people are starting to lose interest in the network.

And specially as there are more and more competitors that have much more to offer, such as Tsu. I am glad that their monopoly generating idea of internet.org is taking so much flak. I hope it continues, projects like these deserve to die.

</comment><comment><USER22> it's widely accepted that _big boys_ don't play _fair_ but Facebook has set a new standard of __LOW __

the _only_ way (& ambitious) I see is that for all the engineers at Facebook to say __NO __for this evil project

anyone with any sense of decency couldn't possibly agree to be involved in this evil project

</comment><comment><USER23> Question: Besides Facebook, what are the apps/sites that are allowed by internet.org's "Free Basics"? I can't find the list at internet.org.

</comment><comment><USER24> Access to some information is better than no access to information.

Some way to communicate is better than no way to communicate.

<comment><USER15> Why are you under the impression that people without Internet can't or don't communicate with each other?

This is not access to communication or information, it's access to frivolous distraction. Facebook has less bandwidth and more strings than traditional verbal and written communication.

<comment><USER24> Because when I was young we were having phones, even mobile phones, but first few years - without internet. My mobile site was one of the first mobile sites in Russia. And I know for sure: communication by phones/mail is as different from internet communication, as planet is different with atom. Coordinated networks are MUCH different than list of contacts in phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's the #1 reason I am boycotting all Facebook products. Zuckerberg is a very bad man.

<comment><USER26> Ignoring hanlon's razor (and its variations) and immediately assuming malice everywhere will prevent you from understanding the problem. You can't fix a problem you do not understand. So please don't just go around throwing "x is a very bad man" unless you have tangible proof, it serves no purpose.

<comment><USER25> Which razor is the one where you automatically presume I think the person is intentionally malicious? The black guy in Terminator 2 wasn't being malicious, but he was a very bad man in regards to what he was bringing to the human race.

Also, it's impossible to provide tangible proof for any opinion. My opinion is that Zuckerberg is a very bad person, and that is not a personal attack. A personal attack is never an opinion. Rather, personal attacks are when people have the intent of attacking to insult, to hurt, to throw wrenches into arguments, and so on.

Hacker News might disagree and appeal to their arbitrary rules about what's right and wrong, but to call my comment that "Zuckerberg is a very bad man" an assumption of malice, an unproven claim, or a personal attack is more of all three against myself than anything.

<comment><USER26> I accept your retort, and you're quite right my comment ironically ignored hanlon's razor itself. I'll pay more attention to it in the future.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Unwrapping and Visualizing Cuneiform Tablets (2002) - <AUTHOR> http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/cuneiform/ <comment><USER2> Interesting paper from 2002.

Nowadays, a popular method for imaging and viewing cuneiform tablets is Reflection Transformation Imaging (RTI) [1], developed at HP, and used among other things to image the Antikythera Mechanism [2].

You can view RTI images in your browser; here is a randomly selected cuneiform tablet in conventional [3] and RTI [4] form (click on the image and move your mouse around).

The web page of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative at UCLA [5] is worth a look, if you are interested in the intersection of computing and cuneiform. Among other things, they have started a project in machine-assisted translation of cuneiform [6].

[1] [http://culturalheritageimaging.org/Technologies/RTI/](http://culturalheritageimaging.org/Technologies/RTI/)

[2] [http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/2006/oct- dec/antikythera.html](http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/2006/oct- dec/antikythera.html)

[3] [https://cdli.ucla.edu/search/search_results.php?SearchMode=T...](https://cdli.ucla.edu/search/search_results.php?SearchMode=Text&PrimaryPublication=&MuseumNumber=&Provenience=&Period=&TextSearch=&ObjectID=P236609&requestFrom=Submit)

[4] [https://cdli.ucla.edu/search/rti/rti_view.php?loc=P236609_o](https://cdli.ucla.edu/search/rti/rti_view.php?loc=P236609_o)

[5] [https://cdli.ucla.edu/](https://cdli.ucla.edu/)

[6] [https://cdli.ucla.edu/?q=news/machine-assisted- translation-c...](https://cdli.ucla.edu/?q=news/machine-assisted-translation- cuneiform-texts)</comment>


Learn more about iCloud in China mainland - <AUTHOR> https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351 <comment><USER2> This is required to operate under Chinese law.

For instance, here is Microsoft's description of their own compliance.

>Keep your data within datacenters located in China with an Azure China account and stay compliant with international and industry-specific compliance standards. Access to your customer data is controlled by an independent company in China, 21Vianet. Not even Microsoft can access your data without approval and oversight by 21Vianet.

[https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/global- infrastructure/chin...](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/global- infrastructure/china/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Not only is this not news there's a lot of FUD about it. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20904857](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20904857)

Reposting my comment:

Apple has already publicly said in court filings, and under threat of perjury, that they don't make any exceptions for China. From Apple's filing [1]:

>Finally, the government attempts to disclaim the obvious international implications of its demand, asserting that any pressure to hand over the same software to foreign agents "flows from [Apple's] decision to do business in foreign countries . . . ." Opp. 26. Contrary to the government's misleading statistics (Opp. 26), which had to do with lawful process and did not compel the creation of software that undermines the security of its users, Apple has never built a back door of any kind into iOS, or otherwise made data stored on the iPhone or in iCloud more technically accessible to any country's government. See Dkt. 16-28 [Apple Inc., Privacy, Gov't Info. Requests]; Federighi Decl. ¶¶ 6–7. The government is wrong in asserting that Apple made "special accommodations" for China (Opp. 26), as Apple uses the same security protocols everywhere in the world and follows the same standards for responding to law enforcement requests. See Federighi Decl. ¶ 5.

and a declaration from Craig Federighi personally [2]:

>Apple uses the same security protocols everywhere in the world.

>Apple has never made user data, whether stored on the iPhone or in iCloud, more technologically accessible to any country's government. We believe any such access is too dangerous to allow. Apple has also not provided any government with its proprietary iOS source code. While governmental agencies in various countries, including the United States, perform regulatory reviews of new iPhone releases, all that Apple provides in those circumstances is an unmodified iPhone device.

>It is my understanding that Apple has never worked with any government agency from any country to create a "backdoor" in any of our products and services.

>I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the foregoing is true and correct.

When China wants something from iCloud they do it the same way that law enforcement does it everywhere in the world, which is through Apple.

[1] [https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2762131/C-D- Cal-1...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2762131/C-D- Cal-16-Cm-00010-Dckt-000177-000-Filed-2016.pdf)

[2] [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2762118-Federighi- De...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2762118-Federighi-Decl- Executed.html#document/p1)

<comment><USER4> Rather than reposting the same comment, the better thing to do here is flag the story.

<comment><USER5> there's nothing wrong about OP: he/she is just sharing a statement released by Apple.

it's only "wrong" or misleading in light of current events, but i don't think it is sufficient reason to delete it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel this should have a very basic statement:

"Apple does/does not store or provide access to encryption keys or plaintext of content uploaded to iCloud services"

This "support" page says nothing at all about what is actually encrypted vs. faux-encrypted.

<comment><USER7> Apple maintains a separate document on how individual content is encrypted [1].

Note that it is not apparent whether some of data listed under "end-to-end encrypted" is also included with iCloud Backups.

[1] [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT202303)

<comment><USER8> suppose i have an iphone 7 and a macbook air. i would like to know (to the extent possible) if it is possible to keep encrypted messages in iMessage accessible only on the iPhone while keeping photos available in iCloud/cross device.

after reading the link, it seems that as long as i do not have iCloud enabled for messages, no matter what other services i have enabled iCloud enabled for, i'm OK - for example, i do have photo iCloud backup enabled.

can anyone confirm that's what happens?

<comment><USER3> You can have iCloud enabled for Messages, but if you have iCloud Backup on then the keys are stored in the backup.

>Messages in iCloud also uses end-to-end encryption. If you have iCloud Backup turned on, your backup includes a copy of the key protecting your Messages. This ensures you can recover your Messages if you lose access to iCloud Keychain and your trusted devices. When you turn off iCloud Backup, a new key is generated on your device to protect future messages and isn't stored by Apple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Learned this from one of the Blizzard threads [1]. I'm surprised this move by Apple went unnoticed on HN.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21207949](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21207949)

<comment><USER4> It's been covered previously on HN, extensively, for a long time.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=icloud+china](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=icloud+china)

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. The linked Apple Support page marked the page as published on Oct 1, 2019 so I assumed it's new.</comment></comment></comment>


Unmanned USA military aircraft travels from NYC to LA in 12 minutes. - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2390818,00.asp

<comment><USER2> Prototype was just lost during the last test flight earlier today:

[http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/11/new-york-to-la- in-l...](http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/11/new-york-to-la-in-less- than-12-minutes/?hpt=hp_c2)

<comment><USER3> And this loss might cost them their program:

"This test flight was their last shot at success before the project is considered for closure."

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/11/fastest-ever- pla...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/11/fastest-ever-plane-lost- during-test-flight)

<comment><USER4> That page concludes with:

"Had the latest test flight gone to plan, the Falcon HTV-2 would have separated from its rocket high above the atmosphere and entered a steep dive before levelling out and performing a series of subtle manoeuvres to test its aerodynamic performance. At the end of the flight the plane would have rolled upside down and steered a graceful arc into the ocean."

The official press release at <http://go.usa.gov/KLe> says that they confirmed separation and that they achieved high-speed aerodynamic flight, not that they "would have separated". They lost contact 9 minutes into the aerodynamic tests, and the plane (if you can call it that, the CNN article calls it a "triangular wedge of zoom" which seems more appropriate) went down sometime after that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Suggestion for more accurate headline: "Unmanned USA military aircraft _could_ travel from NYC to LA in 12 minutes"

Normally I don't care, but I guess I'm just grumpy today.

<comment><USER6> Call me when I can get to the airport, park, get through security, get seated, fly to my destination, get off the plane, wait for my luggage, and be out at the curb in 12 minutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Previous discussions this morning:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2873003> \- 4 comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2873313> \- deleted

This pcmag article is from yesterday, the plane has already taken off. The Twitter feed (<https://twitter.com/#!/DARPA_News>) points to several updates after launch, and now to this news release (<http://go.usa.gov/KLe>) which says:

        Separation of the vehicle was confirmed by rocket cam and the aircraft
        transitioned to Mach 20 aerodynamic flight.  This transition represents
        a critical knowledge and control point in maneuvering atmospheric
        hypersonic flight.  More than nine minutes of data was collected before
        an anomaly caused loss of signal.  Initial indications are that the aircraft
        impacted the Pacific Ocean along the planned flight path.

It's supposed to have automatic landing procedures (basically, to crash into the Pacific), so they may still be hoping for a recovery.

Interestingly, Flight 1, which flew in April of last year, also collected 9 minutes of data. Maybe they just have to speed it up so they get where they want to be in less than 9 minutes....

<comment><USER7> Mach 20!? Heavens, and I thought the NASA X-43 was fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There are lots of submissions about this, some with comments, some with different aspects reported. A collection of previous submissions and links is given here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2874651>

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm a little unclear on what this project offers, vis-a-vis 1950s-era ICBMs. Is it considered OK to use in warfare because it doesn't look like a missile and doesn't carry nukes?

<comment><USER10> It's OK to use in warfare because it doesn't carry nukes. That's an enormous difference.

However, it is a good question to ask what this offers over ICBM equipped with conventional weapons. (The speed is about the same.) I'd imagine it's cost.

<comment><USER11> >(The speed is about the same.) I'd imagine it's cost.

Both system consist of booster (which need to provide 20 Mach delta-v to its payload) and payload - upper stage which is warhead carrying vehicle. ICBM is cheaper because it follows dumb ballistic trajectory which puts no specific structural requirements on the warheads and their enclosure. The warhead vehicle traveling at 20 Mach in the upper atmosphere would cost enormously more ( and possibly would be much heavier, thus requiring bigger booster). I.e. ICBM is cheaper.

The dumb ballistic trajectory was a weak spot of the ICBM system, and thus modern ICBM warheads perform evasive maneuvers during final atmosphere re- entry.</comment></comment></comment>


Ruby 1.9.3 preview1 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/2258299

<comment><USER2> Just to toot my own patches, this version of Ruby has a huge number of improvements to Ripper, the built-in Ruby parser in 1.9. There are some critical bug fixes, and local variable references have a different node type than bareword method calls. I dare say it's close to being ready to power a full Ruby implementation at this point.

<comment><USER3> Cool -- I'd never heard of ripper before (Googling for it doesn't produce much information either).

Can you comment on the differences/advantages of ripper, compared with RubyParser? For my use case I just want to get a sensible AST from some Ruby source code, a SAX-style interface is not necessary.

<comment><USER2> > Can you comment on the differences/advantages of ripper, compared with > RubyParser?

Absolutely! To provide context, what got me working on Ripper was my undergraduate thesis: Laser, a Ruby static analyzer, written in Ruby. It targets Ruby 1.9 only. To find out more, check the github: <https://github.com/michaeledgar/laser/>

My comparisons will be to the latest version of Ripper (the one in 1.9.3).

1\. RubyParser only parses Ruby 1.8.x code - this was a dealbreaker for me, but won't be for some.

2\. Ripper is C, primarily - it's actually just a separate set of action routines brutally hacked into the normal Ruby grammar file. This also means the code for it is pretty inscrutable. But, it's very fast and is integrated into the actual parser. It should grow with the language by design. However, bugs have shown this isn't as reliable as it could be.

3\. Ripper does not provide comment nodes for any nodes - RubyParser provides them for def, singleton def, class, and module nodes. I had to reconstruct this manually using the lexer stream for my purposes, though I get the added benefit that I can attach comments to many nodes (but not all). See the code here: [https://github.com/michaeledgar/laser/blob/master/lib/laser/...](https://github.com/michaeledgar/laser/blob/master/lib/laser/analysis/annotations/comment_attachment_annotation.rb)

4\. Ripper is a true AST, in fact it is closer to a concrete syntax tree sometimes, which makes working with it a bit harder. RubyParser has more friendly output, but goes too far in the other direction - it infers semantic information for you, sometimes (imo) quite egregiously.

4a. Constant literals - from numbers to regexes - are returned as objects, with no AST information. The ruby parser does this internally to save some execution time, but I don't believe that's appropriate for a general-purpose parser.

4b. It adds :scope nodes inside class, module, and def nodes, to indicate closed scopes. They don't need to be there - they aren't part of the syntax, they're a property of how you interpret the syntax as a Ruby program.

4c. The worst offender is if you parse "begin; rescue Foo => x; end", it actually _inserts_ an assignment "x = $!" into the rescue block. This is well beyond an AST.

5\. Sometimes RP's output is a bit inconsistent in the number of child nodes for a given node. For example, the :rescue node in "begin; foo; rescue; end" has two child nodes. In "begin; rescue; end", it has 1 child node: just the :resbody node. A proper tree would have at least a nil node for the begin body, but RP elides it. This means if you see a :rescue node, you have to always check the first child node's type before you can do anything. That's why consistency is important.

6\. RubyParser doesn't pick up errors as often, and as far as I can tell, doesn't report them at all. For example, parsing "def foo(x, x); end" in Ripper will give you a "param_error" node. I'm not too happy with the exact reporting style, and I've blogged about it (<http://carboni.ca/blog/p/ripper- plus-How-Ripper-Must-Change>), but it at least notes the error so you don't have to, as a parser should in this case (as it's a parse-level error). RP doesn't note it. If you do an invalid global alias: "class A; alias $foo $1; end", RP just ignores the node, whereas Ripper will report it with an :alias_error node.

All told, RubyParser is a nice library and it's important to have an all-Ruby option out there. But for me, Ripper is far more appropriate from a theoretical and practical standpoint for a large-scale project.

Edit: grr, my formatting wasn't saved twice now.

<comment><USER3> Awesome! Thanks for the information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> To install with rvm:

        rvm get latest
        rvm reload
        rvm install 1.9.3-preview1
        rvm use 1.9.3
        ruby -v

Compiling took two or three minutes on my machine.

</comment><comment><USER5> Does this contain the fixes with require to make loading rails and other libraries startup faster? I didn't see anything relating to it in the change logs.

<comment><USER6> it seems so [https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/v1_9_3_preview1/ChangeLog#...](https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/v1_9_3_preview1/ChangeLog#L3317)

Notice this does not solve rails becoming slower every release (I recently recovered a 1.2 project and it runs the tests something like five times faster then a fresh one with 3.0)

<comment><USER7> I know, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "... and date library were reimplemented in C" Is this merge of <https://github.com/jeremyevans/home_run> ?

<comment><USER9> Not sure, but it's a lot faster either way:

<https://gist.github.com/1117138>

<comment><USER7> I'd be interested to see how a better-implemented, properly optimized pure- Ruby version would perform.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm excited for the IO/Console library. Even though messing with curses is a rite of passage for anyone writing a roguelike, I'm looking to get out of that business.

</comment><comment><USER11> It is still painfully slow, right?</comment>


The Making of Dungeon Master - <AUTHOR> http://www.filfre.net/2015/12/dungeon-master-part-1-the-making-of/ <comment><USER2> If like me, you are curious about the copy protection mentioned in the article, here is the patent that was filed about it:

[http://www.google.com/patents/US4849836](http://www.google.com/patents/US4849836)

It relies on "fuzzy bits" which were stored on a specific track. Reading this track repeatedly should yield different values. If the same value is found multiple times, the disk is a copy.

The devious aspect of this scheme is that if the program detected an illegal copy, it wouldn't abort right away but later, in various ways (system errors, killing your entire party, etc...). The check was also performed multiple times during the game (e.g. changing levels).

All these reasons combined explain why it took more than a year for the first real cracks to appear.

<comment><USER3> I'd imagine the rate of false positives was also quite high.

<comment><USER2> Apparently not. The fuzzy bits created on the master discs were extremely reliable (and by that I mean "unreliable"): every time you read the track, you would get different values. Remember that a track contains a lot of bytes. The copy protection was only checking one fuzzy bit to declare the disk genuine. And these fuzzy bits were by design impossible to create on regular disk drives (thankfully!).

The hardware required to create these tracks was extremely expensive and sometimes even out of stock, leaving hackers no other solution than to actually remove the protection if they wanted to produce a crack.

Years later, a disk copier appeared that was able to preserve these fuzzy bits but it was way after there was any commercial interest left in the Dungeon Master titles.

<comment><USER4> > _Years later, a disk copier appeared that was able to preserve these fuzzy > bits but it was way after there was any commercial interest left in the > Dungeon Master titles._

I wonder what's the story behind that copier. Was its ability a side effect of the method they used? Or was there a legitimate commercial interest in preserving those fuzzy bits in copies? Or was actually built with pirates in mind?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I remember Dungeon Master fondly, even if I never finished it. It was a _truly great_ game. One silent aspect of that was probably the lack of scripted story. Just a few fragments of text on scrolls and a few more scattered around, chiseled on the walls. (Author notes that story didn't really come into the play until the final level.)

The level that killed my interest was the annoying, slapped-on-for-malevolent- humour "Zoom!". Everything until that point is a marvelous gaming experience, but the forced timing and counting based teleport field problem is a big misstep. In a game where sometimes returning to earlier levels was not only possible but also encouraged, facing that single funnel-like problem raised a terrible spectre of a thought: _" I may need to go through that again"_.

It killed the game for me.

But considering how massive an influence Dungeon Master had on a generation of gamers, it's probably not a coincidence that the release of an indie game that promised the ability to relive the experience was was so eagerly expected. [0]

Oh, to have time to play again...

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

<comment><USER6> Dungeon master was definitely one of my favorites back then. I play it all the way through and even played the sequel "Chaos strikes back". I enjoyed this article for the nostalgia. I wish it had mentioned two other games though:

Dungeons of Daggorath [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_of_Daggorath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_of_Daggorath)] This did many of the things Dungeon Master did but much earlier. I can see it's arcade-style gameplay being thought of as different, but I didn't see it that way as a player.

Black Crypt [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Crypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Crypt)] This really improved on the formula. It was released around the same time as Ultima Underworld, but it's a much more direct comparison to dungeon master.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I played the heck out of that game on my Amiga in the late 80s/early 90s.

<comment><USER8> Me too, me too.

Man, it was just so scary and intense, creeping around that dungeon in realtime, with the stereo sound effects. It was about 1000x more exciting than bard's tale 2 (which I did love too)!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If anyone is interested in a modern take on Dungeon Master, checkout Legend of Grimrock.

<comment><USER10> I saw that but wasn't very interested in anything without a solid story and story progression...

<comment><USER11> The story side of Legend of Grimrock _2_ is pretty good, I think, and the story side of things worked pretty well for me, although it's always going to be more of a set of related puzzles kind of story I guess. (It's a bit like the Dark Souls games, maybe, where a bit of story helps to make it interesting, but keeping this kind of minimal and keeping the story out of the way of the actual experience is also important.)

Just got reminded about the following, also, from the comments below the article: [http://dungeonkingdom.com/](http://dungeonkingdom.com/) (In Steam early access currently, looking pretty good also, but didn't play it yet.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you're interested in this game and want to get a feel of it, I can't recommend enough the "CRPG addict" playthrough:

[http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2010/11/game-33-dungeon- maste...](http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2010/11/game-33-dungeon- master-1987.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> Anyone reading on iOS notice there are no scroll bars even when scrolling down? For such a long article it made it extremely irritating to read; never knowing if it was going to continue on or if I was near the end.

I ended up skipping a huge portion and moving on. Sorry; if you ruin user experience then I'm not going to waste my time on your site.</comment>


Haproxy 2.2 - <AUTHOR> https://www.haproxy.com/# <comment><USER2> HAProxy is a unique piece of software.

I've had the privilege to interact directly with Willy (the main developer for many years, still the project lead) on the mailing list, in person at the conference, and even though I've never paid a dime, the interaction has been the best open-source experience I've ever had. Willy routinely writes multi- paragraph responses on the mailing list to my hair-brained suggestions for how HAProxy could be better for my company's rather unique needs.

I often feel bad that I cannot do more for the project, because it is so well thought-through and delivered.

The software cuts no corners and delivers at fractions of the TCO of competition (limited by my opinion and experience, of course). For instance, just last week, I spun a rate limiting solution in half a morning, that mitigated some annoying proxy bots instantly (and is flexible enough to automatically block offenders without affecting legitimate users).

The stats, DNS support, and integrations and many other featured are second to none among other load balancers.

It's an impressive and refreshing project. We could all learn something from HAProxy and the team.

<comment><USER3> Why do you choose HAProxy over Ngxinx?

It's sounds like you love it, and I have had no experience with HAProxy. So I'm curious about the reasons you love it.

(Just to be clear this is a sincere question to learn since tone is hard to express clearly with text.)

<comment><USER2> As a load balancer, NGINX is subpar in almost every feature comparison, especially at the open-source (free to use) tier.

HAProxy gives you the following that are musts for load balancing (in my opinion), that NGINX does not, at least not easily:

1) A HTML (or JSON) stats page that precisely and completely tells you what's going on at a high-level. A visit to this during outages is often all that's required.

2) Support for DNS (and other) discovery mechanisms in a flexible way. (This is paid in NGINX)

3) Active health checks (also paid in NGINX)

4) The ACL system, while somewhat difficult to learn, is amazingly powerful.

5) Flexible L7 retries are brilliant.

We replaced NGINX with HAProxy and eliminated a whole class of bugs, micro- outages, and annoyances just by following HAProxy's best practices.

I still use NGINX when I need a static web file server, though. :)

<comment><USER4> HAProxy - traffic shaping { load-balancing, req-throttling, health-checks }

nginx - { static file serving, good proxy for python/ruby apps, req manipulation with advanced scripting capabilities via lua engine through open- resty [mirroring, WAF(naxsi), url rewriting etc] }

A combo of haproxy + nginx would always bring good delight for many practitioners.

<comment><USER5> This is actually what I often recommend and often encounter in field: haproxy for LB, varnish serving as a smart cache, and nginx for the applications+static file serving.

All 3 components are free, combine extremely well because they've grown together, and are extremely efficient. This is important in virtualised or containerized environments where you want to save resources to minimize response time and leave the CPU for the applications.

Of course each of them can do a little bit of the other ones' job. This is fine, it allows easier initial deployments, but as your site grows, whichever you initially start with, you'll always end up installing the two other ones to constitute the most robust stack ever. And it's easy to insert one next to the others without having to break everything, which further adds to the fun.

<comment><USER2> Yes. We use all three at different points of the stack for different purposes.

It's great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Haproxy is such a nice piece of software, sensible configuration, very stable and versatile. And, one thing that is highly appreciated, I've never seen it do something I wasn't expecting it to. This quality of minimal surprises in its operation isn't going unnoticed by any measure.

<comment><USER7> Has it solved the reloading problem yet?

<comment><USER8> Yup, [https://www.haproxy.com/blog/hitless-reloads-with-haproxy- ho...](https://www.haproxy.com/blog/hitless-reloads-with-haproxy-howto/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here is the announcement blogpost [https://www.haproxy.com/blog/announcing- haproxy-2-2/](https://www.haproxy.com/blog/announcing-haproxy-2-2/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Finally full SSL certs management at runtime through the API is here! No need to restart Haproxy anymore to add or update a cert! Brilliant, thanks!

<comment><USER11> FWIW the ability to send a SIGUSR2 to reload certs has been there for awhile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love HA Proxy, but one thing I'm confused about is why the http-tunnel feature was removed in this release (and deprecated in earlier 2.x releases). http-tunnel allowed you to start a session with an HTTP request/response, then keep the socket to the backend alive without further inspection of the protocol.

This is useful for things like RTSP where you kick things off with HTTP but then stream lower level TCP content over the same socket. There are also lots of other custom protocols that benefit from this type of set up, including one that I'm working on wrangling HA Proxy to work with now.

Does anyone know if there's some replacement way to handle this in HA Proxy that I'm overlooking?

<comment><USER13> > why the http-tunnel feature was removed in this release

From the haproxy 2.0 documentation:

> This mode should not be used as it creates lots of trouble with logging and > HTTP processing. And because it cannot work in HTTP/2, this option is > deprecated and it is only supported on legacy HTTP frontends. In HTX, it is > ignored and a warning is emitted during HAProxy startup.

As for a way to handle this, I believe if you are using an HTTP CONNECT or a websocket (Connection: Upgrade), then haproxy will detect that it is a tunnel, and handle that correctly. If that's not the case, you might be able to use haproxy in tcp mode.

<comment><USER14> There is a bug in 2.2 which prevents websockets (and other tunneling protocols?) from working[0]. Maybe what the OP is running into.

[0] [https://github.com/haproxy/haproxy/issues/737](https://github.com/haproxy/haproxy/issues/737)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Seeing a lot of love for Willy, the main developer for years, on here. I've dabbled in HAProxy, definitely a lovable product.

Looked up Willy on LinkedIn,"DO NOT SEND ME F __CKING INVITES IF WE HAVE NOT WORKED TOGETHER! "

No F __cking around with this guy.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's amazing how much better the .org site is over the .com.

<comment><USER17> Isn't it the other way around? Haproxy.org is not responsive and looks like it was designed in the 90s.

<comment><USER18> > looks like it was designed in the 90s.

I think plenty of HNers will see that as a positive aspect.

<comment><USER17> I understand the nostalgia or liking the retro look, but the site is completely unreadable in mobile. There is absolutely no redeeming quality in that.

Claiming that an unreadable version of a site is better than a readable one is simply wrong.

<comment><USER19> In my opinion a site like this working perfectly on mobile is in the 'who cares' category. Almost nobody is going to haproxy.org on their smartphone with any intention of actually doing anything with the software. Almost nobody is installing or configuring haproxy from mobile.

It's information dense, which is much appreciated on desktop. The .com looks like every other generic 'look at our product!' site, and to actually do anything you have to sort through 5 different dropdowns and other UI items designed to grab your attention.

When I have to install or configure the software I want the .org, 100%.

<comment><USER17> > Almost nobody is going to haproxy.org on their smartphone with any intention > of actually doing anything with the software.

This is where you get it entirely wrong. I read this news and I, as an extensive nginx/traffic user, wanted to check out haproxy to understand if it was worth a shot. The .org page is plagued with general usability and readability problems to the point that it's practically unreadable when compared with the page served through the .com domain. There is no way around it.

You don't fix problems by turning a blind eye and playing the denying card. More importantly, this sort of technical snafu is helps form the public image of the product, and thus this sort of poor performance reflects poorly on the product.

<comment><USER19> If you were actually serious about it you would just mentally note it and revisit when you were on a more capable device. Perusing for replacement infrastructure software via mobile is just a casual thing, and foolish if you're actually trying to get anything done.

Nobody is swapping out any tech via their mobile browser impression. All this is pretty complicated software and you're going to want to do a lot of reading/inspection before making decisions like that. That is not done via a 5" display.

I stand with my view that there is no problem to fix here. The site is clear & understandable to anyone who seriously plans on using it or is using it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Slightly OT, we have several different kinds of services that need rate limiting, written in different stacks. We would like to have one solution for rate limiting, ideally that we could put in front of any service, that was light weight, but also could work with AWS target groups that are already splitting traffic across nodes inside a service - so I believe that means some sort of clustered solution or at least communication. Is haproxy a good fit for this? Maybe nginx (paid)?

<comment><USER21> We use HAproxy for similar reasons you describe if I'm understanding correctly.

As one of the other posts kinda suggested you can get a ton done with a few hours, it might be worth just standing up a box real quick and trying it out. As a note when we try stuff like this we put behind a AWS LB so we can push partial traffic to our experiment and aren't betting the farm whilst testing in prod.

Good luck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Haproxy is brilliant, we've used it for years as a simple mesh on all our services, but we're considering moving to envoy as we need opentracing support to help understand how requests flow between services.

Anyone managed to make this work on haproxy?

<comment><USER23> There's an opentracing integration coming very soon! We were hoping to have it available with the 2.2 release but there were still a few things to finalize.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The only open source software better than Haproxy is redis IMHO.

<comment><USER25> I agree that Redis is "good", I wouldn't put it at the level of HAProxy - particularly when it comes to "what stuff is deliberately kept out of the open source version".

If I had to choose a project/tool to put at a similar 'level' as HAProxy in terms of: doing one thing well; a working open source project with a private company backing it; and a well run project, I'd say it's Varnish, which just happens to pair very well with HAProxy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Haproxy isn't quite as fast as iptables (we switched because of this) but it was delightful to configure. The tradeoff is definitely worth it in most cases.

<comment><USER27> Just curious, what were you doing where you needed the performance of iptables over haproxy?

<comment><USER26> We forward a cluster of 2,560 TPU pod cores from our GCE project to other GCE projects in europe-west4-a. Originally it was because we had a separate GCE project with a bunch of credits, but that project had no access to TPUs. The question was, could we still take advantage of the credits? It turns out, we could; the solution involved VPC Network Peering, which I later learned is how the TPUs themselves work. Some configuration details are here: [https://www.shawwn.com/swarm#iptables](https://www.shawwn.com/swarm#iptables)

Nowadays we forward the TPU pods to pretty much anyone who wants to try them out, in hopes of getting more people involved in the TPU programming scene. The TPUs are managed via a website ([https://www.tensorfork.com/tpus](https://www.tensorfork.com/tpus)) and we coordinate TPU access via spreadsheet. Each researcher has their own GCE project, and we simply flip a switch to give them access.

If anyone reading this happens to be into ML and into programming for big hardware rigs, feel free to hop into the Tensorfork discord server and we can show you the ropes. [https://github.com/shawwn/tpunicorn#ml- community](https://github.com/shawwn/tpunicorn#ml-community)</comment></comment></comment>


Lobash: A modern, powerful library for Bash script development - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/adoyle-h/lobash <comment><USER2> I just love how we went from "underscore" to "lodash" to "lobash". People in the future are gonna think we were nuts. Either way, cool project!</comment>


CastSan: efficient detection of bad C++ casts [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.docdroid.net/INWYBF7/castsan-esorics18.pdf <comment><USER2> I don't know why but I read first the title as "CastSatan"

oh wait ... I now know why

It's a C++ article.

<comment><USER3> Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.</comment></comment>