Digital Identity Guidelines: Public Comment Period - <AUTHOR> https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/ <comment><USER2> My banks online password requirements match the suggestions in these documents, but the passwords are entirely case insensitive. So its the same if I type "password" or "PaSSwOrD". There is a second passphrase that youre asked to select randomly chosen characters from combo boxes for, but that is case insensitive also. I got into an argument with their customer rep on Twitter about this not being the best case and they replied that it was based on industry best practice. I've never heard that before...

<comment><USER3> When passwords are case insensitive I'm always skeptical that they are storing passwords in plain text.

Ofcourse they could be using a function to change the case before putting it through a oneway function but it just adds to the suspicion.

The other horrid offence that I see banks make is preventing users from pasting / autofilling their passwords. This just asks for people to use common easy to guess passwords instead of a password manager.

<comment><USER4> A password should be hashed client side, and lowercasing (or upper casing) before hashing would be trivial and just as secure if you accept that the searchspace is reduced.

<comment><USER5> Eh, if you're using TLS it really doesn't matter where you hash. There's a lot of arguments for not doing secure hashing and encryption in JavaScript

<comment><USER4> If I hash client side the server will never know my password. If the server hashes the password, that is effectively the same as storing the password in cleartext.

/edit: Security wise sending the password, means you trust the server to handle the password correctly. For all we know it stores the plaintext password. If we send the hash, we KNOW that it does not store the password. It's an important distinction to make in real world systems. No matter how much best practices dictates to not reuse passwords, it happens as long as humans are involved.

<comment><USER6> (Note: edited to make it more clear that hashing only on the client is insecure.) I think it is true that hashing on the client in addition to on the server offers a little security boost since if someone is able to snoop a login, they will only see a hashed password, which they can use to compromise the user's account on the site being accessed but not on other sites where the user may use the same password (assuming you use a salted hash). Server hashing guards against the case where someone steals the database but not against the case where they snoop logins (and hashing _only_ on the client wouldn't guard against this). Also, it might be practical to use more rounds of bcrypt on the client, but this is hard to say. Maybe you were downvoted, though, because you said server hashing is "effectively the same as storing the password in cleartext." Actually, the main win is probably from hashing on the server; the boost from also doing it on the client seems relatively minor.

<comment><USER4> If we send the plaintext password we don't know that the server handles it responsibly. We don't know if they had to push an update under time constraint means that they now store passwords in plaintext. What we know is that we send plaintext password to the server on every login, that should, in a threat model, be considered as not using hashing at all.

On the other hand, if the password is hashed client side, we KNOW that it cannot be stored as plaintext, because the server never knows it.

<comment><USER7> If you hash the password on the client, that hash IS the password. The attacker can just replay that request and can authenticate as you.

<comment><USER4> That is not the issue we're protecting against, but preventing a leak from affecting other sites when the user is reusing a password.

<comment><USER8> I've done this before in a site, probably badly. But the way I handled it is that on sign up I hashed the password on the client side and stored that once. Then during login as part of the form I also included a "challenge" (i suspect I was not rigorous with it) that went with it, so I had: HMAC(HASH(password), challenge), and that's what got sent across. Since the server had the original HASH(password) and the challenge it could verify that you knew the password without either the hash or password being sent. I know for a fact that I wasn't handling replay of the challenge properly but it wouldn't be too difficult to deal with it (add the time and have it expire after so long). But I definitely had other problems with it (no SSL, and probably bad sidechannel issues).

<comment><USER4> Yes! You're the first in this thread that sounds like you have put actual throught into security and threat modeling.

<comment><USER9> If we talk about "hash the password before sending to the server" this procedure is what we're talking about (or something similar). Surely people aren't thinking of literally just hashing the password and sending it on its merry way? If we say "symmetric encryption" we don't mean we're going to do AES(block_n, key) either (ECB mode should never be used for anything).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> From Appendix A of 800-63B:

 _" Research has shown, however, that users respond in very predictable ways to the requirements imposed by composition rules."_

I'm not disputing this statement, but there is no reference to the supporting research either. I get that this isn't an academic paper, but I'd be curious to see the research they're referring to nonetheless. Does anyone here happen to know what they may have relied on for that claim?

<comment><USER11> [http://www.guanotronic.com/~serge/papers/chi11b.pdf](http://www.guanotronic.com/~serge/papers/chi11b.pdf)

<comment><USER10> Very cool, many thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can someone suggest a federated protocol for password changing so my password manager can rotate passwords on my behalf in breaches and just every month or so?

<comment><USER13> I wrote two blog posts on this idea a few years ago, but alas no credible player has pursued documenting a standard protocol for this. Password managers are, probably pragmatically, writing custom scrapers for major sites instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> _As correctly captured by Peter Steiner in The New Yorker, "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog."_

Interesting to see a cartoon cited in a government publication.

<comment><USER15> You will be most pleased to know that the CIA made a reference to a Woodie Allen movie making mockery of the CIA.

I can hardly wait till Woody Allen makes a reference to that publication in one of his upcoming movies.

[https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of- intellig...](https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of- intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol.-55-no.-4/driving-the- yanquis-bananas-the-feeling-was-mutual.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Check [https://www.random.org/passwords/](https://www.random.org/passwords/)

</comment><comment><USER17> About Passwords - [https://sites.google.com/site/magyarinformatikus/about- passw...](https://sites.google.com/site/magyarinformatikus/about-passwords)</comment>


DimDim aquired by SalesForce.com, shutting down the service - <AUTHOR> http://www.dimdim.com/faq.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it just me or does this FAQ come off as a bit rude? The answers just seem so cold and unforgiving. The email to existing customers was just as rude:

        Dear Customer:

        Dimdim has been acquired by salesforce.com. Your free Dimdim account will remain active until March 15, 2011.  After that date, you will no longer be able to access your free Dimdim account.

        Please see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for  additional information.

        We appreciate your understanding, and we thank you!

You'd think they'd at least say something like "SalesForce.com is excited about DimDim's technology and we're looking forward to integrating it into our CRM... blah blah." Nope, just "You're account's going to stop working. Thanks."

<comment><USER2> I've often wondered why these "talent acquisitions" rarely include a clear strategy to upsell existing customers to the new service when it launches. I see the logic in shutting down a free service, but would it have hurt to add a paragraph at the end of that email to discuss options to continue the service with a paid plan, or alternatives to use in the meantime?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is there a powerful, free alternative to DimDim?</comment>


The hope that pomegranates can defeat drugs lords and the Taliban - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12708118 <comment><USER2> Which is more profitable: Pomegranate or Heroin.

I can't answer that, but I can tell you which has a better repeat business.</comment>


From techies in India to software slaves in US - <AUTHOR> http://m.timesofindia.com/tech/jobs/From-techies-in-India-to-software-slaves-in-US/articleshow/45927386.cms

<comment><USER2> [http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Long-Range-Of- Prejudice/...](http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Long-Range-Of- Prejudice/293121)</comment>


Elevators in an age of higher towers and bigger cities - <AUTHOR> http://www.curbed.com/2017/4/24/15385658/elevator-skyscraper-urban-design-kone <comment><USER2> The Shanghai Tower, the second tallest building (just got finished), has the fastest elevator in the world. The Burj Khalifa, while it's the highest skyscrapper, the top spire contains nothing, the visitor platform in the Shanghai Tower is located higher elevation. The Shanghai Tower visitor platform is at floor 118 (546m), a restaurant is at floor 119.

Trying out the fastest elevator, I am spoiled, now every other elevator feels so damn slow. It feels like taking off in an airplane, it also has similar slight effects on your ears.

</comment><comment><USER3> The best elevator I ever used was in Beijing. One would select the floor to visit and it would allocate an elevator grouping you with everyone who wants to go to the same floor or +1/-1 floor. Unused elevators would go back to level 1.

<comment><USER4> These systems are used in NYC

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have recurring dreams of being in elevators that move sideways. Probably watching too much Star Trek as a kid.

Rode in a mineshaft elevator recently. Not for the claustrophobic. Pitch black and two levels; you load one group, then it moves down the shaft enough to load another group on top.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wish that when elevators were built, they would build a spiral slide for those descending next to it. That would instantly reduce the traffic by about half considering that I believe most people would opt for the slide.

<comment><USER7> Sounds fun, so long as you're ok going all the way to the bottom, not just a lower floor :)

<comment> crooked-v I think it's fair to say that in the vast, vast majority of multi-story buildings, people are only really be interested in visiting a single story (for their destination) and maybe the basement (for parking). The exception is shopping centers, which use escalators or stairs for most traffic rather than elevators.

<comment><USER8> So you'd need a ton of space for N number of slides exiting at the ground floor, where N is the total number of floors.

Unless people can enter mid slide somehow without affecting the journey of other sliders :P

<comment><USER9> Air guns at each floor. It will be great

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They should open their mine shaft as a tourist attraction. Imagine - 'the hole' \- and being able to venture far underground. At the visitor center at the top they could have an IMAX cinema with an orientation film:

[https://youtu.be/s19xcVf5Jto?t=37s](https://youtu.be/s19xcVf5Jto?t=37s)

There could be rocks for sale in the gift shop. Imaginably there could be conference center facilities and what not at the bottom of the hole, a cafe, recording studios and more, all accessible by one experimental lift.

If you happened to be in Finland and just so happened to be passing 'The Hole', would you pop by and have a cuppa in the quiet of the mineshaft, getting there on the coolest of lifts? I doubt such an attraction would challenge Disneyland or even pay for itself but I know a minority of people would go.

</comment><comment><USER11> "Inside a glistening white elevator cab, pressurized to make my brief ride even more comfortable..."

How does that work, when it comes to getting off, unless each floor is pressurized?

A quick search finds only references to pressurized shafts, for smoke control in the event of a fire.

<comment><USER12> Pressure drops as speed increases. A rapidly (enough) moving elevator car experiences this.

<comment><USER11> Thanks - the Venturi effect, I am guessing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's been interest for years in elevator systems with more than one car per shaft, and in elevators that can move horizontally as well as vertically. Both Otis and ThyssenKrupp have built prototypes, but there are no passenger elevator installations yet.

<comment><USER14> There is a lift in Italy that goes horizontally and then vertically: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A739p5HkRZ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A739p5HkRZ8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> At 4 WTC, the official rule when fire breaks out is "Use the elevator". I've never heard of that before.

New elevator technology is amazing and they're extremely reliable. Perhaps the safest mode of transport, even before aircraft in people-per-km-travelled

</comment><comment><USER16> Did anyone else find that article terribly written?

<comment><USER17> It is, the information density is annoyingly low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> on related note - any cheats for faster ride skipping floors which actually work nowadays without special key?</comment>


Traits of Highly Creative People - <AUTHOR> http://www.copyblogger.com/highly-creative-people/

<comment><USER2> Here is a much less superficial article from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist who has extensively studied highly creative people:

[http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199607/the- creative-...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199607/the-creative- personality)

 _If I had to express in one word what makes their personalities different from others, it's complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an "individual," each of them is a "multitude."_

<comment><USER3> _I am large, I contain multitudes._ \- Walt Whitman

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From my personal point of view, while certainly creativity has nothing to do with intelligence, it does however -- as with anything -- come down to an essential fondness of the act itself; something which I believe is very much innate.

Anyone can be creative. It's not an exclusive trait, and you can learn to play upon it and master it to some degree. For most people though, the creative act _doesn't do it for them_ as it does for the creative person. And you can't learn to love something.

I consider myself a somewhat creative person. When I play the guitar for instance, making melodies and compositions is perhaps more a compulsive need than anything else. (I hope this doesn't come off as self glorification; but it's not all a good behavior either.) I've also had ambitions with art projects and forced myself to work, and conclusively shown myself that results never get as good as when you act spontaneously out of the joy and pleasure of creating, whatever big and strong visions.

<comment><USER5> I do not think anyone can be creative. There is such a thing as inate intelligence and it is not a fairytale nor does it not do anything.

Most people have an IQ of 100 so what these people create is pretty normal stuff because they see the world pretty much as everyone else does. Some people have an IQ of 115 which is the above average, these people are rarer therefore what they create is less common, hence creative. Not to mention that they do have a different way of thinking from the previous individuals as they do question and challenge assumptions which I would suggest is the basis of creativity.

<comment><USER6> With all due respect, creativity and intelligence(at least, one as measured by IQ test)are not strongly correlated. Not everyone can be creative, but you don't have to be very smart to be creative. On the other hand, smart people are not necessarily creative.

Sure, one can point to Einstein or Feynman as positive examples of high intelligence and creativity. However, does the intelligence of Picasso, Dali or even Warhol play a significant part in their creativity?

<comment><USER7> "However, does the intelligence of Picasso, Dali or even Warhol play a significant part in their creativity?"

I think for these artists (and most modern artists) a good deal of the value of their work comes from having been particularly clever about what makes something art, and what people have already experienced and now expect. Van Gogh, on the other hand, probably did much less intellectualizing about his work.

But I'm still skeptical that you can have a keen eye for color and composition, and the selection of subject matter, and be dopey. Most so-called "naive" art, or "outsider art", tends to look cluttered and ill-planned. Often that effect is the appeal, but it stands in contrast to the spatial organization of work done by more culturally established artists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Creativity can be found in all walks of life, there are creative doctors, lawyers, accounts (well..), programmers etc. To be exceptional in your field, I think you have to leverage some element of creativity to stand out amongst a plethora of mediocrity. Creativity doesn't necessarily imply the arts, design, et al.

I do believe creativity can be fine-tuned and improved over time, but my experience has been that most people don't have enough of it. I do think there is some nature/DNA involved.

</comment><comment><USER9> For me the axioms of creativity are:

1\. Change the axioms

2\. Go meta on the axioms

So, if you change these axioms you're going to be creatively creative. How meta.

In conclusion, this comment is very creative.

</comment><comment><USER10> <http://artequalswork.com/2008/11/a-case-for-logic/>

</comment><comment><USER11> No source, no validity.

<comment><USER12> The url should be a tip-off that this isn't being passed off as some kind of scientific paper that requires peer review.</comment></comment>


Microsoft bets on cloud computing as Amazon suffers outage - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080729-microsoft-bets-on-cloud-computing-as-amazon-suffers-outage.html

<comment><USER2> I'm going to get downvoted for this, but I'm saying it: can anything exciting happen in the computer industry without Microsoft coming in and expecting people to pay for mediocrity?

<comment><USER3> if that's your opinion why care if you get downvoted?

although I don't clearly understand your point

<comment><USER2> I don't (why does anyone care?)

My point is that I've been noticing a lot of "gotcha" being played, and being played the most by Microsoft. Something happens that grabs the attention of consumers and the blogosphere, you have some great contenders and people are excited about the idea as a whole. There are options, some good some bad, some great.

Then, along trudges Microsoft. They want to put their spin of the idea on the market, except it hardly works as well as other things out there, and there's a price tag. Point blank, they want you to pay for mediocrity. I'll provide examples:

Cloud computing \--- Early competition: Amazon Web Services, AppEngine Microsoft jumps in: [http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080729-microsoft- bets...](http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080729-microsoft-bets-on- cloud-computing-as-amazon-suffers-outage.html)

Online music stores \--- Early competition: iTunes, Rhapsody, Yahoo Microsoft jumps in: [http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft-opens-MSN-Music- store/2100-10...](http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft-opens-MSN-Music- store/2100-1027_3-5342795.html)

Universal browser environments: \--- Early competition: Adobe Air Microsoft jumps in: [http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2007/04/15/introducing- mi...](http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2007/04/15/introducing-microsoft- silverlight.aspx)

Now, I know not every one of these services has been free or open-source, but it just seems to me lately that Microsoft has been playing this very pointless game of copy, brand and monetize.

I would much rather see MS focus on fixing their operating system then try and compete with great ideas, that were flawlessly executed. I'll be honest, as soon as I saw that MS was wanting to bid, I immediately got less excited about cloud computing

<comment><USER4> _it just seems to me lately that Microsoft has been playing this very pointless game of copy, brand and monetize_

Isn't this what Microsoft have always done?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sorry, Mark. Facebook needed Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2011/11/03/sorry-mark-facebook-needed-silicon-valley/

<comment><USER2> There's no point in saying that if he was starting facebook knowing what he knows now, he would do things differently ...

The reason he knows what he knows now is BECAUSE he started facebook!

</comment><comment><USER3> >>Could Facebook could have started in Timbuktu?

That's a terrible opening line</comment>


Epoch – A real-time charting library - <AUTHOR> http://fastly.github.io/epoch/

<comment><USER3> Looks nice. It's great to see more d3-based charting libraries. I'm personally using Rickshaw[0] to power the charting of Giraffe[1], a light weight front- end for Graphite. Sorry for the plug, but it's important to give some context.

One obvious thing that felt like Epoch was missing was hover-over info. At least I couldn't spot it on the examples.

[0][https://github.com/shutterstock/rickshaw](https://github.com/shutterstock/rickshaw) [1][https://github.com/kenhub/giraffe](https://github.com/kenhub/giraffe)

<comment><USER4> Are there more d3 based libraries than the ones you mentioned?

<comment><USER5> I've had great success with [http://dimplejs.org](http://dimplejs.org)

Makes common things easy and gets the hell out of your way when you want to customise things with D3.

<comment><USER6> I'm a fan of dimple as well. I created custom tags for it[1] so you can draw charts in the following manner:

      <dimple-chart data="data" height="300" width="300" margin-bottom="15%" type="bar">
        <dimple-axis position="y" type="measure" field="Awesomeness"></dimple-axis>
        <dimple-axis position="x" type="category" field="Word" orderBy="Word"></dimple-axis>
        <dimple-legend x="10" y="10" width="500" height="30" ></dimple-legend>
      </dimple-chart>

I just started building this using Mozilla's x-tags. Mainly to clean up my own app, others are welcome to take a look.

[1][https://github.com/falconair/dimple- chart](https://github.com/falconair/dimple-chart)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks really nice. Since I started using React, though, I've wanted to find a similarly nice charting library that is reactive instead -- that renders to a React component with SVG instead of mutating the DOM directly. This would help minimize the number of DOM updates when just a few data points change, and seems like it would fit better within a React app.

(This approach unfortunately rules out D3, which mutates the DOM directly and doesn't have smart diffing AFAIK).

Anyone know of a reactive charting library?

<comment><USER8> Isn't SVG part of the DOM though?

<comment><USER9> I've never used React, but I believe it maintains a virtual DOM and uses it to compute the minimal number of changes that need to be enacted on the browser's DOM. So basically, it's precisely because SVG is part of the DOM that it could potentially be a good application of React.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. The React paradigm is to never mutate the DOM directly, but instead let React mutate it. I wrote a friendly intro here: [http://blog.reverberate.org/2014/02/react- demystified.html](http://blog.reverberate.org/2014/02/react-demystified.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've just finished up a project using NVD3, and at first glance this looks like a slightly simpler option. This is a good thing - NVD3 has become complex to the point where I would recommend someone to just learn D3 rather than use a reusable library.

Epoch appears to be a good alternative for people who just want to quickly build charts for today's web. Great work.

<comment><USER11> I think the authors of NVD3 have recognized the complexities as well and have planned a rewrite [1] this year.

[1] [http://nvd3.org/blog/2014/03/state-of- nvd3/](http://nvd3.org/blog/2014/03/state-of-nvd3/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Again, something which all of these projects ignore, no step chart and no way to have gaps for missing data.

<comment><USER13> I've run into this problem a lot but end up getting around it by finding "gaps" and putting in null data manually.

<comment><USER12> that implies its possible at all to represent null in a meaningful way

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very smooth animation, but those colors ... ech ... I wish it had the color and style customization that Highcharts offers, for example gradient fills and opacity support ... or rather I wish Highcharts update animations were this smooth.

<comment><USER15> So the real-time charts support CSS styling, though I don't think they'll handle gradients at this time. Why not open up an issue on github :) ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> this is great. i like the variety of graphs, especially heatmap. however, it'd be great to have hover effects and interactive legends with these time-series like in rickshaw and dygraphs.

<comment><USER11> Lack of hover effects caught my attention as well. Additionally for time series data range selectors come in handy. Dygraphs [1], NVD3 [2] and Highcharts all have them.

[1] [http://dygraphs.com/gallery/#g/range- selector](http://dygraphs.com/gallery/#g/range-selector) [2] [http://nvd3.org/examples/lineWithFocus.html](http://nvd3.org/examples/lineWithFocus.html)

<comment><USER17> Overlaying hover effects is really pretty easy though, no?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This looks great. How do I plot a timeline where values are sum of all values that lie within a time unit, say, 1 day/1 hour?

<comment><USER19> You sum all the values within the hour. Seriously, you should do most data massaging before it enters a charting package.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It looks really good, although one slightly confusing thing is that the static line graph appears to be smoothed but the real time one is unsmoothed and there isn't a configuration option listed to change that?

</comment><comment> alok-g Are there any charting libraries that do 2D and 3D both? If not, are there separate 2D and 3D libraries with a consistent and modern look and feel?

</comment><comment><USER21> Would you recommend this over FusionCharts for personal projects? (BTW FusionCharts is free for personal use)

<comment><USER22> I would recommend Highcharts[1] - a very wide range of great looking charts with minimal effort. Also free for personal/non-commercial use. Unlike D3-based charting libraries, it works on everything from IE8 to mobiles.

[1] [http://www.highcharts.com](http://www.highcharts.com)

<comment><USER21> I'm experimenting with both right now and was impressed by both the number of charts available and the customer support of FusionCharts[1]. They also have a very exhaustive documentation but I guess I should try out HighCharts too. Any specific reason for choosing Highcharts over FusionCharts? Or any bad experience with FusionCharts in the past?

[http://www.fusioncharts.com](http://www.fusioncharts.com)

<comment><USER22> FusionCharts used Highcharts for rendering for a while, so in a way FC was a superset of HC. The two projects have parted ways last year, and FC has done great work through Raphael since then. I consider FusionCharts to be more feature rich, especially with some edge cases, but we chose Highcharts for three reasons -

1\. SaaS pricing and licensing of Highcharts was more suitable given the scale of our team/application.

2\. None of the unique features from FusionCharts had any purpose for our app.

3\. At the time, Highcharts had better design out of the box (although FC has nearly caught up in this regard).

We have found Highcharts to small in size, quick in rendering, and flexible in structure to allow us add custom plugins, so we haven't looked back.

At this point I see the two options as very comparable on nearly every dimension, but it's still worth experimenting with both to see which one fits your style and product better (skinning, performance, flexibility for your feature-set etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Another time line graphing library without things like moving averages that I want. :/

</comment><comment><USER24> i don't see any example how to plot real-time chart using http api - <USER2> this 'real-time' is not that useful.

<comment><USER10> Load the data into the js however you want, then use the update method on the chart. D3 is pretty quick rendering, so it's about as useful real-time as you're going to see in the browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> the killer feature for me in a charting library is the ability to have multiple Y-axis scales. Say I want to have three time-series, so I am plotting efficiency in %, power in megawatts and flow in m3/s on the Y-axis and time on the x-axis, three Y-axis scales are required.

Usually I end up with multiple charts or some SCADA program has made it so the Y-axis scale changes when you select a series if there is only 1 chart.

</comment><comment><USER26> It'd be great to know on that front page what language it is in. Without having to browse into the git repository or extract the zip distribution.

<comment><USER27> Pretty obvious it's some form of JavaScript (CoffeeScript in this case) since it runs in the browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> "Built for Developers" \- well, I certainly hope so!

Who else would a JavaScript library be built for?

<comment><USER29> Designers? Upper Management?

<comment><USER30> Being a design/dev person here, now I"m curious what a D3js library built specficially for designers would look like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why use a common name that have a different meaning ?

<comment><USER32> Marketing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> it seems good but more content is advisable.

<comment><USER15> Content as is "a more robust website" or content as in "more charts and features"?</comment></comment>


Security researcher Moxie Marlinspike interviewed on Slashdot - <AUTHOR> http://interviews.slashdot.org/story/11/12/19/179256/moxie-marlinspike-answers-your-questions&sid=11/12/19/179256

<comment><USER2> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3370347></comment>


Justin.TV To Film Itself Filming Itself - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/25/justintv-to-film-itself-filming-itself/

<comment><USER2> Couldn't he get an invitation to a party by Paris Hilton? That would be more interesting...

In fact, shouldn't there be enough "Stars" who might appreciate his company? Maybe they should bank on that.

</comment><comment><USER3> They're thinking of calling it "I am a Strange Loop"

<comment><USER4> I heard from these folks that they're thinking of calling it "I am a Strange Loop" <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36567></comment></comment>


Postal Service to End Delivery of Letters on Saturdays - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/us/postal-service-plans-to-end-saturday-delivery.html?hp

<comment><USER2> This is just evil customer service.

The only time that I'm ever home for mail delivery, in case a signature is required or something, is on a Saturday. That day is the only opportunity I've got for interaction with my letter carrier, so don't pick that day as the one to drop.

If cutting back to 5 days is the way to cut costs, why not cut Monday or Thursday or something?

</comment><comment><USER3> It's all because congress requires the USPS to fund the pensions of the current employees, and future employees some of whom have not been born yet with cash TODAY.

<comment><USER4> This is the sad truth. They get ZERO dollars from the federal government yet have been tasked with this ridiculously raw deal.</comment></comment>


The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/09/the-pmarca-gu-1.html

<comment><USER2> "If you took our top fifteen decisions out, we'd have a pretty average record." - Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway

</comment><comment><USER3> i think Marc A is one of the best writers around. and i like the fact he quotes The Black Swan!

</comment><comment><USER4> Wish I had read this before I decided my college major in the first grade.</comment>


How California campuses are fixing the problem of pricey college books - <AUTHOR> https://www.scpr.org/news/2018/02/15/80805/here-s-how-california-campuses-are-fixing-the-prob/ <comment><USER2> Some tips for textbooks I wish I knew when I started college:

1\. Wait until classes start to buy textbooks. You want to have a chance to talk to your actual professor and hear what they say about the textbook and/or look at the syllabus to determine what, if any, readings are actually required from the textbook. In many cases, textbooks are chosen at a departmental level, so some professors may use them sparingly or not at all.

2\. If you determine that the textbook is probably needed for you to finish the course, and there is an older edition available less than 5 years old, then buy the older edition. It will be available online on eBay, Amazon, etc. for a much cheaper price than the most current edition. In most cases, the reading content will be very similar, if not identical. Problems sets might change, but if you are assigned them, you can ask another student to take a look at their textbook, or borrow one from the school library. I started doing this my last couple of years at college, and never had any issues.

3\. If you do buy a textbook, read it in its entirety. Remember that you are taking classes to _learn_ , not to blindly follow a course syllabus. So read your textbook - all of it - even the parts that aren't assigned.

<comment><USER3> 4\. Digital copies are often available online for free.

<comment><USER4> Students should feel absolutely no guilt in pirating textbooks. The whole industry is a racket, designed to exploit kids in a situtation where they have no choice. I did things the "normal" way my first year of college back in the day and realized how stupid paying $400 a semester in books was before I just nabbed pdfs (and finding them was a challenge in the days before The Book Bay was a thing).

<comment><USER5> > Students should feel absolutely no guilt in pirating textbooks.

False.

> The whole industry is a racket, designed to exploit kids in a situtation > where they have no choice.

True. But your previous sentence does not follow from this. The bad actions of others do not justify your own bad actions, no matter how tempting it becomes to think otherwise.

<comment><USER6> _The bad actions of others do not justify your own bad actions, no matter how tempting it becomes to think otherwise._

Dunno. 15 years ago all the Ivy League libraries campaigned against Elsevier's pricing and achieved precisely nothing. We had to wait for Scihub.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a bad article. Renting textbooks is not unique. As others have said, schools have typically sold books and bought them back at the end of the semester. (Of course when they come out with a new version you were stuck with it)

Textbook companies are pushing electronic books hard. They say that they have studies showing students learn more because it is interactive and such. I am skeptical though and think it is mostly so they can sell a license to the material and kill off used book sales. Sure it costs less but there is no way to make any money off of selling it and some companies only allow you to access it for a year or so and so even if you wanted to access it later in life you can't (I think there are some that offer lifetime access but that is really lifetime of the software platform).

The real cost savings is Open Educational Resources (OER). Basically Creative Commons books that are free for students and educators with no drm. [https://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/07/02/16-oer- site...](https://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/07/02/16-oer-sites-every- educator-should-know.aspx)

<comment><USER8> Indeed,

I don't know if this passage was meant to fool me but it fooled me: _By one estimate, college students nationwide spent $701 each year on textbooks in 2008. By 2017 that cost dropped by more than $100._ \- Which I initially read as "to $100", which, unlike a $100 drop, is impressive.

$100 _drop_ is a speed bump and if they can only manage such a speed bump, the whole thing is like a press release.

<comment><USER9> I think it's impressive that _any_ college expense has come down at all.

Also you're not taking into account the fact that inflation alone should have increased costs by roughly $100 since 2008. But instead there's a net decrease.

<comment><USER10> Looks to me like they are not calculating the net cost. Since they don't mention selling back and all and then attribute some of the fall in price to rentals.

Most people would come out farther ahead buying on Amazon and then selling back after the semester. Rather than rent.

If their calculations do not include selling the book back, my guess is students are actually spending less up front but spending more overall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I teach math at a community college. The courses we teach cover content that hasn't meaningfully changed in a long time yet textbooks change frequently. About 10 years ago I decided that I would never require paid content for my courses. I make my own problems sets and lectures. I use lectures on YouTube and where possible free, open source textbooks.

The publishers got too greedy. Their websites all suck. Their lectures are generally terrible. Their books sneak in ads. There is nothing user friendly about that industry. I hope it withers and dies and gets replaced by something more palatable.

<comment><USER12> Are there no appropriate open textbooks available in electronic form for your courses?

<comment><USER11> There is an excellent College Algerva I and College Algebra II open source textbook. It's very high quality. There is a passable Calculus I and Calculus II open source textbook. I haven't found any other high quality opens source textbooks for the math courses I teach. Hence I create my own lectures and problem sets.

[http://www.stitz-zeager.com](http://www.stitz-zeager.com) open source pre- calculus

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > By one estimate, college students nationwide spent $701 each year on > textbooks in 2008. By 2017 that cost dropped by more than $100.

The reason for this is piracy. People save money pirating books and it also provides competition to what was a formerly the extortionist monopolistic practices of publishers.

<comment><USER14> I took a class where the book was hundreds of dollars, only used for homework problems and nobody could find a PDF. One of the students bought it, "scanned" every page with their camera, and returned it. Piracy is definitely how students are saving money on books.

<comment><USER15> I've come dangerously close to starting a shadowy organization at my university for the sole purpose of maintaining and operating a couple DIY book scanners.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The fundamental problem is that the people selecting the books aren't the ones paying for them in US colleges. There isn't much incentive to choose cheaper books.

But that seems to be mostly because courses require very specific books, which certainly could be changed. My experience in Germany was very different, for almost all courses there were no required textbooks, only recommended ones. You were free to buy them, don't buy them, buy different ones or rent books from the library. And the prices are much lower, the most expensive textbook I bought was 80 EUR.

<comment><USER17> Coming from Germany, I find it hard to understand the scope of the problem described in the article. In my course, less than half the students bought any textbook at all during their entire bachelor's program. The professors made almost all their lecture notes available online and if you needed a textbook, there were plenty stocked in the library.

<comment><USER18> Same in France. I've never bought a single textbook, as we either had to take notes during classes, or study documents printed by professors for us. Many professors would actually either write handouts notes, or ask student at some point to write one and would let anyone download it the years after.

They sometimes recommended books for us, that were sold for 30-40 € in any library.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> >A new copy of the textbook for Intermediate Accounting II sells for $373.25, but the same book can be rented for the semester for $149.30. Students can write on and highlight rented books. The bookstore also sells cheaper electronic copies.

My community college did this 25 years ago. Though they "sold" us used books at a huge discount, and then paid us a portion of that when we sold them back. In the end, it was basically a "rental" but if you screwed up the book, you didn't get as much for it.

<comment><USER20> The ridiculous part is that accounting II is a course taken by a huge number of students. This isn't a small run problem.

The actual solution to all this is to have universities pay for books. They can shop more diligently, roll their own, use out of date books, go digital... Lots of options that are open to the college, but not the student.

When the decision maker is not the user, price systems fail.

<comment><USER21> That's exactly how they do it in public schools before college: the school buys the book and you get to use it for the duration of the course. Oh, and you have to get a book cover (in some districts) to protect it from damage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So, we're willing to introduce legislation to bring a $700 textbook bill down to $600, but ignore the fact that tuition is over $50,000 in many institutions. I guess we can call this a small win, but my goodness, that is a small win indeed.

<comment><USER23> _> but ignore the fact that tuition is over $50,000 in many institutions_

These textbook prices do matter! If you're paying 1k in textbook fees and 8k-9k in tuition, then those books are eating up a significant percentage of your total burn.

9k is not a made-up number, by the way. Public colleges and universities without active research programs have tuition in the ~9k range [1]. Which is still a lot, but a student who works a part-time job and lives at home can get out with relatively little debt (or even no debt with a modest scholarship and impressive work ethic).

You don't have to go to Harvard or even the state flagship. And you definitely don't need to go to one of the many second-rate schools that charge Harvard prices for access to a much less prestigious network and in many cases inferior education.

If a student attends a school with an active research program and chooses not to leverage that expertise in order to level up their career prospects, then that student made a bad decision. Perhaps we should be doing more to shield people from bad life choices, or at least not enable those choices with easy access to huge piles of debt. But in most states, there do exist (more) reasonable options in the current market.

IMO we should be moving to self-published open source books, with hard copies sold in the 20-50 dollar price range and with all profits going to the actual author. The online auto-graded homework assignments are an unsolved problem for some courses, but that's nothing a sabbatical or two can't solve.

[1] [https://trends.collegeboard.org/college- pricing/highlights](https://trends.collegeboard.org/college- pricing/highlights)

<comment><USER24> "Pay the authors" is a really good strategy to incentivize the production of quality content. Get rid of the publishers and just have a short supply chain: author --print_on_demand--> readers. With a price tag in the 20-50 range, a prof could make a living from this book, even if the book isn't popular. When using print-on-demand and cutting out all the middlemen, the margins are very good (50% of list price vs 5% if going with mainstream publisher).

The useful part of a publisher is developmental editing (product) and copy editing (Q/A), so there is an opportunity for "lightweight" publishing companies that help expert authors produce the book—like self publishing, but you don't have to do the boring parts. I'm working in that space. We have two textbooks out: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0992001005/noBSmathphys](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0992001005/noBSmathphys) and [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0992001021/noBSLA](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0992001021/noBSLA)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Anything to kill the textbook cartel, in league with the campus bookstore. I'm reminded of a brand new Calculus textbook that was mandatory, though the subject has been intact for centuries.

Luckily the internet gives so many options to combat this, but would still appreciate open source textbooks.

<comment><USER26> This is so true. On thing I used to do is just buy the previous edition for less than $10. Content was 99% the same, but pages _sometimes_ differed.

If the textbook is just a reference and not being used for exercises, then it worked most of the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Another tip: if you buy a new copy, consider an international edition if it is available.

For example, suppose your calculus class uses Apostol's "Calculus". You can buy the US edition, which is an utterly ridiculous $270 on Amazon at the moment, and that's just for volume 1! Volume 2 is similarly priced.

(It's particularly ridiculous because today's edition of Apostol is still the 2nd edition, from the 1960s. At least with those calculus books that they make gratuitous changes to each year to discourage use of used books, they can at least try to claim that the price keeps going up because they keep doing things to the book).

The international edition, which is exactly the same _content_ as the US edition, but in paperback instead of hardback, and on thinner paper, is around $20 [1] per volume from numerous small booksellers. There's even a couple that are Prime and fulfilled by Amazon.

(I've heard that for some textbooks, the US edition uses color and the international edition is only black & white. For Apostol the US edition is black & white so it does not matter, but if you are considering a book that is in color keep this in mind).

If Amazon does not have the international edition, try AbeBooks.com. It is far more likely that AbeBooks will have a seller with it than Amazon, actually.

Similar to AbeBooks.com is Biblio.com. Occasionally one will have a textbook that the other does not.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer- listing/8126515198](https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/8126515198)

<comment><USER28> Some Universities will have an edition that puts their name on the cover, with a unique ISBN. If you look through the first few pages, it may be possible to find the original ISBN number from book the content came from and buy that for a significant savings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> FTA: "A new copy of the textbook for Intermediate Accounting II sells for $373.25, but the same book can be rented for the semester for $149.30."

I'm pretty sure that the basic principles of Intermediate Accounting haven't changed for decades. Any recent changes are industry specific and you sort of pick up as you go along professionally.

That's especially unconscionable when it's subjects like basic physics, chemistry, and math. Why do we have to use the latest edition linear algebra textbook, when you can get older editions for pennies on the dollar? All they do is change up the pages and switch the problems out.

<comment><USER30> I think that 'bio, chem, and math' haven't changed is the stronger argument to make here - accounting is a bit different.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act happened in 2002 (1.5 decades ago) and Trump & the Republicans just made some major changes to the tax code (which accountants need to understand).

Moreover, even though Accounting is taught in college it's really job prep (like teaching Law to lawyers). You don't need to cover all the details in your first Accounting 101 class, but you gotta be current on the stuff you do cover.

Also - just to be clear on where I stand - I think that more than $50 for a textbook is outrageous. Personally, I think $20-30 should be more than enough.

So it seems like the issue is: Given that we want to (and need to) update the books, how can we keep prices down?

Open Education Resources (OER), anyone?

<comment><USER29> Well, bio changes every single month seems like but the basic stuff stays the same in any field like accounting.

Changes in the tax code and the SO act are pieces of litigation that may or may not affect you. SO in particular is less concerned with basic accounting and more systems of control, disclosure, and investigations of conflicts of interest. You only do that in positions of power, because you have to set up and enforce all those systems.

But for tax code changes, you need to figure out amortization schedules, accurate cost basis per unit sold and book reconciliation. Those things haven't really changed for decades, maybe hundreds of years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Accessing the material is becoming less and less of a problem, for all the reasons already stated - piracy, international editions, OER, etc. The real issue is that the textbook publishers know this and are pushing more and more access codes so it doesn't matter where you get the book, you still have to shell out $100 to be able to submit homework. I still haven't seen a good solution for this issue.

<comment><USER32> Why would you need a textbook code to submit homework? As long as I can read the text of the book (that I pirated), why can't I solve the homework and submit it to my school?

<comment><USER31> Some classes don't accept paper homework these days, everything is completed online- The textbook publishers have started selling access codes to online homework websites. So s physics professor might decide to use "MasteringPhysics" for all the homework in their class, so every student has to pay ~$100 for a access code (subscription) to that website.

The professors that use these systems like them because they don't have to grade anything. The departments like them because they don't have to pay graders and can have bigger classes. An the publishers LOVE them because students have no choice but to pay.

<comment><USER32> This is making me sick. Seriously horrible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Since at least some university professors should be able to write a good textbook on the subject they teach, the university should give them a semester or two off of teaching classes to write one, give the professor a little royalty ($1/book?), and then publish and sell the book at cost. $15 to $30 per book. Then don't change it until necessary (calculus could be the exact same book for decades) so that even cheaper used books are plentiful. Many universities even already run their own publishing houses.

I'm not sure where the friction is that prevents this from happening? University presidents like to have fancy dinners with textbook publishing house CEOs?

<comment><USER34> That's good in theory, but what currently happens is a professor takes a fully paid sabbatical and writes the book for a publishing company. That company sells the book to students for $300 a copy and pays the professor $50 a copy (with a possible sizable amount up front). The professor and friends of the professor requires it for their classes.

The friction that prevents your plan from happening is that the professors won't do it for so cheap. There is a ton of money they can make under the current system.

<comment><USER35> Can the University press offer a similar deal to their employee/professor, undercut the commercial publisher, save the student money and still profit?

<comment><USER34> It's possible but what happens often now is the professor is getting paid twice. Paid sabbatical and bonus money for the book. If the University was doing it, they wouldn't pay a person twice for one job. At least that's how my university would view it. Also, I'm not sure if a professor gets much credit from the University toward tenure for writing a book. Because of this, if there is no money involved, I doubt many professor's would do it. They do it for the money only right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I don't understand why open textbooks aren't more common. Sure, some things are changing quickly, but a calc or linear algebra? Seems like a quality book (or a couple) could be made for lots of courses. Most schools have a print shop and can do binding. $30 bucks maybe, if you want a hard copy?

<comment><USER37> Don't teachers get rewarded for requiring latest edition of expensive textbook?

<comment><USER6> No. What gives you the idea, one would think that most people on this forum have seen a university from the inside.

<comment><USER37> Because they fanatically demand latest edition of expensive book, which has minor changes from previous edition.

I mean, how much editions of well established math book you could do? Every year new one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Not mentioned here: My college had many textbooks on reserve in the library. You'd check it out for two hours. I didn't buy books for a lot of classes because I just used the reserve copy when I needed it.

</comment><comment><USER39> Fun trick: grab the international editions. They are usually soft-cover, and the practice problems are often renumbered so you have to find a friend with the US edition, but they are often 1/10 of the cost of the US editions.

<comment><USER40> I did this all throughout college. I never found them to be different in content in any way, so ESID I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is all just fluff PR. Follett's continues to have a near monopoly on campus book stores and Pearson has outsized influence given demonstrated (in)competence.

Want cheaper prices? Cut those 2 out, put out more public bids for service, or _gasp_ if you are a 23 campus university system maybe negotiate on behalf of all 23 campuses instead of 1 by 1. Microsoft gave umbrella rates for all of the CSU system, so why not ask publishers to do the same?

</comment><comment><USER42> Virtually all textbooks are available as pirated copies for free on library genesis. Of course it may be illegal in your jurisdiction to download them. So in a sense this problem is currently fixed, if your ISP allows access to libgen and if you are not worried about the consequences.

<comment><USER43> Tor is an option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If a campus were serious about textbook prices they would set up a LON-CAPA server ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LON- CAPA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LON-CAPA)) and employ a dedicated instructional faculty member to maintain the questions database. What students are really paying for is the online homework (the Canada-based Top Hat is a venture-capital based upstart, otherwise each publisher has their own system) because faculty are just too overworked with grading the stuff.

Politically it's easier to shift the burden to the students (and mandatory homework doesn't even count as tuition) than finding funding for the Loncapa maintenance man or the teaching assistant that helps grade the stuff.

</comment><comment><USER44> [https://openstax.org/subjects](https://openstax.org/subjects)

What do US students and teachers think about openstax? I've made use of short excerpts of some chapters as extra content in my own teaching (UK, not university level)

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm a long time out of college but even back then, textbooks were hugely expensive. One trick my school had was the EE/EL club ran their own used book store. We'd buy books at the end of a term and resell them next term for a small profit. Students who sold and/or bought got a great deal and we made money for out club to pay for activities.

</comment><comment><USER46> _A new copy of the textbook for Intermediate Accounting II sells for $373.25_

Looking at the prices for accounting books on Amazon, there are two kinds - books for people who need to do accounting for a business, which sell for about $20, and textbooks, which sell for $100-$300. Most of the textbooks come from Wiley or McGraw-Hill.

</comment><comment><USER47> ... Here's some crazy ideas for how to deal with the problem of pricey college books.

1\. Stop requiring the latest edition for a class. I strongly doubt that the science behind Physics 201 has changed in the past two years - you can probably teach to the 2008 edition of the textbook, instead of the 2018.

2\. Stop requiring textbooks containing one-time digital codes.

<comment> munk-a 3\. Stop allowing professors to require their own book as a source for the class. It provides a terrible incentive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Set up digital books for content.

Prohibit/censure teachers for 'requiring' books they wrote when they were never used in class.

</comment><comment><USER49> Universities should be ranked on based Availablity of Textbooks (i.e. essential for courses offered) as well. It is not uncommon for a University library to claim that they have a gazillion books but when you go to find a course textbook, they have like 3 copies of those.

Universities will do anything for the rankings.

</comment><comment><USER50> The fundamental issue w/ college prices probably comes down to 1) lack of state/federal funding for institutions, 2) availability of student loans, and 3) lack of good jobs for people without degrees. What is being done to address the fundamental problems?

</comment><comment><USER51> How about the Netflix of textbooks, pay 30-50$ a month and access all the textbooks on demand?

The rise of Netflix has almost ended the piracy of movies, the same would happen for textbooks if this service was created.</comment>


Did you know Flash doesn't work on 64-bit browsers? - <AUTHOR> http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/000/6b3af6c9.html

<comment><USER2> 64-bit flash was bumpy at first on Firefox/Linux but it's been stable for at least a year now. I gather it's still in beta? Either way, "apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree" works as you'd expect.

</comment><comment><USER3> Neither does pretty much any other plugin.

In fact, 32-bit Quicktime in 32-bit Firefox on x86-64 WinXP or Win7 doesn't even work properly; the control bar is rendered as just a solid black bar.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, I just switched recently to 64-bit OS and looks like we have a long way to go . . . anybody know where to find stats on 64 bit adoption?

Wish it was broken down here . . . <http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp></comment></comment>


New Android Game (Lubito: X-Axis Runner) - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Circubil.Games.Lubito <comment><AUTHOR> I have found this new game on the Playstore, what do you think about it?</comment>


Ask HN: Isn't Bitcoin similar to a Ponzi scheme? - <AUTHOR>

I would hate to say this but either it is one, or looks just like one. There will be losers and winners in this case. People who bought them early cash out and earn a huge profit. So where does the profits come from? Thin air? From people who buy them at a higher price. And how do they cash out without making a loss? By cashing out at a higher prices when other people are buying.<p>It's almost like a never ending cycle until maybe bitcoin prices reaches infinity and beyond. Someone has to win and someone will lose. You can't have everyone becoming bitcoin millionaires. Big issue now is bitcoin prices are dropping fast. So good luck to those still holding on to those hot potatoes. Cheers. <comment><USER2> There must be some sort of financial equivalent to Godwin's Law that requires everything eventually to be compared to a Ponzi scheme.

A Ponzi scheme involves someone guaranteeing a return, then using new deposits to satisfy older guarantees when the return doesn't materialize.

Nobody's guaranteeing any valuations in the Bitcoin market. People are simply speculating and creating an old-fashioned bubble.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not that I'm saying bitcoin in general is bad, but speculators are making it look bad by diving in hoping to make a quick buck. And the limelight of these so-called bitcoin millionaires give everyone the impression of making a quick return on bitcoins. You are definitely right in saying no one is guaranteeing a return, but almost everyone is expecting to make some quick returns on it. That itself can't be good.

<comment><USER2> The bottom line is the answer to your original post is "no", because speculation != Ponzi scheme.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> No it isn't. I use bitcoin for currency exchange and it saves me about a hundred dollars each month by lowering my transaction costs. Rather than pay a percentage to the banks and often another percentage to VISA, I pay a flat fee to transfer assets into bitcoin, and then another flat fee to transfer them out. Total costs end up being something like 1 percent instead of 3-5 percent. And the exchange rate typically ends up being better too.

So I am bullish on bitcoin, although I think it will be less a currency than an asset store for many early adopters. The way to deal with volatility if you are worried about market fluctuations is simply to buy and sell on multiple exchanges simultaneously, ideally holding a small float so the exchanges are near-simultaneous and you aren't exposed to downside risk.

On a side note, I pay for server hosting using a credit card now and am interested in saving the 3 percent VISA fee, since that adds up to almost a thousand dollars a year at this point. So if anyone can recommend a professional server colocation and leasing company that accepts bitcoin and is based in California (ideally the Wilshire facility) I would be interested in hearing about your experiences. Please note that I'm not looking for shared hosting or VPS provision -- I need to lease actual hardware.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed on how it helps lowers transaction fees. Can be a real life-saver. Good to know that it's always good to diversify. But I really wish people could focus more on it be an actual currency for transactions rather than as an 'assest'. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sure you may buy stuffs with your coins but with the current outlook, it looks like a bomb that may explode in your face. the value of bitcoin is almost predictable as you rolling a dice. You won't want to be holding any.

</comment><comment><USER4> That's pretty much how all financial markets work.

</comment><comment><USER5> Bit coin has a cryptographically limited supply - there are only so many coins possible, and only so many can be made at a time per unit of computing power

In theory you would have a clear relationship between real world production (CPU, power) and a stable exchange rate.

This is not happening because either a speculative bubble (likely) or the real level of pricing is not yet priced in (not sure, that should be a known number)

Anyway, in theory there is a clear fixed relationship between electrical power costs and bitcoins - and as there is transparent accounting of transactions, it's either impossible or really hard to commit the central fraud of a ponzi scheme.

Edit: actually bit coin could be the new gold standard. [http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyscheme...](http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great read. Bitcoin can be a new gold standard. Probable. But that means someone has got to regulate it. To keep the prices stable so that it can be a standard for other currency. But bitcoin is unregulated and that's the main advantage of it. So either it can be a gold standard by being regulated, which defeats its whole purpose or remain as it is. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Edit: I highly doubt it can be stable. With so many people holding significant shares of bitcoins, any actions take by them can affect the prices significantly, since the market cap is so small. Plus someone has to step in to make sure prices don't go out of hand. If all it takes is for mtgox to have a few DOOS to drop prices by more than half, I don't see how bitcoin can be a gold standard without regulation.

<comment><USER5> It is regulated - the number of coins is a function of computing power on the problem. That makes it similar to gold - there is a finite amount on earth and we can mine more or less as our efforts dictate

The fact that coins are allocated to miners is no different than good allocated to miners

I am not saying _now_ is a good time to peg the dollar to the bitcoin. I doubt it would ever be - but the concept is viable I think - and that makes it feasible - a government could set its own algorithms, and peg to its own mathematically deflationary currency. That would be an interesting step forward</comment></comment></comment>


The Acceleration of Addictiveness (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html <comment><USER2> By my observation anger is addictive - previously normal people get angry for maybe a good reason, and subsequently they start looking for something new to be angry about. It's a real problem because when they can't find something worth getting worked up over they pick on a random subject and try to convince everyone their pet issue is a huge deal, and everyone who disagrees is a very bad person indeed.

<comment><USER3> I feel like there is a sort of dominance game at work, not necessarily just with anger but other moods too. I've noticed if someone is angry or depressed, he/she will try to bring everyone around them "down to their level" (and if you're immune, you'll be ignored). I might just be sensitive to it now since I've been thinking about this for a while, but sighing or other attention- seeking behaviors (whistling triggers me) are huge tips that someone is trying to take over and shift the mood. Often people do it subconsciously, and others around them react subconsciously as well.

<comment><USER4> > whistling triggers me

Try not to judge people (especially kids) who hum or whistle or drum their fingers or tap their feet etc. It is not necessarily a voluntary or conscious behavior, and often has nothing to do with attention seeking or other people at all (folks who do this will keep doing it even when alone).

<comment><USER3> Kids I don't mind. What came to mind when I said this were a couple of whistlers in the last open office I worked in. I honestly couldn't tell if they were completely unaware of their surroundings, or if they actually were putting down all their chips in the psychological dominance game I mentioned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The essay really neglects the effect of prohibition. Legal risk scales with volume being transported - it's better for smugglers to move a briefcase of fentanyl than a 20 foot container of heroin. Hence, the Iron Law of Prohibition: the harder the enforcement, the harder the drugs.

<comment><USER6> That seems predicated on the assumption that 1) prohibition efforts are inherently flawed and 2) that a cultural desire to consume hard drugs is inevitable.

For example, many East Asian countries have serious punishments for drug trafficking and also have less general cultural acceptance of illegal drug use. As far as I know, there aren't nearly as many drug problems there as compared to the west.

<comment><USER7> Very hard to have good data on something that's _this_ heavily persecuted/prosecuted. Would love to see any sources/studies on it, but it sounds unlikely that a convincing comparison can be produced.

Without comparison wrt. the topic, it's akin to saying "no, of course we don't have a problem with homosexuality in Iran, we hang homosexuals". Of course, any prospective subjects for the comparative study will be very hard to find.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > My latest trick is taking long hikes. I used to think running was a better > form of exercise than hiking because it took less time. Now the slowness of > hiking seems an advantage, because the longer I spend on the trail, the > longer I have to think without interruption.

I love hiking for this reason.

That said I'm distractedly on my phone while walking around a mall.

</comment><comment><USER9> The thing that always bugs me about this kind of thinkpiece is the short-view assumption that there's some telos to whatever effect they're describing. Tobacco use has waxed and waned in popularity many times over the centuries since its introduction to the rest of the world.

That seems like a nitpick but the whole "we'll have more addictive things" hypothesis rests on there being an arc of history. Like, sure maybe? Then we'll have less. I like a lot of pg's stuff, I just find this is pretty far out in left field.

<comment><USER2> I think pg always tries to make things a part of the big plan or a big arc. Can't blame him - it's easier to reason about things when they fit together, and stringing them up as a part of a trend/arc/pursuit-of-telos works very well for that. It might even be correct sometimes. Despite the apparent bias it's still quality writing and often generates quality discussions.

I also have to say that most people in our industry cannot generalize at all; pg is one of only two people I know who can do the job without botching it. To the extent that we want to generalize anything at all, however well, we have nearly no one else to look at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reading this on a smartphone screen is kind of funny in a way. I wanted to put it down but it's so compelling.

</comment><comment><USER11> Right. Since 2010, vaping, ketamine, and high-potency THC have been added to the addictive list.

<comment><USER12> Ketamine has been around, and used recreationally, since far before 2010. The only thing that's new is using it as a highly effective treatment for depression.

<comment><USER13> Ketamine was used for antidepressive psychotherapy in Argentina in 1974.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> One thing he's not really mentioned is the development of tolerance, and the subsequent withdrawal when the addictive substance/behavior is taken away. This is what, to me, separates the so-so addictions like running from the junkies who will commit violence to avoid withdrawal. There is enough evidence that stuff like gaming, gambling, social media are activating these rewards centers and leading to structural changes in the brain.

In other words, I think pg is missing half the story by not discussing the phenomena of tolerance (higher doses to achieve the same effect) and withdrawal (profound suffering when effect is taken away). Typical writing of someone so divorced from the real world.

<comment><USER15> > This is what, to me, separates the so-so addictions like running from the > junkies who will commit violence to avoid withdrawal. There is enough > evidence that stuff like gaming, gambling, social media are activating these > rewards centers and leading to structural changes in the brain.

This is central to the concept of diagnosing addiction, as well as the colloquial use: it has to be a compulsive behavior whose use negatively and substantially affects your life, which is why running and normal caffeine use don't usually qualify.

I doubt that pg is unaware of this, or indeed anyone who's familiar with the context of addiction, and it's a bizarre leap to say that he's missing it due to being detached from the real world just because he chooses not to focus on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Elon Musk decided to disconnect from Twitter a few hours before this was posted. I guess sometimes one must disconnect to connect.</comment>


Codaset shuts down - <AUTHOR> http://codaset.com/

<comment><USER2> I'm having trouble finding details, any info on why they shut down? Poor business planning, or some other reason?

edit: Found a cache version of the answer. Tough business, not enough time: <http://bit.ly/p05pin></comment>


How to Virtualize Your Computer  - <AUTHOR> http://quraishi.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/p2v/

<comment><USER2> What about licensing? do u need to get a new licence for each vm?</comment>


Facebook at $10 Billion Valuation, Microsoft to Invest? - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119065193646437586.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news

<comment><USER2> I hated facebook. From afar of course because I wasn't particularly interested in using it. Then, inevitably, someone wanted me to get on facebook, so I did. I hated the interface and the aesthetics, and really wasn't interested in making a pointless 'this is who I am' page.

But then a few interesting things started happening, my friends started using these little facebook applications (oh how much I hate the installing software analogy they've gone with is a whole other post) and I started using them as well. Like in the olden days (ie last year) when someone found a fun flash game and sent you the link and you sent your scores back and forth.

Like all these social networking sites its asynchronous communication with a low social overhead (your friends just happen to see what you're doing) and with lots of stuff to do. I think its going to become the internet for a large proportion of the population.

It might get beaten eventually, but in the short term the biggest potential challenger is google. If google leveraged the gmail user base to make orkut bigger and integrated it with igoogle widgets, it'd be something approaching facebook. I think they are somewhat reluctant to do that to their user base though, although it could be done unobtrusively.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Acquirers are less prone to irrational exuberance than IPO investors. The closest you'll get to Bubble valuations is Rupert Murdoch paying $580 million for Myspace. That's only off by a factor of 10 or so."

\-- PG, circa Nov 2005

:)

<comment><USER4> I was probably wrong in saying it was only worth a tenth of that, but I still think $580 million was high. Remember, what he bought wasn't the present-day Myspace. Most of Myspace's user base (and thus value) was added since the acquisition.

<comment><USER5> Something is worth whatever people are willing to pay for it, esp. in the case of internet phenoms.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, but we're not talking about people here. We're talking about one guy, who possibly did a stupid thing by buying it. If someone mistook glass shards for diamonds and bought them for $10k, it doesn't mean the glass shards are worth $10k.

<comment><USER5> One guy who wouldn't have paid so much if there weren't other people offering similar amounts. My point is that you can't pick an arbitrary amount ($58 Million) for the valuation - but that this amount is _always_ dependent on other people.

The problem with your example is that we all have limited knowledge about any given business transaction. Assuming ten people were standing around bidding on little rocks thinking they are diamonds, for that moment (to those people) they are worth $10k. When they have more knowledge (i.e. that this is glass and not diamonds) then the worth of those rocks drops. So the worth varies based on the knowledge in the market and valuations of others.

Now in any given market if one has more knowledge about a good or service one might be able to say that a good or service is over valued. For instance, I have always believed Myspace to be over valued. However, this realization does not give one the ability to pick a number out of the air and state that it is a _correct_ valuation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Facebook, which is used by over 40 million people to set up their own personal Web pages...has emerged as the poster child for the latest Internet wave."

Yes, the latest e-Wave to hit the the Beach of Interweb e-Shores.

</comment><comment><USER8> Insane. Completely irresponsible. If I were a MSFT shareholder, I'd be pissed.

Just watch... Steve Ballmer will have some extremely hard time at the next shareholder meeting when questions start flying his way.

</comment><comment><USER9> IN OTHER NEWS: Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were seen taking hits from a large bong outside the headquarters of the Redmond giant on Monday.

Ballmer was quoted as saying,"This wacky tobaccky is sooo good. Let's buy Dunkin Donuts for $20 billion! Mmmmm, donuts..." He then proceeded to do a Monkeyboy Dance, to the giggling delight of a baked Bill Gates. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc4MzqBFxZE>

</comment><comment><USER10> somehow this doesn't feel right.

Google is nearly impossible to replicate where as social networks is and will always be a trend. Also people tend to use more than one of these social networks.

PG pondered once in one of his essays, if I remember correctly, that naturally myspace or any other current social network will not be the only one in the years to come.

update: "So in a hundred years the only social networking sites will be the Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and Del.icio.us? Not likely." <http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html>

The internet population is already 1 billion. Thats plenty of people and opportunities.

Microsoft and Google with all that money should just buy all the startups they can and kill Facebook for good...

Or we should just expect the new "Norton" to invent the NEW anti-"socialnetwork"/virus

<comment><USER11> Facebook is harder to replicate than Google in one way: Facebook has a large network effect on its side, Google (search) doesn't.

<comment><USER12> That Google maintains its audience despite zero lock in is a testament to just how strong their search product is. I don't see Facebook opening up all of the details of their network.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Did anyone else notice this:

According to (people|person) familiar with (the matter|those talks|the company)

<comment><USER14> It was painful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> 10 billion dollars? My god, if I was a major MSFT stakeholder, I'd be getting the tar and feathers ready.

<comment><USER16> I disagree. Over 20 million people use FB every single day. Over 40 million active users(used it within 30 days).

They have something in there to monetize, big time. Watch, $20 billion today would be a steal. FB will be worth $100B in 3 years.

<comment><USER17> Agreed. A lifetime user of facebook is worth $500, easy. I don't see what is going to get me to leave the platform, ever.

<comment><USER5> Myself in 1999: 'A life time user of AOL is worth $500 easy. I don't see what is going to get me to leave the platform, ever.'

<comment><USER16> Interesting point, but I would guess AOL made $500 off each user they had in 1999.

<comment><USER18> They also charged money though. Unless everyone just stocked up on those 500 hours CDs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Fred says the 10billion is not real

<http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2007/09/facebook-really.html>

</comment><comment><USER20> Microsoft..... desparate?

<comment><USER21> Facebook..... obstinate?</comment></comment>


Millions of Smart Meters May Over-Inflate Readings by Up to 600% - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/hardware/millions-of-smart-meters-may-over-inflate-readings-by-up-to-600-percent/ <comment><AUTHOR> I live in Ontario Canada and since the smart meter our electricity is up and we have gone crazy trying to lower it. i can not help but wounder if it uses the same faulty measurement methodology.

found this too [https://stopsmartmeters.com.au/2017/03/31/university- study-e...](https://stopsmartmeters.com.au/2017/03/31/university-study- exposes-smart-meters-inflating-power-consumption-readings/)

<comment><USER2> You can take pictures of your physical meter's indicators and see if that matches up with your billed usage.

You could also test how accurate the meter is by measuring current on the main feed and doing some math.

<comment><AUTHOR> you have a link on this that will help a n00b like me figure this out

<comment><USER2> [http://www.hydroone.com/MyHome/MyAccount/MyMeter/Pages/ReadM...](http://www.hydroone.com/MyHome/MyAccount/MyMeter/Pages/ReadMyOwnMeter.aspx)

Like that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Not only ESMIG disputed the findings, also the Radiocommunications Agency Netherlands released a statement calling the lab conditions not comparable to normale home conditions: [https://agentschaptelecom.nl/actueel/nieuws/2017/slimme- elek...](https://agentschaptelecom.nl/actueel/nieuws/2017/slimme- elektriciteitsmeters-zijn-betrouwbaar)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> wow the more I read into this the worst it sounds it can't possibly be this much corruption and gouging going on can it.

[http://emfsafetynetwork.org/smart- meters/complaints/](http://emfsafetynetwork.org/smart-meters/complaints/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm getting more and more frustrated with digital appliances. Moved to a new place and the fancy digital appliances are more inconvenient than my previous older appliances with analog buttons and inputs. They are a negative to the experience. They're ruining cars too.

</comment><comment><USER5> Previously discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13793771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13793771)

</comment><comment><USER6> It's scary how much power we give IOT devices. It would be trivial for a utility company to alter or change readings in their favor.

<comment><USER7> Wouldn't that be illegal? And can't power companies modify mechanical meters as well, if defrauding their customers is their goal?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you like my PHP side projects? - <AUTHOR> Hello HN,
As a developer, I have a few PHP side projects:
1. PHPippo, which I recently released on GitHub, is a PHP preprocessor and a PHP source micro-optimizer (the only free one I know of). PHPippo will soon gain version targeting, allowing users, say, to develop on latest PHP and deploy on PHP 5.2, with PHPippo altering/stripping away incompatible code.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7861616
2. a PHP anti-badbot class, which will block traffic from most scrapers, harvesters, etc., ensuring crawlers abide by your robots.txt policies, exploiting a number of culprits to discern legitimate users and crawlers from bad ones, taking action by logging, forbidding requests, or even banning originating IP(s). (IPv6 compatible).
3. a (multi-platform) PHP+MySQL customizable desktop activity monitor which monitors time spent within each application, possibly identifying the single files being edited, URLs visited, and automatically taking snapshots of unidentified windows. By saving data to a database, it enables tracking habits and usage patterns. I envisioned this tool for personal use; however, it could be deployed to monitor employees in a centralized manner, though this might be illegal in many countries.
4. (perhaps too complex) a PHP opaque data storage layer for sessions/user data on top of a database; designed to only make user data available to legitimate owners, which share them (or part) (via public/private key encryption) with authorized personnel only. Think of it as a database layer which, in case of breach, still protects your data, emails, credit card numbers, etc. from harvesting, while still allowing users to register, validate their email addresses, forget their passwords, and do whatever required with their user accounts (via a set of API).
So, which project(s) would you prioritize? What should I do next? I would even be willing to sell them. <comment><USER2> Hey Aruggirello - I'm one of the core developers of PHPCI ([https://www.phptesting.org](https://www.phptesting.org))

I really like the sound of #1. Would you consider building a PHPCI plugin for it? I think it would be quite popular, especially the version targeting reporting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that would be interesting... PHPippo was originally built as a preprocessor, but nothing prevents using it as a micro-optimizer, and/or to report version issues only, with no preprocessing involved. A PHPCI plugin? Let's see what I can do...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I deal with security and web site performance. If you can do for scraping what Akismet has done for spam on WP, then you have a great product.

Aside from e-shops, forums (VB, PHPBB, etc) also have a lot of scraping for forum meta-sites and cross-posting.

<comment><AUTHOR> my project employs several techniques to flag and block scrapers; note that any technique will eventually fail against the 'perfect storm': a distributed scraping network featuring camouflaged user agents operating from innocent- looking IPs (from the same ISPs of your regular users) and performing a single, RANDOM request each. There is little one could do to prevent scraping in this scenario; fortunately enough, scraping bot developers don't usually take all those precautions, so identifying them is often much, much easier (some even proudly identify themselves in the user agent string... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think 2 has potential for the CMS community (thinking WordPress). Security plugins are quite popular. It might be something worth exploring if there was demand from some of the hosting companies to license it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was thinking more of the Magento/Oscommerce/Prestashop community, as shop owners are obsessed by monitoring competitors, and bots scraping thousands of pages are a common resource/plague there. A Wordpress plugin would be nice, too.

<comment><USER4> Why not both? These CMS/Shop communities offer distribution for a service. It fits well with the theme. I mentioned WordPress because it's the obvious 800 lb gorilla in the space.</comment></comment></comment>


Academic Programmers - A Spotter's Guide - <AUTHOR> http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/academic.html

<comment><USER2> _absolutely nobody can use his customised environment, which also suits him because it means he doesn't have to answer questions about it._

Ha ha ha quote for truth with me! Every time someone starts using my computer, I check to see how good my set up is doing based on the number of WTFs per minute.

<comment><USER3> I find that my swapped CAPS-LOCK and CTRL keys are enough to boggle most people who try to use my machine.

<comment><USER4> We had keyboards like that in one of my classes last semester. It was really annoying, but it didn't matter too much since the software we used didn't use CTRL-C, CTRL-X, or CTRL-V anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Lots of great stuff one level above.

<http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/index.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> Ha ha that's an old bone you dug up there, even so I recognize a few of those personalities in my present-day co-workers.

<comment><USER6> Hell, I recognize a number of them in _myself._

<comment><USER7> I can definitely relate to "GNU". As a long-time Linux user, I remember the first time I sat down at an OS X machine and wanted to blow away a directory tree. "rm * -rf", I typed. "rm: -rf: No such file or directory", it replied.

I then learned how to build and install the GNU utilities.

<comment><USER8> I actually did pretty much the same thing. I had a solaris account at school and ended up filling half of my space on the server with gnu utilities because I didn't feel like learning Sun's "almost-right" utilities.

So many of these apply to me it's a bit scary

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I dimly remember the days when a megabyte was a large amount. Those were weird times.

<comment><USER10> Yes, much of this guide is spent being snide about how others are using scarce disk space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's it mean when you fit into _several_ of these?</comment>


Testing the effect of the diabetes drug Liraglutide in Alzheimer's disease - <AUTHOR> http://alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=1741

<comment><AUTHOR> I found this after reading these pop-science articles. It seems like an interesting line of thought. Does anyone know of any other studies that have already been run?

[http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-09/newest- impact-...](http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-09/newest-impact-poor- diet-alzheimers)

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/10/alzheime...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/10/alzheimers- junk-food-catastrophic-effect)</comment>


Show HN: My new iPad app for people with Dyslexia - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spell-better/id591637893?mt=8#

<comment><USER2> "Learn" might be seen somewhat insulting if you have dyslexia — it may not be that you don't know the right order, but when you type your brain sends the wrong signals to your hand. So I'd advise you to come up with a better label.

Also if you're dyslexic it's easier to read white text on a black background, and it's easier to tell the differences between letters that have a serif since dyslexic is really about letter recognition.

Lastly dyslexia is as much about reading and verbal skills as it is about writing: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia>

I think you should re-label your app around the issue of learning to spell rather (which is a good market) rather than dyslexia. It's that or find an expert on dyslexia and evolve the app.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Thanks so much! Boy am I excited. This app offers great word prediction with a robust dictionary. It also works along with iPad accessibility features including speak text and word highlighting. Love it! Will spread the word! "

Wow. That is one coherent mom.</comment>


C64 Kernal API Reference - <AUTHOR> https://www.pagetable.com/?p=1401 <comment><USER2> Note that "Kernal" was the correct spelling used in period Commodore manuals and documentation.

<comment><USER3> I lost count of how many people corrected me on that (saying it was Kernel) :-)

I always wanted to know why this name was chosen.

<comment><USER2> Wikipedia claims it was a typo that stuck around.</comment></comment></comment>


Paul Graham : uses this. - <AUTHOR> http://paul.graham.usesthis.com/ <comment><USER2> > _I'd like it if the Air was about half the size._ [...]

> _I'd like it if the HD display was bigger and much lighter and didn't have > such a massive octopus of cables attached to it._

Looks like Apple agreed. The more recent Apple displays are bigger and have mostly eliminated the "octopus of cables" (when LightPeak hits this should even further improve), and the new Air is substantially smaller.

<comment><USER3> I'm thinking about getting a new Macbook Air, but I'm concerned about his desire for unlimited fast CPU: the new Airs have pointedly lacking CPU resources.

<comment><USER4> Potentially relevant: [http://www.anandtech.com/show/4000/apples-11inch- upgraded-ma...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/4000/apples-11inch-upgraded- macbook-air-review-do-16ghz-and-4gb-make-a-difference)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pretty standard setup he uses. The most informative usesthis I've seen is with Marco Arment: <http://marco.arment.usesthis.com/>

<comment><USER6> Wow! you're right, that's awesome.

When I got done reading the "What hardware are you using?" section I laughed at the heading of the "What would be your dream setup?" section.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One common thing in all usesthis.com interviews is, no one uses Windows OS as their main operating system and Mac is used most. Only person I found using Windows is Mitch Altman so far.

<comment><USER7> Yet, 90% of developers use Windows on a daily basis. The people interviewed in usesthis are just not very representative of the community (a bit like using a conference to claim that 90% of developers use Mac Books).

I'm still sad to see some of these people (including pg) use such antiquated tools. I use vi on a daily basis but just for very small text files, you can be so much more productive with more modern tools these days.

<comment><USER8> _Yet, 90% of developers use Windows on a daily basis._

Citation needed.

My primary operating system has been Linux for the last decade. I don't think that I'm that unusual.

<comment><USER9> "Use Windows" might to be the key here. I mean, my main development machine is a MacBook Pro, and I use headless Linux machines heavily. But I've always got a Windows machine booted up, and I've got Parallels running Windows on my MBP about half of the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I also enjoyed this interview with _why <http://why.usesthis.com/>

</comment><comment><USER11> "I don't know why Apple won't make something in between the Air and an iPhone."

Well that would be the iPad. This is from 2009, I wonder what pg thinks of the iPad regarding this quote. Really makes you notice how fast things change in a year nowadays.

</comment><comment><USER12> This whole thing was more like - let's build a random profile. Nothing that I didn't already know.

Interviews are supposed to give a reflection of a person, their thinking process or get an insider scoop. Nothing here.

EDIT: Sorry people, just saw that interview aimed to know the tools he used to get things done. So my bad!

<comment><USER13> Nothing _superfluous_ here. He's a minimalist.

<comment><USER14> Depending on your usage, a terminal isn't necessarily minimalistic, apart from the visual side. I've known a lot of people who live in Excel, who could be deemed more minimalistic than a lot of Unix users, using umpteen command-line utilities, a few ad-hoc programming and expression languages…

(Not saying that pg does it that way. For all I know, he might just use vi and mzscheme after all)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In these interviews I rarely come across a piece of software or hardward that isn't accessible from an economic standpoint. Almost always run of the mill stuff. A nice reminder to a guy like me that can get caught up in gear/books/sites, etc. It's not the gear it's 'that' and 'how' you use it.

I just finished reading "Coders at Work". An I 'used' this would make an interesting site as well. Especially if there were pics of some of those old machines. I borrowed a unix book from a friend and he had been using an old punchcard as a bookmark. Neat little find.

</comment><comment><USER16> <http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/> should be interesting.

<comment><USER17> A bit. I admire his principles of using free software only no mater what.

<comment><USER18> Agreed. I appreciate Stallman's efforts even though I do not always see eye to eye with him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What the hell? American McGee has large eyes like a classic angel: <http://american.mcgee.usesthis.com/>

edit: Look, I'm not dissing the man. His eyes are angelically beautiful. I must admit, probably not an insight into what tools he uses, but I just hadn't noticed before.

</comment><comment><USER20> _I use the usual Unix utilities (vi for editing)._

Not vim? Not MacVim? You ssh to a server and use vanilla vi?

<comment><USER21> I think it's usually safe to assume that when people say 'vi' they mean 'vim'.

<comment><USER22> On most systems for the past while 'vi' is just a link to/copy of vim in compatibility mode.

<comment><USER23>
      A
      B
      D
      D
      C

_assorted curses_

      <esc>
      :q!
      $ echo "alias vi=vim" >> ~/.bashrc

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why can't I create my own usesthis page? Who decides who's important or interesting enough to get "interviewed"?

<comment><USER25> Wanting to make your own Uses This page is like asking "Why don't they let anybody publish an article in the New Yorker?" It is curated content.

However, there is nothing stopping you from publishing your own version on your own site. Or bribing with @waferbaby with yummy vegan treats.

<comment><USER26> "yummy vegan treats."

Oxymoron, fellow weekend warrior. Butter must be included. However, it is not an element in the periodic table of deliciousness--because it is so fundamental it is the up-quark of baking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> You know you've made it when you're on the list of most of these alpha geeks. Dropbox, i.e.

<comment><USER28> pg funded Dropbox (and probably all of the non-Google software he mentions, except Yahoo Store, which he wrote), fyi

<comment><USER27> Why, of course he did - not on the first time around though :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Which site is he managing with Yahoo Store?

<comment><USER30> <http://paulgraham.com/>

<comment><USER29> Oh, I thought he was talking about an actual store. I suppose this explains the _believe it or not_ part.

<comment><USER31> I was thinking the _believe it or not_ was on account of who invented the Yahoo store?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Paul Graham has a screen smaller then mine and uses two software I didn't know existed which I will now check out, that's everything vaguely "interesting" I found in this.

<comment><USER33> Thank you for commenting on this article.

<comment><USER32> I don't understand. Am I not supposed to say that I found this article pointless and everyone is upvoting it just because it has "Paul Graham" in the title? Sometimes HN really surprises me.

<comment><USER34> Generally, you'd get upvoted for saying a bit more than "this article sucked."

Then again, I didn't downvote you, so...</comment></comment></comment></comment>