My Top 100 Programming, Computer and Science Books: Part One - <AUTHOR> http://www.catonmat.net/blog/top-100-books-part-one/ <comment><USER2> I'm a little skeptic; how many books has one to read to make a useful 100-book recommendation? Most of these books need a lot of time to skim, read, reflect, exercise, etc.

For example, surely he is going to recommend math books. It can be argued that most of the value of a math book is in its end-of-chapter exercise set, and that takes time. If discrete mathematics book A is more amenable to a 30 minute random page read and book B has a lot of insight in working through the questions after chapter 7, how can he reliably evaluate that, across a lot of published books in the area? And then jump to grammar, and then to programming languages, and then to best practices, and repeat that?

I mean, I love these posts, because they give me a list of books to research and "collect" in a wish list. But aren't they perpetuating the most cited books? Won't everyone end up thinking that the dragon book is great?

I'd much rather have a comparison of five good books on a given theme, with pros and cons.

EDIT: What would be great is, have several people at HN pick the subject area that they dominate, select about five books, and do a cross analysis (like, A is great for theory, B is a little bit weaker on that but a great introduction, and C has awesome exercises that compliment them. If that's too much, D is a very good summary of all three, without so much depth). That way we could all have a great, broad, crowdsourced set of book recommendations.

<comment><USER3> Post author here - I've been collecting and researching science, math, physics, programming books since 2001 or 2002, so that is close to 15 years of book research. I'm really passionate about high quality books. I carefully evaluate every book that I'm about to buy, seek reviews, online previews and opinions. Then I make the purchase.

I did a degree in physics just for fun so I went through many math and physics books, but I'm really most passionate about computers, software development and programming so most of my recommendations are going to be on that.

I don't claim to have read every single book from cover to cover and worked through every problem but I can make educated recommendations, and I've gone through every book that I recommend. I've spent unreasonable amount of time looking for new books that are not top cited. Some of my recommendations will be top cited books but many won't be. Top cited books get my attention but they're not always good.

Talking about dragon book I'm probably not going to recommend it. It's not fun. You can't get things done with it in any reasonable amount of time. I've actually been thinking of writing my own book on compilers where you get things done quicker with less theory and it's fun. The problem with dragon book is that people recommend it just because they've heard of it. Hardly anyone has actually read it.

For the math books I'm not going to recommend standard text books much. My recommendations are going to be books such as Counterexamples in Topology, Counterexamples in Analysis. Those are super fun books to work through as counterexamples warp your mind a little bit, and you get that tiny adrenaline rush when you get it. Another example is To Mock a Mockingbird. It's not a text book, it's not a top cited book, but it's so fun. Another example Street- Fighting Mathematics.

For the physics books I'm also not going to recommend too many standard text books. I also won't recommend popular science books as they're mostly stupid and won't stretch your mind a little bit. They may blow your mind a little bit but they won't stretch your mind. Example physics book recommendations include Thermodynamics by Enrico Fermi, just beautiful explanations of the most the basic thermodynamic concepts. Another example is Quantum Paradoxes by Yakir Aharonov and Daniel Rohlich. I'll stop here as it's too many spoiler alerts. :)

Let's take a look at the books that I recommended in the first post.

1\. The New Turing Omnibus - I read this book cover to cover in one evening. It's such a fun read and introduced so many concepts. I enjoyed one of the chapters about Busy Beaver Problem so much that I spent a few days implementing Busy Beaver in several languages and wrote a program that visualizes how the Beaver travels on the tape: [http://www.catonmat.net/blog/busy-beaver/](http://www.catonmat.net/blog/busy- beaver/)

2\. The Little Book of Semaphores - I read this book back in 2002 or 2003 when it was just released in the 1st edition. I printed it for easier reading. I've a huge stack of printed pdf books and scientific papers (I just snapped some pics [http://i.imgur.com/bjPgxMD.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/bjPgxMD.jpg), [http://i.imgur.com/QJFumGl.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/QJFumGl.jpg), [http://i.imgur.com/FD2dx3L.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/FD2dx3L.jpg)) and I just found the 1st editon of semaphores in my printed pdf stack ([http://i.imgur.com/qe9hgHM.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/qe9hgHM.jpg)). I worked through most of the problems.

3\. Programming Pearls and More Programming Pearls - I just love the way Jon Bentley writes. I don't know what else to say. These two books really teach the basics of solving programming problems. It takes many years to master the basics in practice but these books teach the basics well. I once wrote a blog post ([http://www.catonmat.net/blog/three-beautiful- quicksorts/](http://www.catonmat.net/blog/three-beautiful-quicksorts/)) about Jon Bentley's chapter in Beautiful Code that he based on a chapter on quick sort in Programming Pearls.

4\. The Little Schemer - I've gone through this book at least 5 times. Check out this photo that I just took of all the notes that I've made while reading it and the Seasoned/Reasoned Schemers ([http://i.imgur.com/aeLEQh8.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/aeLEQh8.jpg)). That is a lot of hours spent with these books. I enjoyed this book a lot and I copied out all the fun code examples and put them on GitHub ([https://github.com/pkrumins/the-little- schemer](https://github.com/pkrumins/the-little-schemer)), and I also wrote a blog post about deriving y-combinator based on one of the chapters in this book [http://www.catonmat.net/blog/derivation-of- ycombinator/](http://www.catonmat.net/blog/derivation-of-ycombinator/).

5a. The Elements of Style - I first heard about this book in 2006 or so when I got serious about becoming a great writer, started blogging and wanted to improve my communication skills. It's the most cited book and I gave in and bought it. It's really good because you can read it in a few hours and learn a lot. I follow many of the rules and guidelines in this book. I'm also going to recommend On Writing Well. Spoilers.

5b. The Elements of Programming Style - The Elements of Style + Brian Kernighan.

I wouldn't recommend a book that I don't trust is really well written. That just wouldn't be me. I stand behind my recommendations.

<comment><USER2> Hey, thank you for the thorough response.

Sorry, I was just trying to send the message of "perhaps we should take these recommendations with a grain of salt". But we should be doing that with everything, don't we? All in all, any of your book recommendations that I can reasonably evaluate for having read the book myself, they all seem quite good.

Mind you, I'm a complete stranger commenting on your free job without a lot of care :) and written words lose the tone easily. Perhaps it's me, but I read your justifications and I'm afraid my comment might have struck you the wrong chord. I didn't mean to bother you, and I'm sorry if that's the case.

I hope I don't miss the subsequent posts of the list.

<comment><USER3> Np. I just thought I'd share more insight about my passion. That comment came into existence by itself. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One idiosyncratic list coming up.

Kernighan and Plauger, _Software Tools_ , had a very big influence on my coding style and appreciation for the Unix Way.

If you want to learn more about Lisp macros, the exuberant book _Let Over Lambda_ by Doug Hoyte is a fun read.

The best book to learn how to implement Forth-like languages is _Threaded Interpretive Languages_ by R. Loelige. Dated and long out of print, but worth getting. Plus, as a Byte Book, it has one of those classic Byte drawings on the cover.

T is to Scheme what Scheme is to Lisp (kind of), and _The T Programming Language_ by Jonathan Rees is the kind of book that cleanses your soul.

Donald Knuth's _The Stanford Graphbase_ contains literate programs for several elegant graph algorithms.

Jim Sather's _Understanding the Apple IIe_ is a terrific description of a computer from the bottom up, and shows you how deep knowledge of the hardware enables you to write software that breaks all the rules (viz. the recent demo that gets 1024 colors on an IBM CGA adapter).

On a more personal note, _Puzzled Programmers_ by Michael Wiesenberg was a book published by Microsoft Press in the late 1980s. It contained 15 problems reminiscent of what you can find nowadays on Project Euler -- math problems for computer solution, but where brute force search is not enough. I spent many hours on them when I was in high school.

<comment><USER5> Do you mean the book on T by Stephen Slade? If Jonathan Rees did indeed write a book about it then can you share a pointer about it?

<comment><USER4> Sorry to get your hopes up, I meant the Stephen Slade book.

<comment><USER6> Ouch, that book doesn't seem easy to obtain through the usual online sources...

<comment><USER7> Wow you're not kidding. Out of print, no PDFs anywhere. I've placed an inter- library loan request, as my soul could use some cleansing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My favorite one is Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming:

[https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/book](https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/book)

I believe it's a terrific sequel to SICP, despite not using Lisp. The only little disappointment with the book is when they use Java as a canonical OO language to compare Oz/Mozart with. They should have used Smalltalk!

As a prequel to SICP, I love The Little Schemer.

I love The Art of Prolog too. As a modern successor to Prolog, [https://probmods.org/](https://probmods.org/) is awesome.

If we talk about theoretical CS, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_and_Intractability](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_and_Intractability) is terrific. Very short and elegant.

<comment><USER9> Is it possible to follow along The Little Schemer with Clojure? I'm afraid I don't know any other lisp.

<comment><USER10> I believe I have seen some of The Little Schemer code translated into Clojure, and most of that looked pretty trivial changes.

But I doubt you would gain anything from doing that. If you know Clojure you can pick up what you need of Scheme (new concepts get added as you progress throu the book) almost immediately. It really is not a book on Scheme, but of thinking about problems in a recursive way.

Some of the TCO stuff, may not translate well either. IMHO it would be distraction from what the book is about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've love to see a condensed list that focuses on the top books for a given context. The best 2-3 books to read when you are interested in learning how to program, the best 2-3 books for a new developer in his/her first professional job, the best 2-3 books for someone looking to move into a senior technical role, the best 2-3 books for moving from web to mobile, etc.

<comment><USER12> Doing that for each "specialty" would be amazing, but necessarily a team effort. Moving from desktop development to web development a few years ago was an interesting experience for me.

I actually wrote up a list for "college hires" last year if you need one [https://medium.com/@the_ajohnston/three-books-developers- sho...](https://medium.com/@the_ajohnston/three-books-developers-should-read- when-they-graduate-5ee228251dd2)

<comment><USER11> Absolutely, thanks for the list. I'll share my own personal one for that same context :)

[http://www.mdswanson.com/blog/2013/05/31/summer-reading- list...](http://www.mdswanson.com/blog/2013/05/31/summer-reading-list.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd like to offer a partial thumbs-down to the one non-programming book suggestion: Strunk & White's _Elements of Style_ has been criticized as, well, not the best possible advice, by G.K. Pullum, here: [http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid- Grammar/2549...](http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid- Grammar/25497)

I think many of us could do worse than to follow S&W's writing advice, but I also think the book is given more reverence than it's worth, maybe just because it's been a tradition in English education.

<comment><USER14> There are much better books that do a similar job. Try out Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark and A Sense of Style by Steven Pinker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I did a similar post ages ago[1], although less ambitious at only 7 books. I've since read the Turing Omnibus and The Little Schemer and I was glad to see them on the list. I wish I'd had them when I was much younger. In addition to Programming Pearls I would also add "Software Tools" by Kernighan and Plauger.

I never read The Elements of Programming Style but very early in my career I chanced into the single-page excerpt "Brian Kernighan's Programming Style Tips"[2] which has probably been the single most influential document on practical programming I've ever read.

Edit: Almost forgot, Programming Erlang by Joe Armstrong was also a landmark book for me, and if I were to redo my list I'd certainly add it.

[1] [http://www.youell.com/matt/writing/?p=4](http://www.youell.com/matt/writing/?p=4) [2] [http://ellard.org/dan/www/libsq/ref/style.html](http://ellard.org/dan/www/libsq/ref/style.html)

<comment><USER16> I read _The Elements of Programming Style_ early in my career, and in the context of the early '80s I remember it to be superb. And fairly short.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Hacker's Delight" by Henry J. (Hank) Warren. Despite the unfortunate title[0], it teaches (with code) numerous tricks, algorithms, ideas, that really improve performance and function of programs.

[0] not "hackers" as in those who try to crack into systems, but rather as in those who enjoy writing professional, clever, and efficient code.

<comment><USER18> Get the 2nd edition, of course. It's three times as long.

I don't know if I've ever really learned anything from Hacker's Delight, though. It's more of a cookbook. If I learned anything it's that a lot of dead CPU architectures were hard to program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Asking about favourite computer books is also something I often do in interviews, whether I am the interviewer or interviewee. Partly to find out about if we share a common perception of relevant books but also to find out about books I am not aware of or to get a new insight into.

So I very much like this post and found several books to add to my reading list. :)

I did once blog about whether teams/departments should have a required reading list [http://blog.flurdy.com/2011/04/required- reading.html](http://blog.flurdy.com/2011/04/required-reading.html) . (Note that post was 4 years ago so the suggested list would have quite a few tweaks and was aimed at devs in my then niche)

<comment><USER20> I've done this before, and nearly every time the person has said to me "Oh, I haven't read a programming book since university. I do all my reading online".

It seems to be a common thing, which is a shame. I've always been fond of books, and unless you're pirating some classic texts and reading them as PDF's on your computer it feels like people miss out on a lot of quality content.

How often do you come across this? Admittedly, when I've been directly involved in interviewing this has almost always been for people under 25 coming into a junior level role.

<comment><USER19> I know but different people learn and keep up to date in different ways (or not at all) so for me it is not a yes/no criteria on whether they get hired/approved by me. Just another piece of data to evaluate on.

And similarly unfortunately the majority I encounter don't read many if any books. If people only read books then that is perhaps an issue as well. And reading a specific technical book about a specific software version is also usually a waste of time in my opinion. Read howtos online and experiment away instead.

I do tend to interview more mid-to-senior level of which how they keep up to date is more relevant. I am not expecting new grads to have read the entire backlog of Pragmatic bookshelf if any. Nor am I expecting anyone to have read the bricks (gang of four, Fowler's application patterns etc) cover to cover. But for example seniors not having heard of these bricks or the Clean Code and Pragmatic Programmer books is a red flag. If they know of them but disagree with them then that is fine, but not heard of them at all is weird.

In a previous job they sent me Clean Code and a couple of other books in the post to read a few weeks before I started. Which was a good sign that I was joining the right company, even if I had already read them all previously :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The Little Schemer is a very fun book! If you are thinking about learning Lisp, go for it. At least, give it a try. It's quite different from most books out there, but it's very good nonetheless. I read it last year while in the train and it's quite entertaining.

EDIT: I forgot to explain why it's such a good book: it teaches you how to think in Lisp. It doesn't focus at all in the syntax.

<comment><USER22> As someone who has never touched Lisp, why is thinking in Lisp good?

<comment><USER21> Functional programming/paradigm. It's a pretty nice language to learn it (my intention was to learn Clojure, but I read this book first so that I had an small base).

<comment><USER23> But today, one can learn functional programming also with other languages than Lisp.

<comment><USER24> The book isn't really about lisp, it's about thinking in terms of higher order functions and recursion, which apply in any functional language.

<comment><USER16> The same people have also written _The Little MLer_ ([http://www.amazon.com/The-Little-MLer-Matthias- Felleisen/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Little-MLer-Matthias- Felleisen/dp/026256114X)).

<comment><USER10> Which is also brilliant, but is more about thinking in terms of types (more advanced type systems, then C/C++/Java etc).

Should make a good warm up for learning the likes of OCaml and Haskell

<comment><USER25> Almost all the exercises can be done in Haskell with a small amount of syntactic adjustment

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Free online: _Programmers at Work_ , by Susan Lammers (1986), [https://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/about/](https://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/about/) interviews the creators of dBase, PacMan, Postscript, Mac OS, DOS, Word, VisiCalc and more.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm so glad to see The Little Book of Semaphores on here, especially in the top 5. I didn't expect to see it on a list like this, but I found it to be immensely helpful. In my OS class last semester, my prof mentioned it almost in passing, so I don't think many people paid much attention to it, but it solidified my understanding of threading immensely, especially in anticipation of the thread pool we had to write.

Also awesome to see The Little Schemer on here. That was also a book that was recommended in passing in my comparative language class and again I don't think people paid much attention to it. But I learned a lot from it as well.

I'm looking forward to following this list.

</comment><comment><USER28> I got excited for 100 books, then I saw "Part one" and got excited for 20-50 then I got to the article and was like 5!? Well, regardless, thanks for recommendations and looking forward to the next 19 parts.

</comment><comment><USER29> Another vote:

 _Seven Languages in Seven Weeks: A Pragmatic Guide to Learning Programming Languages_

for people like me who spent most of their career with 1-2 languages this is very eye opening.

</comment><comment><USER30> If you didn't read yet I would totally recommend these two:

\- 7 languages in 7 weeks, as it makes you know and understand decisions about inclusion/exclusion of some language features, for instance why/when to use dynamic typed languages vs statically typed \- Programming Language Pragmatics, 'the bible' for those looking for understand programming language implementation

<comment><USER10> I personally didn't like the 7 languages book, to me it was a bit too shallow flavour of languages. The only take away from the book I had, was that IO looked to be a very sweet language to play with.

It was a textbook for a class I had on programming languages thou, and the class ended up not being the stuff I wanted to learn about so that may cloud my judgement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Where's Knuth? Surely you want to focus on the timeless concepts, they'll never let you down.

<comment><USER32> It really isn't a good read. I own the first three volumes. They are really just useful as a relatively comprehensive reference text explaining a lot of base CS algorithms and structures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Please hurry and upload part two, as i'm about to finish every book in the first part.

</comment><comment><USER34> Has anyone read the _Art of Prolog_ \-- i have it collecting dust but when I bought it I was intrigued?

</comment><comment><USER35> Good start to the list, but pkrumins does that mean there are going to be 19 more posts?

</comment><comment><USER36> No Richard Stevens?

Blasphemy.

</comment><comment><USER37> Here is my 16 favorite ones: [http://www.yegor256.com/2015/04/22/favorite- software-books.h...](http://www.yegor256.com/2015/04/22/favorite-software- books.html)</comment>


Live feed of Chilean miners rescue - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/22309266

<comment><USER2> And a ustream version: <http://www.ustream.tv/channel/522594></comment>


Andreessen Horowitz's cloud vision - <AUTHOR> http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/28/andreessen-horowitzs-cloud-vision/ <comment><USER2> Not really an outline of a vision per se, but his investment thesis as it applies to cloud computing focused startups.</comment>


Beyond space-time: Welcome to phase space - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128241.700-beyond-spacetime-welcome-to-phase-space.html?full=true <comment><USER2> I've gotten in the habit of trying to explain poorly written NewScientist and Popular Science articles as they appear on HN, just because they're so consistently peppered with nonsense that even non-physicist enthusiasts like me can do substantially better. But, in this case, I just want to say this:

If you can't close your eyes right now and give me a formal definition of a tensor, you really don't want to waste your time on this. Go buy a good undergrad textbook for $2 used on Amazon. Do the practice problems. It will contain information that will _genuinely_ enlighten you. You will learn things that geniuses of a hundred years ago would have chewed off their own legs just to have _hints_ about. Until you do that, worrying about Lee Smolin will do nothing. At best.

<comment><USER3> I'm a total physics newbie, what book(s) would you recommend picking up?

<comment><USER4> If you're up for a real wild ride and have some time to kill (no, seriously - the thing is over 1000 pages), Roger Penrose's _The Road To Reality_ ([http://www.amazon.com/Road-Reality-Complete-Guide- Universe/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Road-Reality-Complete-Guide- Universe/dp/0679454438)) actually covers this stuff in a reasonably accessible way.

I can't say how it would read to a newbie, but ostensibly he wrote that book to be aimed more at the smart but uninitiated pop-sci audience than the practicing physicists. I'm not sure he hit his mark, quite, but when I was a second year physics undergrad I found it pretty easy to get through at least the first half (though I had worked through MTW's _Gravitation_ first, so I wasn't totally new to the material - also an excellent book, if you've got months to spend on it and some more lightweight general relativity books to look at as supplements).

It probably depends, though - when you say "newbie", do you mean "F=MA means nothing to me and I barely passed single variable calculus", or "I got straight A's in vector calculus and excelled at freshman physics through basic quantum mechanics but never took more"? If it's the former, you'll want to grab Feynman's freshman lectures first, they'll get you thinking right about this stuff if you make it through them, and later you can start to worry about stuff like tensor calculus...

<comment><USER5> Unless you and bugsbunnyak are in cahoots somehow - unlikely - that's two completely independent recommendations for _The Road To Reality_ within 5 minutes, on HN. That's enough for me. Grabbing it. Thanks.

<comment><USER4> Not in cahoots at all, it really is a very interesting book. One of the most...different, I guess is the word, math/physics books I've read in quite a while.

Be warned, it might not be the best book for beginners, and in all honesty it's more a math book than a physics one, but if you feel at least somewhat math-competent, it's worth a read. At least I enjoyed it a lot.

<comment><USER5> As a professional programmer, I often feel as if I should be more on top of maths than I feel I am. Maybe this book is above my level. Only one way to find out!

<http://xkcd.com/435/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I haven't read Smolin's paper, so I'm not sure exactly what this article is getting at. Is he suggesting that there should be a different connection (i.e., not the Levi-Civita one) on the cotangent bundle of spacetime or is it something more pedestrian? Is he just doing microlocal analysis on spacetime? If the latter is the case, this article doesn't describe what is (mathematically) new about it.

On a second read of this article, it seems clear that my interpretation above is incorrect. It might still be that they are coming up with physical interpretations of microlocal analysis on curved spacetimes. (Though how you fix a quantization, I'm not sure.)

I'm not a physicist and have not read the original source, so please take anything I say with a large dose of salt.

<comment><USER4> As confused as this article seems, it does at least reference one Actual Paper: <http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1101/1101.0931v2.pdf>

I haven't had a chance to look through it yet, but here's the abstract:

 _We propose a deepening of the relativity principle according to which the invariant arena for non-quantum physics is a phase space rather than spacetime. Descriptions of particles propagating and interacting in spacetimes are constructed by observers, but different observers, separated from each other by translations, construct different spacetime projections from the invariant phase space. Nonetheless, all observers agree that interactions are local in the spacetime coordinates constructed by observers local to them.

This framework, in which absolute locality is replaced by relative locality, results from deforming momentum space, just as the passage from absolute to relative simultaneity results from deforming the linear addition of velocities. Different aspects of momentum space geometry, such as its curvature, torsion and non-metricity, are reflected in different kinds of deformations of the energy-momentum conservation laws. These are in principle all measurable by appropriate experiments. We also discuss a natural set of physical hypotheses which singles out the cases of momentum space with a metric compatible connection and constant curvature._

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting, but because of the words "phase space" I kept expecting them to relate general relativity to thermodynamics somehow, since that's the physics context I'm used to seeing them in. But it ends up just being a "measly" 8 dimensions. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_ensemble>

<comment><USER8> And here I thought we'd end up with discussions of Star Trek, which I'm reasonably sure used phase space as the technobabble for something or another. I don't remember what, exactly, it was supposed to be there, but I suspect there were dangerous aliens living in it or something like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I stopped reading at 'Lee Smolin'. If you are a trained physicist read ahead and pick apart his misconceptions. If you're not a trained physicist then you are likely to be misled and I encourage you to not bother. Time is too valuable to be wasted here.

<comment><USER10> Your profile says you're a medical student. Are you a physicist too?

<comment><USER9> Yes, but not that kind of physicist. I have a masters in medical physics, worked three years as a radiation physicist, and am now pursuing a career as a radiation oncologist. Perhaps I should update my profile ;).</comment></comment></comment>


A film that can cool buildings without the use of refrigerants - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21716599-film-worth-watching-how-keep-cool-without-costing-earth <comment><USER2> [http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/02/08/scien...](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/02/08/science.aai7899) is the paper linked in the article

<comment><USER3> Did not read the article, but the abstract is misleading.

It does not matter if the atmosphere absorbs the radiation from your device or it reaches space, after a few feet it's irrelevant. The important bit is the underside of the tarp which is not going to be below ambient temperature. Making the absolute best it can do the equiviemnt of a fan on the roof which can't replace AC.

<comment><USER4> It absolutely _does_ matter, because the beads that are tuned to radiate particular frequencies of infrared will also be tuned to _absorb_ those frequencies as well. If the frequencies aren't transparent to the atmosphere, you'll be reabsorbing just as much as you transmit and end up at equilibrium with the atmosphere.

It is essentially similar to the way in which you can freeze water in a shallow dish on clear nights that are nonetheless slightly above freezing temperature - you are facing a black-body radiator that is well below ambient local temperature.

<comment><USER3> At night sure, in the day time the sun is adding heat across a wide band of frequencies. This heats up less, but does not drop below ambient temperature in full sunlight.

PS: You don't actually need a thing special at night to get this effect: [http://www.asterism.org/tutorials/tut37%20Radiative%20Coolin...](http://www.asterism.org/tutorials/tut37%20Radiative%20Cooling.pdf)

<comment><USER5> The advantage of targeting the IR window is that it would work even with clouds and water vapor in the atmosphere whereas, plain old thermal radiation needs a clear night to be effective.

Of course it won't pump heat backwards into the sun but they propose a water circulation system, which I imagine could store some daytime heat to release it at night. That and masonry of the walls of the building would store even more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How lovely that the two inventors are Doctors Yin and Yang.

Presumably Dr. Yin was responsible for energy absorption and Dr Yang for energy emission.

<comment><USER7> I saw this and smirked internally of course, but noticed in the article itself they did refrain from trivialising the names of the inventors in this way, by referring them to Dr Yang and Dr Yin throughout.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I fell in love with this idea when it first came out! Here is the first demonstration of it a couple of years ago: [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v515/n7528/abs/nature13...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v515/n7528/abs/nature13883.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> This would be great in hot countries, where so much energy is used in air condition, it could make a real dent in energy use, and hence pollution.

<comment><USER10> Most homes in hot countries are not cooled with air conditioning because most people in hot countries are too poor to afford it. Even the rich 1% tend to use air conditioning only on a room by room basis, almost never the whole house.

<comment><USER11> As an Australian in the depth of a hot summer, I beg to differ!

Almost every new house here includes a big air conditioner, and during hot months the euphemistically named 'load shedding' is often performed: [http://www.afr.com/news/politics/sa-power-crisis-may- spread-...](http://www.afr.com/news/politics/sa-power-crisis-may-spread-to- nsw-as-heatwave-hits-20170209-gu99ez)

Thus any improvements to (more) passive cooling technologies are very welcome

<comment><USER12> I wouldn't describe Australia as poor though.

Where I'm from(Poland) summers can get stupidly hot, 40C on some days, it's difficult to sleep at night, yet I don't know anyone who has air conditioning at their house. It's a huge luxury, due to the cost of the unit + cost of electricity to run it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow, that is an awesome result. With a cooling panels on the shade side of the roof and water pipes behind your PV panels on the sun side you can boost solar PV production by 3 - 5%. PV panels become less efficient when they are hot, we put some drip irrigation drippers on roof behind our panels (the panels are about 4" above the roof surface) and the evaporating water improved production by 2% on otherwise hot days.

<comment><USER14> Do you mean 2% or 2 percent points?

<comment><USER13> 2%, in my case generating nearly an additional kilowatt hour per 24 hour period (33.8kwH vs 33.2kwH).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Also it would make a great clothing to wear in the summer or on a spacecraft heat shield.

<comment><USER5> It wouldn't be useful on a spacecraft because it takes advantage of a transparent band in the Earth's atmosphere. In space, you have that already at all wavelengths.

<comment><USER16> More to the point, a heat shield is used for re-entry and this stuff would decompose almost instantaneously. It's be like trying to use a handheld fan to cool yourself while standing in a kiln.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How long can this stuff last on your roof? Will it shed glass microbeads everywhere when the UV degrades it?

<comment><USER18> Probably. A cursory google search shows that TPX is prone to thermal degradation. But glass microbeads do not have the same negative environmental impact as plastic ones. They are already naturally omnipresent in the biosphere.

<comment><USER19> Wouldn't the latter effectively be equivalent to sand?

<comment><USER18> Essentially, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does light in other wavelengths pass through with little transmission losses? Then it might be an elegant way to cool green houses in the summer. Yes, they can simply be vented, but it makes sense to keep them closed in order to keep CO2 fertilization inside and bugs outside.

<comment><USER21> My favorite method for cooling (and heating) greenhouses is ground to air heat transfer (GAHT): [http://www.ceresgs.com/climate- control/gaht/](http://www.ceresgs.com/climate-control/gaht/)

Note: this is similar to, but not the same, as geothermal heating.

<comment><USER20> Yes! I would love to have a research greenhouse fitted with this tech. Thumbs up!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have fifty cents. Where can I buy a square meter of this from?

<comment><USER23> It was only just described in a Science paper, so you are probably going to have to wait 10 years before you can buy it at your local hardware store.

<comment><USER24> So, in what sense is it true that it _costs_ (present tense) 50¢/m²?

<comment><USER25> It's a manufacturing cost estimate, not a market price.

<comment><USER26> It seems reassuring that there's already a manufacturing cost estimate and that it's as low as 50¢/m².

<comment><USER27> Patents will ensure it sells for $100 per square-meter though, or whatever ludicrous price can be burn by the market and still make it valuable to the consumer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm not sure I get how the beads re-radiate energy at 8 microns that came in at other frequencies. If the energy _didn 't_ come in at a different frequency, then the building isn't going to end up any cooler. If it did, then the beads are essentially phosphorescing in the IR region, aren't they? Or exhibiting some other form of nonlinear conversion?

That would be pretty cool, no pun intended.

<comment><USER29> I would believe that the heat energy gets transferred to the beads by conduction and or radiation.

I tend to think this is like a gas mantle in a gasoline (propane) lantern. The mantle is doped with rare earth that emit more strongly in the visible section than a black body would. On this case the temperature is much lower of course and the glass beads are sized to emit strongly in an the infrared band that isn't absorbed by the atmosphere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A "reverse pool blanket" made of this material would be great for places where swimming pools get unusably hot in summer.

<comment><USER10> are there such places on earth where people live? I live in India and haven't come across such :-)

<comment><USER4> Far North Queensland is one I've been to.

<comment><USER30> Swimming in a concrete/Pebble Tec pool in Cairns in the summer is akin to taking a warm bath...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> How is this not violating the second law of thermodynamics ? It seems like the entropy as a whole is getting lower.

<comment><USER32> Did you read the article?

        The new film works by a process called radiative cooling. This takes
        advantage of that fact that Earth's atmosphere allows certain wavelengths
        of heat-carrying infrared radiation to escape into space unimpeded. Convert
        unwanted heat into infrared of the correct wavelength, then, and you can
        dump it into the cosmos with no come back.

        the work is done by the huge temperature difference, about 290°C, between
        the surface of the Earth and that of outer space.

<comment><USER33> Could we cover large portions of the Earth with this material and reverse global warming?

<comment><USER34> Probably wouldn't be cost-effective, but it'd work in principle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Seems innovative and awesome if true, but it is not so awesome as to be without issues. Clearly this is great for places that are always warm, slap this stuff on every building in Texas.

But what about places with erratic weather, or even just seasonal changes? It seems like this will need to be some way to flip this stuff.

<comment><USER36> The article says that the material is only half the solution. The other half is pipes with water to move the heat to the material so it can be dissipated. I assume that if you stop moving as much water, it doesn't cool as much. (It can't radiant heat that isn't there.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is really cool (pun intended).

I wonder if you could integrate it with a solar cell, so you would get both cooling and electricity.

It would be nice if they could figure out how to turn the effect off at the film, instead of having to pipe water.

<comment><USER21> Have another film above it that can be switched from reflective to transparent? These already exist, but are made of exotic materials (vanadium oxide, if I recall correctly) and thus expensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Wow, this is such a beautiful example of basic science turning into powerful technology. Technology which looks like it will be both cheaper and better for the environment than any current alternative.

Does anyone have an idea of how long this might take to get to market as a rooftop heat exchanger for domestic use? I guess it largely depends on durability of the film; presumably the heat exchanger part of the system is a known quantity.

</comment><comment><USER39> "50 micron thick polymethylpentene mixed with tiny glass beads"

As an achievement in science this is cool, but... we should be reducing energy consumption while also not polluting the surface of the planet. Where's this stuff going to end up when houses covered with it are torn down in 30-100 years?

<comment><USER8> To be clear, this is actually a very small amount of plastic. Let's say a roof is 300 square meters; that amounts to < 2 cubic centimeters of plastic.

I would guess that there are examples of much larger consumers of plastic.

<comment><USER40> That'd make it far less plastic than is currently used for roofs just for the vapor barrier under roofing tiles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Well, at first sight this seemed really nice.

But then, after thinking a bit about it (in my semi frozen office because someone turned out the heating during the night), won't this increase the heating costs a lot during the winter?

</comment><comment><USER42> How is this better than covering a surface with tinfoil which leaves infrared heat out?

<comment><USER43> Go read the other comments. This is not an insulator. It will take a source of heat and start radiating that heat at a certain frequency where our atmosphere happens to be transparent. And because our atmosphere is transparent, there isn't at heat at that frequency outside so this "window" in your house is effectively one way.

Also, the demonstrated energy transfer density of this stuff is high enough that the area of your roof is enough cooling to make a series dent in your cooling cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This would be awesome to put on cpus.

<comment><USER44> This only works because the sky does not transmit much energy at the particular infrared frequency this operates at.

In contrast ordinary objects (the computer case, a tree, a wall), do transmit those frequencies.

This would have no effect - it's absorbing the frequencies emitted by the wall, and transmitting to the wall, the net effect is zero.

i.e. it only works under open sky. I suspect even clouds would block this from functioning. (Not sure about this - maybe water has a "window" at this frequency?)

<comment><USER8> You are actually totally correct, clouds would worsen cooling power.

<comment><USER26> Thankfully, clouds also reduce the amount of sunlight heating things up, so that might not be an issue for, say, cooling a house.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


My blog is now generated by Google Docs - <AUTHOR> https://benwiser.com/blog/My-blog-is-now-generated-by-Google-Docs.html <comment><USER3> This is a nice idea, especially for a case where a website is collaboratively edited. I don't love Google Docs for solo projects, and I don't enjoy using it, but its collaborative editing features are so good and reliable that I can't escape it. Being able to suggest and accept changes with commenting among a group of people would be really nice for a website for a collective, say.

That said, a bit of small, hopefully constructive feedback. The impact of this would be a bit bigger if there were more blog posts, so that by the time you reveal you're using google docs it feels more like a practical application and less like a very quick demo. Also, while I understand that there's a sort of "coder who doesn't do design" aesthetic, it might be good to at least change the colors a bit so that there's a bit more magic of transformation. This looks a bit too much like, well, a Google doc, and you want to establish that something cool is going on that couldn't be done with just an index of publicly visible google docs.

<comment><USER4> We've been using a shared Google Docs folder to manage our app's release notes. We parse the folder in reverse chronological order, paginate 5 at a time and use their doc to HTML converter API. We then cache in Redis for performance. Works great and keeps the development team away from having to update it. Product/support can edit to their content!

<comment><USER5> You mean your app's release notes go beyond just "\- Bug fixes and misc. enhancements"? Good on you!

(Sorry for the seemingly drive-by, this really annoys me in Play Store update release notes!)

<comment><USER4> Oh yes. We used to be lazy developers and do the bare minimum. We sell a SaaS to the SMB field and the feedback we got was that they wanted to know _exactly_ what we were changing in the app. So now we produce full sentence (or paragraph) explanations for every JIRA card that gets into production for our users, including links to updated documentation, training videos, screenshots, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of generating webpages from Microsoft Word. The issue is that the HTML looks pretty awful. For example, on the webpage, there's a bunch of tags that don't do anything and the inline style makes it difficult if you wanted to change the font family or color.

<comment><USER7> Yeah that's pretty ugly. Emvi [1] generates clean HTML. Here is an example for that: [https://wiki.sts.wtf/read/Arma-3-Sync- oVlaBeQdAY](https://wiki.sts.wtf/read/Arma-3-Sync-oVlaBeQdAY) (the part within the "article-content" div).

[1] [https://emvi.com/](https://emvi.com/)

<comment><USER8> Use "Show HN" to show case it :-)

<comment><USER7> We showed Emvi and the new user interface we are working on right now already :)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22640054](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22640054)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Shameless plug incoming... I made the equivalent but for APIs using Google Sheets :) [https://sheet2api.com/](https://sheet2api.com/)

<comment><USER10> Want something like this for a long time.

The 50 row limit of the free tier doesn't fit my hobby project unfortunately, but it's glad to see someone developed such thing!

<comment><USER11> Yeah, this is a great service but the pricing doesn't make sense (even after the free tier). 10$ a month (!!!) and it still wouldn't fit my use case with only 1500 rows. The convenience is nice but considering Google/Microsoft is paying for most of the hosting, cell computation and so on, not sure why a wrapper around an API is so expensive.

<comment><USER9> Time is money and this saves a tonne of it. You're free to code everything yourself and save that tiny amount of money of course if you like. Different people have different priorities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is great, albeit very clunky (for reasons described others, e.g. inline CSS issues).

What's amazing to me here is that I've gone through every single link I can find in these comments and haven't found anything close to a plug and play approach to creating static websites generated from Google Docs (say 1 hour at most for a fairly technical person to set up; just stringing together configuration options in e.g. Netlify, Gitlab, and perhaps Google Sheets for routing).

This is not just academic. In the early days of the US COVID pandemic response, I helped instigate the creation of n95reuse.com — a collection of the best public information available on reusing n95 masks, which was used by a number of hospitals (now thankfully the more authoritative n95decon.org exists).

This worked OK as Google Doc redirected from a memorable domain, but would have been much better as a dedicated site. But there was no good way to maintain that as we were rapidly gathering feedback and suggestions from folks on the front lines, and it would have been too much overhead for our small bandwidth constrained volunteer team. Our less professional site with a long redirected URL means that less people saw this, and more healthcare workers were likely using more unsafe protocols (or were spending crucial time replicating our research; we saw this everywhere). And people likely died.

And this is not the first urgent project I've needed this sort of tool for.

So if someone has done this plumbing and documents it, ideally with at least one good theme, please please, let me know (see profile for contact info, or respond to the thread on this here: [https://twitter.com/metaviv/status/1245147106697863168](https://twitter.com/metaviv/status/1245147106697863168)). At some point I might figure it out myself, but have not had a chance yet.

<comment><USER13> We've been working hard on [https://nocode.works](https://nocode.works) \- which turns Google docs into nice looking websites - it's not pluggable yet but it doesn't require any setup on behalf of the user.

We do have a template system though so it would be possible for a frontend dev to design their own wrapper for the content.

<comment><USER12> Very cool!

For now "See, edit, create, and delete all of your Google Drive files" is definitely a deal breaker for many, but if you can restrict to one folder, that would be amazing. (As a user, I would currently use a throwaway account, and then share that Google folder with a real one).

Also wasn't obvious how to remove the page footer; did I miss an option?

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the feedback!

Yes - dealing with access to a users entire drive is something we are looking at to try and get working for exactly that reason - the words `this app can delete all your files` is scary :-)

There isn't an option to remove the footer but should be +1 added to backlog - thanks again!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My first encounter with a docs -> website was the now-defunct joelewis' hexopress.com. The code; however, is opensource [0].

There's a dated, unmaintained Google Docs to Markdown converter [1] which can be used as a source for a static site generator like Hugo [2]. This is particular interesting since folks can style content as they normally would from within Google Docs and have it show up with the same styling on a webpage, rather than write HTML themselves.

[0] [https://github.com/joelewis/hexopress](https://github.com/joelewis/hexopress)

[1] [https://github.com/mangini/gdocs2md](https://github.com/mangini/gdocs2md)

[2] [https://gohugo.io/content-management/formats/](https://gohugo.io/content- management/formats/)

<comment><USER15> As an alternative, Gatsby — a JS-powered static site generator — has a plugin for Google Docs that appears to be in active development.

[https://www.gatsbyjs.org/packages/gatsby-source-google- docs/](https://www.gatsbyjs.org/packages/gatsby-source-google-docs/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's a bit strange hitting the google redirect notice when linking from the site.

You also might want to put your .idea directory and secrets in a .gitignore

<comment><USER17> If I were to fork his code I'd fix that the first thing, I'd hate to annoy my users like that.

Reminds me of this jwz post (you have to copy and paste manually since he doesn't like HN as a referrer: [https://www.jwz.org/blog/2008/02/looking- forward-into-the-pa...](https://www.jwz.org/blog/2008/02/looking-forward-into- the-past/) ).

<comment><USER18> This feels like such a weirdly specific block... You have a blog that you want people to read, but not people who come from a specific source

<comment><USER19> This is why browsers are working to remove user-agent and referer. Almost all real world use is tracking and nonsensical blocks.

<comment><USER20> I was familiar with removing user-agent work, but what's this about removing referrer? Can you give a link?

<comment><USER19> Firefox removed the path in 2018 while in private browsing, now their tracking protection is in normal mode too so I imagine it will happen there as well. I'm guessing the only thing stopping them from removing it totally is some sites break if they cant see the domain you came from.

[https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2018/01/31/preventing- data...](https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2018/01/31/preventing-data-leaks- by-stripping-path-information-in-http-referrers/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I recently used Google Sheets as a CMS for a couple of projects.

In my case I had a server-side script which read the sheets, converted the data to JSON and saved it on a file which was then fetched by the JS client. The conversion only had to run when there were updates (e.g once a day).

It was really convenient in my particular case because all users where familiar with Google Sheets, already had users and passwords, and I had good granular control over permissions.

<comment><USER22> How does it work when you have _a lot_ of text and you need to put that in one cell? Doesn't that get a bit too unruly?

<comment><USER23> I dont think we need to care about google sheet's looks while using it as a DB. This approach is pretty good and fast

<comment><USER22> Ah, fair enough. I totally forgot that reason, haha.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The NYT uses docs to author interactive articles that don't fit nicely in the CMS.

I've missed that workflow a lot (comments and edits are amazing!); I just open sourced a tiny library that saves a doc as a text file.

[https://github.com/1wheel/doc2txt](https://github.com/1wheel/doc2txt)

      npx doc2txt 1StMiAtcY6bY6yEIQp5pVSGdIHSnZG-kFspdmsSzAJdE --outpath gettysburg.txt

<comment><USER25> In addition to using Google Docs for articles that don't fit nicely in the CMS, we also have our internal newsroom wiki powered by Google Docs, too. We've open sourced the code for that here:

[https://github.com/nytimes/library/](https://github.com/nytimes/library/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This isn't directly related to the post but the root of this website is hilarious: [https://benwiser.com/](https://benwiser.com/)

<comment><USER27> On mobile I just see a broken static image of the person's head.

<comment><USER28> Tilt your phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> After building a number of [1] projects that are powered by Google Docs, I recently realised that it also means that countries (like China) where Google is blocked, won't be able to access your content.

[https://upstart.me](https://upstart.me) (powered by Google Docs)

<comment><USER30> FAQ not expanding.

Console errors: Blocked loading mixed active content "[http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.3/jquery.mi...](http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.3/jquery.min.js") upstart.me Request to access cookie or storage on "<URL>" was blocked because it came from a tracker and content blocking is enabled. 6 ReferenceError: $ is not defined script.js:1:1 Blocked loading mixed active content "[http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.3/jquery.mi...](http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.3/jquery.min.js") upstart.me Loading failed for the


The Interrobang, Part 2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.shadycharacters.co.uk/2011/04/the-interrobang-part-2/

<comment><USER2> I'll be interested to see how people are writing in a few decades. I can't imagine that Unicode won't be almost exclusively used--with ASCII reserved for BIOSes and such (even now, we're getting close)--and surely most Americans will one day figure out how to do ©óól ßtúff wíþ ðeir kœybóárds. And I think the trend of niche groups and cult revivals will increase. So surely there will be small groups of people using interrobangs and þorns and umlauts (coöperate, anyone?), and if people are using it informally it'll show up on Facebook and blogs, and if it's on blogs it could spread to magazines and newspapers, and if it's in magazines and newspapers it could become acceptable for use at work and school. So who knows, maybe it'll become trendy again.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would love to see a scan of a document made with one of those typewriters with an interrobang!</comment>


Ask HN: Password Gorilla last commit 3 years – give up on open source pwd mgr? - <AUTHOR> I've read everything I can find on HN and other sources about password managers. I was influenced by this paper "On the Security of Password Manager Database Formats" (http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/files/6487/pwvault.pdf), it indicates PasswordSafeV3 is the only DB secure vs. Read/Write attacks (safe to store the DB in the cloud). Eventually I decided on Password Gorilla (https://github.com/zdia/gorilla) based on criteria I'll list below.
Now I realize that the github repo hasn't had a commit in 3 years, 3 years of new vulnerabilities. There is an updated (2014-10-27) version linked to their site, but this is obviously not part of the open source code in repo, so I may as well just trust the fancy new closed source products.
I'm in a quandry:
- 2nd choice: pwdsafe.org is a secure DB and source code is available on sourceforge, so theoretically I can trust that malicious/crap code in there would discovered by security researchers. But it is only available for OSX from unknowns that are not open source. (https://pwsafe.org/downloads.shtml) - 3rd choice: [KeePassX](https://github.com/keepassx/keepassx), active development, fails the standard of RW attacks researched in the paper. Open source yet inferior database is unsafe to store on G-drive, dropbox.
It looks like I have no choice but go ahead and trust an unknown software developer and hidden source code, even for the 'open source' product, might as well go with LastPass or Dashlane, which are closed source but which at least have resources and very active development and responsiveness to reported vulnerabilities. Oh and LastPass was acquired by LogMeIn so trust is even shakier.
My criteria for choosing: - OSX and Linux - Open Source, because I believe that it meets a higher standard of security - Must time-out or reauthenticate after inactivity - Support 2 Factor Authentication - iOS client would be nice - I'm only storing tier-two passwords. <comment><USER3> Did you see that Keepass introduced fixes to the issues raised in that paper before it was released, thanks to the responsible disclosure by the authors? [http://keepass.info/help/kb/db_headerauth_upg.html](http://keepass.info/help/kb/db_headerauth_upg.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> No I didn't see that the authenticated header which was called out as the source of the vulnerability in the paper has been fixed in the 2.20 version, though I should have. Thanks for pointing that out.

I'm testing KeePassX now, and it seems ok. However usability is a bigger criterion than I originally thought, because all the copy/paste of username and login is more effort than just memorizing and typing by hand. In fact I've memorized the credentials of the 5 accounts I'm testing it with.

KeePassX has a timed lockout function, which is excellent.

However unless I quit the browser I will remain logged in to the accounts even after computer sleeps. I would prefer to require another master password confirmation to access accounts after leaving my computer and returning and authenticating the machine.

This is a new criteria I would like to add: re-authenticate master password after inactivity/sleep. This would be ideal, in the unlikely event that my employer fires me and takes my laptop away - I don't want IT admin to be able to log in to the machine and access my Evernote, gmail, or other accounts.

It looks like KeePass/KeePassX cannot address this, probably would require a browser extension.

Maybe I should consider the LastPass/Dashlane model, I think they offer this functionality.

Also, I won't use rando Chrome extensions like Log Me Out, though it would provide the needed functionality. I would consider opening the package and rolling my own Log Me Out chrome extension. That + KeePassX would solve my problems, except for the copy/paste usability issue.

<comment><USER3> The Windows version has an autotype feature - not sure if that has made it to the ports though. It's also not as smooth a flow as Lastpass, since there is a context switch between browser and password manager (although I seem to remember that there used to be an extension offering Lastpass style access to Keepass for Firefox, possibly called KeeFox, or FoxPass?).

I don't think any distinct software could automatically log out of sites - <USER2> would presumably come down to deleting cookies on sleep (or relying on the sites to have sensible session expiry times) - so I'm not sure that the password manager is the right tool for that. A password manager would protect the passwords for your accounts, but that's not the same as sessions for your accounts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I actually wrote a JS-based encryption container which passes these requirements (and does not even have PasswordSafeV3's key-reuse problem!) for these very reasons about 2 years ago, and one of its example applications in the repository, 'tagaloop', can function as a password storage container:

[https://github.com/drostie/nermal](https://github.com/drostie/nermal)

Tagaloop does not time-out or re-authenticate for you, and since I'm not selling the service I can't offer 2FA, but of course if you wanted to build a company out of this stuff it's open-source. In addition nermal makes the deliberate decision to not support "seek" operations, so it does not e.g. store a header field which could then be scanned in advance to index a bunch of concatenated binary strings -- this is not bad for password storage where the metadata outnumbers the data by a factor of 2 or 3 so there's no point, but other applications like storing an encrypted archive of files might suffer.

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://www.passwordstore.org](https://www.passwordstore.org)

It uses GPG.

<comment><USER6> Yes! Passwordstore is nothing more than a BASH script you can easily browse yourself to see what it does. Encryption is done by GnuPG, so if you already have a GPG-key, getting started is even easier.

The command-line interface is very intuitive, and there are a couple of GUI front-ends as well if you want one. Also, passwordstore's database is nothing more than a directory structure containing GPG-encrypted text files. You can access these files without passwordstore as well, as long as you have your GPG private key.

For distributing your password database to multiple machines, passwordstore integrates with git. Another option is the excellent syncthing ([https://syncthing.net/](https://syncthing.net/)) which syncs chosen directories with trusted machines (verified using TLS) on the local network.

Passwordstore stores secrets in a directory tree. A really nice feature of passwordstore is that you can have it encrypt secrets under specified directories for _multiple_ GPG-keys.

So what I do to share some passwords with my partner, is set up a certain directory in passwordstore's tree to encrypt for both our GPG-keys, and sync only that directory with her computer with syncthing. She has the same setup, but with the default for her passwordstore's database being her own GPG-key. So we both have our private passwords, and a shared set of passwords and other secrets that is synced whenever both our computers are on the same local network.

<comment><USER6> Also, the security of passwordstore depends on how you handle your GPG-key, so if you use something like a Yubikey NEO to store your GPG-key on, you effectively have two-factor authentication, as mentioned in OP's question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I used password gorilla for years until 2015, when I switched to keepassx.

I had similar concerns about how it felt that password gorilla remained unchanged for periods of time, regardless of whether I would know if there was a vulnerability or not. It was more...it felt stable (which was fine) but not "this will be here forever!" to me. I recognize I could've forked it (or something similar) but I don't (yet) know tcl/tk and don't feel comfortable "owning" my own password manager for security-related stuff.

I can recommend keepassx/family (I had, long ago, chosen password gorilla for Windows & Linux support) but, at this point if you are moving, find something you are comfortable with (that's updated!).

</comment><comment><USER8> How many passwords are you storing currently? And are you using password managers for the convenience of not having to commit secure passwords to memory, or for the ease of automatic password entry?

Sticky notes are a hallmark of bad security, but that doesn't mean a pen-and- paper approach has to be ruled out entirely. Depending on how you answered the last two questions, a small notebook containing the passwords written out in some format other than plain text could be a surprisingly viable contender for any software password manager.

<comment><AUTHOR> My passwords, appx: 100 passwords for low priority accounts.

20 that would be bad if hacked (tertiary email, twitter, coursera, etc)

6 critical that I won't commit to electronic storage.

I would love to not have to lookup and type in passwords for the first two groups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting. I am not really into PWGorilla, but some friends are. They are constantly recommending it to me, although we are kind-of forced from the company to use a closed source pw manager (1pass).

Is there anything particularly security related that is concerning you regarding pw-gorilla vulnerabilities?

So far I can recommend 1pass, though its not for free. If you have any particular concerns with 1pass security wise I would be interested too (except its closed source).

Thx.

<comment><AUTHOR> my concern with PW Gorilla is only the point I mentioned: lack of active development, and recent update is not part of open source repo.

I'm in no way capable of evaluating the security of open source password mgr implementations, but I'm willing to gamble on the lower tier passwords that a lot of expert research is validating the strength of the popular ones.

For closed source, I think I have to assume they are screwing something up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> You can compile pwsafe QT GUI for OS X very easily. However, the GUI feels out of place because of QT.</comment>


Xitrum - fully loaded Scala web framework - johnx123-up http://ngocdaothanh.github.com/xitrum/

<comment><AUTHOR> Xitrum looks interesting and I am really happy tyo see another option for Java/Scala that isn't tied to the J2EE platform, but this gives me no compelling reason to switch from play in fact it seems there is some downsides. It doesn't use Scala as its templating language and there appears no way to deploy to an Application Server. It does seem like they are making it easier then play to do Async services, but I will have to wait for Play 2.0 to make a final call on that.

</comment><comment> johnx123-up Useful links:

1\. Xitrum projects [https://groups.google.com/group/xitrum- framework/browse_thre...](https://groups.google.com/group/xitrum- framework/browse_thread/thread/99d11503d6a4c572)

2\. Xitrum github (for features) <https://github.com/ngocdaothanh/xitrum>

3\. Xitrum vs Play! [https://groups.google.com/group/xitrum- framework/browse_thre...](https://groups.google.com/group/xitrum- framework/browse_thread/thread/82bc8f85ffc87325)

</comment><comment><USER2> How does it compare to Play! ?

<comment> johnx123-up Xitrum is more _complete_ than Play! From the author [https://groups.google.com/group/xitrum- framework/browse_thre...](https://groups.google.com/group/xitrum- framework/browse_thread/thread/82bc8f85ffc87325)

<comment><USER3> That reply seems to reference Play 1.x, which is a very different beast from Play 2 (I've just completed a project using the Play 2 beta). I haven't used Xitrium. I think Play 2 is very good if you want a RESTful web application and you want to render pages on the server-side (which is largely what I wanted for my project). For my current project I've found we're shifting to client- side rendering, and then these kind of web frameworks are redundant, with BlueEyes being a much better fit.

<comment><USER4> Xitrum tries to catch up with latest practices in web development. It supports client-side rendering style by integrating Knockout.js.

See the Todos demo: [https://github.com/ngocdaothanh/xitrum- demos/blob/master/src...](https://github.com/ngocdaothanh/xitrum- demos/blob/master/src/main/scala/quickstart/controller/Todos.scala) [https://github.com/ngocdaothanh/xitrum- demos/blob/master/src...](https://github.com/ngocdaothanh/xitrum- demos/blob/master/src/main/view/scalate/quickstart/controller/Todos/index.jade)

You can focus on working with JS objects on browser side, and with Scala case classes on server side. Xitrum converts data back and forth for you. APIs for Knockout.js will be improved more in the future.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Save Net Neutrality - <AUTHOR> https://dearfcc.org <comment><USER2> Use [http://gofccyourself.com](http://gofccyourself.com) to quickly leave a public comment regarding net neutrality.

<comment><USER3> Tangent: Why does so much modern political discourse resort to profane language, either overtly or with puns?

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure I even agree with the premise. Politics and "discourse" around it, especially by common people, has always been crass. It's just that those common people have a megaphone now that the internet exists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/filings?proceedings_name=17-...](https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/filings?proceedings_name=17-108&sort=date_disseminated,DESC)

Bots flooding the FCC comment section with the same text, different addresses. e.g all 'Brittany' posts

<comment><USER6> The top 2 repeated comments of the first 550k submissions are definitely copy pasted.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/netneutrality/comments/6ach2d/top_r...](https://www.reddit.com/r/netneutrality/comments/6ach2d/top_repeated_comments_for_the_first_550k_comments/)

* 55957 comments with "The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama Administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and obstructing job creation. ..."

* 13649 comments with: "I was outraged by the Obama/Wheeler FCC's decision to reclassify the Internet as a regulated \"public utility\" under a Depression-era law written for the old Ma Bell telephone monopoly. ..."

There are a bunch of repeated pro net neutrality comments, but they tend to be variances of "I support strong net neutrality backed by Title II oversight of ISPs."

There are 263512 unique comments, and 14859 comments repeated twice, 4318 comments repeated thrice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why is the new administration against Net Neutrality? What are Ajit Pai's legit arguments to take this stand?

<comment><USER8> The new admin is generally against regulations that restrict business. Net Neutrality is one of these. Whether you think that is legit is up to you. But don't fall into the trap of thinking the other side is disingenuous and evil.

<comment><USER9> Oh, but they are. Otherwise they wouldn't endanger lives with their health care shutdown while talking so much about pro-life, or threaten to shut down the legal marijuana business in the states that legalised it (which also serves as a convenient example to show how little they actually care about 'states' rights')

<comment><USER3> If you lack the intellectual capacity to consider the motives of the other side believing that a freer healthcare market is a superior means to save lives (a notion backed by history and economic theory), then you have completely discredited yourself with regards to speaking about political topics.

<comment><USER10> Just call me stupid and skip the intellectual hyperbole =) That aside, I'm pro Affordable Healthcare Act. It's getting better and smoothing out. Like any venture it has to work out some kinks, which takes time. In very specific instances, one party can claim superiority to the other, through the lens of history. Both parties, however, have very checkered and dubious pasts. Not recognizing that and judging an evolving political party based on a single issue may, in your words, prove my intellectual capacity but it also puts us in a situation like we see at this very time. I do not watch the news with a smile on my face, like the intellectually deficient subhuman creature you seem to profess me to be =) Now, I have to go play with my puzzle. It's a 14 piecer I haven't quite figured out yet, but I'm close. Only 8 pieces to go. I'm nearly 1/2 way there!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> At first I read url as "Deaf FCC". People can voice their anger but ultimately it will be cable companies who decide this.

</comment><comment><USER12> We don't have a say in government policy, no matter how much noise we make in their comment section.

<comment><USER13> I guess you forgot when Wheeler was pro-fast lanes, and when the government tried to pass SOPA and PIPA.

We absolutely have a say. Without our vote, these characters are out of a job. No job means no lobbying money.

<comment><USER14> That was a different time.

<comment><USER15> Lol man, I'm so sick of statements like these. How is that adding to the conversation? How was it all that different?

I don't want to assume, but I'm fairly certain adding what you think is different will create more discussion.

<comment><USER16> You're right. It was 2011 when SOPA/PIPA were being considered. The internet is almost exactly the same as it was then. The biggest internet businesses and ISPs from then are the biggest that exist now. Other stuff related to the internet has happened in the interim (Snowden leaks, for example), but that's not super relevant in this context. The same companies that stand to profit from changes to net neutrality now are the same as in 2011.

As dire as the situation in Washington may seem now, democracy hasn't fallen. We as the citizenry haven't lost any power we had back then. If anything, we have more now given the surge in online activism (that also leads to real life activism more readily, at least from my perspective).

<comment><USER13> > As dire as the situation in Washington may seem now, democracy hasn't > fallen. We as the citizenry haven't lost any power we had back then. If > anything, we have more now given the surge in online activism (that also > leads to real life activism more readily, at least from my perspective).

Ehhh let's not assume the future is alright quite yet. The prez _did_ just fire the guy investigating his campaign's links to a foreign adversary.

<comment><USER16> I'm not saying there aren't issues now, or that everything will be fine, but as it stands now it's not like we've lost any of our rights as citizens in the past 6 years. We can still protest, vote, conscientiously object to laws, so on.

Throwing up our hands and saying, "Welp, the world is different now. Nothing we can do," is exactly the mindset that _will_ lead to the loss of our ability to have an impact on government.

<comment><USER13> Agreed. Tough to put into words how I feel about the situation. Ostensibly, no rights lost, but everyone in the WH is doing their darndest to make that happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14294533](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14294533)

</comment><comment><USER3> For those who do not want to save Net Neutrality and would rather the FCC stay out of regulating ISPs, here is a website to find details to contact your representative:

[http://whoismyrepresentative.com/](http://whoismyrepresentative.com/)

<comment><USER18> > For those who do not want to save Net Neutrality and would rather the FCC > stay out of regulating ISPs

Do you mind taking a moment to tell the rest of us _why_?

I really want to know.</comment></comment>


Where Are All the Female Web Designers? - <AUTHOR> http://www.getharvest.com/blog/2009/11/where-are-all-the-female-web-designers/

<comment><USER2> In the article Shawn Liu says he doesn't enjoy going to conferences and panels where the speakers are mostly (white) men. He also asks in the article "How is our industry's lack of diversity affecting our ability to design for a diverse audience?"

My response is:

1\. Our industry does not lack diversity. The federal government standards are being met.

2\. I doubt more than a handful of users care who designs what as long as it works well. Case in point this example video: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yavx9yxTrsw&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yavx9yxTrsw&feature=player_embedded)

3\. Going through all the applications looking for female web designers as Shawn Liu says he does is sex discrimination plain and simple.

4\. Successful businesses look to hire the best person for the job without regard to age, sex, color, etc... Preferential treatment in hiring went out with the dinosaurs.</comment>


ArticlesBase: profitable content farm from Israel, 20M monthly visitors - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/11/articlesbase-the-profitable-content-farm-with-20m-monthly-visitors-you-dont-know/

<comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this. It's always great to read about bootstrapped startups/businesses that are profitable.

They say they earn $500K/month, but I'm curious how they are generating this revenue as I didn't see any advertisements. Most of the normal "ad spaces" are links/ads encouraging users to signup and post articles of their own. Any insight/thoughts on how they are generating income?

<comment><USER3> _Articlesbase is a leading articles directory that receives over 15 million monthly unique visitors to our over 25 different verticals. We offer premium placement for 300x250 display ads targeted to a vertical / geography or ROS._ \- Source: <http://www.articlesbase.com/advertising>

Just looked into one article ([http://www.articlesbase.com/business- opportunities-articles/...](http://www.articlesbase.com/business- opportunities-articles/information-on-refinancing-your-home- mortgage-4227262.html)) there are two text boxes with Google Ads, two vertical banners and one horizontal banner at the bottom.

<comment><USER2> Ahh, silly me. The reason I'm not seeing any ads is because I'm using the Chrome Disconnect extension ([https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jeoacafpbcihiomh...](https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jeoacafpbcihiomhlakheieifhpjdfeo)).

Sorry to bother you w/ that question, but thanks for taking the time to post the extra info. ;)</comment></comment></comment>


Open Source Is Broken - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/degoodmanwilson/open-source-is-broken-g60 <comment><USER2> 6,000 words can be condensed to: Open source software is immoral because authors are uncompensated and because bad actors (his example was ICE) use it. The solution then must "come from a place of respect of other people." He concludes he has "no idea" what a people-centric collaborative model would look like.

> There's still a lot to be said...

No, I think you've said quite enough, none of it particularly insightful. Verbosity is an existential threat.

<comment><USER3> "An existential threat" is a bit much, but I definitely thank you for the conciseness of your summary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Terrible article written by someone who doesn't even know the difference between open source and GNU GPL.</comment>


How to instantly connect with anyone - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/584311/how-to-instantly-connect-with-anyone/ <comment><USER2> Interesting article!

Another good way to connect to people is that when the one you're talking with ends a sentence, then you imagine a voice saying "And how does that make you feel?" and you answer that question aloud.</comment>


Braintree now Available in Europe and Canada - <AUTHOR> https://www.braintreepayments.com/blog/braintree-in-europe-and-canada

<comment><USER2> Awesome! Now when will Stripe come to Canada too?</comment>