Choosing an ORM strategy - <AUTHOR> http://lostechies.com/jimmybogard/2012/07/20/choosing-an-orm-strategy/ <comment><USER2> I feel the notion of "ORM strategy" is fundamentally broken. The idea of an ORM is to allow your object model to match the program, and your data model to match your DB/data/etc. An ORM strategy feels like point missing, it is a tool to allow interaction with data, not the data model itself.

<comment><USER3> The article is essentially telling you to choose one of these pre-written notions of how a programs data flow operates.

If you go ahead and create your own dataflow notion, you'll have to adjust your ORM to fit, so its better to pick one and go with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have a brilliant ORM strategy: don't.

</comment><comment><USER5> To the folks putting down ORMs: what is your alternative to solve the same problems? (A positive note would be nice.) For my work, using something with a Data Mapper strategy has been useful.

<comment><USER6> just use hash maps: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8tNMsozo0>

<comment><USER7> An ORM at the basic level just populates some data structure (could be a hash map) from your database.

At some point when an app gets complex programmers tend to keep SQL organized so it's not all throughout the code, just like keeping view logic separate. To me that is just a simple ORM as well.

There seems to be an anti-ORM trend but I suspect it's more of an opposition to certain established ORMs that are really complicated to work with.

If that's not true, I'm also curious to hear about other strategies that people are using these days. Having no strategy at all seems a little sloppy to me, but I'm always open to new ideas.

<comment><USER8> ORMs either arise from need (homegrown) or are bought with way more features than you need and the associated complexity that brings.

If there were a way to scale an ORM so it can modularly add features/complexity as you need it (ie, customize the metamodel complexity), that would be the most ideal approach.

On the other hand, testing thousands to millions of possible use cases in combined codebases is a nightmare.

<comment><USER7> I agree. I've written many home-grown ORMs as well as used a few well-known ones. It's definitely easier in some ways writing your own because you understand all of the details & it has nothing in it that is unneeded. The downside is that you don't have the community support maintaining the code and providing support resources. On the flip-side I've spent days researching and tweaking hibernate mapping files, occasionally making me want to throw my laptop out the window!

One thing is for sure, no matter what ORM or similar solution you use, if you don't know how to observe and understand the SQL that is generated then you won't be able to use it efficiently.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


SF Rental Listing Twitterization - <AUTHOR> http://blog.homeboodle.com/2011/02/15/rental-listing-twitterization/

<comment><USER2> This is a great idea - and extensible beyond just rentals.</comment>


Mark Madsen: Clipper, ex-Laker and domain name speculator - <AUTHOR> http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/08/mark-madsen-clipper-laker-and-domain-name-speculator-2.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The tone of this article is pretty off base (lots of people buy domain names to resell later) and I thought it was interesting that they would paint this NBA player as some kind of dodgy Internet citizen up to no good.</comment>


Ask HN: help finding attorney for contract review? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a free-lancer, and occasionally need help creating/reviewing contracts for various projects.
Is there a service to help software consultants connect with the right kind of attorney for this sort of thing? The prospect of picking a lawyer out of the yellow pages seems kind of intimidating, and I'm not sure how to get started. I'm in Ohio, if that matters.
Thanks <comment><USER2> As an attorney, I can tell you that local bar associations are great for this sort of thing. I would also suggest small businesses that do what you do. They probably have attorneys who might know an attorney that's looking to have clients on the side (a stay at home parent, for example) who might be in your price range. If you have tons of cash to burn, your State bar also probably lists the biggest firms in your state and from experience, most larger law firms engaged in business law are top notch, or they wouldn't be in business long. Of course, that might be out your price range.</comment>


Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/lets-colonize-titan/ <comment><USER2> Two thoughts on this topic:

1\. The film _Gattaca_ (1997), in addition to being an excellent, inspiring film all around, centers on an aspiring astronaut's upcoming trip to Titan. Highly recommended.

\- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZa83dTf4JA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZa83dTf4JA)

2\. The colonization of Venus is also a fascinating idea that isn't talked about much in comparison to the Moon or Mars. Essentially, the surface is too hot for colonization, but it may be possible to build floating cities ±31 miles above the surface.

\- _Venus 's atmosphere is made mostly out of carbon dioxide. Because nitrogen and oxygen are lighter than carbon-dioxide, breathable-air-filled balloons will float at a height of about 50 km (31 mi). At this height, the temperature is a manageable 75 °C (348 K; 167 °F); or 27 °C (300 K; 81 °F) if we could get 5 km (3.1 mi) higher_

\- _The atmosphere also provides the various elements required for human life and agriculture: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur._

\- _Additionally, the upper atmosphere could provide protection from harmful solar radiation comparable to the protection provided by Earth 's atmosphere. The Atmosphere of Mars, as well as the Moon provide little such protection._

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

<comment><USER3> > floating cities

We have decided on Mars, can we stop forking it. Have we learning nothing from Linux?

But if you have to, could you hurry up and make a floating city on earth to _practice_?

People would pay a tonne of money for that, and having floating cities (In reality small communal groups, so more a village) would be very very neat.

<comment><USER4> > make a floating city on earth to practice?

Earth's atmosphere is lighter than the Venusian one at that altitude. A balloon filled with breathable air would float naturally. You can't do that on Earth.

<comment><USER5> According to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Nine_%28tensegrity_spher...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Nine_%28tensegrity_sphere%29) you can.

<comment><USER4> It is possible. Just don't expect living space to be bigger than a hot air balloon basket for the size of a reasonable hot air balloon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Everyone in the comments here debating the merits of Mars vs the Moon vs Titan seems to have missed the whole point of this article. The author is arguing that anywhere _other_ than Titan is infeasible due to recent research suggesting that Galactic Cosmic Rays cause significant brain damage (not just increased risk of cancer). In fact, the article argues that the danger is so severe that even getting to Titan quickly enough to mitigate the risk of brain damage during the trip will be a major challenge.

If true, this complicates things significantly. Does anyone know if the dangers of Galactic Cosmic Rays are really as significant as the author is claiming? The author references the 2016 paper "Cosmic radiation exposure and persistent cognitive dysfunction"[1] which was a study conducted on mice. Has there been any further research into the possible effects of cosmic radiation exposure on humans?

[1]: [https://www.nature.com/articles/srep34774](https://www.nature.com/articles/srep34774)

<comment><USER7> Here (below) is one of the referenced papers from that article, which basically asserts that the worst case long-term scenario (solar minimum) would give about the same amount of dose that the mice had in the study in about two years in space. Of course, a solar event would give a lot more dose quickly, but that is the kind of thing one can have a shelter for.

[https://academic.oup.com/rpd/article/115/1-4/44/1600988](https://academic.oup.com/rpd/article/115/1-4/44/1600988)

The interesting thing to me is that the dose to the mice in the study was so low, and still had measurable neurological effects. 30 cGy is not nothing, but in humans 30 cGy is about what a radiation worker might receive in 6 years at the legal limit, and is about 11 times lower than the lowest estimates for LD50/60 in humans (the amount of radiation which will kill 50% of the exposed population within 60 days). I don't normally work with mice, so I had to look up some info on them. Apparently the LD50/30 for mice varies a bit depending on strain, but it is in the range of 7 to 8 Gy. That is not that incredibly different from humans, because humans can have a similar LD50 if proper care is given.

Sources:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3743168/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3743168/)

[https://dental.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyudental/documents/Irrad...](https://dental.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyudental/documents/Irradiator_Protocol_Radiation_Exposure_of_Mice.pdf)

I don't know if the reason for the neurological effects at such low doses are because of the heavy ions used (which would be bad for space travel) or if it is because of the way it was measured in mice (not my field, I can't speak to that). But I note that airline pilots regularly receive career doses a bit lower to what the mice did (30 cGy ~= 300 mSv). And this dose is directly from cosmic rays, the same thing we are worrying about here.

Bringing us back to Sci Am: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/air- travel-expose...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/air-travel- exposes-you-to-radiation-how-much-health-risk-comes-with-it/)

<comment><USER8> I'd like to add some nuance to this discussion. It is important to note that accumulative dosages is very different from short duration dosages as well as that 300mSv whole body dosage for a human is drastically different than 300mSv whole body dosage for a mouse.

Also, according to the paper 50mSv showed no affect to cognitive performance. The paper notes that Brookhaven National Laboratory can supply dose rates between 5 and 25 cGy/min, so these dosages were given over very short timeframes. This matters.

So we have somewhere between 5mSv (over ~1 minute) having no effect and 30mSv (over 1-2mins) having a statistically significant decline in cognitive performance (they did measure activated microglia in 5mSv but note that Oxygen had a different effect than Titanium). So we can clearly see that mice, in the worst case, are recovering after 24 weeks. This means the body can repair itself. This is why it is important to talk about the timeframe that a dosage was received.

So as to the 20mSv that most European countries use as total yearly dosages 1) this is well below a statistically significant measure in cognitive decline 2) this dosage is over a year and not over a minute (also likely weighted to extremities, like hands, as opposed to total body). So comparing this to radiation worker dosages is not a great comparison.

As to space flight, there are actually a lot of new rad (pun intended) technologies being developed (I worked on some of these). The primary concern in solar radiation is from charged particles (mostly protons, then alpha). These are relatively easy to block (in comparison). A lot of concern now is currently with neutrons and high energy particles. Current technologies are frequently a big chunk of titanium, kevlar, and spectra/dyneema (UHMWPE). Plastics are rather good as neutron shields because of their hydrogen density. Many of these are now being doped (boron is a common one, anyone pushing gadolinium hasn't run simulations for the energy levels we are concerned about. Or plastics doped with metals, like titanium, to increase their effectiveness against charged particles). This is a big optimization problem where layer size and order are important variables. Dopants can become charged and reradiate, but this can also be beneficial. Incoming radiation energy also DRASTICALLY changes the equation, as higher energy particles "ignore" a lot of material (see snide comment about gadolinium and thermal neutrons). It is a complicated and challenging problem for anyone interested, but importantly, we are making major improvements.

P.S. if we were REALLY concerned, you can just surround your spaceship with a large body of water. Problem is that this is heavy and extremely expensive to transport in space. The problem isn't really about _can we block radiation?_ but _can we __cost /mass effectively__ block radiation?_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The dangers of radiation on Mars are greatly exaggerated. The dangers of low gravity on Titan and elsewhere are greatly understated, as is the immense distance between Mars and Titan.

A floating habitat on Venus is harder and less attractive in every way than a rotating space station, which is clearly our next milestone in space. In terms of planets though, there's a reason Mars gets the most attention: it's obviously the best choice.

<comment><USER10> I, too, have concerns about how well humans will thrive in low gravity (the moon, Mars, etc). Over time, we could evolve a branch of humanity, "Homo ares", for Mars, but it won't be easy. Venus is just a tragic waste of a planet. So close to Earth in size, so wrong in every other way.

<comment><USER11> > Over time, we could evolve a branch of humanity, "Homo ares"

These were called Belters (as in asteroid belt) in the excellent book series The Expanse, which is also an excellent sci-fi show available on Amazon.

<comment><USER12> The Expanse is quite good. But the earth/Mars/Belt differences are mostly cultural at least in the TV series. The "Belters" meme in SF has been around for a long time though. See Larry Niven for example. (And I'm sure it's older than that.)

<comment><USER13> Jeff Prucher's _Brave new words_ gives its earliest attestation for the word as Niven's _Warriors_ in 1966.

<comment><USER12> I would have guessed Heinlein but I don't see evidence he used that particular term although he had similar tropes in his books--e.g. Loonies in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

<comment><USER13> For similar tropes, see the meteor miners in E.E. Smith's _Grey Lensman_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The whole idea of colonizing other parts of the solar system just seems like a fool's errand to me. Colonizing Antarctica or even the bottom of the oceans seems like a _more_ practical endeavor to me.

As uninhabitable as Antarctica is, just think about the advantages it has over a place like Mars or Titan: a breathable Earth pressure atmosphere, 1G gravity, abundant water, not outrageously extreme temperatures, low radiation levels, close to civilization, etc.

Probably most importantly, you don't have to escape Earth's gravitational pull to get there. In fact, you can use one of humankind's earliest inventions—a boat.

If we were really afraid of an extinction level event such as a nuclear war or extreme climate change, humanity could survive by doing the same sorts of things here that we would have to do on Mars—building large underground habitats. _Except_ , we could survive in much larger numbers since it would be so so so much cheaper to build those habitats here.

<comment><USER15> People don't dream of traveling to other planets to create a backup civilization for Earth. That is what those people tell the ones who don't understand their dream and why they should support it. People want to explore because a certain segment of the population would love the adventure, danger, excitement, thrill, and exotic experience. One also has the chance of creating new places outside of existing governance structures. A group of people who start building a city on Antarctica would likely be kicked off by force in a short period of time. On Mars, who knows?

<comment><USER16> "We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars." Carl Sagan

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Let's colonize Mercury. It's not actually hot at the poles - it's shaded enough from the consistent low angle to the sun that there's even water ice. And the planet is full of useful metals (more than earth), and as much solar energy as you can handle. The article dismisses Mercury out of hand as "too hot" but I think it's our best bet. [https://www.universetoday.com/130109/how- do-we-colonize-merc...](https://www.universetoday.com/130109/how-do-we- colonize-mercury/)

<comment><USER18> Getting stuff to mercury is hard though. IIRC it takes around 16,000 m/s of dV to get from LEO to the surface of mercury. Titan would take even more (19,000) but a huge chunk of it can be reduced by making use of aerobraking.

<comment> Tuna-Fish Going to mercury on rockets alone is a non-starter, because when you drop your perihelion low enough to rendezvous with it, your velocity near Mercury will be ridiculous, and there is not enough atmosphere at Mercury to shed the velocity so you have to do it the hard way.

However, there is a very efficient trajectory that could be used by solar sailing ships for a fast, cheap route to Mercury once every 16 months. You leave Earth for Venus, where you do a gravity assist to drop your perihelion significantly below the orbit of Mercury, just to get low enough that a reasonable solar sail can get reasonable thrust even with significant cargo. Then you can use your infinite delta-v to match your aphelion with Mercury, and can do an efficient capture trajectory.

<comment><USER19> Is there an estimate for how long that would take with a solar sail? If the window is every 16 months and the flight time is another year or more, I would imagine a large scale mission with multiple re-supply trips would be pretty difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Hmm. I have always considered low-gravity to be quite a big issue for any planetary colonization. Unless some cure is invented like a genetic mutation, it would seem that there is no way of coming back to Earth after spending a lifetime in eg 0.2 G.

This in mind I have always thought that Venus would make the best candidate in the solar system. With 0.9 G it would be as close as we could possible get to Earth yet however I have to admit, having no magnetosphere would be a giant pain in the ass. But since Venus already has a thick atmosphere, it would seem that after the required amount of gas has been removed, it would stay stable whereas in Mars you'd constantly have to offset the escaping gas. Possibly though that would not be an issue, since we are pretty great at the green- house gas generation.

But yeah, Mars would definitely be the easiest to terraform. But you wouldn't come back to Earth from there. And you'd mostly spend your life in bunkers underground to avoid getting beamed to death by the solar wind, same as with Venus. Unless we some day find a way to achieve immunity against it.

<comment><USER21> Mars is definitely the easiest place to colonize, by far. It's much closer than the gas giants, there's no craft capable of taking people to Saturn even devised, let alone constructed. Meanwhile, we have SpaceX actively building a rocket for Martian colonization.

Second, the Venusian atmosphere is oppressive as hell, you'll not be solving that problem anytime soon, as we can't even solve Earth's much easier atmospheric GHG problem.

Martian colonization will be tough. 30% gravity, 3% atmospheric pressure, radiation, very cold, very dry... however, building a base is conceivable and we think we know how to do it.

<comment><USER4> > SpaceX actively building a rocket for Martian colonization.

It's unknown whether it is capable of protecting the human cargo on its way to Mars. Maybe a design with habitation encased in the propellant tanks is a better idea for longer transits.

In any case, Starship is well positioned for Earth and Moon travels, as well as for sending equipment to LEO and the Moon.

<comment><USER22> Worst case radiation they'll receive is comparable to if they've been smoking cigarettes the whole trip. That's pretty damn good if you ask me

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'd tend to Jupiter's outer big moon, Callisto, as a good place to live. The surface is a vacuum, sure, but it's got surface ice which probably has liquid water underneath making it (and Ganymede and Europa for the same reason, and Venus 50 km up, and Earth) one of the few places in the solar system you could theoretically go outside with just a breather and no space suit. Plus it's got protection from charged particles via Jupiter's magnetic field without suffering from Jupiter's own radiation. And you've got both volatiles _and_ minerals accessible on the surface which strikes me as really nice.

<comment><USER24> All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there.

<comment><USER23> Fine, the surface is very radioactive (but it's safe under the ice) and there aren't any exposed mineral deposits so you can have it. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Colonize the moon first:

1\. plenty of solar power

2\. close to earth

3\. easy to launch out of its gravity well

4\. lunar base technology can be iterated far more rapidly

<comment><USER26> Colonize the top of Mt Everest first? Even closer to Earth. Similar challenged. 250,000 miles closer to resupply. Very hard, a good test of colonizing technology.

<comment> saiya-jin Won't develop space travel and sustainment technologies much. With that logic, we can colonize oceans (and probably discover a thing or two about our origins and new life forms)

<comment><USER26> Why not? The top of Mt Everest is remarkably similar to Mars surface, for instance. I'd say, tackle the challenges a few at a time, instead of jumping in the deep end!

To go further: if you can't establish a colony on the top of Mt Everest, you haven't a prayer of doing it on Mars where there are all the problems and more.

<comment><USER27> We can establish a colony on top of Mt Everest, it's just not useful or exciting enough to spend money and time on it. Mars is exciting and allows to start a new country, unlike Everest which already belongs to someone.

<comment><USER26> Still I assert: if you can't colonize Mt Everest, you sure as hell can't colonize Mars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > It's cold on Titan, at -180°C (-291°F), but thanks to its thick atmosphere, > residents wouldn't need pressure suits—just warm clothing and respirators.

I'm no space colony expert but am I missing something here? -180°C sounds like constant space suit level, not "just warm clothing".

<comment><USER29> A generous slathering of bear fat or whale blubber is all it would take. Maybe a vinyl outer suit so the viscious liquid methane rain doesn't dissolve your insulation.

On second thought, some kind of heated space suit sounds more comfortable.

<comment><USER28> Something like butter freezes at -20 C. Most animal fats would probably... shatter at the temperatures of Titan? I'm not familiar with temperatures anywhere near that low and I assume a lot of materials are just going to act very differently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you can you should check out the TV series Avenue 5. It's a sci-fi comedy and whoever they hired to do their science is really knocking it out the park. Some of the true science I've seen in the shown: the ship is massive enough to have its own gravity. Objects that get lost in space don't float away. They orbit the ship. They use passenger effluent as a cosmic radiation shield. And due to an anomaly they don't get flung off into space. Their orbit gets wider so instead of a year trip it's now 5.

Oh and the real engineers work in the basement of the ship. The bridge crew are actors.

<comment><USER31> I gotta disagree. The physics in the show is disappointingly cartoonish in my opinion. The ship is not massive enough for it's gravity to capture the, uh, various items in the orbit shown. Even the orbital mechanics of the delay are just a plot device.

<comment><USER32> The latest episode has people freezing solid after leaving through an airlock almost instantaneously- someone on earth survived a longer exposure to vacuum but at closer to room temperature in a suit failure.

<comment><USER31> (ノ°Д°)ノ︵ ┻━┻ Thanks for the heads up.

(Space is cold but it's also empty. You'd boil first from the lack of pressure then freeze, eh?)

<comment><USER31> Oh gawd, it's even worse than that: they don't even leave the airlock, they lit. freeze solid the very instant the outer doors open (with no rush of air!?!) Damn it. I really really like Hugh Laurie (one of the great and simple pleasures in life is introducing someone who only knows him from "House, M.D." to his OG work like "Black Adder" or "Jeeves & Wooster") but it's hard to watch around the problems in this show.

Like it's fucking _dark_. The bad physics wasn't the worst part of that scene. The show is supposed to be a comedy but that was like a nightmare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Am I missing something here?

"On the surface, vast quantities of hydrocarbons in solid and liquid form lie _ready to be used for energy._ Although the atmosphere lacks oxygen, water ice just below the surface could be used to provide oxygen for breathing and _to combust hydrocarbons as fuel._ " [my emphasis.]

They are proposing splitting water to get oxygen for burning hydrocarbons to produce energy - but splitting water itself takes a lot of energy, and low- entropy energy at that. Could this process possibly result in a net increase in useful energy?

<comment><USER34> Even if it does not, you could use it as a nice chemical battery.

Say you split some water ice using energy from you nuclear reactor (or possibly even a turbine in your methanoelectric dam!) and store the pressurized oxygen.

Then you can use the stored oxygen with methane from the atmosphere to provide a lot of energy where needed, possibly far away from your main nuclear reactor, dam on a liquid methane river or other non-portable energy sources.

<comment><USER35> An example would be rocket fuel to leave, so you don't have to bring it all with you.

<comment><USER34> Definitely, can use it to power chemical rockets as well. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Let's colonize LEO. You get radiation protection from earth's magnetosphere. You get zero G for funsies. You get a new perspective on earth and interesting new kinds of manufacturing. It's not too far away, so you can get there and back in a day. It's far enough in space that you need to improve your closed cycle systems. You might survive a number of different cataclysms. It seems like a good stepping stone.

<comment><USER37> > You get radiation protection from earth's magnetosphere.

Only in very specific orbits (NOT the ones we are currently using, btw.) The Earth's magnetosphere actually captures dangerous radiation and various anomalies in the belt distribution cause portions of low-Earth orbits to be irradiated.

> You get zero G for funsies.

And the medical issues.

> interesting new kinds of manufacturing.

There are a handful of (very interesting) crystal manufacturing that requires zero-g. These could be done in automated or human tended LEO or LLO manufacturing labs. You don't need a large human presence.

To the downsides, LEO lacks any resources whatsoever, and still has a nontrivial delta-v to the rest of the system. All your arguments in favor could be applied to the Moon, which does have LOTS of resources and better radiation shielding.

<comment><USER36> I'm not trying to take the wind out of the sails of any vehicles going elsewhere, just think LEO is a good place to start. Something like, before crossing an ocean, let's cross the Florida straits over to the Bahamas.

> The Earth's magnetosphere actually captures dangerous radiation and various > anomalies in the belt distribution cause portions of low-Earth orbits to be > irradiated.

Pick the favorable orbits. We have data on our ISS astronauts. Seems like we can go years up there if we wanted.

> And the medical issues.

Most folks are going to want to go up for a few weeks/months and then come back to tell the tale. A habitat might employ centripetal acceleration. Anyhow, I think medical issues will be manageable. I suspect there are a few orders of magnitude more people who are interested in a vacation in space or work from space scenario than a long distance voyage to the moon or mars where you are cut off from the home world and have a big latency cost on communications.

I think this is about filling rockets with large sums of cargo to keep the space business growing. If a starship can be made for $5 million, there are plenty of yachts just down the coast from Cape Canaveral that cost more than that. If you could give folks a stay in LEO for ~$50k, there will be plenty of people who can afford that. I bet you could find tech companies that would let you work remotely from space as a signing bonus.

> There are a handful of (very interesting) crystal manufacturing that > requires zero-g. These could be done in automated or human tended LEO or LLO > manufacturing labs. You don't need a large human presence.

Agreed, I'd add that this isn't so much about keeping the number of people down, but increasing the demand for people to go into space. I'm excited about the side effects it will have for technology and science.

> To the downsides, LEO lacks any resources whatsoever, and still has a > nontrivial delta-v to the rest of the system. All your arguments in favor > could be applied to the Moon, which does have LOTS of resources and better > radiation shielding.

The moon and mars are good places to settle too. I'm only arguing that Earth LEO is easier to start with because Earth has more readily available resources than any of the other locations. LEO is still hard enough where we'll have to improve our ships and space quarters for design and comfort. So I think it's a good stepping stone.

<comment><USER38> LEO is more like 'camping in the back yard'.

All I ever learned from that is that I hate camping... and would much rather have a house / hotel room.

Extending that analogy further, maybe we can figure out how to build a "mother in law apartment" in our "back yard" first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The article argues that on Mars we'd have to live underground which requires a lot of construction of tunnels and excavation. It does not appear to take into consideration the huge lava tubes that are present on Mars (and even bigger on the Moon). These are estimated to be dozens of kilometers long and hundreds of meters wide. They could be very attractive for human colonies.

On the other hand on Triton, even if you live at the surface, the Sun will be very weak. The main advantage of not living underground will be less resources to create a habitat.

I consider sufficient natural sunlight to be important for human wellbeing.

<comment><USER40> Shielding Mars is possible with current technology.

[https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars- atmo...](https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars- atmosphere.html)

<comment><USER41> Is it though? The link only discusses the theory of placing a large magnet in the Mars-Sun L1 point. It does not discuss the makings of that magnet. What's going to power it? Solar? Nuclear? So at the end of the day, I'm still left not knowing if we have the tech to be able to do this. This seems like a no- brainer of something should/needs/must be done to make humans living on Mars anything more than just a though exerciser.

<comment><USER40> At it's simplest is a ring with power flowing through it, the power requirements would be minimal, 1 Tesla needed and a deflection of a fraction of a degree.

I've seen estimates in the single digit MW range which we build solar plants on Earth for a few million each. Power generation is somewhat irrelevant, getting the material up there and maintaining it will be the real monetary challenge.

Read the link at the end of the popsci article. There's a huge amount of research going into generating magnetic fields for spaceships and inhabited bases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Not a single comment calling out this article's complete lack of scientific references, including the "iron smashing our brains at relativistic velocities" quote?

I think it's great to consider other planets we can colonize, and indeed a thick atmosphere has a lot of benefits, but it's hardly rational to state Mars has "a deal-breaking problem" without providing any hard evidence to back up this claim.

<comment><USER43> Scientific American is a magazine for the general public that have a high school level education in science. It is not a peer reviewed scientific journal, thus the SA articles do not have the same level of footnotes and references that a scholarly journal might. Having said that, I think on balance, the quality of journalism in SA is excellent, thanks in part to highly skilled and qualified editors.

Anyway, this article by the "discoverer of the Solar Wind" (maybe validator is a better word), Eugene Parker, is relevant to this discussion: [https://www.dartmouth.edu/~sshepherd/research/Shielding/docs...](https://www.dartmouth.edu/~sshepherd/research/Shielding/docs/Parker_06.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> This reminds me of Wanderers, by Erik Wernquist. [https://vimeo.com/108650530](https://vimeo.com/108650530)

There's a scene at the end when one of our future generation looks at the surface of Saturn while standing on a station floating atop a Saturnian moon.

Very motivational.

Other videos by Erik Wernquist are motivational too: New Horizons: [https://vimeo.com/132183032](https://vimeo.com/132183032)

<comment><USER5> While the technical quality of these videos is very good, and i really, really like most Sci-Fi, why in hell is she wearing a fur collar on her hoodie over a full face mask, in space?

THAT are things things turning me off, from full hard-on to instantly shrunken balls.

Try this, this is where we are: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCJzUiBZItk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCJzUiBZItk)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Serious question, since this is out of my swim lane. The Author keeps talking about the effects of Galactic Cosmic Rays, do we have any usable materials we can build habitats out of that can block them? I mean usable in the sense we can produce in scale and they are non toxic to humans.

<comment><USER46> For Cosmic Rays the only thing is just a lot of atomic nuclei. You need pure mass. This is why a transit to Mars or Saturn is going to be hard for us to pull off in the near term. All those nuclei are expensive to get into orbit right now.

Outside of that, there is a 'graded Z' shield. Here, you make a layer cake of various atomic nuclei (the Zs), going from heavier to lighter. Typically Tantalum down to Tin and down to Aluminum. They physics here aren't super important, but for lower energy radiation, you can get down to a 60% mass reduction for similar shielding protection.

The problem is that it's the higher energy radiation that you are worried about, the Cosmic Rays. Graded Z shields pretty much work like anything else at those energies. Under our current physics mumbo-jumbo, you just need nuclei.

<comment><USER47> Artificial magnetic fields are another possible solution.

<comment><USER46> Yeah, for the less energetic stuff. The same issue applies, the very energetic stuff just sails right on in. Big EM fields also don't deflect neutrally charged stuff like Cosmic Rays and neutrons. Radiation shielding is hard stuff and it'll take multiple methods working in tandem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Let's first _ensure_ we do all possible things as a species and a collection of communities to restabilise Earth and give ourselves a 99.5% chance of healthful survival for the next 200 years, which is probably the reasonable timeline until we can establish more or less independent non-Earth habitats that can survive without Earth indefinitely.

This is like expressing the wish of wanting to run while simultaneously ignoring the fact that your hands are uncontrollably stabbing your legs with safety pins.

<comment><USER49> Why not do both?

<comment><USER50> Mainly because right now, any significant endeavour is tied to using massive amounts of fossil fuel.

As long as it will be the case, we won't be able to start new, large scale projects without jeopardizing our ability to live on earth.

<comment><USER2> > Mainly because right now, any significant endeavour is tied to using massive > amounts of fossil fuel.

But does that actually matter in space? I am asking out of genuine curiosity here: does using fossil fuels in space have any real downside? There is no atmosphere, ergo no greenhouse effect. The vastness of space would seem to swallow up any sort of pollution.

<comment><USER28> That's... a different question. Where would you find fossils on other planets? The article says Titan has seas of hydrocarbon, but otherwise Moon and Mars, it's just not an option. One reason why Musk has invested so much in non- fossil fuel tech is not so much to save this planet but to operate things on other planets.

<comment><USER2> Sure, but my broad question was essentially: are there any negatives to using "dirty" forms of energy like nuclear, coal, or oil in space?

<comment><USER37> > are there any negatives to using "dirty" forms of energy like nuclear, coal, > or oil

One of those is not like the others.

Nuclear is the cleanest form of energy we have, cleaner than even wind or solar power.

<comment><USER2> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste)

<comment><USER37> If I were snarky I'd reply with the wiki link to industrial waste. Here's an article with details:

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23/if- solar-panels-are-so-clean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-waste/)

<comment><USER2> You are already being snarky and this conversation is not very useful. I was simply asking if there are any downsides to using energy sources (that give off dangerous waste products) in space.

I didn't mention anything about solar being dirtier than nuclear, nor did I ask for some kind of debate on the topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Let's start with a self-sustainable colony at the South Pole. Or, for that matter, a self-sustainable colony in Death Valley.

"But even if we could, why would anyone want to?" you might ask...

And that's the point.

Nobody would want to as there is no economic reason to be there.

My two cents: we'll never colonize a moon or planet. There are, on the other hand, some economic perks to manufacturing in zero-g. Consequently, I'd put my money in massive orbiting space stations.

</comment><comment><USER52> terraform venus. it's much closer, has a nice .9g and maybe a viable long-term project

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

<comment><USER49> It is theorized that Venus once had an Earth like atmosphere. Venus has virtually no magnetic field unlike Earth. Without the protection of something like the Van Allen radiation belt the Sun would have easily blown off any thin high density atmosphere and eventually cook off any surface level hydrocarbons into a thick hazy atmosphere with a super greenhouse effect. Any terraforming effort would have to take that into account and capture atmospheric sulfur.

<comment><USER53> I suppose any attempt at terraforming has to create oceans if we want an Earth-like habitat (theoretically this could be achieved by re-directing enough comets at Venus or Mars provided we can utilise that kind of energy in the future). Could perhaps a form of sulphur-fixing bacteria be developed to colonise these oceans and remove it from the atmosphere as sediment?

As for the magnetic field, if the lack of convection in the core is a problem (perhaps due to the core completely solidifying) couldn't we just dump enough heat energy into it to restart the dynamo action? In the future it's not completely unrealistic to think antimatter production and storage will improve, that's certainly a way of releasing absurd amounts of energy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Sincere question: Anyone know what would be involved in igniting Jupiter, and what kind of heating that would provide to it's moons?

<comment><USER55> Throw in more mass, than it will ignite itself and be the second sun.

Actually, when you think about it, Jupiter is a good candidate for a dyson sphere.

<comment><USER56> Jupiter is around 1/79 the mass of a red dwarf. So it's only 1/79 better than empty space as a place to build your new star.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> There has been a few people I've read about proposing a solution to this on Mars. Mars is absolutely chock full of these "lava tubes" caused by old long dormant volcanos. If those could be sealed, they could be used for humans to live in effectively shielded from this sort of thing. Sure it would be difficult, but so would everything on mars. The great thing is that there are lots of these lava tubes that could potentially be inhabited.

[https://phys.org/news/2017-09-lava-tubes-hidden-sites- future...](https://phys.org/news/2017-09-lava-tubes-hidden-sites-future.html)

[https://www.inverse.com/article/36777-mars-moon-human- colony...](https://www.inverse.com/article/36777-mars-moon-human-colony-lava- tubes)

</comment><comment><USER58> What's more likely in the next 5000 years that we colonize Mars or that we scan the human brain and move it to software so that it doesn't need a specialized atmosphere to persist?

<comment><USER27> That's a very interesting question. I would guess that if moving brain into software is at all possible, there will be very little reason to build anything other than huge computers, and maybe that's the answer to Fermi paradox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I am pretty sure the Martian congressional republic is not going to stop colonizing just Mars. They'll have every incentive to push further, faster :-)

</comment><comment><USER60> > The weak gravity—similar to the Moon's—combined with the thick atmosphere > would allow individuals to aviate with wings on their backs.

Sign me up.

</comment><comment><USER61> Both Mars and Titan currently lack an economical reason to try and live there.

As long as it's just about the science or bragging rights, it will be completely paid for from earth's resources, instead of building on its own.

Any idea what tangible "export products" could make a Mars colony sustainable? I don't think space tourism is enough.

<comment><USER38> Re: Economics

'The belt' would best be mined by automated, semi-remote controlled machines.

The Moon offers a good target to fire those resources at (aim to roughly keep it's orbital momentum the same), a low but not No G fab area with easy access to 'free' vacuum, and is usefully close to Earth orbits.

Mars... I can't really think of any particular thing it does better offhand, that couldn't instead...

Lagrange Points (L4 and L5) offer areas usefully distant from Earth for scientific and world-ending-event backup purposes, have a relatively low escape velocity, and are "safer" in that they draw masses to stay near them. This would be a great place to park a large rock (for shielding) and core out the inside.

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

<comment><USER62> Reminds me of what they did with the space station in Seveneves!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Technically, much of the spaces needed for food production or other industries on mars don't need to be underground to protect Humans from radiation. Plants and machines can tolerate it much better, and a Mars colony can't sustain itself without levels of automation that look ridiculous to our present day.

</comment><comment> jerome-jh Why not colonize deserts on earth? It is vastly less energy consuming, vastly more useful, but no less of a challenge.

<comment><USER63> Because if you're talking about things we can't do anyway might as well talk about the ones that we can't do the most

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Maybe consider Earth's oceans first? It's somewhat closer, has some food resources, the gravity is also OK.

</comment><comment><USER65> I thought Elon Musk wanted to terraform the poles of Mars to make it more habitable. He even has promised t-shirts that say Nuke Mars.

[https://www.space.com/elon-musk-nuke-mars- terraforming.html](https://www.space.com/elon-musk-nuke-mars- terraforming.html)

</comment><comment><USER66> It looks a better bet to colonize Mars with genetically modified humans to sustain radiation. If such technology is not available at the time, having DNA correcting machines to give birth to sane humans is probably going to be a solved problem by then. Even though adults will suffers from the radiations.

</comment><comment><USER67> This article projects too linearly to the future: terraforming Mars, for instance, would probably be easier right now than getting people to Titan quickly. Seems like an article written for the purpose of getting clicks by being contrarian, not seriously investigating the science

</comment><comment><USER5> OMG! It's full of fumes! All the times!

That is all i could think about when reading about the hydrocarbons. Imagine having to live in the all permeating STINK of a gas station, or worse (petro)chemical factory.

/me shudders

</comment><comment><USER68> Nitpicking, but ... If one says :

>> We reached this conclusion after looking at the planets in a new way: ecologically

then, why can he say :

>> Housing could be made of plastic produced from the unlimited resources harvested

Ecology is also about realizing that resources are limited.

</comment><comment><USER69> I think it's a better idea to just build a rotating space habitat.

Harvest the metals from the moon, and build a mass driver to launch it into Earth orbit, where it'll get assembled into the space habitat. Then spin it to get 1g.

</comment><comment><USER70> How does this Methane develop on Titan vs. other hydrocarbons (Ethane, Propane) etc. ?

Could we not bomb Titan with some sort of water catalyser and burn up a large amount of Methane?

Certainly would be good as a fuel source.

</comment><comment><USER71> We gotta do it before the Hive and Fallen colonize it.

</comment><comment><USER72> Let's first figure out astro-mining and self-sufficient space stations. Planets or moons are overrated as habitats.

</comment><comment><USER26> Is it impractical to protect space colonizes with powerful superconducting magnets to deflect harmful radiation?

</comment><comment><USER73> It all seems like a huge waste of resources and effort to me. Personally, I would rather see all that money/resources going into developing some kind of FTLT. There are planets out there, way out there, which are much more suitable for life. Even without FTLT even if it takes us 2 generations to get there.

</comment><comment><USER74> It's "Scientific" American yet they quote negative 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Use kelvin for low temperatures or, if you have to, at least degrees Celsius. For the benefit of the reader -300 F is 89 kelvin or -184 Celsius which is about 10 degrees c above liquid nitrogen's boiling point.

<comment><USER75> The article is about human colonization, so Fahrenheit is more appropriate unit because it represents human compatible temperature ranges better than C or K.

<comment><USER76> Exactly. Very few people get this. Fahrenheit is better for communicating temperatures in daily life.

Plus we can be more precise in our language due to the expanded scale. e.g. We can say 62 degrees F, rather than 16.6667 degrees C.

<comment><USER77> > Exactly. Very few people get this. Fahrenheit is better for communicating > temperatures in daily life.

Literally the entire rest of the world disagrees with you

I've never needed a less than 1 degree unit for describing temperature, except in scientific contexts, where using 2 decimal places is fine

I don't see why "100 ~= body temperature (with fever)" is a useful scale point. Or why 32F = freezing is useful in daily life

<comment><USER78> Normal body temperature was defined† in Celsius, at 37ºC; this explains the decimal when used in Fahrenheit (98.6F). So even that argument of convenience doesn't hold.

† Yes everyone's baseline temperature is slightly different, but that just makes the decimal on the Fahrenheit scale look even sillier. And fever definitions are also keyed off of Celsius: 37º to 38º is "low grade". Sure, it's an arbitrary convention but it's the one adopted around the world, including in the US (98.6 to 100.4).

<comment><USER77> Whether it's off by a degree or 2 doesn't matter (as you said body temperature varies)

But why is 100 ~= body temperature more useful than 100 = boiling water?

Why is 50 being kind of cold more useful than 10?

I don't get this "Fahrenheit numbers are more useful/convenient/understandable" argument

<comment><USER75> As a human person, temperature relative to my body is more useful than the boiling point of water at ~100 kpa.

Anyways, in Titan's atmosphere water boils at ~110 C, so much for "100 = boiling water".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Great idea. We should use Titan to build a bunch of insane asylums there. And then perhaps we can neglect the insane asylums, the patients can escape and start their own societies based on the type of disease they have.

</comment><comment><USER80> Someone read the Kurt Vonnegut book, The Sirens of Titan!

</comment><comment><USER81> The Dr.Manhattan Project?

</comment><comment> 0-_-0 The page is "temporarily unavailable" for me.

To help in your fight against paywalled and temporarilty unavailable pages, here's this (officially recommended) Firefox extension that looks up the current page in one of 18 web archives:

[https://github.com/dessant/web-archives](https://github.com/dessant/web- archives)

</comment><comment><USER82> Let's. But first, let's colonize the ocean. And the sky. And the moon.

</comment><comment><USER83> It is deeply disturbing to see a lot of effort put into colonizing another planet, while rampant pollution increases at Planet Earth. While science advances, at what opportunity cost?

It Remains to be Seen if we have Spoiled the Nest. <\--

</comment><comment><USER84> What exactly is the problem that colonizing another planet or moon is trying to solve? This seems like a solution without a problem. And if that problem is that the earth becomes uninhabitable, what kind of moron thinks we can colonize a planet or moon when we can't even keep ourselves alive on earth?

<comment><USER85> "We trashed this planet, let's find another one".

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> As a doctrine, colonization hasn't worked too well for humanity. It assumes an ethnocentric view where the colonizer has the right to take or use resources that they believe they "discovered". Just because there aren't any humans there, doesn't mean it doesn't already belong to someone. And just because we are able to take over a moon, doesn't mean we have the right to.

Instead of colonizing, we should be talking about zero impact exploration where we leave things exactly as they were before we arrived. Then focus on using what we learn to fix and protect our own planet.

<comment><USER87> Belong to who? All known solar space and beyond is literally devoid of any life at all. Are you assuming super aliens? Or perhaps a god of some kind, who pre-claims ownership? And if so, how did these beings get their "right" to have it?.

What exactly countermands our right to the take over the moon or any other part of local space? Name some concrete thing, not just an arbitrary notion of rights.

The obvious from these, to what purpose zero impact exploration of space? Sure, nothing should be destroyed just because... But you do realize that you're not talking about fragile ecosystems here, but vast dead landscapes that are the literal products of cataclysmic destructive processes that are in many places still ongoing?

Your comment is so absurdly out of context for the environments we're all discussing here that it's tempting to think you're trolling.

<comment><USER86> And that's exactly the problem... we don't know what we don't know. We are assuming life exists only in the form that we have encountered it on Earth. And we're assuming that just because we can't find something, that it isn't there. We are taking all things solely from our perspective and we are convinced that they can't be any other way. This seems extremely egocentric and could be disastrous when encounter something far outside of our narrow perspective.

And what if we find a bacteria on Titan that lives beneath the surface but is harmful to humans, will we exterminate it for our own sake? What level of intelligence is required before we attribute value to another species.

As far as rights are concerned, this is a real issue. If the first country to Titan plants a flag and then says, "This moon is ours". Does that make it theirs? Will countries fight wars to protect their perceived rights to a particular moon? It may be arbitrary but that doesn't mean it isn't real. National boarders are arbitrary but they are very real. But in the same case as with countries, what gives us the right as a species to go a moon and claim it. Is it a right based on force, an ethical right, a right of first claim? The very idea of colonization assumes certain rights. The question is what are those rights based on?

And no I'm not trolling. It's sad that we are prepared to discuss ideas without being prepared to discuss the underlying philosophies. I'm simply saying that before we consider what to colonize or how, we should consider whether the very notion of space colonization is valid. This isn't a moot point. If we're wrong, at worst it could mean the end of our species. All cases of colonization on earth have lead to genocide or war... no exceptions. Why do we think space colonization will be different?</comment></comment></comment>


GitHub Windows Edition, Custom CSS to Mimick Windows Classic - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Athari/CssGitHubWindows <comment><USER2> Anyone who plans to use this and missed the news about it: _do not use Stylish for user styles_ \- it was bought by a scummy tracking company and logs every page you visit and scrapes your Google searches.

<comment><USER3> Was about to post the same warning. Here is the discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17447816](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17447816)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really wish you could still do proper classic mode on Win 10.

I very much prefer it to the modern design of Windows. It's fast, functional, logical, and minimal.

<comment><USER5> You can restyle Windows 10 using WindowBlinds. There's a classic theme for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> hahaha, I love this. Totally using it until I get sick of it. It's the new Microsoft GitHub theme! :P</comment>


Psutil 4.0.0, real process memory info and process environ - <AUTHOR> http://grodola.blogspot.com/2016/02/psutil-4-real-process-memory-and-environ.html <comment><USER2> Better memory and disk utilization metrics for everyone!</comment>


Now get HN stories on Facebook via an auto-updating Facebook Page - <AUTHOR>

I was surprised when I was unable to find any Facebook page that shared Hacker News top stories, so went ahead and created a page for all of us. It is connected to the RSS feed and automatically updates when the feed updates. Here's the link :
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hacker-News/321008654600119
Twitter, RSS.. so why not Facebook? <comment><USER2> Clickey :) <https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hacker-News/321008654600119></comment>


Android Image Problems - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nicholascampion.com/android-image-problems

<comment><USER3> The OutOfMemory issue is a pretty big problem, but I'd say it's quite lazy to just dismiss it as something the framework needs to fix so that you can effectively do your job. I ran into this problem a lot early on in my Android development, and as I studied it further I found tons of resources and information to make it work in all cases and there are plenty of creative solutions documented in blogs and discussed on StackOverflow about it as well. Half the time you can get around this error by recycling your bitmaps when you're done with them and/or rethinking your approach to needing really large bitmaps in memory at the same time. There are two things I've done commonly in apps to get around this.

(1) If I'm just expanding included resource files (compressed images) into bitmaps for display, I write my own intelligent cache. Backed by a simple HashMap, I can even include in my cache keys the desired height and width and downsample intelligently and cache the downsampled version. Funny enough, when I presented this to my coworker, he had just done almost the exact same thing and we had never discussed it. In one case I needed to categorize my images to flush some and not others from the cache, so I just wrapped a bunch of instances of the same BitmapCache into a BitmapCacheManager class and it worked like a charm.

(2) To get around the fact that you can't just set the source path of an ImageView to a web url, you can use a custom class that wraps ImageView and just handles downloading the image on a background thread. I wrote a pretty complicated system that pumps the urls to a queue and broadcasts a notification when each download completes, but a single google search pointed me to an awesome apache licensed library that does exactly the same thing (and is admittedly cleaner than mine).

<https://github.com/loopj/android-smart-image-view>

It's totally doable. I never looked at it as a limitation of the framework - <USER2> actually saw it as an opportunity to do something more challenging than just drawing within the lines of the framework.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Thanks for reading. I concede that its possible to manage Bitmaps without issue. But I'd argue there are tons of resources (and SO questions) because the system in place is such a mess. Recycling bitmaps manually is a non-functional(and not elegant) solution for many use cases and really should be unnecessary in a environment featuring a GC. (though i understand why the implementation is the way it is).

I feel like it is a limitation of the framework. The problem exists because of limitations of the OS and the solutions for the problems (tiered memory-disk caches, custom remote image widgets) are "challenging" because of the limits. The problem itself (build the cache or remote widget) isn't conceptually or technically hard, its only hard because of the tools at our disposal.

<comment><USER3> There's a good video from a recent Google I/O on memory management where they explain the recycle method, their reason for requiring it, and that it won't be necessary in 2.3 and up. I still always recycle everything manually just to be defensive, but supposedly it's not required anymore in API 10+. Whenever you see a framework object with a recycle method it's because the memory is allocated outside of the dalvik heap, so it's not part of the GC cleanup process.

The real bitch of this, and what I think you were getting at, is the lack of accurate memory debugging tools. I read a really long post on SO about a guy who tested all of the various ways of testing memory consumption through DDMS, adb, etc, and all the numbers he got were conflicting.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: my video app PixelConduit is now free (OS X) - <AUTHOR> http://www.pixelconduit.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> PixelConduit is an app that I've been working on for a long time. It used to cost $199, but for this new 3.0 release I've decided to change tack and make it completely free.

Also included in this release is a set of plugins for common video apps like Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Motion and even Photoshop. These plugins allow you to use the node-based UI to create your custom filters inside the host app.

Here's a small blog post outlining why I decided to go free:

[http://lacquer.fi/blog/2013/01/conduit-reaches- version-3-0-a...](http://lacquer.fi/blog/2013/01/conduit-reaches- version-3-0-and-is-now-free/)

<comment><USER2> This looks terrific, both in functionality and in UI! Congratulations on this release, and I hope you still get enough financial support through plugins/Pixel Conduit to make it worth your while. I'm considering buying that just to mess around with my Kinect :-)</comment></comment>


Google open-sources standalone HTML5 parsing library - <AUTHOR> http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2013/08/gumbo-c-library-for-parsing-html.html

<comment><USER2> Since when did Google start pushing their projects to Github instead of Google Code? Does dogfooding not apply to the big G?

<comment><USER3> Maybe they are getting ready to deprecate google code (ala Reader). </snark></comment></comment>


System Admin Programing Language - <AUTHOR>

Hello all: I have been debating with myself and doing research as to which programing language would be necessary for a Sys Admin of CentOS/RHEL. I have attempted to learn C, but have not really found any situation that it would be needed, unless I am creating programs for Linux. I was debating between python, perl, or ruby. What is the opinion of everyone and if you have another language that you recommend please let me know.<p>JR <comment><USER2> Perl, Python & Ruby should all be equal to the task. There isn't really much of a hole in any of them for standard systems administration tasks. I would spend a couple days with each and find whichever feels most comfortable to you. Give what is involved for most systems administration work, there isn't a whole lot to differentiate them. I have found issues with python on various linux distributions where I had to do extra work to get a later version of python to work while not breaking the existing install which is used in various admin scripts provided with the OS. That is a relatively minor pain but one you should be aware of. Don't go willy nilly upgrading your python install on a linux box w/o being aware of what might break.

</comment><comment><USER3> CentOS, Fedora and RHEL use Python for most of the system tools and as such integrating or contribute to those projects will be easier if you know Python.

That said the recent/popular systems automation and conifguration tools (Puppet, Chef, etc..) are predominantly in Ruby, so that is a good choice as well.

I prefer Python, but as spooneybarger said, if you end up using the systems version of the interpreter with CentOS/RHEL you're going to need to learn the differences between versions. Luckly EL 6 is coming out soon and you'll get a fairly up-to-date version.</comment>


The iPad provides the ultimate browsing experience? - <AUTHOR> http://theflashblog.com/?p=1703 <comment><USER2> Row 2, Column 2: I know it's blurred, but come on, it's not very professional.

<comment><USER3> Seriously. "No flash = no porn" is a pretty base move (also, HTML5 video is surely only a matter of time...)</comment></comment>


His Mickey Mouse Ways: An Appreciation of Waylon Jennings - <AUTHOR> http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/his-mickey-mouse-ways/ <comment><USER2> While I wouldn't necessarily call it relevant to HN - I did very much enjoy this piece, its incredibly well written. Not that I'm complaining - stuff like this is why I enjoy being part of the HN community so much - its always a bit of potpourri.

<comment><USER3> "While I wouldn't necesarily call it relevant to HN..."

The song "Are you sure Hank done it this way?" was used in the computer game Grand Theft Auto V.

I have always liked the guitar on that song, I read HN, but I am not a gamer or game developer.

<comment><USER4> It's a song that questions the way things are, the status quo. Maybe we can do better than rhinestone suits and new shiny cars.

Very relevant to a site called "Hacker News"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Don't know what it's doing here, but Waylon was a legend and he's one of the few music celebs I miss. When I was younger I spent many many hours listening to Ramblin' Man etc.

<comment><USER6> "Are You Sure Hank Done it This Way" is one of my favorite country songs. I'm not sure why. I think I like that how it calls out the status quo in Nashville. Plus I like how "in your face" the instrumental is.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNpLSaCirj8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNpLSaCirj8)

<comment><USER7> Lord it's the same old tune, fiddle and guitar Where do we take it from here? Rhinestone suits and new shiny cars It's been the same way for years We need a change

Somebody told me, when I came to Nashville Son you finally got it made Old Hank made it here, and we're all sure that you will But I don't think Hank done it this way No, I don't think Hank done it this way

Ten years on the road, makin' one night stands Speedin' my young life away Tell me one more time just so's I'll understand Are your sure Hank done it this way? Did ol' Hank really do it this way?

Lord I've seen the world, with a five piece band Looking at the back side of me Singing my songs, and one of his now and then But I don't think Hank done 'em this way I don't think Hank done 'em this way. Take it home.

Written by David Allan Coe •

<comment><USER8> Where can you find it was written by David Allan Coe? Everything I've seen attributes the writing to Waylon.

<comment><USER6> The only place I can find that attributed it to Coe is: [http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?lyrics=4950](http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?lyrics=4950)

Never heard of it so I don't know how much weight to give that site. Every other site says Jennings wrote it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Beautifully written.

<comment><USER10> Dave Hickey's fantastic, very ... _bracing_. He's probably the only lasting thing punk left behind, this guy who writes with verve and insight about the importance of _criticizing_ things, books and music and painting and buildings, and does it with a graceful and effortless lack of ego. Criticism is important, I take him as saying, but the critic ain't shit.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for that comment, it made me seek more of his writing, which I've enjoyed quite a lot more than most columnists.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Gravity – Kubernetes snapshots for on-premise deployments - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gravitational/gravity <comment><USER2> Hey Everyone,

We are excited to have Gravity open sourced!

Gravity powers many production on-premise deployments for several years by now, and we hope it will be helpful to the community as well!

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://gravitational.com/gravity/documentation](https://gravitational.com/gravity/documentation) is 404ing

[https://gravitational.com/gravity/docs/overview/](https://gravitational.com/gravity/docs/overview/) working fine.

<comment><USER4> thanks, where did you find the link for: [https://gravitational.com/gravity/documentation](https://gravitational.com/gravity/documentation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> +1</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best places to learn white and black hat SEO? - <AUTHOR>

General answers are useful to the community, but if you want to tailor your recommendation for me, you can assume the familiarities earned from a shallow background in advertising and a computer science minor with one web programing course. <comment><USER2> White Hat SEO: unique title tags, unique meta descriptions, unique urls, correct use of headers and other HTML elements, fast loading pages, & content, content, content. The best way it was described to me is that its best to think of each page of content as a lottery ticket to the google front page. The more unique original content you have the better chance that one of your pages will get ranked for some keyword. Really as simple as that. I have articles from my app ranked on the 1st page of google in less than a week just following these guidelines and my app has a page rank of 0 since its new. ([http://moz.com](http://moz.com) and [http://www.kalzumeus.com](http://www.kalzumeus.com) are great resources)

Black Hat SEO: Compensate people to link to your website or find websites that pass link "juice" to your site. I don't recommend this path. ([http://jmarbach.com/rapgenius-growth-hack- exposed](http://jmarbach.com/rapgenius-growth-hack-exposed))

</comment><comment><USER3> I would recommend Google, a quick search will bring up millions of results on SEO the good bad and the ugly.</comment>


Show HN: Quant News – Quantitative trading research, news, blogs, and comments - <AUTHOR> http://www.quantnews.com <comment><USER3> I always visit the site: [http://www.thewholestreet.com/](http://www.thewholestreet.com/) well atleast my feed reader does.

What's this site's value proposition?

Looking at this some more here are some ideas...

1) There is a very small community of people who do algorithmic trading, this is probably your core audience. Unfortunetly we're scattered all over at places like [http://www.wilmott.com/index.cfm](http://www.wilmott.com/index.cfm) and nuclear phynance. What you do to get people like us probably dictates how successful your site becomes

2) There is a much bigger set of people who like the idea of maybe one day doing algorithmic trading or like to keep up on it once in a while. These people will bring eyeballs but probably add very little of value to the discussion.

Not because they are less worthy but because of the same reason the average person can't contribute to mathoverflow.com, you need to have your head in this space almost full time to contribute.

So I think the question you need to answer is:

Why is a semi pro trader( someone who trades up to 2 million of their own money), taking 30 minutes out of their day to read your site?

What value do you bring over already established discussion forums?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's also a good site. Although, he covers few whitepapers and no news. Also, his blog links aren't curated very aggressively. There is overlap, though. Perhaps over time the comments on Quant News will become part of the appeal. I just got the forum put in last night.

Edit: Thinking about your question...

I think Wilmott and Nuclear Phynance have great communities, but they would be better with a news stream to stimulate the discussion. Things move slowly until an interesting topic comes up. Then a good conversation begins. I also think people want to talk about trade ideas, but they are afraid of giving away proprietary information. So, the academic literature could jumpstart the conversation by providing detailed experiments to discuss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I need a site like this. I like the set of stories currently on the front page - it's a good selection of the sort of things I want to read.

How are the stories selected? It doesn't appear to be an HN/Reddit clone - <USER2> least I don't see upvotes.

I also hate to make such a trivial criticism, but I find it hard to read. Maybe it's the default blue-on-white? (Hope this isn't gratuitous negativity, whatever that means.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion. I'll find a better color scheme.

The site is curated. I have a script monitoring many sources. Most of what I collect is trash, so I only keep the best each day. When I discover a new blog, I sometimes include links to a few previous posts.

I don't think the community is big enough to ever sustain a HN clone. One was tried a few years ago (quant.ly), but got shut down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thank you for putting this together. I like your approach of news and journals. Please keep it up!

</comment><comment><USER6> content looks interesting. I'm adding it to my list of news aggregates that I check all the time, so consider me signed up.

do you have plans to update the ui? it is sort of bland and hard to read.

looking fowars to seeing how this turns out!</comment>


United States has 8.4 million Millionaires but only 413 Billionaires - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1749365/with-84-million-american-millionaires-billionaire-is-the-new-goal

<comment><USER2> because average CEO made 343 times more money than the average American. [http://www.economyincrisis.org/content/ceo-pay- now-343-times...](http://www.economyincrisis.org/content/ceo-pay- now-343-times-higher-average-american)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> By the way, that means one in thirty adults in the USA is a millionaire.

<comment><USER3> That seems high based on my experience. If it's correct, I ought to know a lot more millionaires than I do. The infographic doesn't cite a specific source for that 8.4M figure. I'm inclined to doubt it.</comment></comment>


Some startup ideas - <AUTHOR> http://prehacked.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> These are some ideas I've been thinking about recently. Any feedback would be great!</comment>


The Climate Change Deniers in Congress - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a-guide-to-the-climate-change-deniers-in-congress <comment><USER2> I get these action emails, and I sign these letters to my congresscritters (as rms calls them), and the web sites say that a personal message can be "very effective."

So sometimes I channel my madness into these "personal messages." Since I assume that Inhofe and Lankford are too busy denying earthquakes to read their fan mail, I take the liberty of copying my latest one here:

Dear Sir,

I must report with some emotion that I and my family are finally leaving Oklahoma, where you are an undeniable example and leader of the people.

I urge you to oppose the executive order opening up new oil and gas drilling off our Arctic and Atlantic coasts. Please instead support the Stop Arctic Ocean Drilling Act and the Clean Ocean and Safe Tourism (COAST) Anti-Drilling Act.

I will never forget the eleven long years I've spent in this place. With every breath I take, I will be reminded of the natural wisdom of the Oklahoman people and their deep relationship with the Earth.

Speaking of which, I have heard from some Oklahomans that the Earth is flat. As it happens, I grew up in Louisiana, a very flat place where the admittedly poor school system was possessed of its own opinions. As you may know, many of your constituents have loved this great state far too much to ever stray from its seemingly-endless confines, and although I have seen for example the Atlantic Ocean with my own eyes, I confess I would not know how to go about proving to them its so-called existence.

At any rate, I trust that when the time comes you will be bound to your conviction, a conviction which I will enthusiastically support.

<comment><USER3> They quit reading after you announced that you're no longer going to be a voter in their state, and missed the flat-earther jab you took at them.</comment></comment>


A Letter to Adobe Flash: At Least Consider Open Source - <AUTHOR> http://www.thechromesource.com/a-letter-to-adobe-flash-at-least-consider-open-source/ <comment><USER2> What almost everyone fails to realize is that Flash is already as open as it possibly can be. The SWF file specification and the player virtual machine are open and completely described here: <http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/>

The only thing that keeps Adobe from completely open-sourcing their own player is codec licenses, not Adobe's stubbornness. Adobe pays a lot of money to license codecs that are closed (like h.264) and therefore have to protect those interests within their player. If there were a common open standard for video/audio, this would be a possibility.

(edit) [http://blogs.adobe.com/open/2010/02/following_the_open_trail...](http://blogs.adobe.com/open/2010/02/following_the_open_trail.html)

<comment><USER3> The codec excuse is kind of bogus. Chromium itself comes with a separate package that contain patented codecs. Adobe could easily break down the code into separate parts, the whole open source part and a small codec package containing the patented parts. Of course it should also offer one full package for general use like Google does with Chrome Vs Chromium+ffmpeg-nonfree- codecs.

<comment><USER4> Define easily. We have no idea what the Adobe Flash codebase looks like, but given its age and complexity, it's probably pretty hairy. And it was never designed to be open sourced, so there probably weren't any efforts made to keep proprietary and non-proprietary code separate. Going back through and doing the necessary surgery is probably possible but not easy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am getting tired of repeating myself but...

Adobe Uses DMCA On Protocol It Promised To Open <http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/22/1254246>

How do Gnash developers work with the Adobe/Macromedia EULA? <http://www.gnashdev.org/?q=node/25#eula>

Read this two links and come back to discuss about flash openness.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's the logical thing for Adobe to do. Jobs is complaining about the proprietary platform, performance issues and all that. Now it time to turn it around.

Adobe will still sell all their tools, they'll still have legions of flash programmers, they'll run on every mobile device except the iPhone.

What's so important about keeping the flash engine closed source?

<comment><USER7> I agree completely and they're halfway there so it makes plenty of sense to take the last step - there are already open source and commercial alternative IDEs like FlashDevelop and FDT.

Open sourcing the flashplayer will rapidly make them a standard on every platform instead of being a defacto standard on Windows and generally poor results outside of it.

Open sourcing the FLA format can only help developers ... every new version of Flash devs everywhere pray that this time Adobe'll do nothing more than just fix everything and the threat of someone else doing that for us that might be the motivation Adobe needs to do it themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In principle a good idea (or just a logic step). It's kind of stupid that they haven't done that a long time ago already. It would have solved any performance, arch support, security or whatever problems and also the whole debate about openness. It would have changed the view on Adobe/Flash a lot for many people.

Although, if it happens now, I'm not really sure what Flash can offer over HTML5. They are both almost equal in features (with different concentrations though). Maybe Flash is still a bit more advanced in development about multimedia, so it maybe would have some improvements to implement something in Flash (if it is open) but I really cannot think of anything which would be interesting for me personally which cannot be done in a good/better way in HTML5.

<comment><USER7> Flash/Silverlight/etc are very agile, it's May now and there's still plenty of time for any of them to roll out significant new features _this year_ while browser vendors and the W3 debate which video format to use and consumers click ignore on the update your browser screen for the 1000th time.

<comment><USER9> There is plenty of time for them to improve this year.

But since it's taken 3 years to get into beta, I'm not very confident that rapid improvement will be happening.

<comment><USER7> Right, but that's cause Adobe sucks at building software. But they _do_ have the ability to deploy updates that actually reach consumers in a timely fashion, massively faster than any W3 spec or browser vendor can even dream of pushing something through.

Everything Adobe, Microsoft, Unity etc push to their own platforms between HTML5 and HTML6 is stuff that HTML5 doesn't have and can't include until the next release beyond fragmented and browser-specific implementations.

<comment><USER10> Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign... all industry-leading software packages. They cant be too bad...

<comment><USER7> Industry leading is not the same as perfect. They get a lot of stuff right, they make some fantastic innovations, I love AS3 and make most of my income from building games in Flash.

But if you use Adobe software you'll nod your head at a _lot_ of stuff here: <http://dearadobe.com/top_rated.php>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> More style than content.

</comment><comment><USER12> There is a link to a petition in the comments, although few signatures. <http://www.openplayer.net/>

</comment><comment><USER13> I would like to see Adobe contribute to the HTML5 specs and "merge" the good features of Flash with HTML5. I don't think it makes sense anymore to have both HTML5 and Flash as two separate entities as they basically aim to solve the same problem. Adobe could then build great authoring tools for web apps just like it did for Flash... if only they could see the opportunity.</comment>


Can 42 US, a free coding school run by a French billionaire, actually work? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/08/can-42-us-a-free-coding-school-run-by-a-french-billionaire-actually-work/ <comment><USER2> Color me perplexed. The COO said "I do know that what [Niel] has been very interested in doing is to fill this gap that we have with Web developers..." and yet they're teaching them C.</comment>


Business Models to Avoid - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gtventurelab.com/2008/11/business-models-to-avoid.html

<comment><USER2> Some good points, but the article is a bit spaghetti-like itself, a bit too vague about what it declares.</comment>


Show HN: We wrote a career review of being a web designer - <AUTHOR> https://80000hours.org/career-guide/top-careers/profiles/web-designer/ <comment><AUTHOR> It fits into our recommender that customises your suggested career based on information about you: [https://80000hours.org/career-guide/career- recommender/](https://80000hours.org/career-guide/career-recommender/)

Let us know if this is, or would have, been useful to you, and how it could be better.

We'll be discussing actively in the comments (here or on the page) for the next few hours.

</comment><comment><USER2> This appears to be more of a blog post than something that the HN community can 'try out' or 'play with' in the spirit of the "Show HN" guidelines.

Guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)</comment>


Engineering Cultures - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/on-startups/d2f9f315b0c2

<comment><USER2> Someone enlighten me: when the Surface speaks for itself what does it say?

<comment><USER3> I'm not the author, but the point here is that Apple does a lot to eliminate extra space in its circuit boards. The more space eliminated, the smaller the device can be. Of the three designs shown, Apple has removed the most space. Look how you can barely see traces. Some of this is because it's on a black board, but that's not all of it. Traces are mostly super-short. Google's done a decent job, but has still left extra space in. Traces are fairly long, and there's space between them. Space could have been eliminated.

Now Microsoft? It doesn't give a shit. The underside of the board is _half empty_. Now, the board can be multiple layers, as seen in a prior image, but that's a lot of wasted space.</comment></comment>


Fred Wilson's Email Stats - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/10/gmail-meter.html

<comment><USER2> TLDR: the secret is sending him emails of less than 30 words between 5 and 7am.

I wonder if that works for other notable people that get a lot of email?

</comment><comment><USER3> Those graphs were really confusing.

The email volume line graph. Are those data points per hour? every half hour? How can they have a seemingly continuous line graph for this histogram-style data?

The "<20 words" graphs.. they don't look cumulative but the labels make them seem like they are. The correct labels should be, for example, "20 <= w < 30".

<comment><USER2> Great points - a histogram might make more sense with the email volume graph and the labels for # of words can be improved for additional clarity. Thanks for the great feedback - please let us know if you have any more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does the "response rate" only reflect initial emails? If there is a conversation, then it's going to end eventually, so the fact that you don't respond to an email that says "okay" wouldn't really mean much.

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't have a response rate graph yet. We do have a time before first response rate graph. Fred is comparing the total number of emails that he gets vs he sends from/to certain people, which is not the same as response rate.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for clarifying that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe I missed it, but this article said nothing about "the secret to getting a reply from him."

<comment><USER6> Was it supposed to say something about the secret to getting a reply from him?

<comment><USER2> If you pull the data together it shows that the best way to get a response is to send a short message early in the morning (during his peek email hours): "the one time I reply to more email than I get is the 5am to 7am time frame."

Pretty good place to start if you want to get a response.</comment></comment></comment>


Can someone please critique my developer resume after startup layoff? - <AUTHOR> Hi!
I recently got laid off from a startup and I'm looking for a new job. It was purely for funding reasons and not performance based, I can get recommendations from my managers. I'm wondering if there is a way to communicate this on my Resume. Also other than the two major projects I worked on I'm curious how to talk about all the other minor day-to-day work and smaller projects I worked on at the company.
The last time I asked for resume help from HN it was very helpful.
It's been a while since I've done this, I would appreciate it if anyone could give me any feedback on the content or styling.
Please be as rude and nitpicky as possible!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8h9xo6rax1bte03/jahamed_peach_resume.pdf?dl=0
Thanks again so much! <comment><USER2> \- Order of subjects :- Skills => work experience => Academic project =>education.

\- Change 'Languages' to 'Languages (in proficiency order)' or something like that, I hate it when people just arbitrarily put the order of thier languages down so you have no idea what to ask them questions on.

\- You descriptions are quite wordy and redundant, and can be cut down a lot:-

i.e.

"Implemented bug xes/feature requests to existing Java document management product." => "Implemented bug xes/feature requests to Java document management product."

"Code was deployed to IBM Websphere servers and required the use of SQL, XML, JDBC. Projects were managed using SVN and JIRA/Confluence and utilized jUnit testing and code reviews." => "Deployed to IBM Websphere servers and used SQL, XML, JDBC. Projects managed using SVN and JIRA/Confluence and utilized jUnit testing and code reviews."

"Designed and implemented custom document and workflow management systems for clients primarily using Java/IBM Filenet in both individual and team settings, including travel to client sites." => "Designed and implemented document and workflow management systems using Java/IBM Filenet in both individual and team settings, included travel to client sites."

"Developed an iOS app designed as a sales tool. Built using JavaScript/Cordova and managed with Git, utilizing jQuery and various libraries for JSON data visualization." => "Developed an iOS sales tool app built using JavaScript/Cordova/JQuery and various libraries for JSON data visualization."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice! Yeah I hate the skills section in general. You end up using so many things at work but you can't list them all, plus I end up forgetting the languages I haven't used in a while anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think your resume is fine as is. One of the first things they will ask you is, "why did you leave your last position?" and then you can explain the situation. Emphasize that you enjoyed your time there and felt like you grew and learned, etc, etc and don't give an inkling of a negative impression.

Good luck, but I think you will do fine.

<comment><USER4> +1 to this. I was in the same situation as OP (company laid off most employees due to funding) and I always told my interviewers, "Honestly, I really didn't want to leave :)" None of the interviewers really raised an eyebrow about it.

Best of luck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes, you definitely want to somehow communicate that that you were working for a startup at the end of its funding. I read your resume before reading your request here, and the ladt two short stays really stood out to me. I'm not sure the best way to do this. Off the top of my head, even putting "(Startup)" by the company name would help. I look forward to seeing what others recommend.

On the nitpick side, I don't have enough context to know what this means in real terms: "Daily orders per day increased by over 100 for previously inactive users."

</comment><comment><USER6> Just say something like "company ran out of funding" at the beginning of the section about the company. That tells it all. If it's not exactly correct, find the right wording that is correct and clear.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've interviewed a lot of dev folks from any level. Your Resume looks fine. Move your education all the way down.

I personally go first visit your github profile. Also, any link you have about the work you've done will make a difference.

good luck

<comment><USER7> Oh... and you published your personal address/phone so make sure you hide it on HC news.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I might move the skills section before education or experience.

It would help whoever is looking at it quickly determine if you have any experience with the technology they currently use (or will be interested in using).

</comment><comment><USER9> Your resume looks great! All the best</comment>


Tesla IPO: What It Means for the Green Car Biz - <AUTHOR> http://earth2tech.com/2010/06/27/tesla-ipo-what-it-means-for-the-green-car-biz/ <comment><USER2> Jalopnik has a more critical analysis of the IPO.

[http://jalopnik.com/5569882/inside-the-secret-178-million- te...](http://jalopnik.com/5569882/inside-the-secret-178-million-tesla-ipo- presentation)

The IPO prospectus is available here:

<http://www.retailroadshow.com/roadshows.asp>

<comment><USER3> There are a few things in Jalopnik's analysis that I think are flawed.

One, the Volt is crap. It only gets around 50mpg and has a 40 mile battery. It's only suitable for daily commuting.

Two, the Japanese auto manufacturers used the model that Jalopnik pooh-poohed quite successfully -- they took a sizable loss leader, and took a large part of the market from the US auto industry. The difference was execution -- the American companies relied on patriotism to sell cars, the Japanese just built better (or more market-appropriate) cars.</comment></comment>


First draft of the new Artificial Intelligence and Games textbook available now - <AUTHOR> http://gameaibook.org/ <comment><USER2> I would like to find books which pertain to just this problem alone (build order planning) ...

"Another sub-problem of the wider StarCraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 1998) playing problem is build order planning. The problem here is in which order to build certain improvements to the player's base and in which order to research certain technology, a complex planning problem at a considerably higher level of abstraction than micro-battles. Here, Weber et al have data-mined logs of existing StarCraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 1998) matches to find successful build orders that can be applied in games played by agents."

<comment><USER3> I think the literature on instruction scheduling might also be relevant for build order planning. You have a set of things to build (= instructions to execute) in the shortest amount of time, using the available production facilities (= execution units). Except in most games you can build additional factories, which doesn't really have an equivalent in CPUs.

<comment><USER4> > in most games you can build additional factories

You can't just buy addition execution units? Sure there are limiting factors - in games as well.

<comment><USER3> Which scheduler automatically inserts instructions to add more ALUs to its CPU? ;)

<comment><USER4> Well, I did take a step back from the instruction pipeline analogy, but it's still covered by operations research and mathematical optimization.

The cost of waking a sleeping CPU core is perhaps comparable to the cost of building a factory in-game. Whereas, building a ton of factories that can't be saturated by the incoming cash money is comparable to building a superscalar processor architecture that can't be saturated by the cache memory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I know it's a draft, but it's kinda annoying to have a big watermark of DRAFT over every page.

I don't know if a better way to do it, but really makes it tough to jump in and commit to giving a read through.

</comment><comment><USER6> Togelius is pure mental (in a good OOTB way) his evo-devo HyperNEAT approach to problems intractable to random-walk SGD learning learning leaps over snares and pitfalls, bypasses cul-de-sacs and avoids oubliettes -traversing the whole search space by a sort of teleportation - a fast global search.

Backprop can then refine the most efficient net architectures. Curiously some evolve structures akin to LSTM units.

</comment><comment><USER7> From one glance I see that it doesn't covers neural network architecture or it's not taking about RL agents. What this book is about?

<comment><USER8> You may have been looking at an earlier (private?) draft revision of the guidebook that had those sections omitted.

The draft book that is linked shows RL discussed in Sections 2.6 (pp. 75-79) and 3.3.2 (pp. 122-125), while Neural Networks are briefly covered in Section 2.5.1 (pp. 62-74) with a note about DeepMind's DQN RL agent on p. 91.

<comment><USER7> Thank you</comment></comment></comment>


A 16-bit computer made almost entirely from discrete electronic components - <AUTHOR> http://www.megaprocessor.com/ <comment><USER2> In other news, man creates eiffel tower out of toothpicks?</comment>