Swifton: Ruby on Rails-inspired web framework for Swift - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/necolt/swifton <comment><USER2> It seems that, outside of what's used in Cocoa, the Swift language is pretty volatile right now. I would hesitate to commit to a large project that didn't involve the App Store.

<comment><USER3> I think the hope of projects like these is partly to try to advance interest in Swift which draws in more users who then help contribute to making the language more cross-platform, and partly to be _f1rst_ in the project's niche when the language finally crosses that barrier, so that it becomes the de facto standard. (Think Compojure for Clojure, in the same problem domain.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems to me like the real challenge in those framework (excepting performance, of course) will be in the orm component. Having a library that can query a db in a typesafe way is a must.

Another will be in the concurrency patterns ( promises ? Coroutines ?, etc).

But i get a great hope that they will succeed. Having a strong open source community will help. In fact, i'm so fed up with the sad state of uikit right now, that i see a brighter future for swift on the server side than on the client. Maybe an android sdk for swift would be a great idea...

<comment><USER5> I wish Apple had not ditched NeXT's EOF. It would make a fine open source project these days.

<comment><USER4> I never used this framework, but everything i know from the next era is starting to show its age (including coredata, with its messed up support for multi threading access).

The more i think about it, the more i think golang approach is the right one : the only hard part today is concurrency. As long as swift ( and rust for that matter) hasn't standardized patterns that people would use on the whole stack for concurrent access to ressources,as well as asynchronicity, they won't have made the necessary step to truely advance the state of the art.

<comment><USER6> GCD is the best I've seen in terms of language design for concurrency. It's also a bit higher level than managing threads on your own. Though I might be wrong.

<comment><USER4> You probably should have a try at golang concurency management with channels, and you'll see what i mean.

GCD isn't much more than a low level job launching and scheduling library. It doesn't provide advanced patterns for resource sharing.

Concurrency goes further than parallelism, it's also a way to manage concurrent memory access (although golang does let you shoot yourself in the foot if you want to with low level mutexes as well). There's a great talk from rob pike on the subject [http://blog.golang.org/concurrency-is-not- parallelism](http://blog.golang.org/concurrency-is-not-parallelism)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for explaining and clearing things up. I'll read up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The project banner depicting a damsel in distress on the railway tracks is going to make some people twitch. I'd avoid that distraction by picking something gender neutral. My 2c.

<comment><USER8> It's fun. You don't _have_ to get offended. It's just a silly picture. No one was harmed in it's making.

Stop wasting people's time, let them focus on productive aspects of the project.

<comment><USER9> Please explain: how is it fun exactly? Do you enjoy the image of a bound woman about to be hit by a train? Does your girlfriend / wife / mother find this image "fun"?

<comment><USER10> It is a reference to Taylor Swift combined with Ruby on Rails. That sort of makes sense. I assume they wanted to combine rails and Taylor swift somehow and this seems like on easy way of doing it.

I reacted a bit like you, but given that this only makes sense with Taylor Swift, I figured okay, whatever no need to moralize over this one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You could have made it better by using protocols for the actions. So the methods for adding routes would ensure that the methods for new and update exists using a where clause checking protocol conformance.

There is potential here, I like a "full" package like "Omakase", granted its built using Swifts strength and a pipeline model like Express.js and/or Rails and its rack middlewares.

<comment><AUTHOR> Seivan, thanks. Yes, Rails "Omakase" is driving Swifton development.

I'm not sure that protocols will help here, because Swifton supports before/after filter. Could you explain more your idea about how protocols could help here to implement actions with filters?

<comment><USER6> Sure, here [https://gist.github.com/seivan/6b6bb19c899dd46f599e](https://gist.github.com/seivan/6b6bb19c899dd46f599e)

I might fork and do my own version where I try to adhere to Swifts strengths while still staying close to Rails API where I can, e.g same naming scheme and pipeline design as Rails.

Rails biggest weakness is Ruby. Leveraging Swifts strengths with protocol extension, where clauses and generics could actually improve on Rails current API.

Edit[0]:

Added an idea for filter API. Not happy with it, but it's a start. Before/After filters could just be a list of "stuff" (selectors, closures, etc) to be called before any action. It could also use group_dispatch to ensure that filters are called in sequence and only call the method once all filters are done.

group_dispatch (think semaphores, but not as "dangerous") :)

<comment><USER11> Rails biggest weakness is Ruby?!?! The only reason Rails came about (so says DHH) is because of Ruby and its expressiveness as a dynamic language.

Granted, we're in Swift mode here and it's static typing, protocols, generics, and closures all the way. I'm fine with this (I write in Swift everyday) but Ruby is a great language as well - I love them both.

I think there's a place for both static and dynamic typed languages and I'm not going to throw away Ruby just because Swift is more "correct" with typing.

Having worked on my own Swift web framework for the past few months, and Rails for years, we're not even close to approaching Rails feature set. Rails has been in active development for over a decade and it's going to take a while for a Swift framework to make some inroads.

<comment><USER6> We're both right. Rails look the way it looks because of Ruby. What I am advocating is a compromise between the two of them. Rails-esque packaging, and API design on the entire stack e.g Active Record to Active Support. But using Swift strengths with protocol conformance, extensions, associated-types and etc.

I would never want to work on a larger Ruby code base again. It's just too hard to iterate on as things break too much compared to a larger Swift code base. That's just my take.

I actually like Ruby, but for scripts and smaller code. Not large applications. Same applies for ES6, where I think TypeScript would do a better job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am mainly a hobbyist/newbie that recently started to learn Ruby, and Ruby on Rails. While I like them both, I would prefer to just work in Swift.

How soon does HN expect a Swift-based framework that is comparable to the maturity of Rails, or other powerful frameworks for that matter? Do you think Apple might jump in and introduce one of their own?

<comment><USER13> Years, if ever. Things like Rails are very major based on the experience of thousands of developers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> So many of these now. I wonder which one will eventually become the node of Swift.

<comment><USER15> Node isn't a JavaScript framework so much as a platform to run JavaScript on. Express is maybe more analogous to Swifton here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's a lot of strings being thrown around for a type-safe language.

<comment><USER17> Hooray for being stringly typed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is Swift still OS X-only, or can I use this on Linux?

<comment><USER19> > A Ruby on Rails inspired Web Framework for Swift that runs on Linux and OS > X.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Now I think swift has enough web frameworks and somebody should build an ORM.

<comment><USER19> [https://github.com/tannernelson/fluent](https://github.com/tannernelson/fluent)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There seems to be so many web frameworks popping out for Swift, how does this compare with other languages such as C#, Scala and Go?

</comment><comment><USER21> So, why would you write systems requiring concurrency and fault tolerance in Swift? What happens when a request explodes? Can it do hot code loading?</comment>


Ask HN: what is the best way to get authorised data from users esp students? - <AUTHOR>

I am building an app to record student data about their academic and non-academic achievements/interests. The latter part is not captured in any system and so we collect it from scratch.
The challenge is to authorise whether the data recorded by students is right. I met educational institutions/staff and it is apparent that it is a big pain which they are not willing to take.
Is there a best approach in solving this problem of collecting authentic data? Its a major hurdle in providing an useful solution and I like to understand whether similar problem in different domain is solved in any unique way which we can try out.
Also the number of students is in thousands. <comment><USER2> Look at companies like CollegiateLink (www.collegiatelink.net) or Orgsync (www.orgsync.com) ... They collect this type of non-academic/participation based data and use it to, among other things, generate 'extra-curricular transcripts' for students to document the activities and organizations they participated in while in college. Might be an interesting model for your approach.

As a former student user, I vaguely remember students self declaring their affiliations/memberships, but them having to be validated by an organization contact on campus -- like an advisor or group president.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot. This is really useful. If I can ask " Did you enjoy filling the data during your college days? Is there something motivating/de-motivating to input data?

<comment><USER2> The school kept trying to motivate us by pitching the selling points of this 'activities transcript' and how it would make it easier to show prospective employers what we were up to while earning a degree... I'm not sure I particularly enjoyed it, but the system made it as easy as possible so it only took a minute. It became a less popular Facebook, basically -- you'd keep it updated just like you did your Facebook profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your perspective.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The art of endless upgrading - <AUTHOR> http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2011/04/the_art_of_endl.php

<comment><USER4> There's a wonderful Linux distribution called Arch Linux - <http://www.archlinux.org/>

The best thing about it is its "rolling release" release cycle - <USER2> updating - every day. See [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ArchLinux:About#Release...](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ArchLinux:About#Release_Cycle)

Part of my daily boot-up of my laptop is to run `pacman -Syu`, which updates anything that updated in the world. It's so easy! Only tiny changes. Never a big new release. Just constant little updates. Feels like nothing. You don't procrastinate because there's nothing to it.

There's gotta be a good metaphor for the real world, there.

<comment><USER5> Among these "tiny changes" there are also plenty of Big Things. Kernel updates and python3 migration to name two. Not to mention the sometimes conflicting packages as a result of staying on the bleeding edge.

Don't get me wrong, I've used Arch Linux as my primary distro for the last two years and I like their model a lot, but it's more than "nothing to it".

EDIT: Sorry about the somewhat gloomy reply. I agree with your comment in spirit and think the model is, despite its inevitable problems, a great one.

<comment><USER6> This model sounds like fun if it's your hobby.

In my world, however, spontaneously upgrading a library or a language runtime from one major version to the next will cause a bunch of websites to break. This is exactly what customers pay our company to avoid.

Because, in fact, the "continuous" model is a poor fit for software ecosystems unless your time scale is sufficiently long. If you don't care about downtime as measured in hours or days, go ahead and sync up every day. But if you care about downtime as measured in _minutes_ or _seconds_ , the continuous model isn't good enough, because at that scale software doesn't evolve continuously at all. It lurches ahead in sudden jolts, and each component lurches ahead on its own timescale, and only when you stand way back does the process look continuous.

The other problem with the "continuous" model is bugs. Software only lurches ahead on _average_ ; in practice any given patch is as likely to move you _backwards_ as forwards. Three steps forward, two steps back. If I could be assured that every change in the Linux kernel was permanent and perfect, it might be worthwhile to run my websites off the latest kernel source HEAD, sync up every day, and fix bugs as they arrived. But in the real world, if someone commits a bug to the kernel source tree on Monday, and it breaks my site, so I work around the bug, and then someone fixes the bug in the kernel on Friday, and then I roll back my workarounds, I have just wasted hours of my life that I will never see again. I have churned my code for no net gain.

(Of course, you may ask: Why didn't I just fix the kernel bug on Monday instead of working around it in my site's code? Well, the Linux universe is too complicated for any of us to hold all of it in our heads: I can't fix kernel bugs, at least not on a timescale of days. So "this isn't the Apple II anymore; the universe is too big to patch the whole thing at once" is yet another reason why the continuous model doesn't work.)

It's just not that simple.

<comment><USER5> Obviously one should not use this frivolous upgrading scheme on a server - <USER3> don't think anyone thinks otherwise.

At my own computer I don't see the problem. Python 3 replaced Python a couple of weeks ago in Arch, but it's possibly to use Python 2 (which I do, professionally) without too much hassle. As for kernel upgrades, I can always wait a couple of days to see if any major bugs creep up (obviously this requires keeping up with the news, which in itself is a small time investment).

Since I'm not too experienced I guess there are situations when I would wholeheartedly agree without you, but I've yet to come across them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great read. This is something you come to assimilate as you get older -- unless you are very wise, very young. Or perhaps it's cultural. But it something you are aware of from very early on. And so, so many folk fight it.

To put a geek twist on it, this behaviour always reminds me of kipple; the concept coined by Philip K Dick. I remember first reading about it -- in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- and being quite struck by the idea.

There's the First Law of Kipple... 'Kipple drives out nonkipple.'

<http://www.43folders.com/2007/12/12/dick-kipple>

<comment><USER8> What makes me weary is the idea of kipple in my brain. If the Singularity comes, would uploading my consciousness be the equivalent of saving an old, cluttered hard drive? Won't a fresh install always be superior?

<comment><USER9> Define 'superior' in this context.

Also, how do you have a 'fresh install' of what's in your brain and yet maintain the experiences that make you who you are? You _are_ kipple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think there are two different things happening here, which are not quite pinpointed. We have to work for both, but they are different kinds of work.

With physical things, you want them to keep doing the same thing, but they degrade themselves. With software, it just stays being the same, but you want to keep changing what you do with it.

Are there not rather different kinds of knowledge-work demanded there? With keeping things the same, you have a basically closed-ended aim -- you just gather more knowledge and you have it cornered. But with changing things everything is always open-ended -- what you will need to know seems basically unpredictable.

That is why there is subtle mistake in trying to _design_ software to be adaptable. It is a contradiction. Design is using knowledge to make something, but the whole point about the kind of change we are facing here is that it is basically unpredictable. You cannot design for the future, because you cannot design for what you do not know. You just have to adapt when it arrives.

Or something.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think people that live on the bleeding edge have know this for a while, especially devs that live on the bleeding edge.

I've always said software that isn't currently being developed is dead.

<comment><USER12> Agreed. Poorly paraphrasing a line I read somewhere: "Software is like a fish: once it stops moving it dies."

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's a corollary to this: if you value your time, aggressively limit the number of components in your life.

We do this in tech by bundling up things: I don't have to worry about a certain cellphone chipset's lifetime because I just toss the entire unit after a certain period and replace it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Really great article with a good insight into daily life. I like the way he talks about basic physical maintenance/updates and applies the same concepts to software/hardware updates. Cleaning the gutters is no fun, but I have to do it every week in the spring and fall. The moral, I think, is to accept or even embrace change and learn to deal with it.

</comment><comment><USER15> yes, real life pain is the first step of your immune system. The warnings in your log should be the software equivalent. Attending either or both requires human maintanance. Training the body is equivalent of testing software. Yes, there is something to learn from this articel.:-)

</comment><comment><USER16> That which you own, owns you.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's called "entropy".

</comment><comment><USER18> Excellent read!

<comment><USER19> Right. The world of software is much more biological than people dare to admit. Change is a fact of life and every piece of software needs to continuously adapt (both at the side of platform interfaces and the side of user requirements), or die.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wish I could go all Dijkstra on this stupid "must upgrade everything all the time" -attitude that seems to pervade everyone.</comment>


Take $1,000, Trade Once a Day, Make $264 Billion—You Could Have Done It in 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/12/take-1-000-trade-once-a-day-make-264-billion-you-could-have-done-it-in-2013/282386/ <comment><USER2> 1\. Win the lottery

2\. Spend 100% of winnings on lottery tickets

3\. Win all the lotteries.

4\. This is stupid.

<comment><USER3> This is exactly what I thought while reading the article, and yet, this comment made me laugh so much.

This said, as written in the article, one will likely affect the stock price when trading a large amount of shares, while buying a single good lottery ticket for all the lotteries might be more of a transparent operation.

If TheAtlantic wanted more page views they could surf on the Bitcoin hype and the trader could have bought bitcoins some day in March or April and make even more. Someone should do a similar analysis based on the cryptocurrency market, it would be equally flawed, but might still be funny.

<comment><USER4> The Atlantic's "Digital First" initiative ensures that we will see less of the magazine that has been good for the past 150 years and more of this kind of crap. They are pretty much squandering their legacy.

[http://mashable.com/2011/12/19/the-atlantic-digital- first/](http://mashable.com/2011/12/19/the-atlantic-digital-first/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Much easier way you could have done it one night!

take 1000 and bet black or red on roulette, then let it ride 27 times and get them all right. easy

<comment><USER6> Well, at some point you would've hit amounts no casino can work with, so even if you could see the future, that's no way to make even $1B :)

<comment><USER7> I think it might also be difficult to sell 263 billion dollars worth of ADBE stock today considering the entire company has a market cap of 30 billion.

<comment><USER8> You could theoretically plow that much money into call options because there's no physical limit to how many people can write the option and take the opposite position. (ignoring position limits, which the exchange would probably notice at some point.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Obviously the trades themselves and the shares available would alter the numbers, and the article mentions this at the end.

While they can't really adjust for the first issue without a crystal ball, this would be far more interesting to me if they factored in at least a rough estimation of how many shares you could reasonably buy (even if they assumed the company's outstanding shares were fully liquid in a perfect market) and not had you holding 264 billion dollars worth of shares in a company with a 29 billion dollar market cap at the end. IMO, that would have made for a more interesting data modelling story.

If the point is just pure fantasy of big dollar numbers based on large percentage moves they might as well have included very small penny-stocks and really goosed the number up.

<comment><USER10> In terms of shares you could buy, probably up to about 10% of the 200 day rolling average of the daily volume. It still works if you spread that over the top performing stocks for the day (staying under the 10% cap). But you are moving a lot of shares by the end of the year :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How about collecting $1 of ad revenue on 264 billion click-baity articles? That's The Atlantic's plan.

</comment><comment><USER12> The article is quite clear that it's a totally unreal hypothetical:

      Of course, once your investment had grown past a certain
      point, it would be impossible to put into any stock
      without drastically affecting the stock's price. In many
      cases, investing this volume of cash would be
      impossible [...] we also did not take into account
      trading fees nor changes in the composition of the S&P
      index. We also assumed that all companies allowed for
      investment in fractional shares.

      Moreover, even if one made the impossibly optimistic
      assumption that picking the best stock of the day is a
      50-50 guess, there would be only a one-in-3.53
      trevigintillion (3.53 x 1072) chance of matching these
      results.

There's another humorous follow up on Quartz, positing that "[i]nvesting a day late every day would have returned 19.6% in 2013".[0]

[0] [http://qz.com/158489/investing-a-day-late-every-day-would- ha...](http://qz.com/158489/investing-a-day-late-every-day-would-have- returned-19-6-in-2013/)

Edit: spelling.

<comment><USER13> A lot of people here seem very upset that this isn't a recipe they can follow to riches. Clearly this is just an exercise illustrating wild growth, and an interesting article. No need for people to be so bitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> We're missing the point here: this is not a "how I made $264 billion selling my ebook" guide that we're supposed to replicate. Rather, it's a "WHOA COMPOUND INTEREST" thought experiment.

<comment><USER15> that's exactly what i thought - the power of compounding is amazing to look at when you see it in action with higher dollar amounts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> No, this wouldn't work in the slightest. The "hypothetical" account would soon have the pains and limitations of an institutional investor... it would move markets so much that this wouldn't be possible to make trades as described.

Perhaps a quant can run this on a market simulator using historical data and show how much it would diverge from reality.

<comment><USER17> Did you come up with this yourself, or are you just summarizing the end of the article?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Obviously the effects of trading are non linear and moving that kind of money would significantly altered the return somewhere. However it's cool to look at.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, "somewhere" is right. This calendar has our mythical time traveler buying over $200B of Adobe stock. The only problem is that Adobe's market cap is a mere $30B. There isn't $200B worth of stock to buy!

<comment><USER20> If someone's willing to pay 200/30 ~ 7 times the current market price to buy Adobe stock, well, I'm sure there current shareholders would be more than happy to oblige the time traveler.

<comment><USER21> It's unlikely the stock would go _up_ after such a transaction, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't know the exact quote but Warren Buffet has explained before that there are a lot of great investments you can make if you have thousands or millions of dollars to invest, but once you start getting into the billions, it's a lot harder to get that same return.

In my own experience, almost anyone can make hundreds of dollars, It's not super difficult to make thousands, but as a single person, scaling into the 6 or 7 figures usually requires working/partnering/networking with other people. A lemonade stand or a bake sale or yard sale is natually limited by location for example.

Another relevant example is Bingo Card Creator. You could argue that Patrick has just about maxed out what is possible to make selling bingo card software on the internet. It is no surprise that his second product Appointment Reminder has a much higher ceiling and I'm guessing that it makes a lot more than BCC does by now.

No matter how much effort Patrick put into BCC, getting past 100k a year would be a festivus miracle. Appointment Reminder could very reasonably hit 7 figures, but 8 figures would probably require a full on sales force, support staff, etc. and even then it would be a real push.

</comment><comment><USER23> This just in: compounding interest exists. But seriously, I don't know what the point of this article is. It doesn't even consider the fact that the amounts it's talking about eclipse the market cap of just about all of the corporations it's talking about.

<comment><USER24> Yes it does, it specifically states that at the end. It's a silly hypothetical, not meant to be a step-by-step guide.

<comment><USER23> You are indeed correct. Good catch. I literally stopped reading after the first sentence of that paragraph.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> At a micro level, this makes sense - you can expect to buy a few thousand in an equity and expect the price not to fluctuate due to your investment. But when you hit millions, I'm sure the price range by the single purchase will have a significant impact to the cost of these stocks - you would be buying more than what is available in some cases, sometimes even expecting to invest more than what the company has in market capital.

</comment><comment><USER26> Another way to make $264 billion in 2013, buy a Powerball lotto ticket every day, and pick the 5 winning Jackpot numbers. Repeat 364 times.... you're rich.

</comment><comment><USER27> Then once you've made 264 Billion, create a blog, books, videos and courses on how you did it to create a sustainable business.

</comment><comment><USER28> The point is that finding the the best performing stock each day is just impossible. No Technical or Fundamental study can give you that.

It's just like, I could have been a trillionaire had I invested in Google, Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, Facebook: all in their seed stage.

</comment><comment><USER29> Yikes! Nobody tell the author about options. It might cause their brain to explode.

</comment><comment><USER30> In addition to the preposterousness of investing more than a company's market cap, I'd be interested in seeing this strategy backtested. Lots of random crap works over short time scales.

</comment><comment><USER31> You cannot simply move a billion dollars into a single stock that easily. The act of buying a billion dollars of any one company would alter the stock price significantly -- like a buyback.

</comment><comment><USER32> Fun to think about, but I'm pretty sure you'd have trouble buying a billion dollars of any stock every day, much less $100 billion towards the end.

</comment><comment><USER33> In conclusion, you should invest in time travel research.

</comment><comment><USER34> I am surprised nobody has mentioned short-term capital gains taxes.

</comment><comment><USER35> yet another article that can serve as evidence we are nearing a market top.

</comment><comment><USER36> 1) invest in bitcoins

2) wait</comment>


Ask HN: cheap SMS service for application - <AUTHOR>

What is the easiest, cheapest method to convert from computer/net/email to SMS and from SMS to network?  I'm looking for a cheap (free is better) service for a computer application.  Would I annoy google if I used a google voice account to start with?  Or are there better solutions? <comment><USER2> Clickatell[1] is cheap and provides a number of methods to send SMS: email-to- sms, HTTP (XML, SOAP, urls), SMPP, FTP. They also support inbound/two-way messaging and shortcodes, though I assume these cost a good bit more.

[1] <http://www.clickatell.com/>

<comment><USER3> I've used clickatell a lot in the past (circa 2005-2007).

I'd recommend them. Be prepared to fax them details to confirm some things.

One _minor_ frustration with them is that they have a division between their API account and their desktop messenger. It sounds like you'll be using the API first. But you cannot then use excess credits for any personal sideline messaging using their client.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We currently use <http://www.mobilemarketing.net/> on a couple of projects. Their site looks terrible, but they are fairly cheap and have 'sticky' sessions. Their support is also very responsive.

Textmarks <http://www.textmarks.com/> is also good but they no longer support sticky sessions. They also have free messaging if you don't mind a "powered by textmarks" with a link back to their site at the bottom of your SMS.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://www.esendex.de/> in europe

</comment><comment><USER6> Anyone ever used: <http://www.eztexting.com/> Considering it over clickatell if I can find a good reason.

Thanks

<comment><USER7> I handle marketing at Ez Texting. You can check out our new developers center @ <http://www.eztexting.com/developers/>

We offer a number of different APIs, and we can definitely handle volume. I can't cite names due to our Privacy Policy, but we're handling some large sites' SMS capabilities through our API (more than a couple ranked top 500 by Quantcast FWIW)

If you have any questions, I can answer them for you. Or if you'd like just shoot me an email - firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Where are your destination numbers from? For US numbers you can text for free by sending an email to a carrier specific email address (firstname.lastname@example.com).

Clickatell is a good option for international SMS, although they have had some issues in the past. There are a lot of similar services. However I've never seen much cheaper than around 7 cents (when buying in bulk) for SMS to the Netherlands.

</comment><comment><USER9> You could build it yourself using Kannel (open source SMS gateway - www.kannel.org) and an old mobile phone.

<comment><USER10> That's great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> <http://www.pennysms.com></comment>


Percent Clock - Rethinking the Clock - <AUTHOR> http://percentclock.com/

<comment><USER2> Excellent, for years I thought this is a better way to tell time. Glad you guys not only thought of it but actually did the proof of concept. I suggest the same idea in terms of one's life- 36 years old might be 50%.</comment>


Gosubc – An implementation of the SubC language in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/qeedquan/gosubc <comment><USER2> I love this type of projects.

Relevant:

[https://github.com/robertkrimen/otto](https://github.com/robertkrimen/otto)

(JavaScript interpreter in go)

[https://github.com/Shopify/go-lua](https://github.com/Shopify/go-lua)

Lua VM in go

</comment><comment><USER3> So? Is it shorter? How much shorter? How does Go improve over C? Just curious.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure where the C89 in the submitted title came from. This is for SubC, "a simple subset of C." This README describes the many differences:

[http://www.t3x.org/subc/README-current.html](http://www.t3x.org/subc/README- current.html)

<comment><USER5> Wow, that's a lot of features removed. No double, float, short, long, signed, unsigned, or typedef? There goes 99% of the C programs ever written.

<comment><USER6> Sounds like they're trying to make it more like B.

<comment><USER7> Charlie Stross should put the language Z in his books. It's another language of that heritage, but writing a working compiler in it would constitute a thaumaturgic formula so powerful, the universe would end.

<comment><USER8> Is "thaumaturgic" related to "demiurge" etymologically?

<comment><USER9> Yes. The "urge" part means "work:" Thaumaturgy is using magic to do work, and a demiurge was just a craftsman or artisan until Plato borrowed the term for theological purposes.

<comment><USER8> Huh, that's cool. I wonder if there's any way I can expand my etymology-fu apart from just picking stuff up randomly or learning Latin/Ancient Greek. (I did read _Word Power Made Easy_ as a kid. It kicked off my interest in these things.)

<comment><USER6> One thing you can do is, if you come across a word you're curious about, plug it into Wiktionary and see what comes up. Wiktionary tends to be pretty good with etymology.

For example, thaumaturgy: [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/thaumaturgy](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/thaumaturgy)

Clicking on one of the links provided gives this: [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ἔργον](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ἔργον) which lists a number of derived forms. Did you know that the words "energy" and "lethargy" and the prefix "ergo-" come from a derivative the Greek root of "urge"? Neither did I until I started writing this comment.

And looking up "demiurge" leads me to this: [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Δημιουργός](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Δημιουργός) where it comes from the Greek for "public worker". So that probably means the "demi" in "demiurge" comes from the same root as "democratic"! And going to the lowercase form gives [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/δημιουργός](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/δημιουργός)

And I just realized that referring to a divine entity as "the Demiurge" is just a fancy way of saying "the Creator" or "the Maker".

<comment><USER8> That's very similar to what I do now. I was looking for something more systematic than "hope you stumble across cool words" :)

I did not know that _energy_ and _lethargy_ come from the same Greek root, though, thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Here's Why You Shouldn't Lie To Your Kids About Santa - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-you-shouldnt-lie-to-your-kids-about-santa-2010-12 <comment><USER2> Why spoil their fun? More importantly, why deny them the opportunity to learn to question authority? I saw lots of words, but not much in the way of an answer.</comment>


Amazing Loader animation in CSS3(no images). - <AUTHOR> http://goo.gl/BpTF

<comment><USER2> The first and last animations are jumpy in my browser (Chrome 5.0.375.29 beta on OS X Snow Leopard), almost as if the last 20% of the frames are being skipped. The Facebook-style and three-dot animations are also off: The last two dots are synchronized nearly synchronized.

Is this a browser bug? If so, CSS3 throbbers aren't ready for prime time yet.

Reloading the page seems to greatly reduce the visual bugs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't know why its not working for you .. coz I have tested it on Chrome 5.0.375.29 beta on (Mac OS and Windows), animation works very well on both one.

<comment><USER2> Open the link in a background tab after clearing your cache.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why the shortened URL? It detracts from HN. I like being able to see the domain the link is from.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can check the post here ... [http://www.nikesh.me/blog/2010/05/ajax-style- loading-animati...](http://www.nikesh.me/blog/2010/05/ajax-style-loading- animation-in-css3-no-images/)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Streamlit App to understand financial terms - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/amolnaik/pynance <comment><AUTHOR> I built a lightweight streamlit app to understand financial terms, fundamental ratios, and performance metrics. It uses fmpcloud to pull periodic data like stock prices, annual statements, balance sheets of listed companies in the US. The explanation of the terms used in the app is taken from Investopedia.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing! If you're looking for feedback, you might try posting on the Streamlit forum.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Will do it now ;)</comment></comment></comment>


TechCrunch 40: Underwhelming - <AUTHOR> http://www.bubblegeneration.com/2007/09/techcrunch-40-and-death-of-web-20.cfm I tend to agree...they are mostly "minor" problem solvers.
The VentureBeat link is particularly interesting.
Bubblegeneration group on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5842972550 <comment><USER2> I'm not underwhelmed by these. Some of them looked very good, particularly the startup that uses facial recognition in videos.

<comment><AUTHOR> One of Umair's refrains is that Silicon Valley types are often overly enamored of raw [or novel, in the pejorative sense] technology that isn't directly serving people's [or society's] biggest problems NOW.

<comment><USER3> That's a rather shortsighted criticism. Large things start small, and often solve problems in an indirect way. YouTube probably didn't look like something that would "serve society's biggest problems", but it does just that (by giving more people a voice, exposing corruption and abuse, etc).

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I would say that I agree with Umair that YouTube did indeed solve a huge personal/social problem (reinventing the stale, inefficient television/video value chain). Right off the bat, too.

I also agree that "large things start small", but which of these companies do you think really have potential to create enormous value for millions of people?

ZocDoc? Zivity?

I'm just playing devil's advocate here...I hope some of these companies really knock it out of the park, but the roster is a little "underwhelming" on paper.

<comment><USER3> I don't know if any of the startups are good -- it's very difficult to judge from a few line summary on the web.

My point though is that important products often appear minor or niche as first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> ok....how is viewdle underwhelming? I personally think that blinkx and viewdle are on to something...

<comment><AUTHOR> Viewdle is definitely not underwhelming...to be fair, I think he was talking about "many" of the companies, not all of them.</comment></comment>


Big game hunter is crushed to death by elephant he was hunting - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4528048/Big-game-hunter-crushed-death-shot-elephant.html <comment><USER2> Lets hope his death was long and painful.

</comment><comment><USER3> Rot In Pain.</comment>


Streaming or Downloading Game of Thrones Season 8 May Get You Malware - <AUTHOR> https://sensorstechforum.com/game-of-thrones-season-8-streaming-malware/ <comment><USER2> could it be a fake news spawned by Sky, Amazon & other streaming services to fight piracy?

<comment><USER3> Not really. I've seen torrents of popular movies or series which were just a .zip file, which unpacked into an .exe file containing nothing but malware and tons of padding bytes to make the file have approximately correct size for what the torrent title advertises.

While you or I just chuckle at this, there are tons of people who would just run that .exe in their blind desire to watch the hyped thing.</comment></comment>


Talking to machines and other psychopathological indicators - <AUTHOR> http://wyattpeak.com/2010/06/09/talking-to-machines-and-other-psychopathological-indicators/

<comment><USER2> I need a little more from my e-assistant.

A few tasks:

\- answer appropriately my e-mail

\- selecting the events that I'm interested in and booking the tickets.

\- calling at home to tell that I'll be late or out for dinner.</comment>


How to get every badge in FourSquare (without leaving home) - <AUTHOR> http://jamespanderson.tumblr.com/post/746541700/how-to-get-every-badge-in-foursquare

<comment><USER2> I am actually wondering if there is any way, as an iphone/android app developer, to guarantee the request comes from the device (and not from a curl req, e.g).

Of course virtually any method (auth token, ...) can be broken, but there must be a way to make it difficult enough.

Any advice from app developers on how to do this?</comment>


Whatever happened to 3D printing - <AUTHOR> This article discusses the creation and demise of many 3D printing companies. The article is very informative on the operation, functionality of 3D printers. The pictures and videos were a nice touch to the article. I enjoyed reading this article <comment><USER2> Why don't you actually comment on the submission itself, rather than making a new, unconnected submission with no link to the original?

Were you intending to reply to one of these:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12068151](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12068151)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12067169](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12067169)

Click on one of those links, and type your reply into the comment box there.</comment>


This Japanese company is giving employees who don't smoke 6 extra vacation days - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/02/this-japanese-company-is-giving-non-smokers-6-extra-vacation-days.html <comment><USER2> "The frequent cigarette breaks meant many employees were away from their desks upwards of 15 minutes each day, Matsushima added."

With smokers where I work, a single smoke break can last up to 15 minutes, with 3-4 such breaks per day. I've no idea how this is tolerated, but it's been like that for years.</comment>


Tesla Model 3 Is Replacing Toyota Prius as Green Car of Choice - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/brookecrothers/2018/08/05/tesla-model-3-elon-musk-tesla-earnings-toyota-prius-2018-prius-prime-2018-toyota-rav4/#85938a849da8 <comment><USER2> The author supports the title of the article based on the Tesla Q2 report that the Prius has been the most common trade-in for the model 3.

When I drive daily in a sea of Prii (pl. of Prius), and I get excited when I see a few model 3's a week, I feel like it's too early to make that strong of a statement.

<comment><USER3> These two competing cars aim at very, very different markets. Forbes' breathless prediction of Toyota's hybrid market demise is a myopic opinion piece and a stretch of wishful thinking.

The lower-tier Prius' are profoundly less expensive than even the mythical base-model Model 3 (which the article points out, isn't available; Tesla has said they hope to offer the base model by the end of the year). A 2017/2018 Toyota Prius can be driven off the lot for $20,000. The Model 3s that have been sold are $40,000+. That makes A Prius Prime plug-in hybrid the most direct competitor. I trust the sales figures quoted are accurate.

But there's more to it: Price, availability, utility, and maintainability are big considerations once you leave the ultra-luxury price range (100k+) that is Tesla's core market. The Toyota wins in all these aspects, in my opinion. Where Toyota does not compete is the "status symbol" market.

<comment><USER4> > A 2017/2018 Toyota Prius can be driven off the lot for $20,000. The Model 3s > that have been sold are $40,000+.

The Prius is basically the best car on the market if what you care about is the combination of safety, mileage, and cost. Until the model 3 able to pass the NHTSA safety testing, I don't see Tesla being able to make any serious inroads into the core Prius demographic. FWIW this is their current 'rating':

[https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2018/TESLA/MODEL%2525203/4%252...](https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2018/TESLA/MODEL%2525203/4%252520DR/RWD)

<comment><USER5> NHTSA hasn't crash-rated the car, but the IIHS has: [http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/tesla/model-3-4-d...](http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/tesla/model-3-4-door- sedan)

<comment><USER4> The page you linked to shows that the IIHS _hasn 't_ crash rated the car. The only thing 'rated' was front crash prevention. None of the six crash tests they normally do were conducted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What everyone is overlooking is that of course the Prius would be a top trade- in how many have been produced in the last 20 years? It's like saying that the CAR X is the new Camry, because the number one trade-in is the Camry. The Camry being the best selling passenger car for the last 25 years...

What's number two on the list? The BMW 3 Series, which is way more in line with what you'd expect and certainly not a "green car" by any stretch of the imagination.

</comment><comment><USER7> The last time Forbes was a credible news source was when the Prius was just coming out.

<comment><USER8> it's interesting how a discussion about the SEC possibly investigating Musk and Tesla over Twitter comments was flagged by HN moderators and this blog post presenting a rosy view of Tesla showed up in its wake

<comment><USER9> As far as I can tell there are just two moderators, and this is a big website. Is it possible that they're just focusing on what gets the most flags and not scouring every post? Maybe the pro-Tesla people flag articles critical of the brand in a way that gets moderator attention more than everyone else flags a post like this?

It seems more likely to me than any other explanation.

<comment><USER8> So HN already has certain voting ring detectors -- shouldn't the moderators be able to detect the pro-tesla/pro-musk voting ring?

<comment><USER9> I don't know anything about that, but if it's not coordinated behavior then why would it run afoul of a detector? Maybe Muskies are just way more easily angered than everyone else, so their actions coordinate, but they're doing it spontaneously?

I could be wrong, I just doubt that this adds up to more than the moderators being overworked and overwhelmed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd love to trade in the Prius to get a Tesla but there's no way in hell I'm doing that when they are so expensive. You can get a used Prius for about CAD$14,000. Maybe in another 5 or 6 years.

<comment><USER11> You can get a pre-owned Model S right now for $43,600

Source: [https://ev-cpo.com/hunter/](https://ev-cpo.com/hunter/)

<comment><USER12> So only about three times the quoted CAD$14K of a used Prius? What about used Tesla Model S's, again?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anecdotal, but: my hometown of Orinda is a good bellweather; when the Prius first came out, the small downtown area felt like 1/3rd of the cars were Prii. In the past couple years, every time I visit I see many, many Teslas. It's an affluent but liberal town in the Bay Area, a lot of people who buy in to green-but-luxury brands.

<comment><USER14> In some ways it's far more impressive that the Prius is as ubiquitous in the Bay Area as it is. People who would never buy a Corolla flocked to it.

The 3 is also a generic transportation appliance, but it's a much nicer one.

<comment><USER13> Watching traffic in downtown SF is a game of seeing if the total sum of non- Prius cars outnumber the Priuses or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Still don't understand why anyone would get either option over a Volt, from a purely "green" standpoint.

I absolutely get the appeal of Tesla from a quality and technology standpoint though.

<comment><USER16> Telsa over Volt is easy for me, no carrying around a gas engine that I don't need. I actually don't even have a Tesla, but I do drive an all electric. I didn't want to carry around added weight in an ICE engine and have more room for batteries.

<comment><USER15> Not sure why. Not having range anxiety is great. I've had mine for 2 years and I'm getting 124mpg over the lifetime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Tesla 3 costs (at least) twice of the Prius, doesn't it? Are we talking about multimillionaires with zero sensitivity to price, of is $25K in California now considered pocket change not worth mentioning? If not, I don't see how that could be true.

</comment><comment><USER18> Hmm, this seems like an apples to oranges comparison. EV customers are not hybrid customers (even PHEV models like the Prius Prime - full disclosure, I drive a Prime). It's odd to see Forbes claiming people bought Teslas instead of Primes - they're not very similar... It would be more relevant to compare Model 3 sales to the Nissan Leaf[1] and Chevy Bolt[2].

1: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/sebastianblanco/2018/01/09/niss...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/sebastianblanco/2018/01/09/nissan- leaf-300000-sales-global/)

2: [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gm-sells-more- than-20000-c...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gm-sells-more- than-20000-chevy-bolts-in-2017-2018-01-03)

<comment><USER19> _Hmm, this seems like an apples to oranges comparison. EV customers are not hybrid customers_

Citation? I'm considering both an EV and a hybrid for my next car.

<comment><USER18> You are hereby allowed to buy whatever car you'd like to! What that suggests (and what Forbes doesn't quite seem to be getting at) is that more people are buying EVs in general - they make a lot of sense for in-town / commuting use.

<comment><USER20> > they make a lot of sense for in-town / commuting use.

And a lot of sense for a bunch of other things. These are higher end Model 3's, they have a pretty decent range.

<comment><USER18> Yes, clearly the Teslas are standout EVs (but at standout prices). The steady sales of the Leaf and Bolt suggest to me that more people are inclined to choose them as budget EVs with "good enough" range.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What is much more important is the Model 3 replacing pure ICE cars, that is the real revolution.

<comment><USER22> That is what hybrids have been doing for 20 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Didn't even read the article: calling BS. Model 3 is easily twice as expensive. It is a better car by all accounts, but the steep price differential will make it safe from becoming the "green car of choice".

<comment><USER24> Lol exactly my thought...they are not even in one price range. No one is thinking of buying prius or tesla</comment></comment>


Stem Is Overrated - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/article/597487/ <comment><USER2> "The economists John Schmitt and Heather Boushey found that among 24-to-35-year-olds, almost 20 percent of college graduates "actually do no better than their counterparts who left school after high school," even before taking college debt into account."

Well, duh. It takes time for a degree to generate a return. (And besides, what's with this crazy wording? Why not say that more than 80% do better?)

Try looking at 45-to-60-year-olds. I seriously doubt that those with no degree are doing just as well as college graduates in _that_ age group.</comment>