ISS Docking Simulation - <AUTHOR> https://iss-sim.spacex.com/ <comment><USER2> Nailed it first time!! I was super excited too, cos it was _so obvious_ that this so-called "simulation" was in reality a test to find pilots to save the ISS from some top secret calamity that we don't know about.

Surely this was going to be like in "the last Starfighter", except that Elon Musk would be the one knocking on my door, needing a new pilot.

Sadly it just said "congratulations" :(

<comment><USER3> It probably increases your chances of being evacuated to space should moon blow up without warning and for no apparent reason.

<comment><USER4> I love this book! And if you didn't meant it, I much recommend Seveneves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They should have a global leaderboard with "shortest time to dock".

Tip: focus on one number at a time and zero out any rotation first. Then use only translation to move.

Oh, and go fast and hard, just like Jebediah Kerman would. :)

<comment><USER6> > They should have a global leaderboard with "shortest time to dock".

Another IMO interesting metric for a global leaderboard would be "least fuel consumed".

<comment><USER7> Probably a better one. Also, the one that fires the least near the station, as it's a bit of an annoyance if it causes contamination of sensors on the outside.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If there's anything I've learned from Kerbal, the last 100 meters is the easy part - it's getting to the same place at the same time and at the same speed that's the trick. I can't count the number of times I've screamed past my space station at an extra 1000 m/s.

<comment><USER9> Yup....though usually not at 1km/s (:

I've been playing KSP for years, and did the manual rendezvous in orbit thing a number of times. It's pretty tricky. For my play style, Mechanical Jeb is the way to go. Let the computer do the heavy lifting.

<comment><USER8> I prefer to use biological Jeb - which is why it's at 1 km/s. I really need to get a handle on the built in control and planning options.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is a fun little game, and I managed to dock successfully using the instruments.

I'm confused by a few things in the user interface nevertheless.

The speed sign seems to be inverted. For example when it display a pitch speed of + 0.5°/sec, the pitch number will decrease by this value every second.

The Yaw and Pitch command are swapped between the display and the control. In the display Pitch is at the right while it command the up and down direction, and Yaw is displayed on the bottom while it command the left right direction.

For the pitch command pressing Up makes the pitch speed number decrease. (It's confusing). For the yaw command pressing right makes the yaw speed increase.

There seems to be lacking a display for the X speed Y speed and Z speed.

I don't understand the little arrow of the roll indicator.

It also took me a while to figure the correct axis correspondence.I'm used to forward=Z direction, Y-Up and X left-right where as here X=forward,Y=right,Z=up. It's not easy to discover at first because when you are currently rotating those number move simultaneously.

<comment><USER11> I think what you're considering inverted is your relative pitch/yaw/roll from the target. The target isn't <0.2 from 0, it's <0.2 from perfect alignment. Not having an indicator of translation speed is kinda lame, but I wound up docking with a total drift of 0.1 across all green numbers. Seemed like an achievement but was kinda let down by the success page, lol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm glad this is available online. This is a very standard docking UI for spacecraft - everyone in the industry has an almost identical design. ULA has shown a simulator exactly like this in conferences for years now.

<comment><USER13> Really? I'd have thought they'd give the astronauts a proper 6DoF controller (e.g. a SpaceBall or SpaceMouse) instead of making them mash buttons like this.

<comment><USER14> Yea, with this interface docking this space pot feels like trying to draw in MS Paint with my mouse.

<comment><USER15> For maximum realism you'd play this on an iPad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Open this in new tab.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3zvVGJrTP8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3zvVGJrTP8)

<comment><USER4> This simulator would be so much better with this music!

<comment><USER17> For maximum Interstellar experience, type this in the console after the simulator loads:

      (function() {
        var clock = new THREE.Clock();
        var interstellar = function() {
          issObject.translateOnAxis(new THREE.Vector3(0, 0, 1), -20);
          issObject.rotateY(-7.12094334814*clock.getDelta());
          issObject.translateOnAxis(new THREE.Vector3(0, 0, 1), 20);
          requestAnimationFrame(interstellar);
        }
        interstellar();
      })()

(7.12094334814 is "68 RPM", if my math is correct.)

EDIT: Corrected rotation to spin around (roughly) the center of mass.

<comment><USER16> Use this, it'll orient the station correctly as well, and it should be possible to win this game as well, judging by a glance over the code.

var clock = new THREE.Clock(); issObject.rotateX(3.14/2); var interstellar = function() { issObject.rotateZ(-7.12094334814*clock.getDelta()); requestAnimationFrame(interstellar); } interstellar();

The numbers on the screen are useless with this though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very good illustration how "full inertial physics" works (in contrast to what can be seen in sci-fi movies).

This is a huge potential procrastination catalyst :-)

<comment><USER19> "Gravity" was quite accurate, no?

<comment><USER20> In some ways... In many other ways the physics was wildly inaccurate.

<comment><USER21> The rope scene always bothers me. Why are the ropes and the strap taut after the first snap? What's pushing him away? It sure isn't wind! And there is no rotation either.

[0] [https://youtu.be/DYDaIyfitn8](https://youtu.be/DYDaIyfitn8)

<comment><USER22> In the frame of the orbiting station, there is the tidal force, which is proportion to distance from the point where the rope is fixed on the station. But even if he was 100m away, tidal force would be like 7 grams.

So tidal force can't be it. The most likely reason would be some part of the station venting gas out, accelerating. The gas could blow towards the astronaut to make it worse.

<comment><USER20> Given how fast and loose the movie played with physics in general (orbital mechanics, especially), I wouldn't go too far out of my way to try to explain gaps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> SpaceX: "Movement in space is slow and requires patience and precision"

Can't wait to see speedrunners prove otherwise.

<comment><USER24> A docking speedrun contest might be the only thing I'd put on my calendar to tune into on Twitch.

<comment><USER15> Docking speedrun with a real Dragon 2 in actual space docking to the actual ISS with real astronauts on board.

Now that's a pay-per-view moneymaker right there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> To hell with the ISS, I'm flying back to Earth!

<comment><USER26> You're more accurately failing to miss hitting the ground while falling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've flown enough "flight assist off" in Elite Dangerous so this worked exactly like I expected it to :)

I hope someone makes a game like Elite Dangerous without care for actual gameplay, and even more realism. For example, with FA off in ED, there's still a speed limit that varies from ship to ship.

<comment><USER28> "Rogue system" might be what you are looking for.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vziIgAtD66s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vziIgAtD66s)

<comment><USER27> Wow, that looks _amazing_, thanks! :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment> gene-h It is quite difficult to control with the mouse. It's basically impossible to kill rotation or velocity along a given axis. So one ends up with bang-bang control, constantly oscillating around the target. I am also somewhat horrified to learn that manual flight might be like this to, through the touchscreen[0]. Although there do appear to be some joysticks the astronauts can use, so hopefully this is just training for contingencies.

[0][https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/04/this-is-certainly- differen...](https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/04/this-is-certainly-different- astronauts-on-controlling-the-dragon-spacecraft-via-touchscreen/)

<comment><USER29> RCS is always bang-bang, bang-bang means you input like PWM or PDM for rate and not like a throttle or a yoke for force.

I think the thrusters are a bit too powerful even at fine mode and numbers needs more precision.

<comment><USER20> Well, it can also be whoosh-whoosh (in the case of cold gas thrusters)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Rotate, Translate, Approach. By the numbers, ignore the graphics.

<comment><USER31> Once rotate is dead on and stable, translate and approach can be helped by the graphics.

<comment><USER17> Only if you're very close. Trust the Kerbal greybeard (greenbeard?) me, visuals are misleading you about relative velocities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Reminds me of the old days of the internet when you would randomly come across neat little Flash games like this.

</comment><comment><USER33> Play with this as audio in the background: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_BRFa6s9fs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_BRFa6s9fs)

<comment><USER34> This is way more fun to play to: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3zvVGJrTP8&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3zvVGJrTP8&feature=youtu.be)

<comment><USER35> You are both wrong: this is the best one:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZe- NidizL8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZe-NidizL8)

<comment><USER36> No no no. We all had this playing in our heads:

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=s2pphLBmdsQ](https://youtube.com/watch?v=s2pphLBmdsQ)

<comment><USER37> This is a SpaceX sim isn't it?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg- Nksc7Oh0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg-Nksc7Oh0)

<comment><USER36> Nope. Made for KSP in 2012-2013. Royalty free and Musk is a fan, so they use the tracks. It's starting to show up in other space media too.

[https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Soundtrack](https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Soundtrack)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Sadly you can't crash into the tesla, or bump it. I'll stick with KSP.

<comment><USER17> There's code for loading a Tesla hidden in there. Tried to activate it, but something I haven't tracked down yet keeps undisplaying the mesh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I like the "Flat Earth" setting.

</comment><comment><USER15> Years of Kerbal Space Program have prepared me for this moment. Almost felt easy, what with RCS thrusters that were actually balanced and not spinning me around when trying to translate (or vice versa), and having already been put in a stationkeeping orbit. Just needed to line up rotation, then Y/Z, then put X+ in the red, grab an early morning beer, come back, and make some final adjustments while slowing back down for contact.

If this really is the same UI used for manual docking, I'd be a bit worried about the lack of visual feedback when translating forward/backward. I guess in a real Dragon 2 you'd probably feel the RCS thrusters, but without that it's pretty jarring.

</comment><comment><USER40> Pretty cool.

I had a NaN m/s and weird things like -0.0 and 0.0.

I am hoping it is not the _actual_ "controls of actual interface" [sic - obvious typo is obvious?].

Seeing "NaN" on your control panel in space as you are trying to manually dock must be a fun moment :-)

<comment><USER38> I always see NaN m/s. The -0.0 and (+)0.0 makes sense given that it's -0.004 or +0.004 or whatever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> It's just like I am playing Kerbal Space Program with all the infuriating physics.

<comment><USER42> At least the thrust is balanced so that translation in any of the axes doesn't cause the Dragon to start spinning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Has anyone been able to dock with the Roadster? It's flying around somewhere :)

</comment><comment><USER13> After you've docked a few times, try orbiting the ISS. Remember your basic physics: set up some sideways motion, then keep rotating to face the ISS while thrusting towards it. The sim will end if you stray too far.

</comment><comment><USER44> I made a working autopilot in a userscript: [https://youtu.be/JbWJ6EDodqc](https://youtu.be/JbWJ6EDodqc) (Luckily, RCS fuel is unlimited).

<comment><USER45> I'd love to see your code!

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> This was a lot of fun, on the first attempt had no idea even what the controls did and of course failed. But on the second go was able to get it all lined up and dock perfectly. Ready for NASA.

</comment><comment><USER47> Tangent, but the killer app for VR devices is space sims with a joystick, something like Elite: Dangerous.

Space sims are the only thing where you realize there's no going back once you do it in VR.

<comment><USER48> Flight sims in general sound exciting with VR. In fact the new Microsoft Flight Simulator might actually finally push me to pull the trigger a headset.

<comment><USER49> Flight simulators map a lot of inputs to the keyboard. Is it feasible to fly while using a VR headset? Can motion controls be used to interact with the cockpit?

<comment><USER47> I use a joystick with the headset. If you are going to do the headset, might as well go all in with a joystick (or flight specific controllers).

[https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Flight-Rhino-Certified- Refur...](https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Flight-Rhino-Certified- Refurbished/dp/B07CKDS4ZT/ref=mp_s_a_1_13?dchild=1&keywords=flight+joystick&qid=1589378080&sr=8-13)

<comment><USER49> Nice to see Thrustmaster's getting some competition. These HOTAS controllers are awesome but do they have enough buttons for everything? I was under the impression a keyboard was still necessary for less frequently used inputs.

<comment><USER47> It's hard to say since I don't play hardcore flight sims like Microsoft Flight Simulator. With a VR headset you will still suffer from the 'needing to peek out of the bottom gap to see your keyboard' syndrome, but if you can get past that over time, it ups the experience for these types of games.

I was able to pick up a used HTC Vive from Microcenter for about about $300 (surprise, lots of people buy it and don't use it, so there's deals out there), so you might be able to keep your financial footprint pretty low to try things out.

Definitely encourage you to look into it, dog fighting in Elite: Dangerous involves me looking all around, behind me, below me, it's a totally unmatched experienced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This shows the value of training and realistic simulations. The first time I gave this a go, I completely failed. If I had really been in space the mission would have failed and potentially lives lost. But I learnt a lot and the next attempt was successful. The reality is that on-the-job training is best where the cost of failure is low. But where failures are costly or dangerous simulations are incredibly useful.

</comment><comment><USER26> Also look behind you

</comment><comment><USER51> The Unity engine is the best thing to ever happen to aerospace UIs. Makes this feel like the actual future (I think) we all imagine.

<comment><USER52> I think it uses three.js, as it's defined on the window object.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is there any way to switch to KURS?

</comment><comment><USER53> I find it mind-boggling I had less difficulty docking at the ISS than landing a fighter jet in DCS World.

On the other hand, being able to stop the module and zero all unnecessary movement before proceeding to dock is something I can't do with aircraft on Earth.

</comment><comment><USER26> Lack of propellant limit makes this game fairly trivial after you "get" it.

</comment><comment><USER54> I think it helps if you play the Blue Danube Waltz while you do this.

</comment><comment><USER55> This is pretty cool! But I found little challenge in this simulation. Basically just correct your roll, pitch and yaw, then steer towards the target. Slow down at the end.

The easter eggs are fun though!

<comment><USER56> I was like this then at the last few seconds I fucked it up :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Is this to generate training data for your AI to the job? :D

</comment><comment><USER58> Is it just me or are the velocity numbers inverted?

<comment><USER44> The pitch/yaw/roll rates have opposite sign to what I would expect (at least as a layman). Positive rate means decreasing angle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's a red tesla right behind the shuttle.

</comment><comment><USER59> Surprised they don't have a computer do this.

<comment><USER60> They do. And I guess that manual operation is possible, but it's rather an emergency option only.

Fully automated docking for Soyuz capsules called Kurs[1] was developed in 80's for flights to Mir. When USSR dissolved and it turned out that this system was fully owned by Ukraine, Russian space agency tried to test how viable is to dock via manual bakup docking system TORU[2], which failed and damaged the space station. On the other hand, there is at least one occasion when Kurs failed and the manual backup saved the docking.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurs_(docking_navigation_syste...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurs_\(docking_navigation_system\)) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TORU](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TORU)

<comment><USER61> You're understating the TORU mishap a little. Apparently they still needed KURS to get rangefinding and telemetry from the Progress supply craft, but KURS interfered with the signal for TORU so they shut it off and tried having a guy shine a laser rangefinder out the window at it instead. That didn't work so they just tried to eyeball it instead, resulting in the crash which destroyed an expensive space station module and forced the crew to scramble to save the station from depressurizing completely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Tesla almost has self-driving cars but SpaceX can't self-drive this? There is no snow, rain, children chasing balls.

<comment><USER63> Who do you think docks their uncrewed dragon capsule? They definitely have automated docking. This is for emergency manual override.

<comment><USER64> As far as I know it flies autonomously to within a certain range, then gets piloted by crew members on the ISS until it's close enough to be grabbed by the Canadarm for berthing to the station.

<comment><USER26> It's been a year since they successfully automated docking [https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/3/18244501/spacex-crew- drago...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/3/18244501/spacex-crew-dragon- automatic-docking-international-space-station-nasa)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> lol, if you go into settings you can change the Earth: setting to be "Flat"

Not sure what that says, but it says something.

</comment><comment><USER66> great to see an accurate simulation that takes into account very slight differences in orbital trajectory

</comment><comment><USER19> Is this the way it is done in real life? Wouldn't it be better to let a computer handle this?

<comment><USER67> I was thinking that the ends of the masts would be excellent places for a machine vision high-contrast target, and maybe also the bottom of the cupola for full 6 axis machine correction. I doubt we'll be taking a human out of the loop anytime soon, though.

<comment><USER68> It's a really simple task (so humans getting it wrong isn't a major concern), the crew needs to be on board, trained, and equipped with manual controls anyways (for contingencies), so... why spend effort automating it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Fix the angles first, then move in parallel to the target. It's quite easy.

</comment><comment><USER70> Would be useful it seems to have a flight path marker on the display.

</comment><comment><USER71> The loading animation reminds me of the warping effect in EVE Online.

</comment><comment><USER72> Super cool. Good thing they don't let me fly spaceships though!

</comment><comment><USER73> While it was mildly infuriating that there were 2 zeroes -- +0.00 and -0.00 -- in the game, admittedly, I also enjoyed having that as an extra transitioning step to stay within the acceptable docking range

</comment><comment><USER74> They should train an AI to do that.

</comment><comment><USER75> Awesome simulator!

</comment><comment><USER75> wow,owesome!

</comment><comment><USER76> So Elon Musk can't afford the time to buy a house, but his company can spend the time to make this simulator for kicks.

OK

<comment><USER38> Musk is concerned about coronavirus and social distancing so doesn't want to endanger people by going house hunting.

<comment><USER77> This the same guy sueing the state of California (with threats of leaving for a more pliable state regime) to get his minions back to the grind in opposition of health recommendations for physical isolation? He cares so much he wants them to beat the virus... on their own... tomorrow.</comment></comment></comment>


I'm working on ways to better convey the global structure of programs (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://akkartik.name/about

<comment><USER2> This seems very vague. How would this be implemented?

Programming is definitely a specialized skill set but it is easily learned given time. Anything worthwhile takes time and effort. Technology can make it better but there is no substitute for skill and knowledge.

"a virtuous cycle where using a dependency gradually causes one to learn its internals". This is pretty much how it works when any programmer starts using a new code base. Isn't this also how learning any new skill happens? Why not just learn to program? It is increasingly becoming as important as the ability to read.

It takes a lot less time to learn to program than it takes a child to learn to speak his/her first language.

<comment><USER3> Author here. I know how to program, I've been doing it a long time. And yet learning a new codebase feels like learning a new language. And it doesn't help much in understanding the next new codebase. Maybe that's just how things have to be. I'd like to see if a better way is possible, if it's possible to learn faster by starting not with code but with scenarios that look like log files. "Welcome, newcomer. This is a text editor. Here's an edited sequence of events that happen when a key is pressed. Click on any line to locate it in the codebase, and to find some other scenarios that print it." Something like that, but easy enough for authors that such scenarios are actually created and kept updated. I have more details in a couple of the posts linked at the end: a) [http://akkartik.name/post/wart-layers](http://akkartik.name/post/wart- layers), and b) [http://akkartik.name/post/tracing- tests](http://akkartik.name/post/tracing-tests). But yes, the article is a year old, and I hope to have something more concrete soon.

<comment><USER2> You're hinting at traceability. This might give you some ideas. [http://worrydream.com/#!2/LadderOfAbstraction](http://worrydream.com/#!2/LadderOfAbstraction)

Definitely watch his videos and read his other posts. I think it will be of interest to you.

I've had similar ideas but my philosophy is that we should store code as an annotated AST and that we should provide users with different editing techniques for each different programming task. If you think about how physical objects or buildings are constructed, they have multiple views (top down, wireframe, rendered, walk-thru, electrical, plumbing, etc) and can be manipulated at different levels. However with programming, it is pretty much 1 level (source code in raw text).

<comment><USER3> Yes, I'm very influenced by Bret Victor: [http://akkartik.name/search_results?q=%22%26mdash%3B+bret+vi...](http://akkartik.name/search_results?q=%22%26mdash%3B+bret+victor%22)

Yes, your goal is worthy as well. I'm interested to hear more about it, but maybe we should take it offline. My email is in my profile; feel free to get in touch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Also, have you seen:

[http://www.jetbrains.com/mps/](http://www.jetbrains.com/mps/)

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

[http://camlunity.ru/swap/Library/Computer%20Science/Fundamen...](http://camlunity.ru/swap/Library/Computer%20Science/Fundamental%20Innovations/The%20Death%20of%20Computer%20Languages.%20The%20Birth%20of%20Intentional%20Programming.pdf)

<comment><USER3> I wasn't aware of MPS (thanks for the link), but I've spent some time thinking about DSLs. My previous project was about a DSL-friendly language: [http://akkartik.name/post/wart](http://akkartik.name/post/wart). But I've since moved on to the view that you can't fix programming with just a new language.

I've read everything I could find about Simonyi's work, but it's hard to get a good feel for it without playing with an actual system. I worry that it will be good when it launches, but gradually degrade over time because there's just too much code and people gradually don't understand it.

We have fifty years of experience building good interfaces. But the implementations behind the interfaces have a way of gradually rotting as people leave and new implementors take their place. I'm focusing on the complementary problem of transmitting implementation knowledge more efficiently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Author here. Maybe _now_ people will tell me why this whole thing is ill- founded, and I can go work on something else :)

<comment><USER4> This is an excellent idea - you should spend at least one lifetime on it.</comment></comment>


Samsung Galaxy 7.. Grenade? - <AUTHOR> https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/hBVwX3VXIFTOp42vNNJNo7WsPW2QFS845qw_UEPNL9WUe-0qvSFQiFsGMXgIxiP9YJz-wImt1A=w1920-h1080-rw-no <comment><USER2> Can't see anything on an iPhone, I've got no idea what this is.</comment>


Filthy PCs - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/01/ventblockers_3/

<comment><USER2> A frog, how the hell...

<comment><USER3> Haha exactly my thought!</comment></comment>


Data from Wuhan shows release of sulphur dioxide gas - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/inteldotwav/status/1226267582740811777?s=20 <comment><USER2> The facts are a bit unsettling as it is.

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&obj...](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12304547)

</comment></comment><comment> 88840-8855 Beware of conspiracy theories. Stay with facts.</comment>


Computer login with password only, without username - <AUTHOR> http://ux.stackexchange.com/q/32953/7235

<comment><USER2> A solution no one suggested is using a fingerprint scanner to login as they usually test against all possible local users, and are extremely convenient to use. Face scanners have similar properties.

There are certainly issues with them, and like all things security there are some tradeoffs to be made. Since the users are local, things are inherently less secure anyway (password entry can be observed, hardware keyloggers can be easily hidden, chances are you can boot a live CD and inject any software you want).

As an example my Lenovo laptop has fingerprint recognition and Android devices have face recognition.

<comment><USER3> My understanding is you still need a username with fingerprints etc. Well at least in a corporate environment. So they don't change the original question

What if the fingerprint algorithm overlaps two people. You suddenly can access someone else account without trying. IE fingerprints burnt off/similarly damaged through chemo.

Also an fingerprint attack without username simultaneously attacks all users at once.

Not saying with the right tech a fingerprint might be good enough without a username, but my understanding is it's not done and whether it can be is a similar question to the original question.

<comment><USER2> > My understanding is you still need a username with fingerprints etc.

The fingerprint software (Lenovo's at least) scans all enrolled accounts. You do not select your user account - you just scan an enrolled finger and it figures out the correct user.

> Well at least in a corporate environment.

The original question wasn't asking about thousands of users but rather a small location (eg small office or a home). That said Lenovo's fingerprint software does support "enterprise" use where the signatures can be centrally stored and redistributed to relevant machines. Note that I would never use or advocate that.

> What if the fingerprint algorithm overlaps two people. You suddenly can > access someone else account without trying.

Fingerprints are unique! The scanners are high resolution. Your fingerprints are always going to match your stored ones with the highest confidence.

> fingerprints burnt off/similarly damaged through chemo

You enroll multiple fingers. And yes someone with them completely damaged would have to revert to typing their password.

> Also an fingerprint attack without username simultaneously attacks all users > at once.

You forgot the initial constraints. This is a local office/home where users have local access. Doing an attack via fingerprint is the hardest way of doing a compromise. As I pointed out you could just observe someone typing their password (directly or via a camera in the same room), you could plug a hardware keylogger in and no one is likely to see it, you could boot into a livecd and install attack software of your choice, and the list goes on. Heck you could probably just ask any of your family/coworkers for their passwords and they'd likely tell you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't take UX advice from security professionals, and don't take security advice from UX professionals.

<comment><USER5> Could you explain what is wrong in the Stack Exchange answer ?

<comment><USER4> Sure. Lets ignore that this was for a 2-10 person device as asked in the question, as I think most of the answerers also ignored this.

Suppose your credentials are USERNAME and PASSWORD. What is the security difference between this, and having a single credential, which is USERNAMEPASSWORD? If USERNAME is known, none. (There are of course UX things, like sending password reminders, but interestingly enough, the answers were nearly all about security, not UX).

<comment><USER3> I'd agree. None of the answer seem close to correct.

It is an interesting idea.

I had a small site without compulsory passwords just email address.

Idea being you'd suck more users in this way (Data was not a real security issue) And emails are unique. Let the user add a password if they want.

It never got popular, so no idea how it would go. Griefing might be an issue.

But back to the point, it's a risk management issue. What's the return on no passwords and what's the risk.

Flatmates can rob my room if they are evil. So I don't consider a small security issues on password overlaps a problem.

Really Microsoft considers a computer compromised once the attacker has physical access anyway.

I do however want a small barrier to them reading my emails etc. (Something about temptation)

Perhaps there's issues with teaching bad habits (UX), perhaps it'd confuse users(UX). Perhaps like all projects it goes from 2-10 users to hundreds. This is more what should be discussed.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Celebrities and CEOs charged in exam cheating scheme - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47543036 <comment><AUTHOR> Initially my reaction was "is this really a crime as opposed to a unethical act" then i read ...

The head women's football coach at Yale University was allegedly paid $400,000 to accept a student who did not even play the sport - and those parents gave Mr Singer $1.2m for arranging the bribe</comment>


Flash is dead. If you can't deal with this sort of change...there's the door - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/109732816282804649211/posts/gXupw7Z1ssF

<comment><USER2> While I do agree that you need to be flexible with your knowledge of tools, I do have an issue.

People act as if flash is being abandoned. Its not. Mobile Flash is. Several new smart-phones and tablets nowadays use browsers with REAL FLASH on it, so there is no need to continue development on mobile flash. That's all that happened. No big win for anyone. Adobe has been focusing on html5, as have the rest of the web, and imho, Adobe has some great tools to author content in html5 already.

<comment><USER3> But don't you get the feeling this is the beginning of the end?

Obviously Adobe aren't going to abandon desktop or 'real' Flash without a viable alternative Adobe offer. After all plenty of industries are still highly dependent on Flash. Especially mine (online advertising). But my feeling is Adobe are developing a Flash author that outputs js/canvas seamlessly alongside a swf. Once we're all comfortable with that idea, _then_ they abandon 'real' Flash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The thing that strikes me about all this "flash is dead" talk is that HTML 5 really isn't a sufficient replacement for Flash. It's not even close. I suspect people who say this haven't used either technology seriously, because I can do things in flash that are an order of a magnitude more performant -- and flash isn't even that good. (For the record, I greatly dislike most of flash. It's pretty much shocking that they've just now gotten around to supporting hardware graphics acceleration in a half decent manner.)

HTML 5 is a nice small step; but that's all it is, a SMALL step. If you want to kill flash (which you should), we need something better than this.

<comment><USER5> Flash performance varies significantly by platform. It is miserable on all mobile devices and banned on the tablet market leader's devices.

Given the fact that mobile is gropwing so fast and is pretty clearly a huge part of computing in the future, it's ridiculous to suggest Flash seriously out performs HTML5 in this most important area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seems odd that universities would have a class on flash at all.

<comment><USER7> It's all over the art departments I've seen.

Flash is ubiquitous in animation-focused tracks. While lower-level tools are necessary for studio-quality productions, I still don't know anything that even comes close to flash for prototypes and low to mid-level animation work.

What does your university use?

<comment><USER8> If Flash dies, what will people use to prototype? It's used in UX testing everywhere I've looked. It's invaluable for quickly creating animated interactive prototypes. Flash is not just obnoxious websites and banner ads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is an embarrassing low point for Hacker News. Trolling, exaggerated headline on the front page. It takes almost no effort to make a reasonable counterargument, so I sense that's not the point of the submission.

</comment><comment><USER10> Hopefully Tom will let me know when the H264 version of YouTube has the same features, speed and usability as the one that uses a flash player.

<comment><USER11> First, you're confusing technologies. H.264 is a video codec that YouTube uses for all its video. The HTML5 and Flash players and any custom players (Android or iOS's app, for example) use it.

The HTML5 player is just as usable, if not more so, as the Flash player. Go give it a try again: <http://www.youtube.com/html5> You might not even notice the difference.

<comment><USER12> To add to the pedantry: H.264 is a video _format_ , a bitstream specification, not a codec. A codec is a compressor/decompressor for said format, so in this case that's x264/ffmpeg.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Grrrrr i personally hate this darwinistic way of dealing with people 'if you cant door deal with it, then get out'... this is not like trying to get into the NFL, he should have taken a nicer approach, in fact as a teachet he should have been able to predict this well in advance and shown his students how to transition to other technologies

<comment><USER14> No, it's like trying to get into a job, where if you don't have a given set of technology acronyms, your resume is shown the round file.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What do you think would be its implications on Flash Support for Desktop Browsers? Will Adobe discontinue its support when some other biggie comes and claims that HTML5 is the way to go for desktop browsers as well?!

<comment><AUTHOR> Not in the near future. There are no plans to discontinue Desktop dev. More has been written about that by Mike Chambers here.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3226087>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Then why does google keep putting flash cookies ("SharedObjects") on my disk?

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you read the article? It's not really about Flash, but the need for people to adapt to an ever changing programming landscape.

Obviously, Flash isn't actually dead.</comment></comment>


Byuu (Author of SNES Emulator Higan) Deleted All His Articles - <AUTHOR> https://byuu.org/ <comment><USER2> Sad. I always enjoyed his writing.</comment>


Microcosm: An Evolution of Flux - <AUTHOR> http://code.viget.com/microcosm/ <comment><USER2> Been using versions of this for more than a year on two pretty large scale React apps, and it's been a delight. The features that have come out in the last few months have been especially nice. Presenters + withIntent keeps my components and logic nicely decoupled and the recent addition of Effects has been useful as well. RECOMMEND.</comment>


Apple releases new Keyboard Service Program - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-notebooks/ <comment><USER2> Their announcement is fake. My MacBook still workable but the keys have issues. They checked everything of my MacBook and tell me to fix other parts together (USD 4xx). They can't just fix a single key.

</comment><comment><USER3> > MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2019)

They're announcing a part replacement program for a laptop which has been just released? Rather than actually fixing the issue?</comment>


OK Go Makes Lib Dubs Back - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1ZB_rGFyeU&feature=youtu.be

<comment><USER2> Some people are speculating the ending sequence ( _spoilers_ basically a large grid of 'umbrella pixels') was done digitally, using some part of the drone's ascent to switch to CGI-umbrella-mode... but I'm wondering, if it was filmed live, what kind of coordination would they be using?

I would imagine they could run some wire out to a bunch of little LEDs (one at each position), and have the LED's light from a simple Raspberry Pi + Arduino setup (then it's just a matter of the umbrella people running to their mark, then opening and closing with the LED).

Any other ideas? Pretty good video.

It looks like the seat bot they used may have been the Asimo U3-X Personal Mobility[1] robot.

[1] [http://asimo.honda.com/innovations/u3-x-personal- mobility/](http://asimo.honda.com/innovations/u3-x-personal-mobility/)</comment>


Common food additive found to affect gut microbiota - <AUTHOR> https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2019.00057/full <comment><USER2> When they say common, my initial research shows that titanium dioxide is present in the most commonly used IBS medication;

Alosetron (Lotronex) Eluxadoline (Viberzi) Rifaximin (Xifaxan) Lubiprostone (Amitiza) Linaclotide (Linzess)

Going further, it's probably in almost every medication, it's an optical whitener, so it makes things look whiter by reflecting more light, it serves no functional purpose beyond aesthetics, white pills are more acceptable than grey or beige. This strikes me as extremely silly, surely people with serious health conditions can appreciate that medication may not be an appealing colour, if it works so well, why does it need to be sold so hard...

</comment><comment><USER3> Some context

>While TiO2 _had minimal impact_ on the composition of the microbiota in the small intestine and colon, we found that TiO2 treatment could alter the release of bacterial metabolites _in vivo_ and affect the spatial distribution of commensal bacteria in vitro by promoting biofilm formation</comment>


Methane Matters - <AUTHOR> http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/MethaneMatters/ <comment><AUTHOR> The article says you need low flying planes to spot individual leaks - <USER2> doesn't seem true anymore - this can now be done by satellites.

[http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6535](http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6535)</comment>


Obama Is Hiring a Twitterer - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/02/12/obama-is-hiring-a-twitterer/ <comment><USER2> While arguments can be made that Twitter, Facebook et al encourages only superficial coverage of weighty governmental concerns... hey, at least it acts like a gateway.

Seriously - what do you notice first? A line on your facebook feed, an alert from your Tweetdeck account, or a thousand-word column on the NYT or White House blogpost exhaustively covering every detail? I would hesitate to say this is in absolutes, but I do feel that the two former two forms of media are /more/ likely to drag an audience to the latter two - it'd exist outside of their range of concerns otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sadly, I don't think it will help.

Obama came into office with promise that he was going to change how things operated, not put simply forward the same old programs (of whatever political stripe). I think that promise is deader than any other. Washington itself could easily be to blame but I think it's clear that government at the speed and _transparency_ of twitter is not going to show up very soon. Predictable - perhaps. Sad - certainly.

<comment><USER4> > Sadly, I don't think it will help.

What could it help?

Twitter is a communications medium. Which of Obama's problems are due to communications?

<comment><USER5> None, which leads me to say what the hell is the point?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Your tax dollars at work.

I would be for this expenditure if it were likely to involve real communication. Instead, your money will be spent to pander to the proletariat and to oversimplify issues that align with Obama getting re-elected.

<comment><USER7> > Your tax dollars at work.

From the article: ' __The Democratic National Committee __'s "social networks manager" job description says the position entails maintaining the President's accounts on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.'

It's a position paid for by the DNC, not the US Government.

<comment><USER8> You and your facts have no place here. hush!</comment></comment></comment>


Inside the Kowloon Walled City (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2139914/A-rare-insight-Kowloon-Walled-City.html

<comment><USER2> I lived 10 minutes walk from there, in 1996 or so. It's now a park that's around 5 minute walk wide. I could never have imagined 50,000 people fitting in that park!

"A thorough government survey in 1987 gave a clearer picture: an estimated 33,000 people resided within the Walled City.[8] Based on this survey, the Walled City had a population density of approximately 1,255,000 inhabitants per square kilometre (3,250,000 /sq mi) in 1987. For comparison, Hong Kong as a whole (itself one of the most densely populated areas on Earth) had a population density of about 6,700 inhabitants per square kilometre (17,000 /sq mi) as of July 2009.[26]" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City)</comment>


Mac OS X system preference replica using HTML5 and WebKit (view with dev Chrome) - <AUTHOR> http://aupajo.github.com/webkit-fu/mouse-dialog/ It took roughly 1-2 hours to put together, and takes advantage of WebKit-specific CSS gradients, transforms, box-shadows, etc. Not a single image is used. The video is, of course, done with the HTML5 video element.
Comparison screenshot at http://imgur.com/6Kt6L.png
Code is freely available on GitHub (http://github.com/aupajo/webkit-fu).
Put it together for a weekend BarCamp (http://barcamp.org/BarCamp-Christchurch-2010). <comment><AUTHOR> It took roughly 1-2 hours to put together, and takes advantage of WebKit- specific CSS gradients, transforms, box-shadows, etc. Not a single image is used. The video is, of course, done with the HTML5 video element.

Comparison screenshot at <http://imgur.com/6Kt6L.png>

Code is freely available on GitHub (<http://github.com/aupajo/webkit-fu>).

Put it together for a weekend BarCamp (<http://barcamp.org/BarCamp- Christchurch-2010>).</comment>


I'm too lazy to be a HTML developer - <AUTHOR> http://polygeek.com/4912_life-of-polygeek_im-too-lazy-to-be-a-html-developer

<comment><USER2> Stop conflating your non-understanding of something with inherent difficulty. You might find the code

      (defmacro unless (cond &body res)
        `(if (not ,cond) ,@rest))

rather opaque; but it's actually pretty darn simple. You might find

      body {
        width: 800px;
        position: relative;
        left: 50%;
        margin-left: -400px;
      }

impossible to pull out of one's ass; it's not, you're just unused to negative margins. To you, TeX macros or M4 or continuations or macros or dynamic typing or static typing or dependant typing or manual memory management or garbage collection or _all sorts of things_ might look complex. But surprisingly, there's a whole industry of people who don't.

You're not too lazy to _be_ an HTML developer. You're too lazy to _become_ an HTML developer. But that, after all, is just you being lazy.

<comment><USER3> You've also got to make a distinction between necessary and accidental complexity. That example would be better written as:

        body {
            width: 800px;
            margin: auto;
        }

(This also has the benefit that the left hand side of the body does not disappear off the side of the screen in small browser windows.)

There's a similar problem with the css in the article he links to - it is more complicated than it needs to be, which just confuses the subject. Anything is hard to learn if it is taught badly.

<comment><USER4> Negative margin as used in pavpanchekha's example centers the box also in browsers that do not support margin:auto. It's not complex if you know why it's done that way.

<comment><USER3> The latest browser which doesn't support margin:auto is IE5.5, and even there the text-align:center hack is a better option. There are cases where you might want to use negative margins, but for horizontally centering block level elements, it is at best outdated.

<comment><USER4> Unless you use a strict doctype. [http://stever.ca/web-design/centering-a-div- in-ie8-using-mar...](http://stever.ca/web-design/centering-a-div-in-ie8-using- marginauto/) I don't think text-align: center on the parent box is significantly different in principle: confusing until you know why it's being done that why and roughly how it works.

Personally I like negative margin better than text-align: center since the style is only applied to the box being centered rather than the parent box and the box itself, but surely this is a matter of preference or the design of the particular page in question.

<comment><USER3> Yea, that IE8 bug is unfortunate.

Here's an example of text-align: center and margin: auto side-by-side: <http://jsfiddle.net/wH5Pd/>

Try making the window narrower so that the html pane in the bottom right gets horizontal scroll bars. (In the real world, there might be a two column layout, such that the textual content fits in the narrow window, but the full width of the content doesn't.)

Even when the window is narrow, all of the content in the top div can be accessed by scrolling horizontally. In bottom div, the left hand side of the content gets clipped because it is positioned to the left of the window, and scroll bars don't extend into negative offsets. If you're positioning an adornment which doesn't actually need to be visible, the negative margin trick might be OK. But for normal body content, margin: auto is the way to go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For me, web development seems like the exact opposite of desktop development.

In desktop development, you learn the underlying foundations first (the programming language, files, networking, graphics, GUIs, etc), then weave them together to build your application. It's slow, but worth it -- often the concepts are universal. How many times do you have to re-learn file IO?

In web development, it's really easy to build the finished application quickly but not understand any of the foundations. Look at how many "rapid development" frameworks there are out there; most of then are fast to install, and the result is usually awesome. And plugins! There are plugins for everything, and they work so well! But the foundations are intimidating -- especially because there are so many layers of abstraction piled on top of each other. Where would you start? The browser DOM? How JavaScript is interpreted? How your database implements transactions? The more web development I do, the more I realize how freakin' _tall_ the stack is...and how little I really know about it. Kind of scary.

<comment><USER6> > How many times do you have to re-learn file IO?

Dunno. Bytes IO or text IO? evented IO? Lazy IO? Monadic IO? Which platform are you on? Will there be concurrent access? Is your file always a file or is it also a socket?

Yeah, you re-learn file IO quite a bit I'd say. And that's without talking about APIs going from straightforward (and broken) to completely baroque (and still broken).

Oh sure, sometimes

> it's really to [read a file] quickly and but not understand any of the > foundations.

isn't it?

<comment><USER7> I don't know from Monadic I/O, but at least a couple of those might appear to the untrained eye to be application I/O rather than actual file I/O, which I would guess has been pretty uniformly oriented around the open(3) idiom by now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I may be wrong, but I'm assuming that the author is using "HTML code" to mean HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

As for HTML and CSS, I agree that they're difficult to debug and that it takes a lot of experimentation to become comfortable with. Developer tools like Firebug and those included with Chrome can take a bit of the mystery out of HTML and CSS.

Since breakpoints don't exactly make sense to apply to markup and style sheet languages, I'll assume the author was complaining about the lack of breakpoints in JavaScript. In fact, you _can_ use breakpoints in Firebug.

When the author talks about the apparent complexity of various languages and platforms, he should know that this is entirely subjective. I've been goofing around with HTML/CSS/JS since I was very young, so by this point most lightbox tutorials and similar articles look fairly simple to me. Step 2 in the tutorial he mentions looks quite simple to me. The only things that I suspect would be confusing to a newcomer would be the weird vendor prefixes.

</comment><comment><USER9> Actually, this criticism is true when you use HTML for what it was not intended to do : Make pretty renderings. The core functionality of HTML is to provide hyperlinked data. It does that concisely and efficiently. CSS and DIVs are a mere kludge added on top of a language that is supposed to transmit mainly semantical data.

I really wish xhtml would have won in place of HTML/CSS. This kind of things would have been far more easy

<comment><USER10> Same here. I think the return to "do whatever you want and we try to interpret it correctly" was wrong. Code in XHTML is way more readable, maintainable and easier to learn (IMO).

I still write my HTML5 in correct XHTML Syntax.

<comment><USER11> I freaked out a little when I started seeing do-whatever-you-want creep back in when I first read diveintohtml5.org (mirrored: <http://diveintohtml5.info/>).

Sure, you save some (or a great deal many) characters, but at the cost of making everything that needs to work with it more complex. (Browsers are a large slice of this pie, but by no means is the only slice.)

I'm going to sit back and wait for the cycle to come back around to XHTML-like correctness again.

<comment><USER12> "I'm going to sit back and wait for the cycle to come back around to XHTML- like correctness again."

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I panicked about 2 years ago, thought the web was the only future. Quit my job and became a web programmer. Lasted 9 months, absolutely hated it. Dealing with multiple browsers, guess and check methodology drove me nuts. I lasted 9 months and quit before I was fired.

I'm back to doing firmware and control software now. Much happier. It's all about what you know and how it fits your style of working.

</comment><comment><USER14> I felt too lazy to be a Flex programmer. After years in HTML-land, MXML programming felt like an absolute kludge and Adobe's flex tools were slower than molasses. I was miserable enough doing it that I rejected multiple flex jobs that came my way.

<comment><USER15> When adobe eventally pause to ponder the Doom hanging over the flash ecosystem, they will realize that it was Flex that killed it.

<comment><USER16> Curious, what makes you say that?

<comment><USER15> It created too many divergent paths for developers to follow. One of the great strengths of the flash runtime was how much easier it was to write something that would run in any browser, all with one clear API and one set of ui components that were easily extensible. Flex introduced far too many component sets and encouraged the creation of overwrought java-like frameworks. Eventually even js started looking better in comparison. The only reason they even did that was because they got greedy. They had a decent enough IDE with the flash authoring tool (although it needed additional support and features for pure actionscript developers), but they decided to throw their weight behind flex instead. Of course, flex was totally unusable for designers, and mxml was a godawful pile of shit, so they created catalyst to allow collaboration between designers and devs. Now you've got three different tools all targeting the same runtime, and they all suck. So now if you're just getting into programming for the flash runtime, you have to sort through all kinds of garbage to find what you're looking for, pretty much the same (if not worse) as scrounging around for js tutorials/documentation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> He bemoans the lack of debuggers and breakpoints, but there could be no such thing beyond the "Is this format valid?" stuff.

HTML is a hint as to the presentation, and every client that reads the hints will largely present it the same way. But some may not... older clients, newer clients, clients for accessibility (Jaws Reader).

Accept it, be at peace with your lack of absolute control and put only the markup you need to hint at the layout you need, and then use only the CSS you need to hint at the positions of things relative to each other, and sizes relative to each other.

Once you realise you don't know anything about the screens, resolution, connection speed... or even if there _is_ a screen, it's a lot easier to use HTML quite elegantly.

</comment><comment><USER18> Anything you don't know is hard. Four months ago I switched from web development to native iOS work and I couldn't stop complaining how much harder it is - "Who on their right mind thought that creating and managing UI elements in code is a good idea". Fast forward to present day I still find creating UIs in HTML to be faster but the gap is not that big anymore and I really don't care one way or the other.

<comment><USER19> Are you not using Interface Builder for iOS? You should.

<comment><USER18> It can only take you so far... You have to generate the UI for highly dynamic parts. Intervene to resize and reposition things when actual content is inserted. Set custom fonts manually (IB is broken). Surprisingly, text is pretty much hell unless you are willing to settle for whatever UILabel thinks the line-height and paragraph spacing should be. I'm not going to go into text with mixed fonts, colors, variants, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> CSS is a declarative language, not an imperative language, so there is no _concept_ of a breakpoint in CSS, because there is no concept of one thing occurring before another. There is a chain of inheritance of course, but Firebug will show you that.

A web browser + Firebug/Web Inspector is effectively a giant REPL, what more could you want?

<comment><USER21> The order of evaluation matters. If the browser finds 2 declarations that are in conflict, then only the last one is taken into account. And that's not inheritance.

<comment><USER22> There is more to it than just that. For example you can have a class and an id for a div. The id attributes will overwrite the class ones. And some other fun rules too!

<comment><USER20> That's inheritance.

<comment><USER23> No, that's specificity (an entirely different beast, and one that can be considerably harder to work with). Inheritance would be styles for a P tag applying to a child I tag.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is so true - for the past 5 years I've been working on web apps, but this year most of my time was spent working on a java server / client with the client being a web start applet.

It has been so pleasurable to not have to worry about HTML / JS - if I want a dialog box, I can have one very simply with no messing about.

</comment><comment><USER25> HTML is so simple it's retarded, you just have tags and attributes.

CSS is making it interesting & I can understand you find javascript not easy, but HTML, really?

No offence, my little sister also doesn't understand HTML, but then again, I don't see a blog post written by my little sister on HN.

<comment><USER26> The idea of an XML document is pretty goddamn easy. The basic tags of HTML are a breeze.

The way html, css and js interact with eachother are a fucking kludge. The only way it makes any sense is with the understanding that css and js are tacked-on technologies that have influenced the evolution of all of them for a while now.

If we were to recreate the language(s) of the web from scratch at square one now, knowing what we know now about what we want from it, but without our minds being influenced by the tech structures that we do have, it would be a completely different beast.

We're still stuffing applications into a document format, when I build for the web I feel the pain of design decisions meant to conform with the realities of what came before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Were you just reading the tutorial in one go, or were you working through it at the same time?

When I was ten I thought HTML was too complicated because I tried to read a tutorial in one go, then make a website. Turns out you can't do that.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm really surprised to read this article. For all the frameworks out there, I would think the barriers to learning HTML couldn't be any lower right now.

I actually had a conversation with our team at my company about this very problem. The idea was there are SO many frameworks, it already has become a crutch for developers. It takes the thinking out of coding for you. Then what happens when you need to build something from scratch? You'll be totally lost.

IMHO, This person is on another level of lazy.

</comment><comment><USER29> From the article: "Flex/Air seem pretty solid [work venues] for the next three or four years at least."

Not a good plan; then again, not a good general attitude from a technologist.

<comment><USER30> Why is using a solid platform not a good plan?

<comment><USER31> It may be technically solid but still a bad bet. Flex/Air are essentially deadend platforms as Adobe jumps on the HTML5 bandwagon with its toolset. If he puts his effort into developing his Flex/Air skills, he's targeting a shrinking install base and future market for jobs. If he puts it into HTML/JS/CSS instead, he's targeting a large and growing install base, for mobile, browser and Win8 desktop apps.

<comment><USER30> I think a platform that makes developers struggle with implementation details and browser quirks is a dead end, no matter what Adobe does.

In my experience, there's a low signal to noise ratio when learning HTML/JS/CSS. A lot of it is learning hacks, as opposed to getting a general sense of how computers work. Flash/AIR are very good in this regard. If Flash disappears tomorrow, I don't think his skills would go to waste.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I honestly find it easier to build UI elements from the ground up over using plug-ins, because like with any other code if you are the one who developed it you _understand it_.

I too have been turned off by lightbox and slider plugins for jQuery, and find it easier to just come up with that kind of thing myself rather than jump into someone else's codebase.

<comment><USER26> >because like with any other code if you are the one who developed it you understand it

You're suffering classic NIH syndrome. Take ownership of the library you use, jump in and get an understanding of whats going on there.

It will be quicker than re-inventing the wheel, and getting up to speed with an existing codebase is a skill that you'll need at some point.

<comment><USER32> Maybe, I mean I still use jQuery and any else that's relevant but a lightbox is such an aesthetic, simple thing that I wouldn't consider it NIH to prefer creating one that suits a website more (if the website's design is a big focus)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Every once in a while, another developer has that revelation: [http://berislav.lopac.net/post/4726275775/of-course-web- deve...](http://berislav.lopac.net/post/4726275775/of-course-web-development- is-broken)

</comment><comment><USER34> > _'can you set break points in your code and do object introspection?'_

Not sure about object introspection, but setting break points is pretty straight forward using _console.trace()_

</comment><comment><USER35> I think people are getting a little confused. He's not saying that web developers are geniuses for understand HTML, because they aren't, he's saying that using HTML/CSS to create the type of dynamic sites we are now used to, is stupid. And he's right.

Web development feels like black magic with the amount of hacking and kludging involved, after developing native apps. And not in a good way. And not because i lack understanding or anything.

</comment><comment><USER36> off topic: Which is correct grammar -- "an HTML" or "a HTML" ?

This question has always bugged me.

<comment><USER14> "an" -- the sound of the H is the key. It sounds like ay-ch.

<comment><USER37> Silly American, 'H' is pronounced hu-ay-ch not ay-ch.

In all seriousness how it is pronounced can and does change depending upon where you come from.

<comment><USER38> Where are you from Dobbs? In Britain, 'H' should be pronounced ay-ch, but the vast majority of people get it wrong.

<comment><USER37> I have no idea where I get it from I'm half American, half British.

Looking it up on Wikipedia says that the standard is ay-ch while the non- standard is haitch (which is a better way of spelling what I meant).

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H#Name_in_English>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Stack adeptness = time + number of solved edge cases on said stack. Difficulty with a stack has an inverse relationship to adeptness.

</comment><comment><USER40> Don't sugarcoat your failures to 'lazy'. You do yourself no favours.

</comment><comment><USER41> Did it bother anyone else that he didn't use 'an' in the title?

</comment><comment><USER42> "HTML developer" is an oxymoron

</comment><comment><USER43> That's funny. I used to do backend stuff in C# but about 1.5 years ago switched to front-end development. To me it's _so much_ nicer. I really enjoy using JavaScript, even after C# got all that handy functional/dynamic stuff added to it.

Anyway, maybe it's just a shitty tutorial, there are a lot of those out there. Doesn't necessarily say anything about HTML.

Regarding the specific point about breakpoints -- yes, you can set them. That's really not an issue at all. Come on, it's almost 2012.

</comment><comment><USER44> Flash and Flex seem safe for 4 years? Are we putting money on this, eh?

<comment><USER45> Hahaha. I love this attitude. I have heard it for the better part of a decade and I keep charging a premium for flash work because there are not enough quality people that know it.

I know HTML and a bunch of server languages as well so I'm covered if something would happen. I'm not going to say that flash is here forever but it will take a lot longer to disappear than you probably think, especially with the new 3d stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> it also means that "I'm too lazy to figure out that there is no such html developer".

html is all about a few xml tags. everybody can do it. I know some music bands, authors and politicians who code website learning basic html.

and I see some developers who ignores coding html because they think they're too smart to code a simple website. no comment.

<comment><USER47> Can we get over this? This "LOL He's calling himself an HTML _DEVELOPER_ of all things!" mentality isn't helping anyone. You don't see spiders belittling us for calling ourselves "web developers," do you? You especially can't do this now that WHATWG and W3C have started to confuse and redefine what HTML/HTML5 is and the technologies behind it.

So, let's breathe a little, and accept that if professionals can get called shrinks, we can accept that people have different vernacular for what we do. Hell, we _don't_ have a single unifying title either. So, unless your proposing to call me by my professional title of "Interwebz Spin Doctor", take a second to realize that "html developer" isn't that bad.

There is HTML, and he is developing it.

<comment><USER46> I really cant believe that we're discussing this, the most stupid, simple language in the world!

I respect HTML coders and am aware of that they do fantastic job on frontend.

But nobody has to be talented HTML developer to build websites. It's stupid easy to do it. I'm a guy who never learnt HTML and am considered as a coder good at developing good websites.

Nevermind. I don't like this kind of pointless discussions. I don't like HN anymore.

<comment><USER47> > I really cant believe that we're discussing this

You can't? You're the one that brought it up and whine about it.

> Nevermind. I don't like this kind of pointless discussions. I don't like HN > anymore.

You realize you bring this discussion here, right? If you don't want to see it discussed here, don't bring it here.

If you see others bring it here, tell them to stop (as I did to you).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A FB ad targeted at one person (my wife) - <AUTHOR> http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/05/a-fb-ad-targeted-at-one-person-my-wife.html

<comment><USER2> I guess I'm just a cynic but my take away from this was "regular users of Facebook get so good at ignoring ads that you can literally put pictures of their own children in an ad and they'll still take forever to notice"

<comment><USER3> One issue with this may be that for awhile FB let you use create ads that would pull from a user's and their friends' profile pictures. This led to some pretty amusing ads for dating services with people's signifcant other being protrayed as looking for love. Not sure if FB still lets advertisers do this, but it may signifcantly contribute to ad blindess for ads like this.

<comment><USER4> hmm... so if you were a divorce lawyer you could run a "looking for love" ad using a picture of a loved one and a "need a divorce?" ad right underneath it.

Evil, but possibly effective.

<comment><USER5> Mega creepy ads may work for selling certain products and services, but nobody wants to trust a creepy lawyer

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I read that as "FBI" and thought it was pretty creepy.

Even having read it as "FB" it's still pretty creepy.

<comment><USER7> Or even FSB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A college buddy of mine recently started a wedding photography business. He has had great success with FB ads. Word of mouth and referrals are starting to ramp up but FB was where he got his first 10-15 contracts (it helps when you can target "Women who are Engaged in Metro area"). The only thing that drives him nuts is that he hasn't figured out a way to not advertise on apps.facebook.com (games) because the bounce rate is obviously insane.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is really easy. I did the same thing a few months ago, and made the ad picture something I knew my wife would recognize. I made a landing page where I set a chartbeat alert for even a single visit. Then I made a form on the page to ask who the person was.

I didn't tell anyone about this, and hoped my wife would say she saw this funny ad.

Turns out she had seen it for months and just didn't click it. She thought it was some spammy ad that had a personal photo of us. It was hilarious to learn it worked right away, but that targeting an individual doesn't actually matter.

The ad system is actually awesome wrt privacy. Advertisers never get personal information, but can still target with agility.

<comment><USER10> _targeting an individual doesn't actually matter_

But is that because your ad was funny? Suppose I target an individual with a very serious message: say, _911 ABDUCTION ALERT!_ and a photo of their kid - that could well generate a reaction, especially if said kid were away at camp, or the subject of a custody dispute. Someone with ill intent might be able to leverage such a tactic to great effect, though I imagine FB probably has some filtering in place to prevent such obvious abuse.

But suppose I take a more subtle approach...say, I target members of a FB group for sufferers of a particular medical condition, but only those who don't have a college degree and are also in a group devoted to some dumb conspiracy theory. People like that might be quite vulnerable to social engineering attacks.

<comment><USER9> The latter example has little to do with identifying individuals, but with targeting in general.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> the reason facebook CTR is so low is because people go on facebook to use facebook. They aren't in a buying/browsing mood, so they tend to tune out the ads.

<comment><USER3> I definitely think thats part of the picture, but I feel presentation is part of it too. Google has spent a TON of time testing their ad formats to get the right measure CTR without annoyance. I don't get the feeling FB has invested as much time in their format, and that they have a lot of options on improving ad performance while still not MySpacing themselves.

<comment><USER12> If I see an ad I'm interested in on Google, I'll click it. That happened to me once on facebook, and I got dozens of pop up windows that popped under more when I try to close them. I don't trust then enough to click on one of their ads again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder how much he ended up paying total. I may have to try this for an upcoming anniversary but i'll probably have to point it out like he did.

<comment><USER14> Essentially 0. $1 CPM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm still astounded at how little Facebook has done with such a powerful targeted advertising platform.

There are some affiliate marketers making bank through Facebook ads, and there are some job seekers who have landed jobs through Facebook ads, but what other success stories are there?

</comment><comment><USER16> That's why you don't put in so much personal information. The oddest, though, is when looking at a site that has nothing to do with IT, there are contextual ads for IT stuff below.

<comment><USER15> That's called retargeting. Not sure if the Facebook Ads platform offers any kind of retargeting options (besides targeting based on Liking something), but many ad networks do. For instance, I spent some time looking at Photoshop on Adobe's site. Ever since, I've seen a ton of ads for Photoshop. It's a really effective tactic, since you've already prequalified the user's interest from an earlier online action.

<comment><USER17> The way it works is that the ad network puts a pixel on the photoshop page. When your browser sees that pixel you get cookied by the ad network. Then when you see an ad placement from that ad network then you'll maybe see campaigns targeted to the BT profile.

With ad network pixels it is hard to get reach. This is were companies like BlueKai fit in. They make a deal with Adobe and lots of others to put their pixel/JS on Adobe's page. Then when an ad network gets a campaign that needs to target photoshop users, they buy profiles from BlueKai.

Basically, BlueKai will piggyback the ad network's pixel on the BlueKai placement, either by injecting it via javascript or by doing a 302 redirect. This has to run for a couple weeks until the ad network has got enough reach for that profile, then they can start the re-targeting campaign.

That's how it generally works, I don't know if BlueKai actually has a relationship with Adobe.

<comment><USER18> Do you know if Google does this with products other than AdSense?

I guess for search ads a user's intent is more explicit, but it's probably still a useful signal.

Analytics in particular seems like it could provide a lot of data to them. I hope they're not doing that.

<comment><USER17> I don't believe that they are doing this but I am not sure. They certainly have the reach to dominate the space if they switched it on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I did this with a few people at work. It seems as if the ad is not served at all if the target population isn't over some threshold. I was not able to target 2-3 people, but was able to target 30.

<comment><USER20> I put in an ad for my wife around Valentine's day and specifically targeted it to her (it helps that she's the only Memphis-area fan of a fan page I run). She saw it early on the first day of the ad window. I think setting my cost per click at the high end of the range was important.

It wound up costing less than a dollar for the successful campaign.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So ad's in its current shape aren't working.

A business model for Facebook that just might: Offer insurance companies to pay for repeated privacy option changes which you have to opt out of.

Or heck, just sell a feed to the firehose to them.

Yeah, I guess this is a troll. But I must say I'm getting pretty damn fed up with all this Facebook noise everywhere right now.

</comment><comment><USER22> With people using ads to target potential employers, surprising loved ones...

Is there a ad potential for User->Business targeting, User->User targeting complementing the current Business->user targeting?

</comment><comment><USER23> Its just a matter of time before somebody proposes through FB ad (imagine if it ends up going to the wrong girl ;))

</comment><comment><USER24> And of course the most important data he left out: did she actually click through and buy the baby?

</comment><comment><USER24> talk about taking the Long Tail strategy to the extreme!

</comment><comment><USER25> Stuff like this just creep me out. I do have an account on Facebook (required for viewing certain albums etc.), but each and every privacy/marketing issue with FB that pops up really deters me and pushes me one step closer to erasing the account.

As has already been noted by people in this thread, FB users really seem to just "tune out" and not notice the ads. My observation is that the people making _that_ observation also "tune out" and don't notice the really scary privacy issue at hand :)

<comment><USER26> How is this a privacy issue? This exposes no personal information. You could create separate ads with different settings and use the differences in the URLs they point to to connect visitors with demographic data from their profile, but you still wouldn't know their name, friends, etc.

<comment><USER27> Think of the targeted social engineering attacks you can do with this. If you know that an individual has access to a sensitive computer network you want access to, you can make them a targeted offer they can't refuse and point to a site with some malware rootkit or something. I'm sure there are endless devious tricks that can be pulled with this system, beyond your harmless pranks like these. Now that I'm aware of the possibility that an ad I see is only seen by me, I'm much less likely to trust them with a click.</comment></comment></comment>


What's the status of clojure-in-clojure? - <AUTHOR>

Is Rich working alone, again? Or its a team effort (open) ¿ Or a (closed) team effort? <comment><USER2> AFAIK the ClojureScript project is sort of a sideways approach to making Clojure-in-Clojure a reality.

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems so, but from various sources, it appears that rich's working on the primary jvm implitation...

Btw, will jvm remain the primary implimentation, after clojure in clojure ?

<comment><USER2> I don't think there are any concrete plans right now. I'm not really an insider, bubt this is my understanding of the situation:

At the moment, the JVM implementation is the primary one and that is the one Rich is mostly working on. ClojureScript is a side project that has the potential to one day turn into the primary implementation, but it's not like there's a set timeline for that happening. Basically, Clojure-in-Clojure is a "nice to have", but it's somewhat difficult to do well, so right now they're working on a project that's halfway there and they can reevaluate going the rest of the way when it's sufficiently mature.</comment></comment></comment>


Internal Reprogrammability (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://martinfowler.com/bliki/InternalReprogrammability.html <comment><USER2> Another instance is ex-Alias|Wavefront Maya. The software had a very similar design. A tiny core for the intensive tasks, and most user facing interaction programmed through the Mel (Maya Embedded) language. The fun part is when you realize the whole maya software is a big set of mel scripts. The program can be run headless, it becomes a mel repl for a geometry DAG and time varying values.

ps: Saying this circa ~2000-2008. Since then they rebuilt the UI it may not be the case

<comment><USER3> I think "fun" can be used pretty loosely here, the number of bugs and gotchas were quite large. It's hard to say how much of that was due to everything being built on MEL but it certainly wasn't pretty.

<comment><USER2> I never used it professionally but it was one of the "fastest" and most stable program I've had the pleasure to use. I recall one crash in ten years over multiple versions. On unsupported hardware. But I can imagine how mel 'semantics' could lead to nasty bugs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The author suggests that "Internal Reprogrammability" (I'd just call it configurability) is a philosophy that has gone out of fashion. I don't think it has gone out of fashion overall, rather I think it's an early evolutionary phase in development of most categories of product.

These phases are approximately:

* Primitive (ed, Mosaic, NCSA httpd). These work, just enough to show the promise of the category, but if you want to fix the shortcomings you have to re-implement your own, or hack source code that wasn't even intended for configuration.

* Highly Configurable / "Internal Reprogrammability" (vi, emacs, Netscape, Apache, IBM PC clones). These _can_ be configured to do exactly what you want, with enough knowledge - but then, having done that, one has an unreproducible snowflake system, subtly different and incompatible with any other in the world.

* Evolved (Chrome, nginx, Macbook Air). These are barely configurable at all, and resemble the best possible configuration of the previous generation of products - i.e., they're the configuration you _actually wanted_ all along (and maybe even customized the previous generation to end up with), without having to make all the mistakes yourself to work that all.

The way I see it, these are phases that apply generally to the development of all categories over time, and different products are at different stages - they're not philosophies that themselves go in our out of fashion. I quite often see products that are fairly clearly in one of these phases, and use that phase to help choose wether it's something I want to hack on an early incarnation of, or wait for the dust to settle.

<comment><USER5> It is completely fair to distinguish "Internal Reprogrammability" from configurability with respect to Emacs. Emacs is vastly different than most systems that are highly configurable that you mention.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you mentor a beginner dev? - <AUTHOR> Are you currently mentoring? If not, would you see value in spending 30 mins or 1 hour per week dedicated to helping a qualified, passionate beginner dev make the right choices to advance their career?
I have noticed beginner after beginner get completely stuck on advancing their side projects, wind up in tutorial hell, and ultimately feel hopeless when it comes to pursuing this profession.
I am curious if there would be enthusiasm from the side of experienced developers to offer mentorship and give back to the community in this fashion. <comment><USER2> sounds like the writer becoming the typist and the typist getting famous as writer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure I understand what you're getting at.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your opinion on vertical/automated/indoor farming? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I think Led lights are starting to really change the economics of the field.</comment>


Chartering a 737, Sending 126 People to Haiti, and Starting a Non-Profit... - <AUTHOR> http://stalemelon.blogspot.com/2010/05/relief-foundation-what-i-learned-from.html

<comment><AUTHOR> What I learned from starting a non-profit and sending 126 individuals, 1 million in medical supplies, $120,000 in funds, and 40,000 lbs of cargo to Haiti.

If you would like to come on our next trip or for more information: www.therelieffoundation.com

Thanks,

-P</comment>


Yahoo Games Has Passed Away at Just 17 - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2016/02/yahoo-games-shutting-down/ <comment><USER2> My father died in 2010. He would play Yahoo Games of Pool and Spades and other games. After he died his Yahoo ID expired due to inactivity. I was always having to update Java for him in order to play the games.

</comment><comment><USER3> I used to play bridge on Yahoo! Games in its hayday. It was a great advert for Java Applets at a time before Flash took over and before mobile devices took over the casual gaming market.

One of the great advantages was being able to turn up at a bridge table and invite four other random strangers into a game. There were always people available at the time.

Of course as parts of the Internet age they get older and eventually pass away. There may even be a time when Facebook passes on. At least we will have the memories.

</comment><comment><USER4> Man, I remember the GamesDomain website.</comment>


Bullet charts – Avoid extraneous details in corporate presentations - <AUTHOR> https://www.atyantik.com/bullet-charts-what-is-it-and-how-to-use-it/ <comment><USER3> Neat and potentially useful data vis but copy like this makes me barf: "Bullet charts have proven to be ideally suited for any business dashboard data visualization."

Proven? How? By what standard or metric? And for _any_ business dashboard data vis? What does that even mean?

<comment><USER4> I like when people communicate in that manner. It let's me know I can safely tune out as the content will be devoid of information.

<comment><USER5> Well, I when through it for you.

There is an example on creating a bullet chart in Excel. It starts with bar chart, which simple and easy to do and read. It then go through many steps to abstract and obscure some the information, to get to a chart that the author find more appealing. I don't. I think a bar chart as more space and is more zen, while his chart feels crowded. Unless you start with only 3 bars, in which case it looks fine and doesn't obstruct any information.

<comment><USER6> An unusual chart to convey simple information, and requires explanation, is a poor way to visualize your data. Only make a unique visualization if necessary to convey unique data. So, as you said, here just stick with the bar chart!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I do not think it is a good idea to present lesser known graph types that need explanation in an enterprise setting.

<comment><USER8> This is the kind of chart that my CFO looks at and says, "Well, that is neat. Now, what are you trying to say?"

<comment><AUTHOR> Hahahaha..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> blog post with a better explanation of what's going on from Stephen Few - <USER2> designer of the bullet chart: [https://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/misc/Bullet_Graph_De...](https://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/misc/Bullet_Graph_Design_Spec.pdf)

<comment><USER10> Thanks, I read OPs article twice and still didn't have a clear understanding for the application of this visualization technique.

Animated it would be useful for an air/fuel gauge project I'm working on for a track car.

Confined display area, Target stoichiometric value (14.7). Current ratio. Historical average.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> i dont see that as a good data visualization. why you might ask? because it's not self explanatory. while the target bar might be clear, the poor, average and excellent value feature a different style, while containing similar information. also it's not possible to have 2 bars at the same height, which might not be a problem, but the example they are showing has exactly this problem.

<comment><USER12> I agree. I skimmed back and forth trying to understand the other bars but had to read the actual Excel data in order to understand what was going.

<comment><USER13> That's not the fault of the chart type. It's just a bad execution in that blog post. I.e. the shorter bars should be very light, and feel more like a backgrund for the actual bar.

If you look at a good example it actually is intuitive: [https://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/misc/Bullet_Graph_De...](https://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/misc/Bullet_Graph_Design_Spec.pdf)

<comment><USER11> It doesnt make the graph any clearer in my opinion. the graph uses 3 different styles of value indicators. the background colored areas, the bar itself and the "target indicator". discarding the "target indicator" and using intuitively understandable colors (red/yellow/green) for the background colors might help, but othervise i dont see this as a easily readable graph style. especially it cannot be read without prior explanation. If the graph is being used regularely within a company or group it may well be used.

if you need well established graph styles have look here: [https://datavizcatalogue.com/](https://datavizcatalogue.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article is a great example of how to pad out your paragraphs by repeating variations of the same sentence over and over.

</comment><comment><USER15> Original article [https://jscharting.com/blog/bullet- charts/](https://jscharting.com/blog/bullet-charts/)

</comment><comment><USER16> As a research scientist, I can not tell you how many scientists straight up read paragraphs of pre written info off of ppts. So boring and impersonal!

<comment><USER17> As a research scientist, I can not tell you how many scientists seem to have watched a few TED talks too many and desperately try to be interesting, never actually telling me the essence of what they've done instead of some analogy or a pretty picture.

That being said, I don't disagree with you. The point is to know your audience and your goals. Trying to be interesting is great for a lay audience, as are long derivations for a seminar of your peers. Just don't confuse the two.

<comment><USER18> I think the best way is 3-5 word bullet points, but mostly talking about tables/charts/figures. If you've truly done the research yourself, you can easily explain what is behind every chart.

<comment><USER17> Really depends on the content. If I'm being presented with a mathematical theorem, for instance, I'd like to read the exact statement at my leisure while the speaker reads it and then talks about it. Structuring derivations can also be tricky (omit too many technical details and risk losing the interesting part of the work). Charts are fine, but for an audience of scientists the methodology behind the result is often more interesting than the result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Basically a bar-chart version of sparklines:

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

But it manages to actually show _less_ information. Sparklines are nice because you keep the time axis so we know if the current metrics is improving or decreasing.

Otherwise just write the number.

<comment><USER20> Or, in other words, nothing like a sparkline. This visualization is useful for gauge-like displays. Sparklines suck at communicating scale or proportion or context if the context is anything other than recent historical values. I could see a sparkline — or better yet, a simple yet properly labeled line graph -- complementing a bullet chart to show historical data. If something can effectively complement another thing, then they probably are not basically the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> A dreadful article on a good topic.

Repetitious, poorly-worded, unclear (the "how to" for Excel contains no actual instructions).

</comment><comment><USER22> Any example from corporate presentations that transform to this ?</comment>


Flow Hive – "It's Literally Honey on Tap Directly from Your Beehive" - <AUTHOR> http://www.honeyflow.com/

<comment><USER2> This gets posted to HN reasonably often throughout its funding journey.

No Comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9111312](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9111312)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9117684](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9117684)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9205101](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9205101)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9383010](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9383010)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9179643](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9179643)

Some Comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9091926](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9091926)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9092658](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9092658)

Lots of comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9083207](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9083207)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow.. I didn't know that. Sorry for the noise.

<comment><USER2> Sorry! Didn't mean to imply you shouldn't have posted it!!

Sometimes people like to read past discussions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Explaination video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=14&v=0_pj4cz2VJM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=14&v=0_pj4cz2VJM)</comment>


Ask HN: Resources for a beginner JavaScript developer? - <AUTHOR> Hey,
I'm a 16 year old JS developer and I want to build more advanced apps. (React, Vue, Node, bots, ML, etc.)
Could you recommend some resources that I could get started with? <comment><USER2> Start with the fundamentals!

I like Eloquent Javascript and You Don't Know JS, both free to read online:

[http://eloquentjavascript.net](http://eloquentjavascript.net)

[https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS](https://github.com/getify/You- Dont-Know-JS)

<comment><USER3> Eloquent JS is one of my all time favorite programming books. I recommend it often.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://javascriptissexy.com/](http://javascriptissexy.com/)

[https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-JQuery-Interactive- Front-E...](https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-JQuery-Interactive-Front-End- Development/dp/1118531647)

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Learn/JavaScript](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Learn/JavaScript)

[https://www.amazon.com/Eloquent-JavaScript-Modern- Introducti...](https://www.amazon.com/Eloquent-JavaScript-Modern-Introduction- Programming/dp/1593275846/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466626605&sr=1-1&keywords=eloquent+javascript+2nd+edition&linkCode=ll1&tag=eejs-20&linkId=8f1d94f3bf900d69600f9c8685791be7)

[http://jstherightway.org/](http://jstherightway.org/)

Most importantly, it's not hard to learn a new language, but you do want to make sure you learn and apply best practices.

Pickup a couple of those books maybe (also there are online versions of most of those available for free. I do like physical books, but that's just me), read them and practice every day.

</comment><comment><USER5> I really recoment the tutorials from:

[https://nodeschool.io/](https://nodeschool.io/)

They are run from the command line, they will make you think and they have from super simple tutorials to more complex stuff. You can also learn the ES6 syntax or other fancy things when you know enough javascript.

</comment><comment><USER6> Unfortunately I don't know about the list you have, but if you are interested in one good way to approach JS basics (not suggesting you don't know the basics -- am saying I found the following resource useful for the basics, which help with building more advanced apps): JavaScript: the good parts talk is a useful resource, IMHO.

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

</comment><comment><USER7> Learn other languages, too.

      * A functional language
      * An object-oriented language
      * A scripting language

JavaScript wins the web front-end because it's the only feasible option but there are many other fantastic languages out there that, when properly understood, will make you a better developer in whatever language you choose to "major" in.

</comment><comment><USER8> I would definitely recommend this youtube channel - [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO1cgjhGzsSYb1rsB4bFe4Q](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO1cgjhGzsSYb1rsB4bFe4Q)

</comment><comment><USER9> Respect. [https://frontendmasters.com/](https://frontendmasters.com/) should give you a good start. There's a fee but well worth it. I would recommend Douglas Crockford and Kyle Simpson for a start.</comment>


Show HN: Horcrux: On-demand,version controlled data for docker containers - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/muthu-r/horcrux <comment> awinter-py data deployment and 'restore from logs' is a huge pain in my butt that halves or more my productivity some days. this is really cool. 'read remote write local' is exactly the mix I need for dev work and debugging.

<comment> muthu-r Thanks! Planning to add version control as well so all local writes can be version controlled with the ability to push changes to remote.

Try it out and appreciate any feedback.

Regards, Muthu</comment></comment>