Poor Sleep Gives You the Munchies, Study Says - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/05/science/sleep-eating-craving-food.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=wide&state=standard&contentPlacement=4&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2016%2F03%2F05%2Fscience%2Fsleep-eating-craving-food.html&eventName=Watching-article-click <comment><USER2> One thing that doesn't get a lot of attention is the _quality_ of sleep, not just the duration.

After years of being a fairly thin kid and teen, I start packing on the pounds. When I saw an allergist and got on allergy shots (plus antihistamines, plus HEPA filters, plus dust mite covers on the mattress) my world changed. I wasn't tired all the time. Everything was brighter, and I was in a better mood. I wanted to snack less and had more energy.

Piecing it together over the last few years, I had near-constant drainage in the back of my throat even when I wasn't showing stronger allergy symptoms (e.g. itchiness, sneezing, watery eyes). As a result, I slept poorly even when I was getting plenty of hours of sleep.

Now, I'm allergic to pretty much everything that doesn't kill you (no food allergies, but dust, mold, our cats...) so I can't call this a solved problem, but knowing about it lets me work on solving it.

<comment><USER3> I'd love to know more. How long is this process of determining allergies, etc?

Did you go back to your ideal body weight, BMI and body composition wise? Was weight-loss easier?

How did this affect you psychologically? Did you get rid of depression, mood- swings, etc?

<comment><USER2> An allergist can give you a "scratch test", where they put a grid on your back and/or arms, and prick each spot with a needle dipped in various common allergens. If the spot swells like a bug bite, congrats, you're allergic! They usually* hit you once, then do another round at 10x concentration on a different spot for anything that didn't visibly, react, and then a third round for any stragglers at 100x. They rate your sensitivity on a 0-4 scale, based on the highly technical technique of measuring the size of the welt/bump.

*I've had it done twice, once on the east coast US, once on the west coast. They use local allergen blends so they can differ, and there are some candidates that they don't normally test for. I had to specifically request they test for "rat" the first time, as my fiancee had pet rats. (Turns out I was highly, HIGHLY allergic to them, but I reacted to basically everything). This does mean if you're allergic to something not in their normal regimen it will be missed.

The whole test took about 30 minutes.

After the first such test, I adopted anti-allergen mattress/pillow covers for dust mite dust and HEPA filters in the apartment, but didn't do much else. When I moved, I went from a terrible allergy place (Richmond, VA, where springtime puddles are often yellow from the pollen) to a much better one (Seattle, WA, which has molds, but far fewer pollens).

I had a pretty terrible time after the move though, and after a visit to another allergist I got on allergy shots (my research said that Europe will do doses under the tongue, but the US doesn't). Surprisingly, both allergists (Richmond and Seattle) were reluctant to put me on allergy shots, as if the cost was prohibitive ($1k-$2k/year without insurance. I've switch insurances a few times and the costs have been from fully covered to ~$15/mo) but I find happiness to be worth it. The shots themselves are, surprisingly, actually diluted doses of the allergen, ramping up the concentration. I like to joke I'm becoming immune to iocane powder.

Switching coasts messed up my progress, and I'm still working on controlling my weight, but then again, I still have multiple cats despite being allergic to them (my now-wife's happiness factors in, but she totally got rid of the rats). I have swing periods - I tend to lose weight in the spring/summer, then develop a cough that leads to seasonal bronchitis (= more drainage) that lasts 3-4 months in the fall/winter (had pneumonia once - I don't recommend it.) I recently discovered that, um, recently legalized edible substances in seattle taken before bed have prevented this months-long cough, so I'm working to see what happens this year.

Psychologically, though, the impact has been huge. I went from being a homebody that was basically tired all the time to someone that, though still lazy, will actually go out and do things and be willing to endure some exercise and effort. I snacked often, and craved sugar. (I suspect the latter was for the feeling of energy - I had already cut caffeine from my diet to try and improve the quality of my sleep). Now I still enjoy a soda now and then but water is fine and my portion sizes have gone down. The last few years, whenever the annual cough came around I started to get really exhausted by month 2, and it made me very resigned over the season. This year I avoided that and I can definitely feel the psychological benefits of not being worn down like that, and expect that I'll be losing more weight and being healthier over the next few months, but time will tell.

When I first went (with the rats), I had spent 6 months in a funk. It had gotten to the point where I would simply sleep through my alarm clock, and when I was awake I was extremely groggy. The effect was gradual, so I didn't really realize something environmental had changed until I compared myself then to myself months prior.

I've avoided going to a sleep therapist because I suspect they'll simply say "Sleep apnea" and call it a day without examining the real reason, but as soon as I'm out of other variables to tinker with that will be my next stop. As it is, I'm currently on allergy shots (administered in their office weekly, requiring 30 mins for them to make sure I don't have complications, until I hit maintenance levels, then it's monthly), I take two benadryl and an allegra before bed, and recently added a cookie to that mix. I also have a nasal thing, though I've not had that for the past 6 months due to insurance complications.

The hardest part at this point is controlling my environment when I'm not in control of it. I have a wife, cats, and my mother currently living with us. I can't just decide to eat only when I'm hungry (I am the main cook in the family), I can't decide how late to stay up, and I can't control the accumulation of stuff (and therefore dust). [Well, that's the "hardest" part since I've already decided to not try and become a gym nut, so I'm avoiding the parts that are hard because of me :)]

Hope that offered some of the detail you were looking for.

<comment><USER3> Thanks a ton that was more than what I'd been looking for. I'm sure many of us would love if you were to blog about this somewhere, this bio-hacking sounds really great and I'm looking forward to getting my tests drawn up as I've had terrible issues that have impacted my professional life.

I've been planning to get started on Keto for a while but had been worried if it would affect my NAFLD, I also have depression and concentration issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Get good sleep and drink water.

Two of the simplest pieces of advice that can go a really long way for your mental and physical health.

<comment><USER5> Is there solid research around water intake? Are there clear thresholds for the amount of water to experience the health benefits? Is 8 cups a day backed up by any research? What exactly are the health benefits?

I've always thought that my body should be able to tell me when it needs more water and I shouldn't need to force down extra water.

<comment><USER6> Don't overthink it. Have water available at your desk. When it's empty, refill it.

Make it easy to drink automatically. Your body knows when it feels like having a sip, if that doesn't involve breaking your mental flow, you will have the sip. Simple as that.

There's a world of difference between being dehydrated and a bit thirsty. Try going to the beach for a day and forgetting to bring any water. You'll know the difference in a few hours.

The fun part is that you'll feel tired all day and all of next day too. I've done this way too often in various combinations (roadtrips, plane flights, marathon runs, surfing and forgetting to bring water, etc.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I thought this was understood for a long time. One of the TOP pieces of advice for anyone wanting to lose weight has, as far as I can remember, been to get adequate amounts of sleep.

<comment><USER8> The fact that lack of sleep correlates with obesity has been known for a long time, but this study is about an underlying mechanism that might explain that correlation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I thought this was already well known.

To clarify, the effect of insufficient sleep is more generic than that. Lack of sleep will weaken your willpower and has a cascading effect on your life.

* You will be more prone to overeat and eat junk food.

* You will not want to exercise.

* You will have difficulty concentrating.

* You will be more likely to give into temptations.

* You less be less likely to do things you need to do but don't want to do.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've had one of those crazy weeks that I haven't had for a long time – up until 5-6 in the morning and then back at it again a few hours later.

There were times where I almost forgot to eat and then would suddenly find myself starving. A lot of the time I ended up raiding the house for chocolate and other munchy food. I was surprised by the behaviour but put it down to the lack of sleep.

Anecdotal, but I definitely noticed the low sleep = munchy behaviour in myself this week.

<comment><USER11> As the father of newborn twins, I concur.

<comment><USER10> Congratulations!

Your first kids? I have 2 little girls and I find they help me focus the time I have to be productive. Having said that, I had a friend with twins and every time I saw her she looked like she hadn't slept in days. "Relentless" was her description. Good luck :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Poor sleep results in stress, and to relieve stress, eating is a good remedy. Good in the sense that it seems to work, but it's not healthy. Doing a short workout is probably a lot healthier, but well, you're tired, and doing a workout is not high on the list for most of us.

<comment><USER13> During sleep is also when your body prepares fat / food to convert into blood sugar.

You literally get tired at the end of the day, when you run out of energy that's easily convertible to blood sugar, so your blood sugar levels start dropping, making you tired.

If you don't get enough sleep at night, your body doesn't have enough time to prep your food / fat for conversion into blood sugar. As a result, your blood sugar starts dropping way too early in the day.

Since your blood sugar is dropping too far, but its too early to go to sleep, your body looks for other solutions, basically: "Get your blood sugar up now!" So you feel a desire to eat, and often, foods your body associates with either high amounts of calories and simple sugars.

Hence, munchies. And weight gain.

Source: I'm hypoglycemic, this is my life. Slight disclaimers as to the specifics of the above, but the processes described are correct.

<comment><USER14> By that logic, we should sleep instead of eating breakfast.

<comment><USER15> There's no logic about breakfast beside being told by Kellogg's to eat it, so there's that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would imagine that in some cases this eventually leads to obesity, which then becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. Those with obesity are more likely to have sleep apnea, which disturbs sleep even further.

<comment><USER17> Mercifully, the cycle ends with the eternal sleep of death.

<comment><USER18> Maybe this was intended as a joke, but the sad truth is that more often that not, sometimes people consider this option. I myself came relatively close to committing suicide, but was pulled out of this vicious cycle by a friend.

A lot of people develop this depression this way, or they became this way because of depression. It's concerning that people often underestimate depression and consider it a synonym for sadness or melancholy. Depression is—for the sake of simplification—an emotional and mental cancer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I already knew this as it's been so massively self evident in my life. (Not that this is really a constructive comment, but every time I don't get enough sleep I'm ravenous all day.)

</comment><comment><USER20> And one of the side effects of being overweight? You don't sleep as well.

<comment> mycroft-holmes Gotta start at the source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Fuck, and i thought it was the Weed the whole time!

</comment><comment><USER22> _Fourteen healthy, non-obese subjects between the ages of 18 and 30 participated in the study._

Is this a representative sample warranting this level of attention?

 _Subjects who were deprived of sleep said that they felt hungrier, and had more trouble controlling themselves when faced with the snacks. They ended up consuming nearly twice as much fat and protein as the control group._

So people who were awake more ate more. This would seem to make sense - I have literally never eaten while I was asleep.

</comment><comment><USER23> Poor sleep makes me feel ego depleted which I read about in Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow

<comment><USER24> This happens with me as well. Thanks for the book recommendation, I will have to add that to my reading list!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is the reverse likely also true: munchies will give you poor sleep?

<comment><USER26> I think almost anything (depending on the amount) you eat before going to sleep will make it difficult for your body to relax because your stomach will be processing the food.

Lately I try to avoid eating a lot after around 8pm.

<comment><USER25> I am trying (not succeeding yet) to do the same

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Wow -- I'm surprised that nobody mentioned the size of the study is only 14 subjects. This seems incredibly small!

</comment><comment><USER28> I slept poorly last night for the first time in a while and I've been starving all day.

</comment><comment><USER29> What types of food were the subjects craving for?

</comment><comment><USER30> Ignorance is not a terribly compelling way to make a point. The answer in this case is to reflect upon why you don't understand that the world is not solely composed of you.

<comment><USER31> You're reaching way too far into it. I don't understand the _mentality_ from peers in similar life situations as me that are "so busy they barely sleep". To me that just means bad time management, because no matter how busy you are (all assuming you have free will, it's your will to be busy) you still have room for great sleep every night. "I barely get any sleep" becomes a substitute to reap the gratification from peers as if you actually accomplished something.

<comment><USER30> No, it seems I reached exactly to the right depth. Clarifying the extent of your ignorance doesn't make it something other than ignorance. No one is required to explain their mindset to you, and your opinion on it is not really productive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Oh, that's easy to fix!

Sleep deprivation only gives you the munchies _at first._

Just sleep _so little_ that you actually feel sick, and food no longer seems appealing! For added effect, drink _so much coffee to stay awake_ that your stomach hurts.

Not that I am currently doing this or anything.

(Never again.)

<comment><USER33> > Just sleep so little that you actually feel sick, and food no longer seems > appealing!

Is this a common thing? I've been awake for 110 hours before, and was a mess at the end of it, but definitely felt more hungry than usual for the entire period.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> That's not true. I've been working hard on my side projects after work time and I don't have much sleep unfortunatley. I feel exausted all the time and not exactly hungry, plus to be honest I lost appetite. I'm quite skinny, lean muscle, etc.

<comment><USER31> I never understood how people don't get sleep. Isn't it a net negative to be dragged through the mud? No matter how rough my day is I _always_ make sure to get 8-9 hours of sleep. The world can wait for me you know? Yeah, sorry Boss, I went out drinking Sunday and I'm coming in at 1pm, too bad.

High energy all day with less time, or low energy all day with more time? I think the latter is worse.

<comment><USER35> I sleep 5 hours a night.

Even with flexible working hours, I still come to work in the early morning.

I work all day and then commute back home. I then do the chores and make supper.

By the time I am done with all that stuff, it's already 8PM or 9PM. I then get together with some night owls friends for a few beers, read all night, watch a movie or a tv show, or spend the night awake talking with my signifiant other (who is also a night owl).

If I have a really entertaining night, I might drop to 3 hours of sleep.

I don't have an energy problem and am wide awake. That being said, I have been living that way for as long as I can remember. I take naps when I do get tired.

<comment><USER36> Some people actually need less sleep. I think this has been studied. A couple years ago there were a bunch of articles about Kobe Bryant and how little sleep he needs while practicing polyphasic sleep patterns.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Systemd's latest conquest: the 'su' command - <AUTHOR> http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-sauce/69228-systemds-latest-conquest-the-su-command <comment><USER2> Just because something has a _de facto_ rather than _de jure_ specification does not make it unspecified.

</comment><comment><USER3> > death of innovation for all functions absorbed into systemd

Not sure there was much innovation in 'su'...

> might come to the point where one has just systemd and the kernel making up > a Linux distribution

I think that's kinda what they are going for...

<comment><USER4> Well, Ubuntu introduced a major usability change when it appeared.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10141715](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10141715)

<comment><USER6> And [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10140690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10140690)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If the behavior was never fully specified (as claimed), then it might be worth having this just to see what it breaks and what bugs it uncovers.

<comment><USER8> What it boils down to is that as long as you stick to users and groups, su works just fine.

But systemd is using cgroups and pam to do session tracking, and using su within that seems to break some elements of their tracking (or some concept within it).

Thing here is that su is doing the job it has always done, so frankly it is the systemd session tracking code that is in the wrong.

<comment><USER6> ... as long as it is not abused. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10162451](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10162451)

<comment><USER8> And again the issue is PAM, not SU...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not sure why it says "Linux/UNIX".</comment>


London Underground to retire ageing 92-year-old signal box - <AUTHOR> https://www.itv.com/news/london/2019-05-21/london-underground-to-retire-ageing-92-year-old-signal-box/ <comment><USER2> I recently moved to London and I noticed that every other day there's an incident with 'signalling system failure' cited as a reason. What could be the reason for that? Are these systems inherently prone to fail frequently?

<comment><USER3> There is a commonly heard 'waiting for the signal' if the train is held up, e.g. before a station. You can conflate that into thinking the signalling is the problem when it can be just doing its job. For example if the police have been called to a train and it is held in the station then the signal on the line will stay red and trains will be held up by the signal. 'Just waiting for the signal' is easy on the ears compared to 'the police have been called along with a team of paramedics to deal with a group of drunken crack-heads on the train currently at the station'.

It is the same with 'signalling system failure', there can be good reasons why it has 'failed'. If someone has stolen the wiring or some rodents chewed through the insulation then has it 'failed'? If a train is in the wrong place for some reason then that still means a 'signalling system failure'. Even if this cause has been determined then passengers don't need to know the full details.

There are other euphemisms used for when someone ends their life on the rails, normally you get told that the transport police are attending the scene.

<comment><USER4> > There are other euphemisms used for when someone ends their life on the > rails

TfL is rather blunt about this - these get reported as delays "due to a person under a train", or "person on the track" if the train didn't hit them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Story is a few months old. The new signals are running :)

</comment><comment><USER6> So moving from human plus mechanical safety to digital. What could go wrong? Note to self: revisit this.</comment>


MSFT + OpenID First Step: HealthVault - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/23/microsofts-first-step-in-accepting-openid-signons-healthvault/

<comment><USER2> Yeah, healthcare and banking is not really what OpenID is for. I don't really want to trust Verisign AND my bank/insurance company with all my money and all my personal information. The more companies along the authentication chain, the easier it is to compromise my account.

OpenID is for random blogs where creating an account isn't worth your time, but it would be nice to have your reputation follow you there. If somebody hacked my Hacker News account, I wouldn't really care. That's what OpenID is for.</comment>


Ask HN: Non-compete: how do I prove when I started a project? - <AUTHOR>

I have a project I've been working on for about a year in my personal time (weekends, nights, etc) when not at work.  It's basically a game.  I was planning to launch this on the web at some point in the coming few months, and later on in the app store/android market if possible.  So, the thing is, I just received a job offer from a large tech company and I'd like to accept.  They will ask me to sign a non-compete (it's legal where they are).  But the problem is that, unlike my previous company, this company is in many different lines of business, including games.  So there is overlap there.  I have been reading up on non-competes and it looks like they are non-enforcable unless the company can demonstrate that confidential information/trade secrets was actually stolen and used to help the competitor in question. So the thing is, most of the code for this project is already written.  But if the game became popular and they came after me, how would I prove that?  It's not open source so I can't point to a github commit history or anything like that.  Do courts look at modification dates/times on files?    I realize this probably paranoid, I doubt this company is going to come after me for my hobby iphone app or whatever.  However I'm just wondering if anyone has any insight into what I should do in this situation.  (also, I won't actually be working in the games division itself, if that makes any difference).  Thanks HN. <comment><USER2> You should be upfront about this with them, before you take the job, rather than trying to cover your ass if they find out about it. Most companies I've worked for in California (where, granted, noncompetes are not enforceable) had me fill out a prior inventions disclosure form as part of signing an NDA. I listed out the IP for my existing personal projects, with the idea that they would respect that and not try and claim ownership of it.

Note that this is significantly more tricky if you work on something at the company that's in a competitive space, ie, their games division.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just to clarify, you say its where they are... Is this also where you are, or would you be working remotely? You may need to consult a lawyer as I'm not 100% sure on this but my understanding is its based on where the employee lives, so if you live somewhere where its not enforceable it wouldn't matter if the company is based somewhere where it is enforceable

</comment><comment><USER4> You know you can cross out lines in your contract? Don't agree to anything you're not comfortable with. I usually cross out at least a quarter of the stipulations in contracts - never had any company say too much about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought about that, I could always do that as a last resort. But when I've done this on leases, for example, both parties had to initial it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You can host it on private github repository or any similar service, before signing non-compete. If that is not enough, you may want to let your employer know about this through email or add it to your resume.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, that's a good idea.</comment></comment>


Bacteria as the agent for forming ice - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110524/sc_livescience/surprisingfindlivebacteriahelpcreaterainsnowhail

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, this is an interesting twist. Bacteria that cause ice nucleation resulting in snow and hail. It also makes you wonder if we should add a disinfectant to the deicing sprays for aircraft.</comment>


Harvard Institute of Technology - <AUTHOR> http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/2/18/mit-harvard-scrutiny/ <comment><USER2> This article is long, boring, poorly-edited, and has a great title.</comment>


IDEAS WANTED : How to create Buzz for new Start-up? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Do something very unusual.

Build a board of advisors of three year olds and email valleywag. Make firebreathers wear tshirts to show how hot your start up is. Create disposable tattoo which doubles up as an invite code when put under the shower.

Email me for pointers, i love this sort of stuff.

<comment><USER3> "Create disposable tattoo..."

Iron-on tattoos. Water-based temporary tattoos have been done. Iron-on ones would guarantee some sort of press coverage!

Seriously, though, wouldn't it depend on the nature of the audience you're trying to attract? Three-year-olds would be great for a preschool games site but not so good for, perhaps, helicopter pilots. Can you be more specific about your startup?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Read "Purple Cow" by Seth Godin. Implement.

To oversimplify the ideas in his book, Godin says that the old methods of marketing are essentially dead. The only way to market efficiently is to build compelling ideas directly into the product rather than saving the innovation for the advertising.

In addition, I'd recommend reading "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. It's a stimulating, accessible book that presents the fundamentals of how ideas spread through a populace. Pay close attention to the idea of stickiness and see what you can do to ensure that your product is sufficiently sticky.

</comment><comment><USER5> In general your start-up should provide stories that people like to talk about.You can use some ideas from <http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/07/what- people-tal.html> as start point.

<comment><USER6> That looks like a great book. I'm going to check it out the next time I'm at a book store :-) Which seems to be almost daily these days ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> See [http://marshallk.com/social-media-for-marketing-what-weve- do...](http://marshallk.com/social-media-for-marketing-what-weve-done-at- splashcast-so-far) and <http://marshallk.com/thoughts-on-product-launch- promotion> for my thoughts on the question.

</comment><comment><USER8> Check out this thread as well:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=55556>

</comment><comment><USER9> I would also recommend reading Buzz Marketing: <http://tinyurl.com/3bzxyw>

</comment><comment><USER10> I highly recommend reading <http://www.madetostick.com/> book.</comment>


SF Giants' home now called Oracle Park after AT&T split - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfgate.com/giants/article/San-Francisco-Giants-home-now-called-Oracle-13522180.php <comment><USER2> Does anyone really know how to value stadium naming rights? I know that it has increased over the decades (at least the numbers I have seen), but it just seems so arbitrary.

<comment><USER3> There's no equal payoff. It's a tribute to ego. Ellison never got over being barely outbid for the Warriors.</comment></comment>


You'll Never Get Sustainable Progress For Free - <AUTHOR> http://davybrion.com/blog/2010/02/youll-never-get-sustainable-progress-for-free/ <comment><USER2> Note, this is about software development, particularly of the agile variety, focusing on Scrum and XP (and gives one explanation for why I don't hear _anything_ about XP nowadays).

(Me, I tend to do "engine" work (and skate on UI design by having really good intuition there (or whatever you'd describe being able to see and figure out things from the user's viewpoint)) and use OOSE/Rational Process in an agile way.)</comment>


Is "Lean Startup" Right for Your Idea? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nirandfar.com/2014/01/right-for-your-idea.html

<comment><USER2> When reading about the lean start-up movement (of which I'm a fan) a question that comes into my mind is - can LSM techniques be applied to more traditional technology areas such as storage, networking or even stuff like medical equipment? I'm sure they can be, and would love to hear from folks here, what they've seen in that area or how they think those can be applied there.

<comment><USER3> LSM is inspired by Toyota, the concepts are not new to business world, they're new to startups.</comment></comment>


Three good reasons you should use Amazon Web Services, and one bad - <AUTHOR> http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2008/10/three-good-reasons-you-should-use-amazon-web-services-and-one-bad.html <comment><USER2> Nice post. I agree to many of the upsides of using AWS or for that matter any other webservice, but down side is that, cutting over to your own scaled system later would be difficult. Also, when a system scales there is a lot of money saved by efficient engineering (initially costly though). Paying per-use fee is not economically scalable as it adds significantly to the Opex. Keep in mind that the best monetization vehicle for most Web2.0 technologies is online advertising; which pays per access and is little, so such a per-use Opex will never let the profits scale.

For early-startup and prototyping AWS is definitely a good option.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks manish, you're right I'm definitely focused on my immediate needs, but your points about the later cost are good to think on...</comment>


Nest Recalls All 440K Protect Smoke Alarms - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/21/nest-recalls-all-440k-protect-smoke-alarms-but-will-have-them-back-on-the-market-in-weeks/

<comment><USER2> The recall doesn't really make sense. They provided a software update (and instructions to the 1 or 2 people who don't connect to the internet) to fix the issue with Nest Wave. I assume any that are recalled will just be updated and resold. Yes, its about safety...but with the update you can disable the alarm on Nest the same way as any other smoke detector: press the button.</comment>


Tesla tried to have whistleblower SWATTED, arrested, placed mental health hold - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/awinston/status/1198281740852322304 <comment><USER2> This tweet is lacking quite a bit of context, would be nicer to have the link replaced with a more comprehensive/original source

<comment><USER3> The tweet links to the police report, how is that not the original source?

<comment><USER2> The report itself would probably be better (rather than a Twitter comment about it), but also is lacking some context for people who did not originally hear about the event.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would there be a way to limit a website to geographically local traffic? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> This is seldom a good idea in my opinion, because the underlying problem is rarely a technology one; moreover you can never be absolutely sure that you are indeed blocking all traffic, stopping users that use VPNs for example is tough.

In case you have a legitimate application however, the fundamental way to do this would be to consult a database that maps ip ranges to ASs or country codes directly like this one: [https://iptoasn.com/](https://iptoasn.com/)

Once you have the affected ip ranges you can block them either at level 3 in a router or at the application level.

</comment><comment><USER3> Building a network outward from a local web server rather than trying to hold back the ocean is a _logically possible_ option. It's practical possibility depends on the degree of locality, the use case, and budget.

In the case of a well established local community, creating accounts based on real world identity verification may be a viable alternative to handling the problem of the internet at the network level.

Essentially, if holding back the internet matters the adversaries are well funded, automated, technically sophisticated, and legion. The best defense is probably social or network partitioning if the budget is not huge.

</comment><comment><USER4> Putting some spin on those propeller hats: [http://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html](http://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html)

TL;DR Measure the latency to the client, reject if too high. Of course, this also prevents connections from people who have high latency internet connectivity, such as most radio toys.

</comment><comment><USER5> Use a CDN then block every other country. CF has a country code variable in the session data. Other CDNs have something similar.

<comment><USER6> CF = cloudflare.com

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was under the weather yesterday, so barely spent any time online. I am surprised to see replies here.

The use case:

TLDR:

I am stopping the San Diego Homeless Survival Guide. I am definitely going to be doing something else intended to be generally useful for homeless Americans. I am debating also separately curating a list of local homeless resources, but I have reservations about putting it out there for the whole world to see as I fear that may serve as an attractive nuisance. Due to the intended target audience, it seems to me that sign ups and a network likely won't work. So I wonder if there are ways to mostly limit it to locals from my end, even if the walls are leaky and imperfect.

Longer:

While homeless, I started a blog to keep track of information for me that I needed because the state of the art was paper handouts, often filled with inaccurate information.

I went with a blog because: Papers make me sick. If you get rained on, they stop being readable. And when you are homeless, you have to carry everything you own all the time everywhere, so every piece of paper was one more thing to carry.

Most websites for homeless services are donor facing. In other words, the main thrust of the website is to tell you "We do good work. Please give us money, donate goods and/or volunteer." So even if the agency has a website, it is incredibly challenging for an actual homeless person to go online and find out what services are available locally. Thus, my site attracted organic traffic even at a time when I had abandoned it and there were zero updates and zero attempts to promote the site because it was client facing: it listed information useful to actual homeless people looking for resources.

I am not going to be updating the site further. I am leaving it up for now, but I don't want to promote it further.

The longer the site went on, the more I tried to write generally useful information rather than location specific information. However, the name of the location is in the name of the site. This causes two problems: 1) People outside of the area see it as not relevant to their needs and 2) alternately, homeless people take the existence of the site as a suggestion to move there.

I am again in an area with a fairly large homeless population. Locals here have voiced the opinion that the homeless are attracted to the area because there are services here. That may be a factor, but I think a more likely root cause is that it has relatively temperate weather for the state of Washington. January average lows are around 34 degrees. In Spokane and other parts of the state, average January lows are in the low to mid twenties.

Most homeless services, like soup kitchens, are useful for helping people survive a crisis. But they tend to do a poor job of helping people solve their problems in order to establish a stable middle class life. To be fair, the kinds of problems that lead to homelessness are not easily resolved. But this situation means that accessing homeless services comes with a danger that you just get good at being a freeloader. This can actively undermine the pursuit of self sufficiency.

When I was going to homeless services, it exposed me to germs and cigarette smoke and other health hazards, which undermined my efforts to get well enough to work and support myself. Most "practical" conversation amongst the homeless was about things like where to get another free meal or other charity, not about things like how to make money while homeless.

It can take two hours of standing in line to get a free meal. If you do that three times a day, you have spent six hours just on staying fed. That is six hours you can't job hunt or otherwise try to solve your problems.

The more talented you get at accessing homeless services, the more stuck you can become, in part because of how they are structured. They figure your time as a poor person isn't worth anything, so you should be okay with taking two hours to get a meal. Worse, many of them assume you are an alcoholic or addict, so they may subconsciously figure that the more of your time they waste, the less time you will spend getting high.

While homeless, I figured out what kinds of things were genuinely helpful to me, things that helped me survive in the here and now while also helping me move towards my goals of self sufficiency rather than helping to keep me stuck. I want to keep writing about those things.

But I have very mixed feelings about once again curating a list of local services. On the one hand, I think there is need for this information. On the other hand, I worry that broadcasting it worldwide may do more harm than good.

Since all locations in the US seem to do an equally poor job of putting out client facing websites for serving the poor, it seems to me that simply creating a site with good client facing information potentially creates an attractive nuisance. If you are homeless and trying to find what you need locally is a constant uphill battle, but you can go online and find a curated list of resources in some other city, even if it is quite far away, it may be vastly easier to just hop a bus or hitchhike to that city than to keep knocking on doors and getting paper handouts locally and trying to painstakingly piece together information and solutions.

So, I am wondering if making it hard to find a list of resources if you are outside the region would be a means to get information into the hands of locals without potentially attracting freeloaders from far flung corners of the US.</comment>


Curation and Algorithms - <AUTHOR> https://stratechery.com/2015/curation-and-algorithms/

<comment><USER2> > What is perhaps more interesting, though, is whether Twitter ought to pursue > an algorithmic feed

When Twitter introduces a default algo driven home timeline, instead of realizing that most of us power users are there because we want a raw reverse- chronological feed that "we" curate, I will no doubt leave or allow my account to become a zombie as my Facebook Profile has become these days.

A default algo driven timeline will be the final nail in the coffin for Twitter.

<comment><USER3> I'll say though that I'm a fan of their new "While you were away" section. It complements the unfiltered feed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> > What is perhaps more interesting, though, is whether Twitter ought to pursue > an algorithmic feed

When Twitter imposes a default algo driven timeline, instead of realizing that most of us power users are there because we want a raw reverse-chronological feed of our choosing, I will probably leave Twitter - or let it become a zombie account as my Facebook profile is today.</comment>


Desktop Factory: $5k 3D printer company needs final funding help to launch product - <AUTHOR> http://www.desktopfactory.com/news/03_17_09.html

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be a shame if this product couldn't come to market. It may not challenge the big players, but would fill a nice gap between the "entry level" machines that sell for $15k and the RepRap products that are a little hacky and require serious engineering know how. Could do wonders for engineering training in high schools.

<comment><USER2> I can't wait to see more companies getting into the desktop 3D printer space. The RepRap project is still very difficult to a novice user, and has a long way to go. Bre Pettis actually just started a company called <http://www.makerbot.com/> MakerBot that is working on a more commercialized RepRap. Definitely something to checkout, since they are shooting for a sub $1000 price point.</comment></comment>


Creep shamed on Facebook was actually man taking selfie with Darth Vader - <AUTHOR> https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/05/11/creep-shamed-on-facebook-was-actually-man-taking-selfie-with-darth-vader/

<comment><USER2> >The retraction post has only been viewed one-fiftieth of the times the original post was viewed.

Suggestion: Make Facebook campaign of everybody who shared the picture, and by court order have the woman make a promoted Facebook post linking to the article exonerating him. Is it possible to make a campaign like that? It should be.

</comment><comment><USER3> At the beginning of the year, I wrote down some predictions for 2015, mostly just to force myself to think about where things were going.

One of them was that 2014 was "peak social media outrage" and that it would begin to become unfashionable and taper off this year. This is exactly the kind of thing that can make that happen.</comment>


China's hi-tech war on its Muslim minority - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/apr/11/china-hi-tech-war-on-muslim-minority-xinjiang-uighurs-surveillance-face-recognition <comment><AUTHOR> Uhh, just big WOW

"The system had profiled him and predicted that he was a potential terrorist. There was little Alim could do. Officers told him he should "just stay at home" if he wanted to avoid detention again."</comment>


The Power of Mental Pictures - <AUTHOR> http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Power-of-Mental-Pictures/148497/

<comment><AUTHOR> The section on using metaphor to visualize and control anxiety was of particular interest:

 _> If a patient describes his anxious thoughts as a monkey on his back, McGuinty will ask, "What does it look like, is it your friend, does it have a name? Could we train it? ... Could it become a pet in some ways? Are there any good things about it?" This kind of approach, says Lynne Angus, a psychologist at York University who has studied the use of metaphor in clinical psychology, can be really effective: "Instead of having something attacking you, you then start to befriend it. It starts giving you agency over the experience."_

<comment><USER2> Doesn't it brush dangerously with schizophrenia, though? Given that anxiety and stress are common factors leading a person under risk into losing sanity, I feel that something like this could backfire and drag someone over the edge. But then I'm no psychologist.</comment></comment>


Daryl Davis: the black musician who converts Ku Klux Klan members - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/18/daryl-davis-black-musician-who-converts-ku-klux-klan-members <comment><USER2> Oh man, I really liked this article until the very end where cryptocurrency comes in. Jebus...</comment>


Beta signups open for a new global comics publishing platform - <AUTHOR> https://globalcomix.com/news/details/3/beta-signups-are-now-open?utm_source=hackernews&utm_campaign=betapromo

<comment><AUTHOR> Happy to answer any questions people may have :)

\- Chris</comment>


Other Languages for Golang Runtime? - <AUTHOR> Despite the arguments for and against golang as a language I think there is quite a broad positive consensus when it comes to golang's runtime.<p>So I am wondering whether there has been plans or thoughts about using the runtime as a target for other -older or brand new- languages as well. <comment><USER2> How would this work in practice? How would other languages map onto the Go constructs?

Go is a different language, as are most, and so it is not easy to do these mappings. A new language, from scratch, could be a candidate, but then why write in that instead of Go. What would another language bring to the table? Would it go against the Go philosophy?

Do you know of any examples where this has been done?</comment>


Schmidt out as Google CEO - <AUTHOR> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/datbus/article.php/3921586/Schmidt-out-as-Google-CEO-Q4-Profit-Soars.htm

<comment><USER2> Despite the rosy picture Google is trying to paint surrounding this news, it looks as if Google is changing for a new direction (and pushing Eric out).

Maybe they can now clean all of the spam out of their search results? They're simply awful these days.</comment>


Cloud computing promises dramatic savings -- if downtime is kept in check - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.infoworld.com/whurley/archives/2009/02/cloud_computing_2.html

<comment><USER2> The value of _any_ form of hosting needs always to be qualified with "(to the degree that) downtime is kept in check.

The tricky part is getting an accurate assessment of likelihood and severity of downtime. Who's going to do that assessment? I don't think I want to ask my cloud provider about his reliability, my internal IT manager about his, and then enter their numbers into my decision tree.

What about internal(within your IT dept) backup for a cloud-based operation? I'd like to know how Hackers cope with the relative risks.</comment>


I Bought Used Voting Machines on EBay for $100 Apiece. What I Found Was Alarming - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/i-bought-used-voting-machines-on-ebay/ <comment><USER3> _To my dismay, I discovered that the newer model machines—those that were used in the 2016 election—are running Windows CE and have USB ports, along with other components, that make them even easier to exploit than the older ones._

Just wait until the _next-next_ generation of voting machines has network access. Then exploitation can really scale.

</comment><comment><USER4> The article spends a significant portion of the first part of the article talking about how it was easier to get hands on the physical machine than it should be.

And in some cases, contrary to the mantra, "security by obscurity" is indeed an important _layer_ of security. But I'm not sure if this is one of them. Of all the domains that one would expect state actors to be trying to exploit, I'd think voting would be near the top. And I don't think trying to only make sure "authorized" people can get their hands on a voting machine is going to be much of a barrier to a state actor. The thing better really be secure no matter how much an attacker knows about it, to defend against state actors, no?

And of course these _weren't_. But I don't think making it harder to buy an old machine on ebay would provide enough barrier to the attackers in the realistic threat model, to even bother doing it. Better to spend the focus on the actual security of the machine. I feel like the "lifecycle management" of machines that the author prioritizes as a solution is a misdirection.

> By simply regulating and monitoring the sale of used voting machines more > closely, we would create a huge barrier to bad actors.

A HUGE one? To the intelligence agency of a foreign state? I doubt it. If you think it was a huge one, it's a false sense of security that may lead you to insufficiently prioritize more important fixes. (Which may be _not using digital voting machines_.)

</comment><comment><USER5> The vote situation in the US is so fucked ! It's unbelievable.

I'm glad France is sticking to simple paper and ballot are publicly open.

<comment><USER6> As long as they actually are simple - there have been instances (e.g. in the US) where poor design of the voting paper caused confusion as to who you were actually voting for. Then there's the case of improperly filling them in, invalidating a number of voting papers as well.

Maybe do a combination? Voting machine that prints a hard copy of your vote. Activate by scanning your passport or other proof of voting right, centralized secure repository of who has voted or some kind of deduplication of votes when counting.

<comment><USER7> I don't understand how is it possible to design a paper ballot that is confusing. In France, you have 1 paper for each candidate with their name + party on the paper. You receive each paper by the post before an election AND there is always all the papers in the voting place anyway.

You just put the paper of the candidate you want to vote for in the ballot box and that is it.

I understand there is more complicated voting system (e.g where you can rate candidate), but when do you need to choose one option in several, why would anybody want to use a different voting paper design ?

<comment><USER8> > I don't understand how is it possible to design a paper ballot that is > confusing.

Say hello to the butterfly ballot: [https://www.asktog.com/columns/042ButterflyBallot.html](https://www.asktog.com/columns/042ButterflyBallot.html)

> You receive each paper by the post before an election AND there is always > all the papers in the voting place anyway.

That opens the possibility to observe people picking up the paper of $CONTROVERSIAL_CANDIDATE and dropping it into the box, thus revealing who they voted for.

<comment><USER9> > That opens the possibility to observe people picking up the paper of > $CONTROVERSIAL_CANDIDATE and dropping it into the box, thus revealing who > they voted for.

You are supposed to pick at least two papers and usually there are enough paper so that everyone can pick one of each. Then you go to a booth, hidden behind a curtain and put one of the paper in an envelope (given after the official has checked your elector's card), discard the other paper in a basket case, then drop the envelope in the ballot box.

Of course it limits the possibilities of the vote: one person can only vote for one candidate, on the other hand, it's easier to understand for the voters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's a little off-point, but I can't help to note a bit of unmentioned fallout to exploitable voting machines -- I early-voted last week in Atlanta and again (as on every other voting day in Atlanta for the last 7-8 years) the voting booth had no curtains and virtually no privacy. I assume this is to make it more difficult for someone to swap in a card that could compromise that voting machine somehow. But I'd love to see an article addressing this issue - <USER2> some areas of the country you must vote 'publicly' \- because the touch points are so huge on each screen (and color-coded) - each of your selections can [and are] seen by the poll workers. I'm too lazy to research this further, but isn't voting anonymity guaranteed/implied somewhere in our country's codicils (incorrect term, but you know what I mean)

<comment><USER11> Iirc, it is a state decision. It is hard to get firm answers as there are different concepts that overlap:

Is it legal to pay someone to vote a certain way? Saying 'no' does not mean it is a truly secret ballot, but it is something.

Is the ballot printed by the govt as opposed to parties or organizations? (Meaning there is an "official ballot" and not just any piece of paper) At one point this was a new thing.

Are you doing an oral vote?

As it is, I think in general you end up with no obligation to share your vote, but that is not the same as any legal obligation to make the voting booth well concealed, depending on state, but that is no small amount of reading between the lines and conjecture on my part, so dont trust me too much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> They can also be found at local auctions for less than $10 each.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's their positioning? I assume they're sold for parts or scrap? It seems so strange.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The _constantly aghast_ tone makes every paragraph feel like clickbait. Shockingly. Surely. Alarmingly.

Why is it shocking that you can buy used voting machines? Why is it alarming the data is there and unencrypted? Why wouldn't a government (or supplier) sell on used hardware? Why would tamperproof screws stop you getting access? (They're for proof of access!)

It's _nothing_ like sensitive medical data (a comparison made in tfa). It's anonymous data that _should_ be publicly available.

The only concerning thing here is that these crappy machines were used in the first place. At least they're being flogged off now.

</comment><comment><USER14> Voters on both sides hate the machines because they can be rigged. Why are they still a thing?

</comment><comment><USER15> Don't want to turn this into another 'blockchains can solve anything' discussion - but I do feel some form of blockchain tech could be an effective way to solve e-voting. Here's why:

\- A central authority(government) can control issuance of new keys and maintain the association between keys and personal information. There are already plenty of gov ID cards which support digital signatures and can be used to sign voting keys as well. At the same time personal info would not show up on the blockchain.

\- Blockchain explorers would be used as a way to verify the votes are legit by virtually anyone

\- NVOs, governments, etc can run the blockchain nodes to ensure integrity of the blockchain

In combination with well designed UIs we can have simple voting apps that can make e-voting a breeze (see the Smart-ID implementation for a great example of such tech).

Obviously the attack vector shifts to the gov servers running the key issuance but its easier to do opsec on a datacenter level than on individual voting machines scattered around the country. There's also a question of the integrity of the voting app, but that can/should be open-sourced and audited.

We obviously have the tech and the capabilities to create very effective e-voting solutions. Would even go so far as to say that a proper solution would drastically change the way we think about voting - it would make on- boarding a lot easier and provide some form of 'direct' democracy that we are already seeing flourish in countries like CH. So it seems very shady to me that we end up with BS like this thats very easily exploited and discarded as ineffective.

<comment><USER16> > \- A central authority(government) can control issuance of new keys and > maintain the association between keys and personal information. [...]

This means that you can tie a vote to a key, thus a person?

That's not how voting should work. Any vote cast must be secret. Or what's to prevent any one group from blackmailing you (or any other voter)?

> Voting app

You mean that a thug could coerce me into casting my vote from home?...

> There's also a question of the integrity of the voting app, but that > can/should be open-sourced and audited.

\+ constantly verify that the machine was not tampered with (evil maid) + make sure the hardware was not compromised (supply chain attacks) + ... on _TONS_ of devices?...

> We obviously have the tech and the capabilities to create very effective > e-voting solutions.

No, clearly we don't! The current paper ballot model has been battle-tested since elections became a thing. See [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI)

<comment><USER15> > That's not how voting should work. Any vote cast must be secret. Or what's > to prevent any one group from blackmailing you (or any other voter)?

Fair point, but they do not have to maintain the association with the voting keys. Derivative keys can be signed without it imho.

> You mean that a thug could coerce me into casting my vote from home?...

Dont be naive, things like this happen already even with paper votes. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_train](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_train)

> \+ constantly verify that the machine was not tampered with (evil maid) + > make sure the hardware was not compromised (supply chain attacks) + ... on > TONS of devices?...

I agree that's a problem that needs consideration, but we've solved many such issues before. There are quite a few ID, banking, authentication, etc. apps running quite fine and well on consumer devices.

E-voting is a general term that describes methods of voting that involve electronics. While some solutions are indeed terrible, that doesn't mean all are.

<comment><USER16> > Dont be naive, things like this happen already even with paper votes. See > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_train](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_train)

That's weird. I don't understand that "filling" paper ballots. In France, we get to pick N papers with only one candidate's name printed on each. We then discard and seal in the envelope the papers we want once we're in the "isolation room".

> I agree that's a problem that needs consideration, but we've solved many > such issues before.

No, we never had the entire destiny of any one country rely on a single piece of tech running on untrusted devices. Banks can contact any individual if their logins were leaked or if their money transfer appear suspicious; but as votes cast must be kept secret, you can't do anything similar with voting.

> E-voting is a general term that describes methods of voting that involve > electronics. While some solutions are indeed terrible, that doesn't mean all > are.

Still waiting for a viable solution - so far I don't know of one.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I'm building a PWA. What are my options for push notifications on iOS? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> You're building a Pirates With Attitude?

</comment><comment><USER3> None at the moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats sad. Is there a way by wrapping the PWA as a hybrid App? Any experience with this?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the state of P2P database sync? - <AUTHOR> CloudKit, Realm, and CouchDb/PouchDb offer offline syncing with some kind of cache on the client. This is great, but I'm curious if there are any successful technologies (other than git) that are actually cloudless and P2P.
I recall reading about Noms a while ago when it was acquired by Salesforce and that supposedly had promise as a P2P database but I haven't heard anything since.
I've read some about distributed hash tables used by torrents, but they are inherently public which isn't exactly suitable for most applications.
Have you heard of any new or interesting offline distributed databased? <comment><USER2> We've created a peer to peer database at [https://www.ditto.live](https://www.ditto.live) . It runs on servers, WASM, and mobile all with a shared code base. Each row in the database is a robust CRDT that can sync deltas (or diffs) very efficiently. In addition, we are just about to add binary file sync that is quite reminiscent of bittorrent and has all the goodness of retries, resuming downloads, canceling, and pausing all baked in.

The most unique feature of Ditto is really our networking stack. Devices that have the database can sync over any available transport: mDNS, WiFi Direct, AWDL, Bluetooth Low Energy.

Here it is in action: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P2bKEJjdec](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P2bKEJjdec)

Here's a video of how being p2p allowed us to architect a database that fall back to mesh networks if the server can't be reached: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IAle9BYlxQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IAle9BYlxQ)

We're launching with several massive enterprise companies this year and some mid-to-small ones as well. On your next flight, if you notice that the flight attendants and pilots are using mobile devices to collaborate in realtime even if the internet is down: it's us ;-)!

A couple of notes about how the SDK works:

1\. The CRDT that backs our data structure for each row in the database looks like a JSON object to the end user. 2\. It is capable of substring modifications, array and map mutations 3\. Conflict resolution is automatic and deterministic, the default behavior is LWW but can be customized as long as it's deterministic. 4\. It's written completely in Rust! 5\. If peers in the mesh network have the same CRDT and only minor mutations are made to part of the CRDT, then they can efficiently sync a subset of them to reduce bandwidth limitations 6\. Our replication protocol is tied to queries. Peers will broadcast what they are interested in and devices that have relevant data will send it as long as the proper authorization certificate is there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very cool! Thanks for sharing!

Do you have public documentation. I'd love to check it out some more, but I don't want to waste anyone's time scheduling a demo.

I'm curious how your mesh networking works -- do you have to go into settings to connect every iPhone together manually or is there a way that this happens automatically?

<comment><USER2> Yes [https://docs.ditto.live](https://docs.ditto.live)

No you do not have to go into settings to manually connect. Our devices will establish connections automatically over mDNS Bonjour, automatically over AWDL or WiFi Direct or automatically over Bluetooth Low Energy.

The pairing for mobile phones that you see in the settings is reserved for Bluetooth Classic which is what people commonly use for headsets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Not exactly answering your question, but I've found researching CRDTs (Conflict-free Replicated Data-Types) very enlightening. It's what a lot of databases use these days for multi-master replication. Martin Kleppmann has done some great writing about its P2P use-cases.

As for your actual question: GunJS comes to mind and looks interesting but I'm not sure it's production ready.</comment>


Generalizing Palish's question: how would you fix high school? - <AUTHOR>

There was a lot of disagreement over whether Palish's "hacker schools" could be viable, but I think most of here agree that high school in its current form is horribly broken.  So, what would you do to make it less miserable, particularly for hackers but also in general?<p>Don't cop out by just saying "hand out vouchers (or abolish public schooling) and let the free market take care of it".  If you believe that's the right first step, then go on suppose that you're the headmaster of a private high school.  What will it look like? <comment><USER2> I think the replacement for the high school system should be based on similar principles as the chess clubs. I don't know if there is such a thing in the US so let me tell you a few words about how chess clubs worked in Poland (and I assume in all countries of the soviet block).

First of all, they were open to any child. I was never any good at chess, but I had this friend who was quite good so I wanted to be like him so I decided to enroll. I showed up and declared that I wanted to become a chess player. They told me to play a game against my friend to asses my level (I remember at the same time there was another kid who came without a friend, so they made him play against a computer; the chess computer was big, easy to beat and manufactured in East Germany). Then they assigned me to a group. The number of children in my group was varying between three and five during my time there. Each group had a coach. Our coach was an international master and former champion of Poland--it's a bit like assigning university professors to teach you fractions; but that's how it was. We met twice a week and our coach would teach us all the important stuff, openings, endgames, combinations, strategy. He would analyze our games with us and give us homework. He would tell us what to concentrate on and gave specific tips on the effective practicing. The club had a nice library of chess books. It also organized tournaments. And, the clubs were competing against one another.

It was fun. Not all kids were good players, but we were passionate about it, we would play blitz tournaments, discuss various topics and argue about our favorite openings (which felt a lot like arguing about programming languages, now that I think about it). The fact that we got to meet other kids who played chess made us more excited about it. The whole experience was wonderful on many levels and, while not all of us made much progress, some did.

I imagine how great it would be if instead of compulsory schooling there was a system of math clubs, hacking clubs, physics clubs, chemistry clubs and so on. I don't think it would cost more than the current system.

Now, you may object that since this system would not involve coercion, many children wouldn't enroll to any clubs and they would remain terribly uneducated. I don't think in reality that would cause much difference. Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine you approach random 100 people in your city and ask them to complete two tests: one on chemistry and one on chess. Both tests would cover very basic questions as well as more advanced (of course, the decisions which questions represent the same level of difficulty is arbitrary, but let's skip over it and say we are using some common sense approach). What do you think the results would be? Would more people know the answer to "How does a Knight move?" then to "What is the valency of carbon?"? How about, say, King's Indian Defense vs. nucleophilic substitution? Personally, I think that on average people would score better on the chess test. But I have never really performed such experiment, so I may be very wrong here.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerhill_School>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_model>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling>

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.michaelolaf.net/montessori12-18.html>

</comment><comment><USER5> school vouchers don't need to be aggregated to the school level, just the teacher. a headmaster is then the facilities manager (school sports and stuff are a good part of school). you may not like vouchers and they are not the whole answer but connecting teachers to shock, horror gasp, the kids they teach has to part of the solution</comment>


SQLMap: The automated SQL Injection and database takeover tool - <AUTHOR> http://sqlmap.org

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm posting this here because there are still too many people that do not know how dangerous a single SQL injection vulnerability in your code can be. It does _not_ matter if your page just throws an sql syntax error to screen. The query could be crafted so that it doesn't throw an error! Relevant: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6845195](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6845195)

If you are a programmer, or manage websites for somebody else it should be your duty to know that this tool exists and how easy it is to completely empty out a database. (this is how 99% of the 'sql password dump for major site $x' are generated.

How does it work? Please watch the video: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RsQ52...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RsQ52eCcTi4)

</comment><comment><USER2> This looks in interesting. I wonder how some things i have been working with will prevail.

<comment><AUTHOR> Download the tarball, extract it and test it :) It's super easy to use.

Please post the results :)

<comment><USER2> I'm doing that right now, I work in frameworks like Zend and your never fully sure if there are any blackholes that your missing. although I will say, I have it always on the back of my mind to prevent such things from happening as best I can, but extra open source attempts can be handy.</comment></comment></comment>


Are CAPTCHA's a good idea? - <AUTHOR> http://lemire.me/blog/archives/2013/01/02/are-captchas-a-good-idea/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+daniel-lemire%2Fatom+%28Daniel+Lemire%27s+blog%29

<comment><USER2> CAPTCHAs aren't very good for keeping bots off websites.

reCAPTCHAs are very good at getting people to volunteer there time to digitize books.

I always purposely screw up on the OCR part of the reCAPTCHAs because I don't like being used for OCR.

It seems to me that the word that isn't curved is the one from the scanned book and isn't validated to check the CAPTCHAs, but instead used to write the book which I hopefully screw up. <https://www.google.com/recaptcha/learnmore></comment>


Noteworthy Points from Google's JavaScript Style Guide - <AUTHOR> https://medium.freecodecamp.org/google-publishes-a-javascript-style-guide-here-are-some-key-lessons-1810b8ad050b <comment><AUTHOR> I've never been a fan of the "javascript standard" with no semi-colons etc. So this is refreshing and validating to me.</comment>


YC for Hardware - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-for-hardware <comment><USER2> I'm a bit out of the loop on hardware startups, but has YC funded many successful hardware startups? The only one I've heard of is Pebble.

Lowering the barrier to hardware startups is an awesome thing, of course. Hardware has a greater potential to directly impact lives at this point than software. There's tremendous software power locked up in the small, awkward- to-use computing devices we call phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and servers.

<comment><USER3> Pebble, Boosted, Cruise, Double Robotics, Pantelligent, Thalmic, UPower, Helion, Terravion, SoundFocus, SwapBox, Amulyte, Coin, IxiPlay, TrueLink, Estimote, Senic, ... <there are more>

<comment><USER4> Not to nitpick, but at least some of these arguably haven't gotten far enough along yet that they can reasonably claim to be "successful." Thalmic is just getting early products to market, Helion hasn't yet built a commercial fusion reactor, etc.

<comment><USER5> I'll just point out that going into the 3rd or 4th year of YC's existence, everyone was asking this about the software companies they were funding.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't follow from YC's success with software companies that the model will be similarly successful for hardware companies. It's still very much an experiment at this point, and "it was once an unknown for software companies" doesn't imply that hardware companies will achieve similar success with the YC model.

<comment><USER7> Sure, but it _does_ mean that "few successful companies so far" shouldn't be taken as a death knell for YC's forays into hardware. By fairly direct analogy, the majority of startups not making a profit in their first month will fail, but the majority of successful startups weren't making a profit in their first month.

<comment><USER6> Sure, that's a fair statement. I'm not saying that the lack of success so far is a knock against YC for hardware startups. Rather, the similar lack of success for software startups in YC at the same stage of development, and the subsequent success they did enjoy, is not a point in favour of YC's suitability for hardware startups.

Hardware and Software startups are sufficiently different in their needs and life cycles that it would be specious to use the success of a particular program for the one as indicative of its suitability for the other. Similarly, the sorts of b2c startups that YC typically funds are sufficiently different from b2g startups like Palantir that I don't think you could claim Palantir would have benefitted from YC based solely on the experiences of b2c startups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I read it twice to see if there was any mention of the word 'Shenzhen'. It's difficult to not keep that in the loop, for a hardware startup anywhere in the world. Even SF.

<comment><USER9> I make robots in Chicago and sell them on Tindie. My top two competitors are in Finland and Japan. Yes, I hear Shenzhen is crazy awesome, but try not to let location dominate your world view of what is easy or difficult. Making a good hardware product is difficult, no matter where you make it.

<comment><USER10> > try not to let location dominate your world view of what is easy or > difficult

Didn't YC move?

<comment><USER9> Yes. Of course, I wish YC would take my advice, too! ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interested hardware startups should be sure to check out Wearable World as well: [http://www.wearableworld.co/](http://www.wearableworld.co/)

They have a similar focus on hardware, great numbers re the percent of each class that gets funded, and have had some big successes like the Skully AR-1 intelligent motorcycle helmet: [http://www.skully.com/](http://www.skully.com/)

WW recently toured the AQS facility in Fremont where a lot of well known products are being made like Makerbot and the Lift Labs tremor defeating spoon, and class members get frequent introductions to everyone from investors to Perkins offering billing for law services only on funding. It has been a pretty kickass program so far.

</comment><comment><USER12> Is there any interest in (fabless) semiconductors? Traditionally thought as ridiculously capital intensive, there are a lot of new developments that have brought the time and costs involved down dramatically... My experience trying to fundraise for one shown there are a lot of misconceptions and (10-15 year) old ideas in the silicon valley investment space regarding fabless semi.

<comment><USER13> Very interesting.. Do tell. What kind of misconceptions are there and how have they changed?

I still labour under the assumption that NREs make doing anything like that _extremely_ expensive.

<comment><USER12> NOTE: I am the founder of REX Computing (check my submission & comment history for more info), and thus a bit biased for this.

The standard thing I have heard from VC's that don't know anything about semiconductors (Or have not been involved in it in this century): "It will cost $100 million and take 3 years to have your first silicon. You have a 50% chance of even making it that far, and even then you only have a 10% chance of success (e.g. making any sales)"

So basically, the VC assumption is that it is a minimum $100 million and 3 years to see ANYTHING come out of it... and even if you get to silicon, there is only a 10% chance you'll be able to sell it. This is ridiculously pessimistic if you actually have a real design innovation.

Some of the new developments: New tools: High Level Synthesis an "Hardware construction languages" (such as Chisel... [http://chisel.eecs.berkeley.edu](http://chisel.eecs.berkeley.edu)) radically bring RTL development time down. My team (consisting of just two of us) were able to complete the RTL of our new processor core in under 4 months (working on the weekends)... and that includes a lot of redesign and working on things other than the RTL itself. Chisel also brings the testing/verification time down significantly, as it can auto-generate Verilog optimized for either VLSI or FPGAs, and a high speed cycle accurate C++ simulator of the chip that is ~10x faster than the industry standard Verilog C Simulator. Even though Chisel really is this amazing, virtually no one outside of UC Berkeley knows about it.

2\. FPGAs have gotten a lot better... I can say the synthesis tools still suck, but in terms of speed and testing ablility, you can test your chip on very cheap (Ours is $300) FPGAs these days.

3.Shuttle run/Multi project wafer services... a "block" (6 mm^2) on TSMC 28nm process is $90,000... and you get 100 chips back. A 16 core version of our chip is just two of these blocks.

4\. Older process nodes are getting cheaper. Most fabs in the US are not going below 65nm or 45nm, and need to keep full utilization of their fabs. There are a lot of deals that can be had on these smaller fabs which are perfect for prototyping... A similar block size can be as cheap as $3 to 5k.

5\. Moore's law dying is one of the best things that can happen to the industry. Instead of the ridiculous investment getting to the next process node, the fabs can invest in making the current process better and cheaper. This will bring down the cost of very good, proven processes (like 28nm, and potentially 14/16nm in ~3 to 5 years), making fabrication even cheaper and more widely available.

I'm happy to answer any questions!

EDIT/TLDR: Based on my own startup's current plan and estimates, it is possible to prototype (get 100 chips back) an entirely new processor architecture for under $2 million, and it is possible to go into mass production with that design for $10 to $15 million.

<comment><USER14> Put this in a blog post and it should rise to the top of HN tomorrow. Thanks for posting it!

<comment><USER12> I've been wanting to do this for a while... I think I may now. Thanks.

<comment><USER15> Please do and post it on HN, I'd really like to hear more stories from a hardware startup world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Are any of these resources available for anyone who isn't already a YC founder? Does that make sense?

Wouldn't it be valuable to give interested folks who aren't yet in YC a place to do their prototyping, get discounts, and help, and then use it as lead gen for the next batch?

Think of all the companies that could exist but don't because they don't have access to these resources.

<comment><USER17> What YC is doing is bundling discounts on PCB prototyping, and 3D printed parts. The rest of the offerings are further down the stack (testing, RF, etc.) so the only thing you would be missing as a non-YC company trying to build a prototype to get into YC is discounts.

If you are hand assembling your prototypes then you only have PCB fabrication costs, which for a 2 to 4 layer board should be about $500 max for your protos (1 week turn). That should be doable for most start-ups, even if they need 3-4 spins.

<comment><USER18> They also are working on getting the tools that you need to design your prototype. Like Upverter (YCW2011) ([https://upverter.com/](https://upverter.com/)) for designing your PCB.

<comment><USER17> It would be better if they offered discount pricing on something more mature and broadly used as well, like Altium.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wait, why is Tilt on the list of startups helping out with hardware expertise? Aren't they a crowdfunding company?

[https://www.tilt.com](https://www.tilt.com)

<comment><USER20> A lot of the very recent, surprising successes in hardware (Oculus, Pebble) were crowdfunded (specifically for those, Kickstarted). I would go as far to say that using a premier crowdfunding platform to test the market may be the best, lowest risk way to validate a hardware idea. Or at least crowdfunding lowers the barrier for hardware success from "damn near impossible" to "really really hard."

<comment><USER21> Exactly correct.

Side note for companies like Indiegogo, success at attracting device makers to use their platform is key to their growth. At CES alone they have something like 14 booths.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> As a mechanical engineer who works in this area and already follows hacker news due to colliding interests, this is very exciting.

</comment><comment><USER8> An interesting thing that YC could do for hardware startups is provide discounted copies or license servers for some of the most commonly required but exorbitant softwares : Altium, Solidworks, Autodesk inventor among others.

</comment><comment><USER23> >and we don't shy away from expensive hardware--we've funded companies building things like nuclear reactors and rockets, which will require hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to succeed

How does this make sense for YC to do?

<comment><USER24> I'd guess that it's part of a diversified approach. Yes, they are capital intensive, but YC isn't the one who will be investing the hundreds of millions, and if one of these is successful, then I'd say it's likely to be _hugely_ successful and a worthwhile return for YC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This can't come soon enough. I'm helping out on a hardware 'startup' (though I guess we don't really use that term) - coming from software its an incredibly challenging realm to work in.

Simply getting a functional prototype without easy access to a 3d printer, $$$ in compiler licenses for BT stacks, freakin custom batteries, etc etc.

Our thing: [https://www.fitguard.me/](https://www.fitguard.me/)

<comment><USER26> Hi Rob, just saw FitGuard for the first time and it's a phenomenal idea.

I'd recommend getting in touch with motorcycle helmet manufacturers (particularly MotoGP and WSBK sponsors) because concussions are a huge issue in motorcycle racing. As your site states, concussion severity is very abstractly diagnosed without data, and your product can make a big difference. The doctor has a tough time deciding whether the athlete is fit to race if he's had a crash and a concussion, and it ultimately comes down to a qualitative decision made by the rider and doctor. Data can definitely help save lives here.

If I have time for the track this season, I'll definitely sign up as a tester. I've never had a concussion, but I sure as hell would want to know how fast my head decelerates after a crash before getting back on the bike.

Good luck, and cheers on a great idea.

<comment><USER25> Can't take credit for the idea, one of the founders is a Rugby player and had his clock cleaned on the field one too many times.

Data is my thing - there's a number of these types of products out there (Shockbox et al), the issue is that they all keep the algorithm quite close to their chest (fairly, I suppose!)

My role (in addition to helping out with the hardware) is the ecosystem around it. It's BLE capable, so while we can't make a diagnosis (all kinds of legal issues there), the hope is to aggregate impact data, improve the detection algorithm and be able to feed it back to the device as it improves - We're currently using a TI MCU that allows us to OTA update from the app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Sounds great! Question I have is, are these services only available to yc companies? What about startups that are not a part of yc?

</comment><comment><USER28> I would love to start a hardware startup (I even have an idea!) but I have no idea how to assess the feasibility of my idea, or how to hire h/w engineers. And it's not a billion dollar idea, so maybe it's not in the YC wheelhouse, but I sure as hell think it'd be fun.

</comment><comment><USER29> Are there any new advantages or opportunities for Bolt portfolio companies?

</comment><comment><USER30> This adds to the already exciting hardware situation.

I'm interested in the personal media/storage/app server space!

If you are hardware startup founder material and are interested, please get in touch.

</comment><comment><USER31> Do I qualify? [http://www.robots-everywhere.com](http://www.robots- everywhere.com) The article is scant on details about who do I talk to.

</comment><comment><USER32> Appreciate!I'm doing a hardware startup now,and I believe some areas in YC's RFSs will be solved better with a software&hardware model.

</comment><comment><USER33> This is wonderful! Can't wait to see what future batch companies look like

</comment><comment><USER34> From first paragraph: Bolt's partners and engineering stuff

*i think you meant staff

</comment><comment><USER35> No mention of open hardware. Definitely a market there.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'd like to see electric buggys for under $5K.

That would be really disruptive.

[https://imgur.com/UlrV8FT](https://imgur.com/UlrV8FT)</comment>


Mission and Values: a new podcast about remarkable startup cultures - <AUTHOR> http://missionandvalues.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello! I recently started a podcast called "Mission & Values" that features CEO/founders of startups that have strong company cultures.

The name is very literal - in the 1-on-1 interview, we cover the company's mission and then go through their core values and how they came to be.

For startup leaders, you get to see how others are managing their teams. For startup employees/fans, you get to dive into what it's like to work at the featured startups. For everyone, you get to learn more about your own goals and desires with work.

Here are the guests so far:

1\. Zapier - Wade Foster

2\. Gumroad - Sahil Lavingia

3\. HelloTech - Richard Wolpert

4\. RadPad - Jonathan Eppers

5\. WayUp - Liz Wessel (recorded, not yet released)

Here's a description I'm playing with (feedback desired!): "Dive into remarkable startup cultures. Learn about leadership and find where you belong. It's your life, so make your work matter."

I'd love to hear your thoughts about what you like/dislike or would want more of. I'm already learning a lot both about podcasting and about startup cultures. I've had 2 guests that didn't have codified core values, so I've had to adapt the show format as I go.

Who would you like to hear on the show?</comment>


Bitcoin Donations to Mozilla: 17 Days in (Reduced total amount of donations) - <AUTHOR> https://fundraising.mozilla.org/bitcoin-donations-to-mozilla-17-days-in/ <comment><AUTHOR> Subject not super meaningful. Basically showing a tiny "Donate with Bitcoin" text below a donation form, to a randomized group of people, reduced total amount of donations by 7.5% in comparison to the other group. The comments at mozilla.org are also worthy to read.</comment>


Best Text Editors - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/385929/best-text-editors

<comment><USER2> IMO, emacs wins just for it's sheer flexibility.

Yeah, it sucks at first, but if you're a professional text wrangler, you owe it to yourself to try to master one of the big two (emacs or vim)...

I kept trying out emacs, getting scared off, trying it out again, scaring away again... But I always came back because other text editors annoyed me with their lack of ability to do exactly precisely what I wanted.

With emacs, whatever I want to do... It's just another line of lisp in .emacs. Or sometimes another package in .emacs.d and another line in .emacs...

<comment><USER3> I don't think it sucks much at first at all... Most people I know that have a hard time with emacs don't want to learn anything fancy and think the arrow keys are fine for navigation. Let them watch you program for a few minutes and they'll be so impressed that they'll happily learn the new commands. OR, they're not cut out for technology anyway...

<comment><USER4> I had a bit of trouble with it at first, until I realized that I was supposed to be pulling it apart and making it bend to my every editing whim.

The combination of keyboard-focused editing, on-the-fly extensibility, and decently thorough and clear documentation has made emacs my editor of choice for just about everything.

Not to mention that you can get a constant source of ideas to code to keep yourself sharp, if that's your sort of thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Now I'm not much of a programmer, so the answer may be obvious to some of you, but why wasn't SciTE on the list? It's lightweight and does everything I need it to. Maybe the others are just so much better than the rest.

<http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html>

<comment><USER6> I am using SciTE again. I recently installed Ubuntu 8.04 and started using GEdit. But, I was really annoyed with the text selection in GEdit (programming in Python) and I missed replace within selection in GEdit. So, I switched back to SciTE.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As for me I just love TextMate. "E" is a good alternative on Windows platform.

<comment><USER8> Emacs works nicely on Windows now too, and with a decent installer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have used pretty much all of those and then some (e, EditPlus, Komodo, etc) over several years and the best the only one I finally fell in love with was VIM.

Actually decided to use Vim cause my "e" trial expired and I have never looked back. Been using it for a few months and text editing is so fluent, easy and intuitive despite the strong learning curve. Take an hour or so each day (or every few days) and do a chapter on the 500 page Vim book.

</comment><comment><USER10> EditPlus is a good one for windows development

</comment><comment><USER11> Been using UltraEdit for years and still love it on the PC, using TextMate on my Mac. I'm a bit surprised BBEdit isn't on there - it seemed to be the perennial fav for mac users for years.

<comment><USER12> How does UE compare to TM? I have never used TM before, but apparently E is the one to compare with? I was a diehard UE fan for a couple of years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What's wrong with using an IDE like eclipse or Visual Studio? That's what I do.

<comment><USER14> From the article: "From managing our to-do lists and writing code to jotting ideas and keeping a grocery list, nothing beats a solid plain text editor." Do you write all your text in an IDE?

And: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=72774>

<comment><USER13> I write code in an IDE and other text in notepad. I've never felt the need for any other type of editor. Those fit my needs quite alright.

<comment><USER14> C-x b is my notepad.

<comment><USER15> :tabnew is mine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Vim on my linux box. InType if I have to drop down to Windows.</comment>


Ask HN: Reject by Stripe Match? - <AUTHOR> Hi,
I'm trying to setup Stripe. This is my first business but I got rejected because:
> a previous business you were associated with, is listed on MATCH or another terminated merchant file operated by the card networks.
This is my first time business and I didn't have any previous processor so I kind of don't know what to unblock it. Because without Stripe, which provider can I used to accept payment online. I'm trying to build a SaaS.
Anyone got reject like that and how do you fix it?
Thank so much. <comment><USER2> Edwin from Stripe here. I'm really sorry for the trouble. We've just sent you an email this morning with an update.

</comment><comment><USER3> Try Square?

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like that my only option :(.

I really want to know what condition trigger this. Is it my personal account or is it just that my business bank account is too new.</comment></comment>