DB-19 Substitute, Take Two - <AUTHOR> http://www.bigmessowires.com/2016/02/23/db-19-substitute-take-two/ <comment><USER2> Did anyone call Sullins Connector Corp? (I feel like I'm repeating myself, for some reason. Did I suggest this last year?) [http://sullinscorp.com/](http://sullinscorp.com/)

They probably made that Apple connector originally.

I see that they've EOL'd their DB lines just last year, but they might still have the molds. They might be willing to keep a single DB-19 mold if they know that they've got a captive order every year.

I really recommend them if you need a connector. They were awesome to deal with.

</comment><comment><USER3> This reminds me of what I went through back in ~2004 with a VW wiring harness.

I had a product (a little toy that would give better control over the automatically-deploying spoiler behavior on turbocharged New Beetles) that was built around one specific VW wiring harness.

Apparently not many extras of the harnesses were manufactured, because after we bought ~15 of them (just enough for our first small run), the main distributor for parts in the US ran out of them. We got a few more by having some dealers do nationwide parts searches for us, but we had basically ended up buying out the entire country for this particular harness.

We spent a ton of time trying to figure out how to work around this. We'd really hoped that we would be able to just construct the harnesses ourselves, but the connectors ended up being custom parts that the OEM was unwilling to sell to us. For a while we thought about giving people a discount on the product if they'd send their old harness to us, but we only had a couple left at the time, so that would really end up trashing our throughput. In the end, we just ended up waiting until their was new stock available, almost a year later. It really sucked to have a product that a bunch of people wanted, and not be able to ship it because of a couple of connectors!

Anyhow, yeah ... I feel the author's pain.

</comment><comment><USER4> Surprising to me that it isn't more cost effective to use the female connector as a jig in manufacturing a PCB-based solution, or maybe a halfway, where it's a PCB anchoring the male pins and then a 3D-printed shell.

There are also generic round pins available, though they're probably skinnier than the standard d-shell ones: [http://www.digikey.ca/product- detail/en/TS-106-G-A/SAM1111-0...](http://www.digikey.ca/product- detail/en/TS-106-G-A/SAM1111-06-ND/1105456)

Another potential janky solution would be a partially-populated DB-25.

</comment><comment><USER5> The Atari ST series also used a DB-19 connector, for its DMA/ACSI (variant of SCSI) port. This has been a hassle recently for the Atari community. If the author of the article is interested in producing and selling new DB-19 male/female connectors, I'm sure he'd find customers in the ST community.

</comment><comment> xkcd-sucks Hopefully he gets a bunch manufactured and resells them-- This is the guy that bought up most of the world's db19 connectors for an old apple floppy emu, leaving NeXT computer enthusiasts to use such alternatives as chopped off db25 connectors/19x pin-to-pin wires as monochrome monitor/bus cables

<comment><USER2> So, why don't you guys band together with him and cut the mold?

$10,000 isn't that much spread over 3 different communities. (Apple, NeXT, Atari ST).

Yet, nobody is stepping up to cut a check. Perhaps I should call you all a bunch of cheap bastards.

$109 for the board, bill of materials, and software work that has gone into it is _CHEAP_. If he were charging $150, he could probably cut the mold himself.

However, he knows his business. Presumably, if he could charge more, he would.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The pins are standard and on some types of connector, are crimped first, then pushed into the housing block. All you need to manufacture is the plastic housing block. That's a reasonable part to have made by commercial 3D printing.

</comment><comment><USER7> There's definitely companies in China who will do custom connectors, and since a DB-19 is not exactly "custom" but just a different configuration of an existing one, it might not be so expensive. MOCs are still going to be high though.

<comment><USER8> This guy has already explored pretty much every avenue to get more of these connectors:

[http://www.bigmessowires.com/2015/03/20/finding-a- db-19-ange...](http://www.bigmessowires.com/2015/03/20/finding-a- db-19-angering-the-internet/)

[http://www.bigmessowires.com/2015/02/01/designing-a- db-19-su...](http://www.bigmessowires.com/2015/02/01/designing-a- db-19-substitute/)

[http://www.bigmessowires.com/2015/02/02/bagging-the- db-19/](http://www.bigmessowires.com/2015/02/02/bagging-the-db-19/)

[http://www.bigmessowires.com/2015/02/12/db-19-madness/](http://www.bigmessowires.com/2015/02/12/db-19-madness/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow. I always figured (naively) that dsubs were available with whatever (odd) number of pins you wanted.

</comment><comment><USER10> First flappy bird, now floppy emus. Im entranced by our culture guys :-)</comment>


RaptorJIT 1.0: Lua implementation for high-perf low-level system programming - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/raptorjit/raptorjit/releases/tag/v1.0.0 <comment><USER2> An interesting part of this project, other than improving the already excellent LuaJIT is the Studio[1] tooling (made with Pharo smalltalk[2] and nix[3]) that has been built around debugging JIT performance issues.

Luke Gorrie, one of the main contributes has been live streaming its progress.[4]

[1] [https://github.com/studio/studio/](https://github.com/studio/studio/)

[2] [https://pharo.org/](https://pharo.org/)

[3] [https://nixos.org/nix/](https://nixos.org/nix/)

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

</comment><comment><USER3> The level of experience, talent and expertise required to dive into LuaJIT development and following Mike Pall's stepping down from active development of it was cause for concern that this would be the end of the road (some even decided to abandon Lua as a result). My optimism grew when I saw this project (and the quotes at the end of it's github page, which capture the issue perfectly) - very glad to see this release and hope the momentum just gets bigger.

<comment><USER4> That's pretty much how I felt as well. I've come across this some weeks ago, and I'm still not sure if this will be a worthy LuaJIT successor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm very happy to see this. For those who are not familiar with Luke Gorrie, he has done many interesting things whilst tightly orbiting around languages that lack popular appeal.

Erlang, Common Lisp, Forth and now Lua and Smalltalk, it takes a certain kind of thinking to go against the grain like that. Besides following his output for years and being inspired by him, I've always admired Luke for blazing his own path in the programming wilderness.

</comment><comment><USER6> So great to see this ... The slow roll of LuaJIT, made me despair a bit that Lua would ever see a thriving JIT project. Hopefully this will be it...

If you haven't tried Lua, do. You can be up and running in about 3-4 hours, writing useful things. Try writing your next utility script or command line tool in Lua.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've looked at luajit, terra, and now raptorjit; and I always come to the same conclusions.

1) this is the wrong optimization (more below)

2) Rio's runtime is very good (enough for now, at least)

3) the next big step like this is to make an interpreter in Rust, not necessarily a parser/ast generator, but just a runtime, and I'm not in a rush for this

the right optimization is to do low-level work in a systems language.. in my case Rust, where rLua has a great wrapper for puc Lua. only use Lua as a scripting language to call those lower level functions.

right now on github, you can see my Lua bindings to Rust's libraries for web server, web client, libsodium functions, jinja rendering, string transforms, set operations, and more. all of that work is done in Rust, and controlled by Lua. it's faster than any Lua you've ever seen.

[https://github.com/foundpatterns/torchbear](https://github.com/foundpatterns/torchbear)

<comment><USER4> You clearly don't understand terra then. Terra _is_ a system language that mimics Luas syntax and uses it as a preprocessor. The only thing that makes it different from, say, C, is that the compiler can actually run the code it generates immediately, and outputting an enclosed executale is an option, but not the default.

As for PUC Lua, yes, it's perfectly ok for most things when you're mostly scripting and using C for the heavy lifting anyway, like when you're building a scripting language into an already existing game engine or program.

LuaJIT was always meant to fill the in-between role (which is, arguably, the broadest one) where you can't be bothered to write a full C application to host your Lua code but still need more speed than you get by just running a whole program in PUC Lua.

<comment><USER7> > where you can't be bothered to write a full C application to host your Lua > code

This Rust code I linked to is an application framework. It makes several of Rust's most powerful libraries available to Lua, which should greatly improve development speed. I'm using it to build an event-based Lua web framework on top of it. (also there) Development of other network applications should also be very smooth, afaics.

<comment><USER8> Yeah thats a different use case somewhat like a modern version of openresty but built around a set of libraries rather than inside Nginx. There may still be a case for some applications for a jit compiler for the Lua parts but that depends on the application.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does this still only support 2 Gb of RAM?

([https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35155444/why-is- luajits-...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35155444/why-is-luajits- memory-limited-to-1-2-gb-on-64-bit-platforms))

<comment><USER10> No, that restriction is gone. Peter Cawley did the hard work and added optional support for 64-bit heaps to LuaJIT upstream [1] and RaptorJIT adopted that exclusively i.e. dropped the 32-bit heap option which involved a LOT of #ifdef'ery in thousands of lines of assembler code.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeaDk9ElKws](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeaDk9ElKws)

<comment><USER9> Last I checked (which was a year or more ago), 64-bit GC for LuaJIT is an experimental and buggy feature. Do people actually use it in production? Since which version of LuaJIT?

<comment><USER10> The bugs have been shaken out now and it works fine in production. That's true at least on x86-64 with common build options and the latest LuaJIT prerelease.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Most of the changes are removals of architectures other than x86_64. What a joke.

<comment><USER12> To be fair, when I was using Lua a decade ago, LuaJIT mostly only supported Linux and x86-64. Mike was adding new architectures and variants on request and when people would pay him to do so, while the core was both mostly sufficient and still improving. Those 50,000 lines did come after x86-64, if you wanted to move the project in a different direction it seems sensible to strip them out, make your changes. As long as your changes a rent too drastic, it should be comparatively easy to put them back in.

<comment><USER8> Each architecture had a hand coded interpreter. The plan is to write a portable interpreter in C.</comment></comment></comment>


Massgate – The central server for the game World in Conflict - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ubisoftinc/massgate <comment><USER2> I work at Massive (The now Ubisoft owned studio that developed world in conflict) and everyone is super happy to have this work available to everyone. It was sad when we had to shut the systems down before we shipped The Division. They were not well supported to be fair but I am proud of precedent Ubisoft is setting (or at least allowing) in open sourcing old game components (or; current systems like sharpmake)

Just dont assume much of _this_ is relevant now. I recognise names but there is nothing in Massive developed today that looks like this. :/

<comment><USER3> I was a big fan of World in Conflict back when it came out. Great take on the RTS genre! Between this and Freedom Fighters we had a fun look at 'what if' the Cold War heated up.

I've never played The Division as I've not much interest in (or time for) MMO style games. I presume this trend of connected gaming and associated increased monetisation is going to continue as development costs increase at the expense of the single player experiences of yore.

<comment><USER4> Just chiming in that The Division isn't a typical MMO and much of the game can be played solo or in a small matchmaking group.

It's on sale now and worth a try! I'd happily show you (or anyone else reading this) around.

<comment><USER5> Yup; The Division is err, a 3rd person shooter with a Diablo-style loot / gear system, along with online functionality like co-op missions and an optional pvp area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love this banned string: [https://github.com/ubisoftinc/massgate/blob/1bacdde1faec7ed1...](https://github.com/ubisoftinc/massgate/blob/1bacdde1faec7ed16ced7a145136add7e958f215/share/sql/databasestructure.sql#L3410)

<comment><USER7> Why are "developer", "moderator", "server", "massive" (the developer), and "worldinconflict" banned?

<comment><USER8> These words are banned to be used as user and server names, not in the chat. Look at the three booleans that precede each of the strings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The game itself is free this week [https://freetrial.ubisoft.com/promotions/wic/12](https://freetrial.ubisoft.com/promotions/wic/12)

<comment><USER10> are there reasons to get it from ubisoft giveaway, if you have it already on gog (or steam)?

<comment><USER11> Not really.

There is a small case to be made in hedging against storefront shutdowns by getting free copies as much as possible on as many storefronts as possible. UPlay being the publisher's own storefront presumably has a different risk assessment for shutdown than GOG or Steam. (By that logic, I love GOG Connect for a small hedge of Steam purchases, and many of my Steam purchases in the last five or six years have been Humble Bundle or Humble Store for a similar reason.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm relatively new to C++, is this style common? I refer to, for example, putting the return of function on a separate line from the name and each of the passed parameters on a separate line as well.

<comment><USER13> For C++, I subscribe to Google style. It addresses this.

[https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html#Function_D...](https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html#Function_Declarations_and_Definitions)

<comment><USER14> Geez how does anyone remember all of that...

<comment><USER15> Your linter remembers for you.

<comment><USER16> Indeed, the very best kind of coding convention is the automated and enforced kind. Prevents a lot of arguing, leaving more time to argue about the code's actual contents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> World In Conflict was a near perfect game! Multiplayer made for fast casual games, that you could leave anytime and another player would replace you. So it didn't interfere with real life. Always wish a sequel had come out.

</comment><comment><USER18> Ubisoft just got a lot more respect from me. I wish more game developers did this.

<comment><USER19> Not sure if this is made clear but the source code they released only manages rankings, chat rooms and players.

There's still the dedicated game server software that is closed. Imo most aspiring game developers would be more interested by the game code than the administrative code that was released.

<comment><USER11> Any potentially reusable infrastructure is better than none to an aspiring game developer, I would hope.

For one thing, it's amazing how many incompatible chat room systems have been developed by game developers over the years. Some have been smart enough to build on IRC protocols or Jabber protocols and/or servers as a leg up, and I would hope some are looking at options like Matrix today. I've not glanced deep enough if this server is as good an option as those others, but it's still a better option than "roll your own".

Whatever the choice, the fewer game developers that need to reinvent a chat server every (other) game, the more time they can spend on less "administrative" code.

Sure Slack started as "yet another game chat system" before it was decided that the chatroom product was better than the game and a pivot cemented that. But for every Slack there's probably easily a dozen developers that got bogged down in administrative projects, never launched, and never found a way to usefully pivot one of those administrative projects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is fantastic. Thanks Massive/Ubisoft.

I never played World in Conflict much (though I do have it), but I was a big fan of Ground Control (arguably the pre-predecessor of World in Conflict).

It was basically my first online game. The feeling of that small community is something I remember fondly to this day. I remember one the members of my clan (The Initiative) always correcting me as my 13 year old self made many a grammar mistake; I'm not a native speaker. That, and many other things, have been formative to me.

Some part of me would truly enjoy seeing the server infrastructure for Ground Control open-sourced as well. Though of course I consider it possible parts of that were controlled by the now-defunct WoN (World Opponent Network) [1].

Thanks for all the fun.

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

<comment><USER21> You may be the first person I've ever 'met' that knows about Ground Control!

I didn't play the first, but I remember putting GC2 on an under-powered laptop and playing for hours at 5fps! Pretty sure that game is the reason I need prescription glasses now.

<comment><USER20> I remember playing GC1 on a 300Mhz celeron with everything turned down. Needless to say, anything but the easiest single players missions were murder. It ran like a dream on an AMD Athlon 700 with an ATI Radeon 9000 though, when I finally scrounged up enough cash to buy it. GC2 was too different from GC1 in terms of gameplay mechanics for me to truly enjoy it, but I did finish the single player campaign, messed around with online (only a few matches) and attempted to make an old-style Ground Control map. That was released but I don't think it ever amounted to anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So I bet releasing the game server code is actually impossible since it's tight to third party framework like Havok?

<comment><USER23> This is the game server code...

<comment><USER24> Is it? This looks like "just" the matchmaking service.

From the README:

> The dedicated game server is called Wic_ds.exe and is included in the > distribution of the game. It is installed by Uplay upon download.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> company of heroes is better than wic by far

<comment><USER26> Context: It is one of the banned strings in chat

[https://github.com/ubisoftinc/massgate/blob/1bacdde1faec7ed1...](https://github.com/ubisoftinc/massgate/blob/1bacdde1faec7ed16ced7a145136add7e958f215/share/sql/databasestructure.sql#L3410)</comment></comment>


Reddit's Satoshi Nakamoto Skeptics - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/03/reddits-satoshi-nakamoto-skeptics.html <comment><USER2> > _rather than taking [Redditors '] skepticism seriously, many media outlets > pounced instead on the story of their "rage," scouring the site for examples > of death threats, violence, or outright lunacy, which were then published > with much fanfare._

We are still learning how to live in a connected and recorded world. Even the most coherent natural conversations, when put on paper, make for strained reading. The thread of thought jerks around implications and exclamations of hyperbole. Cherry-picking hiccups is a thoughtless exercise in missing the forest for the trees.

We lived in a connected world before. Small town talk connected communities. The chatter then was likely as belligerent as Twitter is today. The difference, though, is gossip is (usually) ephemeral while written words persist. Society didn't seek to document and re-broadcast the petty thoughts of suburban Geneva on the loucheness of New Yorkers. If something was to cross the Atlantic, it would have to carry more substance.

Perhaps it will take a new generation of reporters to effect the change. One more enamoured by, and driven to explore, the message versus the medium.

<comment><USER3> Henry David Thoreau:

"We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate…. As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't get over the fact that the New Yorker is quoting some reddit users using their online nicknames.

<comment><USER5> At least for me, I know more people by their handles than their real names. Not sure if that's the case for most people though.

<comment><USER6> I once sent an ambulance to someone's house and told them to ask for the guy by his screen name since it was all I had to go off of.

<comment><USER7> What happened, if you don't mind me asking?

<comment><USER6> Someone posting worryingly that they might be attempting to suicide by pills. It all worked out though, and they're doing better these days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a little surprised that the New Yorker (although this is a New Yorker blog, so maybe it's not the "real" New Yorker) is doing the HuffPo/Gawker/Buzzfeed kind of "look what just happened on Reddit!" type of post.

However, as a former reporter, I can understand the temptation of looking at reddit as a treasure trove of quotes and opinions that require no more than a few clicks to use in an article.

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting that the writer seems to take what is described as "rage" (a meme reference) and "sound and fury" (idiomatic) literally. Other than that, this is rather a tardy and something less than nuanced summary of the events of the last week or so. Kind of strange - I thought the magazine was working to modernize its tech coverage.

<comment><USER10> New Yorkers coverage is always kinda meh. Like, why quote random reddit users? They could've quoted Gavin, Eric, Andreas etc. Also, that's a lot of words in that article to say the bitcoin subreddit went apeshit over Newsweek.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't know how often I have actually seen this, but it was interesting to note that the references to _Newsweek_ were simply italics instead of hyperlinks. After recently studying pagerank I found that an interesting tactic, whether or now pure hyperlinks are stil used in the calculations vs some other metric.

<comment><USER12> That is what rel='nofollow' was invented for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> anyone remember this? In 2011, they did like 5 page investigative piece trying to find Satoshi Nakamoto's true identity.

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/10/111010fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/10/111010fa_fact_davis)

I love how they are trying to play dumb now when they were the ones that originally crossed the lines.

<comment><USER14> That article is explicitly linked in the current article (see "Joshua Davis wrote about the search for Nakamoto in 2011"). If they were "trying to play dumb", they probably would not have mentioned it.

<comment><USER13> it took them 5 days to publish an article regarding it though and the fact that Newsweek was able to get a lead so quick (not saying it's the right guy) seems they like didn't do due diligence in the first place, I asked the author of The New Yorker piece for comment on the recent developments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > "no paper, copper, or silver—just thirty-one lines of code"

Joshua Davis is incompetent. Maria Bustillos is incompetent too.

<comment><USER16> You forgot Gary Marcus. I don't know why anyone would look to the New Yorker for tech coverage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I hope, for this man's sake and for the reporter too, that this story's evaporation of its shelf life is expiring.

It just feels like something that belongs in those trashy grocery store gossip magazines, meanwhile we're the rubberneckers causing some sort of metaphorical traffic jam.

</comment><comment><USER18> I have a Satoshi theory.

During the early-2000's there was an online location (being deliberately vague here) where there was an individual who was very excited about the idea of decentralised accounting.

At the time most people ignored everything that author was saying. Now, his comments seem strangely prescient.

That authors writing seems somewhat similar to Satoshi's, too.

Additionally at least one domain name that author had control over is a Japanese site (although it looks to be pretty spammy, and not Bitcoin related).

OTOH, there was little evidence that I saw that this person had the necessary skills to create Bitcoin.

<comment><USER19> Sorry, this is way too vague to be worth of anything. After all, a lot of the cypherpunks movement was in love with decentralized money, but only one gal, guy or group made something usable out of this.

<comment><USER18> I'm not trying to imply that I know who Satoshi is. More that I have a hypothesis, and I'm not really too sure how to test it.

I'm not entirely sure that I would/should/could investigate it further anyway. Satoshi seems to value his or her privacy, and even if anyone had information that could piece that shield I'm not sure they should.

But meh.. like you say. I'm probably wrong anyway. OTOH.. how would someone verify something like this? As far as I can see there is no compelling way to do it, without Satoshi deciding to unmask themselves.

<comment><USER20> I'd say this sounds like a case of "Idea whose time has come". Sometimes, the flow of culture and technology creates a situation in which certain ideas keep bubbling up. Might be that decentralized accounting is one of those ideas in this day and age.

I mean, there are a bunch of ideas that half of us have had at one point or another, independently. Decentralized refrigeration boxes for grocery-to-the- home delivery is also one of those ideas, autonomically interacting vehicle computers is another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In this topic, a mainstream media publication treats a loosely coupled online group of millions of disparate people as if they were a monolithic entity.

News at 11.

<comment><USER22> It's properly "Film at 11": [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_at_11](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_at_11)

<comment><USER23> Maybe, but "News at 11" was definitely part of local stations' vocabulary when I was growing up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is the supposed Satoshi Nakamoto posting in these forums using Tor? If not, what is his IP address?

The people with the means (NSA, CIA, etc) already know who he is (or can easily find out).</comment>


Jordan Peterson's Gospel of Masculinity - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/jordan-petersons-gospel-of-masculinity <comment><USER2> I feel like Jordan Peterson has been treated pretty unfairly by the media. This article is by far the most fair. I remember coming across his lectures many years ago and went through all of them and found them really fascinating. I'm an self-proclaimed progressive, liberal, feminists, whatever, so I was pretty damn shocked when he became this alt-right figure head, because, well, I couldn't comprehend why they thought that way.

His lectures are far from politically divisive, they are actually quite interesting. Hell, one of his classes on mythology so closely mirrors the Monsters & Myths series on Netflix, that I believe the lecture partially inspired the show.

My person opinion is that a lot of young guys watch his stuff because it's interesting and insightful, but pull the wrong message from it. Part of the blame lies in the prevalence of clips and montages of his lectures that cherry-pick parts of his lecture and present it out of context.

For example, his controversial statement about women being neurotic and too agreeable. The context was that he had a professional female client who was having difficulty getting ahead at work because she was too nice to people, and what he did to help her was put her through assertiveness training to help her develop skills that did not come naturally to her. The premise is that women are more agreeable and neurotic, thus they may not naturally develop these skills.

I will admit to not having followed him recently, so it's completely possible that there's a video clip out there of him being a total alt-right asshole.

<comment><USER3> > For example, his controversial statement about women being neurotic and too > agreeable.

Neurosis is a clinical diagnosis, not a criticism as many laypeople misinterpret it. This is a fairly non controversial statement amongst physcologists, akin to saying women have wider hips than men.

<comment><USER2> This is actually a point I remember him making as well.</comment></comment></comment>


Click selfies with anyone from different location - <AUTHOR> "Unifie"helps you can take a selfie with anyone from across the globe and our app would make it look like you both are together in the same place, at the same time. So even if you miss your friend's party, you can still have a memorable photo with them.
All you have to do is strike a pose and click! send it to your friend. Once your friend accepts your request within a minute you will get a selfie which looks like you both are same place, at same time! You can do it during a live video call too! You can download the app from the links below. Happy Unifie :)
Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.unifie
App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/unifie/id1349096221?mt=8
How it works:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIkaIZYy72I <comment><USER2> Do you have a blog post with more technical details? This is a technical forum, so something more detailed about how this work will be appreciated. (Without revealing too much about the secret sauce, or toooo many details to make it boring.) What is the tech stack? Are the unifies calculated in the phone or in the server? How long does each one take to be proceced?

Are you correcting the illumination level?

Have you tested it with a pair of person of very different skin color? If the autocorrection goes wrong you will get a lot of angry tweets.

It would be nice to replace the white half that says "your friend space" with a semitransparent layer that shows the background so it's easier to aim the camera. Can I choose if my friend is on the right or on the left?

Can I store a friend for later? Can I "retake" the selfie?</comment>


Android is hard – but I did it (feedback welcome) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@morpheu5/android-is-hard-b7a5a5549655#.gnalysv9z <comment><USER2> My biggest problem with Android dev is it's hard for all the wrong reasons

<comment><AUTHOR> So much of this!</comment></comment>


How the octopus got its smarts - <AUTHOR> https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/how-the-octopus-got-its-smarts <comment><USER2> Octopus intelligence is essentially one of the multipliera for the drake equation for estimating the probability/ubiquity of intelligent ET life.

We have (as far as we know) one instance of life "seeding," many instances of complex life evolving. Several examples of quasi-intelligent species like dogs, apes, raven and octopi. Only one example of human-level intelligence.

The further they are from us/eachother in the evolutionary tree, the more likely they are to evolve independently regardless of early complex life's evolutionary choices. Octopi are _way_ farther from us than birds are.

Fun stuff!

<comment> bjelkeman-again I have been thinking for a while that if you want to practice communicating with aliens, try octopi. If you can actually have a reasonable conversation with some of them, like you can with a house trained dog, then you are making some kind of progress.

<comment><USER3> I don't think dogs are a great example of an intelligent species just because we can communicate with them reasonably well. They have evolved to be able to participate in human society. With the exception of some breeds of herding dogs, they're probably stupider than (to pick one example) raccoons. But dogs possess a key trait that raccoons lack: they can understand human emotion reasonably well.

<comment><USER4> My parent's dog makes them indirectly do what she wants => direct communication is potentially overvalued.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > While the octopus has a large central brain in its head, it also has a > unique network of smaller 'brains' within each of its arms. It's just what > these creatures need to coordinate the mind-boggling complexity of eight > prehensile arms and hundreds of sensitive suckers, which provide the octopus > with the equivalent of opposable thumbs (roboticists have been taking note).

A neurological network of loosely-coupled semi-autonomous subsystems...

<comment><USER6> Humans actually have a much more simplified system like this for coordinating fine motor movement. Bunches of neural tissue at each vertebrae and a few other strategic sites around the body can fire independently as reflexes. Also stomach has a large amount of intelligence going on. Second largest concentration after the cranium.

<comment><USER7> The enteric nervous system is interesting, but I'm not sure I'd call it intelligent. For one thing, you can chop big bits out of it with no adverse effects.

<comment><USER8> Well you can blow a freaking crowbar through your brain violently enough that it lands almost a hundred feet behind you and yet the lasting effect might not be much worse than a noticeable change in personality

EDIT

"I first noticed the wound upon the head before I alighted from my carriage, the pulsations of the brain being very distinct. The top of the head appeared somewhat like an inverted funnel, as if some wedge-shaped body had passed from below upward. Mr. Gage, during the time I was examining this wound, was relating the manner in which he was injured to the bystanders. I did not believe Mr. Gage's statement at that time, but thought he was deceived. Mr. Gage persisted in saying that the bar went through his head. Mr. G. got up and vomited; the effort of vomiting pressed out about half a teacupful of the brain [through the exit hole at the top of the skull], which fell upon the floor" [0]

[0] Harlow, John Martyn (December 13, 1848). Passage of an Iron Rod Through the Head. Boston Medical & Surgical Journal. 39 (20): 389–93 sourced from wikipedia.

<comment><USER9> Watching someone vomit and a half cup of brain being pressured out of their head to drop on the floor. Very glad I didn't go into medicine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Awesome, somewhat speculative and philosophical science book on this topic: Other Minds by Peter Godfrey

Wiki - [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds:_The_Octopus,_th...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds:_The_Octopus,_the_Sea,_and_the_Deep_Origins_of_Consciousness)

Review - [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/15/other-minds- pe...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/15/other-minds-peter- godfrey-smith-review-octopus-philip-hoare)

<comment><USER11> Second. The end trails off a bit IMHO but it's an otherwise exceptional book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "So far, the octopus has revealed three big clues as to how it generates brain complexity: it has multiplied its set of circuit-building protocadherin genes and its network-regulating zinc fingers. It has also unleashed RNA editing to generate more complexity on the fly."

Could someone elaborate on the last sentence please?

<comment><USER13> RNA editing involves modifying transcripts such that one gene can encode for many separate proteins. The different proteins may only differ at few amino acids but these modifications typically occur in functional domains eg ligand binding sites, pore domains etc. This allows an increase in functional diversity without an increase in genomic complexity.

<comment><USER14> I don't know why this was down voted so far it was killed so I vouched for it.

It is however a bit obscure. Perhaps this could be rephrased in more common HN terms as "the octopus's genetic mechanism quite aggressively uses epigenetic mechanisms" or "calls genetic 'subroutines' in ways unfamiliar in chordates (like us).

I found it weird that the article called the octopus' brain morphology "weird" given that we really only have one other model (again, that of vertebrates) to follow. Though there are more vertebrates by far, perhaps the octopus makes more sense and _we_ are the centralised weirdos?

<comment><USER15> "Weird" does not mean "bad" — just different [from what we commonly expect]. Anyway, there are also some aspects to the physiology that you might not expect, such as the esophagus running through the center of the executive brain. A bit of crab shell might pierce it, for example.

<comment><USER16> > "Weird" does not mean "bad"

I tend to agree, but it's interesting that depending on how much the norms of one's prevailing culture emphasize conformity, as they have in the recent past, "weird" can be interpreted as a pejorative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I find this absolutely fascinating. For a long time we thought that humans had a monopoly on abstract thought and problem solving, then we realized apes have it, then pigs, and now octopi. It's weird to think that humans might not be the only truly intelligent creatures on the planet, but it does show to me that "intelligence" isn't this simple black and white system.

I have to say though, this article did kind of make me feel guilty for eating as much octopus as I have.

<comment><USER18> Suppose you were born an octopus, with your current level of intelligence.

What would you do? How would you demonstrate it?

Note how difficult it would be to communicate.

I think many animals are a lot smarter than we give them credit for.

<comment><USER19> It's hard to distinguish your current level of intelligence with all the stuff you've learned. Knowing what I know now I'd probably go for tapping prime number sequences on the glass, but it took millenia of humans that were basically as intelligent as me to figure out that prime numbers are interesting.

<comment><USER20> That is true. I was thinking that morse code or writing would be effective, but my knowledge of these things is not really intelligence but rather things that I learned by participating in human society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I love octopuses and I hope they're given a fair chance to evolve to their full potential, perhaps as the next caretakers of Earth to succeed us if not as the second intelligent species to cohabit this planet with us.

It seems their biggest disadvantage is their very short lifespans? Apparently they get to live for barely 5 years! Worse, their reproductive system also seems to be rigged to make them die of starvation. [0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus#Lifespan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus#Lifespan)

</comment><comment><USER22> In a stunning coincidence, this is from today's Washington Post: 'This is what happens to a shy octopus on ecstasy' [https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/09/20/this-is- wh...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/09/20/this-is-what-happens- shy-octopus-ecstasy/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Put enough neurons in a room with enough energy and you get intelligence!

Seems to be the recurring assumption. Does anyone in this field have any more insight into this, like is this just a journalistic mis-interpretation or is it really the accepted belief with X, Y and Z to back it up?

</comment><comment><USER24> i recommend the book _squid empire: the rise and fall of the cephalopods_.

[https://www.amazon.com/Squid-Empire-Rise-Fall-Cephalopods- eb...](https://www.amazon.com/Squid-Empire-Rise-Fall-Cephalopods- ebook/dp/B0716YD4TL)

</comment><comment><USER25> [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/nemzqz/researcher...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/nemzqz/researchers- gave-octopuses-mdma-in-the-name-of-science)</comment>


O'Neill: WTF Is An Architect, Anyway? - <AUTHOR> http://brianoneill.blogspot.com/2014/01/wtf-is-architect-anyway.html

<comment><USER2> "Architect": Someone whose paygrade is above that of "Senior Developer / DBA / etc."

They did not know what other title category to give me ;)</comment>


Ask HN: Long Term Covid-19 Complications - <AUTHOR> As someone who had a mild COVID-like illness in March, but never fully recovered (with the primary remaining symptom being body fatigue, sometimes post-nasal drip, and some tingling in the extremities, none of which are showing signs of improvement after 5 months), I want to survey the HN community about similar complications.
It seems like it isn't uncommon to have lingering COVID-like symptoms after testing negative for the live culture, with varying degrees of severity [0][1][2].
Please leave your story if you've had similar symptoms. I'm especially interested in how you've been treating it and if you've had any success.
[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/three-months-in-these-patients-are-still-ravaged-by-covids-fallout-11593612004
[1] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/brain-fog-heart-damage-covid-19-s-lingering-problems-alarm-scientists
[2] https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/12/after-covid19-mental-neurological-effects-smolder/ <comment><USER2> If the tingling is non-trivial and persistent, I'd strongly suggest R-Lipoic acid (not Alpha-Lipoic acid) for the possible nerve damage (peripheral neuropathy). It's over the counter, you can buy it from Amazon etc. 100mg once per day, take it with food. It will drop your blood sugar levels a bit, you may notice that initially (which is a reason to take it with or right after food). Cost is about $8 per month equivalent typically. It'll be worth trying to see if it removes the tingling, particularly if it becomes more severe over time. It's often quite effective for peripheral neuropathy. Also of course research R-Lipoic acid (if you haven't yet) and see what you think independent of what I'm saying.

<comment><USER3> Hadn't heard about R-Lipoic Acid until now. I couldn't find much as far as clinical studies. I read the WebMD page[0] but if you have any better sources please share!

[0] [https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-767/alpha-l...](https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-767/alpha- lipoic-acid)

<comment><USER2> I got some light nerve damage, peripheral neuropathy, around eight years ago from taking just part of one round of Cipro. Nerve damage is now one of the many blackbox warnings commonly recognized for that rather evil class of antibiotics (fluoroquinolones).

Like most people that get nuked by Cipro, I hadn't properly understood how extraordinarily dangerous the drug is. I had taken antibiotics once or twice in my life, for trivial things, I assumed Cipro was no more risky than, say, Azithromycin.

Then one day, not long after the Cipro symptoms began (damaged my achilles tendons also), I noticed my fine motor skills in my fingers were acting weird. I could either fully squeeze eg a drink in my hand, or I'd almost drop it, the in-between fine grade nerve control was sort of missing. There was also some tingling sensation that went with it. So of course I freaked out a bit mentally, naturally, thinking the worst of what that might be the start of (ALS for example). Turns out, fortunately (how odd to say that), it was nerve damage caused by Cipro.

After a lot of research, I found R-Lipoic Acid (RLA or R-LA). Diabetics often use it to control their peripheral neuropathy, and it will also lower your blood sugar levels (which isn't something I needed in my case). Depending on the extent of the nerve damage you have to use more of it. Some diabetics use very high doses to control the tingling / nerve damage consequences that stem from their diabetes. In my case I was lucky, mostly the finger nerve twitchy'ness and low grade tingling is all I got and I was able to control that with a low dose 100mg of R-Lipoic Acid. I first tried Alpha-Lipoic Acid (ALA) and it didn't work very well, so I switched to the R-Lipoic form and that worked perfectly. From everything I read at the time, Alpha-Lipoic Acid doesn't seem to work as well compared to the R-Lipoic form when it comes to nerve damage. If I stop taking it for more than ~24-36 hours, the effects of the nerve damage return. I haven't seen any progression in the nerve damage in the last seven years, I take one 100mg capsule of R-Lipoic Acid per day, and everything is normal so long as I maintain that routine. As a programmer / developer I type all day long, so you can imagine how nerve damage consequences in the fingers could be threatening, however the R-Lipoic Acid has so far made it such that I don't see any of the nerve damage consequences and can function normally.

I no longer have any of the sources I used to find/research R-Lipoic Acid as a solution. I'm not surprised if there are not very many clinical trials though, it's an inexpensive over the counter solution. You can read a zillion reviews on Amazon and elsewhere from people that use it for this though, and you'll find it's not uncommon for doctors to recommend trying it for lighter cases of peripheral neuropathy. It's a very low risk potential solution. I recall one of the first things I read about the ALA form was that it had been in use in Germany for many years as a therapy for peripheral neuropathy.

Apparently body builders sometimes take Lipoic Acid as well. The process by which it lowers blood sugar and increases insulin sensitivity apparently involves increasing metabolism a bit. Lipoic Acid also binds with heavy metals, it can apparently pull heavy metals out of your body and crosses the blood brain barrier (you can find some studies on heavy metal detoxification that reference using ALA for that). ALA has been found to lower cholesterol levels. I don't take it for any of those reasons though. It's an interesting compound.

Here's a good article on Alpha-Lipoic Acid:

[https://diabetesaction.org/article-alpha-lipoic- acid](https://diabetesaction.org/article-alpha-lipoic-acid)

Also:

[http://pennstatehershey.adam.com/content.aspx?productid=107&...](http://pennstatehershey.adam.com/content.aspx?productid=107&pid=33&gid=000285)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Definitely resonates with me. I had relatively non-mild covid symptoms in March / April but never went to the hospital.

I've pretty much experienced what lots of other people have related over the past 4-5 months--different symptoms popping up and going away every day, all falling into the kind of umbrella of post-viral symptoms.

I've definitely noticed a pretty big improvement the last few weeks but I still get hit out of the blue with fatigue, brain fog, and occasionally a heavy chest. I would be more concerned but I went through a very similar experience with mono a few years ago, and hoping things will continue to slowly lift with time and as u/notahacker mentioned rest, low intensity exercise, and healthy food.

</comment><comment><USER5> The main lingering symptom for me was periods of discomfort in the thymus and to a lesser extent swelling in my lymph nodes under the armpits, mainly cropping up when I was tired [much more easily than usual], undergoing physical exercise, or drinking even small quantities of alcohol. Assume this was my immune system being more easily stressed than usual. Seems to have subsided as a response to fatigue now, and I can happily go running or stay up later without issue.

All I've done are the generic health recommendations [sleep more, eat well, avoid alcohol, take regular low intensity exercise, avoid sources of stress]</comment>


I did the math. I'm on pace to waste 33 yrs of my life. - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/coffee-time-1/9f00fc22f521

<comment><USER2> I think that the author dramatically underestimates the difficulty of learning a foreign language, which undermines his perspective statement. I would go so far as to say that it's absolutely impossible for anyone but a savant to become conversationally fluent in a foreign language with 30 hours of work which is what his timeline suggests (and the very article he links as support seems to agree with my assessment).

With that out of the way, I find that my daily productivity isn't limited by available time so much as available willpower (which we currently believe can be exhausted in the same way that muscles are exhausted [0]). I think a more effective way to improve your productivity is to ask not how much time you're wasting, but _why_ you're wasting that time.

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

</comment><comment><USER3> Article> Obviously, things like commuting are not recoverable but certainly I can scale back my random articles, Facebook and television watching.

Commuting time is not obviously unrecoverable. You could move closer to work. Doesn't work in all cases, and doesn't happen overnight, but if you're interested in tightly managing your total time on earth, and you're commuting more than 30 minutes a day, you've got to look at that wedge of time as in play.

(Someone could argue that the 30 should be 20, or even 15. Fair enough.)

<comment><USER4> There are other options. My commute to one end is 40 minutes, of which 20 minutes are walking (obviously not a waste). The other 20 minutes on a train is reading articles.

<comment><USER2> Depending on your perspective, walking can be a waste. It's better than driving because it provides fitness benefits, but it's much worse than actual aerobic (or anaerobic) training.

For instance, you would be better off driving for 5 minutes after spending 15 minutes doing interval training or some other kind of intensive exercise.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't dismiss walking as an inferior form of exercise. It is just different.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Neural Network for Accessible Color Combos - <AUTHOR> http://www.randoma11y.com <comment><USER2> Curious about results so far.</comment>


How to choose your coworking space? - <AUTHOR> https://theotherworkspace.com/en/8-key-factors-to-consider-when-choosing-your-coworking/ <comment><USER2> Two more things for me:

1\. Are there clear guide-lines for conduct at the shared desks? (Eg. don't do calls at the shared desk)

2\. Are there groups working there or only individuals? (Groups can be annoying if you're working alone)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I hope some of you find this interesting, if not please let me know! If you find it interesting, let me know! (or if you have any questions! :) )

</comment><comment><USER3> yes in my preferences I give priority to vicinity to my home. Then how much it costs and then the speed of the wifi. Finally all other stuff after :P</comment>


How browsers get to know you in milliseconds - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2014/12/how-browsers-get-to-know-you-in-milliseconds.html <comment><USER2> Shame on O'Reilly for burying the sponsored content notice at the very bottom of the post. While native advertising & sponsored content is a great strategy these days, disclaimer is usually expected _before_ people start reading.

> This post is part of a collaboration between Aerospike and O'Reilly Media. > Read our statement of editorial independence.

</comment><comment><USER3> Quick poll - how many of you noticed this was a sponsored article brought to you by Aerospike?

<comment><USER4> I didn't notice it until you mentioned it. I didn't feel cheated though since I got good amount of info from the article and was curious about how Aerospike did it.

I wish all ads were like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I read articles like these, it always makes me sad to see the amount of incredibly complex technologies dedicated to advertising. I hate to be that guy but I'm sure these resources could have a better usage.

<comment><USER6> Advertising currently provides most of the revenue for many Internet sites. Until another major revenue source comes along a significant effort will still be put towards optimizing advertising.

<comment><USER5> Yeah I know... It's even worse than that actually, since advertising is not a zero sum game (if you have two companies with 50% market share, they will get less compared to a company with all the market), any alternative would just decrease significantly the value of advertising and therefore, no alternative can emerge.

That is why there is no option to pay for Google services instead of the tracking. I don't think there is any solution to this, unless the share of AdBlock users would reach a tremendous level.

<comment><USER7> [https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/](https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/)

<comment><USER8> Thats interesting, but it just seems like mining additional money out of people, they still get to keep all the data even if they are not displaying the advertising.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This stuff is always fascinating to me, especially the "capital markets" approach to buying/selling ads. I saw an article a few weeks back on how traders are arbitraging different ad exchanges in the same way high-frequency traders do so... You can buy ads for cheap in 1 place and sell them immediately at a higher price somewhere else. I'd be curious if anyone has a high-level idea of how this works.

<comment><USER10> nope. no one can: [http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/06/...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/06/online_advertising_effectiveness_for_large_brands_online_ads_may_be_worthless.html) Just another bubble in the making -- just be ready to pull out at the right time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nobody has a problem with the title? Yes I know it's directly from the linked article.

My _browser_ already knows everything about me. It's the web server (and all the associated ad servers) that "get to know" visitors in milliseconds.

Also, my browsing is much much faster than what the article mentions. That's because I don't bother with Adblock or Ghostery. Instead, I simply use NoScript on most websites. The (sponsored) article was fully readable w/o JavaScript. So, while the timeline discussed was interesting in the abstract, the flurry of backstage activity didn't occur when I viewed the article. Nor were any ads displayed. Thankfully.

</comment><comment><USER12> Block ads & third party trackers to spare your browser the useless effort. Thanks Adblock & Ghostery !

<comment><USER13> The goal is for display ads to not suck to the point where Adblock, Adblock Plus, and Ghostery are required.

For better or worse, advertising pays for the salaries of the people who write the stories and build the websites and apps that people use. The goal is not to remove ads altogether but to improve display advertising so that it is a positive improvement to a site rather than the negative effect that it has on user experience today (yes, advertising can be positive addition to content - ask anyone who reads Vogue magazine).

Google won search advertising because ads were relevant, looked good, and it was simple for advertisers to reach the users they wanted. The major reason for Google's success is because they owned every piece in the advertising stack:

\- The content (e.g. google.com) \- The adserver \- The auction engine \- Fraud detection (Google's quality team's success at removing fraud meant that advertisers trusted that their messages were reaching users) \- Creative adserver (e.g. text ads and creatives are served by Google)

In display advertising, each of these pieces is operated by a different party. This means that integration between each of the pieces is not a tight, giving users and advertisers a low quality experience. Here are some of the effects of this:

1\. Ads generally cannot be tailored to the website where they run. Publishers do not have the ability to tailor ads to work within their environment like they can with Google Adsense (native advertising is starting to change this though) - so most websites look bad with display ads.

2\. There is massive data leakage from ads. Because a 3rd party adserver is serving the ad on a publisher site, it is nearly impossible for publishers to keep their customer data from leaking to everyone in the ad stack, which quickly becomes everybody in the ad industry.

Because ad networks that buy the publisher ad space from a publisher almost never actually serve the ad creative (they just serve an ad tag to another network), a massive circle of redirects where a single ad can be bought and sold over 100 times before an ad is displayed. This means that the publisher is giving their customer data to 100 companies before they get an ad on a page.

3\. There is no industry wide coordinated ad fraud effort that is successful. There are so many ways for ad fraud to occur in many different parts of the ad stack, that a single company that tries to reduce fraud from a single point in the ad stack will only have limited success.

4\. Ad creative does not have rigid controls where the publisher can let the advertiser know what can and cannot be done on their site. This means that either an ad seems to 'take over' the publisher page without adding to the user experience, or an ad is reduced to a backup image, which is not a pleasing experience.

A reduced set of advertising features needs to be done much better in order for display advertising budgets grow from where they are now.

<comment><USER14> The two times that Google succeeded in getting my family to follow through on ads:

1) My 10 year old, in trying to download ITunes, clicked on a download site ad and installed malware that I had to rescue him from while he was in tears;

2) My wife while trying to pay for vehicle license renewal clicked on a DMV look-alike site that attempted to charge her $30 handling fee for something that DMV does for free.

The other cases for their clicking on Google ads are mostly well known websites such as Amazon defensively placing ads to protect those who couldn't distinguish an url from a search query in the address bar or an ad from an unpaid search result.

So it seems to me the ad model is really built on preying on the technologically naive to subsidize the technologically savvy. While in general the technologically sophisticated should be able to charge for their services to the technologically naive, it would be better if it could be done with informed consent instead of trickery.

<comment><USER15> How do you know the first ad was even on the Google Display Network? You sitting there watching him click it and following the redirects seems to be the only way you could know that. In which case you allowed him to click and I'd argue it was not his fault you got malware, but yours.

Your second example also sounds like a situation where you heard a (likely inaccurate) complaint from a second party, and are attributing it to a sketchy ad when in reality it could very well have been a site that ranked well organically and had affiliate links to the look-alike site.

You statement of "the other cases for their clicking on Google ads" could use some clarification. The digital media space is vast, and while Google has a large market share, they are not the only players, so I'd love to know how you can attribute both of these examples (which sound like you were not present to observe and have info from less savvy second parties) to Google.

Publishers absolutely have done shady things to drive ad revenue. You'd be shocked at how many attempt to arbitrage cheap clicks from low-quality traffic sources straight into high CPM impressions that they can bundle into direct buys. There are many other things that go on.

What frustrates me with these threads is when people try to summarize an entire industry's best and worst practices by a couple anecdotal experiences using language that indicates a lack of knowledge of said industry, and frankly lacks any real credibility based on the information provided. That sort of comment isn't really constructive--it is jumping to poorly informed conclusions.

Count-point...if I run ads driving people to awesome video tutorials about a somewhat complex product, and it shows a high CTR and engagement rate, am I evil? I'm not holding a gun to anyone's head, and people's actions speak louder than words.

<comment><USER16> Scamming via lookalike sites is very common, and Google should be ashamed of itself for its part in conning people out of money for no reason except to line its own pockets. In the UK:

"Google is coming under increasing pressure over taking money to promote copycat websites. Among the more printable comments sent to us this week from readers who have fallen for taxreturngateway.com was: "I believe Google is implicated in this as it is well aware of what's happening and why – and it too should be prosecuted". Others ask why Google couldn't at least move copycat sites to below the official sites on its search results page." [http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jan/30/tax-return- pass...](http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jan/30/tax-return-passport- health-copycat-websites)

I had to deflect my own wife from one of these, because of the deceptive way Google was displaying ads above organic search. I've experienced the second -- the (failed) attempt to install malware -- myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone have any other reading recommendations on this topic, or advertising recommendation in general? How are different websites able to know what content you are interested- who is storing this data on people?

<comment><USER18> > Does anyone have any other reading recommendations on this topic, or > advertising recommendation in general?

Sure. What's being discussed in this article is Real Time Bidding: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real- time_bidding](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_bidding) . You can read up about the specifics of different Real Time Bidding exchanges, for example here's Google's AdExchange protocol: [https://developers.google.com/ad- exchange/rtb/](https://developers.google.com/ad-exchange/rtb/)

> How are different websites able to know what content you are interested- who > is storing this data on people?

The websites that host the actual content don't usually care about what ads are being shown to you. They just put code in from an ad exchange and let them handle the rest. The buyers (the ones who run the bidders) are the ones that are interested in figuring out what to show you. For example, many bidders are interested in doing what's called Behavioural Retargeting ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_retargeting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_retargeting) ). Say you visit a shoes website. Then later you go on Facebook. The moment you go on Facebook, their ad exchange FBX will send a bid request to all the bidders. If the shoes website has partnered with that ad exchange, when they receive the bid request, they can identify you by your cookie, and they can bid and try to show you an ad to get you to come back to their site. Typically a shoes website wouldn't have the infrastructure to do real time bidding so they get a third party to do the bidding on their behalf, e.g. AdRoll ( [https://www.adroll.com/retargeting](https://www.adroll.com/retargeting) ).

<comment><USER17> Thank you.

And, they can identify you through other methods if you have cookies thoroughly disabled, as mentioned in the article?

If they have no data on you, I assume ad exchanges supply default advertisements, or there are bidders on default ads?

<comment><USER18> > If they have no data on you, I assume ad exchanges supply default > advertisements, or there are bidders on default ads?

To be clear on what happens here: the ad exchange itself isn't usually interested in identifying you per se, it's the bidders. So for example the ad exchange might send the bidders a bid request that has some information like this:

Country, user agent, time zone, website that will be showing the ad, size/location of the ad, etc.

Then it's up to the bidders to try to figure out how much this impression would be worth and then bid appropriately. Even if they can't 'identify' the user as someone they've seen before, they might still bid on the ad because the website showing the ad might be relevant to the product they're trying to sell. If the only information they have about a user is what is passed in the bid request they would probably bid lower.

I don't know what the behaviour is for when an a bid request doesn't receive any bids, but it would be exchange-dependent, and likely rare on the major exchanges.

<comment><USER17> I see, thank you for the information!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As an aside, does anyone have any experience using Aerospike?

Any impartial thoughts?

</comment><comment><USER20> [https://panopticlick.eff.org/](https://panopticlick.eff.org/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Is it just me or do the times listed in this article seem implausible?

<comment><USER22> The big question mark is the latency. The lookups are/should be really fast - as I guess that these guys either have lots of memory, and a random SSD read should be 1/10th of a millisecond.

The article is an ad for database software, but I'd be interested to know in how they keep the latencies low enough when querying third party data. The article mentions that the data is colo'd, but I find it hard to believe that all 150 DSPs are colo'd.</comment></comment>


Google launches Currents, a magazine app - <AUTHOR> https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.currents

<comment><AUTHOR> It's rather neat. Is this the future of Reader?</comment>


Help Us Save Lives We're trying to create the most accurate Covid-19 resource - <AUTHOR> https://www.coronawiki.org <comment><AUTHOR> I am Dr. Riciu Andrei, board certified dermatologist from Europe with a strong interest in infectious diseases and rookie web designer - please be kind :). I've been keeping a close eye on the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic since it only numbered a few cases in the Wuhan - Hubei province.

I remember reporting on a medical website I had back in 2011 about a Dutch Researcher that created a superinfluenza virus as a research project, that was hypothesized to be able to infect millions simply by combining five distinct natural mutations into one H5N1 strain. The times we live in right now aren't pretty much different (except this time the virus is not in a cell culture locked in some research facility). The emergence of SARS-COV-2 that has spread from animals to humans gave birth to a true pandemic in a matter of months. The abundance of fake news and claims being spread over the internet as we speak generate a lot of panic and irrational behavior that obviously does more harm than good.

I managed to get a team of dedicated medical professionals, data scientists and programmers and we decided to create a resource website namely CoronaWiki dedicated to the new Coronavirus / SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in order to help as many people as we can gain access to reliable medical information ( documented sources) as well as statistics regarding the COVID-19 disease outbreak.

Our Sources

In our struggle to get the most accurate data possible, we're using literally over a hundred sources every day, including official government data and private trackers. The data is gathered both manually and automatically.

Please let us know what other new features you would like to see on the website. We are really keen on helping as much people as we can gain access to safe and reliable medical information in order to better fight this horrible outbreak.

[https://www.coronawiki.org](https://www.coronawiki.org)

Stay Safe! Dr. Riciu Andrei</comment>


Ask HN: Tell me what software you need and I might build it for free - <AUTHOR>

email@example.com or discuss here <comment><USER2> Linux command line battle.net chat client (maybe irssi plugin? :o). StealthBot is only for windows, sadly.</comment>


Bitcoin 'exit scam': deep-web market operators disappear with $12m - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/18/bitcoin-deep-web-evolution-exit-scam-12-million-dollars

<comment><USER2> This is unfortunately why Bitcoin will never succeed in the long run.</comment>


The Zika virus foreshadows our dystopian climate future - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/25/zika-virus-brazil-dystopian-climate-future <comment><USER2> This article is garbage.

This quote:

> Spread by mosquitoes whose range inexorably expands as the climate warms

is the only claim that Zika has anything to do with climate change. And it is extremely tenuous: are we just supposed to infer that Brazil had significantly fewer mosquitoes before the industrial revolution?

> And now think about the larger, less intimate consequences: this is one more > step in the division of the world into relative safe and dangerous zones, an > emerging epidemiological apartheid.

This has been true my entire life, and far moreso in the lives of older generations. There were regions of the United States people were reluctant to go to out of fear of Malaria and Polio.

But the lack of any support for a factual connection doesn't stop them from the real point of the article: moralistic finger wagging:

> But America is rich enough to avoid the worst of the mess its fossil fuel > habits have helped create.

OK, sure, maybe industrialized nations did fuck up the planet's ecology. But poorly thought out appeals to emotion aren't what's going to save it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone know the why the US has such lower rates of mosquito-borne illnesses?

I know there was a big malaria eradication campaign in the middle of the 20th century that had an impact. Apparently in 1882 we had malaria not just in Florida, but straight up to North Dakota. [0]

Actually, weird, that graph makes it look like most malaria died off in the US before Müller's discoveries about DDT. How'd that happen?

My next guess would be air conditioning helping to keep people indoors, but a lot of the range of malaria died off even before that.

[0] [http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/elimination_us.html](http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/elimination_us.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Jeez, what hyperbole. How this article gets from idea to print to posting to Hacker News shows how much various people care about clickbait and care little about their readers or reality.

<comment><USER5> I'm surprised they arent hyping it up as much as Ebola was . I recently heard on the news that it will come to the US and be a massive pandemic.... Ironic its the same thing I heard when we had Ebola going on</comment></comment>


Low skills causes procrastination - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@xyzgra/low-skills-causes-procrastination-17d4cc1a8601

<comment><USER2> I was wondering if the author came up with that graph himself so I looked around a bit.

The graph was coined originally by a hungarian psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [1] and published in 1997 and has not been undisputed. Personally, I found the wikipedia article on flow [2] quite interesting.

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29)</comment>


Weighing the costs and benefits of High Availability systems - <AUTHOR> http://www.anchor.com.au/blog/2012/08/weighing-the-costs-of-high-availability/

<comment><USER2> Adding HA to an environment does seem to make administration easier than in a non-HA environment. There are very few changes you can make that result in needing to to reboot the entire cluster of machines at once. Most of the time you can play with one machine at a time.

Some services, however, still have the same issues as standalone. For example, CIFS shares. Regardless of if you're offering high availability, you still generate disconnects when the original host goes down.

With HA you have to make sure you've upgraded your infrastructure not only at points A and B, but with the networking in between. It makes no sense to support failing over a datastore when a single port on your switch can fail and take it all down.</comment>


Inside the Revolution at Etsy - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/business/etsy-josh-silverman.html <comment><USER2> _" With sales up, Etsy is highlighting successful sellers with a series of videos. But not all users are happy. For years, sellers and buyers have complained that as Etsy has grown more popular, mass-produced goods have flooded the site, making it harder to find handmade items, and harder for sellers to make a living."_

This. I went on Etsy recently for the first time in a few years looking for a few different handmade items. They were nearly impossible to find amid a flood of mass-produced commercial items. Etsy is nearly indistinguishable from Michael's or Joann's art supply stores, or worse. I have no intention of shopping there again.

<comment><USER3> Yuck. :(

Sellers need a "Maker Strike" like YouTube channels to keep folks honest. Also, raise the bar such that sellers have to put in mental, creative and time investment and are cut out if they repeatedly sell junk. Can't just sign up as a seller the same day and spam stuff from AliBaba and say it's "handmade" or "vintage."

Next, have a buyer to seller/creator feedback method that influences item ranking so junk is pushed down and out.

Maybe use AI/ML/DL to spot product descriptions and images that are copied or similar to determine if items are new, mass-manufactured products... and, sure have an appeals process.

PS: My disabled mom makes handmade jewelry that people beg to pay money for, but I'm hesitant to recommend Etsy considering the diluted execution of the original business model.

<comment><USER4> Based on my experience with Etsy, I believe you are both correct. What needs to happen as a directive and embraced as a cultural value at Etsy is for the people now running the company to drop a massive, crushing hammer on low- quality, Alibaba-sourced crap. Turn the entire place upside down. I can't predict what would happen, but it couldn't possibly be worse than what's going on there now and it could very well get some of the consumer goodwill back.

<comment><USER2> 100% agree!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The change in culture was written in from the moment they took VC funding. The _only_ thing that matters in capitalist markets is shareholder returns, and anyone who takes outside funding should understand that.

For all the talk of "doing good" and maintaining a strong corporate culture, if those things aren't contributing to the bottom line, they'll be axed.

<comment><USER6> Seems like just a mismatch in organization type. A capital-B Business cares deeply about the bottom line. An organization that primarily wants to "do good" and so forth is perhaps a non-profit or charity. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a non-profit or a charity, but that's certainly not what Etsy is.

I get the tension between impacting the world for the better and keeping an ever-increasing number of lights on. It is an interesting tension.

<comment><USER7> I don't think a business is incompatible with the idea of "doing good" at all - Etsy's problem wasn't that it's impossible to "do good" as a business, it's that the founders no longer owned the company completely, and the new owners were more interested in profit than doing good. If they had been a bootstrapped marketplace that never took outside funding, they'd be perfectly capable of continuing to put their mission at the level or even before profits.

<comment><USER6> > _I don 't think a business is incompatible with the idea of "doing good" at > all_

I totally agree -- I work for a business like this right now, but the business is 100% owned by the cofounders. Toms or Patagonia or any other number of examples abound.

The difference between us and Etsy though is Etsy was losing millions of dollars, and took on VC, and continued losing millions. I wouldn't say the investors were "were more interested in profit than doing good," except incidentally. They were/are interested in keeping the ship moving; no entity, not even a charity or non-profit, can run in the red quarter after quarter and still continue to exist. This isn't profit or no profit, this is surviving or folding. Would it be better for the world if Etsy weren't around at all? I don't think so, but I'm pragmatic like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This has been a long time coming. Etsy always struck me as a company which was fundamentally a small business. They were never going to be an e-commerce giant and should have focused on keeping headcount manageable from the start.

Instead I think most of the Etsy leadership and employees forgot that they were running a business at all. That's fine when you're riding on the back of a great business model with solid fundamentals (see most big tech companies), but it fails when you're running a niche business with low margins even in the best case.

<comment><USER9> Agreed. Their business model was to sell handmade arts & crafts, but scaling that requires mass production, which by definition is not handmade. A paradox and, IMHO, a low ceiling on where Etsy can go.

It's hard not to sound like a handlebar mustache villain when criticizing Etsy's original business practices, but work is work, not a therapy group. If employees find corporate governance so horrible, hey, they're free to start companies that align with their values.

But maybe they'll prove me wrong, who knows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Etsy did things way too well. An online crafts market should not have a well- known engineering team and blog -- they should be running a patchwork of shitty technology that crashes every month because they only hired one guy to run the website and they hired one too cheap. They simply way overshot the MVP for no business value. Then they had to scale up the business into factory- made crap to pay for the hugely scalable platform they had built.

</comment><comment><USER11> The contrasting perspectives at the end of the article stand out (I'm sure that's the intent of the reporter):

        "There's only so much wiggle room as a public company,"
        said Mr.  Stinchcomb, the early employee.  "If you
        really want to build a company that works for people and
        the planet, capitalism isn't the solution."

        ...

        "To all the people who say taking Etsy public was a
        mistake, I say that's ridiculous," Mr. Wilson said.
        "There are some people who will say, 'Well, it's not
        right for me. I like the old culture.' Well, I'm sorry
        about that. Going public was the best thing that ever
        happened to this company."

Mr. Wilson, the investor, is unwilling to accept that there may be other value systems besides his own, and other definitions of "best".

<comment><USER12> I'm as ambivalent about capitalism as the next person. But Etsy is a lousy counterexample to the premise of combining success in business and progressive values. Current and former employees conflating the two is disappointing.

Etsy grew rapidly and organically for a decade, and never figured out how to grow intentionally in an ROI-positive way. As a private company it was not particularly concerned with revenue per employee, and headcount expanded like a gas to fill available revenue. After going public it was way too slow to realize that this wasn't going to fool the public market.

I feel deranged pointing this out, but hiring triple the headcount you need to run your business is not a progressive social value. I don't know what it is.

n.b. I worked for Etsy from 2007-2014. My own values force me to own this.

<comment><USER13> > I feel deranged pointing this out, but hiring triple the headcount you need > to run your business is not a progressive social value. I don't know what it > is.

From an investor's point of view this would not be ideal. Having said that, from a broader societal point of view, it's less clear.

Put it this way: as an investor, I am going to view a business that has 1 employee (on $100k) and $1m in profit much more favourably than a business that has 10 employees (on $100k) and $0.1m in profit. From the broader societal point of view though, the second arrangement could be better.

<comment><USER14> You're assuming that in the first example, they'd be unemployed. Instead, they're freed up to do new initiatives that generate new wealth that would not exist in the second scenario.

More activities across the same labor pool makes more wealth in a society than fewer activities which consume all available resources. This is why we're much richer now that 70% of workers aren't farmers.

<comment><USER15> I agree, but in this context I think it's important that wealth shouldn't be the only measure of social value. There is plenty of wealth generation going on. Perhaps there is a greater good at one place than the other thing they may have been doing.

All hypothetical. But the point is wealth can't be the only measure of success.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> My friends and I used to frequent Etsy to find unique, handmade or independently made accessories and home goods. We haven't been customers for a few years now. The most obvious and notable reason is that the site is full of stuff that does not meet the above criteria. It mostly has garbage from China/Alibaba with mass-produced jewelry/accessories and trinkets purporting to be handmade, as long as you don't look too closely. What is the point of Etsy anymore? It's become a small, pathetic clone of Ebay, Amazon, etc. I hope someone can start another company like what Etsy used to be - a marketplace for indie designers and craftspeople to sell a small volume of unique goods to people who are interested in supporting them and their work. No need to go public or raise massive capital. It can function perfectly well with a small crew to run the site and a tight marketing/publicity team. It would be nice if companies were okay with staying small, private, and making a modest profit consistently instead of getting into the growth rat race.

</comment><comment><USER17> Curiously though, the long-term successful companies* seem to have found a balance between naked profit seeking and "good-ness", usually through either not being publicly traded at all, or by having a single very forceful leader e.g. In-n-out Burger, Costco, Starbucks, Apple.

*Successful long term because ultimately seeking profit above all leads to reputational harm and resulting a downward spiral (or if lucky an oligopoly).

<comment><USER18> > ultimately seeking profit above all leads to reputational harm and resulting > a downward spiral (or if lucky an oligopoly)

Not at all. If seeking profit leads to a downward spiral, then the managers are mistaken about how to seek profit. In particular, treating employees and customers well is an excellent strategy for making profits.

For example, I asked a used car salesman acquaintance how to tell if a car dealership was reputable or not. He said it's easy - have they been in business more than 5 years? If they have, they are running on repeat business. Bad dealerships run out of suckers before 5 years.

<comment><USER19> This sort of assumes that the suckers eventually realize they were suckered. I don't have that much confidence in people's ability to do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sadly, I feel that the real issue here is that few people are willing to pay the real cost of individually produced, handmade products, enough to pay the person making them a honest living. We've all become so accustomed to economies of scale that few understand the amount of work required to actually build any trivial artifact of modern society.

</comment><comment><USER21> tl;dr: You can run a socially responsible, human, ethical company in the current climate in the US, but it is nearly impossible to run one with outside investors who are not invested strongly in the company's mission or who are not willing to settle for organic growth.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish eBay, AliBaba or Amazon would buy Etsy and integrate the site well while keeping management and the right amount of operations independent. Etsy is, right now, a dingy in the storm of a double-ended marketplace without the reach of the 800 million pound cargo-ship empire gorilla. Otherwise, a smaller platform will likely buy it for an "undisclosed sum" and kill it, or investors will throw in the towel.

Maybe that's what he's doing: reducing liabilities (ie salaries) and making revenue look good to spark M&A interest, while also considering survivability without an exit.

<comment><USER22> > Otherwise, a smaller platform will likely buy it for an "undisclosed sum" > and kill it

It seems much more likely that eBay, AliBaba or Amazon would kill it if one of them bought it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why couldn't Etsy limit the number of seller slots on the website and sell them to the highest bidding persons? Both increases the quality and provides the funding.

<comment><USER24> I just opened an Etsy a week ago. I was so broke I had to borrow $1 from a friend to finish paying for my listings. (I am no longer that broke, thanks Etsy.)

Pretty sure that's a fantastic way to keep out the actual artisans/starving artists/craftspeople and only allow in the kind of people who can gather up the cash to stock up on tons of Alibaba garbage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I didn't even know Etsy is a public traded company. What are some other companies that are basically 'a website' that are publically traded?

<comment><USER26> Plenty

Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp, Yahoo/Flickr/Tumblr, Baidu, Twitter, Netflix, eBay, Alibaba/AliExpress, PayPal, Rakuten,The Priceline Group (Priceline, kayak, etc), etc.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How did you get your first programming job? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I started looking for work as a programmer in 1999, in the shadow of the dot- com crash. There weren't many programming jobs to go around in the Chicago suburbs. And if you wanted to know what work was out there, you looked in the newspaper, not online. I faxed…yes, faxed…my resume to a bunch of companies with ads, but there was a huge pool of experienced developers forced out of work recently, and little incentive to hire a youngster without any "real- world" experience.

One of the few companies to bring me in for an interview was a bit of a mystery. They were looking for entry-level programmers, but the ad didn't say much more. I don't remember their website, if they even had one, giving up any details of their technology stack. So, I walked into the interview with ten pages of sample code from school, object-oriented C++ code calling out to OpenGL through GLUT. The technical interviewer rolled his eyes at it. "I'll be honest. Someone like you is probably going to be pretty bored working here. Are you sure you really want the job?" Of course I did. How bad could it be?

From "Pick is a living fossil of computer history: [https://medium.com/@csixty4/pick-is-a-living-fossil-of- compu...](https://medium.com/@csixty4/pick-is-a-living-fossil-of-computer- history-36d74408d557)

</comment><comment><USER3> It was early 2000. I was living in rural Bumfuck, NC, and had dropped out of school back in '96 (I was working on a C.S. degree at UNC-W). After that, I had spent a year doing construction work, then went back to the local community college to get an A.S. in Computer Programming (money was the main reason I dropped out of the B.S. program). So anyway, I did not yet have even that A.S. finished, and I had no professional programming experience. But... I'd been programming as a hobby and teaching myself stuff for about 6 years, so I knew a modest amount about coding.

Anyway, at the urging of a friend who was about to move to the RTP area, I put my resume on Monster.com, Dice.com, etc. and agreed to split an apartment with him if I could find a job in that area. I didn't expect much, since I didn't have a degree in the field or any professional coding experience.

What I didn't realize was just how in demand programmers really were then. Keep in mind, this just before the "dot com bubble" popped. As it turns out, you could probably have gotten a job as a programmer then if you could turn a computer on by yourself.

Anyway, my phone started ringing about a day after I put the resume up, and I drove up to Raleigh for a couple of interviews, and within about 2 weeks I had an offer.

And that's how this all started...

To Be Continued...

<comment><USER2> > As it turns out, you could probably have gotten a job as a programmer then > if you could turn a computer on by yourself.

My first programming job was with an obscure, outdated platform & language. They pretty much did hire anyone who could turn a computer on and sent them to a two-week training course before they started client work. One of the guys on my team owned a small limo company and wanted something to supplement his income during the day, so there he was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pretty boring.

Finished college. Applied to a bunch of places. Had a lot of conversations along the lines of

"We're super interested in you, btw you forgot to put your GPA on your resume."

"Oh.... well don't worry I'm sure you'll find something. You seems like a smart guy, your resume and experience look great, and you're really enjoyable to talk to, so I'm sure you'll find something."

As soon as the recruiter started apologizing to me that's when I knew I was fucked. Eventually found a job that gave IQ tests instead of checked GPA's. I said I had C# experience(an large exaggeration), read a book on the bus ride to the interview... and they hired me. Been a .Net dev ever since.

</comment><comment><USER5> I did program alot in my spare time and I still do. Without all that experience it comes with and the actual code to have as reference, I wouldn't get any job.

</comment><comment><USER6> Shame on me. I asked my family referencing me</comment>


Linux From Scratch 7 Released - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/7.0/

<comment><AUTHOR> Announcement:

[http://linuxfromscratch.org/pipermail/lfs- dev/2011-October/0...](http://linuxfromscratch.org/pipermail/lfs- dev/2011-October/065312.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> How do people maintain their LFS installations? Isn't upgrading a pita if you don't have a central registry of file<->package relations?

<comment><USER3> Some don't maintain their packages. If you re-install every few months you keep you system up-to-date. If this sounds strange to you, then realize that most LFSers are accustomed to running new builds frequently.

Personally, I tracked file/package relationships with a simple script. Easy to do.

Tracking package dependencies is more difficult, and I usually did this manually with some help with some specialized scripts.

Plus side is you can avoid dependencies you don't like and add functionality where you need it. You can make a developers heaven this way. Usually the only way I do serious Linux development is with an LFS-based system. When I use distros I usually spend a lot of time creating a specialized environment and the time saving in using a distro is sort of nullified.

Bad side is obviously if you want to upgrade a vital dependency you'd have to upgrade all forward dependencies also. Not so difficult if you have it scripted, but _errors_ are hard to handle. Of course, an LFSer would usually know how to install different versions of packages and have them co-exist. However, mostly you just want to keep top-level packages updated, which is easy to do (e.g. Firefox, developer tools).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do people still use/build LFS ? What's the use case ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am using LFS as a primary OS for Linux development and on servers. I can tell my story how I ended up with LFS in the forest of Linux distributions.

Some time ago when I started to learn Linux I have tried a lot of different distributions. All of them had their quirks. Some were buggy. Some were slow. Some had extremely weird and bloated configuration systems. Imagine several layers of abstraction above plain standard configuration files when you have to learn everything basically from the beginning with a different distribution. For example on top of standard config files they may have some configuration system (like YaST in SUSE) on top of which the GUI sits (so 3 layers just to change the screen resolution). Many distros have their own "unique" way of configuring the system. And when something will brake you will have no idea where the problem might be. Is it a bug in the package or in some layer of configuration system or somewhere else? I understand that they try to make the system more user friendly. Well, every one has its own niche.

With LFS you just learn the configuration of basic packages once. The way that package creator intended. Plain text files and nothing more. As an additional bonus you have great performance and security because you only have the packages you need. Plus everything is optimized for your architecture. If you have ever used some distribution in a virtual machine on a slow notebook you know what I am talking about.

When I built LFS for the first time I did everything by hand. It was a very useful experience and a nice way to learn. Of course now I don't do it manually. You can use automated tools (jhalfs for example) which extract instructions from the book and do everything for you. I don't use any graphical environment so no need to build a lot of stuff beyond the base system.

Of course LSF has its own issues. Lack of package management is one of them. But if you like minimalistic and fast systems you should give LFS a try.

<comment><USER5> try archlinux, it's like lfs with a package manager and binary packages

<comment><USER6> Which is why Arch Linux is my favorite distro.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And for the enthusiastic crowd reaching boredom after too many LFS instances (see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3176744> )

\----

<http://www1.idc.ac.il/tecs/plan.html>

aka Computer From Scratch

aka 'From NAND to Tetris in 12 steps'

\----

10 min video @ youtube.com : <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtXvUoPx4Qs>

1 hour video @ google tech talk : <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7654043762021156507>

</comment><comment><USER8> used LFS before to learn Linux. i think it's time for it to add a framework to build packages, so we can learn that part and use it as well.

<comment><USER9> Gentoo is basically that.</comment></comment>