Ask HN: Any advice on the best way to learn a musical instrument? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> It really depends on the instrument. While there are many instruments that are fairly easy to "teach" yourself, in almost all cases it is good to have someone guide you in the learning process. There is so much information available on the internet for free, and with instruments like guitar it is easy to get started on your own - but even then you should seek advice from someone who plays. Most professional or even intermediate musicians will be able to give you some good tips just by watching and listening to you for a few minutes.

If you're looking to learn something like viola or trombone, you will almost definitely want to take lessons.

One great resource is undergraduate music students. They are generally desperate for income (I know from experience) and would probably be willing to take a few minutes to help you out.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would say Guitar and Piano are the instruments I would like to pick up

<comment><USER2> These are two instruments that you can do a lot with on your own.

I learned to play guitar [mostly] on my own, with information I found on the internet. I would recommend that you pick up a decent acoustic guitar and google 'beginning guitar' and start from there. It's really helpful once you've piddled with it some to have someone else who plays decently listen to you. Guitar lessons are usually rather cheap, too, if you want to go that route. Even just a few lessons could really get you started.

Piano is a little more complicated. You can do a lot with a piano if you have a good ear and good coordination. For me, personally, piano is a struggle and has taken a lot more work/patience/practice. Most likely, if you want to play piano you'll definitely need lessons.

The good thing is that there are always a lot of people who play these two instruments, and a lot of them give lessons for reasonable prices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.pianofundamentals.com/> has important advices

</comment><comment><USER4> Learning a musical instrument as long as you are willing to practice is easy. Really.

I would recommend against hiring a undergraduate music student. The may be economical option but these folks may have the "The Curse of Knowledge" as per the book Made To Stick. They will not have the patience to understand what it is like to learn something since it has been a long time since they were in the same shoes.

A seasoned teacher will understand where you are likely to get confused and need to really focus on to help you with the bumps and learn more quickly. They will have also reasonable expectations. This is along the same lines as Sir Ken Robinson stated in a TED presentation that college professors and TA are the worst teachers since everything came easy to them so they never fell into the same pitfalls that most students are stuck in. And so are unable to really help these students who initially struggle.

Hope that helps. PS Pick someone who really enjoys the instrument. Yes there are teachers that hate the instrument they teach.</comment>


Ask HN: How are the acoustics in your open office? - <AUTHOR>

I am an acoustical consultant who works with architects to design some of your tech offices, among other spaces. The trend for some time has been to throw out the acoustical ceiling tile and embrace the industrial look. Now that its been a few years down, how is it working for you?
What are the sounds around you? People on phones, collaborating between work areas, or generally working alone with earbuds in? Are you aware of other people's conversations? How far away? Is it distracting?
Do you have partitions between your work areas? Taller than your seated height or just desk height?
Do you have HVAC suspended in your space? Would you call it noisy enough to drown out distant conversations or too noisy in your specific workspace?
I'll use your responses to flavor my conversations with architects in the future. <comment><USER2> There's more than a little academic and operations management research on the topic.

I hope a search on terms like "background noise open offices" would prove useful for reference hunting.

Here's an item:

Performance, fatigue and stress in open-plan offices: The effects of noise and restoration on hearing impaired and normal hearing individuals

By Helena Jahncke, Niklas Halin

Noise and Health (2012, Volume 14, Issue 60, Page : 260-272)

(via Archive.org - I couldn't load the article directly at the moment)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20130605080737/http://www.noisea...](https://web.archive.org/web/20130605080737/http://www.noiseandhealth.org/article.asp?issn=1463-1741;year=2012;volume=14;issue=60;spage=260;epage=272;aulast=Jahncke)

Also:

Open-plan offices are making workers sick, say Australian scientists

news.com.au (Jan 13, 2009)

[http://www.news.com.au/open-plan-offices-make-you- sick/story...](http://www.news.com.au/open-plan-offices-make-you- sick/story-e6frfm69-1111118550887)

Citing research published in Asia-Pacific Journal of Health Management. By Dr. Vinesh Oommen

Money quote: "The problem is that employers are always looking for ways to cut costs, and using open-plan designs can save 20 per cent on construction."

<comment><AUTHOR> Acoustical consultants are well trained in the optimization of the open office environment--there's even an ASTM standard. Over the last several years that scheme has been challenged in favor of the architect selling the owner on the industrial look (whether for aesthetic or budget) without significant consideration for the acoustic result. If an acoustical consultant is on the job and cannot win the battle for better acoustics, what is the effect of the resulting compromises?

By asking the original questions I hope to learn the results of what design considerations were included and perhaps if the millenial worker is less sensitized to office conditions of yesteryear. My suspicion on the latter is "no."

<comment><USER2> There have been hundreds of studies in the last 20 years demonstrating via the study conclusions that for most humans, noise matters, control over one's space matters, including ability to adjust light, temperature, personal visibility and privacy, and that these can be measured by sick-leave absences, and other fairly simple productivity and personnel-cost measures.

The discussion about open offices has been in the general media for quite a while as well. For example: a few days after the original inquiry, in the general media:

"Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace: Workplaces need more walls, not fewer."

By Lindsey Kaufman - Washingyon Post - December 30, 2014

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/30/g...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/30/google- got-it-wrong-the-open-office-trend-is-destroying-the-workplace/)

Cited in the article:

"The Open-Office Trap"

By Maria Konnikova - The New Yorker - January 7, 2014

[http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-open- office-t...](http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-open-office-trap)

This gives a lay-person's history and survey of the economics and loss of productivity of open offices.

Excerpt quotation from Konikova:

"In June, 1997, a large oil and gas company in western Canada asked a group of psychologists at the University of Calgary to monitor workers as they transitioned from a traditional office arrangement to an open one. The psychologists assessed the employees' satisfaction with their surroundings, as well as their stress level, job performance, and interpersonal relationships before the transition, four weeks after the transition, and, finally, six months afterward. The employees suffered according to every measure: the new space was disruptive, stressful, and cumbersome, and, instead of feeling closer, coworkers felt distant, dissatisfied, and resentful. Productivity fell.

"In 2011, the organizational psychologist Matthew Davis reviewed more than a hundred studies about office environments. He found that, though open offices often fostered a symbolic sense of organizational mission, making employees feel like part of a more laid-back, innovative enterprise, they were damaging to the workers' attention spans, productivity, creative thinking, and satisfaction. Compared with standard offices, employees experienced more uncontrolled interactions, higher levels of stress, and lower levels of concentration and motivation. When David Craig surveyed some thirty-eight thousand workers, he found that interruptions by colleagues were detrimental to productivity, and that the more senior the employee, the worse she fared.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting to me that no one has responded.

My personal experience - the acoustics of open offices are generally awful. The past two days in a row, for example, have started with me actually saying out loud "what the hell is that sound?!" to my neighbor after hearing some weird-ass HVAC squealing/squeaking/screeching sounds.

No partitions, lots of collaboration, no noise cancelling.

HVAC noise is a constant, but not in any helpful way.

I can hear people 40 yards away having a conversation - not the contents of it, but I hear voices, and yes they are totally distracting.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been surprised too to not see more responding. I've heard gripes in other threads as an aside to whatever topic was discussed.

Thanks for the comments.

<comment><USER4> I clicked it at work. We're in a temporary space with a few dozen 3 and 4 person offices, all have floor-to-ceiling walls and doors. The acoustics are pretty good. Even the loud talkers are tolerable, for the most part.

When we had an open office... the acoustics were terrible. Conversations at a normal volume could be heard far away, conference calls were (had to be) done on speakerphone with the volume maxed out to hear. It looked great, but it was awful for everyone who didn't enjoy talking very loudly.

Hoping that the new space has head-high partitions, maybe offices for each team with floor-to-ceiling walls, a ceiling with either pockets to reduce echoes or a proper ceiling.

An office built for working with the people we work with, not being able to talk to someone 50 feet away without walking.

<comment><AUTHOR> Private or semi-private offices with full height walls and absorptive ceilings are usually great.

You have the right idea on your hopes for the new space, good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We have some kind of fine steel grate style ceiling panels that expose the wires and stuff in the roof somewhat but you can only just see through. I think they might be for some kind of green environmental reason but I'm not too sure.

All I know is that there was an annoying clicking sound in the roof above my desk all this week distracting me, and the meeting rooms aren't sound proof because the noise travels over the walls through the roof. Not the best design.

<comment><AUTHOR> Its too bad if someone missed the opportunity to add some really cheap (doesn't have to look pretty) absorption above a perforated metal ceiling. Perhaps there's a stratification of heat up there generated by lights that's causing the metal to creak and pop.

Yes, meeting rooms generally need some mass to their ceiling if the walls don't go full height.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Also if you can do something about restaurants where everyone has to yell to be heard across the table, that would be great.

<comment><AUTHOR> My observation is that customers and owners seem to be at odds in restauraunts. Owners want the restaurant to seem lively/busy even if it's not full and don't find quiet as a competitive edge. One chain I find bucking the trend is Chipotle. They seem to have a standard of using a wood product that looks like spaghetti on the ceiling that is fairly absorptive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> They are terrible.

I didn't realize the low ceilings were for acoustic reason. They're depressing. Isn't there another solution?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ceilings don't necessarily need to be low, but the less wall height, the less the walls can be a reflecting plane.

Absorptive ceilings provide (1) bulk absorption in a room and (2) reduce the primary reflecting path among open offices when there are partitions of modest height between workspaces. That they hide the mechanical and electrical crap from sight and make it very easy to service those items was supposed to be their benefit, but the pendulum has swung the other way and the "finished" look is boring now...</comment></comment>


22 Pounds of UAW Rules and Regulations (Literally) - <AUTHOR> http://laborpains.org/2008/12/12/22-pounds-uaw-rules-and-regulations/

<comment><USER2> So, all those workers voted on whether this was a good contract. I know I love reading 2,000 pages of legal crap.

Frankly, I think contracts this long are stupid. Look at most of the legislation in DC. It's so long that people can't (and don't) read it. The 342 page USA PATRIOT Act passed in a day. Sure, some people might be able to read 342 pages in a day, but I doubt any of them did.

I'm not against regulation or making clear what you're doing, but at a certain point it gets ridiculous. People need to be able to understand the laws and contracts that govern them.

</comment><comment><USER3> That 22 pounds will be the straw that broke the camel's back

</comment><comment><USER4> This kind of problem seems to be common these days. The IRS tax laws are so complicated that experts are scared of it. The criminal legal system has so many laws that even the government has lost count. And instead of trying to get rid of the complexity, every year thousands of new laws and regulations get added.

What a waste.

<comment><USER5> Complexity is deliberate in affairs of state. It provides politicians and lobbyists with power and secrecy.

<comment><USER6> Upmod on the parent for insight.

Criminal law has reached the point that cops can jail/get rid of about anybody they choose -- as long as the person doesn't have a lot of money.

Tax law is so complex that only the super-rich (and perhaps chairman of the House Financial Services Committee that writes the tax code) can comfortably avoid most taxation. The rest of us are left in a murky "best-guess" status as to what is allowed or not.

Back when the U.S. was getting started, many wanted a complex government like the Europeans had. Thomas Paine, a firebrand, warned against such complexity. When a tyrant oppresses you, he said, you know exactly whom to blame. When a complex government oppresses you, there is no one person to blame, and you continue to be more and more oppressed.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN : A different Business Model  - <AUTHOR>

I personally do not favor Apple's way of making cash. (When most of your users won't pay for your service you are dead. I don't want to charge users for the service or may be my users are not in such a sophistication to pay online.)
Also, I am not big fan of Google's way of not being evil in advertisements for making cash. When a conscious internet user realizes that you are being tracked everywhere from your website to email to preferences for your favorite videos - the conclusion could be Google Sucks!
My concern is can we live without ads and users paying for your online service ? Are there any other business models except these two for a web startup ? Could you please share anything that you ever counted as a business model for web product? <comment><USER2> Apple has multiple ways of making cash, which one are you referring to specifically? They make cash on hardware, services (warranties), and distribution of media and apps.

It seems to me you are asking, how do I make money from end-users without charging them for my product and not selling advertising.

I know nothing about your business, so it is difficult to say what the possible business models are. You're clearly going to have to think outside the box. Take a look at what secondary information you get from the usage of your service.

For a business I am currently looking at, the actions of the user result in a small yet valuable piece of data for other businesses. The data is not in any way 'user specific', and would actually be less valuable if it were tied to a single user, but I'm considering analyzing the data I get and then selling that analysis to other businesses. Of course you have to be VERY careful with this sort of business model, as you don't want to offend your customers buy sharing any info that they may not want shared. For my industry, it isn't a concern.

However, I would take a good look at what you are offering, who else is in the space, how they make money, and question why you don't want to charge.

A big initial fear I am still learning to get over is the fear that people won't pay, and that means the business is not successful. If app stores, netflix, e-books, etc.etc. have taught us anything, it's that people will pay for what they are able to get for free. People pay for apps, even though the app provides the same info as can be seen on the companies webpage.

My recommendation (and the reason I say this is because I have in the past struggled with the same challenge of wanting products to be free) is to spend time looking at what people do pay for. Talk to other businesses about how customers react to their pricing and business model.

We've were introduced to a 'free-web' where we thought everything to consumers could be free, but it turns out that may have been a bit of a utopian dream, and people really don't mind paying for things.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I was asking about _how do I make money from end-users without charging them for my product and not selling advertising_ (in context of a web startup)

analyzing the data we get from users and then selling that analysis to other businesses - this models seems nice. Also, as japhyr suggested charging for the support would be good idea too.

Any other ways out here ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What about the Red Hat model? People wondered how Linux would ever make money because it was open source. Then Red Hat was founded on providing support around open source software. If a service is useful to organizations, rather than just individuals, some kind of support contract might be profitable.

<comment><USER4> I've been wondering why open source projects seem to avoid the co-op business structure... imagine if Mozilla regularly distributed some of those google dollars to the entire pool of code contributors. Maybe there are not many serious external source contributions now (though there may well be), but that equation could change in a hurry if there was a meaningful disbursement involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why don't you just find something that people will pay for, and charge for it? If nobody will pay for whatever you're offering, maybe that's a sign.</comment>


Ask HN: What stock will you buy in 2015? - <AUTHOR> With 2015 fast approaching, what stock do you plan to buy and why? What sort of returns are you hoping for, and what time period are you looking at? <comment><USER3> Hopefully dirt cheap oil industry companies.

Eg. Halliburton (HAL) is currently 40% off. Or Continental Resources (CLR), currently 50% off (assuming I think their balance sheet and earnings hold up well enough to the pricing pressure and there's no threat of insolvency).

I'd love to get Exxon (XOM) in the $50's or $60's on a bearish run. Its earnings will fall with oil, and its valuation should come down according (despite holding up currently); it hasn't had growth in years, this will make that much worse. Despite the lack of growth, Exxon would be a great dividend at lower prices. I view Chevron (CVX) in a similar light.

Solar companies will plausibly take a beating as well, the lower oil goes. Emotion will likely cause investors to make typical mistakes here, and push valuations too low. First Solar (FSLR) is near its 52 week low, and will probably drift lower with oil. SolarCity (SCTY) is also near its 52 week low. This while the stock market is at all-time highs.

I think the damage will get worse yet, providing great bargains. If the market happens to turn south as well, at the same time oil is down, there could be extreme bargains, ala the oil lows of 1999/2001 and the great recession crash.

</comment><comment><USER4> [http://www.valueshares.com/qval](http://www.valueshares.com/qval)

long term holding period, more information here [http://etfdb.com/2014/affordable-active-alpha-inside-the- u-s...](http://etfdb.com/2014/affordable-active-alpha-inside-the-u-s- quantitative-value-etf-qval/)

i'm a fan of Wes Gray's writing and philosophy and approach, if you really want detail read: [http://www.amazon.com/Quantitative-Value-Practitioners- Intel...](http://www.amazon.com/Quantitative-Value-Practitioners-Intelligent- Eliminating- ebook/dp/B00B1FK0AS/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417660915&sr=1-1&keywords=quantitative+value)

disclaimer: i am good friends with an principal investor in their ETF business.

</comment><comment><USER5> (Disclaimer: I only buy tech stock with the money I truly don't need - <USER2> essentially see it as a lottery for nerds. My savings/retirement planning/etc. go in more traditional places)

I feel like Tesla might be worth it for the very long term. (again, I buy technology stock with the intent of not looking at it for 20 years)

A grid of electric self driving cars seems to be a pretty likely human future for large metropolises by 2050, and Tesla is in a good position to have a solid lead and be the Microsoft of their industry. Imagine if all of Tokyo, NYC, Beijing, etc. were traveled solely by electric autonomous cars and Tesla operated most of them.

Tesla will be to General Motors what Apple is to IBM in terms of revenue and cultural impact.

<comment><USER6> I'd like to second this, and by that, I mean scream it from a rooftop.

As /u/GuiA says, "I feel like Tesla might be worth it in the long term." Tesla isn't going to be Apple in my opinion though, they're going to be Google for mobility and energy storage. If you're an automaker who isn't stupid enough to go after fuel-cells, you're going to need automotive cells, and Tesla will be waiting to sell those cells to everyone.

Renewables continue to deploy at an increasing rate, but base load is still a problem. Would you rather install new nuclear or combined cycle natural gas plants? Or lithium (ion, polymer, whatever) cells stacked in cargo containers at critical power grid locations to smooth out supply and demand? Tesla will be there to sell you those too, as well as the battery packs for your home (made from repurposed Tesla vehicle packs that are no longer feasible for mobility, but are just fine for stationary applications).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Vanguard target date retirement fund. Auto-invest set and forget. Maybe once I have more I'll do a 3-fund portfolio to reduce the expenses a bit. Returns should generally track the market, pretty much hold until retirement.

</comment><comment><USER8> I always like this blog which focuses on stable/growing dividends: [http://www.dividendgrowthinvestor.com/](http://www.dividendgrowthinvestor.com/)

But I tend to think that an S&P 500 index fund is just as good. However, I also believe central banks have been investing in the S&P as well, and that it's due for a large correction (valuations are currently 2x historical norms).

</comment><comment><USER9> Definitely some sort of index fund like vanguard. Then try to de-risk my portfolio by making some non-tech investments. And finally leave some money aside to wait and see what IPOs next year. Investing starts with the new tax year which is April in the UK.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think Oil and oil related industries would be good bet. Plastics, fertilizer, etc.</comment>


Exams suck (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://minireference.com/blog/exams-suck/

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought his proposal was really interesting:

 _Assume we standardize a taxonomy of concepts, each concept being like a "stage" in a computer game. You can think of the planets in the khan-academy galaxy. I can't find the link right now, but I know of a company that had a complete knowledge graph and always scheduled the quiz questions so that you would be practicing on topics which you didn't know but you had all the prerequisites for. So assume we have this bunch of "stages" to clear and to clear a stage you have to pass a bunch of difficult exercises which require the use of that concept.

The student profile should show the grade as a triple (w, m, y), where w is the number of stages I cleared in the last seven days, m is how many stages I cleared in the last 30 days, and y is how many I cleared in the last year. This is analogous to how the UNIX command top reports CPU load averages._

While concepts are highly interwoven at higher stages, I don't see why this wouldn't work up to a generation or two ago, which very roughly corresponds to undergraduate studies in fields like mathematics.</comment>


Ninja IDE: written in Python for Pythonists - <AUTHOR> http://ninja-ide.org/ <comment><USER2> It is FOSS (GPLv3). The license information was a wee bit hard to find (Wayyy down on the about page <http://ninja-ide.org/about/>) and I first thought it was some frankenstein freemuim product where you had to apply for a free license if you were an OSS devel (like PyCharm) etc. etc.

I gave it a whirl:

1\. Snappy, which is nice, since PyCharm can be sluggish on my Mac 2\. No VCS integration 3\. By default very strict code checking is turned on, which turns my (functional) code into a sea of underlines, which is not so pretty

It looks to be an interesting start, but it will need VCS integration before it looks suitable as a PyCharm replacement.

I didn't look in detail at code completion/code assist, which PyCharm does very well.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure why, but I've never used the VCS integration in an IDE.

<comment><USER4> It's nice in Netbeans, because I can see which lines I've changed while I'm editing, and if I hover over the sidebar it will show me what I've changed or deleted. Probably they all do that, but Netbeans is the only IDE I bother with.

I won't say it's indispensable, but it is handy. I don't miss it outside of Netbeans though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I realise these are at first blush, but:

* Scrolling is way too slow. This isn't nitpicking, this is really very important to me

* I like PEP8 warnings and use them in other editors, but I don't like not being able to pick which style stuff I care about

* I don't like the PEP8 tooltips. They cover up my code and that's the worst possible place to put them. Even if I do plan to "fix" the issue, coming up over the code that I'm typing right now is never okay.

* It's really quite a lot of work through some confusing terminology to get a test run of the IDE going on an existing project. I don't want to move my code into your workspace. I don't want to import my existing project (that sounds scary)

* Some glaring bugs seem to indicate that this is more young than is indicated on the very flashy project site. For instance, if I try to import a project but cancel the "select a directory" popup, I inconsistently get it either removing my previous selection or crashing the whole IDE

</comment><comment><USER6> Can someone explain to me why this is at the top of the front page despite a website devoid of useful detail, while this completely fails to catch on: [http://scummos.blogspot.de/2012/11/kdev-python-14-stable- rel...](http://scummos.blogspot.de/2012/11/kdev-python-14-stable- released.html)

(Seriously, check it out - KDevelop's Python plugin and Microsoft's PTVS are currently the two projects doing serious work on static analysis of Python for live editing purposes. Here's a nice subthread comparing the two: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4725634>)

<comment><USER7> Perhaps because not everyone is doing development on KDE?

The Ninja-IDE supports linux, windows, and osx so it has broader appeal.

<comment><USER6> That's a good point, although I feel that "development on KDE" needs a response: KDevelop isn't limited to making KDE applications, and KDE applications like KDevelop aren't limited to running inside the KDE shell - the major Linux desktops are quite interoperable today as far as running applications goes. Furthermore, generally speaking KDE apps are also available for Windows (via the KDE Windows installer) and OS X (via distibutions like Fink), although both platforms are considered experimental deployment targets for KDevelop.

<comment><USER8> I personally don't feel like downloading all the hundreds of megabytes of KDE runtimes just to fire up an IDE for a test run (this is on Xubuntu).

<comment><USER9> "hundreds of megabytes of KDE runtimes" is absolute FUD. libkde4core is 2.5MB on my system here. Even all the KDE libraries that you would need are only going to be in the 10s of MB. Did you actually do a test to see how much you would need?

<comment><USER8> Yes I did. On my 32-bit Xubuntu machine, I called `sudo apt-get install kdevelop`, and it has informed me that I require 99.0 MB worth of archives, and that it will take up ~330 MB of disk space after everything is installed. For some reason, I recall `apt` telling me I had to download _over_ 100 MB on my 64-bit machine...

Admittedly, a lot of the download size comes from additional dependencies, but still - I don't want to have to install all that when I use an entirely different WM, and there are alternative WM-independent solutions to begin with.

<comment><USER6> KDevelop is WM-independent -- its dependencies don't include the window manager or shell. This silo thinking has to stop. Basically all the library stacks on Linux have a shell project prominently associated with them (Qt/kdelibs: Plasma, GTK+: Gnome Shell, EFL: Enlightenment, Motif: CDE), so you run out of "WM-independent" apps pretty fast if you make that mistake. And considering Qt even calls into the GTK+ theming system if run in Gnome it strives to be interoperable more than most.

As for alternatives, I'm not aware of a Python IDE with comparable abilities for Linux (Wing probably comes closest, but is proprietary).

What has the potential for greater impact on your productivity - 320 MB of used disk space or a useful IDE?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What would really help is a small demo video just to get a whiff of what the IDE feels like. The description and screenshots are somehow not enough for me to download and install an entire IDE and take a test drive. If there is a demo video somewhere, my apologies - I was not able to find it.

<comment><USER11> There's one on youtube: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDlWk_Z7JPQ>

<comment><USER12> It's also a year old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hello, I'm part of the NINJA-IDE Team, and first to all, I would like to thank everyone for the feedback (good ones, as much as bad). Currently we are working to make NINJA-IDE compatible with Python3 (among other features) and taking care of several issues to ensure better stability (and guide the development process with tests).

I hope we can find the time to take care of some of the stuff mentioned here as videos, screenshots, user guide, etc.

It's a lot of work, but we are proud of what we can achieve with a free software project.

Thx everyone!

</comment><comment><USER14> Pretty cool all around, but it needs a lot more stability work. It crashed a few times just scrolling around in some of my python projects, and there are quirks such as complaining "This font can not be used in this editor" if I open the font selector and then click "Cancel".

Also, changing the margin line doesn't seem to take effect unless you quit and restart the IDE.

<comment><USER14> After a few hours use I'll definitely say the robustness is not there :(

I can't use it for more than 10 minutes without it crashing, which is a shame because it looks really nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Would be nice to be able to selectively disable some PEP 8 rules in the style checker. I don't care about lines longer than 80 characters and I don't like separating functions by two empty lines.

<comment><USER16> But, PEP8, man. It's the LAW!

/kidding

<comment><USER17> Yes, and no: from the PEP8 style guide: (my emphasis)

"Consistency with this style guide is important. _Consistency within a project is more important_. Consistency within one module or function is most important. But most importantly: know when to be inconsistent -- sometimes the style guide just doesn't apply."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'll definitely give it a shot.

From a usability perspective, your download button could be better. It doesn't download right away (which is fine), but redirects to downloads/win for me. Might be nice to have it auto-scroll to the win downloads since it took me a while to figure out what was going on.

Here's a screenshot from Win7 32-bit: <http://i.imgur.com/2RT6u.png>

That random pink line makes it unusable for me.

<comment><USER19> It looks like that delimits an 80 char width.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "For Ubuntu Users: You can add the NINJA-IDE PPA and install it from there (you will get automatic updates!)"

<http://ninja-ide.org/downloads/>

Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER21> As others have already mentioned, PEP8 validation is enable by default, which is a little excessive in my opinion (specially with the line < 80 chars rule). It would be great to be able to disable individual rules, a la Ecliplse/Netbeans.

All in all it looks very nice, thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER22> I think that we as an industry need to drop the 80 char per line rule.

<comment><USER23> I don't.

I have a fairly large screen (27inch cinema display) and use Vim. 80 Character lines are perfect. They look nicer, are easy to read (in the same way books are easy to read when lines are not super long) and with vim can accommodate ~4 split windows side by side which is useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I hate to be that guy, but after almost a decade doing Python one thing I learned is that we prefer Pythonista, not Pythonist.

</comment><comment><USER24> Wow.. how did this not make it to HN before? Already version 2.1.1 and never heard of it?

</comment><comment><USER25> Crashed while scrolling =( Was curious, but can't see myself moving away from PyCharm/Sublime.

<comment><USER26> Ditto.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Something something second system syndrome, just use vim/emacs/sublime. 'etc.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is nice, but one quick question, why's the windows installer in spanish?

<comment><USER13> Yes, as Brian mentioned, most of the team is from argentina, as the windows packager, we already take care of that for the next release.

<comment><USER28> Thats cool, its not a problem. I really like the tool though, great job!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> On mountain lion, it requires X11. Not sure why as my PyQT apps do not.

</comment><comment><USER30> My experience when I tried it on Windows 7:

0) Downloaded and installed it. For some reason the installer was in Spanish. Launched the IDE itself. Fortunately it was in English.

1) clicked file - new project, selected python, named it "test"

2) tried to type the project location, it wouldn't let me. Selected the project location via the "Examine..." button instead. (The filesystem browser launched in program files instead of my home folder.)

3) typed _print("hello world")_ in __init__.py

4) hit F6 to run. This doesn't seem to do anything except pop up a save dialog. The only output I get is "Failed to start" with no further indication of what is wrong.

Chosing a "main file" in the project properties didn't seem to make any difference. I don't know how to make this thing execute code.

<comment><USER31> > I don't know how to make this thing execute code.

This happens to me basically in every IDE, with every language. I somehow got used to the fact that IDE requires some maintenance prior to working with it. I guess it shouldn't be the case but it is my (limited) experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Don't know about the IDE but that font is horrendous.

</comment><comment><USER33> Just tried it. Looks nice but a bit lacking on the code completion, i think. Maybe I need to give it another chance.

Also, I think would be nice if there was a way to interact with the console after running a script. I realize this may be sort of an odd request, but it is very convenient when you're not quite sure on how you want to solve a problem, and you need to try out some solutions interactively. I greatly enjoy this in spyder, my current python ide of choice.

</comment><comment><USER34> Tried it out on existing code. Was complaining that spacing wasn't a multiple of 4, when I set it to 2 spaces in the prefs. I even reloaded it and verified the setting.

Back to Sublime!

<comment><USER35> I don't use this editor but I can almost guarantee that its actually pep8 complaining about spaces. Not that this solves your problem but there is a disconnect between editor configuration and pep8.

Side note: Hope you use 4 spaces on new projects! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Having very recently switched to Sublime Text 2 (from Komodo Edit), I'm curious if this offers anything that can't be done with Sublime + mature existing plugins...?

<comment><USER16> Does ST2 have a REPL? (This is no value statement. I honestly want to know.)

<comment><USER37> There's also a separate ST2 package called SublimeREPL that supports other languages (<https://github.com/wuub/SublimeREPL>).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I cannot use an IDE that doesn't feature a vi mode for the editor. I'd be very, very lost. I'm yet to find an IDE that doesn't get in my way, vi mode or not.

</comment><comment><USER39> How does this compare to PyCharm?

<comment><USER40> I'm wondering the exact same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I am already extremely satisfied with PyCharm. I'll keep an eye on this though. Being able to write plugins in Python is promising.

</comment><comment><USER42> am i the only one who's really wishing there were some real screenshots to check out before downloading the thing?

</comment><comment><USER43> Although vim has almost completely sucked me in already, does this thing have support for 1) separate indentation settings for different file formats and 2) separate indentation settings for different "projects"?

I've been looking forever for a text editor that does this and surprisingly few do.

<comment><USER44> The IntelliJ family of PyCharm, RubyMine and WebStorm can do this.

<comment><USER45> Confirmed -- I've used WebStorm and it's derivative PHPStorm for several years, they are excellent IDEs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> It can't seem to create or open JavaScript files. How does one use it with Django?

</comment><comment><USER47> It keeps crashing on me. I'm on Lion. :(

Looks good though. I thought it was going to be YET ANOTHER ECLIPSE distribution, but apparently it's not. It seems to be pretty fast. Hope they fix the crashing issue on Lion soon.

</comment><comment><USER48> Tried it on Windows. Why it is never a commercial-grade UI in projects like this? Why it is not like Idea? Why it is not like Visual Studio? Why it is still glitchy, blinky, brogrammer-art thing?

</comment><comment><USER49> Crashes on launch for me.

<comment><USER50> same here

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> The name of the IDE emphasizes that its not just yet another IDE, and yet I don't see anything new here, or any difference from existing IDEs, other than heavy Python support.

</comment><comment><USER26> Looks pretty, but I opened a 200 line python file on Mountain Lion and it crashed after 30 seconds. Also the scrolling was annoyingly "jumpy".... just not smooth.

</comment><comment><USER52> Tried it out on Windows. Was liking it, but then discovered that it is converting my files to UNIX format when saving them on Windows!

</comment><comment><USER53> Is this based on QT Creator?

</comment><comment><USER54> Wing IDE is great

<comment><USER55> "Me too". I've tried many Python IDEs, settled down with Wing IDE.

The one feature I truly love in that IDE is "debug probe". Once you breakpoint (or hit an unhandled exception), you can walk up and down the call stack and evaluate arbitrary expressions in any frame. SO handy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> It would be great to see some screen shots.

<comment><USER57> Yep, I was quite annoyed when browsing to their site that I can't find any screenshots at all. And as someone mentioned, a video would be nice as well.

I'm a bit reluctant to download an app with so little information except from a sparse bit of text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> whats wrong with emacs ?

<comment><USER16> Nothing at all. Emacs is wonderful. But that says nothing at all about Ninja.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> QT toolkit. urgh...

</comment><comment><USER60> Nice, it would be good to have some screenshots and stuff though, I'll definitely check it out.

</comment><comment><USER61> As soon as I see the words "cross-platform" on an IDE, I'm no longer interested. Looks really nice though, they did a good job with branding.

<comment><USER62> This is a very strange reason not to like a product. Care to elaborate why?

<comment><USER63> There's no such thing as a cross-platform GUI layer that doesn't suck.

Qt comes the closest, and it has all sorts of platform-specific hacks in it, some even visible at the API level.

If you're going to be writing something that's used as frequently and intensively as an IDE, then it had BETTER conform to the user interface guidelines of whatever OS it's running on. Those differ on Windows or Mac, and Linux doesn't really have any.

<comment><USER64> I definitely agree with your thoughts on this, but I guess I wanted to add that Linux most definitely _does_ have human interface guidelines -- they're just not the same for every flavor of Linux under the sun. Granted a lot of Linux apps tend to be "cross-environment", or just cross-platform in general, so it's less obvious than on Mac, for example.

But GNOME definitely has them[1], and newer projects which have dedicated themselves to a really solid HIG are gaining a lot of traction[2].

[1] <http://developer.gnome.org/hig-book/stable/> [2] <http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines>

I guess the issue comes down to more people needing to _care_ about them :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


OSI: The Internet That Wasn't (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/osi-the-internet-that-wasnt <comment><USER2> Eh. The fact that you had to spend around $1,000 to buy the set of manuals required, back when that was perhaps $2,000 in today's dollars, was probably a bigger factor than the article makes it out to be. Standards organizations like ISO and ANSI, at least back then, made their money selling manuals, which just doesn't work for something so ubiquitous in the number of people who have to know details.

Another problem that I read about at the time is that some of the ISO protocols _didn 't work_. The "ISORMites" ([http://www.amazon.com/Elements- Networking-Style-Animadversio...](http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Networking- Style-Animadversions-Intercomputer/dp/0595088791)) were reported to be contemptuous of the Internet protocols, their origin from the "US Department of Death", etc. ... and didn't have a policy like the IETF's "running code wins" approach.

More generally, per [http://www.ietf.org/tao.html](http://www.ietf.org/tao.html) " _One of the 'founding beliefs' is embodied in an early quote about the IETF from David Clark: 'We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code'_"

</comment><comment><USER3> OSI's answer to TCP, TP4, was implemented in Windows 2000.

TP4 assumed a reasonably reliable data path, probably an X.25 virtual circuit, underneath. It didn't have all the timing, reordering, retransmit, and congestion control machinery that lets TCP work over bad links.

On the other hand, the OSI crowd had, at the time, more experience with scaling and routing. IP's class A, B and C networks, autonomous system numbers, and Border Gateway Protocol didn't scale well. Routing in the Internet is still something of a hack. Today's routers almost have to have an in-memory table mapping all 4 billion IPv4 addresses to Autonomous System Numbers. If memory wasn't so cheap, we'd be having real problems.

<comment><USER4> TP4, where the 4 stands for class 4, certainly had reordering, retransmission and congestion controll.

Other classes you could chose had varying degree of error detection and recovery. It also had a connectionless mode.

<comment><USER3> "You could choose". Therein lies the problem. TCP is automatic, which is a big win. You don't have to set parameters for TCP depending on the data path.

<comment><USER4> Why is that a problem ?

You specify a parameter when you start, telling which variant to use. It's really not that different sitting down before you start coding a program and deciding whether to use TCP, UDP, DCCP or similar.

<comment><USER3> Because you don't know whether the end user running the program has a gigabit server-quality pipe or a flaky mobile connection.

<comment><USER4> Sure, but how is that different from the TCP/IP world ? You select the protocol based on what your application needs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We're actually integrating an OSI-based network stack into our avionics datalink product at work right now.

The next generation of digital air traffic control between aircraft and the ground towers is an OSI stack. Proprietary application in layer 7 and avionics-specific layers 2 and 1, but everything in between is bog-standard OSI (TP4 & IDRP, IS-IS & CLNP, 8208).

Interesting protocol suite, and it will be keeping aircraft going the right direction for the next 25+ years.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hilarious - a bit further down I mentioned how Hughes Canada Systems division had a team hard at work on that project in 1994/1995\. I thought it had been scrapped - apparently not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ah, reading about some of the early packet-switch debates reminds me of the time my dad called me up and said "I crossed off one of my bucket list items: Vint Cerf called me a 'circuit-switched bigot'"

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was working at Hughes Canada Systems Division in 1994/1995, and they had an _entire division_ dedicated to developing a next generation Air Traffic Control system - it had been mandated about 4-5 years earlier, that this project _had_ to be written using OSI protocol stack. They had been struggling for about 4 years, and still hadn't managed to get the protocol stack on their operating systems interoperating properly. There were dozens of people working on this project too. Total Fiasco. They ended up scrapping most of their work.

<comment><USER7> Interesting when I worked for BT I worked on OSI interconnects for the UK its not that hard once you grok asn.1 to workout what is going on.

My boss once watched a trace I was running stoped it and pointed to a particular dword and said that's a Sprint ADMD you can tell as they don't to that part of the had shake properly

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "OSI has been forgotten by all but a handful of veterans of the Internet-OSI standards wars."

Hardly forgotten, I learned about OSI at the same time I studied TCP/IP back in college. And I'm hardly a veteran, since I graduated in '09.

<comment><AUTHOR> OSI model, or OSI protocols? Everyone knows the OSI model - but outside of Avionics, you won't find that many people who know the protocol details beyond knowing they exist. And that TP4 is a thing.

<comment><USER7> You can tell people who relay know OSI by asking them which level MIDI is and critique CISCO'S asertation that its a layer 5

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I remember working with that ISO, OSI, C-MIP/C-MIS, ASN.1, *registration hierarchy, etc. stuff. Worst interval in my career.

Finally I began to understand: The standards meetings were in Paris, Rome, London, Munich, ...!

<comment><USER7> The OSI was working to the one PTT per country model your government controlled/owned phone company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oddly enough some OSI protocols live on at the foundation of IP networks in the form of CLNS & IS-IS.

IS-IS is a internal routing protocol sometimes used instead of OSPF.

<comment><USER11> ASN.1 managed to infest some internet protocols like SNMP and SSL certificates. It's one of those solutions to a problem that shows its committee heritage and ends up being ludicrously complicated to implement because of all the edge cases. Lots of software has been compromised through flawed ASN.1 and X.509 decoders.

I'm old enough to remember back in the day when our customer (the biggest possible customer) allowed us to implement early versions using SMTP, but we had to design and plan to switch to X.400 since that was going to be the real standard. It was a strange era. We had things that worked, but everyone knew that the whole industry was going to switch to something completely different that solved all the same problems for a reason no one in the trenches really understood. Except the dates for switching kept moving and the software for the new way never really quite arrived in working order or with enough features to move.

<comment><AUTHOR> LDAP as well. Tim Howes once told me if he had to do it all over again, he would have not used ASN.1, would have done a simple text protocol.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There is a quite interesting book where the author (John Day) shares an inside view about the OSI committees back in the 70's and 80's, and its endless discussions: "Patterns in Network Architecture: A Return to Fundamentals" [1]

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Network-Architecture- Fundamen...](http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Network-Architecture-Fundamentals- paperback/dp/0137063385)

</comment><comment><USER13> One advantage that circuit routing has over stateless routing is that of largely painless muxing / demuxing; and hence almost no buffer bloat. SONET can mux multiple channels without the need for a single buffer. Obviously the downside is the lack of flexibility, interdependency and hence increased fragility.

</comment><comment><USER14> The 7 layer model lives on. It remains a good reference point for discussing networking.

<comment><USER15> Seven layers are a procrustean bed, at best. The model might be useful as a starting point, but really all it means is "good design uses layers." When you start discussing actual networking implementations, trying to fit a what you're doing into "where exactly this fits in the ISO model, and it's wrong if it doesn't fit" is a bad way to think.

Devices that mix layers can do pretty interesting work, too (e.g., inspection of packets for security purposes, smart buffering for controlling host load, etc.). So the "every layer only talks to the layers immediately above and below" is kind of suspect, at least as dogma. There are probably other examples in very high bandwidth systems where you want to skip layers for performance reasons.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: One week off before new job.  What should I learn? - <AUTHOR> I'm moving to a new company for a job as Dev Manager.  During my week off, I'd like to pick up some new ideas.<p>What resources (books, videos, courses, etc.) have inspired you in the way you approach work? <comment><USER2> If you want to learn a new language/platform, I'm just getting in deep with Mathematica/Wolfram Language now. It's pretty eye popping how much stuff you can do in a one liner with all those built in functions! Also has tightly integrated cloud stuff which makes it a no-brainer to deploy stuff. Already changed the way I approach MVPs and experiments

</comment><comment><USER3> I recommend you spend the majority of your new found free time away from a desk. Then you'll gain perspective as a newly minted manager regarding the human element of software development.

That being said, Rework by J.F./DHH is fantastic.</comment>


State Supreme Court Upholds SeaTac's Minimum Wage Law - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/08/20/22731367/state-supreme-court-upholds-seatacs-minimum-wage-law <comment><USER2> I suspect Alaska Airlines will not appeal this to SCOTUS, doing so is risky. It's just better to leave it localized to Washington State.</comment>


Hasn't the problem of Windows updates being partially installed been solved? - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20151211-00/?p=92501 <comment><USER2> Recently I was surprised by how long Windows Update took to simply decide which updates were available. When rejuvenating a relative's Vista machine that hadn't been online for about 6 years, it took WU more than 2 days of fully pegging the CPU to finally deliver the news that ~200 updates were available.

What was it doing all that time? Some kind of solver?

<comment><USER3> About a month ago I decided to reinstall Windows on one of my old PCs, an Intel Ivy Bridge desktop i5. It is frustrating and nearly impossible to end up with a patched system. The process was pretty much as follows:

1\. Manually check for updates. This took forever and thrashed the hard disk, every time.

2\. Select, download, and install the updates.

3\. Goto 1 until Windows couldn't find any more updates.

In some cases, step 2 would fail with various unknown errors and hex codes. The only way to fix this is to run a Windows diagnostic that "resets Windows Update components", which makes Step 1 take even longer than it would have otherwise.

All in all, I think the update cycle took me about 4 hours before I gave up on the third reboot and decided to just let Windows figure itself out. Compare this to an 'apt-get update && apt-get upgrade' or the OS X Software Update, and it's a wonder people update Windows at all.

<comment><USER4> Windows 10 should (eventually) move to a model where the initial install is much closer to the current update, requiring less patching.

<comment><USER5> Interesting, do you have any links about this?

<comment><USER4> The latest is actually they did it, then pulled it, but presumably they'll try again. [http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2015/11/window...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2015/11/windows-10-november-update-mysteriously-pulled-as-concerns- about-bugs-grow/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Windows update used to be okay in Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and 8. But Windows 10 with its forced update that has negative wait effects after every reboot is unbearable. Also Linux don't need a reboot for 99.9% of its updates and updates only the files that have changed. Something like Threshold 2 update for Win10 and all its problems like downloading 2+GB, doing a complete OS re-installation (WTF), loosing drivers and applications and settings is laughable in 2015. Also the new OldNewThing blog software isn't that great.

<comment><USER7> > The Windows update used to be okay in Windows XP

Nostalgia much? How many times did e.g. .NET updates force XP computers into endless loops, or just killed the OS?

Windows Update has _always_ been a barely functional, embarrassing mess. It's just that seems to be stuck in 2001, while others finally managed to sort their crap out.

<comment><USER8> > It's just that seems to be stuck in 2001, while others finally managed to > sort their crap out.

Those others do not include Apple as anyone who's been indefinitely waiting for "installing" OSX updates can confirm - and the OSX fixes needed have the same weird incantation like qualities as the fixes for Windows updates (i.e. remove update, then restart, then run again, then panic, redo-sequence). No particular hate meant for Apple or MS.. but seriously, learn how to write a basic update mechanism that do not include random-fail-over.

<comment><USER9> I manage Windows and Mac networks. Mac updates may take up to 5 minutes to discover necessary updates, resulting in 5 - 10 package downloads, even on machines that haven't been regularly updated. Windows, depending on the version can take upwards of 20 - 30 minutes, with up to 50-60 package downloads, and on machines that haven't been updated recently, 1 - 2 hours, and hundreds of package retrievals.

> OS X fixes needed have the same weird incantation like qualities as the > fixes for Windows updates

I find your statement inaccurate. Even if the update operations are fairly similar in Windows and OS X, the latter's update system seems fairly efficient. OS X doesn't have the libraries and dependences hell that windows does. The update model fits well in to the OS X environment, not well at all in Windows.

Also, Mac updates that update system files are 'rare' and usually only require one reboot. Windows often requires 2 or 3 reboots. Again, I believe this is because of the dependancies and libraries Windows is forced to maintain and keep up to date.

Mac's don't hang on update or install, frankly, Ever, unless there is something very wrong.

<comment><USER10> The update procedure works fine, the newly updated OS X seldom so. Far too often updating OS X means having something break.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Recently after Windows 10 performed an update it notified me that it had uninstalled a VPN client because of incompatibility.

Personally I would have preferred it not perform the Windows Update and allow me to connect to my client's network considering that's one of the requirements of getting paid by the client.

This is exactly why I keep a Windows 7 VM ready.

<comment><USER12> Was this after the 1511 upgrade? I think you can go back to a previous build pretty easily in Win10.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Having talked to many Windows users, I'm convinced that they never experienced the package and release management process of Linux distros before. If they did, they would constantly complain about Windows. With many Linux distros you can even update packages as part of the installation process, giving you a fully up to date distro. There's no reason for Microsoft to do anything less since they require serial keys, activation and network connections anyway.

Compare the time it takes to remove or install a component (application or library) and you will be very disappointed in Windows. No matter how fast your disk or cpu is, Windows finds a way to make you wait half a weekend. This is unacceptable, but nobody complains loud enough for Microsoft to reconsider.

Windows software management is a total mess and it got worse with newer Windows versions.

But other parts of Windows get better with each release and it's mostly the kernel land. This seems to be a case of different teams having different culture (Windows kernel, Windows shell, Windows installer, ...). Take Windows 2003's desktop, put it on Window's 10's kernel, and you have a nice system.

<comment><USER14> Package management on Linux can be summed up as: use this old, custom patched version we provide or build from source.

The alternative is just Windows style software distribution: find a random exe on the internet and run it.

<comment><USER15> Some distros provide unpatched software that is up-to-date. :)

<comment><USER14> Perhaps I should have used those years ago instead of becoming jaded and cynical.

<comment><USER16> The trade off to having stable, secure packages has always been not getting new features.

For example, in LTS releases, major versions are frozen but perpetually updated and patched for the lifetime of the distro. In more bleeding edge rolling release distros, you receive (or compile) sometimes major version updates of software within a short time after their public release. In those distros you can still freeze your packages at certain versions, but it's not quite the same as making sure every library and component in the system is getting the same treatment.

Try manjaro ([https://manjaro.github.io/](https://manjaro.github.io/)). It uses pacman (like Arch) and yaourt (for AUR, building from source). Their driver and kernel management makes switching between free/non-free drivers or different kernels easy. And they're pretty close to bleeding edge; I've been running kernel 4.2 with Xorg 1.17 (released 2015/02) for months, and up to kernel 4.4rc4 and Xorg 1.18 are available in the repos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _" If the role of an internal developer conference is to encourage discussions among teams, then that one certainly succeeded. Because discussions most definitely ensued."_

Been there, got the video, in less exalted company.

Is the book simply a repackaging of the blog posts or would it provide a more coherent view of the history of the Windows project?

<comment><USER18> The book just contains selected blog posts, as well as two downloadable appendices with more stories that haven't been published on the blog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> My system somehow lost all the original installation files for my programs. Now whenever I try to update a program, it fails on the "removing previous version" step. Insane.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't have such a problem, I have been Microsoft free for years ..</comment>


Nitrous.io is shutting down - <AUTHOR> http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=40aef44b6df80a146dc4163c7&id=99995282f8&e=952a866202 <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12841489](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12841489).</comment>


U.S. Productivity Gains Exceed Forecasts Even as Output Cools - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-07/u-s-productivity-gains-exceed-forecasts-even-as-output-cools <comment><AUTHOR> "The data indicate employers may be starting to coax more output from worker"

>>Certainly feel this is case where I work. Large multinational software company. Senior people disappearing not being replaced, workload increasing, existing employees picking it all up.</comment>


Ask HN: Why doesn't "Uvote" Startup exist yet? - <AUTHOR>

A web site that can allow people to submit and vote on topics on their street, region or state, their company or topics of interest? Something that can both work with the democratic principal and also for topics of interest. Wouldn't it be easy to link to (secure) data (google maps, addresses etc.)to make it valid and also to anonymous people on general interest? <comment><USER2> Because you didn't build it :)

Go do it, it sounds like a good idea. There are poll sites that allow you to make polls on all kinds of subjects (a la HN polls but targeted towards a larger audience), but I think your idea would be a lot more useful.

</comment><comment><USER3> Call it swingvote and allow people to create profiles that then show you (rough) demographic information.

It would be similar to those espn fangraphs(just more awesome).

<comment><AUTHOR> While the social side has commercial applications I am more interested in creating a ground level validated voting system that can link community involvement on a local, national , global level. If the registration of users is secure similar to domestic financial transaction level it can become a valid tool for relevant comments on a vast number of issues. I don't have sufficient resources to build it myself however.

<comment><USER3> I love hn. Especially because I do have the resources if you wanted help starting something along these lines.

I'd love to chat if you wanted to talk it over, feel free to email me at email@example.com</comment></comment></comment>


Home office decoration on a tight budget (+timelapse video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.goodbytes.be/blog/article/home-office-decoration-and-branding-on-a-tight-budget

<comment><USER2> FYI - "Video not available"

<comment><AUTHOR> snap, Facebook didn't make the video public as I asked. I've uploaded it to vimeo and adjusted the post. Thanks for letting me know!</comment></comment>


Pinterest acqui-hires team behind smart keyboard app Fleksy - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2016/06/15/pinterest-acqui-hires-team-behind-smart-keyboard-app-fleksy/ <comment><USER2> Anyone have any details? I'm curious how much acqui-hires go for these days.</comment>


Show HN : startup failed, here's source (CV/ML for demographic analysis) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/terramars/projectx

<comment><AUTHOR> Just FYI - I have full copyright to this (never signed it over to anything). Haven't decided what license to use, thinking GPL with commercial option although it's hard to ship Python. If you want to use it or want me to modify it lets talk.

Would love feedback on some of the decisions I made especially regarding the way I extended MDP.

PS: I'm interviewing - if you have Computer Vision, Machine Learning, or Data Science work please let me know!</comment>


5G: Rural areas could see bigger and taller masts - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49480560 <comment> Esposito-Glau Hah</comment>


Surviving a Production Launch with Node.js and MongoDB - <AUTHOR> http://seanhess.posterous.com/surviving-a-production-launch-with-nodejs-and <comment><USER2> This article seems to bury the main point:

 _we're currently getting about 30M hits a month on our API_

If you're getting a million API requests a day, you can probably handle that load with a single machine. Indeed, it looks like they are using just one load balancer machine, one app server, and one db server. I'm not sure why the load balancer is even necessary. It's cool to hear this story, readers should just keep in mind that this is not really a "web scale" deployment.

<comment><USER3> Yea a million requests per day is almost nothing and could certainly be easily served by ANY RDBMS using ANY front-end technology from a single server.

<comment><USER4> Not necessarily. If the hits are not distributed equally, you can get 500k hits in 2 hours (say lunch time in a big city in a small country).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> randall: You really felt the need to repost this old article again?

<http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=2861821>

<comment><AUTHOR> Hahaha I thought this looked familiar...

His feed just refreshed in my feed reader... And I use news.yc as a bookmarklet to save interesting stuff.

Sorry bout that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know what the difference in performance between a MongoDB that stores its entire data in memory, and a SQL Server (MSSQL, Oracle, Mysql, Postgres, etc) that stores its entire data in memory? Is the performance for MongoDB faster than the corresponding SQL server?

<comment><USER7> Yes, due to absence of SQL parsing and MVCC

<comment><USER6> Thanks. Would you know if it's a big difference, or just incrementally faster (~10%)?

<comment><USER8> It will depend on the type of workload. Some types will be faster, some will be slower. You'd have to run your own tests to see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _> What MongoDB really does well, though, is make every JOIN explicit._

And SQL doesn't?

<comment><USER10> Even better, EXPLAIN SELECT makes _everything_ explicit.</comment></comment>


Individual Master File - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_Master_File <comment><USER2> Sure but COBOL can continue to run on S/360 in emulation. Alan Turing proved any computer can emulate any other computer. Emulation stories regularly appear on the front page of HN. If we can emulate game consoles and graphing calculators and personal computers from a couple of decades ago, why not taxes. I don't understand the issue of a critical skills shortage either. First of all, coding is coding. A real coder can adapt to any language. The required skills are the same to write code in any language. Only the specific syntax changes. And secondly if too few people know the specifics of COBOL and they need to learn it right now, open a COBOL boot camp. Seriously. COBOL can be maintained as long as people just care enough to do it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Way before the code was the contract with Ethereum, the IMF and BMF are the tax law.

If the printed regs say one thing and the masterfiles do another, the masterfile was always right.

Laughable that anyone thinks they can replace 60 years of logic.</comment>


The co-founder of Kayak (which was sold for $1.8bn) moonlights as an Uber driver - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/magazine/201606/sheila-marikar/lola-paul-english-uber.html <comment><USER2> Outline of this article, and likely most articles, that outs as a submarine ad:

1\. Interesting 'Fact'

2\. Interesting Story about 'Fact'

3\. Lessons Learned

4\. Taking lessons learned and applying it to NewCompanyX

</comment><comment><USER3> Login? Inc.com what makes you think I want an Inc.com account? Now you won't be serving me any ads. Have fun monetizing your 'content.'</comment>


"Must Follow" JavaScript Best Practices - <AUTHOR> http://www.developerdrive.com/2011/08/top-10-must-follow-javascript-best-practices-2/

<comment><USER2> This is quite the eclectic mix. There are suggestions here that are great for beginners (learning JavaScript before learning jQuery, to gain a better understanding of the fundamentals) and yet there are some excessively fine- grained suggestions that don't really mean anything to the modern JavaScript developer.

The section on "Debug JavaScript Code" is vague and ambiguous, and the problems with extending the prototype are just wtf-inducing. Can't say I've ever run across that problem in my years of JavaScript development, nor have I heard of anyone else having problems.

Things like using one "var" declaration and comma separating values are great in theory, but are just going to lead to global leakage for the average Joe.

Be careful of premature optimisation.</comment>


2009 Prediction: Microsoft buys 37signals for $300 million - <AUTHOR> http://www.altgate.com/blog/2008/12/microsoft-buys-37signals-for-200-million.html

<comment><USER2> Flagged for bogus title. I know it's the same as the title of the linked article, but hypotheticals and predictions ought to be clearly marked as such.

<comment><AUTHOR> Woops, my bad. Fixed. I just assumed the title was so preposterous that folks would get the joke. It wasn't meant to mislead. Thx for the note.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, I've unflagged the story now. :-)

The title was preposterous, and when I saw it I was very skeptical -- but I've seen stranger stories which turned out to be true, so I wasn't completely sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hmm, would pulled-up-by-their-own-bootstraps, Mac-loving, RoR-open-sourcing, 37signals really want to sell to _Microsoft_?

To be fair, that's why the prediction is for a $300 buy even though 37signals' revenue is 'only' ~ $8million.

<comment><USER4> _To be fair, that's why the prediction is for a $300 buy even though 37signals' revenue is 'only' ~ $8million._

Well, that's why this prediction won't come true. 37signals won't sell to Microsoft barring some astronomical price, and Microsoft won't pay said astronomical price for 37signals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So, why 37signals? 280 North likewise makes web applications well and their Objective-J model is better for making applications (vs. web pages with ajax) than 37signals' model. 37signals is great, but they don't make competitors for things like Visio or PowerPoint. 280 North is in that arena.

And Objective-J wouldn't be hard to swallow for Microsoft. They'd have to replace the widgets with less Apple-esque ones, but it wouldn't be too hard. And it would give them a base akin to Google's GWT.

Microsoft probably does need to get into the webapp world, but 37signals doesn't compete with Microsoft's lineup and Rails really isn't the toolkit to create a Visio-killer.

<comment><USER6> "and their Objective-J model is better for making applications (vs. web pages with ajax) "

I'm sorry but adding an abstraction layer on top of javascript doesn't make it better then javascript.

<comment><USER7> I tried learning Objective-J when it first came out. It was nice and all but I couldn't shake the feeling of uneasiness that I could be writing this app in Javascript + jQuery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For starters, I have a hard time seeing MS buying a ruby shop. Second - I have a hard time seeing 37 signals selling to MS

</comment><comment><USER9> Never happen. I call complete bullshit on this prediction.</comment>


Handwriting Offers Clues to Early Parkinson's Detection - line-zero http://www.reuters.com/video/2014/02/24/reuters-tv-handwriting-offers-clues-to-early-parkin?videoId=282671670&videoChannel=118065

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if they could offer a less accurate version of this test over the internet (touch displays, graphic tablets).</comment>


Announcing Ethereum and Litecoin vaults - <AUTHOR> https://blog.coinbase.com/announcing-ethereum-litecoin-vaults-b10c3250cbe6 <comment><USER2> For those who might be a bit confused......

This feature will not make your coins more secure or prevent coinbase from being hacked. However your coins will most likely be moved to "Cold storage" which will make your coins extremely difficult to steal in the event that either coinbase or your account is breached.

As far as cryptocurrency exchanges go, Coinbase is among the most secure, practicing what they call "Paranoid Security".

Brian has written about it in the past. [https://engineering.coinbase.com/how- coinbase-builds-secure-...](https://engineering.coinbase.com/how-coinbase- builds-secure-infrastructure-to-store-bitcoin-in-the-cloud-30a6504e40ba)

<comment><USER3> What happens if cold storage burns down.

<comment><USER4> it becomes quite warm storage

<comment><USER5> ok that brokw the Ice :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, at first I was impressed because I have used Coinbase's multi-sig BTC vaults in the past and those were the real deal. As in, they allowed for security and convenience. One key with Coinbase, one key with user, and the third key in your bank vault or somewhere hard to reach. All generated client- side. It protected against Coinbase being hacked, but still offered convenience.

This product is the opposite! One-key. Same security (in terms of Coinbase being hacked) and less convenience than the regular wallet! In fact they even took the multi-sig BTC wallet away. You used to be able to create more than one multi-sig BTC wallet in your Coinbase account. Now I only have one and I don't see an option to create another.

Maybe in practice, the risk of people getting phished is much higher than the risk of Coinbase getting hacked.

<comment><USER7> They have MFA at the account level. Serious question: is what you described more secure than that? These vaults mean they take coins offline, so it becomes a physical security task to secure them.

<comment><USER6> Yes, a multi-sig wallet is more secure. With the multi-sig wallets, even if someone infiltrated Coinbase's offline coins, the hacker STILL would not be able to steal the coins. With these new "multi-email" wallets, the hacker would. This is all assuming that the user can manage his two keys better than two email accounts.

In fact, the multi-sig wallets were nice too because you could retrieve your coins even in the case where Coinbase went away completely. e.g. if they pulled a Cryptsy or a BTCe

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So this almost made me register for a Coinbase account to finally buy some Bitcoins. That is until I got to the ID verification section. Am I wrong to be worried about uploading a picture of my passport to a US company?

<comment><USER9> I wouldn't use Coinbase to buy BTC. The IRS already tried to obtain all customer data before, and they conceded with "only customers who spend over $20,000".

Even outside of privacy issues, Coinbase goes down during critical periods often. Price crashing and you want to buy/sell quick? The site will likely be down.

Outside of accessibility issues, Having Bitcoin on coinbase is more like an I-O-U and defeats the purpose of cryptocurrency imo, which is having the private keys to your funds which only you control.

I recommend this guide to set a multisignature wallet through CoPay and Glidera. And managing your keys with a password manager like Enpass.

[https://gist.github.com/paOol/d6c78c339cc5c4df6dd745d3bc2cc5...](https://gist.github.com/paOol/d6c78c339cc5c4df6dd745d3bc2cc522)

<comment><USER10> Out of curiosity, where _do_ you recommend buying BTC?

<comment><USER11> I switched from Coinbase to Gemini. Their verification process is very quick and their customer service is too. Coinbase never responded to my ticket when I asked them why my purchase was pending for over a week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Isn't this just security theater? Does moving coins to one of their "vaults" actually do anything in the event coinbase is hacked?

<comment><USER13> When they say vaults, they're actually vaults. 98%, according to them, of their funds are stored offline.

The only attack vectors are cryptographically, which you can pretty much rule out (safe for human error), and some kind of human attack. (blackmail, social engineering etc) But there's procedures in place there, too. The offline keys are multi-signature, requiring multiple executives in multiple locations to clear industry security protocols, then come together and commit a crime.

The remaining 2% of online funds are insured.

If anything goes wrong, it's extremely likely to be on the customer side. They offer the usual secure connections, multisig etc, and the vault adds an extra 48h withdrawal period ontop.

If you know the basics of bitcoin's cryptography, it's pretty trivial to store bitcoins on private keys that never saw the light of day, using a bunch of dice and an offline open source bit of software. But if you have to use a service, I'd say Coinbase is pretty damn secure. Just make sure your side's clean. Accessing secure systems from compromised phones/laptops is a losing battle, and as there's no real recourse with bitcoin, that's usually where things go wrong even when using secure services.

<comment><USER14> There are a lot of things outside of technical issues that can go wrong - here's an example: [https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/6hcu0n/coinbase_c...](https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/6hcu0n/coinbase_cuba_lawsuit/)

If you have control over your own keys (such as in the case of the "old" Coinbase vault) those things are a non-issue. But with the way how the new vault works a hardware wallet looks like a better solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just to warn folks, if they for whatever reason do something that makes want to get your money out, like not supporting a fork, the withdrawal delay on vaults can hinder your ability to get your funds out in time. Make sure if you do this that you stay on top of any future time-sensitive announcements they make so you can withdraw in time.

<comment><USER16> It's a tough catch-22.

Cryptocurrencies are so volatile that there's a non-negligible risk that locking away a large sum for 48 hours could potentially cost you nearly all of it.

And they're so hackable that _not_ putting a time delay on withdrawals could also potentially cost you all of it.

<comment><USER17> Is there some reason that a bank safety deposit box isn't the gold standard?

<comment><USER18> Safety deposit boxes are subject to many problems, most notably human error. Death certificate fraud is far more common that you'd imagine. I would bet that far more has been stolen from safety deposit boxes through social engineering and fraud than from hacking cold storage systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Our coins will be not more secure with their "vaults"

</comment><comment><USER20> Love that the example screenshot has $125k in funds knocking about on coinbase.

<comment><USER21> If you had bought $5k worth of Ethereum last August, it would be worth $135k right now. So yeah, sounds about right.

<comment><USER20> I'm comparing to the marketing you see for the majority of financial products. Most Americans don't even have 5k in savings, never mind crypto.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Well until CoinBase is hacked and there is nothing left FOR you to withdraw.

Just as with fiat USD, depositing it into any third party that is not FDIC is silly. Same here, however there is no FDIC like entity to return your money, so the only true secure way is to only hold them yourself.

Of course that makes mass adoption much more difficult...

Until Gov. Treasuries and central banks really jump into the game...

<comment><USER23> [https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/166237...](https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/1662379-how- is-coinbase-insured-)

<comment><USER22> Yes, because that is always a guarantee... And that's a big maybe and eventually...</comment></comment></comment>


Artificial Intelligence with Erlang - <AUTHOR> http://www.trapexit.org/Artificial_Intelligence_with_Erlang:_the_Domain_of_Relatives

<comment><USER2> looks like a hacky version of prolog.

<comment><USER3> Prolog with manual control-flow semantics :-)</comment></comment>


EC2 Mandatory Scheduled Reboot Instructions Are Confusing - <AUTHOR> https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=81291

<comment><AUTHOR> This afternoon, 30% of our instances got a never-before-seen "stopwatch" icon in the web UI. This indicates that the instance must undergo scheduled maintenance. We see a new tab with details and deadlines.

Our first mandatory reboot is due in a little over ten hours.

We have yet to receive any email from Amazon notifying us of the existence of this new "feature".

edit: An EC2 user pastebinned a copy of an email from Amazon support that provides additional detail regarding what must happen for each type of reboot: system-reboot and instance-reboot.

<http://pastebin.com/VzNQDG37>

edit: To be fair, Amazon does mention the impending new features in the official blog back in mid-November, saying that the new status items will describe "action[s] that we must take on your instance". [http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2011/11/ec2-instance-status- monit...](http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2011/11/ec2-instance-status- monitoring.html)</comment>


How TED Learned That 'Giving It Away' Increased Both Popularity and Revenue - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20110217/01444113148/case-study-how-ted-learned-that-giving-it-away-increased-both-popularity-revenue.shtml

<comment><USER2> Chris Anderson also talked about this in an interview with Charlie Rose last week: <http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11483></comment>


Ask HN: What's your creepiest Facebook targeted ad story? - <AUTHOR> Most of us have had Facebook (and Instagram) target us with timely ads after a vocal discussion on a topic (or simply thinking) with no logical explanation for how they knew about it.<p>What has been your strangest ad targeting, and what's the most likely logical explanation (if any)? <comment><USER2> I googled from incognito Mobile Firefox a specific brand's specific mattress cover, and visited its listing on the websites of various retailers. Since nobody had it in stock locally, the next day I ended up ordering the item from Amazon.

A day later, I was browsing Facebook on my home desktop and saw an ad for the exact same item in my feed.

It's likely they partner with data brokers of credit card companies for your purchase history. For me, this is the only explanation, as I did not talk about the item out loud, and have no mic-enabled Facebook-owned app on my phone in any case. As a low-tech solution, correlating IP addresses with "suspected companion device" is also likely.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Mine is from a few new, recent conversations (phone, in-person) about renting my condo on Airbnb, specifically about 3rd party management services. I just started getting targeted for manorshare, one of these services. This company was never vocalized or typed. I don't have the Facebook app installed.

My only explanation is that I searched for several far future dates for pricing on airbnb in my condo complex. airbnb knows my email, knows I searched my own home thus indicating I'm a potential lister. Airbnb sells/leases this information to manorshare who then used my email on Facebook for direct targeting.</comment>


Ask HN: What should I learn next? - <AUTHOR> I am currently employed as an Android Developer with knowledge of iOS / Java SE / C#.NET Forms/WebAPI / Angular JS.
At my current salary range I really only have the confidence to apply for Android dev, which is fine. It is the basis of my 3.5 years commercial experience.
My feeling is that I need to learn something new which is in demand or focus on one of my secondary skills. Simply, put I don't want to continue down the path as an Android dev and get "stuck" if demand drops off.
I'm hesitant to learn new "buzzy" tech, case in point RubyOnRails. I read a report on here lately about how much it is in decline.
Python looks good as it has been around a while, Google supported etc. Javascript is also a possibility as its not going anywhere in the browser and Node is really picking up steam.
Java is around a long time and often bashed on here, that said, I think it still has it's place as a lot of the commercial world we know is built on it. Learning the enterprise stack is a strong contender given the above and my current Java knowledge.
Finally, I have recently come across an opportunity to learn C/C++ in my job. This doesn't really seem like my thing, I do like finance and would really only consider it if I wanted to get into low latency finance type applications. That said, C and C++ are complex and might require a lot before I could work in finance at the salary level I require.
What do you wise folk think?
Appreciated.
P.S. I understand this may be quite broad. I am also not looking for a crystal ball into the next great/in demand technologies. Just mere opinions on what you would pursue next if in my place. <comment><USER2> You seem to primarily want to do something that's in demand. Even though it's a fairly niche language, Ruby is in demand. Many, many startups still build their MVP with Ruby on Rails. Native iOS developers are also in demand, so Swift is an option.

It's hard to go wrong with Java (Scala or Clojure included) or Microsoft stacks (C# especially) if you always want to be able to find work. Python is sort of in a middle ground, but there's some good opportunity in the data- analysis/finance world with those (if you don't want to do something more traditional like Java).

My suggestion is to find listings for your ideal job at your ideal _type_ of company (startup, enterprise, etc.) and see what the skills required are.

</comment><comment><USER3> Swift.

Mobile in general seems very unlikely to have reduced demand. As wearables increase in popularity there is likely to be an increase.

If there was reduced demand for Android, then iOS would presumably have increased demand.

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe React-native? It can be used for Android apps now (in addition to iOS, and soon Blackberry and Windows). Being able to deploy apps to iOS would be a big boost on your resume.

Plus the development cycle is much faster due to auto reload and a host of other things (like loading code from the remote server), so you'll have some better work to show off, too.

Everyone at my office is abuzz about it, and because it's so young, you have the chance to put some of your work out there on Github and get people interested in you. Give it a look.

</comment><comment><USER5> The demand for every programming language / framework follows the bell curve. You are correct that Android demand will drop off at certain point. It's difficult to predict what will be the next big hit. The best thing to do is keep an open mind and try out different things that has the potential to become very popular. It's like managing your stock portfolio. You have to spend time in some risky technologies which has big rewards, if it takes off.

</comment><comment><USER6> RubyOnRails isn't new buzzy tech. It was in 2008, but it will be the source of large web stacks for many years to come. I would go with node JavaScript. It's battle tested at this point and there is a lot of demand, meanwhile many of its patterns are still evolving, so there's a lot to learn. I would not say it's worth learning a specific framework to go along with it, but it depends on what side of the stack you want to work.

</comment><comment> T-A I would consider Go. It's easy to learn and use (certainly more so than C++) and gives you the ability to write performant code (unlike Python) for the backend with minimal dependencies (unlike what you already know). The cool kids doing container work (e.g. Docker) swear by it, and... [https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/mobile](https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/mobile)

</comment><comment><USER7> If you want to learn a new technology that is in big demand, and probably will always be, i suggest learning frontend web development. It's extremely easy to learn, pays well and shouldn't go out of demand any time soon. I know that you were looking for a specific language to learn, but i consider frontend development as one (HTML/CSS/JS)

</comment><comment><USER8> How about taking a look at Rust?

Might be a good alternative to learning C/C++.</comment>


Threads on WhatsApp Security - <AUTHOR> From theguardian.com on Jan 13, 2017:
> WhatsApp backdoor allows snooping on encrypted messages
Link to discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13389935
Response on whispersystems.org on Jan 13, 2017
> There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor'
Link to discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13394900
Now we have a blog post on telegra.ph on Jan 31, 2020:
> Why Using WhatsApp Is Dangerous
Link to discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22200300
This has been public service announce ... pleas feel free to link other relevant discussions in the comments, I'd be interested to see anything substantive that adds to this. <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable links:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13389935](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13389935)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13394900](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13394900)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22200300](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22200300)

FWIW I don't use WhatsApp for one simple reason. I do work in various areas of varying degrees of security, and I have the personal contact details of some people who want control over who has their details. WhatsApp demands access to my entire contacts list, and it's unclear just how I can be absolutely sure I don't inadvertently give away those contact details.

So I'm not using WhatsApp.

Do you have a reason?

<comment><USER2> Too much of my life is being run through WhatsApp beyond my control (family, work, school) - to the point that if I avoid WhatsApp, I miss a lot. In fact, I avoided WhatsApp for a very long time until I realized the reason I'm always out of the loop -- in very significant and life impairing ways -- iis because I don't WhatsApp.

However, I splurged $50 for a 2nd hand "whatsapp only" android handset. It's not very comfortable, I check messages once a day, but at least I'm not left out.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Quoting taneq[0][1]

> _Last I tried WhatsApp it refused to let me use it without giving it access > to my entire contact list. Even when "giving it access" to a blank list via > PrivacyGuard, I couldn't see a way to add a contact manually. That was a > deal breaker for me._

And in reply[2] huhtenberg[3] said:

> _That 's hardly surprising. Contact list access is literally THE thing that > makes WhatsApp valuable to Facebook. You lock down that and they are now > staring at a massive hosting bill with nothing in return._

\</comment><comment>--

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=taneq](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=taneq)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22200477](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22200477)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22200698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22200698)

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=huhtenberg](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=huhtenberg)</comment>


Show HN: 23andMe raw data analysis tools – Free included - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/dna-data-analysis-and-health-reports/23andme-ancestry-dna-family-tree-dna-raw-data-analysis-tools-in-2019-10-tools-free-included-f655184fc003 <comment><AUTHOR> I would love to know your views.

<comment><USER2> 1) I'd be skeptical to distribute my raw DNA all around the web on free tools...

2) I think that most of those websites do horrible scientific shortcut between a complex biological system and diet/detox(whatever that means)/disease

3) I don't think any of the tools can be reliable at this point. There is a huge lack of causation/ significant statistical data linking any SNP data to diseases.

Besides if you have a mutation in Lactase gene and you can't digest milk but I don't think you need a DNA test to tell you this.</comment></comment>