At.js – A GitHub-like textarea autocomplete library - <AUTHOR> http://ichord.github.io/At.js/

<comment><USER2> There is also jquery-textcomplete: [https://github.com/yuku-t/jquery- textcomplete](https://github.com/yuku-t/jquery-textcomplete)

</comment><comment><USER3> A slightly offtopic question: can anybody point me to a js lib, which converted tabs pressed when inside a textarea into spaces and indented the text below accordingly?

<comment><USER4> [http://jakiestfu.github.io/Behave.js/](http://jakiestfu.github.io/Behave.js/) is a bit more of a lightweight option than a full code editor.

<comment><USER5> This is great, I've been looking for something like this. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very clean implementation. I have a feeling I'll be needing this soon.

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems broken, hitting enter a few time shows text outside of the box.

<comment><USER8> The textarea just needs the `overflow: scroll` or `overflow: auto` CSS property.

<comment><USER9> wow. cool. I will fix it soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks really nice, just today I was working on a new input for our comments and this seems to fit really well. Will give it a try!

</comment><comment><USER11> Great job with this. We had created a similar plugin called bootstrap- tagautocomplete: [https://github.com/Sandglaz/bootstrap- tagautocomplete](https://github.com/Sandglaz/bootstrap-tagautocomplete)

</comment><comment><USER12> Awesome! I really needed something like that. The implementation looks great too. Thanks! I started doing my own a while back but it only supported @mentions.

<comment><USER13> Can you share the link for that? Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've been looking for something like this to use in my webIRC application. Can't wait to give this a try.

</comment><comment><USER15> great job! following!</comment>


Stephen Elop said to consider selling Xbox business, killing Bing - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/8/5080192/microsoft-ceo-candidate-stephen-elop-bing-xbox-rumors

<comment><USER2> [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/press/2001/nov01/11-11c...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/press/2001/nov01/11-11comdex2001keynotepr.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER3> I hope he'll be as efficient at Microsoft as he was at Nokia. :-)

</comment><comment><USER4> One comment from sdrawkcab on that page seems to resonate with my opinion very well:

 _Microsoft is the only major technology /software company that thrives well in both the consumer and enterprise space, giving up Bing and Xbox is giving up a huge part of the consumer space, which Microsoft have said they intend to hold on to. Selling Bing and Xbox is incredibly short-sighted as well. Doing so will almost instantly guarantee that Google will dominate search and maybe even media, and I'd hate for that to happen. Google is already making some very monopolistic moves these days, and if they get more opportunity to do so, I doubt they'll stop. The market needs options, and Microsoft's offerings are a very good option._

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder what benefit selling the Xbox business would bring.

</comment><comment><USER6> Xbox and Bing both have more market share in their respective markets than Windows Phone does in smartphones.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does this guy just have some sort of compulsive urge to destroy platforms?</comment>


Why Zuckerberg's 14-Year Apology Tour Hasn't Fixed Facebook (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/why-zuckerberg-15-year-apology-tour-hasnt-fixed-facebook/ <comment><USER2> > At a Senate hearing into Facebook's "Project Libra", Sherrod Brown, the most > senior Democrat on the Senate banking committee, accused the company of > being "dangerous" and not understanding the power of its own technology.

> "They are like a toddler who has gotten his hands on a book of matches. > Facebook has burned down the house over and over and called every arson a > learning experience," he said.

[https://www.ft.com/content/ca7cc606-a7d6-11e9-984c-fac8325aa...](https://www.ft.com/content/ca7cc606-a7d6-11e9-984c-fac8325aaa04)

<comment><USER3> Link is hidden behind a paywall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Part of the reason I deleted my account and ignore Facebook recruiters.</comment>


VentureGeeks Unveils Five Pre-Seed Investments in Israel - <AUTHOR> http://www.vccafe.com/venturegeek/venturegeeks-unveils-five-seed-investments/

<comment><AUTHOR> Since their inauguration in February 2011, little has been shared on the VentureGeeks program or its participants - until now. Yesterday, VentureGeeks unveiled its first five investments in their Investor Day event, following the Y Combinator model.</comment>


Show HN: Python Tests That Write Themselves - <AUTHOR> https://timothycrosley.github.io/hypothesis-auto/ <comment><USER2> This actually gave me another idea. What do you all think, I'd be up for trying to build it.

It would watch your program during execution and record each function calls input and output. And then create tests for each function using those inputs and outputs.

You could always go over the created tests manually and fix them or review them but if nothing else it could be a good start.

<comment><USER3> Instagram created 'MonkeyType' to do something similar for type annotations.

A lower barrier way of trying this out could be to run MonkeyType in combination with OP's hypothesis-auto (which uses type annotations to generate the tests).

<comment><USER4> pytype (Google) [1], PyAnnotate (Dropbox) [2], and MonkeyType (Instagram) [3] all do dynamic / runtime PEP-484 type annotation type inference [4]

[1] [https://github.com/google/pytype](https://github.com/google/pytype)

[2] [https://github.com/dropbox/pyannotate](https://github.com/dropbox/pyannotate)

[3] [https://github.com/Instagram/MonkeyType](https://github.com/Instagram/MonkeyType)

[4] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19454411](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19454411)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does this do anything other than assert that functions return the right basic type given extremely basic inputs?

Is naive type testing a thing that people actually bother doing vs testing that the functions actually do what they're supposed to?

If a function takes two ints and returns an int that is the integer division of the two, is the evaluation of exceptions and returned types not already implicit in the evaluation of the actual results?

If you know that divide(a, b) should return c for sufficient candidates a, b, and c, then you _know_ that divide returns the right type without explicitly checking. And knowing that the divide function happens to return ints when given ints doesn't actually tell you that it's doing anything even close to the right behavior. So this both doesn't reduce the number of tests you need to write and is also obsoleted by actually writing the tests that you need.

<comment><AUTHOR> By default, the biggest value from this is catching unexpected runtime exceptions with certain values (the edge cases you don't think of yourself). To get the most value out of it, you can further specify what you expect from the result using the _auto_verify=Callable() parameter, or by looking at the individual test cases.

Simple example:

      from my_library import add
      from hypothesis_auto import auto_pytest

      @auto_pytest()
      def test_add(test_case):
         add_result = test_case()
         if test_case.params.kwargs['number_1'] > 0 and test_case.params.kwargs['number_1']:
             assert add_result > test_case.params.kwargs['number_1']
             assert add_result > test_case.params.kwargs['number_1']

<comment><USER5> > _By default, the biggest value from this is catching unexpected runtime > exceptions with certain values (the edge cases you don 't think of > yourself)._

So it's a fuzzer?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! A smart one though, that limits itself to the type constraints you've specified to avoid redoing the work of your type checker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like the idea, but I think I would be more comfortable with it generating test files that I could keep beside my other tests.

Also, `auto_pytest_magic` doesn't seem to exist.

        ImportError: cannot import name 'auto_pytest_magic' from 'hypothesis_auto' (/home/.../.local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/hypothesis_auto/__init__.py)

<comment><AUTHOR> > I think I would be more comfortable with it generating test files that I > could keep beside my other tests.

This is a very interesting idea I might explore more!

`auto_pytest_magic` is only made available if you have pytest installed. You can enforce this by doing:

      pip3 install -U hypothesis-auto[pytest]

<comment><USER6> Oh man, for some reason I thought pytest was a synonym for Python's unittest module.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is neatly packaged, but it's not immediately clear what advantages it has over Hypothesis' native offerings for accomplishing this? ( [https://hypothesis.readthedocs.io/en/latest/details.html#inf...](https://hypothesis.readthedocs.io/en/latest/details.html#inferred- strategies) and [https://hypothesis.readthedocs.io/en/latest/data.html#hypoth...](https://hypothesis.readthedocs.io/en/latest/data.html#hypothesis.strategies.from_type) )

<comment><AUTHOR> It's an extension for hypothesis, and its value is 100% just convenience and accessibility. Really, it's meant to be a sort of gateway to doing full property-based testing, in the least barrier way possible. I wrote a bit more about why I created it here: [https://timothycrosley.com/project-5-hypothesis- auto](https://timothycrosley.com/project-5-hypothesis-auto)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> On one job, I had to disable code coverage for a whole suite of tests that were simply making calls and completely ignoring the results.

I know, coverage is Yet Another Metric, but if you don't game it, it can help you track down branches you haven't written tests for.

So my hesitation is I can see people running this, gettting 100% code coverage and thinking, "hooray, it's fully tested!"

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thoughts behind project creation live here: [https://timothycrosley.com/project-5-hypothesis- auto](https://timothycrosley.com/project-5-hypothesis-auto)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the write up - explains a lot (including what hypothesis is).

I think there's a typo in the last code box? It looks like you repeated "from hypothesis_auto import"? (that, or I understand even less python that I thought!)

<comment><AUTHOR> You are correct! Thanks for catching this! I'll fix the example later today

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like this idea. One piece of feedback, a parameter with a leading underscore feels very odd. In python I interpret leading underscores to indicate the programmer thinks of this as an internal / pseudo-private property. Exposing it through the api makes it "public" which means (to me) that it shouldn't have a leading underscore.

This is especially true if the usecase is common enough to put in the top level examples

<comment><AUTHOR> While I agree, that `_param` generally means private, it is also a common way to allow parameters to be passed into a function where all other parameters are passed directly along via _args and_ *kwargs to avoid naming collisions. An example of this is NamedTuple: [https://docs.python.org/3/library/collections.html#namedtupl...](https://docs.python.org/3/library/collections.html#namedtuple- factory-function-for-tuples-with-named-fields).

<comment><USER11> I believe Raymond Hettinger now considers that a mistake, and wishes he had gone with a trailing underscore (param_) instead. A trailing underscore is just as unlikely to lead to a collision, but less confusing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Updated in latest release to use trailing underscore: [https://timothycrosley.github.io/hypothesis- auto/CHANGELOG/](https://timothycrosley.github.io/hypothesis-auto/CHANGELOG/) figured it would be the least painful the earlier I did it :)

<comment><USER11> Great!

It takes a bit of manual juggling, but if you take __kwargs anyway you could inspect them to check for the old-style parameters, and use them if they 're present, perhaps with a warning. That way you don't have to break compatibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> While I had really liked the idea of hypothesis in Python I found that the edge-cases it was uncovering were the ones that were obviously gonna break but at the same time cases I didn't care to guard against, e.g., using 3-mile long integers, or cases that wouldn't work with the underlying libraries eg NumPy. Thus, I found myself spending more time adding constraints on the generated inputs than fledging out my test-suite. So my adventures with hypothesis were short-lived.

I don't mean to detract from this library, I think its a great combination of strong-typing and property-based testing but has anyone had any experience employing property-based testing on complex functions outside of the whole add/subtract/multiple stuff? What kinda thing have you used it on?

</comment><comment><USER13> This is great, thank you! Another great example of the benefits strong typing brings.

</comment><comment><USER14> Nice concept but does it work with real-world application. I failed to understand how will it work with methods like `authenticate_user(user)` or `load_permissions_from_db(user, db)`.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi @kburman,

For cases like that it would be best combined with a mock:

      @auto_pytest()
      def test_add(test_case, mocker):
          mocker.patch('db.call')
          test_case()

Note that this example utilizes the following pytest extension: [https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest-mock](https://github.com/pytest- dev/pytest-mock)

However, I would also note, that just because you have some methods that have potentially dangerous side effects, in most large code-bases, not all functions do. Which is why it operates at a function by function basis. You can use this for new pure functions, while continuing to write other tests in the same fashion by hand.</comment></comment>


Functional Reactive Programming - <AUTHOR> https://www.nexocode.com/blog/posts/reactive-programming/ <comment><USER2> None of this is _functional_ reactive programming as originally formulated by Conal Elliott and Paul Hudak, which in particular emphasized the need to model reactive programs as the algebraic composition of simple _abstract_ units, events and behaviors. If you have to set up a listener for an event, you aren't doing FRP, you're just doing Reactive Programming.

<comment><USER3> This same discussion comes up every time FRP is mentioned, because most articles that say they are about FRP are about Reactive Programming using Functional methods. You can keep bring it up every time you see such a post, but maybe it's better for your own sanity to just realise that ship has sailed: when people write about FRP, they write about this.

As Elliott himself suggested [0], it might be a good idea to use the term DCTP when talking about the concept you're talking about. Yes, it might feel wrong because his FRP was "first", but at least it's clear.

> To reduce confusion, I would like to see the term "functional reactive > programming" replaced by the more accurate & descriptive "denotative, > continuous-time programming" (DCTP)

[0] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5875929/specification- for...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5875929/specification-for-a- functional-reactive-programming-language/5878525#5878525)

<comment><USER2> This same discussion comes up every time FRP is mentioned, because most articles that say they are about FRP are about Reactive Programming using Functional methods. You can keep bring it up every time you see such a post, but maybe it's better for your own sanity to just realise that ship has sailed: when people write about FRP, they write about this.

My job is to write actual FRP so it's no sweat for me to vigorously complain every time that people are stealing "my" term :p

While Conal may have distanced himself from FRP, in the Haskell FRP community that's what we still call it.

<comment><USER3> Haha, well, if it's no effort for you to keep it up, then by all means, keep it up :) Just don't expect it to actually change :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _To achieve such effect as presented above you need to use Server-Sent Events (SSE)_

I was wondering whether it is possible to achieve the same effect without client side JS, perhaps with HTTP2 push?

</comment><comment><USER5> Can someone explain the synergy of using reactive with functional? Reactive is great and functional is great but I don't see what they have to do with each other.

<comment><USER6> You are correct, there isn't really any synergy, and it's just a re-framing of synchronous dataflow programming using somewhat convoluted terminology and technology.

In fact, what "reactive programming" does is solve the problem that FP has with _reactive systems_ [1], in that it isn't suited for them at all. FP, pretty much by definition, is suitable for _transformational_ systems, i.e. systems that map some inputs to some outputs and are then done.

With just FP, there really isn't any way to build _reactive systems_ , that is systems that continuously react to external and internal stimuli, whereas reacting (responding) to stimuli (messages) is pretty much the definition of OO.

By treating input as (infinite) streams of data and applying collection processing to those, you can sort of map this to the aforementioned dataflow programming and solve your problem. Of course, just using dataflow programming directly is both simpler and faster, but hey...

[1] [https://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/seoc/2005_2006/res...](https://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/seoc/2005_2006/resources/statecharts.pdf)

<comment><USER5> > just using dataflow programming directly is both simpler and faster,

But a good reactive system is simpler to write, understand, and debug. At least that is what I found in my latest project.

<comment><USER6> What dataflow system/language did you use to compare?

<comment><USER5> The framework is custom. But I was really talking about how great reactive was for my application. It is a control system with a lot of inputs and outputs. The graph is about a dozen levels deep.

<comment><USER6> So you weren't actually comparing reactive with dataflow?

Because what you write certainly sounds a lot like just dataflow.

<comment><USER5> I can't answer this without knowing your definition of reactive.

To me, dataflow is simply a stream of data triggering calculations even if the data is unchanged. e.g. the stream of 1,2,2,3 would cause four calculations.

Reactive means that only 1,2,3 would appear to the calculations. In other word only changes are reacted to.

My framework is reactive by these definitions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In practice, I've used socket.io and redis to glue dbs and apis and queues and schedulers and clients together and the clients listen to sockets for data payloads to modify the views. View interaction sends event payloads to modify the various systems which kick off further data payloads. That is the entire concept. No article was necessary in the making of this post.

</comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone know if React got its name from React Programming?

<comment><USER8> Why was this downvoted? React essentially uses observables, right? Child components don't directly listen to changes in the state objects of their parents. Instead, parents know how to update their children when setState is called. Thus, the inversion of dependencies decouples objects in React in the same way observers are decoupled from their subjects in RxJS. Redux has a dependency on RXJS for a reason.

<comment><USER9> Redux doesn't have a dependency on RxJS. It does expose and observable interface though</comment></comment></comment>


New prosthetic hand gives amputee life-like sensation of feeling, gripping - <AUTHOR> http://robohub.org/lifehand-2-prosthetic-grips-and-senses-like-a-real-hand/

<comment><USER2> Simply awesome</comment>


Ask HN: Why do so many companies get basic language detection wrong - <AUTHOR>

I am Australian, but for the last 14 months I have lived in Thailand.
I am now frequently presented with webpages in Thai, for two reasons:
* The local companies default to Thai (for obvious, understandable reasons), but 99% have a "TH | EN" toggle on every page - I can accept and deal with this.
* "Global" sites/companies, like Google, EA, etc have an annoying habit that some of their pages will GeoIP detect my location as Thailand, and then present me with a page full of Thai, ignoring the Accept-Language header and not even presenting a manual "change language" option.
If a company like Google or EA thinks enough to offer different languages, which idiot engineer made the logical conclusion that everyone in country X speaks the same language!? Have these people never left their home country?
[Update: re-phrased title, fixed typo] <comment> Lorenz-Kraft Hi, i think its a mix of narrow minded developer / developer who does not know which source to trust (IP or Browser) / developer who uses the wrong CMS. These three factors influence each other.

Beside that, setting up a multilingual page prepares several questions for a developer like Toplevel Domain vs. Subdomain vs. Path vs. nothing to enable diffrent languages. Therefor all those SEO Questions and Text encoding questions come into the game. And at the end: Does my CMS support my well thought solution?

Developers are lazy and they usally take the easiest way ... even many of Googles own pages are not SEO optimized!

Greets!

Chris

<comment><AUTHOR> I can understand (to some extent) a junior dev using some flavour of the month framework/cms not getting this stuff right.

But this is not some "oh the framework does it that way" issue - Google are well known for hiring excessively smart people, and building their own tech when whats available isn't "good enough" \- and yet this shit is pervasive through their pages.

<comment> Lorenz-Kraft Like i said, even many Google pages are not SEO optimized... also in big companies there are big structures and you have to know this structures to properly use them. Multilingual is a extension of single Lingual and if you do not set up something as multilingual (may because its to much overhead for a small project) its pretty much work to fix it later on... and sometimes its not even possible, because your desired my domain.fr (fr = france tld) is already sold ...)

By the way: being smart does not mean anything as long as you can't show it. And being smart in one thing does not mean you are smart in every way. There are just ordinary people at google who do not SEO optimize their pages and make mistakes setting up multilingual pages ... just normal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Can't you override GeoIP detection manually (and persistently using cookies)?

While this is annoying, I don't think engineers are necessarily idiots. To the first approximation, nobody knows what Accept-Language is. I think it is more likely that Accept-Language is wrong because one installed the English version of operating systems or browsers, but wants the local version of websites, but does not know how to configure Accept-Language, than that Accept-Language is right because one moved to foreign countries and configured Accept-Language to one's preference. Do you have the evidence it is otherwise?

<comment><AUTHOR> > Can't you override GeoIP detection manually

No - as I said the pages I'm talking about provide no method to change the language.

> To the first approximation, nobody knows what Accept-Language is.

By nobody, you mean end users? No, of course they don't, but they know if their device displays english or thai menus/buttons/etc to them.

So you're suggesting that this is not a case of idiot developers but instead that the Accept-Language header is not reliable, because there are whole countries of non-english speakers using devices that are mistakenly set to English, and they never worked out how to change the language to their local language, so they just randomly hit buttons/menu items they don't understand?

<comment> Lorenz-Kraft Jap, that might be the case ... for 0.001% of the users. I think using the browsers "Accept-Language" (beside manual language switch in the page) is the only way to go, because it respects the user decision. If the user is not able to make the decision: who are you (=developer) to make this decision?

<comment><USER2> You can't claim to respect user decision when users don't know how to set what is supposedly "user decision".

<comment> Lorenz-Kraft Jap, i think "users agree" is more to the point (i'm not nativ english speaking). The user "agrees" in some way (because he does not change, or let it change) to the "Accept-Language" header sent by the browser (which correlates to the used browser language (developers switching this value excluded))</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What happened to you after you were rejected? - <AUTHOR>

Has anyone applied to YCombinator, been rejected, then built something popular?
There was a line from the rejection email:
"We realize this process is fraught with error. It's practically certain that groups we rejected will go on to create successful startups. If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email making fun of us; we want to learn from our mistakes."
Has anyone done that?  If not, YCombinator picks the winners pretty well. <comment><USER2> If you apply and get rejected and don't go after your idea anyways then they were right to reject you. I know that sounds harsh but failure and rejection are common-place in startups, YC or not. If your idea can't sustain rejection from a program as competitive as YC then it is the wrong idea or you are the wrong person to make it happen. It's like saying, "I didn't get into MIT so I'm not going to engineering school."

<comment><USER3> College students are an exception. There's a lot of social pressure to not drop out of college to start a company and YC provides a socially acceptable excuse for postponing college. This made PG and co increasingly uncomfortable over time which is why they started preferring college graduates. I realize that someone truly dedicated could still work an idea full time while in college. But this is hard, and it's even harder to get a team to hack with you.

<comment><USER2> Agreed. You bring up an interesting point about social pressures b/c they are the driving force behind this whole thing. I'd like to run w/ this for a sec...

It is NOT socially acceptable to not attend college. It IS socially acceptable to not get funding for your startup. So what happens when someone wants to go to college but they don't have the money? They get loans, they work two jobs, they do what they have to do to make it happen b/c they will be socially rejected if they fail. The same is not the case for funding. If you are committed to your idea, treat funding like a college loan: Not optional. Once you get in this mindset you'll figure it out. You may not get a full ride at MIT (YC) but in state tuition + a TA job at U Mich isn't so bad either.

As of now nobody has commented on a sucessful YC reject. I think that is b/c YC applicants tend to be straight A students (blind generalization based on instinct.) Straight A students have other options that involve less social risk. I know of a number of successful entrepreneurs who were thrown out of / barely made it through college. Since they didn't have other options, they HAD to make it work. And since they had been failing their whole lives they've realized that failure is just someone else's or some organizations opionion about them. For good or for bad, they tuned those opionions out.

People need to realize that the currency of "failure" is just a bit of social rejection. Running your startup into the ground will not give you cancer. And a big fat 'F' on life's report card is just a sign that at least once, you weren't afraid to push the limits...

<comment><USER3> I'm coasting along now with a 2.8 GPA and a willingness to let it slip to a 2.0. I'm an industrial engineering student and you may remember us as the efficiency experts from movies such as Office Space and American Beauty. The salary for an Industrial Engineer in Pittsburgh is almost constant for anyone with a QPA over 2.0. Those with better grades just get to work for a more nationally known firm instead of a local manufacturer.

College is so aversive to me because all it does is prepare me to work for someone else, at a guaranteed salary of 55k per year (sixty by the time I graduate?). True failure for me will be taking a job as an Industrial Engineer. I can't think of anything I want to do less. But if I haven't become successful by the time I graduate from college and no one is funding me, I won't have much of a choice.

I'm running my current startup like a business. We're not seeking funding and we're growing very slowly. We have no costs so everything we make is profit. We haven't made any profit because we haven't actually sold anything but we'll get there eventually.

<comment><USER3> Note -- there are many things I would rather do less than work as an industrial engineer, like a McJob. It still represents one very specific kind of failure to me.

<comment><USER4> Actually, a lot of really well payed industrial engineers work at McDonald's.

<comment><USER3> Great... I bet they were the guys who decided to outsource the pickup windows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _If not, YCombinator picks the winners pretty well._

Impossible to say without knowing what the selectees would've done on their own. A lot of the winners might have opted to stay in college, for example, if they hadn't been picked. Simply being selected is automatically going to influence the result -- having all that support behind you makes it more likely that you'll succeed.

There's a certain amount of being made, not born, so to speak; you might think of it as being a bit like the Spice Girls.

        *Cough*

<comment><USER3> My idea for YC was a very large project... one of the many reasons we were rejected was that I didn't agree with PG during the interview as far as making a smaller subset of the idea. I of course recognize his point as valid but we really didn't have time to talk about it.

We didn't get in, everyone stayed in college, and no one devoted themselves to the project in the way that YC hackers do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm very happy with the way things are going. I wouldn't call us a 'winner' (yet), but I don't think YCombinator's "rejection" is going to be the reason we fail, if we do.

Plenty of successful technology companies have been started outside of YCombinator. In retrospect, it's kind of a funny question.

<comment><USER7> I like your site man - very useful (I have family in FL)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't think any of the applicants, accepted or rejected, are ready to rest on their laurels just yet.

I've gained users in the past few months, but am nowhere near popularity.

<comment><USER9> We've just released our 'News Feed' www.clutterme.com/public

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> We got rejected, then started a site that got Techcrunched a few months later (thought it didn't end up taking off). Now we're working on another company that is funded and has a growing user base on Facebook.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just curious, how'd you attract TechCrunch's attention?

<comment><USER11> Presumably they made something interesting with nice design. The bar isn't that high--TechCrunch covers very early Web 2.0 startups. If you write to them, and your site is worth a crap and in an interesting space for them, they'll probably cover it. It does help to be in the Valley and actually run into a TC writer in person (they're all really nice folks, in my limited experience), but it's obviously not mandatory.

<comment><USER10> Our design sucked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> YC folks describe the accelerator effect of getting into the program. I think that makes sense. People expect non-failure from an openly declared intention to start a company. Founders respond to the fear of failure by working hard.

Many of those rejected probably don't consider themselves startups, just working on side projects. No build-up of expectation.

I have every intention to continue if not accepted into the next YC round.

<comment><AUTHOR> If most people succeed because they openly declare their intentions, the reverse seems true too:

You're more likely to succeed if you openly declare your intentions to succeed.

And it's true. I'm not sure we'd be able to launch tomorrow if we hadn't posted our intention to. Now we have all your expectations to live up to, and it motivates us.

<comment><USER13> From my experience - likelihood of succeeding because you tell people and all the other variations of this are just hoopla.

You will succeed if

1\. You have a market

2\. You service that market better than most or better

3\. You can do what you are doing for years at a length. And then keep doing it some more without even thinking about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, the idea has to be semi-solid. I was referring to the part of "Get this thing done, now. Get it out there and in front of people. Then we'll see if they bite."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That line you quoted from the rejection email is just perfect. It also shows quite the opposite attitude of the average big company. Reforming corporate America seems like a lost cause. It's time to start taking over.

<comment><USER11> "It's time to start taking over."

Y Combinator tends to fund companies that will be acquired, rather than become companies that displace existing huge corporations. Just a rule of thumb, of course, and there are a few that could run to IPO in three to five years if they don't get acquired (and a very few for whom that's actually the pretty firmly held goal).

Nonetheless, corporate America is a hundred+ years in the making. We're not going to take over with Web 2.0 features. You'd better start thinking bigger, much bigger, if that's your aspiration.

<comment><USER14> Right-O!

"Bluto's right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One startup I joined was rejected by YC, and when we got the news the founder bought a car. This made it hard for me to take him seriously (and get paid) and I quit.

This was a while ago and the startup still hasn't launched. I hope he succeeds at some point. The founder's idea is brilliantly disruptive and democratizes a multi-billion dollar industry we all take for granted.

<comment><USER16> Since you quit, do you mind telling us the idea or their website?

<comment><USER15> I signed an NDA so I can't talk about his project, but we nixed the non- compete clause (it was so broad it was unbelievable) so if he fails and closes up shop, I might look into running with the idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well, first you get to rethink your idea and ask yourself" WTF is wrong here?" Then you start tweaking it here and there, making it simpler (but better) and a few months later you find that maybe the original idea wasn't all that, and the current one is more solid. Now you have been working hard to make the necessary changes and you are going to launch this Fall. BTW the letter hurts.

<comment><USER18> I'm sure it all varies by degrees, situation by situation, but the idea isn't the point - ideas, as has been repeated ad nauseam, are everywhere. Recognizing opportunities (the factors that make a team predisposed to excel where others with the same idea would not) is much more valuable. A large (possibly larger?) part of the equation should (must?) be team-specific. From everything I've read, the idea will change in the YC process (as it should), the team could drop the original plan entirely and should still be strong enough to do something else better suited to their strengths.

It's hard to read "it's not the idea, it's the team" or "I don't invest in ideas, I invest in teams" and not want to prove someone wrong out of ego or passion/drive. It's difficult to appreciate the truth there without having realized it on your own, no matter how many times you hear that.</comment></comment>


Tweet-a-Program Mandelbrot Code Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wolfram.com/2014/11/17/fractal-fun-tweet-a-program-mandelbrot-code-challenge/

<comment><USER2> "MandlebrotSetPlot" feels a bit too cheat-y

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I missing something?

Wolfram is sold as an incredibly useful language, but the useful part appears to be not the language itself, but the many built-in functions.

<comment><USER4> I like to think of it as less of a language and more of an API with a ton of features and curated data. So that might sound great at first, but when I sat down and evaluated it to see if I could use it for a project I'm working on (analyzing microscopy data) - it's just too limited to do everything I need to do, and not general purpose enough to be extended in any meaningful way.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you manage SSH known_hosts? - <AUTHOR> In our company we are managing a few dozen virtual machines. A lot is automated, but we still need to manually ssh in to machines often.
How do you manage your ~/.ssh/known_hosts file, to make sure you're not connecting to a malicious host? We spin up machines often, and it's not feasible to manually check every new host key. Additionally, DNS entries are often updated to new hosts, which produces nasty "WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!" messages, which some people also learn to ignore after a while.
Are there any tools to keep a company-wide known_hosts file in sync? Or should we not be using SSH directly to all these machines at all? <comment><USER2> That's a very good question, and one that I haven't seen answered in a satisfactory way. People rarely think about this particular issue, much less try to solve it. It's one of the reasons I consider SSH unsuitable for unattended batch communication between servers.

What I would try is running just after installing a machine a registration script that reports server's public SSH keys. Then it would be quite easy to generate a system-wide known_hosts file on a server that would be used as a jump host (sometimes it's called "bastion host"), or distribute it in any other way.

Note that Puppet with its most popular deployment method, with master node, uses registration process and reports SSH keys (and other information) back to the master.</comment>


Government Spyware Targets Mexican Activists and Their Families - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/world/americas/mexico-spyware-anticrime.html <comment><USER2> But but.. but we can't allow terrorists a safe space to hide!</comment>


Ask HN: A strong product vs. a strong culture which one would you prefer? - <AUTHOR>

A bit of background, I currently have two competing offers to join 2 YC companies (both are in different domains). I've talked to founders from both companies and found both of them to be smart and ambitious.
A major difference that I found among the two companies was that the first company (Company A) has a really strong product but the company's culture seems not so much strong. The other company's (Company B) product seems to have changed very little in the past two years and its product seems neither technologically interesting nor highly appealing to the user. Despite of this, Company B has a better culture (at least that's what I found from the day I spent there).
Now, that I have made up my mind to join Company A over Company B, I am interested to know which of the companies would other HN readers pick. <comment><USER2> It all really depends, but a large percent of tech companies (especially startups) fail. With a strong product a company has a significantly better chance. Company culture doesn't mean very much if the company goes under.

</comment><comment><USER3> A strong culture while nice, doesn't generate revenue. Product going out the door (so-to-speak) do.</comment>


Top journalists, tech, and government officials among hacked Twitter accounts - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2013/02/04/top-journalists-tech-influencers-and-government-officials-among-hacked-twitter-accounts-says-peerreach/

<comment><USER2> You would think your psw was safe with Twitter, I guess not.

</comment><comment><USER3> wonder how they store their credentials, seems like an old repository? Or shard 1?

</comment><comment><USER4> this calls for better password policies.</comment>


When a Competitor Raises Money - <AUTHOR> http://davidcummings.org/2016/01/05/when-a-competitor-raises-money/ <comment><USER2> Yup. Keep perspective. Money quote: "Raising money doesn't equal success"

Of course, funding certainly won't _hurt_ your competitor.</comment>


SendGrid employee's account was compromised and used to access internal systems - <AUTHOR> https://sendgrid.com/blog/update-on-security-incident-and-additional-security-measures/ <comment><USER3> > evidence suggests that the cyber criminal accessed servers that contained > some of our customers' recipient email lists/addresses and customer contact > information. We have not found any forensic evidence that customer lists or > customer contact information was stolen.

Which doesn't mean the customer list data _wasn 't_ stolen. The wording on this is too cute. Accessing data from privileged accounts doesn't necessarily leave evidence, depending on the type of system access or server logging involved.

I think SendGrid should clarify what _could have happened_ here, worst case.

<comment><USER4> Thought exactly the same, they lost me as a customer over the wording on their released statement and email.

Hell it wasn't instantly clear why you needed to reset your password and the link to make it clear was way smaller than the link to do anything else, pretty dirty pool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The customer targeted has got to be Coinbase, right? There was an email sent around a few weeks ago, clearly spam/scan but seemingly sent by legitimate coinbase.com servers. I received something like this:

      subject:      colin, We've got a message for You
      mailed-by:    em.coinbase.com
      signed-by:    coinbase.com

<comment><USER6> Yes. See [http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/sendgrid-email- brea...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/sendgrid-email-breach-was- used-to-attack-coinbase-a-bitcoin-exchange/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Two Factor Authentication. Please, all companies that have any of my data, don't just give me the ability to use 2FA, please force all of your employees to use it on their email, GitHub repos, everything. It should be a requirent right alongside https.

My personal favorite service is Authy, now part of Twilio.

<comment><USER8> > Two Factor Authentication. Please

My understanding is that Sendgrid isn't too keen on dongles.

<comment><USER9> Maybe they should just publicly fire someone to make this all go away.

<comment><USER10> How will that solve anything? The damage is already done. No point someone losing their job over this.

<comment><USER11> It was a reference to this drama from a couple years back: [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/21/how-dongle- jok...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/21/how-dongle-jokes-got- two-people-fired-and-led-to-ddos-attacks/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What was their password hashing algorithm? The lack of specificity isn't encouraging. The vague "hashed and salted" could mean anything from MD5 upwards.

<comment><USER13> I'd hope it would be PBKDF2. But then again, they could have just specified that. The lack of specificity makes me think otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Did anyone get an email about this from SendGrid. We have been searching and haven't found a "We got hacked, please reset your passwords".

I had to find out on HN, also on twitter they seem to be downloading it too.

<comment><USER15> I got an email on 28th and a reminder yesterday on both of my account emails to reset my password.

<comment><USER16> Same here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > CYBERCYBERCYBER

How about you just give me the details with resorting to propaganda?

<comment><USER18> Spread the meme: Saying "cyber" means "I have no idea what I'm doing or talking about".

<comment><USER19> Because that's what the government and DoD calls it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > used to access several of our internal systems on three separate dates in > February and March 2015.

> On April 8, the SendGrid account of a Bitcoin-related customer was > compromised

If I can gather this right: SendGrid was fully hacked for 3 months on end. At least that is what they were able to recover from forensics, it may have been longer.

This sounds illogical:

> We have not found any forensic evidence that customer lists or customer > contact information was stolen. However, as a precautionary measure, we are > implementing a system-wide password reset.

How would a password reset help combat information that was stolen before the reset? The password reset is because the systems accessed contained password hashes. Also it may be to upgrade the hashing mechanism to be more secure than "salted and iteratively hashed".

Sendgrid's privacy policy is cookie cutter, but it contains this:

> For example, our policy is that only those individuals who need your > personally identifiable information to perform a specific job are granted > access to that personally identifiable information.

Apparently the employee that was hacked needed access to the data of all his colleagues and all users.

> Upon discovery, we took immediate actions to block unauthorized access and > deployed additional processes and controls to better protect our customers, > our employees, and our platform.

Then the Privacy Policy again:

> We will use at least industry standard security measures on the Site to > protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our > control. While there is no such thing as "perfect security" on the Internet, > we will take all reasonable steps to insure the safety of your personal > information.

So apparently there were still some reasonable steps left to take, which were forced by this hack, not by 'industry standard security measures'.

> Two-Factor Authentication: We encourage all of our customers to enable two- > factor authentication, which can effectively prevent unauthorized logins.

I think you can better encourage (or force) your employees to enable this, so you can prevent unauthorized logins into superuser accounts.

From the Privacy Policy you'd expect they already did this:

> Likewise, all employees and contractors are kept up-to-date on our security > and privacy practices.

Then the unspecified hashing mechanism. Should you worry about the chance of account compromise again?

> salts and iteratively hashes passwords

It would be a breath of fresh air if these companies would just say 'We use bcrypt' in their privacy policy.

> Our Ongoing Commitment to Security

Your 3 month struggle with hackers. Also, three reasonable steps follow that could have been taken before this hack, like your Privacy Policy promised us.

> NOTE: We require passwords to be a minimum of 8 alpha-numeric characters. > Make sure any new passwords you set conform to this requirement.

Before or after this hack? Why should the customer make sure his password conforms to this requirement? Is it even possible to set a shorter password?

> Security update: Please reset your SendGrid account passwords today. > Beginning today, and in line with standard practice, we are requesting that > all of our customers reset their passwords to all of their SendGrid account > access points.

Why not force this? Asking nicely? Standard practice would be to force this upon next log-in and temp disable accounts that have not changed their password yet.

</comment><comment><USER20> Time to decentralize our data, people!

<comment><USER21> Which means what in terms of using a service for transactional email?

<comment><USER22> My company, www.drh.net, provides an SAAS or on-premises Mail Transfer Agent, GreenArrow Engine.

You can run it in your network and tightly lock down the system. We can take care of all of the email deliverability setup and operations tasks, if you want.

One advantage of running licensed software on your network is that you don't pay per-message fees, so for higher volume it's really economical compared to a service like SendGrid.

<comment><USER23> Legitimate bulk email is not a thing you want to have decentralized - <USER2> anti-spam efforts of the past 20 years or so have made that all but impossible.

<comment><USER22> Not true. We have plenty of clients using their own decentralized email servers and getting great inbox delivery of legitimate bulk email.

To get good results on your own server, you need:

(a) To be sending email that people want to receive.

(b) To have the technology setup correctly. It's not hard; we do it all the time for our clients.

(c) It's greatly beneficial to above ~20k messages/day on your own server. Not required, but being above that point lets the ISPs gather statistical data on your complaint and open rates, which allows reputation filters to click in.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Watching Apple win - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3084-watching-apple-win <comment><USER2> It's articles like this that basically sum up perfectly why I refuse to discuss anything Apple with people.

Don't get me wrong, I like many of the products that Apple make (I'm currently typing this up with a MBP), however the personal connection that people have with Apple is not something I share.

For many people there exists a strange bond with Apple where they take any negative comment about one of their products or services as a personal affront against themselves.

It's a corporation folks, a wildly successful one, but that's it. It's not your buddy, your soulmate, nor your friend.

<comment><USER3> It's called marketing. Apple understands branding and marketing; very few other hardware makers do. What's remarkable is that Apple has been using the same playbook for decades now, and nobody else has quite figured it out.

It's the Nike playbook (Steve Jobs once said that he learned a lot from Nike's example). Don't market your tech specs; market your lifestyle. Apple's competitors are still running commercials about the dimensions, specifications, and miscellaneous stats of their devices. Such commercials basically announce "Hey consumers, here's a commodity. For the time being, it's slightly differentiated from other, more or less interchangeable commodities by way of some wonky stats you don't understand. Please buy it."

Apple commercials, by contrast, show _use cases_ and lifestyles. They use metaphorical and superlative language. That stuff works. It establishes an emotional bond with the consumer. Apple commercials aren't even really about Apple; they're about making consumers feel cool, special, hip, and creative _because they use Apple products_. It's the ultimate in feel-good messaging.

Seriously: watch a Motorola Droid RAZR commercial, then watch an iPhone commercial. The difference is extraordinary.

<comment><USER4> you're wrong. your comment is typical for tech-circles, but completely wrong.

Apple understands products. Apple invests heavily into really good design, usability and compatibility. Their stuff WORKS, out of the box, without any fiddling. their products stay useful for a long time, longer than any crap of their competitors.

This is what makes Apple successful.

And it is clear why many "nerds" just don't get it - cause it means in reverse that they are wrong and the tools hey're building are second rate.

such a nerdy thing to reduce apple to "good marketing". just like SJ was just a great "showman".

It is people like you (sorry) that make Apple's competition looks like the clowns they are. You think a great ad would suddenly make Motorola sell more than Apple?

Consumers are NOT idiots. They understand quality and value. They reward that with loyalty and word of mouth advertising.

MS has understood this now and is trying hard with WP7. Let's see how that goes. They are lucky XBox 360 competed against Sony, not Apple.

<comment><USER3> _"Apple understands products. Apple invests heavily into really good design, usability and compatibility. Their stuff WORKS, out of the box, without any fiddling. their products stay useful for a long time, longer than any crap of their competitors."_

This is not mutually exclusive with what I am saying. The two go hand in hand. Of course Apple focuses on product. But as far as its consumer messaging strategy goes, it talks about that product in a very specific, lifestyle- oriented way. Obviously it wouldn't be able to talk that way about its products if it products weren't great.

 _"such a nerdy thing to reduce apple to "good marketing". just like SJ was just a great "showman"._

This is not at all what I said, and if that's the impression I gave you, then I'm sorry for not having been clear enough. But you're taking what I said in a tangent that was never intended. I am not "reducing" Apple's success to marketing, but rather, am explaining why consumers seem to have a love for Apple that they don't for its competitors (in response to the grandparent comment about not understanding why consumers have an emotional bond with Apple).

Marketing and product reinforce one another for Apple; it's not one to the exclusion of the other.

 _"think a great ad would suddenly make Motorola sell more than Apple?"_

Again, you're pretty wildly misinterpreting my post and making inferences that just aren't there. I'm not sure what else to tell you. Either I wasn't being clear enough, or you misread me, or some combination of the two. But I'm not saying any of what you're accusing me of saying. At all.

<comment><USER4> consumers don't really care about marketing at the end of the day.

i live in austria.

no official apple store. no apple billboards, tv ads, etc. apple marketing is non-existent.

and still they sell. like hotcakes. die-hard apple haters succumb and by an iMac. because the products are great. great value for their money.

and i don't get your backpedalling. your comment starts with "it's called marketing" and then you're piling on.

no consumer "bonds" with a company because of marketing. that's pure drivel. consumers bond with value. if they feel they are treated nice, that they get value for their money.

that's the "secret". classic marketing hates it, MBAs too. products matter? wtf.

Zappos understands this. Porsche, BMW, etc too.

<comment><USER3> _"and i don't get your backpedalling. your comment starts with "it's called marketing" and then you're piling on."_

I'm not "backpeddling." I'm clarifying in response to your misreading of my post. You and I are actually in total agreement as regards the quality, and emphasis on quality, of Apple's products. It just so happens that I didn't bring up product quality in my original post, because it wasn't the point I was responding to in the grandparent comment.

 _"no consumer "bonds" with a company because of marketing. that's pure drivel. consumers bond with value. if they feel they are treated nice, that they get value for their money."_

Here I disagree. I think you're creating a false dichotomy between value and messaging. If "value" is all that matters to a consumer, then a lot of companies would be more successful than they are today.

Apple, for instance, has been making great products for more than 30 years. But it hasn't been wildly successful for all of those 30 years. If you're telling me that Apple's marketing turnaround circa the late 90s had nothing to do with its success, you're way off the mark. Product has always played a huge role in Apple's success, but so has its marketing. Steve Jobs himself has said as much in countless interviews, in his biography, and elsewhere. Apple's product design _and_ Apple's marketing have been crucial to Apple's success, but to subtract marketing from that equation is silly. (Full disclosure: I am a former Apple employee who worked in both product and in marketing).

Finally, I don't understand the need for your hostility here. I'm a "nerd," I'm "nerdy," it's "people like me" who make the world a terrible place, etc., etc., etc. Can we lay off the personal attacks and converse like civil adults? If you took the time to read what I'm saying more carefully, you'd see that you and I are in a lot more agreement than disagreement.

Let's have fun with these discussions. I suspect we're all fairly nerdy, to be honest. I know I am. I probably wouldn't be coming to a site called "Hacker News" if I weren't!

<comment><USER5> I do not really understand what the dis-agreement here is about. For me it is very clear that Apple was one of the first (or at least few) PC companies that really understood how to both engineer AND market to a broader range of customers. And I completely agree, most manufacturers and companies were and some still are selling you specs - while Apple sold you a shiny iPod, an easy way to buy a single song instead of a whole album and the passion of listening to music and being able to take your whole collection with you. And this is where they finally got decent market penetration and with enough market penetration, the iPod was selling practically automatically because everybody wanted one.

And then they applied that same principles and came up with a shiny smartphone and single-handedly created the smartphone hype we see now. And then they did it again with the iPad, even created a new market that has not existed before. And again, those devices ended up selling like crazy.

By no means were those ground-breaking innovations but they were the first ones in those three markets to offer something that ultimately "everybody" wants. They have shown how to elegantly bypass that specs-war and engineer and market on a completely different dimension thus catching every single competitor off-guard. (see also Nintendo and Wii) And they knew and understood very well what the majority of customers really like or care about: how it looks, feels and how you interact with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When Microsoft was dominant, it was eviscerated for the "embrace, extend, extinguish" approach to protecting its monopoly.

Apple shows every indication of being a much worse monopolist than Microsoft ever was. Apple seeks to control the whole stack and eliminate competition at every layer - from controlling the apps that can be installed, to restricting expansion and peripherals, to controlling the tools used to develop for the platform. They are also quite adept at "capturing the consumer surplus" using tiered pricing, etc., to maximize their profit.

The overreaching terms in developer agreements, very aggressive (and overreaching) patent lawsuits, and restrictive shrink-wrap licensing are all efforts to protect and extend their control.

TL;DR: Apple is not your friend.

<comment><USER7> >very aggressive (and overreaching) patent lawsuits

I'm not going to disagree with you, but every time I hear people complain about Apple and patent lawsuits, I recommend the following: Watch the iPhone introduction video on YouTube. If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, skip to 3.40 in Part 1, and see the state of affairs, then watch at 4.00 in Part 2 [2]. Listen to the crowd reaction when Steve "Slides to unlock" for the first time in the world.

It doesn't matter who you are, or what your background is, _nobody_ had ever seen anything like that before.

In my opinion, Apple clearly invented something "brand new" and they are defending the patents that have on that in court. What's wrong with that?

I don't think anyone can deny successful smartphones today have almost nothing in common with the phones at 3.40 in Part 1 [1], though they look and behave a hell of a lot like the one shown at 4.00 in Part 2 [2].

1\. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5VTB7Lj_NA>

2\. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VLb5XdxRm8>

EDIT: I need to clarify: I'm not just talking about "slide to unlock" being brand new and patentable.. I'm talking about the whole phone..

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure that was the first slide to unlock, it certainly wasn't the first touchscreen device. [http://www.androidcentral.com/apple-granted-patent-slide- unl...](http://www.androidcentral.com/apple-granted-patent-slide-unlock-even- though-it-existed-2-years-they-invented-it)

I tried to like Apple, after receiving an Apple Tv 2, but it doesn't work seamlessly with anything else I own. As one co-worker put it "You need an Apple House for that."

I'm glad all the Apple fans have lovely walls in their garden, but I'm not hanging out there. I don't like them trying to patent me into hanging out there for trivial items like "slide to unlock", either. I don't even like slide to unlock! I much prefer just punching the physical button unlock my phone, but I guess that just means I'm old and you damn kids better get off my lawn.

<comment><USER9> Can you clarify in your video where it shows the similar slide-to-unlock as in the iPhone? I can't see that at all.

edit: qdog, I can't reply to this thread or your response, so I'm going to edit my comment with a link to an article with referencing the _specific patent_ Apple applied for (and was granted) [1].

If you look at the diagrams, it is completely different than what is shown, as there is immediate visual response where there is none in this device... that is a key part of the patent (and requires a capacitive touchscreen).

[1] <http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/25/slide-to-unlock-patented/>

<comment><USER8> It's about the 4:00 minute mark. There isn't a slider bar graphic, but he has to slide left-to-right to unlock.

Apple products work well for a lot of people, I'm just not one of them, and I don't think having to 'slide to unlock' make my Android phone an iPhone clone. Nor is it the type of thing that should be patentable, imho. It'd be like he first company to have a link to a web browser on the main phone screen patenting that concept, it's a pretty obvious idea once you have a phone.

<comment><USER10> Nothing in that video invalidates the patent in question. If you're going to claim that the patent is bogus, you should read the patent first, understand what is actually being claimed, and then if you want to show prior art, specifically show which claims are being undermined.

Near as I can tell, you guys think that anything that vaguely resembles the representation of what the patent covers (which usually isn't correct in the first place-- Amazon didn't patent a "one click" at all) -- counts as prior art. Someone once told me that the movie 2001 is prior art! (If you know anything about patents, you know that a movie can never be prior art, except maybe about a movie technique. A movie is a fictional representation of an idea, not an _invention_ that has been _reduced to practice_.)

<comment><USER8> I claimed that this device already had "slide to unlock", I didn't specifically say it invalidated the patent. I don't believe the patent should have been granted in the first place for a few reasons.

A dutch court, however, has said this invalidates Apple's patent.

In my opinion, just adding a 'graphic' to the slide to unlock is bullshit. There's any number of ways to slightly alter slide to unlock, add a ding, whatever, do you think they all deserve government monopoly status? I don't.

The patent from 2001 is a design patent, and I'm not a lawyer, so I won't say whether it will be invalidated. I don't really see anything clearly patentable in the idea of a touchscreen device with rounded corners. I used to have one of these: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Concerto> back in 1993.

I'm not a lawyer, I don't try patent cases, I don't intend to. These may be perfectly valid patents in the current system, but I don't agree with the system. I make no claims as to validity or invalidity WITHIN THE CURRENT SYSTEM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sometimes I see programmers, or people in the tech world in general, bash people who go crazy over sports teams. There will probably be more than a few condescending comments about the SuperBowl hype over the next two weeks. I see a post like this as no different. It's someone cheering for their favorite team.

I don't really care if people love a certain software/hardware product (even though its annoying when they bash other products to show that love). I just hate that this same community will bash sports fans for the same kind of devotion. For the most part both are harmless even though the devotion may be a little nutty.

<comment><USER12> The difference is the rather important fact that sports teams, unlike most technology companies, accomplish absolutely nothing useful or productive other than to provide entertainment.

<comment><USER13> By that measure the movie, television and music industries also accomplish abosolutely nothing. ...oh, and also facebook and video games.

I wish I could accomplish so little. :-)

<comment><USER12> It's a bizarre stretch to compare sports to those important communication media.

Facebook connects people. Television can inform. Movies can inform.

Yes, video games are almost as useless, but at least the consumer is actively involved... I love sports when people play them. When they watch overpaid idiots play them and obsess about it? Not so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _"When you hear regular people talk about how much they love their iPhone or > iPad, it really hammers home what Apple has done not just for themselves but > for anyone trying to create better products and hoping to win markets > because of them."_

As an app developer this rings true to me. Apple certainly has raised the bar, and public expectation, of end-user software. I think back to the late 90s (or even early 00s) and the shite software we'd all put up with, compared to great Android and iOS apps now...

It's gratifying for reality to finally match your values as a developer. I get a sick glee when I see WebView-wrapped apps on the App Store get absolutely eviscerated in its reviews and stumble out with a 1.5 star rating. I love that people not only appreciate beautiful design, now, but they practically _demand_ it.

It's glorious.

<comment><USER12> Finally, we're getting out of the quality hole that Microsoft dug for the entire tech industry.

<comment><USER15> Facile. The Microsoft of the '90s was famous for spending on software quality. They didn't have the design mojo of Apple or Adobe, but still produced extraordinarily well designed software that caught on because of its intrinsic value and not just marketing --- Excel and Word, for instance, were simply good pieces of software.

I suspect any narrative that looks at Microsoft as the reason the '90s didn't look like Steve Job's aught's has rose-colored glasses on about the "quality" of (pick any:) Linux desktop software, Nullsoft, Netscape Navigator, NCSA HTTPD, Eudora, Forte FreeAgent.

I think the reality has more to do with technology progressing to a point where it's cost effective to build products with high production values --- handheld computers with a BOM in the low hundreds of dollars can do hardware- accelerated OpenGL compositing for a vector-based GUI.

That doesn't mean Apple didn't do something to carry the industry forward; they did: they noticed the coming new reality first, and did the best job of capitalizing on it by designing new kinds of products that executed a few core features better than anything could have in the '90s, and so didn't need to crud themselves up with 1,000 extra features to make up for deficits in their core.

<comment><USER12> Do you recall using non-microsoft software from the same period? I don't mean the university software like Mosaic. I had an Amiga, and there is very little that seems well designed to me about Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 compared to AmigaDOS 2.0.

They may have spent large sums on well designed software, but as far as I can tell this did not have the intended effect.

I owned a DOS machine in the late 80s. The interface was tragically poor, compared to just about anything else available. Stability was poor as well. 10 years later, I bought a Windows 98 machine, thinking 'oh surely Microsoft has worked this out!'. Alas, it featured a rather limited, poorly thought out interface and had all the stability of an inflatable boat on the high seas. This is to what I refer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A posting like this is (for me) absolutely a reason not to use any of the 37sig-products.

Seldom I have seen such a quasi-religious, non-critical hailing of an international cooperation.

Working-conditions in china? Who cares? Steve jobs takes over and kills the till then legitimately produced Mac-Clones, because they were technically superior (killing companies is not so good for US-jobs)? Who cares? Ripping of ideas from developers of Apps? Who cares? Well maybe fellow-developers should care.

It seems, that as long, as apple is able to whitewash itself in front of its fanboys the will sing in tune as one big choir and hail their spiritual leader Steve, come what may.

<comment><USER17> "Working-conditions in china? Who cares?" Let's start with you. I assume, you wrote that comment on the computer. There's 100% probability that this computer was manufactured in China. So its you. You do not fucking care.

<comment><USER18> I'm not the one that made 13 billion dollars in a single quarter while the 13-year-olds who assembled my product are driven to suicide and are praised in the New York Times for getting up at midnight with a bun and coffee to make up for the poor planning of my design team.

Apple sucks. So does every other electronics manufacturer in the world, but Apple sucks more because they're sitting on huge mountains of cash that could reduce the suffering of their workers if they could manage to give a shit about human concerns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The thing is: Apple is not your friend. OK, maybe it is dhh's friend, but not Joe Average's friend. As such I just can't see any rational explanation for fawning over Apple. To me it is the equivalent to fawning over the billionaire who buys the playground I used to play in, tears it down and builds apartment buildings in it's place.

Yeah, it's cool that they are so successful, but the bottom line is that my playground is gone. Why should I consider that cool? It is their success, not my success. Or maybe they build a theme park in place of the playground and admit me to play there for a regular fee, if I stick to their rules.

Also, somehow I still don't believe that Apple will continue to be successful without Steve Jobs. Already I heard rumors that the iPad 3 will be thicker again, presumably because they need more LEDs to light the high resolution display. iBook Author doesn't seem to have made many friends, either.

</comment><comment><USER20> To me watching Apple rake in so much cash just points to how disgusting their pettiness is. A company with almost $100 billion in the bank should not be crushing small publishers by demanding 30% of all their revenues which will add .001% to their bottom line, or suing all other phone manufacturers for some stupid UI element. The bigger their profit the more they come across as grossly petty and greedy.

<comment><USER10> >should not be crushing small publishers by demanding 30% of all their revenues

Apple has never demanded %30 of all of anyone's revenue.

Apple has never crushed anybody small with their iTunes stores-- on the contrary, they've created a massive boom in small software publishing, and soon small book publishing.

>suing all other phone manufacturers for some stupid UI element.

All those phone manufacturers stole patented inventions. They cheated, and they deserve to pay. If you don't like the patent system, work to get it reformed... but I promise you you haven't thought out the consequences of that, and you wouldn't like the results.

>The bigger their profit the more they come across as grossly petty and greedy.

People like you have been hating on Apple for the past 3 decades. Always hating with lies and misrepresentations.

Its not any different now that Apple is successful, only one thing is true-- Apple's success has proven your predictions wrong, year after year.

Remember when you said the iPad was "just a bigger iPhone"?

Remember when you said the iPhone would flop without a physical keyboard?

Remember when you said the iPod was lame?

Whose laughing now?

Serioulsy, I'm tired of these ignorant apple bashing posts. HN is going to hell because its overrun with people who practice an ideology of socialism-- pro-google because its "Free" and anti-Apple because they actually innovate and have the audacity to charge for their products.

<comment><USER21>
        HN is going to hell because its overrun with
        people who practice an ideology of socialism

What the hell does collective ownership of the factors of production have to do with any comment on this story? Yours may very well be the stupidest comment I've read on this site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "I'm just so proud of Apple that I'm willing to look foolish saying so."

Mission accomplished.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is starting to feel like Microsoft in the 90s or IBM in the 80s. IBM brought a computer in every business. Microsoft took it from the server-room and put it on your desk. Apple took it from your desk and put it in your pocket. They are winning for now, but what goes up must come down.

<comment><USER24> Agreed. Apple has come full circle to perfectly embody the image they protested in their classic Super Bowel commercial. Millions of souls mindlessly catapulting birds on their little devices while fed a steady diet of carefully curated media and apps.

Rescue us, lady with the sledgehammer...

<comment><USER25> Yep, it's ironic how things changed. The big brother in that clip is exactly Apple today.

Someone even made a parody: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdVzboF2E2Q>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> As someone who used Windows all their life I can appreciate the unified hardware/software/simplicity model that Apple is offering and can easily see how why the average user would prefer it. After reading Steve Jobs biography I am baffled as to why Apple didn't succeed earlier (at the magnitude they are succeeding now). Were their earlier products really just "not there yet" or was it a marketing problem that got solved by the ipod introducing the Apple way to the masses?

<comment><USER10> The simple answer is that after Jobs brought Scully in, he didn't have the power to do the right thing with the company.

But its also the case that people were a lot more ignorant of computers then than they are now. People actually believed that Macs were not as good as windows machines because that's what the teenager at the local computer store told them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The most heartwarming part is knowing how much wonderful charity work the most valuable and successful corporation in the world must be engaging in.

I mean, sure the old school giants like Exxon, Walmart, Microsoft, et al. give incredible sums of money to charities. Hell, even Goldman Sachs gave over $300 million in 2010. But just imagine how much money the Apple corporation must be contributing...

<comment><USER27> Well, in fairness, Apple could be criticized for it's recent pursuit of an ebook publishing strategy which will tend to lock teachers' course materials to the iPad via a click through EULA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's true, Apple computers are better than almost all of the competition in so many ways. However, as they become the dominant consumer computer manufacturer, I hope they continue to make smart and daring choices to stay ahead. I really like Apple's products, but I'm scared that their ingenuity was a product of being an underdog for so long; hopefully their newfound uber- success won't halt innovation.

<comment><USER29> I hope so as well. Something Tim said in the conference call yesterday made me pretty hopeful. He implied that the iPad was cannibalizing their own laptop sales, but that he didn't really care.

Apple has done a fantastic job in the past of destroying their cash cows if they feel that have an even more awesome cash cow in the pipeline. This is a mark of a well run business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> More important is a battle of open vs closed, DRM and control encumbered vs free. Both MS and Apple are on the dark side of this, so watching the Apple win isn't something that society will benefit from.

<comment><USER30> Not to troll, but who's on the light side?

<comment><USER31> EFF? FSF?

<comment><USER25> If I guess correctly, the question above was intending to ask which companies fall under that category. So there are a bunch who promote all or some of those values (my favorite being Mozilla for example). In general open source related companies promote open standards and stand up against software patents and DRM.

(On a side note, Apple didn't say anything on the latest development around SOPA/PIPA, simply because Apple is strongly pro DRM and they would probably support these kind of laws willingly).

<comment><USER32> _> simply because Apple is strongly pro DRM_

<http://www.apple.com/fr/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/>

I would argue that iTunes' strong success (with DRM forced by the music labels) helped Amazon negotiate the deal to sell DRM-free music, which in turn allowed Apple to drop them too (all music on iTunes is DRM-free since 2009).

Movies and TV shows still have DRMs, sure, but nobody, as far as I know, is distributing DRM-free video content, not Apple, not Amazon, not Netflix and not Google. That means that either all of these companies are "strongly pro DRM" or the content owners are.

<comment><USER25> DRM doesn't only apply to the media content, but to software and operating systems as well. While SOPA is mostly associated with media, DRM in essence is a broader issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Bad case of fan-boyism. Go see a doctor.

JFTR: I like many Apple products, but come on.

</comment><comment><USER34> I've learned not to trust big corporate IT companies. Apple is one.

I've been through the IBM/Sun/Oracle era, the Microsoft era and am now living in the Apple era. It's like a perpetual screwing ground extracting cash however they can. The products look good but aren't and are primarily fad based. It's the same tactics but different medium.

The only constant good, trouble free, ground levelling force has been Linux so far which solves problems and gets out of the way.

</comment><comment><USER10> Its interesting that he wrote this post praising Apple, but seems to have missed completely what Apple's guiding principle is.

In fact, Apple's guiding principle is almost a secret to hear the way many people talk about them, but it shouldn't be.

Apple's guiding principle is to do right by the customer. That's it.

For instance: "Apple seeks to control the whole stack and eliminate competition at every layer - from controlling the apps that can be installed, to restricting expansion and peripherals, to controlling the tools used to develop for the platform."

If you want to see Apple as evil, its very easy to interpret them doing right by the customer as somehow having nefarious intent.

They want to control what apps can be installed simply to keep out malware and porn, so that they can do right by their customers who don't want malware and the parents who don't want porn apps. (They leave Safari open and give it effectively native app capabilities, for people who want to deliver porn. They even do right by that customer, though its a shame that so few people make use of this completely open and unregulated way to install apps on iOS devices. In fact, many people don't seem to know that you can have apps written in javascript, download them from the web, save them on the device and run them offline.)

Apple doesn't want to restrict expansion and peripherals. Far from it. For iOS devices they've created an API and a completely reasonable licensing agreement so that you can make your peripherals for iOS to do just about anything you want-- except harm the device. Again, they do right by the customer by having a very vibrant and active peripheral and accessory market-- which they do, and its quite massive-- and they do right by the customer by ensuring these devices work together. Its the same as WiFi or any other branded protocol with a licensing scheme that requires interoperability.

As for "controlling the tools used to develop for their platform", that one simply isn't true. Unity Technologies makes a development tool to build 3D games for the platform. Coronoa makes a flash like platform to develop apps for iOS. In both cases, these third party products simply use Xcode for the code signing or compilation steps. I don't see Apple stopping anyone from making tools to develop for their platform, and I certainly can't fault Apple for providing free tools to develop for their platform.

Of course, when you're large and successful, you'll naturally attract people who don't like you for whatever reason.

But, by definition, doing right by your customer means putting the customer first. That doesn't mean compromising that principle in order to comply with the beliefs of non-customers. This is why Apple doesn't ship Windows as their core operating system, for instance. Apple chose to ship an operating system that is better for their customers, to the continued derision of non-customers who claim that Windows is the industry standard (not, notably, that it is actually better.)

It is gratifying to see a company win in the marketplace by sticking to a principle like this.

<comment><USER35> > They want to control what apps can be installed simply to keep out malware > and porn, so that they can do right by their customers who don't want > malware and the parents who don't want porn apps.

That's simply untrue. Many apps have been blocked from the iPhone apps store that were neither "porn" nor malware. If it were just about blocking "porn" and malware then they would continue with their (excellent BTW) curated apps store, but could still allow side-loaded apps for those who wish to use them. Instead they block sideloaded apps to ensure complete control of the iOS ecosystem and render impossible any kind of credible competing app store (like the Amazon App store) on iOS.

<comment><USER25> Agreed. For example ban on competing browsers embedded in the iOS SDK is simply a monopoly protection, and has nothing to do with customers' interests.

<comment><USER36> As people have seen to downvote this:

The reason why competing browsers aren't prevalent is that they don't want any executable code downloadable that isn't in their sandboxes.

Browsers have executable systems (Javascript, being the biggest issue), so they aren't allowed.

<comment><USER25> By this logic any browser should be banned from the system, including their own, since their sandboxes have vulnerabilities as well. So I'm not buying this argument. Using security arguments to hide anti competitive intentions just doesn't cut it.

<comment><USER36> It's not about vulnerabilities. It's a line in the sand that says "you can't have executable code in your app which is not signed and vetted before release".

They actually DON'T let you have the optimized javascript engine they use in their browser in your app either, probably for the same reason (security loopholes).

<comment><USER25> The last time I checked their SDK license, it let you use their JavaScript VM for the dynamic code (unless this changed recently):

===> 3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's Published APIs and builtin interpreter(s). <===

So the argument that they ban any interpreted code is hypocritical. They ban competing browsers through banning JavaScript VMs.

<comment><USER36> No, there is an optimized Javascript interpreter only in safari, then there is the UIWebView control which you can use a less-optimized javascript interpreter in your app.

[http://www.quora.com/JavaScript/Why-has-Apple-limited-the- Ni...](http://www.quora.com/JavaScript/Why-has-Apple-limited-the-Nitro- JavaScript-engine-in-iOS-4-3-to-Safari)

Here is the why: <http://daringfireball.net/2011/03/nitro_ios_43>

>It's a trade-off. Most OSes allow marking memory pages as executable for performance reasons. iOS disallows it for security reasons. If you allow for pages of memory to be escalated from writable to executable (even if you require the page be made permanently read-only first), then you are enabling the execution of unsigned native code. It breaks the chain of trust. Allowing remote code to execute locally turns every locally exploitable security flaw into a remotely exploitable one.

<comment><USER25> Great, so they just know that there are more vulnerabilities in their own optimized engine, still they use it in their own browser. At the same time they ban anything else on the system, claiming that it promotes security. Doesn't sound convincing to me at all. Meaning, that if I, as user will find a more secure browser - I won't be able to use it, since it's banned on pretense that it'll compromise security (hypothetically, not that I use iOS as a user anyway).

<comment><USER10> The entire premise of this thread is false. UIWebView uses the optimized engine as of iOS 5.

This is just an example of Apple releasing new code in the browser first before extending it into other apps being turned into an excuse for people to ignorantly or dishonestly bash Apple.

The reason it was put in Mobile Safari first is obvious-- Apple controls the source code there. Thus they can deal with any instability caused by the engine in the wild there.

If they immediately put it in all the UIWebViews in the system then many third party developers apps would become unstable due to these bugs.

I find it quite astounding that people are trying to make hay out of Apple using a phased roll out for a key piece of technology.

It just shows how any opportunity that can be used to mischaracterize Apple is seized upon, and even when the situation that led to the original issue is long resolved, people continue to report it as fact.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


GoLightly - A customisable virtual machine written in Go - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/feyeleanor/GoLightly

<comment><USER2> I don't know how to break this to you... that is also the name of a powerful laxative that some people have to take before a colonoscopy. And yes, it's a horrible name for something like that, but the association is still there for me.

</comment><comment><USER3> What is running in this vm? Is this a silly question to ask?</comment>


Show HN: CMS Server written in Go (alpha) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bytengine.com

<comment><USER2> > _Password must be composed of only alpha-numeric characters._

Okay, why?

This caught my eye so i had a look through auth.go. Passwords are salted sha1... okay, but why not bcrypt? No PBKDF2? No field for hash format versioning if you want to backwards-compatible upgrade to bcrypt in future? Guess you could always go by the salt length or something.

It looks like your code to hash the password and salt is copy-pasted and appears twice, don't do that.

Your salts are 16 random bytes, okay.. but why base64 encode the salt before hashing? Now some structure of the content is known that might expose a weakness.

<comment><AUTHOR> :-) put me on the spot! thanks for going through the code though.

security layer definitely needs more work. my choices were mostly limited by my haste to get a working prototype and not very well thought through.

<comment><USER2> No problem, thanks for sharing your project with everyone! Just people definitely like to use symbols in passwords.

Your fundamentals are fine, i don't think those are very serious problems compared to the average custom web app in the wild (most of which probably use plaintext passwords with no concern for sqli or xss...)

<comment><USER3> Haven't done much golang and don't have it installed on this laptop, but are string comparisons constant time?

If not, I think there is potential for a timing attack here?

if usr == _admin_usr && pw == _admin_pw { return RootMode, nil }

<comment><USER4> Go does not have constant time string comparisons by default. The crypto/subtle package supplies constant time comparisons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm having trouble understanding the motivation or use case. The documentation gives examples of logging in, creating filesystem-like structures, and uploading files. How is this an improvement upon a regular filesystem and scp/sftp? I do like the web console though.

<comment><USER6> Well, from the docs:

\--

 _Therefore, instead of dealing with key-values, objects ids and primary keys, you can access your data using file paths just as you would with a regular file system. Bytengine's file system is modelled on the linux file system where you have a root directory '/' and file paths separated by a forward slash '/'. Bytengine stores your content in Files that can further be organised in Directories._

\--

So there you have it! _Wait..._

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> mongodb + redis instead of sql? ...because?

<comment><AUTHOR> IMO Mongodb makes it easier to add and query file metadata and Redis is really just for session info.

<comment><USER6> Don't get it. You already have a Mongo, why also use Redis just for that? I mean your Mongo is in-memory too. Or do you anticipate a larger-than-RAM dataset for the MongoDB?

<comment><AUTHOR> expiring keys makes session timeout easier. also array access in mongodb isn't as versatile as with redis.

<comment><USER8> FYI: <http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/tutorial/expire-data/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link. I'm of the view though that redis offers better and more convenient implementation.

cheers

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Weird headers

The main page is active in the browser but the header says 404 Not Found, maybe it's a bug?

      ~$ curl -IL http://www.bytengine.com/
      HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
      Server: nginx/1.1.19

      ~$ curl -IL http://www.bytengine.com/should_404
      HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
      Server: nginx/1.1.19

<comment><AUTHOR> must probably be an issue with my nginx config and the proxying. will have a look at it. thanks

<comment><USER9> Yeah, just thought I'd point it out because it will cause issues with spiders.

<comment><AUTHOR> actually nginx config is fine. I wasn't properly using "github.com/gorilla/mux". Sorting it out now. cheers

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Still needs quite a bit more documentation, code comments, architecture revisions etc... your suggestions/comments/feedback are most welcome.

cheers

</comment><comment><USER10> neat. is this a bug?

server.newuser

line[1]: expected string in New User; got EOF

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! please run: 'help server.newuser' to check the syntax.

cheers

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> what's wrong with webdav?

<comment><USER12> I think that all that's wrong with alternatives to this kind of projects is that they are not written by the author. It's ok actually, many people and many great technologies started as pet projects; it just means that asking questions like this makes no sense :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I read the domain as 'By tengine'. Does it has anything to do with tengine web server?

<comment><USER14> I read it as ByteEngine at first glance. Maybe it shares an E?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes the e from byte & engine are fused :-)</comment></comment></comment>


How big is a googol? - <AUTHOR> http://scottpatten.ca/2011/05/how-big-is-a-googol.html

<comment><USER2> Haha I really had fun reading this :-). In particular because I read this just after watching this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2548484>.

</comment><comment><USER3> Fun post. Reminds me of my interest in large numbers a few years ago with googolplex, Graham's Number, Ackerman function, TREE(), Busy Beaver...</comment>


Happy Carl Sagan Day  - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2009/11/happy-carl-sagan-day.php

<comment><USER2> [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc&feature=player_embedded)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> _"... Your text is incorrect. Carl would have been 75 on Monday, November 9. Cari Sagan Greene ..."_

Not quite.</comment>


Ask HN: Webdev Consultants, what hosting do you recommend to clients? - <AUTHOR>

I've have done consulting in a number of years, but I'm bidding for a project as we speak. I'm wondering what hosting options make the most sense for small to medium sized green field projects. I'm leaning towards heroku or google app engine since they require zero maintenance and offer many additional services like full text search, background jobs, etc. What are your thoughts? <comment><USER2> Depends on the client and the needs. I generally don't deal with hosting at all (or client already has hosting.) Honestly, most web devs aren't qualified to deal with hosting anyways. I'm okay with using my own knowledge to setup a dedicated server when bootstrapping my own web projects but I would rather have my client get that taken care of for me. If the client insists, then I would simply make a list of managed providers.

For me personally, Storm On Demand has some nice offerings including an option for managed support. Heroku is also great, but I'm not sure I would put a client on it. Perhaps the client needs to work with a different developer in the future who doesn't work with Git and would rather have direct access to the file system, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't used a managed host in years, but back then I was really disappointed with what I got for the money. Do they ensure that the site is on the latest patched ruby, mysql, etc?</comment></comment>


Berkeley's Top Dog fires employee who went to white nationalist rally - <AUTHOR> http://www.berkeleyside.com/2017/08/13/berkeleys-top-dog-fires-employee-went-white-nationalist-rally/ <comment><USER2> Good.</comment>


To deliver the worlds best products, you have to have the world contributing - <AUTHOR> https://blog.bwagy.com/to-deliver-the-worlds-best-products-you-have-to-have-the-world-contributing/ <comment><AUTHOR> Any unintended consequences of remote working that you've found?

Good or bad.

It certainly is a leap of faith initially but you can make small leaps to get started.</comment>