Congress Scraps Provision to Restrict IRS from Competing with TurboTax - <AUTHOR> https://www.propublica.org/article/congress-scraps-provision-to-restrict-irs-from-competing-with-turbotax <comment><USER2> It seems like the incentive structure is broken here because the tax software companies have the wrong customer.

Their customer should be the IRS. These are the options asI see them:

1) Have the government "make" their own version. There would be little attention paid to user experience, since there's no competition and the bureaucracy has no incentive to create good products.

2) Have the government hire a company - which is really the same as "making it" since I'm assuming government employees aren't the ones writing the code. However, if structured properly, the outsourced company could be compensated based on user experience metrics. I see the likelihood of this happening as low.

3) Arbitrarily complicate the tax return policy. Put the burden of understanding on the citizen. Let the "free" (contrived by government intervention in this case) market fulfill the artificial need in the market. This seems to be the way things are being done now.

Trouble is, our democracy doesn't seem to be effective at solving problems like this. It appears that we don't have the ability to actually have a direct impact on this policy change. Only if the majority party happens to have the political willpower to work on this, and only if that party holds a majority in the house and the senate.

Couple that with a $100M+ annual investment (institutionalized bribery from my perspective) from these tax software companies to ensure that elected officials don't unwind the artificial demand that's been created, and you have the situation that we are in right now.

Let me know if I've missed anything or have been unfair. If anyone has any ideas about how an average citizen can affect this policy, I'd love to know.

<comment><USER3> > Have the government "make" their own version. There would be little > attention paid to user experience, since there's no competition and the > bureaucracy has no incentive to create good products.

Empirically, the place I live in (Zürich, Switzerland) has offered excellent government created tax filing software for several years (used to be somewhat monstrous Java apps, but nowadays the software is web based and really convenient to use), for ALL taxpayers, as far as I can tell.

I would argue that there IS an incentive to the government to make tax compliance simple, and keep grumbling to a minimum.

<comment><USER4> How does the Swiss tax system work? How are taxes added and/or removed? Do you have tax deductions or other incentives?

The truly weird thing about the American tax system is the way it handles deductions and other incentives. You can't take advantage of them unless you know they're available and request them specifically. This gives the government a real incentive to make the tax code as complicated as possible. If you don't know what deductions are available to you, then you'll probably miss some or all of them and end up paying a lot more money than you would have if the process was more straight forward.

<comment><USER3> There are all sorts of deductions, and there are also anti-deductions, e.g. imputed rent for homeowners. The more common deductions are enumerated in separate fields, the others you can itemize on more free form input.

It's not like all of those deductions are obvious here either. When we moved back to Switzerland, I had an accountant do my taxes once or twice, but after that, I knew what kinds of deductions I could claim.

Switzerland has no AMT, which is one of the more painful parts of the US filing process in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The income tax system is as much about the government asserting dominance over citizens (and residents) as it is about raising revenue.

There could be more efficient revenue collection schemes devised (less friction), taxes with fewer collection points, but then everyone would not have to submit to Caesar annually.

It is a tribute to the success of popular delusions that the 16th amendment was, and pretty much all new taxes are, sold as tax-the-rich schemes.

<comment><USER6> You get it. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > The Free File program will continue as before. The development in Congress > only means the program will not be codified into law.

So uh, no real change.

<comment><USER8> Exactly, which is the point. If it was codified into law, then it becomes more or less permanent. It's insane that we allow the tax filing companies to have so much say over how taxes are filed, so at least if it's not an actual law, there's a better chance the situation can change in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I hope which ever managers that ok'd that particularly insidious strategy at Intuit are shamed and the those staff that said "this is a terrible idea" are rewarded.

I know that will never be the case, but I can hope.

Those lobbyists have got to be so pissed too.

</comment><comment><USER10> So wait, this is a part of a bill that was customarily added to legislation in the past protecting TurboTax but is not this time (good), but hasn't yet passed the House (ok - probably will) and only has Grassley as a sponsor in the GOP controlled Senate (who knows if it'll pass).

Sounds like Intuit needs to fire up their Senate lobbyists and push them into overdrive - I don't see this as a win, not until it passes the desk of McConnell (aka the grim reaper of legislation passed by this House) or signed by Trump (who vetoed another bill that passed with 100% Senator support - which just happened to cause the 2019 shutdown).

Let's not break out the champagne just yet.</comment>


Google homepage breaks basic web design rule - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/05/somebody_call_j.html <comment><USER2> I don't see how it breaks any design rules: the UI is essentially the same (and completely functional) without JS. Admittedly, I don't really see a compelling reason why you'd _need_ JS to add that link bar, but the redesigned Google page hardly "requires" Javascript.</comment>


Ask HN: How to prepare one's digital assets for the case of death? - <AUTHOR> A combination of this coronavirus pandemic with some personal health issues I've had in the last year have increasingly got me thinking about the digital life after death... Well, not literally, but simply -- what might happen with my various online accounts and data stored there in the case of my death?
In some cases (say, Google Docs), I would like to make sure everything is preserved and passed on to my children; in others I don't really care that much. In addition, I would like to make sure all of the automated payments cease as soon as possible, and so on.
Has anyone else thought about something like that? Are there any services that cater to these needs? <comment><USER2> I have printed instructions explaining how to access my password vault app, the name of a friend who is knowledgeable enough to follow those instructions (family might not), and a file called "People to notify after my death.txt" with email addresses of people who aren't likely to find out any other way. The instructions and a printed copy of the email addresses are kept alongside my printed will.

In your case, I think the same thing would work for giving about what to do with certain accounts.

</comment><comment><USER3> My parents both turn 82 in the next few months. There are only a few Mother's Days left. This tempers my thinking about my own mortality. If you're thinking about your children, my random internet advice is don't burden your children with file management and Google account passwords and a host of chores watched over by your ghost self. Save things that will improve their lives, of course. But don't pretend your children are going to write your biography or that libraries will bid on your archives (though by all means if libraries want your archives pass them along now).

So as I'm writing this I realized that all my HN comments will be here as long as HN is around running the way it has been running should my child want to delve into it and that could happen while I am still alive. It makes me glad that I default to public over private. Less of a burden on me is less of a burden on my child as well and what they will find in my online legacy is mostly my better self. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER4> My father-in-law had a 'When the moment comes' folder for her spouse, and another for his children.

It was a _paper_ folder with printed instructions about _what_ to do with pension, funds, etc.</comment>


Startup R&D Tax Credit Calculator - <AUTHOR> https://www.kruzeconsulting.com/startup_calculators/rd_tax_calculator <comment><AUTHOR> A lot of startups don't know how much they can save on taxes with an R&D Tax Credit. We built a calculator and answered FAQs so the startup community could see what they could save. The tax credits can be applied to payroll taxes in 2017 which is a big change so worth checking out!</comment>


Ellen Pao Speaks: 'I Am Now Moving On' - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2015/09/10/ellen-pao-speaks-i-am-now-moving-on/ <comment><USER2> > I had neither the time nor resources to talk with reporters or journalists. > Kleiner reportedly had four full-time PR people plus their defense lawyer > arguing their points and providing information and their perspective to the > press in real-time during the trial. Their efforts contributed to online > aggression against me personally, and even toward my family, leading to what > is now viewed as the one of the largest trolling attacks in history.

I find it spectacularly weird that she thinks the reddit backlash against her was orchestrated by a PR firm.

Just so spectacularly weird.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if she knew it would be this hard to win a harassment case when she started. If she knew, she should have taken the settlement offered by the company instead of fighting. May be this should be kept in mind by anyone who wants to sue in the future?</comment>


Text Your Way to College - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/opinion/sunday/text-your-way-to-college.html <comment><USER3> I'm from a family in the bottom income bracket, and I went to Stanford.

It's as alien and daunting as the article makes it sound. I would never have thought to apply if it weren't for a suggestion from my aunt who married rich. My high school guidance counselor was completely unhelpful, and she actively discouraged all of my peers who I wanted to apply with me (because "Stanford wants 1s and 2s," not people ranked 5th or 8th in the class). When I got in, I had to ask a relative to pay the $300 placeholder fee. My mother cried because she didn't believe that I could get full financial aid.

It was easy to spot the two other low-income students in my 100-person freshman dorm. We didn't know how to talk or study or dress or think the way our peers did. It took me years to learn.

My sister was in the same position, but didn't have the blind ambition to ignore our hometown horror stories ("he was top of his class, but he went off to some fancy college and ended up flunking out..."). I convinced her to apply to several very prestigious schools. She was accepted, but went with a more modest, local one instead. She spent her freshman year interpreting every setback as a sign that she had overreached by going to a four-year university at all. It turned out fine, but she switched her plans from medical school to nursing by graduation.

It's hard to communicate to people who grew up with even modest privilege how much all of this matters. My worlds before and after Stanford feel entirely separate. The Internet helped, but I was like an archaeologist combing through relics of a long-dead culture. What counts as an Ivy? How did these schools have so many AP classes? Why did all of these people have SAT tutors -- weren't tutors for people who were behind?

Information matters. Culture matters. I was lucky, but a few well-placed text messages could absolutely replicate that luck. Even to just say, "We noticed you're a good student. You could go here. You could afford it. This is doable." Hearing that from any authority at all would be huge. Because when you're low-income or first-generation, everyone and everything in your life is constantly telling you the opposite.

<comment><USER4> > We didn't know how to talk or study or dress or think the way our peers did. > It took me years to learn.

Please tell me everything about this. I teach at a community college and my students come from the middle class, the working class, and the place I can't see.

<comment><USER5> Not OP, but I'm not sure I follow your question. Are you asking to learn context about problems outside of your own class?

I was raised in a lower/middle/working class area and went to its local community college and could probably comment. Much of what OP described matches very closely to my own experiences.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Going to an Ivy League school does not help the student earn more money compared to going to a non-Ivy, except for students from certain disadvantaged backgrounds.

"students, who were accepted into elite schools, but went to less selective institutions, earned salaries just as high as Ivy League grads."

[http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/the-college- solution/2...](http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/the-college- solution/2011/03/01/the-ivy-league-earnings-myth)

<comment><USER7> There's also the argument that especially as a physician you have the obligation to your patients to do the best job you can. It's true for any profession but for physicians it's hard to see why anyone would object the reasoning. The difference between a top-25 school and anything else is like day and night, the students, the faculty, the equipment, the exposure to current research, and it's still true even though it may not be reflected in compensation.

<comment><USER8> I'm not too sure about that. I spent several years working closely with a massive group of physicians (40+ in the same specialty), where I routinely had to check medical reports before they went to clients.

While all very bright people, many of the physicians that attended middle-of- the-road medical schools and even one that went to a Caribbean medical school were much better than the couple Harvard trained docs we had.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's always interesting watching discussions of class come up on HN. As someone who comes from a working class background/family, it astounds me how often people will respond with the idea that the tech industry/any kind of(generally college) education is some kind of meritocracy, or that the solution is to simply 'work harder'. Those are certainly nice sentiments, but far from reality(See, the Myth of Meritocracy[0]), and I'm overjoyed to see that others in this thread are providing other narratives and social situations.

[0]: [http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v21/merit.htm](http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v21/merit.htm)

<comment><USER10> Don't know what you're talking about. Most of my colleagues got into the industry by going to open/free events and using materials which can be found freely on the internet.

I came from a lower middle class family with a host of awful circumstances I won't go into. I learned most of what I needed to get a job through reading Wikipedia. A friend of mine and I did odd jobs for neighbourhood companies (and got screwed a lot) until he landed an entry level position at a web shop. A year later he was working at a different company and had them bring me in for an interview.

The prerequisite for getting into my industry, at least until some asshole decides to regulate it, is any home computer manufactured in the last decade (you can get a core 2 duo machine, a monitor, and a keyboard for about 20 bucks today), and a desire to work.

Today I can easily demand a six-figure salary and I've only been working full time for about two and a half years. Many people who are not as good as I am can get less after more working years. That is at least somewhat meritocratic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> On one hand, I hear breathless reassurances from people like Frank Bruni (also at the Times) that "school doesn't matter" and "college is what you make it". At the same time, we get articles like these.

Now, as someone pursuing CS at a second or maybe even third tier institution - which is it?

<comment><USER12> I don't really think it matters. I grew up in government housing as a child, lived in a very violent city all the way through high school, in an area ranked the least educated in the US. I just worked hard, made the right choices, didn't do anything too stupid (or didn't get caught ;-)), and kept at it, studied, building skills. Got an undergraduate and graduate degree from UT Dallas. Started at Amazon shortly after, went from a junior dev to a senior dev in 3 years. Nobody ever cared which school I went to. Mostly I feel like I got lucky, but hard work, ritual, and repetition matter more than which particular school ones goes to, I think.

<comment><USER13> during those 3 years, did you continue learning mostly at work? Or outside? (ie programming languages, systems design, etc.)? Or was it basically "I never brought work to home."?

<comment><USER12> I mostly stayed focused on work... that's why I stopped working on [http://ihackernews.com](http://ihackernews.com) and other side projects.

I worked probably 60 to 80 hours a week -- because I wanted to, not because I was forced. Managers actually asked me to work less.

I learned at lot at Amazon (across retail and AWS) so I didn't feel the need to keep up the level of studying I did prior to working at Amazon. Reading code reviews and watching email lists is a great way to learn and Amazon has really good internal emailing lists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I realise in a sense this is not a particularly nice thought, but:

> _Colleges and universities need to join forces to encourage poor, high- > achieving students to attend top-flight schools and nudge accepted students > to enroll. Doing the right thing for students has never been so cheap._

Do they?

Competition is so high, however cheap it is, I can't see any upside _for the university_ other than image. And that image is unlikely to do anything for their 'traditional' full-fee-paying applicant base.

<comment><USER15> A while back, the Economist said, "a dumb rich kid has a much better chance at attending an elite school than a brilliant poor kid." If a university is to maintain the goal of admitting smart students, then this would be a step toward that.

<comment><USER16> Sure, but that costs money. The goal of a university is to pay the bills.

I am sure that any university would be willing to accept that brilliant poor kid, as long as someone was paying that 50k a year tuition price tag.

<comment><USER17> Saying that the goal of a university is to pay the bills is saying nothing; everyone needs to pay the bills. That's not a goal, it's a means.

Bridging the gap between brilliant students and expensive education is why colleges and universities have endowments, and high sticker prices in the first place. The richest students overpay so the university can bring in smart students who aren't rich.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> For most people, going to elite schools is a waste of money. For example, a high achieving student from a lower middle class family who goes to Harvard still pays the equivalent of full tuition and fees at an average state school, while they can often get a full ride at a state school.

Obviously there are a lot of ways an elite education can help you, but most people don't want to be a lawyer or go into business.

<comment><USER19> It's implied in the article that the opposite is true.

Certain elite schools cover tuition, room and board, and occasionally supplies for low-income students through merit-based scholarships [1] even for out-of- state students, while many state schools can only afford to grant fewer full- rides, and usually only covering the in-state price -- with out-of-state being significantly more expensive.

This doesn't mean that low-income students at elite schools still won't struggle with expenses [2] or fitting in [3]. But anecdotally, when I was a top-performing high school graduate from a well-ranked high school in the mid-2000s, this information was even harder to find, so I, and many of my peers opted for state schools instead, some with scholarships.

But much of this information asymmetry still exists today. This is what this effort is trying to rectify.

[1] [https://www.collegeraptor.com/blog/affordable- colleges/these...](https://www.collegeraptor.com/blog/affordable- colleges/these-10-expensive-colleges-have-free-tuition-or-full-ride- scholarships-for-middle-class-families/) [2] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/for-the- poor-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/for-the-poor-in-the- ivy-league-a-full-ride-isnt-always-what-they- imagined/2016/05/16/5f89972a-114d-11e6-81b4-581a5c4c42df_story.html?utm_term=.e25b8ef9f6b2) [3] [https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/04/09/what-like- po...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/04/09/what-like-poor-ivy- league-school/xPtql5uzDb6r9AUFER8R0O/story.html)

<comment><USER20> You are not necessarily in disagreement with IslaDeEncanta, as they said "lower middle class", not "low-income". What exactly constitutes "middle class", and even "lower middle class" is not clear. But, I think, most would agree "low income" means _not_ middle class, so you're probably talking about different sets of people.

<comment><USER18> You're right. I wasn't really talking about people in poverty/near poverty. They can benefit from the network involved with an Ivy more than just about anyone, because they usually don't have a network at all.

<comment><USER21> Everyone talks about the networking but this can't possibly be true for everyone. What if you're just not good at networking? And do poor kids on scholarships get accepted by their yacht-class peers?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What makes a top-ranked institution better than a "second-tier" school? The kind of applicant who would do well in the former will certainly do well in the latter.

<comment><USER23> The top-ranked institutions and "second-tier" schools charge about the same tuition but often have more generous financial aid so it can be cheaper to attend. Even if the sticker price would be the same for you, value of your degree is partially based on the reputation of the school so the top-ranked institution's degree is worth more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> My girlfriend worked in college access with low-income students last year and used the same service used in the referenced UVA study [1] to advise and connect with students. SignalVine seems to have a big head start in this space, although both deployments I know about were in the Boston area - <USER2> there are other regional competitors (I wasn't able to find any through Googling, though).

Naiively, the application looks to me like just a nice web frontend with auth and scheduling features, with an SMS provider for a backend (Twilio or similar). Seems like some enterprising hacker could break into this space with a cheaper product - SignalVine is pricey, especially for small nonprofits on tight budgets.

[1]: [https://www.signalvine.com/](https://www.signalvine.com/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Higher education should be free altogether.</comment>


Storj – Dropbox for the Future - <AUTHOR> http://www.thecleverest.com/storj-dropbox-for-the-future/ <comment><USER2> What are the legal issues around this? If I rent my hard drive and someone puts child porn or pirated movies on it (even encrypted), could I be liable?</comment>


Java 8 vs. Java 9 - <AUTHOR> https://www.romexsoft.com/blog/java-8-vs-java-9/ <comment><USER2> I love Java. I think it has changed the world for the better.

That being said, I just can't get excited about new language features now that I have discovered Kotlin. It is essentially Java but with a much smarter compiler and a more modern and sane syntax.

<comment><USER3> I used to like Java when it was simpler. Generics I thought were great, but the new features just seem like attempts to shoehorn features of dynamic languages onto a business language. And I still can't have multiline strings (on a language used for Web programming!).

<comment><USER4> The multi line issue pisses me off on a daily basis, esp when writing tests that deal with JSONs. It's so much readable with multi line strings in python and groovy.

I usually use groovy for my fun/toy projects but at my day job writing enterprise code the tests have huge JSON building blocks before the actual assertion happens.

<comment><USER5> Why not embed the JSON as a file in the test resources and read it in during the test setup? Is there a particular reason it needs to be embedded in the source code of the test?

<comment><USER4> Its to maintain context. If a developer is looking at a large test code then it becomes difficult to switch back and forth between 10s of JSON files and the main test code. Having the input, output and the test data in the same file is much more convenient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> JEP 110: HTTP/2 Client

* The API and implementation will not be part of Java SE.

* The API will live under the jdk.incubtor namespace.

* The module will not resolve by default at compile or run time.

Modular source code is internal reorganization of JDK. Hopefully it will not affect Java developers negatively.

Process API: It can provide PIDs finally. Seems like big feature for Java 9.

JShell: May find some use. Not sure how many Java developer care about it.

<comment><USER7> re JShell. nodejs has raised my awareness of the joys of shell scripting. So something like this would be cool:

      #!/usr/bin/env java

For my own projects, I foresee replacing all those goofy build tools with straight Java. Less impedance mismatch.

<comment><USER8> Check out kotlin-script [https://github.com/andrewoma/kotlin- script](https://github.com/andrewoma/kotlin-script)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It does not mention internals, changes in Unsafe or concurrency are pretty big deal

</comment><comment><USER10> "Modular code"

I thought Jigsaw was rejected.

<comment><USER11> I think it just keep causing delays due to complexity.

<comment><USER10> It was started 10 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice summary. I'm pretty sure there is a new default GC as well.

<comment><USER12> No new GC but Java 9 makes the G1 collector the default GC

<comment><USER11> Ah, thanks for the clarification!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Site appears to be down, here's an archive/mirror: [https://archive.is/6tger](https://archive.is/6tger)

</comment><comment><USER14> I can't connect to the site... HN hug of death?

<comment><AUTHOR> Works already. Fallen due to huge traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> WoW, it's 2017 and Java finally gets a REPL and it's only 30 years behind the market. Congratulations!

<comment><USER16> Java already had REPLs in the form of Beanshell, Groovy and Eclipse scratchpad.

It's 2017, where are the REPLs for Go and Rust?

<comment><USER17> I used a REPL in Java right around when they did the name change to J2SE, so that must have been 20 years ago? By the OPs definition it was still 10 years too late though so there is that.

<comment><USER16> Do you remember the name?

I know Java since the early releases and the only thing that comes to mind is Beanshell, which was around that time.

<comment><USER17> It was some third party thing I found on FTP servers at the time. It might have been Beanshell but I can't really recall.

<comment><USER16> Ah ok, thanks for the info.

<comment><USER18> I wrote this one a while ago - [https://github.com/argonium/jsnip](https://github.com/argonium/jsnip). May be helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nitpick, but God, I hate this hero image. It's "fantasy UI" is so lazily done it hurts the eyes. It's just the same block copy-pasted around and resized multiple times. Did whoever made this picture think nobody would notice?

(Yes, I hate half-assed design.)

<comment><USER20> Also they use contrast ratio of 3.0 for main text (gray font on white background). WCAG minimum is 4.5 and recommended is 7.0.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Okay, this is completely tangential to the article, but I see this footer on the website:

"We are using cookies to improve your experience of our site. By clicking 'Agree' or _ignoring the banner_ , you are assenting to our use of cookies."

I don't really care, but is this strictly speaking legal? "If you don't read this, you agree to it"? If I read it, am I "ignoring the banner"? Usually if you don't agree, they are supposed to not store cookies and ask every time, which is something I'm actually OK with.

</comment><comment><USER22> Boring.

I'll tell you a little secret, Java is the number one programming language in the world just because it is used by millions of programmers for Android apps and a few enslaved programmers in corporate gulags. Once Kotlin takes the Android world by storm Java will sit next to Cobol in the history books of technology.

<comment><USER6> At one point Scala was going to take over the world. It was hot favorite of many fastest growing companies. Then the companies grew and moved to Java with or without much fuss.

Your secret does seem like secret to lot of people. In my knowledge Java is big because lots and lots of companies use Java stack for boring enterprise applications. And in those places people could care less about cool stuff and work on things that pays.

Cobol is still used in very critical software at big Banks. Java along with it quite respectful place. Whereas Kotlin is a little bit of lot of things. Runs of JS/JVM/Native but none of them a unique strength for Kotlin. So it will be very difficult to compete with languages which committed to single platform and have serious business use cases.

<comment><USER8> One of Kotlin's design goals was 100% compatibility with java.

Whenever I work on a java-codebase and see a class that could be expressed much simpler in Kotlin I press "Cmd+Option+Shift+K".

Intellij IDEA automatically converts this file to Kotlin. The codebase continues to work without issues and I can proceed extending this part in Kotlin.</comment></comment></comment>


Littlest database that could - <AUTHOR> http://run-node.com/littlest-database-that-could/

<comment><USER2> You are relying on disk io for each update, which can easily be slower than a web request. Either that, or you aren't flushing to disk, which could mean data loss. Modern databases use a write-ahead log to store data that hasn't been flushed to disk yet. If you aren't doing that, you don't have a database, you have a cache.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm writing to disk on every insert - mainly just for simplicity for this article. Same with semicolon delim string, normally I serialize to/from JSON. Normally, I only flush to disk periodically using setInterval.

I'll try and do a followup post with actual load tests. I load test using loader.io 35k requests total (increasing to 500 clients) in 20 seconds, I go from 50ms response to 200ms but no higher than that. I'd have to do more specific tests.

This is on a tiny $1/mo 128MB ram VPS but with SSD.

Granted this isn't your native-C powerhouse database, but I would bet 95% of websites get less than 10k requests a day and this could easily handle that load.

</comment><comment><USER3> If database/redis is too heavy and plain json too light then one could use something like Strata [1].

It stores json documents on disk using a b-tree.

[1] [http://bigeasy.github.io/strata/](http://bigeasy.github.io/strata/)

</comment><comment><USER4> By this measure Memcached offers a greater feature set, an infinitely more robust parser, request concurrency, and doesn't really on a garbage collector. The very fact that this "db" relies on HTTP requests already makes me cringe.

</comment><comment><USER5> What you have here is a rudimentary persistent cache. "Database" is a bit of a stretch. Could you elaborate on what your production load is?

<comment><USER6> Dumping the entire database to disk on every write? I can't imagine more than 1 qps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hah, nice. But I do not see support for any form of escaping the semicolon, which might happen sooner or later with arbitrary data.

<comment><USER8> JSON on the wire would clean that up.</comment></comment>


Public Data Extortion scheme using Paypal still live - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
I recently had a traffic ticket, nothing too serious just license plate issues. However I "uncovered" a huge extortion scheme going on and supported by Paypal. This website is crawling public data (such as court records, traffic tickets) and then gets it index by Google. The idea is to publicly shame people and extort money to remove the data from the website. The surprising part is that it processes payments with Paypal ...
It's obviously a scam that's been going on for a while and already brought to Paypal's attention on their forum: https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/About-Payments-Archive/Illegal-Website-using-Paypal/td-p/649217
The person behind it is running several other extortion websites, so I guess it is somehow a profitable business.
Paypal is usually over cautious (to say the least) to disable/freeze legit accounts but this one is still up and running.
I understand that the data is public so you can probably crawl it (need to check some robots.txt before confirming it) but using that to extort money is probably not that legal.
Anyway this is my discovery of the day. <comment><USER2> > but using that to extort money is probably not that legal.

It's all in how it's worded. If someone creates a website that lists the names and shows the faces of convicted drunk drivers for example, the creator can justify it as a public service, using public records as its source of information. And the creator can agree to remove a listing for a fee, as long as he doesn't explicitly say that a payment is required to effect the removal of a particular article -- that would be extortion, illegal nearly everywhere.

But there's more. If the website's location is unknown, or if it's sited in a place with a flexible attitude toward law and order, then the prohibition against extortion may essentially go away.

Some of the U.S.-based extortion sites are being threatened with lawsuits, but on shaky legal grounds:

[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/mugshot-removal- ext...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/mugshot-removal-extortion/)

Quote: ""First of all, I think [plaintiff attorney] Scott has insurmountable problems with the First Amendment. The mugshots, as you may or may not know, are public record," said Lance Winchester, a Texas attorney for BustedMugshots.com and MugshotsOnline.com, which charge under $100 to remove mugs from their sites."

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree it depends on the wording but this particular website: [http://court- records-management.com/](http://court-records-management.com/) (just realized I forgot the add the link) the wording is clear you pay to remove a particular court record: "Remove Record XXXXXXXX from the court-record-management.com website. The court record and all information pertaining to the case will be removed from court-record-management.com within 24 hours of payment clearing. See our Terms for our return policy and conditions. Court Record Management reserves the right to refuse a removal request. If this occurs, they payment will be refunded within 24 hours."

I didn't realize someone was already taking legal action against such website but it's an interesting grey area of the law.

<comment><USER2> Okay, to me that's extortion, and I think it's only waiting for someone to take the necessary legal steps.

It's true that the records are public, and the First Amendment needs to be honored, but an explicit payment demand turns it into extortion regardless of the status of the material.

Old-fashioned pre-Internet blackmail is a crime, even though the information the blackmailer threatens to expose is usually true. In my view, this is an Internet version of blackmail, and it's only waiting for the authorities to apply existing laws to it.</comment></comment></comment>


Opera sync servers hacked – login names, email and passwords stolen - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/UXrae33.png <comment><USER2> [https://www.opera.com/blogs/security/2016/08/opera-server- br...](https://www.opera.com/blogs/security/2016/08/opera-server-breach- incident/)

</comment><comment><USER3> That is why I really hope someone netrual, ( Not Google / Apple ) could get a secure cross platform login authentication with 2FA using Biometrics that works across Website AND Apps.

Password Manager only works to a certain extend.

</comment><comment><USER4> aaand this is why certain stuff better stay off the cloud.

<comment><USER5> But the cloud. The cloud. Because cloud. Cloud.</comment></comment>


Building Scalable Web Applications with Google App Engine [video + slides] - <AUTHOR> http://sites.google.com/site/io/building-scalable-web-applications-with-google-app-engine

<comment><USER2> So why do startups adopt AWS (S3/EC2/SQS) in droves while still only kicking tires on App Engine? Is it a fear of lock-in?

<comment><USER3> Relatively few startups need scaling all across the stack. For instance, some portion of folks who sell downloadable software have bandwidth issues but largely uncomplicated websites.

For those folks, you can recommend S3 and tell them "This will cost you essentially nothing, it will fix your problem, and integration into your existing site will take ten minutes if you type slowly."

What is the migration path from a successful business to the App Engine?

Step 1: Learn to write Python.

Step 2: Forget everything you've ever learned about databases.

Step 3: Get a cup of coffee. You're not anywhere close to done.

<comment><USER4> Step 4: Discover that you need a feature that's impossible on App Engine and give up.

<comment><USER2> Granted, those who just need storage (and CDN) there's no point of using an application platform. But with so many startups using EC2 it is clear the service solves a real need for them.

I agree with both of you - it is both the flexibility of EC2 and inflexibility of App Engine that makes a difference.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


When the Pianos Went to War - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/victory-verticals-steinway-pianos <comment><USER2> My grandfather was awarded an OBE for his service during WW2, entertaining the troops all over the ME during various stages of battle .. he had some stories of his piano saving him from schrapnel on more than a few occasions, and eventually wrote a book about his experience .. if you're a Kiwi or an Aussie, you can read his book in the National Library:

[https://www.amazon.com/WHISTLE-Story-Concert-Party- Vaughan/d...](https://www.amazon.com/WHISTLE-Story-Concert-Party- Vaughan/dp/1869412729)

One thing that always struck me as significant was that his troupe (the "Kiwi Concert Party") was considered a real morale booster and very much respected by every service member it encountered ... I think the idea that a concert could be put on in the most remote places, in the middle of dire battle circumstances, was very inspiring to a lot of the troops.

His adventures always brought to mind the old "Goons" radio show, mixed with a bit of "Dads Army". I was happy to have had piano lessons from the ol' man, anyway ..

EDIT: found some nice ol' video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU2jKPfvIqY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU2jKPfvIqY)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PA7dE1Fk3g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PA7dE1Fk3g)

Classic:

[https://teara.govt.nz/en/music/10195/kiwi-concert- party](https://teara.govt.nz/en/music/10195/kiwi-concert-party)

<comment><USER3> There was also _It Ain 't Half Hot, Mum_ back in the '70s. I'm sure someone will have put episodes on YT...

</comment></comment><comment> em-bee discussion of a different article on the same topic:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20141217](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20141217)

</comment><comment><USER4> My college dorm building had piano hinges on the doors because it was funded by a guy who had a business making metal bits for pianos who cleaned up on military contracts for other metal bits during WW2.

</comment><comment><USER5> Ah, there is historical accuracy to Father Mulcahy's piano playing. Good!

</comment><comment><USER6> as usual it is people who matter, not the tools they use, for good or ill, or something in between.

<comment><USER7> A crappy piano brings little joy. The high standards maintained were what made the victory piano noteworthy. The tool does matter, albeit not as much as the person using it.</comment></comment>


Rails Went Off The Rails - <AUTHOR> http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2012/02/rails-went-off-rails-why-im-rebuilding.html

<comment><USER2> What a great read. I dropped Rails five years ago, and hadn't really caught up on what happened with it (just heard the rumors).

Reading about the whole Merb/Rails 3 debacle was a huge _deja vu_ experience. I come from the SproutCore world, and somehow we ended up with the author of Merb running our project (despite NO previous experience with either SproutCore or application frameworks in general).

Anyway, long story short, I think this quote about sums up what happened with SproutCore:

> Going back to the larger issue, Rails definitely went off the rails. > Cleaner, more modular APIs are an important goal, but they're way less > important than speedy development, a modern feature set -- why is Rails not > staying up to date with HTML5 the way it did with Ajax? -- and, above all > else, programmer happiness. The Merb integration rewrite was a giant, time- > wasting threadjack with only a few small payoffs, and DHH, who wrote two > whole books about why you should turn down feature requests, should have > nixed the whole thing.

I'm still not sure that SproutCore will recover from the damage, which has been extensive (unlike Rails, which actually _did_ release Rails 3, "SproutCore 2" has been completely abandoned, and the changes made to SproutCore 1 to support SproutCore 2 have caused huge problems).

</comment><comment><USER3> Glad you published this Giles. I really think you hit the nail on the head in your criticism of rails, and not necessarily ruby. I think some of the framework decisions in the 3.0 release were kind "abstraction for abstraction's sake" moves. In other areas, I think the framework has pushed beyond what the language is capable of handling in a reasonable manner, from a performance perspective (I'm talking about development efficiency performance, not production performance).

No doubt, these features were implemented with good solid principles in mind. But, imo, at this point in Rails' lifecycle as a framework (something that has been in public release for 5+ years) performance (both production and in development) should have held more weight in the decision-making process than doing things for what appeared to be because they were the "right" things to do.

For one, the startup time of the framework is just, atrocious. If it takes me 15-30 seconds to boot up the framework (and on my quad core dual processor 8gb ram MBP running a small-to-medium-sized project, it does) just to run one test, that is just plain ridiculous. A lot of that time is spent loading the large dependency graph of gems with which most new rails apps these days are packaged. I _think_ this trend -- rigorous packaging open source library code as a first-class dependency, instead of writing it yourself, or snapshotting that actual code in your SCM -- is a good thing. But I think the performance characteristics of the ruby language, _and_ of the ruby community, make trying to cram 150+ gems into the load path and then require all of them, serially, in a single thread, unacceptably slow for modern web development.

I will say that I think the situation has improved quite a bit more recently, and the focus seems to be honing in more on development performance, but it might be a tad too late for me. I'm focused more on building api's than I am building "web apps". For that, sinatra is just a much simpler, faster and elegant stack IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think a Sinata + Sequel app is still a pretty damn fine way to go. Ruby is still a great language, and I still like it better than JS, just not Rails.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not sure if I agree with everything stated here, but a great read.

I've been moving backwards through some of the posts, really liked this : [http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2012/02/secrets-of- supersta...](http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2012/02/secrets-of-superstar- programmer.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> Somehow sad, but, any good developer handles some extra tools besides Ruby, at least the developer happiness culture is mainstream.

Let's see how much it takes to get screw all over again.

</comment><comment><USER7> Independent of the community and boundary pushing aspects of Node.js, I don't recommend it to people because it commends an incredibly irritating pattern of programming.

I get the impression that Dahl knew ahead of time that he was working with some serious limitations with event-driven programming such as it is on V8. He's a smart guy, he had to have known how much cleaner things like Erlang are.

At the same time, we have a bunch of zealots who've never done any event- driven programming on C, Lisp/Scheme (CPS), or on Erlang who think it's the best thing since sliced bread because it's FAST.

I'd argue that the main advantage of Rails wasn't "speed" and I don't think it ever was.

Rails' main advantage was making the _human_ fast. Node.js reeks of misguided pre-optimization to me. It doesn't make building a product any faster.

Could just as easily build a web app with CoffeeScript + BackBone + Flask (python), or Clojure, or Ruby, or whatever.

The single-page app paradigm needs to be pushed in terms of integration and productivty in order to get adopted. The backend involved is almost immaterial, it's just a JSON API conceptually.

So why are we pretending Node.js is somehow a successor to Rails when it doesn't actually improve on anything in terms of product or performance?

<comment><USER8> Because it's more fun.

<comment><USER7> That's what I write Clojure for, and end up with something faster and cleaner anyway. I even get to use Netty if I want.

It's a bit misguided to make it a matter of taste anyway. There's nothing to _discuss_ if you're making a decision on the basis of "fun". If you don't have rational reasons for making the judgment call, then you don't have anything of substance to actually share _about_ the stack.

<comment><USER9> Completely agree.

And I know Javascript way better than Clojure.

But building an app with Clojure feels like I'm writing high quality code.

Writing Node feels hacky and I get an uneasy feeling with it for some reason. I've never liked nodes callback-driven async approach to development.

This post summarizes my feelings towards Node better than I can: <http://dosync.posterous.com/22397098></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there a universal time measure to use as a spacefaring civilisation? - <AUTHOR>

I've been watching the Human Universe series recently and it got me thinking as to how we would measure time if we were to become a spacefaring civilisation.
As I see it there are a couple of problems,
1. Once we colonise another planet our concept of time (e.g. days, years etc) will be different to that of life on earth due to the shift in a planets orbit. Presumably every planet would require it's own measurement of time e.g. a martian year so that those living there can keep time in relative terms. We'll want a universal time however to synchronise events in time across all of our colonies. This would be the easiest problem as we can base it off of earth time.
2. If we were to encounter intelligent extra terrestrial life then we would need to agree on a concept of universal time to explain the history of our/their planet & species.
Does an idea for this universal measurement of time currently exist? If not then how would you expect it to look? <comment><USER2> Time is observer-dependent, any universal measurement of time is going to be somehow "inobjective" given relativity (and FTL travel).

I haven't seen the Human Universe but e.g. Voices of a Distant Star, A Fire Upon The Deep, and Interstellar all touch on time dilation as major plot points.

Gundam standardised space colonies on the Universal Century (earth time) but that was over much shorter distances.

<comment><USER3> "inobjective"?

The word you want is 'subjective'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There is no reason two or more observers can't share a synchronized clock so long as it is outside their respective frames of reference. Example, a far away, mutually observable pulsar.</comment>