Stop using gmail.com for things you care about - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@xdvl/stop-using-gmail-com-for-things-you-care-about-14af40e43a88#.o3ln6fpl9 <comment><USER2> Last time I saw this on HN it was something like an art professor who'd been storing pictures of cherubs or something and it had tripped Google's child- porn detector.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2810946](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2810946)

<comment><USER3> If someone emails you child porn, would that disable your account?

<comment><USER4> If cherubs trigger it, it probably doesn't even need to be porn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use fastmail.com for electronic mail, and I gladly pay for it.

Marvel at the simplicity: you pay for a service, and the provider's incentive is to serve you!

This versus the alternative where you use a "service" provided free of cost, and the "provider" makes money by selling data they have harvested from your interactions. You give away your privacy; you have no reason to expect support; you are _not_ actually the customer.

<comment><USER6> > and the "provider" makes money by selling data they have harvested from your > interactions.

Which provider sell your data?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It looks like your problem is you discussed your account closure with people who don't work at Google and can't get any information about your account instead of using the official form ([https://support.google.com/accounts/contact/disabled2](https://support.google.com/accounts/contact/disabled2)). One of the people you talked to pointed you to the official form. Did you try it? Unless the official form also doesn't work, your conclusion appears invalid.

</comment><comment><USER8> The absolute lack of customer support for Gmail made me switch to Fastmail a couple of years ago. I use my own domain now, so if I ever become unhappy with Fastmail I'm not locked in.

Email is so vital to my personal life and my business that it is worth paying 50 bucks a year.

<comment><USER9> Both Gmail (important and unread) and Google Inbox gives you a birds eye view of important emails. Can fastmail do this?

<comment><USER3> I find those features useless.

<comment><USER10> So... no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> And what's the alternative?

I could use an ISP (or in my case university) email, but I'll lose access to that in the future when I change ISPs (or graduate).

I could use <other free email provider>, but they will probably have the same problem, and unless I'm using one of the other giant services (e.g. outlook) are probably more likely to disappear than Google is to randomly ban me.

I could use a paid provider, but they are probably still more likely to disappear in the future than google is likely to randomly ban me.

Instead I would prepare to mitigate the damage of losing access to your account. Have local copies of emails, don't use two factor authentication with one factor being email.

<comment><USER12> The solution is to register your own domain.

<comment><USER13> But that still doesn't actually answer the email provider question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This part I dont get about Google they ban you but don't tell you why. At least they should make a chart of offences of 1-5 and put different offences in the chart according to severity of offence. So when banning you they can say for this number it won't mean much to rest of the world but the person getting banned could probably guess why.

</comment><comment><USER15> I hate to be obvious, but you get what you pay for :P I dumped gmail for Exchange and now use Office 365. Reasonable price, great support.

<comment><USER16> It's a good thing that GMail is not ad supported... oh wait

Being condescending with customers may backfire for them

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I use [https://posteo.de/en](https://posteo.de/en) and am very happy so far, it's 1 EUR per month.

Features for the curious:

\- 2 GB email account

\- 100% green electricity

\- Saved data can be encrypted data

\- Two-factor auth

\- Ad-free

\- Sign up without personal details

I'm not related with them in any way, just a customer. The only con is that you can't use your own domain.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm also looking to move my domain from Google Apps, I'll consider Posteo. Thanks.

<comment><USER18> >The only con is that you can't use your own domain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I use Yandex Mail For Domain [https://domain.yandex.com](https://domain.yandex.com) which is free with the exact same features regular Yandex.Mail has ("unlimited" mailbox size, Yandex.Disk, letters up to 30 MB in size). By default you can create up to 1000 mailboxes per domain but if you state why you need more they can lift the limit. There is DKIM support. They do have one weird restriction though. I have no access to abuse@ and spam@ mailboxes since they use these for spam reports.

What's far more interesting is that their tech support actually answers. It may take a day or three but they do talk back.

</comment><comment><USER20> Backup Emails is easy, just set up auto-forwarder to Yahoo Mail or Hotmail. But losing the Google Account, you won't even able to login some single sign- on services.

</comment><comment><USER21> I doubt Google is just closing accounts without a good reason.

<comment><USER22> It's a good point thought. I use Gmail as my primary email for quite a few things, and my other email is also a free service. What am I to do if I need support for either of these?

What email provider _should_ I use?

<comment><USER8> Whatever provider you choose, use your own domain. Then you can always switch.

<comment><USER23> Thats the easy part. But if there are no good providers, it doesnt matter that you can switch to the next bad one.

<comment><USER24> If there are no good providers, you can always set up your own¹², or hire an engineer to do this for you.

___

¹) On a leased hardware, network and address, but with proper backup and failover strategies, hosting providers are interchangeable (or one can always host on their own hardware) and it's somewhat less likely ICANN or your local registrar would yank your domain name registration than Google would do so to your account.

²) There are (nearly) one-click solutions for this, like [https://cozy.io/](https://cozy.io/) or [https://sandstorm.io/](https://sandstorm.io/)

<comment><USER25> See cloudron.io as well.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A FORTRAN Coloring Book - <AUTHOR> https://archive.org/stream/9780262610261#page/n0/mode/2up <comment><USER2> This is a fun period piece from the 70s.</comment>


Ask HN: What new development technology in the last 3 years is worth learning? - <AUTHOR> For the last 3-4 years I've been working at a super small startup doing Rails, and basically just using my existing technical knowledge and avoiding the learning cost of new technologies. I know React has gained a lot of popularity -- what else is worth looking at as I take my head out of the sand?<p>Not limited to web programming; OpenCV and other technologies are neat too! <comment><USER3> I would say the serverless model in general, is going to take off (it already is) really fast. Infrastructure as code, security as code. Big data, machine learning, neural networks/deep learning is taking off so without doing a PhD, at least high level awareness of the field is definitely worth learning, from Spark to Tensorflow, it's good to have familiarity with the field.

Understanding JWT and how it works as it seems to gain momentum.

Angular2, React, Vue I think are all worth learning and playing with as each developer will have a different taste. It looks like React is getting a lot of traction everywhere.

ES6, Promises, Async/Await, TypeScript, Babel, WebPack etc are definitely worth getting familiar with.

<comment><USER4> I really hope to see TypeScript take off more outside the angular community. It's life changing.

<comment><USER5> the vision is great, but last time I checked (september) it was dependency hell.. definitions that didn't fit the actual code, definitions at npm, github, definetlytyped and so on.. will be great once the ecosystem stabilizes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> React Native is gaining a lot of traction for cross-platform mobile development. My company has started to transition to RN over Xamarin for our enterprise app development.

Functional languages have begun to gain popularity and coverage as well.

On the frontend Elm is excellent. On the backend Elixir and the web framework Phoenix offer top notch developer experiences.

If you have experience in the dot net world... Dot Net Core is shaping up to be a revolutionary rewrite of the dot net ecosystem. It's fast and lean, as well as cross-platform.

If you are into lower level languages, Rust & Go have picked up a ton of steam in the past few years. Until recently they have been stuck in the systems level programming niche, but Go especially is beginning to take hold for API and more "front side of the backend" development.

<comment><USER7> .Net core seems really cool, but I don't see it getting anywhere for a while. Most of the enterprise is still using .Net standard. It is near to impossible for me to get a job working on an ASP.Net Core codebase right now, because everyone seems to still be using .Net standard.

<comment><USER8> Interesting. What is preventing them from upgrading? I ask because I was thinking of picking up .NET Core as a stepping stone to one day transitioning to a Microsoft-based skillset (I'm a Ruby dev). If it's proving to be unpopular within the .NET community then I may reconsider.

<comment><USER9> Enterprises generally don't upgrade anything unless someone convinces them it's necessary. They don't want to follow the bleeding edge of tech, they want to follow the most stable/secure tech with the largest pools of talented workers. Hence the popularity of Java and .NET at the enterprise level.

Picking up .NET core would make a great start to transitioning to a Microsoft- based skill set. That's generally the way those skills are gained - <USER2> starting with the latest available to the platform and working backwards as necessary. I started down the path with .NET 4.5 and don't think I've had but a small handful of opportunities to utilize the features in it because most of the servers I work with have .NET 4 as the latest version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It depends on your definition of "worth learning". People are replying, rattling off laundry lists of technologies that are "taking off" and "getting traction" but that doesn't necessarily mean they are worth learning.

To me, learning is a time / long-term-benefit trade-off. You're giving up your precious and valuable time now to get something that you believe will pay off in the long term. I'd love to learn everything under the sun but I only have time to learn a few things. So, I will spend the time where I think the biggest payoff is. A bucket of 30 slightly-related but "hot this month" technologies is a lot of cost for unknown benefit.

If you asked this question 20 years ago, there was a similarly-sized laundry list of hot technologies one could have learned, but I'd argue only a few really would have resulted in lasting long-term benefit. C++ was probably one of them. Linux was probably one of them. HTML probably. WebTV? Probably not.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you're interested in computer vision, rather than using OpenCV you should learn about convolutional neural nets. The field is exploding right now and anything you learn is potentially applicable to a wide range of problems, even outside of computer vision.

You may get skeptics who scoff at the new approaches and say you should learn traditional computer vision or machine learning first. I strongly believe these people are wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are there any resources you recommend for learning convolutional neural nets?

<comment><USER12> I would love to recommend this Stanford course,very beneficial.

[http://cs231n.github.io/](http://cs231n.github.io/)

<comment><USER11> Agreed, cs231n is a great course. For neural net information less specific to computer vision I would also recommend looking up video lectures from Nando de Freitas and/or Hugo Larochelle.

I also have to put in a plug for Geoff Hinton's Coursera course. It's not for the faint of heart. It's essentially a graduate level college course with the commensurate required time investment. It's getting a little old now but it was my introduction to neural nets and if you want to learn from a pioneer in the field it's still a good option in my opinion: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/neural- networks](https://www.coursera.org/learn/neural-networks)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> From an infrastructure perspective: Docker, Ansible or Chef, Kubernetes, any public cloud (AWS), the HashiCorp stack (Terraform, Packer, Vagrant, Vault)

</comment><comment><USER14> The Unity game engine married to HTC Vive is really easy yet powerful. I'd recommend that.

<comment><USER3> What are the best resources to learn this? I got a vive and downloaded Unity, and gave up after I realized how much work it will be for a simple game. I got to a point where I see the controllers and can grab a ball and drop it. But that required a couple of you tube videos and tons of snippets... Did it mature since it just came out? any good resources / starting kits (I don't mind paying a little for good courses / starter packs / game engines / plugins)

<comment><USER15> You have to remember that game development is really programming + 3d modeling. Idk if you know 3d modeling but I feel like some programmers (mostly game hobbyists) ignore this part of game making and then are surprised why their games look the way they do.

<comment><USER16> +1 on this. I had taken catia classes in college and have built a number of models in different programs for 3d printing. But building models for games is WAY more difficult. a AAA level gun can take weeks to build and model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Swift.

The best tool in your toolbelt. You could easily build apps for the desktop, mobile, server, watch, tv, linux, etc. It's the digital clay to build whatever you want to build. Your imagination is the limit.

<comment><USER18> Is there still no official compiler for Swift on Windows? How are the unofficial ones?

<comment><USER15> Official compiler? What's wrong with [https://github.com/apple/swift](https://github.com/apple/swift)

<comment><USER18> Sorry, meant for Windows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> React Native, Tensorflow, ESP8266, Elixir/Phoenix, Discord, Docker/Kubernetes.

<comment><USER15> I'm not a HW person, how do you use ESP8266 (this is the first time I'm hearing about this)?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP8266](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP8266)

<comment><USER20> We use the ESP8266 and ESP32 at my company for really quick, cheap prototypes. It started out as a way for us to add wifi to a microcontroller, but now we just use it as the microcontroller itself. We use it for all kinds of small hardware devices, sensors, and actuators. Its pretty fantastic to be able to prototype cheaply in microPython and then later port the board and code to C/C++/Rust when we need to go to production.

<comment><USER21> How often do this microcontrollers fail at HW level? You buy always from the same provider? Which one? (If you can share it, no problem otherwise)

<comment><USER20> I'm not an EE on our team, so I can't be sure, but I do know it happens. I don't know what they do to keep quality up. Even if they do fail, they're cheap enough that its not a problem to replace the whole sensor. There are also fail-safes so that nothing mission critical can happen if a few things go down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> To start on OpenCV and deep learning and image recognition you should check out [http://www.pyimagesearch.com/](http://www.pyimagesearch.com/) I've found his tutorials and books to be very good.

</comment><comment><USER23> \- Serverless architecture

\- Immutable architecture via Docker & containerization in general

\- React & React Native

\- Most of the fully-managed services on AWS... a lot of them are turn-key for things that used to take a lot of overhead

\- Blockchain

</comment><comment><USER24> Here's our stack, I like it a lot and I feel like its fairly progressive without being too hip-for-hipness-sake:

Android: Java -> Kotlin

iOS: ObjC -> Swift

Web App: React + Coffee -> React + ES6 (Backbone models)

Website: React/ES6/Redux/Babel/Webpack with server rendering

Backend: Clojure at the core; Python for heavy number crunching

</comment><comment><USER25> Speaking as a sysadmin, definitely ansible. (Yes, it's over 3 years old, but it certainly blew up in the past 3 years.)

<comment><USER26> Sometimes it's hard for me to believe we run everything on Docker and Ansible now. These things barely existed a few years ago, and here we are running full on production with them. Blew up indeed.

So yeah, I guess I'm seconding Ansible, and adding in Docker as well as many have done.

<comment><USER27> Is there any discussion about replacing Ansible + Docker with Nix? As someone looking to get into DevOps it seems like Docker solves the namespace/dependency-isolation problem, Ansible solves the reproducibility problem. Nix seems to solve both.

<comment><USER25> I haven't messed with nix, but I've used guix, which I think nix is a similar concept to. It's basically ansible on steroids, with every aspect of the system defined declaratively. Guix at least isn't quite "there yet", but it probably will be before too long...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> fantasyui-com [https://nodejs.org/en/](https://nodejs.org/en/) and [http://electron.atom.io/](http://electron.atom.io/) Node is the server-side of JavaScript and Electron the cross platform desktop app (also JS and compatible with node). People have a lot to say on the subject of what is worth learning. I learned ASP/Perl/Java and I am not using them today, I still love them to bits, but there is no time/space for it today. Worth learning just may mean "what will be fun to use", meaning "what can you grow with today, that will take you to fun places in 2027". Can you see a future without the Web Browser? Can you see a Web Browser without the language that enables the Browser today? To be fair, ask is JavaScript evolving? And it is. ES6 is OK, it is the right path to take. Promise/let/const/Class and the arrow functions have fixed a lot of it. HN had RxDB on the front page today: [https://github.com/pubkey/rxdb](https://github.com/pubkey/rxdb) I paused when looking at "..for these plattforms" which listed: browsers, nodeJS, angular/ng2 (TypeScript), react, react-native, ionic, cordova / phonegap, nativescript, electron.

TLDR: ES6 and its surrounding environment.

</comment><comment><USER28> Clojure & ClojureScript (over React)

</comment><comment><USER29> \- tensorflow

\- ESP8266

\- ethereum

\- software defined radio projects

\- ketamine as an antidepressant

\- [https://www.addgene.org/vector-database/](https://www.addgene.org/vector- database/)

^ note, I just think these are all technologies that have yet to reach their true potential

</comment><comment><USER30> Julia. I've been using it the past four years for my research, and I love it a lot more than Python. It's a very well-designed language that was intended to be high performance from the beginning.

<comment><USER31> But that 1-based array indexing. It's like the 60s never ended...

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> C++14 and C++17.

</comment><comment><USER33> Looks like, most people here answer to the question "What tech stack are you excited about right now?".

</comment><comment><USER34> I would second the serverless idea as well. Also one thing that is going to be of incredible value, getting a friendly UI to the crypto currency / smart contracts world. Tough selection but will pay off dividends if you get it right

</comment><comment><USER35> On the front-end React and Redux would be excellent to learn. I'm also a big fan of EmberJS. If you don't already know Java, adding that to your toolbox could be very helpful if you ever want to end up in the enterprise world.</comment>


Paypal hits 100m accounts, predicts end of wallet by 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://www.thepaypalblog.com/2011/06/paypal-crosses-first-100-million-active-accounts-4/

<comment><USER2> I think I'd trust anybody but Paypal with my wallet — I once tried tried to delete an account and it seemed to take forever. Owning that space is going to require a company that understands customer service as much as technology.

<comment><AUTHOR> But who else has the reach? I consider Facebook and Google to be advertising companies, and would rather have a dedicated financial services company focus on my transactions. Perhaps Square, as it grows? Or will a decentralized solution like Bitcoin win at the end of the day?

<comment><USER2> Any company that knows online ecommerce has that potential: The two that come to mind are Amazon and Apple with iTunes. Also I wouldn't write Facebook and Google off, for example Facebook started by selling virtual goods and is great at getting your "real identity".</comment></comment></comment>


The UK's First Christian Hackathon - <AUTHOR> http://kingdomcode.uk/hackathon/

<comment><USER2> This is so sad to see...

<comment><USER3> Care to expand?</comment></comment>


Fitbit exploded on wrist leaving with 3rd-degree burns - <AUTHOR> https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/10273812/man-fitbit-explode-wrist/ <comment><USER2> This is just the risk people have to take with devices containing lithium ion batteries. I've had two phones swell to the degree that case pops apart. One time was when the phone was in my shirt pocket where I could feel it heating up. Both phones were Google nexus brand units and not low end throwaways.</comment>


Ask HN: Who is on your shit-list of frustrating Enterprise Software? - <AUTHOR>

Would you pay for alternatives if they addressed your pain points? <comment><USER2> Salesforce. It's not a bad system for what it was designed to do--sales and marketing. The problem is that it is over-promoted and over-sold as a versatile platform that can do anything. When you actually try to model complex business logic, however, you're screwed. Unless your business model conforms closely to their pre-built model, Salesforce development turns into an exercise of shoehorning your data into a system that just can't accommodate it.

If you need to model data with a lot of junction objects, good luck getting reports. You can only report on up to 4 objects at a time. Let's hope that you don't need any serious data aggregation since matrix reports limit you to 2x2 fields. You want to store data in JSON format and access it through a NoSQL database? You've got to build it outside of the system and have it talk to that database through custom code. But I thought Salesforce could do anything!

And on top of all of those obstacles, you get the privilege of paying a high monthly fee for a system that you'll probably only be able to get working if you shell out yet more license fees for 3rd party apps that hopefully fill in the gaps. But at least they just released a new analytics system that overcomes some of the absurd limitation on reporting that are inherent in the system--but of course it will cost you.

That being said, the alternatives better be good if I'm going to pay for them. Postgresql enterprise is probably worth it, given how awesome the free version is. And even then, I would just build a Django or Rails app on top of it, so even if I have to customize it, I won't be paying for the very fancy shackles that Salesforce gives me.

<comment><USER3> That's the biggest issue with their growth right now. Salesforce has done a great job in marketing that it can "do anything"... provided you can build it yourself and get around all the developer platform limitations. I used to do Salesforce consulting and custom development, won their hackathon in 2009, worked with many companies on internal tools and apps and am so happy to be out of that game now.

<comment><USER4> Who were your typical Salesforce consulting and custom development clients? I may be wrong, but I would think that if you have enough money to spend on customisation for an app that doesn't even belong to you, it may be cheaper and more efficient in the long run to commission a custom built solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Office 365 Enterprise, especially OneDrive for Business. I feel like an unwilling beta tester.

<comment><USER6> I don't work for Office 365 or have affiliation there nor would I suggest Office deploys in a way that is AGILE.

My question for you as a founder is, how else would you prefer that a product introduce new features? I want to make sure that our users don't feel like you do, but I also need to roll out new functions as we grow so there has to be a balance there,

<comment><USER5> I was originally hired at my current company to migrate our on-premise servers to Office 365, so I was not involved in the decision to actually select a service.

Microsoft had already considered OneDrive for Business (SkyDrive Pro at the time) a finished product. Two years of hell has proven otherwise. Personally I still view OneDrive as an MVP, though I will concede it has gotten a little better over time.

Microsoft has also failed to provide notification of a new feature rolling out several times, causing confusion with end-users. At best, I'll get a brief message in the Office 365 admin portal that says "Within the next 4 months, we'll be rolling out x, y, and z features." I'm glad that I know months in advance of a new feature, but not knowing any type of specific time frame really puts us at a disadvantage.

New features are awesome and I am more than willing to try them out if I know they're still not totally ready. Ultimately what really irritates me is when companies tout a product as "enterprise-ready" that is still riddled with bugs.

<comment><USER6> Ah cool, thanks for the writeup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Microsoft Dynamics CRM. I had the 'privilege' of working with the cloud version when it was new, interfacing their extensive LAMP-stack with it via SOAP. Leaving aside the SOAP integration issues (which were more extensive than any other PHP-to-.NET integration I've done) the product would only work in Internet Explorer, the interface was hideously rubbish, and no one in the company seemed able to productively use it.

Give me Salesforce any day - at least users can use it. As to why the company had gone with Microsoft CRM? Because the piece of software they wanted to use to manage their business would only integrate with it.

</comment><comment><USER8> IBM DB2. Bloated, clunky admin interface, outdated feature set, buggy JDBC drivers, no drivers available for many languages, unhelpful error messages. Would kill to have PostgreSQL at work instead.

</comment><comment><USER9> IBM Coremetrics. If your company is considering using it, run to the hills! Sure, it might offer greater accuracy than Google Analytics, and there's good live chat support, but even the simplest of reporting tasks can end up being hugely frustrating. I liken it to trying to run a kitchen when you only have access to the serving hatch.

If you're looking to develop an alternative, recognise that analytics tools should give you easy access to the raw data. I wouldn't want anything less.

<comment><USER10> How is it more accurate? Are they not using javascript? Do they do less sampling for larger properties?

<comment><USER9> To give an example, with CM you can choose to build ad hoc reports with either a full data set or a sampled data set. GA will sample data and give you an accuracy rating, but inaccuracies can grow from this depending on how you use the reports (e.g. comparing multiple metrics over a long time period). I have no idea if the premium version of GA gives you access to full data sets but that's even more expensive than CM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> IBM BPM (Business Process Manager): sold as a versatile enterprise system that can model even the most complex business processes in an easy way, it ships full of bugs that one cannot address or work around. The actual most significant pain point is the inability to express abstractions that would facilitate the coding process, leading one to actually have to repeat code from time to time.

</rant>

</comment><comment><USER12> Lotus Notes.

<comment><USER13> Agree with this.

\- Crashes \- Copy and paste is terrible \- Pasting from Excel etc ends up as an embedded picture so the receivers can't use it \- Soo slow to search for anything \- mailbox always full \- no webmail access for me

We were forced to migrate to Lotus Notes a few years ago after a merger and one of our regional offices refused to. They were right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Most software that address management of identities in a enterprise is bad. The "solutions" sold by CA, Oracle, and Dell are particularly terrible.

</comment><comment><USER15> Oh man, Atlassian Products without a doubt. JIRA and Confluence are nightmares to maintain with an enterprise amount of users.

<comment><AUTHOR> YES, the worst is making custom tweaks. What pain-points have you experienced with them?

<comment><USER15> I've had a bunch, especially with JIRA. -Theres no way to cluster servers or have a failover machine -Want to upgrade? Better hope your plugins will upgrade too or you'll lose data or complete issues -Want to import a JIRA project from an older version of the app? Get set to spin up VMs. -Want to upgrade JIRA? Take the server down and reinstall it -Want to enable some type of logging? Take the server down and edit the shell script they start the application with (same with increasing JVM heap size).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Oracle! for not showing prices

many many others

</comment><comment><USER17> Symantec, not a fan of their backup software.

</comment><comment><USER18> SALESFORCE

<comment><USER4> Care to elaborate?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Has any tried using SAP for something as simple as issuing a PO amendment? #crap2thecore

<comment><USER9> I've not used 'big SAP', but I've used SAP B1 to amend purchase orders. I find SAP quite flexible, the challenge can come from finding the best way to do something. What pain points did you encounter when amending the PO?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> ADP eTime

</comment><comment><USER21> Maconomy.

<comment><AUTHOR> What in particular don't you like about Maconomy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Enterprise Software" is euphemism for "Shit Software".</comment>


Why women aren't attracted to comedians: a new study - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/01/17/gilbert_gottfried_asks_why_women_aren_t_attracted_to_comedians_a_new_study.html

<comment> workhere-io Sensationalist title. The article is about stand-up comedians, not funny guys in general.</comment>


The Second Coming Of The Internet IPO - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/01/the-second-coming-of-the-internet-ipo.html

<comment><USER2> The writer mentions "other Internet services which are valued well north of $50bn." I am having trouble producing much of a list: Google, Amazon, Microsoft (some value is in "Internet services"), Oracle (the "Internet" here is arguable). Who else?

<comment><USER3> ebay / paypal?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I disagree with Fred Wilson that a multiple of 25-50 EBITDA is not unreasonable. I think it's completely unreasonable at this point. Let's for a moment consider what a 25 or 50X EBITDA multiple means. In the long term that would imply that Facebook's revenue is 25BN or 50BN (assuming 1BN of revenue now). Apple's revenue right now is 60BN annually and Google's is a little more than 25BN. Either of these is fair if you assume that Facebook has a monetization plan that is at a minimum as good as Google search and at best as lucrative as consumer products (ala iPhone, iPad, iPod). Right now there isn't anything to indicate it's either of those.

So a multiple of 25 or 50x EBITDA is done on faith that Facebook is smart enough to figure it out. Frankly before I'd invest I'd like to see some proof of that. Right now all I see are display ad's and that isn't enough.

</comment><comment><USER5> Valuations are such bull - it's all hype. Nonetheless, if Groupon is preparing to go public, it's at least worth purchasing on the first day cause you KNOW the stock will go up.

<comment><USER6> That attitude is giving me horrible flashbacks to the .com boom.</comment></comment>


I Invest in Cryptocurrencies as a Sixteen-Year-Old - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@creampuff/how-i-invest-in-cryptocurrencies-as-a-sixteen-year-old-e260587ddb0a <comment><USER2> Invest or speculate?</comment>


Wales giving up on Wikia Search - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10207896-2.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Webware

<comment><USER2> I'm sad to see the doors close on Wikia Search. I was an intern in the NYC office last summer. The project had a refreshingly open philosophy and was built using FOSS components.

At least the index is still available at <http://index.isc.org/>

<comment><USER3> I'm very surprised it's shutting down. 3M uniques a month and still growing according to Compete.

Seems like it would have gotten acquired at the very least.

<comment><USER4> They aren't closing all of Wikia, just "Wikia Search" (which stagnated at 10K uniques/month).

<comment><USER3> Ah, thanks! That makes so much more sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article also mentions Microsoft is shuttering Encarta-- a victim of Wales' Wikipedia. Win some, lose some.

</comment><comment><USER6> There's an opportunity here for a hacker with low overhead to move into this market of an 'open search engine'. It doesn't necessarily have to be 'user powered' but should be much more open than Google/Yahoo/MSN's mighty algorithms.

<comment><USER7> Any particular suggestions?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I usually use google to search the wiki.

</comment><comment><USER9> I guess they're just busy trying to avoid beaching themselves and trying to hear themselves think with all that ultra-low frequency sonar bouncing around these days. I mean, we all get a little User Generated Content fatigue now and again. Now imagine how hard it is to type with those really big flippers.</comment>


Ask HN: How to apply for jobs when I dont fit into any specific openings - <AUTHOR> I've found it extremely difficult to find positions to which I am interested in and completely fit into.
I'd consider myself a "generalist", I have a BS in mechE, but I've taught myself a ton about electrical engineering, built embedded systems, self-taught R, Python, C++, and have spent the last 4 years diving living with Linux. I've been working as a perception engineer building out sensor based systems for aeronautical applications. I'm going on 5 years of experience, while taking on more leadership responsibilities.
Ideally I'd like to move my career into space systems (space is the place!), although this is difficult in my geographic location (Boston, MA). I've been keeping an open mind and know the local 3d printer companies have some options, as well as biotech and robotics companies. Self-driving car companies are a turn off for me. I'm looking for a fulfilling career, not a fat fast paycheck.
It feels as if my resume gets passed over since I don't fit perfectly into the square peg that these companies are looking for. Presenting myself as a generalist seems to be detrimental. While I personally see myself as one of the most important members in my current group as someone who can practically do everything. Although to others it seems I'm too much of a jack-of-all-trades, master of none, therefore companies dont want to spend time on me.
How do I showcase myself as an integral member of a team, someone who understands all aspects of an electro-mechanical/embedded/software engineering effort, while not seeming useless because I might not meet every requirement of a particular position I find interesting. <comment><USER2> If your interested, Autodesk is hiring engineers in Boston, in the SeaPort. We work with markers. Send me a note if you are interested in learning more. [https://bit.ly/2X2vDLz](https://bit.ly/2X2vDLz)

<comment><AUTHOR> Huh, I thought Autodesk only build software...this is cool! I'll certainly send a message.

<comment><USER2> Cool! Here's more about our build space in Boston. [https://vimeo.com/280926603](https://vimeo.com/280926603)

And something fun with robots. [https://twitter.com/testkitchen/status/1163831601580728321?l...](https://twitter.com/testkitchen/status/1163831601580728321?lang=en)

Here's my linkedin. [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianceicys/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianceicys/)</comment></comment></comment>


How cell phones of spring breakers who flouted coronavirus warnings were tracked - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/04/tech/location-tracking-florida-coronavirus/index.html <comment><USER2> As noble a cause as this current phone tracking may be, I'll continue to do what I've always done long before the outbreak of the corona virus, which mostly is to not take my phone with me at all whilst I'm out and about. If for some reason I have to then I do so with it switched off and only switch it on if or when I need to make a call (nothing's that important that callers can't wait, and anyway they can leave messages).

Frankly, I'm perplexed why people are so utterly obsessed with and hopelessly addicted to their mobile phones. Ask yourselves what you did before you had a mobile phone and you'll have to answer that you actually managed life quite well (or you wouldn't be here).

So did the rest of the world. We built the world as we know it today mostly without fixed telephones—from ancient Egyptians to Rome to the American Empire, and during the 20th Century we had no trouble screwing the world up big-time by organizing two world wars with ruthless efficiency, the great depression and the Cold War and, at times, we even advanced the human condition—and we did all this _without_ the aid of mobile phones let alone a smart ones.

Of course, the obvious weakness in the 'Big-Brother' tracking everyone scheme—especially if there's a risk of heavy fines or sanctions for violators—is for everyone to just simply turn the damn things off before they leave home. Then, as with drink driving laws, the _State_ will only catch and fine truly hardened addicts.</comment>


The best JavaScript guide ever - <AUTHOR> https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Guide <comment><USER2> I personally prefer programming guides with some humor, lots of examples and exercises. That's why I recommend Eloquent Javascript by Marijn Haverbeke.

<http://eloquentjavascript.net/>

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the promotion. Made my morning.

<comment><USER4> Marijn, thanks for writing this. I'm a big fan - I recommend it to my friends looking to learn JavaScript.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The best way I've found to learn JavaScript is through anything by Douglas Crawford. 'JavaScript the Good Parts' is especially good.

<http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596517748> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQVTIJBZook>

<comment><USER6> I was a Javascript hater for a long time. Douglas turned me around through his videos and writing. Still not my favorite language, but I have a lot more respect for it and actually wouldn't mind writing in it if needed.

I also strongly recommend his work for a better understanding of Javascript.

<comment><USER7> Met Douglas at JAOO (<http://gotocon.com/>) this year; got him to sign my copy of "JavaScript: The Good Parts" :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is this the same Mozilla JS reference that's been kicking around for ages? I know there seems to be a big campaign to promote JS resources at the moment, but surely everyone on HN would know about this if they have more than a passing interest in Javascript or learning it...

<comment><USER9> It's on the frontpage of Reddit at the moment, so I assume that's why it's here, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is not a tutorial. It's a reference guide.

<comment><USER11> ...and yet it has 17 points only being posted 16 minutes ago. Is PG working at all on an algorithm that takes into consideration factors such as the repetition with which certain accounts vote up a link (or a group of accounts) and inversely weigh that against other links sumbitted? Possibly implementing the results via the Fisher Method / Bayesian rank of some kind? As the noise to signal ratio has widened with HN's popularity I find it harder to see the 'good stuff' bubble to the top.

<comment><USER11> Why am I not surprised I'm being downvoted. Links like this, and the response they get (46 votes now) take away valuable space from fresh, timely and relevant articles yet HN can just as easily be gamed as Digg/Reddit to allow this to happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like John Resig's tutorial: <http://ejohn.org/apps/learn/>

<comment><USER13> I used Resig's a few days ago to quickly fix a bug at work. He really does a great job of making very complex language constructs understandable and easy to follow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> A bit off topic: does anybody know why Mozilla uses https for this kind of open stuff?

</comment><comment><USER15> I do like the content of MDC, but it can be frustrating at times, as it seems to have broken links (links that go to pages which have had their content merged into a different page).

Or apparently, on the Processing XML with E4X page, there are errors in the page: /content/body/div[2]/pre[1]/@function, reference to undefined name 'syntax': line 1, column 1 where every code sample should be.

It's under a CC license, so I am hoping that someone will make a better interface for the content some day.

</comment><comment><USER16> This used to be my sole resource for everything javascript, it is actually very good still but there's a slight catch; beware cross browser compatibility issues, especially with IE, especially especially with older versions of IE.

</comment><comment><USER17> Sorry, I must have missed the download/offline option. Care to link me up?

<comment><USER3> <http://eloquentjavascript.net/Eloquent%20JavaScript.zip>

(sorry)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> While we are at it, perhaps somebody could explain this JS gotcha I recently ran into?

My goal was to return something like {x:1} (an object) from a script. It never worked. If I type that into a console, it returns "1". If I type x:1 into the console, it also returns 1. So I guess the "{}" is just interpreted as a block, returning the value of the x:1 expression. But what does x:1 mean? I am guessing it might just be a bug in the interpreter? Or when is something an object, and when just a block? var a = x:1 doesn't work, btw. this.x is also still undefined after this.

The only way I could return my wanted object was by doing var y = {x:1};y;

(This was supposed to be the return value of a Script in NodeJS, using these silly values because it was a unit test).

<comment><USER19> JavaScript doesn't have blocks. {} is shorthand notation for an object, so you would want something like

      function asdf(){
        return {x:1};
      }

It's a less verbose way of doing this:

      function asdf2(){
        var myObj = new Object();
        myObj.x = 1;
        return myObj;
      }

Outside of a object written in shorthand notation, x:1 is treated as a label (x:) followed by a value (1). In general labels are not used in JS, and it's probably a good idea to avoid them.

Relatedly, to "fake" a block in JS, wrap it in a function:

      (function(){
        var a = 1;
        // do something with a
      }());

      // out side of the "block" a is undefined (or whatever value it was before the "block")

[Edited for accuracy and clarity]

<comment><USER19> Yes, as several people have mentioned, I should have said block _scope_. JS does allow for blocks, but they don't work the way the parent was thinking.

You can toss extra curly braces in the code and it is a "block" but unless they are preceded by an "if", "for", or something similar, they don't do much. They do not return values and they do not affect variable scope. Functions do both, hence my last example.

<comment><USER18> I think my understanding of blocks is fine. "Returning" was the wrong expression, I meant the value of a script (like the result of an eval). I am aware of the lack of block scope in JS :-)

<comment><USER19> Gotcha, glad you've got it figured out then =]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Would be nice if they allowed you to download a tarball of the whole guide.</comment>


Ask HN: Cassandra and Tableau or Cassandra and Elasticsearch and Kibana - <AUTHOR> I'm a student studying software engineering at San Jose State University. As a part of side project, I'm developing an application where data (NoSql) from Apache Cassandra needs to be visualized.
I'm having trouble coming up with a decision to use the right technology stack. IMO tableau is pretty rigid regarding the structure of data plus not free and so i'm leaning more towards elasticsearch and kibana. But the problem is the data is not huge and there is no requirement to search/retrieve full-text data. Hence i'm stuck between the two options.
Please guide me and also let me know if i can use alternative technologies <comment><USER2> "the data is not huge" you probably don't need cassandra.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes the motivation to use cassandra is to get familiarity.

<comment><USER2> then you can't do custom/complex queries on cassandra (which bi does/needs). so you either use spark(or something similar, like prestosql) or move the data somewhere else</comment></comment></comment>


How one country blocks the world on data privacy - <AUTHOR> https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/24/ireland-data-privacy-1270123 <comment><AUTHOR> Via Bruce Schneier[1], see also [https://castlebridge.ie/2019/04/25/the-data- protection-commi...](https://castlebridge.ie/2019/04/25/the-data-protection- commission-some-thoughts/).

[1] [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/05/why_isnt_gdpr...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/05/why_isnt_gdpr_b.html)</comment>


Github finally raises funding: $100M from Andreessen Horowitz - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2012/07/09/github-finally-raises-funding-100m-from-andreessen-horowitz/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=gigaom

<comment><USER2> Same subject, longer discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4220353>

</comment><comment><USER3> It'll be interesting to see how well they keep up their whole anarchism thing with a burst of new hires, and with investors asking them questions. Good luck to them!

<comment><USER4> What "whole anarchism thing" are you referring to?

<comment><USER5> He's talking about Github running a flat organization, similar to what was outlined in the Steam employee handbook.

<comment><USER4> That is not anarchism.

<comment><USER5> There never is a True Scotsman.

<comment><USER6> This is nothing like a NTS. There are anarchist organizations, Github just isn't one of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> $100M seems like a lot of money - I wonder what their plans are.

<comment><USER8> I suspect a good chunk of that money is secondary and going to the founders and employees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lately it seems like there are multiple submissions on the same topic that make it to the front page of HN.</comment>


Wargaming has initiated legal proceedings against its former employees - <AUTHOR> https://www.blitzteam.com/post/blitzteam-employees-are-under-wargaming-attack <comment><AUTHOR> Wargaming World Limited ("Wargaming"), an international video game development company headquartered in Nicosia, Cyprus and with subsidiary studios in many parts of the world including Belarus, has initiated legal proceedings against a group of its former employees alleging that they unlawfully disclosed proprietary information by updating code previously posted online under an Open Source license during the course of their employment, despite the fact that Wargaming had officially supported the project as Open Source until the spring of 2018.

</comment><comment> nikita-leonov So is this a current state of affairs? You press the fork button on github and going to the court afterward? What a wonderful time to be alive.</comment>


Show HN: Fibery – Connected Workspace for Teams - <AUTHOR> https://fibery.io/connect <comment><USER2> Congrats on the successful PH launch! :)

Product looks cool. My gut reaction is that its flexibility makes for a higher barrier to entry for a new customer, but its flexibility will also make for a massive tailwind once you get it rolling. Just my two cents and what do I know. Will keep this in mind for use at Reflect when we get there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! You are exactly right, it is hard to start, but hard to abandon when you are in.</comment></comment>


WebKit plug-in to prevent automatic loading of Adobe Flash content - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/rentzsch/clicktoflash/tree/master

<comment><USER2> This was possible using SafariStand for a long time already. This is now a plugin and not an InputManager (which is layed on unstable ground (as Apple wants to disable them in the next OS X version)).

The killer feature (and what sets it apart from SafariStand) actually is the whitelist. Option-click a Flash object and you can tell it to always load all flash on the current domain. Sweet!

</comment><comment><USER3> Essential tool. If you use Firefox and want something like this, <http://flashblock.mozdev.org>

<comment><USER4> And for opera: <http://my.opera.com/Lex1/blog/flashblock-for-opera-9>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wolf's awesome. Have his blog in my RSS feed and he always delivers quality info: <http://rentzsch.com/>

I have a love/hate relationship with Flash. On one end, it's awesome for audio & video and on the other hand, it has such a shitty implementation on a Mac. It takes 40% of CPU just to decode a video stream which installed video clients can do in less than 10%. (Incidentally, ever since Adobe purchased Macromedia, quality of Adobe's stuff has been going down.)

Flash also uses the old Netscape plugin architecture which has a horribly inefficient input & rendering loop that causes even background tabs to use a lot of CPU.

<comment><USER6> Yes he is.

Even worse, flash ignores its z-order on my box (firefox/solaris x86). Turns out lots of sites have flash on the front page, with dropdown menus above it.... ugh.

<comment><USER7> That's actually the fault of the developer for choosing a wmode which doesn't support z-sorting. Flash has no problem hiding behind HTML content.

<comment><USER8> Setting wmode to transparent/opaque exposes some Flash Player bugs tho (non-US keyboards print only US characters).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> can't upvote this enough.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I'm happy I found it, too. You want to look after your "shameless plug" on <http://www.broadersheet.com/yc.friends/>. The link goes to broadersheet.com (w/o "www") which fails.

<comment><USER9> thats weird. If you go to <http://broadersheet.com/> it works for me?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, not even a ping here. I'm using OpenDNS, seems like an issue on their side.

<comment><USER10> While OpenDNS is neither Open nor DNS (by default), they aren't fucking anything up in this instance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It displays a grey box. Flash content is loaded on click. (works only with webkit browsers)

It works! CPU load is way lower.

<comment><USER11> I always loved Flashblock for Firefox not so much to save bandwidth/CPU, but to make sure that wherever I go, jackasses can't spam me with retarded videos and annoying background music.</comment></comment>


Macron Push to Drop CIA Code Quickens as Trump Calls EU Foe - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-06/macron-push-to-drop-cia-code-turns-serious-as-trump-calls-eu-foe <comment><USER2> Intelligence and counterintelligence among the allies of NATO is a complex business. It can't be stopped entirely and it's too lucrative to renounce, but at the same time there have to be invisible barriers of "norms" that prevent it getting out of hand. Especially now there's a president who wouldn't recognize a norm if he fell over it in the street.

France spy on Boeing and pass it to Airbus, while the NSA do the same for Boeing, but would France tolerate CIA interference in its elections? [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world- europe-32542140](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32542140)

<comment><USER3> This has not much to do with NATO, but much more with Five Eyes [0]. You either with 'em or you are one of their targets.

Out of curiosity: Do you have any evidence for France spying on Boing and passing it on to Airbus? I mean, where's France's equivalent of ECHELON? [1]

Especially in the context of US dominance of the social media sphere, it's hard to imagine any other country having similar access and capabilities to the US's.

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

[1] [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/820758.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/820758.stm)

<comment><USER4> Supposedly Frenchelon:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frenchelon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frenchelon) [https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frenchelon](https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frenchelon)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been somewhat surprised for a long time that the EU hasn't done more to foster local tech companies and seemed content to rely on foreign suppliers.

Dependence on other countries will always leave a risk that they can leverage that against you, either by allowing for spying or backdoors, or by threatening to withold supply.

Obviously for smaller countries it wouldn't be practical to use homegrown technology, but the EU should have sufficiently deep pockets to do so, at least in strategically sensitive areas.

<comment><USER6> Problem with the EU/Europe it is still the old companies from more than 100 years ago that is dominating the economy and they influence the legislative process, education systems & job markets etc.

This is at least true for Sweden. Take a look on the OMX Stockholm 30 index, consists of the 30 most-traded stock on the Stockholm stock exchange.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMX_Stockholm_30](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMX_Stockholm_30)

If you trace the origins of these companies the youngest was created in the 80-thies for Comviq that later became Tele2 (created in 1997)

Basically all of the others are from the 50-ies or before, many founded in 19th century.

<comment><USER7> Problem in Europe is that there's always a chase against rich people, too. One could not build Apple in France, they would get mugged – at best you get laws against the concentration of money.

Meanwhile you get benefits if your startup is in one of the approved sectors and employing doctorates. You don't get money if you are just reusing proven tech like Apple does; You have to do research. That means we fund research a lot, while we tax implementation. I guess it's mostly great for competing countries.

And thus, the economy is mostly guided in Europe, as opposed to innovative.

<comment><USER6> Yes, and I think we can sum it up with Europe = old money, US = new money.

It is hard to become rich in Europe, families that are rich became rich a long time ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Any non-US government using Palantir software or services is basically handing over their intelligence infrastructure to the US, now a declared foe of the EU for a start. Nice job Peter Thiel.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is also a natural consequence of globalization, and the increasing complexity of digital layers. At one point, it becomes impossible to have a 100% home grown solution, except maybe if you are really big, like the US or China.

<comment><USER10> > except maybe if you are really big, like the US or China

Or, potentially, the EU...

<comment><USER11> EU is not a unified entity in terms of defense. Thought they might try to stay away from a close tie with US under current administration, I doubt that they can or want to get rid as an ally as whole.

<comment><USER12> Not being disrespectful but the country that is a lot against unification or more EU collaboration is leaving in March next year.

So while I'm not particular pro-brexit but I do think this could have also a positive impact to the EU in regards of more unification or more EU collaborations.

<comment><USER13> It's not going to happen. The Nordics are skeptic against a more federal EU. Most of Eastern Europe is too. Italy has flipped now.

Hell, even Germany are rolling their eyes at a lot of Macron's proposals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Palantir isn't "CIA code". Palantir received seed funding from In-Q-Tel. Don't they have fact checkers and technical consultants at Bloomberg news?

<comment><USER15> In-Q-Tel's customer is the US government. It is a VC company whose own funds come from the Letter agencies. VCs have outsized influence on what companies do, being investors (and in In-Q-Tel's case, BIG investors). Saying that Palantir has been influenced by the CIA is not that huge of a leap.

> [In-Q-Tel] invests in high-tech companies for the sole purpose of keeping > the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped > with the latest in information technology in support of United States > intelligence capability.

\- Wikipedia

> IQT is the not-for-profit strategic investor that accelerates the > development and delivery of cutting-edge technologies to U.S. government > agencies that keep our nation safe.

\- In-Q-Tel's About Page

<comment><USER16> You're absolutely, completely right! In-Q-Tel is publicly owned and controlled by the CIA.

With that said, it's worth knowing that the US government tends to use established systems as vehicles for doing arbitrary things with money. So In- Q-Tel winds up investing money for any government agency that wants to do it.

So while In-Q-Tel spends what is _technically_ always CIA money, it's very possible that it could have come from anywhere in the federal government to serve purposes that might have nothing to do with any of the CIA's goals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I didn't know about [https://www.qwant.com](https://www.qwant.com) , an alternative to Google. Any feedback on it from personal experience?

</comment><comment><USER18> The fact is that the cyber world is under the hand of the new colonialists.

</comment><comment><USER19> We, the USA, is not going to have any friends left... Seems like Trump is pissing off Canada, Mexico, NATO, and EU.

<comment><USER10> I (a EU citizen) still hope that Trump - and his peers over here - isn't going to last long enough as a president to do permanent damage.

<comment><USER20> It wasn't Trumps administration that openly spied on Merkel... and she didn't do anything.

Five Eyes will be never a friend of continental Europe, no matter what administration.

<comment><USER8> Western countries have always spied on each other, jostling for position and influence. That is nothing new. Openly declaring hostile intent against an ally - that's new. I'm not sure if people in the US really understand how horrified everyone, of every political stripe are about Trump's behaviour towards us and the elected Republican leadership's complicity in it.

It's not just about Trump anymore. He could be kicked out of office at the next election, sure. But the elected republican leadership, who have their own democratic mandate, are just rolling over and letting all this happen. If they can't be relied on now, they can't be relied on after Trump either. As a conservative Brit, that grew up politically during the titanic partnership between Reagan and Maggie, this is all bewilderingly horrible.

I still remember the Falkland war and the way that, while it took the US a while to realise what was happening, in the end here was never any real question over here that we would be able to rely on the US in the end. I don't think that would have been substantially different under any subsequent US president even right up to Obama. But now? I don't think there is any such confidence. Can you imagine a British Prime Minister worrying about what Trump might tweet after we sank the Belgrano?

<comment><USER6> EU is not really the same as the UK, especially if UK is leaving the EU.

Trumps criticism is against the EU, Trump is a nationalist, something he is scolded for by the left, but everyone wants to forget his nationalism when it fits the argument that he is anti-UK (or any other European country)

And not to mention, Trumps "foe" comment was in regard to trading with EU, not a military conflict.

<comment><USER8> I'm perfectly aware he's a nationalist, why do you think I'm forgetting it? I'm concerned principally with what he's doing because of it.

Trump's trade actions against the EU, including Britain, and other allies were on national security grounds. He's publicly sided with Putin against his own national security agencies. None of this is encouraging from a European perspective.

Nobody is anticipating military conflict between the EU and US, but hostile acts via security agencies? Especially targeting trade and economic activities? Operations on that front that would have been inconceivable just a few years ago cannot be discounted.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Web based Textmate like editor that saves to Dropbox - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/iieeldjdihkpoapgipfkeoddjckopgjg <comment><USER2> The only thing "Textmate-like" about this Chrome extension is that it has a file list on the left and a tabbed editor on the right.

That said, this looks quite convenient, and I appreciate you bringing it to my attention!

</comment><comment><USER3> Excellent.

Now drop in some version control (mercurial for my own preference :)) and we are onto a winner.

Dropbox is great for syncing between your development machines, but version control is essential for deployment and team development. Combining the two is really powerful.

<comment><USER4> Another "feature" would be the ability to use it without dropbox--save functionality removed. I don't have my dropbox password handy, so the app is completely unusable. (HTML"5" database/ javascript localstorage?)

<comment><USER5> BTW, I'm the author of this software. So I've been trying to figure out how to save things locally for awhile. I realized that HTML5 has a File System API which in Chrome 9 can FINALLY write to the local SANDBOXED environment. This feature is planned!!

<comment><USER6> I started using CouchDB to save locally, or anywhere. It seems to be working out well. What are your plans with the future of this ide?

<comment><USER5> I plan to utilize the Dojo's data API as an abstraction layer on top of many different kinds of drivers. I also have thought a bit about what sorts of SERVER side integration this can have - with the potential of websockets, I can see a RESTful git/hg server to be a next logical step!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is fantastic. This is exactly how I foresee the future documents and editing. Dropbox, or something like that, provides the service of saving the files. Then web apps are granted access to them and can edit them. Local storage becomes a cache, and Dropbox is where the files are "really" stored.

The advantage of this, of course, is that all your stuff becomes device- independent. Log in from any device that has web access, and you'll have access to all your apps and all your files.

This is much better than having each web app manage files on their own. For instance, you might have documents saved in Google Docs, notes saved in Evernote and Catch.com, and emails saved somewhere else, etc. It sure would be nice to have a single service provide the file storage so that you always have all your stuff and don't have to worry about some web app going obsolete and losing your data along with it.

Now what I would really like for backwards-compatibility is a web-based Linux environment to access my files. Someone recently created a web app using the HTML 5 canvas element (I think) to run an X GUI. (Anyone remember what this was called and where it is located?) Attach a Linux system and that GUI technology to your Dropbox, and then you have an entire computer that can be accessed from any device. Either the browser itself would load all the files and run them by emulation, or a server could run them natively and just print the results to your browser. Either way, once that becomes possible, I would be able to convert to an all-web environment.

<comment><USER8> I think this might be what you are remembering - cool project.

<http://www.catonmat.net/blog/i-am-doing-a-startup>.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is really cool. I have absolutely no use for it.

<comment><USER10> My gf just got a Chrome OS notebook from Google - that is probably the best use case for it.

<comment><USER11> That was my initial reaction to this too. But without a compiler/interpreter on hand, this app won't be too useful for any serious coding. You just can't test what you're writing.

On the other hand, this is fantastic for non-code text files.

<comment><USER12> Maybe something like this could work?

<http://www.cloudcompiling.com/cloudcompilingsaas.html>

Wasn't there a link to a "Cloud Compiler" yesterday?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So how is this web based? I have to install chrome and a plugin?

</comment><comment><USER14> This is awesome -- but badly needs some interface work. We've built a similar tool for our CMS also on Bespin/Skywriter/Ace. Here is a screenshot:

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/gethifi/4952045778/>

Little things like icons on the left are really helpful when trying to browse a file structure. In any case, I'll likely be using this once and a while in a pinch since I keep all of my client files in Dropbox.

I'm also excited for the Ace update. This appears to be using a pretty old version. Rendering text in the DOM is much faster.

<comment><USER5> It looks like both of us are hitting something here. People seem to be VERY enthusiastic about this. I am very excited to have pieced together some amazing technologies.

Joel, I actually saw your app and thought that it was quite amazing looking (it gave me hope in Ace actually!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sweet. Now rip it out of Chrome and make it work on my phones and tablets!

This is probably best as a web app, not a browser plugin.

</comment><comment><USER16> I hate being negative, but I really don't see the use case. I have a text editor and Dropbox installed on my machine, why would I want to install this editor?

<comment> DanI-S In the context of something like Chrome OS, stuff like this is vital to being able to do meaningful development work. It's also pretty cool to have your personal development environment, settings, etc. immediately accessible from wherever you may be.

<comment><USER17> I still don't get it. I would love to use Dropbox but I can't install it everywhere I go since the installation requires admin rights and I don't have them at the university's computer for example. But I can use SSH and therefore SCP from any computer without admin rights, so I really don't see what this does except eliminate the need for a shell account, which are practically free, heck even VPS's are beginning to be almost free nowadays.

<comment> DanI-S I'm pretty sure you don't have to install Dropbox; the app is just using it as local storage 'in the cloud'. It'd be nice if there were an interface to swap it out for other things, like Microsoft, Google, EC2 or Rackspace storage.

Hmm - new project idea...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> DanI-S I want this to interface to GitHub. That would be badass.

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks very promising, it'll be a good companion to the iPhone PlainText app.

Two suggestions: (1) Word-wrap. (2) Let me pick a dark-on-light color scheme.

</comment><comment><USER19> I only wish the real Textmate followed up on the huge list of todo's and feature requests people have been submitting. I think a core update is long overdue.

<comment><USER20> Can't agree with you enough! Do the developers of Textmate ever listen to these demands?

<comment><USER5> I personally hope the likes of SourceKit and Cloud9 IDE and such will someday replace the likes of Textmate and Eclipse. It'll be a dream when you have VCS, documentation, collaboration, IDE / text editor, running environments all be accessible by everything (including your tablets!!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What kind of syntax highlighting does this app support? I copy/pasted some HTML with script and style tags and none of it got any sort of coloring.

</comment><comment><USER22> If anyone is curious about online editors, I recently wrote about Cloud9's Ace Editor, IBM's Orion, and CodeMirror.

[http://endofline.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/3-browser-based- ed...](http://endofline.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/3-browser-based-editors-to- watch/)

</comment><comment><USER23> This is very interesting. I realize I'm in the minority here, but I would love to use something like this for editing English-language text such as articles, letters, and so forth. This requires decent support for line-wrapping, proportional fonts, and configurable line-spacing. I write my documents in markdown and convert it to whatever is needed - ODT or LaTeX - using the fantastic pandoc. I don't actually write a lot of code; I do write a lot of articles.

I also really like vim keybindings, which makes my usecase even more exotic. Web apps might make this niche interesting.

</comment><comment><USER5> SourceKit 0.6.2 is OUT! No more asking for email, pass; now with more Dojo and Ace! <http://bit.ly/dRvLmb>

</comment><comment><USER24> Nice find. Since this is a text editor, it would be nice to just display text files.

PlainText, my favorite iOS app for note-taking, displays all files from a specific folder within Dropbox. It may be limiting to others, having just have one folder but it keeps things organized. I'd like to see this either support that one folder model or alternatively, hide all content (images/video etc) that don't apply to the editor.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm angry at myself for not thinking about the Dropbox portion of the application. I had already thought that a TextMate-like editor for Chrome would be really nice to have, but I couldn't think of a solution for. If I used traditional saving methods, I couldn't figure out why I wouldn't just use emacs, coda, textmate, etc. The Dropbox portion is what makes this app for me.

That

<comment><USER26> I guess I still don't understand why I wouldn't just use emacs, etc. I edit files in my Dropbox folder with emacs all the time.

<comment><USER27> At my workplace, the workstations are locked down so much that Dropbox can't be installed. This might be a godsend for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm behind a corporate firewall where Chrome isn't allowed, any-one know of an equivalent which will run on Firefox?

As an aside the Chrome Web Store tantalizingly says "Sorry, we don't support your browser just yet. You'll need Google Chrome to install apps, extensions and themes."- are they planning to go cross-browser at some point or just teasing me?

</comment><comment><USER29> It looks handy, but upon realizing that it doesn't actually do very much (beyond simple text editing), I discovered <http://kodingen.com> (has a Chrome app, but really it just sends you to their website). It looks pretty amazing and fully featured so far.

</comment><comment><USER30> Speaking of DropBox integration: I have the DropBox App on my iPhone, and the 1Password App too, which has "DropBox integration", but it asks for my DropBox password. Is that the way it's supposed to work? Shouldn't 1Password be able to access DropBox files via the phone itself?

<comment><USER31> I believe 1Password is just using the Dropbox API, in which case your credentials are indeed needed. I don't think it's possible for 1Password to use the Dropbox App to do the integration with the Dropbox service, at least not at the present time with the way apps are sandboxed.

<comment><USER32> The Dropbox API doesn't require your credentials. Just use OAuth, so the only party getting your credentials is Dropbox.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Nice, but you're (egregiously) violating Dropbox API TOS by asking for the user's password.

<comment><USER5> Asking, but not storing.

<comment><USER33> How about you tell me YOUR dropbox password? I promise I won't store it. I'm just asking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Good start and on my CR-48 opens up some ways for me to develop on the road...

</comment><comment><USER35> doesnt mozilla work on something similar ? <http://ace.ajax.org/>

it was previously called Bespin and is now part of a cloud based IDE as it seems. Interesting.

<comment><USER36> It looks like SourceKit uses Bespin: _Embedded is the excellent Mozilla Bespin (SkyWriter) text editor component_

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Got it installed but when I try to access the getting started guide I get format not supported? I have no problem viewing web pdf's, even have Acrobat Pro installed. So what's going on?

</comment><comment><USER38> How does this work when Dropbox only allow mobile uses of their API?

</comment><comment><USER20> The only thing I like about this is the code pane as it renders code decent enough. Everything else is a bit unfinished work it looks like. Time to change my Dropbox password then!

</comment><comment><USER39> I thought it would only sync to a single folder on my Dropbox, but no, I can edit any text file AND it has syntax highlighting.

Very neat and useful, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER40> Does it "undo" one keystroke at a time?

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm collecting these feedbacks and compiling some user stories for SourceKit. Stay tuned!

</comment><comment><USER32> Why would I ever give this extension my Dropbox credentials when Dropbox supports OAuth?

</comment><comment><USER41> This is really cool, but I'm having some issues here, when I open up a directory more than once the directory's that are in that folder duplicate, like say a folder called css, I have a folder named img in it, if I re-open it then it displays to img folders

</comment><comment><USER42> just a quick question here: why using your standard editor and saving stuff onto the 'Dropbox' folder on the local-machine is not sufficient ?

<comment><USER5> I was inspired actually by the CR-48. As your JS engines get faster, these sorts of software would be more relevant. I 1st PERSONAL milestone is to develop this very software with itself rather than Textmate :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Right Click - Inspect Element? Please...

</comment><comment><USER44> Where is the Firefox version?

</comment><comment><USER45> Awesome app, would be even more awesome decoupled into a true webapp.

<comment><USER46> It would indeed be awesome, except that dropbox still doesn't have a way to sync with true webapps last I checked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is very helpful for my CR-48.

</comment><comment><USER48> Great work. Looks really nice.

</comment><comment><USER49> Ok, I would pay for this app.

<comment><USER50> I would pay for a performant web-based text editor with vim bindings.

<comment><USER51> s/vim/emacs/

(it had to happen.)

I tried it and keep hitting the basic emacs bindings on the keyboard, and nothing happened.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> The problem of editing text files, synching them across many machines, versioning them and sharing them via web or email is I think a well-solved problem.

<comment><USER53> Even when one or more of the computers is a public machine (ex. in a library)? This would have been great when I was in college and didn't always want to carry my laptop around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I just created a dropbox account to test this out. Obviously there are no existing files in it. I looked for a button to create a new file and could not find one.

If dropbox does not have a create file call for you to use, perhaps you could have the app create an empty filename and upload it automatically and then edit it as an existing file?

Edit: Never mind, I finally noticed the buttons on the bottom left. That was quite unintuitive for me--I never look at the bottom left for application buttons. Is this something that textmate does?

<comment><USER21> There is a way to create new files and folders in the lower left-hand corner if you pull out the tray on the left.

<comment><USER51> I couldn't find it when I was looking. Should probably be a little more obvious, at least early on.</comment></comment></comment>


Phoenix: LiveView - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix_live_view <comment><USER2> I have been eagerly waiting for this ever since I saw Chris McCord's demo. Having this become tightly integrated into the Phoenix framework will be game changing.

I think there are a large number of use cases for which this completely obviates the need to build a SPA. That's a huge time savings, and also makes for a faster cycle time as an app gets iterated upon/redesigned. The cost implications are massive.

In many circumstances I think it will also be a better user experience than a SPA -- e.g. this avoids "cold start" performance issues for a user's first page.

Thanks for the hard work Chris, José & team. Elixir & Phoenix are a joy to use while also being incredibly powerful/productive.

</comment><comment><USER3> I cant help comparing it to ancient stateful Java web apps which were a pain to use. What is different this time so that it can outdo the hard-won victory of stateless servers over stateful servers?

The apps I know were:

1\. Freezes and needing a refresh/logout after the server-side "actor" or connection fails.

2\. Refresh won't actually work, you need to login again.

3\. Neither does back/forward, hence the big warnings not to hit back button, for example in a paginated list. Hitting back makes it freeze.

4\. Extreme latency.

5\. No shareable urls or hyperlinks possible, two tabs in same browser will sync with each other.

<comment><USER4> Hi aitchnyu, just a heads up that someone linked to your (excellent) questions in the ElixirForum and I have replied to them there: [https://elixirforum.com/t/phoenix-liveview-is-now- live/20889...](https://elixirforum.com/t/phoenix-liveview-is-now- live/20889/73)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Been looking forward it for quite a while. For those guys who don't like SPA and JavaScript, this could be a great way of bring back rails MVC development experience while keeping some pros of SPA.

</comment><comment><USER6> There goes my free time this weekend…

</comment><comment><USER7> Exciting! There's a number of cases where this'd be handy. Can't wait to try it out.

<comment><USER8> I agree. Even though we're all in on React, it's good to see some change for once, and Phoenix just looks better and better overall. Makes me wanna try it "for real"

<comment><USER7> It'll be interesting to see how people use it. So many use cases where you could benefit from low overhead real-time updates. I also wonder if anyone can/would figure out a way to run React or Vue style components in Phoenix with this. Theoretically it should be possible. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In practice (versus running it in your laptop) wouldn't latency be a big bottleneck here?

<comment><USER10> Check the demos here (look at the snake game regarding latency concerns): [https://dockyard.com/blog/2018/12/12/phoenix-liveview- intera...](https://dockyard.com/blog/2018/12/12/phoenix-liveview-interactive- real-time-apps-no-need-to-write-javascript)

Or look at the ElixirConf keynote: [https://youtu.be/Z2DU0qLfPIY?t=2503](https://youtu.be/Z2DU0qLfPIY?t=2503) (the video starts at 41:43 showcasing a cool demo where you would expect the latency to be a bottleneck, yet it's not)</comment></comment>


Deliberate Practice and Performance: A Meta-Analysis [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Macnamara-et-al.-2014.pdf

<comment><USER2> TL;DR (from the conclusion):

"[Ericsson's] claim that individual differences in performance are largely accounted for by individual differences in amount of deliberate practice is not supported by the available empirical evidence."

<comment><USER2> That's a disappointing conclusion. I think most of us would like to take credit for our success, or if we have not been so fortunate, we hold out hope that we can be successful if we really want to and work hard enough for it. We'd like to believe that we are truly the masters of our fate. The protestant work ethic tells us that our sustained effort will be rewarded. This study suggests it may be more complicated than that, and perhaps we can't take as much credit for our successes as we'd like. On the other hand, maybe we can beat ourselves up less for our failures and relax.

<comment><USER3> The paper only says the evidence available doesn't support the conclusion, i.e., we wouldn't be justified in claiming that deliberate practice is the key. This doesn't mean it's NOT the key, only that we haven't been able to measure whether it is or not so far.

The only certainty is that the evidence isn't in yet. The sociological impact of the Protestant work ethic and whether it's value is supported by evidence will have to wait. :D

<comment><USER4> But the evidence _is_ in! That's what the paper is about! If deliberate practice were the Key to Success, then when you go to measure its effects, you'd expect to see a lot of the variance in outcomes explained by it. Well, lots of studies went to measure, and that's not what they found.

For claims like this, absence of evidence really is evidence of absence. (You could state this more precisely in terms of conditional probabilities, if you're bored and feel like doing some basic math.)

<comment><USER5> Not so fast. You seem to assume that measurement in this case is simple and non-controversial. In fact measuring the amount of deliberate practice is very hard. How do you account for the difference in the types of activities individuals engaged in as children? How do you account for different levels of dedication and passion? How do you account for different amount of support from friends, family and institutions?

<comment><USER2> I'm confused. Everything you listed are things other than deliberate practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is it so surprising that a single factor doesn't completely (or mostly) explain performance? At the same time the paper is not saying that deliberate practice has no effect on performance.

"What explains the variance in performance that deliberate practice does not explain? There are probably many factors. "

...

"We conclude that amount of deliberate practice although unquestionably important as a predictor of individual differences in performance from both a statistical and a practical perspective—is not as important as Ericsson and his colleagues have argued."

</comment><comment><USER7> This article is not really saying too much. Just that deliberate practice is not always a good predictor of performance.

This is already somewhat intuitive. Many have heard of the 10,000 hour rule, but in practice, there are so many more inter-related factors that determine the level of achievement (e.g. history, environment, passion, work ethic, "talent").

Trying to correlate a single factor (practice) with observed performance is an interesting pursuit, but ultimately doesn't say much.

</comment><comment><USER8> Good to know, and something I have told new comers to development/software engineering/computer science repeatedly. If you don't have the good programmer or developer gene, no amount of practice is going to make you one. If you are not great today, don't waste your time trying to practice and become one, or waste your money buying books or doing courses. The bitter truth.

<comment><USER9> How would a newcomer know what level of inherent ability they have?

Also, while I think it's likely enough that there's a bell curve for ability -- with some outliers on the lower side who would find any improvement approaching competence very difficult, and some on the higher side for whom mastery is easy -- most people can probably get better. Why not try? Particularly if you find it engaging.

I'm never going to be a famous musical virtuoso, but I sure enjoy playing the piano and the guitar (and I do it well enough that sometimes people even enjoy listening :).</comment></comment>


Programming with purpose - <AUTHOR> https://coderwall.com/p/xxsf0q

<comment><USER2> Let's not forget that the more economically successful a society is, the more resources it has to help others, save people, and prevent people from dying. In other words, one can contribute to such causes indirectly, by creating economic value.

What's indeed somewhat questionable is if the only purpose of one's work is to divert some of the money that is moving around in the economy into one's own pocket. The patent troll is probably the purest example of that. But to be honest, I sometimes find it difficult to determine whether an economic activity is more about sucking value or creating value. The line doesn't always seem to be drawn clearly.</comment>


The Most Expensive Anti-Pattern - <AUTHOR> http://m1el.github.io/printf-antipattern <comment><USER2> When you start to treat HTML as element nodes and child-nodes instead of "strings" things get not only more secure but also much easier to maintain. Use node.appendChild and document.createTextNode! Code example:

      function myButton(parentNode) {
        var button = document.createElement("button");
        button.appendChild(document.createTextNode("Click me"));
        parentNode.appendChild(button);

        button.onclick = function click() {
          button.appendChild(document.createTextNode(" more!"));
        }
      }

</comment><comment><USER3> The funniest example is the one involving `jq` which could have safely manipulated the JSON in one shot, instead of piping this into `sed` & `grep` & `awk`.

jq: bestest tool ever ([https://stedolan.github.io/jq/](https://stedolan.github.io/jq/))

</comment><comment><USER4> I see these all as type errors enabled by having a single unified string type for all things.

Something as simple as forcing mysql_query to accept only literal strings, forbidding dynamically constructed strings, would change it from an API so unsafe by design that PHP deprecated it - and then removed it - into something relatively safe.

<comment><USER5> Where do you draw the line at "dynamically constructed strings"? Do I need to duplicate the whole query to another literal just to change the sort field?

See also: Perl has a "taint mode" [1] which marks all variables receiving external data as "tainted" and disallows their usage in sensitive contexts. PHP has an inactive proposal to implement it as well [2].

[1] [http://perldoc.perl.org/perlsec.html#Taint- mode](http://perldoc.perl.org/perlsec.html#Taint-mode)

[2] [https://wiki.php.net/rfc/taint](https://wiki.php.net/rfc/taint)

<comment><USER6> This is actually a great idea from Perl. Essentially an anti-monad. Somehow it doesn't surprise me that the php proposal is inactive (asterisk).

I haven't the foggiest idea what people do today in php but if they don't used cached templates everywhere I will be sad.

Even back then we serialized into and "rehydrated" out of memcached and the database (which memcached pulled from on cache misses). It's honestly more of a pain in the ass NOT to use serialized data structures in the long run. It's a good habit that is hard to break once established :-)

As far as AST manipulation. Heh. Betcha 9 out of 10 front end programmers have never written a compiler in their life. Again a good habit (somehow this topic always loops around to either lisp or Parsec) but a bit harder to establish. Template metaprogramming is a great way to get in a logit of trouble fast unless you know exactly what you're doing, IMHO.

(asterisk) wrote and sold a website in php. I don't judge people by their tools. But a lot of things about php sucked, at least 10 years ago when I stopped needing to write it.

<comment><USER7> >This is actually a great idea from Perl. Essentially an anti-monad.

This is an old and deep idea in computer security.

DoD was (is?) interested in systems where, i.e. if a process reads a Top Secret document, then the OS enforces that it can longer write to merely Secret or Unclassified files/IO devices. That way, even a fully compromised process dealing in Top Secret files can't exfiltrate them to a less secure place.

It turns out that in systems designed around this "taint" (they call it "label") construct, _everything_ tends to collect the taint/labels, so things having taint can't be restricted very much or the program can't do anything useful.

I'm in the middle of this security engineering textbook [0] and I love it.

[0] [https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/security- engi...](https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/security- engineering-a/9780470068526/)

<comment><USER8> Tainting is best used for detecting cases where the string in question is both dangerous (e.g. being `eval`ed) and derived from external inputs.

I remember being scolded while working my first "real" programming job becaused I used `eval` in a Ruby on Rails codebase (I don't remember the specifics; I think I was trying to hack something together because the controller setup was weird and I was struggling with the "Rails Way™"). Using a quick `eval` to generate the intended code on-the-fly seemed reasonable to me, having previously been intimiately familiar with Perl (where the dangers of `eval` are mostly mitigated thanks to tainting).

I subsequently learned to embrace Ruby's more robust metaprogramming facilities, and have since come to appreciate the value (and danger) of macros in languages like Lisp and Elixir, but I still found it interesting that features like tainting aren't more widespread (or if they are, they're not advertised very well).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I call "printf antipattern" format injection e.g. [http://sakurity.com/blog/2015/03/03/duo_format_injection.htm...](http://sakurity.com/blog/2015/03/03/duo_format_injection.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> Stringly-typed programming considered harmful.

</comment><comment><USER11> There should be just html and sql datatypes. They should have own literals and any string converted to html or sql or glued to them should be properly auto- escaped. You could still mess things up if someone malforms literal but it could help with 99% of usual vulnerabilities.

</comment><comment><USER12> Better solution for the "Nearly every PHP web-site in existence" example? (I don't know what Hippo is)

</comment><comment><USER13> What different serialization format? I thought serialization == string.

<comment><USER14> serialization == convert to a byte stream.

The byte stream can be a character stream in whatever encoding or a binary one.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_data_serializati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_data_serialization_formats) lists lots of binary serialization formats.

<comment><USER13> I see. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Dow plunges 1,175 – worst point decline in history - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/05/investing/stock-market-today-dow-jones/index.html <comment><USER2> but as Richard Quest said as it was happening: _never_ look at the points as it is meaningless, look at the percentage drop.. and then it is 'just' a long overdue correction :)

of course if this continues there is more to worry about (but only after a 20% downfall can we really speak of a bear market)</comment>


Gun Laws Can Reduce Gun Deaths According to FBI, CDC Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.bu.edu/articles/2019/state-gun-laws-that-reduce-gun-deaths/ <comment><AUTHOR> Summary: Laws banning assault weapons don't work. Laws that restrict WHO has access to guns work.

Background checks - checking for prior violent crimes for example reduces gun related homicides.

They also propose an ongoing risk assessment mechanism i.e. when a person becomes a risk, government should collect their guns.</comment>


A Second Internet Bubble? - <AUTHOR> http://mporat.tumblr.com/post/17547826135/a-second-internet-bubble

<comment><USER2> Maybe it's just me spending too much time here on "Startup News", but I think the author has a fair point. There are a million startups with no real chance of profitability in the near future (few years) or without really reworking their idea once they gain traction that seem to be gaining huge amounts of investment capital.

If VCs pour tons of money into startups that fail (one form of "exit"), the bubble will burst. VCs don't like losing money, and if they see their money going down the drain, they will pull out. We might not see a complete withdrawl that causes an Internet collapse like in 2000, but at the very least VCs will demand short term profitability realization, and that will put the kibosh on a great number of MVPs and "like X but with Y" ideas.

Speculative, yes, but speculation is what the market is all about.

<comment><AUTHOR> Even worse - if VCs fund these startups, VC return will deteriorate, which will stop LPs from funding VCs. That collapse of the ecosystem is the real burst of the bubble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> _Let me start by saying there is an obvious bubble in the market - or in more professional terms, an oversupply of early stage capital, mostly in seed stage. It is no news that in the last couple of years many new private individuals / angels / micro-funds have entered the venture market, and are funding companies at the earliest of stages._

Well since it's so obvious, it should be trivial to give data to back your arbitrary-sounding claim. Unless of course, this really is an arbitrary and unfounded claim.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Customer development"

I'm not sure that word means what you think it does. The whole point of customer development as I interpret it is to GTFO of the building, find customers, build relationships with them, and start making money ASAP.

Maybe the OP has had experience with individuals just getting to customer engagement and then sitting on their thumbs? In that case I can understand the frustration but it seems less customer development focused and more "why don't people want to make money" focused.

<comment><USER5> "Customer Development" is not the same as a having an effective "business model". I believe they should be treated differently. They will impact the product/service in differnt ways.

Getting in front of (selling to) 1, 10 or even 100 customers, collect feedback, implement feedback is easy. Getting in front of (selling to) 1000, 10,000, 100,000 is hard if your business model does not scale.

"Customer Development" is more "will they buy it"

"bus dev" is more "how to best penetrate the market efficiently"

"Bus Dev" will force you to change your product in ways you may never imagined, and these changes will not be realized from customer feedback. Customers do not care if you have an efficient b model.

Make sure you are not solving the wrong problem see <http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/the-wrong-problem/>

While going through the customer feedback process I realized are b model sucked (it always bothered me). The article above inspired to me solve the right problem which has caused us to make a significant change to our offering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why can I scroll the content left and right within the paper-looking element? I like the style of this page, but this error is distracting.</comment>


Extra Lives running new Marathon for Clean WAter - <AUTHOR> http://extralives.org/?sonic=yes

<comment><AUTHOR> People , go donate!</comment>


The warships of 2050 may look a lot like those of 1990 - <AUTHOR> https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a28702564/us-navy-theseus-zumwalt/ <comment><USER2> People are often bamboozled when I explain various 1950's style tech still used extensively by nasa and their contractors. With the odds alredy involved in space flight, you play astonishinly conservative with anything that doesn't have a large weight cost, and occasionally even when it does. But reliability, and often more important, Servicability, is worth more than a few dollars and couple grams.

As someone who enjoys working on cars and bikes as a hobby, you can really tell when the engineers foresaw actual use and wear, and the repairs that would nessesitate. Thank you, deeply, to everyone who thought about the second and third owners when designing your product. Destroying the 'disposable' mindset in product engeneering can't happen soon enough.

We only have had the technology to interchange standard parts like screws for 200 years, and already we seem determined to abandon the advances in standardization. I can't even figure out what SD card to buy after yesterdays article and long discussion. Standards shape the future, be involved in yours.</comment>