Big design up front - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Design_Up_Front <comment><AUTHOR> I would like to ad to this, big desgin at the end, meaning, visualize and design your data structure at the end. All the coding in the middle will be a breeze.</comment>


V Playground - <AUTHOR> https://vlang.io/play <comment><USER2> How do I get the compiler?

...or is this supposed to be the future of programming languages, compiler-as- a-service where you get a playground but not an actual compiler?

<comment><USER3>
      Free: Limited to 1k lines of code
      Hobbyist ($29.99/user): Unlimited lines of code, no warning messages
      Pro ($99.99/user): Warning messages
      Enterprise (Contact us): Link to libraries

<comment><USER2> Huh.

I thought the days when anyone seriously toyed with the idea that you could build a business selling a programming language (or perhaps compiler implementation?) were gone.

Oh well, some interest -> zero interest, but hey, best of luck to them~

<comment><USER4> Please tell me you are not serious :)

<comment><USER5> They are not, and they're not helpful either.

At least officially, the idea announced was that the language will be available (and open source) later in the summer.

Hopefully this goes well, as the language makes some big promises that make it sound like vaporware, but at least we do have a playground accepting the syntax now.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure what you mean.

I'm 100% serious; that's a business model with no value in it, and they few vendors who have tried it in the past are all fading into obvilion.

Getting adoption of a language is hard enough as it is (see the slow uptake of say, kotlin despite large scale corporate backing) making it a pay-to-use is just a dead end.

How are you going to sustain the user growth for a paid product when better or equivalent free alternatives exist? How will you build an ecosystem when the core product is paid-to-use? If I'm paying to make something, I'm not giving it away for free. Not only that, it's a proven failed business model see Borland for example. The few vendors that remain are for embedded devices.

There are so many thing wrong with the idea it's hard to know where to even start enumerating them.

/shrug

> They are not, and they're not helpful either.

...but please, don't try to put words in my mouth, that's just offensive.

I am completely serious, and was in my previous comment too.

<comment><USER4> The comment you replied to was sarcasm. The language is free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I realized the other day that the V author is the same person that created gitly, which was a really nice looking git forge [1]. I believe the author's stated plan was to open source it, but the website went offline after some time without an open source release ever happening. I hope the author follows through on this one, because both projects look(ed) pretty neat!

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13819447](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13819447)

<comment><USER4> It will be back, open source, re-written in V:

[http://gitly.org](http://gitly.org)

I started developing Volt/V in the middle of developing gitly.

That's my biggest drawback. I finish 90% of the project, and jump to a different thing.

I've grown a lot since then, and I'm slowly wrapping up everything.

<comment><USER7> The last 10% is usually the actual 90%.

Claims like C++ translation is definitely one of those 90% things that may look easy to some people until you actually try to do it.

<comment><USER8> Please don't lecture people unless you have something to show for it yourself, specially if it is unsolicited. The author is giving away his work for free, he owes nobody anything. He is amazingly humble too. You don't like his claims you are free to not use his product (for free!)

<comment><USER9> That's not a lecture, that's a bit of hard-earned advice right there. Anyone who has embarked on a language project for the first time (as the author is doing now) learns this one way or another. You get some toy programs compiling and you think "great! Almost done, now just to implement borrow checking" and 16 months later you have to squint to see the progress you've made. That's just the reality of it.

<comment><USER5> Or you just don't implement borrow checking -- which the language doesn't claim to have.

There are literally dozens of good enough small languages, e.g.: Nim, Zig, Crystal, Pony, etc etc, and at least the first two were written by a single person for the most part.

There are many other single-author single-serving languages (used to make games for example GOOL in Crash Bandicoot etc).

Not saying this can't be vaporware, but it's not beyond comprehension.

Heck, not long ago, a guy (with some psychological issues too) made his own OS, high level language compiler (HolyC), drivers, UI, and a flight simulator in assembler and HolyC, all working too (TempleOS).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Very intrigued by this language but the lack of tangible information is beginning to hurt. I find myself questioning some of the claims and demos shown on the front page. Like translating C/C++ code? Is the doom3.v thing completely fake or not?

I'm not sure why it's being presented this way. I'm guessing it's probably structured this way for sake of Patreon, but it's actually a huge turn off.

<comment><USER4> I've put a lot of information on the home page and the docs.

I'm working on articles about C/C++ translation right now. They will be up in a couple of days.

What else is hurting you? I'll update the website.

<comment><USER10> It's not that there isn't enough information; it's that there's a lot of amazing claims and no way for me to evaluate them. Like I'd love to know more about the supposed C++ translation. The homepage shows an example with seemingly idiomatic translation, but is that actually representative of what people could expect?

<comment><USER7> The GitHub issue about the playground says C++ translation is "not coming soon".

So the claimed C/C++ translation looks misleading.

<comment><USER4> C++ translation will be done by the time the language is open sourced. I can already compile simpler projects.

<comment><USER7> Any non-trivial C++ program typically uses the STL or a similar library, which requires the full expressiveness of C++ to be implemented.

So, no, I don't think you have done even a tiny fraction of what C++ entails.

<comment><USER4> I support STL and even plan to support Boost.

<comment><USER7> That does not make sense. Either you support both because you can translate most C++, or you don't support any (modulo bugs).

Maybe you are hardcoding detection of a set of known types by hand?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Of the small amount that I've seen, this is the language that I wish Go were. Obviously, much of the benefit of Go is the standard library coming with "batteries included", so I'm interested to see how this develops over the next few years.

<comment><USER4> I believe in a strong standard library too.

For example, V has a powerful graphics library that can be used for writing 2D/3D games and all kinds of hardware accelerated apps.

Volt for Linux uses it, so does the vid editor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just so everyone is aware, this is more of a toy language that the author makes considerably bold claims about. His benchmarks exaggerate by comparing the speed of print statements, and the language itself is essentially a transpilation (a direct rule based conversion without an AST) to x86 so no other platforms can be supported. He has of yet to actually release any source code so this is just based off of the comments of his I've tracked down. If you're familiar with the author of Iris in Go, this guy is basically that but for a programming language.

<comment><USER13> If this is thr case, this post should be flagged for misinformation.

<comment><USER12> It's intentionally misleading. He might not be outright lying, but he is either too ignorant or intentionally leaving out that his compiler is essentially just a front end with no back end.

<comment><USER4> The only one misleading here is you.

<comment><USER12> Then show us your source code. Explain how your compiler works. Your website has zero information outside of your front end targets.

<comment><USER5> Like all projects that say "we will release soon".

Your point being? Even if he's misleading people, people can always JUDGE by themselves and not give him money.

(As if he gets anything -- even established projects with tons of supporters and huge communities hardly make $1000/month on donations).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is interesting! I am looking forward to the open source release. Some of the projects built with V also appear to be quite nice. The author has put a lot of effort into this it seems.

<comment><USER4> Thanks! I have indeed :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi,

Developer here!

Happy to answer all questions.

<comment><USER15> Just wanted to say that if you really made a new programming language, don't let perfectionism or other's requests get in the way of publishing it.

Even if it is half done and it doesn't fill many of the claims you might have made, push it online to github when the day comes. Inevitably some people will throw stones at you for not meeting their expectations and even you might be harsh on yourself but still push it online. There will be some of us who will be supportive and try to help the project according to your vision regardless if it is launched full of bugs, incomplete and with problematic or missing features.

Also, if the language never really existed and it was a fluke, I personally forgive you in advance, hope you find peace and wish you the best in life.

<comment><USER4> How can it never exist if there's an online playground? :thinking:

I will release it in June without delays, that's the plan. Whatever state it is in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> But why use `go` keyword for go-style routine?

I just realized I maybe have answered my own question but I don't think even Go should use `go` keyword for that.

Maybe give it a more technical name?

<comment><USER4> Maybe :) Suggestions?

<comment><USER16> Since it's a type of coroutine, maybe `co`? also as in "co-pilot".

I'm not very confident about it :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ironically, the link in the "Found an error/typo? Please submit a pull request." part of the docs leads to a 404 (is the repo private?)

<comment><USER4> I moved the website to a different repo, need to update that link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does V compile directly to native machine code? Or is this just some scripting language that trans-compiles to C.

<comment><USER4> I've added a link to the home page, it explains everything with lots of details:

[https://vlang.io](https://vlang.io)

<comment><USER18> Which I read, one part says it compiles to native machine code, another says it emits C for optimization, so which is it?

And if it does compile to machine code, is it really running as fast as C as you claim? Or did you just say that because it trans-compiles to C.

<comment><USER19> It has 2 modes, one for debug (compile directly to machine code) and one for release (compile to c)

<comment><USER18> So in other words the released version is just a V to C writer? That sounds less like a language compiler and more like a glorified string converter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> neat idea, but seems like vaporware, mosty

</comment><comment><USER21> Fibonacci with memoization breaks at 48

Clearly this advanced language is too much to handle for mere mortals like myself.

<comment><USER4> All examples work. Something may go wrong. It's pre-alpha software. No need to be so edgy.

<comment><USER21> Try the Fibonacci with memoization example, changing MAX to 55. Still work for you?

<comment><USER4> Yes, that breaks it. Integer overflows are not handled right now.

This is an important bug and will be fixed asap.

<comment><USER15> Don't let this stop you from releasing. Others can help fix it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Type inference and immutability by default took way too long to become mainstream.

</comment><comment><USER23> how is it like go, but has no GC?</comment>


The TV Industry's Dreadful Little Secret - <AUTHOR> http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/the_tv_industrys_dreadful_little_secret/ <comment><USER2> We've been through the legal arguments before with the SonicBlue/ReplayTV lawsuits 10 years ago:

[http://news.cnet.com/ReplayTV-puts-ad-skipping-on- pause/2100...](http://news.cnet.com/ReplayTV-puts-ad-skipping-on- pause/2100-1041_3-1015121.html)

That time around, the legal costs helped bankrupt SonicBlue.</comment>


Confessions of an Instagram Influencer [Undercover] - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-11-30/confessions-of-an-instagram-influencer <comment><USER2> While reading this, I couldn't help but think of Black Mirror S03E01 Nosedive. I understand the dynamics of all of the players involved in this, but I can't help but feel a little sad about the co-opted "authenticity" in the influencer industry. Is there a middle ground between authentic content and actually being able to monetize it as an influencer?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think there definitely is, but some people just get carried away with it.</comment></comment>


How to Carry Your Office on a Stick (USB Flash Drive) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2009/10/27/27gigaom-how-to-carry-your-office-on-a-stick-usb-flash-dri-62969.html <comment><USER2> This is unbelievably stupid advice, yes it's fun to play with but it certainly isn't practical, especially running office software off of it. I know people who have run openoffice off a USB Flash Drive, but inevitably the drive failed and if they didn't follow proper backup procedures they would have lost some irreplaceable documents.

<comment><USER3> I don't see why this is stupid advice, I run dozens of applications off my USB flash drive. My USB flash drive happens to be an Intel SSD drive so the failure rate is probably lower, but it's nice to have a big portable drive that contains my entire dev environment so I don't need to do anything fancy (like doing a git repo) for having a perfectly portable environment. Flash is getting more reliable these days so I don't think it's a bad thing running applications off of flash disks.</comment></comment>


Show HN: I built a fully ReactJS/Redux WPAPI theme - <AUTHOR> https://www.jackreichert.com <comment><AUTHOR> There is a link to the github repo in the footer of the site.

Still a work in progress, but I was itching to go live with it.

I look forward to your thoughts.</comment>


Interviews: Linus Torvalds Answers Your Question - <AUTHOR> http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/06/30/0058243/interviews-linus-torvalds-answers-your-question

<comment><USER2> _I have to say, I don 't really get the hatred of systemd. I think it improves a lot on the state of init, and no, I don't see myself getting into that whole area.

Yeah, it may have a few odd corners here and there, and I'm sure you'll find things to despise. That happens in every project. I'm not a huge fan of the binary logging, for example. But that's just an example. I much prefer systemd's infrastructure for starting services over traditional init, and I think that's a much bigger design decision.

Yeah, I've had some personality issues with some of the maintainers, but that's about how you handle bug reports and accept blame (or not) for when things go wrong. If people thought that meant that I dislike systemd, I will have to disappoint you guys._ \- Linus</comment>


Shown HN: A quick way to glance through news headlines from multiple sources - <AUTHOR>

glancet (http://www.glancet.com) is a quick way to browse news headlines. It extends the Google News treemap from newsmap.jp by using HTML instead of Flash (yay tablets!) and incorporating signals from Facebook/Twitter to reconfigure the treemap. It was built on the excellent d3.js library by Mike Bostock.<p>As a news junkie, it was a fun side project and I would love feedback on design or utility and any feature requests you may have. <comment><USER2> Would be better to have the pop-over on 'onHover' instead of 'onClick'. Ability to turn on/off certain feeds would be good too.

I was working on a similar treemap visualization for the links of my twitter feed though I ended up abandoning the project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely agree on turning off some of the feeds. Regarding hover vs. click, that was a decision primarily made because of tablets. I usually visit the site on my iPad and hover doesn't make sense in that context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I loved Newsmap.jp, good to see others still find it practical.

But here I can't turn off certain feeds, can't manually refresh, can't change color. Definitely need these things to start with before it can really be considered usable.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's definitely fair. Thanks for the feedback, I will try adding those features as time permits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Way cool. Some things I'd like to see in a later version:

* Filterable categories (it pains me to see celebrity news anywhere)

* Hideable header

* Refresh/more/new -- just some way to pull in other stories

Great work so far.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the detailed requests, it helps to prioritize what needs to be done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think I still prefer <http://www.dailyrotation.com/> . Looks great, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you prefer about it? The format, the content or something else?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I built something very similar a few months ago

<http://www.newsola.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks cool. Love the fact that it's native web and not Flash based.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Direct link: <http://www.glancet.com></comment>


Questions raised about research by OpenAg Initiative at M.I.T. Media Lab - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/business/media/mit-media-lab-food-computer.html <comment><USER2> MIT is probably the only land grant campus that has no agriculture department.

That much is understandable, since ag-schools need to do actual literal field work on test plots, and that kind of acreage is hard to come by anywhere near Cambridge. But it also means there was nobody on campus to sanity check this OpenAg nonsense.

<comment><USER3> The land grant act specified the aims for the funded schools would be "agricultural and mechanical." I believe Massachusetts was the only state to divide the funds between separate agricultural (UMass) and mechanical (MIT) universities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Too bad MIT MediaLab is under scrutiny now. I really hope their PubPub[1] project will not die. It is the only open source[2] modern scientific publishing platform, like Authorea or Overleaf.

[1] [https://www.pubpub.org/](https://www.pubpub.org/)

[2] [https://github.com/pubpub](https://github.com/pubpub)

</comment><comment><USER5> There's a tweet from some prominent agriculture researcher pointing out that the fabled _Food Computer_ is in fact a rehash of agricultural techniques used circa 2000. Forgot her name but the remark struck me.

There should be a periodic reminder for tech-minded people to reread Ecclesiastes 1:9 every once in a while.

<comment><USER6> For those of us less well-versed in the Bible:

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun."

<comment><USER7> Sure, and self-driving cars are just horses all over again right? And ancient Egyptians were already using tablets.

<comment><USER8> When Ancient Egyptian tablets had been carved, the Babylons/Hitites couldn't remotely wipe them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In one set of articles OpenAg is a therenos grade scam with everything faked, all plants purchased instead of grown, etc.

In another set of articles, they're in trouble because the nitrate levels in their waste water are too high: [https://www.wbur.org/edify/2019/09/20/open- agriculture-initi...](https://www.wbur.org/edify/2019/09/20/open-agriculture- initiative-middleton-harper)

So which is it? A total sham or a polluter? These positions sound incompatible.

<comment><USER10> It's alleged that they made misleading claims, but it's not like the whole operation was a complete fabrication. There were plants and machines and whatnot, as can be seen in several articles on tis topic.

So it's plausible that they illegally dumped wastewater as part of whatever it is they're doing that isn't working as advertised.

<comment><USER9> Fair enough, though at some point it starts becoming a bit hard to distinguish between what OpenAg was doing and what a significant fraction of all demos do.

It's typical for some amount of 'rigging' to exist in demos, particularly because Murphy's law has an ugly way of rearing its head. At a very minimum, almost everyone goes over the demo many times and fix or avoid any issue that causes a failure or questions that can't be easily and decisively answered.

I really did get the impression from the first articles I read on OpenAG that the claim was that they were doing absolutely nothing and that it was 100% faked. The article on the nitrates discharge was surprising to me in light of that.

I'm perhaps a bit jaded also by seeing how much computer science / signal processing academic publication is essentially fake. "The desktop version doesn't really exist but we have a basement version doing stuff" seems like a fairly mild level of deception compared to many other things I've encountered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One of the defining qualities of the media lab was smoke-and-mirror demos. I thought everyone understood this and was OK with it. There's a place in the world for concept art, to inspire people with what might be possible.

This is like "Questions Raised that TED Talks Oversimplify Complex Issues".

</comment><comment><USER3> Rigged demos are the Media Lab's main output, and have been since the start. Shut it all down.

<comment><USER12> I'll repeat and extend what I've said in several other Media Lab posts. The lab has over its lifetime been a place where the creative arts, computer science, and popular culture have come together. Have there been demos of ideas that didn't, or possibly even couldn't, work? Yes. Has the placed helped shape the connected world we live in? Yes. Has real stuff come out of it? Yes.

Semour Papert and Mitchel Resnick are luminaries who helped define the landscape of computation and play for kids. E Ink came out of the lab. Todd Machover has been influential in shaping technology in music (Guitar Hero was developed by some of his students). Professors Muriel Cooper and John Maeda have had similar impact in technology and graphics arts and design.

Steve Benton's Spatial Imaging Group and its student diaspora had a huge influence on the holography and 3D display world. We developed full color reflection holography, the first holographic video system, and the first image predistortion algorithms for light fields. Our 1 meter sq. hologram was at the time the world's largest computer generated 3D display. Unfortunately, Steve died pre-Google, and his contributions are not fully recognized.

I was at the lab a long time ago (from its opening in 1985 until 1997). What made it unique at the time was breaking down the barriers between computation, technology, creative arts, and popular culture in a way that seems so natural now. On a campus where hundreds of other PhD students seemed to be working on amazing research on very detailed topics, we were building pieces of the future and demoing them daily to industry and lay people alike. That wasn't considered hard science at a place like MIT, but the ultimate impact on society was huge.

One other area of huge but unsung impact was speech technology. Chris Schmandt's Speech Research Group group envisioned and developed audio assistants that paved the way for Siri and Alexa. His students and research have also helped shape an entire field.

As for Nicolas Negroponte, he started the lab understanding that corporations were going to drive the computation and Internet revolution, while the rest of MIT was primarily government/defense funded. I have no doubt that that insight accelerated bringing technologies to market that we now consider ubiquitous.

The current funding controversy was long after my time, as is the current work of the lab. There's just plenty of innovation in the history of the lab.

<comment><USER3> I was there during the '00s. I'll admit my hostile attitude is partly sour grapes on my part, since I deservedly flunked out (otherwise known as getting a master's). But nearly all the bad press the lab has been getting lately rings true to me. Thinking back to how little of what I saw there turned into any kind of practical advances or useful products in the years since...what was the point? And of course I'm horrified at the source of so much of the funding.

But then I've also been souring on the value of academia and research in general. "Publish or perish" leads to a lot of garbage getting published, as increasingly large amounts of money are thrown at increasingly small results. There's just not enough scientific truth to go around. The Media Lab, being particularly prominent and press-friendly, has this worse than many other places, but it's a problem everywhere.

<comment><USER13> >There's just not enough scientific truth to go around.

There's plenty of truth, just not enough resources. It's learned behavior, the scrounging and sensationalization, that has developed in response to larger forces driving societal investment away from academia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone wanna plagiarize the article so I can read it?

Both of my mobile browsers wont let me, and they also detect private mode

<comment><USER15> Rough copy/paste

[https://pastebin.com/iCtipMin](https://pastebin.com/iCtipMin)

Apologies for any ads that got in.</comment></comment>


Should computing habits have any bearing on fitness to be commander in chief? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/weekinreview/03leibovich.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> Up-voted for tecno-geek factor, with the caution that the discussion doesn't devolve into election year politics. The article seemed to ask the question "does the use of technology matter in your presidential candidate" and then spent the rest of the space discussing McCain in a negative light.

To rephrase the question, does technology significantly change the principles on which a country or political party is founded? I'd guess mostly no -- but 10% of the time it does. The most recent example is the issue of anonymity in daily life, which wasn't even an issue on the radar 50 years ago. Privacy of medical data is a close second.

A second question may also be asked: is a president a better manager when he uses technology more fully? I think yes, but there are a lot of considerations and it gets murky quickly. Especially in our age it's easy to observe a lot of people plugged into email, twitter, blogging, WoW, and all sorts of other technology and not being very effective at much of anything.

This leads to the most interesting implied question: to what degree do we use computers that make us better, and to what degree are we simply wasting time?

Gee. Seems like I had some programming I was supposed to be doing this morning.</comment>


Why Credit Cards Are Becoming Heavier - <AUTHOR> https://www.nickkolenda.com/heavy-card-effect/ <comment><USER2> Sales clerks sometimes comment how heavy my Amazon prime cc is. It doesn't have the cc numbers on the front which gives it more of a mystic to it. My son thinks it is really cool. Psychologically, I admit this card, and my used Lexus with leather seats makes me feel like I have more money than I truly have.</comment>


Bitcoin Bubble or New Virtual Currency? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/03/bitcoin-bubble-or-new-virtual-currency.html

<comment><USER2> Bubble!</comment>


My Use (and Abuse) of Caffine - <AUTHOR> http://rdegges.com/my-use-and-abuse-of-caffine

<comment><USER2> In the early nineties, I gradually grew my caffeine habit to the point where I was drinking about 4 pots of coffee a day. At this point, my body had developed such a habit that it was strictly a maintenance drug and I had no problem falling asleep at the end of my day.

During one trip, I realized that this habit was detrimental (and unsustainable), so I quit cold-turkey. For forty days, I woke up and after thirty minutes without caffeine, I would develop a severe headache. But for the last 15 years, I've managed to avoid falling back into the caffeine habit. If I skip coffee completely, I barely notice, though I limit myself (to a four-cup pot) and stop drinking caffeine before noon.

I don't find that I'm less creative ... when I get into "the zone" it just doesn't matter.</comment>


Writing W3C spec and smoking crack are not mutually exclusive activities - <AUTHOR> http://24ways.org/2009/incite-a-riot <comment><USER2> I honestly never understood why html needs to manually specify all these tags, due to the contraints their semantics are as much as lost, just give us some tags with clear and precise semantics list, quote, address, a, input etc, then let us markup the rest with whatever we want.

<comment><USER3> The more clearly you specify the semantics, the less applicable the tag is, by necessity.

Personally, I've come around to the idea that semantic HTML is a joke, because "semantics" can only exist in the context of an agreed-upon semantic _context_ and there's absolutely no way to declare One True Semantic Context, handed down from a committee. There's nothing more or less "semantic" about  vs.
; both may be meaningless, or one may be meaningful but not the other, or both may mean subtly different things, all depending on the context they are in. Nor does wrapping something in a non-existant tag <book> magically make it "non-semantic" _or_ "semantic", until a context is (or is not) added. There's no magic in the tag name; it's just a meaningless string by itself.

Bear in mind that much of the reason I say that the centralized committee can't hand down the One True Context is that even if they _do_ , it is simply a fact that vast swathes of the web will ignore their dictate, and a world in which only 10% of the uses of the "cite" tag are actually "semantically correct" is a world in which the putative semantics are useless. (And if you say "Well, we'll cut it down to a certain subset, like my personal store of documents.", my response is, yes, yes you will, and that's exactly what I mean by a "semantic context".) (And 10% is probably a gross, orders-of-magnitude overestimate.)

Context-free semantics is a contradiction in terms.

<comment><USER2> One true semantic context is of course a pipe dream, theres 2 reasons I would like to be able to define whatever tag I want.

1\. My markup is cleaner, <contextmenu> vs
, this has implications on my javascript and css (both in terms of speed and cleanliness)

2\. API and "microformats" are trivialised, this is of course also dependant on producing parseable (x)html (another decision I really dont understand)

but why on earth is

[http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/?method=flickr.people.ge...](http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/?method=flickr.people.getPublicPhotos&api_key=d6c998c73b6ba60e7b31b83618909afe&user_id=69845378%40N00)

different from

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/daleharvey>

they really dont need to be

<comment><USER3> Yes, as a direct consequence of the fact that I don't believe in One True Context, I think the proper solution to HTML 5 is to say "Look, tags can be anything, here's enough CSS to style your arbitrary tags" (which we pretty much have, CSS 3 removed the last browser-only magic by letting you futz with tables), and everything else should be a separate standard.

That said, I think this approach even sort of mostly _works_ already, albeit with some pain and some JS hackery required. I just want it in the standard. And if we were doing that, I would ask for some events around tags, so I could in the  register a "tag creation" listener for, say, <calendar>, and so when that tag is encountered, use JS to populate it with stuff the browser understands.

Alas, I am not the standard maker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the author's point, but I thought there was a push to move away from lots of special-case tags like <q>,
, etc. For such a general-purpose SGML, it seems silly to assume that HTML will have a semantically-meaningful tag for the majority of your semantics.

Maybe I'm smoking crack, though. :)

<comment><USER5> But they still define them. Either keep them or toss them, but don't just half heartedly try.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I pretty much use div and span with ID and CLASS to achieve what I want.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm hoping this title is literal, as in "smoking crack and being the mayor of DC are not mutually exclusive activities"

edit: No, the title is false advertising.</comment>


14 simple ways to get more social traffic for your content - <AUTHOR> http://growthanalytics.io/14-simple-ways-to-get-more-social-traffic-for-your-content?utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=submit <comment><USER2> >>When I substrate my friends, it's no one that read that post....

If that's a representative example of how you mangle the English language, In not surprised.</comment>


Show HN: MathC – a pure C math library for 2D and 3D programming - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ferreiradaselva/mathc <comment><USER2> You should add a typedef for numbers. That would make things easier if someone wants better precision than float.</comment>


Things I Didn't Know About Steve Jobs (and I bet you didn't either) - <AUTHOR> http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/02/10-unusual-things-i-didnt-know-about-steve-jobs/

<comment><USER2> >>I actually think Jobs is probably the most charitable guy on the planet. Rather than focus on which mosquitoes to kill in Africa (Bill Gates is already focusing on that), Jobs has put his energy into massively improving quality of life with all of his inventions.

I love apple as much as the next fanboy but that was waaaay over the top. I find it scary that someone actually believes that.

<comment><USER3> Another over the top comment:

"He denied paternity on his first child, claiming he was sterile. The other had to initially raise the kid using welfare checks. I have no judgment on this at all."

What, how can you defend _that_.

And he parks on handicapped parking at Apple campus, I'm sure the OP has a good justification for that, too.

<comment><USER4> And this...

"He lied to Steve Wozniak. When they made Breakout for Atari, Wozniak and Jobs were going to split the pay 50-50. Atari gave Jobs $5000 to do the job. He told Wozniak he got $700 so Wozniak took home $350. Again, no judgment. Young people do things. Show me someone who says he's been honest from the day he was born and I'll show you a liar. "

Less over the top than the others but still.

(Oh and for the record Steve Jobs DID NOT make the game Breakout. Jobs and Wozniak only designed the circuit board for the already conceived of game and that board wasn't actually used: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakout_(arcade_game)>)

<comment><USER5> The article is doing a lot of apologizing for Steve's behavior instead of just letting it stand for what it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This has to be satire.

"Making iPods is better than giving to charity." "Making iPods is more important than caring for your children." "I want to be a pescetarian just because Steve is one." "He stole from his partner, no problem though. He still is the greatest." "He became so cool by doing drugs and getting into eastern religions."

Really, this HAS to be satire. What really helped me understand the way Steve Jobs (probably) is was reading the memories of early Apple employees at <http://folklore.org/>.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is so sycophantic as to cause nausea. I'm honestly not sure if this is meant to be satire or not.

"He denied paternity {snip} Raising kids is hard {snip} enormous energy and creativity you have for the world is going to get misdirected into a … little baby". Wait. So, he's TOO AWESOME to be tied down looking after another human, even though he could've chosen not to create that human? 'I'm TOO CREATIVE to be RESPONSIBLE!'

"Jobs is probably the most charitable guy on the planet. {snip} massively improving quality of life." Yeah, they're fun. But they don't make anyone live longer. They don't prevent wars and cure disease and make people fundamentally happier in ways they couldn't have been otherwise. Oh, and 'giving back' by working? I think he did that to become fabulously wealthy. That's not really giving, that's... getting.

Drugs... Yeah, this is all too easy. Reading this article is like when interview candidates answer "What is your biggest weakness" with "I'm too dedicated to work!". It just makes you queasy and comes off as being full of shite.

I think there's a great danger of your fanboy-projected image becoming conflated with your real image. I'll admit I avoid Apple when possible because I don't want to deal with either the pro or anti fanboys related to it. Some things are too emotional to be totally logical about. Like having children. FFS.

</comment><comment><USER8> Most of this stuff is quite interesting, but towards the end it becomes rather stretched out. Especially point 10, which amounts to

LSD + (Zen Buddhism) + (a touch of genius) = (the next Steve Jobs)

<comment><USER9> The point is that "think different" isn't some stupid focus grouped crap from a bunch of IBM MBAs who haven't had a different thought in their lives.

It's actually about thinking differently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> While I didn't know many of those things, I'm not inclined to believe you without (reliable) sources.</comment>


LeoCAD software to build Lego models - <AUTHOR> http://www.leocad.org/trac

<comment><USER2> How does this application benchmark with LEGO Digital Designer? [1] I see that LeoCAD supports Linux while LDD not.

[1] [http://ldd.lego.com/](http://ldd.lego.com/)

<comment><USER3> Having used both, LDD has a much better UI, but LeoCAD is probably overall the better program. It's able to export to more file formats than LDD, and is generally more of an open program.

The difference is comparable to Maya (LDD) vs. Blender (LeoCAD).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm glad to see the ldraw community is still alive and healthy. I haven't played with LEGO cads since the MLCad [1] days.

[1]: [http://mlcad.lm-software.com/](http://mlcad.lm-software.com/)</comment>


Ask HN: Title for someone who takes ideas to pixel-perfect conceptual products? - <AUTHOR>

I hate titling myself "Entrepreneur and designer" or "Entrepreneur, designer, front-end developer". I hate titles altogether but they're sometimes a necessity. What I do seem really basic to me. I'm exactly like a carpenter who creates a new piece of furniture from an idea. In my case it's idea -> concept -> pixel-perfect mockup. I suppose I'm not alone. Do we need a new word for this? <comment><USER2> I am having the same problem. This ZURB article struck a chord though:

[http://www.zurb.com/article/932/can-we-drop-the-term-ux- desi...](http://www.zurb.com/article/932/can-we-drop-the-term-ux-design- already-an)

</comment><comment><USER3> like this? <http://www.behance.net/?field=132> User Interface Designer, or without UX and IA then a graphic designer?

<comment><AUTHOR> Plus the entrepreneurial aspect. Entrepreneur + UX Designer might be pretty correct but a very diffuse way to describe something that should be pretty basic.

<comment><USER3> The only other suggestion I have is to keep it basic but broad, like Multimedia Developer.</comment></comment></comment>


Double Faults - <AUTHOR> https://os.phil-opp.com/double-fault-exceptions/ <comment><USER2> _However, hardware context switching is no longer supported in 64-bit mode and the format of the TSS changed completely._

Quite unfortunate, especially with the large state sizes of processors now with all their vector registers and such; it would've been great to simply ask the hardware how much it needs, allocate a TSS of the appropriate size, and it would automatically manage the state save/restore as necessary.

Fun fact: in the days of the 286, which could not switch out of protected mode without a reset, the fastest way was to triple-fault:

[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/larryosterman/2005/02/08/fa...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/larryosterman/2005/02/08/faster- syscall-trap-redux/)

<comment><USER3> Wasn't the issue that TSS/hardware switching had too much overhead which is why Linux uses/used software based switching?

<comment><USER4> Hardware context switching is quite fast and overhead free.

The problem is that commonly the hardware based switch will not save all registers and with software based switching you can be much more selective about what you do and eek out a bit more performance that way.

<comment><USER3> >Hardware context switching is quite fast and overhead free."

Everything I have read on hardware switching has indicated otherwise:

From:

[https://wiki.osdev.org/Context_Switching#Hardware_Context_Sw...](https://wiki.osdev.org/Context_Switching#Hardware_Context_Switching)

>"Performance Considerations

Because the hardware mechanism saves almost all of the CPU state it can be slower than is necessary. For example, when the CPU loads new segment registers it does all of the access and permission checks that are involved. As most modern operating systems don't use segmentation, loading the segment registers during context switches may be not be required, so for performance reasons these operating systems tend not to use the hardware context switching mechanism. Due to it not being used as much CPU manufacturers don't optimize CPUs for this method anymore (AFAIK). In addition the new 64 bit CPU's do not support hardware context switches when in 64 bit/long mode."

<comment><USER4> I mentioned this in my comment, with software ctxs you can save a bit of time if you don't need to save and restore everything.

Outside that, hw ctxs is faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Thus, we are able to catch all double faults, including kernel stack > overflows:

"All" is a strong word. If you implement page table isolation, and you goof the page table switch, your double fault handler may not work either.

<comment><USER6> In general, an infinite stream of page faults is not that uncommon if you mess up the page tables. The IST won't help you there...

That's an advantage of the POWER feature where you can define a small number of (typically very large, but that doesn't have to be the case) linear mappings that bypass the page tables. It's typically used to speed up TLB misses, but you could for example add one for the double fault IST if x86 had a similar thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting article about how multiple faults can be handled.

Name should probably be "Double Faults", the website is "Writing an OS in Rust ", but the post is about double faults.</comment>


XKCD: 2018 Midterm Challengers - <AUTHOR> https://xkcd.com/2067/ <comment><USER2> Of all the things I thought would come from my wife's campaign, having her show up in XKCD was not one of them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appearing in an XKCD comic: Achievement unlocked. :-)</comment></comment>


BSA pressuring the European Commission to remove support for Open Standards - <AUTHOR> http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/bsa-letter-analysis.html.en

<comment><USER2> Open standards = the ability to compete.

The reason Microsoft is in the market ownership position it's in is that it owns two thing:

\- The only dependable way to run Win32 ABI applications

\- The MS Office formats (.doc/.xls) and even the new Office OpenXML formats (.docx/.xlsx) which are non-validating XML wrappers around their proprietary binary data blobs.

While we do have Wine/OpenOffice that can do a percentage of these job, people get roped into Windows/Office because they need one app, aren't aware of alternatives, don't want an interoperability hassle, and thus the cycle becomes self perpetuating.

Compare/contrast with other more open formats like HTML, PDF, etc. and the innovation and flexibility surrounding them.

Supporting closed formats = giving one company a cash cow.

Supporting open formats = supporting innovation and competition.

Say what you want about the GPL and other licensing - open formats are the only sure-fire way to ensure open marketplaces.

</comment><comment><USER3> BSA is smart. It's targeting the actual competitors, not the pirates.

The record labels are mostly targeting the pirates, not competitors. They are stupid.

However, it does not bodes well for the BSA to act smart when lobbying. I wish they tighten their grip on pirates while leaving open source alone. That would spell death for the BSA.</comment>


The Empire Built on Values - <AUTHOR> http://www.costcoconnection.com/connection/201201#pg27

<comment><USER2> Now I'm not in US anymore and I miss Costco very much.

Their return policy was one of the best. I had a laptop which motherboard got damaged within warranty period. I just went there to get it repaired, but they took it back and gave me a full refund. No talks about repair, nothing. That was splendid. I could buy a new one the very next day.

<comment><USER3> And that is called business. First, they have concern for their clients and second they want to creat network between clients. That was wow!</comment></comment>


Introducing Qubes OS - <AUTHOR> http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2010/04/introducing-qubes-os.html

<comment><USER2> I think there will be more projects like this. Apps running in a sandbox, thinking they have the OS to themselves. The next logical step is to have all new apps written in managed code, and use virtualization for the "legacy" native code.

Come to think of it, isn't it supposed to be the purpose of an operating system: letting programs think they own the hardware? Now they can pretend to own the OS too :)

I think we'll get to microkernels, but through evolutionary steps like this rather than ground-up redesign.

<comment><USER3> Could someone point me at a clear explanation of the difference between a micro-kernel and an hypervisor?

Maybe I need to see something like the Xen presentation at Fosdem again.

Edit: [http://www.ok-labs.com/blog/entry/microkernels-vs- hypervisor...](http://www.ok-labs.com/blog/entry/microkernels-vs-hypervisors/) is quite ok.

<comment><USER4> I'm not an expert, but I'll give it a try.

A hypervisor runs multiple Operating Systems, having each one think that it has access to the whole of the hardware.

A microkernel is one way of writing the kernel of the Operating System, so that each part of it is a separate process, routing messages to each other in a safe manner to get things done, rather than doing direct calls to each others code.

With a hypervisor you wouldn't expect each of the OSes to have any communication with each other at all, whereas with a microkernel you'd expect the different processes to talk to each other a lot.

You can, apparently, repurpose a microkernel as a hypervisor, but I don't know anything about that at all. Presumably the infrastructure is quite similar.

<comment><USER5> An example for a microkernel running a Linux OS is L4Linux (<http://os.inf.tu- dresden.de/L4/LinuxOnL4/overview.shtml>).

There is a lot of controversy about the distinction between VMMs and microkernels. A view from the microkernel side is given in [http://www.ertos.nicta.com.au/publications/papers/Heiser_UL_...](http://www.ertos.nicta.com.au/publications/papers/Heiser_UL_06.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Similar work was done in the OpenTC project (<http://www.opentc.net>), i.e., running legacy OSs in isolated compartments and multiplex their visual interfaces using a "secure GUI", which labels the windows/interfaces according to certain properties. It also supported OpenGL in the "AppVMs", which is currently omitted in Qubes OS.

The isolation of drivers in separate VMs and enforced isolation using VT-d is definitely interesting. A paper on the disaggregation of dom0 for improved security is <http://www.xen.org/files/xensummit_fall07/22_DerekMurray.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER6> _"All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection"_

<comment><USER7> Except the problem of too many levels of indirection.

<comment><USER8> Actually, that one too. Just hide the levels of indirection. Now you have the problem of complex hidden levels of indirection. (Cheating with one's definition of "solved.")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> _Qubes implements Security by Isolation approach. To do this, Qubes utilizes virtualization technology, to be able to isolate various programs from each other, and even sandbox many system-level components, like networking or storage subsystem, so that their compromise don't affect the integrity of the rest of the system._

</comment><comment><USER8> _Qubes GUI virtualization presents applications like if they were running locally_

Site needs some editing.

</comment><comment><USER9> :-) it seems there's a news story every day on HN about a new Linux based OS on the market. I do like this one much better than the North Korean one with the lockdown of user freedoms.

<comment><USER10> It's not exactly a new "Linux based OS", Joanna is a well known security hacker and so if you think about the reasons them you will see that what she's trying to do is a new security computing model for operating systems based on virtualization, just like Google Chrome was a new model for browser security[1].

Virtualization will be huge in the future, probably we will have common desktop hardware with bare metals hypervisors implemented directly on the hardware in the next 15 years or so, virtualization is already used in datacenters, network appliances and used extensively in the "cloud", how will we use it in the desktop is still open, but I do believe the first application will be running legacy application on modern operating systems and security.

[1]: [http://communities.intel.com/community/openportit/vproexpert...](http://communities.intel.com/community/openportit/vproexpert/emergingcomputing/blog/2008/09/03/google- chrome-the-compute- model;jsessionid=FF47CE75A7EA96018F2A0F5EB6E0213E.node5COMS)

<comment><USER8> So "legacy" = implemented in the 60's and 70's but became widespread in the 90's. "Modern" = implemented in the 60's and 70's but became widespread after 2010.

<comment><USER10> upvoted that was a good one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is it just me or is that using the fedora symbol in the bottom right corner in some of the screenshots?

</comment><comment><USER12> I hope their server isn't running on this OS because the performance is pathetic</comment>


Nissan Sells 100,000 LEAFs, Captures 48% Of Worldwide Electric Vehicle Market - <AUTHOR> http://insideevs.com/nissan-sells-100000-leafs-captures-48-of-worldwide-market-to-date/ <comment><USER2> Check out how fast this market it going. (US battery electric vehicle sales per year: [http://www.electricdrive.org/index.php?ht=d/sp/i/20952/pid/2...](http://www.electricdrive.org/index.php?ht=d/sp/i/20952/pid/20952))

      2010:     19 (lol, is that right?)
      2011: 10,064
      2012: 52,835
      2013: 96,702

<comment><USER3> Considering that Telsa brought in $116M in revenue in 2010, I find the 2010 count suspect.

[http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla- motors...](http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-motors- reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2010-results)

<comment><USER4> Most of that revenue is from selling EVs to Daimler and others. But it does look like you are right about the 2010 number being off..

Tesla celebrates 1000th roadster: Jan 12, 2010

[http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla- celebr...](http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla- celebrates-1000th-roadster)

Full Year 2010 Results "Tesla delivered its 1,500th Roadster during the [4th] quarter."

[http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla- motors...](http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-motors- reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2010-results)

<comment><USER5> The fact that they are so wrong on that statistic makes me question their data collection methods. How can you trust anything else on that page?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's 4 times the number of Model S on the road, if anyone was curious.

<comment><USER7> That they have sold so many is a good thing. Unlike Tesla, they don't have the advantage of selling into a market where people have a large amount of disposable income.

I would say that when cars like the Leaf, the sub 100 mile range club, get under twenty thousand after the government rebate then sales should really take off. I have no problem subsidizing the purchase of a reasonably priced electric like the Leaf or even as a stretch the i3 but once you pass into luxury pricing those people don't need the payout from the public

<comment><USER8> They are selling to people with disposable income though, pretty much by definition.

People buying the Leaf are buying a new car that only does one thing better than new vehicles $15,000-20,000 cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've owned a leaf for 30 months now, driven almost 30,000 miles, and still like it.

Also, it seems every second car in the HOV lane in the SF bay area it's a Leaf...

<comment><USER10> Are electric vehicles allowed in the High Occupancy Vehicle lane without being high occupancy (single occupant)?

<comment><USER11> Yes, a fact which will make any bus rider want to reach for his bazooka. Man, there is nothing more irritating than being stuck in the HOV lane in a bus in a traffic jam consisting entirely of teslas and leafs.

<comment><USER10> They should not call it the "HOV lane" since they allow non high occupancy vehicles (e.g. hybrid car, electric car, motorcycles). My understanding was the HOV lane's purpose is to encourage car pooling (i.e. high occupancy). Allowing single occupant motorcycles and electric cars sort of defeats this purpose.

<comment><USER12> I prefer the name "High Subsidy Lane" for them.

<comment><USER11> Boom. Comment of the month. ^^^

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> and yet it is completely tasteless designwise. what an ugly, ugly car.

tesla is doing it right, the fiat500e is beautiful - why is it so hard to understand that design matters? the new BMW i3 is not exactly beautiful as well.

<comment><USER14> > why is it so hard to understand that design matters?

Maybe Nissan did understand that, which is how we ended up with the Leaf. You spend $32K on a car that's saving polar bears, you want the world to know it. How am I supposed to feel smug if I'm driving something that looks like a Nissan Versa?

Contrast that to the Tesla Model S, which IMO is kind of bland (though I'd still buy one if we didn't have the Leaf). A buddy of mine recently said he hadn't seen a Tesla. In Redmond, WA? I guarantee that he saw at least one or two on his way to work at Microsoft that morning. But if one isn't in to cars much, a Model S isn't really going to stand out.

<comment><USER15> If you want a car that smug people can feel smug about, at least have the courtesy to make it look desirable.

I'm looking at you too, Prius.

<comment><USER16> The ugliness of it is the whole point. You care so much about the environment that you don't even care about silly superficial things like aesthetic design. If it looked desirable then there is a risk that people might assume you bought it for its looks rather than it environmental credentials and your smugness potential takes a serious hit.

<comment><USER17> I would like to volunteer myself to slap the shit out of everyone with this mindset.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is so nice, until you figure out that the electric car has been around since 1880: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car). Now it's trying to claw its way to 0.1% of worldwide car sale - and let's not try to figure out which percentage of total cars used this represents (probably 0.00001%).

I know that after a tipping point adoption just starts snowballing, but that point still looks 10-12 years away (a market share of electric car sales at 10% or better).

</comment><comment><USER19> It's interesting that this model has been unsuccessful in the US, but fits the demand profile perfectly in other wealthy countries.

The American market, as always, is difficult to move.

<comment><USER4> Did you read the article? If so, where did you get 'unsuccessful' from?

 _Nissan LEAF launched in the United States in December 2010. The United States accounts for nearly half of the sales worldwide. The pace of LEAF sales has continued to accelerate. In 2013, Nissan sold 22,610 of the electric vehicles in the United States, more than twice as many as in 2012 and more than 2012 and 2011 Leaf sales combined.

Nissan LEAF traditionally has performed well on the West Coast with notable markets such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle, but now interest has expanded across the country. New hot markets have emerged such as Atlanta, which has been the No. 1 LEAF market for the past five months._

<comment><USER19> Yes I read that. But I seemeded to recall that they anticipated higher sales when they first introduced the LEAF, though I may be mistaken.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Tesla better hurry and bring their lower range car to market

<comment><USER21> Or wait a few more years when Leaf batteries reach their lifetime expiration, and those buyers are back on the market.

<comment><USER22> The car has been on the market, what, 3-4 years? Just how fast do you think the batteries will expire?

<comment><USER21> I think the official estimate is 8 years, give or take 3 depending on average temperatures.

<comment><USER6> > The battery pack is expected to retain 70% to 80% of its capacity after 10 > years

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf#Battery](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf#Battery)

8 years happens to be the length of the warranty on 2011/2012 Leaf batteries. Either way, combined with the optional $100/mo protection plan that gives you a new battery if yours ever loses 30% capacity, I doubt any Leaf buyers will be on the market before 2021 for any reason other than _wanting_ a new car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Sounds good...but they will OT reach their original target of 1.5m EVs per year. It was probably a good statement of intent at the time though.

</comment><comment><USER24> Great > more electrics > less demand for petrol > lower petrol prices for us non-hipsters

<comment><USER25> Haha, you wish; more likely prices will go up because petrol stations complain about not selling as much gas anymore, so they have to raise the prices to compensate.

There is no such thing as decreasing gas prices.

<comment><USER26> So true. then (at least in our country) there's the base federal taxation:

we still are paying the following "una-tantum":

Abissinia war 1935

Suez crysis 1956

Vajont disaster 1963

Firenze floods 1966

Belice Earthquake 1968

Friuli Earthquake 1976

Irpinia Earthquake 1980

Libanon peace mission 1983

Bosnia peace mission 1996

...

+22% VAT

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Wow, I figured there were more than 200,000 RC Cars sold each year. _rimshot_

<comment><USER27> Man, jokes are not well received on HN.

<comment><USER28> The HN audience is really tough -- it requires that jokes _actually be funny_ before reckoning them a net addition to the conversation. Preferably funny and insightful at once, but I've seen things substantially upvoted just for being very witty.

This is a Good Thing because it means HN discussions are less likely to get swamped under an avalanche of cheap jokes. (Cheap jokes are much _easier_ than insight.)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the most successful companies that were rejected from YC? - <AUTHOR>

I've looked around and searched HN for a list, and I know there are a few, but haven't been able to find much. <comment><USER2> Chartboost (Raised 21m from Sequoia Capital, et al.) and SendGrid (Raised 27m from BVP, et al.) are probably the two largest (by valuation) startups which have publicly stated that they were rejected from YC.

There may be others of similar size who haven't publicly disclosed, but it's unlikely there's anyone an order of magnitude larger (pg has stated there hasn't been any YC reject who has reached the $1bn+ valuation mark).

Only eight YC companies have raised more than $20m in investment (dropbox, airbnb, xobni, stripe, loopt, scribd, hipmunk, and optimizly).

LightSail Energy ($48m; Kholsa, et al) was also technically a YC reject but given how far it is outside of "typical" YC companies I'm not sure I'd count it.

</comment><comment> rush-tea good to know. It gives extra motivation that rejection is just part of the game. :)

Thanks for the info</comment>


Restaurants plan DNA-certified premium seafood - <AUTHOR> http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-restaurants-dna-certified-premium-seafood.html

<comment><USER2> The Boston Globe did a piece where they tested the DNA of fish served at local food establisments to determine their species. Nearly half of 183 fish samples collected at restaurants and supermarkets were not the species ordered. <http://www.boston.com/business/specials/fish_testing/></comment>


Weebly's CEO opposes dropshipping - <AUTHOR> https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/weebly-dropshipping-burner-brands.html <comment><USER2> maybe dropshippers should be more creative and start another eCommerce web hosting site.</comment>