Ask HN: How to make money while commuting to work? - <AUTHOR> I am wondering if there are ways of making money while commuting to work. The only idea I can think of is uber/lyft on the way to work. Do you have any other ideas?<p>Edit: a commute of about 2 hours (roundtrip) per day, driving my car. <comment><USER3> A penny saved is a penny earned.

Cycling will save you more money because you don't need a gym subscription and you don't have to pay car registration, parking, fuel, repairs, license fees, accidents or mass transit tickets.

On top of that you can zone out which is healthy and gets you in the mode for thinking (assuming you are programming at work), you don't need to sell your bike when you move cities/continents (staying geographically flexible = massive opportunity for profit), and you don't need an apartment or job with a parking space.

<comment><USER4> I think there's a difference between the drive to work and a commute. A commute means that you're in your car maybe 45 minutes to 2+ hours each way every day. So, biking probably isn't a viable option - especially in areas where it's winter-like temperatures 6-8 months out of the year.

<comment><USER5> It can depend on your location too. If I commute by car, it can take 1 - <USER2> hours. By metro 1 hr but I've had a few times take up to 2 hours. When I go by bike, it's a consistent 1 hr 15 min.

<comment><USER6> I wish the California Bay Area was like that! Here it takes me 30 minutes to drive with traffic, 15 without, 40 to ride bike, 1.5 to 2 hours by public transit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is pretty easy - work on your side project while driving: [https://www.amazon.com/AutoExec-Wheelmate-Steering- Attachabl...](https://www.amazon.com/AutoExec-Wheelmate-Steering-Attachable- Surface/dp/B00E1D1GY6)

Edit: be sure to view Q&A and reviews at bottom before use - very helpful.

<comment><USER8> Please don't use URL shorteners as they obfuscate the destination URL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You could increase your personal value by listening to audiobooks or podcasts to improve your education. There are actually several audio programs from sites like The Great Courses which you can tune to your specific interests.

It's not a direct path to a financial gain, but it does improve your personal value, which should in turn improve your income streams.

<comment><USER10> This is what I do. It's not so much "making money" but just making sure I am utilizing my time correctly. If I'm just sitting in the car waiting to get to work... that's a waste. If I'm listening to a book or podcast, that means I have that time back at the end of the day for more sleep, or whatever.

I used to, in my late 20s, car pool with people to work. We'd flip on a podcast -- every day it was someone's job to pick one out. Then talk about it a bit... made the time go by quickly and we all ended up learning something. Harder to do as careers became more serious... stopped being viable to schedule my arrival and departure times around others.

If you have friends in the same time-zone you can schedule a commute call to catch up and bitch about things. Some of my buddies and I used to have a conference line open at a set hour, anyone who wanted to dial in on their drive in could. Was nice, until everyone started having kids and it was viable to talk openly in the car.

Lastly... just sort of thinking about your goals and things you want to accomplish that day... I tend to do this quite a bit. Got in the habit of using my first 30 minutes at work for day planning / preparation... but always helps to have it all queued up in my head before I write it down in my journal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I negotiated with my company to count my commuting time as work time, since my bus is not crowded and I can always get on my laptop and work with a hotspot. So in a sense you could say I make money while commuting because it counts towards my working hours. I also get part of my afternoon back :)

<comment><USER12> Off topic, but how did you do that? Did you ask after having proven you got work done? Or did you bring it up at the initial interview?

<comment><USER13> I'm not commuting anymore, but when I used to, I would try to get some work done on the train, and if I did, go home earlier without feeling bad about it. We didn't track time at that job.

At my current company I can clock in via VPN and book time on whatever I'd work on, wherever I am. As long as I tell my superior that I won't be at the office, and as long as I don't have any meetings during that time, he's fine with it. I've committed to deadlines already, and if I don't meet them, he's in trouble, but so am I, so he trusts me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The best answer to this is the same answer to the question "How can I make money while I sleep?" Answer that and your commute becomes profitable by default.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unlike sleeping, I think you could leverage a vehicle that goes from point A to point B on a daily basis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Waze Carpool. I'm not sure if it's available worldwide, but in Israel it's working pretty cool and allows you to collect up to 4 passengers on your way to work and back. It also matches you only passengers +- on your route so you don't become a taxi driver (they adapt to the local regulations around this since Carpool is allowed in Israel, but Uber isn't..)

</comment><comment><USER16> You've not said what you do, how long your commute is, what mode of transport you can take or anything, so its difficult to offer specific suggestions.

I'm assuming you're driving, but if you had the option of train you could have that time to sit and work on freelance work on the laptop.

If you had to drive, one option is to indirectly make money by perhaps working on your skills. If you're a coder, download some podcasts or audiobooks about new languages or techniques. Perhaps even study a different subject like soft skills or sales or something that could broaden your value in the marketplace?

</comment><comment><USER17> Ask random people for money saying you don't have enough bus or train fare. Loads of people in the UK are doing this now.

<comment><USER18> So pan handling more or less? Have any sources for this... seems strange that loads of people in the UK have all of the sudden become pan handlers.

<comment><USER7> Loads of people everywhere are pan handlers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Record yourself talking to yourself in the car and make a podcast.

<comment><USER20> Assuming that he/she is driving, that could be a dangerous distraction (even hands-free cell phone usage has been shown to be dangerous).

Besides, if it was me trying to do a podcast: "And that's why you should watch out for that code smell... Oh, that f*cking idiot, use your turn signal jacka$$!!!"

<comment><USER21> You're saying that like it won't make the podcast more interesting

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Read books, invest in yourself. It will pay off long term.

<comment><USER23> Definitely read. Use the commute to unplug from distractions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've heard that the difference between an entrepreneur and a consultant/freelancer/contractor is that an entrepreneur makes money while they sleep and a consultant/freelancer/contractor only makes money while they are working.

The premise of this question seems to be related to that. Not that I'm pitching entrepreneurship so much as reframing the question. Maybe there is a middle ground where the commute time is used for business...phone calls and so forth. And maybe those phone calls are invested in looking for a better paying job or freelance work or something that increases income.

</comment><comment><USER25> Taking calls while driving is pretty effective. If you have a side project you could do sales calls while driving.

</comment><comment><USER26> Sure. The highest ROI you can possibly have is by spending the time thinking. Make sure that you set aside money every month for a seed fund so that once you get an idea, which you eventually will, you can hit the ground running on it.

Once you have the idea for your business, which may take years, the ROI will have been much higher than anything else you could have possibly spent the same time doing. Think.

(If this gets downvoted too heavily, I'll delete it. But it's a genuine comment.)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what I usually do. Though, I was looking for a quick and easy / short term solution to generate some extra $$ while wasting 2 hours driving on the road everyday.

<comment><USER26> how about foreign language lessons, if your mobile phone data plan (for skype) or call plan is good enough to make it worth it, and you have excellent coverage along your whole route. That likely pays more than most other things you could be doing, however it will require a lot of attention. Is your driving pretty monotonous?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Offer to polish peoples' shoes.

</comment><comment><USER28> Learn to knit and make stuff you can sell online.

Or take the long game and work on classes and skills that will get you a higher paying job.

</comment><comment><USER29> I've heard of people audio recording blog posts for transcription later on. There's also a company whose name is failing me (Muse?) that often advertises making money on your commute by doing consultancy phone calls in your profession. Never tried it but you could also attempt to do your own consulting on the phone.

</comment><comment><USER30> One of the trends with vlogging is to record yourself in the car talking about whatever subject you feel like your audience may want to hear about.

If you recorded your thoughts about politics, social issues, current events, etc. on the way to work and published those videos on YouTube, over time (give yourself likely 3-6 months to start making any significant income) you'll develop a subscriber base, your view counts for each video will continue to climb, and you'll be in a position to monetize your YouTube traffic.

You obviously should be very careful about doing any kind of video recording or anything else that might distract you from driving. This may be a better idea if you're taking public transit.

</comment><comment><USER31> I would listen to an audiobook - Your Money or Your Life [https://www.amazon.com/Your-Money-Life-Transforming- Relation...](https://www.amazon.com/Your-Money-Life-Transforming- Relationship/dp/1591797306/ref=tmm_abk_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1494951853&sr=8-1)

And follow it up by reading something like: [https://www.amazon.com/Simple- Path-Wealth-financial-independ...](https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Path-Wealth- financial-independence/dp/1533667926)

</comment><comment><USER32> You're looking for ways to make money while you waste it. Obviously the most lucrative opportunity was further upstream -- one that you missed when you got into an hour-long-automobile-commute, miserably-unsustainable type situation.

Move closer to work, and ideally walk there. Or bike or take transit. (If transit, you can work while you ride.) If housing costs too much to do that, move to a metro area where it's possible. Now you're what maybe $500/month richer? Now sell the car - voila, making money!

</comment><comment><USER33> I see you've already mentioned ridesharing, but my coworker Uber's on his way to and from work and makes about $40 a day. He says it adds about 30 minutes to a 30 minute commute.

</comment><comment><USER34> My strategy is to take public transit and work for my employer on a laptop with a mobile connection. If your time is valuable enough (>$50/hr?), it may even be profitable to pay for a Lyft and work during the ride.

If you have to drive, another strategy is to think about work and plan out your day while you drive, so you're more productive once you arrive at the office.

You can also make hands-free phone calls from the car.

</comment><comment><USER35> Forgive the slightly lazy response and lack of sources but - I remember there was a crowd source delivery service in the UK. Whereby you could bid for the opportunity to deliver something from one place to another.

</comment><comment><USER36> I spent a few years freelancing on a bus with a hot spot to and from my day job.

</comment><comment><USER37> Use public transportation and code in the meantime.

<comment><USER38> I can't imagine this being viable on most public transportation systems.

<comment><USER39> Light rail is the best for this. I have about an hour and 15 minute train ride (on top of commute to the train) each way and it is perfect time for me to work on side projects. That wouldn't work on a bus, especially if you have to make many stops/transfers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Get into finantial trading. You'd just need to check it once or twice if at all, during those two hours.

The rest of the suggestions are fine, but I think you asked for ideas on how to make money, not how to save money. And I don't know of any other way that wouldn't require your full attention.

<comment><USER41> "how to lose money while commuting to work"

<comment><USER40> If you don't know what you're doing, yes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Why do you have a 2 hour car commute each day? Live closer to work, or work closer to home.

This is just a dumb thing to do and the answer to to stop doing it, not optimize it.

</comment><comment><USER43> Paper route

</comment><comment><USER44> sell drugs while commuting.

</comment><comment><USER45> work from home, save 2+ hours per day, build a side project.

</comment><comment><USER46> Start a consulting service, charge people by the hour</comment>


Cheng Lou – On the Spectrum of Abstraction - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVVNJKv9esE <comment><USER2> Very good talk for people who aren't convinced about templates vs react</comment>


Ask HN: How could a tech company function without management? - <AUTHOR> I was wondering if it would be possible for a tech company to function without the 1st layer of management. Could the hiring/firing process be handled externally by a 3rd company? Could software replace status reports and time tracking? Could software also make sure that careers are on track and that employees are moving forward towards their goals? Employees problems could be solved at a Sr. management level.<p>In other words, do we really need that 1st layer of management? <comment><USER2> Programmer Anarchy is a methodology for when Extreme Programming is not extreme enough or Agile is not agile enough or just because it can work. Fred George [1] is probably its most well known proponent. It's not a gimmick or joke.

A presentation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk- CF7klLdA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk-CF7klLdA)

An article: [https://martinjeeblog.com/2012/11/20/what-is-programmer- anar...](https://martinjeeblog.com/2012/11/20/what-is-programmer-anarchy-and- does-it-have-a-future/)

[1]: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/fred- george-5965b5](https://www.linkedin.com/in/fred-george-5965b5)

</comment><comment><USER3> Google tried it, didn't last long [1]. Managers are information hubs - somebody's gotta take in the streams of information from team members, Sr. management, other engineering teams, other departments, customers, random stakeholders, etc. and distill them down, making sure every party has the useful and relevant bits. Without managers everybody has to talk to everybody else ... good luck with that.

[1] [https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-google-sold-its-engineers-on- man...](https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-google-sold-its-engineers-on-management)

</comment><comment><USER4> A 1st layer of management doesn't need to be heavy handed manager types if the employees hired are "managers of one" and can self-direct their work. The "manager of one" wording comes from 37 Signals, read up on how they manage.

Software cannot make sure careers are on track and goals are met. Yes software can track a todo list but career goals are a human activity to coach employees. Imagine someone that is purely working on say mobile apps part of the product set but wants to get some experience on the backend. Thats a conversation since they may not feel comfortable (e.g. an introvert) jumping on backend tasks since that might introduce some conflict with the team. Finding out what motivates a person is a conversation, not a web form.

If you have a small group of people that are self-motivated (aka manager of one) working together on various software projects, what would status reports or time tracking be used for?

</comment><comment><USER5> Thinking about the things that might need to be in place for a company to function without management:

\- Self-organizing and Self-directed employees are often the hardest to find.

\- The HR process, when done correctly, allows individuals to join a group to realize their potential that they may not have elsewhere.

\- The group's goals would have to be somehow set. I recall Clay Shirky's excellent essay on how a group is it's own worst enemy and can't help but wonder how it might play out in an environment like this.

[http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html](http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> The 1st layer of management is a shock absorber between the senior management and the employees. The senior management doesn't want to solve the employees' problems, they want to see some random shit getting done without having to deal with complains of burned out employees, rules of [whatever business you are in] or even with the laws of physics.

</comment><comment><USER7> Doubtful. Hiring and firing decisions require domain specific knowledge and day-to-day knowledge of operations. A the third-party company would have to have someone on-site at all times to gauge the needs of the company.

Software could arguably replace status reports and time-tracking, but a compelling incentive system needs to be put in place to encourage this behavior. It's often my experience that people skimp on administrative duties when left to their own devices, including myself.

"Software" at its current manifestation cannot manage career tracks. Machine learning may change.

Senior management level do not have time to deal with employee problems. They generally are tasked with higher order duties, which generally fill their 40 or so hours.

All evidence suggest that the first layer of management is needed.

</comment><comment><USER8> Presumably if 10 managers got together to form a company they wouldn't hire a manager.

<comment> jon-wood They probably wouldn't hire a manager, but I'd be surprised if they didn't naturally end up with certain people taking responsibility for particular areas. You've now got a director of sales, or a technical lead, in everything but name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> By keeping it really really small. No larger than one person.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think the key thing is your team needs to consist of driven, collaborative people. Otherwise, you need managers to either provide direction or to resolve conflicts. If everyone gets on and knows what they're doing in the team's context, then managers don't have much of a role to play!

</comment><comment><USER11> Maybe look at stable cooperatives like the Mondragon corp.

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

</comment><comment><USER12> Some sort of holocracy?</comment>


Chinese appliances are shipping with malware-distributing WiFi chips - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/apps/chinese-appliances-are-shipping-with-malware-distributing-wifi-chips-1575315/ <comment><USER2> Where's the teardown of one of these devices? I'm not going to believe it until I actually see some evidence of it from a reliable source.

<comment><USER3> Based on what I've heard from friends who've actually reverse-engineered some of these products, there's more of these where they came from, including inside products from even high-profile companies in mainland China.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> isn't this a repost of another (debunked) article that was on HN a few days ago?

<comment><USER5> this one? [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from- elsewhere-24707337](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from- elsewhere-24707337)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you watch television content? - <AUTHOR>

What device and/or software(TV, Mobile, CPU) do you use to watch your shows and what is your source (Cable, TiVO, Hulu, Torrents, iTunes etc)? If you use a computer what software do you use (VLC, Boxee, Plex, etc.)?. I am interested in seeing if HN people mostly still use traditional means or not. Thanks! <comment><AUTHOR> My setup: Device = TV with Computer, Software = Plex and sometimes VLC, Source = Torrents

I bet that this will be the case (unofficial streaming or downloaded content viewed on a computer) for most people outside the US.</comment>


A glove to treat symptoms of stroke – Stanford, Georgia Tech researchers - <AUTHOR> https://news.stanford.edu/2019/04/04/glove-treat-symptoms-stroke/ <comment><AUTHOR> A vibrating glove that could help stroke survivors regain the ability to control their arms and hands.</comment>


End is nigh for Rosetta: Spacecraft will meet its end by crashing into a comet - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/after-brexit-comes-rosexitt-european-scientists-to-end-spacecrafts-life/ <comment><USER2> The press release itself is more informative: [http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rose...](http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_finale_set_for_30_September)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Commands uploaded in the days before will automatically ensure that the transmitter as well as all attitude and orbit control units and instruments are switched off upon impact, to fulfill spacecraft disposal requirements."

Is there a scientific reason for doing this? Keeping the instruments on seems to be a far more logical option, just in case it survives 50cm/s descend.

<comment><USER4> According to [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/2007002...](http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20070021588.pdf)

      In 1995 NASA released the first detailed set of orbital
      debris mitigation guidelines [...] One of NASA's policy
      objectives is to control the amount of orbital debris
      generated by accidental explosions. [...] The NASA safety
      standard goes on to identify typical systems that should
      be passivated, [...] electrical power systems, [...] the
      discharge of all batteries and their disconnection from
      charging circuits

TLDR: Standards written for satellites being left in orbit want to avoid explosions. This means dumping all fuel and compressed gas - and draining and disconnecting any batteries.

Doesn't seem all that relevant in the disposal in question, of course; I can't imagine the standard will make much difference to the amount of debris if the craft is crashing into a comet anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Huh, i heard them say "controlled descent". That is, they would try to land the probe on the surface, rather than slam-crash it intentionally.

With the kind of gravity comets have, crashing might be trickier than landing.

<comment><USER6> Crashing and Landing are the same operation. It's subjective from the _lander 's_ point of view which occurred. Gravity's role in either is identical :p

<comment><USER7> Crashing and landing are about as similar as dying and sleeping.

<comment><USER8> So very alike except in intensity and duration?

<comment><USER9> As far as the individual parts are concerned, it is not at all alike.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What would be badass is if they try to knock Philae out of its perch so that it can be in a better solar position.

<comment><USER11> Hmmm... The orbiter is about 10^3 kg, the comet about 10^13 kg, so 10 billion times heavier. We're gonna need to build up some speed somehow!

<comment><USER12> Philae is the lander, not the comet.

<comment><USER11> I was thinking cosmic billiards... in retrospect I probably shouldn't have posted :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Maybe we'll see a follow-up frame on xkcd's play-by-play:

[https://xkcd.com/1446/](https://xkcd.com/1446/)

This appears to have the full list of frames:

[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1446:_Landing/All_...](http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1446:_Landing/All_pictures)

<comment><USER14> A flipbook of the second link would be great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Badass; that's how I wanna go.

<comment><USER16> Seconded. A one-way trip to another heavenly body sounds great.</comment></comment>


A 10-Way Linux Distribution Battle to Kick Off 2016 - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=10-way-2016&num=1 <comment><USER2> An unnecessarily hard read because of the obnoxious commercialization - it's split across 6 pages, _each of which hits 8-9 external tracking sites_.

</comment><comment><USER3> With all these linux distros in the market now, I doubt that any new distro could have any attraction or any effect without having something exclusive to offer.

</comment><comment><USER4> ...aaaand LinuxBBQ wins by a landsliiiide! The crowd goes wiiiild!</comment>


Oracle is 'taking good care of Java post-Sun' - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/oracle-is-taking-good-care-of-java-post-sun-7000002459/ <comment><USER2> For an article about how wonderful a job that Oracle has done with Java, it seems to have spent most of it's space linking to articles about problems. And to top it all off, I couldn't find the link to the report that made all of these claims of wonderfulness.

Unimpressed. My day job is as a Java programmer, but Oracle has lost my heart and enthusiasm outside of work. I'm learning non-JDK languages wherever possible on my time.</comment>


Professional and Homemade Masks Reduce Exposure to Respiratory Infections (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/?repost=veryyes <comment><USER2> Only in the very rare chance of being very close to someone sneezing or coughing, even then you will probably still get Corona. The real risk is >your hands<. Masks give a false and dangerous sense of security.</comment>


Engineering a Safer World, a book by Nancy Leveson [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://sunnyday.mit.edu/safer-world/safer-world.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a final draft of the book. To be published by MIT Press around fall 2011.

Related papers: <http://sunnyday.mit.edu/safer-world/index.html></comment>


Google search's new basic calculator - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/search?q=calculator

<comment><USER2> Interesting how Microsoft and Google have different ideas of how percentage key (%) should work.

Relevant post by Raymond Chen:

"How does the [Windows] calculator percent key work?"

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2008/01/10/70474...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2008/01/10/7047497.aspx)

Implementing % button, Google chose an approach which is more mathematically sensible but arguably less obvious to users. For Google, 10% _just an alias_ for 0.1. This means that if you want to calculate how much a dress with a price of $299 costs with a 20% discount, type in

      299 + 299 × 20%

Perhaps, this is exactly how _you_ think % should work.

Microsoft, however, chose to make "%" key more user-friendly, perhaps sacrificing some consistency. Windows calculator tries to use the last computed value as "the whole". Therefore,

      299 - 20%

will give you how much a $299 dress costs with 20% discount, and

      299 + 5% - 20%

will help you calculate 5% tax before applying the discount.

Sadly, Google thinks

      500 + 1% = 500.01

which is really not that helpful.

<comment><USER3> I don't get it, if i try 500 + 1% on Google i get 505 <http://sadpanda.us/images/1112074-RA9OURZ.png>

<comment><USER4> You get a different result if you click the buttons versus performing a google search.

<comment><USER5> which I think it is exactly how I would expect it to work: If I ask a question, I expect the system to guess what I really want to know and give me an answer.

But a calculator should work like a calculator.

<comment><USER6> Still a pretty big inconsistency.

500 + 1% typed right in calculator displays "500 + 1% = 500.01" in the calculator.

500 + 1% typed in the search box displays "500 + 1% = 505" _in the calculator too_.

It's probably due to the search result being returned by some server at Google while the other one is computed locally through some client-side JS logic. I think they'll notice and unify the behavior at some point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Link that works for people with non-English Google:

[https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=calculator](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=calculator)

(The link is setting the language to English for just that search.)

<comment><USER8> Thanks, I wonder why they would only enable this for English searches?

<comment><USER9> They always test new stuff on their English sites first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Shameless plug:

I would like you to check out the calculator I built:

<http://herocalc.com>

It's pure Javascript, has a full parser/tree-builder to process equations, allows you to define functions and variables, and is very fast.

It also installs a search handler so you can do calculations from your search bar.

<comment><USER11> So 299+5% and/or 299+(5%) to figure the sales tax does not work at all, it just says "Your equation has an error. Please correct it." and no hint to what the error is.

Sorry, not ready for prime time

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I noticed there is also a new visual interface for unit conversions. e.g. <https://www.google.com/search?q=1kg%20in%20lbs>

<comment><USER13> That is to say there was one earlier. It used to be just result, no interface.

<comment><USER14> That's still an interface (perhaps I'm being a bit too technical).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What a complete load of shit. You have to actually click the numbers, you can't use your computer's keyboard. Google, I am disappoint.

<comment><USER6> You can type your calculation as a google query and you'll get the result. This calculator is designed for people looking for a mouse- / touch-based UI.

<comment><USER15> I'll admit that as I'm using my laptop touch devices didn't occur to me, just tried it on my phone and actually it works really well with touch.

But when on a non-touch device, even if you click on the calculator, focus remains on the search input, that seems like a massive UX failure to me.

<comment><USER16> So given this new information, what percentage of a load of shit would you now say it is?

<comment><USER15> I'd say it's now a 70% load of shit. Also, thanks for the epic comment, it's not often I actually laugh out loud on HN :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting, works for:-

<http://www.google.com/search?q=9/10>

But not:-

<http://www.google.com/search?q=9/11>

Also seems like it could be much smaller, since it's following this increasing trend to devote less and less screen real-estate to search results.

<comment><USER18> My guess is 9/11 was if-ed out; if someone types that into a query, one most likely wants to see results related to WTC attack.

<comment><USER19> They could have generalized that based on result CTR.

<comment><USER20> Not sure what a result CTR is - can you explain (click through rate?)

<comment><USER19> Yes, click-through rate. If an unusually large percentage of users click on a result instead of engaging with the calculator then the calculator probably shouldn't be there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I bet they are doing this to collect _data_ on my favorite _numbers_! Don't bubble my calculations, Google!

</comment><comment><USER22> Pretty cool, but why doesn't pressing equal again repeat the last step? Eg. on any decent calculator if you press:

2, x, 2, =

You get 4.

Press = again, you get 8, and so on.

As insignificant as this may seem, lack of this in a calculator is a complete showstopper problem for me.

</comment><comment><USER23> would be nice if you could use the keyboard

</comment><comment><USER24> I couldn't help but wonder how much traffic is lost by online-calculator.com, the first search result...

</comment><comment><USER25> Unfortunately if you use google without javascript this is a pain as it does not fall back to the inline calculator.

If anyone knows or figures out a url option to make it do the old inline math, please let me know ?

</comment><comment><USER26> Your submission seems to be doing better than mine from earlier in the week <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4295093>

</comment><comment><USER27> There's also graphical calculator, or is that not a new thing? I don't remember seeing it before. For example: <http://goo.gl/uSSWW>

</comment><comment><USER28> % is percentage, not mod (with our without signs). Damn normals!

</comment><comment><USER29> That's pretty cool. The only thing I'd change is to make it clearer that the top left button switches between rad and deg.

</comment><comment><USER30> the often forgotten unix, linux command line calculators I use all the time.

bc -l

or for those who like rpn

dc

<comment><USER31> I just fire up irb these days

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Bah, humbug! If it's not RPN, it's crap! :)

</comment><comment><USER33> Also cool: In Chrome, type "0xff in decimal" in the address bar.

"=255" appears as one of the suggested searches.

<comment><USER34> This happens for basic calculation really, for which Google spits out an answer. And since it's a feature of Google Suggest, it also works in Firefox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> And then, there are _units_ and _bc_.

</comment><comment><USER36> 9^9^9 = Infinity and 9^9^9^9 gives Error :)

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm holding my breath for "stopwatch".

</comment><comment><USER38> Meanwhile, Bing still doesn't do rate calculations that have worked at Google for years, like:

      1GB / 1 hour
      500km / 1.5 hours in mph

</comment><comment><USER39> where?

<comment><USER40> I don't get it either. Maybe only US IPs?

<comment><USER41> It's working for me from the UK. I can't imagine why Google would want to geolocate this. Perhaps they've only partially rolled it out to some of their datacenters?

<comment><USER42> As you say was probably a rollout lag. Working here in UK now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> google is not just a search engine</comment>


Ask HN: Why are video courses and MOOCs so famous - <AUTHOR> I see that most of the well known courses/MOOCs  (Udacity, Coursera, Skillshare, Pluralsight) online are all video based. Why is this so? Why have text based tutorials and courses fallen out of favour? With video, you cannot go back and forth as easily, you cannot concentrate on what you want and is generally slower than using text bases tutorials/classes.<p>Why have they increased in popularity inspite of above reasons? <comment><USER2> +1. Apparently smaller population do well with text based tutorials, while a larger population needs video based MOOCs to get along with the learning. Pretty much the same reason why schools are still necessary, and self-taught remains a minority in our society.

It's not something falling out of favour with some substitute getting into fashion. It's the inclusion of a larger population into online learning industry. When a majority of the society are compared to the smaller populations that do away with text based learning, you may notice:

      (1) Reading disability.
      (2) Shortened attention span, especially in mobile age.
      (3) Weaker ability to concentrate on material unless being talked to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great comment. Thanks! I agree with all the associated problems.</comment></comment>


How I Would Learn to Code Now - <AUTHOR> http://apexglow.com/post/42505125069/5-ways-how-i-would-learn-to-code-now

<comment><USER2> While I agree that the best way to learn coding is to just get on with it, I'm can't agree about "Forget Books". It is true that there are some terrible books on software (possibly where the need to publish first is the prime objective), there are some amazingly detailed and informative books that provide in one place the content that you'd need to trawl through a thousand blogs to uncover.</comment>


The World's First Laptop for Dogs - <AUTHOR> http://us.toshiba.com/petbook/

<comment><USER3> This seems to be an April fools joke from 2009: [http://www.slashgear.com/toshiba-petbook-k9-provides-pups- wi...](http://www.slashgear.com/toshiba-petbook-k9-provides-pups-with-mobile- computing-0139795/)

</comment><comment><USER4> not even remotely funny :/

some companies have really bad consultants /agencies working for them.

<comment> why-el It was an April's fool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's some wicked marketing right there, guaranteed social sharing - <USER2> they should have made it for cats. However, it feels a bit half-assed as I feel they didn't go far enough with the joke.

<comment><USER6> That's ridiculous. What cat needs a laptop? They can already sleep on yours.</comment></comment>


Fake iPhone 5 : Trick your friends into thinking you have the new iPhone 5. - <AUTHOR> http://techcookies.net/fake-iphone-5-trick-your-friends-into-thinking-you-have-the-new-iphone-5/

<comment><USER2> If you think this is a worthwhile thing to do please reevaluate your whole life.

</comment><comment><USER3> Trick your friends into thinking you have the new (10 month old) iPhone 5.</comment>


Allan Odgaard's Latest Comments on TextMate 2 - <AUTHOR> http://old.nabble.com/TM2-to28405435.html#a28707277 <comment><USER2> I think his best option is to sell TM2, but "Pay me what you think TM2 is worth."

This way, he sticks to the letter of the free upgrade promise - one _can_ get it for free - yet benefits from what seems to be a very profitable way to price a product, especially a highly anticipated one towards which there is much goodwill.

<comment><USER3> That's an excellent idea. As a devoted 1.0 user I really wouldn't feel comfortable taking 2.0 for free.

<comment><USER4> As a person who paid money I earned for a good product, including the promise of a free upgrade to 2.0 whenever it came out - I would not share your feelings on the matter.

(This does not mean I have any expectations as to when 2.0 is coming out, or what 2.0 means, or anything like that... I love Textmate, and have purchased several licenses.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The man is burned out and has given up though he doesn't realize it. The best thing he could do at this point is to team up with some extra hackers, promise a revenue share, and let _them_ get something out the door in 6 months while he recuperates in time to start fixing bugs after launch. I don't normally like revenue shares but it's quite clear that TextMate 2 would make some decent coin.

<comment><USER6> Unless you have some kind of insider knowledge, I don't think we should jump to the conclusion that Allan is burnt out and has given up. Not just because the accusation is unfounded, but because Allan is likely to read it and these messages can be really depressing. Depressing because you know you've not met your own deadlines and frustrating because you can't do anything about it.

I completely believe Allan when he makes the "house without windows" analogy because this matches my own experience. As he said: don't ask for feedback when you already know what has to be done. For a version 0.1 you want feedback because you don't know which features are considered most important and you want to get hype going, etc. For a version 2.0 this doesn't work, because the ONLY FEEDBACK you're going to get is the whiny "but why doesn't it do X yet?" and "I wish you'd add feature Y", or "This icon is misaligned" or "There's a typo in this menu bar". The users mean well, but you know about all these flaws already because they're staring you in the face EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Releasing a complete rewrite is very difficult and takes a lot of stamina. As long as Allan is making progress every day (and I have no reason to question this) he'll get there eventually.

Getting "some kind of version" out there in 6 months would be a terrible mistake.

<comment><USER7> Allan's words:

\- "my motivation and optimism is anything but constant"

\- "which will make me think it is all hopeless"

\- "these will just be a reflection of my mood that day, which is anything but constant"

Allan may or may not be burned out. It isn't an unfounded observation, though. His comments sound a lot like burnout to me.

<comment><USER8> He is burnt out. I passed through these phases too many times not to recognize the sign.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the main draws of TextMate for me is that it is a light weight native Mac OS X application that can be used to edit everything quickly, has excellent syntax / plugin support to make it a joy to do any type of editing in that really no other text editor I have used seems to be able to replicate as well (lots of plugins for Vim and Emacs, but none seem to provide the same polished and quick feel).

What I fear is that if 2.0 ever did reach a releasable state it will no longer be a light weight application I would use to edit everything from plain text configuration files, code, or a simple todo list. It won't have that same light weight do everything feel to it that the current version has. It will feel like a Visual Studio or Emacs. Which are good for their main purposes, but would you use them to edit a fairly small and simple configuration file?

TextMate, in my opinion is still by far and away the best modern day text editor available on any platform. I do like vim, but being a native Mac OS X application, TextMate wins out the majority of time (just drag a file onto the dock icon or typing mate . when in the terminal). It's visually pleasing and fast to open, browse, navigate and move around in.

The only features I really would like to see added is split panes/windows and full screen mode. Nothing is more awesome than MacVim with full screen mode and 4-8 split panes (on a single 2560x1440 monitor).

<comment><USER10> Sorry that I could only up-vote your comment by one point. You have it _exactly right_ : TextMate is light weight, starts instantly (but don't open directory trees with huge data files) and is handy to have. It nicely complements work flow with Emacs and IntelliJ.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Joel Spolky wrote a popular essay on why you should never do The Big Rewrite. I mostly agree with it but it's not always clear cut (Mozilla - his example in the essay - eventually got re-written as the most popular browser in use today)

It's a difficult decision to make, the choice between improving an existing code base that has grown warts against the temptation of starting fresh and fixing what went wrong the first time, under the guise of learning from past mistakes.

I guess the lesson is: Don't try to rewrite your codebase from scratch unless you understand that you will spend an order of magnitude more time on the rewrite, even factoring in the experiences you have gained from doing it once.

<comment><USER12> From scratch? Like, rewrite all your libraries and nifty little UI tricks? Of course not.

But sometimes ripping out the plumbing and throwing the bigger pieces back together works wonderfully.

I guess that's called refactoring, though. :)

The point I'm getting at is, who does The Big Rewrite? I can't ever see myself wanting to rewrite sections of code that are working perfectly fine Just Because.

How much of The Big Rewrite was Mozilla? Did they literally rewrite everything? I can't imagine so. I bet they kept a LOT of code. It was probably more along the lines of a rather daunting refactor.

I'm just wondering what "starting fresh" means. For me, it normally means fixing architectural decisions that have become a huge pain in the but I'm keeping a LOT of the code base.

<comment><USER13> Refactoring, as talked about in Martin Fowler's book and by people who've done academic work on the subject, consists of changes that alter the structure of code while preserving functionality.

In many environments, specific refactorings are pre-packaged, such that they know their preconditions for working properly, and work with almost mathematical precision. In these sorts of environments, with additional support like Unit Tests, you gradually morph from one structuring of the system into another. This can be a lot safer than "ripping out the plumbing and throwing the bigger pieces back together." (I've also done the rip/reassemble thing. It's often fun and yields good results too.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have never used TM in my life but I found Allan's comment is very interesting in terms of a life of a software product written by one person at his own will.

A few points:

\- His experience sounds like "Second System" syndrome.

\- One-man show is quite risky psychology-wise unless you can motivate yourself endlessly

\- Perhaps it's time to hire another developers and move on to a more leadership role. Coding might be fun, but the risk of getting burn out is high; one way to prevent this is to do non-coding tasks for a while and once you miss your ol' coding lifestyle perhaps that's a good time to scratch your own itch again with hobby project. Who knows, it might become your second product, expand your portfolio.

</comment><comment><USER15> For the Emacs-heads out there, I would give Aquamacs a try if you haven't. I bought TextMate and tried using it for two months, until I realized that I never managed to get indenting to work exactly the way I liked (the Emacs way), and I really like having a single file (buffer) open in several windows, and integrated remote file editing. I guess I'll still be using Emacs when I'm 70.. Not sure on which platform, though. :)

<comment><USER16> I switched to Emacs so I could use the same editor on Linux and OS X. I made the switch wholesale and used TM only to look at diffs or browse a project quickly (Emacs need something like the project drawer, and speedbar isn't the answer).

I forgot about all the nice things I liked about TM. defunkt's textmate.el gets you part of the way there but isn't enough. I've had to implement lots of small things and discover features I didn't know about Emacs (global-auto- revert-mode). Right now I'm working on selecting an enclosed region (ie. find the innermost text surrounded by a pair of quotes or parens/braces/brackets and select it), which is Cmd-Shift-B in TM.

A friend and co-worker uses TM and the little niceties have tempted me to switch back since I mainly use OS X these days, however I'm simply better off with Emacs. TM is great but unfortunately while TM2 is in the works TM users are left out in the cold. There aren't many things Emacs doesn't already do due to its nature (open source and tradition of sharing code) and the things it doesn't do I can write myself. So I can bring Emacs up to speed with TM but not the other way around. Open source is a giant win for developer tools.

I don't want to bash TM or disrespect all the hard work Allan has put and is putting into TM. TM has influenced just about every modern text editor on many platforms and we are all better off because of TM even if we never used it. But if you're not happy with TM there are viable alternatives.

We all know the drawbacks to systems with a SPOF and it's not a good trade-off for a development tool as critical as your text editor. Sorry Allan, I truly am, but as TM2 takes longer and longer it gives people a big reason to migrate to another editor. Once switched, it's going to be a tough sell to get people to switch back without any guarantee that such a thing will never happen again. Especially if they switch to an infinitely customizable editor such as vim or Emacs where it's possible to mimic TM's best features, even if it's not as easy as in TM.

If any TM users do try Emacs get github.com/defunkt/textmate.el and have a look at github.com/samsonjs/config/tree/master/emacs for TM-refugee goodies.

<comment><USER16> (too late to edit, the correct link to my emacs config is <http://github.com/samsonjs/config/blob/master/emacs> )

<comment><USER17> It redirects. ;)

<comment><USER16> So it does! Oh well the 2nd link is clickable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> To be honest, all I want updated in TextMate is the interface, I could care less about how well "abstracted" the code is on the back end. I would also be happy to pay for 2.0 even after the free promise and I think that's true for 90% of TextMate users.

<comment><USER7> Yes. He should drop the "free 2.0" promise. Free 2.0 versions are often used when 2.0 drops soon after 1.0, so that people feel like they get their money's worth. TextMate users have by and large gotten plenty of time for their 1.0 investment to pay off.

<comment><USER19> Well, there's a slight unfortunate thing that I, and many other people, bought TextMate 1.0 with a promise in writing that TextMate 2.0 would be free to us when it shipped. I'm really sorry that Alan didn't think things through well enough to realize that doing that was a poor idea, but I paid for what I paid for. It's illegal and immoral to change the rules after you've closed the deal.

EDIT: I'll add that I don't think that this is a greedy proposition. While I know a lot of people are truly thrilled with TextMate, I wasn't. I didn't ask for a refund, because I understand what it's like to be an indy developer, and thought I'd gamble that Alan would ship the features I'd need to switch to TextMate over Emacs when the 2.0 release got out the door. That gamble didn't pay out, which I'm okay with; 2.0 never shipped, and I'm not mad that 1.0 failed to materialize with the features I needed. But I also don't think it's fair to say I shouldn't get the 2.0 release, when I almost certainly would have asked for a refund based purely on the 1.0 release. I doubt I'm the only one in this boat--especially given how many blog posts I've seen over the last several years as developers, frustrated with TextMate's lack of progress, have reverted to Vim/Emacs/BBEdit/what-have-you to get the pet features they want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't get why everyone is so up in arms about this. Did text change in some fundamental way over the past three years, thus rendering all the glowing reviews I have read of TM1 void? Or is it just our irrational obsession with newer and shinier things?

<comment><USER21> There are some issues with Textmate. One of the most glaring and commonly cited is the absence of split windows.

What's really unfortunate is that the handful of features that the majority of people are really itching for don't require the kind of Big Rewrite/second- system effect that's currently going on. It's frustrating.

<comment><USER22> Indeed, if split windows, full screen, and a few nitpicks over how the project window is refreshed, etc were addressed, a lot of people would be content to wait until judgement day for TM2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _So… 2.0 could go alpha but would go through same mocking and ridicule that 1.0 went through..._

There's nothing bad about ridicule. A product built under gaze of a select few is destined to be far removed from the needs of its users. TextMate was not born good, it improved _because_ it was ridiculed.

<comment><USER24> It's hard for a solo developer, especially one who's invested this much time, to take such a pragmatic view of ridicule. If Allan anticipates that early criticism is going to impact his motivation, then he's doing the wise thing by resisting the urge to "show a fool half a job".

<comment><USER25> I'd rather be ridiculed for what I've done than what I've promised to do, but refused to share.

That said, I'm no longer an interested party. I stopped using TM over a year ago after at least a year of using it and seeing where it was going.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> _there tend to be some stumbling block, something I estimated to just a day's work (or didn't consider at all) end up taking the two full months_

Yup. Probably my least favorite part about writing software. And "project management" types still expect time estimates. :)

</comment><comment><USER27> This post reads like full-blown second-system effect.

</comment><comment><USER28> What "letter from Aaron Swartz" is he talking about?

<comment><USER29> I posted it here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1034958>

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Honestly, my one wish is for split views. With that, I would be perfectly content to use TM1.5 for the foreseeable future with absolutely no complaints.

</comment><comment><USER31> I wish he'd hire someone to get 1.x working on platforms other than osx :)

Also I was not aware that Textmate was the product of a single developer. (is it?) It's actually pretty motivating to consider!

<comment><USER32> <http://www.sublimetext.com/> is a good editor for windows, though I think it differs from textmate in a few areas which I think is developed by one person as well

<comment><AUTHOR> Good suggestion for Windows. One key feature for Sublime Text is the minimap and for those wanting that in TM, Julian Eberius developed a TM plugin - <http://julianeberius.github.com/Textmate-Minimap/>

<comment><USER33> The minimap plugin is cool looking, but it totally chokes on large files and I never really used it anyway. It also kind of bugs me that it's in a drawer instead of a pane (which is why I use Missing Drawer for the project pane <http://code.google.com/p/textmate-missingdrawer/> )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> If he'd be more likely to release TM2 in the next year or two, I'd be perfectly happy to pay $250-500 for a 5-pack for my machines, vs. "free upgrade" -- $50 for something you basically live in is not a big deal at all.. I'm pretty happy with TM1 though.

</comment><comment><USER35> The wait for TM2 would be less frustrating if some of the glaring problems, like unthreaded project-wide search, would be addressed in the TM 1.x branch. Thats really my only gripe with TextMate at this point, that and a few annoyances with the way that the project drawer works.

Shipping is probably one of the hardest parts of software development. I hope Allan can get through it and understand that people are going to be critical of TM2 only because they love TM so much and want it to be awesome.

<comment><USER36>
      > glaring problems, like unthreaded project-wide search

For me, the "Ack in Project" bundle provided very-welcome relief from TextMate's search woes. Its successor project is called AckMate. TextMate users in need of a better project-wide search feature could do a lot worse. YMMV.

<http://wiki.github.com/protocool/AckMate/usage>

<comment><USER35> I've used this bundle, but had some problems (it would skip certain files). On top of that, it just doesn't feel the same as the Cmd F UI in TM. I'd call the ack bundle a nice work-around, but I wonder why stuff like this isn't incorporated into the core of TM.

I've seen a few threads now about how an "Updated UI" would be a welcome improvement from the 1.x branch; I'd agree with that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Poor guy, sounds like he's between a rock and a hard place. Release a 2.0 version for free that wont be well received by everyone (long time between releases = everyone assuming their pet feature will be included), or break a promise and do it paid and still have people mad at you. With little financial incentive and the spectre of angry, disappointed users no matter what he does, it's little wonder he's struggling for motivation.

</comment><comment><USER38> I love TextMate and use it daily. But there are many features I am still missing. I am sad there were no updates for such a long time.

I really wish there would be some competition to heat things up. I am not talking about emacs or vi, but another great visual editor for OS X. Maybe Open Source... or maybe a startup could do this. There should be quite some money to be earned.

Or is there something comparable to TextMate that I don't know about?

<comment><USER22> Some rubyists are trying with red car <http://redcareditor.com/> but it's still quite a ways off from being usable.

Sublime Text (www.sublimetext.com) could theoretically be ported over to Linux and Windows as it's GUI is all OpenGL and C interfacing with python. The author's original intent was that it be portable between platforms, but he seems to have pushed that idea to the side. He's no longer working on it full- time either. Which is a shame because it's quite good and comparable to TextMate in many ways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What is wrong with TextMate? Why the big deal about a version 2?

TextMate is an extensible platform like Emacs, and so it is constantly evolving thanks to people's generosity in writing and giving away plugins.

I do a lot of Lisp work in Emacs but often keep TextMate open in parallel. Neat tool, and worth the money. If the author never brings out version 2, that is his call.

</comment><comment><USER39> Do we really even need TextMate 2? 1.5 is certainly good enough for most users. I think that's what is bothering this guy, and why he's spending time on things like "abstracted" code.

<comment><USER40> Spot on. Textmate 1.5 was good enough for so many people to switch to it from powerful editors like Vim and Emacs. It is a pretty difficult task to come up with an improvement that in the minds of many would be better than Vim, Emacs and Textmate 1.5 and that too all by himself!!

</comment></comment><comment> ryan-allen I think he's free to do what he wants. He doesn't owe anybody anything. It's an open market, too, so if anyone cares to step in and make the next best thing nobody is stopping them.

I'd go as far to say that he has every right to charge for TM2 when it comes out, even if he promised it would be a free upgrade.

EDIT: even though I've stopped using it, I use vim now :)

</comment><comment><USER41> Apple should buy Textmate

<comment><USER42> The dead branch that Allan doesn't even want to look at, or the new one that's not good enough for alpha yet?

XCode's editor is OK, and replacing it with TM may take more effort than adding few features it's missing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> He should port Textmate to Windows...he would make a damn killing from people like me who code on Windows and don't like full IDE's

<comment><USER17> There's already E Text Editor, which has Allan Odgaard's approval:

<http://e-texteditor.com/blog/2006/textmate_on_windows>

<comment><USER43> come on now, we all know cygwin sucks :)</comment></comment></comment>


Mobile development with HTML5 - <AUTHOR> http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2011/mobile-development-with-html5/ <comment><USER2> Real-world web-app development is much different than the ideal of HTML5.

jQuery? Just including that puts your mobile web-app at 86KB of JavaScript and you haven't even written a single line of your app's code. Rendering on the client-side with jQuery templates is not anywhere near practical for the majority of web-enabled phones – if not all of them except the iPhone. More than 100-150KB of JS and most phones will enter sluggish territory.

Something you'll notice reading about HTML5 is most books and online articles are written by people who have never built or released web-app to be run on phones less powerful than an iPhone 4. They picked up an HTML5 book and regurgitated everything and every new nifty feature into their own words and examples.

My advice?

Don't use jQuery or any framework. Use native JS and only the functions you need, don't use CSS3, keep the DOM structure as simple as possible, and test from day one. My entire web-app's JS is 60KB minified, because I don't rely on framework's like jQuery (86KB) or Sencha Touch (250KB). These sizes don't matter on a desktop computer, but on an HTC from last year running Android 2.3, size greatly affects performance.

<comment><USER3> I agree that it is important that you keep your application small. However, using the application cache like the author suggests means that you will never have to download the specified content, like jQuery, again. Additionally, since you have 5MB of storage, I really don't think the _31KB_ of jQuery really matters.

I agree that client-side rendering is not optimal, but for different reasons. This isn't 2006 anymore, phones are more powerful now. Unless I absolutely have to, I'm not going to care about your Nokia from back in the Stone Age. My problem with client-side rendering is that it chokes on large data-sets. You also have to pay the penalty to download the dynamic content _after_ you download the static content, but this can be mitigated by only updating the content, rather than using AJAX to load it all to begin with. That also kills the author's use of the plug-in that stores AJAX data locally, but that's a separate issue.

My advice: Use jQuery, jQuery Mobile, and AppCache. When combined, jQuery and jQuery Mobile (including CSS) take up 58KB of space. Oh, and since you're storing it all locally from now on, there's no need to cry about the time (less than 1s on 3g) it takes to download all those fancy JS files.

<comment><USER2> I'm not talking about download times, I'm talking about execution time. Size affects execution performance, whether it is cached or not.

This is because almost invariably the larger the JS is, the more code you're likely executing.

<comment><USER4> This is exactly why I run my text editors in Windows 95 still. There is far less code than current versions of windows and I find a huge performance hit when using these newer versions.

<comment><USER5> HN isn't the place for novelty accounts

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice overview.

One note of caution: Rendering on the client side using jQuery Templates as the author suggests is great for small amounts of content, but even a list with 40 items will nearly freeze the UI while its rendered. I've experienced this on both iPhone and Android.

Also, using a cache manifest will cache your AJAX/JSONP calls. Either explicitly list these URLs in the network section of your manifest or add a timestamp to each request so its unique.

<comment><USER7> Was this a straight HTML list or were you using a jQueryMobile listview to pretty it up? When we've used templates to render a list (using either underscore or ejs) it was taking 10-20ms to generate the initial HTML but around 10-15x as long to call listview on it.

<comment><USER6> I was using jQuery Mobile. The listview framework is a big part of the performance problem.

Needless to say, the best advice I would give (that others have said here as well) is to avoid frameworks like jQuery Mobile. There many other reasons too...not least of which is that jQuery Mobile doesn't work on T-Mobile or O2 in the UK and parts of Europe. It appears these networks intercept all traffic and try to minify the JS and CSS before they deliver it to the phone. There is some part of jQuery Mobile that they choke on and the page doesn't render correctly. I've tested extensively using Perfecto Mobile and even the jQuery Docs & Demo pages don't work right (so I know its not just me).

<comment><USER7> Thanks for this info. I wasn't aware of potential carrier-specific issues so I'll make sure we take this in to account while testing. Have you raised this with the networks? I guess there's a chance that it could also affect non-jqm powered code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I recently visited a site from HN on my phone, but its text was a bit too small for me to read, so I tried zooming in. To my surprise, it didn't zoom at all! From this article, the website must have set user-scalable=no.

I don't really see the point of this option. The website can (presumably) scale to many different devices already, surely it can then scale with zooming as well. I'd think you could use percentages to create any kind of 'static' ui, if you really wished to do so.

<comment><USER9> Setting user-scalable=no makes me RAGE at the developer, and then generally close the site.

<comment><USER10> Shouldn't you rage at your browser for respecting the flag?

<comment><USER9> That's a constant low level burning though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "user-scalable=no".

Is this really the way forward? Why the assumption that the only reason I might zoom in is 'accidental'?

Also I am uneasy about populating all content via JSON but I can't put my finger on the precise technical reasons (but then neither could Gawker wrt desktop browsers so they went ahead with it anyway)

</comment><comment><USER12> I use the HTML5 app cache. I have tens of millions of users on this in- production product. I only really feel safe doing this because I have a custom web browser, and as I only target jailbroken devices I can hack at WebKit a little to make this work.

When I started using it, it seemed awesome. Then I played with it a little, and it started failing. Given that I have friends who actually give talks at conferences on the HTML5 application cache and how cool it was, this didn't make any sense: I believed I must be doing it wrong.

Then, one day, I decided to read the source code for WebKit's implementation of the HTML5 application cache, and found it to have tons of race conditions that would lead to whole-browser crash conditions (which I was even experiencing in my app). I even found a bug on the bug tracker with my most- occurred bug on it.

<https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43506>

Only, that bug had been filed only months before, and this feature of WebKit had been "in production", with these bugs, for a couple years. My only guess is that no one really uses this feature very often.

Reading into the bug tracker some (to find more bugs), staring at the commit messages for the previous year, and even reading some of the posts on the mailing list, I found choice quotes from the people maintaining it that explained that no one knew how this code works, and that the one guy who did forgot.

In iOS 4.3 (I believe it was only 4.3, not 4.2, but I'd sort of believe 4.2, /maybe/ even 4.1), the crash bugs have been "fixed" (or I'd have given them to comex to maybe build another jailbreakme.com), but the race conditions remain: the code doesn't actually /work/, it just sort of doesn't fail.

Specifically, the issue is that the application cache loader for a page is tied to a specific frame: the one that started loading the cache. If that frame is freed, such as by the simple act of the user hitting the reload button, while the download is occurring, the entire thing gets wedged, and you can no longer get any parts of your page cached, nor can you recover or fix the process without the user totally closing the web browser and reopening it.

In practice, this actually happens constantly: if the user has a reasonably slow connection, and things are taking a while in the background to cache, they will hit reload. This deletes the old frame, but associates a new frame with the same cache builder. When the current download stops, the frame it was using is gone, and it ends up in this horrible wedge state.

Ok, I no longer even remember why I'm bothering to type this here (does anyone care? does anyone actually intend to try to use this feature? ;P), but I also no longer seem to have anything more to say, so I'm going to click "add comment" ;P.

<comment><USER13> > does anyone care? does anyone actually intend to try to use this feature? ;P

Yes, that's a very interesting (if disheartening) exposé on the risks of trying to use the application cache.

<comment><USER14> Agreed, this is the type of specific, practical content that is so hard to find.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In addition to powering full blown web apps, web technologies can also be used from within web views to create hybrid native/web apps.

I have a post on idevblogaday.com today on calling Objective-C from JavaScript, calling JavaScript from Objective-C, and logging to the Xcode console from JavaScript.</comment>


Seven Languages in Seven Weeks - <AUTHOR> http://rapidred.com/blog/seven_languages <comment><USER2> Summary books like this are great as long as you know you're not an expert by the time you finish them. The goal is to let you know what you don't know, and to help you recognize a problem that would be easily solved by one of these languages (which would then spur deeper learning of the language).

Reminds me of one of my favorite books ever, Gershenfeld's "The Nature of Mathematical Modeling".

[http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Mathematical-Modeling-Neil- Gers...](http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Mathematical-Modeling-Neil- Gershenfeld/dp/0521570956)

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like an interesting concept. I just hope that the author does not treat each of the seven languages as its own entity. That is, I want a comparative description over the different languages.

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://norvig.com/21-days.html>

<comment><USER5> Posting that link in reply to this submission may indicate a possible misunderstanding about the point of this book.

<comment><USER6> I think the implied criticism is valid. This book is the "Reader's Digest" version of learning seven languages and four programming paradigms. You won't learn a new programming paradigm in a week.

<comment><USER7> But you may learn what's out there. Not all learning has to be in-depth learning. Getting an overview of a field is important too. Reading Hacker News won't teach you anything in-depth either but you choose to do it for the same reason.

<comment><USER8> i concur. there is room on the shelf for a "survey course" of paradigms

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you are interested in surveys of paradigms and older languages (1998), there is the 4 volume "Handbook of Programming Languages" edited by Peter Salus - they are cheap used from Amazon.

Volume One Object-Oriented Programming Languages : Smalltalk, C++, Eiffel, Ada 95, Modula-3, Java

Volume Two Imperative Programming Languages : Fortran, C, Pascal, Icon

Volume Three Little Tools and Languages : EQN, Domain Specific Languages, awk, sed, SQL, Tcl and Tk, Perl, Python, Music languages

Volume Four Functional and Logic Programming Languages : Lisp, Scheme, Guile, Prolog

<comment><USER10> There's also CTM (_Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming_, <http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/book.html>) by Van Roy and Haridi. It focuses on programming paradigms rather than languages, but covers several along the way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love that you are supportive of random languages! I feel bad for you because you will never find a job working in any of those languages.

Kidding, 1/100 jobs will be working with one of these languages.

Let's discuss why

<comment><USER12> But there's a high correlation between companies which trust their programmers to use the right tool for the job and companies which "get it" ( _it_ being how to develop and maintain technology).

Will that eliminate 99/100 companies? Probably not that many but it will eliminate a lot, and you should be glad.

After my first job, I learned to always ask what a company is doing for source and configuration control. If they have no answer or a bad one (Visual Source Safe), that will tell you a lot about the environment.

Same thing if it's an MS shop that refuses F# or a java shop which refuses Clojure a priori.

<comment><USER13> "Getting it" may be right for us (developers) but wrong for the company. A florist that needs order tracking isn't trying to change the software world. That persuasive guy thats insists SmallTalk is gods gift to florists is NOT doing them a favor.

<comment><USER14> Perhaps not, but writing it in Java isn't exactly doing them a favor either as it increases time and cost for development and changes. The Right Thing for such a situation is probably a compromise between language power and popularity. Ruby or Python with one of the popular frameworks that makes half the decisions for you would probably be a good choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Although title makes me skeptical (why 7 languages? why 7 weeks?), this sounds interesting since I don't know those languages. I hope it does more then repackage what I could otherwise easily find.

</comment><comment><USER16> i don't understand why people think it's impossible to grok languages on first glance. even if that were the case, having more languages under your belt (especially non-similar languages) makes the next languages you learn that much easier

<comment><USER13> I remember (way) back when going from C to C++. It took 8 weeks of sweat, deleting code (Bad Joe! Not OO!) and rethinking it, before my brain switched enough synapses and I was in the groove. And 10,000 hours of object-oriented design practice to be able to say constructive things about others' designs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why Python is not there in the list?

<comment><USER18> because it overlaps almost completely with ruby. And Io, probably.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Question - I've got more of a business background than a technical background. I can do basic html and I've played around in Linux a tiny little bit, but that's pretty much it.

Anyone have any recommendations for getting more familiar with programming in a fun, laid back way? Nothing specific I want to do with it, just think it'd be a neat thing to spend some hours in. All recommendations appreciated greatly.

<comment><USER20> I would recommend R (<http://www.r-project.org>) since you mentioned your business background. R's strength is in statistics and _might_ prove useful. As for a learning resource, Quick-R (<http://www.statmethods.net>) was an excellent guide for me.

I feel bad saying this, but also try learning Visual Basic for Applications with Excel.

<comment><USER21> _I feel bad saying this, but also try learning Visual Basic for Applications with Excel._

This is actually a great suggestion for anyone who works with Excel a lot. Knowing VBA (VB for Apps) can save you (or your assistant) hours of repetitive work. Here's a good way to learn:

1\. Notice some annoying task that you do regularly in Excel (e.g., importing a data file, preforming a calculation on a data set, or laying out data in a visually pleasing way).

2\. Find the _Record Macro_ command, then do the task again.

3\. Excel automatically creates source code for the macro. You can open up VBA from some Excel menu; that will show you the code.

4\. Edit the code to do what you _really_ want. Often the generated code isn't perfect, or there are other features that you'd like.

I will warn you though - VBA is kind of a horrible, poorly documented language. It's not unusable, though - you just don't want to use it for large projects.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Have PG's comments ever been downmodded to negative? - <AUTHOR>

In my year and a half being here, I can never recall seeing that.
If not, why not? Fear ? Reverence? Love ?
If so, pics or it didn't happen ;) <comment><USER2> [http://searchyc.com/user/pg?only=comments&sort=by_points...](http://searchyc.com/user/pg?only=comments&sort=by_points_r)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's not uncommon, I've seen it more than once. Usually he gets upvoted back into the black though.</comment>


Show HN: Crudcast – Create and Deploy a RESTful API with a Few Lines of YAML - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chris104957/crudcast <comment><USER2> Looks really interesting, but I'll never touch it (unless forced to) due to Crudcast's dependence on MongoDB. Having already had MongoDB corrupt itself multiple times (testing the integrity of my backups), I want nothing to do with it for anything I have to support for external customers.

Its one thing to lose a few hours of data to MongoDB corruption on an internal service where the data can be mostly recreated without impacting or requiring anything from users & customers, but exposing users to that risk is unacceptable IMO.

<comment><USER3> Sounds like you are restoring a backup into your live database instead of restoring it into a fresh instance where you can be assured of the state of the database. It's best practice where a database instance costs you practically nothing.</comment></comment>


Lay Off the Almond Milk, You Ignorant Hipsters - <AUTHOR> http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/07/lay-off-almond-milk-ignorant-hipsters <comment><USER2> "And while I'm lecturing you, I'll be sure to make it derogatory." Nothing like calling someone an 'ignorant hipster' for buying a product.

This article seems like it was written for people who already hate that other people like almond milk, and they just want more ammunition so they can lecture their friends about it.

My wife and I use almond milk for a few reasons; we can't drink dairy (I can't digest milk fats, she's lactose intolerant), soy milk is highly processed and the rapid growth in soy products is already a source of environmental concern, and rice milk is vile. So we get rice milk. We use less than a cup a day on average, and there are entire weeks we use less than a cup, rather than 'drowning our cereal' as the author points out many people do.

And then there's this gem at the bottom:

 _As for me, when I want something delicious to moisten my granola or add substance to a smoothie, I go for organic kefir, a fermented milk product that 's packed with protein, calcium, and beneficial microbes. Added bonus: According to the label, it's lactose-free—apparently, the kefir microbes transform the lactose during the fermentation process._

This is the most hipster paragraph I've read in months. Personally, I can't wait until three years from now when someone is writing an article on Mother Jones about how 'organic' kefir is actually awful for you and the planet and you should be drinking this other thing instead'. For example, they could start with how terrible the dairy industry is, like the author outlines in his fourth paragraph.

Like another commenter posted, if there's something you like, there's someone out there just waiting for an opportunity to lecture you on it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ever since I tried almond milk, I've never gone back. I was never a big fan of dairy milk in the first place, but almond milk makes cereal and anything else milk-based so much more pleasant. it never has the tendency of tasting or smelling 'off' like cow milk, and many manufacturers add about 50% more calcium than a glass of regular milk. What's not to like?

as for the price markup, if it means that I'm not gonna have to buy almonds, grind them up and do all the filtering myself, then that's fine, I think it's worth it.

<comment><USER4> It's actually pretty easy to make your own with a gadget

Something like this :

[http://www.amazon.com/Soyapower-G4-Maker-Almond- Quinoa/dp/B0...](http://www.amazon.com/Soyapower-G4-Maker-Almond- Quinoa/dp/B00DSC9PCG/)

They are quite popular in the Far East, and that model is just the first returned by the search. I personally have a different one.

Experimenting with different seeds / grains / nuts is fun.

I make a mix of sunflower & linseed more than any other. Good source of omega 3 and some minerals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I saw a link to this earlier on Twitter with the comment "Like something? I guarantee you there is someone out there aching to lecture you about it."

</comment><comment><USER4> you mean "store bought"

I make my own soy, seed & nut milk

here's a machine at random from amazon

[http://www.amazon.com/Soyapower-G4-Maker-Almond- Quinoa/dp/B0...](http://www.amazon.com/Soyapower-G4-Maker-Almond- Quinoa/dp/B00DSC9PCG/)

That's not a recommendation for that model.</comment>


Venezuela ties its currency to cryptocoin - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/20/venezuela-ties-its-currency-to-a-state-run-cryptocoin/ <comment><USER2> Dupe, plus a more informative article is linked in the other thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17799490](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17799490)

</comment><comment><USER3> techcrunch is pretty low on details here. The sources that wikipedia cites on the subject are:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-20/here-s- wh...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-20/here-s-what-maduro- has-said-of-venezuela-s-petro-cryptocurrency)

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/20/venezuela- prep...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/20/venezuela-prepares-to- devalue-currency-amid-fears-it-may-worsen-crisis-bolivar)

[https://news.bitcoin.com/venezuelans-to-be-paid-at-least- hal...](https://news.bitcoin.com/venezuelans-to-be-paid-at-least-half-a-petro- a-month/)

Notable details:

They claim they will allow the price to fluctate. The minimum wage will be 0.5 Petros. The inital price for 1 Petro is 3.6k sovereign bolivars

</comment><comment><USER4> I've written about this twice now. No one in the oil/gas industry is buying (no pun intended) the idea that Venezuela's Petro is anything but a sham.

I mean for crying outloud it's a commodity-backed cryptocoin on a private chain run by a country. How is that anything near the definition of a true cryptocurrency?

<comment><USER5> It is actually a crypto future on top of weak economy. Not really a currency. Essentially they tied their currency value to fast junk bonds. Good Job /s

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Trump actually signed an executive order banning American's from purchasing the cryptocurrency.

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/59jzyn/president-...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/59jzyn/president- donald-trump-signs-executive-order-banning-venezuelas-petro-cryptocurrency- maduro)

<comment><USER7> Of course, Trump wants people to buy oil with freedom dollars.

<comment><USER8> "Fie!" declares a refinery manager in Galveston, throwing his mining rig in the dumpster.

<comment><USER4> I'm missing something. Why a refinery in Galveston?

<comment><USER9> The Texas and Louisiana coast has most refineries in USA.

To my knowledge there are no refineries in Galveston which is a tourist spot (at least for people in texas). There are refineries in near by Texas City.

<comment><USER4> There's Marathon's Galveston Bay refinery but it's technically closer to Texas City than Galveston island itself.

Then there's Enjet on Pelican Island but they don't have a refinery on-site if I'm not mistaken.

It's a topic I'm well-versed in, hence why I asked about Galveston.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


10 petabytes - visualized - <AUTHOR> http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/01/05/10-petabytes-visualized/ <comment><USER2> I'll give you a much more compact way to envision 10 Pb:

10 Petabytes is 10,000,000,000,000,000 bytes or 80,000,000,000,000,000 bits, divided by 8,000,000,000 bits per full human genome (2 bits per base-pair) that's about 10,000,000 cells (not red blood cells because they don't contain DNA), or about 5 milliliters! (10 um diameter on average so about 500 cubic um, so 2 million or so per ml), and that includes all the stuff besides the DNA in the cells.

Hard disk storage certainly is impressively compact but it still has a long way to go before we beat mother nature.

-1 already eh? Downmodders please correct my math or say what you think is wrong with the comparison, I note the article ends on: "How would you visualize ten petabytes of storage?".

<comment><USER3> I see many debatable points:

\- Blood is far from being that dense, but I'll assume you mean to calculate a theoretical limit.

\- If you use the whole of a cell's DNA to encode information, the cell will die. It can't be used to freely encode information like a hard disk.

\- There is no way to retrieve information in this system. This is a bit like packing a large amount of extremely high-density magnetic platters in a box and calling this a storage system, which is very different from using actual hard drives with all the complex reading/writing system (heads, space between the platters, magnets...). Even if they're not connected, it still takes room.

\- Reliability of hard disks is far, far better than this. Encoding information as a single copy in a single cell is wildly unsafe. Even using multiple copies, it's likely to degrade with mutations.

Edit: I was under the impression that a base pair could only encode one bit of information, since only T-C and A-G are valid combinations. Wikipedia appears to disagree with me but I see no source; does anyone know why Wiki says a base pair could encode 2 bits?

<comment><USER4> \- There is no way to retrieve information in this system.

DNA is natively a content addressable storage system, due to natural base- pairing. But to first address your question in your edit: think of DNA as a pair of singly-linked lists, each with an alphabet of four characters. Each singly-linked list is the "reverse complement" of the other: the reverse sequence with an A-T swap and a C-G swap. At each position there's 2 bits of information, and the other linked list allows for some redundancy.

To probe for information in a DNA database, you construct the reverse- complement of the desired bit of information, attach a marker to your probe (such as a fluorescent dye, biotin, magnetic bead), then physically mix it in to your DNA database. A couple cycles of melting and cooling, and your probe will eventually find it's target DNA.

Of course, the thermodynamics of a physical database like this aren't particularly great. I'm not sure of the asymptotic behavior; my intuitive guess is lg(N) just like in B-trees or what have you, but I've never run the numbers or heard of anyone else running it. Also, the constant in front may be just a _few_ orders of magnitude larger than our current systems :)

Reading DNA is getting super cheap these days, and the pace of DNA sequencing technology makes Moore's law look positively wimpy. There are about 30 serious startups working on technologies that fall into a few broad categories, and some like PacBio had an IPO this year. Writing DNA is a much more difficult challenge, I don't know of many people looking into it yet. The market for writing DNA isn't nearly as obvious as it is for sequencing. Of course if it becomes feasible to write your own pets/plants/children instead of breeding them, the market may explode.

<comment><USER3> > To probe for information in a DNA database, you construct the reverse- > complement of the desired bit of information

To build the reverse-complement of the information, don't you need to have the information in the first place?

I know it's possible to store information in DNA through various means, but I don't believe it can be done at the density the OP calculated. If we're going to take into account only information storage while ignoring retrieval considerations, then we shouldn't compare naked cells with no DNA duplication to reliable whole hard drives.

Call it human pride, but I think we've beaten mother nature in several aspects ;)

<comment><USER4> Think of it as a massive key-value store: you construct your query off the key, use that to pull out the key-value pair, and when you sequence your key you continue to sequence more in order to pull out the value. If you prefer sequential addresses, your key could be just that.

And actually, this could be done at a much higher density than what the original poster described, as he's counting the full cell in the density calculation, and DNA is only a small fraction of the cellular volume. You could duplicate all the DNA 10-100 times in the same amount of space once you take out all the ribosomes, proteins and extra water. And as long as it's not stored in direct sunlight or next to your pile of plutonium, DNA is going to be much much more stable than aligning magnetic fields. We're still getting good DNA sequence out of bones that are tens of thousands of years old.

When you think of nanotechnology and miniaturization, think of biology, because that's where all the real nanotechnology is going on. We've not done any better than nature when it comes to making small machinery. Nature has already invented the commodity interchangeable parts (amino acids and nucleic acids) that can self-assemble into rather fantastic machines.

However, we have beaten mother nature on latency: as I alluded to, a DNA database like this would have latency on the order of days for a lookup. On the other hand, as much parallel access as you can imagine is built in, without additional volume. And this isn't a system that has been engineered at all, I'm just talking about the fundamental properties of a little puddle of DNA and water. If half the engineering that went into modern computer hardware were put into a DNA database, it could be quite competitive with our electronic systems.

<comment><USER3> Sure, a key-value store would work. My point is that the OP's system is not such a store. He just stores 10 PBs of raw data with no indexing and no duplication, so there is no way to retrieve data and comparison with hard disks is meaningless. My post was an answer to his "please correct my math".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone want to guess how much data they actually have stored?

Backblaze's pods are a data-loss nightmare -- lots of single points of failure which will wipe out many TB of data at a time -- and backblaze has stated that they replicate data across multiple pods. Given that the 10 PB seems to be the amount of raw storage backblaze has, I'm guessing that the amount of actual _data_ stored is much less -- depending on what sort of erasure correction scheme they're using, of course. (They're still much bigger than Tarsnap, of course!)

<comment><USER6> At SpiderOak we get a 3x replication equivalent for about 35% overhead, using Reed-Solomon at the cluster level (on top of RAID6 at the machine level.) Not nearly as expensive as outright replication.

Agree those SATA port multiplies are worrisome. In the beginning, our prototype machines used them to squeeze as many drives into a single machine as possible. They have unusually low tolerance for electrical interference and make it possible for one badly malfunctioning drive to take an entire array offline until manually serviced. We've seen occasions where just touching a cable attached to a port multiplier caused the Linux kernel to emit "dazed and confused" NMI events. I am not brave enough to try them again, even in a redundant setup.

<comment><USER5> _3x replication equivalent for about 35% overhead_

How did you compute this "replication equivalent"?

<comment><USER7> Picked a number from thin air? Raid six requires 2 drives for back and is normally used in set's of 8 or 16 drives but looks like they are using 45 drives. So 45/43 = 4.65% overhead from using RAID.

Not if they lose 35% on top of that they are around 41% overhead. But, they are taking a huge it on write speeds, network traffic and reliability for doing so.

Edit: Looks like they have 10,058 TB before partitioning the drives so my guess is ~3-6TB of actual user data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you took all of those drives apart and put the spindles in a pile you'd have a big pile of motors. The Petabox consumes 6kW so let's be generous and call it 60kW of servo motors.

60kW is roughly 80hp. (I know this is a specious comparison in several ways but bear with me.) 80hp is enough power a small but highway-capable motorcycle. A single 60kW brushless DC motor weighs over 100kg. That's heavier than a good many of us HN readers.

Imagine a motor like that bolted to one long spindle of large platters--say the 99cm platters from a 1961 hard drive.

If these platters were remade with the data density of modern 2TB drives, how tall would the spindle be if this giant hard drive had a 10PB capacity? How over- or under-sized would our motor be?

</comment><comment><USER9> I am not american, nor do we use inches here in germany but when looking at #3 it should be noted that 5.75 inches is actually the drive length, not height as they state. Well depends on how you look at it but it confused me in the beginning.

<comment><USER10> They could be trying to make this seem more impressive by standing the hard drives up instead of laying them flat.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I love #3, especially the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I think Stay Puft should be mandatory in all big-stack-of-stuff infographics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is there any reason why 10 PB was split in that particular combination of 2, 1.5 and 1TB drives?

EDIT: And, just a comparison: Google processes over 20PB of data per day!

<comment><USER13> and why it takes more 2TB drives than 1TB drives...

<comment><USER7> That's the drives they actually have.

2280 * 2 + 3166 * 1.5 + 1 * 749 = 10,058 TB.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The visualization in storage pods is most helpful. Just put the drives, in their current size in a physical space you can compare to your office.

The skyscraper comparison is fun but misleading. The stack of drives would be very very thin. It would work better if drives were put in one box and that box was compared to a room, house, etc..

There can be other visualizations like electrical power consumption compared to a normal computer. How much time it would take to read/write that data. How many processors are needed to read/write that data in reasonable time, compare their surface area to the our unfolded brain, which is a large cloth napkin.

I think these comparisons would be more useful to people in the field than how many books would be needed to store that much data, the standard pop show example.

</comment><comment><USER15> That's a sizable operation and difficult to visualize. I'm guessing their failure points reduce potential damage to minimal levels. At AltDrive, we use ZFS RaidZ2 with a number of hot spares. Six drives would have to fail consecutively on a given machine before any data loss... we replace them as they occur. And we have inter-H/W duplication. ZFS is self healing and makes management easy. Additionally we periodically compare the integrity of the user's AES-256 CTR encrypted data against the database records and make corrections if necessary. From our customer's and white label provider's view, it just works. <http://altdrive.com>

</comment><comment><USER16> Amazing, a discussion of data without comparing the internationally accepted unit of "library of congress". I'm more interested in how many LoCs 10 Pb is? If we built a city of LoCs, how many acres would that city be?

These are the questions that keep me up late at night.

<comment><USER17> The Library of Congress is 10TB. Zipped, it would fit on a single 3TB hard drive.

<comment><USER16> Perhaps that implies we should start using kiloLoC and megaLoCs?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My 350GB of music is backed up on Backblaze (a wonderful service), but seeing those visualizations reminded me of the environmental impact of my digital packratting. That's a sizable data center keeping my data happy and backed up.

<comment><USER11> I wonder how many thousands of people are paying them to back up stuff they could easily redownload. Great business model if they de-dupe internally.

<comment><USER9> they encrypt all data and i dont think it would be wise of them analyzing their clients data for dupes...if somebody would get to know that their business would be gone.

<comment><USER13> ZFS supports encryption with deduplication, and Dropbox does dedupe accross customers (and why not? It's not a human digging through things).

[http://blogs.sun.com/darren/entry/compress_encrypt_checksum_...](http://blogs.sun.com/darren/entry/compress_encrypt_checksum_deduplicate_with) \- ZFS link

<comment><USER19> When different customers use different key to encrypt the data, even if the source is the same, the outcome is different. So it is not feasible to do de- duplication across different customers' data, unless all of them use the same key.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Or about 9 (American) football fields covered with 4GB DVDs: <https://sites.google.com/site/10petabytes/viz>

</comment><comment><USER21> it'd be rad if you could visualize the ratios to better illustrate the scale.

10 petabytes : 10000 terabytes :: 10000 gigabytes : 10 terabytes

</comment><comment><USER22> I had no idea Backblaze had gotten this popular, but I'm glad to see their business growing. If you happen to have the profile they've optimized for, it really is the best thing going.</comment>


Google's 'superhuman' DeepMind AI claims chess crown - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42251535 <comment><USER2> Earlier submission with active discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15869083](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15869083)</comment>


Tech worker testifies of 'blue screen of death' on oil rig's computer - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9179595/Tech_worker_testifies_of_blue_screen_of_death_on_oil_rig_s_computer

<comment><USER2> They are probably using Windows 95,98,ME or they had some really bad drivers. Windows itself hasn't bluescreened for me since before Windows 2000. It's really scary that they use a full blown desktop operating system for such critical things.</comment>


Ask HN: What are cheap hacks to launch MVP? - <AUTHOR> Domain registrar, hosting provider, designing pages, static vs dynamic page... What are the cheapest options available? <comment><USER2> You can try Wix.com or squarespace.com. they're pretty cheap if you cant host your own using namecheap.com and something like linode.com/digitalocean.com(these can take care of domain registrars as well).</comment>