Google+ and YouTube tech disaster report - <AUTHOR> http://www.holovaty.com/writing/youtube-google-plus/

<comment><USER2> I'm glad this is getting attention, however it occurred to me something important has been lost in the whole shuffle: the integration of Google+ and corporate Google Apps accounts.

Many companies pay for the corporate Google Apps service which provides email, calendar, chat, etc. The argument of "you're no longer the customer, you're the product" doesn't apply here, since ... well, you're _paying_ for it. And yet, Google has insisted on integrating Google+ here as well. You can't even fire up your corporate chat _which your company pays for_ without being harassed to create a Google+ account and create some "circles".

Not that long ago, I recommended to anyone who would listen that any small-to- medium sized business should use Google Apps for their email & calendar needs. It was a great service that met all the basic needs without getting the way. Today, I no longer make that recommendation. Instead I tell people to stay as far away from Google as possible, as they clearly cannot be trusted even when supposedly being paid for a premium service. This whole deal is going to be the downfall of Google.

<comment><USER3> Indeed; when it became clear Google has completely lost all sense when it came to Google+ I did everything I could to minimize my exposure to them. The only "sticky" thing I touch is Google Groups for the obvious reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Google is just shooting it self in the foot with this! First they tried to force people to verify email address with phone number (still do) and now this. There is many reasons why we don't want to use our real names for comments or or phone numbers for verification. #1 been _PRIVACY_ G O O G L E please stop this nonsense or prepare to loose many visitors.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have a hard time thinking objectively about anything that upsets YouTube commenters.

Maybe Google is "accidentally" breaking them on purpose?

Tangential: [http://comments.thatsaspicymeatball.com/](http://comments.thatsaspicymeatball.com/)

</comment><comment> Ono-Sendai This is what happens when you build a large software system on such a shaky foundation as javascript and the browser.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't really agree with the G+ and youtube connection since I haven't seen any quality-improvement in youtube comments(anecdotal), but what __really__ bothers me is the constant popup asking me to connect and the constant rewording/rearranging of said popup. I have to stare at it for like 5 seconds to fully understand & click on the option to avoid the connection.

I already downloaded all my youtube vids from my channel because I assume that one day I screw up and they'll be connected or Google will just force the connection; thus my real name will become discover-able from my youtube channel. If that happens, I'm reuploading to some other video site and closing the youtube channel.

And I can only hope that when I do this closing, I don't screw up and lose my gmail in the process... because that would truly anger me.

<comment><USER7> Why don't you just connect it with a plus page for your username like it suggests? You don't have to use your real name. I don't know why the myth that YouTube requires a real name is going around even on HN...

<comment><USER8> I think in part because it's so confusing as to what G+ is, what it encompasses, what plus pages are and what google will do tomorrow.

I think there were ways google could have made youtube comments better without linking them to google plus.</comment></comment></comment>


Gomacro: Interactive Go interpreter and debugger with generics and macros - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cosmos72/gomacro#gomacro---interactive-go-interpreter-and-debugger-with-generics-and-macros <comment><USER3> C++ style templates...? What's wrong with ripping TypeScript's generic implementation? It's simple, clean and direct

        function firstOf<T>(anArray: T[]): T {
             return anArray[0]
        }

        interface thing<T, Y> {
            key: T
            anotherOne: Y
        }

        const things: thing<string, string> = [
            { key: 'hello', anotherOne: 'world'},
            { key: 'value', anotherOne: 'thing'}
        ]

        const result = firstOf<thing>(things)

<comment><USER4> Typescript, as I know, uses type erasure to implement generics, which can cause significant overhead in cases like JSON decoder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Also, Go is currently lacking generics (read: C++-like templates) because of > the rationale "we do not yet know how to do them right, and once you do them > wrong everybody is stuck with them"

To be honest C++-like templates are probably _the_ worst way to do generics. C++ "did them wrong" by picking C++-like templates and now everybody in the C++ community is paying the price being stuck with horrible unreadable error messages, abysmal compile times, an explosion of complexity (SFINAE, CRTP, metaprogramming using templates, template specialization, etc.) and a myriad of other problems.

I sincerely hope Go doesn't adopt C++-like templates. Fortunately C++-like templates are not the only game in town, and there are other, a lot more saner and principled flavours of parametric polymorphism out there.

<comment><USER6> _> To be honest C++-like templates are probably the worst way to do generics._

I don't think this is fair. Any approach to parametric types has to make some very hard trade-offs. C++ sacrificed:

* Fast, modular compilation

* Straightforward error messages

* Low cognitive overhead

In return:

* Templates perform as fast as hand-instantiated types. This is something some other languages like Java definitely cannot claim and is a key requirement for C++.

* Template functions can have complex constraints on their template parameters. Deferring type checking until after instantiation means you can do all sorts of interesting things with the template parameter and as long as all of those operations happen to work with the instantiated type, it's allowed. Most other languages place much more stringent restrictions on the expressiveness of generics. For example, in Java, you can't do "new T()". In C#, you can, but you can't do "new T(...)" with any kind of argument list.

Those are both really valuable features, especially in a language where performance is so critical.

<comment><USER7> Rust's generics don't have overhead and the error messages are at least as sane as Java's. I think the problem is with how C++ implemented its templates.

<comment><USER8> C++'s templates are more expressive than Rust's generics. Rust is adding stuff to try to catch up (specialization, const generics). You might see the extra power as an anti-feature, and that's fine, but it's undeniably useful to lots of folks and is undeniably a trade off.

<comment><USER9> I feel like part of the reason that I don't run into issues with Rust having less expressive generics than C++ is that Rust has a ton of other useful meta- programming features; a lot of the crazy things I've seen solved by C++ templates can be solved in Rust via things like proc macros.

<comment><USER4> Just wondering if it's possible to implement something like expression template used in Eigen3 in Rust. C++'s template can be used in more than generics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> enahs-sf I knew this day would come. While this is a great start into the realm of Generics, to me, it just doesn't have that easily grok-able feeling that the rest of Go has. The syntax is kind of clunky and while I applaud the effort, I'm sure Rob Pike and Co. have been tooling around with this idea since the beginning of the language. It'll be great to see what shakes out possibly in Go 2.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's really useful to have access to an eval() function when paused in a debugger. That alone makes this useful -- it'd be great to have IDE's like Goland take advantage of this to provide this functionality.

<comment><USER11> Goland's debugger can evaluate expressions when paused.

[https://www.jetbrains.com/help/go/debugging- code.html#924cf9...](https://www.jetbrains.com/help/go/debugging- code.html#924cf9d3)

<comment><USER10> It must be some subset of expressions (or I must have set mine up wrong), because anything that calls a function (vs a simple conditional statement) appears to throw an error for me indicating that it cannot execute.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some people that are complaining about C++ templates (and suggesting generics from other languages as alternatives) are missing the _code generation_ aspect of templates.

Generics operate entirely at the Type level. For instance (using java)

      List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<Integer>();
      list.add(1);
      Integer i = list.get(0);

is under the hood equivalent to

      List<Object> list = new ArrayList<Object>();
      list.add(new Integer(1));
      Integer i = (Integer)list.get(0);

The differences between the two snippets are entirely at the type level - <USER2> compile to the exact same bytecode. Templates are strictly more powerful - they allow you to generate different code for each instantiation. The most obvious place where this is useful is when dealing with primitives that take up different sizes in memory. This is why you can't use generics in Java with primitives - you need Objects, because pointers to objects are always the same size. But if you want performance, so you want to be able to represent collections of primitives generically, then you need the power of templates because you need your code to compile to different things depending on the template parameters.

<comment><USER13> Generics don't have to be implemented with type erasure at the bytecode level. The CLR doesn't, for example.

[http://www.jprl.com/Blog/archive/development/2007/Aug-31.htm...](http://www.jprl.com/Blog/archive/development/2007/Aug-31.html#jcs- cs-implementation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very neat project! Not sure what I'd use this for in practice, but it's a nice proof of concept for several things.

<comment><USER15> Definitely nice for learners to have an interpreter!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Bravo!

In my quick read, it wasn't clear if it would be possible to open a channel in regular Go code, and pass that into the interpreted side.

Just being able to call functions in normal compiled Go code would be enough I suppose, but direct support for cross-domain channels would be cool.

</comment><comment><USER17> Imo, the generics are a downside, not a selling point.

</comment><comment><USER18> Can I use this to interact with my Go projects' source code? I've tried other Go REPLs in the past and they didn't play nice with my setup (didn't like my symlinked GOPATH.) So I use a self-hosted playground during development sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER19> stop infecting the clean simple language with that complicated and confusing mess. Go program in C++ or Rust, please. If someone needs to generate something, they can use Go generate tools or simple old m4.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why the MPL license? Have you thought about releasing under the same license as Go instead/in addition?

</comment><comment><USER21> Any time you see something like this. Similar to typescript or es6 transpilers it's a signal something with the original language is off.

Perhaps it's the lack of Generics in golang.

<comment><USER22> You are so right -- thats why in better languages like C# and Java you need an IDE to write half your code for you, and a multi-million line optimizing runtime to make it run fast.

<comment><USER23> Comparing apples and oranges. Java and C# are verbose because of libraries and frameworks in the ecosystem not because the languages are inherently flawed.

Not sure what your point about the runtimes is? We shouldn't use or build highly optimized runtimes? Go's original runtime sucked and there's been a lot of work put into making it better too, I guess they should have just stuck with it?

<comment><USER24> >"Go's original runtime sucked and there's been a lot of work put into making it better too, I guess they should have just stuck with it?"

Could you elaborate on what the shortcomings of the original runtime were? Might you have any link regarding this? Thanks.

<comment><USER25> The original runtime had far, far worse GC pauses. They concentrated on making sure they could make a good one later rather than getting a perfect one out the door immediately. There was also a series of crashing bugs of varying severity in the first couple of versions. Even then you had to go a bit out of your way to find one, but they're a lot harder to come by now.

Nothing that surprising, really.

If you look at Go's release note history: [https://golang.org/doc/devel/release.html](https://golang.org/doc/devel/release.html) look towards the first few releases for the bugs they mention. For instance, here's a 1.1 fix: [https://github.com/golang/go/commit/d72c550f1c7e13c323f4507b...](https://github.com/golang/go/commit/d72c550f1c7e13c323f4507b57d741ed00f0b0cd)

One of the advantages of not mutating the language too much is that there aren't very many things like this in the last few releases. I would expect the first 2.0 release to have a few rough edges even in the first non-beta release.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Feds file suit against Buckyballs, retailers ban product - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/story/2012-07-25/buckyballs-ban/56481316/1 <comment><USER2> So, what happens in animals who swallow magnets is that on occasion, two magnets or a magnet and another object can be in different windy bits of the intestinal tract and stick together, pinching two otherwise unconnected parts of the intestine together, sometimes kinking them together sufficiently to cause a blockage, which doctors say could cause perforation of the intestine or other very bad things.

So as many wild accusations folks want to level at the government over this there is a medical rational for their action.

See: [http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57390647-10391704/3-y...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57390647-10391704/3-year- old-swallows-37-buckyball-magnets-survives/)

(and sure you can claim this is just bad parenting, but look how many folks in this thread don't understand that this could be a threat)

<comment><USER3> Some animals are purposely fed magnets to improve their health. For example, the Cow Magnet:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_magnet>

<comment><USER4> It's only one magnet though, more could span a pipe and cause a blockage or trap internal linings as described above.

<comment><USER3> The cows have magnets because they eat metal. The danger for humans isn't just 2 magnets, it's 1 magnet + something ferrous, of which a magnet is just one possibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting application of what I might call the "visible effect bias" here. (See: "That Which is Seen and That Which is not Seen" <http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html>)

The CPSC sues, complaining that warning labels are ineffective, because parents introduce the toys to their children anyway. The warning labels are ineffective because almost every toy small enough to be put in a mouth has a warning label attached to the effect of "choking hazard; not suitable for children", even if the toys are perfectly safe (which is to say, harm almost never occurs).

Toys are attached with false warning labels because if by some chance a child _does_ choke, either the parents or the CPSC can sue, citing the absence of warning labels. The suitors can win even if the incident was unlikely, due to hindsight bias. Hence, it costs the company nothing to exaggerate the danger by adding a warning label, in order to protect themselves from liability.

So, what is seen by the regulatory system is that putting on a warning label could have prevented such-and-such a case of choking/injury. What is not seen is that adding redundant warning labels decreases the informational value of true warnings, causing increased future cases of choking/injury from truly dangerous products.

Ironically in this case the regulators then sue, arguing that warning labels are insufficient because parents ignore them, due to a problem that was _originally created_ by regulators being too eager to sue!

Now, I haven't looked for any data showing that this is what happened in this case, but it seems to be a common pattern (for example, "may contain traces of peanuts"; and excessive waiting times for FDA approval of livesaving drugs).

</comment><comment><USER6> The CPSC does some fantastic things for product safety, but this isn't one of them. In fact, some of the items they're complaining about are just plain ridiculous; griping that a product was in a child-safe container seems beyond silly.

Though this did bring up two thoughts near simultaneously. The first was an onion article of ten years ago ( [http://www.theonion.com/articles/fun-toy- banned-because-of-t...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/fun-toy-banned- because-of-three-stupid-dead-kids,290/) ). The second being someone I know who recently had emergency surgery after deciding that they would be an excellent thing to sound with. While protecting kids is important, at the same time, kids can and will do stupid things, and a few people swallowing them a year does not seem to rise to the level of requiring a ban.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a nonsense suit. The first time we bought a box of these, one of the first things we noticed was the warning about the dangers of strong magnets and the risks of swallowing them in particular.

<comment><USER8> I think the issue is that no parent can reasonably stop their kid from swallowing these if the kid wants to; do you disagree with that? Note that every McDonalds toy that is actually perfectly safe for young kids has a swallowing/choking hazard, so it's pretty much guaranteed that people can't know that they have to take those seriously in this case.

<comment><USER7> The packaging tells you very clearly (before you open it) what can happen if swallowed, and why. It also says that it's not suitable for children under 14. And I do disagree that you can keep small kids from swallowing: _do not allow them to play with it_. I'm infuriated by the idea that nobody can be allowed to buy these things because some parents are too stupid/irresponsible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One wonders how many children swallow, say, thumb tacks and whether this makes a prima facie case for the government to sue the manufacturers of all small pointy things.

Sure enough, if one Googles [swallowed thumb tack]...

<comment><USER9> On investigation, and somewhat surprisingly to me, it seems that medical experts legitimately believe that swallowing these _particular_ small metal objects are worse than swallowing garden-variety small metal objects because if you swallow e.g. 5 BB pellets then you'll pass 5 BB pellets but if you swallow 5 high-powered magnets you now have one single clump o' metal which is large/heavy/sharp enough to damage your intestinal tract.

I probably still wouldn't ban them but, hey, worth noting.

[http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/story/2012-0...](http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/story/2012-07-25/buckyballs- ban/56481316/1)

<comment><USER10> I think the big difference is that thumb tacks are not a toy. These are a toy. They're marketed as a toy. They're given to children _as a toy_.

<comment><USER11> I own a set of these. They are not given to children young enough to put them in their mouth. Parents who do so are irresponsible.

<comment><USER12> I have a set too, and they are cool. I let my six-year-old play with them, because I trust her. She knows not to let her friends play with them. In the light of this suit, I'll have to reconsider that.

They are really easy to lose, and if lost, they can be picked up and swallowed by a kid, and their parent would never know. The particular danger of strong, tiny magnets is quite non-obvious (inspecting the comments here makes that clear), even spooky.

They are commonly sold at science centers, near children's toys, another indication that the marketing was done to kids, and not as just a desk toy.

I've been dreading the day one of the ones I've lost gets sucked into the vacuum...no telling how much damage it could do if it sticks onto a gear.

I'm not surprised about the suit.

<comment><USER13> > I have a set too, and they are cool. I let my six-year-old play with them, > because I trust her.

kids are random. much more so than adults. I strongly recommend you never let her access those things again. there's only downside, and the upside (fun, diversion, learning about magnets) can be had from alternate things, or at some future date when her judgment is better. plus give something to a kid, and it could easily end up in the hands/mouth of other kids. kids are _random_. they/we start life in fact with our heads full of all sorts of irrational/mythical beliefs, and a blurry line between imagination and reality. For example, the classic kid thought meme: if something looks like candy, it probably tastes like candy, it probably is candy.

<comment><USER14> Woah, this totally reminded me of the time when i ate a brufen tablet when i was little thinking that it was candy. It even had the sugar coating. So basically kids are usually dumb and prone to random acts of craziness .

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Tell you what. Wrap some gun powder around them, call them bucky bullets, sell em over the internet, you'll be untouchable in America.

</comment><comment><USER16> I was scared for a moment! I thought the headline referred to the C-60 fullerene supplement I've been taking for a few weeks. Carbon buckeyballs in an olive oil suspension dramatically increase mouse lifespan in a _single_ recent study.

Whew...

<comment><USER17> Well, it isn't looking good for C-60: <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16709433> it has been six years and I have yet to hear any news about the bass. In all seriousness, would organ binding from within be an aspect of "toxicity"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Children will do the craziest things if left unwatched for even a second. This year alone I've heard about kids drowning in backyard pools, a kid dancing on an air conditioner on a window sill (was caught by a passerby) and a kid dying because a soccer net fell on her.

<comment><USER19> Agreed. If my youngest makes it to adulthood it will be a miracle - she's very active and even more impulsive. I love her like crazy, but every day she survives is a combination of luck and (I like to think) good parenting.

Last week I was talking to her while I was grilling and when I turned around she was standing on the railing of our deck (15 feet above a concrete patio).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If parents don't understand why a small magnetic ball bearing would be bad for their children to play with, then they're --- hate to be rude --- stupid. And their stupidity should not be used to punish private companies who make a perfectly safe product when used correctly by its intended audience.

They already have warning label, why isn't that enough?

With the economy hurting like it is, I can't figure out why the US government would be doing something as stupid as this. They're threatening the livelihood of a private business.

It just makes no sense to me. I miss personal accountability and responsibility.

<comment><USER21> > _With the economy hurting like it is, I can't figure out why the US > government would be doing something as stupid as this._

Because agency funding is dependent on the agency's relevance. If government actually worked as advertised, every solved problem would result in it shrinking. In reality, it identifies new "problems" to perpetuate its existence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> My box had a very visible anti-ingestion warning label. However, nobody mentioned anything about the top layer of chrome wearing out. I stopped using them when I kept getting small shards of metal embedded in my fingers.

</comment><comment><USER23> That's right - Punish the company, not the parents who can't supervise their children.

</comment><comment><USER24> Why is swallowing them so dangerous? Don't kids swallow pennies and what not? Then it leaves the body through normal bodily function?

<comment><USER24> Hmm... <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXmmkH2Y7M0> it turns out its when you swallow 2 or more they pinch and squeeze the intestines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I found a dime when I was a child and swallowed it - maybe my parents should have sued the US Mint.

</comment><comment><USER26> Won't someone think of the children?

<comment><USER27> I think we should ban knives, and hot surfaces - to protect children of course.

<comment><USER8> This is a totally ridiculous comparison. I'm not in favor of the ban, but comparing a knife (something dangerous that no sane parent would let their kid play with) to this (something less dangerous that is explicitly a toy that most parents would have no problem letting their kids play with) is ridiculous.

<comment><USER28> So if 12 parents let their children play with knives (and the children were harmed) like the 12 instances for Buckyballs, we should ban all knives?

It seems like parents ignoring warning labels on an item not marketed towards children is the main issue (I wouldn't necessarily say the magnets were less dangerous either).

<comment><USER8> The difference is solely intent of the product. If bleach was being sold as a toy then it would be banned; it's only allowed because its not a toy. Lawn darts are less dangerous than knives and they were banned because they are being sold as a toy.

There is a certain threshold of danger that we accept for useful products like knives and bleach; if handled properly then there is no problem. Young children aren't expected to handle them properly. Buckyballs have no practical use and are toys that _are_ expected to be given to children, so a similar level of danger is unacceptable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It says not for children on the box and if you have a 13 year old who's swallowing magnets, well, then you have a problem.

</comment><comment><USER30> I can't believe they waited this long. I'd be surprised if a lot of adults haven't swallowed these, too. Everybody knows that BBs and pennies pass easily, so why wouldn't you think that about magnets? It isn't like the warnings are printed on every ball, and there's nothing intuitive about their danger.

Tiny, strong BB magnets can have no place in a house that ever has kids in it. It's not safe to have them in or on daddy's desk, or anywhere else. Maybe in the gun safe.

Also, I always assumed that the Fuller estate got a cut of this. Pretty rotten all around.

edit: swallowing small strong magnets is a fairly unique, well known, and long standing danger. When I was a kid, a lot of plastic items were made magnetic by gluing in tiny (maybe 3/4 cm diameter) disks. After a lot of resectioning of the necrotic bowels of a lot of children, and a lot of death amongst both children and animals, this ended. Good riddance. It's safer to let your kid play with a bag of broken glass.

<comment><USER31> They're also both an educational and creative toy that can introduce kids to the counterintuitive ways that magnets interact, while teaching them to build things within unusual constraints. Yes, they are dangerous if swallowed, just like a lot of other things that we have around our houses all the time. Keep them out of reach of young children, sure, but this is a _tiny_ risk that has been blown out of proportion by the media. Last year, over 1,600 kids under 6 were poisoned by household cleaners... just in Washington DC.

As for "why would you assume that you can't swallow it?", I just don't even what to say. Don't just assume that you can safely swallow shit?

<comment><USER12> Magformers are a safe and interesting magnetic toy that offers that magnet magic you mention. I think the point is that some designs are inherently unsafe. They need to go back to the drawing board.

<comment><USER31> But it's _marginally_ unsafe, and the risk is clearly labeled. As long as people are being informed of the moderate danger (and they are), it is nuts for the government to come in and try to take these off the market. The world is full of dangerous crap, and if you step back and try to keep a little perspective, this desk toy shouldn't even show up on your radar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Don't 5 gallon buckets kill more people than magnets?

</comment><comment><USER33> In the UK, this is called the Nanny State. I though the USA was immune to this rubbish.

</comment><comment><USER34> I know this is going to sound harsh, but maybe if your kid choked to death on a magnetic toy, he or she just wasn't of sturdy enough stock to begin with. In the brains department.

I wish the Feds would go after actual problems with the same fervor they tackle this kind of crap.

<comment><USER35> Clearly you don't have any children!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: High school senior, deferred from Harvard. Advice? - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN! I'd just like to say that I admire every person on this website, and one day I hope to be working in the tech/startup industry as many of you are. Right now, I'd be grateful for some advice and perspective.
Today I got deferred from my dream school. Perhaps that's better than being rejected, but Harvard rejects even less applicants than it accepts, so I'm in the majority (~70%).
I know that I should focus on completing my other applications, and maybe do something awesome that'll get Harvard's attention, but right now I feel so unmotivated. Several of my friends did get accepted, so that also stings. I almost feel too discouraged to do work.
It's only been a couple of hours since the news, but I'm afraid this deadbeat-ness will stick and deadlines are looming ever closer.
Do you guys have any advice? Kind or harsh words are both appreciated :) <comment><USER2> I'm going to disagree with a lot of other commenters: In my experience, a top- notch education is enormously valuable, and where you go to school very much matters.

I applied for grad schools in math, my first choice was MIT. I was very disappointed to be rejected. My second choice was Michigan, and I was very disappointed to be rejected there too. My third choice was Stanford. Rejected.

My fourth choice was Wisconsin. I went there and it was an AWESOME experience. They gave me as much as I could handle, and prepared me very well for the road ahead.

I will disagree with other commenters and say that it is not "all for the best". It probably would have been better if you got into Harvard. You really did lose something, and you would be dishonest to yourself to pretend otherwise.

But Plans B and C and D and E and F are also really incredible. I had the amazing fortune to get a three year postdoc at Stanford (a "postdoc" is a short-term job you can get right after you get a Ph.D.) and worked with some of the best mathematicians in the world. Stanford is a top-notch place. Apply there.

Apply to MIT. Caltech. Princeton. Rice. Brown. Harvey Mudd. Deep Springs. Apply to the state school in your state. State schools vary highly in quality, but some of them (Michigan, Wisconsin, Berkeley, UNC, and others) are really top notch.

Apply to any school that piques your interest. Or, consider doing something else for a year before returning to school, if that's your cup of tea.

You still should be selective and aim as high as you can, but know there are a huge number of wonderful universities out there offering mind-blowing educations.

If you're prepared for periodic disappointments, then you need fear nothing and the world is yours! There are so many opportunities out there which are still available to you. What an awesome fact to contemplate. I wish you good luck.

<comment><USER3> I certainly don't disagree that going to a good school is valuable. My only statement is that it is not so important to place such a strong emphasis on the name blindly. It helps in many ways and their programs are generally known for something but I wouldn't discount the late-bloomer, super motivated kid who went to a no name school and worked his ass off to get to where he wanted to go. I would just take it in context. That's all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I remember this exact same feeling when I got rejected from what I thought was my dream school at the time (MIT). I felt physically tired and just laid in bed for several hours right after getting the news. It's a pretty natural reaction to the situation.

The good part is that it does pass. Give it a few days or a week and you'll wonder how you felt so bad now.

Also, this may be too obvious to need saying, but there are a number of other schools where you can learn as much and make as many good connections as Harvard, and it sounds like you're likely to get into at least one of them. In my case, I ended up going somewhere where I'm pretty sure I had a better overall experience than I would have at MIT. It's very possible the same will be true for you.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's only been a few hours. Do whatever it is you do to relax / clear your mind. Go for a run, listen to some music, etc.

Long term success has a great deal to do with how you respond to challenges or failures along the way. Also, it's important to try for some perspective. It's easy and tempting to view college admissions as a referendum on your worth as an individual.

After all, for many folks it's a first chance to actively choose / be chosen by a group, and the "start" of your independent adult life. But as much enrichment and opportunity as any good school will provide, it's not going to define who you are and what you do with your life.

That's up to you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you make an account to say this? Thank you :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I got accepted into my dream school (MIT) and couldn't afford to go. Two sides of the same coin, I suppose.

The reality is that you are who you are, and you are a person who was not accepted in to Harvard. There are many other good and great schools that would be happy to have you. While you will be missing out on a Harvard education, at the right school you could do just as well, or better.

Don't let this discourage you. While it seems like a huge deal right now, in ten years where you went to school is going to matter less than how passionate you are about your work, who you decide to spend your life with, and where you decide you want to be.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think trying to convince you that where you to go school isn't as big of a deal as you might think it is may be fruitless. Harvard is great nonetheless. First and foremost you still have a shot of getting in, in April or whenever you find out. Second and most importantly, examine why you really want to go to school. Do you want to meet new people, study/experience academics, be independent, or any linear combination thereof? If you want to school, I think for more than just the name and the fact that it's the next step, finish your applications. It can't hurt and you don't have to go if you don't want to. BUT if you are feeling a lack of motivation because you're tired of school, the rigid structure, or whatever it is, then don't feel like you have to step in line. Many people, brilliant and not brilliant, have taken time off between high school and college. I certainly wish I did. Whether this is the right move or not is certainly particular to you and what you choose to do with your time off. You can do great and wonderful things that school could never offer but you have to be self-motivated. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the insightful comment! I don't really mind the structure of school, and I think college will be even less "rigid" in terms what what I learn or do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's your financial situation? Harvard costs about $58,000 a year. If you're not absolutely sure you'll get a significant scholarship, you should finish those other applications just to ensure you also get in somewhere you can afford.

Right now, the unemployment plus underemployment rate for recent college graduates is 53%. Quite a bit higher than the national unemployment rate. $100-200k in student loans (which will cost closer to $300-400k to pay off with interest) doesn't make it easy to get by even if you landed a great job. A low-paying, risky startup job might not even be a realistic option once you're saddled with debt.

This is the time to think about things like that -- what you can afford, how you'll repay it, what kind of job you want when you get out, where you want to work, whether the name recognition of an ivy league school matters to those companies (and whether that's worth as much money as a small house versus going somewhere cheaper), etc.

<comment><USER8> Harvard has excellent financial aid.

<comment><USER9> To elaborate, from Harvard's financial aid website: "Beginning in the fall of 2012, this "zero contribution threshold" will be increased to $65,000. Financial aid is available to all students based on assessed need. Beginning with the class of 2016, families with incomes up to $150,000 will have an average expected parent contribution of 10 percent or less of their income"

For _most_ people, going to Harvard would be cheaper than attending a state university.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I ended up going to my fourth choice. I actually got into my second choice program but I'd have had to wait a year.

I had a great time, learned a lot and made tons of friends. If you're like me, your second, third or fourth choice will still be an incredibly good school so education and reputation won't be that big of a loss. Complete your other applications.

It's a big blow the first time you realize the path you'd set out for yourself won't, or in your case might not, happen. Get over it and it makes you a stronger, better, more humble person. Believe me, it's not the greatest disappointment you'll ever face.

As a side note, Harvard sent me the nicest rejection letter of any school.

</comment><comment><USER11> I go to Yale and I can assure you that Harvard sucks and is no fun. That sounds like hyperbole but is surprisingly accurate. Harvard is teeming with strangely elitist once-nerds who want to exclude you from their "finals club". Apply to Yale. Everyone here is mad chill and if you got deferred from Harvard, you probably have a pretty good chance of acceptance. So take the application seriously. And who knows, maybe getting deferred from Harvard will become the best moment of your life.

</comment><comment><USER12> Was at one point in a similar situation. Went to a math and science high school with the hopes of eventually going to Stanford or MIT. Instead, I ended at my state school. As a senior looking back on college, I'm extremely satisfied with my choice. I've had the opportunity to learn from some great professors and have gotten a few internships at Google and a fulltime job at Palantir from it.

Regardless of where you go you can always find great people and learn from them.

</comment><comment><USER13> I was deferred as well when I was a HS senior but then after looking at the total pool of applicants, MIT excepted me before the school year started. But I pursued other options... went snowboarding in the NH mountains for the winter months, it was a blast... then I reassessed my situation and selected another school and spent 4.5 years having the time of my life. It's all good mate! Have no fear, it will work out. Stay sane and push on.

</comment><comment><USER14> Read some Lifehacker. I've gotten a surprising amount of inspiration from them. But for now, just focus on getting on with your life and apply again next term. Or pull a Robert Zemeckis and call and give an "impassioned plea". ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zemeckis#USC_education_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zemeckis#USC_education_and_early_films))

</comment><comment><USER8> Deferral is not rejection. Yeah, I know very few people get rejected outright from EA, but I also know people at Harvard right now who were first deferred.

Care to share stats? Have you had your essays looked over by successful admits or other strong applicants? Most teachers are useless for evaluating college essays at top schools.

<comment><AUTHOR> Kinda bursting my own bubble here but it's also extremely unlikely to be accepted after being deferred -- even less than applying regular. I'd have to do something extraordinary between now and April.

Also, at this point I think it's too late to edit my essays. Are you applying as well?

<comment><USER8> "it's also extremely unlikely to be accepted after being deferred" - What are your sources on this?

I meant your essays for other applications.

I'm a recent college grad. I didn't apply to Harvard but did get into Stanford, MIT, Princeton, etc. One thing you learn attending a top school and actually meeting a large volume of admits is that the people who talked about college admissions back in high school (on CollegeConfidential and elsewhere) didn't know jack shit.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe that ~100 deferred applicants were accepted last year, out of the deferred pool of 3,000 and the regular pool of 30,000.

Hm, what are some misconceptions then? What do you think they are looking for?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just do what you really want to do.

If you want to go to Harvard for the piece of paper they give you at the end, you're doing it wrong.

The relationships and skills you could build there are all within your grasp, and are up to you to take advantage of.

Don't wait for a professor to deliver knowledge on a silver platter, go out and grab it!

</comment><comment><USER16> Long ago, in a galaxy far away: I was accepted to UGA (which is a big deal in hicksville) with a National Merit Scholarship. I also was offered the chance to apply for a fellowship, but I missed the deadline. (My dream college was St. John's in New Mexico but I didn't have the foreign language classes to get accepted.)

I went up to UGA by bus for orientation and wandered around on foot on a Sunday trying to find something to eat while feeling awful. As the day wore on, I felt worse and worse. By the end of the day, I just felt really dreadful and I just wanted to leave. I called my sister who kindly drove up to get me. I gave up my scholarship, attended a local college, married, dropped out of school. I had kids and was a homemaker for a long time.

Many years later, after a lot more mysterious health issues, I was told I had a deadly disorder. Looking back on it, had I gone to UGA (or St. John's) and pursued a career, I likely would have died young, one of those headlines that says something like "Promising youth dies mysteriously". The social isolation of being home wth my kids likely helped me stay relatively healthy for longer. My preference would have been "social butterfly". And it likely would have helped to kill me.

I am not religious and I don't think you have to believe in some sort of god to find a logical explanation for the detour I took. I didn't have a diagnosis but I also didn't feel well that fateful day at orientation when I decided "I just want to go home". So let me suggest that if you fail to get into Harvard, perhaps the message is that it isn't the best fit for you. Forcing it might do more harm than good.

I am more inclined these days to accept seeming roadblocks as constructive feedback: Either step up my game so I can get past it without forcing it or accept that it is probably for the best that I not go there. I suggest you get cracking on something else. It would be a shame to let a lot of other doors close because you wasted too much time on disappointment.

<comment><USER17> What's the name of the disorder, if you don't mind me asking?

<comment><USER16> Atypical cystic fibrosis.</comment></comment></comment>


Capsule Neural Networks: CV Systems with Spatial Reasoning - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/googles-ai-wizard-unveils-a-new-twist-on-neural-networks/ <comment><USER2> Extensively discussed earlier this week:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15609402](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15609402)</comment>


Siegfried Sassoon's war diaries published online - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-28581726

<comment><USER2> Thank you for posting it on HN.

Its fascinating to see Sassoon's private position. Its an interesting frame to his public opposition.

I'm aware his branch of the family had no power, yet given his background I still found some entries shocking if not somewhat conspiratorial in the fullness of their expression. For instance, entered just before the "Soldiers Declaration":

"The rulers of England have always relied on the ignorance and patient credulity of the crowd. If the crowd could see into their cynical hearts it would lynch the dictators" [Image 8. Journal, 19 June 1917-6 July 1917].

</comment><comment><USER3> I took a look at his journal 9 May 1918-2 Feb. 1919. Specifically I'm trying to find his reaction to Wilfred Owen's death on November 4th. Owen's own letters were burned after his death by his brother.

November 11th is an interesting read:

[http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS- ADD-09852-00001-00013/64](http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS- ADD-09852-00001-00013/64)

"The war is ended. It is impossible to realize. Oxford had much flag waving also & signs of demonstration."

Edit: Ah-ha. Sassoon didn't learn of his death until several months later. I'll try to track down the passage.

</comment><comment><USER4> I absolutely love seeing extensive handwritten diaries, journals and notebooks, especially those of little historical importance. I like those more than the notebooks of the famous and the accomplished. Perhaps the appeal of the mundane ones is because they might well be that person's greatest lasting work, however minor. It's not even that I enjoy reading them. More knowing that they exist, that they could be read, and that the author has lived on in some small way.

</comment><comment><USER5> I recently picked up _Poetry of the First World War: an Anthology_.

I don't read much poetry, but I get why Sassoon and Owen are considered a big deal. They are often poignant and brilliant and heartbreaking and beautiful.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0199581444/ref=aw_d_dsc_books?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0199581444/ref=aw_d_dsc_books?qid=1406948074&sr=1-1)

</comment><comment><USER6> The collection: [http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/sassoon](http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/sassoon)

</comment><comment><USER7> Title should have included who he was - I have no idea who he is/was and I imagine I am not the only one.

<comment><USER8> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigfried_sassoon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigfried_sassoon)

He served with distinction and bravery, then late in the war took a position of public opposition to it. Post-war as an editor he fostered the careers of a number of poets and critics, as well as publishing well-received works of his own.

<comment><USER9> His name, oddly for an Englishman fighting the Germans, sounds so German.

> There was no German ancestry in Siegfried's family; his mother named him > Siegfried because of her love of Wagner's operas.</comment></comment></comment>


Why I Teach Poetry to My Autistic Students - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/bright/why-i-teach-poetry-to-my-autistic-students-c3ceae509a1a

<comment><USER2> heya i just wanted to drop a quick message

you might wanna try earplugs or tinfoil helmets for your students.

nobody will believe you if it works, and you probably wont believe me that it does.

you could watch a few videos about EMF on youtube, some EMF and some ELF waves can literally create negative effects on a person. the power of a sine microwave and an oscilloscope man... modulation is a totally powerful...

things that have worked: ear plugs, white+pink noise generators, lead walls, air ionizers, mylar walls, orgonite, personal shielding from lessemf.com

specifically orgonite and air ionizers, they can be had for ~$40 each... and ear plugs are a $1 fix for me anyways..

im not saying its totally evil aliens, but its probably totally evil aliens bro.

cheers</comment>


What's up with ARM - <AUTHOR> http://ldn.linuxfoundation.org/blog-entry/what%E2%80%99s-with-arm <comment><USER2> Some context:

 _Gaah. Guys, this whole ARM thing is a f-cking pain in the ass_ <https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/3/17/492>

_Let ARM rot in the mainline. I really don't care anymore._ <https://lwn.net/Articles/441384/>

It'll be interesting to see what direction this goes. Considering also the forks for the Android kernel and the different directions ARM development wants to go compared to Intel.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, this isn't really new to anyone who reads the LWN (which is edited by the author of the OP, BTW). The LWN is really very good, and subscribing is worth it for those hackers who care about the larger Linux/POSIX ecosystem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is very welcome.

ARM has tended to be somewhat difficult to port to - vendors have multiple versions of the instruction set out there depending on device size/power requirements, with different floating point units (NEON, VFP) etc.

The result is we end up with situations like OpenEmbedded supporting multiple kernel trees in it's build engine just to take care of the wide range of hardware it supports.

Hopefully this will make the situation somewhat better.

<comment><USER5> Anything that increases functionality/LoC in the kernel is good. In any complex software project - and the Linux kernel is about as complex as sanity and present technology will allow - you have to do periodical codebase clean- ups. This is one case where the pain to maintain is forcing a cleanup.

And, as always, it's discussed openly, so, whoever depends on it doesn't get surprised by the next release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This biggest problem with ARM devices is, that the only devices out there for usage are embedded ones. Up to now there is only one Notebook out there (alwaysinnovating) which could be used as a computer on a daily basis. But IMHO 10'' is too small to do serious stuff. 13'' is minimum. Hope we will see them soon in the wild.</comment>


Treasury Dept. Plan Would Give Fed Wide New Power - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/business/29regulate.html?ei=5065&en=7ba12b1b93b17830&ex=1207368000&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print <comment><USER2> Actually the Fed is the right place to do this because it is banking not securities. Wall Street and its flora and fauna are fairly well regulated, but the "shadow banking system" is not, and much of the current housing loan crisis is due to the lack of the Fed using its already granted regulatory powers.

What we need is a Fed chairman who believes that regulation makes for more transparent and effective credit markets, not one that follows the political dictates of questionably informed politicians.

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally this makes more sense if the SEC gets these new powers... not the fed.</comment>


Ask HN: Has anyone heard back from YC yet? - <AUTHOR>

Just wondering if anyone has heard back yet from the application process? <comment><USER2> From the application site:

"On November 2, we'll invite the groups that seem most promising to meet us in Mountain View on the weekend of November 18-21. We'll reimburse up to $600 per group for travel expenses."

Seems like the news will come out tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER3> No, nothing yet. I thought they were letting people know tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER4> any ideas on how to factor in a my +8gmt into the mix?</comment>


Show HN: Weekend Project - Browse Instagram photos by location - clark-kent http://www.locatepics.com

<comment> clark-kent I created this to explore places and follow events. Some of my favorites in New York:

Times Square: <http://www.locatepics.com/showpics?r=times+square+ny>

Central Park: <http://www.locatepics.com/showpics?r=central+park+ny>

Union Sq: <http://www.locatepics.com/showpics?r=union+square+ny>

Brooklyn Bridge: <http://www.locatepics.com/showpics?r=brooklyn+bridge+ny>

Herald sq: <http://www.locatepics.com/showpics?r=herald+sq+ny></comment>


Programming Language Graph - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~flab/languages.html Java tops all... <comment><USER2> langpop.com is more up to date, and uses Freshmeat, which is better because it deals with _released_ projects, not just started projects.</comment>


Start-Ups Good At Y Combinator Demo Day, But Is Price Right? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2012/03/28/start-ups-good-at-y-combinator-demo-day-but-is-price-right/

<comment><USER2> _Start-ups being less pressed for cash [...] has made seeding YC start-ups more competitive, and [...] less attractive._

Hey! A real-world "nobody goes there anymore it's too crowded".</comment>


Ask HN: Where else do developers congregate? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
We're building a developer focused tool and are always on the lookout for sites/communities where we can interact with developers.
Obviously HackerNews is great for that purpose, but I wanted to see if you all had other public communities you'd recommend i.e. (discord, slack, facebook groups, subreddits, etc)
Thanks again for your help! <comment><USER2> "Interact with developers" means using the communities as marketing channels?

So the one other answer in this thread I see is from jhunter1016 who happens to also work on the same product (easy to check the comment history). It might not be a fake conversation but this kind of interaction is artifical and something HN and other communities need less of.

<comment><USER3> Definitely a genuine comment. I think if you check out my participation on dev.to, Hackernoon, Medium, etc, you'll see I am actively engaging in the developer community as a whole.

I also happen to work on numerous other projects and felt my contribution to this thread was helpful. Appreciate the concern, though. Happy to let others engage!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> While this is mostly from the content angle, dev.to seems to be one of the best places for developers. The comments sections of posts are engaging, and some posts are largely just questions like the one you asked.</comment>


Windows 10 Is Getting Its Own Built-In Package Manager - <AUTHOR> https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/236301/windows-10-is-getting-its-own-built-in-package-manager <comment><USER2> A Package Manager. Wow, what a wild innovative idea.

Click to select, then click to install!

It's a pity that the Linux distros couldn't have had something like that for the last decade or so. /s</comment>


Apple is becoming a company I no longer trust - <AUTHOR> http://www.trivedigaurav.com/blog/apple-is-becoming-a-company-i-no-longer-trust/

<comment><USER2> This has actually been my experience with almost every Apple product I've purchased. I'm typing this on a macbook air with a power adapter that wore out (bendy cable issue) after just over a year, my iPhone lasted a very short period of time (compared to my Android and Windows devices), I had a mini that would constantly drop it's internet connection, etc. etc.

Lots of people have told me "you just go into the Genius Bar and they'll sort you out". The thing is, I don't want to go into a store and get sorted out. They make promises that things work, and so far, in my experience, they have never lived up to their marketing hype.</comment>


How we got to #2 in App Store without spending any money - <AUTHOR> http://www.markj.net/launching-hit-tennis-3-into-the-charts/

<comment><USER2> To me, this is a bit of link bait. Unless I'm missing something, this article basically says that the way to get to #2 in the app store without spending any money is to already have a game with more than 1 million users, and place ads on that game promoting the new game.

Am I missing something?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I see what you mean. The title was designed to be catchy. Our previous app with a lot of users though was only one of our "bullets". The cross promotion idea is probably something more people can do than they realize.

Also having an app that people are going to download is super important (it sounds obvious, but we think the majority of people don't focus enough on this.)</comment></comment>


From lowly dev to funded founder - and the missteps and lessons along the way - <AUTHOR> http://rrwhite.svbtle.com/an-entrepreneurship-tale

<comment><USER2> not that lowly...</comment>


WRF Official Repository – Weather Research and Forecasting - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/wrf-model/WRF <comment><USER2> I'm curious.

I believe national-wide weather forecasting by computers was been done since the 1960s. As today's personal workstations are much more powerful than a supercomputer built in the 1990s, and the _old_ models and numerical methods (not the state-of-art ones) are well-known (and have multiple open-source implementations), the calculation should be possible today on an ordinary workstation for _educational purposes_.

But exactly what kind of data do I need to run my own weather forecast on my computer? Is it possible to calculate my personal 12-hour weather report based on public data published by NOAA, etc? Is there a tutorial for setting up a weather forecast?

<comment><USER3> Disclaimer: not a meteorologist.

> But what kind of data do I need to run my own weather forecast on my > computer?

I believe it's a combination of plain old measurements (wind direction + speed, temperature, humidity, etc etc), RADAR, and a lot of historic precedence. I don't know how much of that is open-sourced, but I think it'd be easier to hook onto the api of your national weather broadcasting websites and ask them what your weather will be for the next 12 hours.

<comment><USER4> Most of the data comes from satellite observation. The US does have a very high density of RADAR as well. Sounding balloons and fixed weather stations are the traditional inputs. There is no explicit historical data, though arguably it is present in the use of particular schemes (weather speak for: we tweaked these magic numbers in the model so it gave good forecasts).

You can easily run WRF with the NOAA GFS as initial conditions, it would easily run on an iPhone computationally, but practically it will work on your desktop Linux box.

[http://www2.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/supports/tutorial.html](http://www2.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/supports/tutorial.html)

They have a containerized version too, which will save much fiddling with compilers and libraries.

[https://github.com/NCAR/container-wrf/](https://github.com/NCAR/container- wrf/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> WRF is a state-of-the-art atmospheric modeling system designed for both meteorological research and numerical weather prediction. It offers a host of options for atmospheric processes and can run on a variety of computing platforms. WRF excels in a broad range of applications across scales ranging from tens of meters to thousands of kilometers, including the following.

– Meteorological studies

– Real-time NWP

– Idealized simulations

– Data assimilation

– Earth system model coupling

– Model training and educational support

<comment><USER5> It doesn't seem to be a deeplearning/neural network model like I was half expecting ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some other comments mention that European models are more advanced in some respects. Are any of those open source?

<comment><USER7> No, the European model (ECMWF IFS) is not open source, and they don't even release most of the operational forecast data that they produce to the general public. As far as I know the UK and others don't either.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What timesheet / staff schedule tools do you use? - <AUTHOR> We are looking for an easy-to use, extensive, staff schedule and timesheet solution.
We are a software consulting company with about 80 devs, and every single tool I find seems either over-complicated and restrictive, or too simple to handle projects. Speaking with different size company, I couldn't find anybody happy with their actual solution.
It can be a SaaS solution or an open-source tool. API for import / export are a need (so we can feed invoicing for example).
So, what do you use and what are the pro / cons ? <comment><USER2> We were also frustrated with our solutions and ended up using Excel with Python automations. Not ideal but Excel was the most flexible for us. We're thinking of building out a solution when we have time.

Pros - easy, flexible and simple and it allowed us to build our own programming logic that helps us size our proposals

Cons - risk of errors, file size could get large, non-collaborative

What are you guys using? Were there features you're looking at? What tools have you looked at?

<comment><AUTHOR> We currently use a mix of a home-made redmine extension for scheduling, redmine tickets for time logging and google sheet with custom addon for compiling everything per project / period for easier birds eye and invoicing.

We do not plan on maintaining redmine extension, we have different tickets trackers for specific projets, and it is very limited / simple (when not clunky at times).

It worked well for last years and volume, but it tends to be too limited, and not suitable for bigger needs (requires too much hand work each week to cleanup data and handle exceptions).

Main features we look for are : * simple staff planning/schedule (resource requirement, capacity, allocation) * time logging with aggregation per activity per project and basic analytics. Custom rules like increments (1/2 hour, hour, ...), minimum logging per day, ... * full API access to plug to ticket trackers (time logging), invoicing, ...

We looked at some ERP but they usually were to clunky or complicated, and dedicated tools always seems too simple (most don't have any staff schedule management for example).

<comment><USER2> Forgot to mention that we've also JIRA as well more so for tracking progress but we've never used it for invoicing. Have you checked them out?</comment></comment></comment>


Is America an Oligarchy? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2014/04/is-america-an-oligarchy.html <comment><USER2> Here is an economics paper from Nature that might also add to the discussion.

[http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140121/srep03784/full/srep03...](http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140121/srep03784/full/srep03784.html)

It's worth some orthogonal cross-referencing.

</comment><comment><USER3> I stopped reading that article when:

"Proposals that are supported up and down the income spectrum have a better chance of being enacted than policies that do not have such support. To that extent, democracy is working."

Refactored:

'The poor have little influence, unless they agree with the rich. Democracy works in that case.'

Ok, that's probably the most blatantly dumb thing i've read in a while.

Also: YES! Ofc the American system isn't working. It sucks that once again (as humans) we're at the same place we always end up - power, corruption & escalating crap. Hopefully we've learnt the lesson this time?</comment>


Plasmodium-associated changes in human odor attract mosquitoes - <AUTHOR> http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/04/11/1721610115 <comment><AUTHOR> """ Malaria parasites (Plasmodium) can change the attractiveness of their vertebrate hosts to Anopheles vectors, leading to a greater number of vector–host contacts and increased transmission. Indeed, naturally Plasmodium- infected children have been shown to attract more mosquitoes than parasite- free children. """

<comment><USER2> Were those mosquitoes parasite-free?

To maximize infectiousness, the Plasmodii would then manipulate infected mosquitoes to ignore that smell and feed on uninfected humans...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The community of microbes resident on skin (or rather, their metabolites) has also been shown to influence attractiveness to mosquitos[1]. Interestingly, some taxa were associated with decreased attraction, which the authors of the linked study hypothesize is due to a masking effect. Skin probiotics may be on the horizon for mosquito deterrence and other applications (think acne, eczema, etc.). The composition of the skin microbiome is influenced by diet, host genetics, environment, and other factors (sun exposure, hygeine, etc.).

1\. [http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0028991)

<comment><USER4> This company is working on an acne treatment based on bacteria: [http://www.nakedbiome.com](http://www.nakedbiome.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very interesting

I am a person who mosquitoes love to bite but I don't have any disease (that I know off). My wife can lay next to me and not get a single bite while I am fighting them off left and right. I wonder what else can contribute to this difference.

<comment><USER6> Mosquitoes are attracted to co2. You are probably just bigger than your wife, exhaling more co2.

<comment><USER7> That reasoning never quite made sense to me because if that was a or the major reason, why do I have the signs of unwanted mosquito encounters mostly on or my feet and ankles?

If that theory indeed is true I think CO2 is just a rough guide to find the approximate location (within meters) of something alive with blood. I think once close other guidance systems might take over.

My above opinion isn't worth much, but the CO2 hypothesis seems pretty limited to me?

<comment><USER8> So, this might be a long shot, but I might hazard a guess that in hot, humid weather, with stagnant air, the dynamics of where exhaled exhaust goes, changes.

In the cold, dry air of winter your breath vents upward, but getting near sunny 90 degree weather, during summer time, it might descend and pool at the feet of gatherings of people at barbecues.

Carbon dioxide in ambient, matched temperature mixtures tends to be dense, and sinks toward the floor in many conditions (similarly true for carbon monoxide), but local conditions obviously vary, and odor travels differently than entire air masses. If mosquitos are already out, they probably travel along the odor gradient, toward the most concentrated area of scent.

<comment><USER7> You assume waaayyyy too much stability for a body of air. The air around you is moving constantly. Every bit of movement and every tiny heat source causes movement.

The problem is people don't see "air", but there are ways to visualize it (e.g. Schlieren photography). Or just watch smoke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Extended Phenotype" much?

> The Extended Phenotype is a 1982 book by Richard Dawkins, in which the > author introduced a biological concept of the same name. The main idea is > that phenotype should not be limited to biological processes such as protein > biosynthesis or tissue growth, but extended to include all effects that a > gene has on its environment, inside or outside the body of the individual > organism.

\----

Totally unrelated mosquito story: A friend of mine told me about a time he was laying down resting on a hot day with a fan blowing over him to keep mosquitoes away. He watched a mozzy land in the lee of his body and _walk_ towards him.

</comment><comment><USER10> Mosquitos love me, but when I know I'll go to a place with a lot of them, I start taking B12 vitamin. It was a tip a friend of mine gave me, and it usually works. I don't know why and never read anything about it.

<comment><USER11> Sorry to be that guy, but this is probably not true.

 _the notion that ingesting certain products like B vitamins (or garlic, for that matter) might repel mosquitoes is common, but unfounded. Based on scientific studies I was able to dig up, B vitamins are not effective mosquito repellants, and vitamin B12, specifically, is not well-studied.

What scientists know more about is another B vitamin - B1 - also known as thiamine. As part of a larger survey of effective mosquito repellants, a 2002 study in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that, "No ingested compound, including garlic and thiamine (vitamin B1), has been found to be capable of repelling biting arthropods."_ \-- [http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/21/can- vitamin-b12-pre...](http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/21/can- vitamin-b12-prevent-mosquito-transmitted-diseases/)

<comment><USER12> I wonder whether some of these folk remedies might affect the response to bites, i.e. modulating the immune system response and inflamation...

My wife always claims to be a mosquito magnet, but I have thought about it in various situations like camping and touring the tropics. I am not sure if she is getting harassed more than me, or if she just reacts more strongly to all the bites. Some of my bites are very mild, and I could believe that there might be more that I don't even notice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if there are biochemical pathways in, let's say, _Neisseria gonorrhoeae_ that are actually handy to have in a night on the prowl...

</comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if this is something dogs could be trained to detect.

I used to live near a creek where there were lots of mosquitoes, and when my roommates and I could go from the car to the house on a bad day, most of us would get bitten 0-1 times, and one would get bitten 3+</comment>


Technology – Looking for Voice Recognition Engineer - <AUTHOR> Seeking for a Voice Recognition engineer to assist in a POC where we would like to program at least 3 commands.
Please email me at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Thank you. <comment><USER2> HN is not a job board. There is one post a month where this is permitted. Please see the FAQ at the bottom for more details.</comment>


Micro-front ends, the future of Front end architectures - <AUTHOR> http://dium.com/@lucamezzalira/micro-frontends-the-future-of-frontend-architectures-5867ceded39a <comment><USER2> parked domain? the article is at [https://medium.com/@lucamezzalira/micro- frontends-the-future...](https://medium.com/@lucamezzalira/micro-frontends- the-future-of-frontend-architectures-5867ceded39a)</comment>


Ask HN: How can I take screenshots of websites programmatically? - <AUTHOR>

Hey all,
I'm trying to figure out how to take a screenshot of a site using some kind of script.  Ie: give it http://www.google.com, get back a .png/.jpg of google.com.
I've seen this feature on the new google search results preview and a few other places.
Couldn't really find much after googling, has anyone tried to do this before? <comment><USER2> Here's some code for doing this with Qt Webkit for a local app:

[http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2008/11/03/thumbnail-preview-of- web...](http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2008/11/03/thumbnail-preview-of-web-page/)

What you'd want to do is make a little server that does the same thing but can serve the resulting image, or just a simple utility that makes the thumbnails on demand and just saves them as images and call that from your web app.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Couldn't really find much after googling

[http://www.google.com/search?q=take+screenshots+of+websites+...](http://www.google.com/search?q=take+screenshots+of+websites+programmatically)

<http://www.google.com/search?q=webpage+screenshot+script>

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.paulhammond.org/webkit2png/>

</comment><comment><USER5> What I've done using Xvnc + Perl:

1) Run an Xvnc session.

2) Run a browser inside the xvnc session DISPLAY=:2 /usr/bin/firefox <http://url.com/> or whatever.

3) Connect to the vnc session with Net::VNC (vnccapture has example code) and take a screenshot.

4) Crop out the browser UI with Image::Imlib2

I needed to run a full browser because I wanted Flash elements to load. I had something like 20 xvnc/browser instances running simultaneously, which was more than enough for me. It could scale indefinitely though.

</comment><comment><USER6> I use self-hosted Browsershots with some modifications. With 4 ShotFactories running, a slow disk, 5 thumbnail sizes, and non-optimal reuse settings (reuse browser only once, reuse VNC server only once) it creates about 10 thumbnails per minute.

It runs headless and I only had to interact with the VNC server years ago when I originally set it up - so that I could configure Firefox with some addons.

(edit: maybe I should have clarified: I only use the Browsershots code, not the service)

</comment><comment><USER7> I think this can be done by using the Silverlight WebBrowserBrush control and the WriteableBitmap class. [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ff457752(v=VS.95).as...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ff457752\(v=VS.95\).aspx) [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/system.windows.media...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/system.windows.media.imaging.writeablebitmap\(VS.95\).aspx)

</comment><comment><USER8> There are services that do this, such as <http://www.shrinktheweb.com/>

</comment><comment><USER9> You can roll your own with Qt's Webkit module; load the page programmatically and then render the frame into a QImage and save that as a png/jpg etc.

You can use the Python bindings and hack something together in under 50 lines of code. Hook it up to a message queue or some kind of cron job and you're good to go.

</comment><comment><USER10> Sorry to answer with a trivial Google search, but: <http://www.websnapr.com/> might do something for you.

</comment><comment><USER11> run a browser in a vm and invoke a screenshot utility.

run a browser in a vm and script a 'print to pdf'

run a browser in an X session and do a screen grab of X.

</comment><comment><USER12> if you need screenshots from multiple browsers selenium is the way to go. saucelabs are great if you don't want to host it yourself.

</comment><comment><USER13> There are a couple of web services that offer the exact thing you're looking for. Websnapr is one, Browsershots is (to my knowledge) the oldest competitor in the space.

I tried using Browsershots years ago, and found it really quite slow, so I instead implemented a local version instead. If you're using Linux, you can programmatically launch a browser, take an X-Screenshot, and run that through ImageMagick to crop out browser chrome and OS things.

Offhandedly, I don't know how you'd go about splicing together multiple screenshots to get the long tail of the page, but I'm sure it's doable too, with thought.

That said, websnapr looks faster than I remember browsershots being, and not knowing your requirements, it may be good enough anyway.</comment>


Facebook Relay: An Evil And/Or Incompetent Attack on REST - <AUTHOR> https://www.pandastrike.com/posts/20151015-rest-vs-relay <comment><USER2> > _If you only want a subset of that graph, make an endpoint around that > subset._

This is one of the places this article didn't ring true for me. GraphQL is a much simpler way to do this. I shouldn't have to make a new endpoint every time my frontend team adds a new screen or modal.

> _Facebook is just Facebook. It 's just another web company, making a ton of > money off fundamental backbone technologies which it barely understands._

Like Google, Facebook is so large that it can redefine web technology. After all, the web is built upon agreed-upon standards. If enough of the web (and, yes, it can be just a few companies) agree on a standard, then that's what the web becomes.

And Facebook could very well be managing the most complicated internet- connected infrastructure on the planet. My mind is routinely boggled by the fact that Facebook loads as quickly as it does.

> _You can answer every complaint Facebook has with "just use REST > correctly."_

Even if I use REST correctly (which I do for some reason), what benefit does that give me? My users probably won't. It adds headaches for me.

I recently wrote a compliant REST API, and our app developer told me that one of his libraries wasn't making non-POST requests properly and that I should allow all requests to be POST. What am I supposed to do about that? I couldn't rewrite a library for a platform I don't understand, and it was too late to fire him. I just broke the REST compliance of my API and moved on with my life.

The bottom line is that REST is too poorly understood and poorly adopted to offer me much benefit in terms of efficiency. Ever used a REST client library? It requires tons of configuration to tell it how the API you're consuming is non-compliant. It hardly saves time at all.

</comment><comment><USER3> My guess would be incompetent. Just like react.native was billed as "fixing" problems with MVC, when what it offers is _exactly_ MVC.</comment>


Apple's Siri seen cutting Google out of valuable mobile ad views - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/11/04/apples_siri_seen_cutting_google_out_of_valuable_mobile_ad_views.html

<comment><USER2> I have trouble taking this seriously.

> Arora noted that before buying an iPhone 4S with Siri, he was required to > search for an Indian restaurant through Google's website.

 _Required_? This guy hadn't heard of Yelp or Urbanspoon so he used Google for everything. Fine, nothing wrong with that. But how does one arrive at the conclusion that everyone else used Google to find everything?

> "Google would have made money if I clicked on any one of a number of > advertisements for restaurants on the search page," he said. "Siri > completely bypassed Google and went to a database called Yelp."

A database called Yelp. Ok. I cannot believe this AppleInsider crap is on HN. What a non-story.

To go on a bit of a tangent, what is it that compels people to want or need a rival? It seems like it's trendy to hate Google these days, and people just kind of assume that everything Google or Apple does is to spite the other one, and not to just make their own stuff better. I don't understand it. I understand that Apple and Google compete in certain areas but why do people outside these companies like to get behind one and hate others? It's really stupid and has going on for decades. Apple vs Microsoft. Linux vs Microsoft. Microsoft vs Google. Apple vs Google. Apple vs Samsung. It's beyond tired. Can we please just give it up?

<comment><USER3> Calm down. It's Saturday and you're reading a blog. This isn't a scientific journal bro. Chill out. This ain't for you to read you dig?

Telling them to shut up is like telling flame-war (language fanboys, LISP elitists, NoSQL followers) soldiers to go to church of pragmatism.

Ain't gonna happen.

<comment><USER2> I happen to love Apple, Lisp, and NoSQL. I also like Google, Ruby, JavaScript, Python, C, and consider myself pragmatic. Make what you will of that.

And yeah it's Saturday and I'm reading HN. I'm not telling AppleInsider to stop being AppleInsider, not sure where you got that from. I am talking to my fellow hackers here, making a plea for a little bit of sanity and discretion. (Sorry about my ranting, I tend to rant when I'm annoyed. I don't want to harsh your mellow but maybe my ranting ain't for you to read, bro. It's Saturday and you're on _Hacker News_ you dig? This isn't Facebook, or a drum circle on the beach.)

Is it such a stretch to imagine that maybe, just _maybe_ , Apple bought Siri because they thought it would make the iPhone more useful and not because they wanted to "kill" Google? I mean, why even post this drivel to HN? How are we supposed to have a moderately intelligent discussion about some ill researched and ridiculous claims made by some guy who hasn't heard of Yelp, and an informal poll of 40 people?

edit: And yes I'm aware that Steve Jobs had it out for Google. That doesn't mean that everything Apple now does has to be with the sole intention of hurting Google. If you think about how many people own a iPhone 4S in relation to how many use a PC of some kind then the idea that this minor dent in Google's search revenue is going to somehow kill Google is beyond laughable. I understand seeing this crap on AppleInsider, but not on HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this was always an obvious side effect of Siri. The more interesting question is how does Google provide a competitive solution without cannibalizing their own revenue?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you're afraid of cannibalizing your current revenue you die. Apple's never been afraid of this in fact this is discussed in the Steve Jobs book. Example the iPad is eating into Mac sales and that's ok.

<comment><USER5> Indeed. That has been Microsoft's biggest weakness for several years now. Innovative initiatives are shut down because they threaten Windows, Office or both.

The Courier story is the most recent example but far from the only one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Arora noted that before buying an iPhone 4S with Siri, he was required to search for an Indian restaurant through Google's website."

Sometimes I wish I could downvote articles on HN...

</comment><comment><USER7> Really obvious commentary here.

It's pretty obvious that Siri is a shift in how users interact with their mobile devices but I think it's a little naive to say "The business model of Google is at risk" as if Siri is some unstoppable force that no one can stop. It's pretty dang new itself and to assume that Google isn't working on or doesn't have the technology to do something similar (and profit off of it via adwords) is a little ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER8> What is to prevent Apple from taking Siri online and using it as a search engine to compete directly with Google?

That seems to be where they are heading with all this (that huge new data- center they just built starts to make sense too).

<comment><USER9> It wouldn't be competing _directly_ with Google though, would it? Siri offers a limited range of functions (currently, though this will inevitably widen as Apple makes more modules (and possibly opens it up to third parties)) whereas Google indexes (almost) everything on the web and searches by text.

I agree though: due to its nature of remotely processing input, Siri could become a search engine accessed via a web browser assuming the computer has a mic (which most current Macs — especially the biggest-sellers, MacBooks — do). It would become a single interface for accessing dozens of services — like Wolfram Alpha and Yelp — and tapping petabytes of information.

<comment><USER8> No you're right, they are not ready right now, but they seem to be heading toward that collision somewhere down the road.

I was thinking mic would be necessary too but they would certainly have to have a fallback for machine's that lack that capability (aka, a text input box box). Apple could even do their spin on it and have the question spoken back to you after you enter it so Siri can 'hear' it (Apple has to spin it unique in some fashion similar to how Bing has a background picture distinguishing itself).

<comment><USER9> For some reason I didn't even consider that you could control it via normal text input, but you're obviously right as that's what Siri will eventually use after the voice-recognition software is used. This totally widens the possible market then, you're right.

I think the main bottleneck at the moment though (and why Siri was limited to the iPhone 4S even though the 4 and 3GS run it perfectly) is due to server load. They simply don't have the infrastructure to handle all the requests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For the first time it appears Google's web search could see a viable and strong competitor in Siri, especially if Apple acquires Quora and integrate Siri with Quora. I wrote about this here: [http://nextgenui.com/user- exerperience/googles-pagerank-algo...](http://nextgenui.com/user- exerperience/googles-pagerank-algorithm-will-become-irrelevant-cognition-will- succeed/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Even if _all_ iPhone users start to use only Siri instead of Google, will Google really be in trouble? IOs have around 25% of the smartphone market. Is this number relevant compared to _all_ users of Google in the world? (this is actually a question.)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We have a poll/conversation going here: <http://hall.com/apple>

<comment><USER12> Low information density on that page. Really do not need to see an activity stream of people I don't know voting Yes or No.

<comment><AUTHOR> @benatkin good points. We're working on a iteration now to address.</comment></comment></comment>


Illinois judge rules police entitled to SWAT raid over parody Twitter account - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/19/illinois-judge-swat-raid-parody-twitter-peoria-mayor

<comment><USER2> Horrendous precedent set here, but it props up my theory that people looking to the courts to strike down government overreach will be disappointed. Free speech can be countered with a SWAT team, legally. Even if they hadn't found marijuana when they bashed down his door, it is still extremely intimidating to be raided by paramilitaries.

The USA is a police state, and has been for a few years.

</comment><comment><USER3> Summary: You piss someone in power off, and you're subject to a SWAT raid for one reason or another

</comment><comment><USER4> That's not a flattering photograph of Mr. Daniel. I find it hard to believe that that's the only one that was available.

<comment><USER5> Maybe that was done on purpose?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Police state.</comment>


Kryptnostic lets you search fully encrypted data in the cloud - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/19/kryptnostic

<comment><USER2> This is interesting. Homomorphic encryption has been talked about a lot in the past, but no one had an efficient implementation.

Good overview: [http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2012/5/alice- and...](http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2012/5/alice-and-bob-in- cipherspace/99999)

Only problem is: the field is littered with patent landmines. It'll be interesting to see how these guys can work around that... [http://blogs.teamb.com/craigstuntz/2012/04/04/38707/](http://blogs.teamb.com/craigstuntz/2012/04/04/38707/)

<comment><USER3> This is definitely an issue and has been for a few years now: [http://community.embarcadero.com/index.php/blogs/entry/the-h...](http://community.embarcadero.com/index.php/blogs/entry/the- homomorphic-encryption-patent-land-rush-38707)

One thing in our favor is that we're not using a lattice or ring-learning with errors approach, which is where the majority of the patents lie.

Our general IP strategy is to only use patents defensively, and make that technology available under open source licenses that allow unrestricted non- commercial use.

We're also making all of our SDKs Apache v2 so that its easy to integrate into other software stacks.

<comment><USER4> Which type of fully homomorphic encryption are you using?

 _Edit:_ Ah, found your patent: [http://www.google.com/patents/US20130329883](http://www.google.com/patents/US20130329883)

<comment><USER3> We'll have a more readable write up available on ePrint, soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I do not dare to sign up via your https: [https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=kryptnostic.c...](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=kryptnostic.com) "This server accepts the RC4 cipher, which is weak. Grade capped to B." cf. [http://www.isg.rhul.ac.uk/tls/RC4mustdie.html](http://www.isg.rhul.ac.uk/tls/RC4mustdie.html)

<comment><USER3> We agree. RC4 must die.

Will post back once we have resolved the issue.

<comment><USER5> I noticed the change, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does this maintain query privacy?

<comment><USER3> Yes, but there are some limitations when doing server side sharing of documents without a central trusted authority.

It's dangerous to accept shares from untrusted sources as it exposes you to attacks by malicious servers colluding or impersonating a user.

Without using Oblivious RAM you risk losing query privacy, when indexing documents that consist of one word repeated many times.</comment></comment>