Eve: Programming designed for humans - <AUTHOR> http://eve-lang.com/ <comment><USER2> One of the more interesting parts (to me) about Eve wasn't the interactive programming or the literate programming, but that it included a database inside of the programming language. Most programming languages think of a database as a thing separate to it (I think Smalltalk is an exception).

Hence, they needed language constructs to make it easier to talk to databases. As a result, Eve was inspired by the Bloom language being researched at Berkeley, which was in turn inspired by an old language called Datalog. In it, they take constraints of a declarative language (like SQL) and use it to make distributed computing a lot easier.

"Our main data-structure was now a tree of tables. Rather than one big top- level function, we switched to a pipeline of functions. Each function pulled data out of the global store using a datalog query, ran some computation and wrote data back. Having less nesting reduced the impact of lexical scope and cursor passing. Using datalog allowed normalising the data store, avoiding all the issues that came from hierarchical models.

At this point we realised we weren't building a functional language anymore. Most of the programs were just datalog queries on normalised tables with a little scalar computation in the middle. We were familiar with Bloom and realised that it fit our needs much better than the functional pidgin we had built so far - no lexical scoping, no data-structures, no explicit ordering. In late March we began work on a Bloom interpreter." [http://incidentalcomplexity.com/2014/10/16/retrospective/](http://incidentalcomplexity.com/2014/10/16/retrospective/)

Here's a talk by Peter Alvaro (doing research with Bloom) about it, and I had to watch it 4 to 6 times to really get everything out of it. He makes a shout out to Eve at the end ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Aa4PivG0g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Aa4PivG0g)).

The Bloom guys are the same guys that released the paper to Anna, the KV store just 11 days ago. ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16551072](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16551072))

<comment><USER3> "Excited, we presented our prototype to a small number of non-programmers and sat back to watch the magic. To our horror, not a single one of them could figure out what the simple example program did or how it worked, nor could they produce any useful programs themselves." (From the article linked above).

As a programmer, I had the same reaction, actually.

<comment><USER2> That was pretty early on. They iterated a couple of times thereafter.

<comment><USER4> yeah, that was a very early version that we never released publicly, but was effectively a cleaned up version "Aurora," which I presented at Strange Loop once upon a time ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In case you missed it, this project is no longer being actively developed: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/eve- talk/YFguOGkNrBo/E...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/eve- talk/YFguOGkNrBo/EozaCfheAQAJ)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for linking this. The community response is quite something.

"Even the short amount of time I wrote Eve taught me that programming doesn't need to be so complex.

If Eve didn't come along I wouldn't have believed you could program without loops.

If Eve didn't come along I wouldn't have thought twice about why all of the different layers of the stack communicated and passed data around in different ways.

If Eve didn't come along I wouldn't have believed you could just programming the happy case, because the runtime would run only the blocks of code that work with your state.

Rest assured that rethinking and reimagining programming has a bigger movement now than when you started and you helped drive it.

Ruben" ([https://groups.google.com/d/msg/eve- talk/YFguOGkNrBo/r_S9hNc...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/eve- talk/YFguOGkNrBo/r_S9hNcVAwAJ))

<comment><USER7> > If Eve didn't come along I wouldn't have believed you could program without > loops.

What's he referring to here?

<comment><USER8> Eve doesn't have loops, because the basic unit isn't a variable but a set of variables. So a computation is applied to every element in a value.

e.g.

x = [1, 2, 3]

x + 2

// x = [3, 4, 5]

I have since learned that APL does something similar, expect their basic unit is an array.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thoughts on why this project was dumped by investors:

I think the problem they really had from the beginning was they were pressuring themselves to innovate in an industry that is already decades old. You can't raise $2 mil and not feel the pressure to perform, and sadly this is not how innovation works. So instead they kept releasing prototypes that didn't really make sense or remotely scale:

\- turning sql into graphs that made a 2 line statement take up the whole screen

\- the database language that had no performance characteristics at all

\- the bouncing ball demo that seems to only be made to create a bouncing ball, and yet doesn't add more understanding to the process anyway

\- the imperative language written in 'english' (but of course only accepts the english words and specific grammar the software understands) and so on.

Not trying to be harsh, but this is probably a good thing. Once they take a break and move on to other things, a ton of ideas will no doubt come flooding in, just because they aren't under the same scrutiny and pressure anymore.

<comment><USER10> As one of the investors I think it is strong language when you say "dumped", and not really true in my opinion.

You have to remember that there are still many people who want to back this as a project. One of the big issues is that it is a really hard problem technically to solve with many "unknown" "unknowns".

And yes, I agree that many ideas will flood in because of this, and Chris Granger and Rob Attori and co have already influenced many other people and projects, they are in my opinion the thought leaders in this new programming space, and as a consequence have already influenced the entire industry with their ideas.

In any case, they influenced me, and if they influenced just one person, that is enough for me :)

<comment><USER11> I had only just learned of Eve through this post, and watched a bunch of Chris' videos... I was blown away by him!

I've been in tech a long time and have known lots of extremely bright people. But, I've not met many who exhibit such a broad horizontal grasp of complex technical concepts combined with an elegant and concise way of expressing this knowledge (e.g. via Eve).

I'd surely bet on this guy again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was just reading about Light Table's denouement and how Eve was in a way its successor, and now I find Eve has gone about the same way. It looks like both projects foundered because the problems they addressed --- representing code in non-linear ways with changes live-propagating through the system's state --- are very, very hard, apparently harder than Chris et al. realized.

In retrospect, their harsh words about our current languages and tools representing a 1970s mindset come across as hubris.

<comment><USER13> > In retrospect, their harsh words about our current languages and tools > representing a 1970s mindset come across as hubris.

Nah, I think the hubris is thinking you could make a business with a near- horizon payoff fixing the problem they accurately identified.

I can't think of any "build a new language" startups that have succeeded (I'm sure there's one out there somewhere, though.) Getting a language established is a long slog, unless you've got a mega-user as a partner from day one, which mostly happens when the project is developed internally by that mega-user.

<comment><USER14> definitely not recently but I think MATLAB, Mathematica, S, Stata, and lots of other commercial scientific/numerical packages could qualify.

it may not be possible any more, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is no longer an active project... [https://twitter.com/with_eve/status/956258695049981952](https://twitter.com/with_eve/status/956258695049981952) Odd that its not mentioned on their site though?

<comment><USER9> Maybe they haven't accepted it yet. Though their blog posts were always few and far apart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Eve was a great idea, I'd love to see a community take it up after the business behind it folded. (I think v0.2 was the last version with the whole stack that had been built to that point working; v0.3 had engine improvements but I don't think ever had the dev environment, and v0.4 was a complete rewrite in Rust that I don't think ever got to a releasable state, though there were some demos before they went mostly silent for a while and then closed up shop.)

<comment><USER16> v0.4 was missing documentation and some other habitability improvements, but in its current state it was by far the most useful Eve. You can download it here if you want to try it out: [https://github.com/witheve/eve- native](https://github.com/witheve/eve-native)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm a huge advocate of bringing usability/ergonomic considerations to programming languages. That said, I have strong opinions about syntax decisions that hinder those goals.

For example, writing out words instead of using symbols is easier to understand at first glance, but it's much harder to skim (even after becoming familiar with the language). SQL is a really hard language to skim. Of course, the opposite end of the spectrum (C is close) is also hard to skim.

<comment><USER18> So is APL easy to skim?

<comment><USER19> You're being snarky, but I think there's something to the parent comment.

I like the idea that most of the words that someone sees in a program are words in the domain of the program itself — its nouns and verbs — and not words in the domain of the underlying implementation language.

For example, though I visually like the way Ruby's "begin" and "end" look for delimiters, I think braces are better in that they reduce the "word clutter" of the code.

You can probably take this too far. I wouldn't want to use punctuation for control flow. But perhaps that's an argument that, like Smalltalk, control flow should be an API and not built in syntax.

<comment><USER18> Syntax highlighting usually is used to set apart the language's keywords from the rest of the program. They become less like words and more like standard symbols.

<comment><USER19> Great point! One of the things I really like about syntax highlighting is this separation. It's important enough that when I'm toying with syntax for my hobby languages, it's _really_ hard for me to get a feel for how something looks if it isn't highlighted correctly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I love this idea. I've always thought the disconnect between documentation and code felt a bit repetitive.

Why not write a Markdown doc that compiles to code? Especially with a system like Rails, where so much can be auto-generated. Obviously this isn't for mission-critical or new ideas, but for putting your CRUD app into the world, it makes total sense.

<comment><USER21> This particular part of it isn't a new idea though, it's literate programming, been around since Knuth.

<comment><USER22> Literate Programming as put forth by Knuth always involved a "tangle" process in which source code and documentation is formatted into a literate document. This is due to the forced order of statements compilers impose on most programming languages.

What was different in Eve was that the entire language was unordered, and thus you don't need a tool-chain to read literate source -- the raw source itself is literate.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, I've seen a fair bit literate code that is awkwardly structured to satisfy ordering needed by the underlying language. It works better in languages that don't care about the order of declarations, of which there are many, but usually there's something at the top to the effect of "we need to start off with a pile of imports, because compiler."

Haskell will recognize a .lhs extension and do comments by default, using > to prefix lines that are actual code (looks block-quote like).

Frankly I am something of a skeptic of literate programming. In most of the literate source code I've read, the code is clearer than the prose anyway, and having every detail in comments just makes the whys and the high level design harder to find.

My approach is to basically assume the reader is familiar with the language and the key libraries, document the whys, overall design, and the api contracts, and try to pick good variables and write clear code. This is not to say "inline comments are bad," but I find that usually when I find myself writing a lot of comments explaining the details it's because I'm writing a lot of confusing code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Discussion from original release in 2016 (nearly 400 comments): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12817468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12817468)

</comment><comment><USER25> The IDE has some interesting ideas but I'm not convinced that the language itself is actually particularly intuitive. I would love to see a JavaScript IDE (Atom extension?) with features like

\- "Prose-style", where comments are a first-class citizen and code lives inside blocks. Seems like this would go a long way to encourage thorough commenting.

\- The checkbox-style thing, where you can easily mix different pieces from different files on the screen at once. That was incredibly slick. The general idea of abstracting code constructs away from the literal files they live in is something that's been bouncing around in my head for a while.

\- The state export was pretty cool, though it's not clear to me that could easily be implemented without controlling the language itself.

</comment><comment><USER26> > An IDE like Medium, not Vim

Sorry. You lost me here. If you don't understand _why_ so many developers are so committed to Vim, then I don't believe you understand how actual developers (not beginners) interact with code well enough to replace it.

<comment><USER27> Having been a programmer for 20 years I have no idea why so many developers are so committed to Vim (other than it is available almost everywhere, which is helpful when doing things on a remote server).

I'm probably going to get down-voted to hell for this opinion here but it's literally the least productive, least intuitive, and most frustrating editor _I 've_ used.

But "learning curve" it's advocates cry! The time I have to spend getting up to speed with vim is better used _actually programming_ , not to mention the people I know who are advanced users don't appear to code any faster than I do. A couple of occasionally used text operations are faster perhaps (though in modern editors it's debatable) but it appears to not have much cumulative effect.

As far as I can tell the only reason developers use vim _is because developers use vim_. It's a tautological tool.

<comment><USER26> Are you actually interested in having a conversation about why developers (like me) use vim? I've also been a programmer for almost 20 years. For me Vim+unix has outperformed VisualStudio (6-through current), Eclipse (and multiple derivatives), NetBeans, Xcode, and lots of smaller, language-specific IDEs.

<comment><USER28> Are you outperforming with Vim, or is Vim outperforming over those other editors/IDEs?

I doubt you'd be "outperforming" if you were writing Java in say Vim, over Eclipse/Intellij...which have vi-keybindings.

<comment><USER26> > I doubt you'd be "outperforming" if you were writing Java in say Vim, over > Eclipse/Intellij...which have vi-keybindings.

That's exactly what I'm doing.

\----

 _edit_ If you're actually interested in a discussion: what does your IDE actually give you in Java?

* Syntax highlighting? Every code editor (including Vim) gives you that, especially for such common languages as Java.

* JavaDoc access? Cool, but not worth the overhead. I've got the JavaDoc up in a browser pane on my second monitor, easy to search, doesn't make typing laggy or crap all over my text editing pane like the IDE does, and isn't triggered until I actually _need_ the JavaDocs. I've found that by looking them up myself and not having autocomplete I actually internalize the documentation better, which means I need it less. My brain is much faster at autocomplete than the IDE too.

* Automated variable rename. Again, cool. This is one of the few net benefits. Doesn't out-weigh the rest. And silver surfer/grep + Vim gets me 95% of the way there. The only real trouble is when you have lots of duplicate names for un-related things, and that's a bad pattern I'm try to eliminate in my code anyway.

* Debugger? This is a powerful tool, to be sure. But it's not IDE-only. And I've seen it abused. I've never been anti-debugger, quite the contrary. I love my debugger. But I've noticed that as I've gotten older and have developed deeper experience I use it less and less. In fact, I don't think I even have a debugger installed on my work machine right now!

* Automated refactor/etc. I'm convinced this is the _cause_ of bugs more often then the fix. Certainly for poor architectural decisions. I've elaborated in other comments, but basically: train your brain.

That last one I'll emphasize. I don't want the IDE doing any of my thinking for me. It doesn't _think_ it applies canned patterns which may or may not be appropriate. Certainly it can be used well, but the more you use your brain to do it the better your brain will be. And if you train your brain it will be accustomed to doing the work so that the value lives in _you_ , not your IDE. Now it's language-agnostic. Now you can jump onto the next cool language without being hobbled by the lack of IDE support. Now you are forced to learn the details of all the tools your IDE is wrapping for you and are more prepared to actually solve problems with, for example, your build environment.

Of course, I'm not saying that it's a binary your brain vs the IDE thing, but personally I find it more productive to live outside the IDE all the time.

<comment><USER29> No. The top feature of an IDE is the call tree: Show me all the callers of this function and all of their callers and so on. This is a game changer. It means that you can reverse engineer someone else's code (or even your own). And in practice, that's what your spend most of your time doing if you want to make changes that are congruent with the whole system. Eve claims to have tools to help with this despite not being statically typed. If I get time I would like to try it because the querying and matching parts of the system are very attractive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think it's very strange that it isn't actively developed anymore. It had some really gushing reviews. What's keeping people from taking over the implementation?

</comment><comment><USER31> The thing where this fall apart is try to get away from imperative, predictable code.

That will NEVER (ie, to be on mainstream) work for large scale software OR attract non-experts.

Try to make a "virtue" a "callback-hell" with other names is a futile idea (apart some specific scenarios). If is hard to debug, is hard to have a mental model of it, period.

\---

The other parts of the idea sound well, but is not clear how the magic is made or how create the "data store".

</comment><comment><USER32> One problem with literate programming: a large portion of the industry hates to document, and thinks that comments are EEEEVIL. Not me, but many.

I would love to see something like literate programming become more mainstream, though. Even little things like having to repeat parameter names in a block above a function/routine, rather than simply next to each parameter, seems like it's harder than it ought to be.

</comment><comment><USER33> The action-response mechanism reminds me of the Easel programming language:

[http://www.eslsyndetic.com/Documentation/overview_of_respons...](http://www.eslsyndetic.com/Documentation/overview_of_responses_and_their_uses.html)

It was a cool model, if a bit ahead of its time. Good to see the idea living on.

</comment><comment><USER34> it looks (superficially) a lot like Elm.

<comment><USER35> It's more in the logical programming paradigm than the functional paradigm, IIRC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Is this related to the eveonline game?

<comment><USER37> You could have clicked the link and found out for yourself in like 5 seconds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I really don't understand projects like this. Why can't people just _learn to code_ , in an actual programming language? To me this is like instead of teaching people to read and write you teach them to draw pictures and use emojis instead.

<comment><USER39> This is something you posted 15 hours ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16625687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16625687) > No Klik & Play?! It was the reason I can say I was building and distributing my own games back in 5th grade! > No Lego Mindstorms!? I was building Robots with six degrees of freedom in middle school!

I think you, in fact, do understand the value of human-oriented programming.

<comment><USER38> I'm not sure if I'd generalize my own experiences to the general public. Even though I used simple drag and drop interfaces to create programs before, I was also tinkering with HTML and JavaScript, so they weren't a gateway to real coding. My time spent with actual programming languages greatly accelerated my learning.

I'd argue that programming languages are already human oriented, it's not like we're putting together programs with assembly or binary code like some people imagine. And syntax and conventions improve all the time to make it easier.

If you want to be able to simply speak a program's requirements and watch it happen, there's already a solution for that: hire a coder.

<comment><USER40> > If you want to be able to simply speak a program's requirements and watch it > happen, there's already a solution for that: hire a coder.

If everyone had this attitude we'd still be traveling between cities on foot.

Based on their demo, it appears the purpose of the language was to push the "human centered" aspect of it even further, and not to settle for what's possible today.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Exile of the Bohemians - <AUTHOR> http://read.maintainradiosilence.com/radiosilence#issue/6190/article/~xz9 <comment><USER2> "There is no room to expand without replacing something that's already there. Since few of the Victorian residences that give the city its character are taller than three stories, housing is perpetually in short supply."

The problem isn't yuppies, it's zoning.

San Francisco residents and municipal government are more interested in preserving old buildings than increasing housing supply, then complain that prices are going up? Well yeah, Supply < Demand.

In Miami, we had a similar problem: the booming financial industry brought in yuppies that threatened to displace the Cuban immigrants that give the city character. So the city simply turned the area around the financial firms (Brickell) into a bunch of fancy high-rises.

I'm sure there were plenty of cool old buildings in Brickell. But the municipal government compromised and Miami is better for it.

[1] [http://marketurbanism.com/2015/04/20/travel-update-a-tale- of...](http://marketurbanism.com/2015/04/20/travel-update-a-tale-of-two- latino-areas-in-miami-and-san-francisco/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Just as I'm reading these comments, I get a text from a bohemian friend about the SF How Weird Festival, which is happening today in SOMA, on 2nd St. She, however, had to move out of SF several years ago. and is now in Oakland.

SF's art and music culture has a long history, but hasn't been very good since, maybe, the 1960s. It's too non-judgmental. In NY, they tell you if you suck. In LA, they don't call you back if you suck. In SF, nobody says anything and you can suck forever. The SF scene is a hotbed of mediocrity. I know people from SF who made it, but they left SF to do so.

There are still artists doing cool stuff in the SF bay area, but they're more spread out now. Big projects are at NIMBY in Oakland or the Richmond shipyard. There are still art studio complexes in the Dogpatch area of SF, in old industrial buildings. Most of them are cranking out art good enough to sell, but not great art. It's a job, not a scene.

</comment><comment><USER4> Of all the people to hand-wring about, the bohemians are the last we should worry about. They will relocate, but they will be fine - and they'll bring whatever benefits they bring to areas that need them a lot more than cash- flush cities like San Francisco or Manhattan.

Not that I agree with the authors that bohemians are what make a city desirable to wealthy yuppies (like, if we're being honest, myself.) I suspect we both like the same things about higher-density cities while mutually disliking each other.

<comment><USER5> On the other hand, I moved to the Bay Area in 2013 to work for a big famous tech company and I was utterly disappointed. Earning a high income was no fun because I was trapped in a city full of type-a, over-achievers, who only wanted to talk about work. The people who I most enjoyed hanging out with were financially struggling and on their way out.

Cheaper places allow for more diversity, which creates a healthy and vibrant culture. The Bay Area feels sick to me; like something from a William Gibson novel. I left after a year and will _never_ live there again if I can help it.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I'm looking into moving to Austin. Even work-wise, conversations have gone from "What are you building? Nifty, how does it work? Thanks for the link to the schematics" to "What are you building? Nifty, who's funding your project? Ah, nobody? I'm sorry".

<comment><USER7> Funny I hear the same things from friends who left Austin to Pittsburgh :)

I wonder where the Pittsburghers move to when Pittsburgh's too expensive/no longer cool?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Area is colonized by poor people who by necessity develop a subculture that is adept at surviving in that area with little means.

Hipsters follow poor people, add to the subculture, making it a bit quirkier and interesting.

Rich people follow hipsters, kick everyone else out by raising rent too much.

This has happened before and it will happen again.

What's the next step?

</comment><comment><USER8>
      Hey dude, don't make it bad
      Take a sad suburb, and make it better
      Remember to let it into your heart
      We need your art to make it better

      Hey dude, don't be afraid
      Move into this low-status neighbourhood
      The minute you walk around looking hip
      Then you begin to make it better

      And every time we raise the rent, hey dude, relent
      You carry investments on your shoulders
      Enthusiastically organize events
      And decorate retail strips with posters

      Hey dudes, don't let us down
      We allowed you to rent our suburb
      The minute you open up a cafe
      You start to drive our house prices upwards

      We let it out so you move in, hey dudes, begin
      Exhibit your work in this old warehouse
      Don't forget to spread the vibe among your tribe
      Then we can convert it to a sharehouse

      Hey dude, don't you delay
      Get creative in this old neighbourhood
      The minute the area's looking hip
      We'll throw you out, and rent it to bankers

[http://spill-label.org/nw/lyrics/heydude.html](http://spill- label.org/nw/lyrics/heydude.html)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev5abK63DGE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev5abK63DGE)

</comment><comment><USER9> Page fails to render without JS.

Flagged.

<comment><USER10> _If you flag something, please don 't also comment that you did._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER9> Point.

Though feedback to the submitter regarding site issues seems useful.

One element I've long thought would be useful for user-curated content sites is the ability to distinguish between editorial comment (that is, concerning the suitability of articles) and discussion. I've seen few if any sites making that distinction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Bohemia is actual country in Europe, but I understand the mistake, it is fairly small. It only has 7 millions citizens and 2000 years of history.

<comment><USER12> It's part of Czech Republic.</comment></comment>


AWS-Shell – An Integrated Shell for Working with the AWS CLI - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/awslabs/aws-shell <comment><USER2> that's awesome! awscli commands can get so long, the auto-completion should really help

<comment><AUTHOR> There's also a similar project (SAWS [0]), but they seem to be merging eventually [1].

[0]: [https://github.com/donnemartin/saws](https://github.com/donnemartin/saws)

[1]: [https://github.com/awslabs/aws- shell/issues/18](https://github.com/awslabs/aws-shell/issues/18)</comment></comment>


Certified BitTorrent Box Brings uTorrent to Your TV - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/certified-bittorrent-box-brings-utorrent-to-your-tv-130109/

<comment><USER2> How is this any different than any of the other android set top boxes? Am I missing something here?

<comment><USER3> Probably the fact that is certified

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd like something in this form factor that I could run XBMC on. Any recommendations?

<comment><USER5> I'm using a Mac mini and Plex (a fork of XBMC). I'm very happy with the setup.</comment></comment>


Paypal disables Mass Payments API without prior warning - <AUTHOR> http://struct.tumblr.com/post/9164514748/paypal-disabled-mass-pay

<comment><USER2> The title is misleading. Mass payments still worked for me as of this morning. From the article, it sounds like maybe it no longer works when using the API to send mass payments on behalf of another account.</comment>


The FCC wants to totally overhaul how cable boxes work - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/27/10840722/fcc-cable-box-rulemaking-proposal <comment><USER2> _The proposed framework introduces measures that would eventually allow cable and satellite customers to use whatever set-top box they want, as opposed to having to rent one directly from their provider._

I had hardly considered that possibility, but I embrace it. I don't like my box at all:

* It doesn't store data through power outages: If it loses power, it loses the channel guide and takes maybe 20 min. to reload it. How hard is it to store that data locally?

* The channel guide takes ~20 min. to load: How much data could there be?

* It wastes energy: It's power on state uses 29W; it's sleep/off state uses 22W. What does it need 22W for? Think of all those cable boxes in all those homes, sitting there unused and wasting 22W. My cable provider is just imposing this on cost on its customers and the environment. Regulations require other electronics to minimize their off/sleep power usage; something needs to be done here too. (My prior box used 29W on or "off", so 22W is an improvement.)

* The DVR doesn't stop/rewind/fast forward responsively, so it often over/undershoots the point in time I'm seeking. It's capacity is also very limited.

* The remote still requires line-of-sight. Plenty of tech exists to save me from this headache; my remote for another device simply uses Wifi, for example.</comment>


Planning Fallacy (wikipedia link) - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy <comment><USER2> I thought I'd be able to skim that in 10 seconds but it actually took 30.</comment>


JumpIDEA Observer: Collaborative Text Editing Became Really-real Time (12 pages) - <AUTHOR> http://observer.jumpidea.com We just started market research service. Here is the first report: Collaborative Text Editing Became Really-real Time — August 12, 2009 (12 pages) http://observer.jumpidea.com<p>What kind of facts about web apps market do you like to add to this reports? Thank you for comments. <comment><AUTHOR> We just started market research service. Here is the first report: Collaborative Text Editing Became Really-real Time — August 12, 2009 (12 pages) <http://observer.jumpidea.com>

What kind of facts about web apps market do you like to add to this reports? Thank you for comments.</comment>


Cyborg Neil Harbison can hear colors. - <AUTHOR> http://www.horizont.at/home/detail/cyborg-kann-farben-hoeren.html?cHash=c2567fffaabbed82d33ccc7d21c2bc22

<comment><USER2> From Google translate:

Cyborg artist can hear colors

Living in Spain Harbisson artist Neil has a sensor implanted and sees himself as a first hybrid of organism and machine. At the re: publica conference in Berlin, he wowed the audience.

Electronic eye or simply "eyeborg calls" the 31-year-old Neil Harbisson the small sensor, which he wears on a holder, which leads to the back of his head from the forehead. "Eyeborg" looks for Harbisson who suffers from birth to achromatopsia and the world can perceive only in black-and-white contrasts. Where "see" is not quite right. Because eyeborg converts the colors in the world sounds around (eg a red "F") and can Harbisson hear these colors. However, not the headphones, the sound takes Harbisson by implant directly over his skull bone vibrations as true.

"In 2004 we designed the eyeborg that allows me to hear, what you see in front of me," Harbisson told in a much-publicized and applauded speech on the internet re: publica conference, taking place these days in Berlin (HORIZON) reported .

Chip implant in the body

"As a cyborg, I felt the first time I heard in my dream colors", Harbisson says of his self-definition. Today, people would be referred to a cardiac pacemaker or a smartphone as a hybrid of organism and machine, for him, the limit would be exceeded, but only if the technology improves the capabilities of his vehicle and he sees it as part of his body. Ethical concerns that critics in the merging of man and machine, has no Harbisson.

Meanwhile, he has established that he must wear an electronic device on his passport photo, to formally considered part of his body. Soon he even wants to do it so far that the chip that performs the calculations and he wears the neck, is powered by its own body with energy and no more battery power needs. "Then I am no longer dependent on electricity," said Harbisson.

Cyborg Foundation fights for rights

It is fascinating how the Irishman was able to develop his senses by means of eyeborg. "I can hear infrared and ultraviolet and explore whether monitoring sensors are in the room such as," he told the astonished re: publica audience. His partner Moon Ribas he has been infected with the Body Hacking, such as the expansion of the human body is also called for technical elements. It has built around the "Earborg" earrings, which measures the rate of people who walk past her. Vibrations tell you how far and by what side people come upon them - according to Ribas so you can maneuver with closed eyes through a crowd.

With the Cyborg Foundation, founded in 2010, they intend to move more people to likewise become cyborgs and also represented the rights of these people. "There are so many people who want to extend their senses and become a cyborg," said Ribas.

Arts and blind

Main application can find the electronic sense extensions of the two currently in the arts. Harbisson approximately translated speeches of Martin Luther King and Adolf Hitler in colorful images. "Hitler's speeches are very colorful, because he used many different registers, while Martin Luther King is very purple," said Harbisson. Or he misses cities starting from their noise by their dominant colors (Vienna is about yellow / white, Lisbon light blue / yellow). He also makes songs from the faces of people or creates dishes according to the colors of pop songs. A new project called "Earborg" is also intended to enable blind people to also be able to hear colors.

Harbissons eyeborg is problematic in social terms: Most people are not familiar with the technology and would you believe that she is filming Harbisson. On similar resistance is now reaching Google's data-Glass glasses that can shoot a photo by voice or can shoot videos without any external signs - for many, a break with data protection and privacy. A friend of Harbisson has solved the problem in a very simple way and gave him a T-shirt that says: "I'm not filming."</comment>


Inmate claimed his life sentence ended when he died and was revived - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/11/08/benjamin-schreiber-denied-life-sentence-appeal-iowa/ <comment><USER2> I'm inclined to believe he has a valid point. You can't redefine legal language just because it allowed a loop hole you hadn't considered. Indeed this very thing is bread and butter to the lawyer community.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cute, as the court said, but no cookie. The court sentenced John Doe to life in prison, meaning he never leaves prison alive, short of a pardon. Since he's still alive, end of story.

But what a brilliant argument for on that has plenty of time and can only gain from this.</comment></comment>


German exchange enforces High Frequency Trading bill - <AUTHOR> http://xetra.com/xetra/dispatch/en/kir/navigation/xetra/300_trading_clearing/100_trading_platforms/100_xetra/950_hft

<comment><AUTHOR> Extract from circular:

 _[...] the German High Frequency Trading will require exchanges to determine appropriate order-to-trade ratios and a fee for excessive system usage. Moreover, rules for flagging orders that were generated through algorithmic trading are to be included in the exchange regulations. These requirements are not only relevant for high frequency traders, but for all participants who generate orders algorithmically (e.g. participants facilitating quote machines)._</comment>


Jeff Bezos Thinks 100% Ad-Supported Businesses Are Bad For Users - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/surprise-jeff-bezos-thinks-ad-supported-businesses-are-bad-for-users-2013-9

<comment><USER2> I really like the idea of making the readers the customers instead of the advertisers. It will be interesting to see the direction the Washington Post takes with Bezos at the helm.</comment>


Web 2.0 & Tech Conferences of 2007 - <AUTHOR> http://www.somewhatfrank.com/2007/01/the_2007_web_te.html <comment><AUTHOR> It being March, many of these events have since passed. There are still a number to look forward to, including the Web2.0 Expo in April and Summit in October.</comment>


Blending Cultures: Best of Functional, Protocol- and Object-Oriented Programming - <AUTHOR> https://realm.io/news/tryswift-daniel-steinberg-blending-cultures/ <comment><USER2> I immediately started looking for a before and after project link on GitHub... sadly not there. I would be very nice if all of the talks came with source(s).

</comment><comment><USER3> Would be nice with a sample project on GitHub for this talk! Love the approach!</comment>


Marc Andreessen Sounds Warning on Startups Burning Cash - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/marc-andreessen-sounds-warning-on-start-ups-burning-cash/ <comment><USER3> VC-funded startups have _always_ burned cash at prodigious rates. There's nothing inherently worrisome about that. What worries Andreessen, Gurley, Wilson, and other investors with decades of experience is that many startups today are burning cash by spending on things that do not increase business value -- and in some cases actually destroy it -- without worrying for even a moment about the possibility of running out of money.

In Andreessen's words: "Lots of people, big shiny office, high expense base = Fake 'we've made it!' feeling. Removes pressure to deliver real results."[1]

In Gurley's words: "I think that Silicon Valley as a whole or that the venture-capital community or startup community is taking on an excessive amount of risk right now. Unprecedented since ''99\. In some ways less silly than '99 and in other ways more silly than in '99\. ... For the first time since '99, in the past 12 months, I've been in board meetings where the company says, 'Our only option is a 10-year lease,' at record pricing on a per square foot basis here in San Francisco, which is two or three times what the rent was three years ago. And so this is why it's all cyclical—because the landlords get greedy. They wouldn't do a 10-year lease if they thought that the rates were low. So they're implicitly telling you they want to lock this in for 10 years, which is its own form of greed because what happened in '99 is half the companies went bankrupt and they couldn't pay the lease over the 10-year period."[2]

In Wilson's words: "I've pushed back on long term leases that I thought were outrageous, I've pushed back on spending plans that I thought were too aggressive and too risky, I've made myself a pain in the ass to more than a few CEOs."[3]

Their worry, in short, is that _many_ VC-funded startups are burning cash _stupidly_.

\--

[1] [https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/515219433695223809](https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/515219433695223809)

[2] [http://online.wsj.com/articles/venture-capitalist-sounds- ala...](http://online.wsj.com/articles/venture-capitalist-sounds-alarm-on- silicon-valley-risk-1410740054)

[3] [http://avc.com/2014/09/burn-baby-burn/](http://avc.com/2014/09/burn-baby- burn/)

<comment><USER4> Honestly? I don't buy it. The VCs are the ones that have been pouring cash into these companies so they can blow it on obscenely expensive parties and offices. I think they're just trying to deflect criticism away from themselves and onto the startups.

I mean, there have also been plenty of startups in the past that have blown money and built a product that nobody will pay for. And VCs just pour more cash in.

<comment><USER5> > The VCs are the ones that have been pouring cash into these companies so > they can blow it on obscenely expensive parties and offices. I think they're > just trying to deflect criticism away from themselves and onto the startups.

No VC will ever say they invested in a company "so they can blow it". They invest so the company can spend on marketing/distribution, product, etc. Not on just-for-fun items.

I work in a startup and we keep ourselves in check. If we weren't managing our finances it would be our fault first. Mayyyybe blame the VC's indirectly for who they invested in.

<comment><USER6> > No VC will ever say they invested in a company "so they can blow it". They > invest so the company can spend on marketing/distribution, product, etc. Not > on just-for-fun items.

They'll call it "Recruitment and Retention"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am not really qualified to determine whether there is a bubble nor do I believe there is much value in speculating constantly about it. If there is one, valuations will drop, cash will be harder to get. Its not going to change the kind of work I like to pursue or the work that makers, builders and engineers do. It will probably change how much everyone is stuffing in their pockets, fine.

One glaringly bizarre thing from my perspective is why anyone would listen to VCs about whether we are or are not in a bubble. I'm sure there are other perspectives, but it would seem someone heavily invested in seeing valuations go up wouldn't want to ring alarm bells... I think instead I would rather gauge things by the numbers which unfortunately, are probably not frequent enough to reach true statistical significance to not have incredibly large confidence ranges. That being said, some of the money flying by on crunchbase every morning is ludicrous.

<comment><USER8> _> I am not really qualified to determine whether there is a bubble nor do I believe there is much value in speculating constantly about it_

Bubbles exist when enough investors decide that a bubble exists. When markets crash, nothing has actually happened...other than people deciding that equity values are going to drop. When they stop buying based upon that belief, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That said, of course we're in a bubble. Someone gave "Yo" $1 million ffs. I won't even go into Clinkle - a failed experiment in Silicon Valley cronyism. While those investments are poster children for this problem, there are hundreds of other equally absurd investments and valuations going around.

Fortunately, there is a way to protect yourself that has worked since the beginning of time. Create a scalable business that produces both revenue and profits, even during its growth phase. One that actually creates value both for customers and shareholders. Like magic, you'll still have a fantastic business while reading about how horrible things are for everyone else.

<comment><USER9> > Fortunately, there is a way to protect yourself that has worked since the > beginning of time. Create a scalable business that produces both revenue and > profits, even during its growth phase. One that actually creates value both > for customers and shareholders. Like magic, you'll still have a fantastic > business while reading about how horrible things are for everyone else.

This is less foolproof than you think. Cisco and Sun both had a business like you describe going into the bubble. They had tons of revenue and profit during the bubble. But when it popped, all the funny money that had been flowing to them through startups went away and their businesses took a huge hit. You have to make sure that not only do you have a stable business, but also that the majority of your customers are stable too. I would be very worried right now if I was any company that startups rely on. The obvious one is AWS and the other cloud providers, but they're not the only ones. If there's disruption to startups, there will be a ripple effect that will hit a lot of the tech world.

<comment><USER10> That's something I had overlooked. There is definitely a ripple effect in the event of a bubble popping, and if we are in one and if it does pop that will potentially ruin a lot of 'for devs, by devs' companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd just like to point out that the "why now?" question is probably related to a major shift in America's monetary policy. Since the 2008 crash, the Fed has been using a policy of "Quantitive Easing" (QE) to keep interest rates artificially low and thus encourage lending and spending. It's been known for while that the Feds were looking to end this policy sometime this year and it's looking like the end of October will be that time. Although the Feds seem to indicate that they won't actually raise interest rates until sometime next year, halting QE will have the affect of making less money available for lending. No one is really sure what is going to happen but this is an event that will affect the economy as a whole. To me, it's sounding like one of the industries that could be particularly affected by this policy is Tech and the result will be a market correction in startup valuations.

Links! [http://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/quantitative- easing.asp](http://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/quantitative-easing.asp) [http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist- explains/2014/01/ec...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist- explains/2014/01/economist-explains-7) [http://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2014/09/23/the-end- of-t...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2014/09/23/the-end-of-the-qe- era-is-upon-us-whats-next/) [http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/08/05/goldman-sachs- here...](http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/08/05/goldman-sachs-heres-what- will-happen-when-fed-raises-interest-rates/)

<comment><USER12> They've actually been scaling QE back for quite a while now.

<comment><USER11> You are correct, the Fed has said they would be ending this policy sometime this year and they're on track to do that. How I understand it, the big news here is that they've changed their language about raising interest rates from "we'll do it sometime in the future" to "we're going to do it sometime soon".

<comment><USER13> I don't think investors agree with you. If you look at the yield curves for the 1 year to 5 year treasury bonds[0] over the last year they have stayed relatively stable. Which means the investors expectations of future interest rate have been relatively stable. I don't think this supports you're theory that the Fed will be raising interest rates any time soon.

[0] [http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart- center/in...](http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart- center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yieldYear&year=2014)

<comment><USER11> The yield curve has been relatively stable at close to 0. Indeed (as I understand it) that's the entire point of quantitive easing: it artificially keeps interest rates on long term securities down to encourage that money to be lent and spent [http://marketrealist.com/2014/03/fed-taper-quantitative- easi...](http://marketrealist.com/2014/03/fed-taper-quantitative-easing- affects-yield-curve/).

<comment><USER13> The short term rate is 0. The yield curve is the curve if you plot interest rates on the y axis, and length of treasury bond on the x axis. This creates a curve that tells you what investors think will happen to the interest rate over the next 3 months to 30 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Part of Marc Andreesen's tweetstorm yesterday said, "Worry." Andreesen hasn't said "worry" since 2008, so between that and the fact that he is generally very bullish and optimistic (to the point that when A16Z makes a bet they can put in an order of magnitude more money than other investors would), I began to stress out more than a little bit, especially having just closed our round.

This may be anecdotal to my experience, but there was a time last year when the advice we were getting from mentors changed from, "Figure out how much cash you need to meet your next milestone and go raise that with a bit of cushion" to "Money is everywhere right now; get as much as you can and build the biggest war chest possible." Neither of these approaches are particularly wrong -- it would be weird to turn down money when it's on the table, but we opted to raise significantly less than what we _could_ have raised, and keep our team where we wanted it instead of hiring enough people to become "sexy."

Part of that is because we didn't raise at a super sexy Y-Combinator valuation and didn't want to give away the farm, and part of that was intentional. In short, we wouldn't know what to do with those people if we had them.

To be clear, we still have plenty of money to get stuff done. We still can pay for all the tools we need, pay ourselves enough to not have to stress about cash, and can hire top talent. We just don't have more money than we know what to do with.

We have three people working full-time on product right now, and that will grow to five in the next few months. If we had raised a $3 Million seed round (if you can still call that a "seed"), we would have felt compelled to go hire a dozen people. I can think of stuff we'd _like_ to do, but it would probably be an absolute mess if we were building it all in parallel.

There may be some companies for whom building a huge war chest makes sense, but the notion of raising money for the sake of raising money (because you _can_ ) seems odd and dangerous to me.

<comment><USER15> You're correct that neither approach is wrong, especially since it might largely depend upon what type of business you're building. However, I think if you have no fear in your ability to raise funding, a business may relax in the real market discovery search. a super sexy valuation is always nice...but I think profitability is always in vogue. When I read this recent article[0] about what it MVP really means, it reminded me that some people in our industry forget that finding a market for your innovation is the lifeblood of long term success.

[0][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8356906](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8356906)

<comment><USER14> The advice to build a war chest is often quite pessimistic. For example, if you think the market is going to bottom out by the next time you're going to raise money, you might as well raise it now. With all else being the same, it would have been a whole lot easier to raise money in 2000 than at then end of 2001.

<comment><USER16> >The advice to build a war chest is often quite pessimistic

I think cautious / sensible might be a better description. Few people look back regretting having too much money in the bank. As long as you can avoid blowing it on dumb stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's quite amusing that the folks who have been investing in companies at exorbitant valuations and pushing for higher and higher growth as a prerequisite for additional funding are now worried that all the large sums they've aggressively invested are being spent on growth or things that create the appearance of growth. What did they expect?

Comments like "When the market turns, and it will turn, we will find out who has been swimming without trunks on: many high burn rate co's will VAPORIZE" are particularly interesting. The top-tier VC firms always talk about value add and active participation in their portfolio companies, and almost all of them look to have board representation in one form or another. But somehow one of the Valley's most prominent and connected VCs suggests that he doesn't know "who has been swimming without trunks on." Crazy.

<comment><USER18> you make it sound like all the VCs got together and decided to make this happen. it's instead an artifact of the economic system we have. it's due to humans being involved, but not caused by individual humans.

the car analogy would be the waves of stop-and-go traffic on a congested freeway, which is caused by variances in reaction times of people.

<comment><USER17> > you make it sound like all the VCs got together and decided to make this > happen. it's instead an artifact of the economic system we have. it's due to > humans being involved, but not caused by individual humans.

"Your poor returns are an artifact of the economic system we have. The collapse in the value of your investments with our firm is due to humans being involved, but this was not caused by individual humans."

\- Every hedge fund manager, mutual fund manager, venture capitalist

> the car analogy would be the waves of stop-and-go traffic on a congested > freeway, which is caused by variances in reaction times of people.

I think the pusherman analogy is more apt: he who sells crack gets crackheads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why now? What about all the years startups have been burning cash? It's nothing new. Parties, entitlements like free meals for employees, fancy offices and furniture, too much travel, ads and PR spending, fancy hardware... when a startup has zero or negligible revenue, this kind of excessive spending is absurd. Not clear why Marc thinks it's time to sound a warning now.

<comment><USER20> >ads and PR spending

These are growth activities as opposed to the others you list. The truth is many products never have just organic "viral" growth. They need ads, sales, or both to drive it.

<comment><USER21> Some would argue all the things he mentioned are growth activities. Employees are a vital resource... taking care of them can be valuable and can attract new talent as well

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I do agree valuations are artificially inflated, but before you start drawing parallels to 1999 and every financial bubble of years past remember there are companies with real revenue streams. Sure, there are the snapchat valuations which have no basis, but do uber, airbnb, dropbox, and the like not deserve billion dollar valuations?

Let's entertain the idea that we have another "catastrophic" event where every VC in the world wakes up to the realization that many of these companies are worthless. They can't liquidate their positions. The key idea here is that this is a private market. These startups can't go from $100 million -> $0 in a day. They will tighten their straps, let a few employees go, and extend that runway as long as they need to make revenue. IMHO the easy days will be over and now every founder will learn what its like to really run a startup - <USER2> more shots in the dark just because you can

<comment><USER23> >do uber, airbnb, dropbox, and the like not deserve billion dollar valuations?

Uber and AirBnB are illegal businesses in most places in their current form, and to the extent that they loosen up those laws they invite competition from other companies for which there are no switching costs for either their customers or vendors to move between at will. The only way they can crush in that case is by undercutting on price and going into negative profits, while coming up with ways to increase lock-in.

There's nothing preventing an alternative dropbox, or 100 alternative dropboxes. The only thing they have going for them is an early brand and technical talent (which may reduce infrastructure costs.)

I don't think that any of them are worth a billion dollars.

<comment><USER24> You're overly simplifying things. Uber has my payment information set up in a sleek app. Uber has the most cars available when I need it. They have pretty seemless technology that works well. New entrants are unlikely to match that. So I'd stick with Uber. Which of course are all the reasons Uber has raised gazillions and is growing like crazy. "There can be only one!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think this is the 4th major blog that I've seen just repost Andreesen's tweet stream.

But, regardless of frothy times or not, the advice is solid. Keep your burn low. Run as lean as possible until you've figured out the business model.

<comment> at-fates-hands Shouldn't this be business 101? Plan for a downturn, use your resources wisely to avoid future disasters? Even after several market crashes, it's surprising to see so many businesses acting so recklessly with their capital. You would think being in the valley they would know better.

<comment><USER26> It depends on the market conditions. VC funded startups are not a place where I think that really makes any sense. Most billion dollar startups haven't even been through an entire business cycle.

The VC market is not looking for consistent year over year 8% growth for the next 40 years. If they wanted that they would have bought index funds and told startups to fuck off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The fact that the tv show Silicon Valley exists, as much as I love it, really shows that were in a big boom right now. It's starting to feel a lot like the dot com era again.

<comment><USER27> Also for those of you who haven't watched it, they continually make fun of the valuations, ideas, and funding available. So when I say exists I mean not just that it exists at all, but what it's really about also ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> "Companies that spend money on fancy offices..."

Start-ups actually do this? What's the value in a nice office when you are not established? Does it help to attract talent? Is it one of those everyone else does it things?

<comment><USER29> > Start-ups actually do this? What's the value in a nice office when you are > not established?

To play devil's advocate: You want to invest in big, fancy offices because...

\- People will be more likely to stay longer each day

\- It helps recruit talent

\- It helps instill the "Company Culture"

\- We have to look successful to be successful

<comment><USER30> Mostly the last one, IME. A misappropriation of the common "fake it til you make it" advice.

The REALLY sad part is how many companies build out these offices that are expensive as hell, super nice inside and out and then (ignoring 40 years of studies) they structure them in large open floor plans designed to maximize noise and distraction and minimize the ability of developers to reach a useful state of flow.

<comment><USER31> Yeah ... There's merit in having an open plan, but an open plan with no places to hide from the chaos is definitely going to be less efficient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The trade is getting crowded - that's the feeling I get from some higher profile VC funds complaining recently. Their buy-in's are getting more expensive as more private money from non-traditional VC funds moves into the sector due to continued low interest rates, a feeling the public markets are getting close to topping and the fact that each round seems to be up, up, up.

This is forcing higher prices for the traditional VC funds which in turn makes them more conservative with how their money is spent. And because the money is so easy to acquire the start-up's are blowing it quickly. They are competing for a limited set of "top" employees which is driving labor costs up to potentially unsustainable levels.

Money won't always be so easy. Use it carefully. However, I see the top VC's getting a bit upset they have more competition to invest in tomorrows potentially massive businesses at discounted rates.

</comment><comment><USER33> Southparks - Go Fund Yourself episode about startups is timely: [http://www.hulu.com/watch/691075](http://www.hulu.com/watch/691075)

</comment><comment><USER34> The problem is that nobody will listen. The reason nobody will listen is everyone has an "I better get mine while I can mentality" or a "Well, nobody else is going to listen, so I'll be at a disadvantage if I stop spending so much" mentality.

If you look around and see the people you're competing with spending money like it's going out of style, you're going to do it too.

<comment><USER10> I disagree with that; people will still try to get theirs, but most people are smart enough to go for the PayPal model: get 100 million dollars right as the bubble pops and spend it wisely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> So the evaluation has been made that there is more to gain by protecting your reputation for the next boom-bust cycle then there is in wringing the last few million out of the current one.

</comment><comment><USER36> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8369734](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8369734)

</comment><comment><USER37> The solution is simple: always treat each round of funding like it's the last money you'll ever get.

</comment><comment><USER38> Can Confirm, I work at a start-up and see it on a regular basis.

</comment><comment><USER39> So after such market correction in how investors value startups and software business in general, I suspect that there will be a starkly different valuation model, one that relies on net positive cash today and the prospect of net positive cash in the next quarter.

Spending cash as soon as they come in won't be good enough for the next group of investors, to further weed out the cash burning companies, they will look for a more conservative and cash positive businesses.

This would impact consumer centric startup models where valuation comes from having a large userbase more. Companies that pursue businesses wallets will have a more favorable valuation, possibly a lot larger than what was previously thought.

Looks like a good future but not so much for if you are building the next facebook. Those days of sustaining high user base with little to no paying customers are gone. Market will no longer place favorable valuation on such operations.

This is just what I'm predicting of course.</comment>


California Orders All Bars and Nightclubs in CA to Close, and Restaurants to 50% - <AUTHOR> https://sfist.com/2020/03/15/governor-newsom-orders-bars-nightclubs-wineries-to-close/ <comment><USER2> Ugh. This needs to be an legal order.

I was walking my dogs earlier today and there were giant queues of people outside restaurants and cafes in Oakland. It's also not sufficient to say "only seat X% of usual" - you also can't allowed queues.

This ignores bars that carefully ensure person to person contact via the annoying ID check stamps.

</comment><comment><USER3> One interesting thing here, the Governor is only giving "guidance" not a legal order. My local bars are promising to stay open since its not legally binding :(

<comment><USER4> A lot of bars and restaurants don't have a choice. Their margins are razor thin as it is. Forcing them to close for weeks is, for many, equivalent to asking them to shut down and declare bankruptcy if there is no kind of stay on rents/mortgages.

A lot of landlords aren't going to give a damn unless they are forced to.

<comment><USER5> Seems like circumstances might force the landlord to act similar to someone who gives a damn, if they look at it rationally.

Let's say you own a property that is suited for retail business like bars or restaurants. The bar that currently occupies it can't pay rent for a month or two.

They have broken their end of the agreement, so now you have the power to evict them. But do you actually want to do it? If so, how soon are you going to be able to get a new tenant? The entire industry just took a huge hit, so how many restaurant or bar businesses have expansion on their minds? Not many.

You're probably better off just taking a loss and letting your current tenant keep doing business there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If it doesn't work, it'll be mandatory soon.</comment>


Ask HN: IT or HR? - <AUTHOR>

Well I do not mean to sound dumb here.
But I am looking for opinions just in case anyone else has been in a situation like this. I am a fresh Graduate in Computer science.
I have been job hunting for quiet a while in the IT industry but I have a unforeseen opportunity in an HR related job which my friend offered to me in his company. Now If I take this opportunity up I tend to think that I would never go back to IT ever again. But I would still like to be associated with something IT related probably take up some certification but  again will the certification be any good without hands on experience. I want to this this HR job as I would eventually be a partner in this company and not have a desk job. But I still stand confused. Any comments are appreciated. <comment><USER2> Barring weird stuff, take the job. "Never" sometimes happens, and it will give you a perspective few in IT have. Also, you can do fun IT projects as a hobby.

<comment><AUTHOR> On the topic of fun IT projects I did think about Freelancing...but again do inexperienced people get freelancing jobs ? I would jump at such an opportunity . Thanks for the comment though.

<comment><USER2> If you have a primary job, it is probably safer / better to just do your own. Pick something simple (e.g. small website, iphone/ipad app) and play.

<comment><AUTHOR> true...I am not much of a coder but I believe I can dedicate time to training at least I wont be jobless

<comment><USER3> I'm curious as to how you finish a CS program without learning to be at least a partially decent coder?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Might be an entrée into management, where your IT background could give you a leg up.</comment>


Bigger data; same laptop - <AUTHOR> http://www.frankmcsherry.org/graph/scalability/cost/2015/02/04/COST2.html <comment><USER2> I think we're starting to see the pendulum swing back towards caring about performance. For years we could just throw more hardware at a problem, and now performance curves are starting to flatten out. The bandaid has been to use more systems, but old-timers are starting to remember back to their youth, when systems were slow, that there used to be a phase in software development called "performance optimization" that's almost entirely disappeared in the modern discipline.

The amount of personal computing power every person with a modern computer has at their fingertips is _staggering_ and almost nobody has any idea how to use it.

I'd like to think that's starting to change.

<comment><USER3> As someone who has recently obtained a Masters degree in Computing science and who has few friends doing PhDs in big data analysis - I don't see that trend. All the latest research techniques that I see being used currently concentrate at throwing more hardware at the problem if it allows the researches to express their ideas easier - I have a friend who writes algorithms for processing 300GB graphs in Java. And basically the idea is that it really doesn't matter if the algorithm takes 40 hours because 90% of the time is spent garbage collecting. This is still preferable to writing much faster program in C, and spending weeks trying to do memory optimizations and playing around with pointer logic. If there is a need, then Uni will gladly pay for any requested capacity on an Amazon cluster, it's part of the Russel group so they have nearly unlimited budget for research. I am sure that's not the case everywhere, but in my experience researchers gladly trade raw performance for ease of use.

<comment><USER4> To see that performance matters, talk to the guys who are closer to the electricity bills that the big honking clusters demand. There is quite a bit of money to be saved by using hardware effectively.

BTW if 90% time is spent in garbage collection, something is definitely wrong in the choice of tools or methods.

<comment><USER3> That was just an example, I shouldn't have said 90%, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> All that investment and involvement, those big systems have got to be good for somethings! Please can anybody knowledgable share some insights? mrry?

<comment><USER6> It is one thing to run short benchmark on laptop. Other thing to sustain load 24/7 with demand spikes and hw failures.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is absolutely true! However, I'm not aware of anybody doing this for the graph processing systems being discussed in the post. Nor am I sure what that would mean. Admittedly if something takes 100 times longer to run on multiple machines than it does on a single laptop (as in the previous COST post [1]) then you might care about fault tolerance, but this is a contrived problem if you could achieve the same results faster on yor laptop.

[1] [http://www.frankmcsherry.org/graph/scalability/cost/2015/01/...](http://www.frankmcsherry.org/graph/scalability/cost/2015/01/15/COST.html)

<comment><USER6> I was answering parent questions. There are usually good reasons for clustering and big iron.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> First you should optimize performance locally. By choosing an algorithm and implementation that gives you the best results at data size _n_ you need to deal with most. Lowest O complexity algorithm is not necessarily the best. Worst cases and especially pathological cases also matter.

Then you need to deal with distribution between a large number of systems over network... This will likely force you to choose a different algorithm, but at least you'll have something the benchmark it against from local best case scenario.

When it comes to graphs, I think good partitioning is very important in order to minimize average case latency. So it'd greatly help if you can somehow partition the data to minimize the number of nodes referring to a graph node on a _remote system_. When walking the graph, instead of immediately sending a query to the target system, it's probably better to batch the queries. Or not if latency counts more. Either way, latency will hurt badly. On a local system it's 100 ns. When the data is on a remote system, you're probably talking about 1000000 ns.

To combat latency, maybe the best way is not to send the request in the first place? Maybe you can ensure nodes referring to a remote system are duplicated to some extent on multiple remote systems. It could help performance -- or hurt it more, like when you need to modify the nodes.

Maybe you should have counters on nodes with connections to nodes on remote systems. If some remote system is referring to it more than local system, migrate the node there instead. It's of course not hard to see how this strategy could blow up. :-)

Please don't take above ideas seriously if you're developing a graph processing system. I wrote those to illustrate the biggest basic problem of distributed systems, latency. Distributed systems are _very_ hard.

</comment><comment><USER8> > it wears out my SSD

No it doesn't.

Reading doesn't cause (much) wear on an SSD - _writing_ does.

(To be technical - it does, but it only requires 1 write / 100,000 reads or so. - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#Read_disturb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#Read_disturb) )

<comment><USER9> This probably isn't crystal clear from this post alone, but for PageRank the 42GB working set has a good mix of read and write. Specifically, about 14GB of target rank vector gets +='d all over the place. If they got hammered randomly, then lots of paging and writing would happen.

<comment><USER8> Oh, ok. Nevermind then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you're wondering where the actual comparison is, open the link to "the previous post" in the first paragraph.

<comment><USER9> That's a good point, thanks.

I've added the timings from the original post to the tables in this post, which also makes clearer the intended point: the existing systems don't yet have measurements for data at this scale (except Facebook's modified Giraph, which I want to hear more about :))</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there a service like Stripe but for physical credit cards? - <AUTHOR>

I'm interested in writing a custom POS for our business, but I've no interest in dealing with the hardware (like a phone dongle to swipe cards) or with dealing with a Merchant bank. Ideally it would be a company that provides the hardware to swipe a card (that would be compatible with tablets and smart phones), an easy to work with API, and handles settling the money to my bank account. I like how Square doesn't deal with the 30 cents per swipe, that it is just a flat 2.75% regardless, but that's because I have a lot of smaller transactions. They are all face to face transactions, so I want the lower merchant rate. Otherwise I could probably just use Stripe (didn't check ToS) but that's more expensive than Square, and Square's POS doesn't work well enough with our process.<p>Does anyone know if there is a provider that does this? <comment><USER2> You want hardware to swipe a card, that's compatible with tablets and smart phones, but isn't a dongle ([https://squareup.com/reader](https://squareup.com/reader))? Or, I suppose, their POS stand ([https://squareup.com/stand](https://squareup.com/stand))?

Do you just not want to use their software? You want to use the hardware with your own app on a tablet or phone?

</comment><comment><USER3> If you want to hook it up to a device with a USB port then there are any number of USB card swipers that will easily reader the card details and you could then integrate with Stripe.

For a mobile solution something like [https://cardflight.com/](https://cardflight.com/) would be an option which works with a number of backends

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, that looks almost exactly like what I was looking for. I wish they took care of the merchant services as well like Square, but at least they work with enough processors that I'm sure at least one of them will be a good match for me.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> That's correct, I want to use someone elses hardware with software I want to write. I guess basically I'm looking for someone that is just like square except instead of them writing the POS interface they were like Stripe where they provide the API and not the UI.

</comment><comment><USER4> This was supposedly just updated to support chip-and-PIN: [https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/credit-card- reader](https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/credit-card-reader)</comment>


Alcohol Activates Cellular Changes That Make Tumor Cells Spread - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091026172052.htm

<comment><USER2> Sounds like they might be down far enough where they're just picking patterns out of the static. Like my old boss used to say, _"If you feed a rat a box-car of anything, it gets cancer."_

From the same publication:

Alcohol Drinking Linked To Reduced Risk Of Renal Cell Cancer

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070515175026.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070515175026.htm)

Red Wine Protects The Prostate, Research Suggests

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070525215203.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070525215203.htm)

<comment><USER3> I agree. I think these publications that take things to the extreme are definitely bad for science and misleading to the general public. You just know that some news outlet, on a slow news days when the swine flu spread slows down, will take this and post it as its main headline.

Anything not done in moderation will be bad for you. For example, drinking too much water will cause water intoxication.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The Rush University Medical Center researchers also found evidence for a link between alcohol _initiating_ cancer:

        In addition, Forsyth and his colleagues found that the same roster of
        biomarkers was activated in normal intestinal cells treated with alcohol,
        suggesting that alcohol not only worsens the profile of existing cancer cells
        but also may initiate cancer by stimulating the epithelial-to-mesenchymal
        transition.

</comment><comment><USER4> Alcohol usage is down slightly from an apparent peak in the early '70s. Cancer is up, including colon cancer. The CDC has both alcohol and cancer statistics broken down by state. Do more Nevadans get colon cancer? Do fewer Arkansans? Because Nevadans drink a lot, and (believe or not), Arkansans don't.

Correlation isn't causation, but causation usually comes with at least a little correlation.

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't want to say there's no correlation without controlling for, well, a lot.

This looked at breast and colon cancer, which could be drowned out by noise from other cancers if this doesn't apply to them, for one. Other sources of cancer like diet, smoking, and being constantly irradiated would vary on a national level.

Also, the post seems focused on cancer becoming metastatic, which wouldn't be the same as cancer incidence, and looking at cancer deaths isn't helpful either because of variations in treatment, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well alcohol already has been demonstrated to cause cancer because it depletes thiamine.

Can someone please explain how tissue becomes mesenchymal from epithelium? I thought they were two different tissue types and therefore discrete classes of cancer.</comment>


ITunes for Research Papers - <AUTHOR> http://www.mendeley.com/ <comment><USER2> If people really do want to manage papers like they do music, I hope the eventual upshot is something like an iTunes Store for journal articles. I often want to purchase an individual paper that I'm interested in, but the going rate for a PDF download from a commercial paper database (e.g., Elsevier) is currently around $25.

I doubt these prices face much market pressure since universities generally purchase institution-wide access; papers in those databases can be downloaded freely by anyone on the university network. I'll bet that people like me, not currently affiliated with any school, make up a tiny fraction of their market.

<comment><USER3> The process of buying research articles could greatly use some centralization, period. Right now it's a muck of confusing, widely different websites with completely different rules and interfaces for finding and downloading papers. If you have the "benefit" of institution-wide access to get free papers, you are then forced to access everything through your institution's proxy, which layers on more kludge and slowness.

Pubmed and later Google Scholar provided the first great leap in allowing article citations to be found quickly from a centralized database. But generally you had to grab this citation and then trudge through the journal's article search interface via your institution's proxy to then retrieve the actual paper. Being able to click Buy Now, or Access Now, and get the actual paper via a flexible authentication system that works across institutions, would be the next revolution. I don't see any indicator that journals are moving to build this, though, so we are indefinitely stuck with an endless patchwork of incompatible e-commerce sites and institutional proxies.

The result is that a bucketload of undergrads are still stuck collecting PDF's via the gateways as their daily drudgework, allowing primary investigators in universities around the country to put off finding actual labwork for the undergrads to do ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are a bunch of HN startups in the same building as these guys, including us at Timetric (<http://timetric.com/>), Smarkets (<http://smarkets.com/>) and Rjdj (<http://rjdj.me/>).

London is coming. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> This looks exactly like Papers (<http://mekentosj.com/papers/>) which is fantastic.

edit: Missed the "free" part. Papers $40.

<comment><USER6> If you're willing to shell out a few bucks, I highly recommend mekentosj's Papers over Mendeley. Among the free options, I prefer CiteULike (web-based; <http://www.citeulike.org> ) or Bibdesk (Mac OS X; <http://bibdesk.sourceforge.net> ).

<comment><USER7> I had used Papers for a couple years off and on. I really thought it was worth the money, but after I discovered Mendeley, I found it more useful. The built in synchronization of Mendeley works better than using Papers + Dropbox (which didn't work well). Importing papers seemed easier with Mendeley and a browser. Also, I have a couple of personal Macs and an Ubuntu box at work and it's nice to be able to run Mendeley on both.

I might not be up to date on all the features of Papers but I am pretty sure they never added a better way to sync between computers.

<comment><USER8> Agreed, I dropped papers for mendeley and I'm recommending it to everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Came across it when I got lazy with managing citations and just organizing research data. Endnote does citations fine, but Mendeley is much nicer to organize snippets with. Get firefox add-on Zotero (<http://www.zotero.org/>) to one-click page to be added to Mendeley, which then greps all sorts of useful stuff like abstracts, authors, vitals, etc.

<comment><USER9> upvotes for zotero - unfortunately, I have moved on to Chrome and zotero dont workee in Chrome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like the zotero team is no hurry to move to Chrome yet: [http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/3955/chrome- compatibilit...](http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/3955/chrome- compatibility/)

And the official browser support page: <http://www.zotero.org/support/kb/browser_compatibility>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Previously known as "the last.fm for research". Why the change?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=948316>

<comment><USER11> More people are aware of iTunes? Plus it seems to offer download and catalog files similar to what you can do to media files in iTunes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hm. The download link states "Available for Windows and Mac", yet the screenshot on the download page shows it being run in Ubuntu. Is there actually some hidden Linux version and I am just missing something?

EDIT: I just realized it says "also available for". Ignore my ignorance :)

</comment><comment><USER13> Smart move to launch it on a friday. Friday is usually the semi-slacking day for researchers. Most of them (includig me) don't mind playing around with something like this on a friday.

</comment><comment><USER14> Wow, that could be sensational... will play with it this weekend...

</comment><comment><USER15> Why can't I have multiple research/academic fields?</comment>


If Darpa Has Its Way, AI Will Rule the Wireless Spectrum - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/wireless/if-darpa-has-its-way-ai-will-rule-the-wireless-spectrum <comment><USER2> I once got into a heated debate (well, maybe I was the only one getting heated) at a school cocktail party with (IIRC) a former chief economist from the FCC about spectrum auctioning.

TL;DR: there's a cadre of policymakers (current commissioner Ajit Pai among them) who are dogmatic about applying Ronald Coase's famous 1959 article "The Federal Communications Commission", which argued that a property-based market pricing system was the most efficient way to allocate spectrum.

I tried to argue that the fundamental problem isn't allocation of spectrum per se, but maximizing aggregate throughput. Yes, there's no disputing Coase's argument if we stick to the premise of figuring out how best to subdivide and distribute a finite set of spectral bands in a top-down fashion. But from a theoretical technological perspective that context was nearly outdated by 1959. By the time of the conversation in 2010, OFDM and beam-forming were standard, validating as a practical matter David Reed's argument that spectrum efficiency (in terms of number of data channels and aggregate throughput) is ultimately a matter of computational power and not primarily limited by spectral interference per se. The better allocation policy, therefore, is to rely more on open spectrum and let technology battle it out.

That's still a marked-based approach; indeed, it's _more_ market-based; it's just not property-based. But he just wasn't having it.

This DARPA challenge is great, but there are policymakers, including policymakers currently in charge of the FCC, who fundamentally disagree with the approach. In their mind, the private owner of spectrum can be relied upon to select the technology that makes maximum use of the spectrum. But this completely ignores rent-seeking behavior. There is no _ideal_ allocation of spectrum; it's all contingent on many different variables wrt to the path of technological development, not to mention the basic fact that competition isn't perfect.[1] Private owners of spectrum have an incentive to seek the outcomes that maximize their profit even if it they result in less efficient _usage_ of spectrum (e.g. less aggregate point-to-point bandwidth). This has been proven empirically because until recently it was WiFi that was at the leading edge of spectral efficiency as deployed, and it still would be were it not for government regulatory policies that prevent WiFi and similar open spectrum environments from scaling up.[2]

If we can't agree on the basic problem we're trying to solve, we won't be able to agree on the solution.

[1] Importantly, Coase's argument is premised on perfect competition. Sadly, some very influential academics and policymakers adamantly refuse to accept that violating such a basic premise could potentially result in completely different (i.e. very inefficient) outcomes. This is the epitome of dogmatic, non-scientific thinking, but as it's based on a true _theoretical_ model it's cloaked as a scientific, fact-based approach.

[2] Which is not to say that there isn't a role for gov't regulation. But many regulations would be different if we went all in on open spectrum policy. If I'm right then in the next few years WiFi or something similar will begin pushing the envelope again, forcing telecom operators to continue competing with open spectrum solutions; _or_ spectrum efficiency will plateau again and data rates will slowly rise as spectrum owners pursue rent-seeking over technological investment.</comment>