PostgreSQL's fsync surprise - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/752063/ <comment><USER3> I've said it before and I'll say it again: Modern filesystems straight out expose the wrong API for 99% of applications. App developers almost never think of data as a stream of bytes. We think of data as a set of records. Values in the set change through atomic modification events.

The fundamental API primitives should be atomic changes. Atomic write (bytes), and atomic append. The funny thing about it is that POSIX already supports basically this API (datagrams) for both IPC and networking. It just doesn't support this API in the one place it would be most useful - the filesystem.

Ideally I want:

\- Write() to be blocking / atomic by default. Don't return until data is safely committed.

\- A transactional API: begin(fd); write(); write(); err = commit(fd). If any error happens, commit returns the error and _none_ of the data is stored.

\- An IOCP-style API for non-blocking applications. This is the API databases want to use, with the loop being <get network request>, <write data to filesystem>, <yield>, <get write completion event>, <send confirmation to client>.

\- Deprecate fsync & friends. If you don't want to wait for the data to get committed, write in non-blocking mode and ignore the completion event.

Solving this problem in end-user applications is really hard - almost no applications implement atomic write on top of filesystems correctly. And they shouldn't have to - this should be the job of the filesystem. The filesystem can do this much more safely, with better guarantees, better performance and better error handling. Modern filesystems already have journals - <USER2> reimplementions of journals in userland doesn't help anyone. "Do not turn off console while game is saving" is an embarrassment to everyone.

<comment><USER4> > \- An IOCP-style API for non-blocking applications.

This exists, it's called Linux AIO (distinct from Posix AIO). The problem is, when you use it, you have to reimplement _caching_ (and buffering) in userspace instead of journaling – which is just as hard to get right and can just as easily – maybe even more easily – lead to corruption. (Postgres, as an example, relies on the OS to buffer writes.)

> \- Write() to be blocking / atomic by default. Don't return until data is > safely committed.

This is the wrong thing for 99% of use cases. You get terrible performance unless you batch things, which means that casual use ends up with severe performance issues. (IIRC this was actually a problem on Android devices – many apps were misusing SQLite by not using transactions, resulting in every single database update being a separate atomic write to disk. Not only did this kill performance, but it caused excessive flash wear.)

> Modern filesystems already have journals - buggy reimplementions of journals > in userland doesn't help anyone.

Databases (among other systems) need features and control over the journal that a filesystem cannot provide. (Think MVCC, replication, etc.)

Beside – someone has to write the filesystem, and that filesystem uses largely the same mechanisms in the kernel that are exposed to userspace.

I agree fully that fsync ought to be deprecated for something with much more clearly-defined semantics. Both OS X and Linux have made attempts at this (F_FULLSYNC and sync_file_range, respectively), though clearly at least Linux still has some work to do.

But – barring such unclear semantics – the general model of using fsync to guarantee ordering is not a complex one to understand, and matches most use cases well.

<comment><USER3> > > \- Write() to be blocking / atomic by default. Don't return until data is > safely committed.

> This is the wrong thing for 99% of use cases. You get terrible performance > unless you batch things, which means that casual use ends up with severe > performance issues.

The right answer would be to batch writes in the OS, but of course this would deadlock without non-blocking APIs. Maybe you're right - maybe write() should have the effectively non-blocking API it has now with fsync as a commit. But I still want my guarantee that if the system / hardware dies halfway through a write (or batch of writes) then data won't be left in a corrupt half-written state. Package installations and OS upgrades should be able to do the entirety of their work in a filesystem-level transaction. I shouldn't need to worry about my OS needing a reinstall because my laptop ran out of power halfway through an update. I just can't think of any sensible way to do this using the APIs we have today.

> Beside – someone has to write the filesystem, and that filesystem uses > largely the same mechanisms in the kernel that are exposed to userspace.

But importantly not the same mechanisms. The OS has control over write ordering, and most block devices support read & write barriers. Filesystems lean heavily on these primitives for correctness - and for good reason; they're really useful primitives for building correct, performant systems. But for some reason they aren't exposed to userspace. Userspace applications are instead left scratching in the dirt with fsync. It would be much easier to build correct, performant databases in userspace if we had access to this stuff.

<comment><USER4> A filesystem-level transaction would be a good idea. Maybe some FSes (e.g. ZFS) already support such a thing. You can get this (somewhat awkwardly) for a single file with any FS that supports copy-on-write by making a (lazy) copy of the file, doing your updates there, and then renaming it to the original file name (which is guaranteed to be atomic on most FSes). With smaller files this is standard practice even on FSes without copy-on-write.

> most block devices support read & write barriers

No, they really don't. Some _hardware_ devices might. I'm not aware of any SAN that does. (I've specifically asked this question of the developers of three.)

> Filesystems lean heavily on these primitives for correctness

In Linux, not since 2010 they don't [1], for exactly the reason that they're poorly implemented by devices.

[1] [https://lwn.net/Articles/400541/](https://lwn.net/Articles/400541/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been surprised to see an apparent consensus from the filesystem developers that Postgres should be using direct IO.

I worry that if the Postgres people do make that change, they'll find themselves hearing from a different set of kernel developers that they should have known direct IO doesn't work properly and they should be using buffered IO instead.

Previously I'd thought the latter was the general view from the kernel side.

For example this message from ten years ago, and other strongly-worded views in that thread: [https://lkml.org/lkml/2007/1/10/235](https://lkml.org/lkml/2007/1/10/235)

In particular, I'd taken this bit as a suggestion that if people found problems with buffered IO then the right thing to do is to ask the kernel side to improve things, rather than switch:

« As a result, our madvise and/or posix_fadvise interfaces may not be all that strong, because people sadly don't use them that much. It's a sad example of a totally broken interface (O_DIRECT) resulting in better interfaces not getting used, and then not getting as much development effort put into them. »

<comment><USER6> > I worry that if the Postgres people do make that change, they'll find > themselves hearing from a different set of kernel developers that they > should have known direct IO doesn't work properly and they should be using > buffered IO instead.

That definitely will happen. But the fact remains that at the moment you'll get considerably higher performance when expertly using O_DIRECT, and there's nothing on the horizon to change that.

> For example this message from ten years ago, and other strongly-worded views > in that thread: > [https://lkml.org/lkml/2007/1/10/235](https://lkml.org/lkml/2007/1/10/235)

> In particular, I'd taken this bit as a suggestion that if people found > problems with buffered IO then the right thing to do is to ask the kernel > side to improve things, rather than switch:

I think partially that's just been overtaken by reality. A database is guaranteed to need its own buffer pool and you're a) going to have more information about recency in there b) the OS caching adds a good chunk of additional overhead. With buffered IO we (PostgreSQL) already had to add code to manage e.g. the amount of dirty data caching the OS does. The only reason DIO isn't always going to be beneficial after doing the necessary architectural improvements, is that the OS buffer pool is more adaptive in mixed use / not as well tuned databases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can we ignore for a second what the proper behavior should be, and instead focus on the documentation.

In my opinion, even a careful reading of the fsync man page does not cover what exactly happens if you close an fd, reopen the file in another process, and then call fsync. Am I supposed to read kernel source code? Ideally, after reading a man page, I should have no questions about exactly what guarantees are provided by an API.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm always surprised by what a mess doing what seem like simple file operations is. Maybe even more surprised that everything seems to generally work pretty well even with those issues. Even "I want to save this file" requires numerous sync operations on the file and the directory its in.

I'm certainly not qualified to criticize anyone for the current situation, and, as the article points out, even some of the more egregious sounding behavior (marking as clean pages after writing fails) has a pretty reasonable explanation. But, IIRC, as storage capacities continue to rise, error rates aren't falling nearly as fast. So, I'm left kinda wondering if there is some day in the future where the likely hood of encountering an error finally gets high enough that things don't work pretty well anymore.

<comment><USER9> Although its not exactly associated with this as such there is a growing understanding that SMB/CIFS shares have a nasty habit of reporting "on storage" before the data really is safe. That is a bit of a problem for many backup systems, unless you do a verify afterwards and pick up the pieces. Backups can involve massive files with odd write and read patterns and databases generally involve quite large files with odd read and write patterns compared to say document storage.

Perhaps we need database and backup oriented filesystems and not funny looking files on top of generic filesystems.

<comment><USER10> Ironically, most sophisticated database engines do implement complete file systems, treating those "funny looking files" as little more than virtual block devices. In fact, with very little extra code, you can trivially retarget some database kernels to run directly on top of raw block devices, eliminating the redundant file system. It partly depends on the storage management requirements of the user e.g. if they expect to share block devices across unrelated applications. In my experience, the raw block device code is simpler and more reliable; there are many odd edge cases in Linux file system behavior that come up that you must account for if you require robust and reliable storage behavior on top of one.

There are some additional performance and behavioral advantages to working with the storage devices directly. Anecdotally, if you run databases on virtual machines (never recommended but many people do), using raw block devices instead of a file system often seems to eliminate much of the disk I/O weirdness that occurs under VMs.

<comment><USER11> Could you expand on what you mean by "weirdness" on VM disk I/O in the context of database storage?

<comment><USER10> The storage has anomalously high latency and throughput variance with some patterns that you don't see with non-virtualized storage and a modest degradation in average performance. This is expected, but it makes it difficult to schedule I/O efficiently. This is more noticeable if you are doing direct I/O because having a VM intercept your storage access defeats the purpose.

What was surprising is that the direct I/O behavior appears to be conditional on whether you are accessing the storage through a file system. My database kernel is block device agnostic, using files and raw devices interchangeably via direct I/O. Against expectations, when we accessed the same virtualized storage as raw block devices, the behavior was like bare metal even though we are running the exact same operations over the same direct I/O interface in a VM. Basically, the only difference was the file descriptor type.

I'm guessing that file systems are virtualization aware to some extent and access through them is actively managed; raw device accesses are VM oblivious and simply passed through by the storage virtualization layer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > When a buffered I/O write fails due to a hardware-level error, filesystems > will respond differently, but that behavior usually includes discarding the > data in the affected pages and marking them as being clean.

That behavior seems problematic.

As always, there's a great Dan Luu blog post on the subject: [https://danluu.com/filesystem-errors/](https://danluu.com/filesystem-errors/)

> Filesystem error handling seems to have improved. Reporting an error on a > pwrite if the block device reports an error is perhaps the most basic error > propagation a robust filesystem should do; few filesystems reported that > error correctly in 2005. Today, most filesystems will correctly report an > error _when the simplest possible error condition that doesn't involve the > entire drive being dead occurs if there are no complicating factors_.

Emphasis added.

</comment><comment><USER13> Now, taking the case of a user pulling out a USB thumb drive as an excuse for not keeping the dirty pages around seems ... disingenuous?

If the storage device has disappeared for good, you can just return EIO for all further I/O operations, and mark all open file descriptions for which there were dirty pages such that any further fsync() calls on the corresponding fds return an error?

I mean, either you think you can still retry, then you should keep the dirty page around, or you think retrying is futile, then feel free to drop the dirty pages, but make sure anyone who tries something that would make this loss visible gets an error, which should only require keeping flags on open file descriptions, and possibly pages/inodes/block devices that (semi-)persist the error at the desired resolution, which you can broaden if the bookkeeping uses too much memory.

<comment><USER12> Yeah. The USB case is a cop out. For USB, keeping the pages dirty and the fsyncs erroring (as seems consistent with Postgres' needs and common sense) seems fine.

The memory can be reclaimed when 'umount --force', or something like that, discards filesystem dirty state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _Such a change, though, would take Linux behavior further away from what > POSIX mandates and would raise some other questions, including: when and how > would that flag ever be cleared? So this change seems unlikely to happen._

      fcntl(fd, F_CLR_FKNG_ERR);

</comment><comment><USER15> I've seen this kind of problems when I was writing SSD firmware 10-15 years back. The operating systems just dont do much with the hardware reported errors. There is some old research papers called "IRON filesystems" that is a pretty good reading on how poor the error handling was and maybe still is.

</comment><comment><USER16> There's no way to recover from a failed write (if the drive is still operating and could reallocate the sector, it would have already done that). So mark the pages _damaged_ and deallocate their contents. Keep the metadata for the damaged pages around until someone tries to sync or close the associated file.

<comment><USER17> _There 's no way to recover from a failed write (if the drive is still operating and could reallocate the sector, it would have already done that)._

That's not exactly true. In the thin-provisioned block device case, administrator action can make it resume accepting writes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you take into consideration that there are alternatives like FreeBSD and SmartOS which do not suffer from such serious and basic functionality malfunctions, it is illogical to keep putting up with GNU/Linux on the basis of being the only thing one is comfortable with.

Comfort is of little consolation or use if the operating system is this unreliable, especially since making sure that data is safely and correctly stored is core, basic functionality.

</comment><comment> dis-sys This article is really good with lots of details in those linked discussions.

wondering what happens to other critical libraries such as RocksDB/LevelDB, what actually happens when there is hardware error not limited to unplugged usb cable?

</comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone know if a similar conversation around this issue is needed or being had in the MySQL community?

<comment><USER19> Sorry for being snarky, but from my ops experience MySQL manages to lose data even without hardware errors[1].

[1] My last experience was due to bug where certain pattern of data made MySQL/MariaDB think the data page was encrypted, after which it proceeded to discard that page and crash complaining that data is corrupter and from that point on refused to start until data got restored.

<comment><USER20> Ah, sort of "this sequence will never appear in user data" assumption, I guess?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Here's a simpler fix: when the underlying device produces an error then mark the in-core inode (not on disk) as having an error and have all further writes return EIO. Then fsync() too can notice the error state flag being set and also return EIO.

<comment><USER17> That's similar to Willy Tarreau's suggestion and suffers from the same issue - it only works up until that inode gets evicted due to memory pressure.

<comment><USER21> PG could keep it open. I know it doesn't, but it could and should.

Also, perhaps the error flag should keep the inode in core. Note that the pages would still get thrown out, so as far as memory pressure this is not the end of the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can anyone more knowledgeable than I comment on how this affects FreeBSD?

<comment><USER23> It doesn't affect FreeBSD. [https://lwn.net/Articles/752388/](https://lwn.net/Articles/752388/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> "The job of calling fsync(), however, is handled in a single "checkpointer" process, which is concerned with keeping on-disk storage in a consistent state that can recover from failures"

And there in lies the rub. Sybase ASE calls fsync() upon every commit, which is the reason that database devices are still mostly implemented with raw devices. Before version 11.9.2 (as far as I recall) you ran the exact same risk if you used the file system as devices. Now it's safe, but performance can get pretty heinous on write intensive systems.

<comment><USER6> > Sybase ASE calls fsync() upon every commit

Those are journal commits, not the commits that the piece you quote is talking about (actual data files).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Andres Freund, like a number of other PostgreSQL developers, has > acknowledged that DIO is the best long-term solution. But he also noted that > getting there is "a metric ton of work" that isn't going to happen anytime > soon.

No, that is a "recipe for disaster", as they say. Not doing something that everyone acknowledging as important, because that's a "lot of work" is what makes projects a mess. I've seen that many times on various projects.

<comment><USER26> What is DIO?

<comment><USER18> Direct input/output; the software performs write(2) system calls directly and does its own input/output buffering and scheduling, bypassing the operating system and filesystem driver buffering. For this to be effective and function correctly, the filesystem driver must support mounting in direct input/output mode, or raw character devices must be presented to the software in question. Note that presenting raw block devices bypasses filesystem driver's buffering, but does not bypass operating system (kernel) buffering, hence character devices must be used to bypass both. Software which uses raw devices usually has sophisticated input/output scheduling and buffering optimally tuned for its use case.</comment></comment></comment>


Costs of building your own data center - <AUTHOR> https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1102401615263223809.html <comment><USER2> There are other reasons to build your own, especially for those who aren't just running web sites.

One is security. Maybe you don't want to be on the internet, or are legally prohibited from being on the internet.

One is location. Maybe you need to process data at the south pole, or in a submarine, or in a space station. Latency might matter, making even normal parts of the USA be too far away. Your connection to the data center might be unreliable, with outages being equivalent to data center outages, so you'd want your data center local. An example is the Large Hadron Collider, which has a really high data rate.

One is atypical hardware. Maybe you need to run a custom accelerator chip. Even something as simple as SPARC or Itanium might have you running your own data center.

</comment><comment><USER3> >Construction of a mid-sized Enterprise DC (just 5000sqft), at just "tier3" availability (3 9s) will cost around 40m. If you want 5 9s redundancy you will need 1-2 failovers, so 3x that. Incld racks, cooling, power, construction and land. Using a colo @Equinix will likely save 20%

I don't get the part about using Colo will only save 20%. You don't have to build a DC just because you don't want to use other's people cloud. Colo is an option, without much of the hassle. But the saving were only 20%?

<comment><USER4> The author is speaking about "internet scale". I think he is describing renting a complete DC completely for your own because you are so massive.

All of these numbers make no sense if you are not someone in the Top100. I mean describing a cost for fiber through the sea? Come on... We're not all Google scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It really depends.

At very large scale owning can be cheaper based on contracts with various vendors. That said it's really hard to beat cloud vendors particularly with various discounts in place at anything short of cloud vendor scale.</comment>


Taco Bell social media moderation fail (Like their page to see wall) - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/tacobell

<comment><USER2> That is fail indeed... I saw a similar thing in a presentation from the owner of fanbooster the other day. Lot's of "broken glass" fan pages. Useless! Complete misunderstanding of what social media is. You need to provide a value to your connections before they give you likes.

<comment><USER3> I agree. 6,958,517 "likes" (at the time of my writing) may be perceived as a successful campaign by those who initiated the "like wall" as well as other marketers. Which some may use as fuel to do the same. Which is as you said a "complete misunderstanding" of social media.</comment></comment>


Sacha Baron Cohen: Facebook would have let Hitler buy ads for 'final solution' - <AUTHOR> https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/movies/sacha-baron-cohen-facebook-would-have-let-hitler-buy-ads-for-final-solution/ar-BBXaK3S <comment><USER2> Duplicate?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21606642](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21606642)

<comment><USER3> Hah yeah and the same top comment on both...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21604394](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21604394), which was posted first.

<comment><USER5> dang: thank you for choosing the other thread over this one. (I felt compelled to comment on both threads due to the clickbaity, potentially incendiary nature of this thread's headline, which doesn't do justice to the speech.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The irony... ADL is against free speech.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is a thought-provoking speech.

Do yourself a favor and _watch it in its entirety_ \-- before commenting: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM)

Among the many thorny issues and questions raised by Cohen:

* The business model of social media companies is powered by _engagement_ , which is greatest for content that arouses the basest instincts and feelings of human beings, including fear and hatred. Social media companies earn more with the basest content.

* Social media companies are ideal propaganda machines, enabling anyone willing to appeal to the worst in human nature to reach billions of people with a click.

* Do social media companies bear responsibility for the negative impact their products have on society, in the same way that, say, car companies bear responsibility for faulty engines or airplane manufacturers bear responsibility for faulty plane designs?

* Are social media companies _publishers_ , like broadcast TV networks, magazines, and newspapers? Should social media companies be held to decency standards, like all publishers?

I'm barely scratching the surface.

Do yourself a favor and watch the whole thing!

<comment><USER4> Please don't post duplicate comments to HN! It lowers signal-noise ratio and makes it hard to merge threads. Now that the threads are merged, we have to go find the other copies and kill them, and if they have replies, move the replies to the surviving copy. That takes REPL work and is a pain.

Here's what to do instead: when you notice that a discussion has forked and your comment is languishing in the losing branch, email firstname.lastname@example.com and get us to merge them. Then your comment will get moved to the winning branch, and you've benefited the whole community with an un-split discussion.

<comment><USER5> dang: Will do from now on.

Funnily enough, right before you posted this comment I had responded to you, explaining my decision to post twice, here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21609044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21609044)

Please feel free to delete my parent comment :-)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Journyal – record all your travels in the background - <AUTHOR> http://journyal.com <comment><USER2> This is the _seventeenth_ "Show HN" submit for this site.</comment>


Startup School 14: How to Think About PR – Sharon Pope - <AUTHOR> https://www.startupschool.org/videos/14 <comment><USER2> This is a good starting point, but I think founder-led PR needs to go a bit deeper. You need to connect with reporters, and there are several ways to do that.

* Give before you ask, and give a lot. Start with generosity. That could be information about your sector, introductions they need, or story ideas that have nothing to do with you. Keep giving. Relationships develop over years. One of the things you have to give is honesty. Never lie to a reporter. If you don't want to answer something, just say you can't answer that, but don't lie.

* Speak normal. Try very hard to talk in a language that intelligent outsiders who don't know tech jargon would understand. That will make your quotes shine, and allow the reporter to understand a sector that you're more familiar with than her.

* Get to the point quickly. Reporters are overwhelmed with pitches. Don't be frustrated with they don't respond.

Remember: product development is a long game, and so is PR. At a certain point you have to accept that you're doing both at once. Good press can get you the attention that leads to users and investments, and that gives you a foundation for building a better product.

Amazon has an interesting technique that combines product development and PR. That is to write the press release that will launch the product in such a way that will actually interest someone; that is, in a way that shows the important problem you solve, and for whom.

[https://www.quora.com/Amazon-company-What-is-Amazons- approac...](https://www.quora.com/Amazon-company-What-is-Amazons-approach-to- product-development-and-product-management)

Disclosure: I was a reporter at the NYT. I'm now a start CEO. In the last month, we were quoted in WIRED, CNBC, TNW, CIO, and TechCrunch using these techniques.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=news+skymind&rlz=1C5CHFA_enU...](https://www.google.com/search?q=news+skymind&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS713US713&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwir3-OPgoDUAhUVwGMKHZfaAzEQ_AUICigB&biw=1052&bih=639#tbs=qdr:m&tbm=nws&q=skymind)

</comment><comment><USER3> The main takeaways:

1\. Pitch journalists yourself as the founder - don't bother hiring a PR firm 2\. Pitch journalists who previously covered related companies 3\. Pitch what your company does from an interesting angle so it's easy for the journalist to see its story potential - different possible angles:

Your personal story / background Exciting new feature Company hit important milestone Your product is truly innovative Interesting user behavior patterns Broader social/political/economic issues your product touches upon Pitch to local publications (you founded your startup in this city) Create a landing page/resource related to product and pitch that

* From: [http://www.artofemails.com/pitch-press](http://www.artofemails.com/pitch-press)

</comment><comment><USER4> "Startup PR Mistakes": [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z6v6Um- hBT0](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z6v6Um-hBT0)

(Above is another recent presentation by YC on PR covering some of the same points, but also with a few different points too.)

</comment><comment><USER5> Recently I stumbled upon this on press kit [1], which I've found pretty interesting.

I think the 3 "must have" are pretty solid:

1\. Focus your press kit on clear, branded messages.

2\. Give your press kit a founder story and a company or product core story

3\. You have to create the focus with repetition, and repetition, and more repetition.

[1] [https://artplusmarketing.com/3-must-haves-for-your- startups-...](https://artplusmarketing.com/3-must-haves-for-your-startups- press-kit-3bbadf39debb)

</comment><comment><USER4> During the presentation, there was a reference to a presentation by YC's Kat Mañalac to the YC batches.

Does anyone have a link to an example of this presentation, slides, etc?

Also, are there any presentions, materials, etc., that are given to the batches that are not used in YC's Startup School, and if so, what are they?

<comment><USER6> This one? [https://blog.ycombinator.com/kat-manalacs-whale- ama/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/kat-manalacs-whale-ama/)

<comment><USER4> Unlikely, more likely this one, "Startup PR Mistakes" \- but no idea, and it may not even be online:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z6v6Um- hBT0](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z6v6Um-hBT0)

Beyond that, though I realize in presentations covering the same material by the same presenter, that the presentation changes over time, I'm curious if there's any significant difference between the presentations, materials, etc., especially during the same year.</comment></comment></comment>


Elon Musk Defends Role on Trump Advisory Board. Read His Full Text Explanation - <AUTHOR> https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/288731 <comment><USER2> No thanks, but I'd rather have sensible voices advising the president than not.

</comment><comment><USER3> The only proper response to such a hare brained and destructive "policy" like the immigration ban is not to "offer suggestions for changes". But to demand its immediate reversal -- along with a profuse apology and an offer of compensation to those adversely affected by this profound betrayal of trust.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would prefer what you described, and I imagine it feels good to verbalize it. However, demanding that the President do anything simply isn't reality.

If I am reading him correctly, I agree with fullshark, in that we are better off if intelligent, rational people are advising the President.

Kalanick's withdrawal was news to me, and I find that disappointing.

<comment><USER3> _However, demanding that the President do anything simply isn 't reality._

It's OK if we differ on whether one should attempt to constructively influence the current administration, or not.

But I have to strongly disagree with you on the other half of what you're saying. If your rights are being trampled, or the physical well-being of your loved ones is being directly threatened -- as is the case with those being denied access to health care, or who find their long and meticulously planned applications for asylum are suddenly throttled -- then yes, _demanding that their rights and physical well-being be protected_ is the only responsible and dignified course of action you have available.

And on top of that -- it's the only way people have ever won and safeguarded their rights, throughout all of history.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's simply not true. The voice of the people is powerful and important, but demands are not and should not be how we win or protect rights.

Constructive discourse with rational minds wins and protects. Demands, without discourse, context or leverage, can be counter productive and can completely derail productive discourse.

<comment><USER3> _Constructive discourse with rational minds wins and protects._

Do you suppose that the LGBT community ultimately won their rights through a patient campaign of engaging their opposition through debate clubs, paid advertisements and letters to the editor? Or through actions like this:

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

The moment a police baton cracks your head is the moment you can be pretty sure that the time for "constructive discourse" \-- and for patiently "asking" for your rights -- has ended.

<comment><AUTHOR> The LGBT community have won partial rights and their pursuit of rights is necessary and ongoing. I'll point to silly, counter-productive efforts in North Carolina for an obvious example of why it is necessary and ongoing[0].

Repealing the Defense of Marriage Act[1] and granting rights for same sex marriage[2] has done more for the LGBT community than any riot, or act of violence, or demand, ever has, or ever will.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathroom_bill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathroom_bill) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act#Repeal...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act#Repeal_proposals) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same- sex_marriage_in_the_Unite...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same- sex_marriage_in_the_United_States)

<comment><USER3> Agreed, riots aren't necessary anymore -- but that's only because you're fast- forwarding by nearly 50 years. The anti-DoMA movement, the bathroom bills and all the other modern wins are but the culmination of a decades-long process. The prevailing opinion on the LGBT community is that they never would have gotten anywhere near to where they are now (or at least never would have without an unacceptably long wait) without Stonewall (or some similarly cathartic moment).

That is, without a moment when those affected came forward to not just demand, but to _claim and assert_ their rights when the situation called for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Key quote: _" I understand the perspective of those who object to my attending this meeting, but I believe at this time that engaging on critical issues will on balance serve the greater good."_

Engagement: amazing how this has suddenly become controversial. What's the _productive_ alternative? A temper-tantrum?</comment>


"Asked to write a program that would send texts to customers, without assent" - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/magazine/is-sex-with-a-brain-damaged-man-assault.html <comment><USER2> Bad URL?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's actually the 2nd question on that page, not the one referenced in the title. Should have left a comment to that effect.</comment></comment>


America's Invisible Pot Addicts (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/08/americas-invisible-pot-addicts/567886/ <comment> blaser-waffle The assumptions and tone of the article make me think it's a plant by anti- marijuana advocacy groups.

I agree the trend for hyper-potent weed isn't great, but that's mostly a function of years of clandestine growth, where it makes sense to grow the strongest weed possible; easier to hide and sell 9 potent plants than 19 or 90.

But I'd argue this is part of the calibration process that comes with legalization. People have been smoking lots of weed for years, but now that it's not criminalized we can actually think hard about it.</comment>


John W. Backus, 82, Fortran Developer, Dies (RIP) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/obituaries/20cnd-backus.html?ex=1332043200&en=adde3ee5a1875330&ei=5124&partner=digg&exprod=digg <comment><USER2> We truely are standing on the shoulders of giants as modern hackers. RIP.

</comment><comment><USER3> :(</comment>


Macular degeneration: 'I've been given my sight back' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43458365 <comment><USER2> This is a phase 1 trial (usually just undertaken to check safety before larger trials are done to test efficacy and dose), so it seems all the more amazing that such a big improvement was seen.

<comment><USER3> From the article, 29- and 21- letters improvement in visual acuity. I believe this means at least 4-6 rows improvement from the chart you read off of.

Think about that for a second. Nearly blind, or actually blind, to being able to read again.

I'm seriously debating specializing in ophthalmology, and sub-specializing in retina surgery just became an even more appealing career plan for me.

<comment><USER4> helping people be able to see again? sounds like a definition of "job satisfaction"

<comment><USER5> Really depends on the person. I have very small sight problems (+.5/-.75) which don't affect me most of the time, but are a danger in traffic. The doctor that diagnosed that really didn't care to answer any of my questions.

<comment><USER5> Did i kick someone's puppy here or what? I could understand getting this level of disagreement if i claimed all doctors are psychopaths, but all i did was point out that not all eye doctors enjoy their job. Not like i give a shit about karma, but i am honestly curious what caused this seemingly extremely irrational reaction.

<comment><USER6> It's not nice to pee in your neighbor's new pool.

<comment><USER5> What.

<comment><USER6> The tone of the thread was positive. Everybody knows there are doctors who don't care about their patients. It didn't add anything to the conversation and was needlessly negative. In other words: you peed in the pool. Don't pee in the pool.

<comment><USER5> I don't agree that that is a rational reaction, but it explains the reaction. Thanks for the explanation. Allows me to know i didn't do anything wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd love to know if similar work is being done for loss of hearing/deafness. Is there an auditory equivalent to retinal pigment epithelium that nourishes the hair cell stereocilia?

<comment><USER8> I would love to see if there are any updates/trials going on in regards to hearing/deafness. Suffering from Tinnitus and hearing loss is not pretty.

<comment><USER9> I'm by no means experienced in this field, but wouldn't cochlear implants count to some extent? I know those sidestep the hearing loss rather than fixing it directly, but the end result is essentially the same. My mom has dealt with hearing loss since her early years of childhood, and peaking in total hearing loss about 15 years ago. Just a year or two later, she was included in a study and was able to get a cochlear implant for free. Not too long after, she was lucky enough to be offered a second one at no charge (the benefits of being a beta tester), and to this date, she's still being given new speech processors that constantly improve the quality of sound as well as adding new features. It honestly blows me away with what they've done already with hearing, and I won't be surprised if in 10-15 years, those implants surpass a normal human's capabilities, and people who still have perfectly working ears start getting them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Most stem cell therapies produce benefits through the signaling of the transplanted cells, near all of which die off rather than integrate. This is an example of an approach that goes beyond that, providing a set of more organized cells in a thin tissue segment that looks more like the native tissue. When this was done for the heart, 10% of cells survived (this is a large number in the scope of stem cell therapies).

So it is interesting to speculate on the degree to which the benefits here are signaling versus cell integration. Clearly the big difference between past attempts is that a tissue-like set of organized cells are delivered rather than just free-floating unorganized cells.

</comment><comment><USER11> My mother had macular degeneration. She lost almost all vision in a couple of years. She was a very active women all her life, a business woman when women had to ask permission to her husband to open a bank account. It was devasting for such an independent person. She was deeply depressed and being in her early seventies her health deteriorated quickly, finally dying.

If researchers find a solution it will improve the quality of life of millions elder people.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have had 4 retinal detachment surgeries on my left eye, with the last rendering it blind.

I had one retinal detachment surgery and a subsequent cataract surgery (since vitrectomy almost always results in a cataract) on my right eye. It's fairly stable but my vision is not great.

I'm hoping for stem cell therapy sometime in my life to help repair areas of my right eye that are no longer great (retinoschisis and general rod/cone dystrophy) and to make sure I'm seeing well into my later years of life.

</comment><comment><USER13> About a year and a half ago, my wife was showing symptoms of early-onset macular degeneration, and it led to a rabbit hole of me searching for treatments, and I remember the earlier stages of this being discussed.

While it turned out that my wife's issue was (fortunately) something less severe, it still makes me happy to see that this treatment has had some success.

<comment><USER14> I'm really curious to see what the statistics of early-onset macular degeneration will be in 30-40 years, when a large portion of the population will have been looking at screens 10+ hours a day, for 30+ years. I suspect humans current eye-usage habits will affect the numbers.

results in this area of the field can't come fast enough!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wow, that's pretty cool. One of the things I worked on a couple companies back was this: [https://www.centervue.com/products/compass/](https://www.centervue.com/products/compass/) which is a system used to measure how much people are losing their vision from things like macular degeneration.

</comment><comment><USER16> > Cells from a human embryo

Are they sure? They can now harvest stem cells from regular tissue and blood, as I understand it

<comment><USER2> > Are they sure? They can now harvest stem cells from regular tissue and > blood, as I understand it

There are adult stem cells which are differentiated or partly differentiated to particular systems, eyes, skin, blood etc, and there are induced pluripotent stem cells, where chemical or viral factors have been used to 'wind back the clock' for adult, differentiated cells back to completely non- differentiated (pluripotent) stem cells, equivalent to embryonic stem cells.

In the long run, it seems that embryonic stem cells won't be needed, but for the moment induced pluripotent cells are not 100% understood, everywhere apart from Japan clinical researchers are wary of using them in human trials, because they are not completely certain a particular preparation doesn't have abnormalities. Embryonic stem cells for the moment are the gold standard, and some work is needed to iron out the technology to standardize and check the process for inducing pluripotency.

But in principle any cure proven with embryonic stem cells could be 'ported' over to induced pluripotent stem cells once the iPSC process is standardized, it's just a question of whether you want to pursue these two research paths in parallel, or wait for the iPSC problems to be ironed out before even starting the process of running human trials.

<comment><USER17> Very well put. I would add that it could take decades to "iron out" the issues with iPSCs. It could also never actually happen. For example, the iPSC generation process induces oncogenic properties in the cells ( [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22998387](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22998387) ). It could be that in the next few decades, iPSCs just turn out to be a lot less safe than embryonic stem cells. Considering the hundreds of millions of dollars it could take to move stem cell therapies like this through the validation and regulatory approval process, it would be foolish to handicap the process by using "unproven" iPSCs in favor of "gold standard" embryonic stem cells.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> >Both patients in the trial had "wet" age-related macular degeneration. This form of the disease is caused by abnormal blood vessels growing through the retinal pigment epithelium and damaging the macula. Dry age-related macular degeneration is more common and caused by the retinal pigment epithelium breaking down.

If this is a viable treatment method, it would help only the minority of macular degeration patients.

<comment><USER19> >It is hoped the patch will be able to treat both forms of the disease.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What's the latest on optic nerve regeneration with stem cells?

</comment><comment><USER21> "He was one of two patients given pioneering stem" I find the tiny test groups in medical 'research' so strange.

<comment><USER22> It's a test to see if they should bother moving forward. You don't want to gear up a big study just to find out that the treatment gives everyone cancer (which is a concern mentioned in the article) or that it doesn't work at all. You do a pilot study to see if there is potential before you waste a lot of work and maybe hurt people.

Anyway if the effect size is big enough, you don't need a really large study to get statistical significance. I mean, what are the odds of macular degeneration reversing by chance?

<comment><USER23> We do the same in web ergonomics. Testing you Ui on 3 people is enough to see the biggest flaws of the tool and engaging in more expenses. See the excellent book "don't make me think" for a quick and efficient write up on the topuc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> >Cells from a human embryo were grown into a patch that was delicately inserted into the back of the eye.

I assume the baby didn't survive the process since there's no mention of that.

<comment><USER4> It's not a baby, it's an embryo. Lots of embryos don't survive for lots of reasons.

<comment><USER25> It's a philosophical dilemma that demands rigour. When does a human person begin? If a few cells cannot be a person, well, adults are only bigger clumps of cells. What is the threshold? If personhood begins when the cells are independently viable, well, most infants are not independently viable and some elderly aren't either. What is the threshold? By contrast: The moment when it all begins and the DNA is first unique, and the potentiality for an adult is present is very simple and philosophically elegant. If personhood comes later, such as implantation, birth, 7th birthday, etc. it is difficult to give a basis in the philosophical sense. Many philosophers have struggled with this and it's no simple thing.</comment></comment></comment>


WikiLeaks: "Hillary Emails: Google Tried to Boost Assad Defections" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/711135400983699456 <comment><USER2> Lots of people here are talking about skewing search results, but it doesn't seem like we have any evidence Google did that. All the email says they did was create a tool to visualize data, and give it to the press.

The article linked talks about a few other things Google did, but the closest they get to manipulating search results is putting "Live! Secretary Kerry answers questions on Syria. Today via Hangout at 2pm ET." on the homepage below the search box. A politically neutral statement advertising a unique source of (biased) information, and their own product. This is the moral equivalent of reddit advertising an AMA with Obama, or Elon Musk as far as I can see.

<comment><USER3> This was a very different branch of Google than Search. The email was from Jared Cohen, who I had to look up to verify that he even worked at Google (apparently, he left the State Department in 2010 to become a director at Google Ideas). I never saw so much as an email or presentation while I was at Google; my understanding is that he operated in a siloed part of Google (now Alphabet) whose mission specifically was to spread democracy across the world:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_(company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_\(company\))

<comment><USER4> "Google Ideas" is a rather creepy name for a company whose mission is international propaganda. I guess it's good thhey changed it to Jigsaw to reduce tarnish to the Google brand.

Funny that Alphabet sold Boston Dynamics because people think robots are scary, but doesn't mind keeping the international intrigue division.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I believe that this kind of behaviour will be the reason why the Internet as we know it and are used to it will end some day.

We will have many island solutions with firewalls around them just to prevent foreign powers from interfering in internal political processes.

For example I certainly do not like what Erdogan is doing in Turkey (cutting off Facebook and Twitter), but is he wrong when he is accusing foreign powers from trying to incite demonstrations or manipulate public opinion? I'm pretty sure he is not.

Same goes for China, Russia and all the other countries that are implementing or already have finished implementing their own great firewall.

There is no reason in the world why any country should ever accept this. (I doubt the US would ever accept China doing this to them)

But there are also serious internal problems. For one Google could influence the US presidential elections by skewing search results and making certain candidates look bad and others good.

I'm sure almost 100% of Google employees would never support such a thing, but when Google does this regarding Syria you can't really be sure that they wouldn't do this internally too.

<comment><USER6> "I'm sure almost 100% of Google employees would never support such a thing..."

Even to stop Trump? I'm betting quite a few employees, especially at the top, wouldn't mind tweaking things to stop what they see as a very real threat.

<comment><USER7> Trump's pretty bad IMO, but worst case scenario he'd only be the president. There's really good checks against the president's power. The unfortunate (glaring) exception being that we've somehow lost track of the bit about Congress being the only one who can execute a declaration of war.

<comment><USER8> A lot of those "checks" are just things that Presidents historically don't do, not that they're prohibited from doing so by the Constitution. Even then, it's not clear that Trump really gives a shit about the Constitution. Like all contemporary Presidents he would decide what he wants to do _first_ and then have his lawyers provide some veneer of constitutionality to it, but in Trump's case the bar for such would probably be really, really low.

He's already mentioned going after news outlets that criticize him. What else can the President do? Can he instruct the military/NSA to spy on every sitting Congressman and Senator, and blackmail them? That's not explicitly unconstitutional, and these days "explicitly unconstitutional" seems to be the only thing that matters (i.e. unless the Constitution actually says you can't do a thing, then you can do that thing). What are the President's actual powers during a time of war, especially if the theater is in America itself? Can he mobilize the military in response to a domestic terrorist attack, and if so what sort of plenary power does he have domestically?

And the more important question, really, is not "what does the Constitution say" but rather "what are the American people ready for"? If Trump does become President, the answer would seem to be "quite a lot of really scary shit".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The map discussed in the email, for those interested.

[http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/syriadefections...](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/syriadefections/2012730840348158.html?utm_content=automate&utm_campaign=Trial6&utm_source=NewSocialFlow&utm_term=plustweets&utm_medium=MasterAccount)

<comment><USER10> "In collaboration with: movements.org" \- in Assange's article[1] about his meeting with Eric Schmidt he mentions:

\---

Gen Next also backs an NGO, launched by Cohen toward the end of his State Department tenure, for bringing internet-based global "pro-democracy activists" into the US foreign relations patronage network. The group originated as the "Alliance of Youth Movements" with an inaugural summit in New York City in 2008 funded by the State Department and encrusted with the logos of corporate sponsors.

[...]

In 2011, the Alliance of Youth Movements rebranded as "Movements.org." In 2012 Movements.org became a division of "Advancing Human Rights," a new NGO set up by Robert L. Bernstein after he resigned from Human Rights Watch (which he had originally founded) because he felt it should not cover Israeli and US human rights abuses. Advancing Human Rights aims to right Human Rights Watch's wrong by focusing exclusively on "dictatorships." Cohen stated that the merger of his Movements.org outfit with Advancing Human Rights was "irresistible," pointing to the latter's "phenomenal network of cyberactivists in the Middle East and North Africa." He then joined the Advancing Human Rights board, which also includes Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in occupied Afghanistan. In its present guise, Movements.org continues to receive funding from Gen Next, as well as from Google, MSNBC, and PR giant Edelman, which represents General Electric, Boeing, and Shell, among others.

\---

Fascinating stuff - a glimpse into the murky world of international politics for someone like me who generally has no idea.

[1] [https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it- seems/](https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/)

<comment><USER11> Google, The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, and Edelman all strongly courted Obama staffers in 2012 during and after the election. There are many close ties between these companies and the current administration. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if movements.org was simply another funnel for these organizations to continue to splash money and favors in their direction.

How depressing would it be to know your job and existence is basically a bribe, with no expectation to make a meaningful contribution to the world? I'm picturing some enterprising recent college graduate thinking they're going there to change the world and getting laughed out of the room after laying out a plan to make them more effective. I need a shower just thinking about it.

<comment><USER4> So your idea is that companies give money to employee Y of X, as a bribe to X (who likes the company better because they game X money), and that's bad because Y is somehow unable to use money effectively, but X is able to use money effectively?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> From the original article: "The last forty years has seen a huge proliferation of think tanks and political NGOs whose purpose, beneath all the verbiage, is to execute political agendas by proxy."

This is how powerful governments shape the world: 1\. Create ideas (lies) 2\. Get the press to constantly write those ideas 3\. Change the truth

Once the truth is shaped you can now do what you want. In fact you now have to do required things to keep your country safe.

Examples: Millions of people unnecessarily dying in Iraq and Syria.

</comment><comment><USER13> Made me thinks of the last season of House of Cards. Really a good one, really neat and engaged in some aspect like Reign by Terror, Manufacturing consent using search engine, relation with Russia...

One of other HN article is about Facebook data used for social studies. If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold.

<comment><USER14> > If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product > being sold.

I hear this all the time but it's message is a bit off. I'll quote this page [http://powazek.com/posts/3229](http://powazek.com/posts/3229)

1) Assumption: This is new or unique to the internet

2) Assumption: You're either the product or the customer

3) My Favorite - Assumption: Companies you pay treat you better (Comcast Anyone?)

<comment><USER15> 4) Assumption: companies have one and one only type of customer / product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well — is there anyone who would paint Google as bad guys because of this? How and why?

<comment><USER17> This particular incident? No. It's the fact that they're doing this kind of thing at all is the problem. People have been worrying for years about the filter bubble that Google put you in; could you imagine if they tried to skew the US election? This document provides some evidence that they've certainly been thinking along those lines.

<comment><USER16> Jared Cohen is a director of Google Ideas, now called Jigsaw under Alphabet.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_(company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_\(company\))

The email is lacking context, but it appears that they gather data from open sources, not from some sinister surveillance program. And they use this data in open partnership with Al Jazeera. And the company itself is not the main "Google" that is tied to search an ads, but was launched, at inception, as "global technology think-tank".

So I see no relationship between what's discussed in these emails and hypothetical scenarios you're describing.

<comment><USER10> Again from Assange's article[1]:

\---

In fact, Cohen had moved to Google from the US State Department in 2010. He had been a fast-talking "Generation Y" ideas man at State under two US administrations, a courtier from the world of policy think tanks and institutes, poached in his early twenties. He became a senior advisor for Secretaries of State Rice and Clinton. At State, on the Policy Planning Staff, Cohen was soon christened "Condi's party-starter," channeling buzzwords from Silicon Valley into US policy circles and producing delightful rhetorical concoctions such as "Public Diplomacy 2.0." On his Council on Foreign Relations adjunct staff page he listed his expertise as "terrorism; radicalization; impact of connection technologies on 21st century statecraft; Iran."

\---

Good or evil is quite subjective, but there is a pretty clear connection to at least one presidential candidate.

That article is a seriously interesting (and long) read, assuming that it's all true of course - it is not interesting enough for me to start digging for proofs! ;)

[1] [https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it- seems/](https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What is so bad about that map?

<comment><USER19> A multinational corporation has decided to map defections in a civil war in order to encourage people to defect from the government. An evil government, sure-- but it's a company weighing in on one side of a war. It isn't within their mandate.

Manipulation here means that manipulation elsewhere is possible.

<comment><USER20> well, even that would be OK of it was the company/owner desire. the crux here is that it was a government project, paid by your money, without your representation, and that it completely backfired.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So Google did something good for once?</comment>


Show HN: Nimipay – Simple and Flexible Payments Gateway - <AUTHOR> https://nimipay.com <comment><AUTHOR> Nimipay source code: [https://github.com/giekaton/nimipay](https://github.com/giekaton/nimipay)

Nimipay is based on the Nimiq JavaScript blockchain. The blockchain that is in your browser and requires no installation. Nimiq is Crypto 3.0 - it provides the level of simplicity that can be intuitively grasped by any layman. Anyone can create and secure Nimiq wallet in seconds.

With the new Nimiq Hub API, it is now super simple to start accepting payments on any website.

Nimiq Hub API: [https://nimiq.github.io/hub/quick- start](https://nimiq.github.io/hub/quick-start)

Powered by the API, Nimipay creates an overlayed UI for the interaction with the user's NIM wallet, shopping cart, and items.

Nimipay allows the user to add items to a shopping cart and pay for them. After the user makes the payment, its transaction hash is returned for the backend validation. Then after the transaction is confirmed, the user receives the new item. It can be seen under the Items tab.

Being a modal window, Nimipay is shown on top of any website, and without the need to re-design the website in order to integrate a webshop.

Nimipay is only ~30 kb. Vanilla JavaScript/PHP, just a few hundred lines of code. Free to use and open source.</comment>


The Future of History? It's Already Here - <AUTHOR> http://historybuff.com/the-future-of-history-its-already-here/ <comment><USER2> Articles like these typically puzzle me. For all the love of the discipline, there's a constant struggle to contradict the, well, rather bleak job prospects upon achieving a PhD. The subjects interviewed were interesting case studies, but from my perspective, also 'got lucky' in finding a niche. Getting a degree and trying to get lucky in the liberal arts/humanities isn't what I'd advise for young people looking to have a stable, well-compensated, non- transient career.

 _The failure of American universities to support young academics does not, however, mean that history itself is dead._

That may be true, but I get the feeling it's "alive" much in the same way that sculpture is still an available major and profession.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't disagree with you about the academic job market (full disclosure: I'm actually one of the people interviewed in the article). But I do think it's useful to draw a distinction between the tough job prospects for professional academic historians and the discipline as a whole. The rise of the internet is fantastic news for the latter and ambiguous at best for the former. I worry sometimes that all of the "humanities in crisis" articles (often written by historians) will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and drive down interest in history itself, whereas they're typically not so much reflections on the field as they are inside-baseball reports about yearly job statistics.

History, taken broadly as a domain of knowledge that includes both academics and non-professionals, is actually in a golden age right now, in my opinion. Our stock in trade is primary sources, and this is the best time in history to be able to access them. I'm excited to see what historians in, say, 2040, will be able to do with the incredible wealth of new historical sources being created every second in the present.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you know when to stop? - <AUTHOR> I have been working on a side project for a year now. It is free and aims to help some learners. I enjoy the process of doing it and have put a lot of love in it thinking of its potential to help the community. The problem is the people it is supposed to help are not interested.
I am now wondering if I should stop or not. I enjoy doing it but with an audience of 0 there is very little point. A part of me thinks the underlying idea is good but I am bad at selling it, the other one thinks that I should stop.
How can I know which part is correct ? <comment><USER2> Side projects are for your enjoyment only. "To scratch an itch." as mentioned in "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".

If somebody else happens to use it too, that's all well and good. As long as _you_ want to do it _for yourself_ , then just go ahead and do it. Don't worry about anybody else. On the other hand, if you're not getting any enjoyment from it, then just stop. If the idea is good enough, somebody else will take over the reins.

Relevant phrases from "Linux is not Windows":

 _Increasing the number of end-users of proprietary software leads to a direct financial benefit to the company that makes it. This is simply not the case for FOSS: There is no direct benefit to any FOSS developer in increasing the userbase. Indirect benefits, yes: Personal pride; an increased potential for finding bugs; more likelihood of attracting new developers; possibly a chance of a good job offer; and so on._

 _But Linus Torvalds doesn 't make money from increased Linux usage. Richard Stallman doesn't get money from increased GNU usage. All those servers running OpenBSD and OpenSSH don't put a penny into the OpenBSD project's pockets._

1\. The Cathedral and the Bazaar: [http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral- bazaar/cathedral-...](http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral- bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/)

2\. Linux is Not Windows: [http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm](http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm)

</comment><comment><USER3> What was your motivation? The kudos of having a popular project, making money down the line or filling some space in your life? If it is one of the first two I would say move on. If it's none of the above and you genuinely just want to help people I would also say move on as you have no users.

I'm an older guy who spends less time solving tough problems no one else cares about. Time is too short. I'm sure the skills you have learned will not be lost and put to good use elsewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> The original motivation was to prove mostly to myself that something was possible. It is not a tough problem but very time consuming. It turns out that I enjoy doing it and I like the result but I am wondering if I am wasting my time.

I remember reading on HN someone who had spend 6 years of his life writing a programing language as a personal project. No one will ever use this language. Would you call is a waste of time or an amazing journey ? It all depends on the motivation for sure, but motivation is not always 100% up and feedback and the possibility to talk to someone is important and this is what I miss really.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is the side project for you or them? If its for you to learn and flex your creative muscle go for it. If it's for them, then maybe quit, reflect on the experience, and move on.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Is the side project for you or them?

A bit of both which is the reason I have a hard time making a decision whether to continue or not. I don't want to be the one who stops at the first obstacle but don' want to be stubborn beyond reason either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > potential to help the community

Did you start the project with a conversation with that community?

> project for a year now... > audience of 0

Stop. Move on.

Talk more to potential customers. Don't start another project until you get several enthusiastic yeses from reliable sources. (you'll probably get a few "meh" and the rare negative comments too).

Most people don't care, even when they're figuratively on fire. Best to find something really compelling to work on before one line of code.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you decide its not a hobby, what does the intended audience say when they say they aren't interested?

<comment><AUTHOR> Worse. My posts/links are ignored or downvoted with no reason given.

<comment><USER7> Could it be possible that posts intended to be informative and helpful are being seen as spam where the posts appear?

If so, you'd have to change the way to draw attention to the app before knowing whether it's useful to the intended audience or not. Your goal should be to get ONE (i.e. more than zero actual users from the target audience), then be able to retain them. If this is not your primary motivator, then the app will not grow in usage.

In particular, "the customer is always" right applies here because it's their response (whether to use the app) which trumps all. You can change how it's promoted or which features or how features work until something sticks.

<comment><USER6> I agree with this. Start by getting 1 user. A human whom you can talk to.

Possibly read [Thanks for the Feedback]([https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00F10Z4GO/ref=dp-kindle- redirec...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00F10Z4GO/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)) and some things on [Jobs to be Done]([https://jobs-to-be-done.com/jobs-to-be-done-a-framework- for-...](https://jobs-to-be-done.com/jobs-to-be-done-a-framework-for-customer- needs-c883cbf61c90))

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the references.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Pinterest is my livelihood and my account was deleted without notice - <AUTHOR> There has been a lot of discussion lately about Pinterest clogging up Google image search and general discontent about its practices alongside thoughtful suggestions to overcome some of these nuisances. Nonetheless, as a design professional Pinterest has served as an indispensable professional tool for the past 6+ years... until 48 hours ago when my account was suspended without notice.
129 "boards", tens of thousands of images gathered (and original content contributed), all gone. I have clients emailing and calling about projects we've collaborated on wondering "where the backups" are. Needless to say, I am completely without hope. I would pay for this service, yet I'm stuck in "freeware" hell with no service or support available.
Here's hoping someone might know a way through the "blackbox" of Pinterest or better yet, is offering an enterprise alternative -- which I'm more than willing to pay for! <comment><USER2> Sounds a bit like when Twitter cut off developers, there isn't much you can do except serve as a warning to other users so thy don't get burnt by the same thing happening to them.

Did they notify you why you were cut off? Any idea why they cut you off if not?

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, I did not receive a notification email of being suspended, let alone a reason. The form on the Pinterest site to "petition" suspension claims is equally mysterious, with no response thus far. While it's difficult to gauge how frequent an issue this is, other forum responses sound similarly dire.

Does anyone happen to know a human that works for Pinterest? I know this is a real reach, given customer support for one of millions of users is likely irrelevant to anyone reading this. But feeling pretty desperate at this point.</comment></comment>


If you're not using 1Password (or something similar) you're an idiot - <AUTHOR> http://brooksreview.net/2011/06/1password-idiots/

<comment><USER2> > _with the pending doom from hackers...and Post-It notes defeat the purpose > of passwords_

I've always taken umbrage at those two lines of thought together. For the average person (you know, without dedicated enemies), a secure password written on a Post-It note on your monitor is a pretty safe scenario.

Or is Lulzsec peeking in everyone's windowz, too?

<comment><USER3> Doesn't having a secure password on a Post-It note make it insecure? There are plenty of people near me that would just love to look at my emails. But from a hacker point of view Lulzsec would not be able to view your Post-It note password (web-cams and mirrors aside).

<comment><USER2> > _Doesn't having a secure password on a Post-It note make it insecure?_

Technically.

> _There are plenty of people near me that would just love to look at my > emails._

I just don't think that's actually true for many people. My parents, for instance. Or people with home offices who don't leave the door open when they have crazy parties—or who put their passwords on a piece of paper stuffed in the middle of a book.

The point is that writing your password down, for most people, is actually _good_ advice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Okay, so which of the one-password apps is the best?

I keep meaning to start using one, but I don't know which to try. I'm an Apple user all the way (home and office Macs plus an iPhone and iPad) and some sort of sync would be great. Additionally, what are the different models for storage, encryption, and retrieval?

<comment><USER5> 1Password should have you covered on all fronts (OSX/iOS versions). You have the option of using Dropbox to keep everything synced ([http://help.agilebits.com/1Password3/cloud_syncing_with_drop...](http://help.agilebits.com/1Password3/cloud_syncing_with_dropbox.html)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> lol, that password is ridiculous. Nobody would be able to guess it with in the next few billion years, but then again they probably wouldn't with an 8 character password either.</comment>


Google and Others Are Building AI Systems That Doubt Themselves - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609762/google-and-others-are-building-ai-systems-that-doubt-themselves/ <comment><USER2> This makes it seem like machine learning algorithms of the past have had no method for telling you the likelihood of their conclusion being correct.

</comment><comment><USER3> Journalist writes headline anthropomorphizing statistical models.</comment>


Needed: A metronome app that counts for family squeezing ambu-bags - caedus-covid We are a group of citizen scientists from government, academia, and industry. The nation will run out of ventilators. Full stop. Family will be pressed into service to ventilate their loved ones. Make a metronome phone app to keep them squeezing at a good rate (10-12 per minute in most cases). Please. <comment><AUTHOR> also 10 - 12 is over ventilated. If you over ventilate some one you will kill them. full stop.

You should probably learn more about the medicine.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> There are plenty of apps on the app stores that do this.</comment>


Nvidia is now worth more than Intel - <AUTHOR> https://www.techspot.com/news/85932-nvidia-passes-intel-most-valuable-us-chipmaker.html <comment><USER2> While I think CUDA has very little competition and seems to be de facto standard in the ML industry, judging from the comment on CUDA 11 post[1] Nvidia still have some low hanging fruit to fix.

I am still waiting for Nvidia to make their play in CPU Market. May be a move in ARM Server CPU space. They have AI/ML with GPGPU, High performance networking with Mellanox. Surely the next logical step should be HPC CPU? Or at least reselling ARM's N1 blueprint solution.

Nvidia has a Forward Earning Ratio of about 41. Which seems reasonable ( Comparatively Speaking in today's market ).

Meanwhile Intel has limited upside. On the Client Computing Side Around 7% of revenue will vanished due to Apple switching to their own Silicon. And for the first time ever they have real competition in Notebook market ( AMD was never really in the Notebook market segment in its entire history ). In DataCenter they will be facing threats from Zen 3 and ARM. And I am very skeptical of their GPU moves. The market is still expanding so there is the possibility for them to sustain their revenue, I just dont see how they could grow its current record revenue in the next few years.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23772245](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23772245)

<comment><USER3> It's no secret that NVIDIA is involved with RISC V. And don't forget Intel v Ampere (the company, not the NVIDIA chip). Intel is facing incredible competition. Once a crack appears in the server market and Arm rushes in, Intel will be in a very, very bad situation. Especially with 100,000+ employees compared to NVIDIA's 13,000.

EDIT: Downvotes? Really?

<comment><USER4> A typical GPU has a bunch of small microcontrollers on it, usually Cortex-M's. Those need to be licensed. I wonder if Nvidia's interest in RISC-V is just to replace those microcontrollers?

<comment><USER5> Indeed, RISC-V has mainly been as replacement for Falcon cores in GPUs so far.

They evaluated vs Cortex A-53 through rather than Cortex-M.

[https://riscv.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/07/Tue1100_Nvidia_...](https://riscv.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/07/Tue1100_Nvidia_RISCV_Story_V2.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think most tech stocks are overpriced right now. The amount of speculation taking place in the stock market at the moment is just insane. MSFT gained 30% over 6 months (that's compared to pre COVID levels), what's changed that much? Microsoft is a mature company, it shouldn't swing this hard. Nvidia almost doubled compared to pre COVID levels. ???

<comment><USER7> Microsoft are killing it in enterprise. Our company is moving hundreds of servers to the cloud (Azure). Our company owns it's own datacenter, has a strategic partnership with another cloud provider (CEO supports the cloud provider publicly) but we're still moving to Azure. Since the start of the pandemic we have thousands of users moving from Skype for Business(on premise) to Microsoft Teams(subscription). Microsoft Teams has more users than Slack now. Once you're on the Microsoft train it's hard to get off. New Xbox coming out I believe at the end of the year. I think companies that don't have the necessary skills(my company) need to move to cloud our they will die, our core business isn't maintaining servers. Microsoft have really turned it around with developers, embraced open source, built great developer tools.

<comment><USER8> to be fair, teams has more users than slack because they effectively give away teams with o365, and then claim all the people who have o365 use teams. Lots of companies use o365 (so get counted for teams) then, use slack as there actual chat app.

With that said, our company recently switched from slack to teams, and its been a fairly annoying change. Teams is miles behind slack in terms of usability.

<comment><USER7> Yeah slack is definitely the superior product, I think it was a great strategy by Microsoft to give the free 1 year subscription. Gives them some time to catch up to slack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Compare the two:

[https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=NVDA](https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=NVDA)

[https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=INTC](https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=INTC)

On all fundamental indicators - price to earnings, price to forward earnigs, price to book, dividend yield. NVIDIA is 4 to +10 times as expensive as Intel.

Tells you something about how the market sees Intel's future vs NVIDIA's.

<comment><USER10> I read that IBM gave its market share to Intel and Microsoft through its missteps to bring a personal computer to market.

The story of how Intel managed to screw up graphics, mobile, and now it's desktop/server chips... that's almost making IBM management look good at the moment.

<comment><USER9> Are we anywhere near seeing Microsoft Windows running on ARM? Seems to me that Microsoft doesn't have the same strong incentive to shift away from x86 as Apple has.

<comment><USER11> I think the market is betting more on AMD than Intel serving that market though.

I could have kicked myself for not buying AMD stock years ago, even joked about it with some friends at the time but couldn't afford to take the risk. The reason was (rightly or wrongly) Jim Keller returning to work on Zen.

He's worked on a few different and really exciting things since, but he's at Intel now. I suspect they'll sort it out and turn things around, but running their own fabs is their biggest problem now. They aren't competitive with TSMC and they desperately need to be.

<comment><USER12> > The reason was (rightly or wrongly) Jim Keller

So are you buying Intel stock now?

<comment><USER11> Nope. Still can't afford to take that risk.

Also, the circumstances are much different. AMD was valued at the time as a company circling the drain - there was a lot of upside potential given the low starting point.

Intel is still valued very highly currently even after it's problems in the last few years.

The thing is - I think they'd need to turn the company around entirely just to justify their _current_ price, let alone any future returns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One of the important things that NVIDIA has done in ML is make sure it is compatible with TF and Pytorch every new version they guarantee compatibility and also release their own docker containers. So you don't need to painfully install NVIDIA, CuDNN,NCCL and CUDA drivers. While AMD is releasing new hardware they still need to guarantee compatibility which NVIDIA is already years ahead. AMD barely release some initial support but not production ready

</comment><comment><USER14> Deserved. Aside their OSS practices (or lack of), they have laser focus, put themselves in the dominant position via technology and know-how and drive direction of their industry by themselves. Rare to see such a dominant force in hardware anymore.

</comment><comment><USER15> Intel needs a Satya Nadella. Every time you think CEOs are overpaid, think about what he did to Microsoft (bad CEOs should not be CEOs regardless of their compensation).

Over the last 10 years, Intel lost mobile (never seriously competed, probably NIH from the old guard not wanting to embrace ARM SoCs), gave up on modems (bad management probably, they were into wireless tech early), could not compete in the GPU space, lost their performance prime to AMD, lost fab edge to TSMC, lost laptop processors to Apple and maybe cloud to Graviton and co. Would have lost AI too but they bought Habana so the jury's out on that one.

That's gross mismanagement from a company with no excuses. They need a Satya with a fresh look on what the company is actually adept at. Regroup and attack.

<comment><USER16> To be fair, Intel enjoyed high highs and AMD low lows. It took them a while but now we actually have competition it turns out Intel are not so good after all. Funnily enough they moved beyond the Quad Core just as AMD started offering something decent.

My next processor won't be an Intel, especially with all the speculative execution crap that went on (and yes, I know it affected AMD too).

Intel's business practices are shitty, and quite frankly, they need to be torn down a few pegs and bleed a little, either they die out or they come back stronger.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I always hate these comparisons because they always compare market capitalization and not enterprise value. On the latter metric, which is independent of how a company is financed, Intel is still more valuable. Intel is still "worth more" than Nvidia.

</comment><comment><USER18> Well done! The only company that successfully managed to ride both the blockchain and AI hype :)

</comment><comment><USER5> I think that the parallels with the other half of the 'Wintel monopoly' are interesting.

Nadella had the courage to stop insisting that MS was 'Windows first' all the time and to recognise that MS had strengths that could be built on with a more balanced approach to the environment and ecosystems that MS operates in.

Intel still seems to be strongly 'x86 first' but it seems to me that this is no longer maximising value for shareholders. For example to what exent was the custom foundry failure due to the politics of x86 first and how valuable would a viable custom foundry business be today for Intel?

<comment><USER19> I think the key difference is that Microsoft's differentiated asset is the trust and good relationships it has with Enterprises. Their advantage is their distribution, not their tech.

Intel on the other hand doesn't do it's own distribution and it chips have lost their Moore's Law advantage. If there is marginal performance change, technology will become a commodity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> All the tech stock valuation seem a little insane right now, but a company like amzn p/e has been a 100+ for a while.

<comment><USER21> As a matter of fact, AMZN's current PE Ratio (147) is equal to its ten year median value

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> AMD's market cap ~65B while being the runner up both in the CPU and GPU space, while a combined Nvidia and Intel is ~500B, sure emphasizes the value of being on top.

</comment><comment><USER23> Something interesting to note is that Warren Buffet started out making his money in something called _value investing_ [1].

The principle is that you use things like assets, employees, IP, sales, factory output, sales, etc. to calculate your expected share price and if you check the actual share price and find it to be greatly undervalued, you would buy up a somewhat significant part of the business. I assume this also allows you to have some kind of say in the future of the business and I assume that you would prefer it if the company were not that large yet.

It would be interesting to hear what a young Warren Buffet would have had to say (since the old one does actually tell us what he has to say).

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

<comment><USER24> somehow it saddens me that we don't call this kind of thing simply 'investing'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> And Tesla is currently worth more than these combined: BMW + GM + Ford + Mercedes + Hyundai + Nissan + Fiat Chrysler + Honda

You know, just a trillion dollars in sales give or take. I'm sure Tesla will get there sometime this century.

Intel has $25 billion in operating income the last four quarters (~73% increase in three years). nVidia has $3.4 billion in operating income the last four quarters. Yeah but nVidia is growing fast, right? Nope, they're growing modestly. How long will it take for nVidia to get to $25b in operating income? 15 years if everything goes perfectly?

It's certainly up to the reader to judge whether these spectacular valuations are due to the stock market bubble, or if... you know... it's different this time, it's the new economy, cloud!, or whatever bullshit is being spun this time around.

<comment><USER26> That's why sometimes I wonder if the overlap of "tech" and "stock market" is bad.

One deals with concrete things, other deals with speculation.

These valuations are references of the stock market - it's almost a measure of popularity, than anything else. Right?

<comment><USER27> The overlap of tech and speculation is called "science fiction."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I hope they make a fast chip for the net Switch.

<comment><USER29> I'm actually a bit worried about the next switch's GPU (assuming Nintendo plans a switch pro/2 as next major upgrade).

The embedded GPU line of Nvidea switched from being focused on entertainment systems to be focused on "embedded" AI. E.g. cards running the calculations for self driving cars and robots.

This not only means they have different focus in their software stack but also that in the hardware they come with tensor units and similar.

Lastly they seem to be more expensive then the previous maxwell based ones (back when the switch was released). But this is hard to say as the prices I take for come from they AI boards.

But I don't think Nvidea is interested in making custom chips for Nintendo. (At most some variations of the Chips they do anyway).

And if the switch needs to switch the GPU this would be a problem for backward compatibility which I think is a major must-have if they bring out a switch 2 or similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Maybe we can blame Robinhood traders. But really, who knows? A lot of these valuations don't make much sense.

</comment><comment><USER31> That's a lot of blows for Intel

</comment><comment><USER32> I am looking for a new non-macbook and one of my primary criteria is that is should have Intel Integrated Graphics as the Linux drivers are open source and well integrated.

It feels like nvidia as a whole is leaning more towards special applications and proprietary solutions. They care more about gaming/hpc/machine- learning/self-driving and they are just not that interested in personal computers.

If I ever need the horsepower physically present on my desk I can still buy an external nvidia unit.

<comment><USER33> Why not go for an AMD GPU out of curiosity?

<comment><USER32> Mainly because the laptops I looked at (Dell XPS-es and Thinkpads) come with either intel or nvidia. It seems AMDs are more present in gaming laptops and I am looking for a daily driver. Or high-end macbooks but I am trying to get out of those.

That said, AMD on linux - while works - is still not "obvious" to me [0]. There are multiple graphics stacks with various level of proprietary-ness and you have to mix and match.

[0] [https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/amdgpu- insta...](https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/amdgpu-installation)

<comment><USER34> You can find ThinkPad E14 Gen2 or E495 (older but maybe stable for Linux)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the best wordpress themes for coder bloggers? - <AUTHOR>

What are the best wordpress themes for coder bloggers? <comment><USER2> The Journalist theme is quiet good - <http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/journalist> Clean, simple and suitable for a coding blog.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've gone through a few different free wordpress themes with my blog. Its better to avoid three column layouts because posted code can get quite busy & squashed. Generally the simpler the layout the better.

I'm currently using Vigilance: <http://thethemefoundry.com/vigilance/>

</comment><comment><USER4> Check out the 'rounded' theme: e.g. <http://simonhf.wordpress.com/></comment>


The Dark Corners of Your UI - <AUTHOR> http://blog.capwatkins.com/dark-corners <comment><USER2> Here are some other places to look for UI bugs that people likely aren't paying attention to:

\- Look at your help pages. Chances are nobody has been keeping them up to date and they're a mess.

\- Look at the international versions of your product. German is usually a good candidate since the long words can introduce wrapping issues.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can someone explain why this password reset interface is "heartbreakingly terrible"?

<comment><USER4> Text boxes are not aligned and should be. Extra text way to the right when it should be closer to the point of interest.

The page isn't unusable, just awkward in layout. It looks like a page an engineer thru together in 10 minutes early in the dev cycle thinking, "we'll clean this up later"

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a terrific point and goes hand in hand with all the recent criticism of twitter's new-user-onboarding experience.

I myself signed up for a twitter account years ago but never could figure out how to use it until recently, really after I read all the posts about twitter's failures and understood what I _should_ be doing.</comment>


Mongoose-Types 1.0 released (add-on types for the new Mongoose 1.0) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bnoguchi/mongoose-types

<comment><USER2> Sweet! Nice to see the mongoose ecosystem take shape</comment>