Pleroma 2.0: a free, federated social networking server built on open protocols - <AUTHOR> https://pleroma.social/blog/2020/03/08/releasing-pleroma-2-0-0/ <comment><USER2> It saddens me that every time I see a fediverse-related post on HN, it gets inundated by people who don't "get it" and that is to be expected: fediverse is not Twitter and everybody gets Twitter. That change in mentality is not easy.

Fun story: massive influx of users from India recently and the timelines got flooded by posts indirectly asking: "what is the way to fame here? How do I get followers?". Fediverse doesn't work like that. You just… talk with others. There's no "you and your followers". There's "us".

Analogy: you are not in a metropole. You are in a village that is extremely well connected to all other villages. You do not need to shout to be heard.

I'm on a FOSS-focused instance. We talk all kinds of stuff and FOSS is one of them. I have my Home timeline where I follow all the people I want to hear from (both my instance and all others). I have my Instance timeline where I'm basically guaranteed to read interesting stuff I can reply to and meet new people who also considered this instance to be their haven. And the Known Fediverse timeline… Well, it's fun to browse but come on, imagine a timeline of all tweets on Twitter: mostly useless.

Choosing the right instance also involves choosing the right moderators for you. Mods can block other instances. If you don't like what the mods do, change instance or start your own community. After all, it's not Twitter, the people decide how content is moderated, not a for-profit company.

That's the fediverse for ya. Hope to see you there!

<comment><USER3> > _Mods can block other instances. If you don 't like what the mods do, change > instance or start your own community._

Doing so costs you all of your followers. This is one of the main issues with the culture of heavyhanded instance operator censorship: you can't simply switch like you would an email host with your own domain, because few/no AP implementations support bring-your-own-domain virtual hosting.

This is like saying "well, if you don't like that the mail admin simply doesn't let you email certain domains, just change your email address!"

<comment><USER4> > Doing so costs you all of your followers

This is not true anymore. You can "transfer" your account to another instance, and all the followers will not need to refollow.

<comment><USER5> This is sadly not quite correct. You can send out a 'Move' activity from your old account, notifying other servers that you have moved. There's no guarantee that they understand that activity, or, if they understand it, that they actually follow the new account automatically.

<comment> vertex-four In practice, nearly all your followers will be using fediverse software that understands and supports Move{Actor} in a similar way to Mastodon. There's not a massive amount of fediverse software - it's not like IndieWeb where everyone does their own thing - and the microblogging-focused software largely implements the same feature set.

<comment><USER6> Most Mastodon instances currently running today don't support it.

<comment><USER7> It seems like virtual hosts would be reluctant to support it because it allows clients to move away from them. Vendor lock-in and such...

<comment><USER8> Most people aren't getting paid for running their instances, and are doing it for the kind of goodwill that is only amplified by enabling features.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pleroma is significantly more lightweight than Mastodon, is compatible with both Twitter and Mastodon clients, and is one of the bigger (maybe the biggest that isn't working on Elixir itself?) free software Elixir projects. Worth giving a look if any of that interests you!

<comment><USER9> It still requires the user to install and admin a postgres instance which already makes it a non-starter for 99% of the target audience, this design choice is tragically stupid - the chance that an instance of pleroma will reach a usage volume that can't be handled by sqlite and basic caching is not on the horizon, if they ever reach this problem they could then develop a version that works against an actual rdbms.

<comment><USER5> We do provide a step-by-step guide, which also involves installing postgres. In general, I think installing Elixir and Erlang is the much scarier part for most people, because few people have ever used them.

Sadly, we can't just use SQLite because we use Postgres-only features like jsonb extensively.

<comment><USER9> Not suggesting that sqlite could be dropped-in as replacement but [https://sqlite.org/json1.html](https://sqlite.org/json1.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Me hearing about the fediverse for the first time:

"Man this thing looks really promising, just think of the potential of a social network unhindered by the dark machinations of the googtwitface !"

Me after ten minutes on the public feed of mastodon.social:

"So do the furries post for the sex workers or is it the other way around or what ?"

<comment><USER10> I've been thinking about these kinds of things for some time and starting to talk about it.

I think we need an open source set of 'bouncers / blockers' \- that people can use, perhaps best as a chrome / ffx extension? That blocks content from various portals or individual posts or posters that you may not want to see.

Different people want to censor different things, and some want to censor the same things less and some more.. so by have an open source set of blocker bots people can discussion the blocking lists.. people can pick and choose what they see / not see..

That's on a basic beginning - I could see them also getting into 'unsubsbrcibe to stuff from server A and mastadon B' can take it further..

Since cloudflare came out as censor friendly - I've given up hope the big players will be all 'open info utopia' ever again. I think the best we can hope for is to get individual blocking bots and open up the web more. Otherwise we will have more censoring across the board and will succumb to whichever lowest common denominator of whoever gets to be in charge and make new rules.

This way some people can choose to filter sex workers and not furries and some can choose to censor furries but not sex.. Of course I am sure many people will choose some broad auto-block and stick with that, making their internet more like fbook's daycare.. but having transparent options will certainly have many people turning off the 'safesearch' and explore the whole world, or larger parts of it.

You are right in that we may need more tools for individual users to take control in this expanded universe.. but things like 'peter's ad block list' kind of things can be more beneficial than depending on MostPopular Mastadon Server being pushed to choose what to block for the masses and what to let through and the whack-o-mole that tends to create.

If they are open and clone-able / editable - some might want peter-and-pauls- block-more lists.. and some may like furfriendlyButnotPron lists.. and I hope many more options for choose your own censor.. rather than having them chosen for us as most have succumbed to.

My current random thoughts on the subject - hope others chime in to make it better and more of a possibility instead of just napkin notes.

<comment><USER11> I was having my 2 cents thought on the topic as well, my conclusion is: A shared blocking list (Or a _blockchain_ system, hehe) can only be used as the last resort.

Systems like such already been developed, for example there is one for Twitter made by third-party called "Twitter Block Chain" ([https://github.com/satsukitv/twitter-block- chain](https://github.com/satsukitv/twitter-block-chain)).

Yes, it can block "unwanted" posters and bots when a correct list is given, but it could also sometime block innocent accounts when somebody is been mistakenly added to the list (Or that somebody just simply changed their behavior for the better).

For such system to work, the maintainer of the list must be trustworthy, which is the hardest part and almost always falls apart.

Add to the injury, it can also be very hard for others to detect mistakes sneaked into the list, as the list may contains more than 10,000 items, makes it impossible to be completely verified manually.

And what to do if a mistake is indeed discovered? Maintain an unblock list to automatically request the user to unblock? Now user has to maintain their own "Yes I manually blocked this guy" list to counter act the automatic one.

My suggestion is: Yes, you can use a shared block list if there is no other way (The Twitter case). But since Mastadon is open sourced, maybe let's try something else first while still can?

Please give this a little thought: Can a system be designed in such way that makes it really hard for their user to _accidentally_ come across some unwanted posts (without having to block the poster)?

<comment><USER12> Don't forget that blocklist admins can be jerks, too. If I run a blocklist that gets popular, I could make people I don't like disappear without anyone really noticing.

<comment><USER10> Good point! This is one reason why I a want a few portals with the bots and showing discussions about them, easy option to fork / clone / change.

Would be nice to have something check for updated bots and discussions about them and put a flag in the browser bar maybe every two weeks -

Some bots will get better over time - but some people who liked the old one may not appreciate the changes and want to re-hatch the old one with a merged list minus X and Y but leave Z.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Pleroma is mostly great except that you click follow and.... it doesn't work. The devs are mysteriously dismissive of this issue despite it being reported very, very consistently. I switched to running a ~single user Mastodon instance despite Pleroma being otherwise perfect for my needs (IT'S SO MUCH MORE RESOURCE-EFFICIENT). I was really hoping to see something about this issue in the release notes.

<comment><USER13> It does work, but AP follows are asynchronous so it may take a minute for the relationship to update.

<comment><USER8> Nope, never started working. I asked kaniini; she suggested extending a particular timeout config value. No values for this worked. I heard this a lot from other people, though I'll acknowledge I shut down my instance a while ago so maybe it's been fixed?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I tried the federated social thing with Mastodon after Twitter started really ramping up their censorship of conservative views.

A social justice warrior complained to the admin of my instance that I was conservative and they banned me.

That was my first and last foray into the federated socials. You trade a big corporate censor for a mom and pop censor, but none of them appear to actually be "free" (as in speech)

<comment><USER15> I'm sorry someone promised you the Fediverse as if it is "free speech heaven". It isn't. Which is fine by me.

To be honest, I think your view of what "free speech" is, is a ridiculous extreme. Go use FreeNet. If I don't seem compelling, I've put together an essay to address this in more detail [0]

[0] [https://cjslep.com/c/blog/censorship-is-a- tool](https://cjslep.com/c/blog/censorship-is-a-tool)

<comment><USER13> As you are somebody who is responsible for stewarding the ActivityPub specification, I am seriously disappointed by this dismissive attitude.

<comment><USER15> > As you are somebody who is responsible for stewarding the ActivityPub > specification

I am not associated with the W3C in any way, and had absolutely no hand in creating ActivityPub. Chris Webber and many others deserve that credit. I don't attend the SocialCG meetings either (which are open to all).

The most I can say is I've implemented a library implementation in Go (there are other Go projects), and I voice my opinion in the community.

> I am seriously disappointed by this dismissive attitude.

Dismissive? My apologies, that's not what I am going for. I'm precisely showing how certain folks' expectations in the free speech community were unrealistic and showing a mature technology that precisely delivers what they want.

Consider what ActivityPub is not: it is _not_ a way to physically get your free-speech in byte form forcefully delivered to others on the network. That's what multiple free-speech folks have repeatedly drawn the line at when I poked and prodded what their disappointment stems from. Instead, to get this technological capability, one needs to switch to blockchain or FreeNet protocols as this is what they do. The former actually requires consensus whereas the latter doesn't! ActivityPub as a technology does not guarantee any of this.

I think free speech is important (I wrote a whole damn blog post about it, and here I am writing more), and I think there are important conversations to be had around it. But complaining about ActivityPub not being a censorship-proof technology ("I got banned from _one_ instance for being too conservative") is not a productive discussion to be had. There's better ones out there.

<comment><USER13> As someone who is writing an implementation, you are responsible by default for stewarding it.

<comment><USER15> OK. Sorry for disappointing you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Breaking: Removed 1.0+ deprecated configurations Pleroma.Upload, :strip_exif > and :instance, :dedupe_media

What did these configuration flags become?

</comment><comment><USER17> Too bad we can't name things simply with less Grandiosity and cleverness.

Just call it leaf, cheese, or poppy.

Cheese 2.0 that's some killer tech

</comment><comment><USER18> It's interesting that I didn't find a single link on the post or main page to join/try it. There's only a link to the Pleroma IRC channel.

A link to the "main" instance, or a list of instances to join would help. Without that, I don't see the average person using it

</comment><comment><USER19> A screenshot / feature matrix would be a nice addition.

<comment><USER20> A screenshot isn't as useful as you'd think. You can very easily point a third-party web frontend to it, like the ones at [https://wedistribute.org/2019/04/your-guide-to- alternative-f...](https://wedistribute.org/2019/04/your-guide-to-alternative- frontends-for-mastodon-and-pleroma/)

<comment><USER21> Imo a screenshot is more useful than people think.

Developers think "well, you see, any number of arbitrary clients can load the data and even impl their own UI features so a screenshot doesn't really make sense because...".

But people mainly want to know what that even looks like at all. Especially with how open-ended "social network" can be. That the screenshots just look like Twitter answers some preliminary questions.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Everlasting AA battery (just shake it) - <AUTHOR> http://www.pilo.cool/

<comment><USER2> Been waiting for this for a couple decades. Some technical info would be appreciated: voltage, max W/h capacity, full recharge time/effort, etc.</comment>


Why Startups Fail: A Top 10 List From Prolific Seattle Angel Geoff Entress - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2008/11/07/why-startups-fail-a-top-10-list-from-geoff-entress-seattles-prolific-angel-investor/

<comment><USER2> And the number 1 reason is ... server capacity :-)

Anyone got a mirror?

</comment><comment><USER3> No. 1 reason is putting "next page" after no. 3.

</comment><comment><USER4> ICanHasCheezburger.com is a VC backed startup?

<comment><USER3> <http://failblog.org> is a nice expansion move.</comment></comment>


FBI Makes Official Its Decision to Keep Apple iPhone Hack Secret - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-04-27/fbi-makes-official-its-decision-to-keep-apple-iphone-hack-secret <comment><USER2> This is a scary precedent.

From the bits I've seen of it, the Vulnerabilities Equities Process is a really great bit of government transparency, run by a group of people who understand that the best interests of different parts of the government and the citizens of the country often end up at odds. The process allows for vulnerabilities to be periodically reviewed so that the costs and benefits of not disclosing can be weighed over time, and by an at-least-somewhat independent group.

Just skipping it altogether because "we paid a contractor" completely subverts the process. What's stopping all the TLAs from simply routing all their vulns through a private third party and bypassing the VEP altogether?

<comment><USER3> It's bad enough that the VEP was bypassed, but the high-profile, 7-figure payout for the security researchers who had their hands on the bug is a problem too. Plenty of bug bounty programs have remote code execution at $10k, but the FBI paid _100 times_ that. That's an amount of money that some bug hunters might find very challenging to turn down. And this is "above board", with no shady bitcoin payments from dingy IRC channels.

<comment><USER4> Even with it 100 times more, its still cheaper than the legal fees they were facing.

<comment><USER5> I think you miss the point.

<comment><USER4> Those are my tax dollars at work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This might be great for the FBI right up until they actually try to use the evidence in court. The defense attorney can claim (rightly so) that unless they can examine the unlock method to verify it doesn't tamper with any of the data on the phone, the evidence is inadmissible.

The only way the FBI will be able to use this data in court is if they turn the process over to the defense so they can have the process independently verified. Since the article states that they don't have access to the "technical details" of the hack, they have no way to prove the method doesn't manipulate the data on the device.

<comment><USER7> This was never intended to be used in court - the guy who carried the phone is dead, as is his wife and partner-in-slaughter.

<comment><USER8> Information obtained from the phone could have been used to implicate a third party, though.

<comment><USER9> That's what parallel construction is for :(

<comment><USER10> If they already had all the logs of everything happening on the Internet and cell networks for that device, why even go through hacking the device?

<comment><USER11> I don't even really trust that they _did_ hack it. Could just be a safe way out when they realized apple wouldn't back down.

<comment><USER12> This! Why does everyone believe this FBI PR bullshit? It's classic propaganda to save face.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Did any of the commenters here actually read the article?

 _Although the FBI paid more than $1.3 million for the method, Amy Hess, the agency's executive assistant director for science and technology, said Wednesday that it didn't purchase the rights to the technical details and therefore doesn't have the necessary information to submit the method for an Obama administration review known as the Vulnerabilities Equities Process. "The FBI assesses that it cannot submit the method to the VEP," Hess said in a statement. "We do not have enough technical information about any vulnerability that would permit any meaningful review."

...

The law enforcement agency bought the hacking tool from an entity it hasn't identified and then used it to access data on an encrypted iPhone_

It sounds like the FBI doesn't actually understand the details of how the crack worked and was hand-holded through the process.

<comment><USER14> I think the general implication that's being suggested is that the FBI is all too happy to not know the details. It sets a dangerous precedent where these sorts of things are routed through contractors so that safeguards like the VEP are bypassed.

<comment><USER15> Is there any sort of path to holding the FBI responsible for aiding and abetting a criminal organization, or even working with domestic terrorists? I imagine that's what I'd be labeled by the FBI if I hacked someone's phone (or many peoples' phones) with this exploit.

<comment><USER16> The only phone we know has been hacked by this method is in the FBI's hands: they have a warrant.

It's possible the contractor in question is a gray-hat hacker who really hasn't ever performed the hack on any phones they don't own, which makes everything they've done perfectly legal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So, if I understand correctly, the FBI doesn't really know how the phone was hacked? Wouldn't that also mean that they don't really know if the data their contractors retrieved from the phone is really from the phone?

<comment><USER18> "randomly" generated data, to assure accuracy

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've never seen government decision-making work first-hand, so I wouldn't claim that this speculation should carry weight.

But if I was someone on the FBI side who wanted to "win" this somehow, I could imagine how this might look like a victory. Apple wanted for its phones to look so secure that they will even stand up to the government to protect them. In response, the FBI made Apple's phones look so weak that anyone who has $1M to spend on the black market can get in.

<comment><USER20> spending $1m to get into a 5c isn't exactly a PR disaster for apple.

<comment><USER21> Agree, Is anyone even able to cite another singlural exploit that was solid for over a million?

<comment><USER22> Only seen that price for iOS jailbreaks. [1][2]

1\. [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/03/jailbreak...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/03/jailbreak- for-iphones-wins-1m-bounty-zerodium-apple)

2\. [http://www.ibtimes.com/ios-9-jailbreak-reward-zerodium- offer...](http://www.ibtimes.com/ios-9-jailbreak-reward-zerodium- offers-1-million-bounty-hackers-unlock-apples-latest-2106420)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but maybe they don't actually have a hack. Maybe they just want people to think they do.

<comment><USER24> That seems like the most likely explanation to me too.

<comment><USER25> Really the most likely explanation is that Apple writes security bug free code? My guess is the FBI found someone who knew how to exploit the phone or asked a 3rd party with connections to the NSA so there is a level of plausible deniability on the origins.

<comment><USER24> There are obviously security bugs in Apple's code, almost certainly some which allow for breaking into a device. That's even more likely to be true because the device in question wasn't fully updated.

However, the situation as I see it is this: The FBI realized they were going to lose their legal battle to compel Apple to unlock the phone in question. They then retracted their suit to avoid a precedent being set against them, and announced "don't worry guys, we got in anyway" to deflect attention from that particular iPhone, which they had argued was where the situation would end in the first place.

Your explanation is certainly possible, I just don't think it's as likely that they would really spend $1m on this phone which in all likelihood has nothing of value on it to begin with.

<comment><USER26> For a government agency to spend money is not as undesirable as it would be for you and me. Budgets have to be justified, and not spending money leads to reduced budgets (and hence reduced influence). Spending budget on high-profile projects can be seen as beneficial to career advancement. Though, $1 million wouldn't get you far if it wasn't for the high-profile nature of this "project"...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If the FBI can pay a million for the hack, what's stopping Apple? I'd expect them to be fully aware of it by now.

<comment><USER28> I would think the fact that they don't have an official bug bounty program makes it unlikely they have an unofficial one. If you are buying, it doesn't harm to make that public.

On the other hand, cases like these may make them consider starting a bug bounty program. and of course, they may already be advertising where it matters (e.g. by calling various hackers, or by using an intermediary to buy hacks) without telling the whole world.

<comment><USER29> I think it would be against Apple's brand image to publicly invite people to break their software, but your last point could be the case in a very limited fashion.

Apple has persisted its appearances in shipping stable, valuable software and hardware the first time quite well. No hiccups allowed here.

Admitting they can't catch every last bug before release would be killing this advantage in public perception they have over competitors like Microsoft.

<comment><USER30> I don't think the general public has this perception at all. Many of the non- tech (and tech) people I talk to hold off on updating iOS because they think it's always more buggy. I know people who swear by buying only the S models because they assume by then all the kinks would be ironed out and the phone will be more stable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I personally don't have a problem with this, just as I had no problem with Apple not wanting to help the government with an investigation. I don't think it is right to want it both ways.

<comment><USER32> If the FBI were a private organization, I'd agree with you, but the FBI is paid by the public and is supposed to be protecting the public, so they should not leave the public open to a gaping security hole in a product that millions of people use.

They can't even pretend that the technique would never be utilized by "bad guys" outside of the USA government since whatever the technique is, it's already available for purchase.

<comment><USER33> Yeah, and British intelligence should have just called up the Germans to tell them that their Enigma machines weren't configured correctly.

<comment><USER34> I'm guessing you are just trolling, but still going to address this.

Every time an american agency finds a vulnerability they are faced with a choice: \- Use it, possibly against foreign targets \- Share it with american vendors to make the country and its businesses safer

It should be clear that in most cases the value of protecting american interest is vastly more valuable than attacking foreign interests.

It's like Clinton lobbying cruise missiles at Afghanistan, whatever they destroyed was worth a lot less than the missile itself. If for example Apple and Google can be protected that is probably worth a lot more than whatever can be gained by using this offensively.

And note that every time a cyber weapon is used there is a large risk that the entity being attacked can learn how the attack worked and use this back at your interests.

<comment><USER33> You're absolutely right that there's multiple interests being balanced here. That's the point I was trying to make.

I think the FBI is making the right call here. An exploit that requires physical access to the phone and that sells for a million dollars per use is not a big risk to anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I am really beginning to think if the FBI actually used a hack. There were reports that the passcode was changed when in FBI's possession, what if this was just a deliberate attempt to force Apple to create a backdoor?

<comment><USER36> You mean they had access in the first place, and this is all smoke and mirrors to cover the fact that they were bluffing when they were trying to subvert apple, and there is no hack?

Plausible, actually - and if they wanted a cover story that would cause apple as much collateral damage as possible, they've chosen well - as blowback doesn't matter to the FBI. They're untouchable gods, above the law, above public sentiment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Would FOIA apply here in any way?

<comment><USER7> They could just reject the FOIA claim, stating it's part of an 'active investigation' for the next decade or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Oh, now they care about privacy.

</comment><comment><USER39> I assume Apple already knows the hack/vulnerability. Apple should announce they know it, fix it, and give the FBI a big F-U.

<comment><USER40> Uh...this is probably a hardware flaw.

Without recalling _all_ iPhones prior to the Secure Enclave, I'm not exactly sure how they would 'fix it'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> [https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press- office/2015/02/13/execu...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press- office/2015/02/13/executive-order-promoting-private-sector-cybersecurity- information-shari)

Then again, goose!=gander

</comment><comment><USER41> Micro-probing the bus lines, to disable the self-destruct or time-delay counter ? Or perhaps "glitching", sending badly-timed signals to the specific part of the asic that keeps count of the number of bad tries, causing it to lock up. Then brute forcing it at high speed.

<comment><USER42> > sending badly-timed signals to the specific part of the asic

I would imagine that sort of thing would be very expensive to do correctly, unless you are only talking about feeding badly-timed signals at the asic pins.

<comment><USER41> _someone_ out there helped design the asic/MCU that does this. individuals on that team would know how to do it very easily because they built the freakin' thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> These times are so interesting. The FBI is making policy that they wont expose the 0 days they bought for over a million USD. We need to consider the amount of cool things we learn right now and appreciate it.

</comment><comment><USER44> Ive got a friend at Sun Corporation who, a few weeks ago, when I congratulated her on the recent (unconfirmed) news of her company, she said it was Cellebrite's news and not theirs.

</comment><comment><USER45> What would stop one or couple of apple engineers from creating a backdoor and then selling a "unlock service" trough some foreign intermediary making $1 mil each time?

<comment><USER46> probably the threat of being caught and subsequent consequences probably stop them. also (not saying Apple does and it's hard to do) but companies compartmentalize portions of software making it difficult for an individual to go rouge and break apart the security. higher up engineers probably could but the risk is pretty crazy especially with the new "we can just do whatever we want" terror laws that they would probably lay on them

<comment><USER47> > not saying Apple does and it's hard to do) but companies compartmentalize > portions of software making it difficult for an individual to go rouge and > break apart the security

Apple does this to an extreme. You can't even see the code to projects you are not on. Oh someone else's code has a bug? Well, you can do symbol search across the entire codebase but you will get the line featuring the symbol, the line above it and the line below it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Is FBI faking again [1]?

[1] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11578240](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11578240)

</comment><comment><USER49> Isn't this title a little misleading if they never knew the actual technical process of hacking the iPhone? They can't share what they don't know.

</comment><comment><USER50> Are we sure the FBI is not bluffing?

</comment><comment><USER51> I hope that the security community reciprocates: if the FBI won't disclose security flaws to the community, then neither should the security community give the FBI any special privilege or notice in disclosing flaws in FBI software. The FBI might then learn about the benefits of disclosure the hard way.

</comment><comment><USER52> Just seems petty of the FBI to actually make an official announcement like this. I get if it's understood that they're not releasing it, but why make a formal press release about it?

</comment><comment><USER53> Translation: _We got taken for a $1M ride, and have neither a valid exploit nor any data to disclose._</comment>


Machine Learning and Visualization in Julia - <AUTHOR> http://www.breloff.com/JuliaML-and-Plots/ <comment><USER2> The first chart has a graph of power, and rates Python as the least powerful among C/C++, Java, MATLAB, Go, Erlang, and Julia, besting only Mathematica.

I don't know how you define "power", and the article doesn't explain the methodology, but regardless of how you measure it, I would strongly argue that unless you are discounting any contribution from available libraries, the Python numerical processing ecosystem makes it the strongest of all of these. You state Cython is another language, and appear to give no credit to numba, which can be invoked in many cases for huge speedups with a simple decorator. You can't evaluate Python, or any language for that matter, without looking at the capabilities of its ecosystem.

<comment><AUTHOR> You seem to be correct.

However, Numba's type system and syntax is far less expressive and powerful than Julia's.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your opinion on modern PHP? - non-entity Just curious, because I worked a PHP contract writing PHP7 a while abck and have considered picking up laravel, but have heard that it's a red flag to see PHP on a resume if you ever want to work on anything serious.<p>What do you think of modern PHP (PHP7, the standard tools, and modern frameworks)? Is it worth picking up / listing as a skill? <comment><AUTHOR> I'm not the best example because I write vanilla PHP without frameworks and I don't work at a big exciting tech company on the cutting edge of anything, but here goes.....

I think it's a valuable skill to have, and there are still plenty of places who use it. Learning something new is never a waste if it's achievable. I'd have no reservations listing it as a skill.

As far as the technology: PHP7 is extremely fast and powerful. Even for quick and dirty synchronous command line scripting it's magnitudes faster than Python. [1]

[1] [https://benchmarksgame- team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...](https://benchmarksgame- team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/fastest/php.html)

<comment><USER2> 2 examples at 6x

5 examples at 2x

3 examples at < 2x

Wouldn't "magnitudes faster" suggest > 10x ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yeah PHP is a super fast way to get your product on the road.

I didn't have a very good experience with Laravel since I feel it adds a lot of overhead but the pros are it integrates tightly with Vue and offers hundreds of pre-baked packages that allow you to do handle everything (from file uploads to sending HTML emails).

PHP is a good language and there is a reason why a lot of high traffic websites from pornhub to facebook still use it and it has really improved a lot since 7. The people who look down or red flag php devs arr just taking the jokes too seriously or drinking the kool-aid.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hard to believe anyone would red-flag PHP on a resume. I've been doing "serious" work with PHP since version 1, if by serious you mean getting paid well by companies that make money. Programming skill and your value as a programmer have very little to do with languages.

I continue to get plenty of PHP work, more than I can handle, both with legacy applications and new development. Lots of potential customers out there.</comment>


Booker beware: Airbnb scans your online life to see if you're a suitable guest - <AUTHOR> https://www.standard.co.uk/tech/airbnb-software-scan-online-life-suitable-guest-a4325551.html <comment><USER2> I'd say this is what technology should do: to efficiently reduce waste in our world, so we have fewer trashed flats. Of course, the solution should not be intrusive, using public data should be totally fine.

<comment><USER3> The problem is what qualifies you as a flat trasher in their minds? Having a 6 pack of beer in the background of a picture? Maybe they take exception to people who smoke weed. Maybe they think if you're gay you're more rowdy.

<comment><USER4> And AIs "mind" is absolutely obscure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well this is fucked up</comment>


How to set up a mail server on a GNU / Linux system - <AUTHOR> http://flurdy.com/docs/postfix/index.html <comment><USER2> I know it's a bit out of subject but I had to do this a couple time, and now, I simply use google app. It gets the job done, have a nice spam filter and more importantly, users are already used with google services. I'm not saying configuring the server with postfix is bad, far from that, but it might be worthwhile to look at google app as it may speed up things for you and your users.

<comment><USER3> I agree. I've been on Google Apps for about five years now, and I routinely configure an apps account for almost all domains I buy. Never had any problems. Never having a "the e-mail is down" call while on vacation (or, really, anytime) is awesome.

I enjoyed "The Five Stages of Hosting" posted earlier (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3526767>). In that metaphor, Google Apps is the large, modern and comfortable house in a central location with most amenities and virtually rent free - only downside is that the landlord won't let you knock down the walls, and there's no way a grand piano will fit through the front door.

<comment><USER4> And that the landlord admits to coming into your house daily to read through all your mail and documents in order to sell you stuff. And then follows you around town to catalog what you buy, what videos you watch, who are your friends, what are they doing, and what information you're looking for, among other things because, you know, this will all make it a better experience for you.

<comment><USER5> You forgot to mention the benefits of vendor lock in.

<comment><USER3> There is none. You can download all your email any time in an open, industry standard format (IMAP).

<comment><USER6> Calendar and contacts, as well as integration with a few other bits, provide a slight measure of lock-in. I'd still have to say that it's lower for Google Apps than for a lot of other products out there.

Actually, the Google Docs integration is probably the biggie.

<comment><USER7> Re: Contact Lockin: Your contacts should be in the Directory Server and synced to Google Apps. Any first class platform you will migrate to will sync to LDAP.

Re: Calendar I've done two calendar technology migrations for 500+ person companies - they are typically forklift upgrades done over a weekend. You basically lock in your resources (rooms, typically) a week ahead of time, have people rebook any forward meetings into those resources - and have everyone switch into the new system on Monday. As long as people have the right client (in Googles case, that would be a "Web Browser") there is no lock-in.

I could take a 500 person company from Google Calendar, Email, and Contacts over to Microsoft exchange with a team of three people in under a month, with maybe 2 days of disarray (monday) as people (who ignore instructions the previous week) update the mail servers and LDAP servers on their various Androids, iPhones, Macintoshes, etc...

Just make sure you keep your primary directory in your own LDAP server, and you will be good to go. Don't outsource the directory. And stick to something LDAP compatible.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, it's reasonably light, as I said. Training and end-user usage patterns (never something to be taken lightly) are probably your biggest issues.

Then again, the user experience with the leading alternative solution (MS Exchange) is so miserable that at one organization I'm aware of, the public announcement of a migration to Google Apps for Domains was greeted with a standing ovation.

Another interesting factoid: Hal Varian, co-author of _Information Rules_ , which largely discusses strategic use of lock-in by both vendors and users, is Google's chief economist. I suspect this is a subject the organization understands well: [http://www.amazon.com/Information-Rules-Strategic-Network- Ec...](http://www.amazon.com/Information-Rules-Strategic-Network- Economy/dp/087584863X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327962623&sr=1-2) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Varian>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Personally, I hugely prefer exim+dovecot to postfix+courier. This guide is the one I follow: [http://hinterlands.org/wiki/index.php/DebianEximDovecotSquir...](http://hinterlands.org/wiki/index.php/DebianEximDovecotSquirrelmailSieve) (although I'm not a Squirrelmail fan at all).

<comment><USER9> IMO, I agree with dovecot over courier, but any reason you prefer exim? I'm under the impression that postfix is regarded as one of the best examples of secure software to date.

<comment><USER8> Habit, mostly. The first mail server I ran for myself was postfix, and I managed to get in a nasty tangle. Exim configuration just seems to fit my brain better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> While in college, my housemates had a Linux mail server configured with individualized spam filtering; every user had an IMAP "spam" folder and a "ham" folder; they could move false negatives from their inbox to the spam folder, move false positives from spam to ham, and a nightly job would run and generate custom statistics for each user. It was remarkably slick, and for years I've been trying to figure out what that setup was. Does anybody have any ideas, or actual links to similar tutorials?

<comment><USER11> Make a cron job run this? [http://spamassassin.apache.org/full/3.0.x/dist/doc/sa- learn....](http://spamassassin.apache.org/full/3.0.x/dist/doc/sa-learn.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is useful. I will review.

I have traditionally used the instructions here which are very mature and have done me well for years:

<http://workaround.org/ispmail>

They are absolutely bomb proof.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, this one is a bit improved stack, because it contains fewer pieces in critical places (ie dovecot can do all the authentication + delivery).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does anyone here recommend building your own email system other than it being more private than hosted email? Are there any benefits (outside of privacy) to putting up your own email server?

<comment><USER15> ... and on a -somewhat- related note: Does anyone here recommend 'premium' e-mail hosting, such as Rackspace E-mail? (<http://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/rackspace_email/>). What are the benefits of such services? I am trying to understand the benefits of these premium e-mail services to a postfix on a self-managed VPS.

<comment><USER16> One major advantage of premium hosting services (and other SaaS providers such as SendGrid) is that for outgoing mail, your mail will be delivered and not marked as spam/blacklisted/dropped silently.

Because of the low volume of outgoing mail from a VPS, it's very easy to end up on blacklists.

<comment> loup-vaillant Wait, how does sending _little_ emails can get your server blacklisted? Is it because they don't care about the small guy, or is there some technical reason ?

<comment><USER16> It's really about how much a false positive affects your IP's reputation.

When you are sending out a lot of email, recipients see a volume of mail. If a few of these get marked as spam, no big deal, you sent out 5,000 mails in an hour, of which 2-3 were marked as a false positive.

If you are running your own VPS you are sending out comparatively fewer mails so the decision on whether you are a spammer or not is made with a lot less information -- and most recipients will assume you are a spammer immediately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The size of that guide illustrates why I switched to google apps + gmail. I was using a different stack based on FreeBSD, qmail, spamassassin, imapd and tcpserver, but about equally complex. It required regular maintenance and took up too much mental space.

</comment><comment><USER18> The advice I wish somebody had given me: Don't use Debian's default configuration for Exim. Even though Debian's docs strongly recommend that you should do so. I'm sure their magic config stuff works brilliantly for somebody, but for most people it creates a vast, complex set of files that then breaks when you upgrade, leaving you with no email. Just write (or find) a config file.

<comment><AUTHOR> This (almost) holds true for (almost) every piece of software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I just recently setup an email auto-responder with a custom email server (in Java) and I will say it was a goddamn PITA. I did use the cited article and also this one is good: [http://rimuhosting.com/support/settingupemail.jsp?mta=postfi...](http://rimuhosting.com/support/settingupemail.jsp?mta=postfix)

Some things that are rather important:

1\. Name your email server with "mail" some where in the name. Seriously don't call your email server crapbox.snaphop.com :)

2\. Although you can send email as a relay on many different ports (2525, 8025, 587 (ssl)) you can really only receive on port 25.

3\. You better have a PTR / reverse dns setup.

4\. It takes at least a couple of hours before email servers will acknowledge you.

5\. You can get away with out a SPF for a little bit but you really need if your going to blast a crap load of emails. Use this to test: <http://www.kitterman.com/spf/validate.html>

<comment><USER20> A couple of more gottchas are:

6\. Some (most?) hosting providers are black listed and getting other email systems to recognize you as a valid agent is getting tougher and tougher.

7\. You have to provide your own fail-over, or purchase it from someone else.

<comment><USER21> 8\. domain keys (DKIM) ?

did this recently on EC2 and found these helpful

[http://pauldowman.com/2008/02/17/smtp-mail-from-ec2-web- serv...](http://pauldowman.com/2008/02/17/smtp-mail-from-ec2-web-server- setup/)

[http://www.practicalclouds.com/content/guide/sending- email-e...](http://www.practicalclouds.com/content/guide/sending-email- ec2-instances)

DKIM on Ubuntu - <https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Postfix/DKIM>

Microsoft SPF record creation wizard - [http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/content/technologies/...](http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/content/technologies/senderid/wizard/default.aspx)

not sending that much mail, but noticed after setting up SPF/DKIM/reverse DNS that the mail I sent to myself didn't end up in spam folders at gmail and hotmail etc., without having to send via a service like authsmtp.com.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> People still setup mail servers? amazing, I actually thought I was the last hold out to host my own email. I used to be all crazy into qmail (and then later postfix), with spamassassin, clamav, etc. It wasn't until about 5 years ago I ran into Surgemail while reviewing solutions for a former employer. <http://netwinsite.com/surgemail/> it's worth a look if you are into hosting your own mail. I rarely, if ever plug commercial software, but these guys have really earned it. From their awesome support, development, and licensing model, it's just all around impressive.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have much better recipe. You go to zimbra.com, download ZCS Open-Source Edition and immediately have all the functionality out of the box. As a bonus you have much more beautiful web-interface than ancient Squirrelmail.

<comment><USER24> Squirrelmail is indeed ancient looking. Years ago when I last ran my own mail stack (postfix + cyrus) I wondered why there wasn't a gmail-clone mail webapp. Perhaps there is now?

<comment><USER25> There's Roundcube, which is reasonably good:

<http://roundcube.net/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> For anyone thinking of running a private mail server off their home DSL line, don't do it. It's very likely your IP (even if static) will be in all sorts of spam block lists.

Instead, either use your ISPs mail server as a smarthost (if they allow it) or (better imho) get a small VPS of your own (e.g from Linode) and:

1). Install open dkim and set it to sign all your outgoing mail (make sure to add the relevant DKIM TXT records to your domains)

2). Add SPF records to all your domains

3). Make sure your server's IP has reverse dns setup

Your mail should then happily sail through all but the most brutal of spam filters.

<comment><USER27> I use my home server as the primary MX, and a VPS to relay outgoing mail via TLS and serve as a backup MX. This allows me to keep my email on a server only accessible to me, while avoiding the blocklist issues when sending mail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Long ago I installed a small server for a university project that ran on linux (slackware with many customizations), at the time configuring postfix, dovecot, exim, etc. Was a pain and probably not worth my time for what it was used so we decided to go with Hula which at the time looked promising, was dead simple to get working and fairly performant given the low end spec of the server (P4 1.8Ghz, 256mb RAM).

Later on Hula struggled badly with Novell, was sold and forked, we tried to check out the forked version (Bongo I think) but so far the project seemed dead.

After a while we did a clean setup after failing a distribution upgrade (but hey 5 years updating without hitch on custom kernel and compiled software), we moved to debian to lessen maintenance, email was done via postfix+dovecoat+postgresql, which was a hassle (to say at least) to configure, funny enough this setup did not perform well, looking for a more consolidated solution we found Apache James, which looked fairly promising (being under the Apache foundation), the only downside was that it was written in Java, not that I have anything against it but that is another vm to install and maintain, we gave it a try and we have been very satisfied with the results, easy to administrate, very sane defaults, relatively easy configuration in case of tweaks (having it use our postgresql db for users was pretty easy compared to postfix/dovecot), it sucks a lot of memory but the machine overall feels even faster that with the postfix/dovecot stack.

So yeah, while its nice to have an email stack that follows the Unix philosophy, it can get very unwieldy for simple setups (while it may shine on complex setups where flexibility is needed).

</comment><comment><USER29> It's funny that I've just switched from Google Apps to my own email server today. I've used GApps since 2007, but I've been considering to move away for some time, mostly due to privacy concerns.

It only took me a couple of hours to set up an encrypted VPS with Postfix and Dovecot, change the DNS and test that everything works ok. I'm somewhat lucky that I don't get too much spam and Thunderbird does a decent job of filtering it.

<comment><USER30> 'Encrypted VPS'? You have an encrypted container on it? Have it installed in an encrypted container? Encrypt all incoming mail?

<comment><USER29> I run a UML VM with full disk encryption on a larger VPS. I only use it for email storage and services. MUAs connect using IMAPS and SMTPS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Install the same in a couple of minutes with <http://www.iredmail.org/>

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't want all of it though. You shouldn't be running a web server on your email server for instance.

<comment><USER31> Web server is installed for the web control panel, which can be disabled afterwards.

I do like step by step guides as they provide a higher level of control, but after you've performed a setup like that 2-3 times, you start to lean towards more automated installs as iredmail or custom written scripts. So why maintain your own scripts when you can start with a ready made package.

<comment><AUTHOR> And the webmail...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> For personal projects I set up Google apps to handle inbound/outbound email for an admin email. Then postfix on the server in a null client configuration for outbound email only (eg. no-reply) type registration emails and so forth.

<comment><AUTHOR> Off topic: I hate noreply email addresses. Why not send it from yourself or customer services?

<comment><USER33> The only valid reason I can think of is minimizing PLEASE UNSUBSCRIBE from your customer service spam filter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> For receiving email, why would you want to donate your bandwidth costs to spammers? I understand the desire to use Postfix though, so just use Gmail, or even Pobox (which has adjustable spam settings), then forward to your own server with some whitelisting in place. Then at least you've cut your bandwidth by about 99%.

For sending email, there are some steps for DNS and signing missing here that can result in your email going to spam with the major ISPs. It looks like he was going to add Domain Keys in v6 but abandoned it.

</comment><comment><USER35> <http://gogs.info/books/debian-mail/chunked/>

This one was written by me, for Debian Squeeze...

</comment><comment><USER26> I've become a very big fan of www.zarafa.com over the last year or so. It's open source, modular, works hand in hand with postfix, supports activesync phones, has a great webmail interface, strong documentation and, best of all, fully supports Outlook 2010 clients connecting in Exchange mode (if you want that).

IMHO, it's the best opensource groupware offering out there.

</comment><comment><USER36> In case it helps anyone who is like me and isn't concerned about the most secure or optimal setup for all aspects of email and just wants the easiest way to be able to send mail on Ubuntu, what worked for me was this:

sudo apt-get install postfix

Then hit enter a few times to select the defaults.

</comment><comment><USER37> Whenever I see a tutorial like this I think: "Why isn't this a script?".</comment>


Obama in Talks to Provide Shows for Netflix - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/us/politics/obama-netflix-shows.html <comment><USER2> Obama could create a gameshow about community organizing. We could call it Community Apprentice. Various contestants could attempt to start social movements and Obama could critique them. Every episode one or more contestants would be removed for failing to raise enough funding. He needs some sort of catch-phrase for when he removes a contestant, something like, "You're underemployed." But the show would continue paying them a universal basic income even after they stopped working.

<comment><USER3> The ratings are gonna be huge I tell ya

<comment><USER2> The ratings will be distributed among all Netflix shows according to their need.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "You either die young or live long enough to become that in which you hate"

</comment><comment><USER5> Ugh I wish these providers would can it with the radical politics. comcast owns msnbc, bezos the washington post, now netflix going with obama?

</comment><comment><USER6> I liked it better when my former presidents just painted.

<comment><USER7> Some former presidents paint, some return to the Senate (Johnson) or become Chief Justice (Taft).

<comment><USER8> and some use their fame to do good around the world, like Carter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I kind of wish he just would have joined the board of dropbox as well and ridden off into the sunset. I dont want Netflix to become politicized. Entertainment is the one last bastion to get away from the world politicians have created for us.

<comment><USER10> _Panem et Circenses_. Entertainment & politics have been a global ouroboros for at least two thousand years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm sure I'll be watching "The Simpsons" when that's on.

<comment><USER11> lol for the down votes.

It's joke, and it has "The Simpsons" in it. Come on now :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> All presidents have bones in their closets, but Obama trading spots on the Human Rights Watchlist for TPP votes makes my stomach turn. I don't care to watch a series about him.

Signed with DKIM: [https://wikileaks.org/podesta- emails/emailid/39024](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/39024)</comment>


Count: Real-Time Shake Shack Line Counter - <AUTHOR> http://www.countingcompany.com/ <comment><USER2> Hi everyone! This is Dimitri and Steve, the creators of Count: a machine learning company looking to quantify the organic data inside photos, video, and sound. Anybody that has lived in Manhattan understands the dynamics of the Shake Shack line in Madison Square Park. We thought it would be fun to practice our craft quantifying the Shake Shack line in real-time as our first experiment. If you are interested in the technology or want to partner with us to quantify organic data sources email us at firstname.lastname@example.com to start a conversation.

Counting the number of people in a line outside is a challenge and there are a few steps to ensure an accurate prediction. First, the raw camera feed from Shake Shack observes the line, the park behind the line, and outside seating. The perspective captures a dense crowd with most bodies and faces obscured and therefore difficult to analyze with traditional machine learning models. In addition, the line is outside in the elements, with snow, inconsistent lighting, shadows, and even umbrellas.

Count creates a density map predicting the likelihood of each pixel being a person, allowing us to then calculate the number of people in the entire frame. We then use another model to determine the line from the crowd: people waiting at the starting point, side by side. Being able to differentiate between a distant crowd and an actual line has its own set of subtle challenges.

Feel free to read more about it at [http://blog.dimroc.com/2017/11/19/counting-crowds-and- lines/](http://blog.dimroc.com/2017/11/19/counting-crowds-and-lines/)</comment>


This 15-foot tall mech weighs 8,000 lbs and can run 20 mph - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/09/this-15-foot-tall-mech-weighs-8000-lbs-and-can-run-20-mph <comment><USER2> I wanted to see it take multiple steps in a single shot. As an example, the videos released by Boston Dynamics are so interesting because you get a mostly unedited shot of the what the machine can do. _This_ is just a disappointing commercial.

</comment><comment><USER3> All that effort, and it's a tripod-gait (one leg moves at a time) walk and a slow bound (front and back legs move as pairs) run. It's mirroring the users motion, like the General Electric walking truck from 1965.[1]

There have been many fast-running robots. Boston Dynamics gets the most press, but there are others. I have an old patent on this from the early 1990s. It seems quite possible to do much better at legged running than people are doing, but there's no market and it's too expensive for the toy market. The Marines rejected the Legged Squad Support System, the militarized version of BigDog.

If you're going to build a big four-legged machine, it would be interesting to do it with double-ended air cylinders. Then you have adjustable compliance and energy recovery. A muscle can be thought of as a spring with an adjustable spring constant, zero point, and damping. Humans get back about 70% of running energy as elastic recovery. Cheetahs, about 90%. So energy recovery is crucial to fast running.

It's hard to implement that mechanically (there are mechanical kludges that do it, but not very well) but straightforward pneumatically. Carrying an engine and air compressor is usually too bulky for mobile robots, but in truck size, it would work. The control problem is different. You have to work in force space, not position space. It's not a good exoskeleton system, but it's a good robot.

When Google bought all those robotics companies, I was expecting great things. But nothing happened. Top management lost interest. Last year, Google sold off Boston Dynamics and Schaft to Softbank. Maybe they'll do something.

It's quite do-able today. When I was working on this in the early 1990s, gyros were big and expensive, as were accelerometers. Getting enough mobile compute power was hard. Nobody had 3D sensing good enough to profile terrain. Batteries were still NiCd. Motors were weaker. Power MOSFETs were bulkier and more troublesome. All those hardware problems have been solved. There's also been a lot of progress in control theory. Back then, it was mostly PID. Adaptive feedforward control was exotic and rare. Now advanced control is common. It takes smartphone levels of CPU power, which is a non-problem today.

But there's still no market.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coNO9FpDb6E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coNO9FpDb6E)

</comment><comment><USER4> That video is uniquely horrible.

<comment><USER5> I don't believe it can run 20 mph when you clearly see it is dragging one "foot" in the sand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem with actually running is that it likely will burn way more power at any speed where its trying to run, so this likely would be really boring to watch -- "he has 2 more seconds of his turbo to use... ohhh... and he's out.. gotta conserve power to avoid getting run down by the other robot at a blistering 4 miles per hour.."

<comment><USER7> With this level of control, you're probably right. But if you get the control solved and no human inside it would at least be as interesting as a horse or dog race.

The point of running and walking is simply that driving only works on sufficiently flat surfaces and is only efficient if the friction of that can be reduced, e.g. using flattening and asphalt. Running on sand or snow or otherwise loose underground, with big feet to distribute weight, is always going to be more efficient than rolling, we just can't control such systems.

But try doing a safari. A 6 hour drive across "flat" savannah, after which you look at the map and see you've travelled 30km, and used up something 1-2% of the lifespan of the 4x4 you were in (axle will need replacement after 50-70 such rides because it'll be shocked to pieces), that ride will cure you of the notion that driving is efficient.

And that's flat savannah, really, on photographs it looks really flat an driveable. And at the height of the dry season there are areas where that's even kind of true. Not many though. When you think about other biomes like forests, rocky mountainous areas, swamps (or really anything even a bit wetter than dry savannah, like almost all of Western Europe). Without roads, cars go nowhere.

But after dozens of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment per state, it can be tolerably efficient in densely populated areas. Even such efforts unlock something like 20% of the state at best.

Most people just happen to have spent their entire life in such an area and then extrapolate their direct experience to cover everything.

Then there's "reach". The truth is, even in dense cities, specifically built for car traffic, walkers can reach far more locations than cars ever will, even the smallest most agile car you've ever seen. And even there you see people using power equipment costing millions to compensate for the fact that cars, vans, ... can't navigate something like a building site.

Walkers are the future, at some point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Thought it was going to be a really large Strandbeest, disappointed that its worse.

</comment><comment><USER9> Looks like someone with a lot of money watched the third Matrix film and thought "I want one of those suits."

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm highly skeptical that we'll ever see humans fighting against each other in giant metal deathtraps. We have demolition derbies but they're intentionally kept to a slower speed. Maybe some kind of sumo type fighting would be possible if it was highly restricted.

</comment><comment><USER11> Some top-notch CG at the end.

</comment><comment><USER12> From this it barely walks, let alone runs. I thought maybe they were holding back for a shock finale race or something but then it switched to CG and that was it.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's cool that we are getting heavy things to have feet but why?

A hummer weighs 2000lbs less and can go well over 80mph, what benefit does this concept have over armored cars?

<comment><USER14> Similar reason on why evolution doesn't have wheels — less restrictions on where it can go.

<comment><USER15> I'd point to tumbleweeds, and the Wheel Spider[1] as examples of wheel-like structures that evolved (in terrains where it makes some sense, of course - not so handy for a scree-littered hill, bog, etc.).

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> terrible. fire the marketing people. even if the target audience of this is kids (in the hopes that they will have purchasing power when this thing is ready for market) it is still terrible. (don't get me wrong, i usually live for anything robotic, new tech, mech stuff but this is embarrassing).

excessively deep voice narrator - tick.

15 seconds of content stretched to a 2 minute video - tick.

weak cgi - tick.

overly dramatic music - tick.

people striking heroic poses - tick.

and "XMech Racing League"? really?

</comment><comment><USER17> The gamification is cool regardless of how ugly it's executed. But if this goes anywhere it will most likely draw attention from less entertaining purposes.

</comment><comment><USER18> That demo video may have been the worst demonstration of a product I have ever seen.

What's so special about it?

Cue guy putting on aviators

</comment><comment><USER19> Looks more like a dune buggy with legs than your classic Gundam, but still... pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER20> I wonder where all the money came from.

</comment><comment><USER21> It looks more like it can hobble 4mph, based on that video.

<comment><USER22> It probably is going 20 mph but with such a large body it will look like it's walking in slow-motion.

<comment><USER21> It definitely isn't going 20mph in that video.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, nevermind, sorry; I guess I got confused by the CGI render ones.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sled Theoretical Performance Guide - <AUTHOR> http://sled.rs/perf.html <comment><USER2> I've read the sled website/documentation a while ago and can only recommend others to do the same.

It's a non-trivial amount of interesting knowledge regarding database creation as well as performance.

</comment><comment><USER3> Somewhat puzzling post? I read it and appreciated it (but holy crap does it need a TL;DR... (basically, "benchmark carefully")) but had little idea what it has to do with `sled`, which turns out to be an embedded database written in Rust. Perhaps update the title? I was looking forward to some performance guidance for "sled" on "Rust (.rs)" and didn't really find any...

<comment><USER4> It was kind of Hunter S Thomson-ish and also kind of inside-baseball like. It would be interesting to talk to the author. Are they like that in person?

He's operating on another level in some ways, but does all that fancy-talk and verbal abstraction (We are fucked in 2020 he says) actually come down to anything a normal schlub can use? If you've worked in the db world on distributed databases, well, this is par for the course at MemSQL or Amazon or whatever.

<comment><USER5> One of his commit messages ([https://github.com/spacejam/sled/commit/5dbd8f681133ab042e24...](https://github.com/spacejam/sled/commit/5dbd8f681133ab042e24ed0a09c2bcac5f1efd93)) was "© dat spicy law shit". He's an interesting character for sure.</comment></comment></comment>


A+, the Programming Language of Morgan Stanley - <AUTHOR> http://www.aplusdev.org/index.html <comment><USER2> I have seen two similar "company-specific" languages in my relatively short career:

The first is MUMPS, primarily used in the healthcare industry. The second was the Mason templating language used at Amazon, which allowed inline integration with Perl, similar to PHP, ASP, JSP, ERB, etc. Both were wildly frustrating to work with because the real knowledge was all tribal, they didn't integrate easily with anything, and they seemed like a waste to learn since I knew the knowledge was not transferable.

The commonality to any language used primarily in a single industry is that it is dead on arrival. As soon as the original maintainer is gone the language freezes. Things the maintainer may have considered bugs become specs, things to-be-done never are, and no one can be truly at the helm when the language needs to respond to change over time.

A company/industry is not in a good position to maintain a language, they simply use languages as-is to solve their problems. Think of it as the industry considering expenditures on improving the language as capex, and a company doesn't spend capex unless it has clear bottom-line justification. "The devs are unhappy" is not such a justification, certainly one not understood by accounting.

I know this isn't always the case though, are there such languages that seem to be thriving?

<comment><USER3> Custom languages like that are one of the many reasons I said no to a job offer from Capita. Amongst other things I'd be working on the payroll system (something to do with it, I forgot since) with their custom language. Absolutely not transferable in any way and as you say probably tribal knowledge. Can't imagine how frustrating that sort of thing is...

<comment><USER4> Of all the reasons to say "no" to a job at Crapita (see Eyes passim), having to pick up a custom language sounds like the least of them.

Though considering payroll's one of the oldest and most solved problems in software development (Hi, LEO!) I do wonder what benefits a custom language could over current over off-the-shelf tools. Could be a legacy thing, in league with those old COBOL mainframe systems you hear about, lurking in shadows, waiting to teach all you kids nowadays a thing or two about walking fifteen miles in snow, uphill both ways… [cont p.94]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the key to understanding APL is realizing that it's not built for Programmers; it's built for Mathematicians.

Here's a fine half-hour introduction to APL in action:

[https://youtu.be/_DTpQ4Kk2wA](https://youtu.be/_DTpQ4Kk2wA)

1:00-2:00 is the motivation for APL—or any DSL—in a nutshell. ("conversational computing", "users who are [not] professional programmers")

Or, if you're happy to sit back and see math magic happen:

[https://youtu.be/a9xAKttWgP4](https://youtu.be/a9xAKttWgP4)

For all its mechanical advances over the last 40 years, it's shocking how far our technology has regressed philosophically.

</comment><comment><USER5> Last new feature added 16 years ago; Last fix (for 64-bit) done 11 years ago -- but likely, real development stopped a decade before that, when Arthur Whitney left MS.

What he did later was create K (and kdb+ and now shakti), which are significantly farther away from APL (of which A+ is mostly just a very opinionated dialect), but which I personally find overall cleaner and more consistent.

<comment><USER6> I literally just heard about K for the first time while listening to fast.ai founder Jeremy Howard talk about it in a podcast, less than 5 minutes ago.

([https://youtu.be/J6XcP4JOHmk?t=696](https://youtu.be/J6XcP4JOHmk?t=696))

Do you recommend any resources for exploring these array languages? They sound really interesting.

<comment><USER7> You can evaluate the 32-bit version of q by downloading the binary from here: [https://code.kx.com/v2/](https://code.kx.com/v2/)

The setup is a little annoying and you have to make sure q and the license file are in same directory or something, I vaguely remember that the error message was pretty cryptic but it is definitely worth taking it for a spin. It is an interesting piece of engineering and there are many interesting example scripts that you can find on the Web, although actually becoming productive in q is another matter entirely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ghosu is another example, a JVM based language for the Guidewire suite of policy and claims systems.

</comment><comment><USER9> Anytime I think of a great DSL I think of Erlang.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the one habit that you adopted and it changed your life? - <AUTHOR> For me, it is working out everyday, no matter how tired I feel. the tiredness goes away as soon as I enter the gym. <comment><USER2> Regular meditation. Specifically, transcendental meditation in my case. I'm sure other forms can offer equivalent benefits. I committed to twenty minutes, twice a day. It made no demands on me besides the time, and so I could just sit down and do it no matter how my mind or body were feeling. Some days I sink deeply into it, some days less so. But with the regularity and commitment, I never needed to be anxious about which day would go which way.

It became an anchored daily practice that I could start hanging other practices on. If I wanted to develop some other focus or habit, I could just plan to do it before or after a meditation session. And _that_ regularity gave me space for really intentional skills building and habit development, which I had always struggled with.

It also meant I had two anchors in my day where my mood and mind and body could find _some_ kind of center. Again, the precise impact wasn't the same everyday, but it provided a check against things spiraling away like they sometimes can.

And then the other lovely benefit is that it left me needing less sleep at night. I don't nap during my meditations (or very rarely, anyway) but they seem to provide an early down payment against my sleep needs, and so I ended up _ahead_ on total waking time. For 40 minutes of meditation spread throughout the day, my night time sleep needs dropped by an hour or two. It took me a while to realize this had happened, but it did and research seems to confirm the phenomenon. I'm not a Type-A Go Go Go person, but it's nice to have a little extra time in my days!

<comment><USER3> That's interesting. I'd like to learn how to do transcendental meditation. Could you please site some good references for me to learn how to do it?

<comment><USER4> It's the first time I've heard of TM, and having experienced some benefits from more traditional meditation in the past, I was curious.

So I ran into this document, which offers a comprehensive introduction into TM: [http://minet.org/Documents/TM-FAQ](http://minet.org/Documents/TM-FAQ) .

Later edit:

My personal unqualified opinion on the matter: too much involvement of religion and bullshit in this program. While there is a scientific basis to the benefits of meditation, TM is not the most direct and straightforward way to reaching that, as it seems to be organized more as a money-making machine than as a non-profit for helping people.

Personally, meditation has helped me a lot in getting rid of anxiety, letting go of a lot of worries and stress, and simply having a better mental well- being, and with that comes a higher level of cognitive performance and general effectiveness. But I haven't stuck to a habit of focusing the attention towards breathing or anything like that, although I've practiced many forms. At this point it is simply a set of thought patterns, when I notice that I'm in an undesirable mental state, I simply breath, and let go, in a sort-of automatic fashion. This may be something entirely different from meditation, but I think it's a result of that practice.

For a while I've actually considered meditation to be counter-productive. In most matters, if something is causing you stress and worry, there's an evolutionary purpose in that stress and worry, and namely it's pushing you to solve the problem that's at the cause of it. Meditation in a way relaxes that push for solving the issue, that stubbornness, and also helps you let go of desires and wishing the world was in a certain way. It has the effect of making you more grateful and accepting of the state of things. But of course, there are some people for whom this stress and worry is kicked into overdrive by small things, and getting rid of that effect provides an immense benefit to their well-being and productivity, and I count myself to that group. But still, I think meditation is great in moderation, like most things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Making exercise a priority rather than an option. Before this, exercise was pretty much the last priority because it's the thing I wanted to do least. If there was any reason not to exercise, I used it as an excuse. Now, rather than saying I'll workout after hanging with friends, I say I'll hang with friends after my workout. I'll still usually miss a day (sometimes two) per week, but before I made it a priority I was lucky to exercise once or twice a week.

</comment><comment><USER6> Getting at least seven hours of sleep per night and giving myself at least an eight hour sleep opportunity (ie lying in bed with the goal of sleep). I feel more comfortable about my overall health and mental trajectory like this (I was chronically sleep deprived for years). While there are no super huge obvious changes I can point to, overall my state of mind is better, I feel more fresh, and more relaxed.

<comment><USER7> How long after switching from sleep deprivation to a normal sleep cycle did it take for things to improve? I've been sleeping 5-6 hours for 10+ years and recently moved to 8 hours of sleep a night but it's been a month and I'm not noticing any positive effects and I'm wondering if I'm just burning 2-3 hours of my life on any given day.

<comment><USER2> Did you start the new routine because you wanted some specific effect or because you thought you "should" for some abstract/cultural reason?

I'd give it more than a month to adapt, but you should try to identify some specific benefits you want to achieve. Looking for a general sense of "wellness" or "alertness" is going to be hard to affirm and credit. But you can watch for and recognize more specific goals like you wake less groggy, fall asleep more easily, exercise more effectively, work with more lasting focus, stay more composed in trying situations, etc. The goals will be personal.

And if you weren't struggling with anything that better sleep might fix, maybe it's true that you don't need it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I guess mine is a bit unusual: Going out with friends every day, even if I don't really feel like it. Social life is very important and if you're busy or somewhat introverted, it's easy to withdraw and forget the impact it has on you. I find myself thinking much clearer, being able to focus better and go all the way to reach my goals now that I'm significantly more active socially.

</comment><comment><USER9> Not using an alarm clock.

I used to set an alarm for when I wanted to be up. I would hit snooze like a fiend, and end up getting out of bed an hour or two after the time I set the alarm for. I finally realized I could just not set an alarm, and I'd probably get up well before I did with all that snoozing. It worked; I started waking up much more refreshed, and usually a little after the time I used to set my alarm for but much earlier than I was getting out of bed with all that snoozing.

I'm 45 now and I've been waking up this way most of my life. The only time I really set an alarm is if I have to catch an early flight somewhere, or if I'm going on a hike and want to be up well before sunrise. If you're a snoozer, try ditching your alarm for a week when it's not critical if you oversleep, and see what happens.

<comment><USER6> I tried this last night and even though it sort of worked, I found myself waking up a couple of times starting from around 5am and not getting back to sleep as deeply because in the back of my mind I was worrying that I'd oversleep and be late. In my sleepiness I forgot that I still set a "just in case" alarm, just for 8am. As a result I'm more tired this morning since I didn't get as good as sleep. I might try it for a few more nights, maybe the restlessness will go away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Cleaning my house for 10 minutes after getting home from work. It Has save me a significant amount of time on the weekend, by lowering the number of house cleaning chores I have to do. Sometimes I spend more than 10 minutes but I try to set that as the bar and sweep or fold laundry or load the dishwasher.

<comment><USER11> I've set a goal to clean at least "1 unit" 4 times a week. For around 2 weeks it has worked pretty well so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is by far the best thing I've ever adopted in my life. I've been training for 6-7 years now. It keeps my life in a good routine, has given me dozens of friends, any time I go to a new city I can find a club and meet people. Competitions are fun and have taught me a lot about myself. Overall I'm a calmer and happier person because of it. I love it and hope that I can continue training for life.

<comment><USER13> Just out of curiosity, what do you think is the bigger, more common habit behind it? I mean, as a wheelchair user you can't do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Do you have any idea what I want to ask?

<comment><USER12> I'm not quite sure what you're after. I'll try and answer what I think you're asking though.

Jiu jitsu is a massive sport in terms of how much knowledge you can acquire in it. You start off with no knowledge and you're losing every single day. Most people will drop off and find an easier sport or hobby.

The people that do stick around start picking up more and more information and building their own game. They'll eventually start winning more and more rolls in the club and learn more about why they lose when it doesn't go their way.

The community is great. I believe this is a function of spending so much time in such close proxity to each other, literally face-to-face. There's a lot of trust between training partners.

Competition keeps it interesting and makes sure techniques and games are "honest". There's no point in learning or teaching something if it never ever works. There's a large analytical community that will look through matches, post write-ups and build the collective knowledge.

There's no "good" body shape or particular style that works for jiu jitsu. Generally bigger people will beat smaller people but if there's a skill gap or a few special techniques then the match can go the other way. This means anyone can dedicate the time and just get better on their own schedule.

I don't know what other hobby could replicate that. It would probably be a sport that doesn't rely on a team but instead of individuals testing themselves on other people. Weight lifting could be appropriate. Maybe something like infosec CTFs or Incident Response challenges. You're not competing against other individuals but all solving the problem in your own way.

Racing/driving could be another one but that would be hard as a wheelchair user.

Honestly, I don't know enough about life in a wheelchair to say what is or is not relevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think two of the biggest things for me were:

Keeping a cascading daily log of tasks, thoughts, sketches. Every evening I assess what I completed and start the log for the next day with tasks I didn't finish from the previous day, and new things I want to tackle. It's helped me be productive and is a positive reinforcement loop for being productive.

Second is exercising in the morning, and stretching. It makes a world of difference in terms of health, flexibility, and compensates for stationary computer work for the rest of the day. Not to mention, it wakes me up and boost my mood.

<comment><USER15> What tool for you use for the daily task logging? Or just good old paper?

<comment><USER14> I used to keep a small notebook. This one specifically:

[https://www.amazon.com/Leuchtturm1917-Medium-Hardcover- Noteb...](https://www.amazon.com/Leuchtturm1917-Medium-Hardcover-Notebook- Ruled/dp/B002CVAU1Y/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1540839585&sr=8-2-fkmr0&keywords=lechturm+small)

I'd have a new one for each year. The rolling aspect kept things off my mind as someone else mentioned. I'd note everything in there.

But more recently I moved everything to digital. I keep an iPad pro with me at all times, and I use apple notes. I create a new note for each month, labelled Oct 2018 for this month for example, and keep the rolling tasks list going for that. I keep all of them in a notebook labeled "Daily Notebook". Apple notes lets me access it from more places, and share sketches digitally, and it's free (obviously except for the initial expense of the tablet).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Working only between 8 to 10 pomodoros in average per day. That helped me to create a boundary for my workday which allows me to be more productive and feel less stressed: [https://medium.com/@marcochvez/how-i-get-my-workday-done- in-...](https://medium.com/@marcochvez/how-i-get-my-workday-done- in-3-or-4-hours-everyday-22b8ded00800)

<comment><USER17> worknflow looks great. I think it will be useful for me. Thanks for building it!

In case you're open to suggestions, being able to adjust the Pomodoro duration would be awesome. The traditional 25 minutes always seemed a little too short for me.

And just curious about the stack if you care to share.

<comment><USER16> Thanks I'm glad you find it useful :) I'm planning to add more features soon, I will add a settings panel to configure pomodoro length and alarms. Yeah, it's my first JAMstack project, built mainly in React with Redux, I'm using firebase as db and netlify as hosting

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Cold Showers in the morning. Remarkably invigorating, super-charges the start of my day.

Also, has anti-depressive effects > [https://www.medicaldaily.com/benefits- cold-showers-7-reasons...](https://www.medicaldaily.com/benefits-cold- showers-7-reasons-why-taking-cool-showers-good-your-health-289524)

</comment><comment><USER19> Fasting. Not think about eating 5 times a day gives me a lot of free time. Sometimes it gets to the point of been boring, but it brings a lot of benefits to the body.

<comment><USER20> I fast approximately 120 days of a year, or every 3rd day. Have done it under the guidance of my doctor friend, so it was systematic.

Some are water only fasts, others are water + fruits only fast and very few (2 days a year) are no water/no food fasts. I have received incredible benefits: feel lighter, better sleep quality and if I can say so, this is my form of meditation!

PS: Doing it under medical supervision initially is critical.

<comment><USER6> Do you have any tips for handling hunger cravings when starting out? I've heard that drinking tea when hungry might help curb those, but as someone who's been doing this for a long time maybe you have some other tips to share?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Making my bed first thing in the morning really helped me recover from depression. It was a sort of behavioural cue that would be followed by me drinking a pint of water and in most case a 10 minute meditation (Headspace).

I think focussing on a small habit, helps you take a step towards the routine you'd like can go a really long way to help you make good choices throughout the day.

</comment><comment><USER4> Now, I can't conclusively assert that it has changed my life, but I've been roughly following the guidelines given in "Perfect Health Diet" and I've experienced some general improvements in physical and mental health (although I wouldn't say they are groundbreaking, there could be lots of confounding variables). But lots and lots of people strongly support this book and claim significant benefits (this again is not a strong and conclusive argument that the book is actually correct is significant in its effect).

Perfect Health Diet ([https://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Health-Diet-Regain- Weight/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Health-Diet-Regain- Weight/dp/1451699158)), despite the very unscientific name, it's the result of the work of two scientists into optimizing their diet for better health. It walks through what's essential in a human diet (micro-, macro nutrients), and also compares to the diet of various traditional tribes, other mammals. The book documents a clear cause-and-effect network between many nutritional issues and the resulting diseases. I learnt a lot about the mammal metabolism from this book.

The most significant factor arguing for this book is that almost every assertion is supported by a multitude of significant studies.

Some quick takeaways: * dose makes the poison: for almost every nutrient the body needs, there's a certain interval in which that nutrient is beneficial, above which that nutrient is toxic. (yes, this may seem tautologically true, but it's important) * the diet of the ancestral man, and most wild mammals is strongly based on saturated and mono-unsaturated fats. This is in strong contrast with the modern American diet, which is strongly based on carbohydrates. As the book carries on the explain, those fats are the exception to the above takeaway, those two types of fat pass through the organism with very little stress to organs, it's a simple reaction which results in no toxic by-products. * there are some commonly consumed things which are actively harmful and are associated with a range of diseases. Some of those are grains.

(anyway, it's been some time since I've read it, I do recommend it as a very well thought out book on nutrition for those interested.)

</comment><comment><USER13> You're right. Good habits are important. Routines relieve our cognitive capacities and help us to get through the day faster and more efficiently.

But the best of all good habits was to stop hoping that something, a change or a habit could have a massive impact on my life. So I ceased to hope and believe.

Be strong from yourself and accept that there is not THE answer or ONE life changer.

<comment><USER22> Oh yeah, the lingering hope for THAT ultimate apps or THAT ultimate productivity technique that will finally change your life, postponed what you can do RIGHT NOW for things that might not even existed.

Anyway, after searching for ultimate technique for a long time, I found that the answer (for me at least) is as simple as simply wake up early and do most important things first (for me recently, is exercise) before shitstorm happened — the classic, proven wisdom that I used to refuse to do because it's not ULTIMATE enough Haha. "How can that conservative routine cope with fast- paced digital lifestyle nowadays!?" What a fool am I.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Walking two hours a day, for sure: negativity drops, the body is energized and watching other people walk makes me relax.

</comment><comment><USER24> Getting enough sleep.

Arianna Huffington was right. Sleep is absolutely necessary. In addition, some people require only 4-5 hours of sleep, others like myself require 7-8 hours to be "good". Getting a FitBit to track my sleep has also been helpful. Just because I sleep on time, does not mean I have "enough" sleep. Most of us don't fall asleep until 1-hour after we lay our heads. And in addition, most of us do not get enough "deep sleep."

In addition, after I started tracking sleep, I realize caffeine has been detrimental to getting "deep sleep." I often switch to decaf or go cold turkey to help my body detox from caffeine.

</comment><comment><USER25> Study perpetually ... preferably formal so that you have exam dates. Ie something to motivate you and make sure you're not just skimming. Just always be learning something. Learn until your last breath.

<comment><USER26> I do this too. Once it becomes a habit of life I can't imagine not doing it. I know so much random math, stats, coding, ML, just from grabbing a textbook and working through problems. People think it means you are a natural, or it's easy. For me, that couldn't be further from the truth. I'll spend half a Saturday stuck on some really basic problem. It's frustrating, but as the years go by the knowledge compounds. Even if the days feel futile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> On weekends, spending more time in nature, leaving mobile phone and any type of connection to the "world" behind me until Monday.

</comment><comment><USER28> Spend more time out of doors ;) You will literally feel as if you have reconnected with a protean collective unconscious!

</comment><comment><USER29> Reading Getting Things Done and fitting it into my life. It made a huge difference.

</comment><comment><USER30> Waking up early. I get more done between 5am and 9am then the rest of the day.

</comment><comment><USER31> Longboarding. Funnier, faster and easier on the joints than running. Complements well a gym workout that is mostly strength-based and never gets boring (unlike cycling in the city to me).

<comment><USER32> Some months ago I got a kick scooter, non-electric. I use it every day, except occasionally the bike is more practical. It's a lot of fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> documenting processes and information at work. If has been a huge help in training new people as a company scales.</comment>


Gillette's Razor = Everything Wrong With America - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/04/gillettes-razor-everything-wrong-with-america.html <comment><USER2> This is a narrative that I don't know how to evaluate. In this case, I'd agree that there's a lack of innovation, but to extrapolate that it is part of a larger narrative is something you can't do without actual data.

Ironically, the author shows that he is just as susceptible to marketing as regular consumers, because apparently innovation that is not well marketed might as well not exist, and deserves no role in his narrative.

</comment><comment><USER3> Title currently reads "Gillette's Razor = Everything Wrong With America (nymag.com)" which is very different from the actual title, which is "Gillette's New Razor Is Everything That's Wrong With American Innovation".

I'm not sure why submitter used a different title, because the original fits in the 80 char limit.

</comment><comment><USER4> If that's what's wrong with America then I think you've got it pretty good.</comment>