Adobe Releases a HTML5 Video Player (with Flash fallback) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.adobe.com/dreamweaver/2010/10/adobe-announces-the-html5-video-player-widget.html

<comment><USER2> It's the Kaltura player:

<http://www.html5video.org/kaltura-html5/>

I'm not sure what part Adobe played - all of the code is Kaltura's, and the widget itself refers to their site. I think the "released" action is that they added it to their Widget Browser. Woot.

It's not clear, but the the Widget Browser is a separate AIR app - it's not built-in or part of Dreamweaver. Also, the video the author suggests to watch actually takes you to a teaser; you have to have an account to view it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think that Adobe is finally realizing that their value is in their tools, not in their platforms. Photoshop makes _lots_ of money and doesn't have a platform aspect. The win-win strategy for both Adobe and the Web at large is to provide a killer Creative Suite that works seamlessly across devices.

<comment><USER2> Adobe doesn't have anything against HTML5 - they've been adding bits to Dreamweaver and other CS products over the past year. Like Flash, most of you don't use Dreamweaver nor Creative Suite so naturally you wouldn't know this.

I understand that a large (if not just _loud_ ) portion of HN doesn't like Flash nor develop for it. But as such, what you're saying is inherently an outsider's perspective and thus potentially inaccurate and unqualified.

Flash is different; it's not what you expect nor wish it to be. That's it. It serves a different purpose. For those that _do_ use Flash, it does that purpose very well.

<comment><USER3> I'm going to assume that by "you", _you_ mean "the collective you of Hacker News" and not _me_.

However, even with that assumption: I've worked with Flash before. I have nothing inherently against Flash, personally. In fact, I quite like Flash when it comes to its sweet spot of animation. I just view Flash as a means to an end; HTML5 is another means to a very similar end, so I don't see strategic value in Adobe owning their own means.

<comment><USER2> Adobe has opened up everything that they can for Flash Player. There are only a few closed portions, such as H.264 video license stuff, that they cannot share for obvious reasons.

Yes, "you" was a general y'all, not specifically you =)

Edit: Question just came up at session at MAX. Direct from Adobe Flash Product Manager: there is a lot of code that isn't Adobe's that they had to license. Also, Flash Player is tiny/tight bit of code ( < 1 MB). It's messy to be very efficient. Finally, they have opened it up, but Adobe still writes 99% of the code themselves, so they're not encouraged to open it up more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So this widget requires Dreamweaver or some Adobe Air thingy. Unless you're a non-HTML person that's already using Dreamweaver (maybe at a college or something), this seems a lot less attractive than video-js or any of the other available HTML5 libraries.

</comment><comment><USER5> My main concern with Adobe is that it seemed to me that they where more concerned (though rightfully so... they are a for profit company after all) with milking every last dollar out of Flash evangelizing it's used _everywhere._ They seem to have listened to the pleas of web designers everywhere now to embrace the new open standards, and that's great in my book. Now we need to get rid of Adobe Air, and leave Flash as a tool for animation as it was purputed in the past.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure of Adobe's intentions but it's(from our perspective) in their best interest to focus on not fighting web trends and create the tools to facilitate them instead. Flash has evolved, but it's far from being open enough for the internet to enable it further. The future? It seems to me the beast will return from whence it came, specific and isolated, "flash!"

</comment><comment><USER7> If I was Adobe I'll say the opposite. That it falls back _to_ HTML5.

Sounds like they are accepting that Flash is on its way out.

<comment><USER8> Why shouldn't they? They don't sell Flash player, they sell Adobe Flash described as "Create web designs and online experiences complete with interactive content, exceptional typography, high-quality video, and smooth animation for truly engaging web experiences," not "Create .swf files".

So, while faster HTML5 adoption would give them less time to adapt (therefore, they say that HTML5 is "not ready" -- honestly, true: [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current- work/complete/c...](http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current- work/complete/commands.html#devices)), they need to adapt and show that they're adapting -- because otherwise the creatives that are currently using Flash could start considering options (currently few, but that too can change).

Something like "well, by the time iPad is too popular for flash-based websites to be viable, we will allow you to make HTML5, so stop worrying about that".

<comment><USER9> The more i think about it, the more clever the idea of flash using HTML5 as a backend sounds from adobe's perspective. In the (very) long term, it would remove a big maintenance responsability from them, and put part of this weight on the browser's engine shoulders.

They wouldn't have to bear with the vocal linux and mac crowds saying their player sucks, for once, and their stuff would play on other platforms too.

I think Adobe realizes this. The problem is that Javascript performance/graphic performance isn't there yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wait, you have to run an Air app in order to download an HTML5 widget?

</comment><comment><USER11> As it should be done - amen!

<comment><USER12> I can't help but wonder if there's a catch. Has anyone had a chance to look at the code? Any bad surprises?

<comment><USER13> Adobe willfully open sourced the ActionScript engine that runs its flash player, and donated it to the Mozilla foundation, under MIT license. If you run Firefox, you have been running Adobe code for a few years now. Did you see a catch? where you ever prompted to buy Acrobat Writer or an Omniture subscription? Don't think so :-)

It's really time developers added Adobe to their "friends" list, imo.

<comment><USER12> > It's really time developers added Adobe to their "friends" list, imo.

I'm not a developer. As a user, I'll add Adobe to my "friends" list as soon as they have a decent implementation of Flash for OS X that doesn't take tons of memory and CPU cycles.

Flash is the only thing that can make me restart Chrome because it becomes a resource hog...

<comment><USER13> The research on this has been done, a few years ago, by professors in Ireland and Austria. Adobe is one VM upgrade away from being on-par with Android/Dalvik, SquirrelFish and LuaJit, in terms of performance.

Adobe already has the technology to improve performance under their noses, but I don't know what is taking them so long. But I can tell you this: once they implement the already _published_ fixes, you can expect at least 60% performance improvement in Flash player, by my calculations ..

\-- edit, removed irrelevant facts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So, elephant in the room, did Apple cause this?

<comment><USER13> Adobe has _always_ been committed to open standards.

I am not affiliated, not paid by them, and don't know anybody there; so I am fit to say this. Adobe is a force of good and _very_ much committed to openness.

Anyone who runs Firefox and bashes Adobe is just being a troll, if not a vile hypocrite. They're doing their part; sometimes they're slow to act, because they're a dumb tool vendor at heart, but when they get around to it, they tend to do good things.

No one should take the credit for Adobe's openness other than Adobe itself.

<comment><USER15> Could you provide some more context to your statements? What does Firefox have to do with Adobe?

<comment><USER13> Adobe gave their ActionScript engine away to Mozilla foundation under MIT license. Though it's no longer used, except for NanoJit.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarin_%28JavaScript_engine%29></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Feds Seize $78M of Bogus Chinese Cisco Gear  - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/02/29/us-canadian-agencies-seize-counterfeit-cisco-gear

<comment><USER2> From the article: "Counterfeit network hardware entering the marketplace raises significant public safety concerns and must be stopped,"

Its not good for the stock price either.</comment>


Ask HN: Weekend project got a lot of press, stupid not to put more work in? - <AUTHOR>

I recently created a Facebook app that allows you to separate the comments from your family and friends. This was a typical sunday evening project for me and it is in a very rough form right now.
The app got immediately picked up by The Huffington Post, Yahoo and lots of other news sites.
Is it stupid that I don't wan't to allocate time (that I'm currently spending on my main project) for fine-tuning and marketing this, apparently very wanted, app?
List with articles about the app: http://mindloop.be/portfolio/items/facebook-familymatters-application/
URL of the app: https://apps.facebook.com/familymattersprivacy/ <comment><USER2> No, it's not stupid. Fame, popularity, money, building something that people want don't _have_ to be driving forces in your life, and if you want to do other things that's perfectly fine. Ultimately, you need to do the things that make you fulfilled. Only you know what that would be.

Just don't be a dick about it if someone else builds it. You only own the execution, not the idea. Not suggesting that you would be, of course, but people have done in the past.

</comment><comment><USER3> That seems like something that you could easily get someone else to finish as a portfolio project and split the profits(?) on. Hell, a few years ago I would have felt LUCKY if you asked me to help with it. It would seem silly to not pursue it a little further.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great idea that I didn't think about. Thanks for your help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The answer depends on what your main project is. But getting free press from HuffPo, Yahoo, etc., is an opportunity few will ever have, so if the main project isn't something amazing or highly lucrative, I'd say it's time to pivot.

<comment><AUTHOR> The main project doesn't have a finished MVP yet, so hard to tell if it'll be lucrative or not.

It's a tool that helps affiliate marketeers better target their visitors, so I guess I'll have to start thinking about B2C vs B2B.</comment></comment>


Minimum-wage offensive could speed arrival of robot-powered restaurants - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/minimum-wage-offensive-could-speed-arrival-of-robot-powered-restaurants/2015/08/16/35f284ea-3f6f-11e5-8d45-d815146f81fa_story.html?postshare=6921439989227589

<comment><USER2> I disagree with this... I personally would walk out of a restaurant if there were no human chef's or waiters... I don't think the quality or the ability to prepare the food safely can be programmed into a machine... to many factors.

</comment><comment> jack-r-abbit That reminds of this hamburger machine: [http://www.gizmag.com/hamburger- machine/25159/](http://www.gizmag.com/hamburger-machine/25159/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Key word here is "speed" the arrival of robot-powered restaurants. In other words, the robot-powered restaurants were _already_ inevitable (within then next 10 years is my guess). Higher minimum wages only speeds up that process a bit.</comment>


Atreus: My Custom Keyboard - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mattgauger.com/blog/2014/08/19/atreus-my-custom-keyboard/ <comment><USER2> Designer of the Atreus here. The post linked to the Atreus OSS project, but I am also selling kits for anyone who wants to put one together without tracking down the parts yourself. [http://atreus.technomancy.us](http://atreus.technomancy.us) Happy to answer any questions.

<comment><USER3> The action of the switches is described as "crisp," but is it light? Ideal for me is something with a very light but not mushy action. If that's the case with these, then... please take my money.

<comment><USER2> Technically I believe the lightest available switch for this kind of thing is the Cherry MX Red, at 45 cN activation pressure. However, since this is a linear switch rather than a tactile one, it's difficult to tell when the switch has activated, and you typically end up bottoming out while typing.

The MX Blue switches I use have a the same spring, but the tactile bump gives them a slightly higher activation pressure. However, it also gives you tactile feedback about what point at which you can release, so in practice it may end up feeling lighter.

That said, I can put together a kit with Red switches if you like; just put a note in the shipping field. I think the Blues are a better all-around choice (they are still much lighter than the famous IBM Model M's buckling springs) but if you have specific needs I can work with that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm currently working on a one handed keyboard and only recently did I learn how to solder.

As a proof of concept with a teensy, I did a 3x3 and in the end, I did get a "hello world" out!

[http://youtu.be/nsoSEf64tbM](http://youtu.be/nsoSEf64tbM)

I too am using clear switches, and today I was working on the real version with a protoboard. Drilling is not fun.

Cherry MX's website also has some of the sizes in inches while on a mm grid. I wish they were just consistent and used mm, even though I am in the US.

</comment><comment><USER5> Cool! The case is super nice!

I posted my keyboard project on HN a while back. I decided not to do a case, but to split it like an ErgoDox. [http://yager.io/keyboard/keyboard.html](http://yager.io/keyboard/keyboard.html) I've been considering the possibility of fabricating a case of some kind. Looks like I'll have to add wood to the list.

<comment><USER6> the case is spiffy. but way too tall. i will probably use it bare. definitely will induce wrist pain if not used on a low keyboard tray (which no one has on any table from this century)

and nice project and documentation of it! thank you a lot for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Another interesting custom keyboard is Tim Tyler's: [http://youtu.be/9yg3s77nAMQ](http://youtu.be/9yg3s77nAMQ)

He has a lot of technical information on his website. He's kind of gone in the opposite direction re: complexity.

</comment><comment><USER8> I just finished my massdrop ergodox a few weeks ago, and I'm loving it. One of the things I like the most about it is the way the left and right hands are separate, allowing me to keep them about shoulder width apart in a very natural position. That was actually the biggest selling point to me over something like the kinesis or the TECK. The split layout feels like it's really revolutionizing the ergonomics of typing.

<comment><USER9> I have a Kinesis Freestyle (another split keyboard), and I absolutely agree: being able to keep my hands further apart is wonderful.

There wasn't anything like the ErgoDox available when I purchased my Kinesis, but if I were in the market now, I would definitely consider it--the thumb- area modifiers are something that I would have liked to have had.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Make a keyboard where you have one key for each finger. You get all characters by pressing combinations of keys. There are 1024 possible combinations.

<comment><USER11> As a pianist of several years, I don't tend to think that chording is a very good idea for fast typing. Certain chord combinations are never very graceful and are a good recipe for tendon strain. We learn to avoid certain fingering because of these hand limitations, and part of the reason we can do that easily is because we are generally moving our hands all over the keyboard. The secret to effective piano playing (to limit strain and tiredness and harm) is honestly the complete opposite of what a lot of computer-keyboard-minimalists seem to be striving for - pianists are supposed to minimize finger movement, and send as much of that movement upstream as possible. Transfer finger to hand, hand to wrist, wrist to arm, arm to body - limit individual finger activity as much as possible for relaxed playing. The idea of minimizing computer keyboard keys for having _less_ keys, and putting more responsibility on agile fingers while freezing the hand in one location, seems exactly backward if the goal is for fast, efficient, fluid strain-free typing.

<comment><USER12> With stenography, you do transfer much of the "push" to your forearms (and keeping the wrist reasonably still). You just place your fingers in the right position for the keys you want. It's unlike typing where you use the force of your fingers to actuate the keys.

The primary goal of steno though isn't to provide chords - it's to learn a short-hand language enough to reduce whole words or sentences down to a single stroke of the arm - so you can get down much more information with less movement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A few days ago I stumbled on Axios, an "Open Source Modular Ergonomic Keyboard". They are preparing a crowd-funding campaign here [0].

[0] [https://www.crowdsupply.com/multiplxd/axios- keyboard](https://www.crowdsupply.com/multiplxd/axios-keyboard)

</comment><comment><USER14> As expensive as it is, I've found a Kinesis to be ideal ergonomically, but also to be by no means the end of the story. The design reminds me of a flatter Kinesis keyboard with an angle, due to the split in the middle.

The other part of the story was getting rid of qwerty, and using colemak instead (not Dvorak, which I'm still modestly confused about.) I found that qwerty was modestly uncomfortable to type with due to the dated understanding of how often keys are actually used while typing, which wasn't fixed by the keyboard alone.

<comment><USER2> The Kinesis Advantage and Ergodox are both fantastic designs, but they are untenable for people like myself who travel a lot and work from coffee shops and parks. (The Kinesis would also be a lot more appealing if you could swap the key switches with a tactile option.) I wrote a bit about how this compares to those designs on my blog a while back: [http://technomancy.us/173](http://technomancy.us/173)

<comment><USER15> It is possible to switch the switches on the Kinesis to Cherry MX blues, but it is a lot of work:

[http://t.co/OyjGCdwvGN](http://t.co/OyjGCdwvGN)

That said, it is awesome (and loud).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I thought about making one of these but chose to go with the ErgoDox instead. The entirely split layout of the ErgoDox is really nice. That along with more keys sold it for me. 42 keys just isn't enough in my opinion.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you work at night? Why? Would you? - <AUTHOR> I find myself constantly fighting between day and night.
Yes, I still live with my mom, and she hates me working at night (I do freelance and work on my startup).
I can't tell you how much more productive I am. I think I gain at least 10x focus at night. No noise, no one texting/calling.
Do you work at night?
Do you wish you could work at night? Do startups and/or corps allow work at night hours? <comment><USER2> As a student or a freelancer it working at night looks good to evade distractions but always pay attention and do not mess up your sleep schedule too much so you can avoid having problems with your health or your social life. These are very important even if you neglect these questions (I did it when i was a few years younger).

Since I have a full time job I prefer to wake up earlier if I need to work on something apart from my main job. I was a night owl for many years but I discovered mornings are pretty good also - you can find some beauty in it: nice, fresh weather, a good coffee and the less noise are your best friends for sure. Also by being fresh you can make sure that you are at your most productive state. If you do something in the morning and/or in the afternoon then it is convenient to rest and sleep at night.

I think that this depends on the type you are and not just on your biorythm but the social situation you are in.

<comment><USER3> I love to wake up 8pm and go to sleep 12am. When I do this I don't loose any social life (friends) and also live the sunset and sunrise. This schedule prevents meetings with normal people, and it's here when I've to force myself to keep asleep for that specific meeting and then the schedule messes up again. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a freelance developer, so most of the time I set my own schedule. I often work at night because of time zone differences (S.E. Asia to U.S.) but again, that's usually not a requirement.

I don't know that less distractions would be a valid point for most. What happen to the distractions during the day? If they don't go away then they may result in jacking up your sleep schedule. If they do go away, then that would suggest you can control them if you need to.

I often don't get good enough sleep if I try to get a full run of sleep in one session during the day. If I try to get multiple sessions, then often they both end up being short. That leaves me not at my best at night. There might be less distractions, but the lack of distractions don't make up for being less than optimal.

Even better for me than sticking to a specific schedule is to simply work when I feel refreshed and sleep when I'm tired. Often that means I stay up late, get up early and take a nap or two during the day. Sometimes I will go to bed early, wake up in the middle of the night for 2 - 3 hours of work, sleep again until dawn and then take another nap during the middle of the day.

<comment><USER5> Well, with polyphasic sleep you can 'hack' sleeping in many different ways. In the 'Uberman mode' it says you can only sleep 2 hours a day in total. Oo [http://dustincurtis.com/sleep.html](http://dustincurtis.com/sleep.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Lots of comments here talk about lack of distractions making it easier to get more done in the night. My case however is a little different. I don't know why, but my brain feels a lot more awake post dinner from 10pm to about 4am - than any other time in the day and this is irrespective of having slept well.

Some people were just built for the night.

</comment><comment><USER7> There have been two general sets of circumstances that caused me to work at night.

The first was that there were fewer distractions.

The second and more interesting one was that in two different circumstances, the computer that I was working on wasn't available until after first and sometimes second shift. One gig involved going in at 2 am, coming home noonish. Thus, I would walk to work in one world and walk home in a different one. A bit disorienting. (I am afraid this may be dating myself a bit.)

These days I am able to control the non-internet distractions a lot better, so it is pretty much daylight for me.

When I did have young kids at home, and needed to work long days, I elected to go in very early. This way, I would be able to be home in the evening.

</comment><comment><USER8> I see a lot of people mentioning less distractions etc. While I agree I think if less distractions is your main reason that is a sign that you are not being assertive enough and not taking control of the situation as much as you should. It sure takes some determination, but hey unplug yourself and let your friends know those are the hours you are working hard and return their calls later. Most distractions really are not that urgent, we just let them distract us. Don't let everyone expect to be able to reach you with a click of a button. Fancy toys and gadgets make it hard, but you lose something more valuable...

<comment><USER9> I'll try, but I do not think I am assertive enough to have college football games moved to 3am. (It's not just friends.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I used to work at night when my son was just born but he's 2 now and requires lots of my energy so I'm too tired to do anything but sleep at night.

</comment><comment><USER11> I love to work at night especially when everyone is sleeping. No noise, no gadgets, no distraction and mum will not call me from a distance. Just me and my work.

Sometimes I do love to work early in the morning.. just that waking up is so difficult in the morning. As if the gravity is stronger in the morning than at night!

Otherwise a perfect working environment for me will be quiet and comfortable.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Do startups and/or corps allow work at night hours?

None of them come out and say it, but look for keywords: 'work from home', 'contractors', and 'global team'.

Yes, I work a lot at night too. Some of us weren't built for the 24-hour Earth.

</comment><comment><USER13> As a software engineer student I totally prefer working at night. But as far as my school projects are in group I can't do what I want anymore. As you said I used to be much more productive at night, like from 8pm to 4am.

<comment><USER3> Totally agree. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yes, for the reasons you state. Knew a writer (not code) he said the same. No distractions, total focus, amazing productivity.

</comment><comment><USER14> The kids are asleep, so it's the only time at home where uninterrupted concentration is possible.</comment>


DragonBox: Gaming children into learning algebra - <AUTHOR> http://www.rudebaguette.com/2012/07/02/dragonbox-learning-algebra/?utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=hackernews&utm_campaign=hackernews <comment><USER2> My 6 year old finished the first version, so we went and bought dragonbox+. a bit disappointed to find the same set of problems, with some additional bonus stuff. Was expecting an an entirely new set, could have saved myself a few bucks and just got db+.

that being said, an amazingly effective game. after she finishes the bonus problems, i'll be showing her how to work them on paper.

<comment><USER3> When I bought the game, the descriptions of the two version were pretty clear that db+ was the same levels as db but with more bonus levels. Maybe they've updated that since you bought.

I got db+ and was happy to see that the bonus levels progressed from symbols to letters/numbers so the last levels looked exactly like the algebra my kids will see in school. I think the game did an excellent job transitioning from the early levels that looked like many other kinds of puzzle/pattern games but evolved the symbols into more typical algebra equations in a way the kids barely notice but suddenly they're doing equations just like their math class. Very well designed IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Someone please conduct of study (double blind, sample size 4, whatever) of kids that practiced algebra with dragonbox vs those that didn't, on their performance of an algebra test.

Would be interesting to see if they perform better, and the impact of gamifying education.

<comment><USER5> Here's an overview of some studies in edutainment I found: <http://www.itu.dk/~sen/papers/game-overview.pdf> There are a few more hits via Scholar. As one might expect, results are mixed, the experimental design is usually shoddy, and there are lots of variables unaccounted for.

Anecdotally, I liked playing Number Munchers in my elementary school and I was in a high percentile of my class and district on all the standardized tests. My peers played it too, but they still struggled, especially later on in junior high and high school.

<comment><USER6> Dragon Box is fairly different than any other math edutainment I've seen. Most of them are thinly disguised exercises in calculation. Dragon Box focuses on learning the abstract relationships first. Actually, I think it would be an interesting game to introduce in a college level abstract algebra class.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Previously: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4105397>

<comment><AUTHOR> That was a great article by Wired! We decided to write about them because they are a partly French-based company, and our news site covers French startups, tech and innovation.

Thanks for the link! -Liam @ The Rude Baguette

<comment><USER7> Yes, wasn't trying to denigrate your work - just pointing to previous discussion people might find useful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh definitely. Don't worry, no offense taken - just wanted to take the opportunity to promote us a bit ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My daughter is 5 years old, she finished the full game in roughly 2 x 1 hour.

Of course she does not understand fully what's behind (I would say almost "fortunately" ;-) ), especially on divisions or multiplications, so it cannot replace the future explanations about what it means.

That said, it shows the kind of game maths are about, and it dedramatize maths completely, and maybe that's the more important aspect of this game after all : maths are just a game, a complex one, but you have to enjoy them if you want to be good at them in the end.

In the end, the game is very progressive, fun, she loves seeing the little monsters growing and it entices her to go on. The UI is not perfect, but it's already very good. For example, giving some time in the end to cleanup extra members would be cool instead of relying on the order you remove members.

I can't help but think that playing complex games like this is one of the best training for yound minds !

</comment><comment><USER9> My 4-year-old loves it. What can I say? She barely knows the alphabet yet she's learning algebra for fun!

<comment><USER10> Since by 4 most kids know the alphabet I wonder what the long term implications are of learning algebra first. Maybe letters won't feel like parts of words, but instead she'll look at them as problems to solve.

I wonder what the big rush is with children, symbolic manipulation in a 4 year old's world has very little implication. Manipulating her environment through motor skils, developing ever more sophisticated interactions with other children, play etc, all seem to be much more useful. But anything that's fun is very likely good. I wonder how much of the fun is her reading back to you your enjoyment at seeing your offspring participate in algebra. The first rule of being a 4 year old is to please the parents. They, after all, provide everything.

<comment><USER11> I realize that this is purely anecdotal, but may answer your question.

My father got me playing around with programming when I was very young -- I think six or eight years old. Some of my first memories involve our VIC-20 computer.

While a lot of what I did was just typing in simple programs from a book, I did some experimentation on my own, and it became pretty obvious how variables, loops, and the rest worked.

When I hit school I was mathematically so far ahead of everybody else, not because I'm some kind of genius, but because I had already spent a lot of time unknowingly learning algebra.

This was a disadvantage, because the school system wasn't built to cope with a kid that understood algebra before he had memorized the multiplication table.

As an adult, however, I've enjoyed a pretty serious advantage when it comes to understanding abstract concepts, especially anything involving symbolic manipulation, and I think I can thank that VIC-20 BASIC manual from many years ago for it.

I wouldn't be too worried about starting a kid out 'too soon', provided that other areas of the child's mental development aren't neglected in favor of developing mathematical skills.

<comment><USER12> I had a similar experience. My father and grandfather introduced me to computers and programming at a very young age, and I ultimately taught myself algebra, geometry, and basic trigonometry by age 10.

From fifth grade, I was bored out of my mind during math class. In sixth grade, my math teacher recognized my boredom to be a lack of challenge and decided she should do something about it. I was pulled into the vice principal's office at one point and asked to slow down my at-home learning because the teachers did not know what to do with me during class.

Eventually, we settled on a solution: I became the equivalent of a teacher's aid for my middle school class and tutored other kids who were having difficulty. This instilled a love for teaching that I carry with me to this day.

I don't think we should discourage children from learning at a fast pace as long as they appear to retain the information and it doesn't compromise other aspects of development. On the contrary, we need to find a way to help our education system cope with children learning things outside the classroom.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had just written about this yesterday when my 6 year old and 8 year old finished it: <http://www.educationreimagined.org/2012/06/dragon-box/>. I had a couple of questions from the 6 year old, but my 8 year old son only asked for clarification once.

When he finished the game, I asked if he realized he had been doing math and he said: "I didn't use any math to solve them". I think he meant calculation. This will lead to some interesting discussions...

I would love to see games like this for more subjects.

</comment><comment><USER13> Reminds me of the "head fake" from Randy Pausch's Last Lecture video, <http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/>

</comment><comment><USER14> What I like particularly here is how every feedback and game design element contribute to the fused goal of learning-playing. Textbook game design elegance!

</comment><comment><USER15> As an adult, I enjoyed this game. I had fun seeing how someone translated algebra into a game for children, and I also liked working simple algebra with pictures. I don't know if i recommend spending the 3 bucks on it unless you're looking for inspiration for your game.

<comment><USER6> Since when is $3 for a couple of hours of entertainment (each if you have a family) a bad deal? I have a hard time understanding how our standards for how much things should cost has fallen so low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The intense look of concentration on my 7 and 5 year old's faces as the play this is priceless.

More of this.

</comment><comment><USER17> I bought this a couple weeks ago, and I was quite impressed. I don't have a young one to give it to, but I really liked how the rules were introduced. By the end, you really do have a pretty good grasp of algebra to get through it.

</comment><comment><USER18> My son will be 2 this month and he loves this game. He can only make it to about the 13th level before Daddy has to help, but wow, this is an amazing app.

His favorite thing to do is "pop" the zeros (ie spirals)

</comment><comment><USER19> I've played this - its wonderful. Soothing, quiet, a little quirky. The + expansion pack is a total disappointment but the game itself is well done, cleverly designed, and genuine fun.

</comment><comment><USER20> We whipped through it with minimal assistance given to my 6 and 8 year old boys. It's good. Need's to go deeper and a bit longer in my opinion.</comment>


"Bide your time.Write an OS in your spare time" Joe Armstrong(Erlang creator)  - <AUTHOR> http://www.erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2007-November/031203.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Some excerpts from Joe Armstrong(creator of Erlang)'s post on how and when to push Erlang in your environment (the whole post is worth reading imo)

"I have only seen three repeatable patterns, that have caused the spread of Erlang into commercial projects:

1) A Catastrophe Project X fails - totally - a total disaster. Help me - <USER2> help helpErlang guys run in an save them

2) We can make money Idea X can make money if we can implement it really quickly and get to the market place _tomorrow_ Erlang guys think it's a programming competion that they'll do over the weekend - first product is shipped in three months. Java competitor goes bankrupt.

3) Hop offs A gang of smart programmers get so frustrated using technology X that they bail out from the mothership and start own company and do stuff in Erlang"

and

"If you're in one of these phases where things don't happen bide your time. Write an operating system in your spare time or a stock exchange - this is always good practise - like doing your scales if you play the piano "

<comment><USER3> There's some great stuff in here about selling new technology. And this:

 _Also winning and loosing is often a purely temporary thing - often we won battles - but it turned out badly. And lost battles which then turned out well. Erlang was banned years ago (a loss) but a few years on the ban caused it to spread and led to widespread use outside Ericsson._

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Venture Capitalists are used to taking risks - the argument over java is extremely simple - "if you use the same technology as everybody else you will get the same result""

"Venture capitalists don't back technologies they back people - the old addage is "give me a grade 1 person with a grade 2 idea rather than a grade 2 person with a grade 1 idea""</comment>


Why Vector Clocks are Hard - <AUTHOR> http://blog.basho.com/2010/04/05/why-vector-clocks-are-hard/ <comment><USER2> Serves me right for being a hardware guy. Clicked through eagerly expecting something like my vector clock implementation, <http://web.jfet.org/vclk/>

<comment><USER3> Me, I'm pining for the KDE 3.x clock screensaver - that one hit my weakness for train-station-style clocks spot on. Not available under Gnome, Mac or Windows, I believe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Excellent article.

I wish that the Basho Riak product pages had at least half as much high-level technical information about their data model without having to dig deep into their site. All I find on their product pages is marketing speak ("scale predictably", "fast and easy", "fault tolerance", "map/reduce"). I finally found some info on the data model though: [http://wiki.basho.com/display/RIAK/An+Introduction+to+Riak#A...](http://wiki.basho.com/display/RIAK/An+Introduction+to+Riak#AnIntroductiontoRiak- DataStorage) <http://wiki.basho.com/display/RIAK/How+Things+Work>

<comment><USER5> i complained about this to the basho guys (sean) at erlang-factory and they said that they were in the process of making it more useful...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Think I saw the erlier 'easy' round, but clicked through to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_clock> (kept updated with these posts, I noticed).

Two thoughts: first, what about an application/example to DVCS problems ? Such as "Dave saw both Ben's and Cathy's derivations of Alice's drawing, but prefers Ben's with a small modification ..."

Second, when is the xkcd comic coming out ?</comment>


What is the best "I was broke and almost 30" autobiography you can think of? - <AUTHOR> Basically, a "rags-to-riches" type of story where someone decided to leave their career behind in their late 20's/30's to start something. Interested in ANY suggestions you may have. <comment><USER2> 99% of "rags-to-riches" stories start past 40.

The selfmade millionaires under 40 are statistical outliers ;)

(Not strictly "auto"biographies, but most of them have ghostwriters anyway)

"Virgin Rebel" (Richard Branson) "Return to the little Kingdom" (Steve Jobs) "Enter the Dragon" (Theo Paphitis)

(There are lots more, but they are in my bookshelf at home...)

</comment><comment><USER3> Not really what you're looking for but it's what sprung to mind:

George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London. He gives up his bourgeois lifestyle to live among the poor. I'm not sure he started anything at the end though. Besides himself, with a wider perspective of the world.

<comment><USER4> This is a really interesting book. Made me realize I have never known what it is like to be truly hungry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Isn't PG's life story along these lines? IIRC, he'd program for a while, quit to paint for a bit, then go back to programming when he ran out of money. I think he started Viaweb in his early thirties, which he sold to Yahoo and became financially independent after the sale.

<comment><USER6> He went to art school in Italy and attended elite schools that cost a literal fortune. It's safe to say he was at least comfortably middle class and money was always a phone call away.

Lots of well off kids bum around being "poor" while their parents pay their expenses. Actual poverty is an entirely different thing and involves going hungry and having your electricity turned off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In [https://www.amazon.com/Scratch- Beginnings/dp/0061714275/](https://www.amazon.com/Scratch- Beginnings/dp/0061714275/) the author leaves everything behind and builds everything up again. There's no riches though (unless his book sold really well).

</comment><comment><USER8> Thomas Petterfy started his firm around 40.

[http://www.vanityfair.com/news/photos/2015/12/billionaires-w...](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/photos/2015/12/billionaires- who-got-richer-2015)

</comment><comment><USER9> Derek Sivers was 27 when he stared CD Baby. You can check his new book, as well generally his writings.

</comment><comment><USER4> Buckminster Fuller

edit: I don't know about "to-riches" but this is the turnaround I often think about. I guess it depends on your objectives.

</comment><comment><USER10> Not sure if this quite fits the bill and/or if there is a book to go with it, but William Shatner has a story like this.

</comment><comment><USER11> _American Splendor_.</comment>


"Positive thinking" has turned happiness into a duty and a burden - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/924103/happiness-has-become-an-emotional-burden-says-a-danish-psychologist-svend-brinkmann/ <comment><USER2> I believe the worst part of this is society seems to be built around hiding anything other than positive emotions. People bottle up their feelings instead of expressing them because that is how we've been raised to behave. Like how many men express mostly anger because it seems to be the only consistently socially acceptable emotion even though it is the most destructive.

The more freedom and comfort everyone felt to express themselves honestly then the less build up of emotional pressure there is to release when they do. This means people feeling more emotionally content. It's like when someone is sad and crying people think the best way to help is to cheer them up and stop them feeling sad but all they're doing is stopping them from expressing that sadness which makes it worse.

I did a therapy course which was CBT with horses and it was a real eye opener to me as I've never been around horses before. The therapist shown me the body language and behaviours of her horses and their hierarchy. The way they would get into arguments and instantly express the emotions they felt from them by stamping their hooves or through the "out breath".

That letting go of emotional energy good or bad and understanding the transient nature of emotions is very liberating.

<comment><USER3> Expressing any 'negative' emotion (frustration, anger, impatience, irritation, boredom) is seen as weak-minded and irresponsible.

We must pretend at all times that we're confident, unphasable, happy and charismatic.

Anyone feeling stressed at the end of the day _will be fired_.

<comment><USER2> You reminded me of this scene from The Simpsons [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlyzkw1we_g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlyzkw1we_g) .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I personally come from a culture where people bond on negative emotions and sinking their existential despair in vodka. People who are optimistic, upbeat like Americans or some Western Europeans are perceived with suspiction as shallow or brainwashed and most of all fake.

Can't say it is a better aproach to life

</comment><comment><USER5> Every military for centuries has recognized the value of morale. People who are happy doing what they do, tend to do it better than people who hate what they're doing.

There's nothing wrong with wanting your team members to enjoy what they are doing, in many ways it is a duty. But forcing people to be happy doesn't really make them happy.

</comment><comment><USER6> > bosses want to see smiling enthusiasm in the workplace; and the only way to > respond to "how are you?" is with a joyful "great!"

This is hardly a new observation, but this needs to stop. Just because you're being paid to do some work doesn't mean your boss should get to dictate your emotions to you.

</comment><comment><USER7> "People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."

Abraham Lincoln, a man who sometimes suffered from depression

</comment><comment><USER8> The movie Inside out taught me this lesson already

</comment><comment><USER9> Common sense trumps psychological fads any time.</comment>


Oculus Rift - Update on dev kits, new display, new sensor (shipping in March) - <AUTHOR> http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/update-on-developer-kit-technology-shipping-details/

<comment><USER2> Well, this was completely expected.

I was an early backer of this project and thought the timeline completely unrealistic from the start.

Funded in September on the back of a render and an ugly prototype with John Carmack's seal of approval - ship in November.

Say what?

I'm sure a lot of folks will be miffed at the lack of communication about the shipping delay until now, but I'm thinking keeping quiet until they're able to set a hard date probably saves an awful lot of needless discussion.

</comment><comment><USER3> FYI, the source code that iD Software released for Doom 3 BFG edition[1] includes support for the Oculus Rift[2].

1: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4833987> 2: [http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/11/27/1535206/doom-3-bfg-...](http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/11/27/1535206/doom-3-bfg- edition-on-github-timed-for-oculus-rift)

</comment><comment><USER4> There is, of course, a huge difference between making a few things, and having someone manufacture a few thousand things. It is interesting to see people learning these skills under such pressure. Perhaps there is an opportunity here for a training class on manufacturing.

I was a bit confused about their comment on the display "We tested every available (non-proprietary) display we could get our hands on." At their volume most manufacturers would hand over details of connecting to their display.

<comment><USER5> > At their volume most manufacturers would hand over details of connecting to > their display.

You'd think so, but I have had a hardware firm refuse to let me look at the data sheets unless they got a commitment to an order of 300,000 chips. And that was even though I tried to flash working-for-a-big-player-in-the-business credentials.

<comment><USER4> Interesting, in the past I've had the manufacturer require an in-person meeting at the facilities (which is basically their way of fact checking I guess) before coming through but for components never had them require a PO first.

On a funny/related note back when I worked at Google and was looking into compressing air during windy periods and then feeding it back through compressed air motors for energy and cooling, I tried to get specs and pricing from MTI, the French company that Tata Motors was said to be buying their motors from. In spite of being from Google and offering up the possibility of a very press worthy installation they wouldn't even give me the time of day. I figured they didn't actually have anything at that point and since Tata didn't ship their car for several years I continue to hold that belief. (I don't even know if Tata ever shipped their car, one option was buying cars and just taking out the engine)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is anyone else excited at finally being able to work in an immersive 3D environment? We'll no longer need two/three/N screens, we can either draw up as many screens as we need in the VR area, or just resize and position windows as near or far, and make them as large or small, as we like. I'm looking forward to decommissioning my screens.

It seems theoretically possible, does anyone know if it can happen?

<comment><USER7> If you need size and not resolution, soon. If you are running multiple high resolution monitors, I think its going to be a while before small LCD panels will be able to fit the pixels of 3 2560x1440 panels.

Also take in to account you have weight on your head. In games, players often get a sort of tunnel vision and ignore whats going on around them, making it easy to ignore the lack of comfort.

<comment><USER8> You don't need to put 12 million pixels on your head. 12 million pixels is useful on the desktop because it's nice to have a high density display anywhere you look.

For an HMD you only need "retina" resolution straight ahead. Peripheral vision can make do with a much lower resolution. I have no idea what the magic number is for retina HMD, but it'll probably be smaller than 12 million pixels. It's certainly possible that the 5" 1080p display used in the latest HTC could have a higher apparent resolution than putting 3 WQHD monitors on your desk.

And also keep in mind that higher densities are much easier to manufacture affordably in smaller screen sizes. There's a reason why you can buy a phone with a 440PPI, laptop displays with 220PPI but it's hard to buy a desktop monitor with more than 110PPI.

<comment><USER9> > For an HMD you only need "retina" resolution straight ahead.

"Straight ahead" depends on where your eyes choose to focus at any one moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm trying to get a sense as to how exactly the head tracking will correlate with the controls. From the videos I've seen, it looks like the implementations so far have your head movements working in some combination with movements coming from your mouse/game controller.

Maybe it's just me, but I'd much prefer controlling my character's body (i.e. where the gun points) with the traditional controller/mouse, and use head tracking to move my character's head/camera only.

I think it'd be less tiring that way, and probably more immersive too. As I'm moving around in the game world, I could easily look around without changing the direction I'm travelling.

<comment><USER11> Various games do it differently. For example Doom3 last i I heard has head/body/aim movement the same while Hawken will be separate. Some games like ArmA currently have ability to separate crosshairs from view when using something like TrackIR.

<comment><USER10> I've never tried ArmA with a TrackIR setup but it sounds like it would be kind of annoying, i.e. when moving your head, your screen obviously stays on the desk, so you end up turning your head and looking at the screen from the corner of your eye. I'm sure you can adjust sensitivity, but it sounds pretty awkward nonetheless.

In the case of having the head-mounted display, it makes perfect sense. The immersive experience in first person shooters would benefit tremendously from that separation.

I suppose it's a good idea to let game developers experiment with the various control schemes, just as they did early on with defaults key mappings. Eventually it landed as WASD, Ctrl for crouch, space for jump, etc. I remember using right-click to move forward, inverted mouse, ZX for strafing...

I just have the feeling that "looking where you want to aim" is the totally wrong approach and look forward to game developers settling on a quasi- standard of how it should all work, just as they eventually did with keyboard/mouse mappings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This type of thing really shows the value of having viable 3d printing available to the masses. The delays involved in just getting ready to manufacture it are more than 3 months! If enough people in the rift community had 3d printers we could probably print all the housings for this order.

The delay is disappointing but ultimately not surprising. I was shocked that they were going to have a fully manufactured product out by December. Not including the more than 2 months required to make the injection mold and then running into the month long Chinese new year holiday is pretty unfortunate.

</comment><comment><USER13> This announcement doesn't speak to the 100 people that ordered the 'Unassembled Prototype'. I'm in this group and wondering when I will be getting my prototype to play with.

<comment><USER14> Me too. I'm guessing those plans were scrapped and we'll just get the first assembled dev kits, but an official announcement would be nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The way they chose to present this delay is really infuriating - they have doubled the time to delivery from when the kick starter campaign ended, and made the product worse (a heavier screen farther away from your head).

I understand how hard it is to predict a timeline for a product in development, but I would expect an apology instead of "We're happy to be able to finally announce that the Oculus Rift developer kits will begin shipping in March 2013."

I am still excited to get mine in March, but this attitude from occulus makes me question weather it is worthwhile to spend much time developing for it.

<comment><USER16>
      and made the product worse (a heavier screen farther away from your head).

I think you're being both unreasonable and ignorant--who're you to say that adding 30 entire grams (while exceeding the original specs, most importantly refresh rate) is making the product worse? Additionally, how do you know that a change in screen distance is better/worse?

Don't be a jerk. :(

EDIT: Reworded unkind remark.

<comment><USER15> My problem isn't really with the changes - there is nothing they can do if they can't source the previous panel, and I am sure they chose the best one available. My issue is with how the changes were presented - instead of 'we are sorry, we made a mistake, and here is how we are fixing it' it was 'we are happy to announce..'

The reason a larger screen distance is worse is that the torque on your head is the product of weight, distance, and gravity, so an increase in the distance will cause your neck to tire faster.

<comment><USER17> Put an equal torque on the back of your head, then distance doesn't matter so much (aside from overcoming inertia when moving your head).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Here's a link to that Discovery Channel video on how to make injection molds that they mentioned, but didn't actually link to: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seZqq1qxW30>

</comment><comment><USER17> Moving to a 7 inch display seems like a much bigger compromise than they are willing to let on... Wish it could have had the 1080p droid DNA screen...

<comment><USER19> Something that most people who aren't in product engineering don't realize is that sourcing small displays is __incredibly __difficult if you are not building smartphones. All of the nice displays you see coming out and going straight into phones are simply unavailable to anyone looking to build a lower-volume consumer device (where "lower-volume" here means less than a million). If you want to build a product with a small display (and don't even get me started on touchscreens), you are stuck with old technology, very limited choice, and high prices.

<comment><USER7> What about the rejected panels? Someone must be selling them. I picked up a few of those 27" korean IPS's that codinghorror blogged about a few months back. I paid around $300 with shipping, but the import form said $190.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The delay is a huge bummer, but if it means we might be able to swap in a higher resolution display at a later date I'm all for it. Maybe something like this:

[http://www.technocular.com/tech-news/japan-display-inc- devel...](http://www.technocular.com/tech-news/japan-display-inc- developers-7-inch-2560-x-1600-pixel-screen-for-tablets/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Is that how you'll see the image? Doubled? And won't this backlit display have a negative impact on your eyesight in the long term, being so close and all?

<comment><USER21> The image you see on the monitor is doubled and distorted to work with the LEEP optics in the headset. Each eye only sees the image for that eye and the optics focus the light so it appears to come from infinity, not inches from your eyes. , so there shouldn't be any eye strain.</comment></comment>


Interview: Creating a FOSS printed circuit board design tool - <AUTHOR> https://www.sourcesort.com/interview/urban-bruhin-librepcb <comment><USER2> FYI: KiCad is very good and is funded by CERN: [http://www.kicad- pcb.org/](http://www.kicad-pcb.org/)

Licence is GPL3/AGPL3.

KiCad has high-end drawing features, but the commercial tools will always have better parts libraries.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Editor here. This interview is a great example of a useful project emerging from frustration and tinkering. Urban was unsatisfied with the proprietary tools for making PCBs while building a quadcopter, and ended up making something much bigger in the course of solving his own problem.</comment>


My "weekend project" that took a few months... - <AUTHOR> http://jungleblaze.com/

<comment><USER2> <https://jungle-blaze.heroku.com/buy/1706c>

I signed up and put one of my favourite photos of a thick fog covering the city at night up for sale. $1.99 is a steal :)

A few comments: I couldn't find a how-to or guide for formatting in the text entry area.

Considering that you do not host the resource being sold, are you able to list a set of instructions for how to best host the secured image and generate a public thumbnail for it?

Is it possible to customise the purchase page with a company logo or something else so that customers know they have landed in the right spot? At the moment it is branded as Jungle Blaze, but my customers may have been expecting to purchase from Jim's Photography company.

Well done on getting your product to launch. What did you find the most time consuming during those few months? Would you change anything if you started again?

(edit) I signed up for gum road, not having used it before. The process from resource -> selling involves much fewer steps. I don't need to sign up for a stripe account, then find the stripe key and give it to you. That is a big win. I can sell a link, or I can upload a resource, another huge win. Most people I know can upload a file, but have no clue about where or how to host a resource.

Here is my gum road product: <https://gumroad.com/l/vm> $2.50

<comment><AUTHOR> Really just getting the time to work on it was the most difficult.

You upload the files and in that case I do host and secure them - in that case I never let the purchaser see the real url.

I suppose I could proxy the link to other files too - New feature to work on...

<comment><USER2> Sorry, in all my excitement I never saw that upload button. I think this is a great selling point for your product. Now that you have mentioned it, I can see it sitting there as plain as day :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> JungeBlaze.com is my weekend project that took a few months to get right. Simple put: It allows anyone to sell digital files online.

Let me know what you think. I can take the abuse... ;-)

<comment><USER3> I think I saw this exact same model a few days ago... forgot the name though.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are others out there that do this. The most direct competitor is <http://gumroad.com> But any site that allows selling files such as digital river is really a competitor.

<comment><USER4> Gumroad looks a bit more polished but what I'm missing with all those services is some sort of browse section. (is that only after logging in?) ... Ok you can share it via twitter or other networks but browsing around makes me impulsively buy more than just seeing one link on twitter :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Data-Crunching Powerhouse Behind 'Avatar' - <AUTHOR> http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/12/22/the-data-crunching-powerhouse-behind-avatar/

<comment><USER2> All the big name studios now use Linux for the farm, this is one market where Linux has come to utterly dominate.

Ironic then that the final product is so heavily DRM'ed that you can't easily view it without breaking some laws if you're a free Linux user :)

</comment><comment><USER3> During the Lord of the Rings, they transitioned largely over to Linux for nearly the entire setup. That transition involved a lot of custom software, so it's probably still mostly Linux.

</comment><comment><USER4> I notice that they didn't bother to say (or deliberately left out, at the orders of their corporate overlords) what operating system(s) this computing behemoth runs.

<comment><USER5> According to this, it's Linux: <http://www.top500.org/system/10042></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What determines whether you accept a job out of state? - <AUTHOR> I'm a 33 year old single male who lives in CA (SF), and am in the process of being laid off. In around four weeks, I have got three job offers. While each of them has some appealing aspects, I'd still have to relocate outside of california to Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Arkansas. I'm from the midwest and lived in Minneapolis previously, so the location is not the issue. Instead, I am in a convenient location in my life and like where I'm at in terms of location, friends, etc. And so while I HATE California, I find myself not wanting to jump so quickly at accepting a job offer.
So.....What determines whether you accept a job out of state?
or would you keep looking for another job given that I got three offers in four weeks. I should be able to find a role here in CA in the next month or so, even if it's not optimal.
My options:
a. stay in CA and keep looking for another job
b. accept the job in MN (75K)
c. accept the job in WI (70K)
d. accept the job in AR (80K) <comment><USER2> This is a tough question. My wife and I were very happy living in the mountains of Central Arizona in Sedona for 20 years (Except for some time at Google in Mountain View and a gig in Singapore, I worked remotely for 20 years). Almost two years ago, I interviewed for a job in Central Illinois managing a small machine learning team. It was tricky talking my wife into the move but we have really enjoyed living in the Midwest- change is good!

Because change is good, you might consider the Arkansas job. Life is short and having many different experiences is fun and slows down time so the years don't pass as quickly.

The downside of moving is having to convert your friends to 'remote friends' who you can talk with on the phone but rarely see.

BTW, my wife and I took a long road trip through the south this winter and we liked all the areas we visited. I grew up in Berkeley, across the bay from SF, and I know many people who think that California is the only place to live, but I think the truth is that there are many wonderful places to live in the US, so be adventurous.

</comment><comment><USER3> The biggest factor in my happiness and personal growth is always the community I'm in. Are they close knit, good people who I can count on, who will encourage my growth and I encourage theirs? If I already had that in SF I'd stay put. I'm assuming you're in the tech field so it shouldn't be hard to get another job PDQ.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your input.

I'll be laid off next week.

I am in tech, but work in advanced analytics and data science, which is an insanely competitive space in the Bay Area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Minneapolis housing market is really easy to get into right now, I have family who just moved up here and they found plenty of good options pretty much immediately. Might be something worth keeping in mind.

What do you not like about CA? As a fellow midwesterner and current Minneapolis resident (who will also be looking for a new job pretty soon), I'm curious to know what it's like out there.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are certainly positives, namely the weather and access to a lot of outdoorsy activities. However, my issue is more that people are unfriendly, it's much more expensive, the tech scene in the Bay Area is full of pompous/arrogant douches, etc. I definitely likes minneapolis and chicago much more than the SF Bay Area (east bay is nice though). I also like San Diego and Santa Clara as they're "sleepier" and not as fever as the SF and Silicon Valley areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why do you hate California? In your field (analytics and data science) remote work should be an option, then you could live anywhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> I rarely talk with companies who are open to remote work.

CA (SF): high taxes, unaffordable, crazy progressive politics, unfriendly people, pompous/arrogant tech bros, mass immigration, etc

<comment><USER6> Arkansas is probably the most consistently different from California in those areas.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, Minneapolis is probably the best lite version of San Fran.

Liberal but not crazies

Economically vibrant

Low unemployment

No real "ghetto"

Reasonable taxes

Assimilated immigrants (i'm indian american and the one thing I really hate about the Bay Area is the large number of culturally unassimilated immigrants)

It's just so damn cold though

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > I HATE California ... I'm from the midwest and lived in Minneapolis

Try to get more $$$ and take the MN job</comment>


Ask HN: What do you think of my first start-up? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theopenentrepreneur.com/2008/07/project-zero-code-name-genesis.html A start-up about my start-ups. Do entrepreneurs want to know what choices are made and what the results are? <comment><USER2> I think that currently you have a blog, not a startup business. :)

That's not to say that a blog can't be a business, but it seems like you have a lot of work yet to do to form some sort of product offering (which could be content) and a business model.

<comment><AUTHOR> The content will definitely be the product. In this case, the content relies on a second (and third and fourth) start-up, so you're right, the work I need to do involves starting another business, which will provide content for the first. Ironically, I have yet to formulate an exact business model for the first start-up, rather my thoughts have been on future projects. In a weird way, its likely some projects will outshine and be bigger (at least economically) than the original start-up.</comment></comment>


Show HN: TAPIR Player, a [hardware] Audio Player for Studying Languages - <AUTHOR> https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=8699 <comment><AUTHOR> Here's what I spent year working on, a kind of full-time 'side-project', I guess. I learnt electronics, and went to Shenzhen to figure out the production details.

Maybe you will appreciate the interesting UI of the player. The decision was originally in part to keep the BOM low, but actually I think the audio-only interface has its own advantages.

Writing the firmware was fun, there's 128kB of ram on the SOC, half of which is used for audio tasks (decoding and buffering). I read in, and store in ram, a compressed version of the SD card FAT directory listing for faster access to the audio files (currently should work well with 10,000 files in a directory). There's more things to try too, I was thinking of adding a Lua or JS interpreter for creating interactive materials.

If you'd like me to message you if/when the player is available, you can add your email here: [https://goo.gl/forms/S09XTDQANVTvB9M83](https://goo.gl/forms/S09XTDQANVTvB9M83)

Or like this facebook group: [https://www.facebook.com/swpress/](https://www.facebook.com/swpress/)</comment>


The Culture of Piracy - <AUTHOR> http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=7327

<comment><USER2> I don't think the disappearance of the "made by actual people" team feel is accidental: AAA games these days _aren't_ made by a smallish team of people that you can actually portray to the user. The user thinks they're made by giant faceless corporations because they _are_ ; there are literally hundreds of people, with multiple layers of management, who produce most modern AAA games. It's not like the System Shock team, or the mid-90s id team.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is somewhat interesting from a "games are losing their soul" perspective, but at least five years late. Also game piracy isn't new and has mostly been "solved" by consoles and online multiplayer.

Ps. Calling copyright infringement "stealing" still makes you seem, at best, uneducated.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have a deep interest in keeping my competitors hating the pirates and going apeshit on them.

Meanwhile, I labor in obscurity hoping to one day prove my entrepeneural theory about copyright.

What I see here is pirates indicating market failure created by government intervention. The only way to beat pirates is to destroy the needs for them. That's why you rarely if ever see open source software pirated.

If I ever succeeded in my entrepeneural ambition, I have destroy the video game industry and prove to be one of the most evil capitalist on the planet. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> You can try to convince pirates to stop stealing stuff... or you can put the stuff in a system which you control and then use technology that essentially worked fine thirty years ago for controlling access to it. I know which one I'm betting on.

Client/server means you fear piracy of the client about as much as 37Signals fears someone downloading Firefox.

<comment><USER6> More broadly there is a set of tools you can use to control piracy:

1\. Moving (part of) logic online

2\. closed hardware (xbox or iPhone)

3\. copy-protection as a way to delay the proliferation of pirated copies

4\. Lower prices to decrease the pull

5\. Free-ish model (ads, or loss-leader).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I find this a very interesting and important point. Might be the reason why "indiegames" have become so popular.</comment>


Wuhan scientists: What it's like to be on lockdown - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00191-5 <comment><USER2> As a Canadian, I'm currently visiting my family in Changsha, a city about 4 hours of a drive south of Wuhan. In the city, everyone is on edge. All public places such as restaurants, gyms and night clubs are closed. And everyone on the street wears a surgical or N95 mask. Not only Wuhan, but the entire country is also on lockdown.

It sucks but the people and the government have aligned themselves together to do whatever it takes to contain and control the coronavirus. Let's be strong and have faith.

</comment><comment><USER3> Approximately 58 million in lockdown, this is apocalyptic.

From South China Morning Post. Chaos in hospitals: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=22&v=CfcIHUdOI8w...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=22&v=CfcIHUdOI8w&feature=emb_title)

[https://www.zerohedge.com/political/56-million-chinese- lockd...](https://www.zerohedge.com/political/56-million-chinese-lockdown- virus-spreads-australia-malaysia)

<comment><USER4> In case people don't want to click on a zerohedge article, here is the actual source for the claim "China expands coronavirus outbreak lockdown to 56 million people", from Aljazeera: [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/china-expands- coronav...](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/china-expands-coronavirus- outbreak-lockdown-fast-tracks-hospital-200124201635848.html)

<comment><USER5> I find ZeroHedge usually has links to the source articles and they are often "mainstream".

<comment><USER6> I don't mind that ZeroHedge as it often cites news that isn't picked up on MSM. However, I have a massive concern about the bias in ZeroHedge. I remember once reading an article in which the final lines are something bold and along the lines of "remember they hate you and are coming for you" type rhetoric. That was completely not cited. I find that extremely concerning.

Also, similarly, they at one point ran an article about a John Hopkins doctor who is against gender affirmation treatment towards trans people. I googled more about their papers and the like, only to find that the doctor only published their work in religious-oriented research and has actually be disavowed by several medical practitioners who specialize in trans medical concerns. None of this was cited in the article.

This has overall made me quite leery of the validity of ZeroHedge on anything but the links that ZeroHedge cites.

<comment><USER7> Generally with zerohedge I mostly stick to the financial stuff, since that is usually properly sourced, even if the site does have a bearish bias its still usually good info. There are definitely some heavily biased political articles though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The restrictions on travel in China will be an interesting experiment in how much interurban travel is essential.

My take would be that with modern communications and IT infrastructure, there is actually very little need for interurban travel not associated with the movement of physical goods, i.e. not associated with truck drivers, rail crews, barge crews, air freight pilots, and so forth. Most other travel can be replaced by communications.

<comment><USER9> While much business travel may be inessential, family visits for Lunar New Year are surely essential for many people, so this is a tough time for such an experiment. I was surprised to learn that there are normally 3 billion passenger-journeys in China during the Lunar New Year period! ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunyun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunyun)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you want less hyperbolic information i recommend [https://promedmail.org/](https://promedmail.org/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I have read that Wuhan hospitals are accepting supplies donations. Anyone knows what supplies they need, how to buy them and how to donate?

<comment><USER12> Here is the official channel: [http://www.hubei.gov.cn/zhuanti/2020/gzxxgzbd/zxtb/202001/t2...](http://www.hubei.gov.cn/zhuanti/2020/gzxxgzbd/zxtb/202001/t20200126_2015047.shtml)

There are other calls for help directly from hospitals. Some private hospitals may be in particularly bad shape. However shipping could be an issue if one doesn't want to use official channels. The government page does say that you could designate donees 定向捐赠.

<comment><USER13> Even though I don't understand a single word on that page, I immediately recognised that they are using Bootstrap.

For whatever reason I didn't expect them to use a western design tool. It's interesting how far Bootstrap is spreading into all corners of the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am old enough to remember the SARS breakout that began in Wuhan in 2004. It's happening again!

<comment><USER15> You mean old enough to mis-remember the SARS breakout?

It began in Guangdong in late 2002.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I actually think China's done an admirable job containing this virus. I think what they've done will probably work to stop the spread.

The most interesting part of this whole episode is the Orwellian efficiency communist China can control their population at will.

<comment><USER17> Pretty much any country has some form of martial law. For example, the US very quickly shut down one of their largest cities and all air travel in the country on 9/11.

<comment><USER18> The FAA already had discretionary authority over US airspace. Saying "no" to everything all at once was unusual, but didn't exercise any new power. Martial law is more like "sudo" for the executive branch, letting it do what would not otherwise be legal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.inkstonenews.com/health/chinas-coronavirus- outbr...](https://www.inkstonenews.com/health/chinas-coronavirus-outbreak-may- be-linked-penchant-people-eat-wildlife/article/3047304)

</comment><comment><USER19> Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding (Harvard): " HOLY MOTHER OF GOD - the new coronavirus is a 3.8!!! How bad is that reproductive R0 value? It is thermonuclear pandemic level bad - never seen an actual virality coefficient outside of Twitter in my entire career. I'm not exaggerating..."

[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1220919589623803905.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1220919589623803905.html)

<comment><USER20> Obscene level of fear mongering based on data that was later revised down. I can't believe he thought that thread was a good idea.

<comment><USER21> Where is the updated version?

<comment><USER22> Revised down to 2.6:

[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1221132573340061697.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1221132573340061697.html)

<comment><USER23> Still very high.

<comment><USER24> No, it's middling at best. Measles in a totally unvaccinated population (R0 = 12-18) is very high [1]. An R0 of 2.6 is a relative cakewalk.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Elements of  Robotics [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-319-62533-1.pdf <comment><USER2> Very good book, and very informative. Glad I am going to read this.</comment>


Leon: An open-source personal assistant - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/leon-ai/leon <comment><USER2> I highly recommend Rasa Core ([https://github.com/RasaHQ/rasa_core](https://github.com/RasaHQ/rasa_core)) if you are looking for an open-source virtual assistant. Very active and helpful community, and lots of input channels for integrating your assistant with messaging platforms ([https://rasa.com/docs/core/connectors/](https://rasa.com/docs/core/connectors/)).

I am not affiliated with Rasa, just had a really good experience developing a few projects with it.

<comment><USER3> I'll +1 SNIPs or Rasa, they're both really nice. It looks like the NLU part of Leon is a logistic regression classifier ([https://github.com/leon- ai/leon/blob/360d1020c4bd8bf1df37646...](https://github.com/leon- ai/leon/blob/360d1020c4bd8bf1df3764645c635c64e0364702/server/src/core/nlu.js)) so it's just doing intent detection, not any slot filling. Maybe someone can add calls to Rasa's HTTP API ([https://rasa.com/docs/core/server/#](https://rasa.com/docs/core/server/#)) to integrate with Leon?

<comment><USER4> How well do these compare to Mycroft[1]?

[1]: [https://mycroft.ai/](https://mycroft.ai/)

<comment><USER3> Haven't looked at MyCroft before. It looks like MyCroft exposes less of the nuts-and-bolts of modeling? I'm not sure where I would plug in a custom entity extraction or intent detection model, but I do see that it lets you add custom 'skills'.

<comment><USER5> Yes, this can all be handled with skills and the dictionaries that go along with skills. I don't even program much in python, but I've found it pretty simple to make add-ons for mycroft that have multiple entities for different intents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The webpage seems to be missing a list of capabilities.

If you're looking for it you need to infer it from here: [https://github.com/leon- ai/leon/tree/master/packages](https://github.com/leon- ai/leon/tree/master/packages)

<comment><USER7> Yeah, the whole page focuses on how it's built, not so much on problems it solves. From the link you posted, it seems to:

* say "hello"

* tell jokes

* generate random numbers

* download videos from a given YouTube URL

* check status of a domain

I can't see why any of those need AI.

<comment><USER8> > I can't see why any of those need AI.

The AI piece in virtual assistants usually doesn't refer to the skills themselves but the process of matching what is spoken (as audio) to a skill and passing that skill the appropriate context. Without having to have a developer program in all the hundreds of thousands of ways someone can ask for the same thing.

With that said, I'm not sure how well this assistant does that. None of these skills seem to use context at all. The sentence structure to map to a skill seems relatively limited or at least not challenged by the initial skills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the most interesting part of this is the offline capability. From looking at the source code, it looks like the text to speech is provided by [http://www.festvox.org/flite/](http://www.festvox.org/flite/) and the speech to text uses [https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech](https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech).

How do those compare to the major online providers?

<comment><USER10> > I think the most interesting part of this is the offline capability.

I agree -- that's the aspect that makes this potentially appealing to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > _He does stuff when you ask for it._

Is the name a homage to the Luc Besson movie starring Jean Reno? If so, he'd better be able to kill a process (if not a real person) when the user asks for it ;)

<comment><USER12> The video seems to allude to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Video Demo - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7GRGiicO1c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7GRGiicO1c)

</comment><comment><USER14> I got excited when I saw the core was JS (as writing TypeScript/JS is something I enjoy) then I saw that all modules are written in python... That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me, allowing for any language or a subset of languages makes sense but writing the core and plugin system in different languages.

<comment><USER10> I was disappointed that this was implemented in JS and Python. If I decide to experiment with this, the first thing I'll do is port it to a (compiled) language that I prefer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Unless I misread the docs, offline use would be restricted to text-only. Is that limitation temporary? I would surely have some uses for one of these things, but no way I'm putting a closed source or cloud connected one in my home, not even an open source one if it uses any external services I can't trust.

<comment><USER9> I looked at the source and there are scripts for offline that install Mozilla DeepSpeech for speech-to-text and CMU Flite for text-to-speech. I put links in my other comment in this thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've been planning to set up something like this for myself for quite some time now. Can anyone tell me what makes this different from something like Snips ([https://snips.ai](https://snips.ai))?

<comment><USER17> I have a longstanding view that the best personal assistant is one you write for yourself: It can cover your needs and respond to how you'd prefer to interact with it. A lot of sophistication isn't needed because it doesn't have to try to meet a lowest common denominator user.

<comment><USER18> Absolutely. I think hackability is the best part of open source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> 1\. How is it different from the existing open source naturagl language parsers?

2\. what problem does it solve? Have you tried to create an NLU platform which can be extended? Have you tried to create a personal asst., if yes, then what specific use-cases does it address?

</comment><comment><USER20> Does any of you know of a speech-to-text software that runs continuously, works on Linux and accepts a Pulseaudio input (i.e. microphone) rather than files and outputs text as a stream?

<comment><USER21> Kaldi has a couple open-source online LVCSR models which can definitely do live decoding. Though I'm not 100% sure if there is support for PulseAudio, you may need an auxiliary service to pipe it in.

Easiest interface for it is via gstreamer:

github.com/alumae/kaldi-gstreamer-server

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oooh, this looks promising indeed!

</comment><comment><USER22> So, I get that most folks aren't tuned in to this and I will sound unreasonable, but I'm utterly tired of robot-like things being given gender. Every time I read "he", "him" when learning about a piece of software I gag a little.

I know someone will tell me I am wrong. But I'm not asking or telling anyone to change. I just want to share what unnecessary gendering looks like to me. And for the record, all my robots are non-gendered ("Scout, Skittles, Rover").

<comment><USER23> Perhaps this is unreasonable as well, but maybe ongoing developments in society have caused you to focus a little too much of your attention on gender.

Gender dysphoria is a recognized medical condition, for which there are suggested plans of treatment--up to and including hormone therapy and reassignment. Just go with the treatment, and be done with it, and accept that people who have done so were trying to make themselves better. I don't know why society is making it such a hot-button political issue.

(Actually I do know why... politicians need to find wedge issues to split and enthuse people, to get votes.)

<comment><USER22> I'm not motivated by politicians (I hardly ever listen to them or endorse them).

I'm motivated by the suffering I see in our society experienced by gender nonconforming individuals who feel uncomfortable in a world that believes in the gender binary.

It's interesting that you mention treatment. I'm not sure if you know any gender nonconforming people, but "just go with the treatment and be done with it" doesn't really reflect accurately the experience I've seen other people have. Hormones and surgery can treat the symptoms of dysphoria but the cause seems to be society and the expectation that all people fit in to a binary. (Please ask if you'd like me to elaborate on that.) So here I am proscribing a treatment for society: stop gendering things unnecessarily and stop supporting a hard gender binary.

<comment><USER24> There are less gender nonconforming individuals than amputees. Let's tackle the big ticket items first.

<comment><USER25> 51% of the population are women, who suffer from these gender roles. That's a super big-ticket group right there.

<comment><USER26> As a woman, I can tell I don't suffer at all from gender roles.

I am completely fine with gendered personal assistants, which was the original topic being discussed.

And I don't buy all this political crap regarding gender.

Stop using all women to support your political agenda. Stop speaking for the 51%. Not all of us support you, don't speak for all of us.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can submissions be flagged off the front page? - <AUTHOR>

I just watched this story disappear from the main stream while being upvoted rather quickly (19 points in 1 hour):<p>"Phone-hacking whistle-blower found dead" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2778117 <comment><USER2> With enough flags it is possible. I've seen stories with 50 points become [dead].

<comment><AUTHOR> Who here would want to suppress that story?

<comment><USER3> It's off-topic for HN, and I imagine lots of people feel bored of the whole foreign journalists illegally accessing foreign voicemail farrago.

<comment><AUTHOR> This isn't about the journalists accessing voice mail -- this is about what happens to people whom speak out against power. This is about suppressing truth.

<comment><USER3> If the link you mention was the one to the Guardian article, I don't recall there being any suggestion there that his death was due to his having revealed details of the phone hacking.

And, it's still off-topic.

I didn't flag it, I'm just saying why I think other people might have.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was a CNN article, and I don't know if any major media outlets are mentioning the connection yet, but the timing is too suspect not to.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What secure personal file hosting solution do you use? - <AUTHOR> Been in need of a solution, but I don't want to go through the trouble of setting up my own servers. Also don't want to trust my information with Dropbox or Google. I've tried Keybase, but it's still buggy, and I've been thinking of trying SpiderOak. Any thoughts? <comment><USER2> It depends :-) Want to get to your files without being reliant on a toolchain? Go with a standard provider, I'm not sure what your objection is to google or dropbox, but there are a lot of fish in that sea like tresorit to cater to niche markets. If it's a security thing always question if the photos of your kitten are really that critical compared to the chosen solution. And as always if a government agency is your concern you're doing it wrong.....

If the toolchain doesn't bother you use cryptomator or something like that and just pick some storage where ever.

</comment><comment><USER3> Dropbox, but first encrypted with Cryptomator.

</comment><comment><USER4> Check out backblaze.com, I don't use them but heard of many web hosting providera using them for backups. They unlimited personal account for $5/mo

</comment><comment><USER5> External HDD in a fireproof safe.

<comment><USER6> Just out of interest because I've never thought of this before. Would this protect the content from the heat of a good going fire?

<comment><USER7> They are supposed to and apparently work well, they do nothing to stop a thief so the fire safety is all they are good for.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2guvwQvElA8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2guvwQvElA8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> With dropbox dropping support for all non-ext4 filesystems on Linux, I've recently moved my stuff to a NextCloud instance.

</comment><comment><USER9> Keybase.

I think if you password protect a file before uploading it to Dropbox or GDrive then it's reasonably safe, is that true?

<comment><USER10> > password protect a file

Completely depends on what encryption is being used... There are still applications/developers out there that think rolling their own (keybase) is a good idea (it's not).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Syncthing, with regular encrypted backups via duplicity to S3 storage.

</comment><comment><USER11> Syncthing. Backed up to gdrive after encrypting with borf

</comment><comment><USER12> Keybase (KBFS)

</comment><comment><USER13> Next Cloud

</comment><comment><USER14> ownCloud</comment>


Stellar seems like the anti-cryptocurrency - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jameslarisch.com/stellar-anticryptocurrency

<comment><USER2> It's not really true that there's no technical information, since Stellar is a fork of Ripple and almost all analysis of Ripple applies.

BTC-USD exchanges also require trust, so it's not clear that that's a difference.</comment>