Sloppy UI – A collection of sloppy iOS7 UIs - <AUTHOR> http://sloppyui.tumblr.com/ <comment><USER4> Although I'm a perfectionist and I believe a lot of these issues should be addressed, the tumblr itself bothers me. It's the logical culmination of Fail culture where hipsters in armchairs laugh at the inadequacy of everything while producing nothing. All these things could have been constructive criticism in another context, but here they just serve to further someone's twitchy compulsion to be entertained for another 5 seconds on the internet.

Yes I'm getting surly in my old age.

<comment><USER5> here's the thing though, If google would have released an UI as bad as this (just my oppinion as an iphone user) all the tech press and the hardcore apple fanboys would have trashed it online and offline for months. Who will be the role model from now on for "near perfection", "attention to detail"? Just look at this: [http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/hon.jpg?...](http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/hon.jpg?w=600&h=600) and tell me how you feel about it :)

<comment><USER6> > _here 's the thing though, If google would have released an UI as bad as > this (just my oppinion as an iphone user) all the tech press and the > hardcore apple fanboys would have trashed it online and offline for months._

Google HAS produced a UI as bad as this. Actually worse. The Android UI, up until 4 was amateur hour. And still is not up there yet.

It's just held in much less scrutiny compared to Apple, because nobody expects much better.

<comment><USER7> Apple is really defined by _superior_ design. Google is defined generally by _superior_ engineering. A better point to make would be if Google revamped their search engine and it was meaningfully degraded experience for search. They'd be criticized and rightly so as that's what they're supposed to do better than anyone else.

<comment><USER6> > _Apple is really defined by superior design. Google is defined generally by > superior engineering._

Wait what? When did that happen? When did Google get "superior engineering"? For search, web etc, perhaps. But as far as iOS vs Android is concerned that was never the case.

For starters, Apple design and engineered the iPhone first. Google's Android FIRST came out a whole year later. Early Android prototypes, shown by Google just before the iPhone was announced had half-size screens and physical keyboards, just like the rest of the smartphones of the day.

Since then Apple has consistenly beat Google on hardware features, from the retina display (with much better color rendition to boot) to camera innovations, the motion co-processor, a working fingerprint sensor (for a change), and 64 bit ARM (which means far more than "being able to see more memory which isn't even installed") etc. Consistently better battery life.

Well, maybe it's not a fair comparison, because Google is not a hardware engineering company. They had to buy Motorola, which wasn't the best in the business itself, anyway. But the above are still true for Samsung offerings too.

On the industrial engineering side, Apple's designs, machining, fit and polish is unsurpassed on the Android side. Including materials used.

In the software side it's the same story. The iOS Cocoa API is leaps and bounds ahead of the Android API. It was never plagued with issues with scroll lag and display latency (and also audio latency, which is why 90% of Audio/MIDI apps are for iOS). Doesn't have a nightmarish GC experience to tend to for more involved apps. More fit and polish overall. Heck, Android even gets 80%+ of all the mobile malware around.

The major points for Android devices were not better engineering per se, but stuff like bigger screens, different configurations etc. And extra features that got marginal use, like face unlock and near field communication, stuff that Apple could have if that's how they rolled.

Some good stuff Android had first was because Apple went conservative to implement them when battery life better permitted them (like background apps -- Android just unleashed them and the hell with it, Apple trying to get the juice, and hence experience, right first).

There's one genuine thing Android had going for it, and that's the Intents system in my opinion. The "quick settings change panel" was also another good one. I don't think we can go much further.

<comment><USER8> > the motion co-processor

Agree with your general points but the Moto X also has a pair of interesting co-processors: [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/the-iphone-5s-the- mot...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/the-iphone-5s-the-moto-x-and- the-rise-of-the-co-processor/)

Personally, I don't think Apple's getting anywhere enough credit for their in- house processor design at the moment. If that's not engineering talent I don't know what is. Just look at the Anandtech review for proof of that:

[http://anandtech.com/show/7335/the- iphone-5s-review/5](http://anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-review/5)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is quite bad -- only a small percentage are genuine examples of sloppu UI.

It seems to be put together by one guy (instead of user submissions like similar sites) and not quite design savvy at that.

Case in point:

1) [http://sloppyui.tumblr.com/image/61441688489](http://sloppyui.tumblr.com/image/61441688489) (this is supposed to show "poor alignment")

2) [http://sloppyui.tumblr.com/image/61439801745](http://sloppyui.tumblr.com/image/61439801745) (this is supposed to show "stray dropshadows" \-- didn't they guy get the memo that the iOS 7 UI uses them to show a 3D layer hierarchy?)

3) [http://sloppyui.tumblr.com/image/61439835569](http://sloppyui.tumblr.com/image/61439835569) (this is supposed to show "poor contrast". Isn't it obvious that the top bar should not be visually striking and distracting?)

4) [http://sloppyui.tumblr.com/image/61440586435](http://sloppyui.tumblr.com/image/61440586435) (... this is considered "sloppy").

5) [http://sloppyui.tumblr.com/image/61440527405](http://sloppyui.tumblr.com/image/61440527405) (flat information hierarchy -- one of the few genuine sloppy UI examples).

<comment><AUTHOR> Poster here: Indeed it's just me submitting. But it's open to submissions.

I'm not answering every single case you mention. The examples I posted show how inconsistent the UI is.

Taste is in the eye of the beholder and I didn't mention what I find ugly but what shows a lack of afterthought.

Just one example here to answer, "Poor Contrast" ([http://sloppyui.tumblr.com/image/61439835569](http://sloppyui.tumblr.com/image/61439835569)) On an iOS device, this is not "Subtle" but unreadable.

<comment><USER9> For what it's worth, I think nearly all your examples are spot on. These _are_ sloppy jobs that I would've personally been ashamed of releasing to the public.

That said, noticing alignment issues and font inconsistencies is not given and a lot of people won't give a damn about them.

<comment><USER10> Steve Jobs would have. And then unconsciously everyone that ever bought or buy Apple products for that perfectionism that has been inbreed in their spirit.

Jobs is definitely gone. Had he be around, you would've seen tons of cartoon boxes and pink slips delivered to One Infinite Loop. If he would've ever let update like that released into cyberspace (he wouldn't've).

IOS7 clearly shows that John Ive is lost without Jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Most things about iOS7 seem inconsistent, and like they were rushed - <USER2> they were. I mean Johny Ive was head of UI for like 9 months only, and had to change everything in iOS in that period. These changes should've arrived in iOS8 in order to be well thought out and mature enough, but for some reason they decided to push them to iOS7.

<comment><USER12> If they removed the new design, iOS7 would be a really underwhelming release for users. The background downloading would clearly be the banner feature.. but aside from that?

<comment><USER13> Personally I would much rather they just removed some of the gradients and textures and instead focused on improving things like inter-app sharing, notifications, the keyboard, widgets/live tiles etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The "no return key in the twitter compose view" is intentional. That is a keyboard style option, and Twitter it using it to discourage users entering return characters in tweets. This is not even Apple's app.

A lot of these "sloppy UI" examples are in non-Apple apps, intentional, or otherwise misleading from the screenshot.

<comment><AUTHOR> Newlines are supported on twitter in 3rd party apps, but not in the twitter card nor twitter app indeed.

Also, the blog is not called "Apple Sloppy UIs", but "Sloppy UIs". That still qualifies.

<comment><USER15> > Also, the blog is not called "Apple Sloppy UIs", but "Sloppy UIs". That > still qualifies.

Tagline to the blog: "We love Apple. We think this is the best way to point out what's not up to their standards so _they_ can fix it." (emphasis mine)

Do they expect Apple to fix the UI of other people's apps?

<comment><USER16> Apple's idea behind their App Store is that every app is reviewed to make sure it's up to their standards. They also provide a myriad of built-in UI elements and a Human Interface Guide that is supposed to direct developers in the design of their app interfaces.

One could postulate that Apple can fix third party apps by altering the available UI elements and interface guidelines. In fact, this type of alteration was done for iOS7 to guide developers into updating their app aesthetics to match iOS7.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Good collection. iOS7 is an obvious improvement over previous iOS versions (perhaps with the exception of the icons) and has done a good job of bringing iOS up to date visually. Worth remembering that there are a lot of inconsistencies in Android, a good article is here:

[http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/09/18/ux-things-i-hate- abo...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/09/18/ux-things-i-hate-about- android/)

Don't get me wrong, I much, much prefer Android and can't ever see myself moving back to iOS, but always good to measure things in balance, nothing is perfect.

<comment><USER18> I'm the same way. I love Android, and will probably never move back to iOS, but after having seen an actual phone with iOS 7 all my scepticism about the new UI disappeared. It's a very beautiful UI. I was right there though laughing at the ugly icons (which I still think are ugly) thinking iOS 7 was a disaster until I actually looked at a phone and swiped around.

It's weird. The iPhone 5s seems to be without a doubt the overall best phone out there. The low light camera, the processor, all that stuff blows me away, but yet I don't want one. I think the iPhone is like a really fancy and nice race car, that I can do nothing but admire, but all I want is a truck. Android is my truck.

<comment><USER19> I'm sure you won't have to wait too long for those hardware improvements to come to the Android platform. The rapid iteration of the Android platform means that hardware advantages are generally short-lived.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Isn't Apple hiring the best/smartest/creative developers?

How are these small/annoying issues are passing the test cases?

Don't they have the same development cycle as they had while developing the first Iphone which was a huge thing at the time.

<comment><USER6> > _How are these small /annoying issues are passing the test cases?_

Most of those are neither sloppy nor issues. The blog does a bad job of mixing a few real issues with a lot of stuff he just doesn't like personally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'd love to see a similar set of "'iOS 7-updated' apps running on iOS 6 or earlier."

Before I upgraded yesterday, there were a couple of apps I saw (I think it was Shazam) where they must have emulated the iOS 7 feel, rather than using system-native widgets, so the result was a "business in front, party in the back" mishmash of UI on the same screen.

</comment><comment><USER22> The whole iOS7 UI is not intuitive at all. Look, I love flat UI but when I became and engineer and founder, started talking to customers, I realized that customers are simply not as aware as the people that designed and made software. They don't know what to click, they sometimes don't even know they can click something, and they often get lost. When you go to a Microsoft store and see people playing with Windows 8, you see this and it really hits you. People are lost, randomly clicking on text thinking it is a button. While Windows 8 and iOS7 look good in many ways, I think this release is a step backwards for people who might not be very tech savvy.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, remember when noone could use the webe, because links were not in the form of buttons?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> From what I hear nothing has helped improve Apple's autocorrect more than [http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/](http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/)

I must imagine that this tumblr is already being poured over in Cupertino and radar's are being filed in right now. This tumblr is a good thing.

<comment><USER25> That site is hilarious. What blows my mind is how autocorrect so often defaults to lewd and totally inappropriate statements. It's like it's trying to cause amusement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Great examples. I hope you're sending these to Apple!

One I noticed is a very slight difference in weight between the carrier text and the data status.

It's so slight, almost the difference between "sharp" and "strong" in Photoshop.

Also, people, easy on the "way to criticize but not offer any constructive criticism!" OP is effectively filing a ton of bug reports, which is a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER27> Personally I think that it's a bit misleading to lump bugs and questionable design choices under the same 'sloppy' banner.

Good quality criticism regarding choices developers and designers have made have lead to some of the best debate and discussion I've seen on HN. Conversations that focus on criticizing execution (for example the UI bugs in the tumblr) have been some of the worst.

As a developer I would get huge value out of having a nuanced discussion about the pros and cons of iOS 7's language, particular as we begin (or have begun) redesigning our apps - hopefully that is something this tumblr can evolve into eventually.

</comment><comment><USER28> See, this is really frustrating...

I mentioned this SAME STUFF (specifically the horrible lack of contrast) months ago just to be met with downvotes and handwaving dismissal.

NOW people agree. Better late than never, I guess.

<comment><USER29> But months ago these were quirks in a beta release. iOS7 is now released software, and it's expected to have matured.

<comment><USER28> The problem is that it looked like a very poor design decision rather than a beta version quirk even back then...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm really disappointed that Apple released the GM version of iOS 7 as final. So many bugs and glitches.

<comment><USER31> I hear that. There is still one _huge, gaping_ bug where UITextViews do not scroll if you type past their bounds. Seriously, Apple released that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> "Details matter, it's worth waiting to get it right." \- Steve Jobs

</comment><comment><USER33> Some I definitely agree with (mixed font casing), some I don't, and some are plain bugs which are annoying but not a question of sloppy UI. There's a lot slipped through that it's slightly inconsistent, but there was plenty of inconsistent design through iOS1-6 as well and with OS X.x in it's various releases.

Design over a large product like iOS or OS X is hard, it takes time to get all the edges smoothed down and given that iOS 7 is probably the result of a year to two years of work it's not a surprised it's rough. If it's a bug (or a UI niggle) report it to Apple, they may or may not be listening but it's a better solution to highlight it with them directly, as well as on Tumblr.

</comment><comment><USER34> So what - if I didn't visit the link, I wouldn't even know about these "sloppy" features.

 _Done is better than perfect_.

<comment><USER35> Funny, because I thought that the whole point of buying an Apple product is that even if you lose features and interoperability, it's incredibly well polished and thought out.

Seems they're losing that attribute without gaining the others.

<comment><USER6> > _Funny, because I thought that the whole point of buying an Apple product is > that even if you lose features and interoperability, it 's incredibly well > polished and thought out._

Actually you only lose features you wouldn't want in the first place and would drag the whole thing down (less battery life, bulkier, etc). Not having FM radio for example is like not having a floppy disk drive an modern PCs.

As for "incredibly well polished and thought out" it still is. For one, there's much more to a mobile OS than graphic design. How it works and feels is much more important than how it looks ("design is how it works").

Second, most of those are some guy's pet peeves, not genuine problems. If he cannot understand why a red carret matches blue text, that doesn't make it into a genuine problem. Same if he didn't get the memo that drop shadows are used to add a depth to the UI layers and thinks they are stray leftovers.

<comment><USER36> > Actually you only lose features you wouldn't want in the first place and > would drag the whole thing down (less battery life, bulkier, etc)

And why I wouldn't want them? Are you deciding what I want or not?

<comment><USER6> > _And why I wouldn 't want them? Are you deciding what I want or not?_

No, Apple's deciding and the market votes with his wallet (and judging from their actually buying stuff --and at the quite expensive end of the market at that--, it has voted much in favor of those decisions for a decade or so).

There's always some people, call them sui generis, or mavericks, or loonies, that do want a floppy drive in their laptop, and not even because they have a specific business needs. They just love these flexible plastic suckers. Others can't live without physical Blue-Ray disks (just as some people swore by Betamax or quad cassetes).

And in the case of phones, some just got to have a 440 dpi screen (despite not seeing much different from 300), near field communication, wireless charging, 4G support in 2009 when it would burn through batteries of the era in 1 hour, and what have you. It's their choice. Just not a very popular one, or what most people would call sane, especially going forward.

So, feel free to use whatever, just don't complain if it's not what the era you live in deems relevant.

<comment><USER36> > No, Apple's deciding and the market votes with his wallet (and judging from > their actually buying stuff --and at the quite expensive end of the market > at that--, it has voted much in favor of those decisions for a decade or > so).

So, when Apple said that the MINIMUM screen size for tablets was 10" people talked with their wallet and this was the right size.

When Apple released iPad Mini people talked with their wallet and this was a right size along the regular iPad?

> There's always some people, call them sui generis, or mavericks, or loonies, > that do want a floppy drive in their laptop

Really, do you have top put a nonsensical analogy to try to defend the indefensible?

<comment><USER6> > _So, when Apple said that the MINIMUM screen size for tablets was 10 " > people talked with their wallet and this was the right size.

When Apple released iPad Mini people talked with their wallet and this was a right size along the regular iPad?_

Is there even a question here?

Nobody said "10 was the one and perfect size until Apple added 7". Just that Apple releasing a 10" only, for the first versions of the iPad, was a wild success.

Apple had decided to release a 10, and then they decided to add a 7 to that line. Both were mass bought. So clearly both were good market decisions.

Other vendors had a 7 even before -- their sales were 1/10 the iPad 10 available at the time or less.

> _Really, do you have top put a nonsensical analogy to try to defend the > indefensible?_

The "indefensible" being a company offering a specific feature set of their choice and not every possible feature desired by some users or offered by some competitor?

If the resulting products sell well, then surely, they didn't make a mistake in ommiting stuff.

I don't know how you can defend the contrary. Based on some unalienable right to get what you like in a specific product from a specific brand?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Another one, if you go to the timer app from the slide up control center, the "pause" is 2 pixels out of being centered. You can just about tell with the naked eye but if you open it in photoshop it's 2 pixels out.

It's not a big deal but I thought Apple would be well on top of stuff like this

</comment><comment><USER38> Would they have preferred the metal and glass meets billiard room look of iOS6?

<comment><USER39> The major built-in apps in iOS 6 are just as 'boring' as the major OS X apps are. Safari, Music, Mail, Photos, Camera, Settings, Contacts, Messages - <USER3> grey chrome around content.

The average iOS 6 app did _not_ look like Game Center or Find My Friends (which was not even built-in). But I guess that's how it will be remembered now. =/

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To clarify things, we just posted this on the web site:

We love Apple. We think this is the best way to point out what's not up to their standards so they can fix it. It's all about intellectual honesty, not trolling.

</comment><comment><USER40> How many of these failures are due to insufficient testing on i18n?

IMHO, using texts to replace icon based buttons is clever to simplify the working of screen resolution adaption, however, it does increase the possibility of inconsistency between different locales. I still remember NYTimes.app for iPad displayed ugly aligned date texts which is just too long to fit into the space left for them, only in Chinese locales, which they do not officially support, and I doubt that they really did testing on it.

</comment><comment><USER41> Anyone know how many UI bugs were reported or seen with previous iOS versions? I'm just wondering if this is a usual part of each major iOS rollout, or a unique instance.

</comment><comment><USER42> Many of the problems with consistency (capitalization, placement, return key on keyboard, etc) seem to be in specific apps. In those cases it's the designers and programmers of the company that make the app that are at fault. It's important to be familiar enough with the iOS SDK that you know which bugs are OS territory and which ones are app territory. I'm not trying to dis their eye for bugs, I'm just trying to shrink the surface bugs live on.

<comment><USER43> So, the same thing apple fanboys have been railing against android about for years?

<comment><USER42> Maybe? I don't tend to read about iOS vs Android often. I'd say that's a problem for any company that maintains an app store. I'm sure those inconsistencies exist on iOS6 as well :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I don't understand how changing the design adds to functionality. Instead of giving a new half baked look, Apple could have concentrated on adding features to its existing look. Flat design is good but like most things its just a phase. Why not add background downloading etc. to the current design. From design point if view iOS 6 is fairly good and very consistent.

<comment><USER45> Uh, they did. They added a whole bunch of new features, actually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> If these are the worst things that people can find to complain about in iOS7, then Apple should feel pretty proud of themselves.

</comment><comment><USER47> What will probably happen is a quick 7.1 release to fix most small alignment bugs, and then iOS 8 will refine everything. I'm guessing iOS 9 will be the polished version of this UI design. Not making excuses, just postulating what might happen.

</comment><comment><USER19> My only issue is that this is an OS that's been in beta for a few months, and yeah, the betas were pretty horrible in some ways. The OS has been live to the public for a day. How do I know what version these screenshots came from?

</comment><comment><USER48> Some of them are bugs found in the beta releases of iOS 7.

I am assuming that the "sloppy UIs" are from the general release.

There were tons of changes from beta 1 to the GM and there are still some UI bugs, but they are not showstoppers.

</comment><comment><USER49> Half of these are from Beta versions and do no longer occur... But nice catches, there are definitely somethings that could be improved, but others are just up to personal preference and interpretation.

</comment><comment><USER50> Most of these are pretty good points, some are just taste differences. In a different world, if these things were fixed, they'd belong on a "Subtle UI Greatness" tumblr.

</comment><comment><USER51> Poll: Changing to Android after iOS7 Update? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6412046](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6412046)

</comment><comment><USER52> Without Apple Radar numbers next to each and every one of these pictures, this is just unnecessary, mean-spirited trolling. "Hey, look, iOS 7 has bugs! LOLOLOL."

</comment><comment><USER53> And they said we wont miss scott forstall who would surely not let anything like this out of apple.

But what do I know.

</comment><comment><USER54> Hire more/better designers? No-no! Let's put money in the hedge fund instead.

</comment><comment><USER55> I agree with some of the reviews here: nothing is perfect, and I do think most of these are bugs. For example, the issue on facebook settings doesn't show up on my i5. Get a life, or show me what kind of non-sloppy you are able to produce.

</comment><comment><USER56> The most tangential looking OS ever. Maybe iOS 7s would fix it.

</comment><comment><USER57> why is he referring to web terms? Or does it just happen to be common terminology across design?

</comment><comment><USER58> > We love Apple.

Stopped reading there ...</comment>


ASK HN: Hacker Bibles - <AUTHOR>

I'm trying to build the ultimate collection of hacker bibles. These include books on programming languages, algorithms, mathematics, theory, engineering principles and methodologies, design, paradigms, operating systems, frameworks, industry commentary, business/startup-related, etc.
Below are my favorites (in no particular order), what other "greats" am I missing?
The Art of Computer Programming (three volumes + fascicles) - Knuth (aka TAOCP)
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - Abelson and Sussman (aka SICP, aka The Wizard Book)
Introduction to Algorithms - Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, Stein (aka CLRS)
Design Patterns - Gamma, Helm, Johnson, Vlissides
The C Programming Language - Kernighan, Ritchie
The C++ Programming Language - Stroustrup
The Scheme Programming Language - Dybvig
Practical Common LISP - Seibel
Programming Perl - Wall, Christiansen and Orwant
ANSI Common Lisp - Graham
Refactoring - Fowler
UML Distilled - Fowler
Introduction to the Theory of Computation - Sisper
Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms - MacKay
Modern Operating Systems - Tanenbaum
On Lisp - Graham
Hackers & Painters - Graham
Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence - Norvig
Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning - Bishop
The Java Language Specification - Gosling, Joy, Steele
Learning Python - Lutz & Ascher
Programming Erlang - Armstrong
Programming Ruby - Thomas, Fowler, Hunt
Calculus - Spivak
How to Solve It - Polya
The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 FreeBSD Operating System - McKusick, Bostic, Karels, Quarterman
The Design of the Unix Operating System - Bach
The Unix Programming Environment - Kernighan, Pike
The Art of Unix Programming - Raymond
Godel, Escher, Bach - Hofstadter
Metamagical Themas - Hofstadter
Joel on Software - Spolsky
Code Complete - McConneli
The Mythical Man-Month - Brooks
No Silver Bullet - Brooks
The Long Tail - Anderson
The Art of the Start - <USER2> <comment><USER7> _Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman_ (or anything else by Feynman is very relevant)

 _Understanding the Linux Kernel_ is surprisingly thorough not just in its coverage of the Linux kernel, but also architecture and OS design in general

The Design and Implementation of FBSD book now covers 5.3, which is much less dated than the 4.4 text.

 _Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach_ is one of my favorite CS books and covers AI topics with surprising clarity.

 _The Design of Everyday Things_

 _Linkers & Loaders_, I'd hesitate to call this a bible of any sort, but it's a rarely-referenced gem that covers a topic few others do and it's relevant to me, at least.

Probably others I'm missing. This is a very good list though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for adding to it yan! I have been meaning to get my hands on the Feynman books...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1\. Peopleware: [http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects- Teams-S...](http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams- Second/dp/0932633439)

2\. Pragmatic Programmer: [http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer- Journeyman-Master...](http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman- Master/dp/020161622X/ref=pd_sim_b_2/190-2927696-0077003)

<comment><AUTHOR> How could I forget Peopleware? Good call! I've also been meaning to read Pragmatic Programmer, thanks for the reminder...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> W. R. Stevens: TCP/IP Illustrated Vol. 1-3, Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment, and UNIX Network Programming Vol. 1 and 2.

</comment><comment><USER10> The Algorithm Design Manual - <USER3>

Purely Functional Data Structures - <USER4>

Algorithmics - <USER5>

The Practice of Programming - Kernighan & Pike

Concurrency Control and Recovery in Database Systems - Bernstein, Hadzilacos, Goodman.

Recovery in Parallel Database Systems - <USER6>

ACM Turing Award Lectures

</comment><comment><USER7> Also a decent list of books: [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Computer Architecture, Fourth Edition: A Quantitative Approach - John L. Hennessy, David A. Patterson

The Black Swan - Nicholas Nassim Taleb

</comment><comment><USER12> Working Effectively With Legacy Code - Michael C. Feathers

</comment><comment><USER13> _Applied Cryptography_ \- Schneier

<comment><AUTHOR> I will add it to the to-read list!</comment></comment>


Lack of Retail Items at University - <AUTHOR> Hey what's up,
I'm a sophomore in college. I along with some international students are still at our dorms.
I found out my school is running out of my school's running low on retail items (snacks and such) at the dining hall and vending machine, aside from setting up a Shopify website and printing out flyers how else would you suggest capitalizing on this? <comment><USER2> Issue a coin.

<comment><AUTHOR> bitcoin?</comment></comment>


Of abusive behavior in programming communities - <AUTHOR> http://rjbs.manxome.org/rubric/entry/1959 <comment><USER2>
        ^    (IV)       |       (I)
        |  People       | People everyone
        |  everyone     |  wants to work
      n |  feels bad    |      with
      i |   for         |
      c |               |
      e +</comment><comment></comment><comment>---+</comment><comment></comment><comment>----
      n |   (III)       |       (II)
      e |  Get off      | People everyone
      s |  my lawn      |  just tolerates
      s |   people      |
        |               |
        |               |
        +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>->
                      talent

<comment><USER3> It's worth noting that the borders between these categories aren't simple vertical and horizontal lines.

Within limits, the more talent you have, the less niceness you can get away with. In other words, the line between (I) and (II) slopes down.

The line between (IV) and (I) (and between (II) and (III), for that matter) might also slope down, but that's complicated by the talent threshold being more important, I believe.

<comment><USER4> _Within limits, the more talent you have, the less niceness you can get away with._

This misreads the situation a little, I think. The more talented you are, the more likely you are to recognize the value of "niceness" (in its current meaning ("kind") and its older meaning ("careful and particular")). That's why someone whose code is well-commented and carefully designed has shown more talent than the arrogant trickster whose 2k-line functions full of 1-letter variable names "comment themselves".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I completely agree with rjbs's opinion of online discourse. It is positively _shameful_ how many communities are filled with insults, trolls, snark, and incivility.

That said, I have some qualms with the proposed solution. In my experience, "patience, correction, explanation, and an outpouring of civilly-worded disapproval" are often not enough. Frequently, these methods do nothing more than increase stress and waste time.

After reading Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism[1], I am convinced that banning is vastly underused. Many of us are professionals. Our time is valuable; our communities, even more-so. There are so many fools with so many maladaptive behaviors. Considering what else we could be working on, correcting them all simply isn't worthwhile. The opportunity cost is too high.

I wish this problem could be solved in a less forceful manner. Sadly, banning is the most effective solution I've found.

1\. <http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/>

<comment><USER6> > After reading Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism[1], I am convinced that > banning is vastly underused. Many of us are professionals. Our time is > valuable; our communities, even more-so. There are so many fools with so > many maladaptive behaviors. Considering what else we could be working on, > correcting them all simply isn't worthwhile. The opportunity cost is too > high.

Let's take it a step further. I don't think any of us would object to paying a nominal fee (say, $2/month) to obtain voting/posting privileges on HN. Although this would drastically reduce the amount of activity on the site, it would undoubtedly increase the quality of whatever activity remained. Not because a lot of people wouldn't be able to afford it, but because a troll wouldn't enter his credit card information and other personal details just to obtain the ability to flame someone on the internet.

<comment><USER7> It's an extremely common mistake to think that the pop psychology we pick up by sheer experience is a sufficient measure to understand what works. It's entirely too easy to forget that we, personally, are largely unaware of any proven methods for cultivating gardens. We're running off the anecdotal data that just happens to stick to our brains like burrs on a fur coat.

As others have duly stated, there are many people who are more than willing to pay for the privilege of trolling. It might not even start that way: I paid $40/mo to play a particular online game, and maintained my subscription as my play dwindled and my forum trolling increased. I eventually cancelled, but that was not an altruistic action: I simply needed to stop posting, and to stop paying for a game I didn't enjoy anymore. If someone has a similar experience with HN, you're relying on their self-control to end their own privileges.

Quite frankly, no one knows how to police a community perfectly. This is why religion was _invented_ , after all, why _politics_ exists. And see how that turned out, a few thousand years later. We're struggling damn hard, despite all the progress.

You never know what people will do. Every action, every ban, every harsh or kind word, every (pay)wall around the garden, every disincentive, carrot, stick, every reputation system, every voting system... you're going off your gut, at the end of the day, because there is no unified theory of sociology you can tap to actually justify it.

<comment><USER8> I think that the biggest complication in this is the fact that the people who want to police others are usually the same people who want to abuse others.

<comment><USER9> I gently disagree with your post.

But I would agree that the meta anguish[1] that some forums go through is often driven by people who just don't know any better and who probably shouldn't be given any power.

[1] they start small and really good; they get popular; someone decides that something must be done; there are long and bitter threads about moderation; mods get appointed; and then there's a slew of stickied threads and rules and closed threads and bizarre restriction.

<comment><USER8> How about this: the need to police others often comes from the same root as the need to abuse them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I run a net radio show with a live chatroom that is frequently trolled. "Troll hugging" really does work - it's amazing how fast a user can turn from troll to punter. My theory is they're bored and just want attention.

It doesn't always work. Some People Are Just Assholes.

<comment><USER11> I agree. Treat trolls and snappy shitheads like they didn't do anything offensive or annoying. Reward their good behavior and don't respond to their bad. Most will quickly realize that constructiveness instead of belligerence is getting them the attention and respect they seek. Challenging trollish behavior will just force them to attempt to justify their behavior through argument and attitude.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm reminded of a comic that pointed out the best way to get an answer to a "newbie" question on the internet. Ask the question, and have a friend give you the wrong answer, publicly. They will then be derided and scorned, while providing you with the correct answer.

It's sad that this is often what it takes to get an answer out of jaded people with experience - it's even more sad that the scorn is integral to the experience.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't want to sound like an old smart ass but I'm regularly grateful how the tech community evolved; the article mentions it too, it was _really_ bad. The usenet of the 90's and early 2000's was a fierce battle zone and newbie chip pan.

Nowadays community leaders refuse to tolerate assholes (<[http://jacobian.org/writing/assholes/>](http://jacobian.org/writing/assholes/>)) – back then they more often than not acted like those. I wouldn't have thought back then that we'd come ever so far.

Not that we arrived yet…

</comment><comment><USER9> See also Vested Contributors

(<http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/VestedContributor>)

and Dissuade Reputation

(<http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/DissuadeReputation>)

and most of the troublesome characters category on meatball wiki.

</comment><comment><USER14> I see a huge problem with the piece.

There is certainly overlap between thick-skinned and abusive individuals but the sets are not identical. There are many abusive individuals who are covering for their own insecurities, and many quiet, confident people who have thick skins but don't abuse others. Additionally there's a difference between taking offence to abusive behavior and taking offence where none was intended.

I am of the opinion that it is worth expecting members of the community to be thick-skinned, professional, courteous, and respectful. If you have the latter three down well, then telling someone that no offence was meant but that you stick by your original point, that has a great deal more credibility.

Thick skins are good. But expecting them doesn't have to mean tolerating abuse.

<comment><USER15> I think part of his point was that expecting everyone to have a thick skin is a small step away from requiring everyone to have that thick skin, and to not reacting appropriately to people who direct flames against those supposedly thick skins. "Thick skin" is often used but poorly defined when talking about online communities, and I think the end of the article does a good job of deconstructing the notion by explaining more precisely what is a good standard for reacting to abuse.

Another point to make is that this is a stronger expectation than simply: don't be an asshole, and that acceptance criteria that don't match the emotional reality of most people (for example, if "thick skin" means you're not allowed to feel bad after being treated harshly) will ghettoise a community.

<comment><USER14> Ok, perhaps I wasn't clear, perhaps as you say because "thick skin" is relatively ill-defined.

To sum up my point, if you don't tolerate abuse and everyone knows this, then saying "What so-and-so said wasn't really out of line. Please be more professional when taking criticism" is credible. When you personal attacks and trolling, it isn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> it's a self regulating system. the moment you put too many constraints on it, it will become like any other system. suppressed until it explodes. the whole troll, smartass, jerk concept we have is not the only one in the internet, but it's the most obvious. you may call it abusive, but I say it has created some of the most beautiful open source code/projects there is.

the moment you start strangulating it, it will lose it's value.

this is from a person who's wished for a remote electroshocker.

</comment><comment><USER17> IMHO, it's just the way of things everywhere on the internet. It wont ever change, and the entire population will eventually develop a thick skin. I personally have zero tolerance for abusive verbal behavior, but I've become very comfortable with it in text.

On the other hand, user moderated communities like Hacker News and Reddit seem to cut back on this a lot. Only funny or informative abusive comments are shown.

</comment><comment><USER18> The "troll" label gets thrown around a lot here. I would like to see some samples of what people consider troll behavior, so I can get a better idea of what it is.

Labelling someone "troll" is the same as labelling them wrong and that should not be taken lightly: <http://sivers.org/ss>

</comment><comment><USER19> Who was he referring to as

 _We are not even close to free software's most wretched hive of scum and villainy._

? My guess would be the Ruby "community".

<comment><USER20> The really nice Ruby people must hate being confused with the Rails ghetto hoodlums.

<comment><USER21> What rails ghetto hoodlums?

Seriously, every community has a few bad apples, it's totally unfair to judge the whole by the behaviour of a very few. You'd probably object if you heard someone judging an entire ethnic group by the actions of a couple of extremists - how is this any different?

/rails dev frustrated by the seemingly bad image of the community despite 99.99% of it being actually really nice

<comment><USER20> You may be missing a reference or two : [http://www.zedshaw.com.sharedcopy.com/rants/51489cec9386f7c1...](http://www.zedshaw.com.sharedcopy.com/rants/51489cec9386f7c13f69b3a58cd50b02.html) and [http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2009/04/25/why-rails-is- still-a...](http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2009/04/25/why-rails-is-still-a- ghetto/)

<comment><USER21> A couple of >3 year old blog posts proves that all rails developers are assholes? Is that really what you're hanging all your beliefs on? Sorry dude but that's just stupid. There are hundreds of thousands of rails developers all across the world and all you can cite is a couple of years old blog posts - one of them a cache because the author regretted posting it!

I just got back from the Red Dot Ruby conference in Singapore and it was nothing but wall to wall nice people. This attention seeking nonsense you cite may as well be light years away. We are all just focussed on sharing knowledge, growing the community, and developing good software.

It's 2012. Rails is far and away the best choice for developing pretty much any normal web app. Trying to tar the entire community with some old blog posts is pretty lame at best. Oh, and for what it's worth, there were quite a few women at the conference, and high school students too. Thank god you weren't there to spread this bullshit.

<comment><USER20> Sarcasm is really lost on you. Zed Shaw's blog was a pretty big hit when it was posted, because he was a very relevant person in the community (he wrote Mongrel in case you don't place him). The term ghetto stuck to this day, mostly as a joke.

As for Rail being "far and away the best choice for developing pretty much any normal web app", that may be true if one define a normal Web app as being a CRUD application with a REST architecture, that covers lots of ground, but still far from universal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I occasionally venture into the IRC rooms for Rails, node.js, or some other technology when I need a quick answer that can't be found elsewhere.

I'm always shocked at how stereotypically asinine and snarky the responses to legitimate questions are. Yes it's IRC, yet somehow I expect it not to live up to its reputation - yet it does every time.

<comment><USER22> The rubyonrails channel is indeed awful, because of the demographic of people who use rails right now. The ruby channel is much more civil. They are usually unwilling to help on rails-specific issues though.

<comment><USER11> > "because of the demographic of people who use rails right now"

What do you see as the problem with the demographic?

While I know historically Rails had a heavy conceited, dickhead user base (in Seattle particularly), the demographic has expanded so much that it doesn't seem to be the case overall anymore.

<comment><USER22> Thats not what I mean.

I can't really comment on the actual community at large, but in places where people go to get help, such as the irc channel, there are increasingly a lot of people looking for easy answers who don't seem willing to work things out for themselves. More so than in a lot of other languages. I couldn't attribute this to any specific group of people, but I think it has to do with rails increasingly becoming a "workhorse" tool amongst shall we say, less hackerish web devs.

It's basically a sign that rails is being used more for workaday things, perhaps at the expense of .net or PHP. This is surely a good thing. It isn't the same as the mythic internecine rivalries in the rails/ruby development community everyone always talks about, which I've never thought were that important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> i think the worst i've ever seen was people on slashdot saying unkind things about w. richard stevens after he passed away. apparently he preferred c to perl. of all people to disrespect, the abusive posters seem to pick the smartest ones.

<comment><USER24> The smartest ones are the ones they are most threatened by.

<comment><USER25> Is this really that common? Even yesterday I was talking to some friends about this, are people really more agressive towards "smarter" people just because they feel threatened?

I try to be the most open I can and learn the most from people that I feel are smarter than me. But it seems that it is not the norm, even with "non-tech" people.</comment></comment></comment>


Front end Frameworks – Which will stand the test of time? - <AUTHOR> http://thomasdav.is/frontend-frameworks-which-will-stand-the-test-of-time/

<comment><USER2> Seems to be just about HTML and JS rather than front-ends in a general sense.</comment>


Twenty Questions for Donald Knuth (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2213858&WT.mc_id=Author_Knuth_20Questions <comment><USER2> Anyone here who can honestly say that they worked through all volumes (obviously not answering everything)? I often hear people talk about it but never met anyone in real life who actually did this.

<comment><USER3> I have read through about eight pages of one of Knuth's most recent pre- fascicles.[1] It took me about a month (on and off). I did all the exercises (trying the harder ones for at most a couple of hours or so before giving up), wrote programs to explore the things introduced, etc. It was good, quite doable, and a lot of fun. (Also, I found a few errors and got some of those Knuth checks.)

The best way to view Knuth's project with these volumes is that takes in all published computer science on a particular topic, digests it, and outputs into the books some sort of "summary" of the field, or whatever he considers the most important bits, but still organized as readable/learnable textbook material, and in the way he thinks makes for best exposition. (In other words: he's doing his best to explain, and his best is very good indeed. Often Knuth's writing is clearer than the original papers, and a lot more fun.)

[1]: [http://www.cs.utsa.edu/~wagner/knuth/](http://www.cs.utsa.edu/~wagner/knuth/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting demarcation he makes between geeks and mathematicians and scientific thinkers more generally. Would be curious what the identifying traits of geeks are in his mind, though one can make some guesses given the examples he cites.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am certainly never one to question Donald Knuth on things in computer science, but I've always thought his opinion of P vs. NP an odd one, though he is certainly not the only person with that opinion.

<comment><USER6> You'll definitely enjoy this: [https://www.cs.umd.edu/~gasarch/papers/poll.pdf](https://www.cs.umd.edu/~gasarch/papers/poll.pdf)

Edit: sorry, misread your comment, thought you were wondering what was Knuth's opinion. Still, I'll leave the link here, since it's a great read nonetheless

<comment><USER7> For the lazy people, from that document:

> Donald Knuth: (Retired from Stanford) It will be solved by either 2048 or > 4096. I am currently somewhat pessimistic. The outcome will be the truly > worst case scenario: namely that someone will prove "P=NP because there are > only finitely many obstructions to the opposite hypothesis"; hence there > will exists a polynomial time solution to SAT but we will never know its > complexity!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was kind of expecting 12 more

<comment><USER9> Or C more. :)

<comment><USER10> 1100 more!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's interesting how this article made it to HN - From the post about the potential proof surrounding P != NP yesterday, there was a great comment thread on a bit of the history of proofs, where this link was shared.</comment>


Khoisan have been the largest population throughout most of modern-human history - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/141204/ncomms6692/full/ncomms6692.html <comment><USER2> OK, this title is taken directly from the article, but it's wrong. As the paper beneath the headline clearly states, it claims that Khoisan have been the largest _effective population_ through history, a rather different idea. You can be the largest effective population for thousands upon thousands of years of being the smallest population in the conventional sense.

Compare the headline with a nonrandomly-chosen sentence from the paper:

Headline: Khoisan hunter-gatherers have been the largest population throughout most of modern-human demographic history.

Paper: Our hypothesis may [...] suggest that the Khoisan hunter-gatherers and their ancestors have been the largest population _in terms of genetic diversity_ throughout modern-human history. (emphasis added)

</comment><comment><USER3> From what I remember of my major in linguistics at UCT (I was lazy and it was almost 10 years ago):

The Khoisan languages have a greater density of phonemes (there are more identifiably different sounds) than in any other on the planet. This language [1] has 43 clicks, compared to the 3 of Xhosa and Zulu (actually it might be that by the system of measurement used in that article Xhosa/Zulu actually have more, but it still won't be as many).

Speculation: I always imagined that this was similar to the story of Mitochondrial Eve, that these languages look like what language looked like 150 000 years ago while the rest of the planet's languages are fragments, kind of like we only have fragments of Mitochondrial Eve's DNA. Of course I have no idea what the current thinking is on ME, maybe that idea has been discredited.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taa_language](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taa_language)

</comment><comment><USER4> tl;dr the Khoisan lived in the part of Africa that kept good throught all climate changes phases. The other populations suffered reduction in numbers and eventually part of them spread to Asia and Europe. It took them a long time to recover and finally outnumber the Khoisan.

</comment><comment><USER5> Khoisan is the language with all the clicks in it (yeah, been watching Trevor Noah today).

In comparison, between the spread of that sound structure (culture, so to speak) vs genetic distribution, why would one spread wide and the other part not?

Or am I wrong about clicks being a rarity in languages of the continent?

<comment><USER6> We can trace human lineages by following either the Y-chrosome DNA or the mitochondrial mtDNA. For all of the other chromosomes the DNA of the mother and the DNA of the father are shuffled together, but Y DNA comes only from the father and mtDNA comes over from the mother, and these genes only change as a result of random mutations.

If you find a group of men who all share a specific mutation on the Y chromosome, then they all share some common ancestor where that mutation first occurred.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Y- chromosome_DNA_haplogro...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Y- chromosome_DNA_haplogroup)

That rate of mutation is constant per birth, so you'll find the greatest genetic diversity in places where it has been accumulating for a long time.

Also, if that population shrinks precipitously, then that population bottlenecks can be measured in the genetic diversity of the descendents thousands of years later. (And genetic drift can become locked in).

The researchers determined that humanity suffered a population bottleneck some ~100,000 years ago, which may have been related to a changing, drier climate. By looking at the genetic diversity preserved, they also determined that the population bottleneck suffered by the ancestors suffered by non-Africans must have been significantly more severe than the bottleneck seen in the ancestors of the Ju/'hoansi. 100,000 years ago must have been a pretty good time to live in southern Africa (compared to the rest of the continent).

Anyway, I believe that click languages were once widespread. The greatest genetic distance between any two populations on Earth is between the Ju/'Hoansi (in Southern Africa) and the Hadzabe (in East Africa). They both speak click languages, and those languages are unrelated.

[http://www.cell.com/current- biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2803...](http://www.cell.com/current- biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2803%2900130-1?cc=y)

I believe that at some time (between 150,000 and 70,000 years ago), all of humanity lived in a range from South Africa to East Africa and all spoke click languages. At some point, possibly as a result of the climatic event discussed in this paper, the genetic histories of the Hadzabe, the Ju/'hoansi, and another group diverged. That last group stopped speaking in clicks and also conquered the world: all the rest of humanity is ultimately descended from this small group. About 1500 years ago, Bantu farmers swept through southeast Africa and left the speakers of click languages persisting only in isolated deserts that couldn't be farmed.

<comment><USER7> Is it fair to say Bantu farmers colonized most of southeast Africa approximately 1500 years ago ?

<comment><USER2> To your exact question, I'm not sure. The Bantu expanded from a small region of west Africa beginning around 3000 years ago; it's plausible that it took them a while to overwhelm southeast Africa.

What I find really interesting is that we have actual historical records from the great civilization of the time, Egypt, that predate the Bantu. We even have records of their diplomacy with the non-Bantu kingdoms to their south. The Africans they write about (and, in some cases, draw artwork of) bear little relation to the Africans we know today. Sure, expanding human populations have wiped out incumbents everywhere in the world, but it's unusual for the eye of recorded history to be so nearby when it happens (North America would be the best example, I guess, but I'm pretty sure the Bantu expansion is #2).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


C.I.A. Mole, Now Out of Prison, Helped U.S. Identify Cuban Spies - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/world/americas/cia-mole-now-out-of-prison-helped-us-identify-cuban-spies.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

<comment><USER2> Odd title editorializing. I would think a "Master Spy" wouldn't get caught relatively early on in his intelligence career.

<comment><USER3> The submitter didn't break the rules; this is just the NYT up to its usual title-changing tricks. We've updated the title here accordingly.

<comment><USER4> why would they do that ? A/B testing? to make people click 2 times on the same article?

Huffpo used to pull that trick on its homepage,once with an acceptable title/then with a bait if you visited the article before,I hate these silly techniques.But I guess that's how they make money.

The latest is one of the worst offender when It comes to baiting.It's just annoying feeling you're being taken for an idiot.

<comment><USER3> As a compulsive rewriter whose middle name should probably be Stop-Me-Before- I-Edit-Again, it never occurred to me that they didn't just get their titles wrong a lot.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Make a 3D object from a 2D drawing in-browser - <AUTHOR> http://dreamboxdev.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Special thanks to the following open source projects that made MakeMe possible:

wPaint - <https://github.com/websanova/wPaint>

Thingiview - <https://github.com/tbuser/thingiview.js>

ImageMagick – <http://sourceforge.net/projects/imagemagick/>

potrace – <http://potrace.sourceforge.net/>

Inkscape – <http://inkscape.org/>

pstoedit – <http://www.pstoedit.net/>

OpenSCAD – <https://github.com/openscad/openscad/>

jQuery - <https://github.com/jquery/jquery>

We'd love any feedback you have to give.

</comment><comment><USER2> I felt disappointment when the resulting object was just an extrusion of the drawing. If I had been told ahead of time that I could make a "physical object" out of my drawing -- or in some other way assuage my curiosity and anticipation about how you would make a 2D sketch "3D" -- I might not have felt so let-down by the result.

Mentioning how _long_ it would take added to my expectations that it would be some tricky, sophisticated, new trick. It's cool, it's just not as cool as I led myself to expect, given the copy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ack, great point. The original article we had written had an explanation, but we stuck to using just the link for simplicity. Thanks for the feedback!

<comment><USER3> any link to the original article?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Amazing application of technology! I would totally buy it to use as decoration if I lived in USA.

<comment><USER5> We could work something out and probably ship it to you internationally if you want to print something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone got any examples that don't just seem to be trivially extruded surfaces? Or is that _it_?

</comment><comment><USER7> I love this. Can't wait to get some logos printed for the office.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is awesome! Very excited about this technology

</comment><comment><USER9> awesome!!</comment>


What is karma on this app - <AUTHOR> what does karma do <comment><USER2> Explained in the FAQ (linked on the bottom of the page) [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)</comment>


X# - XML Oriented programming language - <AUTHOR> http://www.xsharp.org/samples/ <comment><USER2> My name is Mark Giuliani and I am one of the developers behind X#.

I do agree that the language is verbose at the moment, originally it was designed to be programmed visually but we kept extending it to the level where it is now. In less than 3 months we are releasing a new version of X# that will include a C-like or Java-like syntax. So in addition to doing > you would do if( expr ) { ... }.

For those who think X# is a joke, please take a look at <http://www.snapcrm.com> which is a CRM and Collaboration Suite far superior to all open source CRMs and it was coded entirely using X# in 4 months. Also, take a look at Fusion (<http://fusion.codeglide.com>) which is a Data Integration Platform superior to anything available in the market today -- coded in 5 months.

Try doing this in other languages!

<comment><USER3> I'm sorry, Mark, but there's a ton of open-source CRM software written over the weekend and published in a matter of days.

As a matter of fact, if you'll go through the backlogs here at Hacker News you'll see a large number of "Game/Site/Tool/Language Written, Released in 3 days!" stories by members of this very community... in languages from C# to Lisp to Java to C and even ASM.

<comment><USER2> I agree, but they don't have the number of features that we have.

<comment><USER4> Really now? and how hard would that be for anyone who is proficient in their own language to implement those so called features you boast about? Feature set alone is a pretty weak argument imho.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of my idea for an XML image format:

      <image>
       <pixel x="0" y="0" red="255" green="255" blue="0" alpha="0"/>
       <!-- etc -->
       <pixel x="1023" y="767" red="0" green="0" blue="0" alpha="0"/>
      </image>

I think it would gzip pretty well.

<comment><USER6> Not bad, but I think you forgot to include document unique identifiers on each important tag. Also, where are the namespaces? You need to be able to embed this image in a document without having tag name collisions.

<comment><USER5> Good point on the namespaces. But I'm an idea guy -- the standards committee can work out the details.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It is somewhat disheartening to see the reaction the release of this has had.

It isnt lisp or erlang or anything "cool", from a glance at the code its a souped up xslt or templating language. The code is obviously supposed to be tool generated (how many graphically driven lisp generators are there?), yes they could use s-exps, but if you dont need the power of s-exps, whats the point? Java has a nice xml parser in built.

But the main point is that there demo looks pretty comprehensive, if it was written in 4 months then cool, it sounds like it done the job they needed it to do pretty well.

Can any of the detractors point to as comprehensive web application written in lisp / erlang etc?, it's obvious they arent worried about algorithmic complexity and "hacker cred", and more about the integration tools and free extras that come with having xml as an intermediary language, and shock horror, getting things done.

They didn't need to release this, seems like they just put out an internal tool that was useful to them so that others could benefit, and they end up getting treated like the star wars kid.

<comment><USER4> Normally I would be inclined to agree with you. But judging from the OP's comments on proggit and here. You can see a smack of arrogance around his posts.

<comment><USER7> true, but I think I would be getting defensive after a witch hunt like this

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is hilarious. Maybe it's an improvement over their previous product, a CSV-oriented programming language.

</comment><comment><USER9> I pray this is someone's cruel joke. You just wouldn't write code is poetry at the bottom of every page for an xml programming language unless this was a joke.

Also, it runs on the JVM, but is called X#. I mean... I'm honestly speechless.

<comment><USER10> Doesn't Java have its own "cool" symbol? Anything -# or Iron- implies a relation to .NET, and I see little value in creating confusion around that.

<comment><USER11> Maybe they should call it JXML. Though this name is a bit bland and could be spiced up with a liberal sprinkling of exclamation marks: J!XML!

When Microsoft bring out their implementation it will be called "Visual Studio Active Team System IronXML# Server Pro Ultimate".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Oh lord, my company is a java shop. Some asshat is going to hear about this and want to implement it right away. God help us all....

</comment><comment><USER13> This reminds me a lot of ColdFusion. It seems like the purpose is to make it easier for non-programmers to embed code into a web page. The syntax is just mind numbing though.

It made easy problems manageable for a noob, and hard problems impossible (to stand working on) for anyone that enjoys programming.

This doesn't seem like a good evolution.

<comment><USER14> I agree, its like ColdFusion...only it validates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of a panel-discussion I was in the audience of once. When panel- participant Steve Vinoski was asked which trends he saw for software development 10 years in the future, his only response was _"I just hope we're not all programming in XML"._

Having done my share of XSLT, I could not agree more. :)

</comment><comment><USER16> _A fully working e-mail auto-responder using only two statements..._

and 28 lines of code.

</comment><comment><USER17> XML is like violence; If it doesn't solve all your problems, you're not using enough of it

<comment><USER18> Haven't heard of Don Box in a looong time. What's he cooking now?

<comment><USER17> So that's where it came from! My co-worker had it posted on his cube and I thought it was great

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not for me, but still voting it up because I was curious enough to click the link =P

It is exactly as sharp and pointy as I had feared - but then again, XML was never meant to be looked at by humans right? Isn't the point that it's easy to traverse and build tools around?

An XML based language would definitely aid in creating more visual IDEs. I suspect the example they give could be done easily in Yahoo pipes, and is likewise stored in a similar XML document.

<comment><USER20> >but then again, XML was never meant to be looked at by humans right?

Actually I think it was, in as far as it is a text _markup_ language. The only case when I have enjoyed looking at it, and editing is docbook - where its mostly text, just with limited docbook XML markup (and having the redundant closing tags does help you navigate).

<comment><USER21> I personally prefer docbook SGML. Its much more forgiving when it comes to end tags which can be inferred. Also, sometimes the case insensitivity is nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22>
       <!-- SQUARE function -->
       <xsp:variable name="square" type="node">
           <xsp:processing-instruction>
               <xsp:text value="{node() * node()}"/>
           </xsp:processing-instruction>
       </xsp:variable>

This is a one-liner in python and you can guess what it does without knowing python.

<comment><USER23> And in Forth: : square dup * ;

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> <Why> God </Why>

</comment><comment><USER25> Lord no! Think of the children!

I am all for DSL's because you can do some very neat things with them, but don't make it XML based. Use a reasonable language like Python (replace with your favorite language). XML is pretty hard to read. A good programming language should be concise. You can type only so many symbols per hour; make the most of it. I worked with VoiceXML a decade back. It was not a pleasant experience.

The seductive attraction of an XML based language is that the heavy lifting of writing a parser is done for you. That's just an illusion. There is most certainly a grammar for any language that you like. With a little bit of hacking you are in business. I've done it. It's a piece of cake, more fun than banging away at a DOM tree.

</comment><comment><USER26> Wow.. There's a lot of hate going on here. If you don't like it, don't use it. I would have thought that the HN community would appreciate this solely for the novelty factor.

</comment><comment><USER27> I love the footer: "Code is Poetry". Eugh.

<comment><USER28> As a poet and programmer, my first response was to be offended. But, then I remembered all the poetry I read on Facebook earlier today and kind of thought "eh, yeah, I can see that now."

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This would've been damn cool - If we were still in the year 2000 or so, when XML was all the rage.

I'm sure people will find lots of uses for this, though.

<comment><USER30> No, it would have sucked then too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> My roommate is saying this is a prank that's been going on for a few years. Not sure if this is for real or not.

</comment><comment><USER31> Obsurd. With an O.

</comment><comment><USER32> First of all, a lot of the comments here, imo, are not so great, for they miss the meat of the matter. It's easy to poopoo a language because it's different, or verbose. Hacker News hates XML, worships s-expressions, and has some mixed fondness for maps and json, so the anti-XML snark is expected, I suppose. But let's put that aside talk about _why_ X# is actually distasteful. That might even be helpful to the developers and incite more than defensiveness on their part.

Disclaimer: I'm not an X# expert. I've just read the pages linked to from the sidebar on <http://xsharp.org>. This review may well be a failure of marketing more than anything else.

When I saw the title, I was expecting something a bit like lisp, but with about 10x as many characters. Granted, xml done right is not just sexprs, so I was curious about how attributes might be used to add additional expressive power. _Maybe_ , I thought, _you could do something as "pure" as lisp, albeit with a much uglier syntax. It probably wouldn't be my thing, but it might be neat nonetheless._

Oh, if only.

The problem with X# is that it uses enough XML to be ugly, and yet not enough to be pure. If you were to use it, you still need to be thinking in a very ruby-like block syntax with stuff like processing-instruction and append-child and for-each and so on. (Nested _with_ blocks? Srsly??)

The XML feels out of place, tacked on. Rather than use a consistent expression language to define programming language fundamentals, it seems like a sloppy addition to a kludgey language.

The examples seem to use some powerful built-ins, without telling me how I would actually apply the concepts to new ideas. What is the xml "schema" for an HTTP POST? For a CouchDB document? For a curl request to the Twitter API, or the results of it?

In other languages, it's generally very clear how a given bit of XML is turned into an object. However, it's not so clear here how a given bit of JSON (or other data) would be turned into XML, or vice versa. Compared with the facilities in ruby or php for handling any kind of data encoding syntax, I wouldn't even consider this. How do I dump out the data? What are the rules for converting non-XML to something that's XPath-able?

Take this example, for instance _(comments added)_

        <!-- start in curly-brace land, using builtin for-each and document functions,
             passing xpath query on the imap "document", which is not natively XML -->
        for-each document('imaps://email@example.com&pass=secret')/folder[@name='INBOX']/mail[@seen = 'false'] {
            append-child document('smtp://smtp.gmail.com') {
                <!-- switch to XML to define the message.
                     Where do I look up the XML syntax for a message? I would not
                     have guessed that this would be the way to do it. -->
                <!-- Function call in the subject attribute? That's weird.
                     What if I wanted to email someone about curly braces and
                     concatenation functions? Would I have to escape the curly
                     braces that are escaping the function nested in my xml nested
                     in my code?  I think the "fail" stack just overflowed. -->
                <mail subject="{concat('RE: ', @subject)}" from="email@example.com" to="{addresses/from/@address}">
                    <!-- So, we're back to c-ish syntax now?  That is so strange.
                         Also, text must be quoted inside of XML?  I always thought
                         the primary (only) benefit of XML over sexprs or JSON is that
                         plain text doesn't have to be quoted or escaped. -->
                    "Hi text ";
                    select addresses/from/@name;
                    ",\n\nI've received your message titled '";
                    text @subject;
                    "' and\nI will reply to it shortly.\n\n--James\n";
                </mail>
            }
        }

Letting data and code mingle closely is an attractive premise, to be sure. XML is not the only data definition language, and many would argue that it's far from the best, but it's certainly a contestable point. In my view, it is not XML that turns me off from X#, but rather the overall lack of consistency and transparency in the language.

Also, about the footer and some general site tips… The mascot has <?X#?> on his chest, but the language doesn't use <? as far as I can tell. (Or does it? Jesus, please say it doesn't.) This code is not poetry. (The tumbleweeds in the forums and on the blog also do not inspire confidence.)

It would be better to start with the most elegant syntax possible, and work backwards from there to an implementation. As it is, with the market for programming languages and frameworks so full of robust and elegant solutions, I would not even consider using X# for anything whatsoever.

<comment><USER2> Thank you for your comments. My replies follow,

\- The syntax we have at xsharp.org is an alternative C-like syntax (which we are still working on BTW). The full XML way of coding X# can be seen at <http://wiki.codeglide.com/X_Sharp/Examples>.

\- Rules to convert non-XML structures to XML are defined by the connectors. We've chosen an intuitive XML structure to represent non-XML data on these connectors. Of course you can't guess what is the structure an XML that represents an e-mail has to have, but this is the same in other programming languages, you need documentation or an IDE with inline help to find out how to do stuff. The most powerful feature of X# is that you can combine data from unlimited and different sources using XPath and that instead of using multiple functions all actions are abstracted behind common operations such as append, remove, select and update.

\- Yes, <?xpath ?> is used on the XML syntax to select nodes.

Originally X# was going to be a language to create applications visually and we chose an XML syntax because each tag is represented by a visual element on screen. Since we are still working on the visual X# editor, we offer an alternate C-like syntax (which is not definitive).

Although X# is Turing complete, we are not proposing it as a general purpose programming language -- we know it has limitations, having this level of abstraction has trade offs. Of course if we need to write a 3D Adventure Game or a Web Server we will use another language, but for writing the web based applications we wrote it has proven to be extremely fast and useful.

\--mark at X#

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Why is their logo an M&M?

<comment><USER34> Because M&M is a tasty chocolate that is especially popular with children, the creators of X# want to send the message that their language is delicious toy suited for tots.</comment></comment>


A tale of two covariates: Why OWID and company are wrong about US healthcare - <AUTHOR> https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2019/11/07/a-tale-of-two-covariates-why-owid-and-company-are-wrong-about-us-healthcare/ <comment><AUTHOR> Very long and well argued review of sources of excess mortality in developed countries. Bottom line: Obesity! and other non-medical factors like automobiles. Big implications about how we should spend money to increase life expectancy.

<comment><USER2> Can you explain the conclusion of this article to me? I don't fully understand what he is trying to say.what are the implications? That the only improvement we can make on the american healthcare system is to fight obesity better?

<comment><USER3> There are two points to the article.

1) Healthcare spending has rapidly diminishing returns, not only comparing the US to Europe, but comparing countries within Europe (such as the Netherlands versus Spain).

2) The lower life expectancy in the US can be explained mostly by higher obesity. US states with similar obesity to European countries have similar life expectancy.

<comment><USER4> Re: #2, my understanding from friends at the CDC is that lower life expectancy is due to lower incomes (meaning food, medicine, and doctor visits are unaffordable even with health insurance), suicides, and the opioid crisis.

Suicides and obesity can also be caused by low income and drug abuse, so it sounds like the author may be seeing causation where correlation is more accurate.

<comment><USER5> Causation isn't mutually exclusive. The relationship between obesity and heart disease is clearly causative. Any causation between income and obesity does not negate this..

This is an important distinction.

<comment><USER4> That's true and I agree, but if you're asking why people are dying, you're going to be most interested in the root cause (which should be the variable that is least dependent on the others).

While obesity likely does reduce income somewhat (due to stereotypes), income can be considered an independent variable here.

Relatedly, we know that obesity is very hard to treat, while poverty is incredibly easy to treat on an individual level. The only reason we don't is because people see treatment of poverty as unfair, while treatment of obesity is not seen that way.

<comment><USER5> I would never claim that income/poverty is the root cause of obesity, as obesity poorly correlated with income in the US.

Obesity is prevalent in both the middle class and poor, with the middle class slightly leading the poor[1]

>39% of people ≤130% of the federal poverty line (FPL) are obese.

>40.8% of people 130 to 350% of the FPL are obese.

While individuals should be brought out of poverty for other reasons, it is not a cure-all for obesity. If anything can be implied by the correlation, it will make the problem worse, and the healthcare system should prepare for this.

[1] [https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6650a1.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6650a1.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This starts with saying that there is a popular telling that the more money a country spends the better life expectancy will be. Especially looking at the US I thought most people know that US doesn't get much value compared to the money spent.

Was that really controversial?

<comment><USER7> My point is that there's very little to suggest US healthcare is _uniquely_ ineffective. There rapidly diminishing returns to health spending and US outcomes are badly handicapped by factors like obesity and homicide.

Maybe try actually reading it though?

<comment><USER6> "Maybe try actually reading it though?"

Your first sentence is "In the popular telling, there is a strong and reasonably constant relationship between health spending and life expectancy.". My comment was that I am not aware of this being the popular telling. But instead from what I can tell most people agree that the US doesn't deliver better results despite much higher spending.

Otherwise I think you have dug up a good and useful amount of data although I think some of your conclusions are debatable. This is probably to be expected if you analyze such a complex system.

<comment><USER8> it IS a popular thing, only here on hacker news I've read at least 10 articles on this issue, i.e. that US is wasting money on health.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The blog Random Critical Analysis has made a good argument that Americans spend so much on healthcare simply because Americans spend so much on everything. Healthcare isn't exceptional in this regard. If you replace the usual GDP per capita measure of income by a measure of actual individual consumption, the US lies right on the trend line, just with higher healthcare spending and higher overall consumption than everyone else.

[https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2018/11/19/why- everything...](https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2018/11/19/why-everything- you-know-about-healthcare-is-wrong-in-one-million-charts-a-response-to-noah- smith/)

<comment><USER10> The US healthcare system is not a free market. The pricing system--critical to any free market--is broken when it comes to healthcare. Customers are unable to shop on price (even for non-emergency care).. but also the AMA limits the number of doctors; and hospitals require a certificate of need (giving competitors a veto over new businesses), for example.

It isn't just that we spend more... if that was the only issue, then everything would be fine because we would be obtaining what we paid for.

But since it's not an efficient free market... the fact that we spend more only increases the urgency that we reform the system... since those inefficiencies become so huge in a system that accounts for such a big portion of GDP.

So while RCA's analysis might be perfectly correct... unless he also proves that the healthcare market is at least as efficient as a free market system... then we still need to reform it.

<comment><USER11> Please stop posting misinformation about the AMA. It does not limit the number of doctors. The actual bottleneck is in residency slots, and the AMA is actually advocating to increase funding there.

[https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama- fun...](https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-fund- graduate-medical-education-address-physician-shortages)

Most patients are able to shop on price. The majority of insurers now provide web sites where their members can obtain estimates of out-of-pocket expenses for common treatments at network providers. There are still some gaps and room for improvement but most people are able to do price comparisons for non- emergency care if they want to.

<comment><USER12> Bullshit. Trying to get prices from an insurance company requires hours of time, researching individual billing codes, and at best leads to a ballpark guess.

<comment><USER11> That's not true. Most insurers allow you to search by text and see an accurate estimate of what you would pay at each provider. Such features aren't universal yet but the majority of patients have access.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The best thing I've read about cross-country longevity, and I don't even care about its main point (ie USA healthcare spending). If you have a Patreon account or something similar please post it. I want more of this.

<comment><USER7> Thanks. I haven't seriously considered that before, but I may put one up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > The problem is GDP is not even particularly a good proxy for the income of > households (individuals). GDP is designed to measure how much value add is > produced within domestic (territorial) boundaries. It usually does a fairly > decent job of this, but it does not directly tell us about the household > perspective, as in, the average level of real incomes or real consumption > enjoyed residents of a country (a.k.a. "material living conditions"). Most > importantly, it is an increasingly unreliable proxy for this concept.

Would someone care to explain how this works? What's the factor causing divergence between the two? Is it the proportion of GDP being returned to overseas investors? Or a mis-counting which includes GDP of US multinationals produced by workers overseas?

<comment><USER8> one example that I often heard being made is that natural disasters have a positive outcome to the GDP. Houses and communities get destroyed, people are objectively much worse off, but due to the money pumped in reconstruction the GDP grows more than if no disaster had happened.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Australia has similar rates of obesity and better health outcomes don't they?.

<comment><USER7> No, but this is addressed in my post. Australia's obesity rate is substantially lower, plus they suffer from lower homicide, drug abuse, and the like. More generally, the diminishing returns to health spending imply there's very little to believe the higher expenditure the US makes is likely to purchase appreciably better outcomes (even with different healthcare regimes).

<comment><USER2> Are you the original author? Have you done an evaluation on the financial consequences of both healthcare systems as well? Do people suffer medical bankruptcies at similar levels in our peer nations?

<comment><USER7> Yes, I'm the author of the blog (RCA). No, I haven't studied this narrow question, though it's somewhat tangential to the arguments I've advanced (outcomes; prices; aggregate costs; etc). I have, however, seen several studies that suggest "medical bankruptcies" have very little to do with medical debt and much to do with the effects of their health on their employment/earned income (also similar patterns in Canada and some other comps in the available data...)

[https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMp1716604](https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMp1716604)

<comment><USER15> Going back to comparison between US and its "peer nations" though - I would imagine in this group of countries the concept of medical bankruptcy is largely unknown given that many have socialised healthcare.

For example I'm sure there are people in the UK who have turned to the private sector for treatment and in doing so incurred debts which resulted in bankruptcy. But that's such an exceptional unusual concept I'd be surprised if it occurred more than a handful of times in any given year.

<comment><USER7> The point is that almost all of what people have termed "medical bankruptcy" has approximately nothing to do with healthcare costs. It has to do with income/career disruption associated with their health, so these issues play out to a similar degree in other countries for similar reasons.

While I can believe there is somewhat higher variance in the US system in terms of bills/prices/etc, which sometimes affects people meaningfully, it's also worth pointing out that out of pocket costs aren't unusually high in the United States. I mean, we might have a _slightly_ larger problem with these, but that's much more of an implementation detail in terms of _who_ pays and how much than the sort of top-down policy proposals some people seem to believe are necessary (because they've badly misdiagnosed the situation or are ideologically blinkered)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I feel like this is a great article, but is very hard to digest for someone without statistical background and working knowledge of its jargon. Pretty sure it could be amended only slightly, using common language terms, for larger audience to appreciate it.

</comment><comment><USER17> Does the article address quality of life?

No one particularly thinks that artificial knees are life extending.</comment>


Show HN: Vip Signup Alerts (7-day MVP) - <AUTHOR> https://signupsumo.com

<comment><AUTHOR> It has been a pretty crazy past few days, but I'm here (and trying to stay awake) to answer any questions.

Here's our blog post about launching: [https://medium.com/@signupsumo/from- napkin-to-shipped-in-7-d...](https://medium.com/@signupsumo/from-napkin-to- shipped-in-7-days-5576a829e2c8)

Also checkout what we have planned next on our Assembly page: [https://assembly.com/signupsumo](https://assembly.com/signupsumo)

<comment><USER2> Well, this isn't really a question about the product, but I was wondering how you got such a clean looking site built so quickly (complete with logo)? I'm not design oriented at all, so I was just wondering what your approach was.

Also, how are you going to manage going from a usage-based (Clearbit is $99 for 12,500 queries) to time-based ($9/mo). Are you just hoping people won't use up all the queries, or are you going to throttle high usage users?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'm not sure if this is the best approach since I'm kinda rusty at front-end dev, but @Shea created some super slick, high-fidelity mockups for us. And then I just broke them down into a bootstrap theme and a few custom CSS components. The best approach for quick bootstrap theming seems to be just grabbing all the variables and overwriting the ones you want to change. Here's our monolithic variables file: [https://github.com/asm-products/signupsumo- web/blob/master/a...](https://github.com/asm-products/signupsumo- web/blob/master/app/assets/stylesheets/_variables.sass)

The pricing issue is one I've thought about a lot. We'll have to see how the first few months go. At the end of the day we'll probably be able to change either our free plan or upgraded plan limits to cover that $99. I'll write a blog post about this once I have more info though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> seems like a five minute script using FullContact</comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with fear of missing out? - <AUTHOR> For example, I find that when I'm making an important decision, I often start to pre-emptively regret my decision and second guessing myself. I also worry about missing out when friends talk or do things. These kinds of issues cripple my rational decision making ability. Does anyone else have this sort of problem, and have you learned any methods (or know of any books) to deal with this psychological issue? <comment><USER2> Are you very young (< 35)? If so, then I recommend talking to older people around you and hearing about their life experiences. I've found that the "fear of missing out" as a youth is assuaged when talking to folks whose most amazing life experiences occurred when they were easily twice my current age (puts a lot of things in perspective).

Also try this experiment: on one occasion, actively pursue an opportunity "overheard with friends" \- when that activity is complete, recount the entire experience and decide if there was truly something you could have lived without. On another occasion, actively _turn down_ such an opportunity and pursue something in the meantime. If you can do this once, do it again, and you'll start to learn to balance the pursuit of such opportunities and likewise a restraint. As motivation: If you don't turn down an opportunity then you are _missing out on this experiment!_

</comment><comment><USER3> I have alternative advice: follow those thoughts to its conclusion and address that.

For example:

-> I often start to preemptively regret my decision

Why do you regret your decision? Perhaps it's because there may be a more optimal decision? Why does the decision matter? Maybe you've had some failures in life and its time for an epic comeback, so you can't afford to lose. Why does it matter if you lose anyway? Maybe you feel that your friends/family will deem you worthless if you don't succeed?

If this is your train of thought, then the solution is simple: find better people to hang out with. [0]

[0] The solution isn't that trivial, but this actually would help if my example resonated more than it should've.

</comment><comment><USER4> Become a Buddhist. Not kidding.</comment>


When your Swift code breaks the compiler - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/swift/comments/4b43s5/when_your_swift_code_breaks_the_compiler <comment><USER2> Why link to a reddit post that has nothing on it and just links to medium?</comment>


How Does Stan Work? - <AUTHOR> https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/06/26/how-does-stan-work-a-reading-list/ <comment><AUTHOR> related discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20102950](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20102950)

there one finds a reference on how to download the latest edition of statistical rethinking book mentioned in the post.</comment>


Memcached 1.4.0 released - <AUTHOR> http://dustin.github.com/2009/07/16/memcached-1.4.html

<comment><USER2> OK. You got me - that quote on the side was really funny.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone know if there is a big performance upgrade to the binary protocol?

<comment><USER4> Well, it depends. Running the exact same operations through shows the difference to be negligible (the text paths were _really_ optimized). Of course, there are some particularly bad (and rare) paths in the text protocol that don't have exact analogs in the binary protocol which helps to keep it cleaner.

However, clients can safely perform certain types of optimizations now that should lead to a lot of improvement.

One thing to know is that we get _really_ high operation rates through the current version (higher than the really high operation rates we got through 1.2.8), but they're all generally faster than you can process them.

That is, we can generally saturate network interfaces before any other part of your servers.

This is to the point where some users replicate not for fault tolerance (because that's rather silly), but to increase read capacity.</comment></comment>


He Jiankui sentenced to three years in prison for CRISPR babies - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614997/he-jiankui-sentenced-to-three-years-in-prison-for-crispr-babies/ <comment><USER2> Human genetic editing promises to be one of the most beneficial technologies ever devices. One day, it will be routine, and withholding it will be regarded as cruel. This Luddite ruling is a giant step backwards.</comment>


High performance HTML - <AUTHOR> https://samdutton.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/high-performance-html/

<comment><USER2>
      Use <em> and <strong> rather than <i> and <b>: <em> and
      <strong> add meaning, not styling hints.

Strong disagree. What _actual information_ does <em> provide over <i>?</comment>


Ask HN: What can I / we do to help fight cancer? - <AUTHOR> I'm not a doctor; I don't pretend to be one.
But it infuriates me that a friends life is in someone else's hands and he has to take his doctors word for his treatment.
Long story short - what were benign tumors have started to grow again; few in the base of his skull and a few in his spine. Due to their location, they are in-operable and after months of MRI scans and tests, they've decided (yesterday) on a combined chemotherapy / breast cancer drug treatment. The doctors have said this combination is highly experimental and has had a 44% success rate over the last few years - this option was chosen over focused radiation as it appears the tumors may be spreading.
I remember reading IBM is doing great things with the Watson super computer regarding oncology - Cleveland Clinic is on the list of participants and I can't remember where he was yesterday in Virginia.
My questions are, I guess:
1 - is there anything I can do other then moral support and help with life tasks? (driving to clinic, household tasks, etc...)
2 - is folding at home still a thing? Have any results come from it yet?
3 - IF Cleveland hasn't run his tumor's DNA through Watson - is it even remotely possible for me to obtain a copy of his records and obtain access to Watson and do it myself?
4 - Is anyone working on projects along these lines I can possible contribute to? Either code or ?
5 - ??? <comment><USER2> Cleveland Clinic is pretty good.

In the last few years there has been a "Cambrian Explosion" in targeted cancer treatments, and it makes a lot of sense to investigate clinical trials you can participate in if you have a difficult case

<comment><AUTHOR> The decision made yesterday is just that - a clinical trial - so that is under way - "their best bet" so much as he told us</comment></comment>