CrashFirefox.com - <AUTHOR> http://crashfirefox.com <comment><USER2> My firefox with noscript did not crash

<comment><USER3> Hmm, I haven't checked the code yet, but Firefox 37 on Arch with NoScript crashed for me on a reload. I just got the noscript detection the first time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not a bug! The crash is as intended! (at least in chrome)

[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=432559](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=432559)

<comment><USER5> It breaks things, so it's an issue.

It may not be one that they intend to fix, but it's still an issue regardless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Actually, it didn't crash my firefox 40.0a . It asked me eventually if I would like to stop running scripts on this page. Which I did and I am now typing this using the same Firefox instance. Only it now is using 4.6gb of memory. :)

<comment><USER6> If anyone cares, here is a screen shot of the result on nightly build. [http://imgur.com/j0T7Fjh](http://imgur.com/j0T7Fjh)

<comment><USER7> This is what I got... [https://i.imgur.com/wZAfZhN.png](https://i.imgur.com/wZAfZhN.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When it detected noscript, it replaced the page with this:

        <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0">AAAA.........

...as displayed with ^U, except the "AAAA...." wasn't visible until I pasted it in this text box. I'm not sure, but I suspect the length of the AAAAs was growing rapidly. There's a lot of memory and more than one core on this system, so I think I killed the tab, which appeared only as a blank page, before it became too destructive.

</comment><comment><USER9> As a Firefox user I can confirm this does indeed crash Firefox. It however also crashes Chrome to an extent (at least on Windows) you get the aw snap page shortly after it loads.

Seems like it just overloads the browser using this technique in the URL: data:text/html,<script>location+=location+'A'.repeat(100000000);</script> \- I haven't tested in any other browser, but to me that technique would crash any browser, probably even worse on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER10> See also: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=8529794](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=8529794)

Context: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1105796](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1105796)

</comment><comment><USER11> Try running 'curl' on that URL (NQSFW). You can see what it's doing with the loop majke pointed out.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hmm, it started using a bunch of CPU and memory, but I kill -9ed it before it actually died by itself.

</comment><comment><USER13> It was like knowing the link is a Rickroll and clicking on it anyway...

Did indeed crash Firefox 37.0.1.

</comment><comment><USER14> Seriously, no disclaimer that this will hang Firefox, and will likely lock up a system for 20+ seconds before it will let you kill Firefox (linux)? (Thankfully I run linux in a vmware image, so I can go play a game while waiting for linux to figure out the process went rogue)

I didn't realize HN was the new 4chan/8chan. Sigh.

<comment><USER15> I don't know what you expected.

<comment><USER16> A big label on the page saying "Not really, FF is rock-solid. Have a nice day HN!"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Got a crash on Chrome (Linux)

</comment><comment><USER18> content in case it crashes your browser and you're interested:

        data:text/html,<script>location+=location+'A'.repeat(100000000);</script>

</comment><comment><USER19> Hung, but eventually recovered on 37.

Not really sure what I was expecting.

</comment><comment><USER20> Well that's just mean.</comment>


Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/01/space_invaders.html

<comment><USER2> Typeset material does not have "spaces", it has space, and there is more of it after a full-stop than there is between unpunctuated words. Using two spaces in non-typeset material is no-more incorrect than is using a hyphen in place of an em- or en-dash. The author is a herbert.</comment>


5 Stages of Programming Incompetence - <AUTHOR> http://coderoom.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/5-stages-of-programmer-incompetence/

<comment><USER2> "The Veteran - The first ten lines of any function, even an accessor, are all assert statements. All the error conditions for each function are dutifully checked and handled"

Even spent a couple hours tracing through a zillion code paths to reverse- engineer the implicit contract for a particular method? Do any clients explicitly check for the FooException which bubbles up the stack when Method A accepts null for an Integer value (fun with Java) and passes that null down into Method B which in turn, ....

I'll take overzealous assertion vs. the alternative of under-definition any day.

</comment><comment><USER3> So the guru stage involves no unit tests? I have to admit that when I program on my own I never write unit tests. But in a corporate environment it's blasphemy. Plus on my own (solo) projects I know the app like the back of my hand and it's a reasonable size so I can keep everything smoke tested. But on large corporate projects it's really easy to add a showstopper you never notice. I'd like to hear the author talk more about this (or commenters).

<comment><USER4> I'm nowhere near the guru stage, but I'm definitely down with convention over conviction. No matter what stage you're in (or even alternate paths), making your code communicate your intent to your coworkers is much more important than penning your magnus opus. It's okay for freshly-minted programmers to blindly follow the patterns of the grey-hairs and for the zealous to write heathen code, depending on who will be maintaining the project in six months. The equilibrium of the team will balance as everyone learns through building good product.

I agree with you on personal projects, as well. Do whatever lets you meet your goal, whether that be learning how to hardcore TDD or getting a horribly- written, hacky project out to your friends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ah to be a newbie again...

My first BASIC games were hilarious with their global variables. The program was a giant mess of spaghetti code. If I wanted to add a new feature, I would make up wacky variable names to be sure I wasn't using them elsewhere. stupidThing = 1, hairygoat = 2, etc. (I don't think the BASIC editor I used had find&replace, or if it did, I didnt know how to use it)

Terrible code, but man was I having fun.</comment>


Who owns emails? - <AUTHOR> http://www.mailbackapp.com/email_ownership

<comment><USER2> Hmmm, not as effective a call for action as you might want. In part because under US law email delivered to your corporate address is a company asset, not a personal asset.

That said, there is a lot to be gained by having copies of your personal email (and metadata) handy. I am sure I am not unique in that I've got a script that uses imap to pull non-spam email into a temporally ordered store (a DVD-R :-) and a dynamically updated index (initially sqlite, now its more mysql). Still lose stuff of course :-).

<comment><AUTHOR> Your quite unique. Just making a script for some people is extremely difficult.

<comment><USER3> [http://gmvault.org/](http://gmvault.org/)

For those who can't code or don't have the time.

<comment><AUTHOR> yep but you still need to know a few things as well as: [https://github.com/abjennings/gmail- backup](https://github.com/abjennings/gmail-backup) or [http://www.fetchmail.info/](http://www.fetchmail.info/) and [https://github.com/Flushot/gmail-backup](https://github.com/Flushot/gmail- backup)

<comment><USER4> fetchmail for saving, notmuch for indexing/searching.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For the audience to provide constructive feedback you need to give us something to work with. On face value the idea seems solid enough but there is nothing for us to provide feedback on.

The landing page looks decent, I am not a fan of the mock conversation with Snowden, I think it is tacky. I see what you are attempting to portray however I think you miss the mark.

We need some more details rather than just telling us it runs on Google's App Engine.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand this. Is this something that you just blindly send your email to and then they save it for you? There's no indication of how you get access to it, or what is sent when you submit your email. Or really why you would use this over any of the commonly available email backup solutions.

</comment><comment><USER7> If I need to backup my emails, why wouldn't I use some dedicated solution I have control over? Example. [http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore- home.aspx](http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-home.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER8> I agree, this doesn't really fill me with great confidence. There is no information about where the data is stored.. is it encrypted? Is it a company? And I am simply registered to pay $10 to be put into a waiting list?

</comment><comment><USER9> Shameless Plug:

I have built an Email Backup software for the Mac at [http://thehorcrux.com/](http://thehorcrux.com/). I'm currently building a cloud version of it at [http://www.backupfog.com/](http://www.backupfog.com/).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's made on google app engine, there's no intention on being shady. That's why I use gumroad.com for payments. I would have made a kickstarter on this. But it isn't available where I live.

</comment><comment><USER10> pedro, you took the whole lean product stuff too serious. take a walk.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's not totally clear to me from the website what the service does, how it works, and what benefits it provides. Can you post a more detailed explanation?

</comment><comment><USER12> this looks very shady to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I personally guarantee that's not the case

<comment><USER13> That sounds even shadier...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Doesn't seem to work...</comment>


"Microsoft needs Wizards" (orig 1984 usenet posting) - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/net.jobs/msg/4f2cf440919eeda9 <comment><USER2> I wasn't really aware of what was going on at Microsoft in 1984, but if what is claimed in that is true then if helps contextualizes for me what is currently going on at Google because they've been making similar claims in recent years. If the beast that I know as Microsoft used to be a forward thinking awesome place to work then there's a lot of reason to people Google will eventually morph into a similar beast. Get enough people together and bureaucracy and mediocrity will carry the day. You can get creative and take longer to get to that point, but ultimately unless you halt employee growth or create something so loosely federated that it cannot really be thought of as a single company you're driving toward Microsoft.

<comment><USER3> It works like this. Every startup company has programmers who actually create things and shape the world. Replacing any of such people is a bit hit. Switching from one person's vision to another is difficult if there were only two or three people in the company to begin with.

Once you have thousands of employees, each one is now given a role that is replaceable. Do this specific task, every day. If you quit, we find somebody else. The job becomes boring, just so the company can easily replace you.

In other words, startups just care about the product. But big companies have the same mentality towards their own employees. They no longer limit a system to product development, but systemize employees as well. Employees are no longer there to innovate, but to be a cog.

That's why the same companies that start out being created by visionaries, suck to work at when they are huge, because now they are looking for cogs. Hiring is just part of a system to replace some previous cogs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> \- informal lounges for design/discussion/rap sessions

Maybe if they spent the time writing software instead of practicing rap music. Talk about wrong time, wrong place.

<comment><USER4> Funny! Didn't "rap" mean something like "free form brainstorming" in the 70s? I noticed it in the Simpsons:

\----

Flanders: Reverend, I'm, uh, I'm afraid something terrible has happened.

Lovejoy: Well, sit down and rap with me brother, that's what I'm here for.

Flanders: [sits] I was talked into doing a dance called "The Bump," but my hip slipped and my ... my buttocks came into contact with the ... buttocks of another young man.

<comment><USER5> It was just hip/black slang for "talk."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting we're reading this on Google. It never occurred to MSFT that a usenet archive would be good to have.

<comment><USER6> Well, it's not like Google was keeping it, either. Deja should get most of the props here, I think.

<comment><USER5> I heard that in addition to the archives they bought from Deja News, there was also a guy within Google who did a lot of work to reconstruct posts from old tapes accumulated by individual people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow. It reads like a checklist of all the things that have gone wrong in MS - albeit things that go wrong in most (all?) large corps.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sounds like the Google Blog, only more awkward.

MS had "no venture capital owners or cash crunches to limit us" in 1984?

<comment><USER9> Microsoft almost ran out of money back in their Micro-Soft days as language designers for iffy computer kit companies. Gates has been conservative about cash ever since, which is why they avoided paying a dividend for about a decade after they went blue chip.</comment></comment>


Why We Stink at Tackling Climate Change - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/69/patterns/why-we-stink-at-tackling-climate-change <comment><USER3> Howdy! I work fighting climate change, and I guess it's that time again for a what-can-you-do-about-it post :)

So what can you do about it?

You can get a job fighting climate change! Solar, wind, batteries, and EVs are now competitive against fossil-based incumbents, so now the biggest issue is scaling them up. That means tons and tons of problem solving, which means great software and engineering jobs and startup opportunities!

If you think about it, the switch to renewables means we need to deal with situations where the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, yet still keep the lights on. That means you have to build in a ton of storage and load control and electrify as much as you can (transportation, heating, etc.). All that new infrastructure needs to have good communication and analysis, which means software! Something like half of the impact of the energy transition will be done through software optimizing the deployment and operation of clean energy assets.

I've posted about this many times[1], so please check out my previous comments on links for finding climate impact work. It's mostly about (A) browsing sector-specific conferences and looking at the expo and speakers' companies for ones that interest you, and (B) showing up to energy meetups just to meet people working in the space. If you're in the bay area, I run a calendar of all the clean energy-related events ([https://bayareaenergyevents.com](https://bayareaenergyevents.com)), so I encourage you to just start showing up :)

My favorite climate change joke is, "They say we won't act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!"

Why not turn the fatalism and anxiety you feel into a paycheck?

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15127154](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15127154)

<comment><USER4> > _Why not turn the fatalism and anxiety you feel into a paycheck?_

I don't want to sound mean, but the only anxiety I am beginning to feel lately is that more and more people are turning to fighting a gas that all of us exhale, some of them fanatically and violently, and they seem to ultimately agree that we must wind down the economy to beat it. I don't want to lose everything that gave us wealth, progress, medical breakthroughs and freedom for the sole reason that some people are afraid of a warmer climate.

So, what do I do about it?

<comment><USER5> I think this comment is being unfairly downvoted. I believe a lot of so-called environmentalists are actually opposed to civilization, and would prefer if humanity reverted to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. This is more "natural", and humans are generally happier living like that, so it's not a totally ridiculous idea. The main drawback is that it would require the deaths of billions, but by their revealed preferences, it seems a lot of environmentalists are actually okay with this. Why else would they oppose the only proven solution that could bring CO2 emissions to zero in time to limit the damage to something survivable?: nuclear power.

I think climate change is the biggest current threat to humanity, and almost nobody is taking it as seriously as they should. Even the ongoing protests in London are a massive under-reaction. But how many of those environmentalists actually support a solution that isn't "wind down the economy?" Germany began a complete shutdown their nuclear power plants in response to a reactor containment failure in Japan that killed nobody directly, and even with the worst case assumptions, statistically caused few hundred excess cancer deaths at most. This is 0% of the deaths that will be caused when one of the alternative "wind down the economy" or "uncontrolled temperature rise" plans triggers World War 3.

<comment><USER4> > _I think climate change is the biggest current threat to humanity, and > almost nobody is taking it as seriously as they should._

Here I disagree. We're trying to colonise Mars, but at the same time believe a somewhat warmer climate is an existential threat to humanity. How is that logical?

Climate change will not destroy humanity, civilisation, or even the planet. We will adapt easily. Look to the 20th century for examples of actual threats to humanity...

> _This is 0% of the deaths that will be caused when one of the alternative > "wind down the economy" or "uncontrolled temperature rise" plans triggers > World War 3_

Exactly, only that these aren't the only possible triggers for a WW3.

<comment><USER6> > We're trying to colonise Mars, but at the same time believe a somewhat > warmer climate is an existential threat to humanity.

That's an interesting non sequitur. How does the potential for colonization of Mars say anything about how big of a threat climate change is?

<comment><USER4> > _That's an interesting non sequitur._

I'll have to write it in a more straightforward manner, since it's apparently a non sequitur if you don't understand it: if we are optimistic about living on a planet as hostile as Mars, how can we be pessimistic about surviving a temperature increase of a few degrees on Earth?

<comment><USER6> That is a very superficial comparison between two problems that are fundamentally different, especially with regards to what's at stake.

Going to Mars has no deadline, and barely any stakes. If it proves practically unachievable, it's a failed dream, or maybe just an indefinitely delayed dream; no big deal. Earth is already inhabited by millions of species, and if it becomes even one percent less hospitable, that's an existential crisis.

<comment><USER4> > _Earth is already inhabited by millions of species, and if it becomes even > one percent less hospitable, that's an existential crisis._

No, it's not. This is just the typical scaremongering and dramatisation I'm getting so tired of. Every populated region on Earth becomes much more than one percent less hospitable every winter and there is no crisis, especially not an existential one. We can cope very well with minor changes in weather and climate and we will. Stop obsessing about climate doom scenarios, it's silly.

<comment><USER6> > Every populated region on Earth becomes much more than one percent less > hospitable every winter

No, winter is part of the baseline. Life has evolved to to survive during winter, and societies have been built to handle it. We do not have ecosystem collapses or widespread climate refugees every winter. Permanent and unprecedented changes cause completely different problems than a few months of winter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just watched this documentary by David Attenborough [1] the other day. It's unfortunate that still to this day, scientists and researches have to emphasize the phrase 'climate change'.

It's sickening to know that rainforests are being bulldozed off by their hundreds of square kilometers every single day. And it's even more sickening that many think 'reforestation' is going to help this cause.

Rainforests are an ecosystem with thousands of different plants and trees, which contribute to a healthy and flourishing environment. Thinking that you can replace this with a few different species is not the way to approach this problem.

We really have to start looking at these issues from an individual point of view. We have to consider the fact that it might be our individual behavior that's going to inspire change in others.

World's Elite has proven time and time again that they do not care for the planet, not unless there is big money involved.

[1]: [https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment- arts-47988337](https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-47988337)

<comment><USER8> You seem to be conflating two different issues.

Eliminating plant and animal diversity is dangerous for various reasons, but has little to do with climate change.

As to deforestation as a mechanism of CO2 removal vis a vis climate change, there are more trees now than there have ever been.

<comment><USER7> Ignorance is bliss!

<comment><USER9> reforestation has been ongoing at a massive scale for quite a while now - <USER2> drove on a motorway for days across Brazil, for example, and only saw forests of trees lined in perfect rows by the road.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Despite the misanthropic title, the article ends on a positive note:

> Thanks to our cultural evolution, we have cities, houses, and indoor > plumbing. As a result, to the benefit of our health, we learned to use > toilets. A primate with such behavioral flexibility, capable of going > against millennia of natural selection, is nearly miraculous, yet an > everyday event. Take heart. An originally arboreal primate species capable > of being toilet-trained should also be capable of becoming planet-trained. > In Aesop's tale, remember, the tortoise triumphs. Because the hare and the > tortoise are both part of ourselves, they can only win or lose together, > which makes it all the more important that we get our hare-brained selves > under control.

Personally, I find these heartening perspectives better than the pessimistic ones. And I have found that presenting such views to less informed friends makes them more motivated to take action and limit their consumption rather than the doom and gloom perspective.

<comment><USER11> > And I have found that presenting such views to less informed friends makes > them more motivated to take action and limit their consumption rather than > the doom and gloom perspective.

I dunno. I for one is getting a little tired of all these optimistic endings. It almost sounds like - hey, nothing to worry about, the problem will solve itself. Renewables are getting cheaper and if you just skip one day a week of eating meat then everything will be just fine.

And then you look at the PPM chart and it just keeps going up.

Social science is saying that scaring people doesn't work and I don't understand why. Don't we have the loss aversion? [0]

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of the reasons people are bad at tackling something like the changing climate is that the subject has been turned into something closely resembling a religion and as such has gained adherents spreading the true faith and detractors denying it, with almost no sane discussion being possible between the two. This is a sad state of things as it leads to totally illogical actions on both sides. Combine this with the clear and present danger from commercial interests trying to gain from either keeping the status quo or from selling new and often largely unproven - or even proven ineffective - ways to 'fight climate change' and the stage was set for the current situation.

This situation has occurred earlier in history, an example being the attitude towards nuclear power. While some point at the accidents in Three Miles Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima as examples of why nuclear power is the spawn of Satan and should be banished from this earth, others see those same accidents in the light of the stalled development of nuclear technology due to the actions of those who do everything to stall those developments leading to ancient reactors being kept on-line because their successors have been stalled or cancelled.

</comment><comment><USER13> So I have a really serious question. I'm not a denier/skeptic. I just like to look at things logically and pose questions.

Over the next 50 years these 3 things will occur:

1) Only electric vehicles on the ground, air and water

2) All meat for consumption grown in the lab, no farm animals raised

3) No coal plants

Won't this eliminate all major types of pollution?

If at this point, the planet still keeps warming? What are "they" going to blame it on then?

It's quite easy to see this is where technology is going. But yet I never hear anything about it. Just we have 10/12 years until we all die.

Also please don't just down vote me. I'm interested in knowing if there are cycles in warming due to the earth or the sun. I have come across youtube videos and articles that we are in-line for another ice age. I just wonder, if we'll ever get to a peak warm, will it reverse and we'll start cooling rapidly?

<comment><USER4> > _If at this point, the planet still keeps warming? What are "they" going to > blame it on then?_

On living beings, most of them exhale CO2. Those who are already yelling to have fewer children ([https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want- to-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight- climate-change-have-fewer-children)) will go one step further.

<comment><USER14> All the CO2 they exhale got the carbon from plants, which recently pulled it from the air. Humans are carbon neutral.

<comment><USER4> > _All the CO2 they exhale got the carbon from plants, which recently pulled > it from the air. Humans are carbon neutral._

This would be true AFAICT if we somehow managed to eat without any CO2 emissions. But agriculture is a huge driver of CO2 emissions and so are logistics, electricity for cooking etc.. So while the CO2 we exhale comes from the atmosphere through plants, animals and so on, we inevitably cause a lot of CO2 emissions as a side-effect in the process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Politicians, being decision makers having vested interest in denying climate change is the epitome of corruption, because unlike other corruption; wealth doesn't prevent themselves or their kin from getting affected in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER16> We stink at it for a few reasons - some covered by the article - and some not. Primarily it is due to population in total and our habits of which generate Co2. Our houses, energy expenditure on cars, planes etc are valuable to us, and are not at all easy to change.e.g. Thing about houses designed for A/C with lots of glass. Lifecycle is 50 years. We are over optimistic about very large infrastructure change in wind / solar and despatchable energy replacing other sources and aren't very practical. Did someone mention nuclear or is that verboten? It is also a distributed problem. If one country gets 'ahead' it incurs a cost penalty (unless you are one of the few with cheap hydro). What's the incentive? Many intuitively believe in climate change but want someone else to pay (doesn't work out). Who realistically can see widespread support to cut the standard of living? So, some problems are very hard and this is one of them. No real easy answer. This is why we stink at it. Until the pain is far more evident.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think the actual reason is that most of the countries hardest hit (due to concievable first order effects) have mostly very low GDP. Hence the incumbents have very little immediate financial incentive to pull their weight.

</comment><comment><USER11> "Enter global heating (a better word than "warming," which carries misleading connotations of comfy and toasty)"

That's it. I'm gonna call it "global heating" from now on.

</comment><comment><USER18> > What's wrong with us? Not us Democrats, Republicans, or Americans

But really, Republicans, though.

> Earth is warming mostly due to human activity

> Republicans (Boomer/GenX/Millennial): 18/2x/36

> Democrats: 75

[https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/14/many- republ...](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/14/many-republican- millennials-differ-with-older-party-members-on-climate-change-and-energy- issues/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Republicans in the u.s. are the biggest threat to the climate because they don't think there's a problem.</comment>


Data Structures and Algorithms with Object-Oriented Design Patterns in Python - <AUTHOR> http://www.brpreiss.com/books/opus7/html/book.html

<comment><USER2> Wish they made the source code downloadable... It would be helpful for students who want to step through the code and actually see what is going on. <http://algowiki.com> offers some code, but it isn't all necessarily in Python.

<comment><AUTHOR> gzipped sources:

<http://www.brpreiss.com/books/opus7/public/Opus7-1.0.tar.gz>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> <http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/> has implementation of algorithms in all programming languages.

</comment><comment><USER4> The title sounds randomly generated.</comment>


To See the Elephant - <AUTHOR> http://kylerussell.today/blog/2019/3/15 <comment><USER2> Side note: the Gold Rush idiom of "seeing the elephant" had spread nationally by the 1860s; Civil War soldiers on both sides used the phrase to mean they had direct combat experience. A veteran who had been shot at and lived would be said to have "seen the elephant."

 _> What blew my mind watching the Theranos doc was that Holmes would have had an easier time of it by just doing the hard work of actually solving the problems in her way._

This assumes the problems are _actually solvable,_ though, which becomes less likely the grander the vision gets. And when you're chasing the types of investors Theranos was, there's little incentive for you to keep your vision moored to reality; these investors are all looking for Big Hits, so the more anchored your pitch is to nitty-gritty things like what is actually possible, the less appealing it will be to them.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. Reducing the amount of blood needed would have been useful but Theranos had no special knowledge for achieving this so either they had to admit that that or start lying.

It's like starting a company to develop a gas engine that achieves 95% fuel efficiency. Great idea but without knowing how to do that it's useless.</comment></comment>


Redis Loadable Modules System - <AUTHOR> http://www.antirez.com/news/106 <comment><USER2> The docs explain the module system ([https://github.com/antirez/redis/blob/unstable/src/modules/I...](https://github.com/antirez/redis/blob/unstable/src/modules/INTRO.md)) but it doesn't quiet explain what the system is for. I couldn't quite get that from reading the blog post or the doc page. Specifically:

What kind of modules did you have in mind when designing this? Are any of the below possible?

* ldap backend login system

* multi-tenant redis

* alternate db format/file system.

* implement a new redis data type. say built-in date support

* can i implement new commands and operators on said data types

An of course, thanks for this fantastic software. We use it everyday. Will read in more detail about this over the weekend :-)

<comment><USER3> Actually the post explains the motivation well. The basic idea is to add capabilities to redis at native speeds, without having to either convince antirez that they're necessary or forking redis.

I work for Redis Labs, and over the course of the past few weeks we've experimented with some modules using the API. Some of the things we did that might answer some of your questions:

a PAM based authentication module, which IIRC can plug into LDAP potentially.

A bloom filter implementation on top of bitmaps.

An inverted index that doesn't use existing data types but rather creates compressed indexes directly using redis strings (I wrote that one personally BTW)

An API to store images on redis and retrieve them resized or cropped.

So right now the only way to create new data types is to piggyback strings as raw memory, but the final version of the API will include actually registering new data types.

You can see the modules we've released here: [https://github.com/RedisLabsModules/](https://github.com/RedisLabsModules/)

<comment><USER4> Maybe you can relay the information to the appropriate person, but on [http://redismodules.com](http://redismodules.com), I can neither right click "open in new tab" or ctrl+click to open in a new tab.

This breaks my normal browsing habit of opening new tabs as I see something that interests me, but waiting until I finish skimming the list to read.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, will let the relevant person know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's been a lot of unusual features I've been hoping Redis will support but obviously given their edge-case nature it's unlikely that they'd ever be implemented.

This is great to see. Instead of cluttering up the core engine with junk people can mix in their own functionality.

</comment><comment><USER6> This looks interesting. I've only glanced at the docs, but it looks like this module system lets you define new commands but not necessarily new data structures (since you'd have to implement RDB/AOF serialization for those).

Are there plans for that? It's probably possible to do most of that with this module system but you'd have to serialize the data structure into a string and "type X" wouldn't return your custom data structure type.

<comment><USER7> Definitely plans to register new data types with serialize/deserialize callbacks! Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is great and long awaited, please consider some kind of a namespacing scheme for module-defined commands though, or things can easily become messy. In the module example the "hello." prefix is specified for all defined commands - it would probably be better to specify it once on module initialization and have all commands defined by the module prefixed with it automatically, the module registries could then manage the prefix registration/allocation to module authors.

</comment><comment><USER9> Since Redis is BSD licensed I wouldn't be surprised if this is the start of popular paid-for proprietary third party modules.

<comment><USER10> Even if redis was GPL licensed you still could do that. Linux is GPL and there is proprietary driver modules.

<comment><USER11> There are proprietary modules for linux, and they are distributed and used, but there isn't really a full consensus on whether they are legal. You can certainly do it and get away with it though.

[http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/gpl_modules.html](http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/gpl_modules.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I once built something like this for Redis but never really thought he would do it!

[https://github.com/spullara/redis/tree/plugins](https://github.com/spullara/redis/tree/plugins)

<comment><USER13> I've written something similar too. Adding plugins/modules was like a rite of passage for anyone digging into the redis source. I'm definitely happy to see modules getting official support now though.

<comment><USER12> I was blown away with how easy it was and with the code quality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If these modules are going to be as fast as the native commands, is there any reason to not lift the entire native command set out into a set of "base" modules?

<comment><USER3> They're not going to be _as_ fast, but almost as fast. You could do that in theory but IMHO there's not much point

</comment></comment><comment> shawn-butler How people can code on airplanes amazes me. I have tried but the cramped space, the constant interruptions.. I never get much done.

<comment> noir-york It's not the constant interruptions (headphones do a good job of dealing with that), its the lack of internet access that is the showstopper - I don't have all the APIs + docs in my head.

<comment><USER15> Use [https://kapeli.com/dash](https://kapeli.com/dash) on Mac or the open source equivalents on other platforms.

<comment><USER16> [http://devdocs.io/offline](http://devdocs.io/offline) works well on Linux and Windows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> @antirez, is Redis 4.0 going to be part of the more rapid release schedule (will we see it in 3, 6 months) or are major upgrades still annual releases (we'll see 4.0 in 12 months)?

<comment><USER7> Definitely part of the short release cycle, we'll probably focus on getting modules done and the features already pending into "unstable", and a few more minor stuff, and release it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> [https://github.com/RedisLabsModules/redex](https://github.com/RedisLabsModules/redex)

Shows some sample modules from Redis Labs called RedisEx, pretty useful stuff (although most of these should really be in Redis by now but at least it's an option to include as modules).

<comment><USER3> > most of these should really be in Redis by now

This exactly the point of the module system. You don't need to either convince antirez to accept/implement a new feature, or fork redis if he doesn't agree. It will make the dynamics of redis much more interesting IMO

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> they also announced a couple of "hubs" for hosting/discovering these plugins, plus a vetted one by redislabs

<comment><USER20> Indeed - [http://modules.redis.io](http://modules.redis.io) will be the open source place and the Redis Labs' Module Hub is at [https://redismodules.com](https://redismodules.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So who is adding node.js support?!

</comment><comment><USER22> Someone should really implement an interval module.

This custom implementation was pretty good: [http://blog.togo.io/how- to/adding-interval-sets-to-redis/](http://blog.togo.io/how-to/adding-interval- sets-to-redis/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I bet a package manager will follow it. redis install moduleX and then we'll have lib and target dependencies.

<comment><USER7> But everything will depend on the padding module.

<comment><USER23> and then the author will remove it one day. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Super excited to hear about this at Redis Conf, looking forward to implementing a few ideas.

</comment><comment><USER25> Sounds exciting. Hopefully it won't be as under-appreciated as Apache Traffic Server's plugin system.

</comment><comment> awinter-py databases (redis included) are awesome. It's always surprising to me that we don't run web apps directly on the database; they're high-performance, durable and parallel, and for some apps are already the perf bottleneck.

I think the only reason we don't is that deployment and testing isn't straightforward. Fingers crossed antirez will get this right.

<comment><USER26> You might find CouchDB pretty interesting, then! [0]

[0] [https://couchdb.apache.org/](https://couchdb.apache.org/)

<comment> awinter-py I know them for data sync. is there a stored proc deployment feature as well?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm hoping there's an easy way to turn this off for the foreseeable future, to avoid all the obvious security holes this is likely to introduce.

<comment><USER3> You don't have to use it, and you should not use modules you don't trust.

<comment><USER27> In an ops-type capacity, I support developers. I keep up with news like this _specifically_ to avoid winding up with modules somebody else trusts, but didn't inspect.

<comment><USER3> What would be a must and should probably be a default, is not allowing to load modules using the network API, only via config file.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I tried to read the article but I couldn't. It's all one big <pre> block. The word wrapping is wrong on input! Individual paragraphs are groups of individual lines and extra long lines that the browser wraps for you. So you end up with lines in the middle of paragraphs that only have one or two words.

Net result is it's very hard to read.

I tried Safari's reader mode, but that was even worse. Because all formatting comes from happenstance in the <pre> tag reader mode loses _all_ formatting. The entire article (and code!) becomes one long block of text.

I'm continually amazed at people's attempts to reinvent text layout in the browser.

<comment><USER18> Why is this downvoted? It's true that this blog has bad formatting considering how simple it is, there's no reason to use _< pre>_ for the entire text.

Just because the author created Redis doesn't mean the site isn't badly designed.

<comment><USER28> I make these kind of comments every once in a while. They're usually downvoted, I assume, for being off-topic or unnecessarily harsh ('We might have cured cancer!' vs 'I can't read the article because of the video behind the text.').

But I hope some people see them and work on the issue.

Sometimes, if enough other people agree, these kind of comments get voted up. I guess this issue didn't annoy most people enough to get the up votes.</comment></comment></comment>


Greg McAdoo, Sequoia Partner, made an iPhone flight planning app - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=313064537&mt=8

<comment><USER2> Greg is one of the two VC partners I know who still program. (The other is Albert Wenger of Union Sq Ventures.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Greg is cool, and I am guessing he is a pilot. Good to see VCs getting there hands dirty.

The 5* is just from one review so not really a headline.

</comment><comment><USER4> Warning: opens iTunes.

<comment><USER5> Here's a link to see more info without hitting iTunes: <http://www.appstorehq.com/touchplan-iphone-30416/app>

(Disclaimer: that is my newest project.)

<comment><USER6> nice site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's the website for the app:

<http://touch-plan.webs.com/>

</comment><comment><USER8> I was looking for something exactly like this a few months ago, when I was still flying (taking a break currently). I think it's fair to charge $4.99 for something like this.

<comment><USER9> And with Jet A prices where they are...

<comment><USER8> 100LL for me :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You mean, one 5* review.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why isn't he charging for it? I'm not sure if that should make me less ("he can't figure out pricing") or more impressed ("he doesn't care about just money").</comment>


Ask HN: What is the cheapest way to serve up video? - <AUTHOR> If you were building a scalable video streaming service (netflix-like) what would be some of the most economical services for bandwidth? <comment><USER2> Most economical would be to build it yourself. All the cloud services are too expensive if you are looking to scale unless you have the budget of netflix. I do encourage you to checkout this one service I found while researching similar topic. No affiliations but they looked interesting as they use webrtc/peer to peer to reduce bandwidth costs

[https://peer5.com](https://peer5.com)

<comment><USER3> Hey, I work for Peer5 (I'm pretty new) mentioned above (YC2017), we're definitely the most affordable way to scale your video to petabytes of traffic.

It doesn't work everywhere (for example if you need sub-second latency) but it's heaps better than stuff like webtorrent for live/vod video (something I checked before I joined). We can typically offload 90-98% to P2P meaning we can offload 90% of the traffic to P2P.

We don't typically talk about cost savings (we talk about improving quality of experience for end viewers of the video) but cost savings is definitely there.

This is the first time I'm talking about my job here (usually I'm all Node.js and JavaScipt in HN) but if you want to talk business shoot me an email at benji @ company name.com and mention you're from HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Probably WebTorrent. Your viewers essentially help to host the content:

[https://webtorrent.io/](https://webtorrent.io/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Hey have you got any contact details? Love to have a chat about serving video</comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with inappropriate interview questions? - <AUTHOR>

A while back I had an interview with a fairly well known startup for an internship. The interviewer asked me a few personal questions - what did my parents do, do I have any siblings, what is my relationship status, whether or not my SO would be willing to move, etc. At the time I was a little creeped out but I didn't think much of it since I ended up taking an offer somewhere else.

Now it's about the time that I'm going to start looking for a full-time job and I was wondering what I should say if that situation comes up again. If I say "sorry, I don't feel comfortable answering these questions", I'm afraid they might think I'm being prudish or something. I know startups are quite casual, but are these types of questions normal? <comment><USER2> Your interviewer just sounds inexperienced to me. I'd deflect it: "That sounds like an off-prem kinda question. Maybe one of these days we can meet for a beer after work and swap stories."

</comment><comment><USER3> "Relationship status" is flat out illegal.

The personal family stuff is just wierd.

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=things+you+are+not+allowed+to+ask+...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=things+you+are+not+allowed+to+ask+in+an+interview)

<comment><USER4> Technically no question is illegal during an interview. However, if you ask a question they may later use that as evidence of discrimination in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It all depends on the level of inappropriateness, how it benefits you, and your personal comfort level with it. If you're applying for a super great job, it might be in your self-interest to casually accept a few probing questions like that if you think that it gives you a better opportunity to get the job.

If you're the litigious or confrontational type, you might be able to spin this type of incident into a lawsuit or threaten them in some sly way to guarantee the job. I wouldn't do it that way or recommend doing that, but that's certainly an option for aggressive personality types.</comment>


Avant Browser is soooo much faster than firefox 3 - <AUTHOR>

Ok i dont work for Avant Browser or anything, infact I have been using firefox until now. Got into a conversation with one of my friends and asked him if he downloaded firefox 3 yet. He told me he didnt and told me hes been using Avant Browser for years. I got curious and downloaded it and by golly this thing is QUICK! its faster than any of the top browsers i have used. How come this thing isnt in the lime light like all the others? Gets you thinking huh... <comment><USER2> Cos it's based on IE, one of the worst browsers available.

"Gets you thinking huh..."

No, not really.</comment>


Google and Ambient Computing - <AUTHOR> https://stratechery.com/2019/google-and-ambient-computing/ <comment><USER2> A handful of oligopolies coercing me to use overcomplicated always-connected gadgets that are orchestrated by "AI" that I don't control, can't train, and whose main objective is to manipulate my behavior and siphon as much of my private info to its corporate master as possible. All of this to solve "problems" that I never had, while a choir of corporate shills drones on and on that problems I _actually_ have are not real or not important.

I'll take 80s dystopian cyberpunk over this crap any time of the day.

<comment><USER3> Isn't it time that Google grows up and becomes a true tech company? I consider products containing adware to be "half-broken" and I don't understand how Google engineers can feel proud of their work. As an engineer I want my work to be paid for because my users like my products, and I certainly wouldn't want any of my work to be used to serve anyone other than my users.

<comment><USER4> Do you have an example of a "true tech company"?

<comment><USER5> Oracle fits this description nicely. :)

<comment><USER3> No that's a law firm :)

<comment><USER6> And a strip and gut, tech acquisition company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Google is failing to organize the world's information in a way that is useful to me. I wanted to look up how to split a NURBS surface in half. You know, the math behind computing the new point and weights. All I got was a bunch of stuff from CAD vendors talking about how to manipulate NURBS in their own tools.

Since then, I've seen more of this trend. It's hard to find information about how anything works now because most the results are commercial - SEOed to be high in the rankings.

I'd like an option to screen out commercial results in favor of more informational ones. They're supposed to be helping me find information right? But in reality they've shifted to feeding me marketing information.

<comment><USER8> Splitting a NURBS surface "in half" is an insanely complicated operation, and the way you do it almost certainly depends on your intended use case.

If you can't find a library (or engine) in your domain that has the operation, then you're kind of S.O.L., and have to start from first principles.

I don't blame commercial results and SEO for this. It's not like you used to be able to see a menu of rich choices for this, and now they're lost in the noise of companies with a mission.

<comment><USER9> > Splitting a NURBS surface "in half" is an insanely complicated operation, > and the way you do it almost certainly depends on your intended use case.

It's actually not "insanely complicated", and there are resources around, like [https://pages.mtu.edu/~shene/COURSES/cs3621/NOTES/spline/NUR...](https://pages.mtu.edu/~shene/COURSES/cs3621/NOTES/spline/NURBS- knot-insert.html) and [https://www.amazon.com/NURBS-Book-Monographs-Visual- Communic...](https://www.amazon.com/NURBS-Book-Monographs-Visual- Communication-ebook/dp/B000U0OXHG)

> It's not like you used to be able to see a menu of rich choices for this, > and now they're lost in the noise of companies with a mission.

I mentioned just yesterday that DDG results are better for me, and this case is an example. "NURBs splitting algorithm" turns up a bunch of results.

<comment><USER8> > It's actually not "insanely complicated"

Hi, your first link talks about NURBS curves, not NURBS surfaces. Cutting a surface in half is significantly more complicated than cutting a curve in half.

And your second link is to a commercial result, an entire book. Presumably because the topic is complicated enough that people are willing to pay $69 to $78 to understand the challenge well enough.

If your DDG search for "splitting a NURBS surface in half" are successful, I'd love to see the results.

<comment><USER7> >> Cutting a surface in half is significantly more complicated than cutting a curve in half.

No, it's actually the Exact same thing. Just applied independently to each of the curves in one direction.

But none of that is really important. 15 years ago it would be trivial to learn how to do it with a Google search. Today not so.

Also, a book result is still better for me than the commercial tool links which contain no math or theory what so ever.

<comment><USER8> > No, it's actually the Exact same thing. Just applied independently to each > of the curves in one direction.

I can easily imagine situations where I would not be happy with that result.

If that works for you, that's great.

> Also, a book result is still better for me than the commercial tool links > which contain no math or theory what so ever.

Searching Google for "NURBS Book", "NURBS Course", "NURBS filetype:pdf" all work great for me.

At a guess, most of the people who use Google are using tools, not making them. Yes, Google favors results that make the majority happy. I see that as a feature. If I'm in the minority, yes, I do need to become a more sophisticated searcher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems like google has the unfortunate culture of just releasing a bunch of new services, not maintaining them, and allowing them to die. (Remember all of their chat apps?) I think I've read it's due to google's promotion process and needing to "release" something to move upward. I expect the majority of these service to no longer be around in 5 years.

<comment><USER11> They can't innovate, despite all of their "talent"

<comment><USER12> Innovation usually takes a much longer timeline than just launching something and killing it with a year or two when it's not sufficiently Google scale.

The world would have a lot less great products if this is how it was always done.

This is why startups continue to be the primary innovation source. They are willing to go through the hard grind to find product/market fit over multiple years.

Most of the products purchased by the big guys are at least 5-7yrs old (WhatsApp, YouTube, Waze, Looker, etc). There are some rare exceptions like Instagram and Android which were both 2yrs old at acquisition.

<comment><USER13> Isn't that exactly what X is doing though? Waymo started as a project in 2009 I believe. It wasn't anything commercial until recently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Our users tell us they find the Google Assistant to be smart, user-friendly, > and reliable, and that's so important for ambient technology. Interactions > need to feel natural and intuitive. Here's an example: if you want to listen > to music, the experience should be the same whether you are in the kitchen, > you are driving in your car, or hanging out with friends. No matter what you > are doing, you should be able to just say the name of the song and the music > just plays without you having to pull out a phone and tap on screens or push > buttons.

This may be an unpopular sentiment, but at least for me, I find a certain indefinable pleasure in manual tasks, to a certain extent. Slipping a CD into a player or a cassette into a deck or having to browse through a shelf to find the book I want. I don't think people will realise the "ambience" of these minor things we do hundreds of times a day almost unconsciously until practically everything becomes voice/thought activated and almost anything you want is delivered right to where you are. I believe that there is a certain happy medium between entirely manual and being too automated. Obviously this will be different for different tasks but we must keep in mind that the aim of corporations will always be to make them fully automated because that way they and their services become indispensable for the world. Our aim should be to try to tread the happy medium where automation makes significant difference but does not turn us into instantly-gratified, grown-up children.

<comment><USER15> You raise a valid concern, but I think there's a stable equilibrium here. It seems to me that the current goals of ambient computing pretty much match the canonical utopian scifi vision; you can order the computer to look up information or play/display whatever media you want, but there are no little robots bringing coffee to your armchair. I don't think we risk automating so much that people (or, well, wealthy people at least) never have to stand up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> People really hate Google here. Look at this thread and the other about Soli. Not a single positive comment about Google. No wonder Google engineers have stopped posting on HN. Maybe Google truly is evil but I fail to see it personally.

<comment><USER17> It's a symptom of an underlying problem.

\- companies used to respect us.

\- computers used to belong to us.

The equation changed when companies found a way to charge advertisers big money by inverting these equations.

Google is just the poster child for all this, but there are lots of other players that have cashed in.

<comment><USER18> You are free to not use their services. People acting offended for using free services. Before you say "free" is not free, well no one pays for most web services. So this is an inherent human problem not one these companies created.

<comment><USER19> Well. How does Wikipedia survive? Or Archive.org? Or Open Streetmap? Maybe the people/haters don't even care so much about advertisements in general, but the sheer mass of them, which degrades the usability, and maybe some of the services aren't that good anymore in general, while having been better before? I remember the days i happily used Altavista Search instead of the Yahoo. Because Yahoo was spammed to death, while Altavista at the time wasn't.

It feels the same with Duck Duck Go vs. Google since at least 5 years now? I don't really care how it is financed in the background, i care about how much hassle it is to find something, or even being able to find it at all. Google fails there massively for me, and i wonder why that is? Maybe because it is Anglocentric? Or even US-centric? But then the same should apply to Duck Duck Go, which isn't the case, because it works fine for me. I know it's using inferior indices, but it doesn't matter when the better ones are so overblown that i fail to find the needle in the impossibly large haystack. I'm even using other search engines before i fall back to Google, in case of not finding something. Google has gone from something good to last ditch only for me.

That was for general search. Now to the maps. With the exception of satellite/air-imagery it leaves much to be desired, and that is the labeling of places. Which fails worldwide. That algorithm is just crap on higer zoom levels. At first i thought it would be because of my location, some country far away over the Atlantic in old Europe, but it's not. I recognized that while reading something about the history of building railroads trough the Rocky Mountains, and the Googlemaps made no sense at all, because it either omits small places altogether, or puts the labels where they absolutely don't belong. Bingmaps meanwhile were a joy to use, everything was there, at the right places, and it ran even faster! _LOL?_

Then there is this thing with business listings and reviews in the map which is useless in my locations. I don't read them anymore, because any i have read were wrong, or did otherwise not meaningfully apply. I don't know why that is, is it just vandalism from random people, coercion of services like Yelp, or whatver? I don't care anymore, because _USELESS!_

Then general accuracy about what is where, and how to get there in my favored modes of transport. In my locations Open Streetmaps wins. _EVERY TIME!_ (I know that is not applicable in general, because coverage/accuracy thereof varies regionally)

What else? Hm. Youtube. What can i say? Expect to get dirty if walking into a market for stupid pigs. Though it has not only some rare, but many pearls. Just difficult to find them in all that stinking shit. Apart from that, what are they thinking if i'm listening to some ambient psychill/progressive psytrance mix which goes about 1 to 2 hours and they are interupting that with at least 4 adverts per hour for stuff which is totally unrelated and i have no interest in? Who thinks of something like that? Are they on crack?

Is there anything i like about Google? Yeah, i like EARTH. Glorious! My digital globe. Great. But i don't need that, it's more of a toy for me.

So, emperors new clothes for all the gaslighted androids, anyone? :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> """ So "being helpful" is the company's goal, not its mission statement. """

The goal derives from the mission statement; it's an implementation strategy for "universally accessible and useful."

<comment><USER21> But Google isn't making iformation "universally accessible and useful" anymore. Now they are "slurping up all the information in the universe, and doling out in controlled ways to maximize user engagement metrics and advertising revenue"

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> They used to call this "Ubiquitous Computing" [https://www.wired.com/1994/02/parc/](https://www.wired.com/1994/02/parc/)

</comment><comment><USER23> > So the devices aren't the center of the system, you are. That's our vision > for ambient computing.

The vision is correct but the naming is off. Something like "embodied computing" would convey the key difference better than "ambient", namely that the user is at the center. And yes this is a fancypants way of saying wearables.

But this is a nice attempt from google to paint the future as an extension of something it is good at (managing lots of ambient cloud-like things) while downplaying that what we're really talking about is wearables (not really a strong suit for Big G).

<comment><USER13> I wouldn't say wearables. More like device-agnostic. You are giving commands to a system. That system might literally be your surroundings in the future. Wearables, like contact lenses, might be a part of it. But so could sensors in a road or a smart window you walk past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> They are not really being helpful to me, when organizing the worlds information means, that all search results on page 1 are paid advertising.

</comment><comment><USER25> > The first thing that is striking about this list is how many of the > announcements won't ship for quite some time.

Literally everything there ships in a month, dude.

</comment><comment><USER26> Ambivalent Computing is the new auto completed mission statement. It replaced Don't be Drivel.

</comment><comment><USER27> Google hired away Oracle's President, not VP.

</comment><comment><USER28> as someone who switched to an iphone yesterday after having using google flagship models since the nexus one, i agree that this is an important direction for google's product strategy, but i think they're playing catch up from far behind.

i remarked to my wife last night that the biggest difference in the ux between the two was that my android was always a phone, and this iphone has become a platform/ux that's larger than a single device, a whole set of humanistic little devices -- airpods and the home ipad in my case. i'd always thought i couldn't switch because i use google services, but those are largely commodities now -- i've got a wide range of good enough options for photos/music/email/cal/etc. -- the google android apps are a little better, but not enough so to make a difference. even siri has been good enough so far, though my queries aren't especially complicated.

<comment><USER18> Assistant is so far ahead.

<comment> dawg- If Assistant is that far ahead, then it's really funny because assistant is very disappointing. These companies are pushing voice onto the general public before it is ready to be actually useful. I got a free google home with something and half the time I try to use it I end up closing the conversation with something like "hey google you are completely useless".

When it comes to voice recognition and language modeling we are still rubbing sticks together to make fire. But Google and Amazon are marketing their voice products like it's a zippo lighter.

They really have a chicken and the egg problem. They need more data input to train their AI and make the service better, but they need the service to be better before more people will adopt it and feed data to train the AI.

<comment><USER18> Assistant easily recognizes voice and even has continued conversation mode. One data point isn't going to change that. If these weren't ready people wouldn't buy them in troves.

<comment><USER29> More people buy Alexa devices</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft Pays University $250,000 To Adopt Office 365 - <AUTHOR> http://www.winbeta.org/?q=news/microsoft-pays-university-250000-adopt-office-365

<comment><USER2> I am working a switch over to 365 right now from novell groupwise. It seems to work fine if you use outlook. Heaven help you if you want to do something complex like bcc a message or set up a list serve on the online interface.

It just seems to be a re-skin of Live with some group oriented features and I am not sold on it. As to Microsoft being desperate to take the market I can attest to the truth of it, they did a similar deal to keep us out of google apps but with smaller numbers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Last discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2735944>

The discussion before that: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2732537></comment>


How a Handgun Works: 1911 .45 - <AUTHOR> http://animagraffs.com/how-a-handgun-works-1911-45/ <comment><USER3> There are some slight errors in the animation. Details, but those are important when talking about classics.

Better animation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6SmlOEzNBs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6SmlOEzNBs)

Watch the barrel. In the OP the entire barrel floats up and down slightly. That's incorrect. The breech end of the barrel moves up and down, the other end not so much. This is important because the angle between the barrel and the next round doesn't change in the former. Check the vid at about 3:24, after the assembly, to see what I'm talking about.

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

And the recoil animation is wrong. The gun in the OP is recoiling while the bullet is still in the barrel. That's logical, but in reality recoil only gets going after the bullet is away. Once it's out of the way the remaining propellants really accelerate, causing the bulk of the recoil. That's why recoil doesn't impact accuracy. Flinching in anticipation of recoil is another matter.

Watch this gun at 00:10 and note it doesn't move until the bullet is long gone.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um9Eos9bJDk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um9Eos9bJDk)

Proper 1911 recoil animation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H3IFJXxyEs&list=PL1469B47BB...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H3IFJXxyEs&list=PL1469B47BBD916A46)

</comment><comment><USER4> Somewhat related to another thread today - if I was creating a series of knowledge resources that would describe how to rebuild the world's technology from scratch, in addition to the detailed blueprints, and background descriptions - I'd also have a series of animagraffs included with each one - these animations tell a very complex story very quickly.

<comment><USER5> > I'd also have a series of animagraffs included with each one - <USER2> > animations tell a very complex story very quickly.

If this is typical of animagraffs, it might be a really weak starting point.

Someone went to all the trouble of making drawings, animations, and written copy without even explaining the difference between blowback and locked breach operation. Someone taking in all that text and looking at the drawings might have some serious delusions of understanding. In the case of a pistol it's especially weird: it really is simple enough that it seems like you could explain how it works using these methods.

This kind of problem deserves its own word. I suggest we call it _pseudodetail._

<comment><USER6> Agreed. For the benefit of those who don't know, blowback and locked breached operations are the two primary operating methods of semi-auto pistol actions. In a blowback action, the recoil spring and mass of slide is sufficient to keep the breech closed until after the bullet as left the barrel. It's important to wait for the bullet to leave, so that pressure can sufficiently decrease, you else you might get all sorts of nasty stuff - like the casing bursting and possibly damaging the weapon and/or the shooter.

Blowback is appropriate for lower power rounds. As power increases, the mass of slide and stiffness of spring must increase, and at some point may become impractical. So for locked breech actions, some other mechanism is used to lock the breech closed until after the bullet as left the barrel.

In the case of the 1911, is the combination of the locking lugs and and the pivoting link. The locking lugs lock the barrel into the slide, so that when fired the barrel and slide initially travel together rearwards. The pivoting link (that thing behind the recoil spring) allows the entire barrel to drop down as it travels backwards. As it drops, the lugs disengage with the slide, allowing the slide the continue to the rear and open the breech. All of this is calculated so that the pressure is safe when this occurs.

There are a variety of ways to do locked breech. The 1911's action (tilting barrel) is particularly influential.

<comment><USER7> I assume reading John Moses Browning (PBUH) patents would be enough to actually re-create the 1911 and Hi-Power and thus essentially all modern semiautomatics, with a basic level of machine shop skill.

OTOH, if you were trying to recreate firearms in a "world has ended" situation, an open bolt SMG like the Sten would probably be your first choice.

Firearms, especially pistols, would be pretty far down on the list of technologies I'd want to recreate -- irrigation, communication, and direct production technologies seem a lot more important.

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't quite go that far with the patents. I just looked at the 1911 patent, and it basically describes a dimensionally parameterized 1911 (which is in itself really cool). Parts and lengths are given in qualitative terms.

For a 1911 design for example, the actual patent and patent drawings would not quite be enough give you the dimensions nor location of the swinging link. It would take either quite a bit of tinkering, or sitting around and mathing (or both) to figure it out. Certainly not impossible, but I think the effort required goes a bit beyond your intention when you said 'basic level of machine shop skill'.

If you were stuck in your position, an optimist in human nature would pick something like a break-open shotgun. Not useless for self defense, but really useful for hunting - which you presumably would have to do for a bit while bootstrapping civilization again. If you weren't so optimistic... oh ya, totally an open bolt SMG.

<comment><USER5> In a situation where resources were constrained, the traditional lever-action rifle would be an excellent choice. Simple and reliable design with few parts, tolerances aren't so important, can be made to work with centerfire or rimfire ammo.

<comment><USER8> Isn't a bolt action a _lot_ simpler? And a lot easier to make strong?

I've never thought of lever action rifles as having a complexity worth the gains, I prefer going down to the bolt action or up to a semi-auto. Which, for that matter, can be fairly simple for lighter rounds, in fact, you have to add complexity to keep many (all??) of the designs from being full auto.

<comment><USER5> > Isn't a bolt action a _lot_ simpler?

Parts count of a bolt action is a bit smaller, but that's potentially deceptive. I'm pretty sure the tolerances are actually much tighter with a bolt action. If that isn't a problem, yeah, it's down to whatever gun can be cheaply produced in volume. (I'm sympathetic to the idea that a stamped- receiver semiauto might be a good idea as well)

My opinion here is influenced by the way lever-actions gained so much popularity in warfare and the old West even though bolt-actions were an older design.

> And a lot easier to make strong?

I imagine that's a function of metallurgy in either case. The grizzly-killing lever-action .45-70s in existence today are 140-year old designs scaled up with better materials.

<comment><USER7> Similarly with revolvers; way easier to make a semiauto pistol and depot-level maintain it than even to just fix the timing on a double action revolver.

<comment><USER5> Very true, and that's a good example for another reason. Bolt actions and revolvers have that nasty property of rotation in the action (in conjunction with close tolerances!) that somehow cosmically invites jamming. A lever action is more of a simple push-pull kind of thing.

Revolvers have hung onto their reputation for superior reliability with some people but there's so much that can go wrong, and so much that's pretty difficult to fix. In contrast you can build a semiauto that can be taken completely apart without any special tools or knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> High caliber post. I'm curious about the manufacturing process and rate of firing error. There were a lot of moving parts and it would seem difficult to ensure that the gun won't get jammed or have other issues.

<comment><USER10> You are right to be concerned about such things -- the 1911 is notorious for jamming frequently. Specifically the ejector mechanism; if the gun is not held steady after firing, the spent cartridge tends to get jammed between the barrel and the slide. This is even more common among people with small hands since they don't have the leverage to handle the recoil of a relatively beefy .45 cartridge.

This is the primary reason why the army replaced the 1911 with the Baretta M9, a 9mm pistol with much less recoil and a larger magazine size. The M9 is much less prone to jamming for a number of reasons, but the bullet is much lighter and has significantly less stopping power. A .45 round will generally put someone on their ass even if it doesn't kill them from kinetic energy alone; the same can't be said for a 9mm.

<comment><USER11> I always thought that guns jamming was for things getting stuck in the barrel or failing to fire.

After watching this site I noticed that jam is... mechanical issues, SPECIALLY with the slide, on this weapon, I believed this weapon had a special semi-auto mechanism, that is, that something ensured the slide would slide back, after seeing it slides back purely from recoil I concluded two things:

One, it is a hell of a recoil... (otherwise the slide would not slide back).

Two, it only works if you don't let the gun go backwards, if you shoot, and allow it to go back, the energy of the recoil will be spent by your body, not the slide, thus the slide won't slide, thus you will have to slide manually... Making it very non-semi-auto.

Also I noticed the ejector also rely on some small machined parts (like the one that hold the cartridge rim), and thus if not made properly will probably fail (the slide will go back but the cartridge won't go back with it, this probably would be the sort of jam that is an actual jam, you would need to push the cartridge out with another object).

And the amount of springs I am seeing around, mean cyclic fatigue failure of the metal probably causes a couple of issues, I think that a frequently fired gun probably more than cleaning also might require frequent change of springs.

<comment><USER10> All of these are concerns, to be sure.

There is a reason cartridges are made of brass: it's hard, but it's softer than the steel that the gun is made of. So wear and tear on the ejector mechanism is lessened. Same with the bullet, which is a softer metal than the barrel.

And yes, the .45 specifically has a hell of a recoil, though the weight of the slide has a lot to do with it as well. Just remember your basic physics: if you're ejecting a 20g projectile at 1200fps, the 600g slide is going to travel backwards at 40 fps (which is still very fast).

Cyclic fatigue is also a thing; which is why you make sure to keep your springs lubricated and replace them periodically. A gun is a machine that must be maintained properly, like any other.

<comment><USER12> > And yes, the .45 specifically has a hell of a recoil, though the weight of > the slide has a lot to do with it as well. Just remember your basic physics: > if you're ejecting a 20g projectile at 1200fps, the 600g slide is going to > travel backwards at 40 fps (which is still very fast).

The 1911 I believe was designed around a ~230 grain projectile (15 grams) that fired at about 850ft/s. There are some 185gr. rounds on the market today that do advertise the 1150-ish ft/s. velocity, but I find in practice that the feel isn't markedly different.

Along those lines, it's important to note that "felt recoil" is perceived somewhat differently to different people (grip strength, hand size, body type), and some people are simply _more_ sensitive to recoil than others. Case in point: I don't find the 1911's recoil to be particularly notable; some think it kicks like a mule. If you're firing heavier projectiles, it'll feel like more of a push than a snap, but it's definitely not unpleasant (the impulse of the recoil is just as important). The 185gr. rounds tend to be a bit snappier (shorter, faster recoil), but still manageable. I'd classify "hell of a recoil" as anything from .44 magnum on up, and there's plenty of large, really ugly calibers out there that are probably _very_ unpleasant to shoot (500S&W comes to mind). The .45ACP is definitely not one unless you're shooting it from a much smaller gun.

Since we're on the topic of felt recoil and considering it is also a function of the weight of the gun, I'd much rather shoot a 1911 than some of the tiny .380 autos on the market like the Ruger LCP [1]. If it's unpleasant to shoot, you're not as likely to practice with it. Even the smaller calibers can hurt if the gun is light enough. :)

[1] [http://www.ruger.com/products/lcp/models.html](http://www.ruger.com/products/lcp/models.html)

<comment><USER10> You're right about my numbers being off - I was killing time on a long flight and it's been a while since I've shot a .45 (mostly because I have small hands.) But the general principle remains: the slide shoots backwards with equal force to the projectile.

And yeah, any sort of magnum cartridge (.357, .44, .50) is a beast because it has double the powder load. The .50 S&W in particular, as you mentioned, has so much recoil that it's prone to double-firing (S&W even recommends that you only load 1 round at a time). But among standard handgun cartridges, I still think the .45 kicks a lot more than say, a 9mm. It's also _just_ big enough that you can't really stagger the rounds in a magazine without making it super-wide; hence why a standard 1911 holds 8 (7+1) rounds and 9mm pistols of the same weight can hold 15+. I find a modern .45 like the USP (12 rounds) to be uncomfortably wide for me to hold; though a Glock 17 (9mm, 17 round mag) is fine. That definitely makes the recoil feel worse.

<comment><USER12> > You're right about my numbers being off - I was killing time on a long > flight and it's been a while since I've shot a .45 (mostly because I have > small hands.) But the general principle remains: the slide shoots backwards > with equal force to the projectile.

Eh, it doesn't really matter, IMO!

Realistically, no matter what the math might say, _felt recoil_ is still a subjective spectrum (within reason, obviously too much force is going to hurt), because two people can fire the same gun and have different reactions.

Although, you definitely wouldn't catch me with a .500S&W ;) There comes a point when it's _too much gun_ to be enjoyable.

My father had a .454 Casull once. He sold it because he could only go through a couple cylinders before a blister would wear on his hand through _gloves_. I've since borrowed his philosophy: If a gun hurts a bit too much to be fun, there's no point owning it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For people interested in these sorts of animated wireframes of guns in action, there's a great app for that: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gun- disassembly-2/id43507342...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gun- disassembly-2/id435073422?mt=12)

I have no connection to the app or developers, FYI. I found it very useful when learning how to disassemble and reassemble my Ruger Mark III.

I'm pretty sure there's either a desktop version of this, or there's a clone of it for the desktop. Either, way, highly recommended if you're a gun person.

</comment><comment><USER14> I find it fascinating that more than a century ago, people were able to visualize, protype and execute these kind of complex, intertwined mechanical designs.

I like 1911 style guns and my next gun will probably be such a model.

<comment><USER12> John Moses Browning played a substantial part in a number of different firearms (and other firearm-related things). I'm sure you're probably already aware of this, but those who are browsing the comments might not. The man was a genius.

For instance:

.50 BMG = Browning Machine Gun; the round and the M2 machine gun.

The Browning Hi-Power.

The .380 auto is sometimes referred to as the 9mm Browning. Probably obvious why...

Heck, I should just stop listing these off, because there's way too many things JMB took part in. I'll leave this [1] link instead. It's also worth mentioning that you could _probably_ credit Browning indirectly for a number of other designs currently in use that either borrow directly from his work or are inspired by it, including most modern automatic pistols (yes, even Glock).

> I like 1911 style guns and my next gun will probably be such a model.

I'd definitely suggest it. Sure, it's not as "elegant" as some of the polymer frames out there these days, but it's still a workhorse. There's something about the older designs that are remarkable feats of engineering for their day, to say nothing of the incredible history behind them that seems attractive to be a small part of by way of ownership.

That said, owning both a 1911 and a Glock, I'll admit that I can't really pin a favorite. I like both for different reasons. While I doubt I'll buy another 1911 (I won't rule out a conversion kit, though...) since I have my eyes on other Glock models (and possibly another brand of polymer), it's a design that's almost timeless. Mine's an SR1911 (model 6700) with rosewood grips, and it's _sexy_. But loads of other manufacturers are making some _great_ looking 1911s at all different price points. It would almost seem sacrilegious to have a gun collection _without_ a 1911. :)

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Browning#Cartridges](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Browning#Cartridges) (and the "firearms" section below that).

<comment><USER15> _That said, owning both a 1911 and a Glock, I 'll admit that I can't really pin a favorite._

Very true. I think a lot of the appreciation I have for the 1911 comes from its history. I learned to shoot with a 9mm, but honestly the "adjustment" people talk about to a .40 or .45 is negligible. I will say that when I have all the pieces laid out, I do like looking at the Glock (23) on the table a bit more.

<comment><USER16> I've got a G17, a G19, and the SR1911CMD as of yesterday - and I'm already thinking about selling the G17 to pick up an Officers-size compact Armscor/RIA 1911 to tinker with.

<comment><USER12> Heck, I would. If your hands aren't so large the G19 feels _too_ small, there's almost no point having both the G17 and G19 unless you like collecting Glocks. (I'm biased: I like the size of the G19 more, so take that as you will!)

I will probably get myself a G17 in the future (maybe), but probably not before I get a Glock chambered for .45ACP.

Given your comments, I'm starting to wonder if one can't have _too_ many 1911s... ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The word "clip" was briefly mentioned in this article. I never understood the "don't call 'magazines' 'clips'" fanaticism among gun enthusiasts. It seems to be a pretty common colloquialism for "magazine" in popular culture now.

<comment><USER10> The biggest difference is that a clip need not remain in the weapon to fire it. A magazine has an active feed mechanism (I.e. a spring) that forces the ammunition into the breach of the weapon.

Almost no modern weapons use clips; the last popular one was the M1 Garand (standard issue US infantry rifle in WW2).

It's a more than a semantic difference because there are some weapons that are capable of accepting both magazines and clips. Though such weapons are rare and I can't think of a modern example, there is a good reason for being picky.

<comment><USER18> 5.56mm and 7.62mm (both NATO) in stripper clips are still standard issue formats used for reloading non-disposable magazines, and weapons that allow clip reloading of an installed magazine are not rare on the ground. The Garand was only unusual in that the clip was inserted into the weapon and not removed prior to firing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Awesome! Do you have one for a striker-fired pistol?

</comment><comment><USER20> The animation is too fast for me to really see what's going on on all sides.

</comment><comment><USER21> Wow, these are great! How do you make them?

<comment><USER22> I agree, I am going to be stuck on this site a bit today from what I can tell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> 1911 == favorite pistol ever</comment>


Turn Your iPad into a Netbook with the Crux360 Case - <AUTHOR> http://news.softpedia.com/news/Turn-Your-iPad-into-a-Netbook-with-the-Crux360-Case-165283.shtml

<comment><USER2> Come up with a similar idea using Apple's Bluetooth keyboard and we're talking.</comment>