AB Explores Its Options to Fight Ad Blockers, Including Lawsuits - <AUTHOR> http://adage.com/article/digital/iab-surveys-options-fight-ad-blockers-including-lawsuits/300228/ <comment><AUTHOR> The mentality of the advertising sector is just mind boggling.

> Pollyanna-ish calls for better ads

They don't get UX and deserve the ride over the cliff that's on its way.</comment>


Sick of social media? Delete your digital existence in a click - <AUTHOR> http://www.thememo.com/2016/11/25/social-media-delete-facebook-delete-twitter-deseatme-mindfulness/ <comment><USER2> "View your emails messages and settings"

Unsure about this google permission - Seems like something you don't want to grant access to.

Edit: Love the idea, tempting to trial but cant grant that permission..</comment>


Ask HN: What would be your ideal travel website be like? - <AUTHOR> I am in the process of thinking about a good travel website. If I want to go somewhere or have recommendations about a short trip on the weekend I resort to tripadvisor.com but the problem is going through reviews on it. So maybe we can make this better. Maybe we can have a fuss free, clean and clear good travel website. What are your thoughts on it? What would your ideal (or near ideal) website look like or do? What would probably be that feature that would completely blow away users(or us)?<p>Thanking in anticipation! <comment><USER2> I too am writing a travel website currently. I dont want to give out my focus tho :)

Your features seem to be dependend on having users. With the amount of etablished travel website, how do you want to overcome the chicken egg problem?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, I think I would not only depend on users but they will have an option to put in data. I think initially I would have to scrape data, put some seed data myself, etc. But let's assume that the data is in fact there, then this aims to be a short trip/weekend getaway recommendation website. Is that something someone would want to use? Ofcourse, please don't give away your focus. Though I don't think it matters because generally no one wants to build someone else's idea :) So I just want opinions here on what a good travel site should do. I was initially thinking that this website I propose could get popular but now I am thinking - hey, anyone can google 'places around me for weekend getaways' and get a lot of links, etc.

<comment><USER2> Yeah i think that is the problem. If you do not do something unique people will go with major platforms that they already know.

Its hard to tell if there is still a need as i havent launched mine yet ether. All i know is that i am rather pessimistic for its success because of all the other resources out there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, exactly. I am not having second thoughts, which is not a good sign. Basically, I am looking to make something that people use - may not be necessarily in the travel domain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Specifically, do you think this would work? [https://github.com/vaibkv/weekend-whats-up- app](https://github.com/vaibkv/weekend-whats-up-app)

There's nothing in there yet, just a readme but do you think if I make it users will come?</comment>


Really useful persistent text pad (HTML5) - <AUTHOR> http://apihouse.com/web-toolkit/quick-text

<comment><AUTHOR> Although just realised quite irritatingly that the local Web Storage is not shared across browsers - thus, you can not write data from Chrome then read it from Firefox - W3C, where are you when we need you!!!</comment>


Google to Censor Blogger Blogs on a 'Per Country Basis' - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/google-censoring-blogger/

<comment><USER2> Why does Google need to operate locally in each country in the first place? Isn't that just a needless expenditure? More employees, more domain names, more dealings with localized bureaucracies and pesky removal requests? Rather than put itself in a losing position against local governments, Google should let local governments take on their own constituents (and risk angering them by censoring the international version of Google's sites.) A tradeoff between full access or no access to Google is safer for freedom than the complacency- inducing availability of a watered-down, locally-censored Google.

Now, if it's a matter of maximizing profit, this move seems to make sense from Google's standpoint. Having some ads on localized, yet partially-censored Google properties would produce greater profit than showing zero ads in a country that completely censors the international version.

<comment><USER3> Well, for one Google doesn't operate locally in every country. Moving into a given country comes with tradeoffs which Google surely weighs. Off the top of my head, I assume the decision to move into a country is a balancing act between these pros and cons:

Pros:

* Quality of sales operations are probably much better when run by people local to the country. Out-of-country call-centers are probably a huge turn-off compared to someone local who can build rapport and speak fluently in the local tongue.

* Google can't hire smart engineers fast enough -- they're just too hard to find. Since smart people are found worldwide, to maximize effective hiring you need to hire worldwide.

Cons:

* You pay taxes in the country.

* You have more responsibility to adhere to local laws, takedown requests, etc.

<comment><USER2> Good points!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Previous discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3535502>

<comment><USER5> Thanks. As I pointed out there, google censoring content on a per-country basis is truly a shocking and unprecedented event:

[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/removals/)

It's weird. The last time Wired covered this topic, they focused more on the US government issuing by far the greatest number of requests for user data, and hanging out with Germany and South Korea in the number of content take down court orders (including 18 in 2010 and 16 in the first half of 2011 from, wait for it...Blogger blogs).

[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/10/google-data- request...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/10/google-data-requests/)

If Google and Twitter are going to be asked to be conscientious objectors from internet censorship (as moral representatives for the citizens who can't get their shit together), I can think of the first country they should probably pull out of...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What does this mean for blogger custom domains?

</comment><comment><USER7> 2012: The year the Internet died.

I guess the Arab Spring et al. must have really scared TPTB.

[snark] Now waiting for the first U.S. "per country" based censoring, e.g. of Occupy communication.[/snark]

Seriously, though. The lack of wholesale "per country" censorship seemed to be working to some extent to pull world society closer together in terms of understanding and supporting each other. These recent choices seem to fly in the face of such trends.

<comment><USER8> Arab Spring/Occupy probably expedited the timeline, but I've been noticing an increasing amount of country specific stuff on the internet over the last few years.

<comment><USER7> Do you mean with respect to identification/segregation of content by content providers, or with respect to geographic entities' attempts at censorship? Or do you simply mean more and/or more prominent sites using country code TDL's?

The second, of course, we have. (Quip: "China was the prototype.")

The first, with attendant variation of content (i.e. you get a different view of an individual Blogger blog depending upon whether you are e.g. in Sweden or in Italy) seems rife for efforts to more quietly and piecemeal "pick apart" the Internet's "common voice".

Perhaps I'm being alarmist. But placed within the context of everything else that's going on right now with respect to Internet communication, it's worrying.

The third I have no real problem with, although I find the many attempts to use country code TDL's to make "catchy" domain names to mostly be ineffective if not annoying. (I'll leave that at the level of personal preference.)

<comment><USER8> I mean a combination of explicit censorship (for example, access to sourceforge in certain countries) and also content providers attempts to control what is seen where (seems like BS to me).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The end of the the Web as we know it is getting closer</comment>


Goodbye Stars, Hello Thumbs - <AUTHOR> https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/goodbye-stars-hello-thumbs <comment><USER2> I don't like it. It's too binary for me. What if I don't begrudge the suggestion, but wouldn't seek out something like that? Do I upvote it? Downvote it? Nothing?

In the same vein, I'd be interested to see how netflix incorporate watch times. If I watched 5 mins and then down voted, what happens? Will I never see that genre again? What if I just stopped watching? Will netflix consider that a bad suggestion? What if I watched the whole thing but still didn't vote? What then?

IMO moving from a 5 point system where I can explicitly set 3-4 stars on acceptable shows to this new binary system only obfuscates the process. I can understand /why/ they changed, they want user feedback, but I don't see how the misconception of the stars broke the feature, or why they couldn't have just invested in teaching people what it was all about.

It may just be the developer in me, but I don't like the feeling of having the "functionality" moved behind something portraying it as nebulous "magic"</comment>


Open-Sourcing CloudFlare's UI Framework - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/cf-ui/ <comment><USER2> Hi, I'm one of the devs on this team. Let me know if you have any questions.

It's a super awesome feeling to have open sourced this after working on it for months, and I think we've done some interesting things. So I want to share our ideas and opinions. I'm hoping to publish more about them in the coming weeks.

<comment><USER3> I couldn't figure out from the blog post why you switched from backbone to react. Could you talk a bit about the reasons?

<comment><USER2> I left them out because many others have blogged about the same reasons. But this is the biggest reason:

We have a lot of complexity in our view/component layer where we trying to bring simple workflows to very complicated technical features. Backbone (even with Marionette) doesn't have a strong view composition story, essentially avoiding setting up any patterns.

React's composition pattern is so strong that its hard _not_ to abstract things. The complexity is still there but its easy to follow and extremely simple to test (especially with redux).

There are more reasons, but I have to go now. Hopefully that suffices

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Related blog post that explains what this is and why we open sourced it: [https://blog.cloudflare.com/cf-ui/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/cf-ui/)

<comment><USER5> OK, we'll change the URL from [https://cloudflare.github.io/cf- ui/](https://cloudflare.github.io/cf-ui/) to that, which gives more background.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Lerna [1] is very cool. I was firmly against monorepos, but the ability to easily manage and coordinate between individually versioned packages in a single repo is awesome. You get the benefits of a monorepo but also the benefits of small modules so it's the best of both worlds.

[1]: [https://github.com/lerna/lerna](https://github.com/lerna/lerna)

<comment><USER7> After seeing the Lerna reference in the post I think I'm more interested in that than the UI framework (although that seems cool too :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I noticed there are components for all the standard HTML typography like <kbd> is <Kbd> and such. Is there a perf hit in wrapping everything in a react component? Any particular reason to do this?

<comment><USER9> Not sure about the perf difference between DOM elements and component elements, but the primary reason would be: let's say later on you decide each <kbd> should have a className, or a little tooltip helper, or a title attribute, or some ARIA role or something. Since you can't modify the built-in DOM elements, you'd have to find each instance where you used <kbd> throughout the codebase. If they're wrapped, you can just modify the <Kbd> wrapper in one place and the new output is rendered everywhere.

<comment><USER2> This is exactly it. Also if we ever choose to use React Native (cough), it would be good not to have hard coded DOM elements.

I haven't tested the performance heavily but I'm not really concerned about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is this really how to do tables in React?

              <Table striped>
                <TableBody>
                  <TableRow>
                    <TableCell>One</TableCell>
                    <TableCell>Two</TableCell>
                  </TableRow>
                  <TableRow>
                    <TableCell>Three</TableCell>
                    <TableCell>Four</TableCell>
                  </TableRow>
                </TableBody>
              </Table>

<comment><USER11> It might seem a bit strange, but there is a good amount of value in wrapping native DOM elements. The easiest way to describe it would be when using bootstrap.

        <Input />

could return

        <input class="form-control" />

Now, you don't have to type `class="form-control"` on every single input, and if you want to move away from bootstrap, you can remove it all in one place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is that TypeScript in the examples? Haven't done JS in a while(angular), so it seems like TypeScript has become the de facto standard now.

<comment><USER13> TypeScript is quite popular but I wouldn't say it's anything like the de facto standard for frontend development. If anything, writing ES6 (and transpiling with Babel) is the standard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Between what they're doing and the example text in their image, I like these guys :)

</comment><comment><USER15> Looks useful and interesting - thanks!

</comment><comment> Ruud-v-A A shame they didn't rewrite it in Elm while they had the opportunity.

<comment><USER2> To start, I love Elm. I'm super interested in compilers and I've looked a lot into theirs.

However, Elm is still making breaking changes on the language level [1]. To bet on a language like that right now is tough for a larger company.

Also, we're not dropping everything and rewriting it all from the ground up. I'm not sure that Elm has a good story for incremental migrations yet, where React has an excellent one.

[1]: [http://elm-lang.org/blog/farewell-to-frp](http://elm- lang.org/blog/farewell-to-frp)</comment></comment>


Can entangled qubits be used to probe black holes? - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-03-ion-aces-quantum-scrambling.html <comment><USER2> > Unfortunately, a black hole the mass of our sun would take about 1067 years > to evaporate—far, far longer than the age of the universe.

That should be 10^67 years.</comment>


Building a single page app with Backbone.js, underscore.js and jQuery - <AUTHOR> http://andyet.net/blog/2010/oct/29/building-a-single-page-app-with-backbonejs-undersc/

<comment><USER2> Nice article! I think it hits a lot of the philosophy behind rich JS Apps. Taking some key points from it:

* _Do not_ store state in the DOM. You'll live to regret it when you need to represent the same model in more than one place at once, or refactor your UI.

* Events are the way to go, when connecting changes in the model to updates in the view. Ideally, models know nothing about what UI happens to be on the screen at any given moment.

* If you're going to be doing interesting business logic in the client, it helps to have collections (in this case, Backbone.Collection) with a richer API than JS arrays: filter, any, map, reduce, reject, include, invoke...

* Lots of little testable JS files for development, one minified gzipped file for production.

The one point I'm in disagreement with is: "Keep your models as simple as possible". In my opinion, client-side models really shine when they contain a large part of your important JS business logic, and you can use the same models in different situations to provide access-control, URL generation, data munging, etc.

For example, here's a list of some of the methods we have on a Backbone.Model called "Document": viewerUrl, publishedUrl, canonicalId, openViewer, openText, openPdf, allowedToEdit(account), checkAllowedToEdit(account, message), checkBusy, notes, uniqueEntities, isPending, isPublic, isPublished.

<comment><USER3> I can understand why storing state on the DOM would quickly start to suck if you're building a single-page application, but I've found it works really well for applications that work without JavaScript using progressive enhancement.

<comment><USER4> True, what I'm talking about in my post is definitely a different paradigm than a more traditional web site where one of the goals is to make it widely accessible for any and all users/devices.

ps. thanks for reading my post simon, u da man!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> hi, i've been experimenting a bunch with different approaches to doing MVC in Javascript. I did one project where I completely rolled my own rails-like framework, with a base controller, base model & view functionality based on EJS (my favorite js templating library).

Then I discovered sammy.js, which provides a nice approach to routing and linking. my current project uses that, and i roll my own data access code & use EJS for templating. I also have written all my own glue.

The space is calling out for a "Javascript on Rails" that takes a variety of different libraries and combines them in a canonical way so that each new project doesn't have to go through a shopping expedition, deciding which libraries are currently the best.

What's needed, basically:

1\. Routing, navigation + back-button. Single-page JS apps operate very differently from normal apps because many links are hash links, eg. #settings. Sammy.js handles this nicely.

2\. models. Here I have a different definition of what a model is than Backbone. I see a model as a class that wraps a particular service. So you might have a TwitterModel, YouTubeModel, MyServiceModel, etc. They would all benefit from inheriting from a base class that does the necessary networking (JSONP, JSON, etc.). It would be nice if all data came back from the service in the form of a Backbone.js Collection.

3\. Views. There is a lot of code that ends up being needed around rendering templates. Think of the variety of different render() functions that exist in rails. That translates to Javascript, in my experience. Rendering templates into a div, doing pre- and post- processing, even swapping rendered blocks into invisible divs so they can be swapped back in quickly when the user hits the back button.

I could go on about the neat things that could/should be done, including all the declarative programming and "convention over configuration" stuff that rails does (example: render_foo() loads template foo.ejs and renders it into <div id='foo'>)

Anyway I feel myself a bit lost in a sea of googling whenever I try to find the definitive projects in this space - so I hope some will comment with their fave MVC-esque projects for Javascript...

<comment><USER4> Sammy.js does look quite cool. I've poked around the documentation, but haven't built anything with it yet.

I see what you're saying about "Javascript on Rails" but to me that's quite different than something like backbone. What you're talking about is more about "ajaxifying" a traditional browse-from-page-to-page experience. I definitely think there's value in that for improving the feel and responsiveness of a site. However, I'm more interested in truly emulating the desktop app experience where, once you log in there is no concept of browsing from page to page or "going back".

<comment><USER6> Have you seen Qooxdoo? I've made some very desktop-like apps with it <http://demo.qooxdoo.org/current/showcase/#form>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Also, since JavaScript has no formal classes there is no self-evident approach for structuring an entire application."

Really? <http://javascript.crockford.com/prototypal.html>

<comment><USER2> Please don't just quote Crockford as gospel truth.

Crockford's prototypal revelation is only a slight alteration of the standard constructor pattern, and not a particularly useful one. You still have a class (the object that serves as a prototype for every instance you create), it doesn't add any particular flexibility, and it's quite slow. I encourage you to run the tests yourself:

[http://jsperf.com/object-create-vs-crockford-vs-jorge-vs- con...](http://jsperf.com/object-create-vs-crockford-vs-jorge-vs- constructor/9)

For me, that test clocks using Crockford's pattern to instantiate objects as 80% slower in Safari and Firefox, and 95% slower in Chrome, when compared to a standard use of JS prototypes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Was there a demo for this app you built? i couldn't find a link</comment>


Richard St. John's 8 secrets of success (video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_st_john_s_8_secrets_of_success.html <comment><USER2> I'd seen this before. This time I took notes. Most the things that hold me back appear within his 8 "secrets" (and their sub-secrets):

1\. Passion

2\. Work

3\. Focus

4\. Practice

5\. Push yourself

6\. Serve

7\. Ideas [ Listen, observe, be curious, ask questions, problem solve, make connections ]

8\. Persist [ Through Failure & Crap (Criticism, Rejection, Ashholes, Pressure)]

No _one_ item is enough. It does taking attacking your project/life on all eight fronts. Thanks, RSJ.

<comment><USER3> I would want to add 2 things to the list, from my experience so far:

9\. Organize. If I don't get my billing system straightened out soon, I'm going to drive myself nuts.

10\. Delegate. This is a big one I think. No matter how awesome you are, you can usually get even more done, and do a better job, and be more successful, by gathering a couple of good people around you and making a team of it.</comment></comment>


The Value of a Piece of Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/business/28sorkin.html

<comment><USER2> Is the donation entirely altruistic? From what I understand, Mark Zuckerberg's gift creates a new foundation with an interest in increasing the price of Facebook's stock.</comment>


Smallest full-featured Linux PC ever? - <AUTHOR> http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS7216186184.html <comment><USER2> I have the previous model. It really is very small.

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshu/3308713850/>

Unlike most esoteric kit, you can buy these on Amazon.

<comment><USER3> Nice! Can you tell me a little bit about your experiences with it?

I've been thinking of buying this for a while:

<http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=43>

but the Fit-PC2 has good enough specs to make it worth considering instead. It's also smaller!

Anyone know where I can buy this in the UK?

<comment><USER2> It's basically a Geode machine. I downloaded a recent ubuntu desktop distribution, booted it under VMWare and installed it to a disk. Popped the disk in the machine, it starts up.

Using Ubuntu's server variant was a bit more painful, as the kernel build assumes PAE or something; I needed to switch to a generic 32bit kernel. Not too bad.

The wifi driver that ships with Ubuntu didn't work very well with it, so I had to compile and install a new one. There was some oddness with the ifup scripts and I had to have it start up, shut down, and start up again to intialize properly.

I am largely happy with the device; it's just a small, slightly strange PC.

I am also using it with one of those $80 32gb Transcend SSDs. They are not blazing, but neither is the machine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The thing that amazes me is that these tiny devices (the netbooks too) come standard with 1GB or 1/2 GB of RAM. 10 years ago or so that was a _huge_ amount of RAM -- you could have a big Sun or AIX box running an industrial- grade Oracle instance on 1/4 GB RAM or so.

</comment><comment><USER5> Full-featured is right. These things have an HDMI port with 1920x1080 resolution, an IR port, and an SSD makes them almost noiseless! Sounds like a great device for a media center PC. Load Boxee on there and call it all good. Very cool.

EDIT: Looks like the SSD option doesn't have pricing available, but it'll likely be > $500

<comment><USER6> True.. moreover with 160GB of drive space, it should hold all my music and videos :)

Infact, since it is networked nicely, it should be easy to control it from a wifi enabled handheld device

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Aside from a media center, any ideas what this class of devices could be used for at home (or as a portable device)? It seems like an awesome solution, but to what?

Augmenting laptop CPU (compilers, 3D apps, etc)? Mesh wifi? Better routers/firewalls? An alternative to VPC software (i.e., just remote desktop in and take it with you)?

I'm betting there's a cool startup that could be formed around a device like this...

<comment><USER8> A low-energy hub for controlling household robots?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> But for $300? You can get something similar (although simpler) for less than $100: <http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6372429785.html>

I'm planning to combine the latter with Boxee to create my home entertainment system.

<comment><USER3> You're looking at 200 MHz for that system, as opposed to 1 GHz for the basic Fit-PC2 and 1.6 GHz for the high range one.

<comment><USER6> And remember its the Atom that it's packed with. Feedback from EEE users have been that video playback is pretty decent

<comment><USER10> Reviews of Atom-based boards I have seen show that it doesn't do HD content well at all. 720p is hit and miss, and 1080p is just a no-go.

So it'd do DVDs and divx/xvid for you, but to play Blu-ray and mkv files you'll probably want to wait a bit and snag the new Nvidia ION platform, which pairs an onboard Geforce 9400 with an Atom CPU, and does full 1080p video with only 20% cpu utilization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A DVI port! And no VGA. Nice. Have only seen VGA on these types of small units 'til now. Will check this out.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wait a minute, didn't they install Linux on a potato? Potato is much smaller than this black box! Take a look at the pictures <http://www.bbspot.com/News/2008/12/linux-on-a-potato.html></comment>


Surface Laptop is just a laptop - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/07/surface-laptop-is-just-a-laptop-making-it-microsofts-most-baffling-release-yet/ <comment><USER2> I know they just tried to bring price under the $1000, but selling a laptop with 4gb of RAM in 2017 is criminal.

<comment><USER3> RAM is like what, $10 per GB? I'm assuming they use the exact same motherboard across all models. This is never about the end user price, just profits.

I really wonder how many low end models some companies actually produce - I've always been sure they're just using them to push people to buy the mid-range one.

<comment><USER4> [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F3R8XC6](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F3R8XC6)

This model is selling about 200 units a month just on Amazon.

Most popular one on that listing is [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F3R9136?th=1](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F3R9136?th=1), rank 1000 estimated 250 sales a month.

I'm estimating all the models on that listing together are selling about 1000 units a month.

Edit: went back and found some more listings:

[https://www.amazon.com/HP-14-inch-E2-7110-Windows-14-an013nr...](https://www.amazon.com/HP-14-inch-E2-7110-Windows-14-an013nr/dp/B01F4ZG68A/) My tools are telling me this single item is selling 1500 units a month.

[https://www.amazon.com/Acer-E5-575-33BM-15-6-Inch- Processor-...](https://www.amazon.com/Acer-E5-575-33BM-15-6-Inch-Processor- Generation/dp/B01K1IO3QW/) estimated 2500 units a month.

Just look through [https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Computers-Accessories- La...](https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Computers-Accessories- Laptop/zgbs/pc/565108/) for the top laptops. Top 5 are all 4GB RAM.

Extrapolating a bit I'd say low end laptops are selling in the mid 5 figures of units per month on Amazon, or possibly low six figures.

And it seems that low end outsell high end in terms of number of units, at least - but since the high end can be 3 or more times the price, it's difficult to say how the total amount paid compares with this quick back of the envelope calculation.

<comment><USER3> Interesting, thanks!

I was going to ask who buys them but they I remembered my neighbors don't even have a computer. Just smartphones and tablets...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Similarly, while on the one hand PC OEMs are concerned about the user > experience if a laptop is accidentally charged from a smartphone > charger—something made possible by USB Type-C—I feel this concern is > misplaced. It's true that the laptop will charge much more slowly from a 5W > smartphone charger than a 35 or 60W laptop charger. It may not even be able > to charge at all unless sleeping, merely treading water draining its battery > as fast as it charges while turned on. But you know what? It'll still charge > faster from a 5W smartphone charger than it will from no charger at all > because you've left it on your desk at work. A world in which every laptop's > charger is compatible, and where you can use a phone charger at a pinch, is > a world I want to live in.

It seems to me the greater concern is dimbulbs plugging their phone into their laptop charger.

<comment><USER6> USB Power Delivery is a negotiating protocol, so plugging a phone to a laptop charger should work just fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> > using a pen on the Laptop is inconvenient at best, downright idiotic at > worst. You have to grab the lid to try to steady it and stop the whole thing > wobbling and moving.

I wonder how many of you are using touch screens on a laptop, especially when your main job is programming?

<comment><USER7> I use it all the time, when I work without a monitor and keyboard. Mostly for switching apps and starting stuff - the windows task bar is only just above the function keys after all.

I also swipe from the right for quick settings (brightness, network, quiet mode, etc) all the time. Like in phones, it's a super fast way to scroll something exactly to where you want it.

Oh, and scrolling. I ditched sublime for vs code just because it scrolls on touch+drag and sublime selects text.

It's gotten so far that when I find myself on a laptop without a touchscreen I get all confused and keep touching the screen.

I really love touch screens.

<comment><USER2> > Mostly for switching apps

But if your hands are already on a keyboard isn't clicking alt-tab faster than lifting your wrists and do sliding gesture?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Intel recently leaked their upcoming Intel I7-8xxxU Processors. They are going to be available in a real quad-core 8 thread configuration at 15W TDP.

I really hope MS will use one of those to release a Surfacebook with 32GB Ram and atleast one Thunderbolt 3 Port.

That would last me long enough to justify the high pricetag. The current Surfacebooks are just too limited in their lifetime because of the connectors.

<comment><USER9> We can thank AMD a lot. Without real competition (AMD Ryzen many cores) we had to suffer stagnation in CPUs for several years while Intel had ready design lined up for future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Dell XPS 15 9560 is just amazing with the Intel Core i7 7700, upgraded to 32GB of ram, and a 1TB SSD and the best part an NVIDIA GTX 1050. Ubuntu and Windows 10 runs great on it. It is 4 lbs.

I use it as my primary workstation with the thunderbolt docking station and a 4K monitor. It is thin, light and strong.

<comment><USER11> The only downside is that the Thunderbolt port on the 9560 is two PCIe lanes instead of 4. I'd wager it's because of the GTX 1050 inside using some of them. Oddly, the only XPS laptop with 4 lanes to the Thunderbolt port is the XPS 13 9365 2 in 1.

If you ever want more oomf graphics-wise at your desk, grab the Gigabyte Gaming Box with a GTX 1070 inside. You get HDMI, DisplayPort and two DVI ports to keep permanently connected to your desktop displays as well as 4 USB 3 ports (one with QuickCharge 3.0) to keep connected to your keyboard, mouse, external drives, and other peripherals. I'd wager you're doing most of that with your docking station now, but the Auroros Gaming Box is a crazy deal at $599 for anyone that wants more GPU at the desk or doesn't have a discrete card in their laptop but has TB3.

<comment><USER12> I think you meant Auros instead of Auroros, link for the lazy: [https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics- Card/GV-N1070IXEB-8GD#kf](https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics- Card/GV-N1070IXEB-8GD#kf)

<comment><USER13> God I am old. How does that thing even hook up to laptop?

<comment><USER14> One single thunderbolt 3 connection.

I love thunderbolt, now it's been opened up hopefully it'll be in a lot more chipsets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What is the Windows laptop to get if you want 32gb, a retina level bright display and latest gen processor?

<comment><USER16> May be pricey but the Razer brand has good machines

<comment><USER17> Might be true but I just can't justify spending that much on a razer branded item due to their pretty bad quality control on their mice and keyboards. I used to buy them all the time and the mice would all die in under a year and keyboards shortly after. Support said it was "normal wear and tear" and not covered.

<comment><USER18> Seconded. I bought pretty expensive Razer keyboard and mouse ~18 months ago. The keyboard started acting up after I spilled water on it 5-6 times. (And yes, I expect a $200 keyboard to be waterproof!)

Even without the water spills, the quality of the keycaps and the feel when typing gradually worsened after the first 11-12 months of usage. I am not opposed to paying $200 for a keyboard but I expect more durability for my money.

Ended up replacing it for ~$70 Chinese mechanical backlit waterproof keyboard that has been, and still is, the best keyboard I've ever used.

The Deathadder Chroma mouse is nice though. I used cheaper mice that I liked more both in visuals and performance but the mouse is passable. I don't think it should be that expensive for its quality but it serves me just fine for 15 months now and hasn't degraded in any way.

<comment><USER17> In regards to the deathadder, it may be fixed with recent iterations, but the plastic piece that hits the actual button wears over time causing clicks to happen twice. The fix is to unscrew the mouse and get a (somewhat funny actually) razor blade and flatten out the tab. They should have used stronger plastic or a different design. I've never had a Logitech or Microsoft mouse do that. I'm just assuming they built that into their design so you'll buy another in a year.

And for the keyboard I have no idea what failed on them. Owned three over the years, all just stopped working at one point in their life.

<comment><USER18> I have zero issues paying for top quality. I believe it's fair for you as an OEM to charge more if you're better than the competition.

My issues start when the supposed top quality is surpassed by easy-to-find Chinese products on Amazon costing 40% of Razer's price. And when I say "surpassed", I mean it in literally every way. The keyboard I now use has better switches, is extremely realiable, her anti-ghosting capabilities are predictable and never failed, it survived spills of water, sugary drinks and hot drinks without ever missing a keystroke, and is still going strong after almost a year without any signs of wear and tear. Hell it didn't even get a scratch when I dropped a knife and fork on it!

I appreciate the DIY advice, thank you. I feel all of us have to become DIY experts over time because when OEMs see fit to push planned obsolence even in products like a keyboard and a mouse, we have to respond in kind -- repair your stuff and refuse the give money when the OEM tells you to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So what if it's _just_ a laptop? I really hate that trend toward making everything a tablet/touchscreen in the PC market. I don't really want one of the new MBPs when it comes time to upgrade mine, but looking at the other side of the fence is equally cringe-inducing.

The higher-end (non-touchscreen) Dell XPS mentioned by a sibling looks promising though.

don't touch my screen.

<comment><USER20> I just downgraded from a convertible to a more powerful non touch Windows 10 laptop and it sucks. Reaching the screen and nothing moves... The only OS I can stand without Touchscreen is Linux since I'm on the command line most of the time anyway

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think Microsoft know what they are doing with the fluffy keyboard surround. In the retail channel where demo machines are available to touch, decisions are very much on look and feel.

The lack of USB C makes me wonder if Microsoft are stupid. However, had they just put two USB C ports and little else then people would be complaining. Still not sure who this laptop is for. It also doesn't represent some undreamed of future either.

<comment><USER22> I'm not sure if I agree with the demo idea, I doubt the material will look nice after a ton of people touch it on display. Even if the material was specifically made to cover an area that you put your hands on all the time, it just doesn't _seem_ durable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> the alcantara definitely feels different than the version they use for the type cover. more plasticky.

</comment><comment><USER24> I can't believe that this is described as unadventurous, when it's a laptop that's covered in Alcantara right where you're going to put your sweaty palms.

</comment><comment><USER25> The time has come, my wife's 2 year old laptop with a touchscreen we bought at Costco for $400 is finally dying. I use a custom Windows desktop at home (no touchscreen) and a rMBP at work so I'm not too much into one or the other. So we took a trip to the Apple store so we could look at Apple's devices.

And of course the size and performance of the regular old MacBooks were really enticing. Price was higher than I think my wife wanted to pay (she's gone years on sub $1000 computers and the instant upgrade every couple years when the old is replaced with the new is a feature to her), but she was seriously thinking about it.

We spent about 20 minutes sitting at one and my wife trying out MacOS and really seeing it was effective at handling some of her frustrations with Windows 10. And over those 20 minutes you could see her start to _really_ take to it, the nice screen, the tiny size, the responsiveness of the touchpad...then suddenly she reached up to the screen to make a small adjustment and scroll a web page she was looking at and the spell was broken -- no touchscreen. She didn't buy the Macbook.

It turns out, even though she doesn't use it all that often, the fact that it exists and is expected to work and it didn't was all she needed to know. She pointed out that all of her other devices: phones, tablets, etc. are all touch screen, that moment when it _didn 't_ work required her to think twice about scrolling rather than just doing what she was expecting to do was enough to make her not want the entire device.

We discussed how many issues there are with Windows 10's usability and all that and I guess where we left the conversation was that there's no expectation that Windows will work effortlessly, you go into "using mode" expecting to have to think through tasks and fidget with things until they're correct, so there's no spell to be broken, but you know that you can reliable get things done. And that sets a baseline for her of what she thinks a computer should be at a minimum and she's willing to pay $500-700 for that.

She admitted that up until she touched the screen the extra $500-700 for the Apple computer started to seem okay to her because the "using mode" was so good. But then it didn't work and there was no way to make it work. It was like swimming through heaven and then sitting on a cloud the wrong way and a loud buzzer went off _BZZZZ_. The buzzer vaporized that extra value for her instantly.

It's something I've never considered because my computers fundamentally don't have touchscreens so I'm trained to expect it. I don't think of my MacOS usage all that much different than my Windows usage.

Microsoft was correct in enabling touch, but what it really not making the Surface line interesting is that they swim in a market of machines that more or less do the same thing (maybe not as _quite_ as well) that are half the cost. Unless your use-case is particularly sensitive to some specifics of the performance of this machine, you may as well hit up your local Costco and get a machine with the same RAM, and 2x the storage as the best configuration here for 1/3rd the cost.

Sure it'll probably die on you inside of 2 years, but then you buy another semi-disposable computer then, get all the upgrades from the future and still be 30% under the cost over 4 years. Windows doesn't provide a usage experience that demands a price premium and this laptop is missing things that we know will become commonplace within the expected lifetime of the device.

</comment><comment><USER26> I have to say, a rating in the 70% rating range for Microsoft Hardware is actually quite good. Keep working on it! The price is ludacris, but that's also expected. Honestly with all the recent improvements through new leadership I wouldn't be surprised if they learn out of a few feedback rounds and make affordable good quality laptops.

What I'm really surprised though was the guy they put in front of the camera here. I'm also an ugly guy, but I think one should be self aware enough to put someone else in front of the camera if that's the case. And wearing such a t-shirt... wow.</comment>


Ancient campfires may have aided the rise of storytelling - <AUTHOR> http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/2014/09/ancient-campfires-led-rise-storytelling <comment><USER2> This reminded me of a fun and amusing sci-fi short story called "The Tryouts," by Barry Longyear, about an alien culture oriented around storytelling by firelight, which was their means of spreading news and information. The news had to be cast as a good story to be culturally acceptable and paid attention. Recommended if you can get your hands on it (I read it in an Asimov's anthology that I borrowed from a friend).

</comment><comment><USER3> Modern parallel:

My business partner and I have a weekly brainstorm on Tuesday night (not quite by campfire) that's focused on us coming up with wacky and crazy creative ideas. We often do it over wine, we let our imaginations run wild, we try to come up with extreme concoctions that might just be able to work, and we have a space to be creative and no idea is bad during that time. Surprisingly, we've found that this really helps our creativity for the other 99.9% of the work-week: sometimes, our crazy ideas come back to us (in more reasonable forms, less extreme) that we then implement and make happen!

In other words: we realized, too much of our day-to-day work is concerned with tactical issues, so we've created a space around a virtual fire to unleash our creativity, which then helps us in the day-to-day.

Maybe this work due to evolutionary forces on humans since these paleolithic days!

</comment><comment><USER4> This should be common sense to anyone who's ever sat around a campfire.

I mean, all the work is done for the day, you've likely eaten (or are eating), the dark sky and the fire sets the mood, stories are told. We still do it to this day (although not as often). It's why people go camping...

<comment><USER5> I like to think that we're genetically predisposed to enjoy sitting around campfires. The reason being that all of our ancestors that _didn 't_ enjoy it, and were instead walking around the forest at night, didn't survive long enough to pass on their genes. Makes for a good campfire story at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> In the old stories and myths, Fire was the inspiration. The spark. The kindling. It's flames lighting up the dark naturally attracts people to gather in, to look inward instead of outward into the shadows. Fire can't travel far from it's source of fuel, it must be carried like a torch. One of the first things you learn about Fire is that fire is meant to be shared.

Some of the older cultures have a fire tending tradition. For some, the "fire starter" was a sacred, and respected skill. In others, a boy or a girl was initiated into the tradition by given a fire to tend when they come of age (around 10 - 12). They tend to it all their lives, merge the fires when they get married. When their children becomes of age, they start a fire for the children from their own fire. When they die, that fire they have tended all their lives cremates their body for the final time.

Modern-day Fire rituals are not confined to the candle or the flame or turning on the TV. Running a torch around the world is an example.

These days, we're out of touch with Fire. We typically control it in the form of gas fuel lines or electricity (lightning, in the old stories are considered a different form of fire). Your mom probably told you not to touch the stove, because it is hot and it will hurt. We have fire-safety drills. We have fireman who comes in to wipe out the fire, lauded as heroes. The typical story we have around Fire these days involve explosions, anger, and destruction. Lots of mad cackling.

The old stories of Fire, on the other hand, speak about inspiration, will and drive. Fire worked with the other elements: Earth to contain it and is itself the fuel and raw materials; Water to circulate and transport heat; Wind to stoke it up. Fire is to be respected, both the fire in the campfire and the fire within your belly.

When you lead people in your quest to make it big, change the world, or to get rich, is your inner fire that of anger, rage, suffering, and destruction? Is your "disruption" story another fancy way of saying attack and ill will? Is it another way of saying you're going to take over the world and control it with power?

Or is your inner fire inspirational? Is it the clear, cleansing fire that burns the darkness you carry within? Is it the kind of fire that you'd share with friends? Is your inner fire the warmth of your love and the light of your vision?

<comment><USER4> > For some, the "fire starter" was a sacred, and respected skill ... These > days, we're out of touch with Fire.

Which is why everyone should go camping, and be forced to start their own fire with only matches (no fire-starter). I'd say with a couple sticks, but then they'd never go camping again.

Starting a fire, tending it, cooking over it, and sitting around it and telling stories/playing games is one of the best experiences one can have, it's fun, frustrating, satisfying, and enlightening all at the same time (just put the phones away though).

<comment><USER6> Yep, that's the difference between book learning and experiential learning. Or rites of initiation. I don't know about the extreme of making everyone start their own fire, although the experience of starting a fire with a good guide / storyteller to walk someone through it is a powerful experience.

The next startup I am joining, I'm going to try convincing the whoever it is to do this kind of a thing. "Team bonding" is not a very good substitute.

<comment><USER4> > I don't know about the extreme of making everyone start their own fire

It's fun though! We do it nearly every weekend in the summer. It's also fun cooking on a wood fire - you set the heat by moving the pot around, stoking the fire, spreading the coals, etc...

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I've done it before, it is fun :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _whereas daytime talk was focused almost entirely on economic issues, land rights, and complaints about other people, 81% of the firelight conversation was devoted to telling stories_

Correlation is not causation. Maybe people found that stories are best suited to being told by firelight, but without fire they would have found time for them at other times.

</comment><comment><USER6> "The power of the flame is reproduced in our homes through fireplaces and candles."

These days, the role of flame in the hearth has been taken up by the TV.

It's why I like my Franklin stove in the living areas and relegated the TV into a separate room.

</comment><comment><USER8> In other news, Ancient wells may have aided the rise of water drinking.

I guess if "I hacked my life by taking cold showers" is worthy of hn attention, then "I hacked my culture by telling fireside stories" should be too...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Tweaked the title a bit because it's drawing a hyperbolic conclusion from the paper it cites (which is nonetheless interesting): [http://www.pnas.org/content/111/39/14027](http://www.pnas.org/content/111/39/14027)</comment>


Random oracle - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_oracle <comment><USER2> I've always been intrigued by the way that certain Wikipedia pages can show up on the front page of HN. They always feel so...lacking in motivation. Maybe that's why they languish without discussion :). There's no straightforward explanation of why the random oracle model is a thing in this article, or why cryptographers don't always just use the standard model.

The standard model of cryptography is the basic, default model in which security is a function of the computational time and power required by an adversary to break the cryptosystem. This conception is purely complexity theoretic: we have e.g. a construction based on a hash function, and we want to make sure there is no polynomial time algorithm for breaking it so long as the hash function is preimage and collision resistant. The construction is "provably secure" if we can prove there exists no such algorithm when the hash function has the requisite properties. Then we say the cryptosystem is "secure in the standard model."

Provable security in the standard model is difficult to achieve - we can't always extrapolate the complexity theoretic security of a cryptosystem from the underlying security of its hash function. We _could_ give it our best effort and still use it since it _seems_ hard to break, but that's not a sound basis for cryptanalysis. Instead, the random oracle model is an "idealized model" that offers a compromise between the strict security of the standard model and shrugging our shoulders. This lets us determine that, as long as the model approximates an ideal version of the cryptosystem, we have some measure of assurance that there really is rigorous security involved - some proof is better than no proof.

To use the random oracle model, we replace the hash function in question (ostensibly, pseudorandom) with a truly random function - its "ideal" version. We do this by modeling a black box which every participant in the cryptosystem can query but which no participant can peer inside. A query is an input binary string, and the oracle returns an output binary string when queried. Although the output of each query is truly random, it's consistent: repeating a query results in the same output as the original. Then a proof of security in the random oracle model indicates that any weakness present in the standard model is a weakness lying between the pseudorandomness of the hash function and the ideal randomness of the oracle function.

Much as we don't need the true randomness of a one-time pad for practically secure encryption, and can opt instead for the computational assurances of the standard model, the random oracle model posits that a sufficiently secure hash function is "secure enough" even if it isn't truly random.

<comment><USER3> Just curious, why the anonymous response? You clearly have read Goldreich, which is enough entropy to narrow down your identity to about 1000 people in the world.

<comment><USER2> This account isn't intended to be perfectly anonymous. I just use it to maintain plausible deniability and dissociate my real name from HN debates :)

<comment><USER3> Cool! Well, I'm Rob K. If you're ever in Chicago, please hit me up so we can grab a beer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there output size fixed? Because in that case, if I feed it an array of inputs larger than the output size, it'll logically have to throw a collision. At that point, how is it better than a hash function?

Forgive the naivety of my question. I'm self-taught.

<comment><USER5> Random oracles are a model for reasoning about hash functions, so generally speaking they have the same "API" as whatever type of hash function you'd use in the real world. Most commonly that means they take in an arbitrary-length input and output a fixed-size digest. So yes, by the pigeonhole principle they will have collisions.

One major difference is that "the oracle implements a random function" implicitly guarantees several security properties that otherwise you'd have to assume as complexity assumptions. For example, a random function has collision resistance due to the simple fact that outputs are distributed randomly and therefore finding a collision should take (on average!) many queries to the oracle. With standard hash functions, you have to assume collision resistance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> From what I gather it's basically like an infinite shuffled deck of cards. For every position in deck (input), you get a card (output).

<comment><USER7> Umm. I think that is too simplistic because it does not include a way to get the same shuffled deck if you ask it a previous query.

From what I gather it is like a procedurally generated massive open world game, where every time you ask for a new place to go, you get a new randomly generated place. The random oracle olso lets you return to all the previous places. By effectively making the same query, and getting identical answers from previous queries. In that way you can to old cities, planets, worlds.

Now, someone do a car analogy! :-)

<comment><USER6> > it does not include a way to get the same shuffled deck if you ask it a > previous query.

You put the card back in the same place in the deck (just look at the card... don't take it out). You always get the same random card for the same "index" (where upper bound in infinite) or "key" or "query".</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Beds and services for homeless youth - <AUTHOR> http://ysnmn.org

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Just a few technical notes about the site:

This was my first Angular project. I had done Knockout, Durandal, and classic server-rendered web apps before, but this was my first stab with Angular. I liked it, and now use Angular for most of my projects.

I used TypeScript and found the classes to work great with Angular's controllers.

C# and MS SQL on the backend, hosted on Azure.

On the site, youth can subscribe to get emails or text messages when a bed becomes available. For this, we use SendGrid and Twilio.

We're using a custom Bootstrap theme for the UI. This enabled us to easily make the site responsive, which was a major goal since most homeless youth have phones but not desktops.

The project was commissioned by Youth Service Network, a group of youth shelters in Minnesota, with grant money supplied by Microsoft and Target. Microsoft provided free Azure credits to host the site.

SendGrid and Twilio both got involved in the project and offered a large amount of free credits. Kudos to them for that.

<comment><USER2> Great work and happy to see the support from all those corporations.

Agreeing with the others on the Minnesota label being needed on the site, but moreso - what do you think would be required to take this to other major cities? Is the limiting factor just data or is there more to it?

Aside: if this is still in active development, I'd be happy to offer some time on design & UX

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Super encouraging to hear the feedback.

Thanks for the offer for time on design and UX. It's ultimately up to the shelter network to continue with the next version of this app. I've got your email from your profile; I'll keep in touch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is terrific. Thanks for doing it! The responsive design works great. It's simple enough to figure out with cold fingers on a mobile phone or in a public library -- which is where your target audience members most likely are.

Some suggestions.

Do you need a "we don't track you" statement, so the youth feel safe? (Or is it better not to bring it up?)

Somebody else mentioned that you have a geographic service area. It might be helpful to mention that, or to somehow geofence requests, for the sake of people in need from other geographies.

I wonder if "outreach worker" should say "somebody to talk to." Poor folks have a lot of bureaucracy to deal with, and it might be nice to offer the value proposition rather than the job title. Plus, it's a way to connect with folks who might be suicidal.

"Parenting" \-- maybe "Taking care of kids".

\----

Promotion: Stickers and signs. Bathrooms, in the stalls, are especially effective places to put them up. Youth with trouble don't want to be seen copying stuff off signs on bulletin boards (social stigma).

\----

Is this available to be replicated in other geographies? If you want to try it in MA, I can work with you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow - first, thanks for the awesome feedback. I'll relay this information to the shelters who organized this.

As far as replicating this in other states, I'd personally love that! I will speak with the organizers. Currently, it's a group of shelters in MN that got together to do this. They may be interested in branching out.

Thanks again for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Slick interface, cool visual presentation, and awesome intentioned resource for people in need...but outside of seeing "MN" in the URL and clicking through the links, I wouldn't have known that this is limited to Minnesota/the Twin Cities metro area. I like the plain, straightforward and neutral approach to the listings, but perhaps a small logo (besides the iconography, e.g. the Y's distinctive logos) for each link would help to break things up. Overall, nice site. Thanks for sharing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is really great! Seriously, you don't know how helpful something like this is. My girlfriend worked for a charity that helped people find housing around Toronto. She was using this really ancient program from like 1995 to do it. It didn't really do much, she would just end up calling shelters around the city. From what I understood, most of her job was compiling data exactly like what your service provides.

</comment><comment><USER6> I deactivate the geolocation api and I think that you should allow the user to tell you it's latitude and longitude if a user refuse to use geolocation.

It is a really nice initiative ! I will spread the word around.

<comment><USER7> The server could use GeoIP to identify the user's city, which is probably accurate enough for finding relevant services. I imagine very few people know their current latitude and longitude. :)

<comment><USER8> You'd be surprised of some policies shelters adopt for their service areas.

It's possible that a shelter will only accommodate you if your last known address was west of X street within Y county limits (cities can span counties) and an odd numbered house.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is really awesome. I'm actually working on a very similar app! It may be good to put a listing on the side of the cities you support. I'm assuming over time you're planning to grow the coverage.

<comment><USER10> It'd be great to have other cities involved with this. It's something the funding organization is interested in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thanks for building this; although I have never been homeless, this is something near and dear to my heart.

I second rmxt's comment about clearly branding this for Minneapolis.

Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER12> Excellent project. Small angular error: when I go to [http://ysnmn.org/#/services/30](http://ysnmn.org/#/services/30), it looks like there's a ng-repeat dupes error in the console. Using track by $index may solve this (I ran into this problem working with angular).

I don't see it on any other pages. Either way, nice work!

</comment><comment><USER13> Judah, very nice effort. Two points of note for me:

1\. When I click shelter it shows a very small nbr of beds available when compared to the nbr of beds shown when I click the Search icon on the homepage. Also agree with cpeterso's comment on this.

2\. It was when I clicked the Search icon and scrolled to the bottom that I saw the wind chill advisory and only then saw it on the main page under Urgent news. Perhaps putting this link (Alerts/Urgent news) at the top of the page will improve its visibility. Not sure how it's rendered on a mobile browser.

All the very best.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I really hope this service gains traction and 'vendor buy in' or whatever. It's nice to see someone using their programming skills to try and defeat a huge social problem.

</comment><comment><USER8> Great design, I was able to navigate quickly through the app to find what I needed.

I work in this industry (SaaS provider for non-profits) and just sent the project out to the whole company.

Congrats!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for sharing it around your company! I really appreciate that and the kind words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is really awesome! One minor question... aren't you making a rather large assumption that homeless youth have internet access to use the site?

<comment><USER2> I'm sure user research would answer this quickly, but my guess is that many may still have smart phones or, if not, public library internet access.

<comment><USER10> What is interesting is that most homeless youth or at-risk homeless youth do have access to smart phones. The difference is that they typically do not have an active data plan and rely on wifi access at local libraries, shelters, coffee shops, etc.

I was also involved with this... more on the product side working with the shelters.

<comment><USER16> A bit of delicate feedback: perhaps 'product' is a word that could be replaced with a differently-shaped synonym.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Check out [https://www.openreferral.org/](https://www.openreferral.org/) \-- maybe ysnmn could participate in developing the standard & integrate it into the site?

</comment><comment><USER18> Great project.

</comment><comment><USER19> feature request: queer/trans specific resources!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback.

We actually implemented this at first: when searching for beds, you could search for beds reserved for transgender and gay kids. Likewise, shelters could mark beds as beds alloted for gay youth or transgender youth.

But after talking to the shelters in Minnesota, they told us that they don't have beds specifically for transgenders or gays; if a female identity transgender person is most comfortable with female beds, they give that person a female bed. The shelters told us that creating beds specifically for transgender and gay people would further isolate them.

That said, we do show which services are GLBTQ-friendly. For example, see [http://ysnmn.org/#/services/2](http://ysnmn.org/#/services/2)</comment></comment>


Introducing Atom-IDE - <AUTHOR> https://blog.atom.io/2017/09/12/announcing-atom-ide.html <comment><USER2> Honestly can't see why I'd use this - I have all the professional grade IDEs I need, why do I need one that is written in JS, is slower and consumes 5x more memory? Not to mention IDEs already have their own extension stores too. This seems like an 'IDE-lite', which doesn't make much sense in a world where professional grade IDEs are free.

<comment><USER3> The same reason thousands of programmers use Vim or Emacs with various extensions as their development environment. It allows the same editing experience across multiple languages. A consistent interface, lack of need for learning many (often very different) IDEs, less proprietary annoyance, many many more options for customization, much easier to port your setup to various platforms, etc.

Admittedly I don't think Atom is a very worthwhile text editor, but using an augmented text editor as an IDE is a very common practice.

<comment><USER4> I think that's less relevant than it used to be. JetBrains is now the de facto best IDE for Java, JavaScript, Python and PHP. It has Android Studio and even support for C#. Visual Studio also supports a wide array of languages. I'm in IntelliJ pretty much all the time, no matter the project.

<comment><USER5> IntelliJ is expensive if you want languages not covered by the free edition (like JavaScript), though, and even if you pay for it some things are frustratingly distinct such as if you have a Java/C++ app you need two different "IDEs" (CLion + IntelliJ), and you need to then juggle between those windows. Android Studio is able to work with both even though IntelliJ Ultimate isn't (why, Jetbrains, why!?), but getting Android Studio to work on non-Android things isn't the nicest of experiences.

I'd be more willing to pay for the quality if a nice, unified experience was the result, but it annoyingly isn't. To say nothing of the lack of support for things like Rust.

That's what this new generation of IDEs is exciting to me - the unified language server standards. Let the compilers handle understanding the code which is what they are best at. Especially if it helps make IDEs less tied to the build system in general (no, CLion, I don't want to use CMake)

<comment><USER6> Intellij Ultimate costs me £14 a month, with the plugins (which makes it equivalent to Phpstorm, PyCharm, Rubymine and Webstorm) thats less than I spend on coffee in two weeks, it's insane value however you look at it.

That said I still spend a chunk of time (maybe 30%) in vscode because for somethings I prefer it (it's git support with git lens is incredible) and for TypeScript it's comparable to Intellij with the advantage you can start it, do an edit and close before Intellij has finished re-indexing.

<comment><USER7> I keep seeing people writing about these "cheap" intellij subscriptions but on the website it's 400 pounds a year.

<comment><USER8> You're probably looking at the "Businesses and Organizations" pricing, where the org pays £499/yr per user. The personal ("Individual Customers") license is starts at £199, and decreases to £159 then £119 for subsequent years. There's a bunch of groups (e.g. Open Source projects) that qualify for free or heavily discounted licenses too.

<comment><USER9> And maybe importantly, you can use a personal license at work, on paid projects, etc.

I've never been particularly bullish on Atom or Electron, but I think Jetbrains is going to be eating their lunch for awhile at least.

<comment><USER10> You have to buy a personal license yourself, your organization cannot pay for it. I just don't want to pay for work tools, my employer should do that and then it is the higher price.

<comment><USER8> That's fair. Personally, though I could get the business license and expense it, I choose to pay for it as a personal license because I use it personally as well, and I'd be happy to pay the individual license price either way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This seems aimed squarely at VSCode. VSCode does a lot of this now out of the box (or with a few extensions). I think Atom is really just trying to keep up. I personally do not believe they have the horsepower to compete with Microsoft here though. VSCode is a phenomenal product.

<comment><USER12> I've always chosen Atom over VSCode because I don't want these features. Autocomplete even on really expensive IDEs runs way to slow, clever auto formatting and it's ilk tend to not work well for me at all, and I dislike the overbearing project management features in most IDEs.

I want a text editor that vaguely understands code with some simple file browsing and plug and play extensions. Atom trying to become VSCode isn't beneficial here at all.

<comment><USER13> > Autocomplete even on really expensive IDEs runs way to slow..

Not true for jetbrains ones. Autocomplete speed is One of the reasons for me to go for their toolbox subscription

<comment><USER12> Even with a fully unlocked enterprise license on it, autocomplete was lagging far behind me on a high end macbook pro. Maybe I just type too fast or the libraries I use are poorly laid out, but it was not working.

<comment><USER14> Java.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This seems to also have the BSD + Patents beloved by Facebook[0]. The virus is spreading.

[0]: [https://github.com/facebook-atom/atom-ide- ui/blob/master/PAT...](https://github.com/facebook-atom/atom-ide- ui/blob/master/PATENTS)

<comment><USER16> What can we reasonably do to stop this? This goes against the very notion of open source.

<comment><USER17> No, it is not. If you sue people with software patent, I'm happy you lose that ability.

<comment><USER18> Yeah but the protection only applies to facebook. You can still sue github and everyone else. We can clearly conclude that facebook is selfishly doing this for their own benefit and not because of an altruistic reason like a world without patents.

So in reality what you're saying means: "If you sue facebook with any patent, I'm happy you lose that ability. If you sue any other company other than facebook, I'm happy you keep that ability."

<comment><USER17> And now github is using the same license too :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Still playing catchup with VSCode, but without the integrated debugger and all the rest of its fancy tooling. Is it still mind-numbingly slow as well?

I can't imagine switching back to Atom at this point, or even Sublime. For individual projects I might use IntelliJ or Visual Studio again, but outside of that VSCode is my exclusive editor for all languages for the foreseeable future. I'm very impressed by what Microsoft pulled off to be honest. (Blinking cursor jokes aside, of course)

<comment><USER20> Can you comment on when/why you might use IntelliJ/VS over VSCode? I've recently switched to VSCode from vim, and haven't really used full IDEs since college (except for small amounts of mobile app development).

<comment><USER21> I haven't looked at vscode for a while, but intellij and it's ilk allow me to do everything inside the ide with the same interface. For example, for a django project, it has support for vagrant, SSH, django-admin tasks, remote debugging, DB inspection/modification, virtualenvs, package management, just off the top of my head.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> In my opinion, this is how IDEs should be - make something better described as a text editor (like a fresh install of vim, sublime, or atom), and allow users to add more things to the light-weight(ish?) base. So many IDEs are overkill. Text editors with the right plugins can accomplish the same things but also be much more lightweight, and help you achieve a balance between "IDE" and "text editor"

<comment><USER23> Sorry but not only could I not disagree more but you're demonstrably incorrect.

Anyone who says a text editor "can accomplish the same things [as an IDE]" just doesn't know how to use an IDE.

The text editor vs IDE difference is the difference between using regexes and a lexer/parser to read, analyze and manipulate source code.

The amount of effort I see people put into configuring their .vimrc or .emacs files to get a subset of what you get out of the box with a decent (ie Jetbrains) IDE that at the end of the day just dosn't work as well is... staggering.

I mean text editors have their place and most notably vim/emacs work over an SSH connection. That's fine. But where possible give me IntelliJ or CLion every time.

<comment><USER24> You're comparing editors like vim with IDEs. I'd say "modern" text editors such as Atom, VSCode or Sublime are between these two extremes. They provide a lot of "higher-level" features while being lightweight and programming- language neutral.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I like how they downplay Microsoft' role in Language Server Protocol.

</comment><comment><USER26> Unlike lots of the posters here, I see a real need for an IDE that's completely free. I have used Eclipse and IntelliJ, and the bloat/bug/setup process in them is incredibly painful. However, I don't know if we're just going to add those problems into atom instead of what makes atom awesome - easy package management, fast text editing - and remove it.

<comment><USER27> I think the bloat about Eclipse and IntelliJ is more about Java. As much as I hate the language, if I have to do some Java I don't think there is a smoother alternative than IntelliJ.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> "It's like the Atom editor but even slower!"

I never managed to work with Atom as it is now. It's just too slow. Now they are pushing it even further, I cannot imagine how much slower could still get.

<comment><USER29> I've only found a couple of instances where Atom was slow:

1\. On startup, it seems to take "forever" \- but I can be patient for it

2\. When having multiple files open that are really long; this may be due to linting or something, I'm not sure currently

And yes, memory usage is insane...

<comment><USER30> > When having multiple files open that are really long;

I've not used Atom so I'm curious to what you mean by this.

Firstly, what would define a _really long_ file. Is a file with 10k of lines long?

Second, I would have though the ability to open lots of files would be a rather common occurrence for any programmer working on a large code base.

What happens in Atom if you have 30 files open?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> So Atom is yet another editor supporting the language server protocol. Whether you like Atom or not, that's good news. The more that editors support it, the easier it is for new languages to get a good IDE experience with many editors.

<comment><USER32> Yes, this is the best part. Joint effort makes all editors better for tooling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Given that even Eclipse runs faster, uses less resources and has a much better plugin ecosystem than Atom, no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER34> Good luck against PHPStorm / IntelliJ. Nothing comes close yet, worth every penny.

<comment><USER35> Definitely. I wish they didn't do the autosave crap.

<comment><USER36> I will regret asking this, but why ?

I don't even remember what it was like to code without autosave in IntelliJ.

I will review the changeset before creating the PR anyway, so I don't see the downside of autosave.

<comment><USER35> Close editor by mistake, battery dies, go to lunch and forget what I was doing.

What is the upside? One less keystroke..?

<comment><USER36> The upside of not potentially losing everything you have done since the last time you remembered to save ?

is this a real question ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I Imagine this will run like mid-2000s Eclipse, but with 5 times worse performance.

<comment> amiga-workbench Man, Eclipse used to be such a dog. I was overjoyed when the Android SDK moved to IntelliJ.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> So I pressed CTRL + F and typed in "debug" \- zero results found. It seems like this is still a glorified text editor and not IDE-ish editor like Visual Studio Code.

</comment><comment><USER39> Interesting to see no Ruby support, since Github runs on Rails. Maybe code completion is too hard with Ruby?

<comment><USER40> Rubymine has it, so it can be done. Although you'd have a hard time supporting elements defined at runtime. I'd guess Ruby just has a smaller user base, and IDE support was added for tech that is the most popular among IDE users & stuff Facebook was interested in making a priority. Personally, when I program in Ruby, I don't like using an IDE.

<comment><USER41> Just started a new job at a Ruby shop and really wanted to use VS Code… but the plugins just aren't there. RubyMine is miles ahead of the free stuff right now. Maybe one day!

<comment><USER42> Can you elaborate? We're a Ruby via VSCode team. I fear I'm blissfully ignorant of the possibilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> 20Gb of RAM latter.

</comment><comment><USER44> Lots of people talking about their preferred IDE/editor here. It's great that we can use what we choose, because the underlying standards - languages, runtimes, repositories - are so standardised. I sometimes swap to and fro on the same project. Not at all like UI development in the 80's and 90's, where you picked between, say, VB, Delphi, Omnis etc. and that's what you were stuck with.

I use WebStorm/IntelliJ for my daily drivers. Tried Atom a while ago and have been liking VSCode more recently (good for Rust) and was very impressed, but still prefer WebStorm for JavaScript. Recently prompted to try Atom again due to the plugin for Marko.js, and was pleasantly surprised. Performance on my 2013 16GB MBPro is fine and it seems overall cleaner and snappier than I remembered. Just installed this new IDE plugin and it's instantly impressive. Good to see that the underpinnings of IDE functions are also becoming standardised thanks to LSP.

</comment><comment><USER45> How is this different than Facebook's Nuclide?

<comment><USER46> > Atom IDE UI is fast and lightweight by design. It extracts only the subset > of the core UI features from Nuclide necessary to support Atom's atom- > languageclient library in displaying features supported by the language > server protocol.

Source: [https://nuclide.io/blog/2017/09/12/Introducing-Atom-IDE- UI/](https://nuclide.io/blog/2017/09/12/Introducing-Atom-IDE-UI/)

So I guess the main differences are that it's more lightweight, and open- source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I like how this blog is not responsive. Atom is for desktop, so the blog has to be so.

<comment><USER48> YES! cause nobody reads news.ycombinator while taking a dump.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> This is interesting because language servers are interesting. I will probably hold out for a vim language server client that isn't just a port of nvim's.

<comment><USER50> What's wrong with neovim?

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Is this the fate of all text editors once they run out of ideas to implement ?

I for sure wouldnt use this, especially with the whole kite controversy just being over (is it ?).

</comment><comment><USER52> I appreciate the extended support for LSP, but this seems to repeat the mistake VSCode made of requiring custom plugins for each backend you'd like to integrate. This increases the overhead for server authors and makes it less likely that language servers and clients actually match spec, if people give in to writing custom integrations that can paper over bugs.

</comment><comment><USER53> Off-topic but does anyone know what that atom skin used in the screenshot ([https://user- images.githubusercontent.com/378023/29859731-74...](https://user- images.githubusercontent.com/378023/29859731-741403be-8d9e-11e7-99c5-6b914e3fff9c.png)) is called?

</comment><comment><USER54> What I'd much rather have is a reasonable development on Android or iOS. I've tried some but it always felt awkward, even with a Bluetooth keyboard. Eventually it we"ll get there as web apps are now fine replacements for desktop apps. Question is when.

</comment><comment><USER14> Playing catch-up with VS Code.

</comment><comment><USER55> I can't believe it took this long for language servers and an open editor/"language smartness server" comm protocol to be developed.

</comment><comment><USER56> I hope they address memory consumption at some point too.

<comment><USER57> Yep, I was using Atom for 6 months, I wanted to give a solid go. But now I am back to sublime text.

I can't really put my finger on it, but sublime text is just snappy and reliable in ways that Atom isn't. Got really tired of Atom lagging because I'm typing too fast, got tired of lockups and hanging. VS Code has very simillar issues too.

It was a nice experiment (can we do editors in HTML/JS?), but I'm convinced native is the only way to go for proper editing.

<comment><USER58> Have you tried VS Code? It's very snappy in my experience, much better than atom.

<comment><USER57> Yep, been using it for a month full time so far. It IS better than Atom, but it still has snappiness problems. The embedded console is great, but not as fast as just using command prompt, it just has weird laggy moments. Using the built-in Git is also laggy, there's a delay when you click to stage a file, really annoying. The search is really laggy too, when you do a search across your app, it locks up the whole window for a second or two.

Microsoft also has this really annoying tendency to use icons for everything, every once in a while I find myself googling wtf these icons are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Flow is supported, but Reason is not ? I thought it would be the other way around.

Anyone know which one is what the React ecosystem is moving to ?

<comment><USER53> This was made mostly by Facebook, it stands to reason Flow would be supported.

<comment><USER60> Reason is also made by Facebook

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Is this a nicely packaged version of nuclide?

<comment><USER62> Seems like it. I tried Nuclide back when I used Atom, but the performance wasn't great so I eventually uninstalled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> No golang support, going to pass for now.

</comment><comment><USER64> Relevant: [https://nuclide.io/](https://nuclide.io/)

</comment><comment><USER65> How is this different from Nuclide?

</comment><comment><USER66> Can someone compare this to Visual Studio Code?

It seems to be the exact same thing?

<comment><USER67> One is written in .NET, while the other one is written in JavaScript, run in a JavaScript runtime environment ripped out of Chrome.

<comment><USER68> They're both electron applications?

<comment><USER69> Yes. Both are electron

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> what theme is used in the screen shots?

</comment><comment><USER71> Sad.

Hoped they would cooperate with MS on VSCode

</comment><comment><USER72> Why why why why why?

What is the point in this? Seriously. Please can someone enlighten me. Atom was bad enough with all of the other text editors are out there and not written in JS, but now you can't even say it's just a text editor. Facebook and the other contributors clearly have too much spare time on their hands.

JetBrains. End of.

</rant>

<comment><USER73> >What is the point in this? Seriously. Please can someone enlighten me.

People want to improve the tools they use. Whether or not you feel they are using their "spare time" correctly, I'm sure they don't care.

<comment><USER69> I hope fb team put ability auto import on react native flow ide

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> > [Utilize] the power of language servers to provide deep syntactical analysis > of your code and projects.

Having my code analyzed by others' servers just so I can have better autocomplete does not sound like something I want.

<comment><USER75> Language servers are local services that analyze the code outside of your editor (and can be used by several editors etc). It's a protocol that got big the last 2 years or so.

It doesn't refer to servers in some Cloud.

<comment><USER76> So... daemons?

<comment><USER52> yes and no? Unlike a traditional daemon, this isn't a system service that always runs in the background.

The IDE (in this case atom) spins up the process and shuts it down when necessary, and then both sides communicate to each other using an implementation-defined IPC mechanism.

So it's a server more in the sense that the IDE requests info as a client, and then the server provides it (pull, not push).

<comment><USER77> So it's not a daemon or a server. It's just a process. Running some code in a separate process isn't a 'server' it's just how all programmes operate.

<comment><USER78> In computing, a server is a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called "clients".

<comment><USER77> _across a network_ in modern parlance</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you use your e-reader? - <AUTHOR> I love my kindle. Currently I only use it for books, but I'm interested in hearing how others use their e-readers. Specifically:<p>- When do you read? - What do you read? - How do you get content onto your device? <comment><USER2> I have to admit I put down my e-reader a long time ago and never picked it up again. FBReader app on the phone means I can read on the go (white text on black which I prefer)

FBreader also syncs with Calibre library on the desktop, and has text to speech. Maybe it's weird but I really got used to the tts reading to me. I "read" while shopping, with the lights off in bed and especially while driving.

Oh and as for what, only science fiction, that's my preference.

</comment><comment> Const-me 1 everytime I have time for that. 2 Books. 3 Either from kindle store, or by e-mailing stuff to my @kindle.com e-mail address.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some projects I can build to better learn software engineering? - <AUTHOR> I'm interviewing now after graduating with a Masters in CS and most employers ask me to complete a coding exercise: build a simple web app, a library, etc.<p>Most of the jobs around me are in web dev, so I'd prefer to work on a project using a web stack. <comment><USER2> Build something you'd use. Doesn't matter what.

The first app I built scraped a food delivery site that looked for big deals and sent me a text so I could confirm a purchase and have dinner at home.

I learned about web scraping, database storage, integrating twilio, error handling, cron and getting this all into an ec2 instance.

My second app I turned into a full time business after many rewrites.

Build an app that scans for the lowest gas price in town and send you the trailing 12 week average on price via text daily.

I'm learning guitar so I want to build an planner that makes sense to me

If you spend a little time you can come up with an app that will add value to you and because you know the problem and are motivated by it you're more likely to ship compared to a to-do app or one of the generic recommendations you tend to receive

<comment><USER3> No - build something somebody else would use and not complain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://github.com/gothinkster/realworld](https://github.com/gothinkster/realworld) has a full spec you can clone and then compare to somebody else's implementation

</comment><comment><USER5> If you don't have a personal website or blog, make one as a project. It will benefit you for learning web dev, for hosting content, and for giving you a portfolio!

Pick a web stack you want to learn, make your website and host it somewhere. A harder, but nice extension would be a blog admin page where you can add content to your site, from your site, so you don't have to deploy your code every time you want to update your blog.

Don't want to host yourself? Make a website on repl.it in the language of your choice, they will host it for free, and you can instantly see changes in "production" at a custom domain.

</comment><comment><USER6> It might also help if you start taking code challenges on any site like freecodecamp [1]. You can pick any series of lessons and it will help you to gain hands-on experience while learning step by step.

Once you feel confident, start making your personal website or online resume. You can keep all the source code on some public website like github. It will also be handy while sending your code samples to potential employers.

[1] [https://www.freecodecamp.org/learn](https://www.freecodecamp.org/learn)

</comment><comment><USER7> Pick an area you are interested in and then make a scalable web service for it.

Some examples: a website for getting the most recent cryptocurrency prices, an app for collaboration (drawing, design, music, etc.), an instagram clone, a simple multiplayer game (e.g., hangman).

Make them with scalability and availability in mind. When deployed they should be fault tolerant and scale to thousands of concurrent users. Show how you would load test it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Learn Berkeley sicp (CS 61A) ,it will teach you to write an interpreter, more importantly, through it you will learn the most powerful idea of software engineering :abstraction.

</comment><comment><USER9> My students do three:

Reddit clone

Food bank organisation, shops submit out of date food. People want food. You organise this, facebook like interface.

MUD clone

Code these three. Put on github.

<comment><USER10> which institution do you teach at where your students would acquire the skills to do these? Any online classes you can point to perhaps? Thks

<comment><USER9> These skills are not hard. 3 months of apprenticeship, 1 day in college, 4 days in a job.

Just start building one, learn as you do it. All I do is insist that the students do it. They're all like you, "Oh I don't know if I can." .. I just force them to do it.

Another bunch of non-coders - first assignment is to send a waether balloon up (50,000 ft) and take picture. You've just got to want to do it. Posting on HN isn't enough. Start typing in code. Don't stop until you are an expert.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What if you were to build a simple AR app? For example, imagine Instagram opens up directly to the AR filters. The action would simply be swiping left and right to try different AR filters. Would this be too complex?

</comment><comment><USER12> U just graduated with a Masters and u get on HN to ask about what kind of project? Dude seriously look back at your last 6 yrs of life and reflect, if u learned anything at all.</comment>


s/blazing fast//g - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/search?l=Markdown&p=2&q=blazing+fast&type=Code&utf8=%E2%9C%93 <comment><USER2> "8,095 code results We could not perform this search."

Huh?

<comment><AUTHOR> Weird, here's an image of the search when I do it: [http://imgur.com/a/6oABL](http://imgur.com/a/6oABL)</comment></comment>


Why I started Essential (by Andy Rubin) - <AUTHOR> https://www.essential.com/blog/why-I-started-essential <comment><USER2> Of everything in that article, this I think is the most unusual:

"Devices shouldn't become outdated every year. They should evolve with you."

If Essential actually adheres to this maxim, they may change how we approach device technology.

Essential has my attention, though not yet my dollars.

<comment><USER3> If Essential really has come up with a way to keep hardware up to date without physical replacement, it'll be great, but I suspect they haven't.</comment></comment>


Svalbard Global Seed Vault - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault <comment><USER2> >In Norway, government-funded construction projects exceeding a certain cost must include artwork.

I'm a swede and I am constantly pleasantly surprised by public policy in our scandinavian countries.

<comment><USER3> It's not only in Scandinavian countries. Many countries, such as Germany and the US adopted that policy at the end of the 1920s or beginning of 1930s. In the former it's still in place and Wikipedia tells me that more than half of the US states have a "Percent for Art" program which is essentially that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Veritasium made a great video about the Svalbard Seed Vault: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_OEsf-1qgY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_OEsf-1qgY)

<comment><USER5> I was about to post the same link. Very informative video and enjoyable to watch. I love how they say that North Korea is just next to America.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone interested in Svalbard, which focuses on crop seeds, might also be interested in the less glamorous Millennium Seed Bank which focuses on wild plant seeds: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Seed_Bank_Partnersh...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Seed_Bank_Partnership)

<comment><USER7> But which is more important?

<comment><USER8> Hard to tell.

The seed vault seems focused on plants that are in productive use at this moment, while the seed bank seems to cover wild plants.

The latter may be interesting for the future if we discover that a certain plant have some kind of useful property.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here a really nice Ted Talk about it: [https://www.ted.com/talks/cary_fowler_one_seed_at_a_time_pro...](https://www.ted.com/talks/cary_fowler_one_seed_at_a_time_protecting_the_future_of_food)

</comment><comment><USER10> Mankind's Plan B, protected by polar bears :)

</comment><comment><USER11> This is a Wikipedia article and as such not "news," in my opinion. Reddit is a better place to post this type of content.

<comment><USER12> > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes > more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the > answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Nothing in there about content having to be "news".</comment></comment>