Tell HN: WH Petition for portable work authorization for legal immigrants - <AUTHOR> Petition Link: https://goo.gl/FB7DTm
At the time of writing, the petition needs 3,619 signatures by August 10, 2016 to reach its goal of 100K signatures.
----
On Nov 25th 2014, President Obama signed an executive action (https://goo.gl/wPP4K9) that would make it possible for the highly-skilled workers to obtain portable work authorization (I140 EAD and AP). Close to two years since then, there have been no updates on this action. Thousands of green cards are being wasted every year, with an estimated 500,000 green cards wasted so far, while the highly-skilled workers continue to wait in a queue that may take 20-50 years. We urge you to review and take necessary actions to recapture unused green cards, and provide portable work authorization. <comment><USER2> Clickable non-shortened link:

[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/no-respite- highly-...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/no-respite-highly- skilled-americans-waiting-need-portable-work-authorization- recapture-500k-green-cards)

</comment><comment><USER3> > while the highly-skilled workers continue to wait in a queue that may take > 20-50 years.

According to [https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and- policy/bul...](https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and- policy/bulletin/2016/visa-bulletin-for-august-2016.html), the only category which is waiting for 12 years are indians, because consulting companies like infosys (aka bodyshops) bring large number of low skilled engineers to US, using scam schemes, creating backlog. High skilled engineers from rest of the world are waiting for green cards for 2-3 years only.

<comment><AUTHOR> > the only category which is waiting for 12 years are indians, because > consulting companies like ...

There is a small fixed number of GC's allocated to each country, irrespective of the population of that country or the number of people applying from that country. So Iceland gets the same allocation as India or China.

If you randomly pick six humans alive on this planet now, one of them is likely to be Indian and one of them is likely to be Chinese. And hence, the allocated GC numbers (~ 7K per year IIRC) don't suffice for these countries resulting in huge backlogs. I think this has very little to do with consulting companies etc.

> High skilled engineers from rest of the world are waiting for green cards > for 2-3 years only.

High skilled Indian or Chinese engineers who applied 12 years ago are getting their GCs now. Those that apply now will likely get it in a few decades only. You seem to suggest that this is somehow OK because "well, it is after all just the Indians!". Why is that so?

<comment><USER3> > Indian or Chinese engineers who applied 12 years ago are getting their GCs > now

Backlog for Chinese engineers is 6 years, not 12.

> Those that apply now will likely get it in a few decades only.

Is word "likely" here based on any analysis? Or you throw random statements as usually?

> Why is that so?

Perhaps per country cap was implemented for a reason: immigrants to US are culturally and nationally diverse, not just all Indians.

Also I suggest you to spend your energy fighting against h1b and l1 scam from Indian consulting companies. It will relax situation for real Indian high skilled engineers significantly.

<comment><AUTHOR> >> Indian or Chinese engineers who applied 12 years ago are getting their GCs now

> Backlog for Chinese engineers is 6 years, not 12.

That is correct.

>> Those that apply now will likely get it in a few decades only.

> Is word "likely" here based on any analysis? Or you throw random statements > as usually?

It is based on analysis. Please see: [http://www.cato.org/blog/no-one-knows- how-long-legal-immigra...](http://www.cato.org/blog/no-one-knows-how-long- legal-immigrants-will-have-wait)

>> Why is that so?

> Perhaps per country cap was implemented for a reason: immigrants to US are > culturally and nationally diverse, not just all Indians.

Yes, that is the _stated_ reason. Cultural diversity, I can understand. But national diversity? Why should tiny nations of one continent be preferred over larger nations of another? The Hart-Celler Act of 1965 had gone some way in fixing these discriminatory immigration preferences.

> Also I suggest you to spend your energy fighting against h1b and l1 scam > from Indian consulting companies. It will relax situation for real Indian > high skilled engineers significantly.

Agreed that this also needs be to fixed.

<comment><USER3> > It is based on analysis. Please see: [http://www.cato.org/blog/no-one-knows- > how-long-legal-immigra...](http://www.cato.org/blog/no-one-knows-how-long- > legal-immigra..).

So, that analysis extrapolates 2 numbers from 2006 and 2008 years to timeframe of 20 years. Looks very strange for me.

> But national diversity?

Obviously, there is a strong correlation between national and cultural diversity, and since it is hard to set metrics for culture diversity, national diversity has been used.

<comment><AUTHOR> > So, that analysis extrapolates 2 numbers from 2006 and 2008 years to > timeframe of 20 years. Looks very strange for me.

Having been on the receiving end of this for nearly a decade now, knowing many people who have been waiting even longer, and having read about this issue for many years - it does not look strange to me.

> Obviously, there is a strong correlation between national and cultural > diversity, and since it is hard to set metrics for culture diversity, > national diversity has been used.

And I am pointing out instances where this heuristic does not apply. Kerala and Gujrat have as much cultural diversity as any two countries in Europe. So, back to the original question - why is the attitude "Well, it is after all just the Indians!" OK?

<comment><USER3> > Having been on the receiving end of this for nearly a decade now

Decade and 20-50 years from your initial statement and cited analysis are quite different timeframes.

This is another example of you bringing non-sense statements in order to "win" discussion no matter what.

> Kerala and Gujrat have as much cultural diversity as any two countries in > Europe.

I don't know this, and I don't trust your statements from obvious reasons. And obviously setting cups for individual India provinces will open many more doors for cheating for Indian consulting companies.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Decade and 20-50 years from your initial statement and cited analysis are > quite different timeframes.

> This is another example of you bringing non-sense statements in order to > "win" discussion no matter what.

See, if you'd stop attributing malice to everything I say, you might be able to understand this better. _I_ am waiting for close to a decade and I am still unsure when I will get it. People applying _now_ , are looking at a 20-50 year prospect as explained in the article I posted.

> I don't know this, and I don't trust your statements from obvious reasons. > And obviously setting cups for individual India provinces will open many > more doors for cheating for Indian consulting companies.

Maybe Wikipedia might help you understand, if you don't trust me? What I gather is that you have some grudge against Indian consulting companies (who doesn't?!) and are unwilling to look past that. I think I don't have anything to add to this thread at this point, so I am giving this a rest. Have a good day!

<comment><USER3> > . I am waiting for close to a decade and I am still unsure when I will get > it.

According to visa bulletin your expected waiting time is 2 years.

> People applying now, are looking at a 20-50 year prospect as explained in > the article I posted.

As I pointed the analysis in your article is a very wild guess.

> Maybe Wikipedia might help you understand, if you don't trust me?

Sure, why not Google?

> What I gather is that you have some grudge against Indian consulting > companies (who doesn't?!) and are unwilling to look past that.

I have some grudge to people who advocate using information miss representation, and flood discussions with low quality statements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The current slow process ensures that corporations get reliable workers who can't quit.

This bill will convert immigrant workers to free-agents who can quit at anytime. Why would any corporation back this? I am betting a tenner this will never pass in congress.

<comment><USER5> If anything, it's always worth fighting for the things you believe in even if you think it's going to fail anyway.

<comment><USER6> This is only true if the resources you have to spend fighting are not limited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know much about this topic, but Obama is now a lame duck and not likely to do something immigration-related before he leaves office (since Clinton is positioning herself as more protectionist than Obama has been).

<comment><AUTHOR> President Obama's Executive Action promised relief for legal immigrants stuck in GC backlogs. There seems to have been efforts to remove the backlogs too, but those have not been acted upon. This petition urges to take up on those actions.

The backlogs are getting worser every year. Here is an article postulating that it might take "somewhere between half a century and three and a half centuries" for many legal immigrants to get a GC : [http://www.cato.org/blog/no-one-knows-how-long-legal- immigra...](http://www.cato.org/blog/no-one-knows-how-long-legal-immigrants- will-have-wait)

It is interesting to note what this petition _does not_ ask for - it does not ask for increase in H-1B numbers, which by and large is the only legal immigration issue which gets any discussion.

Finally, a video of a meeting of desi-consulting shop heads surfaced recently in which they were scheming to challenge the Executive Action plans so that they can keep legal immigrants on their leash longer and extract profits. Here is the video - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj1bHpPvSuE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj1bHpPvSuE)

<comment><USER7> From some initial reading, I learned the following (correct me if any of these conclusions are wrong):

1) The executive action you mentioned would take "more than a year" to plan, so there was never a promise for a timeline.

2) Obama's executive actions related to immigration are working their way through the courts and will be ruled legal or illegal by the Supreme Court soon.

3) The President doesn't actually have the power to change anything substantially. For example, only Congress can increase the number of immigration judges.

Also, just my own thought: I don't support this petition, nor do I support Obama's executive action in any situation that increases the President's power. Sure, Obama is suggesting things we generally like. What if the next President is someone terrible or dangerous? What if the President after that is terrible or dangerous?

I'm strongly opposed to anything that gives any branch of government enough power to eliminate the checks and balances that prevent tyranny.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Only best should deserve and priority should be given to citizens of this country first. I am working on H1B and I can feel the pain of fellow US workers. However, one should look at their past and must understand that people have migrated from all over the world in past when there were no visa restrictions. May be even no,w citizens some countries enjoy a free passage to the main stream job market. Please do not blame, hate us (H1B workers) coming to this country through legal channel. We all coming here in the search of better career opportunity, earning good money, having good quality of life. It is responsibility of the law makers to ensure that proper due diligence is done before any foreign worker is to be hired. There is a process in place, minimum education criteria before anybody can be hired on h1B visa. So I can say confidently that 90% H1B candidates comes with good education, higher skills. For some of them English may not be the first language so they may not be as savvy in spoken English as the US Born people but don't make a mistake of writing them off as unskilled, uneducated fake candidates. We are also victims of some greedy, unethical companies with whom we have to work just because they hold our H1B visa. We have to follow unethical practices otherwise our Visa's will be cancelled. We have to stick to these employers for years and years while we wait for Green cards. We have to manage with low salaries, no benefits. If US Government streamlines it Green card processing rules then many of us would be willing to work with good companies and have good career growth, have a good pay instead of working as a low pay worker. US employers will then hire foreign workers only due to its competency and not for low rates. It will be a level playing ground for all.

So I sincerely request all my US friends, brothers and sisters to helps us free from this modern day slavery. Please sign the petition. [https://goo.gl/FB7DTm](https://goo.gl/FB7DTm)

Thanks

<comment><USER9> I don't think this will get you any sympathy. If anything, you are going to be shot down for the 'slavery' bit. It is not slavery in the sense that you can quit and go back home. Doesn't matter if you are living in the country for years and don't even identify with your place of origin anymore.

Also, many won't care that you are "earning good money". In fact, that gets you the opposite reaction: you are "stealing" jobs from them and making a killing as a result. You'll get more sympathy by saying that you pay your taxes just like everyone else.

> have a good pay instead of working as a low pay worker

This is also a thorny issue. You see, one of the main complaints regarding immigration is that people will come from abroad and still american's jobs.

It is true though that a company can do whatever they want with such a big carrot (which doubles as a stick). Including reducing salaries in at will states.

> There is a process in place, minimum education criteria before anybody can > be hired on h1B visa. So I can say confidently that 90% H1B candidates comes > with good education, higher skills.

There is. The problem is that a handful of companies keep throwing candidates at the US until some stick. Mainly from India. And that is a problem. The employees are the ones that get the short end of the stick every time, the companies bringing massive amounts of workers to throw around at "client sites" are almost never held accountable.

I'm in a similar situation myself (different visa). I would strongly support a law that drastically reduced the number of available visas, in exchange for giving the ones that are actually approved some leeway. Even if that means that my own would get dropped.

In other words, operate just like many countries already do: once you get a work permit/authorization/what have you, you are already deemed valuable to the country. Meaning you can change jobs (under a few restrictions). Or maybe have a hobby on the site earning you some money. Why not? Add a clause saying that you cannot have a criminal record or you get thrown out, for all I care.

You know what would be better? The ability for people legally employed to self-sponsor their green cards. Let people make the case for themselves, without having to resort on the good will of the employer. In many cases, they will only start the green card process when your visa is close to expiring and cannot be renewed anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> we should make more intelligent people work for united states

</comment><comment><USER10> we should make more intelligent people work for us

<comment><USER8> Very true... only best should deserve and priority should be given to citizens of this country first. I am working on H1B and I can feel the pain of fellow US workers. However, one should look at their past and must understand that people have migrated from all over the world in past when there were no visa restrictions. May be even now citizens some countries enjoy a free passage to the main stream job market. Please do not blame, hate us (H1B workers) coming to this country through legal channel. We all coming here in the search of better career opportunity, earning good money, having good quality of life. It is responsibility of the law makers to ensure that proper due diligence is done before any foreign worker is to be hired. There is a process in place, minimum education criteria before anybody can be hired on h1B visa. So I can say confidently that 90% H1B candidates comes with good education, higher skills. For some of them English may not be the first language so they may not be as savvy in spoken English as the US Born people but don't make a mistake of writing them off as unskilled, uneducated fake candidates. We are also victims of some greedy, unethical companies with whom we have to work just because they hold our H1B visa. We have to follow unethical practices otherwise our Visa's will be cancelled. We have to stick to these employers for years and years while we wait for Green cards. We have to manage with low salaries, no benefits. If US Government streamlines it Green card processing rules then many of us would be willing to work with good companies and have good career growth, have a good pay instead of working as a low pay worker. US employers will then hire foreign workers only due to its competency and not for low rates. It will be a level playing ground for all.

So I sincerely request all my US friends, brothers and sisters to helps us free from this modern day slavery. Please sign the petition. [https://goo.gl/FB7DTm](https://goo.gl/FB7DTm)

Thanks</comment></comment>


Pay What You Want for Guy Kawasaki's eBook on Gumroad - <AUTHOR> https://gumroad.com/l/SNBya

<comment><USER2> "How to circle people, how to perfect your profile, how to craft effective posts, how to comment, how to respond to comments, and how to share photographs." This warrants a book?

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it hard to make an ePub format book along with a PDF file?

I really dislike the way PDF files display on my small Sony Ereader (especially with programming books where there is inset code paragraphs and zooming-in messes their layout completely). From my experience, EPub handles the wrapping much better.

</comment><comment><USER4> The ui for the payment is the best I've seen so far !!

<comment><USER5> Thanks!</comment></comment>


The iPod touch just became the best budget digital camera - <AUTHOR> http://www.sparsebundle.net/posts/ipod-touch-camera

<comment><USER2> It would be great if a statement like this had been issued by some form of camera reviewer, and not a blog citing MacRumors. There are a lot of reasons I'd buy an iPod touch (like being a burner test device for iOS 8), but to have a pocket camera isn't one of them.

<comment><USER3> I agree, if it had been from DPReview perhaps. Their phone camera reviews are excellent, [http://connect.dpreview.com/post/7518611407/apple- iphone5s-s...](http://connect.dpreview.com/post/7518611407/apple- iphone5s-smartphone-camera-review)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why do peole buy P&S cameras? Switch the device on - can take a picture. Startup times are counted in specs!

Then optical zoom is a selling point, sometimes even exchangable batteries and flash. Waterproof cameras seem to sell a bit. None of these features apply to the iPod touch. The iPod does not even have a shutter button.

Statements to position the iPod touch as a "cheap" camera have nothing to do with reality. The author should not confuse the iPod camera with the iPhone 5s camera.

</comment><comment><USER5> _The iPod touch is the perfect camera for someone who may not want the additional functionality or cost of the iPhone, yet wants to take great photos_

The photo quality from the iPod is dramatically worse than the iPhone. The iPod Touch isn't just an iPhone minus cellular.

<comment><USER6> looking at the specifications page, other than megapixels what differences are there now? This new model looks like a significant improvement.

<comment><USER5> The only change is that the lowest end model that previously did not have a rear camera now includes the same rear camera that the higher end models have had for two years.

The iPod Touch camera is an okay camera, but it has significantly more noise, less color accuracy, is much worse in low-light situations. If you are taking pictures in great light, it's fine, but it is like smartphone cameras from several generations ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7>
        Apple has always positioned the iPod touch as more of
        a casual gaming device than anything else, which is
        doing the device a disservice

Why is that? I bought an ipod touch (4th gen, a couple years ago) specifically for ios games & don't give a damn about taking pictures.

There are plenty of other ways to take a picture but ipod touch is the cheapest way to play ios games.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd probably argue that it just pigeon-holes the iPod touch into being primarily a gaming device when it can do much more. Not that gaming isn't a good reason to get one.</comment></comment>


Antarctica like you've never seen it before - <AUTHOR> http://localwiki.org/blog/2012/oct/10/localwiki-antarctica/

<comment><USER2> Unrelated, but one of my favorite things about Antarctica is a terribly irreverent and incredibly amusing activity of many temporary residents in the area -- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_Club>

<comment> throwaway54-762 Wikipedia claims they run naked, but one of the linked articles[0] says that they actually wear boots. I was wondering how they prevented frostbite...

[0]: <http://antarcticnet.tripod.com/300club.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wow, what an interesting thing to stumble across. I happen to work for the Polar Geospatial Center and deal with satellite imagery and map-making for both poles all the time. In fact, several of our staff are in the process of deploying to McMurdo where they support the US mission with maps and other GIS related activities. One staffer, Brad Herried, shot most of the Google Streetview material from Antarctica. Nice to see it's appreciated!

</comment><comment><USER4> Here's something I really love: Walk-through the Amundson Scott South Pole Station <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdM9sYXmVrY>

<comment><USER5> You can also see the Scott's hut on Street View: [http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/worldwonders/scotts-...](http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/worldwonders/scotts- hut/)

<comment><USER6> And that's why I love HN. I had no idea about that worldwonders page. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone know why this page refers to Litchfield Island as "the island most frequently seen in dreams?"

<comment><USER8> Oddly enough, this very blog post is the only Google result I get for the quoted phrase. Anyway, the thing looks inkblotty and fractally enough that I could plausibly mistake any frosty island for it in a dream. Probably related to the fact that we regularly have déjà vu in places of which (we think) we've dreamt. Or at least I do.

<comment><USER9> I got one layer deeper. I googled the same thing, but I ended up here back at HN because this very conversation has already been indexed and is now a top search result.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The project page <http://antarctica.localwiki.org/> seems to be down.

<comment><USER11> I just got a 503 error message.

"Service Temporarily Unavailable

"The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is amazing! How long until we can rent a romotive or iPad Double or tacocopter to drive around and "see the place for ourselves"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Some scientists are alredy using aerial drones :) [http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/stories/2012/10/10_03_12wayne_perry...](http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/stories/2012/10/10_03_12wayne_perryman.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well, there was this hack by MapBox

<http://tiles.mapbox.com/zac/map/antarctica>

No high-res satellite imagery though.

Just don't forget to visit the McMurdo Dry Valleys

[https://maps.google.com/?ll=-77.547723,160.916748&spn=0....](https://maps.google.com/?ll=-77.547723,160.916748&spn=0.253188,2.113495&t=h&z=10)</comment>


Show HN: Flash replacement - 100-xyz https://its-near.me/flash2/editor <comment><AUTHOR> There are other flash "replacements", the one I like the most being Haxe [0] (transpiler to flash bytecode, javascript, and more) + OpenFL [1].

OpenFL replicates flash API [2], can work with Adobe Animate (formerly flash), and can use swf assets [3]. There are also converters from AS3 to Haxe, both available and not yet released (like the one used to migrate Forge of Empires [4]).

Haxe + OpenFL can export to flash player, HTML5 but also to native (desktop, mobile, consoles).

[0]: [https://haxe.org](https://haxe.org) [1]: [https://openfl.org](https://openfl.org) [2]: [https://api.openfl.org/](https://api.openfl.org/) [3]: [https://www.openfl.org/learn/haxelib/tutorials/using-swf- ass...](https://www.openfl.org/learn/haxelib/tutorials/using-swf-assets/) [4]: [https://haxe.org/videos/conferences/haxeup- sessions-2019/dan...](https://haxe.org/videos/conferences/haxeup- sessions-2019/dan-korostelev-migration-of-empires.html)

<comment><USER2> I think this project is aimed more at Flash's authoring story. Haxe etc. are fine as frameworks, but what really made Flash popular and useful was the IDE.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, and that's why I pointed out compatibility with Adobe Animate (formerly Adobe Flash)

<comment><USER3> off topic - why do you have different usernames?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry but I don't understand what you're asking

<comment><USER3> I'm dumb, it was the "5 minutes ago" and then "4 minutes ago"

<comment><USER4> Eh, maybe I was primed, but it got me too for a second. I scanned for the usernames wondering what might be the issue, and then I noticed there was two users with similar names, k_12 and k_8 - that must be the confusion!

.. nope, I'm just dumb too. Hah :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A lot of others here talk about authoring being what made Flash popular, but the other big part of it is the SWF format itself, which is highly efficient because of its compact encoding and ease of parsing. Those who played Flash games on computers over a decade ago may remember what I mean --- a tiny file provides high quality vector graphics and interactivity (and the ads, although I hear that these days they're just as obnoxious even without Flash...) HTML/CSS/JS doesn't even come close, although it feels like they're slowly reinventing bits of Flash with things like WASM.

<comment> dynamite-ready Tbf, you can produce very similar output to .swf with the likes of WebGL, Canvas, SVGs, or a combination of those technologies. But the authoring tools fostered a community of developers who didn't see themselves as programmers at all.

They saw themselves as artists. And users benefited a great deal from that.

In fact, some aspects of the IDE were so good, that some 'developers' didn't even care to use it to develop programs. They produced cartoons instead. I think Craig McCracken's Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends was the most successful work of this kind.

In the place of that creativity now, we have cleaner code, to be sure, but we now also have an awfully boring technology war, and a load of unnecessarily complicated UI code.

I might miss Flash a whole lot less, if someone created a HTML5 authoring tool with the same toolkit the Flash IDE once had.

<comment><USER6> Isn't that what Adobe Animate still tries to be? It has HTML5 authoring support, and inherits from the Flash IDE directly (not just in spirit).

Arguably I think the saddest difference between Flash and Animate is the business model. In the old web, Flash was also partly so ubiquitous because it was sometimes so commonly pirated and passed around among aspiring developers/artists. In the Creative Cloud era it is a lot tougher to pirate, and can be a huge cost overhead for small or aspiring artists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do you have an email address? Your app has a bug where it's popping up some kind of Laravel debugger, and it's exposing things...like where the web-world- readable file with all the collected emails is.

<comment><USER8> Under a different comment he said his email is "leisenming AT protonmail DOTcom"

<comment><USER7> Thanks...found that comment in his history. Email sent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I never used flash, but if this is what it was like I can see why flash was so popular. I'm loving it. Reminds of the time I spent doing WC3 maps when I was younger.

Don't listen to the naysayers, just keep at it. You got something here.

<comment> 100-xyz Thanks for your comment and encouragement. I am amazed at the negativity!

<comment><USER10> Negative comments make much stronger impressions than positive ones, alas, but when I survey this thread I don't see it as so negative (other than [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21750978](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21750978) which is a trollish post that we moderated).

Based on a lot of experience moderating these things, I think the issue was primarily your title. HN users react badly to grandiose claims. Also, the title "Flash replacement" is so large and generic that it was inevitably going to evoke comments about Flash replacements in general.

This is obviously a nice piece of work, and the best way to present it would have been with a more neutral title that depicted what you've built so far, and then a first comment in the thread giving the backstory of how you came to work on this, and explaining what's different about it. That tends to seed discussion in a better direction. And in your comment you could certainly have explained that your intention is to work on a Flash replacement.

<comment> 100-xyz I had actually submitted with the title 'Flash is Dead? A replacement attempt version 3'

<comment><USER10> Ah I missed that. Yes, the submitted title was "Show HN: Flash is dead? Here is a replacement – version 3". Not sure that's less baity though. Arguably more, which is probably why a moderator edited it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In some ways Unity is the new flash. It isn't pretty but it is accessible, it lets you prototype and throw together highly graphical creations with minimal technical knowledge, and then ship them on all platforms (including the web). And it's free.

</comment><comment><USER12> The scripting interface and stored actions actually remind me more of Shockwave then Flash. I bring it up because while Shockwave was simpler to use in some ways, it also couldn't compete with Flash in terms of broader flexibility.

<comment> 100-xyz How about advising me on how to develop this further? I am looking for people like you :-) - those who like animations and have some experience in Shockwave / Flash. If interested please shoot me an email leisenming AT protonmail DOTcom

<comment><USER12> The advice I would give you is to maybe decide whether you want to build an animation tool or a game tool, and stick with that for now. Flash is still one of my favorite runtimes just because of how powerful it was, but there was a lot of complexity under the hood and isn't something I would recommend someone replicate as a side project.

If you want to focus on an animation tool, you'll want to think about things in terms of timelines, and how you can create independent animations with their own timelines and combine them into other timelines. A good example from your website would be the santa walk animation is one timeline, which is placed inside another timeline that moves from left to right, which is in another timeline that that controls the top level animation. Nothing needs to be scripted in this case, you just visually lay out when a timeline should start and stop and appear or disappear like any other video editor. Timelines can be played in parallel or one after the other etc...

On the other hand if you're thinking of creating a game engine you would focus creating a canvas that can programmatically add or remove VisualObjects (static images or animations that you could create in a simple timeline format) and then be able to provide other devs control over the x,y coords of where to position that visual object for every fps time interval that the game is running at. They would additionally need to be able to control which frame in the visual object to show so they can control forward, backward, stop, etc...

Sorry not much more I can provide for guidance but that would be a general start

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hardly a flash replacement.

</comment><comment> 100-xyz OP here. I am looking for user advisors with some animation experience who can direct future developments (which features to develop further). Anyone interested please shoot me an email leisenming AT protonmail DOT com

Also, the Dilbert and related characters used in the demo are Scott Adams copyright and are used only for Demo purposes.

<comment><USER14> Hi, are you familiar with my library IvanK.js ? It has the "Flash interface", but for scripting.

I used it to port several of my flash games to the web: [http://lib.ivank.net/?p=demos&d=spritesheet](http://lib.ivank.net/?p=demos&d=spritesheet)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> is this open source? doesn't seem to have any license info.

<comment> 100-xyz Not open source.

<comment><USER16> Being true to Flash? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Reminds me of SMIL [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronized_Multimedia_Integr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronized_Multimedia_Integration_Language)

</comment><comment> 100-xyz This version has the following:

Library of images that you can click to use.

A simple script engine that uses simple english to create the animation (Action script equivalent)

eg:

Wait 2 seconds.

Car move to Point p1.

Uses sprites.

Created files can be exported and imported into a player.

Can also be included in your pages.

</comment><comment><USER18> Might want to set APP_DEBUG = false for production.

</comment><comment> Const-me Animations glitch in MS Edge.

<comment><USER19> In Firefox (Ubuntu) as well

<comment><USER13> And Safari 11 too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> em-bee it was only a matter of time for something like this to appear. there was a reason flash was popular.

the problem with flash was not what it did, but how it was implemented, as proprietary browser extension.

doing the same with standard, browser supported javascript solves that problem.

getting rid of flash was a long, hard battle. it potentially would have been easier if alternatives like this appeared earlier.

<comment><USER20> This is not even close to the first Canvas-based animation tool, nor is it a valid replacement for Flash. It's an MVP at the level of tutorial code. A nice effort but don't oversell it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Nice work. Can't help but miss flash seeing this though.

</comment><comment><USER22> @100-xyz, The current page isn't working as expected. The images are all getting 404'd.

<comment> 100-xyz Hi siddartpai, By any chance are you reopening a previously created animation? If so, it may get 404'd. The server ran out of disk space and I had to delete a large number of animations.

If not, can you provide some more details: are you landing directly on the url [https://its-near.me/flash2/editor](https://its-near.me/flash2/editor)? What OS/browser? Are you getting any other errors that may help me narrow things down?

Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Nice. But still miss flash...

</comment><comment><USER24> It is definitely something but not Flash replacement.

<comment><USER25> Well everything has to start somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> You're database is crashing:

Illuminate \ Database \ QueryException (HY000) SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1114 The table 'errors' is full (SQL: insert into `errors` (`url`, `trace`, `updated_at`, `created_at`) values (2601:589:4a80:ba00:8590:6c18:79d6:3ffc: /flash2/editor, /var/www/its- near/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Connection.php LINENUM:624
/var/www/its- near/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Connection.php LINENUM:459
/var/www/its- near/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Connection.php LINENUM:411
/var/www/its- near/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Query/Processors/Processor.php LINENUM:32
/var/www/its- near/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Query/Builder.php LINENUM:2657
/var/www/its- near/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Eloquent/Builder.php LINENUM:1353
/var/www/its- near/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Eloquent/Model.php LINENUM:839
/var/www/its- near/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Eloquent/Model.php LINENUM:804
/var/www/its- near/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Eloquent/Model.php LINENUM:667
/var/www/its-near/app/Exceptions/Handler.php LINENUM:54
/var/www/its- near/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Foundation/Http/Kernel.php LINENUM:314
/var/www/its- near/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Foundation/Http/Kernel.php LINENUM:118
/var/www/its-near/public/index.php LINENUM:55
, 2019-12-10 09:44:05, 2019-12-10 09:44:05))

<comment> 100-xyz Thanks for letting me know. Did not expect such heavy traffic.

<comment><USER27> You should probably put 'APP_ENV=production' and 'APP_DEBUG=false' to your laravels .env file.

<comment> 100-xyz That is what it is set as. Not clear what the situation is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Our startup builds a Flash replacement called Construct 3: [https://www.construct.net](https://www.construct.net)

It's a web-based animation/game development IDE with support for JavaScript coding too.

<comment><USER29> Ok someone else mentioned their startup so I'll mention mine. My startup is a free cartoon maker:

[https://www.superanimo.com](https://www.superanimo.com)

There's a ton of competitors in a similar space but I think mine is the best if you want to make cartoon stories quickly. It also exports to MP4/GIF and is free. It doesn't have scripting, but if you're just looking to drag/drop things on a canvas and animate them on a Flash-like timeline, SuperAnimo is great option.

<comment><USER30> Both these options are nice, but its a hard sell in big corps to put IP in the cloud.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Laravel seems to be crashing (not surprised). But isn't HTML5 a decent replacement for flash already?

<comment><USER32> Are you here just to make attacks on Laravel?

<comment><USER33> And you are here only to defend Laravel.

<comment><USER32> I think my two replies to your comments are the only ones I've made on the subject of laravel in my entire time of being on hacker news.

So no, I'm not here to defend laravel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> And if it wasn't bad enough that the site is using Laravel, that framework is also exposing a ton of sensitive data about the server. Perhaps disable dev mode? Anyway horrible choice of a framework.

<comment><USER34> You went to the trouble of creating an account just for anti Laravel dribble. Please enlighten us.

<comment><USER35> I've had an account for years and I agree. I find it hard to justify using PHP for anything in 2019.

<comment><USER32> That's fine. The year is almost over and plenty of other developers can justify using PHP for many things in 2020.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google not Amazon. Make fantastic savings in a server-less world - <AUTHOR> https://in.3wks.com.au/google-not-amazon-make-fantastic-savings-in-a-serverless-world-b6d37710839c <comment><USER2> Excuse me for being so stubborn, but this article reads like a paid for piece by Google. There is not enough information about who Andrew Walker is, and last time I checked, you needed to have some real professional help to create those kind of infographics.

Oh, and I have just checked, and I really hate when people do this without a disclaimer: "3wks has been a Google Cloud Services Partner since 2012, building digital solutions for enterprise customers and public sector organisations specialising in web and mobile solutions on GCP."

<comment><USER3> Sorry, why do you need professional help from Google to create infographics?

<comment><USER2> I did not say the help needed to come from Google, but that it had to be paid for, and not exactly with pocket change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Why is IT ignoring Google's server-less cloud infrastructure? They're > playing with their toys on Amazon and it's costing tens of millions in > missed business automation opportunities.

Because serverless at scale is phenomenally expensive compared to instances + ops. Solid for prototyping or where you just need to fire off some functions though.

<comment><USER5> Another devops thread, another time I end up agreeing with 'toomuchtodo. "Serverless" is sneaky-expensive. It's not a particularly practical model once you've gone past trivial stuff; maybe that'll change, but operations for instances and even your more involved boondoggles like container-fleets-on- cloud-compute are pretty well-understood at this point in ways that serverless stuff still isn't.

But yeah, they're "toys". Risk and cost? Who cares. Let's blog.

<comment><USER6> Could anyone give a breakdown on why it's more expensive (and where the money goes)? Interesting stuff.

<comment><USER5> Both Google and Amazon charge based on compute heft per second (Amazon in GB- seconds, Google in a mix of GB-seconds and GHz-seconds). When you multiply that out, it overtakes EC2 pricing at a point; I've done the math out for different types of sites before, and it obviously varies by stack, but you hit those breakpoints a lot sooner than you might otherwise expect. One project's workload was something like 10 req/sec and the Lambda costs were more than three load-balanced m4.larges (edit: load-balanced for fault tolerance more than load) due to RAM usage that was per-request in Lambda but amortized across all requests on instances.

Serverless stuff can make a lot of sense for low-utilization tasks under this model, but for applications with nontrivial load you may be paying for a lot of GB-seconds on an ongoing basis. Couple that with the additional latency inherent to spin-up times when putting Lambda behind an HTTP endpoint, and it also runs the risk of being a kinda-janky experience for the user, too (though this can be mitigated), and I'm very not-a-fan past toy/proof-of-concept problems.

<comment><USER4> Perfect explanation as usual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd love to see this backed up with actual cost comparison breakdown on google vs Amazon.

Also, I'm not sure the article 100% clarifies what it means by serverless. Does it mean "functions as a service", or something else? The term serverless is overloaded these days.

<comment><USER8> I think it means anything that doesn't require you to know or even decide how many servers you are using. It automatically scales by default.

It would include App Engine and Elastic Beanstalk, but also 'functions as a service' like AWS Lambda and Google Cloud Functions.

The author is clearly talking about App Engine, but comparing it to EC2 which is definitely not serverless, and very disingenuous. Even Google has an 'normal' non-serverless EC2-like option now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Aws has plenty of serverless - s3,dynamo,cloudfront,lamda,sqs, I could say rds and beanstalk are also kind of serverless, in loose way.

And aws is cheap...until it becomes not cheap (usually after you hit some numbers, or start dealing with "compliance").

On google side, Gcp app engine is kinda bleh... kubernetes is probably the best thing they have, but it's useful up to a point. And once you cross the "point" you start spending shit tons of money - and unless you are snapchat/YouTube it's hard to swallow it too.

Bottom line - aws might be marginally more expensive at first, but it has plenty of ways to keep things cheap if you are so inclined and flexible enough to meet all kinds of it needs (at a price of course).

</comment><comment><USER10> I stopped reading at the first subheader, since it immediately betrayed the author's own ignorance regarding AWS' support for both automation and "serverless" software. Lambda is by no means obscure, nor is CloudFormation.

Calling one's target audience "ignorant" does not make for a good argument, while we're at it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Surely, this person works for Google. Anybody who has actually dealt with any of this stuff in production knows that Amazon is the industry leader for a reason and that Google is way, way back in third place.

As with all things: you get what you pay for.

<comment><USER12> > Anybody who has actually dealt with any of this stuff in production knows > that Amazon is the industry leader for a reason and that Google is way, way > back in third place.

Though I haven't worked with either cloud extensively (I mainly play with them for pet projects), I think that's an overly strong and awfully generalized assertion. There are a number of other, less Google-press-release, experiences around that show a preference for Google.

Instead of saying "anybody knows", could you offer some actual reasons you believe AWS to be superior? That would be much more constructive and appreciated.

I'll start by saying that I find AWS' control panel infuriating to use but complete in functionality while Google's is much nicer to use but often lacks features, annoyingly forcing you to use their command line tools. I also find Google's built in quotas to be too low to actually do much with it and I hate that I had to "apply" for an increase. On the other hand, I like Google's billing much more than AWS; their sustained use discounts are easy to figure out and don't require an upfront commitment, which as an individual I'm not likely to want to pay for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There is a deeper level of vendor lock-in for serverless vs servers as well.</comment>


Happiness 101 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/magazine/07happiness.t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

<comment><USER2> _As a school, we would like to know how to make all students more resilient, how to turn depressing thoughts into positive ones._

The article really seems to treat depressive, angry, and other emotions as "negative", when in fact these emotions are really just neutral.

It is completely positive and OK to be depressed when someone dies or angry when you've been hurt, and treating them as 100% "negative" emotions is one of the reasons people can get stuck in the cyclical downward thinking:

1\. "I'm experiencing depressive emotions"

2\. "Oh no! These are negative and bad emotions. Therefore I'm not happy!"

(Brain releases more depressive feelings based on these thoughts)

3\. Start at step 1.

Instead of fearing oneself, it's much easier to understand that all feelings are simply feelings, in the same way that all thoughts are simply thoughts. This ties in very closely to mindfulness and not just reacting to your mind, but engaging it and choosing what to do with thoughts and feelings.

Edit: Just to clarify, this is not to say depressive thoughts are always positive, but to encourage others to be aware and engage their feelings from a neutral perspective, then decide what to do with them. That is the point of mindfulness.

<comment><USER3> Depression has been shown to be one of the forces that teaches our brain. Basically, when we're depressed our brain is using the time to restructure itself so the next time an event occurs we're ready for it.

If my wife left me because I didn't pay enough attention to her then I'd get depressed, but the next time I'm married I'd be unlikely to make the same mistake because of the profound effect of depression. However, anti- depressants can hinder this learning process, so quite literally if I took anti-depressants after my wife (hypothetically) left me, it would be quite probable that I'd make the exact same mistake again.

Clinical depression, of course, is different as it's like the emotional equivalent of palpitations.

Personally I quite like depression, it's helped me a lot with my writing. It's odd as I seem to get a new perspective afterwards, I'd be interested to know if my depression is sometimes caused by my writing so I do learn a new perspective because I've been depressed at some pretty weird times before, but this is the kind of question that'll never be answered.

<comment><USER4> Divorce probably isn't the best example to support your point:

 _Fifty percent of first marriages, 67 percent of second and 74 percent of third marriages end in divorce, according to Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri._

<http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=363986>

I tend to see a stronger distinction between pain and depression.

<comment><USER5> Your numbers suggest very little, one way or the other. People who make bad marriage choices are more likely to get divorced. Bayes rule implies that divorcees are therefore more likely to be the type of people who make bad marriage choices, and second/third marriages are more likely to fail.

I'll give a simple numerical example. I assume some people marry badly, and have an intrinsically higher probability of divorce. I assume the probability of divorce does not change after the first marriage.

Let MB = Marries Badly, and D = Divorce. Assume P(MB)=0.5, P(D|MB)=0.9 and P(D|!MB)=0.1. Then:

P(MB | D) = P(D | MB) P(MB) / P(D) = 0.9 x 0.5 / 0.5 = 0.9.

So 90% of divorcees marry badly. Therefore, a person who has gotten one divorce has a probability of getting divorced on their second marriage of:

P(D | MB) x 0.9 + P(D | !MB) x 0.1 = 0.82

Therefore, in this model, 50% of first marriages and 82% of second marriages will end in divorce.

<comment><USER3> I agree, the statistics seem to show that divorcees should have a huge failure rate, however all evidence seems to indicate that their judgment improves after they've been divorced, as the second marriage rate is surprisingly close to first marriages to say its composed almost entirely of people who failed the first time.

<comment><USER5> Other statistics might show this (if so, please post them), but my model proves little. I could tweak it to get 67% second marriage failure rate (first marriage has no effect, good or bad), or 60% failure rate (first marriage adversely affects the second). More complex models are possible too.

My point is simply that the numbers provided prove nothing.

<comment><USER4> They certainly prove that someone who has been divorced and remarries is still worse at staying married than the person who has not been divorced.

I don't think that is nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This does make sense, our brains are hard-coded to perform acts of altruism and without doing it then we're not satisfying a need of our body. I suppose this depends largely on the person, some people get cranky with low blood sugar so I wonder if some people get cranky when they don't do nice things.

Another interesting thing I've learnt on happiness is that you can make yourself happy (especially when you're sad) by simply smiling. I've heard numerous explanations as to why (the best is that performing the physical action causes the nerves to activate that cause you to smile when you are happy and in turn actually begin to make you happy) but I just know that it works.

<comment><USER6> In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (and hypnosis, I'm pretty sure), this is known as a "trigger". You can create arbitrary ones yourself by, e.g., touching yourself in a certain place (say touching the tips of your forefinger and thumb together) a couple times when a certain emotion occurs. After the trigger is set, touching the same place will trigger the emotion. (Kind of a simplistic explanation.)

<comment><USER7> Isn't that conditional learning? Pavlov; stimuli, the dog salivates.

Was not aware that hypnosis uses it though, sounds rather strange to me that hypnosis uses conditional learning.

<comment><USER6> Yeah it's basically the same thing. Hypnosis, as far as I can tell, is a grab bag of techniques (much like NLP) and anchoring/triggers is/are definitely used. For instance, some trance inductions involve interrupting a trigger/pattern before it can complete (i.e., the handshake interrupt). Anchoring a command or suggestion to a physical trigger can help cement it, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If only happiness were the same as contentedness, the problems of the world would be solved.

</comment><comment><USER9> It was convincingly argued to me that happiness is a dynamic relationship within ourselves. Something that needs to be renewed or something that can be depleted. The argument continued (take this with a grain of salt!) but because happiness is short-term - we don't only eat once, only have sex once, etc. and then wither away.

<comment><USER10> speak for yourself - my sex life is a study in unity

...... I made myself sad =(

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For an article about happiness these are not very uplifting comments! I am going to try a couple of the students projects myself.. anyone else?

</comment><comment><USER12> I'd be happier if this article weren't behind a login wall.</comment>


Ask YC: What do you think of this NY Times feature - <AUTHOR>

This is a feature I stumbled on ...
Goto a full page article on nytimes.com article and double click a word(not hyper linked)
Try this one..
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/world/europe/09delhi.html?scp=2&sq=india
What do you think of this feature? <comment><USER2> I obsessively click and highlight text while I read, so it quickly becomes annoying for me.

Anyhow, I have already have the answers.com plugin for Firefox, which brings up that overlay on command.

<comment><USER3> Me too. I thought I was insane for doing that. Glad to hear at least someone else is.

<comment><USER4> There was a thread on reddit a while back. I think us click and highlighters are in good company.

<http://reddit.com/info/64ek1/comments/>

<comment><USER5> I use ctrl-A.

<comment><USER4> Heh. Don't know if that was sarcastic, but in case you aren't: when I _want_ to highlight something for copy and paste, then yes, I use CTRL-A.

What we're talking about is an almost obsessive compulsive clicking and highlighting of words while we read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Annoying and redundant. I often find myself clicking on a page to either force focus to that window, or to select text to act as a highlight so I can find my place easily later on.

This means any accidental doubleclicks are launching new tabs or windows that I don't want.

If I want a definition of a word, I have more global, convenient ways of handling that.

Now, if instead double-clicking did something like spawn a topic search through NYT or news.google.com or something, without the hassle of underlining every word, I can imagine that would at least _seem_ useful.

</comment><comment><USER7> I dislike it, very much, mostly because it is intrusive (pop up). Its behavior violates the principle of least surprise, since most websites and applications don't do that.

If it was an inline popup box in the margin, I would probably like it.

</comment><comment><USER8> An interesting idea, stupidly mangled by the corporate process. If they manage to make it useful that would be nice. But I suspect it's just ploy to boost pageviews, and will be measured solely on that.

You can only do one word at a time. I can look up "republic" and "day", but not the phrase "republic day".

The click time-window is long, about 800msecs. Lots of accidental pvs there.

</comment><comment><USER9> Add the following line to Adblock Plus in Firefox:

<http://*.nytimes.com/js/common/screen/altClickToSearch.js>

That will fix the problem.

</comment><comment><USER10> Dislike it with a passion I normally reserve for "Are you sure you wish to close this window" popups and lightboxes.

Solutions are to block "altClickToSearch.js" with an adblocker or install a greasemonkey script such as: <http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/7721>

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen It's a terrible idea. I bet someone had to come up with a feature to justify their IT job and created this monster. This, along with the PR "business" articles in the fashion section, made me lose the most respect for nytimes.

</comment><comment><USER11> A browser based vocab tool is something I'd be interested in using especially for more literary sites.

<comment><USER12> I was looking for the same thing yesterday (if I understand what you mean about a vocab tool). I settled on the answers.com extension (<http://www.answers.com/main/firefox_plugins.jsp>). I didn't look around very hard so maybe there is something better out there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Command-control-d is much better in Mac OS X.</comment>


Be Nice to Those Who Serve You - <AUTHOR> http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/be-nice-to-those-that-serve-you <comment><USER2> Sometimes I wonder if there's an unusual third path to take in situations like this. As I read Jacques's story, I found myself wishing he would take the CEO aside and say, "Excuse me, but did you know that you have been coming off as quite rude around your employees and the waitstaff at the restaurants we've been to? I wouldn't say anything if I didn't think it would be useful for you to hear."

Obviously, saying that creates a degree of investment in this other person that isn't required. But it's a middle ground. Everyone seems to think there are two options: peace out completely (zero investment), or do business without saying anything (100% investment). If you just point out the behavior, you put the ball in their court. It's scary because you risk pissing them off, but really, what does that matter? You already made up your mind about not doing business with them.

There are two likely responses to such a judgment: the angry/confused/awkward denial ("What the hell are you talking about? I'm a precious flower and _everyone loves me_ because they are so blessed by my presence! Now run away, and never return!") or reflection ("Really? What made you think so?"). If you get #1, well, you're no worse off than when you started, except some douchebag with a lot of money doesn't like you. But if you get #2, you have a real opportunity to nudge someone in a more compassionate and healthy direction.

It's up to each individual person, of course, but I think the potential opportunity is worth the risk.

<comment><USER3> Some that would act like this toward waiters, et al, won't take kindly to being told, even very nicely, that he's very rude. If he was the type of person that would take kindly to it, he wouldn't have done it in the first place.

<comment><USER4> I agree, some people just believe that they are of a higher standard and should be allowed to act like total dick heads, and the only way for them to learn is if someone from a "higher social status" puts them in the right place.

I've seen it all the time, while working the floor at retail, or traveling abroad to fancy hotels and restaurants. A small "thank you", "have a nice day" or just "hi" goes a long way, even if you're there to complain about something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I took the other fork in the road.

After joining a company several years ago in an executive position, I witnessed the CEO treating other employees horribly, and remember thinking that I'd leave if he ever treated me like that. Unlike the OP, I didn't make a principled stand at the time.

By the time it inevitably happened and I was subjected to the same level of disrespect and disdain, I was too invested financially and too critical operationally to leave.

Even though I had enough leverage to push back, it still made for a miserable work environment to see the CEO disrespecting everyone else, and it was never pleasant having to fight to preserve personal boundaries every day.

Not shockingly, nearly every hire left within 6 months. It ultimately worked out decently from a financial standpoint, but I'm still torn on whether I would make the same decision again.

<comment><USER6> > too critical operationally to leave

This seems odd to me. If the guy is really that much of an asshole, why do you care if you leave him holding the bag? Maybe he'd learn something from the experience.

The financial investment I totally understand, but you have to look out for #1.

<comment><USER7> Truly manipulative people are usually very good at taking advantage of people who have integrity. It's not that he didn't want to look out for himself, it's that he felt it was _morally wrong_ for him to leave. The boss probably encouraged this.

<comment><USER8> And in general, if one is in a position where they have little experience but integrity, it might not even occur to them that someone would be doing this. You'd never do it to someone else and you project your attitudes on to them. If you strive to see the good in people it can take your attention away from the bad and leave you in such nasty situations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting read, the truism is accurate of course being civil and respectful is a solid policy regardless of your relative position in life or circumstance.

An alternate explanation is possible though as well, which is that this person was trying to impress Jacques. I know it sounds weird but I've had folks who were insecure in their authority get like this to prove me that they could "get things done." Its a uncomfortable but important sometimes to have the conversation about their behavior.

The interesting experiment would have been to call aside on of the guys direct reports and ask if he was always like this.

<comment><USER10> So he's either an idiot or a jerk?

<comment><USER9> Yes, but jerk can be treated, idiot is genetic. If his employees like him then you can work on his insecurity, if he is always like that and his employees hate it, walk away.

<comment><USER11> It's funny, I would assume the opposite. If he's a jerk then he's hopeless, but if he's just stupidly thinking that this sort of thing impresses people, there's at least some hope that he can be educated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's nothing rude about sending back food that wasn't prepared as ordered. Similarly, there is nothing rude about sending back a genuinely bad bottle of wine. You shouldn't simply eat poor food or drink in a misguided effort to be "nice"; most of the time the restaurant will be happy to get honest feedback, in my experience.

I don't doubt that the guy was a jerk about it, but there's nothing wrong with the act in and of itself.

<comment><USER13> Well, I guess there wouldn't be anything wrong with sending back wine, if wine tasters were at all consistent rather than just trying to show off their refinement.

Also, of all the times you've eaten the food in a fancy restaurant, what fraction of the time have you wanted to send it back (whether or not you sent it back)? I'm guessing a lot less than a hundred percent. So what are the odds that the writer happened to hit _precisely_ that fraction of times when the restaurant actually did a substandard job (and only for one and the same guest) on two dine-outs in a row?

Both of these suggest that the guy just likes making people do more work for him because it can. Sick.

<comment><USER14> > Well, I guess there wouldn't be anything wrong with sending back wine, if > wine tasters were at all consistent rather than just trying to show off > their refinement.

Sending it back in order to signal refinement is jerk behavior, agreed.

As to the other half of it, though, why should I have to be _consistent_? I am paying for a bottle of wine I like. I am paying more for it because society gives us the option of sending it back. If I don't like the wine, or don't think others at the table will, there's nothing wrong with exercising that option - it just needs to be done in good faith.

<comment><USER13> I thought that was the point of the rest of the 2nd paragraph: everything we see indicates that he wasn't sending stuff back in good faith, and if it were a blind test between that bottle and the one he deemed acceptable, we can safely say he wouldn't know which one was the good one.

<comment><USER14> Oh, yes, I agree that this guys behavior was probably inappropriate. My post was simply addressing the use of consistency as a metric.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If "kick down, lick up" didn't work, there would be fewer people selecting it as a strategy, and no need for jeremiads like this one. Sad but true.

Edit: Thinking on it, I guess the other message from this article isn't in the headline: "Don't do business with people who treat their employees like crap." It's not _just_ a jeremiad.

<comment><USER7> I think that "kick down, lick up" almost always fails in the long run. That's the most puzzling thing about it in fact. It doesn't really benefit _anyone_ in the long run (including the person who uses it), but for some reason people keep using it, and others will keep them around for longer than it's a benefit to them.

<comment><USER8> A person kicking down and licking up is too blinded by fear, and that fear robs them of the awareness of how counterproductive the strategy they are using is. In their haste to move away from what they hate, they take the shortcut which is to not look at it; to act what they feel is the opposite of what they hate.

What would be most beneficial for these people is to confront themselves head on and examine why they don't feel comfortable and deconstruct their history, their reactions, their thoughts and their actions. But it's the strength of the fear they feel that stops them doing precisely this.

A natural protection system no? Move away from what you don't like? Counterproductive to force yourself to move towards it and know it, but I personally find the more I do it, the more I benefit. Of course sometimes it can take time for the penny to drop. That's why I meditate. The pennies drop faster, and as the noise drops away you slowly start to pay more attention to yourself, and can move away from destructive behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Don't spit on those who can spit in your food" for the pessimistic mind.

I like to focus on the benefit of all the free coffee and excellent conversation I get from my local barristas, though.

<comment><USER17> That was _exactly_ my thought as I was reading the OP. Pissing off the waitstaff at restaurants is not only rude, but incredibly stupid. As is, there is already a chance that they don't like you for some reason and spit in your food regardless of how nice you are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> _It is the way one treats his inferiors more than the way he treats his equals which reveals one's real character._

—Rev. Charles Bayard Miliken, Methodist Episcopal, Chicago.

<comment><USER19> I'd have thought such a basic statement of group dynamics would have been made well before Chicago was founded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is this not basic humanity? How about just "Be Nice"?

<comment><USER21> Sure, but it's easy to be nice to those 'above' you, or those you want something from. It's being nice to those 'below' you that is the true test of character.

<comment><USER22> Being nice to everyone is easy, I don't see how it's a test of character. Being nice is the default. Being a jerk is optional.

<comment><USER23> For many people the emotional ego payoff from humiliating those below them is a big temptation. And nice isn't the default everywhere, you are dearly in need of more data points.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I see nothing wrong about sending back food or wine, though I do see plenty wrong about being rude to the restaurant staff when doing so. Unless the restaurant behavior was worse than described, I'd vote for Not Proven. Taken in conjunction with his rudeness to his employees, yes, maybe it adds some force.

</comment><comment><USER25> Glad to see that he had integrity to cancel the deal. Most germans I've met are very nice persons. Also, I couldn't help to think of this video while reading most of his posting: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOBspAm5aR8>

</comment><comment><USER26> Agree with the principles of the OP. I know I'm opening up a can of worms with this next statement: It somewhat bothers me that there's been so much proselytizing of the Steve Jobs approach to running a [group, team, company, etc.], that is to say - think nothing of embarrassing your employees, harshly and non-constructively criticizing, saying things and people are "f0cking stupid" if that's the way you feel. There are other, equally efficient ways to get things done. It's possible to be firm without being an a __hole about it. Simply because you _might_ be the smartest person in the room doesn't make you 1) right all the time 2) justified in being an a __hole. Everyone is fighting their own battles - battles that are paramount in their mind. Never forget that. Steve Jobs was successful in spite of being a jerk to people, not because he was a jerk.

</comment><comment><USER27> I have spent the majority of my 30 years working directly with people (probably 20 of my 30, as I grew up working at my father's small retail establishment and I currently work in the hospitality industry while finishing up a law degree. The number of times that I have been shocked by people's behavior towards my coworkers and myself is ghastly.

One thing I find interesting is how the actors in these situations tend to have the idea that such behavior is always going to end with their desired result. Or, to put it another way, the actions have gotten them what they want in the past so they continue to act in said manner because they believe it will deliver repeat results and it usually does.

I have been lucky to work for employers that have, I feel I can say, trusted and respected my decisions and abilities. And, with that preface, I offer you this... Challenge these actors whenever possible. Once I reached the emotional maturity where I was able to not allow such the actors actions to impact me emotionally, I decided that I was no longer going to allow myself to be attacked for trying to help or serve their needs. Instead, I put a smile on my face and refuse to help them unless addressed or treated in a respectful nature.

I have challenged these actors in many different types of situations and some of the results are what you would expect, dissatisfied and angry patrons/customers. But, that is exactly what they were before, right?? Many, though, upon realizing they weren't going to get what they wanted began to change their ways. At first, begrudgingly, but on the second or third visit/encounter with particular customers I could see that their actions were becoming more polite and sincere. It sounds weird, but it is almost like they developed a sort of respect for me standing up to them.

Of course, I understand this doesn't apply to every situation and is not going to be possible for a lot of people. But, it is food for thought. Maybe sometimes it is good to take the stance that the customer is NOT always right.

</comment><comment><USER28> While I think the article reinforces the desire of nice people to act nicely, a part of me wishes that people didn't write these "it pays to be nice" articles. As long as nobody brings it to their attention (by writing an article about it), the jerks of the world might not realize that they have a big "tell" that lets others easily see their true nature. :-)

</comment><comment><USER7> There's one kind of person you should always avoid: the person who is only kind to people they need something from.

</comment><comment><USER29> "it's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice"

</comment><comment><USER30> Or of course, there's just 'Be nice'. Everyone is an individual with their own motives and personality. Treat them as such and you'll have a richer life.

</comment><comment><USER31> _I've met some pretty wealthy people in my life and it seems that wealth and modesty as well as wealth and a pleasant character go together quite frequently (ok, there are lots of exceptions but the fact is that in my limited sample the nice people definitely win out)._

The traits of modesty _[a]_ and a pleasant character are fairly common regardless of financial status. I think that first and foremost, we are people, and the yawning chasms we often see between our identified group and those groups we are not part of, are largely exaggerations of perception more than anything else and are miniscule compared to the differences you can find between two people who are supposed to be part of the same group.

There is an exchange between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway where Fitzgerald is supposed to have said _"The rich are different from us."_

To which Hemingway apparently replied, _"Yes, they have more money."_

I'm with Hemingway on this one.

 _[a] - well, modest for humans anyway. A lot of people think that their group is pretty special on the scale of the universe, which seems to be a normal form of a general species-level arrogance that is pretty funny if you really think about it for a while, but other than that, I think modesty is fairly common._</comment>


Introducing public beta of Datalore – web application for machine learning - <AUTHOR> https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2018/02/20/introducing-public-beta-of-datalore-web-application-for-machine-learning/ <comment><USER2> I am a project leader of Datalore. If you have any questions about the product, feel free to ask.

<comment><USER3> Do you have any details on the compute resources available? How much ram do we get, are GPUs available? I can't find anything on pricing, so I'm assuming it's free, at least for the time being?

Thanks for this, it looks really cool!

<comment><USER2> Thank you! We provide you AWS instances. Currently on the free tier there's only kind of instance available. If you need something more powerful drop me a line at konstantin dot solomatov at jetbrains and I will send you a gift code so that you can try something more powerful.

More full scale billing system will be available soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks awesome, looking forward to trying it out.

It's interesting that this was published the same time as the JupyterLab announcement. They seem to have similar goals, though at first glance it seems the biggest difference is that Datalore enables simpler access to cloud computation.</comment>


Show HN: Orbits.js – WebGL simulation of the solar system using Three.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/olane/orbits.js

<comment><USER2> This is a lot of fun, I enjoy seeing the relative distances/rotation of the planets from eachother. It's a little disappointing that the planet/sun scales seem to be very off, it takes away from the overall simulation.

But that's a small nitpick, great project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you mean the scale of the sun compared to the planets? The problem is that because of the huge in size difference between, say, the Sun and Mercury, if the scale was correct then mercury wouldn't be visible at all. I tried to keep them as vaguely accurate as possible while still having the actual planet spheres still visible.

If you've got ideas for how to improve that I'm all ears.

<comment><USER2> I think the design logic you have now takes care of this. When I zoom out all the way, I can only see the label of Pluto, not the actual sphere - and that works fine.

Personally, it was appealing for me to be forced to scroll and zoom around to locate the larger orbits, precisely because it reinforced the actual scale of our solar system versus the inaccurate, compressed idea we get from school.

Because, there's always a universal appeal to images like this: [http://homepages.wmich.edu/~korista/phys104.html](http://homepages.wmich.edu/~korista/phys104.html). Seeing it in 3D, transposed to their orbits would be awesome.</comment></comment></comment>


3D Printing of Transparent Glass (2012) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://develop3d.com/wp-content/uploads/attachments/HPL-2012-198.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> >"Index Match

 _Glass grains become invisible -- that is, non-scattering – when the solvent they are suspended in has the same refractive index as the glass._ "</comment>


Show HN: WeatherGIF – Reactions to your weather in GIFs - <AUTHOR> http://www.weathergif.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Just sharing my side/art project .It's the weather, and reactions to it in GIFs! Some beautiful GIFs from some great artists, and a few pop culture reactions I thought were funny. Each GIF is in reaction to the current, and forecasted weather. You'll get a different reaction each time! I put in some Easter Eggs too! Works on both desktop and a Smartphone. Thanks for looking/feedback!</comment>


Six signs your new job is lousy - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/worklife/02/18/cb.lousy.job/index.html?eref=rss_topstories <comment><AUTHOR> Start a company instead.

<comment><USER2> Maybe this is Massachusetts bias, but I was expecting to see "your company's health plan is a carton of bandages and a bottle of aspirin" as a bad sign.

If you're going to start a company, do it _now_ instead of such time when the cost of health care has redoubled.

<comment><USER3> "airhadoken 1 hour ago"

"do it now instead of such time when the cost of health care has redoubled."

Oops. Too late.</comment></comment></comment>


Programmer analyzed Twitter accounts and their pattern to uncover IT cell - <AUTHOR> https://www.notion.so/UrbanNazi-com-Uncovering-the-Nexus-of-Congress-BJP-IT-Cell-12b271c6b8a6432f8a767cd6ff2ae9a6 <comment><AUTHOR> A programmer analyzed twitter accounts and their tweeting patterns, and uncovered IT Cell of two biggest political parties of India. Here is the Reddit thread...[https://old.reddit.com/r/india/comments/etryfy/nexusurbannaz...](https://old.reddit.com/r/india/comments/etryfy/nexusurbannazicom_uncovering_the_nexus_of/)</comment>


Will the Suru Electric Bike disrupt the motorcycle industry? - <AUTHOR> https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/will-this-electric-bicycle-disrupt-the-motorcycle-industry <comment><AUTHOR> It's $3,499 CAN: [https://www.ridesuru.com/](https://www.ridesuru.com/) and that puts it in the same range as Karmic bikes: [http://www.karmicbikes.com/shop/koben-s](http://www.karmicbikes.com/shop/koben-s) so I'd guess not.

As for "low-end disruption," it's also worth noting that there is a higher-end electric motorcycle already: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-02/the- elect...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-02/the-electric- zero-ds-zf6-5-is-the-tesla-model-3-of-motorcycles)</comment>


How Tor Works: Part One - <AUTHOR> http://jordan-wright.com/blog/2015/02/28/how-tor-works-part-one <comment><USER2> If you use Tor, or want to support those that need it to communicate safely online, consider donating to (their first ever!) end-of-year fundraising drive: [https://blog.torproject.org/blog/our-first-real-donations- ca...](https://blog.torproject.org/blog/our-first-real-donations-campaign)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the link! I've finally put my money where my mouth is and donated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh, hi there! Author here. Glad y'all like the post! I've been on a break recently working on other projects, but I'm finishing up a post for this series soon, so stay tuned!

I'll be hanging around off and on, and am happy to answer any questions!

</comment><comment><USER5> This was a fantastic post. Granted the high-level view skirts very technical aspects of Tor, this post is perfect for laypeople who hear about "Tor" and ask about it.

<comment><USER6> Not being factitious here. Do you have a better (more technical) alternative?

<comment><USER7> Design paper: [https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/design-paper/tor- des...](https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/design-paper/tor-design.pdf)

<comment><USER8> (Do note that many things in the paper have changed, for example, the hidden service design.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In part2/3 or wherever you discuss hidden services, can you please not call them the "dark web"? That term is being thrown around so much lately that it has lost all useful meaning.

Imho the "dark web" means those parts of the web not publicly visible, ie not indexed by search engines and/or places not accessible to the public. Most hidden services are indexed and are publicly accessible ... so they are not by definition dark.

<comment><USER3> I agree that terms like "dark web" and "deep web" have been used so much (and often interchangeably), that they've mostly lost their meaning. That being said, I've always used "dark web" in reference to things like hidden services, i2p, etc, and I've used "deep web" to mean unindexed/inaccessible content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Along the same lines, there's an incredible series by Tom Ritter that describes how mix networks work. Here's the first post: [https://crypto.is/blog/what_is_a_remailer](https://crypto.is/blog/what_is_a_remailer)

</comment><comment><USER11> I have read all 1-3 parts that seem available at this time. My immediate questions are:

(a) is the client supposed to get a copy of the consensus to start with? (b) what if direct access to all DAs are blocked?

<comment><USER8> a). Yes, b). That is one of the ways to block access to Tor: either block torproject.org (in which case you use the GetTor service or mirrors), or the DAs, in which case you can't bootstrap. The way around that is to use bridges (unpublished relays to which you connect) or pluggable transports which now come bundled with Tor Browser. ([https://www.torproject.org/docs/pluggable- transports.html.en](https://www.torproject.org/docs/pluggable- transports.html.en))

<comment><USER12> There is also some work in progress to add fallback directory mirrors:

[https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- relays/2015-Decem...](https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- relays/2015-December/008361.html) [https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/FallbackDi...](https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/FallbackDirectoryMirrors)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is the best top-level description of Tor that I've ever read!</comment>