Million Dollar Carrot Dangled As St. Louis Redefines Itself In Start-Up Space - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/06/14/million-dollar-carrot-dangled-as-st-louis-redefines-itself-in-tech-start-up-space/

<comment><USER2> The opening line:

"When you think of technology start-ups, a small cluster of cities comes to mind – Silicon Valley, Seattle, Austin and Charlotte."

Charlotte?? I thought Raleigh-Durham was bad for startups - Charlotte has to be worse. And where is the mention of New York City? Strange perspective. Maybe someone from Charlotte can shed light on their Ive league status.

<comment><USER3> _Charlotte?? I thought Raleigh-Durham was bad for startups - Charlotte has to be worse. And where is the mention of New York City? Strange perspective. Maybe someone from Charlotte can shed light on their Ive league status._

Raleigh-Durham has quite the burgeoning startup scene, but I don't know anyone (except maybe Charlotte fanboys) who would say Charlotte has a better tech- startup scene. The RTP area is at least sometimes acknowledged by non-locals, but I've never heard anybody mention Charlotte as a startup hotbed (well, until now).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article touches on this, but the real reason St. Louis could be a great place to start a company is because it has one of the most underrated Universities in the country. Wash U attracts very talented students to St. Louis, but because the school doesn't have much name recognition, very few tech companies recruit there. When I was at Wash U, the best tech jobs at the career fair were (in order): Microsoft, Raytheon, and General Mills. Unless things have changed dramatically in the last five years, I think it's safe to say that there's not much competition if you're trying to hire developers there.

Combine that with the low cost of living, and St. Louis might be the easiest place in the country to hire talented young people.

<comment><USER5> Ok, I'll bite. What would be the most effective way for my company to recruit at WUSTL, bearing in mind that we'd be relocating people from STL to Chicago (or NYC or SFBA, if that's what they wanted).

We've got WUSTL people on staff, and I'm sold on the caliber of its grads, but direct-to-school recruiting has been a dead-end for us at other schools.

<comment><USER6> > What would be the most effective way for my company to recruit at WUSTL

As a recent (Spring 2012) graduate of the WUSTL School of Engineering, I would highly recommend that you contact the Career Center[0] for opportunities to participate in career fairs and register as an employer on CareerLink[1], WUSTL's career website. The Career Center pushes CareerLink hard with students, so if you post jobs on there, there's a good chance you'll get some bites.

I attended a career fair just this spring, and it was _packed_ with students - there were sometimes lines up to 10 people deep just to talk with industry representatives. Don't give up so quickly on direct-to-school recruiting.

You should also look into offering summer internships for current students. IIRC, WUSTL will match whatever you pay interns, making it less of a financial burden for you, while still making it worth the student's while. This is another way to grow your "reputation" on campus.

Finally, the students may find it easier to connect with an alum - get your WUSTL grads involved in the recruiting process.

0: <http://careercenter.wustl.edu/>

1: [http://careercenter.wustl.edu/tools/careerlink/Pages/default...](http://careercenter.wustl.edu/tools/careerlink/Pages/default.aspx)

<comment><USER7> For engineering, Michael Chapin [1] is who you want to speak with at the WU career center.

[1] <http://careercenter.wustl.edu/people/Pages/mchapin.aspx>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The comments suggesting Wash U's CS program has (too much of) an academic slant have a point but also miss it entirely. In my experience, the academic is certainly emphasized over the pragmatic (for example, lots of talk about algorithmic complexity but zero mention of testing or version-control). That isn't in-and-of itself a problem, it's just a mistake in the order-of- operations. I needed a lot of real experience to motivate the academic in me.

In college, you couldn't pay me to read cutting edge CS literature because I was sure the academics were never going to teach me anything practical. Fast- forward five years and I'm bored of what I was doing and interested in the same hard problems academics are. (Of course, I'm coming to worse but occasionally good-enough solutions.)

It'll be good for Saint Louis and Wash U to have an injection of that context earlier because it might motivate the academic side of CS early enough for students with a couple of years left to give more of a shit.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sounds great. Now where are the Who's Hiring posts/comments for St. Louis?

</comment><comment><USER10> I'd love to see St Louis start to develop a tech startup scene.

Low cost of living, really cool neighborhoods and lots of smart programmers at stodgy big companies. It seems like the city just needs some capital & a few experienced tech entrepreneurs to get it going.

That being said, I don't know of any Wash U CS grads that stayed in St Louis for startups - they all headed for the coasts (me included.) Hopefully that'll change over time.

<comment><USER11> Hey Philip, I'm working with the WUTE group leaders to (hopefully) launch this fall an extension of the group called WUTE-VC where we can bring in VCs and entrepreneurs to talk about the fundraising process from both sides of the table. Sounds like you'll be out and about, but let me or someone with WUTE know who in CS might be interested. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a college student and St. Louis native, this really excites me. I wish all the startups in these programs the best of luck.

<comment><USER11> Hey! I'm an Associate Partner at Cultivation Capital, one of the venture funds mentioned in the article. I run an all-night programming Meetup called Code til Dawn (<http://www.meetup.com/allnightlong/>), next one is on Friday night if you want to come hang out and talk shop.

<comment><USER13> I was going to drop a mention for Code til Dawn, but you beat me to to it, Israel. Cool to see St. Louis get some Hacker News love...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The STL startup/tech scene is getting better every month. Join us!

<http://startlouis.com>

<http://stljs.org>

<comment><USER11> Coming soon... <http://istl.co> :-)</comment></comment>


New antibiotics effective against resistant bacteria in mice - <AUTHOR> https://presse.inserm.fr/en/new-antibiotics-developed-by-inserm-and-universite-de-rennes-1/35666/ <comment><USER2> Nice, now let's please pass laws to prohibit this being given to farm animals under high penalties and international prosecution.

<comment><USER3> For reference, 80% of antibiotics used in the US are used in agriculture [1]. Animals are fed antibiotics to prevent infection, but they're also fed to animals as "growth promoters" [2].

60% of infectious diseases in humans originate in animals, and 75% of emerging infectious diseases in humans originate in animals [3].

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4638249/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4638249/)

[2] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1804117/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1804117/)

[3] [https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/zoonotic- diseases.html](https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/zoonotic-diseases.html)

<comment><USER4> Point (2) is no longer true as of 2017 (in the US, 2006 in the EU) [1]. I'm happy to see the FDA getting on top of this regulation. Now let's end careless spraying of antibiotics on crops. [2]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock#Un...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock#United_States)

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/health/antibiotics- orange...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/health/antibiotics-oranges- florida.html)

<comment><USER5> Re: Point (2), it's going in the right direction, but at least in Denmark it is very much used in a "preventative" manner in the pork industry. It took a dive when the regulation came into effect, but in the last few years not much have happened, and we still have a MRSA problem out of control.

Independent sources say that more than 90% of all farms with pigs have an MRSA infection. The butcheries reported in 2014 that 88% of all pigs was infected with MRSA. Every 1 in 3 pack of pork is infected and weak and elderly people should be careful with pork in general because of this risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seems like it has never been tested in humans. Lets hold the hype train for now.

Promising drugs like this a dime a dozen. Proving that they work from this stage is the hard part. This is what big pharma specializes in.

<comment><USER7> Antibiotics don't work on humans. They work on bacteria in humans. Your sentiment is generally correct for most other types of medical research, but antibiotics generally pass the human testing fairly easily, provided that they don't also kill the human they're tested on.

<comment><USER8> Don't be so tiresome. They obviously mean that they hope that the drugs don't kill or excessively harm the human.

Antibiotics that kill cilia or kidneys or livers are doing something or other to humans, in addition to working on microorganisms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is awesome. We underestimate how much antibiotics have made our lives so much better. I hope they make billions in profits.

<comment><USER10> Story time: A few years ago while I was in Uni, I came down with a sore throat. Strep throat had been going around, so I assumed that was it. I went to the college clinic to get a doctor's opinion and medication. I told him that I thought it was strep, but the doctor wanted to run some tests to see what it was specifically, but he also said, "In the meantime, I'm going to prescribe a large doses of penicillin to get a head start and kill it since it's definitely bacterial." Fast forward a few days and I'm even sicker.

The doctor called saying the tests were negative and we wanted to test to see if it was viral instead. Nothing came back. Then, he wanted to test to see if it was STD, but the tests take longer to come back. While waiting for results and continuing to take penicillin per my doctor's directions, I continue to get sicker. The infection had moved from my throat to my gums, then to my lips, then to a couple of fingers (that I accidentally slammed between a door) and my genitals.

At this point, the doctor is convinced I have an STD because it's on my genitalia despite insisting that it started in my throat. He said it could've been transmitted orally. He runs every STD test under the sun, although he sent the samples in for the wrong tests the first time, and everything comes back negative. Since they all come back negative, he is convinced I have HIV considering how quickly it spread. He orders that test.

A few days later while bedridden and during finals week, I get a call from a new doctor saying the HIV test came back negative and to come in so she could examine me herself. Considering how sick I was and for how long, she said that I clearly should have been hospitalized, despite the previous doctor that I saw nearly everyday and saw how long I had a fever for (2 weeks straight) kept telling me to just get rest. She also said that he never tested for strep throat, despite me insisting that's what I thought it was on the first visit.

The new doctor says that she thinks it's strep throat too (which the previous doctor ruled out without testing) and she runs as many tests against it as possible. Turns out that I had antibiotic-resistant strep throat that became resistant due to the penicillin that the previous doctor was so quick to prescribe to "get a head start". It turns out that the doctor had been fired and she was his replacement...for good reason.

Anyways, antibiotic-resistant infections are no joke. They get real bad, real quick. Plus, a shitty doctor can create it by prescribing medication nilly willy and force a potential HIV scare that you have to deal with for like a week. Those three weeks were the worst of my life, not just because of how sick I was, but also because I was convinced (since the doctor was) that I had HIV, forced to confront the person I assumed I contracted it from, and go through the worst pain in my life every time I had to take a piss.

<comment><USER11> I don't understand, how did it become resistant due to the penicillin? And it seems you're blaming the doctor for this, but penicillin would be the natural first course of treatment here.

<comment><USER10> I mainly blame the doctor for not testing for strep and the multiple times he was "convinced" it was something else without testing for it. Under no circumstances should a doctor say "I'm convinced you have HIV. The tests will confirm this".

Furthermore, penicillin is only suggested for group A strep, which has already been declining in effectiveness since the 80s. It also shouldn't be given simply as a precaution until you know what bacteria you're dealing with. It was probably already a resistant strain of strep, but the way the following doctor explained it to me was that by introducing the penicillin, it made it more resistant to other antibiotics that I should've taken instead. The only course of action I had was to wait it out. She said she could have tried other antiobiotics, but there was no way to tell if it would work. Luckily, I was already recovering by the time we got the results back for strep throat.

P.S. The person I contracted the strep throat from was fine after about a week of clindamycin.

EDIT: I'm no doctor myself. I'm just going based on what I was told. If the second doctor gave me bad information, then I'll be happy to assume that both were shitty doctors. That wasn't the only time I had horrible experiences with that clinic (completely forgot to document multiple doctor's visits and weeks of PT I had in relation to a sports injury and I lost my redshirt eligibility as a result as there was no proof of the injury). That clinic was the only option I had with student-athlete health insurance. But, I'm not changing my mind on the first doctor after everything else, regardless of the penicillin.

<comment><USER12>
      I mainly blame the doctor for not testing for strep

Strep has to be _cultured_. In the meantime, the care you were given was absolutely appropriate.

<comment><USER10> I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that lab tests for other bacteria need to be cultured as well, such as staph, which he did request labs for. Again, I'm not saying penicillin wasn't appropriate because I'm not a doctor. However, he continued to test everything but the one thing I asked him to, which it turned out I had. As I also said in another comment, he told me to continue using the high doses of penicillin (500mg IIRC) throughout him being convinced I had something viral, then an STD, and then HIV without ever changing the dosage and despite my condition getting progressively worse. There's multiple things I blame him for, the most upsetting being the statement-of-fact that I had HIV when I didn't. I also don't believe he was fired for no reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> To be rendered ineffective within years as farmers start dumping them into cattle as a growth promoter.

</comment><comment><USER14> Obviously it had to be public research, because big pharma is a lot more interested in managing chronic conditions...

Pretty glad my taxes helped pay for that research...

<comment><USER15> It's great that there are some new antibiotics, but I don't get this claim that "big pharma" won't develop new cures and only manages chronic conditions.

First, it's factually false. There are now _multiple_ Hepatitis C cures for a formerly chronic (and eventually fatal) disease, let alone all the other chronic conditions that pharmaceutical companies have cured or diminished. And "big pharma" companies have gotten to the same stage as these teams with antibiotics.

Second, it doesn't even make sense unless you treat "big pharma" as a single monolithic entity. In reality, it's many many companies, including startup pharmaceutical companies, all competing against each other. I don't think of bacterial infections generally as chronic conditions in the first place, but if one company makes money on a drug that manages some chronic bacterial infection, there's no reason that another company would be worried about taking away profits from the first company.

<comment><USER16> Say startup company develops drug A that will compete with big pharma drug B which is making billions a year, and envisions it to make 7 billion in the next 5 years. An internal analysis from big pharma calculate drug A could wipe out half of that =2.5 billion. Big pharma buys out the startup for a billion, close them down indefinitely. Couldn't that happen?

<comment><USER17> Getting a drug to market is horrifically risky all the way up through approval (and still somewhat risky post approval). ~1/1000 compounds get to market and ~1/100 drugs make it from Phase 1 (first in human/safety) to sale. By the time the odds are decent that a drug will get approved, the sponsoring company will have sunk much of the ~$1 billion it takes to get all the way across the line.

At that point the valuation of said startup is going to be approaching the expected life time value of the drug (less a discount for risk of a late failure and the time value of money). Any acquirer might as well finishing getting the drug and its new patent protection the rest of the way to market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I know there's a lot being said about super bugs...but is the expectation that we just keep developing stronger antibiotics? is this something can be sustained over the next few decades/centuries?

<comment><USER19> I think if we ever phase out animal agriculture we will be relatively safe. You don't have to worry about superbugs if you don't create places for them to develop, which we effectively do by giving billions of dirty animals low doses of antibiotics indefinitely.

Serious bacterial illnesses in countries with good health systems are already pretty rare. The vast majority of them come from unsanitary food practices

<comment><USER20> Won't there always be somewhere though? Until we have a fully developed planet with no empty land, there's going to be swamps, tar pits, decomposition in nature and a plethora of other strange things on Earth that could give bacteria places to grow. Not to mention space-bacteria!

If all of our countries with health systems designed for our bacteria aren't equipped to handle more advanced bacteria, wouldn't it take just one explorer to bring back a species-threatening disease?

<comment><USER19> Sure, but that somewhere would be very unlikely to have antibiotics, making the development of further antibiotic resistance unlikely. Non-antibiotic resistant bacteria is very easy to treat and is essentially a solved problem.

The space thing is irrelevant. You can't develop pharmaceuticals meant to kill things you don't know anything about

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Good, now let's make sure they're actually not super toxic to humans beforehand rather than lie to people and cover up evidence until public outcry causes them to be taken off the market.

</comment><comment><USER22> So another end of the world that turns out to be not the end of the world... wake me up when there is a real wolf.

<comment><USER23> It's in mice, so no guarantee it survives being used in humans.

Even if it does work in humans it's likely at least a decade from being safely usable in humans.

And finally: there are already tens of thousands of people dying from previously treatable infections. I would expect that number to be millions eventually

<comment><USER24> If I were one of those tens of thousands of people, I would be buying this substance from a dodgy chemical synthesis person...

<comment><USER17> If you were one of those tens of thousands of people dying of a resistant bacterial strain you'd likely be in intensive care... =)

For the chronic resistant infections, I'm not sure how many people would be willing to roll the dice.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


'Ideal biomarker' detects Alzheimer's disease before the onset of symptoms - <AUTHOR> https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-10/afea-bd100217.php <comment><USER2> This sounds almost too good to be true. It's published in a lower impact journal so I'm wondering if the sample size was very small. Also, how did they confirm the 'topography of the pathophysiology' (where the disease is) without taking people's scalps off?

<comment><USER3> Looks like n=20 from skimming. MEG and MRI scans were used.

[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.23724/epdf](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.23724/epdf)

<comment><USER4> Yep. Far too early to get excited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article claims this test will promptly be used clinically. Diagnosing Alzheimer's while there is no cure or treatment available is useless. If used, the test unnecessarily burdens patients sooner. I can see the importance of this test in helping to find the root cause of Alzheimer's, but I can't see why this test would be used clinically while we can't do anything about Alzheimer's.

<comment><USER6> I'd definitely like to know if my future includes Alzheimer's. At the very least, I'd stop saving for retirement. You say we can't do anything about the disease, but as an individual, I can certainly decide how far I want to let the disease progress.

<comment><USER7> It seems unwise to assume that we won't find a cure or treatment in the next n decades.

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't say it's unwise, but there's definitely a decision to be made.

If I decide to let the disease progress to the point where I don't know my family members and am acting violently, how likely is it that a cure is going to be found that can reverse that damage? I don't think it's very likely and so I would probably choose to die before that point.

<comment><USER7> Yes, but it doesn't make sense to avoid saving for retirement.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Seven Habits Study Guide - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Seven_Habits_Study_Guide/Quick_overview_of_the_seven_habits

<comment><USER2> We did a 3 minute intro video on this. Take a look. [http://www.brevedy.com/7-habits-3-minutes- video/](http://www.brevedy.com/7-habits-3-minutes-video/)

Covey's stuff is pretty solid and researched based. You really have to read the book. It's worth it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there something similar for "How to make friends and influence people"?

<comment><USER4> [http://www.westegg.com/unmaintained/carnegie/win- friends.htm...](http://www.westegg.com/unmaintained/carnegie/win-friends.html)

[http://sameffect.com/how-to-win-friends-and-influence- people...](http://sameffect.com/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people- summary/)

<comment><USER3> Thanks. I prefer the first one. The second one I did manage to google, along with some others, but they are too verbose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Actually, the study guide is pretty much the right length for the book.

They are all useful points, but the book itself beats the horse until it is very thoroughly dead.

</comment><comment><USER6> No shit? Effective people are proactive? And they seek win-win scenarios?

Tell me something I don't know.

</comment><comment><USER7> Same old self-help bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER8> Personally, I think HN is not the perfect place for self-help.

Also, I don't believe that any specific habits can you make you successful.

A lot of people became successful purely by probability.

<comment><USER9> _Also, I don 't believe that any specific habits can you make you successful._

Person "A": spends 105% of his income

Person "B": spends 85% of his income

Which habit do you think will lead to greater success?

<comment><USER8> Spending more than what you earn is not a habit, it's a disorder.

What I'm trying to say is that it does not work like that. If I were to follow all that is said in such book/articles, will I automatically become rich or successful?

<comment><USER9> Spending more than what you earn, as a repeated pattern of behavior, is definitely a habit. Most people would agree that it's a bad one.

If you're waiting for some advice or recipe to make you "automatically" rich or successful, you'll be waiting a long time. Nobody can guarantee that.

We can probably agree that there is a spectrum of habits that range from "good" to "bad". Practicing good habits doesn't create automatic success, just like practicing bad habits doesn't make success impossible, but there are statistical trends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reads like a self-help book...</comment>


Scholarship Places for Business of Software Conference - <AUTHOR> http://businessofsoftware.org/2015/08/guest-post-john-knox-business-software-scholarships-now-available/?hn

<comment><AUTHOR> Also other scholarships available.</comment>


Ask HN: What don't you like about iOS 7? - <AUTHOR>

I don't like how apple made the native buttons into links... (phone/sms) <comment><USER3> They screwed the Music app and the whole OS as well.

The Music app ain't able to play genres entirely, or largely groups. They force you now to do Playlists on the iTunes app: you cannot make playlists comfortably. Try to add an entire album you will be screwed.

I feel the overall design is horrible. We discussed this on the past in HN. I feel the overall animations and embellishment i see isn't enough. This may impact non pro's, like my mom or dad, but i assume techies will preffer other well done options, like Android soon.

</comment><comment><USER4> 1\. I absolutely hate the new folders. 9 vs 16 apps is horrible. I don't really care much for the pages feature in folders. I think it actually makes it worse even if they kept the 16 apps.

2\. Some design are worse albeit most are better. The new rounded edges on the app icons are worse I think.

3\. I absolutely hate the new Calendar. It was better when I could easily select a day on month view and see a list of all my activities below it. Now I have to do multiple clicks just to get to that generic list on its own in search view.

4\. Playlists in Music is really awful compare to before. Have not tried iTunes Radio

5\. Swiping changes annoys me.

6\. Not sure if this is new to iOS7 but certainly didn't happen to me before. They forced me to use an iCloud email that they tagged to my Apple ID that is now inseparable from the Apple ID itself.

7\. Omni-search in safari is kind of cool except it makes it worse then trying to search text on page as it drags the whole thing down further. Alternatively having the bottom nav fades in and out makes it harder to initiate closing a browser

8\. Due to animation of certain things, things feel slower in some areas

9\. It use to be you can see which apps are active by double clicking on the home button twice and with one swipe you can access music controls, launch Music app, and lock screen. That is now no longer the case.

Overall everything else improved so far in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER5> Frankly, I think it's just ugly. I didn't track the internet hype around it, so after updating and seeing it for first time yesterday I was shocked (What have you done to my phone?! I want the pretty iOS6 icons back!).

</comment><comment><USER6> Besides the garish colors... I don't like that the user interface has lost definition. You don't know whether something on screen is actionable or not. Instead of buttons, there is just floating text. Icons in apps have gone or have been replaced with minimalistic line drawings that are hard to recognize. And finally, I thought they would do something clever with animations and blurring, but in the end it's mostly eye-candy.

</comment><comment><USER7> Apple has been inconsistent about the use of colors and buttons - <USER2> two things look the same, but one's tappable and one's not.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't like how the swiping changed. Swiping right on emails and SMS used to bring up the delete. Now it's swipe left :(

</comment><comment><USER9> The animations stuttered on mine for a while, now they're fine. But they're too slow! I put iOS6 and iOS7 side by side, and turned them both on from sleeping, iOS6 brought up the unlock screen instantly, iOS7's animation meant that it took, what felt like, forever to display the unlock screen. In reality it's probably only a few hundred milliseconds, but considering I do that probably 50 times a day, it's getting annoying very quickly.

Perhaps this little niggle is there to prompt me to want their touch sensor to speed up the process of turning on my phone.

The rest of the animations also slow me down, but this one is the most irritating.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. I have also noticed iOS 7 chews through my battery compared to iOS 6. Probably related to animations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The UI is honestly hard on my eyes. Its nothing horrible but I can feel myself strain more - it does matter to me though because, as most of us do, I look at screens a lot.

I think if they could tone down the colors a bit I would feel differently. Overall, for my tastes I think it looks worse but will likely stick with iOS.

</comment><comment><USER11> I saw it for the first time at lunch today.

WOW is the UI bad. I see this amazing space-grey device that is light, and looks amazing, and then the UI comes up and it honestly looked like a 13-year- old's phone. Just wow!

There are themes in the Android market that are much much much much better than iOS 7. Just wow.

It is such a device mismatch from the hardware.

</comment><comment><USER12> I really thought we were going to get a proper file manager and the equivalent of intents.

</comment><comment><USER13> Some design niggles, but mostly the fact that most things seem slower since upgrading to it.

</comment><comment><USER14> i'm not a fan of the whole flat thing. but besides the aesthetics, I can't figure out how to add a bookmark in mobile safari. oy

</comment><comment><USER15> The way all the icons zoom in to the home screen.

</comment><comment><USER16> That I have to buy Mac OS 10.8 Mountain Lion for $19.99 to install the Xcode update to develop/test on it, since it broke an app I am working on.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some good Django source code examples to learn from? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I'd like to personally see bigger, more realistic implementations of projects with frameworks. It gets old seeing simple "todo" list apps. I've personally pursued GitHub for large Django projects and haven't had much luck. It's nice to see what a "bigger than demo" project looks like, so then you can "smell" the framework better. This isn't just a Django thing, btw, I find it especially true for all these new MVC-ish JavaScript frameworks.

<comment><USER3> Here's one that I know of that is pretty big:

<https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been working on an in-house Django project and all I've used so far is the Django Tutorial on their site and their documentation. Believe it or not it's actually rather comprehensive.

For everything else, I have searched google for "<idea name I need to program> Django". Gets me the right answer or sample code I need most of the time.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your replies. I think I understand the basics of the framework, and was looking more for some well designed examples of Django projects. As of now I have extremely lengthy views in my projects, and have pretty much no idea how to design projects the 'right way'. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER5> This: <http://withdjango.com/readers/source/>

from this: <http://withdjango.com/>

Their specific purpose is "to learn from."

<comment><USER6> It covers Django 1.0 which is pretty much old. I recently picked up "Practical Django Projects". This book is for Django 1.1.

I am frustrated with the code samples as of now. So much code change when you compare pre 1.4 and 1.1

@iman453 I dont recommend buying any Django books if you want to learn Django version 1.4.

But if you really need a book, then go for the www.djangobook.com which is free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This helped me understand how to have multiple apps in one project <http://pinaxproject.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot! This looks really interesting.</comment></comment>


An Interview with OEIS's Neil Sloane - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/08/meet-guy-sorts-worlds-numbers-attic/

<comment><USER2>
        We like to include sequences that appear on IQ tests. It's always
        been one of my goals to help people do these silly tests.

Yessssss! Those damn "IQ" questions:

[http://spikedmath.com/062.html](http://spikedmath.com/062.html)

We also get them with some regularity in Freenode's ##math. It's a FAQ. "Here's a list of numbers, what's the formula?" Sometimes we're able to send the person to Sloane's and be done with it.

Other times...</comment>


Breakout List – A list of the fastest growing startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.breakoutlist.com/ <comment><USER2> Abbreviating San Francisco to SF is understandable, but I wasn't sure if PA meant Pennsylvania or Palo Alto.

</comment><comment><USER3> Like the idea. Maybe you could add some international startups?</comment>


Ask HN: How to control users abusing the free credits and demo - <AUTHOR> It's the 3rd month of https://extracttable.com released to the internet. While it attracted a couple of bulk purchases and 30+ small packs, but I'm seeing the rise in visitors abusing the service it in 2 ways

  no signup needed to try the demo - visitors are trying on more than 12+ files per session

  no credit card details requested for free API credits - multiple email accounts are being used
 Do you have recommendations on the services or plugins I should opt to reduce my cost here <comment><USER2> Welcome to my world. We're in year 5 and no amount of checking for multiple signups by IP, block/spam/burner email lists, captchas, questionnaires, email confirmation, oauth logins (google, facebook) helps. Multiple signups for free stuff come from students, whole universities (we found our service listed in several curriculum with "just sign up for free") and Fortune 500 companies. Record was a user with 100 accounts. Written warnings works somewhat but also get ignored regularly. After IP blocks our last defense is returning fake data.

While frustrating we see it was daily business to block some users. Overall it costs us time but rarely lost revenue. Those users willing to register 10 accounts don't convert to paid accounts much.

Free trials requiring credit card will help, it's more work to setup and will lower the number of signups.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Those users willing to register 10 accounts don't convert to paid accounts > much

Well, there are instances in our case who are paid users now.

We are operating the service under 50% margin after op cost - our closest competitor in price, charges 2-5x to ours.

I'm afraid (at least at this point of time) to put the CC requirement upfront. I may eventually go for it, if we bleed more.

Thanks for sharing your experience

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So far it doesn't seem like they're dedicated attackers trying to abuse the service but more like legitimate users just using the free service without concerns for paying because you don't prevent them from using it freely.

So restrict the free tier to an amount that allows them to try it while limiting intensive usage, and then ask for a prepaid entry/starter plan for more (don't just rely on active credit cards as they can be generated infinitely - you need to actually take money from them).

<comment><AUTHOR> Guess what, the data usage policy has made the difference for us.

      Data from Purchased Credits neither be used nor shared

      Data from free/promotional/demo will be used internally ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Add something that will show people how the system works. A short demo or video that just shows the input and the results. That will cut down on the number of users using the service just for curiosity.

Also, keep in mind that only a small percentage of the people that use the system will signup to pay so don't be surprise of the number of people trying the system for free versus signups.

<comment><AUTHOR> The offering is API as a service, unsure if Video amuses me as a developer.</comment></comment>


Manos de Mono: The Manifesto (.NET Web Framework) - <AUTHOR> http://jacksonh.tumblr.com/post/1159500924/manos-de-mono-the-manifesto

<comment><USER3> One unanswered question:

What specifically does this project bring that isn't present in ASP.NET MVC, OpenRasta, FubuMVC or MonoRail?

Or that couldn't have been achieved by porting one of those to Mono (if they aren't there already)?

<comment><USER4> I posed the same question to the author on his blog. As far as I know at least ASP.NET MVC will run on Mono, and I would bet the other frameworks would as well.

I'm all for any new tool that would make my life easier, but it would be great to hear what this framework is going to offer that isn't already offered in the other existing frameworks.

<comment><USER5> > _As far as I know at least ASP.NET MVC will run on Mono_

ASP.NET (MVC or classic) is not efficient on Mono, the pipeline is too heavy, and Mono (at least until 2.8 / 3.0 is released) leaks memory if you're not careful with the object allocation patterns you're using, since the GC is conservative ... and of course ASP.NET leaks memory.

Mod_mono even includes a setting for automatic restarting of the Mono server, which kind of sucks. See <http://www.mono-project.com/Mod_mono>

Async I/O is built around async sockets in the Windows kernel, and as such the API couldn't be implemented efficiently on top of poll/epoll. See this thread which is fairly recent:

         http://lists.ximian.com/archives/public/mono-devel-list/2010-January/033814.html

ASP.NET (both MVC and classic) is designed for usage in an IDE ... and you shouldn't ignore this point. For references, compare the experience of using JSF / Struts2 to the PlayFramework.

It's practically the reason Java/.NET programmers say they can't live without IntelliSense, and Python/Ruby programmers are saying they can live just fine ... the difference it's in the design of those sucky APIs you have to use with Java/.NET

I also haven't heard of any web apps that are running on Mono, and if there are apps out there, pretty much nobody heard of them ... so this whole argument is a myth.

<comment><USER6> I don't know of any .NET/Java programmers who say they can't live without IntelliSense. I certainly know I can, and do, frequently. Why, just this morning, I wrote some Java in Emacs. No IntelliSense there.

As far as async I/O, that is a problem. It might get better with the new GC, but proper async I/O would need to use one of the async I/O implementations available (libev/libevent, libaio, etc.).

<comment><USER7> I'm primarily a .NET developer on Linux. While I'm comfortable with other languages, and am quite proficient at using vim & and a little emacs - <USER2> simply makes no sense to not use an IDE for Java or C#.

These are tools built around the language and the workflow, and thus have been extremely tailored to ensure that productivity is high. While you can type the code out in any editor, and maybe even get CTAGS based completion and jump-to- type support, I haven't seen as tight an experience as MonoDevelop or Netbeans (or VS, but I don't know that very well).

There exists a tradeoff - you won't get the extensibility of Emacs or the efficiency of vi (they have vi-modes but it doesn't come close). Ultimately, when it comes to simply getting the idea from your head into the code, IDEs do help a lot.

<comment><USER6> As a .NET/PHP on Linux developer, I 100% agree. I just wanted to provide a counterexample. ;)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Children born by c-section far more likely to be obese - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/01/23/children-born-c-section-far-likely-obese-aged-five-major-study/ <comment><USER2> > And many women have the procedure because they themselves are obese, which > also influences their baby's health.

So... we both know that obesity causes c-sections (per this very article) and that, whether due to nurture or nature, obesity runs in families (see the numerous sources for this you will find if you spend three seconds searching). It would thereby be shocking if children born by c-section somehow _weren 't_ more likely to be obese... like, that scenario wouldn't even make sense given what we already know. To do this and have it mean something requires you to randomly assign people to have a c-section.

</comment><comment><USER3> Time to start smearing the mother's poo over the baby's butthole so that the right bacteria can colonize its colon.</comment>


Florida, only state w/5000+ cases that has not to issued 'stay-at-home' - <AUTHOR> https://www.newsweek.com/florida-only-us-state-over-5000-coronavirus-cases-that-hasnt-issued-statewide-stay-home-1495520 <comment><USER2> He _finally_ issued it today but it doesn't take effect until Friday morning. Exponential growth in Florida is already well under way, though.

'The previous guidance from the White House regarding an easing back into normal life by Easter "isn't going to happen," DeSantis said.'

Of course it isn't. It was a lie.

</comment><comment><USER3> Florida "stay at home" order was issued today [1]. NY Times is also tracking states with and without stay at home orders [2].

[1] [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/florida- gover...](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/florida-governor- issues-stay-home-order-after-weeks-resistance-n1174146)

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus- stay...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-stay-at-home- order.html)

<comment><USER4> Church / Religious gatherings are exempted, which is, insane.

In SF, I think all religious services have moved to Zoom-style video format with very positive feedback from what I am hearing.

<comment><USER5> Holy crap, I had to look this up because I didn't believe it. "Religious services" are actually the first defined type of "essential activities"...and Texas' governor just did the same. Wow, this is incredibly foolish.

<comment><USER6> Any stay-at-home order which stopped religious services would be found in violation of the US Constitution's first amendment. It's possible a judge would throw out the whole stay-at-home order. To have a stay-at-home order that survives in court, exempting religious services is necessary.

<comment><USER5> I am just not certain that this is true. The 1A also protects protests- am I allowed to organize gatherings of 10+ people for the purpose of a protest? I believe not. The 1A is comprehensive; it is not all-powerful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I guess we needed a control group.

<comment><USER8> You have sweden for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interestingly, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation [1] out of UW is still predicting Florida will not run out of hospital beds, unlike many other states. I don't know what to do with this data, but I was surprised given the concern in the media for the state due to the older population and lack of stay-at-home order until now.

[1] [https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections](https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections)

<comment><USER10> Florida has tons of hospital capacity.

<comment><USER3> Florida has 5k ICU beds and 5 million Floridians over 65. They do not have enough hospital capacity for this event.

[https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article24146440...](https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article241464406.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The actual stay-at-home order issued today and other FL executive orders (pdf) can be found at [https://www.flgov.com/2020-executive- orders/](https://www.flgov.com/2020-executive-orders/) .

#91 ([https://www.flgov.com/wp- content/uploads/orders/2020/EO_20-9...](https://www.flgov.com/wp- content/uploads/orders/2020/EO_20-91.pdf)) is the stay-at-home order, and #89 ([https://www.flgov.com/wp- content/uploads/orders/2020/EO_20-8...](https://www.flgov.com/wp- content/uploads/orders/2020/EO_20-89.pdf)) has more details of what is "essential" and not in this context.

</comment><comment><USER12> Yes, they have: [https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/04/01/florida- gov-...](https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/04/01/florida-gov-ron- desantis-issues-statewide-stay-at-home-order/)

<comment><USER13> You can even just quote the linked article: _UPDATE: Apr. 1, 1:50 p.m. EST — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced on Wednesday afternoon that he would sign an executive order mandating residents to stay at home for 30 days. The order will say that residents may only go out for essential activities._

<comment><USER12> That update was posted after I posted my comment, hence the link. Kind of hard to quote something that doesn't exist yet. Thanks for the incredibly helpful post though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Florida has a population with 20% over 65, compare that to New York with 14% in the same age group. This group is most vulnerable to the virus.</comment>


It's OK Not to Write Unit Tests - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cashto/archive/2009/03/31/it-s-ok-not-to-write-unit-tests.aspx

<comment><USER2> Since I don't come from a CS background (IS major at a business school), I never really knew much about strict testing methodologies except "make sure your shit ain't broke", and thus did the best I could early on by just testing the most probably use cases for my code. It's worked well enough for me that I still test code this way. This article makes me feel a little bit better about what I used to think was my own noobie way of testing :)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is meandering rambling from someone who doesn't know how to write unit tests. He complains about bad unit tests ("many tests tend to...") as an argument against unit testing. Yes, there are bad tests out there. But there is a way to write good valuable unit tests that protect you from future regression (thus future pain and needless effort).

Get better at writing unit tests, don't use this article as an excuse to avoid a highly valuable practice.</comment>


We Only Hire the Best - <AUTHOR> https://m.signalvnoise.com/we-only-hire-the-best/ <comment><USER2> The disconnect is amplified even more when companies have onerous interview processes. If you require candidates to build an app for free, or some other time-consuming "take home" test a lot of candidates will simply ghost you because they haven't got the time or the inclination to jump through your hoops.

Therefore, "we only hire the best people who put up with our interview process."

</comment><comment><USER3> Candidate: "Well then you won't mind me giving the interviewers a coding test. You know, so I can be sure I won't be working with bozos."

<comment><USER4> I actually did that a few times. I obviously didn't say that :) But a couple times, after putting up with a whiteboard exercise, when it was my time to "ask questions to the interviewer" I ask them to also solve a problem on the board. I remember one who completely refused, saying that he wasn't the one being interviewed, so I just left. The other 2 did it, failed, and I never got a call back :)

That being say, I definitely try to evaluate my peers as much as possible during interviews, but it's usually based on what they ask, how they react to someone disagreeing with their positions, stuff like that.</comment></comment>


Traveling by zip line - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/traveling-by-zip-line.html

<comment><USER2> They sound like they're children grateful to their parents for letting them do things like these. Sure, there are employees who can't do this stuff, but neither of the two is an adult.</comment>


Witness the Freest Economy: the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://mises.org/story/3766

<comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=885138>

<comment><USER3> _If you start posting those, others will start posting Krugman or whoever on the left. Both will attract people not interested in hacker news._

As I post this, the number 3 article on HN is a Krugman piece which has nothing at all to do with software, so it looks like those will get posted anyway. Not only that, but Krugman is, as usual, late to the game. The dollars been getting hammered for a long time and he finally notices.

This artice, however, at least uses the interwebs as an interesting example of a free market.

<comment><USER2> I flagged that one too.

> This artice, however, at least uses the interwebs as an interesting example > of a free market.

And doesn't mention that the hated, loathed government was the one that actually created it.

They also don't mention some of the more problematic businesses on the internet such as as spyware, botnets, DOS extortion and so on.

But when it all comes down to it, just like Krugman's columns, they're pushing a political point of view, which is why I don't think either one belongs here.

<comment><USER4> The gov't had to fund the early beginnings of the Internet because it took so much out of the economy to fund Moon/Space/Spy satellite programs against an enemy that could barely produce a decent TV set. They even took a small army of scientists and engineers out of the economy.

This does not even include the telecom regulations preventing competition and innovation during the 50s through 80s. MCI prospered and gave AT&T competition after some regulations were dropped.

When the Gov't takes so much, it's no wonder why scientists/engineers needed it as sugar daddy back then: That's where all the money was.

> spyware, botnets, DOS extortion and so on

We have a market to develop countermeasures: YCombinator and its copycats. The last place you would want protection is from the same gov't that still has problems running the post office and Amtrak.

> the hated, loathed government was the one that actually created it.

The Gov't also used private firms and pre-existing innovations from the market to develop a lot of the programs. Mises.org has published articles about NASA and related programs using pre-existing technologies from the market. The growth of the Internet and Web also came when the Gov't de-regulated large portions of it.

> they're pushing a political point of view

True. Their political POV is: get politicians out of lives, businesses, and private property.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I found it interesting that Austrian economics supports strong government protection of physical property while here the author is arguing against government intervention in intellectual property.

<comment><USER6> As I understand it, Austrian economists tend to define property with respect to scarce goods; because intellectual property is not a scarce good, they (and, in particular, those at the Mises Institute) argue that an individual cannot legitimately own it as "property." Instead, they view "intellectual property" as something of an oxymoron. More properly, it is a government enforced monopoly on particular ideas -- not property at all.

For much more about Austrian views on intellectual property, take a look at Against Intellectual Property by Stephan Kinsella.

<comment><USER7> You are 100% correct. The fact that it's called intellectual property is a misnomer, it's a temporary government granted monopoly.

One common confusion is that Trademarks are often called intellectual property where they are more realistically anti-fraud devices. Though I believe that a trademark can only then be enforced by the defrauded party (the person buying the knockoff good) the person being knocked off has no recourse, unless they purchase the knockoff.</comment></comment></comment>


Google says its self-driving cars have had 11 crashes - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/05/11/self-driving-cars-california-crashes/27125655/ <comment><USER2> In case you want some other sources of the same "story":

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9524678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9524678) (nbcnews.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9524737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9524737) (startribune.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9524859](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9524859) (ap.org)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9525344](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9525344) (sfgate.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9525852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9525852) (seattletimes.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9526220](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9526220) (yahoo.com)

There are more ...</comment>


Editor of HTML5 questions need for alt text in movie poster frames - <AUTHOR> http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10642#c0

<comment><USER2> Isn't he simply questioning an assumption? (assumption being that every bit of image always needs an alternative that is not in normal flow of page)

Ian's often repeated naive-sounding "Why would you do that? What's the use case?" has shot down many feature requests that seemed good in theory, but weren't that useful in practice.

Perhaps description of the video makes description of poster redundant? Maybe one can use ARIA? Maybe media framework can extract description from the video file?

Even if there is a way to describe the poster, will authors actually care to do it? Will they ignore it (naively assuming blind users don't watch videos) or fill it with boilerplate?

<comment><USER3> Ian said "Why would you (a blind user) want to know what the poster frame is? How does it affect you?"

That is NOT questioning an assumption. He seems to imply that blind users have no use for an information that is interesting to _other_ people.

<comment><USER2> _Is_ it interesting?

Would you be interested in description of image representing video if you could get description of the actual video?

— I watched a funny video!

— Cool! What was on the poster image?

<comment><USER3> The OP of the issue decides on which movies to watch based on the poster image's alt description. Movies can also be watched online.

Poster images for videos are also part of journalistic publications, where the poster also works as a still image and conveys meaning or illustrates a point of the story.

<comment><USER2> You're describing a real movie poster, which is a different thing from HTML5 poster frame:

> The image given by the poster attribute, the poster frame, is intended to be > a representative frame of the video (typically one of the first non-blank > frames) that gives the user an idea of what the video is like. > ([http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current- > work/multipage/...](http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current- > work/multipage/video.html#attr-video-poster))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Flagged for misleading title. How about "Editor of HTML5 questions need for alt text in movie poster frames." This would 1) be less editorializing; 2) make this a submission of a technical issue as opposed to a submission questioning Ian's competence.

</comment><comment><USER5> "I give you a very classy example: Casablanca"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_%28film%29>

I had to check this out. The alt text on the images really are excellent.

<comment><USER6> OTOH, it kind of goes to Hickson's point that describing frames of movies to the blind is not very useful when the frame is only there to give a hint of what the movie looks like. Do I really care that Casablanca contains a shot with "a man standing next to another man looking at two other men with people in the background" or some such?

<comment><USER3> The OP of the issue explained that he often uses the alt descriptions of movie posters to decide which movie he wants to see in the theatre.

<comment><USER7> But that has nothing to do with the 'poster' attribute on the 'video' element! Despite its name, this attribute is not intended for picture of a poster for the movie. It is intended for a preview frame to show in the player before the movie starts playing - the spec suggests one of the first non-blank frames of the video.

It's not like they suddenly want to disallow alt text on movie posters on the web.

<comment><USER8> As a sighted user, I can look at the preview image of an embedded video and that may influence whether or not I decide to play the video.

Why should a user with impaired vision be denied the same opportunity?

<comment><USER7> Nobody wants to deny users anything. It is not really a question of pro or con accessibility despite the editorializing in the HN headline. Its a question of content versus presentation.

The first-frame preview is an artifact of the visual presentation of the video player and not relevant for non-sighted users, just as the colors used in css is not relevant for non-sighted users. The actual content is the video, and if you want to make that accessible you should follow the recommendations in the spec and " _provide alternative media streams and/or to embed accessibility aids (such as caption or subtitle tracks, audio description tracks, or sign- language overlays) into their media streams_ ".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There is a significant difference between the title and what's in the poster image. One commenter on the thread pointed to the Casablanca Wikipedia page.

The "poster" image for Casablanca has an alt text: _"Black-and-white film screenshot with the title of the film in fancy font. Below it is the text "A Warner Bros. - First National Picture". In the background is a crowded nightclub filled with many people."_ If you imagine a movie being embedded in a webpage, that might be the alt text for the poster image whereas the title might be "Casablanca".

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm not surprised that he has trouble understanding that. The 'meaning' of the poster frame isn't clear from that conversation. Does he want a description of what's being displayed in just the poster frame? How does this differ from the title of the video?

For example:

Title: Cat jumping on bed

Frame: Image of cat jumping towards bed

Video: Cat jumps toward bed and lands on it.

The vast majority of the time, the poster frame isn't going to be different than the title of the video.

Now, I agree that when it is different, there should be a way to specify an alt text for it. But to require it when it's the same as the title seems silly to me.

<comment><USER10> To use a non-hypothetical example, right now I'm watching a series:

Title: Dexter. Description: A likable Miami police forensics expert moonlights as a serial killer of criminals who he believes have escaped justice.

The exact episode also has those attributes:

Title: My Bad. Description: In the aftermath of last season's chilling finale, Rita's death has left Dexter feeling responsible, possibly even...guilty. Unable to deal with the trauma, Dexter makes a drastic decision that will impact everyone around him. Quinn stirs up trouble at the station when he notes that Rita's murder, which is being pinned on the Trinity Killer, doesn't fit his normal murder profile. Things get even more heated when Quinn suggests to LaGuerta that they look at the husband: Dexter Morgan. Meanwhile, Quinn offers Debra much needed support, causing her to see Quinn in a new light.

\----

Simply put, titles and descriptions are not the same thing. It seems silly to me that somebody would advocate that they should be treated as the same thing just because there is overlap when the content is a 15 second video of a cat.

<comment><USER2> Your descriptions describe video, not poster frame.

The issue is only about describing poster frame of the video (a placeholder picture that is displayed before user hits 'play').

<comment><USER10> Poster frame for the episode:

Title: Dexter - My Bad.

Description: Dexter stands in a dank, dirty, dimly lit public bathroom, gripping a fishing anchor, a malevolent look in his eyes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow. :( "I'm confused. Why would you (a blind user) want to know what the poster frame is? How does it affect you?"

That is pretty bad.

I think they need a group of people with disabilities to review all of the specs. There have to be many more issues like this lurking (that those with disabilities could probably already point me to).

<comment><USER12>
      Wow. :( "I'm confused. Why would you (a blind user) want to
      know what the poster frame is? How does it affect you?"

There are real needs and perceived needs. Trying to understand the potential use cases is not bad in any way.

<comment><USER13> You're probably right, and I sure hope that's what he's doing. I have to admit it did come across pretty bad when I read it though :)

<comment><USER14> I think it probably sounded that way due to the editorializing of the headline. If instead it had read "Editor of HTML5 tries hard to gain a better understanding of potential use cases facing people with disabilities" you might have read it differently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The submission title, "Editor of HTML5 (Ian Hickson) shows poor understanding of accessibility", is unnecessarily personalizing, editorializing, and polarizing.

It's likely Hickson's questions, and reluctance to accept a specific proposal without more data, are a matter of seeking understanding, and working through different ideas about what the proper significance and use of a 'poster' image for video might be.

(A better title might be: "Debating fine points of HTML5 accessibility: video 'poster' images and alt taxt".)

</comment><comment><USER16> This really inspired me to write meaningful alternative texts (alt) on images. Never realized how important they were to the blind.

</comment><comment><USER17> This type of editorializing is absolutely out of line. Ian is obviously trying to understand the other side, which is more than many developers ever try to do. As a low vision user of the web since its beginnings, I have encountered site after site designed for low vision and blind users based on advice and recommendations from people with good eyesight.

You can't understand what a person needs unless you ask them directly. That's what Mr. Hickson is doing here.

And lets not forget the more important matter - videos need transcripts so that the blind _and_ deaf can follow along.

A few days ago I asked for feedback on how I might better explain accessibility to developers over at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1716463> \- issues like this are exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for. Feel free to leave comments there if you have them.

</comment><comment><USER18> Unfortunately the SEO industry will make this a pain for all of us just like they did with stuffing image alt text in the early 2000's.</comment>


5 Reasons Not to Use Twitter Bootstrap - <AUTHOR> http://www.zingdesign.com/5-reasons-not-to-use-twitter-bootstrap/ <comment><USER2> funny that one of the reasons is that it doesnt follow best practices, yet the site is built on wordpress.</comment>


FCC must reveal IP addresses and user-agent headers of net neutrality commenters - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/05/fcc-broke-public-records-law-by-refusing-nyt-document-request-judge-rules/ <comment><USER2> > Second, the FCC objects to producing the relevant materials from the API > proxy server log because to do so requires creating a script, which demands > "research" rather than simply a "search."

Funny how a government agency considers it overly burdensome to write what is likely a 4 line script, so goes through a lawsuit that costs taxpayers likely millions of dollars to avoid it. Unless their infrastructure is well and truly F*ed, this is a 30-60 minute task for a junior server admin. Most likely they already ran it and didn't like what it revealed so it's even less effort.

<comment><USER3> Don't underestimate the absolutely jaw-dropping incompetence from even senior "tech" folks employed by governments.

Within the last couple years, I've overheard senior, so-called technical government employees 1) complain about Git and wonder aloud why we weren't using Visual Source Safe; 2) insist that rotating through a list of 12 hard- coded passwords, in code, checked into Git, was totally fine; 3) refuse to believe that automated deployments were possible (not hard, or against norms, but _physically impossible_ ); 4) try to explain to another so-called technical gov't employee the difference between CSS and JavaScript, and get it wrong; 5) stand up in the middle of a conversation and walk out the door because it's 2:30 PM and their day is over; 6) even more nonsense you wouldn't believe if I showed you a video of it.

I would hope Federal is a little better than State, but I'm not convinced.

<comment><USER4> >Don't underestimate the absolutely jaw-dropping incompetence from even senior "tech" folks employed by governments.

When I was in training with the RCAF, I was in lecture where the Information Systems Security Officer (i.e. the senior most infosec person at this base of 6-8000 people) told us about a time where "two guys were emailing back and forth and just picked up a virus".

I made the mistake of pointing out that that's not really how computers work, i.e. an email can't just pick up a virus in transit like a dog picks up a tick.

I learned two lessons that day:

1\. Militaries don't like it when people stand out

2\. Governments are fundamentally incompetent

<comment><USER5> Sounds like those two guys were man-in-the-middled

<comment><USER4> Or, you know, the guy caught some malware through an entirely separate vector.

<comment><USER6> My firewall protects you, and your firewall protects me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I fully understand both the cases for and against having net neutrality rules. However, I cannot for the life of me understand why a bunch of comments on a website has somehow become the battleground where this is being fought. What is going on here? As far as I can tell, the comments have about as much sway on public policy as the average youtube comment – none whatsoever.

<comment> nappa-leon There were very large numbers of comments both for and against net neutrality, but the ones against net neutrality seemed to largely be autogenerated and fraudulent, using names of people who said they didn't write them.

<comment><USER8> The parent is just pointing out that whether genuine or fraudulent, the comments didn't matter.

I have had the same thought, and I am not sure why the veracity of the comments is fomenting so much anger. No matter what the comments had said, the FCC would have done the same thing; Pai had been very clear about his opinion on net neutrality over the course of many years.

<comment><USER9> I got the impression the NYT is waging this battle more to figure out _who_ was behind fraudulent comments rather than to determine which comments were fraudulent and which were legitimate.

First rule of any good investigative reporting: follow the money. Whoever paid for the comments must have had some motivation for committing fraud and identity theft en masse.

The fact that the FCC is fighting to keep the comment-purchasers IP address(es) secret is telling in and of itself though I suppose.

<comment><USER10> You wouldn't be implying that ex-Verizon-Corporate-Lawyer Ajit Pai might have a conflict of interest when serving the public, would you?

<comment><USER11> Perish the thought!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When his run at the FCC ends I think history will remember Pai as the big telco tool that he is. His leadership (sic) at the FCC has been appalling. I can't wait for him to be gone so that, hopefully, the damage can be repaired by someone else.

<comment><USER13> FCC under Pai does the same basic thing FCC has always done and in fact was created to do: help Ma Bell and her descendants eliminate competition and screw customers. The details may change over the decades, but the bottom line does not.

<comment><USER14> Agreed. Remember, though, this also applies to those other agencies, even the ones defended dogmatically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't think the FCC's pushback is based on lack of competence or inability to write simple scripts. That's just what they are trying to fool the courts with. I think they are covering up, because Pai knows where a lot of the fake comments came from: the sources of the fake comments will be discovered, and it will look bad for the industry when it comes out.

</comment><comment><USER16> > IP addresses and User-Agent headers

I expect the NYT will just find thousands of comments written with IE6 from AWS IP addresses.

<comment><USER17> Yes, in which case the question will go back to the FCC- why did you have no process in place to actually verify comments are genuine.

<comment><USER18> This country screams bloody murder about voting ID laws, yet you want some ID mechanism for public FCC comments?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Aren't they also the agency giving the green light to massive violations of consumer privacy by allowing ISPs to data warehouse and monetize browsing histories? And they have the nerve to claim that they want to keep IP addresses private in just this one case where it benefits themselves.

</comment><comment><USER20> Next, they'll require IDs and use IVRC to delete comments based on "too similar names."

</comment><comment><USER21> It would be hilarious and ever maddening if the user agent came back as "Puppeteer" and IP came back ::0

Can't wait to see it.

</comment><comment><USER22> I hope the NYT posts a copy of the data for public inspection.

</comment><comment><USER23> How do they still have all this data? Under GDPR (yes, it's European, I know) after a reasonable amount of time (=14 days) you gotta delete all the PII out of the logs. Does US law really allow storing mostly irrelevant logs for so long, and who pays for storing them?

<comment><USER24> When you make a comment you are acknowledging that you are entering information to form part of the public record. I've not examined the specific FCC form but I would almost guarantee it clearly explains that your comment and likely metadata around it are protected in some ways by the Privacy Act of 1974 and explicitly not protected in other ways.

These logs could form the basis of a legal record generated by the executive branch of the government and even if they weren't they are likely subject to a legal hold as a result of on-going legal action.

Records in the government sense are very important to form an open trail of policy decisions and overall function of government. Deleting them accidentally can get you a firm slap on the wrist while deleting them intentionally can put you in legal trouble (and worse if you're doing it to cover-up wrongdoing).

The National Archives (NARA) holds on to all the various records generated by the functioning of the federal government for various time periods based on the content of the records. As to payment - costs are incurred in part by the generating agencies and then the taxpayers funding NARA.

Further reading: Privacy Act of 1974, [1], FCC's Comment Filing System System of Records in the Federal Register [2], Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 (more towards only collecting necessary info), and FCC's Website Notices [3].

[1]: [https://www.archives.gov/about](https://www.archives.gov/about)

[2, Word .doc]: [https://www.fcc.gov/omd/privacyact/documents/records/FCC- CGB...](https://www.fcc.gov/omd/privacyact/documents/records/FCC-CGB-2.doc)

[3]: [https://www.fcc.gov/general/website- notices](https://www.fcc.gov/general/website-notices)

<comment><USER25> _> When you make a comment you are acknowledging that you are entering information to form part of the public record. I've not examined the specific FCC form_

I have since I actually submitted a comment on this very rulemaking. Your description is correct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> How long will it take for this information to mysteriously go missing?

<comment><USER27> Another "The files were accidentally deleted and the backups were unrecoverable. So sorry." Yeah. Would be no surprise at all.</comment></comment>


Small C Projects - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/q/4038935/277256 <comment><USER2> It really surprises me when people look for "small" programming projects.

Boot a Unix, leave X, sit still for 20 minutes. There.

Get the sources to your Unix and just go read the code for your everyday utils. This is best done with a BSD, that isn't bloated with GNUisms.

If you don't believe me about GNU bloat, just look here:

<http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/bin/>

Get a BSD and devour the beauty that is Unix, unfuckedwith.

FreeBSD also comes with all the papers & research docs you need; love how the troff formatting is readable in console with zcat. The CRT radiation kept me glowing green for many an enjoyable night.

<comment><USER3> The GNU toolset may have combobulated source, but it's a damn sight more usable and useful than bare-bones utilities.

<comment><USER2> But the metric of this thread was "small C projects", not useful, cushy coreutils.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a little different from what the OP was asking for, but my favorite toy programming project: write a shell. This brings you in contact with many of the basic aspects of the Unix system: pipes, fork, exec, environment variables. In around a thousand lines, you can implement a shell with pipes, backgrounding, backquote, variable expansion, conditionals, looping, and lots and lots of bugs.

In general, I like the idea of trying to implement absolutely minimal versions of common programs. Other possibilities are: an HTTP server or proxy, a Lisp interpreter.

<comment><USER5> To make a Lisp interpreter you need to know Lisp. But I liked the idea of writing a shell.

<comment><USER6> Writing Lisp interpreter is actually good way to learn most of core Lisp concepts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Buy an embedded system like the Arduino and learn C while haking a bit of hardware too. Yes, the Arduino is not 100% ANSI C but I suspect it's close enough.

For me learning a new programming language is always about finding a problem to solve, something that will keep me interested and make it fun to learn.

</comment><comment><USER8> One of the good suggestions was exercises from K&R. I also like "Practical C" by Steve Oualline.

Then the best thing is to just work on something you like.

If you like networking, write an RPC server using the basic Linux socket interface or use 0mq to write a pub / sub :

<http://www.zeromq.org/intro:read-the-manual>

If you like audio or DSP write a an audio processing program and adds an echo or other effect to an input audio stream. You can try portaudio interface:

[http://www.portaudio.com/trac/browser/portaudio/trunk/test/p...](http://www.portaudio.com/trac/browser/portaudio/trunk/test/patest_sine.c)

If you like file systems & linux write a FUSE file system. Or a kernel module:

<http://lwn.net/Articles/68106/>

If you like graphics you can try libSDL:

<http://friedspace.com/SDLTest.c>

</comment><comment><USER9> An XML parser makes a nice medium-sized project; it'll get you experience with C data structures and string handling. Plus it has the nice property that you can start small and build on, until you've got the whole spec done, and every bit along the way is useful.

</comment><comment><USER10> These questions always seem so ridiculous. There are thousands of examples of projects that fall into systems programming.

Do one of these things: keyboard/mouse driver, hard drive diagnostics poller, implement raw sockets on windows, system call hooking pattern, a VM for a scripting language, a VM/crypter software protection scheme, etc.

There's all kinds of stuff.

<comment><USER11> > These questions always seem so ridiculous

Maybe I am misreading this. But I don't quite see why. The poster seemed to want to relearn C and was asking other people's opinions on what would be interesting small projects to start out with.

<comment><USER10> There is no reason to ask such a question because potential projects are outlined in _thousands_ of places across the net. It seems that he put absolutely no effort into googling and finding such projects on his own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Write a Brainfuck interpreter. Seriously, it is trivial to write a simple one, slightly harder to write a compact one, and then just hack on to optimize it for speed. There are great test cases too including ASCII Mandelbrot renderer :)

</comment><comment><USER13> For the 'more distinct parts of the C language', I would suggest reading a couple of the obfuscated C contest entries, than writing one of your own.</comment>


Whats the #1 secret to a successful startup? A competent HR department - <AUTHOR> http://www.sdtimes.com/ZEICHICK_S_TAKE_THE_NO_1_SECRET_FOR_A_SUCCESSFUL_STARTUP/By_Alan_Zeichick/About_STARTUPS_and_HR_and_HUMANRESOURCES/71196

<comment><USER2> Whats the #1 secret to a successful startup? No HR department at all.</comment>


Microsoft finally agrees to stop forcing win10 upgrades - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376962 <comment><USER2> You could have fooled me. Just two hours ago, my girlfriend's laptop has a pop-up window that said Windows 10 would be installed in 10 minutes with a countdown timer. The one button on the window was "restart and upgrade now". And I wasn't going to click the x to close it in the upper right because we all know that now also starts the upgrade thanks to the recent articles on it. So normal users are screwed. If it happens to you, there's a small hamburger menu icon on the upper left. Click it and go to settings (iirc) and select the small text that says "cancel upgrade".

Microsoft has gotten so monumentally shady about these upgrades that I'm reconsidering using or recommending windows 10 at all to anyone.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, the free upgrade is over at the end of this month. After June if you want to upgrade to Windows 10 you'll have to pay for it, so Microsoft needs to wait for confirmation of a purchase before initiating the upgrade. Though the BBC article doesn't mention if Windows Update will still pre-download the upgrade files thus consuming copious bandwidth and hard drive space.

<comment><USER4> Interestingly enough, Steve Gibson updated his 'Never10'[0] tool to detect downloaded Windows 10 files on a system and provides the user the option to delete them via CLI arguments.

[0]: [https://www.grc.com/never10.htm](https://www.grc.com/never10.htm)</comment></comment>


Micro: modern and intuitive terminal text editor - <AUTHOR> https://micro-editor.github.io/ <comment><USER2> I'd love to see a Rust version</comment>


Hospital superbugs are evolving to survive hand sanitizers - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/hospital-superbugs-are-evolving-to-survive-hand-sanitizers/ <comment><USER2> Just one example of how excessive use of chemicals harms the body and the environment. In India antibiotics, even broad spectrum antibiotics are easily prescribed by doctors and unqualified fake practitioners alike. This is leading to a slow build-up of antibiotic resistance. In the case of hand sanitizers too overuse is common. In offices people sanitize their hands every time they go out of the door or come back in. Although this might be effective in keeping some of the bacteria in check, the habit causes indiscriminate use of chemicals and may have the same adverse effect as overconsumption of antibiotics. and I'm sure an unhealthy dose of these chemicals gets ingested too because a lot of people prefer to sanitize hands over washing them before eating.</comment>


What we learned from posting on Hacker News  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.thislooksfun.com/post/12501641077/what-we-learned-from-posting-on-hacker-news

<comment><USER2> "To those of you who are concerned please don't be alarmed; we have every intention of returning to school and graduating"

I will bet you 10-1 that you will not return to school. Whether you are successful or not.

<comment><USER3> I'll take you on that bet for $100. (And a timeline of 5 years.)

<comment><AUTHOR> You would be wise to make that bet!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> glad you're learning. Can't wait to see the MVP.

Just keep in mind that your final successful product probably looks nothing like what you're doing now. And that's perfectly OK, pivot away as long as you build a sustainable business model based on delighting your target customers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We'll keep you updated.

Will do, we've already pivoted from our original idea and are ready to do so as we find out what creates the best experience for our users.</comment></comment>


Reviewing the Nokia N900, User & Developer opinions - <AUTHOR> http://www.gubatron.com/blog/2010/07/07/reviewing-the-nokia-n900-user-and-developer-opinions/

<comment><AUTHOR> Disclosure: I'm an Android developer. However I've also developed Qt4 applications, something which had me excited about Maemo since I could've leveraged my skills to build on yet another mobile platform. After trying this phone for 3 weeks, sorry Nokia.</comment>


Picking up Angular - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/deontologician/pipr/blob/master/tut.org

<comment><AUTHOR> I created this tutorial about 5 months ago for an online magazine. They never sold any copies as far as I could tell, and we never had a copyright agreement, so I figured other people might find it useful.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, I've been using angular for months now but still haven't grok it. A new tutorial is always welcomed.

<comment><USER3> I would suggest reading about the initial framework and pattern that inspired frameworks like Angular and KnockOut: WPF and MVVM. Of course WPF is higher level then HTML, but I think it could still be a useful information:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1405739/mvvm-tutorial- fro...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1405739/mvvm-tutorial-from-start- to-finish)</comment></comment></comment>