Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun - <AUTHOR> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/22/cru-emails-may-be-open-to-interpretation-but-commented-code-by-the-programmer-tells-the-real-story/ <comment><USER4> I'm more in the skeptic camp, but I don't find the comments cited in this article very suspect, especially without further context. The comments may just be warning users not to use the function past 1960.

The most damning excepts from the leaked email are the following:

<http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/11/024996.php> In this one, they delete emails rather than respond to a FOIA request

<http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/11/024995.php> In which they lie to the NYTimes in response to a question of data cherry picking. They tell the NYTimes that they looked into the criticisms and that the criticisms were completely unfounded. But behind the scenes they were emailing each other that they could not explain the results, and in fact, other scientists had found the criticisms to be quite valid.

<comment><USER5> > I'm more in the skeptic camp, but I don't find the comments cited in this > article very suspect, especially without further context.

It's another piece of circumstantial evidence. By itself, it wouldn't mean too much. Considering everything else, it doesn't reflect well upon them.

You need to be very, very careful when normalizing or adjusting a complex system, and you need to be extremely clear that you're adjusting and how you're doing it.

A lot of normalizing/adjusting based on a certain factor is to make data fit a predetermined conclusion. There's some that are generally accepted - <USER2> adjusting for inflation - but even that can be done many different ways with different goals to serve different agendas. Adjusting data without disclaiming how you did it is a pretty big no-no and casts a lot of doubt on someone's results.

<comment><USER6> I agree, but taking a code comment that says something is being adjusted does not mean a lot. Any criticism would have to look at what is being adjusted and how. You'd have to make a statistical argument based on the model.

I am a skeptic as well, but the way these emails and code comments are analysed is entirely meaningless.

However, it goes to show how incredibly stupid it is for scientists to not be as transparent as possible in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is that really suspect? One comment (in two places) saying not to use some function beyond 1960 because it will give divergent results?

The author of the post says something like, "see, these programmer people leave comments in code to remind themselves later of what they really mean the code does. Armed with this knowledge, we can read some comments and find out what's really going on!"

No, dude, I'm a programmer and you can't just take random chunks of comments from code and authoritatively state what you think they mean.

It's also hard to take seriously a blog plastered with ads for $49 "Make-your- own-free-energy"-kits. The comments are a freak show of conspiracy theorists.

<comment><USER8> Well, the ad is via Google Adsense. Blame them. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This has been debunked over and over already. The predictions based on the tree ring data in question are known to have diverged from actual, measured temperatures from 1960 onward. They're known to be fairly accurate prior to 1960, to the best of our knowledge. This is a scientific thing - if you can prove that tree rings were affected enough by non-temperature factors prior to 1960 to lead to inaccurate temperature predictions, you'd be making a huge contribution to the field of dendrochronology.

<comment><USER10> _They're known to be fairly accurate prior to 1960, to the best of our knowledge. This is a scientific thing_

This sounds backwards. We calibrate against the instrumental record up to 1960, we know that there is increasing divergence post 1960, thus should we presume we can have greater trust for the previous eras where we have no instrumental record?

Wouldn't the onus be on explaining the divergence? I haven't seen anyone else accepting a divergence while at the same time claiming that the previous record is accurate. It seems more standard to downplay the divergence rather than to accept it.

Could you reference some sources that discuss the divergence?

<comment><USER9> Absolutely. I'm not very good at finding information in scientific papers, but here's the first few I found with Google. If those don't satisfy you, I'll see what I can find when I get home from work.

[http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/fac/trl/downloads/Publicati...](http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/fac/trl/downloads/Publications/DAWilsJac.nrc.followup.pdf) (PDF) is a paper that specifically addresses a lot of the concerns about temperature prediction using tree rings. In particular, I'd like to quote the following section as it pertains directly to your question:

"A number of tree-ring series indicate a divergence between tree growth and temperature at some northern sites in recent decades (e.g. Briffa et al. 1995, Jacoby and D'Arrigo 1995, Briffa et al. 1998, Vaganov et al. 1999, Barber et al. 2000). Theories for the cause (s) of this observed divergence, which may vary from site to site, include decreased temperature sensitivity due to warmer temperatures, drought stress, increased winter snowmelt and ozone effects. This divergence needs to be considered to avoid bias in dendroclimatic reconstructions; however it is not present everywhere. For example, temperature-sensitive elevational treeline sites in Mongolia and the European Alps exhibit dramatic growth increases in recent decades (D'Arrigo et al. 2001, Buntgen et al. 2005)."

[http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/fac/trl/downloads/Publicati...](http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/fac/trl/downloads/Publications/%20cook2004.pdf) (PDF) is an earlier paper referenced in the above that also discusses the problem.

<http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Loehle_Divergence_CC.pdf> (PDF) is a paper by someone that's more skeptical, it goes into a fair bit of detail about the possible causes, mostly to argue against them.

Of course, we're getting a bit away from the actual topic. We know about the post-1960ish divergence. We know that it's a good idea to exclude that data from any kind of analysis, which isn't a problem because we have accurate modern measurements from that period to use instead. There may be other periods of inaccuracy - but if there are, they haven't been discovered, and there is a substantial amount of overlap between these reconstructions and our actual instrumental record during the calibration period. In other words, it's the best reconstruction we have at the moment, and like any scientific theory, it's subject to change if better evidence were to come along. Unfortunately, the skeptics seem to be more interested in politicizing the debate rather than finding that better evidence themselves.

None of this really changes what the comment says, which was basically "Don't use this to plot past 1960, because we know that part needs corrections". I don't see an issue with that. The wording could be better, but it's a useful note to have, to make sure that the data isn't misused. I don't think it would be necessary to say "Oh yeah, the rest is just a theory, it could be wrong too" - everyone who was supposed to have access to the source knew that. It comes with the territory. The problem is when internal stuff is leaked and that territory changes - a random person reads that comment, completely misses the tentative scientific context and thinks that the programmer is asserting the absolute correctness of everything he doesn't single out as wrong.

Edited to add in a (PDF) tag that I forgot.

<comment><USER10> I appreciate it. The first link is coming up 404, but I'll check the other two. I think I'm superficially familiar with both, but I haven't actually read them in their entirety. Will do if I have time.

 _there is a substantial amount of overlap between these reconstructions and our actual instrumental record during the calibration period_

From memory, I don't think this is quite the right conclusion. Rather, the instrumental record is used to calibrate the reconstruction, so the overlap approaches 100%. Worse, the accusations are that the correlation is even better because any trees not matching the temperature record have been eliminated as non-performing! I don't think either of these papers shows accuracy of reconstruction on an out-of-sample set for which there exists an outside measurement. I'll recheck, though.

 _None of this really changes what the comment says, which was basically "Don't use this to plot past 1960, because we know that part needs corrections"._

I don't disagree here. In the absence of some overriding context, that seems like a valid reading of the comment.

<comment><USER9> Hmm, it looks like the first link got eaten by HN's linkerator due to the %27 (single quote) in the URL. Sorry about that, try <http://preview.tinyurl.com/ydb8h28>.

As for the calibration period, you're right, there are definitely some issues there, and that's a problem with the entire temperature reconstruction approach. We only have reliable instrumental records back to the middle of the 19th century, so it's hard to test any kind of reconstruction on a large scale.

Personally, I don't put much faith in the reconstructions themselves - I just think that it's important for people to understand the context around these experiments, since there's so much blatantly false information going around. It's hard enough for those of us who _aren't_ climatologists to keep up with the information without people screaming bloody murder over a few lines of comments that they don't even understand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Please. This is not a "smoking gun." It's another comment that looks bad to the layman, but may well be legitimate science. I don't know because I'm not a climate scientist. And _you don't know because you're not a climate scientist._

<comment><USER12> You know, 20 years ago, the place of "climate scientists" in the scientific hierarchy was (justifiably) about the same as the placement of dentists in the medical hierarchy.

The physics behind global warming makes a lot of sense. The warming models aren't pure physics, however, and require feedback effects. Now, are the models right about 6 degrees of warming in the next century? I don't have a clue _because the historical climate reconstructions are so shitily done._ I have no idea if the temperature anomaly over the last 30 years exceeds historical bounds for standard deviation. I have no idea what the magnitude of the Medieval Warm Period was.

This is an important question. A trillion dollar question. We need to throw the hopped-up climate scientists out, fools who were lucky to be in the field when it became important, and get some real intelligence working on this problem. Cause this ain't it.

<comment><USER13> I think the real problem is the people that want to use this as a 'smoking gun' to prove that they were 'right all along' that Global Warming is some sort of conspiracy to harm the auto industry by a bunch of 'hippy liberals' and that 'American industry' should keep on pouring out the pollution (of any kind) as long as it's able to make money because that's the 'American Way' that we use out 'American Ingenuity.'

<comment><USER5> Please re-read your comment and stop and reflect. You're using buzzwords rather than trying to get the scope of the argument - it's like your mind is already made up. If your mind is already made up, then you won't be open to various truth and evidence.

<comment><USER14> Parent is just quoting buzzwords, but I can't say that he's altogether wrong: the reason this is a story has nothing to do with science, or any desire to find the truth. It's a clash where each side has already decided that it's _Right_ based almost exclusively on political lines in the sand. Hacker News is pretty much one of the only places on the net where a significant proportion of posters have not already decided the issue for sure.

For my part, and I am educated in the sciences (though not environmental ones, to the extent they can be considered "science"), I have no freaking idea what the true state of affairs is, and I doubt that anyone has much valid knowledge in this area. I don't trust any of the data that I see because a) historical inference is really, really difficult, and I'm very unimpressed by how it's been done, and b) there's so much incentive on each side to mangle the data to fit the conclusion. I don't have any faith in the environmental researchers to fairly report what the data tells them, but I'm just as skeptical about the bias of people arguing against them, aligned as they tend to be with the idiots and organizations that fight so hard against evolution.

Just to be clear, I _absolutely_ believe that there are valid theoretical reasons to consider the possibility of (human caused) global warming; the models are more than enough to show that it's a real possibility. It's only the claim that it's already been observed (and that it's significant, reversible, etc.) that I'm skeptical about.

However, I think that strategically speaking, the environmentalism movement's increased focus on global warming is a big mistake because it gives anti- environmentalists a fixed target to nibble away at, and they're doing a pretty good job of causing doubt. Wasn't it obvious enough that spewing pollutants into the air is bad? Why not focus on that, like everyone used to? Instead, the environmentalists have taken on the burden of _proving_ that global warming is man-made, catastrophic, and reversible; until then, the burden was on the anti-environmentalists to _prove_ that it was safe to pollute as much as they wanted, which was pretty much an impossible task.

I worry that far more important environmental concerns than carbon output are being ignored because of the excessive focus on global warming, and this shift in attention could be truly catastrophic.

<comment><USER11> Very well said. I commented elsewhere that the politicization is also likely the reason for the scientists doing dubious things in the first place - <USER3> their life's work under constant attack by reactionary nutjobs probably left them feeling a bit cornered, and so they made the mistake of viewing all criticism as nutjob criticism.

It's true that we've become obsessively focused on global warming as of late, although I would place at least as much blame on the media for that. In the past couple years, though, some groups have been doing a better job of saying "BTW clean energy will also create jobs and improve our national security." The WE campaign is one such example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> That's nothing compared to the comments that show up in "HARRY_READ_ME.txt": [http://www.tickerforum.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-www?post=118625&#...</a>

<comment><USER16> That excerpt reads to me as written by a frustrated programmer who was given a dataset that was poorly designed and lacks sufficient documentation.

I've been in that situation before, as has anyone who's had to work with real- world data.

This hack episode seems really scary to me. Getting angry at the computer, your suppliers, et cetra is all part of the development process --- as is writing angry comments and internal emails. It's a much less disruptive way to vent the frustration that comes with the job than punching your monitor.[1]

I've not seen anything anybody's posted that doesn't happen at every development organization in the world. I really feel for those guys and the firestorm they must be in now. And to be frank. I hope the criminals who broke into their computers are captured and prosecuted.

[1] The nicest thing about the old CRTs is that they could take a good smack or two.

<comment><USER17> You're referring to the dataset that is the basis of enormous de- industrialization projects. Is it too much to ask to have it properly designed with sufficient documentation?

~A Jedi hand wave~

"These are not the smoking guns your are looking for."

<comment><USER18> "enormous de-industrialization projects"

Honest question: What projects are you referring to?

<comment><USER17> I apologize if I've distracted anyone with the "industrial" reference. I'm much more interested in the science behind the climate change [insert synonym for industry here]. I am very sorry that any industrial effects are more interesting the the quality-of-science issues. But here we are discussing industry...

It's my understanding ( and please correct me if I'm wrong ) that the dataset in question is one of the core underpinnings of the findings of the UN's IPCC. And I'm not up-to-date on the policy implications in your country, unless you live in Canada. But in chilly Canada, I see our local carbon-tax lobby use the global warming meme in their effort to impose heavy taxes on our industrial base. Hence, the "de-industrialization" angle.

I'm concerned that this might involve more power-grabbing than scientific concern for our future. Hence the interest in properly designed and documented datasets.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tom Pinckney: Why I gave up on Java and switched to Python - <AUTHOR> http://www.tompinckney.com/2009/09/why-i-gave-up-on-java-and-switched-to.html <comment><USER2> I'm sure there are many reasons why such switch would make sense, but the ones provided here are just BS.

1)"No more XML config files" XML configs are slowly disappearing

2)"by omitting the type info a python program has fewer opportunities for bugs" this reason was just nonsensical

3)"It's free software and easier to hack on", go check the openJDK

4)"Things in the python world seem to "just work"" that's just a self delusion caused by an emotional reaction not a valid argument

5)"I can still relive the good old scheme days" ok so maybe this one is not BS

<comment><USER3> There is a direct and measurable causal relationship between number of LOC and number of bugs. This was discussed at length on Stack Exchange podcast #9 (I believe) when the author of "Making Software" was a guest. This exact topic was discussed at length.

Java is for better or worse more verbose than Python, which means more lines of code which means more opportunity for bugs. It is hardly nonsensical. That opinion is a product of language-centric parochialism with no regard for actual fact.

Ditto for the "just work" line being a "delusion." Like it or not, Python does indeed "just work" in most cases. This isn't unique to Python of course, but I do think that is a fair opinion of the author to hold.

<comment><USER4> "There is a direct and measurable causal relationship between number of LOC and number of bugs"

I don't believe it is a simple linear relationship otherwise we'd all be using Perl or APL. More likely there is a "sweet spot" in the verbosity/terseness spectrum that is occupied by languages like Python.

<comment><USER5> I think that the real relationship is between clauses and bugs and in many languages a line equates near 1:1 to a clause.

This is not the case for Perl & APL: each line can contain a multitude of clauses and the relationships between them can be complex to unravel.

Conversely some languages (e.g. at the extreme end assembly language) require multiple lines to express a complete clause.

Complex manually expressed type systems can be similar in effect to both cases. A single line can become complex to unravel e.g this kind of thing:

      int (*(*vtable)[])();

Reading complex regular expressions also exhibit similar problems in deciphering. Hence in Perl they are often broken over multiple lines with /x.

We seem naturally drawn to using lines as logical delimiters: code is maybe similar to poetry in this respect. Also, in similarity to poetry, single clause lines allow us to annotate our thinking on the same line by way of a comment.

One clause per line is probably a natural sweet spot.

If my theory is correct then the relationship between lines and bugs will still be linear but APL would have a multiplier greater than one while assembly's multiplier could be a fraction (e.g. 5 vs 1/5).

<comment><USER6> If I had to nominate favorite chapters in a book, it would be the one in the Vax C manual that walked you through translating C declarations into English and English to C. There was also a program that would do the same They saved me from mental meltdown more than once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Easily half of my java was type info. If the number of bugs in a program is proportional to the program length, by omitting the type info a python program has fewer opportunities for bugs._

You're kidding me, right?

<comment><USER8> I was going to write almost the exact same response. It's like someone saying, "I stopped writing tests. Reduced the LOC by half. And with no tests, we actually find fewer bugs!"

<comment><USER9> "I stopped writing null checks, because they just added LOC and that increases the number of bugs."

<comment><USER10> That would've been true, if it meant the author had switch to a language without null references. [http://qconlondon.com/london-2009/presentation/Null+Referenc...](http://qconlondon.com/london-2009/presentation/Null+References:+The+Billion+Dollar+Mistake)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you feel the same way and you are in the Java world, consider also switching to Groovy. It gives you all the dynamic type checking goodness with a smoother learning and adoption curve, since you can start from 100% Java and work your way up into closures, dropping types, simper syntax, etc.

#1 is a bit unfair now, as there are plenty of things in pure Java (Guice, Spring Roo) that don't require ridiculous XML files.

<comment><USER12> ~1.5 years ago, we did a project in Groovy and found that some things were not quite there, like passing named parameters into a constructor.

<comment><USER13> Did you submit a bug report? I'd be curious to see what you were doing that caused a problem. I've been using Groovy for > 3 years and haven't hit an issue with named parameters, but I might be using just simplified cases compared to you.

<comment><USER12> I think that we just gave up on it. Another thing that I remember being really annoying is that there was no easy way to break out of iterating closures other than to throw an exception. I ended up writing a "BreakClosure" exception specifically for this. (The return value of the closure goes nowhere, and breaking out of one closure just causes the next iteration to run.)

<comment><USER13> Agreed on breaking - hadn't thought of that approach. I'm used to 'continue/break' from PHP, so reworking the iteration loops to check if the loop should run is annoying. :/ Maybe I'll try your exceptional approach too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My main language is C, and my go-to language for quick programs to get some job done used to be Java. Until I learned Python and realized how nice it is. Now I write all my scripts and tools in Python, it's a superb language. I enjoy C because of its bare-bones simplicity, but I like working in Python just as much.

</comment><comment><USER15> So... with a statically type-checked language, most of his errors were null reference errors? Funny, with Python most of my errors were type errors. (And most of my serious problems were with refactoring complex applications as they grew larger. This is why I stick to C#.)

</comment><comment><USER16> "to get Tomcat to produce good performance under load"

Tomcat is a servlet reference implementation, and is good as a development application server. But for anything serious in production, get JBoss or something. I know the Tomcat team has been working hard on making it more robust, but still!

I think some people/companies and some languages are just meant for each other. Looks like these folks just got into Java through the wrong door. The switch to Python could only make a lot of sense to them. And I'm glad they did.

</comment><comment><USER17> What a horrible article.

</comment><comment><USER18> Article dated to:

"Saturday, August 1, 2009"

<comment><USER19> Yeah ... the first thing every guy should do: look at the dates!! Maybe he is now back at the JVM ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> He should try Go. I'd say it's half way between Java and Python.

<comment><USER21> It has no penetration. Java and Python are both widely used in the industry. Go is not.

<comment><USER22> Go is about 2 years old. Python just turned 30.

Penetration will come.

<comment><USER21> Will it? I don't think it will. There are a plethora of languages right now and people write more all the time. Go doesn't bring anything "special" to the table to give it Enterprise penetration. People are pretty entrenched with what is out there and it would take some confluence of events to make Go have penetration like Java, Python and others.

<comment><USER20> "Enterprise penetration" has traditionally been a matter of time, not features. Enterprise software is definitely on its way out so I get the feeling it will not need to penetrate.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Pebble Time is now the most-funded Kickstarter ever - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/03/pebble-time-is-now-the-most-funded-kickstarter-project-ever/

<comment><USER2> Now somebody needs to add a kickstarter project with an e-paper laptop! Normal backlit laptop monitors distracts you, keeps you awake at night, and drains your battery fast.</comment>


1100%: Graph Illustrates Shocking Rise in College Tuition Since 1978 - <AUTHOR> http://www.jenx67.com/2014/09/1100-graph-illustrates-shocking-rise-college-tuition-since-1978.html <comment><USER2> This perverted situation is conditional on access to high paying jobs. With the advancement of automation though, most college jobs will not pay back the student loan. So what will happen then, will colleges close and many former students default?</comment>


Ask HN: I would like to register a hardware startup in Delaware - <AUTHOR> Hello,
I own a hardware startup in Europe but I would like to register company in Delaware. What are my options if:
* I have first paying customers. * I have two employees. * I am ok with paying taxes in US or UE (but not both).
I see a lot of benefits (it's easier to reach VCs, having Stripe - as here where I live Stripe is not available yet, and having fancy Inc postfix!).
Sorry for a throwaway account. <comment><USER2> There isn't really any benefit to incorporating in both places. If you incorporate in the US and in EU, you will have to pay taxes in both places. Unless you are raising a round and a VC insists on incorporating in the US, it will not make sense to register in both places.

There are lots of benefits to registering in DE compared to some other states in the US, but I'm unsure of any benefits compared to incorporating in the region you are based out of.

I'd suggest talking to an attorney and learning more about this before incorporating. Jared Stark ([http://starkbusinesslaw.com/](http://starkbusinesslaw.com/)) helped us incorporate and is really helpful</comment>


Show HN: Tcl parser for the Eno notation language - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bef/enotcl <comment><USER2> Awesome, very happy to see this.

Now I'm curious - are you putting this to use somewhere already? Or is it for the time being "just" an experiment for the joy of implementing in itself? :)

Thanks for sharing!

<comment><AUTHOR> It's in use by in-house software still in development as a prototype/proof-of- concept configuration language.

<comment><USER2> Very cool! If it succeeds and you'd like to publish any part of it at some point, I'll gladly pick it up for a collection of case studies on eno- lang.org, just let me know then.

Meanwhile, I've added a commmunity projects section at [https://eno- lang.org/libraries](https://eno-lang.org/libraries) to raise awareness of your Tcl implementation there as well.

Thanks again, looking forward to further developments!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What would you do with $5000 in DigitalOcean credit? - <AUTHOR> DigitalOcean has recently updated their ToS such that any credits granted expire after 12 months. If you were credited $5000, what would you do with it?
Would you spin up servers for all of your friends? Would you try to sell the credit? Would you try to convert the raw computing power into a return? Would you be thankful you've got credit at all and be content with continuing to get $20 worth of hosting free for the next year?
What would you do? <comment><USER2> Spin up 8 20core instances and mine cryptocurrency for a month.

<comment><USER3> Unless they do GPU's you are wasting time. You wouldn't make but a buck or so.</comment></comment>


Y Combinator's Hardware Guy Leaves After 14 Months - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-04/y-combinator-s-hardware-guy-leaves-after-14-months <comment><USER2> TL;DR -- Luke Iseman, YC's hardware focused Partner founded a hardware startup, which he's now taking through YC as a founder, after having set up a bunch of deals and processes to help hardware startups as a YC Partner.

Seems like pretty good evidence YC is now great at helping hardware startups that he's choosing to go through the program himself.

<comment><USER3> Oh cool, Luke was a Maker personality in Austin for a while. I remember when he was making his own pedicabs. [http://austinpedicab.org/2008/10/06/austin- cronicle-intervie...](http://austinpedicab.org/2008/10/06/austin-cronicle- interviews-luke-iseman/)

<comment><USER4> Austin, eh? I wonder if he's friend or foe with the Kasita guy (ie. Professor Dumpster)...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I counted at least 5 factual errors in the photo caption and first 3 paragraphs.

We also heard that this reporter was 'encouraged' to write this by someone from a competing accelerator with an obvious agenda. Seems like manufactured controversy otherwise.

All that said, we like hardware and we like Luke, and we're excited he's in the new batch! And we're thankful for the work he did to get our hardware program set up.

<comment><USER6> Heh, impressive that a lede photo caption as short and simple as, " _Sam Altman, president and co-founder of Y Combinator_ ", has an error.

<comment><USER5> two errors!

<comment><USER7> What's the second, is that a picture of some other person?

<comment><USER8> * Not a cofounder. YC was created by PG, Jessica Livingstone, and two other ppl who aren't Sam

* Recently changed roles. Michael Siebel runs YC now, while Sam runs the parent organization YC Group

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Sam Altman, president and co-founder of Y Combinator."

Uhh, they clearly didn't do their homework if they thought Altman co-founded YC.

<comment><USER10> Having read basically every news article ever about the startup I was involved in, they get the most basic, easily checkable facts like: _What year was it founded? What does the company do? Who is the CEO?_ wrong at least half of the time.

And they get the more complicated facts wrong much more often, but that is because they generally directly printing either what the founder tells them or something they think that is more interesting than what the founder tells them without any sort of verification.

Basically, almost all articles about startups (and frankly most things in general) are written to be interesting, not factually correct.

<comment><USER11> I learned that when there was a natural gas explosion in the building I worked in in the 80s (nobody was hurt). I recorded several TV news broadcasts on it, and every one got the basic facts wrong in different ways. Things like one called the building a warehouse (it was an office building).

There were no political issues nor agendas nor money at stake, the news reporters just didn't make any effort to be correct.

I've often wondered what we know about history that is dead wrong.

<comment><USER12> I'm increasingly convinced that looking and thinking too deeply on people matters(news, history, organizations, relationships) is like staring at the sun. There's nothing much to see by focusing your gaze on it, it blocks out stuff more nearby, and you go blind in the process.

Which isn't to say that being a numb automaton is ideal, either, but there is a degree of balance and good taste required to avoid converting the information into dangerous thoughts, and it's simpler to restrict quantity of exposure.

<comment><USER13> I'm not endorsing the following view of the world, but your comment reminds me of Ken Wilber's division of reality into four quadrants. It's a Cartesian product of individual vs collective times interior vs exterior.

What you are talking about as "people matters" sounds like "exterior collective": structural, social things, or "its" as Wilber refers to them.

I'm a bit worried that you might also be writing off most of the "interior collective" quadrant: the relational, cultural aspects of reality, the "we".

This is New Age fluff, but I guess we have to start somewhere. HN can be pretty hostile to humanities thinking sometimes, at least Wilber has no prerequisites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _Still, hardware is, well, hard. Silicon Valley has produced a raft of world- changing software startups, from Airbnb (a YC veteran) to Facebook. But it 's a whole lot easier to beta-test an app than to prototype and then manufacture a gadget with a bunch of moving parts. Then you have to market the thing to the masses, who are already enamored of their Apple and Samsung products. Exhibits A and B: Fitbit, the fitness tracking company, and GoPro, maker of rugged little cameras. This week, both cut their sales forecasts for the crucial holiday quarter and watched their shares plunge. (Neither started life at YC.)_

Fitbit and GoPro's downturn is mostly fueled by mismanagement and poor decisions than hardware being intrinsically hard.

The hard part of hardware is building something that works well enough and is in demand. When you have your device on people's wrist or mounted on their helmet, you have overcome the "hardware is hard" part. (for the most part).

After that it's building on your original success, expanding your market and creating value for your customers; all of which are true for any other business, not strictly hardware. For fitbit and GoPro, the latter has proven more difficult.

<comment><USER15> I don't know abut GoPro, but Fitbit deserves to fail. Their hardware is _terrible_. The warranty only lasts one year, yet I've had to replace both Fitbit devices I've had twice within that one year. I'm now Fitbit-less because the latest, a Charge HR, failed for the third time, and it's now out of that one year warranty.

To give you an idea of how bad the Charge HR is, its charging plug attaches with metal prongs, but it plugs into a slim plastic housing that is only glued to the rest of the device. The obvious result is that the plastic housing eventually gets pulled off with the plug. That's how two of my three Charge HRs have died. It'd be like if your laptop were ruined within four months because the power cable pulled off an essential piece of the laptop housing rather than detaching cleanly, and now it won't attach in order to charge. The third Charge HR bricked itself during an unprompted firmware update, which started randomly and then I guess got interrupted midway through when I moved my phone too far from the device. It never recovered.

I don't know what the hell they're optimizing for over at Fitbit HQ, but they're trying to sell $10 throw-away quality devices for >$100. It's outrageous. I actively discourage everyone I know from ever buying anything from them, and many other people I know have also completely sworn them off for the same reason. Their product just _sucks_.

<comment><USER16> > they're trying to sell $10 throw-away quality devices for >$100

I can say their software is in the same category from personal experience. Their Android app was written through minimum cost outsourcing, has no comments (since the developers didn't speak English well), a half dozen layers of abstraction when two would work, and is riddled with countless poorly documented strange edge cases and hacks throughout that make maintainability and enhancement a disaster.

On the user side, this is why features are rarely added and the software tends to lock up and crash a lot, and can brick devices during firmware update. Fixing even trivial bugs or adding basic features like social or counterfeit detection right takes much more work than it should since you have to navigate all that and may break something else while trying to do what you are doing.

They hired a few internal people around the time of the IPO, but they universally don't do much. The tech lead of the team generally came in, complained about some random thing that wasn't even accurate to make it seem like he did something, then left at 4PM. He wasn't in the office enough to know anything about what his team was doing.

A typical internal developer played Clash of Clans all day. When showed logs of his code not working he called meeting after meeting with management to get the guy with logs of the failing use case fired. The culture there is that there's no reason to do work there if you can office politics with your friends to get out of it.

Even given a reasonable commit adjusting timeouts to match the time taken for Bluetooth operations to the slowest observed device and fix several long running file transfers timing out by resetting the timeout each block transferred, he blew up and removed all timeouts for file transfers (bringing back the potential lock up issue) and called a half dozen meetings to fight it.

The culture there is just noxious and actively fights anyone trying to do work.

<comment><USER15> Wow, thank you for the insider perspective. That's truly horrifying that a $2B company (previously $10B) that depends heavily on software outsourced so much of its core competency like that. Talk about being penny wise and pound foolish. I've worked at two ~$10M companies that used all in-sourced development (i.e. me and my coworkers) and, while not without their faults, were significantly higher functioning.

Also, how the fuck do you brick a device by updating it? Wasn't this problem solved decades ago? You upload the new image and then, only once it's completely transferred and verified, do you atomically switch over to it. Are you telling me that they really made it so that the firmware update overwrites the existing firmware, so that any interruption in the process causes it to go poof? Ugh. I know that requires double the internal memory, but c'mon, this is 2016. The cost of that is some very tiny insignificant fraction of what an RMA costs. Never before in my life have I ever irrevocably bricked a device by updating its firmware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Iseman says his departure was purely about his desire to get back into the founder's role and build something new. He's already been accepted into the winter 2017 YC cohort with his new housing startup."

Doesn't sound very acrimonious.

<comment><USER18> Isn't that the definition of a conflict of interest? Or am I reading this wrong?

<comment><USER19> What is the conflict of interest?

Being a partner at YC is certainly a unique qualifier that would basically guarantee acceptance. There is nothing wrong with that. It is awesome, in fact.

<comment><USER18> Well, it could also mean that someone else who isn't a YC partner was rejected to let him in. Of course, I don't know whether or not that is the case, but this is where a conflict of interest could potentially arise from.

<comment><USER20> He was a YC partner. He no longer is. And there's a difference between an equity partner and other types of partners. But again, YC is incentivized to let in companies they believe will deliver the most total value to the YC portfolio, so admitting Luke at the expense of another founder who was better qualified is directly contrary to their interests. Also, the YC batch sizes aren't fixed, and they have wiggle room. To avoid the conflict, they could just admit one additional startup who would have otherwise been cut.

<comment><USER18> That would make sense. Again, I'm not familiar with how the YC selection process works, so it's just speculation.

But it still seems kind of strange to be honest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Everything must be a controversy these days in the news world. Including all of the times they're really not. Like this time.

<comment><USER22> From the title to the tone of the article, I felt like they were going to drop a bombshell, something like "Luke was fired" or "Luke hates how YC is being run".

Very poor journalism, Bloomberg.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hardware development requires a lot of spare resources, it doesn't pair well with startups.

The development cycles are much less predictable compared to software, you never know how many prototypes you have to burn through until you reach the production stage. Small changes become hugely expensive once you've finalized the designs, and even a minuscule error like a tolerance mismatch can cause hundreds of thousands in damage and ruin a startup almost instantly. I'm always wary of a HW startup, unless the lead engineer is well known and has experience.

</comment><comment><USER20> I met Luke while he was working on Edyn (pre-YC). He was really interesting, and clearly enjoys hacking and tinkering with hardware and physical things more than anything. It's not surprising to me that he'd get bored after a working process for supporting hardware startups was established. Interested to see what he's doing around housing, and somewhat hopeful it won't just be tiny homes (since while I think they're cool, living in one isn't for everyone).

</comment><comment><USER24> WRT goPro...

(I do not know if they already do this);

Should it not be a sound idea to work with companies that make the THINGS that your users would be on to bundle a device with the things...

Rosignol branded gopro when you buy a pair of skis

[SkateBoard] branded gopro bundle, or a _tony hawk edition_

Water-proof versions bundled with every [insert water product]

Specialized/Brooks branded versions...

Try to get the companies already selling the transport mechanisms the users of go-pro would be using to boost sales. Lower margins, higher(???) volume?

<comment><USER25> A potential issue is that if someone wants a branded helmet-cam, they can apply their brand label to a knock-off model for a lot less coin. For the bundle to be attractive to the consumer, it has to be cheaper than the parts bought separately. These days, folks do extensive price research before spending more than a few bucks on anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't know Luke Iseman's vision for Boxouse. But if the goal is to produce structures like the ones shown in the link below then I am really glad he made the decision to focus full time on his company.

[http://www.architecturendesign.net/22-most-beautiful- houses-...](http://www.architecturendesign.net/22-most-beautiful-houses-made- from-shipping-containers/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Hardware may be a bad fit for YC, with its low initial funding and short deadlines. If you're doing some me-too product, others can do it too, probably better. If you're doing something hard that takes R&D, it may take more time and resources than YC provides.

</comment><comment><USER4> As someone who saw Luke & Heather's Boxouse talk at HOPE conf with some friends, and were inspired to go at it stealth, I've gotta say I'm so so glad they're focussing on the housing project. I just got my rental shipping container dropped off last week, and am working to quickly and non- destructively insulate it for Canadian winter :)

</comment><comment><USER28> There's " _silicon_ " in Silicon Valley. The reason it exists is hardware, yet they seem oblivious to that fact and make it seem that, somehow, SV's pursuit of hardware is a new path.

</comment><comment><USER29> I don want to sound like a jerk, but Trevor Blackwell has always filled the ycombinatoe hardware 'slot' from my perspective.

</comment><comment><USER30> the position is probably pointless and is why he left.

it's cool that yc experiments with shit like this but didn't work out and now he's doing something else.

hardware is hard.

</comment><comment><USER31> This shows being YC founder is more fun than YC partner.

</comment><comment><USER32> That's a brilliant photo.

</comment><comment><USER33> Is it just me or does that picture make him look like a zombie on TWD?

<comment><USER34> That's... not even him, that's not Luke, that's Sam. For a second they had me thinking Sam had stepped down from his position at yc. Sam wouldn't do that to us.</comment></comment>


React Component Patterns - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/gitconnected/react-component-patterns-ab1f09be2c82 <comment><AUTHOR> Stateful x Stateless, Container x Presentational, HOCs, Render Callbacks and more</comment>


Soil: Single Open Intermediate Language - <AUTHOR> http://soil-initiative.org/ <comment><USER2> This is an academic project. I like that it immediately explains difference to things like LLVM, which first arises in my head.

But a concrete example, probably based on webassembly, could help to get acknowledged in the developer world. Or probably show code, in comparison to LLVM assembler etc.</comment>


#PrimeDayFail - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/nicoleleinbachreyhle/2015/07/15/prime-day-fail-or-prime-day-success-let-these-numbers-be-the-judge/

<comment><USER2> Author (and I suspect many others) are missing the point of "Prime Day."

The point was not to sell a lot of stuff. The point was to get a lot of people to sign up for Prime. And I'll bet they won. My grandmother who hasn't bought anything on Amazon asked me about it and sure enough, we signed her up for a Prime trial too.

In this case, Twitter sentiment be darned. Amazon had no intention of making Prime Day about the deals. It had everything to do with getting more customers into Prime. And I guarantee you it did. Wal-Mart tried to play but chose the wrong game.

Amazon advertised a sale with a pretty simple rule: you must sign up for Prime. But they didn't put any restrictions on signing up. It wasn't exclusive to people who had already signed up before the announcement. They didn't charge new Prime customers $99 to get into the sale first. They created a lot of interest in a sale by talking about Black Friday, suckered Wal-Mart into jumping on board which only helped drive interest, and then rolled out some marginal deals on random products. Who cares if anyone bought a $14.99 Tupperware set for 40% off? We just got a bunch of people to sign up for a $99/yr membership. Lets say 1% of them convert after the paid period -- now you've just increased not only your $99/yr recurring revenue stream you've opened up opportunities for selling Video/Music and other products to your base. Pretty smart.</comment>


Wiretapping the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/09/wiretapping_the.html <comment><USER2> This is the sort of thing that we get told will make my job easier.

Take from the horse mouth; complete crap.

Which is why you probably won't find anyone in the security or forensics business that thinks this is a good solution.

One of my trainers told me something to me when I first started working on LE cases. He pointed out that catching criminals can only be made so easy before it becomes detrimental. And that point is either when the tools can be used by anyone (i.e. not specialist investigators) or when the tools begin to facilitate crime.

<comment><USER3> Care to give us an example of your last point? I'm not sure what you're getting at.

<comment><USER4> Reducing the traditional ten-button numeric keypad for entering your access code can be simplified for law enforcement use by removing nine of the buttons.

Unfortunately, this LE optimization also eases the effort required by the burglars.

Or requiring WEP encryption.

Or requiring that all passkeys be registered, and all be stored on an LE database, and where a nefarious user can capture hundreds or thousands of keys...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If product x has a backdoor, this backdoor will also be used by bad people. It can also be cracked and there will always be product y without a backdoor. Don't the legislators see this? Or are criminals statistically really that lazy that they will still use mobile phones even though they are compromised.

According to "The Wire" they often even put extra layers of encryption security, anyway. Such behavior would make that legislation even more useless, as it would indeed only target the innocent that don't take extra precautions.

<comment><USER6> Are you taking about Season 1, crossing the fives?

<comment><USER7> Season 5 how Marlo arranges meets and pickups was a good example of extra security.

 __SPOILER ALERT __

Marlo (the drug lord) sent picture messages of a clock to arrange meetings. The hour and minute hands corresponded to the letter and number axes of a common Baltimore map and the second hand tells what page. The dealers would look up the coordinates on a map to find out where to meet. The cops broke it because they had (illegal) wiretaps on _everyone's_ phones, and they had illegally allocated lots of extra manpower to tail _all_ of the suspected drug dealers around the clock.

 __END SPOILER __

<comment><USER8> Moral of the story: If you're a CEO or drug lord, too many meetings will kill your business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Conspiracy theory: Whoever is behind this doesn't really want every company to rewrite all their software with back doors.

Instead, a 'reasonable' request will be substituted after the initial uproar.

<comment><USER10> That's no conspiracy theory. A conspiracy involves secret collaboration.

The well-known negotiation technique of anchoring is all that theory is. It seems plausible to me.

<comment><USER9> Do you have any idea where it could be leading? I've been thinking about it on and off for the past few days but nothing comes to mind, I don't have enough context to form any opinion.

I'd sure love to hear what Schneier thinks about it.

<comment><USER10> I don't know where it's leading, or if it's even leading anywhere. For some people, gaining power over others is an end unto itself, not a means leading to some other end.

<comment><USER9> I meant, what 'reasonable' thing will our gvernment ask for after being rebuked for this outrageous request

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I particularly like his analogy:

"It's like the FBI demanding that no automobiles drive above 50 mph, so they can more easily pursue getaway cars. It might or might not work -- but, regardless, the cost to society of the resulting slowdown would be enormous."

<comment><USER12> You like the analogy because a speed limit of 50 would result in a decrease of fatalities due to car accidents? I guess that's what he meant with "cost to society" since IIRC more fatalities result in a higher gross national product.

<comment><USER13> I think the "cost to society" would be more directly attributed to the increased time of travel for people and goods traveling on roadways.

The only increase in GDP that can be attributed to roadway accidents is due to the spending of medical care, which often times is loaned or from insurance, which is not a stable and reliable way to increase GDP over the long term. Overall, fatalities decrease GDP.

<comment><USER12> > "cost to society" would be more directly attributed to the increased time of > travel

That's probably what he meant but it's not necessarily how you have to read the quote in the parent comment. I'm still not convinced that a speed limit of 50 would by a bad thing but maybe that's a cultural thing. My memories of my economics class are fading so I cannot counter your argument about the stability of the increase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This reminds me of the clipper chip episode back during the Clinton administration, except it's actually worse.

</comment><comment><USER15> Sniffing the open Internet. Yes, that's feasible to a point (where there isn't more data sniffed than can be reasonably mined, or more data than can be reasonably sniffed).

Putting backdoors into products is commercial suicide for any crypto company to publicly acknowledge. If this goes through, then the simple way to view it is that any product supported by the US for export cannot be assured against having a backdoor.

In the UK, for the advanced crypto stuff, a government agency gives you key material. They have the keys, that way if anything sensitive goes missing they have the ability to attribute while recovering, but the crypto isn't exposed. For everyone in the commercial world well, you're on your own. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

</comment><comment><USER16> All the government is asking for here is a continuation of the status quo. it's always had the ability to wiretap phones, but people don't use phones as much anymore - they use IM, Facebook, etc. to hatch their devious plots.

Wiretapping - analog or digital - requires a judge's approval in this country. Sure, it can be abused. But do we in the IT world really want to be providing an untraceable means of communication for the next 9/11 bombers? Or, for that matter, white collar criminals, bank robbers, etc.?

To me providing checks and balances on the governments ability to snoop on civilians lives shouldn't be a technology arms race. It should be based on an engaged citizenry that keeps watch on its elected officials, making sure they are acting within the law.

<comment><USER17> _But do we in the IT world really want to be providing an untraceable means of communication for the next 9/11 bombers? Or, for that matter, white collar criminals, bank robbers, etc.?_

Yes, we do.

Sometimes it is an inevitable consequence of the march of technological progress that certain legal and civil artifacts of previous eras must fall away, and we need to let that run its natural course, instead of trying to put up pointless and ineffectual -- but costly and frightening -- bureaucratic boondoggles in its way.

As various articles on the subject have pointed out, it's fundamentally antithetical to the decentralised core architecture of the Internet and the whole technology stack on which it is founded to have tap points like this, as if it had the hierarchical and highly centralised, despotic technical, political and economic properties of the public switched telephone network (PSTN).

There's no getting around the changes that it brings: unprecedentedly powerful encryption in the hands of ordinary consumers, complicated encapsulation and tunneling schemes, a great deal of indirection and ad-hoc, peer-to-peer negotiation. We will just have to live with the fact that secure end-to-end electronic communication that is not accessible by law enforcement are available to anyone who _really_ wants it. For the most part, this is good news for privacy, civil rights and protection from information crime; in a few extremely marginal cases, like terrorist plotters and whatnot, this is bad, but we can't have our cake and eat it too. Trying to stop it in the manner proposed is a pointless waste of time.

But as we all know, these ideas can still exact crippling costs in money, time and energy when government imposes bureaucratic requirements, especially when they are so anachronistic (as they are, in this case) as to be instantly relegated to the realm of the symbolic. Nobody can realistically comply with the aims of this initiative, but depending on how far it goes, everyone will have to go through the motions of compliance, as we do with so many other narrowly conceived regulations thought up by idiot politicians that are wildly out of phase with actually-existing technical reality. It reminds me of the phrase "we pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us" from my native USSR.

As we repeatedly see, small companies have the most to lose, because they don't have nearly as much resources to sustain certain manifold illusions or charades that private business has to sustain in relation to the on-paper regulatory demands of innumerable government agencies and oversight bodies. When government dreams up something like CALEA, it's a lot like SOX; the amount of paper-pushing, slippery abstraction and byzantine process engineering in the resulting specification is something that, provided compliance to the letter is even logically possible, only big companies that operate processes on an enormous scale (and with enormous liquidity!) can stand implement. Everybody else, virtually by definition, is just too poor to play in the Big Boys' pond. It's still a meaningless boondoggle that doesn't actually accomplish anything concretely useful, but, for example, ILECs like AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, etc. can at least appear to comply.

It also paves the way to selective enforcement for purposes of extortion or official harassment, and the various other well-known consequences of making implausible laws.

<comment><USER16> well - it's also possible to scramble calls on the PSTN network, but criminals often don't avail themselves of this ability. Which is presumably also the case on the internet. Hence a 'basic' level of IP wiretapping would still be useful to crime investigators.

<comment><USER17> They already have the basic. What they are terrified of is precisely that technological change and decentralisation has compromised their ability to do "non-basic" wiretapping, and want to roll back those gains.

Also, scrambling calls on the PSTN requires somewhat non-ubiquitous - if not necessarily any longer prohibitively expensive - acoustic coupling equipment. By comparison, PGP, VPNs, and TLS are much easier for an average person to use. To some extent, everyone uses these things whether they consciously sought to or not, at least in the case of TLS certainly.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Zstandard – Fast real-time compression algorithm - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/facebook/zstd <comment><USER3> Bunch of previous discussions:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=zstandard&sort=byPopularity&da...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=zstandard&sort=byPopularity&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

</comment><comment><USER4> If you are interested in compression at all, be sure to take a trip through Charles Bloom's blog [1]. It's an incredible read, he covers everything from the basics all the way through state of the art algorithms.

A great example is this post [2], where he talks about how to correctly implement a Huffman encoder/decoder. It's a lot tricker than it is made to sound in most books. For example, most Huffman codes that are used in practice are length limited, to allow the decoder to use smaller lookup tables. There are a bunch of surprisingly interesting tricks to get that to work well from the encoding side (which symbols do you choose to be smaller than they would be otherwise?).

[1] [http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/](http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/) [2] [http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/2010/08/08-12-10-lost- huffma...](http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/2010/08/08-12-10-lost-huffman- paper.html)

<comment><USER5> I like Charles Bloom's blog, but I'm not sure if it's very approachable (after all, it's "rants" :-). If you want more diversity in the readings, ryg blog [1] makes good reading. Start with the most recent series on efficiently reading bits [2].

[1] [https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/category/compression/](https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/category/compression/)

[2] [https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2018/02/19/reading-bits-in- far...](https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2018/02/19/reading-bits-in-far-too-many- ways-part-1/)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It has been standardized as RFC 8478 ([https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8478](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8478)) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Parameters ([https://www.iana.org/assignments/http-parameters/http- parame...](https://www.iana.org/assignments/http-parameters/http- parameters.xhtml)) with name: zstd

<comment><USER6> "Despite use of the word "standard" as part of its name, readers are advised that this document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is being published for informational purposes only."

So, there's an RFC, but it is not standardized, per se. But close enough, for many uses.

<comment><USER7> It's as standard as most file formats get. The IETF reserves the phrase "Internet Standard" for certain _very_ important protocols -- there's no place in the process for file formats.

<comment><USER8> The IETF has a Standards process, which develops new de jure standards and this just isn't one of those. Most products of the IETFs dozens of working groups (e.g. the replacement effort for CAT is being worked on by a group named kitten) will be Standards Track documents.

IETF working groups are perfectly capable of defining file formats, eg RFC 7468.

ZStandard wasn't developed using the IETF process, that's why it isn't on the IETF Standards Track. PNG likewise is not on the Standards track, whereas Ogg (the container format) is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> yjftsjthsd-h So "real-time" here means "probably line speed", not "hard realtime (constant time per byte)", right? That's probably _more_ impressive, but a bit ambiguous phrasing.

<comment><USER9> Probably "online" would be a better term than "real-time" for this meaning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've used lz4 several times for compressing blobs and storing them for serving real-time traffic. In my opinion LZ4 and Snappy hits fine balance of CPU usage and network usage when you are sensitive to p99 latencies. ZSTD seems to pay more attention to compression size. I hope to do a real life test instead of sythetic benchmarks. Has someone already used it in prod?

<comment><USER11> One production write up, compressing Kafka messages at Cloudflare: [https://blog.cloudflare.com/squeezing-the- firehose/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/squeezing-the-firehose/)

"For our data zstd was giving amazing results even on the lowest compression level. Compression ratio was better than even gzip at maximum compression level, while throughput was a lot higher."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The "training mode" bit sounds amazing. Imagine training on the top 1000 websites with this in 3 modes: zhtml, zjs, and zcss. Then make the training output a different standard, that basically encode the peculiarities of the languages. Finally apply compression in the server and in the browser, that would be basically the same as zstd but without having to send the dictionary each time.

It might be small gains, it might be large ones on both transfer size and decompression speed, I'd love to see some tests on this. The best thing is that, if a browser (say Chrome) and a CDN (say Cloudflare) agreed on something like this there would be no need to even to anything on the front-end nor the server side, automatic free benefit for the users.

<comment><USER13> We are investigating doing that! We're pretty excited about the possibilities too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Standard comment on zstd: The "zstdcat" program (equivalent to "zstd -cdfq", I think) is capable of reading a few other compression formats, including .gz and .lz4 (apparently .lzma and .xz are available too), if support is built in at compile time. _Unbelievably, zstdcat is 1.5x faster (in my experience) at decoding .gz files than zcat / gunzip / gzip -d._ I dare you to try it.

Anyway, this should ease transitions away from legacy compression formats.

<comment><USER15> If you find 1.5x-faster gzip useful, you should consider benchmarking pigz, a parallel gzip implementation that goes faster still: [https://zlib.net/pigz/](https://zlib.net/pigz/)

Similarly there's lbzip2 ( [http://lbzip2.org](http://lbzip2.org) ) for parallel bz2.

<comment><USER14> Good point. But for my use case, I have hundreds or more of logfiles, and I parallelize at that level already. So I'm concerned with the total CPU time per file more than anything else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Have seen zstd pop up frequently in zfs and hammer2 discussions, have been running lz4 on FS (and in some cases in for RAM-compressions) for a while.

From my point of view zstd looks like a very interesting alternative to gzip since it's an order of magnitude faster in tests I've seen.

But lz4 seems to still be the champion for raw throughput speed with decent compression, this might change (have changed?) with the negative compression modes in zstd.

It would be interesting to hear from people who've got a bit more hands on experience with zstd in theses contexts.

The dictionary training, would that be applicable on a dataset/volume in a FS context? It would be awesome if for instance I have a dataset for jpg and another for raw-photos and I could get some good compressions for those.

Media usually yields quite bad compression ratios using more traditional compression formats, dedupe can improve this some but usually requires large DDTs (deduplication tables). Could the dictionary training be an alternative in these cases?

</comment><comment><USER17> I've been using zstd now for over a year to compress my large SQL dumps. Consistently amazed at how fast it works and how small the results are.

</comment><comment><USER18> So now what the world needs more is for rsync (or heck even just ssh) to have an option to use zstd compression, instead of gzip. Using gzip compression is great if you're moving stuff over a slow connection, but I'd like a faster method for when I'm moving loads of data over Gb ethernet between fast discs. I'd even settle for rsync/ssh supporting lz4.

<comment><USER19> This may help? [https://github.com/facebook/zstd/issues/1155](https://github.com/facebook/zstd/issues/1155)

<comment><USER18> No, that's a completely different feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ok so they say that small file compression is achieved via a training step to produce a dictionary for subsequent compression/decompression cycles.

For this to work either you need the library to include all of those models, or you have to transmit those models at least once so they can be cached by the recipient.

I don't see why any of the other compression schemes couldn't also use that type of bootstrap mechanism. Obviously it would not be binary compatible with the baseline libraries, but it's seems disingenuous to claim a huge improvement if the bulk of it is coming from just that.

<comment><USER21> Those other compression algorithms _don 't_ have that feature. If they did have that feature, they would be different than what they are. If they did have that feature, zstd would not claim a big improvement. But they don't, so it does.

<comment><USER13> To add to @ot's reply, zlib and lz4 actually do support dictionaries. (Zlib via `deflateSetDictionary()`, lz4 via `LZ4_loadDict()`/`LZ4_attach_dictionary()`.)

A few things set Zstd's implementation apart.

1\. Zstd actually comes with tooling to generate dictionaries (`zstd --train`, `ZDICT_trainFromBuffer()`). No other compressor ships with this capability, even libraries that support using dictionaries. So we use Zstd to create dictionaries at Facebook, even when, for example, the application is using lz4.

2\. Both zlib and lz4 treat dictionaries as strictly prefixes to make LZ77 matches into. Zstd additionally can use metadata in the dictionary to prime the entropy stage.

3\. Zstd's support for efficiently using dictionaries is much more extensive than other compressors'. Dictionaries are much more a first class citizen in the internals of the algorithm. Zlib implements support for dictionaries similarly to @ot's suggestion. I.e., the dictionary must be parsed/loaded at the beginning of each compression, or (slightly more efficiently) copied from one pre-loaded context into a working context that will then be used by the compression. For very small inputs--which is where dictionaries are most effective--this loading and/or copying can end up being the bulk of the work performed. LZ4 used to work this way, but additional functionality was added--`LZ4_attach_dictionary()`--that let it use the dictionary in place (as a warm-up exercise in a simpler codebase in preparation for doing the same work in Zstd). Zstd includes mature support for maximally pre-processing a dictionary, producing a `ZSTD_CDict`. This object can then be searched in- place with no per-compression set-up work. This lets Zstd use a large dictionary over and over again very efficiently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I always find [lrzip]([https://github.com/ckolivas/lrzip](https://github.com/ckolivas/lrzip)) is under appreciated when it comes to compression discussions; it doesn't suit all circumstances, but it works really well in the ones it does (we're using it with the nocompress flag and then using zstd, hence why it comes to mind :-) )

Edit: it's not well suited to real-time...

<comment><USER23> If you're using lrzip, you should also check out zstd long range mode [0]. It uses a long window (128 MB by default, up to 2 GB), together with an efficient search strategy, and multithreading. For example, a 2 GB window, with 4 threads, at level 10:

        zstd --long=31 -T4 -10

It should be faster than lrzip + zstd and provide about the same results.

[0] [https://github.com/facebook/zstd/releases/tag/v1.3.2](https://github.com/facebook/zstd/releases/tag/v1.3.2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Very nice to see that it's released under a standard BSD license.

<comment><USER25> And also GPL 2.

> The project is provided as an open-source dual BSD and GPLv2 licensed C > library.

I don't understand how this works. "You either contribute back your changes or not". Wouldn't the BSD license be enough for that?

<comment><USER26> It's so projects that are licensed under either of GPL2 or BSD can use it - <USER2> there's no worry about license incompatibility.

<comment><USER27> Is that meaningful? Since you can make it close source, can't you as well fork a BSD project and re-license it as GLPv2?

<comment><USER28> Copyright does not work that way.

You cannot relicense code you are not the copyright holder of (ignoring public domain, that's a special case).

Just because it is under a permissive BSD license does not mean that you own the copyright; only that the copyright owner permits you to use the material permissively.

You are still unable to re-license it unless you are the copyright owner (or the copyright owner gives you permission to do so, e.g. by dual-licensing the code).

In practice, there's little reason to license under both BSD and GPL since the BSD is compatible with the GPL on its own.

By the way, that might be what you're thinking of; when you have BSD code, you can integrate it into a GPL codebase, but that's not because you're re- licensing it as GPL, but because the GPL is explicitly meant to be compatible with most other free software licenses. You're still using said code under the terms of the BSD, which allow you to use it alongside GPL code.

Presumably what has happened here is that Facebook's lawyers felt more comfortable being more explicit about the intended licenses, though I can't think of a concrete reason why they'd feel the need to do so.

<comment><USER23> GPLv2 was added before the patents grant was removed, so zstd could be included in the linux kernel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So... chose: \- lz4 for speed/cpu usage \- zstd for compression ratio \- zlib for portability/compatibility with correct compression ratio... but slow...

And dump everything else ?</comment>


Qt, Open Source and Corona - <AUTHOR> https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-community/2020q2/006098.html?print=cGh4 <comment><USER2> ELI5: I fail to see how essentially breaking ties with your (quite active) open-source community does any good to the qt org | business.</comment>


Next-gen sequencing company Illumina encouraging Amazon AWS use - <AUTHOR> http://www.politigenomics.com/2010/01/hiseq-2000.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Admittedly, the reference to the Illumina-AWS link is not a major part of this story, but I have yet to find another source detailing this particular fact.

Illumina is one of the major next-gen (aka sequencing-by-synthesis or shotgun) sequencing players. The fact that they are encouraging AWS usage is remarkable for a few reasons. First, it's a testament to cloud computing's growing importance. Second, we're talking about a lot of human genetic data that may soon be traversing the network between various institutes and Amazon's servers, with all of the security and privacy consequences thereof. So, as a hacker, a medical person, and someone who uses next-gen sequencing, this is of interest to me.

(As an aside, the name "next-gen sequencing" is unfortunate; what shall we call the generation after this?)

<comment><USER2> Hey carbocation, you don't have an email contact address. I'm also working on this and would like to chat offline if you have a moment. My temp email is firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><AUTHOR> Message sent. Also, thanks for the note about the email address; I've added one now. Cheers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> now that's some serious future right there. why don't any scifi writers write like this?</comment>


Ask HN: What shared whiteboard solution are you using as a distributed team? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for the best tablet/app that my distributed team could use as a real-time shared whiteboard. I want any/all of us to be able to draw stuff that everyone else sees and can edit in real-time. Does such an app exists? <comment><USER2> check out miro.com</comment>


Mail for Good - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/mail-for-good/tree/heroku/stable <comment><USER2> FYI: the last commit was in Dec of 2019

[https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/mail-for- good/commits/master](https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/mail-for- good/commits/master)

there is an issue open still about the status of the project:

[https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/mail-for- good/issues/329](https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/mail-for-good/issues/329)

<comment><USER3> I use Mail for Good every week to send my email blast to 3.5 million people. It works fine and is stable.

We haven't made any big changes to it recently because it hasn't broken. There is definitely some maintenance we could do as far as updating libraries.

We're hoping to re-write parts of it to use AWS Lambda instead of a Linux server, so we can further simplify use of it for less-technical users (a lot of nonprofits don't have developers on staff).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks really good, but it mentions it uses AWS Simple Email Service to actually send the emails.

I was under the impression that one of the big value adds of the more expensive email services is that, basically, they work on solving the issue of avoiding your email landing in spam, whereas if you use a more 'direct' commodity service like AWS Simple Email Service or other cloud equivalents you have to kind of solve that problem yourself which is really, really hard and hence not worth the saving.

Is that roughly true? Or do I have it wrong?

<comment><USER5> Not being routed to Spam is largely a two-step process, which is of moderate complexity in SES, but if you're browsing GitHub you can probably handle it:

* Setting up DKIM and SPF - Amazon makes this relatively painless, particularly if you're managing DNS in Route53

* Not spamming

<comment> old-gregg I used to work at Mailgun. Believe me, there's a lot more to getting your mail delivered. Simply configuring DNS stopped being enough maybe around 2006-08.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another open source alternative: [https://mailtrain.org/](https://mailtrain.org/)

</comment><comment><USER7> > _An app for sending millions of emails as cheaply as possible. Mail for Good > uses AWS Simple Email Service to send bulk emails at $0.10 per 1000 emails._

> _Mail for Good is fast and memory efficient, currently sending over 100 > emails per second on a 1gb Digital Ocean VPS._

> _We 've used Mail for Good to deliver newsletters to hundreds of thousands > of campers per week._

... Good? YMMV, but personally, I'm not a fan of spam. Never will be.

<comment><USER8> >> deliver newsletters to hundreds of thousands of campers per week

> I'm not a fan of spam. Never will be

This isn't spam. It's a newsletter subscription people opt into by joining their website as a user. Users can opt-out of this specific newsletter in their FreeCodeCamp settings page and be fine and dandy afterwards.

Spam is something else entirely.

<comment><USER9> Newsletters are the modern spam. "Spam" as we used to know it is actually a solved problem nowadays on major e-mail providers with good spam filters.

Regarding newsletters, the majority of those are opt-out (as opposed to opt- in) and the opt-out process is intentionally convoluted ("untick this checkbox if you would prefer not to subscribe to our newsletter"), so as far as I'm concerned it's indeed spam.

<comment><USER10> I don't agree much with this assessment.

I voluntarily subscribed some of the Cooper Press weekly newsletters [https://cooperpress.com/publications/](https://cooperpress.com/publications/) They are definitely opt-in, not spam.

I regularly unsubscribe newsletters I didn't opt-in, usually from unknown sources. Not many of them lately and the opt-out usually works. I remember a couple of times I had to send an email with a mention of GDPR in it. It worked.

So "the majority" of newsletters are modern spam, not really.

<comment><USER9> I based my comment on what I see daily from non-technical people's inboxes. They are packed with mountains of various commercial newsletters and typically will get one or more of those per day.

There is definitely a minority out there like yourself that knows how to manage it and only subscribes to a few select newsletters, for I think for the majority of people, newsletters are a net negative otherwise you wouldn't see people with thousands of unread emails and there wouldn't be so much hype around tools like Hey.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > $0.10 per 1000 emails

That seems to be dramatically more expensive than SendGrid, at least based on playing around with the pricing slider on their website.

Plus you're paying some other costs like bandwidth and mailing list maintenance. Most of these email providers have the idea that you can create a mailing list, and then ask them to send mailings based on some template.

<comment><USER12> Are you sure? I just did the same and SendGrid's cheapest plan seems to be $15 for 50,000 emails, which is $0.30 per 1000 emails, so 3x as much.

Also, this quote seems to be based on using AWS Simple Email Service. Lower down they say:

> We're currently sending weekly email blasts of over 800,000 emails in 4 > hours on a $10 per month Digital Ocean VPS with 1gb memory and 1 core > processor.

<comment><USER11> You are correct. I had a mistake in my conversion to cents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Non-profits and startups are welcome to use my service for free.

[https://forwardemail.net](https://forwardemail.net)

</comment><comment><USER14> I can't stand when project names contain false altruism. Especially one built to send spam emails.

<comment><USER15> Cool opinion.

Ever heard the one about the non-profit activist orgs that had to send emails to tens of thousands of people who had already opted into receiving emails and had to allocate substantial portions of their budget to sending out their donation drive emails because the system keeps breaking and different companies and government departments keep finding new ways to make things worse, requiring regular mail-outs, and there wasn't really any near-zero- conf, _actually_ cheap off-the-shelf solution for that?

It's hilarious, the punch line involves being called false altruists and spammers.

<comment><USER9> How many of those people actually, intentionally opt-in as opposed to forgetting to uncheck a checkbox?

Out of those people that did intentionally opt-in, would they still opt-in if they knew the frequency of the e-mails?

I remember being on the receiving end of exactly the same scenario you describe - non-profit entity sending spam. I actually intentionally subscribed when signing a petition and assumed they'd e-mail once a month or so which I would've be fine with.

I was so wrong - they were sending some crap every few days, and even worse they attempted to make them look personal (sent from a real-looking name) even though it's the same garbage they email to hundreds of thousands of other suckers that assumed good faith on their part. In a handful of weeks my inbox was dominated by their spam.

Another case was for a tech-related non-profit that I donated to and explicitly unchecked any opportunity for them to spam me. Well guess what, one year later they still did. They apologized afterwards and said it was a mistake (fair enough), and yet some time later I got yet another spam campaign from them I had to unsubscribe from.

<comment><USER15> What the hell does "if they knew the frequency of the e-mails" even mean? As someone who opted into several of these orgs: yes, of course? I know the frequency _because I get the emails_ : if that bothers me, I can stop funding them, or I can understand that getting more of them means the world is getting more fucked up and I should probably seriously consider stepping up my game in supporting orgs that help fight this fucked up world.

<comment><USER9> I meant knowing the frequency in advance. I expected them to be respectful and email once a month or so. If I knew they'd be sending crap every few days I wouldn't have signed up.

<comment><USER15> How is once a month a cheap endeavour?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you are sending millions of e-mails, it's very likely not for good.

</comment><comment><USER17> An efficient spam cannon? What's good about that?

</comment><comment><USER18> "Email campaign management tool" = spam tool

Sorry.

<comment><USER19> From a valid newsletter you can unsubscribe anytime.

<comment><USER20> the operative word here is "valid"

<comment><USER18> Your unsubscribe request may take up to 30 days to process.

You have unsubscribed from our "Save the egrets" campaign. (You are still subscribed to our "Save the whales", "Save the spotted frog", "Save the kudzu", etc. campaigns.)

To unsubscribe, please click on this link, log in, give your full name and address (which we will resell) and phone number (which we will resell.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Disney+ Nears 5-Year Streaming Goal in First Eight Months with 57.5M Subscribers - <AUTHOR> https://deadline.com/2020/08/disney-nears-5-year-streaming-goal-in-first-eight-months-with-57-5m-subscribers-1203003841/ <comment><USER2> Disney streaming strategy is to use several streaming services. Each of them priced lower than Netflix (193 million global subscribers). When you combine few of them the price per household is higher.

Disney+ (57.5 million),

Hulu (35.5 million),

ESPN+ (8.5 million),

Hotstar (8 million paid 300 million active users)

Almost all Netflix competitors (Disney, Amazon, HBO Max, Peacock, Apple ... ) will have other sources of revenue besides streaming so they can afford to keep loosing money to gain market share. Netflix can't cut prices too much.

</comment><comment><USER3> Even as a parent I greatly underestimated how well Disney+ would do. I assumed that most parents already had an existing streaming solution figured out.

I'd be curious to how many people are signing up for an additional service vs replacing them

<comment><USER4> It did also happen when lots of schools closed and lots of families are stuck at home with anxious+energetic kids.

I'm curious to see how the streaming wars will unfold after the ISPs and cell phone providers start rolling back their pandemic assistance for their customers and how much evictions/foreclosures and bankruptcies affect the subscription rates.</comment></comment>


Why would any one attend something like this? - <AUTHOR> https://www.microsoft.com/india/events/win8appfest/

<comment><AUTHOR> Not being snarky but I'm trying to understand the reasons developers attend events like this.

<comment><USER2> Windows is the most popular desktop OS. People can make money by writing apps for it, non?</comment></comment>


Worker-Owned Apps Are Trying to Fix the Gig Economy's Exploitation - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pa75a8/worker-owned-apps-are-trying-to-fix-the-gig-economys-exploitation <comment><USER2> If some subsection of the workers owned the app, they would want to collect rents just as Uber, Lyft, etc. do.

The concept of all the workers owning the app is amorphous. How does that work when Uber's churn rate on drivers is quite high? It's a constantly shifting pool of gig economy workers.

I don't disagree with the premise that there are problems in the gig economy: there are. But the gig workers owning the app just doesn't make sense.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this is kind of nice.

Maybe someone is an uber driver. Next time you want to ride with the same guy, you use his app and he gets more of a cut.

This is like a taxi driver giving you his business card and calling him directly next time.

(I also think about worker ondership of the means of production)</comment>


A Eulogy for the Headphone Jack - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@flimshaw/a-eulogy-for-the-headphone-jack-aabda6c66cd8 <comment><USER2> What exactly is the solution to continue with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_ATM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_ATM)</comment>


Is the YC News Karma formula this simple? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> KPn = Karma for nth submission

KCm = Karma for mth comment

Karma = [SUM(KP1,KP2,..KPn) - n] + ROUND[0.5x(SUM(KC1,KC2...KCm) - m)]

<comment><USER2> That's what I figured it was, except I always thought of it in these terms:

You get one point every time someone votes up your submission. You get half a point every time someone votes up your comment. You lose half a point every time someone votes down your comment.

<comment><USER3> How do you actually vote down someone's comment or post? I don't see a downward-pointing triangle, so I thought a only a super-user could do it. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER4> I believe you have to have a certain amount of karma. Not much, though, since I can see it with less than 20 karma.

<comment><USER5> There also seem to be other limitations, such as not being able to vote down replies to your comments or stories.

<comment><USER3> Direct replies or any descendant?

<comment><USER5> Direct replies to any comments or stories can't be downvoted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The system seems to work well and I see no reason to make it more complicated. In the ideal world you might get more karma for stories you've written yourself as opposed to stories you found elsewhere and submitted, or perhaps there might by a leader board for the highest average submission rating, but the current system seems to get the job done.</comment>


HN, let's get you on some dates - <AUTHOR> http://advice.datingring.com/?ks_giveaway=premium-matchmaking-giveaway <comment><USER2> This company seems extremely scummy. You may remember them from the "let's ship women from NY to California to date tech dudes" crowdfunding campaign.

[http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/05/shipped-to- california.html](http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/05/shipped-to-california.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Why LA, SFO and NY but not Portland?

I took a flirting class once. I mean I really did. It was quite valuable, I learned all manner of helpful things. The class wasn't about how to get laid, it wasn't even just about finding romantic relationships. Lots of people flirt just to make everyone's lives more enjoyable.

Here is one hint from the class, although maybe it's not so applicable: the instructor said we should carry around business cards, when we meet a woman we'd like to get to know, write our cell number on it. Having a business card lets a woman know you have a job.

If you don't really have a job, you can get cheap business cards if you design them yourself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great tip! And that's awesome that you took a class. Often, people think that flirting and dating are things you can't learn, but it's the opposite. Learning to be a great dater takes a lot of practice.

And sorry we're not in Portland yet! Our service is live in 4 cities right now (NYC, SF, Boston and LA) which is why the contest is offered there, as we have a large membership base to match members there.

<comment><USER3> I expect you'll get to Portland eventually, I think you would do well here.

I have a special challenge for you.

I'm the guy who wrote "Living with Schizoaffective Disorder":

[http://www.warplife.com/mdc/books/schizoaffective- disorder/](http://www.warplife.com/mdc/books/schizoaffective-disorder/)

For quite a long time I was quite certain I would never find love, as a result of my mental illness. Actually that turned out not to be the case, many women are completely cool with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The submission title " _HN, let 's get you on some dates_" is incredibly linkbaity. (It's also flagbaity which counteracts any benefit.)</comment>


Stop Distributed Version Control Diaspora - <AUTHOR> http://www.kev009.com/wp/2010/10/stop-distributed-version-control-diaspora/

<comment><USER2> I think ESR started ForgePlucker to tackle this problem. It's a project for saving "project state" from various project hosting sites. Here is the announcement: <http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1369>

</comment><comment><USER3> Stopping it now would be very stupid for the exact same reasons listed: The cat is already out of the bag. If you don't allow collaboration now, you -guarantee- that any forks won't end up like the mainline.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The idea is to keep the information open, free, and interchangeable as information is what these sites add. We've had public VCS repos and web interfaces for ages.

</comment><comment><USER4> And a pony.

I want a pony.

Edit: Give those guys a break. They're struggling just to get the fundamentals right. This is not the time for scope creep.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't buy this excuse. Atlassian is anything but struggling. github and gitorious have an impressive array of enterprise customers. The longer this concept is postponed, the harder it will be to implement as similarities will diverge.

<comment><USER4> Ha!

Your headline made me think you're asking for VCS stuff to be added to the diaspora project (the social network one).

It seems I misunderstood you.

Anyways and either way, this seems like a (proposed) solution looking for a problem. I'm an avid user of various VCS systems and have never felt a need to port my "followers" or such from one system to another. What exact problem are you looking to solve?</comment></comment></comment>


HN designers: where are you? - <AUTHOR>

The other thread about HN contractors seems to be focused on developers and admins.  As a single founder/developer with little or no design skills, I'd give my right arm for a reliable designer who could handle the design work on my projects.
I tried guru and elance but only got replies from people used to creating brochure sites and who have little understanding of modern web app design.
If you're a designer who is available for work, please post a link to your portfolio and your hourly rate - I'm sure I'm not the only HN user looking for you. <comment><USER2> You may have better luck finding designers by going to where they are.

Start following <http://onepagelove.com/> and contact people you like.

Find stuff on <http://dribbble.com/> you like and talk to them.

Also, if you can find a designer that has basic proficiency with the technologies you're using, it will save you a world of pain of having to do the integration yourself. With every additional person involved in integrating a design you will lose fidelity.</comment>


Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to Women: Don't Ask for a Raise, Trust Karma (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://readwrite.com/2014/10/09/nadella-women-dont-ask-for-raise/ <comment><USER2> This is an excellent illustration of why everyone should remember that employment is a business arrangement, not a family connection or social one.

As long as corporations in the US are legally obligated to put shareholders or owners before anyone else, this sort of semi-religious philosophy is just another form of drinking the kool-aid... make the employees accept something that's a negative for them by indoctrinating them to think their employer is anything but totally mercenary in nature.</comment>


Trade in invasive plants is blossoming - <AUTHOR> https://www.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2015/10/trade-in-invasive-plants-is-blossoming.html <comment><USER2> Url changed from [http://phys.org/news/2015-10-invasive- blossoming.html](http://phys.org/news/2015-10-invasive-blossoming.html), which points to this.</comment>


Show HN: Universal Solution for Accepting Cryptocurrency Subscriptions - <AUTHOR> https://www.cryptosubscriptions.co <comment><AUTHOR> Creator here. While growing my product, Telemonetize, a service that allows to charge a monthly subscription for access to your Telegram group or channel, I found myself going into the crypto market.

I quickly found out that crypto payments are 'push' payments, meaning that for a user to pay, let's say, $10/mo in cryptocurrency, he/she has to send the payment manually himself/herself every month. There is no universal solution for 'pulling' from a crypto wallet. Any solution that 'pulls' from a customer's wallet is limited and requires your end user to have that specific wallet

I built this API to make your life easier while accepting crypto subscriptions. It's a simple API that notifies your subscribers automatically via email several times before their subscription expires so you don't have to do it manually. In these emails, there will be a link to a checkout page so they can renew their subscription

You will get notified via email and webhooks when users subscribe, renew or don't renew(cancel) their subscription

All you have to do is add an embeddable widget/button to your website

It's built on Ruby on Rails, with plain Javascript and Bootstrap on the front end and it's hosted on Heroku</comment>