Ask HN: How would you inspire 18 year olds to learn to code? - <AUTHOR>

I'm due to give an hour talk to a class of 16-18 year olds on computer programming. I work for a gaming company so I could easily just talk over some slides about what we do and how we work but I'd really like to do something that would inspire them to go on and create their own games/apps/whatever. We've access to computers and a projector during the session, it's also quite likely the majority will have smartphones.<p>What would you do with young people to get them psyched about programming? <comment><USER2> So you only have 60 minutes to inspire young people to learn more about programming and you want to do something game related? Why not teach them something that achieves this but which they can also take home and continue working on?

How about showing them one or various aspects of game development by using a mod/map dev toolkit that's widespread and free (maybe even your own)? It's fun, practical and gives a basic understanding of how games are actually made. You could set up a site where you have shared all the resources (graphics, sounds, tools, the presentation itself) needed to that the kids can create their own game when the presentation is over (not the same game as you've demo'd as that would be boring. A tutorial would be nice).

DO NOT talk about various languages, technical aspects of platforms, etc, as none of this will inspire kids. Show them visions, dreams and what great stuff they can build by mastering code.

Oh, if you're going to talk about yourself and your company, try to keep it personal and give your audience a glimpse of how it's actually like to be a game developer. This is the kind of story that people want to hear, not stuff about your customers, financial figures, your organization, etc.</comment>


Staying up-to-date as a software developer with a daily learning routine - <AUTHOR> https://trevordmiller.com/blog/learning-routine <comment><USER2> It's a nice idea, but, from my experience, learning new things isn't valuable in and of itself. Retaining and, consequently, using the acquired knowledge is both more important and more difficult.

<comment><USER3> I read this and then it striked me that this is what I have been trying to convince myself since long.

Now I have to ask - is there a particular word for this kinda feeling, like borderline deja vu?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Advice for starting an image hosting site? - <AUTHOR>

I have an idea about how to get significant growth for an image hosting site similar to imgur. I'm holding back because the challenge there is a race between hosting costs and revenue. Any advice on winning that race? (Preferably without having to raise money) <comment><USER2> A single, cheap server can easily handle thousands of requests _per second_ and come with huge bandwidth allowances etc - [https://hivelocity.net/cart/configure/42f42273ea](https://hivelocity.net/cart/configure/42f42273ea) for instance. That's going to be much more cost effective than amazon etc cloud hosting.

You could also put your site / api on a cheap vps at digitalocean or whatever, and just get a server with lots of drives for the actual image serving from someone like Hetzner: [http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produktmatrix/rootserver- pr...](http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produktmatrix/rootserver- produktmatrix-ex)</comment>


RNAs Galore - <AUTHOR> http://www.hhmi.org/bulletin/spring-2015/rnas-galore

<comment><USER2> If you wish to learn a bit more ..

Consider the DNA to be the basic hardware of life ... there has to be software layers that control how, when, where and how much information is to be decoded from the DNA. One layer of abstraction is epigenetics - DNA strands being modified by various (ex. methyl) groups, that regulate how the information is copied. Depending on where these methyl groups are on the gene, copying of DNA will greatly vary.

To add another layer of abstraction, scientists are discovering the importance of RNAs .. in particular small or micro RNAs in regulating how, when, where information is decoded from the DNA. These tiny RNA molecules travel and impact regions of the DNA that was previously considered barren wastelands or vestiges of our evolutionary past.

To study them, it is a very tough undertaking. They are easily degraded and also, they are expressed at various time points. So imagine, you try to collect all RNA from cells during the day .. but what about the ones that are expressed at night that regulate the circadien clock? Or what if you collect it at a time when cells are undergoing division and you miss on the RNAs that are responsible for suppressing cell division ..

Furthermore, how much of an RNA present in the cell, adds additional complications. How do you quantify how much at what time ... (for science geeks: qRT and northern is a good estimate :)

Furthermore x2, an RNA that can be positively regulating one region in the DNA (aka gene :) .. might be negatively regulating another region.

Hopefully with the current research, it would be much easier to get a very detailed catalog of all RNA molecules and over time, build a comprehensive tool kit to better treat genetic diseases.

<comment><USER3> > Consider the DNA to be the basic hardware of life ... there has to be > software layers that control how, when, where and how much information is to > be decoded from the DNA.

That analogy seems kind of backwards from the usual and more natural formulation: DNA _is_ the software (or, rather, the DNA is a storage medium, the information encoded by the base-pair sequences in the DNA is the software -- RNA is another such storage medium), the various bits of biological machinery that take action based on the DNA/RNA coding are the hardware on which that software is run.

<comment><USER4> Terms like hardware and software are very limited when talking about biology because it seems more like hardware nested inside software nested inside hardware, forever and ever.

Here are some strong generalizations about the cell: DNA by itself does nothing but store information. RNA is a transient store of information and can also perform functions. Proteins primarily perform functions, yet embody the most information about the cell's current live state. Each of these levels runs on and are run by the two other levels.</comment></comment></comment>


Patent Troll Threatens Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/03/twirpy-patent-troll-threatens-twitter/

<comment><USER2> I work with several Russian folks. As they tell it, if you open a business in Russia, you end up paying bribes or "protection money" to mafia and government officials, just to keep your doors open.

As it turns out, we have this in the US also.

<comment><USER3> A business in Russia has a somewhat fixed number of people threatening it. And if it is able to make deals with them, it can function, sort of. Whereas there is no limit to the number of patent trolls that can threaten a software business, and no limit on how much they can demand or how much havoc they can wreak.

<comment><USER4> A fixed number of people with a limit on what they can demand? Where do you get this from? Either way, it is still different in the sense that in Russia you'll get threatened with guns and not lawsuits.

<comment><USER3> Well, you know, I do not live in Russia, so perhaps you can correct me. But here in North America, the kind of people who threaten people with guns for protection have territories and do not take kindly to random people threatening their "customers." So there is a limit of sorts on how many people with guns you have to deal with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe Twitter can convince Google to sue Kootol for infringing on their logo.

<http://www.kootol.com/Images/Kootol_Logo.png>

</comment><comment><USER6> I thought that calling patent infringement based on a patent you applied for is illegal. I thought you have to have been awarded the actual patent.

My understanding of patent laws is near non-existant, though. I wouldn't be surprised if I was wrong.

<comment><USER7> I believe you are correct. Moreover, since every rails tutorial know to man builds a twitter/microblogging/messaging clone, odds are likely that this will not be awarded simply because the application's technology is obvious at this point.

I may be too optimistic though.

<comment><USER8> That hasn't stopped blatantly obvious patents to be filed. You are being extremely optimistic. USPTO will issue a patent nearly for any software related invention even with prior art.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article doesn't mention this, but their patent application actually has already been allowed. It's just a matter of waiting for the USPTO to issue it.

<comment><USER10> Why am I not suprised. I know you're not supposed to judge patents just by their title but this one is about as broad as it gets. There should be a penalty for making broad claims like that. And anyone should be able to challenge a patent by providing the prior art to the USPTO and have it review within a short (6 months max) period of time. For a fee of about 10 bucks ;p No courts needed here.

<comment><USER9> This comment makes no sense to me. "I know you're not supposed to do this, BUT I'M GOING TO DO IT ANYWAY BECAUSE FUCK PATENTS." The title of a patent is irrelevant to what it covers. Read the claims.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How annoying are all these people just acting on grey areas in patents?? How are new start ups meant to thrive in this market when every two minutes someone is being sued for not having the appropriate license??

Have these people nothing better to do with their time? And moreover, who is allowing these stupid patents through that are so vague and apply to so many different sites?

I my opinion, if you file for a patent and don't use it in x amount of time then it should be revoked and allow someone else to use it. I don't know if this is already the case but all these patent trolls are doing my head in, GET A PROPER JOB!

<comment><USER12> _And moreover, who is allowing these stupid patents through that are so vague and apply to so many different sites?_

The USPTO has fixed resources, and the number of patent applications has been growing exponentially for years. Also, if they grant a patent the person filing goes away, but if they deny it the filer will just come back with amendments or appeals again and again and again.

If we gave the USPTO more money or, heck, even let it keep all the money it collected in fees the problem wouldn't be nearly as bad.

<comment><USER13> The real fix is to change patent law so that it's not broken. The USPTO is now trying to solve the wrong problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sounds like <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sopranos>

</comment><comment><USER15> But, this is just a letter.

And in that sense, Kooltol has trolled TC. who in turn has trolled us.

</comment><comment><USER16> Twitter knew they would be sued for stealing other's ideas, I guess it has come to pass.</comment>


For the last year I've been working on an iOS game. Here's a preview - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdCmeDSh7O4

<comment><USER2> That video ended before I could figure out anything. You should add few more seconds to it.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks - it links to the full video throughout

you can also get more information (early access) at [http://www.gameofnodes.com](http://www.gameofnodes.com)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> would love feedback

<comment><USER3> You want feedback on the trailer?

<comment><AUTHOR> on the game</comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin being used to trade child abuse material - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/03/bitcoin-child-abuse-hack-cameron-filters

<comment><USER2> People bought child porn with USD and GBP. It's only natural they will move onto a more "untracable"[0] currency. Also, just a thought, I was reading a link from HN about hiding messages and images in the blockchain[1]. Could this not be done with first tumbling some coins then hiding CP in the blockchain?

[0] - More so than USD.

[1] - [http://www.righto.com/2014/02/ascii-bernanke-wikileaks- photo...](http://www.righto.com/2014/02/ascii-bernanke-wikileaks- photographs.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Currency being used to trade" :o</comment>


Ask HN: Which research papers are on your to-read list? - <AUTHOR> Hi! I built a platform to create interactive summaries of interesting research papers and patents.
Please share the research papers on your to-read list and we can create summaries so you can go through them quickly.
Here is an example summary:
https://www.fastscience.tv/summary/new-paper-analyzes-impact-socialdistancing-efforts <comment><USER2> The Autoscaler paper Google just posted

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have the link?

<comment><USER2> It's a few hours prior to your post, sorry closed the tab.

It's on Arxiv in the last few days</comment></comment></comment>


Pop up pour over in front of YC office - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/undefined/status/855114685896548352 <comment><USER2> I couldn't purchase anything on your website.

How is this different from Starbucks via?

Coffee is very crowded, how do you plan to make money?

How do you plan to differentiate yourself from (typically bad) instant coffee? What makes you better/new/different?

Is there a technology angle here that makes you superior in some way (or at least interesting and worthy of discussion)?

</comment><comment><USER3> Fantastic idea. Pour overs are the fastest decent brewing method, and usually the cheapest. Making it portable is really cool little innovation. If the coffee is good, I could see this really selling</comment>


Bitcoin Reaches All Time High - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/02/23/crytpocurrency-bitcoin-all-time-high-116359/98315128/ <comment><USER2> I really wish I'd kept the $11,000 (USD) worth of Bitcoin I bought at $7!</comment>


Show HN: PositiveBird – check how positive someone is on Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://mromnia.github.io/positivebird/ <comment><USER2> Cool idea, but the results don't look right to me. I analyzed myself (@jasoncrawford) and its positivity scores for my tweets don't look strongly correlated with the scores I would give by hand. A tweet about "fucking terrible" customer support got an 88.7% positive rating. A tweet starting with "My favorite thing..." got only 39.6% positive.

<comment><USER3> Same. Love the idea, but tried a few obviously positive/negative people and got "completely neutral" for all.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Insync – Insync – The best Google Drive app ever built - <AUTHOR> https://insynchq.com/

<comment><USER2> You need screenshots, more detailed descriptions, a video, anything will help.

<comment><USER3> There is some screenshots at [https://www.insynchq.com/why](https://www.insynchq.com/why)</comment></comment>


Show HN: HiddenVM – Use any desktop OS without leaving a trace - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/aforensics/HiddenVM <comment><USER2> Maybe good for hiding activity when you're already below the radar. If you're a person of interest for a large enough state then they can and will use all manner of dirty tactics to nail you and simply encrypting is not enough. You will have to flee like Snowden did. And once they bring in legislation that says a govt agent can ask for your decryption keys under reasonable doubt then everyone is in soup since encrypted data is easy enough to detect as such. One may have to shift to steganography of increasing sophistication. Basically this fight has to be clinched politically. While technology can help it can't ensure absolute privacy/security against an all-powerful state. The key question is if a state should be all-powerful at all in the first place...

<comment><USER3> > everyone is in soup since encrypted data is easy enough to detect...

This is only half-true. Any secure encryption is going to result in ciphertext that is indistinguishable from random data.

In cases where the ciphertext is designated by a header or file format, then it's trivial to know that something is encrypted. Then there are cases where we can try to forensically determine that there's encrypted data via the existence of an encryption tool (e.g. VeraCrypt).

If you wipe a disk with random data, for example, then it would be relatively difficult to determine whether or not the disk is encrypted (implying that there are no headers on it). In fact, one method of wiping disks is to generate a random encryption key and encrypt a stream from /dev/zero to fill the disk ([https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm- crypt/Drive_preparat...](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm- crypt/Drive_preparation#dm-crypt_specific_methods)).

This tool is making use of a VeraCrypt hidden volume which is a rather really interesting application of plausible deniability in cryptography. Essentially, this let's you have two volumes where both are encrypted, but each has a different key. In this setup, you'd put some files on one of the volumes to make it appear that it's your "used" volume. On the other "hidden" volume, you'd place the real files you want to keep safe.

In a case where the government is demanding that you release your encryption keys, you would give up the keys to the "fake" volume. Unless you divulge the keys to the "real" volume, the attackers wouldn't necessarily know that it exists.

Unless there's evidence of you using one (maybe chat logs or google searches asking for help on using it, for example), there's no reason for anyone to suspect you use it.

The VeraCrypt documentation explains the technical details ([https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/Hidden%20Volume.html](https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/Hidden%20Volume.html)) well enough.

<comment><USER4> > _This is only half-true. Any secure encryption is going to result in > ciphertext that is indistinguishable from random data._

A new SSD with very little data in the filesystem isn't going to have many, many sectors filled with random bytes. They're going to be blank instead.

A used drive will have free sectors (not used by the filesystem) containing unencrypted contents of old files that have since been deleted or something. This is also not random data. Chunks of movies, pictures, applications and music will be identifiable, easily.

<comment><USER5> A previously-used disk, wiped to NIST standards, will be filled with random data - that's exactly the point of the wipe.

<comment><USER4> > _A previously-used disk, wiped to NIST standards, will be filled with random > data - that 's exactly the point of the wipe._

Yes, and that is suspicious. Random data is suspicious.

<comment><USER6> Exactly. Something being suspicious is about small differences from what's expected, differences that correlate with something bigger. Whether the disk is full of random data because it's encrypted or because it was securely wiped, either way it correlates with somebody having something they're working to hide.

<comment><USER5> Or a second-hand computer: I do not wish to carry previous owner's use history into my usage, and neither should anyone else. Do not conflate "unusual" with "therefore hiding stuff", and don't even try "hiding stuff, therefore bad".

There are legitimate reasons for wiping data...can't believe we're having _this_ discussion, _here_ of all places.

<comment><USER6> I agree there are legitimate reasons for doing so. None of which will matter to some official busybody rummaging through your drive. To them, a drive filled with random noise (instead of, say, being zeroed out) is going to be unusual in a way that correlates with bigger things they worry about. Or, in short, suspicious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I forget where I hear it or if it was my own idea (the shame, I know, I know!) but... cant you have an unknown number of username/password pairs that decrypt/unpack the same chunk of data into different things? Say you have the same OS 51 times, as clean installs the data shouldn't have to be all that much larger than 1. You install some games on one, some office apps on the next, put some downloaded movies on the 3rd. You could give them "all" 50 passwords and they could never find OS nr 51.

<comment><USER8> It's not possible to encrypt 51GB of real-world data in 1GB space for the same reason that compression algorithms can't achieve 51x compression ratios. Given that, such a scheme presents some challenges if you want to maintain plausibility. Either,

1\. Each filesystem lives within an allocated area and knows not to overwrite its neighbors' data.

2\. Some filesystems (the real ones) are privileged and know their actual allocated area. Others (the decoys) think they own areas of the storage volume that contain hidden data and therefore have the potential to overwrite the hidden filesystems if they are written to.

In the case of (1), you need to be able to explain why your computer has unallocated areas filled with pseudorandom data. That is never going to pass the plausibility test, imo.

In the case of (2), a lot of effort needs to be put into making the decoys look normal while not letting them overwrite the hidden data. There are a number of strategies you could use here that would work, but it will never be as convenient or simple as dual-booting and the more convenient you try to make it, the less innocent a hard drive will appear under close inspection.

<comment><USER9> I think the original commenter was going for an encrypted copy-on-write setup, not some magical compressed fs. Just a base image (eg 50GB) with various encrypted delta images (1GB each) that are assigned to each user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Safest way is to hack the SSD/HDD firmware, make it report its size half. Depending on some condition, make it use the selected half. (ex: some byte in first sector, some ATA command)

<comment><USER11> Any entity big enough to seize your laptop for analysis is also going to be able to look up the specification for any particular part in your laptop, and eventually this portion of the cat and mouse game will end.

<comment><USER12> That's predicated on an all knowing adversary with unlimited time and budget. In other words it is a largely fictional problem.

Most of the people we're talking about just run off the shelf forensics software and have minimum actual expertise (the government doesn't pay well enough for legitimate experts doing it by hand).

But then again, very few people are crazy enough to modify computer hardware to protect their information. So both sides of this coin might be largely fictional.

<comment><USER11> Are most people getting their laptops seized?

<comment><USER12> A international borders? It isn't at all uncommon. I've had my electronics searched before.

<comment><USER13> Out of curiosity, if you're comfortable saying, what country was it and were you a citizen there?

I'm always curious what the breakdown is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if it isn't easier to buy a laptop with two drives. Install a regular OS on the first, hide the second in the BIOS and nobody will notice.

The people doing the cloning / data theft would have to know about your particular model. Obviously, you encrypt the second drive, that in itself contains a hidden partition in case they do discover it.

<comment><USER15> The project here is quite neat. But I wonder if your idea would also work and ask myself how competent the forensic teams of airport security really are. Or even if they are, they certainly don't have a lot of time per device.

IT specialists are expensive and it would be shame if we waste that on something benign as airport security which was mainly established by paranoia and the wish to save face.

An what exactly are they targeting? Are they looking for howToBlowUpAnAirplane.txt? Just some industrial espionage? Just some display of authority? I don't really get what would prompt these measures.

Was there ever anything they found on a device someone took on a plane?

<comment><USER16> >An what exactly are they targeting?

journalists, I heard

<comment><USER15> That doesn't seem it would increase airport security too much.

<comment><USER6> But it definitely increases the security of the people who control airport security.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So does Tails run as the root OS but displays a separate OS in a VM? For example, does it look like your booting into Windows when really it's just a VM inside Linux? If so, does that Windows VM or whatever it is you choose act like what is essentially a read only OS?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes and yes. No, the VM is not read-only. (But you can run a VM as read-only.)

<comment><USER17> Interesting, thank you for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN,

We're finally sharing our github with the world. This post is the first announcement of our project apart from our thus-far non-populated subreddit. No one's discovered us yet. We've only told one person in the world before right now. We're new to developing and we're very humble and willing to learn, so any suggestions and help is welcome.

What we aren't as humble about is the potential we think this application has. HiddenVM allows full-scale anti-forensic use of any desktop OS. (No longer just Tails.) If you place your installed files inside good deniable encryption like VeraCrypt, it means that no digital trace of your chosen OS is left on your hard drive or can be forensically proven to exist. That is significant.

There are many reasons why you may want to use HiddenVM. Some use cases include:

\- You're a spy protecting national security and you need to leave no digital trace on the hard drive of the computer you just used.

\- Law enforcement agents conducting sensitive investigations.

\- Diplomats, politicians, and military personnel.

\- Whistle-blowers needing to safely carry their information in any situation.

\- Activists, dissidents, political asylum seekers, and journalists in need of stronger protection of their information from corrupt governments when their equipment is forcibly seized. (We know that the risk of the rubber hose remains a complex problem and limitation of encryption.) Now that you can use Windows once you set it up inside Tails, keeping your data private could become easier for you.

Border agents forcibly invade our privacy and potentially steal our secrets with no respect to who we are or what our rights are. We need tech solutions to protect our data. More use cases include:

\- Lawyers carrying sensitive client information.

\- People in business protecting their IP or trade secrets.

\- Tactics in fighting against corporate espionage. It could be expensive or impossible to sue for someone's unlawful intrusion into your data. Easier to technologically prevent them in the first place.

\- Protect your basic privacy and dignity for any of the one thousand other reasons why privacy matters.

\- You travel a lot and you want to use Windows/macOS/Linux in a way that prevents malware code from being forcibly installed inside your operating system simply because you entered a country.

\- Digital currency: store a more private Bitcoin wallet. Secure your assets against unwanted and unwarranted access. When data literally is money you have a lot to lose.

\- Domestic violence victims, and people in other dangerous situations in life.

Data privacy is a human right. If you don't want someone searching your naked body and violating your dignity in that way, why should your data be any different? Airport border agents not only perform a full digital strip search, but they're also potentially stealing your data or implanting spyware and malware without you knowing. It is a devastating act.

Using Tails should never be reason to suspect you are a criminal or a spy. It also protects basic data privacy and democracy. Tails should become a standard USB that anyone who values their digital safety carries around in their briefcase, bag, purse or wallet. We hope our application increases the size of the Tails user base.

Thank you for your interest. We invite you to rip apart our assertions and code (but with courtesy), try out HiddenVM, and contribute to our project.

Sincerely, aforensics

<comment><USER18> Copy notes:

1\. Pictures.

> What we aren't as humble about is the potential we think this application > has.

So you're not humble? Ditch the marketing goofiness. You think it has major potential. Be humble or don't. It's inessential to conveying what HiddenVM is.

> Like Tor, Tails, or Whonix, HiddenVM can be used for bad purposes

Unnecessary. You're already on the back foot.

> \- You're a spy

This isn't a normatively 'good' reason.

> Activists, dissidents, political asylum seekers, and journalists (like Laura > Poitras)

Don't cite a specific person unless that person is endorsing the product.

> Using Tails should never be reason to suspect you are a criminal or a spy. > It protects basic data privacy and democracy.

Don't lead with a user story that exactly matches the stereotype, then. You're walking right into it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback. Some of it made sense and I've updated the parent comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It is kind of ridiculous to still use md5sum to check software for integrity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, we'll look into it.

<comment><AUTHOR> And now fixed, moved to SHA512.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you want to use Tor in another country then come through a border, what's the advantage of HiddenVM over putting Tor on a bootable thumb drive, using it, then throwing away the drive before crossing the border? Just the persistence?

</comment><comment><USER21> Or, or..hear me out, swap your HDD with a gaming one so when a smart guy takes a look at your HDD will find only benign games. You think customs agencies does not have smart people who can look past a simple boot screen? Think again

<comment><USER22> Or just wipe the HDD and install a fresh OS? I have to admit that I'm uncertain exactly what the goal is.

<comment><USER23> A fresh OS is pretty suspicious.

<comment><USER24> It takes almost no time to reinstall an OS, install a few games from steam.

If you want you don't even need to wipe your install and have a bit more time to spend, you can dual boot and remove the other boot option temporarily from GRUB / MBR or whatever the windows equivalent was.

Or fetch out a few github repos if you don't want to install steam games. :)

<comment><USER23> I'm not sure I understand your response. Am I missing something in my original comment?

<comment><USER24> My reply was to say that it's relatively easy to make a clean install not look 'fresh' :P

<comment><USER23> Fair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > The VM will even connect to full-speed pre-Tor Internet by default, while > leaving the Tor connection in Tails undisturbed.

This doesn't strike me as a selling point? Surely the default should be to have the VM traffic all go over Tor?

Cool project though.

<comment><USER26> I think the point is to make a decoy OS that you can boot into if forced to unlock your laptop. Running on Tor would be highly suspicious.

The point of running this on Tails is to prevent the use of forensic tools inside the decoy OS to unearth what's underneath.

<comment><USER27> If using Tor is suspicious, then having Tails on your computer is also going to be suspicious. I'm certain that no border agent will be swayed by your "but I don't actually use this Tor I have installed" arguments.

<comment><USER26> I assumed that tails is normally invisible and must be logged into using some secret handshake at boot time. Otherwise it's pretty silly, even if the partition is wholly encrypted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Please consider an acronym other than "HVM", which already has meaning in virtualization context (Hardware Virtualized Machine).

</comment><comment><USER29> > The VM will even connect to full-speed pre-Tor Internet by default

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

</comment><comment><USER30> Will be interesting to also have macOS as guest with Vera Crypt & encrypted volume etc.

</comment><comment><USER31> Isn't downloading additional software defeats the purpose of inspecting the code?

</comment><comment><USER32> How about running from RAMdisk? Feels like that would be the safest

<comment><USER33> It would be, but how do you go through the whole install every time you need it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> If your laptop is getting inspected at the border of an actual authoritarian police state:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber- hose_cryptanalysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis)

<comment><USER35> Are there any protection mechanism against that? Something like, even if you are being tortured you cannot provide the access to anyone else?

<comment><USER36> Yes, but:

1) they might not believe you, and

2) that's still true even if the reason you don't have a key is because you don't actually _have_ a secret encrypted partition — or whatever — to supply a decryption key for

So the best thing to do is avoid being in a situation where someone is allowed to do that in the first place.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is interesting. This also means that using encryption or anything that can plausibly make someone even slightly suspect you're using encryption (even if you are not) can make your situation worse, with certain classes of enemies.

I'm sure advanced configurations with well-crafted decoys and steganography can help combat that, but as we can see, encryption can only take you so far and it's only one element of the picture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> if i had reason to be this paranoid about doing something on the computer, i probably wouldn't do it on the computer... see what Ron Minnich amd Bunnie Huang have to say about the state of modern hardware and bios.

that, and i believe AMT is still _a thing_</comment>


OMGPOP CEO does damage control - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/01/omgpop-ceo-responds-to-criticisim-of-his-tweets-about-former-employee/

<comment><USER2> If publicly humiliating one ex-employee is how you 'celebrate the people who worked on the game,' then you're basically operating as a dictator.</comment>


TSA Told Cancer-Surviving Flight Attendant to Remove Her Prosthetic Breast - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/11/19/tsa-prosthetic-breast

<comment><USER2> Here's the link to the actual story:

<http://www.wbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=13534628>

From the guidelines:

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

        In Submissions

        ...
        Please submit the original source. If a blog post
        reports on something they found on another site,
        submit the latter.</comment>


GitHub to SourceForge import tool - <AUTHOR> https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/documentation/GitHub%20Importer/ <comment><AUTHOR> And a summary of what has changed at SourceForge since it was acquired in 2016:

Removed bundled adware from projects immediately

Implemented malware scans for every single project on SourceForge

Site completely redesigned

Added multi-factor authentication

Removed ads for developers (logged in users will not see any ads)

Added HTTPS support for project website hosting

[https://sourceforge.net/blog/introducing-the-new- sourceforge...](https://sourceforge.net/blog/introducing-the-new-sourceforge/)

</comment><comment><USER2> No, thank you. SourceForge used to inject adware into projects. Now, they're trying to profit from the anxiety surrounding the GitHub acquisition talks.

I'll take my chances with Microsoft.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah they used to. That's why I purchased SourceForge and removed all the adware. Completely different owners. We had nothing to do with those decisions and reversed them immediately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In my books SourceForge has a worse rep than Microsoft has ever had since bundling what could basically be comparable to viruses in installers in the past

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah that was bad. Which is why I bought SourceForge and removed the bundled adware immediately in 2016. We're completely different owners and anyone involved with the bundling back then is no longer at SourceForge.

<comment><USER4> There's a certain irony that you're hoping people will forgive Sourceforge after two years, because of a change of ownership, from people who haven't forgiven Microsoft for things that happened upwards of twenty years ago when it was also under different leadership.

Good luck, though, we need more alternatives out there, and today's probably a great time to remind people you're an option.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. We still have 500,000 projects and over a million daily users, so at the very least, we're focused on doing right by them. But the more the merrier, and the more options out there the better the OSS community is.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lessons from Moneyball: don't get left behind - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3098-lessons-from-moneyball-dont-get-left-behind <comment><USER2> Another related quote from the film: "It's unbelievable how much you don't know about the game you've been playing all your life." - Mickey Mantle

After 6 very dedicated years, I am constantly amazed with just how much I can learn in this business every single day.</comment>


How to find the first users for my new app? - <AUTHOR> Are there any good sites to publish my new app? I'd like to have some foreign people because not everybody in my family and friends have an iPhone. The app is called Lome and is currently in private Beta but will be published soon.
If somebody wants to test the app just send me an Email address and i will send an Test flight invitation.
Facebook Site: https://www.facebook.com/lomeapp
I hope somebody can help me because I think It's a cool app. <comment><USER2> First of all, you should say what this app. is about. What is it about? There is nothing on your Facebook that says it.

Secondly, why would someone send you an email personally for a test? Why not launch the beta and have people test it instead of asking them to send you an email for the invite?

Thirdly, who did you build this app for? Who are your users? I hope you did your homework before building the app. Just my 2cents..

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your response. Good points I will publish the app and will describe it better.

To the point with the target users:

Of course do I know who my target users are but I don't have a clue where i can find the people which are interested in testing a new released (with bugs maybe??) app. I thought that maybe some sites where exactly these kind of people are exist.

<comment><USER2> If you don't have a clue of where to find the people in testing a release, how do you intend to get people to actually use it permanently?

Question for you. Why did you build this app? You still have said what the app does / will do..

<comment><AUTHOR> First of all I've built this app because of fun. I like to build apps for me but the problem with this app is, it's useless for me alone as user. So I search for other users who like this app too. And if I don't find anybody than I've learned at least a few new things in app and server development.

The app is a location based messaging service. You can place a message on a specific location and other people will see it in their news feed. The messages are sorted by distance. The nearer peoples are the higher the message will be in the feed.

<comment><USER2> If you built it for fun and are now deciding you'd like to have people use it, then you'd have to go back and get the logistics of getting a user base.

Building an app is one thing. Getting people to use it is something else. So if the goal now is to get people to try it, sit down and map it out. Go out and talk to people you don't know and get their input. Strangers who are willing to give you honest feedback.

To answer an earlier question, there is no site dedicated to a particular space to get users per say. If there are, you have to be very convincing as to why they should use you and not another app.

So do your research properly if the ultimate goal is to get people to use it. Otherwise, it has to remain the fun app for just you, your family and friends.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Researchers make brains transparent for 3D view of neural networks - alok-g http://www.nature.com/news/see-through-brains-clarify-connections-1.12768

<comment> alok-g Embedded video shows transparent mouse brain at 1:36, while 2:13 shows excitatory and inhibitory synapses using fluorescent labels.</comment>


Has google acquired pdfmenot? - <AUTHOR>

A blog post about the acquisition was here: http://www.labnol.org/internet/google-buys-pdfmenot-pdf-viewer/12957/
but is now showing a 404. and http://www.pdfmenot.com now redirects to google docs.
No other mention of the story elsewhere. Is google trying to keep this one quiet?
* edit: "why is google trying..." changed to "Is google trying ..." <comment><USER2> Try this: [http://www.btobsources.com/google-quietly-acquires- pdfmenot-...](http://www.btobsources.com/google-quietly-acquires-pdfmenot-pdf- viewer/)</comment>


Stop pretending she had a chance, we all know Mayer was doomed - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stop-pretending-she-had-chance-we-all-know-mayer-sandi-macpherson <comment><USER2> Oh she was doomed alright, just like I would be doomed in the Olympic high jump.

That doesn't mean I get to blame someone else though.

</comment><comment><USER3> Getting a $150 million severance is a definition of "doomed" with which I was previously unfamiliar.</comment>


You Wouldn't Steal a Meme: The Threat from Article 13 - <AUTHOR> http://copybuzz.com/copyright/you-wouldnt-steal-a-meme-the-threat-from-article-13/ <comment><USER2> I don't what to think here, I've seen a lot of europeans online "defending" this, saying its just copyright, nothing to do with memes, but even then, why would you want this? Why is this a good idea?

And I've heard of studies that show that piracy helps products, this seems to be bad for everyone.

Site seems spotty, cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:if- HKf0...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:if- HKf0VglcJ:copybuzz.com/copyright/you-wouldnt-steal-a-meme-the-threat-from- article-13/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

<comment><USER3> This is entirely orthogonal to concern over privacy though, because it requires advance consent even for things which could be "fair use" or some equivalent, and the guidance is for the courts to file if they are pretty sure they see a violation.

<comment><USER4> Privacy or piracy?

<comment><USER3> Meant piracy. Somehow my vacation brain missed that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Of all the ways to try to motivate people to rally against this disastrous law, spinning it as "EU wants to ban memes" might have been the worst. It makes people think it's about something trivial and frivolous.

<comment><USER6> Counterpoint: memes are probably the most common constructs of complicated copyright pedigree that people encounter in their day-to-day lives. It's analogous to the government banning ice cream.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I hate how this has been associated with memes. It makes it instantly dismissable as B.S. while it's something that people should take seriously.

<comment><USER8> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452718](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452718)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder how many people running smaller non commercial sites (or SME's with < $1M a year income, or sites aiming for non-EU audiences) will just end up blocking all EU IP ranges from accessing their servers. Between the EU and China and various other governments the net could just continue to become more and more fragmented.

<comment><USER10> I'm thinking about this too. My vague understanding is that such a practice won't help. The law covers Europeans on vacation/traveling to the US. You'd basically need one of those cookie popups saying, "I solemnly swear I am not a EU citizen."

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Article is using "memes" interchangeably with "image macros" for those pedants out there like me.

<comment><USER12> I think that's a lost battle, like "hacker".

<comment><USER13> Unfortunately you're right on both counts.

<comment><USER14> I'm just happy that the news media didn't succeed in changing the term "trolling" to mean "cyberbullying" a few years ago.

 _Edit: spelling_

<comment><USER15> There's still time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd really like to know who's supporting this. And I want names.</comment>


This $1,699 "secure PC" will self-destruct if tampered with - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/secure-pc-self-destruct-data-tampered-with/ <comment><USER2> Exponential delay is a much better model than outright denial of service. Take Unix passwords: if you keep making mistakes, the prompt might start waiting _several seconds_ to give you another try but you do _eventually_ get another try.

Nothing frustrates me more than _needing_ to log in to something and having it "locked out" for a stupid typo (bonus points if I can only unlock it by _calling_ some stupid wait-20-minutes support line that is only open Monday- Friday 8-4).

</comment><comment><USER3> Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom.</comment>


The slow demise of Wikipedia Zero on the subcontinent - <AUTHOR> https://thewire.in/125172/nepals-ncell-shuts-access-wikipedia-zero/ <comment><USER2> I once had a chat with a guy who grew up in a similar place with no internet. He mentioned that given the choice between no internet and a corporate curated internet, he would have wanted the latter.

Having thought on it more, I ended up drawing a comparison to child labor. We can agree that child labor (as in the 7 days a week, 12 hours a day variant) is all sorts of bad, including limiting a child's ability to get an education. But I remember reading in the past that bans on child labor have often times ended up with children turning to even more harmful means to survive or not surviving at all.

Is defending net neutrality in all cases worth the immediate short term costs? Should we even be the ones to make that decision? Or are some exceptions reasonable, such as non-profits? Other comments here have already pointed out different ways these exceptions could be abused, but how does the damage of that abuse equate to someone who was depending upon Wikipedia Zero to gain knowledge who is now cut off?

I'm really not sure.

<comment><USER3> Maybe I am really old, or maybe there's been some huge change while I was asleep and the internet became Wikipedia. Let me see if that's the case.

Wikipedia is an amazing, near magical confluence of the best of human intentions. For no reason, other than to share and inform people collected, annotated and curated as much human knowledge as they could and placed it on a single website. This was done without a central core, almost entirely self organized. The rules were simple – anyone can edit any page. That's it. People power did the rest.

The part that _should_ amaze you isn't the collection of information, as amazing as it is.

What should amaze you is that all it took to create something that massive and that unimagined is the ability of anyone anywhere, to create something that grew into Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is not the internet. The internet is not a dictionary, or an encyclopedia, or facebook, google, amazon, ebay, or youtube or Netflix.

Those are just sites and servers. A network anyone can connect to. _That together_ is the internet.

And that's what you are sacrificing by adding middle men. That's what the NN debate is about. Inserting middle men, into the system.

There should be no doubt, in anyone's mind, that NN is more valuable than Wikipedia, and likely more valuable than the entire internet as it stands today. If all the sites were wiped out, and we had to recover – you wouldn't succeed with middle men in the way.

NN is what allows that random someone, to connect to Wikipedia in Hindi, and muck it up, and thus learn how to correct their mistake. And then to make another website, and put it up for her/his friends to see. There is a massive set of websites still to come, entire language groups underserved today, and entirely new systems and devices yet to be invented to help people come online. To your friend, I'd point out that its not the Wikipedia of today that matters. It's the new and unexpected that he will add to the internet of tomorrow, that matters. NN is the rule that keeps the middle man out of the way. Sacrificing that for Wikipedia is to declare you have no faith in a better future

<comment><USER2> >And that's what you are sacrificing by adding middle men. That's what the NN debate is about. Inserting middle men, into the system.

This makes sense, if you are talking about someone who already has some level of internet access. But consider the person who doesn't. Either they can get internet from a middle man, or they can't get internet. To that person, Wikipedia using a middle man is definitely more valuable than NN.

Perhaps if NN is so valuable that we should protect it, then we should protect it by competing and offering a free internet with no middle man instead of using government regulation to ban the middle man. Offer the end user a better choice. If it isn't worth the price it would cost us to do it... then NN might not be that valuable.

<comment><USER3> I'm surprised you focused only on that point and followed it up with "Wikipedia with middle men is more valuable than NN"

My whole point is that the internet is much, much more than Wikipedia.

Giving that up is simply a bad choice.

\----

As for your point on govt regulation. -

Telecom is a textbook example of an industry which has barriers to entry and a tendency towards monopoly. You have to have regulation to compensate for the inherent structural issues of the market.

Secondly there are free versions of the net being offered and discussed, Mozilla has one, which conform to NN.

But The middle men still want NN broken so that they can seek rents.

This results in the old cable tv model, which is exactly the kind of poor system the internet iterates over.

I keep being surprised by how people bring these incorrect and inappropriate analogies to this discussion (free market, choice).

I feel now, that it's free market-ism which causes this problem - a belief that by allowing the market and firms to figure it out, there will be some better outcome.

Which is so odd to hear from Americans given The history of every telecom auction, the promised roll out of fiber, the tax breaks and many more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _There is a fundamental difference between a not-for-profit > organisation...vs a for profit corporation_

I'd like to petition my not-for-profit political action committee be zero rated on the Indian subcontinent. Less ridiculously, we have "alt fact" encyclopedias like the "Conservapedia" [1]. Should that be zero rated?

[1] [http://www.conservapedia.com/Main%5FPage](http://www.conservapedia.com/Main%5FPage)

</comment><comment><USER5> I feel like this is a slippery slope. As with all neutrality, net neutrality means that for good or bad you can't prefer some traffic. Any zero-rated service is not neutral. You can't block Facebook from being zero rated but allow Wikipedia.

<comment><USER6> Wikipedia is a non-profit and is thus distinctly different from Facebook. Non- profit organization enjoy many benefits like better taxes, but it's not seen as a slippery slope risk. The distinct line between for-profit and non-profit allows for some inequalities between organizations.

You can give tax exemptions to Wikipedia but not Facebook. Why then not also zero rate Wikipedia but not Facebook?

<comment><USER7> > Wikipedia is a non-profit and is thus distinctly different from Facebook.

At an operational level they're not much different; both rely on generation of revenue to cover costs and to compensate their permanent staff, and both can make profits which can be reinvested in the organisation or distributed as dividends or spent on 'stuff'.

Essentially the only operational difference is that all of the non-profit's untaxed profits must originate from activities aligned with their primary stated function, whereas Facebook is free to earn from other unrelated business activities.

Furthermore the officers of a non-profit can't dip into the profits for self- enrichment since the profits belong to the organisation ( hence untaxed ), but since they extract their remuneration upstream of the profits that's not a major issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> To point out some thing, internet (and lot of telecom) is mostly limited to the cities, mainly the capital Kathmandu.

Secondly, there are fibers going through different parts of the country [0] but the country itself doesn't have much access to it. (Don't ask me, some politics are beyond me.Something to do with India and China both wanting to be the one influencing the region).

Third, Nepal Telecom used to be run by the Nepal government so they inherited all the legacy hardwares but hasn't upgraded it too much. Ncell owns a lot of the cellular infrastructure.[1] They probably feel like their customers can afford this data or they want other companies to bare the costs (im guessing). The article points to information from this other site [2] which seems inaccurate. For example, world link [3] is one of the better internet service provider and one of the first to provide cable internet. (I use to have a blazing 64kbps adsl unlimited line that worked from 9 pm to 6 am. Ah, good days). worldlink used to even have a server for youtube and some other google stuff. But I guess wikipedia was trying to make the data free for mobile i'm guessing?

tl;dr I don't blame Ncell if its only on them to provide free service.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>-

[0] [http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/busin...](http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/business/china- links-nepal-with-optical-fibre-to-end-india- dependence/articleshow/52706038.cms)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ncell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ncell)

[2] [http://www.ktm2day.com/2015/02/20/internet-access-reaches- to...](http://www.ktm2day.com/2015/02/20/internet-access-reaches-to-one-third- population-in-nepal/)

[3] [https://www.worldlink.com.np/](https://www.worldlink.com.np/)

</comment><comment><USER9> The downside of net neutrality I guess. You can't do something 'nice' as it violates the regulation, but ultimately if we let 'nice' things slide constantly then NN would just die out. Everyone would find an excuse for their own 'niceness.' T-mobile's music streaming exception is the most obvious one in the states.

I don't see why non-profit status would be an exception. I can start a non- profit version of my service and still pay myself a handsome salary, perhaps more due to all the money saved by being a zero service. Facebook can just spin off a Facebook Foundation or somesuch and get around these rules. The abuse would be endless.

</comment><comment><USER10> The wire.in is a dangerous website which consistently promotes companies and policies from other countries without understanding the nuance of the subcontinent. It is high time, media magazines write down detailed information about the executives of such organization, how they (capital fund and revenue source of the organization) make money and why their articles will have a bias or not.

<comment><USER11> if you are a human, you are biased full stop.

why you consider a news site dangerous is beyond me. consider this: in the west, saying that a news site is dangerous is dangerous.

<comment><USER12> In this part of Asia, "dangerous" is code for "troublemaker", i.e. anyone who tries to challenge the state-sanctioned message. I think it's a sino-ism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Misleading title, access has not been shut off at all.

What has changed, is a provider decided not to participate in giving away their services for free, which they should be free to do. FUD

Now we're feeling entitled to have someone deliver wireless content for free, or we throw a fit?

</comment><comment><USER14> Nepal likes to follow what India tells them to do. I'm not surprised. But there is nepal telecom which hopefully has still kept it free? Ncell is generally considered bad because they charge extra cost and has bad network.

</comment><comment><USER12> Some background:

Ncell is the company that was created by Swedish/Finnish telecom company TeliaSonera. They made a lot of PR buzz about bringing connectivity to Himalaya etc.

They exited Tibet last year and sold the subsidiary to a Malaysian company.

<comment><USER15> > They exited Tibet last year and sold the subsidiary to a Malaysian company.

I believe they exited Nepal, not Tibet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> They didn't shut access, it says you can still access it but you have to pay.

Obviously still really bad, but the title isn't correct.

<comment><USER17> Wikipedia Zero is the free service which was shut down.

<comment><USER18> There is no service that was shut down, the telecom company in question is now charging for traffic going to Wikimedia Foundation domains where before they did not.

Edit to clarify: "Wikipedia Zero" is an initiative by the WMF to get telecom providers to allow their customers to access WMF projects without incurring data usage fees. If your telecom provider participates, you don't have to do anything special or different to access "free Wikipedia", you just go to the normal mobile Wikipedia page and you don't get charged for the data.</comment></comment></comment>


100  Books: The Essential Man's Library - <AUTHOR> http://artofmanliness.com/2008/05/14/100-must-read-books-the-essential-mans-library/ <comment><USER2> A better title might have been "Essential Books Mostly from the 20th Century". Which is good and well, but there's thousands of years of great literature to draw from.

And I've read far too little of it.

As for Shakespeare, I prefer _Henry IV_ and _King Lear_.

Edit: Three books about Theodore Roosevelt? He was Norris-like, but history furnishes a great many awesome badasses. I quite admire Gaius Julius Caesar personally.

</comment><comment><USER3> I find F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby's placement on the list appropriate and Plato's to be suitably ironic. Gatsby had a library of uncut (i.e. never opened) books and Plato argued against placing too much importance on books themselves versus actually attaining knowledge.</comment>


Just Finish Everything - <AUTHOR> http://statspotting.com/2012/12/just-finish-everything/

<comment><USER2> "if you are less than 40 and aren't working at least 15-18 hours a day you are not working enough" I find this to be very bad advise. Nobody should work 18 hrs every day.

<comment><USER3> What I have learned from individual athletic competition is that the person who wins is usually the person who is willing to sacrifice the most in order to win - free time, hobbies, family and social relationships, health. I think that's probably true for anything. This is only possible for something that is a deeply held passion.

At the same time, by making an inviolable commitment to myself that I was going to enter a certain competition, and accepting as a given that I would be making certain sacrifices in my social and personal life from the training effort required, it made that commitment into something that I just did, without thinking about whether it was something I wanted to do at that moment. And removing that decision, that "do I really want to do this chore?", it's possible to have the consistency of effort necessary for performance at an elite level.

So I think it's valuable advice, to say start small, attempt surmountable obstacles, and develop the habit of consistent practice. And I think it's valuable to let people know that if they have an ambition to be an "iconic computer person", they will have to make large sacrifices.

I know that I'm not willing to sacrifice everything else in my life for programming. And I'm alright with that. But I don't criticize the people who have the drive to spend 15-18 on their passion. It's certainly not advice that's widely applicable, though.

<comment><USER4> "Working hard and more than your peers" is shown by many great people as the keys for their success. For example, the German singer Dieter Bohlen of Modern Talking, in his classical first book (best-seller) says also that, his secret for success is, working when others are not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I decided, 6 years, ago, that to succeed in my field, above everyone else, it would be necessary work 4x harder to get 2x ahead (not "work 4x more" - "work 4x harder"). That's what I told myself. And I think this is the case in most lines of work. If you want to get ahead, you have to work _a great deal_ harder than everyone else around you. Unless you happen to be exceptionally gifted and able to accomplish more than anyone else simply by showing up, it means that you really have to bust your ass continuously.

Generally this strategy and form of motivation has worked. I may not be the best at anything I'm doing, but I have accomplished a lot.

<comment><USER6> The research in "So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport factors into this observation.

If we want to get ahead in a field, we have to seek out the _hard_ problems, those that put us great mental strain to tease apart and comprehend. This might not require 80 hours of effort a month, but even 20 hours of such deep effort will feel like 80.

In other words, we have to do the weight-lifting equivalent of several reps every day that go just beyond our weight limit. Many others exhaust themselves on a hundred reps of a comfortable weight, but that will never increase their strength.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've observed a correlation between people who say things like "I could do X if I wanted to", motivation problems, and confusion about free will. I'm glad he calls that phrase out as crap. Unfortunately:

> If you aren't 10x smarter than everyone now, how will you compete in 10-20 > years? Imagine the math, physics, computer science, nanotech, biotech, etc. > that will be common then — thus, you better get crackin! ... if you are less > than 40 and aren't working at least 15-18 hours a day you are not working > enough, you simply can't compete with the best in the world unless you are > willing to throttle it that much

is also crap. (I think it's obviously so.) Some ways in which it's crap, without really elaborating further: you don't need to compete with the best, the best work smarter not harder, the best aren't necessarily working on problems where competition is needed for financial success, there are more domains to work in than those mentioned plus at least math and CS (I lack experience to say the same about the others) have so many branches either unexplored or lightly tread that you can pretty easily get into a niche without competition, the fundamentals in CS 20 years ago aren't that different from now, the Singularity might happen in 20 years and make all your effort moot (unless you're working on making the Singularity happen!), humanity's progress might stall for the next 20 years, it might grow linearly instead of the usual exponentially, even with exponential growth it may not look radically different under the surface anyway, what does "10x smarter" even mean, why not recommend the Uberman sleeping schedule that gives 22 hours of conscious work a day?

Here's a quote from the late Erik Naggum (from [http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3141310154691952@naggum....](http://email@example.com)):

> ... if you think in terms of the imminent end of the world, _everything_ is > soon food for the great garbage collector in the sky and whoever is not > scrambling in panic looks like they aren't moving and have been passed by or > are dying.

> the problem I see is not that Bill Gates has shaped the world of useless > trinkets in software, but has also managed to spread his competitiveness and > his personal fear of losing to imaginary competitors to businesses and homes > everywhere, so now everybody is _afraid_ of losing some battle which isn't > happening, instead of getting about their own lives. like, if you aren't > using today's fad language in the very latest version of the IDE, you'll be > left behind. aaaugh! but it's good that some people run like they are scared > out of their wits. if they suddenly disappear over the edge of a cliff, a > good number of people will notice in time and _not_ follow them. those are > the ones that matter.

It's amusing to me that the author has replaced the fear of not being able to finish with the fear of losing. Fear is the mindkiller.

</comment><comment><USER8> No no no. This is unkind.

'Finish everything.' Everything? No way. Abandon stuff which is unfruitful or superseded or published. Just don't abandon stuff lightly: have a good explanation why (which is not a personal excuse).

Make progress with things that have meaning to you. Go slowly and keep returning to them. This is the fastest way. Don't force yourself to work when you're sick or bored or have other commitments. Your mind would not be engaged anyway.

Two more points. Valuable works are never truly finished. They are abandoned. Things can always be improved!

Also, don't worry about being competitive. Life is not a competition. There's infinite room for everyone to form a niche. Read up on _comparative advantage_.

Competition engenders a false sense of lack and zero-sumness which causes much harm to the world. It fosters greed.

</comment><comment><USER9> I didn't finish to read this article

</comment><comment><USER10> Excellent advice - of course everyone is sifting it through their own personal lences hence everyone perceives this advice differently.

Rather then debate the merits of working long hours, what I really liked is this

>> Lack of motivation fundamentally comes from fear — you are afraid to do things since you don't think you can do them internally — which is 99% true.

I think that using this as starting point everyone shall ask thyself what projects has he started but not finished/abandoned and why - and look into the mirror...

</comment><comment><USER11> Finishing something is definitely a huge competitive advantage. Anyone can have an idea and start a project. Only some are able to finish them.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is stupid. Perseverance ≠ finishing everything. Not every project is worthy of being finished.

</comment><comment><USER13> Oh, the grammar...it hurts...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, fixed where we could, except the actual quote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is horrible. Flagging it</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best language for learning to build an Android app? - <AUTHOR>

I want to get in the app business, for androids but have no idea on which coding language to learn. What is the best one to use/easiest? <comment><USER2> Another vote for Java, because when learning to build an Android app, you'll be searching for answers on stackoverflow every 15 minutes, and it's easier to use the language everyone else is using.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'll also say Java - Scala's possible, but slow and fiddly (last time I tried it, you had to tree-shake the app using Proguard because the Scala stdlib has a real hard time fitting into Dalvik's hardcoded limitations of 65K ish symbols).

Kotlin is a doddle to get working, but it's alpha as hell, so only use for experiments.

</comment><comment><USER4> Those are very different questions. Do you already know a language? Is it Java (the closest thing to "native" Android seems to have)? If not, is it Java- like, or is the toolchain available for Android (e.g. Python)?

I don't think there's an easy, one-size-fits-all answer to this question.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't know any languages, was learning html5 a bit but i just wanted to know which would be the best option for an android app

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You could go down the path most traveled and learn Java - this is preferred, because the Android developer site has all its documentation in Java. However, if you're averse to Java, you can also use C# (xamarin.com)

</comment><comment><USER6> Java or C# / Xamarin if you don't mind a small investment. Personally I prefer C# / Xamarin. If you're a student, contact their pre-sales, they'll give you a nice discount.

</comment><comment><USER7> Learn Java 6 (not 7!) and optionally C++/C if you're going to be doing something computationally expensive that you wouldn't want to run in the Dalvik VM.

</comment><comment><USER8> Can someone suggest a good online course or set of tutorials for learning to build Android apps?

<comment><USER9> I would use Google's online tutorial, with one caveat: The section on the use of Fragment for scale-able UI assumes you want to use the Support Library for back-compatibility. This creates some complications and it is perfectly valid to choose not to support Android 2.3 at this point.

The Support Library has two purposes: To provide back compatibility for classes like Fragment that are not supported in Android 2.3 and earlier, and to provide new classes that are not part of any Android release yet.

Especially for a beginner, you will have an easier time with Action Bar and Fragment if you are not using the Support Library.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> While some other JVM languages are usable at an experimental level with Android, the only realistic choice for a complete beginner is Java.

Since you say you don't know any language yet, you should start with a very basic book on Java, like Head First Java. Then you should get a more- comprehensive book like Thinking In Java to refer to as you start your first project.

While there are some good Android-specific beginner's books, I would start with the online tutorial and see how far that takes you. By that time the 2nd edition of Learning Android will be out.</comment>


Ask HN: Cool YouTube channels to follow? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN,<p>What are you guys watching on Youtube? I figure there have to be some gems amongst all the try-on videos. Thanks a ton! <comment><USER2> I am enjoying funfunfunction. [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO1cgjhGzsSYb1rsB4bFe4Q](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO1cgjhGzsSYb1rsB4bFe4Q) by Mattias Petter Johansson [https://twitter.com/mpjme](https://twitter.com/mpjme)

</comment><comment><USER3> Applied Science: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCivA7_KLKWo43tFcCkFvydw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCivA7_KLKWo43tFcCkFvydw)

Passionately home-cooked DIY science projects.

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://www.youtube.com/user/KiyoPhotography/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/KiyoPhotography/videos)

</comment><comment><USER5> This one always gets me ready for the day

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)

</comment><comment><USER6> [https://www.youtube.com/user/CrazyRussianHacker](https://www.youtube.com/user/CrazyRussianHacker)</comment>


Ask HN: Who Is Hiring Remote Workers? (January 2011 Edition) - <AUTHOR> Similar to the "Who is Hiring" thread but, please remote positions only. <comment><USER2> Anywhere, but ideally Europe - Remote iOS/Android Senior Developer

We are a mobile app development studio with a very good reputation in London. <http://www.fiplab.com/press.html>

Our in-house apps are adding 1 million+ new users per month.

Salary + stock options.

Email: hello [at] fiplab . [com]

</comment><comment><USER3> MetaOptimize hacks large data using machine learning, natural language processing, and visualization. Check out our ML+NLP Q+A forum: <http://metaoptimize.com/qa/>

I am, in particular, interested in the following three profiles:

* You have a strong background in applied _machine learning_ or statistical analysis.

* or, You have a strong background in _data visualization_.

* or, You are a fast hacker, and can deliver bug-free _Python_ code very quickly.

If you don't fit one of these three profiles, but you kick ass, feel free to email me anyway.

The main quality I am looking for is that I can give you an underspecified problem, and you can run with it. If you have analysis paralysis and want to email me back and forth many times before you can make a decision, this is the wrong job for you.

Please email me at joseph at metaoptimize dot com.

<comment><USER4> Has anyone received a reply yet?

<comment><USER5> Nope, FWIW

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We're looking for python-specific skills at the moment, ideally with crawler and scaling experience.

We have some developers in the UK, but most of our guys are in Russia. The Russian guys have proved to be very very capable. We did not outsource to a company, but found people via forums and then recruited individually (initially) and then grew the team using the initial guys help.

<comment><USER7> very true. Hopefully I'm not just being bigoted because I am Russian, but I have worked with Russian speaking guys (Ukraine is great also) and I have to say that they care about the product quality. They often pushed back on my feature requests and forced me to discuss them until they were convinced the feature would be good. They want to make apps THEY want to use. At least, get the ones that DO that.

<comment><USER6> Yes, definitely. They don't just work as employees and they suggest new ideas, new ways of working that over the years have been hugely beneficial (with hindsight). I'd just like to also say that I gave some of the primary guys a revenue share in some of our products (such as SourceGuardian) and that was a way to say "thank you". The legal and taxation complexity of share ownership was going to be too difficult, so we have run with revenue share and it works well

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> deviantART!

We're looking for senior (team-lead) and regular developers. It's a PHP job, and we exclusively hire remote workers. We have about 16 developers at the moment, but we're expanding because we have a lot of projects on the back burner that we'd like to get started on. We won't be hiring you for any specific project; rather we'll be picking projects from the backlog once we have a sense for your strengths.

We only hire people who can do everything. You have to be able to write backend PHP code, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, and SQL. We don't want to have people employed who we can't just point at any problem that comes up. People do tend to find their own niche, admittedly, and we're fine with you being _better_ at some things than others.

...unless you're a great search developer, in which case we'll hire you anyway and lock you in a small room where you will never do anything but improve our search. <3 <3 <3

I will warn you that, no matter how awesome you are, everyone we hire spends their first 90 days in the small-projects and bugfixes silo. We think that it's a great way to make sure that everyone knows the codebase, which is large and sprawling. After that point we start moving people onto project teams.

That codebase? It's 10 years old and written in PHP. This implies certain things. It predates proper object support in PHP, and almost every PHP framework. So we're running an in-house framework. Understand that you will have to deal with varying eras of code. Also understand that you may have to hold your nose and just fix a bug in an old component without taking the time to rewrite it to modern standards. :)

<http://deviantart.theresumator.com/apply>

<comment><USER9> Come on, you guys advertise this job post every month on HN. Hard to believe you haven't found the right candidate(s) yet...

<comment><USER10> Looks like they want to have only the best candidate, but for maintaining a horrible codebase. Obviously a position that's hard to fill.

<comment><USER8> I'm exaggerating the horribleness of the codebase for effect. Lots of it is in good shape, and we've been working on incremental rewrites to fix up the worst legacy spots. There are certainly bad bits, but they're also _working_ bad bits, whose badness largely comes from being hard to bend to new use-cases.

However! I see a lot of developers who would have a hard time fixing a bug / making a small change in an area which has a lot of legacy cruft present without going and rewriting the whole thing. Now, they are _right_ that rewriting it is probably the best course of action from a codebase-health viewpoint... but it's not necessarily the actual best use of their time. If code is working then it's not an urgent priority that it get rewritten.

To be slightly trite, "perfect is the enemy of good."

That's why we'd like to get developers who are okay with the idea of working on a codebase that contains legacy code. And that's why I'm a little bit over the top about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The entire Brightbox team work remotely. UK company but hire from anywhere in the world. Ongoing job opportunities here: <http://www.brightbox.co.uk/about/jobs>

Currently specifically looking for top systems engineers who can help build new cloud services, as per: <http://beta.brightbox.com/>

</comment><comment><USER12> Automattic, company behind Akismet, Gravatar, WordPress.com, Polldaddy, now has 72 Automatticians across 17 states and 21 countries. We have an office in pier 38 in SF, but only about 6 of us are in the area. We're completely location agnostic.

Must love open source, and preferably use WordPress or one of our products already. The vast majority of our codebase is PHP/MySQL, with smatterings of Erlang and Java for our XMPP and search stuff, and we serve billions of requests a day across our services.

We have a number of positions open, but the code and systems wrangler ones are probably most interesting to the HN audience. Let us know you found the job here.

<http://automattic.com/jobs/>

</comment><comment><USER13> Intridea is looking for someone to run one of our flagship products which is in the process of becoming a standalone company. You need to have a mix of technical and business experience, be self-motivated, and have a TON of drive and vision. We need someone who will essentially be the CEO of this product. Send your resume to email@example.com if you're interested.

</comment><comment><USER14> We're hiring Java wizards to work on the core of Tropo. <http://tropo.com/>

We're a distributed team (China, London, Orlando, Philly, Phoenix, and Bay Area) so we're adept at working remotely.

Somewhere in the Bay Area preferred, but we'd also love to talk to you if you're located near any other large US city or technology hub (Seattle, Boulder, Austin, Chicago, Boston, NYC, Philly, etc).

Job description at [http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobDetails.aspx?...](http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobDetails.aspx?IPath=QAKV&ff=21&APath=22.214.171.124.0&job_did=J8B4H86NQZTHRD18DWV)

<comment><USER15> Why the preferential treatment of folks from large cities and "technology hubs"? Seems to miss the point.

<comment><USER16> It may sound unfair but in the USA broadband is not so good if you are not around major city hubs..which them being virtual might be their concern

<comment><USER17> I live in a US town of ~6k people, and currently get 6Mbps on the lowest tier plan available (50 Mbs is readily available, just a bit pricey for personal use).

I don't buy this argument at all, as there are metro areas that will have worse connectivity than some rural areas within the US.

I also wonder what the real reason is.

<comment><USER18> I live outside a town of 750 and have fiber to my freaking house.

<comment><USER19> I live in an area with approx. 370,000 people and my only ISP choice is Comcast. Verizon will not provide FioS here or DSL, and the wireless ISP in our area says my neighbor's tree is too large and blocks LoS to their tower.

<comment><USER18> That really sucks. We moved to this little town mostly because we could get acreage and decent connectivity.

<comment><USER19> Care to recommend any areas with acreage and good broadband?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> We're hiring a part time (up to 20hr/wk), remote web application developer to support a BPM project for one of our clients, a high technology manufacturing firm in Sunnyvale, CA. The platform is Intalio BPMS (<http://intalio.com>) and skillsets required include building AJAX user interfaces (we are using Tibco GI), web service implementation and testing (XSLT, Xpath, SoapUI), MySQL, Tomcat. Small team, good rate, interesting technology. Contact: email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER21> Canonical has a number of remote positions open: <http://webapps.ubuntu.com/employment/>

<comment><USER22> I am curious about learning what it is like to work for Canonical. eg, Linking to some blogs of people already on the team would help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Blue Gecko (a remote DBA services company) is looking for intermediate to expert MySQL or PostgreSQL DBAs. Although our headquarters is in Seattle, many of our DBAs work at home full time, and our corporate culture is configured to accommodate remote workers. Since we operate 24/7 we need folks in every timezone.

Drop me a line if you're interested, my email address is in my profile.

<comment><USER24> I am not able to see your email in the profile. Can you please update it?

<comment><USER23> Fixed. Apparently only the 'about' section of your profile is publicly available, while the 'email' section is not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Any sysadmin/ops positions? Er, *nix that is. I know next to nothing about windows these days.

<comment><USER25> NearlyFreeSpeech has a current posting for a FreeBSD admin: <https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/work>

Seems they _always_ have such a posting, so I don't know if it's just not a current page or they have high turnover of admins.

That said, I'd also be interested in seeing other remote UNIX admin job postings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hiring C++ developers with expertise in robotic simulation and control and/or machine vision. <http://www.energid.com/contact.htm>

</comment><comment><USER27> We are looking for guys and gals who can help us hack together Mathematica graphics for an interactive calculus textbook. We are currently in talks with an established publisher to partner with, and Wolfram is trying their best to make this happen.

It doesn't matter how young/old you are, where you live, or what college you went to. All we care about is whether you can deliver the Mathematica code we need to make this happen.

If want to help us revolutionize the textbook industry, please go to the elance page for this project, <http://bit.ly/eUTmb8>, and apply.

If you have any question about the project and the place you could play it, please email me personally at firstname.lastname@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm looking for a designer, and a UX person (hopefully one and the same) that can help build out a mobile / web application in the healthcare space.

We are hq'd in Omaha, Nebraska, but are open to talent being anywhere.

If you are interested, email matt nimblelogic com with a subject of PV.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm looking for a strong front-end developer (HTML/CSS/JS) for a 40/hr week contract position for three months with competitive pay.

<comment><USER30> <http://shafiq.in/resume>

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> AppShopper.com is looking for a full time PHP/MySQL developer (Remote employees welcome). It will cover both backend/frontend maintenance as well as new features. We are a very popular App Store index and price tracker and are growing in popularity with both the website and our iPhone App. We are trying to take it to the next level, and require additional developer resources. We're bootstrapped and profitable.

AppShopper is part of a small family of websites including MacRumors.com and TouchArcade.com. If you are interested, please contact me at email@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER32> Hiring remote PHP/CodeIgniter freelance/contracter for a new SaaS project, month or two, three of work, part or fulltime. Contact me & show me some Codeigniter code/project you did.

</comment><comment><USER33> Anything out there for C#/Asp.net/MVC?

</comment><comment><USER34> We're looking for a longer term contract relationship with a developer who has significant development experience in PHP/MySQL/CSS and Javascript. Specifically, we want an individual who has done a lot with shopping carts and inventory management, and also comfortable with front and back-end design. We have a fairly complicated process that is constantly changing and therefore the codebase needs to be flexible as we are a new business (04/2010) and still working out the kinks.

The code has gone through a couple iterations with varying enhancements, but we ultimately want to deal with an individual or small team that we can get timely responses and changes from (we are located in Texas).

If you are interested, go to this form and leave your name and an email we can contact you at.

<http://bit.ly/gX4BfF>

<comment><USER35> FYI, that link goes to your Google Apps login page. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Hiring PHP/Wordpress skills for a small contract job

</comment><comment><USER7> I am hiring remote workers who know Javascript and jQuery extremely well. They would have to do jQuery, jQuery Mobile and Node.js .

<http://magarshak.com/contact>

</comment><comment><USER37> I am hiring remote programmers with advanced programming skills in Java, Ruby, Javascript and jQuery.

<http://www.e-ui.com/who-we-are/careers/>

<comment><USER38> Your form asks for a US-only format for the phone number.

<comment><USER37> Thanks for informing me, I fixed it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is the second post from myself in this thread. The reason I've separated it though is that we are looking for coders for a client who we're involved with on a percentage-share basis. They are looking for people to work on a telecoms/web project and are looking primarily for PHP skills (I know, I know). Normally we're using Python for our own projects, but PHP is required as there is existing code. If you're interested, drop me a line

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm a bit late to this game, but if you're looking to pick up a couple extra hours a week, and you know ruby, rails, javascript and css, I'd love to hear from you.

I need some help on a couple side projects that are taking up too much time. My email is in my profile. Send me some info and your rate. Your location irrelevant, but I'm based in SF.

</comment><comment><USER40> Bandzoogle.com is hiring a full time Rails developer. We build tools that help bands succeed online. Unlike many music industry startups we're stable (launched in 2003), profitable, and growing fast.

More details and to apply: <http://jobs.37signals.com/jobs/8006>

</comment><comment><USER41> Please mention if you're interested in hiring a remote intern.

<comment><USER42> It's often difficult to hire a remote intern as so much of the benefit from both parties comes from working alongside the other. That's hard to replicate remotely, and you often (but not always) end up as nothing more than less expensive labor.

<comment><USER43> As someone who worked as a remote intern one summer, I'd be interested in hearing why you think that.

It helped that the company had a very Campfire-heavy culture, but I don't think the experience would have been too much better for either side if I had been onsite.

<comment><USER44> I have been also a intern a remote intern and was a complete success, I also participated two times in Google Summer of Code and I learn tons of things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Anyone looking for marcomm (marketing) or technical writers?

</comment><comment><USER46> Hiring PHP/Zend for contract / freelance work

<comment><USER47> Details?

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Is anyone looking for Erlang developer?

</comment><comment><USER49> I hope you seriously meant 2011 lol

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, updated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Is anyone looking for a part time Perl programmer?

</comment><comment><USER51> I am looking for a PHP developer who has previously written at least one WordPress plugin. Contact information in profile.

</comment><comment><USER52> You'll find a bunch of remote hiring folks at outsourcing websites.</comment>


Allthenticate - <AUTHOR> https://www.allthenticate.net/ <comment><AUTHOR> I thought these guys were a lastpass/august competitor, but they are so much more! Plans to replace all authentication and authorization with your phone! I saw a user had his phone connecting to his car, the door to his office, and then log him in to his laptop. Very cool, indeed!</comment>


Ask HN: New project – go with www.projectname.com or just projectname.com - <AUTHOR>

What do you guys think? Does it matter? Companies seem to handle it about 50% this way and 50% that way:

    twitter.com
    www.airbnb.com
    balsamiq.com
    www.reddit.com
    jsfiddle.net
    ...
 <comment><USER2> I generally go without the www personally.

There is no SEO difference that I am aware of as long as you do proper redirects. One person pointed out to me that with a naked domain you lose the ability to scope cookies to the www hostname. But does that really matter? Doesn't to me, at least yet.

In the past, I know some DNS providers had issues with naked domains and redirects, so that may come into play if you have one of those providers. By now though, I would think they all support it properly.

</comment><comment><USER3> The only important part (in terms of SEO) is that you pick one and stick with it. Setup a 301 redirect from the other one. Google interprets the www as different sub domains, and therefore different domains. (Search for "one way street" SEO theory -- top level domain can pass juice down, but not vice versa. That's why places like hubspot don't suffer from spammy subdomains)

</comment><comment><USER4> There are two advantages to using www.* for a main web site.

1\. As luaks points out, you can use a CNAME to alias just the webserver, without affecting MX configuration, etc.

2\. You can have use alternate subdomains (like static.example.com or cdn.example.com) for handling static content and prevent cookies from being sent with those HTTP requests. This is a slight performance gain.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good summary. I tended to go without the www. Now I'm not so sure anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For a new project it will probably not matter at all. The thing with www though is, that you can use CNAMEs for aliasing on the DNS level. Technically you can use CNAMEs on domain root to alias the whole domain to another one, thus leading to you not being able to add other records (for example MX) to this domain, which you probably want to do.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hm, I like subdomains more than url stubs. I like more 'atmosx.github.com' than 'github.com/atmosx'. So I like having mail.domain.com, www.domain.com, ftp.domain.com, shop.domain.com, blog.domain.com, etc.

But I don't think it's such a big deal. Especially if you're not planning to use all these subdomains... Then [http://domain.com](http://domain.com) is more than fine, as long as you setup a rdr.

</comment><comment><USER7> I say without the www looks more appealing.

The www was included for a time when browsers were not the primary way people used the internet, and so you needed to specify www the way you specify, say, ftp. Nowadays everyone assumes something.com means port 80.

As long as you redirect www to @ you should be fine for SEO, right?

<comment><USER8> The protocol was never inferred from the hostname. The reason web servers were called "www" is that they were first introduced on institutional IP networks among other servers and workstations. www was typically an alias for one of the multi-purpose servers, as ftp or smtp were.

<comment><USER7> I meant that humans inferred the protocol from the hostname, and that now most people by default just thinks of a host as a url to put into a browser.

<comment><USER8> Ok, but remember that URL syntax was invented with the web. Before the URL existed it was conventional to write "available via FTP from quiz.baz.com" (or "via gopher" or whatever.) In the pre-"eternal september" days people were happy to use that formula even though it was a bit long-winded. I can't figure out a way to check for exceptions to that rule but it was the prevalent form of words.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's slightly more convenient to use www for the reasons luaks points out, but it's more about what you prefer.

For SEO just ensure you do 301 redirects from your non-preferred one to your preferred one (same goes with HTTP and HTTPS if that is a factor for you).

</comment><comment><USER10> Check out [http://www.yes-www.org/why-use-www/](http://www.yes-www.org/why- use-www/) if you're not aware of it already. I agree with all the points raised there and would use www myself.</comment>


Apple follows AT&T, drops official US iPhone 3GS price to $49 - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/01/10/apple_follows_att_drops_official_us_iphone_3gs_price_to_49.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I posted this because I'm curious to see how the "Android will win because there will be a race to the bottom" crowd responds to it.

$49 is still a lot of money for some people but those people generally won't buy smartphones (if $49 is a lot to you than you probably aren't going to be able to pay it monthly for a data plan). So even if free Android phones flood the market I don't see it making much of a difference.

<comment><USER2> It is a model that was released 18 months ago, already has a newer version available, and will have yet another newer version available in ~six months time...

You can't expect prices of old iPhones to stay high permanently.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you generate leads for B2B SaaS company? - <AUTHOR> Can you share some of your actionable items to generate leads for B2B SaaS product? The product is a technical recruitment software? I am not sure about cost per lead for US demographics. <comment><AUTHOR> Hi Everyone, need some advice no upvote :/</comment>


Compiling a Lazy Language in 1,000 words - <AUTHOR> http://jozefg.bitbucket.org/posts/2015-05-19-compiling.html <comment><USER2> I think I must have overlooked this site before. How could I live without it? I love this hands-on compiler stuff and purity / laziness / type inference is what I'm exploring right now (even if Haskell is not my language of choice).

The compiler fledgeling I work on only knows Booleans & complex numbers and still manages type inference without unification. But then, it's not a full language, just a better numeric calculator. These articles are welcome input for coming up with improvements & extensions...

<comment><USER3> I'm glad you're enjoying it :)

Be careful with writing that compiler, I decided to add a type system to my hobby language a while back and now I'm doing research in type theory. It's a slippery slope.

<comment><USER2> I'm quite interested in type theory, I just don't understand it well enough yet. The next (major) goal for my calculator is to produce native code via LLVM. Maybe integrating LLVM will help me find an IL that supports inlining... — my head is full with fun ideas :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ah, so it's all just thinks and memoisation? Seems so simple now.

<comment><USER4> *thunks

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So weird, I just opened [http://jozefg.bitbucket.org/posts/2014-10-17-quotients.html](http://jozefg.bitbucket.org/posts/2014-10-17-quotients.html) 1 minute ago.</comment>


Go-trigger - go-down https://github.com/sadlil/go-trigger <comment><AUTHOR> Neat idea, thanks for posting this!

I readily admit I'm absolutely guilty of implementing this sort pattern repeatedly across many go apps, and haven't ever [yet] gotten to making a generic implementation :)

Some interesting notes (with a few curiosities):

* This reminds me a lot of how jinzhu implemented the gorm [0] callbacks system.

* The triggering is all global rather than per-instance (you can't create a new "trigger" struct). I wonder why this pattern was selected rather than allowing more fine-grained control and groups via instances.

* Looking at the open PRs, #1 [1] was a surprise:

        Adding multiple listeners to one event enhancement

Does go-trigger really not support multiple subscribers to an event? I wonder why it wasn't architected that way from the start.

[0] [https://github.com/jinzhu/gorm](https://github.com/jinzhu/gorm)

[1] [https://github.com/sadlil/go- trigger/pull/1](https://github.com/sadlil/go-trigger/pull/1)

<comment> go-down Points noted. The idea was to keep this thing completely simple. Per instance struct gives a complexity to carried out the instance when it is needed. so by using global this kept simple. same goes for the "Adding multiple listeners to one event enhancement". multiple listener means multiple call params. the authors couldn't desided how this will be handled. hope those features will be added real soon.</comment></comment>