Very impressive CSS3 demo: CSS3 Planetarium - <AUTHOR> http://hacks.mozilla.org/2011/03/css3-planetarium/ <comment><USER2> And here's what it looks like in IE9: <http://twitpic.com/4a3kyw/full>

<comment><USER3> Also doesn't work in FF 3.6 or Opera 11...

<comment><USER4> They weren't just released yesterday...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That is really awesome - but one thing (which is just an observation, not a complaint) I've noticed with all the CSS3 super-cool demos like this is that everything is very "linear". All the animation stuff happens in straight lines or repeating patterns (of circles, in the demo) which gives the page a certain feel.

I wonder if it's the start of an effect that will eventually be used to carbon-date websites... "Ah look at this specimen - table based layout, and JavaScript littered with variable names beginning with "mm_" from the late Dreamweaver era. Oooh, now look here... completely linear animations... my guess is it's early 2011! And in such condition!"

<comment><USER6> That's interesting... I don't know if it's possible to animate directly on a bezier curve, though that'd be an extremely-useful thing to be able to do.

It looks like all the animatable properties just have ease-in / out timing, and go from A to B. Given that, the best you could do is animate each X/Y direction's behavior, creating a new animation at each bezier curve point, and using the bezier form of the timing function to mimic curved paths.

<https://developer.mozilla.org/en/css/css_transitions> and <https://developer.mozilla.org/en/css/css_transitions>

<comment><USER7> The timing function can be an arbitrary cubic bezier; some common ones like ease-in/out and so forth have dedicated keywords.

You should be able to get arbitrary bezier paths if you pick your x and y timing beziers carefully, I'd think... But it does take some thinking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Developer here.

We are glad that many of you found our demo interesting. The point was to explore how we could apply some new browser features to present educational content in an interactive/immersive way.

Sorry about Pluto fans – we were also sad not to include it. We should have put it as an easter egg!

Thanks to people who reported typo/content errors.

We cannot fix them right now though – because we have no control over Mozilla's site. We'll push an update when we get the chance.

<comment><USER9> Ok, can I gripe about the text that says this about Saturn: "Despite its size (9.4 Earths)..."? While the diameter is 9.4 times that of Earth, the size of Saturn is way larger than 9 individual Earths. Volume-wise you could fit 764 Earths inside Saturn, and that would be a more appropriate metric. The weird hexagon storm on Saturn alone is the size of 4 Earths.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks very nice, reminds me of the Elements app for iPad.

P.S. I don't know about you guys, but it still bugs me whenever I don't see Pluto.

<comment><USER11> and the ton of other ice dwarfs in the far end of the solar system? Let it rest. Pluto is the first of a new class.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It says Mt. Everest is 8848KM tall... I believe that should be Meters.

</comment><comment><USER13> It looks awesome on Chrome, but there is a slight glitch in the shape of a flash that occurs once all animation appears to have finished. Anyone else experiencing this?

<comment><USER14> On Chrome Dev 11.0.696.12 and I'm experiencing the same thing. Seems like a minor complaint though as the rest of the site works flawlessly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Good stuff. Github page is here: <http://github.com/littleworkshop/planetarium>

</comment><comment><USER16> The article points it out, but the text comes in from different directions depending on whether you're clicking on the planet or scrolling to it from the side.

Nice touch.

</comment><comment><USER17> One thing I notice is that I can't select most of the text. I'd like HTML sites to do better than Flash in this regard -- conformance to established HTML behavior is supposed to be an advantage.

<comment><USER7> This looks like a purposeful action by the page: it calls preventDefault on mousedown events for some reason. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I feel sorry for Pluto :(

</comment><comment><USER19> I still read this word as "Planeh-arium" in my head. Maybe a bad reference :)

</comment><comment><USER20> Very cool, but on every planet I wanted to be able to spin it on it's axis. That would be a _demo_.

</comment><comment><USER21> Moving the left and right arrows with the cursor is a great idea, especially since they don't move until you get close. It might be nicer if they would animate to the position when you first move the cursor over, though. It's kind of jumpy as is.

That pattern just might catch on.

<comment><USER22> There's a bug though. If you click on first/last planet then the arrow will not appear at all. Naturally you expect right arrow when clicking the first planet. Vice versa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Really impressive, but it's a shame that this is being labelled "CSS3" or "HTML5" when clearly it relies on a lot of JavaScript. It's a great example of weaving several front-end technologies together...and there should be nothing wrong with saying so.

</comment><comment><USER24> I let out a sigh when I saw redundant but understandably necessary function calls to support all browsers. Is there hope in seeing stuff like this consolidated anytime soon? -moz-transform:... -webkit-transform:... -o-transform:... transform:...

<comment><USER25> Not really. The prefixes allow vendors to do experimental stuff without creating (as much) of a backwards compatiblity problem before things standardize. If you don't like it, use a preprocessor:

* <http://sass-lang.com/> * <http://lesscss.org/> * <http://learnboost.github.com/stylus/>

The last one is the most promising since it can be made to look exactly like standard css, but it's really rough right now.

<comment><USER26> Sass, at least with its default SCSS syntax, is a strict superset of CSS3 so it's a good place to start. Your existing CSS files can be processed by Sass without changes.

Combined with some of the great mixins provided with Compass: [http://beta.compass- style.org/reference/compass/css3/transfo...](http://beta.compass- style.org/reference/compass/css3/transform/), you can eliminate many of the vendor specific declarations.

<comment><USER25> They all either are or can be strict supersets of CSS3. What separates stylus is that you can write valid, non-superset CSS3 and invoke the appropriate functions/mixins:

        @import css3

        #transparent {
            opacity: 0.6;
        }

        ----

        #transparent {
          opacity: 0.6;
          -ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=60)";
          filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=60);
        }

That's input/output in stylus. This uses an `opacity` mixin defined that's being invoked without the optional parentheses and with the optional colon+semicolon.

I have the beginnings of the Compass CSS3 library that's on hold while TJ fixes bugs and adds features to cover edge cases. The eventual goal is the ability to write straight CSS3 and have everything work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It does seem a bit odd that all three major browser vendors are able to release interesting web-apps that only run at full-speed in their own browsers. Do they intentionally exploit some exclusive feature to show the other browsers up?

<comment><USER8> There was not any attempt to make it run faster in Firefox 4. The goal is to showcase the Web as a platform and its possibilities. There is clearly no point in making it run well only in one browser.

Besides, we developed this demo on OSX, where performance is comparable among all three supported browsers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Works very well in Chrome 10.0 beta, barely runs in Firefox 4 RC1 on the same machine. Oh, the irony.

</comment><comment><USER29> Works perfectly in the latest mobile build of firefox (albeit slowly), which is a pleasant surprise - I expected it not to. Alas, for some reason the stock android browser can't even finish loading it.

</comment><comment><USER30> It works perfectly fine in Chrome, but runs very sluggish compared to FF4. Does anyone know which particular part is so much faster in Firefox?

</comment><comment><USER31> Apparently both Earth and Mercury are the densest planets in the solar system...

<comment><USER32> While that's certainly possible (if they had the same density and no planet was more dense), it's more likely a copy and paste error.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> My son has to see this

</comment><comment><USER34> Crashes Safari on iPad iOS 4.3

[EDIT] On iPad 1.

<comment><USER35> It rendered somewhat incorrectly for me, but it was smooth and didn't crash. I'm on Safari on iPad 2 iOS 4.3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Hmpfh.

<comment><USER37> Ah, novelty accounts. Could we please keep those to reddit, if you don't mind?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Something you can make in flash in like 10 minutes- and it works on everything ( not mobile ).

<comment><USER39> We might as well just drop the whole idea of HTML, JS and CSS and just use 3rd party plugins to replace the whole thing. That totally makes sense. Innovation is for idiots.

<comment><USER40> First, innovation doesn't only happen in a single application and runtime (the browser). Flash has innovated as much as FF4 has. It's weird that the distribution model for the runtime defines what is innovation and what isn't. A runtime that is distributed as a plugin is inherently not innovative, while one that is a monolithic application is. Go figure.

And I think the point of the original poster isn't that we should drop HTML. But rather that this application isn't cool on first principles. You can show this same app to your child as a Flash app and your child should be just as impressed. It's a good work for HTML, but as far as applications distributed by a web server it isn't especially innovative. But we should keep working on HTHML/JS/CSS as it will get better.

<comment><USER41> because its the distribution that is innovative, its nice being able to draw text and images and move them around and stuff but that doesnt quite fall under my definition of innovative, for html and flash

the features of html/css/javascript are not impressive, the fact that you can build increasingly complex application that will work on a common runtime installed on every pc and most people tablets and phones without (barely)any packaging or installation procedures is a modern day miracle

<comment><USER40> _the fact that you can build increasingly complex application that will work on a common runtime installed on every pc and most people tablets and phones without (barely)any packaging or installation procedures is a modern day miracle_

This requires me to install a whole browser! For some reason the HN crowd sees installing FF4 as free. Installing a plug-in as nearly the equivalent to jail time, a horrendous chore.

With all due respect to all the excitement in mobile (where Flash is nonexistent), HTML5 fundamentally won't change the desktop at all. And certainly looking at an application that I've seen high school students do in Flash is simply not exciting. I salute HTML for finally getting there, but its just not fundamentally very interesting.

<comment><USER7> > Installing a plug-in as nearly the equivalent to jail > time, a horrendous > chore.

That's because that's what it generally has been, in the case of Flash. You may want to read [http://blog.zpao.com/post/538816688/how-to-install-flash- on-...](http://blog.zpao.com/post/538816688/how-to-install-flash-on-windows- or-a-cleveland-steamer) if you haven't had that particular "pleasure"...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Uber employees 'spied on ex-partners, politicians and Beyoncé' (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/13/uber-employees-spying-ex-partners-politicians-beyonce <comment><USER2> Regardless of why the stories are coming out, can we stop directing away from them? We've got a big bad wolf on the hook, why let them off? There is no reason anyone should be supporting them at this point unless you're acknowledging you don't care about all of the stories. Other companies potentially being as bad (which I think people are really overplaying) is not reason to make excuses for them, as stated in other threads here.

<comment><USER3> I'm starting to get very skeptical to be honest. I tried to read that article looking for some hard evidence, one link went to BuzzFeed, where that linked to Forbes. I'm finding it hard to get more information.

In the wake of fake news, I'm asking for links, and not to other news sources. How do we know all this dirt isn't coming from Lyft? They're certainly going to benefit from this.

I read through the documentcloud link, Uber collects a lot of data, is honestly all I can see. I feel like I've missed something important, but I'm reading on my phone so I couldn't really search or read properly.

Could you help me understand?

(For the record, I don't use Uber or any ride-sharing platform and I don't have any stocks/shares. I have no incentive to watch them succeed or fail.)

<comment><USER4> So "Hell" was the name of their program for tracking Lyft drivers, and "Heaven" or "God View" was the name of their program for tracking Uber passengers. The allegations of Uber employees abusing the privacy of individual passengers using God View go back to at least 2014, so this actually isn't anything new, just more specifics about who they were spying on. See here for a screenshot of their God View emailed to a journalist without her permission: [https://www.buzzfeed.com/johanabhuiyan/uber-is- investigating...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/johanabhuiyan/uber-is- investigating-its-top-new-york-executive-for-privacy)

And see here for their cute Dr. Evil mascot that's part of their God View, which doesn't seem so funny any more: [https://www.engadget.com/2014/11/19/uber-godview- tracking/](https://www.engadget.com/2014/11/19/uber-godview-tracking/)

<comment><USER5> > See here for a screenshot of their God View emailed to a journalist without > her permission

That screenshot doesn't really have anything bad in it, to be fair. It's a view of their cars in the city.

<comment><USER6> No, it shows the last two weeks of Uber activity for the journalist:

[https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed- static/static/2014-11/18/2...](https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed- static/static/2014-11/18/22/enhanced/webdr12/longform- original-5450-1416369283-9.png?output-format=auto&output-quality=auto)

<comment><USER5> Ah, sure. Is the complaint that they make that readily available to some set of people? It'd be silly to not expect them to have rider history in general

<comment><USER7> There is a difference between having anonymised data available for analysis and individuals having direct access to complete individual data sets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> These stories just keep pumping out - "Uber uses internal tool X for nefarious purpose Y". I genuinely curious if the same sort of inquisition were focused on a different company, would we see similar stories? How much of this is cultural, and how much of it is a result of being examined microscopically by passionate investigators? Or is Uber really just that bad?

<comment><USER9> This is an important story because, in spite of the fact that our techno- industry has been at this for a long time now (decades), we still get companies that think its okay to violate fundamental human rights in the pursuit of profit - and _that_ is why this story is so relevant to the HN crowd.

It doesn't matter that Uber did this. Microsoft, Sun, and countless other companies have gotten into trouble for this sort of behaviour in the past. This story is not about Uber.

This story is about how poorly the tech industry regards the legislative machinery that gives us all the right to have free access to computers, to do what we like with them, without restriction - and the liabilities of that freedom, when played in a market full of unscrupulous individuals with far, far too much power.

<comment><USER10> There are quite a lot of people who will tell you there is no such thing as rights. There's only power. This is not a new idea: it's always been around (think 'Magna Carta' and who knows how many times, back infinitely into the past).

The idea that there is no rights, only power, is as true as we agree it to be.

And that's why this debate is still ongoing. In times where it's a very live and relevant debate, power is ascendant and making the argument that rights are old hat. If it wasn't much of a debate because it was self-evident that there are no rights, we'd be in one of those Dark Ages periods of stultification, waiting for civilization to start up again. If it wasn't much of a debate because there is no power… actually, I'm not sure that's ever happened or ever will happen. It'd be an interesting thought experiment, to ask what that would even look like. Presumably that's a picture of bureacracy, but weaponized, meaning the power is on the law-makers and those who bend their ears.

As expected, that's the first thing claimed by power, whether it makes sense or not. To power, any bureacracy or law is always weaponized and illegitimate.

<comment><USER9> "Rights" are just 'powers' granted to individuals by the groups they compose for the purpose.

<comment><USER11> There's also the concept of natural and inalienable rights, at least theoretically in the US. In practice many of the 'Constitution lovers' among the politicians and authority figures will happily deny many of these natural rights whenever possible and useful to their own ends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In the startup culture of sidestepping rules this is the definition of hustle. You do whatever it takes to get info on your ex, politicians and especially Beyonce. /s

By the way I am pretty sure every startup is this way. At the very least this romantic idea of startups is getting shattered and Uber is taking the fall for it.

<comment><USER13> I've worked for startups basically my entire professional career, and none of the startups I've worked for were like that. I've interviewed at/talked about consulting for some that had a bit of a frat-house vibe, and turned those down.

\- The single sexual harassment claim I can recall was a huge deal that caused soul-searching about how that person was hired. (Don't know that that was the best reaction, but it was indicative of the concern.)

\- When things that pushed ethical lines were mooted, that was talked about a lot, and, at least to my sense of morals, we rarely crossed them.

Bottom line - being a startup doesn't mean you're an Uber. Being an Uber means you're an Uber.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Uber is perhaps just a symptom of a bigger problem. Wasn't HSBC accused of money laundering and then were just fined because they were too big to jail? Same with 2008 crisis. In capitalism there will always be such actors who will go scot free because they are too big and have tons of money.

</comment><comment><USER15> Remember the time that the yellow cab was tracking our location? No? Me either.

<comment><USER16> You can download data for over a billion taxi rides in NYC: [http://toddwschneider.com/posts/analyzing-1-1-billion-nyc- ta...](http://toddwschneider.com/posts/analyzing-1-1-billion-nyc-taxi-and- uber-trips-with-a-vengeance/)

The linked blog post literally tracks employees of individual companies and sees where they live.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> At a certain point a criminal investigation needs to be done with a through discovery process.

(Man I hate taxis though)

</comment><comment><USER18> The reality is that Uber disrupts taxable taxi revenue and municipalities are trying to strong arm them into getting a cut. States and counties, deeply entrenched in financial vehicles and income streams their analysts told them were viable for 30-year bonds, have absolutely no incentive to promote the type of innovation that allows a managed/unmanaged peer-to-peer economy.

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/REVEF48531TAXABL](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/REVEF48531TAXABL)

</comment><comment><USER19> am I the only person that thinks this vendetta against Uber is stupid and still enjoys using them?

</comment><comment><USER20> There's been a lot of stories lately putting Uber in a bad light. It makes me wonder if it's not their competition who is behind it. Taxi industry lobby perhaps?

<comment><USER21> It's Google. They hired a PR firm to attack them when they sued them over stolen autonomous vehicle tech.

<comment><USER22> There was plenty of bad press, pre-Waymo lawsuit.

It's also worth noting that Google also has a sizable stake in Uber via their investment arm, Google Ventures.

1\. [https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures- puts-258m-...](https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures- puts-258m-into-uber-its-largest-deal-ever/)

<comment><USER23> i dont think google is behind the PR stuff either way but wouldn't this just be hedging bets if they were?

<comment><USER22> Why wouldn't they want Uber to be massively successful? This way they get both a big cash payout plus their equity stake in Uber rockets to the moon.

Accusing Google of the recent spate of bad PR is bizarre to me. There are plenty of players that have a much higher vested interest in dooming Uber than Google.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: language recommendations for a compact, portable daemon? - <AUTHOR>

I'm planning to build a daemon that uploads monitoring data to an online service. Customers will install the daemon on the computers they wish to monitor. I'm looking for advice on the best language / platform to use. Criteria (in roughly descending importance):<p>* Minimal setup hassle for our users, across all commonly used Unix (especially Linux) variants. This argues for a language for which most users will have the runtime already installed, or failing that, trivial to install from their package manager.<p>* Good basic libraries for filesystem and network access, including HTTP+SSL.<p>* Stable -- can expect to run for months at a time without hiccups or memory leaks.<p>* Reasonable performance -- e.g. able to read 1MB/sec of data from disk, lightly massage it, compress it, and push it to the network, with a fraction of a CPU core.<p>* Reasonable memory overhead. (Preferably able to run a 5000-line program, using libraries such as HTTP and SSL, and working with ~1MB of objects, in ~10MB of RAM.)<p>* Portable to Windows and OS/X without undue difficulty.<p>Anyone with experience deploying a background daemon across multiple OS configurations? Two obvious candidates seem to be Python and Java. Java would be more convenient for us, but I wonder if Python might be better for ease of installation, and perhaps memory overhead. <comment><USER2> Is there a reason you're writing another daemon? Have you seen <http://fluentd.org/> which seems to already have packages for many OSes as well as plugins.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question (and thanks for the fluentd pointer). The answer boils down to:

1\. We want to provide a number of functions (e.g. tailing logs, gathering system metrics, reading from application-specific monitoring interfaces). There are packages such as fluentd and logstash that provide this type of functionality, but not all in one place.

2\. As a multi-tenant SaaS offering, we have some extra requirements around authentication and security.

3\. We want to absolutely minimize the effort needed to install the daemon. Ideally, for most users, the steps would be "download archive, extract archive, invoke setup script". The more dependencies (e.g. Ruby) we incur, the harder it is to keep installation clean and reliable across distros.

4\. We also want to make management (starting, stopping, troubleshooting) as simple as possible. This calls for minimizing layers that might add their own log output or separate log files, separate processes, etc.

So, while we might borrow ideas or even (license permitting) code from existing projects, we expect to have to do some reworking. In any case, the platform question applies even if we re-use an existing daemon -- we don't want to use one that's based on a platform that might cause installation problems.

<comment><USER2> Fair enough and good luck in the space!</comment></comment></comment>


Tips on working from home - <AUTHOR> http://www.davidalison.com/2008/12/tips-on-working-from-home.html <comment><USER2> Most of this is good advice, though seemingly common sense.

"Set the alarm, eat breakfast, exercise, shower, get dressed; whatever your normal routine is before commuting to the office. Try to do the same thing when working from home."

This is the exact routine I started to use and it has really helped to get moving in the morning.</comment>


Promising HIV vaccine passes phase one human trials with 90% success rate - <AUTHOR> http://www.gizmag.com/spanish-hiv-vaccine-90-percent-immune-response/19973/

<comment><USER3> My father is an infectious disease specialist who has spent the last 30 or so years working on HIV in research, patient treatment, and education. The following thought comes from my casual conversations with him, and probably does not represent his professional opinion. It certainly does not reflect his specific thoughts in regards to this trial, as we haven't yet discussed it.

The progress in treating HIV since it first entered the popular psyche has been significant. It is no longer a death sentence in the developed world, and those infected with HIV - who get treatment and adhere to that treatment - <USER2> live long and relatively normal lives.

The real problem is in the developing world, and amongst populations in the developed world that cannot or will not seek/adhere to treatment. Treatment is sufficiently advanced that, while further developments of a vaccine are unbelievably exciting, they are not necessarily a game-changer in terms of worldwide infection. We have a long way to go in terms of beating this virus. Theoretically, we could follow the same route as with [edit: smallpox], unifying and mobilizing the world to isolate and then eradicate pockets of the disease, but this is a much larger effort than the one taking place in the lab, and is a question of government & administration, rather than medicine.

Edit: Bringing it up from a comment I made below, here is a relevant TED Talk on stopping pandemics: [http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_brilliant_wants_to_stop_pande...](http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_brilliant_wants_to_stop_pandemics.html)

<comment><USER4> Shouldn't this be more of a temporary problem? As soon as there is a vaccine its patents will expire at least 20 years afterwards. And then lots of much cheaper vaccines will flood the market.

<comment><USER5> Patents aren't the problem here, but it's an interesting thought experiment to think about what commercial terms a vaccine for AIDS or other diseases which at this point mainly affect poor, third-world people would be distributed under.

India would probably just violate the patent, claiming national security reasons, and sell it for ~production cost throughout the world. The USA might enforce a patent domestically, and it would be a rational economic choice for insurers to pay for it for many patients instead of long-term treatment if someone contracts AIDS otherwise -- if you have a 0.1% risk of contracting AIDS in a lifetime, and lifetime treatment costs $1mm, it's worthwhile to pay $100-$1000 for it.

A charity (or government) might pay for full rights to the vaccine globally, and then distribute it for the good of humanity (and to burnish their reputation), but the really out of the box thing would be for a consumer product company to distribute the vaccine cheaply, purely as a form of PR. Imagine: "Coca-Cola, the drink that is good for you. Remember, we cured AIDS."

<comment><USER6> Insurance would not be quite as clear-cut, but I suppose it would be a sensible option. Companies would point to herd immunity (linked in the comments above) to avoid paying for vaccination for 30% or so of the population. I'm sure they have ways to put people into that 30%, and knowing them, they will try to cheat their customers of every penny they can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't want to bum anyone out, but there have been quite a few potential vaccines that have made it through Phase 1 trials (several made it all the way to phase 3) only to be ultimately abandoned as ineffective or unsafe.

Phase 1 is generally a small trial that is primarily designed to test the _safety_ of the drug, not its efficacy.

<comment><USER8> True. It would be interesting to see what the success rate of reported cures, etc in the media is.

I like hearing about scientific progress like this, but worry that it will be another "promising advancement" that we never hear about again, like a new cure for cancer or tax cuts for the middle class.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> "if this genetic cocktail passes Phase II and Phase III future clinic trials, and makes it into production, in the future HIV could be compared to herpes virus nowadays".

As far as I know there is no herpes vaccine and herpes stays with you for life resulting in recurring problems. Doesn't quite sound like a very flattering comparison to an effective vaccine solution.

<comment><USER9> Chickenpox is a form of herpes and we all have it. What matters is that it's harmless.

<comment><USER10> While it won't probably kill you, it isn't exactly harmless. It can reemerge as shingles.

There are cases of herpes causing death. For example, in an infant infected by his mohel, and a laboratory researcher killed after exposure to monkey feces. (<http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00056008.htm>)

<comment><USER11> Shingles can be _very_ nasty - my mother had it after I had chickenpox. It was across her face and eyes - she was hospitalised and was on morphine for the pain.

<comment><USER12> My aunt had nearly the same thing happen to her--it left her with no visible scars (at least none that she told me about), but blind in one eye.

The reason medical professionals recommend parents let their children catch chickenpox is because it the symptoms get worse the older you are. In your later years it can even be life-threatening. Never underestimate the chickenpox!

<comment><USER13> I got it while working as a kindergarten teacher - it was terrible. Inside of mouth, throat.. Turns out that fever I had in 3rd grade wasn't mild chickenpox after all! So it goes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Easy to miss: "The recent human trials involved 30 healthy volunteers, where 24 were treated with MVA-B, while the other 6 were treated with a placebo, carried out over a 48 week period."

This test was done on healthy volunteers, _not_ ones with HIV. Although it's promising that 90% of the patients showed an immune response, we don't know how well that immune response translates into therapeutic benefit until it's trialled on HIV-positive patients.

<comment><USER15> Isn't the point of a vaccine to prevent, not cure?

EDIT: thanks guys, but I have enough upvotes. My comment didn't add much to HN. Wasn't actually trying to prove him wrong -- I thought I'd missed something and was asking for clarification.

<comment><USER16> That certainly is the common point, however (provided the patient is strong enough to survive the additional initial strain) shouldn't it also kickstart an immune response in patients who are already infected? And once that starts, shouldn't that likely help fight the infection?

I don't know myself, I know next to nothing about medicine.

<comment><USER17> It might. While this trial was meant to check if this vaccine could help prevent or restrain the infection (a prophylactic), in the same press conference¹ where these results were presented, the authors announced they were about to conduct a second phase I trial, this time to check for therapeutic effects on infected individuals.

1\. [http://www.cienciatk.csic.es/Videos/PRESENTACION+DE+LOS+RESU...](http://www.cienciatk.csic.es/Videos/PRESENTACION+DE+LOS+RESULTADOS+DE+LA+NUEVA+VACUNA+PREVENTIVA+CONTRA+EL+VIH_25822.html) (Spanish)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Several valid points already made here:

1\. Phase 1 is for safety 2\. 30 is a small number

But the big issue here is the reason HIV and even the common cold is hard to treat -- high turnover and high rates of mutation.

So, even if you have Ab's and/or helper T cells (cell that remember an infection) against one or more strains of HIV, the presentation of the strain that an individual may pick up later on in life may be different and thus might not mount an immune response. Also of interest -- Helper T-cell sare the primary target of HIV.

In order to really determine if or not this vaccine is effective, we will have to observe the responses in people who have been given the vaccine and then contracted HIV later in life. While this is promising and will add another barrier against HIV, its unlikely to eradicate the virus.

</comment><comment><USER19> Here's a short presentation on clinical trial success rates: [http://insidebioia.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/bio-ceo- biome...](http://insidebioia.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/bio-ceo- biomedtracker-bio-study-handout-final-2-15-2011.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER20> how do you sign up people to be infected with HIV?

<comment><USER7> You don't. But given a large enough group of people, some will contract the infection "organically." So some people get a vaccine and some get a placebo and then you check back in years later and see if the vaccine group has a lower infection rate.

<comment><USER21> It says they used 30 people.

<comment><USER22> Phase 1 trials are for safety, not efficacy -- they don't care if the participants are infected with HIV, because they only want to make sure that the vaccine doesn't hurt them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Finally we are in close stage to contain , one of the unknown virus in human history.

</comment><comment><USER24> Many in the scientific community claim there is no evidence HIV is actually causing AIDS. Hence, even if this is a successful vaccine, there is no guarantee it will protect from AIDS.

<comment><USER25> [citation needed]

First I've ever heard of anything like this.

<comment><USER26> It was a late 80's / early 90's thing:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duesberg_hypothesis>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_denialism#History>

<comment><USER27> Well, it was a late 80s / early 90s thing among people who weren't crackpots. As evidenced by the OP, some people are reluctant to abandon the idea even though there is now overwhelming evidence against it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I plan to leave my job to start a non-profit Uber clone - <AUTHOR>

I have enough money now that I don't really work.
I plan to finish work at the end of the year and start a non-profit rideshare app in order to optimise the rideshare market to improve things for drivers and passengers.
I intend to buy sourcecode to preexisting ride share apps and then use public meetings of taxi/rideshare drivers in target cities to get drivers onboard, and then media releases to encourage uses to use the platform.
I would be interested to hear any input about the feasibility of this and also any comments on ethical/economic issues of this project? <comment><USER2> How are you going to fund this? If you have a for-profit company that can potentially make billions in profit, you can raise VC.

Where is there source code available for a ride sharing app? How much is it going to cost?

How many developers will you hire? How many customer service representatives will you hire?

How much is insurance to cover the drivers going to cost (standard auto insurance usually doesn't cover them when they act as a Taxi).

When Uber/Lyft start in new cities, they tend to give out 10+ free rides to early customers in order to get new people to use it and spread the word. How much will this cost?

When Uber/Lyft start in new cities, they need to incentives drivers to drive for their platform even though there aren't many customers yet. They will often pay them an guaranteed hourly rate at the beginning. How much will this cost?

As a customer, why would I take your service instead of Uber/Lyft? With Uber usually I can find a car within a few blocks of me. It won't be the case with your service. Even if you aren't taking a cut of the profit I don't see your service being at a competitive price.

<comment><AUTHOR> > How are you going to fund this? I have about 2 million in the bank

> Where is there source code available for a ride sharing app? How much is it > going to cost? [http://www.taximobility.com/](http://www.taximobility.com/) > \- i was quoted $15k

> How many developers will you hire? Planning to do the work myself. Once the > app I'm buying is tweaked and running smoothly there shouldn't be too much > to do.

> How many customer service representatives will you hire? None - the app will > just link riders to drivers, and they will take care of customer service. > Bad drivers will get banned from the service.

> How much is insurance to cover the drivers going to cost I've seen quotes > for about 2x normal car insurance rates. drivers will pay this on their own.

> why would I take your service instead of Uber/Lyft? Drivers will have > multiple apps installed, mine will give the biggest payout due to having the > smallest margin. Drivers may even encourage customers to download my app, in > order to maximise their pay. riders do it because of a sense of social > justice, and wanting to pay their drivers rather than paying a san fran > corporation.

<comment><USER3> >How many developers will you hire? Planning to do the work myself. Once the app I'm buying is tweaked and running smoothly there shouldn't be too much to do.

The real world unfortunately doesn't work this smoothly, servers crash, weird bugs appear in the software, networking issues happen, traffic increases(hopefully) requiring you to scale out. I'd suggest you invest in finding a consultant who can help you on short notice if things go bad and keep them on a retainer.

> How many customer service representatives will you hire? None - the app will > just link riders to drivers, and they will take care of customer service. > Bad drivers will get banned from the service.

Who does the banning? How is it decided they are banned? What if there is a dispute between a driver and passenger who will handle that?

<comment><USER4> Once the app I'm buying is tweaked and running smoothly there shouldn't be too much to do. -> sorry, but that's a terrible, terrible misunderstanding of how these things really work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some thoughts:

1\. This is a fucking awesome idea. The sharing economy doesn't doesn't require corporations sitting on top of it taking a share. The sharing economy wants to be diffuse.

2\. Black car service is a high margin market for a profit driven company. But those margins mean that it isn't suited to everyone's needs.

3\. I don't think you need public meetings. That's just going to drag out implementation. In markets where Uber and Lyft are already operating, those meetings have already been held and all that's needed is regulatory analysis. The service just needs to be implemented within the existing legal framework.

4\. I don't think buying code is necessarily the best first step. Comprehensive evaluation of applications may be technically hard and existing approaches may have impedence mismatch with your unique requirements. Buying existing code should just be one of several options not a solution looking for a problem.

Overall, market analysis should come first. Pick a market, look at the legal framework and tailor your decision to that. Avoid trying to change the law. If you want taxi drivers on board, make your service appealing to them when they look at the box and delight them when they open it. Don't try to explain the change, people don't like change. Town-hall meetings are fine for governments, you're not one.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you are looking for the source code, check out Instacab it's server side Node.js dispatcher, and iOS rider and driver apps [https://github.com/tisunov/InstacabClient](https://github.com/tisunov/InstacabClient). I've built it for our rideshare service in Russia, shut it down, and open sourced code

</comment><comment><USER7> > non-profit

you keep using that word ... IKEA is also non-profit.

<comment><USER8> ^this. A non-profit is just a tax structure.

<comment> walsh-cloonagh This is complicated and not uniform between countries.

Generally speaking in the United States:

Non-profit is an misleadingly named corporate structure that really means non- stock. Delaware reasonably calls this structure a non-stock company.

Charity is a tax structure for the subset of non-stock corporations that are legally bound to use their resources for specific ostensibly purposes under 501(c3) of the tax code.

<comment><USER9> > Non-profit is an misleadingly named corporate structure that really means > non-stock.

No, its not. Most states allow non-profit corporations, some allow non-profit non-corporations (associations, trusts, etc.) Some kinds of non-profits may have members in much the same way that an LLC does, however, a non-profit is not structured to return profits to those members (or anyone else, hence the name.)

There are a wide variety of rules for federal and state tax exemption and other treatment for various forms of non-profits, of which the the 501(c)(3) charity provisions making the entities own revenues tax exempt _and_ contributions tax deductible to the contributor are the best known, but hardly the only significant ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Do you mind me asking what are you specifically looking to improve? I mean I get it you want to optimize the market in general, but what do you have in mind? Are you going to improve safety, efficiency or something else? Genuinely curious question.

<comment><AUTHOR> None of these - just decrease the 20-30% margin charged by uber to as little as possible.

<comment><USER4> decrease the 20-30% margin -> You're effectively planning to use your own money (!) to go in a price war with Uber (!).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Please consider adopting VRM principles which give users and/or drivers the option to have access to the data generated by their use of the system, and some say in data retention and aggregation.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_relationship_management](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_relationship_management)

</comment><comment><USER12> Do you have any interest in doing this not for another ride-sharing start-up, but for hiring private individuals as private-sector police?

The police need competition.

A non-profit, open-source police force would be highly interesting.

<comment><USER13> Why engage in competition you cannot win? Whilst a nonprofit Uber might face civil action from taxi firms, an "Uber for armed backup" seems like a very fast route to a jail cell. Considering the sorts of people most likely to be willing to use an app to rally support to settle disputes decisively in their favour, and the likely outcome of their use of such a service, that might not even be a bad thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> One of the big issues (and reasons that Uber should charge a fee) are the significant insurance requirements.

<comment><USER15> Uber is charging a fee which is their costs plus whatever profit they think they can get away with.

Minimizing the profit part of the fee sounds admirable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What is your plan for when automated cars arrive?

<comment><USER17> This business would be even that much more important. Why would I want my car just sitting at home when it could be working while I'm working?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why would anyone use your clone over Uber itself?

<comment><USER19> seems like a similar argument like "fair trade" focussed businesses</comment></comment>


The Hacked Brain - <AUTHOR> http://thehackedbrain.com

<comment><USER2> A HN clone. Is it really going live ?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's open source. There are others: <http://hackernews.in> <http://quant.ly></comment></comment>


John Dee painting originally had circle of human skulls, x-ray imaging reveals - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jan/17/john-dee-painting-circle-of-human-skulls-exhibition <comment><USER2> "should we remember him as brilliant pioneering scientist, or as an occultist who thought he could talk to angels?" I don't understand why it's a problem to say that he was both.

<comment><USER3> Because some of his methods would not be considered scientific. For example, his beliefs have a significant streak of Platonism, trusting acients texts without a testable hypothesis. Sometimes he would try to improve upon rituals. On the other hand, Angels and magic arent real, so he probably made some stuff up. On the other hanx he destinguished himself with knowledge that today we associtae with scientists. The debate concerns the essense of the scientific method and its evolution.

<comment><USER4> Angels and Magick are not real to the uninitiated.

<comment><USER5> found the Golden Dawn/O.T.O./A.O. member.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe it's an 18th century version of: "Just Remove the Duck" ([https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2013/06/05/duck/](https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2013/06/05/duck/))

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't think this is shocking. A lot of painter do something like this because it's somehow easier to draw the form of skulls than the form of a face. So the skull is there as a framework for painting the face.

There are also a lot of painters who start with naked people and then dress them. This also helps with 'transparent' clothing.

And when you learn to draw comics most of the time you start with a 'skull' of the character.

<comment><USER8> Your comment would make sense if the skulls were painted under the faces of the audience. But from the x-ray (and the description in the article), it looks like it was a circle of skulls laying on the floor, used as props by the performer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> With all the art that's created digitally, I wonder what this sort of art research will look like in 200 years. Finding an original photoshop file on a hard drive, reverse engineering the .psd spec and discovering hidden layers they were turned off in the final image?

</comment><comment><USER10> For those of you who don't know, John Dee was also the original 007, was probably a spy for the queen, and had the largest library in the kindom at the time. He also heavily influenced Bacon... A very interesting man indeed.

<comment><USER5> Canadians are told that William Stephenson[0] was the original 007.

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stephenson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stephenson)</comment></comment>


Synchronization on local variables in Java - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6123024/synchronization-on-the-local-variables

<comment><USER2> I thought it was a bad idea to synchronize on the object your modifying.</comment>


SRT technology (x50 I/O speedup with SSD aux disk) works only after dirty hack - <AUTHOR> http://communities.intel.com/message/145833#145833

<comment><AUTHOR> One of my friends had an interesting weekend figuring out why his brand new ASUS motherboard with the Z68 intel chipset didn't want to cooperate with the SRT technology ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Response_Technology> ). Well, he had to resize a random partition, than restore it back to the original size. The reason for this is still voodoo AFAIK, something related with toucheing the MBR maybe.</comment>


Swift 4.0 Released - <AUTHOR> https://swift.org/blog/swift-4-0-released/ <comment><USER2> "Swift 4 includes a faster, easier to use String implementation that retains Unicode correctness and adds support for creating, using and managing substrings."

This alone is grounds for opening and drinking very expensive champagne and/or wine.

<comment><USER3> >> support for creating, using and managing substrings

Can I finally extract a substring from the middle of a string using integer offsets, in one line? Something like string.utf8.substr(3, 5)?

Or does it still take an absolutely insane and unacceptable 4 lines of code with throwaway temp variables to track the start and end indexes? The inability to do _basic_ string manipulations is a major turnoff, to the point it makes the entire language look like a bad joke.

<comment><USER4> A String in Swift is a sequence of graphemes, unlike most languages which model strings as sequences of code points or just rawutf8, so there's no way to do efficient O(1) indexing. This is why the API is a bit more complex than you'd like.

<comment><USER3> I keep getting this inaccurate answer of "they're just grapheme code points - you can't do it". That is why my example specifically used the .utf8 view. It's already possible to do exactly what I'm talking about, but it takes 4 _complex_ lines of code, needing two calls to index() with startIndex/endIndex references and offsetBy arguments.

The existing solution to this problem already uses integers (the offsetBy arguments)! I'm not talking about refactoring the String type, or breaking backwards compatibility. There would be no change in how the underlying String storage or access works. It's about adding a level of (zero overhead!) abstraction to simplify a common, _basic_ operation.

Every other language I've ever touched has easy to use substrings. It makes absolutely no sense that Swift requires assigning throwaway constants to represent the start and end indexes for a simple substring extraction. There's this level of superiority regarding the purity and correctness of Swift's String type that clouds developers' ability to see that there _is no limitation_ to doing this. It blows my mind that the most modern major language is this clunky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They implemented what looks like the Rust ownership model: SE-0176 Enforce Exclusive Access to Memory ([https://github.com/apple/swift- evolution/blob/master/proposa...](https://github.com/apple/swift- evolution/blob/master/proposals/0176-enforce-exclusive-access-to-memory.md)), but I'm having a hard time understanding the proposal, can anyone shed some light on this?

<comment><USER6> Note: I like to read about Rust but don't work with it seriously, and don't follow Swift at all. Corrections welcome. That said, these seemed like the key passages:

"Swift has always considered read/write and write/write races on the same variable to be undefined behavior. It is the programmer's responsibility to avoid such races in their code by using appropriate thread-safe programming techniques."

"The assumptions we want to make about value types depend on having unique access to the variable holding the value; there's no way to make a similar assumption about reference types without knowing that we have a unique reference to the object, which would radically change the programming model of classes and make them unacceptable for the concurrent patterns described above."

Sounds like a system in the vein of rust but more limited, with more runtime checks and no lifetime parameters, falling back to "programmer's responsibility" when things get hard. The last paragraph makes it sound like one of the motivations is in enabling specific categories of optimizations, as opposed to eliminating races at the language level.

One of my biggest questions as a reader is how a language like C handles these cases that Swift can't handle without these guarantees. Is this a move to get faster-than-C performance? Does C do these optimizations unsafely? Is there some other characteristic of Swift that makes this harder than C? Closures get a lot of focus in the article...

<comment><USER7> The other responses to your comment are correct: C generally can't do those optimizations, unless you manually write `restrict`, and this can hinder optimization. But to complete the picture -

> Is there some other characteristic of Swift that makes this harder than C?

Yes:

1\. Swift doesn't have pointers.

Instead, you have a lot of copying of value types, and the compiler has to do its best to elide those copies where it can. For instance, at one point the document mentions:

> For example, the Array type has an optimization in its subscript operator > which allows callers to directly access the storage of array elements.

In C, C++, or Rust, you can "directly access the storage" without relying on any optimizations: just write &array[i] and you get a pointer to it. The downsides are (a) more complicated semantics and (b) the problem of what happens if array is deallocated/resized while you have a pointer to it. In C and C++, this results in memory unsafety; in Rust, the borrow checker statically rules it out at the cost of somewhat cumbersome restrictions on code.

2\. Swift guarantees memory safety; C and C++ don't.

This goes beyond pointers. For instance, some of the examples in the document talk about potentially unsafe behavior if a collection is mutated while it's being iterated over. In Swift, the implementation has to watch out for this case and behave correctly in spite of it. In C++, if you, say, append to a std::vector while holding an iterator to it, further use of the iterator is specified as undefined behavior; the implementation can just assume you won't do that, and woe to you if you do. (In Rust, see above about the borrow checker. Iterator invalidation is in fact one of the most common examples Rust evangelists use to demonstrate that C++ is unsafe, even when using 'modern C++' style.)

<comment><USER8> Those Rust evangelists are only partially correct. It's the STL that's unsafe, not the language itself.

Iterators could be implemented in C++ in a safer way with some performance loss, but it doesn't seem to be a priority for anyone except the safercpp guy that posts here every now and then. STLs can enable iterator validation in a special debug mode.

<comment><USER9> That is incorrect.

The language includes memory unsafe constructs without marking them in any way, since it must be compatible with C.

<comment><USER8> We're discussing iterators here, and the STL iterators implemented as class templates can't even be compatible with C.

To clarify: safe containers, iterators and algorithms can be designed, but they don't seem to be a priority of the C++ community. Personally I'm quite scared of accidentally passing the wrong iterator to some function, but OTOH I can't recall it ever happening. I don't use the debug STL either, haven't needed it.

The examples that pcwalton keeps bringing up seem artificial to me. It's true that you can't have perfect safety in C++, but with some effort and custom libraries, many errors can be caught at compile or run-time. The advantage of Rust is that it's safe by default, not necessarily that there's a major safety difference between quality C++ and quality Rust.

<comment><USER7> You've probably heard this before, but the security angle is important. "I haven't had these problems in my code" really means "I haven't _triggered_ these problems in my code"… that is, unless you've had a security code audit done. Testing isn't enough: even well-tested codebases can and do have vulnerabilities. In practice, they're usually triggered by input that's so nonsensical or insane from a semantic perspective, not only would it never happen in practice in 'legitimate' use, the code author doesn't even think to test it. For a simple example, if some binary data has a count field that's usually 1 or 2 or 10, what happens if someone passes 0x40000000 or -1? As a security researcher myself, I think it's actually easier to audit code with _less_ knowledge of how the design is supposed to work, up to a point, because it leaves my mind more open. Rather than making assumptions about how different pieces are supposed to fit together, I have to look it up, and as part of looking it up I might find that the author's assumptions were subtly wrong… For this reason, it's really hard to audit your own code, at least in my experience. I mean, you can definitely keep reviewing it, building more and more assurance that it's correct, but if your codebase is large enough, there may well be 'that one thing' you just never thought of.

I'm not actually sure how frequent iterator invalidation is as a source of vulnerabilities; I don't think I've ever found one of that type myself. However, use-after-frees in general (of which iterator invalidation is a special case) are very common, usually with raw pointers. In theory you can prevent many use-after-frees by eschewing raw pointers altogether in favor of shared_ptr, but nobody actually does that – that's important, because there's a big difference between something being theoretically possible in a language and it being done in practice. (After all, modern C++ recommendations generally prefer unique_ptr or nothing, not shared_ptr!). And even if you do that, you can't make the `this` pointer anything but raw, and same for the implicit raw pointer behind accesses to captured-by-reference variables in lambdas.

You can definitely greatly reduce the prevalence of vulnerabilities with both best practices for memory handling and just general code quality (that helps a lot). But if you can actually do that well enough - at scale - to get to no "major safety difference", well, I haven't seen the evidence for it, in the form of large frequently-targeted codebases with 'zero memory safety bugs' records. Maybe it's just that C++'s backwards compatibility encourages people to build on old codebases rather than start new ones. Maybe. It's certainly part of the story. But for now, I'm pretty sure it's not the whole story.

<comment><USER8> C and C++ don't have a culture of safety, they have one of performance.

C++ code could be written significantly safer with a performance loss, e.g: index checking at run-time, iterator validity checking, exclusive smart ptr usage with null checking, etc. That, together with code reviews, static & dynamic analysis should IMO lead to comparable safety. That's what I'd do.

However, there doesn't seem to be a rush in that direction. My guess is that there won't be a rush to switch to Rust either.

Is the security angle that important that it's handled through education and better tooling? Or only important enough to do some code audits and pen testing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The new JSON parser is really slick. [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift/codable](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift/codable)

<comment><USER11> Here is a great article on using it: [https://medium.com/swiftly- swift/swift-4-decodable-beyond-th...](https://medium.com/swiftly- swift/swift-4-decodable-beyond-the-basics-990cc48b7375).

<comment><USER12> Author of the article here! Thank you for the kind words and thanks for sharing!

I was wondering why that entry had a huge spike on reads yesterday :D (1500 reads against a daily average of 200).

<comment><USER11> Glad I could help. Thank you for writing it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Some source migration will be needed for many projects, although the number > of source changes are quite modest compared to many previous major changes > between Swift releases.

It seems like the language still needs some time to be completely mature, or am I wrong? I haven't used it since 1.0

<comment><USER8> I got burned by the migration from 1.0 to 1.something and haven't used it since. Looks like it was the right choice, breaking changes are a major failure in language design IMO.

I understand why they do it, but I don't like that they are getting away with it. Apple seem to be in this endless update cycle where they change stuff across hardware, operating systems and even programming languages. The customer doesn't have much choice: they either keep up or get left behind.

<comment><USER14> I disagree. Compare macOS today with the initial OS X release and it is fundamentally the same system both UI wise and code wise. Windows and even Linux has seen far more dramatic UI shifts in the same period. Same goes with the code. Windows went from win32 C API to C++ API with MFC and ATL. Then they promoted COM and Visual Basic development. Only to change gears and make C# with a completely different API. Then winforms gets depricated. We get silverlight, WPF and then there has even been more stuff in later years and I lose track. Compare this to macOS which ever since OSX has used almost exclusively objective-c and cocoa. Even now with swift you can use cocoa, and pretty much all apple technologies you allready knew. C# made redundant all previous win32 and VB skills. The introduction of Java, python, ruby and Go have not let you use any previous skills or libraries. In this regard Swift is an amazing accomplishment as you can reuse so much existing skills and code.

<comment><USER15> Can you take code written for the initial Mac OS X release, compile it and run it on the last version? You can do that for Windows.

<comment><USER16> They deprecated a lot of UI methods in the 10.4 timeframe so I would bet not. I'm sure someone has some code, but it is probably very limited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Converting two existing projects was pretty painless. Though the larger and older of the two had a significant amount of automatically generated changes. Most of them were (Void) in blocks changed to () though. Another nice extra is mixing 3.2 with 4.0 libraries.

<comment><USER18> The changes to tuples in closures were a little annoying too, with the jump to 4.0. But on a whole it was pretty painless for us too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> With this yearly release cycle and amount of investment Apple is making, I think Swift 6 or 7 could become general purpose language for client/server code on non-apple platforms too.

</comment><comment><USER20> I see some mentions of Server API's on their website. With these libraries in place, how comparable is swift to golang?

<comment><USER21> I think it's nicer to program in swift than go.

It's already possible to do so to, by the way.

[http://perfect.org/](http://perfect.org/)

What I think go has over swift is the complete independence from platform. You can write go code on osx and compile it to a linux binary and it Just Works!

Swift on Linux is not perfect yet, though it can be made to work with some effort.

<comment><USER22> Swift has no quality high-level concurrency primitives - until those arrive, Swift is a complete non-starter as a server language.

Concurrency is at the level of proposals currently, so it'll be another couple of years until they come up with something, and another couple until good server libraries/frameworks figure out how to use them properly.

It's a shame really - I imagine this could've been moving along at a faster rate had Chris Lattner stayed on with Apple and recruited some extra help.

He has written a really nice proposal for concurrency, that'll definitely influence Swift going forward. [0]

[0] [https://gist.github.com/lattner/31ed37682ef1576b16bca1432ea9...](https://gist.github.com/lattner/31ed37682ef1576b16bca1432ea9f782)

<comment><USER23> I agree, for the most part, but then again, C also has no high-level concurrency primitives, and basically every server ever is written in C.

You can use Grand Central Dispatch, and it works. It's not as wonderful as go routines and channels, but hey, it works.

<comment><USER22> I hear you. C has performance because it doesn't have to do any sanity checks and because 20 years of serious effort has gone towards optimizing everything possible.

The very motivation behind creating Swift, has been to have performance, and none of the undefined behaviour (cause of innumerable security breaches and unintentional complexity in compiler design and everyday programming) [0]

To me, grand-central-dispatch feels one small step above semaphores/locks/monitors.

There has been a lot of research in distributed computing and concurrency - I'd like to see libraries, language constructs and runtimes based on research fresher than before I was born :)

[0] [http://blog.llvm.org/2011/05/what-every-c-programmer- should-...](http://blog.llvm.org/2011/05/what-every-c-programmer-should- know.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Ubuntu 16.10 is already out of support, they should update that. Artful is out in a month or so.

</comment><comment><USER25> Note that in spite of supporting Ubuntu only, you can run the 4.0 version in Debian Stretch without any problems. Just download the package, unpack it and add the bin/ subdirectory to your $PATH.

Edit: REPL stil doesn't allow importing Glibc by default, you need to specify the include path manually (e.g. swift -I /opt/swift-4.0-RELEASE- ubuntu16.10/usr/lib/swift/clang/include/).

</comment><comment><USER26> There's a good summary of this release here: [https://www.infoq.com/news/2017/09/swift-4-official- release](https://www.infoq.com/news/2017/09/swift-4-official-release)

</comment><comment><USER27> Ignorant question: What other language is Swift like most? And what improvements does Swift make over that language?

<comment><USER14> Kotlin, Rust, Scala and vaguely Go. Swift benefit over Kotlin is that it easily interfaces with existing objective-c and C code. It also has deterministic garbage collection through automatic reference counting which is better for interactive systems and maintaining low memory footprint. Since it is native code and doesn't have a complicated garbage collector it can be used like C to create libraries for other programming languages. This is impossible to do with Go and Kotlin.

Compared to Rust it is considerably easier to learn.

Go is probably easier to learn than Swift but Swift is a lot more expressive. You could do scientific computations in Swift but that would be cumbersome in Go since you can't easily define matrix, vector and point types yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is great news.

However, I wish the mac release was available as independent binaries without having to come along with Xcode.

<comment><USER28> The Command Line Tools include the Swift compiler without needing Xcode installed. Open up a terminal and type "swift" to enter the REPL or "swiftc" to compile a Swift File. SPM is included too.

If they're not already installed, running one of those commands will prompt you to install them.

<comment><USER21> If I already have swift-3 and Xcode 8, how do I install only swift-4?

<comment><USER29> You can download a toolchain snapshot from here. There's a swift-4.0-branch download if you scroll a bit.

[https://swift.org/download/#snapshots](https://swift.org/download/#snapshots)

<comment><USER4> Keep in mind that binaries built with the toolchain snapshots cannot be submitted to the App Store. You need an Xcode release for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why couldn't they make a PDF version of The Swift Programming Language? I hate ePub.

<comment><USER30> Being voted down is nonsense. 1) I've tried ePub and it just doesn't work as well as PDF on my iPad mini, which is perfect for reading documents. 2) Virtually everyone sells their books in both PDF and ePub formats so I don't see why they can't do the same here.

<comment><USER31> I've bought an iPad Mini specifically to read ePubs. What do you think is broken on iBooks?</comment></comment></comment>


Modern monetary theory: Deficits don't matter? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/opinion/us-deficit-coronavirus.html <comment><USER2> >"This, broadly speaking, is how our monetary system works. It is true that the dollars in your pocket are, in a physical sense, just pieces of paper. It's the state's ability to make and enforce its tax laws that sustains a demand for them, which in turn makes those dollars valuable. It's also how the British Empire and others before it were able to effectively rule: conquer, erase the legitimacy of a given people's original currency, impose British currency on the colonized, then watch how the entire local economy begins to revolve around British currency, interests and power. Taxes exist for many reasons, but they exist mainly to give value to a state's otherwise worthless tokens.

Coming to terms with this was jarring — a Copernican moment. By the time I developed this subject into my first published, peer-reviewed academic paper, I realized that my prior understanding of government finance had been wrong."

</comment><comment><USER3> "Mr. Mosler had essentially imposed a tax that could be paid only with his own monogrammed paper. And he was prepared to enforce it. Now the cards were worth something. Before long, the kids were scurrying around, tidying up their bedrooms, the kitchen and the yard — working to maintain the lifestyle they wanted."

Looks like a step towards a dictatorship.

It's also funny that the author starts by laughing at how people think of the economy as if it was a household, and then puts this exact example.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I posted this link because, as an noneconomist, I find modern monetary theory intriguing but I don't know how well it would work in practice. If it is indeed viable, why have the issues of deficits and government debt—which the theory seems to claim don't matter—been allowed to dominate the political conversation?

<comment><USER4> The essay "Political Aspects of of Full Employment" [1] outlines the vested interests of industry leaders in playing up the danger of deficits and increased public investment. As a noneconomist, I too would be interested in hearing some reasons why the idea was abandoned until MMT brought it into the mainstream once again.

1) dislike of government interference in the problem of employment as such

2) dislike of the direction of government spending (public investment and subsidizing consumption)

3) dislike of the social and political changes resulting from the maintenance of full employment.

[1] [https://mronline.org/2010/05/22/political-aspects-of-full- em...](https://mronline.org/2010/05/22/political-aspects-of-full-employment/)</comment></comment>


Court Tosses Out Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110901/14553415771/court-tosses-out-ridiculous-antitrust-lawsuit-against-google.shtml

<comment><USER2> That pur ad on the side was so annoying I hit the back button.

<comment><USER3> Why do you not block advertisements?

EDIT: I don't understand the downvote. It was just a question.

<comment><USER2> (I didn't downvote, FYI)

I have an ad blocker installed. It slipped by.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Microsoft sticking to their behind the scenes evil doings, as usual.</comment>


Uber shareholder group wants Benchmark off board - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/exclusive-uber-shareholder-group-wants-benchmark-off-board-2471805592.html <comment><USER2> Some startup founders are 'nervous' about dealing with Benchmark after it sued Uber

[https://www.recode.net/platform/amp/2017/8/11/16130148/bench...](https://www.recode.net/platform/amp/2017/8/11/16130148/benchmark- uber-startup-founder-backlash-lawsuit)

<comment><USER3> nervous about working with competent investors who aren't complete marks? somehow I doubt benchmark will have difficulty finding people to take their money.

<comment><USER4> It may matter, since VC returns are dominated by the outlier companies that return 100x.

If the next Slack (i.e. companies where VCs form a line to have them take their money) always pass on Benchmark after remembering this, instead choosing to take money from Sequoia/A16Z/NEA etc., who are also competent investors who aren't complete marks, then returns may take a hit.

<comment><USER5> I mean, maybe. But Benchmark is heavily bought into Uber. They've got a lot to lose/gain here. And they have a reputation to defend not just with future founders, but also future LPs. You can bet that there are a lot of potential LPs looking at VC behavior here, and that ones who are deferential to Kalanick will have a harder time raising future funds if this whole thing goes tits up.

Benchmark clearly believes that Kalanick is toxic to Uber's success. Given the amount of money they have in the game, and given the belief that Kalanick will sink Uber, it's pretty hard for me to come up with odds that future founders will be Benchmark-averse that overcome the amount of money they have in play with Uber plus whatever heat they'll take from their LPs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Benchmark board seat is the rumored anon source of several of the negative stories about the company the last few months. As Gurleys patience with Travis soured, their strategy shifted to stoking the PR crisis deeper so they can purge management and gain control. Other shareholders and employees should rightly be outraged.

<comment><USER7> Any evidence? The biggest crises seem to be outside of the board's visibility: (1) Susan Fowler (2) TK berating a driver on video (3) TK and his exec team having a file on rape of someone in india (4) Greyball etc. etc.

I think it is hard to argue that Benchmark made Suzan Fowler write her blog post etc.

The counter argument is that Benchmark seems like the grown up and Uber is lucky to have them on their BoD.

<comment><USER8> The whole Waymo thing seems like quite a big crisis as well.

<comment><USER7> Yes and self-inflicted as well. Hard to blame on Benchmark.

I worry that HN is being astroturfed by TK and his buddies. When there is a negative Uber story a throwaway account emerges to present an implausible pro- TK angle.

<comment><USER6> Y'know, there is a third position where one can be in support of neither Benchmark nor Travis.

Benchmark obviously did not cause Susan Fowler, Waymo, Greyball or the rape- file. Travis deserved what he got or worse.

What Benchmark has done is continue to leak negative stories and internal data to gain leverage in boardroom spats. Without pointing fingers this is more or less acknowledged internally. And now they've instigated a very public lawsuit to drag everyone back through the muck. It completely undercuts the majority of thousands of employees who were not complict in any of the above and having been fighting desperately to right the ship.

If Benchmarks position is so righteous and self-evident why can't they just convince the other board members to remove him? No one's that strongly allied with Travis anymore. Ryan Graves and Garrett Camp both publicly declared theyre not voting him back in. There hasn't been a peep from Arianna in months. All the other directors are independent or external investors.

And btw the real fire from Benchmark didnt start until Travis rallied to have Bonderman, Benchmark ally, immediately step down after making mysognist comments at the Holder report all-hands. A role reversal which epitomizes the deeper truth here -- none of this is particularly about ethics; its about money, control and liquidity.

<comment><USER9> Bonderman off the board after one insulting comment. Travis not off after "Susan Fowler, Waymo, Greyball or the rape-file." There is no equivalency here.

But even if, implausibly, Benchmark is the messenger, shooting the messenger is still wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So Benchmark is suing Uber and Kalanick because they are worried about getting their money out- 13% of Uber is almost $9B.

Now Uber claims to have other investors ready, willing to buy back over $6B of that stock. If that were the case, then wouldn't Benchmark have already divested?

Who is willing to invest $6B into Uber when it has no CEO and such an astronomical valuation?

<comment><USER11> Softbank

<comment><USER10> Latest news seems to indicate that Softbank is considering investing at a ~$40B valuation.. considerably lower than the $69B number floating around. And although it is probably just a negotiation tactic, they claim to be considering an investment in Lyft instead.

[https://www.recode.net/2017/8/7/16110020/benchmark- softbank-...](https://www.recode.net/2017/8/7/16110020/benchmark-softbank- uber-negotiating-investment-exit)

[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/31/softbank-talks-to-invest- in-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/31/softbank-talks-to-invest-in-uber-are- dead-sources-tell-cnbc.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've only discovered Axios in the past few days but I really like their writing style. It's quick and to the point. Reading their About Us section, it seems like this was the goal "Stories are too long. Or too boring."

<comment><USER13> Off topic: I love Axios - they have some top tier journalists, and I was introduced when Dan Primack (from fortunes termsheet originally) moved over. They do great newsletters on politics, m&a/VC, tech, and the future of work.

<comment><USER14> +1 on the Pro Rata newsletter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What a saga...Benchmark to Kalanick: resign....Shareholders to Benchmark: you resign....lol

</comment><comment><USER16> I remember once watching an interview with Travis talking about pitching Uber to Benchmark, and he talked about how they wouldn't let him leave the office until they agreed on terms.

eerily similar battle going on now

<comment><USER17> I think I found the video: [https://youtu.be/550X5OZVk7Y?t=58m30s](https://youtu.be/550X5OZVk7Y?t=58m30s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This seems like fight between two fractions in the Uber. On the one side, it is Benchmark capital while the other side there is Travis and investors aligned with him.

What is uber ownership breakdown? What do you think who will win?

<comment><USER19> > Who will win?

Lyft.

<comment><USER20> How much of Uber's income comes from the US market v. overseas? As long as Lyft is US-only, they're potentially going to have a hard time equalling Uber.

<comment><USER19> Lyft is going global:

[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/13/lyft-to-go-global-take-on- ub...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/13/lyft-to-go-global-take-on-uber-outside- the-us.html)

<comment><USER21> > But Lyft told CNBC, "Along with our international partners, we are updating > how we serve our users traveling abroad. We will now direct them to download > the partner's app in the country they are visiting."

So basically they aren't going global.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This whole situation has to be impeding Uber's CEO search. Finding someone willing to step into this kind of circus, particularly when the circus is over there heads, is going to be very hard.

<comment><USER23> There is reason to believe that the CEO search will narrow down to re- instating Travis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'll take "Things that make Uber look _even more_ dysfunctional" for $800 please Alex.

<comment><USER25> I wonder what it's like to work in Uber's PR department these days. Hopefully someone is setting aside a year end bonus for them since they don't likely qualify for overtime pay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The story is as old as the world. Part investors are pushing the concern to the chagrin of other part investors. The letter seems pretty reasonable: the under-signers are pursuing what they see as their self-interest in offering their "fraternal" siblings a generous exit. Nothing to see here. If anything this is good news for Uber, some of its major investors still believe in the the company.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is the ___DO NOT PUBLISH_ __across the top of this article some kind of a gimmick from axios, or did someone mess up pretty hard?

<comment><USER28> It's gone now, so likely a mistake

<comment><USER29> Once it's published, it makes sense to just take it off either way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Wow, these other investors are willing to give Benchmark a fabulous exit. I would negotiate it up to $12B and take it!

</comment><comment><USER31> That's skeptical part of my brain sees "shareholders" and thinks "friends of Travis and / or Travis"... I mean if it comes to a vote his side still gets to vote right?

</comment><comment><USER32> I'd be so happy with this outcome if I was Benchmark. Even exiting with a 50% haircut (so what $4.5b) will return their funds a couple times over.

</comment><comment><USER33> Do we know anything about the group? Is it a group of 2 or of 200? Do they control 1% or 25% of shares?

<comment><USER34> The full letter is included in the article, and the signatures are from three people (representing at least two VC firms). They claim others will be adding their names to the letter in coming days. From the article:

 _Who signed the request? Shervin Pishevar (Sherpa Capital, although signed as an individual), Ron Burkle (Yucaipa Cos) and Adam Leber (Maverick)._

[Edit] According to Crunchbase [1], Sherpa Capital was involved in Series D and Series E funding for Uber, while Adam Leber was an Angel investor. I couldn't find info on Ron Burkle or Yucaipa Cos.

[1] [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber/investors](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber/investors)

<comment><USER35> Ron Burkle is a billionaire based in LA who made most of his initial money from grocery stores (A&P). Yucaipa is his personal investing vehicle and has a fairly high profile in the relatively rarified world of private-equity-funds- that-invest-one-very-wealthy-person's-money.

That world is sort of the dark matter flip side of Venture Capital. A firm like Yucaipa doesn't need to blog or tweet -- doesn't need to market itself -- because it never needs to raise money from limited partners, and it's super flexible and agnostic about the kinds of investments it's looking for, time horizons, and how exactly it structures deals.

<comment><USER34> Thanks for that, fascinating! I searched a bit further and found out he is also co-owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins NHL team. He seems like an intriguing person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> When it rains, it pours, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Benchmark's investment of $27M is worth $8.4 billion today"

"We have investors ready to acquire these shares"

So they have 8.4 billion in new funding lined up? Somehow I doubt it.

<comment><USER37> This wouldn't be so much new funding as it would be swapping equity holders. It would be a great investment if Uber keeps growing and one day exits. And Uber will grow - I don't think they've even scratched the surface since logistics is still wide open, among other things. It could very easily be another Amazon-esque juggernaut 10-15X current value.

<comment><USER3> the statue of liberty would be a great investment if the government was planning to tear it down and sell it for scrap and you could buy it cheap before the word got out.</comment></comment></comment>


Mobile A/B Testing Service Taplytics (YC W14) Adds Analytics and Android Support - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/16/taplytics-insights-and-android/

<comment><USER2> > Service like Taplytics allow developers to test variations of their app > interface and code, and to make those changes without going through the App > Store approval and update process.

The ability to change the app without going through the App Store review process is awesome.

IMO, support for iOS and Android is very important. I've recently been learning Swift/iOS and I find that having libraries that work on both mobile OS's simplifies development as knowledge from one platform transfers to the other.

<comment><USER3> > The ability to change the app without going through the App Store review > process is awesome.

Not from an user's viewpoint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Service like Taplytics allow developers to test variations of their app > interface and code, and to make those changes without going through the App > Store approval and update process.

What is the risk all these companies get wiped out overnight by an app store policy change? I have never used any of them, so perhaps their capabilities are so limited that it's not an issue -- but subverting the review process sounds like a risky feature to build a business around.

<comment><USER5> TapJoy has had their business models banned a couple of times, seems to just be updates that get rejected until the offending party's stuff is in compliance or removed.

<comment><USER6> The analytics side drives a lot of value imo, will try it when we push a product to the app store.</comment></comment></comment>


On Being A Senior Engineer - <AUTHOR> http://www.kitchensoap.com/2012/10/25/on-being-a-senior-engineer/ <comment><USER2> When I was 19 (at which age I obviously knew everything about everything), I always looked down at the "senior" guys, they looked outdated, conservative, full of useless knowledge on things such as Cobol, or C. I eventually got to make friends with several of the "dinosaurs", and got shocked to discover that I was paid more than they were.

Fast forward 15 years, I'm now full of experiences. I deployed apps with billions of transactions per day, led teams big and small, learned that there's more than one side to everything and that "The True Solution" is nothing but lack of experience in disguise. Most importantly, I discovered I don't know anything.

I'm still shocked, sometimes, when I see arrogant 19-year-olds bending reality to convince people they're right - and getting paid more than us, dinosaurs... :)

<comment><USER3> "I eventually...[was] shocked to discover that I was paid more than [the dinosaurs] were."

Freudian slip? I think you mean the opposite going by the rest of your story. ;)

<comment><USER2> no, I actually mean I was overpaid (or the dinosaurs were overpaid - I'm not sure) - and so are a lot of 19-year-olds I keep working on from time to time...

<comment><USER2> * I meant "or the dinosaurs were _under_ paid. Ouch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > No one should be allowed to avoid the issue by the old formula, "I can't > give a promise because it depends upon so many uncertain factors."

STRONGLY disagree.

I've worked on projects where:

\- Getting a stable build might take four hours (minimum) to several weeks (depending on churn);

\- Processes for adding components were undocumented magic, and very nearly undebuggable;

\- Components might take days or weeks to propagate, once you were finally able to make changes to them.

Debugging is a similar story. Some bugs are nasty, horrible, complex things that take a lot of time. I've seen showstopper-class kernel level bugs take months to find. The nature of interactions at the hardware / software interface is unbelievably complicated.

So what does a "senior" engineer do?

\- Communicate the nature of the problems in a non-whiny way.

\- Give responsible estimates. "Three days or a month" is honest, if you say why.

\- DON'T promise results that you can't actually deliver.

\- Be prepared to have features cut, and to have conversations about things that you consider less than optimal ("sucky") for the customer.

Naturally, your senior engineer is also trying to improve the sucky situation the whole team finds itself in (with better tools, build processes, whatever), but some situations are intractable.

<comment><USER5> The difference the article is talking about is a junior engineer saying "I don't know and I don't know how to know, so I'm not going to answer your question" and the senior engineer giving estimates just like the ones you gave: "a build is at least four hours, but if I'm churning it can take several weeks".

Junior engineers don't know that an estimate like that is possible to give and provides value. They're often brow-beaten by lots of project managers who don't get the value of an estimate like that, who'll just press you for a single number that you'll commit to, the closer to the low end the better. But actual business managers can hear that estimate and make a business decision:

        a) I need the build in 15 minutes for a demo... sounds like that's not possible, so skip it.
        b) I going to need the build to be stable in two months. You'd better get started now, and I should be ok.
        c) Hmm... I need it next week. Seems we have a business risk here. How can we mitigate that?

Part of a senior engineer's value is being able to see the business need to address business risks that are inherent in the question "How long will this task take", and to respond accordingly. The article touches on this too, where it discusses holistic contextual awareness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _" Mature engineers know that no matter how complete, elegant, or superior their designs are, it won't matter if no one wants to work alongside them because they are assholes. "_

I've worked with some assholes that could easily be referred to as mature engineers. Being assholes or not wanting to work alongside them didn't really detract all that much as they could get the job done and there was a lot to learn from them. I'm not sure the author is correct about personality being a part of a senior engineer - or a senior executive - as far too many of those seem to be assholes by definition!

<comment><USER7> Agreed. Few people here or elsewhere discuss the role of so-called "politics" in the workplace. You may be referring to those who resort to more than their engineering skills to get ahead, sometimes ruthlessly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Still reading, but before I forget to ask:

"It's a junior engineer mistake to toss insults about a piece of complex technology in 140 characters."

Does everyone agree with that? I have seen many senior engineers, specially in open source world, who aren't afraid to use the 'F word' publicly to insult a technology, or even an organisation (Linus vs. Nvidia?).

Does an engineer really have to be super formal in how he talks online? Isn't it fun to be a bit more open at times than what 'maturity' requires?

<comment><USER9> Linus is a special case. When your work powers most of the computers out there, I guess you can say fuck all you want. Plus its not like he goes around saying fuck to everybody. Its to the people that piss him off. He is a target for assholes because insecure little bitches will always try and prove him wrong. Its part of the culture around computers. But hey, if it wasnt for him I would be using Windows. So fuck anyone who doesnt like the way Linus talks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "At the peak of your game" after 5-10 years might be true. How would be the market for a "senior" software engineer of 20+ years experience?

I have a feeling such a candidate would be deemed "too technical to manage, too senior to be managed".

<comment><USER11> "Too technical to manage" would depend on the skillset of the engineer. If they're one-dimensional in passion or ability (code is ALL!) then I'd say that's true, but it's no less true for a guy with 5 years in chair.

"Too senior to be managed" has at least as much to do with the insecurities of the manager than it does the engineer. If you need to be the smartest guy in the room, then you'll surround yourself with lesser talent. If you understand your role of manager is to remove obstacles for those who do their specific roles then you'll be more likely to search out experienced people that GSD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "A new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way, but intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience." - Albert Einstein

I've always thought that "earlier intellectual experience" was a necessary but not sufficient condition to extraordinary work. Each of us gets there in our own time frame.

</comment><comment><USER13> Apologies if it's off-topic, but it matters for for anyone who wants to read the link in the article from locations where FB/Twitter are blocked.

Is there a bookmarklet that will get rid of Quora's annoying "you must login with FB or Twitter" page blocker?

<comment><AUTHOR> That Quora thread only has 1 answer by Allspaw. Like he said, it's pretty much just the condensed version of this post.

<comment><USER13> Ah, thanks! I really hate those whited out screens... always make me feel like I'm missing something. In this case, it was unfounded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> maybe in the next generation of engineering we'll stop trying to classify our engineering abilities and focus on the building of things in front of us. We'll accept that it doesn't matter how long we've been doing something (because we've all not been doing this very long) and we'll realize that even someone who just started at the "keys" has something for us to learn... (warm and fuzzy)... at the end of the day we have a shared goal "get it done"(ahmen)

\- mature engineeer :P

</comment><comment><USER15> Excellent article.</comment>