Ask HN: How do you improve your attention to detail? - <AUTHOR>

Simple example: you wrote brilliant code, passed all tests, installed into production environment but configured the wrong date (or forgot to configure any other parameter) and your release was an epic fail?
It seems to happen to me often, it does not seem to be directly related to programming ability - the code does what it's supposed to do. But since the environment I'm working in is directly interacting to clients in real time, every time anything is released with some wrong configuration, it's only picked up when a client does something and gets an error back and complains. That's quite frustrating.
I'm trying to think of the way to 'fix' it - must have something to do with the ability to keep a lot of small details in memory and/or picture in my mind all the possible small differences between the "production" and "test" environment.
Any advice? <comment><USER2> You've observed something important: deployment is a frequent source of errors. It is a discipline unto itself which deserves understanding, study, coding, and infrastructure. Here is my system:

First, here are the specific types of solutions, from best/most-difficult to least-efficient/most-achievable:

1\. Automation, e.g. have the date automatically set by the deployment your deployment script. Make your scripts be smart, so they can set things correctly.

2\. Poka-yoke (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke>): e.g. have the deploy script refuse to push out code if a configuration variable is unchanged, unless there is a comment on that config line overriding the check.

3\. Checklist: Write down a set of procedures/checks to do when deploying. Make a copy of this list on deploy, and check off each item as you do it. (See also: [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/10/071210fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/10/071210fa_fact_gawande))

You'll note that all of those are geared at reducing reliance on your memory, rather than improving your memory. Next, here is the overall process:

\- ("5 whys") When you have a problem in deployment, write down what went wrong. Find 5 ways that problem could have been prevented.

\- Address at least two of those with solutions from the set above. For example, you might automate part of the problem and add a poka-yoke in another script. Or if you're ambitious, you may be able to have two fully automated solutions, an automated deployment script and an automated test which checks that that automation is working. Not as good (but sometimes easiest) is to add it two different checklists, filled out by different people or at different times.

\- Implement solutions even when something _almost_ went wrong but didn't.

\- Periodically review the overall process; refactor and otherwise improve it. In particular, push solutions up the chain, e.g. replace a checklist item with a much better automated solution.

Additional things to consider, specific to deployment:

\- Deployment frameworks (e.g. Chef) can assist with automation.

\- Deploying to a staging environment first can flush out many issues.

\- Deploy first to a small subset of servers/users, following with deployment to all users X hours later.

\- Get the advice and support of an experienced NetOps or sysadmin person.

Edit: shouldn't be so negative about checklists; they're often useful.

<comment><USER3> I use checklists, and they work.

Scientists and engineers have a technique for complicated mathematics, which might work for editing sendmail.cf. Do it twice, and compare your answers. This works best when the "you" is plural, but repeating your own work the next day is better than nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the only thing you can do is to make the process less sensitive to your ability to remember everything. You, like everyone else, are not a computer. There are two basic approaches: automation and testing. Automate as much as possible of the process of installing your code into the production environment, and then make it a practice, the moment code new code is installed, to fire up a browser and bang on it yourself.</comment>


Is Social Science Politically Biased? - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-social-science-politically-biased/ <comment><USER2> So, I was thinking about reading some books on evolutionary psychology the other day. About how men prefer good looking young women, and how women prefer powerful/rich men with high social status and to a lesser degree tall and muscular men. How men think about sex more often than women. Etc. Personally, I find this stuff extremely depressing. It shows you that most animals and humans are not particularly nice, and it blows up many of the commonly held illusions in our culture, such as the idea that men and women are equal. I wonder, do many people prefer to simply deny these truths, rather than facing them and getting depressed?

<comment><USER3> Evolutionary psychology is a set of just-so stories. There's no science there, no way to remove massively confounding factors, no way to experiment. I suspect that in other cultures, in other times, evolutionary psychologists would have come up with different just-so stories to match whatever their local breeding preferences were.

<comment><USER4> But, it makes sense to me to examine the brain as a product of evolution. Does it have to be a science to have value?

> in other cultures, in other times

There is at least a substance to evolution, it's not the same as bible quotes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hmm, I don't think 'diversity' is the answer, especially in a polarised environment like the US.

How about higher academic standards for objective analysis?

</comment><comment><USER5> >58 to 66 percent of social scientists are liberal and only 5 to 8 percent conservative and that there are eight Democrats for every Republican

Maybe Social Science seems so politically biased to the author because he can't label the 30% he left out under the insufficient binary separation of Democrat/Republican. They are political parties, not a complete breakdown of someone's political beliefs.

</comment><comment><USER6> What a fluff piece. I had higher expectations of SciAm.

<comment><USER7> What would you have liked to see in a discussion of the subject?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Adding Paypal to Website - <AUTHOR>

I'm putting together a new site in ASP.Net.  I considering using the automatic button generating tools provided with my Paypal Account. Currently sales are done via Paypal email.
What security concerns should I have?
What technical concerns (besides my skill level) should I have? <comment><USER2> Those buttons are just a small bit of HTML form code. The button re-directs to their site. You can include some call back features on your site, such as a thank you page.

Using the buttons is the easiest way of integrating. If you are selling a number of products, then you will most likely need to eihter integrate an existing shopping cart or create your own.</comment>


Netflix is moving television beyond time-slots and national markets - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/06/30/netflix-is-moving-television-beyond-time-slots-and-national-markets <comment><USER2> I've seen a couple of Netlflix shows and don't understand the improvement. It's the same TV junk but over the Internet. Now even made by the same people.

Other forms of content have been completely transformed by the change in medium. Podcasts have built upon their radio legacy and diversified tremendously. YouTube allowed people to share nearly anything from incoherent rants to whole college courses.

Netflix merely replaced the ads with subscription and remains the same cognitive parasite TV was, pumping out stuff that you're better off not watching at all. Another Grey's Anatomy or Glee, do you want that?

<comment><USER3> There's tons of great TV shows nowadays. Mentioning Grey's anatomy and Glee does a disservice to TV.

Besides the obvious Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad there's Stranger things, Black Mirror, Westworld, just to name a few. Hell, all of the above are much much better than 90% of the crappy Marvel/superhero/blockbuster movie Hollywood keeps spewing nowadays.

<comment><USER4> I'll agree with you and the OP.

I think what the OP is trying to say here is that for example netflix just mass produces shows with the same people over and over again dropping the quality of its shows. I'd say netflix has some good shows to watch, but the way its going and the way its producing shows I'd say most of netflix shows are garbage with only a few of them being nice to watch.

<comment><USER5> What you consider garbage others consider good. Netflix knows what you watch, they are the product, you are the customer. There's no competition for time slots where people who like $goodshow are drowned out by people who like $populartrash

With legacy tv you are the product, the show is the overhead, and the advertisers are the customer. With Netflix you are the customer and the show is the product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Actually it was pirates who did that in the late 90s/early 2000s. Nobody was showing Naruto except kazaa. But noone ever gives them credit.

<comment><USER7> Because the implied point is about it being _mainstream_. Which what you're describing explicitly isn't.

<comment><USER8> Piracy _was_ mainstream in the early 90s/2000s. It was only when iTunes came out and the RIAA lawsuits successfully killed the p2p clients that it tamed back down.

<comment><USER9> iTunes changed the music business into what it is today.

The heyday of albums, bands, 20 dollar cds is over. But music has become less special less mainstream and people are less likely to identify themselves by subgroups formed around a music type. Young people are not on mass claiming to be Punks, goths, hippies, metal fans, disco heads, something new etc. Which has slowed down the evolution of music.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As Netflix becomes a bigger player around the world and it flexes its influence, I expect to see some international jurisdictions to question its power and imperial projection (projecting its values on countries with different values as well as for threatening the viability of local industries)

<comment><USER11> Must say, as a Netflix user I'm continually impressed with the breadth of and progressive nature of their original content. It's a bit selling point.

<comment><USER12> Conversely it's alienating me more and more each quarter with it's "progressive" nature.

<comment><USER13> Can you give an example?

<comment><USER14> It's probably best for civility's sake if he didn't. Would it really add much to the discussion if he did? I think it should suffice to say that the range of netflix content is far narrower than the ideological range of the general population.

<comment><USER15> Surely the opposite is true: Netflix is providing content for a broader ideological range.

They are still listing Friends and Breaking Bad, you're just not furious about those.

<comment><USER14> I'm not furious about anything, did you notice that I'm not the guy upthread? Though I do find your assumption that I like Friends and Breaking Bad to be strange. Why do you assume that?

> _" Netflix is providing content for a broader ideological range."_

Furthermore, this is not actually the opposite of what I said. ( _" I think it should suffice to say that the range of netflix content is far narrower than the ideological range of the general population."_) You use the word "broader", which is a relative term, but don't specify precisely what you are relating Netflix to. I assume you are relating it to traditional television programming (I assume this since the two shows you mentioned by name were traditional television programming.) But if you'll read my statement again, you'll see that's not what I was relating Netflix to.

I related the range of Neflix content to the ideological range of _the general population_. Not to traditional television, to _the general population._ Do I really need to explain that traditional television too only covers a small slice of the ideological range of the general population? I'll do so:

There are ideas and worldviews out there in which you'll never find mentioned or catered to in any mainstream television show _or_ any Netflix show. The reasons for this are as varied as the ideas and worldviews themselves. Some don't get on TV or Netflix because they are difficult to monetize or run contrary to corporate interests. Some are too niche to bother recognizing, and others are offensive to other larger portions of society (I assume you assume it all falls under this later category, because you're eager to act morally righteous. I assume that about you because you assumed I was furious.) Some ideas and worldviews go unrecognized by television and netflix simply because they've gone _unnoticed_ by television and netflix executives and filmmakers.

The sum of human ideology, ideas and worldviews is MUCH larger than the sum of what traditional television _and_ netflix has on display. It's healthy to recognize this because failure to do so necessarily means your understanding of the world is contracted to the intersection of what mass media executives think publishable (that is, what they can agree amongst themselves to publish.)

<comment><USER15> Thank you for clarifying.

I now understand your statement meant something like "Netflix content has a narrower ideological range than the ideological range of the whole population"

I recognise why you think this is an important claim here, but I don't think it is a useful comparison - no content provider can provide for the complete diversity of 7 billion people: it's not a fair comparison. A content provider can only make decisions within the resources that they have.

Meanwhile, I was saying "Netflix content has a broader ideological range [than equivalent TV networks and content providers]".

By picking those two shows, I was identifying that Netflix does not exclude people who were previously satisfied with that narrower range of content.

<comment><USER14> Netflix is no longer competing with traditional television, they're competing with a user-driver modern web. Youtube doesn't allow all kinds of content but even so it has orders of magnitude more coverage than netflix. And for the content you won't find on youtube, it's usually pretty easy to find it on other sites. I think this is a problem for Netflix that is only going to get worse as the older generations that were primed by traditional television become less economically relevant and new generations of "internet natives" come in.

Personally if I'm going to sit down and passively consume media, I usually like it to be about people making things, ideally with constrained resources. Preferably nonfiction. At any point in time Netflix may have a handful of documentaries that fit the bill, but compared to a platform like youtube it's basically nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd be more satisfied with Netflix and other streaming services operating in my country if these would offer wider content catalogs not limited by licensing agreements - with ability to rent it, as classic vhs or dvd rental was working (no idea if that was already a thing on Netflix - it operates here since 2016). I had no clue that N. had Family Guy until I read on 3rd part site that it's being pulled out without any information it was there in first place. We're paying same money for the service but available content is different; instead of popular series known and aired in tv, we're getting some cheap uknown fillers. So you see the problem here.

Sadly, such rental it's not going to happen because companies want to hold their deck of "cards" and refuse to share it with other tables in this video streaming casino.

<comment><USER17> > ability to rent

Netflix are clearly only interested in the subscription model, but if you want a la carte rentals, they're available from Google/Amazon/Rakuten/Sony/Microsoft/Apple.

> such rental it's not going to happen because companies want to hold their > deck of "cards" and refuse to share it with other tables in this video > streaming casino

From a more optimistic angle, it's neat that Netflix can exist at all at its current pricepoint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Their biggest issue, I feel at least, is that their plots for original content are getting slower and slower.

You can actually do faster paced, more engaging content. Just look at 12 Monkeys and Fringe.

<comment><USER19> I agree. I mostly stay away from the Netflix-made show, as it takes 13 episodes to discover there really was no plot to the show.

<comment><USER20> It took six seasons to realise there was no plot to Lost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wouldn't dismiss their competition either. I specifically paid for Hulu solely for "The Handmaids Tail", an incredibly well done drama. ([https://m.imdb.com/title/tt5834204/](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt5834204/))

Still dwarfed by Netflix with a ~$10B market cap, this battle isn't over. Amazon has a decent shot as well.

<comment><USER22> I love the Handmaid's Tale, but it drives me bonkers that they release new episodes at the rate of one per week. Release all the episodes in one day darn it! Making me wait pisses me off and (as I'm discovering) want to complain about it online.

<comment><USER23> Why don't you wait until its all been released to watch it, just like you would have to if they released it all at once after producing all of it?

<comment><USER22> I don't want to risk spoilers. Any Game Of Thrones fan will relate to that concept.

<comment><USER24> Wouldn't then the people who can only watch one episode per week be risking spoilers?

<comment><USER23> No. They watch each episode as soon as it is published. Noone else sees the episode too much earlier than they do, so the probability that someone will reveal something about the plot before you watch it is minimal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I havent watched normal television is so long. Cause there is never anything good on anymore. Its either Youtube, Streams or Netflix now from here on in. Even DVDS got phased out.

<comment><USER26> > Its either Youtube, Streams or Netflix now from here on in

What makes you think the medium has stopped developing? It's quite likely that something else will be invented that will be superior to any of those, and that will make you wonder why you ever put up with them.

<comment><USER25> Jstaley i never meant these forms of media replacing television. I meant it for my own personal preference. But i cannot see TV really gaining my attention anymore. Too much reality TV Shows these days to ever get me hooked on mainstream TV anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Netflix seems to be creating original content all over the world, which is great. I've seen Netflix original movies and shows offered from Spain, Brazil and many other countries; the quality is much higher when you take the best from many places, and it's enriching and challenging to see other cultures - even via an LCD display.

One odd and disappointing thing we've noticed: Unless required by the script, almost all the protagonists are white-skinned (or very pale), no matter what the country. Even in the U.S., that's only ~66% of the population; in Brazil?

It's bizarre to see and very troubling to me. I'm not sure I want to support that, but there aren't a large number of options that are better. Looking at Amazon, it's pretty similar. Here's a trick to gain some perspective as you go through your day: When you look at a group of Americans - Senators, SV people, faces on movie icons on Amazon, etc, - remember that they come from a country that is only 1/3 white guys. It's striking to see.

<comment><USER28> _> Netflix seems to be creating original content all over the world, which is great..._

Keep in mind that many of the "Netflix Originals" are not made by Netflix at all. In Australia "The Expanse" is a Netflix Original, even though it was made by SyFy & streamed on Amazon US. Similarly, "Glitch" is labelled Netflix Original in the US, but not in Australia, and it was made for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

As far as I can tell, Netflix Original only means they have exclusive distribution rights for a limited time in that country.</comment></comment>


The "Strong Towns" Book Is Out Today - <AUTHOR> https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/9/30/strong-towns-book-release-day-satbook <comment><USER2> If you do one thing, email your city council members and ask them to eliminate parking requirements. Here's a sample email which also explains why:

Parking minimums should be eliminated or significantly reduced in central neighborhoods where we've invested in bike lanes, walkability, and transit.

By insisting that we dedicate space for cars even in areas where residents have expressed interest in walking, biking, and using transit, parking minimums "build in" demand for driving and make it easier for people to drive than to use the transit alternatives they prefer.

Parking minimums also make housing more expensive even as our region faces a critical affordable housing shortage. The housing crunch disproportionately affects the poorest among us, who often don't have cars or struggle to afford gas. Why are we requiring these critically affected people to shoulder the cost burden created by parking minimums?

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks like it's chock-full of interesting ideas, but who is the target audience for the book? I don't believe I have much control over how my city is organized.

<comment><USER4> City governments are really accessible. There are regular public hearings where _anyone_ is entitled to monologue at decision-makers for several minutes at a time, sometimes with hilarious results. I mean, could you imagine the President being required to sit through 3-minute-per-person public comments?

Elections are swayed by tiny numbers of votes. Power rests with small groups of retired homeowners who bother to show up. And decisions made there have a greater impact on your life than most elements of federal policy.

<comment><USER5> >> Power rests with small groups of retired homeowners who bother to show up. And decisions made there have a greater impact on your life than most elements of federal policy.

so much this, young americans are systemically disenfranchised by how local governments are run

<comment><USER6> > so much this, young americans are systemically disenfranchised by how local > governments are run

If by "routinely disenfranchised" you mean "regularly fail to show up to vote" then I would agree with you. Perhaps with the exception of university students registered at a parental home, I don't see how one could claim young Americans are materially disenfranchised in regards to local elections.

<comment><USER7> Council meetings are held when normal people need to be at work.

<comment><USER6> In my neck of the woods they are held in the evenings, well after a typical 9-5 working day.

<comment><USER8> Same, I agree with the above poster re: failing to show up. I was involved for a number of years in an attempt to get a aquatic center built in my city to support both club and high school swim teams. By far the most difficult thing about it was getting kids (who would be the largest beneficiaries) to show support in city council meetings.

Ironically, we are almost there, but my swimmer is about to graduate and will probably never swim in the pool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I finished it last night. I wish a number of the arguments had provided more numbers to back up its points. In one section early on it uses a chart of city cost/profit from a given works, using a real world example, and then presents a chart to show its flow- but doesn't give any numbers on the axis. I liked the arguments presented in the book, but this made my brain worry about cherrypicked data.

Also, the entire last chapter could be cut entirely - it was an unneeded addition to the book.

All in all, a decent read, some interesting arguments.

</comment><comment> mark-r I've always enjoyed the Strong Towns blog posts that occasionally get featured here on HN. Is the book a repackaging of the blog or is it new material? How does it compare?

<comment><USER10> The book is all new material, but you could also think of it as a distillation of ten years of blog posts into something you can read in a day.

If you want to get your head around the entire idea of Strong Towns so you can decide how you feel about it, the book is the fastest and easiest way to do it.

Be warned, though, once you start to see the dysfunction in our cities, you can't unsee it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just finished it. Simultaneously infuriating and persuasive.</comment>


News.YC bug: You can submit sites multiple times by putting spaces after the URL. - <AUTHOR> http://news.ycombinator.com

<comment><USER2> You can do similar things to any such site by putting a question mark at the end of the url, which most servers ignore.

The point of recognizing urls is to avoid ordinary dupe submissions, not to prevent abuse.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm.. Shortsighted of me! I apologise. I thought it was a problem for reddit and digg.. Guess not! You can kill these if you'd like, since they're just cluttering up the front page.. I'd delete them if I could.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "?foo", "?bar", "&foo=bar", and "#fnord" too

Just don't submit dupes, problem solved. :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Dupe! Original post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36501>

<comment><USER4> you just blew my mind, dude</comment></comment>


Bitcoin-NG: A Secure, Faster, Better Blockchain - <AUTHOR> http://hackingdistributed.com/2015/10/14/bitcoin-ng/ <comment><USER2> Some commentary here: [http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin- dev/2015-...](http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin- dev/2015-October/011528.html)

and here: [http://gnusha.org/bitcoin- wizards/2015-10-14.log](http://gnusha.org/bitcoin-wizards/2015-10-14.log)

cross-post of [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3or365/bitcoinng_p...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3or365/bitcoinng_proposal_for_a_secure_faster_better/cvzoha1)

</comment><comment><USER3> That sounds interesting enough that I'll read the whitepaper, but the unfortunate truth is that people aren't going to switch off bitcoin any time soon. There are already massive improvements on the bitcoin protocol which have been largely ignored, partially because people don't understand them. This looks even more complicated, which adds both skepticism and implementation security risk.

<comment><USER4> I don't think anyone seriously imagines all the users of bitcoin switching to a new protocol. It's still an interesting exercise to try to build on it, since vanilla Bitcoin is filled with suboptimal qualities.

I don't see Bitcoin dying unless (until?) it's discovered to have an incurable security flaw.

<comment><USER5> > it's discovered to have an incurable security flaw.

AFAIK, that's not possible. Secure hashing algorithms tend to fracture instead of completely break, so there will be some warning; to change to a new algorithm, simply more than 50% of the Bitcoin miners would have to mine on the chain that relies on that new algorithm, and it thus becomes "voted" in.

<comment><USER3> > > I don't see Bitcoin dying unless (until?) it's discovered to have an > incurable security flaw.

> AFAIK, that's not possible.

That's an incredibly stupid thing to say. Please don't comment on topics you're ignorant on; you're spreading misinformation.

 _Obviously_ the hashing algorithm is one of the stronger points in bitcoin's implementation; that's completely irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not to be confused with Bitcoin XT, the vehicle for that open rebellion against Bitcoin Core by Gavin Andresen and Mike Hearn announced back in August.

</comment><comment><USER7> Very cool. Anyone know of an info graphic or good comparison of NG and LN[1]?

Seems like both could be applied to Ethereum or Dashcoin? Kind of painful to think about this space these days.

1\. [https://lightning.network/](https://lightning.network/)

<comment><USER8> NG is more efficient than the Bitcoin-type blockchain, while maintaining its security properties. Any currency running on a blockchain can therefore benefit from it.

Lightning network allows for off-chain transactions, so it's separate and complementary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Calling it "Bitcoin-NG" without buy-in from the majority of the Bitcoin community seems impolite at best.

</comment><comment><USER10> I would like to know what the researchers think of the consolidation of miners within Bitcoin.

From the whitepaper "Miners with capacity smaller than 1/4 of the total network are incentivized to follow the protocol."

Yet, if any two of the five biggest mining pools collude, [https://blockchain.info/pools?timespan=24hrs](https://blockchain.info/pools?timespan=24hrs) they'd already be over 1/4th of the network. And if three or more collude, they could take over the entire thing.

<comment> emin-gun-sirer Miner consolidation is a long-standing problem with Bitcoin itself.

When Ittay and I discovered selfish mining [1], we were quite worried about the size of mining pools at the time. Even though we also came up for a fix against selfish mining, the fix only prohibits selfish mining for pools <25%, and we also found that there can never be a fix to prohibit selfish mining for pools >=33%.

Things looked grim for a while, and we played a role in pushing back against GHash when they exceeded 51% around April of '14\. The only tool that the community had at the time to break up large miners was just social pressure.

In part as a reaction to GHash crossing of the 51% line, we [2] and Andrew Miller et al [3] came up with techniques based on non-outsourceable puzzles. This is a cool technique that would make it difficult for miners to run large open pools. It does require a potentially disruptive change to Bitcoin, so it's good to have in one's back pocket if the mining situation gets out of hand, but it's not something you want to deploy.

Luckily, Ittay's subsequent work on the Miner's Dilemma [4] discovered an incredibly interesting result: it pays for miners to attack other miners who are running large open pools. This puts natural pressure on miners to not open themselves up to the public and accept people into their pools willy nilly. This in turn is, I think, fantastic news, as it means that the problem may take care of itself, at least when it comes to open pools.

Overall, the distribution of mining power is a point of concern for everyone in the Bitcoin space. The situation looked bleak at first, as it looked like there were few mechanisms to keep open pools from growing ever larger. But now we have a strong technical solution and a natural process that is well- characterized. Large solo miners still remain an ongoing concern.

Hope this is useful.

[1] [http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.0243](http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.0243)

[2] [http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/06/18/how-to- disincentivi...](http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/06/18/how-to- disincentivize-large-bitcoin-mining-pools/)

[3] [https://cs.umd.edu/~amiller/nonoutsourceable_full.pdf](https://cs.umd.edu/~amiller/nonoutsourceable_full.pdf)

[4] [http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/12/03/the-miners- dilemma/](http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/12/03/the-miners-dilemma/)

<comment><USER10> This is interesting stuff, but it's still a stop gap. As you say, large solo miners are an ongoing concern.

If bitcoin ever makes it big, IMO, it'll be large corporations running mining operations. Just as the general population does most of its services through huge corporations, mining bitcoin will probably be done by them as well.

What do you think of Proof of Stake systems? Are they feasible? I'm working on one, btw, with a shared spending pool and an ability to vote to spend the pool, and to change the code of the official client, thereby changing the rules of the system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Additional chains will be great when someone comes up with a race-free, third- party trust-free protocol to do cross-chain trades. Last I read up on the subject this was not considered possible.

<comment><USER12> [https://bitshares.org/](https://bitshares.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> From the article: "Bitcoin-NG addresses the scalability bottleneck by enabling the Bitcoin network to achieve the highest throughput allowed by the network conditions. Paradoxically, not only does it improve transaction throughput, it also reduces transaction latencies -- it is possible to get an initial transaction confirmation in seconds rather than in minutes. And it does so without changing Bitcoin's open architecture and trust model."

@stanga as you are one of the authors, could you give us a tl;dr as to how this is possible?

<comment><USER14> It says so right in the article: "In Bitcoin-NG, the protocol is, instead, forward-looking: every 10 minutes, NG elects a leader, who then vets future transactions as soon as they happen."

<comment><USER5> So it's a leader-electing decentralized scheme?

What if the leader goes down? What if 2 leaders get accidentally elected in the wake of that?

What if the elected leader is a bad agent?

I don't like non-leaderless decentralization schemes. All you're doing is adding mobility to centralization.

<comment> emin-gun-sirer All good questions, all of which are answered in the white paper. An "elected leader" is essentially the same thing as a miner that mines a block in Bitcoin. Miners can mine empty blocks in Bitcoin. This is OK, as others will step in for such defunct miners. Likewise, in Bitcoin-NG, another miner will step up if the elected leader does not mint microblocks.

Keep in mind also that NG would be layered on top of Bitcoin, so everything that works in Bitcoin will work in NG as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What if the block wasn't based on crypto, but on verifiable human attention?

<comment><USER5> people have thought proof-of-work to death and what we have now is the best that they've come up with.

every other scheme that people suggest replacing it with runs into difficulties because you can't predict the amount of time (roughly) it takes to do the work. in Bitcoin's case, you CAN predict (roughly) the amount of time it will take to roll 3 1's in a row when repeatedly rolling a 6-sided die.</comment></comment>


Extra glass of wine a day 'will shorten your life by 30 minutes - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/apr/12/one-extra-glass-of-wine-will-shorten-your-life-by-30-minutes <comment><USER2> Is this pure correlation? are people drinking every day also less likely to have other more healthy habits?</comment>


Zoho No Longer Requires Accounts. Sign In With Your Yahoo Or Google ID - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/13/zoho-no-longer-requires-accounts-sign-in-with-yahoo-or-google-ids/ <comment><USER2> Does this mean that Google and Yahoo have an API that anyone can freely use to authenticate people against their Google/Yahoo account?

Please forgive my ignorance, but I feel that I'm missing something here.

<comment><USER3> Google: ' google authentication api'

returns AuthForWebApps

[http://code.google.com/apis/accounts/docs/AuthForWebApps.htm...](http://code.google.com/apis/accounts/docs/AuthForWebApps.html)

Seems really cool, to be honest adding this to most apps would increase signups significantly... I think your app has to be google verified though.

<http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2006-06-28-n34.html> (good overview)</comment></comment>


Ants are destroying plants by nurturing perfect aphid colonies - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/ants-are-destroying-your-plants-by-nurturing-perfect-aphid-colonies/ <comment><USER2> Aphids are fascinating (if annoying in the garden). They are capable of telescoping generations [1] which means an aphid can be pregnant with an aphid that is also pregnant.

[https://simonleather.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/living- inside-...](https://simonleather.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/living-inside-your- grandmother-the-wonderful-world-of-aphids/)

They also can grow wings if the colony gets overcrowded or the plant they are on is starting to die.

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

<comment><USER3> They also alternate between male/female and hermaphroditic phases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For months, I've had an Argentine ant problem, as in an infinite side-by-side congo line of them marching from my living room to my kitchen.

I tried a bunch of things; the number #1 liquid ant borox bait trap killer gizmo on Amazon just made a bunch of them die, but it didn't kill the colony. I just kept laying out more and more traps, but the ants would just die and fill up the trap, then the other ants would somehow learn that the trap was bad, and never touch it again, but interestingly enough, they would go in, and carry away their dead comrades.

Apparently, because Argentine ants have multiple queens, forming a giant macro colony that vertically spans the entire state of California. You get one queen, and they won't be down for the count, they'll just come right back. These are stubborn, resilient little buggers.

I then tried caulking the cracks along the bottom of the sheetrock next to my windows that they would keep coming out of, and I sealed that whole thing up good; it worked for about a week, and then the ants managed to eat through the caulking!

Anyhow, there were aphids were all over the vines(?) going all the way up the side of my house and up over my window. Once we removed the vines entirely, the ants were gone for good.

Sorry about the incomplete sentences and run-ons, I'm tired...

<comment><USER5> in my experience, it's more effective to lay out a strip of ant poison on some cellotape rather than in the bait traps.

More surface area so more ants can carry the poison away faster, and less deaths occur in the manner that you describe.

Also, switch to different types of bait now and then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mugwort is invasive, causes allergies, and is probably the single most-common street weed growing in NYC. So probably not a huge problem for the aphids to kill as much as they can.

The cooler story about aphids though is the dancing wooly aphids, which should be starting to colonize beech trees right around now. In addition to dancing when you shake the tree, there is an entire species of fungus that grows only in the honeydew left by the aphids. These are the black masses that you see on pretty much every single beech tree:

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

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k_FuYrMeDw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k_FuYrMeDw)

Fortunately they don't harm the beech trees, esp. since they're mycorrhizal with chanterelles and black trumpets.

<comment><USER7> > Fortunately they don't harm the beech trees, esp. since they're mycorrhizal > with chanterelles and black trumpets.

I recognize most of this as English but I worry about spending the next 4 hours or more on wackypedia figuring out what all this means.

<comment><USER8> It has a symbiotic relationship with chanterelle and black trumpet mushrooms.

<comment><USER7> Ah many thanks, biology is outside of my area of expertise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ants are incredibly impressive creatures, that appear to have been engaged in activities we usually consider to be uniquely human. Their history of agriculture, "animal" husbandry and city building, not to mention some clever air conditioning solutions predates our existence as modern humans.

Impressive little creatures when you get them in a group, and they're almost always in a group.

<comment><USER10> African termites' engineering is quite impressive as well. Their mound is a giant, self-cooling fungus farm! It was a source of inspiration for biomimetic architecture. You can read about it here: [http://inhabitat.com/building- modelled-on-termites-eastgate-...](http://inhabitat.com/building-modelled-on- termites-eastgate-centre-in-zimbabwe/)

<comment><USER11> The termite's task in temperature regulation almost seems impossibly difficult. You would need an extremely well educated and specialized human to develop something to match what they've done.

Remarkable that they could evolve that behavior.

<comment><USER9> On the other hand, HVAC (I mean, that's what it is right?) must confer a _huge_ advantage, even in its relatively early and primitive stages. You probably save loads of energy with even a degree in the right direction, especially when you're raising lots of larvae.

Like the first critter to evolve a couple of photosensitive cells, it seems like a minute thing, but telling dark from light can be a huge leg up. Now we look at complex eye structures and are amazed, but of course they were once eye spots.

I suspect that it might be the same with the termites, who have after all had a long time, and uncountable generations to select for these traits.

No less remarkable for all of that though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As someone who now finally have conquered the aphids in my plum tree after destroying the ants nest next to it this rings true.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've been battling aphid farming ants in my garden for years now. It's kind of fun to watch them tend their aphids but they wreak havock on plants. I've used diatomaceous earth to repel the ants. It acts like tiny shards of glass that gets caught in exoskeletons. The ants hate it. But it's ineffective of it gets wet. I'm interested in trying Tanglefoot. Anyone have experience with this product?

<comment><USER14> Permaculturists have been using physical methods for years to stop ants protecting aphid herds -- you may not need any chemicals at all. Hunt around for some half-donut shapes that clip around the trunk that you can fill with water. (I can't find any pics after a quick search, but I know they exist.) Otherwise, maybe something mild like a vaseline barrier - probably need to protect from the rain, of course.

<comment><USER15> > Permaculturists have been using physical methods for years to stop ants > protecting aphid herds

I feel like the animals would (if they had good PR) depict us as the worst conspiratorial puppet-masters and we would thoroughly deserve it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I feel like going back to read GEB, see if this time I get it...</comment>


The problem with Path - <AUTHOR> http://www.andrewcross.ca/2012/04/17/the-problem-with-path/

<comment><USER2> the problem with path is that theres no revenue model. it's just a silly gimmick</comment>


Armed civilian roadblocks in Oregon town fuel fears over vigilantism - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/16/oregon-fires-armed-civilian-roadblocks-police <comment><USER2> > Reports of vigilante activity in rural Oregon have multiplied as first > responders struggle to keep up with the wildfire emergency, and baseless > rumors that "antifa" arsonists are to blame spread rapidly on social media.

It is amazing to read how people are so quick to accept conspiracy theories as the cause of these fires, yet they fight tooth an nail to deny the real cause, man made climate change and global warming.

Here in Australia, last year we too suffered mouths of horrendous bush fire/wildfire destruction and sure enough we had the exact same 'the arsonist did it' conspiracy response.

[https://www.vox.com/2020/1/9/21058332/australia-fires- arson-...](https://www.vox.com/2020/1/9/21058332/australia-fires-arson- lightning-explained)

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-11/australias-fires- reve...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-11/australias-fires-reveal-arson- not-a-major-cause/11855022)

<comment><USER3> Given a saner stateside society, I'd be tempted to photoshop extracts from Goebbels' Sportpalast speech[1] over the top of Trump on a Tank graphics and attempt to circulate them in ill-regulated militia[2] circles, but Poe's law[3] almost certainly guarantees they would be taken at face value, with, as has already been demonstrated, fatal consequences.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24409361](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24409361)

[2] are yanks aware of the symbolism of skull motifs in the "are we the baddies?" sketch? _cough_ Punisher _cough_

[3] I investigated some FB-circulated Donbass memes for a US colleague. Of the set, I only found one in the wild on RUnet, and even it had a comment along the lines of "who made this, a primary schooler?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The men who stopped her, most of whom were armed, were dressed in "hunting > style clothes, camouflage", she said, and did not identify themselves or > mention any legal authority under which they were acting.

...

> Robinson said she was questioned by a "heavily armed" man carrying a AR- > style long gun and a visible sidearm. She said the man asked at one point: > "You're not from around here, are you?" which Robinson, who is African > American, understood as having racist overtones.

Jesus.

It's evidently a law of nature that vigilante groups are oblivious to the ramifications of their choice of clothing, equipment, and communication style, which is a handy blind spot for anyone who knows how modern civilization is supposed to work, and is capable of wielding a phone camera and driving themselves to a town hall meeting to ask wtf is going on.

And to cause this kind of pain in another human being in the middle of a natural disaster--what a disgrace.

> [Sheriff] Reese would go on to issue another statement on Friday's events > later that night, saying: "The sheriff's office will not tolerate illegal > activity of any kind, including illegal roadblocks."

Translation: Game over for the local doomscroller militia...turns out their late actions are incompatible with modern civilization. The fact that local law enforcement also managed to get their reputation tangled up in this is just embarrassing.</comment>


Let's Do Lunch - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/idealunch.html <comment><USER2> Seems kind of ... hrm ... odd to propose it as a chat about your startup. I think it'd be fun to do lunch with PG, but would much rather range over a wider group of topics - life in Italy, fatherhood, tech trends, languages, politics (hate seeing it on this site, but like everyone, I'm interested in it), and this that and the other thing.

<comment><USER3> I'd be happy to talk about random topics, but it would seem presumptuous to offer that as an auction item.

<comment><USER2> On the other hand, if I had a good proposition for a startup and team, you'd pay _me_ to fly there and talk about it for a few minutes, and then potentially give me money to work on it!

Also, in terms of startups, I have a suspicion that the most interesting knowledge in pg's head has to do with the aggregate data from YC: trends, what works, what doesn't, what makes money, that sort of thing. That's what I'd focus on in terms of startups.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most likely a bargain in comparison to the lunch with Warren Buffett that recently went for a whopping $2.63 million.

<comment><USER5> Though that $2.63 million sure did include a ton of exposure (including your comment now!).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Paul can you ask the nursery school to try to take bids by phone? I will mail them a 20 dollar check. And if I win I will not make you go anywhere, I will fly out to Palo Alto.

I am sure many others would appreciate this option.

<comment><USER7> According to this previous post on the topic (by one of the volunteers at the school) if you want to bid but can't be there in person then you can contact them:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1863923>

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately, you can't bid unless you attend the event (or have someone attend in your place).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I checked with Bing and unfortunately there is no way for someone to bid unless you attend the auction. If you want to bid, you should designate someone else to attend for you and get a reservation/bidder number.

<comment><USER9> This is a good Offer HN opportunity. (I know, I know, that's so last week.)

You could tell people that they can email you with the max they'll pay, and you'll go and bid for whoever has the highest max. And I guess you should say that you'll definitely bid at least the second highest max you heard, so that we don't end up shorting Bing.

(eg. Someone gives you a max of $5k. Someone else gives you a max of $4k. But the highest bid from anyone at the auction is $2k. So you bid $2500 on behalf of the $5k person and win it for them. If the $4k person and the $5k person had gotten different proxies, Bing would have gotten >$4k, but because there was a sort of pre-auction, they only got $2500. By saying that you'll definitely bid as high as the second-highest emailer, you avoid that problem.)

Just make sure you vet the person pretty well so you know they'll actually pay.

I'd do this myself, but I'll be on a plane back from Rubyconf that evening.

<comment><USER10> It is a silent auction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Microtrend?

Our Kickstarter project also arranges coffees with VCs/angels for a donation to a nonprofit. And you can bid online. Deadline: end of day Saturday, Nov. Sixth.

<http://pageturnerfest.org/kickstarter/vcs>

Donate $500 to the Asian American Writers' Workshop literary festival and you can snatch coffees with:

\- Patrick Chung, partner at NEA and co-lead of its consumer investing practice.

\- Harj Taggar, partner at Y Combinator.

\- Puneet Agarwal, of True Ventures, a $195 million fund that focuses earliest stages in the highest-growth segments of the technology market.

\- Andrew Chung, principal at Lightspeed Venture Partners, who covers the cleantech, Internet and software sectors.

\- James Cham, principal at Trinity Ventures, who covers consumer services, social media and digital media.

\- Richard de Silva, general partner at Highland Capital Partners, who is focused on digital media investments with specific interest in online advertising, online media properties, consumer payment systems and internet infrastructure. [SOLD OUT]

\- David Lee, partner at SV Angel with Ron Conway, who focuses on investments within the consumer Internet, mobile, video and other IT industries. [SOLD OUT]

Direct to our Kickstarter project: <http://aaww.org/kickstarter>

</comment><comment><USER12> Site idea: leaders in their field volunteer their time for lunch. People bid and also pay for said lunch. Winning bid goes to designated charity. Perhaps have one auction per day. Could be anything from someone like PG to head of marketing at a major sports team, to notable chefs, writers, etc.

<comment><USER13> yup just what i was talking about, see below

<comment><USER12> Could be something in it then.

If it was high profile enough, the restaurants might even cover the lunch in exchange for the plug on the site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can someone in the area be my proxy and bid for me?

<comment><USER15> I'm wondering this same thing for myself.

I don't want to give the school a fixed number. I want a live body that can call me. I might go over my "limit" if it's within reason at the last minute...

<comment><USER16> I think it is a silent auction. So you go in and put your bid. So it is not going to be like what I believe you imagine.

I am not sure whether 1\. you know what others have bid(my guess is this would be the case to raise more money from charity's point of view) 2\. you can bid again.

<comment><USER15> The way silent auctions (charity or otherwise) I've participated in usually do it is to have a list of bids near each item. You can circulate throughout the evening, changing your bid until bidding closes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I would like to remotely bid on this item too. I would fly in for the lunch.

</comment><comment><USER18> Seems to be the type of thing where the higher you bid, the less meaningful the result would actually be.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a great way to increase the value (or beneficiaries) of altruistic acts. Maybe that startup Skyara should make this one of their use cases, where people with specific domain knowledge could offer lunches and donate the proceeds to charity.

Note: I have no affiliation with Skyara and hadn't even heard about them until I read this HN thread a couple minutes ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1874982>

</comment><comment><USER16> I plan to be there...And hope to win:) @callmeed, i can bid on ur behalf assuming it is a straightforward one time bid...i can contact you on email if you want..though there is a conflict of interest :) edit: edited some portion once i learned about silent auction

<comment><USER19> If you are bidding yourself, I think you cannot bid for someone else (morally speaking). Otherwise you can be sure to beat his bid by bidding just one dollar more.

<comment><USER7> Surely, he could do that anyway ? - it's a silent auction not a secret one, all bids are public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is well timed, to be honest part of me wants to go there and bid just to ask Paul Graham why we didn't get into YCombinator. But, we are in NYC :)

</comment><comment><USER21> a school at stanford and they lack technology? perhaps someone should quickly build an ipad app to put on the table at the auction. onsite folks can bid on the ipad, and folks at home can bid via browser. take twitter id so all bids are tweeted to drive even more bidders. perhaps the basis for a yc startup...

</comment><comment><USER22> I know this is about the lunch, but does anyone have any kids that have gone to Bing? Is it worthwhile?

</comment><comment><USER23> lunch + feedback with PG - how amazing. Right now I'm bootstrapping my business companyline.com so winning this auction isn't likely. However, PG I'd donate 200+ hours of community service for a similar lunch in Mountain View.

</comment><comment><USER24> Its times like these I wish I had cash to spare, haha.

</comment><comment><USER25> not do downplay the charity aspect, it would be cheaper to spend some time building a great mvp and apply to yc to get more than lunch with pg and gang. but then there's the chance of not being selected ;)

</comment><comment><USER26> pg, are you ready for the possible

"Why didn't you pick me for yc?! (sob)"

awkward lunch?

<comment><USER27> The thing is, I don't think it'd be that awkward for him. I bet he'd find a way to say, "you know, I got rejected once..." and you'd walk out ready to rock and roll.</comment></comment>


Bolt: A low-level key/value database for Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/boltdb/bolt

<comment><USER3> Bolt was built at Shopify as a back-end to our Merchant Analytics reporting stack.

If you're interested in working on projects like this, we are hiring - <USER2> me tom at shopify.com.

<comment><USER4> Cool stuff but why didn't you just use an existing LMDB wrapper or write a new one? What's this offer that an LMDB wrapper doesn't?

<comment><USER5> We originally used szferi/gomdb which worked well but it didn't give us performance visibility with "go pprof" and it was difficult to debug at times. Bolt also takes the approach of simplifying the LMDB API significantly. There are a lot of advanced, unsafe features that aren't available in Bolt (e.g. WRITEMAP, NOMETASYNC). There's more detail in the README:

[https://github.com/boltdb/bolt#lmdb](https://github.com/boltdb/bolt#lmdb)

Bolt was originally just a side project but we found that it fit our needs for our analytics database so we eventually swapped out LMDB for Bolt.

<comment><USER6> This is a fairly minor nit, but a persistent one nonetheless: you keep claiming to have removed unsafe features from LMDB, yet you left the most dangerous one in there: NOSYNC provides no consistency guarantees whatsoever, whereas e.g. with NOMETASYNC you merely lose durability. In particular NOMETASYNC retained crash safety, which you don't get at all with NOSYNC.

The way this is worded, it sounds like an improvement, but in reality bolt is no safer to use than LMDB was, it just lacks some configurable tradeoffs that were present in the original engine, and were safer to use than those that remain in bolt.

That said, I'm happy to see APPEND go ;)

<comment><USER5> That's a fair point. Although I'd argue that WRITEMAP and APPEND are more scary. :)

I try to point out in the docs that DB.NoSync should only be used for offline bulk loading where corruption is typically less of an issue (since you can simply rebuild).

[https://godoc.org/github.com/boltdb/bolt#DB](https://godoc.org/github.com/boltdb/bolt#DB)

The wording was intended to make it sound like an improvement for people wanting smaller, more concise code bases. Bolt is 2KLOC vs LMDB's 8KLOC. Smaller surface area makes it easier to test thoroughly. It's definitely a tradeoff for people who want that really low level control though.

<comment><USER7> LMDB author here - what have you got against APPEND? Fast bulk-loading is pretty important when you're initializing a system.

Note that APPEND mode _won 't_ allow you to corrupt the DB, despite what the doc says - you'll get a KEYEXIST error if you try to load out of order. We just left the doc unchanged to emphasize the importance of using sorted input.

<comment><USER5> Thanks, Howard. That's good to know. The docs always scared me away from using it at all.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps it's time for us to update the doc to reflect reality...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've looked briefly at the Bolt documentation a few times and I can't say that I like the idea of giving a function as a parameter to the Update and View functions. It result in some weird looking code with functions within functions, that can't really be refactored out or reused.

Pretty much Javascript callback spaghetti in Go. There might be a way around it, but I haven't found any examples. Perhaps there could be a way where transactions a manually managed.

<comment><USER9> I'm still new to Go, but the functions don't have to be anonymous, right? What would be wrong with defining all of your functions somewhere (for updates, iterations, etc.) and passing them by name to Bolt's?

<comment><USER8> You could name your functions, but you won't really be able to parse in any data. Unless you wrap then Update and View functions as well.

As others points out there's nothing wrong the Bolt code, it's fine and pretty common, I just don't like it.

<comment><USER10> > Unless you wrap then Update and View functions as well.

This is how I'd do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [http://npf.io/2014/07/intro-to-boltdb-painless-performant- pe...](http://npf.io/2014/07/intro-to-boltdb-painless-performant-persistence/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Namespace clashes in software are starting to become a real problem:

[http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/opencl-zone/bolt- c-t...](http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/opencl-zone/bolt-c-template- library/)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm trying to understand the use case for a persistent embedded DB for Go. SQLite is embedded all over the place, often in clients.

But presuming Go is a server language, and you are running stateless web nodes, why do you need persistence?

<comment><USER11> It's awesome because it's just a go package - no external dependency... Your application still ships as a single binary.

<comment><USER14> Note that using a sqlite wrapper like [https://github.com/mattn/go- sqlite3](https://github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3), you also don't have any external dependencies and your application still ships as a single binary. However, there are other advantages of a Go-native storage library (e.g., doesn't require cgo, better integration with tools like pprof, etc.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd love to have something like that built around some serialisation protocol like protobufs. Something that would feel like GAE's Datastore API.

<comment><USER5> I haven't used GAE's Datastore API but using protobufs on top of Bolt is trivial. Bolt just uses []byte for keys & values. I use gogoprotobufs with Bolt often.</comment></comment>


A Better Way for Video Creators to Make a Living - <AUTHOR> https://thatvideomag.com/jobs-opportunities-forum/6-freelance-videographers-and-crews-wanted <comment><AUTHOR> Hello everyone. This is my first time posting here. Just a little about me. In 2007 I left the automotive industry with $10,000 in funding from family to start a new career in digital media. I purchased video equipment, editing software, and taught myself web development. I created my first video publication because I was frustrated by the lack of representation in the media and local stories going largely untold or undiscovered.

For years I created hundreds of videos documenting local culture but struggled to earn a steady income. It's why I created That Video Mag. That Video Mag is a video magazine for local news and entertainment. That Video Mag helps people discover videos about local culture and helps video creators filmmakers earn a living.

Video creators can make a whole lot more money by publishing their original unscripted, documentary, and journalistic video pieces on That Video Mag than by releasing them through free ad-supported models.

My mission is to get creators paid and create an economic impact by putting local products and services in the hands of consumers.

The link describes how it works. Thanks!</comment>


Archivists are racing to digitise 300 years of newspapers before they crumble - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/05/british-library-digitising-newspapers-boston-spa <comment><USER2> It's interesting that people are currently lamenting the fact that a huge chunk of human history will be lost because it's all digital now, while at the same time we are racing to digitize the past to prevent it from getting lost.

It almost seems inevitable that most of the details of human history will be lost regardless....

<comment><USER3> The key advantage with digital is that it's easily copied.

For that advantage to be worth anything, the material has to actually be...copied.

Central repositories for this stuff are fine, maybe even essential. But they need to also be spreading around full copies quite liberally.

<comment><USER2> > For that advantage to be worth anything, the material has to actually > be...copied.

This is they key. I think people are afraid of our all digital world because no one backs anything up.

<comment><USER4> Also, digital is so efficient it accumulates far faster than older mediums. I find it a very telling pattern. Things are easy and so they get out of control.

When I was a kid, a photo album had something like 50 tiny fading photos, and it covered 5 years or so. Each one was a very high density of memories. Now we have thousands of them. Curious.

<comment><USER5> In the old days someone put a photo album in a trunk in the attic. Then they got old, forgetful, the kids didn't care about the photos, then the person died. Years later someone else found the photo album.

What happens in this scenario with digital photos? Sure, if someone is careful (and most people frankly aren't... I've seen more than a few people lose all their photos) you can keep backing them up. Until you can't anymore or you don't. Then they are gone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A major Australian/NZ newspaper company shipped all their photos to the US for digitization. The company ( Rogers Photo Archive) doing the digitization then went bankrupt.

[http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jun/08/fairfax- media-p...](http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jun/08/fairfax-media-photo- archive-stuck-in-us-warehouse-after-digitising-deal-unravels)

Especially embarrassing the the NZ branch since they got special permission from the government to ship the photos out of the country. Some of the photos ended up on Ebay.

</comment><comment><USER7> Out of curiosity, there's a huge number of newspapers already archived on microfilm (unless it's been all thrown away). I'm sure digitizing from microfilm will be a reasonable alternative.

<comment><USER8> it's mentioned in the article that microfilm is digitised

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hm. Yet to be proven that any digital storage will last anywhere close to that long. At best it will be a continually active process of refreshing the archive and converting the data to whatever storage media and formats are currently in use.

<comment><USER10> That's not a problem. The problem is in the analog mediums (paper) that will always disintegrate over time. Digital media will not lose fidelity over time at all. In 10,000 years, as long as the backups were maintained, the data will be as good as the day it was made.

<comment><USER11> Moving the scans to new digital media and data formats is the hard part. It takes effort and money, whereas analog formats need no extra work.

<comment><USER12> This is only partially true: with online storage, it's relatively easy to make bit-for-bit identical copies even if the physical storage medium changes over the years because there's always an overlap period when a technology falls out of favor.

Where it gets expensive is when you neglect to do that and then 50 years from now someone is pulling a Zip disk or LTO tape out of a box and wondering how to read it.

In contrast, analog formats will always lose quality as you copy it so you have a strong incentive to make copies which will last as long as possible. If you get the right material it might be transferable in the future with no work – e.g. high-quality photographic prints on archival-quality stock – or you might end up needing to build exotic equipment which can do things like optically scan records to reconstruct an audio waveform ([http://irene.lbl.gov](http://irene.lbl.gov)) or deal with media which has disintegrated ([https://www.nedcc.org/audio-preservation/irene- blog/2014/08/...](https://www.nedcc.org/audio-preservation/irene- blog/2014/08/12/delaminating/)). One look through e.g. [http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/collectioncare/index.htm...](http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/collectioncare/index.html) should be enough to see limited a time period "no extra work" is valid for.

The common theme for both formats is that it's critical to maintain the ability to read and make copies. Once something falls out of common usage the cost to rebuild that capacity go up dramatically because you're no longer enjoying mainstream economies of scale and the work will increasingly require skilled technicians using bespoke tools.

This can be particularly bad with digital formats if the use of DRM means that few/no people are legally allowed to create tools during the period where many of the original creators are still available for consultation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The idea of concentrating all these one-of-a-kind newspapers into one building is crazy. What if it burns down?

> At such low oxygen levels, the contents simply can't go up in flames.

Famous last words.

> And with standards for the documentation, archiving and accessing of data – > official and personal – still being thrashed out,

I don't understand why this is a problem. Scan them to pdf files, and put them on web pages. Let google index them.

<comment><USER14> It's a basic principle of fire safety engineering – paper requires a concentration of more than 14.1% oxygen to allow combustion to occur.

Considering that paper composes the majority of the mass in that installation, a sustained hypoxic environment at 14% or below is exactly how this system should be designed.

If the papers were separated into separate warehouses, they would still all have the same environmental requirements. Additionally, you require N times more budget, where N is the number of warehouses you've constructed (not to mention the difficulty in querying physically distributed warehouses for information).

> I don't understand why this is a problem. Scan them to pdf files, and put > them on web pages. Let google index them.

Before making such broad, sweeping statements, perhaps read up a bit on the principles of information science: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_science)

Edit: You are editing your comment every few minutes, so I don't know what to reply to anymore.

<comment><USER13> Ships have hulls to keep the water out, too, but sometimes the water gets in and they sink. I can think of dozens of ways the archive could still burn.

Here's just one: large earthquake breaks open the building, cuts electric power, breaks gas lines, fire starts. Firemen are overwhelmed and give priority to saving civilians in other buildings, stacks of newspapers are at the bottom of their list.

Another: Fire starts in building next door. Wind whipped flames set the archive on fire from the outside. Archive burns down with everything in it.

A third: bunch of militants take over that part of town. Set fire to the archive because they are opposed to history. Not like that has never happened before, like in ISIS controlled Iraq, and the great fire of Alexandria.

It's the classic eggs-in-one-basket scenario.

<comment><USER15> At least its a good basket, in a reasonable place, with safeguards in place. Two or three 9's more likely to work than...doing nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have some newspapers that my grandmother saved from world war II. Those were quite unlike todays newspapers.</comment>


Borrowers Refuse to Pay Billions in Home Equity Loans - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/business/12debt.html

<comment><USER2> Here are some earlier submissions on this and similar topics:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1500564> <\- This has lots of comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1491252>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1175576>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1011716>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=726110> <\- This has lots of comments

</comment><comment><USER3> The article mentions Hoboken, NJ. I live here and there was no bust, IMHO. Buildings are still going up. It's a small little town on the Hudson River, across from NYC. I'm sure prices fell 20%, maybe 30%, but you didn't lose half your money.</comment>


Show HN: Zectl – ZFS Boot Environment Manager for Linux - <AUTHOR> https://ramsdenj.com/2020/03/18/zectl-zfs-boot-environment-manager-for-linux.html <comment><USER2> Finally. I got used to this on solaris 10 and missed it until FreeBSD got it.. ZFS and beadm are the included in the reasons i continue to run FreeBSD as a workstation, but these days with k8s and such I do tend to run a lot of linux VMs to do my daily work (devops stuff)...

The work lappy runs ubuntu with zfs on root, and it's pretty seamless, I'm very much onboard with it having boot environments! (zsys)

<comment><USER3> Zfs on a laptop means you run zfs with a single disk?

<comment><USER4> This is not unheard of among FreeBSD users. Most of ZFS's features do not require (or even necessarily benefit from) multiple disks.

<comment><USER5> Yup checksumming and snapshots and compression and at rest encryption are amazing to name a few

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This looks nice. Going to have to give it a try.

I'd love to see automated ZFS-on-root setup, but suspect that'll have to come from Canonical if we ever get it.

<comment><AUTHOR> In 20.04 they will have ZFS on root with BEs as an install option, looking forward to seeing the first major Linux distro making it available as a default.

<comment><USER7> Currently running that exact setup, it's sweet

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Oh, this is cool! We'll need to check out this plugin mechanism as a thought for bectl -- it's fairly inflexible at the moment.

libze_util_temporary_mount would be a good candidate for using (or being replaced by?) the recently-introduced zfs_mount_at in libzfs once that's widely available enough. That was a fairly trivial addition to libzfs that was initially made to support libbe's be_mount(), which previously used the effectively non-portable amount() [post-mortem: should read zmount, but autocorrect is alwayscorrect]

<comment><AUTHOR> loader ZFS integration is really great on FreeBSD, do people occasionally want to use something else? Is that why you would consider looking to support other options? Really would be nice to see loader ported to Linux - I know it was recently brought over to Solaris. Maybe a project for another day...

Thanks for the tip, the temporary mounting seems a bit like a hack so that's good to know there's a better option.

<comment><USER8> I've seen the occasional rumbling about folks wanting to use grub for one reason or another- while not necessarily ideal (having the caveats of a non- loader environment), I can see the value in it if you really don't need the amenities loader offers (debugging support, kmods).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Big thanks to the developers/John for creating ZFS Linux boot manager!

</comment><comment><USER10> Looks cool. Currently only one machine which I have with zfs is NixOS, which has it own mechanism to handle such versioning, or do you see some advantages of using zfs approach?

<comment><AUTHOR> I used to use NixOS, and I do have some of the best ZFS support out of the box I've seen on Linux. I'm not sure if the approach of using zfs boot environments would play well with NixOS considering how they manage the configuration and rollbacks separately. They also manage the bootloader, so I don't know if the changes would survive. Something could probably be set up to work, but it would probably feel as though you were working against the intended way the system should work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> With encryption support?

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't tried it myself with encryption, but I can't see it making a difference. The bootloader, and initial ZFS setup will be what needs to be changed to facilitate encryption.

<comment><USER12> Hmm, how/when/where would the 'zfs load-key' happen?

I only know how to use the systemd-ask-password hack to decrypt non-root datasets, but can't get my head around how that would work with fully encrypted root dataset.

<comment><USER8> Presumably it would be like FreeBSD's GELI, where early boot stuff would need to detect that it's looking at an encrypted root and know to prompt. In theory, this is relatively straightforward- with boot environments, the zpool bootfs property indicates the root dataset, so I wouldn't think you need to look too far.

[edit: this is done in our loader, so presumably you'd use grub?]</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks <comment><USER2> >"The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda."

I thought this had been going on for some time; quite possibly since the early days of the Internet, and not just from America -- but from all nations...

>"Once developed, the software could allow US service personnel, working around the clock in one location, to respond to emerging online conversations with any number of co-ordinated messages, blogposts, chatroom posts and other interventions."

Again, it wouldn't surprise me if every single nation on the planet has this at this point in time; and if they don't, they will...

To understand this, think of it this way -- the lowest barrier to entry for something like this is a single person, paid for by one of the various governments, posting messages on behalf of a particular agenda.

The next version up is a more sophisticated automated system (which is still ridiculously cheap, given all of the $$$ that most governments have). Up from there we have AI/Machine Learning driven systems, but the cost (again, relative to governments' budgets) is still ridiculously cheap...

So, with all of that to gain, and no downside ( _well, other than spamming up the Internet and destroying intellectual thought and debate with comments that would make Billy Madison look like Albert Einstein_ : ("Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."))

But aside from that "minor drawback" <g>, to a government point of view, there is no downside, and the cost is so cheap (relative to the $$$ they have), so why not?

>"It also calls for "traffic mixing", blending the persona controllers' internet usage with the usage of people outside Centcom in a manner that must offer "excellent cover and powerful deniability"."

All I know is, if a user account, real or sockpuppet, man or AI -- tells me that 2 + 2 = 4 -- it's probably right.

Conversely, if it tells me that 2 + 2 = 5, it's probably wrong.

My point is, I don't believe things just because people say them, or even because a lot of people say them, whether those "people" are real people, paid agents, or AI...

It's called "Critical Thinking".

Perhaps every country's defense establishments -- should invest a few dollars of their tax base -- and teach it to their citizens...

The problem is, "Critical Thinking" \-- doesn't have a catchy sounding militaristic title with "Operation" as the first word...

Create a fancy name like that, make it a "top secret" project, and I guarantee, due to the Streisand Effect ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)), that you'll get everyone's attention!

Call it "Operation Free Your Mind" or something like that...<g>

<comment><USER3> Great comment. Wish it had more of an audience, but I want to let you know you at least reached me. Thanks for posting.

<comment><USER2> Thank you, for your kind comments!</comment></comment></comment>


Finland plans to give every citizen 800 euros a month and scrap benefits - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-plans-to-give-every-citizen-800-euros-a-month-and-scrap-benefits-a6762226.html <comment><USER2> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10090542](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10090542)

More: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10553008](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10553008)

More: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10685076](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10685076)

And a list of some of the previous submissions of this story, from multiple sources:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10685148](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10685148)</comment>


Chicken Scheme Websockets - <AUTHOR> http://wiki.call-cc.org/eggref/4/websockets#quick-start-example <comment><USER2> Chicken Scheme uses a technique called "Cheney on the M.T.A." to implement it's garbage collection (and entire language, really). It's one of the most mind-bending things I've ever heard of.

Here's the article: [http://home.pipeline.com/~hbaker1/CheneyMTA.html](http://home.pipeline.com/~hbaker1/CheneyMTA.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is an article discussing the utilization of this technique specifically for CHICKEN scheme.

[http://www.more-magic.net/posts/internals-gc.html](http://www.more- magic.net/posts/internals-gc.html)

<comment><USER3> This and the paper above were extremely entertaining reads. To the point that I am downloading CHICKEN right now to start exploring. Thank you for those links.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The example echo server is very elegant.

      (with-websocket
        (lambda ()
          (send-message (string-append "you said: " (receive-message)))))

I'll add "porting Chicken web sockets to GNU Guile" to my ever growing todo list.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. (I'm the author of the library.) It came about after quite a few tries at a good API and with a lot of feedback from other CHICKEN hackers.

It probably isn't very portable right now, unfortunately. It uses a lot of CHICKEN specific things to increase speed and memory efficiency but I'm totally open to making it more portable.

<comment><USER4> >It came about after quite a few tries at a good API

I'm very familiar with that cycle. I'm writing a game engine in Guile and I am constantly implementing something, throwing it away, and trying again. Every time you get a bit closer to the API you really want.

>It probably isn't very portable right now, unfortunately.

That's alright. Portable Scheme is cool, but I prefer using what the implementation gives me instead of restricting myself to RnRS. Especially so for something like networking code.

I might never get around to it, but if I find myself wanting to tackle a new project, I'll give porting this a try.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why are people still using languages like scheme? I learned that in university and always hated all those parentheses and thought I would never have to use it again.

<comment><USER6> Languages like scheme and lisp do not have real syntax, but are more like abstract syntax tree markup languages. That is both the appeal and the dissuasion. Attempts have been made to create syntax for these languages, but it never catches on. [https://www.google.com/webhp?#q=alternative+syntax+lisp+%7C+...](https://www.google.com/webhp?#q=alternative+syntax+lisp+%7C+scheme)

<comment><USER7> I am a fan of Scheme but never got that statement. Why do people say Scheme/Lisp has no syntax? I mean clearly it has a _simple_ syntax, i.e. an expression is either an atom (an identifier, a number, a lambda expression, etc.) or a list of expressions, denoated by "(expr0 expr1 ... exprN). I would say it has a simple, well-thought and powerful syntax.

<comment><USER8> It has no syntax (of its own) in that it hijacks s-expression syntax instead. When you want to write Lisp code, you actually write some data structures in the s-expression data format, like when writing some data in JSON or XML. Then a Lisp interpreter or compiler uses an s-expression parser to read that data structure into memory, and operates on that.

Then again, not just every Lisp dialect but even pretty much every implementation has its own s-expression parser with its own extensions to s-expression syntax to make it most convenient to write code in, so there's not a very good decoupling after all. :-P Nevertheless it provides some benefits. Like being able to use something like "paredit" to edit code structurally, and making macro systems somewhat simpler (though hygienic macro systems cannot work with pure s-expression data; it must be annotated with lexical context).

You might find it hard to believe but I _love_ Lisp syntax with all of its parentheses, and am explicitly against, for example, Sweet Expressions (SRFI-110). (Though SRFI-105 is fine.)

By the way another meaning of the word "syntax" actually refers to something within the data structures after the actual concrete syntax has been parsed away. For example when you have a list and its first element is the symbol "if", then that list is a usage of the if syntax. This syntax takes three arguments (further elements of the list): a test, consequent, and alternative. So "syntax" is something like a function here, except it operates during compilation and its arguments are unevaluated sub-structures (roughly, code snippets, though the syntax could interpret them however it wants, like for example how the "lambda" syntax's first argument is a parameter list). That's why we can say "in other languages you can only implement new functions; in Lisp you can also implement new syntax." (In the form of macros.)

<comment><USER7> > It has no syntax (of its own) in that it hijacks s-expression syntax > instead. When you want to write Lisp code, you actually write some data > structures in the s-expression data format, like when writing some data in > JSON or XML. Then a Lisp interpreter or compiler uses an s-expression parser > to read that data structure into memory, and operates on that.

My point is that the s-expression format has to be defined (obviously), e.g. you enclose lists in '(' and ')' characters, space symbols separate tokens, etc. In my world these rules are consequences of a defined syntax and saying there is no syntax is just wrong. The reader parses at some point a byte sequence and builds an AST. That Lisp/Scheme has such a simple syntax is a powerful feature of the language but saying it has no syntax just contributes to the belief of misinformed people that Lisp is some kind of strange Voodoo- language which is a bad thing as it is a powerful tool.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Adding Real-Time To A RESTful Rails App - <AUTHOR> http://liamkaufman.com/blog/2013/02/27/adding-real-time-to-a-restful-rails-app/ <comment><AUTHOR> While I used Redis and Socket.IO to add real-time to a Rails app, I'd be curious to hear what other people are using? Are people using commercial options for real-time?</comment>


Golang web frameworks benchmark - <AUTHOR> https://quip.com/Ha0bAfeh1ZVY

<comment><USER2> Genuinely curious, are there any cases of production Go environments where routing is the bottleneck of their HTTP services? I'd think any kind of data access in the service would be the bottleneck, not routing.

<comment><USER3> The way I look at it is composing benchmarks to estimate the upper bound on the number of pages that can be served per second.

So for GITHUBALL for instance:

* BenchmarkHttpRouter_GithubAll at 66732 ns/op serves at most 15k pages/second/server, versus say

* BenchmarkGoji_GithubAll at 752515 ns/op serves at most 1.3k pages/second/server

Or for GPLUSALL

* BenchmarkHttpRouter_GPlusAll at 3258 ns/op serves at most 310k pages/second/server, versus

* BenchmarkGoji_GPlusAll at 15260 ns/op serves at most 66k pages/second/server

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Silly question, but where's the "plain net/http" benchmark? I haven't found a case where I've missed having an http framework.

Would be interesting to see what the baseline is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Basically there aren't much reasons besides security considerations to use net/http multiplexer at all.

The baseline was profiled under STATICALL as the default net/http multiplexer does not support dynamic paths [http://golang.org/pkg/net/http/#ServeMux](http://golang.org/pkg/net/http/#ServeMux). The benchmark is named BenchmarkHttpServeMux_StaticAll you can read the code at [https://github.com/julienschmidt/go-http-routing- benchmark/b...](https://github.com/julienschmidt/go-http-routing- benchmark/blob/master/static_test.go#L204). Frankly, net/http it not a very good http router. The results show that julienschmidt/httprouter trie based implementing outperforms net/http by 60x.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I know this is a dumb question, but is there a conclusion to the benchmarks that which one would be more ideal to use?

I'm just learning GO, that is why I'm asking.

<comment><USER6> I think the tl;dr at the top of the page answers that the best:

        HttpRouter is the king of performance, scoring first on ALL tests.
        2nd place goes to ace if you don't need middleware, and Gin if you do.
        3rd place goes to Goji which is mature, stable and all things considered awesome.

<comment><USER5> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very interesting. Thanks for posting this. I have been using TigerTonic, but will give Gin a go after reading this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope to not disappoint you, or us as a matter of fact :) hit us up on @hellodebug we will be building this open sourced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow, I knew Gin was supposed to be faster than martini, but seeing that large of a spread was pretty interesting.

<comment><USER9> Not totally sure, but I think Gin is faster because it uses HttpRouter under the covers.

<comment><USER10> And httprouter is a bit limited as far as what you can do with the url rules, understadibly. I've documented it here:

[https://www.dougcodes.com/go-lang/gin-gonic-may- be-40x-faste...](https://www.dougcodes.com/go-lang/gin-gonic-may- be-40x-faster-than-martini-but-it-is-not-better)

and here:

[https://www.dougcodes.com/go-lang/martini-to-gin-back-to- mar...](https://www.dougcodes.com/go-lang/martini-to-gin-back-to-martini-and- on-to-negroni-and-mux)

Negroni/Gorilla Mux seems to be a good combination for me, but Jeremy Saenz is coming out with a new mux that I'm interested in trying when it's released to see how it compares to Gorilla Mux.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm kind of surprised Negroni wasn't among those tested.

<comment><USER12> I believe that Negroni is considered a library rather than a framework. [https://github.com/codegangsta/negroni#is-negroni-a- framewor...](https://github.com/codegangsta/negroni#is-negroni-a-framework)

But I don't know why that would preclude it from these benchmarks because httprouter is not a full fledged framework either.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should you register .net and .org as well as .com? - <AUTHOR>

I'm registering a domain name for a friend's business. All versions of the domain are available, .com, .net, .org ..etc.<p>Should you order them all or just .com ? Does it really matter? <comment><USER2> The domain name is intellectual property. So you should spend an appropriate amount of money to protect it.

It's far cheaper to just buy up the available names now than to hire a lawyer later to go after someone using your name.

<comment><USER3> So you grab the .net and .org. What happens when someone buys yourname.eu or yourname.mobi or yourname.biz? How many domain names are you prepared to buy?

If someone is going to use their name, he will find a version of the domain that you haven't bought regardless of how many you have already bought.

<comment><USER2> All I'm saying is look at it as intellectual property and spend an appropriate amount of money to protect it.

It really depends on what kind of business you're operating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I almost always buy the .net when I buy the .com. If I buy a domain with a weird extension, I'll also make sure I can get the .com version that includes the weird tld - Like, if I bought icey.tv, I'd also buy iceytv.com.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a really good tip. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A .net and .org cost about $10/year each. I probably spend about $20 on dosas every week.

So if you value your friend's brand name more than 3 dosas, yeah. Buy all versions.

</comment><comment><USER6> A domain costs what, $8/year? WheneveR I get an idea and there's a good domain for it, I buy up as many as I can of .com, .net, .org, .mobi, .biz, .us, etc. I paid $1,400 for my last important.com .. so dropping $100 to buy up all of the related domains isn't that big of a deal. I think I maintain about 250 domain names right now, but $2,500/year isn't that much money in the end.</comment>


Should Nestio have a free or paid iphone app? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nestio.com/Nestio/2011/05/25/iphone-app.html

<comment><USER2> They should release two, an upgradable free app and a paid app. Because as they say, there is little overlap between free and paid users, only time paid users download your app if it's free is if they independently look for it due to advertising, etc.

>Free/Paid/Upgrade Combo

>This has been broken down really well by others, but just to reiterate, there is little overlap in user bases, as they rarely ever upgrade. We'd also be forced to maintain two versions of the app. Meh.

Your "being forced to maintain two versions" is a build flag with a #ifdef. It's an easy peasy two versions.

<comment><USER3> It's a bit more complex than a simple #ifdef.

In-app purchase is the way to go.

<comment><USER4> In case anyone is curious, here is a way to go about using #ifdef in your app: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/549462/how-do-i-manage- bu...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/549462/how-do-i-manage-building-a- lite-vs-paid-version-of-an-iphone-app)

I would argue that it really depends on how many places you need to put the #ifdefs to see if it is worth the added complexity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This app should absolutely cost money. We're talking about selecting a home for the next 12+ months at a cost of at least $1000/mo. (in NYC, anyways). What is $1.99 for an app that's going to help us compare and make the best choice?

What other app offers this service? Apartments.com app is pretty weak. Any others I'm unaware of?

Nestio may be a nascent company with plenty of room for more features (I hate the copy+paste URL workflow, I wanna search right in Nestio!), but the features this app will offer are worth money, and should be treated as such by the company. At least try to cover the cost of developing the app itself, if nothing else.

</comment><comment><USER6> How do you make your money? If it's through listing fees then it should be free (as you have a stronger story with more users). If it's because you're paid by the person using the webpage/app then .99 is reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER7> Not sure a poll will get you the information you need on this one.</comment>


Nation's bacon reserves hit 50-year low as prices rise - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2017/02/01/nations-bacon-reserves-hit-50-year-low-prices-rise/97327794/ <comment><USER2> This is why I have private bacon reserves.

Not joking, I have a deep freeze full of pork belly. Buying from your local farmer has perks beyond being trendy. Don't think for a minute that the quality of factory ham isn't suffering in this production rush.

</comment><comment><USER3> ...And bacon trading rises to a feverish pitch.

</comment><comment><USER4> That headline is in the "wet roads cause rain" style.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. USAToday is not known for their journalistic excellence. The reason I posted it was because I didn't realize we had a strategic stockpile of bacon for, you know, bacon emergencies.</comment></comment>


Galileo's telescope reaches 400th anniversary - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/aug/25/galileos-telescope-400-years-anniversary

<comment><USER2> There is a high quality cheap kit with a telescope just like this available: <https://www.galileoscope.org/gs/></comment>


Ask HN: What if one day the Bitcoin rigs start to be used to crack the wallets? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> They can't because the algorithms are different. Mining uses double SHA256 while payments use RIPEMD160 and ECDSA.

<comment><USER3> Isn't brute forcing ripemd instead of sha as simple as running changing like, 2 lines? (I know nothing about this.)

<comment><USER2> ASICs can't be changed.</comment></comment></comment>


Nimrod 0.9.2 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.nimrod-code.org/news.html

<comment><USER2> Hello everyone, I'm the designer of Nimrod. I will be glad to answer any questions regarding the language.

<comment><USER3> I need to dive in further before I have any questions, but thank you for the release! I looked at Nimrod a year or so ago when I was looking for a modern, fast, compiled language to complement Python. I was initially pleased, but at the time too many other things came up for me to really give it good exercise.</comment></comment>


How WriteWork.com doubled sales & conversions by A/B testing a radical design - <AUTHOR> http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/how-to-increase-online-sales/

<comment><USER2> It's great how you do these articles, provides some general A/B testing info while also promoting your product. Only negative would be the ones I've seen voted up on hacker news all contain many variations per test, would be good to also see those where you can see the direct results of a single change, although you may have done these to.

Is it hard to get users to open up and talk about their product use in this detail?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it is VERY hard to get users to talk about their conversion rate, traffic and strategy to increase sales. Majority of them consider this information as critical to their business and don't want their competitors to know what they have been upto.</comment></comment>