Help Me Help You -- A Month of Code - <AUTHOR>

Hi there,
I just sat down and realized I'm free for most of the month of August, and I'm looking to fill my time with a software project.  So here's the deal.  I'll work 40 hours a week for 4 weeks at no cost to you (save a couple hours of your time).  All you have to do is provide me with genuinely challenging software problems to solve.
My experience is primarily in Python [Django] and Javscript [Node], but I'm family with C++ and have been known to write PHP when pressed.
Shoot me an email at email@example.com if you're interested.  Thanks! <comment><USER2> Hi. Thanks for offering this. One of the many (I am sure) projects on offer.

My project is targeted at the Market Research industry.

a. There is a survey programming compiler, written in yacc (bison)/C++.

b. I also have a cross tabulation engine (another compiler part of the same project), which presents a web interface for Cross tabulation engine (I am using webtoolkit.eu).

The survey compiler can currently compile to UI front ends like: ncurses, webtoolkit, wxWidgets and gtk. The GUI frameworks are all in a very nascent stage. I have also been experimenting with emscripten and using frameworks like dojo and dojomobile. I have been able to get dojo working.

There is also a Random Data Generator, built on the Survey engine.

There is work to be done in the Cross tab engine as well. There is a branch where I am experimenting with SSE instructions to speed up the engine.

Scope of work is wide and I can get help you get started with anything you find interesting to work on. The project is open source and hosted here: [http://sourceforge.net/projects/xtcc](http://sourceforge.net/projects/xtcc)

website: [http://qscript.in](http://qscript.in)

Active git branches: nc, web-questionnaire-2, rdg, xtcc

You can email me at "nxd" underscore "in" at yahoo dot com

Unfortunately we are a single person startup and no funding, everything is being done my me at the moment. If you are looking for something like this to start an interning/job relationship, then this might not be the best project.

Thank you for your offer once again and hope you get something that is a close fit to what you are looking for.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this too good to be true?

I'll give you a project...all specced out...details on trello...you can take from open source projects already slightly ahead of us...graphics as needed...

And if you can build a working proto that the client approves (which I've already sold), I'll even pay you.

Interested? What's your story?

Steve Brett firstname.lastname@example.com [http://tiny.cc/nnjmyw](http://tiny.cc/nnjmyw)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Steve,

Thanks for getting in touch!

You bet I'm interested. A few other HN readers have also reached out and suggested projects, so I can't make any promises, but I'd love to take a look at the project in more detail.

I'm currently working towards a bachelor's degree at Olin College of Engineering, and I've decided that software is the line of work for me. For the moment, I'm just looking for more experience out in the wild world of software.

Any chance you could shoot me an email with more details about this project? You've piqued my curiosity.</comment></comment>


Ops School Curriculum (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.opsschool.org/ <comment><USER2> Hi everyone! I really appreciate the feedback here.

It's true, the project is 5+ years old. The industry was very different back then, we were barely starting to think about containers at scale. The cloud was a thing for sure, but the main contributors were mostly working in places with physical infrastructure.

Over the years we've discussed how we can reboot the project. There is always interest and desire, but time is hard to find :) The project will stay up as it is because we still feel there is value in learning the basics.

Over time the understanding of what is "basics" is evolving. This year I'm chairing the SREcon conference in Singapore. The program has a "Core Principles" track which talks about things like deep dives on linux memory management, database indices, how BGP works, etc. There is a lot of desire to still have these super deep dives into underlying technology. I hope we can find a way to turn this into a stronger curriculum with labs and teaching exercises one day :)

\- One of the original OpsSchool founders

<comment><USER3> Hey, thank you!

As someone who has been practicing a lot in an 'old school' environment (many of our customers still run our software the old way) I honestly think this still is a very good curriculum.

Actually I think many of the things listed, people underlook at them. I've seen with my eyes digging very deep on "cloud" and "devops" stuff fail completely (and spectacularly, I must admit) ad very basic things.

I'll be digging deeper into opschool.org, is there a way to have an offline copy (besides running httrack) ?

<comment><USER3> replying to myself: [http://readthedocs.org/projects/ops- school/downloads/htmlzip...](http://readthedocs.org/projects/ops- school/downloads/htmlzip/latest/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> (edit: looks like, as per a comment further down, a lot of this is five-ish years old; the decisions made in its writing/presentation make a lot more sense in that light. Leaving comment for posterity.)

So I get the overall goal here, but reading this, this feels like somebody's trying to fight the last war.

 _> Since the early 90's, operations engineers have been in high demand. As a result, these positions often offer high salaries and long term job security._

...because most of the control surfaces offered minimal automation and there were many fewer options for management. This isn't even a "well, AWS/GCP/Azure will eat your lunch" thing, it's a "the robots can do most of this already" thing. There are still roles for network engineers, large-scale datacenter management, and that sort of thing--but this "curriculum" reads as very...hands-on...when a holistic, automation-first approach is overwhelmingly preferred in industry (outside of the trailing edge, where those high salaries and that stability aren't nearly as common).

Again: not saying "use the cloud, datacenters don't matter." But I'm not sure that this encompasses what "ops" typically means (as opposed to "IT", which is itself becoming a largely automatable and automated function, or "devops", which will get there sooner than later) and I'm very unsure that places that will still be dealing with data centers in ten years, instead of outsourcing it, will benefit much from juniors with this skillset instead of one built around software definition and a pervasively automation-first mindset.

<comment><USER5> What happens in 20 years when all the professionals in the industry have no understanding of what their robots do?

<comment><USER4> Then they learn how the robots work? Because their brains work and because they have the underlying plasticity of skillset to pick it up?

I'm a software developer first and foremost. When I've needed to deal with hardware, I learned it. And it was _easier_ because the first question was always "OK, now how do we make this something a human doesn't do?". It's a band-pass filter for what actually matters to continued operations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, this is really great! Soft Skills 201 could be a book unto itself, nice to see this stuff being discussed.

In general, I think the soft skills sections should get a lot more promotion (it's buried so far down the sidebar I had to scroll!). The technical stuff is already well-documented elsewhere, but nobody ever told me how important being politically savvy was in this niche until I had already blown both feet off several times.

</comment><comment><USER7> This lacks the most critical part of ops in designing systems that are repeatable and debugable, discrete build steps on a time line. You can't reason about any complex system without some core logic and this is most absent in operations.

<comment><USER8> That is a very accurate, succinct comment. I'm going to steal this when arguing for Terraform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> i just let the opsschool author know about this post. he'll be on here soon! :)

<comment><USER2> Thanks incomplete :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I laughed at how the "MS Windows fundamentals 101" is blank.

Because no operations engineer should use MS Windows? :see_no_evil:

</comment><comment><USER11> From 2012.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's an OPS tutorial, but their SSL cert is invalid. :/ One of the authors needs to update their settings in ReadTheDocs.</comment>


The pitfalls of using ssh-agent, or how to use an agent safely - <AUTHOR> http://rabexc.org/posts/pitfalls-of-ssh-agents <comment><USER2> If you forward an agent, that doesn't actually provide access to the private key. It provides access to the _public_ key, as well as access to key operations that would allow authenticating to a server using the private key (such as SSH2_AGENTC_SIGN_REQUEST), but it doesn't actually expose the private key for future operations after you stop forwarding the agent.

The interaction shown in the "Having fun with an agent" section of the article shows the agent providing the public key and name, not the private key.

See the ssh-agent protocol for details: [http://api.libssh.org/rfc/PROTOCOL.agent](http://api.libssh.org/rfc/PROTOCOL.agent)

You still should _never_ forward your SSH agent to a system you don't trust. However, if someone compromises such a system, they have not necessarily compromised your SSH private key, though they may have used your agent to access systems you have access to _while you were forwarding the agent_.

<comment><USER3> Exactly.

Public keys are by definition _public_ so they can be spread freely all over.

Forwarding will never compromise your private key. Of course, as you point out, if you forward THROUGH a compromised system, someone could hop on the key forwarding and come along for the ride. And, as another commenter pointed out, they could always hijack your access on the final system to create their own user accounts.

And also why a good SSH key manager like [https://Userify.com](https://Userify.com) to distribute your _public_ key can make forwarding easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm deploying YubiKey NEO tokens for employees here. It has the form factor of a very small, flattened-out USB stick (almost like a cardboard contour), but it's a smartcard and an OTP generator. The smartcard can generate a pair of public/private SSH keys, and you could then just push the public key wherever. The private key remains on the token, and never leaves it no matter what.

You need gpg-agent running in ssh-agent emulation to have ssh use the private key on the token.

It requires you to enter a user PIN before it authenticates connections, but the PIN can be cached by gpg-agent for a configurable duration. Enter the wrong user PIN three times in a row and it locks up (can be unlocked via the admin PIN). Basically, everything you know about smartcards applies here - except this is very small and portable.

You can't reveal the private SSH key even if you're very sloppy.

The OTP can be setup with things such as VPN or other places where you need to authenticate with user/pass. There's an open source authentication server that you can deploy wherever, or you could use the manufacturer's cloud auth.

It can also do NFC and FIDO U2F (it's a superset of Google's cheap FIDO U2F Security Key).

In a word - awesome.

<comment><USER5> what about other users with root access where you are running *-agent?

<comment><USER4> One thing is clear: this is a smartcard, the private key never leaves the token, period. gpg-agent acts only as a middleman between ssh and the token, that's all. It's impossible to capture or extract the private key (unless you're the NSA and you have physical possession of the token, I guess).

Now, are there ways to attack the authentication via tapping as root into the gpg-agent process? I don't think so, but frankly I'm not that familiar with the sausage-making parts of it. I'd like to learn more about this topic.

<comment><USER6> > impossible to capture or extract the private key

They should get FIPS 140-2 Level 4 certification, then. Other devices that claimed to be so resistant haven't really fared that well when someone actually bothered to look. It might be out if there range of average software hackers, but perhaps easily handled by someone with hardware capabilities. Even the Chrysalis Luna CA3 (I think that model) was breached by a university team. And a sole researcher breached a popular TPM, finding no special protection.

So I'm not sure it's justified to say it requires an NSA level adversary. The bar is probably much lower. On personal stuff, I use drive level encryption, then Bitlocker with TPM, then Athena SCS smartcard for logon+EFS, and Bitlocker on a vhd for the VM actually running stuff. Only the last layer, the passphrase on the vhd, is something I count on. The rest is just to make it easy to brick the device and prevent a quick handed adversary from quickly installing a rootkit. In particular, I have very little confidence in Crucial's SSD's drive encryption. For all I know, the key is stored unencrypted on the first sector. But it's totally free, as the device runs AES to balance the 1s and 0s anyways.

<comment><USER4> > _Other devices that claimed to be so resistant haven 't really fared that > well when someone actually bothered to look._

The popularity of these things seems to be growing pretty fast, so I'd expect someone will take a look pretty soon.

A lot of these tokens, or similar models, are used by large, famous high-tech companies for their employees. That's bound to attract some school-of-hard- knocks probing from 3rd parties (beyond what the googles and the facebooks of the world did before they deployed it to their internal users).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My big worry with ssh-agent forwarding is that someone may get root on a random server I connect to and then be able to use my forwarded connection to access another machine. To avoid this I created [https://github.com/ipartola/mac-ssh-confirm](https://github.com/ipartola/mac- ssh-confirm). Basically, every time you go to use your ssh-agent you get a GUI confirmation dialog with OK/Cancel. That way you can prevent unauthorized access.

<comment><USER8> ssh-add (at least on linux) has the -c option, which tells ssh-agent to do exactly this.

<comment><USER7> That's what I use. ssh-add properly does not actually include a UI of any kind. It just calls $SSH_ASKPASS. The linked code essentially provides two wrappers around all this: one to add keys and set up SSH_ASKPASS, and the other to be the script that is $SSH_ASKPASS that uses the Mac OS X GUI to show you the confirmation dialog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would replace recommendation #5 with: use a different key on each physical machine. My home desktop has a different private key than my private laptop, and at work I have yet another SSH private key.

This makes more sense to me than separating keys by "purpose", since it aligns better with the threat model (machine gets compromised).

<comment><USER10> You can do both: use a different key for each purpose on each physical machine. This addresses two different threat models: each machine has a different set of keys to address compromise of that machine, and you use a different key for each purpose so that forwarding your agent to a compromised machine doesn't compromise your other keys.

<comment><USER11> Partial compromise of a machine's private keys is not a realistic threat profile for the vast majority of users.

Unless you're using a different agent per key, which very few people do, your same agent will give out any of your keys that it has stored, regardless of which key you actually used to hit the remote machine.

If somebody is in a position to get some of your keys off a machine, they're almost certainly in a position to get all of them. As such, having multiple private keys per system doesn't provide much additional security, it only increases confusion.

One of the only threats that separate keys does protect against is if you suspect multiple remotes would be compromised and being able to link your public key to both would be dangerous. But in that case, you also need to be doing so many other things to ensure your single source machine cannot be linked to both remote systems.

<comment><USER10> Agreed; it doesn't really make sense to use multiple keys if you're going to put them all in one agent. That's why the original post recommends using multiple agents at the same time it recommends multiple keys (and the author provides a script to make it easier to manage multiple agents)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is my version, which deals with multiple machines using my same remote- mounted home directory:

[https://gist.github.com/jamesgraves/9af46a544b6dc7da9097](https://gist.github.com/jamesgraves/9af46a544b6dc7da9097)

However, it tries to keep one agent running forever, which the OP doesn't like.

I am frequently in situations, like using cygwin, where I don't have a nice graphical shell to kill the agent / keyring when I log out.

Though I don't often log out either, unless I need to reboot for an OS upgrade. I don't know, either you're going to rely on the screen lock for security, or you aren't.

As for mixing work with personal stuff, I've created multiple accounts on my laptop for each to more easily keep them separate.

</comment><comment><USER13> Also use "hashknownhosts yes" in your user ssh config file. Makes it another level harder to see where you went, though a compromised root would see all of the logs.

<comment><USER14> I've posted (rambled?) about why I think HashKnownHosts is an overly cumbersome idea, and even a suboptimal security practice: [http://blog.joeyhewitt.com/2013/12/openssh- hashknownhosts-a-...](http://blog.joeyhewitt.com/2013/12/openssh- hashknownhosts-a-bad-idea/) . Summary: "An opaque, difficult-to-audit trusted key database could be a security liability of its own. This file isn't some MRU auto-completion nicety, it's a security mechanism to prevent man-in-the- middle attacks."

If you type in all your connection details by hand every time you ssh (can't store them anywhere, or the bad guys will see the servers you use), your shell doesn't log your ssh command lines in history, you don't mind having no idea what's actually in your known_hosts file, and you think attackers who care will be unable to dictionary-crack your hashes, then HashKnownHosts will accomplish something for you. Otherwise it's dumb, IMO. Open to hearing about something I've missed, though, or just people whose usecase differs enough that my points don't apply to them.</comment></comment>


I don't know how to start but I know I am lost - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/MnkMU73C <comment><USER2> > Computer geeks, I think, are usually insensitive to others personal > problems.

No. I know few very empathetic persons.

> If I had cancer maybe I would get more sympathy, I wonder.

Maybe yes. People are afraid by mental illness. You might keep that for close friends and family.

Depression is like a tunnel. It won't be permanent. The mind is altered.

It's also the opportunity to work on your beliefs.

Non-depressed people have a kind of "autopilot". They less need a deeper knowledge of how the world works.

Depressed people need that to overcome the depression.

<comment><USER3> Those who are depressed _have_ an autopilot. It's called sucking it up and doing what you're supposed to do, despite the inexplicable desire to cry all the time and not wanting to live. You need to have an autopilot to survive. You need to be able to ignore those feelings and thoughts when you need to just get your shit together and do what you need to do.

Depression isn't the yearning for a "deeper knowledge of how the world works". In fact, I'm pretty sure I'd want to kill myself if I ever found out.</comment></comment>


What if Rails isn't for beginners anymore? - <AUTHOR> http://intridea.com/2011/6/16/what-if-rails-isnt-for-beginners-anymore

<comment><USER2> I posted something similar to this at the original blog...

This is exactly how I feel as a developer. And I like that this is stated it so clearly - that Rails isn't for beginners anymore.

The point about ActiveSupport is so well put because it's something I cover on day one of my training, where we start with Ruby and move into ActiveSupport, and then Rails.

I've been quite vocal about the fact that Rails is harder to teach than it was in the past. But I don't think Rails needs to change or slow down. I just wanted to see some saner defaults that don't kitchen-sink it up.

I don't advocate making Rails slow down. Far from it. I advocate making Rails a little less of a pain for someone getting started. A default Rails application in 3.1 includes a lot of stuff that a beginner doesn't need but experts might appreciate, but how many experts are creating new Rails apps all the time? And if they are, how many use "rails new" instead of their own custom template? I know I do, because I use HAML and RSpec and configuring that myself takes too much time. I guess I feel like 'rails new', which is already driven by a template, could tone its default options.

My question for the HN crowd is, how many non-newbie Rails devs are creating new Rails projects all the time, using the defaults like test::unit, ERb, etc.?

<comment><AUTHOR> I create probably at least 3-4 apps a month and I use RailsWizard to do it because my needs often vary quite a bit (I almost always use RSpec, but ActiveRecord vs. MongoDB+MongoMapper, needing Redis, etc. change for each app). I don't think the defaults have really gotten that out of hand, and the only one that really affects newbies is Coffeescript (since you can just write CSS in an SCSS file). I just think that Rails is a complex system and not really conducive to being the first exposure people have to Ruby web development.

<comment><USER3> I think that's the whole point though. It used to be that you could be a Rails dev with very little Ruby experience. Now, that's not the case.

It's great to advance, but when you start out as being quick and easy to get started in then everyone starts progressing you can easily forget that it's taken years as a community to get to this point. If you're not careful, as a community, you end up leaving the newbies always playing catch up instead of providing them a helping hand to get started.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a person who "Began" really learning rails this spring (only for 1 project, to help be the other end of the frontend/backend communications), it's definitely getting into non-newbie friendly territory to start using it.

It's starting to have the problem of "YOU MUST UNDERSTAND ALL OF THIS" before you can deploy anything useful issue. (I don't mean all of rails, but you do need to understand a very large number of topics before you can do a real app these days).

It's making other lighter weight ruby based web frameworks look appealing even at this point (as they'd still work on heroku for the most part).

<comment><USER5> There are a number of Rack-based frameworks out there, upwards of around 2 dozen, you can look at. I'm partial to Ramaze.

Many of these frameworks do not come with assorted bells and whistles to handle certain tasks. You'll have to write them yourself.

What this means in practice is that your learning curve involves getting more proficient with Ruby rather than getting proficient with a tool-specific API. Long-term, that leaves you better off.

<comment><USER4> I think Sinatra is one I've had tossed at me a few times as well. Do you have an opinion on that?

Honestly speaking, programming language proficiency isn't really the issue anymore, Rails has a HUGE "We do it this way cause that's the way we do it" level of stuff in it to learn that isn't enforced by a complier, etc. That's the rough stuff, especially if you do 1-2 projects a year in it, its so different by the time you return.

Looking at Ramaze, it reminds me of web.py

<comment><USER5> _I think Sinatra is one I've had tossed at me a few times as well. Do you have an opinion on that?_

It's not for me. It's clever, and makes certain kinds of apps easier for some people, but it doesn't buy me anything over either a straight-up Rack app or a Ramaze app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Rails never WAS "for beginners". That was never the focus and intent.

The point of Rails is to make developers productive, not to make newbies feel at home.

Yes, you could just ignore all the "magic" and treat it like a black box, and you still can. But it wouldn't take you too far, any kind of real application requires real understanding of the concepts and often implementation too.

Once you know your ins and outs you indeed can create stuff very fast, taking advantage of all the magical things, and new versions simply have more of this "magic". It helps a lot if you know how it works. It might confuse if you don't.

So.. yes, if you have no clue the latest versions of Rails might take you more time to master, at the same time it makes developers "that know" even more productive then before.</comment>


Hobo Lobo of Hamelin - <AUTHOR> http://hobolobo.net/ <comment><USER2> Ooh.. nice and cc:ed. This would make the perfect mobile app if you applied the right sound design and a speaker reading the text. Background noises would cross-fade in and out as you swiped through the scene. Perfectly doable and would be a roaring (or similar) success.

</comment><comment><USER3> Neat. However on this page <http://hobolobo.net/what-is-this-thing> it identifies Chrome (version 11.0.696.14) as IE, why?

<comment><USER4> I think that's just static text addressed to IE users, not a dynamic message based on your browser. I saw it (and messages about slow internet and iPads) on Firefox too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Chugs to the point of unusability for me. Chrome 11 on 27" imac /w quad i7 & 8gb ram

</comment><comment><USER6> Handy Mac tip for this page: shift-scroll wheel for horizontal scrolling ;)</comment>


What's The Value of a Free Lunch? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.highfive.com/whats-the-value-of-a-free-lunch <comment><USER2> I've always valued a midday walk in fresh air, away from my desk. I'm happy to do it with co-workers.

At the two places I've worked that offered the free lunch, there was a lot of pressure to stay in the office for the lunch, both implicit and explicit. I felt the free lunch offer was not so much a boon to my productivity but as an encroachment on my personal time.

Perhaps only coincidentally, I felt those two companies also had many problems understanding their engineering and creative employees and their needs, probably familiar to a lot of HN folks: flexible working hours, office layout, transparency, etc.

<comment><USER3> Our company has been in hot water for not properly compensating employees during our "free lunch / trainings" that we hold every so often. Yes, you're giving them free food, no they don't get a choice and yes that's illegal. Pay up, clueless managers.

<comment><USER4> I was new at a company that did this. We had to submit weekly timesheets. No one told me the procedure but I figured, everyone attended so I figured marking down 30 minutes (out of 60) on the time on the timesheet billed to the company was a fair deal.

A few days later a company-wide email was sent out specifying that these trainings were optional and not to be billed to the company.

They did pay me for the time though that time.

<comment><USER3> Ah, what a joke. I recall someone not putting it on their timesheet and instead going directly to the Department of Labor. Good on them, I say. I've got a vested interested in the company doing well, but that was a ridiculous policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I cannot imagine being in an environment where everyone was so gung-ho about "The Mission" that they all took lunch together in the office. It sounds cultish. It would creep me out.

When I worked in an office, I was there to do a job. I was there to get work done and go home. I had my own things I wanted to do. The company pays me for 40 hours a week. Nothing more. They don't deserve any more.

And my side projects are mine and I will do with them as I wish, not volunteer them on the altar of 10% time. Maybe if (proverbial) I weren't trapped in the office all the time with free lunches and rock climbing walls I wouldn't need the company to bestow upon me the extreme privilege of doing what I want with a small portion of my time.

Why does this math even make sense? Why wouldn't people just leave half an hour early?

Also, reminds me of factory work. We all took lunch breaks together. Sat in the provided lunch area. It was well understood you were expected to be back to work in half an hour or your ass was grass.

Also also, reminds me of school. Get on the bus. Go to class. Do what you're told. Read what you're told. Think what you're told. Eat this lunch that we have provided for your maximal nutritional value at minimal cost/benefit ratio, strategically balanced to avoid inciting a riot.

Fuck. That. Shit. I'm an adult and a professional. I'll take two hours for lunch on my own dollar, thank you. I've got potential clients to entertain as I plan my exit out of your Branch Davidian complex.

<comment><USER6> Dang. You give people a free lunch and this is how they react...

<comment><USER5> TANSTAAFL

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The math is off. Employers PAY the average employee $35/hour, but they get > $35/hour value out of the employee---or else they would go out of business. The employer's margin varies widely, but is often at least 2x.

However, I feel that when I had a free lunch I wasn't that much more productive. I need breaks during the day. I'm going to take them whether or not you give me a free lunch.

<comment><USER8> I agree that taking breaks more often is needed -- Although I would also say that going to get your own lunch is extra required "work".

The idea here is the average worker doesn't have to worry about it. The less they worry about or "work" on things outside of work, the more they can exert energy at work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Am I alone in wanting to get away from the people I work with for an hour every day for lunch?

<comment><USER10> I get a free lunch at work every day and some days I take it and eat it by myself. It's not always necessary to be social.

<comment><USER9> That's a good start. It's not just hanging out with the same people though: it's also a change of scenery. I find that a sammich on the park bench knocks the morning's clutter away and makes me more productive in the afternoon.

The Henry Ford-esque desire to treat programmers like a resource to be relentlessly milked (we can save half an hour or dev time!) is a bit of a turnoff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Don't forget tax advantages: if structured properly, the costs are tax deductible for the employer and do not count as additional revenue for the employee.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not sure that humans' productive output can be modeled so simply (hours working -> amount produced). It's a bold assumption that the primary value of lunch on campus is to increase "hours worked".

I think that the other goals suggested in the article -- more frequent communication, and better friendships -- are most likely more valuable than the time gained, and perhaps significantly so.

Furthermore, there are still a few benefits associated with feeding employees that weren't mentioned.

Among them:

\-- reduced cognitive load from meal choices (better focus, even subconsciously, on other things)

\-- healthier options, since in-house food is not subject to competitive market pressures which force it to make its food more addictive and less healthy.

and what I feel like is the most important:

\-- employee retention. People are wired to get pleasure from being fed [1], and getting pleasure from something usually makes you like it, so it is not a stretch to consider that being fed by a group may increase feelings of loyalty and belonging to that group, or at the very least make you like the experience of being fed by them.

From an employee retention perspective, which is one of the sorest spots in the tech industry in terms of lost productivity (workers leaving causes huge knowledge gaps and lost time), free meals make employees happy both consciously (money saved by employee = happiness) and subconsciously (being fed = happiness)

Of course, if every company does it it may not help. But the absence will definitely hurt, so it's likely always going to be the best option!

[1] - [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3004012/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3004012/)

<comment><USER13> Employee retention and helping teams get and stay gelled is the real reason to do this, but the "hours worked" argument is a useful tool for convincing skeptical execs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Zero", at one company I worked at. As they tried to argue when, a year or so after going public, they took it away.

Ironically, they were very big into presenting "total compensation" as a larger-than-your-salary number to wave around demonstrating just how much they were giving you.

Funny when "free lunch" was not part of that, because it better aided their (pretty weak) argument.

Remember, TANSTAAFL.

P.S. I do take others' points, e.g. that it is advantageous to structure and argue in a manner that has tax benefits.

</comment><comment><USER15> I rather take a full lunch hour and pay for my food than get it for free, but only take 30 minutes.

<comment><USER10> The issue with some suburban companies is that there's wasted travel time that benefits neither the company nor the employee (unless they like traveling I guess).

Suburban office workers might easily take 30 minutes or more to get to where they want to eat lunch, regardless of how long they take to eat it. In reality the trade off is taking an hour to eat and getting it for free (because you don't travel) versus paying for it and only getting 30 minutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> So glad this topic is brought up on HN and great to see all the comments around it. Taking a lunch break, with co-workers or not, paid by employers or not, is the most natural thing that has been practiced by people for hundreds of years in all cultures. It is not only pleasant, productive, but also necessary.

</comment><comment><USER17> >>Cubist Pharmaceuticals, a company with about 750 employees, recently put sensors on 30 of their employees to track the tone and frequency of their lunch conversations.

Whats next? A/B Testing the food ?

<comment><USER18> That is getting uncomfortably close to Neuromancer territory:

"M-G employees above a certain level were implanted with advanced microprocessors that monitored mutagen levels in the bloodstream. Gear like that would get you rolled in Night City, rolled straight into a black clinic."

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The half hour savings isn't really a thing if people take the free lunch, eat it at their desks while they work, then go and take an hour "lunch" later in the day anyway (as happens with some at my office, though the free lunch comes just once a week).

</comment><comment><USER20> So just because I got lunch I'm going to be free to work an extra half hour?

There's no way that's sustainable. Like @goo mentioned, more hours doesn't equal more produced, by any means.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think not having your employees discussing sensitive work in public restaurants around your office (thus easily monitored by competitors) is worth something, too.

</comment><comment><USER10> Apple doesn't actually offer free food I believe. It's heavily subsidized, but it's not technically free.

</comment><comment><USER22> The real advantage of the 1/2 hour lunch is that then you can have a nice (mostly) guilt free afternoon nap :)

</comment><comment><USER23> So the business person inside me is thinking: "What if I charge for that lunch, but keep the price lower than competing venues in the area. I'll get even more money!"

<comment><USER24> You just invented the company cafeteria :)

A "you pay" (but sometimes subsidised) on premise cafeteria exists at lots of large technology / engineering companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The free lunch buffet is of zero value to me because I don't want to eat any of that stuff. I habitually just have two pints of 1% milk and a pint of OJ for lunch.

</comment><comment><USER26> Great insight.. But I also believe that there are pros and cons accompanying this idea. Nice post though!</comment>


The First Computers in East Africa and what became of them (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://owaahh.com/the-first-computers-in-east-africa-and-what-became-of-them/ <comment><USER2> Fascinating story -- the vacuum tubes in the computer drew so much current when it was switched on, that they had to wait for the bakery down the street to turn off its ovens before they powered the computer on for the day. Otherwise they'd blow up a transformer.

<comment><AUTHOR> I once had a bug report where a client was having boot failures seemingly at random - machines would not come up and be detected by the management software. It turned out they were powering up all machines at the same time and that caused a low voltage on the power rail.

<comment><USER3> On big servers (4RU, quad socket xeon size), BIOS features exist specifically to deal with this in electricity outage situations. Most people will leave the option set to "last state" for power recovery, meaning that after total loss of AC power, the server will attempt to return itself to the last operating state, typically on. Problem is when you have dozens of such servers, the inrush current if they all try to power on at once is huge. So there's a second BIOS option, allowing you to set a custom time-delay between return of AC power and when the system attempts to start, or to choose a random start delay between 1 and 30 seconds so that a whole series of machines don't all try to start at precisely the same time.

<comment><USER2> I don't know how data centers are set up, so this is a comment made in ignorance: I'm surprised this isn't built into the electrical service for the rack.

Only distantly related: I kept tripping a breaker in my kitchen while making breakfast. It took me the longest time to figure out that I could run my toaster and coffeemaker at the same time, but if the fridge compressor kicked on while I was doing that, it would overload the circuit. It took me so long to figure out what was going on because I was always dealing with this situation before I'd had my coffee.

<comment><AUTHOR> The solution, as always, is to have more coffee. Had you increased the odds of having all three on, by having more coffee, you'd be able to observe it with a chemically alert brain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The snake story deserves to be up there with Hopper's moth in the annals of CS history

</comment><comment><USER5> _Long before C, Python and Horde,

A big computer was tipped overboard._</comment>


Skipping fsck during boot with systemd? - <AUTHOR> https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2014/12/msg00184.html

<comment><USER2> > But remember our current slogan "Linux is all about choice". One can choose > to boot with or without "fsck.mode=skip".

..

> Remedial action is not needed because the right choice was made from the > grub menu. If it wasn't, you get to live with the consequences and don't do > it again.

this discussion made _me_ angry, and i wasn't even involved. someone has a reasonable request, and it's immediately brushed off in one of the most passive aggressive statements of the 21st century thus far.

he advocates choice, and yet propagates dogma. idiot.

<comment><USER3> I wonder if Mr/Mrs email@example.com talks to his friends and family like that, what an asshole.

From an outsiders point of view, linux projects are filled with people like this. Linus, Ulrich Depper, etc. Really turns me off from ever contributing when these dudes (or girls I dunno) act like this.

<comment><USER4> Don't forget Lennart.

Just watch this video of him disrupting a talk: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTdUmlGxVo0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTdUmlGxVo0)

The shenanigans start around 12 minutes in, and continue throughout.

The last few minutes are particularly weird. He even gets up on stage at around 53:40.

It's unbelievable!

<comment><USER5> Yes it is quite unbelievable how much bullshit and mis-information the presenter is talking, luckily somebody who actually knows the stuff was in the audience to point out some of the actual requirements of modern desktops.

<comment><USER6> That "modern desktop" is why many stopped using Windows in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So the solution to this, if you want to abort an fsck, go back in time, and pass fsck.mode=skip to the kernel parameters.

<comment><USER8> A fairly bad answer, we can all admit that.

<comment><USER9> By clicking a few links further one also finds out that systemd has ctrl-c to cancel fsck on the ToDo list.

<comment><USER10> According to that thread, it has been on the TODO list for 3.5 years with no further signs of being implemented.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The way I interpreted his "solution" of "add a kernel boot parameter" was if you want to interrupt the fsck, you should hard-reset the machine to add it on the next boot, making it even more likely your filesystem will need fsck'ing. fsck itself is AFAIK safe with ctrl+c (i.e. it won't corrupt the filesystem further to interrupt it) so this change means users who _really_ want to cancel a fsck have to take the route of possibly causing filesystem corruption themselves. _Absolutely fscking insane._

<comment><USER12> Is anyone else grossed out with the fact that systemd is parsing _the kernel 's_ command line? This is like if some program started reading unrelated crap from another program's command line, just because.

Edit: I guess downvoters don't care about code smell. This is literally like an unrelated process pulling out someone else's argv and using it as their own. Ick.

<comment><USER5> Linus Torvalds thinks it's perfectly fine and exactly how /proc/cmdline was intended to be used, but what does he know anyway? If systemd is doing it, it _must_ be wrong.

[http://lwn.net/Articles/593677/](http://lwn.net/Articles/593677/)

<comment><USER12> There is a lot of strong criticism of systemd in that thread. I was actually considering posting it as sympathetic to my point. It simultaneously expresses what both of us are saying. (You can read the command line, but don't do it for stupid shit.) From your link:

> But the problem appears when system services seem to think that they _own_ > those flags, and nothing else matters, and they don't do something "sane" > any more.

Then later:

> It does become a problem when you have a system service developer who thinks > the universe revolves around him, and nobody else matters, and people > sending him bug-reports are annoyances that should be ignored rather than > acknowledged and fixed. At that point, it's a problem.

Next paragraph indicates the rant is directed at Kay Sievers, udev and systemd developer, and his "continued bad behavior".

It does ring true for me as a user, I have noticed systemd-based systems spam a lot of things that used to be "for the kernel" and a bit more sacred, like dmesg and command line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The real answer is to use a filesystem that doesn't require off-line integrity checks, and to disable automatic fsck when you're stuck with something that does.

I use ZFS, which does this sort of thing in the background while the system is live. In fact, every read from a ZFS filesystem does a complete integrity check of everything that read depends on. If it finds an error during that process it fixes it before returning data to the caller, or returns a read error if it cannot. Those errors get collected and logged, so that if they do occur (usually due to faulty hardware) you can recover the effected files from backup.

This is much better than a surprise fsck when you're running late.

<comment><USER14> The real story is the toxic attitude of some people on debian-users mailing list.

If you use ZFS, you probably are on FreeBSD. Then you would not see the advocacy of systemd that sometimes borders on insane, as a problem.

<comment><USER15> [https://pthree.org/2012/04/17/install-zfs-on-debian- gnulinux...](https://pthree.org/2012/04/17/install-zfs-on-debian-gnulinux/)

<comment><USER16> But then you're stuck with systemd, which you could avoid with Freebsd.

Its kind of like upgrading an outdoor carpentry project, like a deck, from nails to deck screws, then just in case you miss the feeling of hitting your thumb with a hammer, someone helpfully finds a link to install deck screws using a hammer. That's impressive in its own way, but ... I think I'll continue moving everything to Freebsd instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> We should be very careful about fixing those kind of things, this is one of the biggest complaints against Windows, when you cannot shut down your machine, or boot wait a long time to boot it up, because it did the Windows Upgrade dance.

What's worrisome in this discussion is that the bug was reported 3 years ago, and acknowledge as upstream TODO, 2 years ago, but nothing has changed!

</comment><comment><USER18> That thread features a few participants I would never want talking to a customer.

<comment><USER19> This is a real problem. Really

There are enough ironic/rude answers, failure to solve the problem or give a good workaround, etc

Now imagine this with paying customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There was a more productive thread on a related topic on debian-devel recently:

[https://email@example.com....](https://firstname.lastname@example.com)

Basically it isn't possible to check at runtime if the next boot will require an fsck, so developer filed a bug asking for mechanism to do that:

[https://bugs.debian.org/773267](https://bugs.debian.org/773267)

</comment><comment><USER21> The atmosphere on debian-users is… not very helpful.

<comment><USER22> That Brian guy in particular is a total cunt. Holy crap. Willful ignorance of specific issues being raised combined with smug superiority. I find people on IRC to be a lot more pleasant. I am never mailing a mailing list.

<comment><USER23> I think he is being reasonable and helpful.

       Q. I can't stop fsck.
       Brian: You can add a parameter to kernel startup.
       Q. This does not help because I want to stop one that has started. I should raise a bug.
       Brian: Don't do that there is already a bug report at number ....

<comment> vertex-four > Remedial action is not needed because the right choice was made from the > grub menu. If it wasn't, you get to live with the consequences and don't do > it again.

Is this polite or helpful in solving the issue? It's being preachy about the idea that nobody ever makes wrong choices, ever, and should definitely never be given the opportunity to fix their mistakes.

<comment><USER24> If only we could all be as perfect as Brian! I find it funny that he rants about choice. The thing I dislike most about systemd is that it is removing choice! I suppose I am just going to have to go and choose to use FreeBSD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> TIL there isn't much professionalism in the systemd camp.

<comment><USER2> these are debian developers, i believe.

<comment><USER16> Not as far as I know. Most devs I know will post with their @debian.org address (or perhaps @ubuntu) when doing debian work in public. Mostly. Also most devs refuse to wallow in the filth that is the mailing lists. On -dev or -project or -private you'll find devs, not so much on -users.

Maybe Maintainers or unofficial, or applicants, at most. Or not very proud of the participation so they semi-obfuscate their address.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can someone explain why systemd which seems so hated (by me too due to wrong philosophical decisions), yet managed to convince almost all big distros (including the one I use) to use systemd by default?

Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER27> This answer totally sucks, I agree. And I have run into this annoyance myself (I've been using systemd for almost three years).

But just so everyone knows, and so nobody finds themselves in this position, there is an easier way. By default, I believe systemd will skip the fsck if running on battery power (this is the case on Arch, at least). So if you know you are in a hurry but haven't added this to your GRUB config, the easiest thing to do is just boot the laptop and wait about ten seconds before plugging in the power cord (the fsck check happens early enough, so it'll have been skipped by that point). This doesn't help kill it if it's already in progress, but it has saved me many times.

Brian's response is laughably rude and unhelpful, but hopefully this will be a bit easier and more helpful than telling people to edit their GRUB config before-the-fact.

<comment><USER28> Well, this answer is a workaround. And I'm sorry it's a ridiculous one. What if I'm not on a laptop? What if this is a server system?

<comment><USER27> > this answer is a workaround. And I'm sorry it's a ridiculous one.

If you're trying to have an argument, you've picked the wrong person. I'm not defending Brian; I'm simply pointing out a relevant trick that I thought people reading this thread may find helpful.

<comment><USER28> You make it clear that you are not backing Brian. I'm just trying to tell the shortcomings of your trick. Also in this case it also involves back in time travel or being prepared. If you want to be prepared tune2fs would be a better choice.

<comment><USER29> It was incredibly obvious that he already understands those are shortcomings.

You're just stating the obvious in a condescending fashion. Reddit is over there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> so, we need systemd-fsckd.

<comment><USER31> Some would already argue systemd is already fsckd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thankfully mke2fs(8) has been changed not to enable enforced fsck intervals some years ago (in 2011), so it's no longer necessary to manually disable it with "tune2fs -i 0 -c 0" on new deployments.

</comment><comment><USER32> I love trolling from Brian <firstname.lastname@example.com> Every single answer is "you are holding it wrong". And people wonder what is wrong with systemd and its proponents ....

</comment><comment><USER33> Uhm. What does "decided it was time to run fsck on my 1TB hard drive" mean? Decided how?

<comment><USER8> Every n boot (n usually around 30) is scheduled a fsck at boot. It is more a legacy thing as ext4 is really robust. I remember checking my /home/lost+founds regularly in this time and often finding random stuff, music, documents where the i-node has been made orphan so that it doesn't belongs to any directory. Today, we have ntfs and ext4 with amazing journals which can replay most of the operation that has been made. So, when the Virtual-FS layer (the component of the kernel that map the bytes on your HDD to the logical file-tree in the exporer) detect an inconsistency it can replay and apply the correct state to the fs tree on the fly.

Now that we have robust disks and robust fs, I think that this fsck at boot setting could be relaxed. However, think of the people _needing_ saving their data with an fsck because their HDD wasn't as robust as yours. It's not an easy choice to do. You can't even base your decision on the SMART metrics as the worst HDD, the one you want to check regularly, lie to/don't implement correctly SMART.

<comment><USER34> This value is configurable per file system. It is set at install time but you can change it at will.

You can set it with tune2fs using -c count or -i interval. A machine that is often rebooted might do without the interval, and vice versa.

You can turn it off completely but don't do that unless you have reason to. Running a fsck regularnly brings a bit of peace of mind, especially if your file system has been through a lot of upgrades.

<comment><USER5> > You can turn it off completely but don't do that unless you have reason to. > Running a fsck regularnly brings a bit of peace of mind, especially if your > file system has been through a lot of upgrades.

The filesystem maintainers seem to disagree: since 2011 mke2fs(8) creates new file systems without enforced fsck intervals.

[http://git.kernel.org/cgit/fs/ext2/e2fsprogs.git/commit/?id=...](http://git.kernel.org/cgit/fs/ext2/e2fsprogs.git/commit/?id=3daf592646b668133079e2200c1e776085f2ffaf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Offline filesystem integrety checks should not be stopped.There is a reason they take place to begin with. From the OP, it sounds like Eduardo takes every opportunity to stop filesystems checks from happening when booting. So long as he has a policy of doing them manually, and understand why they take place, that's fine. So, instead, he should just:

# tune2fs -c 0 /dev/sda1

Or whatever his filesystems are. Then again, this is risky, and the OP should understand why.

<comment><USER35> I don't that there is any basis for your assumptions about the poster. What makes you think that he takes every opportunity to stop filesystems checks? Did you read a part of the message that I did not?

<comment><USER15> His opening sentence makes it pretty clear that he's executed Ctrl-C enough that he's familiar with it, likely executed it more than once, and expected it to work in Systemd.

<comment><USER35> OK, so it's _pretty clear_ that he's _likely_ to have pressed ^C more than once. That sure is a strong foundation for saying that it sounds like he _takes every opportunity to stop filesystems checks_.

... Especially since he didn't go out of his way to explain the exceptional circumstances that prompted him to try to skip fsck in the reported case... or did he?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tim Cook's internal email about HKmap - <AUTHOR> https://pastebin.com/dFyftCuZ <comment><USER2> > However, over the past several days we received credible information, from > the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from > users in Hong Kong, that the app was being used maliciously to target > individual officers for violence and to victimize individuals and property > where no police are present.

So just like Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. They should probably get rid of those too

</comment><comment><USER3> From the most recent tweet that has some confirmation of the 'leaked email' [0]

> Finally, I offer my sincerest condolences to @waze, which unlike HKmap is an > app specifically intended for evading law enforcement, and which by Mr. > Cook's logic must therefore brace itself for imminent removal from the App > Store.

So this leaked internal email is Mr Cook's and Apple's justification for removing the HKMap due to it 'violating HK law' and questions the lack of evidence of which laws that lead to this decision.

Right now the last tweet is outright accusing Waze of 'specifically intended for evading law enforcement' without supporting evidence too. (I'd like to see evidence for this) If this evidence is also true then this sounds much like of a App Store double-standard, that large companies can get away with it unless they are brought into the light.

If that is true, I will offer to press F to pay my respects to @waze in advance.

[0] - [https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/1182353727329488896?s=21](https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/1182353727329488896?s=21)

<comment><USER4> You are misrepresenting the message either deliberately or through a misunderstanding of it.

Nowhere is it mentioned that the app was removes because it allowed avoiding police. It was removed because it violated the clauses on personal harm.

> we received credible information, from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and > Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from users in Hong Kong, that the app > was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence and to > victimize individuals and property where no police are present. This use put > the app in violation of Hong Kong law. Similarly, widespread abuse clearly > violates our App Store guidelines barring personal harm.

When waze starts advertising that it will show you police-stops so you can drop by and beat up the police they would find themselves in a similar category.

<comment><USER5> That isn't what HKmap does, at all. I believe the people, like Zeynep Tufekci, who are reporting on the ground.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > we believe this decision best protects our users.

I'm sure the protesters are very grateful a CEO on the other side of the world decides how they may protect themselves.

<comment><USER4> If the information they have recieved is indeed credible as they state. Then the users who would be grateful are the police officers who were targeted in violent assaults and the locations that where vandalized.

Apple is not in a unique position to judge who's "the good guys" and who's the "bad guys" they recognized the app was being used as a tool of violence and removed it because they did not wish to distribute tools used for violence.

<comment><USER7> The key bit is what is credible. Because it looks like it's the very same organisation which is against the demonstrators.

<comment><USER6> > The key bit is what is credible.

I strongly disagree. Our tools should not be making judgements on what is credible, or what is good, and based on that decide if they will serve or betray their owner. Power is already far too centralized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Please Apple remove your Maps app. After all, it enables bad people to navigate roads to reach their target most efficiently.

</comment><comment><USER9> I strongly feel that at this point the intuitive solution would be a broad boycott/protest of Apple's products until they elect to allow sideloading of applications on iOS. They shouldn't even _want_ to negotiate moral issues like this and I feel it's just really ugly for them to be in a position to arbitrate matters of such gravity when they don't have to be. Enough people will continue to use the App Store for convenience that I doubt it would have any substantial consequence for revenue, and even if it did, this is such an intuitively ugly thing that I would argue whatever the cost is it is worth it. Even dependent as I am on Apple products for my work, it may pain me too much to buy another if this is still going on come the time.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This seems to be genuine: [https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/1182353727329488896?s=21](https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/1182353727329488896?s=21)

</comment><comment><USER10> > However, over the past several days we received credible information, from > the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from > users in Hong Kong, that our manufacturing operation in China might suffer > issues if we dont bend the knee

</comment><comment><USER11> It's far too easy for mainland "security" forces or counterparts to go plain- clothes and attak HK police. It's a common tactic used against protestors. It gives an excuse for authoritarian responses, like shooting at crowds or, in this case, shutting down an app.

</comment><comment><USER12> Trust the "Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau" lol.

</comment><comment><USER13> Technically speaking so does the police in Venezuela and Zimbabwe feel threatened by protesters whom are also technically speaking violating laws of those countries. But those laws are meant to suppress freedom and to punish those wanting democracy.

By claiming such laws and such reports as valid reasons to remove apps and to aid corrupt governments these companies highlight the fact that they will be more than happy to suppress dissidence in their home countries as well.

The us, the eu, et al, are officially no longer the freedom loving freedom promoting countries they used to be.

In the us the masses are kept under control with managed healthcare and mortgages while in the eu they are kept under control with the threat of cheap labour imports.

Enjoy the new reality.

</comment><comment><USER14> > the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for > violence

How?

</comment><comment><USER15> Perhaps he should just surf to [https://hkmap.live/](https://hkmap.live/) and inform himself.

A ceo is just as good as his judgement.

Perhaps not a very good judgement on this case, except $$$ related ofc.

Weird too, since a lot of Western values should be more important to him than other ceo's. What if some values that he takes personal would become more dominant in our government, because of Chinese influence. I guess he would say "Oops" then.

<comment><USER16> Unless there's a declared civil war in HK, the physical integrity of police officers is as much important as that of the protesters. I would list that as a "Western" value.

<comment><USER15> The source of harming police officers, is not Apple.

It's Chinese censorship and bots/hired humans that give 1 star fake "user reviews".

Perhaps read this, found it after commenting: [https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/10/10/cook-hkmap- live...](https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/10/10/cook-hkmap-live-email)

Or does Quartz also harms police officers?

[https://twitter.com/jkeefe/status/1182023843725971457](https://twitter.com/jkeefe/status/1182023843725971457)

You have 2 eyes and a brain, use them :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Seems like it would be trivial to make a web based version, this app doesn't need an app store.

</comment><comment><USER18> "from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau"

LOL ... yep that is a sure an unbiased impartial state agency that one.

It seems that Tim learned a few tricks from his engagement with President Trump.

</comment><comment><USER19> You lost me at" Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau", Tim</comment>


Ask HN: Toolset to write an e-book - <AUTHOR>

I have a good idea for an e-book and I have like 50% percent of it written. I'm currently writing it using textile markup in WriteRoom. I'm planning to render it to HTML and from there use "print as PDF", but I think that there have to be a better workflow.
I know some of you have written e-books and I would appreciate any advice on the matter.
Thank you! <comment><USER2> I did an ebook recently and it was an awful experience. I started with Adobe InDesign and tried to port to PDF - failed due to image support and integration with Kindle/ebook readers. I then switched to Word and tried to do PDF export and that failed for the same reason. In the end, I ended up having to go through multiple exports using multiple tools - one set for PDF, one set for HTML, one set for Kindle, one set for other ebook readers. I originally had planned on doing several ebooks but #$%^ that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! I'm a graphic designer and had to do some editorial design before and dude… I hated everything about it! That's why I expected this process to be a major source of frustration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My personal toolset consists of emacs and pdflatex. I don't care about rendering to HTML, and my writings typically include math formulas, so I suspect my requirements are a bit different from yours. Nonetheless, when it comes to typesetting beautiful PDFs, you really just can't beat LaTeX.

</comment><comment><USER4> There was an article a while back by the person who writes those "Dive into" series (Mark ??). Iirc, he stopped using markups and began writing directly in HTML. That way he could see exactly what he was getting and not waste time fighting a markup. See if you can google him. (dive into mark - iirc).

I used to have a lot of problems with textile some years back. One never knew when it would just ignore a markup. Same often happens with markdown.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, I think I found it: [http://diveintomark.org/archives/2009/03/27/dive-into- histor...](http://diveintomark.org/archives/2009/03/27/dive-into- history-2009-edition)

So, HTML is really the best way to write a book? I mean, as a web developer I can write HTML, but I feel like thinking in markup will break my inspiration a bit.

Also, in the comments someone mentioned Pandoc, which looks sweet <http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have created 3 ebooks so far. Typed them in MS Word and printed as PDF using Pdf writer.

</comment><comment><USER6> So, regardless of what you use to create the ebook, where can/should you publish it once it's done? I know you can post it, say, on your blog to download, but what else would you do. (Submit to Amazon, or iBooks, or more?)

</comment><comment><USER7> I think LyX is a good alternative here. Good converters to html, pdf, text... great outliner (much needed for a long piece such a book). Has track changes, and it's plain text so you could use a vcs with it.

</comment><comment><USER8> This may not be directly relevant, but it doesn't hurt to use version control to keep track of changes or for just giggles to see what the heck you were thinking through the writing process.

<comment><USER9> Writing is one of my hobbies/passions outside of coding, and using svn/hg/git/etc is so great, since it's all text (or should be, screw word and other word processors that save in binary formats). Being able to track changes and easily get back stuff if you change your mind is wonderful, just like it is in coding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you are going from HTML -> PDF then by far the best tool I have found is princeXML.

Outstanding HTML -> PDF rendering with automatic TOC, page numbering, splitting tables across pages. Excellent CSS and SVG support.

Pricing is reasonable too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Prince looks promising, but it's a bit pricey for my needs. I think I will use the free version and have their logo as a sponsor :P</comment></comment>


In developer survey, 72% think Android has better long-term viability than iOS - <AUTHOR> http://www.appcelerator.com/mobile-developer-report-September-2010/

<comment><USER2> Submission title is inaccurate. The 72% figure is for "best positioned to power a large number and variety of connected devices in the future". The "best long term outlook" figure is 59%.

Ten of the other twelve questions favor iOS, but the breakdown is worth reading.</comment>


Beta Testing as a Service - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
Does anyone know of a service that, for a fee and with well defined parameters, will gather a bunch of users to perform beta testing on a product?
So, say there's a browser extension that someone has developed, and she wants to get, say, 15 people to install it, use it, play with it, and provide useful feedback on it (more than just,"this is awesome" or "this sucks") - feedback that can be used to shape the product.
I've heard of Betalize, but, visiting their site, it's very hard to tell how it works and how to launch what they call a "contest". Does anyone know if they're still in business? Anyone know of a worthy competitor?
This seems like an obvious idea and a service just about every startup would need. But I haven't seen anything like this. But maybe one of you has, and so I'd appreciate any insights you can offer.
Thanks very much! <comment><USER2> plenty of those, but the biggest and most succsful one I am familiar with is uTest.

[http://www.utest.com](http://www.utest.com)</comment>


Why work visa applications have to suck? - <AUTHOR> https://bpaulino.com/entries/8-why-work-visa-applications-have-to-suck <comment><USER2> Yeah, basically if you have a work visa, companies who pay for it know you're basically not gonna leave. That's what they bank on.</comment>


Blocklist/Passlist Instead of Blacklist/Whitelist. Discuss - <AUTHOR> Simple change, phonetically close enough IMHO. A simple change that actually makes sense to do. <comment><USER2> Except it doesn't make sense. Unlike the master/slave... thing, blacklist/whitelist has a VERY well defined meaning. Blacklist is the closest English term to the computing concept. You're also asking us to fragment our terminology, change client-facing apis, and potentially put thousands of man hours into retrofit these changes. What's the benefit?</comment>


Comparing 25- to 34-yr-olds now with 25- to 34-yr-olds in '89 is superdepressing - happy-go-lucky http://www.businessinsider.com/comparing-millennials-to-baby-boomers-2017-1/#millennials-have-accumulated-about-half-as-many-assets-as-the-same-age-group-had-in-1989-they-also-make-about-10000-less-on-average-1 <comment><AUTHOR> wow, have no words for figure 1.2...</comment>


Remote Debugging a .NET Core Linux App in WSL2 from Visual Studio on Windows - <AUTHOR> https://www.hanselman.com/blog/OfficialSupportForRemoteDebuggingANETCoreLinuxAppInWSL2FromVisualStudioOnWindows.aspx <comment><USER2> We write .NET Core on Mac to overcome this, but I'm very glad to see full tooling for developing .NET Core for Linux across the board. Tooling and advocation from Microsoft for Linux in production is vital to .NET Core's future I think.</comment>


Ask HN: What gets you out of bed in the morning? What motivates you? - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN,
I'm not sure how to go about writing this post so I'll try to keep it to the point.
For the past few years I've been struggling with an overwhelming feeling that I have no real purpose in life. I work a comfortable job as a programmer and I have enough money saved that I don't have any immediate financial worries. I have hobbies that come and go and I try to keep myself healthy.
The only reason I get out of bed in the morning is because I don't want to lose my job. The only reason I don't want to lose my job is because I'd be bored otherwise. And it's socially unacceptable to be unemployed because "I don't feel like working any more".
But I don't feel that my job is the problem. My problem is that is that I just don't really know what my goals are in life any more. I don't know what makes me happy and I don't know what motivates me. Some people have a family to provide for, others a burning ambition to make the world a better place. Some people have the desire to become rich beyond their wildest dreams. I no longer have that fire in my belly.
I feel like an empty shell of my former enthusiastic self. I have become cynical and jaded and tired and I desperately need to do something to reignite my fuse.
I could write a lot more, but in an effort to avoid this post being entirely "boo hoo, woe-is-me, first-world problems", I'd like to ask the members of HN:
1. What is your motivation in life? What drives you and gives you the energy to make it through the day?
2. Where did your motivation come from? Was it something you were born with or something you gained through an experience?
Thanks for reading. <comment><USER2> I am fresh out of college. I am working, too. My job isn't my life, it should not define who you are, but it really took a long time to realize that.

1\. In the evenings and weekends, I make art and games. I eventually want to move to Silicon Valley one day. I want to meet my heroes. That keeps me going through the obstacles and roadblocks.

2\. I was really burnt out during college. Should I be a doctor? Psychologist? Investment banker? Engineer? These thoughts would weigh me down so much I actually ended up getting so burnt out (studying so hard towards something I could not even see), that I slowly started to sabotage myself and ended up doing none of that. I graduated, got a regular job, and now I pursue blogging and game-making in my free time. It sounds like a sad story, but I am actually a lot happier than I was before. I still struggle because what I do now is not what I dreamt that I would be doing. I did not study programming extensively in school, but I became really interested in it after being inspired by MineCraft, Paul Graham, stories about all kinds of hackers (good and bad), Steve Jobs, etc. I used to lack motivation, but I became really motivated once I became truly and thoroughly inspired. Look for that inspiration.

Is it a loneliness issue for you? That's something I still struggle with, because the friends I made in college felt like acquaintances to me. I think it is because I was trying to push myself to be something that I was not (I did things that I thought would increase my "employability" and salary potential while sacrificing being true to myself, which was a huge mistake. If I was true to myself, I would have met people with similar interests). So now I am striving to go to places where there are people who share my interests and have the same ideals/values.

If you were to sit down and seriously think, what would you do if you had no obligations whatsoever?

</comment><comment><USER3> This may be a regional thing, but in Silicon Valley it's not socially unacceptable to be unemployed because "I don't feel like working any more". A good number of $B+ companies seem to start that way (YouTube, WhatsApp, Apple, PayPal), and many more ordinary folks do it with more ordinary results as well.

I have a suspicion that your root problem is that you care too much about what other people think. So what if it is socially unacceptable? You think people are going to treat you like a pariah because you're funemployed? Most people will probably secretly envy you, because they wish they could get up the courage to leave as well.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ah, the meaning of life. A nice easy one for a Tuesday morning:

      * Find something that you really want to do
      * Arrange your world so that you can do that thing

Now naturally, that first bit is a tough one if you honestly can't think of a single thing that you like doing. Assuming you _can_ though, the rest follows.

Chances are that "something" won't be working for somebody else in a felt cube, so a handy thing to do is to increase your value so that you can bill more per hour spent in that cube and hopefully reduce the number of hours you need to spend there to keep the bills paid (and thus more hours left to spend on "your thing").

As developers, we get an extra trick in that we can so easily work remotely. Once you realize that "remote" doesn't only mean "from my bedroom in the same city as the company", nor "the same hemisphere as the company" nor even "someplace other than the beach", things get nice in a hurry. If your "something I want to be doing" only happens in the mountains, at a particular surf break, or within frisbee-toss of the Eiffel Tower, there's nothing to stop you upping sticks and planting yourself there.

In short, it's your life. You get to arrange it any way you like. The fact that most people arrange their lives in exactly the same way doesn't change that. If your life is currently arranged such that you don't even feel like getting out of bed in the morning, that's something that you can fix.

</comment><comment><USER5> _" Technology tends to separate normal from natural. Our bodies weren't designed to eat the foods that people in rich countries eat, or to get so little exercise. There may be a similar problem with the way we work: a normal job may be as bad for us intellectually as white flour or sugar is for us physically._" \-- [http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> I moved to Israel a few years ago because I am a Zionist. For me, I wake up everyday with the goal to improve Israeli society and the Israeli economy.

</comment><comment><USER7> This might help you: [http://www.quora.com/Motivational-1/What-are-some-quick- conc...](http://www.quora.com/Motivational-1/What-are-some-quick-concise- motivational-statements-to-help-get-me-out-of-bed-in-the-mornings)</comment>


Launch any browser/OS right from your desktop with Sauce for Mac - <AUTHOR> http://sauceio.com/index.php/2012/12/introducing-sauce-for-mac-the-easiest-way-to-launch-any-browser-right-from-your-mac/ <comment><USER2> -1 for forcing me to use the Mac App Store — the copy on the landing page you sent me to made it sound like there was a way to download it directly. Before I could download it I was presented with multiple alerts and pages of bullshit regarding my Apple ID and the App Store terms of service. Not a good experience.

-1 for not having a link to create a new account from the first dialogue box in the app. I can either log in or start without an account, but not create a new one? There's also no hint as to where I should go to make a new account. I clicked "forgot key" and worked it out from there.

-1 for not explaining the "open source" plan very well. What does "public" mean? Does that mean anybody can watch videos of whatever I'm working on?

-1 for making the credentials I actually need to use the app non-obvious. You should know that I'm coming from your app when I sign up for a new account, and when I'm done signing up, show me my account key in big, fat, auto-copyable text, instead of hiding it two screens later.

-1 for not automatically taking me to my localhost URL after Sauce Connect initializes. I had to say I wanted to go to a localhost URL, wait for Sauce Connect to initialize, and then try to connect to the URL again.

But once I got the thing working, it's really great! And I totally forgot that display:inline-block didn't work as recently as IE7 :(

<comment><USER2> Folks, this website is not called "internet love fest". Please stop downvoting me for giving honest and complete feedback of my experience with the app.

<comment><USER3> Let this be your lesson that presentation does, in fact, matter. Whatever your intent, your post reads as an excessively negative scorecard.

And nobody wants to read excessively negative content, man. It's a drag.

<comment><USER4> I got the same feeling. Although I agree with some of the points made I think it was the way it was worded and the "-1's" that came off as really distasteful.

<comment><USER5> Didn't bother me, got the point across rather well I thought. At least he didn't put the negative ones in red because that would have really hurt someone's feelings.

<comment><USER3> Easy there, killer. This isn't some feel-good bullshit about maybe hurting someone's feelings; it's about the atmosphere we want our community to have.

We're all social creatures. Super negative comments bring everybody down, not just whoever they're directed at-- and it's easy to be both honest and pleasant to read.

<comment><USER5> The point I was trying to make is that his statements didn't bother me and I fail to see how it would any other, I admit just my opinion though. I didn't find them to be "super negative" so this is just a disagreement over how "mean" he was being. Therefore my comment red and people's feelings. I feel that a complaint over his negative ones is overblown and doesn't drag every one down. You may disagree with me but if someone feels bummed about negative ones preceding a statement then I have to feel they are easily bummed out I guess, since easily offended doesn't fit.

I agree that it's easy to be both honest and pleasant to read but there can be disagreements over the definitions of both of those. Plus, sometimes being honest doesn't lend to being pleasant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was a bit worried about how this would work on a company intranet. I know my IT network security people are pretty paranoid about bridge networks and all that. Looking at Sauce Connect[1], they recommend to put the service on a dedicated machine on your intranet that you can zone off so it only has access to the parts of the network you want to allow.

Seems like a decent solution to allow a running a cloud service behind a firewall.

[1] <http://saucelabs.com/docs/connect>

<comment><USER7> Still. I feel like the price is way too much. The recommended plan is $149/month. For the long run, buying a decent machine and running your own virtual machines would be cheaper.

Someone prove me wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> What you're seeing is actually pricing for our automated testing service. Sauce for Mac is either free (30 mins of testing/mo) or $12/mo (for unlimited minutes against all browsers). It also comes included with all the testing plans on that page.

<comment><USER8> Whoa, this is news to me, I checked out sauce a month or so ago and came to the same conclusion as highwind. $12/mo is something that I would be more interested in. You should make that way more obvious. I haven't fully harnessed the power of TDD and it isn't used at my current job so I have no use for it. On the other hand the ability to test websites on different browsers is very important to my job and for $12/mo it's something I can afford to get for myself to use for work and personal projects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good concept, but prefer one of their competitors: <https://browserling.com/>

\+ Web based

\+ No account needed to try it

\+ Tunnels also available

\+ Great blog from one of the founders catonmat.com

<comment><USER10> \+ Our browser based testing service is also available at <http://saucelabs.com>

\+ We have an accountless version on the front page, followed by free and open source accounts.

+We have a very secure and mature tunneling system called Sauce Connect: <http://www.saucelabs.com/docs/connect>

Five minutes of research would have been helpful.

<comment><USER9> My bad. I totally agree with you.

Hmm, you might improve conversion if you put trial button above the fold. Also pre-spinning an instance for demo would be truly awesome.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the input, feel free to email me email@example.com with your account and I'll happily give you some extra minutes to check everything out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sauce does Mac OS X virtualization using some patches Alexander Graf and René Rebe helped them bring up to date, which they've released (see [http://sauceio.com/index.php/2012/08/apple-sauce-android- sau...](http://sauceio.com/index.php/2012/08/apple-sauce-android-sauce/)).

I tried hacking their patches into a recent snapshot of the KVM tree but there were some issues. I sort of wonder if anyone else has managed to get their code working, because it would be a neat hack if so.

<comment><USER12> Hi, author of that blog post here. I meant to follow up with a more detailed tutorial on how to specifically spin up a Mac VM using those patches. Sorry I haven't done that yet. :-(

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a long time SauceLabs customer I just tried Sauce and I am loving it!

Being able to open multiple browsers at the same time is fantastic. I can launch them at once and take a look at them. We have been using browserstack but constantly closing and opening different browsers is a lot of work. Screenshot: <https://dl.dropbox.com/u/132641/screenshots/sauce.png>

It also seems to be faster compare to browser based solutions.

</comment><comment><USER14> Well of course we'd like it for windows but I can use my osx emulator for now.

There is also <https://browserling.com/> but it can be slow sometimes and has other issues.

</comment><comment><USER15> I like the concept but the product doesn't seem to work well (at least the free version), perhaps due to HN traffic. I can't connect to most websites and the ones I can connect to take a long time.

As for your website, I agree with some of the other comments. Its not really obvious that you have a free plan or what that offers unless you read closely. I'd suggest you move that up into your pricing grid.

I'd also move the Sauce with Mouse row up to the top. I see your main value for users (or at least starting point) being manual testing. Focus less on automating and scaling up to huge numbers of tests. Get me in the door and familiar with the product, then upsell me once I'm convinced your product is awesome.

Best of luck to you. I'll check back in a few days to see if things are working better.

</comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone have experience with this? It would be interesting if this is finally a good solution that really works.

<comment><USER17> It's great for manual testing, just be aware that the performance of the machines they host the browsers on is REALLY bad, to the point that it may make it hard to do testing of HTML5 apps. For basic website testing it works pretty great.

<comment><USER18> The application is in some sense basically a wrapper around a VNC connection. It's likely that the performance issues you're seeing are due to VNC latency rather than the power of the virtual machines themselves or the hardware they run on (which is pretty beefy). But your point is well made: given this architecture you can't really watch video or do things that require high framerates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The Sauce Labs website is really confusing.

\- There's no indication that you could login using GitHub.

\- There's no (obvious?) way to logout.

\- There seems to be no way to login either once you've managed to logout? (without visiting /login directly)

While the product is indeed nice, the website really gives me a bad impression.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is excellent! How does this compare against BrowserStack (ignoring price, of course)

</comment><comment><USER21> Regarding iOS support.. does this just run the simulators that come with XCode? I have found that the simulators don't do a very good job of reproducing real mobile safari behavior.

<comment><USER12> Yes, at the moment, it's iPhone and iPad simulators. However, offering testing on real devices, too, is a high priority for us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Sauce has a great team of smart engineers. Very cool product! I'm waiting to come to your next meetup where you can talk about this.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hmmm.... A very spicy plan is so spicy that it is better worth investing into own VM testing park. Mechanical Turks are also here.

<comment><USER10> Greetings, we updated the page at <http://saucelabs.com/mac> to clarify the fact that you get unlimited usage of our VM's for $12 a month. Sorry for the confusion, I think it's a fair and reasonable price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> How does this do against something like BrowserStack? I love BrowserStack, but it can be really slow and unresponsive at times.

<comment><USER25> much faster for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Looks interesting, but can't you already do this in Chrome using User Agent Overrides (under Developer Tools)?

<comment><USER27> No matter what user agent you use, Chrome won't show you how your page looks in a non-WebKit layout engine like Gecko, Trident, or Presto.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Unfortunately, this is a horror to sign up for, use, and look at. Any alternatives?

<comment><USER29> Ignore the app and sign-up on the website. I already had an account for the browser-based testing so I didn't experience the sign-up problems other people are describing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I would like to see this for Nintendo Wii-U's HTML5-compliant browser.

</comment><comment><USER25> I used it - pretty straight forward and has the IE versions.

</comment><comment><USER31> Looks great!

</comment><comment><USER32> Just tried it and it worked really well.</comment>


Show HN: The best way to run PHP apps - <AUTHOR> https://serverpilot.io/?=showhn

<comment><USER2> I am probably in your target market. We've been running on AWS for 2 years. We use a handful of their services including EC2.

Locally for development we use vagrant.

I need more information on how you can help me save time (not money). What specific thing do you make easier for me?

I think "server management" is too broad. Maybe I don't believe you can really take all the server management off my hands. If I'm wrong I need some proof which I'd be happy to read/watch.

The only concrete feature I get from the home page is monitoring. I assume you can monitor me if/when our host goes down or we're running low on disk space.

I'm genuinely interested in these PaaS options but being 2 years in with some existing architecture I would need to know that it doesn't involve re- architecting anything (maybe it does, in which case I might no longer be interested).

My $.02 - hope it helps.

<comment><USER3> Hi. Thanks for your feedback. We need to improve the site to make these things clearer.

We save you time by configuring servers initially, doing reconfiguration tasks for you, setting up and handling monitoring (e.g. of disk space, cpu, application errors), and taking care of steps that many developers forget. In general, you can take a fresh server, connect it to ServerPilot, do "create an app" through our interface, and then have a production-ready server configured for running your app.

On new servers, ServerPilot installs and configures necessary services for running your apps (nginx, apache, php, mysql), configures a firewall, automates package updates, sets up monitoring, and does a handful of other things like ensuring the system clock is updated and stays updated.

After initial server setup, we provide a web interface and APIs to create and manage apps and databases (which behind the scenes means we reconfigure services), make it easy to deploy SSL certs, and provide ways to monitor your servers and apps.

We've got many more features coming. So, if there's something that you'd like to see us do that we don't do currently, please let us know.

<comment><USER2> I wonder if boiling it down into one thing up front would be an easier sell. I understand that it might not be possible but you're basically telling me use my entire infrastructure. It'd be an easier pill to swallow if I could do something to get notifications or something similar. Not sure if that's good advice, just brainstorming.

Btw, we're going through the exact same excercise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm already using serverpilot for a couple of legacy PHP projects and I am really enjoying it.

+1 for composer support built in.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've worked with Justin for a decade.

We've been using Server Pilot since Justin and co. dropped the Server Pilot demo and are now managing most of our development and production servers with Server Pilot.

Server Pilot makes setting up apps, users and databases painless and focused. Updates, back ups, patches and notifications (both good and bad) now take place in the background. We can now focus on app development and refinement - the stuff we're best equipped to manage.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice! This looks like it basically does what my app[0] does, but with a little extra!

Good luck!

[0] [https://puphpet.com](https://puphpet.com)

<comment><USER3> Thanks, Juan. PuPHPet is great. We should talk about ways for PuPHPet and ServerPilot to work together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi, founder here. We're trying to change the way developers use and manage cloud servers. We'd love any feedback, questions, or feature requests you have.

Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER7> Keep up the good work guys! Excited to try the new hotness.

</comment><comment><USER8> Really love these guys and their product. Congrats Kevin and Justin!

</comment><comment><USER9> Great tool. Great founders.</comment>


Apple and Nvidia Are Over - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/apple-and-nvidia-are-over-1840015246 <comment><USER2> If you need Cuda you don't need Apple.</comment>


How to Tap the Ripe Mobile Enterprise Segment - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2009/10/22/how-to-tap-the-ripe-mobile-enterprise-segment/

<comment><USER2> The amazing power of graphs...

Before I started a mobile enterprise anything I'd want answers to the following questions:

1) Delivery? How are enterprise apps going to be distributed? Right now almost all mobile software distribution channels are directed at the general consumer. This, obviously, won't work for enterprise, yet no-one has announced a solution to this problem. This also brings up the issue of authentication.

2) VPN? Blackberry is the only platform I know of to tackle the problem of VPNs. As in, within a native application, I can direct traffic over the VPN. There may be support for this on Windows Mobile...

3) Control: There is no centralized way to control access within 3rd party applications. My IT department can't lock me out of an app (aside from doing a full phone wipe, which only happens on the iPhone and the blackberry) they certainly can't control what I access from within the applications I download.

I'm starting to feel like a broken record online and amongst my friends. Mobile has a bright future but right now it's got systematic, challenging problems. Now's the time to start in, but if we move too fast we'll create another mobile.com bubble.

<comment><AUTHOR> You bring up some very good points, especially with the iPhone. There are limitations that it has that the Blackberry doesn't. I know my work Blackberry routes browser traffic through a filter and won't allow 3rd party apps to be installed.

I've got a friend who's developing enterprise apps for the iPhone and is dealing with the limitations of that platform right now.

Does anyone know how Andriod addresses the enterprise mobile market?

<comment><USER2> To my understanding thus far...

it doesn't.</comment></comment></comment>


Damm I'm a smoker again. But a productive one. - <AUTHOR> http://toomanytabs.com/blog/2921/damm-im-a-smoker-again-but-a-productive-one/

<comment><USER3> He hit the nail on the head with breaks, but don't under estimate the power of nicotine!

It's a great stimulant, like caffeine. Too bad the cheapest and most efficient means of consuming it is by burning it (and 4000 other chemicals) and sucking it into our lungs.

<comment><USER4> Apparently buying your own tobacco and rolling your own cigarettes - <USER2> building your own into filters - is a lot healthier. Doesn't do much about the smell, though.</comment></comment>


Lessons I've Learned Failing to Sell a Premium Digital Product - <AUTHOR> http://lifedev.net/2009/10/learn-to-sell-digital-product/

<comment><USER2> Bit wierd that someone who has failed to sell a premium digital product is stating they know why it failed and providing sage advice (without proof i'll add). I'd guess the reason it fails and is failing is because he doesn't know why it is failing. Otherwise he could just fix what was wrong with it and turn it into success, no?

</comment><comment><USER3> Can anyone comment on whether that long rambling single page sales letter (with testimonials, etc) is really the best option for selling one of these? Sites like <http://www.burnthefat.com/> and <http://www.fsbohelp.com/> and <http://www.parrotsecrets.com/main_cb.html>

They all seem so spammy. But it seems to be the way this stuff is sold.

Does anyone have some A/B testing they can share?

<comment><USER4> My attention span is way to short for that format to be effective (at least for me). I see how thin the scroll bar is and hit the back button. There's just no way I can muster enough caring to read that much crud.

<comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to read it .. you skip to a few highlighted parts, you look at the pictures, you think "wow there's so much info here it must be highly effective and very credible", then you're hit with the "guarantee" logo they made up. Finally comes the signature to personalise it all, it's addressing you, this whole thing is just to help you out.

PS: we'll even reassure you how much we're doing just for you at the end.

The only thing I thought was missing from the burnthefat one, say, was the limited time offer and the many-pointed star to visually anchor the order form link.

I'm sure the people who wrote these sites aren't going hungry!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Lesson I learned a _long_ time ago: sell things people want.

It doesn't really matter _why_ they want them, or whether they _need_ them. If they want something, and they know about it, they'll buy it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I was interested enough to watch the whole video and scan most of the text. I'd consider buying the book for $19.95.</comment>