Luna 1.0 Beta is out - kot-behemoth http://www.luna-lang.org/#Overview <comment><USER2> Hi, I'm one of Luna founders, I'll be happy to answer any questions! :)

<comment><USER3> Equivalent text and graph representation is the killer feature.

I previously looked at stuff like [https://flowhub.io/ide/](https://flowhub.io/ide/) which is a dataflow language spec and editor. Specifically the js version [https://noflojs.org/example/](https://noflojs.org/example/) for compiling graphs into js for some canvas image pipeline work.

Each component has an underlying text representation that you can edit like you guys. But that representation isn't code. It's just the configuration of the node.

This isn't what I want! I want to architect the dataflow on a whiteboard, code it normally (a new language is okay), and then have it visualize the same dataflow for debugging (with help grouping/organizing if needed). Every programmer already does this in their head but without the visual aid.

(Focusing too much on the graphical representation is a mistake. There's only a handful of granularities that are worth whiteboard diagramming and people definitely don't want to code with a mouse dragging and zooming. But having the diagram at specific architectural level when you do need it is invaluable)

I haven't tried your product out yet so I don't know if you guys got it right, but at the very least you guys recognize the importance of "dual syntax representation" as a selling point!

<comment><USER4> _people definitely don 't want to code with a mouse dragging and zooming_

Actually that is exactly what I want which is why I signed up for the Luna beta months ago. We have had flow based programming for a while in the synth and robotics communities and nesting diagrams within each other is the normal thing. For many tasks you can produce elaborate working interactive UIs without ever writing code. My favorite software allowed adding code in C and assembler, though then they shifted focus towards the robotics control market and reoriented it around Ruby.

There are two big advantages in working primarily at the graphic level: you can trace control flows visually and you don't have to know all the libraries and syntax. Instead you can select from a palette and find out what they do by using them, and it should be the computer's job to worry about syntax anyway.

<comment><USER5> would you care to name that favorite software that has reoriented itself towards Ruby? Curious to learn more

<comment><USER4> iirc it's flowstone DSP, last time I looked there was still a free version though it's not an open source project. Would recommend to anyone as an example of good UI in this area

<comment><USER6> @anigbrowl I do not know flowstone DSP, but I see you were thinking much about GUI / nodes design. This is one of the topics I'm passionate about and I we want to make Luna the most powerful visual language available. I would love to chat with you about node design and your ideas. If you think it's interesting, I've just created a topic on our forum for this – I would love to read and discuss your thoughts there! [https://discuss.luna-lang.org/t/nodes-design- discussion/69](https://discuss.luna-lang.org/t/nodes-design-discussion/69)

<comment><USER4> Will do

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Be aware, before downloading:

This application will not run without providing an e-mail address. It also forces data collection.

I will not use such software.

<comment><USER6> @moondoge, if you don't want to provide your mail, just write anything in this field, we do NOT validate it in any way. However, we would be very thankful if you provide your real mail address, so we can track how Luna is used and improve the experience. Every data we collect is described here: [http://www.luna-lang.org/alpha-data.html](http://www.luna-lang.org/alpha- data.html) . We try to collect only insensitive data, that tell us how Luna is used and how well it performs.

<comment><USER8> Software that collects and sends back any form of information is a big no-no unless it's opt-in. It's not acceptable when vscode does it. It's not acceptable when .net-core does it. It isn't acceptable when Luna does it.

If you want your users to help you learn how Luna is used and preforms in real environments, you ask for them for feedback rather than forcefully extract it.

Having telemetry enabled by default (or much worse, being mandatory) is disrespectful. It's also a fairly good indicator of what you think of your users.

<comment><USER9> I totally agree with you on the mandatory part, I'd hope it would be widely accepted that opt-in is the way to go in such cases.

Although I need to point out there's a huge difference between what people say vs what they actually do (see [https://www.nngroup.com/articles/first-rule-of- usability-don...](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/first-rule-of-usability- dont-listen-to-users/)) and I can't imagine an effective product development process that ignores the actual usage data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Amazing! I've been lookibg forward to this for a long time, can't wait to build something with it!

By the way, I've made an unofficial subreddit:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/LunaLang/](https://www.reddit.com/r/LunaLang/)

Could be useful to share projects, ask/answer questions, etc.

<comment><USER6> <3

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's cool technology, but if I take a look at an example of a simple react todo list in a similar project like flowhub: [https://app.flowhub.io/#project/c111454c9fd2f74d37d1e8a4e739...](https://app.flowhub.io/#project/c111454c9fd2f74d37d1e8a4e739adfd/c111454c9fd2f74d37d1e8a4e739adfd_noflo)

This looks more complex, harder to reason about and harder to make than just writing the code. And it only gets worse as complexity increases. But of course I've got way more mileage writing code than doing this.

<comment><USER12> The link leads nowhere (seems login required, but even after login doesn't work). Link to screenshot instead?

<comment><USER11> Oops, here's a screenshot: [https://screenshots.firefox.com/W3XZIh4yCnlcuMNM/app.flowhub...](https://screenshots.firefox.com/W3XZIh4yCnlcuMNM/app.flowhub.io)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Pardon the ignorance, but how does the team support itself, freemium language and premium tools?

<comment><USER14> Investors: [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nodelab-2](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nodelab-2)

<comment><USER15> Oh, ok. But pardon the ignorance, but how do the investors make a return on their investment, freemium language and premium tools?

<comment><USER2> "Freemium language" is not an option. The language is, and will be free and open source. I cannot even imagine any other option, particularly after open sourcing the codebase. Premium tools and services is the way to go for us and we don't feel that would be detrimental for Luna. It ranges all the way from simple consulting services to running a Luna based cloud environment, but there is no threat for Luna as a language in that. On the contrary, this kind of support usually helps boost the technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Beautiful. Data Flow + Functional. Love the idea and can't wait to try it out!

<comment><USER6> <3 Thank you! I hope you will enjoy playing with Luna. We are looking forward to hear about your experiences and use cases using our chat / forum ([http://chat.luna-lang.org](http://chat.luna-lang.org)) / ([http://discuss.luna-lang.org](http://discuss.luna-lang.org)) ! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This looks like it might a good fit for data flow/transform/etl type workflows.

1\. Does this work in a clustered/distributed environment? 2\. Does this integrate with Hadoop/Mapreduce/Yarn/Kafka? 3\. If it doesn't integrate with hadoop, how hard would it be to integrate it, do you think?

<comment><USER2> Hey! There isn't any out-of-the-box support for distributing Luna programs over the network or any library for that yet. We'll get there eventually, but this is too early a release. As for integrating with Hadoop and others: the networking libraries are already there, so there is always a way to integrate. There aren't any adapters yet, so creating one is as hard as wrapping the necessary network calls. If you'd be interested to get deeper into that, I'll be happy to assist you. Just let me know over our chat or forum and we'll make that happen :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The 'Textual Luna' section mentions language interop/FFI. However, nothing I can find elsewhere mentions anything on it.

I understand that it's 'coming soon', but what does 'soon' mean in this case? Not having anything for this is a fairly large omission, IMO.

<comment><USER19> We understand how important it is for Luna to be able to use Python (and JS) libraries and we will try to get to work on that asap. Please note, however, that the core Luna team is fairly small, so we have limited capacity (although I would like to make it my personal goal to create the Python ffi). That said, any community effort in this area is more than welcome, you can check the code on our github org: [https://github.com/luna](https://github.com/luna)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This thing is a nightmare to install and uninstall. The installer is 170 megs and downloads god knows what, there is no uninstall, and when you try to do it manually you see it spawned three or four processes without letting you know. This is incredibly amazingly malware like if you ask me

<comment><USER6> The installer is 170mb after unpacking - it is just an electron app (for providing you GUI) connected to our installation manager. The command line installation managar is very lightweight (around 2mb) - we will provide it as an alternative to the graphical one. We will try to make the electron app smaller. The installer downloads Luna Studio - The graphical environment and Luna compiler and installs it on your computer (according to our docs: [https://luna-lang.gitbooks.io/docs/content/installation.html](https://luna- lang.gitbooks.io/docs/content/installation.html)). If you want to uninstall it at the moment, just delete the ~/.luna folder - that's it. We will provide option for it in the next installer releases. What spawned processes are you talking about? We spawn processes for our typechecker and other services (like undo-redo manager), but they should be killed if you exit Luna ... until you are on Windows. When you are on Windows the processes are registered globally in order not to ask for root password everytime you start Luna Studio. We would love to chat with you about how can we improve it, Windows support needs the biggest love right now.

<comment><USER21> Have you considered using NSIS or Inno Setup to create the installer instead?

[https://sourceforge.net/projects/nsis/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/nsis/)

[http://www.innosetup.com/isinfo.php](http://www.innosetup.com/isinfo.php)

<comment><USER6> We didn't have thought that Electron have such big size overhead when choosing it. In fact we just wrongly assumed that it will be lightweight. We will make the installer lightweight in the future, however there are much more important tasks on our todo list now, so we will do it slowly. We provide very light command line installers as well, so you can use it instead as you wish. Regarding these libraries, we want the installer to evolve into bigger app in the future - allowing you to install many Luna versions side by side, uninstall them or switch the current version. Moreover, we wanted to provide unified experience across platforms. It seems that something like QtQuick will be better suit here, but I haven't investigated it good enough yet to be sure it is the best choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When, specifically, would I use this rather than conventional programming?

<comment><USER19> I find myself using Luna instead of Python (with Jupyter) when I want to process/visualize some data, quick'n'dirty. Seeing the data flow through my program helps me wrap my head around it quite quickly. And the built-in visualizations are nice :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It can make an interesting addition to Cardano (ADA) smart-contracts platform for designing visually formally safe programs for their distributed virtual machine.

</comment><comment><USER23> Windows installer needs add proxy settings, I'm behind a firewall, and always get "Prelude.head: empty list" error.

<comment><USER6> @Vesnica, we would address this issue tomorrow (it's 2 am here and our team is slowly falling asleep!). I've created an issue for you, so you can easily track its progress here: [https://github.com/luna/luna- manager/issues/111](https://github.com/luna/luna-manager/issues/111) :)

<comment><USER23> Thank you very much!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wooohooo, I'm super happy and excited that you made it!!! Was already losing hope, and now what an awesome surprise! :) Huge congratulations, getting from prototype to shipping is hard, and you know it well enough :) Hope I'll have a chance to dabble with it ASAP!

By the way, have you sent a notification email to your alpha subscribers? I don't seem to have gotten anything in my inbox... only found via HN (just when I was starting to ponder if I should try harder to overcome this addiction...)

Hm, and maybe are you planning some kind of release party or something at your office or somewhere in Kraków? :) Or did you already have one? :)

<comment><USER6> akavel thank you, thank you! <3

We've sent the mails, could you double check if it is not there?

There was a thread about party in Krakow on our Chat, lets discuss it there! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Reminds me of a ZUI shell: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_user_interface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_user_interface)

</comment><comment><USER26> Looks cool - Is it easy to interact with a SQL database, ideally Postgres?

<comment><USER2> Hey! For now the best way to interact with Postgres is, I think, using an HTTP wrapper server. A better way to do this needs to be created. Maybe as a community effort? ;)

<comment><USER6> @garyclarke27 if you are interested in helping us create such binding, we would love to support your effort as much as we can. Just tell us about it using our chat / forum ([http://chat.luna-lang.org](http://chat.luna- lang.org)) or ([http://discuss.luna-lang.org](http://discuss.luna-lang.org)) and we will figure out the best way to make it happen! :) The basic building blocks are already there!

<comment><USER26> Hi Wojciech. I suspect that an 'out of the box' integration with Postgres plus options for some of your text representations to be expressed in SQL instead of your language would be a killer feature. No ORM though - I love SQL - <AUTHOR> would happily pay £1000's for such I for example come from a finance background - now I design ERP / CRM software for my own company, I have a UI team but I would like to express some UI myself, to get immediate feedback, to iterate rapidly, a WYSIWYG tool would be perfect for me. I have total expertize with SQL an Excel, but not so much with Javascript. SQL and the Relational Model can be purely functional if immutable, ie insert only, I also use graphs a lot in my schema, they are just relations, Postgres can build closure tables remarkably quickly to create indexes for instant path queries. My main constraint is time not cash, can your system easily interact with a REST endpoint? Postgrest (written in Haskel) makes these quite easy to setup. I auto generate SQL language functions for all data inserts, no direct to table allowed. So interaction with Views and Functions is my main requirement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This looks very cool.

It would be interesting if we can construct software with a UI like this but based on an SSA IR or downright CPU instructions instead of another high-level language.

<comment><USER6> @e3b0c The GUI lives here: [https://github.com/luna/luna- studio](https://github.com/luna/luna-studio). It contains code which speaks with our compiler and infrastructure and we will probably extract the barebone GUI to separate repository soon. Anyway, you can play with it and we do want to support such use cases, because it will make the interface even better and would bring benefits to both Luna and your low-level system :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What the site promises looks INSANELY COOL but the app doesn't seem to work actually. Errors behind every corner, 100% CPU load all the time and the tutorial won't finish loading. This is not beta, this is pre-alpha at best. I really hope it's going to be fixed in near future, can't wait to actually try applying it.

</comment><comment><USER29> This seems like my dream environment come true. Can I build a web server with it? Does it have package management?

<comment><USER2> We don't have a webserver library yet, but a simple one is coming soon (probably this or next week). As for package management – well, we figured it's to good have some packages to manage first and not to rush into that. It is also a nice effort for the community, if there would be anyone interested in contributing such a system (thus earning eternal fame ;))

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is it possible for Luna to self host? Is that somewhere on Luna's roadmap?

<comment><USER6> Luna is general purpose so it would be possible right now to rewrite the compiler from Haskell to Luna, but there is no plan for it simply because it would give us no benefits at the current stage. I agree that it should be done in long-term vision, just because it is "pure" and "beautiful", but do not expect it to happen anytime soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> this is the programming language for the touchscreen generation, every language until now was born from keyboard use. brillant.

I've wanted to see any language have an ast represented visually, then when you save changed to that visual representation it would save back to the original file format, this is very close to what I was thinking of.

<comment><USER6> @jlebrech thank you! :)

Regarding the AST topic: Luna does use AST for the translation - if you modify the graph, an AST-diff is created, applied to the AST and then AST-diff is created and applied to the text. If you cange text, the AST-diff is applied to the visual form. The visual graph is not direct AST visualisation because it would be completely unreadable :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> > Powerful engine. Limitless.

I think at very least it is limited by the known universe. :)

<comment><USER6> If we think about a programming language then it's universe is what a program can actually do. Luna is a general purpose, real programming language. If you are able to code something in C, you should be able to do it in Luna. From this perspective, Luna is "limitless". In contrast to DSLs or almost every other visual programming language Luna is not limited by it's design. However, if such sentence is a real issue for you or other people, we would change it! What do you think? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Can I TL;DR this as Google Data Studio but not SaaS, and for advanced user?

</comment><comment><USER34> Congrats, this looks awesome! Love the inline graphs and realtime updates!

<comment><USER6> Thank you! <3

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is exactly the future.

<comment><USER6> We believe it is. Such comments as this one give us always super-powers, thank you. We will do everything we can to make Luna the most powerful visual language ever created.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Very cool! Can't wait to play with this.

<comment><USER6> @serverholic, we are happy to hear that! Please share your thoughts with us after you play with Luna! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> "many recent innovations in programming language design, such as higher-order functions, non-strict semantics, algebraic data types, object oriented programming and sophisticated type inference engine"

These lies are unnecessary.

<comment><USER6> @cakoose, would you be so nice and elaborate more why do you think we are lying? It is very sad to read such comments, seriously. We were doing our best to bring Luna to our community, so why are you talking that we were lying about anything now?

<comment><USER37> None of those are recent innovations in programming language design. Higher- order functions, in particular, have been part of mainstream programming for so long.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Cool looking project. Unfortunately my browser (Firefox) is really struggling with scrolling on the overview page... It keeps getting stuck while scrolling past the "powerful engine. Limitless" block of text.

<comment><USER6> Interesting, we will investigate it ASAP. In the meantime, please try Chrome instead. We'll try to fix it soon. I'm really sorry for the incontinence!

<comment><USER39> I think you mean inconvenience, but incontinence works too, since it sounds like the OP had a crappy experience ;)

<comment><USER6> You are right, I definitely wanted to use the "inconvenience" word here, but it seems my dictionary knows better what is happening :D</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How do you know if you've learned something? - <AUTHOR> http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2007/06/how_do_you_know.html <comment><USER2> It might be, you've learned something when you can admit you know nothing.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you know nothing then by definition you haven't learned anything.

Perhaps you mean you're wise if you can admit you know nothing? :-) (a la Socrates)</comment></comment>


A message to the aliens (introduction) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.plover.com/aliens/dd/intro.html <comment><USER2> I've got the next five of these written now, ready to go out. So there's hope that I might complete the entire series of 25.

<comment><USER2> Article 0/23 is now posted at [http://blog.plover.com/aliens/dd/p00.html](http://blog.plover.com/aliens/dd/p00.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Will any aliens, meeting the human species as a whole after viewing this, feel totally catfished?

</comment><comment><USER4> -Introduction of decimal numbering system -Primes from 2 though 89 -The biggest mersenne prime known back then

</comment><comment><USER5> Typography is horrible in this one

</comment><comment><USER6> That's fabulous.</comment>


Sub-pixel re-workings of YouTube and BBC favicons - <AUTHOR> http://typophile.com/node/60577

<comment><USER2> Another blog post by the same author introduces a 3 pixel font taking advantage of the subpixels: <http://typophile.com/node/61920>

I might get that for xemacs and annoy coworkers with 500-character long lines. "But they don't wrap on my screen!"

<comment><USER3> Heh, I have made 2-pixel-wide text before. I certainly wasn't as pretty as the 3-pixel one here... but it worked! It always impresses people, but there are so many "gotchas" that it's really not practical.

<comment><USER4> Link?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting idea.

Unfortunately, I have one of my LCDs rotated 90 degrees and, so, any sub-pixel smoothing fails miserably unless it accounts for the rotated sub-pixels.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps there needs to be a new standard for pngs where you can have one image for each subpixel order.

Or we can get everyone to use RGB. Either would work.

<comment><USER5> Why not just reference a larger .png file in your HTML and let the browser deal with the specifics?

<comment><USER7> The bigger download would slow things down.

Not sure if image resizing could even make sensible use of sub-pixel rendering...

<comment><USER5> A 32x32 PNG would not be that much larger than a 16x16.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I made a 'sub-pixel accuracy scrolling' demo once on the Gameboy Color: one half of the screen scrolling at 1 pixel a frame, the other at 1/3 pixels. Amazing how jarring the normal scrolling looks once you get used to the sub- pixel smoothness.

<comment><USER9> This is kinda neat demo of subpixel rendering:

[http://antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/sample_aria...](http://antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/sample_arial_1tenth_shift.png)

Each line shifts 0.1px to right. Taken from.

<http://antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/index.html>

which is excellent introduction to subpixel rendering

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Very interesting. Apparently we can make images clearer by shifting the red half a pixel to the left and the blue half a pixel to the right (very roughly speaking; I know there is more to it than that).

What's up with that? Can anyone find/give an explanation of this phenomenon?

EDIT: This guy Miha is amazing. Check out this tiny little font he is working on (go to nearly the bottom of the page for a more complete version):

<http://typophile.com/node/61920>

<comment><USER11> It's from a phenomenon known as chromatic aberration which is a characteristic of lenses, including the one in your eye (more so if you have astigmatism).

Have you ever looked at someone silhouetted by a bright light, and noticed color fringing on the left and right sides? That's the reason (if you haven't, you have very good eyes). It's also something you often see on photos from cheap digital cameras, where it is introduced by cheap lenses shining onto tiny sensors: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_aberration>

Interestingly, if you look at the typophile page through a vertically-oriented prism, you'll see similar color fringing on both images - the giant red and white 'pixels' in authentic favicon will shift towards...yellow and purple. Make sure you are looking through the second rotation of the prism - the first rotation does not induce color fringing but reverses left and right instead.

edit: Also, someone should hire that guy, like now.

<comment><USER12> No, I'm sorry, but none of what you wrote is correct.

The color fringing is due to an effect similar to a diffraction grating. It's caused by light bending as it travels near an edge (like a prism makes a rainbow by bending light). Chromatic aberration exists, but has nothing to do with the color fringing.

The color fringes on the icon are clearer because an LCD monitor actually has 3 times as many pixels as the typical count. It has 3 pixels for each normal pixel: one for Red, Green, and Blue.

These images make use of that, to basically have 3 times the resolution of an ordinary image. So smaller details are now visible.

It doesn't work on CRT's (it actually looks worse). And it only works on LCD's if the order of the sub-pixels is the same as what the author expects.

<comment><USER11> Don't be sorry, I was wrong. Diffractive lenses are used in camera lenses to correct chromatic aberration from refractive lenses, so I sloppily equated the two. Thanks for your clear explanation!

It is true about the prismatic color-shifting, though - I have one on the desk so that was an observation rather than a hypothesis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That's amazing. Stuff at this scale is so difficult to work with, one pixel is the difference between readable and unreadable.

</comment><comment><USER14> What about a paint-style program where the user is presented in one side with the magnified version of the image that is actually split into RBG, and the actual image on the other side? This could allow to do similar things much more easily.

</comment><comment><USER15> Wouldn't it be rendered differently depending on displays, OS, etc.? I'm wondering if it's just an exercise or if it could be really used.

It's interesting and I wish s/he went into more details on how to do it.

<comment><USER12> It's called Sub-pixel rendering.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-pixel_rendering>

And google it also, there are many sites that explain it, so I won't repeat them.

It only works on LCD's, and the order of the sub-pixels on your LCD has to match the authors.

There is an option you can set to tell your OS to use sub-pixels when anti- aliasing fonts.

Basically for each pixel, there are actually 3, one for each of red, green, blue. By using this, you can increase the horizontal resolution by a factor of three (more or less).

Horizontal resolution, because most LCD's have the three sub-pixels in a horizontal row.

<comment><USER16> "Only works on LCDs", I'd question. I've seen it working on CRT screens too, and I see no reason it wouldn't - they also have 3 subpixels horizontally.

<comment><USER12> From wikipedia:

"The technology is well-suited to LCDs and other technologies where each logical pixel corresponds directly to three independent colored sub-pixels, but less so for CRTs. In a CRT the light from the pixel components often spread across pixels, and the outputs of adjacent pixels are not perfectly independent. If a designer knew precisely a great deal about the display's electron beams and aperture grille, subpixel rendering might have some advantage. But the properties of the CRT components, coupled with the alignment variations that are part of the production process, make subpixel rendering less effective for these displays."

Depends on your screen, but mine has the colors in a triangle. This means that the same colors are not always on the same side of the pixel, so you can't use sub-pixel rendering (see the picture in the article, basically the green is first on the left, then on the right, and back and forth). If you have a Trinitron monitor it could work though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sub-pixel is a new way of captcha generating.

</comment><comment><USER18> I actually hate the one on the right. I don't want my favicons to be necessarily readable, or a blur of colors like that.. they're ICONS. Visual REPRESENTATIONS. Infact, most of the 'better' versions on that page sucked a lot more to my eyes.

<comment><USER11> How good are your eyes? - I am curious about whether you have had them tested and if so what visual acuity score you received. It might very well be your vision is abnormally sharp and the colors are a distraction.

<comment><USER18> My eyes are very good. Infact, even sitting at a distance of a few meet I can see individual pixels and sometimes even the subpixels.</comment></comment></comment>


Caesars Palace security intimidates DEF CON goers, seize soldering irons - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/security-theater-meets-def-con-as-room-searches-spark-controversy/ <comment><USER2> I don't think this is about the soldering irons _per se_ but rather about the trespass. Misleading title.

Tweets referenced in the article:

"Current status: two members of hotel security banging on my door after I asked to go into my room and verify them with hotel security. I'm on speaker phone with hotel security, asking for a supervisor to come verify. I'm terrified. What the hell is this @CaesarsPalace #DEFCON"

[https://twitter.com/k8em0/status/1028375035285630976?s=20](https://twitter.com/k8em0/status/1028375035285630976?s=20)

"This evening, a man in a light blue collared shirt with a walkie talkie, entered my room with a key without knocking while I was getting dressed. He left when I started screaming. @CaesarsPalace is investigating whether it was a hotel employee. @defcon has also been alerted."

[https://twitter.com/maddiestone/status/1028498769732460544?s...](https://twitter.com/maddiestone/status/1028498769732460544?s=20)

A commenter on Ars put it pretty well:

> They are sort of lucky nobody apparently called the police. I would have > called the police and started recording.

For the (contradictory) responses from Caesar's and DEFCON, scroll to the bottom of the article.

<comment><USER3> Keep in mind that among DEFCON attendees there are a lot of paranoids.

I was present, saw a lot of what happened, talked to a lot of Goons about it and there was a lot of misinformation and exaggeration floating around.

Some of the highest profile comments on twitter about this are people acting like they were specifically targeted, which is almost surely not the case. Some of them, for some reason, felt very unsafe. This is also likely untrue. A luxury hotel/resort in a purely-tourism city is one of the safest places you can be, despite recent events.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> seizing soldering irons, while they say searches "involve only a visual review of the bedroom, bathroom and additional seating area, if any

I hope some attendees hit them with a good lawsuit for violating their privacy.

<comment><USER5> They say they have a multiyear contract with Caesar's but the facility is under construction next year.

It seems like there might be a case for claiming breach and getting out of that contract. And for PR reasons it might be worth it for DefCon to persue that option.

<comment><USER3> DEFCON doesn't want to get out of their contract. They negotiated a sweetheart deal with Caesar's -- long term and at a great rate -- when Caesar's was on the verge of bankruptcy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From [https://marcrogers.org/2018/08/13/open-letter-to-the- hacker-...](https://marcrogers.org/2018/08/13/open-letter-to-the-hacker- community/) (linked in the article):

"Yes hotel staff NEED to check rooms but if we, who can change the very building blocks of life, can't come up with a safer way to do this then we really aren't trying hard enough."

No, they don't. They have thousands of security cameras set up, and I'd be shocked if they didn't have technologies like facial recognition built in. They have the ability to do a background check on every guest who checks in. They also have people working the front desk who likely get training to see if you're a "bad guy" or not.

So with all that, please explain why this additional search, which is a massive violation of privacy (and apparently the Constitution) is necessary?

<comment><USER7> I'm not advocating for room searches or intrusion of privacy, but the fact of the matter is all of those cameras and security personnel _still_ weren't enough to detect the worst mass shooter in history. I don't have a better solution unfortunately, and I think these room searches are a complete invasion of privacy, but my point is that the evidence contradicts you.

<comment><USER8> The room searches are an invasion of privacy with zero merit. How likely is it that a shooter is going to leave guns laying out in the open?

Unless they are willing to toss the entire room like a prison cell, these searches are worse than useless as they provide a false sense of security at great cost.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Largest/most successful business without offices - <AUTHOR>

With the advent of the internet, it's very possible to build location-independent businesses. It's fun reading about small software companies that are based in 3 different countries.<p>Is this model scalable? Also, it might be better for products that are smaller and niche. Building a AAA game, for example, might be almost impossible to do without an office. <comment><USER2> As far as I know, Automattic (the company behind WordPress) doesn't have offices. At the very least, almost all of their workforce are remote workers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Once you reach a certain size, it might make sense to have an office just because some people like working in offices. Not everyone wants to work from home.</comment>


Show HN: Borel, on-demand data analysis in 24 hours - <AUTHOR> http://borel.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all, I made Borel with a couple of friends as an experiment.

In particular, I spent much of the past two years as a technical PM supporting marketers and marketing tools. There's a funky analogy between the APIs/Packages I would use ad-hoc for my marketers and the services/products a company like Magic stitches together.

We're online constantly for now, and ready to take your questions!

-G</comment>


Using Tir's Tasks For Async Photo Uploads - <AUTHOR> http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1292063326.html

<comment><USER2> _sigh_

I have to hope that future web frameworks take inspiration from tir and use something like mongrel2 underneath. The whole concept of building in async distributed background processing from the get-go is a huge win when you're going to be doing that sort of thing eventually anyway.

As it stands, I have to go into work on Monday and start hacking something like this into our system. Except it won't be nearly as elegant or simple to snap together.

 _sigh_

<comment><USER3> Yes, I really like this stuff. I think back to having to use "hacks" like BackgroundDRB and cringe now.</comment></comment>


Get Alerts When Your Shopify Store Has Issues - <AUTHOR> https://shopstatuspage.com/ <comment><USER2> Very nice example of choosing a niche for an existing solution and use shop owner specific wording.</comment>


Show HN: ESL Voices – Helping teachers with daily lesson plans - <AUTHOR> http://esl-voices.com/home/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher with experience in the classroom. I developed this website to deal with the problem that many teachers find it difficult to regularly provide material for ESL students. Since one of the main goals is to have ESL learners become proficient in English as quickly as possible, ESL-Voices provides free weekly lesson plans with answer keys for teachers. The lesson plans are based on current articles from a variety of major newspapers and magazines. I am also hoping to attract guest teachers in the future. I'm looking for any and all feedback. In particular, does the organization of the posts content about news stories, together with lesson plans, work? Thanks in advance.

<comment><USER2> Hi Cawbv,

I'm glad to see another motivated teacher. I currently work in ed tech and would like to learn more about t he challenges you face in the classroom. I was recently at ISTE and was able to get a good amount of feedback. But none from someone who was motivated to develop theheir own solution. I'm the lead engineer of a company and am not interested in selling you anything. Just want to gain insight into your challenges. Please email me at firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi I'll contact you.</comment></comment></comment>


Why I've Said Goodbye to Mobile in Favor of PC (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ThomasHenshell/20140807/222732/Why_Ive_Said_Goodbye_to_Mobile_in_Favor_of_PC.php

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8162506](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8162506)

</comment><comment><USER3> I have worked on 3 mobile apps (not games) and my experience was very much the same. We poured our hearts into it but this app economy nonsense just doesn't work. The client probably spent over 500k on these 3 apps to afford the 4 of us to work. We spent probably over 300k of that budget in testing on the next latest platform/latest android build/bugs, and when iOS 8 came out with it's localStorage issues on webviews i thought I was going to have a heart attack...

I would say never again too but I have to admit all the while that first 50% of the time I was having a ton of fun.

</comment><comment><USER4> Tldr: publisher pushed back release in favor of nook support. targeted wrong audience. Wasn't expecting the competition (millions of apps). Forced to make games he wasn't really interested in. Spent $200k and made $7k and decided to try again.

I would like to add it really does suck. It's definitely a passion but as an art form not all artists make money. Being able to wrap our passion for making games into a company is sort of like forming a band. If it falls apart your likely not going to remain friends.

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder how much of the mobile app market is a pyramid scheme. It seems to me like most mobile apps are supported by ads for other apps that, in turn, have ads for other apps.

</comment><comment><USER6> I bought an iPad a little over 5 years ago. At college (longer ago) I used Unix (ultrix) and have had a Linux server ever since and that won't stop any sooner than will my iPad use. Back 8 years ago, I bought a beautiful 17" Sony laptop that was stolen from my car, working in Australia (I'm Scottish) along with mine and my wife's passports (a different story) but once insurance money came, Apple had upped their spec on the MacBook Pro 17" so I got that, and I'm still happily using today. However... I love my "proper computer", my PC (you know what I mean), had one with CGA when jealously looking at my fiends Atari STs and Amigas, but those things plugged into TVs, not monitors like a proper computer, as PC tech advanced, it was clear what the winner was and I'm still trading on the skills picked up when I was in secondary school. I bought the iPad, it was (is actually, still using it, and recently added an air to my arsenal) brilliant, but as this article nicely spells out, it's casual. I've never (as an analyst) managed to successfully use it as a tool, it's a toy and truth is, so is my MacBook. The apple version of excel isn't good enough (or familiar enough) to replace my essential windows version. I've been writing my next big thing software (stop many times on too many platforms) for over a decade and still not made traction, despite learning every library on multiple releases and paying apple's "developer" tax - though I see they've removed that recently. Long story short, I've just ordered a Microsoft tablet thing, with hope that it will be a real productive business device, which for my use my MacBook or iPads (or iPhones or iPods) will never really be.

So I look forward to delivery of my windows tablet (my brother has an RT first fen one, so I've got an idea) and my work phone is a windows phone, it's functional.

I hope to write my next big thing app, and this article has reminded me to not have any shame about marketing it as windows only, because that's what I use and like (though in my heart, I still think of windows as being win.com).

All that and I can play skyrim on it. Meantime I'm sticking with windows too and not many of my colleagues or friends even think this is a controversial thing.

</comment><comment><USER7> How long of a shelf life might "Catch the Monkey" have had on any platform?

</comment><comment><USER8> > I enjoy playing Watch Dogs but there comes a point where I put the > controller down and fire up Visual Studio and have more fun creating than > consuming. Not everyone is afflicted this way, this is my cross to bear.

Oh my.</comment>


What's Hot in the Art World? Algorithms - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/whats-hot-in-the-art-world-algorithms-1432687554#win

<comment><USER2> Lambda diagrams ([http://tromp.github.io/cl/diagrams.html](http://tromp.github.io/cl/diagrams.html)) offer an artistic depiction of algorithms. Here is, for instance, a prime number sieve:

        ─────────────────────────────────────────────────
        ┬─┬───────────────────────────────────┬──── ────┬
        │ │ ┬─┬ ────┬─┬────────────────────── ┼───┬ ┬───┼
        │ │ └─┤ ────┼─┼───────────────────┬── ┼───┼ │ ┬ │
        │ │   │ ┬───┼─┼───────────────────┼── ┼─┬─┼ │ ┼ │
        │ │   │ │ ─ ┼─┼─┬─────┬──── ──────┼─┬ │ ├─┘ └─┤ │
        │ │   │ │ ┬ └─┤ │ ┬─┬ ┼─┬─┬ ──┬───┼─┼ ├─┘     ├─┘
        │ │   │ └─┤   └─┤ └─┤ │ ├─┘ ──┼─┬─┼─┼ │       │
        │ │   │   │     │   │ ├─┘   ┬─┼─┼─┼─┼ │       │
        │ │   │   │     │   ├─┘     └─┤ │ ├─┘ │       │
        │ │   │   │     └───┤         │ ├─┘   │       │
        │ │   │   │         │         ├─┘     │       │
        │ │   │   │         ├─────────┘       │       │
        │ │   │   ├─────────┘                 │       │
        │ │   └───┤                           │       │
        │ │       ├───────────────────────────┘       │
        │ ├───────┘                                   │
        └─┤                                           │
          └───────────────────────────────────────────┘

<comment><USER3> Very beautiful, the notation looks similar to Frege's concept script [https://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~snburris/htdocs/scav/frege/fr...](https://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~snburris/htdocs/scav/frege/frege.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is good, interesting news. Many years ago I did some work combining calligraphy and code, but found that art-people didn't appreciate algorithms and code-people didn't appreciate art.

Here's a card I made for a friend who said that rc4 was "the most important algorithm that will fit on one page": [http://i.imgur.com/TUeJS7y.png](http://i.imgur.com/TUeJS7y.png)

<comment><USER5> Pardon the bluntness, but I think you're missing the point. Algorithms have artistic value for what they represent -- and not because of the font, programming language or even social language they're written on. It's like taking the famous formula "E=mc²" and write it in a cryptic font to make it 'artful'. For me, the beauty is in the simple (and amazing!) meaning that mass and energy are equivalent. Making the formula legible and neat highlights that, in my opinion.

<comment><USER6> _Algorithms have artistic value for what they represent -- and not because of the font_

That is true for all great art though. The Art is not the pretty picture but what the picture represents and symbolises, the pretty picture is just the medium used to try to present that.

<comment><USER5> I believe that, to some degree, we can compatimentalize the beauty in the _representation_ and the _content_.

Take a discernment test which I would call a "substitution test": if you replace the content and the artistic value is more or less unchanged, I claim the representation is the highlight; if replacing the content destroys the values I claim the content is the highlight.

For example, for a picture of Monet, if you swap the scenery for another similar one while maintaining the style not all value is lost. However, if you take E=MC^2 and replace that with B=CD^3, the value vanishes.

I claim that algorithms have a great value in terms "content", and picturing it in illegible text highlights instead a "representation" (since you could replace that code with any other algo) -- missing the point.

<comment><USER4> Since I'm stuck late coding tonight, a little art talk is fun. :)

Representation and content are not so easily separated. (Marcel Duchamp is all over this.) And to the extent that this division exists, they can combine in a cumulative way; great representation with great content.

My field, calligraphy, is keenly aware of the "content problem". (My humble works[1]) Are the great Chinese calligraphers "missing the point" of the poems in their works when the resulting script is illegible to most?

Especially in the west, it seems people take writing and letters so much for granted that they assume the __only __appropriate function is for them to be easily interpreted. (Before abstract art, people held similar ideas that the purpose of painting was to easily convey what the artist had seen.) Perhaps in a similar vein, you 're saying that the only appropriate use of algorithms in a piece of art is for them to be communicated clearly and faithfully?

We are in agreement that algorithms have great value in terms of content. And I'm excited that the art world is growing aware of the "value" of algorithms. It's been my impression that the art world was stuck too long on the physical forms of computing technology (the cases, the monitors, the phones, the wires, the blinking lights), so it's exciting to see how artists will interpret the beauty of algorithms themselves.

Okay, now back to coding.

EDIT:

Some beautiful Chinese calligraphy: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calligraphy#/media/Fil...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calligraphy#/media/File:Mi_Fu- On_Calligraphy.jpg)

[1] [http://instagram.com/wanderingstan/](http://instagram.com/wanderingstan/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I thought this was going to be art generated by algorithms...

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

</comment><comment><USER8> There's got to be some interesting copyright licensing discussions going on there. Like when Don Knuth declared in 2004 that MacPaint was "the best program ever written", but it took until 2010 to convince Apple to release the source code. [https://web.archive.org/web/20100721233205/http://www.busine...](https://web.archive.org/web/20100721233205/http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ByteOfTheApple/blog/archives/2010/07/apple_donates_macpaint_source_code_to_computer_history_museum.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> [https://www.artsy.net/auction/the-algorithm- auction](https://www.artsy.net/auction/the-algorithm-auction) seems to be the auction in question.

</comment><comment><USER10> A friend of mine won a poster design competition 10 or so years ago with an entry that was scripted in Flash (ActionScript, or whatever it was). From memory, he had a few other pieces created in the same way, playing around with various functions. Ahead of his time!

</comment><comment><USER11> > Simply put, an algorithm is a procedure for a process,

"Procedure for a process". That's very vague. Might as well write "method of doing".

<comment><USER12> Method to compute a result.

More technically, method to produce or alter a piece of data.

(Because we should not neglect algorithms that operate on data structures.)

<comment><USER13> An infinite loop is an algorithm. No result required.</comment></comment></comment>


Tesla shares dive after Consumer Reports yanks recommendation for Model S - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-consumer-reports-tesla-models-20151020-story.html <comment><USER3> As Consumer Reports suggests, this is totally understandable. Straight from CR:

> The Tesla wasn't the only high-performance vehicle that fell below average > in reliability. Others include the BMW X5 and 5 Series, and the Chevrolet > Corvette.

> When automakers roll out new technology, be it infotainment, transmissions, > or engine variations, it often has a deleterious effect on vehicle > reliability. Tesla is not only the poster child for a new type of high- > performance, high-mileage EV, but it also has been adding complex new > variations as assembly-line updates, such as all-wheel drive this year. So > it's not surprising to see problems continue to crop up.

> Despite the problems, our data show that Tesla owner satisfaction is still > very high: Ninety-seven percent of owners said they would definitely buy > their car again. It appears that Tesla has been responsive to replacing > faulty motors, differentials, brakes, and infotainment systems, all with a > minimum of fuss to owners.

The CR article is here: [http://www.consumerreports.org/cars/tesla- reliability-doesnt...](http://www.consumerreports.org/cars/tesla-reliability- doesnt-match-its-high-performance)

It's not easy to accidentally slip on a banana peel and buy a Tesla, so I think most owners would understand the risks of buying a brand-new car company's product loaded with brand-new tech. For some that's part of the appeal. I suspect the market is over-reacting a little.

<comment><USER4> Tesla's PE in 2016 is forecasted over 130. For comparison bmw is under 10. Tesla is priced for perfection.

<comment><USER5> Tesla is a growth company that could be a giant. BMW is a stable old blue chip. Different market values entirely.

At the individual car level, Tesla S is priced to match mid/high end sedans from BMW, Mercedes, and Audi, so that's the quality level they need to hit. And such quality isn't about reliability so much as fit and finish. Tesla is doing extremely well against very established competition in that regard.

<comment><USER6> Tesla' market cap is $30B. GM is $53B. Ford is $61B. If you're buying Tesla, you have to believe that they will become a huge player, and soon. They can't just be bigger, they have to be huge or else you're radically overpaying for a niche producer.

<comment><USER7> Don't forget batteries. Rolls-Royce did well with jet engines, probably better than cars.

<comment><USER8> Agreed and don't forget licensing. OK so TSLA makes squeeky sunroofs, who cares, they can sell batteries and controllers and motors to ... construction crane companies or something. You know all the weird details of making a tow truck, cool, here's the parts to make it electric.

Happens all the time in the automotive industry. The first "american" hatchback car I ever drove had a nice VW engine. Ironically it was something to do with low emissions.

<comment> semi-extrinsic Well, Tesla buys their batteries from Panasonic. And the motor is a standard induction motor, not very different from what the actual (Nikolai) Tesla invented back in 1887. I agree that their control system is going to be fairly complicated, since induction motors require the AC frequency to be a function of the torque as well as the RPM.

But then most applications outside "quick 0-60 pure electric car" use brushless DC motors instead, where the controllers are simpler. Even the insane McLaren P1 hybrid, which eats Teslas for breakfast, uses a brushless DC motor. So I'm not sure there is as much of a market for Tesla's expertise as you'd think.

<comment><USER9> I had no idea Tesla but the batteries from Panasonic, I thought the entire point of Tesla is that they build them in house? And what about the Gigafactory?

If it's all truly Panasonic's tech, I am surprised so many people put their money into Tesla.

<comment><USER10> Panasonic is a major investor and partner in the Gigafactory. They're also providing the initial cell manufacturing technology and over a hundred Panasonic employees will be on site helping with the setup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I got my P85 in July 2013 and I can absolutely confirm what Consumer Reports is saying.

My car has (and continues) to have all sorts of small fit-and-finish issues. While I've never had a drivetrain issue or any major problem, I have had some wireless and door handle issues that required as new Master Control Unit. Sadly, the work replacing the MCU introduced even more squeaks in the dashboard area :(

That all said: I _still_ love the car and I expect I'll buy another Tesla some day in the future.

<comment><USER12> I suspect other high end brands don't have fit-and-finish issues, but is it true or just brand distortion field ? any actual bmw / mercedes owner ?

<comment><USER13> My mother's 2015 BMW 320d has needed to go back to the garage at 6 months old to have its sunroof replaced. A BMW 320d isn't especially high end, it's true - but I imagine that (aside from the engine...) it consists of mostly the same parts as something fancier like a BMW 335i or 335d.

My dad's 2011 BMW 640i, probably closer to the Tesla in terms of price point, seems to have been trouble free so far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interesting that this important line was omitted from the LATimes article:

"Despite the problems, [CONSUMER REPORTS] data show that Tesla owner satisfaction is still very high: Ninety-seven percent of owners said they would definitely buy their car again."

That is a direct quote from the CS article and featured in other prominent media. (1)

I get that a negative CS article could potentially influence brand perception for non-owners but seems somewhat irresponsible to report only the negative side of the story especially when the Tesla LITERALLY ranked #1 in Consumer Reports 2014's Automotive Satisfaction.

(1) [http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2015/10/20/teslas- pe...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2015/10/20/teslas-perfect- score-from-consumer-reports-doesnt-mean-its-100-reliable-far-from-it/)

(2) [http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1095745_tesla-model-s- to...](http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1095745_tesla-model-s-tops- consumer-reports-customer-satisfaction-index-again)

<comment><USER15> This is why I no longer consume mainstream media news. They ALL have an agenda and that is either to scare you or make you angry. And they obviously don't care about lying by omission in order to garner views.

<comment><USER16> The scare people is bad, and immediately feels like worse reporting than the "makes you angry kind", but in the long run I'm much more concerned by the trend of news consumption heading towards the "makes me angry" kind. It can't be good for overall mental health.

<comment><USER17> It can't be good for the health of society either. All those little anger- inducing tweaks add up, shaping national sentiments and thus voting patterns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Comparing Tesla to existing car companies misses the point entirely. Telsa is an energy platform company that is investing in delivering (Supercharger network) and storing (Gigafactory) energy. Cars are certainly the current "killer app" today, but are likely to be followed by many other applications in the future.

<comment><USER19> Yes, it's starting to look as though the cars are merely a shell for the very profitable batteries they're going to be cranking out in Nevada. Perhaps the whole Tesla car idea was a buyout play -- get established, build a name, then sell the whole thing to GM for $30 billion.

Once the battery plant has economies of scale, they'll be fueling a whole new generation of electric vehicles by other makers, perhaps including the upcoming Apple and Google auto-pilot offerings (the _Nexus car_? the _iCar_?).

Then there is the home and small office market for backup power, storage of daytime solar energy, off-grid and remote locations e.g. ranger stations in national parks. It'll be interesting to see how this shakes out.

<comment><USER20> Except those uses of energy are better solved by Redox-flow batteries, Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES), or pumped hydro.

[http://energy.gov/oe/services/technology- development/energy-...](http://energy.gov/oe/services/technology- development/energy-storage)

A single $5 Billion pumped-hydro plant can store 30 Gigawatt-hours of energy. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station)

The energy demands of this country will be met by utility companies and their massive infrastructure projects. A few hundred MW-Hrs from Tesla is pretty small in the great scheme of utility energy storage.

<comment><USER18> I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that Telsa is competing with utilities to store energy _at scale_. I meant storing energy for personal use (vehicles/homes/etc). They will certainly source all of their energy from said utility companies.

<comment><USER21> We've had energy storage devices for homes for a while now.

It isn't exactly tearing up the market. Very few people are willing to pay the significant upfront cost for the benefit of ongoing but small reductions in power bills. And that is with government subsidies (at least in Australia).

I don't see how Tesla's superior technology is going to affect the product proposition.

<comment><USER19> Similarly, we've had electric cars for a while, and we've had high end sports cars and sedans for quite a while, but Tesla came along and blew most of them out of the water. Except for range, which will be solved sooner or later, it's a stunning tour de force, especially coming from an American manufacturer.

I have faith that Elon Musk will also think of a way to disrupt the home energy storage market, which in my opinion scarcely exists anyway. People have clunky, loud generators for emergencies, and it's possible to get rechargeable batteries to store your solar power, but there's not really an elegant solution yet to the after-dark problem. A quiet, high capacity "home battery" such as Tesla is planning might just be the ticket.

<comment><USER20> [http://www.electricgeneratorsdirect.com/power/10-kw-home- sta...](http://www.electricgeneratorsdirect.com/power/10-kw-home-standby- generators.html)

You can get 10kW of power from a Gas generator for $3000 (hooked up to a Propane fuel tank... or to a gas line if you trust those). A 500 gallon propane tank will keep you running virtually indefinitely, and will only cost a few thousand after installation costs.

So you're realistically looking at $5k to $6k for a gas generator solution for a lot of people.

In contrast, Power Wall is $3500 for a paltry 2kW of power... not enough to even run my air conditioning unit let alone the rest of my house. This cost does not include the inverter, the additional batteries that need to be built out, or the electrician who needs to come out and set this all up. After that extra money spent... it is unlikely to run for much longer than 24-hours.

It is clear what the sane, reliable solution is. A gas generator. The Power Wall doesn't come anywhere close to the specs.

<comment><USER19> The Tesla website says the $3500 battery is 10 kWh.

Anyway, the prices will undoubtedly come down over time. Competition from China, etc.

<comment><USER20> kWh is energy storage. I'm talking about kW: kilowatts. Tesla's batteries can only output 2kW.

This means that the PowerWall can't even supply a typical 3-ton air conditioner (which uses up 3500Watts of power).

Lets just look at your typical appliances: your air conditioning is on (3.5kW starting, 2kW running), your refrigerator turns on (1200W starting, 200W running), and then the Sump Pump started to go (2kW starting, 1500W continuous).

Just preventing your food from spoiling and your basement from flooding is going to require TWO powerwalls before the inefficiencies of an inverter.

I'm not even talking about capacity (kWh). I'm simply talking about the amount of power the Tesla batteries are rated for. 2kW (3.3kW peak)

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

> Anyway, the prices will undoubtedly come down over time. Competition from > China, etc.

On the contrary. It looks like Tesla is trying to loss-lead on batteries to help scale up their Gigafactory. Tesla is assuming the cost will come down already, and is burning cash until it happens.

</comment><comment><USER6> I had a conversation with a (recently-departed) Tesla mechanic the other day (who has had experience working with every other type of car), and he said, "I knew every Tesla owner in the tri-state area on a first-name basis. Everything breaks." He did say that it's getting better with the newer models.

<comment><USER22> Everything breaks on other cars, too. I am not really sure what you're getting at with this comment. A mechanic sees nothing but broken cars.

<comment><USER6> Maybe this wasn't clear in my earlier comment, but he has been a mechanic for lots of other types of cars, and he stated that the reliability was materially worse than other cars.

<comment><USER23> I think what people don't get is, A lot of Model S owners have no problem paying to be beta testers. Problems occur, but Tesla is fantastic about fixing them quickly through their service centers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> My 2013 Model S has had its share of issues. My car is on its third drivetrain. Am I unhappy about it? Nope. Was it a hassle? A little. Was it a show-stopper? Nope. Did Tesla always take care of the issues to my satisfaction? Absolutely. Would I buy another Tesla? Not only YES but I cannot imagine ever buying anything else ever again.

Tesla's huge weakness continues to be communication between company and customer. That is and always has been my number one area of concern. Not reliability. Except in terms of communications reliability. They are terrible at managing expectations. At providing quick and timely updates. At explaining functionality (ESPECIALLY in the age of autopilot) for not only safe driving but also simply maximizing enjoyment of all the car's capabilities. Tesla as a company is a shambles when it comes to communicating. It unfortunately continues to be a low priority to fix it. I wish CR would ding Tesla for lousy communications. Because customer complaints about their weakness as communicators go unheeded.

But I would still buy a Tesla again and plan to.

<comment><USER25> I'd say your expectations around car ownership are significantly out of line with a typical car buyer or someone who may be reading Consumer Reports. I don't think most people buying cars have any real expectation about communication or any relationship with the manufacturer of their car, and having the drivetrain replaced twice would seemingly be a dealbreaker in terms of brand loyalty for a great many car owners.

Obviously early adopters make for a different market, but I think your experience only serves to confirm Consumer Reports' latest report.

<comment><USER26> Out of curiosity, why would a drivetrain replacement be a dealbreaker? The replacement is usually a one or two day job in the service center, and they give you a loaner Tesla while they have it. Why do you care if they pre- emptively replace your drivetrain?

<comment><USER27> It's hard to gauge how widespread these failures are if only people who had problems report in. My anecdata point is that my 2014 Ford had no issues whatsoever and I would find it extremely annoying if I had to waste time driving to/from service centers for things that most modern cars haven't been failing at for years. Even more so if I paid as much as the Teslas cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> After you drive a Tesla, you feel everything else is outdated.

Today I drove a conventional car and it just feels so clunky and slow.

On the other hand, I prefer a normal key for opening my car, a simple, proven tech that works. Tesla has all those "someone had this idea and incorporated it in the car" that is typical of startups.

Everything has to be new and this makes reliability suffer in little stupid things, the basic experience is far superior to anything else.

The same happens to Apple in new products, you pay extra and you are the Guinea pig on anything new they include, think on ghost screens with retina display.

<comment><USER29> Not that I can afford a Tesla anyways, but... I really like my old Toyota 4runner for the same reason you like a traditional key.

I like being able to open it up and follow very clear mechanics while generally understanding what I'm looking at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> That is kinda expected. This is a new company after all, with new technology.

What I didn't see in the article was: how are they handling the failures?

It is one thing to have a car that's unreliable, but that you can then take to a dealer and get it back a couple of days after with everything fixed. It is another if you have to fight the company every step of the way to get it fixed or, even worse, pay for their mistakes out of your own pocket.

<comment><USER31> They address this in the article.

> Tesla spokesman Ricardo Reyes said the Palo Alto automaker keeps in close > communication with its customers to "proactively address issues, and quickly > fix problems."

<comment><USER30> Yeah, but do they?

As far as companies go, I have a decent level of trust on statements by Tesla. But it is still a company, and that statement has to be independently evaluated.

<comment><USER32> Based on commentary in various owner forums, it seems that Tesla is handling these issues generally very well, and makes repairs without some of the common quibbling of a lot of dealerships. So while it's annoying to bring in the car frequently for problems, they do at least seem to be handling the problems well.

A lot of owners however seem concerned about what will happen after the warranty period, when these repairs start costing the owner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Okay, I'll be sure to dial back my 'traditionalist' bent when it comes to vehicles and technology, it doesn't help make any points.

...but with the Model S as the 2nd iteration of a Tesla vehicle, and their first "ground up" model, how does this bode for the often stalled release of the Model X? It very much reminds me of issues faced by software companies, but there's some leeway being given to Tesla I don't think is really deserved. As in, if the last release was really buggy over the course of several years of fixes and patches (and the occasional feature removal like the swappable battery packs), then should expectations be tempered?

Anyway, I'll keep an eye on the company and what its products mean for the industry as a whole.

<comment><USER34> > how does this bode for the often stalled release of the Model X?

I would wait for version 5 to come out when they work out all the kinks.

They'll sell like hotcakes cause CUV is a thing. They were very smart to make their 3rd car a CUV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Seems like a great opportunity to get yourself some (relatively) cheap $TSLA.

<comment><USER36> I struggle to come up with any metric on which TSLA is cheap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I still think we should give Tesla the benefit of the doubt. This article feels like a hit piece, again. At the very least, it's a media organization gleefully taking a hit at an innovative company. I support Tesla less because it has great cars, but because it's really trying to build a better car.

</comment><comment><USER38> Seeing as how the battery system is primarily what makes electric cars expensive, I really wish automakers would start delivering plugin hybrids that have, say 75 - 100 mile range on battery (to keep cost down), along with a very low horsepower gas engine. (Most plugin hybrids give you about 20 - <USER2> miles on battery).

The way it would work: the battery would drive the front wheels, and you would use the battery for most of your driving -- but when it got down to 20% charge, the gas engine would kick in to power the back wheels. The battery could provide acceleration, and the gas engine (about 20HP?) would maintain highway speed (and trickle charge the battery when running off gas). That way, you are using electric for most of your daily driving, but won't get range anxiety.

<comment><USER39> Your suggested configuration has very big downsides. Basically, your config would be an electric car which carries around a complete internal combustion engine, gas tank, and exhaust system just in case it runs out of battery. For simple commutes and around town, you'd be better off jettisoning the weight and cost and getting a slightly bigger battery.

The hybrid car as originally conceived is genius: Small and efficient gas engines are very gutless. Add an electric motor to fix the gutlessness and improve efficiency in stop-and-go circumstances.

Electric cars are wonderful too. Trying to combine the benefits of all- electric with a hybrid is questionable.

<comment><USER33> Do you have an opinion on the Jaguar C-X75 concept?

[http://www.theengineer.co.uk/in-depth/analysis/jet-power- bla...](http://www.theengineer.co.uk/in-depth/analysis/jet-power-bladons- microjets-enable-jaguar-turbine-hybrid/1005528.article)

<comment><USER40> Wow, that looks really cool. Sadly it was going to be a million dollar car, and it was cancelled in 2012 after only 3 prototypes were built.

<comment><USER33> Well, yeah, traditionally the highest grade technology gets deployed in performance or luxury settings first, then makes its way down to mass production. IIRC that's what happened with airbag systems. So I don't see the genesis avenue as inherently limiting. MTT made the RetroRocket and it did the whole Hot Rod Power Tour without any significant issues, I think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Shares reportedly[1] down 10% due to report.

[1] [http://seekingalpha.com/news/2840766-tesla-lower-after- consu...](http://seekingalpha.com/news/2840766-tesla-lower-after-consumer- reports-cites-model-s-reliability-issues)

<comment><USER42> But still have 97% saying they would buy the car again? That is a statistic that doesnt match the claim that the cars arent good.

<comment><USER43> There is a category of car, where the buyer identifies with a group. They don't buy the car for price or service record; they buy it to join a club. The VW Beetle; the PT Cruiser; Cooper's Mini all are cars like that. It doesn't matter what resale value they have, or how often they break down. All that matters is the self-image of the person doing the buying. They go into it knowing they will like the car, no matter what. So the 97% number is entirely expected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> So some sales figures from random unchecked websites

Tesla: 10k/qtr or 40k cars pa BMW: 26k/mth or 312k car pa

So BMW sells 8x tesla (lots of hand wavy around figures), and tesla is selling at 13x BMW

Seems like a good bet - Tesla just needs to replace one of the worlds major brands. VW just imploded so there is room in the market without any major shifts.

[http://jalopnik.com/tesla-is-finally-giving-us-sales- numbers...](http://jalopnik.com/tesla-is-finally-giving-us-sales-numbers-but- not-the-o-1695499966)

[http://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1122009](http://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1122009)

</comment><comment><USER45> I've read most of this stuff before and am still excited to get a Tesla once a more reasonably priced one comes out. One thing keeps bugging me, though: If I wanted to get up tomorrow morning and drive across the country in a gas car, I could do it no problem. When I run out of fuel after ~325 miles, I just stop for 10 minutes at a gas station and head back out on the road. With a Tesla, I need to carefully plan out charging stations <200 miles apart and stay there for what, at least an hour at a time? Do Tesla drivers just not go on road trips?

<comment><USER46> [http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger](http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger) has all the information you need. Realistically, an hour is the higher end of the waiting time - you can get significant range in fractions of that time. Additionally, the navigation software on the Tesla will automatically route your road trip through Superchargers, so you don't have to calculate where you need to stop.

<comment><USER45> I knew there was a pretty extensive network of superchargers, but I really underestimated the nav. Really appreciate the reply.

<comment><USER47> It's a great help, but your original point still stands. With a ICE you can simply point on a map and start driving. With a Tesla, you have to make sure there is super chargers on the way, even if the Nav helps you, you still aren't free to do as you want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This is where if companies were honest they'd send out cards

 _" Thank you for beta testing"_

as maybe a 10th generation owner someday, I say thank you to all previous owners too for spending the money to work out the bugs

</comment><comment><USER49> "automatically retractable door handles". Forgive me for being ignorant about this, but as soon as I read this (that not only it exists, but is a "signature feature") I couldn't help but wonder why...

Does anyone here know why such a feature would exist? Sure it makes one ooh and ahh when they're about to buy it, and probably the first few months after, but does anyone think if this feature does not perform perfectly, it could only possibly cause more buyer's remorse than anything else?

<comment><USER50> Aerodynamics. Protruding handles are a source of drag, so it was eliminated.

<comment><USER49> The thing that gets me is I read that it causes people to be locked out of their cars if it doesn't work right. I've seen plenty of cars without protruding handles that don't lock you out of the car.

I wonder if anyone would care if they were shown the math behind the amount of drag it reduces vs. the possibility of temporarily being locked out of their cars on random occasion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> On the one hand, they're a new company relative to the others; they are taking many risks, and they won't perform flawlessly - so I give them a lot of slack for trying and mostly succeeding.

Also, they are very good at fixing things when they screw up.

On the other hand, their stock price is WAY over valued. Hopefully we will get gentle ratchets to bring it back down to earth, such as this.

<comment><USER5> I'm not convinced the stock is overvalued. Tesla could end up not only making cars, but reworking the whole electric grid. How often does a company get to change a fundamental utility like that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Oddly, I was just thinking the other day about how Tesla had a reputation for being a bit prototype-y but I hadn't heard anything about it recently, so I concluded they'd massively improved.

Based on this they're better, but still not great.

Was it not Consumer Reports that had a string of issues with their first model S, or was that another car magazine?

<comment><USER53> Are you thinking about the NY times article? [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on- the...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev- highway.html?_r=0)

<comment><USER52> No, I remember that as well, but there was someone that had the car and liked it but needed to get lots of parts replaced. Edmund's maybe? Yes that was it:

[http://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2013/long-term-road- tes...](http://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2013/long-term-road-test/wrap- up.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Is interesting how much influence Consumer Reports wields relative to other publications that review and rate products.

Don't own a Tesla, or have an opinion on their reliability, but wonder sometimes if we don't need a Consumer Reports for Consumer Reports.

</comment><comment><USER55> I'm a Tesla fan and I actually expect this from a new car company with their first product from the ground up. They need to figure this out if they want the Model 3 to be mass market though. I want to buy it and it doesn't even exist yet.

</comment><comment><USER56> Só Lexus, the one that kills people with a stuck accelerator, is the most reliable. Okay...

<comment><USER57> I'm pretty sure that was found to be caused by people accidentally hitting the accelerator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> This is the best time ever to buy Tesla stock. it's being globally shorted.

</comment><comment><USER59> Just HFT algorithms attempting to get ahead of each other.

</comment><comment><USER60> I wonder how many CR editors shorter Tesla stock before this was published. It wouldn't even be considered insider trading. I don't really put much stock in CR, unfortunately, the markets did -- quite unfairly actually since most folks buying Teslas aren't doing comparison shopping using CR.

<comment><USER61> The number is zero. Any more than that would be a serious scandal--can't imagine that would be legal. Market manipulation is a pretty serious crime ever since the days of Jay Gould.

<comment><USER37> I'm not so sure, remember when it was perfectly legal for members of Congress and their staff to use information gained through their jobs to make stock purchases? I mean this was just a few years ago....

<comment><USER62> Is it your contention that Congress also created a special exemption for Consumer Reports? That seems like:

a. It credits CR with a lot more power than CR actually has.

b. We would have heard about it before now.

<comment><USER37> I'm not saying that consumer reports did anything wrong, but insider trading or not, it happens. And places we would not expect. Who would've ever thought that members of Congress in their staff would be allowed to do insider trading? Until someone pointed out that it was illegal some years back, it never crossed my mind. I assumed it was illegal</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Base System - <AUTHOR> http://xkcd.com/540/

<comment><USER2> Ok, I love XKCD as much as the next guy. Seriously I do.

But is it really necessary to post every single XKCD comic to HN? Can't we just assume that all HN readers already know to check XKCD every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday?

If you want to comment on XKCD comics, do it on the XKCD forums. Here's the thread for this comic: [http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=34493](http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=34493)

</comment><comment><USER3> OK, I give up. What's the binary joke?

<comment><USER4> If you mean the "0110 0010 0110 0001 0111 0011 0110 0101 0010 0000 0011 0010" bit, it spells out "base 2" in ASCII.</comment></comment>


What you're revealing to your ISP, why a VPN isn't enough and ways to protect it - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/what-youre-revealing-to-your-isp-why-a-vpn-isn-t-enough-and-ways-to-avoid-leaking-it-503816542951 <comment><USER2> All of the exposure vectors described here are in effect RIGHT NOW and have been since 2015, when FTC authority over this was killed.

The rule that the Obama administration created (just last December!) that restores some (not all) elements of privacy DOES NOT TAKE EFFECT UNTIL DECEMBER 2 2017 at the earliest. All of the privacy exposures detailed here are CURRENTLY LEGAL and have been for almost 2 years already and, if the Obama rule goes unchanged, would continue through December at least.

What this bill actually does is codify the current rule as statute law, meaning that the current and future administrations can't change this stuff by simple fiat rule change — a passed and signed bill would be necessary.

What privacy activists should be demanding is that a statute enforce privacy across all service providers and major content distributors, including Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> DNSSEC does not help in the privacy regards. It does not prevent ISP from seeing what domain name you lookup. Running your own DNS server is relative simple: there is a bind/named docker image. However with DPI; it's still subject to snoop.

<comment><USER4> that's why you use dnscrypt-proxy

<comment><USER3> Right; but in the article the author mentioned using DNSSEC as a way to gain privacy. Just want to point that out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct. I recommended the use of DNSCrypt first specifically for this reason.

DNSSEC alone primarily helps prevent DNS spoofing, phishing, and MITM attacks. All useful, but DNSCrypt gives you encrypted DNS queries. Maybe I should have clarified this more.

<comment><USER5> DNSSEC doesn't prevent DNS spoofing attacks, at least not the kind that occur in the real world. DNSSEC is a server-to-server protocol. From client to server (like with the requests from your browser to your ISP's DNS server, or to Google's DNS server, or whatever you use), there is _no cryptography whatsoever_ protecting the requests. Just a single bit in the header, saying that someone else did the cryptography for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am wondering what people think of cliqz as a solution to these problems.</comment>


Bus Driver with 37 Years of Programming Experience? - hello-yoshi http://www.linkedin.com/pub/robert-broughton/13/a4b/b29

<comment> mark-r I have a friend who worked as a programmer until a bad case of burnout coincided with a layoff. He's been driving for a delivery service for at least 10 years now.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> He runs a website, "Common Sense Canadian" <http://thecanadian.org> He's also apparently a member of the Vancouver LUG (Linux users group) and the PHP Developer Network on LinkedIn. Here's his blog: <http://broughton.ca/>

<comment> hello-yoshi Haha, this is awesome. Thanks for sharing :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> w00t</comment>


Ask HN: What Lean Startup Dashboard products do you know of? - <AUTHOR>

(reposting http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3232524 with a hopefully more popular title)<p>I'm halfway through Lean Startups and already fascinated by how much we aren't doing now in our startup. We use Xero for financial accounting. Are there similar tools to track innovation accounting on a daily basis, help us prepare monthly reports, maybe even let our investors log in and track in real time? I imagine it would track actuals and budgets for things like conversion rate, customer acquisition costs, DAU, funnel metrics, etc. <comment><USER2> Hi Trindaz,

There's a tool being built that will look to solve part, if not all of your problems mentioned above:

<http://practiceignition.com>

A dashboard system is one of the key components, connecting up your management tools in one place for you to gain an overview of your metrics.

If you're keen to find out more email email@example.com</comment>


Sdl-gpu: A library for high-performance, modern 2D graphics with SDL - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/grimfang4/sdl-gpu <comment><USER2> I looked at the demos and I still fail to see the point of using this over SDL2. SDL2 is already high performance and uses DirectX / OpenGL underneath.

What exactly does this library bring to the table?

<comment><USER3> I think the main feature is being able to easily leverage shaders with a nicer API. Having done a fair bit of SDL over the years, dropping down to pure OpenGL and shaders can be a bit... low-level, which is to be expected. This seems to make that quite a bit nicer?

Edit: For example, check out this [http://dinomage.com/reference/SDL_gpu/group__ShaderInterface...](http://dinomage.com/reference/SDL_gpu/group__ShaderInterface.html)

<comment><USER4> Is it possible to render textured quads of arbitrary shapes? I'm trying to make a runtime for Spine ([http://esotericsoftware.com/spine- runtimes](http://esotericsoftware.com/spine-runtimes)) and SDL's inability to do that directly without using OpenGL was the reason I couldn't use it. I don't see a way to do that in Sdl-gpu either - maybe I need to look at the source code.

<comment><USER5> If you want to render Spine 3.x models, you'll need to be able to render arbitrary textured triangles so meshes and skewing work correctly. Check out the new Spine TypeScript runtime (spine-ts), which renders via WebGL. Should be trivial to port to OpenGL (ES).

<comment><USER4> Oh awesome. Thanks Mario!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Finally, bringing (some of) the nice features of SFML to C. SFML, for me, has just the right amount of control over GPU things without having to really know the OpenGL pipeline.

<comment><USER7> Any reason to just use SFML over this?

<comment><USER6> SFML is a C++ library, so it provides some of the abstractions C++ has. If that's your cup of tea, I'd recommend SFML.

<comment><USER8> There's always CSFML, an official binding of C to SFML. I don't know C++. I am finding C to be a break from all of the new PLs I've been playing with. A sort of return to basics for me. It was my first language (well, after BASIC ;)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> white-flame Doxygen != documentation, especially in low-comment situations.

Tell us more.

<comment><USER9> Even if there is copious amounts of comments, doxygen is still pretty terrible. Unfortunately there's nothing better for C++.

Everything else seems to be more pain in the ass than it is worth.

<comment><USER10> Making a library nobody uses is even a bigger pain in the ass than spending considerable time writing proper documentation. For software developer documentation is a large part of the developer experience. Without it, a large portion of potential users will switch to a less optimal but well documented solution. Documentation matters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've never met a computer where 2D graphics were faster with a GPU. (Try benchmarking and see for yourself. 2D graphics is mostly blitting pixels, where a GPU will only slow things down.)

<comment><USER12> I might agree or disagree depending on the details.

Lower latency? Yeah, CPU wins easily.

4k resolution 2D composition? Well, GPU is pretty likely to win this one...

CPU has pretty low latency, easily better than what GPU can achieve. But on the other hand GPU has insane bandwidth, high degree of parallelism and hardware ROPs.</comment></comment>


Metacafe Founders Ditch, Reportedly Cash Out Their Shares For $5 Million - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/29/metacafe-founders-ditch-reportedly-cash-out-their-shares-for-5-million/ <comment><USER2> It sounds like despite their founder-status, they were largely removed from positions of responsibility within the company. They were disagreeing with the decisions being made, weren't meshing well with the new management, and had fully-earned the value of their equity in the company.

So what's wrong with them leaving? It seems like it's better for everyone. If the new management is right about the strategy being implemented, they'll do better without dissension from the founders. And the founders are now free to put their talents to use on new projects, where they aren't restrained.

 _pg:_ Do you know anyone at Benchmark Capital or Accel Partners who might comment on this? I'm curious to know how VCs feel about this situation in particular, and in general on what are/aren't legitimate times/reasons for founders to leave a company.

</comment><comment><USER3> Funny that Techcrunch can't do basic equity math...

If their combined stakes we're 5% and they got 2.5M$ each then the valuation was 100M$ not 50M$...</comment>


Taking Parking Lots Seriously, as Public Spaces - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/arts/design/taking-parking-lots-seriously-as-public-spaces.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> > But cars aren't going away anytime soon, certainly not in the suburbs or in > cities like Los Angeles, and we can't just wish away lots in which to park > them.

When we have self-driving cars, nearby parking lots won't be as much a necessity since the car can drop you off at the door, then drive itself to a parking space much further away (or to another customer, in the case that it's a self-driving taxi).</comment>


Efficient Methods and Hardware for Deep Learning – Stanford – Lecture 15 [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://cs231n.stanford.edu/slides/2017/cs231n_2017_lecture15.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> video : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZdOkDtYMoo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZdOkDtYMoo)</comment>


Ask HN: Was there an online encyclopedia during the 1980s? - <AUTHOR> I was recently inspired to investigate after watching the scene[0] in Ghostbusters II where Egon pulls up a record from the "Occult Reference Net".<p>I am aware that people were able (and still able) to connect to bulletin boards and library catalogs via telnet, but was there such a thing as a "reference net" for general topics? If so, do any still exist?<p>[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBRE-RzLg5M <comment><USER2> Yes, there were commercial, online information services in the 1980s, and some of these included access to an encyclopedia, such as the one published by Grolier. Here's a directory, from the November 1986 issue of InfoWorld magazine:

[https://books.google.com/books?id=jzwEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA39&ots=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=jzwEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA39&ots=i1a2thKkwc&pg=PA39)

These services were relatively expensive, and I'm not sure how many users would have paid the per-minute or per-record charges just for access to text from a general-interest encyclopedia, which at that time, would have been available in print in nearly all libraries and in some classrooms and homes.

Dialog ([https://dialog.com/](https://dialog.com/)) still exists, and public and academic libraries continue to offer their patrons access to a wide range of subscription-only reference databases.

</comment><comment><USER3> Have a look at Minitel:[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel) There were lots of interesting initiatives within this network

</comment><comment><USER4> There was the "Domesday Project" in 1986, not online (per se) but on huge laserdisks (300 MB each side!)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Domesday_Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Domesday_Project)</comment>


Microsoft's New Chromium Edge Can't Be Uninstalled - <AUTHOR> https://www.extremetech.com/computing/313877-microsofts-new-chromium-edge-cant-be-uninstalled <comment><USER2> Well, MS have completely gotten away with their much hated Telemetry. So, "why not"?

It's not like the EU is going to step in again. :(</comment>


W3C vs. WHATWG. Which gives the most authoritative HTML spec? - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6825713/html5-w3c-vs-whatwg-which-gives-the-most-authoritative-spec/43082734 <comment><USER2> I see it as more of LibreOffice verses OpenOffice. LibreOffice (WHATWG) has more experimental features and discussion over what is needed. When the specs are mostly finalized they go over to OpenOffice (W3C) and get integrated.</comment>


Who pays when startup employees keep their equity? - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/jdmaturen/5830b83c1425c4767f7e1bd4c9561718 <comment><USER2> The topic is interesting and/or helpful. I'm glad someone is taking it on.

The information in this article is somewhat inaccurate and mostly not relevant to what most people experience. They should preferace the article with some sort of

"If you took part it the next billion dollar IPO, most of this would relate to you"....then >"a large tax burden on execution due to AMT"

>"Single-trigger RSUs don't vest until a liquidity event so there is no tax hit." That's simply false

I think I will stop here, but someone with more time would find five more things to call out on this article.</comment>