Hyde Park visitors tracked via mobile phone data - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/25/hyde-park-visitors-tracked-mobile-phone-data-ee <comment><USER2> The data seems to be well anonymized and aggregated and with a 4-week delay, so I don't think I would object to this.

A related article linked at the bottom, _London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked_ ( [http://www.theguardian.com/uk- news/2015/nov/06/garden-bridge...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk- news/2015/nov/06/garden-bridge-mobile-phone-signals-tracking-london) ), signals something more troubling, as people there will be tracked individually and real-time.

<comment><USER2> On second thought: this is the first time I've read about a cellular provider using triangulation to find out the precise location of a user. It is not something I expect to be necessary for their own business purposes; for that, it should suffice to know which cell tower a user is connected to, and the data does not need to be stored as it is ephemeral.

I would worry about this precise location data (edit: or even the imprecise data) to be marketed or used for anything except maybe law enforcement, and I also wonder why it is stored at all. If it is stored because of data retention regulations, and the provider wants to market this data, even if anonymized, I would see that as a problem, because other parts of society would start to expect, and depend on, such data to be available, perpetuating this data retention.

<comment><USER3> > I would worry about this precise location data to be marketed or used for > anything except maybe law enforcement, and I also wonder why it is stored at > all. If it is stored because of data retention regulations, and the provider > wants to market this data, even if anonymized, I would see that as a > problem, because other parts of society would start to expect, and depend > on, such data to be available, perpetuating this data retention.

Already happening in the US. As said in another comment, airsage is one such company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Airsage does this for the entire USA for all time.

</comment><comment><USER5> So the homeless without cell phones don't fit into this? Interesting.

<comment><USER2> Many, if not most homeless do have cellphones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What a boring dystopia.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am OK with this if I ge tto opt out.

</comment><comment><USER8> I suppose it says something that, based on the title, I assumed this was going to be about surveillance in the Obamas' home neighborhood on the south side of Chicago.

Government. Commercial. Here. There. It's ubiquitous.</comment>


Show HN: Project to solve movement in Street View - <AUTHOR> https://www.agostbiro.com/ps/intro.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello,

I've been working on a project to solve the problem of exploring paths in services like Street View. The result is a computer graphics method that can recover frames between panoramas in real time in browsers. More detailed intro, paper, live demo and code behind the link.

All feedback is welcome.</comment>


Mainstream Science on Intelligence - <AUTHOR> http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/intell/mainstream.html <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the wikipedia article on this statement by experts: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream_Science_on_Intellig...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream_Science_on_Intelligence)

Quote:

> Mainstream Science on Intelligence was a public statement issued by a group > of academic researchers in fields associated with intelligence testing that > claimed to present those findings widely accepted in the expert community. > It was originally published in the Wall Street Journal on December 13, 1994 > as a response to what the authors viewed as the inaccurate and misleading > reports made by the media regarding academic consensus on the results of > intelligence research in the wake of the appearance of The Bell Curve by > Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray earlier the same year.</comment>


Recapturing Color from Black and White film - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/11/digital-video-restoration-dad-s-army

<comment><AUTHOR> Doesn't look like it's a generally applicable process, and the article is somewhat lacking in detail, but I still found it interesting.

"Dad's Army" was a 60s/70s sitcom made by the BBC, fondly remembered and oft repeated, but like so much of the output of that era many of the episodes were not recorded, recorded but wiped, or only recorded on "Telecine" black and white film.</comment>


Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer confirms unexplained excess of high-energy positrons - <AUTHOR> http://physics.aps.org/articles/v6/40

<comment><USER2> Surprising to see six pages of text in PRL.

It's well-written paper; it'll take a few reads to really grok the measurement. Kudos to the AMS team for sticking closely to the facts.

AMS NASA webcast will be at 1:30 PM EDT. (CERN webcast is already complete?)

<http://ams.nasa.gov/>

</comment><comment><USER3> As with the other recent anomalous results it's reassuring that there are these unexplained results still out there. The concern of physicists (and I'm many years removed from being one) is in pushing experiments like the LHC, finding what we predicted and nothing more.

This points to new physics and that's a good thing. The problem with the staggeringly successful and precise "Standard Model" is the number of hand- tweaked variables you have to include to make it work. Absent new physics, if this became all we could experimentally demonstrate, we'd be left with solely anthropic reasoning (we just happen to exist in a universe compatible with our existence).

So yay for positrons!

<comment><USER4> The interesting thing is that more of the anomalous results are coming from astronomical observations and in general non-collider experiments.

Colliders have been really successful where they can be applied and have given a consistent footing to build upon, but there seems to be large areas still to explore at the weakly-interacting end of the things.

<comment><USER3> Well, we're getting to energies where colliders are approaching some pretty expensive limits and space provides much better natural accelerators for us to study.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And now for your obligatory bucket of cold water:

[http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/04/03/itll- take...](http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/04/03/itll-take-a-lot- more-than-ams-to-find-dark-matter/)

TLDR: "Based on what AMS has presented, there is nothing to suggest that they have detected any evidence whatsoever for particle dark matter.... Calling it misleading is generous, because I personally believe it is deceitful, and it's a deceit that I even anticipated a few weeks ago."

</comment><comment><USER6> Dark matter reminds me of the ether.

<comment><USER7> Proving that you know nothing of the subject other than some casual mentions in the popular press.

Dark matter is a very coherent theory which has been confirmed repeatedly in many different and diverse areas of study. Everything from large scale numerical models of the evolution of the Universe to the exact nature of ripples in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background to gravitational lensing to galaxy rotation curves and more. It's an extremely well confirmed theory at this point.

<comment><USER8> I don't know the history of aether theory (that spelling is easier to google), but I bet someone wrote something equivalent to InclinedPlane's comment about it at one time. Even if aether was contested and later disproved, the history of science should continue to enlighten our modern views of how we as humans interpret the universe.

There are several ways to interpret ttrreeww's comment: \- Dark matter is a bunch of mumbo jumbo just like we know the aether theory to be. IP reacted to this meaning. \- Dark matter is vaguely reminiscent of aether theory in that it was built up from observed effects without knowing what the stuff actually was. I like this one better, but we won't know if that's what ttrreeww really meant unless we ask yo.[1]

If a statement is so short that it is easy to misinterpret, why react so strongly to one of the interpretations?

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5481430>

<comment><USER9> > I bet someone wrote something equivalent to InclinedPlane's comment about it > at one time

Doubtful, because an equivalent statement would sport an equivalent truth value for an equivalent statement of support. Substitute "aether theory" for "dark matter" in InclinedPlane's comment, and his assertion of its wide confirmation would be trivially false. Many physicists at the time _believed_ the aether theory to be true, but _confirmation_ remained (rightly) elusive, despite very sophisticated attempts.[1]

I feel the need to point out that the periodic table was also built up from observed effects without knowing what the stuff actually was. It wasn't the first attempt at categorizing the elements. Mendeleev's table was special because, like dark matter and unlike aether theory, it had positive predictive value. It made predictions about the properties of unknown elements that turned out to be correct.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Requiem for a Back Button - <AUTHOR> http://www.subtraction.com/2013/06/14/requiem-for-a-back-button

<comment><USER2> if you're going to make an argument that the old back button is better than the new one, then include images of BOTH versions, not just the old.</comment>


Thoughts on switching from TextMate to Vim - <AUTHOR> http://pchm.co/from-textmate-to-vim/

<comment><USER2> I've tried lots of the new editors out there, but my main gripe with most of them is that they're not vi[m]…

</comment><comment><USER3> There is a zero point of using vi/vim unless you like the thing.

<comment><USER4> Or you're a contractor who has to work on a variety of systems which may or may not have or allow you to install your favourite text editor of the week. It's the lowest common denominator.

(I started on emacs but vi/vim has been installed everywhere and life is simpler when you don't have to faff about.)</comment></comment>


Google's Android Will Become the Default Mobile Platform - <AUTHOR> http://seekingalpha.com/article/138400-google-s-android-will-become-the-default-mobile-platform <comment><USER2> This article makes a pretty big assertion, that Android will be the most common platform in 2 years. I think that's a really naive prediction. First, it's going to take a LOT to knock Apple off of it's roost as 2nd most common platform, due to their ability to sell by making their products part of a culture. Second, I don't see RIM going ANYWHERE soon, they are by far still the best messaging provider, and provider of business services of ANY mobile platform, and they also have a VERY big market share already. Finally, we're going to really have to see some new phones with Android before anything can happen, because as of this writing, the only real Android phone in the US is the G1, which is lacking in many areas.

I think Android taking over would definitely be a good thing, but I don't see it happening this late in the game, they just missed the train I think.

<comment><USER3> Other than having a crappy camera, where is the G1 lacking?

<comment><USER2> IMO it's lacking first because it's only on T-Mobile, which is one of the smaller carriers in the U.S, so there is less of an incentive to develop apps for it, because there are inherently less users. Another issue is that T-Mobile has a very small service area compared to AT&T or Verizon, so applications that demand connectivity to work effectively would have trouble. This is a big issue for companies that develop applications for serious business/government use like ours (emergency management). Not being able to listen to your Pandora radio is one thing, but not getting alerts about an emergency is totally different story (this is just our case in particular).

<comment><USER3> Well, for one thing, the G1 is not locked to T-Mobile; it will work on any GSM network, which in the US means AT&T, although according to some people, the 3G doesn't work on AT&T because of different radio frequencies.

Secondly, while I haven't had much experience outside of the Ohio and New York regions, I've never had any problems with service in the three years I've been with T-Mobile, and they're constantly notifying me of new towers going up in my area. I've looked at their coverage maps, and it really seems to me like you'd have to go way out in farm country or forest areas to lose your signal; anywhere with a highway nearby seems to be covered. But then again, I can't tell if they're stretching the truth or not...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> ...Just like windows mobile was going to be.

<comment><USER5> I really never heard anybody really into mobile space every saying that seriously. Most articles you will find of that time are saying that Windows Mobile has a very uphill battle, as manufactures and carriers are very wary and un-trusting of Microsoft. This is in 2003-2005 when MS was making a large push into the space, and people were still afraid of Microsoft.

Android changes the game differently. Open source, pretty good, customizable, and fits in many kinds of hardware, and probably will be a gateway for ARM netbooks.

I think android will be the way Linux actually wins. Few normal/average users thining about ditching Windows for Linux. But with android starting from the bottom (phones, then netbooks), it will prove a huge challenge to the Wintel architecture.

Android has the promise of cheap, yet very slick and usable interface (still work in progress), plus hundreds or thousands of apps being built for it.

It gives users less and less reasons not to start switching from windows. I am saying this is not so right now, but few years from now, the space will look very different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Because...?

<comment><USER7> Because controversial article titles generate more clicks.</comment></comment>


Failing to secure DNS is 'savage ignorance': Geoff Huston - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/failing-to-secure-dns-is-savage-ignorance-geoff-huston/ <comment><USER2> In order to get DNSSEC to work you need to have the DNS server updating the registry. If you are a registrar then you _only_ need to implement the practically unique way each registry does this (because following the EPP standard is not even close to universal, or even the majority). If you are instead a registrant then you've got to follow whatever unique API your registrar has provided to do this.

If you have a few hundred domains spread out over several registrars for several different top level domains, what you have is a nice mess that you have to create a custom solution to on top of just getting the DNS software to do the signing, rolling the key, watch for the key to go live at the registry, and so on.

Naturally if you have a domain and your registrar is also your DNS provider, then getting DNSSEC is easy. Just switch to one that will do it.</comment>


Privacy Loss in Apple's Implementation of Differential Privacy (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.02753 <comment><USER2> This is an outdated document. Apple has a detailed whitepaper on the topic as well as the fact that you can see eqch submission and its parameters in the device logs.

[https://machinelearning.apple.com/docs/learning-with- privacy...](https://machinelearning.apple.com/docs/learning-with-privacy-at- scale/appledifferentialprivacysystem.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> I do not see the date on this document you linked. But all the links point to 2016 articles or older. Are you sure that it is more updated?

I hope that they fixed the problem since this article came out but I am not so sure they are more open how they implement differential privacy.

<comment><USER2> The abriged version containing the link to the whitepaper was published in Dec 2017

[https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/12/06/learning- with-p...](https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/12/06/learning-with-privacy- at-scale.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To me it comes to:

1) "The privacy loss permitted by the system is not explained anywhere and takes significant effort to reverse-engineer. This is contrary to one of the main conceptual advantages of differential privacy – that a user can make an informed choice whether to opt-in to differentially private data collection based on the quantifiable knowledge of risk announced by the data collector."

2) "Furthermore, the lack of transparency on privacy loss opens the door for intentional or un-intentional abuse by Apple itself, e.g., by unilaterally changing either the per-datum privacy loss or the rate of privacy loss in a time period or by introducing additional BudgetKeyName(s), Apple may significantly weaken the privacy guarantees provided without anyone's knowledge or consent."

Apple's "closed source and no documentation everything" does not help.

<comment><AUTHOR> Over time I saw a few examples of the attitude "We are Apple, these are our machines, there are our algorithms, we are smart, we do things right for you." but considering their track of records exposed by the problems routinely discovered by who reverse engineers their product, I wonder how useful that attitude really is.

<comment><USER3> Both apples security and privacy I'd say are industry leading...

Sure, you might still say it isn't good enough, but I personally trust them to make the right choices for me, even if they don't inform me exactly what those choices were and what tradeoffs were made.

<comment><USER4> Their privacy is industry leading. Google is probably a little ahead on security. (E.g. Safari tended to get hacked much more easily than Chrome)

<comment><USER3> Yes, but iOS is miles ahead of Android when it comes to difficulty of one app getting root or stealing data from another.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tutorspree (YC W11) raises $1MM from Sequoia  - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/20/tutorspree-raises-1-million-round-led-by-sequoia-capital/

<comment><USER2> Stupid question but why do folks write $1,000,000 as $1MM instead of $1M?

<comment><USER3> M stands for the latin _mille_ , which means 1000. So million is abbreviated as MM for 1000x1000.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, same usage as CPM then.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: If both branches of an if expression are known … - <AUTHOR> if both branches of an if expression are known to be equal, does it make sense to skip the test and just emit the value?<p>https://twitter.com/ra/status/893111152561074176 <comment><USER2> No, the test might have side effects. If you are 100% sure there are none, then yes.</comment>


The half-life of facts - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/11/qa-samuel-arbesman?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/halflifeoffacts

<comment><USER2> Cosma Shalizi's "null model of scientific inquiry" [1] seems relevant here. Basically it's a model where all published findings are due to the file drawer effect [2]. In such a model, scientific results will indeed have a "half-life" until they are overturned.

[1] <http://masi.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/698.html>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias>

</comment><comment><USER3> "IN PRIMARY school Babbage learned that there were nine planets in the solar system. None were known to exist outside it."

There were only 7 planets known when Charles Babbage was a youth. Neptune was discovered when he was an old man, and Pluto was not discovered until almost 60 years after his death.

<comment><USER4> "Babbage" is the name of a column in the Economist, and is used in this sense to refer to the author of the column. So the writer is talking about his or her own schooling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is a excerpt from chapter 1 of the book at the authors website.

<http://arbesman.net/the-half-life-of-facts/>

</comment><comment><USER6> Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" should be mentioned. Far more germaine than "Consilience."</comment>


Phase-change devices for simultaneous optical-electrical applications [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-10425-8.pdf <comment><USER2> Is there a non pdf version of this? Reading a document that doesn't support reflow is frustrating on a small display</comment>


How Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, Brexit funders, and others broke the law - <AUTHOR> https://threader.app/thread/1059758943474454528 <comment><USER2> Am I the only one that hates reading what's essentially a full-fledged story via tweet-sized chunks that are smashed together?

I get that Twitter is great for blasting small pieces of content into the world, but stitching tweets together into a a news story creates zero cohesion because Twitter doesn't allow users to write with form in mind.

<comment><USER3> I found it very hard to read - especially as they seem to have made scrolling slower. On the flip side, I am thankful every paragraph links to the original tweet.

<comment><USER4> Hi, creator of Threader here, can you tell me on what device/config you have the scroll issue?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > We are at a crossroads. Trust and confidence in the integrity of our > democratic processes risks being disrupted because the average person has > little idea of what is going on behind the scenes. ... This must change.

Funny, I would have thought that it would be the integrity of our democratic processes that must change, and that trust and confidence in it were secondary effects.

Also it seems overly optimistic to think that when the average person has a better idea of what is going on behind the scenes that their trust and confidence in the process would _improve_.

</comment><comment><USER6> In case anyone would prefer to look at it the original format: [https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1059758943474454528](https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1059758943474454528)

</comment><comment><USER7> Democracy=when the voting results are in line with my vote. Populism=when they are not.

</comment><comment><USER8> They also investigated the Brexit Remain campaign. I don't think anyone has clean hands in this.

<comment><USER9> The question is what do you do when someone is found to have cheated on their campaign funding? You can fine them, throw them in jail, but what happens to the referendum result? If you don't have a do-over, people will learn there's not really a consequence. If you do, a lot of people who legitimately voted will be annoyed.

<comment><USER10> What if both sides were funded? Do you think people can't think for themselves?

<comment><USER11> That's a bad way of phrasing it. Democracy _requires_ a well-informed electorate to function. If the electorate is badly informed or misinformed then it doesn't function as a democracy, but as a (Propaganda-ocracy?). The complexity of the world that leads to economic specialisation also precludes informed decision making by a conventional electorate. I don't have a solution to this yet. I don't even know if there is a solution — I've heard that humanity has swung from democracy to aristocracy and back over the ages for this exact reason, but the very specialisation that has me concerned is also making me unsure about that.

One of the modifications of democracy we discussed in A-level philosophy was getting one vote for existing, another for having a degree, another for being a parent, etc.

<comment><USER10> So only propaganda peddled by the state is valid? These days every outlet has an agenda and blocking one just because it is coming from Russia is a false economy. Either block all propaganda or none and let people figure out the truth.

<comment><USER11> By what chain of reasoning did you go from what I wrote to that response?

Of course state propaganda is as invalid as anyone else's! And all states equally, too!

Neither attempting to block nor failing to block solves the problem of discovering what the truth is. The former because it _presupposes_ you already know the answer, the latter because it's trivial to algorithmically create endless variations and combinations of lies and truths so that there literally isn't enough time to decide what to believe.

Even intelligence agencies fall for fabrications. What hope do the rest of us have?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


EU Commission to staff: Switch to Signal messaging app - <AUTHOR> https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-commission-to-staff-switch-to-signal-messaging-app/ <comment> lone-commenter This won't improve the security, right? Both apps use the same crypto for communication; while regarding the quality of infrastructure and client's code, they are at best comparable.

The only point against WhatsApp (and a good one) is it's owned by Facebook, and thus so-called metadata belong to them.

But one may be happy to see people moving away from Facebook.

<comment><USER2> The Signal client has reproducible builds:

* [https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/master/Repr...](https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/master/ReproducibleBuilds.md)

... and available source code. The Whatsapp client does not.

Weirdly enough though, Signal does not allow distribution of the client on F-Droid...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm a bit curious as to whether this will have any actual impact on the number of people (and businesses) who use WhatsApp. It's utterly insane how much of our daily lives goes through it in my neck of the woods...

</comment><comment><USER4> EU Commission to Signal: Here's 45 Million euros and we'll have x engineers audit Signal. (Future headline)</comment>


KaroSell – Buy and Sell your pre-owned lifestyle stuff - <AUTHOR> https://www.producthunt.com/tech/karosell <comment><AUTHOR> Hey Guys.. Hemant here. I was hoping to get some feedback on this new platform we are working on called KaroSell. Our mission is to help people reuse their lifestyle products. There are lot of unused, new, unopened stuff we have which just lie in our closets. We want people to take them out. Karosell provides a social platform where you buy and sell from people you know with a simple chat. Do lets us know your feedback. Happy Trading!

</comment><comment><USER2> Like eBay? or Letgo?

<comment><AUTHOR> you can say that but there is a something which makes us unique, we featured only lifestyle products which are closely verified by our expert panel..</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is a TL;DR summary proper etiquette for HN? - <AUTHOR>

I've noticed over that past couple of days an influx of people using TL;DR in their comments and on Ask HN threads.  I feel that this is probably coming from an influx of users via Reddit.  My question to the community, is it OK to use a TL;DR?  Or does this take away from the discussion.<p>I'm personally of the opinion that they shouldn't be allowed.  It takes away from the level of conversation by giving people an easy way out of reading an article. <comment><USER2> My favorite part of HN is that there are a very high number of articles that I like reading front to back and sometimes repeatedly. Thoughtful articles.

Often tl;dr is used here as the next stop before flagging, or something done along with flagging. So "too long;don't read". But the guidelines suggest that if you are going to flag an article, don't also comment that you are going to flag it.

So the underlying criteria would be "when is a tl;dr comment thoughtful, and does it add to the discussion".</comment>


Rent Control: An Old, Bad Idea That Won't Go Away - <AUTHOR> http://www.governing.com/gov-institute/voices/col-rent-control-bad-idea-making-comeback.html <comment><USER2> I dont understand what the argument of this article is. As someone who has tried to maintain a blue collar job in a large city (im an engine mechanic) Its nearly impossible to live anywhere near your job without rent control.

It was good work and good pay, but spending 65% of it on rent? what incentive do i have to stay when the median home price is a million dollars or more? the thing this article does not take into account is the fact that without rent control or some form of affordable housing, that "amazing city" you live in grinds to a halt pretty fast.

Try living in a city where the bus system never sees regular maintenance because the motor pool is 2 hours away. broken down garbage trucks just sit in the road because wrecker crews cant afford to live anywhere near the metropolis. Ambulances and fire trucks might, or might not, make it to a destination because the fleet techs with diesel certification like myself dont live in your city.

pipefitters and machinists need a place in your city if you want clean healthy water and sewage service. And the next time a drunk backs over a telephone pole, you're going to need a lineman or three to fix it.

<comment><USER3> When there is high demand for a product, including housing, the market has to respond. High prices attract investment in more housing, usually denser housing. Rent Control prevents the market signals from working. There is no incentive to construct more housing because its not worth it. Additionally, if blue collar jobs can't be filled because its not worth the pay+commute, then either wages have to raise or these go undone. If the market isn't allowed to operate, then you can't expect these systems to work.

<comment><USER4> You don't want to wreck individual lives just because you want efficient price-finding. Rent control that protects tenants from super-nominal price increases works fine in the presence of abundant supply and liquidity. You can see how successful this can be in places like Belgium where standard lease is rent controlled for nine years with an option for additional nine years. This is enough time for a family to become established and raise children without being sacrificed on the alter of market signals. It is the kind of policy you get when you view tenants as people rather than revenue sources.

<comment><USER5> Why does an increase in rent wreck people's lives?

Also what does super nominal pricing mean?

And anyone can sign a lease for 9 years. But the vast majority of tenants do not want to make a commitment for that long.

And they could also sign a lease with an option to renew for up to a number of years similar to a commerical lease. But again no-tenant wants to pay the option cost.

<comment><USER6> Leases aren't offered with such flexibility in markets where the supply of available housing is small. I'm also interpreting "available" to mean available at a resident's income level, i.e. overlapping with "affordable." You sign the lease that's offered, or it goes to next candidate tenant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For the record, rent subsidies are the thing that actually accomplishes the thing that rent control tries to do, but is often a much harder sell because the costs are much more upfront compared to something like rent control.

<comment><USER8> It doesn't accomplish anything except paying the land lord more money.

If the same tenant gets to stay, it doesn't increase housing availability. And in fact, house prices up because the market is propped up higher by subsidies.

If the same tenant is priced out, it doesn't protect the renter.

<comment><USER7> > It doesn't accomplish anything except paying the land lord more money.

well yes this is the idea, and then more people want to be land lords to get the sweet sweet rent subsidy money, which ideally would then cause more homes to be built because of all the money coming in as rent, and which would then cause rents to fall.

Compare to absolute rent control (i.e. there is a global cap on rents), now landlords get less money, they don't have any incentive to invest in their property because they can't get any money out of it, nobody wants to get into the landlord business because its hard to make any money in it so there isn't any incentive to build new apartments.

Or compare this to the rent control where you aren't allowed to raise rents on specific tenants. If you have an apartment now, congrats you have a deal, as long as you never have to move in which case you are screwed. Also woe to anyone new to the market because you're rent is going to be higher in order to subsidize the people that the people that have been there forever.

<comment><USER8> You're describing a fantasy world as far as I can tell.

The situation you're describing requires several facets.

\- Enough demand to warrant rent control having an effect.

\- Not enough demand to make new units profitable.

\- There is room for new development and the only roadblock is profitability.

In California at least, a subsidy would just be a payout to land lords without addressing the major issue of zoning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> nany rent control laws only limit the possibility for the landlords to increase the rent on existing contracts. Their main objective is to avoid that tenants be "priced out" of their own apartment and forcibly evicted. Considering the large negative externalities of evictions, there are good reasons to argue that some form of rent control is good for the society at large, even if it causes some distortion in the real estate market.

On the other hand, to provide _new_ affordable housing the only long term solution is an increase in the stock of buildings available for rent.

<comment><USER10> Aren't the costs of evictions borne primarily by the two parties? I'm not saying there are no externalities, but that's not the same as "evictions are expensive", and you have to weigh them against the costs of the alternative.

<comment><USER9> For example the tenant has to take days off work and use them for moving (or for court hearings) instead of productive work. The government has to pay the judges, or the police for a forced eviction. Legal clinics use their scarce time. The tenant may become homeless (homelessness is often considered as an issue with strong negative externalities).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The whole debate about rent control drives me nuts. It's framed as callous libertarians vs compassionate progressives. But the debate conflates means and ends in an obvious way that no one ever seems to notice.

If you are concerned about the ability of lower-income people to afford housing, then give them a rent subsidy! As a mechanism, this is superior in just about every way. It doesn't suppress housing supply, and it can be means- tested so that high income people aren't occupying rent-controlled apartments (which happens all the time now). It also gives low income people the freedom to move without losing their rent controlled status.

<comment><USER12> Subsidies just increase the market price of the properties. The subsidy will be sucked up by the landlord, which of course leads to rent control. Which provides disincentives on capital improvements.

This is similar to the way that student loans have resulted in higher tuition/housing that once again just gets sucked up by the institutions. The recent appeal for "free college" funded by the taxpayer will almost certainly result in increased tuition.

If only we had a simple mechanism that balanced supply and demand. I think there are areas where government regulation is necessary and appropriate (safety, fraud avoidance, pollution, health, etc.) but regulating prices is almost always a failure that leads to an ever expanding Rube Goldberg collection of incentives, subsidies, rules, tax loopholes, and so on that are much worse than just letting prices float naturally.

<comment><USER11> There are numerous examples of subsidies in the real world that haven't led to price controls. And yes, subsidies distort the market. I'm pretty sure 99% of economists will agree that subsidies are _less_ distortionary than price controls though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Did a rent write this?

<comment> barrow-rider Do rents write anything?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> A counter point, for those who are interested: [https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/03/17-million- reasons-r...](https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/03/17-million-reasons-rent- control-efficient.html)

<comment><USER15> Not a very good one. The author's point that negotiating with each individual tenant is fundamentally the same as negotiating with the landlord so there is no inefficiency is academic garbage. Negotiating separate deals with hundreds of tenants with a strange prisoners dilemma incentive structure is massively more complicated and uncertain in outcome than simply negotiating a price with the owner.

<comment><USER14> The author's point wasn't that. The point was that the main outcome of rent control was simply to shift the distribution of economic rents. Instead of the landlord capturing all of it, the renter got a large chunk of it.

The transaction costs are a red herring.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Rent control does not always reduce the supply of housing. See this article/study: [http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-painter-rent- cont...](http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-painter-rent-control- economist-20181031-story.html)

The argument is that rent-control can spur the creation of new housing, as landlords are unable to make the same amount of money from their existing units. Of course, this is predicated on the fact that developers/landlords have the option of creating those new units (which they usually don't). That's why I'm not against rent control per se, but I'm usually not in favor since it tends to be suggested in areas with severe restrictions on building new housing.

<comment><USER11> This argument doesn't make any sense. If there are profits to be made from building new housing and renting it out, some one is going to do that. The higher those profits are, the higher the incentive to do so. People aren't going to respond to artificially suppressed profit margins by doubling down.

This article is also full of other strange arguments. Consider:

"The fact that real estate developers have funded an anti-Proposition 10 campaign to the tune of $45 million suggests that they are eager to defend their market power. If California were a truly competitive housing market where home builders operated with slim margins, they'd load up their cranes and build in some other state. But it's clear these developers benefit from the status quo and are fighting hard to keep it."

Selling retail gasoline is a low margin business. But you can bet that if there was legislation to impose a price cap, gas stations and oil companies would be opposed. In other words, everyone everywhere is always going to be opposed to legislation that reduces how much they can charge for their product. You don't need to posit other factors such as the existence of market power or lack of competitiveness to explain the opposition.</comment></comment>


Bill To Allow Use Of Drones For Certain Purposes Proposed In New York - <AUTHOR> http://yorktown.dailyvoice.com/news/bill-allow-use-drones-certain-purposes-proposed-new-york

<comment><AUTHOR> > "It would also prevent unmanned aircraft from being improperly used by > creating two new crimes: the illegal use of an unmanned aircraft to capture > images and the offense of possessing or distributing the image."

Terrible.</comment>


Pokémon Go vs Growth Hacking - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@pandemona/pok%C3%A9mon-go-vs-growth-hacking-c2b1315cb4a4 <comment><USER2> Twitter didn't used to send random push notifications like "@justinbieber is trending on Twitter. Follow them." either. Tumblr didn't used to send random push notifications with 80% emojis. But now they do, and super annoying.

Whenever I see a company start sending these random "retention" push notifications I know they're fucked and they're just trying to stop a leaking bucket.

Pokemon is not at that stage yet, so this article is missing the point. I will bet that Pokemon will start doing this in the near future when the novelty wears off and they need to live up to the stratospheric expectation the media has built up for them.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't be surprised if they start doing that at some point. But it is quite amazing and notable that Pokemon Go achieved this level of success without any of it. Other highly visible brands still employ traditional growth tactics. Star Trek Timelines pushes me like 10 times a day smh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Doesnt need any of these things for it has: 1\. Huge loyal fan base built up since 90s 2\. People post their Pokemon Go experiences naturally on FB/ Snapchat/ Twitch due to the visual nature of the content (i.e. Pokemon are cool looking when imposed on real world things) 3\. When you see people walking weird with their phones out you automatically know its Pokemon Go. Great constant real world promotion

<comment><USER5> Yeah. Pokemon is a brand that a lot of people already recognise and care about. Your project you're 'growth hacking' for likely isn't.

Then again, Pokemon GO does show the value of one other thing:

1\. Having a really cool idea and actually implementing it.

Miitomo (Nintendo's previous mobile app idea) didn't have this, and hence its popularity has fell off a cliff. Pokemon in the real world is something people wanted. Random customise esque social app based around questions and answers wasn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Honestly, I found this post really weak.

'Pokemon Go does (or not) X, Y, Z, it's growing real quick, think about what you are doing!'. There are thousands, if not millions, of apps that do the same things but they end up nowhere and have total of 3 downloads (one of them is the developers mother).

It's like a list of '10 personality traits of successful CEOs', ignoring millions of people sharing the same traits and stuck at a cubicle and a dead- end job (or collecting unemployment benefits).

Also, it is missing one of the key points: 'Pokemon Go is using an extremely recognizable world wide brand'. We can't pretend that the 'Pokemon' bit of 'Pokmenon go' doesn't matter.

<comment><USER3> I did say "strength of brand [...] is everything". I think we are saying the same things :)

<comment><USER6> My bad, sorry!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pokemon has grossed something like 46 billion dollars.

[http://www.pokemon.co.jp/corporate/en/data/](http://www.pokemon.co.jp/corporate/en/data/)

Its already pretty big. How much growth hacking do you need when everyone already knows about you. All the kids who grew up in the 90s now this game. They are now adults with kids of their own. I see parents and kids playing together. When someone comes up with a startup no one knows about you have to be creative in getting users. Even Facebook did a lot of spammy things to get users.

</comment><comment><USER8> This isn't an apples to apples comparison. The Pokemon Company is over 18 years old and has brand recognition.

Kinda ironic considering the girl who wrote this works for Periscope.

<comment><USER3> A lot of highly visible brands use a lot of growth hacking in games, and in my experience this is true with brands that are sub-licensed to small studios. Final Fantasy RecordKeeper, Star Trek Timelines, The Walking Dead Road to survival...they all send push notifs many times a day, have frustrating stamina/fatigue mechanics, etc. They are also all very similar to each other in terms of game mechanics.

Pokemon Go manages to surpass them all without the same kind of growth hacks because of brand, yes, but also because it's a unique and compelling experience for the mainstream.

Anyway we are literally saying the same thing :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Uh, Apple could put a picture of a penis on the upper right of every iPhone, and they'd still sell like hotcakes.

Established brands do what they do, and get away with what they get away with. "Bob's Great Hello World App" isn't going to get rocketed to the top because they mimick a couple of things Pokemon Go is doing.

<comment><USER2> As much as I think the original article is bullshit, I still think it's not just about the brand.

According to that logic, any project that involves well recognized brand should succeed.

That is far from true. Especially in mobile games, if you look closely the ones who spend the most on promoting their games are the biggest brands. You still need to spend tons of money on marketing if you're building is just another candy crush clone or just another temple run clone.

As an example, I do not think if Niantic came out with a sequel--say a super mario version of Pokemon Go--it would succeed as much as they did with Pokemon Go. It's not just about the brand. It's also about luck, timing, and how it makes people feel.

<comment><USER9> Oh, absolutely. People are ready to ditch anything that doesn't deliver enjoyment. Good brands selling a shit product or two. The original article is definitely more about the layers of marketing bullshit on top, than the actual content.

I do agree that the tactics they tick off are all annoying garbage. Nonetheless I'm frustrated with the article's bad logic, which I think everyone here is also saying.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Shurlee VPN - <AUTHOR> http://www.shurlee.com/

<comment><USER2> > Signup using Facebook connect

That's a strange choice for a VPN service. Usually besides reliability and speed, anonymity and privacy are a must.

</comment><comment><USER3> > 1\. Signup using Facebook connect

When you're trying to circumvent your government's censorship - anonymity is probably fairly important.

</comment><comment><USER4> Explain to me how a VPN makes your connection faster.

<comment><USER5> Compression is one simple answer. Another is that any server in a datacenter is going to have much better routing and connectivity than a residential connection. If you have good (uncongested) routing to one VPN server, you can use it as alternative to your ISP's network.

Some gamers use OpenVPN, with encryption and compression disabled, which functions as a _very_ low latency UDP tunnel.

Home -> Good ISP routing -> VPN server -> Game server (20ms RTT)

Home -> Bad ISP routing -> Game server (60ms RTT)

<comment><USER6> Right, but the traffic still passes through your residential connection, so you're still limited to the bandwidth provided by your ISP; if anything, the overhead of VPN will _decrease_ internet speeds there.

In other words, a VPN isn't an _alternative_ to an ISP's network, but rather an additional system on top of it.

On the other hand, a VPN will generally bypass an ISP's own DNS servers, which could afford some speedup when performing domain name resolution/lookup if the ISP's nameservers are sluggish (though configuring your system to use alternate nameservers would do this without the overhead of a VPN).

<comment><USER5> If your ISP provides only a congested route to say, Netflix or YouTube, then a tunnel through a better connected VPN server can allow you bypass that route entirely, increasing throughput and lowering latency.

In the case where an ISP provides optimal routing, it cannot improve latency. Compression and buffering, among other things, still may offer better throughput.

<comment><USER6> True. In that case, though, the better advertising approach would be to state that directly rather than vaguely (and inaccurately) claiming a "20x" boost in download speed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Show HN: An ad for a VPN done wrong.</comment>


MS Is Still Ruling The Desktop: 42% Of Machines Will Run Windows 7 In 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/09/ms-is-still-ruling-the-desktop-42-of-machines-will-run-windows-7-in-2011/

<comment><USER2> As Microsoft releases more details about Windows 8, can't we expect to see a slow-down in Windows 7 upgrades and new pc sales?

This is why I think the Macbook Air pricing is so brilliant. They've come into a place where for about 6 months (starting in November) they will have a very strong argument for trying out OSX on some nice hardware at a very competitive price, rather than waiting for Windows 8. Plus you can always get Windows 8 on that machine in a few months.

I like my Windows and hope to see some amazing hardware from Acer/Samsung/HP, but I think Apple has a bit of a free ride over the coming months.

</comment><comment><USER3> Now if only they would release the next service pack and make IE9 the default browser.</comment>


MIT's $1000 House Project - <AUTHOR> http://web.mit.edu/1khouse/contents.htm

<comment><USER2> This is a project that has good intentions but at best ambiguous outcomes. Low-density housing without plumbing is an ecological disaster. Besides, the idea of single-family dwellings is becoming less relevant with the current trend of urbanization.

If you really want to provide housing for the poor, you need to revisit the ideas of Le Corbusier in light of the findings of Christopher Alexander.

<comment><USER3> Can you point to a webpage/book discussing "the ideas of Le Corbusier in light of the findings of Christopher Alexander"?

Google didn't really help, and it sounds like you have something specific in mind.

<comment><USER2> Owen Hatherley's _Militant Modernism_ is a good overview of what modernism (Le Corbusier's side) was supposed to be about, what went wrong, and some ideas for the future. I helped Owen translate some documents for the research behind the book, but I don't agree with him on many of the conclusions in the book.

Where I think Alexander's work comes in is where the Modernism movement started - rationalism in architecture. _A Pattern Language_ is essentially a set of inductive inferences about what works in urban planning and what doesn't. A lot of what went wrong with modernist projects stem from ignoring reality.

I think project cities like Germany's Vauban ([http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/science/earth/12suburb.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/science/earth/12suburb.html)) embody this spirit. Soleri's Arcosanti is also built with very much the same intentions. I think Soleri's work can actually be a good example of "Corbusier meets Alexander," but most people seem to only remember him for the arcologies in Blade Runner...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Glad to see this project underway. On all fronts, technology has reached a point where seriously viable personal infrastructure can be had for very low costs. I've been mulling over how to have my kids buy/build real estate for no more than $10k before they graduate high school (that plus each starting a business is a priority).

For a reference point, consider the Tumbleweed houses: <http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/> which are quality, albeit small, homes which have been built for as little as $10,000.

Also check out <http://tinyhouseblog.com/> for other small & affordable housing styles.

<comment><USER5> In Northeast Minnesota (and in many other low population density states, I'd imagine) you can buy land for well under $10k/acre and many counties have no building codes in effect.

But if you're trying to do this for $10k near a major population center, best of luck to you!

<comment><USER4> Major population centers are expensive, and for a reason. If you can't afford it, don't live there (just like living in the opposite extremes: deserts/mountains are nice, but very hard to live in so don't). Lots of places _are_ affordable; there are even some towns that will _give_ you land, outright ownership for free, if only you'll live on it for a few years and build a decent home. There are also a lot of abandoned/tax- delinquent/foreclosed properties which are undesirable for most normal 6-digit homes but would work well for creative/eclectic dwellings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The news on the link is old. They recently built the first prototype: [http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/1k-house- prototype-0915.h...](http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/1k-house- prototype-0915.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't know much about the MIT project, but a criticism of a related project is available in a nytimes op-ed at <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/opinion/01srivastava.html>

I have strong doubts that mass-produced anything is the key to solving poverty. Having people rely on outsourced production rather than encouraging the local construction industry is no way to empower them.

EDIT: That said, having such housing available for rebuilding after a natural disaster doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

</comment><comment><USER8> Where I live (Bucharest) building costs are already low compared to infrastructure costs. In order to develop a piece of land you could build a decent house for a reasonable price (not $1000, but maybe $10,000). The problem is that bringing water, sewage, electricity and optionally natural gas and internet makes a joke of this number.

I've been fantasizing about a startup which would buy cheap, agricultural land and build an infrastructure core into it, not necessarily connected to the grid. Probably more expensive over time, but might be cheaper in the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER9> This would help in many situations including The Tent City of New Jersey:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2021173/Americas- cit...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2021173/Americas-city-broken- dreams-50-jobless-destitute-people-set-forest-community-New-Yorks- doorstep.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> Something similar is PFNC <[http://www.pfnc.net/index.htm>](http://www.pfnc.net/index.htm>), who aim to manufacture houses out of shipping containers, with an on-site cost of $15,000.

</comment><comment><USER11> Related: [http://www.indianexpress.com/news/tata-to-launch-nano- homes-...](http://www.indianexpress.com/news/tata-to-launch-nano-homes- rs-32k/817936/)

</comment><comment><USER12> my favorite was the A-frame. looked the simplest, cheapest, most likely to achieve the $1k goal, and easy to put large numbers of them in a horizontal smaller land area. I only looked at about half the designs hough.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wish I was an architect rather than a programmer...

<comment><USER14> Get the right kind of experience as a programmer for a few years and you can be a software architect. :p

<comment><USER15> Or perhaps even a architecture software architect!

<comment><USER16> Hell, you could eventually be an architecture astronaut: <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> No. Think bigger. 1M people at $150K each, living in the biggest and nicest castle ever devised. This is the kind of thing we need, if we are to move up the Kardashev Scale.

<http://www.tdrinc.com/ultima.html> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Tsui> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale>

<comment><USER18> Why is it a desirable goal to move up the Kardashev scale?

If you believe the transhumanists, our brains will live in computers long before we'll spread out across the solar system. We'll be using energy and space more efficiently, not just using 'more.'

<comment><USER19> _Why is it a desirable goal to move up the Kardashev scale?_

Quite simply, moving up the Kardashev scale need not harm the desires of those who want to live in their own version of harmony with nature, while satisfying the desires of those who prefer continually advancing technology. Preserving the status quo, forcing urbanization, or reverting to a more agrarian society also will satisfy the naturists/locavores/etc., but at the expense of the technologists/futurists.

Thus, from a utilitarian perspective, technological advancement provides greater net satisfaction than technological stagnation.

<comment><USER18> _Quite simply, moving up the Kardashev scale need not harm the desires of those who want to live in their own version of harmony with nature, while satisfying the desires of those who prefer continually advancing technology._

Maybe it _needn't_ , but if history is any indication it _does_.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02diamond.html?pag...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02diamond.html?pagewanted=all)

 _Preserving the status quo, forcing urbanization, or reverting to a more agrarian society also will satisfy the naturists/locavores/etc., but at the expense of the technologists/futurists. Thus, from a utilitarian perspective, technological advancement provides greater net satisfaction than technological stagnation._

Either the interests of the two groups are compatible, or they are not. You can't say that they are when one group gets what they want, but they aren't when the competing group does.

Of course in reality there's a vast spectrum of coexistence and compromise. Your argument boils down to a carefully selected excluded middle.

Not that it matters, since your conclusion begs the question anyway by equating technological progress (presumably as measured by the proxy of energy consumption) with utilitarian satisfaction. Certainly there's a correlation up to a point (vaccines, plumbing, healthcare, etc). But if you look at quantitative happiness metrics in the US they've been stagnant for the past 60 years, while per-capita energy consumption has doubled.

It's naïve linear thinking to say that additional energy/stuff consumption will increase our happiness. I call it the Drinking Undergrad Fallacy. The eponymous poor sap tells himself, "if three drinks makes me feel good, then 9 drinks will make me feel three times as good!"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Book Recommendation for DevOps? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The Phoenix Project is good for an explanation of the business reasons why certain ways-of-working are important.

<comment><USER3> Having read this, I would not recommend it to someone that actually wants to learn the tools.

<comment><USER4> no, definitely not. but it's an enjoyable fictional read that has lots of devops concepts but isn't a flat out tech book. i found that to be a nice change of pace from the non-stop barrage of tech articles, tutorials, and straight to the point o'reilly books i'm typically reading.

it also highlights real world examples that i could definitely relate to and thought that i was alone in going through. clearly i'm not alone on it if there's this book written with people going through similar frustrating experiences.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought Google's SRE book ([https://landing.google.com/sre/sre- book/toc/index.html](https://landing.google.com/sre/sre-book/toc/index.html)) was incredible. Probably a good place to start.

<comment><USER6> I am not a DevOps myself. I started reading Google's SRE and it made me feel that it was all about Google's tools and not about general DevOps knowledge.

<comment><USER7> It's far from "all about Google's tools"; that's a gross mischaracterization of that body of work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Release it! by Michael Nygard has lots of good info on design issues related to production systems and operations/devops of such systems.

</comment><comment><USER9> a question first

do you mean DevOps as in agile or DevOps as a proxy for SRE (or cloud infrastructure engineering in general)?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's DevOps in Cloud Infra. Thx!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What would you ask a perfect AI teacher to teach you? - <AUTHOR> I work at Udacity and am interested in seeing how AI will end up playing a big role in education. I'm just curious -- if a perfect AI we're created that could teach you any concept, what would you prioritise learning? It would still take learning time on your part but the AI would understand your current level and coach and motivate you to learn the necessary concepts to meet your learning goal.
So, you've downloaded the app.
What are the top three things you would ask it to teach you?
Optional: how much time would you give to learning them? <comment><USER2> I'd learn how to update that AI to work instead of me :)</comment>


If you can't remember what domain(s) Sci-Hub is on why not make it all of them? - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Scholar/comments/7m3uin/meta_if_you_cant_remember_what_domains_scihub_is/ <comment><USER2> The simpler solution here is to just put it in your HOSTS file. And you don't really need to put all of them in there; just put in sci-hub.org and use that.

<comment><AUTHOR> How many hosts do you manage?

Will your hosts file handle 1542 TLDs?

Does your device _have_ a configurable hosts file?

<comment><USER3> Is there any reason for having 1542 TLDs that point to the same address instead of just one, other than wasting time trying to conform to invented but pointless requirements?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes: Demonstrating that the "we're gonna take your domains away" approach fails, and will result in backlash.

<comment><USER4> Demonstrating to whom?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe I'm being thick, and I apologise, but why not just bookmark tbe IPs?

<comment><USER6> [https://mobile.twitter.com/Sci_Hub/status/933085186614611968](https://mobile.twitter.com/Sci_Hub/status/933085186614611968)

Sci-hub currently does not fully function via IP address.

<comment><AUTHOR> As noted: it doesn't work.

I've just expanded on why hosts files or other options don't offer the power of DNSMasq:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Scholar/comments/7m3uin/meta_if_you...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Scholar/comments/7m3uin/meta_if_you_cant_remember_what_domains_scihub_is/drr862i/)

A fair bit of this also falls out of the fact that _DNSMasq is already running, configured, and modularised much as I describe in the original post._ The larger part of that describes _how to get to the point_ of dropping in a single script-generated file to provide Sci-Hub access on _literally any TLD on the Internet_ in a fraction of a second, _for all managed systems._

Note that not all systems can use hosts files: Android devices and iOS are highly resistant to this. They would have to be individually configured. Using DNSMasq, _any device_ acquiring network leases from the local DHCP server is automagickally configured. "It just works."

The idea occurred to me a few days ago, and I ginned up and tested the solution in about five minutes. It took ten times longer to actually document it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have the Sci-Hub Wikipedia page bookmarked, it gives plenty of domains to choose from.

<comment><AUTHOR> I want more.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITs- YX1yQ7o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITs-YX1yQ7o)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Dear IPFS, Are you a solution to this problem?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know. For addressing individual content via a hash, yes, but I've not been impressed by the underlying usability.

My view of IPFS is that it's an address/directory-level piece of infrastructure that requires a UI/UX layer on top of it that abstracts out the hashes, which are _not_ particularly human-sensible.

<comment><USER9> [https://zeronet.io](https://zeronet.io) perhaps? Bitcoin public address that can be mapped to a *.bit namecoin domain.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll pass, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP, in the event you've questions.

</comment><comment><USER10> I use the Telegram bot. Very quick, always on, keeps a history, available on all devices.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, can you explain what this does specifically?

<comment><USER10> You install Telegram, you contact the bot [https://t.me/scihubbot](https://t.me/scihubbot), you send him a DOI and it will answer with the PDF (if it has it).

Sometimes it says (in Russian) there is an error fetching the paper: I understand that in such a case it does not have the paper, but the paper is available on GenLib, so you can go there. But it is not frequent.

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds as if it's adding another layer (and possible failure mode) between you and Sci-Hub. How does the bot itself access the content? What keeps it from being attacked as Sci-Hub has, by publishers?

<comment><USER10> SciHub is unfortunately rather opaque on its internals (and that is definitely something that I would like to see changed), but it seems that the Telegram bot is blessed by the official Twitter account. In practice, I have often found it more reliable than the website, and it does not have problems with finding the right TLD. Also, as I said, it retains the history and it shared is with other devices, provided that you consider that a plus.

<comment><AUTHOR> SciHub has operated at a set of IPs for most or all of its existence, certainly the past several years so far as I'm aware.

So long as you resolve it by hostname at those IPs, by whatever means, you'll be able to reach it there. _If_ the IPs themselves are accessible.

If Telegram works for you, great. Meantime, if some school or research organisation that cannot afford to pay Western prices for academic content cares to set up their own networking infrastructure to provide access similar to the methods I've suggested, also great.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


UK Doctor Calls for Ban on PCs for Children Under 9 - <AUTHOR> http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2010/6/14/uk-doctor-calls-ban-pcs-under-9s/ <comment><USER2> It would be nice to have a high-quality link on this with a primary reference. There's hardly enough information to determine what his concern is. For example:

 _"According to Dr Sigman, unrestricted use of computers can cause a conflict between a child's ability to multi-task and to their ability to maintain attention."_

Which of the two does PC use supposedly undermine? And what kind of PC use are we talking about - there's a huge range from mindless internet surfing to programming.</comment>


FBI uses facial recognition to compare subjects with driver's license photos - <AUTHOR> http://epic.org/2013/06/fbi-performs-massive-virtual-l.html

<comment><USER2> Of course the FBI has been doing this and I don't actually have a problem with it. Matching data between established government agency databases seems like a smart thing to do.

This is VERY different from what the NSA has been doing. No privacy has been compromised here.

<comment><USER3> I guess I wonder why they need it? Why are they entitled to it? As others have noted, we have pictures on our driver's licenses so that our person can be connected with our certification to drive in the event we are detained by police. There are state IDs with pictures that connect our person with our official identity if detained by police.

This just sounds like some preemptive evidence gathering or perhaps at its most innocuous a free source of "data" to refine their recognition systems. I don't recall that anywhere in the enumerated list of powers of the government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why shouldn't they? There is no issue of search or seizure here. Unless you never step outside your home, you should have no expectation that your face's features are private.

<comment><USER5> There's no clear Constitutional objection here. But there is the prosecutor's fallacy: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy)

Basically, it's the same problem as with "cold hits" and DNA testing.

<comment><USER6> There is also an issue of things that are individually expected turning into an unexpected, and possibly undesired, result through technologically enabled cross-referencing.

For example, if you combine face-recognition, driver's license databases, and feeds from public security cameras, you can (albeit currently with quite a bit of error) track someone's movements around town. All of the individual components are reasonably expected. But people traditionally don't expect the result: the state having a map of everywhere they went today, without having to get a warrant to attach a tracking device or to subpoena mobile-phone records.

Whether this should matter legally seems a bit up in the air. The position that it should is sometimes called the "mosaic theory" of the 4th amendment: [http://www.michiganlawreview.org/assets/pdfs/111/3/Kerr.pdf](http://www.michiganlawreview.org/assets/pdfs/111/3/Kerr.pdf)

<comment><USER4> I do not like that theory of the fourth amendment. I am neither lawyer nor historian, but what I remember of the purpose was to prevent the state using the police as a means of harassment, as the British did before our independence. (Hence why seizure was highlighted.) Some of the other amendments, like the third, were also to remedy specific, recent abuses. Which is not to dispute the fourth's broader (and good) applicability, but I would wonder what the justification is for broadening it that much.

The purpose of the amendment is not to give criminals a certain minimum chance of avoiding detection by making it hard to collect evidence. That is just an incidental result. So long as such monitoring is not used as a means to stifle legal dissent, I have no objection to it.

My 2c. That said, I'm not a strict constitutionalist. The law should reflect the good of the people now, not just what guys thought a long time ago. If it does more harm than good, the mosaic theory maybe should prevail.

<comment><USER7> >what I remember of the purpose was to prevent the state using the police as a means of harassment, as the British did before our independence.

The problem in this case is that allowing this type of surveillance allows the state to use the prosecutor's office as a means of harassment. It allows the state to choose who to prosecute first and then go through the intended defendant's recorded life history in order to find the offense. And since no one is a saint (and no one knows all of the laws), the result is that whether anyone goes to prison or not becomes solely a matter of prosecutorial discretion, since everyone is guilty of something and now they can prove it.

<comment><USER4> There are plenty of things that the state could use to make a person's life miserable if it was malicious. To me, that some capability _could_ be used that way is insufficient reason to restrict the state from the capability.

<comment><USER7> >To me, that some capability _could_ be used that way is insufficient reason to restrict the state from the capability.

Forgive me for thinking that sounds a little naive. That argument could be used to support the repeal of the entire bill of rights and the separation of powers.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The whole idea of a constitution is to place restrictions on government power in order to limit as much as possible the amount of damage that can occur when the government is corrupt or incompetent. There are comparatively huge advantages to a government run by a competent Benevolent Dictator. The problem is that in practice dictators tend to be not so benevolent.

<comment><USER4> I think you have misread me. The protections in the bill of rights protect against actions which inherently overreach, because their violation had a people directly. Passive tracking of people only overreaches if it is used to harm.

<comment><USER7> >The protections in the bill of rights protect against actions which inherently overreach, because their violation harms people directly.

Do they? Suppose we pass a law that says the police don't need any probable cause to record all your phone calls, bug your home and office and come into your house and read or copy all your personal documents, as long as they don't inconvenience you or deprive you of your papers. Pretty sure that would violate the Fourth Amendment, even though the harm there is substantially identical to the harm here. Which is theoretically none, assuming the police only target evildoers and never do anything nefarious with the information, etc.

Likewise the First Amendment protection for anonymous speech. Having to disclose your identity to the government before you can communicate with anyone will only cause harm if the government does something untoward with the information, right? But the First Amendment doesn't allow them to require it, because the government _could_ be doing something wrong. We even go so far as to say that the government can't demand the information because people may fear the government doing something wrong (chilling effects), and be afraid to say certain things as a result, even if the government never actually does anything with the information.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, it would violate the fourth amendment. At the time it was written, though, there was no non-invasive way to search someone's effects. The purpose at the time was to prevent searches as a means of harassment, and they did not guess that there would someday be a mechanism by which you could search without imposing. In any case, there is also a component of the probability of misuse (at least, in the way I judge these sorts of things).

Your example of the first amendment is less compelling. The mere requirement to convey your identity _is_ an imposition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is why laws against wearing masks at a protest are really bad.

</comment><comment><USER9> I thought this was public knowledge, iirc certain states (NJ And possibly others) ask you not is mile because it ostensibly makes recognition easier.

A Source: rt.com/usa/license-jersey-recognition-face-956/

</comment><comment><USER10> Doesn't surprise me. If they didn't have access to this information they would not be the FBI.

</comment><comment><USER11> I would've really like to know more about the case uses of this technology. I think FR is way too inaccurate to pick up people from a crowd based on the driver's license photo database. I think they probably use it for some sort of offline comparison of two pictures.</comment>


A sponge makes a molecule that stops the growth of cervical cancer cells - <AUTHOR> https://nuadox.com/post/614683172955930624/sponge-molecule-stops-cervical-cancer-cells <comment><USER2> University press release: [https://web.musc.edu/about/news- center/2020/04/03/hamann-spo...](https://web.musc.edu/about/news- center/2020/04/03/hamann-sponges)

 _The Marine Natural Product Manzamine A Inhibits Cervical Cancer by Targeting the SIX1 Protein_ (2020, paywall): [https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jnatprod.9b00577](https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jnatprod.9b00577)

Photo images showing the effect of Manzamine-A on cancer cells in petri dishes (PDF, page 5): [https://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/acs.jnatprod.9b00577/...](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/acs.jnatprod.9b00577/suppl_file/np9b00577_si_001.pdf)</comment>


Show HN: QEDServer: A standalone playground for JS and AJAX - <AUTHOR> http://qedserver.napcs.com/

<comment><USER2> Cool, thanks!

Sorry to get off-topic, but this really spurred me to think of something somewhat similar that would be very useful to me personally: a generic "mock" server. A static call-responder, if you will.

Rather than already having an API like this one does, it'd be one where a browser-side developer could specify on the server a list of static call/return pairs in a form similar to:

for web service call _c_ with parameters _p[0]_ = 'abc', _p[1]_ = 123, and any value for _p[2]_ , return string ' _some JSON string_ '".

That way one could easily have front-end folks working on browser-side code, making real web service calls and getting back real-looking results that are appropriate for this app. Later, as the real back-end progresses, the front- end can be repointed toward it.

This would need to be setup-free enough that most front-end folks wouldn't have any trouble creating/maintaining sets of these. Perhaps best would be for it to be a public service so that the devs wouldn't even have to run their own server.

Anybody know if anything like this exists?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey. That was suggested to me by a good friend when I showed this to him. QEDServer's code is on Github... it's just a Sinatra app wrapped by jRuby. I could see a situation where we just have a config file and we just say "this route returns this string" or something. It wouldn't need to be anything fancy at all and probably wouldn't take terribly long to build.

I wanted QEDServer to be zero-install, zero-setup because I do a lot of teaching with jQuery, etc. But this makes two people, plus me, who thinks that would be neat.

Thanks for the feedback!</comment></comment>


Good calculus resources for MBA courses - <AUTHOR> Hey everyone. It is a long story, but I will do my best to keep it short. I am genuinely looking for suggestions.
I am a part of an MBA program. I had my quantative methods class ( calculus review , descriptive stats, probability, linear regression ). I passed, but just barely. Because I don't want to spend that kind of money and not undestand what I am doing, I took a semester off to attempt to fill in the apparent gaps.
So here are my questions: Are there any good online resources that you can recommend? Are there any good books you can recommend ( the book we used was very.. brief just about everything topic covered )? *Any other ways I can approach it?
Other thoughts: I am currently talking with a tutor, but I will admit I am hesitant about going that route.
Thank you in advance. MBA jokes welcome. <comment><USER2> Tutor is probably the way to go, if cash is not a limiting factor. Calculus is a language or a notation of it own, and can be confusing if you get stuck interpreting it like algebraic notation. Its good to have someone help you develop a conceptual model from the texts, and plan out problem strategies. the outline or logic that leads you to an answer should be displayed and in most test situations ive experienced was at least half the value of the answer.

have you applied calculus to basketball trajectories?

</comment><comment><USER3> I would say find a MATH Phd student who will explain the concepts to you. You get the personal attention you need. They get the student cash they need. If you fall in love, your kids get a great story. Win win win.</comment>


Thoughts on the Pro Debacle - <AUTHOR> http://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2016/11/04/2230 <comment><USER2> I use a Hackintosh with a touchscreen, it's as useless as it was on Windows and Linux (for me)

The author is definitely the first person I've seen who described raising your hand to touch your display from the keyboard as "natural".

It's definitely not faster than clicking, and it looks strange and feels strange extending yourself over a laptop (imo)

<comment><USER3> Now you know two people who describe raising your hand to touch the display as natural!! I'm a great proponent of touchscreens for laptops and even desktops. Sometimes I point my finger at my non-touchscreen desktop monitor, because, you know, it's natural when your used to a laptop, tablet or smartphone with touchscreen.</comment></comment>


Rails Maturity Model...Let's boil it down - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/rails-business/browse_thread/thread/e24cfda7947fda10/442e8f86edb4ccde

<comment><USER2> The original post, reprinted here verbatim:

A couple of Railsconfs ago, Courtenay and I did indeed discuss certification and I advocated an organization to set guidelines for what the characteristics and measurements that set apart a successful and disciplined Rails shop apart from the unwashed masses. Rather than trying to certify individuals (too easy to game!) I think it would be useful to have a certification process for organizations that involved an actual extensive interview process and audit of code and practices, with associated scorecards and registration in some sort of official directory. Yes, you would have to pay handsomely to get this certification, and the result would not necessarily be what you expect. The details for this is all very rough and frankly I don't know the value of it, just an idea that's been in the back of my mind for a long time so I'm putting it out there for debate.

The name and concept is somewhat influenced by CMM, which I suppose is anathema to most Agilistas. I'm the first to admit that I don't know much about CMM other than it provides a scoring system for organizations.

In a Rails context, you would establish a scorecard that categorized your shop on a scale of 0 to 3 (or whatever, just thinking out loud here)

RMM0 "aka Cowboy level" \- No formal development process \- No test coverage \- No standardized business practices \- Static analysis failures

RMM1 and RMM2 would have to be something in-between. RMM1 is considered negative. RMM2 is considered positive.

RMM3 "aka Master level" (Purposely exclusive territory here, I can imagine that only a handful of shops in the world could achieve this level!) \- Agile software development practices \- 100% test coverage WITH THE APPROPRIATE TYPES OF TESTS (For instance, at Hashrocket lately we are doing much less unit testing at the MVC level because automated acceptance and integration testing with Cucumber is so powerful and effective. \- 100% pair-programming (muahaha) \- Formal and standardized business practices \- Institutionalized continuous learning and process improvement \- Positive customer testimonials \- Successful deployment of Rails application(s) with substantial scaling demands

Incidentally, I'm bringing this up for discussion, but I might be interested in a joint-venture along these lines with an out of work senior Rails developer that feels like taking the idea and running with it. (Rick?) In fact I can envision the idea expanding to the point where being a RMM auditor could be a profitable little part-time gig for Rails freelancers with the right personality type and enthusiasm.

Obie Fernandez CEO & Founder | Hashrocket 904.435.1671 office 404.934.9201 mobile

Hashrocket, Inc. 320 N 1st Street Suite 712 Jacksonville Beach, FL 32250

<http://hashrocket.com> <http://obiefernandez.com>

</comment><comment><USER3> Many in the Rails community are finding this to be exceptionally worthless and stupid, for the record.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've summed up my thoughts in a blog post: [http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2009/02/rails- maturity...](http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2009/02/rails-maturity- model.html)

Totally backing off the idea of certification, but still think a defined RMM is a good idea.

Cheers, Obie</comment>


Transfer your Spotify Playlists to Google Music: All Access - <AUTHOR> http://www.maui.at/2013/06/portify/

<comment><USER2> This could be useful but I'd be cautious about giving an app my Google password.

<comment><USER3> You could give a one-use password and then revoke access to the app once you're done transferring.

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't test that but I don't see a reason why it shouldn't work. Thanks for the heads up!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice work!

re: passwords/OAuth, playlist manipulation over OAuth is possible when using the Music Manager interface [0].

That said, I don't think search is possible over OAuth.

[0] I noticed when I added Music Manager list/download to gmusicapi ([https://unofficial-google-music- api.readthedocs.org/en/devel...](https://unofficial-google-music- api.readthedocs.org/en/develop/reference/musicmanager.html)).

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. Too bad I'd still need the Password for searching. BTW, I really have to add a note somewhere that I used your unofficial Google Music API as reference.

<comment><USER4> No worries! I'm happy to see folks working on Google Music =)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No matter what I try I can't seem to get it to accept my Spotify credentials. But hopefully I will get it figured out, I've been wanting to try Google Music for a long time but the only thing that's been holding me back is my Spotify playlists.

<comment><AUTHOR> If your're Spotify account is bound to Facebook you need to specifically lookup your device username (which usually only contains digits) and password. You can do that on your Spotify Profile page at: [https://www.spotify.com/de/account/set-device- password/](https://www.spotify.com/de/account/set-device-password/)

<comment><AUTHOR> It should also pick up subscribed playlists.

<comment><USER5> Right. Added a trial for the new account. Gonna cancel it right after successful transfer. Good news, I was able to get to the transfer phase of Portify on the new account. Cheers!

Edit: Worked great. Thanks for making and releasing this utility!

As far as Google Music All Access, does anyone know how to get the play/pause, next, and previous buttons on a laptop keyboard to work on the Google Music site?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> And here I sit, waiting for Google Music to be available outside of the United States.

<comment><USER7> Google Music is available in Australia (as of last month or so), but the All Access streaming is not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Thank you so much! I recently made the switch and have been waiting for just this tool :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Feel free to check out the source. If would have preferred to do this using OAuth...but there are just no offical APIs for that right now.</comment></comment>


Earthworms Reproduce in Simulated Mars Soil–a First - <AUTHOR> https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/mars-soil-earthworm-agriculture-science-spd/ <comment><AUTHOR> But the fine print:

 _the faux soil is still missing one key compound found on Mars—perchlorates. ... the compounds can be lethal to people who consume them or eat plants grown in them. In studies where worms were exposed to high levels of perchlorates, most did not survive._

<comment><USER2> They should go searching around for earthworms in some of the perchlorate contaminated soils in the US. Natural selection could have given those worms better survivability in the same test.

Ironically, perchlorate contamination is often caused by past rocket motor production & test facilities...</comment></comment>


Sniffing iPad Traffic - mr-howdy http://www.cardinalpeak.com/blog/?p=519

<comment><AUTHOR> Why can't the traffic just be passively captured from the same wifi network that you computer is connected to? Why is the network bridge needed?

<comment><USER2> It can be. It's just a bit harder to set up and definitely more error prone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is this any better/worse than using something like charles proxy?

<comment><USER4> An HTTP proxy will only capture HTTP traffic; this setup can capture other traffic as well.</comment></comment>


All The Metrics! Or How You Too Can Graph Everything. - <AUTHOR> http://sysadvent.blogspot.com/2011/12/day-23-all-metrics-or-how-you-too-can.html

<comment><USER2> Graphite co-maintainer here. We are working through the issues to finish up the 0.9.13 release now, the last of 0.9.x. There are some exciting features coming up in the master branch (future 0.10) as we slowly merge megacarbon into master. We are also slowly upping the test coverage one project at a time (I spent some considerable effort on whisper over the Christmas break) to give us more confidence when merging contributions from our huge user community.

So TL;DNR: if you've got graphite questions, feel free to ask here :)

<comment><AUTHOR> How would you respond to the criticisms of graphite in a previous graphite- themed HN thread? [1]

Some examples:

      "FWIW I've found influxdb considerably easier to install and manage
      than graphite (graphite doesn't play well with virtualenv, which
      makes dependency management horrible, compared to influxdb's single
      static binary)

      Also, I can see logging dictionaries being much more efficient and
      useful than logging single values -- with graphite if you want to
      track page hits per section of your site (of which you have 10) per
      user (100) per browser (5), you end up with 5000 individual metrics,
      and you need to have thought of them in advance. With influxdb you
      can log {"section": "front page", "user": "bob", "browser":
      "firefox", "hits": 1} as a single metric and then use an SQL-like
      query to filter by section / user / browser (or any combination of
      those) as and when you want to."[2]

      "I've spent the last week working on upgrading our Graphite
      system. I ultimately killed it and went with InfluxDB. The ease of
      installation and cluster creation were clear winners.

      Additionally the storage options for Influx trump Graphite across
      the board. I tried writing a custom backend and it went nowhere. The
      docs and code are terrible. I also noticed that Ceres hasn't had a
      commit in a year - kind of disheartening."[3]

      "I haven't had the best experience with Graphite. Namely, our main
      systems practically never crash but Graphite does fall over every
      few months. Seriously, Graphite is less reliable than the systems we
      use it to monitor."[4]

      "We've had the same problems."[5]

      "My biggest problem with Graphite was that it managed to grind an
      expensive large RAID array into the ground with a relatively small
      number (in my eyes) of metrics. We had the realisation that we'd
      waste a tremendous amount of hardware or have to cut down
      drastically on our data collection if we were to roll out Graphite
      across the board.

      (And yes, we had crashes too)

      The reason for the disk grinding was simple: The whisper storage
      system is ridiculously inefficient as it does tiny writes all over
      the places, and an excessive number of system calls to boot."[6]

[1] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739208](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739208)

[2] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739784](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739784)

[3] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8740058](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8740058)

[4] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739391)

[5] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8742242](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8742242)

[6] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739465](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739465)

<comment><USER2> Ooooohhh a hard one. I better get an upvote for this (joking)!

So WRT installation, it is a PITA to install graphite as it follows an antipattern of hardcoding /opt into setup.cfg, which we'll be changing in the 0.10 release (to making installing via normal python tools like virtualenv and pip work). That being said, there are really 3 main components to graphite:

1\. Whisper, the "improved" RRD. 2\. Carbon, the relay and caching daemon that writes out metrics (as whisper by default) 3\. Graphite, which is simply a webui for reading data from carbon and creating graphs, or returning JSON.

The only part that is actually interesting is Graphite, whereas carbon and whisper can be though more of as implementation details for when Chris Davis first wrote graphite. There is a large collection of tools that work with carbon's super simple text based line protocol. Additionally, there are tons of tools that work with the json or png graph data that graphite-web returns. As an ecosystem, we've made it so that swapping out for a different backend is trivial.

""" Also, I can see logging dictionaries being much more efficient and useful than logging single values -- with graphite if you want to track page hits per section of your site (of which you have 10) per user (100) per browser (5), you end up with 5000 individual metrics, and you need to have thought of them in advance. With influxdb you can log {"section": "front page", "user": "bob", "browser": "firefox", "hits": 1} as a single metric and then use an SQL-like query to filter by section / user / browser (or any combination of those) as and when you want to."[2] """

This is precisely what statsd is for, if you're not familar with it, you really should look into it.

Now regarding "influx vs graphite", I honestly don't see influx as a competitor nor will I likely ever see it as a competitor. Sure you can do some aggregations and apply some functions to your data stored in influx, awesome, but Influx can be used as a backend for graphite[1]. So many people don't realize that writing a pluggable backend for graphite is pretty simple. For super scalable backends, I'm somewhat partial to the Cyanite[2] backend which stores metrics in Cassandra, but other people swear by opentsdb + graphite[3].

One thing I will say is that the carbon relay is not great software. Around 100k metrics per second even tuned on excellent hardware, twisted (python) falls over and it just eats it. I've been meaning to take a shot at rewriting this in golang, but don't have tons and tons of free time to do this on just yet. For a faster relay/aggregator, may I point you to the c version[4] which is super performant.

Now for anyone who says that whisper is inefficient because it does tiny writes, perhaps they should understand the software they are attempting to use before deploying it. Whisper is more or less RRD, but allowing backfilling old data. Lots and lots of tiny writes are how the software it replaced worked and how it is meant to work. That being said, there have been several pull requests to batch the writes so that where possible, it has less of an IO penalty. However, you fundamentally need to understand how to troubleshoot a Linux system and tune a system / hardware for the application running on it. I can't stress that enough.

Regarding other choices, I think quite highly of a drop in graphite-web compatible rewrite in flask named graphite-api[5] from one of our excellent contributors who works for exoscale. Graphite api is interesting in that it is basically just the good parts of graphite-web, namely the functions.py that do all of the transformations. For a dashboard with that, I also suggest you look into grafana[6], which also supports influxdb natively, but again, graphite has a ton more options for transforming the data so they are overlapping, but not competitors.

Also please note that unlike Influx or many of the "competitors" of graphite, we're a small handful of developers spread out over 2-3 continents who don't have a ton of free time. We work on Graphite for fun and try to make things better for the community. There are plenty of good tools != to graphite to use, this is a good thing! #monitoringlove

Does this answer most of your questions?

[1] [https://github.com/vimeo/graphite- influxdb](https://github.com/vimeo/graphite-influxdb)

[2] [https://github.com/brutasse/graphite- cyanite](https://github.com/brutasse/graphite-cyanite) and [https://github.com/pyr/cyanite](https://github.com/pyr/cyanite)

[3] [https://github.com/mikebryant/graphite-opentsdb- finder](https://github.com/mikebryant/graphite-opentsdb-finder)

[4] [https://github.com/grobian/carbon-c- relay](https://github.com/grobian/carbon-c-relay)

[5] [https://github.com/brutasse/graphite- api](https://github.com/brutasse/graphite-api)

[6] [http://grafana.org/](http://grafana.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Fantastic answer! Thank you for taking the time to answer in such detail.

You've definitely got my upvote, though you deserve far more.

<comment><USER2> Thanks! I should also point out the Synthesize project, which makes setting up the entire graphite stack trivial. It was written by another one of the Graphite co-maintainers, the famous Jason Dixon aka obsfuscurity:

[https://github.com/obfuscurity/synthesize](https://github.com/obfuscurity/synthesize)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>