In England, rhubarb is grown by candlelight - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190424-the-english-vegetable-picked-by-candlelight <comment><USER2> This is an interesting history of the role of Scotland in the story of how rhubarb seeds were smuggled back from Russia in the 18th century: [http://www.rcpe.ac.uk/sites/default/files/jrcpe_47_1_lee.pdf](http://www.rcpe.ac.uk/sites/default/files/jrcpe_47_1_lee.pdf) (PDF, 5Mb)

A particularly choice quote:

"From 1750 to 1850 Russia was making a fortune from trading rhubarb root through St Petersburg to Europe via the Baltic. Russia supplied and controlled the export of the dried root, thus controlling its price. It banned the export of the seeds to block the growing of the plant elsewhere. Catherine the Great took considerable interest in the cultivation and sale of rhubarb, as it helped to finance her military campaigns in Finland, Poland, Ukraine and Crimea. The price of rhubarb root rocketed! At one time the seeds were more valuable, weight for weight, than gold. To give some idea of the veneration that was given to the plant, Lord Stanhope, a Catholic peer, sent some rhubarb seeds to the Pope in a gold case, encouraging him to grow the plant in the gardens at the Vatican. This monopoly could not last indefinitely. Professor John Hope stated in 1770 that if 'Russian' rhubarb could be grown successfully in the UK, it would save the economy about £1 million a year (approximately £20–30 million in today's money)"

<comment><USER3> This just goes to show the west has blatant cultural disregard for intellectual property - this was daring IP theft, calculated to displace the innovative Russian rhubarb industry and costing it millions of pounds /s

<comment><USER4> (The original copyright holder could not be reached for comment, despite significant prayer.)

<comment><USER5> Litigious food makes my stomach turn.

There's plenty of incentives in the market to innovate in the GMO space without legal protections, as there have been for thousands of years. Absent those protections, GMO development would probably see more cooperation innovation without hurting the speed of innovation.

Regional protections for product labeling make a lot more sense (vidalia onions...) and improve competition while still benefiting large growers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article says one can hear "forced" rhubarb grow. "Forcing" is a technique to stimulate growth of sweeter rhubarb stalks by depriving the plant of sunlight. I found this recording of the sound on YouTube[1]. Apparently, you can also hear bamboo grow[2].

1\. [https://youtu.be/l5HrnZXya5M](https://youtu.be/l5HrnZXya5M)

2\. [https://youtu.be/9HkhBxBZELk](https://youtu.be/9HkhBxBZELk)

<comment><USER7> There are so many little noises in nature that are often drowned out by man- made noise, or even just the louder animals looking to mate. I enjoy listening to earthworms crawl around in the leaves at night in my back yard.

<comment><USER8> Oh it is amazing as so many sounds we miss out upon as they get drowned out so easily. Be that other sounds or human materiels effecting how existing sounds travel (nice simple example would be over-ear headphones, you can hear people speak, most sounds over them and yet they completely drown out a cat purring loudly).

I've been playing with contact microphones the past year and recently made a balanced one myself that eliminates a lot of the noise such types of high impedance microphones pick up. The sounds you can hear in nature are amazing, just that you usually have to get away from it all just to be able to hear nature at play. But with contact microphones, you can open up a whole new level of sounds, think of them as microscopes for audio. But a simple piezo contact microphone is easy to make and if you have the equipment to take a balanced input signal, then for the extra cost of the extra piezo disc and 3 wire cable, that can be done just as cheaply. You will also need a pre-amp and though most things you can plug a microphone into will have some preamp that will get you started. Myself, I use a Zoom H4N pro portable audio recorder. Can get cheaper options, even projects that people have made their own form of portable recorder. But if you just want to listen, a simple preamp (can make one or buy one cheap enough) and some over-ear headphones, will get you into another world of sounds in everyday life that we miss out upon. Like I said earlier - it is like an audio microscope and opens up so much we miss out upon.

One thing you will learn, most nature programs you see upon TV, mess about/fake and play with the real sounds actually made in nature with a bias towards faking it and a penchant of layering so many effects that it makes autotune look like an angel in the music world for any purist. Bit like finding out about the actual status of Santa after years of childhood idolisation :).

But so many sounds we miss out upon. Equally we are very limited in our senses, Ultraviolet photography in nature shows us this. Sounds are just the same with our limited hearing, but that doesn't stop us. Bat listening devices exist and open up a another way of exploring the World around us.

If your into geeking out, you could use an array of contact microphones, sound identification and with placement, work out the timing and with triangulation - track all the earthworms. That would be a fun project, but probably low-down on many a project list.

<comment><USER9> That is a really neat way of thinking of things. Thanks for sharing.

I listen to music a lot, but sometimes it's worth it to take my headphones off and listen - really _listen_ to the world around me. It's strangely calming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Rhubarb is actually a very useful food. It is a good source of Emodin, which has gentle laxative properties. IMHO, it's better to eat foods that gently facilitate bowel movements than than to rely on laxatives.

I've been growing rhubarb for several years now. It comes back by itself every spring, and can be frozen for off-season use. The rabbits and gophers won't eat it, because the leaves are rather toxic to us animals (the stalks are perfectly edible, either cooked or raw). All I have to do is make sure my plants get adequate water.

This spring I bought three more bare rhubarb roots when they first appeared at the garden store. Last spring I bought bare root rhubarb late in the spring, when they were half-off, but they never grew.

The instructions say to not harvest any stalks the first year, so the plant can put energy into its root. When I bought my first plant it was already a year or two old. The garden center guy said to cut the bottom out of the pot it came in and put that over the plant, so the stalks would have to 'stretch' to reach sunlight.

Here's a random page about forcing, as this bbc article mentions: [http://rhubarbinfo.com/forcing](http://rhubarbinfo.com/forcing)

My blog post about Rhubarb as a 'functional food': [https://radialappliance.teslabox.com/2017/06/pie-plant- rhuba...](https://radialappliance.teslabox.com/2017/06/pie-plant-rhubarb-as- functional-food-in-the-cayce-readings/)

I think Rhubarb roots can be split when they get big enough, sort of like bulbs, but I haven't gotten to that point yet.

<comment><USER11> > Rhubarb is actually a very useful food.

Who do you think you're arguing against? This is a whole article about how it's useful for a lot of things.

<comment><USER12> Or possibly the OP is arguing against generally held preconceptions. As in, "Lamborghinis are actually lower in CO2 emissions than the average coupe on an annual basis, because their owners drive them so little."

<comment><USER11> Seems funny to respond to an article that says X with 'Actually, X'. Doesn't 'actually' usually introduce an alternative view or a contradiction?

<comment><USER13> Actually, yes it does introduce an alternate view or a contradiction, but it can also be used to intone superiority towards a subject matter or person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Someone should buy [http://forcedrhubarb.com](http://forcedrhubarb.com) ... I'd buy some :p

<comment><USER15> Someone has actually just bought that!

<comment><USER14> Indeed they have, the whois was blank when I posted the comment and is now owned by someone from Oklahoma.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That sounds amazing if you can actually hear it growing! We have a small patch of rhubarb in our garden that I quite fancy making a simple gin out of (just by steeping the rhubarb in the gin).

<comment><USER17> Do it! I've not actually tried gin myself, but vodka infused with rhubarb for a couple of weeks (and a bit of sugar to taste) definitely works well.

<comment> m-i-l Just don't do anything with the leaves! My parents used to have some rhubarb in the garden when I was young, and I had it drummed into me how poisonous the leaves were (not that I was the sort to go around eating random plants). Looks like "a 65 kg adult would need to eat 4 to 8 kg (9 to 18 lbs) [of leaves] to obtain a lethal dose"[0], although I guess you could still get pretty ill with much less.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My favorite rhubarb recipe:

[http://cooking-books.blogspot.com/2011/05/chicken-with- baked...](http://cooking-books.blogspot.com/2011/05/chicken-with-baked- rhubarb.html)

3 ingredients.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've never heard/seen of the rhubarb stuff, but fast growing plants are amazing to watch. Duckweed grows so fast that you can see bubbles and twitches on the surface of the water.

<comment><USER20> Whaaaat?! Strawberry Rhubarb pie is a MUST try!

<comment><USER21> Strawberry rhubarb is pie _lying_ about being cherry pie.

<comment><USER22> Cherry pie is an unfortunate shadow of strawberry rhubarb.

<comment><USER21> How _dare_ you sir?

Pistols at dawn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The candlelight is so dim I can't imagine it makes any difference, is it just for ambiance?

<comment><USER24> They actually grow in the dark by processing starches in roots. They candle are just used for viewing or picking. Fascinating process. I can't wait to try some of these one day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> "A notoriously fickle vegetable to harvest"

What? How? Its one of the easiest things to harvest ?!

<comment><USER26> I thought that was funny too. Once it's established, it keeps coming back, and you just need to take the stalks before it bolts.

<comment><USER25> Even if it bolts you just need to snap of the flowering stem, you can still continue picking, and it doesn't even bolt that easily. The only plant I know to reliably bolt is in a local allotment and is 6ft across, and 3 ft tall (that's the root mass, not the leaves).

<comment><USER26> I think it tends to bolt more reliably once it's well established. My father and grandmother both had big plantings of rhubarb, and they would bolt by midsummer. I don't know why we never harvested it after that, maybe because it wasn't as sweet? Not that it was ever particularly sweet in the first place, but for all that, so delicious.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A determined 'hacker' decrypts RDS-TMC (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.windytan.com/2013/05/a-determined-hacker-decrypts-rds-tmc.html <comment><USER2> Oona may have put 'hacker' in scare quotes as a tongue-in-cheek nod to the spec that she quotes in the article, but browse around her page a bit and you'll see that she is easily deserving of the title.

</comment><comment><USER3> The spirit with which Oona takes on these projects and talks/writes about them makes me incredibly happy and is crazy inspiring.

</comment><comment><USER4> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5656677](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5656677) (4 years ago, 45 comments)

<comment><USER5> Yep, should be marked [2013].

<comment><USER6> Added.</comment></comment></comment>


Louis C.K.: I won't let my kids have cell phones - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57603820-71/louis-c.k.-why-i-wont-let-my-kids-have-cell-phones/ <comment><USER2> I'm not a parent. I'm not old enough to have lived in an age when phones weren't common (19 years old).

And I totally agree with him. I didn't have myself my first phone until I was 14 years old (with some exceptions, like when going on school trips), and I can't thanks my parents enough for this.

I agree that smartphones can be really useful. You have infinite knowledge in your hand when you have a smartphone and a connection to internet.

But, you can also start depending on it. I know several people that can't leave their smartphones alone for more than 5 minutes, even when involved in social events. And it's not to access knowledge, it's either to chat with someone else, or check the latest "meme" over facebook.

Yes, it's "having fun", but when you're not able to live the moment, and have to access Facebook/Whatsapp every 5 minutes, it's called dependence.

Hopefully, Louis's child will not get into it. Thanks to their dad, they'll learn to enjoy real life, to enjoy the moment. And when they'll get their first smartphone, they'll be to busy enjoying their live to use it everytime.

<comment><USER3> I'm a bit older than you (6 years) and had a cell phone since I was in (I think) middle school. My phone was primarily for staying in contact with my mother because I was out of the house a large amount of the time, you don't need a smartphone for this.

At this time I think it probably would suck to be older than 13 and not have a phone, everyone you know is going to have one and that is going to be how they communicate with their friends if you don't have one you will get left out of the loop.

It is a parents choice but it might hurt children socially, on the other hand there were a few outliers in my high school who spent every minute of class on their phone (before smartphones were big) but this could be solved with prepaid phones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When did Louis C.K. become the guru of the internet, and when did parents decide they should accept parenting advice from a comic who's act is extremely child unfriendly?

Not only do I think a child not having a cellphone(even just a basic one) is a security risk, but I'd also think it could lead to less of a social life, not more of one. Kids not fitting into their peer group and being ostracized or picked on due to a lack of a phone/smartphone probably doesn't seem like a big deal to the 20, 30, or 40-something parent. Probably because that 20,30, or 40-something parent has forgotten what it was like to be a 7th grader. It also breeds feelings of resentment, and it portrays to the child a beautiful example of hypocrisy, as the parental unit continues to use the so-called "socially destructive" devices.

If you are not planning on giving your child a cellphone because you're afraid of it's destructive effect on their ability to communicate with other human beings, then what more are you doing to encourage social growth in your child? Not giving your kid a cellphone is a passive action, not a proactive action.

<comment><AUTHOR> A child will not get shot or kidnapped for not having a cell phone, and those who will ostracize your child because of the technology they _don 't_ have don't deserve to be your kid's friend anyhow. One could say that there is an ostensible social and security risk in not having a cell phone compared to if one _didn 't_ have a cell phone, but the risk really is very low, and if that level of risk disturbs you, an el-cheapo prepaid phone with no minutes on it (just 911) will suffice. I think people forget that we lived not even as early as 5 years ago where smartphones were not considered a necessity. Kids did fine with basic or no cell phones at all.

And before you pull the "Did you forget 7th grade" argument, I'm in high school. I only own an unactivated iPhone for development and testing, and really never call anyone.

<comment><USER5> > and those who will ostracize your child because of the technology they don't > have don't deserve to be your kid's friend anyhow.

yeah, but what if they're really cool and good-looking?

<comment><USER4> It does not have to be actual kids picking on another child, but the child can feel excluded. When I grew up my mom chronically destroyed the TVs we had because of content she didn't approve of. Sometimes we would be without a TV for years. Kids reactions to me not seeing a show because I didn't have a TV just made me feel like more of an outsider.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find it hard to disagree with Louis on this one. Overstimulation is a thing, and we live in a culture where the common case is for a room full of people to be staring at hunks of plastic instead of talking to one another. Let's be honest, given cellphones children are most likely to cyberbully, sext and drastically increase the intensity of the social feedback loop that is adolescence.

Internet access in any form factor can be a gateway to all of the world's knowledge, but the majority of people don't use 4G connections for high minded purposes. I personally have a hard time coming up with a case where an internet connected cell phone is absolutely necessary for anything. In my experience I've usually been able to wait until I get home (with the exception of looking up lost directions).

All of that being said, I don't think cellphones will bring about the end of childhood. "If everybody else is doing it..." isn't the worst argument when it comes to teenaged children, especially for larger values of "everyone else". If cellphones are truly harmful to child development then we're all screwed anyway. The overwhelming majority of teenagers have phones now... what's the point of one person teaching their kids how to communicate the old fashioned way if everybody else in the world is glued to a small screen?

Like everything else that children will be exposed to, cellphones are a matter of self control. It seems like it would be better to have long two way conversations with children about how to socialize properly and how they can be better than their tech-addicted friends. It's possible that forbidding the phone is a parenting easy out. It could take more time and effort to raise children who can resist the siren call of facebook updates.

We shouldn't confuse nostalgia for strong values. There has to be a balance between standing up for what we believe in as parents and giving children an experience that's consistent with the century that they were born in.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't think his argument makes a ton of sense. Children still interact through school, recess, sports, etc. Yes, they might post something hateful on Facebook or text something insulting to a friend but they still get to see the effects of their actions by comments. They still have to answer for their words the next day or right in the comment thread. No child wants to be excluded and will learn to play nice eventually. Phones can probably be related to board games or cards of the years past. Children have always found ways to keep to themselves when they're bored.

<comment><USER8> > _Phones can probably be related to board games or cards of the years past._

Except that phones are pretty much the opposite of that. Thanks to the magic of today's phones you won't have to deal with those boring people who happen to be in the same room as you.

<comment><USER9> When I was a kid, I always brought a book with me when I went places. Portable entertainment is not new. Occasionally I'd bring a deck of cards and play solitaire if I anticipated being somewhere conducive to that.

Our tendency to blame age-old problems on modern scapegoats usually reaffirms our biases, but less often is upheld by the data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have a rock in my pocket that has access to all of the world's knowledge. Why would anyone deprive another human being of that?

<comment><USER11> Because it's also a distraction rock that excuses you from the vestiges of normal human communication.

<comment><USER12> Hopefully the owners of these rocks have more self control than that. Maybe his point is that children aren't capable of that kind of self-control, but adults should be.

<comment><USER11> Have you been in public? I don't get the sense that most adults around me are trying to explore all of the world's knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why don't we just teach children how to practice moderation?

Unless as a punishment, I think it makes more sense to simply guide them as to when phone use is appropriate or excessive and make sure to be stern with those standards. This is not a new problem, it's pretty similar to the generation before us dealing with kids who stayed in all day playing video games. Sure, the kid will do whatever they want once they're out of your sight, but at the end of the day they'll insert your lessons into the category of "behaviors that adults expect me to embrace" and the individual child will react accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER14> Related: this is a great essay on the topic.

[http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-End-of- Solitude/3708](http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-End-of-Solitude/3708)

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a smart guy.

<comment><USER16> People are adapting to texting and emails very quickly, especially the new generation. It's not true that you are somehow less responsible for what you write in a text message these days. In fact I think the only reason for somebody to believe otherwise is that at least you have it now on record as opposed to hearing nothing or rumors who said what when.

<comment><USER11> I think he's arguing against the excuse for avoiding healthy interaction rather than the medium of communication. If text messaging provoked us to be more earnest and empathetic, then it wouldn't be considered as much of a problem.

<comment><USER16> I understand that. But I am arguing that people are not less empathetic. People are the same. The expressive power of the text message is worse, but this is being fixed very quickly. If you count community-ranked reputation- based systems (such as say HN) it will be far superior to the so called "healthy interaction" in terms of efficiency and trust. Then there is video and audio communication. Perfectly viable to run 100 million dollar businesses and relationships. It's really not that bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm kind of glad I didn't have a cell phone until I was 23. That's right around the point they became really mainstream, not just for the business types or the heavy telephone users. When you could get crazy replacement phone cases for your Nokia in Chinatown with trademark-infringing graphics on them.

But I digress. It definitely feels like most people inherently tend toward having difficulty moderating their use of any technology that has a tight reward feedback loop.

I think the interesting question here is whether giving kids a mobile phone enhances their psychological 'immune system' as an adult, or whether it just instills these patterns of almost-addictive mobile phone use earlier on at an age when it's more important to be learning basic facts, developing critical thinking skills, and developing creative ability.

</comment><comment><USER18> Resistance is futile. (unfortunately)

<comment><USER19> I dunno, I am 44 and have never had a cell phone nor do I see the need for one. It's not that hard to resist.</comment></comment>


Why I'm investing in Windows Phone and skipping Android - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cubeofm.com/why-im-investing-in-windows-phone-and-skippin

<comment><USER2> This blog post is sooo bad and uninformed, it's hard to believe he is making money with mobile software.

So, to his points:

Google does not care about me. Google does not give me any mode of getting in contact with them. With both Apple and Microsoft, I have access to their developers

Mh, what? Freenode irc channels, google code open issue trackers? a LOT of forums and blogposts to learn from? Official "support" on stackoverflow and mailinglists? Last time i checked finding iPhone dev information was rather hard due to NDA stuff (i was told that this is changing/has changed). To find people to talk to (even from google) is really not hard. Apparently the blog poster didn't even try the least bit.

Google does not seem to want anyone to make money on their platform. They just put their platform out there, and say : do what you want with it. There is no attempt to actually make people make money

What does this mean?! Put it in the android market, get paid with google checkout or put ads in your app with admob. "They just put it out there" is exactly the nice thing, especially for a developer. You can take a look at the whole source, you have everything you need!

Android as a user device is horrible. It's jerky, slow you have random flashes, and it's totally uninnovative compared to the iPhone. There is absolutely nothing new there.

"Totally uninnovative"? What? The first phones (i owned the G1) were rather slow due to slow hardware, sure. Current Hardware (Droid & Nexus One) is fast and responsive, no doubt about that. I'd rate the Nexus One on par with the iphone (and most iPhone users i have met agree).

All in all, the blog post starts with heavy trolling... and i shouldn't even respond to that.. :/

<comment><USER3> All that support stuff is great for hobbyists, but completely unacceptable for businesses. With Apple and Microsoft you get incident support. If something comes up, you email them your project, they dig into the source, and they tell you what's going on at the code level. The iPhone Developer Program gives you two code-level incident supports, and the ones after that are absurdly cheap. Microsoft also gives you a phone option.

This is how real business support works, not forums and mailing lists. The latter is cool, but you also need the latter to have a serious platform.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, we have all heard the stories about the great support iPhone developers get, if their app is rejected for the app store.

If that is professional business, I prefer to stay independent. Actually, all the pain just might be a deliberate barrier to entry for "small fish". Companies are used to dealing with pain, individuals less so.

<comment><USER3> As a professional iPhone developer with a multiple top ranking apps, that shit just doesn't really happen anymore. You're much more likely to get a call from Apple with suggestions on what to edit.

The horror stories are from 6-9 months ago, and are outdated. So, while folks trot them out in threads like this as examples of how terrible iPhone development is, actual iPhone developers know that it doesn't really come up.

Our last two updates were accepted within 24 hours, for instance. Our last new application took three submits, due to issues on our end- every email from them was helpful, and actually IMPROVED the final application. Turnaround was 48 hours, and, on the last submission, they expedited to same-day when I asked them to.

<comment><USER5> I have an app (nowhere near top ranking tho) and I agree with you for the most part. My first submission took 2 days and any updates have taken less than 24 hours. One took less than 6 hours for them to turn it around and get it on the app store.

My only issue with the app store now is the returns. I have had 1 return and all I got from Apple was the form letter that if you have a lot of returns it might be a quality issue. What I would like to see is at least the questionnaire the customer fills out in order for Apple to grant the return. At least this way I can know if it's some sort of serious problem or just someone who made a purchase by mistake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting but risky point. What if the new Windows Mobile flops due to critical problems much like the other Windows Mobiles?

Android at least is already gathering momentum, despite all its issues. It's nice that Microsoft cares, but you won't get rich selling to the 3 people who decided to buy a Microsoft phone.

You say "They care about how polished the outside looks, how thin it is, and how smooth and fast the user interface is."

People also care about how easy it is to do whatever they're trying to do. And this combination, smooth, fast, and easy, is really hard to achieve. I'm not entirely convinced Microsoft is still up to it, though I'll be glad to be surprised.

<comment><USER7> _People also care about how easy it is to do whatever they're trying to do. And this combination, smooth, fast, and easy, is really hard to achieve. I'm not entirely convinced Microsoft is still up to it, though I'll be glad to be surprised._

I think Microsoft may stand an outside chance; they are already going in the right direction with recent UI/UX changes in Windows. They've always got that it should be slick but usable; their major problems (in the past) have been in realizing that slick on a desktop != slick on a phone...

<comment><USER8> The most serious problem with previous versions of Windows Mobile isn't the myriad UI issues (which are collectively definitely a close second), it's the stability of the core OS. Every last person I know who has owned a WinMo phone (which is admittedly still not very many people, so sample size warning!) has complained about how frequently they have to reboot their phone. This is particularly egregious when the phone crashes as it sits idly in your pocket, causing you to miss incoming calls until you take out your phone and realize what has happened.

In order for Windows Phone 7 to succeed where Windows Mobile failed, they need to revamp the internals of the OS just as drastically as they have revamped their UI. It's definitely possible that they have done it; clearly Microsoft cares a lot about this release and clearly some major parts of the underlying OS are changing. But I personally would not bet months of development time on it until someone outside MS gets the chance to use the phones in a non-demo environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As an Android user for the past several months there is not a single app that would compel me to stay on the platform.

I've been patiently waiting for the Android Market to start filling up with polished apps, fun games, and tools to help me at work. Unfortunately, I'm several months in and the best-selling games are Bejeweled knock-offs, and a $3.99 version of Doodle Jump. I didn't make my choice of phone platform based upon game selection, but it definitely seems that iPhone developers are focused on building businesses and making money, while Android developers are mainly hobbyists, tinkering on niche projects.

To the author's point, if the existing .NET development community can leap- frog Android in terms of app output and app quality, then they would make a believer out of me.

<comment><USER4> I agree there are not many nice games. Didn't miss many other things, but I am not much of an app collector.

However, the lack of quality apps is motivating me as a developer. How am I supposed to compete on the iPhone, if there are a gazillion apps that are polished bordering on cheesiness? Seems to me on Android there are more opportunities for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10>
      Microsoft has seen what Apple and others have done,
      and have made something along the same line,
      but daring and new.

Daring and new is fine, but in this case daring and new is not enought, it must be useable too. Too many copycats failed for the very simple reason: copying the superficial aspects and having no idea about the essence why the things they copy work in the first place.

      Microsoft is investing in the right type of
      future oriented technologies

I'd say that one of the killer apps for iPhone is Mobile Safari. Why one cannot argue about MS effort, sorry, but anything they can put on the device won't stand a chance compared to WebKit browsers.

      Microsoft has a huge marketing and development budget
      to push anything they want

That may be the problem, not a solution. Thinking that marketing can fix a bad product, or thinking that innovation is proportional to money thrown on the problem. Usually it is the other way around: restrictions sprak innovation.

      Microsoft has integrated its programming languages across all platforms,
      implying a huge number of devs will program for their platforms

This is two sided also. Brought back memories of Win shareware.

</comment><comment><USER11> He makes a _really_ good argument. I agree with most of his points, especially this:

 _Technology people tend to vastly overestimate the things that people look at when deciding if a phone is good or not. They care about how polished the outside looks, how thin it is, and how smooth and fast the user interface is. There is really not much more! They don't care about multi-tasking or open source or any of that stuff - they care about how impressed other people are when they look at them using the phone._

I started with a MyTouch and moved to a Nexus One (which I have now). The more I use Android, the less appealing it becomes. Honestly... who cares that it's open source? It's a novelty. The AOSP stuff for 2.1 has been out forever, yet the only device to be using it is the Nexus. The fragmentation is killing it. I think a lot of Apple's success with the iPhone comes from a lot of it's restraints.

In the long run I still think Apple is always going to have the upper hand.. not only because it was first in this new generation of smartphones, but because they control every aspect of the device. OS, Hardware, Applications and App Store.

I wasn't even considering the Windows phone... but now it's definitely in the back of my mind.

</comment><comment><USER12> I want to like the new Windows Phone interface, but I hate it. I want to like it because I want there to be competition to the iPhone and Android is so... crummy. Android phones are _still_ unresponsive, clunky, unpolished and just... bad.

Take a look at the Engadged video Max links to. There's no way easy way to navigate through the Windows Phone. Animations everywhere that take seconds. Did you notice that opening the address book took 5 seconds? I sure did. Everything is moving and shifting permanently -- so you'll get nauseous if you put it on your desk. The web browser? Checkerboard all the way through the moment you start scrolling, and you can't even zoom in and out before the page has loaded. And the responsiveness was bad too. Tap on a caption. Wait two seconds. Tap again. Wait. See animation. Scroll. Urgh.

Note the guy didn't mention anything about 3rd party software. Where are those apps going to end up? Will you be able to install/uninstall easily? And so on.

I think it's going to flop.

</comment><comment><USER13> Completely agree that nerd appeal matters not one bit to end-users. But while yes, they pay attention to the polish, what they are really after is being cool. And no cool person I know is going to get caught carrying Microsoft around while there are iPhones in the world. The Droid is show-off-worthy and cool too. Microsoft has a steep climb out of its uncool-ness, and I for one, would not bank on it. But I've been wrong before.

Found it interesting how Android is dissed as something that appeals only to nerds, which in my mind I kept equating with "developers" and the reasoning this is bad, while Microsoft's strategy is good is that they focus on developers, developers, developers.

I like how Max likes being the contrarian, much ala Giles Bowkett, and get tons of traffic and us commenting on his articles. He's output a good number just this year and about all of these have made it into HN's home page. He knows how to get nerds talking, that's for sure.

<comment><USER13> Man, got carried away talking about cool that forgot about my other thought. Any iPhone-competing device will need manufacturers and the carriers to push it. Android has that going already. Surely Microsoft will get plenty phones out there in time, but will it be soon enough and at a competitive price point? we'll see I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The blogpost seems a bit too praising towards Microsoft for my taste. But there is one bullet point missing there:

* Microsoft guys are desperate they will lose the mobile market for iPhone on the upper-end and Android on the lower-end so they will throw as much money at the problem to get into the spotlights again.

Of course this won't help them much since all the 3 companies involved (Apple, Google and Microsoft) have tons of cash.

The rest of the arguments are also debatable.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think he has a point in that I pretty much have the impression that windows phone and iphone users will be more likely to spend a dime on something, as compared to android users I know :)

<comment><USER16> I think that the Windows Phone market (>30 crowd) are a great market. They have money, small amounts don't matter to them, they are not so jaded and have not already seen everything on reddit. They also are not aware that they can do a lot of the things they buy for free on some website.

That's the problem with Android - it targets the nerd market, which is the worst market to sell software to.

<comment><USER15> > They also are not aware that they can do a lot of the things they buy for > free on some website.

Or alternatively (in my case) they know a free alternative exist, but they are ok to pay on a paid version if it saves them some time to be spent with their friends, kids, hobbies or sideprojects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Apple won this round because they already had access to people's pocketbooks through existing iTunes users.

It will take years (5?) for any other company to build up a marketplace like iTunes. Honestly, Amazon or eBay could out-compete Google or Microsoft in this area right now, because they have regular paying customers. Hell, Amazon already has some experience with mobile devices (Kindle).

</comment><comment><USER18> The downside of Windows Phone 7 is that it is the most limiting and sandboxed development platform of all mobile operating systems. No native code execution like Android, no multitasking, no direct access to the camera, no sockets support and more. Even Silverlight has less restrictions.

<comment><USER19> Android has native code execution via the NDK:

<http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html>

<comment><USER18> My mistake, i meant to write "No native code execution support like Android has".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This trend is for real, I know people who preferred Windows Mobile to iphone recently.

</comment><comment><USER4> Was he paid by MS to write that (Microsoft cares that he makes money - in more then one way)?

<comment><USER16> If this were about Apple, I don't think anyone would even think that the person were being paid. No, Microsoft did not pay me, just the same as Google did not way me to write my article about Google Wave.

<comment><USER4> It's just that it sounded very one-sided in a very weird way. For example pointing to the countless .NET developers. There are countless Java developers, too. Same with the "they'll throw money at it to make it successful" - so will Apple and Google.

Many of the other points are mostly a matter of taste, I suppose.

Why does Microsoft care that you earn money?

Good luck with Windows Mobile!

Edit: I just remembered another thing - smart people can rationalize everything. Maybe you are just trying to rationalize your decision for yourself, that is why it sounds a bit weird to the outside.

<comment><USER16> Obviously, deluding myself into believing what I want to believe is a big problem that we all face. But I'm well aware of this, and I've factored it in into my decision. I'm here for the money, not for any misguided loyalty to open or free software or any company. It appears to me that Microsoft is going to do the right thing. It has the prerequisites for this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Thinly veiled advertisement from microsoft?

<comment><USER6> Max Klein (author of this blog) is a regular HN member with some 5000 karma and many insightful comments.

<comment><USER7> Thinly veiled advertisement from maxklein?

(sorry couldn't resist :))

<comment><USER16> I funnelled some of the cash I received from Microsoft to swombat. Win, win situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't know about the article, but if I click on another HN article and end up on a page with Posterous trying to get me to sign up? I'm going to go running screaming into the night.

A few times was okay, guys. I get it. Everybody has to advertise. After about 10 or 20, if I haven't signed-up, I'm not going to.

<comment><USER16> Screenshot? If posterous is intruding on the reading experience of my users I'm going to change it.

<comment><USER22> Just tried it again from FF and got it. Trying it a second time from Chrome did not bring up the error.

I'll email you the image.

It says it can't find the link, and I get sent to the posterous splash page.

Interestingly enough, it looks like every other page request I send to posterous today from this browser will be honored. But if I switch to a new browser and go to click on a blog that's hosted on posterous, back I go to their "can't find the link and wouldn't you like to start using our service!" page.

Perhaps it's just a bug. But it's a bug that acts exactly like somebody continuously trying to get me to start using something I do not want to use. So whether it's intentional or not, it's annoying as hell.

<comment><USER22> As a follow, in case any of the posterous guys are listening, Max and I played around a bit and could not replicate the error.

My current guess -- it's not my problem so all I have is a guess -- is that under heavy load, posterous fails to resolve the blog name and instead takes new users to the splash page. This may be a scaling problem, or it could be random pestering. From a user's standpoint, it looks a lot like pestering.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


An Open Letter To Women In Technology - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/about-work/405b2d12d213

<comment><USER2> Anyone else think the author has gone off her meds for that post?

Are women a minority in the tech industry? I'd be willing to bet yes. Does that mean they're less capable? Obviously not. It just means there are fewer.

"the anonymous white male militia that threatens to rape and kill us when we speak up"

Stay off 4chan. They don't represent the tech world.

"Let's create a system for revealing and publicly challenging the pervasive anti-feminist propaganda of our industry."

Uhh... where the hell is THAT? I have yet to crack a book on Python or open /etc/sudoers and see "No girls allowed"

"They will pay their white male terrorist regime to photoshop our faces onto dead bodies, to email us rape threats, to publish our home addresses."

Again, stay away from 4chan. They don't represent the tech world.

<comment><USER3> Do people who accuse a passionate writer who wants equality of going "off her meds" represent the tech world?

> "the anonymous white male militia that threatens to rape and kill us when we > speak up"

This is a thing that happens. You don't have to go to 4chan to find it. It _shows up at your doorstep and at your office._

Shut the fuck up and quit dismissing a problem you don't understand.

<comment><USER2> I'm not dismissing the problem at all. I personally haven't seen it, but I've heard about gender inequality in the industry. I'd be pissed if I found out my female colleagues aren't making what I make for the same work and skills. You probably aren't going to believe that, but frankly, I don't care. It's the truth whether or not you believe it.

I'm not claiming to represent the tech world at all. I'm just some dude with an internet connection. And I'm not _accusing_ her of going "off her meds" but the tone of her article DOES seem mentally unbalanced (to a degree) in some places, which is why I drew the comparison. She may very well be the epitome of being mentally balanced, but perhaps her passion for the topic came across in the wrong way when she wrote the piece. Maybe if she'd written it in a way that didn't try to vilify white males (or anyone other than the people who actually take part in the discrimination) I could've taken it more seriously, but she didn't. As a result, I don't take ___THIS ARTICLE_ __seriously, but that doesn't mean that I don't take the issue seriously.

If there's a specific issue - REPORT IT to the appropriate authority and make sure it gets dealt with. I'm entirely in favour of equality, but don't try to get it by stomping someone else down. Instead, try to lift yourself up. It may be far more difficult, but you also have a whole lot more credibility and respect when you do it that way.

Regardless of all other points, if my previous post (or this one) offended you or anyone else, I sincerely apologize for that. It was absolutely not my intention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 'Women' are not a class. Sex is neither hereditary, nor locally confined, nor necessarily bound to little property. Nor are 'men' a class, and trying to construct a 'class warfare' is as much bullshit as trying to construct a 'class warfare' of left-handed versus right-handed people. Stop it.

Also, your notion of distinguishing between people based on their gender is highly sexist.

</comment><comment><USER5> If men are part of a patriarchy, I should be getting paid more money.</comment>


DuoCode and React: an incredible match I can't recommend highly enough - <AUTHOR> http://productiverage.com/react-and-flux-with-duocode

<comment><USER2> Great article.</comment>


New Raspberry Pi 4 Firmware Lowers Temperature by 3-5°C - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/06/29/new-raspberry-pi-4-vli-firmware-lowers-temperature/ <comment><USER2> New _USB controller_ firmware, apparently. The fact that it can have any effect on the CPU temperature is a little puzzling.

 _I work in a office where the air conditioner is set to 28°C_

Wow. As someone who is used to a room temperature of 20C, 28C is above the point of idle sweating and becoming lethargic. While that's still within the range that most consumer electronics are rated for, I believe a room temperature of 20C is the normal design target.

<comment><USER3> Strangely this is a very a cultural thing.

I'm from Australia and in summer the cooling can't cope and does indeed result in indoor temperatures exceeding 28°C. However, I'm drenched in sweat and certainly can't focus at that point. I will happily head outside and enjoy the crazy heat, but be productive? Nope!

I think heating and A/C target around 21°C in Melbourne.

However, I traveled to Vienna for a week long contract some years back. Sure it was cold outside (snowing), but I found all the offices and buildings excruciatingly hot and couldn't focus one bit. Made for a very miserable working week.

Of course, the locals all managed fine, so despite it seeming like a personal preference thing, I can only assume it's something you can adapt to.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, you'd think the places with very cold climates would have appropriately lower working temperature at the offices. Nope. Most sweltering offices I have ever been to were both in Canada and in Sweden in the middle of winter - easily -20C outside, and the office felt like it was set to 30C, it was insanely uncomfortable for me.

<comment><USER5> This seems to work the other way too. Lot's of hot countries seem to set the AC to 18c. I did trip to south america, and I needed warm clothing specifically for air conditioned busses and dormitories.

In the UK (where I live) I believe the recommended guideline is 21-24c

<comment><USER6> Yes, I also noticed it in SE Asia. I guess, due to the fact that AC was (and in some places is) too expensive for the majority of population, cold air feels like a luxury attribute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Raspberry Pi 4 is _really_ impressive hardware for the price. In these CPU benchmarks with heatsink attached, it slightly edges out the Jetson Nano developer board, which retails for $99.

Since one of the popular uses of the Raspberry Pi is to be an emulation box, this will mean it will now be capable of running most of the N64, Dreamcast and PSP library comfortably. The Raspberry Pi 3B+ could barely handle even select easier-to-emulate titles of these systems. It might even start running a handful of GameCube and Wii titles now using Dolphin. It also helps it to run tricks to vastly reduce input lag that troubles most emulation setups [1]. And the nice thing is that all of that should even work on the cheapest 1GB model.

It's even conceivable this can be used as a desktop in many ways. It is faster than some Chromebooks. However this will probably only truly enjoyable to use when using PXE for its main OS drive to have I/O performed on a server that can leverage SSD storage.

Mind you that the software is in a very pre release state, so none of this is really doable at the moment of writing. Especially the VideoCore (GPU and hardware video codec) driver seems to be in quite a sorry state and there's not even a hint of Vulkan support. The beauty of having a Raspberry Pi over another single board computer is that software support will come eventually though.

[1]: [https://www.libretro.com/index.php/retroarch-runahead-and- ra...](https://www.libretro.com/index.php/retroarch-runahead-and-raspberry- pi-4-the-results-are-in/)

<comment><USER8> In fairness to the Jetson Nano, aren't you mostly paying for the CUDA graphics card? The CPUs in there are good, but I'll bet the Nano beats it in the GPU department (at least once the firmwares and drivers are super-optimized).

Though that may admittedly be cognitive dissonance, since I've been trying to talk myself into purchasing a Jetson for more than a month now.

<comment><USER7> Most likely yes. There is very little known about the VideoCore VI's capabilities, but it doesn't look impressive. They state OpenGL ES 3.0 support, which to me implies that it doesn't even support compute shaders (introduced in OGL ES 3.1). It looks like the hardware lacks features many modern graphics architectures can be expected to have. As a point of comparison, Nvidia has supported compute shaders in their architectures for eight full yearrs now. If I understand the spec sheet correctly Vulkan will never come to the RPi 4 because of hardware limitations.

On top of that, in basic initial benchmarks using OpenArena the GPU only shows a 50% improvement over the RPi 3B+, which is still using the same GPU architecture the RPi launched with in 2013. That benchmark doesn't test shader performance so it's not the best indicator, but it doesn't make the chip look any more impressive either.

I think Broadcom is not spending the R&D resources required to keep their graphics architecture up to date. It's a shame because the GPU of the original Raspberry Pi was really good for its time, and maybe the most impressive specification it had.

If you want to do graphics/compute tasks on an SBC the Nano (or just the full uncompromised Nvidia Shield TV) will undoubtedly be superior.

<comment><USER7> I have spoken too soon. Khronos lists the VideoCore VI as Vulkan compatible - latest Vulkan 1.1 compatible even [1]. Apparently compute shader support is being worked on for the VideoCore driver [2], which explains why it's missing from current reviews. Functionality to support compute shaders is not even present in current Mesa's git HEAD, let alone on Debian Buster's older Mesa version.

So it not having a modern featureset is a result of more driver issues. It's clear that this hardware has been a surprise release. Oh well, even then using an Nvidia Jetson gives you way better software support for graphics / compute tasks in the forseeable future.

[1]: [https://www.khronos.org/conformance/adopters/conformant- prod...](https://www.khronos.org/conformance/adopters/conformant- products#submission_344)

[2]: [https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=V3D-Comp...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=V3D-Compute- Shader-Compilation)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Sadly, I can't measure [power consumption] as my power meter is dead._

Would be nice to see those measurements, as RPi 4's idle consumption (initial reports of ~3 watts) is quite poor compared to RPi 2B and 3B's ~1 watt.

<comment><AUTHOR> From what I've read it consumes 1W extra over the 3B+. But it's understandable given that everything that could be upgraded was upgraded. Far more powerful CPU, USB/Eth, and possibly 3GB of extra RAM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > I did not understand VLI at first, but eventually understand this referred > to the firmware for VIA VL805 PCIe USB 3.0 controller on the board.

Possibly a stupid question: what does "VLI" stand for?

<comment><USER11> After some googling, it looks like VLI is the manufacturer that produced the USB controller chip [1] for the Raspberry Pi, so I guess that VLI firmware is the firmware that they provided for their chip.

[1] [https://www.via-labs.com/product_show.php?id=48](https://www.via- labs.com/product_show.php?id=48)

<comment><USER12> An amusing side note (or maybe I'm easily amused):

A couple of years ago I bought a USB-C drive enclosure, and when I use the Windows "safe removal" menu it shows up as "VLI Product String".

Yes, the case manufacturer didn't bother changing the string in the sample VLI firmware!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I just tried out the Pi 4 yesterday and after a couple of hours of headless idling with no peripherals connected (just wifi) it was so hot, I almost burned my finger.

So this is definitely welcomed. But heatsinks or even fans will likely be necessary to do anything with the pi 4

<comment><USER14> I don't have a pi 4 to play with, but is there any chance you could try one of the mini heatsinks that just adhere onto the cpu, without any active cooling?

I'm just curious to see if that helps much, they're pretty cheap and could be useful other places too (I use one on the VTX for my drone)

You can check the temperature though the pi itself. From my experience depending on the material/length of contact, things start to get too hot to comfortably hold after ~55C/60C for most metals, but brief contact might barely feel warm.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Easycargo-Raspberry-Heatsink- Aluminum...](https://www.amazon.com/Easycargo-Raspberry-Heatsink-Aluminum- conductive/dp/B07217N5LS/)

<comment><USER15> Those are mostly useless (they only slow down temperature changes a little).

Only thing that really helps is active cooling / moving the air. You also have to figure out the placement of the board. The air will move via convection, and if you get air movement from a hotter part of the board (PMIC) to the SoC, you'll not improve things much.

I don't think perf gains in Rpi4 are of much use, if it idles at 65°C (my ambient temperature is ~32°C at home) and has to throttle down to <1GHz under persistent load.

<comment><USER16> ARM A72 chips use out of order execution, which already gives 3x the performance.

<comment><USER14> I'm curious what benchmarks you've seen that actually show a 3x compute improvement? Most of the benchmarks I've seen show a ~30% improvement in CPU compute, while I/O has improved tremendously, as well as the memory.

But again I've only seen ~30% improvement in CPU workloads, a far cry from "3x the performance" that I keep seeing.

<comment><USER16> You may have seen GPU comparisons.

[https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/wp- content/uploads/2019/06...](https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/wp- content/uploads/2019/06/2019-06-21-15_40_11-Window.png)

[https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/wp- content/uploads/2019/06...](https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/wp- content/uploads/2019/06/2019-06-21-15_41_55-Window.png)

<comment><USER15> Speedometer (chrome) may be more dependent on mem bandwidth which is 2x of RPi 3.

<comment><USER16> What makes you say that? Dynamic languages are usually chasing pointers which is something that out of order execution helps with tremendously.

<comment><USER15> This is supposedly some TODO app being run repeatedly in Chrome, so it's much more than a JS benchmark.

And Chrome as a whole is memory hungry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The fact that the RPi has writable onboard state/storage of any kind whatsoever (save for the fuses which are WORM) comes as news to me.

The SoC firmware is loaded from the FAT partition on the SD card, so there is no "flashing" (in the traditional EEPROM sense) of the system firmware. Apparently the USB chip has its own EEPROM?

<comment><USER18> To make things worse, AFAIK the USB chip is connected through PCIe, so unless the RPi has an IOMMU, it could in theory DMA to anywhere in the host memory.

<comment> gjsman-1000 According to the RPF:

"The ARM cores are capable of running at up to 1.5 GHz, making the Pi 4 about 50% faster than the Raspberry Pi 3B+. The new VideoCore VI 3D unit now runs at up to 500 MHz. The ARM cores are 64-bit, and while the VideoCore is 32-bit, there is a new Memory Management Unit, which means it can access more memory than previous versions."

[https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...](https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bcm2711/README.md)

So, MAYBE?

<comment><USER19> An IOMMU serves a slightly different purpose than a normal MMU. The graphic on Wikipedia [0] sums it up pretty well. The lack of an IOMMU would mean that if the firmware on the USB controller was malicious in some way, it could access memory it would otherwise not have access to.

0: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input%E2%80%93output_memory_ma...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input%E2%80%93output_memory_management_unit)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> When we say firmware, are we talking about a binary blob? Can it be replaced if we're willing to take an efficiency hit?

<comment><USER21> Basically all USB 3 host controllers run firmware of some description. Some can be updated in the field, some can't. You pretty much can't get away from proprietary code if you want USB 3, but in most cases it's hidden from you.

<comment><USER22> Why is that? Is USB 3 a proprietary spec?

<comment><USER23> The spec isn't proprietary, you can download all 482 pages of it right here[1]. It's just that a USB controller needs firmware and none of the vendors making USB3 controller chips have open sourced their firmware. Most chip vendors are not exactly huge fans of open source and likely consider portions of the firmware to be trade secrets.

[1] [https://www.usb3.com/whitepapers/USB%203%200%20(11132008)-fi...](https://www.usb3.com/whitepapers/USB%203%200%20\(11132008\)-final.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> High temperatures and other Rpi4 issues are covered by Andreas Spiess in [https://youtu.be/0diTHAmVbhc](https://youtu.be/0diTHAmVbhc)

<comment><USER25> In what way? Any interesting or just stating the same facts that a 15 line paragraph could cover?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Aww, the article explains that it's just the CPU that is running cooler. I was hoping we'd found a quick fix for global warming. :-(</comment>


Multisig and Simple Contracts on Stellar - <AUTHOR> https://www.stellar.org/blog/multisig-and-simple-contracts-stellar/ <comment><USER2> Nice to see someone able to move the ball forward with distributed consensus systems-- The bitcoin community as a whole has been stuck in the mud for far too long at this point.

Sadly, I still can't shake the subtle feeling that something greasy is still going on here-- The sins of Ripple continue to haunt us all I guess.

<comment><USER3> What are the sins of Ripple?

I tried googling but only saw some mentions of "problems with the existing consensus algorithm" which seem to have been remedied with Stellar's 2015 April whitepaper.

<comment><USER2> It was a "consensus algorithm" in name only-- any conflict in consensus was "solved" by a central or semi-central control structure. It was also "pre- mined" in that all the ripples already existed and had been magically bestowed upon a few anointed individuals.

In addition to these shortfalls at an architectural level, the folks who seemed to be both in control of the centralized authority and sitting on top of all the premined ripples had well documented histories of shady behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Joyce from Stellar.org here! We are also putting together another presentation on off-validator storage in XDR within Stellar-Core that was briefly mentioned in the post. Graydon is working on it now.

<comment><USER5> Congratulations to the whole team, Joyce! I'm happy for you guys. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does this mean the stellar codebase is no longer a fork of ripple? How much of the stellar codebase is descendant directly from the ripple codebase?

<comment><USER7> Yes it is a completely new codebase. No code is shared between them in either the core or the libraries.</comment></comment>


A bunch of rants about cloud-induced damage - <AUTHOR> https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2020/05/06/scale/ <comment><USER2> Interesting article, although the author mixes two different problems:

(1) the fact that "cloud" (or in fact any virtualized system) is hard to debug, especially when it comes to performance problems;

(2) the fact that most often "cloud" systems come packaged with "elasticity" solutions;

Unfortunately I think both issues described are true, however none of them are deal-breakers. Uncertainty when comes to performance can be taken into account, as it happens at many layers, not only the OS / VM, including the programming language level due to garbage collection.

Now regarding the auto-scaling based on CPU, this is unfortunately too true... All cloud providers (I have experience with AWS) are quick to sell you CPU- based auto-scaling. However CPU usage doesn't always translate to a true load metric, especially for applications with non-uniform request patterns.

This is why I have taken another approach: identify the number of requests a single VM can handle in parallel, and if that threshold is reached, although the server will queue requests and serve them in a FIFO manner, start creating new VM's.

(With AWS auto-scaling group rules it is a little bit more complex, but that is the gist of it.)

<comment><USER3> There is also so much more to the 'cloud' then just CPU usage. If your focus is devs are using the CPU inefficiently, I see this problem independent from the cloud. People with on-prem servers are just as guilty of building beefier servers when code optimizations are possible.

The way I see it, there is a kind of equation for this:

cost of a hiring someone who can manage servers vs 'cloud markup'.

Lets say it would cost 60k to hire this person, that is a lot of inefficiencies you can get away with. What you get 'for free' is your services automatically running on multiple availability zones and really great uptimes with minimum effort.

My company would gladly piss away lots of cash than have an hour of downtime. Devs and Business people really have different perspectives on these things.

This is why we migrated from Hetzner to Azure, even though Azure is wayyy more expensive. Got bitten once by Hetzer downtime and never came back.

The second half of their rant is directed at auto-scaling solutions (k8?). I have my own share of problems with k8, but I guess the problem I have with these kind of abstract rants, is they don't really offer any interesting insight or solutions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> FYI the author sells server hardware.

Seems somewhat disingenuous not to mention that up front.

<comment><USER5> I do? Holy crap when do I start getting those checks?

<comment><USER6> Your bucket of gold is on the way. Just wait for the next rainbow</comment></comment></comment>


Crowdsourced identification of London rioters - <AUTHOR> http://londonrioters.co.uk/identify/

<comment><USER2> Was there not something similar after the Vancouver riots? There were misgivings expressed: [http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/world/on-the-dangers-of- crowd...](http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/world/on-the-dangers-of-crowdsourced- surveillance). Was is successful?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm on a pretty slow connection here, so If I want to try identify some rioters, I need to sit and wait for a whole page to load with the new image? I could do that once, maybe twice before getting bored.

Why not just follow the "old school" method and just make a page full of faces, like the newspapers are doing. There is nothing new or innovative about this site, if anything it's backwards!

</comment><comment><USER4> Identify them and then what? If you haven't got any witnesses to accompany the photo, it is useless as evidence. Running around masked with a cardboard box full of stuff is not a crime by itself.

<comment><USER3> I don't know about this site, but the photos in the UK newspapers are released by the police - so they are probably linked to evidence on that person. So if you could identify someone the police would just have to find them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't know how small the image set is but it kept getting the same image again and again. Maybe one in five was a dupe.

The only person I recognised was Kernel Sanders ;)

</comment><comment><USER6> I have recognized PM David Cameron, what about u guys?

</comment><comment><USER7> Reminds me to Minority Report. Really. I'd like to express something without beeing rude, because it's a waste of energy.

<emotionml xmlns="[http://www.w3.org/2008/11/emotionml>](http://www.w3.org/2008/11/emotionml>); <emotion date="2011-08-12"> <intensity value="0.5" confidence="1.0"/> <category set="everydayEmotions" name="boredom" confidence="0.1"/> </emotion>

<emotion date="2011-08-12" <friendliness value="-0.5"/> <arousal value="very high"/> <valence value="negative"/> <rejecting value="3.0"/> </emotion>

</emotionml>

I'm sorry if my emotion doesn't validate for you, but it validates for me ;)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is the most dangerous use of technology these days: Incrimination. I've been campaigning to have this site shut down in various places.

All it takes is incorrect information, a bad photo or a grudge and the world comes down for an innocent person. On the hand of the guilty people, it shows nothing of what they have done, merely a snapshot in time.

Also, if the database is hacked or leaked in any way, a lot of people are going to suffer from vigilante attacks.

This is simply NOT A GOOD THING.

Also it's technically 100% ILLEGAL as they do not have a data controller and are not registered with the ICO. This IS vigilante justice by idiots.

And after all, the politicians gave a clear message with the expense scandals, News Corp scandals and cuts that it's ok to loot and pillage...

<comment><USER9> This goes a bit beyond the purpose of the website but is in context of what you wrote about incrimination and vigilantes:

It is amazing how quickly and effortlessly the otherwise so liberal and typically indifferent average internet user will turn into a zealous vigilante from behind their keyboard - I remember countless instances of that on reddit and 4chan basically calling for a lynch mob on people who tortured animals or did other very-bad-image crimes.(And by "bad image" I am referring to the fact that the average internet vigilantes I encountered definitely has strongly skewed priorities as to which crimes need the most severe punishment) And there are reports of the same being rather "popular" in China.

And the worst part was? You could not convince them that what they are doing is completely wrong, illegal and immoral by all of our modern social standards. I mean, really, what ever happened to "in dvbio pro reo" and do these people not realize how very much alike their actions are to the dark times of the SS/SA, Gestapo and Stasi? How can you justify "taking things into your own hands" and ruining other people's life?

<comment><USER8> Very true. I think this was a very pre-emptive warning about humanity:

"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

I worry less about the rioters than I do about the general population calling for lynching and murder.</comment></comment></comment>


Inventor turns cardboard boxes into eco-friendly oven - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/09/solar.oven.global.warming/index.html?eref=rss_topstories changed title :) <comment><USER2> I recall articles in kids' magazines in the mid-80's about how to build solar cookers. Apparently, they are already in widespread use today, with many different designs:

<http://solarcooking.org/plans/>

Does anyone know what makes this new design special?

<comment><USER3> The ones you link to look significantly more difficult to build. This one is two boxes and a piece of plastic (from what I understand).

I guess this is neat, because I remember building a similar device when I was a kid, but it couldn't boil water or do any useful cooking. It was sort of able to warm up a hot dog...

<comment><USER2> You mean, like the first box cooker on the page?:

<http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Minimum_Solar_Box_Cooker>

Like the cooker in the article, it is a foil-lined cardboard box, with a black-painted cardboard box inside. And it recommends a plastic bag instead of a plexiglass cover, so it might be considered even more basic than the one in the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not to criticize your creativity, but I propose changing the title, because I was expecting something about food, which it isn't entirely. But it is full of awesome and based in Nairobi!

</comment><comment><USER5> I've made one of these before... along with the rest of my third grade class. I guess someone should have called CNN back then.

</comment><comment><USER6> An estimated time to boil a liter of room temperature water and cook a sunny side up egg would have been helpful.

<comment><USER7> Good catch. Some optimistic back-of-the-envelope says it could be around 5 min for the liter of water. (The egg should go faster, if I remember my WWII-in- North-Africa frying-eggs-on-tanks movie scenes right ;-)

Assumptions: 1 square meter blackbody collector for 1 kW/m2 solar radiation, plus dt of 80C (which, for 1l water, needs 80 kcal = 80 x 1.162 Wh) -> 335 seconds.

I'd say a one square meter (~10 sq.feet) box is about equivalent to a standard 700W microwave - between 10 am and 3 pm on sunny days ...

<comment><USER7> Just for the record: a couple of days later, a local newspaper had this story; _their_ short piece said the box would boil 10 liters in 2 hours.

That's about double my optimistic estimate, which did not take into account any losses by conduction or convection. From the pics, the box doesn't seem to be as big as 1 meter square either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Could also be used to distill/desalinate water when it's not in use for other purposes.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Solve the simplest problem that tons of people have. Excellent invention in my opinion.</comment>


Ask HN: Good books to learn more about computer architecture? - <AUTHOR> Hey all,<p>I was wondering if anyone could suggest a good book about computer architecture. I program small-scale stuff on my own, but never had to learn any of the details about what C++ actually does (which interviewers seem to love asking) or what's going on past the programming part. <comment><USER2> If you want to get into architecture in its own right, Hennessy/Patterson. But I think a far better book on the subject for programmers is "Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective."

This is a textbook out of Carnegie Mellon that I was exposed to in grad school. It goes into all kinds of details of processor architecture, memory, I/O, assembly programming, etc. while staying focused on its audience of a systems programmer in C. It's wonderful.

[http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers- Perspecti...](http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers- Perspective-2nd/dp/0136108040/ref=dp_ob_title_bk)

<comment><USER3> Corresponding Lectures: <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~213/schedule.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A little known gem: The Elements of Computing Systems

[http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building- Pr...](http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building- Principles/dp/0262640686/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272300761&sr=8-4)

This book takes you from logic gates to writing your own (extremely simple) virtual machine, programming language, etc. It's a bit fast paced and project based, but it'll run you through a very high level overview of the whole gamut.

</comment><comment><USER5> John Paul Shen's _Modern Processor Design_ is my current favorite. It covers the design of recent (and also some historic) processor architectures, including pipelining, cache and memory systems, superscalar, and so on. Some concrete examples are given (e.g., PowerPC, x86).

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks like you are asking two questions. "How does C++ get mapped onto real machines (and operating systems)?" and "How do machines really work?".

You might want to look at Yale Patt's book which begins from the bottom (gates and assembly language) and works up. [http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Cp_27...](http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Cp_27%3AYale%20Patt&field- author=Yale%20Patt&page=1)

</comment><comment><USER7> I may be being pedantic, but are you wanting to learn about systems architecture or learn about the internals of C++? Because those are two completely separate questions.

</comment><comment><USER8> You may want to read "CODE" by Charles Petzold

<comment><USER9> [http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware- Softwa...](http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware- Software/dp/0735611319/), it's a "general interest non-fiction" book with lots of historical stuff, e.g. coverage of the 8080 and 6500.

I can't find it now, but it reminds me of a MIT Press book for the educated layman that covered electronics, the various generations of semi-conductors (and how at that period TI was the only company to negotiate all of them, this was written at the dawn of the LSI or VLSI era), the critical details of wafer yield and resultant profitability, etc.

Perhaps not the right book for the original poster, but for many people it could be very useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> [http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1272228099/ref=sr_gnr_aps?search...](http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1272228099/ref=sr_gnr_aps?search- alias=books&field-keywords=hennessy%20and%20patterson)

</comment><comment><USER11> good book about the memory: [http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Programming-Concept- Frantisek-F...](http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Programming-Concept-Frantisek- Franek/dp/0521520436)</comment>


Ask HN: Remote developers/Freelancers for side projects? - <AUTHOR> Does anyone have experience working with freelancers or remote developers for side projects/businesses? Any tips or best practices? I'm thinking my time/money might be better used if I focus on parts of the project I find most interesting, and out source the CRUD aspects. <comment><USER2> Having worked with remote developers and freelancers both in employment and on side projects. Most important thing is making sure your requirements are clear, this will take time and might take a fair bit of trial and error. Just remember the requirements are crystal clear in your head but might not be obvious or straight forward to someone else.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey maged, I'm a developer looking for freelance work incase you're searching for developers :)

I don't have any tips for you unfortunately.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you get your weather forecast? - <AUTHOR> The news that Weather Underground is shuttering its API is the latest change that is pushing me to look for a new website or app for weather forecasts. I'm on the hunt for something that is reliable, easy to grok, and has an extended forecast. What do you use? <comment><USER2> The API I've always used for weather data is [https://openweathermap.org/](https://openweathermap.org/)</comment>


PyDataLondon 2015 Write-up - <AUTHOR> http://ianozsvald.com/2015/06/21/pydatalondon-2015-write-up-and-my-ship-it-talk-on-publishing-data-science-products/

<comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I'm one of the organisers

I thought the vibe of the conference was the best we could have hoped for.

Python is crazy popular now — the number of people we had from big blue chips and the fact that Sainsburys (a nationwide grocer for you US chaps) sponsored us was telling of just how deep Python has penetrated the enterprise market.

</comment><comment><USER3> It might be the corporate firewall I'm behind, but those images all look broken to me.

<comment><USER2> Ian is linking from twitter for the images so your company is probably blocking twitter. Evidently, however, not the equally large time-sink that is Hacker News!</comment></comment>


What I learnt from talking to users before writing code - <AUTHOR> When I'm working on a project for myself, I tend to code in stealth mode, and don't talk to anyone or show it to anyone, until its 100% perfect and complete. This time, I, accidentally got myself to talk to users first.
My current project is a tool to help developers overcome procrastination. (Yes, I struggle with this, a lot)
Basically, just like Google Maps gives you a series of steps (turn right / turn left) until you get to your destination, I want something that breaks up my big tasks (e.g Add Stripe integration) to a bunch of tiny steps (Read docs, add Stripe.js....). And calculates the best way to get me to actually do the tasks (do I need a lot of breaks, do I just need to sit and code for 2 hours, etc).
But, while I could build this for other backend devs like myself, what about everyone else? I had to talk to other devs.
I put out an offer to do free, 1-on-1 audio calls to coach devs struggling w/ procrastination. Many people responded, and I've done several, deep convos with brilliant,  struggling people. The insights I've learnt have blown my mind, and so many of them are actionable, e.g
- What kinds of things cause procrastination. (Perfectionism, complexity (e.g a lot of rules), boredom (e.g recoding a feature you already finished))
- How much of a problem procrastination is in their life. (The consensus seems to be, my life would be radically different and better if I didn't procrastinate)
- Some even shared screenshots of their todos / trello. Really valuable, and directly related to my project.
I can't recommend doing user interviews before building highly enough. This is going to be my strategy for all projects going forward.
P.S I'm still taking calls to help developers overcome procrastination. I've learnt how severely this can impact a developer's life. If this applies to you, you don't have to keep struggling.
Book a free coaching call: https://calendly.com/aliakhtar/60min <comment><AUTHOR> New link: [https://calendly.com/aliakhtar/dev- call](https://calendly.com/aliakhtar/dev-call)</comment>


Silicon Valley is confusing pseudo-science with innovation - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/29/10642070/2015-theranos-venture-capital-tech-bubble-disruption <comment><USER2> I'm curious how they did their 510(k) or just some simple math for their (only) approved HSV-1 IgG assay [1]:

In their "Table 3: Design of Precision Study", the Equivocal Panel C, Lot 3 is asterisked with the citation of "sufficient cartridges not available". However if you try to sum up the total valid replicates (27 + 44 + 8 = 79) and it just does not match to the total of 78.

[1] [http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf14/K143236.pdf](http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf14/K143236.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> The more interesting line from the article, for me, was this:

        As the funding environment cools, a lot of companies with unsustainable
        business models are going to go under.

I wonder how long it'll be before Groupon declares Chapter 11. They've been bumping along at near zero growth and profits for some time now, and investor patience is going to start running out once other sectors of the economy start generating meaningful returns.

<comment><USER4> You've basically described half of the silicon valley "unicorn" crowd. The next 2 years are going to see the death of many VC backed tech companies as interest rates rise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Remind me which fallacy it is the one where the argument treats many things as if they are one thing?

I have done a couple medtech investments. They are very, very hard to DD. For plain tech I am just used to having enough background to be able directly evaluate the company. Much harder when one gets out of their own arena.

</comment><comment><USER6> Also see [http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/30/10690420/theranos- blood-t...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/30/10690420/theranos-blood-test- no-fda-federal-inspections-elizabeth-holmes)

</comment><comment><USER7> This piece makes a general statement and focuses on one company. Another Silicon Valley Company, Zonare Medical Systems, has moved ultrasound forward so that it can be used for more diagnostic tests more accurately. They are also quite stable and have not seen wild variation in their valuation. Perhaps that is why they are not interesting to the press? Only calls of condemnation and crisis actually drive clicks?</comment>