Why Solar (Freakin) Roadways will never exist - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H901KdXgHs4

<comment><USER2> I was really excited by the idea. At least it was interesting.

When I first saw the video Freakin Solar Roadways... I came across with the first problem. The solar panels produce DC... which it's really bad for transport energy, then you could transform it to high voltage AC. So I'm ok with it but then you will need wires and wires. So immediately I supposed that it won't scale to a Roadway system.

So in a second thought probably it will work for sidewalks and parking lots and maybe if you could storage the power then use for street lighting. At this point for me this idea will work in the cities only. But then put solar panels in buildings sounds more cost/effective (and way more efficient). So I wasn't sure anymore at this point.

The video pointed to me some other flaws. And now meh.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think we need to distinguish the road technology from the solar technology. Is this a viable road technology when decoupled from the solar technology? Is this mechanism of solar collection/distribution more or less effective than other efforts? Clearly, our paved-over world could be put to better use, but is this approach a net gain or is it just solar buzz?

<comment><USER2> About the collection. In general the photovoltaic technology efficiency is about 17%, commercially it's about 27% and there's technology reaching up to 45% but not commercially available.

There's another problem, the efficiency drops with temperature. I don't know what kind of heat dissipation this technology is capable of but assuming the worst case scenario the solar panels will surpass boiling point temperature. This means that without cooling the system in the solar peak it will have the worst efficiency by a huge margin. A typical solar panel is cooled by air, this possibly is siting in a heat insulator.

Another problem are the scratches. Ideally the glass need to be clear, but over time it will lose it's transparency so there is another mayor drop in the production.

There's another problem. As you can see in the video, using these roads you need to transport energy in or out. For do that you need wires, many, but they are expensive. Consider you don't use the energy generation... you still need wires to use the leds.

I consider more intelligent put photovoltaic cells in every building in the city. As you use the same power infrastructure you don't need to worry to install new wires. As the cities concentrate the use of energy then the lose of power due to heat (Joule Law) it's reduced. It's a plus in efficiency. As daily beings even if we don't save the energy collected (because batteries are expensive) is a win. We could use other energy sources during the night. There's another possibility, some scientist are trying to create a photovoltaic paint, this will be even more cheap but also less efficient.

Another ideas. Use the heat produced in thermal plants (Gas/carbon/Dissel). For example to heat the roadways or houses in cold areas (you will heat you house anyway). Use the heat for industries: smelters, oil refineries, glass makers among other. Remember the heat is a waste anyway, but is useful in many industries.

Use the sewer waste to produce biomass energy. Think about it, if your feces produce methane in your body before you poop... The idea is, in general the energy we use is carbon buried eons ago. Methane does not add carbon the the atmosphere only use carbon already there. Then add the previous idea and... imagine how much petroleum you can cut with this.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This project is in my view a really good case study on how if you have a cool idea, and can back that up with some really good points (recyclable, tron, green), that you can convince many people that it's a great idea, without actually delivering anything that can be created.</comment>


How to track down CPU issues in Node.js - <AUTHOR> http://apmblog.dynatrace.com/2016/01/14/how-to-track-down-cpu-issues-in-node-js/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure if I agree that these circular charts are more readable than flamegraphs. It seems to obscure the actual stack frame detail and make it difficult to visually compare the depth of non-adjacent stacks.</comment>


Schneier on Security: Manipulating Breathalyzers - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/08/manipulating_br.html <comment><USER2> Is this a joke?

A link to a 1 sentence post that goes to a bing search that somehow embeds a youtube video?

Here is the direct link: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqlq25PRbko>

<comment><USER3> Seriously, the linkjacking is one thing, but putting "Schneier on Security" in the title... what this says is, "this content is only interesting because Schneier has filtered it for us".

<comment><USER4> I linked to a couple of Bruce's stories a week or so ago, including one that was just a link, because a lot of the comments on his blog are well worth reading, often even better than here. The benefit of HN is the breadth of subjects, but if I had to choose one or the other, I would drop HN before schneier.com. Fortunately, I don't have to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not sure why is that exciting. There's a simple way to not get your result manipulated.

It's... _shock_ \- not drinking before you drive!

<comment><USER6> Are you saying that no sober person has ever been tested? If someone is corrupt enough to manipulate a test to make someone test more inebriated, then they are corrupted enough to make a sober person test drunk.

<comment><USER5> No - I'm saying that this trick works, because the exit for air/alcohol is blocked. If you don't exhale alcohol to begin with, then this trick should not make any difference.

So if you're completely sober, then you may get "twice" the normal result - but it's still ~0.0</comment></comment></comment>


Nominology - <AUTHOR> http://messymatters.com/2011/10/31/nominology/ <comment><USER2> This article was referred to by its author in <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3180593>, but I think it warrants its own entry on HN. I was briefly toying with the idea of writing up some algorithms for determining the seven criteria, but just don't have the time.

For some of the criteria it should be fairly easy to come up with some formula (e.g. for Brevity the cut-off values might be 6 and 10, and Greppability could be checked by the results of an actual grep call), while others are more subjective (particularly Evocativity). But if someone wants to pursue the idea I think it would be a nice little tool.

<comment><USER3> Wow, thank you! I'm delighted at the thought that the criteria may be useful.

My feeling is that brevity is trivially automatable, as you suggest: just pick the function. Though brevity in terms of syllables might also matter. ("Wikipedia" is a little longer than its string length suggests.)

Greppability is automatable by picking a corpus to grep in, though that's easier said than done.

Googlability (including checking the availability of domain names) is plenty automatable.

But the other four (evocativity, pronounceability, spellability, and verbability) seem pretty hopeless to me.

<comment><USER2> Well, for what it's worth, I quickly put up an Excel document which can help to assess a number of names quickly. I used Excel rather than Google spreadsheet since it has conditional cell formatting, which gives a nice background color. The spreadsheet can be found at <http://j.mp/t2zRYQ>

I think such a tool could be of great help for people picking names, similarly to the services you linked to in your article, even if one had to manually enter all the grades, simply so one could compare different ideas. A Web tool would be much better than my little spreadsheet, and If I had the time I'd build it myself; and if someone doesn't beat me to it I probably well. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Note: it turns out the real name for "nominology" (the study of naming things) is "onomastics". <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomastics>

<comment><USER4> I'd have thought nomenclature was a better fit <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenclature>

<comment><USER3> Ah, I almost thought so too, but, well, quoting myself from the article:

The word "nomenclature" is almost there, but not quite. "Nomenclature" has several meanings, including simply a name or designation, a system of naming, or a set of names. It can also refer to the act of naming. But none of the meanings refer directly to the consideration of the criteria for what makes good names. Also, with "nomenclature" it's harder to form derivatives like "nominologist" or even "nominologize". I take this stuff way too seriously.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I Deleted a Submission Because of a Typo, and I Can't Resubmit It? - <AUTHOR> I submitted my new blog post, but I realized that I dropped a word in the title. I deleted the submission, but now I can't resubmit it. How can I post it again? <comment><AUTHOR> Wait a minute... I don't see this submission on Ask HN (although I do see it under "new"). However, when I was looking for it, I happened to find [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19187925](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19187925). As a matter of fact, my submission DID begin with "Why I," and when it appeared, the "Why" didn't appear. Now I realize that I probably didn't make a typo; HN automatically modified my title.

Does the fact that I'm not seeing this submission under "Ask HN" mean that I got somehow auto-flagged or blocked for trying to resubmit, or should I just wait?

<comment><USER2> A. You probably aren't seeing it because it has no upvotes.

B. I don't think you can submit the same url you deleted. You can edit titles for a while after you submit something. In the future, you should try editing to fix typos.

C. You can email the mods about such issues: email@example.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for telling me that I can edit titles. I either forgot or didn't realize (since I can't do that on Reddit), and I didn't realize that if I deleted the submission, I wouldn't be able to resubmit it.</comment></comment></comment>


At least 1 in 6 stars has an Earth size planet - <AUTHOR> http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2013/pr201301.html

<comment><AUTHOR> And that's only 43% of the Kepler discoveries to date.

[http://kepler.nasa.gov/news/nasakeplernews/index.cfm?FuseAct...](http://kepler.nasa.gov/news/nasakeplernews/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=244)</comment>


Super Mario 64 ported to MS-DOS - <AUTHOR> https://reddit.com/r/retrogamedev/comments/ioy5vp/super_mario_64_ported_to_msdos/ <comment><USER2> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0hiD3FD2Gg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0hiD3FD2Gg) YouTube gameplay video

</comment><comment><USER3> It's not as cool or fast as it could be, technically, because they're just using Mesa as a software rasterizer with the existing OpenGL engine port. It's hilarious, though.

<comment><USER3> Actually, in a separate repository, they DID do a custom software rasterizer. Even better.

[https://github.com/fgsfdsfgs/sm64-port/commit/a2bd39595c2759...](https://github.com/fgsfdsfgs/sm64-port/commit/a2bd39595c27595f856ec53136e3b1330b1cdcae)</comment></comment>


What advice do you wish someone gave you when you moved from dev to management? - <AUTHOR> What advice would you give someone on how to make the transition from developer to project manager?
A freelancer is asking for input for an article. The goal is to share useful suggestions for someone who is contemplating making the change from "coder" to "new project manager" or "project lead." That advice could be based on your own experiences or watching others stumble.
Imagine that a friend just got such a promotion -- or has decided to look for a new job where she can move into project management. What would you tell her? <comment><USER2> Every developer is different and the most effective management is rooted in what they need, not what you needed when you were in their position.

In my case, as a developer, I was independently very responsible and communicative. I didn't need much attention to do my job well and could sometimes grow prickly under too much oversight. As long as my managers could answer (/dispatch) my questions and explain what they needed, things would just get done and risks/issues would be reported.

When I began managing projects, I learned that some developers would totally flounder if I managed them the way I had needed to be managed. Some needed me to anticipate their needs more pro-actively, some needed me to prompt them to report their concerns or to ask questions, some needed regular reporting or frequent deadlines just to stay on track, some needed very detailed guidance to feel confident about what they were doing, etc.

There wasn't anything worse about the work they'd do when well managed, but their needs were different.

Despite what some books and pundits might suggest, developer/project management is not a one-size-fits-all thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> \- Read this (and even if it's just for a peace of mind to feel prepared): [https://www.amazon.com/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating- Grow...](https://www.amazon.com/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating- Growth/dp/1491973897/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1535885331&sr=8-2&keywords=managers+path&dpID=51-BMEJ525L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch)

\- make sure this is something you want

</comment><comment><USER4> First of all, don't do it if you really like to write code. Management is something completely different, so you'll get nothing but pain.

Second, never approach management like you approach coding. People are complicated and irrational.

Third, try to turn your department into a gang and yourself into a gang leader.

</comment><comment><USER5> Start working on soft skills [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_skills](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_skills)</comment>


Youporn.com traffic cut in half since June - anyone know why? - <AUTHOR> http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/youporn.com

<comment><USER2> Better competitors. Including aggregators that pull from all the major porn sites.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wouldn't rely on alexa for reliable stats. Compete.com says the opposite <http://siteanalytics.compete.com/youporn.com/?metric=uv>

<comment><AUTHOR> interesting thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Banned in Turkey, maybe that's a reason..

</comment><comment><USER5> People are coding more?</comment>


Microsoft secretly beheads notorious botnet  - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/355852/microsoft-secretly-beheads-notorious-botnet <comment><USER2> Not only were they doing something virtuous while shrouded in secrecy, the secrecy was necessary for them to accomplish their goals. While I'm in general totally in favor of openness and transparency, there are competing concerns that it should be weighed against, as this clearly demonstrates.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good on you Microsoft. How's that for a little bit of social responsibility.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have a foreboding that the first "real" AI may well come out of spamming and other forms of unpleasantness ...

 _the operation hasn't cleaned the infected computers and [... a]lthough the zombies are now largely out of the bot-herders' control, they are still infected with the original malware_

That will learn them some bird calls next time, if not yet done.

</comment><comment><USER5> Microsoft got legal approval for this. How many extra-legal, or grey-area "Operations b49" have taken place? I don't imagine Microsoft has done many (if any) extra-legal beheadings, but surely somebody has. All those academic papers about taking control of botnets and measuring the take-up rates on penis pill offers had to come from somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER6> Cool, but how long until it auto-registers new domain names according to some algo? (see Srizbi)

<comment><USER7> Well, it's not sentient, so it isn't registering anything it wasn't already programmed to, and it isn't getting any new commands with all existing C&C routes gone.

<comment><USER8> Making the C&C domain time-dependent is trivial. Making the domain name based on time-dependent keys, steganography and queries across multiple domains as the basis for computing the current or next C&C domain would make the life of the good guys very uncomfortable.

<comment><USER7> Of course it can be done (and has been done). But in this case it apparently wasn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if this had any noticiable impact of the number of spam send. I haven't noticied it on my inbox.</comment>


Stanford - Cryptography II - <AUTHOR> https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto2

<comment><AUTHOR> Crypto I was very well put together, Crypto II has a high threshold to maintain [0]

References:

[0] [https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto](https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto)

</comment><comment><USER2> Crypto I is great course and I recommend to anyone one who wants to know more about how crypto works.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a path to employment for a 30 yr old, career-change programmer - <AUTHOR> So, after looking through the last few who's hiring and who's looking for work, I find myself wondering if there is any viable path for an most 40 yr old, self-taught programmer, with advanced degrees not in CS. Part of the issue may be that I am not interested in Web based programming, which seems to be, by a huge margin, the place jobs happen.
So, am I stuck in my current job (which isn't horrible or anything), or is there a place for people like me in the industry.
The following are a few specifics about me, in case that would alter your advice or opinions:
  - Currently a practicing lawyer in the US
  - Competent in several languages, like C, Assembly, Haskell, ML (not Ocaml fluent though), and at least familiar with vanilla JS
  - non-professional experience is mostly in graphics, compilers, and language design/implementation
  - I live in the Southern US <comment><USER2> I would think so.

The web is kind of the lingua-franca of the public facing world, so it is no surprise that that is where most of the job ad's are.

However I think that there is a growing need for experienced programmers who are also well-versed in one or more problem-domain areas, like law in your case.

The problem here is that often employers are not aware they need you, so it takes more of an proactive approach to find them. Network, get to know their challenges, show them how you could help.

</comment><comment><USER3> Speaking as a 50-something engineer with over 30 years of development experience, but no degree, I can only say this: I have no problem at all getting excellent development positions.

But from what I've heard from colleagues my age, it depends a _lot_ on what specialty you're into, what part of the world you're looking at, what companies you'd consider, and how up-to-date your skillset is.

I find that very experienced developers are in huge demand -- we're a shrinking group, and have knowledge and skills that are pretty rare in the younger crowd. But that demand is often not in the normal places that you may think of. Good places to look include industries that aren't directly software-oriented. Most largish businesses need developers, even if what they are in business to do isn't software development.</comment>


Intel Files Amicus Brief in Support of Harvard College - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.intel.com/policy/2020/05/22/intel-files-amicus-brief-in-support-of-harvard-college/ <comment><AUTHOR> The Amicus Brief is not just from Intel, but also Apple, Cisco, GE, Micron, Twitter, Microsoft and some other companies. However, I did not want to modify the title from that which is on the page.</comment>


My First Blog Post - Why I'm doing this - <AUTHOR> http://wesleyadam.com/post/39390019558/intro-to-come-why-in-the-world-would-anyone-blog

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone! For a while, I've just been lurking and posting interesting articles without contributing much of my own content. I've decided for the new year that this has to change. This is my first post on a personal blog and I hope to continue it ad infinitum. Please let me know what you think!</comment>


Practicing Backtracking - <AUTHOR> http://thetokenizer.com/2013/01/13/practicing-backtracking/

<comment><USER2> I wish there was a list of algorithms like this for solving any problem. I jumped right into genetic algorithms (for solving problems in a large search space) but many problems are much easier than they seem.</comment>


People loved Nikola but not its warrants - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-21/people-loved-nikola-but-not-its-warrants <comment><USER2> Matt Levine's column is awesome! You don't need to be a Bloomberg subscriber to receive it. You can sign up to get it in your email inbox daily here, for free: [http://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/join/4wm/moneystuff-s...](http://link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/join/4wm/moneystuff- signup?source=msweb)

<comment><USER3> And then use an email-to-RSS service to get the full columns in your newsreader...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Here was a trade. Nikola Corp., the maybe-one-day-electric-truck-maker that went public via a blank-check merger last month, has a lot of warrants outstanding. Each warrant (ticker NKLAW) allows you to pay $11.50 to buy one share of Nikola common stock (ticker NKLA). The trade was:

Buy one warrant for $24.62.

Pay $11.50 to exercise the warrant and get a share of stock.

Sell the stock for $48.84.

You pay $24.62 + $11.50 = $36.12. You get $48.84. Your profit is $12.72. Pretty good, no?_

Levine suggests this weird situation was a consequence of his(?) "boredom markets hypothesis":

 _For a while Nikola was one of the most popular stocks on Robinhood, the day- trading phone app; the warrants were not._

He lays out the best-case scenario for the savvy trader of Nikola. On the flip side, is the worst case scenario for the Robin Hood trader buying the stock last week at $48 and then seeing it drop to $38 on Monday?

For the record, it looks like NKLA is around $36 at the moment.

<comment><USER5> You could (short) sell the stock at the same time you buy the warrants.

<comment><USER6> Here's an interesting article that explains why that wouldn't work here: [https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-21/people...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-21/people- loved-nikola-but-not-its-warrants)

<comment><USER7> underrated reply

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A great example of how when you see an arbitrage opportunity, it probably isn't actually risk free (i.e it isn't actually arbitrage). Usually there is some risk that is taken on: counter-party risk, liquidity risk, etc. That's not to say you can't make money, you just need to be cognizant of these "hidden" risks.

<comment><USER9> Reminds me of a personal rule I have about real estate: there are no undervalued properties, except those resulting from my personal value system differing substantially from the market _and_ I'm planning to hold on to the property long enough to realize that value (because when I sell presumably the market's values won't have changed much).

In reality, of course there are better and worse deals out there, but the rule keeps me from thinking I'm smarter than the market and being blind to risks or problems that others have seen.

<comment><USER10> My personal rule: if it actually hits the market (ie gets listed on a mls or the seller has already signed a realtor) then 99.9% chance you're already beyond the point of getting a good deal. That is, a good enough deal to purchase strictly as an investment.

<comment><USER11> Curious what you mean when you say strictly as an investment? In my worldview, if you are purchasing real estate as an investment, it means it generates income, meaning you plan to rent it out.

<comment><USER10> Or develop it. Or combine or subdivide parcels. Or as an alternative/hedge store of wealth.

Or even if you plan on living in it, if you want to make money when it comes time to sell, and not just break even, after accounting for total cost of ownership.

Most people who think they sell their house for a modest profit are wrong.

<comment><USER12> This is only true in places where investment capital has taken over the market, not in places where individuals are scraping together funds to buy in an economically growing neighborhood.

<comment><USER10> I meant more along the lines that people don't take into account all the costs that they should when calculating their break-even price.

This is generally true regardless of the location, with the caveat that hot markets are more likely to have more professionals participating that know how to include those costs.

Often people see those higher prices as greedy profit (or as artificially high in order to gentrify, etc.), and developers do need to make a profit, but often times a large part of the elevated price is just including hidden costs that homeowners don't account for.

But looking at it from the other side, developers/investors are only going to enter markets where they believe there's a margin for profit. Which generally means those neighborhoods are a bit underpriced to begin with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nikola is a downright scam. Literally nothing they say makes sense or has any credibility. On one hand they claim magical technical improvements on the other they claim to have partners do basically everything.

They have not shown credible prototypes of their vehicles. They don't have a factory or locked in partners with a factory.

They are essentially a couple 100 people in an office and many of them seem to be in marketing.

They couldn't get funding threw venture capital so did the reverse merger thing to be able to be stock traded. That was great for them because their 'we are Tesla but also totally different and much better' routine works with people who don't know the industry.

<comment><USER14> If we learned anything from Tesla it's that electric cars are a very "fake it 'till you make it" industry. You have to raise a ton of capital to get off the ground but once you're making a real product, people buy it.

But you can't exactly go down to the local credit union and apply for a twenty billion dollar loan. So the only way to build something is to hype the nothing that you currently have in order to get investors to give you a ton of money so you can actually build something.

It's like the people confused about Tesla's current share price in the middle of a pandemic. But it's the response to the pandemic which has given them the greatest boon they could have asked for -- very low interest rates. That causes investors to borrow money to invest, which is what's holding up stock prices in general. But on top of that they're selling a product with a higher up-front cost and lower operating costs, so lower interest rates make for lower car payments make for more customers. The company itself still has a lot of outstanding debt which can now be refinanced, and lower interest rates make it cheaper for them to borrow even more to continue expanding.

Nikola benefits from a lot of that too, though you can't really gain customers through low interest car loans before you have a product. The issue for Nikola is that "fake it 'till you make it" only works if you eventually make it. If they don't generate enough hype to raise as much capital as they need to actually bring a viable product to market before the bottom falls out, poof.

<comment><USER15> I am wondering if the current Tesla high stock price is also lifted up by short squeeze. Some of the billions of dollars shorting Tesla are giving up, as they do not see a way to make money in the foreseeable future.

<comment><USER16> If that were the case then many long holders would sell and the price would revert. Short squeezing has undoubtedly contributed to the volatile rally of TSLA, but the fact that the price remains elevated is presumably due to something more than the price impact of closing shorts. For whatever reason, the market thinks TSLA is worth this price. Personally I think there are many retail traders who don't know too much about the market, get bored of other names, and want to be on the meteoric TSLA bandwagon. When that collapses it will be a sad day for Elon Musk.

<comment><USER15> When it collapses, it would be a sad day for the retail trader who came late. I would hope Elon Musk is not working at Tesla solely to increase his bank account. It seems that Musk was ready to get Tesla private for $420. It seems like Tesla could lose 3 times its current value and still be above that (in)famous $420. It would then be worth still $78B, which is already a lot (~Volkswagen's valuation). Although one can argue that Tesla is not just a car manufacturer, but how much solar and energy could bring? I am also quite puzzled by the current Tesla valuation...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can someone explain the 600% cost to short Tesla(1) stock that's discussed? I mean in terms of how that is set -- is it market driven or regulator driven?

What would cause such a rate to go up without the stock evidently coming down to reduce the arbitrage discussed?

1 thanks for correction. Meant to say "Nikola" stock.

<comment><USER17> This is actually about Nikola Motors which (despite their clear efforts to associate themselves) has nothing to do with Tesla.

Nikola is hard to short right now primarily for two reasons:

1\. It's a brand new company (IPO'd last month) with a large number of non- institutional share holders, who are not likely to lend out their shares.

2\. It seems ridiculously overvalued (even after falling a fair bit it still has a $13B market cap despite having developed no products!), leading to _huge_ demand from shorts.

<comment><USER18> Why is a company without a revenue stream even listed on a stock market?

<comment><USER19> They merged with VectoIQ which was a publicly traded company. As a consequence of the merger the combined company was still publicly traded and changed the symbol to NKLA.

<comment><USER20> "Publicly traded company" is technically true but misleading. VectoIQ was a special-purpose acquisition company [1] -- it had no employees and no revenue; its sole purpose was to be used as a vehicle to take another company (like Nikola) public.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special- purpose_acquisition_co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special- purpose_acquisition_company)

<comment><USER12> Those should be called Special Corporations for Acquisitions and Mergers (SCAM). They only exist to sell to people who believe anti-fraud regulations are for losers and that real world markets should be more like EVE online.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > _For a while Nikola was one of the most popular stocks on Robinhood, the > day-trading phone app; the warrants were not. The stock benefitted from hype > and publicity and momentum, but the warrants didn't, because they are called > "warrants" and weren't mentioned in the first paragraph of all the news > articles._

> _if you noticed the relative-value trade, you might be exactly the sort of > person who wouldn't have wanted to make an unhedged directional bet on > Nikola's stock_

</comment><comment><USER22> I was interested in Nikola, but after listen its founder Trevor Milton talk, i vomit right onto the desk.

He simple believe he transformed the transport industry and tesla is just following their footsteps. He talk how Nikola has the best truck ever created and its just a render.

Seriously, listen to that guy is disturbing.</comment>


The sixth mass extinction is here - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-sixth-mass-extinction-is-here-say-stanford-researchers?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=eb6860a4ff-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6de721fb33-eb6860a4ff-281895037 <comment><USER2> It is very sad that we destroy the planet... :(</comment>


Happy Sysadmin Day! Cloudkick Developer plan: all features, 1 server, SMS alerts - <AUTHOR> http://cloudkick.com/t/sysadmindayhn

<comment><USER3> Super impressed. In 20 minutes I was able to hook up my personal Linode with a level of monitoring that probably would have taken a few hours to pull off manually.

I don't think I would have considered using the paid service before, but this free account offers a compelling experience. I bet it'll pay off in conversions.

<comment><USER4> Sounds like you set up the Cloudkick agent. If you really want to take advantage of the agent, try out some custom plugins (<https://support.cloudkick.com/Agent/Custom_Plugins>). We've cleaned up a few that we use internally and made them available at <http://github.com/cloudkick/agent-plugins>

<comment><USER3> Indeed. I'm a Debian user, so it only took a minute to get the agent running which I appreciated a _lot_.

It seems like the only piece missing is graphing and alerting on bandwidth usage with the agent. Linode provides a nice set of hypervisor-level views of IO/CPU/Bandwidth but they're really only useful historically and from a billing perspective. On second thought, this sounds like an awesome way to get familiar with the plugin interface ;)

<comment><USER4> There's a bandwidth check type. Click on the monitor tab, then click on new monitor, then select Bandwidth in the check type drop-down.

We don't support alerting on bandwidth usage yet, but that check will alert if the interface is down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Disclaimer: I work at Cloudkick

In case there's any ambiguity, Cloudkick isn't giving a cloud server instance to everyone for free. The developer plan lets you monitor and manage one server for free. It has all the other features of paid accounts though: SMS alerts, custom plugins for monitoring, etc. I use it for my one EC2 instance that acts as my personal web server/IRC bouncer/VPN server/whatever.

<comment><USER5> I tried to add a cell number for getting SMS alerts. The "save and test notification" prompted me with "Notification sent!", but several minutes later I've yet to see a message.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also, if you're interested in a paid plan, we're offering 15% savings for the next 48 hours!

Use the promo code: "cksysadmin" or visit <https://www.cloudkick.com/pricing/cksysadmin>

</comment><comment><USER6> We use CloudKick to monitor some of our servers and it is just completely awesome. It's way easier than monitoring a bunch of servers with htop and much quick than trying to roll your own solution.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm really excited to try this... <s>sadly I'm getting time-out issues when trying to set up monitoring with my Linode API key but I'm guessing you guys might be under a lot of load with this promo?</s>

It's working now. It looks as though it didn't want to add a node until I authenticated my email address even though it took me directly to an "add node" flow directly upon signup.

I also can see a lot of conversions from this.

</comment><comment><USER8> As others have pointed out, I have timeout errors with linode.

One thing of concern for me is that giving away my linode API key is not something I really would like to do. I don't use this key for anything at the moment, but my understanding is that it gives to the holder the right to delete my linode. not WANT. Arguably it's more a linode problem that it is cloudkick's

<comment><AUTHOR> Your API credentials are the keys to the kingdom, so you're rightly cautious about giving them out.

However, we can proudly say that with nearly one million servers having passed through Cloudkick without being inadvertently rebooted, terminated, or otherwise... statistically, it's probably more likely that you'll accidentally terminate it yourself manually than that something untoward will happen to it if you're managing it with us. Our entire business is based on making server management better, easier, and safer for you and we do everything we can to make our service infallible.

In fact, some of the initial inspiration for our dashboard was that existing tools made it too easy to accidentally kill the wrong machines. Some providers give nodes names that aren't exactly user-friendly, and without some basic sorting and labeling tools, eventually almost anyone would make a mistake. So, we added coloring, sorting, and renaming to mitigate that kind of user error.

Also, on the subject of security, we just added the ability to require multi- factor authentication to log in to your Cloudkick account. You can choose to require a YubiKey, one-time SMS code, or one-time email code to access your dashboard. We did a brief write-up on our blog if you're interested in learning more: cloudkick.com/blog

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the answer.

I forgot to test one thing before terminating my trial (nice job by the way, the complexity is just a bit overwhelming initially): Is it possible to remove the API key once the initial setup is done as long as the agents are running on the monitored machines?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is possible, but you'll need to add the "name" option to the agent config in /etc/cloudkick.conf.

Here's the documentation: <https://support.cloudkick.com/Agent/Cloudkick.conf>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Would love to see a slightly smaller plan for 2-3 servers or a little more flexibility for those of us that don't have 6 servers...yet! :D

<comment><USER10> I agree, there are many of us who for our own use just have 2 or 3 servers. For customers/companies, the rates seem reasonable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I signed up and am looking forward to trying it out for a new project I'm working on. Just a weird site note: for some reason, my browser is locking up for a few seconds every time I click on a link in my dashboard. My CPU usage is spiking. Can anyone much smarter than I hazard a guess as to what's going on?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey there. If you want to jump into #cloudkick on freenode, or jump into our support chat (it's the link down at the bottom-left of your screen) and provide a few more details, we will try to figure out what's happening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hmm. I just tried to sign up and get a 403: "CSRF verification failed. Request aborted."

<comment><USER13> Hi, I took a quick look, and it looks like you were using Opera -- We are spining up people to double check in opera right now, but I'd suggest re- trying in Firefox or Chrome

<comment><USER12> Yep, I'm one of those.

<comment><USER13> We confirmed it works in Opera 10 -- I got scary faces made at from the webdevs me when I suggested supporting Opera 9!

<comment><USER12> Strange. I'm on 10.50 and it's still 403. Updated to Opera 10.60: 403.

Edit: nevermind, I got it to work. Must have had referrers turned off. I rarely see that cause a failure, so it wasn't on my normal checklist.

Sorry for the noise!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was going to sign up but their terms and conditions -- especially number seven is a full stop for me three as well. They should really let you know.

<comment><USER10> To be clear: if they terminate your use of Cloudkick, _your_ _servers_ keep running - they just aren't being monitored anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Really nice! I just signed up, and set up my sandbox EC2 quickly, and I find the feature set meets my needs. The free price to monitor my EC2 is great, and will likely pay off for Cloudkick when I recommend them to my customers (I always like it when customers use the same tools I use for my stuff - <USER2> life easier.)

</comment><comment><USER15> It there no way to quickly add a default set of monitors? Because it seems quite tedious to add them one at a time just to get an idea of how the service works.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's not available for chunkhost.com. I'd love to try it out on chunkhost

<comment><USER17> It looks like they just offer normal virtual servers with root access.

By looking at the supported OS images, you shouldn't have problems installing Cloudkick agent ([https://support.cloudkick.com/Setting_up_Cloudkick_with_Phys...](https://support.cloudkick.com/Setting_up_Cloudkick_with_Physical_Servers)) on any of them.

Actually, the installation should be pretty simple, because we already offer pre-built packages for all of the systems currently supported at chunkhost - <https://support.cloudkick.com/Agent/Installation>.

If you do encounter a problem, feel free to stop at #cloudkick @ FreeNode and we will look into it.</comment></comment>


12 million people in USA still use dial-up - <AUTHOR> http://www.rlslog.net/12-million-people-in-usa-still-use-dial-up/ <comment><USER2> Wow, they just cut and paste that (with no added commentary) from Tampa Bay Online -- and while they give credit at the end ("Source: TBO"), they don't give a link or nothing else. Here's the original article: [http://www2.hernandotoday.com/content/2009/feb/28/ha-dial- up...](http://www2.hernandotoday.com/content/2009/feb/28/ha-dial-up-wont- die/news/)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for posting the link, I tried to find the original post which netted that link, but the hernandotoday threw me as someone's personal blog so I never bothered to open it

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Many parts of the US still don't have DSL or cable broadband options.

</comment><comment><USER4> That explains why pretty much all laptops still have that RJ45 telephone socket (and the dialup modem of course). I used to wonder.

<comment><USER5> RJ11 is for phone, RJ45 is ethernet. Connecting the telephone system to an Ethernet jack can supposedly break the phone system or short it out or something. You can often plug RJ11 into an RJ45 jack, it will fit and make some contacts, which is often done to save on in-wall wiring costs in mixed networking deployments where you're still using POTS and not VOIP.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RJ11,_RJ14,_RJ25>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8P8C>

<comment><USER4> Ooops! Freudian slip.

Thanks for correcting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know someone who still uses dial up because they can mooch off their neighbor's wifi...haha.

</comment><comment><USER7> rlslog.net? Didn't expect it appear here.

</comment><comment><USER8> My philosophy professor still uses dial-up. He says it's because wireless is so unreliable My head almost exploded when he said it because he was using his laptop on our school wide wireless internet while he was saying it.</comment>


Apple removes 'Quartz' news app from App Store at request of the government - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2019/10/09/apple-china-quartz-app-store/ <comment><USER2> Do you really think the device manufacturer that bows to China so quickly is going to have anything to do with protecting your privacy? Get real.

Apple is trying to be all things to all people, and when that happens, the people with the least money always lose.</comment>


[video] Interview with James Damore regarding his Diversity Memo - ryan-allen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDuVF7kiPU <comment><AUTHOR> I think Damore is an idealistic (and touchingly sweet, in a way) guy for believing in his company enough to make a reasoned argument regarding such supercharged issues as gender and diversity at a big corporation, Google or otherwise. If you watch the video, you can see what a lamb he is.

It's no surprise he got the axe; there would be no tolerance nor appetite for his scientific conclusions at any large company.

<comment><USER2> I'm sorry but "scientific" is a pretty big exaggeration here even from a purely methodological standpoint. the dude does start out trying to support some of his assertions (albeit seriously misrepresenting at least one of his sources and using others that are literally Experimental Design 101 textbook examples of how not to run experiments) which I guess could be construed that way, but he then supplies no evidence for his conclusions. Note the almost complete lack of citations or experimental support in the "Suggestions" section pointing to studies showing his ideas would positively impact the problems he claims to care about, the lack of any sort of failure-analysis or exploration of alternatives or discussion outside of the thesis of his argument. he just states some premises and jumps to a list of unsupported and barely related conclusions. this can hardly be read as anything other than a list of political grievances and I don't understand why people keep describing this as if it were some sort of scientific endeavor.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fascinating. Did you watch the entire linked video on this story? In the video description, there are quite a few scientific studies linked that back up Damore's views. But I'm sure you've got some FUD for me on that video as well.

I can do FUD, too. Watch this! Hey 46775335788, what's got you running damage control so hard on this story that you'd reply to some schmoe who top posted on a page 3 (doomed) New story? A paycheck perhaps?

What an interesting comment history your throwaway account has - first post on this New story, eh throwaway?

<comment><USER2> "there are quite a few scientific studies linked"

to support the premises maybe, but even then the conclusions are still largely unrelated to the premises and unsupported by any of the studies cited. I don't see anything particularly hackerly about defending bad attempts at science and have been continually attacked for this opinion for some reason I'm sure has nothing to do with people on both sides ignoring scientific procedure when it comes to either of their political interests.

<comment><AUTHOR> You disagree with the conclusions, what a surprise. News flash: your passionate disagreement doesn't make you right or lend you _any_ moral superiority.

You want to attempt superiority? How about choose a conclusion from the doc or the video and make your case. Are you purely agenda-fueled? Do you have the best interests of the future of Google and Google culture at heart? How the hell should I know, all you've done is throw shade.

Or is being reasonable not required in your case?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> OK it looks like there is a biological factor to gender based on DNA and genes. There is also a social aspect of gender that creates gender identity roles.

I think the social aspect should be called gender identity, and the science/biological gender be called biological gender. That way they don't get confused.

I've tried to ask for scientific proof of all of the different genders and got voted down anywhere I asked. I was told that gender is a social construct, etc.

So this is something that has scientific and social aspects to it, and gender is more complex than a simple black and white model, as these new social roles of gender is a spectrum of grays or colors.

There was a discussion on HN about a list of genders, and I collected from Facebook and other sources to make this list: [https://github.com/orionblastar/genderdata](https://github.com/orionblastar/genderdata)

Over 150+ genders that people identify as hope I did not miss any. Feel free to email me or add to the repository via forking and pushing.

<comment><USER4> How do you curate a list like this? #4 is 'Apache Helicopter' which is the subject of a well-known copypasta. 'Dickbutt' and 'The Artist Formerly Known as Prince' seem suspect as well.

<comment><USER3> If I remove them, then people will give me trouble for removing them, or not adding them in the first place.

I asked for scientific proof of each gender, but apparently, there is none. Since it is a social construct, I am told that those names are legit for genders, and apparently, some Redditors made some names that should not have gone in, but if I didn't add them I'd be doxed, etc. It is also a way to find out of someone stole the list, that is the way the Trivial Pursuit people did by adding questions with wrong answers, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> ah yes, those famous evolutionary biological factors diminishing womens' interest in computers that only started showing up right around 1985 and didn't proportionately affect any other field for some reason since computer science is completely unique in its demands on the female brain.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/pkZPrOI.png](https://i.imgur.com/pkZPrOI.png)

<comment><USER3> I think 1985 is the golden age of the 8 bit home computer from Atari and Commodore to dump the main computer on the market for under $300 or $200 and make up for it by selling disk drives, etc at a higher cost. The Apple //c and IBM PCjr came out around the same time. Marketed to boys and not girls. Something to do with video games in the mid1970s that fueled the race to make an 8 bit home computer, or rather a cheaper home computer than the rest.

I talked to some women who grew up in that era, most of them claim teachers, leaders, etc told them they could not do math science as well as boys to get into liberal arts instead of computer science, etc. Somehow the education system pushed the females away from computer science and pushed boys towards computer science as well.

Computer Science used to be dominated by women in the 1950s and 1960s. Let me cite the website your image comes from so we can get a background on it:

[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when- women-stopped-coding)

There are other sources to consider: [https://www.goodcall.com/news/women-in- computer-science-0982...](https://www.goodcall.com/news/women-in-computer- science-09821)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/519426/how-did- tech-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/519426/how-did-tech-become- so-male-dominated/)

[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-happened- all-w...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-happened-all-women- computer-science-1-180953111/)

[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer- programmin...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming- used-to-be-womens-work-718061/)

[https://readwrite.com/2014/09/02/women-in-computer- science-w...](https://readwrite.com/2014/09/02/women-in-computer-science-why- so-few/)

When you look at it in black and white as males and females, you are considered to be a bigot or sexist by SJWs. There is this gender studies thing that says gender is a social construct, etc which just clobbered Google and James Damore. In a way this is politics, culture, and society trying to push back against white males that dominate STEM and Computer Science etc. Of course the same people who want all of the other genders having these good paying jobs don't understand that males study computers, programming, technology in the same way females and others study fashion, social skills, makeup tips, clothing, etc.

Most males just wear a jeans and t-shirt and then tennis shoes. Albert Einstien used to say picking each clothes every day is a waste of time, so he had many copies of the same suits and clothes so he didn't have to choose each day. Males shower, go to the bathroom, and shave and brush teeth in 15 minutes in the morning, and females and other genders have to pick clothes, apply makeup, comb hair, use toilet, shower, brush teeth, and other stuff that may take over an hour. This is due to what society claims males and females (and others) have to do to get their looks, culture, social roles, etc. So it is a male dominated society run by females?

Well anyway, we have to find a way to encourage females and other non-male, non-binary, etc genders to study computer science the way males study it. It is a lot of work, and heavily in politics, culture, society, etc.

(WTH? I'm voted down for citing links on the subject and giving facts?)

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a campaign on to kill this story. You got downvoted because you cared enough to write a lot. Don't take it personal, there are powerful agendas at stake here.

<comment><USER3> I'm trying to get equality for genders, and find proof and examples as to why some genders don't do as well in computer science as others.

My intent was to help educate and start a discussion on it. Apparently, there is strong political kung-fu here or something.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why We're Supporting Gittip - <AUTHOR> http://workforpie.posterous.com/why-were-supporting-gittip-12292 <comment> aaron-lebo disclaimer: I say this having my own somewhat "competing" site in the oss crowdfunding area, though it is new and frankly unused. I'll give out the link if anyone is interested, but it seems poor form to do so directly in this comment.

I like the gist of gittip: giving hackers a way to write open source code while still making a living. That is ideal to me, and crowdfunding works for oss because oss has a return on investment for everyone.

I just have a hard time seeing how gittip will break an initial interest plateau. Traditional crowdfunding has worked for a few projects because there is an exact "you are getting this output for this input". With gittip it is much less obvious. I can donate an amount each week to a person, but there's nothing attached as to how that should be used for either side. The giver might expect a certain result, but the recipient doesn't know what that is or why they are receiving it.

Not to mention there is the issue where of what if a receiver wants to take a month off? The people who are giving do so because they expect something in return, and either the receiver is tied to that nebulous expectation of production, or they can take a break and risk losing whatever funding they received before and the resulting need to build that up again.

I just don't see how that can scale beyond a small, very interested audience. I feel we need the hard goals which say "if you give me this, I'll give you this". These goals give more concrete deadlines and expectations and probably are more likely to drive results.

But hey, anything in this area is encouraging and it will be interesting to see where gittip goes.

<comment><USER2> "The people who are giving do so because they expect something in return."

I believe they don't. Gift tips have no strings attached on either side. It's like employment at will, where either party is free to call it off at any time.

"[E]ither the receiver is tied to that nebulous expectation of production, or they can take a break and risk losing whatever funding they received before and the resulting need to build that up again."

I think it's a matter of telling your story openly and transparently. If people see me working productively for a year and then I blog about how I'm burned out and plan to take a break for a month, I would expect my funders to understand and not totally bail on me. I mean, I could set up visits around the country and have a nice vacation and still keep the story rolling. If I'm finding my living on Gittip I have to have a relationship with my anonymous funders and trust them. The Internet lets us have a relationship with the anonymous crowd.

Gittip wants to make it easier for receivers to tell their story. See:

<https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/133>

This is really WFP's thread, but I'm interested in seeing your site.

<comment> aaron-lebo I believe you when you and others say they don't expect specific results and no-strings attached, I just feel like it is human nature that when we give something of value, particularly money, we expect something in return. That's because money is inherently tied up into the idea that you get something of value for it. I'm not sure you can really break that. Perhaps it is a non- issue in practice.

The site is <http://www.kodefund.com>. It is somewhat of a Kickstarter only for open source projects, and you can also do a "reverse" project which helps you to get both funding and someone else to work on your idea, whether a library or bug fix or whatever. I've tried to further distill some of the ideas here: <http://www.kodefund.com/about/>. I agree that it is someone else's thread, so that is the last time I'll link it here.

I do like your open dev model. It is interesting to see problems so quickly turn into issues that anyone can work on.

<comment><USER2> (I'm getting a DNS error?)

<comment> aaron-lebo Strange.

I've had users sign-up, I've had someone say it works on the Google DNS, but you aren't the first with DNS errors. I'm hosting it on gandi's DNS, I wonder what I'm not doing right.

<comment><USER3> I think this is because an A record query for www.kodefund.com returns multiple CNAME records, which is not compliant with the DNS specification:

        mrowe@vega:~$ dig A www.kodefund.com @a.dns.gandi.net

        ; <<>> DiG 9.8.1-P1 <<>> A www.kodefund.com @a.dns.gandi.net
        ;; global options: +cmd
        ;; Got answer:
        ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 53562
        ;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
        ;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available

        ;; QUESTION SECTION:
        ;www.kodefund.com.		IN	A

        ;; ANSWER SECTION:
        www.kodefund.com.	10800	IN	CNAME	intense-ocean-3642.herokuapp.com.
        www.kodefund.com.	10800	IN	CNAME	mie-9107.herokussl.com.

        ;; Query time: 125 msec
        ;; SERVER: 220.127.116.11#53(220.127.116.11)
        ;; WHEN: Sun Jul 29 16:47:59 2012
        ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 110

If I perform the same query via my system resolver rather than directly against the gandi.net DNS servers then I simply receive no result:

        mrowe@vega:~$ dig A www.kodefund.com

        ; <<>> DiG 9.8.1-P1 <<>> A www.kodefund.com
        ;; global options: +cmd
        ;; Got answer:
        ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 36608
        ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

        ;; QUESTION SECTION:
        ;www.kodefund.com.		IN	A

        ;; Query time: 1306 msec
        ;; SERVER: 192.168.1.254#53(192.168.1.254)
        ;; WHEN: Sun Jul 29 16:48:58 2012
        ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 34

This is presumably because one of the intermediate resolver is being strict about the presence of multiple CNAMEs in the result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey. Quick tip: I knew what gittip was in the first sentence. But what is Work for Pie? There's no mention of that on the blog so I clicked the link. It sounds a lot like github but you can sign in with github? Pretty confused.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha! Good point. Wanted to take the emphasis off of us for a bit, but I understand the confusion.

Work for Pie is a community for software developers--and especially for developers who contribute to open source software. Joining gets you two things: a portfolio, and a score. Portfolio puts the emphasis on open source work, and score is based on _meaningful_ participation in dev-centric communities (right now Github, Bitbucket, Stack Overflow, and Hacker News with more coming).

In the future we'll be doing a couple things:

1) Making it easier for developers to connect with like-minded individuals

2) Making it easier for developers to discover great companies without the pressure that comes from working with outside recruiters or the frustration that comes from searching the job boards. We'll be sure to do a Show HN what that stuff is ready.

Thanks for asking! Feedback is welcome and encouraged cliff (at) workforpie.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just don't see how anyone is going to get a sustainable, recurring income out of Gittip. But give it a shot I guess.

<comment> aaron-lebo That's another issue I see with the project. Since these are recurring donations, you can never really count on them. I suppose you can't "count" on keeping a job either, but if you are expecting $60,000 a year to keep your lifestyle up and someone drops out donating for whatever reason, you are in trouble. You can't depend on it the way you would job or an up-front donation.

I'm sounding too critical. I really do like what is being attempted here, there just are hard barriers.

<comment><USER5> Not too critical and there is a world of difference between hope Joe Benefactor keeps shelling out his $100 a week (and then depending on 20 of them) and having pay check like the rest of the world.</comment></comment></comment>


Visual Studio 2010: Visualizing dependencies - <AUTHOR> http://weblogs.asp.net/gunnarpeipman/archive/2009/11/05/visual-studio-2010-visualizing-dependencies.aspx

<comment><USER2> JBoss's "tattletale" program does just that for a few years already.

Maybe it doesn't draw pretty drawings, but otherwise it's oldnews.

<comment><USER3> And what you need, it is not a fancy representation (from a closed source program). What you actualy need is the information itself for your custom reporting needs.

May I ask if you can export all of this info (in a readable format)?

EDIT: answer of the above from the article: _Currently you can save diagrams as XPS files and it also possible to copy diagram or legend to clipboard as image_

jpg is readable, but wasnt what I was looking for :(</comment></comment>


My Original Venn Diagram - <AUTHOR> http://www.singularityhacker.com/2010/11/my-original-venn-diagram.html

<comment><USER2> Nice job. Wikipedia has a page dedicated to amateur mathematicians who made contributions to the field. It should be an encouragement to anyone who takes their interest spuriously.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amateur_mathematicians>

</comment><comment><USER3> I did some googling and can't find any current applications for Venn diagrams. Are there any?</comment>


GaussDB, "The World's First AI-Native" Database by Huawei - <AUTHOR> https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514e32636a4e34457a6333566d54/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> Literally

> From: huawei(dot)zhoujianpeng(at)huawei(dot)com

> step1: download postgresql-9.2.15-1-windows-binaries.zip

> step2: uncompress all sub-directories to "C:\Program Files\gaussdb"

[https://www.postgresql.org/message- id/20160228050011.10543.1...](https://www.postgresql.org/message- firstname.lastname@example.com)

</comment><comment><USER2> Not really much in that article that explains anything technically.</comment>


Is Twitter actually worth $10 billion? We have our doubts - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/02/27/twitter-worth-10-billion/

<comment><USER2> > Is Twitter actually worth $10 billion?

It's important to realize that in the world of equities and company valuations, "worth" hinges more on psychology than balance sheets and P/E ratios. So the word "actually" might be misplaced -- if stock traders will "actually" bid a company up to that level, then that's "actually" its value.</comment>


A Canadian runs 21 pages dedicated to African countries on Reddit - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2020/06/08/reddit-phnompencil-cote-divoire-angola-or-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-eritrea/ <comment><USER2> All these subreddits are more or less dead.

800 subscribers for the most popular one? Barely a blip on Reddit.

<comment><USER3> In fact reddit unpopular in many African countries. Facebook group is mostly common. E.g. in r/Eritrea cases, there are large community of 30k in facebook, but r/Eritrea is also run by the Canadian reddit mogul.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> im having hard time trying to imagine an election mechanism for a site where users are mostly anonymous

and resent events in /r/worldpolitics is just a good example of the current model not working</comment>


Vagina Invalidation Argument - <AUTHOR> http://therealkatie.net/blog/2011/nov/10/vagina-invalidation-argument/

<comment><USER2> _I was told never to tell a man he was wrong, but to be coy and gently nudge him to my way of thinking._

I don't view this is a sexist statement, it is probably good advice for either sex, there are men that for whatever reason react strongly to a perceived challenge. I would give the same advice to my son. I view it as another take on you attract more fly's with honey. I think it exhibits an amount of grace in anyone who embodies such patients, as patients is a virtue.

<comment><USER3> I disagree. Although there might be situations where I would personally chose passive aggression over being honest about peoples mistakes, I would strongly prefer it if people told me I screwed up instead of gently nudging me in the "right way of thinking". I can make my own mind about what is the right way, thank you very much, If I had missed something important and made a mistake i need to know about it. I trust others to do so as well.

<comment><USER2> There is nothing passive aggressive about realizing the futility is arguing with a certain segment of men (or women for that matter) unless your goal is just to argue. If ones ambition is to be persuasive one must confront the situation understanding the shortcomings of the other person, if the intention is not to be persuasive then what is the use in even engaging.

<comment><USER3> The original quote was about assuming its futile from the start. "Don't argue with men"! not "Don't argue with men when you're convinced its futile". This sort of passivity pisses me off. Assholes must be called out. I'm an asshole sometimes and if it wasn't for the people who told me my behavior was unacceptable I would still be an asshole. Thank you all who've been brave enough to teach me a lesson. I believe most people are like me and will learn if given the chance. Difficult and futile are very different things in my world.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


ActiveRecord (and Rails) Considered Harmful - <AUTHOR> http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2011-12-30-active-record-considered-harmful

<comment><USER2> It's a bummer this article starts out with a quote about Rails providing a bad OOP learning environment and then talks about the framework itself never touching on the learning of OOP again.

\--

        "it's lead Rails developers to build huge,
        monolithic models that are hard to test,
        and violate SRP."

...Sounds like you need to structure your code better.

        "Have you ever seen a 200 line long
        controller method? I have."

... What on earth are you talking about? This has nothing to do with rails. Structure your code better.

        "The whole idea of logic in templates
        leads to all kinds of problems."

...Then don't put logic in your templates. Use helpers or logic-less templates.

        "MVC has served the web well...
        ...But I think we're reaching its
        limits"

...If the type of web app you want to make isn't best constructed with an mvc framework, don't use mvc. But honestly, I can't think of anyway to more blissfully implement a RESTfull webapp than with respond_to and resourceful routes.

        "This post is light on examples.
        I want this to be the starting point
        of a discussion"

...This exact discussion has been raging for years. Your only chance at gaining ground is through examples.

\--

This brings me to: When is this post from? I feel like it's 5 years old and I've slightly been had.

<comment><USER3> I think his thesis is that Rails should _help_ developers avoid those pitfalls. That's half the point of a framework (as opposed to a _library_ ): to show you _how_ to structure your code better.

That's actually a big part of the value of Rails: it picks one of the many ways to structure a web application (MVC with templates and an ORM), provides code to support that way, and (relevantly) sets conventions for code structure, directory layout (app/models/, lib/, etc).

It could have left some of those as plugins - like how Sinatra provides only routing and templating, and if you want MVC or ORM, you have to add them. But by making them part of the framework, Rails declared "here is one good way to structure a web app".

By pushing MVC, Rails helped developers avoid the pitfalls of one-page-PHP apps (mysite.com/index.php?page=news) - big entangled codebases with database access, HTML generation and business logic all intermixed. ActiveRecord helped developers avoid SQL injection attacks, repetitive query generation, and sprawling ORM config files. They made those problems trivial to avoid, and thus advanced the state of web development.

The OP acknowledges those contributions of Rails and ActiveRecord, but argues it's time for them to advance again, as there are new problems they need to tackle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The real issue is that changing these things would require some really > serious changes. It'd involve re-architecting large portions of things that > people classically identify with Rails, and I'm not sure that Rails wants to > or can do that.

Remember Merb? Remember Rails 2.x -> 3.x? These were not small changes, and the community negotiated them successfully.

What I'm saying is, don't get discouraged. The fact that we, as a community, can be openly critical of our tools is the only way to move them forward. Yes, there are a lot of blind followers who will defend anything Rails, but I've noticed that the core contributors are far more open minded about discussing the warts.

This doesn't mean they'll agree with everything you've said though. Theoretically pure scripting languages are under-represented in the general community? Why is that? I think the simplest answer is that they're beyond the grasp of most programmers. Digressing further, it begs the question of "what problem do you want to solve?" That is ultimately what any discussion will revolve around. Where will the balance between purity and accessibility land? Fortunately, I think there's progress being made there.

</comment><comment><USER5> Overly alarmist headline, although there are some good points of discussion in there, especially for Rails newbies. The article left a bad taste because it didn't elaborate on well-known solutions for the problems cited.

For instance, the sole problem mentioned with ActionController is the use of instance variables to communicate state to the view templates. The popular decent_exposure gem [1] eliminates this problem by giving you a declarative way to program to the controller's stated interface. It completely eliminates the need for using instance variables in your controller code.

[1] <https://github.com/voxdolo/decent_exposure>

<comment><USER6> why is it a problem anyway?

<comment><USER5> Use of instance variables to communicate state to views is known to lead to implicit and tight coupling between controller and templates (and become a nightmare to maintain over time)

DHH disagrees with this point of view because he considers templates to be methods of the Controller optimized for generating text. Hence use of instance variables is not a problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "It took me two and a half years to realize that Ruby classes in the models folder don't have to inherit from ActiveRecord::Base. That is a problem."

Wow! Maybe you're the problem...

"ActionController relies on instance variables to pass information from the controller to the view. Have you ever seen a 200 line long controller method? I have."

Well I haven't, I've actually seen it in Django. Nothing forces you to write 200 lines controller methods.

"The whole idea of logic in templates leads to all kinds of problems."

Again, nothing forces to write a lot of logic in the views, you could write the minimum necessary.

<comment><USER7> If you haven't seen those kinds of controller methods, I'm wondering if you've worked on any legacy apps recently? I've yet to see an app with a) more than one or two skilled developers and b) more than a couple of years old that C) didn't exhibit that problem in at least a couple of spots. I don't think this is a Rails problem—its a code discipline problem. If you're fortunate enough to have only worked on solo projects or teams with extraordinary discipline, then I'm jealous! But its definitely a problem that creeps into most codebases sooner or later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The only way to stop putting too much logic in your views is to switch a logic-less templating system. I'm convinced that willpower, coding standards, code reviews, etc would never be enough to stop it.

Here's a decent implementation of mustache for Rails: <https://github.com/goodmike/mustache_rails3>

app/views becomes .rb files which act as a sort of presenters.

app/templates is where your actual mustache templates go.

There's a lot of benefits to this and a huge one is being able to reuse templates on the client-side.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you're interested in "view models", then check out Draper:

<https://github.com/jcasimir/draper>

It provides exactly that, and it was a huge "a-ha!" for me when I started using it. Suddenly, things that felt icky to do in a helper (because they were tightly coupled to a model) or in the model (because they rightly belonged in a view helper) had a place to live. My templates are nearly fully devoid of twisting logic now.

Based on my experience, I think that Rails is missing the decorator/view-model piece, and would benefit from it as a core addition, but one of the great things about Rails is that it's easily extensible. Drop the gem in your gemfile, start using decorators, and go home happy.

</comment><comment><USER10> From the article:

        "I've written a lot of crappy code, and most of it is due to following Rails 'best practices.'"

Funny how the author purposes to be following 'best practices' yet is doing things such as writing 200-line methods full of if statements, putting logic in views, etc. It seems the authors woes stem directly from a lack of 'best practice' knowledge, not only of Rails but also of Ruby itself.

There will never be a framework that can completely stop developers from shooting themselves in the foot. Education is the key.

(I'll admit this comment could be much more helpful in as much as stating what the best practices are which would solve or prevent these problems but I would be repeating ground covered by better teachers than I. The truth is out there, seek and ye shall find, etc, etc!)

</comment><comment><USER11> Same here. I think those discussions are useful because, as you, I think Rails is really nice, but it does hurt my domain driven design optic. I think many people are searching various way to overcome the ActiveRecord "problem" (/design decision). I saw a presentation by Corey Haines on this recently, and it did gave me some food for thought : <http://blog.8thcolor.com/2011/11/arrrrcamp-fast-rails-tests/>.

I'm currently working on a new Rails project, and I'm delegating more and more responsibility to model objects that does -not- extends ActiveRecord. Works for me, for now.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've had many of the same thoughts about Rails over the years. I think the view model idea is definitely worth exploring... it would certainly rid models of a bunch of view-related stuff that doesn't manage to end up in helpers.

One piece of coupling that really bugs me is doing stuff like link_to(@foo) that will autogenerate a URL based on the class name of the model. To me, this is way worse than the table names and makes the routes highly coupled with the underlying class naming structure. Way too much magic...

<comment><USER13> Uh, "magic" code isn't "magic", it's just code you don't understand. The obvious solution is to stop writing it off as "magic" and learn to understand it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "The differences between Django's idea of 'views' and Rails' idea of 'views' are interesting here."

Yep. Actually, Django's MVC implementation is commonly called MTV (afaik it's not an official term) because the 'views' are in fact controllers.</comment>


Peach - <AUTHOR> http://peach.cool <comment><USER2> Seeing this get huge on Twitter. It's the first I've heard of it. Is it special?

</comment><comment><USER3> Peach Android not cool?</comment>


Toyota Plans a Sport Car, With Passion - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/business/global/06toyota.html?hpw <comment><USER2> I read about it a few years back, the goal for it is to be the current generation AE86 RWD Corolla, for $12K

[http://www.blog.automotiveaddicts.com/toyotas-return-of- the-...](http://www.blog.automotiveaddicts.com/toyotas-return-of-the- ae86-toyota-corolla-rwd-car)</comment>


CouchDB API Documentation Preview Release - <AUTHOR> http://docs.couchone.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> And the blog post by the documentation author:

[http://blog.couchone.com/post/1671912710/couchone- documentat...](http://blog.couchone.com/post/1671912710/couchone- documentation-preview-couchdb-api)</comment>


Ask HN: Best SVG Drawing Apps for iPad? - <AUTHOR> Anyone have any recommendations? New to the pencil. <comment><USER2> Affinity Designer is a serious competitor for Adobe products. Check it out: [https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/designer/](https://affinity.serif.com/en- gb/designer/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Will give it a look, thanks! Concepts is a good one too.</comment></comment>


The Writer They Call Mr. Blood and Guts (1979) - <AUTHOR> http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/the-writer-they-call-mr-blood-and-guts-19790419 <comment><USER2> I know it's long but it's really worth reading. Steve Dunleavy was an interesting man.

<comment><USER3> Steve Dunleavy is an interesting man.

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

Pretty certain that he was still among the living, but 2016 has been a really rough year for celebrities.</comment></comment>


FogBugz for YC Startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz/YCombinator.html

<comment><USER2> The offer is there since 2008.

Previously submitted: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=341289> (1401 days ago, 48 comments)

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish people would not upvote this - it's not even really an offer to YC startups it's just a cheesy advertisement for HN and it sets an awful precedent.

<comment><USER4> I'm confused. it looks like an offer to yc startups...</comment></comment>


Amazon Is Leading Tech's Takeover of America - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-is-leading-techs-takeover-of-america-1497653164 <comment><USER2> AMZN is one of the most interesting stocks & Companies. Its a new age Warren Buffett-esque value company. He probably doesn't invest in it due to the tech complexity, but it is the _type_ of Company he looks at, just a the 21st century version.

\- strong fundamental business

\- diversified

\- delivers core services

\- ubiquitous

\- ingrained in everyday life

He owns walmart shares (or did) and Amazon is that for 21st century plus more. It's a logistics play. Tech infrastructure and AWS, market, entertainment & media, real goods, food, search, hardware etc. It's a solid company. It's a ruthless monopoly and I don't love the ramifications, but it ain't goin anywhere.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is crazy. Technology has always ruled America. It's ruled man since the invention of fire. Things have just sped up so that the folks at the top are the ones who can keep up rather than slow it down.

<comment><USER4> Technology wasn't always so centralized and vertically integrated though. Companies that made trucks still had to sell them to someone, they didn't just run a national logistics company themselves, and yet when we get self-driving tech, some car companies are definitely looking at operating their own fleets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bust the trusts

</comment><comment><USER6> The important points of the article are that all sorts of industries that historically didn't scale now do so thanks to computer and other technologies, and that is leading to a great centralization, which in turn fuels income inequality.

</comment><comment><USER7> I just heard a couple of malls around my house are converting into high rise apartment buildings. So in the long run the land owners are thinking all that there is room for is housing.

</comment><comment><USER8> Very informative read please keep up the good work.</comment>


Best tools/practices for A/B testing web apps - <AUTHOR> I am starting to do more A/B testing on my web apps, but I wondered if anyone had any advice on best practices or tools that help them. <comment><USER2> what do you mean by A/B?

if you want to do load test use jmeter

<http://jakarta.apache.org/jmeter/index.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the load testing tool suggestion, but I am after tools or tips on testing the effectiveness of two different buttns, links, navigation bars, pages, ad placement, etc.

I am also looking for tools that will give me more insight into users click behavior, etc.

Thanks though.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Come on any tips?</comment>


Failing to Use the Computing Lever (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://tratt.net/laurie/blog/entries/failing_to_use_the_computing_lever <comment><USER2> The article makes some great points.

> Doing tasks manually instead of automatically. Computers excel at the > simple, repetitive tasks which humans are terrible at. I remember seeing > someone change a document which used the American English idiom of placing a > comma after e.g. (i.e. "e.g., X") to the less stilted British English idiom > without the comma (i.e. "e.g. X"). The person editing did the change by > scanning the (rather large) document and manually changing each occurrence, > a task which took a couple of rather dispiriting hours. Inevitably, in a > large document, some occurrences were missed. I fixed the remaining > occurrences with 100% accuracy by using the 'search and replace' function in > my text editor — which took less than 5 seconds.

This is true, but it's an example where the solution is obvious to many people and the answer -RTFM, or more politely "invest in training"\- is simple. A different example would have been better. Consider removing a column of information from a text document. You can kludge this using a spreadsheet or you could do repeated search and replace (depending on the data) but this example asks us to think what people should do when their hammer stops being useful.

What should people do? How does someone doing routine office work learn how to use a database instead of a spreadsheet - and what spreadsheet should they use? More importantly, how do they learn what tools are appropriate?

<comment><USER3> I think the example is apt enough for the situation of "repetitive tasks which humans are terrible".

I agree that additional more complex examples might be interesting, though.

It seems that there's always going to be a sliding scale, depending on how complex the task is. Some software will provide fairly straight-forward mechanisms for performing some tasks (such as find and replace) and some things will end up being potentially more difficult (maybe, say, find and replace with a regex).

In an office setting I think there's a good case here for having someone that's IT/programming/automation savvy working with people to improve their day to day process.

I've actually done that before at my job, in an informal capacity. I occasionally go sit with the folks on the operations side of the business so I can learn more about what they do, and more effectively build things for them, and often times I end up telling them a lot of tricks in excel, or word, or whatever else, that make there job easier. In a few cases I've managed to create quick tools for them that substantially reduce their workload with minimal effort on my part. In a strict cost-benefit analysis, it's probably not worth my time, but it pays a lot in inter-department relations. Of course, my working environment allows for that, but I mostly mean it as an anecdotal example of what I'm talking about. ymmv.

<comment><USER4> IT departments in most organizations devote themselves almost exclusively to preventing their users from causing inadvertent damage, and not enough time on enabling them to use the tools provided. Most IT organizations would benefit from sending staff out to work with users, see how they work and identify ways to help them better wield the laptops and software with which they've been provided, instead of hiding behind ticket systems.

<comment><USER5> Thats a great idea. I worked in IT for a few years and in any company above a certain size there is a sort of balkanization. Each department will just want to claim that any issue is "not our fault. We've performed perfectly!" Rather then everyone working together towards a common goal. The IT staff certainly have knowledge and understanding of the system they maintain + general computer use knowledge that comes from doing 'computery' tasks all day. By seeing how the users operate and sharing the appropriate techniques the users could get a productivity and wellbeing boost and the IT department might end up with less tickets and silly questions from clueless users.

In my experience in IT, as you are going from place to place in the office people would try to 'grab' you to help with something. I always acquiesced to this and would always see if I could share any techniques that would help the user in general based on the workflow I was seeing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would expand on this and make a suggestion to people who write software. Use the computing lever, please. Computers are insanely fast and getting faster. If there is a task that you can perform automatically, do it — don't bother me.

Case in point: almost all OCR software is deeply rooted in the 90's when processing power was a fraction of what it is today. Therefore, you load a scanned book into an OCR program, click "Recognize", the program spends 30 seconds doing its work and happily says "I'm done!", while you are left with 600 errors to correct manually. I'd much rather leave the program running for several hours (overnight!) and get 6 errors to correct manually. There is often a tradeoff that many fail to think of.

<comment><USER7> We should also consider that needing to type 100 words per minute isn't using a lever either. IDE's have gotten quite good, for example. How about adding voice input? Why can't I simply say 'build', 'run', 'indent line' or 'reformat code'? It also knows the 10 variables that are in scope in a function, so why can't I simply say the variable name that I want to type? Voice recognition should understand that I'm working in camel or snake case.

Of course, I'd like more complicated actions.

'Select line. Wrap in fast for loop'

'rename function'

'Open file x'

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think my favorite two examples of getting more out of my computer lever are Sikuli Script and Sublime Text multiple cursors.

Sikuli Script lets me script almost anything that has a visual element/gui. I've been able to automate just about any task that has a gui and is repetitive, in some fashion or another, and at this point I have a backlog of scripts for working with some of the esoteric software I encounter day to day. Definitely worth checking out if you haven't before.

The multiple cursors (which are getting prominent in a lot of text editors) are awesome for small text munging and manipulation. by and large, everything I could do with multiple cursors could have been accomplished with some other tool, such as regex's or whatever else, but the multiple cursors end up being really intuitive and powerful for me. I never have to rethink how they work because they work just like my normal cursor but... with more of them. Combine them with ST2's ability to do a search and place cursors at every found location, and I can get a lot of weird stuff done quickly.

<comment><USER8> > Combine them with ST2's ability to do a search and place cursors at every > found location, and I can get a lot of weird stuff done quickly.

Combine this with excel (use \t and \n in sublime for row and column respectively) and you get really powerful, really fast when it comes to converting information into a useable formats.

I've also made use of excel's data validations to create drop downs in cells for making hundreds of lines of complex config for a rules engine in a few hours. Enter the configuration in excel, export to csv, use a ruby to import csv into a database table via existing orm. (Why not use the UI? The app is too slow.)

I turned what would have been a week long data entry task into an afternoon of copying and pasting out of a another spreadsheet. (Why didn't I used the other spreadsheet? It was in a non-machine readable format. I had to convert the data to the proper format using my knowledge of the system internals.)

<comment><USER3> Nice!

Yeah, I've done the excel bit with \n and \t as well. I have a little text- munging javascript app I wrote for splitting and merging things in certain ways.

I also use the excel -> db route a lot, but I'm working with MS SQL Server so I'll just do the data import from excel to db.

I get dirty looks sometimes when I talk about doing things this way, but it's really handy. If I know I'm going to have to do something more than once, I'll usually write a quick script for it, but otherwise, quick ad-hoc text manipulation with ST, excel and the javascript scripts I have is pretty fast and really flexible.

Flexibility is the big thing for me. Often I won't think of every way I really need to manipulate the data right out of the gate, so being able to quickly work through and change things is handy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does touch typing versus less than ten finger typing really make a difference if one is programming in a terse language (assembly language, APL, etc.)?

Is touch typing really the only true way to control the computer "lever"? Does that mean an office secretary who touch types uses a more powerful lever than an APL programmer who does not touch type?

If what we are doing with the computer lever is ultimately just manipulating _symbols_ (not long strings of verbose text like this comment), then the question I have is whether entering these these symbols using all ten fingers really makes a difference.

Touch typing is underrated, but certainly, with the requisite knowledge, there is a lot one can do with a computer "lever" without typing more than 30 wpm.

<comment><USER10> Most decent IDE's or text editors have autocomplete, even the Unix shell has tab complete. Touch typing is overrated.

<comment><USER11> Try it before you knock it. I took typing class in high school. It was the best leverage class I ever took for my chosen career. I have seen it repeatedly: the colleague that doesn't want to make some change because its going to be too much typing. It creates a potential-energy hump many programmers are not willing to marshall the will to cross. So simple-to- conceive yet hard-to-type things don't get done.

<comment><USER10> I have a set of Dorvak stickers on my keyboard (I read it was easier to learn, and easier on your hands). I can touch type with that layout, but its just so much slower, and I find I am too busy concentrating on the typing, so its difficult to think about code.

<comment><USER11> The typing class consisted of drills in common phrases, 30 iterations of a phrase at a time. It takes time. But its only once per lifetime; then you have it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I generally adore Tratt's posts and wholeheartedly agree with them but I can't do so with this one. Most computer professionals I know err on the side of automating even things that pretty obviously should not be automated. And every last one has a big bag of tricks and tools for automating things. I also can't think of any programmer I know who doesn't know at least two or three languages – and many are veritable polyglots, to the point that it can become problematic. I'm not sure who this post is talking about by it does not seem like anyone I know (who knows how to program).

</comment><comment><USER13> Some of the problems in the list are deep seated and well deserved mistrust of the computer. For example the cut and paste metaphor is broken with the combination of that page and firefox, I can cut and paste the text below but I'm not permitted to cut and paste the number. Why? Someone concerned about usability or maybe screen readers would implement his ordered list as pure text, with an explicit "5\. whatever" even though that means a little manual rework for inserts and deletes. Then again, its necessary because ordered HTML lists don't work with cut and paste. Don't believe me? Try it under the latest firefox it won't work. What a POS. You can see why this makes people do work the manual way, the way that at least currently is consistent. (edited to add I'm going to call this the principle of least surprise)

"Not searching for help."

And now for something completely different, I've often wondered if this is a stereotypical introvert vs extrovert thing. Google as "the coworker" for introverts. Meanwhile people who are recharged rather than tired out by interpersonal drama love to walk over and bug people "whats the regex backslash for non-whiteSpace, again?" because it recharges them. All the "google is really fast" is never going to have a negative influence compared to "hurray, I get to go socialize now".

<comment><USER14> I must remember how one of the colleagues handled that interpersonal drama thing. For the first time someone asks him something (say that regex question), he happily answers and shows _why_ the answer is what it is. But if someone asks him that same question for the second time couple of days later, he says "that'll be $5". In just a couple of weeks number of people who comes to him for the second time drastically reduced :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a good way to express the advantages of an CLI over most common uses of a GUI. A CLI is a way to tell the computer what to do; usually when you are using a GUI you are working for the computer. For example, say you have a directory full of images with white borders that you need to remove. Most people who've never really been educated in how to make a computer work for them will fire up something like Photoshop and open each image in turn, manually selecting the borders, deleting them, and saving the result. They will be mousing and clicking for hours. Other people will type in an Imagemagick command, go get a cup of coffee, and come back to find the work has been done for them by their computer. The command line is a big lever.

<comment><USER16> People who have learnt how to make Photoshop work will build a PS macro and fire off a batch process. It's not a GUI vs CLI issue, it's an issue with knowing more than just the simplest, shallowest face of your tools.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Some talk about leveraging unix www.confreaks.com/videos/615-cascadiaruby2011-the-unix-chainsaw (yes, same speaker as wat)

</comment><comment><USER18> (2011)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, but it's not like people have suddenly stopped manually performing totally repetitive tasks on a computer since 2011, so it's still relevant today. :)</comment></comment>