A history of the distributed transactional database - <AUTHOR> https://www.infoq.com/articles/relational-nosql-fauna <comment><USER2> > This is not at all a theoretical problem. Deliberately inducing withdrawal > races at ATMs is a widely reported type of fraud. Thus, databases need > "external consistency", colloquially known as ACID.

In all those fraud cases banks were actually running ACID databases as they always do. Because ACID has nothing to do with "external consistency", unless you can run it in a human brain, which you can't. Interactions with humans can only be eventually consistent. But nobody even bothers to have ACID all the way to the web browser or APIs, so it's only limited to the application, but not beyond that. With all the frauds and double spending problems remaining unsolved.

Overall the usual FaunaDB attacks on other systems, especially AP. Strong eventual consistency of AP systems is actually much stronger, than ACID and is much much easier to verify and AP is where the cutting edge of distributed systems research happens. But more importantly, SEC can offer the best theoretically possible performance and latency for multi datancenter deployments. While distributed ACID transactions don't even show viability in multi datacenter deployments at the moment, forcing vendors to degrade into weak consistency models in such setups.

<comment><USER3> I don't think it's correct to pit ACID against AP systems this way. Consistency is orthogonal. ACID is model for reasoning about transaction guarantees in terms of allowed anomalies at each isolation level. Serializability in ACID implies CP over AP, but weaker levels don't have the same requirement. It still comes down to tradeoffs for a specific use-case of a database system.

Not sure what you're getting at when you say ACID transactions don't work in a multi-DC context. FaunaDB aside, there are many production systems (commercial or internal) that provide them that I am aware of.

<comment><USER4> > _Not sure what you 're getting at when you say ACID transactions don't work > in a multi-DC context._

I expect they are talking about DC as _regions_, not DC as _availability zones_ (in the AWS parlance).

Planetary databases hit latency issues on cross-region ACID transactions. Whatever the sharding, a transaction modifying one piece whose leader is in Paris and another in Beijing will have at least the round-trip time between the two.

It is already unforgiving at that scale, and will become inadmissible at interplanetary scale, requiring some form of eventual consistency.

However, I still expect that we will retain ACID operations for local changes. Humans tolerate latencies that are necessary for planetary ACID transactions. The combination of the size of the Earth and the speed of light is a lucky draw.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I meant regions as well. Speed-of-light bounded latency certainly means that serializable ACID transactions are not workable in some situations, but I disagree with OP that this proves them not viable period, at least at planet- scale as you say.

We're indeed pretty lucky as far as transactions are concerned...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For further reading, Dan Abadi's post at [http://dbmsmusings.blogspot.com/2018/09/newsql-database- syst...](http://dbmsmusings.blogspot.com/2018/09/newsql-database-systems-are- failing-to.html) addresses the Spanner issues more directly.

I don't think there's a great reference for the Percolator transaction architecture specifically, but there is a brief description here: [https://blog.octo.com/en/my-reading-of-percolator- architectu...](https://blog.octo.com/en/my-reading-of-percolator-architecture- a-google-search-engine-component/)

One thing I learned recently is that FoundationDB is essentially the Percolator model (timestamp oracle), even though FoundationDB predated the Percolator paper.

<comment><USER5> What consistency model does FDB provide?

<comment><AUTHOR> In my understanding, it can provide strict serializability.

The main difference from actual Percolator is that FoundationDB manages range locks through a logically separate pool of in-memory lock caches, instead of writing durable locks to the replicas, but the end result is the same. External consistency for read/write transactions within a single datacenter at a time.

<comment><USER6> There is no _correctness_ limitation on using FoundationDB in multiple datacenters, and if you do most of your writes in a single datacenter while using the others for disaster recovery, the latency is honestly pretty good too (especially with some of the new 6.0 features).

EDIT: I was wondering why this conversation was giving me deja vu, and then I remembered that you and Dave discussed this in detail last month: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18258805](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18258805)

<comment><AUTHOR> I forgot about that; thanks for the link. I didn't intend to imply a correctness limitation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was using IBM DB/2 Parallel Edition in 1995 at Trans Union for a year 2000 project to move off the mainframe. It was running on 60 RS/6000 SP2s. I was hoping the blog post would go further back in time.

[https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9c08/4a56c1c625da116eca4742...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9c08/4a56c1c625da116eca474208d9780539ceff.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER8> It's kinda sad that Tandem and similar work has been forgotten. I've wondered what we could learn from such history and never gotten a clear answer.

<comment><USER9> HP still manufactures and maintains Tandem systems, under the HPE Integrity Nonstop brand [1]. Just like IBM Systems Magazine [2], there is a lot of proprietary tech described that takes awhile to seep into Linux and the open source world. You can still read the Tandem documentation, so the ideas are still there to be picked up by anyone interested in re-implementing them on Linux.

[1] [https://www.hpe.com/us/en/servers/nonstop.html](https://www.hpe.com/us/en/servers/nonstop.html)

[2] [http://ibmsystemsmag.com/](http://ibmsystemsmag.com/)

<comment><USER10> Is there a technical writeup anywhere about the design and architecture of Tandem? One that has enough detail that a skilled database designer could understand it well enough to reimplement it?

<comment><USER8> [https://jimgray.azurewebsites.net/papers/TEs.pdf](https://jimgray.azurewebsites.net/papers/TEs.pdf)

I don't have the background to fully understand this stuff, but it claims "The first distributed SQL -- it offers distributed data, distributed execution, and distributed transactions." while every single NoSQL/NewSQL article says things like "Legacy databases (typically the centralized RDBMS) solve this problem by being undistributed."

<comment><AUTHOR> That claim is technically true. There's a lot of good stuff in here—partitioned locks, transaction recovery journals, a realistic expectation of WAN latency and reliability—but page 20 ("Local Autonomy") and page 37 ("NonStop Operation") give clues as to the differences from modern systems.

Rather than build consensus-based high availability into the software, NonStop SQL relies on custom hardware and redundant networks that are designed to never fail. If they do fail, some portion of the data or some types of modifications become unavailable and the operator is expected to intervene and make choices about how to proceed.

They give an example of being unable to run an ALTER TABLE statement because two datacenters that each own a shard of the table are disconnected—the statement can't be run at _either_ datacenter during the partition.

They give other examples where queries return partial results because a specific shard is down. This is potentially a correctness violation if it is not explicit, and it is definitely a loss of availability.

Modern distributed systems are instead designed to maintain almost total levels of availability on constantly failing hardware, and heal themselves immediately and autonomously without losing correctness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> TiDB developer here,

'This model is equivalent to the multiprocessor RDBMS—which also uses a single physical clock, because it's a single machine—but the system bus is replaced by the network. In practice, these systems give up multi-region scale out and are confined to a single datacenter.'

I don't think so, although Percolaotor has a single point of physical clock, but it is easy to eliminate the SPOF problem by using high-availability algorithms such as Raft or Paxos (Just like the design in TiDB). On the other hand, the strong consistency across multiple data centers, I think, without hardware devices such as TrueTime, it is difficult to have low latency and strong consistency while allowing writes happen in multiple data centers at the same time. The more realistic situation is that there is a primary data center (where both read and write occur), and multiple data centers guarantee high availability with strong consistency, we can achieve this goal by scheduling Paxos or Raft leader to the primary data center.

</comment><comment><USER12> TiDB should be in here but trying to keep up with the latest trends is overwhelming.

<comment><USER3> TiDB uses the Percolator protocol

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why the hell does everyone make a banking example when they want to talk about transactions? BANKS RUN ON EVENTUAL CONSISTENCY, PERIOD.

Another point worth mentioning is that, single transaction coordinator model is undervalued in community. Majority of systems have the following query pattern (sorted descending):

1\. Single key read --> you don't need to contact coordinator

2\. Single key write --> you don't need to contact coordinator. OCC with simple version number works here.

3\. Multi-key asynchronous write (updating second, third keys using a pub/sub infrastructure) --> you don't need to contact coordinator in this case.

4\. True multi-key transactions that should happen atomically --> need to contact coordinator

If a single coordinator can process 20-30K/s transactions of category 4, then total throughput of the system would be around 300K queries per second which is sufficient for many workloads.

<comment><USER14> > BANKS RUN ON EVENTUAL CONSISTENCY, PERIOD.

Especially American banks. I can't think of any other retail banking market where banks abuse eventual consistency so bad that transfers take days to clear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Cap theorem states that it is impossible for a distributed data store to simultaneously provide more than two out off Consistency, Availability and Partition tolerance

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

</comment><comment><USER16> Apache Ignite is an ACID key-value CP database that does not depend on clock.

</comment><comment><USER17> Where does FoundationDB fit with this?</comment>


Nanocoin – A minimal cryptocurrency implemented in Haskell - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tdietert/nanocoin <comment><USER2> The extensive README is also a pretty good intro to how one can do crypto (as in cryptography: get off my lawn!) in Haskell using the excellent _cryptonite_ library.

For those who won't click through to TFR:

        > import Crypto.Number.Hash (SHA3_256)
        > import Crypto.PubKey.ECC.ECDSA (sign, verify)
        > import Crypto.PubKey.ECC.Generate (generate)
        > import Crypto.PubKey.ECC.Types (getCurveByName, SEC_p256k1)

        > let msg = "hello world" :: ByteString
        > let secp256k1 = getCurveByName SEC_p256k1
        > (pubKey, privKey) <- generate secp256k1
        > sig <- sign privKey SHA3_256 msg
        > verify SHA3_256 pubKey sig msg
        True

<comment><USER3> Is cryptonite anything like production ready? I mean, does it protect against timing side channels (perhaps using crypto instructions like AES-NI), etc.

Something I didn't like about it is that it exposes crypto primitives, including stuff like TripleDES, with no warning[0]. The tutorial also has you handle IVs directly.[1]

[0] [https://hackage.haskell.org/package/cryptonite-0.24/docs/Cry...](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/cryptonite-0.24/docs/Crypto- Cipher-TripleDES.html)

[1] [https://hackage.haskell.org/package/cryptonite-0.24/docs/Cry...](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/cryptonite-0.24/docs/Crypto- Tutorial.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> If you notice, it only exposes the _types_ of the TripleDES, not the constructors, meaning you don't have access to the values unless you clone the cryptonite repo and modify it to expose the constructors, giving access to the values at run time.

Also, the tutorial is a bit advanced and is meant to show a particular use case of using symmetric block ciphers for encryption/decryption, you are not always using such bare-bones primitives-- check out the hashing part of the README.md in Nanocoin.

IMO it's production ready, and has most all potential known attacks documented above the functions that are vulnerable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're interested, here's a secp256k1 implementation (underlying elliptical curve cryptography) in pure Haskell:

[https://github.com/wyc/haschain/blob/master/Secp256K1.hs](https://github.com/wyc/haschain/blob/master/Secp256K1.hs)

Should probably wrap it into a Group or something. Of course it's not secure, just for fun.

</comment><comment><USER5> Another well documented blockchain implementation in Haskell: [http://www.michaelburge.us/2017/08/17/rolling-your-own- block...](http://www.michaelburge.us/2017/08/17/rolling-your-own- blockchain.html)</comment>


How smoking weed is still legal for tourists in Amsterdam - <AUTHOR> http://travel.stackexchange.com/q/12942/101

<comment><USER2> Independent of the actual subject matter, I think that recent drug policy changes in the Netherlands is a great example of how the common push for centralization can be countered by local demands.

At some point, drug enforcement was pretty much the same across the country, but now, because different cities have different problems and influences, it is enforced differently in cities. As a strong believer in the "subsidiarity principle" (things should be decided as locally as they can), I've been appalled at the push towards centralization of policies and control in many European countries the last decade.

It seems that everybody thinks that if local issues are made national policy, and national issues European policy, things will automatically be better. Usually it starts because in one locality, something goes wrong, resulting in media outrage and a call for more regulation by a higher government. If we don't watch out, small town sidewalk planning will be done in Brussels.

The recent Dutch drug policy changes show that with enough effort, the subsidiarity principle can still win. This gives me some confidence for the future. We need to keep underlining that not every place is the same.

<comment><USER3> I am very pro EU. The original purpose was to avoid wars, long teem. That goal is still relevant. Free trade and free movement were both considered tools. I consider them (especially the often neglected free movement) ends themselves.

That said, the EU has issues. Lots of political traditions and very few basic principles to guide how things should be done. What EU is and isn't responsible for isn't clear. There has been lots of recent pieces of legislation and precedents created in a panicky environment as a response to the banking crisis.

Personally I believe that is possible and preferable to maintain free movement and trade without that being translated into centrally insured and regulated banking, just like it should apply to local drug policy. I also think that's the only way it will work.

<comment><USER4> I have become very anti-EU in recent years.

I am very much pro open borders with neighboring nations, but the EU has become a vehicle for creating a fundamentally undemocratic centralized federal state.

And I especially detest the way the EU tries to shift the balance of power by allowing impoverished, corrupt nations into the EU without any kind of democratic process.

In the Netherlands, there is a clear majority against the expansion of the EU, and we are being railroaded. We voted against the EU "constitution" in the only meaningful referendum in the history of our nation, and they simply changed the fucking name.

The fact that an originally very strongly pro-European nation like the Netherlands said "no further" should have been a clear signal to reform the EU, but instead things have just become worse.

I'm still pro-European, but consider the EU the enemy of our freedom, democracy and sovereignty.

<comment><USER5> You know, as an American, it's interesting to see how the EU experiment plays out. Many of these issues have parallels to the American federal vs. state's rights debates. Early on, the U.S. was much more individual state-centric. Outside of slavery, the American civil war was largely about individual Southern states keeping their local rights vs. a more federal North. Over time the major political parties have largely separated on this issue with the American Left more federal and the Right more interested in state rights.

Lots of the befuddlement non-Americans feel towards sometimes arcane, mixed "American" policy (e.g. taxes, guns, gay rights, etc.) is a result of this.

Regardless, the US model has quickly moved towards a more national policy even though it's still a very active debate here.

The EU is a grand experiment, but long histories and complex cultural differences and interactions will make it very interesting to watch how it plays out.

<comment><USER6> > Over time the major political parties have largely separated on this issue > with the American Left more federal and the Right more interested in state > rights.

My perception has been that they're both extremely federal about some things, and extremely anti-federal about others. To take an example of Republicans taking the federal side and Democrats taking the more subsidiary side of an issue, about 10 years back there was an interesting point in Wisconsin state politics where municipalities were starting to enact bans on smoking in taverns, and some folks in the state legislature responded by attempting to enact a statewide ban on smoking bans.

Of course, smoking in bars still became illegal statewide about 3 years ago. . . which I think illustrates the real guiding principle in American politics, which is political pragmatism: Election season politicking (read: dishonesty) aside, neither party truly takes a principled stance on the big government issue. In practice, they freely flip-flop between pushing big-government policies and stumping for smaller governments' right to be free from meddling depending on which approach better suits their goals in a particular situation.

To take another example, the two main parties' relative opinions on the desirability of using great heaping piles of taxpayer money to fund government programs in order to create jobs does this sudden, dramatic and complete inversion when the topic of military contractors gets raised.

<comment><USER5> That's also true. Different people have differing opinions about what should be national policy vs. state policy, and it can actually be counter- intuitive/paradoxical until you really look into it.

For example, most American conservatives favor strong national defense, but minority pockets of conservative areas are strongly anti-federal and favor local militias. It seems odd, but you'll find that most of that bent veer that way from both the Constitutional right to bear arms in a well regulated militia (unspecified as to who regulates it, but that's a small technical quibble), combined with an American leeriness about government (that the same amendment seems to voice) and you can kind of see how that kind of thing arises.

And there's similar sentiments all over the political spectrum.

As an American, the E.U. looks similar in this respect. Politics are tied up in originator theories (the E.U. was meant for xxx) and a European nation vs. local nationalism. With Europe being perceived as being very liberal from an American perspective, it's interesting to see politics that would be framed here as extreme conservatism as part of the normal modern European political debate and it's a good lesson that not everybody is wholly liberal or conservative on all issues.

As to what I support, this current overly complicated system, of overlapping but non-equal areas of trade, borders and monetary systems (the EEA, EU, ESDP, EFTA, EuroZone, Schengen, and on and on and on) seems unsustainable in the long-term.

It simply makes more sense to say "if you're in Europe, you are part of the EU which implies you are part of common defense, common trade, common monetary policy and so and so forth" and not worry about which part of the venn diagram a particular nation is. My prediction is that this _will_ happen within the next 50 years. And 50 years after than everybody will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.

From an outsider's perspective, Europe today is better than Europe was even just a couple decades ago and I think it's largely due to this unification movement. Having a larger government override local concerns seems particularly difficult for Europeans right now, but as an American we're quite used to it and find it _generally_ tolerable.

As a frequent visitor to Europe over the last few decades, I enjoy the more unified Europe more, it's just easier to get around and do things, even if some of the local flavor has been lost (I used to love collecting all the various currencies, now it's just Euros, bleh).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Dutchmen here. You can grow your own weed as well. Just not more than 5 plants and only for your own consumption. I'm no user, but I understand weed is for tourists and younger kids just chillin'/relaxing.

There's a much larger user base for all those chemically created drugs for partying. Lately there's a new thing, it's actually for horses needing surgery and keeps them on their feet. Kids use it to prefent passing out from all the other drugs. Funny thing is: They look like walking zombies stumbling about.

<comment><USER8> >Lately there's a new thing, it's actually for horses needing surgery and keeps them on their feet. Kids use it to prefent passing out from all the other drugs. Funny thing is: They look like walking zombies stumbling about.

Ketamine. [0]

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

<comment><USER9> Ketamine is hardly a new trend in recreational drug use and I've never heard of it being used by anyone to prevent "passing out from all the other drugs". Ketamine in high but still sub-anesthetic doses induces a semi-conscious state referred to as the "k-hole", more or less giving the appearance of being passed out. At lower doses it does strongly effect balance and coordination, so the "stumbling" bit is probably justified.

Ketamine is exceptionally safe and relatively non-addictive BTW, though in my experience not all that enjoyable. GP needs to save the horror stories and fear mongering for MDPV, NBOMEes, etc. which arose as alternatives to much safer but highly contraband substances like LSD, MDMA, etc. with difficult-to- source precursors.

<comment><USER10> _> Ketamine is exceptionally safe and relatively non-addictive BTW_

This is dangerous misinformation. I've had more than one friend almost die from compulsive ketamine use. Just because it might not be physiologically addictive like opiates, doesn't mean that you won't be wiping it from around your nose every morning while you wait for the bus at 8:30 to go to classes, losing all your friends and so much weight that your body starts shutting down completely. People end up needing their bladders removed surgically from the sheer amount of extremely alkaline solutions they are putting into their bodies. Tolerance builds _very_ quickly and with a sharp curve, so users end up having to shovel huge quantities of this very caustic material into their faces just to feel normal.

(Thankfully the people I know managed to come back from the brink, but only by completely shutting themselves off from the world for a long time.)

The problem is, its effects are "light" enough that it is possible to use it all day every day, and still be functional enough to carry on. People who enjoy the effects and have a compulsive personality will probably end up using it constantly if the have access to it. In this respect it is similar to weed, and alcohol, although that has a physiological component too.

Plus it turns you into a drooling moron and ruins parties. We call it "twatnip."

<comment><USER11> Any reasonable public forum will flat out ban any drug discussions because of experts like 70forty who tell kids it is safe.

<comment><USER9> And I stand by what I said.

It's tough to find statistics but the article below says that between 1993 and 2006, 23 deaths were tied to ketamine use. That to me qualifies as safe and relatively non-addictive in the context of recreational drug use.

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ketamine- tops...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ketamine-tops-cocaine- as-new-drug-of-choice-1366714.html)

Oh yeah, and banning discussion of recreational drug use will do wonders for harm reduction, lol.

<comment><USER12> I don't see where you are getting "relatively non-addictive" from. I have had many positive experiences with Ketamine, but I will be the first to say that it takes a lot of self-control to not overdo it.

EDIT: To be clear, I am aware ketamine is not physically addictive. However I find it to be one of the most psychologically addictive drugs I have taken.

<comment><USER13> as in, you crave the feeling of being on it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> From the thread: "recognize the difference between tolerated and allowed" What a horrible way of governing, almost worse than the US's state vs. federal legality (at least it's officially "legal" on the state level and not just _tolerated_ ). Telling people that something is illegal but "tolerated" is a license for potential abuse by authorities. It essentially makes all prosecution a _judgement call_ for individual authority figures. Sounds like a recipe for potential abuse to me.

<comment><USER15> I agree with you completely. If my very shallow understanding of the issue is correct, I think it may be because US foreign policy strongly pushes drug prohibition with its trade partners. By keeping cannabis "illegal" nations get to sort of feign compliance with US demands while having as little domestic effect as possible.

<comment><USER14> Interesting, I didn't even think of that angle. Is there any reference to support this hypothesis? I would love to read more about how US foreign policy or aid potentially effects the laws of other countries. I could see the US getting involved with big drug export countries (e.g. Columbia) but I wonder how involved they are with others that don't play a large part in the global drug trade.

<comment><USER15> >Is there any reference to support this hypothesis?

There are anecdotes and news stories floating around. How close are they to the truth? I don't know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As you can read from the article it's still ILLEGAL but allowed; not 'still legal' as in the link description.

It makes clarifying a confusing matter more confusing.

</comment><comment><USER17> There's a lot of laws like this that don't get enforced as much as 'law' would imply. Another example is the ban on smoking in workplaces to protect the employees; in the Netherlands, a couple of years ago, this law was implemented, meaning that smoking was effectively banned from bars and pubs as well. Outrage ensued from all sides. Two 'workarounds' were created:

* People just donate to the pub owner to pay the fines if the inspector came around * Certain bars had no personnel, just the owner; ergo, no personnel, so no requirement to create a smoke-free environment for personnel, so, smoke away.

Others are things like speeding (everyone does it, gets a fine on rare occasions, only the extreme ones get their license impounded), downloading music/software, etc.

<comment><USER18> Interesting, is smoking still common in bars in the Netherlands? That's one of the laws that actually is pretty widely followed in other countries. One of the more surprising was that in a period of about 3 years, Greek bars and nightclubs went from being 100% smoke-filled to being essentially smoke-free.

<comment><USER19> In my experience many bars do adhere to the ban, but there are exceptions where the ashtrays are on the tables in plain sight. If they get caught x number of times they have to close down though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What is the current situation in towns like Maastricht and Heerlen that decided to implement the residents only restriction? Was that rolled back or not?

<comment><USER21> Nope. Here in Eindhoven you have to be a member to geet weed, or so I am told.

<comment><USER22> That's true. They have limited amounts of memberships as well so a buddy that still smokes regularly visited them all in the first day he could register just to be sure.

I am now firmly convinced that the dopeheads of France will shave off their dreadlocks and start looking for a job now the cesspool of evil influence that was the Dutch liberal stance on drugs has been eradicated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's sad that as most of the world is moving towards legalization, we're suddenly moving backwards.

</comment><comment><USER24> Good explanation, but this title is incredibly misleading. Marijuana was _never_ legal in the Netherlands[0], for tourists _or_ residents. As the linked answer itself points out, it was only tolerated.

Until November 2012, there was no place in the world where marijuana was truly legal, except (possibly) North Korea[1]. Even still, it's a stretch to say that marijuana is legal in Washington State and Colorado, since the Feds could easily decide tomorrow that they want to crack down on it, and you could be arrested[2].

The distinction between legality and tolerance is important. Decriminalization and/or tolerance provide only a small subset of the benefits of true legalization. Without true legalization, you cannot have (ex.) quality control via local regulators, nor can you choke off drug cartels by undercutting one of their most profitable products. (Instead, you may even end up putting money _into_ their pockets, depending on where you source the marijuana from - thankfully, this is less of an issue in Colorado and Washington).

Anyway, marijuana is now clearly less illegal in Colorado than in the Netherlands (in Denver, it is allowed under _both_ city[3] and state law, though not federal law). Personally, I'm glad that the US now has its own place to go for marijuana tourism (similar to Tijuana for alcohol) - one could say that this is US protectionism at its finest!

[0] Well, at least not since the US started exporting its drug policy worldwide several decades ago.

[1] Alaska has a similar policy in private residences since 1977 due to a state court ruling on the right to privacy, but it is still illegal. North Korea has been cited as the one exception to this rule (ironically), but reports of its legality there are mixed.

[2] Look at what happened in Harborside and Oaksterdam (when cracking down on medical dispensaries, the Obama administration has used an underhanded tax catch-22 as political cover for busting shops that he previously said he'd allow, but the effect is the same).

[3] Denver legalized marijuana by city vote in 2006, and Breckenridge, CO legalized marijuana by town vote in 2009

<comment><USER25> US strategy : -Make weed illegal in the entire world -Legalize weed -??? -Profit !

<comment><USER26> That is an amusingly cynical way of looking at it, but of course the reality is that there is not a single cohesive US strategy.

<comment><USER25> My comment was to be taken as a joke ;) Given how the federal state give a hard time to coffee shop in california, colorado, etc. I'm pretty sure they did not plan it this way. However, as an external observator, it is funny to see that things went this way.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Our packing method and how it translates to savings for infrastructure - <AUTHOR> https://supergiant.io/blog/supergiant-packing-algorithm-unique-save-money <comment><USER2> Couple of weeks ago I commented about Marathon. The part I said it's missing is scaling the underlying cluster of machines in a smart way.

Seems that they're solving this issue but auto-scaling in a more flexible way.

Amazon will autoscale to a "launch configuration" which means you will auto scale the same instance type and same image-id. That might be an overkill for what you need in a lot of cases.

The reason everyone "bakes" their own solution to these things is that it's very hard to generalize around simple rules (like CPU/memory etc...).

Lets take an example for queue-workers like celery or any other, CPU is irrelevant in this case, you would want to scale up based on the queue-size etc...

All that being said, I LOVE seeing solutions in this space, I think we are marching towards a brighter future for container based application stacks.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if it'd make sense to have a low-level API so Kubernetes can talk to the hypervisor and suggest these parameters for new nodes.

<comment><USER4> So, in essence that is one of the functions of the Supergiant API. We just released a few weeks ago, so AWS was our first target, but.. we are working to add support for other top cloud and on-premise providers as fast as we can. I think we are striving for OpenStack, Digital Ocean, and GCE for our next targets. If you have other targets solutions that you think we should look at, let us know :-)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What tech blogs, podcasts do you follow outside of HN? - <AUTHOR> I listen to the Changelog, programming throwdown podcasts when I'm driving and try to read one cs related research paper a month. Would like to know what blogs/podcasts/websites/magazines do you follow? <comment><USER3> I'm really getting a lot out of Tim Ferriss' podcast [http://fourhourworkweek.com/podcast/](http://fourhourworkweek.com/podcast/) lately. Especially the episodes with Kelly Starrett, Josh Waitzkin, Sam Harris, Peter Attia, Pavel Tsatsouline and Whitney Cummings.

I think at a certain point you start to recognize that more tech isn't helping as much as it was (diminishing returns perhaps) and that a more holistic approach to improving is necessary.

<comment><USER4> Can you list a few examples of things you have learned or been enlightened about?

<comment><USER5> +1 for this! Here were some of the concepts from Tim's interviews that I still think about:

1\. Meditation comes up in a lot of the podcasts as a performance practice (as opposed to spiritual practice). It's good to hear that reinforced by a lot of successful people.

2\. I use a technique from the Josh Waitzkin episode about priming your brain with hard problems to work on while you sleep. You finish your work day with your most intractable problem. That primes your subconscious to think about it overnight (assuming your evening isn't very taxing). Then I journal in the morning to see if I've had any insights. I often find the intractable part was emotional and whatever happens in my brain while I sleep helps me figure that part out.

3\. I like the Pavel episode (the Russian strength coach) for reminding me that a lot of strength training is neurological and that not every workout needs to be done to exhaustion. His Russian athletes had a thing they called Grease the Groove, which was essentially to do lots of short sets spread throughout the day. That basically saved my strength work because weights are the part I'm most likely to skip at the gym for time.

4\. There's a segment in the Tony Robbins episode where he denies being a motivational speaker. Essentially he thinks he's a strategist that also happens to care about sequencing and packaging his strategy advice in a way that people can hear it. I think that concept comes up all the time at work: it's not enough to be right, people also need to hear you.

<comment><USER4> Thank you :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Blogs/websites in no particular order:

* [http://blog.codinghorror.com/](http://blog.codinghorror.com/) (Jeff Atwood)

* [http://www.catonmat.net/](http://www.catonmat.net/) (Pete Krumins)

* [http://blog.fogus.me/](http://blog.fogus.me/) (Mike Fogus)

* [http://research.swtch.com/](http://research.swtch.com/) (Russ Cox)

* [http://effbot.org/](http://effbot.org/) (Fred Lundh)

* [http://adam.herokuapp.com/](http://adam.herokuapp.com/) (Adam Wiggins)

Podcasts in no particular order:

* [http://www.dotnetrocks.com/](http://www.dotnetrocks.com/) (NET Rocks)

* [http://herdingcode.com/](http://herdingcode.com/) (NET focused podcast with Scott Allen, Kevin Dente, Scoot Koon and Jon Galloway)

* [http://www.coreint.org/](http://www.coreint.org/) (A podcast about indie software development)

* [http://www.talkpythontome.com/](http://www.talkpythontome.com/) (Python podcast)

* [http://www.binpress.com/blog/category/podcast/](http://www.binpress.com/blog/category/podcast/) (Binpress podcast about digital products)

Magazines in no particular order:

* [http://www.hackernewsletter.com/](http://www.hackernewsletter.com/) (HN in PDF)

* [http://www.codemag.com/magazine](http://www.codemag.com/magazine) (Tech/coding news)

* [http://www.drdobbs.com/](http://www.drdobbs.com/) (Dr. Dobbs)

and many more.

<comment><USER7> re: Dr. Dobbs: [http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/farewell- dr-d...](http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/farewell-dr- dobbs/240169421)

<comment><USER8> Yups, RIP.

Too bad; I grew up reading Dr. Dobbs, in late 80's, and have so many fond memories. I had to travel 1h by bus to a nearby city every month to (try to) buy it. Only two newsstands in the entire state used to carry it. This was south of Brazil, so an international subscription was completely out of reach for my teenager penny-pinching standards

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Frequently:

[http://www.economist.com/](http://www.economist.com/) \- my second best feed (after HN)

Occasionally:

[http://www.datatau.com/](http://www.datatau.com/) \- HN for data science

[https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/](https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/) \- Mathematics, Theoretical Physics

[https://terrytao.wordpress.com/](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/) \- Mathematics

[http://slatestarcodex.com/](http://slatestarcodex.com/) \- Less Wrong-kind stuff (the guy writes frequent and well, but somehow too verbosely)

[http://visualizing.org/](http://visualizing.org/) \- data visualizations

A bit of G+ (mainly, if not only, for a few guys in mathematics and physics).

<comment><USER10> Would you mind sharing some of your G+ follows? Brian Koberlein ([https://plus.google.com/+BrianKoberlein](https://plus.google.com/+BrianKoberlein)) is definitely one of my favourites.

<comment><USER9> John Baez ([https://plus.google.com/117663015413546257905/posts](https://plus.google.com/117663015413546257905/posts)) (especially), Artem Kaznatcheev ([https://plus.google.com/101780559173703781847/posts](https://plus.google.com/101780559173703781847/posts)), Timothy Govers ([https://plus.google.com/+TimothyGowers0/posts](https://plus.google.com/+TimothyGowers0/posts)), Michael Nielsen ([https://plus.google.com/+MichaelNielsen/posts](https://plus.google.com/+MichaelNielsen/posts)) among others (but it's not a well-curated list; and I tend to use G+ less and less often, for too much noise).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Highly recommend the a16z podcast:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z/id842818711](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z/id842818711)

Episodes are usually small bites (~20-30 mins) of discussion/interviews on one of the upcoming technologies/trends by a couple of Andreessen Horowitz partners and an invited guest. Content is usually pretty insightful and they are really good at doing a thorough analysis of the current status of the tech industry.

<comment><USER12> Oh wow really cool! Been getting more into bitcoin this year, this will help give me a bit of insight and stay current with the latest discussions.

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I listen to dotnetrocks.com podcasts during my commute to work and while taking a walk. Love it so far. Learned so much new stuff.

edit - I also follow asp.net\community, techcrunch, robert scoble's updates, the hacker news, fb engineering, scott hanselman, guy kawasaki and few more tech resources via my fb news feed. I also watch few videos from time to time at youtube.com. MSDN blogs, Channel 9, mvc conf, dotnet conf are also in my reference list.

My problem here - I come across so much great content everyday but it is very hard to digest everything or keep everything somewhere conveniently to refer later. Currently, I email content links to myself. I tried pocket and other similar services but they do not have good features to retrieve or refer content later on. And, this is the reason I started work on this site - www.LinkSto.re few years ago. It provides you summary of articles that you saved, clutter\ad free reading. User profile to show you what they have saved.

Features coming soon - great search capabilities by tags, date or content. Calendar to locate stored articles or schedule reading for yourself or with your friends. Article recommendations.

I am really sorry for this shameless plug.

<comment><USER14> My main podcasts are:

* Talking Machines ([http://www.thetalkingmachines.com/](http://www.thetalkingmachines.com/)), which is a relatively 'heavy' podcast about machine learning, great for when I've managed to make coffee before getting on the Bart.

* Partially Derivative ([http://www.partiallyderivative.com/](http://www.partiallyderivative.com/)), the podcast about data science and beer. Perfect for the days when I haven't managed to make coffee before getting on the Bart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> [http://atp.fm](http://atp.fm), but I rarely finish one episode these days... I wish I could listen to fun smart folks talking about computers other than Apple. Also, I'd love to hear people that weren't so overtly progressive.

Most stuff I find is too serious and I rather hear podcasts to entertain myself instead of trying to learn more stuff while driving.

<comment><USER16> > Also, I'd love to hear people that weren't so overtly progressive.

Uhhhh, what? The only remotely political topic they touch on is women in technology. Casey Liss went to bloody Virginia Tech, hardly Reed College level progressivism.

<comment><USER17> Maybe gp is including blog posts as well? Marco Arment ventures into other political topics to some degree. I don't think I've ever heard John Siracusa or Casey Liss hit on anything significantly political other than women in tech.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 1)Highscalability [http://highscalability.com](http://highscalability.com)

2)BraveNewGeek - [http://bravenewgeek.com](http://bravenewgeek.com)

3)Antirez(redis) - [http://antirez.com/latest/0](http://antirez.com/latest/0)

4)Aphyr - [https://aphyr.com](https://aphyr.com)

5)GitHub's Engineering Blog - both old and new

[https://github.com/blog/category/engineering](https://github.com/blog/category/engineering)

[http://githubengineering.com](http://githubengineering.com)

6)Facebook Engineering [https://code.facebook.com/posts/](https://code.facebook.com/posts/)

7)Twitter Engineering [https://blog.twitter.com/engineering](https://blog.twitter.com/engineering)

8)Code as Craft - Etsy's Engineering Blog [https://codeascraft.com](https://codeascraft.com)

and loads more... will update tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER19> Podcasts:

* [http://show.terrifyingrobotdog.com](http://show.terrifyingrobotdog.com) \- new and near-future tech and its impact

* [http://www.unfinished.bz](http://www.unfinished.bz) \- web design, business, funny stuff

* [http://devchat.tv/js-jabber](http://devchat.tv/js-jabber) \- JavaScript

* [https://boagworld.com/show](https://boagworld.com/show) \- web development and business

* [http://www.relay.fm/rocket](http://www.relay.fm/rocket) \- general tech

* [http://spong.com/podcasts/tsf/](http://spong.com/podcasts/tsf/) \- videogame development

Sites and blogs:

* [http://culture.vg/](http://culture.vg/) \- videogame criticism

* [http://acko.net/](http://acko.net/) \- advanced JS

* [http://scripting.com/](http://scripting.com/) \- web, news,

* [https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/](https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/) web, writing

Here are some of my favourites that I haven't seen mentioned (so maybe lesser known).

</comment><comment><USER20> Shop Talk Show [http://shoptalkshow.com/](http://shoptalkshow.com/)

Codepen Radio [http://blog.codepen.io/radio/](http://blog.codepen.io/radio/)

Software Engineering Radio is in my podcast software but I don't find myself listening to it much.

I have a variety of others more oriented to productivity and freelancing, but they're less technical. I do highly recommend the Home Work podcast by Aaron Mahnke and Dave Caolo - one of the few I have set to auto download.

</comment><comment><USER21> Plugging my own relatively new podcast, Theory and Craft ([http://www.theoryandcraft.fm](http://www.theoryandcraft.fm))

Each episode we take a paper or topic from the research world and discuss how it applies to us as practicing software engineers.

Somewhat inspired by Adrian Colyer's Morning Paper ([http://blog.acolyer.org/](http://blog.acolyer.org/)).

I'm also a big fan of:

* [http://www.se-radio.net/](http://www.se-radio.net/) \- hour-long interviews with solid guests

* [http://giantrobots.fm/](http://giantrobots.fm/) \- pretty wide array of topics (tech, design, business) covered by a Boston-based rails dev shop

* [http://nodeup.com/](http://nodeup.com/) \- Only NodeJS, well-produced, infrequent

<comment><USER22> In your opinion if I were to start listening to nodeup should I start from the beginning. Node changes all the time and I feel like if I start on episode 1 I could be potentially learning outdated tech. If so what episode do you recommend starting on?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I really enjoy Reply All, it's not technical, but is more about Internet culture.

[http://gimletmedia.com/show/reply-all/](http://gimletmedia.com/show/reply- all/)

<comment><USER24> Their podcast during the initial phases of building up the company is also worth listening to.

[http://gimletmedia.com/show/startup/](http://gimletmedia.com/show/startup/)

The on-the-fly pseudo-pitch that Chris Sacca did in the 1st episode is a gem.

<comment><USER23> Awesome, thanks for sharing this! I only just found Reply All, so I'm still working my way through :)

<comment><USER25> Before PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman did Reply All, they did TL;DR. It was pretty much the same thing but over on WNYC. There's plenty of great episodes worth going back to: [http://www.onthemedia.org/tags/tldr_podcast/](http://www.onthemedia.org/tags/tldr_podcast/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> A couple of fun linux / open source podcasts.

1\. Linux Action Show ([http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/tag/linux-action- show/](http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/tag/linux-action-show/))

2\. Bad Voltage ([http://badvoltage.org/](http://badvoltage.org/))

<comment><USER27> Two more excellent Jupiter Broadcasting shows:

3\. TechSNAP ([http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/show/techsnap/](http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/show/techsnap/))

4\. BSD Now ([http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/show/bsdnow/](http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/show/bsdnow/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'll recommend Software Engineering Radio ([http://www.se- radio.net/](http://www.se-radio.net/)). The interviewers are a bit uneven, but the topics and interviewees mostly interesting. A vast backlog, too!

Other than that, my main source of information is youtube videos coverted to mp3 using `youtube-dl --extract-audio --audio-format=mp3`. Possibly your podcast player can treat regular mp3s as podcast episodes (the wonderful PocketCasts on Android supports this: [http://www.shiftyjelly.com/support/pocketcasts#115](http://www.shiftyjelly.com/support/pocketcasts#115))

<comment><USER29> SE Radio is definitely a great podcast. I'm not even a professional developer (Linux sysadmin) and I find at least 1 episode in 3 fascinating. They do a good job of keeping the topics diverse.

I agree that sometimes the interviewers (or the recording quality itself) can be a little weak and difficult to understand, especially on older episodes. That seems to be pretty common among podcasts, actually. I dislike and/or disagree with the host, and the production quality sucks, but they get such outstanding guests that it doesn't matter. I used to listen to a lot of podcasts on homebrewing beer, and that was definitely the case in that world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Just found [http://fullstackradio.com/](http://fullstackradio.com/) yesterday and I've been listening to most of them. They're pretty great. They talk about their subjects in a mostly language/framework agnostic way so it's really useful. I don't know why but it's hard to find podcasts that don't assume you're a web developer by default.

</comment><comment><USER31> The good tech picks are already posted, so I'd like to share a bit of a broader scoped list:

\- Adrian Kennard's (revk - CEO of Andrews & Arnolds UK ISP) blog: [http://www.revk.uk/](http://www.revk.uk/)

\- GOV.uk's digital services blog [UX, Design, Govt]: [https://gds.blog.gov.uk/](https://gds.blog.gov.uk/)

\- Canonical design blog [UX & Design]: [http://design.canonical.com/](http://design.canonical.com/)

\- CGPGrey, excellent youtuber and podcaster [misc. history/politics/sciences]: [http://www.cgpgrey.com/](http://www.cgpgrey.com/)

\- Martin Graesslin's blog on KWin/KDE [programming]: [http://blog.martin- graesslin.com/blog/](http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/)

\- Alexander Brazie's (Blizzard/WoW, League of Legends) blog [game design]: [http://xelnath.com/](http://xelnath.com/)

\- Eric McClure's random ramblings [programming, misc personal] - [http://blackhole12.blogspot.com/](http://blackhole12.blogspot.com/)

\- EFF Deeplinks [tech politics/activism] - [https://www.eff.org/rss/updates.xml](https://www.eff.org/rss/updates.xml)

Also on gaming opinions, history and news: Totalbiscuit (soundcloud + youtube) and SuperBunnyhop (interesting pieces on game design incl. [https://www.youtube.com/user/bunnyhopshow/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/bunnyhopshow/videos))

<comment><USER32> Great to hear someone reads our blog!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> My podcast subscriptions:

General interest, science, philosophy, design and architecture:

* Radiolab: [http://radiolab.org](http://radiolab.org)

* 99 Percent Invisible: [http://99percentinvisible.org](http://99percentinvisible.org)

Embedded systems/electronics:

* Sparkgap, focused on a specific technical topic each episode, sometimes with guests. [http://thesparkgap.net](http://thesparkgap.net)

* Embedded.fm, focusued on technical and non-technical topics surrounding embedded systems software development but also often links with art and education, often with guests. [http://embedded.fm](http://embedded.fm)

* AmpHour: Dave Jones and Chris Gammel ranting about whatever they feel like fairly often with guests. [http://theamphour.com](http://theamphour.com)

</comment><comment><USER34> Cortex [1] is a case study of the workflow of CGP Grey, who makes really great YouTube videos that the HN community would probably enjoy. It's slated for 10 episodes, and currently episode 5 has just been released.

I also really like Hello Internet [2], which is done by a couple of guys who make YouTube videos for a living. Usually not super tech-oriented, but they almost always have interesting discussions. It's a fun podcast.

[1] [https://www.relay.fm/cortex](https://www.relay.fm/cortex)

[2] [http://www.hellointernet.fm/](http://www.hellointernet.fm/)

</comment><comment><USER35> You can also find a list of engineering blogs here: [https://github.com/kilimchoi/engineering- blogs](https://github.com/kilimchoi/engineering-blogs)

<comment><AUTHOR> woah that list is huge!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> 1\. Website: HN

2\. Website: Echojs for my JavaScript interest

3\. Website: Subreddit Programming for my general interest in programming

4\. Magazine: Harvard Business Review for understanding business needs. Reading business case studies help to align my tech skills with business needs. I find this combination particularly essential.

5\. Magazine: MIT Technology Review for tech related research

6\. Podcast: Nodeup for my nodejs interest

7\. Website: Producthunt for uncovering products that I dont know.

Lastly something which you didn't ask. But I want to share is books and video tutorials. Books and videos recommendation is a whole new topic.

<comment><USER37> > 5\. Magazine: MIT Technology Review for tech related research

Thanks. It looks very interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Occasionally Raymond Chen's Old New Thing: [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/)

I would follow EEVblog if it were a proper text blog, but I don't have time for video or audio blogs.

</comment><comment><USER39> CppCast [0] is a pretty good C++-focused podcast. Starts with a summary of recent C++ news (and related topics), followed by an interview with excellent guests (usually luminaries from the C++ community).

[0] [http://cppcast.com/](http://cppcast.com/)

<comment><USER16> I really want to like that show, and Jason Turner is a really good host, but Rob Irving always sounds so confused. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> [http://highscalability.com](http://highscalability.com) is an excellent site to find out about how companies solve their scalability needs.

</comment><comment><USER41> You mentioned Changelog. I just wanted to +1 and throw the URL out there: [https://changelog.com/](https://changelog.com/)

</comment><comment><USER42> Christian Neukirchen's Trivium: [http://chneukirchen.org/trivium/](http://chneukirchen.org/trivium/) (a descendant of the original "tumblelog", Anarchaia)

</comment><comment><USER43> Networking news

[https://www.sdxcentral.com](https://www.sdxcentral.com) [http://www.crn.com/news/networking/](http://www.crn.com/news/networking/) [http://www.networkcomputing.com/networking.asp](http://www.networkcomputing.com/networking.asp) [http://packetpushers.net](http://packetpushers.net) [http://searchsdn.techtarget.com](http://searchsdn.techtarget.com) [http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com](http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com) [http://www.theplatform.net/category/connect/](http://www.theplatform.net/category/connect/) [http://www.cbronline.com/enterprise-it/it- network](http://www.cbronline.com/enterprise-it/it-network)

<comment><USER43> Networking news * [https://www.sdxcentral.com](https://www.sdxcentral.com) * [http://www.crn.com/news/networking/](http://www.crn.com/news/networking/) * [http://www.networkcomputing.com/networking.asp](http://www.networkcomputing.com/networking.asp) * [http://packetpushers.net](http://packetpushers.net) * [http://searchsdn.techtarget.com](http://searchsdn.techtarget.com) * [http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com](http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com) * [http://www.theplatform.net/category/connect/](http://www.theplatform.net/category/connect/) * [http://www.cbronline.com/enterprise-it/it- network](http://www.cbronline.com/enterprise-it/it-network)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I follow all of them via RSS. In English: Hacker News, InfoQ, Planet Clojure, O'Reilly Radar (and ocasionally listen their podcast in SoundCloud), Ars Technica, The Server Side. I save some episodes of some podcasts which I find interesting (eg. The Cognicast) but takes me a long time to catch up.

I also follow some tech blogs in Spanish: Microsiervos, Fayerwayer, Manzana Mecanica, Hipertextual, Genciencia.

</comment><comment><USER45> The Omega Tau Podcast is great: [http://omegataupodcast.net/](http://omegataupodcast.net/)

<comment><USER46> +1, very detailed discussion about topics like space, aeronautics, railroads, economics, race cars, biomedicine, genetics etc.

It really goes into detail, background and most importantly asks the questions that I, as a geek, would want to know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Here are a variety of weekly newsletters I haven't seen mentioned.

Devopsweekly [http://www.devopsweekly.com/](http://www.devopsweekly.com/) is a good summary of major goings on.

Javascriptweekly [http://javascriptweekly.com/](http://javascriptweekly.com/) is the same.

</comment><comment><USER48> Programming in the 21st Century: [http://prog21.dadgum.com](http://prog21.dadgum.com)

He doesn't post often, but when he does, the articles are almost always good.

</comment><comment><USER49> The best podcast in the universe: [http://noagendashow.com](http://noagendashow.com) twice a week media assasinations, listener supported.

<comment><USER50> ITM, slave!

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I have a crypto list here: [http://cryptologie.net/article/227/keep-in-touch- with-crypto...](http://cryptologie.net/article/227/keep-in-touch-with-crypto/)

although the list have grown since then, if you are interested I can update it.

</comment><comment><USER52> [https://www.youtube.com/user/CCCen](https://www.youtube.com/user/CCCen) & [http://gdcvault.com](http://gdcvault.com) (security conference, game developer conference)

</comment><comment><USER53> Surprised no one mentioned the new Fragmented podcast which covers android development. I learnt a ton listening to them.

Then there is the security now podcast by Steve Gibson (and leisure Laporte).

Finally, I've found the Radiolab and Startalk podcasts to always keep me entertained and feeling smarter.

</comment><comment><USER54> Stratechery by Ben Thompson: [https://stratechery.com/](https://stratechery.com/) and its podcast Exponent: [http://exponent.fm/](http://exponent.fm/)

</comment><comment><USER55> ACM TechNews, Slashdot, Wired, Pando, ArsTechnica and some TechCrunch, Mashable and Pulsosocial (TechCrunch for LatAm).

As for blogs I follow closely Paul Graham's, Sam Altman's, Ben Horowitz's and Alex Torrenegra's.

I don't follow or listen to any podcasts at all.

</comment><comment><USER56> For blogs, I read various Planet aggregators: Planet Debian, Planet GNOME, Planet Freedesktop, Kernel Planet, and Planet Mozilla.

I also read LWN extensively; subscription highly recommended if you work anywhere in FOSS, especially if you work near the kernel.

</comment><comment><USER57> Talking Code: [http://talkingcode.com](http://talkingcode.com)

I'm a host, but I figured it's okay to post since I spend more time working on this podcast than I collectively do listening to others.

</comment><comment><USER58> Lambda the Ultimate [http://lambda-the-ultimate.org](http://lambda-the- ultimate.org)

</comment><comment><USER59> [http://entreprogrammers.com/](http://entreprogrammers.com/) \- Josh Earl, John Sonmez, Derick Bailey, and Charles Max Wood discussing the life of an entrepreneur programmer.

<comment><USER60> This is currently the only podcast I listen to religiously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I read;

[http://www.damninteresting.com/](http://www.damninteresting.com/)

[http://www.theatlantic.com/](http://www.theatlantic.com/)

[http://nautil.us/](http://nautil.us/)

I listen to most of the podcasts from [http://www.radiotopia.fm/](http://www.radiotopia.fm/)

None of them are directly tech related, but most of them have insights that are applicable to projects from a human perspective (eg discovering things about how people react to stuff).

</comment><comment><USER62> I stumbled across Partially Derivative at [http://www.partiallyderivative.com](http://www.partiallyderivative.com)

They start off their podcasts with a review of some sort of alcoholic beverage, then progress through discussions about data science. I find the combination works, I suspect the alcohol helps them express themselves and often it gets pretty hilarious - but I don't think I've listened to an episode that hasn't informed me or gave me some sort of insight into data science yet.

Hat tip to the podcast - they're pretty awesome.

</comment><comment><USER63> If you want daily video reviews + feedback for new Show HN and Product Hunt projects, I'm launching Rate My App ([http://ratemyapp.com](http://ratemyapp.com), @ratemyapp) later this month.

Watch a preview here: [http://ratemyapp.com/video/6K_HgG_Xmf8/Walkthrough-Two- new-a...](http://ratemyapp.com/video/6K_HgG_Xmf8/Walkthrough-Two-new-apps- play-realtime-hyperlapse-videos-to-music)

If you want an audio version, sign up for the newsletter to hear when the podcast is ready!

</comment><comment><USER64> The main technically publication I really follow is lwn. Also read arstechnica on occasion, but not as much as I used to.

But I do subscribe to a few key developer's blogs. It really depends on what you work on though.

</comment><comment><USER65> [http://jeffandcaseyshow.com](http://jeffandcaseyshow.com)

        The Jeff and Casey Show is a weekly podcast by software developers Jeff Roberts
        and Casey Muratori that is, for lack of a better description, almost completely
        random. Often both meticulous and erroneous, somehow both offensive and
        compassionate, and always unorthodox, the one thing you can say for certain about
        The Jeff and Casey show is that there's nothing else quite like it.

</comment><comment><USER66> Sites/blogs: \- [http://www.hanselman.com/blog/](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/) (Scott also has great podcast, Hanselminutes) \- [http://blog.codinghorror.com/](http://blog.codinghorror.com/) \- [http://startit.rs/](http://startit.rs/) (startup and tech news, mostly focused on Serbia)

</comment><comment><USER67> I just visit hacker news every few hours. If it makes it to the frontpage, then it is worth reading (if it interests me of course).

I tried subscribing to blogs and newsletter and I never read them - I just end up with another inbox that I can't empty.

Also [http://www.hackernewsletter.com/](http://www.hackernewsletter.com/) is awesome - I get a weekly email with the "best of HN" in case I missed them...

</comment><comment><USER68> I've been enjoying Developer Tea[1] quite a bit lately. If you are into Rust (or are curious about Rust), the first episode of Rusty Radio[2] was released recently.

1: [https://developertea.com/](https://developertea.com/) 2: [http://rustyrad.io/podcast/1/](http://rustyrad.io/podcast/1/)

</comment><comment><USER69> Every other week: [http://blog.acolyer.org/](http://blog.acolyer.org/) ("The Morning Paper")

Also, the "Weekend Reading" Mailing List ([https://tinyletter.com/assaf](https://tinyletter.com/assaf)) Interesting bits, lots of funny stuff, ideal for, well, weekend reading.

</comment><comment><USER70> Arguably the best stories from each of the other sites suggested here are posted on HN, so theoretically one only needs to follow HN.

</comment><comment><USER71> I'm currently working on [http://engineeringblogs.co](http://engineeringblogs.co) \- its a list of engineering blogs from tech and startup companies such as Facebook, Twitter, AirBnB etc. It currently needs more work and that will be happening soon!

EDIT: If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

</comment><comment><USER72> For Android engineering :

-you must listen to Android Devs Backstage : [http://androidbackstage.blogspot.fr/](http://androidbackstage.blogspot.fr/) It is animated by key members of the Android team at Google, so they offer really good insights on the platform and its internals. Even if you are a senior android engineer, you are going to learn new things. Sadly, that's the only android podcast I can really recommend (if you know any good alternatives, feel free to let me know).

\- many engineering blogs : etsy, instagram, square, facebook, ..

-it is a good idea to follow googlers and experienced devs on G+.

-for consumer oriented blogs : [http://www.computerworld.com/blog/android-power](http://www.computerworld.com/blog/android-power) JR Raphael makes awesome reviews where he spent weeks with a device in order to really know it.

</comment><comment><USER73> I have learned a ton about managing relationships and being a better person from The Art of Charm ([http://theartofcharm.com/podcast- episodes/](http://theartofcharm.com/podcast-episodes/)). The Art of Charm is the only podcast I listen to religiously these days.

</comment><comment><USER74> I visit /r/netsec a lot. It's a subreddit devoted entirely to information security; the discourse there is pretty high caliber for an open internet forum. Fairly strong signal to noise ratio.

That's not a podcast or blog, but it is a website and it is extremely good for keeping up to date on software security news.

</comment><comment><USER75> FLOSS weekly: [http://feeds.twit.tv/floss.xml](http://feeds.twit.tv/floss.xml)

A variety of FLOSS projects, usually entertaining and quite often I learn about projects I've never heard of before. Randal Schwartz et al. are pretty good at extracting interesting information.

</comment><comment><USER76> A few fun podcasts I listen to on my walk to work: Virtual Reality: Rev VR, Python: Talk Python To Me

</comment><comment><USER77> If you're looking for something a bit different from the usual tech fare, I'd recommend Aeon, it's a magazine-style site, I like it quite a bit: [http://aeon.co/magazine/](http://aeon.co/magazine/)

</comment><comment><USER78> Most of the good ones are already listed. [http://joelonsoftware.com](http://joelonsoftware.com) is the one I miss here.

He had stopped writing but, the contents there never fail to leave me with an enhanced perspective of things even today.

</comment><comment><USER32> Image sensors world - [http://image-sensors- world.blogspot.co.uk](http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.co.uk)

Sometimes economics at [http://zerohedge.com](http://zerohedge.com)

</comment><comment><USER79> How has no one mentioned the Joe Rogan Experience yet? Edit: ... because it isn't a tech podcast. It's too early to read carefully. But seriously sometimes he has scientists and stuff on. The Aubrey de Grey one is pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER80> my podcast list (except specific tech podcasts)

entrepreneurs interviews [http://mixergy.com](http://mixergy.com)

light financials - [http://www.npr.org/sections/money/](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/)

freakonomics [http://freakonomics.com/radio/freakonomics-radio-podcast- arc...](http://freakonomics.com/radio/freakonomics-radio-podcast-archive/)

personal development - [http://theartofcharm.com/](http://theartofcharm.com/)

</comment><comment><USER81> I recently started to read TechInAsia ([http://techinasia.com](http://techinasia.com)), it feels almost refreshing and appears to give a different perspective.

</comment><comment><USER82> [http://www.grepslash.com/](http://www.grepslash.com/) , they curate tech content. There is an option for web artisans to share their works too.

</comment><comment><USER83> [http://martinfowler.com/](http://martinfowler.com/)

[http://www.yegor256.com/](http://www.yegor256.com/)

<comment><USER84> Big fan of yegor256, don't always agree with him on everything but he writes clearly and his stuff is well thought out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Not specifically tech-related, but as far as general knowledge goes, the BBC's "In Our Time" with Melvyn Bragg is about as robust as they come.

</comment><comment><USER86> SlicedHam.com aggregates a lot of company and individual tech blogs. Worth a look if you are generally browsing for tech related news.

</comment><comment><USER87> Podcasts: Twit, the Linux Action Show and (non-tech) No Agenda. Blogs: The Dutch Tweakers.net and Slashdot from time to time.

</comment><comment><USER88> Netflix Tech Blog[1]

[1] [http://techblog.netflix.com/](http://techblog.netflix.com/)

</comment><comment><USER89> I highly recommend the FaiF oggcast ([http://faif.us](http://faif.us)).

</comment><comment><USER90> I follow Lobsters: [https://lobste.rs/](https://lobste.rs/)

</comment><comment><USER91> Tropical MBA podcast [http://tropicalmba.com](http://tropicalmba.com)

</comment><comment><USER92> A lot of good stuff here, for podcasts, I have to add Dan Carlin's 'Common Sense' and especially his fantastic history podcast 'Hardcore History'. [http://www.dancarlin.com/](http://www.dancarlin.com/)

</comment><comment><USER93> Would you guys be interested in an open magazine that curates content from several blogs to give you a general overview of hardware/software technology industry? Anyone interested in collaborating on that?

<comment><USER94> isn't that HN ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> I've subscribed to number of things on getprismatic.com and I love it.

</comment><comment><USER96> I really enjoy "programming in the twenty-first century" [http://prog21.dadgum.com/](http://prog21.dadgum.com/)

</comment><comment><USER97> [https://www.themuse.com/](https://www.themuse.com/)

Some basic common sense stuff, but as a tech person its good to be reminded.

<comment><USER98> Any direct link there? I find it as simple job portal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> Since it wasn't mentioned by anyone I'll add that I find www.codingblocks.net a quite good podcast about programming (mainly .NET)

</comment><comment><USER100> Podcasts (tech ones omitted):

* Tim Ferriss Show

* Seth Godin's Startup School (limited series)

* TED Radio Hour

* BBC World Service - <USER2>

(in fact, there are a bunch of stuff by BBC and NPR you can't go wrong with)

</comment><comment><USER101> Less tech, more astronomy:

[http://www.astronomycast.com/](http://www.astronomycast.com/)

</comment><comment><USER102> Neowin and Ghacks are cool

</comment><comment><USER103> My blog and podcast feeds go around these few main interests of mine: software, art, design, music and Apple.

Podcasts:

Varieties, science, design.

* This American Life. [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/)

* Radiolab. [http://www.radiolab.org/series/podcasts/](http://www.radiolab.org/series/podcasts/)

* Planet Money. [http://www.npr.org/planetmoney](http://www.npr.org/planetmoney)

* Stuff You Should Know. [http://www.howstuffworks.com/](http://www.howstuffworks.com/)

* The Infinite Monkey Cage. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snr0w](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snr0w)

* The Weekly Briefly (Shawn Blanc). [http://feedpress.me/weeklybriefly](http://feedpress.me/weeklybriefly)

* Actuality (from Quartz). [http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/actuality-marketplac...](http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/actuality-marketplace-and-quartz)

* Anticast (for Portuguese speakers out there - the best Brazilian podcast I know). [http://www.brainstorm9.com.br/anticast/](http://www.brainstorm9.com.br/anticast/)

* 99% Invisible. [http://99percentinvisible.prx.org/](http://99percentinvisible.prx.org/)

Technology, programming, Apple, etc.

* Debug. [http://www.imore.com/debug/](http://www.imore.com/debug/)

* Mac Power Users. [http://www.relay.fm/mpu](http://www.relay.fm/mpu)

* Accidental Tech Podcast. [http://atp.fm/](http://atp.fm/)

* Overtired. [http://www.esn.fm/overtired/](http://www.esn.fm/overtired/)

* The Vergecast. [http://www.theverge.com/verge/verge_archives/show?mode=Entry...](http://www.theverge.com/verge/verge_archives/show?mode=EntryGroup&slug=the-vergecast)

* What's Tech (also from The Verge, fun show). [http://www.theverge.com/whatstech](http://www.theverge.com/whatstech)

* Pragmatic. [http://techdistortion.com/podcasts/pragmatic](http://techdistortion.com/podcasts/pragmatic)

* Iterate. [http://www.imore.com/iterate](http://www.imore.com/iterate)

* The Changelog. [http://5by5.tv/changelog](http://5by5.tv/changelog)

* Build Podcast (each post is actually a screencast about some technology). [http://build-podcast.com/](http://build-podcast.com/)

* The Talk Show With John Gruber. [http://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow](http://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow)

* Inquisitive. [http://www.relay.fm/inquisitive](http://www.relay.fm/inquisitive)

* MacCast. [http://www.maccast.com/](http://www.maccast.com/)

* Exponent (from Ben Thompson). [http://exponent.fm/](http://exponent.fm/)

Music and recording:

* Lauren Laverne (music and interviews from BBC Radio 6). [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02nrv0l](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02nrv0l)

* The Talkhouse Music. [http://thetalkhouse.com/music](http://thetalkhouse.com/music)

* Home Studio Corner. [http://www.homestudiocorner.com/](http://www.homestudiocorner.com/)

* Simply Recording Podcast. [http://simplyrecordingpodcast.com/](http://simplyrecordingpodcast.com/)

Blogs and news sites:

* The Verge. [http://www.theverge.com/](http://www.theverge.com/)

* Web Designer News. [http://www.webdesignernews.com/](http://www.webdesignernews.com/)

* Stratechery. [https://stratechery.com](https://stratechery.com)

* Matt Gemmel (one of my favorite writers on the web). [http://mattgemmell.com/](http://mattgemmell.com/)

* BrettTerpstra.com. [http://brettterpstra.com/](http://brettterpstra.com/)

* Coding Horror. [http://blog.codinghorror.com](http://blog.codinghorror.com)

* Daring Fireball. [http://daringfireball.net](http://daringfireball.net)

* Guy English. [http://kickingbear.com/blog/](http://kickingbear.com/blog/)

* Ignore the code. [http://ignorethecode.net/blog/](http://ignorethecode.net/blog/)

* Patrick Rhone. [http://patrickrhone.com/](http://patrickrhone.com/)

* Shawn Blanc. [http://shawnblanc.net/](http://shawnblanc.net/)

* The Brooks Review. [https://brooksreview.net/](https://brooksreview.net/)

* Tools & Toys. [http://toolsandtoys.net/](http://toolsandtoys.net/)

* George Monbiot (my favorite writer on politics & the environment). [http://www.monbiot.com/](http://www.monbiot.com/)

(I had to post again to get line breaks. Sorry, this is my first time commenting on HN).

</comment><comment><USER104> I recently wrote a blog post on my favorite podcasts:

[http://mlafeldt.github.io/blog/podcasts-2015-edition/](http://mlafeldt.github.io/blog/podcasts-2015-edition/)

Here is the list:

* Beats, Rye & Types ([http://beatsryetypes.com/](http://beatsryetypes.com/)) -- An entertaining podcast about music, food, and programming. I love listening to Michael Bernstein and Aaron Quint, especially when they're talking about Computology and Hip-Hop. A rather interesting mix. Also noteworthy: the only show in the list without a sponsor.

* Home Work ([http://5by5.tv/homework](http://5by5.tv/homework)) -- A weekly podcast for people who work from home. I'm currently able to telecommute once a week (which is great, by the way). But even if you're not in the position to work from home, this podcast offers many useful tips on productivity, work spaces, tools, and more.

* The Writer Files ([http://rainmaker.fm/series/writer/](http://rainmaker.fm/series/writer/)) -- An in-depth look at the "habits, habitats, and brains of a wide spectrum of renowned writers to learn their secrets of productivity and creativity". I care a lot about writing. It's no surprise that I'm interested in the work habits of people who write for a living.

* The Binpress Podcast ([http://www.binpress.com/blog/category/podcast/](http://www.binpress.com/blog/category/podcast/)) -- A series of interviews with creators and founders on how they built a business around their digital products. I've always been fascinated by the idea of monetizing (open source) software and creating a sustainable alternative to working for someone else.

* The Changelog ([https://changelog.com/podcast/](https://changelog.com/podcast/)) -- A podcast dedicated to "the intersection of software development and open source" covering a wide variety of topics. I tend to skip most of the episodes on web development, but I listen carefully to anything about Go, Rust, CoreOS, etc. Bonus: The Changelog Weekly newsletter is excellent too.

* Invisible Office Hours ([http://invisibleofficehours.com/](http://invisibleofficehours.com/)) -- Hosted by the smart and funny Jason Zook and Paul Jarvis, this podcast includes topics like side projects, launching products, and writing books. I've read all books by Jason and Paul. I also enjoy their weekly newsletters. As I'm writing this, I'm already excited about the third season of their show.

</comment><comment><USER105> cognicast, techdirt, blog.fogus.me

</comment><comment><USER106> ponyfoo.com

2ality.com

csswizardry.com

nczonline.net

substack.net

perfectionkills.com

webreflection.blogspot.com

</comment><comment><USER107> My favorite podcast for my daily walk is 'Security Now'

[https://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm](https://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm)

It touches everything and keeps me up to date on important security vulnerabilities. (Otherwise I would probably disappear in my coding cavern for months and not know what is happening on the surface...)

<comment><USER108> A related one on security, ATT's Threattraq: [http://techchannel.att.com/showpage.cfm?threattraq](http://techchannel.att.com/showpage.cfm?threattraq)

They tend to have some really good guests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER109> [http://www.kuro5hin.org/section/Diary](http://www.kuro5hin.org/section/Diary)

<comment> vezzy-fnord The K5 diaries are still going back and forth, that's interesting.

<comment><USER109> Kuro5hin's alexa rank is about 300,000 also many stories have significant pagerank. One can see from google trends that k5 is a popular site to read, but the five dollar one-time troll suppression fee discourages new members.

<comment><USER62> I'd consider this a positive, not a negative.

<comment><USER109> That fee was established to keep a lid on Jason Pawloski, no one else.

Unfortunately, five dollars is far beyond the means of much of the earth's population.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to prepare for M&A meeting? - <AUTHOR>

I've just been informed after waiting for months, that "LargeCorp, Inc." will be sending their M&A team to my door very soon.  I've never been through this before, it's exactly what I've been working for, but I have no idea what to expect.  What is this process like?  Is this essentially one gigantic salary negotiation?  Are they going to arm wrestle?  I really could use some advice on how to prepare. <comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link, great guidance from PG as always.

From what I know, the CEO has already given the green light -- or at least enough of a green light to send in M&A. Although we didn't actually meet with the CEO, our contact who reports to the CEO is optimistic. Still, I have no illusions that this process will be fair and enjoyable. Without additional preparation, I'm sure those attorneys are going to eat me for breakfast with a slice of toast and glass of orange juice. Fortunately my co-founder is a very aggressive salesman. But I'm worried that we will be so excited we will sign whatever they throw at us!

</comment><comment><USER2> Start here: [http://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html)</comment>


Ask HN: What does "git" stand for? - <AUTHOR> My collegue asked today, what does GIT stand for. I tried searching and found out that GIT "means" idiot, an unpleasant person, etc... but could not find out what the acronym of our versioning tool stands for. Anyone know? <comment><USER2> I have never seen "Git" written in all-caps, and I've seen no real indication that it's an acronym.

It looks like you may have stumbled upon this already, but according to Wikipedia, Linus said the following about Git's name:

> Torvalds has quipped about the name git, which is British English slang > roughly equivalent to "unpleasant person". Torvalds said: "I'm an > egotistical bastard, and I name all my projects after myself. First 'Linux', > now 'git'." The man page describes git as "the stupid content tracker".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_(software)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_\(software\))

</comment><comment><USER3> How about an answer from the official Git wiki?

[https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Git_FAQ#Why_the_.27Git...](https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Git_FAQ#Why_the_.27Git.27_name.3F)

<comment><AUTHOR> nice. i can sleep well tonight.

<comment><USER3> That's not a question that should be keeping you up at night ... but I've been wondering what the meaning of life is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It doesn't stand for something. Git provides you a derogatory word in the event it doesn't do what you want, it's a feature because you don't have to hunt for a word when you are stressed out about your code. "Stupid git" is my favorite.

If your colleague really wants it to stand for something you better think of something.

</comment><comment><USER5> [Gastrointestinal tract]([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastrointestinal_tract](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastrointestinal_tract)) or how to make crap

</comment><comment><USER6> global interconnect telconect

<comment><AUTHOR> troll or foreals?

<comment><USER6> Lol just made that up, or maybe its gross interracial transexual.</comment></comment></comment>