Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich: Android's inflection point - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/105815-galaxy-nexus-and-ics-androids-inflection-point

<comment><USER2> So many times now when reading reviews of new Android releases and the accompanying phones I read "THIS finally is the Android phone that's really usable/better than $then_current_iphone".

And now I hear it again: "Galaxy Nexus is the real first Android phone that's really usable. It's even better than the iPhone 4S".

Honestly though, by now I lost the trust in these reviews and the phones. I have my doubts that my Nexus S will become a better phone once/if it gets ICS. I have my doubts that I'll actually prefer ICS to iOS. I tried so many times, but I never managed to stick with Android.

Also what where they thinking when calling the phone "Galaxy Nexus"?

There's a Nexus One, a Nexus S, a Galaxy S, a Galaxy S2 and now the Galaxy Nexus- all released within the last two years. When I was talking to coworkers over lunch, we quickly drifted into utter confusion when trying to compare phone features.

<comment><USER3> Since 2.2 I have much preferred Android to iOS, since then I have always thought it was a better platform and enjoyed using it more, however there has always been little niggly warts around that can be brought up, against the bias of the hacker new crowd it seems like the market has agreed, Android phones outsell iPhones, my non techy friends mostly prefer their android phones.

I get the feeling from most reviews that it isnt so much that this is finally the android phone that usable' as much as 'this is finally the android phone that is almost unarguably better than the iphone', or at least the one that doesnt have the warts that android detractors like to bring up in these comparisons

<comment><USER4> One of those niggly warts, namely UI stuttering, is significantly reduced on my Galaxy S-derived phone when I terminate any services (like IQ) not specifically related to the apps I'm running.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> ICS's core apps can be as slick and beautiful as they want, but app developers need to keep up, and I'm not convinced they will.

I have a Windows Phone, largely as an experiment at seeing if I like it or not. The UI is _amazing_ on the core apps. The People, Music and Email apps are second to none. But almost every third party app I download gets something wrong (often most things wrong), and it's very jarring when you're expecting things to match a very defined UI flow.

The fact that Android already has a ton of existing apps might make this even worse. Ditching the menu button and swapping it for an action bar is a great idea, but how long until all the app makers change their apps over? I think this is less of a problem on the iPhone because Apple vets their apps so heavily (and rejects ones that do not obey UI guidelines), but neither Google nor Microsoft seem to do that.

<comment><USER6> WinPhone has the "problem"[1] of going down a rather different UI path vs. Apple and Google. You see this in a less extreme form on Android quite a bit, where apps will use (often badly-made) custom iOS-style widgets (the bottom nav bar, usually) that just don't fit in Android's patterns. WinPhone has even fewer patterns in common, thus when a dev tries to bring over iOS or Android patterns, it shows.

[1] It's a "problem" as it's not what devs/users are used to working with, not a problem because of flawed design (FTR, I rather like it)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Eagerly awaiting dismissive "human" commentary from A-list Apple bloggers.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've done a lot of iOS dev, and have a great many iOS devices on my desk to test with. I've personally used an iPhone for years.

Recently I got a Samsung Galaxy S2, as well, and I can safely say I'd recommend the iPhone to non-technical users every time. (I'm looking at you, mom and dad.) The iOS interface is a lot simpler, easier to use, more straightforward, and more self-consistent. The device is physically tough, relatively inexpensive for the older models, and well-curated. And the home screen scrolls more smoothly than on the S2. You cannot do any wrong for the most part.

Which is a restriction that I hate. For me, myself, personally, it's clear: the Galaxy S2 kicks the iPhone's ass into the dirt and leaves it lifeless in an expanding pool of gray smoke. I shook off iOS like a wet paper sack. But this is because I love geeky devices that aren't afraid to show me their underbellies.

Oh, and it does. You can use the built-in file manager to browse /sdcard/Android/data/! Hell, you can probably even delete stuff in there! What normal user would want to do that? _I_ don't even want to do that, but I'm so happy I _can_! Merely the abstraction between the Apps screens and the Home screens is more than most people want to deal with--but I love it! Sure there're plenty of things to complain about (why is the ringtone set in the Settings, but the texttone set in the Messages app?) but the raw power of the thing more than makes up for these shortcomings. For me.

My long-winded point is this: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We cannot properly rate these devices outside the context of the person using it. If you agree with the criteria put forth as superior in any particular review, it could very well be the device you're looking for.

</comment><comment><USER9> The Verge has rated the phone 8.6/10, not 10/10 as this article claims.

<comment><USER10> The link is also broken...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - fixing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Samsung Galaxy SII has been the inflection point for me. Such a great device, beats the iPhone in hardware and matches it in software (except in polish of some apps).

<comment><USER12> Huh? Slower GPU, lower resolution screen, Pentile... that's better hardware? And Touchwiz? Really?

<comment><USER11> SII does not have pentile. The screen is bigger and much brighter than the iPhone's, which is more useful to me than 300+ppi (which was only done for technical reasons anyway, to get backwards compatibility with the old apps due to the 2x factor) The phone is snappy no matter what you do (it's quite amazing to see 10+ app updates download and install in parallel, and complete in 30 seconds). GPU, I don't care about (not much of a gamer), Touchwiz I don't like either (I use the MIUI ROM). I agree for people without any tech expertise iPhone is still the best choice.

<comment><USER13> Frankly I think using a custom rom wipes out all your arguments.

<comment><USER11> Using the custom ROM is more a matter of taste and not functionality. I don't like the design of Touchviz personally, but there are many people who do and use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Better than the 4S? For the 4S siri was the shot across the bow of android IMO. For android to come back they will have to one up apple in this dept. For me, siri is a huge step in the right direction for what I want in a smartphone. Before siri, carrying around something that would have been a supercomputer a couple decades ago seemed pointless. What I really want to see from google is something that's as big a step beyond siri as siri was against previous personal digital assistants. Tight integration with calendar and gmail would make such a thing a gigantic killer app.

</comment><comment><USER15> An inflection point is where progress starts to decelerate ahead of a possible reversal in direction.

<comment><USER16> An inflection point is the point where a function changes sign. This can be both a positive or a negative indication.

This article carries a positive tone, so what they probably mean is that ICS to Android is the point where people start saying more positive than negative stuff about Android.

<comment><USER17> No it's where the _second derivative_ changes sign. You can think of the first derivative as the motion, and the second derivative as the "force" that's driving the motion - the force is changing direction.

<comment><USER18> Equivalently it is where the second derivative is equal to zero -- which implies the first derivative is at a local extrema.

In the context here, it's clear that the inflection point would be the point of greatest change.

<comment><USER17> Well not quite equivalent exactly - the second derivative could just touch zero and then go back whence it came :) That wouldn't be an inflection point I think, I'm not sure what you'd call that...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Writeup of BBC's remake of the famous Stanford prison experiment. - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbcprisonstudy.org/

<comment><USER2> This is interesting because it was never expected that this study would be allowed to happen again.

The timeline is odd though: * Study done in 2002 * Findings published in 2006 * Domain registered in 2008

Link: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Experiment>

<comment><AUTHOR> The programme was one of my favourite bits of TV and I've been trying to get more info about it since. Really excited to see that the BBC finally got round to releasing it.

For anyone that is interested in this topic, Zach Burt an excellent blog post about psychology and interaction between prisoners and guards in real life.

[http://zacharyburt.com/2010/05/games-criminals-play-how- you-...](http://zacharyburt.com/2010/05/games-criminals-play-how-you-can- profit-by-knowing-them-2/)</comment></comment>


The future is forever: the state of IPv6 in the Apple world - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/05/the-future-is-forever-the-state-of-ipv6-in-the-apple-world/ <comment><USER2> The future is forever?! What the f __* is that supposed to mean. Interesting article though!</comment>


Scientists think antioxidants may make cancer cells spread faster - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/10/14/antioxidants-may-give-a-boost-to-cancer-cells-making-them-spread-faster-study-suggests/ <comment><USER2> Makes total sense. Free radicals are thought to damage a cell and turn in cancerous. Antioxidants mitigate the number of free radicals so the rate of damage is lower, but once cancer is occurring, antioxidants aren't going to do anything to prevent the spread of cancer. In this experiment, cancer was transferred directly showing that AO actually hinders the bodies ability to fight cancer. Could free radicals actually be part of the immune system?

Another theory, which i think is interesting is that free radicals damage strong as well as weak cells, those weak cells that are killed by free radicals could actually more easily transition into cancer in the absence of free radicals.

It is too easy to explain less free radicals as good. There isn't a single variable in this equation.

<comment><USER3> Is that what they're saying ?

My understanding of the case against antioxidants is that thefree radicals (etc.) are an essential cell signaling mechanism ... and the signal is "kill me, I'm a bad cell".

If you somehow disrupt or eliminate the signal, you allow bad, or inefficient, or perhaps cancerous cells to live longer than they would otherwise.

I'm paraphrasing directly from the excellent, excellent book _Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life_ by Nick Lane, which is highly skeptical of antioxidant supplementation and is a truly fascinating book.

<comment><USER4> I wonder if this is why fasting may be healthy: it flushes marginal cells.

<comment><USER5> Interesting, but do you have any evidence that fasting is healthy?

<comment><USER6> There's lots, if you search, e.g.:

[https://news.usc.edu/63669/fasting-triggers-stem-cell- regene...](https://news.usc.edu/63669/fasting-triggers-stem-cell-regeneration- of-damaged-old-immune-system/)

[https://news.usc.edu/29428/fasting-weakens-cancer-in- mice/](https://news.usc.edu/29428/fasting-weakens-cancer-in-mice/)

[https://news.usc.edu/78953/fasting-and-less-toxic-cancer- dru...](https://news.usc.edu/78953/fasting-and-less-toxic-cancer-drug-could- be-alternative-to-chemotherapy/)

<comment><USER5> Thank you, I have looked into it before and will continue to do so. However, the articles you linked were studies done in mice and those undergoing chemotherapy treatment. I am hesitant to extrapolate that up my myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For anyone that's curious, the article is here: [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15726.html)

I'd complain about the WSJ's practice of not properly referencing the study, but I'm afraid that's becoming about as played out as the complaints about paywalls.

<comment><USER8> The headline points to the Washington Post, not the WSJ. Did someone change it?

<comment><USER9> No, I think the GP meant WP.

<comment><USER7> Yep I did, my bad. Sorry about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Slightly off-topic, but I wish media would stop using phrases like "scientists think" when reporting on a specific study without a general scientific consensus. "Scientists say global climate change is real" is completely fair though. It doesn't help science to give a false appearance of consensus, and likely leads to a public more willing to dismiss scientific evidence.

If this was a well-researched meta analysis that found a strong consensus, that would be different, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

This may not be the fault of the reporter, as often they don't get final say on the title. It would be marginally better to say "some scientists suggest". The conclusion of the article itself seems to suggest that the evidence is mixed.

</comment><comment><USER11> Anecdotal supporting evidence: A close family friend with chronic leukemia went on a "pro-oxidative" diet after reading similar previous data. He did see a drop in his counts (which had otherwise been elevated and stable) while not in active chemo.

</comment><comment><USER4> Every 5 or 10 years there is a big study that gives rise to a health fad: antioxidants, low fat, high fat, low carb, no carb, complex carbs, red wine, ...

These are then almost predictably found to either be bunk or gross oversimplification 5 or 10 years later.

You would think the scientific and medical establishment would realize after a while that there must be something deeply wrong with their whole approach to these studies and their interpretation, but no. The next one is always a breakthrough and around the circle we go. Or are there industries making big bucks on pimping this stuff?

<comment><USER12> This is not the fault of the scientific and medical establishment. They investigate phenomenon and publish what they can learn. The media does a poor job in explaining the subtleties of what they have learned, and food and supplement companies latch on to these misunderstandings to market "health" products.

<comment><USER13> Right and people are always looking for a quick fix and "just a pill to take". My understanding is that how nutrition affects the body is a poorly understood complex mechanism and isn't as simple as all fat is bad or all carbs are bad or red meat is poison. Keeping a diversified diet that is rich in real food and very little processed food is a good thing. Exercising is a good thing. Beyond that it seems like micro-optimizations with very little benefit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The fact that high antioxidant levels could interrupt the ROS-p53 axis and prevent apoptosis (i.e. prevent cancer cells from dying) has been known for awhile.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetylcysteine#Adverse_effects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetylcysteine#Adverse_effects)

Edit: forgot to mention one of the relevant studies is from 2005.

</comment><comment><USER6> It is widely believed that antioxidant supplements interfere with chemotherapy treatments, but it seems to be controversial subject. A relative of mine just started chemotherapy treatments and the doctors recommended avoiding antioxidants.

<comment><USER15> In particular, we want mice who when presented with a particular existing class of cancer spring to take antioxidants when they serve the mouse and not when it's going to perk up the cancer more, tell related mice how that feels, then survive at a significant rate; then look at their relatives. Sort of a missing hat trick at the end of _Ben_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Another thing for the [http://kill-or-cure.herokuapp.com/](http://kill-or- cure.herokuapp.com/) app :-)</comment>


TrueCrypt 7.1 w/ [OS X 64-bit support] - <AUTHOR> http://www.truecrypt.org/news

<comment><USER2> I wonder if they yet support full disk encryption on mac. That's been the missing feature for years.

<comment><USER3> Would there be any reason to use it over Lion's full disk encryption?

<comment><USER4> People who want a fully open-source solution might prefer TrueCrypt. Are there any guarantees that Apple's solution doesn't have a backdoor?

<comment><USER3> If you don't trust Apple's FDE solution to not have a backdoor, you probably shouldn't use their operating system at all, as it has access to all of your data.

<comment><USER5> People usually aren't trying to protect their drive contents with encryption while the drive is mounted and the computer is running. If the drive is encrypted, anyone trying to gain access won't care if OSX has a backdoor because it will all be encrypted in the volume. The only thing that will matter is a backdoor allowing decryption of the volume.

You could use your argument to state that someone paranoid enough to use encryption just shouldn't use a computer at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This really needs to end up in Macports. I have the macports installed MacFUSE for a different program, and I can't use Truecrypt with that "version" of MacFUSE for some reason.

</comment><comment><USER7> i wanted to use truecrypt but realized it doesn't do dynamic/sparse file volumes, which macosx disk utility supports. does anyone know of an opensource alternative which has this feature?

<comment><USER8> You can create a(n encrypted) sparse bundle which is a set of files that represents a disk image. Then on top of that image you can create a TrueCrypt volume that is quick-formatted. That might do what you want.</comment></comment>


US demands social media details from visa applicants - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48486672 <comment><USER2> What is social media? Does it include HN, stackoverflow, my local railway fan forum? I have dozens of such accounts, it would be difficult to remember all of them.

Is the requirement limited to visas or does it apply to ESTA / visa waiver programs, too?

I have visited the US more than 10 times, mostly work-related. I hope I am never tempted to go there again. The Soviet Union is long history, but the US try to surpass it in depriving people their rights in many aspects.</comment>


Airbnb Tech Talk: Jeremy Edberg of reddit and Netflix -- Building with Clouds - <AUTHOR> https://www.airbnb.com/meetups/mrxaejahb-tech-talk-jeremy-edberg <comment><AUTHOR> I know I referred to myself in the third person, but it was easier than expecting people to look at the username. :)

Also, if you're attending or watching at home and there is something specific you're hoping I will cover, tell me here in the comments and I'll do my best to cover it!

<comment><USER2> Just remember, 75% of the folks here on hacker news won't be attending your event, so following up with the slides/video would be much appreciated and would go a long way of increasing your reach!

<comment> kill-9-1 If 25% of hacker news folks attend, then the talk will have about 100,000 people. Jeremy - you better get a whole football field for your talk!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Did Reddit overcome its rather serious persistence-side issues?

It seemed like the object-blob Postgres store was a disaster, then they brought in Cassandra which was initially used as a cache of sorts, but now is the primary point of contact for threads apparently?

Reverse-engineering the persistence strategy from the open sourced code is more tedious and potentially inaccurate than I am comfortable with, so could a Reddit employee or code contributor provide some insight as to how those problems were worked past?

There was Reddit downtime today (read-only mode), which is common. What's the usual cause of that sort of thing these days?

<comment><AUTHOR> I can cover the rest in the talk, but I just want to comment that the Postgres object-blob store (as you describe it :) ) was not only NOT a disaster, but one of the strongest parts of the persistence layer.

<comment><USER3> Then where did the growth pains that necessitated Cassandra come from? I'm trying to build up a mental genealogy of the engineering decisions made so that the knowledge isn't lost to future programmers. Most of you OG peeps have moved onto greener pastures.

<comment><USER4> > Then where did the growth pains that necessitated Cassandra come from?

Increased traffic? I don't think I understand the question

<comment><USER5> Mostly porn and ragecomics, wasn't it?

<comment><USER3> A little less porn these days, no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Dang, all sold out. Got on the wait list, hopefully I'll be able to snag a spot.

</comment><comment><USER7> Since Reddit has been down a lot today... awkward.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've had nothing to do with reddit's operations for about 16 months now. I didn't even know it was down today. :)

<comment><USER8> Also, it's been down way less since you left. Coincidence, or vastly increased budget and staffing? We give you the facts, you decide at 6.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have I wronged you in the past? I ask because pretty much every time there is a thread about reddit or Netflix tech that I comment on, there you are slinging insults at me (which are incorrect, BTW).

I'd love to know what I did to harm you so that I can apologize.

Or do you just like giving me a hard time for the lulz?

<comment><USER9> I've noted redthrowaway to be oddly but harmlessly enraptured by morsels of Reddit inside baseball[1]. You may be mistaking affectionate ribbing for spite.

Or maybe I'm missing someone's dickishness, who knows.

1\. An exemplary specimen from this very thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4681972>

<comment><USER8> That's pretty much the gist of it, yup.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does Google hire non-programmers? - <AUTHOR>

I've seen a lot of articles about google's hiring practices and the type of interview they take. It seems that they always hire programmers.<p>Do they hire non-coders like managers or financial analysts? What's it like to work at Google for these non-coders? <comment><USER2> From my experience, they hire non-programmers en-masse yet have their Infamous Interviews for engineers.

Think how big they are. They need a lot of middle management types and general errand boys to keep even just their physical spaces up and running. Lots of folks start as support or writing contractors and work their way into open positions that way.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a friend who was a Windows 2000/2003 sysadmin who, after a career of consulting and training in that enviro, went to get his MBA. They hired him straight out of the MBA program and he is now the manager of a training team there.

<comment><AUTHOR> But he still had a background in tech (being a sysadmin). Anyone knows of someone without a tech background getting into Google?

<comment><USER4> <http://xooglers.blogspot.com/>

one of the primary authors of this blog was a google marketer for several years. if you read the earliest parts of the archives, he goes into the interview process they put him through in great detail. summary: it was every bit as rigorous as the programming interviews, but focused on marketing topics.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. thats what i was looking for.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Brainfuck compiler in brainfuck - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/awib/

<comment><USER2> Source code contains (slightly NSFW) ASCII art--that's awesome.

[http://code.google.com/p/awib/source/browse/builds/awib-1.0r...](http://code.google.com/p/awib/source/browse/builds/awib-1.0rc6-BETA.b)

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies to anybody that got fired over that.

Brainfuck tutorial:

<http://www.nieko.net/bf.php>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For those of you who like this stuff, the "J Incunabulum" will probably be really interesting. It's an early draft of a J interpreter, written in J-styled C.

<http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Essays/Incunabulum>

Also, unlike Brainfuck, unlambda, lolcode, malborge, etc., J and related languages are used for real work. They're just really dense, like regular expressions for vector/matrix math.

<comment><USER4> That's some interesting code, but would be more interesting if it worked. Segfaulted.

K is also fun, but considerably less fun to toy around with now that GUI functionality was taken out of the standard lib.

<comment><USER3> It's very old, pre-K&R C. It segfaults for me, too, in ga.

It got me interested in the language, but rather than trying to rewrite it, I decided to go through "J For C Programmers" (<http://www.jsoftware.com/help/jforc/contents.htm>) on my lunch breaks. The APL language family has several interesting ideas, the fanatically terse syntax is just the first one everybody notices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Checkout my Brainfuck to Brainfuck compiler in Brainfuck!

      ,[.,]

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if putting brainfuck on my resume would get me in the door, or thrown out the door.

</comment><comment><USER7> How much patience is necessary for something like this? If I could start a slow clap, I would.

<comment><USER8> I think you could write some sort of simple language that would get expanded into BF.

e.g.

      +6 -> ++++++

<comment><USER3> You could _compile_ to brainfuck, treating it as a very simple virtual machine. It's just simplified to the point of being incredibly inefficient, like factoring Church-encoded numbers with Prolog's unification, rather than using its built-in mathematical primitives.

(Whether the bf compiler was actually written or just generated by compiling to bf is neither here nor there.)

<comment><USER9> in fact, there is work on a gcc-backend which outputs brainfuck (name's gcc- bf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It goes from awib v1.0-rc1, rc2, up to awib-1.0rc6-BETA.b... and then the final release is awib-0.1 (not awib-1.0).

Am I missing something/is this part of the joke/is it just a typo? It's... ah... messing with my mind a little.

<comment><USER11> Well, with an increasing version system, you can never tell when you're finished. Is version 3 FINAL the final version, or is some new maintainer going to come make version 4 anyways? If you iterate toward 0, your final product can be awib-0, and you'd be hard pressed to find a new version number without further confusing the three people who got what you were going for.

(I'm guessing it's just a typo.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Someone ought to port it to Ook! (<http://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/ook.html>)

 _That_ would be something to read.

<comment><AUTHOR> that's just a search & replace, they're equivalent.

<comment><USER12> I didn't say it would be a difficult port....

It would sure look different, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Awib is an optimizing compiler:

o) Sequences of '-','<','>' and '+' are contracted into single instructions. E.g. "----" is replaced with a single ADD(4)._

SUB(4)?

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't want to sound offensive, but do wonder what is the purpose of this exercise? Is there any problem this project is solving? Or is it 'just' for educational purpose?

<comment><USER3> Writing a brainfuck interpreter in a language is a good way to size it up. Unlike "hello world", it actually gives you a meaningful impression of how string handling, data structures, etc. work. It's not _hard_ , but it's just enough to work up a sweat -- like a web-programmer writing a blogging engine or a wiki to try out a web framework. (If it _is_ hard in the language, that should also tell you something.)

See also:

* Project Euler (<http://projecteuler.net/>), for math problems

* Programming Praxis (<http://programmingpraxis.com/>)

<comment><USER15> Yeah but that doesn't explain why one would write a brainfuck interpreter _in brainfuck_.

Day 163: Project complete. Strength nearly gone. Must.. complete... evaluation.... Data structures, godawful... string handling, non-existent... writing a brainfuck interpreter, gigantic pain in the ass.... Conclusion: this better get me laid. Oh sh.. _signal lost_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Someone should write a Forth in brainfuck.

<comment><AUTHOR> is that a challenge ?</comment></comment>


Two Startup Guys Looking for a New Roommate in SF - <AUTHOR> http://www.jasonshen.com/2011/two-startup-guys-look-for-a-roommate-in-sf/

<comment><USER2> I was just about to post here looking for roommates! I have already purchased a one-way ticket to SF for February 3rd. My plan was to use Airbnb for a few days until I found a place, but maybe we'll hit it off??

I recently moved out of Austin, and I'm working on a cool new telephony startup. I'll send you a message via your site.

<comment><USER3> "A few days" might be optimistic but I'm sure HN can help — in fact, we have an extra room if you need a temporary spot. (Jason knows how to get in touch with me.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is e. e. cummings and not E. E. Cummings. As Will Arnett would say in arrested development, 'coooome oon!'</comment>


Convert Markdown to a Mind Map - <AUTHOR> https://markmap.js.org/ <comment><USER4> Cool!

Slightly related, I also like: [https://www.diagram.codes/](https://www.diagram.codes/)

<comment><USER5> I guess it was done on purpose, but essentially it reminds me of the syntax for graphviz: [https://graphviz.org/](https://graphviz.org/)

<comment><USER6> This was my first thought as well. I use graphviz quite a lot for these sorts of diagrams, and I really like it. Their site, reference materials, etc. need updating though.

<comment><USER7> I use it too but I wouldn't mind a non-ugly layout renderer!

<comment><USER8> There's an interesting art to knowing when neato or twopi are better choices than dot for layout rendering. Graphviz is interesting because there are multiple layout renderers and "non-ugly" is a graph-by-graph art form between the different renderers and different renderer hints in the graph file (spring constants and what-have-you).

I've had some successes and a lot of failures over the years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I make an app for macOS that makes it easy to make offline viewers for documents like this ([https://repla.app/](https://repla.app/)). Would anyone be interested in having an offline viewer for this? E.g., being able to drag a `mindmap.md` file to the app icon, and have it render the mindmap and automatically update when you make changes in your text editor.

(I'm aware there are other ways to do offline views like this, happy to explain the relative pros and cons of Repla's approach versus others as I see them, if anyone is curious, just ask!)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the input! I'm also looking at supporting Mermaid diagramming [https://mermaid-js.github.io/](https://mermaid-js.github.io/) I'd love to hear if people have other good use cases for this model, e.g., of having a plain text file you edit in a text editor accompanied by a rendered web document view of the same file.

<comment><USER10> Main problem I've had using mermaid for large flowcharts is that the SVG gets cut off on the edges sometimes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is beautiful that's it but this is nothing considered to graphviz. If Graphviz had a decent, just non-ugly renderer it would be much more popular.

Eg. Mind maps aren't trees- they are bigraphs, this is limited to trees.

Someone needs to plug in this renderer with Graphviz.

<comment><USER11> > Mind maps aren't trees- they are bigraphs

Yes! So many of the mind-mapping software is limited to just trees, plus there's no way of styling some paths differently, the interface is far from ergonomic, in short: I couldn't find an interactive tool for drawing complex relationships between many kinds of content (I want to be able to put an image in one place, then paste a bit of some documentation in another, then connect them in some way, then repeat this 100 times and _then_ have the tool "auto- layout" all the content.)

Here's the thing I'm currently trying to create: [https://github.com/piotrklibert/awesome- config](https://github.com/piotrklibert/awesome-config) \- I need it in SVG so that the links are working, plus it would be nice to be able to show/hide portions of the graph. I'm currently using Gliffy, but it's getting slower and buggier with every box added.

Any advice on what to use for things like these?

<comment><USER7> Not sure what gliffy is but Graphviz can conceptually draw the same thing. You can have box shapes and colors for nodes and edges both. However, the rendering layout itself is usually unpleasant. You can have some control but it's really suboptimal. As I said, Graphviz is both simple and very powerful so no reason to not use it to represent data in concept. Plus it goes in your VCS.

<comment><USER11> Gliffy[1][2] is a web app for drawing diagrams and schematics of various kinds. You get a large library of shapes - most of UML, classic flowchart, some UI mockups, swimlanes, now also the root of a mindmap - and a few tools for connecting these shapes to each other; the connections are real connections, not lines, ie. they follow after the shape if you move it, and they know when they intersect and can render a "hop" where needed. You get a lot of freedom in styling the diagrams (change color, thickness, a curvature of lines and color, background, font, font size, etc. for boxes and text), and the UI is not that bad. It, however, seems to have some performance issues, because after a certain size the experience degrades and you need to reload the page every now and then.

I know and like pure-text diagramming solutions, but they don't work that well for diagrams designed to span multiple displays in width or height. Or put another way - my editor, as glorious as it is, is not designed for rapid zoom- in/zoom-out on various parts of an 80000x80000 rows/cols text file. I want to be able to work in an interactive environment, where I can rapidly switch between the overall outline view and the focused, detailed view of just a few nodes. Moreover, I need to able to embed (and preview if possible) different kinds of content, from syntax-highlighted text to images to videos, plus it should render natively in a browser (hence the SVG).

My use case for this is putting together a knowledge-base (think Wikipedia, just for my personal data), which would use direction, color, line thickness and kind (dotted, dashed, etc.) to bind related subjects and show the relations between them in 2 dimensions. Feature-wise Gliffy is close to what I have in mind, but it doesn't handle a scale big enough to be called a "knowledge-base" \- "infographic" is the most it can produce.

[1] [https://www.gliffy.com/](https://www.gliffy.com/)

[2] [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/piotrklibert/awesome- confi...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/piotrklibert/awesome- config/master/haxemindmap.png) (made with Gliffy)

<comment><USER12> Some of what you want is offered by Miro.com. It's not driven by text files though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Org-mode has an exporter for the Freemind mindmapping tool. Freeplane is a fork of Freemind [https://www.freeplane.org/wiki/index.php/Home](https://www.freeplane.org/wiki/index.php/Home)

</comment><comment><USER14> This looks beautiful, but I guess it's only useful for acyclic maps? References would be great.

Just learned, that I'm looking for a 'cognitive map'.

<comment><USER15> It's my own pet peeve that basically all mind map software assumes acyclic structure. Makes it pretty useless to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting project. Thank you for sharing. I noticed when using the try it out that the map on the right is not updated when adding a new sub-level to one of the flowers. When downloading the html, the sublevel are correctly rendered. I have not tried the SVG download.

I'm running latest Firefox under Ubuntu 19.10

<comment><USER17> Same problem (TypeError: t.children is undefined). And none of the navigation links work then any more. I'm using Firefox on Windows 10.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice, I always wanted to make something like this for my school notes but never got around to it. One thing that could be useful is if it would let you write longer paragraphs of text, which could be expanded on-demand. Ex.

      # Fruits
      ## Orange
      Oranges were first grown in...
      ## Banana
      Bananas originated in...

Then the mind map would have Fruits -> [Orange, Banana], and you could click on Orange or Banana to expand the full content of the note. This is how I format my notes at least.

<comment><USER19> Yeah this breaks down if you use anything more than a few words per node, because it has no wrapping. I think even if you had the text blocks wrap at a sane width (20% of screen-width or something) then it would be more better, or expandable/modal blocks like your idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Interesting. It would be good to have a more complex example as a guide for how the markdown should be structured.

<comment><USER21> So far I just think it's headers and lists:

# This

## This branch

### This sub branch

### Another sub branch

## This other

## And another

## One more

### This one has a branch

\- one

\- more

\- thing

### and another branch

\- what

\- is

\- this

<comment><USER22> Had to go to other pages to find docs butt you can nest the lists too.

\- melon

      - <USER2>

      - <USER3>

        - and more

        - and more

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Reminds me a neat Windows program from beginning of the century: [https://www.mind-mapping.org/index.php?title=B-liner_2002](https://www.mind- mapping.org/index.php?title=B-liner_2002)

</comment><comment><USER24> Pasted markdown into text area, nothing happened. No button to activate.

</comment><comment><USER25> These mind maps look like MindNode which I think are the best looking.

<comment><USER26> Yes. Looks like the author made his own with D3 [1]. It does look very nice. I especially love the colors.

[1]: [https://github.com/gera2ld/markmap- lib/blob/master/src/view....](https://github.com/gera2ld/markmap- lib/blob/master/src/view.ts)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's simple and great, I like the animations. One small issue: I zoomed out a lot and I never found back my mind map. You may need to implement bounds to the zoom.

</comment><comment><USER28> Hey all - are there any of these systems that can be used offline to take markdown files and export them to SVG, PNG?

I have a couple wild ideas for CLI and/or CICD usage, but I'm not familiar enough with reading JS to know if I can just copy something locally and expect it to work, or if I would need to install a bunch of dependencies.

</comment><comment><USER26> This looks like really nice! Are you using a open sourced mind map rendering library, or did you write your own?

It visually looks really familiar, but looking at package.json there only seems to be d3. I've looked at a bunch of options for rendering mind map, so I'm particular curious.

<comment><USER29> They are using only d3

<comment><USER26> Thanks, I looked at the code later and confirmed that too. The visual style is very similar to MindNode, but it's rebuilt using d3.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Pretty cool! I suggest adding a github link to [https://github.com/gera2ld/markmap-lib](https://github.com/gera2ld/markmap- lib) in the about page and homepage.

</comment><comment><USER31> Thanks, it's great. I'm a fan of mind mapping[1] to express some ideas.

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

</comment><comment><USER32> This looks cool. Is anyone planning to create a SaaS based on this?

</comment><comment><USER33> Something similar I used to use to design PBX call flows: [https://code2flow.com/app](https://code2flow.com/app)

</comment><comment><USER34> This is great. Is there anyway to have it set vertically?

</comment><comment><USER35> I made something several years back: [https://markmymind.netlify.com](https://markmymind.netlify.com)

</comment><comment><USER36> Would be nice if it supported circular references.

</comment><comment><USER37> Looks really nice, thanks for sharing!

For me, it is though more like "a dynamic table of contents" (at least, I would use it in that way).

</comment><comment><USER38> Cool project. One suggestion you could roll out an online service where one can publish mind maps using some random urls.

</comment><comment><USER39> Can i create a mindmap from my notion pages?

</comment><comment><USER40> I am not sure how I will use it, I will need to edit my markdown docs for this to make sense, BUT it is just beautiful!

Thank you!!

</comment><comment><USER41> It's absolutely fantastic and very timely for an new IA project of mine. Thanks so much, Gerald (Gera2ld)!

</comment><comment><USER42> Another cool one is [https://swimlanes.io](https://swimlanes.io)

</comment><comment><USER43> That's awesome!

Do you have examples for cool this you did with it? I'd like to get some inspiration

</comment><comment><USER44> I noticed it doesn't handle quotes correctly, try the following and the quote will become a child node.

``` # header

Body

>quote ```

</comment><comment><USER45> Buggy on Safari (SVG doesn't always show / updates correctly).

Otherwise great work.

</comment><comment><USER46> i like that it's done in JS.

i've been using this for a while: [https://plantuml.com/mindmap- diagram](https://plantuml.com/mindmap-diagram)

</comment><comment><USER47> Can a child have multiple parents?

</comment><comment><USER48> nice! would be awesome to export the input markdown again from the downloadable html file.

</comment><comment><USER49> That's awesome!

</comment><comment><USER50> Really great Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER51> Really nice tool!

</comment><comment><USER52> Great work!

</comment><comment><USER53> beautiful! I love it.

</comment><comment><USER54> Calling them mind maps recalls why they failed, when they are really digraphs, taxonomies, and basic ontologies.

Having worked with these for a while, some people actually think their job is to be the stewards and gatekeepers of knowledge that can in fact be easily encoded into a taxonomy and ontology to make it scale.

I love these, and every tool like this is fundamentally subversive. Just don't be surprised when someone tries to discredit it.</comment>


Agile estimation is a waste of time - <AUTHOR> http://developersrant.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/agile-estimation-is-a-waste-of-time/ Let me go straight into my point that agile estimation is a waste of time given that if you are estimating the number of hours it will take for a user story to be completed. This is totally stupid and insane and only idiots will do it. The purpose of agile estimation is to estimate complexity and size of any given user story and it has nothing to do with actual hours...... <comment><USER2> "This is totally stupid and insane and only idiots will do it."

I hear your point, but this kind of language is no way to get it across.

<comment><AUTHOR> But it's a rant. A rant is supposed to contain some kind of coarse language. :-)

<comment><USER2> I know...but there's actually a real gem hidden in there! The whole agile estimation thing is something that seems to trip people up all the time. If you were to blow this out into an article with specific suggestions for improving process, I think you'd help a lot of people.</comment></comment></comment>


Vim 8.2 - <AUTHOR> https://www.vim.org/vim-8.2-released.php <comment><USER2> Say what you want about Neovim, but it sure motivated Bram to make Vim better again. Almost everything listed here looks like a direct reaction to features Neovim has added. Same for older releases (async, terminal, etc.).

Competition is good and I'm glad we're having it.

<comment><USER3> Just out of curiosity (and this goes into the subject of open source project dynamics of which I am really just a lay observer, and as someone who hasn't followed the history of either projects closely) - how is vim vs neovim organized as open source projects? Do both have a healthy ecosystem of contributor/maintaners? Are either in danger of running into "single person syndrome" or "hit-by-a-bus" syndrome?

<comment><USER4> I thought vim always was a «BDFL project», i.e. run by one person.

<comment><USER5> Run by one person doesn't mean developed by one person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I switched to NeoVim a few years ago and I'm not entirely sure whether Vim has caught up in features, diverged, or what ratio of the two. That said, I'm not switching back. The only editor I'm really interested in is VSCode. Not that I use it much, but I am very impressed.

<comment><USER7> May I interest you in [https://github.com/neoclide/coc.nvim](https://github.com/neoclide/coc.nvim) which let's you use some of the most popular bits of vs code in neovim

<comment><USER8> In the other direction the VSCodeVim plugin has options to experimentally use Neovim to power some vim features inside of VS Code.

[https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim](https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The really big news is that vim is now a game engine too;-)

> To show what is possible with popup windows (and because I sometimes get > bored fixing bugs), I created a silly game. This uses popup windows that > move across the display, text properties to highlight the animals and even > sound to make it more fun!

[https://github.com/vim/killersheep](https://github.com/vim/killersheep)

</comment><comment><USER10> I've never gotten gVim to look anything but horrible. (Haven't tried in a few years, so just installed this one and the window and font are so small they would require a hefty magnifying glass to use.)

AFAICT, the sanest version of "real" vim that seems turnkey is the version of vim that runs in git bash in the cygwin shell that installs with git extension for windows. Other than that, the VS and VSCode vi emulators do most of what I want and then I'm not tempted to to go down the dark hole of vim extensions.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm using plain vim occasionally, but never tried to do any coding in it, just because I'm not sure how to configure it for that. Which plugins for Python coding are universally agreed on as "must haves" Preferably just one, or two at most.

<comment><USER12> I use Vim to code, but it took me a lot of time to find to configure it. My primary need when coding is quick jump to symbol definition, and after many trial and error attempts, settled on the plugins `vimprj` and `indexer` in combination with Universal Ctags. Have been using this setup for years and it's proven to be stable and giving me the result I need.

But I hate Vim.

It's so fragile. Configuring it is a nightmare. One buggy plugin could cause weird behaviour in the editor, and I'd had a hard time figuring out why.

In a recent incident of this kind, I noticed that the scrolling of syntax highlihted code became horribly slow, and the cause turned out to be the new regex engine of Vim 8.

So I've compiled Vim 7.4 from scratch, and intend on using that version till the end of time. By the way - my plugins are manually installed and I never upgrade them. Ever.

<comment><USER11> So, given what you just wrote, why do you still use it?

<comment><USER12> I tried to switch to other editors several times, but couldn't make the transitions for several reasons: _) My editing workflow now is tightly tied to Vim, for example the normal /insert mode paradigm. _) The capability to navigate using hjkl is helping with my RSI condition, because I find that it helps to offload some of the workload on the wrist of the right hand. When editing in Vim, as compared to other traditional editors, my hands get less tired. *) Other editors have their own quircks, and I don't want to spend yet another number of years to adjust.

I've decided that the next time I switch to an editor, it's going to be to one written by myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow. For a "minor" release, this is really exciting. Finally, vim gets text properties. This could be a real game changer for plugin writers. Popup windows could also be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://www.vim.org/vim-8.2-released.php](https://www.vim.org/vim-8.2-released.php)

<comment><USER15> This page is remarkably more informative than the commit diff, let's consider updating the url to this instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> that wasn't there, when I noticed the commit

<comment><USER15> It's not a complaint about your post, just a moderation request. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> At this point, vim is hindering progress. While they finally compied almost all of additional features of neovim, there is no sense of innovation and progress there and unfortunately the diff with neovim is right now minimal so neovim loses contributors that would otherwise be

<comment><USER17> Sort of like the Gnu Emacs / XEmacs split back then which divided the contributors. At least in case of Emacs one of these came on top, so there is no split anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> With vscode recent remote capabilities its hard to push(come up with a argument) vim/emacs for programmers who do dev in remote VMs.

<comment><USER19> Does vscode have vim emulation or actual vim that runs plugins. If it's the former, your statement is ludicrous.

<comment><USER20> It has vscode vim [0] which works well for default configurations, but it's not "actual" vim. I know with sublime text there is an actual-vim plugin [1] which lets you run neo-vim.

[0] [https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim](https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim) [1] [https://github.com/lunixbochs/actualvim](https://github.com/lunixbochs/actualvim)</comment></comment></comment>


Artemis - a simulated spaceship bridge game  - <AUTHOR> http://www.artemis.eochu.com/

<comment><USER2> I like the use of Wheaton's Law ("Don't be a dick").</comment>


A Unified Theory of Randomness - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160802-unified_theory_of_randomness/ <comment><USER2> Quanta is by far my favorite science publication... They have a podcast too, which has kept me awake for hours and hours of driving! The articles always contain enough details to engage people who have some math or science knowledge, but who weren't necessarily familiar with the subject matter.</comment>


Wordpress Alternatives List - <AUTHOR> https://startupstashs.com/wordpress-alternative <comment><USER2> This article for me fails to provide the number one key comparison why I use wordpress. The availability of plugins for nearly everything, almost always free. The community aspect is the most important factor for most people selecting wordpress I feel. Especially in the non-commercial context.

WordPress gives me the perfect mix of control and easy extensions on demand, without effort.

<comment><USER3> I agree

I tried Wix for a while

But to be honest I really love wordpress.

The number of plugins is insane.

The bad thing about wordpress is the security.

I feel like if you run a wordpress site its more likley to get security vuanrbilities than a site that runs on another CMS

the list is pretty cool due, it shows some alternatives I never saw before

<comment><USER4> I've had good experiences with [https://wpengine.com/](https://wpengine.com/) for corporate sites anyway. It's not free, but a security incident can be far more costly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> OK, what is the deal with sites like this one?

I can more or less understand not being able to see the content at all without JavaScript.

But on this page, it seems to fully load for a split second, and _then_ get replaced with emptiness.

Like, what is even going on here? What mechanism is responsible for removing all the content from the page after it's loaded (presumably, it isn't JS?)</comment>


All the Open Source Software Provided by BMW for Their I3 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/edent/BMW-OpenSource <comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing this.</comment>


Social App Marries the Fun of Group Couponing with Check-Ins - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2012/03/26/joynin-app-startup/

<comment><USER2> looking forward to seeing this become big!!

</comment><comment><USER3> This is hot!

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds like a pretty good idea and a good time out.</comment>


Warner to Offer Movies Through Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703386704576186913491751144.html

<comment><USER2> Facebook being in "competition" with Netflix is a bit of a stretch. We're talking Warner's infrastructure serving Warner's IP using Facebook's payment platform.

You might as well say Facebook is competing with EA with games like FarmVille.

<comment><USER3> If it's not streaming, it isn't competing with Netflix.

I have to assume they're competing with Apple's claim of 100-200 million "iTunes-linked credit cards." Since we've seen that Apple's monopoly isn't in volume, but in customers willing to pay, Facebook's consumer-used credit system is the most logical partner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is weird. Facebook is really becoming the new AOL. Facebook wants you to do _everything_ on Facebook.

<comment><USER5> yes except facebook started out specializing as a way to connect with your friends which they've become very successful with. And now they are diverting from that goal which doesn't quite jive with the other companies specializing in those fields. Video gamers will still play EA games, photographers will still use flickr or whatever, movie buffs will still use netflix. I think facebook should stay within its social realm and OFFER specialty companies a way to use facebook to enhance those companies' services instead of trying to do everything.

The same way we want Microsoft to stick with making operating systems, Apple to stick with laptops and music, google to stick with email and search, netflix to stick with movies, etc. I think facebook movies may very well flop just like google buzz did in light of a company that specialized in it (twitter).

I was also going to say that I could see how microtransaction movies would be easier to manage than a netflix subscription. But I would argue that netflix is a one time payment with unlimited movies which is actually easier to manage than a lot of microtransactions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hmmm, doesn't seem to be working. <http://i.imgur.com/PutjB.png>

It also wasn't easy to actually find and came with this odd warning "offer not valid in all states".

I wouldn't be worried (yet) if I was Netflix.

</comment><comment><USER7> It seems that the payment processing and virality would be the two draws of doing it this way. 30 facebook credits is $3. And I guess if I watch it, it tells all my friends?

It's an interesting test, and I can see people building real apps like a Netflix competitor on top of facebook's infrastructure. I can't imagine it will work as a facebook app - the way the Dark Knight is built.

</comment><comment><USER8> The difference is the use of facebook credits. This makes it really attractive for the user since a user can earn credits on FB without having to pay for them. So this also gives all those apps that give out free credits a boost too.

</comment><comment><USER9> The overall experience of watching movies or videos through Facebook is pretty awful. Facebook does a few things very well, video and media beyond photos isn't one of them.

<comment><USER10> I agree, but Facebook doesn't really need to do it well to be successful, it just needs to be good enough, for better or worse.

<comment><USER9> True, it seems the YouTube convenience and instant gratification effect is at play here.</comment></comment></comment>


Eight O'Clock Is Relative - <AUTHOR> https://www.jefftk.com/p/eight-oclock-is-relative <comment><USER2> You can buy children's clocks that have an analogue hands and a face of a cute animal. The animals eyes are closed (asleep) until a pre-set time (that the parent can set) at which point the animals eyes open[1], and the child knows it's time to get up or go downstairs if they are already awake.

Personally I am a firm believer that children should learn how to read an analogue clock before you shift them to digital ones.

\--

[1] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bunny-Alarm-Clock-Child-Trainer- Blu...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bunny-Alarm-Clock-Child-Trainer- Blue/dp/B000KC1U7U)

</comment><comment><USER3> You could get her a wall clock with hands as she learns to tell time in school. Get her away from the digital format until she gets it and then comes back.

Cute story.</comment>


TSA's Scanners Can't Figure Out Afros or Turbans, Guess Who's Getting Searched - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190826/19494642859/tsas-expensive-scanners-cant-figure-out-afros-turbans-so-guess-whos-getting-searched-more-often.shtml <comment><USER2> The only important point of this article is that the TSA is worthless and an affront to free people. The point that prompted the article is a canard, and what little point the article has is smothered in gallons of snark.

</comment><comment><USER3> Techdirt link is a reblog of this ProPublica piece: [https://www.propublica.org/article/tsa-not-discriminating- ag...](https://www.propublica.org/article/tsa-not-discriminating-against- black-women-but-their-body-scanners-might-be)

</comment><comment><USER4> As a man with long hair (and a dark-ish complexion), they are constantly requesting to search through my hair at the airport. It feels like an absurd request every time, especially since most women with long hair aren't being searched in the same manner.

<comment><USER5> As a lily-white redheaded bearded guy of Irish descent, I stopped flying (and going to baseball games) because I was consistently being "randomly" selected for whatever new xray machine + rub down + run a pick through my beard + wands everywhere invasive search the TSA decided to implement that week. Just not worth paying a thousand or more dollars to be harassed and threatened.

<comment><USER6> Do you think it was the beard? Is this a really big beard?

I've never heard of people getting selected more often because of a beard.

<comment><USER5> Who knows. I'm not really sure and I never asked either (not that they'd tell me). It's not a particularly long beard. Maybe I just look suspicious to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> TSA is just a political instrument. If you get TSA pre-check, you can skip most of the theatrics.

But wait, now they also have a thing called "CLEAR"[1], because I guess they didn't make enough money from pre-check. Making matters worse, it's a private company!

[1] [https://www.clearme.com/](https://www.clearme.com/)

<comment><USER8> CLEAR is a third party company and in no way replaces TSA. I have both Pre- check and CLEAR, I still must go through TSA, I just don't have to stand in a long identity document verification line.

<comment><USER7> Since I never said that CLEAR replaces TSA, I'm not sure what you're on about. That being said, I'm pretty sure CLEAR includes TSA pre-check in practice, even though they seem to vehemently deny this in theory.

<comment><USER8> > because I guess they didn't make enough money from pre-check.

You said that, but then later added the "private company" part after I pointed it out, so that's what I'm "on about".

> I'm pretty sure CLEAR includes TSA pre-check in practice

Nope, if you don't have pre-check (either the actual membership or the airline sponsored version), you have to go through the standard TSA line. No exceptions. The only benefit to CLEAR is jumping the ID inspection line, nothing after the initial officer changes.

Anything else you want to be proven wrong about so you can then berate me after editing your post?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


CEO of Mandriva says employee lawsuits put the company out of business - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/ceo-employee-lawsuits-killed-mandriva-2015-5 <comment><USER2> Odd article, only giving one side of the story. What exactly were the employee law suits about? It doesn't say, and the effect is just to implicitly smear France's worker laws. Because while some laws are rubbish and cause problems, lets be clear, sometimes companies are shit, we have laws to protect workers for a reason and lawsuits are very justified and deserve to win.

<comment><USER3> _> The details of the suits, including names of employees involved, are confidential, he told us, and he declined to offer details_

That's in the article, but how true that is I don't know. You'd assume the details would be public record somewhere, but I don't know enough about France's laws to tell.

<comment><USER2> Yes, that seems odd to me but then I don't know French law at all. Any french commentators?

<comment><USER4> French labour law is not what most people think, the employee does not have the rights to stay forever in a company. Yes it over protects the employee by restricting the power of the employer but both parties are still equals in front of Justice.

How is that you might ask? Well, when you're suing your ex-company you go to a special trial called "prud'hommes" (like "safety-men") which is constituted by both employees and employers. You are judged by your peers. Prud'Hommes trials are long and decisions are rarely contested by the public opinion in France, even by employers. Employers can win at prud'hommes trials, they do when they respect the law.

Also I'd like to point out that this is the 4th CEO change for Mandriva in something like 8 years. At some point the choices that some of the CEOs made were so bad that the investors forced them to publicly communicate with the community (for Mandriva the Linux community in France is extremely strong so it might be interesting to keep it updated and involved...). Basically the last CEO seems to have made some hard but good choices for the company but is paying for the mistakes of it's predecessors (so now he tries to save it's reputation by telling his side of the story which is understandable). Anyway, the company stays responsible when a bad CEO leaves and a new one comes along.

"C'est la vie".

<comment><USER5> French here. Often, pro-employees partisans are enclined to believe that Prud'hommes are neutral. However I have never heard the same opinion from a boss who's had experience with firing someone. By the way the name Prud'hommes is a family name, and although it looks like "prudence", it has no ethymologic origin here.

I'm frightened of hiring the first person in my startup, precisely because I can't get rid of them and an upset employee can draw lifetime savings in lawyer fees, penalties and fines. Therefore if you could convince me that Prud'hommes and French employment rules can be fair and deterministic, and make me meet bosses who reckon the Prudhommes took a fair position, you would literally create at least one job.

Apart from that, you are right that some bosses aren't nice and we don't known enough about Mandriva to judge.

<comment><USER4> [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conseil_de_prud%27hommes_%28Fra...](http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conseil_de_prud%27hommes_%28France%29)

You have 7 months to fire your employee without even giving a reason. That seems fair enough to judge someone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In France, there's a high chance of trial if you lay someone off... A 25% chance! ([http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licenciement_en_France#Statisti...](http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licenciement_en_France#Statistiques))

From what I've found on the Net, the laid off decided to take their case to court, to ask for greater compensation from Mandriva.

(no authoritative source found, only excerpts from an interviews on [http://linuxfr.org/users/kurun/journaux/duval-vs-mandriva- in...](http://linuxfr.org/users/kurun/journaux/duval-vs-mandriva-inerview-de- f-bancilhon))

<comment><USER7> I worked in France for a number of years. One case I saw personally was a sales guy who didn't sell. He went on "trips" every week for 4 days to visit his girlfriend. Then, expensed meals for both of them.

After 4 months of this, he was fired for cause. And sued. And won.

Some things in France are nice (pate de foie gras at the French senate). Employment law isn't one of them.

<comment><USER8> That's very cliché (no pun intended). I've seen companies in France firing employees simply for making too many typos. Employee sued and company won.

<comment><USER5> That's probably incomplete. They were probably on probation, the initial 3-to-8 month period where the permanent employment contract can be revoked without a reason (except if discrimination can be demonstated, once again).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What a strange thing to force the payout due to the lawsuit to commence right away, and not after all the legal avenues were exhausted (appeals and such). E.g. they were basically denied of appeal because of being forced into bankruptcy...

I cannot imagine the feeling of the employees either: those who were fired are the ones who walked away with money + take away everyone else's job.

I'm really conflicted about labour laws. On one hand, having gone through some (IMHO) very unfair treatment at a previous job I'd like those laws to have some effect. On the other hand, I don't think many current forms have unintended, serious consequences, which favour the wrong people/wrong outcomes... No wonder that I hear from entrepreneurs these days, that don't hire people until really really positively absolutely have to.

<comment><USER10> I've dealt with unfair employers as well... but labor laws don't really help you. The cost of taking someone to court far exceeds the likely result if you win the case... so the risk reward, even when you've really been wronged, is bad.

This is why transparency (check glass door reviews, and post them!) is important... so the market can work.

<comment><USER2> Depends on the offense and country. UK has Small Claims Court, specially designed for easy small claims. I know some ppl who got a succesful judgement out of that when their employers didn't give them their last pay packet fairly. (Tho it has to be said, Tory goverment is making access to justice harder, mostly by changing the fee structure of who pays.)

Tho I do think a more transparent work culture would be very interesting (especially in our industry where workers have a fair amount of choice), laws do have their place. Many people in other industries find themselves in positions where they know a employer is shit but they are desperate for a job so apply anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If my neighbor sues me because of my action $X and wins, most people would conclude that that I did $X was the problem. Not that the laws around $X are to blame. I should have known the laws and should have known that $X is punishable with hefty fines. If I went to the media, I should be laughed at for blaming someone else because I wouldn't follow the laws.

If I drive I must accept and follow all traffic laws (even if I think some are stupid and pointless) and if I do CEO:ing, I must follow the labor laws. If I reject that, then I shouldn't drive or CEO.

<comment><USER12> If France's laws are like Portugal's (which is typical), there's a flaw in your argument.

It is _very_ expensive to fire people, even when it is entirely justified as a measure to save the company. Companies routinely go under because of this effect.

The response is, typically, that you should be prudent when hiring, and allocate the firing cost so you can face dire straits and come out on the other side. However, companies act in a market. Your competitors either don't have the same laws or act imprudently. If you act too conservative, your company fails.

A partial solution, for domestic competition leveling, is mandatory fund provisioning, for worker compensation. It's not perfect, but it mitigates the problem.

Worker protection, albeit necessary, is not free. It's not free for the companies and it's not free for the society. This was an example of the price to pay.

<comment><USER11> Can you tell me what costs firing someone in Portugal incurs to a company?

I know roughly how it works in most Nordic countries (which have relatively employee-friendly labor laws) and it's not very expensive. A small company (Mandriva would be categorized as "small") can cite profitability problems (not enough revenue to cover salary costs) and layoff how many employees they want.

There is a strict protocol to follow, such that those with the lowest seniority must be laid off first and then more senior personnel. The laid off employers unions must be notified two weeks (I think) in advance so that they can verify that the termination protocol is followed and protest if it isn't.

This step is crucial, if the company makes formal errors they will be forced to pay several months extra in severance pay if the union is alerted. An example of a formal error is delivering the termination message orally and not in writing with a date and signatures.

Then there is a severance period of 1-3 months based on the age of the employee. I think 1 month for < 35 years of age, 2 months for 35 - 45 and 3 months for > 45\. During that period the employee is supposed to continue working for the employer but for various reasons often can't work 100%.

<comment><USER12> > Can you tell me what costs firing someone in Portugal incurs to a company?

If you can get a legitimate reason for dismissal, two months pay per year of past contract duration. Reasons for dismissal are quite limited, but in the case of Mandriva they could use the legal figure of "labour force reduction".

Protocols are similar. You must fire lower seniority folks first, and you may not hire anyone for that position for a year. Employee and unions must be notified in advance.

If you there is no legitimate reason for dismissal, you'll need to reach an agreement with the employee. Typically, it ends up as four months pay per past year of contract.

The current government has softened these rules a lot, but they apply to new contracts only or to the contract period after the law was approved (depending on provisions for different parts of the new labour law).

<comment><USER11> So are you saying that you have to pay someone 20 months of salaries if they have worked 10 years to fire someone due to "labour force redution"? I looked at this page and your stats doesn't seem right at all: [http://www.ilo.org/dyn/eplex/termdisplay.severancePay?p_lang...](http://www.ilo.org/dyn/eplex/termdisplay.severancePay?p_lang=en&p_country=PT&p_all_years=Y)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> No an inferior product put them out of business. The employee lawsuits were just a symptom.

<comment><USER14> Exactly. Putting the blame on others is easy, but the reality is that Mandriva couldn't compete with others like Canonical or Red Hat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> _" Mandriva offered a Linux operating system for PCs that was doing well in some developing nations."_

Anyone know which developing nations? And why Mandriva was especially appealing in those countries?

<comment><USER16> There's been various articles over the years discussing their strategy. They were targeting the third world market with customized distributions for inexpensive educational computers, and focusing on making the installer easy to use.

[http://www.olpcnews.com/software/operating_system/mandriva_c...](http://www.olpcnews.com/software/operating_system/mandriva_classmate_linux.html)

> Mandriva, a France-based Linux distributor, spent eight months customizing > its operating system for the Classmate, and adapting education applications > specially developed for Intel's World Ahead program. In addition, these > Linux-based Classmates will be produced in Brazil, part of Intel's local > laptop assembly manufacturing plan, for delivery to Brazil, Mexico, India, > and other assorted developing countries.

[http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Nigeria-Puts- Mandr...](http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Nigeria-Puts-Mandriva- Back-on-Classmate-PCs)

> At least 11,000 Classmate PCs ordered by Nigeria will run Mandriva Linux, > and not Windows, according to a government spokesperson. ... Mandriva will > be deployed on at least 11,000 PCs destined for the Nigeria Universal > Service Provision Fund (USPF), a government organization.

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122332198757908625](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122332198757908625) (paywall) [http://my.ewb.ca/posts/13/46149](http://my.ewb.ca/posts/13/46149) [https://handyfloss.wordpress.com/2007/11/06/my-opinion-on- ma...](https://handyfloss.wordpress.com/2007/11/06/my-opinion-on-mandriva-vs- microsoft/) (for non-SWJ subscribers, these two summarizes some of the WSJ article's points.)

<comment><USER15> Thanks for posting. So subsidised project from Intel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The article tries to put the blame on the former employees, but the real moral of this story is to follow the law when laying people off or suffer the consequences.

<comment><USER18> I don't agree. You have no idea how broken the French labor law is.

<comment><USER17> I live in the EU. The French labor law is not much different from other EU countries.

Also, the law exists for a reason. Putting the blame on employees in this case is an ideologial opinion, not a fact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> And that's why you can expect less investment in some countries and more in others.

But to be fair, this was merely the straw that broke the camel's back, it was not the main reason while Mandriva went under (which has been a long and drawn process)

<comment><USER20> Sure. And equally why you can expect more worker exploitation in some countries and less in others.

<comment><USER19> Of course.

However, it's funny how worker migrations usually run opposite to that (from more regulation to less regulation).

<comment><USER21> Only one case right? The US? You know of any others? And there are a lot of reasons for that besides the regulations which might or might not be related.

<comment><USER19> "Only one case right? The US?"

The whole of EU pretty much. See which countries are losing and gaining people (and which ones have the strongest regulations)

And before everyone mentions Germany, they're, ahem, peculiar. They have strong protections in some aspects, in others they're pretty liberal (like mini Jobs, and the fact they didn't have a minimum wage until last year)

Canadian migration to the US, also internal Canadian migrations

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am wondering about the numbers and i bet those are exaggerated... Fired lots of sales, but sales went up 40% and costs went down 60%?</comment>


NPR Gets $3 Million Grant For Hyper-Local News Initiative - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/02/npr-gets-3-million-grant-for-hyper-local-news-coverage-initiative/

<comment><USER2> While this sounds like good news to me, as a current fan of NPR, what exactly does hyper-local mean and how is it different from just local? Usually these stations cover metropolitan areas, so how local can you get?

<comment><USER3> maybe they'll add hyperlocal stuff to their already amazing iphone app ?

<comment><AUTHOR> agreed. they will use the capital to build apps that leverage a strong user base.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> While this sounds exciting because I love NPR and I think hyper-local news will be big, it seems a little strange to me that 2 large non-profits are giving a "grant" to another large non-profit. Granted, CPB gets its funding from the gov't ... it just seems like NPR would be on the giving end of such a grant ... and the receiver being a smaller, state broadcasting group or municipalities.</comment>


Q: Why doesn't the Postal Service use pointers? - <AUTHOR>

Currently, a mailing address is the name of a physical location. Every time someone changes address, she has to setup mail forwarding and notify every entity she expects to ever possibly receive mail from of the new address.
Would it not make sense to 'virtualize' mailing addresses, such that they no longer map directly to a physical address, but to a database entry containing one? So that a change of address is a simple process of updating a single record and is completely opaque to mail senders?
(And now I'll just get back to the massive undertaking of updating my contact info with all the different vendors and institutions I conduct business with.) <comment><USER2> I like your thought process, haha, but I think you have to ask how unique these things can be. Is everyone just given a "PO vBox" at birth? "Mail me at USA, 4921040994!" Does mass-mailout spamming become a lot easier? Hard to say.

Anyway, I think the real answer might just be "nobody thought of it at the time". Maybe you should write them a letter.

<comment><USER3> Mass mail couldn't be any easier. You don't need addresses to do it at all. You just drop off stacks of mail at the post office, each carrier takes a whole stack, and it's delivered to every mailbox on selected routes. It's called Every Door Direct Mail, a USPS service. Mailers pay by how many addresses are in a carrier's route.

[https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct- mail.htm](https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice idea! Would it be crazy to just use an email address as the pointer? It's easier to remember than a random string of numbers and it means they don't have to worry about name spacing. They can initially verify it by emailing you, like everything else.

And who would curate the mapping? A government department? USPS/Royal Mail? And is it public information, or should some 'privacy' laws apply? If it's the latter, how is sharing that with e.g. FedEx going to be regulated? We don't want to recreate the zip/post code mess!

<comment><USER4> Here's another idea: why not use Namecoin [1] to keep the data? It's fair, no one owns it, and everyone can query it.

[1] [http://bluishcoder.co.nz/2011/05/12/namecoin-a-dns- alternati...](http://bluishcoder.co.nz/2011/05/12/namecoin-a-dns-alternative- based-on-bitcoin.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's probably not a good idea to start using blockchains for everything. (As much as I dig bitcoin and all.) Shudder.

What about a simple proposal for the convention of firing a query for a mailing address before each mailing, by such means as:

        1. HTTP request to (something like) "/address.txt"
        2. *blank* email with subject line (such as) "address"

I wonder how difficult it would be to get the whole world on board with this, to the extent that a domain name or email address is accepted in form fields requiring mailing addresses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use [http://www.virtualpostmail.com/](http://www.virtualpostmail.com/) as my "pointer". It was very helpful when I was traveling around for a year with no permanent residence. As an added bonus, they scan my mail (on request) and make it available on a web site, also downloadable as pdf.

It's not free, of course, but I'm on their smallest $10/month plan and generally don't get anywhere near the limits there.

<comment><USER6> I second that VPM is quite good!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was thinking about this same thing recently when I had to do a change of address. It seems like there is a lot of room for innovation around postal mail. I think 80% of the mail I get should be send electronically. If there was a pointer, like you're talking about, you could opt-in to electronic only delivery of mail, and the sender of the mail could then electronically deliver the message straight to the recipient. This would be convenient for both sides of the transaction.

</comment><comment><USER8> Theoretically this works in small systems, but when you're talking about trying to manage nearly 400,000,000 records, it can quickly get out of hand and data will go bad fast. It's something that is easily implemented on a small(er) scale, but not really a national one. I've worked with systems that size and it's never as easy as you'd want it to be because of the sheer magnitude of the data and the number of people updating it on a regular basis.

</comment><comment><USER9> Some countries do this already; e.g. Finland.

If you update your address details in one location all companies eventually get notified. It is pretty awesome.,

</comment><comment><USER10> The gov't wants the physical address so that they can send official documents and the cops can come and serve papers.

<comment><AUTHOR> We certainly have to have physical addressing. (Else, how am I to find your house when you invite me over for a beer?)

I'm only suggesting that we should have a standard way of abstracting over it, such as we do for IP numbers.

Perhaps there should be a protocol like DNS for physical addresses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Similar peeve: Phone numbers.

Why can't I call an email address?</comment>