There's a growing call to defund the police. Here's what it means - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/06/us/what-is-defund-police-trnd/index.html <comment><USER2> How else does a victim of domestic violence get a restraining order enforced or recover possessions from an unsafe home? I'm all for better funding for social work and food banks, but at some point, it seems hard to avoid armed officials providing safety. We just need them to actually do that.

The alternatives in those particular situations (the neighborhood makes it work) looks a lot like vigilantism to me, which doesn't sound net safer. There's no particular requirement of equality or due process there, not even notionally.

<comment><USER3> > it seems hard to avoid armed officials

Why on earth do they need to be armed? There is zero reason for a local police officer be carrying firearms. It's insane. Dis-arming all but specialist firearms officers should be the first step.

I find it really frightening when I visit the US and all the police are armed to the teeth.

<comment><USER4> I, much like I imagine you to be, grew up in a country where guns are restricted and rare.

In the US, that's not the case and any attempts to restrict gun ownership meets huge political hurdles. Even if those restrictions are what other countries would deem to be common sense, e.g. Switzerland or New Zealand.

I think it's all kinds of crazy to sell guns in supermarkets with next to no checks on who owns them, but I get why police would want to have guns in the US.

<comment><USER5> > sell guns in supermarkets with next to no checks on who owns them

Yea, A, you might be able to get a single shot hunting rifle in a walmart in a rural part of the USA... but it may not work to begin with because it's a cheap piece of crap. You're really not going to buy some eggs, milk, loaf of bread and an AK in the same store in the USA. Stop believing bullshit.

B, Neil Steinberg for the Chicago Sun Times believed the same thing of "no checks". He got denied a gun because he got picked up for beating his wife a few years prior. Then blamed the store for the deny. Which, a gun store clerk/owner is in full legal right to deny service to anyone, even if the customer qualifies. The DEA encourages them to deny and report people if they feel the customer is purchasing a gun for malice... except, Neil beat his wife after drinking too much booze. So the DEA denied him on that one. Lots of people think they can get easily approved for a gun and realize real quick they can't. I've been in gun stores plenty of times to see people apply, wait and get denied.

Just like in countries where guns are illegal, you can buy guns on the black market.

If you actually know cops in the USA, they generally like those with conceal permit licenses. It means they're not prior felons, they don't want to lose their gun or the license, thus don't want to do anything stupid. There are exceptions, just like with anything else. "Sovereign citizens" are a special class of complete stupid. But a majority of legal gun owners have zero interest in doing anything stupid. I already know all of this is unpopular opinion and I'll get lambasted by non-gun owners. Whatever.

<comment><USER4> As far as I can tell, there's checks on criminal history, but not much else, but I'm happy to be corrected. Furthermore, those checks are dependent on state record being populated to a federal database and there's a suggestion that sometimes things gets missed. Maybe it's inevitable given the structure of policing in America.

You don't have to look far to find massacres committed by legal gun owners in the US: El Paso (2019), Las Vegas (2017), the list goes on. If someone can legally buy a gun and then do this, the checks are insufficient. Contrastingly, there hasn't been a similar event in the UK in my lifetime.

I'm not suggesting all gun owners are lunatics, bear ill will to others or do anything unsafe with their guns. Nonetheless, if someone can legally buy a gun and do anything with it, the arms race with police is inevitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I would like to see statistics on inconsistently or seldom enforced laws. Those seem to be a vector for corruption and should be considered for repeal. Minor drug crimes seem to fit this profile, but so do certain occupational regulations (certification to braid hair?). If we end up with fewer things for police to do, it sounds like a net win.

<comment><USER6> If you're a young black man in DC, you have a 75% chance of eventually winding up in prison. Country wide, on an average day, 10% of black men in their thirties are serving time in prison.

This is mostly due to racial disparities in prosecution and sentencing than crime rates between races. Drug possession accounts for a significant fraction of the disparity: Whites use illegal drugs at a similar rate, but rarely go to prison for it.

[https://www.mic.com/articles/86519/19-actual-statistics- abou...](https://www.mic.com/articles/86519/19-actual-statistics-about- america-s-prison-system)

[http://www.sentencingproject.org/issues/racial- disparity/](http://www.sentencingproject.org/issues/racial-disparity/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes we need to address the root causes of the crime problem: poverty, racism, and addiction. Many types of crimes (theft, drug dealing) are caused because people have been marginalized and have no other means of making money. This is to a large extent caused by racism. Also a lot of crime is related to addiction, which can lead to catastrophic consequences when handled by police.

<comment><USER8> While poverty, racism, and addiction. are a factor, the root cause of crime is over criminalization of society [2] that creates a cycle of crime that once started it is very hard to escape from.

The thousands upon thousands of sooo called "victimless" crime that it used to dump millions of people in to the criminal system which then society punishes for the rest of their lives by denying them opportunities in all segments of life from Jobs to Housing to access to government assistance.

Often time people have "no other means of making money" due to this cycle of over criminalization, they were busted with a small amount of weed, from that point they were a "convicted criminal" where by many employers will deny them a job, schools will deny them admission, landlords will deny them housing, etc.

We have a narrative in this nation that a Misdemeanor Conviction Is Not a Big Deal [1], this is a false narrative one that the legal system pushes because they often over charge individuals with felonies then "allow" them to plea out to a "lesser" misdemeanor to improve the efficiency of "justice".

The biggest flaw in the system is that we have created so many criminal laws that we need to make the "justice system" an assembly line of contract negotiation

[1] [https://time.com/76356/a-misdemeanor-conviction-is-not-a- big...](https://time.com/76356/a-misdemeanor-conviction-is-not-a-big-deal- right-think-again/)

[2] [https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/overcriminal...](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/overcriminalization- of-america-113991)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It does seem weird that if I just want a report for insurance purposes, that the people that get sent out to help me get that paperwork carry guns.

Edit: What's nice about cops versus, for instance, the Department of Motor Vehicles is that police make home visits. Maybe some of the boring stuff could be done by non-violent agencies that make home visits, like child protective services.

<comment><USER10> Seems like it would make more sense to change that aspect of the system rather than to defund the police altogether, no?

<comment><USER9> Not sure if you read the article, but different people mean different things by "defund the police." One thing that's obvious is that pretty much every police department is going to have some amount of defunding, due to state and local budget problems that are expected to arise due to decreased tax revenue. My concern is that not enough leaders will try to reimagine what gets built in its place, given those budget constraints.

Not to say there isn't any consideration. Some people say that poverty, mental health issues or lack of quality education is a driver of crime and that we need to divert resources. Others, people like me, want to experiment to replace some of the things police do, study it, follow the evidence and maybe eventually build something entirely different.

What I love about this debate is it's causing people to think about, often for the first time, why we've set it up this way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There are many items involved in this. Defunding things like SWAT and military vehicles for police forces is a reasonable thing to do as most of those police forces don't need these things. If you look at all these particular issues then what was the policing policy that caused them? I think you need to examine why those were executed to get a sense of how to not repeat those mistakes. You've also got to look inside a police force at the people that are police officers. There are a lot of less desirable personalities in there. I don't think throwing police forces to the wolves is the way to go as there are lots of good officers impacted by this. I think police need to evolve not be tossed aside to start from scratch and repeat the same mistakes.

</comment><comment><USER12> Let's assume a city (or two?) decide to abolish their police force (which is what defunding would achieve).

What then?

<comment><USER13> Private security. Everyone gets a private security contract with ex-cops, with an emergency number to call. The rich will be well-protected, the poor mostly left to fend for themselves.

That won't be better, it will be far worse, but it's a thing people can do, so in the absence of other things to do, it may end up as the thing that is done. Desperate people do foolish things if they see no alternative.

<comment><USER10> Imagine this on any significant scale. The richest become a law unto themselves. They become the de facto government by virtue of control over the largest armies. If you didn't like the 1% before, why would you give them absolute power and the monopoly on violence?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Isn't part of the argument for gun control that policing is robust enough to provide superior safety?

<comment><USER14> Yes. I've found a strange inconsistency with some of the people calling for the defunding of police - they were until very recently saying citizens didn't need guns because the police were always close by. Now they're saying the police are bad and we can take care of ourselves.

<comment><USER9> It's probably different people saying different things.

First, folks who have been calling for prison abolition, for instance, tend to be anti-gun control because it's a tool that's used to put more black and brown people in prisons. A lot of these folks also call for defunding police.

Second, this is different from saying "citizens don't need guns." That different argument is simply based on the idea that people are less safe when they have guns, not more safe. While some is due to accidents, much of it is suicides.

<comment><USER2> But what is the policy approach to protect law-abiding citizens from crazy exes and people who take an affinity to lynching? Saying "solve poverty" seems like both a huge leap in logic and frankly harder than "solving" crime.

I appreciate the discord between current political alliances, but explaining that it exists seems to imply that major reductions in policing is not a fully considered plan.

<comment><USER9> You should read some books about prison abolition if you're interested in getting all the details about how it would work.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Making and Knowing: A minimal edition of BnF Ms Fr 640 in Translation (c. 1600) - <AUTHOR> https://cu-mkp.github.io/GR8975-edition/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just to give a little context for this submission, this a project that is based out of Columbia University (where I used to be a postdoc - I wasn't involved with it but knew some people who were). It can be thought of as a type of experimental history, in the sense that it involves actually reconstructing the techniques described in an early modern French "book of secrets." Things like learning how to create early modern perfumes, medicinal drugs, pigments, and alchemical preparations.

What I linked to is the English translation of the book itself. The main project website has some more information about the alchemy lab aspect: [http://www.makingandknowing.org](http://www.makingandknowing.org)

Edit: as a random aside, I love the entry for "Training a dog":

"You need to keep your dog attached; when it does what you command, to win its love, give it a piece of cheese which was held under the armpit. This cheese would be a bad drug if the master, or the apprentice, is red—haired."

[https://cu-mkp.github.io/GR8975-edition/texts/p131r_4/](https://cu- mkp.github.io/GR8975-edition/texts/p131r_4/)

<comment><USER2> Why is it a _minimal_ edition"? What is minimal about it? Comparing it with the scan of the original (you can click on the paragraph number to view it) it doesn't look abridged.

<comment><AUTHOR> This page gets into it a little bit more:

[http://www.makingandknowing.org/?page_id=1653](http://www.makingandknowing.org/?page_id=1653)

Minimal in this context just means that it isn't as feature rich as the online edition they're currently working on. "Using the English translation of Ms. Fr. 640 as the basic data set, students collaboratively created a minimal (i.e., limited, basic feature) digital edition by the end of the semester, effectively prototyping a design for the Project's final digital critical edition."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > _But the following varnish does not remain damp like previous ones, which > were made of linseed oil from Aux boiled with garlic to extinguish them and > rid them of fat, and also with wheat._

Ah, so the onion in the varnish was actually supposed to be _garlic_ , and that was disused! It all makes so much sense now.

</comment><comment><USER4> Too bad their Damascus steel entry didn't go into more detail about the material or technique, only the water composition it is tempered in. There are interesting references to the origin of various qualities of steel and what shape they are in.</comment>


Paul Kedrosky: VC Investing Factoids from Q1 - <AUTHOR> http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2007/04/25/vc_investing_fa.html <comment><USER2> the decrease in early stage dollars... I wonder if this is because there are less early stage deals, or that the value of each early deal has gotten lower.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for posting. Interesting stats.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea... the numbers are pretty interesting. I wonder if the figures are just US based or for VCs across the globe. I figure the bio tech industry will keep getting more and more of the VC attention as the green wave rolls on.</comment></comment>


EU beckons Indian tech talent - <AUTHOR> https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/ites/eu-beckons-indian-tech-talent/articleshow/72862654.cms <comment><USER2> I wish EU work visa restrictions would be as high as the US ones. Tech salaries in Western Europe are low enough as it is and the whole _developer shortage_ the employers keep crying about to the media is a scam to justify lax visa restrictions for cheaper workforce from abroad.

Under current conditions EU companies can hire pretty much anyone across the globe. Do you think SV salaries would be as high as they are if they could import any workers hassle free?

My ex employer was low balling everyone and after failing to recruit anyone locally due to low pay he the focused on hiring exclusively Indians and Chinese who were just happy to be in Europe accepting any wage citing the good air quality and social services compared to back home.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for them, and glad they're happy here but flooding the market with people who are happy to earn anything as long as they're allowed to live here is not a market I'd like to compete for work in as it increases the inequality putting all the gains in the hands of the employers.

We have enough skilled workers in the EU. Importing people with wages under €50k disincentivizes employers from paying fair wages and investing in local workforce and increases income inequality. If we're talking about a shortage of truly highly skilled people we have to import then probably we should be talking about setting the bar way higher than €50k.

<comment><USER3> > as it increases the inequality

Really?! Speaking about inequality is so hypocritical in this context that it just boils my blood.

I could understand if you were having trouble to earn a living. But you can easily live in the Western Europe on even €30k. EASILY! And happily, and stress free. Your kids will get free education, free collage. You will get tons of vacations, 38 hours work week.

But no, you want more. You want luxury life, you want to keep the rest of the world underneath you.

Letting poor people compete with you on fair terms _does not_ increase inequality. It undermines your position of power.

Western Europeans and their ancestors benefited greatly from conquest all over the world.

Are Indians and Chinese somehow second rate people? They do not deserve to even compete with the White Elite of Western Europe?

You should stop being egoist. Start your own company if you do not like being employee.

<comment><USER4> >But you can easily live in the Western Europe on even €30k. EASILY!

I have trouble supporting a child in Greece, with a gross household income of around 50k.

I most certainly do not lead a luxurious life.

I shudder to think how this would work out in Western Europe where rents are even higher than the ~500 euro most people pay here for a medium sized apartment.

<comment><USER5> Something must be going horribly wrong in Greece. You can live easily of 30k in the Netherlands, I would make that to even 25k. Yes, that would mean having no car and using a bike to get around (which is common).

<comment><USER6> I think the key phrase in GP's post is "supporting a child".

<comment><USER7> In Netherlands that is probably subsidized.

<comment><USER8> Partly, yes. Still, parent paints a picture that in today's economic climate is not practically true.

I have (single living) colleagues from abroad who learn it now the hard way. Hopping from one airbnb to the other, moving al their stuff each time. Doing this for months and they start to despair now. Even local youngsters cannot afford a home anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've firsthand noticed an increasing number of programmers from India move to countries other than the USA in the last few years mainly due to the increase in perceived difficulty of obtaining an H1B (I say perceived, because I'm not sure if it is actually harder for a well deserved non outsourcing based candidate to receive an H1B).

<comment><USER9> Yes make no mistake about it. It is difficult for people with h1bs in Facebook and google with high salaries and qualifications. Its deliberate effort. I am not saying its good or bad but the problem do exist.

<comment><USER10> yea, I've heard of horror stories of decades of wait time to get a green card.. its a horrible move IMO.

<comment><USER11> One can just come here illegally; everyone else is doing it. Seems most of the tech hubs are sanctuary cities, so your odds of deportation are nil.

<comment><USER12> Don't know if you're sarcastic. But high skilled workers would rather leave for other countries or go back home than become illegal immigrants.

<comment><USER11> Yes, sarcasm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This article provides no data to support their claims apart a few opinions thus it should be taken with a HUGE grain of salt.

<comment><USER14> I think you should beckon Indian journalistic talent

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As far as I know, there is a minimum salary requirement for the Blue Card visa. So this blows the 'Cheap-talent-taking-over, Reduced-average-wages' argument out of the water.

IMO, the reason this is happening is simple. 1) H1-B visas have an arbitrary numerical limitation every year, which is not tied to reflect the actual dearth of talent, and hasn't been updated since years.

2) They're extremely unreliable. You can only apply once a year, and it's a lottery. So employers aren't even sure if the candidate currently interviewing can get a work permit if hired. And the wait time to reapply is one year. Very inefficient.

3) The EU/Canada/Australia have a very streamlined visa process, allowing qualified candidates to quickly get a visa. Easy to attract and retain talent.

If done right, these countries will benefit hugely like the US did in past decades. The new workers means more taxes, more demand/consumer spending and hence boost to the economy.

Also, I must mention the low birth rates in EU (as normally happens in developed countries) which will start to show next generation onwards. If not for these new immigrants and their tax dollars (euros/francs/kronas) it'll be hard to keep up with the social benefits and expenditure. If not for immigration these countries will end up like Japan with an old population and in massive, compounding debt.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's funny because in France, we are loosing french tech talents to the US.

<comment><USER17> From what I've heard Germany is also losing a lot of talent to the us and to Switzerland as well.

Higher salaries, lower taxes, maybe even more interesting gigs. All good reasons to take the leap.

<comment><USER18> I can confirm that. My german friend just accepted a job in Sweden. He also applied for the companies in Germany but they pay really low salaries and the companies are not that insteresting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's odd to talk about EU as one. I can hire from EU countries that are on-par or even cheaper than India (at some skill level).

Yes I am talking about some of Balkans (Serbia, Greece), Baltics (Estonia, Lithuania), Eastern EU (Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania) where the rates can be $20-30 an hour for very decent devs.

</comment><comment><USER20> A counterpoint to the article. As a founder in India we have recently started thinking about hiring people from EU, especially the eastern part.

If however the criteria and salary for a good programmer is EUR 42k pa as a comment below suggests, you can earn decently more than that at multiple companies, including mine.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you mistook the minimum required contract value for an apt salary for a good programmer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It is really easy to get a blue card. You just need a contract (higher than €42K) and diploma (which is relevant to your job). That's all. Not only from India, I think EU beckons tech talent from all Level 3 countries.

<comment><USER21> How does the blue card work? Is it only valid as long as you work for the employer that sponsored you to get it? Can you change employers after some amount of time and still retain it?

<comment><USER18> If you have an unlimited contract, you can get a blue card which is valid for 4 year (of course you can get permanent residence permit after 33 months). Otherwise it will be limited to your contract period. You will see the company name on your working permit. If you quit, you have 3 months to find a new job. Afterwards, you renew your working permit. So you can change your job but it has to have the same standards. (must be relevant to your education and higher than the salary limit)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've been telling IT companies for 10 years that if they all relay on 'others' to train their workers while they only hire the experienced ones... None new will be trained with obvious results.

As a developer I'm 'fine' with this as it drives my price to many times the median salary.

But its not just IT. Our entire economy is crying about the lack of EXPERIENCED workers. But on the other hand there are still soo many unemployed, especially among the young (often unregistered and thus missing from statistics). No wonder seeing how there are almost no entry level jobs offered.

I used to belive in the 'not enough programmers' line. Now I think it's just yet another unsustainable way to avoid to actually do the necessary socialy responsible tasks that are part of doing business. Train your damn workers and take responsibility for the short-sighted decisions you made years ago.

Companies are like children. They will constantly try to push the limit in their own short-sighted interests. Its the job of government to, in the name of wider society, play the role of the parent and make sure that the negative effects of decisions are primarily felt by those who made the decisions.

</comment><comment><USER23> Europeans and Canadians move to the US, Indian and Chinese move to Europe and Canada.

This is mostly a salary issue.

<comment><USER24> So true. +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Oh Europe, pillaged the natural resources of India for centuries.

Now you're stealing it's best and brightest for your own gain.

Never change.

<comment><USER26> They are literally following SVs playbook. If you ever go to SV, you would know how the US tech industry is almost entirely immigrants or first generation kids. If EU continues down this path, in 10 years, EU has a chance of remaining relevant in the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Going by the general tone of comments here. How about making something like the old Chineese head tax in Canada. Let's restrict Indians & Chineese and allow only whites to immigrate. Then I think it would be OK for everyone white. Racism,white privilege, white entitlement exists in HN at this day & age.

<comment><USER28> Equating serious concern of the effects of cheap foreign labour with racism is a wonderful way to prevent any meaningful discussion. Bonus points for antagonizing white people, that kind of pure racism is not really helping anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> it's kinda sad european programmers get pushed out of entry level positions by typically more experienced indians willing to work for some premium above indian wage. this ensures programming is not a very well paid job in west europe. europe has problems in the education system which makes sure people only start programming after college further putting eu workers at a disadvantage versus indians and russians. which isn't to say i'm against economic immigration completely, but if countries are going to be imposing migration restrictions, they should not make an exception for programming when they do for similarly paid professions, like chefs or hairdressers.

<comment><USER30> > europe has problems in the education system which makes sure people only > start programming after college further

In Romania (Eastern Europe) you can start to learn programming from high school. Not sure what it's like in Western Europe.

<comment><USER31> The romanian education system is grossly overrated by people from that country. From experience, the quality of engineering there is only marginally better than that of india and statistically speaking the education system is the second worst in europe. Universities are ripe with corruption as well. There are some good engineers but overall it is horrible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I look at it as a simple trade of goods. Hiring a Software Engineer from India is like an Indian buying a German car.

If Germany can export cars to India and France can export wines, then India can export their talent.

So, if you are confident of your skills and what they are worth, you should naturally go to the USA.

<comment><USER33> The best way to export talent is to export the product of talent. That's what Germans do when they export their cars. They don't send German graduates all over the world; they build cars in Germany and export them. India can do the same with software.

It's actually a better system for everyone. Mass migration is very disruptive, whereas trade in goods and services tends to be less controversial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The EU has over 500 million people in a landmass that is less than half the size of the US. Does the EU really need to import workers from overseas given how overpopulated it is relative to its landmass size? If the EU was the size of the US, it's population would be 1.2 billion people. Similar to china and india. Why aren't they able to find the workers locally? Is it poor planning? Did they not train enough tech workers? Just doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER35> By that logic, the US has many unemployed people and many, many people earning low wages in low productivity industries. Why not just train them properly rather than import workers from elsewhere?

<comment><USER34> I agree. I don't think we should be importing any workers. We have 330 million people and that should be plenty. Importing workers disincentivizes US elites from developing our own local work force. And importing workers hurts the nation that is losing workers. Shouldn't all the indian tech workers be used in india to help india develop? Isn't it morally wrong for a wealthy nation like the US ( or wealthy political entity like the EU ) to leech indian workers since it hurts india? I keep hearing that "brain drain" is a bad thing by the media. And yet, the media celebrates brain drain when it comes to india, china, etc. Why?

And if I think the US has enough people to fill its workforce needs, then it applies even more to the EU since the EU has 200 million more people in a much smaller space.

Instead of bringing in foreign workers, shouldn't the EU be asking why it can't fill the jobs from 500+ million people? Don't you think 500 million people is a big enough pool from which to draw your workforce?

<comment><USER32> Going by your logic, EU will have to build their own Coca Cola, Pepsi, Facebook, Google, and what not.

And China or India is not going to buy any of your products. Is this how you want it to be?

Globalization predicates that capital and goods are procured from places where they are readily available. It is what the post-WWII world was built on. Global trade may break apart to some extant due to the nationalism resurge, but economies of scale is real and smart businesses will leverage that.

<comment><USER33> In Europe we have Coca Cola, Pepsi, Facebook and Google without having half of their staff working and living there. This is the traditional way of doing business: we put stuff on big ships and send them in other countries.

You're arguing for migration of people / labor, which is a different thing. And I don't quite see why we need knowledge workers to move in particular places. Asians have done extremely well with semiconductors, for example. We did not need to relocate 200,000 Taiwanese workers in Europe, but we can still buy their chips.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Cheap labor to make the rich get richer

<comment><USER37> We are talking about tech. It is not cheap.

<comment><USER4> It's cheaper than the current options, and yields gigantic returns for most large tech companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Durgasoft?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you pick a software mentor? - <AUTHOR>

As I've been building CodeRook (http://www.coderook.co) I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to evaluate software mentors. How do you (as a relative beginner) know when someone would make a good mentor? How do you evaluate this? Software development is a highly opinionated field, which I think can make this challenging. What do you look for?<p>Interested in general ideas/thoughts, as well as how you might do this on a service like CodeRook (we are thinking of using the StackOverflow API, but I think this might be limiting). Alternatively we could just ask people some questions and screen them, but I think there might be a better way. <comment><USER2> How about the mentor needs to describe in their own words why they would make a good mentor?

You might see I have no reputation on Stack Overflow, no code in Github, but I've been writing web code for 16 years. I might have a few things to teach someone, but you wouldn't know it from my online reputation scores in the usual places.

Even if someone was a coding rock-star, they might not make a good mentor just by that skill alone. Some of the best coders are quiet and anti-social, and trying to get information from them can be difficult. I'm not saying all are, or even a lot, but I've known some very smart people who struggle to answer "why did you do it this way?" in a way others can understand.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd have to say that software mentors are no different than any other kind of technical mentor. here are 5 things that I look for in a mentor: 1\. Good communication skills. This includes knowing how to talk to their student using methods that work for each individual student. 2\. Good technical knowledge (obviously) 3\. Even more important than #2, being humble. I'd much rather here "I think this is how you do xyz, but I"m not 100% sure" than someone who says "THis is the only way to do this!" 4\. Someone who is clear about the objectives 5\. Someone who allows students to make mistakes (sometimes people only learn after they make mistakes)

</comment><comment><USER4> Sometimes it's not about you picking someone. Sometimes it's about you gradually accepting someone as a mentor without even you realising it.This usually happens when the person is communicative, clicks along with you, encourages you to explore, and is kind enough to guide you to your growth in any way possible.

</comment><comment><USER5> Once I was happy that someone had the technical knowledge I'd say I'd go with someone who is a good communicator - someone I click with. Perhaps I'd ask them to explain a concept to me.</comment>


Fear of Everything Else - <AUTHOR> http://dyske.com/?view_id=916

<comment><USER2> Its an interesting read, but I disagree with many of the points:

 _In the West, specialization is encouraged at early ages._ While it seems to be mostly anecdotal, I tend to think the opposite, that this happens more in Asian countries than in the West. Yes, children are applauded for "knowing what they want to do", but they frequently change that, and the reason for applause isn't knowing "what they want to do" its knowing early enough to make sure that it is an attainable goal. His examples are both professions that require decades of experience/practice/training to be particularly good at, and starting young is the only way to achieve that in a reasonable time frame.

 _When we raise children with this bias towards specialization, they become defenseless when they enter the real world._ Again, this is just anecdotal, but the children I've seen who have the most problems coping are those who were raised to be generalists. These were children who had a severe fear of not accomplishing something, they could not cope with not doing well. When a problem arose, they had to find a solution, no matter how out of their area of knowledge it was. While, to some degree this is a good thing (in fact, I would guess that this is a large driving force behind most of the people on this site), these were people who were true "generalists". Instead of falling back on a specialty of theirs, they had to do it in the way presented, and eventually would fail and be destroyed by it. While these are mainly the "advanced" students from high school finding college particularly difficult, it is little different than (say) a Python Hacker who decides that a problem must be solved with Haskell, and simply will not put it down until it is. They would keep trying, and since they didn't have that specialty (ie, Python) to fall back on to create a frame to understand the problem, they had no way of understanding it at all.

<comment><USER3> FYI, I believe the author was born in and grew up in Japan and has now lived in the US for many years. Some of his other essays point out differences between Japanese culture and American culture.

I agree with you though. I have lived in China and found possibly more specialization there as parents usually set the course for their children which most children feel obligated to follow. Whereas in the "West" parents generally leave things open to their children to decide.

When I first read the article, I found this part the most interesting:

"I remember reading about how good The Rolling Stones were in self-promotion. Someone in the article said that nobody becomes that successful by sheer luck. I tend to agree.... When we raise children with this bias towards specialization, they become defenseless when they enter the real world. They naively and faithfully keep improving their skills in their own specialized areas thinking that the success will automatically follow."

Jeff Atwood had an article where he mentioned that if he could train every developer on some skill it wouldn't be technical as most decent developers are already good with technical things. He would train them how to market and promote themselves since most developers just focus on programming and ignore the other skills needed to become successful.

<comment><USER2> Personally, I believe three things are necessary for success:

* A specialization. Without specializing in something, you will never be the best/at the top of your field. You need something to be good at, something to be better than everyone else at.

* Something else. I think the best thing that ever happened to me was pursuing a degree in Statistics in college (as opposed to Computer Science, which I started in). I ended up in it a rather un-panned method, and it has influenced me far more than anything else I have done. Given the chance, I would recommend any person, particularly those who want to get into start-ups, to go get a degree, but in something that interests them, not in something they think will be useful.

* Equal parts Confidence, Stubbornness, and Genius, with a dash of Charisma. Without that, you can have the best idea in the world, but never make it, or be able to sell it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting.

I also found that I am really good at one thing, but I also dabble in pretty much everything else, whether that is finance, economics, drawing, and electronic hacking.

I acquired a little bit of knowledge in each field but nothing really match my programming knowledge and experience.</comment>


Mozilla's Aza Raskin on the marriage of Web and TV - <AUTHOR>

So which way is this going to go? It seems inevitable that TV and Web will come together. But in what form? Any thoughts? <comment><USER2> Watching TV is social, I rarely do this alone. Surfing Web is private, I rarely do this in company. So they will not come together ever. Take alcohol - wine and beer are mostly social, while cognac is mostly private. Does it seem inevitable that they will come together? Even when Google wants that badly?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well thats just it. I don't think people will be using the TV to surf the web in the same way you do on your laptop. You dont really "surf" the web on your phone do you? Yet, you dont second guess the merging of the phone with the web. Generally with the phone, the web is used to do specific tasks. Whether its read a favorite blog or looking up something on wikipedia you aren't really "surfing" but more task oriented. It makes sense to use the internet to deliver content(video for example) to your television, however the experience will be completely different from a PC. In my eyes, this is the inevitability; especially if interaction is supported by a tablet or some other touch device. The question that remains is what form that interaction will take.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/12/aza-raskin-on- th...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/12/aza-raskin-on-the-marriage- of-web-and-tv.ars)</comment>


Watsi (YC W13) launches health coverage - <AUTHOR> http://blog.watsi.org/watsi-coverage/ <comment><USER2> This is awesome. So great to see the Watsi team continuing to push for broader and more affordable access to healthcare.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very impressive. Will hopefully be launched in US as well.</comment>


VirtualBox 3.0 Beta 1 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/open/VirtualBox-3-0-Beta-1-released--/news/113552

<comment><USER3> Aw, I wish branching snapshots were among the new features[1].

[1] [http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=18818&...](http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=18818&start=0)

Edit: URL. I seem to have managed to pick up my Aquamacs' kill ring during cmd-tab switching. Interesting.

<comment><USER4> Did you mean to post a different link?

<comment><USER3> Totally. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5>
        * Windows guests: ability to use Direct3D 8/9 applications / games
      (experimental)

YAY, FINALLY! I <3 you vbox devs.

I don't know how long I've been waiting for this to get implemented (8 - <USER2> months?); hell I'd either be willing to checkout the source code and spend some time in Java to help [well, maybe not help but pretend to] develop this feature until it can pass off as a builtin feature for future stable releases.

<comment><USER6> This is a problem. Because I run Linux all the time, and Wine can't run any games I like very well, I don't have any temptation to stop work to play a game. If VirtualBox can actually play those games (most of which aren't particularly modern or requiring a lot of 3D horsepower), then I could be in trouble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> will this version run osx?

<comment><USER8> Since it's not mentioned, I'd assume not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> They still don't have an easy option to forward all your bios readings to the virtual machine to make it simple for windows xp oem to authenticate. Any of you know a good reference for this? The stuff on their faqs does not help.</comment>


Optimizing Mobile Deep Learning on ARM GPU with TVM - <AUTHOR> http://tvmlang.org/2018/01/16/opt-mali-gpu.html <comment><USER2> Nice to have new numbers on real stuff!

</comment><comment><USER3> great discussion about the difference between mobile and normal gpu</comment>


Debian Security Team: VirtualBox End of Life - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com <comment><USER2> Does this apply to just the 4.3 branch or others as well?

The immediate effect is that jessie (stable) users won't have updates to the stable release of Virtualbox. There's the option of backports.

[https://packages.debian.org/search?suite=jessie- backports&se...](https://packages.debian.org/search?suite=jessie- backports&searchon=names&keywords=virtualbox)

Stretch (unstable) presently has 5.1

Oracle once again prove an exceptionally bad citizen to Free Software.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am not sure why this is newsworthy. 4.3 is EOL upstream.

[https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog-4.3](https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog-4.3)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The reason for this is that Oracle are completely useless and do not release backportable patches for security fixes.</comment>


3-D Printing Pen. Yes, this is a thing. - <AUTHOR> http://www.conceptcupboard.com/blog/2013/02/3-d-printing-pen-yes-this-is-a-thing/

<comment><USER2> This is one of the more vacuous instances of blogspam I've seen here. I give up on HN.</comment>


Ask HN: Trying to find previous post on VCS analysis - <AUTHOR>

Several weeks ago I remember seeing an article on HN that was about analyzing version control history to find files that were usually changed at the same time, and using that to identify parts of the application that weren't as well-factored as they ought to be.<p>Google and https://hn.algolia.com/ search are failing me.  Anyone have the URL to that post? <comment><USER2> I believe the following is what you want:

Ergosome

evSrc: Evolutionary couplings between files reveal poor design choices in software architecture

[http://ergoso.me/computer/science/github/software/evolutiona...](http://ergoso.me/computer/science/github/software/evolutionary/couplings/2014/12/10/evsrc- evolutionary-couplings-reveal-poor-software-design.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8753174](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8753174)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the one. Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8223732](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8223732) ?</comment>


Meeting Julia, a great new alternative for numerical programming pt1benchmarking - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@nwerneck/meeting-julia-a-great-new-alternative-for-numerical-programming-part-i-benchmarking-c03dd3289493 <comment><AUTHOR> Julia 1.0 was released a couple of months ago, and I decided to run a benchmark of my own to get to know it better, acquire an understanding of its performance, and also explicitly test if it really can meet that legendary C performance.

I was quite well impressed, Julia really seems to be able to deliver a great performance. I wrote this blog to share my impressed findings with the community, and I would love to hear comments. Are there any omissions in this experiment, especially regarding the non-fastmath C compilations? I would also be curious to hear reports from other people reproducing this experiment in their machines.</comment>


Self-Charging Lithium Ion Battery – The ace up the electric cars sleeve? - <AUTHOR> http://gas2.org/2012/10/01/self-charging-lithium-ion-battery-developed-by-georgia-tech/ <comment><USER2> Um... Clearly this would be a major bit of usefulness, but to suggest that hybrids etc would be a thing of the past? Obviously it charges so efficiently that it has lossless charging and the car would go for ever. Seems somewhat similar to perpetual motion. An over zealous extrapolation maybe?

</comment><comment><USER3> My brain hurts from the stupidity of this story.</comment>


NYU student sells company after grad - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/22/fancy-reportedly-buys-samplrs-com-to-beef-up-its-artisanal-food-business/

<comment><USER2> It's cool. We see more and more NYC related stories on HN these days!</comment>


Cat Cafe Offers a Place to Snuggle, with Reservations - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/16/nyregion/cat-cafe-offers-a-place-to-snuggle-with-reservations.html

<comment><USER2> There's one of these in Bangkok as well: [https://twitter.com/briantopping/status/555954174697811968](https://twitter.com/briantopping/status/555954174697811968)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Puddin' "dislikes straw-man arguments."</comment>


Monetizing game apps - <AUTHOR>

I posted this on reddit and got a little beat up - would love some HN opinion. The complete thread is here: http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/23rql4/question_for_game_developers_monetizing_your_app/<p>Hi All - I'm wondering how game developers would feel about an API that allowed them to support betting in and on their games. For example, if you developed an FPS and wanted to bet your friend that you would win (this is the simplest possible example but bets could be arbitrarily complex) would you be willing to add a few extra network calls to your app to support this? Given events that were happening in the game the GaaS (Gambling as a service?) app would receive events and bets while resolving the outcomes and settling accounts. I think it's important to note that the bet does not need to be monetary - could be in-game rewards, street cred / bragging rights or anything else. From what we've seen this sort of engagement increases the stickiness of a game and increases player involvement. Thanks! Keep making cool stuff - you guys are talented. <comment><USER2> Sounds like _Betable_ before they pivoted to be a straight up casino gambling platform:

[http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/09/betable- platform/](http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/09/betable-platform/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Reddit is a shit hole of fucktard , an awful place full of awful rules and awful people and censorship and manipulation of topics and comments.

You got beat up because they are mostly idiots and probably a few people with multiple accounts.

<comment><USER4> Or maybe they're actually gaming fans who are sick of someone trying to make money out of every click of a freaking mouse.

The Venn diagram between gamers and people who use the term "monetize" to mean "profit from"* is infinitesimally small.

* As opposed to its actual meaning which is the act of creating physical currency - e.g.: minting coins or printing bills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This may work in a gambling friendly legislation. UK is one of the more liberal countries in that regard.</comment>


After 14 years "Amorphophallus titanum" blooms for its first time - <AUTHOR> http://ice.mpg.de/ext/index.php?id=1376&no_cache=1 <comment><AUTHOR> In Jena, Germany biologists witness an 14 year old "titan arum" plant flowering for its first time after spectacular metamorphosis.</comment>


Plastic water bottles banned from SFO - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/02/business/plastic-water-bottle-ban-sfo-trnd/index.html <comment><USER2> I bet sales of one-time use glass and metal bottles will increase! Also note that: "The ban does not apply to any flavored drinks like soda, iced tea or coffee and juice." So maybe people will drink less water instead.

</comment><comment><USER3> "According to the nonprofit Zero Waste Alliance, [zero waste] means diverting at least 90% of waste from landfills"

So, the first "only 10%" waste airport?

</comment><comment><USER4> Another big inconvenience for almost no benefit. I wonder how many of these the public will absorb before a backlash occurs.

</comment><comment><USER5> Plastic bottles are not _banned_ ; they are simply not _sold_ onsite. You can bring empty bottles with you.</comment>


Data scientists are helping to flatten the pandemic curve - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2020/03/20/ai-weekly-how-data-scientists-are-helping-to-flatten-the-pandemic-curve/ <comment><USER3> An alternative perspective to this self regarding mindless nonsense - <USER2> by someone worthy of respect :

[https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1241549349999411201](https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1241549349999411201)</comment>


Why iPhone 11 Is Apple's Least Innovative iPhone Yet - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YyTCa6IMKA <comment><USER2> This year Apple embraced populism. People wanted better cameras and more battery life. We got the best cameras on the market and the best battery life in an iPhone. Sales are up 10%.

I'm predicting innovation will come from UWB (the new ultra wide band chip) when Apple Glasses are released.</comment>


Why I'll Never Apologize for My White Male Privilege - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/85933/why-ill-never-apologize-for-my-white-male-privilege/ <comment><USER2> What an awful opinion piece! The fact it is on Time.com is part of the "white privilege". lolz.

The reason why they say "check your privilege" because we should foster the notion that non-white people have a different American experience than white people.

If a minority got into Stanford, there is a thought that probably goes into everyone's mind, that they had an advantage because they were a minority. White people don't have that same stigma.

It's a mind set. It's understanding that there are our society has a problem, and that it needs to get checked at the door.

<comment><USER3> > _If a minority got into Stanford, there is a thought that probably goes into > everyone 's mind, that they had an advantage because they were a minority. > White people don't have that same stigma._

Out of curiosity, where do you think that stigma arises from? In my view, this is one of the best arguments against affirmative action based on purely on race, ethnicity or gender. In my high school, which was the top ranked public high school in California, admission was based on test scores and an essay.

Because at that time the school had an race-based affirmative action policy, the black girl (who would eventually be valedictorian) complained that everyone _assumed_ she got in because she was black (though she tested high enough regardless).

They removed this policy eventually after complaints from parents demanding equal treatment. Ironically in a few years white parents in the district started complaining that their kids were being pushed out by asian and indian kids.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Link to a good response: [https://medium.com/p/12a3018d5abc](https://medium.com/p/12a3018d5abc) (nvk posted the response but I don't know how long the two submissions will be together on the index page).

<comment><USER5> >As I knocked on the door, two officers came up from behind me out of the bushes, guns drawn, and shouted at me to freeze. It turns out they thought I was trying to rob them. That wouldn't have happened if I was white.

Bullshit. What was this guy dress like? Black, white, or whatever, you're judged primarily by the way you dress.

A white guy dressed like a hoodrat doesn't fair much better with the police.

Hell, I'm white and I've had a pine pig (our special term for National Seashore park rangers) un-holster his gun because I approached him and asked how much money a parking ticket was going to cost the pretty girl he was writing it for. I was 16 and weighed in at 145lbs, wearing board shorts and a t-shirt.

<comment><USER6> That may be true where you live, it certainly isn't elsewhere. Or at very least, it isn't the _only_ factor at play.

As a non-white, who is usually dressed smartly and frequently in a suit, in my experience, that seldom helps. I'm still stopped at almost every airport, border, or other "random" check. Whilst I won't assert that there's necessarily bigotry at work, there's certainly a selection bias. To use your example, a non-white guy dressed as a "hoodrat", amongst a majority white "hoodrat" population, will experience this.

It's inevitable, the poster above who called it a majority privilege is right on the mark.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lumping people together as "white" is as ridiculous as doing the same for other races. Think about the within-cluster variation inherent in such a group for a second, it's mind-boggling.

When I first heard from a Chinese friend that they label all Westerners into a single group, I first laughed at the naivete, then sobered up at the cluelessness of the assertion. Of course, there's _some_ truth to it: From a super high level perspective all non-Chinese to the West _are_ a single group (defined by their non-Chinese-ness), question is: in what context is such a crude abstraction useful?

But, worse, aside from being non-useful, such stereotyping by (some) thinkers is the very thing they criticize in despise in others, so it's an error in thinking, too!

<comment><USER2> "But, worse, aside from being non-useful, such stereotyping by (some) thinkers is the very thing they criticize in despise in others, so it's an error in thinking, too!"

Wrong, it has to start somewhere. The idea that stereotyping will just fix itself probably won't happen. Now, yes, the idea of "white privilege" is targeting one group, but it is the majority in this country (for now, 30 years it may change) and it is the group that has been the root of racism/bigotry in this country. But if it makes you feel better, you can say "majority privilege" instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As the dailyshow asked a while ago. Are Jews really white?

The answer in America is that they are white+, the answer in Europe is one of guilt and resentment. The idea that you should check the same privileges the world over is incredibly Americo-centric and racist.

Should a Basque check their privillage for being white while having been under constant genocidal pressure for close to 300 years? Should a Turk in Crimea do that because their ancestors were murdered time and time again by the Orthodox, while one in Anatolia shouldn't even though their grandparents contributed in one of the first modern genocides against the Armenians?

Privilege has nothing to do with skin color and everything to do with economic and social status. The Blacks of the US aren't disadvantaged because they are black, it's because they are poor and serve as the default criminal class. A place that the Irish had a hundred years previously. To pretend that it does is a way for spoiled college kids to feel they are making a difference in the world without doing anything.

</comment><comment><USER9> "With great power, comes great responsibility" When you ignore your responsibility it becomes a privilege.</comment>


Could DuckDuckGo Overtake Bing? - <AUTHOR> http://searchengineland.com/duckduckgo-overtake-bing-202471?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

<comment><USER2> Nowhere in the article does it mention that many (probably most) of the search results that DuckDuckGo returns are from Bing's API. (That used to be true, I presume it still is.) That seems like a rather important point to leave out.</comment>


The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant - DC-3 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cZYNADOHhVY <comment><AUTHOR> Adapted from: [https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html](https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html)</comment>


The Hackers are Getting Younger - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/243598/the_hackers_are_getting_younger.html

<comment><USER2> Love the awkward little plug for Trend Micro, there.</comment>


Questions with Vim's Creator, Bram Moolenaar - <AUTHOR> http://www.binpress.com/blog/2014/11/19/vim-creator-bram-moolenaar-interview/ <comment><USER2> Not sure why Bram doesn't believe that removing support for obsolete OSes such as MS-DOS, Amiga, and BeOs helps with Neovim's goal of simplifying the codebase and maintenance. Are there even any actual users of these systems that are disappointed that they won't be able to use neovim? If they're satisfied on those OSes surely they'd be satisfied with legacy vim.

<comment><USER3> Bulk churn is the kind of easy task that gives the impression of progress while providing very little actual value.

In 8 months, here's what NeoVim has done:

1) Reformatted _all_ the code.

2) Deleted a lot of working, old code.

3) Raised a good chunk of cash.

4) Published a very shiny website.

5) Released _nothing._

There's nothing wrong with simplifying a code base, but if you run around trying to do that independent of any reasonable technical direction, you're just making noise.

Given that NeoVim's technical direction is extremely poorly considered (while also disparaging Bram's work), I can't help but think highly of Bram for being polite -- at all -- to such a disrespectful fork.

<comment><USER4> Your comment seems to consist of some things that aren't true, and some true things accompanied with baseless insinuations.

1\. The code was reformatted because Vim's codebase is a mess. It mixes tabs and spaces willy-nilly. It uses different indentation rules in different parts of files. These issues may seem cosmetic, but they make the code harder to follow and increase the likelihood of bugs. Indentation can be especially misleading when control flow lacks braces (a common occurrence in Vim). The change didn't require much effort and it made it easier for people to contribute to Neovim.

2\. Actually, quite a bit of Vim's old platform-specific code is broken. It's just that nobody uses an SGI IRIS or Amiga, so nobody complains about it. In some cases, Neovim removed ifdef'd code that could never possibly be included[1].

3\. People have donated less than $40k to Neovim. That's not even the salary of a single developer for the 8 months it's been around. The contributors aren't in it for the money. They simply want to build a great editor.

4\. A very shiny website? It's just static pages hosted on Github. If you look at the commit history[2], you can see it's insignificant compared to work done on the Neovim codebase.

5\. Nothing? There's an entire repository of working code. Right now you can clone Neovim, compile it, and it will run almost all Vim plugins without issue. The team is very conservative about declaring software stable. They may not have a tagged release, but to call the existing work "nothing" is unreasonable. It's at least as stable as Atom.

You also neglected to mention all the other work done on Neovim, such as replacing ad-hoc cross-platform compatibility and event handling with libuv. Then there's the improved plugin APIs which allow features that aren't possible in Vim.[3] And of course, plugins can be written in any language. No more VimL shims needed.

Lastly: Disparaging? Disrespectful? It's hard to find any criticism the Neovim contributors have made towards Bram or Vim. They like Bram. They like Vim. Thiago tried to contribute to Vim multiple times, but was discouraged or ignored.[4][5] Instead of complaining or giving up, he and the other contributors are trying to improve the editor and the community around it. There's no malice or greed involved.

1\. [https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/814](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/814)

2\. [https://github.com/neovim/neovim.github.io/](https://github.com/neovim/neovim.github.io/)

3\. [https://github.com/benekastah/neomake](https://github.com/benekastah/neomake)

4\. [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/vim_dev/QF7Bzh1YABU/02-YGr7_...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/vim_dev/QF7Bzh1YABU/02-YGr7_sCwJ)

5\. [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/vim_dev/65jjGqS1_VQ/fFiFrrIB...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/vim_dev/65jjGqS1_VQ/fFiFrrIBwNAJ)

<comment><USER5> "Right now you can clone Neovim, compile it, and it will run almost all Vim plugins without issue."

Easy compile? (I'm at work and no git clone/compiling here!) Might try later on tonight.

<comment><USER6> Pretty easy (`make install`). You need Cmake with ssl and a not-too-old gcc (>4.3). This should be the case on a modern system.

I recently compiled it on CentOS 5 and had to build my own cmake.

[https://github.com/neovim/neovim/wiki/Installing](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/wiki/Installing)

[https://github.com/neovim/neovim/wiki/Building- Neovim](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/wiki/Building-Neovim)

<comment><USER5> Yup, just used the Ubuntu instructions on Trisquel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't help but feel, since many of the same arguments against neovim could be said of the rewrite from vi to vim, that this is the natural order of things and the point of open source.

<comment><USER8> Wasn't vi closed source until Bram came along? Then the name just got changed to vim because of the additions along the way?

<comment><USER9> vi history in BSD goes back to 1980

Sources are at [http://svnweb.freebsd.org/csrg/usr.bin/ex/](http://svnweb.freebsd.org/csrg/usr.bin/ex/)

<comment><USER10> It's pretty amazing to browse code repos that go back over 25 years. Does anyone know which version control system they (BSD) used back then? SCCS?

<comment><USER11> More likely a file server somewhere, email and patches.

After all Linux didn't use a SCM until quite late.

<comment><USER12> That's because Linus had the fairly unique position that CVS et al. are actually _worse_ than not using a SCM at all.

The BSDs have been using CVS for a long time so it's plausible they used something like RCS or SCCS before CVS was available.

FreeBSD repo goes back to 1993: [https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base?view=revision&revision=2](https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base?view=revision&revision=2)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My favourite question and answer from this is the last one.

Q: "What does the future hold for Vim?" – A: "Nothing spectacular."

That's quite a refreshing view, I don't think a person exists that has mastered Vim absolutely, who knows the most efficient way to achieve everything they need to. It probably takes just as long to master Vim than it has for Vim to be developed to where it is, and it's good to see that there's a focus on improving the existing functionality than extending it further.

<comment><USER14> Just because you haven't doesn't mean others haven't. You will be surprised.

<comment><USER15> I think his statement there is more an observation about how every time a discussion about some less used vim feature comes up there is invariably at least one person to say "I've been using vim for x decades and never knew this".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> We as developers and open source advocates have to get over this "thou shall not ever remove code" no matter how old and useless it may be.

What the NeoVim team is doing sounds a whole lot like what the libressl team did when they forked OpenSSL, which also had tons of code for obsolete operating systems.

At the point of this presentation[1], they removed 90,000 lines of code; it's probably more now.

Unlike system software like OpenSSL, Vim is something I (and many developers) spend many hours each day using. In 2014, there's no good reason why it shouldn't be as responsive and flexible as possible.

Sometimes when my projects get large and have lots of files open and Vim starts to slowdown just a little, you can almost feel the decades of technical debt taking its toll.

As someone mentioned previously, the function that waits for user input [2] is 400 lines long and has more the 41 ifdefs, many for operating systems that have been long dead.

Interestingly enough, it's because of the growing popularity of Vim that this is becoming more of an issue. I live in the Boston area and have visited many startups; Vim is quite popular among them. Yes, it's a little hipster, but in a good way. ;-)

We have lots of seasoned developers at our Vim meetup [3] of course, but there are way more younger people who've discovered Vim. The room is usually packed.

1\. [http://www.openbsd.org/papers/bsdcan14-libressl/mgp00026.htm...](http://www.openbsd.org/papers/bsdcan14-libressl/mgp00026.html)

2\. [https://github.com/b4winckler/macvim/blob/master/src/os_unix...](https://github.com/b4winckler/macvim/blob/master/src/os_unix.c#L5222)

3\. [http://www.meetup.com/The-Boston-Vim-Meetup/](http://www.meetup.com/The- Boston-Vim-Meetup/)

</comment><comment><USER17> > _No idea. Some of the basic choices seem odd and irrelevant for the main > goals. Such as dropping support for some systems and not being backwards > compatible. The goals could just as well been implemented without that._

How are those steps "odd and irrelevant"?

Dropping support for BS OS makes the code leaner and cleaner, and easier to update.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you liked this interview - make sure to check the other podcasts we recorded:

[http://www.binpress.com/blog/category/podcast/](http://www.binpress.com/blog/category/podcast/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Spoiler alert: I won't say anything about NeoVim.

From the article: _Write nice code. Use white space properly, use good names for methods, add comments to explain anything that isn't obvious..._

I do wish more people subscribed to that notion, even if it doesn't sound like the magic recipe to become the next rockstar ninja.

(Edit: Cloning the Zombie of Obscure Comment Formatting)

</comment><comment><USER20> persistent undo seems pretty cool!

enable with _:set undofile_ in .vimrc

NB: if you want to specify a dir for it, you need to create it yourself, or it silently won't work. eg _mkdir ~ /.vim/undodir_, then in .vimrc _:set undodir=~ /.vim/undodir_

I also love the idea of undotree, with branches etc, but found it too confusing in practice. Could the UI be more git-like, I wonder?

<comment><USER21> undotree only becomes usable once you install [https://github.com/sjl/gundo.vim](https://github.com/sjl/gundo.vim)

It's a lifesaver after that.

<comment><USER22> Completely agree with this. I actually think vims undo tree might be the most useful feature in vim for me. You can basically use it as version control lite with automatic commits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's unfortunate that Bram isn't more enthusiastic about NeoVim - it looks to me like they have made great progress and gathering momentum. NeoVim's support for Lua, Ruby and Python plugins, embeddable core would be a big step forward.

</comment><comment><USER24> > 8: How can the community ensure that the Vim project succeeds for the > foreseeable future? > > Keep me alive. :-)

Odd to express narcissism in response to this question.

I have no idea whether NeoVim is going in the right direction but the feeling you get from this response is that Bram is focused on guarding his turf rather than thinking constructively about how to move Vim forward.

<comment><USER25> I'm sure it was just a playful response.

In case anyone doesn't know, this is Vim's license:

"Vim is Charityware. You can use and copy it as much as you like, but you are encouraged to make a donation for needy children in Uganda."

Hard to believe the guy is narcissistic at all :)

<comment><USER26> Note that Bram is the treasurer of said charity. You can read their latest financial report here:

[http://iccf-holland.org/jaarrekening2013en.pdf](http://iccf- holland.org/jaarrekening2013en.pdf)

<comment><USER27> and note this:

       We aim at very low costs. The goal is to limit the costs to 5% of the
       revenue. The revenue and expenses show that the costs in 2013 were only 0.5%
       of the total revenue.  This is within the goal by a large margin. The
       largest parts of the costs are unavoidable banking costs.

That is an exceptionally frugal charity; lots of charity monitoring sites seem to think that over 80% is doing well.

<comment><USER28> Incredible, I don't use Vim very much (once in a while) but I think I'll make a donation when I get paid just for the times when I do.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Peter Thiel: There Are No Good Bets Against Globalization - <AUTHOR> http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/5646 <comment><USER2> An awful piece. I repent that I read it. His introduction is good though. Grand claims, appealing to ancient lands, myths.

However, the man seems to have no patience. Jumping from one idea to another like an adolescent trying to figure out what to do with himself. Grand claims, without explanation or elaboration, merely statements. We have lost the way of the ancients. By ancients we are probably led to believe the innocence of Aristotle.

A complete mess. Examples selected. A very narrow argument. Not a person engaging, not really a person communicating, but, possibly, a person with an agenda, someone who is trying to "school" the great ignorant public, to fill the place of the ancient medieval priests.

That is my impressions. Of which I might be entirely wrong. I must however say, his world is dark, made dark by limitations of his imaginations, by loss of hope in the human spirit, by lack of understanding of the human resilience.

Europe has free trade, it has too a fairly similiar ideologies of democracy and capitalism, yet each country in europe is as different as China and America. Globalisation in practice is much different from the globalisation of rhetoric. No need to use the bible. Nor repeat the term apocalyps on and on in the introduction, to present an impression of something really serious, deep and secret being told.

Tell what the world is, we have the brains to understand what it should be.

Though this I should not say - I am frankly disappointed in the consciousness of Hacker News who allowed this article to get sufficient point to make me force myself to read a most ghastly article.

<comment><USER3> Well, I'm glad that I forced you to read the article, because I really enjoyed reading your comments. :)

Although I agree with you, I did enjoy Theil's essay. I think it really captures and explains the desperate and almost suicidal mindset that is so common. You put it well. His is a dark world of little imagination and not much faith in humanity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting that this was published in January 2008, and likely written before that. Rightly or wrongly, economic globalization's image didn't end that year untarnished.

The world's a really complex system, even limited to just the human-systems part of it, and the <50 miles from satellite orbits down to deep-sea drilling that concerns said humans. So in forecasting and speculating on the future, we can't help but project our own fears and hopes - in this case, Thiel is a capitalist/investor who makes a long case for going long on the world economy, with some Biblical quotes and economic history to make it interesting, if not quite convincing. Too many false dichotomies are given - I think it's a good bet the future will not run like a decision tree.

In particular, Thiel wrestles with the fairly old internal contradictions of capitalism that many other thinkers have, some much more in depth. To use one more Biblical reference, the Rapture for globalization is a totally "flat" world of complete freedom for labor and capital (and technology, but presumably not land). Global capitalism runs, shuffles, or stumbles towards that end, with much of its participants heedless of the journey, never mind its destination.

For example, since capitalism's purpose is to accumulate capital for its own sake, it cannot help but be global (early on, slave trade/colonialism), and it cannot help but work against itself in the long run (We'll up profit margins by outsourcing! But wait, then those outsourcers will get richer, and compete to squeeze our own profit margins. Yah, but then they'll outsource too! But wait, the planet is finite...). While it is a very resilient economic system, what might follow it as its contradictions come fully into play is far from clear.

As an aside, here's someone else who's view on the current globalization situation is, I've found, comprehensive and coherent:

<http://www.iwallerstein.com/>

<comment><USER5> You are anthropomorphizing "Capitalism," as a sort of aggregate of all capitalist behavior, but with a single goal. That's not accurate. _Individuals_ certainly try to accumulate wealth, but the best way to make a lot of money is to find a better or cheaper way to do something--a side effect of which is the impoverishment of somebody else. Just look at, e.g., the way Sun nearly killed IBM in the late 80's and early 90's. Sun never made as much as IBM did, but the people who founded Sun made more than they otherwise would have.

That, I think, is why you see internal contradictions. You're pointing out that the best capitalists do stuff that harms the average capitalist; if Myspace is making money, there's always a Zuckerberg waiting to ruin things. But of course, there is no "Capitalism" that encompasses all of the goals of Myspace's owners _and_ Facebook's.

That also takes care of the apparent contradiction of outsourcing. The capitalists who lose to outsourcing don't like it; the outsourcers do. There's less money made (since the outsourcers charge less), but the economy is more efficient. That's capitalism--the net result of lots of self-interested people, who often act against one another's interests. It's not the vision of capitalism in which the rich, as a group, make consensus decisions to advance their collective interests.

Thus, that version of capitalism is wrong.

Oh, and slavery and colonialism are much, much older than capitalism as we understand it today. In fact, one can make the case that slaves are the oldest form of property. Certainly, I've never heard of a civilization that advanced at all and never had slaves.

<comment><USER6> * Just look at, e.g., the way Sun nearly killed IBM in the late 80's and early 90's. Sun never made as much as IBM did, but the people who founded Sun made more than they otherwise would have.*

I don't disagree with your general arguments, but this bit is factually wrong. IBM's problems in the late 80's and early 90's were to do with the rise of the PC industry, not the Unix workstation. Yes, IBM had a dysfunctional Unix strategy during that period, and yes it lost sales (some to Sun) but it wasn't Sun that was killing it, it was the rise of client server computing. If Sun hadn't been there then Apollo (remember them?) or HP or maybe even SGI

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the clarification. Are there any good sources (books, articles) on this period and what happened to IBM? I've read about it from IBM's point of view, but when your business is selling Big Iron, you figure you fail because of something Big Iron-related, not something external.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wonderful! So this means I and other Americans will soon legally be able to purchase prescription drugs from other countries where drug companies sell them for much less money? Oh, I forgot; "globalization," as meant by multinational corporations and policy makers, doesn't work that way.

Globalization is not a two-way street, and while it would certainly be foolish to bet against it when it means American jobs being shipped to other countries where labor is cheaper and the cost of living is lower, betting against consumers being able to import goods from those same countries where multinationals sell their products for cheaper seems, for the time being anyway, to be a pretty safe bet.

<comment><USER8> The only problem with globalization is the lack of truly free trade. If countries didn't have to subsidize nonproductive sectors of the economy then the costs of living would equalize much quicker - see farm subsidies, tariffs, and the ban on imports of certain goods.

<comment><USER7> I don't think it's the _only_ problem with globalization, but having recently paid out-of-pocket for an expensive, patented prescription drug, I think it's one of the biggest, and much of the hollow pro-globalization, pro-free trade rhetoric I hear from government and big business never addresses it.

I am curious about why others downvoted my original post; do people here really think this sort of protectionist price discrimination is OK?

<comment><USER9> I think it's only okay in certain circumstances. Many governments participate directly in their healthcare markets, which affects the prices at which pharmaceuticals can be sold in such a country. If goods with manipulated prices are allowed to be traded freely, the prices in other countries will be affected as well. Companies that produce the goods in question will either have to accept lower profit margins or refuse to sell their goods in manipulated markets. Regardless, such a policy would lower the expected value of future technological advances in the field, which would result in less effort being directed to such advances.

It is undesirable for technology to advance at a slower pace than would be possible if people were expected to pay market prices for the products the technology would help to improve or create. If you value future advances in technology, you should want your government to minimize manipulation of the markets for such technologies. If, on the other hand, you'd like as many people to benefit from current technology as cheaply as possible, you should want your government to force prices down as much as possible.

<comment><USER7> If they dislike the price controls and monopsonies that exist in other countries, they can avoid those markets entirely. Once they agree to participate and begin exporting their drugs, we should have every right to import them back at a discount. As large corporations have shown in the past, they have no issue with planned economies, as long as the planning is done in their favor (China, Dubai).

It is horribly unjust for Americans, many of whom have no or poor health insurance, to be forced to pay more money than anyone else on earth for prescription drugs. If Big Pharma, which spends disproportionate amounts of money on direct marketing to consumers, can't produce the medications we need cheaply and efficiently, that represents a market failure, and the government should step in and take the lead role in drug development. Research could be done through the NIH grant system and the results could be given away, unpatented, to the entire world. We could get the same results for less money, as the NIH doesn't need to make a profit and has no stock holders to answer to. It could even serve to improve our global reputation, showing the US to be a force for good in the world.

<comment><USER9> > _If they dislike the price controls and monopsonies that exist in other > countries, they can avoid those markets entirely. Once they agree to > participate and begin exporting their drugs, we should have every right to > import them back at a discount._

As I mentioned, both of those options would make drugs less profitable, which would lead to fewer advances in technology. Prohibiting the reimportation of drugs can be a sensible policy.

> _It is horribly unjust for Americans, many of whom have no or poor health > insurance, to be forced to pay more money than anyone else on earth for > prescription drugs._

Unfair, perhaps, but unjust? Fixing this problem would either require selling to everyone at American prices (which could also be described as unjust), or selling to everyone at the lowest prices available. Both options would be less profitable that the current system, which would slow the rate of advancement in drug development.

> _[Maybe] the government should step in and take the lead role in drug > development._

That can also be a sensible policy, and the American government already does fund a considerable amount of drug development.

<comment><USER8> Prohibiting the importation of drugs cannot and is not something anyone should be for. It is highly immoral and it says that your own government wants to deprive you of things that others have. Now if the governments that get the discounts are forced to ban the export of drugs, well then that is completely different story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The entertainment business (MPAA, RIAA, etc) are a very powerful antiglobalization force? They are in fact betting against real globalization. Just consider regional coding for DVDs or the fact that there is not just one Apple iTunes Store but that every nation needs to have its own?

With other words: What does "globalization" really mean?

<comment><USER7> _With other words: What does "globalization" really mean?_

Empirically, it appears to mean a global market for land, labor, and capital with national and regional markets for consumer goods.

<comment><USER10> Thank you, I'm going to plagiarize that ;->

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Resilient communities are a good hedge against globalization.

Best case, resilient communities can mitigate the harmful effects of globalization, improve local quality of life and dampen the magnifying network effects (whether financial, political, or natural). They can provide a "monkeysphere" that members can care about and be held accountable to, an excellent alternative to all the divisive, useless rhetoric and posturing in the MSM.

Worst case, they're the ones still eating and recovering ground after the the zombies/terrorists/enemy paratroopers/global pandemic/massive earthquakes strike.

<comment><USER12> That is an incredible nice way to pad conservatives on the head for being backwards. Globalization is a good thing, so why would you want to hedge against it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I only read the first third of this - but did anyone else find it wandering without clear points or thought process? It was fairly confusing, not because of the content, but how it was written. Was surprised to see this come from Peter Thiel, but I haven't read much of his stuff so who knows.

</comment><comment><USER14> Thiel is still an extreme pessimist with regard to the future and this seems to be his attempt at embracing the views of his intellectual opponents by running the "Optimistic Thought Experiment", which he nonetheless disclaims with "Unlike more rigorous forms of scientific investigation, there are no empirical means to falsify these mental exercises. The optimistic thought experiment exists largely in the mind. The vistas of the mind are not always the same as reality."

Fair enough, Thiel, but aren't your doomsayer projections also a direct form of thought experiment, based on extrapolation just the same?

He goes on to outline what he thinks are three defining markets (or distortions thereof) that could utterly define the future ("China", "Internet" and "hedge funds"), and claims that the markets are woefully out of alignment with reality. I think we have to take his view with a large grain of salt here, considering his bias: he's a global macro hedge fund manager who also invests in Internet startups.

I think he's probably right about a lot of the distortion and possibly right about some of the importance of these markets, but he doesn't even mention any other possible contenders (energy industry transformation? nanotech? biotech? government competition?). I think it's a mistake to assume that any one or three factors will determine the mid-term future when there are literally trillions of factors in play. Then the logical conclusion is that we can't really know or predict anything about the mid-term future, which may be largely right, but I think there is possibility to predict with narrow foci, like "What will happen in transistor design?" or "What will happen in nuclear reactor design?"; though those too will always be hampered by revolutions that we never see coming.

Overall, I hope Thiel is wrong about a lot for the reasons that he so adeptly explains: there's not much else to hope for if the alternative to what you want is total destruction and nonexistence.

</comment><comment><USER15> I started reading the article with interest due to the topic and the author. However, after getting many paragraphs into it and seeing the repeated references to religion, superstition and apocalypse the author frankly lost me and I aborted. I would have liked to read something actually about globalization, but if that was coming up later in the piece I'll never get to it. Life is too short for some things.

</comment><comment><USER16> I just posted my thoughts on it here. <http://bit.ly/b7tGcm> I'd post it as a comment but it's too long.

He's good on the financial advice but bad on everything else. Why would you promote Defense technology if you think the biggest risk in the future is war? Shouldn't you be promoting peace?

<comment><USER17> 1) That's not too long for a comment. This isn't twitter; we're used to comments that are several paragraphs long.

2) If you do post a link to something, use the full link. Link shorteners like bit.ly are frowned upon at HN. This isn't twitter; characters are not at a premium, and many of us prefer to see the real destination of the link.

<comment><USER16> Thanks. I'm new here and I'm mostly used to the derp derp stuff, so your comment was helpful. I'm assuming there is no way to embed html here?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Some interesting ideas, but: <http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue02/features/groeng1.gif>

</comment><comment><USER19> This is the same Peter Thiel that was recently complaining about women being able to vote.

[http://gawker.com/5231390/facebook-backer-wishes-women- could...](http://gawker.com/5231390/facebook-backer-wishes-women-couldnt-vote)

<comment><USER20> The offending statement is:

"Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron."

In essence, this appears to be the claim that women are by and large not libertarian voters, and less so than men. This is a mere statement about the world. Believing this statement does not commit you to believing Women Must Not Be Allowed To Vote.

If you object to the statement then you are committed to Women Are Just As Likely To Vote Libertarian As Men; I'm guessing Thiel has some actual empirical data to suggest this isn't so.

<comment><USER21> Considering that the preceding sentence explains that the 1920s---before those two things happened---were the last decade in which one could be optimistic about politics, and then explains that those two things happening was the reason for the loss of optimism, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to interpret his statement as: the expansion of welfare and the granting of suffrage to women have turned out to be bad for America.

It's possible that he really thinks, instead: while those two things have rendered "capitalist democracy" an oxymoron, which I dislike, I nonetheless must agree that those two things happening was a good idea (for other reasons, presumably). But that certainly isn't the connotation of the words he chose. One could be forgiven for reading him to imply that he was at least _not a big fan of_ either the expansion of welfare or the granting of women's suffrage.</comment></comment></comment>


Grand St. delivers offbeat gadgets you can buy today - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/14/3766898/grand-st-electronics-store-kickstarter

<comment><USER2> "Amanda Peyton believes this category is growing rapidly and there is a growing market for stuff that is too geeky or weird for Best Buy."

This is a somewhat dubious assumption. While the market is rapidly growing, it also follows Zipf's law in terms of interestingness. (E.g. the most interesting product is 10x more interesting than the 10th most, 100 times more interesting than the 100th most, etc.) Because of this even an enormous increase in the number of small electronics products will yield only a very small increase in the number of products that would actually appeal to the general consumer. So even if you go from, say, 10,000 products per year to 1 million products per year, the actual increase in products you have to sell that people would want to buy is minimal.

(Incidentally, this is the main reason why I shut down my last startup.)</comment>


Open source free, $12 to learn what I had to know - <AUTHOR> http://germanforblack.com/post/49318108985/yesterday-i-finally-released-gallery-css-which

<comment><USER2> This is a fantastic idea.

Did you go into the project planning to build the screencast, or was it a secondary effect of realizing that you were learning so much as you went along?

<comment><AUTHOR> The idea kind of came along when I was extracting Gallery CSS from the project that I built it for — I realised that people probably wouldn't understand the library, or the need for it… but I didn't want the cool tech result to go unnoticed.

Originally it was going to be an ebook… if I'd have done that, it would've been released about 3 weeks ago, but the knowledge transfer is far more challenging VS a screencast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Will you release any statistics about how many people downloaded Gallery CSS and how many bought the screencast?

<comment><AUTHOR> As long as its not too embarrassing :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd recommend the screencast to anyone interested in frontend dev. Of high quality and very informative, taken at a good pace, well worth the $12.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice idea, and an O'Reilly disruptor if it catches on.</comment>


How to Iteratively Build a Startup (Video from Ignite Melbourne) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSq3dyuP4yM

<comment><USER2> I love this kind of talks, it always motives me to keep up working on my projects.</comment>


Boris Johnson elected new Tory leader - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/23/boris-johnson-elected-new-tory-leader-prime-minister <comment><USER2> It'll be interesting to see how Brexit will unfold now under his command.</comment>


Incredible free ebooks from NASA (kindle ready and more) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/index.html <comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing! These resources - especially the explorer guide are interesting. There's even astronaut profiles within the side if you dig around in the nav.</comment>


Show HN: Kluz, an iPhone app for photo memos, an app a friend and I made - yoz-y https://kluz.dux.works <comment> yoz-y Hello,

A friend and I have challenged ourselves to make an app in 24 hours during the lockdown. Although we had a working prototype at the end of the day, we pushed a bit further and made it into a fully functional and polished app in the end.

The main goal of the app is to store the photos you take to remind yourself of something. They usually end up somewhere in the library and are hard to find and get rid of.

We have released it on the App Store for free, there are no ads or anything, we made an app we wanted to use.</comment>


Ask HN: Time Series Database? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious what other HNers are using for their timeseries data needs. At my company, we're specifically working in IoT with hundreds of thousands of sensors cumulatively sending in ~5k observations per second (~5 TB of uncompressed data on disk). We've tried all sorts of options and currently are using TimescaleDB, but are thus far very unsatisfied with query speeds (typically, we just want to see hourly averages over the course of some arbitrary time period for a few sensors, but sadly this can take several minutes for just 3 sensors over the period of a year, as an example). As the data has grown in size over the years, experimenting with new options has become more and more burdensome, so I figured I'd poll the crowd to see what approaches are working for others. <comment><USER2> I am also using TimescaleDB and face similar issues around the OLAP workloads. I tested Clickstream and QuestDB, both of which claim superior OLAP performance, however the ingest rates and cardinality of my unstructured data did not perform on par with TimescaleDB in my limited tests. Lacking time, instead I implemented a number of strategies within Postgres - trading space for speed with additional computed index columns and partitioning around these, applying table layering at various time resolutions, and using Real- time Aggregates as introduced in TimescaleDB 1.7. The Real-time Aggregates make a significant improvement to performance on large datasets for very little effort and appear to be a feature well-suited to solving your problem. This has alleviated performance enough to keep me looking within the Postgres ecosystem. For now the performance is within target budgets again. Going forward, time permitting, I'll be looking at additional Postgres plugins which target OLAP performance using combinations of columnar storage and SIMD processing: Swarm64, VOPs ([https://github.com/postgrespro/vops](https://github.com/postgrespro/vops)), pg_strom

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd take a look at what Prometheus is using, I think that is IndexDB.

</comment><comment><USER4> Clickhouse can bring a performance advantage on the query side, and with a proper cluster config scale for ingest.

CloudFlare has some useful blog posts on their uses of it.</comment>


Ubuntu Snaps coming to other distros - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/goodbye-apt-and-yum-ubuntus-snap-apps-are-coming-to-distros-everywhere/ <comment><USER2> This is an exciting development; having to maintain separate RPMs and debs for applications is tedious.

It's unlikely that the old packaging methods will go away any time soon, particularly for core OS components -- but perhaps it will be acceptable to bundle non-core applications like Firefox solely using Snap packages.</comment>


GitHub is down - <AUTHOR> http://github.wordpress.com/

<comment><USER2> Well, luckily I have a full clone of my entire repository's history, just sitting here on my hard drive. Good thing it wasn't Beanstalk that went down.

<comment><USER3> Yep! We also keep an offsite disaster guide, just in case - <http://ozmm.org/posts/when_github_goes_down.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We apologize for the outage, there was a dual-disk failure on the SAN, but no data was lost. We're going to be working with Engine Yard to make sure this doesn't happen again.

</comment><comment><USER5> Irritating pattern: 1\. A free(mium) hosted service becomes popular 2\. It inevitably goes down one day 3\. I hear about it from every blog, tweet, and news site.

I have always hosted my own email and webserver so when it goes down, instead of blogging about it and complaining, I just fix it.

<comment><USER6> I run my own power station if it ever goes down, instead of complaining I just replace the spent fuel rods.

<comment><USER7> Wow, thats pretty lame, I use biofuel for everything, I stick plants in one side and my computer comes on. I have to find new suns periodically...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> i may do a little hacking on thanksgiving but I can't imagine most programmers working today; it's a decent day to be down (unless you have a shopping or leisure web app)

edit: o yeah I forgot that some users may be international...

<comment><USER9> Shame on you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> <https://launchpad.net/> is up :)

</comment><comment><USER11> looks to be back up

</comment><comment><USER12> Has been for a few hours now. I don't use git (yet) anyway ;)</comment>