Nginx Is Taking Over the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/09/nginx/ <comment><USER2> Nginx has been added to the OpenBSD base system which means it has been security audited and will someday replace the fork of Apache 1.3 as the primary httpd in OpenBSD.

[http://marc.info/?l=openbsd- misc&m=134684032310189&w=2](http://marc.info/?l=openbsd- misc&m=134684032310189&w=2)

<comment><USER3> We already moved to Nginx on OpenBSD before 5.2. It was a nice surprise for us when this happened and, although it's not the bleeding edge Nginx release that's available, it was much appreciated since that meant upgrades wouldn't be as difficult from then on.

I should mention that Apache had been good to us in the past, despite being the 1.3 series with patches bundled with OpenBSD, but we were expecting far more from it than it was originally intended to do. In that regard, configuration and deployment became much simpler since we moved to Nginx.

<comment><USER4> Went to nginx on OpenBSD myself, mostly because at some point the latest lighttpd was not playing well with the latest OpenSSL. Never looked back since.

<comment><USER3> One of our clients had an issue with lighttpd and OpenSSL, but that was on Debian. Turns out it was a known issue: [http://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=622733](http://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=622733)

You may have seen the same or related problem, since it takes a bit while for packages to come to OpenBSD. But either way, you ended up with something that worked well :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 'Would they have considered obscure Russian software if they hadn't been able to examine the source code? "Never in a million years," Prince says. "If it hadn't been open-source, we wouldn't have trusted it."'

And _that 's_ how a lot of countries will feel about using proprietary (or even open source) software from US in the future, after all the NSA revelations.

<comment><USER6> Open source software is not same as free software. One needs free software (which is open source, as well as give users complete freedom) to ensure their privacy.

<comment><USER7> In terms of trust: No. As long as I can get the source, modify it and compile my own version, I'm totally in the green as far as privacy and security are concerned.

There's a lot of reasons to prefer free software over mere open source software, but privacy is none of them.

<comment><USER6> Android is "open source", yet there may be restrictions on your ability to compile and run your copy of the source code on your device. Can you trust the OEMs that they are running the same code as you have a copy of?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the article: "Apache would crash, especially when WordPress was really busy. 'We realized that it wasn't super-stable under production traffic,' says Barry Abrahamson, a WordPress 'systems wrangler'"

Given Apache's track record and massive deployment, how could this be possible? Isn't it more likely that the Wordpress people were doing something wrong? Not that Nginx isn't great, but I'm bemused by the occasional suggestions I see that it's saving us from the suddenly broken Apache.

<comment><USER9> Apache rocks and is battle tested, the problem for them is that Wordpress is PHP which requires the process model worker for stability because PHP isn't thread safe and developers write shitty code assuming it is.

<comment><USER3> "...because PHP isn't thread safe and developers write shitty code assuming it is."

[http://www.iis- aid.com/articles/my_word/difference_between_p...](http://www.iis- aid.com/articles/my_word/difference_between_php_thread_safe_and_non_thread_safe_binaries)

"Another option is to configure IIS to use PHP in FastCGI mode which allows PHP processes to be recycled rather than killed off after each PHP request and also allows you to run several PHP processes at once, making PHP much much faster with the added bonus that as it is using the CGI interface there is little or no incompatibility issues with PHP extensions. This is still the fastest way to serve PHP, and is the way the IIS Aid PHP Installer is configured to install PHP on your IIS Environment."

<comment> X-Istence PHP-FPM is also pretty awesome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm a noob at this system admin stuff but according to my statistics I have gathered, nginx webserver uses 30-50% less of the load than apache.

At first, I poured so much into learning Apache I didn't want to learn this weird obscure Russian alternative but I am sure glad I did.

Under load testing, I can have double the amount of concurrent users without even causing my server to hiccup.

When I was running wordpress and apache in AWS I had to use a costly m1-small instance to maintain the cpu and load needs of apache.

When I made the switch to nginx I doubled the performance and was able to move to a free micro instance in AWS.

In conclusion, moving to nginx saved me money and allowed my server to run more efficiently.

I am a believer in this software. Hopefully, going commercial doesn't ruin it like money usually does.

<comment><USER11> Just double? I managed to get around 8-10x performance from the same hardware. I do not run Wordpress, though, but my custom PHP code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I suspect that tech people are less concerned with country of origin that many other industries. I'd like to believe that my experience is generalizable and that as a group we're more of a meritocracy. Perhaps it's due to the diversity of people that we routinely work with?

<comment><USER13> I suspect you're right, but I don't think we should be patting ourselves on the back.

The legal profession has the bar. Doctors need accreditation. Builders need licenses for their jurisdiction.

But software? It doesn't matter who wrote it or where because bits are just bits, especially when you tread into opensource land.

We're a meritocracy because that's the nature of the industry, not because we're particularly benevolent.

<comment><USER14> There's nothing inherent about the industry that means it has to be that way. We deserve a little credit for not putting artificial barriers in place like other industries have.

<comment><USER15> Barriers aren't necessary artificial or terrible. Unless you'd like your "doctor" to have no accreditation or training.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As someone who was there early on writing documentation and helping in IRC it's extremely nice to see the article mention how volunteers really got this projects documentation off the ground. Hats off to nginx for sharing that tidbit or to the article author if he researched that independently.

<comment><USER17> I, for one, really appreciate your work (and anyone else who contributed to docs of course). I remember the days when we had to figure stuff out just by looking at other people's config files. I think I even got some of my earliest SO points just from posting sample nginx configs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A long time ago the development of apache walks into a wrong direction. Apache get fat and slow.

For now nginx is first choice for Webperformance, but in some years the next thing will arrive.

<comment><USER9> Apache isn't dead, nor slow, nor going anywhere. As a pluggable module based server, new worker modules will ensure it keeps up just fine.

<comment><USER19> The difference is actually pretty massive.

See [http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Web_Server_Performance_Comparison](http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Web_Server_Performance_Comparison) for instance.

<comment><USER9> That's a completely invalid and biased test. They forced Apache into it's worst scaling mpm module, the process based model, which by the way _is not the default_ , and then conclude Apache doesn't scale as well after intentionally breaking it. Lies lies and damn lies.

<comment><USER19> Aka the mode you have to use if you don't want PHP to blow up.

<comment><USER9> It's not Apache's fault PHP sucks. Use a better language and Apache works fine with a modern worker module. The issue here is not Apache, it's PHP.

<comment><USER19> But the point is Nginx lets you have your cake and eat it too....no issues with PHP _and_ fast performance _and_ less memory usage.

<comment><USER9> That's great, but it's got nothing to do with Apache. If you choose a shitty language, and PHP is shitty no matter how popular it gets, you're limited in choices elsewhere. There's clearly a market for Nginx, low memory virtual servers running PHP. Remove PHP and use a better language and Apache scale just fine even in low memory conditions because without PHP, you don't have to use the old fashioned process model. Apache can work with PHP-FPM just like Nginx using the new evented worker mpm, but as PHP devs clearly find Apache confusing there's no reason to bother.

<comment><USER20> > without PHP, you don't have to use the old fashioned process model.

Immediately followed by:

> Apache can work with PHP-FPM just like Nginx using the new evented worker > mpm

seems contradictory. Can you clarify this bit?

<comment><USER9> The Apache evented worker is very new, just out in 2.4, so it's still standard practice to use the process model. The new way should bring it inline with Nginx but it's too new to say if it's as stable as Nginx; at least for me to say it.

<comment><USER20> There are now three major MPMs:

Prefork - if you want to use mod_php, you're stuck with this. I think this is what you're referring to as "the process model"

Worker - Uses threads to handle connections. A big step up from prefork, but not as awesomesauce as nginx.

Evented - The new MPM which use epoll

It's been possible to run PHP(-fpm) under "worker" (via FastCGI) for years, and it performs adequately. I never benchmarked, but I was using this setup back when nginx was still too bleeding-edge for my tastes, and it certainly beat the pants of prefork/mod_php

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Good to see this get some English language press - I think the only other profile of Igor Sysoev I've seen was a volunteer-translated copy of a Russian language article.

<comment><USER22> Do you remember the title? Or some keywords to find in online?

<comment><USER23> Perhaps this: [http://mindend.com/index.php/interview-with-the-creator- of-n...](http://mindend.com/index.php/interview-with-the-creator-of-nginx/)

found here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Sysoev](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Sysoev)

"This is an interesting interview with a creator of one of the best web servers out there. The original interview is in Russian and the translation (by google) is fairly difficult to read. I took a crack at writing a better translation and I think this might be a bit better."

<comment><USER21> Thanks, I think that was what I was thinking about too. It's a better article than the Wired one.

This was another one I just googled: [http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/interview_igor_...](http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/interview_igor_sysoev_author_apaches_competitor_nginx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> For my style of coding, and I think many others, Nginx has become dominant because it enables fast reverse proxy. And I think for many large websites it ahs become common to build websites out of many small apps, which run on different ports and which Nginx then knits together.

An example. Assuming you have the domain "example.com" then you might have an app that handles user login and you spin that up on, say, port 30000 and you map it to port 80 such that is appears as:

[http://www.example.com/login](http://www.example.com/login)

You might also have an app that handles user signups which you spin up on port 30001 and you map to port 80 such that it appears as:

[http://www.example.com/signup](http://www.example.com/signup)

You might also have an admin app that you spin up on port 30002 and you map to

[http://admin.example.com/](http://admin.example.com/)

You might also have an app that allows users to update their profile information and you spin that up on port 30003 and map that to

[http://www.example.com/profile](http://www.example.com/profile)

And you might have an app that publishes much of your content as static HTML files, which you spin up on no port, as it does not accept TCP/IP requests — instead it queries the database and then creates static html files, which you save to some directory such as /var/www/example.com/public_html/ and you map that to

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

You can see how this gives the sysadmins a lot of freedom to spread load across servers in creative ways — if 1 app becomes especially popular, or resource hungry, the sysadmins can rather easily move it to its own server (or set of servers). This is one of the main reasons most big sites move to an architecture like this — it facilitates fine grained control of what sort of requests go to a particular server.

This is a flexible style and it allows small, maintainable apps. By contrast, consider web development circa 2001, when many people felt it was enough to put a big blob of PHP in a directory and let Apache serve it as one big app.

Nginx's fast reverse proxy allows developers to focus on building their apps, without having to worry too much the server details. It also offers a cleaner separation between concerns that should worry programmers and concerns that should worry the sysadmins.

(A final point: in my own apps, for information that needs to be shared quickly across apps, like which users are logged in, I use ZeroMQ to knit the apps together.)

<comment><USER9> People have been and still do exactly the same thing with Apache, this isn't unique to Nginx in any way.

<comment><USER25> I installed Apache recently along with ownCloud on my Raspberry Pi. I had to strip it back out when I realized that Apache worker processes were keeping the CPU and RAM at 100% the entire time, when nothing was even connected to it.

I used to use Apache all the time way back when. The memories that stick with me are of a massive tangle of configuration rules, mod_*, and htaccess files. I've never looked back since going the way of Nginx. It's just so lightweight in comparison, both performance- and maintenance-wise.

<comment><USER26> That a bug. Probably an architecture dependant one or some package maintainer who messed up. Your experience with Apache httpd on your little homebrew computer gadget doesn't say anything about Apache httpd and how it is usually deployed.

Apache httpd is still bloody awesome.

<comment><USER25> As stated in the same comment, my "little homebrew computer gadget" wasn't the only platform I've run Apache httpd on. It was just yet another environment in which it came out as sub-optimal when compared with Nginx in the same use case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What a ridiculous article title. Generates so much discursive noise and adds nothing to the subject of the article.

<comment><USER28> I don't know, I thought it was cute. "You mean a botnet? [clicks] Oh, nginx!"

<comment><USER27> Well, that's exactly it. I thought "oh, hacking and/or botnets?" then read the article and thought "why wasn't that called 'New Russian Server tech gains market share' or something a little less pugilistic?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Regardless of your Nginx vs Apache Web server war here, Igor Sysoev contributed to Apache a lot: mod_accel - (first?) reverse proxy, mod_deflate, mod_realip.

</comment><comment><USER30> Several of the comments here point out that part of the reason Apache gets a bad rep is that PHP forces it to use the process based mpm, which is bad. Does this mean that it would make more sense to use mod_fastcgi+php-fpm than mod_php? If so, why isn't that being done?

<comment> j-kidd In httpd-2.4.x (first released in Jan 2012), the event MPM is already the default on Linux:

[https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mpm.html#defaults](https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mpm.html#defaults)

In httpd-2.2.x, however, the default MPM on Linux is prefork, i.e. the "bad" one:

[https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mpm.html#defaults](https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mpm.html#defaults)

And those would be the "factory" defaults. Distributions can still put in their own defaults, e.g. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS supplies httpd-2.2.x with the worker MPM.

Anyway, Apache 1.3.x (built-in with something similar to the prefork MPM) + mod_php was the de facto (or only?) way to deploy PHP scripts, as you can just throw the scripts into the htdocs directory and they will just work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I wonder what is planned for Nginx 2.0 I read somewhere ( The it was suppose to be re-engineered.)

Edit: Here [http://www.aosabook.org/en/nginx.html](http://www.aosabook.org/en/nginx.html)

</comment><comment><USER32> Does not surprise me. I use NGINX in unison with Apache and it allows me to get maximum performance out of my $25 Linode VPS plan without having to scale up and spend more money. Definitely the best thing to happen to the Internet since Apache.

</comment><comment><USER33> Anybody know how important epoll was in helping nginx take off?

<comment><USER34> A lot of that stuff came from the discussion around the original c10k stuff [http://www.kegel.com/c10k.html](http://www.kegel.com/c10k.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Let's see the reasons why the author of nginx would not be accepted into ycombinator :

Strong Russian accent : check

Over 40 years old : check

No revenue stream : check

<comment><USER36> Would NGINX Inc be the sort of company that would really benefit from ycominbator investment and would be profitable for ycombinator to invest in? We shouldn't assume that being selected for ycombinator is the measure of worth towards which early stage companies should aspire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Question: Is ngingx good for serving APIs as well. I read lots of places thats its best for serving static contents...I got to serve REST API built using JAVA.. response would not exceed 1KB.. Should I put nginx in front.... short, bursty and highly number of concurrent requests.. Is nginx best-fit for API serving....

</comment><comment><USER38> nginx is a joy to configure and work with. I like the style of thinking of "OK, I'll run this on port 7001 and just use iptables to forward 80 -> 7001" Lets you run services as non-root, with the exception of the iptables one time setup.

</comment><comment><USER39> Nginx Plus is a great supplement to nginx, especially for corporate users who need a helping hand with the setup and maintenance of any complex system. Thanks Igor!

</comment><comment><USER40> At least I now know to pronounce Nginx as "Engine X". Now I won't sound like a fool next time someone asks which web server I'm using.

</comment><comment><USER41> gunicorn "strongly advises" nginx, so ...

</comment><comment><USER42> Lets all hope the NSA has not injected back doors into NGINX!

<comment><USER43> Seems very unlikely. It's open source, so you can review the code and compile it yourself.

<comment><USER44> I believe that it was a joke.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'll stick with Apache, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER6> Misleading title. A program written by a Russian isn't necessarily "Russian Software".

<comment><USER7> Well, when nginx started out it was distinctively russian. As in "not a shred of english doc". Everything you could find about it was russian. If that doesn't make it "russian software", then I don't know what makes russian software.

<comment><USER46> Software written in Russian?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English- based_programming_l...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English- based_programming_languages#International_programming_languages)

> In English, Algol68's reverent case statement reads case ~ in ~ out ~ esac. > In Cyrillic, this reads выб ~ в ~ либо ~ быв.</comment></comment></comment>


Java's JPA for Rails Fans - <AUTHOR> http://casestatement.tumblr.com/post/11514731433/javas-jpa-for-rails-fans

<comment><USER2> Great points. Just my opinion, but JPA 2 is the only good part of Java EE 6, or at least the best part. I still like Rails best for web development, but in Java-land, Play! with JPA, or (Smart)GWT with JPA are nice to develop with.

Life for web developers is a cornucopia complex :-)</comment>


Can Capitalism Be Redeemed? - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2016/07/can-capitalism-be-redeemed <comment><USER2> No, we figured that out decades ago, which is why capitalism was generally abandoned in the developed world in favor of the modern mixed economy. "Capitalism" is now, though, used in at least three conflicting ways:

(1) To refer to actual capitalism (the real system dominant in the developed world in the late 19th and early 20th century, described and named "capitalism" by its socialist critics),

(2) To refer to modern mixed economies as opposed to forms further from capitalism, such as Leninism and its derivatives,

(3) To refer to a utopian realization of Econ 101 ideal markets, whose adherents seen to believe is actually a plausible economics system rather than a useful simplification in the same way as a friction-free model in physics.

The former, as mentioned above, cannot be redeemed, though a synthesis with other ideas is possible (and now dominant) that mitigates some of its worst elements.

The second may be improvable while still recognizably remaining a form of the modern mixed economy.

The third isn't realistic, much less redeemable.

<comment><USER3> w.r.t 2), I think of the peak of that as roughly the time in which John Kenneth Galbraith wrote "The New Industrial State". We didn't exactly conspire to kill it, either - it sorta just happened.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What the free market rules should be are fairly clear. When corporations influence government to favor those corporations and blunt competition, that is not a failure of the free market, it is a failure of the government.

<comment><USER5> But can you have free markets if corporations are permitted to influence the government? It seems impossible; humans will be influenced by those with whom they have contact.

So the alternative is to prohibit corporations from lobbying government, but that would be tantamount to removing legal personality from corporations and it is questionable whether the result is a free market system. You would also need to remove the right of people to lobby on behalf of groups of other people, and it is questionable whether the resulting system is free at all, or in any ways desirable.

The system that we have approaches free market capitalism as well as a liberal system can.

<comment><USER4> You can never have a perfect free market, nothing that humans craft is ever perfect. But you can get pretty close. As I've posted here before, the software development industry is fairly close to a free market.

Besides, just because we cannot reach perfection is not justification to run the other way. The government is run by people, and people are subject to imperfection, incompetence, and corruption. The more power added to that means the more temptation there is to use that power for personal agendas.

Remember that county clerk who was using her government power to deny marriage licenses to gay couples?

<comment><USER6> Software development close to free market?

Since when you have become a venture capitalist?

Only a select few win big and often their products are way overvalued. The road to billion valuation is littered with dead startups doing almost the same thing.

<comment><USER4> How is that not part of the free market? There are other paths to funding than VCs. None of my businesses got a dollar from VCs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The question is whether capitalism should be redeemed, no?

<comment><USER3> There's a big increase in the exponent of global GDP growth starting about the time of capitalism - 1790 or 1820 or so.

<comment><USER7> thank you that has nothing to do with my comment

<comment><USER3> Oh yeah it does.

<comment><USER7> No one can deny that there has been a great period of growth under capitalism, but it's also ridiculous to deny the fact that along with said growth there have also been many crises. That's what this article is about. So, the question that I originally posed was asking not whether GDPs are bigger now than they were in the Middle Ages, but whether or not we should move on from capitalism to something better. Your comment did absolutely nothing to answer that question.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for clarifying.

Which "something better"? Does "something better" still contain all the salient characteristics of what we call capitalism such that we keep the advantages? We're pretty sure that many things are entangled here; it's not clear that we have the means to _dis_ entangle them

I'll put up with a lot to see freedom from food insecurity, basic clean water and good abatement of public disease vectors. If we break the system in certain ways, we may lose the ability to do even that. Don't say this doesn't happen; look at some of the South American countries.

I try to sidestep all the ideology by thinking that the things we don't like about the Rubric Currently Known as Capitalism probably involve the use of economic rents to enrich certain people and not enrich other people.

If that tool works ( and I can't defend it beyond a rudimentary level, frankly ) then the things you're talking about that you don't like aren't actually part of capitalism.

And i think we're really talking about "why is growth slow?" Well, good question but my biases lead me to think that this is a lot demographic and the rest is bad monetary policy grounded in a basic lack of understanding of things like the proper role of central banks and public debt.

I don't know that if we had 4% {rN}GDP growth we'd even be talking about this.

In that case, "replacing" capitalism might just make it worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Slightly Off Topic: What is the term for a socialist that support free market? Or is that a contradiction?

<comment><USER9> 'Democratic Socialism' and 'Social Democracy'.

'Democratic Socialism' is almost like communism: 'Social ownership of the means of production' \- no real private enterprise, but not quite centrally planned.

'Social Democracy' is socialism + free markets/private enterprise, meaning socialization of some things (i.e. possibly healthcare) and government intervention for the 'wellbeing' of people.

The former is basically far-far left wing, the later not quite as left ... is the political basis for most left wing parties in Europe, especially Scandinavian and somewhat continental as well. Canada's NDP party is basically Social Democracy. Bernie Sanders would probably be described as Social Democracy.

<comment><USER8> Thanks. May be next time I should describe myself as Social Democracy then.

Most people hate socialist. Which I describe myself as being one. I am all for national healthcare and education. If it wasn't Obama I would not have known there are countries without healthcare. Same goes to education. Although tuition fees for university is debatable.

I could not understand why even healthcare is on socilist side. May be capitalist should also get rid of Police, fireman etc these kind of public services?

But I am all for free market with hopefully minimum restrictions.

what exactly is left, what exactly is right?

<comment><USER9> " I am all for national healthcare and education. If it wasn't Obama I would not have known there are countries without healthcare."

?

You must be living in a bubble if you did not know other countries had socialized medicine. In fact, almost all modern nations do.

You should also be weary: I live in a country with socialized medicine, and it's not very good. If I pay a doctor to help my I go to jail.

It's a paradox: America has the best healthcare, but it's very expensive, and not everyone has it.

Most nations have 'parallel systems' and it works out ok, like Germany and the Netherlands.

<comment><USER8> I was speaking from Non-US citizen prospective. Never knew US dont have National Healthcare until this ObamaCare thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Any system in which there is a monopoly on the creation of currency can hardly be called capitalism.

<comment><USER11> You nailed the point I think is the most critical: that artificially low interest rates (along with massive government debt) have resulted in an incredible misallocation of capital. Working in Silicon Valley I see (and benefit) from this first hand. Pensions, endowments, and all the other Limited Partners need 7-8% returns. Most directly access or are one to two steps removed from the free government money. With few "reasonable" investments that can return the required numbers, they are forced to chase returns. This leads to an abundance of capital in SV, one of the few places still believed to offer these returns (this is changing as this cycle comes to an end).

Others with first access to capital are doing great in this climate too: hedge funds, investment banks, government contractors, big companies. The rich get richer while the economy stagnates for the majority. Raising rates and stoping the bailouts of failed private institutions I believe will go a long way toward fixing this growing inequality. How we get leaders who can enact these policies is another thing since conventional wisdom (and much of academia) says dropping rates grows the economy. Amazes me that the world didn't learn from Japan's never ending stagnation. We hit the end of a 20 year credit expansion cycle in 2000 and there still is no will to let asset prices and credit deflate, instead we got the government "put" [1], not to mention the 2008 bailouts, and continued credit expansion.

The sad part is that instead of fixing the problem, micromanaged economic policy and money creation from on high, we will get jingoistic nationalism. While I do agree that some of our "free trade" has been anything but fair, the numbers, including those in the article, seem to indicate that it has helped large numbers of people throughout the world escape from poverty. I believe free and fair trade is a boon for all. These gains, unfortunately, will likely evaporate as fed-up, disenfranchised electorates in developed countries try anything to stop their slide backwards. It's tough to sell a "help the world" argument to people who are hurting when those on the top are doing so well.

1\. [http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/greenspanput.asp](http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/greenspanput.asp)

<comment><USER10> Indeed. SV has become just another government program. The sad irony for me personally is that I long ago quit a job working for the government to come here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Any hope for US capitalism redeeming itself in the next 4 years went out the window with Bernie Sanders's campaign.

<comment><USER4> The more power the government accretes over the market, the more potential there is for corrupt use of that power.

<comment><USER13> That's bullshit. The government at least owes you a song and dance about how it's working for you. Even if you're too poor to pay taxes. Corporations don't owe you anything. When the masses have been squeezed dry they will have nothing to protect themselves from the externalities of corporations. The failure of this government is that it no longer exists. It's a corporation now. Sort of an inter-corporate security/insurance firm. What we actually need is a working government. I can't believe we still have the electoral college. Has no one heard of instant runoff voting? Or what happened in 2000 with Nader and Gore. The problem isn't just government period. It's this pretension of one.

<comment><USER14> > Has no one heard of instant runoff voting?

Approval voting. You want approval voting. Range voting is actually better but approval voting is almost as good and is a lot simpler for people to understand, and both are better than IRV.

<comment><USER13> I agree that approval voting is simpler conceptually. I like that IRV lets me prioratize my vote. It's not that much more complicated. Counting the vote is a lot harder but the voters don't have to do that. If 60% prefer Gore to Bush and 90% of them prefer Nader to Gore then you don't get the "correct" result. You'd have Gore beating Nader with 60% vs 54% approval when 54% (the majority) of the population actually prefered Nader to Gore. They can't risk leaving Gore unapproved because then Bush might win. IRV solves this.

<comment><USER14> You're only getting that result by having 100% of the voters who prefer Nader to Gore approve of both while 100% of the voters who prefer Gore to Nader only approve of Gore. In which case approval voting does what it's supposed to do and gives the election to the candidate with the highest approval.

Moreover, the problem you're trying to solve is Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, which is provably impossible to do. You could have a third of voters prefer each candidate but majorities prefer Nader to Gore, Gore to Bush _and_ Bush to Nader.

<comment><USER13> I see what you're saying about Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. I don't think I was specific enough. You're right in the general case and IRV doesn't solve _that_ problem. What I mean is that 54% could prefer Nader outright. But since they also prefer Gore to Bush they have to approve of Gore or else Bush may win. This causes Gore to have the highest approval even though he wasn't the majority's _most_ desired candidate. It wouldn't fix the bias towards those expected to win.

<comment><USER14> > But since they also prefer Gore to Bush they have to approve of Gore or else > Bush may win.

Only the Gore voters have to do the same thing, and then Nader wins if he has more support. Because a small percentage of people will vote only for their preferred candidate and risk Bush, which will be proportional to the support that candidate has and thus give Nader the win if he actually has more support.

The thing you're really objecting to is why range voting is better than approval voting. With range voting the Nader supporters can give Nader 10, Gore 9 and Bush 0, the Gore voters swap Gore and Nader and then there is less brinkmanship necessary to get the right outcome. But that's the cost of using the one which is easier to explain. And range voting is more complicated than approval voting, but it's simpler than IRV, so you're really just making the argument for range voting over approval voting.

I feel like the trap you're falling into is to grade approval voting based on whether it does what IRV does.

The problem with IRV is that it tends to do crazy things. So for example, imagine everybody expects that in a runoff between Bush and Nader, Bush wins. But between Bush and Gore, Gore wins. So then people who would vote for Nader can't vote for him because it would give the election to Bush again. But even weirder, Bush voters _can_ vote for Nader _in order_ to give the election to Bush. So IRV doesn't solve the most important problem, because people will still be clamoring for third parties not to run and for people not to vote for them for fear that they'll harm the major party most similar to them.

<comment><USER13> Ok I think I'm with you. Thank you for this actually. I really appreciate it. Range voting doesn't seem that bad. People are used to taking surveys. I have failed many times to explain IRV and this does seem to have the same benefit. Also brinkmanship is an awesome word that I did not know.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Oceans We Know Won't Survive Climate Change - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/ipcc-sea-level-rise-report/598765/ <comment><USER2> It's looking dismal for sure, but the truth is we don't know what will happen. The best we can probably do is to start cataloging DNA as rapidly as possible, in hopes that we can reverse and recover from the damage in the nearby future.

Also, it would seem that carbon sequestration should be relatively trivial from the genetic engineering front. Is anyone working on that?</comment>


Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure - <AUTHOR> http://www.fordfoundation.org/library/reports-and-studies/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure <comment><USER2> What a relief to see this in print. With so much of the focus of previous discussion endlessly returning to the question of how pure is pure, the practical side of improving the open source business model has been too much neglected.

Govt funding is necessary, in quantity. But I wouldn't want it to go to projects licensed with poisoned pills which will sooner or later be replaced under broader licenses (for example, GNU libraries being replaced by BSD open source Android libraries.) In the long run, I believe that's just money being thrown away, since the work will be redone.

But much else is needed too, including experiments with business models.

<comment><USER3> GNU ensures freedom. It doesn't restrict it. It REQUIRES it.

<comment><USER4> Most governments have a greater interest in economic development, rather than the GPL's idea of freedom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a call for increased funding of open source software, perhaps even government funding (as for roads and bridges).</comment>


What startups need to know about press embargoes - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pressfriendly.com/2014/04/11/what-startups-need-to-know-about-press-embargoes/

<comment><USER2> If a reporter violates an embargo, what do you feel the most appropriate response is?

<comment><USER3> Known names and known publishers won't really agree to or respect embargoes. You can hope, but they're doing you a favor. There's no recourse if they don't respect one, but you don't have work with the reporter again. If you're a young startup, you need all the press you can get, you probably shouldn't be setting embargoes on press releases - at least in my experience.</comment></comment>


Video on DSLRs: why I don't care - <AUTHOR> http://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/5d-mk-ii/video.htm <comment><USER4> Ken makes good points, but don't think for a moment that DSLR video isn't going places.

Sam Nicholson, for instance, has Canon's R&D people at his disposal. They furnish him with nice shiny things like HDMI monitor output and manual focus over bluetooth:

[http://www.definitionmagazine.com/journal/2010/5/22/hollywoo...](http://www.definitionmagazine.com/journal/2010/5/22/hollywood- squeeze-more-out-of-canons-5d-mkii.html)

Suddenly focus pulls become something you can set up on your iPhone. The rest of us can only drool and hope this will make its way into the kit soon.

<comment><USER5> Ken should be excited about where the technology is going, as it's basically in it's infancy. The first crop of HD video capable DSLRs was released JUST last year. They haven't even had a generation to iterate on these things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was a bit surprised he didn't mention the actual reason I still have to carry both a DSLR and a camcorder. Most (all?) DSLRs use a CMOS sensor, which often (always?) results in jello-effect video (see e.g. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bItYdfn-C0o>). My camcorder has a CCD sensor instead, which doesn't suffer from this.

I fully expect it to get better soon though (if it hasn't already on some models - are there any DSLRs that somehow don't suffer from jello-effect video?).

</comment><comment><USER7> I have a Canon 7d that takes beautiful video. I spent a fair amount of time learning to make beautiful videos with it, and I also spent a fair amount of money buying low light lenses, filters (vari nd filter), and still need to buy audio (zoom h4n), steadycam (zacuto) and follow focus gear. The thing is, I intend to make a documentary so I do want it to be as good as I can possibly make it so I will end up spending an additional $1k-2k on top of the camera body depending on the gear I end up going with.

Having said that, the target market for a cheap Canon DSLR (parents) with the stock lens and nothing more than a tripod should be very happy with the flexibility of carrying one camera for stills and video, and the results they get on video should be very close to a a similarly priced camcorder.

Here is an example of why. I was at a ballet recital on Saturday and a father was filming his daughter with a $900 Canon T2i camera on a tripod and his video will likely look better than on a comparable Canon camcorder because the light was not changing, his subject was at the same focal distance and his camera was mounted on a tripod. That eliminates almost all of the manual control variables that require more equipment except for one - audio. A $99 audio device can fix that if it matters to you.

On the flip side, the DSLR gives you full manual controls and the ability to shoot in low light with possibly a cheap $100 Canon 50mm f/1.8.

Here are two videos shot with DSLR's that can show you the range of these DSLR's:

Alexandra (1 camera body, lens, and monopod) <http://vimeo.com/6854556>

Salton Sea (1 camera body, lots of lenses and fancy equipment) <http://vimeo.com/10314280>

Video DSLR's will replace camcorders eventually. In the meantime they can be useful in that they take both stills and video, and etter yet they are the best thing that happened to independent film makers.

UPDATE: Another comments points to a post on Philip Bloom's site about which DSLR to purchase. Philips site is full of very helpful information, the Salton Sea video linked to above is his.

<http://philipbloom.net/2010/06/06/whichdslr/>

</comment><comment><USER8> I recorded a concert my wife conducted using a borrowed $4,000 Sony HD camcorder that looked really sharp and shot nicely in low light. I could never justify spending $4,000 on a camera that I'll probably use 10-20 times, but I also didn't like the idea of buying a sub $1000 1080p video camera that had crappy low light shooting.

Enter the T2i. $830 (for the kit, with Bing cashback, RIP) and it shoots even BETTER video than the $4000 video camera. For the pieces my wife writes, I'm usually on a tripod doing a wide shot anyway, and I'm usually indoors where it's low light, and the results from the T2i are stellar.

Unfortunately, being a "still camera that also does video" it does have it's drawbacks. I can't hit record, then leave it for an hour... it only shoots about 12 minutes of 1080 footage at a time, and the last time I shot about 45 minutes of footage, I started to get overheating warnings on the camera.

Nonetheless... this is the beginning of something awesome. Professional video is about to go the way professional audio went.

</comment><comment><USER9> These party videos are from the first time I used my 7D. Even though the focus is wack I was pretty excited about the quality of this video. This is after filming skateboard videos for years using VX2000s and the like.

<http://vimeo.com/rdouble/videos>

I've since got a special lens and a Zacuto z-finder and have been very happy with the results after practicing a bit more.

Philip Bloom's blog is an essential resource and he just wrote an article about what DSLR to buy for video:

<http://philipbloom.net/2010/06/06/whichdslr/>

</comment><comment><USER10> Ken Rockwell is a contrarian, and that's what I like about him. However, I took his advice on buying a camera once and ended up with a fiddly touch screen camera that I found out I did not enjoy once I got home from my vacation. In his writings he prefers ease of use to complexity of control. I have seen some great videos done with the 5D's manual focus, like on Canon's Beyond The Still contest. <http://vimeo.com/groups/beyondthestill>

<comment><USER11> I disagree on his recommendations. I was looking around for a good entry level DSLR (narrowed it down to Canon & Nikon). For the "Best Serious Camera" he recommended the Nikon D5000. I couldn't be happier with this camera. It's easy to use and takes fantastic pictures:

<http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/recommended-cameras.htm>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just got a Canon T2i dslr last week and the video quality is amazing - <USER2> order of magnitude beyond any consumer video camera I have used - <USER3> recommend going to a store to try it for yourself. Here are some samples on vim - <http://vimeo.com/videos/search:T2i> Shoots 1080 at 60fps, the depth of field makes incredible shots and you can film well at night. I'm sure autofocus on a $250k video camera is great, but this is only $800 - you can probably afford to do another take if you don't like the first and maybe buy a decent house to go with it.

I'm currently machining a Merlin type zero g holder like this <http://vimeo.com/3803065>

</comment><comment><USER13> I haven't kept up with developments like this over the last couple of years, but I have done a lot of commercial and personal video. The new DSLRs with video seem like a great addition to anyone's tool set.

Question: _Regular_ video cameras don't allow "through the lens" focusing either. You focus by looking through an electronic view finder or by watching a monitor hooked up to an external video source from the camera. Is there not such for the DSLRs? If not, hey, great market opportunity...

</comment><comment><USER14> I always wondered how they shot the season finale of House MD with a Canon 5D, now I know.

Summary: DSLRs can't autofocus when shooting video. On movie sets there are people hired to pull focus manually, so it's not a problem for Hollywood. _You_ are better off using a camcorder or even a compact camera.

</comment><comment><USER15> Some good points.

Video through DSLRs is not there yet. But it does work in some situations. Since image quality is most associated with lenses, if they get all the bugs worked out video DSLR should be a dramatic improvement over the average flipcam (and you're not taking my flipcam away from me!)

Different tools for different things. Wait for version 3.

</comment><comment><USER16> "If something moves, you need a focus puller and a special rig with special Hollywood focusing hardware to shoot with a DSLR.

DSLR video is for serious professional production, which is why you'll see it promoted as being used on big productions."

So amateur/indie film makers cannot use manual focus. Riiiight.

<comment><USER17> With a crew size of 1 for a film with lots of moving shots, maybe not.

Time to bring back the 2x4 steadycam from Evil Dead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> For what it's worth, I know personally Ken does very well financially with his 1994 website.

</comment><comment><USER10> Here's a Canon with iPad software that manually does the follow focus <http://vimeo.com/12182384>

<comment><USER10> and here's an incredible shoulder mount for the canon that adds a monitor <http://vimeo.com/10594154> (no english video yet)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> An excellent article with detail on video shooting and how hollywood is different than shooting a wedding.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've been encountering Ken Rockwell's diatribes against digital photography for years. He's a stuck-in-the-mud traditionalist who is secretly afraid that the ever increasing accessibility of newer technology is going to put him out of business.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, I don't know. He seems pretty keen to invest in the new technology, if only so he can write about it on his web site to generate funds to buy more new (and old) stuff.

Would you think any differently of this article if it said 'Canon 5D Mark II Video: Why I Don't Care what you can do with this camera right now in 2010'? Because I don't read the article as saying 'video on DSLRs will never be useful', just 'this is why video on DSLRs isn't as useful right now as you might think it is', and that's a useful piece of information if you're thinking about buying one of these cameras today.

That said, what's probably odd for a technology review is that the only bit of futurology is the sentence 'DSLRs are not yet optimized for focus for video shooting as are camcorders and pocket cameras.' Subtle use of 'yet' there: everything else discusses the here and now.

<comment><USER20> I've seen him start dozen-page flamewars on photography boards over how "wrong" it is to print digital camera photos. He's notorious in photography circles as either a great defender of film or a troglodyte, depending on the reader's current tech investment.</comment></comment></comment>


Tips on reading and debugging other programmers' code - <AUTHOR> https://freelancemag.blogspot.com/2020/02/cracking-chaos-tips-on-reading-and.html <comment><USER2> Here's another point of view: don't read, nor attempt to understand, and certainly don't change what is not immediately relevant to the first bug you are assigned. Use the bug to guide your learning. Write a test for your bug... no testing framework? Add the first unit test, for your bug. Each task you do will guide you into the relevant part of the code. If you never venture into e.g. utils/common/math/sin.cpp that either means it is correct code you should not change, or that it is unused. In either case, it is irrelevant to your job.

Unfortunately, the kind of environments that throw you into unknown code often change your project so fast that any attempt to understand the system more deeply will be soon lost as you change project again.

This might be a nihilist view, but lots of coding jobs are essentially exercises in futility anyway, so might as well be efficient about it...

</comment><comment><USER3> No mention of tests?

If I need to debug someone's code, probably the first thing I ask is "are there test?" If you are lucky there might be some unit tests ... and they might even all pass too! :)

Sometimes it is easier to debug a test then it is to debug the whole thing (due to isolating the code you are interested in). Even if it is easier to debug the running application, having a semi-decent suite of tests is your lifebelt for making sure you are not inadvertently changing behavior directly or indirectly.

Other things I like to do:

\- ask if you are the best person to be doing this? Did it land in your inbox/task-list because people thought of your name first? Is there someone else better qualified/with-context who might be better to do anything before you even start thinking about it?

\- look at the change history of the code you are debugging - is it a "hot spot" that has had a lot of different hands fiddling around with it in the past (indicative of code that might have been troublesome and/or buggy in the past, with the risk of dirty hacks increasing as the number of changes per LOC increases...), or has it not been touched since check-in #1? If there have been lots of changes in that code go through the changes and look at the associated bug reports to make sure that any existing unit tests cover those scenarios (you may want to add them yourself if not, before you make any changes).

\- when reading someone else's code I actually find it better _not_ to try to equip myself with all of the domain knowledge and docs. Often if the original developers are long-gone then the docs will likely be way out of date anyway, and sometimes it is easier to just be laser-focused on the parts you care about rather than try and get a handle on the whole system. I guess it depends on what you are doing though - i.e. simple bug-fixes or doing something more far-reaching).

<comment><USER4> If it even _can_ be tested. I've spent decades now dealing with beginning Java programmer's preference for the relative simplicity of static initializers; that is, code that starts trying to connect to a live database as soon as you run it in a way that can't be mocked out without making dangerous changes to the code in the first place.

<comment><USER5> There are improved mocking libraries these days with much more power, so the everything-must-be-an-interface pattern is no longer required most of the time.

If writing testable code means writing obfuscated code, it's a good sign that the language ecosystem needs to improve, and for Java, it has.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you are working on an old code base for a reasonable time I recommend to get to know the old developers. Check out the commit history, who wrote what, talk with them a bit if they are still around to get a feel for them. After a while you will probably see patterns, guy A usually wrote solid code, guy B a bit more sloppy. If you are investigating a bug in a specific area of the code use git blame and start investigating any additions by guy B first

<comment><USER2> Also, have the humility and the generosity to assume complex code is that way for some reason. The people who came before you are not likely to be such bigger idiots than you. If something looks wacko, slow down and ask yourself how it got to be that way.

<comment><USER7> 1\. Get to know old developers 2\. Then decide whether to have humility or not on a case-by-case basis.

There _are_ idiots out there.

<comment><USER8> When do you think humility isn't warranted?

<comment><USER9> This is a rule of thumb. You should always check your assumptions about code being correct or not. However, if somebody and their code have proven themselves unreliable, it is a useful optimization to first consider they are wrong, instead of first considering they are right (humility.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Skip 1 and 2. 3 becomes the new 1.

2\. Find an entry point. If it's a CL find main and then where params are parsed. If it is a GUI or web app find a form or menu.

3\. Don't debug, READ the code and trace with pencil and paper for notes. If you're debugging you're not reading.

Wash, rinse and repeat a few times. Note all questions you may have.

Now go find a domain expert to answer your questions.

<comment><USER11> Yes, exactly this. I worked support for many years, fixing bugs in other developer's code.

The most efficient way to find the problem and fix it is to find a string and start pulling it. Don't waste your time researching everything - you don't where that problem is yet.

You're either starting from "when I try A, B happens, but I want C" or you're looking at "the logs show this error (or just stop after last successful action)".

Use that as a starting place and follow it carefully until you get to the suspect behavior. _Then_ start learning what's going and why it's wrong. Half the time, it's a red herring and you need to keep looking elsewhere.

It's take some effort to put on the blinders and ignore everything else, and you need to be OK with not knowing how some parts of the system work. If you need to know it to fix the problem, you'll learn about it in the course of your investigation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd like to flip this around for a second. A note to management/leadership:

1) Never assume the person(s) writing the code will be available in the future.

2) Any given sprint should auto-add task/time for documenting and such. An hour or two now could save 5x, 10x or more later.

3) The more critical the feature/functionality, the more important #2 becomes.

<comment><USER13> #2 is a systemic problem in most environments. Especially in the engineering/enterprise space, many things exist only as "tribal knowledge". This is not just a cs problem, but a general problem that all managers should be aware of.

<comment><USER12> Agree. But if new person is marketing misses something nbd. If transaction system X or Y stop then continuity is essentially.

With that said/in mind, I couple probably take the stand that this is because (e.g., marketing or finance) believe app dev/IT is identical to them. Bad assumption. Very bad assumption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't forget, once you reach "senior" level (about 5 years experience), you're expected to be able to do this in a day or two, regardless of codebase size or complexity.

<comment><USER14> I wouldn't say this is an expectation. Depending on the size and quality of code, you may be able to identify what's going on in a code base within a day, or understanding it may require weeks. Then you probably want to document what you've found, so you can delegate whatever new features you need to implement or modify. And this can stretch longer if the nature of your tasks requires a deeper investigation of whatever dependencies (lets say other services or libraries) the code base depends on.

I've been at a couple of the large FAANGs. You don't need to be able to do all of this on a day. If you do, your management fundamentally doesn't understand what's going on. If you're at a senior level, it's your job to communicate. If you have non technical stakeholders, you must be able to take complex topics and break them down and influence your stakeholders to agree to the right thing or at least explicitly accept the cost of what it is you lose by doing A over B or C.

Edit: I did work at a company before where something like this was an expectation, and not just from senior folks. The underlying issue was the manager chain upwards was all people managers who fundamentally don't know the first thing about software development. The best you can do in that situation is break down the problem, size components, and communicate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As a long-time maintenance programmer, I offer kudos to the author of this piece.

As a group, we need to better understand how to read and debug code written by others.

<comment><USER16> Literature may be sparse but exists. See Working Effectively with Legacy Code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The legacy code change algorithm:

1\. Identify change points.

2\. Find test points.

3\. Break dependencies.

4\. Write tests.

5\. Make changes and refactor.

Working Effectively with Legacy Code, 2004, p. 18</comment>


Show HN: Slack, embed in your website, in 2 minutes – any feedback? - <AUTHOR> https://kommunity.co <comment><USER2> Cool idea. However, as an end user, I would prefer not to have to create an account to ask a question.

<comment><AUTHOR> interesting, thank you for the feedback</comment></comment>


Conservation Drones - <AUTHOR> http://conservationdrones.org/about-2/ <comment><USER2> "During flight, the electric motor of the drone does produce vibrations which could result in vibration blur in photographs. As a solution, we created a vibration dampening system using low density packing foam. We later discovered that the common kitchen sponge works equally well as a construction material. This instrument for Stable Placement of ONboard Gear and Equipment (iSPONGE) successfully removes vibration blur."

</comment><comment><USER3> I have the ardupilot APM2 board. It was trivially simple to drop into my Parkzone Trojan 28D (there's a lot of space in the airframe) stuck on with some velcro.

The most difficult thing was waiting for the board to get a GPS lock (sometimes it felt like an eternity but it's quick enough now), making a hole so I can plug in the USB without having to remove the board each time and trying to work on a laptop screen in full daylight...

The best bit so far (for me) is not so much the UAV part but the fact that in "stabilize" mode, you can put the aircraft in any situation (diving, stalling etc) and just let go of the sticks and it'll level out in seconds and in "return to launch" mode it will just lazily circle above your head at a predetermined altitude.

I'm looking forward to trying "geofencing" soon - which is creating an invisible boundary and minimum altitude. Go outside (or under) that and the autopilot takes over and brings the plane back to you.

</comment><comment><USER4> Thats awesome. On demand city aerial surveillance anyone? Put a smartphone in there and use its camera and high speed mobile internet and the great reception up in the air to stream live.

</comment><comment><USER2> great idea and project!

</comment><comment><USER5> Music?

</comment><comment><USER6> These would be great for hunting rhinos.</comment>


Ask HN: Please provide feedback on my idea - <AUTHOR>

I am starting a small saas side project that seeks to help magazine/catalog/newsletter publishers engage and retain their readers .The project seeks to  make it easy for the publishers add interactive elements such as (videos, slideshows and hot spots) to their pdf publications .  I know that its not easy , what i am looking for is for feedback on the idea as well as any advise you might have (especially if you are a publisher in the industry ). For those who might be interested I have created a launch site http://www.livelypaper.com [Update] An incomplete demo is here<p>http://livelypaper.com/demo <comment><USER2> I think this is neat idea, especially if there was a way to ab test and collect data. I agree with natch in that you should put up a demo, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://livelypaper.com/demo/](http://livelypaper.com/demo/) . This is just flippage effect, Interactive elements are coming soon!

<comment><USER3> Personally, I'd stay away from the 'flippage effect' unless it is done strikingly well. On my Mac, your page flip wasn't smooth, and your fonts looked pixelated.

As design moves away from skeumorphism and imitating real world objects, page flips will start to look passe. Just my 2 cents.

<comment><USER4> _On my Mac, your page flip wasn 't smooth, and your fonts looked pixelated_

It looks beautiful on my Samsung Galaxy Note 3. Maybe it is optimized for mobile?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes im trying to make it mobile friendly although it is under heavy development. Their is still a long way to go .Thanks for your feedback i appreciate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> <clickable> [http://www.livelypaper.com](http://www.livelypaper.com)

</comment><comment><USER5> You should put up a demo PDF to gain some credibility.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback, The output will be a HTML5 files produced from converted pdf file.I will put some demo on that page as soon as possible.</comment></comment>


Let me Bing that for you - <AUTHOR> http://letmebingthatforyou.com/?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+bubble&go=&qs=ds&form=QBRE

<comment><USER2> I feel slightly embarrassed when I hear people say "bing it". I also think of Ned Ryerson.

<comment><USER3> People say this? In a not totally forced way?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pretty cool, but that front page is relatively old compared to the new one. (<http://www.bing.com>)

</comment><comment><USER5> Nicely done! I like that you used the referring site (or at least int his case Hacker News) to fill in the search field.

<comment><USER6> Looks like it was hardcoded in the URL submitted to HN - nice hack, but I agree with others that "bing" isn't really a widely accepted verb like "Google" is.

"Let me search that for you" might make more sense for now.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not the creator. I just needed an example query. :)</comment></comment></comment>


How the United Arab Emirates Intelligence Tried to Hire Me to Spy on Its People - <AUTHOR> https://www.evilsocket.net/2016/07/27/How-The-United-Arab-Emirates-Intelligence-Tried-to-Hire-me-to-Spy-on-its-People/#.V5kvSWj9f78.hackernews <comment><USER2> It is not mentioned in the article, but the UAE is a country with sharia law: Flogging is a punishment for criminal offences such as adultery, premarital sex and alcohol consumption, while apostasy and homosexuality are crimes punishable by death. Amputation and crucification are legal punishments. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Ara...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates)

I wonder if the author is afraid of retribution (e.g. abduction, "disappearance").

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't know that! ... anyway, yes I'm afraid, I just did what I felt to be my "duty" and hope for the best :)

<comment><USER2> Just never – ever – visit UAE again.

<comment><USER3> I like the UAE.

As long as you don't break their laws the experience is fine. To be honest, I'm more frightened of going to America as a non-white person where even obeying the laws can result in death.

Edit: If you disagree with my post please add to the conversation rather than just down-voting.

<comment><USER4> Your comment shows the level of misinformation and reputation damage done by media and various social movements. America is safe for all law-abiding persons. Not only do I disagree with your comment, but I find it offensive that you would propagate the myth. It's damaging and unsubstantiated.

<comment><USER5> > America is safe for all law-abiding persons

Your comment shows the level of misinformation and reputation damage done by media and various social movements. Not only do I disagree with your comment, but I find it offensive that you would propagate the myth. It's damaging and unsubstantiated.

"why did you shoot me?" "I don't know" [1]

[1] [https://mobile.twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/7566992798261...](https://mobile.twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/756699279826137088)

<comment><USER4> You going to base an entire argument on one example?

<comment><USER6> You are the one who said America is safe for _all_ law-abiding citizens. One example invalidates your claim handily.

<comment><USER4> Then we can argue about the definition of safe, or the reasonable expectation of safety. But it seems that Hacker News would rather point to one example which apparently "invalidates" the claim "handily". What do you consider safe then? If you are determined to argue based on one example; Do you not take a risk starting a business? Do you not take a risk eating foods? Do you not take a risk driving?

There are reasonable mistakes made in the course of living and of any action. So if you want to exaggerate the claim of one (or even a few) examples to the point of making it appear as an epidemic in America; then I will hold you to a higher standard than the half-assed arguments that I see here. Many people engaged with these narratives are grossly misrepresenting legitimate claims of police brutality or racial discrimination. If you cannot be honest in debate, then I would also not expect the same to be honest in any proposed solution. Blatant misrepresentation by so many; it's disgusting.

<comment><USER7> If we can argue about the definition of safe, then "America is safe" is meaningless. Why don't you help us out by defining how you measure safety, and "law abiding" for that matter. Is anybody in the US rigorously law-abiding? Based on what evidence?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Little known fact:

Most top intelligence officials from Western countries retire to form "security analysis and consulting" firms.

Rudy Giuliani has such a firm. [http://www.giulianisecurity.com/index.php/us/](http://www.giulianisecurity.com/index.php/us/)

His former Police Chief has one. [http://www.thekerikgroup.com/](http://www.thekerikgroup.com/)

Most former U.S. Secretaries of Homeland Security have one (each). Look up [https://chertoffgroup.com/team.php](https://chertoffgroup.com/team.php)

Ever wondered what exactly they do? They help wealthy dictators and despots in other countries monitor their populations, and crush dissent.

</comment><comment><USER9> Puts me in mind of Moxie's experience in a similar incident with Mobily and Saudi Arabia[1]

[1]: [https://moxie.org/blog/saudi- surveillance/](https://moxie.org/blog/saudi-surveillance/)

<comment><AUTHOR> to be honest, finding out that someone else disclosed something very similar in the past has been a big contribution to my final decision to publish the post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I lived in UAE for 10 years.

All I can say is...it's not a "bad" place if:

1) you are working as a direct hire for any of the govt companies (Adnoc, Etisalat, etc.).

2) if not, you are contracted directly by those companies

3) if you are on contract and your visa's sponsor is good (won't take your passport on arrival, won't create issues when you need to leave, etc.)

4) If you keep your head down basically - go to work, come home, have fun - Don't get involved in politics, using encrypted chatting applications, talking about human rights or anything along those lines.

oh and there's definitely a lot of brain washing going on. Almost everyone claims that it's the best place to be, discrimination ain't a thing (yes it is), everyone's fair (nope) and so on...

<comment><USER11> Question: if "using encrypted chatting applications" is banned, can on use iMessage?

<comment><USER10> I'm not too sure about iMessage (I was a kid when it first debuted in UAE).

But I do remember them having an outright ban on BBM (for about 3 days) till Blackberry had a local datacenter (and I believe provided the govt access to the messages - I am not sure about the details in parenthesis).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm pretty sure the UAE is obsessed with spying. Personal anecdote: I once dated a girl who's the daughter of a high ranking official (while she was in the US), and the government spied on her text messages and forced her to break up with me. At least according to her.

<comment><USER13> Elaborate on "forced"

<comment><USER12> Someone from the UAE government, possibly a relative, met up with her with a printout of all the conversations and then heavily pressured her to break up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> @evilsocket FYI, the <pre> blocks on that page are really hard to read on mobile because the line breaks are enforced, requiring left-right scrolling. Seems like a blockquote would be a better choice here.

<comment><AUTHOR> that should be fixed now, thanks

<comment><USER15> NB: you've fixed the _styling_ (renders fairly reasonably on my 10" tablet) but not the _markup_.

<pre> should be used for preformatted code blocks or similar.

When you're quoting something, the appropriate markup is a <blockuquote> tag pair.

Most sane CSS should render _that_ reasonably, preferably simply by indenting the content.

<comment><AUTHOR> i write posts in markdown, they're then "compiled" into html, I should fix the software I'm using ... but as long as it works, for me it's ok, being it styling or markup :)

<comment><USER14> In markdown I think a blockquote is indicated by >, so:

> This is a quote

> it is rendered as a blockquote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It looks like Britain's got competition for the dubious award of most surveilled country.

But seriously, this is an absolutely despicable act on the part of the UAE. And that fact that Tor's security has come into question of late just makes it worse (not that Tor would help you with this sort of thing).

</comment><comment><USER17> Look Dubai is all for the biggest and largest, so if they are getting serious about surveillance, you can bet they ll want to boast about it.

Also of note is that dubai is ~85% immigrants, which i think it the object of their surveillance.

<comment><USER18> Heck no, it's the local nationals they care about:

The UAE's bizarre, political trial of 94 activists

[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/06/uae- tri...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/06/uae- trial-94-activists)

They seem to have everyone pretty cowed. They treat the guest workers like dirt, but don't seem to be concerned about a slave revolt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Another brilliant example on why people should shun travelling to and most notably _through_ these countries. The UAE is not a safe place to travel through at all. As others have said, the laws are different.

People have been detained for reasons beyond imagination.

[https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-woman-faces-insult-charge- unit...](https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-woman-faces-insult-charge-united-arab- emirates-151700874.html)

[http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/general/jailed-and-fined-for- no...](http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/general/jailed-and-fined-for-no-fault-of- his-1.232118)

[http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/561528/British-plane- spo...](http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/561528/British-plane-spotters- arrested-prison-Dubai-UAE)

</comment><comment><USER20> That's interesting... DarkMatter LLC has an office here in Mississauga, ON, CA. I kept wondering what the hell they do exactly. Their online presence is a bit vague and ominous.

<comment><AUTHOR> now you know :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It is really funny the article, you say you use signal to communicate which is totally interceptable nowadays, you register using your real phone, so i could trace you and intercept your real phone!. If you are a real top goverment security guy NEVER use signal my friend. Seems you are newbie on the security scene.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not really sure who you're talking to ... they asked me to use Signal, honestly I didn't really care ...

<comment><USER2> Signal is bad for other reasons, too, like creating a lock-in effect and being hostile to clients that remove the dependency on Google Play Services: [http://news.dieweltistgarnichtso.net/posts/signal-lock- in.ht...](http://news.dieweltistgarnichtso.net/posts/signal-lock-in.html)

<comment><USER22> You could also say that Signal is good because they realized the shortcomings of federation and want to sign their binaries themselves.

<comment><USER2> What would those shortcomings be? I think that networked software systems should be forward-compatible, so that new features can be introduced without breaking every existing client. Some programmers assert the only way to innovate is by having everyone run the latest version of their software and excluding competing implementations. You can see this phenomenon not only with Signal, but also, for example, with systemd.

<comment><USER22> > What would those shortcomings be?

Moxie wrote about it:

[https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is- moving/](https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


StackExchange for Operations Research - <AUTHOR> http://or-exchange.stackexchange.com

<comment><USER2> So do stack exchange sites automatically get submitted to HN as part of the creation process?

<comment><AUTHOR> I do not know. I submitted it by hand, less than 3 hours after it was created</comment></comment>


Sonder: E-Ink Keyboard - <AUTHOR> https://sonderdesign.com/keyboard/ <comment><USER2> I see lots of people commenting that this sort of keyboard is a gimmick because it's a waste of time to look at keys while you type. As a programmer, I get that logic. But there are times when I would 100% love a keyboard that could allow me to use different key layouts and visually see the layout. The first use-case for me is when switching language layouts. I'm tri-lingual and use different keyboard layouts to be able to type characters in other languages. But every time I switch languages, I forget where the punctuation and other symbol keys have moved to. It's a pain in the ass to have to switch layouts just because I can't remember where a question mark or a curly bracket is in the language I'm using. Second, occasionally do design and video editing on the side. Not often enough to memorize keyboard shortcuts like I do with programming. But especially with video editing, if you're not using keyboard shortcuts and hunting through menus instead, the work is extremely slowed down. Lastly, games. I game from time to time, but each game I play has different controls mapped to the keyboard. I can't usually remember more than 4 or 5 controls for the duration of a gaming session, so being able to see what's what would make my gaming experience much more enjoyable.

All that being said, I'm not holding my breath for this keyboard. The design isn't polished enough, I doubt software support for my use cases will be common any time soon, and I just don't see hundreds of little screens being cost effective or reliable hardware. I hope I'm wrong though.

<comment><USER3> Plus I can totally see plenty of applications for it:

\- fn keys that show what mode you are in. I never know if I'm going to hit F3 or "sound up".

\- locking keys: is uppercase is locked or not? Am I at one press for ` ? Have I triggered ^ ?

\- show special char combinations: press alt-gr, and the keyboard show you the signs like €, ¤ or | that you can enter.

\- per app shortcut displays: imagine, you click ctrl + and all other keys change to show what they can do.

\- game shortcuts: when you launch it wasd become arrows, shift become jump, etc

<comment><USER4> This is what the Macbook touchbar is for (with, granted, no tactility). And, to put it mildly, it divides opinion. I really miss my muscle memory for media keys on my mac.

<comment><USER5> I hate the touchbar. I am a professional programmer and need all the keys I can get. The touchbar removed a number of keys that I used with Emacs, and in return I get little tiny picture that I have to look at before using. Right now the Touch Bar is mostly showing the three words that my Mac thinks I might be typing next based on the prefix that I've already typed. Really? Does it think that after typing D followed by o as I start this sentence that I want to look at the touchbar to see it's guesses and then press 'Does' to save typing the e key followed by the s key. Its a totally stupid feature on a keyboard for people that know how to type.

<comment><USER6> i wonder if it has more utility if the suggestions were restricted to words longer than, say, 6 letters, where spelling confusion might slow down typing enough to make the tradeoff?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Their website won't load, but it looks like they've been working on a prototype of a keyboard that has e-ink displays on each switch since around 2016.

This has been attempted before: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard) but with LCDs (or maybe they were OLEDs, since all the reviewers complain about burn-in). The reviews were overwhelmingly negative and you can pick one up cheap used because nobody wants them.

Overall, I find these designs awfully expensive on many fronts. Looking at the keyboard is a huge productivity sink, and if you stop looking at the keyboard, you won't care what the legends look like. And, having 101 screens attached to your keyboard is pretty costly compared to having 0 screens. I think these make for a good conversation piece, but I'm not sure you'd prefer typing on them to a keyboard with a better layout and better switches. And if you want a macro pad, just get a stream deck, which you can buy with same-day shipping instead of crowdfunding it. (Or just build your own. There are tons of kits out there that cost on the order of $10. No per-key screens though.)

<comment><USER8> I could see them being useful for keyboard designs with very few keys, like [https://olkb.com/collections/planck](https://olkb.com/collections/planck).

If you have deeply-nested layers, having some way to identify what state your keyboard is in can be helpful. Having screens instead of LEDs is definitely an expensive luxury, though.

<comment><USER7> True. Personally I have 3 LEDs on my keyboard that I use to show the current layer (in binary). I then carefully numbered my layers so that I use 0, 1, 2, and 4 in preference to others ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And here I was hoping it was a normal keyboard, with eink key caps. Instead it's what looks like the worst possible design for implementing a solidly obvious idea.

(I still don't know why people tried this with LED screen keycaps instead of doing eink first, and then were surprised a $250, one-trick keyboard didn't fly off the shelves)

<comment><USER10> $250 is a perfectly acceptable price for the keyboard enthusiast space; but that's not a massive market compared to regular keyboards.

<comment><USER9> As a keyboard enthusiast: not really. $250 is daily driver territory, not "kickstarter keyboard" pricing.

<comment><USER10> My daily driver is $350, so yeah.

Just saying that you can charge some pretty high prices to enthusiasts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This reddit poster is not very encouraging [https://www.reddit.com/r/keyboards/comments/ae8x4u/eink_keyb...](https://www.reddit.com/r/keyboards/comments/ae8x4u/eink_keyboard_the_sonder_scam/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body)

<comment><USER12> This whole thing sounds like scam. I don't think this keyboard is possible to make at $199. Every piece of eink display under the cap costs a few bucks. Then you need insane custom switching board to multiplex all these displays with SPI lines. Probably needs an FPGA to do it fast and reliably. The raw BOM cost alone will be $100 or more.

Fabbing a custom size eink display will cost $200K in tooling + R&D if only they could find a fab that is willing to do sub 100k MOQ orders. Otherwise, it is upwards of $500k. The thing is, no other customer will ever buy a 12x12mm eink display since it is too small to do anything useful, so the eink display manf cannot ammortize the cost of a new line spin up and tooling. It has to be captured and it will be costly.

<comment><USER13> > This whole thing sounds like scam. I don't think this keyboard is possible > to make at $199. Every piece of eink display under the cap costs a few > bucks.

It would most likely have a single large display, like the Optimus Popularis. Uglier and less convenient, but way the hell cheaper.

<comment><USER14> You still pay through your nose for large eInk displays though. I don't get what the fuck makes them so expensive... probably patent issues.

<comment><USER15> I'd guess low demand as well. Compared to any other type of screen, eInk is extremely niche. E-Readers and some mass produced wearables (Pebble) made it work, but even those had a fairly small market.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Pebble wasn't eink, weirdly enough; it was a "Sharp Memory transflective LCD" (which did have very similar properties, granted).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone remember the Samsung Alias 2? It was a dual-hinge flip phone with e-ink keys. When you flipped it open in portrait mode, the keys would display a number pad, and if you opened it in landscape mode the key labels changed to a QWERTY layout.

Photos:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=samsung+alias+2&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=samsung+alias+2&tbm=isch)

Details:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_U750_Alias_2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_U750_Alias_2)

<comment> a-wu I had both the Alias and Alias 2. I absolutely loved the Alias because it was so great for texting. The Alias 2 was a cool idea but I felt that the e-ink key refresh was too slow and the keys were mushy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> the website doesn't even work for me but I looked up some images, and even if this thing actually exists and isn't vaporware, it looks like a truly bad keyboard. All the things that actually matter in a keyboard (key feel, travel, ergonomics) are all things this design gets dead wrong. It seems mostly modelled after the apple mac keyboard (which has awful key feel and even worse ergonomics) and to be incredibly short-travel. The design also seems to have no respect at all for any ergonomics improvements made to keyboards in the past 20 years.

Also, anybody buying a high-end keyboard will probably be able to touch type anyway, so what is the point of this product even? When you're using a computer, you're looking at your display, not your keyboard.

<comment><USER8> It's really unfortunate to see how tightly product designers hold on to the traditional staggered-typewriter layout.

People tend to believe that more esoteric designs won't sell, but the $300+ model01 I'm typing this comment with begs to differ. It seems to me like they are targeting the wrong market.

<comment><USER18> My ergodox, lily58, atreus, and soon sofle also beg to differ.

<comment><USER8> Sofle looks nice. I really like the idea of having dials on-board.

The only thing I would miss is the thumb-cluster design of the Model01. Having thumb keys a little farther to the side, and having a thumb-knuckle key is really comfortable.

The extra portability of the lily58/sofle design would be nice, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> See also:

2016 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12830307](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12830307)

2015 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9809906](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9809906)

and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9688646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9688646)

</comment><comment><USER20> That keyboard has been 'available soon' on the sonder site for at least 4 years now. Going to go ahead and call vaporware.

</comment><comment><USER21> Professional applications, e.g. video nonlinear editing, have a huge number of shortcut keys. You can buy entire keyboards with colored key caps that are labeled with shortcuts for a single application like Final Cut Pro.

Would be great for that.

</comment><comment><USER22> Apparently there's some debate whether or not this is a real product, but if it is, I'd love this in a compact keyboard form like a Kyria, Lily58, or Corne. Those keyboards are less than 60 keys so they require layers to get at what doesn't fit on the default layout.

This sounds like a hassle but ergonomically it's very good! Your fingers travel and stretch less this way. Someone asked me if I type as fast or faster with my Ergodox. I told them I don't measure but that's not even the biggest feature, but the fact that I'm not moving my whole hand up to the number row for digits and symbols.

The downside to this is that layers are deeply personal and changing them can bring some friction as a user re-learns the layout. I've resorted to screenshotting and printing my layers at times when I try a new paradigm. Having dynamic key labels would be a godsend for this sort of keyboard-user relationship.

<comment><USER23> > Those keyboards are less than 60 keys so they require layers to get at what > doesn't fit on the default layout.

This is the one reason that has kept me from switching to an ergodox/keyboard.io/… keyboard. I want _as many keys as possible_ , not fewer! For instance, I would never buy a keyboard without a proper row of function keys. I'm already finding it hard to decide what to bind them to because there are so many things I use and need on a regular basis…

> This sounds like a hassle but ergonomically it's very good!

It's not. The fewer keys you have, the more you'll be inclined to resort to key combinations for your window manager / editor / … and these are generally bad from an ergonomic point of view. Even with multiple key board layers or modal editing, you still have to press far more keys to get done what on a larger keyboard would take you one single key stroke.

<comment><USER22> Hard disagree on the smaller keyboards being less ergonomic, at least from anecdata. Plus even with something as simple as a Corne, that's 108 keys with a raise and lower layer at its most basic. With that in mind your desire for more keys is attained!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The idea, if implemented well, is amazing. Most helpful for typing in native languages, other than english. The software on the desktop can update / modify keys based on user interactions and options.

Can anyone tell me of any vendors for those tiny e-ink screens?

I have been looking forever for screens that can fit into a keycaps.

edit: Even non e-ink screens are ok.

edit: Upon closer inspection of the images, and more importantly, their library page, it looks like they have a giant e-ink screen and transparent keys. This is a clever design and I would consider it a win if the mechanical performance of the keys is on par with regular keyboards.

</comment><comment><USER25> It's a scam and has been around for years

</comment><comment><USER26> Such a cool idea wasted in copying a trash design... Pity. Apple keyboards are the worst in several aspects.

</comment><comment><USER27> Great concept but to me does not make that much sense. Because there are no extra keys. So what is the point of having re-programmable keys if you'll have to reprogram the keys that you are already using? Function keys are not so useful as they are too far away from main typing area (at least for me). An extra vertical row of keys on the left however would be great. I would order such a keyboard. (Currently I am using an International English one and there's an extra key, § which I re-programmed with different modifiers for several functions. A whole row of extra keys would be just amazing!)

</comment><comment><USER28> This looked nice. I really want a keyboard that changes it's keycaps when I change language. But then I read this bit "all your settings are saved automatically to the cloud"

WTF! My keyboard requires cloud access?

No. Just no

</comment><comment><USER29> Great, finally programming languages can expect even beginners to keep typing characters like ⊢ with little difficulty. Your editor plugin will also include keyboard customization.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is kind of cool but I think has the same problem (though does it better) then the apple function bar thing.

I don't want to look at my hands as I'm working, I want to look at what I'm doing.

Icons on keys also force me to lift my hands from the homerow as 80% of them are obscured by your hand positions.

The value of having the shortcuts on the keys isn't very high compared to a higher quality keyboard and onscreen cheatsheet if needed.

</comment><comment><USER31> I believe if Apple can replace the stupid touch-bar with a row of e-ink keys. That will solve a lot of my problems. I myself have been imagining such a keyboard for longest time; happy to see somebody is thinking in same direction. This can be awesome thing for POS, and domain specific software getting rid of those finger twisting combinations.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'd love a full travel keyboard. I'm not sure "Keyboard Enthusiasts" want a Mac style keyboard.

While I don't often need to look at keys when doing normal typing, I still do when programming APL. And I never remember the keys when using After Effects / Premiere. Having programmable caps would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER33> I just want to be able to use emacs with an e-ink display... any little machines out there for that?

<comment><USER34> You can put ssh on a jailbroken kindle

<comment><USER33> I thought about that, is it possible to use it with a bluetooth keyboard?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This keyboard can be useful to learn Dvorak or other non qwerty systems of typing while still being able to quickly change back and forth. Many Keyboard covers come in the way of typing, especially when trying to up your speed with Dvorak.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm pretty stoked for my Atreus, shipping (hopefully) this fall.

[https://kickstarter.com/projects/keyboardio/atreus](https://kickstarter.com/projects/keyboardio/atreus)

<comment><USER37> Mine shipped yesterday! Really looking forward to learning it.

<comment><USER36> I ordered after the kickstarter ended, so it'll be a while for me. It's ok, i have split boards to play with in the meantime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Not all the keys can change and the ones that can't are all Mac ones which limits the adoption of Windows users which like it or not are still the vast majority

</comment><comment><USER39> Reminds me of that OLED keyboard ... Optimus I believe it was called ... I wonder if anything ever came of that, or if it's still vaporware.

<comment><USER40> it was a real product. possibly still is. IIRC it was over $1000 by the time they released it, and it wasn't a very good keyboard.

the much cooler thing that came out of that project was the "mini 3": [https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/mini- three/](https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/mini-three/)

(side note - their website has possibly the best cookie disclosure on the internet)

<comment><USER13> The Mini 3 was basically the original demo of the concept.

The studio then released the full-size Maximus for $2068 using an OLED per key.

They later released the Popularis, originally intended as a cheaper sub-$1000 model using a single large OLED for all keys. They did end up releasing it but with various additional tradeoffs (a "compact" keyboard without a numpad) and at a fairly expensive $1086.

Concurrently, they released cut-down keypads with 6 and 15 keys, also at fairly expensive $376 and $534.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'd like this but with the typematrix layout, which is ortholinear and with enter and backspace in the center.

</comment><comment><USER42> Cheaper than Apple's magic keyboard who's gimmick is... magnets! >_<

</comment><comment><USER43> Sweet, I would program this thing for blender and resolve.

</comment><comment><USER44> What's the point of Eink on a keyboard? Anyone stare at their keyboard for hours at a time? Isn't Eink is supposed to help you read without screen fatigue?

Why not make Eink spoons and forks next? /sarcasm

<comment><USER45> Learning to type in a new language maybe?

I've used stickers for that before[1] but it would cool to be able change the labels on the keys automatically. :-)

[1] Like this: [https://www.amazon.com/HRH-Keyboard-Stickers-Background- Lett...](https://www.amazon.com/HRH-Keyboard-Stickers-Background- Lettering/dp/B076FX1HHH/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=thai+keyboard+stickers&qid=1590947914&sr=8-4)

<comment><USER16> Original IBM PC users may remember a program from 1983 called WordVision that came with keyboard stickers. There's a picture of the sticker sheet here:

[https://forum.winworldpc.com/discussion/10869/software- spotl...](https://forum.winworldpc.com/discussion/10869/software-spotlight- wordvision)

It was an idea that really only worked if WordVision was the only app you used on the PC. Plus the stickers got dirty around the edges and came loose after a while.

Fun fact: WordVision was designed by Jim Edlin, no relation to the 'edlin' command line text editor that shipped with MS-DOS and PC-DOS.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the biggest fads in software engineering right now? - <AUTHOR>

For one, I could think of Big Data/ Hadoop. In the past one year, at least ten "coaching institutes" have sprang up in the area I live (in Bangalore) claiming to teach Hadoop and promising high paying jobs.
I went in there for a "demo session", and they are like "you can learn Hadoop and get a high paying job with absolutely no programming experience".
Anyway, these places always get some kind of gullible people.
I think this is a fad, and it will die down soon. What do you think about this ? Do you think there are any other fads like this ? <comment><USER2> React is on the way up.

"Big Data" and "Machine Learning" on the way down.

Theres a reasonably sized part of the software industry/ecosystem that likes to be really vocal about 1 thing every 12-18 months.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nearly every time I log onto HN someones created a new .js project/framework/solution/whatever for something. Its usually a variation of some .js project that already exists.

<comment><USER4> Some who'll launch .js TLD will make a killing on all these suckers :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Completely subjective opinion from being avid HN user it would be Functional Programming, React Flavours, JS Frameworks with a sprinkle of ML. I have to say however, that apart from the ongoing dilution of the JS ecosystem it would feel like a very good development to leaner, less entangled, data-driven architectures with respect to new mongo-core era.

</comment><comment><USER6> Everything in the software industry is a "fad". How else can we keep marketers employed? ;)

</comment><comment><USER7> Dynamic languages on the backend?

<comment> liviu- That's been more or less the de facto standard for more than a decade.

<comment><USER7> I think Java on the backend is still the de facto standard...</comment></comment></comment>