Why Is 'Affordable' Housing So Expensive to Build? - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/10/why-is-affordable-housing-so-expensive-to-build/543399/ <comment><USER2> I was expecting something else...

Let's be frank, affordable housing typically isn't expensive. Construction costs around the country and indeed the developed world aren't too far apart. In the US it's about $100-200 per square foot, in Western-Europe it's €1000-1500 per square metre.

The problem isn't really in construction, typically. Of course, there's always room for improvement everywhere, in construction too. But the big culprit are land prices. Take the Mission, they quote units costing $600k each, not affordable housing. But you're talking about a place where you need to pay $1.5m to just buy the piece of land on which you then build three small $100k units, for an average of $600k each.

Completely different story from the $100k unit in 'Portland', which was actually Gresham, east of Portland, where the average square foot price to buy land+home is <$200. Oh and the units were 375 square foot... $100k is expensive, if anything. The author completely ignores the market realities, again, mostly of expensive land prices.

And this creates the debate as to whether we should subsidise such housing. After all, if you put the same quality house in another city with cheaper land, you could build 4x as many homes, or twice as many that are twice as big or twice as luxurious. Why should we subsidise a fraction of our poor people to live in the most expensive place on the planet with public money that could go towards helping a larger fraction of people?

That's a though question to answer, I find... and I struggle with it, especially because I'm one of those guys who's in favour of these subsidies. Economic segregation is damaging in many ways, plenty of sociological studies have shown. It's important to keep our cities accessible to everyone and create a healthy mix of people from all socioeconomic backgrounds, as opposed to rich enclaves and poor ghettos. But, finding the balance is hard. I don't live in the US but we have similar problems here in Western-Europe with subsidised housing, at the end of the day it's an issue of land prices skyrocketing, it doesn't have as much to do with construction costs as we tend to think. And it's really hard to find the right balance of using public money to buy expensive land for a small group of people.

<comment><USER3> The obvious solution to this is to build taller and thus more expensive housing in major city's. Unfortunately simply building large buildings like this directly results in 'slums'.

I suspect the way around this is to require the first X floors to be affordable housing without subsidy, and then let people build as many expensive floors above this as they want. This attacks the problem from both ends by reducing the impact of land prices, avoiding blighted areas, etc. But, avoids directly handing money to developers which is a clear avenue for corruption.

<comment><USER4> That plan causes a whole set of other problems when actually executed. First off, two big factors in the price of an apartment are location and amenities of the building. So you can't really build affordable and luxury units in the same building. What you end up with is luxury units and subsidized units. That is certainly a category of "affordable", but the result is a bunch of people will get angry sharing their building with other residents who are paying a fraction of the price for basically the same apartments.

Also not everyone who needs affordable housing is a working class family that is trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. You can get a lot of "less desirable" residents like current and recovering addicts or people with mental illnesses. They obviously deserve affordable housing, but you will find that plenty of people who buy luxury apartments don't want to share the elevator with them.

You can just check the Yelp reviews of any building that has a mix of luxury and subsidized housing to see examples of these issues. Buildings like this always attract bad reviews, suffer from high turnover, and therefore have low occupancy rates among their luxury units.

<comment><USER3> You could have separate entries for each part of the building and not share amenities, but this gets back to the central idea. If you allow people to segregate by price then they will do so. If every building in a city must have some affordable units then the city as a whole is better off, but it's going to feel less exclusive.

I can see both sides of the argument, but we need to figure out how to build cities that work or we are in for a lot of chaos.

<comment><USER5> Separate entries are often done, but rightly referred to as "the poor door". I don't think there's much sense in half measures to do affordable housing: making a building that is effectively segregated is less efficient and sensible than the current San Francisco "just pay us" system.

<comment><USER6> But the poor want half measures a great deal more than they want none. Sometimes a door is just a door, and ya don't need access to the swimming pool, just to your job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was expecting more to the article than I got. It doesn't really answer the question. I don't even think it asks the question well.

E.g., is the question really "why is affordable housing so expensive?" or is it "why is housing so expensive?" They hint that publicly funded housing might be more expensive, with a mealy-mouthed "the case has been made". But they give just one apples-to-oranges comparison, and, worse, one hypothetical comparison. Where's the statistical data?

It also doesn't look at all at _why_ we need affordable housing. E.g., with rapidly spiking inequality (in the US generally, and especially in SF), demand for affordable housing is going up.

In talking like we can't afford it, it doesn't put numbers to that, either. For example, in 2015 the US spent $71 billion on the mortgage interest tax credit, 90% of which went to households making over $100k/year. If we stopped subsidizing the housing of rich people, could we afford to subsidize the housing of poor people? And might that giant subsidy be part of why housing is so expensive?

So A+ title, D+ content.

<comment><USER8> I agree about your assessment of the article, but I think you've missed the question of the right abstraction. Why does SF/Bay area need affordable housing? Sure, the world needs affordable housing, but why does the Bay Area? Why is the right level for affordable housing the region, and not the state or the country or, heck, in the other direction the suburb or street? Why is this city region the correct abstraction?

We've reached a point where certain places - London, NYC, San Francisco, Singapore, Hong Kong and perhaps even Shanghai - are so large and economically important that the idea they should include affordable housing, when there are alternatives that are much more financially effective, seems a little off to me.

I'm not sure why anyone would want to live in affordable housing in SF, when everything is so expensive. Wouldn't it make more sense to move whole family groups to Portland, for the same prices as one of those families could live in SF? Not even that far, to Oakland maybe, or the outskirts.

And why is the right abstraction one house? A policy of whole family moves, or community moves so people keep their connections, would seem like a more sensible idea. People stay in areas that are awful often because they don't want to lose those connections - which I 100% get. So why not move groups of people - willingly - so they have the best of both worlds?

<comment><USER9> For what it's worth, the U.S. is built on the strategy of pushing people who grew up on a piece of ok land onto shittier and shittier land to make way for settlers, until the displaced people are in such remote, harsh places that they can barely survive.

So there is precedent for what you're proposing.

But the argument against it is that people have some sort of right to remain in their "homeland". And that a city whose "native sons" can't afford to live in it isn't a healthy city. That a healthy city has places for both rich and poor. For owners and operators. For speculators and locals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's a great reddit post where an LA architect specializing in multifamily residential units explains why all of the new units being built in LA are luxury condos instead of low cost housing.

tl;dr: city specific zoning laws.

To be fair, the post is specific to LA, but it makes me wonder what legal hoops developers have to jump through to build in other cities and how expensive those hoops are.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/6lvwh4/im_an_ar...](https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/6lvwh4/im_an_architect_in_la_specializing_in_multifamily/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I was expecting this article to provide some insight in regards to the title. It does not. The article should be titled, "Here Are Some Examples of Expensive 'Affordable' Housing Projects".

</comment><comment><USER12> In Brown we trust, along with Scott Wiener; these are the only two politicians doing anything to address housing prices. In San Francisco, the Mayor's Office of Housing (SFMOH) has created a complicated program of silent second liens to enable 'low' and 'moderate' income residents purchase regular condos at below market rate. Units built strictly for income bands and subsidized, or 'affordable units', run into a problem of funding; it is either developers who elect not in include below market rate units (BMR) and pay into the fund or churches building their own structures such as Mercy Housing.

But what about the land? I don't think that has to be the major cost, at least in San Francisco. There are a plenty of vacant lots owned by the city, and in a recent case the feds sold land for $1 to the city for pre-fab condos near the court house for 'formerly homeless'. Indeed, if you have an apartment, you are no longer homeless.

And this is where we start talking about the real expense -- union labor. The pre-fab units clock in at under 250k each, but they are built over in Vacaville with non-union labor. Anything else needs highly paid craftsmen which goose a market rate unit over 700k+. If the lot needs to be abated for pollution, usually for former gas station sites, the price goes even higher plus delays. Want steel framing for going over 7 stories? The price goes up. Not that SF Planning's zoning will allow 7 stories, even near BART.

The solution to affordable housing is to just build more housing -- just regular housing. Built it tall, 100 stories or more, and right on top major transportation lines like BART stations -- on all 4 street corners. We'll need to overcome labor costs and zoning before we can get there.

</comment><comment><USER13> $700,000 per unit? Or even $100k? For "affordable" housing?

Meanwhile, in Mississippi.... regular brand new houses (not "affordable" housing) are actually affordable at $150k, or less than a down payment in any west coast US city.

[https://www.zillow.com/ms/new-homes/](https://www.zillow.com/ms/new-homes/)

Or check out a brand new 2200sq ft house in Indiana for $200,000 that would sell for about $2.5 million in the Bay Area, or about $1.5 million in Seattle or Portland

[https://www.zillow.com/community/harrison- lakes/2095745355_z...](https://www.zillow.com/community/harrison- lakes/2095745355_zpid/)

Sometimes I wonder why people aren't more willing to move to new states. I realize that Indiana and Mississippi aren't particularly "cool" and certainly not trendy, but what matters more in life? Being in a trendy spot, or actually being able to afford a reasonable lifestyle?

<comment><USER14> Median income in the SFBA: $96,677 Median income in Mississippi: $36,919

<comment><USER13> Take a bay area income and telecommute from the south and you're really living large.

But really, even at the much lower income levels of the south the money goes so much further.

<comment><USER14> Taking a bay area income and telecommuting from the south is not an option for the vast majority of residents of the bay area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems to me like one of the big problems with "affordable" housing in desirable areas is that everyone who has bought an "unaffordable" house is now in on the con, and "affordable" housing threatens to correct (read: deflate) the value of the very expensive thing that they have bought.

I'm not a homeowner, but being near NYC, if I manage to get myself into buying a home, I would probably be inclined to support any measure that ensures that the demand for my home—and therefore its price—continues to rise at as great a rate as possible to make sure that I wasn't on the hook for a large depreciation on my mortgaged property. This is the reverse of my current desire, which is for housing to be affordable enough for me to get into so I don't have to rent and can provision that part of my income toward building wealth and not someone else's wealth. The moment I become a homeowner, those motivations flip.

If the median home price were closer to the median income in a given area, I surmise that the desire from homeowners for increased demand and value would abate, because homeowners would stand to gain or lose less in their house vis a vis their income. Instead, you have folks who may gain more value in their homes in one year than they would make in salary. And conversely, price correction at such a great disparity to median income would mean that you now owe the bank a year or more's salary more than what your home is worth.

<comment><USER16> >who has bought an "unaffordable" house is now in on the con,

Yep, people are using houses as investments instead of just places to live. When a person is invested in something they _will_ willingly engage in behavior that leads to harmful outcomes to everyone, even themselves long term.

A corollary of this is summed up in this famous statement

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." -Sinclair

<comment><USER17> Sure, if you're 100% sure you will never move, you can ignore the financial aspect. But people _do_ move, for many reasons. If you owe more than your house is worth, now you're trapped. Hard to ignore.

I assume this is one reason we have zoning rules -- so you know what your neighborhood will look like in 10-20 years. Important with a 30 year mortgage.

(If your point was those with 2nd homes or investment properties that they don't live in -- that's an issue. See Vancouver, and various Bay Area cities.)

Edit: by "investment", you might mean someone seeking an appreciation of $500k vs $300k. I was thinking of $0k vs losing $200k. It happens.

<comment><USER18> so one option would be to limit the length of mortgages, which has been tried elsewhere and supposedly slows down the land price growth

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Because it hasn't been mentioned yet, here in California / San Francisco there's finally a bill being put forward to mandate higher density near transit: [https://sf.curbed.com/platform/amp/2018/1/4/16850000/transpo...](https://sf.curbed.com/platform/amp/2018/1/4/16850000/transportation- near-housing-bonus-wiener-ting) .

The challenge really is that people block this kind of development. Most of San Francisco is 2-3 stories with 3-6 units per building. Given the value of the land beneath, that sets a floor on pricing greater than $200k per unit. Then you have to pay for all the legal and development fees to push this through the planning process, and work with the community. The reason developers make small buildings is that they don't stand a chance at getting larger buildings through community input, discretionary reviews and so on.

It's not clear to me that this new bill attempts to address that angle. FAR (floor area ratio) isn't nearly the burden the article makes it sound like, but DR (discretionary review) from neighbors certainly is, and often rightly so. Presumably having a transit bonus on the books will encourage planning to tell people "tough shit" if they're trying to oppose larger projects in transit dense areas. Expect bigger projects in SOMA and the Mission :).

</comment><comment><USER19> In Chile we have an incremental building program: you get half a house constructed and finish the other half by yourself. The cost per unit was less than $10k in 2002.

[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/half-a- house/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/half-a-house/)

</comment><comment><USER20> I think 'Affordable Housing' is one of the topics where people gloss over the basics.

* Affordable Housing returns are always below market-rate housing. * Requiring a percentage of building to be affordable housing is a tax. Builders have an interest in avoiding taxes. * Acquiring an affordable housing unit is a long term benefit. Those advocating for housing have an interest in acquiring benefits. * Long term housing prices are driven by regional economics. * Short term housing prices are can be manipulated. Solving manipulations like the simultaneous remodeling of large complexes; raising rates with too little notice to effectively move; or jumping rates by high percentages in a year have different solutions.

Thinking in these terms separates concerns of equity in society; the high cost of service workers in congested areas; the rise of empty buildings; the gouging of existing tenants; and subsidized housing for some workers.

Recognize this debate has been going for a while. On could argue that providing cheap housing for the Phoenician immigrants would make Athens better for Athenians, or that people like Plato need an affordable place to live to make our city-state great!

</comment><comment><USER21> A solution to the housing a problem never mentioned is intentional communities. They seem to solve a good portion of the problems.

Here's why they make sense:

1\. They can be cheap because they can be built in places with low land prices and low regulations. These are the chief factors in why housing is so expensive.

2\. They can solve desirability by building together that stuff that makes a city desirable - other people, businesses, walkability, modern design.

3\. They're more feasible than ever because remote work is so practical that you don't have to live in the middle of a city for a job.

4\. A model for bringing people who have this goal together has been recently validated on a large scale (kickstarter type systems).

So I'm left wondering - am I just not seeing the projects or why have I not heard of them?

<comment><USER22> > They can solve desirability by building together that stuff that makes a > city desirable - other people, businesses, walkability, modern design.

The things that make a city desirable (and supportable) are largely natural features of its location, which you either can't currently practically engineer (pleasant weather) or which are very expensive to engineer (like access to fresh water supply). Places that are currently unpopulated and have low land prices are usually lacking these things.

<comment><USER23> How come people continue to live in flood planes, hurricane zones, or the Northeast?

Massive Winter Storm Hits Northeast - [https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2018/01/04/575643483...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2018/01/04/575643483/blizzard-conditions-possible-as-massive-winter-storm- hits-northeast)

<comment><USER22> > How come people continue to live in flood planes, hurricane zones, or the > Northeast?

Because those places have desirable geographical features, like access to fresh water (flood plains tend to have this in spades), access to arable land (doesn't always support high density, but supports at least people to farm and support farming, because people living elsewhere need to eat), access to natural features that are convenient in trade (like navigable waterways and natural harbors), access to valuable natural resources, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> As a thought experiment, what would happen if a city like San Francisco required you to own the home or condo you lived in, and provided financial guarantees. So any non-owner occupied residence was illegal.

And then the city paid a variety of contractors to build studio apartments which would rent for $500/month without any commitments, deposit or credit score. With 2-4BR for families.

The thought is the city, community & companies build up immense value for real estate owners. It's somewhat unfair to create this fantastic system we have in the Bay Area, where all these smart hardworking people gravitate to work on new, sometimes transformative ideas but then we channel lots of the profits to early real estate holders who effectively got lucky. While unnecessarily adding a ton of stress to people's lives.

Of course, it would never be implemented. But the basic idea is that all apartment rentals would be through an open system via local government and all condos & homes would require the owner to live in them.

<comment><USER25> I don't think as many people would want to move to the Bay Area is they were forced to either buy a home or rent municipal owned housing.

<comment><USER26> Stopping people from moving here is the most popular thing a Bay Area politician could possibly do.

<comment><USER25> Attracting young smart workers is one of the Bay Area's greatest assets, from an outsider's point of view.

<comment><USER26> Voters find the low density (light, air, lack of bulk, lack of height) to be a much more important asset, and the two are not compatible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This really does stems down to the lack of building something affordable, even in affordable cities. Most people have it in their heads they need something much better/bigger than they actually do.

Every new house built is larger than traditional smaller/starter homes. My 30-year-old 1200 sqft home isn't produced anymore here. I'd say, on average this has turned into a 1600 sqft, 3-car, multi-level (or more) home. New starter homes (in traditional terms) are really just for senior-age targeted clientele which forgo more bedrooms for a larger bedroom size (empty nesters target possibly?).

We're having fewer and fewer kids (on average - I've got 3, which presents its own issues in the house hunt), but we're needing more and more square footage for everything. There's a slight adjustment for this by what seems to be a reduced lot size, but this is only marginal, and allows maybe one or two houses on the street than previous standard lot size 40-50 years ago.

Every apartment complex that goes up has to be "posh" and include shopping underneath. (There's very little multi-family units going up, most are 30 years or older). Most of the rents for a 1 or 2 bedroom in these developments in already the cost of my 15-yr mortgage.

 _This is just what I experience, but it seems relatively the same, in every suburb surrounding my relatively large city, including inside city limits itself._

</comment><comment><USER28> Increase taxes to build affordable housing. Hand the contract over to a developer. Developer builds $700,000 units. The model is not economically sustainable. Increase taxes. Rinse repeat. Now even the middle income people can't afford to buy a $300,000 house, and have to move into the affordable housing. Housing developers are living like kings.

Welcome to the USA, where taxes are spoken for before they are even levied.

</comment><comment><USER29> Housing is often not an issue so much as land is. Even billionaires have trouble finding land in the Bay Area, but there are many cities in the center of the country with lots of land where building basic housing would be cheap. The other issue is having the land and housing near enough to a supply of jobs. Look at Detroit, you can get incredible deals but the jobs are no longer there.

<comment><USER30> We have plenty of land, though! The similarly-sized Tokyo metropolitan area (5,419 square miles, 37.8 million people) has over six times the density of the 9-county Bay Area region (6,966 square miles, 7.68 million people).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> We can build affordable housing easily here in Florida; we rarely choose to.

We can build 800sq. ft. (75 sq. m.) apartments in 3 story buildings for about $40,000, not counting land.

But we don't. Because most Americans don't want to live in 800 sq. ft. and most builders want to cater to the middle standard deviations of the population. They make more money selling to people who make more money.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm sorry, charging $700k for units like pictured here isn't anything out of ordinary considering some units will have up to 4 bedroom.

[https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/10/11/emeryville- affordabl...](https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/10/11/emeryville-affordable- housing-project-breaks-ground/)

It's not exactly located in cheap area either.

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-122.2799415,16.42z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x80857e11bbfaf877:0xbbaa197891b68995!4b1!8m2!3d37.828093!4d-122.278539)

Building up makes sense, but considering complete lack of undeveloped land in this area, that's not really feasible.

In some countries, residents of a city block can work with real estate developers to build-up, and as long as 80%-85% agree, the project proceeds. Not sure if equivalent mechanism exists in CA.

</comment><comment><USER33> A few things to add and few already mentioned in other comments.

1\. We need to compare price per Square Foot or Square Metre. Not One / Number Bedroom housing that (Strong Words Deleted) used when comparing. I pointed this out in the previous Founder salary article when they mention New York has a slightly more expensive One Bed Room Flat rent then Hong Kong or Tokyo. Well, the NY One Bed room flat's bathroom is properly bigger then the actual one bed room flat in Hong Kong.

2\. When we say building cost, i tend to separate building and finishing. As mentioned in other comment, construction costs around the world isn't that far apart. After all metals, cements, etc are pretty much the same level of pricing everywhere. The Cost of material dont differ much, it is the labour cost that has higher variation, but even so the difference in labour cost of developed countries Vs the differences in total cost of the apartment / housing is negligible.

3\. While we have tech and Automation to make building cost cheaper, finishing cost scales linearly with the area you are selling. Floors, Electric Wires , Waters, Pipes, etc all these are still labour intensive. And we have no way of bringing this cost down.

4\. Not that any of the above matters, because when we have limited supply of land due to politics, prices of land will shoot up. The only places I know that is immune to this blood sucking property investment bubble is either Germany or places where population density is very low.

5\. Take Hong Kong for example, you could literally buy up every single Flat on sale in the market, protest on every government land proposal due to environmental concern or what ever, and you have a Housing Market that only goes up.

The creation of fiat currency and money supply with limited land means in some places in the world we are forever slave of rent or mortgage.

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't see an answer in the article, but are there any comprable unsubsidized housing projects that can be compared to? Is housing simply that expensive to build, or is this a problem of beaurocracy or other inefficiencies specific to subsidized housing?

The quote about reducing the regulatory burden for but only for affordable housing to cut down on the cost seems telling - essentially admitting that at least some portion of the regulations in place aren't necessary and are simply a waste of money.

<comment><USER22> > The quote about reducing the regulatory burden for but only for affordable > housing to cut down on the cost seems telling - essentially admitting that > at least some portion of the regulations in place aren't necessary and are > simply a waste of money.

It is not such an admission, because it could just as well view the regulation as generally beneficial but in tension with the goal of providing affordable housing.

You are viewing desirability of regulation in an unreasonably context-blind and binary manner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Check out this video explaining why you can buy new detached homes in Tokyo for about 300k usd.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGbC5j4pG9w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGbC5j4pG9w)

* Land owners have an absolute right to develop their own land - neighbors can't block you. * You can build a 60 m^2 x 3 floor house on 100m^2 of land, or more.

So basically they build way denser, and reduce opportunities to block/rentseek.

</comment><comment><USER36> The central problem is the motive. Low income individuals do not have such a powerful lobby that they're able to compel States to create laws that require affordable housing. It's the real estate/development/construction lobbies. They are very powerful and affordable housing is a big business. Everyone has to get their cut.

</comment><comment><USER37> How much of the build cost is land cost? How much of the build cost is local compliance costs? How much of the cost is market adjusted price, and not actually cost per se?

</comment><comment><USER38> The bottom line is that affordable housing is expensive because it is provided by a central planner.

</comment><comment><USER39> Land is cheap. Even in high priced areas there are always parcels ripe for redevelopment.

There are two reasons: one is that the units are built out more luxurious than they need to be. At least 30-40% higher.

The second is union labor (or prevailing wage) you're spending three times the amount on labor as hiring local, cheaper labor.

<comment><USER40> > Even in high priced areas there are always parcels ripe for redevelopment.

Please tell me where these are, I'd love to know so I can redevelop them and make a few million.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> The best way to increase worker's income, reduce housing costs and eliminate all the ridiculous laws around housing regulation and property taxes is to replace sales tax and prop taxes for land value taxes.

As soon as the political gain to block construction dissapears, developing anything will be much cheaper and changes into policy will come with popular demand both by renters and landlords.</comment>


Comparison of two Ruby approaches to Facebook API - <AUTHOR> http://www.chadfowler.com/2007/9/5/writing-apis-to-wrap-apis

<comment><USER2> _When I see non-idiomatic Ruby code, it tells me one of two things. The first assumption I make is that whoever wrote the code is not a Ruby programmer. That's usually the case._

I've been using rfacebook lately and this is definitely the case. I'm constantly going back to the rfacebook source to figure out how to use it and every time I come across code that strikes me as highly unrubyish (what's with all the gratuitous "return"s?).

I did not know facebooker existed. I will be looking into it very soon.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow that is a lot written about very little. Some abstraction == good, brittle == bad.</comment>


Epigenetics Has Become Dangerously Fashionable - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/epigenetics-has-become-dangerously-fashionable <comment><USER2> The hype around epigenetics, or anything-genetics in general, has been going for a while [1], and it has some very annoying consequences. A lot of the friends I talk to about the subject barely have an inkling of how even basic genetics work, yet tell me about these "crazy things we can do now", except we can't really, nor do we understand as much as a lot of people like to believe. The media and their pop-science are obviously largely responsible for this, but you'll find a lot of researchers using this to promote and fund their research, and really, who can blame them (particularly in academia/research where people will get any funding they can). I do blame some of the social scientists however, who are often quick to draw correlations where there aren't any, if only to get attention.

I work with some absolutely brilliant people, and a lot of them wouldn't touch epigenetics with a ten foot pole. The hype around it means expectations are ridiculous, we're barely scratching the surface of the subject yet many people are already expecting things like authoritative dietary or educational advice. The same is unfortunately true of cancer research and cancer care in general ("that's not how cancers work" is my new go-to phrase...).

In the post-genomics era [2], we're starting to see things like phenomics [3] that could indeed further research into epigenetics, although this is still very new and the real-world applications are still to bear significant results. The most advanced use of phenomics at this point (that I'm aware of) is to monitor and control plant features using mostly image recognition [4]. One particularly interesting application is to line up hundreds of plants (often clones) and apply different conditions to different batches (including radiation to induce random mutations), then have various types of cameras go over the plants and perform feature recognition to try and infer correlations between genotype, phenotype and environment (like these guys do [5]). It's promising, but let's not forget these are plants, not animals, and certainly not humans. It's also rather obvious that this sort of brute-force approach (no matter how amazing I think it is) isn't exactly applicable to anything other than plants at this point ; having rows of bred/cloned humans in extremely controlled conditions could prove a bit tricky...

[1] [https://aeon.co/essays/the-dream-of-designing-humans-has- a-l...](https://aeon.co/essays/the-dream-of-designing-humans-has-a-long-and- peculiar-history) [2] I find the term a bit pompous, particularly considering we're still very much reliant on genomics and still improving it quite substantially [3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomics), although it is a bit short on content [4] [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369526615...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369526615000266) [5] [http://www.psi.cz/products/plantscreen- phenotyping/plantscre...](http://www.psi.cz/products/plantscreen- phenotyping/plantscreen-high-throughput-phenotyping)

<comment><USER3> Can you make any recommendations on textbooks that would be useful for a non- specialist who wants to survey how "basic genetics work" and understand the current state of knowledge? I am not looking for popular treatments, but something along the lines of Less Wrong's "Best Textbooks on Every Subject" list. [1]

[1] [http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gu/the_best_textbooks_on_every_subj...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gu/the_best_textbooks_on_every_subject/)

<comment><USER2> I'm afraid I don't have any specific textbooks to recommend, I've learnt mostly through osmosis (having no real bio background originally), and I've also found the Coursera materials [1] to be really good and accessible.

A colleague of mine (who does have a strong bio background) also recommended the Open Science Network [2], which is essentially a Maker Lab for bio. It's based in Vancouver, but I'm sure other big cities have them too. I haven't tried it myself but I'm definitely interested, they have a good reputation for openness and collaboration, no matter your level and/or background.

[1] [https://www.coursera.org/courses?languages=en&query=genetics](https://www.coursera.org/courses?languages=en&query=genetics)

[2] [http://www.opensciencenet.org/](http://www.opensciencenet.org/)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you schedule your day? Why or why not? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> When I need to I do, when I don't, I don't.</comment>


Web thinkers are not confused by shiny new things « Jon Udell - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jonudell.net/2011/02/27/web-thinkers-are-not-confused-by-shiny-new-things/ <comment><USER2> Eventually you have to trust the electric company will guard (or discard) your data - they need to get the data in some form anyway. While it might be nice to scrub the data before giving it to them, that may not be practical, as this service passes data both ways (the grid can signal appliances to not run when under heavy load, for example).

In terms of trust, this isn't any different from having to trust that your web service provider will protect your data. Granted, there is a substantial difference in choice - you likely only have one option for electrical service to a home, but a plethora of web hosting choices. Thus, this is fundamentally a regulatory issue (ie. call the Corporation Commission).

The alternative is to do it yourself (run your own server, make your own electricity with solar/wind/etc.), which, if you're really concerned about this, you might feel it's worth doing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ideally, you wouldn't have to trust them, you would be able to contract with them. Or rather, if you owned the data, they would have to contract with you to use it.

I agree that given the current environment, it would require regulatory changes to implement the data ownership concept. And given the degree of regulatory capture in such markets, good luck getting such a change implemented.

<comment><USER3> It's looking likely that the EU will issue some sort of regulation on power- meter data, though I agree the likelihood of that happening in the US is fairly low. Here's an interim report by one of the EU's working groups: [http://ec.europa.eu/energy/gas_electricity/smartgrids/doc/ex...](http://ec.europa.eu/energy/gas_electricity/smartgrids/doc/expert_group2.pdf)

The main things that seem likely are: 1) consumers will be guaranteed some sort of free access to their own usage data, partly in hopes that increased information about one's power usage will encourage people to use less; 2) there will be some sort of restriction on how personally identifiable, non- aggregate data can be used, e.g. the power company won't be allowed to infer things about your lifestyle based on power usage patterns, and then sell that data to advertisers.

Tricky areas are what counts as "aggregate" data (there are a lot of potential pitfalls there, both intentional exploitation of loopholes, and accidental leakage of identifiable data into aggregate data), and if there should be some sort of distinction between internal-to-operations and external data mining. For example, perhaps it would be okay for power companies to infer more specific things about individual lifestyles, _if_ that information is only being used to optimize the power grid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The author suggests we will have mechanisms that allow us to "own" data from smart meters. Never mind that the electric companies will think that they own the data.

The reality is ownership is a concept that really only works for scarce things like physical goods and services. Ultimately, you can't own information, you can only have it or not. To control information is to either make it scarce (like music and movies with copyright and DRM) or to control the actions of the party receiving it with licenses and contracts. Now who is going to win that battle? If you think consumers will, then you have to implement a mechanism to track actions taken on the basis of any information supplied by consumers. Pretty complicated, and consumers will have to feel threatened in order to pay for such things. Either that or ham-handed regulation gets imposed after some horrible information mishap.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Of course, someone could watch my house now and see when I turn on my lights. Better yet, they could see me stumble in when the bars close at 2 am. The issue isn't that private information is being made public, it's that the cost of gathering and aggregating public information is being drastically reduced.

Without smart meters, it might cost someone hundreds or thousands of dollars to hire a private detective to discover my drinking habits. My estranged spouse might be willing to spend that money in a custody case, but my life insurer wouldn't find it to be cost-effective. With new sources of low-cost data like that from smart meters, the calculation might be different.

(edit: corrected a couple of typos)

<comment><USER5> I think the ubiquity of low-cost data from computers is going to return us to a "small town" mentality. In a small town, all your idiosyncrasies are public gossip. Everyone knows that you're a drunk from your doctor to your ex to your boss.

Is this good or bad? Well, the same fundamental mechanisms that allow life insurers to spy upon you, allows you to find out if a multi-national is abusing your trust and say... funding an island dictatorship in exchange for water-rights.</comment></comment>


Discussion on Exploiting OAuth 2.0 in Mobile Applications by ENISA - <AUTHOR> http://gluu.co/enisa-blog <comment><AUTHOR> For more info about OpenID Connect, see [http://openid.net/connect](http://openid.net/connect)</comment>


Ask HN: What is your opinion about Wordpress? - <AUTHOR>

I have been working with Wordpress for a number of years and always wondered what is the general opinion about the whole WP ecosystem. Also if you had to change something what would it be? What would you like to see more of? Thanks <comment><USER2> I love WordPress for it's flexibility, sheer market dominance and that I've made a decent amount of money from it. But the code base is aging - yes they keep the front-end fairly modern, but the underlying code for the plugins, themes and whatnot are in need of a massive upgrade. I'd like to see the entire theme and plugins system be revamped with a true OO based approach.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cannot agree more! You tend to crave even more the OO based approach after working on some MVC project! Thanks for your feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Doing freelance/contracting in Monterey, CA...my experience with clients requesting work on Wordpress sites or asking you to build them a site with Wordpress don't want to pay people very much. They tend to ask for fairly complex features, and get upset when it requires a programmer to actually program instead of installing some "plugin".</comment>


A neurobiologist studying monogamy wins scholarship from porn site - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/04/12/a-neurobiologist-studying-monogamy-wins-scholarship-from-porn-site/ <comment><USER2> I'm much more interested in the research being done than where the scholarship comes from, and where the research could go. Seeing how the in_a_relationship vs susceptible_to_addiction plays out in humans would be more difficult without being able to conduct experiments.

But kudos to Pornhub for sponsoring women in STEM.</comment>


Reading lists for people who want to be software engineers at Blizzard - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1fezrk/jay_baxter_gives_a_list_of_books_for_people_who/

<comment><USER2> This is the first time seeing anyone recommend C++ Primer Plus with no mention of C++ Primer.

<comment><USER3> Well, technically, it is a substring :)</comment></comment>


JavaScript on the server: Growing the Node.js Community - <AUTHOR> http://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/01/javascript-on-the-server-growing-the-node-js-community/

<comment><USER2> "While we all know and love JavaScript as a language ..."

I know it but I don't love it. It's basically the only game in town when it comes to client side scripting.

Also, the concurrency model of Node.js does not eliminate concurrency related bugs. It's entirely possible to have race conditions, for example, with single threaded code that uses asynchronous callbacks. I guess a lot of people don't realize that. A real solution is no shared state, like Erlang or Clojure.

My gut feeling is that the Node.js library model (no call is blocking) is eventually going to lead to a mess. As I understand it, any API that can potentially block has to take a callback function. What happens when you realize some API that used to not block now may block (due to some increased functionally, platform changes, etc)? Any code that uses that API, and worse, any non blocking API that uses that API, now has to grow a callback too.

It can be done. The Twisted library has done a similar thing for years already. I just don't think it's a very good model for a general purpose server side language.

All that said, Node.js will probably be successful. The fact that browsers are not entirely broken WRT DOM and Javascript means that there is going to be ever increasing amounts of Javascript code around. It makes sense to re-use that development effort on the server side.

<comment><USER3> I think your assumption about no call blocking libs leading to a mess is under the assumption that people see a need for a blocking lib with Node. The assumption by default is that every call is async. Even calls which happen instantly sometimes offer a callback pattern because that's what people who use node often expect.

I can't personally envision a situation where an NPM module would update to change a call to blocking spontaneously. This is the reason why we're using Node in the first place.

Non-blocking is the default. The community assumes and expects non-blocking calls by default.

<comment><USER4> I find it very easy to imagine myself writing some code that assumes a function doesn't need to do I/O, and then lo and behold the spec changes and we have to refactor the entire call stack of anything that assumes it's nonblocking.

<comment><USER5> I haven't had much difficulty avoiding such cases. It can come up if you have a simple fixed function that returns its value, but later decide to make it customizable through the database. When that happens, it's not very hard to make the callers use a callback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Servers built with Node.js are typically super fast and can handle > thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of concurrent > connections — something very difficult to achieve with threaded servers. How > can that be?

I've read similar sentiments in a bunch of places but whenever I push any real traffic at the nodejs version of our API server it falls over pretty quickly (even with ulimit increases). What exactly are people doing to handle tens or hundreds of thousands of connections?

Incidentally, if any nodejs gurus are interested we're looking for a remote freelancer to audit our nodejs stuff and help us with a deployment strategy (assuming we can get to the 100s of thousands of connections mark).

<comment><USER7> There are a bunch of factors in scaling up a Node service. Like any other technology memory per user is a factor, in Node this tends to be connection state, and some application state. Node currently has a ~2gb JavaScript limit per process for JavaScript object (not Buffers).

Since Node bounces much work to the kernel then kernel and TCP factors can play a part. So ulimit, and ephemeral port tuning is important.

Finally at some point CPU load for doing keep-alive on open lots of connections has a cost. So that is also a limiting factor.

In general it depends what you are doing. Using Joyent's SmartOS (a Solaris varient) I was able to hold just under a million TCP connections on a single Node process. However the ability to service those Node is extremely limited.

<comment><USER8> Could you please tell a few words about your application, if it is a million connections, it is a million * N database queries on the backend (for a typical web app)?

Would every request still stay in a queue, not on the front-end layer, but on database/storage/messaging/other middleware layer?

I am just wondering what are the benefits of moving a bottleneck one layer up?

<comment><USER9> Are you not using some sort of caching mechanism? a million queries to a db is probably going to kill it no matter what the front end.

<comment><USER8> That's why I am wondering what types of applications require so many simultaneous connections. CDNs?

<comment><USER10> The classical application that comes to mind is a chat app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> AND... around and around the carousel we go.

The threads vs. event loop thing doesn't always pan out to either one being 'better' - who do you think is doing the work when your browser, or Node.js does an async call? They use threads too, and there are certain workloads where it's more efficient to just use multithreading instead of event loop + thread pools. I can't find my references atm b/c I'm traveling, but if you google around you will find numerous case studies in the Java world about threads vs. event loops (the Java world has been wrestling with threads vs. event loops too, for the past DECADE)

Remember as an engineer: spike, profile, benchmark, and determine the best solution for the problem.

</comment><comment><USER12> Nodemanual.org looks like it could become a good resource, but the cheesy Photoshop-brush grass drives me nuts.

It's the epitome of amateurish design as decoration.

<comment><USER13> I think you meant to comment here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3502528>

<comment><USER12> No, that article was posted after this one. This article is, in part, about nodemanual.org.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your bounce rate against modal popups? - <AUTHOR>

If you use page-blocking mailing-list signup forms, modal popups, or any other content-obscuring link-doors on your site, how many people hit those pages and then only the back button? That is, what percentage of visitors only ever view the form without filling it out, clicking any buttons, or even the window-close 'X'? Is the bounce rate a lot higher for these pages than unencumbered ones? By how much? <comment><USER2> Anecdote: I see these popups and immediately leave the site. A popup demanding my attention tells me all I need to know about the site operator and what to expect while I'm there. 100 http calls for all sorts of crap. Analytics up the wazoo. That is what is important to the site owner. The user's pleasure? Not so much.

Mantra: Attraction, not promotion.

<comment><USER3> _Anecdote: I see these popups and immediately leave the site_

But are _you_ the target audience? People who work in technical fields generally have a _way_ lower tolerance for things like this than the general public.

<comment><AUTHOR> Which is exactly what I'm asking for.</comment></comment></comment>


Airtable – Organize Anything - <AUTHOR> https://airtable.com/ <comment><USER2> I like this, it's like Spreadsheets++

After you get enough traction and start to squeeze out patterns of the usages that you see, it would be great to further enhance the product with visualizations etc tailored to those</comment>


GitHub's issuing CA has expired (DigiCert High Assurance EV Root CA) - <AUTHOR> https://i.imgur.com/UuzvrIt.png

<comment><USER2> That's actually the cert on your computer allowing you to trust it that has expired. [https://blog.digicert.com/expired-intermediate- certificate/](https://blog.digicert.com/expired-intermediate-certificate/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Seeing this on multiple sites which use DigiCert for SSL provider.

Github, Bitbucket, Heroku, and even DigiCert's own site.

</comment><comment><USER4> Unfortunately, I'm still having an issue with this.

...if I only knew more about computers. :(</comment>


Ask HN: A Laptop that outsources processing to a Desktop? - <AUTHOR> Why does not this exist? A laptop that just contains a display, a keyboard and a mouse/trackpad, that just take input and send them to desktop and just display what the desktop broadcasts? I have a powerful desktop at home, but I don't want to spend all day sitting in front of it. If I have such a device, I can work from anywhere in my home. And it would not fry my lap like a cheap laptop do...
The way I see it, if you are living in a hot country, the actual machine does not even need to be inside your home, heating your rooms...
Why does not this exist? <comment><USER2> Just buy an ultrabook/some laptop with good screen, good network card and long-lasting battery. If heat is the problem for you, I would suggest some aluminum-encased laptop that would disperse heat more easily. IMHO, probably Google chromebook ([https://www.google.com/chromebook/](https://www.google.com/chromebook/)) is the kind of device you are looking for...

Also what you need is a remote desktop app. There are quite a few nowadays (from "Remote Desktop" in Windows, to TeamViewer, VNC or etc.). A quite good list is in wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_remote_desktop_s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_remote_desktop_software) .

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. I know about those. I am a software developer.

Buying an ultrabook/laptop just for continence seem a bit overkill to me. Those are not exactly cheap. But that is not the point. The point is how much untapped potential is there in existing systems. I think we should be trying to extract as much value from the existing set up, before buying more redundant stuff. We already have wireless keyboards and mouse. We just need an Lcd with bundled transmitter/reciever with enough bandwidth. Making It is quite trivial compared to the convenience it will provide. It might even be able to support multiple users. Put one desktop in your basement, and the whole family can use these dumb wireless terminals.

<comment><USER2> "Bundled with transmitter/receiver" is the tricky part. How would you configure such device? How it would know where and how to convert/send/receive signal? To solve those basic problems you'll need some computational power. There we arrive at thin clients (for example like those: [http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/cloud-client- computing?stp...](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/cloud-client- computing?stp_redir=false&~ck=mn)). Some of them do have wireless connectivity...

<comment><AUTHOR> In the same way wireless keyboards and mouses work. You use a receiver/transmitter pair. It does not require any computational power. A receiver can be tuned to a particular transmitter. We might have to encrypt the display transmission. But it am sure it can be done using dedicated hardware.

<comment><USER3> Sounds like you just want a wireless display adapter: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiDi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiDi)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. That is what I am talking about. It seems like there are already cheap devices that can do wireless HDMI streaming [1].

[1] [http://www.amazon.in/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search- alias%3Daps...](http://www.amazon.in/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search- alias%3Daps&field-keywords=wireless+display+adapter)

<comment><USER4> You're not going to like the latency of using Airplay or similar over wifi, unless you're doing something non-interactive (like watching a movie).

<comment><AUTHOR> Is that so? I am not sure why there would be a noticeable latency. Wireless keyboards and mouse works fine from a distance. Besides, I am not suggesting using wifi for this, but a direct radio link.

<comment><USER4> "Is that so?"

Yes.

"I am not sure why there would be a noticeable latency."

Even if you don't understand it, the latency will still affect you.

"Wireless keyboards and mouse works fine from a distance."

Yes, they do. That's irrelevant. They don't use wi-fi, and they transmit significantly less data than used in a video signal.

"Besides, I am not suggesting using wifi for this, but a direct radio link."

You _are_ suggesting using wifi. Your comment, to which I responded, included a link to an HDMI stick which streams video over wifi.

I'm suggesting that the device you linked (along with every other HDMI/wi-fi stick) will not serve your purpose, due to latency.

Feel free to buy it and report back your results if they differ :)

<comment><AUTHOR> >I'm suggesting that the device you linked (along with every other HDMI/wi-fi stick) will not serve your purpose..

Cool. Was not suggesting to use WiFi, Sorry for the misunderstanding. Also, I think you might be confusing latency with throughput.

<comment><USER4> "I think you might be confusing latency with throughput"

No, I'm not.

The problem with streaming video over wifi (e.g. Airplay) is latency, not throughput. That's why watching videos is fine (you don't care if there's a lag, as long as audio is travelling along the same path), but interactive stuff (like normal work) feels off.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok. I thought so because you mentioned wireless keyboards transmit less data than a video signal..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wouldn't that be terribly inefficient? I'm hazarding a guess here, but I think that no matter what kind of networking technology you use, it's going to be dreadfully slow as compared to doing it locally.

Plus, the laptop would lose 90% of its mobility advantage, as it would always have to be in the (network-) vicinity of a desktop.

<comment><AUTHOR> > it's going to be dreadfully slow as compared to doing it locally.

We don't use networking. We use direct RF link.

>Plus, the laptop would lose 90% of its mobility advantage, as it would always have to be in the (network-) vicinity of a desktop.

This is not a replacement for laptop. But an extension of a desktop. Instead of having to sit directly infront of it, you can work from anywhere in the same building.

<comment><USER6> So you are looking for a device that contains a laptop body, screen, keyboard, touchpad, speakers, battery, battery charger, RF antennas, and enough processing power to decode and display the video stream arriving over radio?

My guess is that this would cost at least 80% of a similar quality laptop that also includes "computer parts" and works as an actual computer. Hell, the current HDMI video streaming dongles like Chromecast have more processing power built in than my first actual laptop.

<comment><AUTHOR> >My guess is that this would cost at least 80% of a similar quality laptop that also includes "computer parts" and works as an actual computer.

80%? Without cpu, harddisk, memory, motherboard and without having to cramming all of this into a small space, without heat and power management circulatory to provide and manage power for all of these things? So in a laptop, you think these amount to only 20% of the cost?

> enough processing power to decode and display the video stream arriving over > radio

How much processing power did your 20 year old television set have?

<comment><USER7> Your 20 year old television's resolution is a bit lower than 2560x1440 :)

<comment><AUTHOR> You see, this already exists [1]. It costs around 2000 Rs, that is like $30, A wireless mouse and keyboard will cost around the same. So for $60 you will have all the component to make this work.

Let me say this again. For 60$ worth of components you can have a remote control that will let you work on your desktop from anywhere in your home.

Will you be interested?

[1] [http://www.amazon.in/eShop24x7-Wireless-Display-Miracast- Air...](http://www.amazon.in/eShop24x7-Wireless-Display-Miracast- Airplay/dp/B014R1RQAY?tag=googinhydr18418-21&tag=googinkenshoo-21&ascsubtag=7170ce92-ce65-4df1-b162-d776178e35a8)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Amazon workspaces + what's called a zero client

[https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/workspaces-zero- client/](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/workspaces-zero-client/)

</comment><comment><USER9> You mean, like an X terminal?

Actually, a Chromebook is kind of like that - a browser only.

</comment><comment><USER10> I know people who do this with EC2 instances. You don't even need to own a powerful desktop to make this work.

(thin client, fat client, thin client - the more things change the more they stay the same...)

</comment><comment><USER11> I never heard about such a device but I have a Motorola LAPDOCK to control my raspberry. I guess the raspberry could be adapted to control a distant desktop (adding a wifi or bluetooth card, a battery of some sort and a VNC-like software)

Or even using a Motorola LAPDOCK + Smartphone with remote-control app

See Motorola Lapdock: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004M17D62/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004M17D62/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Are you thinking of something similar to the Wii U controller which can play games wirelessly from the Wii U via a direct link?

Edit: more info on the Wii U game pad link. [http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/16/3653294/wii-u-range- test-g...](http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/16/3653294/wii-u-range-test-gamepad)

</comment><comment><USER13> Have you looked at VNC? It does exactly what you are describing. See: [http://www.tightvnc.com/](http://www.tightvnc.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure. VNC is a program that runs on a computer. But we don't need a computer to simply relay input/output to a desktop. What I am suggesting is such a setup. We already have cheap wireless keyboards and mouse. We just need a lcd with a reciever/transmitter with sufficient bandwidth and bundle them together in a compact package, that act as a dumb terminal of sorts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sounds a lot like the Linux Terminal Server Project

[http://www.ltsp.org/](http://www.ltsp.org/)

</comment><comment><USER15> it's kind of what a steam machine link device and the new xbox one streaming are. You are able to run games on a less powerful system as long as the wifi or hard wired network are pretty robust.</comment>


Implementation of the digital mobile-only bank in Kazakhstan - <AUTHOR> https://habr.com/en/post/441770/ <comment><USER2> Digital, mobile-bank... without crypto or blockchain, wait, what?!</comment>


Net neutrality faces uncertain U.S. court ruling - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2048210/net-neutrality-faces-uncertain-court-ruling-in-us.html

<comment><USER2> Not that uncertain. Verizon is probably going to win. The current court is notoriously pro-business, and they actually have a pretty good case.</comment>


From Idea to 1000 Paying Customers – follow us and help us get there - <AUTHOR>

In order to learn more we decided to tell the story of building our company. We haven't started selling yet and we have 1000 registered users.
Check out what we do and how we do it and see if you can get anything valuable from ti. If you want to help us out, feel free to send your feedback.
You can read more about it on our blog: https://yanado.com/blog/from-idea-to-1000-paying-customers/ <comment><AUTHOR> Here is the url to our blog: [https://yanado.com/blog/from-idea- to-1000-paying-customers/](https://yanado.com/blog/from-idea-to-1000-paying- customers/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Just for info your blog on an iPhone screen isn't great with that massive banner taking up most the screen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the heads up. It seems we messed up something with the last changes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For me the issue is never getting users. I find that easy. Getting people to pay is another matter.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. This is my second product company. It was never easy to get paying customers. That's why we set the goal to get 1000 paying customers. Getting 1000 free ones wasn't that hard.</comment></comment>


Why you need to carefully research travel websites before booking - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/18jzw3/i_am_currently_not_able_to_check_into_a_hotel_i/ I've heard of BookIt.com and have seen them mentioned on legitimate sites before, but I wasn't expecting to be treated like this at all.<p>I emailed a complaint to customer service yesterday as this was happening- still no response. So I started a dispute through PayPal, my method of payment to this shady, Florida based company known as BookIt. <comment><USER2> I get that you had a bad experience but what careful research could you have done to prevent it? Is there something on the bookit.com site that would have steered you away if you had seen it?

I live in hotels most of the time and use several online booking sites regularly. I've never had a problem worse than a hotel clerk digging around a pile of faxes to find my reservation. Given the volume of reservations made through travel websites it's inevitable that some will get lost or messed up. It's no fun when it happens to you but a sample of one bad experience doesn't indict all travel websites.</comment>


Ask HN: Best companies to work on that contribute directly to science research? - <AUTHOR> I'd like to know about companies or institutions involved directly in science, in one way or another, where software development is a big part of the company <comment><USER2> Butterfly Network - [https://butterflynetwork.com/](https://butterflynetwork.com/) 4catalyzer - [https://www.4catalyzer.com/](https://www.4catalyzer.com/)</comment>


Ask HN: What is your favourite OS and why? - <AUTHOR> What makes it your favourite? How is it better than other competing OS's? <comment><USER2> MacOS and Ubuntu

MacOS for ease of use, great for pretty much most things and feels very nice as I'm a *nix fan. Ubuntu for anything server side, don't hate the desktop experience either.

However, Windows has really come a long way, and with the ever growing view towards WSL, things are looking better there as of late..

</comment><comment><USER3> Arch Linux with the yay helper.

Just typing `yay app-software-name` and hitting enter a few times to install any app, no matter how obscure, or proprietary it is (at least for me 99% of software I use is included in the arch packages or the AUR). Unfortunately the installation procedure for Arch is quite daunting at first, but the Arch wiki helps a lot and you can use Manjaro which is presumably user-friendly.

</comment><comment><USER4> NetBSD -> [http://netbsd.org/~kamil/AsiaBSDCon/Kamil_Rytarowski_Enginee...](http://netbsd.org/~kamil/AsiaBSDCon/Kamil_Rytarowski_Engineering_NetBSD_9.0.pdf)

Abstract Multics first appeared in 1965, UNIX First Edition in 1969, 1BSD in 1977 and NetBSD 0.8 in 1993, followed by NetBSD 1.0 in 1994. The more modern versions: NetBSD 5.0 was released in 2009, 6.0 in 2012, 7.0 in 2015 and 8.0 in 2018. 8.0 was officially announced on July 16th, 2018. The NetBSD-8 branch was being developed as NetBSD- current between June 4th , 2017 and July 21st , 2019. Net- BSD-9 was branched on 30th July and 708 pull requests (884 commits) were processed in the branch until the final release on February 14th 2020. The development period lasting 1.5 years brought a rich set of features to the distri- bution. These include: support for new hardware devices, massive improvements for the ARM 32-bit and AArch64 architecture, stub of RISC-V support, new hardware-as- sisted virtualization options, improved Wine support, ker- nel and userland sanitizers and fuzzers, security hardening and CPU bug mitigations, graphics stack upgrade, ZFS upgrade, debugging interfaces refinement, packet filter policy, 3rd party software upgrades, many bug fixes, generic enhancements and removals of obsolete code.

</comment><comment><USER5> Debian flavored Linux.

Linux because I always loved to tinker, customize my stuff. Not just the computer but my home and car and I can customize Linux as much as I want.

I also love using CLI. I like to have remote connectivity to my home computer when I am out without having to render entire GUI on my handheld device.

It's also what I am most familiar with.

</comment><comment><USER6> I like Linux, several flavors / distributions are fine. I think it's the most useful system in the sense that it has the most similarity to the host I'm deploying on (that's not true for everyone though). It's finally gotten good enough that I never have to make tweaks or solve weird driver issues when running it as a daily driver - this is on a ThinkPad, ymmv but I'm quite happy. Also, I have all the software I need and in fact for the work I'm doing, the tools work better than they do on Mac (Docker / Go / Python / Lisp / Scheme). Windows isn't even a consideration for me. I know it works for some people the IMO the workflow for development is cumbersome and totally un-fun. Of course if I were stuck doing .NET I would just bite the bullet and use Windows.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've been running Fedora for several years now, after more than ten years of Debian and Ubuntu before that.

I don't know if it's my favourite but I have no serious complaints, except for the GUI software updater that's a bit over-zealous about rebooting after every minor update. And perhaps the general trend of getting updates all the time (a kernel every week?), but I guess that's just Linux nowadays.

The last time I bought a new laptop and made a fresh OS install I turned to Fedora for a few reasons:

0\. Linux was almost a given because of familiarity, relative ease of setup and use, and flexibility. Linux doesn't seem to generally install painlessly on Macs, so if I had bought one and ended up not liking the OS, switching wouldn't have been a given. Also, I like to have my OS open source. I also have Windows but I definitely prefer *nix for development, and I'm also more familiar with that.

1\. Easy (one-click) system-wide encryption in the installer. I think Ubuntu had somewhat more limited disk encryption options in the installer at the time, such as only home directory encryption or something. This is probably different nowadays.

2\. Ubuntu was heavy on Unity at the time, and I never really liked the UI. Of course other desktops were available and easy to install on Ubuntu but I thought they might become second-class citizens. There was also something else about the latest Ubuntu releases at the time that made me feel unconvinced but I can't remember what it was.

3\. Fedora is still mainstream enough that it's still easy-ish to find e.g. prepackaged or supported proprietary software in case I need that for something. Of course it's generally possible to install just about anything that runs on Linux on any distro, but I prefer to avoid the hassle. Usually Ubuntu comes first (e.g. Spotify only provides debs) but if there's a second, it tends to be Red Hat based distros. Also, while a new version twice a year is perhaps a bit more often than I'd like, at least most of the packages are pretty recent.

So, basically... a relatively hassle-free and mainstream Linux distro for someone who had become too lazy to go through much trouble or to get too far from the comfort zone on a daily driver, but who wanted something other than Ubuntu at the time.

</comment><comment><USER8> Qubes OS: [https://qubes-os.org](https://qubes-os.org)

It is not only secure but also provides a possibility to easily separate my life into independent domains - virtual machines (work, personal, random websites etc) with simple independent backups. Those domains are integrated into the UI such that I only see colorful windows, not full "virtual computers".

<comment><AUTHOR> Very cool, so it virtualizes apps and domains. Similar to the vein of microkernels right? Isolated, rather than monolithic

<comment><USER8> Yes, security through isolation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> openbsd. a coherent, complete, simple, pretty secure, and very readable unix.

It's my desert island OS. Most especially because of such great offline documentation and build infrastructure, I won't need to consult google for random factoids.

</comment><comment><USER10> Even though most of us use Microsoft Windows daily basis I am sure linux count will pass windows.

<comment><USER11> This surprised me. I think that most HN readers use Mac OS, followed by Linux, with Windows being used by a minority. It would be interesting to see some HN website stats. Do you have any metrics?

<comment><USER12> I too would love statics for this. However, I use Linux at home and Windows at work, and I generally read HN from my work PC in the mornings. If others are like me then this data wouldn't really be accurate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> macOS for ease of use and Homebrew makes it even more usable!</comment>


Facebook brings back in-profile third-party apps with Open Graph Collections - <AUTHOR> https://developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraph/guides/collections/

<comment><AUTHOR> Announcement: [https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2013/03/13/making-...](https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2013/03/13/making- apps-a-bigger-part-of-timeline/)</comment>


Show HN: Openmeet – Video calls without scheduling - <AUTHOR> https://openmeet.io/ <comment><USER2> Nice, can you wait for a ping that someone joined and then join, rather than having to sit on video all day (for the case: queue length is 0)? The queueing idea is interesting (if I'm understanding that you let parties in 1 by 1 as you finish chatting with previous party), I wonder if this could be branded as a customer support tool for B2B companies?</comment>


It's Harder to Read Code than to Write It - <AUTHOR> http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/22/reading-comprehension-will-make-you-a-better-programmer/

<comment><USER2> Great post, so true. One point I'd add, though: when you're writing code, make it readable by commenting well! Sure it's obvious to you why you used a ternary operator expression that uses a postfix-decrement operator and raises an exception, but that's not clear to me. Until you tell me that you're testing to see if an object reference count is zero, decrementing it if not, and raising an error if so.

Good comments are tedious work and seem pointless at the time, but just wait until you're reading your own code two weeks later, or even worse, someone else's. The time you spent explaining yourself frequently makes up for the time you'll waste later reimplementing what you did the last time around.

<comment><USER3> > Until you tell me that you're testing to see if an object reference count is > zero, decrementing it if not, and raising an error if so.

But that won't tell me _why_ your code is doing what it's doing

> Good comments are tedious work and seem pointless at the time,

Good comments should make you think about your code, not be some pain point you are compelled to endure.

If you think it's tedious and pointless, there is a good chance the reader (quite possibly yourself not to far in the future) will consider the comment tedious and pointless as well.

<comment><USER2> > But that won't tell me why your code is doing what it's doing

Indeed, that's what the rest of the comment is for.

> Good comments should make you think about your code, not be some pain point > you are compelled to endure.

Fair point. Yet the fact is that many people enjoy neither commenting nor thinking about their own code, and that's not going to change. The question is how to convince people to write good documentation in the face of intrinsic motivations not to do so, and I think the best persuasion is a reminder of how they will use that documentation later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's harder to read _bad_ code than to write it.

<comment><USER5> No, _bad_ code is really easy to write.

<comment><USER4> Am I missing something, or was one of us up too late? :)

<comment><USER6> No, one of you didn't go to bed early enough. ;-)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Luno.io – API-Based User Management as a Service - <AUTHOR> https://luno.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN!

We're working hard on Luno.io, and have our MVP almost ready. We're building an API to enable developers to use advanced User Management and Authentication systems without having to build and maintain them themselves. Alongside the Authentication API's, we offer Subscription Management API's and advanced analytics for detailed insights into your userbase!

We're expecting some questions and concerns - especially around trust and security, which is of course something we take exceptionally seriously. As well as focusing heavily on security and reliability, we're planning on having an escrow service so our customers can be confident that we won't disappear with their data, which they can migrate away from us at any time. We'll also have a strict SLA from day one.

Feel free to throw any questions in here, or email us - firstname.lastname@example.com

Thanks!

<comment><USER2> How would you say your service compares to Auth0[1]?

[1]: [https://auth0.com](https://auth0.com)

<comment><USER3> Also Userapp and Stormpath. Both offer Passport integration so NodeJS apps can just plug right in. Not to mention 2FA and OAuth.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is great. If companies serve a common API then they can compete on service rather than lockin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's really interesting to see services like this emerge.

In my opinion, the merchant processing/gateway revolution happened when providers (Stripe, Braintree, et al) started providing quality APIs for user/profile/subscription management and took the burdens of PCI compliance off of the companies building consumer products.

On the surface, I feel like this is a great way to offload the liability of storing sensitive user data -- though it also creates a central source of failure. Success is predicated on Luno securing their data; if they can't, the model would die.

If they can, it's possible we'll start to see a mass-migration of authentication-based apps switching to these service, if only for the legal intention of offloading liability.

Really, a fascinating model.

<comment><USER5> Definitely a fascinating model and there are other doing it too, but the founder's (rbin's) post pretty much read "blah... blah.. blah.. trust and security.. blah blah.. sersiously.. blah blah blah.. "

Until there is a service that has shown it has the chops it takes to securely store user data for a third party, its an uphill battle for these services.

<comment><USER6> I could see this being an issue if there were penalties for PI storage violations like there are for PCI.

PCI is the main reason to use something like Stripe.

Right now, if you store pi and get hacked, you just apologize in a post mortem blog post and move on.

<comment><USER5> PCI also comes with a bunch of rules that companies that store card data need to adhere to. Obviously the idea is that adhering to these rules ensures (there are arguments for and against, but lets skip those. :P) that data cannot be hacked.

With PI, if you're data is hacked, there is no penalty from a consortium, like in the case of PCI data being hacked, but it is ludicrous to say that there is no penalty at all. When a website is hacked and loses customer data, it also loses customer trust. The websites revenue is based on it's users trusting the site and coming back to it over and over again. A data leak would (rather has the potential) to be disastrous to the site and it's business. (Ashley Madison is the most recent example I could think of).

I do agree with the fact that for a lot of small sites that just want to identify the user, leaking PI will have almost no negative result. But then, such sites have already moved over to OAUTH, and there purpose is already served.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are you able to operate as a Shibboleth SP?

<comment><AUTHOR> We've considered this option, but not for our immediate future. Although we do aim to make Luno as extensible as possible for the developer, we haven't got becoming a Shibboleth service provider in our roadmap.

We would love to hear your thoughts on the benefits of this integration. Please drop us a line on firstname.lastname@example.com</comment></comment>


Show HN: Coplay – synchonizing video play between browsers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Justineo/coplay <comment><USER2> I've been looking for something like this, well sorta.

Many 'family' cars now come with the option of headrest ipad mounts for rear seat entertainment. This is great, but what about when my kids want to watch the same movie? Showing the same movie at the same exact time on two different ipads would be solve a tremendous pain point for me, and possible lots of other parents!

<comment><AUTHOR> Well unfortunately it only works on desktop Chrome and Firefox and if we do have something on iPad that would be sweeter :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why did you write it? What are the use cases for synchronising videos like this?

A sentence or two in your README to answer these would be handy.

<comment><AUTHOR> When I'm away from my girlfriend we chat through live audio and sometimes we want to watch movies together. So if the videos syncs we can talk and make comments as if we were together :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm creating something like this, but as a desktop app in java using VLC api.

There is a screenshot[1] of the current state, but it's a bit ugly since I had to stop working on it because of my exams. The idea is to replace the VLC+Skype combo for watching movies together with automatically syncing the play/pause.

But there is another problem I haven't decided yet, and it's the communication channel for chat and syncing. I'm torn between creating a server on an own VPS or adding an IRC client to the app (since you can always find a free irc server and create a room).

[1]: [http://i.pics.rs/jDvun](http://i.pics.rs/jDvun)

</comment><comment><USER5> One of the projects I have on my list which I'll never get around to is distributed group karaoke using webcams. Seems like you should be able to sync both the karaoke video out and the return feed such that you could have a group sing-a-long experience over the web.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does it also work for the "Live" streams on Youtube? That's the use-case in which I could use the most this kind of synch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haven't tried that...it probably won't work. I live in China so YouTube is kinda inconvenient. I connected via VPN to test on YouTube and it should work on most video clips.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does this necessarily have to be a browser extension or is there any hope of using the video provider APIs to accomplish the same thing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course it will be much easier to use if video sites like YouTube provide this feature. But I don't thinks its that widely needed for them to put it on the feature list.

<comment><USER7> What I meant to ask is if it's possible with current APIs. I know sync isn't explicitly provided, but wondering if something could be backed together another way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> At first, I thought the app name was "cosplay" :P</comment>


Ask HN: Have you donated to a YC nonprofit / Would you if it was easier to do so - <AUTHOR>

Curious how many HN folks have donated to a YC nonprofit and where you first learned about the organization. If you haven't donated to one, interested in any specific thoughts/reasons why.
Thanks all!

Background: We're building a service that makes it easier for people to engage in effective philanthropy. Our launch market will likely be unstaffed foundations, but thought we'd do some testing with a feature focused on individual donors (people like you and me, donating ~$50 at a time vs $50,000).
We'll do a Show HN soon for the full enchilada, but here's how we're thinking the consumer version would function: https://kyn.me/coinvest/y_combinator_all_time
Any and all feedback most welcome! <comment><USER2> As a YC partner, I've given to all of them.

Watsi and Zidisha are particularly enjoyable to donate through directly, because you choose a person you'd like to help.

Like, for the cost of a good dinner, you could fund the remaining 1/3 of fixing this kid's legs: [https://watsi.org/profile/0cbc7f502d2e-deonisi](https://watsi.org/profile/0cbc7f502d2e-deonisi). He's from a farming family, so imagine how much difference it will make throughout his life to be able to walk properly. You'll get pictures after the work is done.

Or choose someone else to help: that's part of the experience.

(But it's also a fine thing for unstaffed foundations to give across the board.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate the insight @tlb. One of the most interesting things we found when we first embarked on this journey was the seemingly inverse relationship between the size of the check and the donor/beneficiary connection. Great to see innovators like Watsi and Zidisha (DonorsChoose, charity: water, etc) bringing that connection back!

Clickable links for folks:

Watsi: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8563558](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8563558) (today's Universal Fund announcement)

Zidisha: [https://www.zidisha.org/](https://www.zidisha.org/)</comment></comment>


Computer manpower: is there a crisis? - <AUTHOR> https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/Curtis-ComputerManpower/ <comment><USER2> I've been thinking a lot lately that, given the general complexity of building software/hardware and our ambitions for what computers ought to be able to do, there should be a much larger percentage of the population working on building software.

I don't know whether that's possible given the difficulty of building software/hardware today and the general (lack of) interest of the general population but 3.6M software engineers in the U.S. (1% of the total) and 18M in the world[0] (0.2% of the total) seems way lower than optimal.

[0]: [https://www.computerworld.com/article/2483690/it- careers/ind...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/2483690/it- careers/india-to-overtake-u-s--on-number-of-developers-by-2017.html)</comment>


Lego Antikythera Mechanism (oldest known scientific computer) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLPVCJjTNgk

<comment><USER2> 1500 Lego Technic parts, 110 gears ....

There was a great Scientific American article on this last year -- [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=decoding- an...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=decoding-an-ancient- computer)</comment>


Why you should buy shares in BlackBerry right now - <AUTHOR> http://www.techvibes.com/blog/why-you-should-buy-shares-in-research-in-motion-right-now-2011-01-06

<comment><USER2> Also their recent strategy of suing successful developers on their platform shows they're serious about keeping the Blackberry competitive!

I know that's the kind of company I'd bet on.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article fails to make a convincing argument for how the Playbook will fare any better than the dozens of "me too" Android tablets already on the market.

Why do enterprise customers need tablet devices? What is the advantage to a tablet device running the RIM OS versus whatever desktop operating system the company uses for the rest of their infrastructure? Is RIM going to make another aborted attempt at pushing their app store, or are they betting on a third party to pick up the slack?

Opinions are cheap- let's see some harder facts.

</comment><comment><USER4> Actually, the company that seems most promising to me at the moment (as an undervalued stock) is HP.

WebOS is a solid OS and HP has a lot of experience making and shipping hardware. There's a lot of potential for integration between WebOS and the other devices they already make: laptops, printers, netbooks, phones, and tablets.

</comment><comment><USER5> My favorite line in the article is when he says that RIM has "two CEOs".

If one is good, two must be better!

I don't have any investment advice re: RIM, but I can say with confidence that we're not downloading their tablet SDK anytime soon.

</comment><comment><USER6> With the flood of android tablets that'll be coming out later this year, the price point for the blackberry tablet is way too high. Even apple will likely have a price drop associated with iPad2.

Blackberry is heading back to enterprise, and that's where it should try to solidify.

</comment><comment><USER7> By the sound of the article, I don't think the author even owns a blackberry smartphone. I do. It's garbage. Think companies will stay loyal to BB? Think again. A tablet device that nobody has touched yet is a non-product in my mind.

</comment><comment><USER8> I should buy RIMM because - google and apple haven't eaten their lunch in corporations, yet, and the playbook, a product that doesn't even exist, might make #2 in the tablet market? And how many new tablets are being released at ces?

</comment><comment><USER9> >Why you should buy shares in BlackBerry right now

Because I just did and I want a quick out ...!?</comment>


Ask HN: How will Git get around the discovery of SHA-1 collissions? - <AUTHOR> With the recent (practical) discovery of SHA-1 collisions, Git is particularly affected, as this hash is part of its core functionality.<p>Practically, how can a VCS as widely-deployed as Git get around this kind of issue? <comment><USER2> It won't. Linus shot down that idea in 2006, long after the basic concept for this attack was originally published. According to Linus, people shouldn't depend on Git's hashing algorithm for cryptographic authenticity. If they want authenticity they should sign commits with GnuPG and, presumably, rebuild the tree occasionally from the authenticated commits to expose any malicious modifications.

kerneltrap.org is unresponsive at the moment but I believe the relevant e-mail threads are here:

      http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/git/2006/8/27/211001
      http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/git/2006/8/28/211065

</comment><comment><USER3> My engineering intuition is that from a practical standpoint, this isn't an issue for Git. It's much more likely that the network will go down or all the copies of the repository become deleted or a developer will use Git tooling maliciously than for an unintended collision to occur.

Could a malicious actor construct a collision and use it to subvert some code base? Sure. And it has probably already happened. Crytography is considered a munition in the US and there are US government agencies which have been devoted to cryptography continuously since the Second World War and there are similar agencies in other countries and every last one of them employs many highly motivated highly educated and highly skilled cryptographic experts and the latest money is not an object compute hardware to find exactly this type of vulnerability, create capabilities based on that discovery, and to deploy them into the wild for national and political and economic interests.

To put it a different way, by the time something like this hits Hacker News, the odds are that organizations with the capability and funding to do things like _inventing_ computers have already figured it out. Just as there is a discontinuity between what Google and SpaceX can do that looks like the future and the average engineer with a laptop or a garage can do that looks like the future, there is a similar gap between the future that Space X and Google can build and what a government institution can build. Space X hauls payloads to an existing station in LEO and Google runs on an internet that existed before it did.

The horses are long gone before anyone realizes the barn door is open.

</comment><comment><USER4> It will not be an issue for existing commits, at least not yet.

Practically possible are collision attacks, which means someone with google- level hardware can craft 2 commits (one malicious) and keep the later for later.

Technically, the fix is for git to move to SHA256 or higher, and I'm sure there'll be discussions around this shortly in the git community.

</comment><comment><USER5> The main idea behind the collision is that you can put a lot of garbage inside a pdf in a zone that the pdf reader will ignore. This is very common for most file formats, like jpg, doc, ... so the same idea applies to most of them.

But it will be very difficult to disguise that in a PR. If you send a PR that says

\- printf("Helo");

\+ printf("Hello");

\+ // UIHIUEDN7heuiheuih7h00eduhuihoiu[...]hiouHIGo77OUIHIUHJ&g6(&(HHHIUHIIOJIOJK8jjoijoijdnYIHIHI

the maintainer will be very suspicious. (And if you do this in a business, they will fire you.)

<comment><USER6> Can you explain how git uses the sha-1 hash? If the maintainer still has to merge PRs I don't see how it's affected.</comment></comment>


XCode May Come to iPhone and iPad in iOS 14 - <AUTHOR> https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/04/20/xcode-may-be-coming-to-the-iphone-and-ipad-very-soon <comment><USER2> I don't expect this will be much more than the next "evolution" of Playgrounds.

I don't think Apple would even want/be willing to support anything other than Swift, and probably only iOS/Catalyst development. Anything complex with multiple languages (Objective-C, Swift, C, C++ and/or any scripting) would probably not be supported, so there wouldn't be any chance of "porting" your existing projects to this iXcode.

It might be an evolution towards "coding-as-a-service", which I've been expecting: [https://macintouch.com/community/index.php?threads/competiti...](https://macintouch.com/community/index.php?threads/competition- technology-apple-management-plans.678/post-13876)

<comment><USER3> Once iOS has the ability to sign its own apps, the sky is the limit. In fact, we're getting pretty close to this even without Apple's help. UTM can boot Windows 10 using a whacky JIT hack to get QEMU's TCG working for (slow) x86 emulation. It won't be long until someone boots Xcode and compiles a simple app (though it would probably take hours!). [https://github.com/utmapp/UTM](https://github.com/utmapp/UTM). On the other hand, many smart people have started to port other languages, such as porting the Python interpreter ([https://github.com/holzschu/python3_ios](https://github.com/holzschu/python3_ios)) and C compilers ([https://github.com/ColdGrub1384/SeeLess](https://github.com/ColdGrub1384/SeeLess)). See the LibTerm project ([https://github.com/ColdGrub1384/LibTerm](https://github.com/ColdGrub1384/LibTerm)). I can already see someone creating a sandboxed mini-OS with the ability to spawn and manage processes just like a Linux terminal by cheating iOS's Thread API.

However, your forum post says you believe Apple wants to take the power of the ability to locally compile and sign away from developers. This is unlikely for a number of reasons, one of which is completely breaking all games built using non-SceneKit workflows (basically all of them) along with other apps that depend on outside compilers.

</comment></comment><comment> lachlan-sneff This will be a lot more useful if we get terminal access as well, even if it's just to a sandbox or container and the ability to link compiled libraries in other languages to our code in this version of xcode.

</comment><comment><USER4> I find it hard to take seriously a rumor that can't even get the capitalization of Xcode correct.

</comment><comment><USER5> The market is much more interested in Linux/Windows versions. But I guess they still want you to buy the hardware/OS to get the full living-in-the-Apple ecosystem experience to inform what you create for your users.

Disclaimer: I use all Apple gear.</comment>