Redis: new disk storage to replace VM - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/redis-db/browse_thread/thread/d444bc786689bde9?pli=1

<comment><USER2> So, as a non-Redis user, am I correct in my understanding that an admin may define a maximum delay before write-behind persistence must be attempted? For applications which can afford to lose a few seconds of data in the case of a failure, this seems like a great way to improve latency.

More generally, why are there no MySQL (or whatever) engines which offer similar capabilities? Wouldn't it be possible for DB clients to "commit" transactions to memory and then have them flushed to disk asynchronously with all other ACI(d) properties maintained? There are many applications which can survive a few seconds of data loss but need transactional properties to avoid data corruption.

<comment><USER3> All modern relational databases implement exactly what you've described... transactions are written to a transaction log, which is flushed to disk every few seconds (or whenever you want to guarantee that a txn is durable). Changes to the actual data need not be persisted in a timely manner, because in the event of a crash the data is recovered from the transaction log.

<comment><USER2> "in the event of a crash the data is recovered from the transaction log"

Doesn't this statement imply that a disk hit occurred before a client is told that a transaction committed (vs. being told that a unique key constraint was violated, etc.)? I'm talking about a more extreme form where I don't have to wait multiple milliseconds for a disk platter to spin around before continuing with my processing.

<comment><USER3> For full durability, you configure/ask the DB to fsync the transaction log before reporting the transaction committed to the client.

Most people can tolerate a few seconds of data loss, so a sensible config will only fsync every few seconds and will report a transaction committed before it hits the disk. If the DB crashes, you lose those recent transactions in this mode.

All (?) relational databases let you choose which fsync style you want. Most (?) ship with this setting set to the conservative 'fsync on every commit' mode. Once you configure a SQL database with a more relaxed setting you get a database that performs much more similarly to NoSQL. But some people need full durability - or want it for particular transactions. In that mode, you're basically bound by the the number of IOPS your disk can do, but are guaranteed full durability.

<comment><USER4> Also note that you can get the best of both worlds with a battery backed RAM cache contained in a SAN storage backend, such that the storage subsystem can be extremely low latency and yet "guarantee" that what it has accepted will get persisted to a disk for durability. (Predictably, this isn't cheap, but it's very effective.)

Your DB host tells the SAN to write this block, the SAN ingests the write to local RAM and reports "got it" to the DB server in sub-millisecond. The SAN will then dump that data to actual underlying discs over the next (hand-wavy) short timeframe, but from the DB's perspective, it got a durable fsync in under a millisecond.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> sounds like he's trying to implement something similar to a 'dbm' (tokyo/kyoto as current/modern implementations) which are k/v caches that seem to intelligently write to disk.

Presumably the keyset can still be in ram (so that [star]foo[star]bar[star]1 searches on keys can work?), but the dbm model is a fairly efficient key/val implementation, and tokyo/kyoto is fast, and fairly smart about writing to disk, although I haven't explicitly testing their limitations as you approach ram limits in production.

Not sure what tradeoffs are in mind, but atleast a feature/perf comparison to kyoto compared with diskstore as an internal back for redis would be interesting

[1](doesnt seem i can escape an *)

<comment><USER6> I don't think the keyset will be in ram: "Redis will never use more RAM, even if we have 2 MB of max memory and 1 billion of keys. This works since now we don't need to take keys in memory."

I haven't looked at the current code to see if there is a way to favor keeping the keys in memory, but it would seem that wildcard searches here can/will be disk-bound.

<comment><USER5> tokyo supports a b-tree index on the keys written to disk which would optimize blah* queries but not [wildcard]foo[wildcard], and then writes become log(N)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are people aware of Python object databases like ZODB and Durus? I'm not very familiar with Redis. However, the model used by ZODB and Durus (on disk durable storage, in memory client caches) can be extremely efficient depending on workloads.

</comment><comment><USER8> I am curious as to what people who use Redis in production think of these types of changes. Is this alarming or hopeful? Seems like a rather large shift in trade-offs and a whole new set of tuning parameters to play with.

<comment><USER9> Alarming, I'd imagine:

<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/redis-db/ZTSm-1w-6AQ>

To quote from the end of the post:

        so, to sum this up -- after a while, you are stuck with an
        in-memory database that you cannot backup, cannot replicate to
        a standby machine, and that will eventually consume all memory
        and crash (if it does not crash earlier).

        conclusion: redis with vm enabled is pretty much unusable, and we
        would really not recommend it to anybody else for production use
        at the moment. (at least not as a database, it might work better
        as a cache.)

<comment><USER10> Actually, that is talking about the existing virtual-memory (VM) implementation, which swaps data in and out to disk, and doesn't work so great.

The change being talked about here is all about replacing that exact flakey VM with a more solid disk backed approach

<comment><USER9> I'm sorry, but that's what I meant. I'd be more alarmed than enticed to discover that the current implementation of datasets-larger-than-RAM for my chosen database was considered "flakey", and was going to be swapped out for a green-field approach in the next release.

For reference, this is the blog post that introduced the VM idea: <http://antirez.com/post/redis-virtual-memory-story.html>

<comment><USER11> > I'm sorry, but that's what I meant. I'd be more alarmed than enticed to > discover that the current implementation of datasets-larger-than-RAM for my > chosen database was considered "flakey", and was going to be swapped out for > a green-field approach in the next release.

As Redis is mainly an in-memory DB, currently larger datasets than RAM were not our first goal, and there was even the idea to drop support at all for this use case. I think that what matters for most users is that the default mode of operations is working great, and that for an alternative mode of operations developers are not dogmatic and don't fear to drop what is not optimal to replace it with something better. In many other contexts this would be regarded as bad marketing and not done at all, but I try to follow a scientific way to make progresses, and I tend to accept that I and the other developers are not perfect and need to make mistakes and improve the design again and again ;)

I like Redis data model and I think this is our biggest value, and we need to find different underlaying implementations for different use cases, and keep trying to provide more speed, better durability, better replication, and so forth, ad libitum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> See also: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2053594></comment>


The Pufferfish's Lethal Poison Shows Up Right Under Our Feet - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/the-pufferfishs-lethal-poison-shows-up-right-under-our-feet

<comment><USER2> The power of TTX was an eye opener to me. But I think I'll go hide under my covers now.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a declarative animation language? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for a programming language for graphics. Something like processing.org but more declarative.
for example if I had a circle with center in 0,0 and then I exited to have center in 100,100 then the animation to transform from one to the other should happen automatically.
something that looks like:
(circle 0,0) `animate` (circle 100,100).
or even better animate automatically between scenes, where a scene is a set of other drawings. so animate from scene to the next would be like:
scene1 `animate` scene2
does something like that exist? <comment><USER2> Racket has universe, [https://docs.racket- lang.org/teachpack/2htdpuniverse.html](https://docs.racket- lang.org/teachpack/2htdpuniverse.html)

also "how to design worlds" [https://world.cs.brown.edu/](https://world.cs.brown.edu/)

sample of HTDW, [https://world.cs.brown.edu/1/projects/chicken/v1.gif](https://world.cs.brown.edu/1/projects/chicken/v1.gif)

</comment><comment><USER3> SwiftUI has features like that

        struct AnimatedCircle: View {
            @State private var radius: CGFloat = 0
            var body: some View {
                Circle()
                    .frame(width: radius, height: radius)
                    .onAppear {
                        withAnimation {
                            self.radius = 100
                        }
                    }
            }
        }

</comment><comment><USER4> XML-based, so a bit wordy, but css animations are declarative and can be combined with svg. See for example [https://css-tricks.com/guide-svg- animations-smil](https://css-tricks.com/guide-svg-animations-smil).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronized_Multimedia_Integr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronized_Multimedia_Integration_Language) takes that a bit further by allowing animation of other things than attributes.

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://github.com/3b1b/manim](https://github.com/3b1b/manim)

</comment><comment><USER6> Haskell has reanimate ([https://reanimate.github.io/](https://reanimate.github.io/)), although I don't personally have much experience with it. But it does have an online playground to try out stuff in the browser

</comment><comment><USER7> [http://paperjs.org/about/](http://paperjs.org/about/) might be a good starting point</comment>


Zen Magnets burned $40k of buckyballs, got fined $5.5mil and still beat the feds - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/shihan-qu-zen-magnets-cpsc_us_599216a4e4b08a247276b0ea <comment><USER2> I've been interested in this story for years. Since I Buckyballs a couple years ago for the first time, then seeing so many of them going into the furnace, such a shame. Glad to see you guys came out on top in the end.</comment>


Animated Engines - <AUTHOR> http://www.animatedengines.com/

<comment><USER2> Fascinating. And I had no idea that most engines could be explained in a 2D picture, without the need to go 3D.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks cool, so I feel churlish complaining, but I'd prefer it if the speed was varied by changing the distance/rotation moved, rather than the time delay between frames. i.e. like true slow-motion from a high fps camera.

 _EDIT_ unfortunately, the approach he used precludes this: <http://www.animatedengines.com/howto.shtml> I guess it illustrates how rare it is to combine domain expertise (like that guy has), with an unrelated expertise in animation. If you have both (or access to them), you can make difficult things much easier, and so create value.

<comment><USER4> Hi, I'm the site author. Here's an experimental SVG page that addresses your comment. I may be switching to that one of these days.

<http://animatedengines.com/svg/test.xhtml>

Thanks, everyone, for the kind words. And, I'd love to get your feedback on the SVG page.

-Matt

<comment><USER3> Cool, thanks. The main motion works for me (FF 2, linux, on a eeePC 900MHz), except for black circles that appear and disappear near the center, in 3 locations (only one is visible at a time, and sometimes none are).

Here's results from your test that gives performance figures (<http://animatedengines.com/svg/testp.xhtml>), running with several tabs open:

        fps              10      20      30      50
        Average overrun  -0.091  30.212  46.919  59.707

(I let it update a few times to settle down before pasting the figures, so they represent an average of the "average overrun").

Maybe it doesn't matter so much if the fps is slow for more complex engines? If the change between updates is small enough, it will look pretty smooth. Is it important to be able to make the machine rotate fast? I mean, it looks cool, but does the viewer gain greater understanding from this? (I'm not being rhetorical - I really don't know. Maybe it gives an overall feel for the engine's operation).

Sorry, I don't have any experience with JS animation to address the issues you mention. Some people here probably do though - or why not ask on <http://stackoverflow.com> ? It's often excellent for clear technical questions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I always have a great deal of respect for a person who takes time to share knowledge is such an amazing way.

Great Job!!

</comment><comment><USER6> As a mechanical engineer may I say, "This is simply awesome!"

</comment><comment><USER7> I love old aircraft rotary engines:

<http://www.animatedengines.com/gnome.shtml>

Aside, this is one of the few sites that makes legitimate use of animated gifs.

</comment><comment><USER8> by far my favourite:

<http://www.animatedengines.com/vstirling.shtml></comment>


Project to compare Groovy, Clojure, Javascript, JRuby and Jython - <AUTHOR> http://www.oraclejavamagazine-digital.com/javamagazine/20120102#pg66

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies about that - should have mentioned something. I had signed up in the past and forgot the site wasn't public.

<comment><USER2> Was there a conclusion from the article?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nasty registration wall :-(

<comment><USER4> With a pop up modal window when you browse back. So even worse than most.</comment></comment>


A Blight-Fighting Solution for Saving Detroiters from Eviction - <AUTHOR> https://nextcity.org/features/view/detroit-foreclosures-tax-auction-loveland-technologies-jerry-paffendorf <comment><USER2> > "One way you can look at it, that's certainly true, is it's eminent domain > by another name,"

No, it's not. With eminent domain, a property owner doesn't have a choice. Here, the property owner can pay the taxes due and keep the property.

<comment><USER3> As far as I know, in the US eminent domain has similarly been used to "fight blight". You could argue that the property owner in those cases also had a choice by keeping their property in good condition.

<comment><USER4> "fight blight" has a broad term. In my town they blighted the Ferrari dealer to make way for a mall. Because, well once a Ferrari dealer moves into a neighborhood its all crack houses and ruin from there on out. Also a bunch of tidy, well maintained little brick bungalows whose owners just wanted to die in the houses they lived in their whole life.

<comment><USER5> Is this in the US? AFAIK quite a few states have passed laws to curtail such takings, after the _Kelo v New London_ debacle.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


3 Years, 6 Months, and $0 MRR - <AUTHOR> http://retromocha.com/learn/3-years-6-months-and-0-mrr/

<comment><USER2> Welcome to the unfortunate reality of most internet businesses. The default outcome of a lifestyle business is a lot closer to this than a patio11 style runaway success. The lifestyle entrepreneur myth is so pervasive on HN that the common mindset of non startup people is "Oh, I don't want to do the startup thing, I'll just build a steady slow growth business and make $10K a month". The reality is that a side project making $10K a month is even less likely than a multi million dollar acquisition of a venture funded startup. The median outcome is not that you'll get 0.01% of a niche market, it's that you'll get 0%

<comment><USER3> _The default outcome of a lifestyle business is a lot closer to this than a patio11 style runaway success._

Maybe this is a matter of perspective, but I don't consider my business a runaway freight train. There exist many, many, many businesses in your town which make more than I do.

I know literally hundreds of people who have businesses which are roughly similar (consultancies / SaaS shops / infoproducts / etc, created without substantial non-founder investment), and believe me when I say this, I neither optimize for nor have achieved an unattainably high watermark.

<comment><USER4> It's logarithmic. But your time as a consultant is worth more than some number of 9's of people on the planet (99.99% for instance). You've got one business that runs itself, and another one ticking along pretty well. Maybe you haven't made all the money you want to make, but you're well on your way to financial freedom, appear to be doing something that makes you happy, and have a family (congrats!), friends, and seem to be fairly happy with the world.

If you look at things in absolute terms, rather than relative terms (someone _always_ has more), you seem pretty successful to me in a way that not a lot of people manage. I wouldn't belittle it too much.

<comment><USER5> He's not belittling it, he's (politely and patio11-ly) saying: "Stop putting this huge space between me and you because it isn't there, and you're short- selling yourself by pretending it is."

<comment><USER4> If we were to look at the most quantitative, objective thing, consulting rates, there very certainly is a difference between patio11 and the average HN user (and most of _us_ are better off than the population at large, I'm willing to bet).

I've met him, and you're right that he's very polite, generally humble and a good guy, and I can appreciate he's seen plenty of people making orders of magnitude more money than him. Still though, he's pretty successful.

<comment><USER6> It's a bit irrelevant to go down this road since patio11 has quit direct consulting, but from what I've read, patio11's path to (consulting) success goes like this: patio11 likes teachers, makes bingo card app, charges for it like a reasonable person; patio11 notices all these mistakes he's making while selling to teachers, blogs about it, blog gains popularity among like-minded individuals; patio11 falls into consulting, delivers a good service, and finds out how much he can charge for it.

There's nothing in this story that's dependent on being very lucky or being exceptionally smart; the only outstanding traits here are overcoming the fear of the unknown that plagues everyone and being a good teacher, but both of these can be learned. It mostly just comes down to spending your time doing the right things.

And now with AR, just by focusing on the major mistake from BCC (selling to teachers), patio11 has sort of proven my point for me: it doesn't take that long to bootstrap a successful business with all the resources available to you now. There are more than enough blog posts telling you what to do, what not to do, and there are more than enough open niches that are _perfect_ for microbusinesses to supplant the dayjobs of everyone on HN who has the same restless ambition that makes staying in those dayjobs an impossibly depressing prospect. And from there, consulting for larger businesses with what you learn in your micro is just icing on the cake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sounds like people are consistently willing to pay money for Paint Colors; i.e., it provides real value to real people.

So why not focus on it?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good idea that we are tinkering with. However, the economics of the app store aren't awesome.

At an average revenue of say $1.50 per sale, we need sustained sales of like 10,000 or more units per month. We are in the 100-200 sales a month currently. I can see us getting to 500 sales a month maybe, but growing sales 50-100x is not something we have figured out how to do.

At some point we would run up against the low revenue per sale and lack of recurring revenue. I have some ideas, but I don't see it being much more than a $10,000-$25,000 per year app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Life is too short - Good luck with your experiments!</comment>


Hackable humans and digital dictators: Q&A with Yuval Noah Harari - <AUTHOR> https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/hackable-humans-digital-dictators-qa-yuval-noah-harari-180824095306982.html <comment><USER2> I have read Harari's "Sapiens", but I did not want to go on with the sequel. The main reason was his way of always seeing clouds on the horizon and predicting doomsday, probably because fear sells more books.

I believe the metaphorical clouds he is talking about here will probably drift by. This is because I believe that the main reason why most people don't act like tyrants, is not that they don't have the opportunity (because most people have the opportunity to be someone's tormentor); it is that it is in their economic interest to cooperate with others, benefiting their own survival.

Conjuring up dystopian visions of the future is no challenge; I'm sure most readers could come up with ten just to argue with this comment. But society's been getting better in every aspect of living almost every decade since the enlightenment. While this is not a law of nature, it is reasonable to assume that this will continue for a little while.

<comment><USER3> Society has been getting better, but at what cost? Human's have radically disrupted ever biosphere on Earth throughout the past 10,000 years and are almost certainly the prime driver of a current mass extinction of life on Earth. Our global society depends on healthy ecosystems, so where does it leave us when those ecosystems collapse? Every day human life might be getting better, but for how long? Can we sustain modern Western lifestyles for thousands of years? The Romans lived through hundreds of years in relative affluence where their civilization seemed unbreakable. Look at where that empire is today. 70 million years ago dinosaurs were the undisputed rulers of the planet, but where are the dinosaurs now? What's to say that ours is the civilization that lasts forever when all historical evidence is to the contrary?

The sequel Homo Deus isn't as good, and it felt like something that was written in a rush after Harari managed to break into the best-seller list.

<comment><USER2> The point of surviving is not to last forever; it is to last longer. Feeling slightly depressed that your civilization may undergo changes during the next hundred years or that your species may not be able to last until the end of time is a privilege of living in an abundant, technologically advanced society. To paraphrase Stein's law and one of its corollaries: Something that can't go on forever, won't, but it can go on for longer than you think.

The reason why everyone points to Western Rome as an example of fleeting success (forgetting that its eastern part survived for an additional millennium), is that it was the last empire to go out with a real boom. As a counter-example, you could point to the British empire, whose heritage is still alive and well: We are discussing using its language and it is still a part of the G7. The same goes for the Roman language, which is still one of the world's most spoken, just under another name (Spanish). And you probably have dinosaur descendants living in your city, in the form of birds. Things survive, and so will we.

Worrying about imminent ecological collapse is as old as the industrial revolution. Thomas Malthus postulated that agricultural yields would not be able to keep up with population growth. But here we are, more than two hundred years later, better equipped than ever to tackle the challenges ahead of us. I am certain that we will make it out alive, as long as we keep up our good work.

<comment><USER4> We are in massive unpayable (with todays technologies) debt to the biosphere. The difference between Rome and now was Romes fall was due to being superseded by other humans. We are in a totally different time now. Western hegemony failing will not be replaced by Chinese or whatever. Humans will die off is unprecedented numbers, along with most other species. This time it won't be humans replacing other humans unless we achieve some pretty remarkable technological breakthroughs in the coming decade. You talk about 100 years in the future but I think you'll be in for a shock when you see the climate change in the next 10 years even.

<comment><USER2> Where did you get these claims from?

<comment><USER5> [https://climate.nasa.gov/](https://climate.nasa.gov/)

[http://www.ipcc.ch/](http://www.ipcc.ch/)

<comment><USER2> I don't see the prediction of humanity's immediate extinction on the front pages of these organizations. From what I have gathered, their perspective, like mine, is that these challenges are substantial, but surmountable. And we can all contribute.

As I see it, the best thing anyone can do right now is to convince their friends and relatives that nuclear energy is safe and necessary; that will buy us a lot of time.

<comment><USER4> We're past the tipping point to run away warming according to some reputable climate scientists. Im not saying we can't reverse it but we're not even attempting to at the moment beyond half hearted deals like the Paris climate accord.

<comment><USER6> And the US is not even complying to the half hearted agreement

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is a much more convincing talk on the dangers of bioengineering: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY)

News article if you can't watch: [https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/31/bioweapons-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/31/bioweapons- cancer-moonshot-gene-editing)

tl;dr "The reason you haven't heard much about bioweapons is that they've been held back by a pretty severe limitation, which is the potential for blowback." Unlocking the ability to target specific genes will overcome this since the same tech that allows targeting only cancer cell will allow targeting specific groups or individuals.

> What, for example, if groups spread their agenda in a very direct way, by > literally rewriting DNA to make it impossible to live a life against their > credo? Suppose militant vegans wanted to end meat eating: there's a gene for > that. Or imagine if radical misogynists wanted to force the veiling of all > women: there's a gene for sunlight intolerance, and the genetic functions of > gender are already well-known.

> Or, he suggested, attacks could be done on an individual level: targeting > public figures by stealing their genetic code, or targeting their whole > family by sequencing the genes of someone who's closely related. And the > attacks could be subtler than what's expected: Sotos cited genes for > intractable diarrhea, massive weight gain, total baldness and "an intense > fishy body odour".

</comment><comment><USER8> Do any of you guys can think of something that we can do in order to get rid of the problems that's described in this talk. I am asking for solutions that may or may not work but just a guess. What about the problem with Bio- Engineering? What about hacking humans and predicting humans behavior? I want to hear what is your thoughts on the solutions to these problems?</comment>


Why do we tolerate Buffett's lame, sexist 'jokes'? - <AUTHOR> http://www.irishtimes.com/business/work/lucy-kellaway-why-do-we-tolerate-buffett-s-lame-sexist-jokes-1.2998592 <comment><USER2> Relax, Buffet is a good man. Anybody who has followed his life knows he is a good person overall and that he likes to joke even in the most inappropriate moments.

Buffet if yes he has a responsibility to be political towards the public he's not a politician himself and if he makes inappropriate comments once in a while, so be it.

I think we should go down of our cloud of righteousness and learn to laugh of ourselves once in a while.

<comment><USER3> > _I think we should go down of our cloud of righteousness and learn to laugh > of ourselves once in a while._

No doubt. The headline is ludicrous: why should we tolerate? Because being tolerant is a positive trait. Buffet has done more for mankind than most of the people who are bound to complain about his lame joke on their Facebook page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Because so many people have 80+ grandfather or know one. People are products of their age and so is Buffet. If we want to allow old people to participate in public life, we must learn to roll our eyes and let it pass.

20-year old sexist must be corrected. 50-year old can learn. For 80+ plus year old man who means no harm it's too late.</comment>


Ask HN: FAQ Pages useful? - <AUTHOR>

I just put together a FAQ page for http://browseology.com to help clarify the new technology.  We found that people are often times associating real-time collaboration with signups, installs, and such, so that's what they keep looking for on our page, when all they need is to click a link to get the screen sharing ability for the web.  Trying to explain how simple something is in a world that's not accustom to it is hard, so we put up a FAQ to see if it would help.
Do you guys think a FAQ is useful for a site?
Should you actually be solving the problem of why a FAQ even exists?
IF you need a FAQ is your product too hard to understand to begin with?
Let's hear your thoughts, and please review my FAQ page as well. <comment><USER2> I _always_ look for a FAQ whenI visit a site that is not instantly obvious.

Your right fixing issues that make a FAQ a necessity are important but you can never make it obvious for every single person. If you can describe whats going on in a few simple paragraphs then

Often, too, I benchmark a site by the FAQ - if there are some similar sites I intend to use and one specifically has a well written FAQ that could tip the balance. It shows care for your users and that you understand that at some point something wont make sense to someone :)

I have to be truthful (because you asked): your whole site is missing the "obvious". I admit when you first linked to it I was a little confused about what was suppsed to happen (it did come to me quite fast but was still counter-intuitive).

On the front page you have one sentence to describe what it's about "Real time collaborative shopping with friends". That's a great tagline but you dont explain it any more than that. I know there is more below but there isnt a simple "dumbed down" pararaph saying "you can browse amazon seeing the same page as your friends, caht and discuss your choices".

Also it occurs to me that your experts thing is the "value" behind the service: if I had a friend who was ace at cooking and were looking for a cook book then obviously I would collaborate with him. But chances are I dont and so your experts are what would sell the idea to me! On the main page you dont really explain that option.

Same applies to the FAQ place: 2 paragraphs of what you are, what it entails and stuff about the experts set at the top of the page would be perfect for anyone a little lost from the start.

Basically: awesome idea, just needs a bit of user interface tweaking :D

Incidentally as a general point the "you can copy this URL to your friends" message whe you start to browse stays on my screen for about 1-2secs. Not easy to read what it says: as that is the main method of collaboration (and that is the only place that explains it) I dunno if you want to make it stay a bit longer :) EDIT: ignore that, I see on my other rig that it DOES stay longer the first time. My bad :)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the great feedback.

You're right - Browseology isn't obvious at first glance. That's the biggest area that we're tackling right now, since as kineticac mentioned, it's a new concept to be browsing together without installation.

Experts are a huge part of the value prop. We're emphasizing that we're able to connect you to people who are are interested in what you're looking for.

If you come across more - I'd love to talk about it, email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, a FAQ is certainly useful. But in the case of the Browseology FAQ and homepage, you have to take a step back and try to look at it through the eyes of a first time visitor.

Above the first input box there's a link with the text "then join". To me that looks like I have to create an account. Rephrase it.

But the number one problem I see is "your URL" and "the URL". Honestly, what does "Copy & paste your URL" mean? Do I have to enter amazon.com? Do you want the URL to my MySpace page? Even in the FAQ it isn't clear what kind of URL you're referring to.

Or maybe I'm just a bit dense ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah the wording is definitely a bit weird from someone who has never seen this before. You're not dense at all. I don't think we realized that it might be a bit too simple and not descriptive enough the way it's worded.

"then join" is a really good point too, I feel like it's telling you to signup as well, I didn't even realize that until now!

Thank you for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In your case, you don't need a FAQ, you need to improve your homepage and focus the product.

I did a quick mockup of an improved homepage: [http://poorbuthappy.com/wordpress/wp- content/uploads/2009/05...](http://poorbuthappy.com/wordpress/wp- content/uploads/2009/05/browsology.png)

Equally important: you need to decide what the main interaction is, and focus on that, instead of making the user choose between 3 confusing ways of interacting on the homepage.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for taking the time to show what you had in mind. We're very quickly iterating over new homepage designs and will be sure to highlight the main interaction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Do you guys think a FAQ is useful for a site?_

Yes, it is one of the first things I look for on a site introducing a new technology or new service. It is a clue I use to determine how committed the company is to user-friendliness.

</comment><comment><USER7> FAQ is not the first thing I look for in a site. To me, in context hints and help links are more useful. Personally, I would focus more on these. I do check the faq, if all else fails to explain.

</comment><comment><USER8> FAQs are great. I usually read them as one of the first things on a site. They breakdown the most important points in bite-sized chunks. They're also very useful because they're problem oriented (questions), which makes it more likely that you'll find what you're looking for.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://browseology.com>

</comment><comment><USER9> An FAQ is documentation with a specific format. You don't have to wait for any questions to be asked before starting your FAQ, though it should highlight any questions you get asked regularly.</comment>


Google Cloud COO Diane Bryant has left after less than a year - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/03/google-cloud-coo-diane-bryant-has-left-after-less-than-a-year.html <comment><USER2> Guess we know who will be Intels next CEO.</comment>


Neighbors file public nuisance lawsuit against autistic boy's family - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/10/07/neighbors-file-lawsuit-against-autistic-boys-family-alleging-his-behaviors-constitute-a-public-nuisance/?tid=a_inl <comment><USER2> My friend is fairly convinced old factory sites in Silcon Valley with very toxic chemical is the reason for higher rate of medical issues in kids growing up there.</comment>


Experiment.com Gains Big Venture Backers To Bring Crowdfunding To Science - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/02/05/experiment-com-gains-big-venture-backers-to-bring-crowdfunding-to-science-research/ <comment><USER3> Microryza/Experiment founder here, we're excited to launch a new landing page introducing the new name. [http://experiment.com](http://experiment.com)

<comment><USER4> Love the new name! Microryza was very unwieldy.

Edit: I'm getting an error when trying to signup with FB:

"The change you wanted was rejected.

Maybe you tried to change something you didn't have access to."

<comment><USER3> Thanks for pointing this out, we're looking into it right now!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is excellent news. I really look forward to seeing Experiment grow. These are two challenges I foresee...

1\. At the moment, the people posting projects are _mostly_ PhD students. This is excellent for PhD students, but the real challenge is getting more entrenched scientists to explore this new medium. I've seen a few professors, but not many. I'd love to know how Experiment are planning to engage the science community.

2\. Currently it's only open to US scientists. This really sucks for the rest of us. A major potential benefit of this platform is to open up science to those in places where science funding is _really_ bad, unlike the US where it's just not as good as it used to be, but is still tens of billions per year. Please fix this.

<comment><USER6> Guessing you aren't seeing many professors since funding numbers are too low right now. Looks like biggest projects getting funded are ~$10K. Presumably that changes as it gets more popular.

<comment><USER7> yeah, most of these grants won't even cover a grad student for more than 3 months. Most professors are going to spend their time on NSF and NIH grants that will support multiple students for 5 years.

<comment><USER8> This is the big problem for me. Even a "hit" crowd funded project is a pretty tiny slice of a real grant, and still takes time and energy.

It is on the other hand great to let a PhD student get some funding for their work, pay for a field visit, etc. Crowd funding is a supplement to internal grants and pilot grants at this point, not the NIH/NSF lifeblood of most labs.

<comment><USER9> Don't administrative fees and tuition suck up a huge percent of grant money?

Could crowdfunding get so much more bang for the buck, as compared with traditional funding?

<comment><USER10> Yes they do, but I wonder if those still apply in this case or not. At the end of the day, it is still money coming into the university.

Edit: To answer my own question, funds are currently not subject to university overhead according to their FAQ.

<comment><USER8> The funds aren't currently subject to overhead according to the _funder_ , but that seriously demotivates grant staff to shepherd a tiny little grant that isn't particularly helping.

That's what I meant by more trouble than it's worth. A staff member going "meh" can turn into a huge time sink.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is it possible to Kickstarter to fund science or engineering projects?

Kickstarter seems geared towards the music, arts or engineering with clear visual impact. Most science does not have elevator pitches -- they are hard to explain or visualize, and they deal with unsexy issues.

Einstein said if you can't explain a theory to a 5 year old you don't understand it. Is that even really true?

I doubt you can explain the technical details of web apps to the typical 5-year old. Perhaps that is just a defect of our current explanations?

<comment><USER12> Check out this (non-Kickstarter) campaign: [https://pledge.immunityproject.org/the-free-hiv-aids- vaccine](https://pledge.immunityproject.org/the-free-hiv-aids-vaccine)

<comment><USER13> the team behind the immunity project is awesome!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I once spoke to a doctor that was trying to raise funding for a lab to develop a drug that he'd been working on and take it to the next stage.

I asked "How much are you trying to raise?"

"Oh, about $300 million."

I had to rehinge my jaw.

Apparently physical labs are expensive.

This is just one second hand data point. Does anyone else have experience in this space? Are setting up labs and development/manufacturing environments for relatively early stage bio companies really this expensive?

<comment><USER6> There are a places you can rent a wet lab biology bench for <$1K/month in both Boston and SF. You still need to buy equipment and materials but you'll have lab infrastructure/permitting OK. If you just need to do really bare bones basic molecular biology (no major equip needs) I think you can get off the ground for $50-100K per year for lab/materials. Once you get any real traction will get more expensive.

<comment><USER15> labor costs are going to swamp this unless you're assuming volunteer/low cost. And in that case, it's hard to get a good throughput because people are... well, volunteering and that rarely works out well.

<comment><USER6> yeah, founder salaries would be on top of that - I was just talking about lab/materials. Fortunately if you are coming out of PhD program you're used to working for low cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would developing an educational computer game about science (i.e. based on SimCity but with special features to support using it in the classroom and teaching topics like global warming, pollution, economics, etc) be within the scope of this site?

<comment><USER5> Yes it would. Can I email you about this? I think we can help. Alternatively please feel free to email me - see profile.

<comment><USER16> Great, thanks!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Coincidentally, Lawrenceville Plasma Physics recently announced that they would look to crowdfunding for financing their fusion reactor. I find it both sad and hopeful that one of the most promising projects for solving humanity's energy problem looks for funding this way.

[http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/index.php?option=com_l...](http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/index.php?option=com_lyftenbloggie&view=entry&year=2014&month=01&day=24&id=114%3A2014-kickoff- report-looking-back-the-year-ahead&Itemid=90)

<comment><USER18> Sad because you prefer that the government somehow choose to fund this worthwhile project? Because you don't trust the public to support worthwhile projects?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Awesome to see crowd funding getting leveraged for such great potential. The team's been at this for a while and making good progress. Great to see the new name!

<comment><USER13> thanks jenn!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am all in favour of funding more science (I seem to remember Brian Cox quoting that the UK banking bailout was more than the cost of all science funding globally, since the Renaissance.)

I would like to clarify a couple of instant worries

\- ethics committees ? Who runs the ethics committee? Is it public which ones they reject ? UHauling dinos is one thing but bio-ethics will get messy fast.

\- peer reviewing - if I invest I want to know the output is a success - <USER2> there a systemised approach for this? must they publish to get final drawdown? it's not really an in estment as the usual measure that you did not stuff up your last experiment is that a grant committee finds you again

</comment><comment><USER21> Would the site be geared more towards projects with translational or immediate impact value? Is there any room for basic research? I guess it depends on how you sell it to people.

<comment><USER13> all three

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of the bigger obstacles to me, besides the current level of crowd funding being at the "student project" or "preliminary data" level, and thus still needing to heavily compete for grants is institutional level resistance.

Every grants office I've talked to has essentially responded with "Wait, what?", and the amounts are small enough that it's often not worth the administrative hassle.

</comment><comment><USER22> Interesting. I was just thinking about how expensive it would be to quit my job but still do science on the side. And I'm not in a field with expensive experiments or anything just travelling to conferences etc. adds up to a lot.

Good luck, seems like a good idea :)

Edit: Found a typo: "research funded ourside of the traditional science funding system" ... should (probably) be outside

<comment><USER3> Thanks very much! We'd like to encourage people to think about 'indie science' in the same way as independent film, music, and art when those first started. Our researchers are both tenured professors in academia as well as citizen scientists!

Thanks for pointing out the typo, should be fixed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Unfortunately seems like a great opportunity for wastes like free energy, perpetual motion, homeopathy and a so on.

<comment><USER13> we have a review process, and recently started bringing in the community to help review

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Congrats to Denny & Cindy! They've come a long way in just one year.

<comment><USER13> thanks!</comment></comment>


Radio Streaming Framework for iOS - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I'm the developer of RadioTunes SDK which is a radio streaming framework for iOS with support for the http and mms protocols. RadioTunes relies on the excellent FFmpeg library for decoding wma audio streams over mms. It also supports the mp3, aac and aac+ codecs.
If you're an iOS developer and interested in developing radio apps, please feel free to try out the demo available at https://github.com/kemaltaskin/RadioTunes-Demo.
Any feedback is welcome!
For more information: http://radiotunessdk.com <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable links

Demo: <https://github.com/kemaltaskin/RadioTunes-Demo> Website: <http://radiotunessdk.com></comment>


'Avatar's' animated acting - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-avatar-actors18-2010feb18,0,7046993.story

<comment><USER2> Or it could be that Avatar's acting was nothing special. The movie was gorgeous; the acting, ho-hum. The characters were all playing archetypes, at some points it seemed like they were _overplaying_ archetypes (Sam Worthington seemed to be trying a bit too hard to drive home that he was the "dumb marine" type, and Zoe Saldana switched between "tender alien babe" to "tough alien warrior" far too easily), and there was little in the storyline to draw out a Best Actor/Actress performance.

Reminds me of Titanic, which was also shut out of the Best Actor/Actress awards when everything was over. 12 years later, the acting for Titanic seems laughably bad. I wonder if we'll look the same way at Avatar in 10 years.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some cool things you've done? - <AUTHOR> For me:
I found a new way to abuse the market in an MMORPG and made $50k+ from it as a high-schooler
Re-invented myself in college. I was something of a loner in HS and became a highly involved very social person in college, while improving my personal life substantially. <comment><USER2> I spent about 14 years designing and building vans that C4-C5 quadriplegics could drive. We shipped them all over the world while I did that. Our clients included many war veterans as well as Jill Kinmont (champion ski racer) and Teddy Pendergrass (musician).

While I was working on those it was the only vehicle in the world a quad could drive.

To put it into perspective, most of them came to us knowing they could not pick up a sandwich and take a bite by themselves, and we were telling them they could open the doors, operate the lift, get inside and securely seated next to the controls, and drive a big Ford Van safely away wherever they wanted to go all by themselves.

And they all did, and that was always cool to see.

It's much more common now to see someone in a wheelchair driving a car but it's still not common to see a quad driving. Shortly after I stopped working with the company that made those vans they went out of business.

They'd gotten bought out by an "investment firm" who didn't value the small crew that had been building them since the company had started and we all decided to stop building them.

I'd mostly subcontracted work from them and just went back to building custom cars full time and the rest of the crew just stopped taking orders from the government and insurance agencies that paid for the vans. They finished up what was on the line and did some maintenance work for clients that had them while the new "CEO" sat upstairs smoking cigars in his office for about 4-5 months without ever realizing the crew was shutting the business down.

By the time he realized it the company didn't have any money in the bank, the inventory on the shelves was gone, there were no vans in the eight slots we had set up to build them, and he owed the crew a month's salary. They all agreed to take the tools and machines and whatever else was owned by the company as compensation and started their own business, all as equal partners.

That was pretty cool too.</comment>


Paul Allen Sues Apple, Google, Others Over Patents.com - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703294904575385241453119382.html?mod=e2tw <comment><USER2> Already been submitted about 7 links below...<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1639679>

<comment><USER3> ... and before that at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1639642>

... but the one you quote has the discussion.</comment></comment>


Zeds – Sleep Efficiently (Free Windows App + C# Source on GitHub) - <AUTHOR> http://swoo.co.uk/blog/post/19/zeds---sleep-efficiently

<comment><AUTHOR> Zeds is an open source Windows application that quite simply helps you get to sleep at the most efficient time, based on the time you need to get up in the morning.

Primarily based on the 90 minute sleep cycle theory, Zeds will calculate the best bedtimes for you and allow you to select which one you'd like (while showing you how much sleep you'll get) - it'll then wake you up by playing an alarm. Zeds will also take into account the length of time you need to fall asleep, notifying you in the task area of the Windows desktop 15 minutes (by default) before your bedtime so that you can get into bed and start your sleep cycles at the correct time.

All of this is configurable using the settings screen so that you can adjust Zeds to your exact requirements.

Source: [https://github.com/woodss/zeds](https://github.com/woodss/zeds)</comment>


Why the PS3 WAS hard to develop for (and why this is no longer the case) - <AUTHOR> http://www.kushan.biz/?p=24

<comment><USER2> The PS3 is still hard to develop for. What's changed is that they've finally shipped enough units to make ports worthwhile.

The 360 has three symmetric cores and a decent GPU. The PS3 has a single core, a comparable GPU - and six very constrained SPUs that you'd better learn to juggle if you want your PS3 game to even approximate the quality of a 360 title. There are more than a few games that crippled their 360 version to match what they could achieve on the PS3.

To be fair, the PS3 _is_ easier to develop for than the PS2 and it _has_ gotten easier over time, but if you take the 360 as the benchmark the PS3 will always be hard in comparison.

</comment><comment><USER3> >in fact some people claimed that the PS3 had nearly "unlimited power"

These people are known as "marketers".</comment>


CircleCI announces Docker support beta - <AUTHOR> https://circleci.com/integrations/docker <comment><USER2> I'm a developer at CircleCI, and from my perspective at least this is one of the most exciting features we've released in a while. We're really excited to be able to support Docker on our platform and to make it that much easier for people to test and deploy their code :)

<comment><USER3> Re. "Continuously Deliver them to the Docker Registry". Is this focussed on open projects going to the public registry? Or will you provide a private one / integrate with services like quay.io, etc.?

EDIT: Love CircleCI by the way.

<comment><USER2> At the moment we don't have plans on providing our own registry, though it's worth considering. I think we'd definitely be interested in integrating with companies like quay.io and generally making it possible for people to access their own private repositories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I haven't played with this much but I saw something similar being presented at dockercon this week for Jenkins.

[https://github.com/groupon/DotCi](https://github.com/groupon/DotCi)

[https://github.com/groupon/DotCi/wiki/Setup-Cloud-CI- in-15-m...](https://github.com/groupon/DotCi/wiki/Setup-Cloud-CI- in-15-minutes-with-Jenkins,-DotCi,-Docker-and-DigitalOcean)

Another option for self hosted ci that I would like to try at some point is drone which also supports docker images [https://github.com/drone/drone](https://github.com/drone/drone)

I personally prefer not handing my code out a third party app unless I absolutely have to.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hi! I'm curious why Allen Rohner (your ex CTO) doesn't work for Circle any more? Are you moving away from Clojure to Node.js?

</comment><comment><USER6> Congrats guys, this looks pretty cool!

</comment><comment><USER7> Looks pretty cool guys. Congrats!</comment>


Nissan Motor's Lawsuit Against Us - <AUTHOR> https://www.nissan.com/ <comment> dfeojm-zlib Renault-Nissan (Motor)-Mitsubishi merger with Fiat-Chrysler will create a megacorp or "alliance" with almost all terrible vehicles.

^- Something I hope Scotty Kilmer might say

[https://www.youtube.com/scottykilmer](https://www.youtube.com/scottykilmer)</comment>


Ask HN: How do TCP/IP packets work? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> It's not clear what your question is. Here's a starting point.

The Internet runs on packets of data.

* IP : Internet Protocol : [0][1]

UDP is a simple wrapper around that to include a few extra things such as ports and the like.

* UDP : User Datagram Protocol : [2][3]

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) describes how to break a stream into packets and send them over IP, to reassemble them at the other end, and send back acknowledgements to guarantee deliver. It also has mechanisms to help prevent congestion.

* TCP : Transmission Control Protocol : [4][5][6]

If you read, or at least skim those, then you will be able to ask a proper, well-formulated question.

However, the short version:

        Q: Ask HN: How do TCP/IP packets work?

        A: Very well, thank you.

\----

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

[1] [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc791](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc791)

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

[3] [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc768](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc768)

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

[5] [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc675](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc675)

[6] [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc793](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc793)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc791](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc791)

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc793](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc793)</comment>


qooxdoo: javascript framework for desktop-like web apps - <AUTHOR> http://qooxdoo.org/ <comment><USER2> Nice job of aping the Windows look... but often, web apps _should_ look like web apps, since they are stuck in the browser pane, and suffer some network lags. I've seen a lot of projects shoot for a 'desktop-like' look & feel, spend a lot of time chasing it, but always miss by at least enough that the app lands in an 'uncanny valley', neither webby nor desktoppy.

<comment><USER3> I've spend the last 9 months building a web-application that had to look like a desktop one. I never liked the idea, but my bosses and our customers were not reasonable.

Now we have an application that runs on a web browser, looks neither like a web pager nor a desktop application, the back button does not work neither the bookmarks. Also, it feels reaaally slow, and there are some big hacks to ensure it works on both IE and FF (on safari and opera you get a message recommending to use IE/FF).

Moreover, we did not use the standard backend for the framework, and we had big problems to make them work well together.

I'm ashamed of myself :(

<comment><USER4> Dayum that sucks! But I agree that web apps should look like web apps and desktop apps should look like a desktop. Not that there is anything wrong with the latter. So how did the project go?

<comment><USER3> It is currently working and our customers seems happy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> daniel-cussen If they're accepted, Web 2.0 names are going to create some crazy scrabble high scores.

</comment><comment><USER5> Selecting the "right" JavaScript framework to work with is a classic example of how broad choice is paralyzing.

You could spend weeks evaluating everything out there looking for the "right"/"best" one for your needs.

<comment><USER6> The "right" framework/library is often 'none'.

<comment><USER4> A few years back I would have agreed with you. But since the birth of jQuery. I can't say your statement holds any weight now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I always get nervous when I see statements like "No HTML, CSS nor DOM knowledge is needed" but this does seem an interesting set of tools - I am looking forward to having a few more minutes to spend reviewing this properly.

</comment><comment><USER8> Response seemed a little slow to me, but I don't know what the quality of the staging was by the time it got to my browser so I'll reserve judgement.

I hope this framework does not make the mistake of that other Windows-look framework has done, is overly model everything down to a setter/getter for the minutest datapoint -- end result is an uncompressed codebase that drags during creation and freeing.

Cut some corners, leave a few nodes out of those object hierarchies, and put more code on a single line - won't bother me any.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow. makes me feel old. I used to curse Netscape (if I wasn 't cursing IE) and curse IE (if I wasn't cursing Netscape) about DOM support. I used to write Javascript to programatically manipulate DHTML layers by hand and use Dan Steinman's DHTML library. It's so much easier now using Prototype et al.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the Dan Steinman reference. I remember learning some pretty cool javascript hacks from his site years ago. Anyone who hasn't seen it oughta take a look.

[http://www.jalix.org/ressources/internet/dhtml/_dynduo/dyndu...](http://www.jalix.org/ressources/internet/dhtml/_dynduo/dynduo/)

<comment><USER11> "You must have Netscape 4.0 or Internet Explorer 4.0 to view the examples of this site"

Cleary _it is_ from years ago.

<comment><USER10> A shame he hasn't kept it up. I wonder what happened. Maybe he got so many paying gigs that this wasn't worth his time any more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It feels a little too desktoppy, I think I'll stick with Ext

</comment><comment><USER13> Hey cool...only if windows had a backbutton. But I like that I know javascript,css, and html</comment>


AMD reveals Fusion CPU+GPU, to challenge Intel in laptops - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/02/amd-reveals-fusion-cpugpu-to-challege-intel-in-laptops.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

<comment><USER2> What took them so long? Plans for Fusion was announced when AMD acquired ATi, and that was 2006. And now they announce that they are shipping them in 2011, five years later?! Meanwhile Intel has already released several integrated CPU+GPU solutions (Pineview and Arrendale/Clarkdale)

<comment><USER3> There are a couple of ways that a Fusion-style core can be used.

You could take advantage of the high-bandwidth, low-latency connection between CPU and GPU to get higher performance, especially in GPGPU applications, but GPGPU hasn't really taken off yet. There's also the limitation that now CPU and GPU are sharing the same heatsink.

You could use it to offer a low-end system with good integrated graphics, because there's no longer a penalty for the GPU sharing the CPU's RAM. However, this approach pretty much requires a new socket, which probably eliminates any potential cost savings from not having to buy a discrete GPU. This approach also sacrifices some in flexibility, as adding a discrete graphics card later on makes the on-die GPU worthless unless you have a good asymmetric SLI/Crossfire system, and even then you're limited to the features supported by the on-die GPU.

The approach taken so far by Intel and AMD is to use it to make a better low- power platform. Intel's obviously been way ahead here. Ever since the Pentium M, AMD's had trouble keeping up in the mobile market. ATI's GPUs haven't been that great for the mobile market, either. It was obvious in 2006 that this was going to be the hardest approach for AMD to pull of, but it also seems to be the only one that might pay off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think it will be such a big hit. Current IGPs from Intel can decode _2_ full HD video streams ([http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/quick- reference-gui...](http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/quick-reference- guide-to-intel-integrated-graphics/)). The next generation is supposed to have 2 such (or better) GPUs side by side on a chip (<http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/17576/1/>). These IGPs will be enough for even higher number of people than today. How many people need to play games in uber resolutions, anyway?

</comment><comment><USER5> Laptop graphics are always a minefield of barely adequate hardware. I really hope this, as well as Nvidia's ION chipsets see an end to these dark days.

<comment><USER6> The ION seems to be pretty good, but decoding HD video doesn't work very well without using the GPU.

<comment><USER3> That's a problem inherent in the nature of HD codecs. Decoding with a general- purpose CPU is too inefficient. Any platform that has acceptable power consumption for the ultra-portable market is going to have to use dedicated decoding hardware. Once you take HD decoding off the list of things the CPU has to be fast enough for, you have the option to use a small, low-power CPU like the Atom. I don't see any room for improvement by using a different arrangement. Software writers will just have to get used to using the OS provided decoders so that any accelerators present can be used.

<comment><USER7> Gettting used to using the OS provided codecs can be a problem, because it forces you into specific codec, that you may want to avoid and disallows to use codec you want to use.

For example, I can't imagine Bink being hardware accelerated anytime soon.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rand Paul wants to lead a Supreme Court challenge to Feds' tracking of Americans - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/09/paul-wants-to-lead-supreme-court-challenge-to-fed-tracking-americans-calls/

<comment><USER2> What amazes me is the hypocrisy in all this. The American people have basically known about this since about 2006. It's just that there wasn't as much proof or specifics but the media covered this and it was pretty much common knowledge that all phone calls and Internet activity were being watched. Of course that's not okay and I still get the current outrage. Totally understandable.

But then there are the senators... These guys approved this activity long ago and while not all of them knew the specifics the Intelligence Committe did. They were taken into meetings where no note taking tools or anything with a battery was allowed and briefed about this.

Now that this story breaks the senate gets their panties in a twist like this is news to them. They simultaneously defend it and condemn it.

It isn't fair to make such a blanket statement about the entire Senate, I know but what I'm really getting at here is that what Rand Paul is doing doesn't strike me as sincere at all. It looks like a dog and pony show set up to make it look like someone gives a shit while they all keep getting briefed and voting for this stuff behind closed doors.

It's like set up a bunch of PR stunts to make us feel warm and funny then do the opposite while no one is paying attention. On this issue I feel like its the guys trying to get attention the most who can be trusted the least.

<comment><USER3> Rand Paul may have its faults. Many people like libertarianism but they don't like the pro-religion/prolife and pro-rich aspects that come with it. That's why Bill Maher has distanced himself recently from the libertarian appelation. However to say that it's not sincere coming from Rand Paul is not fair at all. If you know a little bit about who he is, who his father is, you couldn't say that... Of course Rand Paul is building a political portfolio for 2016. The filibuster, the TSA, the balanced budgets and now this, it's all going into it. But all these political actions are in line with who he is and what he represents. And still, after all that there's a very big chance he'll lose to a generic republican like Rubio or Ryan in the primaries.

<comment><USER4> Your speculation about the GOP primaries is mis-informed. In 2010, Rand was an insurgent "tea party" republican, as was Rubio -- both men were officially opposed by the party in their primaries and defeated the "generic" GOP candidate. In both the GOP and Democrat parties, generic candidates often struggle in primaries if there is a non-crazy candidate who can appeal to the base. Rand has a safe path back to the GOP nomination -- his biggest risk is doing too much "national" work and losing to an establishment Democrat in battleground Kentucky.

<comment><USER5> My reading of it is he was referring to the 2016 Presidential primary contest for the Republican Party, not to the Republican primary for the Senate race in Kentucky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Since he's a member of the Senate, a more direct route than the judicial branch would be to pursue legislative-branch solutions, such as introducing a bill to amend the FISA statute in a more civil-liberties-friendly manner.

<comment><USER7> That wouldn't be in the spirit of empty grandstanding at all! You, sir, simply don't understand Ron Paul's strategy.

<comment><USER8> Rand, not Ron.

But, yes, I believe this is probably of a piece with his drone filibuster in terms of being political theatrics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was surprised by Rand Paul's proposed bill "To stop the [NSA] from spying on citizens of the United States":

[http://www.paul.senate.gov/files/documents/EAS13699.pdf](http://www.paul.senate.gov/files/documents/EAS13699.pdf)

The effective body is fairly direct: "The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution shall not be construed to allow any agency of the United States Government to search the phone records of Americans without a warrant based on probable cause."

What really surprised me was that it used the word "search", rather than, say, "collect". Given that we don't know what happened to the records gathered under Stellar Wind/RAGTIME, it's possible that the activity would still be legal under Paul's bill.

I'm curious whether this choice of wording was intentional or accidental.

<comment><USER10> My wife is a former lobbyist. The wording is _always_ intentional.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What does that mean, "lead a Supreme Court challenge?"

From what I understand, they'd have to file lawsuit with a lower court and fight the long long road up to the SC docket.

<comment><USER12> SCOTUS can have "original jurisdiction"[1] over some cases depending on the matter under review. In this case, because the State (read: USG) is a party in the case, SCOTUS can be the court in which a case is first argued.

_____

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedures_of_the_Supreme_Court...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedures_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#Original_jurisdiction)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Rand Paul needs a class in civics, looks like.

<comment><USER13> Or you need to read up about the concept of "original jurisdiction" with regards to the Supreme Court.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The interesting side story behind all of this, that HN isn't looking at at all, is the "bi-partisanship as usual" reaction from outside Washington.

A reason something might come of this? Ironically, it is because the Rush Limbaugh crowd look at it as a way to get Obama, et al, while liberals are equally aghast. Never mind that it was all spearheaded by a Republican administration.

Now, as for me, I vote Green & don't like any of 'em - but it's nice to see everyone looking like they might agree on something for once.

</comment><comment><USER15> Do I need a warrant to get Obama's data for my data analysis project?

</comment><comment><USER15> I heard my neighbor making bomb threats against the goverment (not me, my neighbor) although I am mad at my government..

</comment><comment><USER16> Yeah this should happen, but no Rand Paul shouldn't be in front of it.

<comment><USER17> Why not? Like him or not, this is definitely in line with the libertarian position.

<comment><USER16> Because he'll make concessions and strategy choices which are _not_ in line with what I want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Rand Paul would probably do a lot more good by learning how to think rationally.

<comment><USER19> That's all you've got? You feel free to call a man irrational, but provide nothing to support that position. Dare I say that comes across as belligerent ad hominem.

<comment><USER18> From his Benghazi hearing testimony

"I'm glad that you're accepting responsibility. I think ultimately with your leaving that you accept the culpability for the worst tragedy since 9/11\. And I really mean that. Had I been president and found you did not read the cables from Benghazi and from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post. I think it's inexcusable."

\- his obsession with drastically cutting social programs at a time when so many Americans need them

\- his obsession with balancing the budget when interest rates are so low and the so many things point to the problem being a lack of spending / almost nothing pointing to the deficit being a problem

\- his backwards social views

I forget how easy mainstream American media goes on him. He makes some interesting points but overall he seems very much like a dogmatic and unimaginative libertarian conservative.

<comment><USER20> Your use of these as evidence of Paul's irrationality does not seem rational. Instead, they appear as a complaint that he doesn't share the same values as you; and by extension he must be irrational since your values obviously must be rationally chosen.

<comment><USER18> Actually no, except for my point on social views. A couple assumptions I made are:

1) He wants the American economy to improve

2) He wants to do what it best for Americans as a whole

They seem like reasonable assumptions, correct me if you seem any hole in them please.

I do not think he his actions and these assumed goals are linked in a rational way.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Du Pont heir received no jail time after rape conviction - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/wp/2014/03/31/du-pont-heir-received-no-jail-time-after-rape-conviction/

<comment><USER2> He was convicted of rape in the fourth degree. The victim was his 3 year old daughter. Here is the definition of rape in the fourth degree in Delaware:

        (a) A person is guilty of rape in the fourth degree
        when the person:

        (1) Intentionally engages in sexual intercourse with
        another person, and the victim has not yet reached
        that victim's sixteenth birthday; or

        (2) Intentionally engages in sexual intercourse with
        another person, and the victim has not yet reached
        that victim's eighteenth birthday, and the person is
        30 years of age or older, except that such
        intercourse shall not be unlawful if the victim and
        person are married at the time of such intercourse;
        or

        (3) Intentionally engages in sexual penetration with
        another person under any of the following
        circumstances:

        a. The sexual penetration occurs without the
        victim's consent; or

        b. The victim has not reached that victim's
        sixteenth birthday; or

        (4) Intentionally engages in sexual intercourse or
        sexual penetration with another person, and the
        victim has reached that victim's sixteenth birthday
        but has not yet reached that victim's eighteenth
        birthday and the defendant stands in a position of
        trust, authority or supervision over the child, or
        is an invitee or designee of a person who stands in
        a position of trust, authority or supervision over
        the child.

        (b) Paragraphs (a)(3) and (a)(4) of this section do
        not apply to a licensed medical doctor or nurse who
        places 1 or more fingers or an object inside a
        vagina or anus for the purpose of diagnosis or
        treatment or to a law-enforcement officer who is
        engaged in the lawful performance of his or her
        duties.

        Rape in the fourth degree is a class C felony.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/201...](http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/03/31/take- account-entire-sentencing-process/7134253/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Yep ... It's far simpler to trump up extra charges and bully "the huddle masses" into a conviction that can't be overturned.</comment>


Equivalence of State Machines and Coroutines - <AUTHOR> http://250bpm.com/blog:141 <comment><USER2> One thing that bugs me is this:

The following are formally defined mathematical structures:

      - Moore Machine
      - Mealy Machine
      - Deterministic Finite Automata

There are also (multiple) formal semantics for Harel State Charts.

But there is no single precise formal definition of what a coroutine is. And when we talk about programming with (finite) state machines, we are often not strictly referring to any of the above formalisms. To claim that two ill- defined notions are equivalent is not particularly meaningful.

<comment><USER3> Coroutines are software constructs like subroutines or threads. They are not more related to state machines than those constructs are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Program Counter (PC) register is some of our most important state! Ever since Gotos were considered harmful, we've forgotten that it's just another register.

</comment><comment><USER5> Coroutines are potentially-infinite state machines, not finite state machines. While their instruction pointers belong in a finite state space, their usable memory space is infinite.

<comment><USER6> I've spent some time thinking how to put it, but it indeed doesn't seem like equivalence -- perhaps more of an inclusion. Or coroutines should be limited to stateless ones, but then a similar statement could be made about regular subroutines. Though not even sure what would be a proper way to compare state machines to coroutines, maybe some context is missing.

<comment><USER2> In addition to state, coroutines can also have side effects. So you kinda need effectful, stateful "finite" state machines to get started.

<comment><USER7> What is the difference between a side effect and a state transition?

<comment><USER2> A side effect would do something external to the state machine, such as transmit something on the network, or perform disk i/o. Or it might emit an event that is received by another concurrent state machine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "almost every object that computes is naturally viewed as a state machine" \- Leslie Lamport

[https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/state- machine.pdf](https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/state-machine.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER9> It's as if millions of voices of state machine libraries suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

<comment><USER10> RIP Alderaan

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> On the same topic, from 2009: [https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2009/08/29/co- routines-as-an-a...](https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2009/08/29/co-routines-as- an-alternative-to-state-machines)

</comment><comment><USER12> I propose _Equivalence of state machines and everything that possibly happens in your computer, using any language, any framework, any stack of libraries, ..._

</comment><comment><USER13> To show equivalence, you should show that any state machine can be implemented as a coroutine and vice versa. The author here implements one example with coroutines and with a state machine, which shows exactly nothing.

(As a metaphore, it's like saying that being green and being a frog is equivalent, because there exists a green frog)

</comment><comment><USER14> I probably wouldn't use coroutines as state machines, because most state machine DSLs are very easy to read. I'm curious though, if I could ditch state machines altogether if the coroutine equivalent was more readable. Most state machine libs also allow things like on-enter/on-exit state callbacks, which would look awkward using only coroutines.

<comment><USER15> What are you using state machines for now? just wondering. I have been looking into JS state machines (mostly xstate) in order to model UIs better.

<comment><USER14> I recently programmed an application for a test bench of electric motors, where I could basically translate the flow chart I was given by the engineers to a state machine. Out of the state machine I handled all concerns like UI, hardware controlling and persistence via events.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This doesn't ring 100% true to me; goroutines have stack so they can't be fully equal to (finite) state machines!

<comment><USER17> It depends on perspective. Having a finite stack is just a way of organizing a state machine. In practice all computer software is state machines. A computer is nothing but a big state machine. A very big finite state machine. Running some software on a computer is just commanding that state machine. In computing theory we have som ideal abstractions, such as nondeterministic finite state machines, and others which are not state machines. These abstractions are just tools we use to make the design of our very big state machine programs manageable. The point of the article is that the interoperation of two or more coroutines can be modeled as an abstract state machine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Co-routines as an alternative to state machines [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=793140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=793140)

</comment><comment><USER19> This is what c# compiler does for async/await behind the scenes.

And I bet every other compiler out there does too. In the end (in machine code) you will have pretty much your original state machine.

</comment><comment><USER20> The article casts this as a coroutine, but it's straightforward to translate this Go code into any language that supports multiple threads. Is this actually a coroutine?

<comment><USER9> With coroutines, only one routine is executing at a time. If you simulate that with threads (using locks) it is also coroutines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This explanation is so succinct and natural you might miss how well done it is.

<comment><USER2> Equivalence is a symmetric relation. The article presents an example of a goroutine implementing an FSM. Even if you thought a single example constituted a proof, to show equivalence you'd also need to show how an arbitrary coroutine can be implemented using an FSM; and as others have observed, the ability to dynamically allocate memory distinguishes a coroutine from an FSM.

That said, in practice, often we don't program with FSMs, we program with structures that are FSMs augmented with additional state such as counters and storage (collections/stacks/queues).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Interesting coincidence that Kotlin coroutines use state machines internally: [https://youtu.be/YrrUCSi72E8?t=432](https://youtu.be/YrrUCSi72E8?t=432)

</comment><comment><USER23> Another interesting problem is how one can simulate a general state machine, eg a Petri net that aggregates states, using coroutines. I suspect states would need to be defined and handled explicitly.

</comment><comment><USER24> Further evidence: coroutines are often implemented as state machines under the hood.

<comment><USER25> > Further evidence: coroutines are often implemented as state machines under > the hood.

Of course you just said "further evidence", not "proof", but naturally this just proves _simulability_ , not _bisimulability_.

<comment><USER26> Well, state machines can also be implemented as coroutines, so...

<comment><USER27> I enjoy when in discussions like this the person saying the things can't simulate each other proceed to prove their point by writing two computer programs and running them on the same physical machine...

<comment><USER24> The CPU is a state machine. Therefore all software is a state machine. Take that functional programming.

<comment><USER26> There's nothing in FP that's against state machines.

Even if we say that FP = purity, you can have state machines with immutable state.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: review Feedspike - <AUTHOR>

http://www.feedspike.com<p>Feedspike is a news feed aggregator. The entire premise of the site is to feature stories that highlight short-term search trends. The site is an automated service that reads from a continuous stream of syndicated content from major news organizations including CNN, MSNBC, ABC News, Reuters, Associated Press, and a myriad of other sources. Top rising search terms from Google are matched with stories from news feeds in real-time automatically. Matches between stories and search terms that have the greatest search volume are placed on the front page. This matching process brings to the surface stories that are becoming increasingly popular. The site is designed mainly for people with a great appetite for real-time information. <comment><USER2> Your algorithm seems like it's well made, though I have not taken a close look at it's capacities yet. My suggestion: get a better interface. You're competing with similar websites such as <http://www.newspond.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> The ui is really nothing special, but that is by design. We want it to work with JavaScript off and to be easily crawled so that Googlebot understands the structure. Spiders and crawlers have yet to catch up with the times and still have difficulty finding their way through sites that use JavaScript for navigation.

<comment><USER2> Alright, one nice feature would be to build an API so I could, for example, list content from a certain niche on my website.

<comment><AUTHOR> "À la carte" feeds. I'm building this into the site as we speak. There will be a sign up form to create an account and to get a subscriber id. Subscribers can define filters. Within a filter is a list of keywords and a schedule (monthly, weekly, daily, hourly, or real-time) to generate a feed that matches your keywords. The "API" then would be HTTP GET and the response is RSS. Simple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The next logical step would be to show a timeline of how sources pick up a stories, so you could determine who is getting the best scoops.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. Several of the feed sources we read from publish a headline with barely anything to say within the article, then as the info comes in to them, they republish the same story, each time with minor changes in the headline and adding more meat to the story. The Associated Press is notorious for this. That's how they beat everyone else to the punch every time.</comment></comment>


154 websites that store your password in plain text - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/hy1n9/154_websites_that_store_your_password_in_plain/

<comment><USER2> It would make for an interesting Firefox/Chrome plug-in. When you visit a site, have a indicator of some sort that warns that the site _may_not_ encrypt your password. Although, this could become obnoxious and there is no way good way to verify this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just because a website can email you your password doesn't mean they store them in plain text. They can store them in a reversible encryption scheme like rijndael.

<comment><USER4> If a hacker can steal your user database they as-likely-as-not have access to your reversible encryption keys.

On top of that it's bad form to mail a user their plaintext password back to them.. I don't need my password crossing third-party networks and SMTP servers in plaintext.</comment></comment>


Twitter's Real Edge: It's not Scary  - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/25/twitters-real-edge-its-not-scary/ <comment><USER2> The notion that Twitter _seems_ safer than MySpace or Facebook is pretty silly, or at least would be difficult to prove. Twitter appeals to celebrities because it is the first popular social network that allows for celebrity within its system. Oprah, for example, has 603,791 followers but in turn only follows 11 people (all of whom are recognizable by the public). This is the celebrity's dream come true: their popularity measured and laid bare for all to see.

</comment><comment><USER3> "In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom ... it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words _Don't Panic_ inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover."

Twitter's combination of soft colors, clouds, and overall relaxed philosophy put people at ease in a way that makes the Internet not seem like quite so scary of a place. Also, while the architecture does basically support stalking, it effectively eliminates predators, as one click can make sure you never hear from that person again.

<comment><USER4> I think the bigwigs call this a "brand" or "voice" Twitter has an great branding: happy, fun, lighthearted, and yet still cool. And it accomplishes all that without trying too hard and remaining a neutral utility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I dare Mrs. Lacy, just once, to author an article in which she doesn't cite herself. That Amazon affiliate link in the opening sentence--classy. Jurinalism at its best. Oh wait, this is TechCrunch. Nevermind. Birds of a feather...</comment>


What if you invested Bitcoin? - <AUTHOR> http://whatifbitcoin.com/ <comment><USER2> It is broken, shows no % or dollar value

</comment><comment><USER3> Invested Bitcoin in what?</comment>


Angular 1 vs. Angular 2 – a framework comparison - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jhades.org/angular1-vs-angular2-an-in-depth-comparison/ <comment><AUTHOR> for anyone curious to know what are the main differences between the two frameworks and some of the issues that motivated the rewrite.</comment>


Few hours left for grabbing a free premium Licorize account - <AUTHOR> http://licorize.com?1.0

<comment><USER2> I've seen the video and read the blurb, but I still don't "get" it. Can someone gimme a use case where this would instantly make sense, cause if I'm understanding correctly, just basic tagging with my bookmarks achieves the same thing (easy to find, share, categorize per projects, etc.)

<comment><USER3> Glad I'm not on the only one who wasted time on this without immediately "getting it". Sounds like the message needs to be clarified a bit. Or maybe this isn't that compelling of a business case? I doubt I would pay $5 a month for this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's okay if your name doesn't do anything to help me understand what your company does, but when that is the case it's important that your website should make the benefits statement clear to me.

</comment><comment><USER5> "When you enroll in Licorize you get two months of free premium usage. You can any time upgrade to Premium. When your Premium plan expires, you don't loose any data inserted." <http://licorize.com/applications/licorize/site/pricing.jsp>?

Apparently it's not a free premium account, it's a free TRIAL premium account.

Also, not knowing the difference between lose and loose does not inspire confidence when you're trying to get me to open up my wallet.

<comment><USER6> It will become a free trial premium for those enrolling from tomorrow. Today its really free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was going to thank them for the dark background, great relief to my eyes, but then I "flipped the page" with the UI thingie on the right and "ouch".

</comment><comment><USER8> And it's down... <http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/http://licorize.com/>

<comment><USER9> probably some bandwidth problem. Now it seems to work fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ouch ... I just tried to signup, and got a 503 error when I tried to confirm my account. HN effect? :)

<comment><USER10> And it's back. I got signed in with my new account, and I checked the settings to see what account it gave me. It says: "Your premium license expires on: Saturday October 01, 2140 ... and good luck." Guess I'll need the good luck to live to see the end of my premium license!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So it's basically a tool to apply some kind of GTD-like productivity system to your procrastination??

<comment><USER12> yes, but also something more delicious ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I arrived just in time for a premium account .... Wow

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't see a link to free premium. How do I get it ?

<comment><USER15> Should be automatic on registration (wtf no + sign in my email??). You can verify by going to settings -> licence.

<comment><USER16> It is only client-side verification. I used tamper data and a url-encoder, and I was able to get a + sign in my email (and the verification email was sent with no problem).

But yeah, it's annoying when companies try to make their own email parser and get it completely wrong.

<comment><USER17> And the validator is actually Apache's.

<comment><USER15> Brb, crying myself to sleep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> wow! it seems a sort of delicius + a GTD + collaboration tool

</comment><comment><USER19> I tried to sign up, but the signup page failed horribly on my Android phone.

Textfields accepted input but didnt show it and the accept terms checkbox was uncheckable.

Call me biased, but I suspect there are more android-phones out there than iPads. Prioritize differently ;)

<comment><USER17> We are developing an Android client...

<comment><USER19> My point was really that this is plain old HTML and should degrade gracefully.

Currently Im not able to _sign up_ on a modern webkit-based browser and that's not too flattering for a otherwise rather simple webpage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Seen latest developments - nice job.</comment>


A Few Unicorns Are No Substitute for a Competitive, Innovative Economy - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2017/02/a-few-unicorns-are-no-substitute-for-a-competitive-innovative-economy <comment><USER2> The truth is, beyond all flashy propaganda- most human beings, and the companys run by them, hate innovation, especially if it disrupts. Thus, everyone mines the playing field against it:

Patentlaws. Entrenched Thoughtschools and Polticial Pseudo-Sciencecults in universities. Eternally Secret Science. Special Interest Groups Against The New Thing. The Hug of Death by Giants whos cash cows could be affected. A public in fear of their jobs. Religious Demagogues looking for a scape-goat.

Any attempt to act out against is basically enacting a law against what could constitute a solid majority of humanity. Corrosion would set in, the moment the ink went dry. So the core question is, how to prevent anti-innovation corrosion at all this institutions and constitutions.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Unicorns are to business journalists what Kim Kardashian is to Instagram users._

Woah. Definitely the most ridiculous and meme-locked simile I have ever read.</comment>


How the Dead Danced with the Living in Medieval Society - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-dead-danced-with-the-living-in-medieval-society/ <comment><USER2> this article is written from an extremely anglo-centric, post-enlightenment reformation perspective.

plenty of people who are not 'antiquated' actively practice the same sorts of beliefs being presented here as 'historical', both in a christian context and otherwise (e.g. shinto, etc)

<comment><USER3> > this article is written from an extremely anglo-centric, post-enlightenment > reformation perspective.

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing?

Some people may not necessarily know about the history in post-enlightenment reformation era, or how it relates to current culture.

I for the most part have heard of this story (as presented in the article). Its part of growing up as a Catholic: where Halloween is the "Holy Eve" of All Saint's Day (Nov 1st), an important Holy Day of Obligation in the modern Catholic Church. Followed up by "All Souls Day" which touches upon the ancient "Purgatory" debate that is discussed in this article. And these religious debates have continued for hundreds of years (and likely will never be resolved)

The article is a historical look at these traditions, which isn't a bad thing. Its informative and secular, so that non-religious and religious can reflect upon the Halloween tradition.

Tonight, thousands of children will dress up as the dead (although more commonly they're going to dress up as comic book characters. Traditionally its ghosts / ghouls / skeletons however) and then roam the streets as they ask for candy from strangers.

Sometimes its nice to take a step back and remember how this all began. Some of it is religious tradition, some of it isn't ("Dance Macabre" isn't necessarily a religious concept). But the historical perspective always helps.

<comment><USER4> Trying to write a piece about Egyptian concepts of 'death' and weighing the soul through to the present day would be a huge book, not a short article about 'anglo-centric, post-enlightenment reformation perspectives'.

It's also interesting to read as today is Samhein/Halloween/Allsaints/Days of the Dead, and there are definite celtic origins to anglo religions...and eradications...

The original article has images and is easier to read

[https://theconversation.com/how-the-dead-danced-with-the- liv...](https://theconversation.com/how-the-dead-danced-with-the-living-in- medieval-society-85881)

<comment><USER3> Well, I guess its too ambitious to really start "where it all began". But for most people, where it was 500-years ago (1500s or so) is a good approximation. Even if this approximation is English / Protestant -centric

The article is concise enough to cover a few topics here and there as a reminder of history. I can't say that I necessarily "learned" anything new of the article, but it touches upon some concepts that I haven't heard for decades... since my grade-school education.

<comment><USER2> that's it.. its _not history_ except when taking a limited philosophical bias as your perspective.. hence critique.

wouldn't have taken much to actually be accurate and still cover the same information and still maintain a us/anglo/post-reformation/enlightenment focus..</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some good books you have recently read? - <AUTHOR>

I usually rely on HN for book recommendations. Anything new books that people have read that they feel are worth reading? <comment><USER2> The Martian by Andy Weir [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18007564-the- martian](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18007564-the-martian)

Not new (I read 2.5 years ago), but great books:

Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs by Michael Belfiore [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6825113-the- department-o...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6825113-the-department- of-mad-scientists)

Rocketeers by Michael Belfiore [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1090296.Rocketeers](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1090296.Rocketeers)

</comment><comment><USER3> The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons : Sam Keam - [http://samkean.com/thetaleoftheduelingneurosurgeons.html](http://samkean.com/thetaleoftheduelingneurosurgeons.html) Quite liked the writing style - neuroscience book written in a story format

Other good books in similar genre

An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales : Oliver Sacks [http://www.amazon.com/An-Anthropologist-Mars-Seven- Paradoxic...](http://www.amazon.com/An-Anthropologist-Mars-Seven- Paradoxical/dp/1480530360)

The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science: Norman Doidge - [http://www.amazon.com/The-Brain-That- Changes-Itself/dp/14915...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Brain-That-Changes- Itself/dp/1491513357)

</comment><comment><USER4> American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964 [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20949.American_Caesar](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20949.American_Caesar)

Received this book as a gift from an elderly relative and felt obliged to give it a cursory read. Quickly became engrossed. Thoroughly researched with tons of anecdotes make MacArthur come alive.

</comment><comment><USER5> The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Idea-Factory-American- Innovation/d...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Idea-Factory-American- Innovation/dp/0143122797)

</comment><comment><USER6> Being Mortal - Atul Gawande. Really surprisingly good book if you are interested in aging, healthcare, etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> Fiction:

 _Permutation City_ \- Greg Egan

 _Revival_ \- Stephen King

 _Glasshouse_ \- Charles Stross

 _The City_ \- Dean Koontz

Non-fiction:

 _Predictable Revenue_ \- Aaron Ross

 _How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World_ \- Steven Johnson

 _The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation_ \- Jon Gertner

 _How Doctors Think_ \- Jerome Groopman

 _Frankenstein 's Cat: Cuddling Up To Biotech's Brave New Beasts_ \- Emily Anthes

 _Zero to One_ \- Peter Thiel

</comment><comment><USER8> Please check out Goodbye Monsters which was created by a veteran if you are looking for a children's book or a gift for a child. [https://www.goodbyemonsters.com/press.html](https://www.goodbyemonsters.com/press.html)</comment>