Governments Turn to Commercial Spyware to Intimidate Dissidents - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/30/technology/governments-turn-to-commercial-spyware-to-intimidate-dissidents.html?ref=technology&_r=0 <comment><USER4> Do other HN readers find themselves on the receiving end of ridicule by their fam & friends for taking this privacy stuff seriously? I'm constantly being told I'm unreasonably worried, borderline tin-hat wearing paranoid, for being concerned by the surveillance capabilities built into our modern consumer electronics which are available to governments and business alike.

But if someone my parents know have their identity stolen by stealing credit card bills and applications from their mailbox and then find themselves on the hook for $30,000 in fraudulent charges, well then it's all my parents talk about for the next 2 days.

That I understand the technology and they do not, seems to keep them from taking the issue seriously.

<comment><USER5> Yup. I actively work in security consultancy. _Everyone_ outside of tech thinks and treats me like some sort of tinfoil hat salesperson. I get sent all sorts of crazy conspiracy theory links because "that's the stuff you're really into." on a daily basis.

Even when people read about Snowden, they just don't get it. This past weekend, he came up and the response was, yeah, but Snowden was saying the spying is only on terrorists, they don't collect any information on people who are not terrorists because that would be way more information than they want. Trying to explain that is the opposite of what Snowden was saying was pointless and futile because it just made me sound like the crazy one.

The NSA must be rolling around laughing as they listen in to peoples naive conversations about Snowden.

edit: oops, removed link added on the wrong posting. Sorry. And a typo. Sorry again.

<comment><USER6> I get the same from most, including a couple _in_ tech who really should know better.

I've heard all the variations on "if you have nothing to hide..." through "well we have to catch the terrorists".

Every time a story comes up that some killing or terrorist act happened and one of the perpetrators made a post on twitter, or was already known to security services, the opinion _always_ seems to be along the lines of "well I guess we need to monitor more". Never once have I heard a variation on "if they're known to security already why wasn't something done to arrest or prevent".

Meanwhile there is some belief in chemtrails amongst a few of the younger people I know going on FB group posts I see them share.

I've given up trying to explain either security things or humidity, dew points and the basics of flying.

I don't have the energy to fight a battle that feels like Canute vs the Ocean. I wish I knew something that would make people care.

<comment><USER7> > _Meanwhile there is some belief in chemtrails amongst a few of the younger > people I know going on FB group posts I see them share._

Reminds me of a thing I learned here on HN recently. The US was in fact intentionally spraying germs on unsuspecting civilians in San Francisco, among other places, as a part of research related to biological warfare. Turns out there's some grain of truth even in the chemtrails crackpottery.

<comment><USER8> Could you name some reference for the fact please?

<comment><USER7> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea- Spray](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray)

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1003703226697496080](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1003703226697496080)

[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/bodyhorrors/2015/06/28/san...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/bodyhorrors/2015/06/28/san- fran-serratia/#.V01Ivl6lilM)

There was a story with some discussion here on HN that I can't sadly track down via Algolia now. It told about a person that tracked down information about those tests, motivated by death of some relative who was undergoing surgery at the time, and got infected with a germ that shouldn't even be there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My friend worked for / with the government on city surveilance for a short stint after his time with the army. He described an example of his work as follows:

An activism group was meeting in a city center and was to walk to another part of the city for a demonstration.

My friend's team had video surveilance feeds all over the city to track the activism group as they walked from their meeting place to the demonstration.

As the group began to walk, my friend's team was able to delay the group with Don't Walk signals. The delay was long enough for a police barricade to permanently get in the activism group's way and stop the demonstration for the day.

I may have some of the details wrong or his recount may not have fully been 100% honest, but it feels as this situation is very achievable with current technology.

The most worrying piece of this story is the activists are not being confronted with a human who can talk to them. They're being thwarted by a faceless group without the chance ever discuss their reasons for demonstrating. The government in this situation was able to get what they wanted in the near term, but at the expense of frustration of their citizens in the long term.

<comment><USER10> In that particular story, I'd say the level of centralised power evidenced by the ability to manipulate individual traffic signals is as frightening as the quantity of information fed into it. That's not just surveillance, that's top- down control of the functioning of a city.

<comment><USER11> From technological standpoint it's not that big of a deal. But from civil rights it's horrible, if it was a reported demonstration and the demonstrators were calm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Middle East gets the headlines on this topic. But it's happening other places, too. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11801325](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11801325)

<comment><USER13> But _of course_ nothing like that ever happens in the United States or any of our close allies. Because this country is the exception to everything bad that has happened in _other_ countries and nothing that bad could ever be done by our government. We don't have dissidents in the US. We just have freedom and truth all the way through that we sometimes need to carefully spread to other countries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "In many cases these tools are able to circumvent security measures like encryption."

To me this quote from the article, with out any qualification is just fear mongering. People need to know that _strong_ crypto, when implemented correctly does work.

I recently tried to get a number of my friends to install Signal on their phones. I was quite surprised that most of them, even the technically minded ones, refused to install it. Their reasons ranged from not trusting the software to worrying that using it would draw government attention. And this in California.

Encrypted SMS, email and phone calls should have been standard tech from the beginning. Everyone should use crypto in their day-to-day lives, not because they have something to hide, but so that free speech and privacy are protected.

<comment><USER15> What good is strong crypto if your endpoint is compromised? If I can take screenshots and keystroke logs of you in Signal, all the crypto in the world won't help. That's the kind of spyware this article is talking about - <USER2> endpoint compromise.

<comment><USER14> Of course, but just because my car could get stolen in my garage does not mean I'm not going to lock it when I go downtown. Strong crypto can protect your data while it's in transit and people should use it, try to break it and make it better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I guess this is not a surprise to anyone here. The techniques are well known and cheap. Now the question is - what can we do? We probably cannot get privacy back when there are internet connected sensors everywhere. The data is there and governments will find a way to get it.

On the other hand it seems that for some time the world power have been becoming more and more fragile and limited: [http://moisesnaim.com/books/the- end-of-power/](http://moisesnaim.com/books/the-end-of-power/). Has the tide turned now? Or maybe we are heading back to some kind of village life - <USER3> everyone knows about everyone so there are no such imbalances as we have today?

<comment><USER17> What can we do? Get activist types to stop using Windows. That removes about 99% of the attack surface. I'd like to see the UAE successfully remote root a desktop running debian-testing amd64 and an xorg/xfce desktop. Yes, there's myriad security problems with Firefox and other things.... But every single state-paid RAT tool ivr seen is targeted at Windows.

education is important too. If you can successfully trick people into running a binary you gave them with sudo (or the equivalent) all bets are off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> But if we outlaw spyware, only outlaws will utilize spyware!

<comment><USER19> Edit: op explained his intentions in comment below.

<comment><USER18> Apparently my point was too obtuse. What I am trying to say is that most surveillance is done legally, or just outside the lines enough to be forgiven by the blue line (in whatever country). My presumption is that the populous (us) _should be voting for spying like this to simply be illegal_, which is a topic that hardly ever comes up.

Let me try again: Spying from government to its citizens should be flatly illegal, and until we demand as much, we are failing our own democratic system and sliding per notch into turnkey totalitarianism.*

*not intended as hyperbole -- we are a long way from it, but the notches are undeniable

<comment><USER19> Hey, I really appreciate the elaboration, and I think I am in agreement with you on this point. I have to admit perhaps it was a bit over the top because I thought you were sarcastically using the pro rights gun statement and somehow trying to apply it to this topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Compounding this injustice is the fact that the executors of this surveillance are private contractors, not a wing of the government. What's worse, these cyber mercenaries, such as Hacking Team, are contracted out by the individual ruling families of the Emirates. The abundance of technology is making the blending of sovereign and personal power extraordinarily dangerous. The voice of the demos is totally absent from all of this. Which is why modern autocracies are more dangerous than they ever have been.

Bereft of popular sovereignty, nations stand poised to allow powerful individuals to agglomerate a huge arsenal for the holding and maintaining of power. We in America need to do a better job of exercising whatever power we have in order to forestall the creeping technologically based grip on our freedoms.

</comment><comment><USER21> do people developing such spyware ever read hn? May be time to bring a ethics promise to software development!

<comment><USER22> Don't most schools have a code of moral conduct to sign before graduation?

<comment><USER23> Wouldn't many programmers object to being coerced into signing a "code of moral conduct" to begin with?

<comment><USER24> Without a broader background, programmers don't all understand the implications of their actions...

Doctors are generally quite proud to be take part in the Hippocratic oath which connects their actions to something much larger thsn themselves</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you approach salary negotiation when you know the upper range? - <AUTHOR>

I'm interviewing for an entry level front-end web developer job. I have a friend who works there, is endorsing me, and is part of the hiring process. He told me the upper range of salary that his employer is willing to pay.
I'm a big fan of the Kalzumeus school of negotiation: never saying a number first, for any reason. However, given the situation of knowing their upper range (55K), should I maybe just say a number like 60K so they're likely to offer me the 55K? If I remain silent and refuse to give a number, I'm afraid they might think they can get away with offering something around 50K.
Not sure if it matters - I'm coming in as an analyst in a different industry and I do currently make more than I would at this new job. I do web dev as a hobby and sometimes as a freelancing thing, but have no professional developer experience (though I use SQL/VBA tons as an analyst). I'm willing to take the small pay cut because I think it's more what I want to do long-term.
Also not sure if it matters: the longest I'm going to be able to stay at this position is just at one year. Having to move out of state for various reasons after this.
I appreciate any help - thank you! <comment><USER2> "Really? That's well below the market average of X for similar positions, and from what we were discussing I'm not sure that the market average skill set is going to cut it here.

Take specific_problem we were just discussing, you really don't want to slot in a generic developer there because Y. Whereas I've dealt with that problem before and would instead do Z for you, saving you much time and profit.

Because of this, the low end of the range we should talk about is really more like $N > market average. Why don't we come back to that, and talk more about the problems your team is going to face this year..."

<comment><USER3> It really depends on the location. I wouldn't assume its below market rate when you don't know where the market is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The advice I've heard (don't remember where from) is if they are willing to pay 50-60k, say you are looking for 58k to 70k. Hook the bottom end of your range in just under the top end of theirs.

Keep in mind also that SQL + web dev are two really complementary skills and it will take you far in backend jobs, ie, "build out our analytics dashboard"

<comment><USER5> You should never negotiate by giving a range. AT BEST they will give you the bottom end of that range. If the highest they can go is $60k, then start at 70 and dont counter below 60.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Knowing the number in your situation doesn't change much in your situation. You still won't provide the first number.

However, since you know where the first number will be (within 5-10K) depending on your presentation up to this point.

Either:

A. You will provide a reason or reasons you are more valuable than that number (in value to the company, which they will accept or reject)

B. You will show you are more experienced than someone who would be a good fit for this position

C. You will accept their assessment of an offer in that range.

You should research the market value of this position it won't help your negotiation (I wouldn't recommend trying to convince someone they are paying their people too little) but it will tell you whether their offer is acceptable.

</comment><comment><USER7> Actually built something that sort of deals with this. it's at www.impassebreaker.com. IB compares bottom line financial positions and if there's a match, you're both told what the number is. A match is any case where what you are willing to accept is greater than or equal to what they are willing to pay. If no match, they don't learn your bottom line and you don't learn theirs. It was built initially for dispute resolution but salary negotiation works fine.

</comment><comment><USER8> SQL, VBA and a title of analyst: looks like you are in Finance or related industry. Why not try to get a job in the same industry? - you will certainly make more money than in web development.

<comment><AUTHOR> The ability to make six figures is easier as a developer for the introverted type like me. I could work towards getting a job at hedge fund or something and try to be a portfolio manager and make lots of money, but I worked at a hedge fund for three years and the environment there was shit and people worked way too much.

Developing is a nice place to be because it's easier to demonstrate my value and skills and therefore always easier to find work. Networking is obviously still important, but less so than it is in the finance industry. Also, I sort of enjoy programming, and I rather dislike financial modeling.

The idea is to eventually transition out of web dev into a more of a regular dev job.

<comment><USER9> Hey mate,

you are in a similar situation to me, why aren't you going into back end/digital marketing (analytics) stuff?

<comment><AUTHOR> Analytics for marketing or other purposes might be interesting, but really as I said above, I sort of enjoy programming and don't want to spend the rest of my life buried in Excel sheets. I also think there's more money in programming and jobs are easier to get in programming.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Good vibrations: A bit of shaking can burn fat, combat diabetes - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/good-vibrations-bit-shaking-can-burn-fat-combat-diabetes <comment><USER2> When I was living in China and would go run on a track, I'd see elderly Chinese walking around the track slapping their stomachs or thighs repeatedly. I guess they were on to something.</comment>


The Next Trillion Dollar Industry: 3D Printing - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/3d-printing-2011-2 <comment><USER2> RepRap and Makerbot are under $1000. I don't believe there will ever be a huge market for these.</comment>


Show HN: Frups: Find a Group to Hangout With - <AUTHOR> https://frups.in <comment><AUTHOR> For people who shifted cities, travel on business frequently, or work remotely; give this product a shot, especially if its getting difficult to resume the social you! Get connected to people in small groups, people who share your context. Hangout in person.</comment>


First Fellowship Virtual Demo Day - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/first-fellowship-virtual-demo-day <comment><USER2> > Bulletin - Airbnb for Retail

A marketplace to setup popup shops is something new.

It looks like they're augmenting that with something like their own Etsy, but with less homemade and more well designed objects.</comment>


New Objective-C Literals Unveiled - <AUTHOR> http://deallocatedobjects.com/posts/new-objective-c-literal-syntax-for-nsarray,-nsdictionary-&-nsnumber

<comment><USER2> A little more details to this can be found

[http://cocoaheads.tumblr.com/post/17757846453/objective-c- li...](http://cocoaheads.tumblr.com/post/17757846453/objective-c-literals-for- nsdictionary-nsarray-and)

This was posted about 3 weeks ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, I forgot to utilize the search function :)

HN discussion here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3609071>

<comment><USER3> A few more literals (via <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3672744>):

       arr[@1]      === [arr objectAtIndex:1]
       dict[@1]     === [dict objectAtIndex:1]
       dict[@"key"] === [dict objectForKey:@"key"]</comment></comment></comment>


Food costs: 'When four bars of chocolate are £1, you end up on junk' - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/nov/18/family-finance-tax-credits-lost <comment><USER2> Summary: junk food is more appealing than healthy food, ignoring the fact that it isn't filling so isn't actualy cheaper; and dad is addicted to sports television, so they buy Sky TV instead of fruit.

Does frozen fruit and vegetables not exist in the UK?</comment>


Ask HN: What are the biggest untapped markets? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> I just learned about a market called CSR([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility))

I could not find a clear big winner in this market.

</comment><comment><USER2> Asteroid mining, stable silicon anodes for lithium batteries, laundry services in India, and delivery robots to ride along in self-driving cars.

<comment><USER3> Delivery robots delivering delivery robots.

<comment><USER4> A tautology no? Delivery robots.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Stallman is wrong - <AUTHOR> http://brunozzi.com/2015/03/16/why-stallman-is-wrong/ <comment><USER2> You have not said why Stallman is wrong. You have said why you use Facebook. The fact that you do not care about Stallman's principles is a different topic.

</comment><comment><USER3> The choice of using Facebook or not (or any other similar "product") is basically a prisoner's dilema, with millions or billions of prisoners instead of just two.

So indeed, doing the right thing will be a seemingly losing proposition, but the right thing is still not to use those "products".

Objecting to Stallman's objections will lead to no good. Only informing and teaching people, and transmitting Stallman's message, can eventually lead to some good.

Saying that Stallman is wrong is therefore wrong and bad.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here.

Why is it bad? Because it leads to no good? That's your view, and I disagree - understanding that this approach doesn't lead to results is actually a way to let people like him understand that results come from a different strategy. In this sense, saying that he's wrong DOES good to his cause.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Stallman's objections about Facebook are idealistic and completely out of touch with the real world, lacking any hint of pragmatism. And the article objects on these grounds.

We shouldn't be surprised by Stallman's stance. It's his standard M.O. to favor idealism to an extreme degree, disregarding any pragmatic realities on the ground.

<comment><USER5> I don't mean to speak for RMS, but his stance seems pretty clear. He values freedom over convenience. When given a choice between the two, I think he will always choose freedom. I agree with his principles and I admire the fact that he seems to actually live by them. I think his stance only seems extreme because most of us aren't willing to give up our conveniences for our principles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why not to use Facebook? Because there is some "average Joe" that doesnt give a shit about our planet and our society...he think only about himself.

(I actually use facebook, but RMS message is very important because it forces you to think critically, what do you really do of your social life is important, but secondary)</comment>


Covering only a part of war - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/05/27/covering-only-a-part-of-war/ <comment><USER2> Scary to think about how easily things can be covered up by the government</comment>


Every GCC optimization pass, on a subway map - <AUTHOR> http://readthedocs.org/docs/gcc-python-plugin/en/latest/tables-of-passes.html

<comment><AUTHOR> An associated LWN article has some context:

<https://lwn.net/Articles/451306/>

The gcc plugin (written in Python) used to generate the plot:

[http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/?p=gcc-python- plugin.git;a=b...](http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/?p=gcc-python- plugin.git;a=blob;f=generate-passes-svg.py)</comment>


Announcing Instagram for iOS 7 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.instagram.com/post/62255683934/instagram-for-ios7

<comment><USER2> It's a pretty safe bet that every major developer will have a iOS 7 update for their app. That doesn't automatically make it interesting enough for HN.

<comment><USER3> My thoughts exactly. Now, if it was a text post with some interesting technical info about what they did that we would care about...</comment></comment>


Ethiopian Airlines plane crash: No survivors among 157 on board - <AUTHOR> https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/ethiopian-airlines-flight-nairobi-crashes-deaths-reported-190310082515738.html <comment><USER2> In response to future 'trim system/AOA sensor' comments: Transport aircraft have a procedure to cut out a runaway/malfunctioning trim or stick pusher. Usually, this procedure is to press and hold the autopilot disconnect button on the yoke/stick or the trim switch and then, later, deactivate the system. The pressing of the autopilot disconnect button or trim switch is a 'memory item', meaning that it should be performed immediately, without a checklist, upon recognizing that there's a problem. Previously, this malfunction has been a rare occurrence, and so can be startling to pilots or not immediately recognized. I've seen pilots fail to apply the procedure and crash many times in the simulator, even after being told it was coming. It could be said that the pilots of the Lion Air aircraft and, potentially, this Ethiopian aircraft should have known the procedure and reacted properly, however, for Boeing to put them in this situation is, in my opinion, also quite hazardous. With so many hastily trained and low-competence airline pilots flying around, should we really rely on them to understand the technology and react properly?

<comment><USER3> Or should we not have hastily trained low-competence pilots flying around?

<comment><USER4> You could make the same faulty argument to obviate the need for all safety features on everything. Safety is about defense in depth. Ideally we'd have all planes flown by perfect platonic human pilots, but such a thing does not actually exist. All people are flawed (some more than others), and we should design technology to be resilient in the face of the inevitable human failings to the fullest extent possible, especially when lives are on the line. Boeing has simply failed to do so here.

<comment><USER5> > Ideally we'd have all planes flown by perfect platonic human pilots, but > such a thing does not actually exist.

Until we teach spherical cows to fly planes, that is...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I predict that this is going to end up being a software error related to the angle of attack sensor (Boeing reported possible problems with the AOA on 11/7/2018)

basis: none whatsoever; just a guess.

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/airlines-that-fly-the- boeing...](https://www.businessinsider.com/airlines-that-fly-the- boeing-737-max-2018-11)

<comment><USER5> The incident definitely bears a lot of similarities to the recent Lion Air crash that prompted that report (control issues shortly after takeoff, followed by a high energy impact).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Second 737 Max to go down within the span of a few months.

I hope it's a coincidence, but that can't look good on Boeing.

E: Removed the word 'sure'

<comment><USER8> As I wrote earlier, I am not flying with 737 Max until this issue is going to be addressed.

<comment><USER9> I have 4 flights on 737MAX8 in the next couple weeks. Not feeling great about it.

<comment><USER10> I wonder whether those flights will happen on those planes. There are only a few hundred MAXs in existence, and now two new ones have failed. Grounding the fleet wouldn't feel like an overreaction to me.

<comment><USER9> Agreed. Debating booking a refundable ticket on another airline that doesn't fly MAX in case of a grounding this week.

<comment><USER10> Looks like China's grounded all of theirs now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just read that the software update for MCAS (the Lion Air crash cause) had been delayed and isn't rolling out until next month. If that's true, seems to raise the probability of this being a similar MCAS issue.

<comment><USER11> Way to early to speculate as to the cause. You could raise the possibility as to a number of reasons as to what happened.

<comment><USER5> The parent comment merely said delayed MCAS training would make it more likely that it was the cause. That seems like an obviously true statement... If the training had happen, that would obviously make it less likely.

Given the number of other similarities to the Lion Air crash, I think the parent comment was being pretty conservative in their speculation (at this point, I'd be surprised if it _wasn't_ MCAS related).

<comment><USER10> Quick clarification: it's a software update to the plane's MCAS (I think automatically disabling it when the pilots are trying to adjust trim themselves) that's been delayed, not training.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does someone here know offhand the fatality rate for the Max per flying hour at this time?

[http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm](http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm) lumps max together with other 737 models, which of course turns out to be very safe.

<comment><USER13> theses high Flights numbers seems to be incoherent with the fact that Max is a new plane with small number delivered, it is surely a mistake with the 737NG (next gen) introduced in 1997

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If this is a software error should someone be held responsible? Developer? QA? Manager? Did they follow their process? Kind of scary for us to think of...

</comment><comment><USER15> Honestly, I know people often jump in here with technical comments on stories like these, but posting this stuff on HN always just feels like rubbernecking to me.</comment>


Astronomers discover largest solar system - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35420633 <comment><USER2> Another system is no longer "solar", just planetary, as it evolves around another star, not the Sun. Or am I making this up?

<comment><USER3> [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/solar%20system](http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/solar%20system)

Full Definition of solar system : the sun together with the group of celestial bodies that are held by its attraction and revolve around it; also : a similar system centered on another star

<comment><USER4> Yea, this is a case where different communities (astronomers vs. laymen) have different definitions. Astronomers use the restrictive definition of "solar" for just for "sol", but they also have a more expansive definition of "metal" to mean "anything but hydrogen and helium".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The planet, known as 2MASS J2126-8140, is between 12 and 15 times the mass > of Jupiter.

Wouldn't object on the higher end of this range be regarded as a brown dwarf, making this system a binary star rather than a planet system?

<comment><USER6> The distinction is not a bright-line, and is not settled consensus: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf)

<comment><USER7> It seems the more we learn about the object out there, the more varied they appear, and the clearer it becomes that our naming conventions are completely arbitrary.</comment></comment></comment>


Review my Startup's Front Page  - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribblewiki.com

<comment><USER2> \- Online Collaboration Tool should be an anti-aliased image

\- Don't sell a tool for experts to idiots

\- Feedburner icon is messed up

\- font size of 'here' is bigger than the text beside it

\- Do not let .php show in the address above. You may change your technology in the future, you will lose all your google strength because all your pages will change location

\- Create your own wiki now should be stronger and in the middle. It's the main action you want

\- Support wiki sounds like you want people to support wiki. Like support africa, support tibet, support wiki

\- Your ul under blog updates has a too large space at the top

\- "Check out TicTakToe our support and information wiki". This sentence is too long

\- those circular arrows on your triple feature could be mistaken for clickable items

Let me give you an idea:

Once you can get a person to start using your wiki, he is unlikely to ever change, because it's just too much hassle. So your PRIMARY goal is to get people to start using it and put their data in. My suggestion is to offer a special offer 3 Months for $5 offer, only available for the next 5 days. Use session tracking to customize it per user. Now, after the user has put some data in (BEFORE he gets tired), you POPUP a new special offer saying IF YOU register now, you get 6 Months for just half price!

Once they pay twice, they are yours, and will hardly change again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, for the ideas!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like the front page, though your copy could use a bit of work as previously stated. It's clean and attractive - colors are pleasant.

One note though - the choice of coloring on the plan pricing page is not as desirable. Dark gray text on dark blue is not easy on the eyes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the information, so all white text would work?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm stoked on your concept and loving the logo.

Vertical spacing overall should be a tidied and made consistent. Maybe push the second line of your logo up onto the first line to compress the header?

Also I'd suggest you put some more constraints on the design. Pick three colors max. Also maybe limit font choice. You have at least four fonts (two in the logo, and two more in the text of the page), shifting between serif and sans-serif with all sorts of colors and weights and sizes that all add up to looking like clutter. Similarly link colors seem to be very different (the light green on a light blue background looks a lot different than the light green on the dark blue bg).

Font sizes in the three boxes at the bottom are too small. Also, headers on those boxes should be clickable (since there are little arrows on those headers).

You could try looking at one of the many CSS frameworks (I personally enjoy Blueprint) to add some cross-platform consistency to line-heights and font sizes.

Regarding content: It seems there are two places on the page to learn what ScribbleWiki does. Once in the light blue box and once in the space right below it. Maybe put all this text into one place?

Hope my comments don't come off as too negative -- just trying to provide some constructive criticism.

</comment><comment><USER5> you really should center everything on the vertical axis. the main paragraph is just kinda hangin out to the left.

Look at maybe applying a little more vertical padding to things like the logo (looks crunched).

Should probably also place more emphasis on the things you want people to do like "sign-up" and "try it out" even if its just making them bigger or bolder than their surroundings.

conversions are more important than aesthetics but you're off to a decent start balancing both

<comment><USER5> downmodded why?

<comment><USER6> No idea, your comment looks reasonable to me. +1 back to positivity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like that design and I think it's a very popular template style. It's popular for a reason - people like it. I would suggest increasing the line- height and font-size of your main text.

Good luck!

<comment><USER8> Yeah, nice grid. I would make the boxes at the bottom the same size, it seems odd that one is larger than the others. Also, its very grid-like, but that one section of text in the middle is centered. Looks odd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The arrows on the right of the blocks are misleading. They look like links, or at least active content, but don't do anything.

<comment><USER10> I agree.

The first block like that is a link, and the other three are not - it's not very consistent.

I'd recommend making the rest into links too.

It's easier to hit a block like that, instead of a much smaller text link to whatever the block is already advertising!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not to be harsh but I think you really need to work on that logo. your page design is pretty strong but the logo is the weakest thing on the page.

It's very hard to get a logo to look both freehand/scribly as well as professional. Either you need to do a mot more research in to how other have done good freehand script well or just stick with a typeface.

Perhaps the name could be all one typeface and you could have a more hand drawn icon to go with the logo.

either way the logo needs work.

good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> I asked for comments, no need to worry about giving them to me. So something more like this <http://janeknight.com/images/scribble.gif> ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "A "wiki" which is basically an editable website that allows people to easily collaborate. You can use a wiki from anything to organizing a camping trip to replacing your water cooler discussions at work. See some more uses of a wiki here."

If they don't know what a wiki is, they probably don't want to create one. Secondly, if you must keep it, make the font bigger and easier to read. I had to zoom in it just to make it legible.

</comment><comment><USER13> Change the tagline to "Simple wiki hosting. IT Department Optional" or something. Either way, put what it is before the "punchline".

<comment><USER13> Proper sentence casing (sorry for my previous bad example): "IT staff optional."

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> You might want to rethink the contrast and the color combinations on the band through the middle. Looks nice overall though.

<comment><USER11> yeah. I would use an Image instead of HTML. If you check 37 Signals all their big text are images cause they can just be made to look better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I felt that What is ScribbleWiki and "Simple Wiki...." say pretty much the same thing. You may wanna look into that.

Also in general its a good idea to keep all three boxes Red, Yellow and Green header one of the same dimensions (height is different in your case)

I think consistency is generally great to have

</comment><comment><USER16> Hi, I'm your typical lazy web surfer with the attention span of a squirrel on speed. I want to see screenshots or some other visual example of the product _before_ I signup for a trial, which I could not find on the first few pages I clicked so I left.

Always post at least one screenshot.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good information, we'll try that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What made you decide to have "Online Collaboration Tool" in large font on the front page?

<comment><USER14> Yeah, and to add to that, some of the text on the front page is a bit less compelling than you probably want it to be.

<comment><USER17> I'm not saying that it's bad. I'm wondering the reasons? Does the text really add value to what ScribbleWiki does?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Looking for front page comments for ScribbleWiki; but, will take comments in general as well.

</comment><comment><USER18> it looks a bit wank on the iPhone - you may wanna look into that...

<comment><AUTHOR> Never really tested on the iPhone, know of any links for doing that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Too many colors, and many of the color pairings wash-out against each other -- white on lightblue, lightblue on darkblue, white on lightorange. The scribbled 'Scribble' is almost unreadable.</comment>


Google Clips is a new $249 wearable camera - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/04/google-clips-is-a-new-249-smart-camera-that-you-can-wear/ <comment><USER2> > It also doesn't use any kind of network connection, so it's not broadcasting > the stuff it captures anywhere.

> Plus, it'll alert you when its lens is blocked via intelligent notifications > to your phone.

One of these statements is inaccurate.

(Comment edited to be more easily demonstrable.)

<comment><USER3> >It also doesn't use any kind of network connection,

Bluetooth is not normally considered a network connection.

(I work at Google, but have nothing to do with Clips)

<comment><USER4> This Clip networks with your phone which presumably sends that to Google servers for AI purposes which also presumably means for data storage so that better models can be trained.

Listen, this statement clearly is made to address privacy concerns, and it does so in an irresponsibly misleading way.

<comment><USER5> They explicitly said that it doesn't sent the images to Google servers, AI is done locally on the phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is a lot of bashing in the comments. I kind of like this. I wonder how many people in the comments have multiple kids. After the first kid you kind of stop taking pictures because you don't have the hands and/or mental capacity. I could also see something like this working in a school. It's always interesting to know what your kids are working on. Our teacher took about 1500 pics last month. I don't see this as much different.

<comment><USER7> I really love the idea. I totally agree that sometimes you want a camera always filming everything to capture the instants, because when you take your phone out it's already too late and you can't really reenact it. That's a good thing.

What I, and I believe others didn't like, is the text and the message, which is not even hidden at this point: Google sees and knows everything about you, your family, your favorite moments. I didn't even see how that was useful for the user -- I certainly want to categorize my Moments so I can easily find them again, but I'm not sure I want Google to _know_ about it. And yet that's exactly what it says.

<comment><USER8> As the article very clearly says, this camera is a self contained unit, nothing is sent back to Google. If you want to upload your photos to e.g. Google Photos you can, but you have to manually do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We built a consumer product like this back in 2013 - Autographer. The hard bits were i) battery life, ii) taking good pictures when moving, iii) having a socially acceptable & nicely designed product that points in the right direction, iv) connectivity, v) wide FOV camera module vi) How to subselect & create the best picture/video experiences (intelligence & creativity) vii) Who/when/what it was really for.

In 2017 v) is solved, i)/ii)/iv) are easier, google should be able to do vi) as well as anyone, let's see about vii). Anyway good luck to them and I'll be buying one.

<comment><USER10> Battery life is 3 hours, and this seems ridiculously low for something that's designed to be left running without supervision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This camera gives me the absolute creeps. If someone has this in their home I'd ask them to put it in a drawer.

<comment><USER7> When the video ended, I thought I just watched the introduction to a new Black Mirror episode. Really didn't feel at ease.

<comment><USER11> "Go Transparent w/ Google" should be their tag-line. The other commenter on this thread was right about the 'The Circle' comparison.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems like this would definitely have a place in a lot of people's lives: it makes photography natural, easy, and simple. It solves the problem of spending time processing and pruning photos, in an age when most people take photos by pressing the shutter button 20 times and praying. However, I think the target audience for this thing would pass at $250, especially when the single most important selling point on smartphones is the camera.

This is part of the manifestation of Google's big bet on hardware; the same way they used to put out tons of shitty software just to see what stuck, now they will do the same with hardware. Luckily, hardware breaks, so it will be less painful when your camera dies and is discontinued than when Google pulls the plug on their dead services with little ceremony or redress.

</comment><comment><USER13> First step to "The Circle". :-)

<comment><USER14> Missed the reference...can you expand on that?

<comment><USER13> In the movie "The Circle" a big company (a mixture of Google and Facebook) invents a small camera that you can put everywhere that records everything and broadcasts it for everyone.

A post privacy future.

<comment><USER14> Huh, I've never heard of this movie. I've been pretty disconnected from normal popular culture for some time. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For all you wondering who the target market is or how people would trust google's camera in everyday life, think outside of the hn bubble. Wouldn't you're grandma or mom like to capture moments like these? They don't have to remember to take pictures, they don't need to sort through photos, etc.

</comment><comment><USER16> Google hardware efforts make me cringe. How can they be so tone-deaf? Why creating something that pretends to help you creatively while actually flattening all the differences, nuances and creative glitches or imperfections down to a uniformed stylistic template? Seriously, I don't get it.

<comment><USER17> Most people who take pictures of their kids don't want to be photographers, they don't want to think about composition, or lighting, they just want a good memory.

Cameras have become more and more automated over the years. Auto focus, auto- exposure, auto-iso, burst mode hdr, portait lighting, and pretty soon, computational photography and AI on camera devices is going to just let you take a continuous burst of images, recognize the best compositions, and choose those.

Some people will scream death of art and creativity, but true auteurs can still go manual mode if they want. Other people will be freed up to do other things while not having to worry about taking bad shots.

<comment><USER18> Exactly. I have small kids. I love taking pictures of my kids, but I hate having to choose between being in the moment and taking pictures. This thing is amazing to me.

The only thing is that I would probably only use it if I expected there to be something capturable, like Christmas morning or a first day on the school bus or some special outing at a Playground or Disney or something. I'm not sure it's worth it for just those occasions. If something spontaneously adorable happens, it probably will be in a drawer and out of battery. But I'm sorely tempted. Hanging it on the Christmas tree might be amazing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What's the target market? All the marketing material on Google's site seemed to be aimed towards a family oriented theme. Have you ever thought, "oh, let's take a few photos while we make cookies in the POV of the kitchen table"...?

Has anyone needed something that is "candid" but also "not candid" (because you placed the camera there...)?

Maybe if they targeted sports, or security it'll make more sense?

<comment><USER20> > What's the target market?

Parents.

> All the marketing material on Google's site seemed to be aimed towards a > family oriented theme.

That's not accidental.

> Have you ever thought, "oh, let's take a few photos while we make cookies in > the POV of the kitchen table"...?

Not that specifically, but, as a parent of a young child, I have thought "I wish I had a camera that I could basically place and forget" quite a lot.

I'm skeptical about the AI choosing good shots to capture, but if it's even remotely good at that, I suspect it will do pretty well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I actually had a similar device called Narrative which went down some months ago. It was weird having a camera all day and when I did want to go back and check a specific moment the photo was almost always blurry. I did use it to create time lapses and that was pretty neat because of the small size of the device.

Link for the curious: [http://getnarrative.com](http://getnarrative.com)

<comment><USER22> My SO bought one of these and she had trouble finding a place to put it on her where it wasn't pointing slightly up at an awkward angle. A lot of the positions in marketing shots don't fit female anatomy, and a necklace leaves it flying about taking blurry sideways photos. It's a cool product for QS type people but didn't seem useful in practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Reminded me of similar but simpler product I saw on KS called FOMO [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1784759196/fomo-the- mos...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1784759196/fomo-the-most- wearable-and-customizable-camera)

<comment><USER24> Even more relevant: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bbutton/benjamin- button...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bbutton/benjamin-button-the- worlds-1st-smart-camera-for-fa/description)

1) Meant to take video of your family

2) Identifies 'moments' and cuts them up for you so you don't have to do all the video editing yourself.

<comment><USER25> But this Benjamin Button is DOA right? It ever launched. Seems like it's cancelled and a vague saying that they'll be back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Does anyone else think that this camera taking pictures based on who you spend the most time with could be really depressing? "How come there are no photos of my kids and a whole album of my boss with fancy filters added?"

<comment><USER27> it might help you rethink who you spend your time with before its too late to change it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The first thing I thought was that this was a civilian body cam.

Coincidentally, the police in my current hometown are also trying out a Google product for their body cams.

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-jersey-city-using- cell-p...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-jersey-city-using-cell-phone- cameras-as-alternative-to-body-cams/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Never thought I'd see the day when Google would make a Gopro competitor.

<comment><USER30> There's a huge market for Gopro and Contour. Makes sense that Google will attempt to capture some of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If I get one of these, I want not only the option for AI-powered clips, but for every second of video/audio to be stored, tagged, classified, and analyzed:

1) Spoken word

Every spoken word is transcribed. Every word is tagged to the right person. All speech is automatically analyzed for intonation and emotion (perhaps, in part, by the AI analyzing facial expression).

2) Written word

Every word that is read/seen by the camera (as in books, magazines, receipts, brochures, highway signs, TV commercials, license plates) is OCRed and stored.

3) People

Every person is tagged (something like the way Google Photos does it). Since there is now audio for every frame/video, Google's machine-learning AI will make it super accurate. Facial expressions will be analyzed, along with vocal intonation, to tag person's emotions, mental state, etc.

4) Location

Everything will be GPS-tagged.

Great start, but so much more I'd like to see.

</comment><comment><USER32> Even if the thing has zero hardware capability to communicate I can't overcome my gut feeling that the thing is an ad targeting data mining device. There is basically nothing google could say or write at this point about one of their devices that would make me think they respect my privacy.

<comment><USER33> Wait for an iFixit teardown or some other third party to verify that there isn't external communication hardware.

<comment><USER34> Well, and then teardown the mobile app used to see the photos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> FTA:

>It also doesn't use any kind of network connection, so it's not broadcasting the stuff it captures anywhere. You can connect to your phone to check what you've got.

I'd add:

and, once connected, undoubtedly upload everything captured automatically to google for ad services, datamining, and machine learning.

</comment><comment><USER36> The ad copy for this says "100% private. No Internet needed to capture." But the last time Google sold a camera-oriented device, Google Glass, it would upload all the pictures it took to Google's servers without any way to stop it from doing so. And Google gave out instructions to stop it from uploading pictures, but the instructions didn't work. Can an engineer from Google, who has looked at the code or at the network traffic, say confidently that this isn't uploading all your pictures to Google's servers?

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20644764/prevent- google-...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20644764/prevent-google-glass- from-auto-uploading-photos)

<comment><USER15> Are you accusing Google of just outright lying? One product says you don't need a network connection, the other heavily relied on a network connection.

<comment><USER36> I'm saying that Google has had an internal miscommunication about this exact question in the past. That's different from lying, but it does undercut the credibility of their statement, and so I'd like to hear it from someone who's able to check, rather than someone on the marketing side.

<comment><USER37> It was very unambiguously an emphasized part of the keynote that they talked about in detail, not a passing misunderstandable remark. And when the public has their hands on these, it would be trivial to see if it violates this claim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> > interestingly Google doesn't seem to be eager to provide info on how many > megapixels the sensor has.

Whenever it showed shots from the camera POV in the promo video, it looked like the pictures would be pretty low res.

<comment><USER39> 12MP from what I've read

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The battery life appears to be three hours. That's incredibly disappointing at such a price point. You'd think it should be $100 max if the battery can't even last half a day

</comment><comment><USER40> 15FPS? Why on earth make that design decision? Isn't 30FPS nowadays considered substandard?

<comment><USER18> As I understand it, it's not for videos. It's 15 photos per second, any of which might be the one you keep. But maybe I misunderstand that and someone can correct me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> 250$ for a 16 frame per sec hidden camera with some machine learning nonsense thrown in?

<comment><USER42> It's just business.

Let the people buy what they want.

We know that you could build something similar with a $6 Aliexpress camera, $1 motion sensor and a $5 rpi zero from Microcenter but we're not the market.

<comment><USER43> It's just an opinion, let the people express their thoughts, comments are here for that reason.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Who keeps flour in a bag like that?</comment>


The Best Philosophy is Hume's Scepticism - <AUTHOR> http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/anonymous/best-philosophy-humes-scepticism

<comment><USER2> Quote: "If there is a best philosophy, it is surely the one which maintains that every philosophy is doubtful."

By that reasoning, it's "surely" not possible to assign any philosophy the label "best" without reservation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Citation needed.</comment>


Show HN: Steak Token – The First "Proof-Of-Steak" Cryptocurrency - <AUTHOR> https://steaktoken.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey all, founder here. Steak Token is the first "Proof-Of-Steak" Ethereum token (you "mine" it by posting pics of the steak you eat). Steak Token is for red-blooded crypto enthusiasts who are tired of fast-talking ICO founders pushing hard-to-grok tech. So, please get this token and make America steak again. Thank you.</comment>


Why the rich stay rich - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcodesign.com/1673103/infographic-why-the-rich-stay-rich

<comment><USER2> That's easy to explain -- compound interest. No need for a long analysis.

"Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't ... pays it." ― Albert Einstein</comment>


Corporate activism should be more than just a marketing gimmick - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2020/07/20/corporate-activism-should-be-more-than-just-a-marketing-gimmick/ <comment><USER2> They do a whole lot more than just marketing gimmick, they just don't do it publicly due to risk of backlash involved in activism (and businesses hate risk!).

Now whether this "whole lot more" can be good, bad or ugly is an entirely different story!</comment>


Building Building Blocks - <AUTHOR> https://segment.com/blog/building-building-blocks/

<comment><USER2> There's some neat tools here, but it also feels like a bit of NIH. It would be interesting to hear why these are better than, say, Gulp, Yeoman, Hubot, Casper.js, etc.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely. It's a fine line. We haven't always made the right call for sure.

I think Metalsmith and Khaos are pretty good examples of why we feel the need to build our own.

The crux of it is that the alternatives (Yeoman and Jekyll) aren't designed to be augmented without opinion. They are designed as "solves all your needs tools and gives you the preferred workflow".

Metalsmith doesn't claim to solve all your needs. It actually doesn't solve any of your needs out of the box, unless you need a really complex way to copy files from a directory to another without doing anything else to them. It defines an extremely simple core—an API that extendability can be based around—and then hands over all of the logic to plugins. Which means it's pretty much never going to get in your way.

Similarly with Khaos—which we haven't really perfected yet—we're looking for an extremely simple core API design that people can augment to solve their scaffolding needs. We want it ourselves to scaffold integrations for Segment, to scaffold new Node and Go projects, we're even thinking about scaffolding Segment-branded PDFs.

Yeoman doesn't think that way, evidenced by this paragraph from their landing page:

> Through our official Generators, we promote the "Yeoman workflow". This > workflow is a robust and opinionated client-side stack, comprising tools and > frameworks that can help developers quickly build beautiful web > applications. We take care of providing everything needed to get started > without any of the normal headaches associated with a manual setup.

Khaos doesn't prescribe any workflows or client-side stacks, it just lets you scaffold things. What you want to scaffold is up to you, as it should be. You can use it for eBooks for all we care :)

Khaos also happens to be built on Metalsmith. It's just a series of plugins that run before the files are written to an output directory. That wouldn't have been possible with Jekyll, we'd have had to roll our own again inside Khaos or do some incredibly hacky shit to get it to work.

\---

All that said, some of our projects suffer from NIH. And when they do it's usually clear over time since we get sick of dealing with them and we use something that has more widespread support behind it. But for others, we're super glad we've rolled our own because we get tired of other people's opinionated software :)

There are definitely lots of existing pieces of software that we like to use though. I've been thinking recently it would be cool for companies to have a Chrome Extension that the engineering team could use that specifically marked GitHub repositories as "liked/disliked" in terms of adhering to the companies design ethos. That way we could keep track a lot easier of the stuff we like to default to, so that we don't have to roll our own all the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do you guys face issues with the increased mental complexities this approach brings? I am a bit shocked to know there are over 1000 repos in the account. I can assume developers typically need to keep at most tens in their working set, but 1k does sound a lot to manage.

<comment><USER5> Big monolithic repos actually increase the mental complexity more in our opinion. Mental complexity really comes with how much of the system you're holding in your head at once. And with smaller repos you might be dealing with 10-20 repos on any given day, but that's only 1-2% of our codebase/system. The other 98% is ignorable. So we end up holding less in our heads, assuming we've abstracted things correctly.

It did get annoying to deal with the mechanics of lots of repos. So we built tooling to make that easier. For example, CLI commands like "goto analytics.js" will clone and take us to the local copy of the repo. And "publish patch" handles all the mechanics of updating History.md from the git log, incrementing the version appropriately in package.json and component.json, tagging the commit and releasing to github and npm. Khaos, also mentioned in Sperandio's article, helps us template out new repos quickly. With a few pieces of tooling like that you can move pretty fast across lots of repos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Slightly unrelated, but whenever I load a page from Segment for the first time, it renders without a stylesheet. Does this happen to anyone else?

<comment><USER7> On all browsers? Old browsers? Mobile?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> With 1000 repos I'm curious how you manage dev environments. Is it just cli tools to help, or are you using something heavier?

</comment><comment><USER9> I actually independently discovered Nightmare today while this was open in another tab... very cool!</comment>


ThinkGeek closes website, moves in with GameStop - <AUTHOR> https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-06-14-thinkgeek-moves-in-with-gamestop <comment><USER2> I got a gift card for thinkgeek a few years ago. Couldn't find anything I wanted. Tried giving the code away to coworkers, family, even posted it on hn, reddit, and some chans. Literally nobody used it.

Thinkgeek died when they stopped being for geeky programmers and started to cater to disney nerds.

</comment><comment><USER3> RIP. That site was amazing 10 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER4> I remember buying a ninja remote aka tiny tv remote back in highschool so that I could change the channels on the old TVs. RIP.

</comment><comment><USER5> We all had a moment buying some dumb overpriced toy from think geek 15 years ago right?

<comment><USER2> I <3 my geek blanket!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Site isn't closed just yet; they'll stop taking orders 7/2:

[https://www.thinkgeek.com/help/](https://www.thinkgeek.com/help/)</comment>


AngelPad's 6th Batch Of Startups: Companies Working On Drones, Storage and More - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/23/angelpad-demo-day-spring-2013/

<comment><USER2> Truly Wireless, Fieldwire, and Boxbee look pretty interesting. Boxbee's name might be slightly confusing (Boxee is a video appliance), but they're in pretty separate fields.

I'm kind of confused why DroneDeploy is specifically non-military; it seems like there is just as much ITAR compliance either way, and even if they don't market to military, I don't see much difference between selling to the Army Corps of Engineers for a civil engineering project in the Gulf/Mississippi/etc. vs. selling to an NGO operating in a warzone.

<comment><USER3> Why do you say they are specifically non-military?

I work at a company that deals with ITAR (albeit I'm an engineer and hence with limited knowledge about these regulations). We deal with this kind of technology and only a small part of it needs to be ITAR compliant, if at all. If you are working specifically for the military as a (sub)contractor, ITAR restrictions could become more important.

The main part of a drone that I _think_ could run the risk for being controlled is a high-precision IMU. I doubt any other stuff would need to be under ITAR. And if the application is not military, you could probably get by with an off-the-shelf IMU.

<comment><USER4> Friendly Wikipedia look-ups for those Not In The Know:

* ITAR is <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITAR> (International Traffic in Arms Regulations)

* IMU is <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_measurement_unit>

At least I had to look these up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm excited about Iterable, as both a user and developer. Some companies (foursquare, amazon, okcupid) do a really good job around smart emails/notifications; whereas smaller ones tend to err on the side of spamming.

For example, OkCupid will email you when it's raining in your area because statistics show it's the best time to find a date, and Amazon will stop sending you daily emails if it sees you're not reading them.

It'd be awesome to see intelligent/contextual emails become the average rather than the exception.

</comment><comment><USER6> A bit confused; the TC article says all of the startups in the current batch are B2B, but Boxbee seems to be B2C. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER2> I think they meant no big ad sponsored free b2c</comment></comment>


Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites - <AUTHOR> https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amazon-project-kuiper-internet-satellites-fcc,39805.html#xtor=RSS-5 <comment><USER2> At what point should we start worrying about Kessler Syndrome?

> _The Kessler syndrome (also called the Kessler effect,[1][2] collisional > cascading or ablation cascade), proposed by the NASA scientist Donald J. > Kessler in 1978, is a scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth > orbit (LEO) is high enough that collisions between objects could cause a > cascade in which each collision generates space debris that increases the > likelihood of further collisions.[3] One implication is that the > distribution of debris in orbit could render space activities and the use of > satellites in specific orbital ranges difficult for many generations.[3]_

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

<comment><USER3> I've heard that at least with the SpaceX satellites, they have full plans for decommissioning with these satellites re-entering the atmosphere.

I do agree that this is a real concern though, and we'd hope there's pretty careful consideration, considering the sheer number of satellites being launched. Still, space is big .. really big, even the space just above our planet.

I don't put it past humanity to not fuck up space. After all, look at all the plastics and waste in the oceans. Hopefully all these companies and FCC regulators are thinking far ahead, and require the right designs and safety measures to make sure we don't end up enclosed in a float garbage pile.

<comment><USER4> Correct on the decommissioning plans. SpaceX lists out in their FCC filings a number of things including how long it will take them to actively de-orbit satellites, how long for them to de-orbit if they lose contact/control, and also how much of the material will survive re-entry.

I have read conflicting things so don't hold me to this, but on article I read said they delayed adding the laser links to the current batch of Starlink satellites because of concerns over how much would survive the de-orbit maneuver.

<comment><USER5> What I heard they launched them ASAP because otherwise they would lose spectrum license.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Private corporations owning more and more utility infrastructure really concerns me.

Is there a world where nations band together and launch this as public infrastructure rather than private corporations lobbying a USA government agency for permission?

<comment><USER7> Get specific about the concern, otherwise it's easy to get afraid about everything.

Govt's hardly own telecom infra, it's all in private hands. And when orgs get too big for their boots, things like this happen- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System)

<comment><USER6> > Get specific about the concern, otherwise it's easy to get afraid about > everything.

There are many reasons to be afraid about a private corporation from a country with little regulation providing a utility to areas with no other choice.

If Amazon was sponsoring this, that's one thing, but them owning the network raises red flags for me surrounding: 1) Privacy 2) The potential for anti competitive practices 3) Quality of service / expected lifetime of service

I simply don't trust Amazon (or any other large private company) to do anything else than look out for their bottom line when push comes to shove.

> Govt's hardly own telecom infra, it's all in private hands

I'm old enough to remember when Australia did: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstra#Privatisation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstra#Privatisation)

Since Telstra was privatised, any impetus to upgrade Australia's struggling networks has gone out the window and when they _do_ end up upgrading capacity, it is usually as part of a Government project. All in all, tax payers still foot the bill to improve utilities while a private company furthers their monopoly.

<comment><USER8> Same thing happened in the UK with BT.

Usual privatise the profits, socialise the costs.

<comment><USER9> This is false. When BT was privatized, the UK government sold the shares and collected the proceeds. That's not "socializing the costs" any more than in any other divestiture transaction.

Additionally, these companies went from requiring huge operating subsidies to becoming net contributors to the exchequer through paying taxes: [https://www.cps.org.uk/research/the-performance-of- privatisa...](https://www.cps.org.uk/research/the-performance-of- privatisation-vol-ii-privatisation-and-its-effect-on-the-exchequer).

> When the Conservatives came to power in 1979, the major nationalised > companies were receiving large sums of taxpayers' money. NERA's report > reveals that in the year to March 1980, the 33 companies it examined were > contributing nothing to the exchequer: in fact they absorbed a total of £483 > million between them, including £1,199 million in loan finance. British > Steel was one of the worst companies requiring £1,020 million in the > financial year 1980/81 on a turnover of just under £3 billion (thereby > earning itself a place in the Guinness Book of Records).

> This dismal state of affairs has been reversed. In 1987, the 33 companies > examined by NERA contributed £8,374 million to the exchequer. Net > contributions have continued at a high level in each of the last eight > years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems like no coincidence that Amazon is also building a ground station network as part of AWS. [https://aws.amazon.com/ground- station/](https://aws.amazon.com/ground-station/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Anyone wanna offer me their hypothesis on what Amazon and other tech companies gain from offering internet to people who probably aren't valuable consumers?

<comment><USER12> One of Starlink's planned markets is global high frequency trading. The latency of radio and laser transmission in atmosphere and space is much lower than undersea fiber optic cables. (Light moves significantly slower through glass than through air.) Even with the longer distance and retransmission they stand a good chance of being lower latency across oceans than undersea cables.

<comment><USER13> I originally though this would be a good market, and have voiced that opinion on HN, but afaik SpaceX has never said anything about it.

Someone has since pointed out to me that HFT is currently done by bouncing microwaves off the atmosphere. This, unlike fiber, should be faster than SpaceX's constellation making that business unlikely to work out. (Possibly unless high bandwidth almost as low latency is useful).

<comment><USER12> Bouncing waves off the ionosphere has different ranges depending on the time of day. Do you have more info on how that's currently used? I'm curious to learn more.

<comment><USER13> Not really, sorry

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if it would ever make sense to set up some "IXP satellites" so that Amazon and SpaceX's (and whoever else enters this space) various LEO networks could switch in space.

<comment><USER15> Developing compatible systems would be very expensive. There are very few standards in Space Comms., specially for satellite-to-satellite Comms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I am looking forward to when Huawei put up their global network... Charge zero for the uplink devices if you buy the first 6 months up front using bitcoin. With free Huaflix and sports channels (unlicenced, use at consumers own risk).

<comment><USER17> And be perma-banned for accessing harmful content.

<comment><USER18> No, it's just negative social score, so you'll lose your rented place and can't take public transport anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Surely every country around the world needs to be involved in approving something like this. Amazon does not get my vote to put anything that could potentially become space junk in the air above South Africa.

Not yet at least. What is the benefit to humanity as a whole?

<comment> VvR-Ox I am with you here but:

1\. It's never about what benefits humanity, it's just about money most of the times

2\. Every country and probably several companies of each country will do this as long as we are the divided world we have to live in

3\. Just like the internet never became the awesome tool one might see in series like Star Trek (benefit of humanity & stuff like that) something like this will never be that awesome and useful. Until there'd be a market that forces people/companies to act like that. So I think our world is a place where incentives lead us to do the wrong things that actually hinder humanity in it's progress and positive development.

<comment><USER20> > 2\. Every country and probably several companies of each country will do > this as long as we are the divided world we have to live in

I really hope that a "world government" never happens, it is too much of a risk.

Consider the US for example: once the land of the free, it has become a land of espionage, lack of personal privacy and persecution. This hasn't begun with Trump, but it became a lot more evident with him as a president.

What I want to say is that the risk of a global government going rogue is too high.

I hope that we will always have a plurality of nations and ideas, living peacefully with one another.

<comment> VvR-Ox In my opinion this is the only solution that will lead to success of the human race. For me that is not destroying our planet, evolving in the "right" direction (more education, more science and especially more ethics).

At the moment we kind of burn our resources without need and our nations compete which creates more unnecessary costs and suffering than good outcomes.

We live in a world where you wonder every day why things are solved in that particular stupid way instead of doing things the smartest possible way to really serve humanity as a whole. The fact that it's more important than anything else to "grow" money out of nothing speaks for itself.

What is the situation like, right now? Several countries with atom bombs "go rogue". They do what they want and behave like little children who's toys have been stolen (USA, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Great Britain...).

They screw their own people and take away the wealth and stability they enjoyed for some time now, they increase surveillance and take away the (human) rights the people have fought for many decades and they engage in wars and battles that serve no one on this planet but companies who produce weapons and political agendas of maniacs who shouldn't do this job in the first place.

Of course the danger that this one govt could do something bad is also present but at least we'd have a single point of failure that we could get rid of in case of emergency. Now your only chance is to migrate to some other country in the hope that you'll be given a chance to start a new life there and that no one does something that will force you to leave, again.

Wars, Nationalism, tax escaping, finance, poverty .... nearly everything could be solved in a better way when there'd be no seperate govt's who all believed they were the godsend rulers of earth.

I hope some force some day is just strong enough to force everyone into such a system as I don't think nations will be willing to give up their sovereignty that easily. Let it be some aliens - as long as they are intelligent and act rationally it's far better for us than the current unbearable state we have to endure.

Without that there will never be peace on earth. Plurality and ideas come from people and not from states. You can see that today e.g. in countries who are more open minded and welcome people with different believes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Amazon ring and echo captures a lot of data, but imagine how much more they get as an isp?

</comment><comment><USER22> Are there any international agreements covering this stuff?

What if China decide they want to launch another 3000 and Russia want to launch another 3000 and India and Japan and whoever else?

<comment><USER23> not a problem if they are maintained in the way the SpaceX sats are going to be.

<comment><USER24> > not a problem if they are maintained in the way the SpaceX sats are going to > be.

Aka - Not a problem if they are well thought out, well planned, and maintained.

Are there international agreements that specify this is the case? Just curious, real question.

<comment><USER22> Yeah ditto. And are there agreements to stop them interfering with each other? I get that space is really really big but surely there needs to be a way to coordinate so much stuff up there.

<comment><USER25> The ITU is the international body that assists with coordination among nations and their satellite systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The amazing thing to me is that this article does not include the words "spacex" or "starlink" once in the webpage.

Do you have to pay extra for that sort of press hit?

<comment><USER27> It's a press release

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Iridium has global coverage (you can make phone calls from the South Pole) but isn't LEO so there's a latency issue. Starlink is LEO and will have faster rates & lower latency, but won't have global coverage since the orbits don't go over the poles (sorry, Amundsen-Scott!).

What about the proposed Amazon (Blue Origin?) system?

<comment><USER25> Iridium is definitely LEO.

<comment><USER29> Iridium orbits are ~780km (485 mi). Starlink lower tier orbits are ~340km (210 mi).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> So what it's gonna be like - latency and bandwidth?

<comment><USER31> For latency at LEO, we're looking at below 50ms, going as low as 20ms. For bandwidth, it obviously depends on load and usage. SpaceX's satellites each can handle 1 Tbps, so it comes down to how they distribute and price it. At 100Mbps and 3000 satellites, that's roughly 10 million users. Obviously not all users will be using that much data simultaneously.

<comment><USER32> SpaceX satellites cannot do 1Tbps, and it's irresponsible to keep saying this. See the MIT study. They estimate ~20Tbps of _total_ capacity for 4000 satellites.

<comment><USER31> Can you attach said MIT study?

<comment><USER15> [http://systemarchitect.mit.edu/docs/delportillo19a.pdf](http://systemarchitect.mit.edu/docs/delportillo19a.pdf)

I am one of the authors.

This was donde in Sept 2018 so its a little bit outdated by now.

<comment><USER32> Awesome work. Are you going to update it for the 10,000 satellites + Amazon? I'm guessing the answer is no.

Also, are you looking for a job after graduation? If so, please email me :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The Gilded Age had _nothing_ on this. Two billionaires are battling over ownership of communication in the sky.

Is the winner "Prince of The Air"?

<comment><USER34> The various national governments of the world better wise up pretty soon to the fact that they are losing all of their leashes on these beasts they've been riding. Sooner than we think pure profit-seeking entities will be on even footing with organizations that are (or at least are supposed to be) deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. This is a deeply sobering thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Who else thinks these systems deliver wireless high speed Internet faster than 5G?

<comment><USER31> It's not really about speed in my opinion, it's about worldwide availability. 5G requires a node at every few hundred meters, so it will probably never go beyond very dense city centers.

These LEO constellations on the other end can provide connectivity in the most rural and remote places. It would be a game changer for planes and cruises for example. Tesla could include a receiver in every car giving you connection anywhere you drive, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> You'll be able to summon Alexa from anywhere... without even owning an Amazon device! :)

</comment><comment><USER37> Upon whose rockets?

</comment><comment><USER38> Referring to Hoi An, we cannot help but mention the shimmering old town nights in the brilliant lantern festival, especially on the night of Trung Thu full moon. This has become a feature that takes place monthly by the city and makes many tourists stay when having the opportunity to travel to Hoi An. [https://privatecartransferhoian.com/hoi-an-lantern- festival/](https://privatecartransferhoian.com/hoi-an-lantern-festival/)

</comment><comment><USER39> They're just copying SpaceX. That's disappointing.

<comment><USER40> OneWeb launched before SpaceX, but they're all copying Teledesic/Iridium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Should anybody be putting satellites up without some credible plan for decommissioning them from the atmosphere?

<comment><USER14> If this is anything like SpaceX's constellation, the plan is that the orbits will naturally decay in < 10 years and they will burn up in the atmosphere upon re-entry.

<comment><USER42> IMHO, it would be nice if the decay orbit for each satellite were tracked accurately by Amazon and published beforehand. If these satellites truly do burn up completely -- great. But if they don't it would be great to hold Amazon accountable for any problems and for waste cleanup.

<comment><USER43> > accountable for any problems and for waste cleanup

These are companies, not people... $10 buck says if one of these things hits your roof, Amazon will just give you a $100 gift card to Amazon.com

<comment><USER42> +1 lol. yeah. I guess that's better than nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Maybe it's time to talk about tech-free preserves established by international treaties.

E.g.: sections of each continent and ocean can be declared tech free where modern technology is forbidden on earth,sea or land.

This is so we don't lose and forget the nature that forged the present.

<comment><USER34> My knee jerk reaction to this was negative, but I really do think having some sense of preservation of the ways we lived in the past, for educational reasons if nothing else, is valuable. A living museum if you will.

<comment><USER44> The first thing I thought of is how microplastics are everywhere now. A preserve like the one I suggested would somewow ideally be protected even from things like that. Future researchers will have a good natural frame of reference to study various unnatural phenomena.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> There goes my privacy!

I can't even think about a horrible company like Amazon being an ISP too! Think about all the privacy issues that we are going to have!

But if they do this, this is going to be good for the US broadband customers who don't have internet currently. Not to mention they are stuck with monopoly companies without any competition and options. This is going to wake Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and Charter!

But Amazon is going to screw your net neutrality in the most crazy way once the initial period of cheap plans gets over and they have a strong monopoly of user base!

<comment><USER46> It's not just the idea that Amazon is going to be an ISP that you should worry about when it comes to their effect on internet privacy. They also recently purchased Eero.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Welcome to the dystopian future where no human anywhere on Earth can look up and see an authentic sky, as their ancestors did.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/science/starlink- spacex-a...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/science/starlink-spacex- astronomers.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share)

And thanks to SpaceX (and now Amazon), astronomers will now have to do their observations from space. If only there was a way to get telescopes up there. Oh, wait... SpaceX just happens to have a way to solve the problem it created!

<comment><USER48> What's particulary dystopic about it? Preserving nature is valuable because we rely on the ecosystem, you can't really make that argument for the dead emptiness that is space.

Ubiquitous space access even is a common theme in scifi utopias!

<comment><USER49> I think it's close but missing one really key point. Imagine if this was being done by some non profit international consortium funded by many nations.

<comment><USER50> then it would go over budget by 100x, and if it ever did finish, users would be subjected to the intersection of all of those countries moralizing content bans?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to make closures in C [gist example] - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/addisaden/d89c7eaed520a2a8c3a1

<comment><AUTHOR> After a little review and test i found that this fails.

calling the generated greeting method multiple times would fail. This throws an segmentation fault error.

sorry for this wrong thread.

[https://gist.github.com/addisaden/d89c7eaed520a2a8c3a1#file-...](https://gist.github.com/addisaden/d89c7eaed520a2a8c3a1#file- closure_example-c-L31)

</comment><comment><USER2> OK, but nested functions are not allowed in standard C.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your Feedback :) Would i get in trouble, when i use this in the future?

My experience is not so high on C.</comment></comment>


Two Sisters Bought DNA Kits. The Results Blew Apart Their Family - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-sisters-bought-dna-kits-the-results-blew-apart-their-family-11549037904 <comment><USER2> Non-paywalled copy: [https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/two-sisters- bought...](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/two-sisters-bought-dna- kits-and-the-results-blew-their-family-apart/ar-BBTeF99?li=AA59G2)</comment>


Python for Perl programmers - <AUTHOR> http://everythingsysadmin.com/perl2python.html <comment><USER2>
      However, most Python programmers tend to just read the
      entire file into one huge string and process it that way.
      I feel funny doing that. Having used machines with very
      limited amounts of RAM, I tend to try to keep my file
      processing to a single line at a time. However, that
      method is going the way of the dodo.

      contents = file('filename.txt').read()
      all_input = sys.stdin.read()

This is not the correct way to do things. The first example given is better.

      for line in file('filename.txt'):
        print line

Generators are a beautiful thing [1][2]

[1] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/519633/lazy-method-for- re...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/519633/lazy-method-for-reading-big- file-in-python)

[2] <http://www.dabeaz.com/generators/>

<comment><USER3> Though the results may have changed since, I once had to parse a very, very large file (about 5 GB) line-by-line. I tested a number of different methods, and ultimately discovered that reading the entire file using .readlines() was faster by a significant margin. I vaguely recall it was more than four times faster, actually - and that was a really big win when you're talking about a data set that large.

Granted, our machine had a perhaps-unusual design in that it had multiple RAID 6 data banks, a very powerful dedicated IO controller, and about 128 GB of RAM. So your mileage may vary.

Unfortunately I don't have access to that machine any more so I can't perform the same benchmark, but I have a nagging feeling that if I ran the tests again with Python 3.2 I'd get different results.

<comment><USER4> That's most likely because of the overhead of all those syscalls for each line.

A nicer way to do such things is to open the file with mmap, which does one system call and then just bumps a pointer. mmaps expose both a file and a list-like API.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Python people tend to always compile their regular expressions; I guess they aren't used to writing throw-away scripts like in Perl_

This is so that the RE isn't compiled each time it's used. These days the RE module maintains an internal cache for compiled RE's, but that wasn't always the case.

The 1.5.2 docs for compile() say "using compile() is more efficient when the expression will be used several times in a single program" while the 2.7.2 docs add the note that "the compiled versions of the most recent patterns passed to re.match(), re.search() or re.compile() are cached, so programs that use only a few regular expressions at a time needn't worry about compiling regular expressions."

Edit: apparently the cache was present in 1.5.2; it just wasn't documented. In 1.5.2 the cache size was 20. In 2.0 it was increased to 100.

Still: explicit is better than implicit.

As well, I find assigning the RE to a well-named variable tends to make for more readable code. RE patterns can be horribly ugly and I like to get their definitions out of the way of the logic using them.

<comment> alexis-d > RE patterns can be horribly ugly

It worth to be noted that the verbose flag (re.X or re.VERBOSE in Python) may help to get more readable/friendly regexes (by allowing whitespace and comments).

<comment><USER6> I'm desperately fighting the urge to snark: but another very effective treatment for dealing with unreadable regex syntax is to _learn regex syntax_. In my experience probably 90% of people who complain about regular expressions simply don't know them very well.

It's a declarative language without symbols or recursion: that means that it's just not well-suited to being "broken down and simplified". You just have to bite the bullet and learn it. With a little practice, the basic features (e.g. beginning/end of line markers, character classes and captures, maybe non- capturing parentheses too) should be readable without trouble.

<comment> alexis-d I think you missed my point.

I agree that for trivial regex it's useless. For instance (directly taken from Python doc) in this case:

      a = re.compile(r"""\d +  # the integral part
                         \.    # the decimal point
                         \d *  # some fractional digits""", re.X)
      b = re.compile(r"\d+\.\d*")

that's useless. But for more complex problems it may be useful (e.g. <http://www.doughellmann.com/PyMOTW/re/> I know email matching regexes are not really complex or even a good example of use of regexes but that's the first example I found).

Another point is that even if I can read/write (that's the case) regexes other people may have to deal with my code and it's a well known fact that many people doesn't understand/like regex, so splitting them in small "chunks" may help them.

<comment><USER6> To be fair: my argument wasn't _against_ the use of the /x suffix to a regex. I'm sure that there are circumstances in the wild (though quite honestly I can't recall seeing any in production code, and I've written and read a truckload of regexes over the years) where it's used productively to document a really hairy expression.

I'm just saying that 90% of the time when users complain about not being able to read a regex, the solution should be "hit the books" not "rewrite the expression".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can someone please make a Perl for Python programmers?

It actually took me 30 minutes today to figure out how to do:

text=open('file.txt').read()

without creating 3-5 lines of code which seems excessive for a simple operation.

There are apparently 20 ways to do it in Perl and they need their own CPAN library for it :-( [1]

[1] [http://search.cpan.org/~drolsky/File- Slurp-9999.13/extras/sl...](http://search.cpan.org/~drolsky/File- Slurp-9999.13/extras/slurp_article.pod)

<comment><USER8> This is actually really simple in perl. The idiomatic way to do it would be:

      open(my $fh, "<", "file.txt") or die "wft?"
      my @lines = <$fh>;

lines is now an array of lines, you can join them into a single string if you want.

<comment><USER6> Or just:

      my $data = `cat $file`;

Some folks dislike the useful use of cat, but anyone who's ever read a shell script will recognize the idiom. And it's a trivial one-liner much simpler still than the python code .

<comment><USER9> This isn't exactly idiomatic Perl and fails completely in environments that don't have cat (Windows).

For one-time uses there's not a problem. However, if you find yourself writing what amount to shell scripts in Perl, you might be better off just writing shell scripts.

<comment><USER6> Excuse me? Who are you to determine what is and isn't "idiomatic"? And that you would try this kind of thing about _perl_ of all languages is just shocking. What's saddest is that it's the _lack_ of this kind of absurdist pursuit of robustness and purity is one of the things that has always best defined the perl community.

Broadly, your argument seems to be that spawning processes in the external environment[1] (which, admittedly, is inherently nonportable) is a Bad Thing in perl, and that we shouldn't do it. When I rephrase it like that, does it sound as poo-flinging crazy to you as it does to me?

[1] Let's be honest: a working "cat" is pretty much the single most portable thing you can put between the backticks. If you won't allow this, what _will_ you permit?

<comment><USER9> First off, apologies if I was coming off as rude, I wasn't trying to be.

My point was more that slurping a file without spawning another process is already quite easy in perl. That method of slurping contradicts common patterns like "while (<$fh>)". I'm not saying it's strictly wrong or even bad, just not necassarily the best option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This post single handedly uncovered an idea for a new niche' of premium programming books: how to program in language A for language B programmers.

</comment><comment><USER11> Sorry can't use Python instead of Perl. Basically because Python is not Perl.

Now if you want to just change a language for the sake of changing it, its Ok. But Python and Perl have opposite philosophies. And the actual problem while changing from Python to Perl occurs there.

To me Python looked like Java with a haircut and french beard. That fact simply keeps hovering over me, even in this tutorial all those variable = something.somethingElse.someMethod() thing gives a strong Java vibe .When I used it for the first time, It looked like a language for people who were frustrated with Java but at the same couldn't learn Perl either. It looked like a language designed for such people.

Parsing a program visually hurts my eyes. Especially for large code blocks. Inability to provide easy ways of writing throwaway command line hacks is just not acceptable at all on Unix machine. That's precisely where Perl won over sysadmins during its early days.

Having to bury each statement you suspect under piles of try/catch statements doesn't feel like a scripting language. No multi line lambdas is a major turn off.

Regular expression support looks totally alien and its no way closer to Perl's way $line =~ /<match something>/ and not just that, Matching is just one part. Extraction, substitution et all all part of regular expression operations. Now regexes combined with map/grep functions make parsing a whole lot easier in Perl.

Scoping sucks big time in Python. There is nothing remotely comparable to CPAN.

I don't know which versions to Program in, 2.x or 3.x? There is nothing like Moose and other associated modern perl packages in Python.

Lastly I never needed another C based language for scripting. What I needed was a more extensible language(like Perl6).

Python doesn't serve my scripting needs on Unix. But I agree it has good web frameworks and it may be helpful there.

</comment><comment><USER12> Here is a good "cheat sheet" for how to do X in Y (where X and Y are in PHP, Perl, Python or Ruby): <http://hyperpolyglot.org/scripting>

It doesn't cover idioms like Tom's post, but helps me remember the basic syntax changes when jumping between these languages.

</comment><comment><USER13> Anyone have the opposite? I've been working in Python for a few years but now I'm taking a Perl class.

<comment><USER14> I've not used Perl in any real way for years but I am now brushing up on it again.

You _can_ do neat one-liners in Python or Ruby but I've always liked Perl for this kind of thing.

I also have a weird penchant for using BASH scripting to do quite complicated things. Just because it can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not mentioned is the common idiom of assigning regexp matches.

In perl,

> my ($a, $b) = '12' =~ /(\d)(\d)/;

In python,

> (a, b) = re.match('(\d)(\d)', '12').groups()

Note the python code here will throw an AttributeError if the match fails, whereas the perl will just assign undef to the variables.

<comment><AUTHOR> Alternatively, use named captures:

      > obj = re.match('(?P<id>\d\d)(?P<name>\w+)')
      > id = obj.group('id')
      > name = obj.group('name')

<comment><USER14> Nice!</comment></comment></comment>