Only 60 Years of Farming Left If Soil Degradation Continues - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-farming-left-if-soil-degradation-continues/ <comment><USER2> I've been reading topsoil doomsday stories since the seventies. I've seen them written from the thirties. They completely ignore modern farming. We don't rely on topsoil, or care. Modern farming, especially since the fifties, is chemistry. The soil is merely a growing medium. We test it and add whatever is needed via petrochemical fertilizers. Better soil is better for the farmer, but far from necessary.

And whomever says a millennium to make 30mm of topsoil knows nothing about the subject. I've seen nature make that much in less than a decade many times.

<comment><USER3> and minerals ?

<comment><USER4> Ground-up rock dust works wonders: [https://remineralize.org/](https://remineralize.org/) "Through our education and outreach, projects, research, and advocacy, Remineralize the Earth facilitates a worldwide movement that brings together gardeners and farmers, scientists and policymakers and the public to create better soils, better food, and a better planet. ... "Remineralization is one of the most important missions on the planet at this time. Together, we can remineralize gardens, farms, landscapes, and forests. We can grow nutrient-dense food and improve the nutrition and well-being of all life. And in the larger picture, it's a key strategy to stabilize the climate!""

<comment><USER3> interesting, because the mineral content of food is a matter of chance usually. For example certain plants accumulate certain minerals more than others (e.g. brazil-nuts:selenium, cocoa:nickel) but the soil they're grown in may have more or less of those minerals, so it's hard to control one's intake

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The numbers are way off. It took around 10 years to get 4" of topsoil on my 80 acres of timber soil (clay). Not 1000 years.

And we have 111ft of that kind of soil here in Iowa. It going to take a hell of a long time to go through that. Its been farmed since the early 1800's. And not all gone, not by far.

I didn't read any further after that, maybe the article does have something to say. But I doubt it.

<comment><USER6> Sorry, but I'm leaning towards trusting the FAO as opposed to anonymous anecdotal evidence.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt and believe that you may be on the top end of the world-wide average, but how does your 80 acres of usable soil help the rest of the world when push comes to shove?

<comment><USER5> Really? With the numbers so absolutely at odds, it only takes a single sample to disprove outrageous claims.

So don't believe me if you like (though I could go dig a hole and take a picture of the black line that separates topsoil from subsoil), but its probably more outrageous to cling to the idea that somehow Iowa is at the top end of a curve that goes from 10 years to 1000 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If I may, a wonderful book called "The Alchemy of Air" by Thomas Hager is a very enlightening book on this very same issue during the late 1800s.

EDIT: I was mobile earlier but wanted to throw a bit of a teaser in here. This book (along with Hager's "The Demon Under the Microscope) are excellent reads and I high recommend them.

Essentially, there were many "doomsday scenarios" wherein the context of the late 1800s was that vast supplies of natural fertilizer were used up and people were very worried about food supplies. Long story short, the "fixing" of nitrogen from the air not only alleviated the short term issues but also had a huge influence in wars and who was in power in the early 20th Century.

Consequently, this books ends with some pretty questions surrounding the impact of what all of this extraneous nitrogen might do long term—the impacts of which are already seen in rivers and streams... but the ocean and other areas as well.

<comment><USER8> > _Essentially, there were many "doomsday scenarios" wherein the context of > the late 1800s was that vast supplies of natural fertilizer were used up and > people were very worried about food supplies._

Assuming scientists will come up with a new technology is a bad survival strategy. At this rate, we expect our children to find a way around climate change, ocean acidification and soil erosion. Mankind is one fat dude who'd rather dream about diet pills than stop eating.

<comment><USER9> I don't think we really expect our children to do that. It's just there aren't any good options right now. The world is so dependent on hydrocarbons and large scale agriculture that there is no viable alternative.

<comment><USER10> Not viable? Just depends on who you ask or what your definition of viable is. We need to rip that bandage off now and reduce our standard of living by however much it takes to get into a sustainable symbiosis with our planet.

Fossil fuel companies: bankrupt

Cheap Chinese goods: gone

Meat in every meal: nope

Cheap processed foods: gone

It would be a huge lifestyle change for everyone on the planet. Difficult, but certainly viable.

<comment><USER9> Fossil fuel companies being bankrupt is not viable. Fossil fuels allow the modern world to function. How are you going to get food distributed across the country without fossil fuels? How are you going to make sure critical infrastructure continues to run?

Edit: I'm not saying fossil fuel dependency is a good thing, but it's a fact of life, and any realistic proposal for moving away from fossil fuels needs to start with accurately understanding just how important they are.

<comment><USER11> _I 'm not saying fossil fuel dependency is a good thing, but it's a fact of life_

It's easy to believe they are utterly indispensable. They are just so _convenient_ , and we love to convince ourselves convenience is really necessity. But would the world truly collapse into the dark ages if fossil fuels petered out in the next decade, and we no longer had that option?

How are you going to transport food? You ignore that food was shipped around a long time before fossil fuels. More of a pain, of course, but we did it all the same.

<comment><USER9> Yes, but society was structured under different assumptions then. I live in a city in the desert. There wouldn't be cities in the desert (with modern living standards) if we didn't have fossil fuels to get food, building supplies, electrical wiring, etc. out here.

Yes, society can function without fossil fuels, but probably not with the same number of people, and certainly not with the same standard of living.

<comment><USER12> And not in coastal California. ..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Apparently this same story has been circulating since at least 2014, using the same quotes from the same people and organizations, from some menial Googling. So far no sources for any claims in the article, though an agronomy student on Reddit appeared to back up the 30% number.

This seems like clickbait to me.

Edit: This article is from December 5, 2014. [https://www.ashlandmass.com/DocumentCenter/Home/View/446](https://www.ashlandmass.com/DocumentCenter/Home/View/446)

</comment><comment><USER14> I've pitched this before, but here goes:

If someone can come up with an adequate filter for pharmaceuticals, it seems that the recapture of human waste is our best path forward. Yes, there is a logistics problem for transferring it, potentially, dehydration is the best method, but we consume the output of our farms, and it seems that on a conservation of mass basis, we should be sending it back to the farms when we're done with it.

<comment><USER15> If by waste you mean excrement then this is not a good idea in the slightest. First you have bacteria, viruses, and parasites that must be killed off. If it isn't properly treated, you end up with a situation similar to that of what we saw in the recent North Korean refugee who suffered from parasites. After that, as you mentioned, there are pharmaceuticals which are notoriously hard to filter out. Next on the list is heavy metals that can become concentrated in excrement. Even after addressing these concerns, if the process to treat the waste is too costly, then there goes the benefit.

I would compare some of the challenges this faces to those that are faced when turning salt water into fresh water through desalination (probably not a direct comparison).

<comment><USER16> I encourage you to do a little more research on this. Bad and good bacteria exists in this world regardless of how Human's try to control it. Waste processing plants use a combination of bacteria and UV to treat wastewater. That process is very similar to what nature does with animal and human waste.

However, moving human waste is a tough problem and requires substantial resources (fossil fuels, infrastructure, electricity, etc...) and the act of moving it is usually the source of contamination.

I think it's completely valid and beneficial to compost human waste, but that needs to be done on a local/individual scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Farming will be obsolete well within 60 years. Direct manufacture of foodstuffs will arrive before that. Already folks build machines that take in water and electricity and some organic components, and produce food. How long before a nano machine sews together C,H,O and N into carbohydrate chains on command? Then, electricity will equal food.

Topsoil, climate will soon become irrelevant to producing foodstuffs.

<comment><USER17> Modern agriculture is turning Oil into Foodstuff anyway.

That's why Oil is so expensive while agriculture is universally subsidied.

<comment><USER5> Don't know about the expensive part. But it also requires farmland, soil, chemicals. The idea is, dispense with all that, including transportation, and create starch, sugar etc at the point of consumption directly. Or baby steps in that direction. Heck, even 'organic' farming can be seen as working in this direction if it wasn't so expensive otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> tech enthusiasts need to seriously consider taking permaculture and polyculture out of the fringe bucket

</comment><comment><USER19> If you're interested in looking deeply at alternative agricultural practices, I recommend "Restoration Agriculture". [1] It's rooted in permaculture, but more broadly about restoring biomes that are naturally abundant and diverse.

The central hypothesis is that we've become far too invested in annual plants. They require and enormous amount of labor and petrochemicals to sustain. The book presents alternative methods that, like permaculture in general, look to harness natural processes and perennial trees and shrubs to great effect.

1: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16441733-restoration- agr...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16441733-restoration-agriculture)

</comment><comment><USER20> Is there any counterpoint to this?

My great worry about us (and capitalism) is that we are good at short term allocation, bad at long run planning. Is there a way around this soil problem, or some way in which the stat is misleading?

<comment><USER21> Including capitalism on there seems gratuitous. USSR was no better at land stewardship than us. Cuba, N Korea, the same.

It's more about human nature than capitalism or any economic system in particular. If anything capitalism is capable of including externalities, if we choose to. If we don't, eventually, we will face the issue, as many others. Not the ideal way to dal with issues which are decades in the future. Classical example is national debt and of course, climactic change.

<comment><USER22> It's funny that you mention Cuba because they actually do take care of preserving their soils, unlike most of the Caribbean which has completely degraded soild due to centuries of sugarcane plantations with no regards to the environment whatsoever.

[http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/08/sustainable-technologies- safe...](http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/08/sustainable-technologies-safeguard- the-soil-in-cuba/)

<comment><USER21> Thanks for pointing that out. Do you know when they began with the program to better manage their soil?

I still feel land management / mismanagement is independent of economic system. One does not intrinsically offer to protect natural resources over another, but i could be wrong.

<comment><USER23> After the Special Period in Cuba which began in 1989 with the collapse of the soviet union Cuba was forced to become substantially more self-sustaining. Previously they were able to farm in much more extractive ways and offset their agrictultural output from trade with the USSR. Once the USSR disappeared it was extremely difficult to import agricultural chemicals and import food. Food in Cuba isn't great today, but it's pretty sustainably created.

I would argue that an economic system that concentrates power has the ability to create and enforce a monopoly on land usage. Political or economic systems that allow for a minority control of usable land are much more inclined to use that land for the benefit of the controlling minority, and so far that seems maximizing profits in the short term. When we speak of land management what do we mean? The best "returns"? What is being returned to us? I'm inclined to agree that the values used inland management _can_ be independent of economic system, but an economic system that brings with it a predefined value-set based around extracting profit via exploitation is going to manage the land according to those values. Until we have values that supersede the values of the economic system then the econmic's system's values with be the dominating ones.

While I find his philosophy a bit lacking, Derrick Jensen has some great writing on how we value and manage land. [https://www.amazon.com/Language- Older-Than-Words/dp/19314985...](https://www.amazon.com/Language-Older-Than- Words/dp/1931498555)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is organic farming all that much better? Are there any concrete numbers that indicate how that timeline of 60 years might be extended with different farming practices?

It seems to me like we might have to make a big push towards solar-powered hydroponics or something of that nature.

How depressing. Maybe soylent green is more of a realistic future than we thought...

<comment><USER25> In my personal experience, organic farming causes much more soil loss than conventional farming.

Organic dryland cereal farming depends on tillage for weed & pest control. Not only is the land plowed during planting and after harvest, every third year the land is left fallow. While left fallow it is plowed monthly.

Conventional farmers have substantially reduced their usage of tillage increasing their chemical usage instead. Those chemicals may be not be good for the ecosystem, but they result in orders of magnitude less soil loss.

<comment><USER26> Speaking as someone who grew up on a grain farm and has owned a farm, this is correct. Obviously it is hard to generalize but low or no tillage farming has vastly lower soil erosion compared to conventional or organic tillage practices. For some reason, people have the set idea that organic practice must be good because its what our forefathers did. In reality, little we do regarding farming is actually sustainable. You are hauling tonnes of material away from the field every year. Those things are not going back, whether you are organic or conventional.

Also, it is a matter of relative severity of problems. Soil loss is much worse than depletion of soil nutrients. As said, organic is potentially much worse for soil loss (although different practices like intensive use of cover crops can help).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> You merely have to spend a brief time in California's Central Valley to realize that it's an extractive industry (consuming topsoil, water from a non- renewable aquifer, and oil) no different from mining. When you see orchards plowed up for replanting not only the old trees are removed but all the topsoil too.

Robots are our only hope.

<comment><USER28> We just need to grow things in sensible places with better water resources. There is plenty of unused land in the US to do that.

<comment><USER29> California has lots of water resources. Just a little bit better management and all those orchards can get watered. Nuts are high value in dollars, nutrition, and taste. We need something the Chinese want to trade for iPhones.

<comment><USER30> California could make iPhones.

<comment><USER27> Really? It's a labor intensive process despite the level of automation (5 years ago there were at least manual steps; don't know today). More importantly: IIRC Apple makes about $150 in profit per phone while Foxconn makes under $5/unit. Seems like the cost differential would be much more than $5/unit.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Medium.com Unlimited Reading Chrome Extension - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mediumcom-unlimited-readi/keckgflodjmhejpbhfbfoioonoeeckng <comment><USER2> I'm not sure how I feel about this. Feels like some sort of false sense of entitlement. Am I crazy for thinking Medium must be allowed to use whatever business model they want? Or is this a case of "all if fair in wartime and browsing"?</comment>


Vaping risk compared to smoking: challenging a false and dangerous claim - <AUTHOR> https://www.clivebates.com/vaping-risk-compared-to-smoking-challenging-false-dangerous-claim-by-stanton-glantz/ <comment><USER2> "Professor Glantz's central claim in relation to scientific consensus is false, and not even close to true. The scientific consensus is that vaping is much less harmful than smoking, and this is unlikely to change."</comment>


Show HN: Huntr – A Kanban board for your job applications - <AUTHOR> http://www.huntr.co/?utm_source=hackernews <comment><USER2> Makes complete sense. I know a lot of people use Trello or Google Sheets, which aren't exactly built for the problem.

What makes this better?

</comment><comment><USER3> Love this! It's been working well for me and has kept everything organized. Design is beautiful. Awesome work.</comment>


Ask HN: Developing an easy to use Coursera like website for my dad - <AUTHOR> My father (based out of India) is a retired professional who wants to start an educational video site (e.g. KhanAcademy) but in specific subject (geared towards Accountants). He is what one would consider a non technical guy.
Initially, the website/content would be free but maybe he wants to monetize it in future.
For a start, I setup an account at wordpress.com and even that interface is kind of intimidating. Sites like Netlify requires a Git based workflow which again is not something he is adapt at.
What other options do I have? I could but I dont really want to reinvent the wheel to build another custom CMS site for him. <comment><USER2> Try [https://www.thinkific.com/](https://www.thinkific.com/) it's the same platform used for [https://daily.poshenloh.com/](https://daily.poshenloh.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> YMMV but I've seen Teachable used well in cases like this. That should allow you to avoid reinventing the wheel.</comment>


Ask HN: what are the money-making ideas one just can't screw up? - <AUTHOR>

What markets from the web 1.0 era are still making money without a need for innovation? For example, forums, shared hosting, are those still generating revenue if you are just starting out? <comment><USER2> Buying something at a low value from one market and selling it in another for a higher value.</comment>


Show HN: My new website - <AUTHOR> http://jfornear.co

<comment><USER2> This website has _literally_ no purpose. (check the source!)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ah, you bring back memories. I had so much fun doing stupid JavaScript animations and color gradient transitions when I was younger.

I still discover interesting SVG features and can't resist creating some cool interaction.

Thank you.</comment>


Reach Silverpop email segments on Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gochime.com/post/98228799492/gochime-integrates-with-silverpop-brings-enterprise

<comment><USER2> >>GoChime offers the ability to create lookalike audiences modeled on synced Silverpop Lists and Queries or even of customers that are engaging with your emails, such as email openers or link clickers.

That's a key feature. A very clever way to target the less-engaged members of a Silverpop list.</comment>


The sun is stranger than astrophysicists imagined - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/gamma-ray-data-reveal-surprises-about-the-sun-20190501/ <comment><USER2> Have they figured out how the corona gets to a million degrees yet? Or just agreed to stop talking about it?

<comment><USER3> The Parker Solar Probe is currently in orbit around the our Sun, with its main mission to determine why the Solar Corona is so hot.

So they haven't just stopped talking about it, they are patiently waiting for the data so they can analyze it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> is a nuclear absorption line out of the question?</comment>


Apple Watch Keynote Live Streaming - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/live/2015-mar-event/ <comment><USER2> Here's a link to getting the stream working outside of Safari: [http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2yfqyj/watch_the_appl...](http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2yfqyj/watch_the_apple_event_live_on_a_windows_pc_check/)

Copied and pasted:

      So it says on the Apple website that only OSX Safari works and any Apple handheld. No Windows devices are compatible straight off the bat (like how it's been for all this time)

      An easy workaround is this:

        Download VLC Player from here: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html[1]

        Install it and everything, make sure it works correctly.

        Open the program. Click on Media (top left) > Open Network Stream.

        You will see this screen: http://puu.sh/bqV9o.png

        Paste this link into that field: http://p.events-delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1503ohibasdvoihbasfdv/live/8500/8500.m3u8?x-session

<comment><USER3> Note: the trailing "[4]" is not part of the actual URL; it refers to the link in the Reddit footnotes.

<comment><USER2> Whoops, I didn't see that. It's been fixed

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Alternate live blog

Verge: [http://live.theverge.com/apple-watch-macbook-liveblog- march-...](http://live.theverge.com/apple-watch-macbook-liveblog- march-2015/?_ga=1.177397029.1819749979.1425907547#/)

Gizmodo: [http://live.gizmodo.com/our-apple-watch-liveblog-starts- righ...](http://live.gizmodo.com/our-apple-watch-liveblog-starts-right-here- at-10am-pt-1689915279#)

Tech Crunch: [http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/08/apple-watch-event-live- blog...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/08/apple-watch-event-live-blog/)

CNET: [http://live.cnet.com/Event/Apples_March_9_event](http://live.cnet.com/Event/Apples_March_9_event)

Ars Technica: [http://live.arstechnica.com/apples-march-9-spring-forward- ev...](http://live.arstechnica.com/apples-march-9-spring-forward-event/)

Re/Code: [http://recode.net/2015/03/08/liveblog-its-time-for-the- apple...](http://recode.net/2015/03/08/liveblog-its-time-for-the-apple-watchs- real-debut/)

WSJ: [http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/03/09/apple-watch-spring- fo...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/03/09/apple-watch-spring-forward- event-live/)

Cult of Mac: [http://www.cultofmac.com/314636/apple-watch-event- liveblog/](http://www.cultofmac.com/314636/apple-watch-event-liveblog/)

<comment><USER5> The Verge liveblog is hilarious

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Okay, I understand the hard sale, with "feels" and such. However watching Christie running and checking her watch looked so awkward. If anything I would wear it with the face on the inside so that I would not need arm contortions just to view it.

However the video was a bit cringe worthy, wearing a display of wealth while "helping" the poor and downtrodden. Combined with the worst of over night advertising phrasing.

Yeah, I am not a fan, but this came off way too much late night TV ad style than I what I normally associate with Apple.

<comment><USER7> The Verge liveblog, while having hilarious commentary, mimics your sentiment:

> Christy Turlington Burns is running by a giraffe in this video, but she > can't see it because she's staring at the coach on her wrist.

> Apple has reached the "forced fake Q&A with celebrities" portion of its > keynote lifecycle.

> I'm just saying that you could put this part of the event directly into any > Samsung event, and it would be exactly the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As someone from the UK I can never watch a stream like this because of all the whooping in the audience. They just whooped and cheered at an announcement to capture your gait for medical purposes; I mean as a whole the potential is exciting but does each individual pause warrant this kind of chest-beating?

Edit: they just applauded and whooped that Apple won't see your data! WTF! Well done Apple, you're not invading our privacy!

<comment><USER9> "As someone from the UK"?

Have you ever been to a football match?

<comment><USER8> You're comparing a football match to a technology keynote?

<comment><USER10> You said you were unable to watch because you were from the UK. Are you not familiar with applause or something? I don't see the connection to where you live.

<comment><USER11> Brits are stereotypically more reserved, except where football is concerned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The fine print: "Live streaming video requires Safari 5.1.10 or later on OS X v10.6.8 or later; Safari on iOS 6.0 or later."

Really?

<comment><USER11> The only two excuses for that are technical incompetence or purposefully insular attitude.

Edit: Downvotes are fine, but a counterargument would be more welcomed. There are dozens of live streaming services out there now that support every platform available, but Apple always insists on using their own. It backfires every year as the stream is flaky or has audio/video sync issues.

If they can't bring themselves to partner with someone else, they could at least devote the resources to fixing their own broken system.

<comment><USER13> If apple is looking to attract newcomers to their platform I think the last thing they should do is totally isolate them simply because they don't own an apple product already.

<comment><USER14> A big part of Apple's marketing strategy is to create an entire experience around their brand. If you don't have Apple products, you're on the "outside". This plays perfectly into that strategy.

<comment><USER15> Well in this case having an Apple device doesn't seem to help much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder about the performance of this Apple core-m implementation. All the reviews I have read on PC implementations were catastrophic for performance and disappointing for battery life.

1) battery life: The length of a day for apple is 9/10 hours

2) performance: Lemma, when apple is discreet on one aspect of things, assume the worst. I don't recall hearing anything on the performance of the amazing, all 'new macbook'.

</comment><comment><USER17> Fanless Macbook? I mean, how it is going to handle the heat? Anyone have any idea about this? Current MBPs already heat a lot.

<comment><USER18> I am not able to watch the actual stream right now, and maybe they covered it there, but I haven't seen mention of a fanless MBP. Apple seems to be rather specific about the way the do everything and what they say. I believe they will begin offering a regular MacBook once again.

To make the MacBook fanless, it seems that they have put in a slower processor, ditched spindle drives all together, and most likely opted for integrated graphics. Again, these are just guesses. :)

<comment><USER17> Yes, they mentioned it - [http://www.apple.com/live/2015-mar- event/859988de-489c-47b9-...](http://www.apple.com/live/2015-mar- event/859988de-489c-47b9-abd5-53bcf4158538/?cid=li- us-859988de-489c-47b9-abd5-53bcf4158538-im)

<comment><USER18> That says MacBook, not MacBook Pro. What I was getting at is that you are trying to compare MacBooks to MacBook Pros, but I don't know if they made a distinction in the live keynote and left it out on the live feed. From what I can tell, they will be bringing back the MacBook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> ResearchKit is a surprise, and open source too? Go Apple :)

<comment><USER20> In Stallman's days it was about the code. Open source was a form of freedom. Now it's all about the data. Who cares if anyone self-hosts "OpenResearchKit" when a single entity has the health-related data of everyone else?

<comment><USER19> From the keynote, it's my understanding that Apple doesn't have access to any of your health data. It seems that your data is ultimately stored with whatever organisation is doing the study. They also emphasised that you, yourself, have access to your own data too–which is as it should be.

<comment><USER20> Didn't mean to bash Apple, just comment on how the times seem to have changed. Who the hell knows what that other "organization doing the study" does with that data, though. When it will be leaked? How will the future be, will everything be transparent to everyone or will there be the data-haves and the data-have-nots?

Instead of "access to my own data" (haha, thanks!), how about "control over my data"?

Systems would be designed (on a super low level) so that:

\- There is a reliable way to delete data from all systems, including caches, backups etc.

\- People get notified and asked for permission if their data is part of the tupel that could be returned as part of a specific query.

Working with personal data would feel like working in a chemical weapons factory.

How about that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> From $10,000? That's going to be a hard sell for a v1.0 that will be obsolete rather fast.

</comment><comment><USER22> Am I understanding correctly, that the new macbook air only has 1 USB/charging/video port? ONE SINGLE PORT?

That's pretty terrible, it instantly turned me off :(

<comment><USER23> Yeah, what are you supposed to do if you want to charge it at the same time as you are using a usb-device? I guess a USB hub, but that is not preferable. :/

However, fewer ports is the future and most devices are available wireless. Furthermore the MBA is not really supposed to be a stationary computer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Well, at least the MacBook does include an esc key. I was a bit worried for all the Vi users during the rumor mockup speculation.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am beginning to think cutting the cord (cable) and all these services out there being available might end up costing more for the little content I actually want.

Hopefully the dust will settle and prices stabilize, lower.

<comment><USER25> Almost by definition this will happen for a lot of content. Especially if you get a lot of control over where your money goes. The only cheap content would be the content that everyone wants. Which is largely the content everyone claims not to want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why is "nothing more sensitive than your medical data"?

I don't get it.

Is this to do with insurance? But now there's no "prior condition" issue, so why is my medical data still sensitive?

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure which of medical or financial data is considered more sensitive legally, but I think the phrase is mostly about medical data being so inherently personal. It's just meant to invoke an emotional reaction or connection.

<comment><USER27> Medical data is significantly more sensitive. Financial data says almost nothing about you other than what money you make and how you like to spend it.

Medical data discloses your sex, drinking, smoking, drug, and physical habits, along with any mental issues, genetic pre-dispositions, where you live, who your family are, where you have worked, etc. With only a little inference you can get financial information from a person's medical records.

TLDR;

• Financial records are designed to track accurate exchanges of money.

• Medical records are designed to keep an accurate representation of you. The goal is explicitly more personal.

<comment><USER11> I agree with the principle, but my uncertainty was more about the legal definition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Well there's me done with Safari for another 6 months.

</comment><comment><USER29> Quick stream URL for anyone who wants to watch the event regardless of their platform -

[http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1503ohibasd...](http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1503ohibasdvoihbasfdv/m3u8/atv_mvp.m3u8)

</comment><comment><USER16> The way those people view Africa is a huge middle finger to the people who live in this continent.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm really interested to see how this plays out, whether the watch will be another iPad or another Newton.

</comment><comment><USER31> Wow, whoever did the "artists renderings" of the new MacBook was 100% on the money.

</comment><comment><USER16> i don't know if you guys have the same thing but the sound is absolutely horrible here.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder how many % of the people in the crowd is wearing Docker pants

<comment><USER32> It just hit me that Phil Schiller is dadcore.

<comment><USER16> He totally is, I wonder what kind of car he's driving :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> How would you characterize the accent of Tim Cook?

<comment><USER16> Google tells me it's an Alabama accent :D</comment></comment>


Grab is acquiring Uber's SE Asia business - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/grab-buy-uber-southeast-asia/ <comment><USER2> I was in Manila last month, and mostly took Uber; the experience was exactly like using it in the US.

I took one Grab ride, and the experience couldn't have been more different. I booked the ride on Grab, and saw the car coming towards me on the map. Just as it arrived, the driver waved to me out of his car, and then canceled the ride in the app. The car & licence plate were completely different to the one shown in the app.

Next to the driver was sat his friend, who talked to me throughout the 10 minute ride, and gave me his cards in case I needed to book a hotel or ride on my next visit.

When we arrived, I gave cash to the driver (the amount that the app had priced it at originally) and bolted. I couldn't leave any feedback in the app, because the canceled ride had disappeared.

It's hard to tell if this is a one-off weird experience, or a typical Grab ride. Either way, it made me unlikely to want to use it again, and I was planning to go back to Uber on my next trip to SE Asia.

<comment><USER3> It might have been a Manila thing, but when I was in Bangkok I used Grab pretty often (maybe 5 times per week for a month) and I never had an experience like that. I had some experiences where drivers would only go to a certain part of the street, but in general it felt like Uber or Lyft in the states, plus I enjoy the UX a little better than Uber.

<comment><USER4> Yes, my experience is the same. Grab is my go to "taxi" app when I'm in SEA. I've always found it's drivers to be more reliable and more professional than Uber's. And the app is no where as confusing as Uber's. The big problem with Uber is that it's all tied to your phone number. But the first thing you do when travelling is pick up a SIM card for the country you're in. Grab is tied to either FB or Google login so you can just easily log in and update your phone number.

(I haven't been to Manila, so I'm not sure what it's like there.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Dividing up the world into monopolies that's vaguely reminiscent of the Merchant Kings[1].

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Merchant-Kings-Companies- Ruled-1600-1...](https://www.amazon.com/Merchant-Kings-Companies- Ruled-1600-1900/dp/0312616112)

</comment><comment><USER6> Yikes. Not really looking forward to this. I've always found Grab to be pretty sketchy and unreliable compared to Uber when traveling in SE Asia.

</comment><comment><USER7> FYI: Grab is the company that Steve Yegge moved to. He wrote about leaving his last company for it in a recent blog post:

[https://email@example.com/why-i-left-google-to-join- gr...](https://email@example.com/why-i-left-google-to-join- grab-86dfffc0be84)

<comment><USER8> I'm interested in why that is relevant to the story?

Also can you please explain to me why Steve Yegge is so important? You obviously felt this point was important enough to mention.

<comment><USER9> It seems relevant to HN's discussion of the story, because his blog post about leaving Google for Grab got 311 points + 182 comments [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16220666](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16220666) , and a mainstream media article about that blog post got another 180 points + 89 comments [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16226439](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16226439) . (It looks like you commented on both threads.)

I don't read the comment above is a reflection of Steve Yegge's importance in general, just as a useful piece of information linking this news to something HN previously thought was important (his move to Grab).

<comment><USER10> It's also likely that many others here, like me, only heard of Grab in the first place, because of the Yegge post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So Uber gets 30% of a monopoly instead of 100% of a business in a competitive market? Good trade.

<comment><USER12> 20%, not 30%.

As always, for Uber, you have to understand their moves in the context of their valuation. Uber has raised money at a $70B valuation (although their most recent fundraising was at a mere $50B). They did that on the promise that they would get big, somehow raise unit margin, and become a business that would eventually turn not just _profits_ , but _profits commensurate with their valuation_.

Profits commensurate with their valuation are probably somewhere in the $5B to $10B per year range, once they're no longer growing that much. If all of SE Asia contributes only a couple hundred million to those profits -- even if those profits are nearly risk-free -- then that's not wonderful for Uber (or at least to Uber's investors).

And more so, signals that say "We will not be able to establish stable high market share alongside stable high profit in many markets" are _really bad_ for Uber's prospects for raising money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Terrible news. From my experience Grab's UX and driver ed was much worse than Uber's.</comment>


Strikingly (YC W13) raises $1.5M from SV Angel, Index Ventures, FundersClub - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/26/yc-alum-strikingly-nabs-1-5m-from-sv-angel-index-ventures-fundersclub-others-for-its-diy-website-creator-service/?fromcat=all

<comment><USER2> I've tried Strikingly and really like it. I _would like to_ recommend it to all of my non-technical friends who want to make simple websites but can't afford to hire someone to do it, instead opting to use things like iWeb (yes, average people actually use iWeb).

However. I'm apprehensive about doing so because I'm worried about Strikingly being acquired, and my non-technical friends being hung out to dry with their websites. These days it seems like any startup pre-Series B that gains traction is liable to get acquired and possibly disappear. I wouldn't want to put my non-technical friends in a situation where they have to deal with that.

<comment><USER3> Hi, thanks a lot for your support! We're in Strikingly for the long run and we definitely put our users' interest as the top priority. Part of raising the money is also to ensure that we have enough runway to make sure that the product can sustain itself. I definitely don't want you to worry about this. Thanks for your support again!

<comment><USER4> I don't understand how you can be in it for the long run if you've taken funding. That means you need to be working towards some sort of exit. VC isn't just there to make your business awesome, they want their money back (in multiples of course).

I understand the benefits to VC and congrats on raising it, I just don't see how you can be in it for the long run. How is that possible?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How do you guys differentiate from Weebly, one of the earlier YC startups?

</comment><comment><USER6> How is Strikingly different from SquareSpace as far as interaction? Less features? More features?

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

<comment><USER3> It's faster for you to set up a website on Strikingly. Squarespace is awesome, especially for designers. We're easier to set up. Let us know what you think when you've tried it out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a great company!! We at ZenShin Capital are very excited to help tailor the service for Japan. We're also re-designing our site with Strikingly!

</comment><comment><USER8> About and Contact links at the bottom don't work

<comment><USER3> This was a small bug, and it's been fixed now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> teng, I'm curious what direction you are immediately headed with this funding round. A deeper technical team, salespeople, bizdev, or other. HN is an open community used to sharing ideas, and I'm curious if you have anything interesting to share here. I'm hoping to, one day, get to where you are now.

<comment><USER3> We're definitely looking to bring great technical talent to our team - that's our highest priority after funding. There are always more things to build and work on! As we grow, we want to keep up a strong development pace.

<comment><USER9> Thanks Teng. Hmm... whenever I hear that a new company is taking money to stack the technical team, my first thought is immediately "Aha! A planned run- up to a fast acquisition!", which you have perhaps already pointed out to be a misguided guess on my part.

But, this begs the question: expanding the platform, paying down technical debt, adding some adult supervision (heh) are all very valuable for the medium-to-long term, but can't this be achieved by using contractors alone? BTW, I ask this from the perspective of a full-time software engineer and part-time entrepreneur.

<comment><USER3> Great points! We definitely take hiring very seriously and we want to make sure that everyone share the culture and the vision. We are in this for a long run and we want to make sure that everyone understands that for sure.

We always want to keep the team size small and effective, but we'll soon face a development bottleneck unless we start bringing great talent on board. Contractors may work for part of this, but it's definitely good to have a whole cohesive team that's invested in the company. Thanks for the advice!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've actually recommended this service to a client of mine as I didn't have time to take on their work.

</comment><comment><USER11> Great job! Could use a few more templates, but still recommending Strikingly to others!

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your support! More templates will definitely be coming up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Keep killing it, David, Teng & Dafeng!

<comment><USER3> Thanks so much, Jason!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Support!!!!!

</comment><comment><USER14> Congrats david, teng, dafeng!

<comment><USER3> Thanks so much, Phil! :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> this product has an insanely great user experience. i'm a paying customer.

<comment><USER16> Signup form did not work for me. First, the labels don't disappear. Next, I got some weird JSON in my window: {"status":"redirect","html":null,"message":null,"to":"/s/select_template?new_user=1"}

<comment><USER3> This has been fixed now, thanks for the report!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congrats to the team!!!!

<comment><USER18> Thanks a lot!!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> my favorite YC startup. ridiculous level of customer support.

</comment><comment><USER20> Hell yeah UChicago!

</comment><comment><USER21> Congrats guys!!

</comment><comment><USER22> Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER23> Gangsters

<comment><USER18> haha, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> kegstand for everyone!</comment>


Killing cancer like the common cold - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/07/health/cohen-cancer-study/index.html?hpt=hp_t2 <comment><USER2> I've commented on this around here before. You read lots of junk about cancer "cures" in the popular press. They are almost always in mice or something and I or someone else with a similar background always feels compelled to weigh in and remind folks that it's a long way from curing lab rats to curing people.

This however, is the real deal. It's quite remarkable and there's likely more stories like this for other diseases on the way.

I went to a gene therapy session this fall at the American Society of Human Genetics conference in Boston and was blown away by some of the success people are having. I quipped to colleagues that I felt like I was in a science fiction movie. The most remarkable one was where they used an approach similar to the one here to cure a fatal metabolic disorder (relaying this from memory, so some of my recollection may be off). Kids with the disorder have a busted enzyme that causes slow degeneration of neurons. They don't live past 6 or 7 if I recall. The team showed how modifying a certain kind of stem cell found in the body normally to have the correct copy of the enzyme cured several patients. The corrected cells naturally move to the brain where they differentiate into glial cells and produce the correct copy of the enzyme. It turns out that because the neurons in the brain are starved for this enzyme, they express receptors that allow them to take it up from the environment. So the repaired glial cells supply enzyme to the entire brain (i.e. it's not necessary to modify every neuron in the brain to have a correct copy of the enzyme). They can completely cure kids with this approach. All of their muscular and neurological tests are 100% normal.

They had videos of these kids running around and playing just as if nothing was wrong. In one case, a younger brother lived but his older sister (who was too old when the therapy came out) had died. It was hard not to get choked up looking at their smiling, happy faces as they ran around, thinking that if this therapy hadn't existed, they would be in a nearly vegetative state.

Gene therapy had a rough start with the early setbacks, but I'm getting the sense that the tide is rapidly turing.

<comment><USER3> I'm not an expert, just an interested layperson, but from what I read, I am starting to wonder whether cancer cures might be more basic than we realize, we're just not looking at the right things.

The example that keeps coming to mind is HPV - it can cause cervical cancer etc. And, since there is an immunization for HPV, the disease is preventable, and to the extent it is the "only" cause of certain cancers, would also prevent those cancers.

So is HPV the "only" virus which causes cancer? Seems unlikely. I just don't know how much research is focused on bacterial or viral origins. Maybe it is not glamorous or mysterious enough to justify funding.

The 2005 nobel in physiology went to Barry Marshal for discovering that stomach ulcers, long a mystery, were caused by Helicobacter pylori bacteria. And in fairness to history, he wasn't even the first person to discover it, just the most recent person in western society.

[http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/low-hanging- fruit/](http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/low-hanging-fruit/)

<comment><USER4> Viruses are only one potential cause of cancer, and there are several known tumorigenic viruses (HPV, adenovirus, EBV, polyomavirus, etc.). There are still researchers that believe that all remaining cancers are caused by yet undiscovered viruses (the "viral hypothesis"), but these researchers are becoming scarce.

It seems more likely that cancer can also be a disease of aging and degeneration. As we get older, things break. Cellular division is liable to be one of those things. There are identified mutations that dramatically predispose people to cancer, because one of the genes controlling cellular division is already broken (the "Knudson hypothesis").

Some researchers do prefer to use the viral cancers as a model for studying the others, because they luckily have a singularly identifiable cause, and therefore seem more likely to point to the causative mutations behind cancer as a general process. This is the premise for a paper that I helped author: [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7408/full/nature1...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7408/full/nature11288.html)

Nitpick: in the same vein, not all gastric ulcers are caused by _H. pylori_. Another common cause is chronic NSAID (e.g. ibuprofen) use.

<comment><USER5> Your link lost me at the first sentence. But the word "phenotype" reminded me of this 11 minute Khan Academy video. Maybe I'm just repeating the same thing. But I thought Sal's video was worth sharing and easily digestible.

[https://www.khanacademy.org/science/healthcare-and- medicine/...](https://www.khanacademy.org/science/healthcare-and- medicine/healthcare-misc/v/systemic-thinking-about-cancer)

tl;dr

For whatever reason, Breast Cancer prefers to metastasize bone (which is a phenotype). Something as simple as giving cured Breast Cancer victims a calcium supplement can significantly reduce remission. Phenotypes >= Genotypes?

Scientific article cited in comment section:

[http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0806285](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0806285)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great news but bad title as there are no treatments for the common cold.

<comment><USER7> Your own immune system kills the common cold. That's the point :)

<comment><USER8> Yeah, there is no cure for the common cold, except immune system, so far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone know if this can be applied to other cancers too? I think they only mentioned leukemia, but they seemed to imply that it would be applicable to other cancers. But would the therapy have to be for each cancer or broadly for all cancers? And I am guessing they would have to choose between this and chemo, since I think chemo hurts your immune system. And that would be a difficult choice, no?

<comment><USER2> The reason this works is that there happens to be a protein on the outside of leukemias that allows you to uniquely target only the cancerous cells, leaving everything else alone. Provided a similar molecular signature could be found in other cancers, it might be possible to do this elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've read about this before. I'm excited and cautiously optimistic about it moving forward. One hopes that it can save other people in the future. Even some is better than 0. Personalised immunotherapy is cool :)

</comment><comment><USER11> My mom had cancer surgery at Sloane Kettering in NYC. After surgery, which removed _most_ of the cancer, she was put on a treatment regimen that involves a certain type of medicine (which she'll be on for the rest of her life.)

Because she matched a gene, she's able to take a medicine called Tarceva. In essence, this medicine makes her lung cancer a chronic illness -- it's present, but doesn't spread or metastasize. It's a similar strategy to the one now employed with people who are HIV positive.

Mom is still kicking, so this stuff is working.

</comment><comment><USER12> Here's the Penn webpage about their T-Cell Immunotherapy for Leukemia:

[http://www.penncancer.org/tcelltherapy/](http://www.penncancer.org/tcelltherapy/)

</comment><comment><USER13> The sad part of this story is how this publicly funded research is being licensed to Novartis.

<comment><USER14> Why is that bad?

If I had a promising new drug, I'd want someone with years of experience in getting a drug approved helping me out and the billions in capital to get it done wouldn't hurt either (which of course is available because Novartis sold a number of profitable drugs).

The professor who came up with this science is going to get a cut of that, as will the university.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This approach seems roughly similar to what Sangamo Genetics has been trying for HIV - with some recent success - [http://www.aidsmeds.com/articles/Sangamo_genetics_1667_24579...](http://www.aidsmeds.com/articles/Sangamo_genetics_1667_24579.shtml)

<comment><USER15> Um, actually, on the other hand - re: Sangamo Genetics: [http://seekingalpha.com/article/1705622-sangamo-a-fiery- biot...](http://seekingalpha.com/article/1705622-sangamo-a-fiery-biotech-with- a-product-poised-to-go-down-in-flames)

Yikes!

<comment><USER16> Zinc finger nucleases are effectively obsolete; CRISPR systems do the same thing, but you don't have to develop custom proteins- just supply the approprately synthesized complementary DNA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There will never be a cure for cancer.

My wife was diagnosed in September with stage 1 breast cancer. She has triple negative breast cancer which is the most aggressive kind to get. She is on week 6 of a 16 week Chemotherapy regimen. Then she has 8 weeks of radiation.

Insurance has already spent over 100k on her lumpectomy and chemo drugs and doctor appointments since September.

Every week when we go to her oncologist office, the waiting room is always full with patients we have never seen before. More than half of them are new patients filling out their new patient paperwork. And they are getting younger and younger in age. We have seen teenagers in his office with breast cancer.

There is just too much money (doctors, surgery, drugs) to be made from treating this disease. What are all of these trained oncologist surgeons/doctors going to do if cancer gets cured? What are the drug companies that make these expensive chemo drugs going to do if cancer gets cured?

There is no way they are going to cure this horrible disease. There is no money to be made in the cure.

<comment><USER18> Unlike infectious diseases there will always be new cancer patents so you really can make a lot of money from a cure.

<comment><USER17> I don't feel that way. I see all the money that is being made from the ongoing treatment of Cancer. Drugs, surgery, scans, follow up appointments, radiation, and then the cycle repeats when the cancer returns or comes out of remission.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=genetically...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=genetically- engineered-immune-cells-found-to-rapidly-clear-leukemia-tumors)

Old news ?

</comment><comment><USER20> I vaguely recall this being posted before a few months back, but in a long- form journalism writeup in a local Philly paper...I can't recall exactly where but I remember it was well written.

</comment><comment><USER21> I hope that all these promising therapies somehow make it out of their trials and more people can benefit from them.

</comment><comment><USER22> Here's how you deal with cancer:

[http://m.vice.com/weediquette-show/stoned- kids](http://m.vice.com/weediquette-show/stoned-kids)

</comment><comment><USER23> If/when the cure makes it through the final tests to the market, the sad thing is that they are probably going to rip off everyone who needs it, no matter what are the real costs.

But anyway, a life is worth everything(?)

<comment><USER2> The "real" costs of making ordinary drugs are small in terms of manufacturing. It is very inexpensive to synthesize the chemicals that make up most drugs. You're paying for the R&D of the drug as well as all the ones that failed along the way. In the days when software used to be sold in cardboard boxes and came on CD's, nobody was making the argument that someone like Microsoft should charge a few dollars since CD's and cardboard are cheap.

All that said, in this _specific_ case, the therapy is enormously complex, time consuming, and expensive. It's not a simple chemical compound that can be manufactured in bulk. Furthermore, it has to be tailor-made in a lab under highly controlled conditions for each individual receiving the treatment. As a result, it is likely to be extremely costly when it finally makes it out of the experimental phase.

<comment><USER24> "It is very inexpensive to synthesize the chemicals that make up most drugs"

Can I ask a stupid q? How exactly inexpensive is it? Thinking in line of 3d printing, how possible could it be to get the chemicals needed, and the machines needed to mix them appropriately, to make a known drug? Ie, how possible would be to "download a pill"? The recipe, and you make it yourself at home?

<comment><USER14> It depends on how complicated the drug is. Some drugs are actually kinda pricey to manufacture while others can be made for pennies a dose.

Yes, you can make many drugs at home with the right setup and technical knowledge. No, robots don't actually help that much.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Slack – Degraded service affecting multiple features - <AUTHOR> https://status.slack.com/2019-06/9f63d8e30ee85f46 <comment><USER2> Just yesterday I was musing that if I were King of the (World|Company) I'd want an open-source Slack-alike that I could just drop into the Cloud of my choice and operate entirely within my private network, subject to my own access control just like other internal services, and with full access to all message histories in whatever database-like thing it uses in its Cloud. Sure, I'd still have a SPOF but it's game over anyway if my Cloud goes dark.

Is there such a project, and if so does it have any traction in the real world?

(Oh and ditto for every damn thing Atlassian owns. Yikes.)

<comment><USER3> [https://mattermost.com/](https://mattermost.com/)

<comment><USER4> We use this at my company - perfectly reasonable UI, don't know about the APIs/integrations, which I assume are way behind Slack...

<comment><USER5> The Mattermost API is a superset of Slack's. "Most" integrations "just work", the rest need a minimum of tweaking to DTRT.

<comment><USER6> Mattermost API being a superset of Slack's seems to be mostly true, but looking at the features our Slack app uses I don't see block kit ([https://api.slack.com/block-kit](https://api.slack.com/block-kit)) or message scheduling. If we were to integrate with Mattermost it doesn't look like it'd be a ton of work though

Have to say Mattermost's API docs are so much easier to read than Slack's.

<comment><USER7> Slack's API documentation and handling of accounts/bots is so obscure. I've never seen anything that bad from a major company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Best thing is that some messages go through despite returning 500s. This leads to our integrations spamming our companies channels with redundant messages while retrying. :/

<comment><USER9> Ouch, that one hurts. I don't know slack API but the contract expectation in the call should absolutely be "500 means the message failed to send"

Tells me there's some subsystem throwing the error, not the actual messaging (or, if intermittent, something wrong with the distribution.) What do you want to bet it's some kind of new analytics?

<comment><USER10> It's not possible to always ensure that you report whether an operation succeeded. Consider a timeout - you waited 5 seconds for the backend to respond and heard nothing - was it, or will it be successful? You don't know.

Typically a 500 should be considered as a "may or may not have succeeded", and steps taken to deduplicate operations if necessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is it just me, or do those outages seem far more common lately? Or maybe this is happening just as often as it used to, but now we're growing more dependent on cloud-based software so this is reported more prominently?

<comment><USER12> both - have a look at Slack's status history. They seem to have an outage of some sort every month

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can someone explain to me why any company should outsource something as critical as internal communication to a company that is 5 years old? The video messaging left aside, is it really _that_ better than time-tested solutions like email or just running an IRC server?

<comment><USER14> IRC is pretty much useless since you don't have history. Comparing Slack and IRC are like comparing TCP and HTML5. Why IRC is pretty bad in enterprise:

\- no audio / video

\- no history

\- no SSO / AD integration

\- no rich features like links, pictures, upload docs ect ...

\- easy bot integration with APIs, I can have Datadog pushing things to Slack ( alerts, graph... )

\- no archiving channels on the go, Slack is very useful when you have an incident and you create a temp channel and then archive it when the incident is closed.

<comment><USER15> matrix does all that and can be self hosted - ours is.

<comment><USER16> Does the opensource matrix server scale? I may be wrong but I got the impression it was more an example implementation and was not used by Matrix in production?

<comment><USER17> There is no closed source Matrix server implementation that I'm aware of. Synapse is the server used in production for matrix.org, the French government deployments, and tons of other servers including my own. It is somewhat resource intensive but it can scale using workers.

There is of course several other server implementations in progress but none are fully ready yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One problem with Slack we have in the finance world is that _literally everything_ employees say on company assets needs to be recorded and readily accessible for audit (No this is not an invasion of privacy, you're on company time on company systems, we don't peer into your personal phone or anything).

Unfortunately, Slack does not do this very well. I'd really like to know if there's another service that _does_ do this well.

<comment><USER19> Zulip and a very big disk.

<comment><USER18> Looked at this, appears to make it difficult by default: [https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/production/security-m...](https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/production/security- model.html)

<comment><USER20> My guess is most of the major chat players handle this pretty easily -- it's a non-starter for many potential users if you don't. Zulip stores all data indefinitely (including message edits, etc) in its default configuration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There are reasons why email is async and supposed to be decentralized, with priority based fallback options. (The priority in mx records). Most email servers try to deliver to fallbacks, and even if that fails, will try to deliver for _days_.

For all people who think slack can replace email, think about these safeguards.

<comment><USER22> Isn't it better in nearly every situation to know something has failed immediately, rather than get a delivery failure notice a couple of days later?

<comment><USER21> If it's a temporary outage, eg. network loss of a datacenter, email is not lost. It will be delivered with a delay, tried over and over again, until the timeout limit is reached. Due to the async nature the delay is not a problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It is Friday evening somewhere!

<comment><USER24> it is Friday evening in South Asia

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> If it's any consolation, their status board has actually been reporting errors (hi cloudflare)

<comment><USER26> You're implying we don't update the status board when there are errors?

<comment><USER25> The recent outage was very very delayed. I stand by my comment.

Also don't get me wrong, you do a great service. It's just a pet peeve that it seems invariably status pages are a lie.

<comment><USER25> Let me quote from the previous HN discussion

"""sauldcosta 4 days ago [-]

We use downdetector.com because status pages tend to take up to an hour or so to update, if they ever do. reply

jgrahamc 4 days ago [-]

1042 UTC First alert of global traffic problem 1057 UTC Internal group chat room up and running 1102 UTC Status page updated So, first alert to status page was 20 minutes."""

In those 20m we had repeatedly checked your status page, realised it was our issue and started pulling engineers to deal with it as per procedure. People are on call, it's highly disruptive.

Surely you knew within those 20m that something was up?

In the end we realised it wasn't our issue because we checked Twitter.

Edit - added quotes

<comment><USER26> Yep. I tend to agree that we could have gone faster. The difficulty is that getting clear information out fast when you are dealing with a difficult situation is hard.

But, I guess we could have put some status up quicker.

<comment><USER25> Thanks for the acknowledgement. Appreciate it's hard, false positives etc. Glad you see our PoV.

<comment><USER26> I do.

I'm irritated, however, that you picked on Cloudflare as a bad actor here when we strive to be transparent and quick to get out full information whereas others (e.g. Amazon) are slow as mud.

But I get that being on the other side of this is difficult when you don't have information.

<comment><USER25> Amazon, Google, seem far far worse. I wasn't intending for my post to me representative, just that the CF outage is recent and affects me more personally than the others atm. Also, I had zero expectation my comment would actually be read, this is quite a surprise.

If it's any incentive, if the status page had any inkling that something was wrong, I'd be first on here posting "omg their status page is real".

<comment><USER26> Fair enough. Thanks for making the comment. Made me think about how fast we act in terms of public status pages. And sorry that route leak affected you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> No outage for me, but I'm seeing some messages appearing twice. Is that related?

<comment><USER28> My org is having a few people see that, or messages getting silently dropped, or failing to edit an existing message.

<comment><USER27> Okay, yeah. I'm seeing some of these issues now.

It's odd because the message said it failed to edit, but my client still shows the message as edited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If slack outage brings it on top of Hacker News, I think it's a compliment!

</comment><comment><USER30> In other news: an unexplained productivity spike has been recorded today across the tech industry.

<comment><USER31> Or not. I'm remote and I cannot ask questions nor coordinate action to solve live production problems due to this outage. Slack is becoming a SPOF for many organizations, especially distributed.

<comment><USER32> Same here. I'm on support duty and have my own outage to attend to, and that's really really hard when you cannot communicate with your experts.

<comment><USER33> Forgive me, but just to clarify... There is no "fallback" communication channel for your team to use?

<comment><USER34> There's email, phone, whats app, group SMS, some form of WebEx or Zoom, or even a shared google doc spreadsheet with tasks for each outage.

If Slack is your only forum of communication with your team it's time to rethink your support structure and DR plans.

Edit: It's very unhelpful if I point out issues and don't provide solutions. PagerDuty has a great article about Incident Response[1].

[1][https://response.pagerduty.com/](https://response.pagerduty.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> You mean I have to open OpsGenie and Grafana now instead of waiting for a ping in the ops channel???

Also, how many IT service desk ticket systems just lit up with people asking them to fix Slack?

</comment><comment><USER36> Has the CTO and key technical staff retired after the Slack IPO ? :-) In the UK there is no real outage, although Slack struggles sending some messages and this can result in some messages appearing twice. This problem seems to be worse when communicating with offsite staff, onsite messaging seems to be fine.

</comment><comment><USER37> They should call this sort of event a 'Slackening'

</comment><comment><USER38> You must not be on the $12/user/month plan.

</comment><comment><USER39> By accident I noticed that you can add as many characters as you want to the end of the url and it will still load that page. Neat.

</comment><comment><USER40> Came here for the "Slack shouldn't exist anyway" comments and was not disappointed. Or rather I was, but in a different way.

Best wishes to all of the folks at Slack and those who depend on it.

<comment><USER41> Honestly, the same. It's tiring that people just has to suggest self-hosting IRC or any other software all the time when Slack is mentioned. It's a good way to communicate and it's easy. Hope they resolve it, overall a bad situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> So now everybody can get back to $WORK

</comment><comment><USER42> Wooo productivity!!

</comment><comment><USER43> A resurgence of IRC is nigh!

</comment><comment><USER44> reminds me of that one time a genius at IBM created an `ibm-global- announcements` channel and force-invited 200'000 people in it, and then some guy `@channel`d and all ibm's slack workspaces were down for 30 minutes

[https://status.slack.com/ibm/2018-03/f01d4c22cd953dd7](https://status.slack.com/ibm/2018-03/f01d4c22cd953dd7)

[https://i.imgur.com/Rk6Kdgp.png](https://i.imgur.com/Rk6Kdgp.png)

EDIT:

also that channel made using slack impossible for mac book air users, they had around 80% cpu usage for slack. so basically entire marketing and PM part was unable to work that day. developes machines were wasting around 20% on slack.

after people started complaining in that channel, posting in it was limited to admins only, but they didn't lock commenting. so, for approx 6 hours all of IBM was posting memes in THETHREAD as we dubbed it, and @mentioning the genius who created that channel. next day the channel was nuked, not even an archive preserved.

some guy calculated that the entire affair, considering electricity prices, a 20% decrease in developers productivity, and so on resulted in IBM loosing several millions with that stunt

fun times

p.s. shout out to Martinj for that spicy jeff-coffee-mug meme

<comment><USER45> There should be a way to turn off @here and @channel. It should be a user- level setting, a channel-level setting, and an organization-level setting. Even if my org or channel doesn't opt out, I should be able to.

<comment><USER46> I know you can in Discord, I'd be shocked if Slack doesn't let you do that. _checks Settings_

Yes, you can mute a channel and suppress @everyone and @here if you want. Still friggin nuts that a chat service can bring a modern machine to it's knees.

<comment><USER45> Ah I knew you could mute it but muting a channel does not suppress @here. I did more exploring and found it's a multi-step process to suppress @here vs muting, but it is indeed possible.

Learn something new every day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rooam-dev Did they enable "replace email" feature?

</comment><comment><USER47> Why don't people use free software instead, e.g. a Matrix homeserver run via [https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/](https://github.com/matrix- org/synapse/) ? IRC without a BNC doesn't really work for a corporation due to disconnects.

<comment><USER21> Because it's way harder to get it running right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Meta - can we not post outages to HN?

I understand that post mortem's are interesting learning lessons, but if you're curious whether S3 or whatever is down or not right at this moment, then use the subsequent status pages of those services.

<comment><USER32> HN is a more reliable status page than most status pages.

<comment><USER49> Unless Hacker News is down, in which case you need to give up and go outside.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Well i m not affected. But then again i dont use it</comment>


Looking to start a partnership with a programmer - <AUTHOR>

I have a really good idea for an app that I have been playing around with for awhile. I am just in search of a programmer who would like to take on a project for 50/50 ownership in the company. Please email me if you are interested for more information. firstname.lastname@example.com<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> Hi Nate: I'm somewhat in the same boat. To get my business moving, I will need a CTO partner to drive the ship forward. Getting a minimum-viable-product built though, is all on me. Which I'd gone-out, assuming I could find friends to help me out with. Nope. No time, summer taveling, and everyone's loaded-up with paying work.

I'm a UX'er by trade, a self-taught mechanic/builder by hobby, and languages are my achilles heel with learning. So, I've taken A LOT of flack for many years, for not learning how to code, beyond my basic understanding of how things all fit together, need to support each other, and being able to edit other peoples HTML/CSS.

As a solo-founder however, it's all on me to deliver. Advisors and investors have (as gently as possible) told me that.

[https://generalassemb.ly/](https://generalassemb.ly/) is expensive, but it's done a great job in a classroom setting, teaching app frameworks basics to n00bs. When I have the money and the bandwidth, I'm looking forward to taking it. Then there's also [https://www.hackerschool.com/about](https://www.hackerschool.com/about), which is a paid retreat, so expensive on many levels.

I was really impressed with the codeacademy.com experience, and it filled-in many blanks for me that made me feel competent in CSS and HTML, for the first time ever. Using Javascript with JQuery is going to be a much more daunting challenge, because its entire mental model I still don't grok.

But, I'm trying, anyway. I managed to get one critical JQuery piece to work, and the other—I gave-up on but am coding the page, anyway with a static stand- in. I figure that once I've gotten all of the HTML and CSS and what of the JQuery I could do, done, at that point it will be easier to get friends to help me patch the holes. If not, then I will just pay a freelance Javascript person, to spend a day patching holes (and I honestly don't see what holes there will be, taking a day). Remember: Minimum Viable Product, doesn't' need to be fancy. :)

From, a gal who's gone-in kicking and screaming with every bit of learning code... but will probably be a more well rounded CEO, for it.

</comment><comment><USER3> You should consider that many app developers won't take kindly to suggestions like this - its often seen just as a way to get some work done for free, with no risk on your side. There was a discussion on reddit the other day about exactly this subject ...

[http://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/2h0uy1/whats_a_p...](http://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/2h0uy1/whats_a_polite_way_to_say_your_idea_is_shit_even/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Okay so as recommended. I am 28 years old. I am starting business school next year and really hoping to get a couple more projects under my belt. Recently a team of us developed an algorithm which predicts stock market movement. We are still developing the algorithm and automation behind the scenes but are seeing some very good returns over the last several weeks.

I can always provide more about myself, but my idea is an app that hopes to improve the customer experience, by connecting local business and customers in a way that has not been done.

Hope this help, I think 50/50 can work and I am willing to learn or do what it takes. I have been told I am an extremely resourceful person and not afraid to put myself out there to make a project succeed.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for providing more details.

Your start market prediction algorithm sounds really neat. Let me know when I can invest :)

Often times, 50/50 partnerships fail because of differing expectations. What are you expecting from the other half of the partnership? What will you be able to contribute?

Many ideas can be validated by with manually, before software is written.

The CEO of [Treatings]([http://treatings.co](http://treatings.co)) used a spreadsheet to keep track of users, and sent all the emails by hand until he validated the idea. Off the top of my head, AirPair, ZeroCater, and WuFoo were all founded similarly.

Programmers are more amenable to partnerships where you've got a manual process that can automated, than an idea.

How are you going to improve the customer experience?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to clarify the manual concept..

The owners of the above companies began with say their website, and then started to build a customer base before adopting an app or further development?

<comment><USER4> Groupon started as a wordpress site. [http://tomloverro.com/2010/08/19/groupon-1-0-started-on-a- wo...](http://tomloverro.com/2010/08/19/groupon-1-0-started-on-a-wordpress- blog)

For your idea there is a, 'secret sauce' that you fake until you have traction.

Say for example, your app improves the customer experience by drawing a smiley face on every receipt. You think that customers love seeing a smiley face so much that they'll come back the next day.

Rather than build a complex point of sale system that prints smiley faces on receipts, you do something simpler.

You hide under the counter, and draw a smiley face on each receipt yourself.

If people come back(validate your idea) then you can start signing up store owners.

Having several pre-sales, plus some stats about how your system demonstrably improves the customer experience will help you find an engineer to build out your idea.

If you share your USP, we can tell you how to manually validate your idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey Nate, welcome to Hacker News!

Ideas are a lot of fun to think about, but it's work to bring them to fruition.

When it comes to a partnership, people want to know about you, and what you bring to the table.

Add a comment about your personal background, or your idea. Everyone here is working on their own idea, so your idea is safe :)

You'll find that people are more likely to ignore you, than steal your idea.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm sick of working as a slave programmer where no one values good ideas and writing good code, thinking of scalability solutions. If you have respect for programmers, I promise you hard work and honesty !!

</comment><comment><USER6> 50/50 never works.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why do you think that?

<comment><USER7> 50/50 especially does not work in that situation, where the split has been decided already by one side before any developer shows any interest.

Find a developer first who is interested. They'll tell you their motivation. Maybe they believe in the idea like crazy and want to build this. If so, maybe 50/50 could work. Maybe they are just looking for an item on their empty resume and can commit only about a month on this project. If so, 50/50 definitely is a recipe for disaster.</comment></comment></comment>


War Stories: A Year and a Half of Instapainting - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/backchannel/inside-the-fine-art-factories-of-china-8e3df7faba62 <comment><USER2> The paintings are bad. Really, really bad. If you take for example the football photography turned into a painting, from the article[1], you can see even at that level of detail, that the painting is amateurish, lacks detail, and looks worse than the photograph. Their reproductions of famous paintings are even more obviously inadequate. Which is a shame, because unlike its execution, the idea itself is very good. I am disappointed that I cannot buy myself a nice reproduction of a famous painting.

[1] [https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/1400/1*EqUIC15cRBw...](https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/1400/1*EqUIC15cRBwZygjZa9hkzg.jpeg)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's meant to look like a painting, not a photo. That being said, we're upfront about the paintings. The gallery are actual paintings directly uploaded by the artists, from actual orders. We don't retouch the samples or anything.

You either like what you see there or you don't, and we just sell what they offer.

<comment><USER2> I wanted to get a reproduction of "Hip hip hurra!" by Peder Severin Krøyer, few months ago. This is the original[1], and this is what China, in all seriousness, offfers[2]. Is it possible to get excellent quality reproductions, like the ones one sees in the caper movies, and how much would they cost?

[1] [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/PS_Kr%C3...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/PS_Kr%C3%B8yer_- _Hip_hip_hurra!_Kunstnerfest_p%C3%A5_Skagen_1888.jpg) [2] [http://www.fineart- china.com/htmlimg/image-64517.html](http://www.fineart- china.com/htmlimg/image-64517.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The article was a great read and very informative.

Turning to instapainting.com was a big letdown, though: the gallery is, frankly, not very exciting (and one figures that the examples shown are among the best).

In the "custom abstract oil painting" section there's one artist that I found interesting, named Yooseon Choi ([https://prods.imgix.net/e0c87263c21b1921c4d9fc9f1b65bf5597f3...](https://prods.imgix.net/e0c87263c21b1921c4d9fc9f1b65bf5597f38076.jpg?w=600&h=600)).

(Also, canvas sizes are described in inches only, which effectively chases away non-American buyers; if you're shipping from China why not target an international audience?)

<comment><AUTHOR> We simply pass on what the artists offer, both from China, as well as creative artists in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _" Moving forward, we look to integrate more technology and hardware (like our painting robot, or advanced machine learning) directly into the actual painting process."_

The Turing test of robot painting in this instance: "would I pay the same amount if the artwork was done by a robot?"

<comment><AUTHOR> The reason why American artists deride something like "photo to painting" (even though Tony Soprano from the Sopranos and others commission portraits all the time), is that they don't see it as creating art. And that's mostly true. People are getting photos turned to art for the effect. Any deviation from the photo right now is due to artist error, and not creative interpretation.

Adding technology to the mix means more accurate renditions, and I don't think people would care because they're getting it so that it doesn't look like a flat canvas print.</comment></comment>


SecureBoot in Ubuntu 12.10 - <AUTHOR> http://web.dodds.net/~vorlon/wiki/blog/SecureBoot_in_Ubuntu_12.10/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter <comment><USER2> I've seen a lot written about the _how_ of SecureBoot but is there a good summary of the _why's_. I'm still deeply skeptical that this is part of Microsoft's plan to eventually transform the PC architecture into something console-like.

They've already de-facto achieved that by not mandating that custom OS's can be booted on Windows 8 supporting ARM devices, and between them and pressure from content owners wanting complicit OS's that don't run applications that do things they don't like I can only see that sort of thing progressing in the future.

<comment><USER3> Ostensibly secure boot exists to foil bootkits (bootloader rootkits) which (in theory) cannot be detected or removed by any antivirus tools. Secure boot also prevents bootloader-based activation hacks (e.g. "Windows Loader") that make it easy to pirate Windows (these hacks can be seen as a special case of "benign" bootkits).

<comment><USER4> Lack of secure boot also makes it impossible for remote third parties (e.g. netflix, content providers, or enterprise IT departments) to trust client software.

Even windows secure boot doesn't provide protection against a targeted attack, but conceivably a combination of EFI secure boot and a bug-free well implemented OS (heh) could provide enough protection for DRM on video content, basic enterprise computing (with non-hostile users), etc.

I still think none of this crap really belongs on the client; it is however an awesome fit on the server, which is an area people haven't really explored enough.

<comment><USER5> > _I still think none of this crap really belongs on the client; it is however > an awesome fit on the server, which is an area people haven't really > explored enough._

Agreed. I remember reading an IBM research paper about combining TPM and virtualization on the server, and getting excited about the possibilities. I wonder what happened to that project.

EDIT: found it! [http://domino.watson.ibm.com/library/cyberdig.nsf/papers/442...](http://domino.watson.ibm.com/library/cyberdig.nsf/papers/4427173615992B74852570BC005E7117/$File/rc23778.pdf)

<comment><USER4> VMware has some TPM features built in (although basically limited to remote- attest that it's a legitimate VMware ESX server).

Intel also had some demo stuff, but the problem is Intel's security software group was kind of a revolving door spinning at a 3-6 month rotational speed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The whole mess around this should be a reminder to us all that it's very, very hard to disentangle social problems from technical problems.

<comment><USER7> It's easy to disentangle them, they are not inheritenly related. What's hard is convincing some people that social problems don't have technical solutions. The attractiveness of the technical solution is that it is so much easier than the social solution that it just _has_ to exist.

<comment><USER8> Like the password problem (eg people choosing "password123" as their password). That's an easy technical problem to solve (and in fact is solved). I can't understand why passwords are so easy to crack. It's only a matter of getting _everyone_ to behave differently. <mild sarcasm/>

I would argue that all of the really hard problems in software development[1] (and most technologies) are really hard _because_ they are social in nature, and it is the social nature that makes them so hard.

This is similar to the food production/distribution problem. We create enough food to feed the world, but, due to many geopolitical forces, we can't get the food to all the people that need it. No matter how good we get at growing and shipping food (the technical solution), there is some warlord somewhere who will steal it from his subjects (the social problem).

1\. Not computer science. P==NP has nothing to do with Aunt Marge.

<comment><USER6> That's a great example, thanks for bringing that in. I was more thinking of community management since I'd just been skimming "Building Web Reputation Systems" again and its authors have quite a bit to say about the entanglement of social and technical problems. But like you say, there are a _lot_ of domains where technical problems are entangled with social ones - it's just that those domains are software engineering as a practical discipline, not computer science as a branch of math. My favorite examples are time zones, Unicode, and country names/boundaries.

How many time zones are there in the world? How many will there be next year? Your NTP server needs to know.

How will you store humans' names that can't be expressed with the BMP alone? The iCloud servers need to know.

Is Taiwan a country? How about Kurdistan? Where are the borders of India? Google Maps needs to know.

There is plenty of software that won't have to deal with these problems ... but these problems can be huge headaches, and part of that is because of their nature as both social and technical problems.

<comment><USER7> _Is Taiwan a country? How about Kurdistan? Where are the borders of India? Google Maps needs to know._

Google Maps _needing to know_ is the technical problem, sure. But representing borders is a reasonably solved technical problem. The social problem is people disagree about those things, and Google Maps representing that disagreement (if it can be represented at all) is a secondary concern to third-parties who just want to provide accurate maps. And there's nothing technical that can be done to solve that disagreement. You could very well provide localized Indian borders when viewing Google Maps (which is actually easier to do, and keep updated, with electronic maps than with print maps), or show the areas in dispute as being in dispute, but the issue is that the parties that disagree think everyone else should see it their way (thus the nature of disagreement).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Live map to help with social distancing - <AUTHOR> https://socialdistancing.app/ <comment><AUTHOR> The best way for you and me to fight COVID-19 is to #stayathome and avoid crowds! If you absolutely have to go outside, this app is here to help you do it safely. Share your location and use this map to avoid crowds.

Your fully anonymised location data is used purely to be displayed on this map for 5 minutes. Your data won't be used for any other purpose. In order to provide most accurate location data, use this app on your .

Avoid crowds and help #flattenthecurve!</comment>


Why It's Scary To Be A Mobile App - <AUTHOR> http://www.apptentive.com/blog/top-6-reasons-why-scary-to-be-a-mobile-app/

<comment><AUTHOR> Happy Halloween.

<comment><USER2> You got at least 1 signup from this ;)</comment></comment>


I am obsessed with my startup. - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/112382954623691301301/posts/TwRcRYfozSo

<comment><USER2> It takes a special breed of man to be good at programming?</comment>


Hunter S. Thompson: Finding Your Purpose (1958) - <AUTHOR> http://tranquilmonkey.com/hunter-s-thompsons-extraordinary-letter-on-finding-your-purpose/ <comment><USER2> It feels like the "maturing process" has waned over the decades. It feels like people in the past were older, at younger age. This can't be due to the educational system - we have access to more quality information than ever before, and more prolific insights into the complicated troubles of our world. How much of this is due to the increased work ethic in this country where parents serve less and less as role models and mentors for their children, because of time away and dedication to work or company? Can a truly enlightened parent -one who has already discovered the Who they intend to be- ever be absent from their child's maturation process? Probably not, which leads me to think that all this increased work, all this national goal setting, has happened without any Who-finding. Young entrepreneurs - find your own Who, and your personal Product Market Fit will follow.</comment>


A Ruby on Rails Amazon EC2 "Appliance" - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/ec2-on-rails/

<comment><USER2> I'm using it. It's not very mature, but it seems to work alright, and the other is nice, and responsive.</comment>


Uptodateapp: service to help stay on top of the rubygems your app depends on - <AUTHOR> http://uptodateapp.com/

<comment><USER2> This seems like a pretty good idea that could make dealing with gems a bit less of a hassle.

Any chance of seeing an example report somewhere?

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome. This is a pain that all teams have.</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone attending YC Startup School 2016? Let's know each other - <AUTHOR> Hey! My name is Grigor. I'm full stack developer. Haven't funded any startup yet but looking forward to. Worked on many side projects. The current one is: stackweek.com (news service for developers). I'm interested in creating better developer experiences by using the latest technologies. <comment><USER2> Hey!

My name's Roger and I recently left a position as a DevOps Engineer at a startup in Redwood City to do something different and broaden my skill set.

I'm currently exploring full stack development, starting with Rails and incorporating React in the future.

My current side project is going to improve the job search process for developers.

This is going to be my first Startup School so I'm excited to listen to notable speakers and meet y'all!

Feel free to reach out if I don't reply at me[at]Lamroger.com!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for introduction Roger. This is my first Startup School too. Hopefully will meet there!

<comment><USER2> Nice to meet you too, Grigor!</comment></comment></comment>


Creeping Credentialism and Credential Inflation - <AUTHOR> http://www.humanresourcesiq.com/article.cfm?externalid=314

<comment><AUTHOR> I just saw a job posting for a "Senior Systems Administrator"

Education & Work Experience: • BS Computer Science or equivalent experience

So I dug up this article.</comment>


Faster than native, introducing FastMail's new mobile web interface - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fastmail.fm/2013/10/21/faster-than-native-introducing-fastmails-new-mobile-web-interface/

<comment><USER2> On iOS in particular it has been proven when it comes to web apps, from a performance perspective they can never truly be as fast or faster than a native app due to the security restrictions around JIT.

I just tried it out and Fastmail have done a good job, probably as good as you can get with a web based interface. In terms of speed, I think they are referring to user interface response and page load times, not actually faster than native speeds because due to limitations in regards to how pages are loaded, although the title does seem to deliberately suggest otherwise.

I would love to see some benchmarks and tests as to how fast the new Fastmail is though.</comment>