Sublime Text 2 Beta released with Auto-complete and Improved UI - <AUTHOR> http://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/sublime-text-2-build-2165 <comment><USER3> Anyone using this editor should install this plugin first:

<http://wbond.net/sublime_packages/package_control>

It's fantastic and gives you a simple in-editor way to add/remove other plugins, direct from their github repos, without needing to leave or restart the editor. It also automatically keeps them all up to date.

Once it's installed, you can just use the command palette (ctrl+shift+p) to install any of these plugins: <http://wbond.net/sublime_packages/community>, plus any others that you add via their github repo.

<comment><USER4> I'd also recommend immediately installing SublimeCodeIntel and SublimeLinter. These plus autocomplete have made ST2 the best editor I've used in 10+ years. And the latest beta is even faster than before.

<comment><USER5> CodeIntel never fails to make ST2 crash for me. :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It makes me sad that the best tools available for writing code in so many otherwise exciting languages are still resorting to text-based autocompletion. And blogging about it as though it's something to be proud of.

This is certainly a pretty editor. But at its heart, it's still a _text_ editor. And what I do for a living is edit _code_.

Code has a lot more information about it than text. I can imagine looking at a line such as:

      item.hide()

in this editor, knowing that my codebase has half a dozen classes that expose a .hide member. I hesitate even to ctrl+click on it in this editor, because I know it'll either do nothing or take me to the wrong definition.

In a perfect world (and in IDEs for statically typed languages since 1998), the editor would know exactly which .hide we were talking about. And it could gracefully send me there with a single click or keystroke.

I'm still waiting for something equivalent to appear for the Ruby/Python/Javascript portion of my world. But years keep ticking by and the best we get is text editors that try to guess by looking at text.

Maybe next year.

<comment><USER7> At least from my experience working in Python, if you don't know which instance `item` is, it's a problem with your code— not the editor. Automatically taking you to that class's method is another story, but I don't think you should depend on your IDE to figure out your logic for you.

<comment><USER6> Ah, but the issue isn't _you_ knowing which 'item' you're dealing with. It's that the IDE doesn't know, and therefore can't jump you there instantly if you ask it to.

Instead, you have to open the file in question and go find the method using one of the fiddly text-based methods that the article mentions.

So no, we're in agreement that the entire codebase belongs in your head. It's just nice to have your IDE also have the entire codebase in its head, in the actual configuration it is, rather than just knowing about a bunch of text files containing words that have no meaning to it.

<comment><USER7> I suppose it was a misunderstanding. I took this

 _> knowing that my codebase has half a dozen classes that expose a .hide member. I hesitate even to ctrl+click on it in this editor, because I know it'll either do nothing or take me to the wrong definition._

to mean you were relying on your IDE to tell you which .hide() method you were calling.

As others have pointed out elsewhere, I think giving that functionality to ST2 would push it too far into the realm of IDE.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My favorite feature (already added in an earlier development release, but now finally in the beta track): On OSX, if you are editing a file you don't have write access to and you want to save it, Sublime now asks for authentication than then saves the file.

This is very convenient and not having this was _the_ reason for still having TextMate around.

<comment><USER9> That's one annoyance out of the way. Is there a decent way to work with remote files yet?

This is always the killer for me.

<comment><USER10> Try this out: <http://wbond.net/sublime_packages/sftp> I haven't used it, but I'll probably end up taking a look at it soon. Please report back if you end up using it.

<comment><USER11> Been using this package for some time now and can say that it's been great. It's super-fast, and is integral to my work flow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Favourite Option: When you close the editor, it just shuts down, saving all your buffers and restoring them when you reload. That means you can close the app, reboot your computer, whatever, and the edits you've been making aren't lost, and you aren't bugged for filenames.

Definitely a 'why don't all apps work like this?' feature.

<comment><USER13> This is the default behavior of document based apps on OS X starting with Lion. For instance: TextEdit behaves this way.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, if you've been extensively using Lion for document editing, this may not seem like a big deal anymore, but in Sublime it works just as well on Windows too.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, It's new to me on Windows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My favorite feature: a dedication from the developer to fix bugs even on Linuxes they aren't personally running (Arch Linux in this case).

[http://www.sublimetext.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=447...](http://www.sublimetext.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4473)

<comment><USER16> Nice debugging! Definitely worth a read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just so you know, these features have been available for weeks now in the dev builds. They get updated almost every day sometimes, the developer is an absolute machine.

<http://www.sublimetext.com/dev>

</comment><comment><USER18> The great thing about ST2's autocompletion is that it is totally extensible, allowing you to hack your own completion routines.

I wrote an indexer for Objective-J code last year, that scans a set of folders (which can include the Cappuccino frameworks if you like) and creates a completion index of all the class names, methods, functions, etc. It was trivial to make an ST2 plugin that completes using that data.

The abilitity to write your own autocompletion plugins for the freaky/obscure kinds of files you use really rocks. Even without heavy-duty semantic analysis of the code, you can get 90% of the way there and it is really useful.

The main problem right now is that the UI is still too narrow. Voting this issue up could help get that fixed:

[http://sublimetext.userecho.com/topic/85632-need-the- complet...](http://sublimetext.userecho.com/topic/85632-need-the-completion- menu-to-be-wider/)

<comment><USER19> What would it take to get it to be as smart as, say, Intellisense?

<comment><USER18> Well, that would really take a lot of work, to make it good.

There's some commented-out logic in the 'official' Cappuccino plugin for ST, that takes into account the scope and then works backwards to try to figure out what type of object you are messaging.

<https://github.com/aparajita/Cappuccino-Sublime>

But I think the reason that's commented out is that it is easy to get some parts working, but to do it right you need to analyze the whole code base, with a real parser, be able to follow the map of import/include statements back to know what code elements are actually available in the current scope, etc etc. And that's a lot of work.

Still, there's a lot of value in doing a good job with a simpler kind of completion -- and it is way easier, as long as the editor is extensible to the extent that ST is.

<comment><USER19> The reason that I ask is that I feel I am getting stuck with C# simply due to the comfort of Intellisense. I have to find some way of replicating that experience with other languages...

I know other languages of course, but it just feels like a hassle to code without Intellisense these days :p

<comment><USER20> If you have dynamically typed languages in mind, give it a try without completion, you might be surprised - different paradigm depreciates completion quite a bit.

<comment><USER17> Indeed. When getting really funky with ruby's metaprogramming, completion isn't going to help you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I really wish Emacs had smooth scrolling, indent guides and that Minimap. Those are some killer features that you can't just implement in Emacs' scripting language.

edit: minimap exists! (Obviously only in GUI Emacs)

Animated sub-line scrolling probably requires hacking the Emacs source. Indent guides might be possible just in elisp, but I don't know how good they would look.

<comment><USER22> <http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/MiniMap>

<comment><USER23> Let me point out that the Emacs minimap is way cooler than that of SublimeText. Check out the semantic overlays.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't know if it's something wrong with my eyes, but with the new theme I get confused all the time searching for the active tab. Old theme had more contrast.

Edit: installing Soda theme[1] solved it!

[1]: <https://github.com/buymeasoda/soda-theme/>

</comment><comment><USER25> This guy has to be on caffeine, modafinil, and love for his product. Incredible velocity here.

<comment><USER26> Is it... really just one guy doing the core dev work? (nonwithstanding plugins and so forth)

<comment><USER12> Yeah, it's one guy called Jon. He's been really responsive when I've talked to him.

<comment><USER26> That is amazing! I'm impressed....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> All it's missing now is a better icon; preferably not another blue one. Normally end up with this one (blue I know). <http://www.designkode.com/blog/sublime-text-icon>

</comment><comment><USER28> This is such a great editor. Each update adds things I really appreciate. (How did I ever live without indent guides?)

I've been working in XCode so much lately that I've gotten really used to this style of autocomplete, so this update is very welcome.

<comment><USER29> Yes—indent guides are pretty sweet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Sublime Text 2 is amazing. I bought it and used it for a bit. Even with vintage mode, I missed vim too much and switched back.

I do wonder if the arrival of Sublime Text 2 was the impetus for TextMate 2 development after so many years.

</comment><comment><USER31> Split-screen support is still very clunky. I don't understand why you need to define a new "group". Layout-wise it makes sense as preset layouts, but other than that the group doesn't help at all.

The best split-screen implementation is E-Text Editor. In E, you can drag the tab to create a new split, then "Cmd T" in ANY tab will bring you to the previously opened file in the split. Basically I don't have to remember where the file is opened, as long as I know its name, I can just jump by typing the name. That is how quick jump should be. Also, you can arrange the windows by dragging-and-dropping to another split. I stop using E after version 1 because I made the switch Mac and I have to use Textmate, which does not support split-screen at all (what a shame!). And I miss E dearly.

Currently Sublime Text quick jump is still bad, because it still requires a context switch (switch to the group that has the file opened, then Cmd T), or worse, complete loss of current context (Cmd T would open the file in current group, thus you lose the view of the current file you're working on).

So as long as split-view doesn't get implemented properly, Sublime Text is still just another editor.

</comment><comment><USER32> Is this just me but no-one seem to talk about it. How can I get the Sidebar to have a similar color scheme with my main theme? I like the default Monokai but the Sidebar is light. The Soda theme & Color Scheme was nice but the new UI improvement in the IDE is so good to sacrifice it for Soda.

<comment><USER33> Is this controlled by the color scheme itself? I'm running Solarized Dark, and the sidebar does have the same scheme as the editing window.

<comment><USER32> Yes, this is part of the Color Scheme that you used.

<comment><USER34> To change the sidebar color, you can go into the default Theme directory, find the new global theme file and update it manually. It's all JSON, so just search the file for "sidebar" and you should find the RGB string to play with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Still no block cursor. :(

I've found/modified a little plug-in to simulate it, but it's not ideal.

I love Sublime, and I'm sure it seems trivial to most folks, but as a developer with poor eyesight, this is the one feature I want the most.

At least fonts can be larger now.

<comment><USER36> Using the vintage mode without the block cursor is annoying. It's really hard to see when you are in command mode and when in insert. I'm using this block cursor plugin <https://github.com/netpro2k/SublimeBlockCursor> but it has some bugs where the cursor remains as a block until you write something.

<comment><USER35> This is actually what I'm using, though I've modified it some to work outside of vintage mode, which also seems to have eliminated most of the problem (I may have done more to it as well, I can't really remember now). The only time the "block" disappears now is when the cursor is at the end of the file, because there's no white space after it to highlight (which is logical).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> A small bug with the auto-complete update when you edit a new C++ file (I've checked this only on Mac):

When you start writing #in... Sublime will suggest you #include ... pressing Enter will actually double the pound sign. You end up with something like ##include ....

I've noticed the same pattern for int m... the suggested completion was main(). Pressing Enter ends up repeating the return type of the main function, something like:

int int main(int argc, char *argv[]) ...

Maybe this a Mac only bug or it has something to do with the way the C++ syntax is parsed by the Auto-complete algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've recently started using Sublime Text 2 for iPhone development on Windows. Okay I admit, I've been doing it for a while. Rather strange setup perhaps, but with Synergy it's a fairly seamless workflow between my Macbook Pro and Windows desktop. I keep telling myself I'll get around to purchasing a license and this finally did it for me. I wouldn't say it's purely on guilt, more of a slowly growing relationship. Auto complete is an enormous help, why wouldn't I return the favor?

<comment><USER37> Just curious, why are you using Windows for iPhone development ? I mean there is any advantage versus using directly your Mac ?

Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> If you use vim be sure to check out the Ex mode package: <https://github.com/SublimeText/VintageEx>

<comment><USER14> Vintage mode is a killer feature for people (like me) who are wired for Vim's modal editing. The fact that it works reasonably well (somes bugs here and there but it's an alpha so understandable) is what made me even consider Sublime in the first place.

Now, after having been using Vim for about 8 years now, after a few weeks of trying Sublime, I'm pretty much ready to pony up for SublimeText 2 whenever the final version is released.

<comment><USER39> Using 'vip' to select the current paragraph didn't work for me on osx (instead it went into insert mode with the 'i'), so I gave up on my very brief trial. Did I give up too soon? Or is that oversight typical of other quirks I'll run into?

<comment><USER14> Could be a bug - I looked at the Vintage source when it was in alpha - <USER2> had implemented text objects for many delimiters but I also found some bugs with , for example 'ci{'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Wow, this is seriously nice. Never heard of it before. Just today I've been trying out Netbeans as I'm a vim addict but my colleagues keep telling me how wonderful their IDEs are - Netbeans was much too heavyweight for my liking, but this looks like just the right balance between features and simplicity/speed.

Loving the mini-map and package manager particularly. The vim emulation seems to cover most of the key ones I use too. Nice work!

<comment><USER39> Vim keybindings didn't work well for me. In command mode tried vip to select the current function definition and it instead went into insert mode with the i. To me that means it's probably got lots of other quirks. Do you just not use those types of visual mode operations? Or did it rather successfully handle this for you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> For those wondering, auto-complete is quite fast.

I've always avoided IDEs that offered this because they seemed to be terribly slow -- pleasantly surprised so far.

<comment><USER42> does it support any kind of CTags?

<comment><USER3> Yes: <https://github.com/SublimeText/CTags>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> > If you're feeling adventurous, you may want to enable the > auto_complete_commit_on_tab file setting: This will make tab accept the > current completion, and enter operate as normal.

I've had this on for about a week now, and although it was initially very disorienting, it's very easy to get used to it. I'd certainly recommend it, since it allows you to add a new line even if a suggestion is there.

</comment><comment><USER44> Has the ability to navigate via UNC been added? Or more importantly, has search/replace with regular expressions improved?

I did a search/replace of [a-z] to 0 in a 50 meg text file before as a comparison between Sublime Text 2, UltraEdit, and gVim. UltraEdit was slower than I would have liked, gVim was < 10 seconds, and Sublime crashed. That's a deal breaker.

</comment><comment><USER45> New release looks great. One problem I have with ST2 is dragging tabs from one window to another window. The actual dragging of the tab works but if it's the last tab in the window and I remove it and put in another window, I'm left with a window with no tabs in it. Can this "empty" window automatically close please?

<comment><USER46> "close_windows_when_empty": true,

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How do people deal with remote files? I love Sublime, but always end up reverting back to VIM as it is so slow when accessing files over a network connection.

I've tried the SFTP plug-in, but find it really clumsy. Ideally I'd just love to be able to add a remote folder over SFTP the same way you do local ones.

<comment><USER47> try something like WebDrive, NetDrive, ExpanDrive or Dokan SSH <http://dokan- dev.net/en/>

they create a mapped drive to a location of your choosing and you edit files as if they were local.

i stopped worrying about the remote editing functionality in editors since. before that i used winscp, which detects changes and re-uploads automatically, but it's not as convenient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I love the new look of the tabs, really nice improvement. Great to see autocomplete is built in now, I was using this one before: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3064171>

The new autocomplete even has lorem ipsum in it :)

</comment><comment><USER49> I love Sublime, but I'm not really a fan of the new theme. It tends to be lighter in areas where the previous version was dark, especially in the tab- bar when using a theme like SpaceCadet.

Anyone know if it's possible to change the default tab background color for themes that don't support it?

<comment><USER50> I think you can theme the UI as well as the syntax theme. Here's an example: <https://github.com/buymeasoda/soda-theme>

<comment><USER49> Nice! I didn't know it was possible to theme the sidebar either. Soda Dark seems pretty good, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Doesn't the new auto complete and the plug-in SublimeCodeIntel do the same thing? One of my concerns is that say you are using a plug-in for a feature that is later implemented into Sublime, now you haven't read the what's new so you have no idea. What happens then?

<comment><USER52> Not the same. The editor itself supports almost all file types with basic auto-completion. SublimeCodeIntel supports a few scripting languages with more intelligence. SublimeClang doing same smart job for C/C++/ObjC.

It's just based on your work pattern to decide which one to use. For me, all 3 of them are all very useful everyday.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I've paid for Sublime Text and think it's awesome. I primarily do Scala development and would like to use ST for it but the one thing I miss are highlighting errors in the source. Does anyone know a way to do this? I searched the ST forums to no avail.

<comment><USER54> While this plugin doesn't have Scala by default, it does include a Java linter/checker. So you could theoretically fork and expand it to do Scala as well.

<https://github.com/Kronuz/SublimeLinter>

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Does anyone know how to display edge lines? I usually pass files through Code Sniffer before committing, so generally i try to keep lines 120 characters or less, seeing where that 120th character is; is really helpful.

</comment><comment><USER55> I love the git package, superb. Managed to write a few custom commands to tweak things to suit my requirements, haven't tried that with any other editor / IDE :)

</comment><comment><USER56> I'm torn between using a nice proprietary editor like this, or a fine open source one like Scribes, or even going further into the command line world like Vim.

<comment><USER57> Good software is worth paying for.

I hope the developer is able to live comfortably while working full time on his own endeavors, rather than relegate them to a hobby, and himself into wage slavery.

<comment><USER56> I can certainly agree with that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Was hoping for some sidebar love in the new theme (file and folder icons, renaming files in place), but the changes seem good so far.

<comment><USER59> +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I don't want to put the looks over functionality but when we are talking for a GUI application we need a good icon.

<comment><USER61> There are some good replacements floating around the web. The one I think best matches the aesthetic of Sublime Text 2 is here: <http://dribbble.com/shots/337996-Sublime-Text-2-Icon>

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I'm confused, doesn't it already have auto-complete? Mine's been doing that for a while now. What's new about this?

<comment><USER63> Are you using the dev version? If so, then yes you've had that for a while now. It just made it into the beta now ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> primarily as a web dev, the only two things preventing me from switching from NP++ is the poor and non-customizable matching bracket styling. and the buggy html matching tag highlighting (and styling as well)

once those get addressed more fully, i'm ready to cough up the cash.

</comment><comment><USER64> Anyone know how to get the Soda Theme working again?

<comment><USER65> It needs to be installed under Packages not Packages/User. Look at the github source for Soda Theme for further explanation... (I just read that this morning).

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Love the auto-complete! Keep up the great work.

</comment><comment><USER67> Still doesn't feel like a Mac app...

</comment><comment><USER68> What I really miss in all these fast small editors is the quick-jump features that actually analyze the code and let me do things like

1) Jump the the function/method definition (even if it's in a different file) when I press Ctrl and click on the function name. Eclipse does this.

2) Quick find of the function/method definition across the whole project. Eclipse does this as well (Ctrl + R).

I don't use Eclipse that much, because it's ridiculously slow, but it has cool features.

<comment><USER69> > Jump the the function/method definition

for scripting languages, define a function as concatenated string in eval(), how could you find the function definition, without actually run the script for once?

Even if you run the script once, what if there is a delete_file() function you accidently called?

So do we need to implement a sandboxed VM in order to find definition, theoretical perfectly speaking?

<comment><USER68> That's such an edge case. I've never seen anybody defining functions in evals, especially as concatenated strings.

<comment><USER70> Maybe you should take a look at the Rails sourcecode.

<comment><USER71> Rails only does that to optimize certain function calls. eval() is used as a method to compile/inline certain functions. Most code in Rails does not use eval.

<comment><USER72> [https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/2-3-stable/actionpack/li...](https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/2-3-stable/actionpack/lib/action_controller/request.rb#L11)

Try getting your editor to find that definition of method "accept_language" or "cache_control". :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> No doubt Sublime has all kinds of nice features, but to me the best thing is the aesthetics. It's simply a pleasure to work in this editor. Sometimes I just like to have it sit there on the second monitor, while I do something entirely different on the first one. :)

</comment><comment><USER74> Only at HN will you find people gushing about a $50 text editor.

It's totally pathetic yet oddly endearing at the same time.

<comment><USER53> Actually, what's endearing (or outright cool) is that he has been able to create an editor good enough that people are willing to pay $50 for it. With lots of free alternatives and big players it isn't the easiest niche to break into. The fact that he's been able to do this primarily on his own makes it more impressive.

<comment><USER18> I agree; it's cool. TextMate never impressed me too much, but I bought it one day when the author casually mentioned on MacSB that his order numbers were simply sequential (so order number X meant that X licenses had been sold). I was curious.

My order number was something around 5000. So Odgaard had grossed $.25MM already. (At some point a couple years later I bought it again, and the order number was like 48000. It's no wonder he disappeared for years on end.)

ST2 seems to be on that same trajectory.

(And the grandparent comment is idiotic, of course; a truly good text editor repeatedly makes the news here just as a uniquely novel hammer would undoubtedly be a prominent theme on carpenternews.com.)</comment></comment></comment>


The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company (1960) - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/the-hp-way-how-bill-hewlett-and-i-built-our-company-5634378 <comment><USER2> I worked for HP in the late 90s / early 2000s. Right around the time Agilent was split off.

It was a remarkable place to work. "Bill and Dave" were household names: I was really struck by how much of their vision and values had been embedded in the firm's DNA. Quite amazing for a multi-national.

I remember the UK general manager coming to visit our site. He wasn't immune to the usual entourage of hangers-on, but always insisted on going walkabout on his own for an hour or so. Precisely so he knew what was actually happening at the coal face, not the filtered and abstracted artefacts of managerial reports. He stopped to speak to one of my colleagues - a recent graduate. The grad had no idea who the manager was, and asked him politely to give him 10 minutes as he was waiting for a build to finish (1990s remember). Those of us who knew the manager were aghast and assumed the grad would be in for a bit of a tough time. But the GM just smiled and said "of course, hope it compiles OK", went away, and came back later.

That moment has stuck with me throughout my career. I've sought to emulate that level of humility and respect. Can't say I've always been successful, but it remains inspirational.

<comment><USER3> Your experience sounds like from some sci-fi book written by Isaac Asimov. My reality looks way different: there was Vice President from USA checking the German branch couple weeks ago. 3 days of management presentations full of inaccurate information to show how excellent are we managing our projects. The Vice President had absolutely no interest in the real projects in the labs. Nobody does, project checklist and weekly hours reporting are only 2 interesting things. I am still dreaming experiencing management HP Way, but it's not happening. Current leaders are accountants and not technical leaders anymore.

<comment><USER4> HP now is incredibly different from HP then. My dad was there for 38 years before retiring, my mom as well before choosing to stay at home and support the family once I hit 1st grade. Growing up most of our family friends were HP employees and engineers (they were the 2nd largest employer in town). I remember summer picnics meeting high up managers from all over the country. From maybe 2004 to 2010 the culture and management style changed a lot especially under Fiorina. Honestly, from everything I've seen and heard she was the death knell of OG HP simply by crushing the free form engineering spirit of R&D by streamlining and significantly cutting back research. She made HP a lean machine that couldn't innovate and so the dream died.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Excellent! They were the true Titans of the Tech. industry. How i wish "modern" tech companies followed this advice.

This passage in particular should be memorized by every "Manager".

 _Over the years we have developed the policy that it is important for the supervisor to thoroughly know and understand the work of his group. A debate on this has been carried on by management people for years. Some say you can be a good manager without having the slightest idea of what you are trying to manage, that the techniques of management are all important. There are many organizations which work that way. I don 't argue that the job can't be done that way but I do argue strongly that the best job can be done when the manager or supervisor has a real and genuine understanding of his group's work. I don't see how a person can even understand what proper standards are and what performance is required unless he does understand in some detail the very specific nature of the work he is trying to supervise. We have held closely to this philosophy and we intend to continue to do so. We expect you who are supervising to learn techniques of supervision and keep up to date. I want to emphasize you can supervise best when you know a great deal about the work you are supervising and when you know the techniques of supervision as well._

<comment><USER6> That's something I miss a lot in my company. When you go up one to two levels management already has no understanding of what I and the people I work with are working on and it doesn't seem they are interested. They see their only role as enforcing deadlines and budgets. I think a lot of better decisions could be made if managers made an effort to understand what their underlings are doing. Managers who don't understand the work are very susceptible to political games and manipulation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For people who are only familiar with the sad decline of this company, HP computers used to be _great_.

I learnt to program on an HP-85a. At the time, my friends had ZX80s or ZX81s with 1k of RAM. My HP-85a (my dad's really) had an insanely massive 32k. It came with really great manuals which taught you to program in basic, a built- in screen, magnetic tape drive and thermal printer and was fantastically engineered in general.

The HP12c financial calculator is legendary. There are HP12c still running on their original battery 30+ years after production (the original battery now no longer permitted for non-military applications due to toxic chemicals and what-not) and the legend goes that a zookeeper once accidentally fed one to a hippo (he had been using it to calculate how much feed to give it or something) had it travel through the whole digestive tract of the aforementioned beast and had it still working. My two HP12cs have each been running for 10+ years on their original batteries even though they are using the inferior modern battery technology.

I could go on but you get the point.

<comment><USER8> They also were a real leader in scientific and precision metrology equipment, like interferometers.

<comment><USER9> They still are in a sense. That portion of the company is now called Keysight.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure if Keysight is doing any innovation anymore or just subsisting on their legacy. (They also wouldn't answer my company's calls when we tried to purchase equipment from them, which I generally take as sign of decline).

<comment><USER9> It probably depends on where you are and what level of equipment you are looking at. All of their low end stuff goes through distributors which was implemented in the bad old days of the 90's and just sort of carried over peaking in the mid 2000's. Since the Agilent/Keysight split they seem to be pulling stuff in house little bit by little bit and their support is improving but you need to find out who your local sales manager actually is. If you are in a low volume area like Arkansas, there may only be one for the state. If you are in a busy area like California or Texas, there will probably be half a dozen or more. In my experience they are getting better with support coverage, but like all vendors will try to nickel and dime you for it. Their CEO has made some noise about being a services company for growth so it will be interesting to see where they go in that regard in the future.

On the high end technical side, they are absolutely killing it lately. They have a new out of the box modular system for quantum computing, a new 100 GHz bandwidth oscilloscope that has crazy good noise performance, and their new portable microwave analyzer is a VNA and RTSA in one that works better than many previous generation benchtop boxes but runs on a battery. Those were all released this year.

<comment><USER8> We were definitely looking for their top end systems. But you're probably right, we might have just gotten lost in some tangled chain of distributor responsibility.

I'm very relieved to hear that they're still innovating, actually. Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Random HP praise:

I was working on a project Sunday that involved fairly precise current and voltage measurements using an HP3458A benchtop meter. I was a little careless and put about 4A through the current shunt (which is rated for only 1.25A). It immediately failed open circuit, shutting down my circuit. I finished up the work using a lesser quality meter and figured I was in for an annoying repair task, at a minimum pulling the meter out and replacing a fuse in the back or, worse, maybe having to take the cover off (and break the cal stickers).

Instead, the design is incredibly thoughtful and user-friendly, obviously designed by someone who cared to think through how the device would actually be used in the field and not just relentlessly "cost engineered".

[https://youtu.be/sdyDUl5xYpE](https://youtu.be/sdyDUl5xYpE)

If I'd known, I could have replaced the fuse faster than going to get the other meter.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've never worked at HP, but I recall this: "The day the HP Way died": [https://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/02/Mar/hpway.html](https://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/02/Mar/hpway.html)

<comment><USER12> Heh. I worked for Compaq in Houston when HP bought Compaq. I remember people saying that the HP way was, "Ready, Aim, Aim, Aim.... " and the Compaq way was, "Ready, Fire, Aim!"

<comment><USER11> Sometime before the merger, they were both great companies that did innovative and high-quality things. It's sad they apparently went through some rough times for a while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For those who want to relive the HP Way or learn about it for the first time, I highly recommend:

"Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World's Greatest Company" by Michael S. Malone

[https://www.amazon.com/Bill-Dave-Hewlett-Packard- Greatest/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Bill-Dave-Hewlett-Packard- Greatest/dp/1591841526)

</comment><comment><USER14> Strikes me as heavily influenced by Deming. Was he?

</comment><comment><USER15> Url changed from [https://fs.blog/2016/05/the-hp-way-david- packard/](https://fs.blog/2016/05/the-hp-way-david-packard/) to a URL that appears to contain the complete text of the speech.

<comment><USER16> Following the links from that article -- Packard's "eleven simple rules for getting along with others" is a pretty good read too.

[https://fs.blog/2013/09/dave-packards-11-simple- rules/](https://fs.blog/2013/09/dave-packards-11-simple-rules/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I exercised my options on leaving a company – now told they're 'void' - <AUTHOR> I worked at a company in Canada, which was incorporated in the US.
After leaving the company I decided to purchase my options, because I thought it could be worth the gamble.
Fast forward a few years later, the company is acquired and we've been informed that all our stock is now void and we won't get anything.
The stock I got was common stock. I'm really just curious if this legal. I can understand if we got a little bit back, or if we got shares in the new company. Also, I understand that shares will get voided in case of bankruptcy, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
When getting common stock, are we completely slaves to whether or not the company feels like honoring them? <comment><USER2> You'd need to know the details. Perhaps the company had taken on debt during earlier rounds of funding, and was obliged to pay back the debt to those investors before there was any profit left for stockholders. So the company was bankrupt after paying back some or all of its debt.

Or perhaps the common stockholders are just getting screwed.

The suggestion to pursue legal advice is a good one.

<comment><USER3> Thank you, we'll definitely get some legal advice!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Common stock is at a mercy of preferred shares i.e. shares that VC's negotiated special terms for.

I.e. VC investing is startup can ask for 10x times return on his investment in case of acquisition. If agreed - he will tap in the jar first. Then founders. Then the rest (if anything left) will go to unaware employees.

This "term sheet" is usually not disclosed to regular employees who are often too excited to work for puny salary and be given NNNNNNN likely worthless shares.

Regardless - if you own shares and been told "sorry, no money left for you" \- need to send lawyer-crafted letter to the owners.

</comment><comment><USER5> Mark Zuckerberg tried to screw his co-founder by diluting his co-founder's shares. His co-founder then sued him successfully. Stockholders have strong legal protections in many jurisdictions. You definitely need a lawyer to fix this for you.

</comment><comment><USER6> After having dealt with lots of employees, he somehow made his company a success and it was ready to be acquired. CFO told him to dilute employees. And he never had a problem finding good employees the next time, so yea you can do it and get away.

<comment><USER7> I've had my shares diluted from $2000 to $50 a long time ago, but if it's "void" after a dilution then I'd like to have the math explained to me...

<comment><USER8> What is the reason why they were diluted in your case? Was it "nefarious" (e.g. targeted specifically at you) or just a consequence of unfortunate circumstances (e.g. heavy downturn, aggressive liquidation preferences, ...)?

<comment><USER7> The company ran out of latest round of funds without increasing its value, and took them best deal it can. In the years since it had diluted around that much, again.

This is a public company, not a tech startup.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nasa's New Horizons: Final flyby commands given to distant probe - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46699737 <comment><USER2> The final command for this part of the mission as no further communications would be possible until the flyby has been complete and the probe can reorient itself to call back home, it would take 18 months to get the data back from New Horizons as its current data rate is 1kbp/s or 2 with induced spin.

This isn't the end of the mission for NH.

<comment><USER3> >This isn't the end of the mission for NH.

At ~1:30 in the video interview with Alan Stern he says they have ~20 years of power in the RTG and 'plenty of fuel' to get around. Sounds like there could be a lot of science yet to come!!

<comment><USER4> _Sounds like there could be a lot of science yet to come!!_

From Wiki: _at Pluto 's distance, a rate of approximately 1 kbit/s per transmitter is expected. Besides the low data rate, Pluto's distance also causes a latency of about 4.5 hours (one-way)._

Scientists have a lot more patience than I do!

<comment><USER5> I wonder if they watch their planet porn arrive one scan line at a time.

<comment><USER6> I can tell you stories about the days of 300 baud dial-up modems.

<comment><USER3> When 256 colors was good enough...

<comment><USER7> For high res displays. The rest of us got by on 16 colors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> '... before Ultima Thule encounter" should be added to title.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm really quite excited about this. I don't know if I'd just completely missed it, or if they it hadn't had much publicity in the mainstream press, but it was a pleasant surprise to read about yesterday!

<comment><USER7> Well the government shutdown means that there's been no NASA PR for this.

<comment><USER6> Fortunately, the Johns Hopkins University is posting some news and materials because they operate part of the mission. Here is where they will post raw images:

[http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule- Encounter/](http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/)

More links: [http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News- Center/](http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone else hoping this rock is a bracewell probe? Im so sick of mars rovers. It is refreshing for a probe to be discovering something totally new. This rock (or maybe group of rocks) was only a handful of pixels last week. Next week it could be almost anything.

<comment><USER10> Not sure why it would hover around out there and wait for us to come to it. (Also, it would be a hell of a coincidence if we happened to hit the only probe out there.)

<comment><USER9> For the same reason they buried a monolith on the moon.

<comment><USER10> The Moon makes sense - we've only got one, it's a much smaller search area, and iirc, it started actively broadcasting after a certain point.

The outer solar system is a huge search area.

It's the difference between your mailman leaving a package on your porch, or somewhere in Canada.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Its kind of neat watching The Deep Space Network - [https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html](https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html)

Nearly every dish is receiving or sending to NHPC.

</comment><comment><USER12> Exciting! Sounds like they will get reasonable pictures (but the object is quite small).

190 Watts is now equivalent to 20 lightbulbs, not 3 like the article suggests :) since we've moved away from the incandescent ones.

<comment><USER13> We're going to need to compare electricity usage against some new appliance. How about GPUs :P

The probe takes as much power as one high end GPU.

<comment><USER10> "This probe can mine up to one bitcoin a week!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> it's leaving the solar system but no golden record.

instead, it has a quarter, a flag, human ashes and a cd-rom disc without a drive or a codec.

srsly?

<comment><USER15> Well, if they are going to ship a codec, they will have to make a choice for the CPU architecture or even have to ship a CPU. Then they might have to ship some batteries as well

<comment><USER16> And of course, a full source code and the cross-compiler. On a CD-ROM.

<comment><USER17> Lol. But seriously, the irony is CD-ROM's degrade to completely unusable within a century due to disc rot. A CD-ROM made with gold and completely encapsulated in an extremely stable enamel might work. Then, leaving universal instructions as to how to use said CD-ROM is important, rather than arrogantly presumptive anthropocentrism.

<comment><USER18> Do you think NASA burned a 24x CD-ROM from their PC and added it to New Horizons?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Please read here: [http://expreso.co.cr/centaurs/essays/uranians.html](http://expreso.co.cr/centaurs/essays/uranians.html) \- So called "Cupido" at 40.998 AU may be the same as "Ultima Thule" object/planet. Research is done by Alfred Witte, based on Sun vibrational field which is creating standing scalar waves and forming the physical planets.

<comment><USER20> "may be"?

How about, no, it isn't. The astrology link you pointed to says:

> 1- they are completely idealized points moving in perfect circles around the > sun without any physical acceleration except the Sun's, i.e.

> 2- they are subject only to the influence of the Sun and are not affected by > the gravitational interactions of other large bodies.

This is not true of Ultima Thule, with a perihelion of 42.721 AU and aphelion of 46.442 AU. Its semi-major axis is nearly 10% larger than the mean solar distance of 40.998 you quoted.

The text goes on to insist that "things in Astrology work very well even though they do not or cannot physically exist", so why is there a need to have it exist?

Furthermore, user "Juan" points out the problems in the analysis, such as "it is obvious that the more asteroids you put into the equation, the more likely you will find one that resembles in its motion the orbit at least of Cupido". And the suggestion that 2000 KL4 matches Cupido.

How do we tell which is "really" Cupido?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Weekly Google Analytics Summary - <AUTHOR> https://metricmailer.com

<comment><USER2> Are you going to collect our info? What is your privacy policy?</comment>


150m Hop of SpaceX Starship Prototype [Live Stream, T-10min] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fblo3vzsOo4 <comment><AUTHOR> Better quality currently here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8CSgRpPT0o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8CSgRpPT0o)</comment>


Find Out If Your Startup Fails At SEO - <AUTHOR> http://www.rentrob.com/seo/?p=99

<comment><AUTHOR> I was looking at the 500Startups class list today, and I realized a lot of these guys are not doing any on page SEO! I am putting my feelers out to see if there is a micro-business to be made here.

First signup from HN gets a free analysis.</comment>


The Horrible Implications of the EU VAT "Place of Supply" Change - <AUTHOR> http://rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2014/10/13/the-horrible-implications-of-the-eu-vat-place-of-supply-change/ <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I don't know much about all this either

So a side effect seems that some companies which used to be exempted from collecting VAT will now kind of have to, thereby either raising prices or taking a cut of about 16.7% [1] in their revenues. Because you'd have to be crazy not to opt into the "mini one-stop shop" (who would want to register in every EU country?), so you register for collecting VAT although your revenue is low enough to qualify for exemption in your own country and the customer's.

That's even harder to swallow for companies delivering electronic services, as having a VAT number is not a huge money saver (paying VAT on web hosting isn't a huge burden).

Which countries lack VAT exemption? If there aren't many, it could be okay not to take customers from them.

[1] 1 - 1/1.2 = 0.167 as the average VAT is 20% in the EU

<comment><USER3> A commenter on my post notes that it isn't just countries with a low threshold it's ALL other countries. That you are non-resident in. So essentially if you want to sell to the EU you have to register for MOSS and therefore have to be VAT registered.

It's crap. I hope I'm wrong or that something can be done to exempt small enterprises.

<comment><USER2> Okay, it makes sense that you would have to register with every country to get an exemption.

The only hope is that this causes so much work to tax offices that they add a procedure to get the exemption in every country.

I'm not holding my breath as it seems VAT has only been increasing in its rate and span of subjected products :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was interested to see a take on how this affects App Store sales[1]:

"Apple has structured its current agreement so that they act as your agent each time an e-service is downloaded... UK businesses only have one B2B customer, Apple SARL in Luxembourg, so for a vast majority of businesses selling on Apple's App Store platform, these sales will be continue outside the scope of UK VAT and this change won't affect them.

"For UK businesses selling e-services on Android/Google Play, the agreement is currently structured in a way that the business sells directly to the EU customer. It will therefore be the businesses responsibility to account for, and collect, the correct amount of VAT based on each customer's location and pay this over to the local tax authorities."

[1] [http://www.jeffreyshenry.com/important-vat-changes- technolog...](http://www.jeffreyshenry.com/important-vat-changes-technology- and-digital-businesses)

</comment><comment><USER5> This looks like a nightmare for small European businesses selling digital products. Thankfully I should be shielded from the worst of it it because: -my business is already registered for VAT -my payment processor (Avangate) take care of all the VAT issues

<comment><USER3> Have Avangate issued anything to customers about the changes? It would be interesting to know how they are dealing with it on behalf of customers.

Currently does the system allow you to sell to VAT registered businesses in other EU countries ex-VAT and deal with the EC Sales list?

<comment><USER5> Avangate told me in an email that they will be compliant.

They handle all the collection of VAT and (presumably) do the EC sales list (that's not my problem). I still have to do my own EC sales list for the payments I get from them (but thats only 1 per month) and any sales I make direct (not many).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This seems very bad, I'm assuming this applies to all customers whether businesses or not, so here are a few potential gotchas I see-

1\. You sell to an individual who is not in the country that their payment information is related to and is not delivered to that country, do you charge VAT based on the payment information alone or do you have to physically verify that they are in the country claiming the VAT?

2\. Prepaid CC can have false information, how do you determine is it is true so you can charge the right VAT?

3\. Fraud, if you sell something to a fraudster, do you have to find out which country the fraudster was in to determine VAT you owe after the fact?

4\. What about Bitcoin transactions where no location information is known?

<comment><USER3> Yeah the implementation in terms of how we verify that someone lives where they say they live is going to be a royal PITA.

We're already VAT registered and already trade with EU countries so we're pretty much set up to deal with this already, it's an extension to what we already do to not charge VAT to people we can verify a VAT number for (who are EU but not UK). The guidelines say we need two non-conflicting bits of information to verify the location of a person, they mention IP Address! We all know how useless that's going to be to identify in which country someone is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Am I correct in thinking that everything carries on as before if you're a UK based Ltd, VAT registered and the only sales you make to EC based clients are to entities with a VAT number? Basically, the place of supply remains the UK and you report EC sales in your quarterly EC sales list as before?

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure - if you are selling "software as a service" or any other _hands- off_ digital product to (VAT-registered or not) companies in another EU country, then I think you must bill them at their local VAT rate and (possibly) pay that rate to their government's tax collectors (assuming you're above their country's VAT-registered threshold.) I may have read it wrong, though, I'm not an accountant.

<comment><USER5> If they are a VAT registered business, the place of supply remains that of the vendor. This hasn't changed. ( So you don't charge them VAT under EU reverse charge.)

<comment><USER9> Are you sure about that? My understand of it was that the place of supply depends on what is being sold and not on the VAT registration status of either party. Digital goods would have the place of supply defined by where the customer is. Services have it defined by where the seller is.

If both you and the customer are VAT registered, then you can zero rate the VAT, but the rate (if it were applied) could be different (based on what you are selling).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is this being done to remove competitive advantage some enjoy by being from lower tax countries or is this more of aligning sales of digital product with physical?

<comment><USER3> My understanding is it is to remove the loophole of companies being based in a country where VAT is lower then selling to consumers - where they need to charge VAT - and the total cost is lower.

<comment><USER11> Ole Begemann recently wrote about the changes in the context of selling apps through the App Store: [http://oleb.net/blog/2014/07/eu-vat- changes-2015/](http://oleb.net/blog/2014/07/eu-vat-changes-2015/)

Apple sells all apps through its Luxemburg subsidiary, meaning Luxemburg's low 15% VAT rate applied.

On the buyer side, am I right to assume that as a VAT-registered company/freelancer I will be able to deduct VAT paid on apps purchased through the App Store?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The author's solution seems to be "Let's crowdsource this".

I think this is a bandage. Trying to address one problem, while ignoring the root cause. How about, "thank you very much, please put me in jail, I don't care anymore"? (While you bailout TBTF banks once again?)

"Governments" are the thugs that protect the big economic interests. The big economic interests, pay the protection money, "bribes", "donations". It's symbiotic. You, me, we, are the slaves.

The bribes, are a lot for the few politicians, they are happy and rich, and nothing, compared to be able to go on having slaves, happy and big profits, for the big economic interests.

You, you try to "crowdsource" "solutions" about the fact that your chains got heavier.

<comment><USER3> Well, good luck with that approach.

I'll continue to try and help out other small indie firms run their businesses and support their families.

It's not a solution, I don't have a solution, I'm just trying to help.

If anyone has any experience in lobbying the government to look into this sort of stuff, I'd love to hear about it. My experience as a business owner since 2001 however has been that they do not care a tiny bit about our kind of business, unless they can find a way to fine us for something. Fines that could cripple a small business but would just be seen as a cost of doing business for a larger one.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should I give in to voice assistants? - <AUTHOR> I've been resisting privacy-invading tech as much as I can over the years, but I'm starting to think my efforts aren't even useful. I imagine these companies have "shadow profiles" of my voice anyway. Should I give in and embrace Alexa, Siri, OK Google? <comment><USER2> We have an some Echo Dots.

While I'm somewhat concerned about the privacy implications, it has been very convenient. The biggest problem it has solved is "how to listen to music", and if that isn't a pain point for you, you don't really need it.

My kids have told Alexa to recognize their voices. I have several boys, and Alexa really can't tell them apart very well. (And, I haven't figured out how to edit the profiles; one of them taught Alexa he was John Cena, and I don't know how to correct it; another son uses a deep voice to tell Alexa he is Batman, which is kinda funny) I would not be concerned, at this point, about other people's devices keeping shadow profiles of you. (This statement probably needs to be reassessed every five years).

I did play with an open source voice assistant, but these are so much better, hardware- and software-wise. Would I take a self-hosted voice assistant if it reliably did most of the things I use Alexa for? Absolutely.

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends on your own personal convictions. Once they have your data, they have it (unless laws come about forcing them to delete it, which is unlikely)

Personally I'm staunchly against it. Even Ring doorbell as well, they are rumored to begin using facial recognition and scan license plates. Too Orwellian for me.

My parents are surprisingly modern with technology, so they have Alexa in a few rooms, with most lights connected, and their garage.

Siri recently had a whistle blower contractor state they hear snippets of intimate conversations/sounds, with Siri not supposed to be activated.

These devices always have to listen, and for them to get better, the supervised learning must have a human say "yes/no" if the predicted output was correct for the input (in this case, activating on "Hey Siri")

Some open source home automation systems are gaining traction, and once they're a bit more mature, I'll self host and begin my voice-assistance adoption. But until then, I'll stick to the old ways :)

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/26/apple- con...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/26/apple-contractors- regularly-hear-confidential-details-on-siri-recordings)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-whistleblower-siri- rec...](https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-whistleblower-siri-recordings- violating-fundamental-rights-2020-5)

[https://theintercept.com/2019/11/26/amazon-ring-home- securit...](https://theintercept.com/2019/11/26/amazon-ring-home-security- facial-recognition/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm also very against it, but I'm not convinced they don't already have whatever data they'd gain from using the assistant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you are looking for a privacy-respecting and open source voice assistant, check out mycroft.ai: [https://mycroft.ai/](https://mycroft.ai/), [https://hn.algolia.com/?q=mycroft](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=mycroft)

</comment><comment><USER5> There was a really good article on 'locking down' voice assistants I read recently in Make: (Spring 20) where the author proposes 3d printing 'hats' that sit over your Alexa / Google Assistant and has electronics inside that listen to you and pass your message on to the voice assistant. Their approach was to stop the device from listening to you all the time.

IMO Alexa and Google are useless, half the time they don't hear you, half the time they hear you when you're not even talking to them and respond with something completely random. Google now refuses to talk to me because we messed up the personalisation and can't work out how to go back to just being anonymous.

Apple's Homepod however can't access the internet for answering questions but has a far far superior ability to hear you and respond.

We basically use our voice assistants to turn music on and off. Honestly that's all my friends ever seem to use these evil privacy invading devices for!

I trust Apple a bit more with my data than I do Google or Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER6> My MIL gave us a Google home mini as a gift. I plugged it in and played with it for a few days in hopes to embrace it (after not using it for like 3-4 weeks). Then one day I found out I can see what recording were being made somewhere inside the google accounts page.

There were lots of recording completely unrelated to anything I said to google. Like not just things said after a "Ok google" trigger. It had recordings at random moments.

Now its back in the box.

</comment><comment><USER7> Regardless of privacy issues the functionality they provide is very limited and not reliable in my opinion.

I had an Amazon Echo (Alexa) for some time. The only thing I used it for was toggling a smart bulb. Everything else was useless. Speech recognition isn't reliable enough to be trusted for anything that impacts the real world like sending texts or ordering things and discoverability of what commands are supported is non-existent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Really? The recognition has worked pretty well for me and people I know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is HN. So you're likely to get a bunch of "no"s.

I'm not sure if you should embrace them outright, but I think it's useful to recognize there are some situations where they are more benefits than disbenefits.

I care about privacy, but for me, I'm willing to accept a certain tradeoff between privacy and utility. Voice assistants are genuinely useful for hands- free operations.

When I'm driving, I ask Siri to play specific playlists or podcasts, to turn the volume up, weather, navigate to this or that place. I take the issue of distracted driving very seriously so I try to never touch my phone while my vehicle is in motion. Siri is helpful in these situations.

At home, I only ask Alexa a couple of things: "weather", "set timer for 5 minutes" (for when I'm cooking and my hands are wet), "connect bluetooth", "play brown noise". I rarely deviate from these requests. But YMMV.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand the utility, I had a friend with a HomePod who used Siri for everything and I became jealous of how smoothly he used it to his benefit. I just don't see how in the future my voice is going to be protected. If I don't use it, they'll probably still have my voice.

<comment><USER8> Re: voice -- yep, you and every celebrity -- it's already possible to synthesize voices from a small sample.

[https://www.descript.com/lyrebird-ai](https://www.descript.com/lyrebird-ai)

Alexa can already talk like Samuel L Jackson.

[https://www.amazon.com/Samuel-L-Jackson-celebrity- voice/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Samuel-L-Jackson-celebrity- voice/dp/B07WS3HN5Q)

It's a risk, but to me it's also a part of living in this century. Human voice impersonators have always existed. When Photoshop became a phenomenon, everybody knew that photographs could be manipulated. SFX departments have always been able to produce fake scenes -- and now with deep learning, more people are able to do it (albeit somewhat badly). Not advocating that anyone feeds training data to voice assistants, but in the end it's a personal decision based on what you value.

For me, it's impossible to uninvent technology, so all we can do is to manage the risks.

<comment><AUTHOR> So you're suggesting I embrace the tech?

I think I'll do this. I don't feel like I can reasonably protect myself from data-snooping companies, whether I use their products or not.

<comment><USER8> If it fits with your values and are ok with giving up some (but not all) privacy, sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Do you want to? It depends only on your decision. Are you being peer- preassured? Would having a voice-assistant change your life for the better?

<comment><AUTHOR> It would. I would learn to use it for everything I could. Setting timers with voice will be a big one for me. Changing music, hanging calling/hanging up the phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm giving the Google home mini a shot right now.

I think I'm going to get rid of it.

Besides playing some music with voice control or telling me the news I have absolutely no use for it.

I can do those tasks with very few clicks and a Bluetooth speaker.

It was cheap enough to give it a shot but i wont be investing in the ecosystem.

<comment> non-entity I had a google home mini for a while and made limited use of it till I moved.

I couldn't figure out where the hell the option to change what network it connected to was in the app and gave up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I tried a few (siri, google home, echo) and I don't think they are any more convenient than typing so they probably aren't worth the privacy loss. If you don't care and can find some use case for it, go for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> The use case would let me be a lot more handsfree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't get the question. If you're resisting, who's forcing you?

On my phone Google only listens if I trigger it by swiping up on the home screen (maybe my faith is misplaced...), it's convenient for setting alarms and adding calendar events (the calendar GUI always scares me). Otherwise there's nothing always listening in my home. I have to unlock my phone and press a button to turn off some lights, but I can live with that; the alternative would be buying ZigBee light switches, not a voice assistant.

</comment><comment><USER13> I thought there was an opensource version of this you could load on a raspberry pi? No?</comment>


How German Toilets Work, Product - Market Fit - <AUTHOR> http://asecular.com/~scott/misc/toilet.htm

<comment><USER2> "Other European toilets... work much like their North American cousins."

Dutch toilets work like German ones.</comment>


The secret Hong Kong facility that uses boiling goo to mine Bitcoins - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/2/5165428/bitcoin-mine-in-hong-kong-uses-jelly-to-keep-cool

<comment><USER2> I feel sad for these businesses built on a platform that are bound to come to a stop..

<comment><USER3> Even if bitcoin dies the cryptocurrencies are a real thing now.

<comment><USER4> But the specialised hardware for mining bitcoin cannot be repurposed for other uses.

<comment><USER3> Actually it can - everything but the asics themselves. And the asics - this is ultrapure silicon - I suppose some of the fabs have some sort of recycling program.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Just who does Jon Stewart think he is? - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/24/AR2010102402645.html?sid=ST2010102500055 <comment><USER2> "Nevertheless, there are many, including Feldman, who don't view Stewart and his program as above politics or partisanship. "The Daily Show's" popularity soared as a direct result of its relentless satirical broadsides against the Bush administration. While it certainly hasn't ignored Obama's foibles and missteps, the critique seems less frequent and more subdued. One telling statistic: During Bush's two terms, only one Cabinet member, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, appeared on the show. During President Obama's first two years, six Cabinet secretaries have been guests, plus the head of the EPA, and first lady Michelle Obama."

\- Stupid statistic to point out. I'm sure many in the Bush administration were invited but chose not to come on due to the ridicule many of them would have faced. I vaguely remember Republicans sending out a memo telling their representatives not to go on the show.

<comment><USER3> That quote omits that during Bush's two terms, Lynn Cheney appeared on "The Daily Show."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel the article has completely missed the point. The "Rally to Restore Sanity" and Colbert's "March to Keep Fear Alive" are, at their core, satire, yes of Glen Beck's rally , but also of pretty much everything going on politically in this country right now.

John Stewart is a brilliant comedian who's core value is simple: life is too short to be so damn serious about everything. Lighten up, things are not that bad.

<comment><USER5> The OpEd is authoried by a guy who said that newspapers would have a better chance of survival if they removed all of their content from the web. A year and a half ago.</comment></comment>


Damncomma.js - because we all hate that damn comma... - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/exratione/damncomma

<comment><AUTHOR> Because we all hate that damn comma... What is the Damn Comma?

[ "a", "b", // <\---- this is! ]

{ x: "x", y: "y", // <\---- so is this! }

If you came to Javascript from PHP or Python, you no doubt feel much as I do about the damn comma. So here is a quick hack to make you feel that much better about life.

How Does it Work?

By introducing a little trivial preprocessing into require() and JSON.parse() to smooth away the damn commas. See /example for usage.

Why Would I Even Use This?

Because you enjoy losing an annoying language feature and gaining the nebulous uncertainty that comes with introducing possibly deep and unexpected bugs. After all, who doesn't enjoy preprocessing the source code before it goes anywhere near a compiler or interpreter, such that it bears no semblance to what was written? Why, some of the most successful languages in history are practically built on that foundation - you'll be standing on the shoulders of giants!</comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone use Fedora Server in production? - <AUTHOR> The general impression I get is that Fedora is really only used on desktop and RHEL or CentOS is used on the server (in terms of the "equivalent"). Where Ubuntu for example is effectively the same distro on desktop as it is on server. So my question is, does anyone actually use Fedora on servers in a production environment? Or is it too bleeding edge? <comment><USER2> Yes. We have a custom build application that requires newer libs that CentOS 7 naively provides as well as some kernel hooks not found in the 3.x kernel.

I've not encountered any problems so far, but we do fairly aggressive full stack testing before we deploy OS updates. Linux has gotten a lot more stable across the board, with Fedora being no exception. I wouldn't recommend running it in production it in a way where you couldn't just destroy the VM and rebuild (like a database server).

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, have been doing so since about Fedora 10, with about 30 VMs used for various purposes (i.e. it's not just a cluster of 30 identical systems).

Version upgrades in the early days weren't great, but recently (last 5 years or so) it's been totally fine.

Prior to that I used to do LTS-style distros, with version upgrades every 2 or 3 years, but I've found that testing the impact of an upgrade is far easier if you're doing incremental changes every 6-12 months.

</comment><comment><USER4> I didn't see any Fedora "production" servers in my system administration life. Since Fedora is a kind of test bed for RedHat development, it is not considered for serious/production servers.

Also, since CentOS is a well established free alternative to RHEL, the unwritten rules point to CentOS for RedHat based servers.

</comment><comment><USER5> I couldn't see why someone would use Fedora on a server just like no one would use a non LTS Ubuntu for a server.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see where you are coming from, but what is the point of creating Fedora Server releases and non-LTS Ubuntu Server releases? A minority use them sure but still..

<comment><USER6> Fedora is upstream for RHEL. So to have a new RHEL release, they need a Fedora server release.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It becomes a matter of support. Fedora releases are unsupported in about a year give or take. Which means you have to upgrade to the next one if you need security patches. That's only bad if the next release is unstable for your usecase or breaks something you rely on - s/w versions etc.

<comment><USER8> Are you saying that Fedora gets no security updates for a year after release? That seems not true, as far as some googling will show. The fixes may be unsupported by a company, but they're still fixes.

<comment><USER7> EOL releases don't get any updates. EOL happens in a year or so approximately. From [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DNF_system_upgrade](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DNF_system_upgrade) : Note that Fedora strongly recommends against ever running an end-of-life release on any production system, or any system connected to the public internet, in any circumstances. You should never allow a production Fedora deployment to reach end-of-life in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It all depends.

If you:

1\. Need features on the bleeding edge AND

2\. Are capable of fixing or working around any problems that come up AND

3\. Are willing to do so in terms of time and effort AND

4\. Have made a good business case that the benefits are worth the costs and risks

then, sure, go ahead, use Fedora on your servers. Same as anything else: make a carefully considered decision.

</comment><comment><USER10> Have seen many customers, and only did see it at laboratories inside university environments.

You're right, most rpm based companies go with centos or rhel.

<comment><USER11> SUSE is quite popular as well, at least here in Europe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A small handful, yes. We typically use CentOS for servers, but I know I spun up a couple of Linode instances using Fedora for one reason or another. Now that you mention it, I should probably look at killing those and move them to CentOS as well...

Now on desktop, that's a different story. Fedora is pretty much all I use there.

<comment><USER13> Just curious, slightly off topic -- for desktop what do you find to be valuable to use Fedora over say CentOS?

I know CentOS is traditionally for servers, but I've played with installing CentOS7 on a laptop for fun and side project work and it's worked out pretty well for me -- but it's also not my full time machine so I don't know if I'm just missing something.

<comment><USER12> CentOS probably actually works fine on desktop, I use Fedora out of habit as much as anything. If there's a technical reason, it's mostly just about having the "latest and greatest" in terms of drivers, desktop environments, dev tools, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> i generally dont like this mentality personally. use whatever youre comfortable with! i personally use arch linux on my servers

<comment><USER15> Same here! Mostly because I hate having to deal with different tools (or different versions of tools) on my notebook/desktop vs. my servers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes agree exactly. This is why I've tended to stick with Ubuntu on the desktop due to using Ubuntu based servers, but I really like Fedora and it works great on my laptop, but RHEL-based distros are different enough (older kernels, yum vs dnf, etc) to make me avoid running it full time.

<comment><USER16> Fedora really is a great workstation distro. The best part about using it is that you get to learn the tools you'll be using on your own and your employers CentOS/RHEL servers in a couple of years. We're about due for CentOS 8 and you'll probably feel a lot more comfortable with it as a recent Fedora user.

<comment><USER15> A huge contributor to my being comfortable with all server distros (RHEL, SLES, Debian, Ubuntu) is actually systemd. It has its issues, but its UI is pretty consistent. Log files for all applications are in one place, enabling/disabling/masking services works the same on all distros, and so on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yes, we're using Fedora Server in production, since for some uses we really want a modern userspace and kernel 4.15+.

</comment><comment><USER18> Arista gear has a Fedora server built into them.</comment>


Ubuntu running on a Nexus One - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2010/07/07/nexus-one-gets-linux/

<comment><USER2> These instructions do credit mine (with an "even more thanks" at the bottom), but I still feel like it is useful to point out that the only substantial difference between these instructions and the ones I published over a year ago for Debian on a G1 are that 1) some minimal changes were made for Debian->Ubuntu and 2) it is explained how to setup the X11 portions (I assumed people would know how to do that if they cared). How is this news, and why is it the second most popular news item at that? ;P Doesn't everyone know how to do this by now? (If you don't and need help, #android-root on Freenode has been providing support to anyone doing this sort of thing for a long time.)

<comment><USER3> Plus it's link bait, two click-throughs to get to the actual guide/instructions: [http://nexusonehacks.net/nexus-one-hacks/how-to-install- ubun...](http://nexusonehacks.net/nexus-one-hacks/how-to-install-ubuntu-on- your-nexus-oneandroid/)

<comment><USER4> The video itself convinced me no to go to his site. He opens his site in the browser just to get hung up on the "Sign up for my newsletter" pop-up that runs when the site loads.

      "Hey! Watch me demo this using my websight! Look at this
      annoying sign-up prompt that you get when you go to my
      websight!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's cute, but I don't think the "why" section is very well thought out.

 _I also see many uses in college engineering classes when they are studying Ubuntu/linux. Instead of heading to the lab or having dual-boot on their computer, students will be able to use their Nexus One/Android phone as a test device.

Even for web designers, their Android phone can become a portable test web server to test out their new designs._

So instead of running a free VMware player or SSH'ing to a Linux host, running Linux on their laptops in the first place, installing a simple webserver (for the designers) or buying a cheap Linux-powered netbook they'd opt to render a $500 phone useless for its intended purpose?

Let's just stick with "because I can", it's a perfectly good answer to "why".

<comment><USER6> Why do you say it's "useless for its intended purpose"? I see no reason that thing won't take calls. It's running _under_ Android, not in place of it.

The given reasons are indeed stupid, IMHO, but there are non-stupid reasons to be interested in a computer that is always with you, always connected to the internet, and fully Linux. The only limit at that point is your imagination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find it extremely funny that when he says, "Let's check out my site" he types in "nexusonehacks" into the google search box, instead of typing "nexusonehacks.net" in the address bar. I guess this problem isn't just grandma's, it's spread to at least semi-informed engineers doing stuff like putting Ubuntu on a Nexus One.

<comment><USER8> Simple expedience. This way, he avoided having to thumb ".net", a non-trivial reduction in aggravation.

<comment><USER7> And instead had to wait for his 3G network to make a bunch of round trips. Typing .net on an android phone really isn't that bad, and if he typed "nexusonehacks" with no problems, I don't see a problem with ".net"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Awesome to see an xterm on such a tiny device - all it needs is a bigger screen and a keyboard, and I can replace my eee PC.

Where are the ARM-based 3G netbooks?

<comment><USER10> They've been coming Any Day Now for the past year.

I don't think they're ever gonna show up. Face it: the value proposition when compared to x86 Windows netbooks is negative.

<comment><USER9> x86 Pros: (all to do with windows I think. Are these what you were thinking? Did I miss any?)

\- windows software

\- windows drivers (probably less important for a netbook, but I sure wish my scanner and laser printer and wifi hotspots all worked with my eee PC's xandros).

\- windows itself is familiar, and people know their way around it.

\- Microsoft sells windows for OEM notebooks really cheap (like $20 I think). An astute move.

\- x86 also runs lots of linux binaries (and other OSes), but I don't think this is a big factor since you can recompile (and eg ubuntu has done this for ARM already), and it's not a selling point for the 95% of people who don't use linux.

ARM Pros:

\- lower power consumption (but I believe the display is the main power drain at this point)

\- cheaper (but Intel mobile CPUs are priced competitively)

\- to combat "windows software": webapps seem to be used more than native apps these days (what % of your PC time is outside a browser? I myself am only outside a browser for compilation and vim).

\- to combat "windows drivers": a netbook is primarily mobile; and if it has 3G, it doesn't even need wifi compatibility.

\- to combat "windows familiarity": the browser is already familiar. If that works, the rest is of secondary importance

\- linux is cheaper than windows (though I'm not sure if that is true for special distributions with higher usability, eg. I'm sure xandros for the eee PC is sold for-profit).

Overall, it seems to be in flux: platform is shifting; price and power consumption must be considered over all components not just CPU.

However, there's a larger trend at work here: netbooks are waning in popularity. The eee PC is no longer available in the tiny 7 inch size, and the most popular one is 10 inch - merging closely with 12 inch laptops. The "tiny form-factor" space seems to be taken over by touchscreen smart phones (not just the iPhone, but also android and so on. Incredibly, the whole market is selling over 1,000,000 _per. day._ <http://trentwalton.com/2010/07/05/non- hover/> I actually can't quite believe this). The phone invades from below; the netbook retreats upmarket.

So... what I really want is not a netbook, but _a phone with keyboard and a larger screen._ Some of them already do have (tiny) keyboards, and you can buy them as addons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Firefox looks terribly hard to use this way. I also enjoyed how his popup on his site blocked everything he was doing and he had to go and close that.</comment>


Where is the platform? - <AUTHOR> http://www.mikealrogers.com/posts/where-is-the-platform.html <comment><USER2> Sweet baby rollerblading Jesus this misinformation is appalling.

> In Rails you would initialize all of your application when Rails is > initialized. You cannot depend on a Ruby or Python process being up for > longer than an HTTP request/response cycle so you use your preferred web > framework's init hooks to guide you.

This is a flagrant disregard for fact. You can in fact depend on the process for more than one response and to suggest otherwise is absurd. Rails asks you to put your initialization logic in an `initializer` because it is a useful abstraction: other people will know where to find it, you can guarantee the execution order in the presence of change, but nothing is stopping Rails developers from sticking their database connection creation in the `config.ru` file which boots their app.

> Frameworks like Rails and Django have stepped up and addressed all the needs > of an application, including state initialization, because they needed to.

Once more you are incorrect. These two frameworks chose to abstract application initialization, unlike other libraries in your strawman languages like Sinatra or Goliath, or Bottle, or Flask. Let's not posit these grand assumptions without considering the whole landscape, Mikeal. They didn't do this because they were forced to by the process model: they chose to provide a useful abstraction which, if usage is a metric of usefulness, seems to have been a wise choice.

> A web framework in node.js can, and should, do far less. It's a much easier > task than Ruby/Python because the process model will never be dictated by > HTTP requests.

If this is truely the case then why hasn't a node.js framework reached the staggering adoption of the frameworks you slander? I argue because it is distinctly _more_ difficult to create as productive a platform as Rails in node because it is that much more hostile a platform than ruby. The fact of the matter is working with an error and a value from a callback is harder than working with a try/catch and a return value for a brain. You cannot get around that until you raise your children without the knowledge of return values. Web frameworks in node "can and should" do less than their Ruby/Python counter parts because it is harder for us as humans to program around the paradigm it enforces. It certainly isn't impossible, but when community members scream about adhering to the node.js aesthetic to stifle innovations like Fibers and Deferreds, it grows to be more difficult.

You must also accept that Rails in particular isn't designed to be performant over all else. Rails makes me happy because it does what I expect, and node makes me cry because I'm back to managing race conditions in my head. My teammates and I all know where I might find the instantiation of the Redis connection in Rails, but I challenge you to tell me where the authentication database is instantiated in Dreadnot <https://github.com/racker/dreadnot>, which is a nodejs asthetic "compliant" express app. For that matter my teammates and I know where I might find the schema for the database, or the command line tasks, or the data to populate the test database with. Whats that you say? Express doesn't do any of those things because it doesn't need to? Right.

I support your claim that an asynchronous paradigm makes it easier to tie together data from other explicitly event based data spouts like those you mentioned, but in any language you pay the complexity cost. The way we've come with to mitigate this is through middleware stacks! Again, a useful abstraction that my teammates and I can use to confer about where to find various stages of the process. Don't ditch these ideas because they are present in whatever language you hate.

> don't box yourself in from the rest of the value being created in the node > community.

How else am I to integrate that value other than through a middleware stack? More event listeners? Oh, can't do control flow like you could in middleware. Dependency injection? Good thing its easy to inherit interfaces or override function definitions in JavaScript. Hey I know, lets put them in an asynchronous stack and make them conform to a simple API? Thats better than this middleware garbage.

<comment><USER3> I don't think that his remarks about Rails and Django should antagonize you. What motivated me to explore node.js is precisely the fact that I started to spend more and more of my time outside of Rails trying to push the envelope. Things like Cappucino from 280north showed that more and more of a web app was happening on the client and the server was being relegated to a fancy HTTP wrapper for a database.

His remarks about what node.js does well could be applied to just about any thin HTTP wrapper for Ruby, python and any other language. Rails and Django are still very productive if you're making dynamic websites. For web apps however, simply from a latency perspective it makes sense to push more stuff down to the client. At that level, you're looking at JavaScript frameworks of some sort being a far superior solution to the kind of thing that happens in Rails like this...

<http://railsforum.com/viewtopic.php?id=47404>

That's not to say Rails or Django suck, but web apps have been pushed to the next level. Rails was developed back when web apps meant more of a dumb terminal style system, with the server driving the display of the clients. Today web apps are more like 1990s style networked PCs where a fat client communicates with a server but the UX is driven client side.

There is no reason you can't write ruby or even Rails code that does this. But you'll have a ton of JavaScript (or Coffeescript or fill in the blank with something that compiles down to JS). Most frameworks treat this stuff as secondary to writing server side views and controllers, because it used to be, back when AJAX just meant dynamically update my drop down list.

EDIT: I forgot to add that Express makes the mistake of trying to apply Rails/Django/Sinatra style to node.js. Don't use node.js this way, it won't work well as just using the aforementioned frameworks.</comment></comment>