Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-twitter/trump-unblocks-more-twitter-users-after-u-s-court-ruling-idUSKCN1LE08Q <comment><USER2> In a slightly related topic to blocking people on twitter, Elon Musk is being investigated by the SEC for a whole whack of things he shouldn't have done.

1) Release material information without alerting the exchange to stop trading

and

2) and this is the tie in, releasing said information on his personal twitter account. Now this is normally fine based on RegFD but he has blocked people on twitter and RegFD is very clear that information can't not be disseminated in a way that isn't available to everyone at the same time.

being the two major ones pertinent to twitter.

Other things like claiming "funding secured" when your board, bankers and supposed funders all claim otherwise are also bad and likely to get him in more trouble, but are not important to the twitter disclosure.

The solution to this is to use the newswire like everyone else in the US stock market but if he wants to use twitter, and it looks like he may no longer be able to after the SEC is done, then he'll most likely not be able to block anyone from seeing his tweets.

I'm not sure how else you can fulfill the very reasonable requirement of equal disclosure to everyone otherwise.

<comment><USER3> In traditional media, there are different rules for public figures than there are for private citizens. I think the same thing should apply to Twitter. Verified accounts should not be able to block anyone.

<comment><USER4> In hindsight it is a little weird that blocking exists as a concept at all. When you tweet from a public account you are putting that information out into the public. It seems silly to try to prevent certain people from seeing that content and it is trivially easy for a user to circumvent that block by logging out or creating a new account. Muting seems like the most logical way for people to control who they interact with on Twitter.

<comment><USER5> Wasn't it removed at some point? I remember the nature of it changing but then being reversed due to negative responses. At the time I realized people were starting to use Twitter in ways not originally intended.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Someone have a readable version? Article shows up for 250ms on my screen then disappears leaving only the reuters header, tried switching browsers and everything

<comment><USER7> U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan ruled on May 23 that comments on the president's account, and those of other government officials, were public forums and that blocking Twitter Inc users for their views violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University on August 10 sent the Justice Department a list of 41 accounts that had remained blocked from Trump's @RealDonaldTrump account. The seven users who filed suit had their accounts unblocked in June.

The 41 blocked users include a film producer, screenwriter, photographer and author who had criticized President Trump or his policies. At least 20 of those individuals said on Twitter that Trump had unblocked them on Tuesday.

The 41 users were not a comprehensive list of those blocked by Trump. Rosie O'Donnell, a comedian, said on Twitter late Tuesday that she remained blocked.

The White House did not immediately comment late Tuesday.

The ruling has raised novel legal issues. The Internet Association, a trade group that represents Twitter, Facebook Inc, Amazon.com, and Alphabet Inc, filed a brief in the case earlier this month that did not back Trump or the blocked users but urged the court to "limit its decision to the unique facts of this case so that its decision does not reach further than necessary or unintentionally disrupt the modern, innovative Internet."

Trump has made his Twitter account, with 54.1 million followers, an integral and controversial part of his presidency, using it to promote his agenda, announce policy and attack critics. He has blocked many critics, preventing them from directly responding to his tweets.

The U.S. Justice Department said the ruling was "fundamentally misconceived" arguing Trump's account "belongs to Donald Trump in his personal capacity and is subject to his personal control, not the control of the government."

Buchwald rejected the argument that Trump's First Amendment rights allowed him to block people with whom he did not wish to interact.

Trump could "mute" users, meaning he would not see their tweets while they could still respond to his, she said, without violating their free speech rights.

The Internet Association said the court "should make clear that this case does not implicate the overwhelming majority of social media accounts throughout the Internet."

"Despite any First Amendment status that this court might find in the 'interactive spaces' associated with President Trump's account, Twitter retains authority to revoke access to both his account and the account of any user seeking

to comment on President Trump's account," the group said.

FILE PHOTO: The masthead of U.S. President Donald Trump's @realDonaldTrump Twitter account with a message about OPEC policy is seen on April 20, 2018. @realDonaldTrump/Handout via REUTERS It also warned "there is a considerable risk that any decision that may recognize isolated public forums on Twitter will be misunderstood to hold that Twitter, too, can be subject to First Amendment scrutiny. ...Twitter itself is not a state actor when it blocks or withdraws access to its account-holders or users, and it is therefore not subject to the First Amendment's restraints."

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Trump could "mute" users, meaning he would not see their tweets while they > could still respond to his, she said, without violating their free speech > rights.

Herein lies the problem: Trump does not want to block his critics from expressing their thoughts - he can't do that anyway. Nor can he truly block them from seeing his tweets. He wants their replies not to be part of the conversation started by his tweets. They can still comment, on their own pages, in their own articles, but their comments will not have similar visibility to the people that follow Donald Trump and related conversations.

And I think the court overreached to call it a violation of the rights to free speech. Because what the commenters really want is visibility, they want to piggy back on the large audience Trump's tweets have and exploit the way Twitter's algorithm highlights such replies, especially if they are 'considered important' though their own retweets, likes etc.

For example, I want to produce an one hour rant about how Donald Trump is a cretin that damages the US and the world, and have it uploaded on the White House website - an official communication tool of the US government - so that it has proper visibility. But the White House can rightfully deny that request without violating my freedom of speech. Twitter is a multi-user version of a similar software, which unlike whitehouse.gov is configured by default to allow such posts on other's users pages.

<comment><USER9> Sure, but that's exactly the problem. The President having direct control over the visibility of somoene's speech. It's one thing if someone simply isn't popular, and therefore their speech isn't widely seen. It's another for the President to specifically suppress your speech.

It really does constitute a first amendment violation, because it is an active decision to suppress the specific speech of specific individuals.

<comment><USER10> How does one account muting another suppress their speech? Everyone else still sees the tweet.

<comment><USER11> Apparently, muting is fine. Blocking prevents comments from showing up in replies. It's a form of moderation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I get blocking incoming messages. Why is there a feature for blocking publicly broadcast messages available even to annonymos users?

</comment><comment><USER13> Does this mean all public officials are not allowed to block twitter users? Or this court ruling only works on Trump?

<comment><USER14> Public officials would be fine blocking people on their personal accounts as long as they draw a clear line between their personal and official accounts. Trump ran afoul of the law here because he didn't do that.

<comment><USER15> Despite being downvotes, this is on the money. Had he maintained some kind of separation between himself and the office on Twitter, it'd have been fine, but he announces policy change first on Twitter, for example.

<comment><USER16> The issue is that he had no interest in using the @potus account, because his narcissism wanted the follower bump on his personal Twitter account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't know what is more absurd: that the president uses a private medium like twitter as a seemingly primary channel to communicate with the nation, or that a private entity is being forced to operate as a public, regulated forum.

<comment><USER18> >that the president uses a private medium like twitter as a seemingly primary channel to communicate with the nation

This has happened several times in the history, as new technologies became common. Newspapers, radio, (live) TV, social media. Each expansion into the new communication channel caused major change in campaigning style, and (re-)connected the candidates with the common citizen, as the new medium owners had relatively small influence on popular opinion by themselves [1]. Also each time the political old guard was caught by surprise, still focusing on the medium of yesteryear, very much like the 2016 presidential elections.

It's worth noting Obama was a social media savvy candidate and to large extent his campaign pre-saged what went down in the 2016 elections.

[1] IMO all the Twitters and Facebooks _owners_ still have relatively less sway than the TV and older media.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If Trump (or anyone) blocks you but you still want to read his tweets:

Chrome incognito mode or log out of Twitter

problem fixed lol

<comment><USER20> El Presidente should not have the power to exclude certain citizens from their communications.

<comment><USER21> You must not have read the post you are replying too.

<comment><USER20> Yea, I read it. It was a workaround for something that shouldn't happen in the first place. I assume you read it too?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So how does this fit into the "Twitter is a private company" argument when users complain about their free speech rights after being suspended?

If one's account is suspended they cannot - by definition - access Trump's tweets. This is similar reasoning as that given in court: "comments on the president's account [are] public forums and that blocking Twitter Inc users for their views violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution".

If Twitter suspends someone for their views are they violating free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution?

Obviously there's many ways to interact with Twitter while suspended - similarly there are many ways to read Trump's tweets while blocked.

I don't have a take, I'm just curious as to what this may lead to.

<comment><USER8> > If one's account is suspended they cannot - by definition - access Trump's > tweets.

Since that is clearly not true, one practical effect is that it's setting a very low bar the difficulty one should overcome before claiming they are excluded from official communication by the government.

If the necessity of logging out then logging back in (or merely opening an Incognito window with _a single click_ ) is a rights violation, then surely not having any kind of access to online communication by the government is a much worse violation. So the government should either cease to use the internet or should make it available to all citizens as a basic citizen right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The judiciary acting against Trump in this case may ultimately work against them. This judge just invented the concept of free speech rights on the internet, even on a private platform like Twitter.

I fully understand that legally this is very different the issue of Facebook or Twitter "censoring" conservatives (and as a conservative, I actually support their right as private companies to operate as they see fit), and that the judge's ruling is on the basis of access to information citing the first amendment right to free speech, but this ruling opens the door into an uncharted legal area.

Once the government gets intwined in these kinds of issues there are usually unforeseen consequences.

<comment><USER24> The amicus brief from the Internet Alliance makes that fear very clear: they demanded clarification that those decisions only apply to interactions with accounts that are clearly used as policy tool by the US Government.

For me, the fact that this is the personal account and not @potus is the outlying factor. The court was explicit that, because policy was announced from that account, it made it a Government tool, subject to a lot of rules. To me, this is a smart move, warning the next President: make sure that all communications where you use the power of the office are from @potus, because otherwise, National Archive will get into your DMs. If encourages to define a line between the West and the East Wing (the personal residency) and extend it to social media.

<comment><USER23> Yes but if the primary argument is based around the idea that everyone must have access to these "public channels" because their first amendment rights guarantee them a right to the information from the President and to be part of the conversation then a plausible argument can be made that Twitter, etc. cannot ban anyone from their site, or Facebook for that matter since Trump also uses it as a public forum. Even Nazis get their first amendment rights.

Furthermore this opens the door for a President to turn any private space into a "public forum" by using it for official government business.

The whole amicus just opens a Pandora's box and would likely be struck down if the President cared enough to challenge it. It benefits Trump more to let this ruling stand as he attempts to muscle Twitter, Facebook, etc. into changing the hate speech rules they use to suspend conservative accounts.

<comment><USER24> The argument in the First Amendment is that _the Government_ cannot limit the right to access those public channels. If the paper mill union thinks that your opinions are abhorrent, they can refuse to sell you paper. Even if the Government demands that all communication be written.

Otherwise, because you can reach the Government by phone, you logic would mean phone companies are not allow to cut you the service for not paying it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Building a Ray-Tracing 3D Renderer from Scratch Over a Weekend - <AUTHOR> http://www.superjer.com/pixelmachine/

<comment><USER2> Amazing</comment>


Ask HN: Is there an IM that supports code snippets? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> FB messenger supports it on desktop only. [0]

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13799800](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13799800)

(Sorry for the indirect sourcing)

</comment><comment> d--b Slack does: [https://get.slack.help/hc/en- us/articles/204145658-Creating-...](https://get.slack.help/hc/en- us/articles/204145658-Creating-a-Snippet)

<comment><USER3> Hipchat and other supports `/code <your code >`

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Discord does: wrap your code in `` inline or ``` for a block.

Language highlighting can be supplied too:

      ```cpp
      /* some C++ code here */
      ```

</comment><comment><USER5> Telegram does:

for one-liners: use `your one liner`

for multiline snippets: ``` multiline snippet ```

note there is no code highlight

</comment><comment><USER6> Skype does: Start your message with `!! ` (without the back ticks).

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, did not know this - thanks!</comment></comment>


CssConsole - easily make terminal-styled forms - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/michalkow/cssConsole

<comment><USER2> This is really cool and useful and I'd be disappointed to see many more comments condemning this for allegedly being skeuomorphic or some such.

Even with all the great new ways we have to style forms they're all still not too different from the default inputs that come with browsers in the end. This puts together a number of really neat ideas that I plan to totally pick apart and use individually.

It's all the little details that makes a form either dull and predictable or a total joy to use. You may not even notice it but the design and interactivity of a form really makes a big difference when it comes to your use of it. I truly believe the right form design makes a big impact on conversions and a person's impression of a site, especially one that makes heavy use of text input.

A lot of people neglect the typography of form inputs. The cursor is also something I've really been interested in changing. The shape and/or the color of it is something that can really delight a user.

Think of the text editors and word processors we use. Many are fairly consistent but you see much more variation of the editable area in desktop software than on the web. Apps like iA Writer, Mou, and others make the act of typing text so inviting that just having them open, at least for me and I assume many others, compels you to fill that space with text.

I love writing and I'm fascinated by the design of text input fields whether they be normal one line inputs or text areas so this project is something I'm excited to explore.

</comment><comment><USER3> The code for this thing needs a work:

[https://github.com/michalkow/cssConsole/blob/master/cssConso...](https://github.com/michalkow/cssConsole/blob/master/cssConsole.js#L141)

</comment><comment><USER4> Better examples would make this better eg: if you applied the terminal style to the rest of the login page for example so it looked like logging into linux looks.

It's cool that this exists and hopefully someone will have a use for it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Have you disabled the ability to select text on purpose? Because that is really annoying.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess you are talking about quasi-console example? You cannot select text, because I set auto-focus on input field.

<comment><USER5> none of the examples allow you to select text within the input field. (Chrome 22.0.1229.94 on OS X 10.6.8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> very cool. wish this had come out 2 weeks ago. we hacked together something from github borrowed code for www.cereal-and-code.com admittedly not pretty, functional enough for our audience.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure what the point of this is, it's more skeuomorphism that is becoming more and more misplaced in a digital age.

<comment><USER8> Console interfaces to console systems aren't "skeuomorphic".

<comment><USER9> Yes it is...

<comment><USER8> No, when the system you're interfacing to is itself a console, it is not "skeuomorphism" to present the user with a console interface.

Skeuomorphism is an aesthetic strategy for making software appear familiar or comfortable (or "retro" and stylish) by evoking parallel hardware/real-world solutions to the same problem. A console, on the other hand, is a way of interacting with software using typed commands.

An overlay for HN that presented it as a Renegade BBS instead of a series of web pages and web forms might be skeuomorphic, because that Renegade BBS interface would exist for aesthetic reasons only. But aesthetics aren't the reason you make a web SSH prompt look like a console.

<comment><USER9> >No, when the system you're interfacing to is itself a calendar/moleskin- notebook/radioknob, it is not "skeuomorphism" to present the user with a calendar/moleskin-notebook/radioknob interface.

That's the precise definition of skeuomorphism.

It's skeuomorphism not because it's a command line interface but because it's green and black, which is a nostalgia based design decision not a ux based one.

I can't remember exactly but there was some CRT based decision for earlier consoles to be green and black, that this console is aping it just screams skeuomorphism.

<comment><USER8> The example I looked at wasn't green-and-black; it was a monospace font, cool light grey on warm dark grey, with a colored directory listing. In other words, an xterm.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Startup releases amazing 45 deg maps of Stockholm - <AUTHOR> http://kartor.eniro.se/query?&what=map_adr&mop=aq&searchInMap=1&mapstate=1%3B18.068362270270395%3B59.327246116654436%3Bo%3B18.066675152431813%3B59.3260792105405%3B18.06986582897947%3B59.32828725286297%3B656%3B542&mapcomp=%3B%3B%3BRiksdagshuset%3B%3B%3B10012%3BSTOCKHOLM%3B%3B%3B%3B%3B18.0683650970459%3B59.32724380493164%3B0%3B0%3B%3BSTOCKHOLM%3Bmaps_place.2801938.21%3B0&geo_area=Riksdagshuset&stq=0&pis=0&searchInMap=1 <comment><USER2> Nice. There's also a service in Norway with similar photos:

<http://tinyurl.com/275ftv>

</comment><comment><USER3> I do not know if a yellow-page company that has existed since 1978 can be considered a startup...

Nice implementation though

<comment><USER4> LOL! Yes it's funny to hear eniro referred to as a 'start up'</comment></comment>


US public and private health spending vs. the world (graph) - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita#/media/File:OECD_health_expenditure_per_capita_by_country.svg <comment><AUTHOR> There is often discussions of US health policy on HN, and this is the most important chart to have in mind when discussing it. Right now, the US spends more public money per capita on healthcare than all countries which have universal public healthcare except Norway.</comment>


Characterizing Self-Healing Software Systems (2007) [pdf] - vezzy-fnord https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~angelos/Papers/2007/mmm-acns-self.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> I've sometimes wondered what would happen if a very careful and serious look were taken at what biological systems do for homeostasis. We might still be at the point where we don't feel--don't recognize the value yet--that we can spare the cycles, since in some sense you get parallelism for free in bio.

<comment> vezzy-fnord You might be interested in this: [https://www.cs.unm.edu/~forrest/publications/ieee- sp-96-unix...](https://www.cs.unm.edu/~forrest/publications/ieee- sp-96-unix.pdf)

It's a scheme for Unix process intrusion detection based on principles of a biological immune system.</comment></comment>


Offer HN: Anyone want the robotvm.com domain? - <AUTHOR>

I've been sitting on this domain name for ages and never wound up using it. I plan to let it expire, but if anyone wants it I'd be happy to give it to you for free (you may need to pay transfer fees).<p>If interested shoot me an email (in profile). If multiple people are interested, it'll go to the coolest (and most likely to realize) project! <comment><USER2> consider listing it on <http://hntrades.com/></comment>


Introducing itch.io: a marketplace for hosting indie games - <AUTHOR> http://leafo.net/posts/introducing_itchio.html <comment><USER3> I created itch.io, I posted it on hacker news back in march.

You can find the homepage here: [http://itch.io](http://itch.io)

Here's the traffic I've received (the initial spike is hacker news launch): [http://leafo.net/shotsnb/2013-12-25_11-16-16.png](http://leafo.net/shotsnb/2013-12-25_11-16-16.png)

A few milestones, I've paid out 12k so far to developers. I use pay what you want pricing, the average purchase is 1.79 above the minimum price of the game. 35% of all the money paid to developers on itch.io is "extra" money paid above the minimum price of the game.

Since launch I've primarily focused on adding features, hoping for organic growth to come along. (hence the huge flat line for months in the graph above) I've been starting to network more, mostly over twitter, which is really helping to bring the traffic up.

I'm very open about the process, feel free to ask me anything.

If you want to follow my development adventures you can follow me on twitter: [https://twitter.com/moonscript](https://twitter.com/moonscript)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great work leafo!

I just "reposted" this here, because i didn't know this cool website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow. I'm more amazed at the variety of libraries you've written for Lua than the end product itself (which is definitely an achievement on it's own) to be quite frank.

I mean, come on, a web framework for Lua AND and a scripting language that compiles to Lua AND Vim and ST2 syntax support for said scripting language? Seriously?

Great work. Oh and sorry for typing like a 3 year old in a candy store (with a laptop in hand?).

<comment><USER5> Seriously. That's very impressive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> From a user's point a view — itch.io is everything I need, and then more.

      - Upload your game & customize your game page in a few clicks, without artifical walls: check
      - Quickly generate download links for press/friends and monitor their download count: check
      - Manage sales / price / updates from the web interface: check (instead of having to e-mail people a-la Humble widget)
      - Check out analytics on page views / buys / etc. - <USER2>

Since the default page look wasn't enough for me, I simply used the widget on my game's website, and it works perfectly well.

I'm a happy camper so far :) With the revamped 'buyer profile' update that's coming, it'll be even better. Plus, leafo is always listening to his userbase!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm happy to see another DRM-free game marketplace/store.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is really nice, I'll almost definitely be using this in the future. I just have one question, how does downloading work? Can the purchaser download whenever they want or is it like uplay where you only have a month to download?

<comment><USER3> They get a private download url that can be used to download the latest version of the game whenever they want.

<comment><USER7> That's good. Is there a page that shows all your purchases like humble bundle eventually implemented? If you purchase a lot of games it could become a pain to keep a hold of all your URLs.

Another question occurs to me; Do you have a policy regarding early access to games? I saw you mention it on your twitter but your FAQ doesn't set out a requirement for games to be feature complete.

<comment><USER3> Right now all purchases are associated with an email address, you can request a list of your purchases to be emailed to you from this page: [http://itch.io/about/support](http://itch.io/about/support)

I'm very close to deploying a feature for registered users to view their purchases. I'm doing a revamp of user profiles and that's part of it.

Early access games are interesting, I think it's a realistic alternative to kickstarter. I don't have any rules regarding them, still thinking about it, but I very much encourage them.

<comment><USER7> I'm glad early access games are encouraged. I enjoy them. However I feel like they run the risk of having potential fans becoming bored relatively early in development and not staying hooked till release. Prison Architect was hit with that for me, I played it none of the updates since have added enough to keep me interested and testing.

Thank you for itch, it's a great service and I hope I can use it in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> looks like one of the best platforms for indie games! appreciate the effort to get this up together! :)

</comment><comment><USER9> Site looks clean but the 10% fee the site takes on every sale seems a bit high:

>First, itch.io will take 10% of the total, 10$. Then the payment provider will take $0.30 + 2.9% of the total price, $10. Leaving you with $8.41.

<comment><USER3> There's actually no fee now. And I'll be changing the pricing model in the future to something much more flexible and friendly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Note that this is from March 3, so itch.io has been up and running for some time now.

</comment><comment><USER11> Is this like the Marching Band? [0]

0: [http://itchyo.com/](http://itchyo.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> You should seriously consider to user another payment gateway other than PayPal.

<comment><USER3> I support PayPal, Amazon Payments and Stripe. The original blog post it a bit outdated as it's form when I originally launched.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Man, no linux games :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Fortunately, you are wrong: [http://itch.io/browse/platform- linux](http://itch.io/browse/platform-linux)

<comment><USER14> Its very easy to be wrong on this one, since there are 2 buttons for "win" and "mac", and none for linux

<comment><USER3> The linux button is not visible on the top if your resolution is too narrow, It's the least clicked button so I chop it off first. As for whether this is a good idea probably not.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


An interactive map of every war waged in history - <AUTHOR> http://www.conflicthistory.com/ <comment><USER2> This is pretty awesome</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for the best Phoenix/Elixir/Erlang Tutorials - <AUTHOR> Hi.
I am just starting out in web development and am looking for any tutorials on Phoenix/Elixir/Erlang. I am not familiar enough in the language to a) know if a tutorial will actually compile (I have had issues with this in the past) and b) how recent the tutorial needs to be given the latest updates to the language builds. Any and all tutorials where I can build an actual thing would be very useful to me as would resources such as "this in x minutes" that gives snippets of code that do something. I find large documentation sources good for exploring ideas later, but at first I need to get to compile something, if for nothing else than my own sanity.
Thank you in advance for your help :D <comment><USER2> Elixir School is an excellent start[1] How I Start with Jose Valim is good[2]. And you should come to our form[3].

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

[2][http://howistart.org/posts/elixir/1/index.html](http://howistart.org/posts/elixir/1/index.html)

[3][https://elixirforum.com/](https://elixirforum.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> The series of articles "Writing a Blog Engine in Phoenix and Elixir" [1] can be quite fast-paced at times, but in the end (and far before that, too) you'll have a blog platform that you can use and you'll understand how some of the different Phoenix & Elixir pieces fit together.

For a more thorough experience, however, I would absolutely recommend you to have a look at the books the Elixir community has produced. As you're specifically asking for tutorials (and not other sources for learning), my best recommendation would be Programming Phoenix [2], a book written by the creators of Elixir and Phoenix.

The book is structured so that most of it is focused on building one specific web application, so you can follow along from start to finish and build something far more interesting than just a run-of-the-mill blog (and learn a lot about Elixir and Phoenix in the progress).

[1] [https://hackernoon.com/introduction- fe138ac6079d](https://hackernoon.com/introduction-fe138ac6079d) [2] [https://pragprog.com/book/phoenix/programming- phoenix](https://pragprog.com/book/phoenix/programming-phoenix)

<comment><USER4> I too recommend the the "Programming Phoenix" book, really well written and informative book.

I totally love Phoenix and and Elixir, I wish I were able to work with it more! Good luck and enjoy :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm currently enjoying this Udemy course: [https://www.udemy.com/the-complete- elixir-and-phoenix-bootca...](https://www.udemy.com/the-complete-elixir-and- phoenix-bootcamp-and-tutorial/learn/v4/overview) (most of the time you can get it at a huge discount: $10US)

I have the Phoenix PragProg book but I found the tutorial more informative for beginners.

<comment><USER6> Author here, here's a $10 coupon: [https://www.udemy.com/the-complete-elixir- and-phoenix-bootca...](https://www.udemy.com/the-complete-elixir-and-phoenix- bootcamp-and-tutorial/?couponCode=LMFGOLD1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You should ask [https://www.reddit.com/r/elixir/](https://www.reddit.com/r/elixir/) It's a quiet but nice subbreddit.

</comment><comment><USER8> Plataformatec puts out a newsletter called the elixir radar. Check it out here:

[https://app.rdstation.com.br/mail/e7d43299-3fb4-4405-afbe-d6...](https://app.rdstation.com.br/mail/e7d43299-3fb4-4405-afbe-d6ad2fbb187e)

</comment><comment><USER9> [http://learnyousomeerlang.com](http://learnyousomeerlang.com)

</comment><comment><USER10> [https://www.dailydrip.com/topics/elixir](https://www.dailydrip.com/topics/elixir)

This course is free, recent and take you from beginning to the end.

</comment><comment><USER11> Here is a compiled list of resources for erlang: [https://www.tutorack.com/search?subject=erlang](https://www.tutorack.com/search?subject=erlang) and for elixir: [https://www.tutorack.com/search?subject=elixir](https://www.tutorack.com/search?subject=elixir) .

Disclaimer - I work at the above service

</comment><comment><USER12> > I am just starting out in web development and am looking for any tutorials > on Phoenix/Elixir/Erlang.

While I like Elixir a lot, I'm not sure that it's the best place to start. I'd find an ecosystem that is more stable and has more reliable resources available. Try starting with Rails or Django, maybe.

<comment><USER13> So its just that the ecosystem that is weaker compared to Rails? When would be a good point to learn Phoenix after having say gone down the road learning Rails.

<comment><USER14> I don't actually agree that the ecosystem is weaker than Rails. There may be fewer hex packages than Ruby gems, but after 10 years worth of doing my own Rails work and cleaning up other people's messes, I can safely say that most of the gems in the ecosystem are antithetical to well-designed modular software.

Bottom line, learning to write software well is hard, no matter what language you're in. What _is_ probably weaker in the Elixir sphere is the amount of blog posts that go deeper than "Yay elixir", but there are some really high- quality books that are a good subsitute. Here's the order I usually recommend for new Elixirians:

1) Dave Thomas' Programming Elixir 2) Sasa Juric ([http://theerlangelist.com/](http://theerlangelist.com/)) Elixir in Action (blog is also great) 3) Programming Phoenix (Jose Valim, Chris McCord, Bruce Tate) 4) Lance Halvorsen's Functional Web Development with Elixir, OTP, and Phoenix should probably be in there somewhere but I'm not sure where, as I haven't had a chance to read it yet. 5) Designing for Scalability with Erlang and OTP is a good followup when you're comfortable with the syntax and concepts from OTP

[1] [https://pragprog.com/book/elixir13/programming- elixir-1-3](https://pragprog.com/book/elixir13/programming-elixir-1-3)

[2] [https://www.manning.com/books/elixir-in- action?a_aid=sjuric](https://www.manning.com/books/elixir-in- action?a_aid=sjuric)

[3] [https://pragprog.com/book/phoenix/programming- phoenix](https://pragprog.com/book/phoenix/programming-phoenix)

[4] [https://pragprog.com/book/lhelph/functional-web- development-...](https://pragprog.com/book/lhelph/functional-web-development- with-elixir-otp-and-phoenix)

[5] [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920024149.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920024149.do)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This isn't a tutorial, it's a starter kit, and I'd like to see it grow and help people with elixir/phoenix:

[https://github.com/iNeedThis/phoenix- starter](https://github.com/iNeedThis/phoenix-starter)

</comment><comment><USER16> There is a good resource on github (Awesome Elixir), here is the link to the tutorials/books section

[https://github.com/h4cc/awesome- elixir#resources](https://github.com/h4cc/awesome-elixir#resources)

</comment><comment><USER17> This video course is just released, with early access pricing:

[https://pragmaticstudio.com/elixir](https://pragmaticstudio.com/elixir)

</comment><comment><USER18> I would echo other comments suggesting you start by learning Rails, but if you really want to learn Elixir/Phoenix first I would probably start by playing with Elixir, since Phoenix obscures a lot of things (similar to Ruby/Rails).

Here's a video which sweeps through some basics: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBNOavRoNL0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBNOavRoNL0)

<comment><USER19> Can you provide an example please of these obscured things in Phoenix? Don't want to sound harsh, just learning Phoenix as well.

<comment><USER20> They probably mean all the `using` macros, which can obscure where functions are coming from, and make it hard to get a grip on which functions are available in a given scope.

Having said that, Phoenix is nowhere near as 'magical' as rails.

<comment><USER21> Agreed. I found it confusing at first but once I understood that these things are laid out in web.ex it was quite easy to follow the chain to the original functions. I was also confused by where the helper functions came from, but when I realized that some of them are generated automatically from route definitions at complile time, things became clearer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> [http://elixirdose.com/](http://elixirdose.com/)

</comment><comment><USER23> im also interested in picking up elixir/phoenix but lately crystal lang have got me even more intrigued.

what sold me was the fact crystal was compatible with most ruby gems.

curious to hear, what do you guys think of crystal?

<comment><USER14> my 2c, i'm not really all that interested in a faster OO language. If I wanted that I'd move to Java, C#, or C++. Crystal is pretty close to Ruby, sure, but the devil is in the details, and I suspect that digging into gem compability is a bigger mess than it would seem at first glance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Go learn Rails or JavaScript first. Lots more resources, examples, and people to code with. Also, learning two languages, a web framework that is different from most, and OTP is a bit too much.</comment>


Most Awesome Use Of Technology EVER - <AUTHOR>

The other day I was walking back to the office after grabbing a coffee.  On a busy street corner a little distance away, I noticed a mildly attractive girl that I will call Anne.  I noticed another girl that I will call Chloe make eye contact with her.  I then saw Chloe sort of open her coat as she was walking by Anne and Anne slipped some "little package" into an inner pocket in Chloe's coat.  Then they bumped into each other and acted like it was accidental and greeted each other and acted as if they were friends randomly bumping into each other.  As far as TV has taught me, this was clearly a drug deal.
The COOL part is that I then saw Anne whip out her iPhone.  On top of her phone was a square credit card reader.  Chloe proceeded to then give Anne her credit card, which she swiped and completed a transaction.
Square, making corner drug deals possible since 2009. <comment><USER2> It seems to me that Anne needs some sort of cover business to be processing lots of Square CC transactions.

BTW, what does Anne being 'mildly attractive' have to do with anything?

<comment><USER3> If she wasn't mildly attractive, he wouldn't notice the whole thing, as it happened while he was checking her out ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't want to sound like a creeper....

<comment><USER3> Well, it's only natural to check out the opposite sex. It's like a part of our DNA or something. Nothing creepy about that.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


FinCEN Fines BTC-E $110M for Violating Anti-Money Laundering Laws - <AUTHOR> https://www.cyberscoop.com/canton-business-corporation-money-laundering-fincen-btc/ <comment><USER2> Will MtGox victims get anything from the thieves? Will FinCEN take its $110M before victims get bitcoins back? Did any of the stolen bitcoins go to that federal investigator convicted of stealing bitcoins? <USER2>
</comment><comment><USER3> that's great and all, but is the money going to go to people who lost money in various hacks and raids, or is it going to pad the pockets of US-based regulatory organizations?</comment>


Ask HN: Best project management tool? - <AUTHOR> Charged with setting up a digital team as part of a large bureaucratic organization and need a project management tool for digital projects. Though there might be a YC preferred tool or alum idea out there that'd work. Any idea? <comment><USER2> Might I suggest "Waltzing with bears" by Tom DeMarco. It's about, as he quotes, "Risk Management, or Project Management for Grown-ups".

Overly Bureaucratic cultures got that way for a reason, and it is rarely worth your time trying to beat them looking for the best task tracking software. Play for the next level - managing the risk from the projects.

But I have to suggest that if you are being allowed to choose your own task tracking tools, things are more flexible than might at first seem.

I suggest using fogbugz from Joel Spolsky. It gives simple task tracking, plays well with most other systems, has a decent API so you can script custom output. Atlassian works well too in those respects but fogbugz is just better thought out.

Keep the risk reports as an addendum to whatever reports you need to satisfy the external auditors - eventually you will be seen as first player in the fun new game

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! In general, this place is pretty rigid about what they're asking for and it's less about being able to manage my own tasks and more about having some overlord be able to track what we're doing at any one time.

But will totally read that book rec, appreciate it!

<comment><USER2> So why are they letting you choose the tool - I'm quite surprised there is not a standard if the place is quite rigid.

I would be tempted to ask the person(s) who will be acting as your overlords what they really want. Setting up digital teams is hard enough without having vague expectations and delivering wrong outcomes. If all they really want is a RAG Status for two projects then you need to talk about SLAs and recovery and mitigation options (risk management) not set up and learn another tool.

Do let me know more - really interested to get a feel for what your situation is. Just nosy is all :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> We've standardized on Github Issues as the PM core, Waffle to prioritize, and Slack to communicate. The tools largely stay out of the way, unlike many of the ones I've used in the past. Give the bureaucrats access to the appropriate rooms on Slack and keep 'em out of everything else.

I've found the right tool is so incredibly team/company specific that third party advice on these matters is often useless, but I'll share a few additional data points in case they help.

1) I recently helped a 40 person dev team rethink their dev tools and they chose to adopt Trello, roughly using this post as a guide: [https://community.uservoice.com/blog/trello-google-docs- prod...](https://community.uservoice.com/blog/trello-google-docs-product- management/)

The team was using Pivotal and will continue to do so, but adding the Trello layer on top allows the "bureaucratic overlords" the info they need to a) stay informed, and b) make better decisions on resource allocation.

2) If giving the business folks a window into dev progress is important, also check out Sprintly. They do a great job at that.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> Atlassian products are pretty popular and cheap if the team is <10 people. They are a bit slow. If it's more for development I went with Trac for my project, it's pretty minimal and fast.

<comment><USER5> Atlassian actually scales very well from my experience, even to 100+ person projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Breeze ([http://www.breeze.pm](http://www.breeze.pm)) - Trello and Basecamp mashup.

</comment><comment><USER7> This has been said multiple times here, but Trello.

</comment><comment><USER8> I use a combination of Trello + Google Drive

</comment><comment><USER9> Trello + Google Docs works like a champ

</comment><comment><USER10> basecamp? trello. plasticscm for files</comment>


Quick, Free, and Easy Ways to Market Your Startup - <AUTHOR> http://blog.yakgroups.com/2009/12/free-easy-and-quick-ways-to-market-your.html

<comment><USER2> Participation on forums as a method of direct customer acquisition _doesn't scale_. This isn't to say that it is valueless, but if you're recruiting your new trial users by individual persuasion you had darn well better me selling at Big Freaking Enterprise price points. Otherwise you are spending a huge amount of effort buying yourself a below minimum-wage job. Unless something has changed drastically in American college students in the last five years, you are probably not selling them enterprise software.

Ditto Q/A websites. By the way, you know they're essentially just massive funnels for low quality UGC to choke search engines with, right? (I will give an honorable exception to StackOverflow because some of their answers actually contain useful information that could not be gleaned from a Google search, and the embedded MMORPG is kind of fun.)

Put the content on your own darn page and disintermediate the middle man. (SEO is free (well, freeish) and _effective_ , although it is neither quick nor particularly easy.)

</comment><comment><USER3> There is a tradeoff between quick, free, easy and _effective_. Its impossible to learn such techniques on a blog, because any quick, free & easy method would draw the crowds, rendering it ineffective.

Besides, the author's suggestions involve spending time answering and searching forums. Not my definition of "quick".

<comment><USER4> I agree. It is not the "quickest" way to market by any stretch of the imagination. The author was probably trying to make the point that if you have more time than resources (ie money, contacts) here are methods you could try to get you started.

Maybe the title could have better indicated who was the intended audience: the startup truly just starting up.

Reading around a bit it is clear they fall into this category and are experimenting with different techniques and blogging about them. So maybe it wouldn't be worth the time investment for a startup even a bit further along, but maybe worth it for a startup to get their pageviews from 0 to...not 0.</comment></comment>


Facebook aims to knock Cisco down a peg with open network hardware - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/05/facebook-aims-to-knock-cisco-down-a-peg-with-open-network-hardware/

<comment><USER2> SDN and OpenFlow are great if you're a company full of programmers like Facebook and Google are. They approach everything as a software problem. For many (most?) other companies the network is just something that has to work and not a core part of their business. You need to be able to hire a network engineer that can come in cold, with a bunch of vendor certifications on their CV, and understand your network. Most places don't want to hire a programmer to sit around and code up new spanning tree algorithms for their network. They just want to plug servers in and have it work. The people that are interested in SDN are running into the limits of what OSPF/BGP/MPLS can do and are going to work around it but many places don't run networks that complex in the first place.

I think there are a lot of gains to be made from changing the industry though, for the first time the hardware is becoming a commodity made by Broadcom and Intel (Fulcrum) just like servers. In the past you bought Ciscos or Junipers to get the custom ASICs that made the thing work, those days are coming to and end. But I wouldn't count the big companies out just yet, they have a massive head start writing software and have huge service organisations and a whole industry full of engineers that have paid to get certified on their hardware and aren't going to want to see the value of that education fall to zero. The winners are going to be the hardware companies that really are software companies at heart - Juniper and Arista are the best examples. Cisco has always loved its hardware and been way behind on software development.

<comment><USER3> "They approach everything as a software problem. For many (most?) other companies the network is just something that has to work and not a core part of their business. You need to be able to hire a network engineer that can come in cold, with a bunch of vendor certifications on their CV, and understand your network. Most places don't want to hire a programmer to sit around and code up new spanning tree algorithms for their network. They just want to plug servers in and have it work"

Do you not need network engineers to implement Cisco products?

<comment><USER2> Yes but they aren't programmers. Configuring routers using vendor tools and standard protocols is a different thing to SDN where all bets are off. It's going to take a different skill set - some people will make the transition and some won't. All of the major network vendors (most notably Cisco) have put a lot of effort into their education programs so that there is a certified pool of talent out there to run their equipment. And all of those people have a vested interest in the status quo. The OpenFlow talks that I've attended have been presented by people that are openly hostile to network engineers which doesn't help the situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For those interested, Google has been using OpenFlow for some time now. This presentation by Urs Hölzle is about a year old:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLHJUfgxEO4>

Slides: [http://www.opennetsummit.org/archives/apr12/hoelzle-tue- open...](http://www.opennetsummit.org/archives/apr12/hoelzle-tue-openflow.pdf)

<comment><USER5> Funny how this didn't make as much waves back then when they announced it. I honestly think it went over everyone's head.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would love to buy a server that conforms to Open Compute and a rack that conforms to Open Rack. Where can I do that?

<comment><USER7> Quick google search turned up:

Penguin Computing: [http://www.penguincomputing.com/Products/OpenComputeSolution...](http://www.penguincomputing.com/Products/OpenComputeSolutions)

Silicon Mechanics: <http://www.siliconmechanics.com/c1345>

<comment><USER8> That Silicon Mechanics stuff is obsolete and the Penguin servers don't look like OCP at all.

<comment><USER9> Former Silicon Mechanics employee here.

While I was working there, we had between zero and no interest whatsoever from anybody in actually seriously trying to purchase anything OpenCompute.

Apparently some board members used to work with some higher-ups at Facebook, so the project is sticking around for a while despite the total lack of interest.

If there's any actual real-world interest in OpenCompute stuff, you HAVE to reach out and ask or it's going to disappear.

<comment><USER8> Good point, although I suspect people who are willing to reach out are going to the ODMs and people who have interest in clicking the "buy now" button cannot express that interest because there is no "buy now" button.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is just like the big server vendors (IBM, Dell and HP) losing all their sales to big companies, because they are buying their own designs direct from companies like ZT and Hyve.

What's left, storage systems?

<comment><USER11> Already being worked on really. It's more blob-storage oriented, but take a look at Openstack Swift if you haven't before or Ceph. Lots of other projects out there.

If you don't specifically mean block-storage type software and more open replacements for Netapp/EMC gear, someone else might be the better one to chime in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Long overdue.

Cisco is in trouble for a lot of reasons, but this might be the straw that breaks the backplane. Routers and switches make the world go 'round on Tasman Drive...

The timer is running on Chambers' resignation. I don't think he'll be fired -- he's too established and congenial -- but I also don't think he wants to run a company 1/3rd of Cisco's size

<comment><USER13> Agreed. Plus, this may be the coolest thing going on at Facebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> People don't buy Cisco just for the box with ports and blinky lights. They buy them for the supportability. As for a business they depend on here network to run and as mprovost mentioned you can take some one cold who has networking experience and If they have half a brain they should be able to fix your network. All Cisco has spawned a whole Eco system of vars who exist throughout the world and can have replacement parts onsite in 4 hours or less. Also Cisco provides code scrubs and a range of other features. So unless some vendor can build these magical switches and provide support they will never be a serious option in any environment.

</comment><comment><USER15> What is the advantage you get from having a sophisticated software stack on a top of rack switch? I was under the impression that you only really configured vlans and maybe a span port every now and again. Someone care to enlighten me?

<comment><USER16> In many common environments (single-tenant, fairly static configs) it probably doesn't make sense to use an SDN. However, if your environment looks more like EC2's, with lots of VMs/apps/services, lots of tenants, and lots of virtual networks, you need some way create an overlay that provides logical layer 2 switching beyond what simple VLANs can provide. For example, if I want to migrate a running VM from one host to another, it would be nice if the top of rack switches could be made aware of the change as it happens so CAM tables could be updated on the fly. Cisco and VMware do something similar today with the DVS and Nexus 1000v virtual switches, and a lot of the OpenFlow/SDN vendors are hoping to extend that type of dynamic orchestration out to physical switches as well.

<comment><USER17> > if I want to migrate a running VM from one host to another

If only you could do this on EC2. >_<</comment></comment></comment>


Webrtc iOS browser. Source Code Refused - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/ericsson-labs-web-rtc/jeVIBd1wjW8

<comment><AUTHOR> The only working ios implementation designed by sony ericsson labs. They pulled it from the app store for unknown reasons and will not release the source code for learning....</comment>


Ask HN: Information you would like in one central place - <AUTHOR> What scattered information would you love to have in one place? Like Clearbit or Google search.<p>People from different industries, please speak up! <comment><USER2> This is what I'm working on for local community resources - [http://doplaces.com](http://doplaces.com) The info is readily out there, and as you say there is info in lots of places... problem is some people don't really one solution especially if it isn't theirs.

For inspiration I googled around and looked at community search, event calendars, etc in the Portland area, sooo many variations, some good some not so good, some strictly limited in scope, other with specific goals that don't mesh with others.

It all sounds a lot easier to envision than achieve. My suggestion just find something you think you can do better and start eking out your niche.

</comment><comment><USER3> How to live.

A central place with 10-sentence (or less) summaries from the most important books. So I could read everything from this one place in 1 month and bootstrap myself as a human.

e.g. like Derek Sivers's book notes from [https://sivers.org/book](https://sivers.org/book) but shorter and denser.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have a number of things that I'm interested in from compiler and interpreter design to boating to things about the Raspberry Pi. While most of it I can find with Google, what I do is put the link and a snippet about the details and keep that in a personal wiki that I run. (Quick shout out to JSPWiki)

This lets me find things that are closer to what I want or have used before (where was that set of instructions on the Pi Sense Hat). The wiki allows me to categorize things for easier finding, but the built in search helps.

I also own books like Machinery's Handbook, ARRL Handbook (ham radio) and the CRC Handbook for quick data reference. All of that information is on the web, but the books bring it to something that is a little quicker for me to find.

</comment><comment><USER5> I use Safari Books Online to read technical books. I love the way I can search for a topic or keyword, and instantly read about it in a bunch of different books. I'd like that for _all_ books.

<comment><USER6> I subscribed this year for the first time and it really is wonderful. If they offer the Black Friday price annually, I think I'll keep it going.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Everything.

I hate having dozens of different inboxes. I hate having over 100 apps on my phone. I hate having to create over 1000 for different services and websites.

I want all data to be unified, and I understand that for this to work we need to think differently. We need a different language. That happens to be what I'm currently working on.</comment>


Facebook usage falling after privacy scandals, data suggests - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/20/facebook-usage-collapsed-since-scandal-data-shows <comment><USER2> The question is what the chart would have looked like without the privacy scandals. By most accounts, Facebook usage among key younger demographics was already on the decline long before all the bad press started, so I feel like a significant chunk of this "actions while on site" decline is natural churn rather than privacy-triggered platform exits.</comment>


Ask HN: How much equity for £45K - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I was wondering if anyone has advice and previous experience on how much equity to give away for £45K, which is around $70K in USD?<p>It's for early stage angel investment. <comment><USER2> Try a convertible debt note. YC has a sample contract for it somewhere (can't find it), it means you decide their equity later when you do a larger raise or other things happen.</comment>


Show HN: What about a Google Chrome Phone? - <AUTHOR> http://try.chromephone.mobi/

<comment><USER2> What about Android Laptop? I may come already come with thousands of apps...</comment>


No Morsel Too Minuscule for All-Consuming N.S.A. - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/world/no-morsel-too-minuscule-for-all-consuming-nsa.html

<comment><USER3> If our elected officials don't reign in the NSA and its peers while they can, they will find themselves the ones being governed.

The NSA is supposed to spy only on foreigners, not on domestic targets. It seems to have transformed foreign and domestic to mean outside and inside _the NSA_. Without accountability elected officials, why would they stop?

Our would-be leaders aren't leading. They are being led by their agencies, who are developing more and more power. It would seem the task falls on us to lead our elected officials if we hope to avoid a point of no return of NSA usurping power if we haven't already.

Americans have led its leaders to desired outcomes before -- civil rights, for example -- but results took generations and many jobs remain unfinished. Let's hope we have the fortitude on this one.

<comment><USER4> The difference between this circumstance and the civil rights circumstance is that there is no party that is strictly better off with the NSA limited.

African americans are strictly better off when having the right to vote as opposed to not having the right to vote. Same argument applies for women.

The terrorist threat argument cannot be ignored, and it's plausible to believe that many threats against american assets are hatched in the US and communicated in the US. Likewise, the privacy argument cannot be ignored. So in this case, we have a classic tradeoff.

To put it differently: are you better off dead or with the NSA?

<comment><USER5> " it's plausible to believe that many threats against american assets are hatched in the US and communicated in the US."

Where's the beef? There is none. If the NSA does not justify it's existence in an open forum then we must dismantle it.

And it is not enough to prove that the NSA intercepted an operation; it must be proven that, in the absence of the NSA, the same interception would not have occurred and that consequently something significantly evil would have occurred. There are plenty of other federal, state and local agencies that collect information in a legal and constitutionally-mandated manner and they have proven very effective.

"To put it differently: are you better off dead or with the NSA?"

Nonsensical scare-mongering.

<comment><USER6> > If the NSA does not justify it's existence in an open forum then we must > dismantle it.

Wow. Please justify your existence or face dismantlement.

<comment><USER7> If a government agency cannot justify it's existence, then why NOT dismantle it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > "Sigint professionals must hold the moral high ground, even as terrorists or > dictators seek to exploit our freedoms," the plan declares. "Some of our > adversaries will say or do anything to advance their cause; we will not."

Torture-cough-cough. Accept women and children as collateral killings in drone strikes-cough-cough. Violate our own Constitution-cough-cough.

Anything? Maybe not. Enough to be close enough.

It's easy to do anything when God is on your side.

<comment><USER9> True believers are scary -- on any side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Guardian should not have given that data to the NYT.

Can you count the number of important revelations they just casually released here? Just because it fit into their writing style of "making no definite statements, ever"?

It's essentially a raw data dump transmogrified into the annoying, inefficient writing of last centuries journalism. Give us the facts, give us the information, not your pointless hunches about "suspected terrorists".

</comment><comment><USER11> Bravo to the New York Times for putting out an article on the NSA that doesn't fall into the hype trap that Glenn Greenwald/The Guardian/Washington Post/etc. have all fallen into. All we've had up until now are documents showing how the NSA is collecting information and theorizing that the same technology is being used to collect on everyone. The only thing that does is stir up hype, fear and distrust of the government.

This is the kind of information that the public needs to ask informed questions on the NSA's activities, like: Is the collection actually valuable to national security? Is it of diplomatic value? Does that value outweigh the diplomatic costs when the collection is revealed? What are the financial costs of the collection? Are those costs worth it? What about all of the collection that is never analyzed? What aspects of the NSA's collection/funding/bureaucratic processes need to be changed to best fit the public interest?

<comment><USER11> I'll try to clarify since I'm being downmodded...

I've argued for some time that _how_ the NSA is collecting is not nearly as important as _who_ and _why_. The initial disclosure about the cell phone metadata was a legitimate call for concern - I agree with everyone on that. The cause for concern there wasn't _how_ they were gathering the data, it was that they were collecting on US citizens and we didn't know _why_. They left those questions to be answered by the administration, who has published a good deal of detail on the Section 215 collection program[1]. If their explanation is innacurate, then the ball is back in the media's court to pull evidence showing so from that collection of 50,000 documents that Snowden gave them. Meanwhile, Congress is continuing to debate this collection now.

My issue is with most of the other reporting. Most of the other leaks so far have revealed _how_ \- PRISM, XKeyScore, the Google/Yahoo collection, etc. What the media outlets have failed to do is show evidence linking this back to collection against ordinary citizens. Articles that would be more accurately titled something like "The NSA collects vast amounts of data using X" instead are presented as "The NSA collects vast amounts of Americans' data using X". They conflate collection authorities and present it as fact to the audience. For example, the NSA is permitted by law (under certain interpretations - <USER2> EFF is looking to challenge this in court) to collect American cell phone metadata under Section 215, but is expressly forbidden from collecting American data under FAA 702 authorities. Leaked slides show that the PRISM program is their mechanism for collecting FAA 702 data. Any article claiming that the NSA is collecting such-and-such data against Americans but then goes on to cite PRISM as evidence is conflating the evidence.

The _how_ matters to the people being targeted. The _who_ and _why_ matters to everyone regardless of targeting. If there is evidence linking these other programs back to collection against ordinary citizens, we need to know. If we are being targeted, we need to know the how to protect ourselves. What we've been getting, though, is descriptions of collection programs with "they're probably using this to collect on everyone!" sprinkled into the description. If these programs are only used to target legitimate foreign intelligence targets, then what have we ordinary citizens gained by knowing how? In revealing this, what have those being targeted learned and how does that affect national security, diplomacy, etc.?

If you read through the whole 7 pages of this article, they talk a good deal about who is being targeted and why; discuss the successes and failures, hint at what intelligence has had valuable impact and what hasn't; talk about the immense funding and bureaucratic stumbling blocks that has led to an excess of collection that has never been and may never be analyzed; etc., and do so in a manner that the administration says will not affect ongoing operations. I stand by my statement that this is important information that the public needs in order to ask informed questions to their elected representatives. I would ask why it took this many months to surface, and why it didn't come from The Guardian or the Washington Post, who have had this information for much longer.

If you disagree with me, I invite you to state your reasons why and continue with the conversation rather than downvote.

[1] [https://www.eff.org/document/administration-white-paper- sect...](https://www.eff.org/document/administration-white-paper- section-215-patriot-act)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Brings us back again to: "Were we foolish for expecting any privacy at all online?" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6668273](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6668273)

</comment><comment><USER13> quote: "There's no question that from a capability standpoint we probably dwarf everybody on the planet, just about, with perhaps the exception of Russia and China,"

Russia and China are the usual bugbears for the DoD. Over there, they spend roughly ~140 billion combined to the the DoD's ~750. What are the odds the ratio is similar with spying as well?

<comment><USER14> Russia and China have political systems that can bear orders of magnitude more casualties than ours. China could probably lose 10,000 soldiers in a war and face less political upheaval than the US would face losing 1,000 soldiers.</comment></comment>


X11 screen locking: a secure and modular approach - <AUTHOR> http://leahneukirchen.org/blog/archive/2020/01/x11-screen-locking-a-secure-and-modular-approach.html <comment><USER2> My experiences with screen locking on Linux over time, using various machines:

* The screen doesn't lock, and remains on while the lid is closed.

* The screen doesn't lock, but does turn off when the lid is closed.

* The screen locks, but the machine doesn't suspend when the lid is closed.

* The screen doesn't turn on after the lid is opened. Key commands work, though.

* The screen turns on after the lid is opened, but is blank (no unlock requestor).

* The machine doesn't resume from suspend, requiring a hard reset.

* The screen locker gets completely bypassed and you're dumped into the desktop (possibly a fresh desktop because the entire environment crashed and restarted).

Throw remote desktop into the mix and you're in for a world of hurt.

I just disable screen locking, and make suspend a manual operation to keep my sanity intact. The trackpad still stops responding sometimes though...

<comment><USER3> Interesting. The only issue I've encountered regarding screen locking was that in the past the desktop would be visible for a split second after opening the laptop lid and before the screenlock is displayed. Haven't seen that behaviour in couple years, I think. I use latest Ubuntu at home and latest Ubuntu LTS at work. Typically Lenovo and HP laptops, some Asus Zenbooks also in the past.

<comment><USER4> Interestingly this has _started_ happening on my mac, as of a few years ago. Obviously unrelated to Linux.

<comment><USER5> Is it really unrelated? I dunno, maybe my distaste for certain development styles is leading me to see things that aren't there, but I fell like the Linux Desktop hacked-together "it's good enough for me" way of doing things is creeping into paid OSs like Mac and Windows.

<comment><USER6> "The desktop" is suffering from the same complexity breakdown that AAA gaming suffers from. It's hard -- and getting harder -- to produce a cohesive properly developed and QA'd AAA game because gamers now expect something way beyond the capabilities of a surgical team of 10-50 people. To even ship a AAA title requires a team of hundreds and a budget of tens to hundreds of millions. and when you're dealing with an wndeavor that large, it's difficult to enforce quality and cohesiveness at every level throughout the development process.

Desktop environments are now reaching that threshold because users demand "modernity" and fanciness. They would be fantastically served by a desktop with the capabilities of Windows 9x, MacOS 7.x, or AmigaOS 3.x, but they demand much more than that, and the Windows and MacOS teams (and code bases!) have bloated in size to meet this demand.

These problems showed up much earlier in Linux because in order to release a desktop OS, you need someone exercising strict control over all aspects of the system from the kernel (and even lower than the kernel, like the hardware and firmware) all the way up to the shell, GUI toolkit, and other user-visible features. You need that leadership to define and prioritize work and even prioritize OS concerns. (For example, a desktop OS should handle keyboard/mouse interrupts IMMEDIATELY.) You need to enforce a _single_ set of user concerns on everybody, and fire anyone who doesn't play ball. And with Linux and open source, good luck getting everybody on the independent kernel, libc, X, and GUI projects to cooperate this way.

Me, I've always been content with like fvwm95 (or lately, i3) and whatever independent programs I needed for desktop tasks. And if I have to say 'pm- suspend' at a command prompt to put my computer tk sleep, so be it. I can see the many hands all making the world a slightly better place, and since their work is all loosely coupled, it all sort of hangs together and is very robust. Conventional desktops are brittle to start with, and made even more so under Linux because of those issues I mentioned.

<comment><USER5> > Desktop environments are now reaching that threshold because users demand > "modernity" and fanciness.

Do they? Do they really? Because I struggle to think of a change made in how I or anyone I know's desktop works that we actually think made things better. The last one I can think of was when Windows added start-typing-search to the start menu back in, what, 7?

I'm not dismissing that other people might be demanding some "modern"/"fancy" features, but if so what the heck are they? What I see is GUI redesign for the sake of it, or hiding of options in order to promote more "desired" (by the vendor) options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> These are good suggestions, but it seems that xsecurelock still can't provide a workaround for the bug where the screen doesn't lock if a popup menu happens to be open or the pointer is grabbed in any other way [0]. I couldn't find any good way to fix this and the only suggested workaround seems to be to switch to Wayland. I've switched on all of my machines (for this and for other reasons) but please make sure you know the details of this if you still use Xorg.

[0] [https://github.com/google/xsecurelock#known-security- issues](https://github.com/google/xsecurelock#known-security-issues)

<comment><USER8> There is no way to fix it. Also, X11 has several ways of writing keyloggers to get around input locks. I've written one here [https://github.com/magcius/keylog](https://github.com/magcius/keylog)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's worth reading this article as well, "Why screen lockers on X11 cannot be secure". I'm not sure how xsecurelock bypasses all of these issues.

[https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2015/01/why-screen- lo...](https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2015/01/why-screen-lockers- on-x11-cannot-be-secure/)

<comment><USER10> This mentions writing the screen lock UI in QT. jwz, maintainer of xscreensaver, had a rant about why he avoids the use of a big toolkit. The short version is he wants minimal code size because the consequence of a crash is to unlock the screen. The rant was prompted because of a real life gtk+ bug which made another screen locker crash.

I would find a link and include it but jwz is hostile to links with HN as a referrer.

<comment><USER7> The author mentions what they did to mitigate this in the previous post in the series, see the part about XScreenSaver: [https://blog.martin- graesslin.com/blog/2014/05/screenlocker-...](https://blog.martin- graesslin.com/blog/2014/05/screenlocker-architecture-in-plasma-next/)

<comment><USER10> > the screen content can be exposed. Consider for example the linked > screenshot.

That's funny, because the effect there is obviously intended, because, uh, it looks cool.

> For a screen saver of the last millennium this was a suitable solution

It's true that this particular effect was much more impressive in the 90s. Personally I use the 'blank' demo in xscreenaver. Which I guess I could replace with the script in TFA without noticing much.

> Today users also expect the current time, battery state and many more > information on the lock screen. We need to provide accessibility features > which is not possible in XScreenSaver.

I don't see why this is not possible with Xlib. Yes I have written Xlib code. Seems to be just an "omg xlib is so old" argument, and things being old does not by itself make them incorrect.

> We need DBus integration

> and logind integration

Says who? I certainly don't need these.

<comment><USER7> I don't have any opinion on those. Regardless of how you or I feel about any extra features, the author does seem to have an answer to the security concern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm getting by mostly by `xss-lock -- /usr/bin/slock` [https://github.com/kaihendry/dotfiles/blob/master/.xinitrc#L...](https://github.com/kaihendry/dotfiles/blob/master/.xinitrc#L66)

But yeah, one of those things that's surprisingly tricky to get right.

<comment><USER12> That's what I'm also recommending and working more/less reliably in terms of locking.

One thing which I'm also analysing recently is electron shit^H^H^Happs, triggering XSS (X screen saver) idle detection on some internal app events (not user actions!).

Being: if you dont move mouse, nor touch keyboard, plus you're receiving slack messages, XSS considers youre NOT idle, in result not allowing lock to work if relying on xss-idle-detection.

needing it as I'm expermineting with some cool X11 software from 199x. I added XSS support, as original detection engine(*) dont work reliably on modern X11.

Anyone?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I prefer [https://github.com/muennich/physlock](https://github.com/muennich/physlock)

It seems more secure as it bypasses X, and you can be sure (can you? I just assume this, I don't really know) your input is not even being passed to X when your screen is locked. In practice I've found it very reliable.

<comment><USER14> never been able to get it to work. I've been using i3lock on my machines, not sure how well it does on suspend, though.

<comment><USER15> I recommend to combine i3lock with xss-lock to get automatic screen locking on suspend:

xss-lock --transfer-sleep-lock -- i3lock --nofork

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> suckless' sloc works great and it's very customizable

[https://tools.suckless.org/slock/](https://tools.suckless.org/slock/)

<comment><USER17> > it's very customizable

Yeah, lots of features and options in this one. Worth a look! ;)

I rewrote it in Nim some time ago to see how it works, and it was a good lesson in X11 and POSIX APIs. Short and to the point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't understand why we don't just lock screens by switching to a different virtual terminal running a different X server. If the lock screen doesn't share an X server with the user session, a lot less information can leak. This entirely-separate-session approach is what Windows uses, and it works great there.

<comment><USER19> It's a separate desktop, but _not_ a separate window-station, let alone a separate _session_. The clipboard and atom table are not separate, because they belong to the window station; and a session is something rather different on Windows NT.

* [http://jdebp.uk./FGA/windows-nt-session.html](http://jdebp.uk./FGA/windows-nt-session.html)

<comment><USER18> Ah, right. I remembered incorrectly. My larger question stands though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Linux kernel needs to support something like a secure attention sequence.

</comment><comment><USER21> openbsd, apmd, xidle, slock (base has xlock, but slock is much smaller (no fX), thus, maybe more reliable.</comment>


Show HN: Early-stage Yahoo Pipes spiritual successor - <AUTHOR> https://www.pipes.digital/ <comment><USER2> I've some experience in visual programming languages (both professional and in my studies) and I advise _against_ the graph-form where you connect nodes and edges.

This does not mean that text is the only way to implement programs (and even if you connect nodes, you're still programming), but maybe a good local optimum is in-between, e.g. interactive shells like Jupyter's Notebook and the Mathematica interface. I know there is LabView, the Blender-Editor and AFAIK some Unreal-Engine tool that uses this model, but bigger programs seem really incomprehensible to me.

It's always easy to show-case 5 programs in these node-&-edge editors, but I do not think it is the best approach for visual languages, as one should not under-estimate the layout problems and how to represent information in boxes.

So, I am all for new ideas in visual programming, but I am not sure if the "free canvas" approach works.

<comment><USER3> I work for SnapLogic (an enterprise visual integration product) - the "free canvas" works great for us with live preview of results/data; here's an example linking a third-party code review tool's webhooks with JIRA: [https://i.imgur.com/gNr1gGD.png](https://i.imgur.com/gNr1gGD.png)

All of our integrations can be converted into a API with a click of a button too.

<comment><USER2> The image shows some of the problems quite well. E.g. the following things are not clear to me:

[0] I suppose Rhombi symbolize choice. But where are the branches? What if "Already Done" is true? Or does the else-branch enforce implicit fail-state somehow?

[1] What's the difference between parallelograms and squares?

[2] What's the scope of the "For Each Issue"?

[3] Why is the second output of "Copy Webhook" named ("output1"), but not the others? Are they implicit default output (maybe "output0")?

[4] What happens with longer pipelines? Do you wrap or have a scrollbar?

Furthermore the size of the modules have same size, so one gets into rendering issues (e.g. the names of some nodes don't fit the "boxes"). Sorry, I didn't want to sound harsh, I just think that visual programming is not automatically simpler, just because it doesn't use text (at least _directly_ \- one has also to name "modules"). You also don't use the "free-canvas" in its extreme form I described (where you can rearrange everything), as you've e.g. implicit edges between nodes, which is a good idea probably, as users get a feeling about the complexity of pipelines by measuring their length (which would not work if there are different lengths for edges).

<comment><USER3> [0] Kind of. It's a filter, so "false" means "do not advance". We have different Snaps for If-Else (the Snap would have 2+ outputs and you would route to a respective "branch" of the pipeline)

[1] They denote different categories - parallelogram = READ (i.e fetch data from somewhere), square = Transform (modify existing data)

[2] For Each Issue - for each object in the specific, targeted array of incoming JSON object... (basically split the array chosen)

[3] Correct

[4] You can adjust the rotation of each output, so it could snake around. You also can drag the output of one to the input of another that are not side-by- side and it will mark them as connected, so you have layout in any way. Finally, you could split up into separate pipelines and use another Snap to tie them together.

I don't think you are being harsh - I'm not sure there is any way for a visual programming language to be both powerful enough to permit massive customizations and concise enough to be immediately readable. Some level of interpretation has to be done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Node-RED yet: [http://nodered.org/](http://nodered.org/)

Node.js-based with a Pipes-like visual wiring interface. It's quite popular with the Raspberry Pi and Arduino crowd. Lot's of input and output plugins, and you can drop into Node scripting when necessary. I quite like it.

<comment><USER5> Node Red is very cool, especially for IOT type apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is cool, but I feel like Zapier, IFTTT and their open source equivalents have moved far past Yahoo Pipes. How do you see this stacking up?

<comment><USER7> As far as I Kno, IFTTT only supports simple if a: then b triggers, you cannot have multiple inputs or outputs. Do zapier or others improve on this?

<comment><USER8> Yeah, Zapier has multi-step workflows [https://zapier.com/learn/getting- started-guide/multi-step-za...](https://zapier.com/learn/getting-started- guide/multi-step-zaps/).

<comment><USER9> This doesn't include if true do A else do B logic right? I see they have filters, maybe this can be abused somehow?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd be interested to know which blocks and functionality is missing to support the use cases you used Yahoo Pipes for! And of course general feedback is always welcome.

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice. It's not very clear that you need to link the pipeline to the right-hand side. (I can't remember if you had to do that on Yahoo, it's been so long!). It's particularly a problem on a wide screen because the eye starts on the left, and I built my pipeline on the left and it took me a while to figure that out.

But well done on scratching an itch that lots of people have had!

<comment><AUTHOR> > _I can 't remember if you had to do that on Yahoo, it's been so long!_

I have a screenshot on my disk: [https://imgur.com/a/TExPX](https://imgur.com/a/TExPX) \- it had a bigger pipe output block at the bottom. I can see how the red circle alone is not enough, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice. Anyone else here ever use Ab Initio? It's an ETL tool for transferring data between databases and manipulating in the process. Seems very similar.

I've always wanted to recreate something with those ideas because it was a very efficient cross between visualizing code and writing it. This looks pretty similar although for different data sources.

</comment><comment><USER12> Interesting, have to take a proper look tomorrow. We've done similar things with NoFlo ([https://noflojs.org](https://noflojs.org))

</comment><comment><USER13> would like to suggest a couple of "starter pipes" \- samples to more easily illustrate some possibilities.

</comment><comment><USER14> This discussion is very interesting to us, as we are building a workflow system for collaborative learning (students might do an activity individually, the output of that activity is aggregated and transformed, students are grouped based on an algorithm that processes data from the previous activity, output from one activity is redistributed to another activity, etc). (quick demo: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ9AyzLOn3Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ9AyzLOn3Q))

So this discussion about visual languages, data transformation etc, is very relevant to us. One thing we're working on is how to make data transformation more intuitive... Right now we are using JSONPath to enable selection of one field to aggregate on (ie. you have a form where people input ideas, and another activity that takes a list of ideas, so you can input a JSONPath for the field to get aggregated). However, looking at JMESPath ([http://jmespath.org/examples.html](http://jmespath.org/examples.html)), it looks much more powerful. Has anyone seen any examples of graphical interfaces for going from one data representation to another, with preview, selecting fields, aggregation etc?

</comment><comment><USER15> Unrelated to pipes specifically but along the same lines, I feel like app developers ought to conform to a pre-defined standard like schema.org for their respective content so that everything can be inter-operable in theory. That way if I'm using Microsoft Todo or Google Keep or whatever, the potential for Google Assistant or Siri or Cortana to add to whichever Todo App I'm using is already there.

What are the drawbacks behind something like this?

<comment><USER16> No incentive. If your service is used through something else then you are easily replaceable and users don't spend time in your app.

edit: Just to be clear, I'd love that too. Hopefully it will start happening when everything is driven more by micropayments rather than ads. I'd imagine you'll have "gui companies" and "service companies".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I used to use yahoo pipes for a few twitter bots I had. There was an rss to twitter webapp that I hooked up and it was fully automated for years before it stopped working.

I didn't see the thin red circle on the right, which I now understand to be the output. I almost gave up before realizing my mistake.

</comment><comment><USER18> Using yahoo! pipes I created a lifestream application[0] some years ago that won an honorable mention for the 10k javascript challenge. It was nice to have a dynamic site that required no server work on my part.

Updating it for this would probably be a neat way to test out the RSS feed usage.

[0]:[https://github.com/Xeoncross/MicroStream](https://github.com/Xeoncross/MicroStream)

</comment><comment><USER19> Very interesting, I do think that visual programming tends to work better when constrained to a small niche of computing, that's the hypothesis behind [https://github.com/AlvarBer/persimmon](https://github.com/AlvarBer/persimmon)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wish I had that when I was still doing machine learning. Looks nice!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'd love something like this that I can run locally. From looking at the comments, it looks like Node-RED and NoFlo are two possibilities.

I was intrigued by Yahoo Pipes a while back, but didn't want to invest much in it in case it was shut down. Sadly, that worry was well founded.

</comment><comment><USER21> I archived all the public yahoo pipes as Python modules -- before it was shut down #oldhardrives

<comment><USER22> I'm not sure what the licensing on that would be; would it be possible for you to share that archive?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Neat. Any chance of adding JSON processing where you can pick a key (ala `jq`[0]) and then combine it with RSS or other JSON or what have you?

[0] [https://stedolan.github.io/jq/](https://stedolan.github.io/jq/)

<comment><USER24> I've made something[1] that used "jq for everything" in the past.

RequestHub was initially a way to connect webhooks from one service to API calls to another services, using jq scripting for all the customization.

Later I realized it could be used for processing anything (even text!), not only webhooks, but it was too late. Maybe someday I'll do a Yahoo Pipes revival that will just use jq for scripting inside the boxes.

[1]: [http://archive.is/nGyH3](http://archive.is/nGyH3), [https://github.com/fiatjaf/requesthub.xyz](https://github.com/fiatjaf/requesthub.xyz)

<comment><USER25> Why did you discontinue requesthub?

<comment><USER24> I couldn't imagine a way to monetize it, and it was using all my free Heroku hours.

What do you think? Do you think it had a bright future?

<comment><USER25> I think Zapier and the likes fill this need pretty well. I wonder if there's still a niche for more lower-level hosted service for plumbing webhooks though. It might be a rather small niche unless you figure out a way to offer better value than those guys.

One thing that definitely makes it hard is the chicken&egg situation. I can't imagine many people paying for a service (or even using it for free), unless it has a solid reputation and is highly available. Otherwise, they'll either host something on their own, or use one of the bigger players.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Where I work we have a custom made system that was inspired by Yahoo Pipes. We are in the slow process of rewriting it.

Also this reminds me of and IoT solution I was shown recently.

[https://nodered.org/](https://nodered.org/)

</comment><comment><USER27> What about Talend ETL?

You connect and configure various compontents (Input, Output and Manipulation) to achieve you desired dataflow. It's compiled to Java and really Vera versatile.

</comment><comment><USER28> Do you plan on supporting scraping content via css selectors/xpath/regex?

<comment><USER29> You can check out my library riko [1, 2]. While it doesn't have a slick GUI, it _does_ support most of the original yahoo pipes (including xpath [3] and regex [4]).

[1] [https://github.com/nerevu/riko](https://github.com/nerevu/riko)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpn2G3TAAYY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpn2G3TAAYY)

[3] [https://github.com/nerevu/riko/blob/master/riko/modules/xpat...](https://github.com/nerevu/riko/blob/master/riko/modules/xpathfetchpage.py)

[4] [https://github.com/nerevu/riko/blob/master/riko/modules/rege...](https://github.com/nerevu/riko/blob/master/riko/modules/regex.py)

<comment><USER28> Hey, just saw your comment. Looks like a pretty slick library; would something like this run in a jupyter/azure notebook?

<comment><USER29> Most definitely [1].

[1] [http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/reubano/riko- tutorial/blo...](http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/reubano/riko- tutorial/blob/master/Tutorial.ipynb)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Nice. Used to love Yahoo! Pipes What's your data model look like?

<comment><AUTHOR> Every pipe is a recursive list of blocks, like a tree. Basically, a pipe has a starting block that produces the pipe output. To do that it calls the process function of its input block, which again run their input blocks, ..., the feed blocks serve as tree leaves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Cool product, and great to see this get traction! My new company is very much inspired by Yahoo pipes and making something similar. Would love to chat about your approach!

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely, I'll send you a mail

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I really loved Yahoo Pipes - Was ahead of its time if you ask me..Built some very cool automations on top of this. Basically was IFTTT and Zapier well before them.

</comment><comment><USER33> Pipes was a handy tool, hope this project keeps up!

</comment><comment><USER34> I thought RSS had died a rather unfortunate and inconvenient death... am I wrong and it's still been kicking all this time?

<comment><USER35> Still very much alive, just not quite as popular due to the death of Google Reader.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Looks interesting but the editor didn't give me any feedback/output and the login email never arrived.

<comment><AUTHOR> So far you need to log in to save the pipe and then see the output.

Shoot me a mail to email@example.com (or to the one in my HN profile) if you want to try to sort out the non-arriving email. Or if you have a gmail address, log in with that, portier (the login system) supports the OIDC flow for gmail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Its interesting and I do applaud your work, but I'll probably just stick to Apache Nifi with its flexibility.

<comment><USER38> How do you like NiFi? I work at Alteryx (we have a closed source visual data integration tool targeted at business analysts and data scientists), but was actually investigating NiFi quite heavily before I joined my current company. It didn't appear to me to have much adoption, but that was over a year ago. It certainly looked extremely compelling as a tool targeted at advanced users.

<comment><USER37> So I would agree that its not intended to be a tool that you could use like yahoo pipes. To the extent that it requires programming, I guess I would agree it requires an advanced user.

Putting that aside, I would say the Nifi is easy to work with, performant with large datasets, and I personally love the notifications I get when tasks get screwed up, etc. I would not suggest using this to expose data flow to your user as its UI is not really geared towards folks who are programming averse (to a certain extent).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Pipes was awesome. Would it have killed them to just let it go free instead? Yahoo engineering did a lot cool of stuff.

</comment><comment><USER40> Doesn't seem to work on mobile Safari.

</comment><comment><USER41> couple of code examples would be nice

</comment><comment><USER42> Dead (could not connect to server)

<comment><AUTHOR> Please try again. It should be up (works for me and [http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/www.pipes.digital](http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/www.pipes.digital) supports that). Though I forgot scaling up the droplet it is running on before posting here...

<comment><USER42> huh, it fails immediately for me about 5/6 times on iOS Safari. weird

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Librarians are gonna go wild over this...</comment>