George Orwell is Amazon's latest target in battle against Hachette - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/orwell-is-amazons-latest-target-in-battle-against-hachette <comment><USER2> Orwell was not an economist. I think this is really silly. How about instead of quoting random opinions, let's look into what actually happened in the real world? For one thing I don't think the book industry has suffered much since the introduction of the Penguin books?

This reminds me of the piracy debate. Was Microsoft helped or hurt by the rampant piracy of the Windows OS? I'm pretty sure they were helped a lot (how else achieve 99% lock in), but presumably the point could be argued back and forth indefinitely (people who would argue either point would be plentiful to find).

Also the discussion is completely besides the point. Two businesses can't agree on a price. Neither of the two has a moral obligation to sell books for a certain price. If they don't agree, they simply don't sell books to each other. Why does that even concern anybody else?

</comment><comment><USER3> Neither Amazon nor Hachette have interest of reader or writer. They are just trying to side on the reader or picture their interest as a interest to reader or writer.

<comment><USER4> Making your customers happy is important.

Amazon's customers are readers.

Hachette's customers are large bookstores.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The NYT has really gone off the rails on this topic.

<comment><USER6> It's a big stretch for the NYT to jump on the Orwell reference and make it the basis of an entire article, even if it's for their blog and not their paper. That said, it was crass of Amazon to invoke Orwell in the first place. They referenced him largely of context, cherry picked a quote, and dredged him up primarily for the emotional connotations of his name. Someone was going to call them out on it.

Because "1984" is the first and only thing 99% of people know about George Orwell, bringing his name into a discussion has long been the literary equivalent of _reductio ad Hitlerum_. "Even George Orwell said...," or "George Orwell himself wrote..." are often the hallmarks of lazy and facile arguments. Amazon's Orwell reference was similarly lame.

I have no love for Hachette in this battle. At the same time, I don't find Amazon to be a wholly likable or compelling protagonist. Its PR strategies have been hamfisted, ceding a lot of moral appeal to Hachette that Hachette has not earned and does not deserve.

That this whole thing plays out, day by day, in a paper of record like the NYT is a consequence of the NYT's close orbit to the publishing world. Many of its writers are represented by the same agencies that rep Hachette's writers, and some are probably Hachette writers themselves.

<comment><USER4> Also, a group headed by Hachette author Douglas Preston just bought a $100K full-page ad in the NYT.

Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

<comment><USER6> In fairness, I don't think $100k buys you the opinion of the NYT. I give the paper a little bit more credit than that. Besides, it's been airing this blow- by-blow for months now, long before that ad buy.

To the extent the NYT is inclined to take Hachette's side of the fight, that's largely because its staff and editors are much closer to Hachette, geographically, professionally, and socially. It's still not a great reason, of course, but it's not pay-for-play.

<comment><USER4> There's also the fluff piece the NYT ran on Preston a couple of days ago about poor little Preston, channeling Thoreau and fighting the evil 'Zon from his "writing shack" (that just happens to be located on 300 acres of land that also features a luxury home and is located in a Maine community where a "cottage" goes for $1.5 million).

If Amazon is dishonest for invoking Orwell, it pales in comparison to the David and Goliath spin that the Times has been putting on this story, where David consists of millionaire celeb authors like Preston, James Patterson, et al and mega-billion conglomerates like Lagadere (Hachette), Bertelsmann, CBS, and Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp.

You're right that this is largely New York "literary" snobbery at work. I just wish they wouldn't use the "poor little author" spin.

Note that Amazon has made three separate offers to mitigate the effect of this dispute on authors. Hachette has rejected all three, and has offered none of its own.

It's pretty clear who's really "hurting authors" here.

Actually that's been clear for quite a long time, given that Amazon pays authors who deal with them direct 70% of retail and doesn't require that the author sign up for the life of the copyright, while Hachette and their ilk typically pay 12%-15% of retail and do require the authors to sign over their rights for the life of the copyright.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, like I said, I'm not very sympathetic to Hachette's position. Especially with the revelation that a large part of its ebook margins come not just from cost savings over print, but from disproportionately higher cuts of what could be authors' royalties.

This certainly isn't a case of David vs. Goliath. This is a case of an elderly, infirm Goliath having its lunch eaten by a younger, hungrier, smarter Goliath. The reason I'm not completely sympathetic to Amazon, either, is that, as a writer, I'm not in favor of _any_ Goliath's controlling the market. Trading one master for another is progress of a sort, and it's necessary progress. But time will tell if Amazon's new world order is indeed better for writers.

Many writers _are_ being held hostage in this battle, especially those in Hachette's fold. It's one thing for folks like Patterson and Preston to take up Hachette's call to arms from their ivory towers, but the vast majority of writers are struggling to get by. Even the majority of successfully published writers. For every James Patterson, making tens of millions of dollars a year, you have thousands of midlisters who are lucky to make $50k. You even have "bestsellers" who are struggling to get by. (Indeed, the concept of "bestseller" differs remarkably from genre to genre, and category to category. Let us not assume that anyone who's earned the title "NYT Bestselling Author" is making James Patterson scratch.)

As a group, authors have never held a lot of influence over their own fates. That just seems to be the way the market forces work. I can tell you that a lot of writers would rather take their chances in a crowded field with a 70% cut than in a beauty contest with a 10-15% cut. At the same time, they're scared about the prospect of monopoly over distribution. For them, this is sort of like a choice between the devil they know and the devil they don't.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Yahoo and Mozilla Partner to Bring Yahoo Search to Firefox - <AUTHOR> http://yahoo.tumblr.com/1313

<comment><USER2> This is not getting then attention it deserves. Google is now providing less funding to Mozilla.

Does anyone actually use yahoo for search? I stopped around 1998 or so, when Altavista was king.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a big deal. For too long, Mozilla has been reliant on Google for funding, even as Google Chrome competes with Firefox.

I'm absolutely rooting for Yahoo and Mozilla, as consumer-friendly underdogs. Let's remember that Yahoo was secretly fighting for user privacy in FISA courts for years: [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/11/yahoo-nsa- lawsu...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/11/yahoo-nsa-lawsuit- documents-fine-user-data-refusal)</comment>


Replicants and robots: what can the ancient Greeks teach us? - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/replicants-and-robots-what-can-the-ancient-greeks-teach-us <comment><AUTHOR> One good reason to keep mixing a bit of liberal arts into our education</comment>


Why Tech Leadership Has a Bigger Race Than Gender Problem - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/tech-leadership-race-problem/ <comment><USER2> See, when I read stuff from racist "scientists" like Charles Murray and people like Sam Harris who validate them who influence guys like James Damore, they never address hiring discrimination but yet use employment and income as a measure of success.</comment>


Devicons, an iconic font made for developers - <AUTHOR> http://vorillaz.github.io/devicons <comment><USER2> I wish icon fonts used ligatures to select the right glyph, rather than meaningless codepoints (e.g. you can make font automagically replace characters "git" with the Git logo).

Otherwise these fonts end up being used in a non-accessible way (I browse with webfonts disabled and keep seeing boxes instead of images, with no fallback or a useless display:none'd fallback).

<comment><USER3> PUA characters are use as a proper way in order to render in all browsers. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8052346](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8052346)

<comment><USER2> Although private use area is technically a proper way to add a custom symbol to Unicode font/text, it's not the best way from accessibility perspective.

For users who can't see the font the character will be completely meaningless. Instead of getting e.g. "Compatible with Linux!" they'll get "Compatible with reserved symbol U+E001!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "an iconic font made for developers, code jedis, ninjas, HTTPsters, evangelists and nerds."

Urgh. Why do people do this?

<comment><USER3> I thought that would be a good catchphrase to grab some attention. My apologies.

<comment><USER5> I thought it was pretty funny. It seemed absurd enough that I thought it was totally tongue-in-cheek.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Has anyone cleared the corporate logo use with a lawyer? In particular, keep in mind the following regarding the Apple logo:

        #   NOTE: The graphic image associated with the Apple logo character
        #   is not authorized for use without permission of Apple, and
        #   unauthorized use might constitute trademark infringement.

[http://www.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/VENDORS/APPLE/ROMAN.T...](http://www.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/VENDORS/APPLE/ROMAN.TXT)

<comment><USER3> I am aware of that. As the developer of Devicons I am not claiming any rights upon the logos.

Also take a look at the note at the very bottom of the page:

Note: All brand icons are trademarks of their respective owners. The use of these trademarks does not indicate endorsement of the trademark holder by the author, nor vice versa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The author instructs loading the entire font package, which is 35KB, onto you website. I don't think this is a good approach from a performance perspective. I recommend using tools like Fontello to create custom font files with just the icons you need.

<comment><USER8> Not web dev question - I'm curious, what is the advantage of using a font rather than images?

<comment><USER9> Font files are vector "images" which means your icons will scale gracefully to any size. This is probably the main advantage.

Depending on the complexity I imagine fonts would also be smaller than corresponding bitmaps although I never actually checked.

<comment><USER10> SVG are vector graphics that can be rendered in all modern browsers:

[http://caniuse.com/#feat=svg-img](http://caniuse.com/#feat=svg-img)

You do miss out on the recoloring and any other font styling options though.

<comment><USER11> Actually you can style SVG with CSS

        #yourSVG {
            fill: red;
            stroke: blue;
        }

<comment><USER10> mind = blown

<comment><USER12> The problem is that, until <svg use> is standardized and supported, the only way to style svg elements is if you include them in your markup (or use something like Iconic's SVG Injector).

There's a tradeoff between inlining (or rather, including them server-side) and calling them as , background-image, or fonts. The size, http requests, caching , and styling all play a role.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Some of the logos reproduced in this belong to very litigatious companies. I don't think this will live too long.

</comment><comment><USER14> Pay attention when using the Rails logo:

[http://www.rubyinside.com/david-heinemeier-hansson-says- no-t...](http://www.rubyinside.com/david-heinemeier-hansson-says-no-to-use-of- rails-logo-567.html)

<comment><USER15> I was going to say this... Any person designing this kind of logo collections should ask first. Legal troubles can arise. Sad but true...

<comment><USER16> I don't think the responsibility to get legal permission is on the creator of the collection, but on the person using the logo instead.

<comment><USER14> You think or you are sure?

The creator of the collection is using the logo by putting it on the web page. Also, the logo is licensed under MIT, which he probably cannot do, if he doesn't hold the rights.

<comment><USER17> 'Using the logo' is different from 'using the logo in a manner infringing the holder's trademark'.

Simply displaying an Apple logo, for example, and saying 'this is the Apple logo' is perfectly valid. Pretending to _be_ Apple or Apple-endorsed is a different matter.

<comment><USER14> Publishing it as MIT is, on the other hand, a different cup of tea.

I am not disagreeing that this is possible, but the parent wasn't sure of the correct position, either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The thin font used for the tags has readability issues. Is this a Windows-only problem?

Screen: [https://twitter.com/simevidas/status/490104115826270208](https://twitter.com/simevidas/status/490104115826270208)

<comment><USER18> I'm using chromium, with directwrite enabled and it looks exactly like you're describing. Thin fonts with Chrome/Chromium are always a problem.

<comment><USER7> Fonts were a problem in Chrome before it started using DirectWrite, but in this case, DirectWrite seems to be unable to render the font properly as the issue is present in IE too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I am not sure I get it - it seems to be logos of well known tech companies or their well known products.

Why would I want to use someone else's icon ?

<comment><USER20> Perhaps if you were building a web version of your CV you might want to use icons to symbolise knowledge.

<comment><USER21> Doing that comes with a huge Google indexing penalty.

<comment><USER22> Do tell...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's pretty impressive that they've managed to make a site that shows off some icons hang on a loading indicator.

</comment><comment><USER24> In the browser support section, shouldn't "IE up to 8" be "IE down to 8"?

<comment><USER25> "IE 8 and up."

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Wow, so much negativity here on HN. I think it's a pretty cool set of icons.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is it just me or is this page painfully slow on mobile...? I have a Nexus 5.

<comment><USER28> Terrible on iPad. I eventually tried to interact with the spinning loading pencil it was taking so long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I was disappointed this was just logos, rather than an icon font for developers. I was expecting useful icons that aren't a part of sets like Glyphicon (databases, servers, etc.).

<comment><USER3> That is not the initial purpose of Devicons. You can try some other free font set such as Ionicons or Font Awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I, for one, welcome all progress towards the inevitable vector future without unnecessary pixelation. :)

I think the Go gopher is, rather than a trademark, a copyrighted work under a CC-Attribution license. The attribution to make this use of it legit could just be adding "Go gopher by Renee French, under CC-Attribution license" to the Note section. (See [http://blog.golang.org/gopher.](http://blog.golang.org/gopher.))

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Link to GitHub repos: [https://github.com/vorillaz/devicons](https://github.com/vorillaz/devicons)

</comment><comment><USER31> Someone please make a logo quiz for this!

</comment><comment><USER32> There seems to be an embarrassingly large number of people who think web developers == developers.

<comment><USER33> I think it's all about context. It's been my experience that "developer" is mostly applied to web developers and "programmer" is most often used when talking about desktop application development. In this context I don't think adding the word "web" before "developer" makes it any more clear as it's web developers who mostly use icon fonts and web developers who are the target audience here.

<comment><USER34> I'm not convinced that's how the split works - I don't think I've ever heard the phrase ".NET programmer", for example, and it was originally a desktop tech.

See also: "App developer", "Java developer", "mobile developer", etc. Contrast: "assembly programmer", "COBOL programmer".

Also, this guy is the authority, and he was talking to desktop devs: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8To-6VIJZRE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8To-6VIJZRE)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> a title attribute would be nice, I honestly have no idea what half of this icons are :)

</comment><comment><USER36> The .NET logo is wrong, this is not the C#/MS logo. The logo used comes from a Brit publication called ".net" which has nothing to do with MS .NET.

<comment><USER37> Well, the selector is "devicons-netmagazine" so it seems intentional

<comment><USER38> It's funny that there is a logo for the magazine, but not the programming framework the magazine is actually about.

<comment><USER39> .net magazine isn't about .net. It is (or at least was, I'm not sure if it's still going) a magazine about web development.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Or you know, you could just use plain images.

</comment><comment><USER41> What software was used to design these icons, i.e. how would one go about adding a new icon?

</comment><comment><USER42> Why bother? Isn't it better just to donate these icons to Fontawesome?

</comment><comment><USER43> PostgreSQL! ...man

</comment><comment><USER44> Very nice, thank you. Will definantly use it.

</comment><comment><USER45> Why Yahoo but no Twitter/Facebook?

<comment><USER3> I have grabbed developer related websites/social networks. Furthermore Facebook and Twitter are already in use in other icon fonts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> This is totally awesome.

</comment><comment><USER47> Thanks and Great work
Download and extract the repository

Copy the devicons.css to your project

Copy the fonts folder to your project
</comment>


Samsung's $100,000 Challenge to Developers - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/09/12/samsung-tv-app-challenge/

<comment><USER2> Blog spam, actual source:

<http://mashable.com/2011/09/12/samsung-tv-app-challenge/>

Utter theft of article word for word.

</comment><comment><USER3> So I have one of these TVs. Well actually I have a Blueray player that implements Samsung's SmartTV platform.

It's quite a nice platform - mostly HTML5, with some bits (eg video) implemented in Javascript instead.

If you want to get started with it, the instructions for installing the Plex app are pretty good: [http://plexforsamsung.pbworks.com/w/page/40870394/How- To%20i...](http://plexforsamsung.pbworks.com/w/page/40870394/How- To%20install%20Plex%20Widget)

</comment><comment><USER4> I took a look at the SDK when I bought my Samsung TV. It seems very bizarre because there are 3 different ways you can write an app:

HTML4/CSS2 (no, really.), Flash (ugh.), Lua/SDL (supposedly more for games than apps..)

I'm sure $100,000 will tempt someone, but browsing the SDK really reinforced in my head that hardware companies don't do a great job at software. I'm not sure quite how they wound up with this software stack, but it would have made a lot more sense to me if they embedded Gecko and had a single way to access the TV API and write HTML5/CSS3 apps.

<comment><USER3> That's not true - or maybe you have an older TV? I think they changed platforms about 12 months ago.

The current platform looks like this: HTML 5/DOM 2/CSS 3/Javascript 1.8/Flash 10.1 [1]

As I mentioned elsewhere, I don't think their HTML 5 video implementation works properly and you need to use Javascript instead, but basically they have done what you want (except I think it is Webkit, not Gecko)

[1] [http://www.samsungdforum.com/Board/FeaturesSpec?rnd=11091322...](http://www.samsungdforum.com/Board/FeaturesSpec?rnd=11091322543979047)

<comment><USER4> It looks like the switch just happened then. Looking at the SDK 2.5 documents post on the forum, somewhere around 2011-7-29. I'm glad they sorted that out, then.. I'll have to take a peek to see if they cleaned up the experience.</comment></comment></comment>


ShipBuilder: Go make your deployments smooth sailing - <AUTHOR> http://shipbuilder.io

<comment><USER2> I've been waiting for someone to build something that would let me ditch Heroku and handle deployments and on my own infrastructure! This seems very promising

<comment><USER3> This looks incredibly useful!

In the repo (github.com/sendhub/shipbuilder) I see that it is written in go- lang -- which is quickly becoming my favorite programming language.

It also uses HAProxy, which I've used many times in the past and it is easily the most powerful software load-balancer in existence.

What a potent combination of technology...will definitely be keeping an eye or two on this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is awesome. So glad you did this!

</comment><comment><USER5> I dub thee, Heroku-Killer.</comment>


Githubbub: The real-time GitHub commit tracker - <AUTHOR> http://githubbub.com/ <comment><USER2> Please sanitise the commit messages! In case you're wondering, yes that was me who said hello to everyone via a JS alert box.. ;-)

<comment><USER2> Ugh.. and then some idiot redirects people to a porn site. I hope it wasn't someone from here after viewing my comment :-(</comment></comment>


Paul Allen recently bought a MiG-29  - <AUTHOR> http://www.techeye.net/hardware/microsofts-paul-allen-steps-up-military-build-up

<comment><USER2> The headline is basically all of the content there is in the article. The rest is just digs at Paul Allen, Microsoft, and a few countries. Shameful.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am sure Paul Allen gives to worthy causes too, but it does look a tad awkward to me when he's building a museum of old planes while Bill Gates is pouring billions into buying mosquito nets and aids medication for 3rd world countries.

<comment><USER3> Paul Allen is worth a fraction of what Bill Gates is worth.

And Bill has a not-exactly cheap mansion and assorted toys to play with. He just _also_ had gobs of money left over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The Newest Google Plane Is A Fighter Jet"

[http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/10/the-newest-google- pla...](http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/10/the-newest-google-plane-is-a- fighter-jet-)

<comment><USER5> Google got a 'trainer', Paul got an actual fighter :-) But more seriously or not seriously, if you've got the cash you can collect unusual things. I've visiting private collections of train locomotives and military tanks (different collectors). The common theme is fascination with the technology and being able to 'touch it' as it were.

Back at the turn of the century when everyone was worried about Y2K and DEC^h^h^hCompaq^h^h^h^h^h^hHP wouldn't certify PDP-11's or some VAXen Y2K compliant a lot of them showed up on scrap market. Eric Smith drove with an Air-ride tractor trailer to two or three Bay Area data centers to pick up PDP-11/70's that Bank of America was throwing out (literally he showed up, they powered them down, and carried them out to the truck) because of this even through they were working fine.

Not really hacker news material though, maybe a poll "What would you collect if you had too much money?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 'thomasxstewart' on that page had some good words to say.</comment>


Ask HN: What Programming Do I need for a Startup? - <AUTHOR>

With posts today on the youth employment crisis and "why you need a startup" I want to know what I should focus on. In high school and college I did a good bit of HTML on my own. I took C++ classes and decked out my TI-83 with calculator BASIC. I was 1 class short of a CS Minor. Not a complete noob at least.
I've played around with iPhone programming and Eclipse for Android but haven't gone full-bore. What I really want to know is if I have a few ideas, what do I need to realize them?
Say I wanted to make an Instagram clone (I don't). I'd need to know the App OS language and then MySQL or another database for the app to access? Plus a web interface of some kind to also interface with the database. And I feel like PHP or Ruby come into play.
I want to learn and have some background to build on but don't have any idea what it is I need to learn to actually go through the process. <comment><USER2> If I were you, I'd pick a project and then cater your learning to that project. with mobile vs web apps, we're talking about completely different languages.

<comment><USER3> This. What matters most is what you want to create. When you've decided this, it almost doesn't matter what you program it in as long as you can get it done. If you're confused about which one to pick, just pick a widely adopted language that has a lot of community support and you'll have more than enough to learn with.

<comment><AUTHOR> edit: bcrawford covered this as I was writing. It's difficult sometimes to find a path of what steps there are...so many choices.

Ok. Really stupid question time then. I understand most of what I'm working on for the mobile app.

Am I right about MySQL as a direction for what the app talks to?

I might try another project first that doesn't need outside data to get my feet wet. I may be getting ahead of myself here.

<comment><USER3> There definitely are a lot of choices-they can be paralyzing. I agree with bcrawford on this one-pick a language to do the web services portion first. Then move on to the next level of the stack. In your case this would be either the data level (MySql) or mobile app level (iPhone).

I don't know if this helps, but if I were starting from scratch today I'd choose either Ruby or Python for the web services level. They're fun, easy to learn languages that are powerful enough to get the job done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like a good plan of attack. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> IMHO: Don't take on learning everything at once. For instance, if you want to make a mobile app that hits a php web service with a mysql db, start with web service and its language. You can dummy data inputs that would normally come from the mobile app via CLI or GET/POSTs and instead of writing to a DB, just echo what you would be writing to a log somewhere.

To me, anyway, it's like a foreign language. If you try to learn 3 in tandem, you may end up slowing yourself down. Get to a reasonable degree of fluency in one and the others will be easier.

Also, I don't recommend having a mobile app interface with your database directly. Always expose a web service and have it interface with your db. The great part about this work is that it sets you up for exposing a public API in the future, should you decide.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'm trying to take it slow but have a goal that I'm working towards for the future.

App first with dummy data seems like a doable first step.</comment></comment>


Utah is Ending Homelessness by Giving People Homes - <AUTHOR> http://www.nationofchange.org/utah-ending-homelessness-giving-people-homes-1390056183 <comment><USER2> This is not a whole lot different from public housing projects that are subsidize by the state, just more subsidized.

The system works in a number of countries. As far as I know, it works. Eventually the only people on the street are people who are unable to cope/deal with the system and who fall through the cracks, such as mentally ill.

Of course one of the costs of any state welfare system is the tragedy of the commons. For example people keeping houses they no longer need and people not maintaing the houses they are in. I would be surprised if the former social problems of slums are improved by bricks and mortar.

I was in South Africa for a vacation recently. They are giving inhabitants of shanty towns small houses. Once they have moved them out they bulldoze the now-vacated land to build more houses.

Someone I met asked me if I could give an old woman a ride to her government provided house at the edge of a shanty town she used to live in. She told me that the solar heating water system installed by the government on all these houses does not work. I could see her house, which could not have been more than 5 years old, was already decaying. I suspect corrupt builders/politicians cheaping out. It was also clear that some of the ever newer houses were quickly deteriorating and were blending into the slum across the small dirt road that separated them, mostly from lack of rudimentary maintenance.

I could not help but wonder what those housing developments will look like in 10 years or 15 years and if the government will have to start rebuilding them at a huge expense.

<comment><USER3> _Eventually the only people on the street are people who are unable to cope /deal with the system and who fall through the cracks, such as mentally ill._

This is a pretty variable part too, perhaps even more important than the actual "official" level of benefits. One of the bigger differences I've noticed moving from the U.S. to Denmark is not so much that the social welfare system is more generous (though that's true also), but especially that it's more proactive and less bureaucratic. If someone mentally ill is in need of support, qualifies for it, and cannot navigate the system themselves, a social worker will help them out. If they need somewhere to live and can't rent their own apartment, they'll get helped out there too. Someone will literally rent them an apartment, take them to it, make sure they settle in, and then check back later.

In the U.S., none of that is true. I have some pretty recent experience with an American uncle who has advanced M.S. and has gotten basically no useful support. For a while he was unable to live alone, but officially the government didn't give a shit, so he did anyway, and injured himself regularly. He alternated between living in his apartment for a few weeks at a time, and ending up in the emergency room several times per month each time he injured himself. You might think: at this point, shouldn't he move to an assisted-living facility? It'd actually be more cost-effective, but nope, neither SSI Disability nor Medicare Disability cover that. SSI Disability will pay his rent to live at home, and Medicare Disability will pay his hospital visits, but neither will pay for him to move to somewhere that makes more sense.

He would probably have ended up homeless or dead if some family members hadn't agreed to take over power of attorney, navigate the system on his behalf, and find money to pay for his rent. The U.S.'s joke of a stingy social system surely hasn't done anything on that front.

<comment><USER4> > but especially that it's more proactive

this was my main shock moving to work in the US. americans sell the image of workaholics. but...

from dmv, cafe baristas, to VPs on the fortune 500 companies... nobody, bloody nobody will move a finger to do something that is not strictly what they are being paid to do.

sometimes i think that if any of my coworkers would drop a pen during a meeting, it would be socially acceptable as an excuse for not taking any notes, since it is not his job to pick up a pen.

<comment><USER5> if your looking for charitable people amongst those in cafes and such your looking in the wrong place. People who tend to those locations are more concerned about themselves than others.

You want to find the people that care, go to the Goodwills, Salvation Army stores, and the like. Its not hard to find the charitable people if you would bother to look where they are instead of where you are comfortable.

Besides, based on personal experience, many of the very higher ups in the companies I work for put more time into charity than the techies ever did.

<comment><USER4> i wasn't even slightly referring to charity. Well, i was replying to one comment about social workers doing their job, but my comment was 100% about doing a job, regardless of field.

e.g. the baristas in the US will not pick up a napkin to you if you ask for the napkins, he will usually nod in the general direction of the pile of napkins.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is yet another short term positive but long term disaster.

1) This creates an incentive to become "homeless." Now any kid can drop out of college, declare himself homeless, and get a free apartment. While it takes time for such incentives to kick in, this WILL happen.

2) This creates classic housing projects problems which inevitably turn into centers for crime, over time deteriorating neighborhoods and creating tension that is bad for everyone.

Every generation, we forget how terribly housing projects work out.

The solution is a basic income, possibly phased out slowly with earned income increases. This allows for a mobility and rational incentives housing projects can not provide.

Public housing projects perpetuate poverty and crime and this will end no differently. It's great that some homeless people have a place to sleep today - just wait 10 or 20 years and see how it turns out. Look at projects and low income housing in every city across the world.

<comment><USER7> Just for the record, we have a similar system in New Zealand, and it works great.

1) In New Zealand there isn't really any incentive to become homeless, because a case worker takes you through an assessment process. This ensures that houses are only given to people who are truly homeless. Furthermore, I suspect you might underestimate the negative social image associated with living in state housing. If you need it, no-one really looks down on you (our current Prime Minister grew up in state housing), but if you're a young 20-something with a job, state housing is certainly not 'cool'.

2) The housing projects I have witnessed have not turned into centres for crime. It probably helps that these housing projects are really just clusters of 5-20 individual houses on a common plot, in the middle of some suburb. They're not segregated and concentrated.

EDIT: rXoX and im_a_lawyer, it looks like you've both been shadowbanned.

<comment><USER8> > 2) The housing projects I have witnessed have not turned into centres for > crime. It probably helps that these housing projects are really just > clusters of 5-20 individual houses on a common plot, in the middle of some > suburb. They're not segregated and concentrated.

This is the biggest problem with American housing projects. They tend to be high density apartments in the cities, with thousands of poor people living together, segregated from everyone else. This is the result of the massive hypocrisy of American suburbanites. The county where my parents live in northern Virginia voted for Obama 60-40, but everyone would flip the fuck out if anyone built public housing in the suburbs near them. To them, public housing means segregating all the poor blacks and hispanics into the inner city so they don't run across them at the local shopping mall.

<comment><USER9> The US hasn't been pushing high density public housing projects for twenty years. The last major construction initiative for public housing initiative was Hope VI. More recently, programs that funnel public money directly into the private sector have seen greater favor, e.g. Section 8 vouchers and Low- Income Housing Tax Credit projects.

Ironically [or cynically depending on your point of view] LIHTC projects in particular saw increased funding in the rush to fund 'shovel ready' projects as housing cratered due to oversupply.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOPE_VI](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOPE_VI)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_%28housing%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_%28housing%29)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low- Income_Housing_Tax_Credit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low- Income_Housing_Tax_Credit)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ideology aside, it seems to be working better than any other state's solution and for less money. It seems pragmatic enough. I would be curious to see some numbers on success of people the enrolled in the program in 2005-6.

I wish I could remember where I first read it, but from what I understand the average long term homeless person is a middle aged disabled man with either a mental illness or some form of substance dependency. Many are also veterans. It seems silly to tell that person to bootstrap. So for 11k a year for a roof and social worker vs. 16.65k for E.R. visits, jail, etc it seems like a no brainer. that's 5.65k in savings each per year.

<comment><USER11> The "less money" part is not so obvious. The article does not go in details about that part, so it's very hard to say whether it's BS or not. A house needs frequent maintenance, renovation, cleaning, etc... and this costs a lot of money in the mid-long run, as facilities degrade.

As for the ideology itself, I wonder how people who are working just to get enough money to survive and rent a place feel about this. I would be fine with the idea that a homeless person gets a home _for a while_ , as long as they actively sort their life out and find a way to get to work again in a reasonable timeframe. Unless they are mentally ill, of course.

<comment><USER3> It's true that it costs some money to maintain this kind of thing, but it costs a _lot_ of money to maintain the current solutions, so the bar to beat is not exactly low. The current solutions for housing long-term homeless include, in varying proportions, such expensive facilities as: jail cells, hospital rooms, 72-hour holds in psychiatric facilities, and homeless shelters. My own guess is that Americans don't actually care about the _cost_ , but are extremely paranoid that someone is getting something they feel they don't _deserve_. If someone is locked up in a prison cell for 5x the cost of renting them an apartment, then that's fine, because at least you know they were "punished" for spending the taxpayers' money, not getting something subjectively nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I laughed at the following line:

"But Utah's results show that EVEN CONSERVATIVE STATES (emphasis mine) can solve problems like homelessness with decidedly progressive solutions."

Why do you Americans have to make everything either liberal or conservative? Republican or Democrat?

Life is about tension. If you want to hold a bird in your hand, you have to hold it loose enough that it isn't crushed, and tight enough that it doesn't fly away.

<comment><USER13> _> Why do you Americans have to make everything either liberal or conservative?_

Because there are different groups of people who have diametrically opposed views on how to solve many of the social problems modern America is facing.

 _> Life is about tension. If you want to hold a bird in your hand, you have to hold it loose enough that it isn't crushed, and tight enough that it doesn't fly away._

That's the problem with you Europeans. You refuse to make decisions, so you structure your society by averaging out all opinions. In the end, nobody's happy, and none of your problems are really solved :)

<comment> bjelkeman-again Ok, I know there is a smiley at the end of that. But I also think that a lot if non-Europeans take that half serious. "In the end, nobody's happy" in Europe just isn't true. :)

[http://unsdsn.org/happiness/](http://unsdsn.org/happiness/)

The report identifies the countries with the highest levels of happiness:

      1.Denmark
      2.Norway
      3.Switzerland
      4.Netherlands
      5.Sweden

<comment><USER14> There is serious criticisms as to exactly what those studies measure. At best you can say that they measure contentment. That people from those countries are more content with their lives and have less significant complaints. That is quite different from happy in the joyous sense of the word.

<comment><USER15> Of course they measure contentment. "Happiness" isn't really meaningful at large scales.

<comment><USER16> Arguably, the people who are the happiest are those who strive for contentment instead of happiness. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wish more states would implement this. It doesn't have to be a house, just an apartment. It doesn't even have to be a big one. Even just a single mattress in a small room or a studio with a kitchen is a huge quality of life improvement--and relatively inexpensive, as it seems they've found. Kicking them off of park benches is about as helpful as sloshing water around within the same bucket and then looking surprised that the contents haven't appreciably depreciated. Homeless are not going to just disappear. (Unless they die, which I suppose is what people like the sledgehammer guy in the article would prefer...)

<comment><USER11> Just build capsules hotels, just like in Japan. That's cheap enough, and it has everything. But it only works if people can behave well in community...

<comment><USER17> Yeah, even something like that would work (maybe a little more spread out in places that aren't so urban). It's just appalling to me that so many people don't even have a place to stay out of the snow in this day and age. I wonder how many homeless you could house for a month for the cost of [insert luxurious iProduct here].

<comment><USER11> Well accommodation should not be so expensive in the first place. That's why you get so many homeless people as well. Accommodation prices are completely up the roof for a number of reasons (some State-related), and there is no clear end in sight for this problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> From a humanitarian point of view, it seems strange that the money-saving aspect is the deciding factor on this, as opposed to improving quality of life. But even so, even if it saves costs, people - including the prevailing winds on HN - are still against it.

There seems to be a large number of opponents who'd rather spend a multiple of that housing and social care cost on jails and other measures designed to make sure these people stay away from society without any chance of coming back. I'd genuinely be interested to hear why. If a program exists that re- integrates a majority of these people, wouldn't it be worth the expense even if it cost more (which it apparently doesn't)?

<comment><USER3> > I'd genuinely be interested to hear why.

Many Americans are sadists who think the poor deserve what's coming to them, and are actually willing to _spend extra money_ to ensure it comes to them.

<comment><USER18> The word "perverse" has been used on this thread and on other occasions to describe social improvement measures. I'm not sure all these people here are sadists, there must be something else at work.

As far as I can tell the standard argument seems to be that these homeless aren't productive members of society so it somehow makes sense to put resources into actively punishing them for it and making sure the conditions are reinforced that allowed them to become antisocials in the first place. Yet, at the same time, there are a lot of true parasites in society who actually get paid a lot, and who we kind of worship.

In the end, you might be right. But it's not a satisfying explanation.

<comment><USER19> >The word "perverse" has been used on this thread

Only in the phrase 'perverse incentive'. Which simply means a system has a high potential for unintended consequences / being gamed.

It has absolutely nothing to do with whether the basic idea is noble.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think the one thing that nearly everyone can agree on is that all current welfare systems are quite broken. In Australia, welfare comes in the form of money being deposited into your bank account. Many on welfare claim that it isn't enough to live off properly (probably true) and many not on welfare claim that the system is being abused by people who shouldn't be on it, which is also probably true.

I'd like to see a country that experiments with giving people the most basic essentials that they need to get out of welfare. Things like temporary accommodation, basic food, etc. That way there would be no point to abusing it, and no one can claim it isn't sufficient for basic living. I imagine that it would also result in cost savings for the government since they would be buying in bulk rather than distributing cash for those on welfare to spend individually. There's still problems with this approach, but I think it might strike a better balance than current systems.

<comment><USER21> > Many on welfare claim that it isn't enough to live off properly (probably > true) and many not on welfare claim that the system is being abused by > people who shouldn't be on it, which is also probably true.

I think one of the primary differences between the (US) liberal and conservative mentality with respect to welfare is that, while everyone acknowledges that the system isn't going to be perfect, the liberals are incensed by false negatives (the criteria are erroneously set such that someone who truly needs assistance won't get it) whereas the conservatives are incensed by false positives (the criteria are erroneously set such that someone who doesn't deserve assistance and is gaming the system will get it).

In other words, both sides acknowledge that the criteria for "deserving" assistance are going to be flawed, they just differ on whose side they'd like to err on.

I really think that once you realize this, you can better clarify your own priorities on this issue and come up with a more nuanced position than the usual "you're a monster" / "you're a bleeding heart" blather.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Basic income or a negative income tax would be a better solution.

Giving people free homes creates a perverse incentive.

<comment><USER23> But giving people a free income doesn't create a perverse incentive?

<comment><USER24> According to this article it does - work is reduced by 13%.

[https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free- money...](https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money-to- everyone/31639050894-e44e2c00)

(Unfortunately no primary sources are cited for that claim, which is pretty common for articles on the topic.)

A solution with similar benefits but minimal perverse incentives is the Basic Job - if you can't find a job the government will give you an unpleasant one at below minimum wage.

<comment><USER25> Basic Job is horrible idea. It means hiring someone in made-up job. You take all the time that this person could spend with his/her family/children or on self-improvement or looking for a worthwhile thing to do, waste some of your resources that are required to set up this made-up job and pay so little money that the person will struggle to support himself/herself.

Communist states had basic jobs. I lived in one, it wasn't pretty. People got bored and lazy at the job, drank a lot of booze at work to kill the boredom and not care about what they did at all because that they knew they'll get their sh*t-money anyways.

Nowadays part of civil service office workers in my country fit the description of Basic Job. They sit 7-8 hour pushing unnecessary papers for near minimum wage. They are wasting their lives to prove that they deserve a handout. It's most often women that can suffer low pay and toxic work environment. Government could reduce much waste if it just sent them home with the same pay so they can take care of their children better instead.

<comment><USER24> They aren't made-up jobs. They are simply jobs with value lower than minimum wage.

In the US, we are often told about our "crumbling infrastructure". Roads have potholes. It's not hard to find parks which are not as well maintained as they could be. Government buildings are rarely spotlessly clean. If we are going to pay people who can't find a job in the private sector, why not have some of these problems fixed?

Similarly, many people complain that the cost of day care prevents productive women from working. If we are going to tax a productive businesswoman to pay for a basic job, why not at give her cheap day care (provided by low productivity people) in return?

The problem with Communist states is not the existence of the employer of last resort, but the lack of anything else.

<comment><USER25> Just give more money to you government and it will hire more people to do the jobs that currently it thinks it can do without. Like keeping government buildings spotless.

So the only thing you need to do to realize the idea of Basic Job as you see it is give more money to your government. Pay more taxes. Vote for people that want to raise taxes. Government will gladly use your money to hire people at minimum wage to do the jobs that have value lower than minimum wage. Or just move to Sweden.

Of course other people will say that government pays to much for cleaning parks and government buildings and filling in potholes. That it's not done as efficiently as it should be. And they will also be right. After all, why invest in labor saving technology such as cleaning machines if half of the point why this cleaning job exists is to have an excuse to give money to the person that can't find a job that has value higher than minimum wage.

<comment><USER24> No need to raise taxes - we are already spending the money. All I propose is that we get something in return.

This solves the perverse incentives created by a Basic Income and costs a lot less (you only give it to some people instead of giving to everyone).

<comment><USER25> So you don't want to give money to the people who currently are not gettinga any? You just want to discurage people who are getting money by ordering them to do some work?

Where do you get money to pay people to organize the job and supervise that it's actually done? How do you treat people who don't do the job right? Do you deny them the money and the job? Do you put them in jail? Communist states did that.

What do you plan to do about people who won't take the money if they have to lose third of their time for it?

Do you give those people money/food/shelter for free or do you let them starve or freeze?

I believe your idea is incredibly complicated in detail. I like the idea of basic income because there's so little that can go wrong. The only proble I see is that rent could just go up and suck almost all basic income into pockets of property owners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am really ... shocked I guess, how can you not like this. I was not born in the US, but in 10 yrs I lived here (and liking it obviously), I was always bothered that such a great country can have so many homeless and destitute people. I can write about this pages and pages... Studies show, once someone ends on the street, he never comes back up, this is the only way for many of those to get themselves up. I am even liking numbers about how much it costs to care about homeless vs. helping them.

Seriously, this costs little and helps a great deal to people who genuinely need it.

</comment><comment><USER27> The key isn't so much the home but the social workers they provide. Most homeless people are not just folks like you and I who happened to be out of work a little longer, they are people with various mental illnesses and addictions. It's no coincidence that homelessness skyrocketed when deinstitutionalisation started.

</comment><comment><USER28> Are the actually ending homelessness for good? Or are they placing a bandaid on the problem and possibly making things worse?

Hawaii has a homeless problem because it is a very forgiving place for the homeless to live, mainly the favorable temperature imho.

Vancouver/Victoria B.C. have a much larger visible homeless population than Toronto. Again, because the winter temperatures won't kill you in Vancouver, buy they very well could in Toronto.

In time, once "word of the street" gets out that Utah is giving away free houses to homeless people whether they follow their suggested rules of living or not... I think we might be seeing a few more thumbs on the highway with signs for Salt Lake City.

<comment><USER29> SLC probably has the advantage that your average homeless drunk has a much harder time getting booze.

<comment><USER30> Is booze still only sold in state-sanctioned stores?

<comment><USER28> I went to a rodeo in St. George, Utah last year.

It was sponsored by budweiser. Yet, not a single drop of beer or any alcohol was sold on site.

Utah sure is an interesting place to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I wish this was possible here. People need to work for years before they can even think about buying a house.

Sounds like a really good idea for a place like Utah - props to them.

</comment><comment><USER32> Seems like a sustainable permanent solution...

<comment><USER11> Indeed. What prevents other homeless people to "migrate" to Utah in order to benefit from that program ? If that's the case, the costs of the program would explode, and the savings would be gone. That's typically what happens. Not sure what they are doing to avoid that scenario.

<comment><USER33> I read that Nevada was busing their homeless into California to get them off the books; clearly they were doing it wrong and should have sent them to Utah instead.

<comment><USER34> It's funny you should say that because that's exactly what Utah was accused of doing to Las Vegas in order to clean up the streets for the 2002 Olympics.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/14/sports/olympics-the- street...](http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/14/sports/olympics-the-streets- loitering-behind-the-clean-streets.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This would be an awesome project to contribute coding skills to - imagine a platform managing this type of program and helping redistribute that knowledge back out to the world.

</comment><comment><USER36> Yay! There is even place in this budget to give every homeless a Mac and subscription to codeschool.com. Guys, do it. Utah will become the next Silicon Valley.

</comment><comment><USER37> Does the state also give jobs or money so they can afford these homes?

</comment><comment><USER38> Terrible grammar in this article

</comment><comment><USER39> I personally believe that punishment should be severe, but that people need second chances. Perhaps many people end up homeless after making poor choices in life that lead to their predicament. But society must offer ways for everyone to redeem themselves.

edit> Our society (The US) has become really good at punishing people, but is terrible at helping people back up.

<comment><USER40> > Perhaps many people end up homeless after making poor choices in life that > lead to their predicament

I don't really have any data at hand, but a lot of people become homeless due to health issues, family conflicts, socio-economic problems (high unemployment rates, factory closings, lack of affordable housing), or even by being born poor or homeless... I believe some of those reasons are outside of the control of a single person.

<comment><USER41> You don't need data; OP is suffering from the Just World Fallacy, he doesn't understand how the world actually works.</comment></comment></comment>


Drive-by download that turns on LCD test pattern - anyone know what this is? - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC2BBqi8dCM&feature=youtu.be

<comment><AUTHOR> The description of the problem is in the Youtube video. I was trying to listen to a song at SoundCloud (or, perhaps more likely, a malicious site that imitates SoundCloud; I did not check the URL too closely), and as soon as I hit the "Play" button, my laptop's screen entered a "dead pixel test pattern" where it flashes white, black, red, green, blue in succession. It now does this constantly, even at bootup - sometimes you'll get lucky and see the startup screen, but more often it starts that test pattern from the very moment you power on the machine. Additionally, it is very clearly doing something behind that pattern - one time when I was able to log in to Windows before the test pattern started, I noticed that a) Dropbox had been disabled, and b) the machine was uploading a huge amount of data - 1GB in the perhaps five minutes I was able to use the machine. (Naturally, once I saw that upload happening, I disconnected from the network. Unfortunately I did not have a chance to find out where it was sending data and/or what data was being sent before the test pattern activated again).

Is this a known malware, or something new? Has this happened to anyone else; does anyone know anything about it?

Thanks in advance, HN.</comment>


nessDB:a very fast key/value storage engine 1.8-rc1 released - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/nessdb/ueNELAWw_Vg Hey, nessDB is a very fast key-value,embedded Database Storage Engine (Using log-structured-merge (LSM) trees) with Level-LRU, Bloom-Filter,and supports Redis-Protocol(PING,SET,MSET,GET,MGET,DEL,EXISTS,INFO,SHUTDOWN).
This version, there is a big performance improving, using LSM-Tree. All the magic is  in the codes, you can go through it here:https://github.com/shuttler/nessDB
1.8-rc1 key features: a) Better performances on Random-Read/Random-Write b) Log recovery c) Using LSM-Tree as storage engine d) Background detached-thread merging e) Level LRU f) Support billion data
BohuTANG <comment><USER2> How is this different than the more than 100 other NoSQL databases? If it supports the Redis protocol them why can I not choose toUse Redis? Or memcached? I am not trying to shoot this project down - I am just trying to understand all this " not invented here" syndrome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello, The different than the more than 100 other NoSQL databases are: nessDB is very fast, on-disk storage engine,it's using LSM-Tree, which has a very better performance than B+Trees.There are a performance comparison test with tcbdb,MongoDB here:<http://paste2.org/p/1844476> nessDB is a disk-storage engine, I think this is the main different with Redis DB.

Thanks, BohuTANG

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> And supports Redis-Protocol(PING,SET,MSET,GET,MGET,DEL,EXISTS,INFO,SHUTDOWN).</comment>


PHP's silly PRNG - <AUTHOR> http://cod.ifies.com/2008/05/php-rand01-on-windows-openssl-rand-on.html

<comment><USER2> For some added context, the normal rand function in PHP uses an implementation based on libc.

PHP provides a second, safer, function, mt_rand, which is based around an implementation of the Mersenne Twister.

<comment><USER3> The difference when using mt_rand is astonishing.

PHP 5.3 graph using rand: <http://twitpic.com/gq81b>

PHP 5.3 graph using mt_rand: <http://twitpic.com/gq827>

<comment><USER4> The regular rand can do that just as well. see elsewhere in this thread.

<comment><USER5> > before you criticize a project make sure you understand the material.

He's right.

Mersenne Twister = mt_rand(). The guy that wrote this is an ignorant.

Ignorant: Lacking knowledge. Unaware or uninformed (adjective: moron).

<comment><USER4> The only thing that is left from this whole circus is a reference to a bug that has been known about for a long time:

<http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=45184>

It would have really helped if they did a bit of research before writing such an inflammatory post and then go all out to get people to spread it.

Anyway, the damage is done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The only thing silly here is this article.

First off, the random generator in PHP is simply a 2^32 period random number generator, nothing special or wrong about that. Yes, there are better ones but it's good enough for its intended purpose.

About the image in the article:

The image is generated by using the 'scale' function of the PHP PRNG to sample the 'lowest' bit.

You do not do a scale when you should be doing a one bit and.

It pays off to study an issue for a while, once you raise a stink it's hard to undo the damage you've done.

By replacing the line in the code that plots the pixel with:

       imagesetpixel($im,$x,$y, rand() & 1);

this image appears:

<http://ww.com/random.php>

Problem gone, no fuss.

That's on a linux box running php 4.4.2, the results look pretty random to me, it isn't perfect but the aliasing that was displayed in the original test image is clearly gone using the 'regular' (so not mt_rand) random number generator.

To make the result reproducible I've seeded the PRNG with '0' using srand(0); at the beginning of the program.

If you want to use the 'scale' function in PHP for something that you should be doing by a one bit and then you will reap the results of that, you are effectively sampling the lowest bit after a bunch of float operations, which is clearly sub-optimal.

PHP can't correct for incorrect use.

As for the rest of the code, the $x=0; line can be dropped, there is no need to 'reset' your loop variable at the end of a loop, last I checked.

I'm no PHP fan but before you criticize a project make sure you understand the material.

</comment><comment><USER6> If mt_rand is really that much better, what is the point of keeping them both? Shouldn't they just make rand map to mt_rand?

<comment><USER7> Probably a matter of mitigating risk. Despite its drawbacks, rand() is used a LOT and works...well, "good enough".

In the interest of making sure the code you wrote for PHP3 will work on current/future versions and not have anything unexpected happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would like to see the code that breaks if PRNG is swapped. I mean, like is there code out there that relies on the unrandomness of current rand?

<comment><USER4> Testsets + known output, spots where the PRNG has been used as part of the seed driving cryptographic code.

The fact that a given seed makes your program deterministic is a great way to 'lock' the variation that a random generator would otherwise give you.

So, say you have a series of steps that produce a result given a random number as the seed.

You come up with a bunch of cases where the run output has been saved and checked by hand to conform, you now use that output to verify against when maintaining the software.

If you should change the behavior of the PRNG then output will change and the test will break.

A database with passwords that were 'encrypted' (I use the word loosely) using the PRNG with parts of the password as the seed. If you change the PRNG under water none of those users can log in.

There are probably lots of other examples, these are just two simple scenarios where code would break.

<comment><USER8> As far as I see these examples are all scandalous abuses of undocumented implementation details. While I can't be bothered to look up the actual documentation, I'm almost 100% sure that it's not guaranteed that PHP's rand() will always yield the same results for the same seed. But if it is, well, that would be a peculiar example of shortsighted language framework design.

<comment><USER4> > I'm almost 100% sure that it's not guaranteed that PHP's rand() will always > yield the same results for the same seed.

That's the whole point of having a seed, isn't it ?

see the Periodicity entry:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudorandom_number_generator>

and

<http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.srand.php>

Does not make any mention of the behavior you cite, if you can't be bothered to look it up why bring it up in the first place ?

<comment><USER8> All I'm saying that while it is indeed true that having a seed implies a deterministic behaviour, this should be an implementation detail that should not be exposed to the the users of the interface.

<comment><USER4> Either I'm not following you, or you are not clear. Or both ;)

It is _meant_ to work that way, for precisely the kind of reasons I outlined above.

Say you are writing a poker program. At the beginning of every game you seed the random number generator, you save the seed.

Halfway through a test you find a bug in the program.

You fix the bug (you think) and you make a test case for the fix.

You run the test case with the restored random seed to see if the bug is actually under control and does not influence any other part of the game up to there.

And so on.

That's clearly documented and very common use.

If it wouldn't be like that you'd have to play poker until the cows came home in the hope that one day that same sequence of play would occur.

<comment><USER9> What DrJokepu may have been getting at is that the implementation of rand() itself is not guaranteed. Expecting it not to change in future versions of the library is dubious.

<comment><USER4> True, but if you do not _have_ to break stuff then don't.

After all, it was pseudo random to begin with, nobody made any claims as to how random it was, simply that it was 'periodical' and that the period was long enough that in a short lived program you would get the impression of random data.

Every programmer even halfway worth his weight in bits would know that that meant that if you needed 'high grade' random data you'd best look elsewhere, something with a longer period that downsamples to 32 bits for instance, or a hardware based random generator.

This has been true of the 'rand' function on a unix box as well, the period is (2^(sizeof(int) x 8))-1, that's just about the only guarantee you get. (hn eats asterisks)

The article linked here concentrates on the lower single bit of the output of the random generator (the rand(0,1) part of the code will generate a number between 0 and 1), but in fact completely misses the point that if you want a number that is either 0 or 1 you _MASK_ out the lower bit instead of asking PHP to do this using the range option, which is meant to give you a number which has been 'scaled' down from the output of the PRNG in the php core. Right now you are probably sampling the lower bit of a bunch of float operations, not the best way to get one random bit.

(rand() & 1) would have done the job just fine.

So much for programmers that can manipulate bits, even after they see the implementation they still can't figure out how to do it properly. What's so hard about a one bit and ?

So, first of the article uses the PRNG in a completely nonsense way, then it is labelled as 'broken' based on a broken test and next the PHP maintainers get flak for staying backwards compatible when there was no clear need for change.

It wasn't 'broken', it could be improved a lot at the expense of backwards compatibility and so they chose the appropriate route and added a library routine for that.

I'm no big fan of PHP, but this whole thread is way over the top.

here is the same example but with the lower bit masked instead of doing a bunch of unnecessary float ops on the output of the PRNG:

<http://ww.com/random.php>

I would say that looks quite a bit better than the provided sample.

And I also don't get what the $x=0; is for at the end of the loop on the x-coordinate, never knew that you had to reset your loop variables.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Making real random data using a computer is hard, very hard.

These are pseudo random number generators, I take it that everybody using them understands that the 'P' means that you can not rely on the output of these pieces of code to be truely random.

One of the first online casinos used a PIC to sample a noisy zener diode to get to something less predictable.

And even with that as the source concept it took quite a bit of tweaking of the design to get really random bits, it's surprising how much hum from your powersupply can make it through to the bits of your a/d converter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. Random is hard.

BUT when you actually already have far better implementation of PRNG, namely md_rand in PHP, there really is no excuse for defaulting to broken behavior.

<comment><USER4> That may actually have to do with not upsetting peoples unit tests that depend on this 'broken behavior'.

Let's say someone wrote an extensive body of statistical software that gets tested with the known input from the PRNG in php, if you then change the random number generator all the output will be different.

Or if someone used the PRNG in PHP to encrypt a bunch of data replacing it would break the decrypt function leaving the user with inaccessible data.

<comment><USER10> Trusting the broken behavior of a broken random-number generator is hardly the best approach to encrypting data. Anyone who writes a test that depends on the predictability of a random number generator is in for a huge disappointment when the data is to be decrypted.

Why not do it using a proper crypto library?

<comment><USER4> It was two examples, one for 'test' data, one for the passwords example.

The first showed a series of cases that have been saved to check if code has been inadvertently broken.

The second example was about data stored in a database that depends on the functioning of the PRNG in a predictable way for its use.

Both examples are 'contrived', just theoretical situations to show you that it is possible to break stuff by changing the function of a piece of code that implements a language feature.

The general message was: if you can remain backwards compatible then that is probably a good thing because there are bound to be use cases for your code that you can't think of that will have huge consequences.

So I think the PHP team did the right thing here in making a better random number generator available besides the old one.

Legacy data and software is always a pain, as soon as you have an installed base of '1' you have a problem. Designers of languages break existing code at their peril.

That said, they should have probably implemented a better one right from day 1.

<comment><USER10> "That said, they should have probably implemented a better one right from day 1."

I still can't believe it's a good idea not to break behavior that depends on the predictability of a broken implementation of a random number generator. It's not like this code will be broken by fixing the RNG. It was broken from the start.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Zalewski's "Silence On The Wire" (which is totally fantastic in its own right) graphs a few PRNGs and discusses their issues.

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1593270461>

</comment><comment><USER12> The problem that you see here is mostly that rand() gets the range in a way biased towards the lower-order bits, which in more LCGs are less random than the higher-order bits.

<comment><USER4> Not only that, they invoke a bunch of float code that then has to balance on getting the rounding of the lowest bit right after a whole bunch of float scaling operations.

That's simply not the way to do it when you are only interested in one bit of data to check the random number generator.

That's only handy if you want to limit the range of your random numbers between two numbers with a bit more space between them than just the lower order bit.

Say 500 and 10000 or 0 and 500 or something like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Tuesday, May 20, 2008

I assume PHP still has this issue?

<comment><USER14> Of course!

PHP only gains new issues, no warts are ever really removed.</comment></comment>


On MicroSD card problems (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=918

<comment><USER2> For my dashcam, there are precious few "compatible" brands of microsd cards. Others behave strangely or cause the auto-overwrite functionality to not work correctly. At first I thought it was just the cam firmware being crap, but I didn't realize there could be such variance in the quality of these cards.

<comment><USER3> same here - similar issues... bravo to the poster for sharing the findings!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Before my eyes reached the domain name, I thought "is this a bunnie article?" Is anyone else doing [publicly available online articles on] investigative research on electronics like this?

<comment><USER5> Oona Räisänen writes some remarkable stuff. Not maybe so much about manufacturing and quality of electronics, but building and reverse-engineering stuff. I've been baffled time and again by her talent.

[http://www.windytan.com/](http://www.windytan.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2931865](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2931865)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1128711](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1128711)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I didn't realize this was 5 years old when I posted it, I just saw it on Twitter today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> from the "Novena guy" actually [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Huang](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Huang)

<comment><USER8> Like with Fabrice Bellard, the amount of knowledge that bunnie has is absolutely mind-blowing and amazing.

<comment><USER9> At some point, if Fabrice and Bunny go into a startup together I will give them any amount of capital they need up front to get going :-)

<comment><USER10> Seriously someone close to them needs to convince them to set up a patron account at patreon: [https://www.patreon.com/](https://www.patreon.com/) Then post the news here. Patreon is a simple way to auto send money to someone that creates work you admire ($1-5 typical once a month) so they can keep on creating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One notable change in today's market: Samsung flash memory cards are available at retail now under their own name.

</comment><comment><USER12> For the life of me, I have not come up with a sane solution for this issue. On my 2013 MacBook Air, It keeps hitting the lock switch when I insert an SD card. MicroSD cards are often used by myself and my team, and put into card bigger card readers for consumption. I don't care too much for regular sd cards, but I acquire media in the field ALOT, and need to get quick access to pics and vids for editing on the go. I don't want to purchase a USB SD Card reader. Does anyone have a sane solution or experience addressing the issue?

<comment><USER13> It sounds stupid, but scotch tape on the lock switch really helps.

It was my 'fix' when one of my readers had a broken lock detector arm, and read all cards as locked even if they weren't. The scotch tape on the card fixed it :)

<comment><USER5> It does not sound stupid. It's the standard thing to do.

Here you really need to have a thin tape, Scotch cellotape is fine. In other places, the good old duct tape saves you. (We actually call it "Jesus tape" here, because it saves people.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I also got a fake Kingston USB Data Traveler G3 from a local shop. I had an old one (still G3 though) but the material are different. Some parts a rubberized, and there's an activity LED, while the recent one is all glossy plastic, and no LED.

</comment><comment><USER15> @dang - can we get [2010] in the title

<comment><AUTHOR> I updated it</comment></comment>


Why We've Stopped Saying "Culture Fit" and What We're Saying Instead - <AUTHOR> https://open.buffer.com/culture-fit/ <comment><USER2> So much overthinking.

"Culture fit" is a _deliberately_ vague term. It's a way to say "we don't want you" without getting into specifics that might be actionable or spark a scene. It doesn't actually mean anything and it's not supposed to.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Making this shift led to improved diversity among more teams at Atlassian. For us at Buffer, it has provided us with a way to stay true to our values and united in the core beliefs that make Buffer the company that we know and love, while also leaving plenty of room for bringing your authentic self to work, including all the perspectives and experiences that make you unique._

Better than I expected based on the two comments already here before I read it. Though the lead up is a bit long and tedious, when it gets to the real point, it does have something useful to say.

</comment><comment><USER4> Any culture that can't accept different is no culture at all. I once got fired from a startup for opting out of mandatory weekly surfing lessons, thank god in retrospect.

<comment><USER5> How the fuck is "mandatory surfing lessons" legal?

<comment><USER4> They would make some stupid shit up I'm sure. Sadly, I didn't have the resources to take them on legally. Never going to Portugal again, that much is certain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "culture contribution" misses the mark.

Companies aren't asking "what do you bring to the table" (which could work for "culture contribution") ....they asking "would you disrupt what we already have going" (and potentially how much would it cost us...1 senior engineers time, 4 mid engineers time?)

"Culture fit" is vague. It should stay vague and mean whatever companies want it to mean in the moment.

</comment><comment><USER7> The world already has a saying for that, but in the end it is simply a "clique" mentality</comment>


Mail from a competitor  - <AUTHOR>

I am co-founder (as a side job) of a small company (3 months old). Today we received an interesting email which basically says "do not price under XX € or your business won`t succeed " and  "Let's just make XXX a not easy task, and not cheap one to."  where XXX is one of our main services which is not unique and there are many players in it.
What is the best way to deal with such a mails ?
1. Just ignore it. 2. Send a polite email just to confirm that you received the mail and never think about it again. 3. Engage a conversation  about how the prices are formed and so on . 4. Something else ...<p>Thanks . <comment><USER2> Not sure but in the USA I think that is called price fixing and may be illegal. I would send him a polite note indicating your company has done it's homework on pricing models and product features and will continue to follow your customer centric road map.

Keep in mind, he may be setting you up to turn you in to the authorities and give you a bad name or shutter your company which in some ways would be brilliant on his part.

</comment><comment><USER3> So he's basically asking for you two to set up a pricing cartel? Check first whether that's even legal in your country. I'd also ignore the mail, and if you're feeling particularly evil, do exactly what he asks you not to do :)

<comment><USER4> It is possible that he's offering some hard-won wisdom. Hard to know without engaging him in a conversation.

A couple decades ago I gad a girlfriend who made tie-dye t-shirts and I'd often accompany her to shows and festivals. At one festival she left me to mind her booth. I didn't want to do it and I certainly didn't want to do any work in the hot sun.

So I changed her sign from $15 to $35 and sat in the shade.

But my scam backfired and I moved far more shirts at more than double the price than we ever did at the lower price.

What does that have to do with OP's question? Dunno. But maybe the competitor is actually trying to be helpful rather than being evil.

<comment><USER5> For what it's worth I work at a large multi-national company and have gone through antitrust training a couple of times. Even if the competitor is being "helpful", any discussion among competitors of pricing in the market violates antitrust law. Also, even if the results of the discussion would ultimately benefit consumers (such as "let's lower our price to x to move units"), this is still illegal. Bottom line, never engage in ANY discussions with competitors over price no matter what.</comment></comment></comment>


Etacts builds what I want - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/05/etacts-builds-what-i-want.html#disqus_thread

<comment><USER2> Discussion at:

<http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=1347026></comment>


Share Your Location Easily - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/mycords/id803293602?mt=8

<comment><AUTHOR> If anyone wants a free download then please tweet @conrjac for a coupon code for the App store.</comment>


Hangovers Cost the Economy $224 Billion, Says CDC - <AUTHOR> http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/05/hangovers-cost-the-economy-224-billion-s?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reason%2FHitandRun+%28Reason+Online+-+Hit+%26+Run+Blog%29

<comment><USER2> Sooo... that sounds like a lot of money. I guess we've got our top guys working on hangover cures and alternative drugs that give people the buzz they like without the negatives then?

</comment><comment><USER3> OK, but how much does the economy gain by people discussing work at the pub the evening before?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point. There was a study back in 2006[1] that showed that people who drank made more money (about 10-14%) at their jobs than non-drinkers and social drinkers. So, it can me argued that drinking may actually help the economy as a whole, even if hangovers themselves cause a short term loss in productivity.

[1]: [http://reason.org/news/show/127594.html](http://reason.org/news/show/127594.html)

<comment><USER4> Hmm, that seems to say that social drinkers (people who go to bars once per month) make more.

So it's not really the drinking aspect, it's specifically the socializing aspect. You could go to bars and drink only non alcoholic drinks and probably have the same effect, assuming you can still be sociable without alcohol.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh yea, it's totally the socialization aspect. There is a similar study (I don't have a link off-hand, but it was something covered at length in an Introduction to Sociology textbook I had years ago) that points out that people involved in their church communities enjoyed similar benefits to the drinkers. The key here is socialization. I suspect you don't earn anymore by getting ripped by yourself in the privacy of your home every night and subsequently showing up at work with a headache and a sour attitude every morning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What about incremental externalities (late night food delivery, contraceptives, tobacco sales, transportation, etc...) ... excessive partying creates jobs, work hard play hard!

</comment><comment><USER6> What an embarrassing waste of taxpayer money. Perhaps they should study how much pointless studies cost the economy.</comment>


Apple to developers: there is no escape - <AUTHOR> https://medium.freecodecamp.com/apple-to-developers-there-is-no-escape-298b63c2a1d8 <comment><USER2> I don't understand why everyone is up in arms about the ESC key getting replaced. It's still there (by holding the Fn key), but even better: now your vim session can have a custom touchbar interface that makes some of the more obscure vim shortcuts easier.</comment>


Graphical depiction of ownership and borrowing in Rust - <AUTHOR> https://rufflewind.com/2017-02-15/rust-move-copy-borrow <comment><USER2> Very cool! May be such visuals can be incorporated in the official documentation.

Suggestion: could also cover closures (which would demonstrate the move keyword also)</comment>


You Can Now Access All of Richard Feynman's Physics Lectures for Free - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/you-can-now-access-all-of-richard-feynmans-physics-lect-1627809095

<comment><USER2> The provided link is pure linkbait, here's a link to the actual content:

[http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/](http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/)</comment>


Netflix Says Use of Amazon AWS is a Competitive Risk - <AUTHOR> http://paidcontent.org/article/419-what-worries-netflix-about-amazon-isnt-just-competition/

<comment><USER2> This article is an exaggeration. Due to various laws, regulations, and the fear of being sued by their shareholders, publicly traded companies in the US report every risk factor imaginable in their annual reports. The report in question includes 13 full pages of these.

The relevant section of the 10K is:

 _We rely upon Amazon Web Services to operate certain aspects of our service and any disruption of or interference with our use of the Amazon Web Services operation would impact our operations and our business would be adversely impacted.

Amazon Web Services, or AWS, provides a distributed computing infrastructure platform for business operations, or what is commonly referred to as a cloud computing service. We have architected our software and computer systems so as to utilize data processing, storage capabilities and other services provided by AWS. Currently, we run the majority of our computing at AWS. Given this, along with the fact that we cannot easily switch our AWS operations to another cloud provider, any disruption of or interference with our use of AWS would impact our operations and our business would be adversely impacted. While the retail side of Amazon may compete with us, we do not believe that Amazon will use the AWS operation in such a manner as to gain competitive advantage against our service._

Other risk factors in the report include everything from boilerplate:

 _We could be subject to economic, political, regulatory and other risks arising from our international operations.

If we are unable to compete effectively, our business will be adversely affected._

...to the real risks:

 _Changes in how network operators handle and charge for access to data that travel across their networks could adversely impact our business._

 _If we are not able to manage our growth, our business could be adversely affected._

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm surprised that Netflix is still so tightly coupled to AWS, since companies the size of Netflix can actually reap the economies of scale of running their own infrastructure (AWS makes most sense for smaller operations). However, I wouldn't be worried about AMZ sabotaging Netflix's service; it would do massive and irreparable harm to AWS from a competitive and legal standpoint.

<comment><USER4> You're right; Amazon wouldn't damage their rep as a cloud provider by playing dirty tricks, even without the threat of legal action.

To your first point, Amazon knows as much about running massive scale systems as anybody. I think Netflix would have a hard time capturing those economies of scale.

The fact that Amazon's VOD works on Linux, is the most personally compelling feature. I don't know how many other people are interested, but that's enough for me to look closely at it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is open source, as we know it, dying? - <AUTHOR> Yesterday IBM acquiring RedHat was all over the news just as Microsoft finished formally acquiring Github. Last month Alphabet announced it is investing heavily in Gitlab.
Apart from high profile acquisitions and investments in open source projects by tech companies such as the above, open source projects are merging as well. The node.js and the Javascript foundation, for example, announced a merger.
On the culture front, there has been a renewed interest in making communities more welcoming to all resulting in high profile OS projects like the Linux kernel revamping their code of conduct. This has not been without backlash from some existing community loyalists who see the move as politically driven rather than community driven. On a slightly tangential note, Python lost its BDFL owing to burnt out that resulted from managing such a massive project for years. Once again highlighting how the culture does not even spare people at the top.
All these trends seem to point towards a move for professionally managed communities that value scalable stability over a close-knit passionate communities driven by individuals.
What do you make of all this? Is open source dying? And are these worrying times or exciting times? <comment><USER2> Open Source is evolving not dying. It takes a lot of money to develop something from scratch in the corporate world, in the OSS world people do it as a hobby. Red Hat sells a server version and Fedora is free, but CentOS is the free version of Red Hat Server.

OSS companies are the new Bell Labs inventing the new software to be used by the masses. The thing about Linux is if you don't like one company you can easily switch to another Debian instead of Mint Linux or Ubuntu for example. IBM is only going to buy Red Hat but the source code is still open sourced and free to use and compile.

IBM got out of the PC and Server markets for hardware and had to find a new market, Linux, to get into in order to bring more money to shareholders.

<comment><AUTHOR> Rightly pointed out. Thanks Rick.

But do you think there is a likelihood of the new management influencing projects that RedHat should or shouldn't prioritize?

Essentially, the goals of open source organizations and for-profit businesses have diverged at least in one way: Open source tends to tinker, explore and take the long-term view just as you've pointed out 'they are the modern bell labs'. While businesses, on the other hand, are driven by growth and profit, often ruthlessly chasing them for their investors - evident from the quarterly earnings calls. Google is famous for dropping its products over time, even if they have a loyal user base simply because they don't make financial sense anymore. Is there a danger of this myopia rubbing on OS?

Businesses are great at extracting efficiencies. Do you feel open source could do with more of leaning down and setting of ambitious commercial goals?

<comment><USER2> Open Source needs to evolve in such a way to attract corporate entities to fund research via donations or investments.

Right now there are a few operating systems not based on BSD Unix or Linux called ReactOS, Haiku, and AROS that were created via open source and need funding or corporate investment to make them reach Windows or OSX level quality and marketability. Modern apps need to be made for these operating systems that is the weakness. Modern apps that can use the DOCX or ODF files or whatever the standard Windows and OSX systems use.

OSFree is an OS/2 rewrite that really could use help, I think it is a good idea but it isn't even ready for prime-time.

Businesses only see money and how to make it, by having IP. So they don't want to develop for OSS and give away IP and take a risk in being sued if the code goes wrong and deletes files (Like the Windows 10 October 2018 update did). The Open Source organization doesn't see making money and only wants to write the best code on a budget and have quality results. Businesses want cheaper programmers and lower quality code as long as deadlines are met.

Yeah Oracle buying out Sun and dumping OpenOffice.org and trying to downplay MySQL to promote their own database are two examples of how a business can mess up OSS. Yet still VirtualBox is a good VM in my opinion and I am glad they kept that.

Open Source organizations I believe do a better job at quality with a benevolent dictator accepting patches like Linus with Linux. I doubt a company can make such a good quality, but Linus does it without the billions of dollars of funding in R&D. He does it with hobbyists and volunteers.

<comment><USER3> > Businesses only see money and how to make it, by having IP. So they don't > want to develop for OSS and give away IP

This is only true of tech companies, there is a lot of potential funding out there in non-tech companies, OSS has been huge for them but they're generally not great at contributing back. If we could somehow bring them in and divorce OSS from tech companies that would be a huge win.

<comment><USER2> Non-Tech companies barely know how to protect themselves from hackers and ransomware than know how to program and contribute to OSS projects.

In my experience in working with non-tech companies IT departments the managers don't know how the tech works so they cannot properly manage it. A tech company has managers that know how to manage technology and programming. So you need that for the non-tech companies but managers don't want to learn or be replaced with managers who already know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I suppose if you require "open source" to only be composed of "close-knit passionate communities driven by individuals" who coalesce around some particular anti-progressive ideology and the cult of personality of a BDFL, then... still probably not.

Because as you mention, these trends seem to apply to "professionally managed communities that value scalable stability," which is itself a legitimate concern for some projects and not antithetical to open source as a concept, and an outlier in regards to open source as a whole.

It's like the oft-cited argument that "the internet" is becoming corporate and centralized because out of the billions upon billions of sites on the web two or three are really popular... it's a failure to see the forest for the trees.

</comment><comment><USER5> I want to clarify that last month the main investment in GitLab in our series D was from Iconiq. Google Ventures (GV) did our C round and did (part of) their pro-rata in the D round, similar to other investors like Khosla Ventures.

GV is part of Alphabet but independent of Google or Capital G. The $100m D round GitLab raised is intended to get us to an IPO on November 18, 2020. We see a multi-cloud future and no public cloud has a controlling stake nor a board seat in GitLab.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think it's alarming times. large companies want to monopolize the open source. I do not think that open days are waiting for good days in the future.

<comment><USER7> They cannot monopolize it: anybody can always write yet another program, and distribute it with a copyleft license. Anybody can fork an existing free software, and make his own derived version, with his own features. And when I say anybody, that includes any group of persons too.

Of course, this would be truer, if we didn't talk about open source, but about freedom-giving software licenses.</comment></comment>


An illusionist explains why Apple products really are magical - <AUTHOR> http://www.andrewmayne.com/blog/2010/9/29/an-illusionist-explains-why-apple-products-really-are-magica.html

<comment><USER2> I noticed the iPad bevel as soon as I left it on top of a table. It has a useful benefit though: when grabbing it from the table it's easier to get the fingers around the edge.

</comment><comment><USER3> It just takes someone with an eye for aesthetics to look at a design and say whether it's good. I'd suggest hiring someone that dresses well. Some clothes make you look fat, others don't. The person should understand why that is so.

</comment><comment><USER4> The bevel of the iMac has the same thing. The new design was touted as much thinner than the old one (the white plastic version), where in fact, it was much thinner on the edges but about otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER5> Incidentally, a friend at Apple said they had a magician on campus today.</comment>