Ways to make yourself happier - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bufferapp.com/10-scientifically-proven-ways-to-make-yourself-happier <comment><USER2> You can do all of these things and it won't make you happy. Barring any clinical depression issues, "happiness" is a choice to accept the conditions in which you live and to just Be Happy. If you ever start a sentence with "I'll be happy when..." then you are not ever going to be happy.

I had to learn this the hard way. Almost everything I owned was destroyed in a flood a couple of years ago. I watched one of my housemates freak out and cry for days about it. It couldn't have been shoved in my face harder that the choice was mine. I could assume that happiness came from the lifestyle I designed for myself, as my housemate did, and therefore it had just been completely destroyed with no hope of coming back any time soon. Or, I could assume happiness was a state of being that could be achieved at any point in time, no matter what was going on: that there are no prerequisites to happiness.

And suddenly, I was happy.

And then I met my wife. And I got to more work that I loved, rather than needed. And found a modicum of success in my consultancy. And got out of debt. And made a lot of new, wonderful friends. After years of being unhappy and getting nowhere on the goals that I thought would make me happy, I flipped a switch and found out that the goals required happiness out of me.

<comment><USER3> I'm getting to this point in my life right now. Realising and trying to accept happiness is a state of mind. It's rather new to me and it's a struggle most days. Any advice?

<comment><USER2> In the early days, it was easy for me with the flood fresh in my mind, I could say, "at least I didn't get dysentery." Living in a 1st world country tends to give one a lot of things for which they should really rather be grateful.

I try to remember that I live in the absolute best times in history. 200 years ago, even kings couldn't live as well as I do, now. I've got air conditioning. I've got running water that is both hot AND cold. None of my family died from tuberculosis. I can be reasonably sure nobody is going to invade my country and kill my kin. I don't personally know anyone who has ever had dysentery.

And sometimes I just wallow in sadness. It feels good sometimes. Sleep in. Eat a cheeseburger. Eat 3 cheeseburgers. Play a video game. Play a video game for 5 hours. Sometimes things have to get worse before they are big enough to get rid of.

It's a conscious decision, every day. That's part of why I go by "moron4hire". It's a reminder that, despite my ambitions and my progress, I'm a base idiot compared to some other people. I still work and try to do more, but it's because I know that it will help people, not because it will make me happy.

<comment><USER3> Thank you. I appreciate the insight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The best trick I know for "improving affect" is very counter-intuitive. Think about something good that happened to you, and really changed things. Now imagine how much worse your day (or your life!) would be without that event. Ten seconds, and presto! Your mood improves!

Edit: Affect is a noun. It means "the way you feel", and the inflection is on the first syllable. [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/affect#Etymology_3](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/affect#Etymology_3)

<comment><USER5> This is a good technique, it's called the "george bailey effect" (after the main character in "It's a Wonderful Life")

More info:

[http://morehappy.me/2013/07/06/to-boost-happiness-imagine- ho...](http://morehappy.me/2013/07/06/to-boost-happiness-imagine-how-else- things-could-have-gone/)

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2746912/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2746912/)

<comment><USER4> Oh, thanks! I knew I had seen it in a study but my Google-fu is weak.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I always laugh when these articles show up and every other tip is about finding a way to pack a little exercise or a little recreation into a jam- packed schedule. You too can do some pushups in between checking 200 emails at your standing desk and running to your 17th appointment of the day! (Maybe you would be happier if you had a more relaxed schedule?)

The flip side of that coin is that there is no such thing as a magic amount of free time where you will suddenly be able to exercise, meditate, cook your own meals, or whatever you want to do. It can either always be fit in or never be fit in in my experience.

<comment><USER7> >>The flip side of that coin is that there is no such thing as a magic amount of free time where you will suddenly be able to exercise, meditate, cook your own meals, or whatever you want to do. It can either always be fit in or never be fit in in my experience.

What do you mean?

<comment><USER8> I think I know; this always comes up in discussions of time management, self- improvement, etc. One argument says "if it's valuable to you, you'll make time for it." Which is true as it stands, and can be inspirational - it can be extended to " _make_ time for what _truly_ matters to you." The reality is that it's harder to break bad habits and develop good ones than most people think. I like to say "people _can_ change, but most _won 't_". Some of PG's essays follow along these lines, especially when he uses analogies of running (I think "Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn" was one prime example).

<comment><USER9> I think the common phrasing is, "If it's important to you, you'll find time. If it's not, you'll find an excuse."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A sure-fire way to increase your happiness is to work out. Do 40 pushups a day for a week, see how your mood improves. Your body is meant to be exercised, don't deprive it of movement and muscle ache.

When I used to go to the gym I remember always sleeping soundly, always waking up feeling awesome and always having a great feeling throughout the day. Can't recommend it enough.

<comment><USER11> And if you can't do 40, do five. And if you can't do straight pushups, do knee pushups. And if you can't do five, do one. Then two. Then five. Then 40. But don't rush it, just do what you can and then a little more.

<comment><USER12> Seconded. People often get overwhelmed at the scope of "become more fit" once they've finished a workout or two. Doing it one small accomplishable bit at a time is a totally valid way of building a fitness habit, and is NOT something to be ashamed of. And for the RPG nerds here this is _exactly_ how you level- up IRL.

<comment><USER13> Oh, man. How long I gotta spend level-grinding at the gym? (whah! :-))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Am I the first one to call this article out on BS pop neuroscience? If you want to convince yourself that this makes you happier, just go and try it, but completely context-deprived pictures of colourful blobs on a 3D brain proves... nothing. Oh, you need sleep to be productive? Let's run a poorly designed $20,000 fMRI study to prove that! Folks, this has to end.

<comment><USER15> not sure about the color blobs, but i think the gratitude stuff has some foundation. [http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/Labs/emmons/PWT/index.cfm?Sect...](http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/Labs/emmons/PWT/index.cfm?Section=2)

<comment><USER14> Oh, I have absolutely no doubts about that! And from at least the review article they had on this page [1], it seems like the do some solid psychological assessment of gratitude. What does concern me though is when neuroscience is thrown into the mix just because everything seems more convincing with brain scans[3]. The articles <del>cited</del> referred to in the blog posts linked in the original blog post however often follow this pattern: (1) Assess X (say, gratitude) with an established or new questionnaire. (2) find a condition to vary (3) do a fMRI in both conditions and (4) correlate the contrast with the questionnaire. If you found a correlation, you found the neuronal cause for X! Publish!

This is just a huge waste of money. And also often enough poorly done [2].

[1] [http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=JYj4KStQjhIC&oi=f...](http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=JYj4KStQjhIC&oi=fnd&pg=PA248&dq=Why+gratitude+enhances+well- being:+What+we+know,+what+we+need+to+know.&ots=kVlQxo- xE2&sig=ClfqEvW3v-PAIZe2X4SLza6A-N0#v=onepage&q=Why%20gratitude%20enhances%20well- being%3A%20What%20we%20know%2C%20what%20we%20need%20to%20know.&f=false) [2] [http://www.edvul.com/pdf/VulHarrisWinkielmanPashler- PPS-2009...](http://www.edvul.com/pdf/VulHarrisWinkielmanPashler-PPS-2009.pdf) [3] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465018777/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465018777/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0465018777&linkCode=as2&tag=slatmaga-20)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm seeing a lot of comments playing devil's advocate by claiming that happiness is a choice. That's true! But it doesn't contradict the article.

What we call 'happiness' or 'sadness' is just some combination of the thousands of automatic judgements we've made about the world recently. All of these judgments (choices) are themselves composed of smaller judgements (this is good, this is bad). We try not to be 'judgemental', and I know what people mean when they say that, but I'd say it is in fact probably all we _can_ do. I mean, technically speaking.

You can zoom in to examine the tiny choices (to some extent), and you can zoom out so that sometimes happiness looks for all the world like a single big ol' choice. I think this is what people call 'clarity', and I think I've experienced it once or twice.

But actually, for most of us, most of the time, happiness is the result of all these tiny, composable, semi-automatic judgements about the world, and we have to keep on making these choices, over and over and over again as we think. And exercising, meditating, getting enough sleep, spending quality time with other humans, etc. - this stuff really will help us improve our semi-automatic judgements so that we are saying "this is good...this is good..." slightly more often than before.

[slight edits for clarity]

</comment><comment><USER17> Short-term happiness and life satisfaction are two different things, and any discussion on happiness really needs to include both.

You can exercise, meditate, walk to work, have 100 close friends and family you keep in contact with regularly, and take every other step happiness gurus preach, but if you aren't actively working towards goals that increase your life satisfaction, you're in trouble.

The hard part is figuring out what you need to do to feel satisfied at the end of the day.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've read about these topics for a long time, and I quickly concluded that the author(s) made no effort at skepticism. You absolutely cannot rely on such superficial analysis of research. Even if you don't know anything you should be suspicious (examples: women need more sleep than men "because their brains are more complicated", 8.5 hrs sleep is less healthy than 5 hrs - correlation/causation error at least; meditation doesn't just calm the mind but is also one of the best ways to buy lasting happiness (evidence: quote from meditation advocate)).

</comment><comment><USER19> Yes, it's very easy to tell the difference between two pictures of a person smiling, one of which has had the contrast increased.

</comment><comment><USER20> "In fact, 100 hours per year (or two hours per week) is the optimal time we should dedicate to helping others in order to enrich our lives."

First of all, recent research has indicated that shallow happiness is not as important for well-being as a sense of purpose ([http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/meaning- is...](http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/meaning-is-healthier- than-happiness/278250/)).

Second, if you spend time helping others only so far as it enriches your life, that is literally the definition of selfishness. This is NOT a philosophy that should be encouraged or applauded.

Productivity is not an end, it is a means to accomplish something. If you are the world's most efficient and productive marble bathtub designer, and you only help others to the extent that it makes you happier, you are a jerk.

<comment><USER21> >"Second, if you spend time helping others only so far as it enriches your life, that is literally the definition of selfishness."

Everyone does selfish things, some of those things make people happier. The author doesn't say to help people to be not selfish, the author says to help people to feel better about yourself.

>"This is NOT an approach to life that should be encouraged or applauded."

Any reason why not?

>"If you are the world's most efficient and productive marble bathtub designer, and you only help others to the extent that it makes you happier, you are a jerk."

What if you are the world's most productive and efficient designer of water systems to help save people in third world countries, and you only do it to the extend it makes you happier, are you still a jerk?

I like the way you pass judgement on people and at the same time try to get people to not help others because you view it as selfish.

[added] scarcrowbob (below) has such a good comment it is quotable.

<comment><USER7> >>I like the way you pass judgement on people and at the same time try to get people to not help others because you view it as selfish.

Yeah, his post is so asinine it makes my head hurt.

At the end of the day, there is a selfish component to _everything_. There is no such thing as pure altruism: even acts that seem purely altruistic are performed ultimately because they make the person feel good.

The important thing is that this does not make the person a jerk. I mean, is Bill Gates a jerk? No, right? Helping other people makes him happier, and gives him satisfaction with the feeling of giving back to the world, but if we act like rational people and evaluate his actions on the effect they have on others, then he's definitely an awesome person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder if the reason we get happier b/c we get older is because our sexual drive decreases. As it decreases, we focus less on what we can't get (more attractive partner, more exciting sex, etc), because it simply doesn't become as desirable.

<comment><USER23> Interesting or maybe as we get older we have satisfied/achieved aspects of that sexual drive and no longer see it as the end all be all with respect to happiness. Either way I think you have a point with the narrative that sex = happiness for some.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Not sure about #3. There are a lot of reasons why one would choose to live farther from work. It's not just "wanting a bigger house." Quality of life, better schools, proximity to outdoor activities, etc. could all compensate for the pain of a long commute. Not to mention housing costs. Wonder where the author lives... If you work in Manhattan or on the SF Bay peninsula, it is unlikely that you can afford to live there.

<comment><USER25> If you click through to the research behind the "commute" item, you'll see that it concluded that other things -- like an increased salary -- can indeed compensate for a long commute.

The interesting thing that the research uncovered is that people are _strongly_ biased to underestimate the effect of commute time relative to other factors. For example, their survey found that people with effectively no commute were about as happy as people with a one-hour commute who made 40% more.

So, yeah, the article is wrong to say that things like a bigger house or better job "just don't work". But they almost certainly won't work as well as people expect them to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I find the planning of the trip is often the best part. Sometimes the trip itself can be a bit trying, but you've got the memories forever. Plus you tend to remember the positive parts or laugh at the negatives (I've had my passport stolen twice abroad and I actually laugh now, although it did suck at the time).

<comment><USER27> I must be an exception, planning something I know I'll have much better information about once I'm in that distant place makes me less happy when I have to do it before, based on the information I know it's at least incomplete when not plainly wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> You can make yourself happier by deciding that you want to be happy. Our brain can manufacture happiness. Listen to this talk by Dan Gilbert: [http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.h...](http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html)

</comment><comment><USER29> reminds me of this tweet:

"happiness is a choice," insists able-bodied, healthy, beautiful millionaire jennifer aniston in the new edition of some shit magazine

[https://twitter.com/plume__/status/362631201388892160](https://twitter.com/plume__/status/362631201388892160)

</comment><comment><USER30> On the Happy Life Seneca (First Century A.D.)

[http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Happy.html](http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Happy.html)

</comment><comment><USER31> "According to The Art of Manliness..."

Seems like a very authoritative source.

<comment><USER32> Awesome book, actually!</comment></comment>


Penetration Testing Tools Cheat Sheet - <AUTHOR> https://highon.coffee/blog/penetration-testing-tools-cheat-sheet/ <comment><USER2> A couple of more security tools:

[https://github.com/BinaryDefense/artillery](https://github.com/BinaryDefense/artillery) \- The Artillery Project is an open-source blue team tool designed to protect Linux and Windows operating systems through multiple methods.

[https://github.com/trustedsec/social-engineer- toolkit](https://github.com/trustedsec/social-engineer-toolkit) \- The Social- Engineer Toolkit (SET) repository from TrustedSec

</comment><comment><USER3> This cheat sheet shows what a lot of rookies don't understand, pentesting requires knowledge of the same systems and services as that which any linux sysadmin has.

It's amusing to me because I often see people wanting to be hackers, applying for IT-security classes or ethical hacking classes thinking there's a magic education they can take to become a hacker.

When in reality they need the same skills as any good linux sysadmin, understanding protocols, understanding services, and being able to google well in english.

<comment><USER2> > When in reality they need the same skills as any good linux sysadmin, > understanding protocols, understanding services, and being able to google > well in english.

It requires much more. The most important being an intrinsic desire to break things. Persistence is another. Understanding of underlying tech and stuff follows.

<comment><USER3> Oh absolutely, but I file that under character and not technical experience.

You need a character that does not give up and enjoys breaking things apart.

Specifically what's bothered me for many years is people who apply to classes to become hackers, thinking there's a type of certification that will allow them to call themselves hackers. It's become much more popular and romantic lately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Zdziarski's "iOS Forensic Investigative Methods"[0] is a free eBook which can be helpful if you're interested in native penetration testing.

[0]: [http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/?p=2287](http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/?p=2287)

</comment><comment><USER5> The one I've used for 3 years counting:

[http://pentesteracademy.com/topics](http://pentesteracademy.com/topics)

Its the Pluralsight / Lynda.com but for Computer Security.

<comment><USER6> Looks cool. Wish you didn't have to pay $100 each time you restarted and the PayPal and email cancelation is not anything I would trust sadly. Just seems to risky for a "well we didn't get your cancelation, sorry" situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone have a recommendation for resources to learn more about (ethical) hacking and penetration testing? I have some knowledge of common web vulnerabilities like XSS, CSRF, SQL injection, etc, but have very little knowledge of networking and how networks and systems are actually attacked.

For example, this course [0] looked great, but I found that it wasn't quite right for me. (Assumed I knew things I didn't, focus was sometimes off-topic, etc.) Any better recommendations?

[0]: [https://www.cybrary.it/course/ethical- hacking/](https://www.cybrary.it/course/ethical-hacking/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Check out this

[https://lab.pentestit.ru](https://lab.pentestit.ru) and [https://www.reddit.com/r/securityCTF](https://www.reddit.com/r/securityCTF) and [https://pentesterlab.com/bootcamp](https://pentesterlab.com/bootcamp)

Idk if this is what you are looking for.

Here's an example of a write up for one of the labs [https://lab.pentestit.ru/docs/TL8_WU_en.pdf](https://lab.pentestit.ru/docs/TL8_WU_en.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone actually refer to a "cheatsheet" when they are hacking? Or do they just use Google? It makes me laugh to think someone has some of this stuff printed by their desk for an emergency. For example, "gcc -o exploit exploit.c".

Also, this looks like a ripoff of [http://www.amazon.com/Rtfm-Red-Team-Field- Manual/dp/14942955...](http://www.amazon.com/Rtfm-Red-Team-Field- Manual/dp/1494295504/).

<comment><USER9> I am not a metasploit ninja, my job is mostly in design and defending systems. However, on occasion I'll need to demonstrate a pivot or exploit a common vuln to make a point to a DEV team. I might bust out the cheatsheet because that tool isn't I my muscle memory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Shameless plug: to run multiple of such security tools at once (nmap, openvas, nikto, etc) I've created [https://gauntlet.io](https://gauntlet.io) \-- it's free for few days, but soon won't have such limit.

<comment><USER11> Is this a different product than [http://gauntlt.org](http://gauntlt.org) ?

Definitely the possibility for brand confusion on security software tools. Something to consider before you go live.

<comment><USER10> The idea is similar, but the implementation differs a lot: Gauntlt is a gem that will help you run multiple scanners, but won't extend scanner capabilities such as controlling the speed, add custom headers, etc. That's what Gauntlet does, including issue management on the interface for you to classify, notify people, build teams around applications and much more, without needing to know how to configure any of such tools. Gauntlt requires you to host it and Gauntlet is a SaaS. One of the reasons to be a SaaS is to reduce the complexity of running scanners. Of course, the name is almost the same, thanks for pointing out, although it have a reason. The name Gauntlet comes from physical punishment ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_the_gauntlet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_the_gauntlet)) and it's like an app being 'punished' by multiple scanners. And as far as I know Gauntlt doesn't seem to be that active. And as I dug into it, I can tell: there are many things to do in order to make all scanners work together. It's more complex than it looks. But, anyway, thank you for pointing out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Anyone has recommendation for companies providing pentest services?

<comment><USER13> Lyonlim, Couldn't find an email in your profile. Feel free to send me an email (in profile) if you wanted to explore this more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is kali linux still considered the best out of the box pen-testing env? I played around with it a few years ago and always have wanted to get back into it.

<comment><USER15> Out of the box, yes. If you want to have a bit of control/knowing exactly what tools exist then I recommend:

[https://github.com/zardus/ctf-tools](https://github.com/zardus/ctf-tools)

[https://github.com/eugenekolo/sec-tools](https://github.com/eugenekolo/sec- tools)

But, those sets of tools don't focus on "pentesting", so much as they do on analysis, and exploitation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> How does one with the requisite skills get a job as a penetration tester? I don't often see companies hiring for the role.

<comment><USER17> They don't advertise the roles as regularly as other sectors of IT because they're hard to hire for. A lot of the hiring is word-of-mouth or promoting a developer internally who has infosec interest into the role, or hiring freelancers / outside companies.

It is a sector suited to freelance roles and contracting, or working for a consulting firm in a fulltime capacity.

Build up an online profile on your own website. It can take the form of a blog or just a simple web page with a bio and some published articles/papers.

Mention on your website that you're available for hire, where you are and what type of work you do.

Write some blog posts (anywhere from 2-3 a month or even 2-3 a year if they're a bit longer form), establish specialities that you are good at, produce conference talks and pitch them at CFP's and go and speak at conferences, submit your posts and websites on reddit, here on HN etc.

You'll start getting cold approaches (I average around 3 after every blog post) and you'll have somewhere to point the companies you approach to.

You'll meet people at conferences who want to hire you.

To find companies to approach, find vulnerabilities and send them a note or participate in bug bounty programs. You can also approach companies who have recently been in the news with security issues, or those you find on Twitter where users or other infosec ppl are reporting issues on social networks .

A lot of companies hit a wall when they experience a security incident and they're not sure what to do, who to call or who to hire - so they're very open to hiring contractors to organize that or bringing in their first fulltime infosec hire.

To get the top-end research roles at the big co's you really need to produce good research and you'll be headhunted.

Try to be specific in terms of both specialities and sectors you deal with. If you decide on freelancing, use your first couple of clients as references for potential new clients and ask associated, customers, etc. to refer you other work.

<comment><USER16> This is helpful. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> gcc -o exploit exploit.c

the cheat sheet should mention where to find exploit.c

:(

<comment><USER19> you write it.

<comment> qu4z-2 I really want to know who can write exploit code in C, but needs a cheat sheet to invoke the compiler.

Also, I always preferred "make exploit" for that. It's just very ... to the point.</comment></comment></comment>


Impact of metadata on Image Performance - <AUTHOR> https://blog.dexecure.com/impact-of-metadata-on-image-performance/ <comment><USER2>
      On an average, this kind of metadata occupies 16% of size
      of the JPEG file.

Ho ho. You think that's bad? Back in 2011, Tumblr didn't strip metadata from _avatar_ images. That results in some funny files, like this one: [http://28.media.tumblr.com/avatar_c5ee131b70d0_40.png](http://28.media.tumblr.com/avatar_c5ee131b70d0_40.png)

That PNG has a 3325 byte IDAT chunk, and a 106022 iCCP chunk. The metadata is 3188% bigger than the image itself.

Personally, I think websites _should_ strip metadata from thumbnails and resized images, but should _also_ let you download the original, unmodified image, complete with original filename. Why?

Instagram and others always recompress and strip metadata when you submit an image. This results in shitpics-- images so mangled by recompression that they look like visual gravel: [https://theawl.com/the-triumphant-rise-of-the- shitpic-e25d8e...](https://theawl.com/the-triumphant-rise-of-the- shitpic-e25d8e5af9bc#.bkxh5tln3) This is a complete own goal, there's no technical reason this has to happen. Digital files aren't supposed to decay!

And, of course, stripping authorship tags would make the dream of automated attribution impossible: [https://eev.ee/blog/2016/08/15/attribution-on-the- web/](https://eev.ee/blog/2016/08/15/attribution-on-the-web/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I just looked at JPEG files for this..should look at PNG files too..hopefully things are much better than that image you posted haha

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> From my experience hosting a bunch of user-provided images:

1\. Strip all metadata but provide downloads of originals somewhere

2\. Keep it simple, just use imagemagick's convert to remove profiles (but don't use imagemagick for file type detection)

3\. If the image has orientation exif tags, rotate the image to the right orientation (-auto-orient) before removing the exif profile.

4\. Don't remove image profile data. Or convert to sRGB first.

</comment><comment><USER4> ImageOptim is a handy little tool to strip all the metadata [https://imageoptim.com/mac](https://imageoptim.com/mac)

</comment><comment><USER5> There's some use to this metadata, for example gps coordinates to locate where it was taken, author info, camera parameters, etc. It might not be needed all the time, but it probably also shouldn't be stripped off all the time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup this information is indeed useful for a lot of cases (for photo editing software, etc.)..But for images delivered on the web it makes sense to preprocess them to strip off the EXIF data since it is mostly not used by browsers.

<comment><USER6> Exif data is particularly useful for preserving copyright metadata and (optionally) contact info for the photographer. Stripping too much metadata perpetuates the 'orphan works' problem and creates lots of photos floating around the internet that can never be used commercially, because the photographer cannot be identified.

More info here from the US Copyright office - choice quote: _" For good faith users, orphan works are a frustration, a liability risk, and a major cause of gridlock in the digital marketplace."_ [http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/](http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/)

Also, the UK has effectively given everyone the green light to steal photos lacking metadata because it's basically too difficult to find the photographer. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22337406](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22337406)

And from my perspective, I release many images CCO Public Domain with my email or name in the metadata, and I'm annoyed that this metadata is not preserved because it means people may be reluctant to re-use my images due to (non- existent) copyright concerns.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, I have covered this use case in the article

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does Google index the metadata within images?

<comment><AUTHOR> AFAIK Google doesn't use this data for indexing or SEO purposes..

<comment><USER8> They do capture the information. I'd be shocked if it isn't considered in PageRank.

<comment><USER7> thanks. For web pages, I usually clear any existing metadata within images, then insert some simple (but correct) keywords about the image. Wondering if I'm wasting my time.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Illumos launches as OpenSolaris derivative - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Illumos-launched-as-OpenSolaris-derivative-1050151.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The linked article from H-Online article is probably the best coverage I've seen today. The Illumos homepage is here: <http://illumos.org/>

I noticed that The Register's coverage has also been submitted, but I refuse to upvote that link. Apologies.</comment>


From concept to launch in 24 hrs and why there's no reason you can't do this too - <AUTHOR> http://kylewritescode.com/post/2568648171/from-concept-to-launch-in-24-hours-and-why-theres-no

<comment><USER2> _It's a project I've been wanting to build for a while, [...]_

I think that makes it more than 24 hrs from concept to launch. I suppose you already designed a good deal of the website in your head, if not layout-wise then certainly functionality- / interaction-wise, right?

<comment><USER3> But we all have something like that in our head. The point is, that's not the part that keeps us from deploying - its execution, and the thesis is (paraphrasing) that should not be a problem any more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One reason: design.

I have virtually no design ability. Believe me I've tried and failed miserably. Over the years I've read a number of books and tutorials, I've tried to emulate styles and designs from sites I like, I've spent countless hours in photoshop and I've asked for input and feedback on public forums. Nothing seems to help. It takes me a disproportionate amount of time to complete a design task compared to anyone with even a basic proficiency.

When I see apps like this one and others for example, from rails rumble put together over the course of a few days I'm truly envious of people's design ability. I've lost count of the number of projects I've abandoned because of frustrations with the design.

I've finally just accepted that I was never cut out for design work, that I'm much happier and far more productive writing code. For the next project I start, I'll save enough money to hire a designer first.

<comment><USER5> Don't let that stop you!

Not only do I have zero GUI design ability and no color sense, my software background is as far from web applications as it gets and I've still been working on an app for the past month. Use very basic design elements, understand the CSS box model and learn to look at everything around you -- designed objects are everywhere.

We're surrounded by design and you don't need to be able to create something from scratch, just see the elements you like around you and analyze them to understand why they're appealing. Just like programming, design can be broken down into component parts and each one understood on its own. Once you see how they work, you can put those parts back together in different ways.

...at least it seems to be working for me so far and my screens look a little less butt-ugly every day :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another thing that I've been using to punch out mvp type projects fast is this for the UI:

<http://www.designinfluences.com/fluid960gs/>

A grid system is awesome to begin with to help with laying stuff out well. But this also includes some basic css boilerplate for typography, forms, tables, etc.

It's purposefully in black and white (see the grey box method [http://v3.jasonsantamaria.com/archive//2004/05/24/grey_box_m...](http://v3.jasonsantamaria.com/archive//2004/05/24/grey_box_method.php)) which doesn't look half bad until you decide the mvp is worthy enough of some better style.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, using a grid-based css framework is a huge time saver. I find things tend to get a bit less readable when you've got "grid_5 alpha push_2 foo bar" classes everywhere, but hey, it does wonders for getting an MVP done.

Also, that JSM post never gets old.

<comment><USER7> Compass ( <http://compass-style.org/> ) lets you use CSS frameworks while bypassing the problem of non-semantic class names by using SASS mixins. It's yet another layer of abstraction to learn, but worth a look if you don't know about it already.

<comment><USER6> And while we are on the topic :) these are some sweet buttons you can create if you are using compass:

<https://github.com/imathis/fancy-buttons>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A key part of this is that you should start with the MVP[1]. Get the (minimal) features together that make your app work and release it.

Then follow a user-centred design (UCD) process by testing it on real people! Iterate early. I'd be more than happy to discuss what I mean here if anyone requires clarification. Most people end up following a UCD process without realising it, and it tends to be the way that the most successful products (physical and digital) tend to be created.

      [1] MVP: Minimum Viable Product http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product

<comment><USER9> The second "key" is a developer's proficiency with design. I am a developer and I know little to nothing about design. This is a major distraction since I spend a disproportionate amount of time getting a barely passable design. Would anyone recommend a good design resource for developers? Books/links/blogs all work. I try to read stuff like Smashing Magazine and Core77 but I mostly feel out of depth there.

<comment><USER8> A good starting resource here: <http://boagworld.com/design/when-developers- design/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if <http://threewords.me/> influenced this one? That was my first thought when I saw Kyle's tweet about Facto (nice name/url btw).

<comment><AUTHOR> Reading Mark's HN post the other day definitely helped get me pumped to build something.

<comment><USER11> Do you possibly still have the link?

<comment><USER10> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2051288>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you're serious about building a product, 24h isn't gonna cut it. Don't drag it out, sure… but there's more to a product than just a proof of concept.

<comment><USER13> That was my feeling back when 'we made this site in 3 days using Ruby on Rails!' was all the rage.

Frequently it was really 90% of an app. I like for things to be polished, have no error messages, handle all different types of input gracefully, and so on. The sites made in 3 days never did that. It's like 'the first 90% took 3 days, the last 10% took 3 weeks'. Details are difficult.

But then, that's where cutting out features or releasing an MVP comes in. If it's a really slim product, it's possible to make something usable, at least, in 24 hours. But why not just take a week or two and make it really good? There's no rush.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, I'm definitely not advocating building everything in 24 hours. Moreso, I'm saying that I think at this point it's possible for nearly anyone to round out their toolkit and prototype their ideas into a working MVP. Doesn't have to be polished or detail-heavy; focus on the minutia later, just get something tangible in front of users now.

<comment><USER13> Sure, it's similar to thdconcepts propounded in 37 Signals' 'Get Real' manifesto, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very cool!

I just slapped together <http://www.mileagebrain.com/> in two days to do a proof-of-concept and convince myself that it was feasible, and to gauge interest from the frequent flyer community. They love it so I'm moving forward with making it a real product.

</comment><comment><USER15> ". I'm currently on the $15 shared database, which accounts for probably 99% of my costs so far (the rest being marginal costs for S3 [likely a few cents])."

Why not on the FREE plan?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm already over the 5MB free limit.

<comment><USER16> I am using mongolab [1] for my small projects, that give me some more room to grow (free plan = 256 mb)

[1] <https://mongolab.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> that sounds great i have some ideas, have little knowledge in both design and developing fields, but need to strengthen my programing background to get them alive. i have a question about hosting the my site, with a very low budget, what is your advice?

</comment><comment><USER18> Facto is a great app... Very original idea!</comment>


PyPy: Transitioning Away from a Charitable Model - <AUTHOR> https://sfconservancy.org/news/2020/aug/12/pypy-transition/ <comment><USER2> Would love if someone could translate what this actually means.</comment>


Ask HN: Good learning resource for web/software development? - <AUTHOR> I want to learn and master a list of topics once and for all:
- HTML/CSS - Node.js/Express - React - <insert name of another technology to learn>
I know enough to make a website/web service but I find myself constantly fighting the system (especially with CSS and React).
It's tiring to keep on scouring the web for tutorials or courses, and not know which one to pick.
Is there a decent course or website (even if paid) that I can stick to and that would let me take the training wheels off?
I've read: - FullStack React, but I feel that it's outdated. - I've read Web Development with Node and Express, but it just scratched the surface.
I'm a dev and my background is Cocoa development. <comment><USER2> This might be of interest - [https://frontendmasters.com/](https://frontendmasters.com/). Not tried them, have no affiliation.</comment>


Show HN: Customizable online clearance rack  - <AUTHOR>

Created this site originally to help my wife find great clothing deals online.  I don't think there is anything else like it, please let me know if I'm wrong.  Thanks.  http://biggestpricedrop.com <comment><AUTHOR> [http://biggestpricedrop.com](http://biggestpricedrop.com)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Would appreciate any tips on marketing.</comment>


Could Morse Have Patented the Web? - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304636404577299490111350630.html

<comment><USER2> NOW THAT is food for thought. Interesting how today you don't need an IMPL, just an idea.</comment>


PS3 'master key' leaked online - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20067289#

<comment><USER2> "In a statement published on The Hacker News"

I was a bit confused for a second, until I saw the link went to thehackernews.com</comment>


Objects vs. Boxes vs. Actors vs. Agents - <AUTHOR> http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~rs46/posts/2014-02-03-objects-boxes-actors-agents.html <comment><USER2> Boxes seem very similar to Dataflow programming, of which unix pipes are merely an instance.</comment>


Rider on the Storm (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.damninteresting.com/rider-on-the-storm/?

<comment><USER2> Wow, whoever wrote this has some serious writing chops. This nerve-wrecking adventure is being well told. I have to check out the rest of the site.

After this, paragliding home from the top of our office building feels like a sunday walk :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I would appreciate if you could edit a topic/keyword into the headline. From the first few sentences and the title I still can't say if this article will be interesting to me or not. Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry I can no longer edit the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome. Thank you for posting this.</comment>


How to Improve the quality of your software: find an old computer - <AUTHOR> http://jacquesmattheij.com/How+to+Improve+the+quality+of+your+software-find+an+old+computer <comment><USER2> For web stuff in particular, using a comparatively low-bandwidth and/or high- latency connection can also be useful, since not everyone has 10+ Mbit connections with a 20ms ping to a Bay Area datacenter. On Linux, you can use 'tc' to simulate that.

I had a 384 Kbit, ~100ms-latency crappy SDSL connection until recently (was renting in the Santa Cruz mountains in a location that had poor connection options), and it was pretty amazing how two sites that looked very similar from a fast connection, would load _much_ differently on the slow connection, often for reasons not really inherently connected to the site's needs (it's one thing if it's loading slowly due to streaming video, versus due to having a gigantic background-wallpaper image, or unnecessarily serialized roundtrips).

<comment><USER3> If you're on FreeBSD you can use dummynet to simulate packet delay and loss.

It's quite handy. My partner has slow, unreliable, high-latency Internet in his house and there are an entire class of performance problems that are extremely obvious when I work from his place that are barely measurable when I work from a 100mb line that's only a few milliseconds away from a major datacenter.

<comment><USER4> And if you are on OS X (and have Xcode installed), look into Developer->Applications->Utilities->Network Link Conditioner.

<comment><USER5> If you are in the UK you can simply choose Virgin as your broadband provider to achieve the same effect.

<comment><USER6> Or talktalk, I don't even get cable out here in the country...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is true. And it used to be false.

It used to be that you should develop and test on the newest, fastest hardware available, because PC sales were growing exponentially and by the time your software had sat in a shrink-wrapped box in a shop somewhere for three months, most of your potential customers would have more powerful PCs than you could buy now.

This scenario is now wrong in two respects.

First, PCs are now a mature market. Sales are flat. People and companies are going longer and longer without upgrading. So a greater proportion of the market is using older hardware.

Second, the supply chain is shorter. Obviously in the case of a website, the update is instant. But even in the case of Apple's app store, it takes less than a month to get your app in your customers' hands.

<comment><USER8> One scenario I can think of is investing in a tablet, if only to test how a web app runs on it.

<comment><USER9> And also on Macs for testing on Safari.

<comment><USER10> What, really? Buy a 2k+ computer to test a browser you can download on Windows?

<comment><USER11> If there's _any_ call to do that, you only have to buy a Mini for $600.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is very good advice, but not only for the reasons that the author lists.

If you use a slower machine (or one with different performance, in general), you might discover race conditions in your code, that otherwise go unnoticed. I get this all the time with software on my mac — run stuff on a loaded machine and discover applications aren't ready for things appearing in different order than on the developer's machine.

<comment><USER13> We got this _a lot_ when we made our nightly test run on ec2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've been saying something similar for the last year or so. I can immediately tell whether your software is well-written by running it on my netbook. I can play Team Fortress 2 and World of Warcraft pretty well, Adobe Fireworks runs like a dream, the entire Office suite is snappy.

And then you try something like Windows Live Messenger or Skype, who both somehow find ways to use more RAM and CPU than half of the games on my system let alone other applications. It is amazing to me how long it takes some websites to load, too - fast browser, fast internet connection, slow CPU, all adds up to a pretty miserable experience if you like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, GMail (is there ANY other website which has a loading bar?).

<comment><USER15> I'm trying to think, what netbook can run TF2 well? I don't think I can even get that working on my 10" Eee w/ the ION2 chip.

<comment><USER14> Quite a few netbooks on the larger end of the scale can run games. I'm on an HP/Compaq Mini 311c, Atom 260, ION, and 3GB RAM (I upgraded it). I made a post on Reddit explaining what I did[1] - bear in mind this is definitely a compromise, while it boosted one person's framerate from 20 FPS to 60 it bears more than a passing resemblance to Minecraft and 1997. TF2 is on the absolute edge of what I can play on here, but many games run perfectly fine with very few issues. However it's taken me 5 minutes to post this reply because every 20 seconds, textarea inputs on Firefox freeze and ignore anything I type for 10 seconds. Odd!

Running a netbook is very much a reminder that CPU speed is not a linear scale.

[1] [http://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/e43fm/how_to_play_tf2_o...](http://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/e43fm/how_to_play_tf2_on_an_atom_260/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is an argument I've had many, many times over, and it's nice to see a respected developer like Jacques on the same side.

Quoting from his article:

      A nice example of a website that could do a lot better
      in this respect is twitter.com.

      They've now forced all their users to the 'new' interface,
      but frankly imo it sucks.

Absolutely true. Even on my fastest machines I've taken to using the mobile version. It's small, clean, fast, and you can do nearly everything on it that you can with the main site.

<comment><USER17> I guess the new version is running on that web design toolkit they just released to HN applause.

<comment><USER18> Except that the complaints about Twitter's new interface are all related to Javascript performance, and have nothing to do with CSS. Their toolkit release was all about CSS.

<comment><USER19> Lots of CSS written in the wrong way can actually be pretty processor-heavy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've used this strategy for a long time, mainly because the target platforms were often low powered PCs or DSPs. At one one company which I worked for not so long ago I was asked on a few occasions whether I wanted a newer PC, and I repeatedly said "no".

I'm not advocating luddism, but if you use a computer which is a few years old and make some dumb mistakes then the performance penalty is big and immediately obvious at the development stage, whereas on the latest hardware with multiple CPU cores it might not be so obvious and then turns into a crisis during deployment.

<comment><USER21> Also watch out for that SSD sitting in your machine making file access "free". :)

<comment><USER22> Is there a tool to slow down disk access?

I'm especially worried about UI thread getting blocked on file access to sleeping HDD or unreliable network drive (i.e. I don't want my applications to be as beachball-death-prone as Finder and iTunes)

<comment><USER23> Use a USB stick?

<comment><USER24> In this same thinking there are still some USB 1.1 hubs out there too. This should give you a VERY slow drive for a decent price. As an example:

[http://www.amazon.com/Ho97958-Usb-1-1-Slim-4-Port/dp/B00030N...](http://www.amazon.com/Ho97958-Usb-1-1-Slim-4-Port/dp/B00030NBXA/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I completely agree not allowing web developers to use the fastest machines to create the most bloated code, but I do hate suffering with absurdly underpowered machines in the office.

I like to be able to run a couple VMs at the same time without causing my system to grind to a halt. That being said, what I've done in the past is give myself (and my devs) fast machines loaded with RAM and such, but the environment they deploy onto is a low-grade commodity box.

The environment should be bare enough so that it causes developers and operations personnel to think twice before reading in a large file, or opening a tonne of file handles.

As a corollary, if you are deploying into a JVM environment (e.g.: Tomcat), DO NOT give the JVM a tonne of memory by default. Developers will write applications that just drink it up. Instead, start at the default (256MB) or sanely bump it up progressively as required by the application.

</comment><comment><USER26> I generally use Virtualbox for this.

<comment><USER27> Is there a way to emulate varying processor speeds using VirtualBox or other VMs?

<comment><USER28> I have done this successfully in the past; Ubuntu boots very slowly when limited to 5% CPU, but once up it's very usable. Look at vboxmanage --cpuexecutioncap

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I liked Steve Wozniak's comment in his interview in "Founders at Work" book, saying that a real hacker/entrepreneur will get things done despite not having advanced tools available to them.

<comment><USER29> In my day job, I experience this almost daily. I spend a lot of time working on government computers with almost no useful data processing and/or trouble shooting software installed on them. They're basically stock XP machines with MS-Office.

It's amazing what you can accomplish given those kinds of constraints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Fun fact: Microsoft's Windows Mobile team always had a reference hardware, which was a below-average phone from previous generation. For example, WM 6 for 600MHz/128 MB devices was dogfooded on 200 MHz/64MB devices, and a lot of Microsoft people really used them as their personal phones.

BTW, that's why some old phones/PDAs are legendary (for example, HTC Tornado) - because several next versions of WM run there flawlessly.

</comment><comment><USER31> The only problem with this post, is that you gain as much information from the title as you gain from reading the whole article.

</comment><comment><USER32> That's why the android emulator, even though it is so so so SO slow, proves a worthy tool to develop with. If your app runs quickly, relatively speaking, on the emulator, you've got a good app.

<comment><USER33> There is slow and then there is unusable. The emulator is the later. If it had any decent performance it would run at the speed of the slowest android device available, but it doesn't even do that.

Using the emulator you're conditioned to the slowness. You can't even set a valid baseline. Now your application is so slow you can't tell if the performance is due to the application or the emulator.

Seriously, the emulator is a complete joke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> On a related note, I also keep an old pc around as a learning box. It's great to be able to easily wipe the hard drive, install a fresh *nix and have a development environment set up that keeps me fearless.

Where I might be concerned with muddying my main pc, I don't feel any problems with doing something potentially hacky or dangerous on the old box. Freeing up this mental space makes the first few steps of learning some new language or environment much easier for me.

<comment><USER35> You may instead want to try something like this:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000KS8S9W/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000KS8S9W/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=littdidd-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=B000KS8S9W)

It goes in a 5.25" bay and allows you to easily swap out 3.5" SATA drives. You could then have two SATA drives, one drive is your normal OS, and the other drive would have your muddying OS.

There is also virtualization. Not sure if that is an option for you.

<comment><USER36> The advantage of a second box is that you can use the main and test machines side by side. if you switch drives, you're cut off from your main development environment while you're using the other system.

There are disadvantages too, of course, such as increased desk space, power usage, and heat in your office, and inability to work on the subway.

VMs are good, though VMs don't solve the original problem of letting you test on an older CPU. (Their IO is generally slower, but not in the same way as an older machine.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Isn't this how Unix emerged? The team was to build an OS on some given hardware with minimal resources and speed.

I remember reading this but cannot remember where.

</comment><comment><USER38> I agree that you should test on more limited hardware. But on the other hand, I use my high end development machine as the benchmark for how fast it will go with a production worthy machine (unless one is willing to throw really insane amounts of money around).

If the customer asks "How long does it take to import 10k documents?" I can give them two data points, the VM running on a slow DSL connection over VPN on an older server, and a VM running locally on a i7 with more RAM and an SSD.

Of course, the requirements change if you develop desktop applications vs. server applications: if you plan to deliver software to government accountants running hardware that is at least 5 years out of date, you better go and get yourself a matching setup - "It would be faster if your Boss bought you a faster machine" is not helpful.

</comment><comment><USER39> Just ask me to test. I have a real crap PC and constantly scream about devs who think everyone has multi-cores and multi-GHz. Every day, this machine becomes slower due to website and browser bloat. And I'm not the only one. All the others think it's something wrong on _their_ end.

<comment><USER40> Right, but, statistically speaking, you don't really matter. Doubly so if you don't buy software.

The target is "people who spend enough money to make writing code for them worthwhile," not "everyone ever."

<comment><USER39> Well if you're going to rule out people who have fallen into a pit of debt these days, where do you think they'll go when they're back on their feet? To your company that snubbed them?

<comment><USER40> The majority of the people who are on dinosaur computers are not, it's probably safe to say, people who are likely to show interest in your software even if they upgrade. It's also probably safe to say that if you win on features and quality, those who _would_ be interested will buy it.

There's a cost/benefit to supporting old hardware, and very often the benefit is vastly outweighed by the cost. Econ 101. Sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> <http://www.webpagetest.org> can do dialup testing with waterfalls

You can also run Windows XP in vmware with just one cpu allocated to it and limited memory (and screen space).

If you have the paid version of vmware you can also do cpu throttling.

<comment><USER42> Any way you can simulate throttling of the storage layer? ie, slow or fragmented disk?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I thought we already talk bout this: [http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/13623/does- gi...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/13623/does-giving-a- developer-a-slower-development-machine-result-in-faster-more-effici)

</comment><comment><USER44> Excellent point. The first version of my software was released under Windows 3.1, and had to run acceptably on a 90 MHz PC. It's come a long way since, but the core algorithms are still in use, and they scream on today's gear.

</comment><comment><USER45> Instead of getting an old machine, why not use a virtual machine with low settings?

<comment><USER21> There are special cases where this won't work. For example I'm working on audio processing software and I can't test it in a VM because audio latency in a VM is too big whereas an older and slower computer might have slow disk access, etc. but audio latency is still near realtime.

<comment><USER45> Are there any special kinds of emulation that you could use for this purpose? I mean, there are DOS, gameboy emulators out there, it would be interesting if there were emulators out there for PCs with a particular hardware configuration which would emulate slow disk access and so on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Before anybody uses this as an excuse to save a bit on the hardware: this machine should be used to test the product on, not develop it (are your users really going to have a huge IDE running as well?).

<comment><USER21> Well, if not an IDE they might have running Photoshop in the background. Or some other resource hungry software.

<comment><USER47> Or even worse, they might not have a huge software running, but the small updaters, toolbars, anti-malware monitors, hardware 'managers' and all that crap can add up pretty quickly.

It's not rare for me to see applications running faster on my meager single- core 1.6GHz laptop than on considerably faster machines, only because they don't have to compete as much.

<comment><USER48> I wonder if anyone out there does actually test in a browser with 19 toolbars, virus scanners which intercept every read() call, and bonzibuddy?

<comment><USER49> and 4 viruses concurrently trying to connect to their respective master nodes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Great advice. Especially if you interface with any device drivers. Thinkpad T42! All initial build/testing goes to an older Thinkpad T42 and we move up from there into the Windows7/64bit.

</comment><comment><USER51> Great insight. It never occurred to me to think fourth dimensionally about software until now. Thank you for saving me countless hours of dealing with support emails I don't understand.

</comment><comment><USER52> Github is another problem site. Though it's not just the Javascript, it's all the random AJAX calls. I'm often browsing over a high-latency low-bandwidth connection from a netbook. So just using the netbook also misses an important point, that you need to see how badly your site breaks down when you're in the middle of nowhere connecting over an AT&T USB dongle.

</comment><comment><USER53> Or use a netbook.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've always developed software on not high end machines. (Or tested on old devices ... was still using an original iPhone when the 3gs was around).

I guess some webdevs don't do this - at least I have to assume they have some maxed out monster workstations when I visit websites that let my CPU usage go to 100%.

<comment><USER54> Yes, I was still using my original iPhone, for at least, ooh, 6 hours after the iPhone 4 launched. To be fair, I did resist the 3G and 3GS.</comment></comment>


Completing the Netflix Cloud Migration - <AUTHOR> https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/completing-the-netflix-cloud-migration <comment><AUTHOR> This article at ars technica has a few more details as well: [http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2016/02/netfli...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2016/02/netflix-finishes-its-massive-migration-to-the-amazon- cloud/)</comment>


Is an mba worth it? - <AUTHOR>

I am curious what the hacker news network thought about mba's.. <comment><USER2> I think that depends on what your goal is and what you expect the MBA to give you. Generally, I would say no, an MBA is not worth the time/cost if you think it's (1) going to get you a job (2) prepare you to start/operate/sell a real life business (3) get you girls... in some cases you might develop connections that at some point in the future make the mba worthwhile, or perhaps you get a nice base of book knowledge that supplements real-world business experience that you feel worth the time/cost.

</comment><comment><USER3> No relation whatsoever

</comment><comment><USER4> The answer is different for every individual who considers going to get an MBA. Your career amibitions, financial circumstances, current job satisfaction, and a thousand other factors will all influence the decision to take two years off for business school, and without the benefit of counterfactual evidence, it's impossible to know where the other path would have led one way or the other. Smart and successful businesspeople have a mix of backgrounds - some went back for an MBA while others did not, but all of them are comfortable with the tradeoffs they've made and the paths they've chosen. Suffice to say, there is no cookie-cutter answer to this question, and while soliciting input from those with or without an MBA is helpful, the truth is the best answer can only be the one each individual comes to themselves.

One thing that it does do is make you more risk-averse. That comes with the burden of a $150k expense, unfortunately. However, there are ways around this. I spent a year working for a top-tier consulting firm and have paid off my loans. Now I'm looking to start something or join something on the ground floor, and I have the network and skillset that I got from my MBA. Plus I had a lot of fun! It's a great time, and if you've been working your a$$ off for a few years that's not a terrible reason to do it.

The most valuable things I learned from an MBA aren't LBO models, FIFO accounting, porters forces, etc... Now I'm paraphrasing from something I saw on a friends facebook wall, but the biggest things I learned are:

1) Smart people fundamentally disagree about how the world works 2) Build your career around your strengths 3) Be confident, but humble

So in the end, it's a question only you can answer for yourself, but I would say that there are benefits. What do you want to do after bschool?</comment>


What happened to NewMogul.com? - <AUTHOR> http://newmogul.com

<comment><USER2> there used to be another one, nonhackernews.com, run by mattmaroon: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=315692>

that one is so far gone that the domain has expired.

so much for the splinter groups!

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=863899>

<comment><USER4> did anyone ever find out if he was actually ok (out of interest - I cant see in that thread)?

<comment><USER3> Not that I'm aware of. I did go so far as to check the whois for a phone number but I have no personal knowledge of nickb so I figured it would be pretty intrusive of me to call.

Prakash or miles would be better suited for that I think.

<comment><USER4> Thanks.

Yeh I spent a bit more time reading the thread and I see he is a family man and has personal friends in the NM moderators.

Was just checking because it always worries me when young single guys [which I assumed he was, oops] drop out of communities with no noise :) now I actually have the resources to check their ok I keep my eye open for these types of things - but I missed him disappearing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> no conspiracy theory on the disappearance ?</comment>


The Man Who's Making Tech Do Something About San Francisco's Massive Wealth Gap - happy-go-lucky http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/06/daniel-lurie-san-francisco-tipping-point-homelessness/ <comment><AUTHOR> It'd be better and easier to teach people to not mind the gap.</comment>


Wasps: If you can't love them, at least admire them - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49692974 <comment><USER2> As a kid I once experienced something worth of an Animal Planet show. I was a typical city boy, but I had family in the country side, I would spend some weeks down there on summers. For me that was extremely boring since I didn't have other kids to play with, I didn't have my Nintendo nor even a TV near. So one of those days my boredom drove me outside, a blue wasp caught my attention, it was beautiful and it was doing something peculiar, it was using its antennas to sense something in the ground, after a while it would start digging small holes with its arms, then it would stop and try sensing again, that happened a couple of times, the holes it made where almost perfect circles, after some minutes it went inside one of those holes and then it took out a really big larva, the larva was clearly some magnitudes bigger than the wasp, but it didn't matter, the wasp took it outside and it flew away with it. That was a surreal experience for me as a kid it opened my eyes, it showed me a lot of amazing things happen every day, and we don't even realize it.

<comment><USER3> Chrysididae. Diverse family of beautiful, solitary parasite wasps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > He saw the thing the shell of gray paper had concealed. Horror. The spiral > birth factory, stepped terraces of the hatching cells, blind jaws of the > unborn moving ceaselessly, the staged progress from egg to larva, near-wasp, > wasp. In his mind's eye, a kind of time-lapse photography took place, > revealing the thing as the biological equivalent of a machine gun, hideous > in its perfection. Alien. He pulled the trigger, forgetting to press the > ignition, and fuel hissed over the bulging, writhing life at his feet.

… I think William Gibson did not instil a love of wasps in me.

</comment><comment><USER5> > So what does he say when people tell him they hate wasps. "I just cry." He > laughs. "Why don't people already love wasps? They're the lions of the > insect world."

Yes, but freak zoo escapes aside, I can mostly avoid lions by staying out of the Serengeti.

Jerkish wasps are always trying to get into my beer, especially in the UK - they are really aggressive there.

<comment><USER6> > Jerkish wasps are always trying to get into my beer, especially in the UK - > they are really aggressive there.

Inquisitive is probably a better qualifier than aggressive. In my experience european wasps have low aggression: they're not going to sting you out of nowhere, but they tend to buzz and stay around and investigate pretty much anything that looks edible (foods, drinks, people, …), leading to people trying to swat them, and that's when things get iffier.

Even european hornets are not really aggressive, but they're big enough to trigger a more primal terror even in people who are generally fine with insects.

<comment><USER7> People who get stung out of nowhere have been swatting the wasp away, or are leaping around trying to avoid them. It's no wonder really. Mind you, most people give the same reaction to bees which are positively docile. People generally seem to find you insane if you don't participate in this swatting and running away business. :)

Now if you were drinking your beer right by where a wasp nest happened to be, yeah then there'd be aggression.

<comment><USER8> > Now if you were drinking your beer right by where a wasp nest happened to > be, yeah then there'd be aggression.

That reminded me of my last camping trip this summer. Right as we set up near a fountain and started eating, wasps started to gather around our food (apparently they love blue cheese scent) to the point we had to relocate to be able to eat (they were pretty insistent).

We ended up relocating with the sun falling so we missed a wasp nest in a rock about 3 metres away from our tent!

We noticed it a couple days later since we stopped caring after not being disturbed by any more wasps.

They got out of their nest at high vertical velocity, and it faced away from our tent, so we just weren't in their flight path. A few came to visit, but they stopped gathering around our blue cheese and mostly went hunting near tree roots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am fascinated by tarantula hawks, the first time I saw one flying I thought it was a black humming bird! I've watched one hunt a tarantula and drag it 25 yards across a yard to it's layer. The deep blue black and contrasting copper wings are visually stunning. Oh yeah and the second most painful sting right behind the bullet ant, right in my own middle American suburban back yard!

<comment><USER10> Tarantula hawks are my favorite insect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was very glad to have some wasps help me with my gardening this year!

Earlier this summer, I was pruning my tomato plants, when I came across a giant green tomato hornworm attached under a leafy stem. I looked up and noticed an entire stem's leaves had already been decimated by it! But lucky for me, I had a bunch of flowering plants right beside the tomatoes, and some miniature wasps had been frequenting them. They'd found the hornworm before me and laid a couple hundred egg sacs on its back, incapacitating it. Later on the larvae hatched and devoured the hornworm. Weeks later I found another similar hornworm, half-way devoured. In both cases, wasps saved my tomatoes from potential disaster.

<comment><USER12> I have a similar symbiotic relationship with spiders.

They are allowed to freely roam around, as long as they take of all the summer bugs that happen to fly in during Summer time.

Ah and don't get too crazy with their webs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> After getting stung 5+ times yesterday, not a fan of them. Apparently, they leave a scent encouraging further attacks. We just happened to be doing clean up near an undergrown hive.

<comment><USER14> I have a fair amount of wasps in my vicinity: mud daubers and paper wasps mostly it seems. They're very inquisitive and curious but not necessarily belligerent. I've never had any problems with them so I generally leave them alone, though I do clean their nests off my house and shed.

*One of the coolest experiences of my life spent outside was watching a tarantula hawk and tarantula engage in mortal combat right in front of my friend and I as we were sitting and relaxing in a park.

<comment><USER15> Where I grew up as a kid you were always warned about yellowjackets, not wasps generally. Not knowing how to discern a yellowjacket I guess I was generally wary of wasps, particularly any wasp that was yellowish, but never had the mindset that all wasps were aggressive. A wasp-shaped thing that was black wouldn't have been something I'd think twice about.

What sucks about yellowjackets is that they're easy to dismiss as bees. You can ignore bees; indeed, you _should_ ignore them. Not ignoring bees is how you get stung. Yellowjackets have a reputation for being capricious. Ignoring a yellowjacket is how you get stung, not how you avoid getting stung. At least, that seemed to be the wisdom.

<comment><USER16> I really don't understand how to mistake a bee for a yellowjacket - they look very different, and about the only thing they have in common are that they fly and some bees have a yellowish color that does not look like the bright yellow.

They sound different, they are build quite different, and they fly differently. Just observing bees on flowers for a few minutes every day in the summer and it's obvious, at least it is to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Man walks into a shop and says "Three wasps please". Shopkeeper replies "We don't sell wasps". Man says "That's odd because you have a load of them in your front window". \--joke I heard the footballer Paul Gascoigne tell many years ago.

<comment><USER18> Not sure I get it..?

<comment><USER17> In old fashioned small shops it was common to have a display of your merchandise in the front window. This would tend attract/trap wasps in summertime especially if it was a cakeshop or similar. I probably should have said cakeshop! You know you've failed when you need to explain a joke. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I once saw a wasp drink an entire drop of white wine, then it ran around on a napkin briefly stopping once in a while, leaving a little wet spot behind. So relatable.

</comment><comment><USER20> To me, wasps are strong evidence that if there is a creator God he is indifferent to cruelty. Almost all wasp species, to survive, implant their young in hosts. When the young are born they eat the host alive from the inside out. This is the natural order and the order is fucked.

<comment><USER21> "Well, it's funny that the people, when they say that this is evidence of the Almighty, always quote beautiful things. They always quote orchids and hummingbirds and butterflies and roses." But I always have to think too of a little boy sitting on the banks of a river in west Africa who has a worm boring through his eyeball, turning him blind before he's five years old. And I reply and say, "Well, presumably the God you speak about created the worm as well," and now, I find that baffling to credit a merciful God with that action.

\- David Attenborough

<comment><USER22> I see this argument a lot for the non-existence of a higher power, god whatever. But it's based on the (I think false) presumption that in order for a higher power to exist, that power must necessarily intend for humans on an individual basis have nothing bad happen to them. This is clearly false since the world is full of suffering, pain, genocide, murder and the like. Obviously, the point of life is not for all us to get along and be happy because nothing bad happens, it's to try to overcome the horror and live in the appreciation of every moment that we are alive, no matter the pain or suffering. Living in enteral peace is easy when nothing bad happens, it's when the shit hits the fan that the real work begins.

In my humble view, each of us has a part to play in the greater order of the universe. Sometimes that part is to be rich and comfortable. Other times it's to be a starving child. If you believe in re-incarnation, all of us are the starving child AND the billionaire.

<comment><USER21> > must necessarily intend for humans on an individual basis have nothing bad > happen to them

This is at very least at odds with Christian teaching e.g. the personal god is one believed in by many.

This regardless of the lack of scientific evidence for the existence of God.

<comment><USER8> I don't know which specific Christian sect you're referring to but in Catholicism God isn't seen as merciful on Earth. Penance and repentance (due to our sins, including the Original Sin) are core parts of their belief.

Old testament's God is a jerk. Only on afterlife will you be absolved of your sins (or sent to hell I guess).

<comment><USER23> But note that before the Fall, things were supposedly perfect, and some theologians place emphasis on the fact that sin and death entered the world through the actions of one man (Adam), and so did redemption and eternal life through Jesus, another human (fully so, despite having no mortal father and being fully God at the same time - Christianity is weird...)

It's a bit of a struggle to harmonize this with evolution, but Catholics are free to believe in it as long as they also affirm the existence of a historical Adam and Eve that did _something_ to cause the Fall...

<comment><USER24> It was actually Eve, not Adam, who partakes of the fruit, though most theologians would blame Lucifer, and some may even say God intended for all of that to happen anyway

<comment><USER23> That 'through one man thing' comes from Paul (Romans 5:12, if you want to get specific).

Historically, not all theologians were big on female agency (there's even a theory that a woman only fully takes part in the imago dei when united with man through marriage, whereas a man has it on his own; can't quite remember if that was a Jewish of Christian thing, though...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Short (9min) Cronenberg film _The Nest_ about..a wasp infestation. I liked it. Very Cronenbergy.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odFh5LbTPI4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odFh5LbTPI4)

</comment><comment><USER26> Wasp is the most hated animal in the world probably

There is also a group in Reddit only about people who hate Wasps

[https://old.reddit.com/r/fuckwasps](https://old.reddit.com/r/fuckwasps)

<comment><USER27> Second only to mosquitos. They should be obliterated from the world. In the western world they are annoying, in other parts of the world they are the deadliest animal/insect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Last summer I had a big white faced hornet nest next to my front door. Unfortunately I had to spray it with poison.

This year there was a big active yellow jacket nest in one of my sheds. The day I put out some non-poison traps, I noticed there were very few bugs flying around. A couple days later there were none. Something got to them already. I don't know what would kill a whole nest like that unless they got into poison from one of my neighbors.

I think they're actually beautiful animals and I don't want to kill them, but I can't have them right near the house.

<comment><USER29> You should have kept the hornets nest to keep away wasps. Its pretty impressive to watch a hornet snap a wasp in half mid-flight. At least were i grew up hornets do not care a lot about coming to grab food when eating lunch/dinner outside and usually stay away from humans.

<comment><USER28> If it was actually hornets and not two feet from my front door, maybe!

White faced hornets, also called bald faced hornets, are relatives of yellow jackets and technically wasps. They are misnamed hornets because of their size. They are even more aggressive than yellow jackets and one bug can sting you several times in a few seconds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Sol- Very interesting. I always disliked that internet meme that Wasps are useless and made to annoy humans, as if anything that doesn't look pleasing to us or is a bit dangerous has no place in nature. It should be obvious that Wasps have a purpose in our ecosystems, as do most things, of course.

</comment><comment><USER30> All these popular culture references to wasps. And yet no mention of The Wasp Fsctory?

<comment><USER31> Seriously disturbing book. Read it many, many years ago, couldn't put it down. It's still on my shelf but I'm not sure I can bring myself to read it again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I was hoping to learn something about wasp spray.

That stuff is nothing short of amazing. If you spray some in the air (at a flying wasp), the wasp will instantly drop dead to the ground. Not a quiver.

What on earth can make something be so instantly fatal?

</comment><comment><USER33> Anecdata: we had a crazy spring in New Hampshire for the mosquito population. It was extraordinarily uncomfortable to spend any time outside during May / June. Over these past few weeks, their populations seem to have plummeted near my house, making it quite enjoyable during the evenings now. The only difference is the appearance of two enormous bald-faced hornet nests in some nearby (but not too nearby) trees. I couldn't find any explicit mention of mosquitoes in their diet, but they do seem to have an appetite for all kinds of insects.

</comment><comment><USER34> We work in a fairly old building and wasps sometimes find their way into our offices. We used to freak out and get spray or something.

But we learned the easiest way to get rid of wasps is to just open a door that leads outside. They will find it and go away.

</comment><comment><USER35> Okay, a .2mm wasp that flies has got to be pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER36> I can't admire them for biting me in the leg, sorry ;-)

</comment><comment><USER37> and orchids outwit wasps, scary.

</comment><comment><USER38> So we are in the middle of an insect apocalypse and we are now told to love these killers? Ha, nice piece of propaganda! This guy probably has a wasp's egg somewhere in his brain! Killem all, I say! /S</comment>


Ask HN: Desk Recommendations for a Home Office - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,
I just moved into a new house and I'm in need of a new desk for my home office. This isn't my primary office - I have a day job - but my home office is where I'll do most of my writing and freelance work.
What model desk or brand do you recommend for a home office? <comment><USER2> A popular desk amongst many technical people I know for many years was IKEA's "JERKER" desk. It was well-known to be extremely sturdy -- able to hold very large CRT screens -- and relatively inexpensive in most countries.

There were a couple models, but they now seem to have been discontinued.

Lately I've seen more people buying the "GALANT" as a replacement, which is a similar series of desks from IKEA, except with far more configuration options. These desks are not as industrially-weight-bearing, but I guess not as many people are sporting CRTs anymore :)

<comment><USER3> A floor rep at IKEA shared with me their method for putting desks together when the components don't actually screw together. For example, with a top placed on trestles; the trestle top has holes that align with a pin screwed into the underside of the top, but it's not very secure.

Industrial strength Velcro. It holds the top in place quite well, yet makes it very easy and quick to tear the desk down. With self adhesive backing, you place a strip of the "nap" on one piece and a strip of the "hooks" on the other piece, and Bob's your uncle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why not make your own? If you don't need drawers then you can just take two sawhorses and put something on top of them, and if you need drawers then put something on top of two filing cabinets.

Personally, I plan on making a "door as desk" one of these upcoming weekends: [http://theinspiredroom.net/2009/04/15/diy-an-old-door- makes-...](http://theinspiredroom.net/2009/04/15/diy-an-old-door-makes-a- great-desk/)

If that doesn't appeal to you, then I would recommend to at least get a desk that has adjustable height settings, we have desks like that at work and its a very nice feature to have. Anything to make you more comfortable.

<comment><USER3> If you're making your own (or purchasing, for that matter), having or being able to make a front edge that is slightly rounded makes a big difference. Depending on your posture and ergonomic use of the desk, a sharp, right angle front edge can be annoying. It doesn't have to be much; an 1/8 inch or 3 mm quarter round makes a big difference.

As for adjustable height in a (partially) self-built desk, I've used these IKEA trestles:

VIKA ARTUR

<http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00144763>

I was fortunate to get some off-white ones, that apparently didn't sell too well but look great in my place, for some ridiculously low sale price. Normal price seems a bit high for a "budget desk".

P.S. IKEA U.S., your now-even-heavier Flash site blows (chunks) this morning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> echo "<http://news.ycombinator.com> | sudo tee /etc/host 127.0.0.1 $1</comment>


How Thomas van Linge Mapped Islamic State - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/how-thomas-van-linge-mapped-islamic-state-a-1048665.html <comment><USER2> Unreal. I've been looking at his maps for months in /r/syriancivilwar but had no idea that they were produced by a 19 year-old. I assumed that they were produced by a journalist in the region or an aid group.

<comment><USER3> And he does it _in Paint_. I obviously spend too much time on technology and too little on content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Isn't this article exposing him to significant danger?

<comment><USER5> I don't think so. It seems he is on emailing terms with the PR people of many of the Islamic groups.

With so many groups fighting it out for power, getting public credit for your actions is extremely important. Money, recruits, (and maybe fear) follow apparent success.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As someone who worked on crisis mapping stuff, how do they know this is ground truth? We had similar problems in Haiti and elsewhere with GIS ops for crisis operations, and with a lot less political value to demarcation of battle front lines and region ownership.

I guess I will have to re-read and check out the maps on /r/syriancivilwar other responders mention.

<comment><USER7> Often there's video or photo evidence that show whether claims made by the various sides involved in the fighting are true or not. Other times there's uncertainty and it isn't clear who controls this or that village but the big picture generally is very accurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> That's wild! I wonder if there's a way to potentially animate the maps over time. That would be very enlightening.

<comment><USER9> This is based on a different mapmaker's work (there are several of them), but is generally what you're looking for:

[https://youtu.be/TyHkSEs6dAM](https://youtu.be/TyHkSEs6dAM)

<comment><USER8> Perfect, thanks, that's really informative!</comment></comment></comment>


How the Fleece Vest Became the New Corporate Uniform - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-fleece-vest-became-the-new-corporate-uniform-1532442297 <comment><USER2> [http://archive.is/2uw9H](http://archive.is/2uw9H)</comment>


Show HN: Retichess - <AUTHOR> http://www.retichess.com

<comment><USER2> Let's play!

[http://www.retichess.com/play/NDUzOC45MDg3a2NNQlNN/30/0](http://www.retichess.com/play/NDUzOC45MDg3a2NNQlNN/30/0)

</comment><comment><USER3> I read that as "retchiness".

<comment><USER4> Me too. I spent a while wondering if it was going to be a site ranking how horrible web designs are before I clicked through and realized my error.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just spent a couple minutes playing a game against myself – I won/lost! Looks great, really nice job :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks good! Lots of polish. I made this a few months ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7206952](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7206952)

...using the same stack.

<comment><USER6> PS. You should escape the chat messages. I was able to inject javascript.

<comment><USER7> Could be part of the game. Bughouse = chess + chess, inb.tw = chess + XSS.

<comment><USER6> Just to be clear, inb.tw has no XSS issues, retichess does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks great. Did you write the chess logic from scratch?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, the application uses chess.js library found here: [https://github.com/jhlywa/chess.js](https://github.com/jhlywa/chess.js)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Both my opponent and I confused the King and Queen.

<comment><USER10> This is the standard for digital representation, check out: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_symbols_in_Unicode](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_symbols_in_Unicode)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Really awesome, might start using this instead of lichess.

One thing stopping me is the chess pieces. They so fancy that they distract me during the game since I have to pay a little more attention to which pieces are which. Standard ones like on chess.com/lichess.org would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER12> Great app! Curious as to what the benefits are over Lichess.

Also, you might want to consider using chessboard.js: [http://chessboardjs.com/](http://chessboardjs.com/)

</comment><comment><USER13> This is really nice. Good performance and appearance.

Would be cool to have automatic matches with others, but simplicity is nice (and it might be hard to get critical mass).

</comment><comment><USER14> Really cool, makes me wanna get into chess

<comment><USER15> Me too.

Does anyone have good, digitally available, books recommendations?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Gets stuck on "Generating game link". Site overload ?

<comment><USER17> I had the same problem on 3 different browsers. I also tried to play the game alexjeffrey posted above [1] but the timer wouldn't work. I'm guessing the game was cancelled by a reload or browser close.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7757610](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7757610)</comment></comment>