Ask HN: Best stack for secure API? - <AUTHOR>

I'm soon going to be leading a large team developing a highly-secure, high-volume web API. What stack should we use? Please give concrete reasons, preferably from extensive personal experience.
The best stack for the job needs bulletproof cryptography, a mature ecosystem, and strong appeal to developers. It also needs to be difficult to introduce errors while coding quickly.
It doesn't matter how good I am personally with the stack, which is why I'm asking for input.
(And don't say Node, because it fails almost all requirements...) <comment><USER2> In ranked order of preference based on ~10 years experience consulting, with safety being the only criteria: Java, Golang, Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl. Seriously, don't use Perl.

That Golang makes it so high on the list surprises me too, but we really did look at a fair bit of Golang code, and Golang projects (at least the ones that didn't do their own crypto) tended to be dispiriting, because there usually wasn't much to find.

Also: Java's pole position on that list makes some assumptions; for instance, that you're not using a heavyweight framework in the vein of Spring and Struts. All bets are off if you use Spring.

<comment><USER3> Wait, why do you say all bets are off if you use Spring? Don't banks and most running the Java EE run Spring?

<comment><USER2> Yes, large financials do tend to run Spring. I'm not sure what that has to do with the safety of the framework. Banks do not as a rule have safer code than other kinds of enterprises.

<comment><USER4> Is it really _that_ naive to assume that banks have higher security standards than, say, shopping list apps? ;-)

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure "naive" is the word I'd choose. Let's just say those standards are often aspirational.

<comment><USER4> :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would recommend the Java language and platform. It's as mature as it gets, has strong crypto libraries, is quite popular (especially in banking, which I believe is the target domain) and has adequate type safety and static checking features. For a high-volume web service API I would recommend the Dropwizard framework. It may not be as sexy as, say, Node, but it is a very solid choice.

As a second alternative I would recommend still the JVM and its ecosystem, but with the Scala language and Typesafe's platform. It offers an (arguably) better language, the actor model (which may help with high-volume processing), a modern web framework and may be more attractive to developers, but the ecosystem is not as mature as pure Java.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the input! I suspected that Java would be a frontrunner.

Scala is really interesting, but I'm concerned about likely having to train every new developer. I know that a powerful tool takes time to learn, but I don't know if we'd have the budget for new devs to be unproductive.

I'm also concerned about tooling. Having really deep IDE integration is a huge productivity boost in other languages like Python. Is Scala still weak in IDE integration?

<comment><USER6> When people complain about poor IDE support, they are usually ex-Java developers which are accustomed to pretty much the best IDEs available (every tried writing Java without an IDE? It sucks.).

Scala IDE support is already better than IDE support for most other languages like C++, F#, Haskell, OCaml, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, etc. It can't compete with Java yet, but it is getting there slowly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would go with Golang, type safety means less unexpected errors, strong adoption means easy to find engineers and good ecosystem of libraries.

<comment><USER5> I'm curious about Golang. Do you believe it already fulfills OP's requisites of "mature ecosystem" and "strong appeal to developers"? Has Go's ecosystem maturity improved significantly (e.g. IDE support, debugging, mature libraries -- how many years old? --, books, courses), and has its adoption approached that of mainstream languages?

<comment><USER7> Yes I do. Golang is new compared to say Java but it was announced just over 5 years ago which is a fairly long time in the software world. It is backed and used extensively by one of the biggest technology companies in the world exactly for building fast, stable and secure web services which it does very well.

The standard library is extensive and well thought out. There are many libraries available on GitHub and it is easy to import them with `go get`. All of this has caused it to be adopted and well received by developer. While not quite up to par with established and well entrenched languages like C or Java I believe it is climbing at a fast trajectory and has become the go-to language for new startups here in SF right after Node.js, of course enterprise is going to stick to the surefire safe bets in Java.

There is a difference to be noted in that Go is minimal and unlike Java in that it is the convention to prefer using a simple text editor and small libraries rather than rely on an IDE or huge frameworks such as you will find in Javaland.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you've been tasked with leading this team... isn't this what you should be doing?

Also, care to let us know what requirements Node fails?</comment>


HTML5-Powered Web Applications: 19 Early Adopters - <AUTHOR> http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/html5-web-applications/ <comment><USER2> "HTML5, rumored as Flash killer, is a brand new web technology that raises a revolution lead by Apple in web application development."

Sorry, I can't really take this seriously after that. And as there's no definition of "an HTML5 powered app" I probably couldn't have done previous to it either. There are some nice apps here, sure, but I'm not sure what value this has over any other list of "cool web apps". Indeed, it's less valuable due to the misinformation.

</comment><comment><USER3> So which of these _actually_ use HTML5 features, vs. everything that's been available to us for years? I'd like to think we can avoid falling prey to marketing-speak here.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think HTML5 is the future of application development. It has some very specific advantages compared to native apps, and we will see a lot more web apps with unique abilites. There is an interesting talk about that topic from the google io conference. It is a bit mobile specific, but really worth a look [1]

Of course, I am a bit biased, because I am currently building a browsergame on HTML5 techniques (canvas and local storage at the moment, but of course audio and video will also be a part) at <http://www.breederisland.com>. It is really amazing how fast the new javascript engines in the browsers are, if you don't use an internet explorer, of course ;)

[1] [http://www.videosinhtml5.com/videos-about-html5/google- io-20...](http://www.videosinhtml5.com/videos-about-html5/google- io-2011-html5-versus-android-apps-or-web-for-mobile-development.html)

<comment><USER5> Heh me too! Canvas, localStorage, Audio, and FileWriter. <http://4kg.co>

<comment><USER4> First I wanted to use an existing game engine too, but I decided to write everything myself to get a better understanding of how canvas etc. works. Do you have any gameplay videos, yet?

<comment><USER5> There's a tiny bit of gameplay in the vid I released a few days ago: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfbiEQnWgRQ> More vids will be coming out soon.

I also re-did the website very shortly after you commented, so check that out again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was under the impression that Aviary's editors use Flash... clicking on the link to the image editor (Phoenix) - all Flash. Am I overlooking an HTML5 version, or is the article dead wrong?

</comment><comment><USER7> I find "HTML5" a fantastic buzzword to get PHB's excited about making a web app.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd have put tinkercad.com on the list. Of course, there are hundreds of good examples missing.

</comment><comment><USER9> I wish there were a directory of HTML5 apps, or am I just not gooling hard enough?</comment>


You Don't Own Your Computer (and That's a Good Thing) - <AUTHOR> https://www.myname.website/you-dont-own-your-computer-and-thats-a-good-thing <comment><USER2> I feel like the vehicle apology is convaluted, especially when you consider GM, and John Deer, vs. the owners. I both own-as-in-sole-possession-of and own-as-in-responsible-for my laptop. It's mine, and _that_ is a good thing.

<comment><USER3> So I can sue you if you spread malware to my computer? That's what "own-as-in- responsible-for" means.

<comment><USER2> You can certainly try.

<comment><USER3> If I am unsuccessful, then you are not really responsible for your computer, are you?

<comment><USER2> If you are unsuccessful, I have a better legal defense than your offense, that doesn't change who is responsible. The burden of proof would be on you.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Meet the minimalists living out of a hard drive  - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10928032 <comment><USER2> In the past I've lived sort of like this and found it quite lonely and alienating. What the article doesn't mention is that nobody really wants to hang out with the weird guy with no stuff and no apartment. If you're single, only really strange and desperate people want to date you. I also found that the act of finding another place to stay quickly became tedious. In the past, nomads were out being nomadic with the rest of their huge nomadic tribe. They weren't just bouncing around settled society with a laptop by themselves.

<comment><USER3> People who travel have interesting stories from their travels. They have a broad outlook and set of morals, because they have met people from diverse groups. They are social because they have had to be outgoing to make friends. They can form long term friendships because they return to places. They are romantically successful because they are appealing and meet a lot of people.

There is nothing inherent in being a traveler that makes them "weird", though they may be unusual because of their unusual life. I can't see why either having or not having stuff is relevant.

Travelers make great friends who I miss when they are not around.

<comment><USER4> _People who travel have interesting stories from their travels._

I hate to sound negative, but I find that some of the worst bores are people who can't stop talking about their last journey. Having been around the world a few times myself, I often have to bite my tongue to stop myself from telling too many "that reminds me of this one time in [random city X]" stories, as people do get bored of hearing them, and they're rarely as interesting to others as they are to the people who were there.

<comment><USER5> That's really a shame. I have a couple really good friends with whom sharing experiences is one of the most important parts of our relationship. It took some practice at first, but focusing completely on the person telling the story[1], and actually telling meaningful stories[2] turns out to not be that hard once you get the hang of it.

[1] This means not only listening and popping in with comments and questions here and there, but actually trying to imagine the feelings you would have experienced had you been there; or even more interestingly, understanding how the storyteller felt in the context of his or her own life (this requires knowing the person rather well).

[2] The intent is really the main thing here. Some people approach storytelling about their adventures as a way to brag. The "right way" to do it is to tell the story in a way that the listeners can imagine themselves there. This changes the context from "I'm cooler than you," to "I had a great experience that I'd like to share with you."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _The DJ has now substituted his bed for friends' couches_

How does this scale when no-one has free crash space to give...?

It's like those TV shows where a family give up the corporate rat race and go and run a B&B or a vineyard in the country, who are their customers apart from corporate workers? It's not a revolution if only a small percentage of the population can ever do it.

<comment><USER7> It doesn't scale, it's not intended to scale. _If_ millions of people were vagabonding, we could look at an array of possible options, the most obvious being an AirBnB-style approach to renting rooms for days or weeks at a time. If you're happy to share a house, it's already cheaper to spend a month each in Paris, Amsterdam, London, Berlin, Edinburgh and Barcelona than it would be to stay in Paris, including airfare.

Housing is currently relatively illiquid because the demand for liquid housing is minimal. There's a big gap between "the place you live for years at a time" and "the place you vacation for a week or two" because that's what the market demands. The backbackers hostel only came into existence when airfares became affordable and young people started travelling internationally. Same with Spanish resorts and the package holiday, same with seaside B&Bs and the railway. If technology allows it and people demand it, we'll see it appear quite quickly.

Your second point is the same faulty logic that presumes "we'll always need people to actually make things/sweep the roads/other menial labour". Mechanisation and automation supplants the need for most of those workers, freeing them up to do work better suited to humans - usually in the service industry. The majority of westerners work in the service industry already, it only stands to reason that they will become more skilled and more specialised. There is absolutely no reason why we can't have a huge number of people running small B&Bs or vineyards or boutiques or cafés. The trends behind this article make it clear that we can't expect to continue running an economy on selling 'stuff', the future economy is clearly based on cultural and social experiences.

<comment><USER6> I presumed no such thing. The people they left behind are doing service work remember: they're accountants, lawyers, bankers, and so on. But how many corporate workers drinking does it take to make a vineyard a viable business? Or vacationing, a boutique B&B?

Because if you have two B&B owners who simply swap to go on holiday, or two vineyards who simply drink each other's wine, then you've invented a perpetual motion machine.

<comment><USER7> It's called "The Economy". I have something that you want, you have something that I want. We swap, usually using a token of exchange, and we're both better off for the exchange. That basic exchange, multiplied by technology, is why nearly everyone in the world will be much richer than their parents and why their children will be richer still.

Accountants, lawyers and bankers all perform services. Not _fun_ services, but services nonetheless. They're no different from a musician or a masseuse or a bicycle mechanic.

Corporations generate lots of wealth and engage in lots of transactions, but so do the aggregate of small businesses and sole traders. There's nothing magical about a big company versus a small one.

The big change in the economy is that a) stuff has got very cheap and b) lots of people can do useful work from anywhere with WiFi. The basic rules are exactly the same, but the economy of 2030 will be barely recognisable, just as the economy of 2010 would be barely recognisable in 1990. As we generate more and more intangible wealth, tangible wealth becomes less and less important to the economy.

If you think that a service-based economy is a "perpetual motion machine", you really need to do a bit of reading up on economics. Wealth is wealth, it doesn't matter how you generate it as long as you do.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, you are completely missing my point. The fact is, if you set up a business that sells luxury goods that people spend their discretionary income on, then there have to be those people in the system. For every bohemian running a boutique B&B in rural France, there have to be 20 (say) yuppies elsewhere doing something else to pay for it as guests. Can one lawyer stay in 20 B&Bs? Or drink the production of 20 vineyards?

So this is why I say, the dream of dropping out of the rat race and doing that necessarily must remain a dream only for the majority.

<comment><USER7> Do lodging-house owners not drink wine? Do vintners not vacation? People making luxury goods earn an income, often a very good income, and often they spend rather a lot of that income on luxury goods. It is perfectly possible to sustain an economy where the main productive output is luxury goods - it could be argued that many international cities are exactly that.

You seem to be under the misapprehension that the money a lawyer earns in exchange for his time is "real money", whereas the money earned by a fashion designer or an organic honey grower or someone who restores vingage fixed-gear bicycles is somehow not real money.

The economy only demands productivity. It cares not one jot whether that production is hamburger buns or brioche, whether it is kalashnikovs or designer garden tools. All that matters is that enough people will pay for what you do. It should be self-evident that artistry is highly marketable.

The real growth in the current economy is beauty. Apple is testament to that - their products are made by Quanta and Foxconn like everyone else's, but they are worth more by simple merit of being beautiful. Every year the metal and plastic and glass is worth less and the design and styling worth more, that's why we in the west no longer manufacture very much at all. The taste of Steve Jobs and the imagination of Jony Ive is worth more than any factory machine.

For every bohemian running a boutique B&B, we merely need 20 other people who make or do something that other people like. They don't have to wear a tie or work in a tall building, they only need to be productive.

<comment><USER6> _You seem to be under the misapprehension that the money a lawyer earns in exchange for his time is "real money", whereas the money earned by a fashion designer or an organic honey grower or someone who restores vingage fixed-gear bicycles is somehow not real money._

Our friend the DJ, he has an external source of economic value - his friend's surplus (i.e. they can afford to rent more space than they need, so he can stay there). If his friends have no surplus of this kind, his model collapses. So really, his lifestyle is only possible because it is subsidized.

Our hypothetical B&B owner - there are shows about this nightly on British TV, always the same pattern - has made some money typically through selling his house in the UK at the right time, quit his job, bought a dilapidated farmhouse in rural France, done it up, and is now waiting for yuppie holidaymakers to come stay. He has no skills that are relevant in the local economy. He depends specifically and entirely on people who live the lifestyle he left behind for his business. Now I am not saying that what he does has no economic value. I am saying that to trade, you need to have a) something to trade and b) someone to trade with. The people he trades with are people with jobs in big cities who want to escape to the country. If these people have also dropped out to live an idyllic lifestyle, what demand is there from them for his service?

I dunno, think of a world where everyone's say a chicken farmer. How do they create value by trading chickens with each other?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Since almost 4 years now I do not have any other possession than what fits into my two suitcases. Wherever my 30 inch monitor is, I call home. I am very comfortable with the fact that I don't need to manage my possessions. And Dropbox, Google Apps and alike even made my fears of data loss a thing of the past.

I enjoy moving to a different country almost every year, thanks to being a digital vagabond.

I am taking a wild guess; The past 400.000 years of evolution in which our bodies and minds adapted to a nomadic lifestyle may still resonate in our genes. Only since a few thousand years were a majority of my ancestors bound to one place and this short period is unlikely to have had any genetic impact. A lack of constricting possessions is surprisingly rewarding (constricting in terms of hard to move). I suspect that this reward is universal to humans which would imply some kind of genetically predetermined preference. But it is just a wild guess.

Yet I feel with my son's first birthday approaching this lifestyle will be hard to maintain.

<comment><USER9> Are you self-employed or do you work freelance or who do you work for and what do you do?

I only ask because this is something I'm very much interested in doing myself, but I'm very apprehensive about making a big change like this due to job/money concerns.

<comment><USER10> Same thing for me. I just got my CS master degree and now I want to discover the world with only my bike, my laptop and my reflex camera, a few month to a couple of years at the same place...

But I'm worried by the first move. Where I live I got a lot of job opportunity but I don't know if I will be able to find a job in another country quickly enough and it doesn't work very well remotely.

<comment><USER11> Look for a job where you can work remotely. Many US-based companies are striving for an increasingly remote workforce in order to reduce their cost of doing business. At my first job out of college, at a large tech company, they actually wanted us to be remote so they wouldn't have to pay for office space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> An illusion. You're as attached to your digital possessions as you were to your physical ones. You just have different preferences.

<comment><USER13> That's fine, you just don't need to pay for space for stuff. Space is very, very expensive monetarily and psychologically.

<comment><USER14> So is the psychological cost of never knowing where you will sleep.

<comment><USER13> There's a big difference between the space for you (important) and the space for 200 DVDs, or 60 changes of clothes, or a set of lawn tools, or rarely used sporting equipment, or ...

<comment><USER14> Indeed, there is, but at least one of the people profiled in the article doesn't even have a space for himself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As well as being a bad-ass programmer, Steve Dekorte is also a great example of this neavu-minimalism. His blog and Io show how deeply he has taken this "philosophy" (<http://dekorte.com> and <http://www.iolanguage.com>).

I also don't want to sound too creepy but he has a awesome apartment: <http://twitter.com/stevedekorte/status/10954098266> and <http://twitter.com/stevedekorte/status/10901308299>

<comment><USER16> Reminds me of another Steve, circa 1982:

<http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0712/y_walker08.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Maybe I just don't get it, but the things keeping me tied to my apartment are my bed, shower and stove, not my shelves and shelves of physical media. I don't see how the digitalization of my live helps with those things.

</comment><comment><USER18> Try that while raising a couple of children.

<comment><USER19> Actually, I've read some very moving accounts by people who are nomadic with kids.

<comment><USER18> That sounds interesting, do you have any pointers?

<comment><USER20> <http://www.weliveonaboat.com/>

I used to read Steve Roberts digital nomad site for some time and I found links to familes living on sailboats and travelling but it seems those links are gone. The above was the first one I found on google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Gosh I love the idea of doing this! Too bad my wife and kids won't go for it. :(

</comment><comment><USER21> Not really minimalists... they depend on others for things they need. If they were truly minimalists, they would live in one of those micro-shacks, hacking basic on an Apple I replica that is powered by solar power, while watching the tomatoes ripen.

</comment><comment><USER22> "Another roof, another proof." _\- Paul Erdos_

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s>

<comment><USER23> I was about to mention this guy myself. Kudos!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I recently started down this trail to simplify my life and draw down my personal property. I got rid of my DVDs because I simply wasn't watching them. I ripped every one of my CDs in FLAC format and then gave them away to friends. And these days, instead of a netbook and a desktop, I have only a single laptop running Arch Linux.

The one thing I cannot move on from is my book collection. I love books and I have two bookshelves with 285 graphic novels and novels (according to my LibraryThing account). And I am starting to make use of sites like Project Guttenburg to read public domains works (using FBReader).

</comment><comment><USER25> Living a nomadic lifestyle can be fun, but I like knowing where I'm going to sleep. If I lived in the middle of a plains or was hiking down a trail, I know that I will be sleeping 'up ahead' or 'over there' or 'on the side of this trail'. However, in urban environments you actually have to find somewhere to sleep.

I'm also fond of my textbooks, which haven't yet been satisfactorily digitized, and my motorcycles and associated tools and parts, which haven't been successfully digitized either.

</comment><comment><USER26> I like how the reasoning behind the move to MP3s instead of discs is that MP3s don't wear out. Because, you know, hard disks don't wear out either... And with the whole move-to-digital thing, you might think you have less stuff, but what you're doing is transferring your belongings from one device to the next over time. Over the course of your life, you're gonna own dozens of laptops and the energy and the chemicals released to build those aren't free. Compare that to books and disks you bought once and for all (granted they don't wear out). Maybe the move to all-digital is for the better, but it's just not that obvious to me.

<comment><USER27> Yes harddrives wear out, but you can easily get a new harddrive and copy the stuff across seamlessly. It's like shelves for records. If you shelves that your records are on break, just get some new shelves and copy (i.e. move) your record collection across.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Man, I hate traveling. I can understand the appeal of a spartan lifestyle, but I can't understand the appeal of not knowing where your head is going to rest tonight.

<comment><USER29> Guidebooks, smartphone map search, a prepaid cellphone & SIM and planning a day or two ahead solves all of that! Also staying more than one day. A few of these people aren't long term nomads although, they're more freeloaders or bums. The first guy has an apartment!

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Not planning on going quite that far - but we are thinking of saving $200,000 by buying a one bedroom apartment with a few Kindle's instead of a 2Bed place with lots of bookshelves.

All the DVDs are already ripped to a couple of hard drives, the disks but in DJ CD files and the cases thrown away - that saved a 6' bookcase.

</comment><comment><USER31> this might be a trend of the future. people are more mobile these days, and physical possessions can keep people tied down. i once thought about what i really need, and 80% of it is on my computer! time to start a remote backup company :)

</comment><comment><USER32> Brain uploaders are missing that backing up your brain would create a clone of your mind - not transfer your conscious experience inside a digital world. Vacations of this nature would be your clone telling you the good time they had.

<comment><USER33> You're talking about memories

<comment><USER34> Only if you believe that you are solely the sum of your memories.

<comment><USER33> Sorry, that was an indirect reference to Philip K. Dick

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Man, it seems as if the only thing missing is a data bank where you can drop off your hard drive and the bank will store it for you and even lend out free space to others at an interest. Yay virtual currency.

<comment><USER5> It's not quite what you describe, but bank vaults are actually quite cheap. The computer expert firm I work for has two large vaults (something like 8 cu. ft. each) at a KeyBank where we store scores of hard drives. We make a trip every Friday to rotate our set of backup RAIDs. It's a very simple, straightforward process, and I think our cost is something like $40/month for both vaults. You could probably get a vault big enough for a 2 TB external drive for something like $5-10/month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I love this story. Sounds like a great life.

For me I think this works best after you've done the kids thing, if you plan on doing that. But I strongly agree with the premise here: people are naturally nomadic

</comment><comment><USER37> If anyone wants a place to crash in London, email me

</comment><comment><USER38> My co-founder and I have been doing this for three years. We have two backpacks and we are nomadic.

Interestingly, it isn't online services that have enabled this so much as a lifestyle choice. We value travel and figured it was cheaper to run our startup in most parts of the world than it was in our origin city.

We don't use a lot of online services for our business. Biggest one is Gmail, really, and hosting. Things we couldn't take with us.

I run a virtual machine on my laptop and under it I have a server that acts as our "intranet server" and so all of the collaboration tools, etc run there. I also start servers periodically while developing something that will eventually run in the cloud to test it out before running it online.

We're geared to be able to work full time without access to the internet. We're expecting to be in places where there is no internet. However, for the past 3 years that we've been traveling we've had pretty much full time internet access so far. When we're without internet we use an ad-hoc wifi network so we always have our "local network" with us.

Other than what fits in the backpacks we just have a couple boxes in storage. The most stressful experience has been going over all of our stuff and getting rid of it until we fit in the laptop. That took several months of work and because many of the possessions had a history it was not easy.

But now, we can go anywhere anytime we want, just about. It is very liberating!

Am willing to answer most questions....

<comment><USER39> I would be interested to know, simply because I wonder about it for my own projects, how you deal with (the possibility of) server/db/other problems with your site when you are going somewhere that has no internet access.

<comment><USER38> We're using AppEngine and it hasn't been a problem at all. This is part of the reason we chose AppEngine.

I'd be very hesitant to choose anything where I have to manage the host myself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> One of the biggest efforts in making this kind of a transition is the digitization of your life. This is a huge project, and some of the work is still ongoing.

1) Music and Movies. About the easiest as ripping CDs and DVDs is not that hard.

2) Photographs. There was a time when I shot on film, and so for all the images taken before then, they needed to be scanned. Scanning paper photos on a flatbed is not too bad, but scanning negatives is very slow and a very hands-on process. But it does produce the best results.

3) Books. This is the hardest. I stopped buying books about 5 years ago because ebooks weren't really ready to meet my needs then (I hate the kindle) and only started buying again now because the iPad does.

But all these physical books. Scanning them is really a pain. Most of them just got tossed. We had huge collections of old instruction manuals that are long out of print and obsolete as well.

Unfortunately, the books were an almost total loss. We flatbed scanned a few pages here and there and that's it.

4) Storage and backup. We've iterated several times in our strategy here. This is something to consider very carefully. The solution isn't the same between even the two of us, so you'll have to find your own.

But keep at least 2 copies of everything in such a way as you always know what the prime copy is.

</comment><comment><USER40> Slightly off topic...anyone know what kind of keyboard that is he had? Looks super useful being so small. Is it a Korg? This on: <http://www.korg.com/nanoseries> ? Confirmation?

<comment><USER41> It does look like a Korg. From that picture his laptop looks like either a Dell or IBM, yet the article says he uses a MBP. Also I think it's kind of funny, the irony of this guy being a travel agent in this world where that job is becoming absolete due to the same technology that keeps from having to pay rent.

<comment><USER40> It looks like a black Macbook to me. It just seems like more effort than getting a studio apartment and living lean. Simplicity is key. I need consistency.</comment></comment></comment>


The Empire of Dreams - <AUTHOR> http://thestartupdigest.com/2010/04/20/the-empire-of-dreams/

<comment><USER2> Nice blog post on the New York Startup Scene...

</comment><comment><USER3> Great insight.</comment>


Name that Ware, March 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3649

<comment><USER2> This is getting interesting - see the comments - apparently it may be part of an Aegis missile? Not something you'd want to end up in a grey market in Shenzhen!</comment>


One hospital charges $8,000 — another, $38,000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/08/one-hospital-charges-8000-another-38000/

<comment><USER2> I have to admit I was against ACA for a variety of reasons, but if the first step is increased price transparency and exposing that data, it will do a lot of good.

The best reform I can think of would be a combination of individually purchased (vs. employer) HSAs, where poor people get grants of up to the the full deductible per year in some kind of special account IFF they sign up for HSAs, and price transparency. Employers who currency pay for your entire insurance could give you an equivalent amount (plus deductible) which goes into your Health Savings Account.

You're then effectively paying an army of 300 million to constantly search for the best prices (or rather, to find third party organizations to search for the best prices for them). $3-5k/person is actually not _that_ unreasonable for the poorest 30mm people and those covered by medicare/va/medicare-for- kids/etc.

I'm confident this could drop the prices of procedures by >10x, comparable to other countries. Americans are really good at driving down costs _when they know the costs and are paying them out of pocket_ ; look at how much cheaper it is to buy an iPhone in the USA vs. where it's made.

<comment><USER3> That's not a political reality. Since healthcare bought by an employer counts as an tax-deductible expense and healthcare bought by an individual gets no such breaks, there is a huge incentive (equal to the marginal tax rate) for individuals to have someone else write the checks for the bulk of their healthcare costs.

Before market-based healthcare will work, either 1) employer-provided health insurance benefits must be taxed as income or 2) individual healthcare purchases must be tax-free.

1) is an obvious political non-starter. 2) is a huge new loophole in the tax code and an accounting nightmare.

<comment><USER4> Individual healthcare purchases (not insurance) can be deducted from your taxes, either explicitly if you're filing a long form, or implicitly if you're claiming the standard deduction.

I don't see why it would be a huge burden to make individual health insurance tax deductible.

<comment><USER3> Only healthcare expenses over 7.5% of adjusted gross income are tax deductible. Plus, the poor and lower-middle class don't tend to much in income taxes (if any), so they wouldn't qualify for the discount.

In contrast, corporations always write off employee healthcare premiums on their taxes. The issue isn't just the fairness of who pay taxes when, it's also about the distortions in healthcare markets caused by these policies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is why the ACA is such a boon for people that thonk health care should be a free market. It takes the free market ideals and embraces them; the accusations of socialism are more telling of the accuser than the accused. That's not to say that I think health care should be a free market, just that its the goal of the ACA, and the current situation in the US is much less free a market, and due to employer provided insurance, barely a market at all. No price information is communicated to consumers, and the ACA will start to do that.

<comment><USER6> One good aspect doesn't make it a boon. In my personal experience, the law has made insurance less affordable. I'm in between jobs and bought an inexpensive short-term, high-deductible plan. However, the plan has been deprecated (no renewals after a certain date) because it does not meet all provisions of the ACA.

<comment><USER2> My long-term HDHP went from $80/mo to $118/mo, which is high in percentage terms, but still not a big deal IMO. In the process they gave me unlimited lifetime coverage, added free preventive care, etc. -- which IMO seems actuarially impossible, but I'm on the buy side of this transaction.

<comment><USER7> Can you share the name of your provider (or their peer set)?

<comment><USER2> It really varies by state. I went to an online insurance comparison app (I should promote Leaky or SimplyInsured here, but at the time in 2010, I used ehealthinsurance), searched for HDHPs, then picked based on reputation. I picked a Blue Shield provider with no lifetime cap (or a $6mm lifetime cap, I forget).

The only states I know are WA and CA. In WA, I like Regence Blue Shield; plans seem to be in the $100-150/mo range now.

In CA, there are also a lot of HDHPs in the $100-150/mo range. I'd specifically avoid Kaiser as an employer giving coverage, as some people really dislike Kaiser since you must use a Kaiser doctor, hospital, or other facility, but if you're an individual and like a Kaiser doctor, it might be a good choice. Otherwise a lot of people I know use Health Net, Anthem, etc.

I'm not a lawyer nor am I a licensed insurance agent so I'm hesitant to recommend specific plans.

I think these rates are low due to being HDHPs and the "best" patient group; 26-35 year old single male. Those are exactly the people who don't get _individual_ insurance unless they're cautious people who join AAA, change oil on time, buy fire extinguishers, look both ways before crossing the street, etc. (and thus exceptionally good risks), and even then seek to minimize contact with doctors. I suspect the unhealthy ones are particularly likely to take jobs with insurance, or be on medicaid/prison/etc., in that bracket, or are so irresponsible as to have no insurance (because hey, even $120/mo is better spent on beer).

Rates don't seem that much worse for women (which is weird, since I'd assume most women get enough extra covered services covered now by an HSA to destroy the actuarial model for a $100/mo plan). The rates 4x once you add children, though. I tried also plugging in numbers for people born in 1969, 1959, 1950, and rates do go up, but only maybe 4x, too. So the prices are generally within a 10x range per insured, at least for healthy people or in places where there is no medical underwriting, tops, and under ACA, that will converge to 4x (although I'm sure by raising the low end by 50-150% and only lowering the top end by a trivial amount.) I always assumed all insurance was $500+/mo/insured, since that's what the group rates for small businesses seem to be, but that's due to adverse selection and inefficiency I think.

The real problem seems to be if you're unhealthy when looking for insurance, or have children (particularly with high medical costs), or have an acute high-cost event, or are poor enough that $100-200/mo _is_ a hardship (even though I think $100-200/mo for health insurance, whether paid by the individual or the government, is pretty reasonable), or are, worst case, so unhealthy that you're _also_ poor and thus doubly screwed.

<comment><USER2> Wow, this is insanity: I priced some NY (10024) and MA (02139) zip codes on ehealthinsurance and the coverage looked approximately 5x CA or WA rates. I'm not sure if that's specific to the site and their mix of carriers, or if insurance really is that much more expensive on the East Coast.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for all your pointers and observations! I will likely be in the market for an HDHP soon and these will give my own search a running start.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I do not understand why there is no public list online with the basic costs of operations (including all the variables). With price transparency a lot of this unequal treatment and prices would surface. I understand there are a lot of variables, but not like it wouldn't be possible. (I understand a treatment at Hopkins would be more expensive than say at your local hospital, but at the very least it would be clear how much more expensive it actually is.

EDIT: One way to do it nationwide would be to ask people to send in their bills (anonymized).

<comment> chao- Operations are one type of unknown cost, but the problem extends to all parts of medical treatment. I know of at least one _company_ (SnapHealth [1]) trying to solve this problem, from one small angle: tests and doc visits, as opposed to operations. But what I think you're asking for (and I would agree with) is a public list ala some regulatory mandate to publish costs of specific treatments?

[1] - <https://www.snaphealth.com/>

<comment><USER8> Yes. The _minimum cost_ for a standard operation/procedure (without complications). X people doing the check-in, X-doctors for the procedure, X time in hospital bed to get well again, X time with checkups afterwards... You get the idea... EDIT: Forgot the link you send in. Looks good!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder, since we strangely expect employers to provide healthcare insurance in the US, what if employers just decided to provided actual healthcare.

Imagine taking all of the health premiums Google pays for its employees, and instead of feeding it in to a broken system, you build a world class health facility in Mountain View that's free to employees.

<comment><USER10> But then what happens when they need care when they're not near the company hospital? You'd need to set up company run hospitals all around the state and the country to manage the costs. And suddenly, you've reinvented Kaiser.

<comment><USER11> Kaiser Permanente (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Permanente>) is a »integrated managed care consortium« (health insurance, I guess). I did not know that.

<comment><USER12> Yeah - they're basically the outgrowth of Kaiser Shipyards doing exactly what nostromo proposed back in the 40s, and then letting other people buy in to their network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> "a health system that can set prices with impunity because consumers rarely see them — and rarely shop for discounts"

<comment><USER13> Why aren't the insurance companies working to drive prices down?

I understand the theory: People buy insurance; the insurance companies 'police' medical providers and regulate (through the market) the pricing of services.

From the outside it doesn't look like that works. From the outside it looks like very many more (often unneeded) tests are conducted. And it looks like the insurance companies are not squeezing the providers of health care, but are squeezing the patients.

<comment><USER14> Most private health insurance in the US is provided by employers. Thus, the people paying for the services are not the patients but insurance companies, and the insurance companies are selected by employers not the patients.

<comment><USER13> But that says nothing about why insurance companies are not pushing prices down.

They get paid by employers, but they'd make more profit if the health care they buy is cheaper. Since I regularly hear that prices are cheaper if you negotiate with the doctors it seems that insurance companies are not doing that negotiation.

So, given that they appear to be losing out on some profit, why? Why aren't they pushing the costs down?

<comment><USER15> They are pushing costs down. That's why when you get a bill from your insurance and it says "Procedure X - $5000" followed by "Negotiated rate - $1000 accepted".

Insurance companies figure out what stuff should actually cost, then enter into contracts with providers that says "Hey I know you're still making a decent profit if I only pay you $100 instead of $150, so take $100 and you'll make it up on volume when you become one of my preferred providers."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Always tell them you are paying in cash.

Take bill home and sumbit to insurance if you are lucky enough to have insurance.

You just saved the system at least 75% of the cost.

<comment><USER17> "if you are lucky enough to have insurance."

This is one of the many sad points about the health system. Luck should have absolutely NO relation to whether you can afford reasonable health care. Reasonable health care should be available to Joe Blow who is earning minimum wage at your local city council and to Mr. Burns who is earning 20x more than Joe Blow.

<comment><USER16> Great news, they solved this in a very profitable way.

In a few years it will literally be a crime to not have insurance. So cannot afford it? Not their problem - YOUR problem.

Yay 'murica.

<comment><USER18> The nice thing about making something mandatory is that their is then outrage when people can't afford what they must have. Society can't ignore the problem anymore and must attack it head on.

Can't afford insurance? Well, here is a subsidy, or why not just go on medicaid? Can't afford insurance and make $60K a year; well, maybe individual plans should be more affordable...single payer is looking more desirable. Oh, you make $100K a year and STILL can't afford insurance (let's say no family is involved). Well how the f*ck are you spending your money? Oh, you just don't want to buy it because you are young and invincible? That's not how insurance works.

Yeh for America; they are finally catching up with the rest of the developed world!

<comment><USER19> > Oh, you just don't want to buy it because you are young and invincible? > That's not how insurance works.

In the US it does. It will be much more cost-effective for healthy people to pay the penalty each year than to buy insurance. When they need care, they can buy insurance at the normal rate, since it will be illegal to deny them coverage based on a pre-existing condition. This is more than a little bit like shopping for fire insurance after your house has burned down. The primary difference is that politicians have not spent great amounts of effort telling me that I should be entitled to place bets on past events relating to burning houses.

<comment><USER18> Not sustainable to game the system like that. I think the whole system will strain at the contradictions in place, but that is what was politically viable. Now that we have to live with a new reality, the contradictions will be solved eventually.

This kind of system works very well in Switzerland, but the swiss system is much more mature and they've figured out all the kinks (the people are also responsible enough to vote for it directly).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why does the US tie health care to employment? Why is it not tied to the individual and thus transferrable between employers?

<comment><USER2> It started as a legacy of wage controls during WW2 (they added a bunch of fringe benefits to compete without technically breaking the law), but continues because medical insurance is tax deductible for an employer who buys it for his employees, but NOT for an individual who buys it for himself or his own family. So it essentially costs an individual 20-55% more than it could cost an employer.

(There's also the risk-pooling aspect; an employer can get a group rate with guaranteed issuance because it's assumed they will be selecting employees for moderate to good health (or else they'd be disabled vs. working), or at worst randomly, with only random-in-population odds of high-cost dependents. There's an adverse selection with voluntary individual insurance; healthy people would rationally not get insurance if it were really expensive relative to their expected utilization, whereas someone with a chronic condition or high risk actually would get insurance even at a relatively high cost. Which in turn drives up the costs per insured, which drives up the rate...eventually becoming uneconomic. In practice, a lot of people with chronic conditions in their families actually do seek out stable jobs with big employers with good insurance to cover it, vs. doing startups or whatever, which imposes a loss on the economy if they would otherwise have been the next Elon Musk.)

The Republicans in 2008 (McCain?) were actually arguing for making medical insurance non-deductible for employers and I think deductible for individuals, which was then seized upon as "taking away your health insurance". Ironically that position of moving insurance away from employers seems to be a long-term goal of the ACA/ObamaCare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> 8000, 38000, both insanely expensive. I haven't seen a single sane price in the whole article.

<comment><USER22> 8000 USD for a hospital treatment does not seem insanely expensive for me. Hospitals are by definition expensive - 24/7 on-site staff, highly trained experts (doctors), lots of expensive machines. A simple bed in a hospital is far more complicated and expensive than your standard home mattress. Hospitals need to overprovision on a constant basis since the can't just return a "503 Retry Later" in case of emergencies.

There's certainly ways to save money on the lowest price, but the spread is far more interesting - given that you should get a solid treatment in each of the hospitals, why does one manage to offer you a fifth of the highest price?

<comment><USER23> > a fifth of the highest price?

may be because those higher charges are more bureaucracy than actual value adding?

<comment><USER24> or maybe because there are developers who are $30 and hour and there are developers who are $100 an hour ?

Isn't that the same with the doctors? Isn't that the same with the equipment?

Isn't that the same with the medication?

Who cares if they can kill you on the cheap? The point is to save lives no matter what the cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So great I now know that hospitals charge different fees which is still pointless since my federally mandated heath insurance will pay either one of those prices at no difference in cost to me. In reality I can get my hip replaced at any institution and pay nothing more then the $300 a month I pay for my health insurance. So in the real world the price of all those procedures _to me_ is $300 a month.

This is not a free market. Making these prices public isn't going to make it a free market. No problems have been fixed. Only new and novel problems have been introduced.

<comment><USER26> You're completely missing the bigger picture. You may be paying a fixed rate for your care, but if healthcare costs continue to rise unabated then you won't be paying $300/month next year, you may be paying $500/month. In addition the mandate to get everyone into the coverage pool plays a factor in helping keep your costs low.

If hospitals can charge rates set seemingly at random, and the "customer" has little or no opportunity to understand what the cost of their choices are, or even make a choice of where to go, then the system will likely continue to spiral out of control. And it is out of control.

My company, with 50 employees, will paying in excess of $500k for healthcare benefits this year. That doesn't even include the contribution required from the employees. That cost has risen ~12% every year. You are deluded if you see recent attempts to control these costs as only introducing new problems. Something has to be done.

<comment><USER25> No your deluded if you think people will shop around for something that has no direct influence on their finances. Your absolutely correct that ideally everyone would do the "right thing" and make the financially prudent decision that benefits society and shop around for a good price on a procedure. However no one will do that. Most people don't care because like I said it doesn't influence me and even if I did the "right thing" I am bound by both my fellow employees ( via our small pool ) and US tax law ( by medicare and insurance subsidies ) to split the cost of _everyone's_ actions so unless a majority of society gets on board my actions matter little.

In effect I will continue to go to the nice hospital for elective surgery because its nice there, ya so what they charge someone else 300% more for the same stuff, the food is better and I get free TV in my room.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> In this regard USA is a development country

</comment><comment><USER28> The table this is based on uploaded to fusion tables.

[https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1VlO_qd...](https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1VlO_qd- JvxWE_HF7jFDyScvpMQV0AZArZL4y1us)

</comment><comment><USER29> Not surprising at all considering healthcare in the states is just "big business" as usual.</comment>


Show HN: Tkui – Python GUI maker that simulaneously edits the GUI and its editor - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/asrp/tkui/ <comment><USER2> Why a post about UI, GUI makers, etc. without a single screenshot in the github's README.md??

Please give us a mean to understand in 10 seconds what it's about, by adding a screenshot or an animated screenshot ([http://www.cockos.com/licecap](http://www.cockos.com/licecap) is cool for this) :)

<comment><USER3> +1 to why no visuals? Having a GUI maker without a single still or animated screen shot is perplexing. Can you add a couple screen shots to the GitHub repo?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> tkui is one of my joke side projects but it does run and serve a purpose. I was trying to make some quick GUIs in Python for my own use but always restarting the program when small details in the layout changes makes for a slow workflow (closing and reopening the program).

So I wanted to use a GUI editor. I don't remember exactly but I think I didn't find anything that suited (I know I at least looked online for a while). So I decided to make my own, which became tkui.

Now the editor is itself a GUI so it'd be awfully helpful to have a GUI editor to make it. Because time travel isn't an option, I started from scratch and tried to add useful elements for create tkui itself. Of course, those elements are also the elements of tkui. So now tkui is a tkui maker.

If anyone have suggestions for "build orders" for recreating similar programs from scratch, I'd be interested to know.

I tried to make it so I need to restart tkui/the current project as little as possible. I also tried to the keep the project small, although with both dependencies, its getting larger.

<comment><USER4> See also vTcl ( [http://vtcl.sourceforge.net](http://vtcl.sourceforge.net) ). As an added bonus, Tcl :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use wxFormBuilder and export the GUI using XRC (instead of Python). I know it's not exactly 'dynamic', but it's pretty close.

First I build my whole GUI project with all the widgets in wxFormBuilder, and export the project as XRC (xml representation of the GUI widgets and hierarchy).

Then My wxAPP (Pyhton or C++) loads the XRC and builds every widget contained contained within my project. This is done by a simple call to 'xrc.XmlResource('mygui.xrc')'

This makes it super easy to maintain and test my GUI changes, without having to sift through a bunch of 'AddSizer...' GUI specific code. Building a GUI in code and maintaining it adds quite a cost and becomes quite tedious quickly.

wxFormBuilder does tend to crash once in a while, but otherwise allows for a fairly smooth GUI building experience, while decoupling your App code from your GUI 'scaffolding' concerns.

</comment><comment><USER6> Each day more close to smalltalk ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed! Although I only recently learned of Squeak Smalltalk and variants like Pharo and Cuis (quite a bit after tkui was close to its current state). What GUI maker(s) do you recommend for Smalltalk?

Let me elaborate on your comment for other readers though. Smalltalk is a programming language in which an entire (graphical and audio) environment called Squeak was built. Smalltalk's dynamic nature and the nature of its global namespace (for classes and their methods) means that class and methods can be modified from within the environment at any time (and any future calls will use the new method). This is the part that make it similar to tkui (or perhaps rather tkui similar to Squeak).

<comment><USER6> I only know spec, which is the framework that Pharo uses. You can find the book here: [http://files.pharo.org/books/spec- tutorial/](http://files.pharo.org/books/spec-tutorial/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! From the first example, it looks more like a UI toolkit than a (visual) editor though. At least it seem the layout can only be created using code.

I remember Squeak having a tree (I forget the name) but don't remember if it was easy to edit with it directly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "idle -n" !?

(In case I am being too obscure: Run idle in "no subprocess" mode and then any TKinter widgets your script creates partake of the IDLE editor's Tk mainloop. You get instant dynamic GUI. Awesome for RAD.)

;-D

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting! I do the same with ipython. Now if only we could edit idle's own UI while its running.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been meaning to learn how to automate websites using Python, this seems like a quick way to get started!

</comment><comment><USER9> Any chance of a video demo of this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe. What would you like to see in it? Sample use, detailed explanation, run through of the guided tour, ...?

<comment><USER2> From your point of view, everything is clear, because you are the author: you know what you are doing, why, etc.

But for a visitor of your github like me, even if I do a lot of Python, it's hard to understand quickly what it's about.

As I don't have 10 minutes to spend for each ShowHN, a video would be great to understand what it's about :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The name is a bit misleading as it recalls Tekui which is a (very nice IMO) LUA GUI extension. [http://tekui.neoscientists.org/screenshots.html](http://tekui.neoscientists.org/screenshots.html)</comment>


NY Attorney General to Verizon: Either Serve Your Customers Or Sell and Get Out - <AUTHOR> http://stopthecap.com/2013/07/03/ny-attorney-general-to-verizon-either-serve-your-customers-or-sell-and-get-out/

<comment><USER2> This is another reason why the US lags the rest of the world in Broadband availability, Here the government is attempting to force a company to use 100 year old technology rather than allow them to select the best technology to serve their customers.

<comment><USER3> Nonsense - utter nonsense.

 _Voice Link Service "is not compatible with fax machines, DVR services, credit card machines, medical alert or other monitoring services or some High Speed or DSL Internet services." Customers in western Fire Island and other rural parts of New York have no FiOS or cable modem Internet providers to switch to, so those who rely on these services have no alternatives if switched to Voice Link._

How is that 'the best technology'? The whole point is that it's _less_ capable than POTS. It's not like Verizon were trying to resume rolling out FIOS and the AG was insisting on copper. Don't let your ideology get in the way of basic reading comprehension.</comment></comment>


Help fix government data APIs - <AUTHOR> http://www.usaopengov.org/dashboard

<comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure the header should read "Crippled" instead of "Cippled."

Hilarious typo aside, bravo.

<comment><AUTHOR> doh! in size 40 font nonetheless. thanks for pointing this out so i could fix it :o)</comment></comment>


Show HN: FixCache – keep track of bug-prone files from Git commit history - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/aavshr/fixCache <comment><USER2> Looks really cool, although it's a shame the description isn't a bit more "plain language" \- a simple summary of what it is intended for, before going into jargon would help people realise why it's valuable. The fact it uses a cache isn't immediately important: I doubt anyone is saying "I hope I can find a solution which uses a cache", they'll be saying eg "I'm struggling with QA, what can streamline it?".

The paper's introduction section is more useful, but I wonder if people will get that far. Likewise the repo screenshot is useful but it's way down the README page.

Anyway, these are just well intentioned comments. It's easy to lose track that potential users won't get what you've been building until you pitch it in their terms.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, I will update the README to showcase it's intended use and value more.

Thanks for the input!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN, this is a github app implementation of FixCache([https://people.csail.mit.edu/hunkim/images/3/37/Papers_kim_2...](https://people.csail.mit.edu/hunkim/images/3/37/Papers_kim_2007_bugcache.pdf)) I wanted to do as a side project that might prove to be useful for pull request reviewers.

The app maintains a fix-sized cache of bug-prone files from fix-commits and updates a pull request with information about the cache if these bug-prone files have been updated in the pull request.

</comment><comment><USER3> I read the whole README but have no idea what this does. Is it letting you know when you change files that have had a large number of bug fixes recently? With the assumption that a code location that was recently fixed is likely to have more bugs?

Wouldn't the fact that a location was fixed recently imply that it now has fewer bugs? And wouldn't a location that hasn't been touched recently be likely to be problematic?

<comment><AUTHOR> The core assumptions of the algorithm:

\- if a file introduced introduced a bug recently, it will tend to introduce bugs again \- new files added with the bug introducing file will tend to introduce bugs \- other files changed with the bug introducing file will tend to introduce bugs \- files often changed together with the bug introducing file will tend to introduce bugs soon

fixCache maintains a fixed-size cache of these bug-prone files based on bug fix-commits. This helps in prioritizing verification and testing resources (right now it only updates a pull request with a comment and a label). If a file no longer introduces a bug, it will eventually be replaced from the cache.

<comment><USER3> Are you sure it's not discovering bad developers?

Maybe critical areas, e.g. that have the same amount of bugs as the rest but are complained about more? (since the algorithm can only consider bugs that have been reported, so biased to areas important to users) Or maybe that are prioritized by management? (since it considers _fixed_ bugs, so bias towards bugs that were fixed first)

Hopefully an increased scrutiny on new patches to those areas leads to fewer bugs getting in which breaks the feedback loop, but if bugs are fixed in separate commit this sounds like it could have negative effects (specific developers/areas getting all the attention, leading to the discovery of more bugs/nitpicks there, reinforcing the bias...).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Based on the existence of the config option "FIX_KEY_WORDS", it seems like this detects bugs just using keyword matching? Github also tracks when issues are fixed by commits (and pull requests, I think). Is it possible to use that metadata in addition to (or instead of) keyword matching? (Does Github even make that information available through an API?)

<comment><USER5> One way to support this would be to make FixCache support an optional hook that would be responsible for deciding if a given commit was a bug fix or not. Naively, it could have an interface like "IsBugfix(commit SHA1Hash) bool". The hook could be implemented as a function call to a used-defined plugin or something, or perhaps by executing an external process (e.g. shell exec my_custom_isbugfix.sh abcd1234")

Then users could write a custom hook that looked up the given commit using github's APIs or whatever other crazy scheme your team uses for bug tracking (e.g. cross reference JIRA ticket number baked into commit message with JIRA and look at the type of the JIRA ticket), but FixCache itself could be kept clean and pure from these integrations, which most users wouldn't want.

Github has lots of APIs, I'd bet it is possible to do this with github provided the data defining the relationship between the commit and the bug is encoded somehow -- either in commit message or in github issue or PR metadata or comment text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Neato. How is "spatial locality" defined? Just distance in the filesystem tree?

<comment><AUTHOR> With logical coupling, if two entities are changed together many times, they get a shorter distance.

distance(e1, e2) = 1/c(e1, e2) if c(e1, e2) > 0 otherwise infinity. c(e1, e2) is the count of times e1 and e2 have been changed together.

I have not implemented the spatial entity in v0, as it is a bit tricky to identify the exact file that introduced a bug from a fix commit. For now, only the files modified in a bug-fix commit are put in the cache.</comment></comment>


Australia Cuts 110 Climate Scientist Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/australia-cuts-110-climate-scientist-jobs/ <comment><USER2> This is part of a head count neutral reorganisation of CSIRO. The move is away from climate measurement towards "what can we do about climate change?". Here is an interview with the ceo explaining the changes [http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015/s4400695.htm](http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015/s4400695.htm)

Funding wasn't cut to the organisation, in fact it was mostly restored by Malcolm Turnbull last year after it was gutted earlier by Tony Abbott. [http://www.itnews.com.au/news/turnbull-to-restore-csiro- fund...](http://www.itnews.com.au/news/turnbull-to-restore-csiro-funding- shake-up-govt-it-procurement-412721)

<comment><USER3> The issue is that they've eviscerated the groups working understanding and measuring climate change and are shoving them into "make it go away" roles.

The CEO of CSIRO basically declared the breadboard prototype production ready and reallocated all the engineers who'd been working on it to sales.

<comment><USER2> He is saying "everyone else is already making breadboards, let's figure out how to cut bread"

<comment><USER4> >He is saying "everyone else is already making breadboards, let's figure out how to cut bread"

Hmppf a breadboard is a prototyping board that is used to make basic electronic circuits it's also some times called a plug board basically a board with allot of holes that are interconnected usually on a single axis that you can plug your components to and with additional jumpers/cables complete the circuit.

So unless you are trying to make a way to sophisticated pun and imply that they are tackling something way out of the current field of climatology I think that analogy might be wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Similar things happened in Canada under the Harper government. When everything is viewed from a monetary gain perspective, a lot of research that has no foreseeable innovation or gain becomes obsolete, but this viewpoint is extremely distorted. Imagine if Einstein had only worked on theories that had foreseeable monetary gain. We would never have the theory of relativity and decades later we would have not had satellites in space.

<comment><USER6> Sigh... sorry but Einstein had nothing to do with putting satellites in space.

If anything you're talking about the working of the GPS system and even in that case, the effects of gravity are below the error of the device. (clock drifts dealt with via regular ground synch)

The only appreciable effect is the ephemeris calculation which uses relativistic doppler calculations. Unfortunately the difference between normal doppler and relativistic doppler is minuscule at these speeds and are also within error ranges... So ultimately even the GPS argument doesn't hold water..

So... like, go with Jonas Salk who gave away the fortune that was the Polio vaccine. That's a real hero.

<comment><USER7> "The effect of gravitational frequency shift on the GPS due to general relativity is that a clock closer to a massive object will be slower than a clock farther away. Applied to the GPS, the receivers are much closer to Earth than the satellites, causing the GPS clocks to be faster by a factor of 5×10^(−10), or about 45.9 μs/day. This gravitational frequency shift is noticeable.

When combining the time dilation and gravitational frequency shift, the discrepancy is about 38 microseconds per day, a difference of 4.465 parts in 10^10. Without correction, errors in the initial pseudorange of roughly 10 km/day would accumulate.

To compensate for the discrepancy, the frequency standard on board each satellite is given a rate offset prior to launch, making it run slightly slower than the desired frequency on Earth; specifically, at 10.22999999543 MHz instead of 10.23 MHz. Since the atomic clocks on board the GPS satellites are precisely tuned, it makes the system a practical engineering application of the scientific theory of relativity in a real-world environment. Placing atomic clocks on artificial satellites to test Einstein's general theory was proposed by Friedwardt Winterberg in 1955."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis_for_the_Global_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis_for_the_Global_Positioning_System#Special_and_General_Relativity)

<comment><USER8> Doesn't shiva2012 specifically address this in his point? You are describing a slow drift that would accumulate over many days and eventually lead to an error, but that is avoided by regularly re-syncing the clock on the satellite and the ground ("clock drifts dealt with via regular ground synch"). In a hypothetical world where Einstein didn't figure out GR, nor the thousands of physicists who followed him in the intervening decades, the implication for GPS would be an unexplained drift that would be easily correctable though still mysterious.

<comment><USER7> To my knowledge there is no "ground sync" \- as described in the previous quote, the clocks are intentionally set to run slightly slow in advance to offset the effects of relativity.

<comment><USER6> Ground re-synchronization happens daily.

"The clock and ephemeris corrections are uploaded generally about once per day (but some times more often if needed to maintain precision). The rubidium clock's natural drift is large and might be of the order of 10^-13 per day" (quote from an engineer that works on the system)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [http://www.smh.com.au/national/csiro-head-larry-marshall- def...](http://www.smh.com.au/national/csiro-head-larry-marshall-defends- climate-research-cuts-as-angry-scientists-protest-in- melbourne-20160208-gmo81n.html)

The man has a PhD in physics but he believes in water divining. The second of these may have had more to do with qualifying him to head up the CSIRO than the first. [http://www.skeptics.com.au/2014/12/04/bent-spoon-to-csiro- he...](http://www.skeptics.com.au/2014/12/04/bent-spoon-to-csiro-head//)

I don't know if this is the right thing, but I'm just going to assume it is 100% wrong based on a bozo who believes in water divining being in charge of Scientific research and having stated he wants water divining researched by real scientists.

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't worry, the head of CSIRO is "interested in the development of technology that would make it easier for farmers to dowse or divine for water on their properties."[1]

That's right, the head of our national scientific organisation is going to solve climate change with metal rods.

[1][http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-20/nrn-csiro-ceo-water- di...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-20/nrn-csiro-ceo-water-divining- dowsing/5822472)

<comment><USER11> Did you look through 2 years of CSIRO news to find the least charitable soundbite possible? Also he isn't talking about climate change in that article, he's talking about agriculture.

<comment><USER10> Maybe farmers have to dowse for water because they're looking at a huge drop in rainfall due to climate change: [http://www.vegetableclimate.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/04/C...](http://www.vegetableclimate.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/04/CSIRO-climate-change-predictions.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I sent this message to my local member:

\----

I read today of the plan for the CSIRO to cut 80% of its climate scientists ([http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/australia- cuts-110...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/australia- cuts-110-climate-scientist-jobs/))

Firstly, how does this fit in with the government's vision for managing our climate, and contributing to international climate study? As the premier climate research country in the southern hemisphere this decision not only has ramifications for us but also for the global community.

What can we do to ensure the continuance of long running monitoring operations, that provide some of the few sources of high quality and long term data on the climate in the southern hemisphere?

The CSIRO has a long history performing fundamental science in tandem with commercialising its work. I am concerned at the current drive towards commercialisation at the expense of fundamental research. I support and understand the needs for commercialisation, as it is a clear driver of useful innovation, however the government is one of the few organisations that can focus on long term research that seeks answers to who we are and what place we have in this universe. How can we ensure that the government continues to invest in long term, fundamental research?

<comment><USER13> Thank you for the clear, well articulated post. I forwarded an edited version to my local members too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm curious how many scientist the US has on climate change? I have no perspective on quantity of scientist for climate change (or pretty much any field) ie is 110 a lot or is that normal for country like Australia?

<comment><USER15> At least in the context of Australia's resources this seems pretty significant considering it was 110 of 140 positions just in the one area, apparently with more cuts on the way. A drop to a quarter of research staff on pretty much any project seems like it would make a pretty big impact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It sure seems likely that many countries are going to look back on this time with some substantial sense of shame.

<comment><USER17> I love this comment because it admits a wide range of contradictory interpretations. That is, we agree, but we probably don't agree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Because the science is settled there is no need for more basic research, the government says"

Allow me to say that this is wonderfully ironic.

<comment><USER19> "We've proven that HIV causes AIDS, now we can fire all these researchers"

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Turnbull says he's different from the previous Abbott-led government, but clearly he isn't. That's very sad.

I was really hoping Turnbull would be different. As bad as Labor are, the LNP is much, much worse. In fact, they can't even Claudio to be better economic managers: Labor listened to Treasury during the GFC and took action that saved us from a recession and job losses, albeit on the back of a mining boom. This current lot literally started stripping government spending from the economy, right at the tipping point where we are in danger of going into recession. And yet they have increased our national debt - something they crowed they wouldn't do whilst in opposition!

<comment><USER11> Sorry mate, but this is an incredibly biased and pretty much useless summary of the last 10 years in Australian politics. Why post this on hacker news?

<comment><USER20> Hardly. You haven't contributed much with your comment. Why don't you refute it? Now that would be substantive, unlike the rather useless non-rebuttal you've just posted. Why post what you just posted on HN?

Incidentally, I'm quite allowed to post my biased opinion on HN. I'm not being abusive, but I'm giving my viewpoint. You might not like it, but you can equally give your own biased counterpoint.

As for it being useless, what part do you dispute?

a. That Labor listened to Treasury and managed to prevent the worst effects of the GFC from hitting Australia?

b. The fact that the instant that Abbott got in he and Hockey attempted to start stripping funding in the budget?

c. Or perhaps you don't like the fact that our debt level in 2012 was A$233.968 billion and it is now, just over 3 years into a Coalition government, that the national debt is A$405.988 billion? Read it and weep - that's double what the ALP had when they lost power. And the Coalition aren't dealing with the GFC!

I seem to recall that certain Coalition members said that the grownups were now leading the country. These are the same people whose first budget was so disastrous - with a leader so dreadful! - that they got rid of a sitting PM even faster than the ALP dumped Rudd!

I mean, of all the ironies - Abbott and pretty much every LNP member were positively _crowing_ when Rudd was taken out by Gillard. And they installed Turnbull after only just over 2 years of government and the Treasurer left parliament altogether because he couldn't pass any legislation?

A Treasurer, I might point out, who made a valedictory speech that showed such an utter lack of insight into his complete failure in performing this important role that he called his "debt and deficit" and "lifters and leaners" speech one of the greatest speeches to be made in the last several decades. The same guy who literally said that poor people don't drive cars, smoked a cigar openly before one of the harshest budgets in Australia's history and who couldn't even guarantee that he would abolish the GST on tampons, even though he said it on the highest rating political media forums in the country, on our national broadcaster no less!

If it wasn't screwing up our country, it would be very funny indeed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Here is the CSIRO joker aka CEO endorsing water divining ...[http://www.skeptics.com.au/2014/12/04/bent-spoon-to-csiro- he...](http://www.skeptics.com.au/2014/12/04/bent-spoon-to-csiro-head/)

Which such a firm grasp on pushing the "envelope" one wonders what other BS is he peddling.

</comment><comment><USER13> Yay for Australia, we finished science! /s

</comment><comment><USER22> The Cape Grim monitoring is not in danger according to the CEO.

</comment><comment><USER23> Did they ever fix the hole in their ozone layer?

</comment><comment><USER24> But the debate here [US] looms on...

</comment><comment><USER25> China should hire all of them to help fix their pollution problems

<comment><USER26> If scientists knew how to do anything besides article-publishing and money- asking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Sometimes I wonder if, secretly, a lot of governments just know the numbers and the sheer impossibility of tackling climate change with existing technology and have decided to settle for the near-term human civilization collapse scenario. Google's pretty much done that already.

<comment><USER28> I don't buy the doomsday scenario. The system will adapt.

<comment><USER29> There is no guarantee that adaptation will respect our moral sensibilities. If we don't acquire knowledge and make the effort to adapt then nature will make the decisions for us and we might not like the results.

<comment><USER30> Nope. I think the theory is much more along the lines that our moral sensibilities will adapt.

Right now the prevailing theory seems to be that we can beat climate change ... without serious economic impact ... without moving cities/populations ... without sea level changes ... without moving around agricultural production ... above all without any compromises anywhere ...

Of course this will fail. This idea of keeping the world constant has failed in every period, climate change or no climate change.

The conspiracy theory is that this is not in fact a surprise to anyone working on climate change, but that the money's good (and the counter is : we're talking academics here ... so let's get real ... the money's ... almost acceptable)

<comment><USER29> Thank you for telling me what my position is while ignoring the claim that knowledge is beneficial for adaptation. /s</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


My experience with JavaScript's Date and the missing year 0 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jonhoo/wp2ghost/pull/8#discussion_r84797728 <comment><USER2> TL;DR : GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out.

(For reference: I worked on my company's ANSI Datetime implementation over 20 years ago, and the ANSI spec made it clear: using an invalid date (like A.D. 0) or an expression that yields an invalid date (e.g. "3/31/2017" \- 1 UNITS MONTH) must always return an _error_ and never just return wrong or garbage data.</comment>


Astronomers Have Detected a Whopping 8 New Repeating Signals from Deep Space - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencealert.com/astronomers-have-bagged-a-jaw-dropping-haul-of-eight-new-repeating-fast-radio-bursts <comment><USER2> Many people still wish to find aliens. Some don't.

I know they are just scientifically curious to solve this question, but some people still hope to find an alien civilization that's desperate to contact us with a giant flashlight.

</comment><comment><USER3> So, who gets to climb into the ball that gets dropped through the gyroscope thing?

<comment><USER4> No one would believe you.</comment></comment>


Your relationship with food - <AUTHOR> http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/10/foodrelationship/

<comment><USER2> _Why do people order a cheeseburger, fries, dessert and a_ Diet* Coke?*

Why not? Having a cheeseburger doesn't mean you don't care at all about your health, it means you've decided that the short-term pleasure it gives you is more valuable than the long-term benefits from having a salad instead. And if you're indifferent between the taste of regular and diet Coke, it makes perfect sense to go for the healthier one.

The no-sugar-no-burgers-ever crowd is oddly similar to the abstinence-only- sex-ed crowd. A large number of people would agree that one of those groups is sensible and responsible, and the other is a bunch of uptight weirdos.

<comment><USER3> "You forget that so much of what makes food good or bad is in your head"

What I take away from this is that you can self-efface any sort of preference for such foods. Frankly I think cheeseburgers, fries, and coke are gross. They are made with the lowest quality ingredients, makes me feel like crap and cost money. Theres nothing good about that in my mind, and so for me I'd whip up a salad over that any day.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Email me when new episodes come out - <AUTHOR> https://episodemailer.com/#/browse <comment><USER2> This is why I have a DVR where I record series and movies I want to see.

And Netflix and Amazon Prime that tell me when new episodes/seasons of something are available.

And a podcast app that auto-downloads new episodes of all the shows I subscribe to.

Why would I want to get yet another email telling me some show has a new episode when the service by which I'm getting that content (unless it's OTA - but TiVo will DVR those) _already tells me_ when something new is available?</comment>


An Artificial Intelligence Developed Its Own Non-Human Language - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/06/artificial-intelligence-develops-its-own-non-human-language/530436/?single_page=true <comment><AUTHOR> Link to published paper: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14578659](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14578659)</comment>


Science fails to face the shortcomings of statistics - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/57091/title/Odds_Are,_Its_Wrong

<comment><USER2> Misleading. Just because scientists are not using the tool correctly (that is, reading more into it than they should; misusing numbers in ways they shouldn't) doesn't mean they are shortcomings in statistics. It is what it is. You cannot read more meaning into numbers than is there in the first place.

Maybe these scientists are really looking for an oracle, and all they have is statistics.</comment>


Basic Income Experiment in Finland will continue until the end of 2018 - <AUTHOR> http://www.kela.fi/web/en/news-archive/-/asset_publisher/lN08GY2nIrZo/content/contrary-to-reports-the-basic-income-experiment-in-finland-will-continue-until-the-end-of-2018 <comment><USER2> Not very false. They're not continuing the trial past the end of this year. Which is exactly what it said in the article I read about it.

Frankly, this article seems more misleading than the ones it is complaining about.

<comment><USER3> Well, the headline in the original article sounded like the trials had failed missarably and was aborted, when in reality the trial was always supposed to, and was planned to, run for 1 year. It hasn't been expanded but that doesn't make it a failure

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know why we need these little "trials" when we already have a huge, ongoing, (and I think successful one) right in front of us.

It came out exactly like you'd expect. A great many of them just sat quietly in their rooms taking all kinds of drugs, playing video games and watching TV.

Some of them became community volunteers of envious zeal making huge positive differences for those around them.

Many found meaningful secondary employment that they enjoyed all the more for not having to depend on it for survival.

All of these were members of my own family so I was able to understand well the mentalities of each choice. The experience has made me a whole-hearted supporter of BMI.

The program? Social security retirement.

</comment><comment><USER5> I felt the english version was ambiguous so I read the original finnish version. It says that press reports that the trial is aborted _earlier than planned_ is false, and _for the time being_ there is no decision to extend it.

<comment> m-watson Yea, it does seem interesting looking at the differences. And it isn't like I know Finnish, I used google translate but even just the bolded intro is different

English: There have been incorrect reports in the media about the Finnish experimental study on a Universal Basic Income. The experiment will run until the end of 2018 as planned.

Finnish[1] (in English): In many international media, information has been published that Finland is going to suspend a baseline experiment. However, the experiment will continue according to the original plan until the end of 2018.

[1] [http://www.kela.fi/ajankohtaista- henkiloasiakkaat/-/asset_pu...](http://www.kela.fi/ajankohtaista- henkiloasiakkaat/-/asset_publisher/kg5xtoqDw6Wf/content/kansainvalisessa- mediassa-virheellista-tietoa-perustulokokeilun-paattymisesta)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anybody else see/noticed the Netscape logo on the article's tab?

<comment><USER7> I did, checked the headers but Cloudfare overwrites the Server:. I don't think Oracle iPlanet Web server uses such favicon, does it?

<comment><USER8> I don't think it's the server, it's from their theme: [https://metropolitan.fi/theme/metropolitan_fi/images/favicon...](https://metropolitan.fi/theme/metropolitan_fi/images/favicon.ico)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> as far as i remember my local news source reported this correctly, but still called it "a failure" as due the short duration the program was running (due to the non-continuation) it's not enough to see the long term effects of UBI.

<comment><USER10> It would never be enough anyway. We know what the small scale effects of UBI are - much the same as tax credits but they get always get cancelled politically or run down to an irrelevance.

And extrapolating such small scale interventions to an entire currency area leads to a fallacy of composition.

[https://medium.com/modern-money-matters/is-basic-income- basi...](https://medium.com/modern-money-matters/is-basic-income-basically- finnished-babadac2d29b)</comment></comment>