IKEA Will Be Entirely Meat-Free This Christmas - <AUTHOR> https://swedesinthestates.com/ikea-will-be-entirely-meat-free-this-christmas/ <comment><USER2> It's my understanding that ikea meatballs are made from mdf materials and dust that is produced as holes are drilled in their flat pack furniture. Not a single piece of material is wasted and the meatballs are a staple of their store cafes worldwide. I'm assuming the huge build up of these meatballs will be re routed to other locations during this Christmas experiment. Perhaps future mdf meatballs will have all meat additives removed and we will begin a new era of vegan foods.

<comment><USER3> Good source of fiber

<comment><USER4> Cellulose

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Only in the UK, despite the name of the site reporting it.

<comment><USER6> that ... explains a lot about the menu lol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "As part of our commitment to supporting our customers to live healthier and more sustainable lives, we have decided to launch our first-ever 'Meat-Free Christmas' in our restaurants."

I think there's a big difference between supporting customers who want to eat less meat (i.e. offering a veggie option) and removing the meat option entirely. There aren't any statistics on this, but if there's no meat at all, I might leave and go somewhere else. Maybe Ikea could have convinced me to eat less, but I'd likely end up somewhere else with no reduction whatsoever.

I guess it's Ikea's store and it can do whatever it wants, but I personally don't like the idea of some company telling me how to eat because a marketing guy decided it fit well as part of a corporate sustainability initiative.

<comment><USER8> Yes this is a kind of newspeak. This is not about supporting, it is about making choices on their customers' behalf.

I am thinking of the parent/child relationship, parents knows what is good for their children so they don't need to ask. Except, in some cases some parents actually don't know. IKEA is treating their customers like children here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> No Swedish meatballs? I guess I'm not visiting IKEA.

<comment><USER10> I feel like meatballs can be more accurately replaced by a meat-substitute than a burger can. So maybe they'll go that route?

<comment><USER11> They already have veggie balls that are pretty tasty. I pick up a frozen bag of them when I go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's so convenient when a single decision can:

1\. Save the company money.

2\. Virtue signal how woke the company is.

<comment><USER13> I guess "virtue signal" is the cool new catchphrase used by cynics.

Is there any way for a person or company to do anything of any good without being accused of this? Probably not. Anonymous commenters on the interwebs loves these types of throwaway accusations.

Actually, now that I think of it, mentioning "virtue signal" and "woke" is really just sending a virtue signal about how you're the truly woke one...

And I'm sending a virtue signal right now about how I totally get what's happening, and you don't, which shows how woke I am...

I don't think this particular hole has a bottom.

<comment><USER14> I assume that virtue signalling works much like normal POSIX signalling, except that a process must already be woke to send or receive such a signal.

The implications for power management are troubling, to say the least.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's funny because a fair amount of vegan-based products (specifically meat substitutes) contain wheat and gluten, which I can't eat because of a physical disability. While there has been much more acceptance, etc. in recent years, and the amount of things I _can_ eat has gone up, it's still frustrating to see vegans and vegetarians -- something that is for many people a dietary choice -- being catered to before people with physical disabilities.

Vaguely related, I'm not really won-over that everyone cutting meat out of their diet would have a considerable effect on the environment. The overwhelming majority of deforestation is done for crops, not pasture. And off the top of my head the most the majority people contribute to climate change is about 10%. So, sure, everyone stops using cars, and eating meat, etc. ad nauseum, that still leaves governments giving billions in subsidies to the coal and oil industries, etc.

It's a nice gesture, but that's all I'm seeing happening lately. Everyone's making gestures to climate change, but there has been no inter-governmental effort to actually charge, prosecute, and put to use the assets of the people who are responsible for covering up climate change for over forty years. I fear by the time it happens millions will have lost their lives in climate- related disasters.

<comment><USER16> There exists a paradox in social choice theory (game theory applied to elections), the paradox of voting -- this comes out of Anthony Downs around 1950.

We can roughly consider that the utility value of voting is equal to a formula that looks like: E[voting] = pV - c, where c is the cost of voting (time cost, information cost, etc.), V is the value of your preferred candidate winning over other candidates, and p is your probability of being the pivotal voter. By pivotal voter, I mean that if everyone other than you cast their vote first, and then you cast your vote, the question is would your vote have a capability to change the outcome.

The typical view is that c is small but non-zero, V is reasonably large and by definition positive, but p is infinitesimal. And so, no one should bother voting. And yet, people do vote, an off-equilibrium behavior. And although it could be the case that someone's subjective belief in p is much higher than the true p is, this seems an unsatisfactory explanation because even stupid idiots know that their individual vote is unlikely to make the difference.

There are two major lines of rebuttal to the paradox. The first is that individual equilibrium models are not appropriate for assessing these kinds of questions. The second line of rebuttal is that there must exist other terms in the equation. The most promising of these is that the civic religion we have built around voting (social pressure to vote, personal moral imperative to "do one's part in society", the dumb stickers, how good it feels to stand up for what you believe, etc.) creates a "consumption value" of voting. So maybe the equation is E[voting] = pV - c + d where it is assumed that d >= c for many people, who vote.

I mention all of this because based on your post, p = 0, V = Infinity, c = high, and d = 0. If you are looking for a call to action, all you need to do is consider the great many benefits of changing your d term.

Finally, I think it weakens the approachability of your third paragraph argument (why bother, states should do it instead) that it comes after your second argument (environmentalists don't even help the environment) or your first argument (vegans annoy me because I can't eat gluten, why aren't people listening to me).

<comment><USER17> > The utility value of voting is ... E[voting] = pV - c, where c is the cost > of voting (time cost, information cost, etc.), V is the value of your > preferred candidate winning over other candidates

That patently ridiculous. There are varigated and complex motivations for voting in general and for voting for a certain candidate or party in particular. It has to do with your sense of identity; self-fulfillment vs passivity; commitment to peers, family, friends; sense of gratitude for past actions by the candidate or the party/movement; and these are all factors which are almost orthogonal to whether the candidate you vote for wins.

<comment><USER16> This is ultimately what goes in the d term in the next paragraph, yes. I agree that in hindsight people getting tripped up in the initial model before the criticisms elaborated on it were ignoring something that is obvious to everyone who isn't a game theory dweeb. My point in introducing the paradox was to introduce the solution to my comment's parent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> That's literally the only reason I would ever make the trek to go to the store.

</comment><comment><USER19> IKEA breakfast are the only reason I visit. That's one place I new to visit. Amazon it is then...

</comment><comment><USER20> The only reason I go to IKEA is for their Swedish Meatballs, not for their Kindergarten themed furniture. Good luck being meat free and depriving your customers of vitamin B12

<comment><USER21> B12 is largely misunderstood. B12 isn't produced by any animals, it's only produced by certain bacteria. It used to be available in plant based diets, but modern hygenic practices have more or less stopped that. In modern industrial farming it's common for the animals to not get enough B12 either, so they often get B12 from supplements as well.

Fortunately it's incredibly cheap to synthesize supplements and you don't need much of it at all, so this is not really a concern for vegans.

[https://www.forksoverknives.com/vitamin-b12-questions- answer...](https://www.forksoverknives.com/vitamin-b12-questions- answered-2/#gs.bwgt4c)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Implying intensifies

</comment><comment><USER23> I am sure in 2-3 decades eating meat in West / developed World would either become prohibitively expensive like caviar or it would be outlawed.

It seems that nowadays humans want to completely redefine what is humanity - all social, cultural, religious values are being discarded altogether or are being completely redefined.

I don't know whether this is good or not - all I know is that there seem to be political or social movements behind each and every one of these movements and to have band of people redefine and reinforce, by law and through media, an altered version of humanity for our Children is a scary thought for me.

<comment><USER24> Why would it become prohibitively expensive? Are ranchers going to stop selling beef?

<comment><USER25> It's one of the more resource-intensive foodstuffs there is; if the planet keeps getting more crowded at the current pace then I wouldn't be surprised if it's not long before people forced to shift toward less expensive food sources by basic economic forces.

Alternatively, vat meat takes over.

<comment> core-questions People said the same thing in the 1960s, and a hamburger costs me less now relative to purchasing power than it did then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> >'"As part of our commitment to supporting our customers to live healthier and more sustainable lives, we have decided to launch our first-ever 'Meat-Free Christmas' in our restaurants,"'

So a company that was predicated on planned obsolescence, that has littered the planet with disposable flat pack furniture is now going to support "sustainability" by getting rid of meatballs at its fast food lunch counter. Got it.

<comment> core-questions Oh yes, all that terrible flat-pack furniture... which is literally just captured carbon, if you think about it, and makes extremely efficient use of low grade wood.

<comment><USER27> You mean the melamine formaldehyde they bulk up with saw dust?

<comment> core-questions Look, I get it, you have hardwood furniture in your beautiful mansion or whatever, but the rest of us need tables and chairs too.

<comment><USER26> You don't have to be rich to buy furniture whose primary design consideration isn't "cheap to ship." The metal and dowel based joinery of Ikea is a joke and it's a direct result of the "cheap to ship" design mentality.

You can find lots of furniture that uses proper joinery without breaking the bank. Lastly its false economy to buy the same disposable book case every 3-4 years when a well made one can last a lifetime. And they're quite easy to find second hand.

<comment> core-questions What are you doing to the Ikea Billy that is making it break and need replacing every 3-4 years? I've had mine for 20 years.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


China is victim, threatened by overseas hackers - <AUTHOR> http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-02/07/content_16213475.htm

<comment><USER2> It must be nice to believe your country can do no wrong.</comment>


Dark Web Market Disappears, Users Migrate in Panic, Circle of Life Continues - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/read/dark-web-market-disappears-users-migrate-in-panic-circle-of-life-continues <comment><AUTHOR> Considering their wallets are untouched, it doesn't appear to be an exit scam or a hacker stealing their coins.

One possibility: Owner was arrested through blockchain analysis.

Redditor's Evidence/Theory: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/4fiy1g/this...](https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/4fiy1g/this_is_why_ive_been_saying_that_nucleus_owner/)</comment>


Show HN: Open source password manager for GNU/Linux - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nrosvall/fort

<comment><USER2> why don't go with [http://www.passwordstore.org/](http://www.passwordstore.org/) (pass)?

pass is just a 500 line bash GPG wrapper, and a git repo. You can audit easily the code. You shouldn't have your password manager, the most succulent software, to be 5000[1] lines of code in c++. You don't need a single point of failure. You don't need to build trust in a new developer and it's desire to keep mantaining and updating the software. Just use already proven tools for data at rest: GPG.

Also, pass has implementations for Android, iOS, web browser extensions, etc.

[1] ~/fort $ wc -l _.cpp_.h *.ui : 5079 total

<comment><USER3> The biggest downside to passwordstore, and I say this as somebody using it, is that your password-filenames are in clear.

That means an attacker who gains access to your files can see you have particular accounts:

         ~/.passwordstore/websites/evil.com
         ~/.passwordstore/websites/sexy.com

It's unfortunate these aren't encrypted, hashed, or otherwise masked.

<comment><USER2> And one can argue that if an attacker can do that, they are already inside the machine. To that effect, they could just put a bogus pass binary in ~/bin and extract all your passwords.

Yet if you use this solution (or keepass or whatever you want) you are exposing yourself to attacks to those codebases. Which normally are monstruos for the most juicy of programs: a password manager.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Version number is 0.2 so yes it has less features than KeepassX. There will be more features in the near future. This was just really "release early, release often"-kind of thing.

<comment><USER4> Keep it up, it is looking great, clean and simple. I like it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting, but I agree KeePassX is better it has more features.

<comment><USER6> Thanks I was exactly looking for your comment :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What is the advantage oder using KeePass(X) which works on all platforms?

<comment><USER4> There might not be an advantage now. Just as KeePass has grown, this one might too. Competition, even in open source, is great!</comment></comment>


How much time of your work time you spend for unrelated to your job activities? - <AUTHOR>

For me it's about 40% <comment><USER2> Depends on what you consider job activities.

In the broadest classification, I spend 0% of the time I'm at work on unrelated activities, because even when there isn't active work to be done, I'm expected to be here in case any other developers need to ask ?'s. Waiting is part of the game.

If you use a more realistic definition - work activities are those related to the active development of software - then I probably spend about 20-30% of my time doing things that are unrelated.

</comment><comment><USER3> 50-60%. I'm an intern though.

</comment><comment><USER4> 30%-40%</comment>


Meta-study finds most vitamin supplements have no effect on lifespan - sahin-boydas https://newatlas.com/vitamins-mineral-supplements-effect-cardiovascular-health-lifespan/60686/ <comment><AUTHOR> What about quality of life?</comment>


Feynman Meta-answering a Question About Magnetic Forces - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM&feature=related

<comment><USER2> It's fun to imagine him explaining this to a small kid :D</comment>


Show HN: Payment Gateway Calculator - <AUTHOR> https://founderhacker.com/payment-gateway <comment><USER2> Thanks, this is pretty nice. Why not put the results in a table so it is easy to compare?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi, my name is Natagon. I build this calculator to help someone to calculate their fee when using a payment gateway.

I will update payment gateway data in the future, Feel free to share it with your friends. Thanks

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey, Can you add my payment gateway to this?

</comment><comment><USER4> Useful service:)</comment>


Show HN: TagniFi Fundamentals Is Now Available in Excel on SpreadCloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.tagnifi.com/tagnifi-fundamentals-is-now-available-in-excel-on-spreadcloud/

<comment><USER2> I don't know what is TagniFi, but I was interested in SpreadCloud until I saw that it required registered data sources.

Why don't you change this to a Spreadcloud that accepts any kind of JSON data over HTTP? I would be awesome.</comment>


SkillExchange - <AUTHOR> http://www.sklx.co/#.Uh9Ym646VwI.hackernews <comment><AUTHOR> SkillExchange brings together qualified people and recruiters. Qualified person asks lowest considerable salary for his/her skill(s) while recruiter bids for required skills with highest salary offered (skills are just tags describing core expertise). Skill exchange is divided into sections according to preferred locations and level of expertise. Bidding process is anonymous until ask and bid match and both parties disclose their CV and Job description for a commission paid to the exchange. Suggested recruiting process enables continuous search for better opportunities in the job market and saves time by aligning salary expectations from the very beginning.</comment>


Gofpdf: Generate PDFs from Go with No Dependencies - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jung-kurt/gofpdf#gofpdf <comment><USER2> We use this to generate the NYTimes Crossword PDFs. I'd say the API is a little wonky (there are several different methods just for writing text) but it gets the job done. I wish it supported font compression though. We have to pipe the PDFs through ghostscript to get them back to a reasonable size.

<comment><USER3> Can your employer sponsor a developer to implement compression?

<comment><USER4> or just do it in your free time to give back! some of my favorite personal projects (like my decimal library) were things i might've been able to justify doing at work, but decided to explore on my own time.

<comment><USER3> Nah, open source needs funding.

<comment><USER5> I don't think Newspapers have a lot of money to give away these days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's also worth noting that Chrome headless could be a nice alternative if you use html as the base for say invoices or reports that you want to generate from a SaaS app.

Create pdf with Chrome headless: chrome --headless --disable-gpu --print-to- pdf [https://www.chromestatus.com/](https://www.chromestatus.com/)

Source: [https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/04/headless-c...](https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/04/headless- chrome#create_a_pdf_dom)

<comment><USER7> Disable GPU because they assume headless servers don't have graphics cards installed ?

<comment><USER8> You would also probably need to have DISPLAY pointing to an X server (to get OpenGL), which is somewhat cumbersome for daemons to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Luckily I haven't had the need to create pdfs yet now that I'm using Go. However, if I would, I would generate LaTeX instead of PDFs directly. I did the same in Python a and it has turned out great: [https://github.com/JelteF/PyLaTeX](https://github.com/JelteF/PyLaTeX)

The API can be made much more high level, because of all functionality and packages LaTeX has. The most important thing is to have a good escape function that is used by default for all text, otherwise it's very easy to execute arbitrary shell commands for an attacker. If anyone wants to create a Go package similar to mine, feel free to contact me if you want any more advice (email in github profile).

<comment><USER10> That "no dependencies" thing is important sometimes. Latex is a large dependency.

<comment><USER9> I agree that sometimes not having dependencies is important and that's definitely a big feature of this library. However, in my experience it is more desirable in many cases to have clear code. You basically get this for free when by using LaTeX, because you create documents at a higher level than writing raw pdfs. Another big advantage ia that you can make use of its vast package ecosystem, which allows you to for instance create beautiful tables that span multiple pages with ease.

It definitely is a large, and more importantly external, dependency though. However, if you control the installation environment of your software this isn't really a problem. For all use cases where I had to generate pdfs this was the case (webapps and local one off scripts).

<comment><USER11> I agree. No dependencies is nice, but you step into a myre of dealing with low level pdf faffery. I'd rather let a very robust external tool with proven reliability

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I recently used this to create a language agnostic tool that generates reports in an unified format for two different services.

Can't say it's completely painless due to the imperative nature of the API but it served me well. If you're reading this, thank you maintainers!

<comment><USER13> Do you what one would use to generate professional looking report PDFs?

<comment><USER14> The quality of the report depends significantly on the designer. I've seen some very good looking documents generated client side with pdfmake (JavaScript). In my SaaS product (link in profile), we generate PDF invoices with it, and they look very professional. It's a bit painful to get things typeset correctly, but once you have it right, the documents look great. pdfmake is a good option if you don't want to load your server CPUs up with generating PDFs...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I used this library to build the PDF client[1] for the deck [2] Go package. Here are some examples [3, 4, 5]

[1] [https://github.com/ajstarks/deck/](https://github.com/ajstarks/deck/)

[2] [https://github.com/ajstarks/deck/tree/master/cmd/pdfdeck](https://github.com/ajstarks/deck/tree/master/cmd/pdfdeck)

[3] [https://speakerdeck.com/ajstarks/the-other-side-of-go- progra...](https://speakerdeck.com/ajstarks/the-other-side-of-go-programming- pictures)

[4] [https://speakerdeck.com/ajstarks/a-view-of-design-and- user-e...](https://speakerdeck.com/ajstarks/a-view-of-design-and-user- experience-designing-for-people)

<comment><USER16> Thank you so much for Deck! I used it for a few talks recently, you can find two of them about Go on my BitBucket page: [https://bitbucket.org/teknico/](https://bitbucket.org/teknico/) You also have a pull request on Github. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A mostly straight port from PHP to Go is pretty interesting. Nice to see PHP libraries get a little love here and there.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've used fpdf years ago to make invoices on websites. I really like this library and it's cool to have it in Go.

It's not just a HTML to PDF library, it lets you make very precise stuff, and it was very useful back in the day.</comment>


Show HN: stk8.co, a multiple URL shortener. - <AUTHOR> http://stk8.co

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://stk8.co> is a tool that allows you to shorten a stack of links. The links are embedded and properly formatted for easy viewing. Here's a couple of stacks to share with you:

<http://stk8.co/sample>

<http://stk8.co/gkbbbc>

You can also use the bookmarklet for easier stacking.

</comment><comment><USER2> It's a very nice looking site, but I'll be honest I was logged into Facebook at the time and it really creeps me out when I see my face shown on other sites I didn't log into. But perhaps thats just me.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is equivalent to going to a media site that uses the like button, where it shows your friends who liked the page.

But we are still debating on whether to keep it or not because it significantly increases the time it takes to load a page.

Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very cool and well designed. However your branding of Stacked links could use some work. It's not immediately obvious what a stack of links is. I have never used that term.

<comment><USER4> You've never used the term "stack"? Its one of the more intuitive programming terms.

<comment><USER5> I guess it helps people get the fact that they can use multiple links.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cool idea, I like the fact you can embed data right on the page.</comment>


Stylestats is a efficient Node.js library for keeping stylesheet statistics.  - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/t32k/stylestats

<comment><USER2> That is pretty damned cool.</comment>


I'm very cool and I don't use Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://startupdispatch.com/opinion/im-very-cool-and-i-dont-use-facebook/

<comment><USER2> I guess some people can't figure out how to not add people as 'friends' or filter content with lists.</comment>


The hot air exhaust from an old Mac pro is enough to power this origami pinwheel - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/frahs/status/1164005185418452992 <comment><USER2> Good one.

My Mac pro touchpad is getting so warm I sometimes think to put some butter and make an egg on it.

Apple must to fix these issues</comment>


Benchmark of Python web servers - <AUTHOR> http://nichol.as/benchmark-of-python-web-servers A benchmark of 14 different Python WSGI web servers. <comment><USER2> _Ruby might be full with all kinds of rockstar programmers (whatever that might mean) but if i have to nominate just one Python programmer with some sort of 'rockstar award' i would definitely nominate Chad Whitacre. Its not only the great tools he created; Testosterone, Aspen, Stephane. But mostly how he promotes them with the most awesome screencasts i have ever seen._

It's true. I'm not sure if the first 30 seconds of any technical screencast can get any better than this:

<http://www.zetadev.com/software/testosterone/screencast.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunately there are several problems being pointed out with this benchmark:

* Some of the servers tested aren't designed to interact directly with clients over a network, and are meant instead to run proxied over a local socket behind something else like nginx. The benchmark is inconsistent in whether it actually does this, though, which makes the numbers useless for comparison purposes.

* Several of these servers use preforking architectures which assume the ability to have multiple workers available to service requests. Yet the benchmark deliberately limited them to only one worker, which makes the numbers useless for gauging actual peformance under concurrent load.

<comment><USER3> And now there are updated numbers in the graphs (labeled "gunicorn-3w") for gunicorn, based on running it the way it's meant to be run (on a socket with more than one worker). The results:

* Concurrent requests more than doubled

* Response times dropped 75%

* Error rate dropped 75%

It's amazing what a difference it makes to actually run something the way it was designed to run...

<comment><USER4> I'm glad he updated it. A lot of people would've just left it. That said I also would've liked to see at least a note that he tried more than three workers and there wasn't an improvement. When you have an almost linear improvement its a bit confusing why you wouldn't keep increasing it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love CherryPy because I like simple software. That it can hold it's own on benchmarks is icing on the cake.

I admit that getting your head around configuration for the first time is an hour or two of staring at documentation, but once you get past that you'll _love_ how simple it is. Getting it running under Apache via mod_wsgi is also a refreshing breeze.

Where Django is great for building websites, the beautiful transparency of CherryPy is excellent for building webservices (no cryptic errors).

We're using CherryPy with Routes, CouchDB, couchdb-python, couchdb-lucene, and lxml for a web annotation project and we couldn't be happier.

</comment><comment><USER6> Like said david in comments of this post, gunicorn is specifically designed to run behind a proxy like nginx. You should use 2x or 2x+1 numbers of cores.

Also limiting its use to one worker is constraining any possibilities for concurrency in its responses. (grainbows built over gunicorn and using gevent or eventlet is better for that).

Some other servers in the tests have same kind of specifications.

</comment><comment><USER7> What I really love about CherryPy is that I can use its web server without having to use the framework itself.

</comment><comment><USER8> Thanks to the author for a thorough and well-written benchmark article.

I have been following the development of gevent lately, I am glad it did so well in these benchmarks.

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting and I liked the CherryPy results. I used CherryPy a lot 5 to 6 years ago back in my Python using days -- simple and does the job.

That said, database access, network latency, caching, etc. are so important that you might as well just use the framework you like, then tune if required.

<comment><USER10> They are WSGI servers. Which one you choose probably only depends on the speed it can interface WSGI to itself to the client, how reliable it is, and so on. The framework you choose is a different layer, on top of WSGI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is it just me or is the the first graph almost impossible to read?</comment>


Nicole Sullivan's Object Oriented CSS - <AUTHOR> http://ajaxian.com/archives/nicole-sullivans-object-oriented-css

<comment><USER2> Seems like some useful wisdom, but the presentation is limited by offering only slides with no audio. Worse: no notes. Worse yet: not downloadable. Just not the way _I_ absorb and assess information best. Sorry I couldn't have been in Denver for the presentation...

Plus, I wonder along with a commenter on her blog... how much does her emphasis on grids limit (which of) her recommendations for those of us who use fluid designs?

<comment><USER3> If you look at her code (it's pretty short), her grid uses percentage widths for columns and her template defines either a fixed or a liquid layout. And her point that styles should be context-independent (CSS modules like legos, she says somewhere) is useful regardless of what designs you use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is irony? Using grids to help save time on a project only to discover dozens of competing frameworks each purporting to be better than the other. So you waste time learning how to use a few of them.

If you are like me, you then give up and spend time writing your own framework.

<comment><USER5> "If you are like me, you then give up and spend time writing your own framework."

... and then release it and claim it's better than the others. I wonder why there are dozens of competing frameworks?...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting stuff. I think if people just learned to use multiple classes (ie class="box large blue-bg"), they could drastically reduce the size of their css and reuse more styles.

<comment><USER7> Didn't we just spend a decade or so trying to get everybody to keep their styles OUT of their markup?

I'm all for reusable css components. Personally I'm using <http://github.com/chriseppstein/compass/>

<comment><USER8> TP is talking about the use of classes as mixins. One class could style the container and another could style the contents. I use multiple classes to add effects like hove via JavaScript. Hover can be a single CSS description rather than dozens of alternatives such as box and boxhover.

<comment><USER7> I'm talking about NOT using presentation-specific such as "box" or "blue".

Having class names such as "two-columns blue hoverable" are slightly more convenient but strategically similar to in-line styles.

Keep that presentation/behavior shit out of my content please.

Modularity is not a difficult problem to solve. But overloading your HTML is damned near impossible to dig yourself out of.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Ten minute secret – share encrypted messages easily - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/enricofoltran/ten-minute-secret <comment><USER2> [https://www.burn-notice.me/](https://www.burn-notice.me/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! I didn't know about this site before but at first look seem that there are some differences with my project:

\- it is not open source (or at least I didn't found the source code)

\- it require you to sign up in order to create messages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Cab you please explain an idea? Still cant get))) this service turns your messages in script?

<comment><AUTHOR> The service let you create a message that is encrypted with a passphrase through symmetric cryptography and give you a secret url to share.

To read a message a user need both the secret url and the passphrase, the message is destroyed after the first read or after 10 minutes.

The service is convenient for sharing sensitive information such as passwords, secret urls, credit card numbers sent via email or chat, in this way these informations are kept out from email or chat logs.</comment></comment>


Molecular Programming Project - <AUTHOR> http://molecular-programming.org/ <comment><USER2> This reminds me I need to double check the end date of my non-compete in bioinformatics. I learned so much while I was doing it and I still find the field to be ripe for startups like this. I wish them all the best, and I have always been of the mind that we won't ever get good brain emulation any other way than a combination of traditional silicon and biocomputing.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is almost everyone involved in the growing field of synthetic and molecular biology tools. Kind of neat to see and recognize these names, a bit surreal for me personally because this is the group and area I would've ended up in! Such fond memories of getting gro to run properly...

</comment><comment><USER4> That's a lot of different research directions. But I didn't see P systems mentioned. Maybe because P systems are a model of computation studied by computer scientists that assumably isn't currently implementable? There are many variants, but the basic model is of set a compartments (e.g. cells) which contain signalling chemicals which can be synthesised, destroyed, or passed between adjacent compartments according to rules. A number of P system algorithms have been developed such as leader election and graph diameter calculation (of the adjacency graph). Seems very difficult to program.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_system)

<comment><USER5> Do you have a link to a leader election algorithm in P sytems? My Google-fu returns nothing…

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think what's missing is "F5".

That's what gave us the web: a bunch a yahoos (without knowing the formal rules) kept thrashing on that key until they got something to work.

My 2cents: we need more yahoos and we need an quick and reliable F5 - a test to see if the hypothesis is verified.

</comment><comment><USER7> > Computer science and engineering has mastered complexity for electronic > computation

That's under debate.

<comment><USER8> Rather then mastering complexity, I'd say engineering, and in particular electronic engineering, has mastered prediction. It was the rise of accurate simulation tools, such as SPICE, that allowed the construction of reliable integrated circuits and the computing revolution.

It strikes me that the nano/molecular technology revolution depends on the wide availability of accurate simulators. (Please do say if there already a molecular equivalent of SPICE available!)

<comment><USER9> Yes there is! But the complexities of the real world make it so that they are significantly more complex than pspice. They are literal physical simulations in 3D space.

[https://www.gpugrid.net/science.php](https://www.gpugrid.net/science.php)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reminded me of the "The Chemical Abstract Machine" [http://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/~fvalenci/papers/cham.pdf](http://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/~fvalenci/papers/cham.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER11> Gamification Mechanic Wiki, for those interested in learning more about the process or building your own.

[https://badgeville.com/wiki/Game_Mechanics](https://badgeville.com/wiki/Game_Mechanics)</comment>


Sophos Researcher Suggests Password 'Free' to Spur Wi-Fi Encryption - <AUTHOR> http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/11/09/dear-starbucks-the-skinny-on-how-you-can-be-a-security-hero/

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it is still possible to decrypt WPA if you know the password and capture the beginning of the users' session. You can also spoof a de-auth to cause a user to reconnect if you weren't present for the start of their session.

This doesn't address problems with arp-spoofing, fraudulent DHCP servers or fraudulent access points, but it does raise the bar in the complexity of the attack.

HTTPS with a valid signed certificate would still be necessary to deal with the other attacks. Or maybe a VPN connection to a network you trust.</comment>


God: Scalable in Memory Data Structure Server in Go - <AUTHOR> http://zond.github.com/god/architecture.html

<comment><USER2> I haven't read the article, but the claim of MurmurHash3 having low collision rates is false: you can generate an arbitrary quantity of collisions according to [0].

When this was released last year, ruby[1], jruby[2] and rubinius[3] all switched to siphash[4]. Looking at [5] mentions tomcat, .NET, PHP, etc. all switching away from MurmurHash.

(I'm not saying one would HashDoS one's own database, I'm merely pointing out that MurmurHash3 wasn't _designed_ with low collision rates in mind [siphash is, though])

[0] [http://emboss.github.com/blog/2012/12/14/breaking-murmur- has...](http://emboss.github.com/blog/2012/12/14/breaking-murmur-hash- flooding-dos-reloaded/)

[1] [http://www.ruby- lang.org/en/news/2012/11/09/ruby19-hashdos-c...](http://www.ruby- lang.org/en/news/2012/11/09/ruby19-hashdos-cve-2012-5371/)

[2] <http://jruby.org/2012/12/03/jruby-1-7-1.html>

[3] [https://github.com/rubinius/rubinius/commit/a9a40fc6a1256bcf...](https://github.com/rubinius/rubinius/commit/a9a40fc6a1256bcf6382631b710430105c5dd868)

[4] <https://131002.net/siphash/>

[5] [http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2011-481...](http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2011-4815)

[edit: formatting]

<comment><USER3> > MurmurHash3 wasn't _designed_ with low collision rates in mind

There is a difference between "low collision rate" and "collision resistance".

Real-world data often contain regular patterns that can cause "bad" hash functions to give very non-random output, e.g. numbers at fixed intervals, pointers all aligned to 4k boundaries, or long strings that differ only by a short suffix.

For instance, early versions of Java would sample only a few of the characters in a long string to calculate the hash code, which caused horrendous performance if you stored a bunch of related file paths in a hash map.

Most hash functions try to avoid bad behaviour on this kind of good-natured input, but some are better at it than others, due to careful design for random-like distribution, and low collision rates.

<http://www.strchr.com/hash_functions> has examples of collision rates for different hashes, all non-cryptographic.

<comment><USER4> Python's hash, for example, will generate lower collisions than a "good" hash function. 'file1', 'file2', and 'file3' will not collide, but end up in sequential boxes, which is very efficient. Of course, you can send python web apps a "cookie of death", in which all cookies collide. There's a patch, but I think it's disabled by default.

<comment><USER5> Hash randomization was actually enabled by default in Python 3.3.

[http://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.3.html#summary- release-h...](http://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.3.html#summary-release- highlights)

<comment><USER6> Which means this is not available in PyPy? :(

<comment><USER4> python -R should enable it in 2.X (in the patched version, 2.7.3 is fine). PyPy does not include hash randomization (see <http://doc.pypy.org/en/latest/cpython_differences.html>).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not to be confused with god the Ruby process monitor:

<http://godrb.com/>

Also, great choice for searchability: "go god." You guys are so clever!

<comment><USER8> And that's not even getting into the Third Commandment issues.

<comment><USER9> Remember the sabbath, and keep it holy?

<comment><USER10> Ten commandments are wildly inconsistent

[http://www.biblicalheritage.org/bible%20studies/10%20command...](http://www.biblicalheritage.org/bible%20studies/10%20commandments.htm)

<comment><USER9> Interesting, apparently as a former Lutheran I learned the Catholic version. Seems it is even worse than that link suggests though, as there are two texts which are considered to be the 10 commandments: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments#Two_texts_with...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments#Two_texts_with_numbering_schemes)

How was I not aware of this...

<comment><USER7> Because Christians are generally speaking quite ignorant of the Old Testament, and not infrequently the New as well. Every religious Jew on earth is well aware of this, and if you read the two versions side-by-side you'll see the differences are stylistic and not substantive--the shade of difference between "honor" and "love" or "remember" and "observe" is just not that great, though our practices often are explained as owing to these distinctions.

If you are looking for something about the Bible to be upset about, you can certainly do a lot better than this.

<comment><USER9> "The 10 Commandments" and/or the Bible itself upset me for other reasons. In this particular case I am only upset by my own ignorance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Chord algorithm sounds like a very good choice, however I'm more skeptical about the radix tree approach. I fear you might get a huge performance penalty.

<comment><USER12> I would have preferred other algorithms, but there was a strict need for 1) sorted data and 2) that 2 identical trees had the same structure (for the merkle element). Not many structures were left to choose from, and radix seemed to work well enough.

<comment><USER11> My concern is that you're mixing two different concepts.

Do you really need data to be ordered? Why do you care about having "close" data on the same node?

<comment><USER12> The synchronization uses Merkle trees, and they require ordered data since they hash contiguous data into a tree of hashes.

And to avoid having a separate structure for the Merkle trees I just hash all nodes in the main tree, and compare the hashes to find differences.

Thus the same content must have the same structure, or the comparisons won't work.

<comment><USER11> I think I didn't make myself clear:

\- You say _However, since it could be very useful for users of a database to store ordered data, or to wilfully concentrate certain data on certain parts of the cluster, god does not force the user to hash the keys._ -> why do you care about how the data is actually stored? \- _To map keys to values, a mapping structure is needed. For infrastructural reasons (synchronization and cleaning) as well as for functionality of different kinds, we need a sorted mapping, and it has to be deterministically structured._ -> why?

<comment><USER12> > why do you care about how the data is actually stored?

I just said I don't. 'god does not force the user to hash the keys'.

> > To map keys to values, a mapping structure is needed. For infrastructural > reasons (synchronization and cleaning) as well as for functionality of > different kinds, we need a sorted mapping, and it has to be > deterministically structured.

> why?

Functionality: To be able to return the first or the n'th entry it has to be ordered.

Synchronization/cleaning: To be able to hash element 0000-000f we need an efficient way to fetch a segment of elements, thus it again has to be ordered.

To optimize the hashing so that I don't have to keep two separate data structures I keep the hashes in the nodes of the sorted data structure. Thus the structure has to be deterministically structured or the hashes won't be equal even if the trees contain the same data.

<comment><USER11> Thank you for your answers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Bad name. Already taken by a well-known Ruby tool (<http://godrb.com/>).

Why not call it Heaven? It's got clouds.

<comment><USER14> I didn't know of this tool. I'm sure lots of programs use the name God TBH.

<comment><USER13> No, looks like it's just the one. And it's in Debian/Ubuntu [1][2] as "god", so this tool is already at a disadvantage, namewise:

        $ apt-cache search god | grep "^god"
        god - Fully configurable process monitoring

[1] [http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=god&searchon=...](http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=god&searchon=names&suite=stable&section=all)

[2] [http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=god&searchon=...](http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=god&searchon=names&suite=quantal&section=all)

<comment><USER15> I wonder what the Debian/Ubuntu policy is on package name reuse? When Ruby is sent out to pasture, do we never get to use 'god' again?

<comment><USER16> wasn't "pasture" a slackware thing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Can it be run in-process from Go as a library?

<comment><USER17> And also, can it be run in diskless mode (no logging, no snapshotting)?

<comment><USER12> Yes, it isn't documented (for some reason, I must have forgot) but <https://github.com/zond/god/blob/master/dhash/dhash.go#L109> shows how the empty string as persistence directory will avoid any persistence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> obvious question: how is this compared to Redis?

<comment><USER12> Hard to know. It seems to perform comparably, anyway, at single node level.

I have yet to find a bunch of equally powerful machines to perform a proper scalability benchmark :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Arg, should not have chosen that name: <http://godrb.com/>

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't want to come off as a negative Nancy but why didn't you just stick to using Redis? What problems does your lib solve that Redis does not?

<comment><USER12> If you run out of RAM or CPU on a single machine you start running into operationally problematic situations with Redis.

<comment><USER20> I've never had this issue pop up (I am not involved in any huge scale sites) but I have to believe this really isn't too common?

Also a 5 second Googling shows there's ways to set Redis up to stop writing but continue reading if you're running out of memory. If you really have that large memory needs then you're going to also run out of memory with this new lib on 1 machine.

It seems like Redis has more than enough options to prevent real problems from occurring once you do surpass your hardware requirements.

<comment><USER12> I guess it's not for you, then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Interesting to see how technology is being _religionized_ by hackers. _Smirk_</comment>


Ask YC: Do you unit test your Javascript? - <AUTHOR>

As web applications are using AJAX and effects to create a better UI for the user, more and more Javascript is being written.
I unit test most of my server side code with pyunit.  But I haven't written a single test for my Javascript yet, but the amount of Javascript I have is almost 2x the amount of server side code.
If you do unit test your Javascript, what unit testing library are you using? <comment><USER2> <http://wiki.script.aculo.us/scriptaculous/show/UnitTesting>

</comment><comment><USER3> YUI has a small unit test framework that I use. Also <http://www.thefrontside.net/crosscheck> can be used to emulate browsers.

</comment><comment><USER4> Correct Javascript does not imply browser compatibility...</comment>


Reproducing the Linux Builds of Firefox 68 - <AUTHOR> https://glandium.org/blog/?p=3923 <comment><USER2> Some of the how and why of reproducible builds, I found interesting here: [https://reproducible-builds.org/](https://reproducible-builds.org/)</comment>


A Deep Dive into the Compromised NPM Package: event-stream - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/intrinsic/compromised-npm-package-event-stream-d47d08605502 <comment><AUTHOR> The attack could have been prevented by making use of CSP (Content Security Policy). This is a standard for specifying which URLs a webpage can communicate with and is specified via web server headers. Cordova even has its own mechanism for specifying which third party services can be contacted. However, the Copay application appears to have disabled this feature.</comment>


What We Look For (David Lee of SV Angel) - <AUTHOR> http://daslee.me/what-we-look-for-1

<comment><USER2> David Lee (and all of the SV Angel team, in fact) is really an amazingly interesting figure. The integrity, responsiveness, and genuine interest was completely mind-blowing, and I don't know that I've experienced anything like it elsewhere (only YC comes close).

I know this is already a no-brainer, but if you have a chance to have SV Angel & Co. invest, no matter what stage you're at, take it. No hesitation, basically whatever the terms are. They're that amazing.</comment>


Bug Labs - Open Source and Modular Hardware - <AUTHOR> http://singularityhub.com/2009/08/25/assemble-your-own-gadgets-at-bug-labs/

<comment><USER2> Bug Labs is super cool, but this blog post is pretty vapid.

</comment><comment><USER3> How funny that it uses a TechCrunch-cloned wordpress theme.</comment>


Ask HN: Is it a good idea to become a service provider for startups? - <AUTHOR>

After years of frustration, I recently quit my job in a large company to do what I do best (UI and Usability) with people who are passionate about their work (Entrepreneurs).
I am not interested in working with large companies because I know how long it takes to get anything done. I love how agile and lean startups are, and I know how rewarding it is to have my work reach users quickly and often.
I've been approached by several startups to help with design, but almost all of them cringed at the price I quoted (which is less than the price I'd quote more mature companies). Some of them offered equity, but it would have cost more in lawyer fees to work through the short term equity agreement (and I don't believe startups should hand out equity instead of cash for short term services).
Is it a good idea to become a service provider for startups? What would be a compensation model that would work best for me and the startup founders?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> You could work for later-stage startups that can afford your fees. Someone who had just closed several million in funding, or someone whose business was going like gangbusters 4 years in, might not have to log in to online banking prior to every purchase.

I do (very occasional) consulting, and do not accept payment in ramen. Some folks who have contacted me about prices are dissatisfied with this. I've just learned to be OK with that.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Through my interaction with startups over the past few months, I realized that the later-stage startups are not hiring freelancers. Early stage ones are hiring freelancers (especially in UI/Usability field) due to the limited supply, but early stage (self-funded) startups don't have enough dough.

It's an interesting problem because those who need the service the most (in the first iterations of their products) are the ones who can afford it the least.

</comment><comment><USER3> No, it is a bad idea to become a service provider for startups. Firstly, startups are rarely looking for freelancers. Secondly, startups who ARE looking for freelancers are usually looking for free freelancers.

If you are independent you have to charge a lot of money to cover the time when you aren't billable and the last thing a startup wants to do is pay someone a lot of money.

</comment><comment><USER4> For how much do you quote? (no need to be exact)</comment>


Writing without typos is totally outdated - <AUTHOR> http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2008/04/04/writing-without-typos-is-totally-outdated/

<comment><USER2> Coding without typos... not so much.</comment>


Google Said to Consider Buying Waze Presaging Bidding War - <AUTHOR> http://bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-24/google-said-to-consider-buying-waze-presaging-bidding-war.html

<comment><USER2> Is $1B the new number to target for selling your startup?

Obviously you want to maximize your take but, sheesh, it seems like $1B is being thrown around so nonchalantly these days.</comment>


Microsoft's Gazelle browser takes a radical path  - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10280270-56.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0 <comment><USER2> Funny how the news about the browser having to become more like a OS comes from Microsoft about just the same time Google announces their own web- tailored Linux distro.

I'll just assume this is a coincidence, but it seems Microsoft is (finally) getting the whole appeal of the web-thing and is starting to move their focus on providing solutions for the web, both client and server-side.

</comment><comment><USER3> I read that as "Montreal Gazette's radical browser". WTF.

</comment><comment><USER4> _In short, Wang says, the browser needs to act more like Windows does_

Please don't !

Considering the time it took them to have a somewhat secure Windows, considering the poor usability of their security features : this would be a disaster.</comment>


Minecraft Environmental Lighting Experiment - <AUTHOR> http://blog.taptonics.com/post/44803397320/minecraft-environmental-lighting-experiment A demonstration of an iPad app that interfaces with the Phillips Hue LED lightbulbs to provide environmental lighting synced with the Minecraft day/night cycle. <comment><USER2> This kind of idea is something philips has been working on for years, with Hue being the newest in a line of lighting control systems.

Years ago, they were peddling the amBX line, which was a set of lights, desk vibrators, and fans (yes, as in like, desk fans that blow in your face) that would create an immersive environment for games. Of course, very few games picked it up (we worked on it a bit for Second Life, and I did some silly things with it, super mario bros, and alcohol: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kiKE3lif8Q>). amBX ended up being mostly a failure, despite having fuck off HUGE booths on the gdc expo floor for at least 3 years running (Who else remembers the huge black blob? Great as a "meet me near [large obvious thing]" place. :) ).

Philips ended up either spinning or selling off amBX. It's still around as a set of crappy LED lights that burn out quickly (?!) and have crap for contrast and color depth. There's open source drivers out there if you look (including my half-done-maybe-still-works libambx).

Hue seems to be working out a bit better from what I'm hearing thus far. Might pick one up myself soon.

<comment><USER3> I got a secondhand amBX system (just the lights) off of Craigslist a few months ago for cheap and it's been pretty cool. The Windows drivers were a pain to deal with but I got everything up and running in Ubuntu and it works much better.

Interesting issue is that when the power is plugged in for the first time (or the power is reset), the drivers in Ubuntu don't properly link to the device. The lights just flash continuously or don't turn on at all. I have to restart into Windows with the amBX plugged in which I guess does some sort of initialization to them. From there, if I restart back into Ubuntu, everything functions normally.

No issues with burn out so far. There's something pleasing about lighting up my room at night in bright colors. And it gets even better when used as music visualizations!

<comment><USER2> Hmm, ok, I was seeing the exact same rebooting issue. Didn't realize it was an initialization issue on powerup. Just curious, what drivers/programs are you using to control it on ubuntu?

<comment><USER3> I haven't delved into the Windows drivers but clearly they're doing something that the Ubuntu ones aren't for this issue to exist. I just noticed it's happening after a "cold boot" of the amBX. I'm just calling it an initialization issue because that's what it seems to me. Just wanted to clear that up first just in case the way I was using "initialization" wasn't clear.

I'm using a combination of boblight, ruby-usb and combustd to get it to work. This isn't my blog but I used this as a guideline to get everything up and running:

[http://slickeel.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/philips-ambx- starte...](http://slickeel.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/philips-ambx-starter-kit- with-xbmc-media-centre-in-ubuntu-linux-maverick-meerkat-10-10/)

The tricky thing was realizing I had to have it "initialize" in Windows before this would work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think there's an official SDK, but the Hue is easy to control with a JSON API. [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/11/in-living-color- ars-r...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/11/in-living-color-ars-reviews- the-hacker-approved-philips-hue-leds/) (under the section "Taking Control").

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct - there is no official SDK, but a quick search at Github will give you quite a few projects using a variety of languages to choose from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What dads do with their kids... Love it!

</comment><comment><USER6> LIFX gets all the love these days but there are actually quite a few other projects along the same lines.

Visualight: <http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/leifp/visualight> is another crowdfunded project and is Open Hardware.

Spark Socket: <http://www.sparkdevices.com/> takes a slightly different approach and you probably can guess, puts the intelligence in the socket separate from the bulb.

Bluetooth bulb: <http://www.blueclickhome.com>

Greentech 6LoWPAN based system: [http://www.greenwavereality.com/solutions/connected- lighting...](http://www.greenwavereality.com/solutions/connected-lighting- solution/)

Light by Moore's Cloud: <http://moorescloud.com/> \- A larger ambient display.

</comment><comment><USER7> Oh man, I'm proud that these products are finally coming out. I was somewhat involved in the later parts of the standardization process, and this is actually the first time I've seen something I've worked on come to mass market. Looking forward to seeing devices with Ember chips come out.

</comment><comment><USER8> This will probably break any red stone repeater clocks you have set up. Any kind of messing with time in the game will break them and you have to replace the repeater to fix them, which isn't fun if you've built anything more complex than a blinking light.

<comment><USER9> He isn't messing with time in the game - he built a separate iPad app that allows the user to calibrate the time manually to that of the minecraft server.

<comment><USER10> Couldn't the iPad app also emulate a client connected to the server, and only ask for the current time?

<comment><AUTHOR> That is my next plan!

<comment><USER11> Possibly useful: <https://github.com/superjoe30/node-minecraft-protocol/>

Or even <https://github.com/superjoe30/mineflayer/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is actually pretty impressive. There's lots of practical applications for this as well.

</comment><comment><USER13> LIFX will be another option for these sorts of projects. It's a Kickstarter project that exploded in popularity and is set to deliver in the next couple of months.

<http://lifx.co/>

I paid about $90-100 for two globes which makes it a bit cheaper than Hue. I think LIFX also does away with a base station and has some sort of mesh networking between bulbs?

</comment><comment><USER14> Wasn't there a Kickstarter project floating around earlier that was supposed to have the exact same functionality as this 'Phillips Hue'? Or are they the same?

<comment><USER13> Different to Hue. I'd just written a comment about LIFX when you posted: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5341347>

LIFX is led by an Australian guy. Their email updates have covered their design process, prototyping in China and so on and they're getting close to delivering the first preorders.

There's a tech blog about how it will all work here: <http://lifxtech.blogspot.com.au/>

<comment><USER14> So the chief difference there is price and the WiFi interaction between the bulbs? Is everything else the same between the two products, then? Or does LIFX offer any additional advantage?

<comment><USER13> Haven't looked into Hue much or used it and obviously haven't used LIFX so someone else might need to chime in.

Hue needing a base station seems a bit annoying to me so that is a pretty key difference. Very keen for the LIFX bulbs to arrive so I can experiment and see what they do. It was a very popular Kickstarter foray, so I'm hoping that a strong community forms from those customers to build all the fun stuff you'd hope to see like music- and game-related applications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My eyes teared up reading this; what a great dad!

<comment><AUTHOR> Building up "brownie points" before he turns into a teenager!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> That is very cool! I hadn't yet heard about the Hue but you've got me interested in it now. Great article!

</comment><comment><USER17> I like the idea, would work well for multiplayer where you can't freeze time just by hitting escape.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is really cool. It would definitely add to the immersion of the game.

<comment><AUTHOR> And really good if you like to go underground at night and mine. Then you know when the sun rises!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This game. Who'd've thought that this game could be used to do so much?

</comment><comment><USER20> Pretty awesome.

</comment><comment><USER21> wtf do hue bulbs have in them for $90 a bulb.

<comment><AUTHOR> They are way too expensive IMHO. If I did not have the idea to hack this together with Minecraft, I never would have purchased them.

<comment><USER22> I always wanted to do something like this with an Arduino but never got around to it. When I saw the Hue I was pretty excited, until I saw the price tag. $200 for 3 bulbs? I'll pass for now. I'm assuming it's only a matter of time before they become reasonably priced.</comment></comment></comment>


Neurosynaptic chips - <AUTHOR> http://www.research.ibm.com/cognitive-computing/neurosynaptic-chips.shtml?lnk=ushpls1

<comment><USER2> the paper is quite interesting. [http://www.modha.org/papers/012.CICC1.pdf](http://www.modha.org/papers/012.CICC1.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the link! Will check it out when i get home (this is just one of my my work-break visits to HM)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Am I misunderstanding something or does this sound a lot like a Connection Machine? [http://www.amazon.com/The-Connection-Machine-Artificial- Inte...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Connection-Machine-Artificial- Intelligence/dp/0262580977)

<comment><USER5> I've programmed the Connection Machine and I took a few classes from Carver Mead -- arguably one of the fathers of the neurosynaptic approach -- and these are nothing alike. The Connection Machine was simply a highly parallel SIMD computer that looks a lot like a GPU but with relatively better cross- processor communications support. It was resolutely digital in nature.

By contrast, neuromorphic chips are based on spike trains and are a much more analog form of computing.

<comment><USER3> >neuromorphic chips are based on spike trains

So it's like the hardware version of the ANN? But with more powerful neurons (they seem to do a lot more than just decide a yes and no)

PS: I apologize for not having read the paper yet. At work right now and will delve in to it later

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I worked in the lab that Paul and John came out of at Stanford, they do some incredible work. This is largely the output of the DARPA SYNAPSE program if I'm not mistaken.

<comment><USER7> Do you know if this group is still active? It looks like the webpage is out of date: [http://www.stanford.edu/group/brainsinsilicon/](http://www.stanford.edu/group/brainsinsilicon/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> IBM...SkyNet. What's in a name?</comment>


Rare Snowfall in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//080121/480/b838d07683ef4a24a2a8d32ad6434e6e/

<comment><USER2> I'm in Palo Alto but didn't see any snow... I guess I should stop hacking and leave the apartment a bit more often!

</comment><comment><USER3> Global warming my ass.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps you should cut down on the beans then?

Here in Innsbruck, there's no snow at all, which is pretty odd for January, apparently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> if it snowed in Hotlanta 2 times last week, anything is possible..</comment>


A fully open-source SwiftUI Animal Crossing application - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Dimillian/ACHNBrowserUI <comment><USER2> Do you mean a SwiftUI app disguised in UIViewRepresentables? Nice work regardless!

<comment><AUTHOR> UIViewRepresentable is never used. Just for getting a SafariView and a UIActivity one (for sharing).</comment></comment>


"the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians" - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/technology/06stats.html?_r=1 <comment><USER2> Rather, domain experts armed with statistics.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is a difference between in demand and _sexy_.

<comment><USER4> Money is always sexy.

<comment><USER5> This mercenary, puerile response is why I've given up on HN as a source of interesting tech news.

Or, rather, why I'll give it up as soon as Gabe's site (or something similar) takes off. Even if I have to write it myself.

<comment><USER4> I think you misunderstand the point I am making. Which is that if it is in demand, then all else will follow. As it hasn't, then it's probably not.

<comment><USER5> I admit that your point was very well hidden.

It probably helps that I am rich while (as one might expect) most HN users are not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does this jibe with what HNers are seeing in their fields? What other quantitative skills do you perceive to have booming demand?

<comment><USER7> Analytics, web and otherwise.

<comment><USER8> Right on. I work in healthcare IT and our most revered department is clinical analytics. These people are not technically savvy, but tools like Cognos can turn anyone with some basic math skills into a data analyst. You can literally drag and drop fields from any SQL database and make pivot tables out of them and generate reports. Of course there is a huge difference between someone that can drag and drop fields and someone that knows enough about the underlying data to actually generate good analysis.

<comment><USER9> +1, especially to your last sentence. That right there is my biggest medical informatics pet peeve- a lot of hospitals and clinics have "analysts" who are good at using the tools, and maybe even have a good grasp of the data schema of their repositories... but have very limited clinical knowledge, and even more limited knowledge of the workflows that generated their data in the first place.

So, what happens is that they generate some numbers without fully understanding the "story" behind them. For example, they might get a request for data concerning the frequency with which patients with condition "X" are treated at their hospital. In most EHR systems, the way to answer questions like this is by using ICD codes... however, there is rarely a 1:1 relationship between what we might think of as a "diagnosis" and a code. Depending on how it's defined, even something seemingly simple such as "Asthma" might be represented in an EHR by (for example) a dozen different codes, and which codes are used can depend heavily on a wide variety of factors: how the EHR's designers implemented the diagnosis system and user interface, how the clinicians were trained to use the system, specifics of how the patient's symptoms presented themselves, how the billing department coded the clinicians' diagnoses, the phase of the moon, etc. etc. etc. As a result, instead of a simple query ("find all patients with ICD code A"), the query ends up looking like "find all patients with codes A, B, C, D, E .... or J; or code K, but only if it co-occurs with L, M, or N; or code O, if the patient was seen in clinic number 4 or 5 between such-and-such dates; etc. etc. etc." And that's for a simple and straightforward clinical question. Imagine if it was something more complex, like "how many patients with condition X also develop condition Y after having treatment Z".

Coming up with a query like that takes significant clinical knowledge, but, more importantly, it requires intimate knowledge of the organization that created the data in the first place. It also requires some pretty serious "people skills"- the clinicians that the analyst will be working with to formulate the question will know virtually nothing about computers or databases, and so it will fall on the analyst to work with the clinicians to elucidate the implications and edge cases of the original question. It's kind of like being a detective. This, by the way, is a big part of why it's so hard to get good--- as in, reliable, valid, and comparable--- quality measures from large health care organizations. The data's often way more complex and ambiguous than novices realize, and (speaking from personal experience, here) it often takes people who come from non-clinical backgrounds and are used to more straightforward analytical questions quite a while to realize just how far down the rabbit hole they've gone. What might seem like

Of course the fun doesn't stop once our analyst has finally generated some numbers. Whoever wanted the numbers in the first place usually doesn't think much about where they came from (cf. "automation bias"), and as such can go on to make ill-informed decisions as a result of some subtle mistake in the data (i.e., unbeknownst to anybody, the analyst's query missed a whole block of patients coming from a particular clinic, thereby underestimating the prevalence estimates of asthma). This is doubly true when the consumers of the data are generic statisticians (as in, not specialist biostatisticians who are experienced in clinical data analysis) The first commandment of statistics is "Know thy data", and medical data is one of those areas where that's a tricker problem than usual.

<comment><USER8> You raise some excellent points. Our software is mainly showing providers and payers how to minimize waste, fraud, and abuse of the system so it requires a huge amount of customization because of each organizations use of coding. The clinical analytics comes in where they can analyze historical data and tell them "you could have saved X amount of money by coding this procedure differently" or "there is no medical reason to do procedure X if you've already done procedures Y and Z, thereby saving XX money." To analyze this data not only requires a statistician's grasp of math, but it requires medical knowledge and organizational knowledge as well.

If you were smart enough to be a data/stats geek and also had an MD, plus years of experience working as a doctor in a hospital, I'm sure you are worth your weight in gold as this skill set is very rare.

<comment><USER9> It sounds like you guys make really useful software!

As you say, MDs who have the skills and are inclined to do this sort of stuff are few and far between. My grad program in medical informatics has a master's track whose graduates are mostly MDs, and they would be quite well qualified for this sort of thing... except that most of them go on to either be CIOs or implementation consultants, and typically make far more than analysts do.

I think it's something that they're going to have to start teaching in medical schools, however. As more and more places start taking quality improvement seriously, being able to think systematically about clinical data is going to become a very important skill for doctors to possess. Of course, our experience thus far with trying to get it into the curriculum has not been very encouraging. It's amazing- doctors love trying out new gadgets or drugs, so they're clearly not inherently afraid of technology or of change... but try and get them to modify their curricula, and they look at you like you're crazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like this line: "The rising stature of statisticians, who can earn $125,000 at top companies in their first year after getting a doctorate, is a byproduct of the recent explosion of digital data."

So... someone who majored in math/physics/hard sciences, got the grades and test scores to gain admission to a top university, and goes through a program with a high attrition rate that you're doing well to complete in 6 years can earn a bit less than a JD (half the time) or MBA (1/3 the time).

Like Right Said Fred Said: I'm too sexy for this field, too sexy for this field, holds no ap-peal...

(ok, I'm a data geek, and this sort of thing actually sounds like far more fun than corporate law, and $125k starting is decent... but still, let's still recognize that the reward to effort ration is still not quite comparable with the professions, and the journey is quite a bit harder).

</comment><comment><USER11> Here is a question from a layman's (Stat 101) perspective: Why don't we see many Statistics PhDs, armed only with with a computer, access to free public data and some programming skills, CONSISTENTLY make a killing on Wall St?

Is it because Statistics fails once the number of variables & complexities increase to reflect the real life?

<comment><USER12> They are making a killing, they just don't talk about it. I know several people who are doing this. Currency trading, predicting dog & horse races, options trading - all one man shows with a tiny little grasp that nobody else has. Each making a couple million a year trying to figure out the next little trick (all the straightforward tricks are owned by Goldman's super fast computers). More than once I have seen 1 second of lag cost them big, but overall they are maxing out the opportunities their little (< 20k loc, usually in vb of all things, sometimes in python or ruby) stats programs have found.

Furthermore, I work as a business intelligence quant for the online tech space. I've DRASTICALLY increased ROI rates for online ads, as well as conversion metrics, with my formulas and clustering models. There is so much low hanging fruit out there it is crazy.

If anyone wants to get into this field I'd be more than happy to point you in the right direction.

<comment><USER13> I would too. I think it's best you make a public post about this, I think a lot of people will be interested in this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I agree with this article that over the next 10 years, the internet may have a lot more data. But how much of that data will be privately owned?

Platform apps dominate an increasingly large fraction of the internet. Its hard to see them making their data public anytime soon.

<comment><USER15> "But how much of that data will be privately owned?" ... and how much of that data will leak out anyway? Or maybe people will stop caring about privacy altogether? Even data acquired in dubious ways will require statisticians for analysis, maybe even more so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> it's not the raw skills. those have been in demand for a long time. the next big thing is going to be the marriage of analytics with intuitive interfaces. the standard model currently is pretty much power point presentations. PP sucks and yet thousands of businesses use it as the main way of communicating important statistics.

</comment><comment><USER17> Completely agree - Currently my company is doing a lot in analytics and data analysis. Having a background in statistics is something highly desired but I find my of the computer engineers lack a lot of the math skills to take on the analytics problems alone.

At least the ones that have applied.

<comment><USER18> What types of problems does your company need to solve?

<comment><USER17> We need most of the things defined in this web book - <http://www.statsoft.com/textbook>.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I agree that statisticians will be more and more in demand as time goes on.

I need one right now for a project - if interested email me at my username at gmail.

</comment><comment><USER20> Can anyone suggest good resources for gaining a cursory understanding of statistics?

</comment><comment><USER21> I think I read an article to this effect about five years ago. Still not true . . .

<comment><USER22> I don't think it should be taken literally, because statisticians come in different guises. Nobody ever says that being statistician is hot, yet there is a lot of interest in quantitative analysis and HFT (even here on HN) which is all about statistics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Foucault would be proud.

</comment><comment><USER24> Looks like the article might provide some 'luster' to IBM; they are going to put 4000 people on this. Hmm ....

What the article predicts would, could, and should happen but won't. Here's the problem:

Let's start with the 'status' of statistics:

Academic Teaching: In academics, the courses available rarely go beyond just some Stat 101, experimental design, or applied regression analysis. The teachers rarely have much expertise in statistics, e.g., rarely understand the strong law of large numbers, the Radon-Nikodym theorem and its connection with sufficient statistics, or the Lindeberg-Feller version of the central limit theorem. Net, the teaching sucks.

Academic Research: The quantity of good academic research in statistics is meager. The applied statistics research such as in the article would not be regarded as solid research. The grant support is far behind that for physics (theory, particle, applied), biomedical, computer science, engineering, or pure math. Net, the research sucks.

Ph.D. Programs. One can count with shoes on all the good Ph.D. programs in statistics. So, over the past 40 years might count Berkeley, Stanford, Chicago, Cornell, Yale, Hopkins, and UNC.

Computer Science. Yup, to do much in statistics, need computing. So, much of the public and academic computer science swallows the idea that computer science has expertise in statistics. No it doesn't, not while they can't state the strong law of large numbers, and nearly no one in computer science can; for that they just didn't take the right courses in grad school. About all CS can do is pull equations they don't really understand from cookbook statistics and try intuitive heuristics, and that is similar to medicine in the days of snake oil cooked up on wood stoves. Suckage.

Professionalism. Law, medicine, and parts of engineering are 'professions' with certifications, licensing, liability, and strong professional societies. Statistics isn't a profession in this sense. Uh, such 'professionalism' is from important up to crucial 'branding' and credibility for customers outside the profession. Medicine has it; statistics doesn't. Indeed, in academics, a suggestion that statistics should be 'professional' is an anathema. Students who want to get their fellowships renewed will keep their mouths SHUT and never say such things. Suckage.

So, net, the status of the field sucks.

Okay, now we can move on to why the field won't catch on in business:

We have to notice that nearly no one high in business now or on the way to being high in business knows more than just some elementary applied statistics, from long ago, that they never understood very well, never really used, and was likely poorly taught. Also they have not seen much of significance in business from anything at all serious in statistics. They know about the importance of computing, the Internet, and maybe some of assembly line robots, supply chain optimization, comparisons among planes, trains, trucks, biomedical research, even efforts in applied nuclear fusion, but they nearly never attribute significant importance to statistics.

So, suppose there is a good statistician, in a business, with some good data and with some powerful techniques in statistics that can convert that data into new information valuable for the business. Suppose this statistician writes an internal memo to his supervisor and proposes that the company fund the statistician to work on delivering the value to the business.

Here's what happens: The memo goes up the management chain of the statistician to the first manager who doesn't have much respect for statistics. Given the status of statistics, don't expect the memo to go up very far.

Then this manager sees two cases:

(1) The project fails. Then the manager will have a black mark on his record for sponsoring some contemptible, risky, wasteful, 'blue sky, far out, ivory tower, intellectual self-abuse, academic research project'. Bummer.

(2) The project is successful. Quickly everyone in the management chain who does not understand statistics will feel threatened. There is a rumor that a women in the office complained that once from 100 feet away the statistician looked at her in a way that made her feel "uncomfortable", and the statistician is GONE.

So, the manager sees only disaster whether the project is successful or not, and the project doesn't get funded. If the statistician proposes a second such project, then he's a 'loose cannon on the deck', out of control, insubordinate, not a 'team player', and gone.

Or a big organization middle manager can fund big projects in computing, supply chain optimization, assembly line robots, etc. he doesn't understand, but, due to the status of the field of statistics he can't fund a project in statistics.

There is really only one way for statistics to come forward in business now:

The guy with the valuable work in statistics starts his own business and sells just the results. The customers like the value of the results for their businesses and don't have to address anything else.

But, for this business the statistician is totally on his own: There isn't an 'information technology' venture partner anywhere in the US who would touch his project with a 10 foot pole, again, for much the same reason as the business manager.

The statistician MIGHT get some seed funding if he shows a good user interface or Series A funding if he shows good ComScore or revenue numbers, but the role of 'statistics' he can be advised to keep quiet.

Or, the venture partners believe in Markov processes: The future of the business given ComScore numbers is conditionally independent of the statistics in the 'secret sauce'! So, look at the ComScore numbers and f'get about any 'statistics' in the 'secret sauce'. This Markov assumption is not fully justified, and likely not a single venture partner in the country could give a solid definition of conditional independence, but this is still the situation.

And that's the way it is.

So, it's tough to make statistics applied; call this situation a 'problem': Then, for someone with some new, powerful, difficult to duplicate or equal work in statistics that can take some of the oceans of data available now and deliver valuable results and sees their way clear with just a bootstrapped company to high profit margins and rapid organic growth, the flip side of this 'problem' is an opportunity.

<comment><USER25> A lot of "applied statistics" is now performed under the headings of "machine learning" and "data mining". Both fields are thriving.

Furthermore, Bayesian methods have come back to the fore in the past ~15 years. They are quite likely the future of statistics, especially in academia.

<comment><USER26> You can't solve all problems with machine learning and data mining. How would you apply those methods, e.g., to psychological experiments or test planing when every single test costs a considerate amount of money?

<comment><USER27> Situations like that are not why statistics is becoming the new in-demand skill. Expensive trials have existed for a long time. Petabytes of barely- structured data haven't.

<comment><USER26> I didn't comment on the article but on the statement above about applied statistics being dominated by ml and about Bayesian statistics being the future.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How a Sneaky Furniture Expert Ripped Off the Rich and Tricked Versailles - <AUTHOR> https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/07/how-a-sneaky-furniture-expert-tricked-versailles <comment><USER2> I just watched Sour Grapes[0] on Netflix - an incredible story about wine forgery that has lots of parallels to this story.

[0] [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5728684/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5728684/)

<comment> at-fates-hands After reading some books on art forgeries and the underground art market, someone recommended I check out the wine industry and told me it was just as bad if not worse.

I'd point people to another great Vanity Fair article about wine fraud:

A Vintage Crime [https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/07/wine-fraud- rudy-k...](https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/07/wine-fraud-rudy- kurniawan-vintage-burgundies)

<comment><USER2> This looks like the same guy / story :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> he recognized in them the handiwork of Pallot's gilder and carver.

"I often use the same people on restorations, and I'm intimate with their strengths and weaknesses,"

Hooreman says. He knew that one of them, for example, was fond of painting a coat of melted-down licorice on the surface of reproductions, to make new wood look old and dirty.

In 2012, Hooreman saw a pair of ployants—folding benches—that were for sale in the Aaron gallery showroom and were billed as the onetime property of Princess Louise Élisabeth, the eldest daughter of King Louis XV, and acted on a hunch.

"I licked the chair and voilà," he says. "I could taste the fraud."

<comment><USER4> > "I licked the chair and voilà," he says. "I could taste the fraud."

That's dedication. I don't even want to imagine the years of dirt and cruft he'd be licking if the chair was authentic.

<comment><USER5> I would imagine it was still cleaned up before putting up for sale, even if there weren't any repairs done

<comment><USER4> Sure but the reason the licorice was used was to simulate accumulated dirt and grime, so he's either licking licorice or he's licking centuries of dirt and grime. Lucky for him it was licorice!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://m.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=gIVgUjj6RxU](https://m.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=gIVgUjj6RxU)

Orson Welles' F is for Fake is essential viewing if you're interested in forgery.

<comment><USER7> I was literally just about to share this as well. Such an underrated movie.

Although, Elmyr has a little more of a superhero-esque aura around his forgeries than this guy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think it's very interesting that they don't use radiometric dating, like carbon dating, to establish the age of the parts of the chair on an absolute basis.

I suppose the forgeries could be constructed using extremely old wood, but even then, the glue or other parts would have to be relatively modern, and would provide a contrasting age.

<comment><USER9> Carbon Dating is typically for things at least 500 years old. While that might be useful for furniture, it wouldn't apply here.

Glue is useful - an older chair would have used hide glue, made from real animals. If a modern, non-hide glue was used that's an immediate giveaway. However, modern furniture builders still use it quite a lot in high end work today

<comment><USER8> There's other types of radiometric dating, like looking at isotope ratios to see whether it was made before or after atmospheric nuclear testing, if there are parts that would be different (typically metal pieces)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I find I just can't have any sympathy for Versailles.

La Marseillaise is 'the national identity' more than Versailles.

<comment><USER11> Why can't you like both? Surely you can appreciate that the French monarchy had a non-zero impact in the French culture and identity that remains to this day

<comment><USER12> Yes, in that they cut/chiseled the heads off all representations of monarchy in Versailles. It seems mainly to serve as a negative example.</comment></comment></comment>