Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/14/ice_age/ <comment><USER3> This is exactly why I think the debate should be less about "how can we as humans stop affecting Earth's natual climate" and "how can we as humans gain control over Earth's natural climate".

Climate change happens with us or without us. If we're going to protect our huge investments in climate-dependent infrastructure (i.e. cities) then we're gonna want (say) giant space mirrors to compensate for any zany things that nature might throw at us.

The political problem of who gets to control the Earth's thermostat is, of course, a tricky one.

<comment><USER4> It's probably easier to just colonize other planets than it is to go farting around with something as delicate as Earth's climate.

<comment><USER5> Wouldn't this then require us to "fart around" with the climate of the planets we colonize to make them more like Earth's?

<comment><USER4> The difference being that there is nobody living on a planet like say, Mars.

Last I checked, there are a whole bunch of people with nowhere else to go on Earth as it stands.

<comment><USER6> > The difference being that there is nobody living on a planet like say, Mars.

Stop right there. You don't know that there isn't anyone living there. We've sent a couple rovers, dug down a few inches, and looked at it from telescopes. There are millions of dollars poured into the search for life on Mars every year, as there should be. But we don't know very much yet!

I am totally in favour of terraforming and colonizing Mars if we can (reasonably) prove that nothing is alive there. But we aren't anywhere near that point. The greatest crime the human race could ever commit would be the annihilation of the (perhaps only?) living ETs found, even if by "accident" as we moved in there.

Don't think that Mars is your dead playground for you to do as you wish. Treat it and its unknown past with deep respect. There's a small chance that something, somewhere, is living there, perhaps under the surface, perhaps in caves.

Don't assume we know everything about other planets just 'cause we can see them with our telescopes.

<comment><USER7> I am in favor of doing with Mars as we wish. When Western Civilization had "first contact" with various "alien"[1] native societies around the world, most of the impact flowed from civilization to the "aliens". Civilization continued on and most of the alien societies became footnotes in history. Might makes right, and unless the Martian bacteria are crafting starships in their caves, I think we should take samples for scientific study and then open Mars to homesteaders. The Martian lifeforms have had just as long to do something productive with Mars as we have had with Earth. It is not our fault if they are still just bacteria.

[1] Meaning literally foreign.

<comment><USER8> This is our legacy. It's sad in a way, but that lament is the luxury of the victorious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Maunder minimum argument has been around awhile. A useful counterbalance from NASA 2008:

<http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/>

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

"Solar irradiance: The solar output remains low (Fig. 4), at the lowest level in the period since satellite measurements began in the late 1970s, and the time since the prior solar minimum is already 12 years, two years longer than the prior two cycles. This has led some people to speculate that we may be entering a "Maunder Minimum" situation, a period of reduced irradiance that could last for decades. Most solar physicists expect the irradiance to begin to pick up in the next several months — there are indications, from the polarity of the few recent sunspots, that the new cycle is beginning.

However, let's assume that the solar irradiance does not recover. In that case, the negative forcing, relative to the mean solar irradiance is equivalent to seven years of CO2 increase at current growth rates. So do not look for a new "Little Ice Age" in any case. Assuming that the solar irradiance begins to recover this year, as expected, there is still some effect on the likelihood of a near-term global temperature record due to the unusually prolonged solar minimum. Because of the large thermal inertia of the ocean, the surface temperature response to the 10-12 year solar cycle lags the irradiance variation by 1-2 years. Thus, relative to the mean, i.e, the hypothetical case in which the sun had a constant average irradiance, actual solar irradiance will continue to provide a negative anomaly for the next 2-3 years."

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

That said, if a Maunder minimum does somehow manage to give us a couple extra decades to get our house in order (before the subsequent recovery of solar activity), that's a godsend. Let's hope it pans out.

<comment><USER10> > if a Maunder minimum does somehow manage to give us a couple extra decades > [...] that's a godsend.

Maybe not. Suppose the actual effect is to give those who say climate change isn't real, or doesn't matter, enough extra rhetorical ammunition (THE EARTH IS COOLING!!!11!) to prevent anything actually being done to get our house in order. That would be ... not so good.

<comment><USER11> People might say the earth is cooling merely because it is? Heavens, we can't have that!

<comment><USER10> Oh ho ho. But it might be worth distinguishing between (1) "temperatures over the last few years have been decreasing" and (2) "the longer-term trend, of which those last few years are a sample, is downwards", because #2 would mean that global warming isn't a problem after all and #1 wouldn't.

And I'm afraid the recent history of people with a very decided political agenda declining to distinguish between #1 and #2 even when the short-term trend in question consists of _one slightly colder-than-average winter_ takes some of the fun out of your ironic wit, for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My comment from the other link: reference: <http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml>

Some more sensational coverage in The Register [1]. The correlation between low sunspot activity and the 'mini ice-age' is well documented, its not proven that solar activity caused that ice age, but it looks like we are getting a chance to run the experiment again.

I'm continuing to follow are reports from the STEREO mission [2]. After reading this paper [3] on the correlation between geomagnetic activity on the sun and terrestrial temperatures.

BTW, the last chart in that paper is pretty amazing.

[1] <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/14/ice_age/>

[2] <http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/>

[3] [http://sait.oat.ts.astro.it/MSAIt760405/PDF/2005MmSAI..76..9...](http://sait.oat.ts.astro.it/MSAIt760405/PDF/2005MmSAI..76..969G.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER13> Betting on sunspots to reverse a century of adding carbon to the atmosphere via fossil fuels is a bit of a long shot bet. Right now we're still in high gear contributing to global warming, but predicting sun spot activity isn't a sure thing.

I'd like to think that as techies we see not just the humanitarian potential but the business potential of energy efficiency, new storage techniques and even new sources of the stuff. It wasn't long ago when we used substances like whale oil and trees to produce fuel -- if we limited ourselves as a society to those sources we wouldn't be where we are today. This is a time where those who embrace disruptive technologies are needed more than ever (and not just for energy but for water and food as well).

<comment><USER14> I think what trumps a lot of your awesome points is our efforts in sustainability and forward thinking use of recycling with our products/waste.

<comment><USER15> wrong. that bottle of organic shampoo from whole food commits about 98% of the sins as a bottle of a nonorganic varity from safeway. both are put in plastic which may or may not be recycled but was certainly made from oil (like all plastics), and was driven to the store in a vehicle that emits CO2, stored in a room kept warm or cool with a device that emits CO2, and then driven back to your house in another vehicle that emits CO2, where it is stored in your closet kept warm or cool by another CO2-emitting device.

and in the end its a toss-up if it even gets recycled, even after you put it in the blue bin. but that process also emits CO2

<comment><USER16> I agree that current efforts at sustainability are pathetically weak, but I disagree that CO2 emissions are fundamentally the problem. Global warming is an environmentalist boogeyman that makes for good PR, but climate disaster or not we have politically intractable problems with the waste of natural resources. We can always grow more plants to reclaim CO2, but we can't continue to just extract everything and then throw it in a landfill 6 months later.

<comment><USER15> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The article is misleading. The part about an impending period of solar inactivity comes from the solar physicists; the part about a mini-Ice Age comes straight from the blogger based on a snippet from NASA's web site which he either deliberately or inadvertently misread. Had he continued the quote for only one more line, he would have included this important caveat:

 _The connection between solar activity and terrestrial climate is an area of on-going research._

<comment><USER18> The article is misleading, which is utterly unsurprising if you're already familiar with the previous work of Lewis Page at El Reg.

He has a penchant for pumping stories that downplay climate change, Fukushima meltdown, etc. If you want stories that play favourably for legacy energy industry, he's your man at The Register.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This story is mostly bogus. There is no proven correlation between sunspots and terrestrial temperatures.

[http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/06/14/science/AP-US- SCI...](http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/06/14/science/AP-US-SCI-Quiet- Sun.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> Probably a better post, from the Bad Astronomer:

[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/14/th...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/14/the- sun-may-be-headed-for-a-little-quiet-time)

</comment><comment><USER21> If you thought the climate change debate was crazy before, well this will take crazy to a whole new level.

<comment><USER3> Yes, it either proves that

(a) natural variation in the Earth's climate is far larger than anything we can manage anthropogenically anyway so attempts to cut carbon emissions are a waste of time, or

(b) We're only being saved from CO2-induced global warming by a mini ice-age, therefore it's even _more_ urgent to cut CO2 emissions because temperatures are just gonna shoot up as soon as the ice age ends.

<comment><USER22> Another way to look at (b) is "We're only being saved from a mini ice-age by CO2-induced global warming, therefore it's urgent to avoid cutting emissions and plunging into it for real". The Earth has seen warmer and colder than now, but the warm extremes have been better for life than the cold extremes.

<comment><USER23> Which life? Industrial age humans? That's who we care about. Our goal is (or at least I hope it is) to enable humans to thrive, we don't really care about other life (at least if we had to pick between humans and other life) as long as it is not instrumental to our success.

<comment><USER24> The problem is that without the other life there can be no human life. We are on the top of the food chain and as such we depend on all other animals for our survival. Hopefully it makes sense what I'm saying.

<comment><USER15> oddly enough some climate scientists (james lovelock, in this case) take it as a given that most animal life is already doomed, and that humans will have to engineer a food source in order to survive. green goo might be in your future

<comment><USER25> Soylent Green perhaps? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> What's the confidence on this?

I recall a hub-bub a year or two back because a climate scientist made the scientifically reasonable statement that it was "inconclusive" whether the Earth had warmed in the last 15 years, because the statistical significance of 15 years of data was only at 90%, and scientists like having a 95% confidence before they say something. (With the extra year of data, it is now "conclusive", eg, >95%, that the Earth has warmed since 1995.)

I see 10 or 12 years of data on that graph; what's the confidence based on these measurements that we are entering a mini Ice Age?

<comment><AUTHOR> The basis of confidence intervals holding any usefulness is pretty shaky. See <http://uncertainty.stat.cmu.edu/> (it also has a chapter on old ideas such as this).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Reading the comments on here and many other places about global warming, it makes me sad that nobody is open-minded enough to entertain the possibility that an increase in the Earth's temperature could be a positive-sum change.

We know very little about the Earth's natural cycles and the effects we have on them, so we are very far from knowing whether things are going in a good* or bad direction.

* Good for everyone involved, such as humans, animals, plants, etc.

<comment><USER28> It is probably because people are comfortable with the familiar. Sure, a warmer earth might be a positive-sum change, but there's an equally good chance that it won't be. So why take the risk of losing what you have if you can avoid it?

<comment><USER29> > equally good chance that it won't be.

       probability = ??????

is not at all the same thing as

       probability = 0.50

<comment><USER30> If I have a question [???] and the answer is "true" or "false". The probability of it being "true" is 50%; Every question you can come up with, you can come up with a negative version. e.g. "Is your name gwright" vs "Is your name not gwright".

So given any question where you know _absolutely nothing_ at all about it, the probability the answer is "Yes" must be 50%!

<comment><USER31> The correct answer is the correct answer 100% of the time. And the wrong answer is the wrong answer 100% of the time. If I gave you a question where the correct answer is "no" and you knew _absolutely nothing_ about it, your answer "Yes" would be correct 0% of the time.

<comment><USER30> That is true, the probability of "Yes" is 0, but only according to you. Relative to me, however, the probability is still 50% chance.

It's just like if there was a stock the market know nothing about, but you know it just scored a magnificent deal a couple of hours ago, the market will see it as "meh, 50 50" (no price change), while you see "100% going to go up, must buy."

That's called insider trading, however. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> On behalf of Maunders around the world, I'd like to extend my apologies for the Minimum you're about to experience.

</comment><comment><USER33> Maybe nobody will read my comment since I'm a bit late but anyway: It seems like nobody talked about the implication of the diminution of the solar magnetic field.

If I remember correctly, the solar magnetic field (SMF) is held responsible 'not entirely, earth's GM too and other things' for deflecting galactic cosmic rays. What are the consequences of the current diminution of the SMF?

Looks like it will be better for space travel..(the article says) and how is that? Solar storm > Cosmis ray?

Excuse me but seems to me like it's the other way around: "The storms actually improved the radiation environment inside the station." via ([http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at- nasa/2005/07...](http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at- nasa/2005/07oct_afraid/))

What are you views on the subject? I don't know what to think anymore.

</comment><comment><USER34> "This could overturn decades of received wisdom on such things as CO2 emissions, and lead to radical shifts in government policy worldwide." - <USER2> exactly is the article implying? Are they somehow saying that CO2 emissions aren't a bad thing? Or that we should increase them so we can prevent the 'mini ice age' by increasing our negative effect on the climate?

Seems to be an extremely uninformed and misleading bit of 'reporting'...

<comment><USER35> I guess that's kind of what it is saying? An Ice Age would be about as bad for civilization as we know it as the ice caps melting (just in different ways), in a time of global cooling, I suppose increased CO2 would keep the Earth warmer then the last ice age.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Ned was right, winter is coming.

<comment><USER37> Is the movie out yet? I am still not sure if I want to continue reading the series. It was so depressing.

<comment><USER38> I've been totally waiting with baited breath to launch this rant at some poor unsuspecting sap. So, hi Tichy!

Man, I really really wanted to love that whole book series. The characterization was fantastic, the settings were detailed and rich, the story telling was great ...

But, sometime part-way through A Feast For Crows, I just couldn't stand reading it any more. The violence seemed too unnecessary; the destruction of characters that had been so carefully built had started to turn into an expectation -- "I wonder how he's going to later make this interesting new character suffer? Will he maim them? Murder them? Destroy them psychologically?" For me, in that volume, it somehow went from being a great story with difficult events to a really ugly story that just wasn't worth reading anymore. I no longer cared about the characters because, y'know, they were gonna die anyway. Or worse.

Now I'm starting to hear from people who are watching the HBO series but who never read the books, and they're talking about how they really love this character or that character, and every time inside I get this massive troll face on and think, "Heh ... just you wait and see what happens to that one."

I sold my copy of the set to a used bookstore. I hear there's another one out now, but I have very little desire, or curiosity, towards it.

<comment><USER37> I only read the first book, but as I said, I found it too depressing. It builds great atmosphere, but then everything just goes down the drain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> _The announcement made on 14 June (18:00 UK time) comes from scientists at the US National Solar Observatory (NSO) and US Air Force Research Laboratory._

Does anyone have the link to the original announcement?

<comment><USER40> Maybe this? [http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~deforest/SPD-sunspot- release/SP...](http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~deforest/SPD-sunspot- release/SPD_solar_cycle_release.txt)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> If true, the 70-year cold period could turn out to be a grace period that allows us to get carbon emissions under control by the time solar activity returns to normal. Of course, this could lessen the imperative and make the political task of reaching global consensus more difficult.

</comment><comment><USER42> Relevant: [http://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_on_our_place_in_the_c...](http://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_on_our_place_in_the_cosmos.html)

As David makes the point (at the near end of the video), the best available science in the 1970's predicted that the climate was cooling down. The best available science of today (not the least, with the help of best marketing) would predict Global Warming.

The same best scientific estimates of the day also predict that our best projections to bring down the emissions (which we will not achieve) themselves suffice only to move the disaster point a little further, but not prevent the inevitable.

<comment><USER23> Nah, a few scientists in the 70s believed that the Earth might cool, nothing like today. To compare both predictions and their supporting evidence is laughable.

<comment><USER42> The evidences are not being compared by themselves but rather used to lead to the fact that "We can only do something based on what the current scientific prediction is."

Based on the current scientific prediction the best measures that we even intend to implement, The Kyoto Protocol (for all it's economic constraints), is by far pushing the effects at most by a decade. Would it not be a good idea rather to start looking at living at higher temperatures?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> For those who don't have time to read the article, "mini Ice Age" literally means that winter will last longer, and be more prevalent at lower altitudes/latitudes. Mildly sensational, but an interesting read.

<comment><USER44> As seemingly benign as a "slightly longer winter" seems, I would venture the consequences of this will be larger than we anticipate.

<comment><USER45> Indeed, considering that the much-feared "global warming" constitutes an increase of one degree per _century_.

<comment><USER9> "World temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 °C (2.0 and 11.5 °F) during the 21st century" IPCC

So, "one degree per century" is accurate if (a) you clarify you mean Celsius, not Farenheit and (b) you're saying the minimum increase, while also noting the maximum increase could be six times as high.

<comment><USER46> I know and not only that but the oceans could rise 6 whole inches. That's like half a foot.

<comment><USER47> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise> says 90 to 880mm, with average estimate of 480 mm, i.e. 4 feet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> It's not exactly news. Reduced solar activity has been observed for some time and satellite measurements of the troposphere show a slow cooling of the average global temperature over the last ten years.

Here is a presentation by Fred Singer if anybody is interested (in the past he has headed the US weather satellite program for many years). <http://videolectures.net/kolokviji_singer_nnha/>

</comment><comment><USER49> Article written by Lewis Page - the Register's resident climate change denier. Not a trustworthy author on the topic I'm afraid.

</comment><comment><USER50> So we will either die of cold or heat. Maybe.

<comment><USER51> >Maybe.

I think it's pretty definite that each one of us will die. The only relevant factor is how, and how much we suffer between now and then.

<comment><USER50> >> I think it's pretty definite that each one of us will die

:). I meant die, dinosaur style.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> News like this always makes me wonder if the Maya calendar is an accurate description of cycles in nature. The end of there calendar also ends within a decade. Maybe just a prediction of another cycle.

</comment><comment><USER7> For more reading about the possibility of a new mini Ice Age, see <http://www.iceagenow.com>.

</comment><comment><USER53> Where is the link to the announcement by the scientists that the author talks about? I'd be curious to read it and make up my own mind.

</comment><comment><USER54> Boy, that went well. I'm sure they'll believe us next time we say the sky is falling.

</comment><comment><USER55> A mini ice age + global warming = cool sailing ahead!

</comment><comment><USER56> _far from facing a global warming problem_

We don't have a "global warming" problem. We have a manmade climate change problem, which _may_ be worsened by the Sun's own agenda. I haven't read the Bad Astronomer's take on this, but he's a lot more trustworthy than the OP.

</comment><comment><USER57> Anyone have Al Gore's email address?

</comment><comment><USER58> I don't know whather to cry because it'll be cold, cry because skeptics will be wrongly smug dumbasses, enjoy the cold I prefer, or enjoy skeptics being dumb as always.

</comment><comment><USER59> Yay! Lets grab every bit of remaining oil for the next 50 years and spew it into the air! We'll be mostly dead by then anyway, maybe the grandkids can figure it out. SUVs for everyone!

</comment><comment><USER60> I'm going to save the world. Where's that Hummer showroom?

<comment><USER61> Sorry, humor is against the rules.

<comment><USER62> No, we just have high standards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I know climate change is not directly related to the current temperature but wow it's strange to read this when it's currently 100 degrees here (no exaggeration) and setting new temperature records for the past few decades.

Basically what's happened is our overly aggressive industrialization has ruined the temperature stability we used to enjoy. And sadly we aren't done yet as China rushes to catch up while we blow up mountains for more coal.

<comment><USER64> umm...you did notice that the article was talking about temperature variations caused by the GIANT NUCLEAR EXPLOSION AT THE CENTER OF OUR SOLAR SYSTEM THAT PROVIDES ALL OF OUR HEAT AND LIGHT....right? or are you suggesting that our pesky first-world lifestyles are somehow causing a decrease in sunspots.

<comment><USER63> No it means our lifestyles are reducing the earth's natural shielding and buffer from extreme changes. Earth is recovering more slowly and dealing more poorly with what is being thrown at it.

We have billions fewer trees around the world than we did even just a few hundred years ago.

<comment><USER65> If you actually read the article you'll see that they're not predicting some drastic new changes that haven't happened before, they're predicting a repeat of what happened a few hundred years ago.

If anything, the changes to the environment that we have caused since the industrial revolution could help reduce the effects so that we are _less_ affected than when the same thing happened a few hundred years ago. Or maybe the changes we've made is too insignificant in comparison and has no impact. Either way, this mini ice age they are predicting is in no way because of any changes we've caused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I seriously doubt that after 175 years of industrial CO₂ that suddenly we're going to see this drastic change out of nowhere. It's much more likely to occur gradually over time. That said, I welcome the ice age. I'm in Vegas and it'd make the climate here perfect.</comment>


Introducing Object Storage - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitalocean.com/products/storage/object-storage/ <comment><USER2> Slowly, very slowly, DO is creeping towards having enough features to peel users off of AWS and GCP. Block storage, load balancers, and now blob storage...if you don't need managed queues or databases, you can probably save some serious coin by running services on DO.

S3 sets a high bar in terms of durability and availability, so it will be interesting to see how well DO can compete, and it will take a long time to gain the same level of trust that S3 has earned.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't be surprised to see DO either roll out DaaS next or partner with someone (Compose.io?) to do it. That's one of two things (the other being VPC, which I know they're working on per HN posts elsewhere) that make AWS/GCP tempting over DO for me.

That said, I kind of hope it's not Compose.io - they seem ridiculously overpriced for PostgreSQL compared to AWS's and GCP's offerings.

<comment><USER4> VPC on DO is the #1 feature request that stops my team from considering it.

I use DO personally for small things and like it a lot, but VPC is a hard requirement for company work.

<comment><USER5> We're actively building VPC =]

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If there's anything I've learned about object storage over the last year, it is: don't use object storage unless you need it for a particularly narrow use case of silly data volumes or CDN storage for a massively distributed content network. Anything else, forget it.

It rarely if ever works properly with standard Linux or Windows tools (s3), it has a rat's nest of arbitrary restrictions which require a language lawyer to decypher (s3/iam/vpc/roles), the APIs are vendor specific and sometimes even region specific (s3), the APIs are obtuse (s3 multipart), the clients are buggy (boto/boto3), suddenly you inherit extra costs and configuration requirements if you want to do something like expose it over http (route53/cloudfront/s3), credential storage is a nightmare for distribution compared to rsync/ssh etc. Ugh.

Please note I have used Google Storage as well and all of the above also apply.

The only thing that is positive is capital expenditure is low.

<comment><USER7> > credential storage is a nightmare for distribution compared to rsync/ssh.

I don't understand this argument. Why is it harder to store credentials for S3 or GCS than it is to store credentials for rsync or ssh?

<comment><USER6> Because everything has no ownership, no standard place to put things and no logical consistency.

<comment><USER7> I think I'm even more confused now. If you're going to have an app ssh or rsync, it's going to have a password or a private key to use that will be associated with some account, right? And if you want to use cloud storage, you'll also need a credential or a private key to use that will be associated with some account, right? What's the difference?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's pretty much zero information on that page, so why should I care?

<comment><USER5> We roll out a public beta test with existing customers to ensure performance and reliability before doing a GA release. This allows customers to use the new product and provide feedback as well as help us to ensure a great level of service when the product goes full GA. So it's really a way for customers to test out new products early, but the specific details are specifically light so that if there are any major changes in the beta period we can roll them out.

<comment><USER9> I think it's a little weird to say "Introducing Object Storage" when you're not introducing anything at all. There's zero information about it!

Is it S3 compatible? Does it compete with S3? Does it supports static file hosting? How do permissions work?

I think it would make more sense to communicate that you're looking for beta testers for an object storage service.

<comment><USER5> Certainly the GA release will have all of that information, but given that large product releases like this are about a year of work, and part of the release schedule for us is a beta test with existing customers the introduction is basically to invite customers into the beta if they want to participate, and also that is the final step before GA release.

Customers who want to be a part of the beta are using the actual product that we are developing, but we don't commit to specifics publicly incase things change, which is why it's a beta release, not GA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm the developer of Duplicacy ([https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy](https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy)), a new generation cloud backup tool based on the idea of Lock-Free Deduplication([https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/blob/master/DESIGN....](https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/blob/master/DESIGN.md)). Currently Duplicacy supports many cloud storages (S3, Azure, GCP, B2, etc), and I would be very interested to build one for DO Object Storage.

Is it possible to get early developer access to the API?

</comment><comment><USER11> Incase anyone missed the recent cloud firewall announcement [https://blog.digitalocean.com/cloud-firewalls-secure- droplet...](https://blog.digitalocean.com/cloud-firewalls-secure-droplets-by- default/)

This might be possible because of the advances in software defined networking. Cloud firewall removes the hassles of setting up complex iptables in the name of network security and frees those extra cpu cycles and memory utilization.

DigitalOcean is getting better at solving common VPS use cases. I like it :)

</comment><comment><USER12> Anybody have or see pricing after early access period?

<comment><USER5> We aren't providing pricing information till full GA which is later in the year. All beta users will be given 1TB of free object storage during the beta period.

<comment><USER13> I think the lack of a pricing model and how short the free period is (until Oct 2017) makes it hard for many users to even justify testing it.

For me it seems if a developer has to spend more than an hour testing this new product they are better off using S3.

<comment><USER5> Certainly if you are considering moving a production workload, then a beta test, regardless of the company, may not be an ideal fit.

Object storage has been a highly requested feature by our customers and now that we are getting closer to GA we want to ensure that customers get a chance to use the product and provide feedback on usability, bugs, performance, and etc.

<comment><USER13> I wasn't even discussing moving production environments, just the beta test seems to highly favor DO in terms of cost.

But that is fine, if enough users are willing to front the cost of testing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Um. Ok, something is wrong with your UI. There is no options to use Object Storage after signing up and required to enter a credit card. The drop down menu font is blurry. Support page takes about 30 seconds to load.

<comment><USER5> This is an invitation for beta access, you sign up to request access and then and invitation to be a part of the beta access will be emailed separately.

<comment><USER14> I already cancelled my account.

<comment><USER15> I'm sure they're mourning the loss of you as a "customer".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder what technology they use under the hood. Ceph? GlusterFS? Custom software?

<comment><USER17> they chose to make their own stack afew years ago instead of going with the already available and business friendly openstack, going by the same reasoning and the long amount of time they took to reach here, it highly likely to be a custom thing.

<comment><USER18> If OpenStack is "business-friendly" then it's very particular about who its friends are.

<comment><USER19> Can you expand?

<comment><USER18> My comment was a play on an old joke about Unix. My personal experience with OpenStack is that it's a moving target, complex and unstable, a combination of over- and under- engineering. The two large corporations that I know using it have required almost superhuman effort to keep their OpenStack environments up and running.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gawker, How Dare You - <AUTHOR> http://www.diycouturier.com/post/50749002281/fuck-you-gawker

<comment><USER2> How much economic damage has Rob Ford done while being the bumbling mayor of Toronto the last few years?

Richard Florida, the urban studies theorist has called Rob Ford "the worst mayor in the modern history of cities and the most anti-urban mayor ever to preside over a large global city.".

This is hardly an isolated incident. Anyone who has follow Toronto politics is well aware of the numerous scandals and antics of Rob Ford. Read the Conflict of Interest trial and Other Controversies portions of his wikipedia article.

$200k is well worth it to further expose that he is unfit to run a city the size and importance of Toronto, Canada's largest city.

How much is the drug trade worth in Toronto? 10's of millions or more. $200k is a blip on the radar. It's unfortunate that this money has to be paid to unsavory characters, but it's a small price to pay.

Toronto could be much greater than it is. Toronto deserves a better mayor.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the outrage is a bit misplaced here. On one hand you have the elected leader of one of the most populous regions in Canada, representing more people than many of the premiers do. He lacks the credibility and leadership to even directly address the accusations, instead hiding behind a single-word shrug off.

The (alleged) dealers are being opportunistic with what is potentially a very valuable asset. They're acting pretty exactly as you'd expect. Unless you spend all your time outraged that drug dealers exist, it makes more sense to be outraged that the mayor is stalling instead of responding.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would contest that exposing corruption, even if it requires paying off some unsavory people, is a form of "lifesaving research".

<comment><USER5> That's a bit of a stretch, I'd say. In this specific case, unless the mayor's tenure is actually benefiting drug crime more than a $200,000 cash infusion would, I don't see how this could be a net positive.

If it were a matter of "give an illegal bribe to an aide who filmed something illegal being done by an already-corrupt official," that would be different. It's still not "life-saving research" unless that corruption is actually costing lives, but it fits with your argument.

I don't think that's what's going on here. The author seems right on target: They're trying to do something that will incidentally (but obviously) fund a whole lot more harm than it's likely to save.

<comment><USER4> If we think about it as an isolated case then I completely agree.

However, I think that if we can get this video out there, it might help start a discussion about corruption "raise awareness" and all that kind of hard to measure stuff.

My feeling is that the positive is that this doesn't just go away because a couple of people weren't compelled to do the right thing and just release the video. It's not a totally clean victory having to pay these guys, but IMHO well worth it.

Then again, maybe people just don't care, see: Marion Barry.

Edit: toned it down a little.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Gawker paid like $5000 to get the prototype iPhone4. That is $5000 in an industry worth millions for component and accessories makers.

Whoever these guys are I think they severely overestimate the worth of their material. A prototype might be worth $200k a video of the mayor might be worth half of that.

<comment><USER7> Yeah but it's not $200k of their own money...

<comment><USER8> I would donate my $20 if I didn't think Mayor Rob Ford is going to by the video first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So the $200,000 is going, ostensibly, to help the miscreant videographers get the duck out of Fodge, which, let's face it, is a pretty sensible concern after you've exposed a mayor with drug trade connections. Paying sources is not a widely accepted practice in journalism, but if the video is legit, it's hard to argue that this isn't worthwhile journalism...besides the associated health risks, a mayor who thinks he can flout laws that he would have no problem punishing his own citizens with is not a tenable situation for one of North America's most major cities.

The self-righteousness of the OP is also just a bit much:

> _Do you - gawker editors, managers, owners - have ANY IDEA what I could do > with $200K? Do you know what kind of lifesaving research that could pay for? > Do you know how much fresh fruit that could put in elementary schools in our > impoverished neighborhoods?_

Well, considering the OP works in public policy...he/she should know the answers to both: not very much. There's 250,000 students in the Toronto system...even if the target population here is just a few thousand students...$200K would barely buy a year's supply of fresh fruit.

The school board is, I'm assuming, outside the jurisdiction of the Mayor's office...and yet mayoral policy could have a great effect, beneficial or detrimental, to the citizenry. Will deposing a ostensibly corrupt mayor fix things? Probably not. But to say such an outcome is not at all relevant to what the OP cares about seems a little short-sighted.

</comment><comment><USER10> Eh, Gawker is kinda bottom of the barrel, if they declined the offer maybe the people with the video would get frustrated and/or bored and just post it to WSHH or YT or whatever.

</comment><comment><USER11> centre? lol You must not be American. We're busy complaining about the DoJ, IRS, and two administrations that don't have control of their bureaucracies.

You know, the things that matter in American Democracy. ;)

<comment><USER12> Did you read the article? This is an article about a Canadian issue. In Canada. Your comment is almost entirely irrelevant.</comment></comment>


'AWS vs. K8s' Is the New 'Windows vs. Linux' - <AUTHOR> https://zwischenzugs.com/2019/03/25/aws-vs-k8s-is-the-new-windows-vs-linux/ <comment><USER2> The title doesn't cover the nuance so please go ahead and RTFM. The argument is that Kubernetes is like Linux was some time ago - for geeks and hackers who spent the extra time and dealt with the annoyances and bugs because Linux offered something to them that Windows did not: "Some liked to tinker, some wanted an OS to be 'free', some wanted more control over their software, some wanted a faster system, but all had some niche reason to justify the effort."

The argument then goes that K8S is a bit Linux was back then - harder to use but ultimately more rewarding, more open in the long run and you avoid lock- in. The other side of this is that userland ecosystem for K8S is a bit of a mess - not sure how to solve that, currently, without reinventing OpenShift.</comment>


Female Tattoo Artists Are Taking on the Industry - <AUTHOR> https://hightouch.co/how-female-artists-are-taking-on-the-tattoo-industry/ <comment><USER2> As one that was part of this industry for several decades I can say there was never a bias against female artists. Traditionally there were very few. The first appointment only shop in the US was female owned.</comment>


Ask HN: What's with the .ly domains (or, A Name Is Forever) - <AUTHOR>

The first .ly domain I accessed frequently was bit.ly.  For a URL shorter, a .ly domain is arguably a functionally sound choice, to minimize character strokes.  Same goes for .to.
But lately, a libyan domain seems to be practically a requirement for trendy startups.  Don't know what to call your company?  Just tack on a .ly.
Invoice.ly; Post.ly; Embed.ly; Status.ly ... etc.ly
The problem with these domains is that they make terrible trademarks and business names.  A good trademark generally doesn't directly describe the actual services, because descriptive terms are not registrable without secondary meaning. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_distinctiveness
Assume for a moment that .com scarcity doesn't apply.  It might be just my opinion, but CheapAirlineTickets.com doesn't become more desirable if you just change it to CheapAirlineTickets.ly.
The biggest question in my mind for .ly entrepreneurs is what (if any) plans have been made for your brand 2,5, and 10 years out?  Perhaps all the .ly domain registrants expect to have made an exit before the domain becomes stale, but isn't that just pushing the problem onto the prospective buyer?
When I think about the "big dogs" that command the lion's share of traffic today such as Google(.com) or Amazon(.com), I see quality names that can stand alone from their domain suffix. Those brands have staying power.
Can you really say the same for GenericServiceName.ly ? <comment><USER2> The ".ly" suffix is the new "e" prefix. Startups that would be successful with a normal .com suffix will be just as successful with their .ly suffix. Sure, the trend is a little silly - but most of the current ".ly"s will eventually die and we'll be left with the few standouts who we can never imagine with a different name.

See: eBay, eTrade

<comment><USER3> Don't you mean the trend is sil.ly?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most claiming that there is nothing "wrong" with .ly are skewed b/c their demographics and role already in the tech world:read:used to it. The science (if I actually went to the trouble of course of proving this) would show that for purposes of mental recall/processing/action .ly is significantly different from .com. It will take longer to recite and the chance of users making mistakes will be higher (especially if your app's market is >techies only). So why incite the additional burden (and still have to buy the .com now/later)? Go for the path of quickest/least resistance (and drop the $75/year for the .ly solely as brand insurance--along with your big TLD purchase round and 301 all to that fresh new .com).

</comment><comment><USER5> Sorry but I don't see anything wrong with it. Personally I prefer a relevant (if cutesy) name like status.ly and enrolled.in than a made up nonsense name like Google. Besides, success and time will make these names seem normal and in 5 years there will be brand new silly trends to scoff at.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are two potential problems, one legal and one perceptual. On the legal side, you may run into trademark issues if your name isn't sufficiently different from a generic term. You can already see this problem in Apple's App Store. When you search for "flashlight", you get a lot of generically-named apps. None of them can prevent any of the others from using a confusingly similar name because they're all based off a generic term. The second problem is one of branding. It's the same basic issue as the legal trademark issue, but from a different perspective. In the end, it's about confusion on the part of your customer/buyer. Trademark attempts to use the legal system to prevent confusion. Marketing uses branding and ad-spending to achieve the same goal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I only bought a .ly domain for the purposes of having a super short domain im.ly (my company is infinimedia), and we don't plan on trademarking or branding that domain.

</comment><comment><USER7> this should look like code

`this too`

code

d should not be code

</comment><comment><USER8> Outside hacker circles, Amazon is always Amazon-dot-com.</comment>


Comcast to test its YouTube competitor by the end of the year - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2014/06/11/comcast-to-test-its-youtube-competitor-by-the-end-of-the-year/ <comment><USER2> I'll bet this "competitor" is really, really great. I haven't had cable for 3 or 4 years now, but Comcast used to advertise "Comcast Searchlight", channel 888. I think "Comcast Searchlight" is the Comcast version of the corporate internet - a lame, carefully tended, yet weak and anemic walled in garden. Only select advertisers appeared, and I'm sure they paid top dollar to appear. Very bizarre.

Anyway, I be this "competitor" is a lot like Comcast Searchlight.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, isn't this a coincidence? Just around the time they are expecting the "fast lanes" rules to have passed.</comment>


InfraRuby 3.7 – Compiler and runtime for statically-typed Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://infraruby.com/blog/infraruby-3-7-released <comment><USER2> "Statically-typed Ruby" that isn't actually Ruby, but a subset of Ruby[1] + mandatory type annotations. A rather misleading title.

E.g. here's an example [2], with stuff like this:

            ## java.lang.String -> void
    	def set_title(title)
    		@title_view.setText(title)
    		return
    	end

I kinda doubt this will take off with most Ruby users. Though being able to use something quite close to Ruby to write native Android apps is somewhat appealing even with extra pain (RubyMotion seems nicer to me, but the compiler only runs on OS X).

[1] "The runtime implements selected methods from core classes" [long list omitted]

[2] [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:sUdn7y_...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:sUdn7y_lf8gJ:infraruby.com/examples/wiktionary+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk)

<comment><USER3> RubyMotion is terrible: it's expensive, closed, and is basically objective-c meets ruby syntax.

This is at least running on a JVM, which gives you a buttload of tooling.

<comment><USER4> That's what I love most about the JVM, lots of tools to solve problems that don't exist on other platforms.

<comment><USER5> If we remove the snark and keep the reality:

Those problems do exist on all platforms and the tooling elsewhere is usually not as good.

<comment><USER4> Never had a GC pause in objc

<comment><USER5> Apples to oranges.

How about any of the major GC languages?

How about the great debugger tooling Java has. Had that in ObjC? How about performance and threading related tooling? How about refactoring tooling?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How does this compare to Crystal[1]? Crystal is very clear that it compiles to native [2].

Tried to figure out what InfraRuby compiles to, but no avail. Is it to JVM?

[1] [http://crystal-lang.org](http://crystal-lang.org)

[2] Very impressive result actually. It only performs ~3x slower on a basic Monte Carlo Tree Search compared to Nim, which itself is ~c speed.

<comment><USER7> > How does this compare to Crystal?

You can use InfraRuby code with a Ruby interpreter: [http://infraruby.com/blog/why-infraruby](http://infraruby.com/blog/why- infraruby)

> Tried to figure out what InfraRuby compiles to, but no avail.

Sorry, that should be made clearer...

> Is it to JVM?

Yes! ruby.Object extends java.lang.Object: [http://infraruby.com/reference/Object](http://infraruby.com/reference/Object)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you want Ruby-like syntax with static typing and almost no type annotation then Crystal is good for you. Sadly no windows binary available

</comment><comment><USER9> Cached version, as the site is having trouble loading for me.

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:7UYpJjG...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:7UYpJjGdULsJ:infraruby.com/blog/infraruby-3-7-released+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)

</comment><comment><USER10> Heh good luck get any of the Ruby "code" that community cares about like Rails to run on this - it is 99% magic, and DHH likes magik too much to want typing...

<comment><USER4> It's more like context...

Rails has a lot of context which allows developers to rapidly specify what they want to happen in the context of web apps.

Rails is like asking someone to get milk, rails maps a route, obeys the laws of the road while getting there, pays for it, and returns with milk.

In other frameworks you explicitly have to tell it every little detail of how to get milk, usually culminating in the IMammalianFactoryMilkFactory pattern.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Finally a solution that can makes Rails more competitive

<comment><USER2> If you can find anyone willing to port Rails to a statically typed subset that requires adding type annotations and also porting every single gem it depends on....

<comment><AUTHOR> Well that is a starting point. It would be even harder without it so better having it that not. Also do you have any alternatives?

Maybe for a start, making a statically typed Sinatra rather than Rails would be a more affordable task.

But anyway I'm not sure this is the right direction for Ruby as I think that more radical and different changes are needed to extract the full potential out of it.

Anyway if Infrared proves to be a nice and quick alternative solution that will let us gain back some lost terrain in those situations where Ruby was discarded because of performance, then I more then welcome it, hoping that a some point the efforts put in it will somehow also be useful to Ruby MRI (or whatever the Ruby reference implementation will be at that time) improvement..

<comment><USER2> > Also do you have any alternatives?

Yes: Not doing it.

> in those situations where Ruby was discarded because of performance

In most cases where Ruby gets discarded because of performance, it's a red herring. Most of Ruby's main uses are in areas where you can generally make things IO bound fairly easily.

For my part, I don't believe Ruby needs static typing to get far more performant. I'm working on a Ruby compiler, and while it's far from usable, from looking at MRI in particular it's worth noting that MRI implements pretty much nothing of the last 30 years or so of dynamic language optimizations.

Look towards JRuby today, and especially the Truffle backend, for indications of where Ruby optimizations can be going without sacrificing what makes the language attractive in the process.

That's not to say there aren't warts that makes it harder than necessary, but you can get very far with far less impact on the language than taking away dynamic typing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, then you do have an alternative! Hope to hear something more about it soon!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Android Security Bulletin–August 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2017-08-01 <comment><AUTHOR> This includes 10 remote code executions in the media framework for Android 4 up to 7. Jesus!</comment>


Ask HN: Has anyone used Appcelerator (Titanium) for Android & iOS? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
We been thinking to use Appcelerator's Titanium framework to develope the mobile version of our web application. Just wondering if someone created a app with common look/feel/functionality for both Android and iOS using Titanium framework.
Please help share good/bad experiences. Our application will be server heavy and requires GPS, Voice to text and Push notifications. <comment><USER2> I have been paying attention to Appcelerator for a couple years. I've looked extensively at their platform and even attempted development with it a few times.

As a counter point, I've also used Phonegap extensively.

Titanium is going to give you a native app. They provide extensive api's so you can write in javascript and reliably cross-compile to multiple platforms. There's downsides to this though, and that's where it was a tradeoff for me.

For me, Titanium didn't offer enough control for what was being offered. Once I was invested using their platform for developing a mobile app, I would have been locked in. If there was something I needed to do on my app that wasn't supported by their API, I was basically SOL (shit out of luck).

Phonegap, on the other hand, is largely html/css/js running in a WebView with an ObjC wrapper that provides access to hardware functionality. If you write your app entirely within the framework, you're limited by the performance of UIWebView. This can seriously be an issue for certain kinds of apps.

On the other hand, Phonegap worked great as a way for me to build the UI using the web technologies I know best. Since its just a framework, I have full access to all of the project files and source code, so I can add or change stuff if I need to. An app I released back in April needed to play video. There was no capability for this native to Phonegap, so I had to add the code myself. ObjC was new to me, but I was able to work through it.

Phonegap is setup to let you build to other platforms too, but you have to set up the dev environments for Android, etc, separately.

Ultimately what it comes down to is what you need, and what you are looking to do. For me, Phonegap was the better route. For others, it might be Appcelerator.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Geuis. Looks like native android development is the way to go..

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was using a Windows box and spent 3 days trying to get Appcelerator to work! Almost gave up a few times. Finally it started working and was buggy as heck!

None of us could believe a venture backed company would put out such crap s/w. Anywho, we went ahead and developed the app in Obj-C (our issue was we didn't have a Mac and needed to build something for the iPhone).</comment>


You need an idea with "substantive want" behind it. - <AUTHOR>

PG's coveted shirt with the statement "I built something people want" is clearly the Hacker's Pulitzer Prize.
As I read the post "Build your business around an idea" http://warpspire.com/posts/idea-businesses/
I had this voice screaming in my mind that the concept of basing your business around merely an idea just rang hollow and as a kind of kitsch inspirational poster to hang in some corporate board room or vast expanses of cubicles.
Excuse the cynicism, but I've heard lots of ideas and aspirations that, for their grandeur and loftiness never get translated, and there's nothing sexy about a beauty never revealed to anyone. On the other side nor is there about the ugly one that gets revealed to everyone, all the time, to the point of inducing vomiting and other instinctual purging reflexes.
Yes an idea beats the heck out of just a product, but if your idea sucks then you'll be hard pressed to get a good idea out of it, as well as on the other end, if you have an overly 'good' idea, good to the point of fantastic--as in fantasia, fantasy, la-la land, then you'll keep building your towers to heaven.
There are lots of things people want that you can deliver via a start up, and then there are lots of things you simply can't.
Seeing things as they are, contrary to pithy idealistic reveries, is the first step to discovering things as they can be.
Don't get me wrong I'm as apt to be Quixotic as the next guy, One of my favorite lines in the musical "Perhaps too much sanity is madness . . . but maddest of all to see things as they are and not as they should be"
I'm all for envisioning a better world. I'm all for seeing things as they should be and not as they are. But even Don Quixote operated within the bounds of plausibility. You could see a shaving basin as being something that could be worn upon the head, you could see the windmill tilted at as having massive arms as a giant would have. But the story, nor the idealism, would have been the same if his delusions saw the Golden Helmet of Mambrino in a pile of entrails or if he'd seen a giant monster when it was just a sock on the side of the road.
Yes there's a big problem with people only grasping at product straws, but there's the other end of the spectrum that have beams in their eyes that they mistake for ideas, ideas that they think you can base a business on.
The great variety in evolution leads many to believe that 'anything is possible' when the reality couldn't be further from the truth. Yes the viable variations are many and should be explored BUT there are paths that never produce anything, there are things that are perennially and, on a meta-fitness level, never fit. <comment><USER2> Can you give an example and counter-example to your 'substantive wants'?

I can't imagine that you wrote that post thinking that somebody was following an idea that they felt had no value or wants. That should be obvious.

You may have valid points hidden in there, but I am struggling to comprehend what you're really trying to say.

I'll try to take the obvious counter to what I think you are saying.

Nobody 'wanted' twitter. if you had described a vision of twitter, I think it would have gotten a solid 'meh'. Yet, it has proven to be a viable business and in some ways is creating great social value.

What was the 'substantive want' of twitter, foursquare, etc. etc.

Or are you suggesting that people are trying to build towards ideas which they have no chance of completing ' have beams in their eyes that they mistake for ideas, ideas that they think you can base a business on.'</comment>


Webkit Hardware acceleration bleeding into subsequent elements. How to fix it - <AUTHOR> http://technology.posterous.com/webkit-hardware-acceleration-bleeding-into-su

<comment><USER2> I could not actually spot the difference between the unaliased and aliased text. Maybe I need a retina display to see the difference?

<comment><USER3> The closer I look, the harder it is to see (unless you zoom into the pixels and look at the colour fringing). But just glancing, it's clear to me that the "Anti-aliased" text has a distinctly fuzzy outline, while the "Not anti- aliased" text appears much more crisply.

At a glance, and as a Windows user, I prefer the "Not anti-aliased" rendering; as the article says, it is actually anti-aliased, just not sub-pixel anti- aliased. With the text size so large, I don't think sub-pixel anti-aliasing is doing it much favours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if this explains why lots of websites using fancy new web fonts look absolutely hideous in my Chrome (I have a lot of the experimental acceleration options turned on). I accept responsibility for it, but the results can be shockingly off putting.

Sadly I can't think of an example to post a screenshot of. I'll be on the lookout.

<comment><USER5> are you on windows? I find this happens on windows more so than mac. I believe its a combination of bad hinting combined with Microsoft's very crisp font smoothing. Windows can really mess with the kerning as well...

<comment><USER4> No, I'm in Ubuntu. In Windows I leave the about:flags alone since I use it so rarely.

<comment><USER6> Fonts in Ubuntu can be absolutely unpredictable when it comes rendering time. I remember an install of msttcore-fonts that I thought would allow me to see sites built with Verdana, Tahoma, etc. similarly to Chrome on a windows box. Not even close, and I'm talking about the kerning, not even the subpixel quality.

IIRC as sibsib said windows takes major liberties with the kerning to keep its core fonts on the pixel grid, and if msttcore-fonts are hinted, they sure don't come out at all similar to the windows versions.

<comment><USER4> Not anymore. My fonts in Ubuntu are gorgeous and consistent everywhere except some Java applications, and even then Eclipse hasn't given me trouble for several releases of Ubuntu.

I know Mac users drool over their fonts, and as an owner and heavy user of my MBP, I much, much prefer Ubuntu's font rendering to OS X's and ClearType.

This is something very, very different. It's only on specific sites and it's only in Chrome when I have the hardware acceleration turned on.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: WordAct, a comprehensive, scalable project of WordPress and React - <AUTHOR> http://wordact.io/ <comment><USER2> Repository: [https://github.com/e10jc/wordact](https://github.com/e10jc/wordact)

Looks interesting. Curious to learn more (without the investment of installing WordAct) about how it works and what benefits it offers.

<comment><AUTHOR> hey thanks! wordact author here. i think the main benefit is that it can reduce gobs of boilerplating time. i love the javascript ecosystem, and i think ecmascript keeps getting better and more beautiful, but man is it a pain to set up a proper project, with babel, and webpack, and server-side rendering, and more.

but give it an install and check it out! it's pretty easy. instructions here: [http://wordact.io/2017/04/how-to-set-up-your-development- env...](http://wordact.io/2017/04/how-to-set-up-your-development-environment/)</comment></comment>


Build a Business, not an App - <AUTHOR> https://listed.standardnotes.org/@mo/259/build-a-business-not-app <comment><USER2> This is a well put way to encourage engineers to think in terms of the business or social context of their inventions. I usually find that trying to work through a business model canvas or lean canvas helps point out which parts of the founder's thought process are missing or buggy. Takes 15 minutes to do it. Usually it's the customer or value proposition at the earliest stage, channel or pricing once the product is tech I ally validated.

</comment><comment><USER3> Actually, I'd say: Build an audience, not a business.

<comment><USER4> It worked for Twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Playing devil's advocate, my advice would be: build an app first, then a business. It's already hard enough to build an app that gets traction. Do the small stuff first, then worry about the bigger challenge later. You don't have a business without a good product (even a "minor" one that does 1 only single thing well)

<comment><USER6> I think the OP is talking about focusing in the big picture and not just throwing your app into the app store, without caring for marketing, nurturing an community, etc. At least, that is my impression.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Related introspection: Engineers, built businesses, not apps: [http://emphaticsolutions.com/2010/12/10/build-businesses- not...](http://emphaticsolutions.com/2010/12/10/build-businesses-not- apps.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Also correlated, don't build an app/business that is really just is just a feature of something else.

I've got many LinkedIn job requests that are trying to build a company around a feature of a different company. Instagram + ???.

<comment><USER9> The example is ironic because for the most part Instagram itself was a feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A video version: [https://vimeo.com/137539070](https://vimeo.com/137539070)

</comment><comment><USER11> I have no idea how half my apps in 2010 got approved. it was really nice to see an app that i built in 1 week, bring in $1-3~ a day for a solid year. Then I spammed the crap out of that formula.

<comment><USER12> My very HN username is based around this idea of building a simple app and throwing it on the App Store and making 10 dollars per day, rinse and repeat..

<comment><USER13> Can you provide a link to the apps in question? Most of my free apps don't get past 7 downloads total...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I disliked the part where the author plugged their own app lol. Eveything these days is an ad.

</comment><comment><USER15> Easier said than done, but a rather valid trope that needs to be repeated every once and a while.</comment>


Has Snowden crossed a red line? - <AUTHOR> http://theweek.com/article/index/245788/has-snowden-crossed-a-red-line

<comment><USER2> See Betteridge's law of headlines.</comment>


Ask HN: login on the front page - <AUTHOR>

I am getting ready to launch a new design for my startup. I don't have a login form on the front page. Should I?
I also don't currently have a link to sign in, but that is what I was planning to do.
For reference, here is a preview of what we are close to launching. It is a Wordpress template, so the content is not what we will really have.
http://bizen.csclientsite.com/
old site: http://bizen.com <comment><USER2> I went to a talk given by the Meebo founders about what to consider when designing your front page. A big part of the talk boiled down to making a single call to action very clear and tailoring it toward the majority of users that are going to hit your front page.

Your call to action is very clear, "Try it Free" (I'm assuming you're going to make it so that the content on the left of the slideshow/carousel doesn't fade in and out). I think this is a Good Thing (tm).

It seems clear that your goal is to convert new users who land on your home page. I'm guessing the decision between login form versus link has to do with a compromise between conversions and engagement.

That said, without a way for an existing user to find their way back in your engagement is going to suffer dramatically - _unless_ going to your homepage is not the primary way your users access the app. So you obviously need at least a link to sign in.

Deciding whether or not to include a form over a link depends entirely on how much you want to push for engagement over conversion. Your homepage is pretty clean (not a lot of noise), so perhaps there's room for a login form eventually - but since I assume your initial goal is conversions then I'd start with the link.

You can optimize for engagement by making "remember me" the default for logins and then taking logged in users directly to their dashboard when they hit the homepage.

For non-cookied users you could also A/B test the homepage with a link or with a form and then see if you are getting drop off in either conversions or engagement from having one or the other.

</comment><comment><USER3> If the service has a members section that is used frequently, then I would suggest having a login at the most common landing pages on your site. I like the way it's currently done on the "old" site.</comment>


No VC Required : Blog Launched - <AUTHOR> http://novcrequired.com/

<comment><USER2> Have you started a company without VC funding yourself? I do not mean to sound rude, but for a blog with such title, you need to have some personal creds on a more informative "About Author" page.

So far the issues you've blogged about are not "real". Those issues (scaling, refusing an offer from VC and going with an angel instead) are good to have.

(1) Scaling IS NOT a problem startups without money face.

(2) Saying 'no' to VC funding and picking an angel IS NOT a problem startups without money face. The reason they have no VC money is because they have nobody to say 'no' to yet.

It's almost like you're preaching about diet to a person who's starving...

Startups without money need money _especially_ if they want to grow. And where to get money - is the question that everybody asks and no blog had ever managed to provide answers for.

<comment><USER3> > Scaling IS NOT a problem startups without money face.

Maybe I'm kind of confused because it's late and I just drove through the Alps in the dark and I'm tired... but scaling doesn't have anything to do with money or not... no?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The solution to good web performance with Apache is to avoid it like the plague. Use lighttpd or nginx (my preference) to serve your static content (set Expires headers liberally) and run your dynamic content under FastCGI. Your server will thank you.

<comment><USER5> Something I'm concerned about with nginx is that the main process has to run as root. Is there a way around it? That seems like a huge security hole to me.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip. Adding creds now.

and yes, I have. I sold a search engine in 2005. :)</comment>


When Talking About Young Voters, It Is Essential to Analyze Attitudes by Race - <AUTHOR> https://wthh.dataforprogress.org/blog/2018/11/12/when-talking-about-young-voters-it-is-essential-to-analyze-their-attitudes-by-race <comment><USER2> -African Americans today should work their way up without any special favors.

I feel people with an impoverished background should probably getting access to extra help regardless of race.

-if the Confederate flag is mostly a symbol of slavery and white supremacy or a symbol of Southern heritage and culture.

Can't it be both? If you just bury your mistakes then how do you learn?</comment>


DoubleClick Tries to Force Hand into Cookie Jar (1997) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/1997/03/doubleclick-tries-to-force-hand-into-cookie-jar/ <comment><USER2> AdTech firms have been tracking you for a long time and in some pretty ingenious ways. One of the most recent was using the Battery Status API. Just imagine if they focused their efforts on something useful.

As a side note DoubleClick has been own by Google since 2007.

<comment><USER3> Can you share more details about the battery status API tracking? Would love to see how that correlates to a unique user.

<comment><USER4> It's all about adding bits of information to improve confidence in tracking users across pages.

Lets assume that in page visits <10 minutes apart, a users battery won't change by more than 10%.

So say I go to volvo.com and then reddit.com - and my battery changes from 10% to 8%. When I request reddit.com - the user is clearly not a visitor who has had >20% battery. We also know the resolution of the phone. We know the user agent. And many other factors. Combining all of these means that you approach 100% certainty that it's the same user. No information on it's own is identifiable - but by combining enough sources - no two machines or phones are identical (at least that's what advertisers hope)

<comment><USER5> This is scarily close to how intelligence agencies infer information. If you ever wonder why government is so clandestine about even unclassified bits of data, consider how they could be used when combined. As someone else said, just imagine if they focused their efforts on something useful. Intelligence agencies basically _are_ focusing on "something useful".

<comment><USER4> I see the relation - but it's also how nearly all information is gathered and infered - even at a human level. You take incomplete information, look at the landscape, and try to fill in the blanks.

A friend you're meeting tells you he's in the starbucks with a red shirt. That's not enough information to know his exact coordinates. But you combine and infer - you know how many starbucks there are in the vicinity, and which one he's likely to be at. You know he's in a red shirt - but there's several people. Luckily you already know his height well enough to filter out false positives within milliseconds.

The method I don't find intrinsically scary - but perhaps the scale and depth at which it happens, and for what motives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> On mobile devices, I can see this API for decent tracking. However, for laptops, it seems easy to have the laptop fully charged and plugged in to defeat it as this is probably a very common state.

It would be fun to alter the API output to randomize the battery data. Even have it be off power, and slowly climb in charge.

</comment><comment><USER7> I mentioned it on my thread with BrendanEich: [https://twitter.com/yuhong2/status/912757701163106304](https://twitter.com/yuhong2/status/912757701163106304)</comment>


How I Fully Quit Google (And You Can, Too) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/s/story/how-i-fully-quit-google-and-you-can-too-4c2f3f85793a <comment><USER2> I don't find it difficult to not use Google the search engine (instead opting for DuckDuckGo, only resorting to Google but for the most challenging queries). I found switching from Gmail to ProtonMail was a lot more hassle than I thought it would be (yet I still maintain my Google inboxes because I haven't updated my email on every online service yet)

I use Apple Maps when I need directions, but not when I need to look up a business. I find Yelp integration atrocious and a bit of a slap in the face.

The browser is a tough one. I have a desktop computer, which Firefox runs very nicely on.

However, on my Macbook Pro Firefox slashes battery by half, barely churning through pages and a few tabs without grinding to a halt. It's not good enough for Mac laptops, honestly. I tried. Trying Nigthly versions ever since 57.0 was released, profiling CPU usage, tracking bug reports, nothing helped. With every version I am hopeful but I don't hesitate to quit Firefox app and keep hoping the next version will be the golden build for retina Macbook Pro's.

<comment><USER3> I kinda agree with this. One place where I think user agnostic search engines are better is that your bubble is burst by default. You can see the different with Google and DDG. DDG sometimes does give outdated results but their results change sufficiently when you change the search query, not so much with google. Sometimes Google just keeps repeating the same stuff over and over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Web browsers:

> Avoid Opera and Vivaldi, as they use Chrome as their base. Brave is my > secondary browser.

Brave is based on Chromium too, isn't it? (I don't blame the author for not knowing this; I'm not certain myself.)

<comment><USER5> Yeah Brave uses Blink. I just went to its Wikipedia page and it's in the first sentence. Switching to Firefox would solve the browser issue though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think switching to Firefox is the easiest of all. You are not logged in with your Google account all the time which I would think is a big deal.

My problem would be YouTube. I spend way too much time there and none other site has half of the content.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps creating an account for Youtube only and/or browsing it inside a Firefox Multi-Account Container [1] would already go a long way.

[1] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi- account...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account- containers/)

<comment><USER8> You can browse the entire YouTube site and play videos without any cookies even enabled.

If you don't have cookies, there are no logins by default. I've been experimenting with this and almost all sites work fine without any cookies these days (as long as you don't need to log in).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I recently did the same thing. FastMail for email, Apple Maps for Google Maps (not as good as Google, but better than when it launched), DuckDuckGo for search, Firefox or Brave as my browser. I was not prepared for how long and sometimes convoluted it was to change my email address on every site/service. Some bafflingly did not allow me to change my email address. I use Microsoft OneDrive for photo storage but am looking for an alternative. It did feel momentous to delete my Google account, which was email@example.com. But it also felt liberating.

<comment><USER10> > I was not prepared for how long and sometimes convoluted it was to change my > email address on every site/service.

I've made this recommendation before, but buy your own domain. It's cheap, and will allow you to change your email hosting provider should Fastmail pivot their business from email to surveillance.

It's pretty easy to set up. Others have offered, and I'll repeat it: if you need a hand getting started, I'll help.

EDIT: Fastmail's instructions [https://www.fastmail.com/help/receive/domains.html](https://www.fastmail.com/help/receive/domains.html)

<comment><USER11> The trouble isn't getting the domain and setting up the email server behind it, the issue is maintaining the email server. I am sufficiently distractible (and I'm sure I'm not alone) that it's very important that my peripheral software/devices do not bother me. With an email server (or any other kind of server really, but email is especially bad), you need to pay attention to it constantly to make sure it is up, you are not on any blacklists (which you will get on by default for the simple fact that you are a new host), etc.

You can of course set up all sorts of monitoring, but then you have to check that that is working. These concerns never _really_ go away. You cannot truly let your email slip from your mind, because if it stops working ever you will miss emails (unless you use a relay, which is either external or also needs monitoring, etc) and that means that potentially things get closed that should not be closed, you miss things from the doctor/dentist, etc.

<comment><USER12> But that would be the point of using an email host with your own domain, right? Be it Protonmail, Fastmail, or any other, you only need to provide the domain, and they provide the actual hosting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's great to see how far open-source tech has come that someone like the author is able to switch to non-google services!

Moreover, I'd just like to mention that it would be fine to leave the gmail account open if it was just for password resets, etc (I've left mine open for whatever obscure service that I might have forgotten to switch over). It is a bit annoying yes, but Google does not really get any data out of it from you apart from knowing which services you have an account on.

</comment><comment><USER14> I also in an attempt to freed from Google Services. I switch google search engine to duck-duck go. When i used to search things related with programming / website that using "english language", DDG could compete Google. But when I start to use DDG in my country (Indonesia), DDG is failing a lot against Google.

About browser, i'd rather to use Safari & Firefox as a secondary browser.

</comment><comment><USER15> I am trying to do this right now, I want to make android apps but I already have one strike on my account and the threat of losing everything associated with Google is too much. I already successfully moved my email but that took something like a year. Finding all the places where I used that address wasn't easy. I am now wrestling with photos, I haven't found a service that I like yet. I'll try nextcloud but I am not very keen on paying for a vps just for that and all my other have their resources allocated to running other websites. Another VERY important one for me is really Google maps. I travel a lot and both the public transport features and search are extremely useful. And last but not least apps. I don't know if I can make it with just f-droid. For example, neither maps.me or Here WeGo are on it.

<comment><USER16> To avoid this problem in the future, I would recommend registering a domain name and attaching an email address. I have switched to a different email provider three times in the last ten years without changing my email address.

<comment><USER15> Yep, that's what I did now with Namecheap and Fastmail

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Medium is funded in part by GV (Google Ventures), so maybe not fully out of Google nest yet.

</comment><comment><USER18> Every alternative I tried for Gsuite handling email for some domains ended up being less user friendly, more expensive, or both.

I love my iphone but Google Maps is better than Apple Maps in almost every way.

I could live with DuckDuckGo if I didn't mind being annoyed 1 out of every 4 searches but I do mind. I mind a lot.

Google's Nearline cloud storage is silly cheap and always works.

From a security standpoint I have a hard time using firefox when I know chrome exists.

In short, I've decided I'll just accept privacy is dead in exchange for not being slightly angry each time I use a computing device. YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER19> What's the point of posting a Medium members-only article? No thanks.

<comment><USER20> I am not a member nor am I signed in and I am able to read the article just fine. Just delete your cookies for the website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Nice article by a non-techie. Although I am still a fan of Google (I worked there as a contractor and have fond memories of the experience), I have taken a middle of the road approach to Google.

I still use: Google Play Movies and Music, Google Cloud Platform, Google Photos, and Google Drive. Notice the common thread: things I pay for and that don't impact (too much) my privacy. I am a very happy customer of these services.

What I avoid: Gmail, Google web site analytics, and search.

I rely on Fastmail (with their calendar and notes) in my day to day work.

<comment><USER22> > that don't impact my privacy

> Google Photos

doesn't make sense to me

<comment><USER8> What about Google Drive, containing every document ever created on his computers.

Google has for many reasons succeeded in getting techies on their side, to the point that techies are standing by them, giving up privacy and integrity completely to a giant ad company with close ties to military and government. You could not make a worse choice for your privacy if you tried.

<comment><USER21> I do store some plain files to Google Drive and Dropbox, but mostly I created backup ZIPs, GPG them, and store for backups. My working files are on my laptop.

One thing I store as plain files on Google Drive is years of Communications of ACM PDFs, and other purchased material - it is all searchable.

Mostly though, I agree with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Impressed someone who doesn't know how to code has managed to do this.

</comment><comment><USER24> There's no alternative that even comes close to Google Inbox. Until then, i'm staying in the google ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER25> Yeah I tend to use Firefox and try to use DuckDuckGo - but it just doesn't seem to return results for software development that are as useful as Google does. I'm not really sure why, either.

</comment><comment><USER26> If you live in China, the Great Firewall protects you from Google.

<comment><USER27> Unfortunately, it can't protect you from China.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Quote from TFA:

      (yes, I don't use Facebook either)

The thing is, I don't find the same seething contempt that Facebook manages to evoke, when I use Google products. Google's stuff is legit, when push comes to shove.

Really it's that they are such a potent organization, capturing so much raw situational awareness that by way of monoculture alone, this represents an existential hazard of sorts. Even if they can dodge the monopoly bullet on paper, a rose by any other name...

By turns, comparing Google's products to what Facebook simply is, isn't even a contest. Facebook is this deformed abomination afflicting the internet in the worst ways possible.

Facebook is like thalidomide for ideas and cognitive capacity. When I browse content on Facebook, not only is there some sort of stifling claustrophobia to it all, but it's like the compromises made to present it within that awful, awful user interface seem to dim the wattage on even the most amazing things. The way people succumb to such a manipulative reality distortion field is truly disappointing.

The reason to fight Google is much more subtle than the reason to fight Facebook. At least with Google, they're producing things that work, things that don't deceptively hobble practical utility in confounding ways. Facebook is this underwhelming quicksand of unredeeming zombification.</comment>


Terabyte-sized Java Apps Now Possible - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/201629/terabytesized_java_apps_now_possible.html <comment><USER2> Key point: terabyte-sized _memory pools_. Which is quite awesome.

I'd initially thought it referred to terabyte-sized _executables_. Followed by a "oh great. Now someone's going to _make_ one, and some government's going to _want_ one."

<comment><USER3> Don't worry, Adobe's slowly getting there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sometimes I feel as though my little, simple, apps' source will end up being a terabyte after packaging all their dependancies. It's a little ridiculous.

Regardless, this seems like it has some pretty powerful implications for big- data processing. The potential integrating this with Clojure somehow, and parallelizing the computation across those 10 (at least) servers with 1TB of memory is pretty astonishing to think about. (Though you don't need Clojure to make it parallel, yes.)

<http://www.terracotta.org/ehcache-2.2?src=/index.html> for the product itself.

</comment><comment><USER5> _An organization could put their entire database into memory, which would reduce the latency of the application by "a couple of orders of magnitude," he said._

That works well until the power goes out (and it does) or the OS (or the JVM) crashes. Keeping the hot portion of the data cached in memory (and maintaining a smarter cache vs. simple LRU heuristics) _without_ sacrificing durability is still a must for data you care about it.

You can checkpoint your data to disk and assume you'll never have more data in memory, but that starts to become very expensive when you factor in obsolete versions, replication (to make your system immune to machine failures), logs for recovery.

Ultimately there's a lot to be said about the redundance of putting a cache in front of a database. The right thing to do, however, is to build storage systems (that may or may not resemble conventional databases) that integrate caching. I highly suggest reading about LSM trees as used by BigTable (a way to reduce write latency without significantly sacrificing durability) as well as the BigTable paper (for the "keep the hot set in memory, maintain disk persistence" model): ehCache is a useful product, but it's simplistic to say it can replace databases and file systems.

</comment><comment><USER6> What Azul is doing gets you about 3/4s that far with true SMP. They've got their Vega custom hardware, a new x86-64 software only version named Zing (<http://www.azulsystems.com/products/zing>) and they're pushing an open source version of the foundation (or more) of Zing through the Managed Runtime Initiative (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1491653> and <http://www.managedruntime.org/>).

And they're listening to people and continuing to work on the latter, e.g. 3 days ago they updated the Linux source code releases. A complete SRPM, particularly for Fedora Core 12, and a kernel patch suitable for auditing and applying to the newer 2.6.34 containing the memory management half with remaining scheduling part to follow: [http://lists.managedruntime.org/pipermail/dev/2010-July/0000...](http://lists.managedruntime.org/pipermail/dev/2010-July/000004.html).

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm guessing 10 servers for redundancy? A server with 192GB of memory can be had for about $15k nowadays.

</comment><comment><USER8> And that Terabyte-sized app? "Hello, World!"</comment>