Our startup analyzed the debate last week. What do you think? - <AUTHOR> http://heartbyte.com/blog/fl-debate/

<comment><USER2> After last week's debate I looked for an app where I could get objective, near-real time analysis pertaining to the accuracy of a candidate's claim, since Wolf Blitzer obviously wasn't interested in doing his job. To my surprise, I couldn't find an app that did what I wanted. I considered writing one, but it's been almost a week and I haven't done anything yet, so I'll share the idea and maybe someone else will build it.

The basic idea would be that you press a button whenever a candidate says something you think is controversial. This will bring up a list of recent controversial statements made by the candidates, and you have the option to select one. Meanwhile, someone on the server side is using his best google-fu to immediately find primary sources that are relevant to each controversial statement. When a primary source is found, it is immediately pushed out to the user.

<comment><USER3> A lot of debate points really aren't "true" or "false" but only "true from a certain point of view". There's exceptions in both directions, certainly, but I don't think this is amenable to real-time analysis by anyone; you're mostly going to get fed the biases of the person on the other end of the wire, not "truth".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting technology. But my biggest complaint is the font. I absolutely hated the font of the blog post, and it made it almost unreadable for me. Maybe I'm too old school, but the weird T's and the too-small-and-narrow fonts made my head hurt. I forced myself to read the entire blog post so that I could have legitimacy in writing this comment, but otherwise I would have just closed my window.

<comment><USER5> Really don't see why steve8918's comment was downvoted.

On a Win 7 machine, running Chrome 16.0.912.75, the font would appear to be a legitimate problem. Were this a page that I had put together, I'd want to know about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> uncle. fixed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Feature suggestion: spectral analysis of the debaters' voices: [http://www.www.asanet.org/images/members/docs/pdf/featured/0...](http://www.www.asanet.org/images/members/docs/pdf/featured/06gregory.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> nice. is there any more info about your company? <http://heartbyte.com> is kinda minimal (even with the comments) and <http://heartbyte.com/blog> gives an error.

if not, can you outline what technology you're using (i see you've commented on couchdb, some time ago...)? how quickly can you provide results? what does the user interface look like from either side? (i'm a technical guy, but i bet others here would also like to know how you're funded etc...)

<comment><AUTHOR> We have some rough edges on our web presence to be sure. This may help a bit on the UI front: <http://heartbyte.com/s/hn>

As for the tech, given the requests we need to handle from our distributed queue, we do clustered stream processing in near realtime. Our broadcast customers want a line on their screen within a second or two.

And for now we are bootstrapped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just curious, but your age ranges are 8 years, 17 years, 14 years, and Unknown. How did you come by those buckets? I can't figure out the intended distinction between each group.

</comment><comment><USER9> Just an FYI, all your results are in percentages, where the total is never given throughout the article. 'about 30' participants is a throwaway gesture - if one wants to actually gauge the quality of the stats, you need an accurate total, and surely 'about 30' could be replaced with the single figure?

Otherwise, looks neat!

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice to see that someone is actually applying technology to solve real problems! Great work.

</comment><comment><USER11> Excellent work, guys. This is going to be AWESOME for the upcoming debates!

</comment><comment><USER12> Interesting choice of color on the age graph. It almost looks like it implies those older than 41 are not somehow as important those younger. They almost blend into the background.

</comment><comment><USER13> Minor nit: the distribution of Republican, Democrat, and Independent in the population at large isn't 1/3rd each, so your sample is a bit off from representative.

</comment><comment><USER14> Cool stuff. I can see this being a fun interactive way to participate in tons of reality shows...e.g. Project Runway.

</comment><comment><USER15> Don't use pie charts. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_chart#Use.2C_effectiveness_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_chart#Use.2C_effectiveness_and_visual_perception)

</comment><comment><USER16> Seems like it has potential, but using an example culled from 30 non-random data points isn't particular interesting.

</comment><comment><USER17> feed subscription is broken.</comment>


Sudoku solver in SQL - <AUTHOR> http://www.celko.com/sudoku.txt

<comment><USER2> Sudoku Solver in Apt (note: this is pretty old you've probably all seen it I just felt it's cool and relevant)

[http://algebraicthunk.net/~dburrows/blog/entry/package- manag...](http://algebraicthunk.net/~dburrows/blog/entry/package-management- sudoku/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is really cool.

I thought one of the design decisions of SQL was that it would NOT be Turing complete, so hacks like this could not exist. It's funny that the nature of a database makes things like this possible. Can a turing machine be made only using SQL queries? Could a higher-level language compile to it?

<comment><AUTHOR> In my humble opinion, there are so many proprietary and / or nonstandard extensions to SQL that it's turned into a right mess. I think that the language itself is a bit kludgey and it'd be much easier if it'd just correspond to relational algebra directly. (Eg if you do a select * from foo where x = y, you're actually doing two operations, a select and a filter, and the natural language like syntax of the language makes it very ambiguous and confusing when you're dealing with complicated structures like nested joins and such)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice. It's not nearly as awesome, but here's my Sudoku solver in Clojure:

[http://github.com/vishsingh/lisp- toronto/blob/80ea008e80976d...](http://github.com/vishsingh/lisp- toronto/blob/80ea008e80976d3ec08b9005ace7658ec5278472/meetings/04-2009/sudoku.clj)

</comment><comment><USER5> Of course this is just a silly hack so I can't be too hard on style here, but it would have been worth it to make a table for the input/output. An argument list of 81 values is painful to see.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been reading about that too:

<http://www.celko.com/puzzles.htm> (first part) vs [http://sqlblog.com/blogs/hugo_kornelis/archive/2007/10/04/ho...](http://sqlblog.com/blogs/hugo_kornelis/archive/2007/10/04/how- not-to-pass-a-lot-of-parameters.aspx) (Celko replies in the comments)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> My Postscript one.. [http://chris-lamb.co.uk/2007/06/10/sudoku-solver-in- postscri...](http://chris-lamb.co.uk/2007/06/10/sudoku-solver-in-postscript/)</comment>


How I used Dropbox to store my website content - <AUTHOR> http://blog.abhiomkar.in/2013/08/11/how-i-used-dropbox-to-store-my-websites-content/

<comment><USER2> I do this for a few dozen smaller less important sites. I have the master copy in a git repository on the server (in /var/www) and then create a symbolic link into my dropbox folder which sits in my home directory. This solves any permission issues, and I occasionally SSH in and commit the changes in git so I know its all safe in case dropbox mucks up.

Next enhancement will be to have something which alerts me if dropbox suddenly deletes my files so I can recover from git.

</comment><comment><USER3> The advantage here seems pretty obvious: updating static content through Dropbox is pretty much the ideal (especially for cases where multiple people are involved: shared Dropbox folders are a godsend.)

My question is that of speed, though. Is this going to be noticeably slower than, say, using Frozen-Flask and regenerating the site whenever you detect any changes in Dropbox?

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a better way of using Dropbox to store website content than I have been using. I am linking directly to files in my public folder, but load times are slow, especially on my Minecraft photos page.

[http://gilgamech.neocities.org/](http://gilgamech.neocities.org/)

<comment><USER5> Not to mention using the public folder (which I believe does not exist anymore for new accounts, requiring users to share individual files) has a bandwidth limit. If a file exceeds the bandwidth limit, it will stop being shared.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Check out site44.com - it's an off-the-shelf solution to do this.</comment>


Facebook and Microsoft introduce ecosystem for interchangeable AI frameworks - <AUTHOR> https://research.fb.com/facebook-and-microsoft-introduce-new-open-ecosystem-for-interchangeable-ai-frameworks/ <comment><USER2> Translation from _corporatespeak_ : "Our AI frameworks are losing developer mindshare to TensorFlow, which is controlled by Google, so we are joining forces."

Corporations like Facebook and Microsoft do not like interoperability... until and unless it's in their best interest.

The goal here is to make AI frameworks easily interchangeable: build your model with whatever framework you like; it will run unchanged on all other frameworks/platforms/stacks.

Regardless of the motivations, I actually think this is GREAT NEWS, and I hope that Amazon and maybe Apple, and eventually hopefully Google too will introduce and promote compatibility with this standard.

We all benefit from more interoperability.

<comment><USER3> You got it right. Tensorflow is HUGE in the AI community, Facebook and Microsoft are scared. I, for one, am a huge fan of Tensorflow and don't plan on learning anything new to do the work I'm already doing. Facebook and Microsoft should just join Google's coalition and use Tensorflow company-wide.

<comment><USER4> Actually, Tensorflow is huge in the data science community, but PyTorch is taking over ML research. TF is last year's cool thing. That's one reason why fast.ai just adopted Pytorch for their courses. Tensorflow is surprisingly low-level and needs libraries like Keras to be used easily. The field of Python ML tools moves fast...

<comment><USER5> I hope the ML community won't have to suffer the same kind of fatigue syndrom that has plagued the javascript community for the last decade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML) was released in 1997 to solve a very similar problem (but for lots of predictive models). I don't know that it ever really caught on. That was also promoted by the tool builders but not by the users.

While checking the wikipedia page, I'm surprised to see that it is still being developed (with a 2016 release): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_Model_Markup_Langua...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_Model_Markup_Language)

Please note that in 1997 it was NOT ridiculous to use XML for this.

<comment><USER7> PMML is definitely in use. There are occasional compatibility issues, but for the present, it is the standard for exchanging models.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Automatic productionizability of PyTorch models through Caffe 2 will speed the transition from research to production dramatically - this gives the environment a chance to compete with Tensorflow / Tensorflow Serving.

Frameworks (say, DL4J) have been using Keras as a loose way to share models between frameworks. It'll be fascinating to see if Theano / Tensorflow / DL4J / MXNet walk this path as well.

<comment><USER9> I was curious about their implementation since PyTorch and Caffe2 semantics are very different. Unfortuantly, the authors write:

> Currently, our tracer works with many common neural networks, but not some > of the more advanced programs in PyTorch such as those with dynamic flow > control. Over time, we will enhance ONNX and the tracer to support these > programs, so that developers can leverage full flexibility of PyTorch with > the high-performance robust deployment capabilities of Caffe2.

It is useful, of course. But it's rare for contemporary models to not use dynamic flow. In fact, PyTorch is popular because it encourages this dynamism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hi, Adam from DL4j here. I'm really excited to see this. We will work on supporting this format as well. We have a new pytorch like api coming out (dynamic graphs etc), so this fits nicely in to that.

I know a lot of cynics are looking at this and are thinking this is all politics. Honestly: I am glad something like this exists as a framework developer.

We would like to build an easy to maintain set of benchmarks for perf comparisons and have found that to be hard to do. We were originally going to lean on keras with our model import for this, but if we can get say:

dynet and chainer on board with this as well, I think it will help the ecosystem as a whole move forward.

(If you're asking "why" it's hard, main reason for us was the primary java interface, we are fixing this with a new python interface based on pyjnius)

Overall, I don't think the OpenCL folks will be able to pull this off (the field moves too fast). I feel like this is something the people who actually build the tools should do.

Ultimately, I would be surprised if tensorflow didn't hop on board at some point. A lot of ML models are being built in pytorch first now. No one loses having that easily accessible.

<comment><USER11> Hey Adam, I don't know about the "OpenCL folks" but we're able to use OpenCL to exceed TensorFlow + cuDNN throughput on the same hardware for real networks. We (Vertex.AI) mostly care about embedded platforms and we currently use Keras as our research front end but we're open to collaborations.

<comment><USER10> I am talking about their neural net format khronos is working on. We likely dont overlap. I am mostly focused on banking gov and telco. We are supporting this out of interest in being able to run these neural nets in our distribution. We have a few embedded use cases but we will likely write our own graph executioner for arm and the like.

<comment><USER11> Ah, I don't know too much about what Khronos is doing. We have thought about your work from the standpoint of supporting DL4j on a range of datacenter accelerators, we do tune for NVIDIA etc with good results. We're pretty framework and hardware neutral.

<comment><USER10> Feel free to file an issue on nd4j. That is our tensor lib. [https://github.com/deeplearning4j/nd4j](https://github.com/deeplearning4j/nd4j)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _> To directly export this code, ONNX would have to support conditionals [...]_

Does ONNX aim to serve as a human-readable and human-maintainable network description for experimentation and research, or does ONNX aim to serve only as a model export interchange format (primarily to be machine-interpreted)?

This could serve very well in the latter case, but would be quite problematic in the former -- where conditionals, for loops, etc. are _essential_ to a compact and readable representation of many network architectures.

Reading a static neural network architecture descriptor of a very deep neural network is akin to reading assembly code from a compiler that does loop unrolling. Static network descriptions work great when pushing a model to production, but are much less suitable for the research and development stages (IMO).

<comment><USER13> my guess is it is the latter.

If I have my own framework and I want to operate with this standard, I need to have the ability to map to and from ONNX's format. I don't think it is intended for people to write directly in ONNX's format to maintain compatibility. If it were, I'd imagine it would fall flat very quickly as people wouldn't want to rewrite everything in the hopes that their framework of choice will adopt it. Seems the intent is more like .odt to me than, say, Markdown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great move by Facebook to look beyond Caffe's legacy prototext file format which has become somewhat standard in computer vision, and unite Pytorch and Caffe2. Unfortunately there are limitations to the neural network logic that can be represented in configuration files, especially when dealing with dynamic networks. Most networks used in vision are static so that's where I expect this will add the most value. My only wish is that Caffe2 followed Pytorch's interface. After spending 5 minutes with Pytorch it's pretty clear that they got the interface design right.

</comment><comment><USER15> Michelangelo, announced by Uber 2 days ago ([https://eng.uber.com/michelangelo/](https://eng.uber.com/michelangelo/)), use another format for storing models/features and for serving data. It would be interesting to hear why they didn't use protobufs for storing features instead of their own system. My guess would be that they have a mix of scikit learn and tensorflow, and they didn't want to be too tightly coupled to tensorflow. Still, this move by FB and Microsoft is what happens when you're desperate - your frameworks are not being adopted, last chance role of the dice.

</comment><comment><USER16> Its interesting that this tool has no PATENTS grant.

<comment><USER17> Yangqing here from facebook. We consciously made it a MIT license as onnx is intended to be widely shared by a lot of participants, and MIT seems to be more widely agreeable among different parties co-owning it. It's also simpler.

<comment><USER18> Oh, so now there was no danger of this nasty patent trolls, like with react case?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> While this is awesome I'm personally wondering when big companies like FB and MS are going to standardize on a format for predictive models in general. [0] PMML exists but there are very few companies that are standing behind it.

[0] [http://dmg.org/pmml/v4-3/GeneralStructure.html](http://dmg.org/pmml/v4-3/GeneralStructure.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> Just imagine the world we will live in, when Facebook or Microsoft wins the race to general AI.

<comment><USER21> I imagine it will be like the Manhattan Project, impossible to contain to one company or country for long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm curious if FB/Microsoft considered Khronos Neural Network Exchange Format (NNEF) - [https://www.khronos.org/nnef](https://www.khronos.org/nnef)?

</comment><comment><USER23> So "AI" is equivalent to "neural networks" nowadays, eh?

<comment><USER8> That's not implied by the title. Neural Networks is a member of Machine Learning, which is a member of AI. PyTorch, Caffe 2 and CNTK are Deep Learning Frameworks. All Deep Learning Frameworks are AI frameworks, but not all AI frameworks are neural network / deep learning frameworks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why would you want to pile another black box on top of the black box?

<comment><USER25> It's black boxes all the way down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Any TensorFlow devs who might be able to comment on plans to interoperate with TensorFlow/reasons why it's not on the cards?

<comment><USER9> I am a regular TensorFlow (and Keras) contributor and I saw the announcement when you did. In either situation, Google contributors partcipating without speaking to the TensorFlow community or the Facebook and Microsoft authors not reaching out to the TensorFlow community, it's a bad look. However, it's entirely possible we'll hear more next week at the TensorFlow symposium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Now, it would be lovely if coremltools could support ONNX and convert ONNX model to CoreML.

<comment><USER17> Yangqing here (created Caffe and Caffe2) - we are much interested in enabling this path. Historically CoreML has provided Caffe and Keras interfaces, and having ONNX / CoreML interop would help a lot for everyone to ship models more easily.

Earlier in the year we provided compatibility between Caffe2 and Qualcomm's SNPE library, which follows this similar philosophy.

<comment><USER9> Hi, Yangqing! Nice project. B)

I want to clarify that Apple advertises Keras support for use with CoreML, but the converter uses a graph from the TensorFlow backend. It begs the question, have you spoken with anybody from the TensorFlow (or Keras) communities about collaborating?

<comment><USER28> CoreML supports Keras but not TensorFlow because Keras models form a well- structured subset of all possible TensorFlow graphs. It would be quite difficult to support completely arbitrary TensorFlow graphs, but supporting every Keras layer is relatively straightforward.

To answer your question: I had no knowledge of this ONIX project before the public announcement today. Speaking purely for myself, if I wanted to develop a universal model exchange format, the first step I would take would be to get in touch with the makers of the frameworks that sum to 80-90% of the market share -- TF, Keras, MXNet. But maybe such a strategy was thought to be superfluous in this case -- for instance, because ONIX may not actually be intended as a universal model exchange format.

<comment><USER29> To be fair, CNTK (BrainScript) has quite impressive list of features to support dynamic control structure (in a symbolic fashion, comparing to PyTorch which delegated much of the dynamic control structure to underlying language Python). I think Tensorflow and CNTK probably the only two frameworks pursued such implementation strategy. IMHO, looking back, supporting control structures may not be that useful (see the recent attention based models, all of them can be unroll'ed to ordinary graphs), but it is so interesting to implement!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have heard about something similar in the open source community:

[https://deepdetect.com](https://deepdetect.com)

Doesn't it sound like a better long-term option than corporate-driven political initiative?

</comment><comment><USER30> Does that mean that we can see the AI implementations facebook uses?

They invented the format so I'm sure we'll see everything facebook does in the new ONNX format. From the placement of ads to whatever...

(sorry for the sarcastic comment)

</comment><comment><USER31> ONNX plans to support TensorFlow as well: [https://github.com/onnx/onnx/issues/3](https://github.com/onnx/onnx/issues/3)

</comment><comment><USER29> Doesn't seem to have support for control structure (If, While etc.).

</comment><comment><USER32> Why a new format ? Why couldn't protobuf, hdf5 or the Apache Feather/Arrow format (which counts Hadley and McKinney as contributors).

I understand there could be something unique in this format, but really keen to understand what.

<comment><USER17> Yangqing here (caffe2 and ONNX). We did use protobuf and we have an extensive discussion about its versions even, from our experience with the Caffe and Caffe2 deployment modes. Here is a snippet from the codebase:

// Note [Protobuf compatibility] // <comment><comment><comment><comment><comment><comment><comment><comment><comment>~~ // Based on experience working with downstream vendors, we generally can't // assume recent versions of protobufs. This means that we do not use any // protobuf features that are only available in proto3. // // Here are the most notable contortions we have to carry out to work around // these limitations: // // \- No 'map' (added protobuf 3.0). We instead represent mappings as lists // of key-value pairs, where order does not matter and duplicates // are not allowed.

<comment><USER32> pretty cool and thanks for that reply! Did you look at something like Arrow/Feather, which is looking to get adopted as the interoperable format in R/Pandas ... and maybe even Spark. There's been quite a bit of momentum behind it to optimize it for huge usecases - [https://thenewstack.io/apache-arrow- designed-accelerate-hado...](https://thenewstack.io/apache-arrow-designed- accelerate-hadoop-spark-columnar-layouts-data/)

It is based on Google Flatbuffers, but is undergoing enough engineering specifically from a big data/machine learning perspective. Instead of building directly over Protobuf, it might be interesting to build it on top of Arrow (in exactly the same way that Feather is based on top of Arrow [https://github.com/wesm/feather](https://github.com/wesm/feather)).

<comment><USER17> Interesting data, thanks!

We chose protobuf mainly due to a good caffe adoption story and also the track record of it being compatible with many platforms (mobile, server, embedded, etc). We actually looked at thrift - which is Facebook owned - and it is equally nice, but our final decision was mainly to minimize the switching overhead for existing users such as Caffe and TensorFlow.

To be honest, protobuf is indeed a little bit hard to install (especially if you have python and c++ version differences). Would definitely be interested in taking a look at possible solutions - serialization format and the model standard is mor e or less orthogonal, so one may see a world where we can convert different serialization formats (JSON <-> protobuf as an overly simplified example)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> can we send messages through it?</comment>


Ask HN: Why are there still so many 2-letter domain names available? - <AUTHOR> Why are there still so many two letter domain names available? Well, technically domain names that are four letters in total (two letter TLD and two letter SLD). But still, why are there so many?
- There is only a very short supply of them, and relatively speaking (2626x, where x = number of TLDs), the total number is easily within the lower ten thousands. - They're super easy to remember, and quick to type for customers/visitors. - As someone who's worked in I.T., if given the choice for an "internal" domain, I'd choose (and have chosen) a two-letter domain all day long. It's way less typing and makes configuration of devices much easier... so why haven't others thought the same way... - Since there are so few, and they are special by nature, why aren't "domain sharks" scooping them all up and trying to resell them for a profit? - Most of them cost the exact same amount as a standard domain name
So yeah, I'm just curious as to why they're apparently not nearly as appealing as longer domain names. I understand that it's hard to put a business/organization name into 4 letters, but still, I'd think that there are at least a few thousand geeks out there like myself who'd want to have one or two. <comment><USER2> "I'd think that there are at least a few thousand geeks out there like myself who'd want to have one or two."

So, do you have one or two? If not, why not?

Looking at [https://catechgory.com/](https://catechgory.com/), my guess would be because they're in obscure top level domains.

What good does it do to own, for example, "ae.je", if many users will go to "ae.com" when they try to visit your web site?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, I do own a few! :)

That's very true that they're mostly obscure domains, but that doesn't make them any harder to buy. Most domain registrars will show you all or most possible TLDs that are available for your domain.

You are right though, it is something that would be harder for users to remember than a traditional TLD, but then again, it's only four letters... so I don't know. But still, I use mine for configuring servers or whatever other little thing I need (making incredibly short hostnames, email addresses, URLs, etc.), so I figured many others would do the same... but I guess not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Any examples?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure exactly what you mean. If you're looking for a production example, then here's one:

Priveasy.org is an open source group that uses P5.vc (the shorter domain's letters sounded-out sound kind of like "Priveasy") to configure its servers, as well as to provide nice, compact links to its users, when accesses account resources.

If you're looking for examples of all short domain names, then I recommend checking-out this link, as provided by Someone: [https://catechgory.com/](https://catechgory.com/)</comment></comment>


Attacked on Twitter by Russian Catbots - Have you ever seen this before? - <AUTHOR> http://www.chloebregman.com/2013/03/14/attack-of-the-russian-catbots/

<comment><USER2> Play it cool. 300 cats can't be wrong.

</comment><comment><USER3> there are goats as well!

</comment><comment><USER4> hahaha</comment>


Fundraising Acceleration Is the New VC Investment Thesis - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/02/fundraising-acceleration-is-the-new-vc-investment-thesis/ <comment><USER2> fund·rais·ing ac·cel·er·a·tion (vc-speak)

the act of investing in a company at an exorbitant valuation today that it might or might not be able to justify at some unknown point in the future

example usage: Marc didn't want to wait until Slack had enough revenue to support a billion-dollar valuation, so he used fundraising acceleration to lock in an investment at a billion-dollar valuation today

see also: insanity, investment bubble, greater fool theory, simulated time travel

<comment><USER3> In the same tone, there's a stock XYZ at $1. I think it will go to $10 in the next year, so instead of buying in at $1, I buy at $8? Wow. On Wall street, this is called "dumb money".

<comment><USER4> This is also called the "efficient market hypothesis", and is a cornerstone of basic equity valuation. The idea is that if you have information that a company's stock is sure to rise in the future, it is rational for you to pay any amount up to the point at which you believe it will be valued in the future to acquire it now. And so the stock price will instantly reflect all public information about the future prospects of the stock.

You may call it "dumb money", but if so, then all money is dumb.

<comment><USER5> Grandparent mentions "greater fool theory", which is perhaps a clearer counterpoint to your (quite correct) point.

It's also worth saying that upside risk is typically coupled with downside risk (which is something you're hinting at) -- the wider market has the probability of failure built into its current pricing. So, somewhat perversely, even if you don't think it'll have a billion dollar valuation with probability exceeding that of the market, it can become a better investment simply by increasing the probability of > $0 outcomes (by reducing that downside risk). Demonstrating that with a pivot seems like actually good evidence.

I wouldn't make the same investment, but there are a couple angles to discuss here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "This absolute laser focus on the winners has led to the current data revolution in venture investing, where firms hire teams to scour the web for signs of startups breaking out, all in the hope of catching the next winner before any other firm realizes what is happening."

Next up, the black hat version of this. People who help companies fake the signals. Assuming this isn't already happening.

<comment><USER7> This is already happening. I've known startups from top accelerators paying for visitors from stumbleupon to show as a signal of "growth".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Slack's marketing is genius. The whole play on making Email look bad is brilliant and many startups are following suit.

But to be quite frank Slack is making things a whole lot worse (for me only perhaps?). It's super distracting. I have to add a new app to my workflow (while maintaining email). And Slack is much more demanding (end up checking it much more the email). Too many notifications and msgs. It isn't as ground- breaking as they want us to believe.

I wonder how long it will take for others to feel the same way I do? (maybe I'm the outlier?)

Mr. Butterfield is doing a stellar job leading the wheel. Congrats!

<comment><USER9> It's not just you, I might also be crazy. I find "if it's not something you're willing to write me an email about, it's probably not something worth bugging me about" a useful filter.

The difference in the requests I get over IM-type platforms vs emails (or even ticket trackers and the like) is pretty big. For whatever reason, most people don't want to bother writing an email, so they'll actually do more investigation on their own before sending one...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > What might look like a frothy bubble though, is in fact a much more > fundamental change in the way venture capitalists perceive investments... > Some might call this a bubble, but Slack is literally the embodiment of the > fundraising acceleration thesis.

"This time is different."

[Nothing against Slack: great idea, great team, great execution after a pivot. Kudos to them for their success so far.]

</comment><comment><USER11> You know, when people start developing elaborate theses about how Everything Has Changed and There Are New Rules and This Time, Seriously, No Really, _This Time Is Different_ ... it's time to start worrying.

</comment><comment><USER12> Slack feels like IRC with a cleaner interface, attachments, and user-accounts. You can even connect to it with IRC clients if you choose.

Regarding VC investments ... What prevents VCs from simply inventing wealth? That is, what is preventing a VC from investing $X dollars at an absurd valuation just to amplify the perceived value of their own investment? This chart perfectly shows the investment versus the valuation: [http://graphics.wsj.com/billion-dollar- club/](http://graphics.wsj.com/billion-dollar-club/)

<comment><USER13> In a thinly traded market this is basically what happens. Domain names provide a good comparison if you've followed that market at all in the past 15 years. The art market as well. In some cases blatent manipulation. You may be able to expirment yourself, identify a very rare set of collectibles, may be a comic book which rarely shows up for sale on eBay. Buy it every time. Hunt down all available copies of it. Eventually you will own all copies and the price history. Liquidating it all at a profit is a whole other event.

The danger zone for these valuations is what if the company doesn't really have something thats going to last? We assumed that with Facebook, because of all the social networks that came before. So far we are wrong. We assumed this would be the case with Zynga and so far were right. What if some of these software startups end up being more like games and less like things that stick around a long time?

Complicated subject. Lots of exceptions. Certainly the role of the network effect is playing a huge role in these valuations. The scary thing is that in order to justify these valuations founders will have to become more aggressive in pricing and billing practices. We are greatly benefiting from dirt cheap software right now, the assumption being its more important to grow the network and reach that critical mass before the competiton. What happens when all of these SaaS companies decide its time to cash in and raise their prices? (and by raise prices, more like do tricky things to maximize how much you are spending, vetern marketers know all about how to pull that one off.)

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the response. Sometimes it feels like in their quest to find the next unicorn, VCs are taking the short-cut and gluing horns onto horses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> One can argue that Slack is overpriced, but writing like this is silly:

"To put it another way, if Slack had the same annual revenues as LinkedIn at $1.5 billion in 2013, it would be valued at almost $140 billion and become one of the most valuable technology companies in the world."

The Price to Sales ratio doesn't stay constant. It's out of whack in startups on the assumption that the startup grows into it. Comparing Price to Sales of a startup versus a mature firm is just plain stupid.

</comment><comment><USER15> So this is some kind of PR fluffery from KPBC I guess? Count the number of times the author uses this awkward and meaningless "fundraising acceleration" fabrication ...

</comment><comment><USER16> I still don't understand where slack differentiates from hipchat.

<comment><USER17> HipChat was already acquired. As was Yammer. So they aren't VC relevant any more. Products often stagnate once acquired anyway.</comment></comment>


Python urllib CRLF injection vulnerability - <AUTHOR> https://coocoor.com/advisory/cve/CVE-2019-9740 <comment><USER2> This is far from uncommon. Back in DEFCON 2017 Orange Tsai gave a talk about inconsistencies in different URL parsing libraries in different languages. The opening example was a single URL that had a different hostname when parsed by urllib, urllib2, and requests. He also demoed examples of using unusual characters like spaces and newlines to talk to Redis or SMTP while pretending to be HTTP.

Slides: [https://media.defcon.org/DEF%20CON%2025/DEF%20CON%2025%20pre...](https://media.defcon.org/DEF%20CON%2025/DEF%20CON%2025%20presentations/DEFCON-25-Orange- Tsai-A-New-Era-of-SSRF-Exploiting-URL-Parser%20in-Trending-Programming- Languages-UPDATED.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Orange actually reported this bug to urllib. The ticket in the HN link is actually a DUP of Orange's original finding

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Python urllib3 maintainer here. urllib3 made a change to be more RFC-compliant in December, and which fixed this issue, but that change has not been released yet. We are in the process of looking into that.

I have verified that Requests, which uses us, appears to have its own handling, back at least to requests 2.0 (released in 2013) that prevents this when used directly as an abstraction layer on top of urllib3.

<comment><USER5> Interesting. I was recently debating whether to use Requests or just urllib3 directly. Figured I'd minimize dependencies by just using urllib3 but didn't think it might actually be more secure to use Requests. Great work btw!

<comment><USER6> What is your use case that would make minimizing dependencies to this extreme a valuable activity?

<comment><USER5> I was just using urllib3 to post a form on another website and get the resulting html page, then parsed it with BeautifulSoup.

Since it was just a one off use case and ultimately very simple, I didn't see the need for any more functionality. Why bother with the extra packages? Or do you think it's still worthwhile to use Requests even still? Is it not just unnecessary bloat that might slow runtime?

<comment><USER6> There's a lot to unpack in your comment, but I'll just work with the most easily verifiable thing for you; what was the response time of the resource you were querying with urllib3, and do you think using requests instead of urllib3 directly would be an order of magnitude (or two) more or less runtime?

<comment><USER5> I admittedly didn't test the response times between the two, but just felt adding additional dependencies was unnecessary. I don't realistically expect the speed to be too different between the two, but the less I have to rely on external libraries the better. If I can get the job done with urllib3 why use Requests?

Though admittedly, after reading OPs statement, I see that Requests might actually have some extra security that urllib3 alone might not have. But barring security improvements or the need for extra features that Requests has, seems like using Requests for my usecase would be adding unnecessary complexity.

<comment><USER6> > but just felt adding additional dependencies was unnecessary

This notion, especially in Python and HTTP client programming, is wrong and will cost you many many more hours than it will save you.

Requests is an entire order of magnitude easier to use than urllib3, and while we may be dealing in minutes for this specific scenario, you will make up for any time investment you pay to learn Requests the very next time you need to do HTTP related work in the language.

It's a matter of not overreacting to a cost, and you're paying way more than you should to get a much smaller gain than you could, if you paid that cost elsewhere (by learning/using Requests and how to manage dependencies in Python, which you have to do anyway with bs4).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The link should probably be changed to the actual bug: [https://bugs.python.org/issue36276](https://bugs.python.org/issue36276)

<comment><USER8> Which appears to be a duplicate of another bug filed in 2017: [https://bugs.python.org/issue30458](https://bugs.python.org/issue30458)

<comment><USER7> I just noticed that. I guess they didn't think it was actually an exploitable bug?

Edit: this bug sat around for almost 2 years, it will be interesting to see if it gets fixed now that it is getting attention on Hacker News

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Relevant (and super cool) previous work, done by Orange Tsai: [https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-17/thursday/us-17-Tsai-A- Ne...](https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-17/thursday/us-17-Tsai-A-New-Era-Of- SSRF-Exploiting-URL-Parser-In-Trending-Programming-Languages.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER10> Python 3 urllib and other stdlib protocol modules also use `splitlines` which splits on various unicode "newlines". Could that also be exploitable somehow? [https://discuss.python.org/t/changing-str-splitlines-to- matc...](https://discuss.python.org/t/changing-str-splitlines-to-match-file- readlines/174)

</comment><comment><USER11> Key takeaway: don't expect a library to do the safe thing; always sanitize all your input. (If your language supports taint mode, enabling it can prevent these bugs)

</comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone know if this also affects the Requests library? Does it use these under the hood, or is it all httplib? (I'm pretty sure that's the case)

<comment><USER13> it probably does. Requests is built on top of urllib3 and the bug report mentions that urllib3 is affected as well.

<comment><USER14> Are urllib and urllib3 same thing?

<comment><USER15> No, urllib is a standard library module in python 3. urllib3 is a 3rd-party package. See also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19423367](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19423367)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> seems like an ad for coocoor

actual CVE entry: [http://cve.mitre.org/cgi- bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2019-9740](http://cve.mitre.org/cgi- bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2019-9740)

</comment><comment><USER13> Probably worth checking other implementations. The comments already mention that urllib3 is affected as well.

<comment><USER17> Why does python need three different versions of urllib?

<comment><USER18> Urllib2 introduced breaking changes with urllib so a new lib was added to preserve the functionality of the old one. Urllib3 also has breaking changes but it purposely doesn't live in the standard so it can be changed more readily.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does Twitter push tweets to followers? - <AUTHOR>

How does twitter serve tweets to followers? In a typical CRUD app, it makes sense to store tweets in a `tweets` table and grab tweets from people that an account is following.<p>Does this scale at the size of twitter? If no, how do they do it? <comment><USER2> [http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/12/19/how-twitter- store...](http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/12/19/how-twitter- stores-250-million-tweets-a-day-using-mysql.html)</comment>


When Is It Safe to Leave a Baseball Game? - <AUTHOR> https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/take-this-cheat-sheet-to-the-ballpark-to-decide-when-to-leave/ <comment><USER2> This is an odd assumption: that the primary (or _only_ ) reason people attend is to see the home team achieve a lead that is unlikely to be surmounted. None are fans of the sport itself; none are fans of the visiting team, etc.</comment>


How to Use a Web App Firewall (The Right Way) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.port80software.com/2012/05/08/how-to-use-a-web-application-firewall-the-right-way/

<comment><USER2> Really useful tips. Makes me feel like I've been using my WAF blindly...</comment>


How I was rejected at Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://mbalmeida.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/how-i-was-rejected-at-microsoft/ <comment><USER2> I think you left the interviewers some bad impressions about your technical skills.

Blame the interviewers throw easy questions at you and think that it's all they get is blatantly wrong. Most Microsoft's devs are better than that!

Based on my experience, the fact that you did not get harder questions show that they thought you did not sail through the easy ones as they expected. And believe me, knowing the answer is one thing, explaining it clearly is another thing.

When I interviewed in Redmond last year, I got 5 interviews total. The first one is easy with all similar questions you got. The second was harder as the guy asked me a problem that starts off easy but when you add more data to it, it becomes more like an open problem. The third one is a OOP design question. The fourth one I met an engineer that joined MS from 1992 and he asked me only one algorithmic question that I have never seen before (Believe me, I read all those 'interviews' books and I know many ). It was very strange tree structure that I did not remember. I spent about 20 minutes stared at it and I got the first part after 35 minutes and then he asked me to explain how I finish the problem. He seemed to be OK with my answer. The last interviewer is a manager. He did not ask me anymore technical question but focus mostly on my preferences, experiences, previous jobs and some behavioral questions.

I think the interviews are on par with other top companies like Google ( but Google focus much more on scale ), Facebook and Amazon ( focus more on design and scale ).

In conclusion, rest assure that your interviewers are much smarter than you think. Hope you do better next time!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm absolutely positive that Microsoft Devs and Testers are top notch. That's why I wanted to work there and why I was sad about the result of the interview. It was not me that didn't get harder questions. The other 3 that were interviewing at the same time said exactly the same thing (they gave the same problems to everyone). In each interview, with the exception of the second one that I solved two coding problems, I was asked a lot of behavioral questions before like 10minutes of the end, where I have to code.

<comment><USER2> For every open position, they will bring in onsite about 10 people. And most of those 10 are pretty good too. So you had to make a very good impression with the interviewer to make the cut. And of course, a some luck won't hurt too.

Again, I reiterate my point : knowing the answer to a coding question is one thing, explaining it to others is the other thing. They won't hire anyone cannot explain such easy questions clearly. It needs some practice!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of mine at MS over a decade ago. Breezed through the first two and I was starting to think I had this nailed. In the third one they took me to this older guy's office and he sat in this weird contraption looking chair. Details are fuzzy maybe because it was perhaps the most traumatic interview I've ever had. He dived right into Windows Kernel and I knew I was in trouble 5 minutes into the interview. They sent me back to my hotel after that one and I knew I was done for. A week later the rejection came by mail. Anyway overall good experience except for those harrowing 45 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER4> In my experience, Microsoft interviews tend to build off of each other. You start off with a fairly simple interview, and the things you mess up (or that the interviewer didn't feel you were especially strong on) are the things they probe deeper on further into the interview. I'm not at all surprised that you felt it was pretty easy if you only met with 3 interviewers, considering a full loop is ~6 real interviews with a fluff interview at the end if you've 'passed'.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Are you fucking serious? Probably HR persons do not know what a compiler is"

This is actually common. You're right, the HR person wouldn't know what a compiler is, she is following a script with admissible answers to the problems and just listening for keywords that show you have the bare knowledge to pass the screening interview.

From the tone of your comments about the interview, it sounds like you seemed shocked at some questions, thought they were simplistic, etc. and probably let this show. _This_ , I think, was the biggest factor why you didn't get it. Many interviewers have no idea how to interview, and they ask pet questions culled from online sources and friends. If they get the idea that you find some question simple or "beneath you" they take it personally.

So, lesson for next time: React to all interviewer questions equally and control your frustration.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand your point. But, for instance, the first interviewer said : "if you've already solved this problem, please say it and we change it". I think I didn't do anything bad when I said it was pretty common and the solutions are X and Y... I'll not lie and say that's the first time I have to code a solution to reverse words in a String and dealt with it like it's an NP Problem...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Surprising that they gave such detailed feedback. That's usually a big no-no. And for a good reason as we can see here. If the candidate disagrees with the feedback, he will get angry. But good luck with the search.

<comment><USER7> I interviewed with one of the bigger org's at MS in Seattle about a month ago, they told us that they would be unable to give us feedback if we didn't receive an offer. I suppose different branches of MS could do things different?

Fortunately I didn't have to worry about that, starting this summer :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I was also surprised about the detailed feedback. I was not expecting that. It was too superficial to help you to improve. I can say that I interviewed for Microsoft Dublin.

<comment><USER7> As a fellow new grad, good luck man!

I have also felt the hurt of rejection.. I got in a few stages at Google, got dumped. I made it to a final interview at Apple, and they bailed. Applied to Pixar, Mozilla, 10gen, twitter, etc... also with little to no word back at all.

Honestly I feel like the #1 thing I learned from my job search is that the interviewer you get has a insane impact on the outcome. This is especially true of technical phone interviews, I felt like I was literally unable to communicate with some of the interviewers at google because of a language barrier. The whole process seems heavily based on luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I get the impression that you weren't really interested in working at Microsoft. I personally wouldn't bother working there, mostly because I would have to program in Windows. I think if you got hired there you would probably less happy than you are today. Getting stuck working at a company you despise is one of the worst things you can do to yourself.

</comment><comment><USER9> It sounds like they may have thought you struggled more on the reverse list of strings question than you thought you did. I think its something they expected you to just crank out.

With that said, implementing a heap with two stacks seems pretty good. That's something that certainly doesn't just jump to the front of my mind at all.

You'll do fine. You seem like a bright kid.

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if the green usernames may actually help posts by new users gain traction. I found myself more likely to take a look--curious to see what sort of submissions new users are offering.

</comment><comment><USER11> Did I miss the memo on green usernames?

<comment><USER12> both accounts are very recent. so i suspect (see my other comment) that new users are "green" and that this post is spam that is being pumped by a sockpuppet (posted by a green user with, initially, a single reply from another green user). nice :o)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> That's too bad. Good luck finding a new job.

</comment><comment><USER12> what are green links? spammers? recently registered users? or both?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm a new user.. I only registered today but I read HN for a long time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why is your name green?</comment>


A One-Minute Attack Let Hackers Spoof Hotel Master Keys - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/one-minute-attack-let-hackers-spoof-hotel-master-keys/amp <comment><USER2> Nothing surprising here. The "electronic lock" (and fire/burglar alarm) market is full of snake-oil salesmen and incompetent people who sell the stuff assuring you it's secure without actually having tested it.

With conventional locks a good locksmith can tell you which one is safe because they know how locks work, how to crack them and could've even tried to crack it themselves.

With new locks the "locksmiths" have zero idea how the lock even works and only go from information the reseller or original manufacturer (often a shady Chinese company) provides, without even any attempts at actually understanding how the thing works.

There is also no concept of updates, even though an electronic lock is a computer and is subject to the same vulnerabilities as their desktop counterparts.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do manufacturers ever account for these faults? Like paying for all of the burglaries that have likely happened?</comment>


Richard Feynman explains confusion - a good definition of "hacker"? - <AUTHOR> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3164300309410618119#1m22s

<comment><USER2> This may be just me, but I think we should stop attributing all favorable qualities of a person to the label 'hacker'. Being a hacker's good and all, but prepending 'hacker' to everything that's interesting isn't exactly accurate.

<comment><USER3> I agree and argue that it is against the guidelines due to 'hacker' being gratuitous. Either the submissions stands on its own merit or it falls.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=728020>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Something else struck me when watching that video.

I'm often struck how my intelligence diminishes when I'm frustrated, anxious or angry. I've read research that seems to confirm such--such feelings interfere with short-term memory.

But Feyman exhibited such sheer joy and, if he carried that on when he meditated on a problem, that may well have helped him.

</comment><comment><USER5> Well you just broke even on the crackpot index: <http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html> (#8)

<comment><USER6> To be fair, shouldn't it be ok to mention their names if showing a video of them giving a talk?

Also the index is about potential contributions to physics, which this post is not about.

<comment><USER5> Its not about mentioning them, its the blatant misspelling of their names "Einstien", "Hawkins" or "Feynmann" (<http://www.google.com/search?q=Einstien,+Hawkins+or+Feynmann>)

EDIT: Feynman is spelled Feinman in Russian texts which andreyf maybe familiar with :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The name's Feynman.

<comment><USER8> Not in Russian textbooks; andreyf may have been a little tired and 'Confused' or sth.

<comment><USER9> Well, he wasn't Russian, was he? In New Joisey they spell it with a 'y'.

<comment><USER10> Oy! But his dad was sort of Russian (of Belorussian Jewish ancestry and growing up in a country with Russian the official language). The native spelling was not in Latin characters so there was a bit of freedom of how to transliterate the name: Фейнман.

Had he moved to the USA in the middle of the century, the standard of the transliteration then was to convert the "й" character to "j" so he could have been Fejnman.

It is also possible that the original name was indeed Feinman in Yiddish with "ei" read as in German (the long i), which would explain how it became Фейнман in the first place (transliteration from German Yiddish by a simple substitution based on the spelling while distorting the phonetics). Some Russian Jewish names appear to have gone through a similar process. This is speculation, however; I have not done any research on the origin of the Feynman's family name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Good article <http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0504.html>

</comment><comment><USER12> You know that John Nash used the word "hack" and "hacker" too, right?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Is it a good definition of a "hacker" as someone who doesn't avoid the Confusion Feinman is talking about, but rather embraces it?

</comment><comment><USER13> I have a machine with the hostname set as 'banana' to remind me video.

</comment><comment><USER14> <obligatory comment on "Feinman" spelling></comment>


Is Serverless Just a New Word for Cloud Based? - <AUTHOR> https://www.percona.com/blog/2018/06/20/is-serverless-just-a-new-word-for-cloud-based/ <comment><USER2> It feels like most comments on this thread haven't really read the article, which opens up by defining the term. The problem is that it has an extremely bad title (any title that you more or less refute in your opening paragraph is a bad title).

A good title would probably be "Benefits and Risks of Going Serverless", which is a subhed that occurs later in the article.

<comment><USER3> The main issue is that "Serverless" is a really crappy name given there are actually servers involved.

Although confusing/misleading names might be good at getting attention because they prompt people to dig deeper to figure out what they mean.

<comment><USER2> The name "serverless" is fine. Everything is ultimately run on servers of some sort; the point of the name is that consumers don't manage (or really in many cases even need to be aware of) those servers in a serverless model like AWS Lambda.

<comment><USER3> The issue is that, on a first impression, "serverless" sounds a lot more like p2p than "developers/admins don't need to worry about managing the servers".

<comment><USER4> I disagree. I believe if you're thinking about how you want to deploy an application, you can say, "We want to be serverless in that regard: we want to manage as little as possible." It's on par with saying, "We want to be hardwareless in what we manage" and so you hire IBM, with a managed services contract, to deliver, install, maintain, and so on, your office IT equipment.

You're "hardwareless" from the management perspective, the cost center perspective, in that you don't own it, manage it, or maintain it, you simply use it.

I'll concede it's a bit of a mind bending term, though. You have to think of it from the right angle and in the right way (which means taking off your engineer hat to a degree.)

<comment><USER2> It's not just a question of managing as little as possible; it's also a question of the unit in which you want to scale and be invoiced (by invocation or by some broad unit of capacity).

<comment><USER4> I want to be invoiced as little as possible and as efficiently as possible. If I have a choice, when developing an MVP for something I have no idea the market wants, I want to be billed as little as possible, not every hour whether I use the kitchen sink or not.

<comment><USER3> This whole thread makes the point by itself. It shows how it pretty much requires at least a small conversation to understand what the term "serverless" means. This implies it is not self-explanatory at all, hence confusing and misleading.

<comment><USER4> This applies to virtually every technology in existence. I've never had to explain what Serverless means to another engineer, only people, like management, who tend to be non-technical :)

<comment><USER3> Sure, you could also argue the same about all the words in the dictionary, because at some point everyone had to learn what the words they are using mean.

However, "serverless" is pretty much the only concept (please post more examples if you know of any), which is used to talk about something that is not the literal meaning of the word (it's etymology).

The word "serverless" literally means "without server", but it's being used to mean something that requires a server.

It's almost as if ethernet connections had been branded/marketed as "wireless".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Serverless is just a new word for single-serving computation.

Everywhere I travel, tiny life. Single-serving sugar, single-serving cream, single pat of butter. The microwave Cordon Bleu hobby kit. Shampoo-conditioner combos, sample-packaged mouthwash, tiny bars of soap. The people I meet on each flight? They're single-serving friends.

~ Fight Club

It's the gig economy for servers. Rather than a server having a stable comfortable job, it must get one piece of work at a time and only gets reimbursed for services performed, not for its availability.

<comment><USER6> Yes, at 5x the hourly rate of a full-time server.

<comment><USER7> So it's consulting for servers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Serverless is Cloud 2.0. The goal is to abstract everything away, making it PFM so C-level execs at unicorn startups don't have to waste brain cycles understanding anything beyond their immediate "core competencies". And just like "the cloud" abstracted physical hardware, disks, etc. into PFM (you need a server, presto! an abstract server will appear when you cast the circle and wave money in Amazon's direction), so "serverless" abstracts away even this abstract server and its OS and software infrastructure.

The next step, obviously, is a softwareless infrastructure, allowing C-level unicorn execs to simply exert their will without going through pesky developers. Is this what the current "no code" trend is about?

<comment><USER9> Ah, I believe they're calling that Robotic Process Automation (RPA) now. Why bother to even look for the API docs for that shitty SaaS app? Just train Selenium to do it and feed it inputs, then hire some dude offshore to update the automation whenever some step breaks because they changed it on the other end.

Honestly it's faster/cheaper than doing proper integrations most of the time, simply because the tools are already well-known to the users so there isn't a lot of futzing around with unfamiliar tools or APIs.

It turns a technical challenge into a business challenge simply by automating the lowest common denominator through the stupidest possible means, and automating it through a point and click GUI. It's the final nail in the coffin of the swivel-chair data analyst at most companies, however.

This is already happening widely across fortune 500s today... the bloodbath is being felt by the Indian offshore folks who are losing a ton of basic automation support / development work to these RPA tools (which can be operated by onshore management consultants doing operational design work).

<comment><USER10> What RPA tools would you say are the best ? Anything you'd recommend?

<comment><USER9> Depends where you are in the market and what other tools you're using. I've seen it set up many ways; from just recording macros in SeleniumUI, hand- parameterizing them and running them on SauceLabs to being part of a full enterprise integration suite like Pegasystems.

I would say UIPath has a pretty good product at the low-mid range though. The high end tools require serious enterprise architecture capabilities like business process management already be in place. UIPath is pretty good if you just want to set up a simple API gateway, parameterize some flows and pass data back and forth.

This space is only now heating up, but IMO a dumb technology like RPA can be more transformative to the industry than we think simply because it's not technologically elegant. It does solve a real business problem (need to keep deep technical knowledge in many many areas on staff) with a very general- purpose setup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Serverless is basically "you write a stateless app and we'll take care of running it."

Like so many things in tech, it existed long before there was a catchy name for it. I'm sure Google wasn't even the first, but they were selling "Serverless" technology with App Engine 10 years ago.

<comment><USER12> CGI scripts anyone?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As someone who has been working almost daily with Lambda and other AWS serverless services for close to 2 years, it astounds me to see so much FUD and misinformation among one of the smartest technical communities that I know.

Serverless is about making as much computing power as you demand available on demand with a "pay only what you use" price model without demanding that you maintain the underlying systems. In addition, embracing this model tends to allow you to break out of the request driven model of needing to call APIs for everything. Instead, you enable a whole host of new event driven interactions between application components.

Even this article misses one of the more interesting advantages: scalability under varying load. AWS Lambda may cost more than an equivalent EC2 instance if run constantly, but it scales up and down almost instantly without adding cost. You just pay for the compute time. So, burst traffic is no sweat (up to your account limits or function configured limits). If your application has highly irregular load, Lambda can keep it more responsive while saving you money too.

And it is nothing like paying for shared hosting or other single unit, where you still have no horizontal scalability.

</comment><comment><USER14> Serverless just means that we don't run the server ourselves, and that we often get a direct connection between the client and a database like FireStore, without anything in the middle.

Many tasks can be done with reduced security privileges directly from the client, by setting up some declarative security via something like Firebase Security Rules.

We don't even need a server for handling File Upload, that is handled by something like Firebase Storage. Of course that there is a server somewhere, its just that don't develop it ourselves but we instead use it as a service.

For tasks that require increased security privileges, or for things like video or image processing we can still spin up a node server if needed using something like Firebase Cloud Functions.

The end result is that we only end up writing minimal server code, and almost all of our code is client code. This does not mean that there is no server though, so the term is a bit misleading but it still captures well the fact that we only have to write a reduced amount of server code.

<comment><USER15> How do you go directly from client to database with nothing in the middle while being unable to trust the client?

<comment><USER12> Policies are put in place in one fashion or another. You'd do this differently in DynamoDB or Firebase but basically you set up a rule like, users can only update records with a key matching their user ID. So that logic does end up somewhere. Instead of in a Lambda or Cloud Function the logic is "embedded" in the database. IMHO this is an anti pattern but what do I know?

<comment><USER15> ah I see, yikes. I agree with you. this is optimizing for some non existent problem (or at least a non obvious problem)

<comment><USER4> Just because you've never had to overcome or experience the problem, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

If you've ever had to develop an MVP from the ground up and build a business around it, services like this are critical to your acceleration, time to market, and budget.

<comment><USER15> that's why I said "or non obvious" I'm not totally sold on this saving time but I guess it could be argued depending on the expertise of the developer

<comment><USER4> > depending on the expertise of the developer

The more experienced the developer, the faster they are. The faster the technology enables you to be, the faster you'll produce something. Both go hand in hand.

An experienced developer would absolutely love Serverless for most problems they face. Having the option of doing as little Ops as possible and just solving problems in software is the very definition of a software developer (which certainly might be changing over time) :)

<comment><USER15> I still don't see where the savings of time come in. What you lose in "ops" you gain in configuration and assuming you don't have eidetic memory that has a time cost.

<comment><USER4> What configuration? I use AppEngine for a personal project I'm developing, and besides the app.yml file, which is about five lines long, I don't configure a thing. In fact, I don't even have to stand up databases to use one: I just make the API call to store the data and it's handled for me. Literally zero configuration.

That's in the standard environment. Even in the Flexible Environment the configuration is equally nonexistent.

Give AppEngine a try: I honestly believe you'll consider it the true definition of Serverless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That awkward moment when it is 2018 and you call serverless "new"

Isn't this 2015's topic?

</comment><comment><USER17> Serverless means you don't have to run the server. Even in the cloud you are running the VMs. You still have to deal with the OS, updates, apps and security.

PAAS takes it one step further, SAAS completely takes servers off you hand. You only deal with the app.

Serverless is probably sitting between PAAS and SAAS, function or code as a service. So maybe we should call it CAAS or FAAS. Serverless sounds nicer but is too vague and meaningless.

</comment><comment><USER18> At my job we are moving some resource expensive functions to AWS lambda, for us it is quicker to instantly horizontally scale and address load than to spin up a new instance that could take a minute to get added completely.

Moving everything into lambda doesn't make sense, but for instant horizontal scaling it makes some parts of our app much more responsive and parallel.

</comment><comment><USER19> The interesting thing about serverless for me is that although it's compelling to run services without needing to "manage servers", other tooling has largely closed that gap.

When I'm scripting a system deploy to AWS (for example), provisioning and deploying a Docker image to ECS, or even an AMI via Packer is a roughly equivalent amount of development work to configuring a Lambda.

And, usually a container or EC2 instance will have much better performance and cost characteristics than serverless. The exception is services that can benefit from a "scale to zero" capacity, which is great for personal projects but doesn't fit very many production apps.

</comment><comment><USER20> for me the biggest value to serverless functions is how nicely they tie in to the ecosystem of a cloud provider. using them to respond to storage events on s3 or database events or auth events is super easy and powerful.

</comment><comment><USER21> A nice middle ground is hiring the hardware eg. dedicated servers. Then you can install whatever software you want on them. And you can hire servers in many data-centers for redundancy. You get full control of the software, but don't have to worry about hardware, Internet connection, power, etc. If there are problems on one server you just revert traffic to another. Migrating from one provider to another is super easy, compared to serverless, SaaS and PaaS.

</comment><comment><USER22> It means someone else's server, wrapped in a nice package.

<comment><USER23> > someone else's server

Isn't that what cloud meant in the first place... and to be honest "nice package" sounds a little bit like a container.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> No, it's a new word for time-sharing.

</comment><comment><USER25> Serverless == task based

</comment><comment><USER26> In the AWS context it means stock Linux container on demand.

</comment><comment><USER27> Serverless is a long word for P2P.

At least, that's what makes most sense.

<comment><USER28> Serverless should mean P2P, but it actually means "outsourced servers"

<comment><USER29> "Serverless" is unrelated to P2P, although you could write serverless P2P apps/services. (Yes, I said "serverless services".)

"Outsourced servers" would be considered IaaS[1], which is sort of the most basic cloud-level computing abstraction. Abstraction levels increase as you make the leap to PaaS[1] and finally FaaS[3].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_as_a_service](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_as_a_service) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_as_a_service](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_as_a_service) [3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_as_a_service](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_as_a_service)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> No. It changes the essence of how we develop today. You don't even have to think about instance types or anything, you only have to think about your code, everything else is someone else's problem.

<comment><USER30> For all the wonderful people -1-ing this, care to elaborate why am I so wrong?</comment></comment>


The art of tour guiding - <AUTHOR> https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2015/june/1433080800/robert-skinner/art-tour-guiding

<comment><USER2> I've read this in one of the first rows:

"But extreme weather, mechanical problems, flies in the daytime, mosquitoes at night, _the Germans_ , the lack of sleep, the feelings of deep existential loneliness … all these things will conspire against you."

And I thought "the Germans"? But then I see this:

"someone would always ask what time we were going to arrive at camp"

"What time? I dunno. About 6.30, 7?"

"«OK! Thank you!» She turned to her friend. «He says we're arriving at 6.37.»"

</comment><comment><USER3> A fantastic read, reminded me of Bill Bryson style of writing.</comment>


Millions of unhashed fingerprints discovered on unsecured Elasticsearch DB - <AUTHOR> https://techerati.com/news-hub/biometrics-data-police-breach-cyber/ <comment><USER2> This is EXACTLY the type of thing GDPR was designed to enforce. (Other than uninformed tracking) pretty much this exact scenario. I hope the company gets fined to the fullest extent, as this absolutely shameful. The researchers attempting to contact 3 branches, with 2 turning them away/ignoring their emails is just the icing on the cake.

<comment><USER3> And plaintext passwords stored as well, on purpose, for auth...not accidentally in log files.</comment></comment>


Geeklist has launched from private Beta - <AUTHOR> http://gklst.tumblr.com/post/25387107273/geeks-unite-as-geeklist-launches-out-of-private-beta

<comment><USER2> Not sure I know what this product is by reading the announcement.

EDIT: The first sentence of your product launch blog should tell me what it is and why I should give a damn about it. I don't care about how lean you have been, how many people you had in your private beta or how many people want into it. Sell me on why I need what you just broke your backs building.

</comment><comment><USER3> Now that you're out of Private Beta, how about changing the big logo on the front page to reflect the change :)

<comment><USER4> Thanks, fixed.

<comment><USER3> Hey, the logo actually looks better now. It look clean without the private beta text below it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I think, the logo is somewhat ambiguous and reminds me a bit of this brand of toothpaste in SEAsia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlie> where they were either ignorant or dismissive of the implications of their brand. (sadly, in the Chinese language, the name of the product is still insensitive.

I know the mirrored and ligatured G's are a nice typographical feature, but I think they should think about changing it to avoid misperception. In this world, perception sometimes is more important than reality.

EDIT: Not to say it resembles the toothpaste logo, but rather reminds me of blackface/Golliwog (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golliwogg>). It's an unfortunate coincidence, though, as I said, maybe it's just me making it up to be more than it is.

<comment><USER6> I'm pretty sure you are reading too much into it.

Even with the reference I have to try hard to make the association.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> First thing I was expecting from a site called "Geeklist" was "Sign in with Github"... a little disappointed..

<comment><USER4> I want it as well, at the moment you can hook up to Github and publish your commits and repos on Geeklist. Soon you will be able to directly log in with it as well.

We have been pushing new features almost daily for the last few weeks so it is coming up very soon.

<comment><USER8> You can sign in with github once you have entered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why is this press release on Hacker News?

</comment><comment><USER10> Well. I guess it seems to be a _thing_ now..

What is everyone's opinion on this?</comment>


New iPod Nanos Look Like Gorgeous Tiny iPhones - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5942552/new-ipod-nanos-look-like-gorgeous-tiny-iphones <comment><USER2> It's actually a shame that this _isn't_ a phone.</comment>


The Design and Implementation of Modern Column-Oriented Database Systems (2012) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://db.csail.mit.edu/pubs/abadi-column-stores.pdf <comment><USER2> Discussion at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18076547](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18076547).

We've gone back and forth on this, because it's a bit of an exception to HN's "original source" rule, but acolyer's writeups add enough value to merit being posted here in place of the papers they're commenting on.</comment>


Coordinated Disclosure – how Apple can handle security bugs better - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/coordinated_disclosure <comment><AUTHOR> Coordinated Disclosure is a helpful way for users and security researchers to tell companies and software authors about potential security bugs.

Today's example of Apple and the macOS High Sierra root security issue is a prime example.

I'm the author of the coordinated disclosure README above, and I've also reported two large security bugs to Apple. Suggestions welcome.</comment>


Ask HN: Is it ethical to create an open source clone of proprietary software? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Yes. Competition is how we get better, cheaper things.

Also, "cloning" is a poor word for such activity. Writing code is hard and time consuming even if you're merely replicating functionality of an existing product. To me "cloning" implies that it somehow cheap or easy and it just isn't.

<comment><USER3> > Writing code is hard and time consuming even if you're merely replicating > functionality of an existing product.

Not all the time to be honest. Creating a finished, complete and useful product can involve a huge amount of prototyping and several redesigns. You have to try lots of ideas that don't work, throw code away, redesign the UI as it becomes more clear how the product is used, test on users etc. If you heavily base your product on an existing complex one you're likely taking a big shortcut.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> let's make it interesting. also, is it ethical to create a proprietary clone of an open source project?

<comment><USER5> Sure, as long as you are not utilizing any of the code from the open source project.

Crossing the line is using other people's work and calling it your own, regardless of open/closed source.

<comment><USER6> What if you're creating a proprietary version of yacc, and you're using yacc to parse domain specific language for your clone?

I think that's fair enough?

<comment><USER5> I'd agree in that case, mostly because the code does not have a restrictive license. Also, to me if you disclose that you are using yacc then you are being totally up front and have side stepped any issues. But in the case of like byacc the license specifically states you can use it in commercial or public code without restriction, so it is fair to use in my opinion.

Me personally, even in like this case where it isn't required or requested, I'd likely attribute the author or repository in my license file, credits or readme.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes. Commercial competitors are inspired by each others work all the time. That the clone is FOSS doesn't really matter.

</comment><comment><USER8> A game is not fair if the rules are not the same for everyone. At least, I would like to believe that anyone who watches sports would agree with this statement. Moreover, a game played with unfair rules is by its nature an unethical game. That's my opinion on the matter.

If in society it were made clear that copying everyone else's designs and market research were okay and to be sought when possible, then there would be little wrong with an open-source project copying the designs of a proprietary project. On the other hand, if a proprietary project is not allowed, in practice, to copy the designs of its competitors due to fears of legal problems or public backlash, then it would be unethical for an open-source project to copy other projects' designs since that would give the open-source project an unfair advantage.

At the same time, there is still an element of exploitation if in practice the only ones investing significantly in market research and R&D are the proprietary firms. After all, any time someone is reaping the benefits of someone else's work without giving back equally in one form or another, there is a type of exploitation going on.

Now, we should avoid thinking in black-and-white. We should avoid saying x is ethical while y is unethical. In the real system that is society, there are many variables involved, and these variables are floating point. You would need to plug all the values into the formula of ethics to really see the relative balance of ethics followed by any given project or company at a given time.

I can tell you from my own experience with (embedded software/hardware) R&D that coming up with a fully functional, reliable product in terms of design and approach is a _very_ costly operation. Simply measuring and cloning someone else's product is worlds easier than designing it in the first place. After all, the people doing the R&D are filtering out all the bad ideas for you -- and most ideas are bad ideas, often for reasons not clear from the start.

Like I said, however, one of the most important factors to consider is whether everyone is playing by the same rules. Doing things your competitors are not allowed to do without getting into trouble is cheating. And cheating is unethical -- despite the inner animal in us thinking there's nothing wrong with cheating as long as we're the one benefiting. Remember: The question is not whether you _can_ do it, but whether it's _ethical_. These are not the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER9> That's what many of the surviving *nix's in the world are.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is it unethical to open a restaurant in a city if that city already has another restaurant?

<comment><USER11> I don't think that is a fair comparison. Is it unethical to clone the printed menu of a restaurant? The set of dishes it offers to its customers? A single dish?

If your clone would be used in a competing for profit restaurant, I would answer "yes, it is unethical" in all 3 cases (getting inspired by a dish feels different to me, and can easily be ethical, depending on scale and similarity. Getting inspired by 20 dishes from a single restaurant? Unethical in my book, unless there is a truly tremendous lot of inspiration involved.)

The world, however, sees things different for software. For example, you can legally clone the PC BIOS or fonts, as long as you only look at its outside. That is like cloning dishes from a restaurant based only on looking at what they present you when you buy the dish (= without visiting the kitchen, quizzing the cook, or dumpster diving to discover what the ingredients are)

But that is legally. For the first, most people would agree it is ethical. For the second, you'll find differing opinions.

Now, the open source angle adds a twist that makes my answer "it depends/I wouldn't know". Somehow, cloning, say, a product that isn't for sale anymore or doesn't run on modern hardware, and was produced by a huge company feels more ethical than cloning a $5 product created by a single developer who makes just enough to live from it from that product. In either case, cloning feels more ethical to me if it is done for one's own use, more so the less wealthy the cloner (cloning for own use, AFAIK, is legal around the world. For example, you can create a Rietveld chair for your own home, but not sell it or give it away as a present. The first copy of cloned software that you use for yourself, for me, is in the same boat. I know it doesn't make sense, but the millions of additional copies one can make from that 'for own use' software more or less are collateral damage)</comment></comment>


R 3.4.0 released - <AUTHOR> https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/NEWS.html <comment><USER2> "The JIT ('Just In Time') byte-code compiler is now enabled by default at its level 3. This means functions will be compiled on first or second use and top- level loops will be compiled and then run. (Thanks to Tomas Kalibera for extensive work to make this possible.)"

Very exciting.

<comment><USER3> Does this mean simple for-loops in R will be faster? Currently R can be order(s) of magnitude slower than MATLAB / Python. Does one have to do something specific to use the JIT or is it automagic?

<comment><USER4> Speed differences of that magnitude are largely due to bad interactions with R's data allocation model. R for loops are not that slow if there is no allocation going on, and there are ways to organize the allocation ahead of time: [http://www.win-vector.com/blog/2015/07/efficient- accumulatio...](http://www.win-vector.com/blog/2015/07/efficient-accumulation- in-r/)

So my guess is: no the JIT won't help for ultra slow code as in my experience that isn't the problem in that case.

<comment><USER5> While this is a great article, it also transmits some truth about R: writing anything fast is a pain in the ass. Especially frustrating when you hear those R "experts" repeating "use apply" functions. The truth is, the design of the language requires you to actually learn some dirty details and _NOT_ solely rely on the idiomatic syntax.

I like R quite much, but this is a sign of a bad language design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Changelog: [https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-devel/NEWS.html](https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-devel/NEWS.html)

<comment><USER7> Thanks! We updated the link from [https://cran.r-project.org/src/base/R-3/](https://cran.r-project.org/src/base/R-3/).

<comment><USER8> That is the incorrect link. The correct link is: [https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/NEWS.html](https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/NEWS.html)

This links to the R-DEVEL branch, which is not R 3.4.0, but rather the development version _ahead_ of 3.4.0. Since 3.4.0 is a new release, the correct link is to the R-RELEASE changenotes.

<comment><USER7> Thanks, we updated the link again.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sputnik Panik : a tiny game about sending satellites in orbit - <AUTHOR> http://sputnikpanik.com/

<comment><USER2> Um... Flappy Space Programme, anyone?

<comment><AUTHOR> Both from the same team ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have never heard Borodin so jazzy. It really works!</comment>


Show HN: Well-researched ideas for SaaS Products - <AUTHOR> https://nichesaas.co <comment><USER2> There are only two ideas there, well researched is unlikely, but unknown unless you pay</comment>


Ask HN: Open Source Zoom Alternatives? - <AUTHOR> Has anyone tried any open source Zoom alternatives? Any you would recommend? If not, what was lacking? <comment><USER2> I've tried Jitsi Meet. It works OK, at least for a small enough number of participants (I don't know, <= 8 ? YMMV) but for more people things it didn't worked so well.

It also is meant for meetings between peers, for something centralized (like a classroom) I've seen good comments about BigBlueButton, but I didn't tried it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Jitsi is what you're looking for.</comment>


How I built an online community - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiehackers.com/@jimmyjazz/2482b8a058 <comment><USER2> The goal of a community shouldn't be SEO, getting acquired, branding or any of the author's points, really. "Back in the day", communities existed to bring like-minded people together around a shared interest, full stop.

The author is describing how to build a community that you can sell, not how to build a community whose netizens enjoy being part of.

<comment><USER3> I found indie hackers kinda cool back in the days.

Some stories about devs who made a living by building their idea or people who learned to code to do their thing. An alternative to the whole VC backed big selling start-ups.

Now it seems to be filled with some kind of strange side-hustle people who want to make a quick "passive" buck :/

<comment><USER4> Is there something true about the idea that nerdy things get ruined by becoming cool and profitable? AFAIK I always see the same story in the world with communities that make the leap from harshly criticized -> fringe-cool (for lack of a better word); the next step is -> mainstream cool + vultures sweep in to make money.

Computer games: nerdy/uncool -> cool/dominated by passionate developers -> corporate money-making conveyor-belt development & profits > quality

Gay communities: pariahs -> cool place to live/college students -> money- making developments, gentrification & profits > communal destruction

SV, Portland and Seattle have also been described this way. Online communities as well.

<comment><USER5> People looking to make money often essentially strip mine the uniqueness of a place and the influx of people fundamentally changes the culture. I don't think it always makes it worse but if you like a place as it is it would seem reasonable to generally dislike change

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How big/active was this community exactly? It seems like a content/media site, rather than a community, unless I'm missing something.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I agree with this. Built with Shopify seems like a decent service, but it's not really the sort of 'community' I or most people would think about when they hear the word used. It's more like a blog that does interviews with people if anything else, with the community side being less of a focus than the written articles. The community aspect is basically meaningless there.

Instead, I feel it would have been more interesting to see an article like this about running a forum or social media site akin to Twitter or Reddit. A site where you can't just fall back on the efforts of one person where you struggle, and where the users are front and centre with their work being key to the site's success.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Indiehackers is a great community. If you are on the forums, there is some really great help being given.

We had a meetup in NYC this past summer with Channing and a few of the others that were local like Zack from CodeforCash and Cory from OppsDaily

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't see a community here. This is more like a curated list of interviews.</comment>


Comcast monitors Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/06/comcast-twitter-and-the-chicken-trust-me-I-have-a-point/

<comment><USER2> PR at work. I'd like to think that Comcast follows blogs and twitters, looking for unhappy customers. However, I'm willing to bet that a PR person picked up Arrington's tweet and said 'fix this or face negative branding'. If you aren't an influential blogger, don't expect companies to fix your problems with any haste.

</comment><comment><USER3> Stop thinking that corporations are monolithic entities. "Comcast monitors Twitter" is as correct as saying "Stanford founded Google" or "The Graham family is working on a Lisp variant".

Someone at Comcast follows Arrington's tweets, or uses a service like Google Alerts. It might be for work, or it might just be for the same reasons any of us might do such things. Maybe that person emails the link to someone who is able to do something about it. The end.

</comment><comment><USER4> They could use our beta tool: [http://twist.flaptor.com/freq?gram=comcast&submit=Show+t...](http://twist.flaptor.com/freq?gram=comcast&submit=Show+trends)

(Running on a desktop machine right now, please be gentle)

<comment><USER5> looks cool

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's what they said about the phone, until millions got one, and then gradually, voice support deteriorated. Imagine another few thousand people takling about the Comcast problem on Twitter. Will Comcast execs be able to follow Twitter to address individual problems as closely as they do now. I have my doubts.

</comment><comment><USER7> why go tru all this. All they need is to monitor their customer service lines to help customers.

</comment><comment><USER8> I am very curious how do they track blogs about them: special software? subscribe search result as feed? or simply do manual search every x minutes?

<comment><USER9> Maybe Twitter finally has a business model here.

<comment><USER10> Or Tweetscan etc. has a business model and Twitter commercializes their API taking the cream off the top.

Twitter is bigger than we imagine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does Comcast monitor all of Twitter or just Michael Arrington's?</comment>


Xbox Live Indie Games: no way to make a living - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/07/xblig-feature.ars <comment><USER2> Pretty standard set of complaints about the service. The thing is, most people that can only get on XBLIG are just not making very good games (either in terms of gameplay, production values or general appeal), so sales wouldn't be much higher if they were on XBLA. They might actually be lower because the developers wouldn't be able to benefit from press about struggling on XBLIG :). Make a game that is good enough to get approved for XBLA, PSN or can get nominated in IGF and instead choose to release on XBLIG and the go and complain about the quality of the service hurting your sales.

Achievements would probably lead to higher sales, but I can't think of a system that wouldn't be abused. The worst case, which can be culled by the XBLIG peer review system, is a bunch of "press A to get 50 points!" games for $0.99. Those games are pretty easily blocked, but XBLIG does have a lot of weird joke games and weird non-game apps. It's hard to draw the line between supporting these types of games and deciding what a fair amount of challenge for an achievement is.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you look for QA jobs? - <AUTHOR>

Hello all,
I've been in QA for almost couple of years. Any QA folks who follow HN? Any websites that you follow to find about new QA jobs? What do you guys do to look around for QA jobs?
Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
--Aneel <comment><AUTHOR> Sorry. But title should have been "Where do you look for QA jobs?".</comment>


Ask HN: Move to California for Work? - <AUTHOR> Currently I work in Salt Lake City for a financial company on contract, but my background check has taken 3 months and quite honestly has pissed me off. I have applied to a business analyst position but not counting on it. I currently have a BA in Business with a Minor in Marketing and currently am in my mid 20s. As a plan B I was thinking of taking the jump and moving to Sacramento if I could land a job there or in the Bay Area. I do have a small github , have been working on a side commercial project I plan to commercialize, and also my mentor I grew up with in the Midwest lives there. I don't want to go Willy nilly into this, but if I can get a job that is concrete I am wondering if moving there from SLC might be a good idea or I am blowing hot air? I have been trying to make some new projects and learn some new things, such as Java, but not trying to rush. I mostly have dabbled with scrapping and packages like beautiful soup. Also I was thinking of sprucing up my resume and placing my LinkedIn location in SF Bay Area. Am I stupid for thinking this and also I do have a fiance who is currently not in college so would it be feasible for us to make this work? Thanks. <comment><USER2> The Bay area is famous for very high priced housing and long commutes.</comment>


High School Sports and School Start Times - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/04/how-school-start-times-affect-high-school-athletics/522537/?single_page=true <comment><AUTHOR> "High-school sports represent one of the most consistent roadblocks barring change."</comment>


Safari users cannot properly review Merge Requests on GitLab.com - <AUTHOR> https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/58625 <comment><USER2> This will be fixed in the release 11.9 [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab- ce/merge_requests/25913](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab- ce/merge_requests/25913)</comment>


Videographic, the future of infographic? - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ertAvE9JxDQ

<comment><USER2> Oh gods, please, no. The enforced linear nature, the droning voice, a momentary lapse of attention and a link is missed, the inability to scan quickly, and the snail-on-valium pace. Don't force me to work at your speed - there are things I do faster, and things that take more work.

So please, please, give me written words and carefully crafted diagrams every time. I want information, not passive "edutainment" that's neither educational, nor entertaining.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've just discovered this, what the Economist calls, "videographic". As expected it's been produced quite well and communicates its topic, the presidential race, quite clearly while backing it up with data. Usually, I would expect this to be published in the form of an infographic. However, after watching it I am convinced that the video format is even more accessible. Therefore, my question to the community: Do you guys think we will see more videographics and less infographics in the future?

Certainly videographics now are much smaller than infographics (as judged by Google search results 280k vs 30m)</comment>