Mushrooms may 'reduce the risk of mild brain decline' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/health-47554966 <comment><USER2> The correlation seems a bit broad. If you eat a lot of mushrooms, it increases the probability you cook and eat fresh vegetables. That itself is a big factor in health.

<comment><USER3> I agree, though I think studies like these encourage further studies. Researchers are basically saying that there is evidence that points in a certain direction, so let's follow it and see what it reveals.

I'm personally extremely excited about the suggestions of this research, and am looking forward to future studies that are more in-depth.

<comment><USER2> You're right, I should not be so quickly dismissive. More knowledge is always good either way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "People who remember eating mushrooms more often have dramatically better memory"?

<comment><USER5> Could be true as I don't remember the last time I ate mushrooms. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The National University of Singapore study's findings were based on 663 > Chinese adults, aged over 60, whose diet and lifestyle were tracked from > 2011 to 2017.

What concerns me is how many variables were tracked.

Every year, come Superbowl Sunday, we hear about all the patterns: no team that had an under-32 coach from West of the Mississippi has ever won (I've no idea if that's true, but that's an example). The problem is that there's so many variables compared to data points that it's easy to find a pattern.

663 adults sounds like a lot of data, but this wasn't a study about mushrooms, it was tracking many different variables in diet and lifestyle. Maybe the mushroom pattern is random chance.

There's also correlation vs causation. Perhaps mushrooms are eaten more in a region where mild brain decline is less common. Maybe mushrooms taste better to people with genes that also make brains not decline.

All that said, as a guy who loves eating mushrooms I fully support further studies.

</comment><comment><USER7> Chinese mushroom eaters. Goodness only knows what the cultural connotations and confounding variables must be.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if the study was actually focusing on Mushrooms and brain decline, or on a broader set of topics (other foods, lifestyle etc.). If it's the latter, that might just be a small part of a large dataset, thus the result of p-fishing.

</comment><comment><USER9> > "may"

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I hate weasel words like that too. Eating sand "may" make me a genius. For that matter it "may" allow me to fly!

<comment><USER3> At this point, it's not actually been tested.

"May" is an appropriate word here, because there is a suggestion (based on the study) that something may (or may not) be correlated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sigh. I read the article thinking it was going to be about psilocybin. Those kinds of mushrooms seem to help me ward off brain decline. :-p</comment>


In With A Bang, Out With A Whimper: Calacanis Walks From TechCrunch Lawsuit - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/02/in-with-a-bang-out-with-a-whimper-calacanis-walks-from-techcrunch-lawsuit/

<comment><USER2> I found it a decent piece until he threw in the "finally" in the last paragraph. Pretty lame.</comment>


'Man on the Moon' moment – the year's big breakthroughs in medicine - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/health-50813226 <comment><USER2> > But doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital attempted an untested "phage > therapy", which uses viruses to infect and kill bacteria. Phage-therapy > never became mainstream medicine and the field was eclipsed by the discovery > of antibiotics, which are much easier to use.

Yes, phage therapy quickly disappeared after antibiotics were discovered. At the time, antibiotics were more convenient as they usually help against a wide range of bacteria while with phages you need to specifically test which phage works best for the strand you want to fight. It takes days with phages vs minutes with antibiotics.

The co-discoverer of phages went to georgia and helped establish phage research at a medical institue [1]. The institute survived through the horrible times of stalin and later it became of strategic importance as the west didn't share antibiotics with the soviet union. Due to the strategic importance, samples had to be sent to the institute from all over the soviet union and now the institute has one of the largest phage collections in the world. It has continued giving phage therapies to patients for decades, up until this day. Definitely not mainstream but don't call it untested!

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

<comment><USER3> > The institute survived through the horrible times of stalin and later it > became of strategic importance as the west didn't share antibiotics with the > soviet union.

Penicillin and Streptocide were shipped to USSR under Lend-Lease in industrial quantities and saved many hundreds of thousands lives.

<comment><USER4> That's true, but Lend-Lease ended well before Stalin's death.

<comment><USER5> You're nuts if you think the USSR didn't have penicillin and other antibiotics.

<comment><USER4> Penicillin and plenty of others sure, but it's a huge list and resistance has long been fought via the use of novel antibiotics: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antibiotics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antibiotics)

USSR's issues where generally more economic than technological. However, they did lag behind the curve in introducing new antibiotics. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Soviet_Union#/m...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Soviet_Union#/media/File:Soviet_Union_USSR_GDP_per_capita.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In my opinion the most important medical advance that happened was reversing methylation based age indicator for the first time in a human. It's a bit sad to not see something so important on this list.

<comment><USER7> For anyone curious, I believe this is the relevant paper: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6826138/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6826138/)

And a blog post about it: [https://www.activemotif.com/blog-reversing- epigenetic-age](https://www.activemotif.com/blog-reversing-epigenetic-age)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just once I'd love to see an article that instead of breathlessly promoting ultra-expensive, risky, and unlikely to scale technologies, emphasizes how inexpensive and straightforward processes and procedures are far more effective for global health increase with reduced costs. While some of the concepts in this article may go on to be successful, they will mostly just increase the total cost of care.

<comment><USER9> Would you really want to read it? It's going to be boring...

\- wash you hands often and don't touch your face unless you just did

\- stay out of midday sun, over 45 degree elevation

\- no alcohol, simple carbs, or other addictive substances

\- no prolonged seating; walk some distance a few times a day.

\- modest stretch and exercise (like hipster yoga)

\- 8 hours of sleep; observe sleep hygiene.

\- prioritize reducing stress over "making a difference" and such

\- prioritize fulfilling social interaction

\- prefer a job that doesn't torture you but gives a modest sense of accomplishment

\- if you are a doctor follow checklists

\- if you're not a doctor follow checklists anyway

EDIT:

\- plan vacations as far in advance as you can and generally sprinkle in your life something unconditional to look forward to

\- try dog or cat sitting for your friends; I've found that a good cat is a permanent +4 boost to mood every day for $100 per month

<comment><USER10> wtf is hipster yoga? Leave out the cynicism please

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's a shame that there's no mention of the migraine related breakthroughs. Two new types of drugs that target CGRP (Calcitonin gene-related peptide) were approved and brought to market. One type is sold as injections and is used to prevent migraines, the other type is a tablet that's used to stop an acute migraine.

About a billion (!) people are affected by migraines, so any new treatment has the potential to be very beneficial.

</comment><comment><USER12> Mentions phage therapy as a one liner. Kept alive on life support (metaphorically) by Soviet scientists across the life of the antibiotics era which increasingly feels like it too is on life support.

<comment><USER13> I heard about that many years ago, but isn't it something that fundamentally has to be customized rather than mass produced? Of course, there are other therapies these days that are as well.

<comment><USER14> Customized to the bacteria it should kill, not the patient.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I know this is supposed to be good news and we should feel good about this, but as a generally healthy person all my life reading this I'm just shocked by the horrible diseases and illnesses that happen to good people just trying to live their lives. Through no fault of their own people end up with pain or disease and their quality of life, their hopes, their dreams, their daily life is affected. There's not a lot I can do to help any one dealing with pain and illness, but I want the best things for those of you who are. It's not your fault, and it doesn't matter if it is, nobody deserves a life of pain and suffering and other bullshit. We need to do the best we can for those affected, including making sure everyone has access to quality medical care.

<comment><USER16> When you think about it for a while is not only illness that can happen, actually everything could truncate your life in a second. So try to enjoy every second you have, I think it's the best advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The biggest breakthrough for me would also be free medicines and Universal healthcare for everyone.

<comment><USER18> It's much less sexy than some of these technologies but universal access to Canadian-quality & cost healthcare worldwide (including in the US) would save so many more lives than some esoteric phage treatment that will surely cost $1M/patient.</comment></comment>


A Belch in Gym Class. Then Handcuffs and a Lawsuit - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-27/a-belch-in-gym-class-then-handcuffs-and-a-lawsuit <comment> norea-armozel I have to wonder why schools are deciding to call police on such minor issues. Mind you, I'm looking at this situation from the lens of being a very violent in my own childhood. I would have random tantrums for no good reason. I don't know why I was so angry, but it was amazing I was never put in juvie or an insane asylum as a kid.

But being annoying in class, burping, is now an offense worthy of arresting a child? Sorry, but this is something that is far out of proportion with the behavior. At worse, the kid should've been cooling his heels in the principle's office until mom/dad/whatever came to pick them up and probably tear them a new one at home. So, I just don't see why cops even factor into this matter at all. No drugs, no actual violence, no sexual stuff. Just a kid... BURPING. Wow!

</comment><comment><USER2> This is a hammer problem. When all you have is a hammer (arrest) everything is a nail.

<comment><USER3> How do they only have arrest?

The police officer could have sat with the child for a few minutes, discussed why the behaviour was inappropriate, and let them return to class.

(Or a normal member of staff could do this, why do American schools have police on staff?! To strip search children, according to the footer in the article.)

<comment><USER4> They could have give him detention and if that didn't work suspend him. It's worked for a 100 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's insane to me that schools have a police officer assigned

<comment><USER6> Land of the free, baby.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Students are the clients, not the product. The teacher should be fired for calling the cops, and no, it doesn't matter that the cop is referred to as a Resource Officer.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why was he pretending to belch in class like that?

If you're going to act like a jerk don't be surprised when people are a jerk back to you.

<comment><USER5> > Why was he pretending to belch in class like that?

Because he's a child. That doesn't warrant being handcuffed into the back of a police car and sent to a juvenile detention facility</comment></comment>


Hephy Workflow PaaS v2.19.0 Release (fork of Deis Workflow) - <AUTHOR> It is our pleasure to announce that Hephy Workflow v2.19.0 (codename: Tag-Team) is officially here! Hephy Workflow is the open source fork of Deis Workflow which was EOL by Deis Team on 03/01/2018 .
The Deis Team went on to work on Helm and Azure at Microsoft and this open source project was forked by Team Hephy as Hephy Workflow.
https://www.teamhephy.com/
-Team Hephy (Kingdon and Anton) <comment><USER2> This is Kingdon and we're happy to answer questions of any kind!

For anyone who has not heard of Deis Workflow, it is a Kubernetes project from the same team that brought you Helm. The workflow that it enables is "git push" to deploy. Dockerfile and Docker "pull-style" image deploys are also possible.

The Deis project itself is very well documented, but Team Hephy is still nascent. We are in the process of building our own documentation. The fork is currently very close to the original, so all of the prior documentation is still fine.

We have mostly added support for newer Kubernetes API versions in this release, as well as some updates to the platform router.</comment>


Strange Cargo at Kennedy Airport - Confiscated Items - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/07/30/magazine/20100801-taryn-simon-contraband.html <comment><USER2> Cow-dung toothpaste?</comment>


Report from My Williams College Teaching Sabbatical Semester (2016) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.csc.kth.se/~jboye/Boye_WilliamsCollege.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Adding a comment to explain what's inside: the author, who is on the CS faculty of Sweden's top technical university, spends a semester teaching at Williams College and uses most of this report to reflect on differences between KTH (a large elite European research university) and Williams (an elite American liberal arts college). An excerpt:

> The fact that Williams students are so consistently strong (with very few > exceptions) have some implications: Most or all students can be expected to > pass a given examination, whereas at KTH a course which everyone passes is > looked upon with suspicion (this is particularly true for intro courses). > Unless the admission procedure at KTH is changed to involve some kind of > aptitude test, it is unavoidable, I think, that the intro courses at KTH > will act as that filter instead (even if it seems a wasteful system both on > a individual and a societal level). Moreover, at Williams lots of > individually adapted help can be given to the few students who experience > problems in a class. At KTH, fewer such resources exist (although there is > some help to be had in basic math and computer programming). The Williams > students always have the option of contacting their professors directly, and > visiting them during office hours. Very few KTH teachers have office hours > to my knowledge. A female master's student of mine described the situation: > "At KTH one reads a number of very difficult courses at a very high pace, > and there is really nobody there to help you. Unless you're able to find or > create a good study group among your peers, you're unlikely to graduate".</comment>


Bill Gates on track to own no Microsoft stock in four years - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/03/us-microsoft-gates-idUSBREA410YS20140503 <comment><USER2> Whether Gates owns Microsoft stock is of little relevance to either Gates or Microsoft. He's clearly not selling because he needs the money; he's selling because _eventually_ he (or indeed his philanthropic foundation) will have more use for cash than MSFT shares.

As the article says, he is selling the stock progressively. I know very little about stock market strategy, but presumably this is the most effective way to divest without flooding the market, shocking the market, sending signals, prompting investigations of financial impropriety, etc.

<comment><USER3> "He's clearly not selling because he needs the money; he's selling because eventually he ... have more use for cash than MSFT shares."

So, iow, he wants the money.

<comment><USER4> needs vs wants

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The billion-dollar question is, of course, _why_ is Gates selling? He personally doesn't need to sell so much stock -- he's already got enough cash at hand.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation doesn't need it either -- it's endowment is currently $40.2 _billion_ (i.e., that's how much cash & investments it has available for grants), and it's giving away "only" $3.4 billion a year, so it won't need new cash injections anytime soon.[1]

If Gates believes Microsoft's stock is a good long-term investment, he (and the foundation) would be better off if he were to hold on to the stock and sell it for a lot more in coming years.

Something doesn't add up.

Perhaps this wasn't a "sale" of stock in the ordinary sense, but some kind of transfer of stock ownership to the foundation's endowment?

\--

[1] [http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General- Informatio...](http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General- Information/Foundation-Factsheet)

<comment><USER6> > _why is Gates selling?_

Diversification? I don't see the point in remaining one of the largest shareholders in a single company, especially if you're not going to take an active role.

> _Perhaps this wasn 't a "sale" of stock in the ordinary sense_

He's been selling his stock for years, I believe.

<comment><USER7> I agree. The article explains exactly that in the second sentence:

"Gates […] has sold 20 million shares each quarter for most of the last dozen years under a pre-set trading plan."

This isn't a former CEO getting out while the getting's good, this is a guy who's been consistently diversifying his portfolio for over a decade. Either he thought MSFT was a bad _long-term_ investment back in 2002 (which seems unlikely; Windows XP just hit the market doing gangbusters) or he thought that having the entirety of his fortune tied up in a single company is dangerous.

He still has 330 million shares in MSFT. At around $40/share, that's still _$13 billion_. If he sells 300 million more shares (91% of his remaining holdings), he'll still have around a billion bucks invested in Microsoft. He's a rich dude, but it's still a billion dollars!

He also has the advantage of being Bill Gates. Barring any catastrophic mistake on his part, he'll always be able to influence Microsoft, even if he isn't anywhere near their biggest shareholder.

<comment><USER8> One day, MSFT will become a bad long-term investment. Selling regurlarly is a good way to disengage without triggering any panic among shareholders. I do not like the man, but Bill Gates has always been very clever for business. BTW, I wish the best to Satya Nadella.

<comment><USER9> In 2014, how can you not like Bill Gates. He's a far better person than Steve Jobs ever was. He's making the world a better place.

<comment><USER8> I have finished my studies in 1993. I have seen all the innovation between 1982 and 1990 (Commodore, Amstrad, Oric, ZX, Turbo Pascal, ...) and how Bill Gates has killed software I was using (Stacker, dr dos, gem, ...). I think he has contributed to slow down innovation by his monopolistic tactics (windows undocumented, ...). Microsoft bad behaviour has been clearly demonstrated in trials. I think that the current wave of innovation does not owe anything to Microsoft. Now, he may be another man, I do not know, but I know what he did to computer science.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Most founders have a sense of entitlement to their companies and understandably so. In fact, it becomes a generational entitlement, as can be seen with family businesses and family fortunes.

Gates displays advanced thinking in divesting his entire ownership. I imagine it must have been a difficult decision to let go so completely. This is admirable.

<comment><USER2> He hasn't sold it all yet; for all we know he might have instructions to retain one percent. Or π percent. Bill is always going to have some spiritual importance to Microsoft, whether he owns 4%, 1% or a single share certificate elegantly framed for his bathroom wall.

<comment><USER11> I think Gates has stated he won't be leaving anything for his children.

<comment> jon-wood More accurately he wants to leave them "enough that they can do anything they want, but not enough to that they can do nothing".

<comment><USER12> which translates into $10M I think

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you're ever in this position, and you own a massive chunk of a highly liquid stock, I have one word for you ... diversify

<comment><USER14> Good advice. For me, it's hard to imagine the world's richest man isn't already pretty diversified.

<comment><USER15> At some point, the point of diversification doesn't hold a lot of value any more. You typically diversify to protect your assets/principal/etc. There's little that could happen on the world markets to obliterate Gates' wealth to the point where "diversification" would have had a substantially different impact on him and his family.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> You do realize it says: "Assuming no change to that pattern". Can't Reuters apply that analysis to any event and extrapolate "reportable" results?

Some examples: \- assuming no change to the Facebook user acquisition pattern, it will reach over 20B users in several years \- assuming no change to the growth of a company, it will become larger than the market in 5 years

<comment><USER17> It's much easier to make reasonable assumptions about a pattern that is intentional and easily executable upon, such as regularly selling stock one already owns. User acquisition, on the other hand, depends on many variables out of one's control. Also, people use something called critical thinking, e.g. Facebook can't attract more customers than there are humans, something you will find useful as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Maybe he doesn't think Microsoft will do very well in the future, something I also believe. Both Windows and Office will become almost completely commoditized in the future, by Android and iOS. This has already started with Microsoft starting to offer free versions of Windows for some type of devices, on which they make no money. It's just a matter of time before this happens to most of their market segments (except enterprise, where I expect them to keep selling Office and Windows for quite a while).

<comment><USER16> Microsoft's revenue and net income has been growing over the past years, so while the media is happy to declare it dead, it is still in a good, health position.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Microsoft is doomed! Surely if anyone knows a good reason to sell of shares, it's the founder!

Or, more realistically, Gates thinks his money is more worthwhile as cash than stock. It would be much easier for him to leave his philanthropic legacy a pile of cash instead of shares in Microsoft, so he's probably just shifting that balance now.

<comment><USER20> He's not going to hold it as cash, it's going to be held as more diversified investments. He wants his foundation to far outlive himself.

<comment><USER21> No, the plan is to wind down the foundation within 20 years of his and Melinda's deaths. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Lifespan)

<comment><USER22> My favorite section is actually the Criticisms. I find myself finding ways mentally to dismiss them, because of the massive good the foundation is doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I know he has an investment vehicle of some kind to manage his wealth (I think it's called Cascade?) but does anybody know what it has stakes in? And his quoted wealth figure doesn't include what he's given to his foundation, right? I just think it's pretty amazing that he's still #1 or 2 on the richest list given how little he owns of Microsoft and how much he's given away.

<comment><USER24> Cascade is in Kirkland. I've heard they have around 100 employees. In addition to managing Bill Gates' portfolio, they also manage the portfolio of the Gates Foundation. They intentionally keep a very low profile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Here are his most recent sales. To quote Chazz Michael Michaels, the amounts are mind bottling: [http://biz.yahoo.com/t/38/567.html](http://biz.yahoo.com/t/38/567.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> No comments about how Paul Allen has been doing the same thing?

<comment><USER27> Sci-fi memorabilia doesn't buy itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Maybe a dumb question - if he only owns 330 million shares ($13 billion net worth), how is he worth $77 billion? That's quite a bit of a difference...

</comment><comment><USER29> He'll probably want to keep a few shares -- now that Balmer isn't the CEO company has a shot of getting back on track.

<comment><USER30> Your comment is based on absolutely nothing aside from a little Balmer bashing. It's unlikely that he's selling because he thinks MSFT will under- perform, he's selling because he doesn't want the stock anymore therefore Balmer being replaced as CEO is unlikely to be an influencing factor.

<comment><USER29> August 23rd, Microsoft announce Balmer's departure.

[http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/press/2013/aug13/08-23an...](http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/press/2013/aug13/08-23announcementpr.aspx)

Stock is up over 25% since then.

[http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:MSFT](http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:MSFT)

I'd say there are some other people who agree with me that Balmer probably wasn't the right fit, and certainly overstayed his welcome.

<comment><USER30> I'm not arguing about Balmer, I'm saying that Bill's decision is probably nothing to do with Balmer or the state of the company. Why don't you re-read my original comment?

Here; I've highlighted the key parts for you:

" he's selling because he doesn't want the stock anymore therefore Balmer being replaced as CEO is unlikely to be an influencing factor."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> According to some stories, Ballmer now owns more stock than Gates. I'm wondering if Ballmer will start selling off his stock and how investors will react to that.

<comment><USER31> Indeed. Strangely enough, one of those some is this very one. "According to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, Gates now owns just over 330 million Microsoft shares after the sales this week. Ballmer owns just over 333 million, according to Thomson Reuters data."

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> [http://xkcd.com/605/](http://xkcd.com/605/) I'd like to point out that extrapolating like this is silly.

<comment><USER33> I don't think you read the article.

"Gates […] has sold 20 million shares each quarter for most of the last dozen years under a pre-set trading plan."

<comment><USER32> I have. It still looks like linear extrapolation, for a very complex system (the mind of a very smart human being).

<comment><USER33> "a pre-set trading plan".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is a simple method to transfer files privately to users? - <AUTHOR>

Preferably something that has an API <comment><USER2> Email? Be more specific about your use case.</comment>


Ask HN: Any front end engineers transition to ML/AI engineering? What's it like? - <AUTHOR> I'm a frontend engineer and I really enjoy it, but I do feel like there isn't much more for me to learn or room to grow. I've been thinking about trying to start learning ML, but I'm not sure I'd like it. Seems like it would be very different from what I'm currently doing. My interest in it at the moment is money related, but I'm confident that could change once I really get in it. I'm also confident that my company would give me the opportunity move into a relevant role, so long as I knew what I was doing.<p>What I'm most interested in knowing is what the day to day work is like, and how different is it from every other software engineering job? <comment><USER2> I recently switched from frontend to a backend/ml role at a large tech company.

At a high level the work is pretty similar. Instead of working with design/product you work with data science/product. The conversations do tend to skew more technical. I remember we talked a lot of about user experience on my old team whereas now it's more about the stability of our services/pipelines and the maths behind the models and features.

One thing I'd call out is that, as an engineer, you're largely responsible for productionising what the data scientists come up with. There can be varying degrees of collaboration on the modelling depending on the team/project but at the end of the day you're there to make the thing work in the real world.

Compared to other engineering jobs, I think the work tends to be more experimental, i.e. can you quickly write code to test an idea.

If you're interested in trying it out, go for it. There's a tendency to silo engineers (backend, web, mobile, etc) but code is code and you can ramp on the concepts in a few months :)

On the other hand, if you're loving frontend there's nothing wrong with staying there. The depth is definitely there but you might need to change teams/companies to keep growing.

<comment><USER3> What are some of the languages/frameworks/tools you use at your current role?

<comment><USER4> yeah i wanna know..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Am going through this exact transition. Some key learnings I had:

1\. Front end is customer obsessed. Trying to think through all customer navigation paths and design UI covering all aspects of usability. ML engineering, many times, is not customer facing. There will always be times when you don't know how your product / algorithm is put to use. Be prepared to accept such a change.

2\. ML engineering is a lot about data - raw and unstructured. Your flexibility to work with any kind of data, being creative to come up data related processes is important.

3\. Front end is overloaded with frameworks for improving developer productivity. ML frameworks have just set the foundation and your contributions at this stage to some of these will help it to grow stronger.

4\. Both front-end and ML need deeper understanding of the domain on which it is applied to. Understanding every business logic involved will help to build better algorithms as well as front end workflows.

5\. Lastly, ML too need a lot of front end tools to capture data, annotate data, cleanup data, measure model outcome etc. So, in lots of areas Frontend and ML go hand-in-hand and knowing both would be a unique skill-set in the market.

Good luck on expanding your domain to ML.

</comment><comment><USER6> > My interest in it at the moment is money related

Moving from where you are now to a more senior position is most likely both an easier and a more profitable option for you. ML doesn't necessarily equal higher pay. And the roles that do come with significantly higher pay require years of math and statistics. Overall, the money is a really bad reason to get into a completely new field, especially this one.

The good thing is that you don't have to immediately go all in - you can read, learn and experiment and reevaluate your thoughts on the field once you have a bit more experience in it.

</comment><comment><USER7> It is fundamentally different. While you know how to code - you lack a lot of "side" knowledge. If you are a senior frontend developer - it will take at least few years to become experienced in backend/ML role.

<comment><USER8> Backend and ML are very different things. Well, ML may happen at the backend, of course, but it's often done in a completely non-web context. But the big difference is that there are a lot of very specific ML-related techniques that you need to not only learn, but also understand what they're for, how they work, when to apply them, and more specifically, when not to apply them. That seems to be the big trick in ML.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd encourage you to leverage your frond end expertise and approach the ML research from product angle. Computer vision can be an ideal fit where I've seen my previous colleague becomes very successful by launching on device CV application with a research team and he dive deep into the topic along the way.

Traditional ML is much tricker but I think visualization might be a good starting point</comment>


Ask HN: Easy hosting for kids? - <AUTHOR> Do you know of any simple hosting solutions that are so easy a 10 year old could use them?
Preferable but not necessary are custom domains and let's encrypt integration.
At my local codeclub we have kids that finish the html & css courses and want to build their own websites so everyone can see.
In the past I have written a tutorial to get kids started, using github pages for hosting as it is free and pretty easy to use.
But introducing children to git is not easy and seems like an unnecessary step to making their first website. The only other solution I can think of is hosting with FTP access, but that comes with it's own complications.
Maybe something that syncs files with Google Drive or Dropbox? <comment><USER2> [https://neocities.org/](https://neocities.org/) ? Online HTML editor and drag-and-drop upload.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oooooh very nice. I will give it a jam tonight and get the kids to try it out next week :D

<comment><USER3> neocities does seem particularly good for your use-case.

your students could keep their site after the class.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://www.site44.com](https://www.site44.com) (I'm a founder.)

</comment><comment><USER5> I dont know of any existing solutions to your problem, but you could build your own server. Such as get a Digital Ocean ($5/mo) or linode server, configure it to your needs, setup chroot and ftp and nginx/apache for each of their sites.

</comment><comment><USER6> [https://www.netlify.com/](https://www.netlify.com/) is fantastic and offers both custom domains and let's encrypt for free

</comment><comment><USER3> updog.co publishes files from both google drive and dropbox.

and htmldrop.com publishes files from dropbox.</comment>


How Badly Do We Want a New Java Date/Time API? - <AUTHOR> http://www.javacodegeeks.com/2012/03/how-badly-do-we-want-new-java-datetime.html

<comment><USER2> That's hardly an issue : just use joda time.</comment>


Ask HN: Please review my app - <AUTHOR> http://www.fromabirdie.com

<comment><USER3> Quick run through and my thoughts:

* First off, the front page took an incredibly long time to load. According to firebug's net console there were 23 requests totalling over 2 mb and took 32.35 seconds to load. Maybe I'm an outlier here, but there has got to be a way to cut down on that. Just about everything I'm seeing is an image rather than styled text.

* When creating a new album, why do I have to give you my information _and_ the recipients info right off the bat? You could probably postpone at least the recipient's info until I'm done. (I haven't finished creating anything, so this may be moot, but what if I decide there should be another recipient as well?)

* It would be nice to have a 'check availability' function for the subdomain that the letters will live at

* ok I just created this album, got a subdomain, etc... and clicked 'write a letter for XXXXX' right--now you want me to enter my info all over again?! I just did! I understand now (hint: I didn't get this point from your front page. The page shown right after you create an album is much mroe informative) that this is for _multiple people to collab_ on some letters for a special time in somebody else's life, and you need to get all those people's info too. But you should probably remember me since I filled this stuff out not five minutes ago.

* What if I want to attach links, videos, files, etc... rather than just images?

* How do I get back to the root url of my newly created album after I have successfully written a letter? I see no navigation bringing me back to XXXX.fromabirdie.com/ from XXXX.fromabirdie.com/letter/thanks

* from my albums root url, I would like to see (at least a preview of) the letters already written, not have to click a link to another page. The whole reason I'm here is these letters, why make me jump through hoops?

Sorry if I sounded a little brash at all, I just did a really quick run through and jotted my immediate thoughts down. Of all of these issues, I would say the speed of the front page loading should be a major concern. Is anyone else having it load this slow? Besides that, I really do like the concept and can see myself using it not as much for my girlfriend's birthday, but possibly for a cousin's graduation or for a coworker who is moving on or retiring. Right now I'm working as a student developer for my Uni's Residences Dept, along with a handful of other people, three of which are graduating in a week. I think being able to set up one album for all three of them would be great, rather than having to do one for each.

Once again, I really like the concept, and hope to see future iterations be born, because I think it has a lot of potential!

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent comments, mnemonik. Thanks a lot.

* Performance is no doubt an issue (as you can see from everybody else's comments ;-) Will fix that asap.

* Good point about not having to re-enter name & email when writing a letter after you've just created the album. Will fix.

* Attaching links/videos is an option for a future version.

* More important than that is to support multiple time zones, so you don't have to guess what time it is in NYC! :-)

Thanks a lot for such a detailed review.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> on your tour screen, create proper thumbnails of the screenshots, don't make the browser download the huge files and scale them itself. it's painfully slow and the scaled versions aren't readable.

<comment><USER5> I would say performance is generally poor. The rendering of pages seemed plenty fast, but downloading of all the content/css/js was painful.

Some quick things that would help:

* use :cache => true for both your CSS and JS files, this helps more than you'd guess

* make sure passenger is serving your static content without hitting the rails stack. I don't know much about passenger, but you should check on this.

* as 'there' said, use properly resized thumbnails.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great comments, 'there' and Jeremy. Yes, performance _is_ poor. I mainly need to fix the background images, which are huge. It's at the very top of my ToDo list.

Thanks for the tips on Passenger. I'll take a look at it...

Your comments are much appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For a concept that depends so heavily on invoking a personal / emotional response in your users, I don't think the graphic design is good enough. The pages are heavily themed (e.g. strong background image, handwriting fonts); if you're going to do this, you should do it well. Otherwise, it's probably best to stick with a more subdued design and allow the content to dominate. Or you should let the album's creator design / customize the theme.

Please don't take this the wrong way. I love the idea and wish you the best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hi Schapirama,

I love the idea. But I have a visual problem with the page (other than the massive loading times, which you've already promised to fix):

Way too many fonts on that page.

The logo on the top left, the "Album of letters" script, and the "TOUR" button are all different fonts, and it's ... less than pretty :)

Get rid of the military-style "TOUR" font. Maybe tone down the crazy "from a birdie" logo ... it looks too twittery.

Also, tone down the cross-hatch on the back of the page. Nobody writes letters on corduroy pants :)

I think you should work with a graphic designer to choose a good color scheme and typography set that work. The idea is excellent and your page _almost_ gives the "vibe" you're looking for. Seeing that page, I really wanted to write some letters: so that's a huge plus.

I like the layout of the elemnents: the "An album of letters" is intriguing, and simple "big middle box" layout works well, because it feels like a letter.

</comment><comment><USER8> I know you probably are more looking for feedback as to how it works but you do really need to compress the images you are using.

At 56.6 Kbps just the top portion of the letter graphic takes over 35 seconds to load.

Here's the same graphic saved as a jpg using the fireworks engine - <USER2> different in appearance but 10 times smaller: <http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/3946/amalfitopcreate.jpg>

Here's your png for comparison: <http://www.fromabirdie.com/images/Amalfi_Top_Create.png>

you'll have to work in the exact matching background gradient but it will be worth it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks a lot for taking the trouble to create a JPG!

I am aware of the problem with the images (300KB each! ;-) I used png because I need the transparency, but my very first task now is to fix this problem.

Thanks

<comment><USER8> no worries. if you need any help, let me know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In Opera the hover over effect on the buttons causes them to spasm in size Large -> tiny text -> large and red. This causes the other buttons to shuffle around usually under your cursor and then they start their dance. It was pretty exciting.

</comment><comment><USER10> I like the idea, but the design has a couple of flaws:

\- The heading text is hard to read (perhaps choose a different font?)

\- The button's rollover states aren't preloaded, makes it a bit awkward. Preload them, or better use CSS sprites

\- The PNG buttons aren't blending properly with the content's background image

\- The tour's screenshot thumbnails should be small images, not large images resized with HTML. End result is that each one is ~200K. Easy to fix and would make the page load a lot quicker

Its a really nice idea though - I think people would love to get a collection of letters from friends on their birthday, anniversary, etc. Keep going!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks qeorge. Yes, indeed, lots of work needed on the front-end design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I really like the concept...how neat! In addition to the design issues, I just wanted to second the idea of allowing the person who ordered the album to purchase it and have it sent to the person it's for. I could see using this for older relatives who don't really do computers if it had that option, or even for my MIL, who uses computers but is also obsessed with physical pictures and scrapbooks.

</comment><comment><USER12> You might want to create your own original "feedback" image for the tab on the left. Yours[1] appears to have been copied from uservoice[2] (probably a leftover from deciding to use their feedback or use your own, am I right?).

      [1] http://www.fromabirdie.com/images/feedback_tab_white.png
      [2] http://cdn.uservoice.com/images/widgets/en/feedback_tab_white.png

</comment><comment><USER13> I have just given it a quick skim. I hope that you have put anti-spam measures in place to prevent scripts from automating submissions to your system and using it to send email. A few ideas:

* Original creator needs to register, use a confirmation email to verify them. * ReCaptcha for other writers * email confirmation before doing the final delivery to the friend.

Also make sure you have the creator write something personal for the recipient to see when they get the delivery email. I get e-cards from my relatives all the time and I always delete them.

I would also give them the option of downloading a PDF of the letters.

Good Luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Good comments re:spam bots.

BTW, the creator _can_ write something personal, both for the recipient, and for the friends who come to write their letters. It's a customization option in the album admin page.

Thanks a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Decent idea, in the same way that there is something special about a book over an eBook there is something special about handwritten notes on a big birthday or farewell card which may impact usage of something like this.

Looks well done though and the handwriting like fonts may combat this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comments, robryan. Yes, I agree with you, nothing beats a real object --that's why the idea is that the recipient of the letters can buy a real book (printed on demand) to keep all the letters. We've shipped a few, and people seem to love it!

<comment><USER15> Wouldn't it be better to (also/instead) allow the person who starts the book the option of sending that hard copy to them?

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be great, yes. Our concern has been that the price of the book depends on the # of pages, and we don't know how many there will be in advance. More importantly, we don't know if enough people will write, to make a physical book worthwhile. What we're planning to do is give that option to the person who starts the book, and let them specify that the book should be printed only if it has 5/10/15/20 letters...

Thanks much for the suggestion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> CSS sprites are your friend.

</comment><comment><USER15> I do like this. Might even try it as a gift for a friend of mine, too.

</comment><comment><USER17> sorry for asking, may not be adequate but have you planned to get revenue somehow?

<comment><AUTHOR> I originally built this as a b-day present for my wife, and she liked it so much that I decided to turn it into a public service. And I'll be happy if it's just that.

But we do have a model to generate (modest) revenue, which hopefully will cover the (again, modest) costs: At the end, when the recipient has seen all the letters, s/he can order an actual, physical book with all the text. It's printed on-demand, and we're make a bit of $$$ over what the publisher charges.

<comment><USER17> Amazing! I could not realize this 'off-line' business model aspect of the site!

But must work as all other online-to-offline modeled businesses. You can contact Springwise.com maybe they'll put in their feed, they like these on/off combinations.

<comment><USER18> The 'off-line' model is actually quite common in the wedding world. I know a person running a wedding website hosting (planning, photos, invitations, etc) site where the couple can get everything on a CD once the wedding is over for a small charge.

Useful to keep these additional models in mind when thinking of a new business idea

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The page <http://www.fromabirdie.com/what> links to itself with the word "our". It seems a bit strange.

<comment><AUTHOR> Embarrassing. Thanks --I've fixed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> reminds me of a startup I worked on a while ago -- groupcard.com

<comment><AUTHOR> You worked there? Interesting. They're still up, right?

Our goal when we started the project was to be, in a way, the opposite of groupcard. Whereas they (and their format, and their examples, etc) encourage quick, short messages ("Happy b-day dude! 21, wow! now you can legally drink!"), we created our site for people who want to write longer, more personal, and more detailed letters. Hence the design with the scroll, the hand-written fonts, the lack of shinny images, etc.

You'd be surprised, but the average length of the letters that are being submitted is a bit over 300 WORDS...

I do like groupcard... we're just targeting a different audience/need...</comment></comment>


Experience of phantom limbs lets amputees control real replacements - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/12/01/experience-of-phantom-limbs-lets-amputees-control-real-replacements <comment><USER2> The original paper is at [ [https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2018.0016...](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2018.00164/full) ].

I haven't read it yet, but it looks like interesting stuff: TMR always felt like a stepping stone to somewhere else, and if this technique generalises, then this might be that somewhere...

</comment><comment><USER3> At some point soon. I expect to see a Boston dynamics video on HN of a real cat with titanium spider legs.

</comment><comment><USER4> Animals/Humans/Living things are really similar to the high level concept of computers, with countless input/output combinations which all seem to be valid.</comment>


Apple's warning to jailbreakers - <AUTHOR> http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3743

<comment><USER2> "Jailbreaking your device eliminates security layers"

If I can jailbreak a device, the "security layer" already left something to be desired.

"Dropped calls, slow or unreliable data connections"

Am I holding it wrong?

</comment><comment><USER3> If You have to jailbreak something is not worth buying, I think ...</comment>


Command & Conquer in HTML5 with multiplayer - <AUTHOR> http://www.adityaravishankar.com/projects/games/command-and-conquer/ <comment><USER2> Soliciting donations for something you made using someone else's IP without permission seems like it is absolutely crossing the line. This is a cool demo and I like the trend of people porting classic games to the browser, but you absolutely shouldn't have a 'give me money for this' button sitting there. It's just asking for trouble.

<comment><USER3> Good think people like Isaac Newton (standing on the shoulders of giants) did not know about IP, or the humankind would still live in caves.

<comment><USER4> That's a bit of a simplification of the whole IP debate. It's not an either-or thing.

<comment><USER3> So you're saying: "It's very complicated, you won't understand my arguments."

It is simple, IP laws lead to slower development of science and industry and accumulation of huge amounts of money and power in the hands of a few. Classical example is 19th and early 20th century British Empire - it's IP laws are what to a big degree allowed US and Germany to catch up and surpass it.

<comment><USER5> You can't copyright a physical law, you can't even patent it. So in that respect Newton's work wouldn't be limited in it's use.

Personally I think he'd release his treatise under CC-BY (which requires copyright law to work).

FWIW patents are about an exchange of knowledge for a time-limited monopoly on the use of that knowledge. Patents allow the free propagation of the ideas behind patentable inventions and provide means to incentivise inventors and to reward beneficial inventions. They also, by exclusions, all the development, experiment and investigation of others in to the content of patent disclosures before the details therein would normally be disclosed.

The alternative to patents ("open [letters]") is industrial secrets. If you can show me how making all current patent disclosures in to industrial secrets promotes the propagation of technological ideas I'd be much obliged.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, that's an excellent selling/lobbying tactic - limit the choice to as few alternatives as possible, ideally two. E.g. the alternative to smoking is drug abuse, so smoking is not simple... How do you see an industrial secret being an alternative for a video game (the original post)??

Current patents are not about exchange of knowledge (I'd ask what have you been smoking, but it's against the HN guidelines, in your view the patent trolls must be the bringers of fire) - Apple patents on rectangular form, Monsanto and Co patents on genes, the mind blowing obvious software patents.

<comment><USER4> Yeah I don't think anyone here is going to agree with you that computing and life has been vastly curtailed in creativity after the dominance of Apple and its copyright-imposing policies.

<comment><USER3> Talking about simplification ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can't tell which is a bigger time sink - the emerging IP debate here, or the hours I lost playing the original C&C back in the '90s.

<comment><USER7> I had to repeat Calculus because of that damn game!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This isn't an HTML5 game, but OpenRA is an open source clone of Command & Conquer: Red Alert which also supports the original Command & Conquer and Dune2000.

<http://open-ra.org>

If you get tired of playing in a browser, check OpenRA out!

<comment><USER9> Or, you know, just download the actual game instead of a clone. EA released the first three in the series (Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert, and Tiberian Sun) for free several years ago.

[will edit in link when I'm not on a corporate network]

<comment><USER10> I haven't played OpenRA, but I know that getting the games to launch and multiplayer can be quite spotty with the originals on modern machines.

<comment><USER8> OpenRA launches fine and plays multiplayer fine except for a persistent synchronization bug that will occasionally crash large multiplayer games. The developers are currently vigorously hunting that bug.

<comment><USER11> Actually, the very original C&C had that bug, too. I remember trying to play it with a friend of mine and it would often crash with an "sessions are out of sync" error after 10-15 minutes of playing.

Is it sad that I still remember that, or what? :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Awww yeah… the SFX, the MUSIC (Mechanical man is my fav) and the projectiles. Still my favorite RTS hands down.

Thanks for sharing!

EDIT: I actually searched Rdio for C&C music after seeing this post…was not disappointed!

<comment><USER13> C&C:RA Hell March. Such an awesome awesome song.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6PxkeOIMA8>

<comment><USER14> I like this video with the song more: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=096hnKDw5tc>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've always wondered when we'd get a browser based RTS that doesn't require some silly plugin. (maybe one exists?) This is a nice start, but will probably get shot down as soon as it becomes noticed by the powers that be at EA (or whoever owns the copyright)

<comment><USER16> Agreed. I've been wishing for an Age of Empires clone in HTML5 for years.

<comment><USER17> Age of Empires II in the browser would tank my GPA

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Great. Just great. So much for productivity today.

I like the separate canvas for mouse activities. Makes a lot of sense. It's probably not that much of a novelty, but I'm a designer/lousy programmer, so I'm impressed easily.

<comment><USER19> :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Astonishing. Was just playing Dungeon Keeper- that might as well be next.

If only it would be taken seriously. I.e. actual accounts that would get punished for leaving etc.

</comment><comment><USER21> Funny... I was confused when I saw an already visited link when I opened up HN for the first time today. I found this last week after that Dune II post.

</comment><comment><USER22> I find it a bit difficult to scroll up/down/left/right, because I constantly overshoot and then it stops scrolling. I then have to move the mouse back and try to find the exact point where it starts scrolling. A bit frustrating after 20 minutes of gameplay. Is there a way in HTML5 to "capture" the mouse within a certain area?

<comment><USER19> You can use the keyboard arrow keys to scroll...

<comment><USER22> Wow - I didn't even think of trying that, because for some reason I figured that the original game could only scroll using the mouse. So much for presumptions...

<comment><USER19> Someone specifically requested the feature on the issue tracker, and since it was a one line tweak, I added it in :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Can someone make an Ultima Online Clone already? This is incredible validity, great job!

</comment><comment><USER24> Very cool but isn't the AI bugged?

Run unit into attack range. Pull unit back and attack with other units. Enemy AI will attempt to chase unit which you are pulling back. Should mean with a bit of micro you won't lose any units.

</comment><comment><USER25> Anyone interested in learning how to code such games can have a look at my open source Terrarium.js <http://terrariumjs.wiselabs.net>

(it has a multiplayer component)

</comment><comment><USER26> Well it has a few bugs it seems (it took me like five minutes to deploy my factory, and then I got disconnected) but wow, what a great service to humanity.

</comment><comment><USER27> I want to use HTML5 more often but I refrain because of comparability issues with IE for the users who still use it...

</comment><comment><USER28> I can't run anyone over :(

And my dude walked across water.

But it was awesome!

</comment><comment><USER29> Good thing this was posted in the evening CET, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten anything done today at work. :)

</comment><comment><USER30> IMO the games industry has a dearth of open source activity, and I'm thankful to you for moving it forward.

<comment><USER19> Thanks... Hopefully between this game and my new book, I inspire tons of new developers in 2013 ... :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Does anyone else get stuck after level1 because the UI freezes? Firefox aurora.

<comment><USER19> Chrome works better... Several people have reported this bug in Firefox for Windows

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> 30 minutes of entertaining and nostalgic gameplay = one enthusiastic upvote.

</comment><comment><USER11> Great job, but no cutscenes?

<comment><USER19> Still figuring out a way to host videos... Hosting videos on shared hosting is asking for them to be melted ....

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Just wait for the flood of In-App Purchases to ruin the gameplay.

<comment><USER19> lol.. Not going to happen... I even removed any ads on the page...

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Game of my youth. It works nicely !!! Great job!

<comment><USER19> Thank you :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Was this done with emscripten or ported by hand?

<comment> iso-8859-1 Ravi Shankar (a multi-talent it seems :P) ported it by hand, I think. Check out the source: [http://www.adityaravishankar.com/projects/games/command- and-...](http://www.adityaravishankar.com/projects/games/command-and- conquer/release/cnc-0.6.4.js)

Doesn't contain anything I connect with Emscripten (stack and heap references). Actually, not even the object fields names have been obfuscated! It is quite readable. But I'd feel bad minifying a port of a game I don't own, too. Maybe that's why.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> and productivity in offices plummets. :)

</comment><comment><USER37> Will HTML5/JS games ever approach the performance that we have had for years with Flash/Silverlight? I try all these HTML5 demos and have thus far never failed to be sorely disappointed at the complexity that is required to code them and the poor performance they yield.

Shouldn't a new technology only be embraced for a certain use (like creating games) when it is "better" in some way than what we already have? Sorry, I really just don't get it. When will people realize that games will never be viable in HTML5. Embedded audio, videos, vector graphics and minor animations for a web site/app - great. But games??? Please stop. You are not using the best (or even suitable) tool for the job.

<comment><USER38> Maybe browser support isn't good enough yet? I don't think there is anything fundamental that makes HTML5 slower than Flash or Silverlight other than the fact that it's new and standard, which makes it harder to get right (but will make it far more useful in the long run).

<comment><USER37> Then Hype HTML5 when it is ready for prime time. I am sick of all the excitement surrounding it. It is not revolutionary, nothing about it is particularly new (can it do something that Flash/Silverlight cannot???) or exiting. Everything that it does can already be done and in a better way.

All this and we can't really use it for years to come because it is not mature and not enough users have modern browsers.

Enough already. Let me know when the party starts, cause I am sure am sick of hearing hype over HTML5 when there are already better alternatives. When Flash was new and games like this were created (this was like 8-9 years ago LOL) It really was a big deal because nothing like it existed at the time.

HTML5 to me is like the GO programming language. YAY, another language that can do what hundreds of other languages can already do. It may be new and "neat", It may even be the best tool for doing certain niche things, but hardly worth seeing in the news every day.</comment></comment></comment>


Cloudkick: Closing in on Google Closure - <AUTHOR> https://www.cloudkick.com/blog/2010/jun/29/closing_in_on_google_closure/

<comment><USER2> The soy templates are a timesaver for anything that is going to be generated in JS and styled by a designer. We use it at work and I haven't regretted it at all. The only thing I want is a better handling of namespaces.

I am debating using the rest of closure for my next project but the verbosity is a little bit scary.

<comment><USER3> WTH's a soy template? And is it yet another proper name that insists on being lowercased?

(I know I can google it. It just doesn't make sense to me for there not to be an explanation in the article.)

<comment><USER4> Whatever it is, apparently next-generation JavaScript tools are needed for its implausibly excellent dynamism.

<comment><USER5> I swear I thought those words would get edited out by someone else at Cloudkick. I wrote that half jokingly and I guess it made into the actual blog post. :P

<comment><USER6> I admit I didn't read past the first paragraph when you asked for proofreading.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Failed Startup code graveyard - <AUTHOR> http://codebituary.com/ <comment><USER2> This is fine for what it is... but at its core, it is a categorized list of github repositories, and the category happens to be failed startups.

I would drop the whole "graveyard" theme, and expand the categorization concept... then this could be less of a novelty, and more of a new wrapper around github for discovery of relevant codebases to whatever your current project may be.

<comment><USER3> I disagree, I think that this is precisely targeted at _encouraging_ failed startups to open source their software for others, which has been rare in the past.

People can then tell their (former) CEO, "See this site, everyone is using the graveyard".

Encouraging that behavior is utterly different than just indexing the few that did so in the past.

I see no particular point whatsoever in insisting that it would be better as a vague indistinct generic gitub wrapper -- although if you have an idea for improving search of such, go for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Site's not loading very well for me.

I definitely like the idea of preserving the source code of abandoned projects though. Ultimately, I'd like some equivalent of the "legal deposit" principle that applies to books and other printed works - some kind of scheme where source code, not just object code, for proprietary products eventually makes its way into the public domain. I'm not sure how this scheme would work, but I'd like it to happen.

<comment><USER5> I worked for a company where one of the clients required that all the source code be periodically archived and shipped to them so that if we went out of business they could potentially run it themselves. Practically, they wouldn't be able to because of the sheer complexity of all the different services. It was a minor pain to do this for them but the contract was worth it.

Having said that, I am a big fan of open sourcing projects of they fail. Why not? What do you have to lose?

<comment><USER6> I've never worked for a company where we shipped the code directly to the client; that seems a bit risky for the company producing the code.

I did work for a startup though where all of the code was backed up and sent offsite to an escrow service. It was part of our standard contract that if the company ceased operations all clients would have received copies of the code. This was a pretty big deal to quite a few clients as one of the biggest risks for a larger client investing in using software from a small company is lost sunk costs if the startup fails. If the client has this type of agreement in place it is much less risky. If the startup fails then a heavily entrenched client would request to receive the code and more often than not hire one or more of the now unemployed software developers either as employees or consultants to either maintain the software or train someone else to.

@frazras actually from this context since I believe it is a fairly common problem, the closed casket paid service makes a lot of sense. What would be ideal is if it could essentially be turned into a GitHub/BitBucket (private) style service that is dead simple to use, but also acted as an escrow service. You would need a means of tracking clients, but not allowing them access unless terms of contract were met that allows access. Then it would also need to lock down the codebase in some manner; don't allow repo deletes, do backup snapshots, something like this so you can guarantee the startup doesn't breach contract.

<comment><USER5> I think you are actually right, it was done via Iron Mountain. I wasn't directly involved with the process, only was aware of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Founder here: I fixed the server issues, I really never expected to make it to frontpage literally overnight. The aim was not necessarily to get someone to use the entire codebase. there are features that may be interesting to the user. The user may just me interested in the structure of the code and to familiarize themself with how code is written in a startup.

</comment><comment><USER7> great idea

maybe you should have some projects that can be bought and maybe the founder of the failed startup can make some money out of it. If there is no buyer for the code for certain number of days, it would be open sourced?

I am a proponent of open source but graveyard, obituary, failed.. sounded too much negativity..

<comment><USER8> I run a site like what you mentioned where people can sell off their side projects [http://sideprojectors.com](http://sideprojectors.com) \- check it out when you can! :)

<comment><USER9> Wow this is a great idea!! I may very well use this to make a bit of money on the side. How long have you been running this service?

<comment><USER8> Thanks! The site's been running for almost 2 years now. Going steady! :)

<comment><USER7> ya i am aware of your site.. pretty cool.. have been involved in few projects as well :) .. it can definitely take in a lot of improvements too :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sounds like a minefield.

frazras later indicates that he has reservations on the release....

It might be gpl, but it may pull along enough other baggage as to be pretty stupid to use the code.

maybe codebutuary might be renamed to submarinebituary. There could even be unpaid vendors, issues as to the true owner's actual intent and it's release to gpl, possibly a spiteful act. This needs much better definition and stated ownership, by codebituary.com

jr

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks pretty awesome. If I have to criticize the "Add a Startup" button bothers me a bit, its placement is a bit off. It feels like it should be a bit lower and more in line with the rest of the page.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, fixed that

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Relevant: Autopsy: Lessons from Failed Startups (autopsy.io) [1]

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9666013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9666013)

</comment><comment><USER13> The potentially most valuable part of this site is the "reason for death". In fact, i'd find that useful even if the site source code was not open source. Simply open sourcing your lessons learned is valuable.

There is a category of start-ups that are like that "American Ninja Challenge". There's a line of obstacles that are visible, and seem easy enough... but are hard to swing across. It would be nice to see the ways people fell in the pit. So when you try to swing across, maybe you can make it :D

</comment><comment><USER14> I think there may be a date issue. From this website, Zillabyte appears to be still about 5 months from going belly-up.

</comment><comment><USER15> This may lead to show that code actually have some value, even if the business didn't work out.

If some failed projects go open source, while others manage to sell the code, then it may create a market and then makes it easier to borrow money, with code being the collateral.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hmm, it seems to be able to predict the future:

[http://codebituary.com/node/1](http://codebituary.com/node/1)

Date of Death: Monday, December 14, 2015

</comment><comment><USER17> It's a great idea. I can't wait for someone to build one.

<comment><AUTHOR> it is already built at [http://codebituary.com](http://codebituary.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Date of death for Zillabyte: Monday, December 14, 2015

When asked for a comment, Zillabyte said "News of my death is premature."

</comment><comment><USER19> site is not responding

<comment><AUTHOR> fixed the loading issues

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Looks pretty awesome, but logo could use some improvements. e.g lose the cross or replace with stone or something else. Religion sign might put some people off.</comment>


Yahoo reportedly plans to steal Google's thunder with it's own YouTube rival - <AUTHOR> http://techgeekforever.com/2014/03/29/yahoo-reportedly-plans-to-steal-some-of-googles-thunder-with-its-own-youtube-rival/

<comment><USER2> Is this a joke, or what? (and: "its own YouTube rival")

<comment><USER3> more like just a very poor submission. poor analysis and simple errors like calling the CEO "Marissa Mayers"</comment></comment>


Why the Semantic Web Will Fail - Any startups betting on Semantic Web? - <AUTHOR> http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-semantic-web-will-fail.html <comment><USER2> I think Metaweb is the only big name currently betting itself on the Semantic Web, though in a way that might let it route around some of the problems. For most other startups, the semantic web is a possible benefit, but not a necessity. Opportunistic utilization of semantic web tech can certainly benefit most web startups; the entire vision doesn't have to fly for us to derive some of the benefits.</comment>


Are You Lightest in the Morning? [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL2e0rWvjKI

<comment><AUTHOR> Essentially a video form of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9416062](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9416062) where the host investigates what the public thinks as well as animation of the actual mechanisms.</comment>


Building GCC as a Cross Compiler for Raspberry Pi - <AUTHOR> https://solarianprogrammer.com/2018/05/06/building-gcc-cross-compiler-raspberry-pi/ <comment><USER2> On Gentoo,

        crossdev -t armv7a-hardfloat-linux-gnueabi

crossdev can create Gentoo ebuilds of a complete set of toolchain for any platforms.

        crossdev -t x86_64-w64-mingw32

would create a GCC cross-compiler for Windows.

* [https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Crossdev](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Crossdev)

* [https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Embedded_Handbook/General/Creat...](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Embedded_Handbook/General/Creating_a_cross-compiler)

* [https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi#Crossdev](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi#Crossdev)

* [https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Mingw](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Mingw)

<comment><USER3> Crossdev (or variants like crossdev-ng) may work, but only if you stick to the most well-tested build and target combinations. Otherwise, there are O(ludicrous) configurations, most of which are untested.

<comment><USER2> Definitely, but Windows and Raspberry Pi are both well-tested I believe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why bother?

      apt install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf # Debian / Ubuntu
      dnf install gcc-arm-linux-gnu # Fedora

<comment><USER5> Give me a binary and I hack for a day. Teach me to build a binary and I code for a lifetime.

(Just in case you didn't get the allusion: [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/08/28/fish/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/08/28/fish/))

<comment><USER6> You mean:

Teach me how to build a compiler binary, and I'll be building compiler binaries for a lifetime.

which is somewhat less inspirational. Even less so when replacing "compiler binary" by "other people's code".

I think the main problem with your analogy is that in IT, the "fish" are free.

<comment><USER5> No. I mean: Teach me how to build a compiler binary, and I'll be able to build pretty much whatever binaries I need whenever I need them for a lifetime. (What's the point of having a compiler at all if you're not going to build your own binaries?)

> the "fish" are free

That's true. But if you know how to build them you can make new kinds of fish. That can come in handy if you don't like the free fish.

<comment><USER3> Spending all day on a fishing boat when all you want is a fish is an apt analogy to building GNU cross toolchains for embedded targets.

<comment><USER5> Indeed so. And fishing is not for everyone. But some people find value in it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I found the approach taken by yocto quite powerful: it can be used not only to compile all kernel and all packages for the target system but also build a matching SDK (cross-compiler with matching libraries).

The learning curve is quite steep though. For Raspberry Pi this is an excellent getting-started guide: [http://jumpnowtek.com/rpi/Raspberry-Pi- Systems-with-Yocto.ht...](http://jumpnowtek.com/rpi/Raspberry-Pi-Systems-with- Yocto.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> I really wish I had read this a year ago when I was struggling with cross- compiling Qt for the RaspberryPi and instead natively built it which took 3 days.

<comment><USER9> Well, I've actually spent 3 days trying to get Qt5 to cross-compile for a custom arm platform. It might be easier for something common like the raspberry pi, but still, you may have dodged a bullet there. ;)

The worst thing about cross-compiling Qt is that I always run into different issues with new releases, and it's not even always consistent between builds. I ended up renting a 64 core VPS to build Qt so that I could iterate faster though build failures, but it's still at least half a day's work to get it to build properly.

<comment><USER8> I hear ya, especially with respect to upgrades. Like without fail MYSQL Plugin will always be missing, QtWebsockets won't build automatically, and even now on ubuntu 18.04 which ships with openssl1.1.0 I discovered all my applications can no longer use https properly until I downgraded libssl to 1.0.2

Also: I'm assuming the 64 core machine is ARM? Which provider do you use for that?

<comment><USER9> I'm cross-compiling, meaning I'm not compiling on ARM. ;)

It might be helpful though for 64 bit ARM, but my target architecture is 32 bit and because I need webengine I suspect that it will not compile on a 32 bit platform. The problem is that the linker requires more memory than can be addressed in a 32 bit address space for linking chrome/webengine.

I just used google cloud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's also crosstool-ng and buildroot for this, as well as pre built compilers by Linaro and Bootlin (formerly Free-Electrons). Sorry for lack of links, extremely limited connection right now.

<comment><USER11> [https://crosstool-ng.github.io/](https://crosstool-ng.github.io/)

<comment><USER10> Linaro: [https://www.linaro.org/downloads/](https://www.linaro.org/downloads/)

Bootlin: [https://toolchains.bootlin.com/](https://toolchains.bootlin.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Damn GCC, that you have to build for each single architecture and os combo. Clang, being intrinsically a cross-compiler, is much better and way less of a hassle.

<comment><USER13> Agreed.

I'm actively trying to replace GCC+binutils for llvm based tools in Android (and further, at Google). Currently working through some issues for the kernel, more so llvm's assembler and linker than Clang.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Building a cross compiling toolchain is a good exercise, but if you need to have a suite of tools/libs, check out llnl's spack. Spack automates building compilers/toolchains/libs from source, has hundreds of package definitions, and supports cross compiling. Kinda like Gentoo, but usable on any Linux/Mac platform.

[http://spack.readthedocs.io/en/latest/basic_usage.html](http://spack.readthedocs.io/en/latest/basic_usage.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> Wish I had this when I was building gstreamer for the raspberry pi, it took ages!

I tried various solutions like Qemu, but the performance was about the same as a real Pi.

<comment><USER10> Not all software supports being cross compiled - I can't remember if the problems I had with gstreamer were due to it not being able to be cross compiled or because I was trying to build Raspbian-compatible .deb files.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've built a gcc-based cross toolchain for m68k (m68k-linux-gnu iirc) and it was very easy with crosstool-ng (ct-ng).

I would recommend building a cross-toolchain by hand just a couple of time to understand the whole process, but then just use ct-ng or something similar: it gets the job done and it's very configurable (abi, target architecture, libraries etc).

</comment><comment><USER17> [http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/](http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/)

</comment><comment><USER18> There's also arch linux arm way, where you control the build/linking from the target device, but the compilation of object code is done by a cross-compiler over the network.

</comment><comment><USER19> Linaro has really good premade cross compilers for ARM</comment>


The Garage: Mouse Without Borders - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.technet.com/b/next/archive/2011/09/09/microsoft-garage-download-mouse-without-borders.aspx

<comment><USER2> Seriously? I was doing this with X2vnc and win2vnc _before the turn of the century_. Perhaps getting it to run as a service around all of the "as administrator" crap in windows 7 is the innovation?</comment>