The Big PHP IDE Test - <AUTHOR> http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/11/the-big-php-ides-test-why-use-oneand-which-to-choose/ <comment><USER2> I have tried many of the PHP IDEs. I always find myself going back to zend studio 5.5. The eclipse based zend studio is slow and bloated and a downgraded from the standalone version. It's unfortunate they didnt continue the development.

I also played with Aptana on 4 or 5 occasions. I have followed the project for years and just cant make the switch. I always find little annoying bugs or inconsistency. Intellisense is still pretty new for PHP in Aptana, which was another deterrent.

PhpED also fell flat for me. If you are going to use an IDE go with Zend 5.5, otherwise VIM or notepad++ is your best bet.

<comment><USER3> Disclaimer: I work 7 feet away from agotterer.

I convinced him to try VIM a few months ago. He tried it for a week but didn't find it productive so switched back to zend. I blame myself for not fully explaining the productivity benefits of a properly configured VIM environment, so I'll try again:

Learning VIM requires a huge time commitment (weeks, even months before it is truly second nature). However, after 'getting it', there is less of a barrier between your brain and you code. I have code completion, good syntax highlighting, syntax verification, and keyboard shortcuts to do anything and everything to my text. My IDE is pre-installed on every sever I've ever seen.

I am highly recommending using VIM as an all purpose text editor, and specifically as a PHP IDE. Knowing it is a skill that be used whether you are an author, developer, sysadmin, or any occupation that requires typing.

<comment><USER4> I use both VIM and Eclipse PDT on a regular basis. Recently, while looking for a nice free Eclipse plugin that gives me vi key bindings (I haven't found one yet), I came across an interesting project: Eclim (<http://eclim.sourceforge.net/>)

While most Eclipse plugins bring vi functionality to Eclipse, Eclim goes the other way and brings Eclipse IDE functionality to VIM (using an Eclipse plugin that acts as a server-interface to a collection of VIM plugins). I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds interesting.

VIM is definitely top dog. I remember how excited I was when I learned how to use ":vsplit" and ":e ." -- I spent the next few years using it as my IDE. (Off topic, but equally as exciting was my recent discovery that the screen utility can do split-windows! Yes, I need to RTFM more often!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have tried them all since I am back in PHP now because of our CMS. The new Zend Studio on Eclipse is just an embaresment, I almost bought it based on my experience years ago but it has really gone downhill. The best options in my opinion are (and you should try them all yourself):

* Eclipse with PDT, and the other plugins you need. Build your own better Zend studio (use Spket (www.spket.com) for JS and CSS support)

* Netbeans. A lot better than Zend Studio, more features and much more stable - a great IDE (www.netbeans.org)

* PHP for Visual Studio (<http://www.jcxsoftware.com/>) or an open source version which isn't as good but showing promise: <http://www.codeplex.com/php4vs>

Btw, if you are a PHP dev and you aren't using a decent IDE (with code completion and debugging, at the very least) you are missing out on _a lot_. For some reason a lot of php developers tend to be notepad + var_dump hackers

</comment><comment><USER6> I started trying netbeans after reading this article, and I actually like. Besides the fact that JDK can be memory intensive to run, I think netbeans is pretty responsive. And I do like the Firefox style search.

I've also tried zend studio (trial), aptana, activestate and I didn't like any of them. I feel that it was hard to use and learn.

</comment><comment><USER7> A pity they had to close the editing of that table due to vandalism - I was going to go fill in checkboxes for Komodo, which I use and love.

It's quick, covers most of the rows in their checklist, cross-platform, free. I take every opportunity to recommend it that I can.</comment>


The Problem with Mass Consensus in Tech - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jonathangrosdubois/the-problem-with-mass-consensus-in-tech-43122b141788 <comment><USER2> Contrarians are usually wrong, because there are simply so many ways to be wrong. That doesn't mean the consensus is usually right, however.</comment>


Was Pele paid to tie his shoes during the 1970 World Cup final? - <AUTHOR> http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/15/sports/la-sp-sn-pele-shoes-world-cup-20121015

<comment><USER2> Well, Adidas vs Puma was a very special thing regarding who were the owners of both companies

</comment><comment><USER3> Hacker News: now with more sports stories!

<comment><USER4> The sock puppets love their astroturf upvotes.</comment></comment>


Passports Required for Some U.S. Domestic Travel in 2016? - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/11/25/passports-required-for-domestic-travel-in-2016-but-irs-can-revoke-passports-for-taxes/ <comment><USER2> The lede: residents of Louisiana, Minnesota, and New Hampshire (and New York next year) are not able to use their drivers licenses for various purposes, including domestic air travel, due to the failure of these states to require proof of residency for their issue.

The article stretches this idea over several paragraphs of fear-mongering; fretting over the possible Orwellian abuses a tyrannical Internal Revenue Service could impose on mild-mannered tax delinquents.

<comment><USER3> Wow, that's bad even by the usual low standard. Care to suggest an accurate, neutral title so HN's conscience, at least, can be clear?

I'm impressed with how good the top subthreads here turned out to be, with such bad seed material.

<comment><USER2> I suppose "Residents of LA, MN, NH, and NY must use alternate forms of ID to fly."?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> An ID is not required for any US domestic travel, never has been, never will be. Providing ID makes your travel through TSA check points go smoother, but it's absolutely, unquestionably not a requirement. I've traveled numerous times without ID and have never had any significant issues or delays and don't expect any in the future either. There are obviously those who insist it is a requirement or will soon be a requirement, but that's very silly. Imagine traveling from Oregon to Maine, loosing your wallet, having no ID and then being effectively stuck in Maine until you can prove to the local DMV you are who you say you are so they can issue you an ID. Absolutely ridiculous.

Yes, the TSA obviously wants everyone to think they need ID because having thousands more people going through checkpoints everyday without proper ID will tax the system. However, the Real ID legislation requires all agencies who require Real ID to have other mechanisms in place to deal with individuals who don't have identification, for obvious reasons.

<comment><USER5> To be fair, the TSA website does say that "If your identity cannot be verified, you will not be allowed to enter the screening checkpoint."

[https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security- screening/identification](https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security- screening/identification)

<comment><USER4> And at the bottom of the page:

"In the event you arrive at the airport without proper ID, because it is lost or at home, you may still be allowed to fly."

Every time I've done it, they ask me a few questions and I get a pat-down which is no big deal anyway since I never go through their scanner anyway.

<comment><USER6> Can you go end to end (buy ticket, get boarding pass, pass security, and get on the plane) without ever giving ID?

<comment><USER7> Yep. The airline will almost certainly want you to have the credit card used to purchase the ticket to verify that you're "authorized" to claim the ticket, and the TSA will give you the third degree at the checkpoint, but -because the airlines are common carriers- you _cannot_ be required to present ID to fly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Forbes is exaggerating to say that passports will be required. There are alternate forms of ID (such as a military ID) and even those who do not have government-issued ID can verify their identity in other ways. The TSA webpage on identification [1] lists acceptable alternatives, and says that without "proper" ID, "TSA officers will request you present two other forms of ID bearing your name. One of the items must bear your name and other identifying information such as photo, address, phone number, social security number or date of birth."

[1] [https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security- screening/identification](https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security- screening/identification)

<comment><USER8> Seems easier to just show the passport than have to sign up for a couple of tours in Iraq/Syria though...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In NZ, you don't need ID at all to fly domestic. Just sayin'.

<comment><USER10> Last time I flew domestically in NZ (Wellington to Blenheim, 6 or 7 years ago), there weren't any security checkpoints at all for the domestic terminal. The only checkpoint was at the gate, when the flight staff checked that I had a boarding pass.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is totally fucking illegal. As Americans we have the right to travel our own country without someone asking for our papers. The article doesn't even acknowledge this basic constitutional right.

<comment><USER12> Not anymore as this regulation demonstrates.

<comment><USER11> The article is just sensationalism. All it really says is that the TSA may ask for a different form of ID if your state isn't adhering to standards that they have no constitutional requirement to meet. But instead of being honest about that, it dishonestly leads you to believe that you will need to use a Passport as the alternative way of identifying yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Fear of a federal citizen database isn't social security kinda is just that?

</comment><comment><USER14> As a dirty foreigner, I already need my passport to travel domestically within the US.

I think it makes sense. Passpprts are a lot more secure than US identity cards. It's kinda silly how little security measures you guys have on your IDs.

Or have I only been seeing old ones? Do new ones have any of that shiny stuff?

<comment><USER15> What are US identity cards? I didn't think they hard any except for the passport.

<comment><USER14> Right, driver's license. Plastic card that is your ID -> identity card. :)

<comment><USER15> What do you do for ID if you don't have a car or are medically disqualified so don't have a licence?

<comment><USER16> All states issue id cards for people who don't want, qualify, or can't have a driver's license. Most ID cards look/feel the same as a driver's license and are typically issued by the department of motor vehicles or similar licensing agency, but state specifically that they are for identification purposes only.

For example in Maryland: [http://www.mva.maryland.gov/drivers/apply/id- card.htm](http://www.mva.maryland.gov/drivers/apply/id-card.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> wow... next thing you know, you'll have to stay home if you owe taxes?

<comment><USER18> Nah, they'll reinstate debtors prison and you won't have to worry about going anywhere ever again.

<comment><USER17> prison is what I was really thinking ...</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is Linkedin such a low quality? - <AUTHOR>

It is supposed to be a professional network, but the quality is lower then my facebook feed.
Meaning the 'Pulse' which shares outdated or irrelevant (x tips to y) stories, updates, the timeline which is filled with absolutely useless/annoying content. The groups who are owned are taken over by recruiters/spam.
I guess its only real power is to be connected with (previous) colleagues and to see what they're up to. And ofcourse the job postings for companies (although I would never look for a job starting on Linkedin..)
Am I the only one? <comment><USER2> I use LinkedIn's news feed to build my personal brand among my connections, and to keep my face in front of some connections with the power to hire me. In general, the news feed is full of boring articles, but that's simply because the people posting them are trying to reinforce their brand image of "boring".

I've been sharing 1 article a day for the past 6 months, in addition to responding to group questions. Since my objective is branding, it's not easy to quantify results. But anecdotally, some contacts have mentioned to me that they enjoy what I've been sharing.

<comment><USER3> Be genuinely interested to hear what others think about this. I have contacts who do this (often sharing links) and it makes me cringe - I'm quite capable of discovering my own news - and I find it a bit too attention-seeking. I tend to hide such people. But, I am a grumpy old man these days :-)

I would find original content, infrequently posted and of decent quality, much more impressive.

I guess like so many other things this can be done well, or done badly, and there's a skill in doing it well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No, you are not.

In fact, this excellent column [1] states this viewpoint (and some reasons behind the problem) better than I ever could.

[1] www.thebaffler.com/past/all_linkedin_with_nowhere_to_go

</comment><comment><USER5> As far as I can see they don't seem to have a good algorithm to distinguish viral content and quality articles from spam.

I think that's the crux of the issue.

</comment><comment><USER6> I just ditched my account. It's overrated. It doesn't provide much value to me whilst bringing the same problems as Facebook.</comment>


A Plan in Case Robots Take the Jobs: Give Everyone a Paycheck - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/technology/plan-to-fight-robot-invasion-at-work-give-everyone-a-paycheck.html <comment><USER2> Often, I think about an UBI this way: since the robots don't need a paycheck, that paycheck goes to the now 'obsolete' people. That is fundamentally different now: the robot does not get a paycheck and the paycheck basically goes to the company.

Of course, the company bought and invested in the robot and gets the paycheck as the return on that investment. I've barely heard of someone investing in a robot (or algorithm for that matter) to replace his/herself and also keeping the paycheck while letting the robot/algorithm do the work.</comment>


Tin Found in Israel from 3k Years Ago Comes from Cornwall - <AUTHOR> https://www.archaeology-world.com/scientists-find-that-tin-found-in-israel-from-3000-years-ago-comes-from-cornwall/ <comment><USER2> Weird article. It reads as-if it's a new discovery, yet the "tin comes from England" meme appears in 2K yo maps ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiterides](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiterides)).

In the "Haifa marine Museum" you've never heard of, there are tin pieces found in Phoenician ships, that's ~3K yo and IIRC the sign even says the Tin is from today's England.

[edit: of course this piece could be referencing new confirmation or new methodology - we'll never know, as there are no references to anything of substance. The research is from [https://www.researchgate.net/project/Bronze- Age-tin-Tin-isot...](https://www.researchgate.net/project/Bronze-Age-tin-Tin- isotopes-and-the-sources-of-Bronze-Age-tin-in-the-old-World-ERC-project)]

<comment><USER3> People have always suspected Bronze-age tin might have come from England, but most historians never took it seriously because it implied a lot more long- distance commerce than they believed was possible then.

Charred cloves from the Moluccas (south of the Philippines) were recently found in in a jar in burnt-out remains of a 4000-year-old middle-class kitchen in Syria.

<comment><USER4> >Charred cloves from the Moluccas (south of the Philippines) were recently found in in a jar in burnt-out remains of a 4000-year-old middle-class kitchen in Syria.

This sounds amazing -- do you have a source for this?

<comment><USER5> According to Wikipedia this is a misidentification (i.e. not actually a clove), based on the following sources:

[http://theconversation.com/worlds-oldest-clove-heres-what- ou...](http://theconversation.com/worlds-oldest-clove-heres-what-our-find-in- sri-lanka-says-about-the-early-spice-trade-109686)

[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/004382400409934](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/004382400409934)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It'll be interesting to find what follows.

3k ybp is a relatively unique timestamp for tin. This is during or shortly after the bronze age collapse, where many mediterranean civilisations (greece, egypt, assyria, hatti..) receded, and bronze (inc tin) trade receded with them. Bronze presumably became scarce, and ironworking developed as the eventual alternative.

The centuries of the last bronze dark age is the mythical period of iron age cultures (eg the hero achilles, king david, Rome's founders Romulus & Remus)...

In any case, it was a period of change... changing politics politics, migrations, trade patterns & metallurgy/metal-trade.

Does anyone know if these are new methods for identifying origin? Should we expect more artefacts? If so, we might find be able to identify all sorts of new trade patterns, and see if they relate to political/population chronologies... mythical characters may find themselves in a slightly more historical context.

<comment><USER7> Climate change, too. The Minoan Warm Period ended around this time, and temps would not return to their optimum until the Roman Warm Period almost 1000 years later. Had to have an effect on agriculture and trade.

<comment><USER6> There's evidence for climate changes, earthquakes, revolutions, invasions, war, economic crisis, political crisis, ethnogenesis (both historiographical like accounts of sea peoples & mythical like exodus)... all seemingly substantial and concurrent.

..that's kinda why it's such an interesting and mysterious period. There's tons of room for theories on causes, effects and incidentals.

<comment><USER8> I've wondered if there could have been origin and spread of new plant pathogens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Rather bizarre the article implies direct ships from Cornwall to the middle east.

Surely much more likely a trading network, where things change hands multiple times before reaching destination, probably with key trading hubs.

In fact the tin was found off the coast - just as likely to have been on route to somewhere else.

<comment><USER10> There has always been speculation that there was a Phoenician connection to Cornwall, but not a lot of archeological evidence.

This stemmed from things like Cornish place names having an unusual number of z's (a Phoenician letter) in them, and other similarities.

<comment><USER11> I don't want to discredit this, since I don't know your source, but linguistically that seems quite unlikely for a consonant introduced three thousand years ago to have influence on the modern Cornish place names. Three thousand years ago, the Celtic languages hadn't even split from proto-Celtic, so any influence on Cornish should have also had influenced on the rest of the Celtic languages. In addition, the sound /z/ is a very common one across languages (so it does indicated Phoenician influence), and they didn't have a script then to write the place names (so the orthographic letter z doesn't mean anything).

<comment><USER12> I'm not an expert so forgive what might be a naive question.

Even if the languages had not split, could there still not be regionalised influences on place names?

<comment><USER11> That's true, but the long time change leaves it quite unlikely that the names would leave enough of a remnant of a particular sounds that you could point to a Phoenician influence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Those interested in (one of) the methods used to determine the origin of archeological finds might find Neutron Activation Analysis ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_activation_analysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_activation_analysis)) interesting.

Basically, fire neutrons into your item, and then look at how it [edit: radioactively] decays to determine the constituent chemical elements.

My one beer-brewing book mentioned that they can trace some pot sherds to a specific region of a specific river using this method. Very cool.

<comment><USER14> unrelated, but what beer-brewing book includes this sort of information?

<comment><USER13> I can't remember exactly as I haven't made beer in years and sold all my books and equipment - but - I _think_ it was _Uncorking the Past_ by Patrick Mcgovern.

It could also have been John Palmer's _How to Brew_ too - I remember the author goes into super interesting detail about metallurgy and similar topics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Bronze-age collapse, the Sea Peoples [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples) and Phoenician trade routes...

Trade is a given. Celtic (mode) jewelry found in near-eastern sites, riverine trade routes littered with evidence from around 5-6k BCE indicating vast ancient world trade networks.

While first discovered writing on clay tablets in Mesopotamia are first SURVIVING samples of writing, this doesn't preclude cellulose-based writing media (paper) that simply rotted. Harrappan and early Sumerian trade has been also archeologically demonstrated, as well as Harrappan and <name of Anatolian city complexes recently found I forget...> trade routes, based upon found artifacts likely origins.

<comment><USER15> Humans have likely been trading, boating, and migrating since we stood upright on some African savannah so many hundreds of thousands of years ago.

<comment><USER16> Boating probably came a little later than that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> From a 2016 talk: "Possible some came from Cornwall though I rather doubt they went up there more than once in a blue moon. There are some tin mines in southern Turkey but not enough. The vast majority came from Afghanistan. Specifically the Badakhshan region of Afghanistan." [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRcu- ysocX4&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRcu- ysocX4&feature=youtu.be&t=1039)

<comment><USER7> Is it unfeasible that the tin was traded from ancient Britain to ancient France to Ancient Greece to ancient Israel in sort of a chain rather than ships transporting them directly to Israel?

<comment><USER18> I'm not an expert, but I think it's a given that high-value durable goods like this could change hands many times. For example, probably no-one travelled all the way with the Indian metal objects which have been found in Britain: [https://www.caitlingreen.org/2014/12/indian-silver-coins- in-...](https://www.caitlingreen.org/2014/12/indian-silver-coins-in-viking- age.html) .

</comment></comment></comment><comment> brian-armstrong You hear people today saying we live in a "global economy." It seems like that statement might be true of people hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

<comment><USER19> True but what magnitude?

On the one hand, I'm always surprised by (say) how many thousands of gallons of beer could be produced by a victorian brewery but equally, we make a hell of a lot more now.

<comment><USER20> A large chunk of that is simply differences in population sizes. The current US population is likely larger than the global population in 1,000 CE. Further, children used to make up a larger chunk of the population exaggerating the differences.

So, it was often possible to scale up production even more, but there where not enough customers to justify it.

<comment><USER21> The vast majority of limited trade during pre-industrial times is due to the inefficiency of (i.e. cost) of long range transportation. A single modern cargo ship can carry more cargo in a single voyage than an entire years worth of the entire medieval world's cargo fleets. And at a price that is few orders of magnitude cheaper (per ton).

Not that it mattered since production of everything was, by today's standards, a few orders of magnitude less efficient. It's often difficult to fully grasp how inefficient and slow everything was in pre-industrial times until you dig into the details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Amazing to imagine how back then, there must've been brokers or imperial court wizards / Game of Thrones style, who were the few that knew about such places where magical materials would come from and only have the smallest inkling of what those properties meant. And those materials would travel thousands of miles secreted in pouches to find their way to someone worthy of the rarity.

And today, you can buy any of those things for a few $ off the internet and have it delivered to you.

</comment><comment><USER23> This reminds me of:

 _" And did those feet in ancient time. Walk upon Englands mountains green"_

Referring to the myth/legend that Jesus visited England with Joseph of Arimathea:

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35304508](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35304508)

</comment><comment><USER24> The salt mines in Hallstatt germany date back to about that period too, and have longer trade route reach than was previously believed as well.

We've been pretty good at selling stuff for a while, I suspect.

<comment><USER25> > We've been pretty good at selling stuff for a while, I suspect.

Indeed. There were similar trade routes in North America, likely using the Mississippi River for transportation.

Ocean shells in the Midwest. Object made from Michigan copper all over the continent. Likewise tools made from obsidian from the west.

Our ancestors were collectively as smart and motivated as we are.

<comment><USER24> I've come to think of this as "the ancient world bucket brigade".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> During the run of the British archeology TV show "Time Team" they examined a couple of sites in Cornwall associated with tin. In each episode they discuss the far reaching international trade for tin from Cornwall during the bronze age including as far as to locations in Africa, so while adding to archaeological knowledge this find doesn't seem to be breaking new ground.

<comment><USER21> The new ground is that the tin is dated from apx 1000 BCE rather than 2000 BCE to 1500 BCE when the trade from the now british isles to the near east cultures was well established. These trade routes were thought to be disrupted during the bronze age collapse which, IIRC, started around 1500 BCE.

<comment><USER27> We don't know exactly why the Bronze Age collapse happened, but it's likely that copper was what was disrupted, because copper smelting results in deforestation.So a perfectly functioning and open tin trading route meeting a society that can't find copper any more would explain this find.

<comment><USER28> Copper was readily availble in cyprus. So, no, that's not what happened.

<comment><USER27> Copper was available so long as firewood was available. Copper ore without firewood is of no use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is so interesting because one of my favorite books is Island in the Sea of Time by S. M. Stirling.

It's an alternative history sci-fi book where the author proposes that greeks are sending envoys to britain in 1250bc for trade.

To be precise, Iberian greek colonies are sending these envoys but they speak a common language being ancient greek.

</comment><comment><USER30> If you visit the Heraklion archeological museum on Crete, they have an astonishingly good timeline of the development of the Minoans (how they are called nowadays). Starting from stone age, and how they entered the bronze age. They were very established by 1700 BC. They were selling olive oil and pottery (at least) and importing tin and copper far and wide. You can see the bronze saws that were used to build ships and create a naval power and ability to trade.

I can also recommend visiting Knossos and hiring a local guide. It is not crowded and not too hot off season.

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

</comment><comment><USER17> The research paper: [https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0218326)

</comment><comment><USER31> How about the bronzes of Sanxingdui?

</comment><comment><USER32> "according to the Daily Mail".

The tabloid.

</comment><comment><USER33> We got it all wrong. People migrated from the North Pole towards Africa not the other wy around.</comment>


Sex, Drugs, and things you can't read about, for Australian instances of "You" - <AUTHOR> http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Sex-drugs-and-other-things-you-cant-read-about/

<comment><AUTHOR> More back story and a discussion from HN on the topic yesterday - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=995977></comment>


Show HN: Bors-ng: a GitHub Pull request merge bot - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bors-ng/bors-ng/tree/master <comment><USER2> Nice this is how CI should be done.</comment>


SpaceX to reveal the design for its first manned spaceship tonight - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacex.com/webcast

<comment><USER2> There is nothing substantive about the announcement of an announcement, so this post is off-topic for HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, good to know. Thanks for the response!</comment></comment>


Stop Dicking Around and Close: Lessons from the $24M Fundraising #Fail - <AUTHOR> http://www.metamorphblog.com/2011/08/the-real-lesson-of-mozs-24m-fundraising-fail.html

<comment><USER2> We get it Matt, you're a killer in your own mind. That's cool, but you sound like a rapper who sold 100,000 albums taking a shot at one who sold 10 million. You know what would really be cool, if Rand offered a big pile of cash for SpeakerText, strung you along, and then said F-you.</comment>


Show HN: Ideation Tool - <AUTHOR> https://idea.surge.sh/ <comment><USER2> You may want to grab a few friends, turn on screen sharing, and ask them to try this tool without providing any description of how it works. Because I have no idea what this does or how it's supposed to help.

First I clicked start, nothing happened, I entered some text, the text was invisible, I hit pause, nothing happened, and I bounced. (On mobile.)

<comment><USER3> Agree on the point above. Was lost till I clicked on the "i" button on the top right corner that gave me some info and then connected me to [https://blog.markgrowth.com/a-free-tool-for-problem- solving-...](https://blog.markgrowth.com/a-free-tool-for-problem- solving-9454d8bb9771) which explains what the tool is about in more detail.

I suggest that OP might want to link to this from a prominent location on the site.

\- Sur</comment></comment>


Get Ready for a Coffee Renaissance Thanks to Genetics - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/video/2017/01/get-ready-for-a-coffee-renaissance-thanks-genetics/ <comment><USER2> I am perfectly okay with GMO coffee. If they could make a coffee bean that also contained theanine I would buy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice.</comment></comment>


Working with Multi-column Layout in CSS3 - <AUTHOR> http://mrbool.com/working-with-multi-column-layout-in-css3/26334

<comment><USER2> quite cool to finally see 'advanced' typographical possibilities in css, can save so much time and nerves. And they lead to a better web-typo which is still often way too underrated</comment>


Apple Aiming to Begin Electric Car Production in 2020 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-19/apple-said-to-be-targeting-car-production-as-soon-as-2020

<comment><USER2> I am still quite confused. There are tons of headlines about Apple going into the car business and the articles are less and less clear about whether they are pure speculation or if they are official statements or have reliable sources.

I don't know I it's because I missed my morning coffee, but I can't tell if this article is speculation or not.

<comment><USER3> I think it's confirmed that they have a "several hundred to a thousand" employees working on a car project of some kind.

They've also been reportedly poaching car industry employees recently.

Steve Jobs always wanted to make an Apple car, they might be doing some "honor his dream" type of project.

They might be just developing an autonomous system or a battery conversion system, or they might be building a huge fleet of mapping vehicles.

The project is only 1 - 2 years old so there likely isn't much a product yet, and pivoting is very possible.

There is a video of some person chasing a white van with something unknown on the roof and very dark windows near Apple's headquarters. That's fueling some rumors also.

I personally think they should focus on their CarPlay system and partner with manufacturers to pre-install it in cars, but they would need to allow Android phones to use it.

Apple has over 150 billion USD in cash and it doesn't seem like they know what to do with it.

Apple, why not have a large poll on what projects you should invest in?

"Tesla CEO Elon Musk told Bloomberg Businessweek this month that Apple was seeking to hire away his workers, offering $250,000 signing bonuses and 60 percent salary increases."

Dear Apple, nobody wants one of your closed-source, locked-down, inferior vehicles. Stop poaching Tesla employees you assholes, Tesla is too important for you to wage a money war with them for a side-project that nobody has ever asked for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I still don't buy Apple is going to make a completely in-house EV. Historically, Apple only innovates in market categories in which the incumbents suck (usually through an order of magnitude improvement in the UI/UX). But Tesla doesn't suck...it's done a pretty damn good job. A partnership with Tesla makes more sense.

<comment><USER5> Watches? You could argue that there were better MP3 players at the time of the iPod too. Historically speaking you're only looking back a decade.

<comment><USER2> I don't think you could argue there were better MP3 players.

About watches, it depends on whether we are considering watches as jewelry (at which they don't suck at all) or as information delivery devices (at which they only deliver one type of information, which is typically readily available everywhere)

My Nokia 3110 was great at making phone calls and quite good at SMS'ing, so in that sense they didn't need to be upgraded. In the same vain we can say that we don't need watches that are better at keeping time. But cellphones of the late 90's sucked at a lot of things that are nice to have in your packet, such as games, news and reading.

So the question is, are there a lot of things other than time that are nice to have on your wrist? If yes, then the market fit Apple perfectly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> worth reading on this topic:

[http://9to5mac.com/2015/02/19/apple-electric-car- team/](http://9to5mac.com/2015/02/19/apple-electric-car-team/)

[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/02/19/9to5mac-apple- ca...](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/02/19/9to5mac-apple-car)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you organize and archive your paper-based documents? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Incoming documents (mail, bills, receipts, etc.) go into one large folder. I do a quick gut check before putting them in. Will I need this in 6 month, 1 year? Only if I need it on a long term basis, its put in this folder.

End of the week, everything is scanned and the paper is sorted into one of three folders (1) Keep, (2) Throw or (3) Shred. I'd say less than 5% of documents make it into the (1) Keep folder. I have a small filing cabinet for all our physical papers (family of 3).

End of the month, the three folders are emptied. That gives me chance to rethink any decisions.

I scan using Fujitsu ix500. It's one of the few machines that was discontinued and now has doubled in price. OCRs, deskews, removes blank pages and scans anything flat including credit cards and obnoxiously long receipts. Worth its weight in gold. Its successor, ix1500 is not too shabby either (it's my office scanner).

The scanned documents are organized using the Johnny Decimal system [0].

0: [https://johnnydecimal.com/](https://johnnydecimal.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm trying to go paperless. My routine is to scan every document with Microsoft OfficeLens and upload it as a PDF to my cloud. I only keep really important docs - currently I'm using Leitz document folders [0] for them. (They don't take up as much space as regular folders)

[0] [https://images-na.ssl-images- amazon.com/images/I/41jj3G9Ie%2...](https://images-na.ssl-images- amazon.com/images/I/41jj3G9Ie%2BL._AC_SY400_MSAWEBPEXP_.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER4> I scan them and save them on some kind of digital format. And things like my kids artwork I save in a box in the closet :-)</comment>


Unity3D graphics engine coming to Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 - Suraj-Sun http://wmpoweruser.com/unity3d-graphics-engine-coming-to-windows-phone-8-and-windows-8/

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder how they do it. I was looking at how many changes were necessary to make CPython run on WinRT and it looked like quite a large undertaking. Did they patch mono by hand or is there some open source work available for that?

//EDIT: apparently monogame already supports Windows 8. Interesting. Probably not something that required changes in Mono.

</comment><comment><USER2> The nice thing about Unity is that there was never any question this would happen. They've built up enough trust that we can be confident that they'll be on any popular new platform.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. Also, they already support Windows 7, so supporting Windows 8 is a non-story. (The ARM/Phone versions is the story.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It isn't on Linux so the new crap NASA is programming with it won't run on my desktop. The stuff they did in the past did work on Linux.

<comment><USER5> It's coming on Linux too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wonder if they will still use the Mono runtime instead of the built in .NET CLR?

</comment><comment><USER7> Windows 8 was a good move. Anyone who wants to play 3D games on a mobile device probably wont buy a Windows phone though.

<comment><USER8> I don't see any reason why windows on arm users wouldn't be willing to pay for a casual game 3d or otherwise on their device. The smaller market size might be a hinderance along with any app vetting fees but if you can do a port of an existing unity based app for a relatively low cost you would probably come out ahead.

Also keep in mind theres a lot of xbox/win phone interop stuff going on there so theres at least a few gamers on the platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I want to punch anyone that uses the phrase "after the break", when there is clearly no "break".

<comment><USER10> This is a full post page - the "break" will be on the front page of this site (which appears to be directing me to a mobile version for some bloody reason..), where everything before that will be just displayed on the page, everything after on the full post page.

No need to get violent.

<comment><USER11> It should be simple enough to wrap that 'after-the-break' paragraph in a style which isn't displayed on the full article page. Simple, but elegant.

<comment><USER10> It's a low level form of click bait. I.e. "click here and we'll show you the video".

It also makes sense since you don't want the video on the front page, breaks the layout.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Emulating Bitcoin on Ethereum - <AUTHOR> Hi  guys,
It is no secret that I'm pretty tired of the political infighting around Bitcoin. The environment got so toxic that I stopped most of my Bitcoin-centric development to focus on other projects. I'm pretty sure there are many developers who have felt the same way, and the result has been an explosion in alternative coins and technologies as developer resources have gone elsewhere.
So, I started a simple experiment. What if we got rid of developers entirely, and just replicated and adapted the deflationary structure of Bitcoin on Ethereum. We could model the entire process as an autonomous smart contract, and build a deflationary kernel into Ethereum itself. This would give us a 'store-of-value' token that had access to Ethereum's smart contract language and ecosystem. Just like USD and other inflationary currencies are spent to "mine" Bitcoin, we could spend Ether in an algorithmic way to "mine" a Bitcoin clone. This clone would merge the benefits of both, and deliver a working product quickly.
The end result is my ERC20 Token Bitcoineum. More information available on www.bitcoineum.com, come join us in telegram at https://t.me/bitcoineum So far upwards of $250,000 USD has been committed to mining. This is made simple through on-chain smart contract pools that aggregate individual users and remove the need for client software.
This is the first completely mobile mined currency. It is decentralized in the sense that anyone with an Ethereum wallet can mine it. It borrows its security and capabilities from the Ethereum network itself, and it is working right now. If you are interested in the development of this type of ecosystem come join us :) <comment><USER2> Genuinely can't tell if this is a joke or not. Well played.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not :). It is also a running commentary on the idea that Bitcoin can survive simply as a store-of-value when that functionality can be replicated.

[https://etherscan.io/address/0x73dd069c299a5d691e9836243bcae...](https://etherscan.io/address/0x73dd069c299a5d691e9836243bcaec9c8c1d8734)

[https://etherscan.io/address/0xdeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeadd...](https://etherscan.io/address/0xdeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddead)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wait, people have spent 250000 USD on that? This can't be serious.

So "mining" is burning ETH by sending it to the contract? How can this be a good idea if you're already relying on the mining that happens on the Ethereum network? Basically you're just trading a valuable asset, ETH, for a token that has no value and no useful properties.

<comment><AUTHOR> You should read up on it before you draw conclusions. It does have useful properties, it structurally is similar to Bitcoin while having the smart contract capabilities of Ethereum. Eth is inflationary, and being valuable is really not what you want in the token that drives your smart contract ecosystem. It's value is almost entirely driven by speculation. Further, it's designed to virtualize the mining process for all tokens that derive from it, that keeps work on chain and creates long term value rather than the ICO which is designed to remove as much money from people as quickly as possible.

Whether those properties matter to you is up for debate, but we have replicated the semantics of Bitcoin very closely, on a network that does more transactions. It makes the store-of-value argument for Bitcoin very weak indeed.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, I didn't want to sound like a jerk, but my criticism still applies and I mean it wholeheartedly.

You are right about the up-to-debate value of the thing, so what I've said is my part in the debate.

You are also right that I didn't read everything, but perhaps a superficial view of the thing is missing from your perspective, since you've clearly devoted long hours thinking about this :P

<comment><AUTHOR> We will have to agree to disagree then. I think understanding this fully takes more than a casual look.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How the Tech Boom Terminated California's Economy  - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/article/how-tech-boom-terminated-californias-economy The real estate crash is really just the second leg of the dot.com crash--the failure of housing to absorb the tremendous cash surplus generated by the irrational exuberance of Internet investors. <comment><USER2> From my view, the argument behind the article is not very strong. His best data point is that he talked to an entrepreneur who didn't know what to do with $20 million.

The argument that technology start ups don't create value seems to be disproven by the current valuations of Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> The Economist calls California the ungovernable state. They have a much more realistic appraisal of what's going on here:

<http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13649050>

</comment><comment><USER4> Sewn seeds are unlikely to grow <http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/sown>

I rarely practice pedantry, but this usage's (to me) almost-plausible unreality twisted my mind. I suspect it signals the quality of aspects of the article that are less susceptible to verification.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't see how any sector of the economy is responsible for the inevitable bust that follows an inflationary boom. We had massive inflation over the last 8 years and when that inflation started to be curbed the bust that followed is no one's fault but the people who started the inflation in the first place. California's budget woes are the result of spending too much during a boom not realizing that we were all living in a fantasy world.

The article doesn't address the fact that intellectual property is a form of wealth that is perfectly fine to invest in. Yes there was a lot of errors made during the boom but that's true of all of the booms including our most recent stock and housing bubbles.

I'm still long on the technology industry as a whole. I think there's a lot of good work still to come and I'm looking forward to seeing it. I just hope that the next time inflation comes our way we identify it sooner and act accordingly.

<comment><USER6> > We had massive inflation over the last 8 years

<http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm> disagrees.

We had a huge run-up in house-purchase prices, especially in certain markets. Other things were roughly stable. Technology got cheaper.

<comment><USER5> Inflation is an increase in the money supply. Rising prices are a side effect of that increase. The government has many reasons to hide and distort real rising prices including TIPS and just generally wanting to stay in power.

Inflation was directed by the federal reserve for 8 years at a record pace. When the fed lowers interest rates they in effect increase the money supply through the expansion of bank credit which is the primary means by which money is introduced into the economy.

<comment><USER6> > Inflation is an increase in the money supply.

Nope. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation> "inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time."

An increase in the money supply is an increase in the money supply. If the increase matches other factors, all is generally good. If it doesn't bad things happen.

> Rising prices are a side effect of that increase.

Rising prices are inflation. They happen when the money supply increases faster than the relevant function of wealth and "velocity".

> When the fed lowers interest rates they in effect increase the money supply > through the expansion of bank credit which is the primary means by which > money is introduced into the economy.

"the primary means"? The fed discount rate isn't that effective at affecting the money supply; it has a marginal effect. If it was an effective means, they'd have used it. Instead, they're printing money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I disagree, but voted it up for the interesting counterpoint.

</comment><comment><USER8> Contrarian, concise, convincing. Wonderful writing.</comment>


Benchmarks of various C++ build tools - <AUTHOR> http://retropaganda.info/~bohan/devel/wonderbuild/benchmarks/time.xml <comment><USER2> Which cmake generator was used? The links seem to be dead, so it isn't clear.

I mention this because I'm using cmake for a current project, and backend choice seems to be somewhat important. I found a noticeable improvement when I switched from using a make-based backend (NMake on Windows, GNU Make on OS X and Linux) to the Ninja one (see [https://github.com/ninja- build/ninja](https://github.com/ninja-build/ninja)).

Based on my notes from the time, full build times were basically unaffected on a per-core basisi - but no-op builds were markedly quicker. My notes don't say anything about builds where only one or two files were changed, but my recollection is that that case was noticeably improved as well.

For whatever it's worth, figures from my notepad from a few months ago. Apologies for the scrappiness; these were just brief notes I took at the time, all rather random, just to determine whether the improvement was ~0, or >0... no more than that :/

All times in seconds. All tests performed on my laptop - 3.1GHz dual-core i7.

Windows in a 3-core VM:

        nmake full = 143.72 (1 cpu)
        nmake no-op = 2.22
        ninja full = 140.41 (1 cpu)
                     79.06 (3 cpus)
        ninja no-op = 0.135

OS X native/Linux 4-core VM (unsure which - probably Linux VM):

        GNU make full = 46.81 (4 cpus)
        GNU make no-op = 0.93
        ninja full = 49.36 (4 cpus, I suspect - by default Ninja uses all available cpus)
        ninja no-op = 0.03

(Other notes: cmake works on Windows, and has a reasonably-sized ecosystem, but... OMG. The scripting language is fucking insane. Still worth a look though.)

<comment><USER3> After maybe three years of experience with cmake I must admit its scripting language is just disgusting. Makefile provided a nice, well thought out, simple DSL, with just three concepts: targets, dependencies and actions, and while it didn't provide enough support for handling multiple compiler toolchains, etc. I think replacing it with the cmake shell like 'scripting language', sporting one data structure (string; lists are really just semicolon separated strings...), is an example of very, very bad engineering.

<comment><USER2> Yes. If they had used something like Python, it would probably be heaps better. (Though to be honest I'm not really sure I trust the cmake developers' collective judgment. I'm sure they could manage to make it awful.)

But, even though it's horrid, I do find it CMake easier to work with than make on a day to day basis. CMake's scripting language is at least straightforwardly imperative; CMake has at least some support for working around certain platform/toolchain differences (though this support is rather half-hearted in some key places); it has a couple of handy features that make working with C/C++ libraries quite easy; it has builtin support for test suites. All more convenient than doing it all by hand in GNU make, and you've got support for multiple backends too. Oh, and it supports Windows, too.

Though I admit it only through gritted teeth, it provides value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is pretty old and the title should reflect that. The versions of the software used are ancient by many people's standards: Linux 2.6.24 (released six years ago, in January 2008), ext2 file system (ext3 was introduced in the 2.4 series, seven years before that kernel release), gcc 4.2.4 (also 2008, 4.2 series is from 2007), cmake 2.4.7 (2007). Overall it seems like these undated measurements were performed in early 2008, nearly six years ago. A lot has changed since then and I don't see how this article in its current form should still be relevant today.

<comment><USER5> I take note that I should put a date on the page! I actually ran again some of these benchmarks again over the years (last time about one years ago), on the same hardware and updated software, and results didn't change significantly. FWIW, at the time these results were first published, I had my working dir on ext2 because it had higher performance than ext3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hi, I'm the author of these benchmarks, and yes, they are getting old. One of Scons' maintainers kindly asked me a few days ago to try again with current Scons version, so I've started to update and run these benchmarks again with current software and hardware (SSD). It takes some time to do it right (blame API breakage!) and collect all the results, so I won't be able to publish them before at least a month or so. I will include the meson+ninja and cmake+ninja combinations, and the new CBS tool (an experimental build system from Qt).

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice to see that WAF, being python is competitive. It goes to show that smart can beat brawn.

<comment><USER7> It's only really SCons which gives Python as a build system a bad name in terms of speed in my experience.

<comment><USER8> And judging by the "number of system calls" section, SCons's performance problems don't appear to be due to the Python runtime.

<comment><USER5> I'd say Python's runtime only has a small fixed startup cost that prevent it from beating natively-compiled tools in no-op rebuilds (when no source file has changed). Some tools like tup or ninja reach insanely low times that are below the startup time of Python itself. But at such low times, it doesn't matter anymore whether it's 10ms or 100ms.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Collecting Metal - <AUTHOR> http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2017/03/collecting-metal-inner-and-outer-worlds.html <comment><USER2> The spam comment is oddly amusing given the nature of the article.

</comment><comment><USER3> Somewhat related: Detectorists (BBC Four comedy, available on Netflix in the UK) is a quietly excellent show.</comment>