Computer-driven cars will convulse the automotive industry - <AUTHOR> http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20131130/AUTO01/311300015/1148/AUTO01/Computer-driven-cars-will-convulse-automotive-industry <comment><USER2> There is a hint of what a full society of self-driven cars will be like in _Rainbows End_ by Vernor Vinge: there are no traffic lights. The cars all weave through an intersection much like pedestrians do while walking.

The future, at least in terms of the dangers of driving, is bright.

I look forward to the day when every car is a taxi, and the only cars parked on the side of the road are the ones owned by the very few people who can still be bothered at all to own a car full-time, which will hopefully be very few people.

<comment><USER3> Is the implication here that pedestrians will simply walk into the street at random and the AIs will handle that? I find myself a little uncomfortable at the thought, and I'm fairly enthusiastic about driverless cars for most of the reasons you stated.

<comment><USER4> Yes, that's precisely what happens. You'll be given a safe berth, with cars stopping or avoiding you by at least the distance you could conceivably fall over.

Personally that's already how I cross the street, and my confidence in human drivers isn't anywhere near so great.

<comment><USER5> With human drivers you're given a notion of whether or not they've seen you (they're looking in your direction, the vehicle is slowing, they're motioning at you to cross or get out of the way, or honking at you). The situation is somewhat deterministic.

Not perfect by a long shot, but unless automatic vehicles offer some similar pedestrian signaling capability, there will be issues.

There's also the question of what happens, say, when a vehicle is surrounded by a crowd of people with ill intent. This happens:

[http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Motorcycle-Gang- Attack-...](http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Motorcycle-Gang-Attack-Dad- Toddler-Range-Rover-Manhattan-225817761.html)

<comment><USER6> >unless automatic vehicles offer some similar pedestrian signaling capability, there will be issues.

Working on it. [http://www.technologyreview.com/view/427743/how-do-you- know-...](http://www.technologyreview.com/view/427743/how-do-you-know-an- autonomous-vehicle-has-seen-you/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the market for trucks will be far more disrupted. The idea of having "drone" containers seems far more easily realized and higher value added than civilian passenger autos. The average A->B distances are longer (miles/trip), the routes simpler (turns/mile) and the roads are less complex (fewer on-grade intersections). It seems an automated "carpool lane" would be a huge benefit. As would the avoidance of speeding and drowsy driving by semi/lorry drivers. Furthermore, removing this rolling stock from passenger car rights of way would itself be an improvement in safety (if for no other reason than > visibility).

<comment><USER8> An interesting side issue you didn't consider is at least in the initial roll out phase you simply make an automated "train" with ten trucks, and the lead truck driven by human (or at least has a human on board).

<comment><USER9> This will save a lot of energy since the drag of the truck in front will suck the truck behind. Sorry, I lack the technical terms to describe it.

<comment><USER5> The term is "drafting" or "slipstreaming". The concept has been part of the allure of autonomous vehicle engineering for decades, and is already praticed by human truck drivers (though they cannot follow as closely as automated systems would be able to).

I've done it myself in a passenger car on long trips -- once covered most of a state at high speeds behind a truck who seemed bent on making his schedule. 75+ MPH and my fuel consumption was _well_ below typical for that leg of the trip.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Computer-driven cars will introduce tons of new hacking possibilites from the malicious actors, some possible news headlines:

The car unexpectedly accelerated and killed 5 people, an accident or a murder?

A new ransomware demands 1 BTC to start your car

Google keeps all the history of your car's movements

LAPD is testing a special device to remotely stop cars instead of chasing them

<comment><USER11> Can't forget insurance fraud. I foresee a future where insurance companies will impose additional fees to cars that are "assisted" rather than fully autonomous.

What is assisted? A car fitted with the self-driving computer, but rather than driving the car it instead compares your actions with one the computer would normally do. What is this comparison for? To determine whether you are a safe driver -- a Safe Driver Rating (SDR).

Self-driving cars will become the new gold standard for determining who is a safe driver -- and failing to meet that standard will result in higher insurance rates.

What does this have to do with malicious hackers? They can fudge the self- driving computer to silently and gradually increase your insurance rates by misreporting your SDR.

What about cars that are neither fully autonomous nor "assisted"? Simple: they don't get built/sold anymore due to being unsafe.

<comment><USER8> One interesting side effect of a safe driver rating is you need to balance the cost of having to pay higher insurance with having to find a new job.

Or another interesting problem is how do you push a self driving car beyond its performance boundaries to save your life? "I'm sorry dave, but I can't let you drive during a hurricane/tsunami warning" "hey car, shut up and drive, the storm surge is rising and unless you get moving you're about to transform into a submarine"

If you get fired from your job because your self driving car decided its not going out in 1 inch of snow, how much do you sue the manufacturer? Or the other way around, your self driving car permitted you to go out in a 24 inch blizzard and it got stuck and you died, how much does your estate and survivors get to sue the manufacturer?" Obviously the proud american tradition of screw the little guy means the mfgrs can do anything they want, but the PR implications mean all self driving cars will shut off whenever the chance of precip is above 0%, or the temp is below 32F, etc. And THATs why I don't want a self driving car, it'll be useless in order to be legally intrinsically safe (only valid operating conditions will be 70 degrees, sunny, daytime, etc, which is about 2 weeks per year where I live.)

<comment><USER12> What if your car, networked with all of the other cars in the immediate area, came to the conclusion that a fatal collision was unavoidable unless one car (your car) purposely veered over the side of a bridge... The good of the many outwieghs the good of the few, and you're the few?

<comment><USER13> Unless you paid extra for the level-2 protection package. Then the network has to select a level-1 vehicle to go over the edge.

<comment><USER12> That really is a terrifying thought if you follow it. It won't be so blatant. Probably more like "everyone knows that Volvo AI's get in way less fatal crashes than "cheaper" Chevy AI's".

Considering human nature, I don't think I can imagine a way where this _won 't_ happen on some level or another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Something completely lost on tons of nerds seems to be that people genuinely enjoy operating their cars (and motorcycles).

<comment><USER3> Remember when people genuinely enjoyed riding horses?

<comment><USER15> This is different. This is a horse you ask nicely to take you there but once you're locked inside it can take you anywhere. The issue is not safety, it's _control_.

<comment><USER16> Horses have control issues as well. And a properly designed autonomous car is likely to have a manual override or emergency stop, things for which there are no good equivalents on a horse.

<comment><USER17> The manual override for a horse is a bullet in the brain. Why do you think cowboys carried six shooters?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Right now the scariest part about self-driving cars is the corporations making them or governments having access to remotely-controlled "kill-switches" for these cars. In such a future you wouldn't need to "cut the breaks" to "make it look like an accident" anymore, and doing it like this would be far easier, if strong security measures aren't considered from the start.

<comment><USER19> Yours is a paranoid theory. This future you're worried about is just as possible with elevators and yet we don't see it happening. It'll be just as difficult to get away with because of how unusual accidents will be with self driving cars.

<comment><USER5> Elevator accidents are rare (hence: suspicious), people transit them for brief periods of time, usually in the company of others, and it's difficult to known when your intended target is in the elevator to attack them. If you're going to target someone via an elevator attack, you've likely got far more effective and specific vectors which would work.

Cars tend to be assigned to specific individuals (permanently, on an ongoing occasional basis for car-share programs, or for a trip duration in the case of dispatched livery) and, well, accidents happen, even with automation (other vehicles, mechanical failures, road or environmental conditions). Moreover, if your intent is to convey someone somewhere, it's a lot easier to do this via an automobile (which can travel anywhere on a paved road and non inconsiderable options on unpaved roads) than in an elevator, which, with the exception of Mr. Wonka's design, tend to follow a rather predictable and limited course.

If I were in charge of threat assessment for a VIP/HNWI, I'd very much take this threat into consideration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It seems like these cars will have to be operable in both the manual and self driving modes. Otherwise the car will become much less flexible.

Examples: 1) immediate unplanned stop at a yard sale 2) drive "off road" to get around an obstruction 3) dealing with unstructured parking situations 4) avoiding emergency stops in unsafe locations 5) driving through puddles (is it 2 inches or 2 feet deep?) 6) etc.

And for some significant transition period the road will be populated by both manual and computer driven cars.

How does the hybrid system work? Won't many people take advantage of "dumb" cars. How would you drive if you knew many cars were computer controlled. Would people figure out how to "game" the known computer driving rules? I don't pull out in front of cars that are too close because the human might not stop and hit me. Maybe I don't worry about it if I know the computer is in control of the other car.

Long haul freeway driving does not seem too complicated. But what about high density suburban and city driving?

<comment><USER21> 1 is just a matter of allowing the user to issue real-time commands ("Car, stop here", "Car, go park"). 3 is less of an issue when you can get off and let the car park itself wherever it wants.

2, 4 and 5 are a matter of smarter algorithms, but I doubt they won't be able to do all that way before they become commonplace. Particularly 4, since you can't reasonably expect people to have to take control to avoid an accident. Even professional pilots can struggle with that, let alone regular drivers.

<comment><USER22> There is currently a lot of talk in the professional pilot community that automation has reached the point where pilots are increasingly unable to fly manually. So when the automation fails, they can't handle it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> fta : "The avoidance of accidents will cut insurance costs".

Ha ha. No. Any freed-up cash will result in an increase in gas-prices, taxes or whatever. The cost living will continue to be just a bit more than you can afford no matter what. Any "avoidance of accidents" will just translate into profits for somebody, not you. The cost-environment is entirely artificial and is designed to exploit you right down to the bones and gristle. You don't get to enjoy the fruits of progress except in ways that make you a more efficient worker. Sorry.

<comment><USER24> My cost of living is quite a bit less than I can afford. I am not sure what you mean.

<comment><USER25> Let them eat cake, right?

<comment><USER24> No, but the comment above made it sound like the situation he described applies to everyone. I am not crazy wealthy, but by being smart with my money and forgoing some things I can live within my means comfortably. I am sure there are many people in my situation, contrary to the statement I was responding to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> >and they will be ubiquitous by 2025.

aaaand you've lost me. Apologies for the snide remark, but there's no way we'll be there by that time. The industry won't let us.

Apologies for not having much reason in this post, and only stating a personal opinion without much detail to back it up, but I'm just curious to see if there's anyone that feels the same.

<comment><USER26> Elaborating;

The optimal (most efficient, safest) way to get computer-controlled cars to work;

\- All drivable areas mapped (Not just the roads - EVERYTHING, since you might want to go off-road. What if; landslide, earthquake, someone digs a hole somewhere, leaves a brick on the street, etc.)

\- Knows where everyone is (going) at all times (privacy issue)

\- Has everyone on the same system (not happening within 12 years)

Since I don't see these three happen, they have to be dealt with somehow. The bracketed issues are fully remedied only by the solutions written before them. Anything less will be fighting the symptoms, not the disease, and be a never- ending battle.

There are so many obstacles to be overcome, so much politics to be done, so many technical challenges, so much bureaucracy ... 12 years really isn't that long.

<comment><USER27> The actual bar for deploying self driving cars is that they are safer than some (large?) portion of humans that we already allow to drive. We don't have to do it the safest way or the most efficient way.

I agree that ubiquity is unlikely, but because of cost.

(A high end Mercedes can already keep itself in a lane, slow down the cruise for a slower vehicle and will override the driver trying to crash into things. These systems are environmental, they don't depend on detailed maps. [http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/benz/safety](http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/benz/safety)

And they are one of several, not way out in front.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > Railroads, bus companies and short-haul airlines will suffer. If you can > move from your home to your destination, door-to-door in the comfort of your > car, who's going to take the train, bus or plane?

Would that be significant? Costs, travel times, risk of accidents/theft, failures, would still be much higher. Not to mention it is absurdly less efficient to travel alone in a car.

I imagine hopping onto a car to the train station, and having another one waiting for you right at the arrivals gate will be the preferred mode of travel.

<comment><USER22> Have you ever taken a long-distance rail trip in the USA? Outside of a few corridors in the northeast, it's a slow, breakdown-ridden nightmare.

<comment><USER29> Maybe the OP was talking about the rest of the world, where trains work pretty well in general and this service might work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I imagine that this would make the modularization of cars more feasible, or even necessary. E.g. a long-distance travel power train module could provide enough juice for driving cross-country (e.g. on holidays), while the commuter power train module would be lighter and less costly to rent. The car could drive itself to a hotspot where such modules are interchanged on demand. This would of course only make sense if there still is something like car ownership - if cars are only rented from central entities, then this entity would just send out specialized vehicles instead.

However, I'm not quite sold that people will give up on car ownership. Yes, there's public utilities and public transport, which is not up for individual ownership. But a car in the sense that we have it now is something more personal than a train cabin - a car's body is very close to us and we touch it all the time; we leave personal belongings there; and there is something to the fact that this car is always in front of my house/appartment, especially in emergency situations. This last point could be amended with emergency cars which are available to each apartment block, with which driving is just more expensive. Imagine crying "Help! I need a car!" and an emergency unit comes right around the corner and takes you wherever you want.

<comment><USER31> I don't think we'll willingly give up on owning cars. Rather, it'll become way too expensive for the average person to own one.

Once self-driving cars show a marked decrease in road accidents, insurance prices will rise.

Car-as-a-Service companies will be created, making the cost of riding in a private car much cheaper than outright owning one. I'm already intending to start a car service as soon as the first cars are available.

<comment><USER32> >Once self-driving cars show a marked decrease in road accidents, insurance prices will rise.

Huh?

Edit: Just to be clear: The world you describe should see incuranse rates for self-driving cars markedly lower, with rates for driver-driven cars probably a bit lower (than current).

<comment><USER33> Insurance costs for human-driven vehicles will rise.

<comment><USER24> I don't think that is necessarily true.. The cost of insurance is based on the average expected payout per customer... I don't think the average payout will increase, as being a human driver won't suddenly become MORE dangerous, at worst it will stay the same.

<comment><USER33> But what happens when the average expected payout is expected to go down? Insurance companies will expect lower loss ratios from self-driven cars, so doing something as dangerous as driving your own vehicle will carry a premium. Its very similar to how your health insurance premiums are much higher if you're a smoker. You _can_ smoke, but you're going to be charged for this unnecessary, harmful action.

<comment><USER24> Oh, I have no doubt that driving your own car will be more expensive than taking a self-driving car. My point was that it wouldn't be more expensive than it currently is to have insurance (when everyone is driving their own car)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wonder how the economics of owning cars will change when everything is computerized. In logistics (specifically trucks), it would incredibly reduce the total cost of shipping if you eliminate Less-than Truck Loads (LTLs) and empty back hauls. I imagine it is similar with transporting people, if there was a "taxi" like company that could maximize the use of an automated car, the total amount of cars necessary in the world would go dramatically down. Right now most cars spend most of their lives idle. Great side effects include no auto insurance and much less emitted greenhouse gasses.

The number of millennials buying cars is already extremely low, computerized cars would most likely continue to reduce the number of new car owners.

</comment><comment><USER35> Unless these car systems are programmed at the level of rigor of the Space Shuttle or other "screw up and they all die" environments, the only group that's going to "convulse" from computer-driven cars will be lawyers. And they'll convulse laughing. Is this how it should be, no. But it's how it is in the US at the moment, possibly in other countries as well.

As people mention, if they don't behave as the rider wants or if they can't deal with unexpected situations (or mechanical failures) or if they're required to be always-connected and the net goes down… And I'm sure all sorts of privacy types would love being carted about with no control on their environment. Unless the net connection's also amazingly robust, the computer- driven kidnapping possibilities are endless.

Oh, I didn't think computer vision's a solved problem… It's easy to lose the GPS signal in cities, and you can probably jam or spoof it without too much difficulty. Doubt cities are going to spend lots of $$ installing all sorts of "helpers" to deal with all that rebar.

</comment><comment><USER36> Imagine having your car drive off and park itself somewhere. You don't even need to know where.

And there are wider and more fundamental social benefits. City centres will become pleasant places to walk in. Cleaner air, less noise and less chance of being run over. Another example, _children_ will play outside more, rather than being confined indoors as they increasingly have been.

<comment><USER37> >Imagine having your car drive off and park itself somewhere. You don't even need to know where.

Sounds like a car thief's dream.

<comment><USER8> Or just the average meth head doing smash and grabs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> An aspect of this that I have yet to see examined is the rapid decrease in paint and body repair, as well as replacement parts needed on both a mechanical and cosmetic front. Many mechanical failures are due to driver error. Once again shrinking the pool of skilled manual labor with no new industry for the workers to transition into.

</comment><comment><USER39> The thing that the article didn't touch on was the fact that many municipalities derive significant income from fines related to parking and traffic violations. It will be a big transition for them also.

</comment><comment><USER40> I don't want a computer driven car.

</comment><comment><USER41> There seems to be a lot of excitement about self-driven cars, but somehow, except for a handful of local lines, there has been no real automation on the operation of trains, even if they are much easier to make completely autonomous. How are self-driven cars not going to face the same fate as self- driven trains?

<comment><USER42> Except trains are largely autonomous, it's about wanting a human element in the operation, not requiring them. I see the same applying to a self-driven car, the human element is always present there in the form of passengers, who undoubtedly will be able to assume control if need be, that is how the Google cars are designed.

<comment> loup-vaillant I have discussed with guys doing train software for a living: [http://prover.com/](http://prover.com/) From their experience, automating trains in an otherwise human environment is very hard. Probably as hard as automating cars.

I expect the ubiquitous automation of trains at around the same time at the ubiquitous automation of cars.

<comment><USER43> The control of the train itself is easy. Simulations abound for this purpose. The GE's and Siemons of this world wouldn't hesitate to implement them if there weren't other significant rail context specific issues, such as the human environment comment above. The difference is that it's not a human vs human driver problem but a schedule design and human making bad scheduling decisions now that the trains are running late, implementation problem.

Furthermore, train drivers are cheap (compared with other infrastructure investments) and relatively efficient as they can be skilfully taught to drive according to a plan (compared with your fellow road commuters). Without other investments to tell the driver or the computer that they can drive faster/closer to the train in front at most railways are only likely to see efficiency gains (lower power/diesel usage) but struggle to drive those trains to denser schedules. It will happen for non-capacity reasons such as inter network usage, and safety to prevent trains from speeding around curves and falling off.

I expect the challenge will ease partly due to implementing automation of the management to provide safety at increased traffic densities and provide online decision support analysis. Later versions of ETCS could an example of part of that: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Train_Control_System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Train_Control_System) Example of some of the budgets involved: [http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/infrastructure/news/ten...](http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/infrastructure/news/ten- t-corridors_en.htm))

Once a future version of that is done (ATMS in Australia for example), driverless tech will be much closer to being the low hanging fruit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> >Congestion avoidance will speed traffic and save fuel too.

Perhaps we live in different worlds, in my world self-driving cars will create more traffic jam, lead to higher road-use taxes and to harsher economic times due to people in trucking/delivery/cab driving losing jobs.

<comment> loup-vaillant Traffic jam: the infrastructure may eventually change. Have a first car drive to to a nearby train or subway station, and a second car to your destination from the train. In the meantime, you may have more traffic jam.

Energy: when you don't need to own your car, you can use the best car for the job. A commuting car doesn't need to be able to carry 5 people around. It can be much smaller. Again, the transition period likely won't look good.

Harsher economic times: this is good old technological employment, where productivity rises faster than demand. My 2 cents: self-driving cars _will_ significantly contribute to technological unemployment, and that's _good_ , provided we manage it well. An obvious measure would be to generalize a 32 hours work-week, over 4 days. It would mean less unemployment and less overwork. Workload will reduce anyway. We might as well share this reduction, instead of giving it all to the unemployed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Yeah, but they are still just cars. They will still need valuable real-estate for roads and parking and storage. What these are starting to sound like are trains and buses, which have existed for hundreds of years.

<comment><USER46> No. A self driving car can move itself somewhere where real estate and parking are freely available and cheap. Also, if people can utilize them like taxis then the total number of cars registered at any one time can drop dramatically.

The difference between a self-driving car and a bus/train is that the car goes wherever you want, just like a manual car.

<comment><USER37> What leads you to believe the owners of those properties or law enforcement will allow self-driving cars to park themselves just anywhere?

<comment><USER47> The cost for parking will of course be limited as otherwise you could simply send the car out to drive around the block until you're ready to leave. That may not provide a restrictive limitation but it will be a limit in some way.

I'm now imagining huge traffic jams caused on purpose to enable electric vehicles to crawl around the city for several hours to avoid paying massive parking costs.

<comment><USER37> I can easily imagine cities mandating autonomous vehicles having to pay (automatically I guess) some kind of 'congestion' fee after driving a certain number of miles without a passenger or without covering any real distance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> As pointed out elsewhere in the thread, if computer driven cars become ubiquitous, insurance rates on person driven cars will become prohibitively high or the act of driving a car on public roads will be banned outright.

As someone who enjoys nothing more than riding my motorcycle on mountain road trips, I can't help but dread that. The privacy and liberty implications make me uneasy as well, in much the same way as the NSA's overreach.

<comment><USER49> Why would insurance become prohibitively high? Insurance is priced at the mean probability of getting into an accident * mean cost of restitution from an accident + insurance risk premium. I can't see self driving cars measurably affecting any of these numbers upwards significantly. Especially not by the factor of 10 it would require to make insurance prohibitively expensive.

<comment><USER5> Low-n probabilities become harder to assess, so if human-controlled vehicles are really rare, risks might be hard to assess.

How human drivers interact with otherwise automated traffic flows might similarly increase risks. Much as largely horse-drawn or bicycle traffic is generally pretty safe, but mixed-mode traffic with cars, trucks, busses, etc., tends to produce (often fatal) accidents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Convulse = disrupt, right?</comment>


Lookery, the Facebook advertising network...with lots of data - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2007/07/26/lookery-the-facebook-advertising-networkwith-lots-of-data/ <comment><USER2> I think it's incredibly risky to build an ad-network on Facebook because of backwards-integration (i.e. Facebook will just build it too if it's successful).

Once Facebook has a proprietary system, they can leverage all the other data they don't give developers access to and in doing so give marketers the best ROI. Marketers will flock to Facebook's system, leaving companies like Lookery and Peanut Labs with, well, peanuts.

Witness what's already happened with Peanut Labs. They created a succesful online market research tool (a.k.a. "polls") that they embed on social networks and SNAPs.

Facebook could have used Peanut Labs, but instead they built their own system, Facebook Polls.

Where are market researchers going to go now? Peanut Labs or Facebook?

Facebook, obviously, because Facebook can insert polls directly into the News Feed and target them better than Peanut Labs can.

Granted Peanut Labs might be a better fit for smaller social networks that don't have the scale and power of FB, but that doesn't mean marketers will prefer to use them. Marketers will flock to the system with the most users from which they can extract the most information. That system is Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER3> All new competitors have access to the ridiculous amount of data available to Facebook apps.

Is anyone else here interested in or working on a behavioral targeting project?

<comment><USER4> Hell yes. I think there's a big market for selling UGC-type data as behavioral targeting data... the current systems are relatively unsophisticated-- they tell a marketer what kinds of sites you've visited, but not what you were talking about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It doesn't look like anything special, there is a lot of room for competitors in this market.

There must be people planning on applying to YC for this same idea.</comment>


Challenges found securing #nodejs desktop apps AtomEditor - <AUTHOR>

https://twitter.com/nodesecurity/status/440550902555230209 <comment><USER2> Actual link: [https://blog.liftsecurity.io/2014/03/02/of-atom.io-and- secur...](https://blog.liftsecurity.io/2014/03/02/of-atom.io-and-security)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wonder how github will handle such issues</comment>


C strings with implicit length field - <AUTHOR> https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/half-baked-ideas-c-strings-with-implicit-length-field/#content <comment><USER2> Why not pascal strings? This worked for android.

{ uint Len; char str[0];}

<comment><AUTHOR> See the discussion here: [https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/programming/CNullSt...](https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/programming/CNullStringsDefense)

Also why store the length twice? The whole point of my article is that malloc already stores the length, you don't need to store it over again.

<comment><USER2> The idea it worked for android was that you get cache locality.</comment></comment></comment>


Procedural City Generation - Developer's Log - <AUTHOR> http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2940

<comment><USER2> This is a great series. The guy can write (he's also funny) and he writes the series in a really accessible way. Definitely worth reading.

Also check out his "terrain" series, it's terrific. <http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=141>

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're heading off to google images to see how this compares to real and not overexposed cityscapes, then the below links will save you some time. Open the last picture up while you watch the video at 2:09, bottom left building.

[http://media- cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/12/00/de/t...](http://media- cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/12/00/de/tokyo-by-night.jpg) [http://abodenyc.com/images/New%20York%20City%20Images/New- Yo...](http://abodenyc.com/images/New%20York%20City%20Images/New-York-Skyline- Night%20-%20Fixed.jpg) <http://edp.org/Travel/Chicago/ChicagoNight.jpg> <http://www.flickr.com/photos/arjunpurky/2507602603/> [http://www.picturecorrect.com/wallpaper/japan/tokyo_1024x768...](http://www.picturecorrect.com/wallpaper/japan/tokyo_1024x768.htm) <http://www.flickr.com/photos/yayatan/35736937/> [http://www.postcardsfromhonshu.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/0...](http://www.postcardsfromhonshu.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/03/tokyo_at_night_1600x12001.jpg) [http://www.markmyhsieh.com/Blog/files/page0_blog_entry78_15....](http://www.markmyhsieh.com/Blog/files/page0_blog_entry78_15.jpg) [http://leejones- san.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilde...](http://leejones- san.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/tokyo_night.jpg)

Projects like these are great examples of hitting that 5% that gets you 95% of the way home. When he talks about avoiding simulations, that's precisely right. I wish he would talk more about how he's choosing the right things to focus on. Perhaps it's just luck? For example, I think that a few of his steps, like bloom, were detrimental. Irregular streets might have solved the streets problem by hiding them (cf. 1st pic). Brightening up buildings in the distance could also have made this look even better.

</comment><comment><USER4> You can see the process and the end result in a video:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d2-PtK4F6Y>

Also, if you are interested in procedural cities generation, there is a very cool Swiss startup:

<http://www.procedural.com>

It's a spin-off from ETHZ graphics research. You can find their SIGGRAPH papers here:

<http://www.procedural.com/company/publications.html>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Follow the "next" link under the title bar to go to the next parts. It's a blog so there isn't (currently) a unified page to submit.

</comment><comment><USER5> Introversion, the UK games company that did Uplink, Defcon, and Darwinia, has been working on a game called Subversion that has procedurally generated cities, from terrain mapping to placing desk chairs in the offices of the buildings. <http://www.introversion.co.uk/subversion/>

<comment><USER6> Young's is nice, but the Subversion concept is orders of magnitude more awesome because it populates the city on the fly, as you approach. Like a fractal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very cool - reminds me of a City Generator include for POV-Ray I used back in the day: [http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/1434/citygen.ht...](http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/1434/citygen.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> I was always thought the game developers designed the whole city in 3D.

Nice article.

Why is the city's nighttime generated based on lights?

</comment><comment><USER9> quite engrossing. i read and skimmed. lots of great pictures.

this is the opposite experience to blogs posts that run out of steam halfway and then end with some dumb conclusion. well done shamusyoung. wish there were more of these kind of project reports on hn.</comment>


A "Zynga for real men": troubling blend of FX trading and social gaming - <AUTHOR> http://www.transcapitalist.com/transcapitalist/2010/7/17/zynga-for-real-men-a-troubling-blend-of-fx-trading-and-socia.html <comment><USER2> This is not a serious complaint. Forex speculators don't cause currency collapses; bad central banking policy does. Forex traders either a) get it wrong, and lose money, or b) get it right and make money while bringing prices in line with reality.

Play with eToro for a few minutes some time. It's a very well-done app. Both as a game and as a trading platform, it's a move in the right direction, and it's something worth emulating.

<comment><USER3> > _Forex speculators don't cause currency collapses_

George Soros played a role in the collapse of the Thai Baht, during the early stages of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. He also personally caused the sudden drop of the British Pound in the 1992 'Black Monday,' which led Britain to leave the European ERM.

People on eToto obviously will not cause this kind of damage. But it's incorrect to say that foreign exchange / currency speculation cannot cause a currency collapse.

<comment><USER4> It is important to differentiate between the immediate trigger and the underlying cause.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's baffling as to why anyone would make comparisons between Zynga, forex, and "Lending Club" or feel moral consternation at the possible damage twopenny short positions might have on international trade.

I've never heard of etoro, but try to understand that forex is for experts only and can only serve to wipe you out.

</comment><comment><USER6> etoro is simply a nice frontend. It is built on top of www.retailfx.com/.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comments. Like most people here, I do not believe that eToro users will have any power to influence the market one way or the other (as I wrote). More, I am troubled by a social gaming approach to something that has actually real-life consequences. A speculation market of sufficient scale could cause major currency fluctuations. The Zynga comparison was made by their primary investor, which is why I cite it. Shall we open a gaming market as well to predict foreclosures and then reap the benefits?

</comment><comment><USER7> I think this is the start of a trend - opening up financial trading to the masses, and making it easy (and fun). With pretty much zero return on cash in the bank, and a general distrust of banks, people are thinking about just doing it themselves. Covestor is another one to watch.

<comment><USER4> Between this and the rising profile of HF stuff, it's going to be a fun decade.</comment></comment>


Antiquated Higher Level Education - <AUTHOR> http://andrewmland.com/antiquated-higher-level-education/

<comment><USER2> The traditional student is better educated. Presumably (s)he is motivated and interested in certain classes too. The difference is the computer student avoids doing anything (s)he doesn't feel like doing. Living according to your whims is not taking it on yourself to be responsible.

Second of all, it's not like Thrun left a comfy life in the ivory tower to get with the times. The WSJ article says he was an adjunct. It's not surprising he left a dead-end job to join a startup.

I'd also say that if you're not learning outside of your immediate narrow interests, you're not really learning. Is learning an 8th programming language once you already know 7 a bigger learning experience than taking a course in chemistry when you know none?

Boring (to you) required classes have two purposes: to be truly educated you need breadth, and for a degree to be worth anything on the job market it should demonstrate that you can suck it up and do unpleasant tasks. If you don't care about either of those and just want to stick with what you know and like, why the hell are you in school anyway?

<comment><AUTHOR> You make a fair point. However, what I was more trying to get at was the fact that a lot of students are learning for the test and forget 90% of what they learned after the test. My solution to this was to try and eliminate the topics unnecessary to their degree and interest (the ones they only learn for the test) to allow more time to take wider breadth of courses that interest them along with their major required course work. For instance, if I only need certain topics in chemistry to graduate instead of a full semester class, this would allow me, as an engineer for instance, take a class on Roman architecture if that is something that interests me. In this way you are still getting a breadth of knowledge but the knowledge your getting is determined by you as the student and not by some outside curriculum. Institutes like Brown University already offer programs that allow students more control over where they want to take their education. The problem is institutions like this are to far and few between.</comment></comment>


New Kid in Town - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@eeisaman/theres-a-new-kid-in-town-5f683fdc854b <comment><USER2> Deno, is like node (anagram) but runs as "A secure TypeScript runtime on V8"</comment>


Marketing your startup: dorks vs everyone else - <AUTHOR>

So here is the question: when you are marketing your start-up do you go after the online tech community (dorks) or go after normal people (people whose lives do not revolve around the internet.)  Maybe its both, maybe not. Suggestions, insight, comments... <comment><USER2> I would recommend going for the non-geek community ("normal people") 99 times out of 100. Basically, go for real people as customers unless you're selling a bug-tracking app or tech news app or something else that is only pertinent to geeks.

Geeks are less willing to pay for a product or service, because their interest in new startups is largely a technical curiosity and/or a competitive curiosity. The people that are on the cutting-edge of technology are also constantly looking for the next thing, so they lose interest quickly. Non- geeks are much more likely to pay you and to continue paying you if your service actually helps them. An app is likely to be remarkable (in the literal sense) for geeks if it has a unique architecture or was written in an unusual language, etc., whereas an app can be very remarkable/viral among non-geeks as long as it is useful.

In sum: If you want a business, go after non-geeks. If you want 15 minutes of geek-fame, go after geeks.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it really depends on what you do. If you offer the type of product/service that geeks are likely to recommend to their non-geek friends and will still excite geeks target them. I fully believe a great deal of Googles success came from exciting the geek market and using them to spread the word to non-geeks who could tell people to Google it instead of spending time answering a question.

Other companies either don't appeal to geeks or just aren't something a geek is likely to recommend in which case just targeting the general population is probably better.

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems it would depend on the product/service you are offering.

</comment><comment><USER5> Try some of each and see who gets more excited about it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why do you choose "dork" instead of "geek?"

<comment><AUTHOR> my bad...was debating the two terms. It was meant to be tongue in cheek.</comment></comment>


PHP in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://stitcher.io/blog/php-in-2019 <comment><USER2> While I mostly agree, I think the PHP world it depicts is too rosy. The language itself is a bit chaotic and its enhancements are often half-baked.

For exemple, PHP5 introduced type declarations for functions, but only for arguments and custom types (object classes). PHP 7.0 extended these declarations to return values and internal types[1]. But having nullable types was implicit and restricted to some arguments and forbidden on return values, so PHP 7.1 had to introduce a new explicit syntax[2]. Now there are two ways to have nullable typed parameters, and, outside of the migration notes[2], only the old one (incomplete) is documented.

The post is right about the performance of modern PHP, but in the same time it advocates the use of the most prominent frameworks, which are rather slow. While Yii2 or CodeIgniter have a 20% overhead over raw PHP, Laravel and Symfony have a 80% overhead, i.e. 5 times slower[3]. YMMV, of course.

Composer is not mentioned in the post, though its main source is (Packagist). I think it has largely contributed to the better PHP ecosystem. Having worked recently with Python, I was frustrated by their lack of a similar standard tool.

[1]: [https://www.php.net/manual/en/functions.arguments.php#functi...](https://www.php.net/manual/en/functions.arguments.php#functions.arguments.type- declaration)

[2]: [https://www.php.net/manual/en/migration71.new- features.php](https://www.php.net/manual/en/migration71.new-features.php)

[3]: [https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r17&hw=...](https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r17&hw=cl&test=query&l=zik073-1&w=0-4zsow&c=2&d=d&f=0-kasck-141czk-0-dbhkeq-13ydj4-3quio- hrd6o0-0)

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, I think the PHP community wants this to be successful, and is looking with rosy thoughts. But I find it hard to blame them. PHP paid my salary for a long time. It's got a few issues as a technology, but it gets the job done. I can see how the PHP community would look forward with hope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Missing Semantic Merge in tooling:

[http://blog.semanticmerge.com/2019/02/semanticmerge-now- supp...](http://blog.semanticmerge.com/2019/02/semanticmerge-now-supports- php.html)</comment>


Xfce 4.12 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.xfce.org/about/news/?post=1425081600

<comment><USER2> I'm very impressed and happy for the continued support for non-Linux systems. It's very heartening that when necessary, they are coding backends for other systems, instead of buying in to the Linux-only systemd lock-in.

I was also very surprised to see how decent the UI looks even under GTK+ 3. I was afraid they would get sucked into the horrible catastrophe that has befallen Gnome with things like client-side decorations.

Gedit, for instance, went from this: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Gedit226...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Gedit2261.png) ... to this: [http://cdn.xfce.org/about/tour/4.12/xfwm4-csd.png](http://cdn.xfce.org/about/tour/4.12/xfwm4-csd.png) ... the horror.

Has anyone given this a try yet? I would like to know if the common dialogs (eg file open, file save) use proper window decorations, or if they too now look like the Gnome 3 CSD garbage.

Also, it's still possible to use Clearlooks-Phenix, right? They're just saying they discontinued the Xfce-* themes, right? Adwaita is such a dull theme.

<comment><USER3> I think it's a little unfair to compare the gedit UI at different sizes. I hastily mocked up how they would look at the same size: [http://i.imgur.com/hb6TLEr.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/hb6TLEr.jpg)

Personally I love the minimal and uncluttered look. I don't need big buttons for copy and paste, and even on a 30" monitor I appreciate the extra space it allows for actual content.

<comment><USER4> > _I love the minimal and uncluttered look._

Uncluttered, unintuitive, unhelpful - just like a vi buffer in input mode.

<comment><USER3> > unintuitive

Unintuitive for whom? It abandons the traditional structure, which some people are accustomed to, but I suspect that it would be measurably more effective for people who haven't developed patterns of familiarity with the traditional workflow.

> just like a vi buffer in input mode

I think the key difference is discoverability. In gedit I can immediately see how do 6 common actions, and that there's another layer of less common actions in the hamburger menu. I never had to google "how to exit gedit" for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _The desktop has a new wallpaper settings dialog_

I would like to apologetically take blame for designing and implementing the old dialog 6+ years ago, and thank the team for finally replacing it with something that looks actually usable.

Congrats on 4.12! Hopefully it'll be in Debian jessie soon...

<comment><USER6> > Congrats on 4.12! Hopefully it'll be in Debian jessie soon...

Isn't it too late to be included in Jessie? As an XFCE + i3 user anxiously awaiting Jessie in stable, I'd be very happy to hear that it'll be included, but I thought all major packages had been frozen already.

<comment><USER5> A quick google shows an Xfce blog post from November stating that it _won 't_ make it in, as the Jessie freeze had already passed. I had no idea! But as a sibling says, hopefully it'll make it to backports.

<comment><USER7> I simply use Debian in unstable all the time and update every couple of weeks. I hate staying stuck for a year or more with old versions and unstable was very rarely unstable for me. There was once or twice in the 10 years or so that I've used Debian unstable that the upgrade broke.

The most annoying times of the year are when Debian is in a freeze preparing for release. I can't get the latest version of everything and I am just so lazy I can't be bothered to build an upstream package from scratch.

And while I don't find much use for Debian releases myself I know they are useful and important to others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My new work (a government research lab) has some strict policy (no installing own OS) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 on the desktop workstations. And the RHEL 6.5 has Gnome 2. So I was thrown back in time to the long lost paradise (since 2011) that is Gnome 2. It brought back memories, and now that I again use it, I must say that Gnome 2 is not bad at all.

On my laptop I use Xubuntu (Xfce desktop), and I also must say that modern Xfce is better at the Gnome 2 thing, than Gnome 2.

<comment><USER9> I enjoyed Gnome 2 as well, back on Debian 5 and 6. Did you try MATE ([http://mate-desktop.org/](http://mate-desktop.org/))? It's an active fork of Gnome 2.

<comment><USER8> I like my panels vertical, and looks like [1] MATE has inherited this bug from Gnome 2, that window buttons go crazy if the panel is vertical, and there are more than 8 windows open. Gnome 2 never fixed this bug, and apparently is still exists in MATE, too.

Anyway, I think Xfce is better.

[1] [https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/1351825](https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/1351825)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm so sad to say this is looking worse for every release. And by looking, I mean looking. I'm starting to think this is going to be just as unbearingly ugly as the current iterations of GNOME and KDE in a few versions. It might be getting more functional, but I don't know.

Xfce was the option I was so happy to have. It used to be a no frills, minimalistic (but not conceptually minimalistic) interface that simply did the job. Now the interface is getting more complicated and innovative. More complicated designs requires better designers, and they don't seem to be around except for in the Elementary OS community.

I haven't looked into MATE yet, perhaps I'll do that.

<comment><USER10> Apparently I'm getting down voted. Not sure why. Anyway, I gave MATE a try and I'm really happy. The "TraditionalOk" theme and some really simple customization gave me exactly what I was looking for. Old school Xfce style: [https://i.imgur.com/IN8UN1T.png](https://i.imgur.com/IN8UN1T.png)

<comment><USER11> That date and time format on the top bar is probably the least likely way a Swede would write it down using a pen.

Other than that your theme looks good. Please share details.

<comment><USER10> I spent two minutes changing the colors, icons and font sizes of TraditionalOk (the all came with the OS). In that time I couldn't figure out how to edit that date/time format or placement. :)

It was just a fast test of Ubuntu MATE in a VM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's a visual tour here of the new version here:

[http://xfce.org/about/tour](http://xfce.org/about/tour)

<comment><USER13> A note on Xfce's portability:

 _" All but one of those screenshots were taken on machines running OpenBSD -current, a good proof that Xfce is still portable and friendly to all Unix systems."_

<comment><USER14> It'd be interesting to know which of those screenshots is the one not taken on OpenBSD-CURRENT.

<comment><USER15> I guess it is the Parole media player one, due to lack of decoders on OpenBSD. The lack of decoders is purely my speculation, so it's likely wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Glad to see that support work for a GTK3 version is coming along -- I'm looking forward to that.

I've always been a fan of XFCE -- it's lightweight, but not _so_ lightweight that you have to make a ton of sacrifices. Plus, XFWM is the only window manager I know of that supports compositing, but doesn't have any animations or other fancy effects (on slower computers, this can be surprisingly beneficial).

<comment><USER17> > Plus, XFWM is the only window manager I know of that supports compositing

My one gripe with i3WM, an otherwise excellent tiling window manager, is the lack of compositing support (well, it works, kind of, but falls apart when, for example stacking terminal windows with transparency enabled, argghhh).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I used to love XFCE for being a light weight alternative to Gnome and KDE. The last time I used it on a linux system it had gotten quite a bit porkier.

Can anyone speak to if the new release has slimmed things down or is it still, at least to my reading, becoming bulkier still?

<comment><USER19> I think you should try 4.12 release for your self. As Morpheus has said "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the XFCE is. You have to see it for yourself." Because I'm not sure what you mean about "bulkier". Its defiantly faster and more light weight then Gnome and KDE. I've tried using Gnome and KDE many times and still where coming back to XFCE. So spin up new VM and see if this new release will work any better for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Oooh. List mode alt-tab looks interesting. One of the features _still_ keeping me on WindowMaker is the fact that I can pin windowlists, which makes tracking down a specific window (across multiple desktops) far easier.

And _after_ WindowMaker, xfce remains my preferred full-desktop environment. I like that it's avoided the feature-bloat and power-user hostility of GNOME and KDE.

<comment><USER21> windowmaker on my dev workstations and xfce (or chromeos) on my laptops.

</comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord Same thread (sans www subdomain in link) here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9124996](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9124996)

<comment><USER4> > _Much leaner than others, without being spartan._

If Xfce ever needs an advertising slogan ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> And here I just got around to upgrading to 4.10!

I've been running Crouton (XFCE/Xubuntu) on my Samsung Chromebook 13" for about a year now. XFCE is a godsend for Chromebooks... instantly transformed from a light browsing laptop into a serious work machine.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm very excited! Can't wait to see this in official Arch repos ^_^ I've been using XFCE as my main DE since 2011 Thank you everyone in linux community who made this release possible. This release has tons of bug fixes and features according to changelog here; [http://xfce.org/download/changelogs/4.12](http://xfce.org/download/changelogs/4.12)

<comment><USER23> FYI at least for Manjaro, they've been running with the pre-release versions of XFCE for a long time.

<comment><USER19> Yes I know, I have tried Manjaro. But I prefer using Arch Linux + XFCE instead. I like installing only what I use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As someone who has used xfce 4.10 before switching to i3, I am _very_ impressed of the progress the Xfce team has made, especially UI improvements. They are consistently picking up the latest good designs and implementing them in their simple, no-bullshit manner. Great job!

</comment><comment><USER24> I use this. It's great. Much leaner than others, without being spartan.

</comment><comment><USER25> This was on my shortlist when I first moved to Arch before I landed on just plain i3. Am I missing anything by not trying it?

<comment><USER20> It is _trivial_ to try out a different desktop environment on Linux. The process doesn't commit you, and you can back out to your previous environment at any time.

1\. Install the environment(s) you want to try.

2\. Log out of your present desktop session and select the new alternative at your display manager (log-in) prompt.

That's it.

Or, if you don't want to log out entirely, create a new test account, and use that (with a new session -- yes, you _can_ run multiple desktop sessions at a time) and try out different desktop environments / window managers.

Or, use Xephyr, a nesting X server, to run X within your present X session.

Or, use a virtual machine to test a different OS entirely (heavier weight than other options).

Lots of alternatives.

<comment><USER26> I don't think the OP has a problem figuring out _how_ to try a new DE. The question was whether it's worth it. The nuanced answers of users with considerable experience is more valuable (IMHO) than just firing up Xfce for a session or two.

<comment><USER20> The effort to do so is so low that yes, if you're curious, it's worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Screenshooter integration with Imgur? Is this the beginning of making Xfce a cloud-syncing desktop like Mac?

</comment><comment><USER28> I haven't used Linux for a few years now (KDE was always my go-to GUI), but after reading this article[1], I've decided to go back.

What is the hot new Linux distro on the block? Elementary OS? Tails? Steam OS?

[1] [https://medium.com/backchannel/why-i-m-saying-goodbye-to- app...](https://medium.com/backchannel/why-i-m-saying-goodbye-to-apple-google- and-microsoft-78af12071bd)

<comment><USER29> SteamOS is only made for Gaming though. You can go back to desktop mode but nothing's really added versus Stock Debian there.

I'd recommend Mint, they use Cinnamon as their Windows Manager and it's pretty cool.

<comment><USER30> I need something that just works for the parents. (Since Unity, Ubuntu has been on a constant slow slide downwards usability-wise.) I tried Mint on a recommendation, but their idea of an upgrade was a re-install (really!), so that was a no-go. Any other ideas?

<comment><USER31> Manjaro with XFCE.

Mint is good. Cinnamon is pretty, but occasionally has problems that I don't see since I swapped to XFCE (it randomly started hogging the CPU, I never worked out why).

Manjaro needed a few more tweaks to get things working at first, but I have had less problems afterwards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> _we like to party!_

Definitely. Love it.</comment>


Why I won't touch the Kindle 2 with a ten foot pole. - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.masukomi.org/2009/02/12/why-i-wont-touch-the-kindle-2-with-a-ten-foot-pole

<comment><USER2> Another factor to consider in the price of a physical book is space. The median home price is roughly $200,000 and the median home size is just above 2000 square feet. This gives a cost of ~ $100 per sq. ft.

I just measured some books I had and 10 books per foot by 4 shelves high yields a minimum cost of $2.50 per book to store. This does not factor in moving costs of the lifetime of the book nor energy costs to heat/cool the books.

It is surprisingly expensive to keep 'stuff'.

<comment><USER3> I preemptively apologize for this attempt to hijack the discussion, but does $200,000 seem high for a median?

I'm a reasonably well compensated developer in the Boston area and it still seems high.

<comment><USER4> Are you kidding?! $200k in Boston would be a freaking steal. People would almost literally kill for that. I'm in cambridge and all the 2 bedroom condos on the blocks around me are $450k and up. And that's a CONDO with shared walls.

<comment><USER3> Yes, that's Cambridge, 200K is not high there. But what about nationally?

I'm in the exurbs of Boston, and 200K as median just feels bubbly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > I wouldn't even use one if you offered it to me for free.

So if I offered you a Kindle for free, you wouldn't even use it to read non- DRM-protected books in open formats?

You used to hear the same argument about the iPod -- that because the iTunes Store sold DRM-protected music, the device was somehow intrinsically flawed, even though it's also perfectly happy playing non-DRM-protected music. It's a weird argument. If you don't want to pay for DRM-protected content, don't pay for it. The device itself might still be useful, especially if you're offered one for free.

<comment><USER4> exactly what non-DRM protected books in open format are you suggesting? The ones in the public domain? I honestly wouldn't. I can think of maybe one I've wanted to read in the past 10 years. As for your iPod argument, it's flawed too because none of the books i have legally purchased can be put on a kindle. Well, maybe 2 could, but they're PDF and formatted for a different paper size than the kindle and would thus look like crap on it. So, what non-drm protected content exactly are you suggesting that I would have to put on this hypothetically free Kindle that would make it worth bothering with?

<comment><USER6> Good PDF books store their stuff as _text_. That's a part of the PDF format. If I download a book as a PDF, when I move it onto the Kindle using their _free conversion that costs me nothing and takes less than a minute_ , it appears as beautiful formatted text, like magic. Almost like the PDF format is designed to be flexible enough to adjust to other mediums.

First off, never underestimate the public domain. The funniest and greatest books ever written are _all_ public domain. Hell, it's worth it to get the complete Shakespeare in accessible format alone. Meanwhile, _most_ .lit sales come with _no_ DRM whatsoever. Opening my Kindle right now, the following files are on the front page: A Confederacy of Dunces, one of the funniest books ever written; My Man Jeeves, ditto; Infinite Jest, one of the great novels of the 90s; The Woman Who Rides Like A Man, a young adult novel from an author I'm nostalgic for; Ulysses, the greatest novel of all time; 2BRO2B, by Vonnegut; the complete Shakespeare; Neuromancer, The Bible, and It's Not News, It's Fark.

Over half of those books were completely free.

Only one of those books has DRM, and - as I stated elsewhere - that DRM is already crackable. I could email you that book this afternoon and you could read it on your Kindle, if you really felt like reading the Fark book. The other ones are entirely open. I have something that's the size of a paperback book that has more literature on it than the rest of my sizable portable library.

I've defended the Kindle again and again from uninformed commenters here - with all respect to you, you're falling into this category and worse, because you're so over-the-top about it in your blog. I will quickly summarize why the Kindle is more valuable to me than my iPod is. If I want to go to New York City for a day, it's a 4-hour transit round trip. I read extremely quickly. I _could_ carry three books with me, or I could carry my Kindle and have, as was stated, a full library. Furthermore, I can browse the Internet. Check my email. Download books on-the-go. Download _samples_ of books. If I download a sample of The Complete Sherlock Holmes, that includes two books' worth of samples, for free, in 30 seconds, wherever I am, with easily-unlocked DRM.

The free books alone are worth it. I'm going to be elitist here and say that if you don't think getting, completely free, access to the works of Joyce and Yeats and Elliot and Orwell and Melville and Homer and the complete Greek and Egyptian and Norse mythos, is worth the price of 40 paperback books, _you are insane._ This device has saved me an incredible amount of money and it's given me access to literature I wouldn't have had access to in any other form. I got old books that I'd read decaying at my library onto my Kindle in much more pristine condition. I got a collection of rare Asimov books that are out of print.

You very obviously haven't used a Kindle, and you even more obviously haven't put thought into just what makes the Kindle good - that or, worse, you're ignoring those points just to be a shill to those people who will mindlessly attack anything with DRM. I don't want to offend, because it's really not worth a fight over, but this was a senseless, sensationalized article that attacks something that's brought a lot of joy into my life, and I think that your implications are both personally offensive and entirely irrelevant to this web site, and I'm flagging your article.

<comment><USER4> a few things. First, you do make good points about the free books but as I've said before the vast majority of the free books out there, including public domain, simply do not interest me. Yes, Shakespeare would be nice, but I've already got the complete works sitting on my bookshelf. Project Gutenberg has made tons of books available for years now and so far I've availed myself of exactly one of them.

I have no interest in cracking someone else's drm to get a book on a Kindle, and the vast majority of the books i read simply can't be purchased in PDF format so even if PDFs do convert beautifully it is an irrelevant fact.

You say I "obviously haven't used a kindle" but I actually have. I haven't _owned_ a kindle, but considering the title that should have been fairly obvious. I have put a lot of thought into what makes a kindle good. I've been jonesing for an e-book reader since I first read about the invention of e-ink years ago. I really want to like it. But, even ignoring the DRM, the kindle 1 had a number of physical & software flaws that would have prevented me from buying it. I'm not sure how well those have been addressed in the 2 but the DRM and economic issues precludes me from particularly caring.

But, you are very mistaken if you think I am "a shill to those people who will mindlessly attack anything with DRM". I have no problem with the iPod even though it supports DRM because I can buy the music I want and put it on one without purchasing DRMd copies of it. I would not, however, buy anything from iTunes in their Pre DRM days, and to suggest that what attacks I do levy against DRM are mindless only implies your ignorance of the problems with DRM. Apple charged people a second time to un-DRM music they'd already bought. Microsoft sold millions of DRM'd songs in a format they then abandoned and will never be supported on a new device. However, there are uses of DRM that I don't mind in the least. For example netflix streaming movies are DRMd. I am not purchasing them. I am only being granted very temporary rights to watch them. Because I don't own it, I feel I have no right to expect to be able to back it up, or even to view it in the first place, so I will let them drm it all they want. If it goes away or is never playable again I've lost nothing.

If I could purchase the books I want to read and put them on the kindle without DRM (like i can songs on the iPod) I would have zero issues with it. BUT the book marketplace is such that there is no reliable way for me to do so. I don't know how many of the .lit books you mention are actually non-drm but I suspect that a small percentage of the ones I would buy. What's worse is that there's frequently no mention of if one has DRM on it or not. Take [this book]([http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/cgi- bin/category.cgi?item=14295...](http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/cgi- bin/category.cgi?item=1429502355&source=&kw=)) for example. Is it DRMd? Who can say? I can't, and thus I won't buy it.

As for it being a "sensationalized article". It was a post about why _I_ personally won't buy a kindle, and why _I_ think it's a bad idea on a personal blog. If I had of wanted to be sensationalist I could have done a much better job and would have insinuated that Amazon was evil and that we should boycott them and so on and so forth. Instead I gave reasons why I won't buy their product that they will hopefully take to heart when considering the Kindle 3. Also, I happily give them thousands of dollars a year without hesitation even though they make a product I don't happen to like that utilizes a technology I am opposed to.

As for flagging the article I think it's totally out of line for three reasons 1) you started reading it knowing full well what the opinion contained within it would be because it was obvious from the title. If you were offended by that opinion you have no-one to blame but yourself. It's like suggesting you're offended by Muslims and proceeding to read the Koran. Remember the old joke? "Doctor. It hurts when I do this." to which the doctor replies "Well don't do that." It's actually good advice.

2) I'm not the one that posted the article here, so while you may have been offended by my words your actions in flagging the article will have no effect on your perceived offender. Also, I never suggested that my opinion on the kindle was relevant to this site, although the impact that DRM has on purchasing decisions like mine most certainly is, and this article provides a good example of that impact.

3) the fact that you found it "personally offensive" is again entirely your own fault. There was no personal attack against you or against _any_ individual in that article. Nor, were there any implications that any person was bad for purchasing it. I even updated the article early in the day to reiterate a good point one of the commenters left about it being a good economic idea for computer books that would obsolete themselves long before the DRM became an issue. If you are offended by the fact that someone has negative opinions about a device you happen to like you are in for a lifetime of pain, because it's relatively safe to say there's at least one person in the world who will take issue with some aspect of essentially every object you own.

<comment><USER6> Fair enough - I reacted pretty harshly.

I try to read everything on HN, especially Kindle criticism, because the popular opinion is negative on this site and I like to play devil's advocate.

As for flagging: it's really not my trying to get back at you. As you say: you didn't submit this and you're allowed to write anything you want. I still don't think it's HN-worthy, though, hence the flagging. It's not "Let's piss masukomi off," it's "hey, maybe other people were similar-minded and flagged this, in which case the story gets killed in exchange for a more relevant one."

As for 3): I take everything personally kind of as matter of routine. I'm very, erm, passionate about stuff like this. Again, I hope you're not offended by my taking offense, because it's nothing personal towards you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This won't be a problem for most people, since they read stuff written by Dan Brown that really doesn't require a rereading 20 years down the line. But I understand the sentiment.

Nonetheless my understanding is you can fairly easily get any pdf onto the Kindle, meaning if you get a non-DRMed version of the books you're fine. Is that not correct? I own a number of digital music player's that support one DRM scheme or another, and use them frequently, yet have never actually purchased a DRM'ed file.

<comment><AUTHOR> > This won't be a problem for most people, since they read stuff written by > Dan Brown that really doesn't require a rereading 20 years down the line. > But I understand the sentiment.

Hmmm... I have never read anything by Dan Brown but I do re-read Ian Fleming, Alistair Maclean and James Clavell.

<comment><USER8> Dan Brown is the author I love to hate. His _Digital Fortress_ and _Deception Point_ are hilariously bad. But don't bother spending any money on them; just borrow them from the library.

<comment><USER7> You know, at least I got through DaVinci code (though maybe only because it was an audiobook and I had a very long drive). Try reading anything by Robert Ludlum. I liked the Bourne movies, but I couldn't get 50 pages into that. It was like reading third grade fiction projects. I can't believe writing that bad could be published.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the warning about Ludlum. The sad fact is, Dan Brown's junk is _better_ than a lot of other stuff I borrow from the "New" rack at the library. At least Brown I can laugh at. Bad is bad, but laughably bad is better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Do you love reading or do you love owning books? If you love reading, the kindle is great. If you to to own books, the kindle is horrible. If you love both, well you have a real tough decision to make.

</comment><comment><USER10> The only advantage the Kindle has is wireless access to the Amazon store. There are other cheaper readers.

<comment><USER11> Online integration with the amazon store isn't just another feature point though, it's the company's primary direction with the product.

The content acquisition problem is just as important, or even more so, then the hardware problems for any electronic media device. Someone using a competing e-reader has to navigate a number of competing e-book stores, download and keep track of their copies on their own storage media, and then sync books over to their device via USB or storage device; that's a lot of work when you just want to read a book.

I remember reading about someone who described how he'd walk into airport book stores, lazily browse through their books, and then remotely download his favorites onto his kindle; that's powerful.

<comment><USER10> Nah. They just slope over to [http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4382165/For_Dummies_Ebooks_c...](http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4382165/For_Dummies_Ebooks_collection_2008) and stuff themselves like a basking shark feeding on krill.

<comment><USER6> That's still slower than, if my grandfather mentions a book he thinks I'll like, my going online, finding the book in 20 seconds, downloading a sample chapter within a minute, and potentially buying the book to read if I like that chapter. Furthermore, speaking as somebody who loves stuffing himself on torrents: it's _very_ hard to find specific books on ThePirateBay, depending on your tastes. You can't download, say, Finnegans Wake, which I just searched for. All they have is the audiobook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why I won't touch the Kindle 2 with a ten foot pole: Because I don't have a ten foot pole OR a Kindle 2, and even in I did, doing so would be utterly pointless.

</comment><comment><USER13> I want a netbook with e-ink. (of course we'll need higher res, color, faster response time e-ink, plus a built in reading light since they aren't backlit) But this to me would be the ultimate portable computing device. add a headset with VoiP service and set up some way of getting calls without constantly draining the computers battery and you have a killer device.

<comment><USER14> The color you would get on an E-ink display would be pretty crappy. Because of the limitations of technology, you wouldn't be able to get any better color images than what a newspaper has. E-ink displays are also pretty slow to refresh. They would have do something that doesn't use rasterization.

<comment><USER13> doesn't look too bad. especially considering that this is new display tech. <http://www.e-ink.com/press/images/image_release_86b.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> maybe for him but i know people that exclusively read hardcover bestsellers when they travel. these are a huge pain to carry around. plus you hardly ever to re-read them so it doesn't matter if the kindle breaks or goes out of business.

<comment><USER4> I avoid the hardcovers except for those of very few authors because, they're physically awkward and heavier, however, I have reread every hardcover novel I've purchased at least once. In fact I've reread almost every novel I own at least once and within the next 20 years I suspect I will have reread my current shelves at least 3 times on average. For me it's equivalent to rewatching a movie, which people do all the time.

If you never reread books the kindle makes much more sense, but I do, and I lend them out a lot too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> why can't someone do the same to Kindle that they did to iPhone? Codebreak it, so it can play any non-Amazon stuff.

Or better yet, just have it read HTML/pdf/.lit stuff, so that you can get the eBooks for free and read them on there?

<comment><USER6> The AZW format _has_ been broken for a long time. That fact is conveniently ignored by the people who like getting mad at things.

<comment><USER17> Can you please cite the source for this? I have not read that the AZW format has been broken. People, however, have figured out how to read mobipocket protected formats on the kindle. That's a big difference.

A hacked AZW format would allow me to convert it to non-DRM format and even share it with other kindles.

<comment><USER6> If you open an AZW it's essentially modified HTML. I don't know if a converter is public or not - I frankly don't mind DRM very much - but getting information out of AZW and into other formats isn't particularly difficult if you really care to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> the obligatory 1997 RMS essay: <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to- read.html>

<comment><USER19> Many of the abuses in Stallman's tale have been brought to life by textbook publishers.

I have taken a number of classes which used books having an online time- limited, non-transferrable homework supplement.

Anyone who is counting on "the invisible hand of the market" to kill DRM will be in for a rude surprise when they find themselves among one of the captive audiences where it flourishes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> [http://www.amazon.com/Palm-1047NA-TX- Handheld/dp/B000BI7NHY/...](http://www.amazon.com/Palm-1047NA-TX- Handheld/dp/B000BI7NHY/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234546735&sr=8-1)

[http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-8-9-inch-Laptop- Processor/...](http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-8-9-inch-Laptop- Processor/dp/B001BBS76Q/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234546768&sr=1-11)

</comment><comment><USER21> I could write a long list of stupid design decisions they made with the Kindle (it leaves nasty marks in my hand when I hold it in my preferred way), but... the utility of it is amazing.

And I live in Europe so I can't even download stuff over the wireless. I have to buy it on Amazon.com and then copy via USB. (Which is painless, even tho.)

I use it to get American / English books near instantly, at 1/5th the cost of having them shipped from Amazon DE.

I use it to travel -- which I do a lot. I can read upwards of a book a day, since I read about 80-100 pages an hour, even non-fiction.

Do I still buy paper books? Yes, I love them.

Does the Kindle free me to buy books I wouldn't otherwise, because of the weight, size, expense and time involved? Absolutely.

I bought the Kindle 1 in November and I already preordered the Kindle 2. There's no turning back for me.

As for the DRM, I don't really care. Say I can pay $8 for a novel or $12 to see a movie in a theater.

The novel is cheaper, even if I couldn't read it over and over and over again -- which I can. After seeing the movie in the theater, I can't watch it again without paying again.

I look at the Kindle as a kind of movie theater convenience for books, with the built-in ability to read anything I want again, as long as I want. Works for me.

</comment><comment><USER22> My thoughts exactly.</comment>


Paranoid and Madcap, the Manchurian Candidate Is Our Timeliest Novel - <AUTHOR> https://www.vulture.com/2019/05/richard-condons-the-manchurian-candidate-is-relevant-at-60.html <comment><USER2> For a more modern take, you might really enjoy Interface by Neal Stephenson. Brain implants, media manipulation, polling, campaigning, it's quite a page turner: [https://www.amazon.com/Interface-Novel-Neal- Stephenson/dp/05...](https://www.amazon.com/Interface-Novel-Neal- Stephenson/dp/0553383434)

<comment><USER3> On a similar note, Liking What You See from Chiangs Story of Your Life is also very similar and compelling.</comment></comment>


In Silicon Valley, the Jobs Picture Has Changed - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/technology/companies/06count.html?_r=1&ref=technology

<comment><USER2> Is this a new trend in NYT writing? This is the second article I have seen that ended abruptly after a few paragraphs without ever delivering what the headline appeared to promise. We're in a downturn, so one expects the article to talk about it -- and yet, it only talks about the results of the 2001 downturn, and in vague terms. This is why there is potential for good new players to supplant the MSM.

<comment><USER3> Yea, it's like an _Express_ article snuck into the _Post_.

Edit: ^ Washington

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is the BLS report: [http://www.bls.gov/opub/regional_reports/200908_silicon_vall...](http://www.bls.gov/opub/regional_reports/200908_silicon_valley_high_tech.htm)

<comment><USER2> GREAT followup link, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For non-subscribers: [http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/0...](http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/technology/companies/06count.html?_r=1&ref=technology)

</comment><comment><USER5> Michael Malone argues that this is not as rosy a picture as the BLS suggests see [http://pajamasmedia.com/edgelings/2009/08/14/the-myth-of- val...](http://pajamasmedia.com/edgelings/2009/08/14/the-myth-of-valley- wages/)

I took at quick look at BLS data just for Santa Clara county at <http://www.bls.gov/cew/data.htm> selecting all industries, all private firms for 2001 to 2008 (years that data is available). In that time frame private employment peaked at 955,067 in March of 2001 and declines 20% to 763,233 in March of 2003 with low point occurring January 2004 at 738,589 (a 22.66% drop in total employment) for a loss of 216,748 jobs. December 2008 estimates are 807,648 total private jobs in Santa Clara County which which still represents a loss of 147,419 jobs or 15.5% from the March 2001 high water mark.</comment>


Using Model Tuning to Beat Vegas - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sigopt.com/post/136340340198/sigopt-for-ml-using-model-tuning-to-beat-vegas <comment><USER2> Zephyer314 hello, interesting read. It is interesting to me that the lowest cumulative level for the tuned model is approximately equal to the lowest cumulative level for the simple model with no tuning. In fact if we had been only looking at the results up until Dec. 12 or so we would have concluded that the simpler model works better and barely beats the house and that maybe the performance of the simple and tuned models are converging.

However, they now seem to be diverging with a clear advantage to the tuned model. If you had been actually using this to bet you might have given up on the tuned model around Dec. 7th when draw down was at its worst.

What will really be interesting is whether the performance over the rest of the season continues to diverge in the current direction or if the performance tends float up and down around the break even line.

Is one of the parameters a progress through the season index? Anyway thanks for sharing the example.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Great question.

There is a huge variance in the cumulative gains as you pointed out. Because of the 100 win/110 loss edge that Vegas has you need to win over 52.5% of the time to register a profit. Even with a model that can win 52.5% + e of the time you are effectively flipping a (biased) coin. Over the 131 games in the holdout dataset this random walk will tend upward, but can vary widely (especially at the start). As the season continues on this should start to wash out (in the cumulative profit). We plan to write a followup post at the end of the season to see how it performs. You could also fork the code [1] and train/tune on '00-'13/'13-'14 and use the entire '14-'15 set as the holdout (or a similar combination).

The features can be found here [2], we don't use individual player stats or temporal stats, but it should be relatively easy to add if you wanted to try it out.

[1]: [https://github.com/sigopt/sigopt- examples](https://github.com/sigopt/sigopt-examples)

[2]: [https://github.com/sigopt/sigopt- examples/blob/master/sigopt...](https://github.com/sigopt/sigopt- examples/blob/master/sigopt-beats-vegas/predictor/features.py)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the reply. I don't know if I have sufficient interest to actually grab the code and try it out. However, I will try to remember to look for your update post at the end of the season.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you decide to grab the code and have any questions please feel free to reach out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello, I'm the author of this post and co-founder of SigOpt (YC W15). Let me know if you have any questions about the post or what we do at SigOpt.

All of the code used in this post can be found at [https://github.com/sigopt/sigopt-examples](https://github.com/sigopt/sigopt- examples)

</comment><comment><USER3> Very in depth. Good read.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Let me know if you have any questions.</comment></comment>


Stop Being Lazy and Test Your Software - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/rheinwein/stop-being-lazy-and-test-your-software <comment><USER2> Url changed from [http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/11/testing-software- docker](http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/11/testing-software-docker), which points to this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can I ask why you changed the link please? The original linked document provided commentary on the slideshare slides (and also linked to them)?

<comment><USER2> HN prefers original sources. This is in the site guidelines. Wasn't that article just a summary of content from the talk?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response. Yes, the article was primarily a summary, but it included content not available in the slides</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Competent young people deserve the chance to compete where it counts, and many will surprise us. - <AUTHOR> http://www.psychologytoday.com/rss/pto-20070302-000002.html <comment><AUTHOR> " _What can be done?_

"I believe that young people should have more options--the option to work, marry, own property, sign contracts, start businesses, make decisions about health care and abortions, live on their own--every right, privilege, or responsibility an adult has. I advocate a competency-based system that focuses on the abilities of the individual. For some it will mean more time in school combined with work, for others it will mean that at age 13 or 15 they can set up an Internet business. Others will enter the workforce and become some sort of apprentice. The exploitative factories are long gone; competent young people deserve the chance to compete where it counts, and many will surprise us.

"It's a simple matter to develop competency tests to determine what rights a young person should be given, just as we now have competency tests for driving. When you offer significant rights for passing such a test, it's highly motivating; people who can't pass a high-school history test will never give up trying to pass the written test at the DMV, and they'll virtually always succeed. We need to offer a variety of tests, including a comprehensive test to allow someone to become emancipated without the need for court action. When we dangle significant rewards in front of our young people--including the right to be treated like an adult--many will set aside the trivia of teen culture and work hard to join the adult world."

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

Wait, so instead of creating across-the-board age limits, you judge the competency of each individual... individually?</comment>


YC startup Auctomatic looking to hire - <AUTHOR> http://blog.auctomatic.com/?p=4 <comment><USER2> I haven't used auctomatic, but how is it different from Andale? They have been making tools for ebay for years now...

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't get it..I do not see how auctomatic can defend their company from eBay just redoing some of it's UI.

<comment><USER4> eBay seems to do everything in their power to prevent usability. Auctomatic hopefully will capitalize on this.

<comment><USER5> What happens if ebay decides they don't like what they're doing, and shuts them out or makes it hard to connect?

<comment><USER4> Of course always a possibility (myspace/photobucket), but I was just supporting Auctomatic's decision seeing as at every turn eBay seems to make their tools harder and harder to use.

There are a million reasons why Auctomatic shouldn't bother, but if they are a great team you'll never be able to convince them of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sounds moderately interesting.

<comment><USER7> Haha! I think auctomatic could be moderately great! It will depend on the execution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think they get points for being the only startup since 1988 to require a working knowledge of COBOL.

</comment><comment><USER2> Whats up with the colors on auctomatic homepage? Makes my head hurt... is it just me?

<comment><USER9> A lesson in why you should check colors on different monitor screens. The green looked cool on our screens but not so much on others we tested on.

Fixed now. Hopefully less headaching inducing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How do pronounce 'auctomatic'? [okshomatik]? [oktomatik]?

<comment><USER10> Why did I get downvoted? Because of the the missing 'you' between 'do' and 'pronounce'?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> brilliant.

<comment><USER11> well my point was that I believe this is a joke on valleywag's bashing of scribd for their overly optimistic job posting. hence this ironic understated job posting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems like misplaced irony.</comment>


4 Toughest Analyst Job Interview Tasks - <AUTHOR> https://ilya8.typeform.com/to/rjzSh9

<comment><USER2> The first question and already a fail. Which side of the bus the doors are would require an information which country the bus is from, otherwise we don't know if the bus should have doors from the left or from the right side.</comment>


Why Was Winter in VC Funding So Short? - <AUTHOR> https://bothsidesofthetable.com/why-was-winter-in-venture-capital-funding-so-short-40138f426f39#.k04invifv <comment><USER2> VCs cold on Blockchain & warm on AI. Upbeat re: +foreign $$ +corp VCs +PE > distributions +new funds +repatriation of $ @msuster @_changxu [https://t.co/jy8d3p0nq3](https://t.co/jy8d3p0nq3)</comment>


GlobalSign experiencing issues – Certificates showing as revoked - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/globalsign/status/786505261842247680 <comment><AUTHOR> Started getting reports 2h ago that our domain pspdfkit.com was shown as revoked. Checked and also wikipedia.org and other GlobalSign customers are affected.

So far we only got reports from Europe and Asia.

[https://twitter.com/globalsign/status/786505261842247680](https://twitter.com/globalsign/status/786505261842247680)

</comment><comment><USER2> Finally some official statement from Global Sign [https://downloads.globalsign.com/acton/fs/blocks/showLanding...](https://downloads.globalsign.com/acton/fs/blocks/showLandingPage/a/2674/p/p-008f/t/page/fm/0)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://i.reddituploads.com/](https://i.reddituploads.com/) is also showing as revoked (chrome54, osx 10.12)

</comment><comment><USER4> All Fastly customers that use it to terminate SSL/TLS are also affected. Among them are Wired and Buzzfeed (ones I've run into this morning).

</comment><comment><USER3> Will they have to pay out 1.250.000 USD to every domain using a OrganizationSSL certificate now? [https://www.globalsign.com/repository/globalsign-warranty- po...](https://www.globalsign.com/repository/globalsign-warranty-policy.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://wikipedia.org/](https://wikipedia.org/) is also showing as revoked now :(

</comment><comment><USER5> SoundCloud is also affected.</comment>


Ask HN: hacker houses in SF? - <AUTHOR>

Title says it all - I plan on being here this semester working, and would love to stay in a place with other hackers. I would appreciate any suggestions you all have! <comment> T-R 'Treehouse' rents a room and couches out on AirBnB - <http://www.airbnb.com/users/show/657637>

</comment><comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2079246>

Check this one out.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly something along the lines of what I'm looking for. Thank you for the tip!</comment></comment>


Ones and Twos - <AUTHOR> http://bhorowitz.com/2010/12/16/ones-and-twos/ <comment><USER2> I think the article could have benefited from having Ben's observations grafted onto more structured models of individual preference such as Myers Briggs Typology and the Merrill-Reid Four Quadrant Model, rather than having him create his own limited and incomplete model.

I could compare this to someone trying to write for the first time without ever having been taught to write. So the person creates his/her own alphabet and starts writing. This alphabet seems great, so much more so because the person does not know anything about the other alphabets out there. But if we were to compare his alphabet with those that have benefited from hundreds of years of improvement by many different individuals, then we would see that his alphabet is quite incomplete, unexpressive and limiting.

I think in much the same way the Ones / Twos "alphabet" is less expressive and much more limiting compared to existing preference models such as MBTI and the four quadrant models. Over many years, a lot of people have done a lot of work in order to create models that describe personal preferences -- so I think it would make sense to re-use rather than build from scratch. That is so much more true given that the other models look at more dimensions and have more categories and are thus able to categorize variability much more accurately.

</comment><comment><USER3> I absolutely love when someone can explain something you _know_ , but make you _understand_ it. Although the article is about CEO succession, it seems to make a strong case for creating a diverse executive team. While it may be more difficult to do in a small company, in larger companies it seems to make sense to have each member of the executive team function as a CEO over his or her area of responsibility.

</comment><comment><USER4> I guess I need to pay more attention to Ben's posts...</comment>


Roole: A language that compiles to CSS - <AUTHOR> http://roole.org

<comment><USER2> So if I use SASS/Compass why would I want to switch? I don't see anything here that the other CSS pre-processors (LESS and Stylus) can't do.

<comment><USER3> While a preprocessor all the same, I wouldn't put LESS in the same category as Stylus and Sass. It will never have some of the more powerful features the others do.</comment></comment>


Rebooting UUCP to redecentralize the net - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2019/03/25/tilde-servers-r-us.html <comment><USER2> Current discussion of this on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19476323](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19476323)</comment>