Fat that makes you thin  - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327211.200-the-fat-that-makes-you-thin.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=genetics

<comment><USER2> This is an interesting discovery, but I have a question about its uses for anyone that knows more about nutrition and/or biology than myself: If Bob has 50 grams of brown fat in his body and John has 0, how does Bob have an advantage over John? My perception is that Bob now has to eat 500 more calories per day than John just to survive. That doesn't seem like an advantage to me.

Am I missing something?

<comment><USER3> If we were still hunting for our food in the woods that wouldn't be an advantage and that may explain why in the cause of evolution, getting rid of brown fat with growing age, was a fitness criteria. In our "developed world" however, there is such a large availability of calories, that some people get more than enough. For those, being able to burn more, would be an advantage. Unless they are planning to go on a polar expedition anytime soon :)

I agree with your general sentiment though. Whether you could burn 500 calories more or eat 500 calories less isn't much of a difference. However, a drug that makes you burn 500 more calories and allows you to enjoy more eating is probably something that you can sell to a lot of people. Telling them to get their act together and eat right isn't that easily translated into profit.

<comment><USER2> I never thought about why people want to lose weight; I just assumed it was so that they can be healthy, but I suppose it could be entirely superficial for a sizeable crowd. Obviously, the health benefits of something like this would be minimal, but it would be great if someone just wanted to eat more junk food and not put on extra weight.

<comment><USER4> The health benefits to losing weight could be incredible. For example, the risk of a heart attack would drop and there would be less stress on the knees and ankles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> >A mere 50 grams of brown fat - well within the range of what some of us already have - could dissipate around 500 calories a day.

Amazing.</comment>


Pentagon ponders "Plan B" for a world without BlackBerry - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/11/pentagon-ponders-plan-b-for-world-minus-blackberry/ <comment><USER2> Microsoft, are you listening?</comment>


Scott Heiferman (Meetup): "We won't escape real identity, & anonymity will die." - <AUTHOR> http://atroundtable.com/onlinecommunities#post-50-anchor

<comment><USER2> I read his comment as "a corporate controlled police state is inevitable so get used to it". He is clearly an enemy of freedom.

<comment><USER3> I worked for Scott at Meetup and can promise you that's the opposite of the truth. He's all about empowering people and communities, and disrupting traditional institutions. Read his full post on the page. He was making a prediction, not endorsing it.

<comment><USER2> Hey Josh, I wonder if your opinion is any different that Scott didn't mean it that way now that part two of the interview has come out at [http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/04/founder-stories- heiferman-f...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/04/founder-stories-heiferman- facebook/) and he states clearly that he doesn't trust those who don't allow themselves to be tracked and monitored by Facebook? Seems pretty nefarious to me and not so easy to find it an innocuous comment. People do change, perhaps he has changed since you knew him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm surprised to see no one has mentioned Quora on there. Their approach to making anonymity variable based on topic and context, while at the same time requiring real-identity backing it, works well. Users are able to hide their identity as needed while the site can still maintain accountability.

</comment><comment><USER5> Personally, I am not for real name policies or anything like that, but the problems with non-anonymity needs to be fixed if possible. For example, I remember during the Google+ nymwars that someone said on Google+ that it is odd that anonymity is needed to talk about nymwars.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is all mildly ironic since the easiest place to remain anonymous is the internet.

Real Name policy my ass. More like seemingly real name policy.

Anonymity is certainly shifting but death? Don't think so.

</comment><comment><USER7> There was anonymity before there was an internet.

</comment><comment><USER8> I feel a bit out of my depth answering these. What did I get into?

<comment><USER8> Why am I getting downvoted?

I am one of the participants of the roundtable discussion.

<comment><USER9> You get downvoted a lot. _shrugs_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My alternate thesis ...

Anonymity will not die but be self-regulated to those adult enough to handle its set of responsibilities to serve the greater good of the world..

Anonymous seems to come close to it as far as different factions within Anonymous now getting clued in that criminals have infiltrated their group and splitting of to continue specific goals..</comment>


Show HN: Remote.io – Globally distributed remote career job board - <AUTHOR> https://www.remote.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello! After a lot of work, I'm proud to announce that remote.io is now globally distributed thanks to Cloudflare Worker Sites and Cloudflare KV storage. This transition has helped us achieve sub-second load time throughout the site by having our data at the edge.

If you're interested in the journey, I've outlined the build process to date in the following blog post (also hosted at the edge):

[https://www.remote.io/blog/19/globally-distributed- website-f...](https://www.remote.io/blog/19/globally-distributed-website-for- remote-jobs)</comment>


Did the term 'sharding' start with Ultima Online? - jim-greer http://www.raphkoster.com/2009/01/08/database-sharding-came-from-uo/

<comment> jim-greer Of interest to me because a) I very briefly worked on UO and b) we're about to shard off game statistics from the rest of the db at Kongregate. Also Raph's blog is worth checking out for those interested in game design and game economies.

<comment><AUTHOR> I used to play UO back in they day, first and last mmorpg for me (huge time sink).

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I really don't like the word "sharding", sounds too much like "sharting"</comment>


A Database for the Edge of the Network (2015) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpxnbly9bz4&t <comment><USER2> CouchDB is a great choice for distributed databases, it's extremely easy to sync them. It can even run inside the browser, which makes creating offline SPAs easy.

<comment><USER3> CockroachDB is another good option, as would Cassandra depending on need. At least for geodistribution. If the data is large, then bringing it fully to a client wouldn't work so well. If it's mostly read, then a great number of options exist there as well.

<comment><USER4> Today no good options exist for databases on the edge (think CDNs) or even right on the client. But enough of the research if you want to make it yourself. You can have a partial view of the database on an edge node or a client with updates merging and propagating without conflicts.

<comment><USER5> There was Datanet: [http://highscalability.com/blog/2016/10/17/datanet-a-new- crd...](http://highscalability.com/blog/2016/10/17/datanet-a-new-crdt- database-that-lets-you-do-bad-bad-things.html)

It's CRDT-based automatic merging of JSON-like structures with core and edge nodes. It looks like it's called Kuhiro now, although the status is unknown: [https://www.kuhiro.com](https://www.kuhiro.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wish he had another hour to get through the rest of the slides. Great stuff.</comment>


What countries are 'pulling their weight' for Haiti? - <AUTHOR> http://www.drewconway.com/zia/?p=1826

<comment><USER2> Seems like it may be an incomplete comparison as it underweights/excludes private contributions though it's difficult to tell. I suspect once you add remittances + private charitable contributions, you would see the US punch significantly higher than even its current outlier position.

Private contributions almost certainly bias towards the US where when it comes to foreign aid/charities, the majority comes from private individuals versus almost every other country where the bulk of funds go through official government aid channels.

I have to also imagine that this doesn't include the contributions through the US military (which Michael Moore's site has also cited in its ability to provide enough water purification to a mid sized city through the air craft carrier now stationed there) which cannot be cheap.

<comment><USER3> The absence of private contributions makes the chart rather meaningless. Take for example The Netherlands: a pledge of 4.3 million dollars according to the data. This was an initial pledge by the government shortly after the disaster. In the mean time over 42 million euros in private contributions have been donated to relief organizations and the Dutch government will double that amount.

<comment><USER4> But it's a log plot. Adding a factor of 20 just moves the Netherlands up by 1.3 units on the graph, which means it's still landing below the median even _without_ including the private contributions of the other nations.

Sorry, but the Dutch dropped the ball on this one, at least relative to other EU governments. As other folks have pointed out, simple proximity makes the much higher US contribution sensible and sane. But really, the Netherlands, Italy and (especially) Germany need to be up near the UK and France.

<comment><USER5> Why? So they can have a 'score' that's on par with other nations?

Isn't it entirely possible that the actual aid physically deliverable in the short term has been maximized?

That is, that the Dutch might be better off waiting and raising/sending targeted expertise and funds during the inevitable, but not starting any time soon, reconstruction phase? (Where much of their expertise is something that very few other nations could even _offer_ )

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to pledge that they'll do that _now_ , but any amounts tied to unspecified quantities of work would be fiction anyway. So the number would only be moved for the sake of making it move.

<comment><USER6> > That is, that the Dutch might be better off waiting and raising/sending > targeted expertise and funds during the inevitable, but not starting any > time soon, reconstruction phase? (Where much of their expertise is something > that very few other nations could even offer)

Please tell us more about this reconstruction expertise that few countries have. (The Dutch have unique expertise in reclaiming land from the sea, but that's not relevant to Haiti.)

<comment><USER5> You don't think erosion is an issue in Haiti?

<comment><USER6> Huh? Much of the Netherlands is below sea level. That's their unique expertise. Erosion from above sea level stuff is an issue almost everywhere.

And, it's not clear that erosion is high on Haiti's list of significant problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I cant help but feel the point is somewhat disingenuous.

<comment><USER8> Definitely. if we're going to talk about weight, anything that any country (except haiti, obviously) pulls is above and beyond "their" weight

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm surprised Cuba isn't mentioned. Cuba had several hundred doctors on the ground in Port au Prince while the rest of the developed world was still trying to locate Haiti on a map: [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1229192...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122919202)

If you counted in-kind donations, rather than just currency (which is actually less effective in this case), I'm guessing Cuba would beat every other country on that list.

<comment><USER10> Why are you surprised? He said it right on the first para in bold letters:

"Again, this is by no means a complete, or even partially complete analysis, simply a quick exploration of the data."

To bo honest this posts shouldn't be even taken mildly seriously. It would have been interesting to look at the data if the data had some substance to it. In summary: "I woke up today, grabbed some numbers the threw it in to a plot." Thats basically what it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I also did some rough estimations based on 2B in aid, which the data actually corroborates which is amusing. Anyway, It comes out to about 28% of GDP, and would be the equivalent to giving every man, woman, and child a one lump payment of 12k.

No conclusions drawn. But there is always the problem of dropping that much liquidity in to any economy, no matter developing or rebuilding or both.

<comment><USER12> This is a classic problem of international aid.

In a nutshell, any indicators of progress revert completely when the aid stops flowing in with no lasting infrastructure/education/anything actually getting developed.

In short, the countries don't make any lasting progress, but are temporarily propped up and become entirely dependent on the aid.

Look at Africa for numerous examples of this phenomenon.

Of course, that's only a long term issue, in the short term you should absolutely send in as much food, shelter and medicine as possible.

<comment><USER13> And that long-term foundation is the core of the international aide plan. If there can ever be said to be a silver lining in a cloud such as this, it is this: almost the entirety of the existing infrastructure was destroyed in the quake, and Haiti gets to do it right this time -- buildings that "meet code", city planning that makes some kind of sense, distribution of services that has some correlation to demographic distribution, and so on, all under the eye of international observers who must be present while Haiti, once again, tries to build a police and law enforcement system from scratch. It will cost a mint in foreign generosity to give Haiti the leg up it needs, but it will, at the same time, reduce the need for continual infusions of aide over the long term. (Haiti has certainly never been off of the aide map in Canada; money, material, medical, police and military contributions have been going there pretty much since Baby Doc bit the big one.)

<comment><USER6> > Haiti gets to do it right this time

What are the odds that it will?

> all under the eye of international observers who must be present

This isn't the first time that "international observers" have been present. What has happened in the past when they were around? If this time will be different, why?

> Haiti has certainly never been off of the aide map in Canada; money, > material, medical, police and military contributions have been going there > pretty much since Baby Doc bit the big one.

That is not encouraging. Canada is pretty good at this stuff and pre-quake Haiti suggests that it wasn't enough.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How To Integrate All Your Google Services From Gmail - <AUTHOR> http://boostta.com/2010/02/25/how-to-integrate-all-your-google-services-from-gmail/ <comment><USER2> This plus "Better GMail" from Lifehacker really take things to the next level. They're a "must have" combo as far as I'm concerned

[edit] <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6076></comment>


Why you shouldn't go to law school. - <AUTHOR> http://lawandletters.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-you-shouldnt-go-to-law-school.html <comment><USER2> This article does a good job explaining why I should stop saying "how is 100K good for a programmer with an MS when an English major right out of law school earns blah blah blah."

I actually attended a top 5 law school (for one semester) before getting out and going to grad school in engineering instead. I agree with the statement that "thinking like a lawyer" is a bug, not a feature - it wasn't just that I didn't want to be a lawyer - I felt that getting wired like a lawyer would do actual damage to my brain and my character.

I have friends (yes, they genuinely are still friends) who do often exhibit the lawyer tendencies identified in this post, far more often than my engineer and science friends do. Yes, there's pettiness, bluffing, and intellectual dishonesty in all fields. But these are traits that are encouraged by the culture of law, and discouraged by the culture of engineering.

</comment><comment><USER3> I grew up in a lawyer family and I have only recently begun recovering from it.

Lawyers have a tendency to go into "lawyer mode", where they start acting like total dickheads who are impossible to talk to.

</comment><comment><USER4> The majority of this article would more aptly be titled "Why you shouldn't go to law school if the only reason you wanted to was for the money", and most of the same arguments would have been perfectly valid 10 years ago when everyone was trying to get a degree in CS because it was the next big thing. That says almost nothing, in my opinion, about law school in its own right.

As far as the rest of the article is concerned, it is a collection of generalizations that are unconvincing. The best thing to takeaway, I think, is this:

"As I said, there are some people who are happy with the practice of law. But the data are [sic] not in your favor. Make this decision very carefully. Don't just drift into it because you're not sure what else to do with a humanities degree."

</comment><comment><USER5> I just found out yesterday that I failed the bar exam. This was, surprisingly, a great post. Thank you drm237.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm surprised that criminal lawyers are grouped under "suckers". Spend a few years as an assistant DA or public defender, then start up a practice dealing with DUIs and what not. How much boring research could be involved?

</comment><comment><USER7> I am a lawyer in the UK, English qualified, we're not all bad, honest.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you read a blog post to decide whether to stay in or get out, you most likely are not going to the tier 1 schools.

<comment><USER9> While similar reasoning ultimately influenced me not to go to law school, tier 1 schools are not overly difficult to get into for someone who has already figured out the game. (A la Paul Graham's infamous essay.)

Frankly, the problems of which the post speaks are really all rooted in the same problem: there are too many people graduating from law school already. The competition allows the firms the luxury of such monotonous work.

Unfortunately, I wanted something else - I wanted to become an expert at some portion of law and exploit my ability to keep many pieces of a situation in my head. However, the opportunity cost, considering the competition, did not seem to match up with the expected reward.

<comment><USER10> What field isn't monotonous, though? IT work is boring, repetitive, and relegated to the back office, cut off from life, the outside world--even sunlight--and the only interesting and creative part of business: the start (though how exciting or fulfilling is it really to be hawking another useless widget or service to someone who most likely doesn't need it?).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Other than the reference to one of Paul's essays, what does this story have to do with startups and hacking?

<comment><USER3> It gratifies intellectual curiosity (what's the grass like on the other side of the fence? it sucks).

Those liberal arts majors who counted on a JD for a career often wind up hating life and themselves.

<comment><USER12> I go to one of those liberal arts school where English majors count on a JD for a career; and let me tell you, as much as I hate to admit it as a CS/Biol major, they are surprisingly well-adjusted people.

But don't get me wrong, my experience both on the debate team, going to tournaments involving all of ivies and NESCAC school's has taught me to stay away from law.

One time, I went against one of the eventual national champion of college debate from Cornell; as I went out of time in my closing argument, my dear opponent, the future model of Corporate America counsel, took his rolex off his wrist and shook it at me, and shouted exasperatedly that my time was up.

But, I have to say: once, when I was a young clueless college student, I tried both the pre-med and pre-law path. It was the thing to do at my school which charged 40K+ for being a holding pen for New England rich family's kids. And even now, I have friends on campus who question my decision to pursue a career that will be soon "outsourced" and not the tried and proven path of i-banking/medicine/law. In response, I just smile because the irony is that, they are the ones who don't know any thing better than writing abstract essays on obtuse topics, memorizing tedious information on biological structures, and tinkering with Excel spreadsheets (and programming in VBA...oh the horrors!) at their summer i-banking internships.

They have no idea how fun it is to fire up your compiler on a late night and to plug away at your own ideas, to work for fun and not for work. That there is a whole world out there,of one's own with interesting areas to explore, outside of the usual everyday social small-talk BS and climbing the corporate ladder.</comment></comment></comment>


Collaborate with Vultr on GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://www.vultr.com/news/Collaborate-with-Vultr-on-GitHub/ <comment><AUTHOR> It's nice to see an official terraform provider that'll probably get accepted upstream:

[https://github.com/vultr/terraform-provider- vultr](https://github.com/vultr/terraform-provider-vultr)

But it's hard not to feel bad for all the (unacknowledged, as far as I can tell) community effort that's gone in until now (and which I take no credit for):

[https://github.com/squat/terraform-provider- vultr](https://github.com/squat/terraform-provider-vultr)</comment>


Coding is not 'fun', it's technically and ethically complex - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/ideas/coding-is-not-fun-it-s-technically-and-ethically-complex <comment><USER2> This article is not only wrong, it's the opposite of the truth. Putting to one side the blatant false dichotomizing, let's look at the central argument:

> Insisting on the glamour and fun of coding is the wrong way to acquaint kids > with computer science.

I'm not convinced that:

A) This is happening very much,

B) or would work even if it was happening,

C) or would be particular bad if it happened and somehow also worked.

Messaging in the vein of the author's examples is innocuous. Nobody is going to see Tim Cook say "coding is fun" in a news clip and then conclude that a four year computer science degree is easy, or that their friend who works in software is an idiot and gets paid simply to have fun. With regards to more intentional examples, let's be realistic: how many kids are going to see a presentation in class entitled "coding is fun" and respond differently than "this blows, what's for lunch?"

And what if they did? They might learn something about it on wikipedia; they might try writing a script; they might choose a major they would otherwise have overlooked. Which is, frankly, the best thing we could hope for. The problems facing engineering in 2019 aren't the result of too many people being interested in computer science, _they are the result of too few._

> In just a few years, understanding programming will be an indispensable part > of active citizenship

This is clearly untrue, unless you interpret it more broadly as "having a general understanding of technology and the role it plays in the economy." And along with statistics and logic, _it already is, and we have failed utterly to proselytize it_. Do you think that our society would be improved by a push to make statistics more boring to students?

</comment><comment><USER3> > In just a few years, understanding programming will be an indispensable part > of active citizenship.

This seems to contradict the article's earlier point about "jobs that demand intense focus", like brain surgery and structural engineering.

No-one would claim that "In just a few years, understanding brain surgery will be an indispensable part of active citizenship."

Since programming is "complicated" and "exquisitely technical," why would we expect it to be "an indispensable part of active citizenship," as opposed to a specialty like any other, and how is that going to change in "just a few years"?

<comment><USER4> Understanding is not the same as performing. I can "understand" or get the gist of what is being said in german (or lisp, or rust, etc), but it's difficult to read and I can't write it; also could be understanding the mechanics or basic principles.

Literacy is complicated but indispensable in the last century.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well coding and software engineering are two different things anyway, so the article begins with conflating the context. Coding is just syntax awareness, good at coding is one thing but to start engineering software(And hence where the ethics issue mostly lies, say with bias inheriting algorithms) requires that gap of discipline that you don't necessarily have if you just play in code in a rudimentary fashion.

<comment><USER6> The mainstream media conflates them as well, so the point of the article is valid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > being 'in the flow'

that is by definition a fun place to be

<comment><USER8> Flow is not the sense of time disappearing because the dubstep is loud and the code makes sense and the feature is getting built and the tests are passing. Flow is the sense of time slowing down for a musician and the blur of fast notes stretching out into a precise and engineered plan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't like the author's attitude but I find the article at least tangential to something worth considering. Flawed communications as a social issue are larger in scope than technology alone. False equivalence is dangerous. If I was going to make an argument to support anything positive that I find in the article, I would frame it like this..

Popular presentations: coding=hacking=glamour hacking=crime=glamour

Less popular presentations: work=money=glamour creativity+work=glamour+money

Never mind the assumption that glamour is desirable. I'll just pretend that glamour represents any positive outcome, but be very strict about that being a local declaration on its' way to the garbage collector real fast.

</comment><comment><USER10> False dichotomy. It is both fun and technically complex.

</comment><comment><USER11> "If you have to ask, you'll never know." \-- Louis Armstrong when asked what was so great about Jazz music.

</comment><comment><USER12> What a shite article</comment>


Ask HN: Is Meteor.js production-ready now? - <AUTHOR> My team is considering building our company's product using Meteor.js but most of the discussions around this returned by Google are from 1 or 2 years ago, and many of them said then that Meteor is perfect for building an MVP, but not ready for primetime production.
Has this changed?
What are everyone's latest thoughts?
Are there any companies that have had success building and scaling with Meteor?
Here's one concerning post I found from a few months back: https://medium.com/@pierrebaz/why-i-won-t-recommend-meteor-anymore-fcec4e478d78 <comment><USER2> IMHO, its been getting progressively better as time goes on. It has great support for React and Angular now, in addition to its own Blaze templating engine (I prefer Blaze, actually).

The data sync is fast enough to be useful for real-time games.

When it comes time to scale up, ditch the built-in mongo (or sql) and set up your DB cluster, and for the web bits, use something like [https://github.com/meteorhacks/cluster](https://github.com/meteorhacks/cluster) and you are off to the horizontal scaling races.

In response to the linked posts criticism:

No API-based authentication: having a REST api to interface with Accounts is not there by default, but Meteor does support adding REST endpoints, where one could easily roll a solution that does a server-side auth and respond with an auth token which could be stored in the user's record as appropriate. I'd be surprised if there wasn't already a package available which does exactly this.

App shutdown: Once you are running a 'real' site, you will probably have a separate mongo instance. This solves most of the problems, however yes, it is still possible for some 'in-flight' data to be lost. Adding a maintenance mode like [https://github.com/yogiben/meteor-maintenance- mode](https://github.com/yogiben/meteor-maintenance-mode) solves this though.

Subscriptions scalability: It's all about writing publish functions that only send what you need for a particular screen / template / page. In practice, it is not difficult and can scale up quite nicely: [http://meteor.redandivory.com/](http://meteor.redandivory.com/)

Server-side rendering for SEO: As the link points out, there are community packages that can make this happen. The beauty of meteor is the huge amount of community packages available that are almost universally of high quality. Their use should be encouraged, and is not considered "hacky".

My 2c.

<comment><USER3> Given all of these pitfalls, what would you say is the advantage of Meteor over, for instance, a Node/Express/React/Redux stack?</comment></comment>


How I Killed A Startup In 4 Hours (And Why I Don't Regret It) - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/28/how-i-killed-a-startup-in-4-hours-and-why-i-dont-regret-it

<comment><USER2> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7664523](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7664523)</comment>


If NASCAR embraced electric cars it could change the world - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/opinions/if-nascar-embraced-electric-cars-it-could-change-the-world <comment><USER2> Why NASCAR specifically? There's already Formula E...

<comment><AUTHOR> Which one have you heard of?

Seriously, in the US, NASCAR is a major "sport" with very serious TV ratings, following, etc.

But more than that, Formula E is preaching to the choir. Those folks already believe in electric/fuel cell tech.</comment></comment>


Computer Latency at a Human Scale - <AUTHOR> https://www.prowesscorp.com/computer-latency-at-a-human-scale/ <comment><USER2> I've been wanting to do a similar thing, but also bring memory/storage into the human scale as well.

A byte is approximately a single letter.

A 4kb page of memory is approximately a single-sided piece of paper.

A 32kb L1 cache is 16 pages, spread on the desk, though you may prefer to think of 512 64-byte post-it notes. You could probably find and read a note in ~2s.

A 256kb L2 cache is a 64-page binder on the desk. Plausible to find a page in ~7s.

A 8MB L3 cache is a filing cabinet or small bookshelf, with 32 binders. It might take a minute to walk over, identify the right book, pull it out, find a page, find a sentence.

8GB of RAM is a sizable library, though far from the largest ever - rows & rows of bookshelves, 512 large shelves in total, 64 books each. If you knew right where you were going, it might take a few minutes to fetch the right book.

A 1TB SSD is 4 million books, among the largest libraries today, or perhaps a warehouse.

If that 1TB is instead a HDD, you can't actually browse the stacks - instead, there's a staircase outside the building, and you can reach in through the window on any floor - the entire building rotates, at the blistering pace of a full rotation every 8 months.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's a great video of Grace Hopper explaining nanoseconds: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd be interested in somebody doing this, but instead of scaling it to 1000ms (1 second), I'd like to see it scaled to 16ms (single frame @60fps).

I feel like this would give a better representation of "time to feedback". Saying a ping of 65ms is like 5 years doesn't make a ton of sense as that's a relatively decent ping time. Saying it's 4 frames has a direct correlation to it's perceived delay, and matters to users.

<comment><USER5> This, except also relatively compared to reaction time thresholds/max latency for hci.

For example in predictive typing anything above ~100ms (don't remember the number but there's an exact measurement on the Gmail paper for smart compose) is noticeable and very annoying to a user.

Or video chat, I'd be curious to see the video latency required for a user to notice lag between audio & video.

I know in game dev, I was always taught that 60fps is fine, but then there are gamers swearing up and down when they drop below 140fps. Would be curious to see what the max allowed latency is here as well.

Another common one is the microexpressions latency which is frequently quoted as 1/20 of a second (max latency before an emotion detector starts to miss the microexpression).

I feel like these are the real goalposts in tech; especially in ML, we've got the accuracy/quality and now we need the speed. Every research paper likes to brag about how many ms it takes for one step, I'd like to see this compared to the maximum latency required for practical HCI.

<comment><USER6> > I know in game dev, I was always taught that 60fps is fine, but then there > are gamers swearing up and down when they drop below 140fps. Would be > curious to see what the max allowed latency is here as well.

The 60 fps mark isn't really latency related. Instead, at 60 fps animation without motion blur feels smooth. At 30 fps you need motion blur or it feels like it stutters (and in 24hz cinema the camera produces natural motion blur due to shutter time).

The latency aspect is more complicated, as there's a long feedback loop: The frame is shown on the screen, is perceived by the user's eye, the user's brain computes a reaction, the brain sends a signal to the hands, the hands execute the reaction, the input device perceives this and sends the result to the computer, the next frame is computed and finally it's send to the screen and displayed. Each of these steps takes on the orders of milliseconds (often tens of milliseconds). Faster refresh rates and more fps improve some of them, and in theory any improvement in fps and refresh rate makes the feedback loop faster and thus improves performance. There are diminishing returns because you don't control the entire pipeline (and the parts that happen inside a human are particularly slow), but going from 60 to 140 fps is a big enough improvement that it matters.

Another factor is the stability of the latency: humans can compensate for quite high latencies by predicting the correct inputs. But this only works if the latency is consistent. Just imagine trying to hit anything with bow and arrow if you don't know how fast the arrow will fly. That's why frame drops hurt so much: every dropped frame is a giant latency fluctuation.

<comment><USER7> > The 60 fps mark isn't really latency related. Instead, at 60 fps animation > without motion blur feels smooth. At 30 fps you need motion blur or it feels > like it stutters (and in 24hz cinema the camera produces natural motion blur > due to shutter time).

After using 120/144hz monitors for a while 60 fps without motion blur doesn't feel smooth at all.

60 fps mark is really just because that's all LCDs could do for the longest of time. It has nothing to do with anything human vision related, it was just the long-standing technological limitation of displays.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yes, replace the 1s base with 1/100th of a second for humans (this cat is still faster: [0]).

My video professor told us 20 years ago, that for a fly in the cinema it's like watching a slide show.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbUGwA_woCE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbUGwA_woCE)

</comment><comment><USER9> Those are already known "numbers every programmer should know" and it's always good to see them scaled to something we can grasp more easily.

There is also a space scaling that puts things into another perspective: [https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-infinite-space-between- wor...](https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-infinite-space-between-words/)

</comment><comment><USER10> "improvements made anywhere besides the bottleneck are an illusion." Loved that maxim.

Also: "if...your application uses microservices...you are essentially turning program function calls into network calls..."

Great post overall, full of nice insights.

#relevant: [https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-infinite-space-between- wor...](https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-infinite-space-between-words/)

</comment><comment><USER11> My iPhone felt very laggy while reading this article. Purposefully slow website?!</comment>


Really Good Email Design Trends of 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://explore.reallygoodemails.com/2017-email-design-trends-5911f819e7b2 <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting!</comment>


The Best Coding Bootcamps - <AUTHOR> https://www.switchup.org/research/best-coding-bootcamps# <comment><USER2> Exited to see this informative post that can help a lot of prospective students decide where to go for their CS education!</comment>


The economics of fun – The secret economics of a VIP party - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/1843/2020/07/03/the-secret-economics-of-a-vip-party <comment><USER2> From the article:

 _> Ironically, the promoters' position in the vip ecosystem was closer to that of the young women they managed than anyone else, though few seemed to realise it. Like the women, most promoters dreamed about joining the club of the super-rich that they hovered around, but they were ultimately excluded from the money and status. They could only pretend to belong._

From 2012, [https://www.forbes.com/sites/venkateshrao/2012/09/03/entrepr...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/venkateshrao/2012/09/03/entrepreneurs- are-the-new-labor-part-i/)

 _> the balance of power between investors and entrepreneurs that marks the early, frontier days of a major technology wave (Moore's Law and the Internet in this case) has fallen apart. Investors have won, and their dealings with the entrepreneur class now look far more like the dealings between management and labor (with overtones of parent/child and teacher/student)._

</comment><comment><USER3> You know, I'm sure these articles get written to spark a little jealousy, a little outrage.

But you don't have to participate at all, or even get affected except as a casual outside observer of the ridiculousness. People will be willing participants in a whole lot of stuff, not all of it good for them. The club owner, the "pimp" in this case, the mark, the girls. They can all walk away.

But they don't. And that's their choice.

</comment><comment><USER4> previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23661127](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23661127)

</comment><comment><USER5> Why is this flagged? I found the article interesting and relatively well- balanced.

</comment><comment><USER6> TLDR: Some rich guys like to show off in front of attractive girls. Obviously, the market will provide. The girls are not idiots, so they will attempt to take advantage of their proximity to money. But usually, that's not working too well.

BTW, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't enjoy that kind of attention. The whole concept of buying drinks for girls has never appeared to me, because isn't that kind of a self-generated proof that your character is too boring?

<comment><USER7> Have you ever had the opportunity to utter the words "can I buy you a drink?"? It's usually preceded by developing rapport and by the time you know the answer to the question, it's a rhetorical question at that point.

<comment><USER6> Sure, I've had the opportunity, but as I said, I never saw the point of it.

I met my wife walking around in a park and commenting the art for display there. It was like 2PM in the afternoon, so the topic of drinks didn't really come up.

<comment><USER8> Buying a woman a drink at a bar isn't exactly the same as meeting a wife. It's quite a bit more superficial than that.

<comment><USER6> While I do agree, I still don't see the point of buying drinks in a bar when I could meet the same person in a much more relaxed and interesting setting outside of a bar instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Women in this world were living props in a carefully scripted theatre that created real financial value for men – the promoters who set up the scene, the nightclub-owners who raked in the bar bills, the wannabe billionaires who used the environment to network. The women's motivation was harder to pinpoint."

Hypergamy, status, intoxicants.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure I need much effort to pinpoint the motivation of people who are enjoying free drinks and free fancy dinners, both of which would otherwise be outside of their financial means.

But I do agree with you, the chance of potentially marring a billionaire is probably also alluring.

It's just that I wouldn't want to be the guy that is married only for his wallet, because that sounds like a surefire way for being treated like a tool.

<comment><USER10> > ... sounds like a surefire way for being treated like a tool

After crossing some net worth threshold, what other options are there? It seems like there is too many eyes on you to separate "you" from your money.

<comment><USER11> So what you're trying to say is that after you've amassed X million dollars over many many years of work, what other options are there but to have a near guarantee to reduce it to X/2 millions within a few years (as little as 2 years)? (not to mention leaving you with a lifetime of bitterness and resentment)

<comment><USER12> Prenups are a thing.

<comment><USER11> \- Prenups made null-and-void at the whims of the judge are a thing.

\- Unenforceable prenups are a thing

<comment><USER12> Hire lawyers for both groom and bride, follow rules fully, your prenup will be enforceable. Judges don't whimsically throw out prenups. However, having unenforceable or illegal clauses or simply not following proper procedure can make things complicated. Again, separate lawyers for both parties and proper procedures will make things very enforceable.

If you have children then of course you will pay child support, but if you are ultra rich that will be a small part of your fortune.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> fulltext anyone?

<comment><USER14> Just create an account. Their registration form does not validate the email address.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Question for freelancers - <AUTHOR>

I wanted to get your guys' feedback on an idea I'm currently coding up.  To keep it short, I'd like to visualize and simplify customer service and feedback more.  If you've ever seen http://smiley.37signals.com you'll understand what I'd like to mass produce for businesses.
http://d.pr/SYee I'd like to create a page for freelancers that their clients can review quickly and they can display proudly on their site.  You can get a badge http://d.pr/6r2M to embed as well if you're above 90% positive feedback.  Written reviews will be short (less than 200 characters) and to the point.  You'll need a Linkedin account to rate a person or write a review to increase legitimacy.
http://d.pr/6r2M In essence, showing off your design/code portfolio is great but many of us have very happy and satisfied customers we'd like to display as well and I think this would have a positive effect and securing more clientele.
Let me know your thoughts :) I'm about half done coding it up now. <comment><USER2> I freelance/consult in a pretty niche field. Keep in mind that I may not be the target market for this idea, but my engagements are typically 3-6 months long. If everyone I worked with in the last 12 months gave their feedback, I _might_ have 5 reviews.

I think the 37signals thing works really well because they have volume customers at lower prices, while the freelancers I know have few customers at super high prices.

But there are also several kinds of freelancers. I don't know if you're trying to target me or the companies that do 3 logo comps per day at $1000/project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting feedback. I could also market it to smaller agencies that have more clients too.</comment></comment>


Demanding the Truth - <AUTHOR> https://cacm.acm.org/news/242008-demanding-the-truth/fulltext <comment><USER2> > The social media platforms were conceived and designed for non-journalists > to share information among themselves

      s/share/unwittingly expose/
      s/among/about/
      s/themselves/themselves to paying advertisers and social\/political manipulators/

I think that substitution is pretty clear by now.</comment>


Cockpit crisis - <AUTHOR> http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/08/24/cockpit-crisis/

<comment><USER2> > Cockpit component company Rockwell Collins, for example, made waves at this > year's Paris air show when it talked about developing a "panic button" for > commercial airplanes that would give confused and stricken pilots the option > of flipping a switch and letting the computer fly the plane to safety. Not > surprisingly, the concept drew ridicule from aviators, who are quick to > point out that computers are hardly infallible, as anyone who has ever > struggled with a crashed Web browser knows.

One of the more dangerous things when operating a vehicle is cognitive overload; when shit goes wrong, a bunch of stuff tends to get dumped on you and you can't think fast enough to catch up. A way to let the airplane worry about itself for a minute while the pilots can catch up seems to be a decent way to address this side effect of being a conscious being instead of an automaton.

The jab about the unreliability of computers is just that; avionics software is on a much slower release schedule and has a much more fixed set of inputs than a web browser, allowing for a more thorough (or even formal) analysis of its behavior.

> "People say it's impossible to stall an Airbus, right? It has stall- > protection systems and it won't allow you to exceed the maximum angle of > attack where a stall would occur," argues Paul Strachan, an Air Canada pilot > who is the head of the company's pilots' union. "But that's not true. If > there's ice on the wing, that whole detection system isn't accurate to begin > with. I would be pretty hesitant to get on a plane with no pilot."

Flight control systems can be built to compensate for all sorts of failures[1] that would pose grave difficulty for human pilots, but nobody's really advocating for completely-autonomous passenger planes. The problem right now is that the autonomous systems to reduce pilot workload and improve safety have failure modes that tend to overload the pilots with information. A working, reliable "panic button" would definitely help pilots get back in front of the plane in an emergency situation, but so would fixing the information overload to allow pilots to prioritize important issues (pitot freezing up, speed indicators unreliable) over side effects (unreliable stall warning, alternate law activation).

[1]: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN9f9ycWkOY>

<comment> a-priori If there were a "Panic button", would pilots actually use it? In the case they mentioned, it sounds like the pilot was quite confident that pitching the nose up further would get him out of the stall. Who knows what his reasons were for doing that, but he had to "outmuscle" the existing automated systems to do it. Does that sound like a person who would push a button and let the plane save itself?

<comment><USER3> It sounds like that it's not a "Panic" button that pilots need, but a "Filter" button. Where if you've got 10 alarms going off, the "Filter" shows you the 1 or 2 alarms that matter most and need immediate action. Certainly the computational horsepower for this already exists onboard!

<comment><USER4> This type of result is attained with experience. My own experience (and many other people I know feel the same) regarding pressure and panic is that you need to have experience to be able to withstand pressure and panic, not better filtered information.

Even with only a few alarms, it's easy for inexperienced people to get panicked about something. But the claims of Sullenberger, the pilot who landed the plane in the Hudson river, are sobering.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/capt-sullenberger-stop- cuttin...](http://www.businessinsider.com/capt-sullenberger-stop-cutting- pilot-pay-or-next-time-plane-will-crash-in-river-2009-2)

<comment><USER5> Would you recommend that airlines publicize the experience of the pilot on each flight, and offer discounts for travelling with less experienced pilots? Because, other than with something like this, "experience" doesn't sound like an alternative to a "panic button" or a "filter button." Where does the experience come from?

<comment><USER4> It comes from training in flight school, smaller planes, the air force, etc. There are lots of ways to get quality experience before making the jump to the big planes.

<comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure all major airlines require a ton of hours on smaller planes, and often large cargo planes, before flying passenger jets--so perhaps experience is not the panacea, or must be more carefully tailored to include the right kinds of crisis situations.

<comment><USER6> > I'm pretty sure all major airlines require a ton of hours on smaller > planes...

That used to be true, and may be right now, but the trend is towards airlines accepting simulator time in lieu. The trouble with that is that simulators are subject to the same problem as any other complex input device: if you haven't foreseen the problem beforehand, you don't program the simulator to model it, and the pilot isn't trained to handle it. Experience can help that simulator time can't.

The recent high-pressure turbine blade failure on Qantas is a case in point where the pilots were overwhelmed with page after page of error faults, 145 of them if I remember correctly. If they hadn't been very fortunate to have two other senior captains in the cockpit with them, they would have had a great deal of trouble dealing with the information flow.

Personally, as a light aircraft pilot myself, I would not be comfortable with young airline pilots with only simulator experience. At least one of them needs to have a few thousand hours of hands-on-stick experience.

<comment><USER5> Interesting, and disturbing. I sure hope that after every air disaster or near disaster, a new scenario is added to the mandatory simulator training.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One possible approach that might have helped in the Air France case might be to let the pilots know what the plane doesn't know, instead of bombarding them with the unsolvable problems it did know.

At one point, they were at full thrust, nose-up, and climbing, yet in the heat of a storm of warnings, they failed to recognize that the airframe, engines, wings were all performing exactly as designed, aside from a panicking computer.

At that point they had completely lost situational awareness, and held the plane nose-up and falling until it contacted the water. If they had been able to 'step back' and look at the wider situation, they almost certainly should have been able to guesstimate some power settings, trim appropriately to lower the nose to recover to a normal flight attitude and hang on until they could trouble-shoot the frozen pitot tubes that had caused the air data computers to lose airspeed info.

<comment><USER8> There were several other major UI failures:

 _> In the case of Flight 447, Air France's pilots' union has pointed a finger at Airbus by suggesting that the stall warning system on the A330 likely contributed to the doomed flight crew's confusion by sounding only intermittently even though the plane remained in a stall the whole time._

 _> In the Air France crash, for example, investigators noted that the plane's critical angle of attack "was not directly displayed to the pilots" [...]_

Not only were they overloaded with useless noise, but critical information was either delivered in a confusing way, by design, or hidden from view...

They need UX people, badly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article doesn't mention near misses. How many stalls occur that crews safely recover their planes from? Can we learn anything from their circumstances?

<comment><USER10> I'm guessing this is a normal occurrence that isn't worth collecting statistics on. Recovering from a stall is simple; it's something you'll do very early in flight training (well before your first solo flight).

Planes crash when a lot of things go wrong at once. In the case of the Colgan Air crash, the problem was not the stall. The problem was that the pilots were sleepy, confused, and under-trained. The stall was too much for them because they were in a state where they could panic, and they didn't have the training to stop panicing and start flying the plane. So they randomly poked the controls, and that didn't save the plane.

Take two training pilots on a full 8 hour's sleep, and the stall probably wouldn't have even happened. If it did, a "whoa" would have been exchanged and they might have gone around for another landing approach. But I don't think it would be a big deal, it's just some randomness that is par for the course when you are trying to float twenty tons of metal through the air.

<comment><USER11> I'm a glider pilot, and I'm close to stalling every time I fly. It's just something that's part of the regular procedure: You recognize when it's about to happen, and take the appropriate action (which is to ease down on the stick and maintain correct angle of attack). If you're at a reasonable altitude, there is no danger involved. However, I'm pretty sure that an airliner operating regularly practically never approaches a stall condition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The whole discussion reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell's article "blowup".

<http://www.gladwell.com/1996/1996_01_22_a_blowup.htm>

</comment><comment><USER12> The quality of these professional pilots is really disturbing. Why would they pull up more when the plane is already in a stall? I'm pretty sure they teach in lesson 2 or 3 of flight school how to recover from stalls by pulling _down_ on the stick.

<comment><USER13> That was part of the problem. They covered that in lesson 2 or 3 but didn't follow up at lesson 1300. Like you, I assumed stall recovering was something ongoing but apparently its not. Once you have 1 certificate you move on to the next and the next.

It's like long division in multivar class. Some people can do it again given time but most people wouldn't be able to divide 1345 into 26 right off the bat.

<comment><USER11> But this isn't rocket science. It isn't even long division. Maintaining a safe angle of attack is the _most basic_ pilot skill there is. If you fly an airplane at all, this is something you have to think about both on approach and takeoff.

To me, it seems ridiculous that pilots are unable to remember this stuff. Really. To recover from a stall, you ease down on the stick and alternatively apply power. Barring a deep-stall condition, it's really that simple. They even teach you that the most basic error in a stall condition is to pull back on the stick in a panic-stricken attempt at forcing the plane to gain altitude. I'm stupefied at these reports.

<comment><USER6> Well, to be fair, flying a heavy is vastly different from a light plane. You don't have the seat-of-the-pants feel, centre-of-gravity varies greatly during the flight with fuel burn-off, at cruise you are flying only a few knots over the stall speed, and so on.

There were even situations where pushing forward was the wrong thing to do (although no longer, thank goodness). The 727 could enter a situation where the elevator itself was stalled from the main wing stall.

Modern heavies are about systems management and cockpit procedures. As someone below points out, if one system is telling you to pull up from overspeed, and another is telling you to push forward from stall, which do you believe? And, more importantly, how quickly can you trouble-shoot to find the correct action?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The super computers are strategically taking out problematic groups of humans, staging machine accidents that the humans cannot recover from manually.

I see this as a reoccurring theme in the next 100 years as we get self driving cars, automated food processing, intelligent machines automating everything. We gotta deal with this in a smart way, require by law "Kill computer" switch accessible and known by all operators, to get the computer to stop demanding its own way and just do what the human tells it to do.

Though we can't say we weren't warned, Hal saying he can't jeopardize the mission to Wall-E auto computer demanding it's own way over the will of the captain. Is there even a solution to this problem or are we doomed to be pets one day?</comment>


"Project Loom: Modern Scalable Concurrency for the Java" – Ron Pressler - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23HjZBOIshY <comment><USER2> It's always funny, when Java seems to be from another timeline than the rest of the universe. If "modern" means for Java "what others had decades ago" then yes, that's modern. It seems like that with Java. Lambda expressions? In Java 8, when they were available in other languages since the 80s or even earlier. So modern! Scalable concurrency using lightweight processes? For how long does Erlang have this? When did Concurrent ML come out?

These are all attempts to get Java back to being merely acceptable again, lacking behind in decades.</comment>


Are Debtors' Prisons Coming Back? (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/totalreturn/2012/08/28/are-debtors-prisons-coming-back/

<comment><USER2> No they aren't. The article is the epitome of link baiting. People who fail to appear when subpenaed get a bench warrant sworn out on them, then when they do something else wrong and the officer runs a warrants check they can get imprisoned for 'failure to appear.'

Best comment is the one linked to in the article, "When you get summoned by the court, go."

<comment><USER3> The problem is a bit more nuanced than that. The judge can call contempt even if someone answers the summons, but can not afford the fines or follow court orders due to financial hardship - solely at the Judge's discretion.

The most ridiculous yet iconic example: Man is jailed because he can not afford to sod lawn. Didn't break any laws, just crossed a HOA.

[http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/brown-lawn- means-...](http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/brown-lawn-means-jail- time/847365)

<comment><USER4> Um, defying a court order _is_ breaking the law. And the Court gave him several chances to correct the situation.

If he can't afford to live where he does, maybe he should sell the house and move.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No because it is a horrible idea for a nation in debt to go further in debt to lock up a citizen that is in debt. That would be the exact opposite direction to go to get debt paid.</comment>


Math Error Fuels Fight Over US Credit Rating - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903366504576490841235575386.html

<comment><USER2> I may have missed this, but it doesn't say which way the U.S. government calculations were off, does it? $2 trillion more debt is a hell of a lot worse than $2 trillion less.

<comment><USER3> It would make a piss poor saving throw for the white house to point out that S&P had underestimated the debt load, wouldn't it?</comment></comment>


Doggyspace.com has its day as social sites get more focused - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_10124662?source=rss

<comment><USER2> During the launch of Google App Engine, my idea for a test site was a pet owners social networking site, with the ability to put in contact info / special needs and the pet's collar / Avid chip ID, so that a lost pet could be cared for as well as possible until it was returned.

I'm glad someone is working in this space but the tone of the site (acting like you're your dog) seems a little lame to me. Best of luck to them, either way.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this the same type thing as dogster?

<http://www.dogster.com/>

I saw dogster a while ago and went, "dang, great idea. Too bad I didn't think of it first." I'm never optimistic enough about the space in a niche for > 1 players.</comment>


How to explain gradient boosting - <AUTHOR> http://explained.ai/gradient-boosting/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> Gradient boosting machines (GBMs) are currently very popular and so it's a good idea for machine learning practitioners to understand how GBMs work. The problem is that understanding all of the mathematical machinery is tricky and, unfortunately, these details are needed to tune the hyper-parameters. (Tuning the hyper-parameters is required to get a decent GBM model unlike, say, Random Forests.) Our goal in this article is to explain the intuition behind gradient boosting, provide visualizations for model construction, explain the mathematics as simply as possible, and answer thorny questions such as why GBM is performing "gradient descent in function space." We've split the discussion into three morsels and a FAQ for easier digestion. Written by Terence Parr and Jeremy Howard.</comment>


Is This the Future of Food? - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/future-food-for-cities

<comment><USER2> Only time will tell if this is a workable solution, but at least the identification of some current systemic problems is accurate.

</comment><comment><USER3> its always funny when I try to explain to global warming fanatics that in order to grow plants faster you have to increase CO2 levels from 300ppm to 1200ppm, they usually can't wrap their minds around it. Plants are currently suffocating on planet earth due to the low CO2 levels.

<comment><USER4> Could you explain this in more detail? I'm something of a global warming fanatic myself but I'd like to try and wrap my mind around this concept.

<comment><USER3> Plants need CO2 to grow. Its the main macro-nutrient besides water. The more CO2, the faster it will grow. If you increase the CO2 levels from 300 parts per million to 1200 parts per million you will get a huge increase in the speed and size of growth of any plant. You can increase the CO2 level very easily by buying a CO2 tank and releasing it near the plants, or you can do what I do and brew wine right next to the plant because the byproduct of the yeast creating alcohol from sugar is CO2. But whenever I try to explain this to the global warming crowd, and other facts debunking global warming, they get really really upset. I think one time I even got called a racist for pointing out scientific fact.</comment></comment></comment>


Erlang vs Java memory architecture - <AUTHOR> http://www.javacodegeeks.com/2011/04/erlang-vs-java-memory-architecture.html

<comment><USER2> Very interesting. I'm surprised that there's no way to limit the size of Erlang queues and therefore memory usage. Surely simple limits like that are a necessity for any production environment? Can anyone with deeper knowledge about Erlang comment on that?

<comment><USER3> The idea is that there is something very wrong with your design if you allow that to happen. In telco networks, once a message is accepted into a system, it is expected to be processed. You should throw away any messages you can't handle (because of overload) at the edge of the system. The same principle can be applied for any system which is serving any sort of network traffic.

If this unbounded message generation is happening within the system, again there is something wrong. You shouldn't be in a situation where a process is producing messages which other parts of the system cannot consume.

<comment><USER4> > In telco networks, once a message is accepted into a system, it is expected > to be processed. You should throw away any messages you can't handle > (because of overload) at the edge of the system.

That's attractive in general, but is it necessarily possible?

Assume a planar grid with O(N __2) nodes of which O(N) edge nodes that can accept a message for a given node somewhere near the center. In other words, that "given node" is O(N) steps away from any edge node.

Suppose that said given node has limited capacity. How can it keep those edge nodes aware of its capacity without wasting capacity or requiring O(N __2) queuing at said given node? Remember - it takes O(N) time to get a message from the given node to any edge node and during that time and there are O(N __2) places for a message to be in the network at any moment in time.

Now repeat for the other O(N __2) interior nodes.

<comment><USER3> Yes, it is possible. You have to ensure that every edge node is configured in such a way that it allows only a certain amount of traffic to a "inner" node. And if it finds that the inner node isn't as responsive as it should be, it has to scale back how much traffic it will accept.

For real time traffic, where queuing doesn't make sense, there isn't anything else you can do really.

<comment><USER4> > You have to ensure that every edge node is configured in such a way that it > allows only a certain amount of traffic to a "inner" node.

Let's assume that we have 5 edge nodes and that each is configured to send t traffic. The total amount of traffic that they can send is 5t. If the inner node can handle 5t, you won't need to drop traffic in the network. However, you're likely to drop traffic unnecessarily at an edge node.

Suppose that you have 4t worth of traffic continuously. Clearly the inner node can handle that.

However, consider what happens if all of the traffic during hour n tries to enter the network at edge node n.

For example, during hour 0, node 1-5 see no traffic and node 0 sees 4t worth of traffic. By configuration, node 0 drops 3t and sends t to the inner node. Since none of the other nodes are sending any traffic, the inner node only sees t worth of traffic even though it could handle 5t.

You can try to get around this problem by dynamically configuring the edge nodes, but since they're as much as N apart and they're responding to presented demand, that configuration is always stale.

You can guarantee that you don't overload the inner node, but only if you're willing to waste some of its capability in some circumstances.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I agree. There are a few ways around that:

\- Some out of band signalling between the edge and the core to indicate current load levels at the core.

\- Implement similar form of overload protection at the core. You might now say, "Aha! But you're throwing away messages you've accepted". The answer is no: the edge nodes are typically just relaying messages after some checks, application layer processing is typically done in the core.

This thread is becoming slightly hand-wavy but I hope you get the gist of what I'm saying :)

<comment><USER4> > Some out of band signalling between the edge and the core to indicate > current load levels at the core.

In-band/out-of-band doesn't make any difference - the edge nodes can't communicate fast enough. Remember, they're O(N) from each other. (Yes, two neighbors are adjacent, but there are nodes on the other side of the grid.)

Long wires doesn't help either - distance always matters.

> You might now say, "Aha! But you're throwing away messages you've accepted". > The answer is no

Actually the answer is "yes" - The original claim was "In telco networks, once a message is accepted into a system, it is expected to be processed. You should throw away any messages you can't handle (because of overload) at the edge of the system."

> I hope you get the gist of what I'm saying

I get the gist - the problem is that you must either waste capacity, drop in the interior, or both because of distance and the fact that there are more interior nodes than there are edge nodes. (And, you can't have all edge nodes because of distance and fan-in.)

One of the subtle ways to waste capacity is to run the control signals faster than the data signals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So the memory in Erlang is isolated per thread basis, and it makes Erlang more scalable. While in Java we have only common/shared memory.

<comment><USER6> The GC in Erlang VM is also per-process which allows it to be soft real-time. An application can be using gigabytes of memory, but it it's split between thousands of processes, garbage collection can be very very fast because the GC only needs to work through a small heap at a time.

<comment><USER7> You can also measure the amount of memory a process tends to use in typical operation, then spawn it with an appropriately sized heap. It never needs to do GC at all, it just dies and frees its heap when complete. Look at min_heap_size in spawn_opt/* .

It's the same concept as giving a copying garbage collector really large subspaces - GC only happens when one fills. Giving each process its own heap means that the GC pauses will still be brief.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Java has thread-local-storage which is the same as Erlang's private heap in term of concurrency isolation.

<comment><USER9> The variables themselves have concurrency isolation, but not the objects referenced from the variables. The thread local storage implementation in some JVMs uses the shared global heap.

There's no sharing at the application level or the implementation level in Erlang.

<comment><USER8> If you don't explicitly pass the objects referenced in TLS to outside or to other threads, I don't see it breaks the concurrency isolation.

For some JVM implementation that use a shared global heap, that may just impact the performance due to lock. The concurrency isolation contract is not broken. The app still has full confidence that its TLS values are not changed in other threads. OT: if performance comes into picture, one can claim excessive copying of immutable objects cause performance problem as well.

<comment><USER10> _If you don't explicitly pass the objects referenced in TLS to outside or to other threads, I don't see it breaks the concurrency isolation._

Sure. That's the same as if you never share any resource in any shared global heap between threads.

The point is that Erlang's concurrency model allows the programmer to never make that mistake, because you're storing immutable resources not references to mutable data. See my longer post on the subject, further down the page. :)

 _OT: if performance comes into picture, one can claim excessive copying of immutable objects cause performance problem as well._

When you have a share-nothing immutable-data concurrency model like Erlang's, heap type is an implementation detail (and you'd probably choose it based on your performance requirements, as you've alluded to.) To wit, as TFA says, you can run the Erlang VM with either a shared heap or a separate heap model. Language semantics stay the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am not sure this article has some real bearing for someone who wants to learn about Erlang. It actually might lead to more confusion that it's worth.

<comment><USER12> It looks like an entry about what Java can learn from Erlang.

It's not about learning Erlang.

I am pretty sure Java guys know quite well about various memory models. But early Java was kind of experimental, so backward compatibility affects what they can change now.</comment></comment>


GANs Explained, Computerphile - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/Sw9r8CL98N0 <comment><AUTHOR> At 6:46: "neural networks don't have feelings yet."

He didn't even pause for effect.</comment>


Bug Report: This comic is no longer accurate (xkcd) - <AUTHOR> https://xkcd.com/1425/ <comment><USER2> This was published in September of 2014. It did take quite a bit of time to solve the problem, just not as much as anticipated.</comment>


Prisoner's Dilemma - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

<comment><USER2> It's a real shame that "prisoner's dilemma" caught on as the name for this. Seems to really confuse people since it brings in a lot of baggage about real prisoners in real situations that only serves to confuse matters compared with the logic game itself.

As a result this page sets up the standard version, then writes many sentences telling you why this isn't like a normal situation and you should try to ignore all you know about how people would act in this situation.</comment>


Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/twitter-permanently-bans-alex-jones-and-infowars/ <comment><USER2> Official statement: [https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804427992686593](https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804427992686593)

> Today, we permanently suspended @RealAlexJones and @infowars from Twitter > and Periscope. We took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos > posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to > the accounts' past violations. [https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and- > policies/abusive-behav...](https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and- > policies/abusive-behavior)

<comment><USER3> Somehow this is just the babiest of baby steps. Infowars has a lot more than one Twitter account, and there's a lot of accounts other than Infowars that need to be thrown off Twitter.

<comment><USER4> I also have some speech I disagree with that I would like silenced.

Is there a form somewhere?

<comment><USER3> Are you the government? No, you can't.

Are you a private individual or corporation? Yes, you can, that ability to moderate is _protected free speech_.

<comment><USER5> I would agree, but something to think about is Twitter and facebook govern the behaviour of the people around me more than my country's government, probably.

<comment><USER3> Twitter and Facebook are private companies and they're free to govern their platforms however they see fit provided they don't run afoul of discrimination laws.

Being a racist jackass is not a protected class of individual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I never watched infowars or read anything Jones said or wrote.

But to think there are people who believe his crazy sh*t is really scary. Like the guy shooting up a pizza shop because of Pizzagate.

I compare him to the World Weekly News (next to the People magazines) from way back where they'd show a picture of space aliens shaking hands with the president.

Why does anyone believe this crap?

<comment><USER7> There are a lot of people who have lost faith in the system of government that has largely forgotten them.

Their kids are drug addicts.

Their towns look like war zones.

They have no ability to earn a living.

They seek to be recognized and valued.

They seek to matter to someone.

In Alex Jones they find a leader who understands their issues and makes it easy to understand who to blame.

If we want to disarm Alex we need to recognize there are real problems in America outside of the coastal areas.

<comment><USER8> > If we want to disarm Alex we need to recognize there are real problems in > America outside of the coastal areas.

And inside the coastal areas as well.

Still, none of this stress and anxiety condemns a reasonable human being to become a psychotic racist caricature (or a follower of the same). Desperation just turns up the dial on a person's fundamental system of values. It exposes the prejudice; it doesn't create it.

Solving the problems listed would calm their rage to the benefit of all, but let's not kid ourselves that it would change any hearts or minds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the most difficult issues with the style of bans that large tech companies perform is that there is no hope for them to have strong consistency. For them to be consistent they would have to ban anyone that has been an equal or worse offender, while not banning anyone that is a lesser offender. This is obviously far-fetched, especially with decisions that are made by humans on a case-by-case basis.

Regardless of what actions they take, many parties will feel slighted, and rightfully so, as anyone will be able to cherry-pick correct examples about why various platforms are not fair with their bans, because complete fairness is impossible. So we can have many equally valid "They banned X but not Y, this is unfair" from one side, but also "They banned A but not B, this is unfair" from an opposing side, with both complaints being valid examples that demonstrate some type of bias or inconsistency.

<comment><USER10> It's OK to be inconsistent, because tech companies aren't governments and their rules aren't laws. They are allowed to control their platform however they want.

Everyone is welcome to create their own "free-er" Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit.

<comment><USER11> I'm curious what you think about the cake shop denying service to a gay couple? Is that ok since they are free to create their own non-bigoted cake shop?

<comment><USER12> Discrimination is fine and dandy for any business as long as it isn't part of a protected class (Whether it makes business sense to do so is another argument). The cake shop argument is whether LGBT people fall under a protected class, and the courts have continued to sidestep that issue.

I firmly believe LGBT people should be a protected class like race, and sex, but ultimately we need to have a ruling on that.

<comment><USER13> LGBT being a protected class or not was not at issue in the cake shop decision, since they were not denied service in general (they had been regular customers of that shop, and were always served). The issue was whether designing a custom cake for their wedding was considered artistic expression, and as such he had a right to refuse under the 1st amendment since you cannot compel speech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _The Twitter founder addressed concerns about Jones' conspiracy-mongering, and tasked journalists with refuting his bogus claims.

"Accounts like Jones' can often sensationalize issues and spread unsubstantiated rumors, so it's critical journalists document, validate, and refute such information directly so people can form their own opinions," Dorsey tweeted. "This is what serves the public conversation best."_

Wow. Putting the burden of proof on anyone but the person making a claim is ridiculous.

Any video with John or Joan Q. Qanon will have someone saying something to the effect of, "Well, you don't have any proof that it's not true!"

Also, Jack Dorsey is a closet believer in the Tooth Fairy. He's been known to dress up as the Tooth Fairy and to participate in Tooth Fairy-related rituals.

I encourage anyone to disprove that.

</comment><comment><USER15> He should start a blog or a magazine. Marginalizing harmful and admitted liars is fine.

<comment><USER3> A magazine would be great, as that's going to be the quickest way to bankruptcy.

Will not shed a tear when Q makes Alex Jones look like a lame mainstream reporter and his audience, seeking the "truth", moves on from him to the latest, greatest purveyor of utter nonsense.

<comment><USER16> Q?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, go and punch that into Google and see what you get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For the past few years, whenever a company demonstrates that it is actively working against a culture of free speech, I block its URL in /etc/hosts. In this case, I already added Twitter long ago, so no change necessary.

Not only do I have less time wasters around, but I noticed that the internet is far less angry of a place as a result.

<comment><USER18> HN also actively moderates its content and its users. An Alex Jones would last about a day here before being banned.

> I noticed that the internet is far less angry of a place as a result

I would think it would be quite the opposite: the likelihood of being censored creates inhibition.

<comment><USER19> HN also has much less influence on the greater world, as opposed to Twitter.

<comment><USER20> How so? I mean, what is your thinking here?

<comment><USER19> The general public uses Twitter on a massive scale. They don't generally even know HN exists.

<comment><USER20> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Honestly, "Those are the eyes of a rat" is a fairly tame insult compared to the kind of toxic drivel Jones _usually_ says, and seems like weak grounds for termination.

He should've been kicked off long ago, but I fear that having this particular example be the "final straw" is only going to strengthen the alt-right's persecution complex.

<comment><USER22> It does seem tame, but a quick search suggests it may be an anti-semitic dog whistle.

<comment><USER23> It seems like every comment by someone the left doesn't like is a kind of dog whistle.

<comment><USER24> Comparing Jews to rats _is_ a classic Nazi trope. It's actually a dog whistle, for real and true.

<comment><USER25> I'm not sure it's subtle enough to be a dog whistle; it's more like a train whistle, really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> No matter what you think of Jones: Silicon Valley is digging their own grave with their blatantly obvious double standards towards "hate speech" and other forms of harassment.

<comment><USER27> Really?

I'd say no matter what you think of Jones you should be _celebrating_ this as it means Twitter is holding to their own published policies.

The nonsense of banning people for X, unless they famous, unless they're the wrong KIND of famous, or are being attacked by someone and asking "Why do they get to say X to me" stuff is a mess.

How can anyone run a platform if the rules are in constant flux on a per day/user/reason/moon phase basis?

Half the problem over the last few years is the quicksand of rules. Punishments applied unevenly start to look an awful lot favoritism even when there isn't any there.

<comment><USER23> > celebrating this as it means Twitter is holding to their own published > policies.

Have they banned the racist New York Times editor yet?

<comment><USER27> We already know certain people get special treatment. They were explicitly said it for the president. Jones certainly got it.

I'm not sure who you're talking about or what they did but I've always gotten the feeling that Twitter is very careful about messing with people who have any amount of power/fame.

My position? Apply the rules to everyone who violates them no matter what.

Twitter has shown that won't do that. But I'll take 40% enforcement over 5% enforcement.

<comment><USER28> They're talking about Sarah Jeong, who's been the subject of one of the more recent made-up controversies various right-wingers are using as an chance to bond over their shared identity as self-perceived victims:

[https://www.vox.com/technology/2018/8/8/17661368/sarah- jeong...](https://www.vox.com/technology/2018/8/8/17661368/sarah-jeong- twitter-new-york-times-andrew-sullivan)

The usual differences apply: she was making obvious jokes in the style of right-wing rhetoric (e.g. joking about how white people can't handle the sun and need to live underground) about a group which has never been seriously threatened rather than repeating slurs which have serious history behind them, there was no sign of capacity or intent to do real harm, etc. Twitter doesn't do nuance well but it's about as accurate as thinking Swift made a serious proposal to eat poor children.

<comment><USER23> > made-up controversies

So making dozens of anti-white comments over a sustained period of time is just a joke?

Yet Alex Jones calling a specific person a rat without any generalization when that person has been targeting him for harassment and deplatforming is anti- Semitic?

This is why the right and center have a growing distrust for the left.

> making obvious jokes in the style of right-wing rhetoric

Except right wing people don't talk like that.

<comment><USER28> > Alex Jones calling a specific person a rat without any generalization when > that person has been targeting him for harassment and deplatforming is anti- > Semitic?

Please don't waste time assuming you're talking to people who are completely unaware of his history and unable to check Wikipedia. If you want to defend Alex Jones, justify pizzagate, harassing the parents of massacre victims, or calling for armed uprising — i.e. the things which actually got him banned.

I know why you aren't, of course, because it would make the false equivalence of trying to compare him to Jeong a complete farce, not to mention raising some uncomfortable questions about your shared values. You clearly like to present yourself as speaking for some relatively mainstream group but that's incompatible with defending extremists like Jones.

> Except right wing people don't talk like that.

You seriously expect everyone to have forgotten the blood and soil guys? The birthers and other racists — like the figurehead of your party?

<comment><USER23> > i.e. the things which actually got him banned.

So twitter was lying when they said he was banned for his video with the CNN guy?

> false equivalence of trying to compare him to Jeong a complete farce

Exactly - he clearly is not as bigoted, racist, and hateful as Jeong.

A more similar comparison would be Sarah Jeong and Richard Spencer.

> but that's incompatible with defending extremists like Jones.

Why? I don't need to agree with everything you say to defend your right to speak.

Alex Jones is a conspiracy nut but he's also brought up lots of interesting topics worth discussing.

There is no need to spread malicious lies about him like saying he has called for armed uprisings.

> blood and soil guys

Ah yes the fringe fake right who want socialism and open borders but only for whites.

Maybe you should put down the fake news and go out and meet some conservatives. There are millions of us in California.

> The birthers

The birthers belong in the same category as the 9/11 truthers and the current Trump-Russia conspiracy theorists.

You can hardly compare them with hardcore racists like Jeong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Here is the video he broadcast that got him banned: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne_wFdA-1oU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne_wFdA-1oU)

Alex Jones seems seriously unwell. That being said, apart from acting like a complete jackass and harassing that man it was not exactly a racist rant and not 'as bad' as some of his other comments.

Not sure why he got banned specifically for this to be honest.

Edit: not sure how that link got mixed up with another video...

<comment><USER30> Just the continuous directed stream of invective. For 1 minute you can keep watching, but it keeps on going as Alex Jones invents new insult after new insult. I actually started to feel nauseated.

In previous centuries, one could have credibly challenged him to a duel after just a few seconds of this. I wonder if we can find some other similar escape valve in the modern age.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> > _"Those are the eyes of a rat,"_

There's no way they can ban him for saying that yet still claim to enforce the rules equally for all political affiliations.

There have been thousands (maybe more) tweets by people with blue verification checkmarks calling Trump an orange oompa loopa and much worse. No one has been banned for that (rightfully so imo).

There's been a ton of pressure on Twitter to ban Jones but using this tweet as an excuse shows they are in no way politically neutral.

This comes one day after Dorsey stood in front of congress and said they don't have a political agenda and previous examples of right wing censorship were "a mistake".

Ironically, one of the only places you can see actual footage of Dorsey saying this is on Infowars:

[https://www.infowars.com/watch-rep-markwayne-mullin-reads- sa...](https://www.infowars.com/watch-rep-markwayne-mullin-reads-sarah-jeongs- bigoted-tweets-to-jack-dorsey/)

This is _not_ an Infowars endorsement, it's seriously the only place I can find this video aside from Breitbart.

<comment><USER32> _There 's no way they can ban him for saying that yet still claim to enforce the rules equally for all political affiliations._

It's not the government, they absolutely can ban people for anything they want and they don't have to be consistent about it. There's nothing you can do about this it than deleting your account, complaining about them on the internet, and/or acquiring a seat on their board of directors and effecting change from within. I suppose a hostile takeover of the entire company should be mentioned, too.

Furthermore, "neutrality" is a figment of your imagination.

<comment><USER33> This seems to be a common trope lately. The claim seems to be that because censorship by private parties is not banned by the constitution, it is therefore a good idea.

It is entirely fair to criticize private parties for censorship even though there may be no legal recourse. It is in turn almost never a good idea to demand the censorship of ideas you don't like.

<comment><USER34>
        > This seems to be a common trope lately.

That's because it has only become self-evident lately. It has become much harder to believe that reason and truth will prevail on the internet. Back in the 1990s, it was easier to be idealistic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> "Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes, not need, just feed the war cannibal animal. I walk the corner to the rubble that used be a library line up to the mind cemetery now. What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and movin'. They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em while arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells."

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm over news. I'm over fake news. I'm so over this whole internet and social media experiment.

(I do checkout a few sites... hence this post.)

Wake up, it's 1984, and everybody is at the party. (left and right, liberals and conservatives..etc...)

It just looks a little different than what you read.

Thankfully, I can think for myself.

</comment><comment><USER37> Too little, too late, Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm surprised they held out so long considering the seemingly orchestrated removal of him from other platforms.

Bit bizzare thing to remove him for regardless of the person when you consider how much just total grbage exists on twitter in general.

</comment><comment><USER39> [https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804427992686593](https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804427992686593) says they "permanently suspended" his accounts. Merriam Webster defines "suspend" as "to debar temporarily". So what it is, twitter? Permanently or Temporarily? It may be just sloppy writing or they are leaving a way for themselves to restore the accounts?</comment>


Ask HN: How important is the app icon? - <AUTHOR>

Hey folks,
I'm releasing an app in a couple of weeks if all goes to plan. My question is, how important is the icon/logo? Should one hire a professional designer for this? Do you sketch out your idea first and then take it to a pro?
It's interesting to look back; it appears most startups make do with anything (e.e Sergey Brin's Google logo with GIMP) but it seems more and more are very polished.
You can see my effort at theoctopusapp.com. <comment><USER2> I would say the app icon is very much important. People are visual in nature; this is why we have designers and not just programmers. An icon should ideally represent what the app does; should possibly share the apps / companies color scheme; should be easy to tell apart from the next app in it's category and should be recognizable in a sea of other apps.

Nothing sucks more then wanting to use an app you haven't used in a few weeks, but not being able to find it swiping past numerous other apps on your phone.

I'm a programmer, but I always like to sketch out what I want first. Setup some ground rules - color, major design points, etc... then give it to a designer and let them take over.

Ask for 2 or 3 versions - possibly even ask multiple designers for a version and see what you like best.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was working on a developer tool which had a lot of users (~500k) where we were using a stock icon. Not until a much later release we changed the icon that was designed by a professional designer. Few of our users did complain that it didn't look great in their Mac / Linux docks! Story on mobile might be a bit different but from my perspective, unless I don't pin the icon to my dock (in which case I use the app A LOT) I generally don't seem to care about the icon as long as its decent.

EDIT: I guess this is on the cards, but you should first redesign the landing page on octopusapp.com. All the best!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice. I know what you're saying regarding the landing page, it's spartan at best. (what can I say, I'm a minimalist)</comment>


Ask HN: Review our site, ListBite (social classifieds) - <AUTHOR> http://www.listbite.com

<comment><USER2> Question: How did you select the list of locations to use in the UK version of your site? I would have thought that you would do it based on population size but there are some rather small places in the list - eg Bath & Swindon.

Bug: When clicking the logo to return to the home page from one of the UK regional urls the site returns to the .com instead of .co.uk page and shows the US locations.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why would someone want to use your site over the better established sites that do the same thing (Craigslist in the US, Gumtree in the UK)?

<comment><AUTHOR> good question. We are trying to be more of a social classifieds site where for example users can chat online with the seller or private message them. Sellers can also upload a profile so buyers may feel more comfortable with them.

Also, we are aggregating other sites such as cars.com on the us site and other local classifieds data, so it's easier to find stuff in one place.

But definitely that where the challenge lies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> sorry, I can't get past the frontpage due to the schematic design

</comment><comment><USER5> Not to offend, but that logo is simply terrible. It looks... cheap.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think you should narrow your focus. Didn't craigslist start out with just one area? Why do you call it social classifieds? Is there a social network tied in somehow?

<comment><AUTHOR> True, I've had some interest from some regional car dealers so definitely going narrower is an option. To really use the social features you have to be logged in and have a profile in mylistbite, but still want to expand the social network part. Also, trying to include it in facebook as an app which hopefully will give some traction.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thx, For the UK site we picked locations based on area and population, but definitely can refine it some.

<comment><USER7> If I'm buying a game, do I really care whether they are in London or Essex? No, I don't - the game is going in the post anyway.

The UK list is a bit grim at the moment, mainly because you are mixing cities and counties into the same list. That comes across as strange, almost as if you are making a category error. Have you though of sticking to counties, or using sythentic regions (The South East, The Northwest, the Midlands etc).

<comment><AUTHOR> True for things like games you may not care, but for furniture, cars, and personals you probably do care. I think we will probably just show a map in the future and you can pick which region/town you in from there.

<comment><USER7> If I were you I might think instead about asking the user for his/her postcode. Then the user can decide to rank hits by proximity if they want, or by other criteria.

I want the closest piano stool. I live in East London; some parts of Essex are closer to me than some parts of London.

<comment><AUTHOR> yea, good idea. We were planning on including the postal code in the post flow so once we have that people could browse based on proximity.

<comment><USER7> I don't want to push the point in an irritating way, but I think you should think about amending the post flow....

Currently you have people selecting a region and THEN selecting what they want. It would be better to have people select what they want and THEN select how important the proximity is.

That solves (i) The arbitrary city/region issue and (ii) Lets you advertise on the home page the scope of what people can shop for, rather than advertising all the cities in a country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I won't use it because I'm in Kansas City. Also, it looks like a parked domain.

</comment><comment><USER9> What's the point?</comment>


Your Next Car Could Have Airbags That Inflate on the Outside - <AUTHOR> https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/car-technology/a26324620/external-airbags-zf-friedrichshafen-ag/ <comment><USER2> It wouldn't surprise me these airbags kill pedestrians and cyclists.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you find iOS apps? - <AUTHOR>

Most people seem to find it difficult to discover quality apps in Apple's store.  I find myself constantly downloading apps, finding out they are terrible and then delete them, rarely finding anything of quality. The best apps I find are one's that people tweet about or blog about.
So, what sources do you use to find your iOS app? Or what apps are your favorite?
My two current favorite apps are:
Downcast - podcasting app (https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/downcast/id393858566?mt=8)
Go RSS - Google Reader app (https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/go-rss/id579197528?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2) - disclaimer it's my favorite Google Reader app because I wrote it. <comment><USER2> I wrote a post about this yesterday in which I discussed my two most used apps: Chrome iOS and Mailbox.

[http://taylorbeck.me/blog/2013/2/11/my-iphones-dock-is- being...](http://taylorbeck.me/blog/2013/2/11/my-iphones-dock-is-being-taken- over-by-third-party-apps)

In terms of where I find my apps, I have three main sources:

\- HackerNews (for the big movers and shakers) \- Reddit (for cool and gimmicky apps) \- iFive For the iPhone Podcast (Sarah Lane comes up with 5 excellent apps and/or iPhone tips each week; I have probably downloaded 50% of my most recent apps through this podcast)

As for my current favorites:

\- Alien Blue (Reddit client) \- Dropbox \- Google Maps \- Of course, Chrome and Mailbox

</comment><comment><USER3> To be honest, I mostly use websites, not apps.</comment>