The FarmBot Genesis Brings Precision Agriculture to Your Own Backyard - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/farmbot-genesis-brings-precision-agriculture-your-own-backyard-180959603/?no-ist <comment><USER2> "All the food you need" is a bit of a stretch for me. Maybe I'm mistaken. A human needs around 2000 kcals per day, or a little less than 100 joules/second. Easy to remember: we use as much energy as a 100 watt incandescent light bulb.

Solar energy has a maximum output of 1120 W/m2 at the surface of the earth. So theoretically, a square meter could support 10 people. But there are one or two efficiency losing steps that throw this all off.

There's only light for half the day. Plants only are about 3-6% efficient at absorbing solar energy. The plants also are only taking up a fraction of the ground they're using, let's be liberal and say half. Then there's the whole 'how much of the energy the plant used was actually converted to edible calories' question, which is beyond my ability.

Multiplying that together, the best I can imagine is around 12 m^2 per human.

I'd love someone to show me a mistake in that logic, because I am super excited about things like this. I know I'm going to own one of these someday in the future.

<comment><USER3> I do some work on crop modeling. A few years ago at a project meeting, in the evening in a bar, we did some rough calculations; there were agricultural engineers and agricultural economists in our group, so it wasn't completely amateur hour (but not scientifically robust either, of course). Anyway, the result was that in Western Europe you need about 100m2 per person to grow enough food to sustain oneself for a year. This took into account that you need to grow crops that keep a long time to last you through winter etc. It didn't particularly consider variety in crops (neither for taste not for soil management purposes), but it wasn't potatoes year round either. You need to be a competent farmer as well, but it didn't consider really high tech closed- greenhouse-like setups either. Still, that was a sobering number for many in the crowd - it completely undermines the whole 'self-sufficiency = sustainable' mantra.

<comment><USER4> 100m^2 doesn't seem like so much to me at all, certainly not sobering.

This would mean one acre of land would sustain about 40 people (or 100 per hectare).

Taking wikipedia's number of 13,958,000 km^2 of arable land in the world, this would mean a maximum world population of 137,963,876,580, which is about 20x the current world population.

Of course, this assumes equal quality of land to the land in your rough calculations, and I am guessing your number is assuming far more intensive cultivation than is typical (typical numbers I've seen are 1-2 acres / person).

<comment><USER5> The full calculation would also need to take in to consideration wastage / spoilage; crop failure; loss to pests; nutrient density (probably can't thrive off potatoes and corn only); animal feed (pets as well as animals for food).

Having said that, I'll now go on to say: with one inhabited planet there are limits to resources, but the limits to human resourcefulness are undefined.

<comment><USER6> Don't eat animals. One problem solved. Might want to have some cows for milk and using their waste as fertilizer

Edit: the not eating animals is not in a vegatarian way. I love meat. But if you want to fully sustain yourself on the smallest area possible, animals do not aid your cause.

<comment><USER7> Hens could probably be useful, as they can turn pests into eggs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Precision agriculture is all about controlling variability. When you have a small plot of all the same soil, under the same weather conditions, your really not going to have much, if any variability, and probably won't actually need any precision agriculture. As opposed to a 400ha paddock where you can have 3 different soil types and different weather at either end of the field.

As for this technology being used on a larger scale, I'd be really interested to see the cost for a similar setup over a few thousand hectares, and what sort of efficiencies might be gained compared to our current system. However I'm not convinced it'll replace our machinery any time soon.

The other interesting use for this would be, if it gained a large enough user base, the sharing of different planting setups and rotations for nutrient replacement. i.e planting crop x and y in rotation, or interrow with crops a and b.

<comment><USER9> > i.e planting crop x and y in rotation, or interrow with crops a and b.

I think this will be the real win of this technology eventually. Most if not all first world farmers understand that over the lifetime of their farm doing proper crop rotation increases yields but there is still a very reasonable instinctual reluctance to give up the short term profit of a high yield crop in order to plant a rotation crop of less profitable plants to keep the soil up correctly. Evening out that profit per field would probably be a great boon to operations that are too small to rotate entire fields.

It would also probably be an excellent way to get non farmers involved in the food production chain, especially in semi-rural areas. I grew up just in front of a community pasture which served as a grazing ground for three or four different farmer's herds and a couple of people who kept a couple of milk cows for local cheese making and stuff like that. Extending that concept to plants would be great, a giant community garden where people could plant crops that they are interested in and receive the yields at the end of the growing period. Larger farming outfits could plant around the regular people and ultimately keep costs down because of subsidy. Round out five or six gardens with some cash crops like wheat, soy or corn while locals use some of the field to grow their own grocery vegetables.

<comment><USER10> > Extending that concept to plants would be great, a giant community garden > where people could plant crops that they are interested in and receive the > yields at the end of the growing period.

> Round out five or six gardens with some cash crops like wheat, soy or corn > while locals use some of the field to grow their own grocery vegetables.

Like allotments? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_\(gardening\))

<comment><USER9> Sort of except instead of one person being responsible for each of their plots all of the plots are tended by a small number of farmers with electronic assistance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Like 3d printing, I think this only solves problems for a small subset of the people who will buy this. In the case of 3d printing, industrial engineers could prototype things much faster, before ultimately sending it to a factory for large scale production. In the case of FarmBot, I can see some agriculture scientists working in greenhouses benefiting from automating the planting, testing and controlling of certain crops. Especially if precise timing and its documentation are needed.

But for the average consumer, this doesn't seem particularly economical. Automation of this kind of thing only makes sense when you have a significantly larger field. I still think this is a great idea, but I think its reach is a bit overstated.

<comment><USER12> The design looks reasonably scalable.

<comment><USER13> Wouldn't arm design be much simpler though?

<comment><USER11> An arm would be simpler, but might get awkward for larger plots. Some kind of self-driving vehicle with an arm might be the most scaleable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> They didn't really explain how it pulls weeds.

The nerd in me has my credit card out and is ready to overnight one of these things to my backyard.

The suburban dad in me scoffs because one of the best parts of having a garden is planting stuff with my kids and helping them water and care for the garden.

Robots vs kids....

Hmmm. That gives me another idea...

<comment><USER15> They punch it underneath the soil so it can't receive sunlight. They show it happening in the video.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> See also : Marcin Jakubowski on Open Source Blueprints for civilization : [https://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski?language=en](https://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski?language=en)

..and the construction set: [http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/](http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/)

<comment><USER17> How has that been going by the way? I've been following OSE since 2010 and I've lately been given the impression that it has been dying down.

<comment><USER18> Seems like mostly what they've produced is TED talks.

That's a bit snarky. I was pretty pumped with the project at first, but it really seemed poorly run, and also seemed to ignore a lot of prior art when designing hardware. Their compressed block machine does seem fully thought out and functional at least, but their first tractor snapped in half on its maiden voyage, and the replacement looks like a post-apocalyptic bobcat. There's a reason most farmers aren't using bobcats in the field.

Anyways, neat idea, and I hope it inspired others to focus on open source hardware for agriculture and small-scale civilization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A bit much for a the simple one time task of planting. Maybe if you need to plant reproducibly a large variety of seeds? But this use case is rather uncommon.

For a more novel approach to farming, see the combination of fish tanks and planting, called "Hydroponics":

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

<comment><USER20> It also waters and weeds with interchangeable heads. Weeding is done by pushing anything unexpected back underground. Watering is done by dropping water on the plants.

<comment><USER21> This isn't right. You water the soil, and the soil moisture is uptaken by the plants. Watering the area immediately around the stem doesn't work, except for growing seedlings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Ignore this article (which I think was on YC a few weeks ago), and follow the link in it to Modern Farmer. Their article links to the AgBot Challenge.[1] That's both more interesting and more useful.

Autonomous weeding robots which roam big fields and take out weeds one by one are being demoed by several manufacturers. Here's the most practical-looking one, out in a huge field of beets, quietly killing weeds one at a time.[2]

[1] [http://modernfarmer.com/2016/05/2016-agbot- challenge/](http://modernfarmer.com/2016/05/2016-agbot-challenge/) [2] [https://vimeo.com/140036163](https://vimeo.com/140036163)

</comment><comment><USER23> Relevant discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6451350](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6451350)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11856915](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11856915)

</comment><comment><USER24> Regarding weeding, by virtue of the precision overhead watering the weeds are likely to only grow at the base of the planted crops - how would it differentiate between the two (or more)?

<comment><USER8> There are sensors designed for broadacre cropping that will pick weeds out of crop.[0]

As well as sensors that will pickup weeds from dirt.[1]

This would be in the middle of those two problems. There isn't a dense crop to pick the weeds out of, but it's probably slightly too dense to just pick them up from the dirt.

[0][http://www.spaa.com.au/projects_details.php?project=16](http://www.spaa.com.au/projects_details.php?project=16)

[1][http://www.weed-it.com/](http://www.weed-it.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Once I had idea about growing plants as service. You would not need to have your own piece of land but you could rent space and check your plants over the internet with mini game where you control watering choosing the fertilizer and other things (Farmeville but with real plants). You could look at your plants through ip-camera or receive pictures by mail. When plant would grow then you could have it picked up and shipped for lunch.

With this farmbot I can imagine it would be doable.</comment>


The 3,100-mile race around a New York block - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/sport/48702452 <comment><USER2> Is this related to how one measures a New York Minute? I live with ASD, and I still can't imagine how mind numbing this would be. Kudos to those who can accomplish such a feat! I hope this determination is directed toward something of a bigger goal, and not just another Mount Everest story.</comment>


The high-level design of Servo, the concurrent browser engine written in Rust - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mozilla/servo/wiki/Design

<comment><AUTHOR> Posted this because I think it's really cool to see non-embarrassing concurrency pushed so hard in such a highly-relevant area. Specifically, take a look at the "Strategies for parallelism" section; pcwalton informs me that basically none of the potential strategies there are employed by any of the current major browser engines, with the exception of JS parsing.

Very excited to watch this project progress--though do note that it's basically nothing but a glorified image renderer in its current state of development.</comment>


Adventures in D programming - <AUTHOR> http://blog.tenstral.net/2016/05/adventures-in-d-programming.html <comment><USER2> I recently started using D and I was loving it so far. I bought Alexandrescu's excellent _The D Programming Language_. It's a fun book, teaches a lot about programming in general, and even if you don't think you'll use D, I recommend reading this book to get ideas about what programming languages can do.

Then I ran into this:

[https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15994](https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15994)

The response to this has almost completely demolished my interest in D. It is with a broken hacker heart that I think I need to step away from D. The problem is not that it's possible to segfault in D or dereference a null pointer in D, as Rust allows this too, but that it's so easy to do so. The worst part is that the response is to blame the learner instead of blaming the language. If I wanted to be blamed, I would go back to C++.

I tried to suggest a language change in IRC, such as for example disallowing bare "SomeClass someobject;" declarations and requiring either "SomeClass someobject = new SomeClass(foo, bar, baz)" or "SomeClass someobject = null;" in order to make it explicit that the reference will be null, but everyone in IRC seemed to think that it was impossible to change the D language. This despite how the language is already constantly changing because as blog post mentions, Phobos is rapidly changing.

I am going to try to raise this concern again in the D mailing list/forum (it's actually really cool these two are the same thing). There are so many good ideas in D, and I really loved everything up until I ran into this. Maybe Walter or Andrei will see the importance of making it more difficult to dereference null pointers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looking at this from a Java perspective, the behaviour of the example attached to the bug is valid.

It would be a significant improvement if it gave a warning when an uninitialized variable is used, but apart from that I wouldn't make any changes here.

<comment><USER2> The comparison to Java isn't quite right, as D has structs which are like classes can be on the stack and classes which must always be a reference. So there's a bit of a syntactic inconsistency, where you might think that "SomeClass object;" would declare an object on the stack like "SomeStruct inst;" would, whereas instead it only declares a null reference.

If classes can only be references, the syntax should enforce that more clearly. In Java, everything is a reference, so there is less inconsistency there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it's not a perfect comparison. I only chose it because I'm familiar with it and understand how that style of code would behave.

I do agree that reading a line like "Blah varName;" is confusing when you don't know what 'Blah' is.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Building a Kotlin Native App on iOS/Android - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/android-things/building-a-kotlin-native-on-ios-android-6a6db9df5bef <comment><USER2> I had no idea that Kotlin/Native existed, nor that it had interop with Swift and iOS frameworks! Wow!

Funnily enough, when looking at the Kotlin view code it took me a second to realize I wasn't looking at Swift + iOS (for better or worse)!

Is anyone using it to actually develop cross-platform apps? Positive/negative experience?

<comment><USER3> Because Kotlin is like Swift [http://nilhcem.com/swift-is-like- kotlin](http://nilhcem.com/swift-is-like-kotlin)</comment></comment>


Lunar Surface Flown Apollo 11 Artifacts from the Neil Armstrong Estate - <AUTHOR> http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11ReturnedEagleArtifacts.html <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9015325](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9015325)</comment>


Bass Diffusion Model - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bass_diffusion_model

<comment><AUTHOR> I found this interesting because it's something I hadn't heard of before a few months ago but it's apparently quite famous and important.

It also seems relevant to the usual HN topics of how new products get adopted into the marketplace, effective marketing, technology changes etc.</comment>


Rough Waters: Gentrification and Cataclysmic Money - <AUTHOR> https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/1/30/rough-waters-gentrification-and-cataclysmic-money <comment><USER2> It's difficult to reduce segregation by wealth and income because that is what people want, they want to be near people like them or more successful.

Only solution to that is reducing income and wealth inequality. But technological efficiency gains exacerbate it by rewarding the capital owners disproportionately.

It's tough to see a way out of this without some type of redistribution of resources. In my opinion, quality free education and healthcare would be a start.

<comment><USER3> > _free education and healthcare_

Sure, these would require a lot of redistribution. So much that, AFAICT, no developed nation ever afforded it (except maybe USSR, but their healthcare wasn't great, and the level of redistribution, colossal.)

<comment><USER4> Education is "free", i.e. paid for by taxes, in Germany.

<comment><USER5> I don't know what the point of mentioning that "nothing the government does is free" is about. We all know that nothing is free, it's a concise way of saying the government (our taxes) pays for it. Is there a more accurate and concise way of getting across this kind of policy?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Christian Origins of Islam (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2012/12/the-christian-origins-of-islam <comment><USER2> Isn't this a western/Christian wet dream. Worth mentioning the debunked Hagarism (Cook and Crone) and also the perception of Islam in Europe in tolan's more current Faces of Muhammad.</comment>


Managing Multiple Python Versions with Pyenv - <AUTHOR> http://akbaribrahim.com/managing-multiple-python-versions-with-pyenv/ <comment><AUTHOR> I've recently had great success at work in switching from virtualenv to pyenv + pyenv-virtualenv. It makes it much easier to reason about your Python installations and it helps in keeping the system Python (MacOS) from interfering.

<comment><USER2> What problems did it solve exactly? I have enough experience with virtualenv. I occasionally encounter problems but its usually with non-python parts of the libraries. What does pyenv do differently?

<comment><AUTHOR> It isn't necessarily about solving a problem that we had with virtualenv. For us it was already working quite well. It just simplified a few things for us. Like isolating Python versions, and also made the process of downloading and installing multiple Python versions easier.</comment></comment></comment>


GitHub Package Registry Will Support Swift Packages - <AUTHOR> https://github.blog/2019-06-03-github-package-registry-will-support-swift-packages/ <comment><USER2> This will go well with Xcode 11 supporting Swift Package Manager natively.

[https://developer.apple.com/xcode/](https://developer.apple.com/xcode/)

<comment><USER3> I imagine that's not a coincidence.

<comment><USER4> It's pretty interesting that Cocoapods got so much flak years ago for basically exploiting Github's bandwidth to host a package registry for the apple ecosystem, and now Github are doing exactly the same as a first class product.

<comment><USER5> Well part of the (if not THE) reason for that was that they were extremely inefficient in the whole process (complete clones of the master repository including the complete history, although you don't really need that as a cocoapods user).

And it is still inefficient today, considering that an initial pod install takes around 12 minutes just to clone the cocapods repo...

<comment><USER6> They were actually using shallow clones which were more performance intensive for GitHub's backend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How immutable is this registry?

What happens if the owner tries to remove their package, or rename it? or modify it? What if the owner deletes his/her account / organization, or renames user / organization?

The nice thing about many package managers is that they don't allow mutation, removal or renaming of packages. So when you have a lock-file checked into git you can be sure you can fetch all the dependencies again.

<comment><USER8> I dont think its intended to replace the main package managers as much as to ensure you can deliver a tool you may already be using (GitHub). Especially if you want to ensure you dont accidentally publish production code to one of those package managers e.g. NPM which had a whole debacle about that a few months or a year back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I hope they will introduce support for Conan/vcpkg C++ packages as well

<comment> tr-gitlab GitLab is working on support for Conan now. [https://gitlab.com/gitlab- org/gitlab-ee/issues/8248](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab- ee/issues/8248)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a complete non-techie (anesthesiologist) I thought at first glance at the OP title this was a new rival of Amazon Prime.

<comment><USER11> Hehe. Packages are the developer term for a reusable piece of software that usually solves one problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is there any reason why Python isn't supported?

<comment><USER13> Python is coming!

<comment><USER14> How is the dependency management situation on Python? I have dabbled in Python for a few projects, and it always felt like there was no "right way" to manage dependencies and environment.

<comment><USER15> _it always felt like there was no "right way" to manage dependencies and environment._

That has been a huge problem in the past and it's still somewhat of a problem. However now that pip and virtualenv (renamed venv) are part of the standard python install and pip has gotten a lot better when comes to cross platform installs and handling binary dependencies, hopefully we'll see some more standardization around those tools.

That being said, I use conda for managing dependencies and environment for basically all my python development work and have no complaints.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Cool, now how much longer do I have to wait to use it?

<comment><USER17> There is a beta going on right now: you can sign up for you place in line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Great, now you can mix Cocoapods, Carthage, SPM _and_ github!

<comment><USER19> Looks like it works with SPM unless I'm mistaken.

<comment><USER20> Yep - GitHub Package Registry is a set of registries. It should plan nice with as many package managers as possible

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It need a better name. Gems, maven etc like. Sgpm could be a starting point.

Just can't imagine anyone would remember without a good name.</comment>


Google's answer to 'who won the popular vote' is a conspiracy blog - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/14/13622566/google-search-fake-news-election-results-algorithm <comment><USER2> In a true recursive fashion, the query now leads to similar news reports which claim google returns fake news to this exact query. How amusing.</comment>


Linux won't be locked out of Windows 8 PCs, but FUD continues - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/linux-wont-be-locked-out-of-windows-8-pcs-but-fud-continues/4343 <comment><USER2> Or, to put it another way, non-Windows OSs will be locked out of these ARM- based devices, and that's ok because Linux isn't available for these devices yet.

If Windows had anywhere near the dominance in tablets that it has in PCs, that would not be ok.

As it is, Windows doesn't have a presence in ARM devices. Do Android tablets generally let you install a different OS? What about ipads?</comment>


Ubuntu Touch Mobile Will Soon Support Android Apps with "Anbox" - <AUTHOR> https://curiouspost.com/ubuntu-touch-mobile-will-soon-support-android-apps-with-anbox/ <comment><USER2> So? Didn't do Blackberry OS a lot of good.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you get past difficulty learning what's needed for a new job? - <AUTHOR> I have one client right now who pays me out of pocket, but the work he's asking is beyond my understanding. It's dealing with a new system that has a lot of parts. It's well documented, but when I read the documentation, it's just not sinking in, I'm not "getting it". My eyes just gloss over and I re-read the same sentence over and over for 3 minutes without any progress. This is the same thing that happened when I tried to learn Rails about 8 years ago.
Is it possible to push past this and force my mind to learn new things? Is being 32 years old and in very poor health a show-stopper for learning new complex concepts?
My first thought is to just get another job, one that I already know how to do. But that's outside of my control, this is my only client and will be for a few months.
Any advice is appreciated. <comment><USER2> I know you, I recognize your username. You wrote the tool for OSX: phoenix, hydra, mjolinr, etc. I think you are a very talented developer. I think you'll definitely be able to get a job in Chicago easily. There is no shortage of tech jobs.

If it is too much stress for you to work as a freelancer, just get a full time job. There is no shame in that!

<comment><USER3> Yep, recognized the name too!

My advice would be: fake it till you make it.

Relax, try to split the whole thing into small pieces, try to understand how they interact with each other, try to understand the dataflow.

Also, in my experience you can never actually grok the whole system at once. It is a slow process.

And what always helps me: separate things that _actually_ matter for your work and everything else (the power of abstraction!). Not sure how to explain it properly. Basically, when I start working on a new project, the number of new things (new words, terms, abbreviations and other domain-specific stuff) is often overwhelming. But in most cases it doesn't matter. Most systems are pretty much the same: data flows here and there, this thing validates stuff, this thing calculates something, this thing stores results etc. They just have different names and use different words, but in reality they are the same thing.

Finally, it's just a job. Take care of yourself, your health (including mental), relax, take it easy.

UPD: also, really, take care of your health! Eat healthy food, do exercises/go to gym, daily walks (it makes a huge difference!), sleep well.

Also, some supplements help me a lot: vitamin D3 + K2, Zinc, Fish Oil, Magnesium + Calcium. For me it made a huge difference! You can also try L-Theanine (with coffee).

<comment><USER4> I don't like the idea of "fake it till you make it." Sorry but that is horrible. Just think a second if everybody starts doing that!

Just for a second, consider a different job, and think what will happen if everyone start doing that. If your doctor does that, a truck driver does that, if an engineer does that when building a bridge.

I'd say, you should be honest and direct. Just tell your employer/manager: I don't know that, and I need x amount of time/resource to learn it if we need.

You shouldn't fake it. They should know the real cost, the actual capacity. Either they will support you to learn it as part of your job, or they know that it works better if they think about alternative solution/design base on actual capacity/resource.

Nobody can blame you for not knowing something as long as you are willing to learn and they are willing to support you.

"fake it till you make it" also doesn't help you with your stress condition. it will make it even worst as you and your employer don't have real expectations.

Don't build that kind of culture in your job market and society.

<comment><USER3> But everyone already does that. When you get a new job, you can't just merge in seamlessly like you've been working there for ages.

Of course, saying 'fake it' I don't mean 'just pretend that you know stuff, but don't actually learn and don't work hard'. You have to learn, you have to work hard to really understand the project etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _in very poor health_

Do some care-taking first, then try to sit down and work.

Daily hot baths in the evening can help.

Upping the cleanliness of your abode can help.

Getting pickier about your diet with an eye towards good nutrition can help.

A daily walk can help.

Sometimes, coffee or another source of caffeine can help you concentrate.

Bonus: If you regularly work on your health, it can get better.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not in a position for any of that. We're living literally week to week, and every single hour that I'm awake I need to work. Our bills are past due and we're overdrawn $50 in the bank right now. I'm making $25/hour with this one client, and it's barely enough for the life we have. I would downsize our lifestyle if I knew how but we can't even afford to move to a cheaper city. As it is right now, the only choice I have right now is to just work on this client project every hour that I'm awake, and sleep no more than 7-8 hours per night.

<comment><USER6> Something doesn't add up. Assuming "working every hour you're awake" means something like 12 hours/day 6 days a week, that'd be a $90k/yr salary at your stated rate of $25/hr. A more realistic (but still severe) schedule of 10hrs/day 6 days a week would be $75k/yr-- even in an expensive city, far from the brink of homelessness.

Am I overestimating how much you're working? Or is the income being consumed by something?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've only been a consultant for 2 months, and the reason I say every waking hour is because we are only just now getting caught up with bills, but we're still pretty far from being stable, and this weighs heavily on my concentration, so while I may work 12 hours in a day, I only get maybe 6-8 hours out of this work that I can actually justify billing for, because the rest of it was just spent staring at a screen and not really knowing what to do. And besides that, I have several children who need at least some of my help and attention throughout the day, and my wife who needs my help with them. So there goes another 2-4 hours. So even though I'm trying to get to a computer and type stuff in to count for billable hours throughout the day, this or that kid comes in needing something, or it's suddenly lunch or dinner time, or like basically everything breaks up the day and ruins any productive flow I could get into.

<comment><USER6> It sounds like you need to manage your time, including making time to take care of your life, especially if you're spending handfuls of hours every day simply stressing. If that time is going to be not-work, then it might as well be time spent managing your life and your future.

If you can convert three hours of "sitting and stressing" time to two hours of "self and family-care" and one hour of "productive work", then that is an increase of productivity and pay.

Also, as others have mentioned, reading and learning a system is billable time. Programming is thinking, not pushing buttons. (Staring off into space or stressing or distracting yourself with social media is not, however).

It would probably do you well to find a way to clearly separate work and life time/space. Work in a library or a coffee shop away from distractions, and set aside time during the day to be focusing on work and work alone. Take responsibility for controlling what you spend your time doing.

<comment><USER7> I mostly agree, but staring off into space can definitely be billable time. In fact, I think even time spent off-task can be billable, at least partially, as the brain needs time to digest what it has been presented with; I frequently find a short break can get me unstuck on a problem.

I think Patrick McKenzie recommends contractors bill by the day instead of the hour, partly to get them to consider necessary break time as billable. Of course, if you get to the end of a day and realize you really have been very distracted all day, you don't have to bill it as a full day.

Family distractions can be a big problem, though. You have to have blocks of several hours — I think the ideal might be two 3-hour blocks in a day — where you _know_ you're not going to be interrupted, short of a true screaming emergency. Getting this across even to one's spouse, never mind a young child, can be very difficult. Getting out of the house might be the only way. As Paul Graham once observed [0], even the _prospect_ of an interruption can be enough to keep one from getting into a flow state.

[0] [http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html)

<comment><USER8> This is where I get stuck actually. I try to digest some information, but then I start worrying that I'm taking unreasonably long, that my client is definitely going to ask for a justification for why something that should have only taken 1 hour ended up taking 3 hours (because it could take him 1 hour or even less), and I won't have a good answer.

<comment><USER7> Does the client actually ask for such a justification?

Anyway, let's say that you're right: something that would have taken him only 1 hour takes you 3 hours, because you're still learning about the code. I can tell you, speaking as someone whose time is valuable and who has to delegate tasks to people who don't know the code as well as I do, that I know it's going to take them longer, but it's an investment we have to make to get more people up to speed.

I understand that in your circumstances, "relax a little" is not easy advice to take, but it might be the best advice I can give you — along with making sure you have enough uninterrupted work time. It does sound like you need to get out of the house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My guess — the kind of thought you need to "grok" that system (slow deep understanding) is unavailable to you when dealing with the kind of thought caused by your situational stressors (fight or flight survival).

Doesn't mean you're unable to learn new things. It means your cave-man brain doesn't think learning system docs is as important as slaying predators and fortifying your cave.

Ironic, since the way out of the stressors is doing the one thing your brain doesn't think will help. You have to get your subconscious to believe that. Tell it to yourself constantly, Thoreau prayer and 'this too shall pass' style, 'meditate' on the idea that you have a clear path to no stress because you have a developer's mind, and by using that developer's mind, you will slay the predators, fortify the cave, and protect your family.

Give yourself the permission to let the urgent stress go, so your subconscious can work on the important thoughts.

</comment><comment><USER10> You are in burn out. It's not that you aren't intelligent or capable of the work, but it sounds like you just haven't clocked out in a long time.

You can fight burn out for a short period but you can't delay it forever. You resist burn out by working out hard, engaging in stimulating non-job work (eg a hobby) and engaging in intentional relaxation.

Ultimately you need to find a way to take time off.

</comment><comment><USER11> I had a similar problem at one of my first jobs, I was given ownership of a few different highly complex and lightly documented codebases: sshd, kerberos, ntp, netsnmp, etc.

Other commenters are giving great advice around burn out, depression and health -- I'll leave that to them.

On the technical side, two things helped me with understanding complex code bases:

1\. Write and draw on paper the object model, stack, protocol, interface, anything you can glean from the code or docs. Start small and keep adding to it. This helps you "chunk" the new information and have somewhere to attach new insights.

2\. Run the system (or parts) in debug mode with maximum logging. Save the output and then start stepping through it line by line from the top. Find the source of each output in the code, try and understand the general area and then move to the next line. This will start to give you a good understanding of program flow.

Combined these two techniques will make it much easier to understand what is happening and when -- all you have left is to figure out why.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm 34, I've recently had to learn a ton of new stuff, some that I really didn't want to learn (asp.net? From the early 2000's? Yuck). Also lots of more complicated things - I'm flooded with information daily and it's a chore keeping up.

I almost always have the feelings you're experiencing in the beginning. The trick is to sidestep the mindfuck and keep trying. Ignore that dissonant feeling that comes with not understanding. In my experience, success is a function of grit more than anything else.

Also, a practical strategy that helps me to push through issues like this, is to get out a spiral notebook and a pen and to break the problem down into small chunks, and try to tackle those one at a time. If I'm really stuck, I'll write a list of all of my problems, with a space underneath. Then I'll think about the problem a little, and write a possible tactic to try for solving the problem. It sounds stupid but it really helps (I'm just applying the [Feynman Algorithm]([http://wiki.c2.com/?FeynmanAlgorithm=](http://wiki.c2.com/?FeynmanAlgorithm=)) here).

Finally, 32 years is not old. You're just barely hitting your stride. I'm 34 and I've recently discovered that my experience is valuable, and gives me an edge over my younger peers. You're only as old as you feel. If you stop believing in yourself, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Good Luck

</comment><comment><USER13> It sounds like there is a financial aspect to what you are looking for help on so I would like to comment quickly on that.

You may have some options to adjust your debt/finances to lower your costs. If you do have credit card debt, there are services to consolidate them. If you have reliable income, even if it is freelance type work, you can use that to get a small business loan which could be less expensive then putting expenses on a credit card. If the income is not reliable try to make a deal with your client to make it a longer term contract. Guaranteed income is more value in the long run than big chunks of money at unknown times.

There are some things you might want to try to expand your current business: If you feel like you have a working model for completing work, look for a business partner, whom you trust, to help turn that into more business. If you know your client well, think of other products or services you could provide them that would be valuable to them (that they would pay for) but would be less time consuming.

Right now, it sounds like your time and money are your most precious assets, but you have a wealth of knowledge and a working relationship with a client. Think of ways to exchange your knowledge and social capital (relationships) for more time and money for you.

</comment><comment><USER14> The free coursera course "Learning How To Learn" really helped shape the way I learn and practice new coding concepts/languages/frameworks, etc. Here's a pretty good summary of it: [https://medium.com/learn-love-code/learnings-from- learning-h...](https://medium.com/learn-love-code/learnings-from-learning-how- to-learn-19d149920dc4) Barbara Oakley (from the course) also wrote a book called A Mind for Numbers if that's more of your style. A tip from the book for your problem of "My eyes just gloss over and I re-read the same sentence..." would be to stop and break that sentence down into fragments, and understand each fragment before you try to comprehend the whole. I would often just reread the same paragraph over and over, but that one little tip has really helped save me time and aided my comprehension of the subject.

</comment><comment><USER15> i appreciate that it sounds like you're in a stressful situation in terms of your family's cash flow.

is it possible to switch your arrangement with your client to daily billing? in a way that doesn't leave you worse off financially, compared to what your average daily revenue is currently based on hourly billing. i dont have experience with pitching this to people who had previously agreed an hourly rate, but some of the other folks here might have suggestions for how to frame such a conversation so it comes across as a win for your client as well (focus on the output of your work rather than measuring your time inputs, maybe?).

if you can do so, it might make it easier for you to justify timeboxing some time every day for self-care and non work stuff rather than feeling the need to bill hours, and help you produce better work in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER16> Honestly, I'm in a similar boat where I work constantly and gave alot of external stressors.

You're a knowledge worker. All the work you do...you do with your mind.

You NEED to separate from your distractions.

If you have more pressing needs that you can't get out of your mind it will be impossible to learn.

My suggestion is figuring out how to get your mind in a place where its 100% focused on your work and you are able to find that flow state where you tune everything out and can work and learn.

Things that help me are

1> Managing your real life like a project manager. Get the most stressful priority things finished as fast as possible. Or at least in a place where you understand and feel more in control.

2>Automate as much as possible(autopay bills etc.) In your life and outsource tasks to your family that they are capable of. You pay their bills they can chip in..

The goal of this step is to get rid as many trivial physical and external stressors so you can get your head focused on work.

2> Distraction free place to work. This is critical. Coffeeshop, coworking space, private home office....all it takes is a single distraction and your mind is out of the game.

3> Carve out large blocks of time where you can just...work. No appointments, no meetings, no interruptions...this may require scheduling meetings in the morning and working in the afternoon. Also, beware of friends and family..they will try to cut into this time...and it's very difficult to say no to people you love.

4> Do practice excercises in your mind and compare them to real world. I've found when Im having problems focusing on things it's because it's too abstract sometimes. And I have to bring it down to earth. Like start run a chunk of code thru a function in your head and then run it on the computer to see if your mindmap is correct. Like a poster in this thread said it's active learning which helps alot I think.

5>Physiological hacks: Some people say Yoga, antidepressants, nutrition, and/or excercise help. I typically dont practice a single one of those regularly but do notice I'm deff able to.focus more after I excercise. I think just getting your mind at peace is way more useful than Physiological hacks but these do help. Studies have shown that excercise is as efficacious as anti depressants. So take that however you want.

Anyway good luck sir.

</comment><comment><USER17> There was a thread not so long ago about approaching large codebases. I think you might find some of the advice there useful: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16299125](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16299125)

</comment><comment><USER18> I think you're just in a local bottom of the learning curve. Tell your customer you need time to understand his product. If he complains, say someone else than you would probably take more time.

[https://medium.com/trafficandcopy/the-learning-curve-is- kill...](https://medium.com/trafficandcopy/the-learning-curve-is-killer-be- aware-of-it-31404ce0d398)

</comment><comment><USER19> First off, do not give up. This is a struggle for even the most experienced people when dealing with a sufficiently complex new system.

Try to focus on small, noticeable wins. Focus on a narrow part of the system that seems relevant, and try to start fiddling with and see what happens. If the system has tests, try going through them as it is often easier to understand how a system ought to behave than the details.

</comment><comment><USER20> Try to write out difficult sections (pen & paper) to get started.

I've found that gives my brain the time it needs to get a handle on overly complex or boring texts.

Assume it's going to take you time so don't aim for completing too much the first few times. Don't worry about how much time it's taking, just worry about getting a couple of conceptual wedges in place. Follow pomodoro method.

</comment><comment><USER21> Take care of your health separately but as a first priority. Take it easy and don't put too much pressure on yourself.

See if you can get hands on with the system, preferably a staging/dev clone. Break it, try changing a feature, adding a feature, dig in anywhere that's comfortable. Just reading docs even excellent ones isn't always the most efficient path to grok a new system.

</comment><comment><USER22> When dealing with a code base that has tests, I try to write a few of my own and run them successfully. No matter how trivial, at least it feels like more active learning than just reading.

</comment><comment><USER23> I find that drawing pictures helps. (Especially if I use a tool like Libre Office draw, which lets me easily keep electronic copies.)

Good luck, I hope you find an answer that works for you.</comment>


In Defense of Piracy - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122367645363324303.html <comment><USER2> At least this article tries to point out that there's a significant difference between "real" piracy and "who gives a damn" piracy. One of the biggest problems still remaining today is the fact that all the power is with the recording companies, at least when it comes to music; it's not with the people who actually created the work.

Somehow, I doubt Prince would care that some baby is dancing to a grainy recording of one of his songs. Except for Metallica, I can't really think of an artist or band who would give a damn. These days many artists are releasing their work online for free or for... whatever you want to pay! The money is in live shows and the same people who go to live shows are generally the people who will pay for an album regardless of cost.

I buy a possibly excessive amount of music. I also still pirate music on rare occasions where a band or artist is new to me and I want to see if those two songs I heard on Pandora were a fluke or they really are that awesome before buying a whole album (or discography, if it comes to that).

What about TV? I pirate TV shows _constantly_. I pay for cable; I consider that good enough to justify not wasting 1/3 of my life watching commercials for shit I couldn't care less about; when I browse the Internet I don't have to wait for an ad to finish playing before reading whatever I went to the site for. If more TV shows were available for purchasable download, were priced less ridiculously (why should I pay $80 for the whole season 1 ep at a time when the DVD set is $40?), and were always WS HD, I would stop doing it. When I really like a show I buy it on DVD. Movies are essentially the same deal, except replace commercials with "it costs money just to find out if it's worth watching in the first place."

As far as I'm concerned, piracy is such a big thing now only because it's finally possible to pirate this stuff. Society hasn't changed significantly. There's no secret plot. People are just slowly realizing that they don't have to waste time and money just to find out if they find something entertaining or good enough to warrant their time and money. Sure, there are people who are going to pirate _everything_ and _never_ buy it, but those same people had shoe boxes full of tapes they recorded off the radio. Who cares? It's an insignificant minority. If the record and movie companies are failing it's because people have decided that their products aren't worthy of immediate purchase... then they download them and realize they're not worthy of purchase, period.

<comment><USER3> > If the record and movie companies are failing it's because people have > decided that their products aren't worthy of immediate purchase... then they > download them and realize they're not worthy of purchase, period.

It would be great if studios only produced great music and movies.

Until now, a lot of crap has been produced knowingly because all they need is people going into theatres & music videos with scantily clad women waving their asses around.

But in their quest for quality, how could the studios always choose only the productions which will actually rise to true greatness?

A lot of good stuff would never make it through, but maybe that's alright since no one has enough time and money to discover all the music he would fall in love with anyway.

You and I might enjoy high quality entertainment, but what about Most People?

They're the ones buying and liking all that crap that has very little merit other than some random hot guy/girl being fascinating?

It's problematic. Smart people want quality, but most people will settle for whatever's rammed down their throats.

As for me, I actually buy quite a lot of music that I really like, because I want it at maximum quality.

I'm not as innocent when it comes to movies. Sometimes I download them, but rarely go see them in theatres.

Sometimes I start watching a downloaded movie but stop because it's not good enough.

Sometimes, a downloaded movie happens to be really enjoyable, but will I go buy it after watching?

Nope..

The problem is that the re-use value of good music is pretty much infinite, but you'll rarely want to watch even a good movie again, so after seeing it, its value drops close to zero.

<comment><USER2> You bring up some good points (although a couple actual paragraphs would have been easier to read ;), but I have to personally disagree on the replay value of good movies. I own many movies that I have watched countless times; I recently had to buy Fight Club again because we watch it a few times a week and the DVD was just worn out. There are numerous other amazing films that I can't get enough of as well. I have no idea how many times I've watched The Shawshank Redemption, as another example. I own movies like Transformers not because they're perfect filmmaking, but because I like to relive my younger years sometimes.

In general I agree that music has far greater replay value. I think that's partially because it's something that can be enjoyed basically any time, anywhere. I can't think of the last time I worked in silence for more than a few minutes at a time. That being said, I do my best to "pay tribute" to quality media by purchasing it. I'm sure I own quite a few movies I haven't seen in years, but I bought them because they struck me as worth paying for.

Finally, I think at this stage piracy (well, _quality_ piracy at least) is still something that Joe Public isn't savvy enough to pick up. By the time the people who pay to consume all the horrible media out there (like, 90% of the total), I would hope a sane and intelligent response to the piracy issue will have found its way to "Big Entertainment."

<comment><USER3> Yeah sorry about the lack of paragraphs. I always get this nagging feeling that I need to add empty rows for.. clarity :)

You watch Fight Club several times per week?! I can't understand the motivation, but hey, people are different!

I've seen Fight Club exactly once, in a theatre, but there are movies I've seen many times, and will watch again. One such movie is Leon ("The Professional"). In case you haven't seen it, do yourself a favour.. It has to be the director's cut though.

> Finally, I think at this stage piracy (well, quality piracy at least) is > still something that Joe Public isn't savvy enough to pick up.

Maybe, but many Joe Publics are already downloading movies much like you and I, and at least see some of the good stuff in there while looking for Saw XVII.

They might download quality entertainment by accident. Of course, they might just as well stop watching it too, when quality fails to keep their attention.

Anyways, Transformers was legendary for me too, and the movie was enjoyable, with some of the coolest 3D ever. I feared Michael Bay would just totally ruin it.

<comment><USER2> Fight Club helps keep us grounded in a sense. As for Léon, it is an amazing film to be sure. Transformers I first saw on DVD after it had been released. Maybe it was due in part to my circumstances at the time, but it was somehow a profoundly surreal experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lessig FTW

 _Deregulate amateur remix:_ We need to restore a copyright law that leaves "amateur creativity" free from regulation. Before the 20th century, this culture flourished. The 21st century could see its return. Digital technologies have democratized the ability to create and re-create the culture around us. Where the creativity is an amateur remix, the law should leave it alone. It should deregulate amateur remix.

</comment><comment><USER5> The statistic that 95% of pirated music would not have been purchased, had piracy not been an option should be mentioned more often. The fact that someone violates copyright by pulling down the complete beach boys does not suggest that he would have purchased a $100 box set. The ease of piracy is the impetus. He would have happily gone without the product.

<comment><USER6> Regardless, if piracy becomes legal & socially acceptable, it will remove an reason to buy a $100 box set at any point. You may still have your 95% rule, but you'll just have an average person 'owning' 2000% more music then they would have otherwise with 0% of the cost.

<comment><USER5> I think it may settle at illegal and socially acceptable, much like driving faster than the speed limit - punishable in rare cases. And people will feel about as much shame for having done it.

I'm not arguing that piracy should be legal, but that it should be just about as illegal as speeding.

<comment><USER6> That kind of a fuzzy equilibrium is what we're at now. Most people do it. Officially you can't. If you do it to make money, they'll come after you. Some people think it's wrong. Lots of others think its kinda wrong.

What you do get on these sorts of threads everywhere from here to spamblog is people saying something along the lines of: I pirate some things that I want to listen to. If I like it/it's good enough/it's reasonably priced/ I like the artist, I buy a copy.

The power is in the hands of the 'consumer.' They decide if they want to pay or not based on their own criteria. That's not ownership! That's beerware. Consumption is not tied to purchase.

The record companies & friends play up to this trying to increase the moral pressure. This seems to have the effect of increasing the above sentiment.

Anyway we're stuck in this no man's land. How sustainable is it? I don't think it is sustainable at all. We are following the music lives in a cd protocol like a cargo cult. People are going to buy cds of artists they like because they remember that is how they used to do it. That memory will fade, the cd player will disappear & we'll still be buying licences in the form of a cd? I don't think so. What's the alternative? Buy the license online? People will go online & literally make a donation to a millionaire?

Something's gotta give

*If there is a proper recession, maybe we'll see donations to artists in the form of cd purchases go down with donations to normal charities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Adapted from "Remix" by Lawrence Lessig, to be published by The Penguin Press on Oct. 16, 2008. <i>Copyright by Lawrence Lessig, 2008. Printed by arrangement with The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.</i>"

Holy crap, irony overload. Publishing this remixed adaptation required Lessig's publisher's permission.

</comment><comment><USER8> That's not a defence of piracy, it's a very reasonable argument that a subset of what we today call pirates, aren't.

<comment><USER9> Well, the subset that doesn't do looting at sea, aren't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Tax-code complexity regulating income is bad enough; tax-code complexity regulating speech is a First Amendment nightmare._

The snippet from the article seems to suggest that the nightmare is due to the special sanctity of the First Amendment as compared to the Fourth. Rather, the nightmare comes from the burden of applying such a complex law as the DMCA with the frequency that would be necessary to enforce its provisions. It's the difference between doing your taxes once (or four times) per year vs. applying the DMCA every single time you turn the radio on.

I like my Fourth Amendment, too, thank-you-very-much.

Don't know why I felt compelled to point this all out.

</comment><comment><USER11> _On their view of the law, she is liable to a fine of up to $150,000 for sharing 29 seconds of Holden dancing_

My biggest problem with these piracy disputes is the amount of damages involved. I realize that the record companies are claiming that they missed out on sales, but imagine this: You run a red light (breaking the law) and hit an executive on the way to a big client meeting. Are you liable for his missing out on a multimillion dollar contract?

</comment><comment><USER12> If videos like Ms. Lenz's are so valuable, why aren't they & others like them being shared at mininova? One glance at the popular file sharing sites should convince anyone that piracy doesn't need the wsj's defense.

Clearly we value this "remix culture" a lot less than we think we're supposed to.

<comment><USER13> Something doesn't have to have mass appeal to be valuable. In fact, that's pretty much what he's arguing for: amateur remixes, which might not have the reach of something with publisher backing, should not be illegal and punishable with extortion-style fines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Buying albums doesn't support the talent - it supports the suits. Margin wise, artists make jack shit from albums. They make significantly higher cuts from touring, but even that isn't enough.

I wish there was an easy way to donate to the bands directly. No TPS and no big labels taking 90%. Clean, easy, and direct. Tipjoy are you listening? :)

<comment><USER15> Of course, most people don't pirate for that reason -- they do it because it's free.

A site for any band to upload their music to be available for free with a built in donation system would be popular indeed. Maybe even profitable?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sometimes

Piracy = Marketing

</comment><comment><USER17> The song is "futuristic sex robots - fuck the mpaa"

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnLB8wysMbY>

</comment><comment><USER18> How about the argument that the branding of online 'theft' as 'piracy' has been a boon to the offline Pirate product/apparel business?</comment>


Nokia seeks Linux engineer, Android crowd goes wild - <AUTHOR> http://www.slashgear.com/nokia-seeks-linux-engineer-android-crowd-goes-wild-30259103/

<comment><USER2> The listing they referenced has been taken down so maybe it had some more info, but how on earth did they make the jump from "Linux Engineer wanted" to "Nokia will be making Android phones?".

I'd be pretty shocked if Nokia did no Linux development in-house for backend systems and the like. Hell, even Microsoft hires quite a few Linux engineers, but that doesn't mean the Xbox 720 is going to be Android based.</comment>


A keyboard oriented app for productivity - <AUTHOR> Good day,
I felt that I was doing something wrong, I was losing a lot of time by organizing a project, work breakdown, tasks creation and estimates.
For me is like this: once I decide to start a project, I want to do the work breakdown quite fast and in a structured way, I want to be able to estimate each work task and start working right away without losing precious time or ideas.
I had to scratch my itch!
Approximately 6 Months ago I've decided to start a project that fulfilled my need. A keyboard first oriented app, simple and powerful structured, tasks, notes, with possibility to estimate and report (daily) the work time vs. estimate for each task.
I've just released the version 1.1 of the FastestNotes app: https://fastestnotes.com
Give it a try, thanks! <comment><USER2> You really should have included a link to the video demo you made. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxQDdjxqJUk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxQDdjxqJUk)

<comment><AUTHOR> it is included on the homepage of the app, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxQDdjxqJUk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxQDdjxqJUk)</comment></comment>


Control Alt Deceit: A Game of Lies, Betrayal and Questionable Biz Strategies - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/egarbugli/control-alt-deceit <comment><USER2> Lol, did they have "growth hackers" back in the eighties? That would be a funny card to pull.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can I get a digital version on floppy disks?

</comment><comment><USER4> Fun game, glad to have beta test it!</comment>


Show HN: Bookswell – 1000+ book recs from world's most influential thinkers - <AUTHOR> http://www.bookswell.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys-- Thanks for checking this out. A couple notes:

\- The "thinkers" are sourced from WorldPost/GDI's 2015 list of most influential thinkers.

\- I'd been compiling these books in a spreadsheet for a bit, decided to share the spreadsheet a few weeks ago on FB + reddit, where it took on a life of its own. So quickly wrote up this app to make it easier to search through.

\- Inspiration: I'd been let down in the past by mediocre book recommendations (either from friends or best seller lists). Figured the best way to find books to read is to look up the books that have influenced my favorite thinkers.

\- Sam Harris's recs show up a lot ... but I didn't want to cherry pick from his recommendations. Working on a sort feature to adjust for this.

\- Enormously influenced by levelsio, product hunt, and the basecamp guys. Probably shows in the design

Thanks again for checking it out, looking forward to hearing some ways I can make this better and more useful. Happy reading y'all :)</comment>


Feather: Open-source icons - <AUTHOR> https://feathericons.com <comment><USER3> Seems like a good time to mention an absolutely awesome - [https://icomoon.io/app](https://icomoon.io/app)

It allows cherry-picking icons from dozens of different SVG icon packs (including Feather) and packaging them into a custom (web)font. It can also be used to package your own SVG assets into a single font file and then use resulting .woff as an SVG sprite sheet.

<comment><USER4> Why not use separate SVG files? You could reference them as data-url from the CSS to save round-trips.

Perhaps it's just me but using a font to store icons seems arcane.

<comment><USER5> I prefer SVGs as well now. You can style + animate them with CSS, it's easier to see what changed in your Git diffs and you can quickly edit them in an SVG editor if you need to.

<comment><USER6> Do you know any way to style them using CSS without using JS? (and while keeping them cacheable)

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately no but would love to be proved wrong. You can inline them server-side but then they're not cacheable. There's SVG filters but they're not widely supported yet. I'm curious of the reason why this is so difficult actually (security?). What's wrong with using JS?

<comment><USER6> I block it by default, so that wouldn't work. I would love to make web pages that I myself could read/see if they were made by someone else.

<comment><USER5> Fair enough. There's so much JS only functionality now though that I can't see how you can avoid it when developing a complex website. You find you can do the majority of things you want online with JS disabled?

<comment><USER6> Not all websites are complex though. There should be little need to use scripts on a simple blog, for example, but I've seen way too many times that you'll end up with a blank screen without scripts, even though the text is already there in the DOM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's a Chrome icon, but no Firefox or Safari or Edge or any other browser. Not even a generic. Can we please stop with the implicit homogenization around Chrome?

/rant

<comment><USER8> It's open source... Why don't you make one?

<comment><USER9> How do you know he didn't, and while he brought up FF, Safari, IE, once he wins that war he will move on to getting his browser icon included.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really like that these are SVG icons with a minimal amount of paths rather than an icon font.

</comment><comment><USER11> All these icon collections are great, but I always find missing stuff there, and I don't know how this can be fixed besides complaining (and I don't want to complain when they give it for free).

For example, this one looks really nice, but it only has 'battery' and 'battery-charging'. In an app I work on, I need battery with no charge, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%, and charging.

Then I think that this would be small to add, but again I don't want to complain. Then maybe someone will need a battery with a sliding charge, so they can represent as many charge percentages as the pixels allow. And then this becomes a whole other things, and not just an icon collection..

<comment><USER12> > In an app I work on, I need battery with no charge, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%, and > charging.

These icons are provided in svg format. You can open it in Sketch app, draw a rectangle to show Desiree battery level, the click on the path and click "export/save as SVG".

<comment><USER13> And then contribute the new icons back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The icons are beautiful. But one off the topic thing here is that the webpage loads superfast in 3g in India. Can the site builders talk about the loading perf a bit?

<comment><USER15> The whole page is 58KB

<comment><USER16> Pingdom tools weighs it in as bigger than that. [https://tools.pingdom.com/#!/Mn0e2/https://feathericons.com/](https://tools.pingdom.com/#!/Mn0e2/https://feathericons.com/)

Looking at the site usage, there's an advert weighing in at 36KB that uBlock was nicely hiding from me, but the biggest thing in the page is the web font, 48.58 KB worth. The site looks great on a browser with web fonts blocked, so I'm not sure why they're wasting bandwidth, effort _and_ additional DNS resolution and TCP handshakes there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> To pull criddell's important question to root-level:

How can the trademarked logos (Facebook, Instagram, Github, etc.) be provided without licensing terms?

<comment><USER18> Which licensing terms? That has nothing to do with each other. This icon set is foss, that means the sources are free and you can use the icons as you wish, as long as not otherwise encumbered. For the brand icons the source code is free, but if you use them in a way that conflicts with the trademark holder rights they can sue (depending on your jurisdiction).

That's why patents are such a big danger to FOSS software, because that's an equivalent situation.

<comment><USER19> So, there are licensing terms, they just aren't additional ones from Feather?

<comment><USER20> You have fallen into the confusing intersection between trademark and copyright.

Files created by Facebook, depicting the trademarked Facebook logo, are copyrighted by Facebook. Files created by Feather, depicting the trademarked Facebook logo, are copyrighted by Feather. If the latter is freely licensed, with no restrictions on use, you may use that image in whatever manner you please. If you use it in a manner that generates brand confusion with Facebook's business, Facebook may, as a trademark enforcement action, order you to stop using the image in that way. They cannot make additional copyright claims.

It is likely they will anyway, under the assumption that no one but Facebook would create files from scratch for corporate logo images, when the company itself distributes gratis images of its logo to anyone who wants to put one on their website. But if they didn't make it, they can't impose prior restraint on what you do with it via licensing terms.

Facebook may impose copyright licensing terms on its own images that support its defense of its trademarks, but those terms have nothing to do with the image by Feather, or any other clean-room implementation of the Facebook logo.

<comment><USER21> What about the derivative works right? Although not a literal copy, one could argue that making one's own similar version of the logo could constitute a derivative work that could be construed as infringing.

<comment><USER20> In this example, the copyright interest is in the digital file, not the subject matter of the image. As long as you do not use Facebook's own file, such as by wrapping a PNG downloaded from Facebook in an SVG, there is nothing to derive.

But if you did do that, there would also be nothing transformative either, so your new image file would not be eligible for protection.

If it seems stupid and counterintuitive to separate the property interest in the file from the property interest in the image described by the file, that's because it is. But some people wanted to be able to have copyrighted digital image files based on artworks that have been in the public domain for centuries, so here we are.

<comment><USER21> > In this example, the copyright interest is in the digital file, not the > subject matter of the image.

That's not my understanding of what the derivative works protection covers. What else is to prevent me from making a new Star Wars film using Lucasfilm's (now Disney's) characters?

<comment><USER20> The Star Wars proper nouns are trademarked. Characters, vehicles, planets, etc. That is all.

You can make a Star Wars _styled_ film that makes no mention of any existing Star Wars trademarks (an intellectual property minefield) and Disney couldn't touch you ( _legally_ ). They could still smother you with their massive business negotiating leverage, by threatening to blackball anyone that screens your movie.

It's called _pastiche_.

<comment><USER21> Since I can't seem to convince you, here's a definition of "Derivative Work" straight from 17 U.S.C. 101 ([https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101)) (emphasis mine). (FWIW, I am a licensed attorney who specialized in IP law while in law school; this is not legal advice.)

"A "derivative work" is a work _based upon one or more preexisting works_, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, _art reproduction_, abridgment, condensation, or _any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted_. ..."

As applied to the company logo in question, the language is pretty well on point. I'd tread with caution unless the company has made it clear they approve of the work.

<comment><USER20> I don't consider the Facebook logo itself to embody a level of unique creative expression sufficient to qualify as an artwork. Obviously, if contested, that decision could be overruled by a judge, but I like my chances there.

      .-----.
      |   .-|  Probably does not
      |  -+-|  violate copyright.
      |   | |
      '-----'

<comment><USER21> The bar for qualification as an artistic expression is extremely low. See _Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co_, 499 U.S. 340 ("To be sure, the requisite level of creativity is extremely low; even a slight amount will suffice. The vast majority of works make the grade quite easily, as they possess some creative spark, "no matter how crude, humble or obvious" it might be.")

You'd be better off arguing some other angle, but please study law first so as not to waste anyone's time.

<comment><USER20> ...as though only the opinions of lawyers count when it comes to the laws that govern everybody. This is why right to trial by petit jury and indictment by grand jury are written into the federal constitution and most state constitutions. The purpose of studying law is so that justice may exist in a society that has abandoned the use of force as the first means of resolving disputes. It is not to shut down a debate via appeal to authority.

What's wasting everyone's time is the rich and powerful trying to mine out and own every last corner of culture. I'll be damned if I will allow Facebook to own every blue square with a lowercase 'f' in it, rather than just the one they use to mark their service. You may feel otherwise, but until this matter actually goes to trial, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't think these icons are particularly beautiful. Not sure if it's because of the simplicity or anti-aliasing, but something just seems off.

</comment><comment><USER23> FYI if you're concerned about accessibility these SVGs lack any kind of descriptors; you'll need to add your own.

[https://css-tricks.com/accessible-svgs/](https://css-tricks.com/accessible- svgs/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Great site and there are also other quite helpful suggestions in the thread such as Icomoon.

Problem is that the next time I need SVG icons I will forget these sites, try to google them and ending up on those sites that perform well on Google's SERPs but want money for clean SVGs.

This happened to me two days ago and I just fired up Inkscape and remade those icons. However, this took too long.

How can I remember such sites the next time I need them?

<comment><USER25> I've started tagging my bookmarks, by simply adding a bunch of words that I associate with a page behind the bookmark name in parentheses. So for example, I might add "(open source svg icon fonts font set)" behind the bookmark name for this.

9 out of 10 times I can easily find the bookmark I'm looking for, by entering a few of those words into my bookmark search and/or address bar, and it doesn't require any special extensions or services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> What does the MIT license mean in this context? Let's say you use the icons, where should the notice be put?

<comment><USER27> most websites / apps have a page / menu option titled "legal" or "assets" and they dump all of their licensing information on there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> From [https://github.com/colebemis/feather/blob/master/README.md#l...](https://github.com/colebemis/feather/blob/master/README.md#license):

      License

      Feather is licensed under the MIT License.

<comment><USER29> Are the trademarked icons (Github, Slack, maybe others) also covered by the MIT License?

<comment><USER30> I'm not a trademark lawyer, but to me the icons look generic enough that they shouldn't cause trouble unless you use them as logo for a competing service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Those are nice. Appropriately clean and unflavored for an open-source visual resource.

</comment><comment><USER32> Is this strange anti-aliasing normal? Is the octagon with an exclamation point in it supposed to look like that?

[https://img42.com/YAV3Y](https://img42.com/YAV3Y)

<comment><USER33> Pixel-perfect is hard to do in SVG (at least in my experience). You have to be careful to align path geometry to half-pixel values so that whole-number stroke widths end up falling on a pixel boundary. And once you start scaling the SVG to fit a particular view box, that careful placement usually gets trashed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> What benefits does this provide over using Font Awesome icons?

<comment><USER12> I personally hate using font awesome. I think it looks dated and already too generic. Every website that uses default unedited bootstrap and font awesome set looks so bland and indistinguishable to me.

<comment><USER35> OTH if you use their icons from e.g. Bootstrap as they are usually used then users actually recognize them without thinking and the icons actually help users interact with your website - which is the point of the icons anyway!

The same goes for classic simple buttons, nav bars color pallets etc - <USER2> know them already before they interact with your site. Most of that design work you did to make you site "different" or "beautiful" just made your site less intuitive for a user.

This opinion comes from experience building b2b webapps - users generally wish they didn't need to do the admin work the webapp is helping them do. So user stories are dominated by building the simplest quickest workflows to allow users to capture, fetch or manipulate the data they need and to then get back on with their lives - having standard controls that are familiar from other sites helps with this.

<comment><USER12> > Most of that design work you did to make you site "different" or "beautiful" > just made your site less intuitive for a user

Don't you think it depends on a lot of factors, not just the use of a different icons?

Also I doubt users will have trouble understanding that a lock icon on feather and a lock icon on font awesome have the same meaning.

<comment><USER35> > Don't you think it depends on a lot of factors, not just the use of a > different icons?

Of course - it all adds up. The trick is knowing where and when it is worth differentiating.

<comment><USER12> Vas majority of the websites that use font awesome icons are cheaply made projects that fail to get traction most of the time and have a relatively small user base. So using font awesome icons with an idea that it will help users recognize what they represent, is flawed. I doubt regular users who according to you "would have trouble figuring out what the icon means if they did not see it before" even visit the type of sites that use font awesome icons, they are primerely used by small startups or one men shops with users mostly coming from sites like HN or producthunt anyway.

<comment><USER35> Please do not misquote me like you do in this post.

<comment><USER12> > Most of that design work you did to make you site "different" or "beautiful" > just made your site less intuitive for a user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Cool site! Always a fan of getting more design options out there for icons / UX in applications.

Bit of a tangent for product folks:

A lot of this stuff actually does look beautiful, but the use of "beautiful" as a modifier has diluted the term for me. When I click on something labeled "beautiful" I almost always expect to see "meh", and most of the time, that's exactly what happens.

</comment><comment><USER37> Selfish plug here, but I'm maintaining a library of Feather Icons components for angular 2+ applications. Current version is 3.2.2 as feather version: [https://github.com/michaelbazos/angular- feather](https://github.com/michaelbazos/angular-feather)

</comment><comment><USER38> It mildly bothers me that the stroke for phone-off is the opposite direction to all the other *-off icons.

<comment><USER39> If it was consistent with the rest of the *-off icons this is what it would look like: [http://svgur.com/i/2if.svg](http://svgur.com/i/2if.svg).

<comment><USER38> On the flip side, if the other *-off icons were consistent with it, things would look fine. Plus it's a more natural direction (for right-handers, at least) - bottom left to top right is a natural "NO!" stroke.

<comment><USER39> If you want a copy with the lines going from bottom left to top right on all *-off icons, you can run [https://pastebin.com/iy84YHyY](https://pastebin.com/iy84YHyY) in your dev tools console when visiting [https://feathericons.com](https://feathericons.com).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> They're beautiful, but I'd much rather use them as an icon font. Is there any way to do that?

<comment><USER41> Fonts are more convenient to use, but they usually don't display as sharply as SVGs. Generally icons should be only shown at the size they were design for. With icon fonts some sharpness is possible, even if difficult, but it still doesn't look as good as SVGs.

<comment><USER42> I find this somewhat hard to believe. And if there was a difference, I'd figure it goes the other way because fonts have hinting. Also, someone itt posted a screenshot of misaligned SVG icons causing bad (blurry) anti- aliasing.

Got some more info/theory on why you believe fonts display less sharp than svgs? And screenshots maybe? :)

Given the choice, I'd still use SVG btw, but that's because icons aren't text, and SVG is a lot better fit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I understand this is not inherently presented here as any particular solution or competitor, although its presence here elevates it as such, so why use this or do this instead of using the library at thenounproject.com ?

<comment><USER44> Variety is the spice of life.

<comment><USER45> This is the only reason necessary, really. Yeah, every website could use the same amazing icon set but it would get samey after a while. Having some different icon sets to pick from is nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Just wondering, is it legal to remake a company's logo (eg instagram)

<comment><USER47> I don't think there's a simple yes/no answer to that. It fits somewhere between trademark and copyright legally, and probably depends on the degree of similarity.

<comment><USER20> It is legal to re-create the logo. It is not legal to use your re-creation in a manner that infringes upon the trademark.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I pay for noun project but sometimes libraries like this are easier :-)

</comment><comment><USER49> Sweet! What other great FOSS icon sets are out there that you love?

<comment><USER50> [http://fontawesome.io/](http://fontawesome.io/)

<comment><USER51> _Font Awesome 5 Pre-Orders Now Available!

Pre-order and get Font Awesome 5 Pro and ALL stretch goals for just $40!

Pre-Order! _

Errrr what?

<comment><USER52> There will still be an open source version called Font Awesome 5 Free. See [https://fontawesome.com/#pro](https://fontawesome.com/#pro) for more details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> The umbrella icon makes me feel uneasy.

<comment><USER54> why so?

<comment><USER55> It is usually shaped like a J. Here it's reverse, so your brains goes "that's not how J are supposed to be".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> And look at me stuck with FontAwesome.

</comment><comment><USER57> Cool

</comment><comment><USER58> I wouldn't call them "beautiful". They're OK. "Cute" maybe.

In any case, personally I'd rather wait for other people to call my work beautiful. Seems a bit pompous to self-apply it.

<comment><USER59> "Basic" or "simple" are how I'd describe them...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Has a hobby or side-project of yours ever became your main vocation? - <AUTHOR> I have worked on a lot of side/hobby projects in my nights and weekends over the years. With some of these, I had hopes to eventually build a profitable company or obtain seed funding and pursue the effort full-time but I have never reached that goal.<p>I would love to hear experiences of anyone who started with a side/hobby project and built it into a company. Was starting a company your goal from the start? What challenges did you encounter and overcome through the process? And of course, what's the business!? <comment><USER2> In the late 80's / early 90's, I ran a service that collected and transferred Usenet news and email betwwen BBS systems and the rest of the world (using UUCP). Eventually I got a live Internet feed to run it all more efficiently, and very regularly dealt with adventurous hackers continually breaking in to my server. I actually didn't hate that because none of it ever got destructive, and I thought it was wildly clever. The pre-web Internet was a whole different world compared to now.

Over time, keeping my hobby business together taught me a whole lot about what eventually became known as a firewall. I was continually building firewall features (which I referred to as a fortified gateway because firewalls didn't really exist yet) and creating test cases to find new vulnerabilities and guard against them _first_. It was heavily influenced by a sort of "audit" script that was making its rounds that identified poorly configured (vulnerable) services, except that I was scripting cases for vulnerabilities I was finding on my own server, and also by watching what the clever hackers were up to. I got to know a lot of them personally, funny enough.

It was actually a lot of fun. Otherwise I would have just given up and worked at McD's or whatever.

When BBS's started to get their own more efficient feeds and didn't need my silly slow service anymore - in the mid 90's - I was approached by a company that built firewalls (they finally became a thing!), and ended up working in infosec ever since.

My intention was to raise enough money from the side hobby to put out an instrumental metal album. No album yet, but I certainly made a career out of penetration testing that lasted decades. Now I'm winding down, doing more advisory work, leaving the grunt work to the whippersnappers.

So, if you're looking for a wicked lead axeman, ring me up. Eventually I might get that album happening.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, cool story. It's interesting that both the comments were from musicians. I too am a musician myself. Sounds like things have worked out great for you. I think there are two different general ways of thinking. One is to do the lean startup model and be very scientific and iterate through ideas quickly. The other sounds more like what you did, build something that you like and just keep working on it because you like it. The second camp seems to insulate you a bit from the thing having to be successful financially in order to be a fun and rewarding aspect of your life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My first business: I wanted to play in bands but could never keep a group together so I started throwing concerts for all of my friends bands (promoting). Turned into a pretty good gig after a while.

A: I did not intend to build it at all. It totally just happened. A: There were tons of challenges. Booking venues, Booking Bands, security, cleaning, professional sound...

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice, that's very cool. I have noted in my life that keeping a band together is like 4X the difficulty of keeping a romantic relationship afloat. The 4 in 4X is really just the number of people in the band. :)</comment></comment>


Google's new captcha method - <AUTHOR> http://www.technology.am/google-tried-new-captcha-method-011945.html

<comment><USER2> Cross-referenced to <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=568557> where there's already substantial discussion.</comment>


Huawei, ZTE to be excluded from Australia's 5G network - <AUTHOR> https://www.itwire.com/government-tech-policy/84151-huawei,-zte-to-be-excluded-from-australia-s-5g-network.html <comment><USER2> Unofficially they were already excluded as early as about four years ago by shady government visits to telcos implying covert monitoring of infrastructure related tender processes.

This sort of thing no doubt came from US pressure or practice and could be argued to represent direct, covert, cross-border intelligence agency influence on 'free market' capitalism.

Source: Guy managing network upgrade planning at the time for the major wireless internet provider in the country.

Frankly, I think best practice is that no country or vendor should be trusted, networks and devices should be designed in such a way as to guarantee vulnerabilities are detectable and impact-limited, and politicians should stay out of network design. Only when carriers start acting this way will the situation improve.

Notably, Australia had no problems selling Optus to Singapore, Inc., which is a strong US ally and no doubt strongly active in regional intelligence gathering owing to its central position on regional undersea cable networks.

<comment><USER3> _Unofficially they were already excluded as early as about four years ago by shady government visits to telcos implying covert monitoring of infrastructure related tender processes. This sort of thing no doubt came from US pressure or practice and could be argued to represent direct, covert, cross-border intelligence agency influence on 'free market' capitalism._

I was told the "five eyes" required this, and that no government agency in any of the five eyes economies will confirm or deny what evidence justified it.

The ironies here are supreme: We _know_ within limits, Cisco and Juniper do backdoors. What we don't know, is who reads the backdoors Huawei do, but we can assume its not the US government.

What I am also told, is that the only established proven concern is about state-company governance structures: Huawei were insufficiently transparent about the stock holdings of former Peoples-Army board members and the relationship of the state and the party to the company. I can believe there is a governance issue, but c'mon: we buy oil from countries which want to execute human rights workers, and _this_ is the issue?

I think we all know, this is "belt and road" vs "soft diplomancy" -China is being excluded for economic strategic reasons which have nothing to do with snooping risks.

The Australian Huawei board includes former Australian politicians. Senior ones. Ex-cabinet ones.

I interact with Huawei staff at IETF, and see them frequently at meetings in Asia. I don't view any of them as an existential threat, I think this is bullshit. Many of the Huawei staff at IETF are ex-Cisco, US and Canadian.

<comment><USER4> I sometimes wonder who do company operate that backdoor? I assume many engineers will know about it. What is there to keep them shut their months? Special Visit from Intel agency? What is there to prevent these people speak out?

One of the good thing coming about SDN, is that hopefully everything will be open sourced. Since we cant trust no one, then we open it and at least allow many to look through it.

I sometimes wonder why China hasn't taken this business model.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Latency issues for simple multiplayer game? - <AUTHOR> I am making this game multiplayer: http://jsfiddle.net/PxpVr/16/embedded/result/
I've created the lobby and have basic controls worked out. Now I'm brainstorming on how to sync players' movements. Can anyone help? I know there also come problems with latency, but I'm wondering if a game so simple would have these problems. Thanks in advance
Stack is python/django, postgresql, jquery, using websocket (django-channels) for real-time updates <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15892569](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15892569) [https://github.com/steamroller-airmash/airmash- server](https://github.com/steamroller-airmash/airmash-server)

good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe MQTT protocol can help you</comment>


Pronomous VC launches, to build prosperous cities that uplift entire regions - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/PronomosVC/status/1207714678899523585 <comment><USER2> Patri Friedman of Seasteading Institute is the "Founder and General Partner." Does this mean the Seasteading effort is on the backburner?

[https://www.pronomos.vc/people](https://www.pronomos.vc/people)</comment>


Buffett on crypto 'I can say almost certainty they will come to a bad ending' - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/10/buffett-says-cyrptocurrencies-will-almost-certainly-end-badly.html <comment><USER2> Please don't say crypto when you mean cryptocurrency.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes - the cryptocurrency space is witnessing a bubble. But Warren Buffet's views on it are just as valid as anyone else's, especially given how little he understands the technology.

A million Warren Buffets wrote Bitcoin off in 2009. Today, the IRS requires you to file taxes on income received as Bitcoin payments or investments in crypto currency. IRS (government) acknowledging Bitcoin to be a currency is enough of a rebuke to the Buffets from 2009.

Are frothy validations sustainable in this space? Probably not. But is this a space one can ignore? If you're there world's richest man with about 20 years to live, then yes - you've already made your fortune. For others, this is a space that presents opportunities, and may even disrupt legacy players in existing markets. So, pay close attention. But be vigilant, the space is rife with fraud.

<comment><USER4> Warren Buffets opinion is about 100x more valid than anyone else. He doesn't need to understand the specific technology - he understands markets, investing patterns and most importantly, risk.

For the richest person in the world to not even want to buy in a little bit actually says a lot (he said he'd _never_ invest in them). If there are opportunities to definitely make money then he has the resources to analyze, be vigilant and make it work for him... he also has plenty of money that he'd be free to lose cause yeah, 20 years to live.

Everything you've said about bitcoin could have easily been said about CDOs in 2005-06 when there was "plenty of opportunity" and yet Warren Buffett avoided losing his shirt, unlike plenty of other people who thought they understood the derivatives market. And that was back when those other people were actually trained investors who had to pass Series 7 to even touch the stuff.

<comment><USER3> Data already proves him wrong - if he'd placed a 5 year bet in 2009 on BTC, he'd already have received a 100x return. An 8 year bet? 1000X returns.

Why pick 5 years? Many of Buffet's investments have that kind of windows.

Never say never.

<comment><USER4> If he invested using this logic he wouldn't be the richest person in the world. This is one of the gambling fallacies of "Oh man, if I hadn't folded I'd have won it on the river! I should remember that next time I get dealt 6,9 off-suit".

And yes, it's gambling because there isn't any metric to assess the value of the asset beyond some arbitrary price. Investments in other instruments can be measured by looking at balance sheets and cash-flow and other performance metrics of the entities that are receiving the investment (how is my investment being used to produce ROI?).

Not so with crypto, all the data is basically about a computer network and it doesn't produce an actual product in the real world... because it's not a real currency and it's not a real investment vehicle. They're just casino chips that play one game - buy low, sell high.

The big mistake people are making here is thinking that Buffett/Munger and real financial investors are gamblers like everyone else and they're not, they are old-school and who invest in actual real world products that serve a real- world purpose that they believe will produce a measurable return with a measurable risk.

In 2009 all the talk was about changing the world and making transactions seamless and the world was going to be buying coffees with crypto and houses/cars with crypto and we'd start the digital utopia. Based on that investor deck, they passed, and they were absolutely right looking at how it has turned out. Just because this startup pivoted into a global slot machine with an energy cost the size of Ecuador and lots of people have hit it big doesn't mean it's a real world product, serving a real world purpose.

When the bubble bursts and lots of everyday people lose their shirts, the backlash is going to set back any actual plans of a crypto-topia decades if not more and probably send a shock-wave through the venture capital market (and beyond) putting many in Silicon Valley (and elsewhere) out of job (with many into bankruptcy). They are predicting that too since this same article mentions that they believe venture capital is a bubble as well.

If I were heavily invested in crypto I would take this news as a (yet another) sign and would move out of crypto and into whatever safe vehicles will be robust to a venture capital / crypto collapse. And if I were a Silicon Valley employee anywhere near blockchain, I would be diversifying my skill-set and updating my resume.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Could this iPhone with a universal SIM work the same as a multi network MiFi? - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/02/10/apple_working_on_a_smaller_contract_free_iphone_to_combat_android_report.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Does the universal sim mentioned in this article mean that it would be possible to have a tethered iPhone not locked to any one network? It could thus potentially work like a multi network MiFi. Imagine an app that tells you which data signal has the fastest speeds and allows you to switch between networks seamlessly. Perhaps Apple will build it into the OS..?

I know that there are broader implications for the market if Apple does release such a device. But it just occurred to me that you could potentially manage multiple pay as you go accounts for data with such a device and always have a data connection. Such a feature could lead to a more ubiquitous mobile web experience for many of us. This I think would be possible in the UK where most places, apart from the remotest areas, allow you to get at least some data signal from one of the five main networks.</comment>