Soon there will be no reason to have a big, boxy computer on your desk. - <AUTHOR> http://slate.com/id/2257495 <comment><USER2> I might be in the minority here but I've never found a desktop PC to be particularly restrictive[1]; the main things tying me to a desk when I want to accomplish something are a good chair, a few large monitors and a quality keyboard. I could buy a laptop, sure, but I'd still need somewhere with these amenities and saving a couple of cubic feet of living space seems irrelevant.

[1] The words "big" and "boxy" seem needlessly pejorative to me. I don't complain about my big, boxy sofa which indisputably takes up more of my house.

<comment><USER3> I agree completely. Laptops are expensive and underpowered. Desktops are cheap, easy to maintain and upgrade, and are easy to make powerful.

Let me know when I can get a sub-$1000 laptop with a 4 core CPU, SLI graphics, 6G RAM, and a 3TB RAID array. Until then, I'm sticking with my desktop.

(When I want to be "untethered", I just use my laptop. I have a 3G modem, so I can go anywhere and just ssh into my desktop. If the laptop gets lost, no big deal -- there's no data on it, and it costs $300. The important stuff is locked inside my house.)

<comment><USER4> >Laptops are expensive and underpowered

Netbooks are _inexpensive_ and underpowered. I bought one partially to see what all the fuss was about and partially to hack it into a hackintosh :D

The small screen makes them useless for anything other than casually browsing the web. I had intended to do some development work on it, but the slow response time and limited screen real estate make that a real headache. The cramped keyboard slows down your typing also. I'm going to buy a fully-fledged MacBook instead.

Btw, if I wish to just quickly go on the web, I still fire up the netbook and browse away - I'm commenting on my netbook right now ;-) So it's not a complete waste of money. I can envision myself doing all my real work on a MacBook, while using the netbook to iChat my co-founder or to have tech manuals/webpages open on a separate screen as I need them as reference.

<comment><USER3> I meant to use the word "netbook" instead of "laptop" in my last paragraph. Netbooks are great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It might actually be true this time, but haven't articles like this been coming out every year or so for the past 20 years? Maybe longer--- it was sort of the rhetoric Apple was using in the mid-80s, when they pronounced the era of the big bulky box dead, heralding the era of sleek, light-weight machines like the all-in-one Macintosh and the fits-in-a-briefcase Apple //c.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm no longer tied to a big boxy computer. Instead I'm tied to a big monitor and an assortment of external hard drives.

</comment><comment><USER7> I found this bit the most interesting :

'Joshua Topolsky, Engadget's editor, recently called for tech companies to create what he calls the "continuous client," a system that will enable you to leave one device and "pick up your session in exactly the same place on the next device you use,"'

I really think this is the next big step. It's become to me quite an obvious issue since I got my iPad. I want to be able to play a game on my iPhone and then pick up exactly where I left off on my iPad. Or do the same with videos; newspaper apps etc. The devices should just be a different window into your same data world.

</comment><comment><USER8> My Mac Mini is easily the best computer purchase I've made. This is coming from someone who used to build own PC systems with the fancy cases, fans, etc. some years ago.

It's tiny, it's quiet, and it works like a charm with two 1600x1200 displays. It takes no space on my desk.

I did upgrade RAM and the hard drive myself, though, and don't recommend it for the faint-hearted. It was incredibly nice to see Apple introduce an openable case in the latest update.

<comment><USER9> I've been down the same road. There was a point in my life where I had full- sized towers serving as a development server. And I mean full-sized -- as in 30 inches tall.

I built the last and final home-built computer in mid-2007. I probably spent about $100 extra in eliminating noise despite having a powerful setup. I was spoiled at the time by my Mac Mini which was silent. A lot of fellow raiders never seemed to "get" that. I guess your computer sounding like a jet engine is fine if jet engine computers are what you're used to. They didn't understand the difference having that same computer being silent makes.

Still, cables. The big box that has to be put somewhere. The power draw. More cables. The switching between it and the Mac. Wireless cards that never seemed to have fantastic range. Not being able to get built-in bluetooth and resorting to annoying dongles. More cables. Forking over more money for a beefier UPS. Another $10/month on the electric bill.

Desks have shrunk over the years as I've shrunk down. From a massive corner unit, to the current 4x2. Next, I'm building it into a slightly smaller than a 4x2 closet with nothing getting in the way of my legs. Whenever I look at old photos, or visit someone, I'm still taken a bit aback as to how much physical space was allocated to the computer. A large desk, large chair, plus the room for ingress/egress, etc would easily eat up 40 square feet.

For now I'm down to a new Mac Mini (with 8GB of memory) and an older, aluminum 23" cinema display until the 27" iMac is refreshed with a better GPU. It's dead-silent. It does nearly everything I need. The 7 1/2 square feet of desk space is barely occupied by it giving me tons of room to spread out documents, notes, etc.

Enthusiasts will always be enthusiasts. That's fine. There'll always be a burgeoning market catering to them. Though for me, I'll gladly pay extra -- considerably extra -- for something that minimizes its intrusion in my environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> My big, boxy "desktop" isn't on my desk, it's in the closet with long cables to my desk. This keeps the noise and clutter down.

</comment><comment><USER11> You can't switch parts in a laptop/nettop. For this reason there will always be a reason to own a tower for savvy users who own multiple computers. One is to be left home while the other is taken on trips. There are enough reliable sync solution, so it isn't an issue.

</comment><comment><USER12> iPads already have 6% of the market for 2010? Oh, that's a projection too.

My netbook is great for working in cafes, and very fast as a development machine, but it is too underpowered for many websites - especially consumer websites that make heavy use of javascript and flash. As the hardware gets faster, software soaks up those cycles, so it's hard for smaller computers to win with moving goalposts.

But the iPhone/iPad seems to have managed this, perhaps mostly by eliminating flash. If they take sufficient market share, websites will have to adapt to it.

</comment><comment><USER13> Good thing I got a mac mini to run linux on (no other 10W box out there I can get with the same performance), no big boxy computer for me!</comment>


DJI RoboMaster S1 - <AUTHOR> https://www.dji.com/robomaster-s1 <comment><USER2> For those that aren't aware, this is designed for the RoboMaster robotics league in China, which is sponsored (owned?) by DJI in the first place.

Overview of the competition series itself: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyYsCyMC-0w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyYsCyMC-0w)

Video of the 2018 Finals: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRNQfaf_Cr0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRNQfaf_Cr0)

Bloomberg video about the RoboMaster S1: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPzq1DoPnXs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPzq1DoPnXs)

</comment><comment><USER3> Making the offensive component a central design element is... interesting. They could have designed a robot for kids like what anki did but.. this is what they came up with.

<comment><USER4> The fact that DJI releases an educational robot for kids that has a working cannon feels super icky from my western perspective. In China do they think it's a great idea? Is the culture gap that big, or is there another reason?

Also, how long until someone recreates the famous square scene with a lego character and 3 of these?

EDIT: This video from the promo page where it is hunting down a child - [https://www1.djicdn.com/assets/uploads/v/1b34c0e069531a08639...](https://www1.djicdn.com/assets/uploads/v/1b34c0e069531a08639d0647602d073c.mp4)

This would have been great without the cannon, with the cannon it feels... off.

<comment><USER5> > The fact that DJI releases a [toy] for kids that has a working cannon feels > super icky from my western perspective.

I don't think that's a _western_ perspective, I think that's _your_ perspective. The actual western perspective likes robots, toys, toy weapons, robotic toys, and robotic toy weapons, and all the various combinations thereof. Nerf and Transformers have been cultural staples for decades.

This isn't even the first commercial toy robot with a toy gun on it: [https://www.amazon.com/Nerf-Creatures-TerraDrone- Discontinue...](https://www.amazon.com/Nerf-Creatures-TerraDrone-Discontinued- manufacturer/dp/B00K2QZQUQ)

Or the second: [https://www.amazon.com/TerraScout-Nerf-N-Strike-Official- Rec...](https://www.amazon.com/TerraScout-Nerf-N-Strike-Official- Rechargeable/dp/B01DREMRGK)

Or the third: [https://www.amazon.com/Unknown-782-USB-Missile- Launcher/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Unknown-782-USB-Missile- Launcher/dp/B000XYR2CM)

Or the hundredth: [https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Imports-Control-Military- Airs...](https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Imports-Control-Military- Airsoft/dp/B01M23XELQ)

I guess you could argue the programmable nature of this somehow sets it apart, but I don't see how.

> Is the culture gap that big, or is there another reason?

I don't think the culture gap is where you imagine.

<comment><USER4> yes, there are many commercial toy robots with guns. And there are many gun toys and violent videogames etc etc.

But they are not educational. Educational + has a cannon. There is some cognitive dissonance right there. My opinion.

<comment><USER6> Toy guns itself is an educational toy. It teaches you on how to use it. As kid growing up with guns the only way I can have my own and learn it is by having a toy version.

<comment><USER7> Guns are not toys. The fact that you cannot draw the line demonstrates the problem perfectly.

<comment><USER5> Well yeah, guns are not toys. And thus logically, toys are not guns.

> toy, noun, an object for a child to play with, typically a model or > miniature replica of something.

A model of something is not the thing itself, therefore, toys are not guns, thus a toy gun is fine for children to have. Because it's a toy, and as you say, toys are not guns. :)

(Sorry if this comes off snarky, but seriously, step back and consider your argument: Lots of toys, as per the definition above, are models or real things. Cars aren't toys; does that mean toy cars should be banned in case a 6 year old plows his 1:75 scale diecast model car into a crowd? Obviously not. Other common toys include airplanes, kitchen appliances and tools. You seem to have misunderstood _the entire point of toys_. If the toy is itself dangerous, that's an issue. If the toy is a model of something which is dangerous, well, that's why the kid has the toy and not the real thing. Ideally they may even learn some caution with the safe toy version.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Damn, a younger version of me would have loved this thing. The remote- controlled cars we had in the 90's were downright primitive in comparison.

<comment><USER9> Those primitive RC cars weren't $499 though.

<comment><USER10> I'm clearly old, but I'm sure I remember the Tamiya Frog was about £100 in the mid 1980s, plus radio - IIRC it was about £130 for a complete kit. That equates to about $500 in today's money, so it's not a crazy after all...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My kids went through Sphero, Mindstorms and a couple of other robots where you can program them in Scratch and similar. To me such a toy would have been a godsend. They got bored pretty quickly.

Another issue is that gimbal adds to video quality but also to cost.

Finally with the hype, I was expecting a nice ready to fly FPV drone.

So I'm a bit meh about this toy.

<comment><USER12> Why do you think they would not get bored? Also, what do you think about the price?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> DJI is amazing. They sell their drone IMU+RF module separately to make your own drones, and their new 4K Osmo Pocket comes with me everywhere I go. Few companies are making such innovative hardware.

</comment><comment><USER14> So they are showing how this robots shoot each other and then they show where you can point to a child to follow (or shoot?)...

</comment><comment><USER15> I like it. Wish it came with an arm instead of a turret. We have a Parrot Mambo in our home. The turret was used for a few days and then removed. It added a lot of bulk and halved the flight time.

</comment><comment><USER16> This website has a major flaw. When I click the buy button it says not available in your country. I was thinking about getting this for my nephew who lives in the USA while I live in Australia. I know I'm obviously a small percentage that is outside USA that could buy and get it delivered to a local address but it still seems crazy not to even allow that.

I know I could vpn it but I don't think that should be necessary.

<comment><USER17> To mimic your use case, I went through a trial run and it does let you enter a non US billing address (Australia was a drop down).

<comment><USER16> Yes but are you in the US? When I try and buy it says not in your country. I did just find that if I go store then change to US I think I can now order. I was on my mobile before so this definitely wasn't clear then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Seems A lot like Robocode, but with hardware and less destruction.

(robocode seems to still be going, though I haven't looked at it in a while..)

[http://robowiki.net/wiki/Robocode](http://robowiki.net/wiki/Robocode)

[https://robocode.sourceforge.io](https://robocode.sourceforge.io)

</comment><comment><USER19> So, how about a DIY variant of this?

\- Start with a DonkeyCar with Jetson Nano

\- add mecanum wheels (why not three instead of four?)

\- add a weapon or laser pointer or whatever

On the other hand, do we really want to push gamification of autonomous weapon systems?

</comment><comment><USER20> DJI taking the time to write a page for the S1 in my language only to at the very end tell me "Not available in your region" is toying with my emotions and heartbreaking

<comment><USER21> You can always do dropshipping...it's sucks, but us non-US people are always second class citizens of the world.

<comment><USER22> It's a chinese company isn't it? You'd think they'd have a non-US worldview

<comment><USER21> Generally they are quite global, but we see that they are China and US first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Interesting how an educational robot project/competition always needs to involve the careful exercising of ballistics against a target. Descartes clearly got it all wrong and should have instead formulated his proposition as "I fire ma lazerz, therefore I am". By that definition, the singularity is clearly near.

</comment><comment><USER24> Bloomberg Businessweek created an excellent video profile of how this kit fits in robotics education and STEAM programs: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPzq1DoPnXs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPzq1DoPnXs)

</comment><comment><USER25> Looks like a cooler version of the AWS DeepRacer mixed with an old LEGO MindStorm kit.

</comment><comment><USER26> I know this is a yet-to-be released product and it says Python is supported, but does anyone know if it is possible to install 3rd party libraries and interact with the filesystem?

Interested in installing a webserver like flask on here.

<comment><USER12> It will be interesting to see how open it is but DJIs first educational offering (Tello) and other products don't go very far in that regard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This looks pretty damn cool and I'd like to try it. But weird that the western media hasn't picked up this story in light of all their coverage on China stealing IP...

</comment><comment><USER28> What does the "gun" shoot? It seems laser, but then how does the target in the movie (which seems to be paper) fall over?

<comment><USER29> it's some kind of small ball, need to absorb water for 2+ hours before use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> why this?

> To comply with local laws and regulations, the RoboMaster S1 will not be > sold in Washington, D.C. or North Dakota.

</comment><comment><USER12> My American girlfriend's immediate response: seems militaristic and violent.

My daughter was turned off from robotics at a young age. She joined firstego league and there was a ton of domineering "boy energy" in her school. She enjoyed creating and personalizing the robots in unique ways, the boys wanted "to win".

This is what happens when you have a bunch of dudes designing educational robot toys.

<comment><USER31> I'm more concerned by the idea that wanting "to win" is "boy energy". Why should we persist the idea that wanting to win is a boy thing, and wanting to create/personalize is (as implied by your comment) a girl thing?

<comment><USER9> > Why should we persist the idea that wanting to win is a boy thing

Because it most often is, boys typically like to compete more than girls do. I'm not going to quote studies on this, just basing this on my experience growing up and now as an adult being around small kids.

<comment><USER31> This speaks to society's role in conditioning men to be aggressive and women to be passive, which was exactly what I said I was concerned with.

Unless you're making the case that absent cultural conditioning, women are biologically less interested in "winning" than men?

<comment><USER32> Ew, I can't for the life of me understand this "everything is a social construct" mindset.

The average man is biologically different than the average female. Testosterone alone can explain why men are generally more violent and sexually aggressive than women. And there are many many many other factors in effect. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693622/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693622/)

Why do people get angry about facts, there is no value judgment in saying "The average women is inclined to do X while the average man is more inclined to do Y", it doesn't mean "every woman HAS to do X and every man HAS to do Y". Why would every animals of different sex present different behaviours but somehow humans are all 100% equal and every difference is due to "society" ? Is biology a social construct now ?

<comment><USER31> I'm not claiming that "everything" is a social construct.

I replied to the claim that wanting "to win" is a masculine trait, and compared it to the feminine trait of personalization/creativity. It seems pretty far fetched to claim that biology causes boys to be more interested in winning Lego programming competitions.

<comment><USER32> > It seems pretty far fetched to claim that biology causes boys to be more > interested in winning Lego programming competitions.

Why ? The "Lego programming competitions" is a detail there, the important part is "does winning at X triggers the same biological pathways as winning at Y ?" and "are men more inclined to be competitive ?".

For example men are more inclined to do dangerous activities for fun, like racing cars or rock climbing. Does it means that biology ""wants"" men to race cars, no, just that racing cars trigger biological pathways somehow perceived as more beneficial for men than female.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I predict someone will mount a real gun on this.

</comment><comment><USER34> Wow so crowdsourcing the military industrial complex's artificial intelligence KILLBOTS?

This almost looks like it's satire, but it's completely real and for sale, just $499!

Reminds me of this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM)

</comment><comment><USER35> Wild speculation, but I could see Apple acquiring DJI.

<comment><USER36> No way the Chinese government would let a strategic asset be bought by an American company, especially nowadays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> imo giving way to kids impulses like fighting might be commercially the most viable thing - educationally it is not. It is always much easier to be destructive than constructive. However, we should try to teach our kids the latter. Achieving win-win does not usually come from impulse but from empathy.

Although it is hard, I try to avoid fighting games and media for my kids as much as I can and try to teach them competing in more creative ways...

<comment><USER38> The kids would presumably spend a lot more time constructing than destructing. I also doubt the robots get actually destroyed in the competition.

Do you also forbid water blasters in the hot summer?

As you say, those playful fights are a natural impulse. It is also not true that you can solve every problem without violence.

I'm expecting people to chime up with "what about the girls?", though. Presumably those battle bots might be considered off putting to girls, putting them to a severe disadvantage because they miss out on their STEM education. (An argument I would also consider bullshit, but those are the times).

<comment><USER37> as I said, it's hard, but I offer them alternatives: building things, ball games, surfing,... I guess they are better of with that than water blasters.

<comment><USER38> In what way are they better off, would you say?

Btw Rudolf Steiner (of Waldorf School fame) would also outlaw ball games, at least soccer. After all, the ball could be mistaken for a head and it could train kids to kick heads.

<comment><USER37> I guess

1) they learn to have fun without the need to feel superiour (ball games need some supervision in that regard though)

2) they learn emotional intelligence, especially for activities that require collaboration (surfing not so much though)

people tend to miss, that in the early years many inner brain functions and predispositions, especially emotional regulation get tuned for the rest of the life...

<comment><USER38> I don't think winning in a game has to involve "feeling superior". Many games of chance are also fun. In other cases, somebody might actually be superior (the better player). Then what - nobody should be better than anybody else in anything? Maybe the "loser" can try to become better, for example.

And it can also train emotional intelligence to win or lose gracefully in games, and try again.

What will your kids do when they encounter somebody who "feels superior" later in life? Like an actual superior, perhaps?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft power "My Documents" with DropBox acquisition? - <AUTHOR> http://tumblr.com/xij2zwet9f

<comment><USER2> Microsoft already purchased foldershare for syncing and completely destroyed it. I haven't used dropbox, but foldershare was pretty simple folder synchronization across computers, I'd think extending that to the cloud would have been pretty simple.

At the same time, WP7 has some good sync technology already built in, and is extending it in the Mango update.

I don't see a DropBox acquisition doing much benefit for Microsoft, and I think it would probably be detrimental to DropBox and their users.

At the same time, I suspect that basic synchronization will be a commodity in the next 5 years, so DropBox may need to find an area they can specialize in.</comment>


6 books every programmer should read - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@boltmick1/6-books-every-programmer-should-read-4c50c2ec92c5 <comment><USER2> The majority of this submitter's submissions, including this one, are just lists of books with Amazon affiliate links.</comment>


CEO Pay nearly 1000 to 1 of average worker at many US businesses - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-30/ceo-pay-1-795-to-1-multiple-of-workers-skirts-law-as-sec-delays.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Top 250 offenders: <http://go.bloomberg.com/multimedia/ceo-pay-ratio/></comment>


The Paragraph in Web Typography & Design — Jon Tan 陳 - <AUTHOR> http://jontangerine.com/log/2008/06/the-paragraph-in-web-typography-and-design <comment><AUTHOR> Be sure to check out this link within the post: <http://jontangerine.com/silo/typography/p/>

There he gives 12 examples of paragraph styling and the CSS needed.</comment>


I just want to give Kismet a try - <AUTHOR> Do I need to fill this out? <comment><USER2> That would be an interesting website. In search of... not sure.</comment>


The Google H1 Fritz Chip - <AUTHOR> http://www.loper-os.org/?p=2433 <comment><USER2> Fact: The Snowden leaks confirmed the long suspicion that governments work to backdoor software and hardware at an insane level. Related fact: Governments also try crazy hard to bust into insecure, vulnerable devices to compromise them.

So we have this really annoying catch 22, where people like this author report on real security and tamper protection systems as bad -- yet without them, the device would actually be prone to different actors attempting to own devices remotely.

Every security mechanism in place on modern computing hardware can be viewed as being either cryptographically important or encumbered against users. The fact of the matter is that it's extremely hard to build a platform that's resistant to all types of attack without also encumbering real users and real benefits of device ownership.

At some point, I just want to throw my hands up and ask why people continue to buy these devices if they dislike them so much. I can understand wanting to tinker and wanting to hack. But voluntarily forking over money just to complain about why that platform isn't an open box amazes me. It's plenty easier to buy a hackable and open by default platform than it is to buy a closed one and try to turn it into an open one.

<comment><USER3> And given the extreme asymmetry of defense vs offense there is only one possible outcome :

Backdoors for every state actor ...

It is incredibly easy to make ridiculously hard to find backdoors in both software and even more so in hardware, and early versions have been caught (including the US and Chinese governments). The odds of finding "v2" or, more likely "v50" backdoors are bad. Very bad.

<comment><USER4> Google, quite untypically for large manufacturers, put their golden key backdoor in plain sight, inside _published_ source. (Apparently, "only a terrorist!" would read it?)

<comment><USER5> Let's track the RMA flow (the challenge/response mechanism you've tried out before it refused access because you're not a factory employee doing RMA repairs):

common/rma_auth.c:rma_challenge_response() calls process_response(), which on success calls common/factory_mode.c:enable_ccd_factory_mode()

That one calls factory_enable_deferred(), which resets the system before flushing all TPM data, and only on successfully removing all that proceeds to enable factory mode.

Therefore: gaining access through that venue also removes all secrets established on the system, including the TPM-part of the key used to encrypt the disk (the other part being derived from the account credentials, which isn't stored persistently anywhere).

(Disclosure: I'm part of the Chrome OS firmware team. If you find anything we forgot to do to protect user data, I'd _really_ love to know)

<comment><USER4> You are quite right, I do not work at your factory (TBH, I'd rather work for, e.g., Monsanto...)

Instead, I'm a reluctant purchaser of your hardware (the market is completely devoid of alternatives, if I go to buy a 6-core ARM64 laptop with a IPS display, it's the Chromebook or the highway). A purchaser who would like to _actually use what he paid for_. And this means the removal of all golden-key backdoor garbage, in the AP, EC, _and_ Cr50 ROMs.

And yes this includes the FBI-subpoena-keyed "upgrade" capability, the AP ROM write-protect override, the I2C/SPI bus mastering, the locked-from-all-but- the-anointed-few console, etc.

I couldn't care less about user-installed "TPM secrets", disk encryption, etc. I get these boxes brand-new. What I want is to wipe the Cr50 and install a routine that simply handles the power button, 3.3v bringup and whatever else is absolutely required for the box to run, _under full owner control_ like the old Chromebooks that had no Cr50.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >To my knowledge, there has been no detailed public discussion of this NSA- imposed atrocity anywhere on the Net,

This blog post asserts that it was imposed by the NSA. Where is the evidence for that? The only source seems to be what appears to be speculation by some person on IRC.

>20:23 <asciilifeform> from my pov, it's nsa rootkit

It's hard to take this post very seriously when there's disinformation like this.

<comment><USER7> Why do people think it makes so much of a difference if a happy new planetary order is initially installed by alphabet agencies or Alphabet companies?

<comment><USER6> If the NSA is forcing Google to install chips in Chromebooks, then that's a sign that one group (the NSA) is getting a ton of power, since they likely also compelled chips in Android, Windows, iOS, Mac, and even Linux computers.

Whereas if Google is putting chips into their Chromebooks of their own initiative, that is no indication that Google is getting power over Windows, iOS, Mac, or Linux computers.

<comment><USER4> Do you particularly care whether the backdoor was installed at Google's initiative, or Trump's ?

The golden key exists, and will be used.

<comment><USER6> Yes, I do care. Because if Trump ordered it, then likely Linux, Windows, Android, Mac, and iOS also were ordered to have these, and nothing is safe.

But if Google decided to put a chip in their computers of their own initiative, then that's not an indication that the other computers have a chip. So I feel I'm much safer.

I care about my rights. If computer manufacturers lose their right to design their products as they see fit (i.e. they're forced to install chips against their will), that means the government is severely limiting its citizens' rights. There is likely no hope for my freedom. But if a manufacturer puts a chip in of their own free will, that's not really infringing my rights. I can simply buy computers from a different manufacturer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the article this is part of any modern Chromebook:

The Cr50 device is a classic "Fritz chip" — i.e. a hardware "policeman", built into a computing device [...], so as to specifically and deliberately act against the purchaser's interests, by subverting the Laws of Sane Computing in these three ways:

Prevention of the full control of the machine by its physical owner, typically by inhibiting attempts to install modified firmware. [...]

Enablement of one or more types of "NOBUS" back door (Official NSA terminology! "No One But US", [...]

Prevention of a clueful hardware owner's attempts to "jailbreak" — to disable, remove, or circumvent the Fritz chip itself.

<comment><USER5> > typically by inhibiting attempts to install modified firmware

This also inhibits attempts by malicious third parties to install modified firmware on your machines.

For Chromebooks we traditionally tried to find a middle route: locked down by default, since most people care more about nobody tampering with their device than about the ability to do so themselves. For the others, there's dev mode (easy to get at, but with scary notifications, to make tampering obvious) and the write-protect screw (hard to get at, no tamper notification).

Hooking up cr50 into the write-protect line allows to develop a best-of-all- worlds approach:

* still locked down by default for people who don't want to think about their device's firmware security.

* simple to get at (but complicated enough that drive-by attacks remain infeasible), even with form factors that aren't service friendly (eg. glued chassis - firmware folks have no voice in these decisions).

* the ability to implement tamper evidence checks through remote attestation, even if the scary screens were disabled.

Compared to everything else on the market, I think it's a very user friendly set of trade-offs, both for power users and computers-are-appliances folks.

(disclosure: Chrome OS firmware developer)

<comment><USER4> Why lie to the public ? Pulling the battery _does_ enable rewrite, by the user, of the AP ROM, but _not_ the Cr50 -- the latter remains Tivoized. And every owner of this machine can verify this with his own hands, it is not even necessary to build the USB debug cable.

The Cr50 accepts firmware updates at all times, _but only when signed with Google 's RSA key._

<comment><USER5> > Why lie to the public?

I don't, and TBH I don't find your writing style (of which this is an example) very engaging.

Cr50 is a replacement for the old TPM. It has approximately the same constraints as the Infineon TPM used in the past: firmware updateable, but not for you.

[edit to add: would a mechanism to disable the update mechanisms, at the price of "no warranty" since RMA becomes impossible be acceptable to you? Or would you suspect that there's another update mechanism anyway?]

> Pulling the battery does enable rewrite

Pulling the battery is non-trivial on a device like Pixel C, hence a new mechanism.

<comment><USER4> My current alternative appears to be to desolder the Cr50 and fabricate harmless replacements (to e.g. init 3.3v rail).

So naturally voids warranties.

 _> firmware updateable, but not for you_

Finally, honesty. It's a Tivo.

<comment><USER4> The Infineon couldn't force a boot ROM update via USB-C.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The author's writing style makes them a little difficult to follow, but the details I can find seem to check out.

Does anyone know which Google/ChromeOS features this chip is used for, or what the justification for it is?

<comment><USER10> It's the new TPM? The old one had a (now patched) firmware bug, which newer Chromebooks like the Pixelbook don't seem to be vulnerable to:

[https://www.chromium.org/chromium- os/tpm_firmware_update](https://www.chromium.org/chromium- os/tpm_firmware_update)

Edit: this is what Chrome devices use it for [https://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/tpm- usa...](https://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/tpm-usage)

<comment><USER4> Cr50 has replaced the old Infineon TPM, which the above link concerns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Author of linked article speaking (supposing anyone is still reading, thread already marked as spam?)

I recommend to actually read Google's _published_ Cr50 sources -- no reason to take my word for it. All of the functionality I described -- and more -- is there, plain as daylight, with comments. Including the backdoor pubkeys.

</comment><comment><USER11> Off Topic — the author forgot to upgrade their reCaptcha integration.

Any calls to Google reCaptcha v1 API will not work after March 31, 2018 [1].

[1] [https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/faq#what- happen...](https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/faq#what-happens-to- recaptcha-v1)

</comment><comment><USER12> If this turns out to be accurate it would be _quite_ the stain on the otherwise very nice Cross ecosystem.

I would like to see some more details.

<comment><USER4> The details are openly published in Google's Cr50 sources, linked from the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How can I avoid or circumvent this type of technology when purchasing a new computer or phone?

<comment><USER4> You can't. Thank 20 years of apathetic consumers, such as the people in this comment thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I thought the h1 chip was in their cloud servers, not their Chromebooks or anywhere else?</comment>


Java 7 - What's new? Release date, code examples and performance - <AUTHOR> http://inebium.com/post/java-7-new-release-performance-code

<comment><USER2> I'm wondering how the implementation is chosen when you do something like

      List<String> list = ["ham","eggs"];

Is it a linked list, an array list, a vector ... ?

<comment><USER3> The compiler chooses, probably based on the type and number of elements. In theory it should know how to do this efficiently, because this syntax returns only immutable collections, so the compiler knows up front exactly what the collection will ever contain.

This is what the proposal says about that decision:

      It is likely to be higher in space and time performance, in that the
      compiler can choose efficient implementations for small collections
      (such as empty collections and singletons).  On the other hand, it is
      less flexible, in that you cannot specify the implementation type.

From: [http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/coin- dev/2009-March/0...](http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/coin- dev/2009-March/001193.html)

<comment><USER4> Why does it only return immutable collections? Because the spec says so, or because there is some principle suggesting that it should?

Personally, my first instinct was to read the syntax as a form of initialisation, not something that would bar me from adding or deleting elements after the set is instantiated.

<comment><USER5> Because it solves the problem mentioned above i.e. the compiler's choice of which type of container to create becomes straightforward.

<comment><USER6> If the choice would be a mutable one, making it expressly immutable after the fact serves no purpose. As it is, the compiler gets to choose an efficient list for the data provided, and then refuse to compromise on that efficiency later. You might as well use an enum. What useful collection implementation would require immutability? Even arrays are more flexible.

Sure, it's nice syntax, but I can come up with more scenarios where I'll want to initialize a collection than scenarios where I want to finalize one (well, excepting for the fact that this is java, where immutability is often considered a virtue).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's a lot of good stuff here--notably the (finally) decent support for literal sets, arrays, and maps in JSON style... but most importantly, closures! I am so sick and tired of creating one-off anonymous classes just to pass a function around. Unfortunately you can only use them with final variables. Ah, well...

<http://blogs.sun.com/mr/entry/closures>

<http://blogs.sun.com/mr/entry/closures>

<comment><USER8> The top priority is still to avoid confusing programmers, and closing over non-final variables can lead to some very confusing situations. For example:

List list = Lists.newArrayList(); for(Integer i = 0; i < 10; i++) { list.add(fn [x] { i + x }); }

Think you just created a list of 10 functions that each add a different number to their argument? If you closed over the i variable, that variable changed and by the end of the loop is 9. All of the functions return their argument plus 9.

In any case, I can't wait to get some form of closures in Java. Best case would be to get a job using a decent programming language, but closures and various data type literals could go a long way to dull the pain until then.

<comment><USER5> This certainly does appear to be a common point of confusion for languages that have both mutable variables and closures:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/271440/c-captured- variabl...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/271440/c-captured-variable-in- loop) [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/233673/lexical- closures-i...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/233673/lexical-closures-in- python)

I remember bumping into the issue myself in JavaScript, but only once. After I became aware of the concept, it was never a problem again, in any language. Those one-time issues don't worry me. It's the problems that come up over and over again that are worth fixing at the language level.

A good way to explain it is to analogize captured variables to variables used in the body of a loop or conditional. Variables are only ever created when a declaration is evaluated, and a variable has exactly one value at any given time. The obvious alternative, copying the variable when it's closed over, seems more confusing to me. And the current restriction, that captured variables are final, is just going to force hackery.

Ultimately, if Java grunts want closures, they will have to understand variable capturing. It's part of the package.

<comment><USER3> To me the confusion is more with the loop constructs. My mental model is fine with variable capture in general, but I don't interpret loop variables as "real" variables. What I'd intuitively expect, if I didn't already know that most languages don't do it that way, is that the loop variable is freshly bound on each iteration. That expectation is strengthened by the fact that a lot of languages seem not to want to allow you to actually use it as a real variable anyway: you often can't modify the loop variable within a foreach- style loop, which leads me to view them as fresh immutable bindings per iteration.

Admittedly, the Java for loop is a plain C-style for loop, where you actually can modify the loop variable if you wish, so it pretty much has to work that way. But the binding-reuse behavior of, say, Python's _for i in range(n)_ loop makes less sense to me. IIRC, it's also one of the many contentious differences in Common Lisp between the LOOP and ITERATE macro packages.

<comment><USER5> Ah yes, it is a problem if a language is not clear about the lifetime semantics of a loop variable.

In Ruby, for example, an idiomatic loop like 10.times{|i| ... } does indeed bind a new variable for every iteration, but that is implicitly clear to anyone with a basic understanding of the language. Likewise, the 3-part for loop of Java et al does not hide the fact that it's the same variable every time through the loop.

The Java for-each loop, on the other hand, is more ambiguous. A quick check seems to indicate that the iterator variable can be declared final and captured in an anonymous inner class. That means that for-each acts differently than for loop and I could see that confusing your average code monkey.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I think the main thing that's confusing about the particular example given in this thread is that the common case of looping over integers usually _intends_ a foreach-style loop, but Java syntax doesn't make it easy to do something like _for(final int i : Range(1,10))_. So people end up using the C-style 3-part for loop when they don't have any real need for its power.

<comment><USER8> I actually think that will change in Java 7. I will likely not be using "for" very often, and will start using higher-order functions like map and fold. The issue is mainly developers for whom closures are a new concept. If they are too confused as they make their first nervous steps into the world of functional programming, if their first attempts at using closures result in a lot of bugs, then they may write off the whole thing as more complicated than it's worth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you cannot wait for Java 1.7, use usual trick with anonymous classes and static initializer block:

      Java 1.7:
      List<String> list = ["item"];

      Java 1.2:
      List<String> list = new AList<String>() {{ items=["item"]; }};

where:

      public class AList<T> implements List<T> {
        protected T[] items;
        // Implementation
     }

      Set<String> set = {"item"};
      Set<String> set = new ASet<String>() {{ items={"item"}; }};

      Map<String, Integer> map = {"key" : 1};
      Map<String, Integer> map = new AMap<String, Integer>() {{ keys=["key"]; values=[1]; }};

I can post detailed explanation and examples of this technique, which I love to use, in my blog, if somebody will be interested. (English is foreign language to me).

It is much better than to use full blown implementation and bunch of setters just to pass around one or two elements.

I often use this technique to pass optional data to/from methods or to program in declarative style in java.

<comment><USER8> Or use Google Collections in Java 1.5 or higher.

<http://code.google.com/p/google-collections/>

List<String> list1 = Lists.newArrayList("item"); List<String> list2 = Lists.newArrayList("item1","item2");

Of course, none of these workarounds are close to what Java 7 offers. Just a few more months :-)

<comment><USER9> > Or use Google Collections in Java 1.5 or higher.

See Sandman reply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Where can I go for more benchmarks?</comment>


Entreporn: Learning vs doing vs wasting time - <AUTHOR> http://swombat.com/2012/7/11/entreporn-learning-doing-wasting <comment><USER2> I use to be a mechanic, and I love nothing more than watching youtube videos of other people fixing problems I should be fixing on my own/friends cars. It requires zero effort but has pretty much the same sense of satisfaction at the end .. until the realisation kicks in that it wasn't my car that just got fixed.

</comment><comment><USER3> >> Instead, stop reading this article (it's a waste of your time too), get out of your chair, and go and find some concrete problems and opportunities to measure yourself against.

This advice applies to at least 30% of articles on HN

<comment><USER4> Also, remove Hacker News from your favourites/homepages/pinned tabs. You'll procrastinate here less.

<comment><USER5> But you will probably procrastinate regardless.

<comment><USER4> Ah, yep, got me there. Think it's about time to turn on noprocrast again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In short: "Start every day as a PRODUCER, NOT a CONSUMER. Start your first free moments of the day with thoughts of what you really want to do" One of the Best Practices, I recently came across on Reddit/HN and I am still 'trying' hard to follow :)

<comment><USER7> You just made my day yogrish; seeing one of my HN posts referenced. Your comment was a good (and much needed) reminder to stick to that methodology.

For anyone curious, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3555237>. Post compliments of Redditor 'aceex'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Unfortunately, stuff that is interesting to hackers isn't necessarily what they're up to right now. As long as these things pass a certain threshold of interesting or cool, they've caught us. Massive flocking (Boids) simulations on GPGPUs, esoteric bloom filter implementations, optimising instructions on the 6502, cutting edge machine learning research across 2k cores, ...

This curiousity is what, in my mind, makes the community so interesting. Unfortunately it's also what leaves so many of us stuck in the mud, obsessively reading articles from each and every frontier of our hacker world.

Then there are those entrepreneurs who have read nothing yet stumble their way to success. The code is atrocious, their algorithms mind boggling, but they're the ones with the customers. The customers might be complaining, yes, but there's almost always time to fix the product, especially when you have both the motivation and money from those customers pushing you.

Edit: Yes, yes, yes, my mind took a brief vacation and decided to reignite a decade old tag line from elsewhere. Skip the one small issue and pay attention to the content of my post -- I don't think a single error warrants downvoting.

<comment><USER9> Isn't that the slashdot motto?

<comment><USER2> Yes, it is. I didn't even think there was a HN moto.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It doesn't just apply to startup advice.

I've stopped reading articles or watching screencasts which, although interesting, is not immediately actionable. Instead, I'll bookmark it so I feel that I can get back to it when needed and I move on (in practice, though, I rarely go back through old bookmarks but its psychologically soothing to bookmark them).

<comment><USER11> I do the same. Is there some sort of program/system you use to look up stuff you've bookmarked? I'm thinking I'd like something to set tags/keywords to each bookmark so I can look them up a bit easier later on.

<comment><USER12> Maybe a personal wiki?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _if you would consider paying someone to solve this problem for you, then learning about the problem is valuable. You wouldn't pay someone to talk to you about startups in general, so don't waste your time on it._

So why am I reading your article, swombat? It has no specific advice about startups that I can determine. Perhaps the topic is "how to stop wasting time"? If so, haven't you written exactly the kind of generic article you're railing against?

That was a bit of a cheap shot, but I love the recursion involved so I took it anyway. :) Now on to the substance.

The problem as I see it is twofold: first, the person consuming the content they enjoy never sees it as something that's self-indulgent. There's always some kind of reason they can come up with to justify it. Many times it can be an upcoming task. The mind is a wonderful thing. This is one of many reasons why it's good to have somebody to report to.

Second, and more to the point, you make a delineation between things that have "...concrete and obvious value to you..." and "...randomly reading all sorts of articles..."

I'm not so sure that such a delineation actually easily exists. What I've found is that I pick up material on problem X I want to solve and once I get to the meat of the answer -- which sometimes takes many hours -- it either ends up being a sales pitch or so tied in with some particular method of doing business as to make it unusable.

Startup advice is _contextual_. It's very difficult to do generically. So if I want people to love me on Facebook, I pick up an expert's guide to Facebook marketing. He talks about his business of making CDs for indie bands and how on Fridays he started giving out free CDs as part of a contest. This drove up likes and engagement 100-fold.

Great idea -- if I had a product. Or if I had a product people would enjoy and talk about if it were a contest prize. Not so good if I'm offering a service.

Or let's say I want the SEO rating of my business blog and landing page to increase. So I pick up a few books and lectures -- specifically tailored to my concrete problem -- and consume them.

I can tell you how that story ends. a) don't be a sleazebag, b) make sure the technical details of your site are dialed in, and c) do things like write great content to make your business popular! Then people will come and share by word-of-mouth! Popular businesses get lots of traffic! mirabile dictu.

You can spend tens of thousands of dollars for that advice and end up pretty much where you started. All they're really saying, which is completely true, is that if you can make your business popular, people will talk about it. True, but useless.

Perhaps a technical example will help. Let's talk building systems than can handle huge amounts of traffic. So let's assume, without an idea of what my business does, that I want to make sure it fits on a stack that can grow massively and easily as my customer base grows. So I go out and buy some books or listen to podcasts on building huge systems. (By the way, there's a huge number of people doing just this. Why they are preparing to run at Google- scale without any product at all is a very interesting question).

But you know where that road ends? It ends with something like "once you have a business model, you'll know which architectural pieces you need, so then you'll be able to start designing your system". There is no easy or one-size- fits-all answer. It's all contextually-dependent.

Yes, if I had some kind of static, atomic problem that I needed advice on -- perhaps building an HTML5-enabled website -- buying little bits of atomic solutions would work. We programmers are used to buying information like this. "I need a book on AWS provisioning using Puppet" or "I need some help on typed exception handling in Java" But when you finally come up with something that is so stand-alone, _it has absolutely zero business value_. It's just technical information to assimilate.

So yes, I enjoy reading "How I got a billion people watching my YouTube videos which created a steady stream of income to my self-help site" But it's been my experience that, unless it's just me and I'm just impervious to absorbing information, after I finish I'm going to be left feeling something along the lines of "Wow. If I only had a business that allowed people to groom their pets with power tools, I could use every one of those pieces of advice!"

That doesn't make consuming such content useless. It just makes it a hell of a difficult thing to do. In my opinion, in order to be useful, you have to have content tailored to some long discussion you're having about a business hypothesis you're testing. It's extremely difficult to get that in itty-bitty mass-produced chunks of interviews. Not impossible, but extremely difficult.

Peer-to-peer, ad-hoc, informal communication is a million times more effective than publish-subscribe interviews or presentations. Especially in areas where the information is nuanced or highly context-dependent. In my opinion the reasons you're seeing people shell out money to all kinds of startup- assistance services and sites is NOT because they are receiving some terrific value from them, although I'm sure each has its fans. It's because there are tens or hundreds of thousands of people desperately trying to do exactly what you suggest: get immediately applicable help. But they're not finding it.

<comment><USER14> Some of best advice I've used is to quit reading that isn't tied to solving the next problem or two I'm working on.

How many articles that we read and bookmark do we ever go back to?

Until I started using Diigo and actively annotating each link to create a searchable feed based on my links... not quite sure how else anyone gets value of an article if they can't action it in the short term and have to come back to read it anyways.

Being in a state of 'building', we can look at the front page of hn and see what % of that on average could be a fit to help solve problems, maybe a different 15-20% for everyone? Now, which percentage of the 15-20% will hit what you're facing right now?

Even engaging this discussion wasn't one that solved a problem for making or saving money, or towards a startup. Why am I responding? Reinforcing my belief that I know the difference between reading something that truly helps me be productive in the now.

I like learning random things like anyone, but I find for me it's best done like an exercise, controlled, scheduled, focussed.

<comment><USER15> Incidentally, that was the perfect sales pitch for diigo :)

Edit: Encompassing idea: Viral sales based business plan: Build something in a field that a lot of people talk and argue about, so people suggest your product during heated debates. Has this been done?

<comment><USER14> Lol, that was unintended.. I have no affiliation with diigo but it's the first bookmarking tool I've ever used since coming online in the early 90's, the annotation is too hard to live without.

Other tools might have similar features but it's what found me first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Whatever happened to reading stuff for entertainment and fun?

<comment><USER17> Reading for entertainment is great! But if you're working in the startup world and your fun reading is all about startups, you should probably broaden your horizons a bit, if only to avoid becoming a bottomlessly tedious person. Go read some fiction, or some non-fiction in a field that has nothing to do with your work.

<comment><USER18> Who are you to say what people should enjoy doing in their free time? You know what's bottomlessly tedious? Doing things you wouldn't normally do simply to appear more interesting to people who don't get you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "You wouldn't pay someone to talk to you about startups in general, so don't waste your time on it."

A distinction needs to be made between talking to someone knowledgeable (about anything) and reading about it. Having a conversation is interactive. The person can dial in give exact advice which takes into account your exact situation and specifics. Things that would take much much more time if you had to read about every possible scenario (which you wouldn't necessarily understand the nuance of anyway) can be covered and discussed in a conversation.

That's one of the problems that I have with advice that people read on the net about anything. It doesn't (and can't) cover all the possibilities that apply to one's particular situation.

In general you might be able to find advice regarding startups that says summarizes something in this way "young people can take the chance with a startup because they have less to loose and more time available than a middle age person who has a secure job with a big corporation, a family, and will loose seniority and possibly not be able to find a new job". So that might be a generality that sticks. Otoh change one factor in the older person's situation (say they have a trust fund) and that info is no longer as valid. A conversation allows you more easily to uncover the dozens if not hundreds of specifics that apply to an individual and what is important to them. It also allows someone to clear up misconceptions ("medical school is tough be prepared to work hard") that might not be entirely correct.

</comment><comment><USER20> Too many words to express what The Ultimate Productivity Blog already said three year ago.

<http://productiveblog.tumblr.com/>

PS: ;)

<comment><USER21> Now I know what I have to do. Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Two counterpoints 1) It is better to avoid problems then hit them / solve them. Understanding where other people have failed is very valuable. Of course there is diminishing returns to this type of information and of course you are not going to avoid every potential problem. The point is to avoid the common pitfalls that many new enterprises tend to make. If your MO is run fast into next problem -> solve problem -> run fast into next problem, your startup is probably going to fail.

2) Sometimes you haven't even framed the problem yet. Maybe you are still exploring the idea space, trying to figure out what is valuable or not. Getting broad exposure to other ideas and technologies may help you crystalize what your venture is going to focus on. And of course there is diminishing returns here too, usual analysis paralysis warnings, etc. But a little bit of exposure every day to subjects you are not familiar with may just spark that creative bolt.

</comment><comment><USER23> I agree with the premise of this article. Entreporn is something that almost everyone I know who works for themselves has gone through. The important thing is to get it out of your system, and get on with building your company!

One thing I found useful was reading a set of books called 'The Naked Leader'. It essentially reduces an entire business book into a small chapter of 2 or 3 pages. I came to realise that many business books are these core points (that can be summarised in 2 or 3 pages) spread out over a couple of hundred pages.

I can't say I've never read a business book again. But it has made me very selective.

</comment><comment><USER24> I never thought of it like that. Rather then passively consuming content in the vague hope it will come in useful one day, or endlessly reading best practice guides or hot new trends/technology. But instead to search for the information as and when you need it.

Perhaps we over rate serendipity in the vague hope something will come along and solve a current problem, or more truthfully we're looking for distraction and legitimise it by linking it to work in some way.

Either way - it's given me a new perspective. Thank you Daniel, I always find your articles insightful.

<comment><USER25> You could make the difference between 'just in case' kind of reading (I could someday use this) and 'just in time' kind of reading (I need to know how this works right now).

If it belongs to category 1 it is entertainment/waste of time. Else (and if good content) it is actionable, valuable resource.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> One indicator to me that an article would be a time-waster (to me) is the "numbered lists" (10 ways to do X etc.) By avoiding those, my quality to waster article ratio has increased.

</comment><comment><USER27> Hm...don't know if I was the only one, but I thought this topic was going to be about the broader consumption of 'entertainingly educational' information (think Vi Hart vs. StumbleUpon or Khan Academy vs. TED Talks). While some are just information there is a growing glut of edifying and consumable information. I guess I'll have to write something on this topic to satisfy my own reading interest.

</comment><comment><USER28> If I merely read "What We Should Have Said To PG" it's wasting time. If I write up what I think my own answers should be in that kind of interview, it's taking action.

If this answer gets 6 hours old without me replying with a link to such a writeup, feel free to mock me in replies.

<comment><USER28> Did it: <http://ourdoings.com/ourdoings-startup/2012-07-11>

<comment><USER29> The action is still not purposeful, unless you are already trying to learn what you should say to people like PG. And although pitching to accelerators/investors might be fun to fantasize about, the overwhelming odds suggest that you will need to solve many other problems (for real customers) before that kind of thing ever happens.

<comment><USER28> I've encountered numerous situations where I've needed to explain concisely what OurDoings does. Thinking about how to tailor my explanation individually is always worthwhile. It brings me back to the big picture after some focus on details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> A little Entreporn is good as a source of inspiration and ideas.

You just need to set a very tough limit of how much time you spend reading this stuff. (During an initial week or two it should be zero, because you have to learn to fight the urge - and make sure it's not an addiction.)

Also, you should be honest with yourself - this is not real work, so don't start your day with surfing for inspiration (don't start your meal with a desert). Leave that for the evening, when you're done with work and also in a more reflective mood, so that your mind will make a better use of all the inspiration.

</comment><comment><USER31> If you're just reading, reading, reading, reading, then you're not going to get much out of the reading. If you take a few minutes after each article to correlate the information to your own experiences, you'll get more out of the article. Thats why I try to leave behind a comment to each blog/article I read. Like right now!!

Its sort of lik the difference between going to class, listening to the lectures but never doing any of the homework, as opposed to going to the class, and doing the homework each night.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is there not a better way to search for houses and apts? - <AUTHOR>

Why can't you search for apts and houses they way you want to?
For example I might want to know
1) which direction the house faces.
2) If it's an apt or townhouse, is it a corner unit.
3) if it have a dishwasher.
4) if it has an open floor plan.
5) if it has an attached garage.
And of course location.
Home searching is something LOTS of people do and right now there seems to be no real good way to do it. <comment><USER2> Depends on the jurisdiction. Since ownership of property, and construction of buildings on it, is generally registered with a government, there is a lot of data in existence, and most of it is public record. Alas, much of it is on paper, and possibly scattered among offices (the property deed in one place, construction-code approvals in another place, etc.).

Some governments have digitized their property registers, though. The most comprehensive one I've found is in Denmark, which has made the property register for the whole country searchable/browsable: <http://www.ois.dk>

Example: select "Københavns Kommune" from the dropdown box at top-right, type "Vesterbrogade" in the box labeled "Vejnavn", then click "Søg". You'll get a list of all buildings with street addresses on Vesterbrogade, one of the thoroughfares in Copenhagen. If you click on an individual address, you'll get information about the building and a listing of any subunits, e.g. that there are 5 floors, with 2 units on the 1st floor, 1 on the 2nd, etc. Click on any individual unit and you'll get information on everything from number of rooms, to when it was most recently renovated, to what materials are used in the construction.

In the U.S., some cities and counties are starting to provide at least some of this kind of information. For example, for Seattle, you can try the King County Parcel Viewer: [http://www.kingcounty.gov/operations/GIS/PropResearch/Parcel...](http://www.kingcounty.gov/operations/GIS/PropResearch/ParcelViewer.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm one of the founders of <http://www.RealScout.com>, and we're building software that lets you search by wants like house faces east, within 0.25 miles of a Google shuttle stop, open floor plans, remodeled kitchens, and hundreds of other criteria.

We get much of our data from sources other than the MLS, so it's far more accurate than some of the descriptions from listing agents that national search portals query. We also have search pages (<http://www.realscout.com/categories>) that allow you to view all the photos of the features you're searching for. In other words, you can see all the backyards of Palo Alto listings on one page.

Our software is still in beta, but we're rolling out new functionality daily.

</comment><comment><USER4> #1, #2 and #5 just mean starting with Zillow, Trulia, or any other site that lets you search using a satellite map. You enter your price range, # of bedrooms and other requirements, then zoom in and start scrolling the map through neighborhoods you'd consider. The price tags appear above the houses that are for sale/rent, and you can easily see what direction they face, whether they're on the corner and whether they have a garage.

You can pan through the map of an entire county in under an hour.

<http://i.imgur.com/IGqE2Zg.jpg> -> <http://i.imgur.com/o1CJbiv.jpg>

This is the easiest and most enjoyable part of the home search IMO.

</comment><comment><USER5> If I had to guess...

The information you're interested probably can't be easily/cost-effectively collected, validated or maintained.

Just ask yourself, where accurate, up-to-date, consistent information on 100M+ apartments and houses going to come from?

</comment><comment><USER6> We've been looking at moving FAR away and the sorts of things I want to know is information about the part of town the property is in... crime rates, demographics, etc.

<comment><USER7> <http://www.city-data.com/> is pretty good for this sort of information. The forums are very active so feel free to ask subjective questions that are particular for your situation.

For example, <http://www.city-data.com/city/West-Linn-Oregon.html> [http://www.city-data.com/forum/portland/37192-lake-oswego- vs...](http://www.city-data.com/forum/portland/37192-lake-oswego-vs-west-linn- vs.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Assuming all the data can be gathered in some way with Google Maps, they have NSWE coords. You get an Address and there will be mostly the face direction of any house.

</comment><comment><USER9> Have to totally agree. Looking right now for a house around North Denver. The search part of the equation is horrible.

</comment><comment><USER10> There are at least a half dozen ways to get this information when it comes to property for sale.

<comment><USER11> There are many services that offer a great house hunting experience, but in practice, searching for housing means wading through many false positives, stale listings, contradictory information within a listing, horrible or missing pictures, and scams (mostly limited to CraigsList). Demographic information (crime, schools, etc.) from Zillow and Trulia is difficult to navigate and not well organized. The space is definitely better than it was a few short years ago, but there's a lot of room left for improvement.</comment></comment>


Creating SSH Tunnel on-the-fly - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxmatters.info/blog/view/115/how-to-create-tunnel-in-ssh-terminal-on-the-fly

<comment><USER2> That's great to know. Thank you.</comment>


Ask HN: How to find a non-technical partner for a side project? - <AUTHOR>

So here is my situation: I developed a B2B SaaS product as a side project and things are looking promising so far. People seem to be interested in the product, there are sign-ups, people are testing it, asking questions and using the free plan.
Naturally, I would like to bootstrap it to a sustainable business now.
There is just the problem that I don't have any expertise in selling stuff and I also don't really like it. I believe that having a non-technical partner would be the perfect move for me. Someone who is interested in sales, marketing etc. and who is ok to bootstrap, meaning no salary in the beginning but equity.
So my question to HN: Where would you search for this kind of person? <comment><USER2> Maybe share a link?</comment>


Ask HN: Computer Science Mentor - <AUTHOR>

Hello, I'm a recent graduate from Pomona College living in SF. I've been trying to stay busy teaching myself new things and always working on some sort of project. I was wondering if there was any experienced person who would be able to mentor me. I'm currently working with a start up company, and working as a contract developer, and volunteering for the redesign of a website for a non-profit. <comment><USER2> <http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html>

> _If you revere competence, you'll enjoy developing it in yourself — the > hard work and dedication will become a kind of intense play rather than > drudgery. That attitude is vital to becoming a hacker._</comment>


Programming Isn't Fun Any More - <AUTHOR> http://www.neophilic.com/b2evo/blogs/blog4.php/2011/09/02/programming-isnt-fun-any-more <comment><USER2> If you don't like that maybe you should stop doing enterprise Java for a living. There are whole other worlds of programming out there.

<comment><USER3> This. My company recently had a training session for their new development platform. Creating one entity with four attributes using "best practices" of TDD and abstracting everything resulted in over 20 Java and XML files and over 2000 lines of code. Each individual piece of that bloat had a somewhat reasonable justification, but the net result was just ridiculous. I had already decided to accept a less enterprisey job elsewhere, and am now even more convinced it was the right call.

<comment><USER4> Wow. That sounded so ridiculous, I'm tempted to go on with my life believing you made it up.

<comment><USER4> Not sure what the down votes were for, it was clearly meant tongue in cheek, I do actually believe the guy, I merely _wished_ I didn't.

Man, this place it very quickly turning into reddit with the voting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > I will assert that you simply can't program any non-trivial program in Java > or C++ without an "Environment" to help you.

How large is non-trivial? I've built some pretty big systems using only javac, java, a text editor, and make.

</comment><comment><USER6> Cached version: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.neophilic.com%2Fb2evo%2Fblogs%2Fblog4.php%2F2011%2F09%2F02%2Fprogramming- isnt-fun-any-more&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en- US:official&client=firefox-a)

</comment><comment><USER7> Try writing for embedded systems. Not much room for bloat when you have to jam the code into the flash space on a microcontroller.

</comment><comment><USER8> The fact that everybody Googles what others have already done, instead of reading a manual (which no longer exists anyway) says it all.

Suppose your car mechanic did that?

</comment><comment><USER9> As a web developer I've lately been noticing this problem as well. Pretty much everything I do lately is about integrating this or that API, producing a little bit of glue code and that's it.

Even working for startups mostly doesn't solve the problem ... what I need is a good algorithmic challenge. Something fun and cool.

But I fear I might have lost the ability to even design algorithms due to all this tools stuff.

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't tell my team. We have a blast every day.

</comment><comment><USER11> Mysql error.

<comment><USER12> I thought that was the post itself... very meta.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can you please change the skin so I can read it comfortably? The content area is too narrow.</comment>


Kngine - A Knowledge-based Assistant - <AUTHOR> http://kngine.com/ <comment><USER2> It's hard for me to take their app seriously when their homepage is broken on Chrome (won't scroll).

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm. No issues on Chrome for me. Try running it in incognito? Maybe an extension's interfering.</comment></comment>


Homelessness on campus: The toughest test faced by college students in America - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/homelessness-on-campus-the-toughest-test-faced-by-tens-of-thousands-of-college-students-in-america/ <comment><USER2> I will never forget what a ~55 year old anonymous commenter (I think from HN?) said once (paraphrasing): "for some of us who worked professionally through the PC and Internet revolutions, the changes have never felt that significant." Her/His point was that large shifts can go unrecognized if change happens gradually enough. Nothing more needs to be said about what homelessness on an American college campus means now or what it portends for our economic future. So, I'll just give one anecdote...

My girlfriend and I flew into SF last spring and our first Uber driver was an undergrad student who is attending community college in Santa Rosa. Asked him how often he would come to SF to drive for Uber, and he said he drives down each week for 3-4 days and just sleeps in his car. He said this as if it was normal, typical, acceptable, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> That was a shocking read. Is the shortage of affordable housing a nationwide phenomena or something that just draws a lot of attention on HN?

<comment><USER4> It's a nationwide problem in the most economically successful cities. For a variety of reasons, cities that became wealthy several decades ago have tended to decide that they have enough people. Having decided such, they keep any more housing from being built with the idea that this will keep people away.

Add in a couple more decades of economic development (and migration, and children) and a general disinclination to add more housing, and people being priced into homelessness becomes increasingly common.</comment></comment>


Is YouTube Down? - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/oops this is appearing for me.<p>Seems like another YouTube outage. <comment><USER2> everything is fine for me

<comment><AUTHOR> huh, works now again for me too.

Apparently some other people had it too:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/f7ipga/account_fd_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/f7ipga/account_fd_cant_connect_to_youtube_anymore/)

Oh well</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you plan your days and keep track of monthly progress? - <AUTHOR>

I would love to hear success stories of using a particular software or note-taking strategy(I know its not the tool itself that plays the major role but still looking forward to give a shot to some software) <comment><USER2> Sounds rudimentary, but I've used google spreadsheet to:

1\. create a list of things i want to get done each day, then come back and check on what i've actually finished 2\. record the amount of time it takes me to do tasks (ex. "damn! had lunch for 2 hours", or "sweet! I made that list of journalists to reach out to in 1 hour")

Its been really helpful for me. I've been able to track progress, and to trim the fat. Doing it every day (rather than monthly) allows me to get more immediate feedback, and improve faster.

There is one thing to keep in mind: It can be important to find motivation outside of just seeing things get ticked off the list, even if you have AMAZING discipline. I do two things: 1. If I don't finish my daily tasks, I don't allow myself to work out 2. My GF does the same tracking, and if one or neither of us finish our tasks, we agree not to hook up that night :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Try [http://bulletjournal.com](http://bulletjournal.com) and taking notes whenever you accomplish something or learn something new. Then look back on your notes periodically and reflect on them.

</comment><comment><USER4> * notational velocity for notes. * Dokuwiki for documentation with Notes directory mounted in it. * taskwarrior for todo lists</comment>


VC funding continues record pace in third quarter - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-20119514-62/vc-funding-continues-record-pace-in-third-quarter/

<comment><USER2> The WSJ is saying the opposite: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3105596>

They're both probably right, investors can be more selective with the glut of entrepreneurs while still paying out top dollar for great companies/deals.</comment>


Technical Overview : Dart : Structured web programming - <AUTHOR> http://www.dartlang.org/docs/technical-overview/ <comment><AUTHOR> Mostly, I just want to say amongst people I respect:

Once the Dart VM is living in a browser, I will look at learning it. Until then, it has all the downsides of node.js + Coffeescript without the upside of an existing community.

Put actual Dart in the browser, with JS compilation as a fallback, and now I'm willing to spend time on it.</comment>


Brazilian government to ditch Microsoft in favour of bespoke email system - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/brazilian-government-to-ditch-microsoft-in-favour-of-bespoke-email-system-7000021929/ <comment><USER2> I love the discussions on this topic:

"It will probably cost more in the long run." "The NSA will just crack it and spy anyway."

So many people with the attitude that countries that find out their tech partners are actually performing espionage on behalf of the US government (and US security partners) should just tolerate it rather than do something about it.

<comment><USER3> To the best of my knowledge, no one has alleged that the NSA had Microsoft's help in intercepting Petrobras-related email. This is more about the possibility of such a threat than anything else.

Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft, so eh.

<comment><USER4> Why take the chance? From the leaks, the companies have "cooperated enough", especially when we're talking about "foreigners". We don't need proof for absolutely everything and for every single case, to stop trusting American companies, until there's a dramatic change in laws, and surveillance policy in US.

<comment><USER5> This is going to be the main issue behind that argument. The burden of proof has shifted.

The tech industries reaction to the Snowden seems to the outside very lukewarm. Sure, they are giving all sorts of "trust us" statements, but truth is we don't have the slightest clue if this is their honest opinion or just an opinion that a secret court forces them to uphold. Reality might be much more nuanced, but to the outside there is very little reason to give anyone any longer the benefit of the doubt.

<comment><USER6> There is nothing that singles Microsoft out here as every other operator of email and other software complied as well. This is something the US government should come clean on and something that the tech companies should push the government to do.

<comment><USER5> Absolutely. There is nothing that singles out Microsoft as better or worse, but it is a looming issue for the whole US tech industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If a country is big enough to have an air force then it is big enough to do something on its own about securing government communications.

How hard is it to write an email client?

With some calendar?

Is it complete rocket surgery or something in the realms of feasibly possible?

Wasn't gmail some 20%-er time by a couple of guys at Google? I don't think it took years or billions to get up and running.

I think you could have a tidy and secure webmail built by half a dozen people randomly chosen from Hacker News in six months. Sure it might not be as all singing and dancing as the oh-so-wonderful Microsoft Outlook but then again it might actually be better for the task in hand - facilitating communication for a government. Sometimes people have got to try rather than be all helpless. I am all for software re-use, open source and everything else deemed good software engineering, but, for a government wanting to keep their communications private some consideration has to be given to 'how hard can it be to write an email client?'

<comment><USER8> > How hard is it to write an email client?

> With some calendar?

> Is it complete rocket surgery or something in the realms of feasibly > possible?

Oh dearie. Thus began every single failed multi-million-dollar software project in the history of software.

> Wasn't gmail some 20%-er time by a couple of guys at Google? I don't think > it took years or billions to get up and running.

A: The feature-set of GMail as is released in 2004 is unlikely to impress someone used to Outlook/Exchange

B: What a correctly motivated Google-quality engineer can cook up in a few years (which is apparently how long GMail was in development before release) has little to no correlation to what a government can procure from a systems integrator. Also, I don't recall the calendar being worth much back them. Maybe, maybe, maybe if they hired Google-grade engineers, paid them Google salaries and gave them Google-freedom to work on this, they might be able to pull it off. But that's _a lot_ harder than it sounds.

EDIT:

> do something on its own about securing government communications

It's not hard to secure an email installation - its interface to the internet at large is super small and well understood (SMTP). Most likely NSA grabs the mail they want from outside the installation by sniffing unencrypted network traffic.

A worthwhile effort, and one quite suitable for a government even, is to get people to encrypt their emails.

<comment><USER9> Oh c'mon. The Gmail of 2013 is not _that_ different from the Gmail of 2004 (unless you count Priority Inbox as an advancement).

There's really nothing complex or fancy in developing a bare bones secure email system. And keep in mind these poor souls are using Lotus Notes (!), so it can't get much worse than that.

Also, it's not that it has to be built entirely from scratch. They will likely re-use existing ideas from other systems, and even (licenses permitting) other open source solutions as a starting point.

All in all, I wish we had more governments stepping up against this whole US spying mess. The _real_ long term solution is not to have each government developing their own proprietary email systems, but for the US to be more transparent and stop the illegal spying.

Sadly, this will have to get worse before it gets better. We'll probably watch a few years of increasing distrust and strained relationships, before governments start to come to terms with the US again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> At least, that's an excuse to ditch proprietary solutions. I could back that up. But the source will probably be closed (as the voting machines, for instance), so I don't see any gains there, other than jurisdiction.

It probably won't do much for security though. If anything, vulnerabilities will be more likely. The only thing they've got for it is securing the physical comms. But even if the US (or any other superpower) doesn't compromise them, there are other ways of extracting the data.

And this being SERPRO, they'll likely use cutting edge technologies such as MD5 and DES.

<comment><USER11> > And this being SERPRO, they'll likely use cutting edge technologies such as > MD5 and DES.

Hey, PBKDF1 uses md5. That only puts them a handful of years behind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Apparently this is the software currently being used to replace Outlook: [http://www.expressolivre.org/modules/conteudo/conteudo.php?c...](http://www.expressolivre.org/modules/conteudo/conteudo.php?conteudo=3)

</comment><comment><USER13> Hopefully as this happens more often, the affected companies will start to lobby against the current policies.

<comment><USER14> As we've already seen, US companies have very little leverage against the US government in such "national security" matters. (Same for Chinese companies, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It would be nice if the Brazilian government adopted and helped to improve an existing open source solution (may I recommend Kolab?) instead of falling prey to NIH.

As others have mentioned, PIM is _very difficult_ and if it's done wrong, you end up with metadata leaking across the Internet, security flaws, etc.

If the real issue is with the inability to see the source then open source is better than "Brazilian government"-proprietary, as the NSA could simply hack the source code repository, CIA could plant an insider, the list goes on. You could have someone whose job is to audit the integrity of the archive, but who watches the watchers? With open source the problem is simpler: everyone can watch the source code archive.

</comment><comment><USER16> I would like to see how this turns out considering how miserably the US's Healthcare.gov site has been going. It sounds like the Brazilian govt. is using an internal group (the Federal Data Processing Service [SERPRO]) to do this, while the US sourced the work to a domestic company (CGI Federal.) I've got a gut feeling that Brazil's email system will fare better than our Healthcare.gov site.

Article about SERPRO launching their cloud platform. [http://www.zdnet.com/brazilian-government-launches-own- cloud...](http://www.zdnet.com/brazilian-government-launches-own-cloud- offering-7000020738/)

Some random info about the Healthcare.gov devs: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/09/h...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/09/healthcare- gov-was-originally-built-in-a-garage/)

<comment><USER17> I use the expresso daily, it's not a good platform, lot of limitations! But at least, is a response for the spying. Better than doing nothing! Hope this investment change expresso in a better way!

<comment><USER18> A question from someone that'll probably have to start using it soon: Can you back-up your emails in a way where the central IT of your place can't delete them?

<comment><USER17> Yes. You can use local storage.

<comment><USER18> Thanks, that's a relief. I was afraid there were other reasons to push the system. It's great that I was wrong :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> LOL.... BIG LOL! Only who lives here in Brazil should know that software engineering skills is not the requirement to be accepted in SERPRO team. And, considering the corrupt chain of outsourcing related to most of IT projects here, maybe would be safer for us to stay being spied by NSA and other agencies.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is great. If service providers lose business because of cooperation with the NSA, then it's just a matter of time until those service providers have a compelling reason (Capitalism) that Congress, etc. can get behind.

</comment><comment><USER21> I find it great that my country (Brazil) is not so mindless about technology. I hope that this anti NSA moves sparks an actual development in the industry here.

</comment><comment><USER22> Who created Expresso?

<comment><USER17> It is based in a german project ([http://www.egroupware.org/](http://www.egroupware.org/))

<comment><USER22> Cool. Since they think that project is more secured than MS Outlook, I wonder if the government has requested to audit or not.

<comment><USER18> The (brazilian) government is the maintainer of the software. Why would it require an audit?

<comment><USER11> They are making the claim that they are doing it for security reasons, why wouldn't they want the code audited? A gov't employee could write a backdoor just like a private sector employee.

<comment><USER18> Ok, maybe I should rephrase that.

Who would do an audit?

Because the obvious candidate is Serpro, but they are already developing it. Anyway, it's open source, so if any part of the government (military maybe, ABIN, or some university) thinks that it deserves an audit, it can simply do it, no need for formalization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Spying/backdoor may be a consideration.

<comment><USER24> It literally says that in the first paragraph.</comment></comment>


Famous Micro-App CMS - <AUTHOR> http://famous.co/ <comment><USER2> $31 million dollars and all of the hype in the world and this is the outcome?

I saw Steve Newcomb speak at a JS conf in SF a few years back. It was so ridiculous it was almost surreal. he played Unreal Touranement-esque music the whole time like he was some kind of space god.

<comment><USER3> I was going to reply to your post saying you're thinking of the famo.us animation library thats been on HN a few times but then realized the library has been moved to famous.org and this CMS site is the new Famous? Did this happen recently (and, if true, is indeed quite ridiculous)?

<comment><USER2> Yes I think it just happened this week. Definitely the same company:

"Famous was founded in 2011 and has raised over $31 million dollars from Insight Ventures, Javelin Venture Partners and a host of other leading venture capitalists in the Silicon Valley. It's headquarters are at 188 King Street, PH2 in San Francisco, CA.

The company was founded by Steve Newcomb who was best known for creating Powerset, which was bought by Microsoft and is now Microsoft Bing."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The website literally looks like an ad for Apple products and certainly no "CMS."

It doesn't help that it looks like Apple's website (navbar, colors, etc)

<comment><USER4> It's a poor clone at that. Note the Russian? keyboards on the stock art (in one case, flipped horizontal!).

A bit sad really, it was a nice bit of tech, for all their hubris.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> wow. next they are going to take on consulting gigs on the side? right?</comment>


First, care. - <AUTHOR> http://www.43folders.com/2010/02/05/first-care <comment><USER2> This is also Gary Vaynernchuk's mantra on building a successful business. I truly subscribe to this ideal. This article furthers my belief that caring may indeed be the secret to leading a successful life.

</comment><comment><USER3> Every time I see an article like this pop up somewhere, I first feel like it's beating a dead horse, but then I'm reminded that a lot of people out there don't have passion for what they do or have lost it. Being reminded that passion and caring about what you do leads to inspiration and can be reinvigorating. If 1/10 of these types of articles touches 1 person and affects change, then something good has been done. Thanks for the article and thanks for helping to remind people about passion and how it relates to success and happiness. Cheers

</comment><comment><USER4> Care = passion. And passion is well known as one of the, if not the most important attribute for entrepeneurs. Or anyone wanting to do anything really.

</comment><comment><USER5> Excellent. Universal. Compelling.

If you don't care, you don't do. If you've got something you must do, find a way to care about it in some way. (This is where systems can help; you can check it off the list -- you care about that; etc.</comment>


3D Printer company now accepts bitcoin  - <AUTHOR> http://www.protoparadigm.com/blog/2012/11/now-accepting-bitcoin/

<comment><USER2> Every day news about BTC acceptance! nice sign!</comment>


WordPress Plugin Development: Talking to APIs - <AUTHOR> https://www.curry-software.com/en/blog/wordpress_plugin_development-talking_to_apis/ <comment><USER2> This is a really useful and informative writeup.

However, to me it just highlights a lot of things that Wordpress/PHP is bad at. For one, no mention of testing here (or really hardly anywhere in PHP- land), although keeping the API logic in a separate class is a good idea.

Also, the flexibility/ease of use tradeoff going from wp_remote_get and friends is terrible. It's so frustrating that PHP doesn't have a better general networking solution than "idk, just fork to curl". The Guzzle library helps a lot here, but I don't see a lot of the PHP/WP community embracing it much.

With the current plethora of widely-supported Web development frameworks, I really don't see any reason to use PHP or Wordpress for new projects.

<comment><USER3> > For one, no mention of testing here (or really hardly anywhere in PHP-land), > [...]

In a different life I had to maintain a website based on the Drupal CMS and also one based on the then-popular Laravel PHP framework, and in both environments testing was common and well-supported. As much as I dislike PHP, such a blanket statement does not hold up.

<comment><USER4> Behat is easily one of my favorite test frameworks and PHP, at least since 5.6, is somewhat of a sensible language now.

If you have to build the kind of site that needs to do the things that WordPress does, it's a great choice.

PHP, unfortunately, is never going to get away from the reputation that it earned and some of the choices it's stuck with, but it's a perfectly adequate language to develop web software with and the tooling these days is pretty good.

It's not my choice to use, but I'm happy to use it in a modern context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> With the upcoming gutenberg editor release there will be a lot of changes to the way plugins are written. Expect to see a lot of server side code to be moved to client side (where possible) with react.</comment>


Show HN: Scroll Percentage in Title Bar - <AUTHOR> https://www.knutmelvaer.no/blog/2020/05/how-i-put-the-scroll-percentage-in-the-title-bar/ <comment><USER2> This makes it part of the web page though, which isn't useful. Useful is making it part of the browser itself, perhaps as an extension.</comment>