An attempt to upgrade to Webpack 4 - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/gricard/e8057f7de1029f9036a990af95c62ba8 <comment><USER2> Hello. Webpack team member here. The webpack@4 release was, well, interesting. I can't add much that hasn't already been said - but I can say that we're working to make sure there will never be another webpack release that suffers from the same kind of documentation shortcomings. There's a metric poopton of good stuff in the release, and we're still working to get all of it written down. That said, look for future major releases to be far more proactive than reactive with regard to documentation, announcements, and migration details.

<comment><USER3> Hey thanks for all the hard work!

> _I can say that we 're working to make sure there will never be another > webpack release that suffers from the same kind of documentation > shortcoming_

We still have time to make sure this release has good docs. Please don't give up on it just yet!

Can we make some task issues on github that ask people to document a portion of the code/process?

<comment><USER4> Have a look at this issue [0], I think it covers most of the docs for v4.

[0] [https://github.com/webpack/webpack.js.org/issues/1861](https://github.com/webpack/webpack.js.org/issues/1861)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> IMO, Webpack (and React Router [0]) have been in this weird and honestly toxic place, where there was very little regard held for backwards compatibility and gradual deprecation by the core teams _at first_ , so businesses with larger apps became marooned on previous versions as soon as the first major version change... thereby not contributing their expertise and bug reports (they spent that time fighting against the lack of documentation), and thereby making it even more difficult for the core teams to get feedback on people's real-world migration woes.

It's fair to say that there were problems in the earlier APIs, but if that's the case, make changes gradually, even create an RFP process, tease/market your API change proposals to get feedback from people who might say "this is not something we can adopt easily, but you could add this param for backwards compatibility." It'll take longer to get to an API that feels "perfect," but it makes for a stronger culture.

[0] [https://github.com/ReactTraining/react- router/blob/master/pa...](https://github.com/ReactTraining/react- router/blob/master/packages/react-router/docs/guides/migrating.md)

<comment><USER6> I remember reading of Babel maintainers releasing betas and asking for feedback but not many helped; most just came to complain after the release.

Webpack 4 has been in beta for a while but not enough people tested it on real projects, evidently.

<comment><USER7> > Webpack 4 has been in beta for a while

Perhaps the naming is sending the wrong message? "Beta" sounds incomplete and subject to change; I certainly don't make a habit of introducing betas to serious projects unless there's something in them I'm desperate for.

An extended period of Release Candidate versions could give end users more confidence in adoption. This naming implies that the product is finalised and will be released as-is barring serious bugs. It's a small thing, but maybe giving end users the feeling of being early adopters rather than beta testers could increase uptake in this final critical stage.

<comment><USER8> Or React's way of avoiding major version cliffs seems to have grown out of this problem.

[https://reactjs.org/blog/2016/02/19/new-versioning- scheme.ht...](https://reactjs.org/blog/2016/02/19/new-versioning-scheme.html) (skip to the major versions and avoiding cliffs part)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As someone who has worked with many of the various tools out there, I have a lot of respect for the way the EmberJS team handles upgrades. I personally wish more teams learned from their success. Their mantra is "stability without stagnation." While it is not perfect, the team appears to try hard to move the framework forward without breaking backwards compatibility. When it comes to a major release, I.e. the just released 3.0, the team released no new features, but rather just removed the features that had been depreciated in earlier releases.

Like or hate Ember as a framework, the team has developed some very good release processes and practices a lot of us could learn from.

</comment><comment><USER10> According to Webpack's donation site, [https://opencollective.com/webpack](https://opencollective.com/webpack), the creator of Webpack, "Sokra," made $44,164 off of Webpack development in 2017 (and $9,000 so far in 2018).

We're in a new world of sustainable open source software development, enabled by services like Patreon and this one.

Maybe it's petty, but as someone who works on several open source projects without reimbursement, I hope that such "hefty" funding leads to better documentation, better community support, and cleaner upgrade paths. Webpack is notoriously fickle and confusing when it comes to configuration, and at a glance Webpack 4 doesn't seem to have helped with that. Although I certainly appreciate performance improvements.

Can I request that funds be diverted into community support and enforcing clean writing across documentation pages? That's what Webpack needs most, and has always needed, by far over any core API changes.

<comment><USER7> > the creator of Webpack, "Sokra," made $44,164 off of Webpack development in > 2017

While I certainly welcome this new trend I wouldn't exactly call sub-45k "hefty". That's far below what the author could presumably make working for one of the big shops, and doesn't exactly leave much to "divert" if the author has any plans to pay rent, buy food, etc.

As stated it's a great and promising trend, but I wouldn't be too hasty in calling for the author to start redistributing a fairly minimal income. That's barely enough for one person, let alone "staff".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is it weird that I miss gulp and even grunt sometimes? Webpack does some really cool stuff with basic configuration, but gives me a scary black box feeling, like if it really wanted to it could stop working and I would be unable to fix it. I never got the same feeling with gulp/grunt, maybe the bulky config files give a sense of control.

<comment><USER12> > _gives me a scary black box feeling, like if it really wanted to it could > stop working and I would be unable to fix it_

This was verbatim my thinking when evaluating Vue 2 a while back. Its reliance on Webpack or Browserify for optimal use really gave me pause. I could just see myself losing days trying to figure out which bit got flipped to stop its working.

Vue 2 was new at the time as well, so I wasn't sure about adoption, ecosystem, and/or the maintainers' committment. Looking back, I would've rolled the dice. But, all of this to say glad I'm not alone in that black boxes give me pause in a world where everyone seems to rush headlong into the next big thing, ceding ever more control.

<comment><USER13> > _Its reliance on Webpack or Browserify for optimal use really gave me > pause._

Mind elaborating on what you mean by "for optimal use"? For example, I use Brunch with Vue 2 and it seems to work fine.

<comment><USER14> There is no complete stand-alone Vue SFC compiler; every SFC compiler is written as a plugin for a specific bundler. The 3 official implementations are the Webpack, Browserify, and Rollup plugins. There's no significant code- sharing between them (and I'm _sure_ there are no subtle differences that will bite you), and the Browserify and Rollup plugins can lag months behind the Webpack one--they still don't support functional SFCs, which were added in Vue 2.5.0 back in October.

So, how does vue-brunch work? It declares the Browserify plugin as a dependency, and wraps it.

<comment><USER12> Exactly this. And Rollup wasn't available (or at least well-publicized) when I was evaluating about a year ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Another major version was again released? Seems like literally just a few months ago when, just after upgrading my team's codebase to Webpack 2, Webpack 3 came out.

Why do front-end application frameworks (e.g. Angular, and even React) and build tools constantly feel the need to reinvent what they just reinvented? Don't people (users and developers alike) recognize and tire of the churn?

Stepping back though, a thread like this appears on HN at least once every few months, so I guess this is just par for the course.

<comment><USER16> Because they learn from mistakes and can make it better the next time! That happens everywhere; except JS world (at least with npm) is very, very new (relatively speaking). Also now there are many more devs than when the _older_ languages came out, so the experimentation is a lot wider.

<comment><USER17> > Because they learn from mistakes and can make it better the next time!

Well, except seemingly learning from the mistakes made when introducing breaking changes.

I not being a cynical jerk bashing on WebPack in particular here. I use it every day and am grateful for its existance, and look forward to the point where migrating to version 4 is going to be relatively painless, at which point I'll actually give that another try.

But on the whole, it's like nobody in the JS world seems to learn from the mistakes of other JS projects and they have to make them again themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I know that this is tongue in cheek , but shouldn't we give the maintainers time to solve the documentation before we start complaining too much? The changes they are making seems to make sense to me. They are adopting patterns that the community uses and provide solutions to hacks that have emerged from real needs. Webpack was in my opinion already simple, and it's getting simpler every release. I can't imagine the horrible mess I would have if I went back to gulp.

<comment><USER19> Just like git tags, release notes, makefiles, etc ... Documentation is one of those things that needs to be updated as part of a new release.

<comment><USER18> Yes, it could have been handled better. I guess you need to consider whether it's best to let newcomers in on the v4 goodness or to avoid aliating users of v3. The pragmatic approach is to at least mention somewhere that v3 users should wait on upgrading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I keep telling myself: "embrace changes. an upgrade is great; new defaults are cool; performance improvements are great; just do it; just do it".

Yeah.

One day.

PS. I do miss the days when you can just read a book and `man` your way around the dev environment.

<comment><USER15> I think your ideal exists in backend/SRE roles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Author of the gist here. Please don't take this as me complaining about webpack 4 in any way. This was me detailing my process of migrating to the webpack 4 BETA in order to provide feedback to the webpack team, and potentially help anyone else out who got stuck on a few things like I did.

They're updating the documentation. Webpack is awesome and v4 is a great update and I highly recommend people try it out.

<comment><USER22> I think that this style of blog/info dump is really, really useful and speaks to how I have spent many, many weekends.

Even though I don't really use much JS, I still got a real kick out of reading this.

<comment><USER21> Haha. Thanks! I am trying to do this more, just for personal notes about projects. It makes it easier to go back later and remember what the pitfalls were.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've used Webpack on and off since v2 and I'm still no fan.

If I'm being honest, there's been times that it's perhaps been the worst dev experience I've endured in the last decade.

Can we use Parcel as a replacement yet?

<comment><USER24> Sure, but since your experience is not configuring anything, how are you going to know what it's actually doing to your code. And what are the tradeoffs? Seems like many don't have this answer because they don't have good archetectural reasons for choosing it.

<comment><USER25> For what it's worth, my experience with Parcel so far has been a show stopping bug that makes CSS Modules unusable with it, was quite difficult to diagnose (as with any bug in a dependency, I spent yonks looking at my own codebase), and has so far gone un-fixed.

[https://github.com/parcel- bundler/parcel/issues/378](https://github.com/parcel- bundler/parcel/issues/378)

I don't see how this is really possible given the relatively high usage level of CSS Modules, but whatever. I'm forced to stick with Webpack for the time being.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Haha, pretty much my life every 3 months. Welcome to the new world of frontend development.

Luckily the bad also comes with the good. Adding and upgrading components off npm in a webpack project is almost always a breeze.

<comment><USER27> Another option is to wait just a couple of months to upgrade, so you give time to the library developers to put their s __* together, fix bugs, and write some documentation.

At the end, from all the features your users could care about, your webpack version is not one of them.

<comment><USER28> > Another option is to wait just a couple of months to upgrade

I did that when webpack 3 was released and now I'm two versions behind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> PS: I submitted this response also in Reddit for those who come across it twice. It's not meant to be disingenuous (as I'll likely respond to individual comments also), just meant to show what our statement is.

Hi all,

We appreciate the feedback. So whether you care to know or not I'll explain where we stand as a project for our docs.

So in this major release we want to try different ways to impact as many users as possible. So this time we consiously put priority on working directly with framework and tooling authors like angular, react, preact, vue to ensure they were unblocked on implementing v4.

With this we decided: since plugins and loaders will also need time, we will give them a month and release our final version without breaking changes from RC. However I as a maintainer orchestrating all of our separate ecosystem, docs, and teams didn't realise we had been behind on contributions and work from our docs and when the 30 day window elapsed v4 shipped as promise.

To not hold back v4 with docs is an organizational and communication error on my part and maybe even a side-effect of juggling my full-time job at Microsoft and the 120-140 hours I spend a month on webpack.

I'm more then willing to own this, and for anyone frustrated, its on me and I'm sorry. However we grow and improve after any mistakes we make. So, we have some takeaways that we will build on for our next Major Release.

A complete migration guide will be a primary shipping dependency for any future Major version of webpack going here forward. We learned that instead of focusing on frameworks as heavily to provide impact and upgrade paths, (which not have all done this yet), that instead focusing on content accessible to everyone is a far more impactful result. For now, we have the PR pending for our docs upgrade and I'll likely spend the majority of my free time ensuring we have it ready to release as soon as possible. Thank you all for being reasonable and patient with this.

Major version releases like webpack 4 are much less likely to happen. This major release included the rewrite in our plugin system, which is the cause of incompatible loaders and plugins. We have no plans to rewrite it again as it is exactly where we need it to be in terms of performance, capabilities, etc. Therefore, look to most future Major versions to be less severe and impactful to loaders and plugins.

I plan to spend much more focus on ensuring all of our separate teams are communicating for releases by coordinating all hands ship meetings. This ensures that we are on the same page and everyone is aware what each team has a dependency on.

We actually only do have one full time engineer. And have attempted to fully fund a documentation team to work on it full time! It takes a considerable amount of effort to do right. And so thanks for understanding while we continue to work on it. Contributions are always welcome along with constructive feedback.

Regardless, we appreciate as always support the positive comments we've seen here but also the actionable criticisms. It probably sounds redundant but we really stress the high bar and expectations that are set for us in the ecosystem as so many of you rely on webpack to ship your products and solutions to the web. We will keep on improving as we have since 2012 and hope you all continue to help us along the way.

Sean + webpack Team (@TheLarkInn)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Sean.

I certainly didn't mean to bring you down or disparage the work of the webpack team/project in anyway. For me, the way the gist itself was written was just too funny.

Anyways, thank you for all your hard work.

<comment><USER24> I honestly don't feel you did! In fact this gist we actually had from a contributor kind enough to document his experience so we could identify exactly what hot path migration would look like for users. So we were really happy to have this gist created. And we have it tied to our docs PR/issues :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> There's a big webpack 4 documentation update PR in the pipeline: [https://github.com/webpack/webpack.js.org/pull/1856](https://github.com/webpack/webpack.js.org/pull/1856)

</comment><comment><USER30> Went through this exact process last week. Did they really need to remove CommonsChunkPlugin? Feels like breaking stuff for a slightly nicer API. If this were React we would've had a deprecation warning for a few versions.

<comment><USER4> > If this were React we would've had a deprecation warning for a few versions.

If this were React, you would have got docs with a release.

Choosing to release before documentation is done, for a tool developers are supposed to use as a black box, which has a lot of strange configuration that is required, is a really strange choice for something with so many breaking changes.

<comment><USER18> They haven't released webpack 4 yet.

<comment><USER4> They have [0][1] ("beta" was dropped from the v4 releases at v4.0.0), and are actually in the process of updating the documentation [2]. It's just odd to do that after a release.

[0] [https://www.npmjs.com/package/webpack](https://www.npmjs.com/package/webpack)

[1] [https://github.com/webpack/webpack/releases](https://github.com/webpack/webpack/releases)

[2] [https://github.com/webpack/webpack.js.org/pull/1905](https://github.com/webpack/webpack.js.org/pull/1905)

<comment><USER18> Whoops, guess it's a good idea to check things before blurting something out. In that case I'm not sure what's best, to let newcomers in on the new goodies of v4 or to avoid confusing previous users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The upgrade seemed relatively straightforward with the release blog post. Really, it's the fact that many plug-ins will have to be updated that is holding the upgrade back, but that's not _that_ much of a problem: I've simply documented the status of each [0], am following the respective issues/preparing to submit PRs myself if needed, and am meanwhile remaining on v3.

[0] [https://gitlab.com/Flockademic/Flockademic/issues/306#note_6...](https://gitlab.com/Flockademic/Flockademic/issues/306#note_60571871)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> So I found this gist as I was googling for my webpack error. Originally was trying to get the uglify plugin to work. Then I said screw uglify and STILL couldn't get it work.

I gave up and ended up using Rollbar.

</comment><comment><USER32> OK, so faster builds—and what else? Why not wait until documentation catches up and spare yourself the trouble?

<comment><USER21> Because I was just trying it out? Are you saying it's wrong to test a beta and provide feedback to the authors?

<comment><USER32> Sure, that's perfectly fine. I interpreted your original post as a public warning or complaint to other users. You've updated the Gist since then with a big disclaimer, so perhaps I wasn't the only one.

More broadly, I often see developers stay on the cutting edge when they don't have a security or feature need to, then complain about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Stop guessing start learning. It sounds like the person doesn't understand what each configuration command does.

<comment><USER21> I'm the author of the gist. You're exactly right. This was me guessing when I didn't understand the configuration options, because this was my attempt at learning the BETA of webpack 4 without the new docs available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Angular, brunch, babel, webpack. While not limited exclusively to the JS community, it seems that much of the JS community especially does not care about backwards compatibility or long term support. Piling on new features and re-architecting everything with every major version number, and sometimes even with minor version numbers, seems to have taken over actually creating and maintaining useful products to the detriment of all software that uses such products. Now we end up with software that's dependent on literally un- upgradable components that are no longer supported and in some cases do not even get security patches. With certain breakages, the software cannot be built at all. Perhaps it might not be a bad idea for open source developers to include a small section in their documentation that details their intended philosophy for the future of the software. That way, people don't get duped into using software written by teams that plan to abandon it completely (I'm looking at Angular here) or partially (everything else).</comment>


Mask Up and Shut Up - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/wear-your-mask-and-stop-talking/615796/ <comment><USER2> It would be nice to have actual trials that show that masks are effective at reducing transmission (transmission, not stuff like reduced droplet emission etc).

This BMJ blog post[1] argues (and I agree) that if we're able to make trials for drugs, why not for non-drug interventions? Note that it is not against such interventions, but suggests we do trials to better direct public policy.

[1] [https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/08/28/margaret-mccartney- we-n...](https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/08/28/margaret-mccartney-we-need- better-evidence-on-non-drug-interventions-for-covid-19/#content)</comment>


Don't Talk to Cops - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik <comment><USER2> Any chance the US law will ever be fixed so that people can't be easily arrested over anything, really? There's also this mini-doc that's related to this:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBiJB8YuDBQ></comment>


Ask HN: Need a new wordpress theme for my personal blog - <AUTHOR>

Need some help in the search for a good wordpress theme with great typography, affordable price and some good features. More or less, a well designed theme for a personal blog.<p>Thanks for any help! <comment><USER2> Have you searched <http://themeforest.com>?

<comment><AUTHOR> of course, haven't found anything that great</comment></comment>


Show HN: Pathfinder – Routing as a service - <AUTHOR> https://pathfinder.readme.io/blog/pathfinder-now-in-public-beta <comment><USER2> Genuine candid question : why use this when we have more established solutions like Graphhopper[0], the OSRM Project[1] or Open Trip Planner[2] among others ?

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

[1] [http://project-osrm.org/](http://project-osrm.org/)

[2] [http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenTripPlanner](http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenTripPlanner)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the question! I'll admit I have limited knowledge about those services, but I believe they solve a slightly different problem. Pathfinder's primary use is services that have N drivers that can service any of M transportation requests.

The GraphHopper and OSRM Matrix APIs are closer to what Pathfinder does, however they do not assign route segments to vehicles. Pathfinder is perhaps one abstraction layer over them.

<comment><USER3> What are you using for calculating the time or distances between the services? (Edit: okay, saw another comment stating you are using Google Matrix API)

Basically you need a distance matrix for your vehicle routing problem.

BTW: the GraphHopper Directions API uses jsprit to solve VRP etc problems: [https://graphhopper.com/#os-comparison](https://graphhopper.com/#os- comparison)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> LOL, I thought this was going to be some sort Angular/React/Etc routing as a service thing!!

<comment><USER5> Ha, I thought it was packet switched network routing as a service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I understand it's a beta, but no pages on pricing?

This would be an API I would build my business around. No way I would touch it without an idea of how much it will cost me once it exits beta.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Cameron,

I understand your concern. At this point, we have no plans to charge for Pathfinder. Furthermore, if you're concerned about future viability of the API, all of our code is MIT-licensed at [https://github.com/csse497](https://github.com/csse497) so it can be self hosted.

<comment> wc- What is your plan for long term profitability if you have no plans to charge for this? I am nervous building tech around a free service that may either transition to a deal-breaking price (google app engine) or may disappear entirely due to the business going under.

<comment><USER7> It looks like it's open source with an MIT License, so at least you should have the option to self host.

[https://github.com/CSSE497](https://github.com/CSSE497)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> A bit unfair ... they stole _our_ phrase "routing as a service" !1! ;)

[https://twitter.com/graphhopper](https://twitter.com/graphhopper)

</comment><comment><USER8> I haven't dug around the code much but I assume this is using "As the Crow Flies" distances between points? I don't see any references to OSM or street network data.

<comment><AUTHOR> We tried out "as the crow flies", OSM with the OSRM Distance Matrix API, and the Google Maps Distance Matrix API. We're currently using Google API although we may switch back to OSRM for scaling purposes.

<comment><USER3> For an open source project using OSM services might be wise not only scaling- wise :)

See 10.4 c) iv) "No asset-tracking unless you have purchased the applicable Maps for Work license." [https://developers.google.com/maps/terms#10-license- restrict...](https://developers.google.com/maps/terms#10-license-restrictions)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> eric-hanson Hey, I noticed that I need to sign into google to make an account. Does this require a google account?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Eric,

At the moment, we only support Google SignIn for creating accounts. We will certainly support more options in the future, but up until now we've been spending most of our time building our routing and api servers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> TSPaaS?

<comment><AUTHOR> As catchy as that is, KVRPaaS would be more appropriate.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_routing_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_routing_problem)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to build a personal database for creative work - <AUTHOR> Hello HN,
I'm a film/VFX person and I've come to realize over the years that one of the most important things for me to finish a job properly is organisation. Yet more and more I've realised that no one is really offering a tool that can help me organize the vast amounts of information that I get from the Web and want to keep for later inspiration in my creative work.
Right now I use:
Pinterest for visual stuff Pinboard for links
Simplenote for my own notetaking
All of this is labelled and organised, within its own platform. But there is no ONE platform that allows me to have all of this organised and searching through all 3 or 4 of them is hard. Not even to mention how many iPhone photos I have
Let's say for instance I want to make a short Film with some VFX work on it.
I need:
Celtx or Final Draft where I'll write the screenplay Pinterest/instagram where I might look for inspiration for the VFX/locations/look
I might see things on the street and take iPhone photos
I'll use pinboard web links
I am visual guy, do some HTML/CSS and branching out into other languages. Now because this issue is getting worse and worse for me I'm starting to think that I might need to learn MySQL or something similar.
The idea of relational databases for my work seems very powerful. I need something that combines the power of Simplenote/Pinterest/Pinboard into one consolidated Platform.
I imagine this might take me 1/2 years to figure out, I'm fine with that. But considering the vast knowledge of the HN crowd, can anyone think of a better solution for this? Am I on the right Track?  Does anyone have a better suggestion on what I could do?
Cheers <comment><USER2> I have plans on how to build such a rich media mindmap, it's a path many have gone down and usually get stuck on minutiae.

I don't really think such a thing exists yet, every implementation is either targeted to a specific need or is very technical -- which does make sense due to the possible complexity of a general solution.

My clue to you is you need a format that:

* Is not locked into a single platform

* Can link to other data

* Can refer to binary types

* Is human-readable

* Can be viewed by timeline (contains a timestamp)

My design so far is to use YAML-fronted markdown with a hierarchical namespaced real-word naming scheme that includes URL+hash to link binaries. This can use the local filesystem or be loaded into a graph database.

If this sounds like what someone is interested in building please contact me.

</comment><comment><USER3> Airtable might need some work on the rich media front but it's a start for making the idea of relational databases accessible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow! This just blew me away. Very VERY close to what I was thinking. Going to try this now.

<comment><USER4> Cofounder of Airtable here. Video production is a common use case for us! Here's some relevant community-generated templates: [https://airtable.com/universe/category/creative- production](https://airtable.com/universe/category/creative-production)

<comment><USER4> Also this page links to some in-depth case studies about how it's used: [https://airtable.com?try=videoproduction](https://airtable.com?try=videoproduction)

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you. You have a great product there. I'm sure a lot of design/film production studios were looking for this. Right now managing a design studio usually means 3/4 platforms. Your platform has a real chance to take over that field.

If I can offer a suggestion, take a look into ftrack and try to copy some of their core featureset (unless maybe you can already do that, in which case just make a template! ).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Try out Milanote! Might be exactly what you're looking for.

[https://www.milanote.com/](https://www.milanote.com/)

<comment><USER6> Another vote for Milanote here ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am having a lot of trouble wrapping my brain around the exact use case here. But, I am wondering if something like a private BlogSpot blog would serve your needs.

You can add links and photos. You can get a Blogger App and potentially use that directly from your phone to make notes and/or post your photos from your phone. You can add labels to posts. Etc.

I have a OneNote account. I never use it. I have some other big name note taking account. I rarely use it and haven't logged in for ages.

But I have multiple private BlogSpot blogs to track various categories of information. Of all the things I have tried, that has worked best for me for organizing information in a way that works for me and is accessible from any device.

</comment><comment><USER8> You might find some interesting leads in previous HN discussions around systems for note taking and organizing personal knowledge. For example search for 'personal knowledge' keywords lists this project as top hit: [http://www.acuriousmix.com/2014/09/03/designing-a- personal-k...](http://www.acuriousmix.com/2014/09/03/designing-a-personal- knowledgebase/)

Please post your findings here if you discover interesting answers.

<comment><USER9> Or, you know, OneNote will do this amazingly well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm all of it? Does it have grids for photos?

<comment><USER9> Can you show me an example of what you mean?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> you should look into Digital Asset Management.

[http://tacticopensource.com/community/](http://tacticopensource.com/community/)

[http://invenio-software.org/](http://invenio-software.org/)

or

[https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=digital+asset+man...](https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=digital+asset+management&type=)

</comment><comment><USER11> Try [https://scrapbox.io/](https://scrapbox.io/) Disclaimer: I work for nota, the company of Gyazo and Scrapbox.

</comment><comment><USER12> It sounds like what you're describing is something like Adobe Bridge but an online version of it and additional features to clip images from the web.

<comment><AUTHOR> Something richer. Take a look at the web app Notion. it's pretty close, but it still has the problem of having to upload everything into their platform all the time.

A rich media pinboard is my idea. I love pinboard, but it needs to allow for visual search, that way you could store and later search for images with it as well. It would also need to absorb my iPhone photos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I suggest you give Zenkit a try.

[https://zenkit.com/](https://zenkit.com/)</comment>


Selling My Papers - <AUTHOR> https://theamericanscholar.org/selling-my-papers/ <comment><USER2> "... one can either live life or curate it, not both."</comment>


Why Does the American Media Get Big Stories Wrong? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/why-does-the-american-media-get-big-stories-wrong/276454/ <comment><USER2> Media is wrong? No. Perhaps the following lines put it succinctly.

"When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth." - Steve Jobs

Guess, we have to do away with "when you're young" part now. Internet keeps us young.

<comment><USER3> "We do X, because people want X" is the stupidest argument I've ever heard. The funny thing is, those arguments are always coming from CEOs making X.

How about we were made to like that, because CEOs of X can optimize their profits? But ok, everybody can tell me now that people can make their own choice. In fact, they can't.

IT'S THE TRUTH.

(btw ending a thought with "it's the truth" is yet another incredible stupid thing...oh boy)

<comment><USER4> They didn't create a group of people who wanted unbalanced press coverage of events in line with their own viewpoints.

In British print media there is a whole range of right wing, middle and left wing newspapers. They all have a readership, and they all serve that readerships requirements. None of them created their readers thirst for leftist spin, or right wing shock - it exists and so they sell to it.

Often times the left and right wing extremes are owned by the same parent company. They don't care what we want, as long as we buy it from them.

<comment><USER3> Yes, you're right, but I think what you're describing is the current situation. It doesn't say anything about how we got there in the first place.

For me this process is compareable to education of children. If you let your child drink coke instead of water, it will do so. But since we're good parents, we don't allow that, do we?

Btw, this whole argumentation isn't restricted to media. E.g. clothing companies: they want to make us believe, we want our stuff from Bangladesh, where the mortality is significantly higher in a cloth company than anywhere else?

So you're saying there are groups of people here who want this?

I just refuse to believe that.

In the end I'm not the one who makes a fortune of all this, so I'm not willing to take the responsibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> (1) The 'news' is bait for the ad hook. (2) Good bait needs to get attention. (3) The ancient Greeks discovered that a sure-fire way to get and hold the attention of an audience was to use the techniques we now call 'formula fiction'. (4) The news is staffed heavily by humanities majors well acquainted with formula fiction. (5) The news, in order to get attention, is really mostly just light entertainment based on the techniques of formula fiction. (6) The old idea that a free press was to help create an "informed citizenry" as needed for a good democracy rarely competes with the approach of light entertainment. (7) There is more information available, but long "the medium is the message" held true -- that is, when have just a few major news outlets, those outlets go for the mass audience and omit special interests, the long tail, details, etc. and just stick with their light entertainment. (8) With the Internet, there are millions of 'outlets' so that we can be on the way to much more information beyond just light entertainment.

For the OP, for the light entertainment based on the techniques of formula fiction, getting details, facts, etc. correct was not very important. This is not new: There is an Andy Hardy movie from the 1930s that has Andy laughing at the poor accuracy of the news. The audiences for that movie in the 1930s were quite prepared to laugh at newspapers. For anyone with the discipline of a good STEM background, news is outrageously bad and irresponsible junk.

</comment><comment><USER6> "American Media" is only a label for the most prominent examples, I.E. the "Mainstream" we all keep hearing about. Elsewhere, many of these stories were picked up early, however these days, The Media has an "over-the-shoulder" syndrome in which they keep looking at what others are doing and try to beat them at the ratings.

There's also a prevailing trend to crowdsource journalism E.G. CNN's iReport. And we can see the results of the unfiltered variety with that Reddit misidentified bomber debacle. Lesser controversies easily slip through without much backlash.

This is nothing new, of course. The soapboxes are now digital and the speaking trumpets are in geosynchronous orbit.

</comment><comment> brown9-2 _Surveying stories as diverse as the Soviet spies that infiltrated the U.S. government during the Cold War, the bankruptcy of Enron, the anthrax attacks of 2001, the run-up to the Iraq War, and the Vioxx scandal, he points out that major news organizations have repeatedly missed or inexplicably ignored newsworthy facts and events of the utmost significance._

It will always be possible to pick certain stories or facts that "the media" have missed - because the world of "facts" is so large and no organization could always be either right about everything or omniscient. The world we live in is large and many things happen in it, and most of them are not easily (or even possibly) discoverable.

This sort of critique seems like it would ignore the fact that there are some stories that "the media" would have gotten "right", whatever that means.

You will always be able to find things that were missed.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's not "American Media". It's "Media". The issue is worlwide.

<comment><USER8> I think the US faces some distinctive problems - in particular, the rest of the world has not seen the same kind of collapse of quality local reporting that lies behind the Bell, CA example he gives.

<comment><USER7> _(citation needed)_

Reporting is awful everywhere and at any scale.

Media's job is no longer to spread information, but to create opinion. They're not mass informative media, they're mass propaganda tools.

That's why they lack quality: their goal is fulfilled even if their quality as informative media is very low.

<comment><USER8> > (citation needed)

I can recommend, despite the paywall, Michael Massing's 2009 piece, 'A New Horizon for News' on what happened to the US news business: [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/sep/24/a-new-h...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/sep/24/a-new- horizon-for-the-news)

As for the situation outside the US, I have close knowledge only of the UK (where there has been a decline in print news, but not comparable), and Germany (which is generally very healthy, not to say I can't complain about it at length). What I hear about print news reporting in France, Italy, and Japan is more positive than negative.

> Media's job is no longer to spread information, but to create opinion.

I think this is oversimplifying and rather cynical. Much TV news is like this, but much print reporting and some for-web reporting (Bloomberg, Reuters) is informational in intent. I don't particularly enjoy reading the New York Times, say, their attempt to render stories in accessible terms tends to rub me up the wrong way, but I admire the scope and ambition of their straight news reporting. And they bring a lot of news to light.

What's the alternative? What would the world be like if we only got the kind of news from Fox News and weblogs, and nothing from news teams like those of the NYT.

<comment><USER9> "What's the alternative? What would the world be like if we only got the kind of news from Fox News and weblogs, and nothing from news teams like those of the NYT."

It would probably look a lot like news.google.com. I extensively customize my sources and I get a lot of Reuters, BBC, stuff like that. When I see infotainment articles, I filter it out at the source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here's my hypothesis -- The US Media gets things wrong because the news really isn't relevant. So errors of either commission or omission don't really matter -- sure, the occasional journalist resigns (e.g. Dan Rather after W's National Guard story) or someone goes to jail. Certainly the story is relevant to them, but not to the rest of us.

In most cases, when the story breaks, it's already over. And when a lesson can be drawn from it, it's usually the wrong one (e.g. "they hate us for our freedoms") but that's decided by the propagandists.

You might rightfully ask, "what about stories whose outcomes remain undecided, e.g. Syria? I doubt the outcome, or at least how the US will act, is undecided. But we're not likely to learn about such decisions until after they've been implemented, unless someone really needs to stick their finger in the wind before acting.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't know how relevant this is to the american media, but here in small european countries, media corruption is rampant: government agencies (in particular ministries) bribe newspapers and magazines with expensive ads in order to avoid the (rightfully) bad press and possibly investigative journalism.

<comment><USER12> I live in a small European country (Denmark) and I'm not aware of this behaviour. Do you have more specifics?

<comment><USER13> I would guess (based on wild and unsubstantiated assertions on my part) that parent is referring to eastward European countries such as the Balkans.

<comment><USER14> Or The Guardian in the UK, which almost exclusively carries local government and civil service jobs.

Obviously even this won't work with a Conservative (led) government.

<comment><USER12> Are you simultaneously arguing the Guardian is bribed by the government and that the UK is a "small country"?

<comment><USER14> Only the former. If it wasn't for government ads and Autotrader (owned by the parent group) it would have folded long ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> American conservatives adopting chomskian media analysis? What's going on here?

</comment><comment><USER16> _the American people, who want the media to rally around officials in times of crisis_

Bah. Speak for yourself, Atlantic Magazine. (Especially during manufactured crises...)

<comment><USER17> Of course he doesn't mean _every single American_ \- he's making a generalization. But kindly note that in the weeks after 9/11, fully three quarters of Americans supported a military engagement against countries that harbored terrorists - even, explicitly, if thousands of innocent civilians of those countries would be killed.

<comment><USER18> _...fully three quarters of Americans supported a military engagement against countries that harbored terrorists..._

The problem is that Iraq wasn't one of those countries, but the media mostly supported President Cheney's^h^h^h^h Bush's desire to invade anyway.

The American media is also hugely biased when it comes to reporting casualties too... every American soldier's death was and continues to be noted, but the huge number of soldiers with severe injuries is rarely counted, and the enormous number of local civilians and soldiers killed and injured are hardly mentioned at all. Aside from military families who know what's really going on, American warfare is presented to Americans as if it was just another one of our action movies. That's why we seem so ignorant about our impact on the world.

<comment><USER16> "Seem"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> That headline makes me cringe. Media is the plural of medium, they do things, they don't does things.

<comment><USER20> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_noun>

<comment><USER19> "Media" isn't a collective noun, in the same way that "apples" isn't a collective noun. It's the plural form of "medium".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I dont think the media "gets it wrong", although they do endemically, I think that media is reflective of ourselves.

If we dont see a threat, we dont react. If we dont see a threat the media wont react to it either.

This can operate in reverse, if we see a threat but the govt tells us its not a threat, the media will try to soothe our anxiety.

Maybe what the media fears is being drowned out by the mill of a thousand voices, none of which have any credibility, and so they follow the "dont throw pearls to swine" rule of not getting in the way and wasting their breath.

In the world of Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Jesse Ventura, Rand Paul, who wants to hear facts?

The "media" as we call it, is adjusting to the ability of our collective digestive tract to consume what they have to say.

And their adjustment is to say screw it. Its just (expletive ommitted)</comment>


UN Integration under the spotlight - <AUTHOR> http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94647 <comment><AUTHOR> Introductory paragraph from the article.

> _Putting all UN operations in a country under a single management structure > is not as simple as it might sound. In some countries, different parts of > the UN may be negotiating with rebels to allow the delivery of humanitarian > aid, while their colleagues might be involved in planning military assaults > against the very same groups._

Some people here work in massive organisations. I'm interested if they ever feel a bit like they're simultaneously "making deals with rebels" and "planning military raids on those rebels".</comment>


Why XP is like a Bunsen burner - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/spannermans-edublog/2011/04/why-xp-is-like-a-bunsen-burner/index.htm <comment><USER2> I am sorry but I just don't agree. The bunsen burner has never been replaced because it design is simple and it does the intended job perfectly. In the same way a ruler,pair of compasses or scissors are not going to go away.

Windows XP on the other hand won't be around in 20 years time. More likely students will be using small touch screen devices.</comment>


Network professionally like a game-just in youth style for youth - <AUTHOR> http://iampupilar.com/landing-page/student/desktop.html <comment><AUTHOR> Upset by how the whole graduates hiring system works, not getting the right exposure and right job opportunity I just wish for a solution where I could actually connect to people of my age group- young minds and connect to them absolutely in professional way. Yah, students/youth version of LinkedIn one may say.

But, I wish to build this in young mind perspective, youthful and exciting to seek job and talk about careers. So I took advantage of this quarantine, made a team, and now I am in my idea validation stage. We made a landing page, but don't know where to post it :). Also, due to Covid 19 I am unable to visit location of a specific community I want to begin with. Now, I'm unsure how to do idea validation online, please give me your insights</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best keyword tool for AdWords? - <AUTHOR>

Wordstream? Wordtracker? Something else? <comment><USER2> I have been recently using "Market Samurai" and "Keyword Elite". Both have strengths. I am leaning towards market samurai because of its ability to filter on "seo competition", "seo value" and other data. this makes it easy for me to narrow a large list of keywords down to ones that are valuable but can still attain reasonable ranking for.

</comment><comment><USER3> I work for SpyFu. We can get you interesting keywords since we know what everybody's buying. I'm not too familiar with other tools TBH, but am pretty sure Wordstream take more of a similar words approach. So both can yield good ideas. Also Google's keyword generator is very good although they have somewhat of a conflict of interest, at least in the short term to get you to buy words that are profitable for them rather than you.

I also recommend not broad matching, and just using the words you specifically pick. Stay away from short terms, i.e. "backup" and go for one's like "complete backup". Also, don't use the content network for things you want people to take action on. If people are taking action, they're much more likely searching than browsing a page and clicking adsense. There are exceptions like video games and appeals to do other leisurely things in which the content network is actually better. Think about your users and where you're likely to find them. :)</comment>


Hello Mesos - <AUTHOR> http://porterjamesj.github.io/2014/11/15/hello-mesos.html <comment><USER2> I for one would love some help with making our docs a bit better for sure.

<comment><USER3> We're working on some video tutorials. How can we make the content easier to understand?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How a real AI might be used as a weapon - <AUTHOR>

When comparing a real (singularity) AI with the invention of other technologies (i.e. nuclear power) - its use as a weapon is probably inevitable. How do you imagine an AI beeing used within a international conflict.
I just read some pro/con pieces about a singularity AI and the discussion feels a lot like utopia vs. end of the world ... ;-)
Your thoughts? <comment><USER2> There's a whole book out recently on superintelligence risks:

[http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199678112.do](http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199678112.do)</comment>


Opera confirms support for WebKit vendor prefixes - <AUTHOR> http://www.netmagazine.com/news/opera-confirms-webkit-prefix-usage-121923

<comment><USER2> This is a good thing, and there is basically no way around it.

There is a varying degree of a WebKit monoculture on mobile. Without great site compatibility, users will never successfully switch to a non-webkit browser, but currently much of the great mobile content out there assumes webkit prefixes and userAgent. So Opera, Mozilla, and MS basically need to adopt some of the mobile webkit properties in order to get compatibility, in order to get users. It's either that or advocacy wherein we try to get every site ever to not publish with just WebKit prefixes. But in reality, this advocacy effort has been underway already for over two years and we're still in this bad situation.

Look at the chart linked to from [http://paulirish.com/2012/vendor-prefixes- are-not-developer-...](http://paulirish.com/2012/vendor-prefixes-are-not- developer-friendly/) When IE10 comes out (or it's complementary mobile browser), less than 25% of all sites that use CSS transitions will have them working in IE10.

Vendor prefixes are bad for us as developers and they're bad for browsers because it leads to situations like these. We'd be in a better situation without them.

BTW, one detail that wasn't really covered: I believe this change is localized to Opera's mobile browsers. Their desktop story is, I think, unchanged.

(All the above is a personal opinion and not that of my employer, yadda yadda)

<comment><USER3> Is vendor prefixing really worse than UA sniffing Paul? Your employer is one of the worst offenders of the latter (not blaming you). Maps, for example, falls back to a very primitive version in Firefox Mobile despite it being perfectly capable of rendering the more advanced site.

My attitude is that if you don't want to test on anything other than Safari Mobile and Android Browser then fine, don't test, but let the site degrade gracefully or not on other browsers.

<comment><USER4> > don't test, but let the site degrade gracefully

In practice, graceful degradation requires testing.

<comment><USER3> I chose the wrong words, my meaning was that they should allow non-WebKit browsers the chance to render the site and if they fail, they fail. Forwarding the browser to another URL because you whitelist only a couple of UAs is a bad bad idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I know everyone talks about fragmentation concerns, and WebKit as the new IE6, but does this argument really make any sense? Internet Explorer was a poorly updated, closed source product that only worked on a single platform; WebKit is open source, maintained by two separate companies (that are basically locked in a cold war), and is available on all major platforms. If anything, why isn't the notion of a single rendering engine to which we can all write a GOOD thing? I know there's lots of idealism around standards, etc, but let's get real here -- most people building a webpage simply want it to render properly and universally, and would like to take advantage of cutting-edge technologies. Agreeing on a single rendering engine seems to be the easiest way of accomplishing this goal.

I've probably missed some killer feature of a multi-engine standards-based ecosystem, but really -- is that the pace at which we want to move the web forward?

<comment><USER3> WebKit is not controlled by 2 companies and WebKit is not a single rendering engine. WebKit is a single upstream project, the downstream browsers differ from each other just as much as they differ from gecko or presto based browsers.

<comment><USER6> Not sure that is fair; Google push updates to Webkit all the time, but naturally they develop them on their fork.

<comment><USER3> The other vendors choose when/if they merge Google's commits. The grandparent's comment made WebKit sound like a single entity when it's actually several competing companies with overlapping but also differing views on things. They just happen to be working from a common code base.

<comment><USER6> Some of Google's engineers have Webkit priveleges. Webkit is a single rendering engine - this should not be confused. It is used by several browsers, who of course, use slightly different compilation configurations, but I doubt that the web designer ever needs to concern themselves with that!

<comment><USER3> No Alex, not all WebKit browsers have feature parity with each other.

<comment><USER6> Example please.

<comment><USER3> Touch events - Android (any version) vs. iPhone (any version).

IndexedDB - Chrome Mobile has it (outdated version), Android and iPhone do not.

Chrome will have Dart support at a later date, no other WebKit vendor is going to implement it.

There are literally dozens, just go to caniuse.com and play around for a bit.

<comment><USER6> The first 2 are simply version issues, whilst the 3rd is nothing to do with the rendering engine. Chrome uses V8, Safari does not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is hopefully the moment where things have become so absurd (not a criticism of Opera) that it's time for browsers and standards to tackle the problem e.g. look at the proposed -beta flag.

([http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2012/02/the_vendor_p...](http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2012/02/the_vendor_pref.html))

<comment><USER8> If all the browsers use the same prefix then why use one at all?

<comment><USER9> Because the behavior of the beta feature may be different from the behavior of the final version.

<comment><USER8> I would prefer an experimental feature not be implemented until at least the syntax has been decided on. Prefixes were implemented so that browsers could have experimental features in place and look where we are now. Adding in a prefix, even a single one, doesn't change the fact that if present then people will use it. If the syntax changes during the -beta prefix phase then lots of stuff will be broken anyway. Can the browser companies at least get their crap together to decide on a basic syntax and then expand on it if needed? Lately they seem to be able to do that with some of the newer properties but we still have prefixes.

<comment><USER7> Vendor prefixes have turned out to be unsuccessful, but letting browsers move ahead before standards is the best thing that could have happened for the web. And the web apps we see today are evidence of it.

XHTML shows what happens when you try to agree on everything upfront. You mention agreeing on a basic syntax. The browser developers generally do discuss ideas for new features in basic terms before they release them, and hopefully there's some vague sense of agreement between at least two browsers before a feature goes alpha. But agreeing on anything more than that, instead of just hammering out a working implementation, means developers end up with APIs that are hard to use and don't address their users' needs.

<comment><USER8> Sure, I agree. I just feel that experimental features should be in beta or nightly builds until they are ready for production use. The fact these features were available in current releases means developers will start using them whether they are really ready or not.

Like I said before, they are getting better at agreeing on basic syntax at least. I would say don't make it available until the basics have been decided on. If they are still arguing over details that require a prefix then it isn't ready for release.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In some ways, I understand the need the vendor prefixes, but they do seem to be causing some fragmentation. I'm getting to the point on some CSS properties that I just use the real CSS name (like border-radius) and don't use the vendor prefixes at all since all the major browers that support radius use the non-prefixed name.

If you all remember back in the IE6 dominated days, Opera was built to the web standards but in order to make it a viable browser for pages that were only tested in IE6, they had to try to emulate IE6 behavior in Quirks mode, and I'm sure Mozilla had to do the same thing.

Hopefully this is a short-term thing unless standards are more finalized and browser implementations become more consistent.

</comment><comment><USER11> What an idiotic move - So now they want to make webkit the next IE of internet?

Standards are standards - period. I see ton of wrong with this approach, or... mabye we should just ignore the w3C CSS Working group.

Vendor prefixes are fine - as long they are used as temporary solution, and no one expects them to be the "default" way of doing things.

<comment><USER12> Opera is not making WebKit the new IE; web developers who only use -webkit CSS prefixes have done that.

<comment><USER11> By this move they are essentially legitimizing it. The only way to oppose stupidity is to not agree to it.

<comment><USER4> Exactly, couldn't Opera instead release an advisory tool which examines stylesheets and points out how to convert -webkit- prefixes to a) standards or b) -o- prefixes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been telling the IE team to do this since IE 9. In reality, the purpose of vendor prefixes is to keep two vendors from using the same name for two distinctly different behaviors. The current prefix model does that.

After a prefixed extension gains market adoption, it serves to indicate which implementation is authoritative. -webkit means you better do it the way webkit does it.

Any browser that won't make use of the author's intent, when that intent is unambiguous and easy to determine, is just shooting itself in the foot.

</comment><comment><USER14> Unfortunately it can't be helped, adhering strictly to the standards loses market share. Yesterday Internet Explorer, today webkit.

</comment><comment><USER15> next move: spoof user-agent to appear as chrome. hello mozilla compatible internet explorer

</comment><comment><USER16> I think this is a bad idea as it's supporting bad, lazy developers who can't be bothered to learn their craft correctly.

I've written a bit more about these "WODs" at [http://www.iandevlin.com/blog/2012/04/css/on-vendor- prefixes...](http://www.iandevlin.com/blog/2012/04/css/on-vendor-prefixes-and- wods)

</comment><comment><USER17> Wonderful [sarcasm].

So now when I create something that requires a browser that actually has good hardware acceleration, it will be a dastardly turd of a performer in Opera.

<comment><USER18> No, it will continue to be fast on opera and firefox and to be a "dastardly turd" on chrome and safari: only some selected -webkit- properties will be translated by opera.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Smart move.</comment>


AI can't protect us from deepfakes, argues new report - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/18/20872084/ai-deepfakes-solution-report-data-society-video-altered <comment><USER2> Ultimately, the only way out of the rapidly approaching distopian hell, I think, is educated and critically thinking population. The trend though, is for dumbing down the masses, I guess it has to get worse before it starts to get better...

</comment><comment><USER3> Show me a good AI fake-detector, and I'll show you half of an automated adversarial training system :P</comment>


F# Type Providers - paper from MS Research  - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/?id=173076

<comment><AUTHOR> Direct link to the Paper (PDF)

[http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/173076/information- rich-t...](http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/173076/information-rich- themes-v4.pdf)</comment>


Ask HN: What do you do as IT consultants? - <AUTHOR>

I noticed that a lot of people on HN have side-businesses that operate in the form of a consultancy. What do you do as a consultant? Is it always programming? or are there other niches you can carve out and create a business for? <comment><USER2> Security consulting. More specifically, I help companies adopt data-driven approaches to collection and analysis + help security companies with their threat intelligence products.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you get really good at a specific product, there is usually someone out there that needs some help. For example Checkpoint firewall, or another IT Security product...

</comment><comment><USER4> statistical consulting. Clients so far have ranged from finance startups to soft drinks companies. Programming is more of a means to an ends than anything.

Finding your niche is easy. Finding clients in your niche is like climbing Mt. Everest

</comment><comment><USER5> i'd like to talk about this with someone. Give me a call if you're interested.</comment>


Google's Latest Search: What Happened to Its Bikes? - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/googles-latest-search-what-happened-to-its-bikes-1515172167 <comment><USER2> > "They don't really want us to use it, but it's OK if you do." Ms. [redacted] > said that when a bike is available at the train station she rides it 10 > minutes to her house, and then keeps it overnight behind her gate. The next > morning, she rides it back to the station, where she catches the train to > her job at Google rival Oracle Corp. "You know, I rent it for a day."

This seems like theft?

Edit: I removed the lady's name from the comment

<comment><USER3> I don't think redacting her name is necessary. Ms. Veach's full name, place of employment, and picture appear in the article.

Is it theft? Probably by the definition of the law. But it's also a bit nebulous in practice and expected repercussions.

I personally have pirated movies, jay walked, and danced at a bar in NYC, and would be perfectly fine with a news article quoting me admitting as much.

Is it illegal for Uber to skirt taxi laws? Is it illegal for AirBnb to ignore hotel laws? Probably. But no one is going to stop them and no one is going to stop Ms. Veach from borrowing a bike left in public.

<comment><USER4> Interestingly (in the UK) theft requires that the perpetrator have the intention of "permanently depriving" [1] the owner. So at least in the UK this seems like it wouldn't be counted as theft.

[https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/crossheading/de...](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/crossheading/definition- of-theft)

<comment><USER5> Probably not theft, but I think it would qualify as criminal conversion. Google would likely need to complain though for the authorities to do anything about it, and I can't see them doing that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm glad they're using GPS now, because I've lived in and around Mountain View for the past 10 years and it's becoming a bit crazy lately. There are bikes dumped _everywhere_. I'm always surprised how far away from Google's campus they end up. Having GPS, they'll eventually get picked up, which is good. If I started seeing stripped down Google bike parts strewn about (like in creeks) because they'd been left to rust, it'd be more than annoying, but as long as Google cleans up its mess, I think it's fine.

In terms of using a Google bike, I never have. But I'd be fine in doing so as a Mountain View resident. They use my street as a Waymo testing ground, literally using myself and any other pedestrian as beta testers for their driving safety algorithms, so I think I'd be quite justified borrowing one of their bikes: Quid pro quo.

</comment><comment><USER7> At work the municipality runs the bike share.

I can unlock a nearby bike using the app or by using my code on a touchscreen on the bike rack.

I can then use it for up totwo hours before I have to leave it at another bike rack.

Price: approx USD 30 for a season (April to December)

</comment><comment><USER8> When I worked at Google, I lived walking distance from the Mountain View campus & walked to work every day. I used to like finding gbikes on my way to work, as I would just ride them in. The ones I found on the way home, I'd report to Google Security. They seemed happy to come and collect them. There were always a lot more bikes after concerts / events at the Shoreline Amphitheater.

</comment><comment><USER9> These bikes are a nusicance in Mountain View if you don't work for Google. They're left all over the place - in lawns, in landscaping, right in the middle of the sidewalk. The article blames non-Google employees, but they're often carelessly placed right near Google buildings with nothing else but office buildings around.

If I lived in Mountain View (I used to work there) I'd help myself too.

<comment><USER10> How does "helping yourself" solve the problem? Why not report the bicycle thieves instead for causing the nuisance?

<comment><USER9> It doesn't solve the problem. It's Google's problem. If Google is going to do nothing whatsoever to secure their property, it's not the police's job to do it for them.

<comment><USER10> And it's not your job to be a bicycle thief.

You're like a tagger who believes you have the right to spray paint a wall just because the owner of the wall hasn't installed a security alarm. In my eyes, the bicycle thieves are worse because they are rich adults with money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you leave a bunch of unlocked bikes around, expect people to take them. It's like leaving a plate of cookies out and then getting mad when people eat them.

<comment><USER10> This I can agree with. What maddens me is how brazen the thieves are in this case. People who have gainful employment are openly stealing bicycles and littering them throughout the city without any shame.

<comment><USER11> The bikes appear to be strewn about the city to begin with, even when they are on Google property. If you see a bunch of people riding these bikes between buildings and just leaving them there why wouldn't you do the same?

<comment><USER10> Google property is in North Bayshore which is an office park wasteland. People are stealing them from parking lots on these office parks and riding them over the freeway into the residential and commercial areas of Mountain View. I wouldn't do the same because I am not a thief.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Ms. Veach said the Gbikes are "a reward for having to deal with the buses" carrying Google employees that barrel down her street each morning. "I ride a bicycle…to balance it out," she said."

that is some insane level of justification right there...

<comment><USER13> Seriously, it's absurd. I cannot believe the mental gymnastics people will go to in order to justify their behavior. At least accept that you're doing something wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> non-paywalled version: [https://t.co/gRcNYuXTcg](https://t.co/gRcNYuXTcg)

<comment><USER15> Still paywalled. Forwards to same url.

<comment><USER16> With a different REFERER, though. The above works for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Honest question - why can't we have bike shares everywhere?

Looks like there are something like 17.4 million new bikes sold in the US a year and around 100 million riders. [0]

That works out to a new bike every five and a half years. What happens to the old bikes? Can't we figure out a way to standardize the components a bit and keep them in working condition as a municipal resource? Can't be that hard to pull off, and it would certainly have health benefits.

[0] [https://nbda.com/articles/industry- overview-2015-pg34.htm](https://nbda.com/articles/industry- overview-2015-pg34.htm)

<comment><USER18> For a brief period following the turn of the millennium, many urban centers in the west (Seattle, Washington, Portland) had bicycle clubs who introduced a slew of "green bikes" which were spray painted green and considered public domain. It was more an ideal than a productive measure. The painting and introduction of the bikes was one thing but maintenance was another. I knew a person who would repair them when he found broken ones, and I think it was briefly part of programming at certain bicycle co-ops. As the urban areas started growing again, tht effort came to an end, but I took many trips on green bikes myself. They were usually slow going and somewhat dangerous to ride, and of course one could not plan to find them later when left on the street. I had seen them locked up before but the understanding was breaking that lock wasn't considered steeling because literally every part on the bike was spray painted green. The bikes were popular with people in their early twenties and homeless people. I never saw anyone using them whose appearance didn't match these categories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > he once confronted what he thought was a homeless woman on a Gbike. "I mean > if I could describe her, you would agree with me," he said. "She looked all > panicked, and then she showed me her Google badge."

Damn, that's cold.

</comment><comment><USER20> I tried to ride one of the bikes from one Google building to another once and a black security SUV pulled up and started yelling at me. They aren't very good bikes anyway- they are fixies which are kind of useless for rides longer than a block.

<comment><USER21> Loads of people ride fixies and would probably disagree with you. I don't personally like them since I live on a hill but they work on flats ok.

<comment><USER22> To be fair the problem with the Gbikes is not that they are fixies, but rather that they are super heavy. They work fine for moving around the campus, but you wouldn't want to ride more than a mile in them. I'm pretty sure that's by design.

<comment><USER23> Amazingly, they are much lighter than some other services.

Boston's Hubway bikes are 3-speed, but 42 pounds despite (I believe) an aluminum frame. New York's Citi Bikes are also 3-speed, but 45 pounds.

<comment><USER22> Holy crap, I didn't even know you could make a bike that heavy.

<comment><USER24> Almost all electric bikes weigh more than that (source: me one handing city rideshare bikes after carrying around my electric bike).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's hard for a sheltered prince like Larry Page to imagine a $100 piece of property having any value at all but that's food for a month if you're poor. People rightly recognize the arrogance those bikes represent and it makes them feel entitled to take them.

I fully support a needy person that takes what a rich person considers to disposable enough to leave on the street unsecured.

In my judgement, Google has implicitly granted permission for the needy to take their bikes and anyone to borrow them.

<comment><USER26> It's absurd to justify theft, even if it's unsecured. If those people need food, there are organizations and charities that are out there to provide for that.

I'm not sure how you can fully support the idea that you should take from the rich. With that concept, I should introduce someone poorer than you and have them take from your wallet. (It demeans how they, "the rich", got there, it demean's society's valuation on their work)

<comment><USER18> > _There are organizations and charities out there to provide that._

It's absurd to use the compassion of others to justify the lack of your own.

EDIT: The one soup kitchen in my neighborhood (with massive homeless problems) just closed because the building was bought by a hotel developer

These places don't _just exist_. They _sometimes_ exist, but not reliably, and they depend on people's willfulness to act and defend them. The problem is further complicated when compounding child custody concerns and substance abuse. I am not taking sides here, but pointing out how important it is that we not take these efforts for ganted. Once we do, they vanish. I think the above comment exemplifies what it looks like to take them for granted.

<comment><USER10> Google provides free shuttle service to the city[1]. If they didn't, does that justify hijacking their campus shuttles?

[1] [https://mvcommunityshuttle.com](https://mvcommunityshuttle.com)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would my signing-a-contract checklist be better as a FAQ? - <AUTHOR>

A couple of months ago I put together a short e-book, Signing a Business Contract? A Quick Checklist [1] for Greater Peace of Mind. [2] The current version could be thought of as an MVP.
I have in mind producing a series of similar books, using materials I've written over the years and/or taught to my 3L contract-drafting classes.
QUESTION 1: Would the existing book be more likely to appeal to business people (including startup founders) if it were structured as a FAQ document, instead of as a checklist?
QUESTION 2: What other practical law-related subjects would such readers like to see covered in similar e-books?
Thanks in advance.
[1] The checklist itself is at http://www.ontechnologylaw.com/the-checklist-from-my-e-book-before-you-sign-a-business-contract/ - yes, I know, I'm giving away the core content of the book ....
[2] The book ($12.99 at this writing; pricing suggestions are welcome) is available from e-junkie.com via http://www.ontechnologylaw.com/before-you-sign-a-business-contract-a-five-point-final-checklist-for-business-managers-and-executives/ - eventually I'll work on a proper landing page instead of just a blog posting. <comment><USER2> Odd. I read the checklist, and it's not at all what I would have expected (or recommended), which is:

1) Have your lawyer read the contract, carefully 2) Listen to what he says

I don't know about you, but I sure as hell want to do more than _spot-check_ for "contract provisions that could cause real problems for your business."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, michael_dorfman. From my narrow professional viewpoint, it'd be lovely if no one ever signed a contract without consulting an experienced lawyer who had expertise in the specific field :-) The reality is otherwise (and that's not necessarily a bad thing). I wrote the book in part because many, many people sign contracts:

\- without consulting a lawyer at all (not every contract _needs_ legal review); and/or

\- in consultation with a lawyer who doesn't have quite the level of experience and tacit knowledge that might be desired.

The book isn't intended as a substitute for a detailed legal review. It's more akin to a checklist that reminds a doctor to do the obvious, basic stuff like washing your hands before examining a patient.</comment></comment>


What are you doing when the Internet connection goes down? - <AUTHOR>

Say for a reason your connection goes down. It could be a device (Router) malfunction or a problem from your provider. How do you spend your time after that, assuming that there is no way to fix the problem or find any (other) hotspot :) ? <comment><USER2> Dig out the secret fap folder then thanks the gods that C man pages are stored locally

</comment><comment><USER3> Coffee...</comment>


Eric Drexler: How to Learn About Everything - <AUTHOR> http://metamodern.com/2009/05/27/how-to-learn-about-everything/

<comment><USER2> I'd expand this a bit more. Firstly, I'd include non-scientific journals like business, politics, and humanities. Honestly, as a geek through and through, the best way to learn about the world is to figure out how other disciplines think. It gives you a whole new toolset and perspective.

The other thing I'd do is actually dive into a subject deep enough as if I need to pass a test. I'm doing that with statistics now. It's going very slowly, but that's kinda the point of this whole exercise.

<comment><USER3> _Honestly, as a geek through and through, the best way to learn about the world is to figure out how other disciplines think._

Failing to do this is what a lot of CS people do that _really_ annoys physicists, chemists, and other scientists. (Especially when we post comments!) We think that we can instantly grok anything that has good documentation. But not everything is an API. Other fields are full of very smart people, and they had to devote years to fully understand. It's like people who learn your native language, but speak it with a heavy accent and clumsy use of idioms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am adopting an approach more similar to a Classical Scholar, similar to this: <http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/odonnell1.html>

For the newest fields that isn't an option though, I think his suggestion is really the only way.

</comment><comment><USER5> A lot depends on how much you want to learn. I wrote a post about depth of knowledge in March ([http://williambswift.blogspot.com/2009/03/learning- journal-a...](http://williambswift.blogspot.com/2009/03/learning-journal-and- record.html)) - lowest is recognition where you can remember things about it when you come across it again, usually just reading about something is enough for me to reach this level. Progressively more difficult, and requiring more work, are being able to recall information from memory without an immediate stimulus, understanding the subject matter, and being able to use what you have learned to make things or do original research in the field. I have several other posts in March and April about independent learning that you may find useful.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sounds plausible, and I've done a lot of it myself, but I'm curious if there's any hard evidence as to its effectiveness vs. other study methods?

</comment><comment><USER7> _How to Read a Book_ by Mortimer Adler may be useful if anyone is thinking of actually doing this. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book>

</comment><comment><USER8> I think that learning is much more that "obtaining knowledge". I am almost at a point where I think that nothing interesting can be learned by only reading - anything that is worth learning involves doing. If you want to learn something that is physical or social, this is a given but it also applies to, say, programming or even math. You don't really learn by reading - reading can only help you when you want to get started or get stuck at certain levels.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is it really possible to learn something by skimming books way over your head? I Always figured I was fooling myself when I did that.

<comment><USER10> There is inestimable value in doing so. I find the approach especially valuable for learning new programming technologies — in practice, learning a new technology comes down to the questions: what does the code look like, and why? By looking deeply at the hardest parts of the source code, I find out how much I don't know about the software and learn more about the system itself.</comment></comment>


The Intricate Platforming of Tomb Raider (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/187601/

<comment><USER2> I remember the main criticism of the rebooted Tomb Raider game was essentially, "where's the tomb raiding?" iow: where's the platforming fun that we were expecting? The answer turned out to be: well, we shoved it into a few non-essential side puzzles. The "tomb raiding" that there was was well designed but felt as if it was a bunch of tacked on afterthoughts as far as the game itself was concerned.

<comment><AUTHOR> So the interesting thing is that this particular article is specifically talking of that original Tomb Raider, and argues that the best puzzles were in fact non-essential and off to the side. The suggested reason is that they only discovered some of the more interesting parts of the design space late in development, and couldn't put them on the mainline of the game.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just to clarify, this is a article written in 2013 on the original Tomb Raider, not an article on the game often called "Tomb Raider (2013)". Damn ambiguities :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> An interesting fact that I have noticed, but I never see anyone mention, is that Tomb Raider has virtually the _exact_ same controls as the older _Prince of Persia_ (the original 2D platformer) game.

</comment><comment><USER4> Absolutely love the older TR games</comment>


How a Simple Request Got Me Blacklisted by the Pentagon - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2016/04/20/how-a-simple-request-got-me-blacklisted-by-the-pentagon/ <comment><USER2> Did I miss the blacklisting part?</comment>


Show HN: Beautiful text editor - <AUTHOR> We have a slowly growing user base, now at 200. Looking for feedback and new features ideas. You can check it at https://eddtor.com/editor/ Thank you! <comment><USER2> How about security, where does my typed text go?

<comment><AUTHOR> Text goes into JSON form and into DB. There's no other security mechanisms in place beside HTTPS protocol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks nice; can I encourage you down the route of incorporating features that a novel writer would enjoy? There are several desktop applications available, but only Novlr springs to mind for web application.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for your suggestion.</comment></comment>


New York cases rising faster than authorities anticipated - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/4a4d10be-6df4-11ea-89df-41bea055720b <comment><USER2> Non paywalled: [http://archive.is/DAQaQ](http://archive.is/DAQaQ)</comment>


When should I check the mail? - <AUTHOR> http://www.gwern.net/Mail-delivery <comment><USER3> Why not just sign up for free RealMailNotification emails and know exactly when your mail arrives?

In most areas, you can also sign up for Informed Delivery and have pics of exactly what is arriving today, too.

<comment><USER4> I've never heard of "Real Mail Notification" notification before. [https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.acti...](https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action) says it only works on 'letter-sized' things, so it would be useless to me - <USER2> only care about the occasional packages, and USPS already notifies me about package deliveries, just 4-5 hours later...

<comment><USER3> Real Mail Notification and Informed Delivery are _different services_. The former emails you when _anything_ is delivered to you.

<comment><USER4> They don't seem to be meaningfully different. For example, [https://www.usps.com/business/pdf/informed-delivery- overview...](https://www.usps.com/business/pdf/informed-delivery-overview.pdf) also says it only tells you about upcoming mail, when what I want is exact minute of delivery.

<comment><USER3>
      They don't seem to be meaningfully different

... because you keep confusing the two.

RMN is exactly what you are arguing for. I've been using it for over a year.

<comment><USER4> Then can you provide some relevant sources? I'm pull all this right off the USPS.com search engine and they conflate them and do not say anything like what you say they say?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Advice for a technology startup launched by 17 Year Olds - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I'm a high school senior who recently launched a Social News Reader called BuzzBlaze.com
We've launched with some success meaning we've acquired a strong userbase and impressed with our site stats, however we are not completely satisfied with our product as even we know there are some interface issues as well as more features that can be implemented.
I have made an exclusive invite for the HN community to test-drive my webapp: http://buzzblaze.com//register?invite_code=HNEWS
I am looking for constructive feedback and advice. I am new to this game and hope to build more stuff in the future and hope I can learn a lot from you guys.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> It looks really good, just it's a bit blurry

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

what specifically is a bit blurry? or are you talking about the feed images?

<comment><USER2> <http://i55.tinypic.com/w15wf4.jpg>

The font size on the Login fields and several of the main pages were too small, it's just annoying to read for me, but I'm very picky about fonts/font rendering/font size.

I would suggest to just look around on the website for fonts that are the same size as those username/password fields and increase them by one or two, just be careful though because it might mess up the layout/sizing of things.

I like the blue-theme though, it's very minimalist. It kind of mimics Facebook though, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> How are you going to make money?

<comment><AUTHOR> Our main focus so far has been in growing and scaling BuzzBlaze. Regarding monetization, we did have a few ideas floating around:

* Promoted feeds/articles - Once we scale, we can allow publishers to promote their feeds/articles to targeted users' social streams and dashboards as well as email (see below) - similar to Twitter

* Advertisements - the fact that we know what kind of content the users are reading means we are able to deliver ads that are relevant and targeted - a win/win/win situation (users are not bombarded with irrelevant ads, brands can hypertarget the right market, we make money)

* Email marketing - We can have users opt-in to receive recommended readings and product promotions. We can partner with publishers who wish to promote their content through email (much like promoted feeds/articles). In addition, we can also email out product promotions (such as product deals etc) that are relevant to the users - based on what they read. Like the promoted feeds, this will be much more effective once we scale

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cool idea. Awesome design! Like.</comment>


Twitter Ex-CEO Costolo Plans Fitness Startup, Joins VC Firm - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-19/twitter-ex-ceo-costolo-plans-fitness-startup-joins-vc-firm <comment><USER2> Dick Costolo has been a startup person since the mid-90s; one of his first companies, BurningDoor, was hosted at the ISP I ran tech for. He's a good guy. Or, I mean, he was last time I talked to him.

<comment><USER3> I knew Dick when he was at FeedBurner (before they were acquired.) He's been a pretty good guy for quite a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is very interesting, but one thing from the announcements was very interesting to me - is it common for people to release press releases by screenshotting the notes on their phones?

<comment><USER5> It's common to tweet screenshots of notes to get around the 140 character limit on Twitter. This wasn't a press release.

<comment><USER6> Yes. Jack Dorsey did exactly the same when announcing the plan for removal of 140 character limit.

[https://twitter.com/jack/status/684496529621557248/photo/1?r...](https://twitter.com/jack/status/684496529621557248/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sounds like a startup I used to work for here in Chicago: [https://www.retrofitme.com/howitworks](https://www.retrofitme.com/howitworks)

While expensive, the combination of tech and actual trained wellness experts was very successful and getting people to adopt healthier lifestyles.

</comment><comment><USER8> The vitriol in a bunch of these comments makes me ashamed of this community.

If you just want to be mean about someone, kindly do it elsewhere.

<comment><USER9> Maybe you're seeing this because so many startups these days seem to target upper middle class millennials by stepping between them and how they spend their money: start-up leeches. They do little except skim money going some place else under the "social" moniker by targeting people who are (1) unmarried, (2) mostly 18-34, and (3) have disposable income. They may even truly provide temporary value to that narrow community, but they're societal insulators building more of a divide between the upper middle class and the poor, between the young and the old, and between the haves and the have nots.

After all these years of stepping in the middle, maybe we want to see some of the VCs not targeting skimming money going some place else but instead, creating a startup that doesn't concentrate on "bringing the most money to founders and shareholders" but moves society around others who do. Even if that means their startup won't get them a seat at the billionaire's table.

\--eat the rich Are we getting hungry yet?

<comment><USER8> I think you're mostly projecting here. Even if you were right, though, trying to get the rage needle in the red is the wrong way to approach the subject here. The HN community is genuinely interested in these problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So many clichés in one headline...

</comment><comment><USER11> "Fun & Social" !

Great, another way to tell the world about how many miles you walked...

Excuse me please while I go live in a yurt...

</comment><comment><USER12> This is the default startup idea for people who don't know what to do. :-)

<comment><USER13> Either fitness or travel planning: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10923143](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10923143)

<comment><USER14> Not photo management?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Twitter Ex-CEO Costolo Has No Great Ideas, Plans Fitness Startup, Joins VC Firm Instead"</comment>


Twitter-text: libraries for identifying URLs, at mentions, hashtags in text - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/twitter/twitter-text

<comment><USER2> I wrote a hashtag extractor for a project am working but I have to admit that I am particularly impressed with the robustness of the regex! I am definitely going to use some aspects of this code.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it possible to do something like this with PostgreSQL's full text search? When I convert a search query containing an @mention or #hashtag with to_tsvector, I get matches for strings that aren't preceeded by # or @.

</comment><comment><USER4> Have been using the Js version for around 2 years to display tweets that we fetched from twitter api. If you have a similar use case, definately look into these.

</comment><comment><USER5> Does twitter api matter anymore? I stopped using it a while back. I think stuff like this is helpful to businesses who buy their data.

<comment><USER6> I found twitter-text useful for linkifying URLs in a chat application (not related to Twitter) that I built a couple of years ago.

The URL extraction functions are quite robust and handled the task well. This library has use cases beyond just parsing Twitter tweets.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. This is exactly the use case I had in mind when I was looking for a library like this. These features are useful in all kinds of social/chat apps that need to convert users' plaintext messages into rich multimedia content.

Identifying things in plaintext is one of those things that seems very simple but ends up being a pain to get right if you want it to be robust enough to handle all the corner cases.

There's a reason why this library has over 2k commits! I'd hate to have to rediscover all the lessons they must have learned the hard way...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Doesn't the API already expose these as fields? [https://dev.twitter.com/rest/reference/get/statuses/show/%3A...](https://dev.twitter.com/rest/reference/get/statuses/show/%3Aid)</comment>