Become Efficient or Die: The Story of BackType (YC S08) - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/nathanmarz/become-efficient-or-die-the-story-of-backtype

<comment><USER2> _"Don't add process until you feel the pain of not having it."_

Great set of slides, thanks for posting this.

<comment><USER3> "Don't add process until you feel the pain of not having it."

Excellent phrasing of what I've been preaching in our startup all along. We apply this to every angle of our business and I find this is very, very good advice for startups.

And it's not just for software development, either! Need an order processing system? No you don't — you can handle things manually at first, thus learning what you really need. Need a CMS? No you don't — the bugtracker you use for your software can probably help you enough in the beginning. Examples abound.

Follow this philosophy and you'll build a lean company. What's even better is that once you actually _do_ add process (or buy external solutions, or hire additional people, etc), you'll know what you're doing, because you will have learned the real requirements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My favorite part of the slides: _"First, make it possible. Then, make it beautiful. Then, make it fast."_

Having personally been bitten by doing each of these out of order, they make a lot of sense.

<comment><USER5> It is risky to put design second.

<comment><USER6> I think the point is that it is risky to design before you fully understand the problem you're solving. From my interpretation of the slides, they are often working on tasks they have little experience with. Instead of spending time thinking about potential design issues (which may or may not exist), build something that works and the patterns which the feature requires will emerge, enabling an elegant design afterwards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love the "garbage collection for your codebase" thing. Nice simple approach for moving things from the "should" pile to the "done" one.

<comment><USER8> They're using a stop-the-world garbage collector. Surely we've come further than that in the past few decades?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Suffering-oriented programming: A great mantra for startups. If you don't face the problem yourself, then there is no point in building software for it -- chances are no one else has it too.

<comment><USER10> I agree. Only when you know how the pain feels, you are capable to create products that alleviate that pain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> _Ran into a lot of problems with Neo4J and rewrote it later using Sphinx_

Really? I'd love to hear more about this.

</comment><comment><USER12> Nice read, really good app also... btw, clojure rocks!

</comment><comment><USER13> Does anyone have a direct link to the PDF file?

</comment><comment><USER14> Great one. Subscribed to your blog, there is alot of useful articles to read there.

</comment><comment><USER15> "3 employees, 2 interns, 1.4M in funding"

What will the money be used for? Are you still trying to reach product/market fit?

<comment><USER16> I'll bet the cost of 1-200 machines is adding up pretty quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Having to click 64 times to get through a brief story is not efficient.

<comment><USER18> Which is why I like to be able to download a SlideShare item and then view the PPT as a pdf.

But this one DLs to an OmniOutliner doc ?!? Unfortunate. And author's site (nathanmarz.com) does not even mention this presentation. Can you help us out Nathan?</comment></comment>


Is 10 cents an hour a record low wage for a game dev? - <AUTHOR> https://pariahplegic.blogspot.com/2020/05/is-10-cents-hour-record-low-wage-for.html <comment><USER2> Misleading clickbait title. Wage implies a hourly rate paid by an employer. This is profit divided by time on a side project.

</comment><comment><USER3> At age 12 I earned 37 cents/hour delivering newspapers. Difference is, I was earning a wage.

I did have enough sense to calculate that pittance and bail as soon as one of my customers offered me $5 to mow his (considerable) lawn. Gave myself a raise to $2.00/hour!

</comment><comment><USER4> I think many game developers lose money, which would make it even lower.

</comment><comment><USER5> Might be high for first time indie dev

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm curious where the author lives. In developing countries ten cents an hour might exist, unfortunately.</comment>


Learn Haskell: Lesson 1: Hello, World! - <AUTHOR> http://learnhaskell.blogspot.com/2007/09/lesson-1-hello-world.html <comment><USER2> Beyond "stretching your mind", I need a compelling reason to learn Haskell. I think that that marketing aspect of programming languages is something lots of academics tend to forget about. Erlang, for instance, is far more interesting because it clearly does a couple of things much better than the competition. And indeed, I have been, and currently am paid to work on Erlang code.

It's not just "can you do real stuff with it?". Of course you can. The real question is what exactly does it do that is _so_ much better than other languages that there is a reason to learn a whole new language just to get that thing.

<comment><USER3> Pure functional programming (referential transparency everywhere) plus some bleeding edge support for abstraction starting with type classes and monads. Those are the features.

<comment><USER2> Those are 'features' for computer scientists at universities. 'Features' for working programmers are what those things might enable you to do.</comment></comment></comment>


A simple markdown text editor in the browser - <AUTHOR> https://meta.ga <comment><USER2> This is so buggy on mobile. When I reload the site, the "publish" button is missing. On publish it loads forever...</comment>


How To Eliminate Procrastination And Get Shit Done - <AUTHOR> http://www.mavericktraveler.com/how-to-eliminate-procrastination-and-get-shit-done/

<comment><USER2> You nailed it. A lot of this has to do with bad habits. I know I'm one who will sit in the chair all day long and it really does me no good. Just realized this too! I sat in my chair for 4 days straight and never took a break and got nothing done. I took breaks and accomplished infinitely more.

But what I wonder about is what if you're not procrastinating and not getting things done? I'm currently in a situation where I work my ass off but somehow nothing is getting done. Progress gets made but it certainly feels like its not nearly enough. I'm wondering how people who work but don't accomplish anything can learn to get shit done.</comment>


Federated microblogging engine Mastodon 1.0 released - <AUTHOR> https://www.patreon.com/posts/mastodon-1-0-8010185 <comment><USER2> The best thing I notice, the code is being supported buy cash. The source is here: [https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon](https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon) and more details about the authour, here: [https://www.patreon.com/user?u=619786](https://www.patreon.com/user?u=619786)

Dave Winer has been all over this idea for a long time: [https://www.google.com/#q=scripting.com+federated+blogs](https://www.google.com/#q=scripting.com+federated+blogs) and one idea that I don't see here (correct me if this is wrong) is the idea of static pages and ^light storage^ (e.g. S3) of text.</comment>


Ask HN: What do you think about future of Android? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
Simple question: what do you think about future of Android? Any thoughts?
Best, Wiktor <comment><USER2> Android and iOS have won the first world, it's done. Some contenders (Microsoft, Blackberry) try to grapple some market share, but unless Google or Apple do something very stupid it seems doomed to be a very hard & slow progression. Even with Microsoft throwing moneys at every major app makers, the windows marketshare make it very hard for windows phone development to be worth it.

If I had to make a gamble, I would say that Google is going to take over the remaining 5 billion people too. Apple and emerging markets don't go together at all. Microsoft & Firefox are targeting these markets but I feel that with Android One & the changes made in 4.4 in order to have acceptable performances on low end devices, Google has the formula to win. Nothing is done yet though.

Google has also decided to conquer other form factors. In order to do not frighten its partners, these products are called Android (and it is indeed the Android tech stack behind them). Google Wear is the first wearable device that makes sense to me. That does not mean that it will be a big hit, but it is a good start.

All these new hardware initiative (car, health, wearable, home, ...) from Apple & Google are very impressive. They have many ideas in common and both only work with mobile devices made by their company. There are probably at least some technical reasons behind that move but it is still very disappointing. I don't think that anybody in their right mind could be entirely satisfied with a car or home automation system that dictate which brand of smartphone you are going to be able to use.

As an Android dev, I am confident in Google's capacity to provide the tools I need. Even though I don't think that Google made ALL the right choices (lockscreen widgets still look like a very weird choice to me, they seem to be disappearing with L though), my most critical needs were fulfilled with the last i/o round of announcements with improved performances, first class design ('Holo' was really starting to look bleak compared to the other OSes) and the replacement of the terrible ListView by RecyclerView.

There are a couple of parts where Android is still weak from a dev point of view : -Even though Google is visually making many efforts in that area, the company does not have the tool making expertise that Apple or Microsoft have. Using IntelliJ was a very good move, the JetBrains guys know how to create an IDE. Right now we are in a weird phase where Google is slowly giving the finger to Eclipse and forcing us to migrate to Android Studio but it is still a bit immature. Staying with Eclipse means not benefiting from many new things, while migrating to AS means dealing with its bugs..

-Java is not as bad as its reputation can make you believe it is but there are real pain points (in the context of Android development at least, I don't really know the other sides of Java development to be honest). For example, Enums in java are syntactically awesome but for big codebases, they can contribute to bloating up your app if you use too much of them (each time you use an enum for the first time, all its members need to be instantiated and enum also generates some big methods). The alternative is to use bitfield flags or simple ints. It is better from a performance perspective, but it is absolutely ugly to use and does not offer any type safety. Some of Java weaknesses can be overcome with things like EventBus or RXJava but some are too deeply engrained in the language in order to be solved.

-Again, Google does not have enough tool-making expertise. I should be able to override the default widgets colors with a simple line in my layouts. This has just been added with the L release and I am not even sure that it is a back-compatible change, this should have been an API lvl 1 feature. There are many other examples where hundred of lines of code are necessary whereas it should be doable in one line with a good framework.

-Fragmentation is also not that bad but it is a reality you will have to work with. Crashlytics, bugsense and other crash reporting solutions are your best friends in order to detect and fix major fragmentation issues. Anecdotally, so far Samsung has been the biggest source of such issues for me.

-According to Android engineers, Java is here to stay. Since they don't communicate on their future plans, it is impossible to know whether they are working on alternatives or not but it would be welcome.

</comment><comment><USER3> Android needs two things:

1\. Real compatibility instead of compatibility libraries. Compatibility libraries just serve to fragment the community and frustrate developers (try to use Facebook integration fragments in a 4.0+ application if you don't believe me).

2\. C#.

</comment><comment><USER4> Android needs to evolve away from Java. It needs a Swift - something richer, more expressive, focused on modern 64bit platforms and above all open.

<comment><USER5> That post literally makes no sense.

Java is neither 32 nor 64 bit, it is bitness agnostic to a large degree (or at least where it matters it is, datatypes aren't really a major advantage, and most of the new CPU registers can be utilised in the JVM without the code being aware or being recompiled).

You also say that they need something "richer" (whatever that means?), "more expressive," (huh?), and "open" (even though the JVM on Android ("Dalvik") is free and open source software).

Sorry but everything you said there is either confusing or wrong. You just wanted to bring up Swift and seem to know absolutely nothing about Java/JVC/Dalvik, except that it is "old" and therefore just assume it is "bad."

I actually think C# is a better language than Java (at least in their current iterations). However not for any of the reasons you cited, for real reasons that actually make sense.

<comment><USER2> I agree, it was pretty much buzzword fest. Here : I think the Android framework (Java + Android APIs + Android dev tools) should evolve towards something less verbose. Let's say I want to add a new type of selector in my ListView (for example for the active entry of the navigation drawer). I need to declare it in attrs.xml, use it in my layout and also to write custom versions of all the views that are going to use that selector in order to override onCreateDrawableState and inject it there, not to mention all the plumbing in different classes in order to get & set that state.. Ideally, I should be able to simply declare that state in my layout selectors and simply set it in the corresponding adapter.

There are many, many other examples where I need to modify many classes in order to do something relatively common. There are also issues with some java aspects like the enums that are syntactically very nice to use but not that good for your performances. I also feel like a caveman each time I have to write a bitfield. I should have a construct built into the language (or at least the IDE, I don't really care which one) that gives me the flexibility and type safety of enums while performing like a bitfield.

I don't know if getting rid of java is the answer here. I would not mind to, but it would be very traumatic for the Android ecosystem. I hope that these pain points will be fixed (I/O 2015 ? ^^). I don't think that Google will ever use C#. However nice it is, it is controlled by Microsoft, which is probably reason enough for Google to avoid it. There are other options though, Dart, Rust, Go, an entirely new language, ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Android will own the low end mobile space. iOS will own the high end.

Either the mobile OS wars are over and Android and iOS won (I think the most likely scenario for the next 10 years), or there are major developments coming up that we (I) can't foresee that will change this dynamic. But for now, that's it.</comment>


Federal government employees publish their IT projects - <AUTHOR> https://openopps.digitalgov.gov/tasks <comment><AUTHOR> That's a project by [https://18f.gsa.gov/](https://18f.gsa.gov/). Its code on GitHub: [https://github.com/18F/openopps- platform](https://github.com/18F/openopps-platform)</comment>


Exploring Data Learning with Public Medical Databases - <AUTHOR> http://techbio.org/b-tracing-psych-signals-lit.php <comment><USER2> -403 forbidden error:

"Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /b-tracing-psych-signals-lit.php on this server. Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request."

<comment><AUTHOR> May be on your end, this worked ok: [https://tools.pingdom.com/#!/dyZcId/http://techbio.org/b-tra...](https://tools.pingdom.com/#!/dyZcId/http://techbio.org/b-tracing- psych-signals-lit.php)

<comment><USER2> the main link works OK now.</comment></comment></comment>


The Drunk Test for Your Product - <AUTHOR>

Here is a very easy, one-minute way to evaluate your product:
Go out drinking with a bunch of people. When you're all hammered in a crowded and noisy bar together, explain what your product does to them.
If they get what you're doing, you are onto something.
If they don't or lose interest (or vomit) you have some work to do. <comment><USER2> You'll probably be interested in the discussion on the below thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1120820></comment>


Beenz, a digital currency before Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> https://thehustle.co/beenz-pre-bitcoin-digital-currency <comment><USER2> Ah, Beenz. I remember these, been a while since I've seen them mentioned. Anecdata disclaimer.

My then-wife spent a huge amount of time -- certainly 100+ hours minimum -- completing surveys, reviews and the like, got paid in Beenz, then we exchanged them for high street store vouchers and bought a vacuum cleaner which lasted far less than 100 hours and the store we got it from went out of business. It was a wild ride.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ah, the heady days of the first Dot Com bubble. I remember it well.

This was a period when one of the biggest drags on the development of e-commerce and monatizing Internet businesses was the absence of a good micro- payment solution. PayPal hadn't really taken off yet, App Stores weren't a thing, and everyone was scrabbling around for a way to enable cost-effective small payments that didn't have prohibitive transaction fees. Plus the advertising infrastructure that Google enables didn't exist, so micropayments for doing things online made a sort of sense.

Beenz was one option for this that I vaguely remember. I think I had an account, though I never spent any Beenz on anything. e-Gold was another popular option.

I'm not sure the analogy with Bitcoin and crypto really holds. Beenz was trying to solve a particular problem, and became obsolete when that problem was solved more elegantly by PayPal, Amazon and the credit card vendors. Bitcoin is trying to solve the 'problem' of state-backed inflationary fiat currencies. It might fail in its own terms but fiat currencies aren't changing in response to it.

That said, clearly most of the crypocurrencies and ICOs out there are somewhere between follies and scams. Almost all will fail, but they'll fail because they're largely dumb and they suck and they aren't solving a problem at all.

<comment><USER4> After reading the article I learned that Beenz had a bit more capitalist greed to it than I thought at the time. It was never quite there yet, always chicken and egg. I was notionally in favour of it but I was not an early adopter. Coverage in the press was generous but it did not seem they had fallen for the hype, there was something genuine about it. We also did not realise micropayments were not going to solve everything, eventually 'free' ads to stalk you everywhere became the 'solution'.

If it was brought back today I would endorse it a lot more than those silly ponzi-coins that people get so excited about.

I say ponzi-coins pejoratively for everything cryptocurrency related, and I do think that there does need to be some campaigning against them. A little bit of idle speculation here and there by people wanting to get rich with a bit of play money does encourage those people that skim off from the rest of society with their ponzi-coin scheming.

Trade makes the world happen and makes us human rather than Neanderthals, they died out because they did not trade. Beenz may have had get rich quick dreams but the ethos was there, to enable publishers to get money for articles and for people to buy/sell stuff.

The problem I am having with ponzi-coins is that there is none of that, not even a veneer of wanting to make the world a better place. An army of people now exist that just have nothing better to do than to make everyone else bag holders of their blockchain bamboozle voodoo and I think they need to have their oxygen supply cut off. Ponzi coins have done nothing for the public good. Does this make Visa/Mastercard and the banks 'better'? Nope, but just like Beenz was not the right solution neither are these ponzi coins.

<comment><USER3> > The problem I am having with ponzi-coins is that there is none of that, not > even a veneer of wanting to make the world a better place.

My experience with the Bitcoin community goes back to 2012-3, when they were very much Libertarian Utopians trying to make the world a better place (at least their concept of a better place!). Those people still exist, though they've been drowned out a bit by the "Lambo" goldrush types.

Of course, the VAST majority of scamcoins are just about getting rich and have no idealists at all, just the conmen and the conned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At about that time I remember collecting all kind of internet points from websites. In France, Maximiles points were much more frequent than Beenz and since many company wanted to get in, they were giving away quite a lot of points, which could be exchanged for DVDs, videogames, books, etc. It didn't last long but it was great to get a lot of free stuff.

I'm surprised to see Maximiles apparently survived the dotcom bubble [0] - it's still possible to collect and exchange points, though I imagine at a much smaller scale than before.

[0] [https://www.maximiles.com/](https://www.maximiles.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> No details about the tech behind it, I would like to read their white paper :)

<comment><USER7> It was an Oracle database.

<comment><USER8> [https://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/09/16/ellison_spills_over...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/09/16/ellison_spills_over_beenz/) It was an attempt to leverage a centralized Oracle database as a transaction engine, hence Ellison getting behind it in '99\. Bears no relation to crypto currencies whatsoever

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was just thinking about this the other day. I remember being around 12 and doing what I could do score free points. Felt incredible accomplishment when I managed to get "free" battery adapters and other trinkets.

I also agree that it is nonsensical to compare Beenz (which are more comparable to points you get in online panels) to modern-day cryptocurrencies.

</comment><comment><USER10> can someone explain what this has to do with a decentralised currency such as Bitcoin? The title is almost clickbait. Also the part that says block.one ICO raised money without telling the investors is flat out wrong. Almost as if these articles have a hidden agenda or total lack of understanding the tech.

</comment><comment><USER11> I remember tons of free Beenz/flooz and trading them for Wendy's, Burger King and subway gift certs - ate free for like an entire summer.

</comment><comment><USER12> Around the same time there was also Flooz, famously promoted on national TV by Whoopi Goldberg, backed by proof of celebrity endorsement

</comment><comment><USER13> This was just a centralized database so it has little in common with Bitcoin.

<comment><USER14> Well, you know, other than the whole "digital currency trying to disrupt/supplant fiat" thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I had a plushie one of those from when the office closed down! Long since lost of course.</comment>


The challenge: Don't speak in future tense - <AUTHOR> http://sivers.org/futuretense

<comment><USER2> Two out of his first three quotes are not actually in some form of future tense. "We are", and "I am getting ready" are both present tense, albeit of differing forms. Of course, he's correct that they're talking about things that will materialize in the future.

<comment><USER3> Tense is surprisingly difficult to nail down in English. By some definitions, it doesn't have a future tense at all, it has a handful of future 'aspects,' the difference being that a tense uses verb inflection and an aspect uses auxiliary verbs. The examples show how the distinction between an auxiliary and lexical verb can blur around the edges, which is actually how auxiliary verbs formed in the first place.

Sorry for the nitpicking, and you are correct that there's a mismatch between the title and the content (an increasingly severe problem). I was hoping for a linguistics discussion.

<comment><USER4> >Tense is surprisingly difficult to nail down in English.

I'm blaming it on whoever misplaced most of our inflections and our case system like 800 years ago. Old English was a cool language.

<comment><USER5> Spoken German has even fewer tenses. You have the present tense, which you use for talking about present and future events, and the perfect, used for talking about the past. That covers at least 95% of all uses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have worked remotely a lot and I've always tried to reduce the overhead of communication by actually doing stuff rather than saying I'll do it, etc. I.e. rather than

I'll look at it

....

Looking at it

....

Working on it

....

Done.

I try as much as possible to do

<longer delay>

Done.

Mostly because of "The Mythical Man-Month." Some people don't deal well with it, though.

<comment><USER7> I find that this means there is an ambiguity between "I have not read this email" and "I am working on this"

Also, certain things that need to be done can be done by multiple people, so a "I am working on it" email is a good locking mechanism.

(I usually say "I'll look at it", _delay_ , "Done" to remove some ambiguity.)

<comment><USER8> I think both you and the parent poster make valid points. The key thing is to send something vague-enough in the first email. For example, don't say _"I think that's a problem with X and I'm looking into it"_ , just say _"I'm looking at it"_. In other words, only communicate the lock you're acquiring on the task and save the rest for the "done" email.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another interesting thing to pay attention to is how often people talk about what's wrong and that it needs to be fixed, but fail to provide a road forward.

Example:

"This web page is horrendous"

(everyone nods)

"We need to find a way to make it better"

(everyone nods)

"Now moving on to the next topic, we're moving too slowly..."

It's rare to find a person that suggests solutions to problems rather than just pointing out that they exist...

<comment><USER10> I think it can be summarized in one word: meeting. Do you agree?

<comment><USER11> > Do you agree?

I think we should discuss it to make sure we're on the same page. I booked 313 for the afternoon.

<comment><USER10> Sure, every time I see a classic meeting, the meeting is about how everything sucks or how we could do if only (put anything here)

Instead, when we (developers) have our mourning scrum meeting, we just need 5 minutes to discuss what to do for the day.

Shit can happen, and sometimes a meeting is really necessary, but from my experience it doesn't justify the real cost of it in most cases (number of people multiplied for their hourly rates)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This also plagues local sci-fi fandom. I always hear about the cool new idea that person is never going to finish or even start.

The thing is the person got the some attention and endorphine rush from said attention.

Why go though the actual work?

<comment><USER13> In Bob Shaw's book on science fiction writing, he said that when he has told the gist of a story to someone, it releases some of the need to tell the story, and so it's less likely to get written. Therefore, when he's bouncing ideas off someone, and he gets a really good idea, he won't say anything about it, in order to conserve its energy, so it can be channeled into the actual writing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> He claims that "announcing your plans makes them less likely to happen" yet many people, including me, hold the exact opposite opinion, that announcing your plans makes you more likely to work toward them.

</comment><comment><USER10> "Remember that announcing your plans makes them less likely to happen."

I partially disagree with this. When I publicly commit that I'll do x thing, no matter what, I'm more likely to do it because otherwise people would think that I'm only a charlatan.

I think talking in public about your idea is very important _especially_ if you have to do some kind of report at the end.

<comment><USER15> It's not an absolute truth, but overhyping something is dangerous. Even if you do get it done, you'll be compared to much higher expectations, and your result will look worse in comparison.

<comment><USER16> Saying, "I will do X", is pretty important for general efficiencies sake though. It gives other people who have done X a chance to give advice and people who were thinking of doing X a chance to avoid doing it or pitch in.

Informing people when and where you'll give a talk is also pretty critical to actually having people show up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is easy if you're speaking in English: [http://english- jack.blogspot.com/2007/09/if-they-will-only-l...](http://english- jack.blogspot.com/2007/09/if-they-will-only-listen.html).

</comment><comment><USER18> sounds like he actually meant that people are full of shit.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm going to regret how many down votes I get on this comment.

=/</comment>


Why Would You Care About the Halting Problem? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@martalokhova/why-would-you-care-about-the-halting-problem-593cc27c943d <comment><USER2> The Halting Problem is the reason why you can't prove whether or not any non- trivial program is bug-free, much to the chagrin of developers</comment>


AppCode 3.0 EAP Opens - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jetbrains.com/objc/2014/04/appcode-3-0-eap-opens-with-an-integrated-ui-designer-and-improved-project-settings/

<comment><USER2> I'm excited to see the integrated UI designer - it's frustrating having to switch back to Xcode when working on the UI. So much so that for short periods I even try switching back to editing code in Xcode too ... but I always come back to AppCode eventually.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. They iterate so quickly. It's amazing how much work they've done from 2.5.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been using AppCode off & on now for about 6 months. What impresses me is how responsive the AppCode staff have been around my logged bugs and feedback. We worked with them as part of the CocoaPods bug bash and that turned out amazing.

I've been playing around with 3.0 today and its definitely a better piece of software, still does all the same refactoring and I'm very happy with multi- line editing, I've been wishing to have that in Xcode for a long long time. I normally switch to TextMate to do things like set a lot of properties to readonly.

AppCode: [https://github.com/orta/AppCode](https://github.com/orta/AppCode) Bash: [http://blog.cocoapods.org/CocoaPods-Bug- Bash](http://blog.cocoapods.org/CocoaPods-Bug-Bash)

( edit: wow it's difficult to include links.. )

</comment><comment><USER4> What is the actual advantage of AppCode these days? (Just purely from a user experience point of view.) When I tried it a hile back it kept switching back to XCode for UI Changes, and since the editor for obj-c didn't seem that much better than XCode (and also somewhat more sluggish), I just stopped going back to AppCode after one of these many times it sent me to XCode.

For the record: I love the other Jetbrain IDEs (i.e. RubyMine and Intellij)

<comment><USER5> Now less switching if any. UI Designer is in and we are working on Project settings (now target adding is possible in EAP).

Also AppCode has a bunch of refactorings and inspections with quick fixes that help you find problems and fix them in Alt+Enter click.

Also other (than Obj-C) languages support: C, C++, JS, XML, HTML, CSS. With all the JB's editor features on board for these languages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Finally. It looks like I'll fully be able to leave Xcode in the dust. It's not a bad IDE, but it's definitely not in my top 5. Only thing that sucks is that I JUST bought AppCode 2!

<comment><USER5> When you buy JB license you can update during a year to all major and minor versions. So you will be able to update to 3.0.

<comment><USER6> You just turned my frown upside down!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The term 'Early Access Program' does not warrant an acronym.

<comment><USER8> 'EAP' is not an acronym, it's an initialism.</comment></comment>


Emily's Little Experiment(1998) - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988122,00.html <comment><USER2> Emily used old school crowdsourcing, pre-online social networking ;)</comment>


GitHub is having connectivity issues - <AUTHOR> https://pulse.turbobytes.com/results/55dc40efecbe400bf8001468/

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://pulse.turbobytes.com/results/55dc40faecbe400bf800146...](https://pulse.turbobytes.com/results/55dc40faecbe400bf8001469/) \- Traceroute looks good... so its probably frontend load balancer issues.

Also, the errors dont seem to be affecting users by geo, run multiple tests and different agents fail.</comment>


Ask HN: Travel a lot? How do you keep fit? - <AUTHOR> I'm not exactly on the road a lot, but I do know a few people that are. I do, however, have very little time or space for exercise. I also do not have or want to carry heavy and expensive equipment around me the whole time.<p>If you're a digital nomad, on the road a lot, or generally have limited time, space and budget, how do you keep your body healthy? <comment><USER2> I just walk A LOT…</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a trusted news source between East and West media - <AUTHOR> I find it very difficult to believe world news reports that originate from US (and allies).  Just as unbelievable are reports from Russia (Eastern forces).  I would love to find a number of sources that are less politicized and more objective.  Help! <comment> xkcd-sucks Al Jazeera, maybe</comment>


NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner Submits Clemency Petition - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2020/02/17/reality-winner-clemency-petition/ <comment><USER2> _The Intercept_ 's hands are not clean in this.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_Winner#Intelligence_re...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_Winner#Intelligence_report_leak,_arrest,_potential_role_of_The_Intercept_in_her_arrest_and_sentencing)

</comment><comment><USER3> Unpopular opinion: Not a whistle blower. Did not follow whistle blower laws. Does not deserve clemency.</comment>


Show HN: Oh, hi Mark – Bookmark for chrome with instant search - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/oh-hi-mark/fcmdkgabkdkmdnbppfliniacpgadhcpo <comment><AUTHOR> I met a lot of people — mostly developers, including myself — whose chrome bookmark became so messy that on day, they just stopped using it. But bookmarks are awesome, they must be considered as a personal bookshelf for web articles. A reference to readings of the past. A couple of months ago, it was so frustrating when someone asked me about this good flexbox tutorial I told him about, but it took me 10 minutes to find it because they are tons of flexbox articles out there and I really wanted to give him this particular one I knew was good. 10 damn minutes whereas it should have taken 5 seconds.

Oh, hi Mark! was born :-)

I would be more than happy, if sometimes you share the same feeling, that you gave it a try. I hope it will eventually help other people like me.

<comment><USER2> Nice work. I am curious if you did a search for other solutions prior? I have been using Pocket for a while now and find it offers more flexibility than browser bookmarks.

By the way, nice The Room reference. I could hear Tommy Wiseau's voice in my head when I read it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks DigitalSea!

I did a search and gave a try to Pocket. It's a nice app but not quite what I was looking for. I wanted something blazing fast and extremely simple to use.

For example, to retrieve a page in Pocket, you have to open the app (at least 1 click, probably 2 for most people), click the search icon, type your request. This was way too much for me. With Oh, hi Mark!, you press alt+O and type your request. You can even navigate to one of the result without removing your hands from the keyboard with navigation and enter keys. I think it's actually the fastest way to get to the result.

Another thing about Pocket, it only searches in the title apparently. Oh, hi Mark! indexes quite smartly what he can find on the page, giving different weights to the different strings extracted. This gives the search function way better results I believe.

All in all, Oh, hi Mark! is far from being as mature as Pocket, but I have a feeling it has its place in the hearts of the users preferring a simplicity/ease-of-use solution compared to a more feature-complete one :-)</comment></comment></comment>


Striim TQL vs. KSQL: An Analysis of Streaming SQL Engines - <AUTHOR> https://www.striim.com/blog/2018/09/analysis-streaming-sql-engines/ <comment><USER2> Very interesting results. How can I try this out? Are there instructions for running this benchmark with Striim? I couldn't see any on GitHub.

Also, can Striim integrate with schema registries for data type definitions?

<comment><USER3> DaveTomkins, you need to download the Striim software from [https://go2.striim.com/download-free-trial](https://go2.striim.com/download- free-trial) or use the trial version in the AWS marketplace and run the applications given in the github link. Striim also works with the Confluent schema registry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great benchmarking results. Good to know more about Striim.

<comment><USER5> Thanks. Feel free to reach out at firstname.lastname@example.com if any questions.</comment></comment>


Thanks for Ruining Another Game Forever, Computers - <AUTHOR> http://blog.codinghorror.com/thanks-for-ruining-another-game-forever-computers/ <comment><USER2> The one chess move you can't do on a computer is advance your bishop to your opponent's face at high velocity[0].

[0] There was a cartoon in the newspaper during the Fisher-Spassky world championship which showed the above, captioned with him saying, "My move? Bishop to SPASSKY'S HEAD!" I can't find it online but found another reference to it[1].

[1] [http://overlawyered.com/2013/05/card-counting- casinos#commen...](http://overlawyered.com/2013/05/card-counting- casinos#comment-211978) (bottommost comment)</comment>


Pagodabox - heroku type alternative for php hosting - <AUTHOR> https://pagodabox.com/ <comment><USER2> Looks cool! I was able to deploy a simple php app from my github and it seems to be working quite well.

I really like this.</comment>


Facebook says it has busted an Israeli election manipulation company - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/razhael/status/1129021418061082624 <comment><USER2> Does anyone have a good explanation why so much that grey and black hat stuff comes from Israel? They sure have talent but it's a rather small country after all.

<comment><USER3> Hmm...</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Hire remote - <AUTHOR>

I'm still baffled that the majority of us on HN work on computers day in and day out but many of the companies we own or work for are fixated on building teams that are required to drive to the office daily. I would argue that every company not hiring remotely isn't hiring top talent. Every company touts they hire top talent. The truth is, we can't all be in the 99%. When your pool of applicants is reduced by locality, you're already losing out in the talent wars.<p>If you're constraining yourselves by location, you've already lost out on a global market full of talent. I'm surprised we still have this stigma and belief that hiring local means you're cultivating a particular culture. The truth of the matter is you can have a culture based on a hugely diverse pool of employees. Take Github, for instance, whom I believe does an excellent job of this. <comment><USER2> There are many reasons why certain companies and certain industries prefer local employees. Yes, "inertia" is a big one, but there are legitimate reasons too.

And there is a counterpoint to your argument about talent pool. Yes, if you hire remote people, you can reach the entire world. But you are also _competing_ with the entire world to get the best talent. A small-to-medium, non-famous company may struggle to attract worldwide rockstars. :)</comment>


How much does an employer pay for a W2 Full Time Employee? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ai/how-much-does-an-employer-pay-for-a-w2-full-time-employee-961c6fb7aab0 <comment><USER2> This analysis doesn't include the cost of the infrastructure to support the full time employee: rent for office space, computer equipment, IT support, etc. None of these costs would be incurred directly by the employer if they hired an independent contractor who worked remotely. So they're definitely part of the overhead cost of a full time employee. (They're also not fixed costs - the amount of office space you need to rent depends on the number of people you employ. So the cost of office space is definitely part the the cost of hiring an employee.)

Strangely, the article accounts for three paid sick days per employee, but not for paid vacation days or holidays, which most employees receive. These are also something the company would pay the cost of for an employee but not for a independent contractor (who only bills for the actual number of working days).

<comment><USER3> The article states that the costs are for a California Employee.

In California employers must supply 3 days of sick leave, so therefore its a mandated expense.

The number of vacation days isn't mandated California state by law (yet). Some jobs get no vacation allocation (e.g. fast food, retail) Another example where vacation is offered as a benefit is tech. Tech jobs only offer vacation as a benefit because it would be difficult to recruit any decent employee without it.</comment></comment>


SCons is not slow - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/SCons/scons/wiki/WhySconsIsNotSlow <comment><USER2> I feel like if you close with "only 20% slower than make" you can't justify the title "is not slow."

20% is a pretty huge margin for large builds, which I wouldn't consider using make for in the first place. CMake + Ninja has shaved enormous amounts of time off my builds from make, so why should I use something that's even slower?

<comment><USER3> As a counterpoint, my builds are mostly too fast to care, but modifying the CMake files that describe them is excruciating. It's a miracle of software engineering that CMake functions, but wow is the language awful.

<comment><USER4> Yeah we switched from Scons to CMake and I have to admit I loved being able to use python for Scons. CMake's language is unintuitive and clunky. I wish CMake had been designed like LLVM with a front and back end so that there could be a python-based front end (for example).

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I've been unhappy with any automake system for a long time. Haven't tried ninja though. Scons was fine-ish.

Now that because work forces me to develop on a locked down windows box, make is the last thing I want.

<comment><USER6> Ninja is not a build system, it is an interpreter for the output of a build system.

A very, very fast interpreter, with truly admirable process-management skills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't know if SCons is _still_ slow, but in 2018 it was definitely very, very slow. I doubt it has improved much, as its maintainers were in similar denial then.

When we used it at MongoDB, somebody (thanks Mathias!) put together apparatus to make it generate a ninja config instead of building by itself. That was fast! Anyway, after you had the ninja config.

But the edit-build-test cycle did not include a slow SCons run anymore, and that was huge.

The MongoDB internal wiki had a page titled "SCons Isn't _That_ Slow", with advice for how to live with how slow it really was, later including ("unofficial") ninja and ccache setup. (Which I added.)

But at least it wasn't WAF.

<comment><USER7> > I don't know if SCons is still slow, but in 2018 it was definitely very, > very slow. I doubt it has improved much, as its maintainers were in similar > denial then.

And, at this point, its time has passed.

The big projects that were using scons all moved on to other systems for various reasons.

Better to move on to something that actually might generate a critical mass and community.

<comment><USER8> Actually not true. Many large projects continue to use SCons and new projects as well. I don't think in 2018 we had our heads in the sand about SCons' performance. As project maintainer I've (along with other community members) have been working on performance since at least 2016.

<comment><USER6> If you had a hand in getting it to generate ninja scripts: Congratulations. That made a big improvement in the daily experience of people maintaining projects built under SCons.

To be clear: SCons is not notably worse at describing what must be done to build a big project than other systems of its time. Lots of code has been compiled under it. Its deep failure has been in trying to direct the activities of compilations in real time, at which it is bad, gmake is good, and ninja positively excels.

Still, slowness in resolving dependencies is hard to defend. It is a problem in operations long well-understood, with familiar algorithms. A data structure well tuned to the algorithm would make even Python able to solve it quickly enough.

Nowadays the difficult part of a build system is the complexities of managing foreign dependencies, at which CMake is only just adequate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Rebuttal here: [https://blog.melski.net/2013/12/11/update-scons-is-still- rea...](https://blog.melski.net/2013/12/11/update-scons-is-still-really-slow/)

<comment><USER10> I'm just kind of amazed that there is this kind of lack of understanding of performance & measurement amongst people working on optimizing low-level technical tools like build systems.

<comment><USER6> To be fair, not _all_ such people; by the evidence, only SCons people.

<comment><USER10> It was absolutely not intended as a statement about _all_ such people. The surprise is about _any_ such people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ironically, hitting the front page of HN with a title of "SCons Is Not Slow" is, for me, _excellent_ circumstantial evidence that SCons is, in fact, slow.

</comment><comment><USER12> Scons is definitely slow in some scenarios. It has O(m * n) performance if a rule has m inputs and n outputs. I tdiscovered this when working with a code base that had a single rule with all .ts files as inputs, and all .js files as outputs. As the number of files we had got bigger, SCons got painfully slow. Of course we can rewrite our rules, but that shouldn't be necessary, especially since it was quite hard to figure out why our builds got so slow.

</comment><comment><USER13> Slow or not, it becomes cryptic to write Sconsfiles with any complexity, and it's _impossible_ to debug.

<comment><USER14> It's python, so you can write your own abstractions as you see fit. Like any general purpose programming language, you can make something maintainable or you can make a mess.

<comment><USER15> Sometimes having a tool prevent you from shooting yourself in the foot is kinder.

But it's more than that, a good build system does not need to be Turing complete, and having Turing completeness imposes certain requirements on it that may make it inherently slower.

<comment><USER14> Going along with the firearm analogy, it's only fully useful and powerful tool once you've removed it from its case and removed the trigger lock. Any given firearm may have additional safety features such as interlocks, but they're only effective if they stay out of the way when you intend to shoot. You avoid accidentally shooting yourself and others through training, practice and discipline: treat any firearm as if it were loaded, keep your finger off the trigger until you intend to shoot, etc.

When setting up a build system for multiple people to use, it's important to agree on a general approach and some rules to follow in order to keep the system from turning into a mess. It's code like anything else, and benefits from training, practice and discipline. Using a language that most folk already know is almost always better than using an obscure one out of a sense that the obscurity makes it safer.

When building up a build system, I suggest focusing on designing abstractions to make 90% of use cases trivial for other developers to use. Spitting out libraries and linking them into binaries, existing autocoding scripts, etc. The other 10% of cases that other folk run into, loudly volunteer to make yourself available to help them work through it. Most of the time, there's a way to do what they need that isn't horrendous, or you can take the opportunity to improve your abstractions.

If your problem is that other developers you work with just go in with a hatchet and make a mess without informing anyone, perhaps it's time to adobt some processes to address that, such as better version control hygiene and code reviews.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As the maintainer of SCons I can assure you that we are aware of SCons's performance issue.

The page in question is actually quite old at this point.

Since the content was written Ninja, Cmake, Bazel, and other build systems have launched and become mature.

We are slowly working through the easiest of the list of known performance issues.

In addition MongoDB has contributed their Ninja file output logic. We expect to integrate that in the next major release.

Projects like MongoDB, Godot, VMware, PlatformIO, and many others use SCons. One of it's strengths is the ability to correctly build complex builds.

Please engage with the community our users mailing list, IRC Channel, or discord server if you're a user.

One frustration for the project is that users run into issues using SCons and never reach out and ask for help. Many times a small change in usage will resolve whatever has a user stuck.

</comment><comment><USER16> I hope that FOSS can converge to a single build system as much as possible, because it's not very convenient to learn them all.

<comment><USER17> I don't think a single build system is necessary or desirable. meson (as well as waf and scons) depends on python, which is not so nice for bootstrapping. Thus desktop applications and low level userspace plumbing could benefit from different build systems.

That said, I hope waf and scons die off soon (only a handful of packages even use them). CMake and Meson are much better choices.

<comment><USER16> > I don't think a single build system is necessary or desirable.

Why not? In the old days, it was "./configure; make". Today, it's much less certain what build system(s) you'll have to deal with when building a FOSS tool. That's not a problem when everything works, but as experience shows, more often than not you'll run into issues and then I would say it's nice if you are familiar with the system.

And just like with other tools it's nice if everybody uses the same thing. Github wouldn't exist if everybody rolled their own version control system, for example.

<comment><USER18> > Github wouldn't exist if everybody rolled their own version control system, > for example.

It also wouldn't exist if no one did. It's all about compromises. Having too many tools for the same job isn't good, but monoculture isn't either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Indeed, I had the misfortune of using SCons on one project back in 2017-2019. It was ridiculous how slow it was. Even for the case when "Nothing to be done" was the result it took 20-40 seconds to output the message.

Thankfully we switched to ninja.

</comment><comment><USER20> SCons is the worst experience I've had with a build system. No one, even its advocates, ever really understood what was going on. Things became so much simpler and orders of magnitude faster when we switched away

<comment><USER21> You must not have used cmake. It's fast but man is it cryptic and has a steep learning curve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Maybe add (2014) to the title? It looks like the text may have been revised a few times since, but the original appears to be at least that old.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have not tried SCons, and I have not heard about it in a while. Is it good? who does it compare to CMkae or Bazel?

For context, I don't like autotools.

<comment><USER14> It's good in that it's mature, cross platform, and it's python so you can build whatever you want on top of it. We use it at work for a relatively large codebase that targets multiple languages and architectures.

I like python a lot better than cmake's syntax. It's nice to be able to define functions and importable modules to abstract away the ugly details of the build so that other developers can safely use them without being build system experts.

Bazel is cool, but it's relatively immature. Last time I looked into it, you couldn't just install it easily. It's easy enough to make scons look like bazel. I suspect bazel handles very large codebases more efficiently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Do people use tup?

<comment><USER25> Tup requires FUSE, so is a deal breaking dependency for many corporate setups due to security.

If you're into Tup, you might also like [https://github.com/droundy/fac](https://github.com/droundy/fac)

Fun fact: ninja was inspired by Tup, but is a bit more geared toward pragmatic usages.

<comment><USER26> I think tup used to use LD_PRELOAD and seems to still support it:

[https://github.com/gittup/tup/issues/394#issuecomment-636378...](https://github.com/gittup/tup/issues/394#issuecomment-636378846)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> We need a deep learning based build system.</comment>


Apple's revenue for the year exceeded Microsoft, Google and Facebook combined - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/technology/apple-profits-rise-24-on-iphone-5-sales.html?_r=0

<comment><USER2> And Facebook? Why even bother adding Facebook into this? They're making like only $1 billion revenue per quarter. Whether you add them or not, it doesn't make a difference.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's the association factor and not revenue factor. Ask most lay- people to name the top 5 tech companies and you'd most likely get all of the above plus amazon.</comment></comment>


Rapportive for HN and Twitter Chrome extension - <AUTHOR> http://falcon.io/

<comment><USER2> Cool. Any reason why you requested access to all sites and not just the ones you currently support?

Also, where do you get the data?</comment>


Apply HN: Siris Rooms – African Hotel Chain - <AUTHOR> Millions of Africans travel everyday, most of whom are on a budget. The average expenditure per head is between US $5 and $15, which makes even Airbnb's listings in Nairobi, an expensive choice for most. The budget hotels they are forced to stay in, however lack facilities required for basic comfort; some have dirty linen and mosquito nets (we're in the tropics), difficult check in/out and payment processes, insects and at times no water for your morning shower. ( www.booking.com/hotel/ke/sentrim-680.en-gb.html)
Then Comes Siris,
 a tech based hotel chain developing in partnership with hotel owners, in a uber-like model. We partner with hotels to offer us exclusively, a percentage of their inventory, which we brand and sell as Siris Rooms through offline and online channels. We offer these hotels guests their first predictable hotel experience, while helping hotels sell unused inventory, in Kenya hotel occupancy is at 45%.
About Us.
We are friends and students of CS and engineering at University of Nairobi, and we are building Africa's largest hotel chain out of the iHub ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IHub ) <comment><AUTHOR> Siris is built around my pain points and those of people close to me.It dates back 2009, when my mum got an on job promotion that increased her travels, she wanted to save something for us; a shirt for me, a dress for my little sister and occasionally shoes for my dad, we enjoyed it but she had to sleep in "good" hotels which derailed her mornings since they had no water for a morning bath. Last year, my father lost a laptop with loads of data, in a tier 2_town in western Kenya. I also travelled to Kampala, Uganda and encountered similar issues, the linen was good but their was no mosquito net, I contracted malaria. A friend of mine also had to host his dad while drunk, since his dad could not find a predictable hotel,the issues are that serious.

<comment><USER2> Sounds like this is a hotel quality problem not a tech issue. Siris needs to grade hotels. Lets say a hotel does not have water that is a Siris grade F. Lets say it has water but no misquito nets its Siris Grade D. Hotels must pay to be graded by Siris. In return they get a sign that states their grade and Siris markets their hotel to potential guest.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're using technology to build a virtual hotel chain, and will distribute inventory through our portals or through partner travel agencies. We'll partner with hotels, standardizing experience and branding them under our banner. All our hotels will give a promise of a uniform experience, so no grading is required

<comment><USER3> Do you not plan to have ratings at all? If the maintenance is being done by the hotel staff it won't always be the same quality, and people must care about things like location as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hotel categories will surely vary because certain places are primer. We intend to have alpha rooms for backpacking, flagship and elite rooms

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The idea of a hotel network to move unused inventory has formed the basis of several "dotcom" era companies in more affluent markets, e.g. Priceline.

Reading about the Uber aspect of the project reminded me of something similar I'd read about in India, and a quick Google landed on OYO Rooms [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OYO_Rooms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OYO_Rooms). [I'm not sure OYO is what I read about but it's the general idea]

There seem to be two orthogonal goals: resell excess inventory and sell only "high quality" rooms. One is oriented toward hotel operators, the other toward travelers. Presumably the surplus of rooms will tend to be lower quality relative to their price. Travellers want the rooms that are least likely to be surplus (high quality relative to price).

How do you see this set of competing interests being resolved in the interest of both groups to create a two sided marketplace?

<comment><AUTHOR> With priceline, the issues were simple, the hotels were of good quality but for our case we must standardize. On oyo,I read about them but they have focused on scale amidst issues with customers www.socialsamosa.com/2016/02/oyo-rooms-viral-consumer-rant-pandoras-box/. So we plan to launch leveraging on surplus but standardizing experience. We will derive revenue from a 10% referral fee and also charge 5% service charge for standardizing the stay

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The thought behind the idea is astounding! Quite a promising idea . what typically differentiates SIRI ROOMS from well-established and similar business models like OYO is the business strategy that we intend to use: Create an astounding hotel experience for our clientele while at the same time controlling surplus hotel inventories and selling high quality services- A business model that seeks to cut back on any arising conflicts of interest like quality room service, and the cost of providing such an experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a great experience having Alex as part of our team. In. testimony of our pedigree, he has been admitted to UC Berkeley for a EECS degree, complete your time as a MasterCard scholar, and join us in building Africa's largest hotel chain. Fastest

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Kenya has 6million smartphones against 37 million phones. ICT cabinet secretary, yesterday announced that in order to increase uptake, there's a planned reduction on the import tax on smartphones. This is an advantage to many with a business model, Siris type. Given that most of Kenya's internet is accessed through phones, an increase in quality of it, means rosier times COOL

</comment><comment><USER6> I am not sure how your model differs from online Hotel companies in North America? By "Uberlike" do you mean surge pricing? More questions. Do you know if Airbnb have problems booking rooms in Africa? What is the vacancy rate of a "good" hotel? I suspect answering these questions give insights into viability (if I am a good hotel and have low vacancy, why should I deal with you?)

A comment about title: don't equate largest with best, or most profitable (also this hotel chain does not seem to exist yet).

<comment><USER7> We took "largest" out of the title, in keeping with HN's usual practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the idea is promising and needed. There should be a vast amount of space in the African market for this. If this is done properly, it can help generate economic activity in active regions by increasing the quality and ease of experience of people using hotels through Siris Rooms.

How long will it take you to become Ramen profitable? The traffic in Nairobi (compared to SF, for example) may not be heavy enough, requiring you to spend and expand.

<comment><AUTHOR> If we got to 50 guests daily, we would be ramen profitable, life in Nairobi is much cheaper than in SF. We can live in hostels at our uni, for so long as our 4 year study program is still on, it costs US $50, a year. We can also live on $2, a day for three of us' meals.

<comment><USER8> Ok, so you guys will be hard to kill. That's a very good quality to have for a start-up.

How will you convince the first hotel owners to start using your service? How will you find and convince the first users (you will have to choose one or two mediums in the beginning)?

<comment><AUTHOR> We intend to leverage on the fact that Kenya's hospitality market has had some issues the past two years and occupancy levels have dipped to about 20%. For customers we will use mainly townhalls and referrals

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Basically OYO Rooms ([http://startupbeat.com/2015/05/27/oyo-rooms-is-now- indias-la...](http://startupbeat.com/2015/05/27/oyo-rooms-is-now-indias- largest-budget-hotel-chain/)) for Kenya?

Great idea! No shame in mentioning the original. On the contrary, embrace the reference and use it as indication that the business model is solid.

Goo luck!!

<comment><AUTHOR> For Africa probably

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How will payment work? Who will the customers pay, Siri Rooms or the hotel directly (or both)?

If the customers pay you, there's the question of payment methods or the use of payment processors.

If the customers pay the hotel, how do you collect your fees?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are considering both. At hotels payment has already been used across Africa. we'll just implement with modification perhaps

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> On the tech issue, we are developing technology around booking, Africans accessing the net over mobile is on the increase (Kenya has more mobile phones than toilets) and with hotels around inventory management via an extranet app

</comment><comment><USER11> What was the result of your conversations with hotels/hotel chains?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hotels are willing to sign up as long as we deliver on our promise. In exchange, we are getting six months to try.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> How do you control the quality of the hotel rooms?

<comment><AUTHOR> We intend to conduct routine checks, have a fleet on the street, and through reviews by our customers</comment></comment>


Under the hood of the new Azure Portal - <AUTHOR> http://jbeckwith.com/2014/09/20/how-the-azure-portal-works/ <comment><USER2> Good summary of some of the design decisions and implementation choices made by the team that built the new Azure admin portal.</comment>


Crypto is coming: get ready to spend Facebook's money - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/16/facebook-cryptocurrency-get-ready-to-spend-money <comment><USER2> I think the hype around libra is undeserving. I don't even think Facebook will throw their weight on it, it's probably just a thing they do.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is old (Jun 16). Facebook has already revealed the details.</comment>


Ask HN: I did the coding, who wants to do the marketing - <AUTHOR>

I'm a developer obviously and created http://www.ledenboek.be/EN for managing members and considering to sell it our partnering up with someone. I have had a happy client for the last year... But don't have the skills to improve the marketing to get more members.
You can use a barcode to easily subscribe members and sign them op ( optional)
Any ideas on how to improve this or partnering up with someone? (even selling has come to mind).
It's build on Azure ( Asp.Net MVC), responsive, multilangual and has a demo account. I also created a "localhost" webapplication to send emails for promoting porpose ( personal mails in batch), but i don't seem to get a lot of traction from it.. <comment><USER2> If you want to be an entrepreneur, why not learn the marketing side?

I recommend reading Patrick McKenzie's blog. He has some great articles on why developers need to be marketers.

[http://www.kalzumeus.com/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Click: [http://www.ledenboek.be/EN](http://www.ledenboek.be/EN)</comment>


Ask HN: From Amsterdam to New York? - <AUTHOR> I am a software engineer (backend and DevOps) living in Amsterdam and I've always wanted to experience living and working in New York at least for a while.
Should I do it? If yes, do you have any advice on how to make it happen?
Also, my wife is an American citizen. <comment><USER2> I (also live in Netherlands and) visited Manhattan once on holiday, wondered about that myself. My takeaway from what a friend living there said.. downtown NY is great but expensive. Eating outdoors is the norm. Groceries are expensive as well. Things add up, make sure your income does too. And its very noisy at night.

<comment><USER3> > Eating outdoors is the norm

I'm curious for the reason you mention this. Why would this influence them?</comment></comment>


What the Web Lacks: A Social Network for Finding a Mentor - <AUTHOR> http://www.raymondduke.com/2012/11/what-web-lacks-social-network-for.html#.UJyQEOzjKY0.hackernews <comment><USER2> Possibly because the connection usually works the other way. Usually, mentors find themselves a protege, proteges don't find themselves a mentor. Supply and demand works in favor of them, since there are many more people seeking knowledge and advice than people willing to take the time to mentor someone.

And usually, the connection happens at a subconscious level: you see someone who reminds you of yourself at a younger stage, or who you think shows a lot of potential but just needs a little guidance, or who you just _like_. It's hard to gauge that without a fair bit of time in an unstructured unrelated environment. That's why you _find_ a mentor - it usually happens through serendipity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply and your thoughts. You definitely gave me more to think about. This is obviously something that does require lots of thought considering it's (i.e., mentorship) basically what Robert Greene's new book is about.</comment></comment>


Speeding Up a Fat Web Client - <AUTHOR> https://engineering.linkedin.com/blog/2017/10/sleek-and-fast--speeding-up-your-fat-web-client <comment><USER2> This reads like The Onion. I can't think that anyone would think LinkedIn's website has improved. According to the article the goals were merely to maintain performance. It's a pure content site that benefits little if it all from single-page.

<comment><USER3> The site still takes ~20 seconds to load on mobile Firefox. I don't know of another popular site that takes as long to load

<comment><USER4> Loads quickly for me. I keep hearing that LinkedIn loads slowly but people fail to mention specifics about their devices and internet speeds. Are you on home wifi, LTE or something else?

<comment><USER5> Thats kind of the problem right? Take a distribution of your potential user base connection speeds. Modern web app / SPA engineering seems to be to draw a line somewhere on that distribution and FU to the rest.

<comment><USER6> I think the line is drawn at how quickly you can transfer from localhost.

It seems like devs tend to ignore network latency entirely because it's something outside of our control. It seems to be getting worse too, things like the windows start menu can freeze when you're on a intermittent connection, SPA's can break entirely. I've spent a good chunk of my career fixing n+1 problems over a network, even when it's on a fast connection to a local database the latency becomes noticeable are fairly small values of n.

<comment><USER7> I'm not a huge fan of SPAs. The trend of designing web applications as if they are mobile apps is quite silly.

Polymer in particular is notoriously slow when using polyfill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This makes me sad for 2 reasons.

Reason #1: They did a horrible job, this post reads like a list of things not to do.

Reason #2: They still did a much better job than my company. We had a similar rewrite from a reasonably well performing system to a dog slow monstrosity. However instead of acknowledging it was slow, we put on our doublethink hats and deployed anyways. "We" picked a couple metrics that were easier to game (time to first byte) and then we threw up our mission accomplished flag and moved on. We also wrote posts like this bragging about the performance improvements we'd made.

I hate the sort of "techcrunch driven development" that's so big in wanna-be facebook companies. Instead of solving business and customer needs, directors and vps are mostly focused on splashy articles and speaking engagements that make their resume look good.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yeah, cut down 2mb of CSS files and you're gonna get a speed up :|

I know, I know. LinkedIn is big and has a big team and this level of rigid formalism is what's required to manage a large team of developers and keep them from committing non-performant code. The joys of big teams. I really applaud them for being able to pull it off. The site is far, far more performant than it used to be.

For the most part though, for most of the rest of the world of web applications: just stop including so many fucking libraries in your js and don't do write-once ultra-scoped CSS.

</comment><comment><USER10> I work in energy, and there's a phrase: "The cheapest kilowatt-hours are the ones you don't use."

Anyway, for those who haven't read/listened to it, Maciej Cegłowski has a wonderful talk on the subject.

Talk: [http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm](http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm)

Video: [https://vimeo.com/147806338](https://vimeo.com/147806338)

</comment><comment><USER11> Weird. It looks like just a website but apparently it's a fusion reactor underneath.

</comment><comment><USER12> 2 mbytes of CSS? Wtf. I'm genuinely looking forward to the day when Moore's law finally fails, and puts an end to this madness.

<comment><USER13> They reduced the CSS by 2MB (uncompressed), that says little about how many MB remained.

<comment><USER14> I see two files totaling about 1.5 MB when uncompressed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _" Occlusion culling is a technique that came out of the video gaming industry where you render what is actually visible at a given time."_

I don't have any proof handy, but I imagine this was leveraged in areas outside of gaming.

Spreadsheets seem likely to have used this, for example.

<comment><USER16> What they're doing isn't even occlusion culling. It's frustum culling.

[https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/OcclusionCulling.html](https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/OcclusionCulling.html)

edit: I wouldn't even call it frustum calling since I don't think frustum culling makes much sense in a retained mode API (the frustum culling happens when rendering the retained mode representation through the underlying immediate mode API). 'Level of detail' maybe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Surprisingly, this web site doesn't need occlusion culling to be fast.

</comment><comment><USER18> This blog post really shows how overly complex their system is. I'm constantly bumping into state management rendering issues on the 'new' LinkedIn. For example, when you add a new connection, you can't immediately send them a message until you reload the page. Pretty much the number one workflow you'd expect someone using the site to do.

      "Before releasing it to the public, we knew it had to be at least as fast as our existing site."

Which wasn't saying much because the original site didn't load well at all. At least it didn't have all the state management issues. It is like they take all these newfangled technologies and then struggle to implement them correctly. So sad.

<comment><USER19> Any rewrite or big change is a gamble. By setting this metric they avoid performance degradation. I'm admitting that I'm just assuming this, but the changes are probably a start for easier future optimization. Setting two big targets: make it a lot faster and make it a lot better, seems to me like a mistake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What a waste of time, effort and money. Seems like they are just ever so slightly better off than they were two years ago.</comment>


What if you could see Wi-Fi signals? - <AUTHOR> http://betweenletters.quora.com/What-If-You-Could-See-Wi-Fi-Signals-5-Pics

<comment><USER2> Nice visualization..</comment>


Snowden's Box - <AUTHOR> http://harpers.org/archive/2017/05/snowdens-box/ <comment><USER3> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14118071](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14118071)

</comment><comment><USER4> > Laura had been interrogated by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents on more > than forty occasions when traveling internationally. Sometimes they > temporarily confiscated her notebooks. Once, they took away her computer. > […] As always, following her lawyer's instructions, she took notes. This > time, a federal agent declared that her pen was a potential weapon and > threatened to handcuff her.

Freedom.

<comment><USER5> Bear in mind that this is someone who is considered by a significant part of the population and the government to be a traitor who aided various enemies.

Whether or not you share that view, it's hardly surprising that people who are supporting him are facing this kind of hassle.

<comment><USER6> > Bear in mind that this is someone who is considered by a significant part of > the population and the government to be a traitor who aided various enemies.

Also known as a journalist. This view is not unique to one country either, there are lots of countries where journalists are given that treatment - <USER2> worse.

<comment><USER7> The reports out of Mexico are a dire warning of how bad it can get for journalists.

<comment><USER8> Hey now, the U.S. isn't Mexico. We don't kill domestic political targets.

Some just conveniently die on their own. Rather patriotic of them, if you ask me.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Webpack? (Or, How Not to Serve JavaScript) - <AUTHOR> https://victorzhou.com/blog/why-you-should-use-webpack/ <comment><USER2> A further improvement would be to switch your CommonJS-style imports and exports out for ES6 notation. This allows for more native interoperability, and works fine with Webpack.

      export const Constants = { version: '1.0.0' };

      // in another file
      import { Constants } from './Constants.js';</comment>


PHPBack – Open-Source Feedback System - <AUTHOR> http://www.phpback.org/ <comment><USER2> [https://github.com/ivandiazwm/phpback/blob/master/system/lib...](https://github.com/ivandiazwm/phpback/blob/master/system/libraries/Encrypt.php)

This appears to be built on CodeIgntier 2.1.x.

[http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/532384](http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/532384)

[https://scott.arciszewski.me/research/view/php-framework- tim...](https://scott.arciszewski.me/research/view/php-framework-timing- attacks-object-injection)

Opened an issue: [https://github.com/ivandiazwm/phpback/issues/2](https://github.com/ivandiazwm/phpback/issues/2)

</comment><comment><USER3> Attempting to register on the site's feedback site gives this error:

[http://i.imgur.com/7nnLyaC.png](http://i.imgur.com/7nnLyaC.png)

(May want to disable error output in the HTML also)

</comment><comment><USER4> "PHPBack is feedback a web application that you can easily implement into your website."

this sentence did not make sense to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> The project is led by a non-native English speaker. Maybe he meant to write: _PHPBack is a feedback web application that you can easily implement on your website._</comment></comment>


Physicists Should Stop Saying Silly Things about Philosophy - <AUTHOR> http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/06/23/physicists-should-stop-saying-silly-things-about-philosophy <comment><USER2> I support the last complaint:

> "Philosophers care too much about deep-sounding meta-questions, instead of > sticking to what can be observed and calculated."

Philosophers are so lost in their consciousness/mind/body debates they can't appreciate the simple framework of reinforcement learning. RL would require simpler initial premises - no need to define consciousness or mind vs matter - just agent, playing in the environment, maximising rewards. All measurable and testable in simulation. Using RL AI's even bested humans at go, learned to walk and play complex computer games. But more importantly, RL covers all the aspects of mind vs body and consciousness. RL has more precise terms and they would benefit a lot from understanding this framework.

Among the philosophers of today I mostly align with Daniel Dennett and Dawkins. So there are still a few with the right mindset.

<comment><USER3> We can simplify the problem consciousness/mind/body simulation much more than what you think if we use your approach.

Give me two programs that produce "seeing red light" 200 ms in a loop and "hearing 400 Hz pure sine wave" for 200 ms from the point of view of person who is not thinking anything particular, accessing his/her memories or feeling his body just at the moment.

Since all computers with limited memory can be reduced to finite-state automaton, we don't even need complex models of computation like Turing machine. Just bunch of states and state transitions is enough.

There is no need for machine learning or the ability to solve problems. Just simple program that is being fully self aware and conscious experiencing simple sensation for a very short time in a infinite loop is enough. Because we can fully control the input, we can eliminate all states and state transitions not visited during the loop.

These can't be very long or complicated programs.</comment></comment>


JACL: JavaScript Assisted Common Lisp - <AUTHOR> https://tailrecursion.com/JACL/ <comment><USER2> So, a JavaScript assisted Common Lisp that has no demo that I can run in the browser? Or am I missing the link? It looks very interesting otherwise.

<comment><USER3> I read the paper on JACL. Unfortunately, it is too humble. My take-away message was that if I wanted some CL-like environment in JavaScript, I should probably try SLip or Valtan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's interesting to think what the world would look like if Netscape had decided to put Lisp in the browser instead of inventing Javascript.

<comment><USER5> One can easily imagine it going at least two ways: in one, Lisp becomes as much a lingua franca as Javascript is; in the other, people don't flock to Lisp as they did to Javascript, and so the programmatic web never takes off (which may or may not be a bad thing).

<comment><USER6> It is almost impossible to see a world where people wouldn't flock to a language due to pragmatic reasons. People didn't go to js because it was good, just because it was the only option. If you don't, your competitor would, and likely put you out of business. People didn't make so many Objective c apps because of it's capabilities, but because it was what you use to make iOS apps, and that's where the money was. There is no chance the programmatic web would have ever depended on programmer's preference for language.

<comment><USER5> > If you don't, your competitor would, and likely put you out of business.

I think you're looking farther along the curve than I am. Before businesses considered the possibilities of the Javascript-ified web, they had to be shown the possibilities by non-commercial hackers, who aren't worried about their competitors putting them out of business, but are driven only by the desire to play with cool toys.

The browser provided an easy-to-program source of cool toys. If it had been harder to program, then the hobbyists who drive later trends might have looked elsewhere, and we wouldn't have the do-everything-through-rich-Web-interfaces world in which we live today, but would find the default interface … somewhere else; who knows? (That is, I don't think anyone would ever say "I won't use the programmatic web because of Lisp; I'll hold out for Javascript", but I can imagine someone, if Javascript didn't exist, saying "it's too hard to innovate quickly in Lisp; let's find another platform where it's easier.")

None of this is a prediction, just a reminder that where we are now isn't inevitably, but the end result of many many small nudges, some of which we recognise and some of which we don't.

<comment><USER6> > The browser provided an easy-to-program source of cool toys. If it had been > harder to program.

It was harder to program though. The amount of gotchas in JavaScript are so high compared to many other popular mainstream programming languages of even that era, and not to mention hou could only use it in a browser, which was severely lacking in functionality compared to native APIs. So the hackers who wanted cool toys already had far better options, which goes to show even if js was much worse it couldn't have done badly.

Although there is not much data that I am aware of about the early websites making cool things with javascript, if we take iOS and Objective C, it wasn't cool hackers filling the app stores with cool toys, but real businesses looking to make money.

Hell, even Mosiac and Netscape didn't want to be cool toys, theh wanted to be real businesses making lots of money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I saw this I thought "I wonder why someone would make a JS-hosted Lisp when ClojureScript exists and is used widely." I then found that the author has had significant involvement in the Clojure community, which piqued my curiosity even more. Alan, if you're reading this, I'd be interested to hear about why you're pursuing this project!

<comment><USER8> Hi, thanks for your interest. The main thing I'm after is a "residential" [1] Lisp development system, where applications and tools co-evolve in the same environment.

Most contemporary compile-to-JS languages _target_ the browser, but do not _inhabit_ it. I'm excited about a system that encourages apps and tools to evolve organically together, instead of tools developing separately from applications, which is the status quo.

Other than that, Common Lisp has some really interesting capabilities relative to ClojureScript, and is also fun!

1:[http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/interlisp/Interlisp_Reference...](http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/interlisp/Interlisp_Reference_Manual_Oct_1983.pdf) section 1.2

<comment><USER2> I do think Common Lisp is fun and different form Clojure, and it's cool to see it in the browser as well, and I totally support that effort.

But, with regards to your description of inhabiting the browser, what would differ with JACL say compared to self-hosted ClojureScript?

<comment><USER8> The JACL reader is asynchronous, and so JACL can read characters from external sources (in-browser REPL, DevTools connection, websocket, experimental File API) without blocking the event loop and without relying on an external tool. JACL app artifacts will be created by dumping the Lisp image using a Lisp function.

Other than these technical differences, there seems to be a difference in "philosophy of use". I have the sense that the ClojureScript project does not emphasize or particularly support the idea of using self-hosted ClojureScript to build web apps.

<comment><USER2> Hum, I see. Yes, the maintainers of ClojureScript believe the bundle sizes would be too big if you always had to include the compiler with the APP. (also because the Google Closure compiler JS implementation is not as full featured as the Java one)

But it sounds in your case, maybe that can be removed before shipping? But used while developing?

<comment><USER8> Yes. My plan is for the image dumping facility to support tree-shaking and direct linking. I think tree-shaking by itself might produce reasonably-sized images, for my purposes at least. If not, the direct-linking would make Babel/Google Closure applicable.

<comment><USER2> That would be really cool. Will keep an eye out, good luck on your efforts.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


DOS: The Final Frontier - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/ask2v5/dos_the_final_frontier/ <comment><USER2> Oh nice, this is my post. Feel free to ask questions. I'm hoping to help make Rust more portable through my adventures.</comment>


Bug.gd relaunches, adds corporate solution sharing via ErrorHelp.com - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bug.gd/2008/10/14/buggd-20-and-errorhelpcom/

<comment><USER2> My life involves hooking up various bits of image processing software into a semi-unbroken workflow that can scale to massive (10^5 pixels edge length) images. So I get lots of error messages at different times.

I will try to remember this option the next time I get bitten; but, my usual approach is to type a unique chunk of the error message into Google.

This works pretty well.

The value that _others_ could get out of me having solved this error is, unfortunately not something I care that much about right now.

However, I work on my own, most of the time. I could see this service being taken up in cases where a group manager can dictate, or encourage, his team to use the service, in the name of the greater good.

Other things I noticed doing a little bit of clicking around at <http://bug.gd>:

The big "bug.gd" logo is a link. Curious, I clicked it. It caused <http://bug.gd> to reload. That's useless.

The "solved bugs" link should be more prominent, so people can see exactly what you mean by error message. You take it for granted, but it took me a little while to understand what your site was getting at. A screenshot of an error message, with a link to the solution, wouldn't hurt either.

The "solved bugs" page is pretty silly. A long list of uncategorized bugs with solutions. At the bottom, a list of links to at least 1319 pages of additional solutions. Why would I ever click on one of these pages? The chances that it has something interesting to me approaches zero.

A search field at the top of the "solved bugs" page would be immediately useful (without me having to sign up, etc.). Categorized or tagged solutions would also be useful.

HTH and good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all the feedback.

The Solved Bugs page does give an example of errors being solved, but it's actually primarily there to ensure that bugs people solve also get indexed by Google and other search engines. The importance of that is you can be sure your solution is accessible throughout and not just to users of our site-- it has real value for the world at large.

Thanks again for the rest of your feedback-- I'll mull that over and see what we can do.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, we'd love feedback on our relaunch. Any thoughts you have are encouraged-- we've worked very hard on this.

(If for some reason this submission isn't appropriate for hn.yc, please let me know what we can do to change that-- our post earlier got flagged somehow. Apologies in advance.)

<comment><USER3> It was killed for spam upvotes.

<comment><AUTHOR> We only had friend and HN veteran upvotes as far as I know. :(</comment></comment></comment>


Super-cooling liquid cuts 97% off data centre cooling costs - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/28/wet_servers_cut_cooling_costs_research_leeds_university/

<comment><USER2> It would be nice if there was a page that covered this without (a) calling us "boffins" and (b) missing the major point that the coolant boils and (c) being full of factual errors, as you'd expect from an article that uses the term "boffin". (After all, if you're smart enough to get the basic facts right on a story like this, you're probably a "boffin" yourself.)

But [http://blog.iceotope.com/2012/03/iceotope-liquid-cools- cabin...](http://blog.iceotope.com/2012/03/iceotope-liquid-cools-cabinets- and.html) omits the crucial detail that the Novec boils inside your server, which is why it can work so well, and [http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/NA- DataCenters/D...](http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/NA- DataCenters/DataCenters/AboutUs/3MInnovation/) of course doesn't mention Iceotope at all.

(Thanks to uvdiv for digging up the actual information!)

<comment><USER3> "boffin" is British slang for a scientist/researcher. It's got generally positive connotations indicating that the said person is smart.

Since The Register is a British site, and is also known for often being somewhat tongue in cheek, there really isn't anything to read in to their use of the word.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boffin>

<comment><USER2> From the refs on that page, [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/sep/24/scientist...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/sep/24/scientists- boffin-stereotype)

"There is little that irritates scientists more than the idea of the "boffin". This century-old meme has at least two flavours: the befuddled, bespectacled, bad-hair-day (or no-hair-day) man, socially inept but somewhat cuddly (think Doc in Back To The Future); and there is the more sinister iteration: the equally dishevelled but cold, arrogant and/or mad male meddler, bent on no good (think Rotwang in Metropolis).

"Neither of these versions is remotely flattering, and neither bears any resemblance to reality."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> More details:

(press release) [http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/NA- DataCenters/D...](http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/NA- DataCenters/DataCenters/AboutUs/3MInnovation/)

(technical data) [http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/3MNovec/Home/Pro...](http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/3MNovec/Home/ProductCatalog/?PC_7_RJH9U5230OOA50IEKHCMDN11H0000000_nid=VJK791MG8CbeQQBXSJ1LVVgl)

It's a phase-change system (the coolant boils). That's what the article means by "a thousand times better at conducting heat than water": it absorbs orders of magnitude more heat because of the phase change. It boils 49 °C at atmospheric pressure, cold enough for electronics.

They claim it doesn't need fans: the boiling is enough to maintain natural circulation (convection) from the server to the heat sink.

<comment><USER5> Can you explain how this is different from fluorinert?

<comment><USER4> I have no knowledge on this subject, but

\- According to wikipedia [0], fluorinert as used in the Cray was a single- phase coolant (no boiling). It needed fluid pumps and chilled water, at high energy cost; this phase-change solution avoids both.

\- Wikipedia claims fluorinert has a very long atmospheric lifetime and high global-warming potential. [1] 3M claims this new fluid is destroyed by sunlight [2], and doesn't have the same problems.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-2#Packed_circuit_boards_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-2#Packed_circuit_boards_and_new_design_ideas)

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorinert#Toxicity>

[2] (PDF) [http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediawebserver?mwsId=66666UF6EV...](http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediawebserver?mwsId=66666UF6EVsSyXTtNxf2oxf_EVtQEVs6EVs6EVs6E666666--&fn=Novec649_6003926.pdf)

(The "M.J. Molina" in the datasheet is the Nobelist and co-discoverer of the ozone hole)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting coincident, just yesterday i watched a Russian tv show about dry water and they show that it doesn't conduct electricity and it has a low boiling temperature.

<http://youtu.be/WIVt66RSWNU?t=9m31s> (sorry, only in Russian)

</comment><comment><USER7> Sorry for being a bit off topic, but "super-cooling liquid shaves" sounds like the intro to a Gillette commercial.

</comment><comment><USER8> Phase change sounds a lot cooler then what the article was trying to put forth.

Dielectric liquid cooled computers have been around a long time. I even did my capstone project my senior year taking a 3M dielectric fluid and attempting to make a liquid cooled laptop.

What's always forgotten is you have to move the heat farther then you think. Dielectric fluids are great for getting the heat off the cpu but then where do you move it to? In my project we tried to use the back of the laptop monitor to be a large surface area for natural convention. Boiling is much cooler (literally).

Laptop of course wouldn't work out because imagine trying to manufacture those things at scale! Also, these fluids when they evaporate aren't exactly kind to the atmosphere.

</comment><comment><USER9> You still need to dump the heat somewhere, no matter how efficiently you get it out of your server/cpu.

<comment><USER10> In colder climates heat is used for heating, you know? It's not 'dumped' anywhere. District heating networks are already in place in most countries, and it's trivial to connect the server farm in the heat network, possibly replacing a fossil fuel plant.

<comment><USER11> Heat isn't equal to heat. Server farms produce relatively low temperature heat, which is almost useless.

Look up entropy and thermodynamics for more background.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Odd word choice - 97% isn't really a shave.

</comment><comment><USER13> Reminds me of when they first demoed CFC's on the program "Beyond 2000". Turns out that stuff ate the Ozone Layer. Makes you wonder about the unintended negative side-effects about new discoveries.

<comment><USER14> Makes me wonder about the unintended positive side effects of new discoveries.

<comment><USER15> Unfortunately, those are probably much less likely directly...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Awesome - this could be great for helping reduce cooling related energy use / slowing global warming, but control of a relatively benign chemical will be hard to force since and it's 280-320x worse than CO2 in terms of Global Warming effects if released....per MSDS [http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediawebserver?mwsId=SSSSSuUn_z...](http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediawebserver?mwsId=SSSSSuUn_zu8l00xl8mBm8mePv70k17zHvu9lxtD7SSSSSS--)

</comment><comment><USER17> Sounds very cumbersome to have hardware adapted to use this, also expensive.

I'd still like to see something like this for server cooling: [http://www.extremetech.com/computing/131656-the-fanless- heat...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/131656-the-fanless-heatsink- silent-dust-immune-and-almost-ready-for-prime-time)

<comment><USER18> I think the idea behind showing an iPhone dunked into it is that the cost of adaptation is: buy vat.

Even if your only change was to place the server into the liquid you get a nice bump in efficiency of cooling by having the thermal bulk of the liquid transferring heat quickly away from the hot spots. The liquid itself would then cool on contact with the air, the much larger surface area acting kind of like a big radiator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pipe>

This is better because... there's no per-server hardware to get the heat to the cooler? Just a mostly-sealed room (or tank) with one inlet pipe and one outlet vent?

<comment><USER20> Uhm, that just moves the heat to another place... usually rather closeby. Not really a solution for datacenters (although they are used there, too, sometimes - but just to move the heat slightly further away from components so the main cooling can get to them). I suppose you could build them longer than you usually see them these days, but that would make them quite a lot more expensive.

<comment><USER19> Couldn't the cold end of one be attached to the hot end of another? I was thinking have a large one next to each rack, where the cold end goes to wherever the condenser for this system would be and the hot end connects to the cold ends of smaller pipes going to each server.

I'm assuming that tanks full of presumably patented special-purpose liquid would be rather expensive, and that sealed partially-evacuated piping ought to be somewhat less so.

<comment><USER20> Rather than assuming, why don't you check out their website (linked somewhere else in this topic)?

As for chaining up heat pipes... not really sure how to respond to that.

<comment><USER19> Because I assumed that this would be "call us to negotiate a price", which doesn't exactly help. And looking at the posted links that seems to be correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> HOpe this brings in new found joy to hosted SAAS/Cloud players who are competing with tight margins

</comment><comment><USER22> Brings new meaning to the term wet-ware.

</comment><comment><USER23> How is this different than dunking your machine in mineral oil?

<comment><USER24> It's a refrigerant. Boiling point is 40C at atmospheric pressure.</comment></comment>