Ask HN: Do you use PHPMyAdmin as an alternative to your app admin? - <AUTHOR>

Just curious if any of you substitute PHPMyAdmin for constructing an admin interface for your MySQL based application. Is it a recommended practice NOT to use PHPMyAdmin or other database scaffolds for administrating the application? <comment><USER2> It really depends. There are some scenarios where it's impossible to administrate an application by fiddling with the database - for instance in cases where the application uses caching of any kind.

My revelation regarding administration interfaces came when I realized that my admin interfaces do not have to be polished, AJAX gems of perfection because they are not meant to be used by the clients. They just have to expose some amount of the application's innards to the tech staff.

<comment><USER3> its also nice to have a custom admin panel in situations where there are more complex data interactions and you want to make sure you don't ruin things in the database accidentally

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use the Webmin MySQL module quite a bit for this on our Drupal site.

I don't see why it would be recommended not to use whatever tool fits the situation. If you understand your application well enough to hit the database directly, you probably understand it well enough to not break its integrity by modifying it directly.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have used phpminiadmin ( <http://phpminiadmin.sourceforge.net> ) as the app admin alternative once before. It worked out pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER6> I generally like to use frameworks that take care of the admin interface for me so that I don't have to worry about it. Django is a good example of this.

</comment><comment><USER7> No

also consider <http://www.google.com/search?q=phpmyadmin+exploit></comment>


Ask HN: anyone willing to contribute ideas for pricing for our startup?  - <AUTHOR>

Hi folks - we're coming out of beta soon and need to come up with pricing. trouble is I'm not sure how to price it.  Is anyone willing to contribute ideas on pricing this service?  Any input would be a help and much appreciated.
The service is an REST  based API that converts documents to PDF and other formats, for example extracting text from documents.
The site is at http://www.pdfalchemy.com
I'm thinking that we should have subscription levels like:
$0 (free) per month to convert up to 100 documents per month
$x per month to convert up to 500 documents per month
$x per month to convert up to 1,500 documents per month
$x per month to convert up to 3,000 documents per month
$x per month to convert up to 10,000 documents per month
$x per month to convert up to more than 10,000 documents per month
I'd love some input from the HN community on what people think the prices per level should be, and also some input on the numbers of documents per month.
your input valued.  thanks as <comment><USER2> I have a project for a client that has a need for exactly this tool, but the pricing per month is a sticking issue. The problem is that the conversion to PDF is not tied to revenue for the project. And because it would be an unknown cost (they don't know how many word docs they will be getting), the client would not like it.

That said it could in theory be up to 5-10K documents a month in a year from now, but right now it is probably only 100-200 a month. Currently we are using an open source tool and having decent results. Not great, but acceptable so far. The second option is to require their users to provide only PDF, which is not ideal, but also acceptable.

It seems like this is a commodity product, so figure out what the cost is per document (or per gig of data.) Then add in some profit and that is your price. You can have larger profit on smaller plans and less profit on the larger plans. To do this, I would charge by data not document, since you can determine costs by data, not document.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are there other value-adds besides # of documents? In the abstract, I'd like to see less granular pricing over the # of documents, instead charging more for value-adding benefits.</comment>


Where can I search the Enron email database? - <AUTHOR>

Some years ago, you used to be able to search it on the Berkeley site linked from this page (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~enron/), but it's gone now. The other site listed requires a login and all of the applets on it seem to be broken.<p>Does anyone know of a site that will let me run plain-text queries on that dataset? I'm reading The Smartest Guys in the Room right now and being able to easily look at that would be awesome. <comment><USER2> why not just download the dataset and search it locally?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm taking a philosophy class and my professor is interested in it, so I assume she would be sharing it with the rest of her classes.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Suggestions for a Good Programmable Bot - <AUTHOR>

I have done a robotics course before and loved the idea of programming robots. I don't, however, enjoy getting my hands dirty with hardware details (soldering stuff and the likes). Are there any good robust enough programmable robot? I would love if it either allows me to implement the interface in different languages or has such extensions built in.<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> I hear that the LEGO Mindstorms kits are good for simple, programmable robots.

See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms> and <http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


2014 Chevrolet Volt gets massive price cut ($5000) - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/cars/2014-chevrolet-volt-gets-massive-price-cut-5000.html

<comment><USER2> Is 12% massive? This seems an exaggeration.

It might be worth mentioning that for the last year or so GM has had $4K incentives on the car anyway. So really, they're just cutting the price by $1K.

<comment><USER3> In a model year, sure. However this may be the last year before the refresh. With the Cadillac ELR coming out, it is a coupe on the same tech, there definitely needs to be more separation in price. Finally other cars in the category (green cars) while not exactly the same have had cuts as well. The Leaf by Nissan saw price drops once American production started.

I don't know if the tax credit (7500) has a cutoff based on sales, previous incentives for some hybrids and diesels did. It most likely comes down to, we need to move these now, we need to get the numbers up to get better discounts, or just maybe the tech is maturing faster than expected.

<comment><USER2> There is a cutoff but it's a long way in the future. The price cut here is to compete with the Leaf and to push out of the way of BMW's i3.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is substantial when you consider that a few years ago GM has been losing money on each car they sold. I believe it was something like $200 per car...</comment>


Show HN: Survivalscout.com – Outdoor survival guides - <AUTHOR> http://www.survivalscout.com/ <comment><USER2> Cool service. Couple questions:

\- Can I save things offline?

\- Where did you license all those hand-drawn survival diagrams?

<comment><AUTHOR> \- I plan to add offline-mode when I enable user accounts. It will behave more or less like an app when you save guides for offline access

\- Most the images are from military manuals that I cleaned up

Appreciate you taking a look</comment></comment>


Why My New Blog Isn't on Medium – Dan Abramov - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@dan_abramov/why-my-new-blog-isnt-on-medium-3b280282fbae <comment><USER2> I feel like this move is like Radiohead releasing In Rainbows as "pay what you want". Abramov already has a devoted fanbase that'll probably read anything he writes, but not everyone has that kind of clout. For writers with less followers Medium would still help them get more traction and attention.

</comment><comment><USER3> I find it ironic that he announced this on medium.

Anyway, anything that supports the decentralization of the web is fine by me.

(And yes, blogs still benefit from a centralized resource, the search engine, but that is far less intrusive than a platform like medium.)

</comment><comment><USER4> The note about paywalls is my second biggest Medium peeve. Here's my first: they know how many articles I've read and have no problem tracking that.. but can't remember I'm logged in?

We already 'made it official', Medium. Please.. remember me, not just my metadata.

[https://i.imgsir.com/pbwg.png](https://i.imgsir.com/pbwg.png)

</comment><comment><USER5> And he even forgot to mention the lack of syntax highlighting:

[https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1096939156935188481](https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1096939156935188481)</comment>


The Tablet and the Calculator - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/09/amazon-tablet-casio-calculator/ <comment><USER2> Perhaps even stranger: the HP-12c, a calculator that's effectively unchanged since the early 1980s, continues to sell well at a price higher than the new Amazon tablets. It's not new, doesn't trade on exclusivity, and is easily available second-hand on eBay --- but still sells well brand-new. My old employer bought my first for me, at a cost of about £70 in 2011. It was a great purchase, and repaid itself many times over.

The internals have changed, now running some kind of ARM emulator inside, but I have one from the '80s and another from 2012, and they operate identically. There are some superficial differences, but you could give a modern one to a user in 1985 and they'd be right at home.

The _Wall Street Journal_ wrote a nice retrospective of the HP12c for its 30th anniversary in 2011: [http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487038419045762574...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703841904576257440326458056)

<comment><USER3> In fact, calculator design seems to have gone _backward_.

The HP48 was an _amazing_ calculator for engineers. It often sells on Ebay for _more_ than HP's current highest-end calculators do _brand new_.

The problem is that HP's calculator division originally knew that calculators were about _accuracy_ \--both numerically, the algorithms were specified and stable, and physically, the keys simply never made an error and had a positive physical feel when they engaged.

I could enter long semiconductor device physics calculations into my HP48SX and _not even look at the display_. I would _know_ that everything was entered correctly simply by feel.

I can't even hope to do that on anything "modern".

<comment><USER4> In the 80s and early 90s there were scientific calculators that were programmable and had substantially more functionality built in than the current batch of scientific calculators. If you want illustrations of this, compare the HP 42s to the TI 36X Pro. Granted, the HP was more expensive than the TI, but the 36 series is the top of the line for TI at this point.

The TI can do integration, complex arithmetic, vectors, and matrices. However, most of it's functions don't work in the complex domain, and the matrices are limited to 3×3. It has a solver, but that's limited. It can't store equations or programs.

The HP can also do integration, complex arithmetic, vectors, and matrices. Almost all of its functions work in the complex domain (complex matrices are particularly useful). It has a versatile solver, works with matrices of over 10 elements, and can even store user programs (with GUI elements!).

My theory on what happened is that normal desktop computers became powerful enough to run mathematical software packages, and graphing calculators became popular. Those two things dis-incentivized calculator manufacturers from creating powerful scientific calculators that could ACTUALLY fit in a pocket.

The calculator now exists just for highschool students, which is a shame, because it would be really nice to have a powerful scientific with nice buttons.

Maybe someone will build a calculator that also serves as an interface with a mathematics package… maybe even with "cloud" computing capabilities (where it runs the software package on your computer to do non-trivial things.

<comment><USER5> It seems to me like the main thing about a physical calculator would be the physical keys. Would it make sense then to have a Bluetooth "calculator" keyboard linked to a smartphone?

<comment><USER4> I'd rather see a wifi enabled calculator that can interact with various software packages (either acting as a mobile interface, or using a desktop/server to offload heavy calculations).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The price of the calculator is understandable, given the audience it is targeting. What is mind-boggling for me is that Texas Instruments can still get away with selling a TI-84 for $100 new, no doubt with The College Board's help. They are artificially keeping prices high for students by authorizing only a short list of calculators for exams. They don't even allow non-graphing scientific calculators to be used on the AP Calculus BC exam, you must use an expensive graphing calculator.

[https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/apcourse/ap-calculus- bc/c...](https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/apcourse/ap-calculus- bc/calculator-policy)

<comment><USER7> I find that list interesting because much harder exams like the FE and PE exams (engineering exams for those who aren't familiar) don't allow anything beyond a basic, non-graphing calculator (ti-30/36, casio fx-115, and HP-33/35 at present according to their website).

[http://ncees.org/exams/calculator-policy/](http://ncees.org/exams/calculator- policy/)

<comment><USER8> I'd bet the differentiation isn't graphing ability, but being able to store user data.

<comment><USER4> Both of the HP calculators can store programs, equations, and even text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What really kind of blows my mind is that TI hasn't yet produced a $59.99 pro- level TI-Calc app for tablets and smart phones. There's enough people who grew up through school on TI calculators and would love to have a pro-level app to do their real work on. Toss in a $39.99 physical USB calculator keyboard (as an alternative to the on-screen) and TI could also reap the benefits of the accessory market.

There has to be (or where) literally millions of buyers for this kind of thing. The k-12 training pipeline is the perfect way to lock people into the "TI-way" of calculating.

(and yes I know you can install Octave and Matlab on Android devices these days, but people turn to those because there isn't a TI licensed pro-level app. And yes, I have several TI-calc emulators on my phone I use frequently).

<comment><USER10> TI calculators are basically a racket. They are entirely unnecessary (I'd argue distracting and counterproductive) for student learning in the classroom, but via partnerships with the standardized test and textbook publishers, they've convinced American parents, students, and school administrators that they're essential tools, and can thereby charge $100 for laughably antiquated hardware.

It's even sillier when you consider most students have a dramatically more capable smartphone in their pockets already. We might as well be teaching students to use Palm Pilots or 15-year-old point-and-shoot digital cameras.

Calling them "pro level" is a joke.. real pros use (e.g.) Matlab, R, Mathematica, or Python.

<comment><USER8> I think GP might have been getting at TI89 level calculators, which have CAS. That's a significant feature in my book.

<comment><USER9> I'm talking even better, but designed with the TI-like way of doing math. Something Matlab/Mathematica-level, but with a more reasonable input interface than something like Python for Android. I had a TI-92+ I used for years instead of fighting with Matlab since I had using it down to muscle memory. It worked well enough (until I needed more pro-level tools).

For example, adding better support for matrix math than the TI-89/92 series, and some built in image processing tools...the platform already even has image acquisition hardware.

Or a line of USB connectable voltmeters or other data acquisition hardware.

For field use, lots of people still use these middle-school calculators because they have a decent combination of power and an interface they've been using for 6-7 years. Heck, I use emulators for TI-83/85/89 on my phone for quick calculations in the field or when I don't want to have to fire up an overpowered tool. The CAS on the 89 is almost magic in lots of cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The argument in this article belongs squarely in the WTF category. I wasted 5 minutes trying to find out why a shitty Casio calculator costing $220 is worth its price compared to a $50 android tablet.

<comment><USER12> For the same reason William Gibson wrote _Neuromancer_ not on a computer, but on a Hermes typewriter. More low tech = more authentic.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A chat+cards platform for teams that syncs with PouchDB over WebRTC - <AUTHOR> https://juvenile-circle.surge.sh/ <comment><AUTHOR> To sync, use a CouchDB database you control; or start two clients in the same channel name and LAN; or specify the path for the websocket server (the default address is already set, just change the path).

To create a card, write a message "/card <card name>".

To create a new channel, go to /channel/<channel-name>.

Source code: [https://github.com/fiatjaf/chat- cards](https://github.com/fiatjaf/chat-cards)

<comment><USER2> I got "not accepting new connections".

<comment><AUTHOR> Blergh. Indeed something seems wrong. It was working last night, however. Thank you for your patience. I'll post this again here when it is usable.

<comment><USER2> Some explanation of what it does and how it works would probably be useful, too. Maybe add an explanatory comment after the submission hits the |new| page.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was going to, but the anti-procrastination filter stopped me.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Google can save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year using energysaver? - <AUTHOR> http://motyar.github.com/energysaver

<comment><USER2> The claim that 25% of monitors are CRTs is at least five years old (read: at least five years out of date).</comment>


Why Lambdas Suck - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jaxconf.com/post/44286612657/why-lambdas-suck-by-jamie-allen-typesafe

<comment><USER2> Lambdas are super useful in c#... regardless of the overhead they're fantastic for expressing what you want in a much more concise manner.</comment>


Five Days in the Valley: An East Coaster's Take on Silicon Valley vs. NYC - <AUTHOR> http://ventureminded.me/post/16717285524/five-days-in-the-valley <comment><USER2> As a life-long East Coaster I'd also add this:

There's an optimism that permeates and reinforces the entrepreneurial spirit in the bay area that the East doesn't have anymore. It's a kind of frontier, the world is my oyster, I can do anything kind of thinking, that's needed in this kind of highly speculative industry.

On the downside, coming from the East Coast, it _feels_ weird at times, interacting with SV folks. Bringing up obvious concerns or problems is met more with a "why are you poo pooing my optimism buzz?" more often than valid concerns taken as a serious consideration. The hyper-optimism is _socially_ reinforced, I have _my_ head in the clouds, you have yours, it's rude to bring anyone down.

As an outsider, it seems to explain certain bizarre behaviors I'd encountered when dealing with West Coast firms, usually centered on outrageous and unjustifiable expenditures of their VC money before the company has made any sort of sniffs at being profitable.

<comment><USER3> Well put, although I'm not quite sure "optimism" is the right term. Is it optimistic or egotistical for every SV engineer to believe that they are capable of creating a company worth a nine-figure IPO or acquisition - or, alternatively, that they can personally increase an established company's bottom line by a million a year? Somewhere in between, I'd guess. Partly it's overestimation of the market, partly it's overestimation of the self. Either way, it does seem to be a difference between SV and elsewhere. SV entrepreneurs believe they can succeed because it never even occurred to them to believe otherwise and of course nobody else would suggest such a thing. Entrepreneurs elsewhere are generally more aware of doubts and concerns, but consciously intend to prove the nay-sayers wrong.

Is one approach or mindset better than the other? It's tempting to say that the financial success of SV validates that approach, but I don't think that success occurs in a vacuum. Could those SV companies get where they are without past contributions from MIT or Bell Labs, current ones from Austin or Seattle? I don't think so. An army needs more than one kind of soldier, an industry needs more than one kind of company, and just because SV seems to hog all the glamour doesn't mean other places are somehow lacking.

<comment><USER4> "SV entrepreneurs believe they can succeed because it never even occurred to them to believe otherwise and of course nobody else would suggest such a thing. "

And many of them would be the first to also trot out the old cannards of "90% of all startups fail" and so on, they just don't really believe it, or don't believe _their_ project will fail, regardless of the evidence.

<comment><USER5> And every WWI soldier believed he'd make it through the barbed wire and machine gun bullets, otherwise none of them would stick around.

I guess the difference is, finding out the hard way that you burnt through all your funding and have to look for another job is hardly comparable to getting shot. And some of them (at least, enough to make the VC firms stick around) do succeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Offtopic, I know, but in fact I'm most interested how this guy becomes a VC 2 years out of university after being a telecom banker, and "advices startups". Does this mean he's nonsense (e.g. no startup experience), or am I missing something fundamental?

Needless to say, deep inside I'm just jealous.

<comment> barry-cotter Venture Capital is one of the standard exit opportunities for I-Banking analysts along with Private Equity, Hedge Funds and Corporate Finance.

VC is in large part a sales job (selling potentail limited partners on your future returns) and anyone who can survive two years as an analyst is both intelligent, conscientious, has a prodigous capacity for work and is likely personable. All of these are helpful for being an entry level VC, who acts as coffe boy, secretary, research assistant etc.

But that's not the prize, the prize is impressing somene enough to actually make partner, for which the roadmap goes _Here Be Dragons_.

And remember, over 90% of VC funds lose money. I would be mildly surprised if the prestige (and return) funds didn't have more diverse backgrounds than the money bonfires.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm a software guy in DC with friends in different industries, and I don't find myself talking politics any more frequently than when I lived in Boston. Something tells me that would be different if I was a staffer/intern on the hill though.

The author is a bit over confident in his opinions for me, but a summer schmoozing in SV sure sounds nice.

<comment><USER8> I lived in DC for about 6 years, never worked in politics, and his statement rings true to me. Even if you're not involved in politics, pretty much everyone else around you is, and it tends to just permeate everyone's life. One of the main reasons I left, actually.

<comment><USER9> Traffic and housing prices is another good reason, but if you left for the Valley, you did not really escape that.

<comment><USER8> My feeling is, at least in California you're getting something for your money. DC rents are high because the average income there is so high, but you don't get very much "city" for your money, culturally at least. In SF it's just the opposite. I didn't move there though, I live in Oregon now.

<comment><USER10> > _"but you don't get very much "city" for your money"_

It's typical in SF to pay $2K+ for a 1BR overlooking a back alley where homeless and drunks fight every night, where your neighborhood is contested by gang wars, your building is a creaky little Victorian built at the turn of the century, where a favorite topic of conversation are routes you can take to get from point A to point B in the city that maximizes personal safety, and only- half-joking comments about getting mugged on the bus.

It's not the worst city in the USA to live in, but having lived here for six months now, and many major cities in two continents before that, I honestly think SF is completely overblown. It strikes me as a city where a bunch of suburban folk come after college and are blown away by all the Big City(tm) things, and every negative point simply becomes "how cities are", despite many other cities not suffering the same crime, housing, or other social ills.

If it weren't for the booming and incredibly professionally satisfying tech scene, I'd have high-tailed it to a city where rents are halved, crime is quartered, and transportation not so sucktastic.

<comment><USER11> As true today as when he wrote it:

<http://www.salon.com/1999/11/03/sf/>

It's an incredibly satisfying place to be a tech company employee, by the way. It's less satisfying to be a founder there, unless you're in it as much for the social scene as to run a business. The noise level is crazy, the distractions are extreme, the battle for talent is fevered, the costs are stratospheric.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not familiar with the NYC or Boston startup scene, but I think that arguing that _any_ city is going to overtake SV anytime soon is naive (as the OP found out himself).

SV or, more correctly the greater Bay Area, is to tech entrepreneurship as LA is to movies. Sure, you can become a star in NYC or somewhere else but everybody just _knows_ that if you want to increase your chances, you've gotta go to LA. As Shawn Mullins says in _Lullaby_ for LA:

      it's hard to play a gig in this town
      and keep a straight face
      seems like everyone here's got a plan
      it's kind of like Nashville with a tan

Well, SV is "kind of like LA with a pwn" (I'm trying to rhyme, too). Just as any waiter or waitress and everybody's neighbor in LA wants to make it big in the movies, so it is in SV. The buzz of ambition in the air can be unsettling to many people.

Interestingly, the movie industry started in NYC, then moved to LA in the 1910s and 20s ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_United_States#Ori...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_United_States#Origins)). Read that part of the Wikipedia article carefully, as many of the reasons for SV's dominance are pretty much the same.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, it's kind of hilarious that California's biggest selling point was that it's really far from New Jersey. (Well, that and its somewhat corrupt (or at least, California-biased) judges a century ago.)

If only New York City could be as far from New Jersey as California is--

<comment><USER14> Also interesting is the fact that Hollywood was about an hour's travel from the Mexican border.

This mattered in the early days of movies, when Edison's patent enforcers would show up to demand payment for people using cameras. The early filmmakers didn't want to pay and skipping to Mexico while the goons were in town was a good way to avoid those "expenditures".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you want to get out of the echo chamber your best choice might be "none of the above". Both NYC and the bay area are fishtanks.

You see ads for location-based services and you always see a map centered on SF. Well, I can say I never felt dumber than the day a friend and I were using a "smartphone" to look for lunch in SF and it kept sending us to places that were closed and we kept walking past places that were open.

<comment><USER16> _If you want to get out of the echo chamber your best choice might be "none of the above". Both NYC and the bay area are fishtanks._

But if you want to get funding you're better off in the fish tank.

<comment><USER17> And perhaps talent; the unenforceability of non-competes seems to be a game changer. It's clearly a unique advantage for California.

<comment><USER16> There is a flip side to that- talent has a habit of leaving companies very quickly in SV. I have read (but can't remember where, which is annoying) that NYC hasn't quite reached those levels yet.

<comment><USER17> Which of course suggests that since the traditional IPO is dead (except for the occasional impossible to predict ahead of time massive success), that companies need to treat their talent well.

If you require legal handcuffs to keep them, something's _very_ wrong, something that stands a good chance of killing your company anyway.

For America as a whole, the industry, pushing forward the state of the art, etc. etc. this liquid talent market is very good. Overall talent moves from companies with poor to good (or at least better) prospects; overall especially in the long term this is how the capital markets work. Bad if your name is Kodak, good otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As an East Coasters I get the feeling there are two distinct groups in Silicon Alley (NYC). One group is represented by people like the author of this article, who has a limited knowledge of Silicon Alley, and write articles based on their limited experience. The other group are highly involved in SA activities like these :

[http://www.betabeat.com/2012/01/30/the-best-tech-events- this...](http://www.betabeat.com/2012/01/30/the-best-tech-events-this-week- aarrr-edition/)

<http://generalassemb.ly/events-page>

[http://www.betabeat.com/2012/01/29/art-hack-day- brooklyn-319...](http://www.betabeat.com/2012/01/29/art-hack-day- brooklyn-319-scholes/)

<http://www.wixlounge.com/#!calender>

There are plenty of smart people who spend think about tech night and day, and disagree that the best and brightest are primarily in fiance. To many people fiance are causing more harm to the country then good.

</comment><comment><USER19> "even soccer moms in Starbucks with their toddlers were talking about the latest apps on their iPhones."

This is happening everywhere. My 64 year old mother in law from Florida loads apps on her iPhone.

<comment><USER20> My observation has been that "the latest apps" being discussed are pretty different in SV and Florida.

<comment><USER21> I agree! There is a point of critical mass where apps are loaded everywhere.

It would be interesting to know more specifics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The author wrote a post about how NYC will overtake SV after only visiting SV for job interviews. They are an "aspiring VC" and think Sand Hill Road is underwhelming. I am still blown away by SHR, and the density of power. It's also a lot different when you're going for crucial meetings on SHR, and not just driving through.

</comment><comment><USER23> I saw that movie "Friends with benefits", which made the East-West divide out to be a big deal. Is it, though?

<comment><USER24> I'm guessing you are being dowvoted because people think you are joking?

I am going to assume you are not American and that this is an honest question.

There is real culture difference between the large areas of America, north vs south, east vs west, etc. Now speaking as someone form the old world, America's cultural differences are still very small compared to differences between old world neighbors. Never the less, cultural differences in America do exist.

I'd say north/south is a bigger deal than east/west. And when ever I hear east coast Americans talk about California, it sounds a lot like how Europeans talk about Americans in general - optimistic, the world is my oyster, etc.

<comment><USER23> _I am going to assume you are not American and that this is an honest question._

Yup, you guessed right.

The Americans I've met here in Sweden have been pretty homogenous as a whole, didn't matter if they were from SF or Kansas or Boston. They all seemed like liberal-minded europhile people. Then again, heavy selection bias.

<comment><USER24> Ah yes, I had very same experience with Americans when I was still living in Europe. You are right, heavy selection bias it is, any American who gets on a plane and happily visit a foreign country, especially an expensive one, is not exactly representing the majority of Americans. You'd be surprised how many solidly middle class Americans have never been abroad, or only to Mexico and Canada.

<comment><USER25> 30% of Americans have passports [1]. And :

"Despite the climbing number of American passports in circulation, 30% is still low compared to Canada's 60% and the United Kingdom's 75%."

[1] : [http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-04/travel/americans.travel.d...](http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-04/travel/americans.travel.domestically_1_western- hemisphere-travel-initiative-passports-tourism-industries)

<comment><USER26> While I hate to defend American parochialism, it is worth noting that Americans can see a far greater diversity of cultures and geographies without leaving their country than is possible in most other places. A Londoner would cross six or seven national boundaries by covering less distance than it takes me to actually leave this country. There are a great mass of Americans who have no interest in travel and I can only pit them, but there are also a large group who travel quite extensively and never need a passport.

<comment><USER24> _... it is worth noting that Americans can see a far greater diversity of cultures and geographies without leaving their country than is possible in most other places._

This is plainly false. Just two quick examples: No difference within the states is as big as the difference between French and English speaking parts of Canada. And a tiny country like Switzerland encompasses French, German and Italian speaking populations.

 _A Londoner would cross six or seven national boundaries by covering less distance than it takes me to actually leave this country._

This contradicts your first sentence. Also a Londoner will meet several nationalities, I don't know what you mean by "boundaries." Also a New Yorker should be right up there with Londoners.

<comment><USER2> You've obviously never gone from NYC to coastal Alabama in a single trip, or Hawaii to Southern Texas, or hell Washington D.C. to rural West Virginia. Sure there are plenty of accents, but some are almost outright dialects.

I'd argue that English and French Canada are about as different as any of these pairs.

<comment><USER24> _I'd argue that English and French Canada are about as different as any of these pairs._

Really? You speak English, you can go to any shop in Hawaii, NYC, Alabama or Texas and buy what ever you want.

I am sure you can do the same in Toronto. Could you do the same in Montreal if you don't speak French and the clerk doesn't speak English?

If you don't speak French, are red-green color blind and have never noticed the hexagonal shape of a certain street sign, do you know what you should do in your car when you see "Arrest" on a street sign?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the difference between Montreal and Toronto is _plainly_ , objectively and obviously greater than that between any two places in the US.

Even in the French heavy parts of Maine and Louisiana at least the street signs are still in English.

<comment><USER2> It's funny that you specifically call out Montreal. I've spent quite a bit of time in Quebec over the years and I don't recall having much trouble getting what I wanted from shop keepers.

Or put another way, I had about as much trouble as I did in France and about as much as some really Cajun parts of Louisiana -- and I don't speak French.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=BRXcpBIteEM#t=24s)

I'm from the mid-Atlantic, but have had significant issues in parts of Alabama/Arkansas both with being understood and understanding them, parts of Miami, and even parts of Washington D.C.!

In Alabama and Arkansas I also found that I ate very different foods, parts of animals and plants prepared in ways I wouldn't normally eat - lizards, organs and frogs oh my! On the contrary the food in Quebec seemed pretty familiar except for the Poutine.

In Hawaii there are more East Asians and Pacific Islanders than Caucasians. There are parts of the Islands where you might not be intelligible unless you speak Tagalog or Japanese, it has an economy built around tourism and they eat more spam than the rest of the U.S. it has _royal palaces_. It's about as comparable to New York City as Zurich is.

In fact I've felt more at home in Florence than I did in Greenville, Alabama. In Texas, my friends thought nothing of pulling off to the side of the road at a BBQ pit and eating beef off of Styrofoam plates in a rickety shack where we brought our own beer. I couldn't imagine doing that anywhere north of D.C.

Yes my friend, America really has very different cultures.

<comment><USER23> _In Texas, my friends thought nothing of pulling off to the side of the road at a BBQ pit and eating beef off of Styrofoam plates in a rickety shack where we brought our own beer. I couldn't imagine doing that anywhere north of D.C._

That sounds _awesome_. What's that kind of eatery called? :)

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure.

I still haven't quite figured out what a Honkey Tonk is. The locals seemed to know what I meant when I called it a Bar-B-Que pit.

Oh, and it was all smoked brisket. Which we don't really have as such here on the East Coast, we tend to do pork or chicken, in a sweeter sauce.

Some of the places have grown up a bit over the decades and have other meats and pies and biscuits and things now.

<http://www.saltlickbbq.com/> is one that started as a pit and apparantely hung on to become slightly more established.

"But in 1967, Thurman, who was known for his delicious barbeque at family reunions, decided he would cook meat for paying customers. Thurman and his two sons built a huge barbeque pit. Thurman would go to the pit on Thursday night and start cooking. He stayed for the weekend, sleeping on a cot, until all the meat sold. He kept coming home earlier and earlier. After a few months, the boys and Thurman built a little screen porch around the pit. The Salt Lick has grown from there. The Roberts family now serves mouthwatering barbeque to thousands of folks each week."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> He had me until "Cameron Indoor". Come on: Dean Dome FTW, Cameron's a dumpy high school gym.

Anyway, as someone who has spent ten years on each coast, it's impossible to disagree with his overall sentiment. There's an energy and vitality in the bay area that is completely lacking in other places.

People love to talk about their local tech community, and I've found myself talking up Raleigh and Durham and the American Tobacco Campus and whatnot, but I know it's just a pale imitation.

Take some meetings with VCs in each location; the difference is eye-opening.

<comment><USER28> I second this thought. I grew up in the Bay Area and worked for a few years as a programmer at a startup there. I've also been going to school in the Raleigh area (Chapel Hill) for almost 2 years now.

I've heard the media reports saying how the Raleigh Triangle area is a growing tech hub but I honestly don't see it. It pales so much in comparison to the Bay Area. There are some people interested in entrepreneurship and technology but it's still really hard to find them. It's hard not to run into these kinds of people in the Bay Area. One point of evidence is in looking at how many meetup groups and members are focused on technology and entrepreneurship in each area, and there is a stark difference.

Also, the Dean Dome is amazing. I'd rate it better than Oracle Arena.

<comment><USER29> Hey there! I'm a 2x Tar Heel and the Founder/CEO at <http://argylesocial.com> in Durham. Shoot me a note via @ericboggs or <http://ericboggs.com> \- I'd love to meet up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> FTA: "The commute between SV and SF is absolutely brutal. If the West Coast had NYC's density of startups and investors, I don't think NYC would ever have a chance of catching and passing SV."

I thought it was one of the most beautiful commutes in the world personally.

<comment><USER31> He was referring to the amount of traffic (mostly likely on highway 101). I've done that commute a few times and if you're driving during rush hour (7am-10am or 4pm-7pm) it can take 2x-3x times longer than normal.

<comment><USER14> 101 is pretty bad. When I worked on the peninsula I'd always take 280 and cut over on 92. It'd take a little bit longer, but it was way better in terms of my mental health.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> ~ "I thought my city would win over Silicon Valley, and then I visited the place. Ooops"

A plea: next time you hear someone comparing their city to SV, take them aside privately and tell them to book a ticket on the next plane going to the Valley.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm not sure what he's talking about wrt density of startups in NYC versus SF/SV. San Francisco is positively bursting with startups.

<comment><USER16> I think he means the area as a whole- that is, if you were an investor visiting various startups, you'd be bouncing between SV and SF, and in between. In NYC almost all startups are based in Lower Manhattan- you could walk from office to office.

<comment><USER13> That is definitely true. A one mile radius around Union Square probably hits a substantial fraction of the tech in NYC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm sorry, but I immediately qualified the post with:

> I'm a first-year student at Harvard Business School</comment>


Disney almost bought Twitter but backed off – "the nastiness is extraordinary" - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2019/09/23/disney-almost-bought-twitter-b.html <comment><USER2> At this point I honestly belive Twitter is doing more harm than good to the world.

All the hate mobs, the public lynching, they all seem to be originated from Twitter and then getting boosted by blogs and other media outlets.

It seems that it is more and more not about regular people but members of the media and (pseudo) celebrities feeding each other one shots of outrage after another to keep each other alive.

</comment><comment><USER3> Source article: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/style/disney-bob-iger- boo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/style/disney-bob-iger-book.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> I would have passed on buying Twitter as well, for the exact same reason.</comment>


Design Thinking in Your Work Life - <AUTHOR> https://ux.nearsoft.com/blog/podcasts/design-thinking-in-your-work-life/ <comment><USER2> This could be a naive interpretation on my part, but isn't what is now called "design thinking", is what we used to call "thinking"?

</comment><comment><USER3> I am pretty convinced this whole interview is sarcasm and in that light, it is hilarious. It is a clever combination of obvious statements, silly semi- rhetorical questions and mis-attributed quotes.

Below are some quotes from the interview that I think argue my point:

\- "when you say design thinking, maybe your mind goes straight to the people who make art and designers. But [...] Design thinking is for everyone and you can think of it as critical thinking."

\- "Is it OK for a developer to innovate? [...] or a 4th grader in school? Is it OK for them to innovate?"

\- "I love this quote by Albert Einstein who said, 'Innovation is everyone's responsibility.'" \-- as far as I can tell this is NOT by Einstein, but a meme quote mis-attributed to him. (Sources welcome). Also, Einstein was most definitely NOT what we would call an engineer today as they say in the next sentence.

\- "Innovation actually takes work. [...] it's not just waking up in the morning and having a great idea and there is your $1 million idea."

\- "We try to use design thinking when we are deciding on what vacation we want to take."

Some useful point they say:

\- "We say there are no bad ideas, every idea is going to be a step on the road to that winning good idea. And the more the better."

\- "That's one way that we've been thinking about design thinking here and how to bake it into our culture is that we are requiring things that are not going to work."

<comment><USER4> Oh no, this is dead serious. Even 2 minutes of listening to the recording makes that clear.

Consider that an enormous and often unheralded component of successful design [thinking] projects is cultural: are you working around people who share your process and ideation style? Is your team able to co-navigate an abductive process because there is a shared process, language, and disposition?

Also consider most designers are hired to be (a) intuitive and (b) visual. The practical implications being they are usually not (A) explicit or analytical thinker nor (B) articulate.

So what you have here is someone who is not especially skilled with words earnestly repeating the core dogmas of his industry, but only able to offer a mediocre "translation" of core working assumptions, process, and lingo to outsiders.

In many ways this podcast/article is exceedingly standard fare, you just may not have been exposed to much of the design sphere's publication. There are a handful of thoughtfully articulate, erudite designers out there, but they are the exceptions and not the rule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like design and I like thinking, so I can understand the appeal, but I'm tired of IDEO's one weird trick.</comment>


Using the world's first Bitcoin ATM - <AUTHOR> https://afreak.ca/blog/using-a-bitcoin-atm/

<comment><USER2> Flashing that QR code with your money on it seems like a pretty big security hole, no? Could anyone with a big telephoto lens peer over your shoulder and snag the code before you get a chance to? Thereby taking your money?

</comment><comment><USER3> The requirement that the user's identify be verified is disappointing. I wonder if when these will have the same requirement in the U.S. when they launch or if small amounts of cash will be convertible without a verified identity.

<comment><USER4> The verification process typically takes ~5-10 minutes (automatically) during a one-time enrollment step. Afterward, it is instantaneous.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Bitcoiniac's rep (and keep in mind this is a small company) told me specifically that it can take up to an hour for it to be processed and it has to be done by person. Where did you get that it was automatic and would take 5-10 minutes?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Perhaps the palm reader will be able to recognize you after you input it once. It sounds like the "1 hour delay" is for that first time you use the machine.

For people who might use a Bitcoin ATM, it might make sense to input the palm print on the way into work or on the way out of the coffee shop, then bounce. The next time you come back, identity confirmation should be instantaneous.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is pretty cool and all but I don't really see the use case for a btc ATM. Maybe if the shop offered 10% off on some coffeeif you paid With btc, but the ~1 hr confirmation time makes this somewhat unuseable. Plus would someone want to hagle with depositing money then paying with btc? Either way cool post and idea

<comment><USER7> Once bitcoin ATMs are in major cities around the world, you no longer need Western Union.

<comment><USER8> So what you are saying is wire scams will be even easier to pull! ;)

<comment><USER9> You were probably kidding :-) But: from the screenshot in TFA, they require you to provide biometric identification and then they appear to apply a $1001 per day usage limit to this identity, and this is specifically in place to comply with AML regulations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hopefully, they get these things all over the place. The feature that interests me a lot more is being able to WITHDRAW money from the ATM. This can replace your regular ATM card.

<comment><USER11> It is possible to withdraw at this ATM. Well to be honest I don't know if Robocoin enabled the withdrawal option on this one installation, but the one they demo'ed at the Bitcoin 2013 conference in San Jose was definitely able to process withdrawals. As a matter of fact, I saw an attendee selling well above $1000 of Bitcoins and completely emptying the machine of its cash... It was definitely working :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> You see the FBI has some to offload, so expect to hear quite a few stories about normal ppl using bitcoin for normal stuff. A cynic.

</comment><comment><USER13> If they can partner with CoinBase or a similar "BitcoinPal", I think they instantaneous transactions will be possible. Maybe it's time to have a standard for these Bitcoin ATMs like MasterCard or Visa.</comment>


Our actions should not be dictated by fear of punishment - <AUTHOR> http://amos.me/blog/2012/fear/

<comment><USER2> " _I'm looking forward to a second Nuremberg trial. Where all the people involved in the policing of information exchange will have to answer for their crimes against humanity. All their partners, copyright enforcement crusaders, should be judged as accomplices._ "

I think comparing the actions of genocide out-carriers and the actions of media execs is a little much.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I think that very few people realize the importance of what is currently > happening, both inside and in periphery of the law.

Case in point..</comment></comment>


OpDemand is hiring - <AUTHOR> http://blog.opdemand.com/post/9002319913/opdemand-is-hiring

<comment><AUTHOR> You probably haven't heard of us...

OpDemand is a software company with a mission to make IT operations departments efficient and responsive through automation. Our Command & Control technology (C2) makes it simple to deploy and manage complex distributed systems in the cloud. Our web console and command-line tools are unlike anything on the market.

As the blog post says, we're looking for a strong engineers who want to work and play in Boulder, Colorado. Come check us out. We're worth a look.</comment>


The evolution of B-2s and pterosaurs - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/59/connections/bombers-and-dinosaurs-were-both-before-their-time <comment><USER2> "Mysteriously, the U.S. Air Force ordered the flying-wing bombers on the assembly line scrapped."

Nothing mysterious about it. The original YB-49 was a bear to control in flight and prone to crashing. It appears to be the nature of flying wings. The modern B-2 solves that by fly-by-wire, with computers between the pilot and control surfaces, keeping the plane stable.

<comment><USER3> But why order them to be scrapped? That costs the Air Force more than just striking them from inventory, recovering the GFE and letting Northrop deal with them.

Both the UK and Canadian governments issued similar orders ( TSR2 and CF-105 ) but in those cases it was spiteful destruction to prevent a subsequent government from reinstating the programmes.

<comment><USER2> Secrecy. The USAF routinely orders enough (?) spare parts for secret equipment, then scraps all the tooling. They love shredding/burning amything classified. Then the system gets extended to a longer life, and an expensive new store of spare parts gets rolled into upgrades.

Full dosclosure: old guy who experienced enough of USAF to be a touch cynical about procurement.

<comment><USER4> Former acquisitions officer, that government spending puts a smirk on my face

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Back when Discovery Channel actually had more than just silly "reality" shows, they aired a program called "the Wing will Fly" about exactly this. Someone has put an old VHS copy on youtube[1]. If you are interested in this article, you'll enjoy it.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkhziQF0AiI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkhziQF0AiI)

</comment><comment><USER6> Dunne, Soldenhoff and Horten at least flew flying wings before Northrop. They were even in magazines.

</comment><comment><USER7> Even a nautil.us article is not spared from making this classic mistake:

> Spinning in vortices, air could travel more quickly now above the long > narrow wing than below it, creating the pressure difference that would lift > them into the skies.

<comment><USER8> What mistake? The classic mistake is to assume air travels faster over the top than the bottom because the top path is longer and they must take equal time. In fact air does travel faster over the top, quite a bit faster than the equal time fallacy would indicate.

<comment><USER9> I wonder if there's a word for this; where people learn that one bit of common knowledge is a fallacy and then "overcorrect" by assuming related things are also wrong. Perhaps "meta fallacy?"

<comment><USER10> The legal term, which presupposes the fallacy, is: Falsus in uno, Falsus in omnibus[1]

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsus_in_uno,_falsus_in_omn...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsus_in_uno,_falsus_in_omnibus)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Should carriers be free to modify content? - <AUTHOR> http://stuartroebuck.blogspot.com/2010/07/should-mobile-operators-be-free-to.html

<comment><USER2> From a legal perspective, I wonder if modifying content like this counts as producing a derivative work, which might possibly violate copyright law.

If I recall correctly, Blockbuster got in some hot water for censoring some of its videos and certain Hollywood directors did not appreciate it very much.

I suppose being "free to modify" would then depend on the consent of the content provider whose work is being modified.

Any lawyers in the crowd with insight on this?</comment>


POV-Ray 3.7 is released under the AGPL3 - <AUTHOR> http://povray.org/download/

<comment><USER2> What license did it use prior to 3.7 ?</comment>


Ask HN: What is Your Digital Note Taking Solution? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN.
I am trying to find the perfect note-taking solution for my requirements below.
Any thoughts you have would be appreciated.
Requirements:
-- No paper -- Tablet -- Pointed Stylus (not cumbersome finger-sized ones) -- Ability to view and edit previous pages -- Integrated device (view + edit on the same device) -- Price: ~$200 -- Support in India
Thanks. <comment><USER3> The only one that fits your description and is not too big is the Galaxy Note 8.0, but it's about 2x more I think.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN- GprwU9y0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN-GprwU9y0)

You won't find any tablet that is $200 and does what you need, and even if you want, it will probably be terrible performance/quality wise. I do think this one should've been $300 with a 1080p screen, but this is what you get right now.

</comment><comment><USER4> You're not going to realistically get a tablet with those features at that price. You're best bet is probably to go with the Galaxy Note 8.0 or buy a used iPad and a capacitative stylus (with the Notability app, this is an amazing solution despite the fact that it uses a "finger-sized" stylus - <USER2> tablets are expensive).</comment>


Lesson Learned Running a Side Project for One Month - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/learning-new-stuff/lesson-learned-running-a-side-project-for-one-month-2a6f87ec1320 <comment><USER2> I see a lot of parallels between what you're doing and StackOverflow.

In the formative years of StackOverflow, Joel and Jeff took huge pains to structure the service in such a way that there wasn't a time/money equivalency to participating.

Mostly this took the form of outward public recognition (scores, badges, etc.) and incentives aligned around that. If there's a path forward for Bugrex I think it's probably along those lines.

<comment><USER3> On the subject of SO: I think it's worth considering how (incredibly!) valuable the public record of questions and answers is. Many, many times I don't have to ask a question b/c I can find a comparable one that has already been answered.

I really dislike how Slack is starting to dominate in the Q&A space for specific projects/libraries, b/c it does the entire dev community a disservice to hide knowledge into a myriad of little silos that Google doesn't index.

Long way of saying it would be awesome if BugRex had a searchable/spiderable archive.

<comment><USER4> We are very much considering opening up the chat logs!

<comment><USER5> Or everyone could just use IRC. Seems like a waste of man-hours and talent to recreate something we've had for decades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for sharing this. I had similar idea a year ago and ended up didn't do anything after much research. I came up with similar information as you went through during the execution. People won't pay for this (very few). The experts don't care about money either. It's a chicken and egg situation that's hard to bootstrap to something larger. Well unless you find a very specific niche (e.g. Q&A for AI algorithm...). Frontend is too crowded already.

</comment><comment><USER7> I appreciate what these guys are doing. The chat format is faster and discussions can be had in greater depth, relative to the Q&A format. While Q&A has it's own benefits, like being viewed by more people, both are valuable and I appreciate the service you are providing.

</comment><comment><USER8> Love the shared lessons! Good luck with this!

<comment><USER4> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> thanks Per! interesting learnings!

</comment><comment><USER10> Thanks for sharing!</comment>


How to bypass WSJ and NYTimes paywalls? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jinsongli.com/post/show/31 <comment><USER2> > Motivation: You know why ;)

Yep. We love to kick ass, break things, and have fun. We don't give a shit about the rules. If we can get away with it, other people like us think we're cool. Did I leave anything out?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For Chrome users: [https://github.com/njuljsong/wsjUnblock](https://github.com/njuljsong/wsjUnblock) For Firefox: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/bypasspaywall...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/bypasspaywalls/)</comment>


Easy Package Creation with CheckInstall  - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/307110-easy-package-creation-with-checkinstall

<comment><USER2> I'm not a fan to be honest. Looking at the listed use cases...: All the new autotools packages can be easily uninstalled with `make uninstall`. If you actually experiment with recompilation a lot, then it's not that hard to create a safe package including all files inside DESTDIR.

And if you have 50 machines and don't know how to make proper packages, I've got bad news... Checkinstall cannot magically guess what's part of the configuration and what isn't (badly-autotooled software puts stuff in strange locations sometimes) so one day the magic that generated the package quickly, will remove your configs during an update.

Maybe CI is cool for home users, just keeping the system relatively clean - but I would never want to use it for something serious. Creating packages is trivial if software uses only `configure && make && make install`. If it isn't trivial, maybe it's a good idea to take a couple of minutes and understand what's going on?

So for me (if it's anything apart from home laptop) it comes down to: If you know how does CI work, why use it instead of going the "proper" way? If you don't know - you're safer to not use it.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Why not just use make install? Because that doesn't allow you to easily manage the software at a later date._

Eh, I don't mind just installing into my home directory with autotools.

<comment><USER2> There's also --prefix=/opt/package-ve.rs.ion</comment></comment>


"a single PHP file called "index.php" generating $2,342.04 in a day" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/938707166508154880 <comment><USER2> As always, the implementation here, the lines of code in index.php, doesn't really matter. Anyone can code a job board given enough time. The questions that _matter_ are rather how he got his audience to come to it:

\- How did he make his offering known to potential clients? \- Why did the clients choose his page, over the N many competitors out there? What's different or better about it? \- Conversely, how does he get his job-seekers? Are they of particular quality?

The index.php file is old news. The getting employers and candidates together in a nice package is the valuable part.

(I'd actually be looking forward to hearing about the making of this job market.)

<comment><USER3> I think Pieter has simply become _the_ guru for digital nomad engineers - he's behind Nomad List, for example. So he spent a good portion of his life building up his credibility and connections. Plus the site actually looks and feels good (CSS/JavaScript). The PHP file is probably the least interesting piece of the puzzle :)</comment></comment>


Amazon's Whole Foods Price Cuts Brought 25% Jump in Shoppers - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-11/amazon-s-whole-foods-price-cuts-brought-25-jump-in-customers <comment><USER2> As the article hints, this jump is likely driven in part by the millions of dollars of free advertising Whole Foods received from the news, and not simply because there were price cuts.

<comment><USER3> If you live in a town with a Whole Foods, you already know it's there. And nothing physically changed to the stores overnight.

Announcing a price cut seems way more likely to draw in comparison shoppers to see what cuts were made, and if they compare to people's current regular supermarkets.

<comment><USER4> So along that line of thinking, everyone knows the McDonalds is there so there's no reason for McDonalds to ever pay for advertising.

<comment><USER5> Most of that is advertising deals and/or new products.

<comment><USER6> Those deals and products are part of the marketing/advertising, not independent from it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am also an infrequent Whole Foods shopper. Some anecdata to share:

I went to Whole Foods the week before the announcement and then again today. I was very sensitive to pricing on the first visit (and, frankly, was pretty surprised at how expensive most things were). On the second visit today, I noticed big drops in the prices of certain items, such as fish, produce, and yogurt.

For instance, I don't think there was any fish cheaper than $15/pound before the takeover, yet today Cobo Salmon behind the counter was $10/pound (sale) and shrimp was $12/pound (regular price).

It was also possible to buy organic Gala apples for $1.50/pound (sale) and cauliflower at $2.50/head (normal price).

It's not as cheap as the "normal" supermarkets in the area, but it's more competitive than before. Of course, these could be seasonal variations -- for instance, apples are in season in New England right now.

<comment><USER8> The apples you saw were picked 5-12 months ago. Source: [http://www.businessinsider.com/supermarket- apples-10-months-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/supermarket- apples-10-months-old-2017-4)

<comment><USER9> No, those apples are fresh. They're cheap because it's apple season. The gala apples on sale are probably too small to do well in long-term storage. Whole Foods isn't the only grocer selling those, either. I bought a bag and just noticed today that my office (a big Silicon Valley company who sources commercially) put out bowls of the same apples (they're conspicuously small and yellow for gala apples).

I don't get all this business about Whole Foods being expensive. I went to Costco, Safeway, and Whole Foods this past Sunday. Per usual, the packaged, vacuumed-sealed ground beef was <= the cost elsewhere; $4.99 at WH, $7.99 at Costco, and $6.99 at Safeway. The chicken wasn't on sale today at WF; it was $2.99/lb for a whole fryer that they'll chop up, though often it'll sell for $1.99/lb. But Costco's $1.99/lb packages were sold out, and Safeway is rarely less than $2.99 either. (WF did have organic whole fryers on sale for $2.29/lb, but pre-packaged so they won't chop them up.) I forgot the exact price because I didn't buy any, but the steaks at WF were no more (and perhaps less) than the Costco steaks. You can buy cheaper steaks at Safeway, but they're not worth the money.

Generally, for staples (meat, vegetables, canned goods) I've found Whole Foods to be no more expensive, and often cheaper, than elsewhere, unless I'm buying in bulk at Costco (e.g. a case of canned beans). Whole Foods can do this precisely because people blindly buy their premium products, like prepared foods. Whole Foods sells a huge volume of high-margin items. By contrast, regular grocers make their profit from low-margin staples. Thus, for staples Whole Foods will always be competitive. Moreover, because Whole Foods is upmarket their staples (especially vegetables and meats) are often of better quality if only so they don't detract from the overall feel of the store, and in any event they move quicker off their shelves and are thus often more fresh. Compare the butcher counter at WF to your regular grocer, assuming the regular grocer even has one. I can often get freshly butchered, hormone-free chicken for $1.99/lb (never more than $2.99/lb) at WF; at Safeway the only way to get that price is pre-packaged Perdue chickens.

Don't get me wrong--I've walked out of Whole Foods having paid plenty. But it's knowingly and by choice. And there are plenty of times where I've walked out of Safeway thinking, "WTF!?".

I'm not looking forward to Amazon's cost-cutting measures. If Whole Foods moves down market it means the premium shoppers will go elsewhere and stop subsidizing my purchases. Amazon can subsidize the prices, but I suspect quality and selection of staples will go down.

<comment><USER10> > The gala apples on sale are probably too small to do well in long-term > storage. Whole Foods isn't the only grocer selling those, either.

When you say "do well", you mean they're not going to generate enough revenue? Because big apples generally lose quality faster in long-term storage, according to a book I inherited on how to run an orchard, from 1948. :)

Anecdotally, I find that oversize apples are typically less dense.

<comment><USER9> The skins were pretty thin and I assumed they'd dry out too quickly given the surface area to volume ratio, notwithstanding the measures taken for long-term storage. But you would know much better than me, as I have no domain knowledge whatsoever.

All I know for sure is that they tasted fresh--dense, crisp, and juicy--and didn't seem to be covered in much, if any, wax. The price partly seemed to reflect an abundance given that we're in apple picking season; and partly reflect their relatively small size, even for galas, and odd coloring-- strangely yellowish (I checked the stickers and the labels twice).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Will it last? When I heard about the price cuts, I went in to check it out. I pretty much never shop there, so I'm part of that 25% jump. In the end I saw no real difference and no reason to return.

<comment><USER12> Amazon buys this companies and they never really seem to work out over time, eg. zappos, diapers. Major grocery chains will just get smarter and more aggressive with pricing.

<comment><USER13> I was not aware Zappos was not considered a success.

<comment><USER12> Zappos is a huge success for customer service and returns, but they've been losing marketshare for years. Amazon just wants to show high revenue numbers and mask operating losses. Don't think that Walmart with acquisition of shoebuy is going to sit around and not steal revenue. Too many people think if Amazon buys a company it's going to turn into gold, the only thing that is goldmine is AWS. Whole Foods won't be immune from stiff competition going forward, everybody knows there brand is expensive regardless if they drop prices 25%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> For what I buy, it is still more expensive than Sprouts. I don't even want to know what these items cost before the price cut.

</comment><comment><USER15> What categories did the price cut reflect in. I shop at wholefoods every week and I have not noticed a drop in the prices of fruits, vegetables, milk and neither in the bake/meals section.

<comment><USER16> The most cuts I have seen were in the meat/seafood sections. Tilapia was cut for $4-5, ribeye $6, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If Whole Foods becomes anything like Amazon, their locally-sourced grass-fed beef could become commingled meat product from various fly-by-night suppliers that's just "fulfilled by Whole Foods."

Amazon's inability or indifference to combatting counterfeit sellers on their website has completely eroded my trust in eating the food they source.

<comment><USER18> I've ordered the natural/grass-fed (not sure if it was locally source, probably not since it is encased in plastic, making it last longer) beef from Amazon Fresh and I'm pretty happy with it (I'm probably not thinking sustainably, sorry) because it doesn't spoil as quickly as the beef I buy from my butcher counter. Side effect is that it is usually less, by weight, than the stuff I buy in person, so I end up eating less, which is just fine. (Steak is, for me, hard to portion into leftovers, it is a mind thing).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone have any data to back up the price drops? From my anecdotal evidence it seems WF is just as expensive as it was before. I'm sure these price cuts are only on certain products so it would be interesting to know what these are.

</comment><comment><USER20> They still have ridiculously high prices. For example: a gallon of Crystal Geyser water is $1.50, while in most other places is $1.00. What justifies a 50% premium?

<comment><USER21> Yeah, the problem is they pay their employees living wages.

<comment><USER20> Got it. That's probably why, in the past, they invented products like the $6 asparagus water: to be able to pay living wages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm one of these people. I'm very price conscious and have always avoided whole foods. But after seeing the price drop, I gave them a try. My bill was a little more than usual. But given the convenience (its next door) and quality I chose to continue shopping there. I've been going regularly for about a month.

</comment><comment><USER23> I shop at whole foods frequently mainly for fresh produce and dairy. this is largely because of its proximity to my home. My other regular grocery chains are my local mom and pop grocery store who is about 300 feet from my house, Costco and target. I avoid Safeway as far as I can.

My observations are 1) my local mom and pop store carries the freshest and cheapest vegetable produce. They are alert to my needs and are doing brisk business with a regular clientele. They source their produce from the central valley ave Sacramento area using a network of independent farms. 2) Costco is great for some produce while making up the true per pound cost for other items e.g. Tomatoes. Additionally I find Costco produce to perish faster. 3) whole foods has dependable produce but at over 50% Mark ups.

</comment><comment><USER24> My thought about this merger is, if I am HyVee or Price Chopper or whatever your local regional chain supermarket is HOW am I going to survive Amazon? They are past firing across the bow of every grocer in the US, and none of them seem to be moving to survive the Cat 10 hurricane that is Amazon. Few deliver, few have automated inventory with robots, I don't see any of them moving to compete or stem the blood bath that is coming. It reminds me of Palm and its arrogance when Apple entered the mobile phone market.

</comment><comment><USER25> I've been trying new diets and focusing on reducing my intake of GMOs, specifically corn. For this I've been shopping at Wegman's quite a bit, avoiding Whole Foods which is closer, because of the prices. This article gives me a little hope WF is getting better. Good food costs money, at least that's what we're told, so I'm happy to see things getting more competitive, at least.

</comment><comment><USER26> because all news outlets advertised the bs price drops at wholefoods even if a recent article said prices were down by just 1% on average.

</comment><comment><USER27> The real question is how long until Amazon starts to raise the prices again? It's a smart PR move if you think about it. Lower prices to get more shoppers in the door and then slowly raise prices to pre sale values. They already know people will gladly pay the higher prices.

<comment><USER28> That's not Amazon's MO, or goal with the Whole Foods purchase. They want to dominate the grocery industry like they dominate the durable goods industry.

<comment><USER27> Making money is their MO. It comes down to simple supply and demand, and it makes prefect sense to raise their prices slowly overtime.

<comment><USER29> While that makes sense in a generic, economic theory, this isn't how Amazon has operated. Ever. So I don't see why you're picking this hill to die on.

My money is on Amazon doing what they have always done: compete with wide selections and the cheapest pricing possible while using Whole Foods to bring their Fresh delivery service to far more markets at a higher efficiency.

<comment><USER30> I agree with this. It's gotten to the point that when I need something I buy it from Amazon, with the only exception being food. And that last part might change.

<comment><USER18> I'm already buying everything I need from Amazon other than food... and since Amazon Fresh I've been buying food once per month, sometimes twice per month, as a Friday morning "no shopping trip for this weekend" move - in fact I spend less than I would have at Harris Teeter based on past experience.

I would have done this with Peapod etc but their website was lacking in 1) choices (Amazon will get you pretty much any food item) and 2) delivery window and 3) unattended delivery

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Different anecdote: I am not regular whole foods, but went out of curiosity whether there will be any event related to amazon buyout or just check out if there any significant price drops.

</comment><comment><USER32> But will they stick around?

</comment><comment><USER33> So, supply and demand curve is still relevant it seems.

</comment><comment><USER34> Announced price cuts. We've been in WF before and after the buyout. Didn't see much difference. Still prefer to go to farmers markets and discount grocers like Aldi's.

</comment><comment><USER35> Customers LOVE it when businesses don't make money!

<comment><USER36> That's exactly how free markets work - "Your profit margin is my opportunity".

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's almost like most people are underpaid and most products overpriced. What a revelation!

</comment><comment><USER38> People here are smart enough to realize what this is: a publicity stunt.

Even if you have money, shopping at Whole Foods is foolish. Amazon reduced a fraction of the items prices, they are still heavily over-priced, and the food quality for the price is low. Whole Foods is a grocery store that prices it's food high to attract a certain type of consumer. That's all.

If you want high quality food, I encourage you to visit a local farmer's market. There is probably one close to you every week, or every other week. There are even larger ones or speciality ones less frequently (monthly).

At a farmer's market you'll get high quality produce, fresh that is directly from the farm. All or most of your money will be going to people actually growing or making the food, not a large corporation, food distributor, or Amazon.

I really wish we would just ban grocery stores for good and try to go back to this form of food consumerism.

<comment><USER39> I am not sure farmer's markets are prepared, and perhaps could never be prepared, for the type of volume they would have to do to entirely replace grocery stores.

As someone who lives in a big city, grocery stores here are packed at all hours. There will be dozens of checkout lines open going through customers as fast as they can. There are a ton of grocery stores, too, with each one as busy.

Farmer's markets are clearly not as effecient at serving customers as a supermarket, which means they would be even more crowded. We would have to have a LOT more of them to replace all of the supermarkets, and they would take up a lot more space than the current supermarkets to serve the same number of people.

As a busy parent of a toddler, grocery shopping already takes up a lot more time than I want it to. I can't imagine trying to fit the extra time it would take to shop at a farmers market for everything into my schedule.

When we think about making some sort of massive change to the way we live our lives (like everyone doing all shopping at farmer's markets), we have to really think about what it would mean to operate at that scale. What might work great for you as an individual may not work for everyone in the world, if everyone were to change their behavior.

<comment><USER38> You can't fit in an hour every weekend to go get food, that's cheaper and better quality than a grocery store to feed you and your family?

<comment><USER40> An hour of a software engineer's time is worth ~$30-50. At least, many of them happily pay that much for someone to do an hour's worth of chores for them.

Unless you're buying industrial quantities of food, I doubt a trip to the farmer's market will save you $40. The quality difference is also difficult to quantify. Onions and potatoes from the farmer's market aren't any healthier then onions from the supermarket.

And here's the elephant in the room - at any particular time of year, most of the food that you eat is not in season where you live. If it's not in season, you're not going to get it from your farmer's market (Unless said farmer is reselling it from a wholesaler - which a lot of stalls do.)

Do you spend an hour a week churning butter by hand, or do you pay someone else to do it for you?

<comment><USER38> Oh there we go with the "my time is worth $50/hr" thing.

By that kind of reasoning, how much money can you save by reducing how much time you sleep by an hour each night?

Or maybe if I add 10 people to your project you'll get it done 10x faster?

<comment><USER41> Additionally, just think how much money software developers could save if they paid $25 an hour for someone to sleep with their wife!

Esitmating 1 hour a week, and an average salary of $50, that's an extra $25 per week, or $1300 a year!

<comment><USER42> ... and if you pay via Credit Card, you can probably have a 2% cashback, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I went in last week to pick up a couple of things. The store was extra insane with people. I looked but didn't see anything marked down. My thought as I exited: "suckers".</comment>


How do CPUs read machine code? - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl8vPW5hydQ <comment><AUTHOR> This video is the second in Ben's series on writing a program from scratch on a 6502.</comment>


The negative Flynn Effect: A systematic literature review [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2016-dutton.pdf <comment><USER2> > We did, however, find the average maternal age per country (N = 7) to > negatively correlate to the level of IQ decline (r = −0.88). Despite the > small sample size, the correlation reached significance (p < 0.01). > Nevertheless, as the correlation was negative this seems to indicate that > among the countries showing a negative Flynn Effect, the ones with the > highest average maternal age show smaller declines in IQ.

Anyone else see the problem here? They are comparing the change in a variable over time with the value of another variable at a fixed point in time. That means they haven't canceled out the time variable, resulting in a confound with the _change in maternal age_. Would it be possible to get their result--a negative correlation between greater maternal age at the end of a time period and a drop in IQ over the whole time period--if, in fact, the correlation between maternal age and lower IQ is _positive_? Yes.

One way this could happen is if the relationship between maternal age and lower IQ is linear but the rate of change in maternal age over time is nonlinear and decreasing. The latter is quite plausible because fertility already decreases with age in a nonlinear fashion. It's easier for a country's average maternal age to go from 25 to 35 than from 35 to 45 without even taking societal factors into account.

The authors admit that their finding is contrary to other research they reviewed which found maternal age to be positively associated with lower IQs. My guess is that the discrepancy is because of the authors' flawed model.

Edit: typo, more quote

</comment><comment><USER3> Humanity does not like the lense of science to be turned upon itself and there will be people who are offended, dismissive or try to hold this academic work to an impossibly high standard - much higher standard than they would for a study they find more palatable.

The truth of the matter is that a decrease in the latent genetic 'g' is what we should expect given a basic understanding of evolution and the structure of modern society which removes (and reverses) the evolutionary pressure. Of course 'g' as with any system of caterogisation is problematic, but no more so than other less contraversial concepts we regularly use. So let's not allow ourselves be stripped of concepts we need to reason about things - 1984 style.

Evolution is an unfair system, and all attempts to restore (reproductive) fairness undermine evolution. The obvious compromise is to have fairness in other matters but not reproduction. For example possibly you shouldn't be allowed to have many children if you cannot support the first one(s). Of course others would say the solution genetic engineering (a technological get out of jail free card), thats another debate entirely (ok, not entirely).

</comment><comment><USER4> Oh my god, it's literally the thesis from Idiocracy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Makes for some interesting bedtime reading in conjunction with the recent GWAS studies showing declines in polygenic education/intelligence scores.

<comment><USER5> Do you have any recommended links for those recent studies?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. Here's a short collection:

\- "Sexual Selection as a Justification for Sex" [http://www.unz.com/gnxp/sexual-selection-as-a- justification-...](http://www.unz.com/gnxp/sexual-selection-as-a- justification-for-sex/)

\- "Holocene selection for variants associated with cognitive ability: Comparing ancient and modern genomes" [http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/20/109678](http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/20/109678) , Woodley et al 2017

\- "Rates and Fitness Consequences of New Mutations in Humans" [http://www.genetics.org/content/190/2/295.full](http://www.genetics.org/content/190/2/295.full) , Keightley 2012

\- "Parent-of-origin-specific signatures of de novo mutations" [https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/2016-goldmann.pdf](https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/2016-goldmann.pdf) , Goldmann et al 2016

\- "Older fathers' children have lower evolutionary fitness across four centuries and in four populations" [http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/03/08/042788](http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/03/08/042788) , Arslan et al 2016 (from "The cost of inbreeding in terms of health" [http://www.unz.com/gnxp/the-cost-of-inbreeding-in-terms- of-h...](http://www.unz.com/gnxp/the-cost-of-inbreeding-in-terms-of-health/) )

\- "Childhood Autism and Assortative Mating" [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.422...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.422.4232&rep=rep1&type=pdf) , Golden 2013

\- "Heritability, Autism, & Fear of Breeding" [http://www.unz.com/gnxp/heritability-autism-fear-of- breeding...](http://www.unz.com/gnxp/heritability-autism-fear-of-breeding/)

\- "Estimating the Inbreeding Depression on Cognitive Behavior: A Population Based Study of Child Cohort" [http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0109585) ; see also "Genetic diversity and intellectual disability" [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2013/07/genetic- diver...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2013/07/genetic-diversity- and-intellectual-disability/)

\- "Mutation and Human Exceptionalism: Our Future Genetic Load" [http://www.genetics.org/content/202/3/869](http://www.genetics.org/content/202/3/869) , Lynch 2016

\- "The Biodemography of Fertility: A Review and Future Research Frontiers" [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4577548/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4577548/) , Mills & Tropf 2015

\- Fertility and intelligence [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence)

\- "Genetic evidence for natural selection in humans in the contemporary United States" [http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/05/05/037929](http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/05/05/037929) , Beauchamp 2016

\- "Assortative mating and differential fertility by phenotype and genotype across the 20th century" [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/05/25/1523592113.full](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/05/25/1523592113.full) , Conley et al 2016a (Dysgenics found in the USA, 1920-1955. Appendix [http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2016/05/25/1523592113.DCSu...](http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2016/05/25/1523592113.DCSupplemental/pnas.1523592113.sapp.pdf) ); see also "Changing Polygenic Penetrance on Phenotypes in the 20th Century Among Adults in the US Population" [http://www.nature.com/articles/srep30348](http://www.nature.com/articles/srep30348) , Conley et al 2016b

\- in Iceland: decrease in the education polygenic score 1910-1990, "Selection against variants in the genome associated with educational attainment" [https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/2017-kong.pdf](https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/2017-kong.pdf) , Kong et al 2017 (graph [https://www.gwern.net/images/genetics/2017-kong- iceland-educ...](https://www.gwern.net/images/genetics/2017-kong-iceland- education-dysgenics.png) ; media [https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jan/16/natural- sele...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jan/16/natural-selection- making-education-genes-rarer-says-icelandic-study) "Natural selection making 'education genes' rarer, says Icelandic study: Researchers say that while the effect corresponds to a small drop in IQ per decade, over centuries the impact could be profound" )

\- in the US: decrease in the education polygenic score 1920-1960, "Mortality Selection in a Genetic Sample and Implications for Association Studies" [http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/04/21/049635](http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/04/21/049635) , Domingue et al 2016 (graph [https://www.gwern.net/images/genetics/2016-domingue-usa- educ...](https://www.gwern.net/images/genetics/2016-domingue-usa-education- dysgenics.png) )

\- "Genome-wide analysis identifies 12 loci influencing human reproductive behavior" [https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/correlation/2016-barban....](https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/correlation/2016-barban.pdf) , Barban et al 2016 (supplement [http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v48/n12/extref/ng.3698-S2.x...](http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v48/n12/extref/ng.3698-S2.xls) ; genetic correlations with fewer later offspring: _r~g~_ = -0.236 and 0.712 respectively. Cross-sectional confirmation of Conley et al 2016. )

\- "How cognitive genetic factors influence fertility outcomes: A mediational SEM analysis" [http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/08/18/070128](http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/08/18/070128) , Woodley et al 2016

\- "The negative Flynn Effect: A systematic literature review" [https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2016-dutton.pdf](https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2016-dutton.pdf) , Dutton et al 2016

\- "Assortative Mating, Class, and Caste" [https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/2015-harpending.pdf](https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/2015-harpending.pdf) , Harpending & Cochran 2015

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> An Iceland study by Kong et al 2017 showed a .1 point decline of a polygenic measure of IQ, per decade [http://www.pnas.org/content/114/5/E727.full.pdf](http://www.pnas.org/content/114/5/E727.full.pdf)

This seems small enough that genomic technology in the not-s-distant future could reverse it

<comment><AUTHOR> They showed a lower bound of .1 points, not a total .1 point decline; the most reasonable extrapolation would be .3 points, so since the 1910 start of their sample, -3.21 points (and possibly more since the phenotypic correlations driving this decline were noted for decades before then in England, but at the moment, while we have ancient genomes from thousands of years ago and many modern genomes from 1910AD on from 80yos+, 1000-1900AD is a bit of a doughnut hole - not so ancient people are willing to sequence without 'consent', but too ancient to ever get consent).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My name is Mike Flynn and this has been a rough few months to have that name...and now "The Negative Flynn Effect"? Perfect.

<comment><USER8> Why don't you just go by Mike instead of Michael? ...

<comment><USER9> Oh come on downvoters, haven't you seen Office Space?

<comment><USER10> I know, don't explain the joke, but for those who haven't seen it (it _did_ come out ~18 years ago, and I'd guess that its popularity/currency peaked ~10 years ago), the relevant scenes: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BaMx_n2_hM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BaMx_n2_hM)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Richard Lynn is one of the most unapologetic and raw "scientific" racists operating today, arguing, among other things, that nations with high average IQs must subjugate or eliminate lower-IQ groups, which he associates with particular racial groups, in order to preserve their dominance."

[https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist- files/indi...](https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist- files/individual/richard-lynn)

I would very strongly advise taking the paper and findings here with an exceptionally large helping of salt.

<comment><USER12> How about we just read the paper on its own merits?

More import than related people's political ideology, must surely be the methodology used, and whether others can confirm the data and methods used as correct....

Science is not racist or non-racist, it's just science. And the personalities of the people doing the science should havr no bearing on the correctness of the conclusions reached if the proper scientific method is used, plus some peer review and attempts to replicate the findings.

<comment><USER11> Because contexts matter.

Because reputation matters.

Because ideologically-driven "research" often shows both conscious and unconscious bias. (For a fascinating study of the latter, look up the case of "Clever Hans".) Forewarned, a closer examination of the piece for flaws is highly advised. The narrator has proved unreliable in past.

And because it seems of late the practice of giving the benefit of the doubt seems to have presented itself as problematic in instances.

Yes, it's possible for even the most unreliable of sources to be correct on occasion. That would be an exception to the rule, and still not provide a basis for trust, reputation, or authority.</comment></comment></comment>


The Treacherous Optimization (2006) - <AUTHOR> https://ridiculousfish.com/blog/posts/old-age-and-treachery.html <comment><USER2> The grep author coded with ASR-33 teletype. He didn't eat cheezels at his keyboard AFAIK or mumble. He is a highly educated mathematician.

G/RE/P is the instantiation of the regex model in UNIX, and comes from Ken Thompson directly. Its the same model in ed, and in sed, and awk.

<comment><USER3> A somewhat relevant read from the author: [https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd- current/2010-Aug...](https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd- current/2010-August/019310.html)

<comment><USER2> Oh, the guys who came after may have feasted on pizza, but they are hardly the "original grep author" are they?

 _I imagine the author of grep, Ultimate Unix Geek, squinting at vi;_

Either qualify "which grep" or define "author" because to me, Cervantes wrote Don Quixote, not the translator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> New versions of grep just call regexec(3): [https://github.com/apple-open- source-mirror/text_cmds/blob/9...](https://github.com/apple-open-source- mirror/text_cmds/blob/94b08bd3a5db772a7e1f25baed9e1176ad22c2e9/grep/util.c#L358)

<comment><USER4> Eh, well... that's not gnu grep. Also you will notice a call to fastexec four lines above, which uses a somewhat specialized matcher that's not libc regex.

<comment><USER3> I am aware, Apple took it out a while sometime after Mac OS X Lion (presumably because it was GPL? This is the last I saw of it: [https://github.com/apple- open-source-mirror/grep/commit/0b40...](https://github.com/apple-open-source- mirror/grep/commit/0b404719ca81df65899cc4266fd09af5247b9917)) fastexec is not called because Apple compiles with WITHOUT_FASTMATCH: [https://github.com/apple-open-source- mirror/text_cmds/blob/9...](https://github.com/apple-open-source- mirror/text_cmds/blob/94b08bd3a5db772a7e1f25baed9e1176ad22c2e9/xcconfigs/grep.xcconfig#L13).</comment></comment></comment>


InfiniteGraph Now Out Of Beta, Identifies Deep Relationships In Big Data - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/16/infinitegraph-steps-out-of-beta-to-help-companies-identify-deep-relationships-in-large-data-sets/

<comment><USER2> "Identifies Deep Relationships In Big Data" seems to imply there is some machine learning going on. A quick glance at their API makes it seem more like (perhaps over-engineered) graph traversals. Anybody have a good idea of what it is about?</comment>


Rookout creates breakpoints that don't break - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/25/rookout-raises-4-2m-for-its-rapid-production-debugging-platform/ <comment><USER2> Sounds all nice in theory but how does it actually work?

<comment><AUTHOR> We use bytecode manipulation to update your application on the fly!

Check out [https://www.rookout.com/](https://www.rookout.com/) for more details

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very interesting thanks for sharing</comment>


Silicon Valley's 91-year-old designer - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33626980

<comment><USER2> > IDEO is a global design and innovation consultancy founded in 1991 by David > Kelley, Bill Moggridge and Mike Nuttall

> Steve Jobs was one of their first clients - IDEO designed Apple's first > mouse

That doesn't add up, in a few different ways.

<comment><USER3> The mouse was made by one of IDEO's precursor companies Hovey-Kelley. See [http://www.ideo.com/work/mouse-for-apple/](http://www.ideo.com/work/mouse- for-apple/) and [http://www.wired.com/2014/08/the-engineer-of-the-original- ap...](http://www.wired.com/2014/08/the-engineer-of-the-original-apple-mouse- talks-about-his-remarkable-career/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What a beautiful story. I wish I could sit around and have long chats with Miss Barbara.</comment>


Troll Submits Game to Steam Greenlight Without Developer's Consent - <AUTHOR> http://www.dominantwire.com/2015/06/SteamGreenlightTrolledFollowingKickstarterScam.html <comment><USER2> at least those games now get a lot of free publicity, for when they apply themselves to Steam Greenlight.</comment>


Oakley cashes in on Chile mine rescue  - <AUTHOR> http://content.usatoday.com/communities/entertainment/post/2010/10/oakley-cashes-in-on-chile-mine-rescue-/1 <comment><USER2> Who ever thought of that little scheme should be applauded. That is opportunistic marketing at is very best. I don't think there is any real controversy, after all, they did need sunglasses and they didn't charge for them.

I have to say I noticed the glasses earlier but sadly am not fashion conscious enough to have noticed the brand until I read this. A little free advertising for Oakley on USAToday must be a little extra bonus!</comment>


Show HN: USE Together 2.0 – Screenhero replacement for remote pair programming - <AUTHOR> https://www.use-together.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN,

I'm Julien, CTO at OPEXMedia and we are building USE Together, a collaborative screen sharing tool.

Back in 2015, Screenhero, beloved collaborative screen sharing tool, was acquired by Slack. Two years later, it appeared no alternative was out. They eventually decided to fully shut it down last December after integrating some of its features in Slack, leaving no standalone tool to pair effectively.

Last year, we launched USE Together for Windows here on Product Hunt. Initially thought for professionals needing to collaborate on remote desktop environments, we decided to release it to everyone. We also released a Mac version in closed alpha few months later. We took a different approach to what Screenhero was and before it was shutdown. We offered a simple way to join a screen through a web browser without having to download anything nor having to subscribe to anything. We think today's digital collaboration should be that easy: "Hey, can you help me with this issue? Here's a link to my screen".

Although joining someone's screen on a web browser is pretty cool, the experience can be limited as there are many things that just cannot be done with it, mainly for "security" reasons (hello alt-tab / cmd-tab).

We got a lot of valuable feedback from our early users. Six months ago, we thus decided to rebuild USE Together, to bring you a way better experience. We are aiming at making it the best pair programming / collaboration tool in the world!</comment>