Ask HN: Hosting trade-offs and options - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
For many years now I've used a small, family-run web and email hosting option, and it's been great.  The service has been extraordinary, the facilities great, and although the price has been slightly higher, the quality of the service has been worth it.
But now as I'm using more and more facilities, and depending on the access more and more heavily, the drawbacks are becoming more severe.  I'm starting to have to consider moving away from this friendly, personal service to one that's more reliable.
Any recommendations?  All advice and comments welcome. <comment><USER2> You'll get better answers if you tell people what you need - lots of capacity, good support, low price, PHP, Rails, Python?

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right - I should've done that.

I need a few 100 MB, CGI capabilities (Python and Perl), no frameworks, unlimited emails, moderate bandwidth (http and ftp).

Support should be enough to help get setup, etc, but not a lot of hand- holding. Good metrics would be useful too.

But it's too late to ask here. I'll come back in a few days and make a more comprehensive question.

Thanks.

<comment><USER2> Good luck. I don't know that much about the (UK or otherwise) hosting scene, so I can't really help you, but I'm sure that there are people who can.

Incidentally, I've heard people who do follow hosting more closely talk about getting good deals from <http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=4>. Since it's an advertising section (of an apparently fairly well-known "real" forum), it looks rather spammy, but apparently the deals are good and real.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'll check that out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> PS: I should add that I'm based in the UK, and would prefer a UK-based company.

<comment><USER3> I can recommend layershift.com. I have a couple of VPS with them. Great service and support and based in the UK.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - I'll take a look.</comment></comment></comment>


MRI disabled every iOS device in facility - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/comments/9mk2o7 <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18173614](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18173614)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18189170](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18189170)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wasn't there followup that this wasn't actually the helium, but lack of proper shielding for some of the EM radiation? I believe it also turned out that there were other dead devices too, they just happened to see a lot of i-devices first.

(A brief skim through the thread and I didn't see a note outside of a few people thinking "it's really probably EM", but I recall my wife mentioning this earlier in the week and being deflated at the mundane outcome)</comment>


The sad devolution of Discovery Channel - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/249615/the-sad-devolution-of-discovery-channel/

<comment><USER2> There's a cynical startup lesson in here.

Build a niche audience with quality and integrity. That leads to growth and eventually a strong brand. When you saturate your audience, shaft your early adopters for a broader, more streamlined appeal, but keep the branding.

The result is that every non-scientist watches Shark week and feels much smarter for it, the actual scientists shake their heads, and the network rakes in the bucks.

</comment><comment><USER3> How about "Ancient Aliens" on "History" Channel?

Let's face it - the idiots are a better market.

<comment><USER4> I don't consider myself an idiot, as I'm sure most idiots don't, but I've watched several episodes of that program. Yes, it's ridiculous but I was entertained.

Those of us who recall the early days of the history channel remember the constant WWII programs. I think it's better now.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_(TV_channel)#Criticism...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_\(TV_channel\)#Criticism_and_evaluation)

The channel to fall the farthest for me is TLC. It used to have actual things to "learn" as suggested by the name of The Learning Channel. It's dead to me.

I guess they term this channel drift.

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

<comment><USER5> I recall watching TLC in the mid-90's, and splitting my time between it and Discovery Channel. The whole push for "A [foo] Story" turned me away, and I guess things went downhill from there.

Also, this is mind boggling:

> _The Weather Channel, for instance, faced severe backlash for its attempts > to add movies to its lineup (already having drifted from all-forecast > programming into reality shows for much of its lineup over the course of the > previous decade) in 2010._

I guess you could call this a "pivot", but if you've named yourself "The Weather Channel", I don't think you should be surprised if you get backlash because you decide to stop delivering what you said on the tin.

<comment><USER6> Did you happen to read the article linked from this OP's? TLC changed its tagline to "Everyone needs a little TLC", more or less explicitly jettisoning any association with "learning"

[http://qz.com/239882/american-cable-tv-has-now-reached- total...](http://qz.com/239882/american-cable-tv-has-now-reached-total- convergence/)

Remember when you could watch music videos all day on MTV?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In happier news, Cosmos (2014) is now on Netflix.

What I really wonder about the devolution here is if/how the viewership has changed?

If people who are interested in the sort of material that Discovery used to show have simply moved on to learn and explore their curiosity elsewhere while the channel fattened up on insatiable reality TV consumers raised on network TV it would be sad.

If people who were interested in the sort of material that Discovery used to show have been gradually transformed into reality TV consumers it would be tragic.

<comment><USER8> I used to enjoy Discovery Channel shows but lately I've all but lost interest in favor of BBC, ITV, Smithsonian, Al-Jazeera, and HBO for Last Week Tonight. PBS Frontline is still pretty good, but it seems like Discovery Channel, History, and Nat Geo seem like they're producing shows of lower and lower quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems to be _really easy_ to make a new TV channel these days (relatively speaking, that is). It seems the Discovery Channel (or the very missed 'The Learning Channel'), _used_ to be able to make ends meet in their old, educational formats.

How hard would it be to build a new cable TV channel that looked more like the Discovery channel/The Learning Channel of the 90's? Is there just too much competition now (and too few viewers) for that to even be viable nowadays?

<comment><USER10> Easy to make a new TV channel? Uh, no. It might be easy to make a web channel. But you will hit an early brick wall in TV if you don't have millions (10s of millions?) of dollars just to get your channel available in a few homes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Remember when MTV used to play videos?

<comment><USER12> It still does. There's just no music in them.

So yes, yes I do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Every time I try to scroll down to read the words, the page flicks back up to the top. Web design is in serious danger of disappearing into its own precious cleverness.

(Opera on Ubuntu, which yesterday had no trouble dealing with [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8172365](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8172365) where other combinations were having trouble - welcome to the fragmented web; let us party like 'twas 1999)

<comment><USER3> Tested it in Chrome and Firefox on Ubuntu. I think the problem is with Opera.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is nothing compared to the fall of TLC. It used to be called The Learning Channel!

</comment><comment><USER15> Remember when American TV news stations reported the news - and not opinion pieces?

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm currently watching "10 things" on the History Channel. I have a strong feeling this show is an attempt to capitalize on the BuzzFeed model

</comment><comment><USER17> We now find ourselves with 999 channels of "Ow, my balls".

Idiocracy was prophesy.

</comment><comment><USER18> Most TV is awful. Even the good channels are not great most of the time.

I blame the realtime broadcast format. It's not possible to produce enough high quality content to cover 24 hours a day. But you can't do too many repeats nor show too much old content, because a lot of viewers won't put up with it. Thus, the format basically _requires_ you to shovel crap. You may be able to avoid it for a time, and you may be able to have some gems among the crap in the long term, but you're doomed to be _mostly_ crap in the end.

Throw in the need to interrupt the content every five minutes for tasteless, idiotic advertisements and you're _really_ screwed.

I anticipate a major boost in quality as content moves from the old broadcast TV format to on-demand delivery systems.</comment>


March 2020 was the first March without a school shooting in the U.S. since 2002 - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-first-march-without-school-shooting-since-2002-united-states/ <comment><USER2> "Data from the National School Safety Center and National School Safety and Security Services confirm that there have been school shootings every March since 2002."

Yet, drilling down into both stated sources show data only from 1992-2010 and no details after 2010.

<comment><USER3> To add to that, these stats can tend to be skewed a bit. For example, is it a school shooting if someone shoots a gun while at a school that closed for the day? Is it a school shooting if it's at a school that is completely closed down?

Also, is there a school shooting in every other month of the school year since we started recording? Maybe March is some weird outlier.

Unfortunately, it really feels like today's news seem to prioritize clicks over real information, so it's hard to trust what they say. Multiple sources are good when they don't reference each other as a source. But sometimes they just spout stats without actually vetting the stats themselves. It's hard to have a good feel for whether any story is written by a freelancer spitting out a quick article for cheap, or someone who really did some research about the subject.</comment></comment>


Solar Storms May Have Been Key to Life on Earth - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/astronomers-might-have-just-solved-a-key-mystery-about-1778095567 <comment><USER2> Not sure how the 1859 Carrington Solar Event could have caused "worldwide power outages", seeing as how widespread power usage came years later. Maybe the author was referring to electrical effects on telegraph systems, which did occur?Makes you wonder about the rest of the article, and wonder why editors don't do some basic fact checking.

<comment><USER3> Because they're editors.

<comment><USER4> Or rather - because they're no longer editors, not in the usual sense of the word. Otherwise we wouldn't be getting so many poorly fact-checked and poorly _spell-checked_ articles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> See also "NASA: Solar Storms May Have Been Key to Life on Earth"

[http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-solar- storms-m...](http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-solar-storms-may- have-been-key-to-life-on-earth)

<comment><USER5> We'll use that title since the other one is rather linkbaity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Surely life was created by small bundles of DNA building in cesspools?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like the Origin of Life theory where the main place of action seemed to be the alkaline underwater vents:

[http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-115](http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-115)

(also described in "Life Ascending" (2010) by Nick Lane)</comment></comment>


What is the best way to get remote technical project management experience? - <AUTHOR> What is the best way to get experience with a team using project management software such as Jira or Basecamp. <comment><USER2> Have you tried freelancing?

Or are you currently unskilled in it and looking to up your skills? If so, then I'd take some courses to get you familiar and then start helping an open- source or non-profit initiative to get some real experience. Then, if you are having trouble finding a paid gig, look at founders who want help with project management but are only paying equity as they will likely be willing to take a bet on someone with less experience.</comment>


A JavaScript deep learning and reinforcement learning library - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/janhuenermann/neurojs <comment><USER2> Discussed 2 days ago (244 points):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13742911](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13742911)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's useful only for predictions. Unless, GPU (Possibly with WebCL) support will appear, it will be impractical to use it for training.

<comment><USER4> even for predictions, you need the model (what was learned in the training phase). deep learning models are of multiple gigs in size. so, in browser wouldn't be practical, except for toy stuff.

sending the input data to the server, doing the computations there and getting the answers back will be the only practical way to go for remotely serious applications for a while still

<comment><USER5> And you would also have to make the model available to the client, which is not reasonable in many commercial applications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I get why deep learning is nice but I just do not get the hype around reinforcement learning yet. RL seems great for things like training video game agents and have seen videos of this, but fail to understand where RL can be applied in the real world.

It reminds me a bit of genetic algorithms. GA is the 'last resort' when you truly know nothing about how to model your problem.

What is the sweet spot for RL?

<comment><USER7> I work in supply chain optimization, and reinforcement learning has been an important technique in the field for _decades_. Supply chain problems are naturally modeled as Markov decision problems (MDPs). As the state space of your MDPs gets bigger and bigger, simulation-based reinforcement learning becomes one of the most versatile techniques for approximating optimal solutions.

I see some sort of reinforcement learning as the most promising technique for overcoming the dramatically named "curse of dimensionality" in the state—the single biggest roadblock to optimizing more complex supply chain models.

In fact, the study of MDPs and their solutions stems from operations research, and I think studying problems in that context give you a powerful way of understanding how reinforcement learning algorithms work. Basic inventory control problems are very intuitive, and there's a natural progression from exact dynamic programming methods (Bellman iteration and policy iteration) to different reinforcement learning algorithms that really helps build an intuition for how RL works.

<comment><USER8> I am working in that niche as well - probably even in a special niche of that niche.

Could I get in touch with you via PM?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting work ! Although I am not learning that :) What would be really interesting is a common interface for the browser and node, the former using this library, and the latter using a node extension communicating with tensorFlow... And on the user side a syntax EXACTLY similar to the Keras syntax. That - would be the bomb.

<comment><USER4> most deep learning models are of multiple gigs in size. so, in browser wouldn't be practical, except for toy stuff.

sending the input data to the server, doing the computations there and getting the answers back will be the only practical way to go for remotely serious applications for a while still

<comment><USER9> CNN models with a fair amount of variables (1million) are in megs. Learning is another story, and could be done on the server, but prediction is totally feasible on the browser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone know enough to lend some context here? I gather this works similarly to ConvNetJS, or solves some of the same problems. Does it go further, or work in a different way, or what?

</comment><comment><USER11> Just curious: Where does the computation happen? Is it all Javascript?</comment>


ISIS killed enemy fighters with an exploding consumer drone - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/12/13255760/isis-commercial-drone-booby-trap-kurdish-fighters-killed-by-islamic-state <comment><USER2> Probably inspired by Dallas PD</comment>


When I left my nine-to-five to follow my passion, my life fell apart - <AUTHOR> https://www.elephantjournal.com/2018/09/i-quit-my-job-to-pursue-my-passion-my-life-fell-apart/ <comment><USER2> I would prefer if people saw cultivating your interests as a thing. This "passion" thing is not helpful. It makes it seem like you're going to meet the idea that's going to sweep you off your feet, while you are passively walking along the street.

Instead I think you have to go out and find your interests. And grow them, like you are tending to a garden. You may have started off interested in everything as a kid, but interests wilt and fade without care. You have to put the time in.

And that means even making yourself do things when you don't feel like it, like making yourself paint something or draw something, or go for a run, or write something, or cook something or learn something.

It's work. People harp on the passion thing, like you'll love every minute and time will just fly by because you're so in love with your passion project. Well no, it's still work. But it's good work.

</comment><comment><USER3> Dr. Meg Jay creates a compelling argument on why putting in the work during your 20's is so important. Her book, The Defining Decade, [0] is a fantastic read that goes into the psychology behind this.

She also has a Ted Talk (Although I can't speak to this as I have only read her book). [1]

[0]: [https://megjay.com/the-defining-decade/](https://megjay.com/the- defining-decade/) [1]: [https://www.ted.com/talks/meg_jay_why_30_is_not_the_new_20](https://www.ted.com/talks/meg_jay_why_30_is_not_the_new_20)

</comment><comment><USER4> One must first find his/her passion and then quit their job to pursue it. If no passion exists, there is nothing to build on.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Very sobering article about the whole "chuck it all" dream, worth a read I thought.

<comment><USER5> Good timing.

I am in a similar boat. Will not elaborate much publicly but I was disillusioned with my work and quit to pretty much... do nothing, and develop my creative skills until I absolutely have to work. Definitely don't have a great "story" to pitch for my next job on why I have taken so much time off or what I have been doing with my time, but I have an opportunity to work on software that should allow me to get back on my feet without too much interviewing hassle.

<comment><USER6> I was in a similar boat in 2017.

Quit my FinTech job "because I was just making my bosses money" and didn't do much work for a year.

Got addicted to Crossfit and cocaine, travelled to the USA, Vietnam and Norway, and lived off Bitcoin.

The one thing I achieved was completing the last course to get my CS diploma.

Then I got a girlfriend, took a job, switched out the social circles, and started going to therapy.

I can make that year look like I was exploring, but really I was trying to escape some local optimum with some rather stupid strategies.

I'm happy my current employer didn't ask much about what I'd been doing recently, and that I can refer to my current job when I apply for my next job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> i agree strongly with the "you are still you" part. I thought running away from my pain would make me forget. But yeah hundreds of miles don't really change how your brain works.

</comment><comment><USER8> I posted this a couple times before, but I highly recommend people to read this article from Wait but Why site about choosing a career [1]. It's long but it really puts into perspective of choosing a career and the balance of life.

[1] [https://waitbutwhy.com/2018/04/picking- career.html](https://waitbutwhy.com/2018/04/picking-career.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> [https://markmanson.net/passion](https://markmanson.net/passion) is a colorful and yet powerful treatise on the same subject</comment>


BE Developer - <AUTHOR> https://www.bedeveloper.me/

<comment><USER2> I read that domain as "Bed Eveloper.me"

Bad combo of words right there..

EDIT: I can't make saying "Be Developer" sounds like English.</comment>


Lessons to be learned from the Linode Bitcoin incident - <AUTHOR> http://blog.thestateofme.com/2012/03/03/lessons-to-be-learned-from-the-linode-bitcoin-incident/

<comment><USER2> Interesting commentary. How do you store anything of value at a SP (i.e. anything worth more than the compensation value?) without regulation of SPs? Like banks, the value of customer trust in a SP would have to override the losses they might incur to make someone whole. Otherwise it's hard to see how you store something like bitcoin in any SP.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't invest in Bitcoin? As it is, it's an extremely volatile currency. This just adds to many more reasons why I'm never investing in it.</comment>


BUS1: A new Linux kernel IPC bus being made by systemd developers - vezzy-fnord https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=BUS1-In-Development <comment><AUTHOR> The article is... premature. The only "source" seems to be the appearance of the "bus1" project on GitHub. The author observed that the primary 2 contributors to this project are Kay Sievers and David Herrmann, who also happen to be systemd developers. This project isn't linked to systemd in any way but that.

The only other contributors are Harald Hoyer and Lars Uebernickel.

Note that Kay Sievers was a Linux kernel contributor before systemd even existed (I don't know about the other 3, perhaps they were too).

Kay, David, and Harald are all Red Hat employees, and Red Hat has mentions in the copyright statements, leading the author to suggest that this is an official Red Hat project. It could be, but it could also be that RH just owns the copyright because it's too similar to what they do at work, but it's cool because RH is fine with them open-sourcing everything. But also "notable" is that Lars is a Canonical employee, which receives no mention in the article.

</comment><comment><USER2> A few times now I've seen announcements that systemd is consuming some other aspect of Linux, and every thread devolves into accusations that systemd is eating Linux, and the other side saying that whatever it is just happens to be in-scope for systemd because of how it interacts with some current aspect of systemd.

My question is now: What isn't in scope for systemd?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that's a mis-diagnosis.

Systemd interacts with a many different external components. OK, that means that systemd developers are exposed to a bunch of different components, and work with them frequently. So, they find a pain-point, and they think to themselves "I could improve this." And, because they are competent developers, and it's free/open-source, they do. Sure, the reason the found a pain-point, and chose to contribute is because of their work systemd, but that contribution isn't in-scope for systemd, isn't associated with systemd. It's just them being good citizens and improving the ecosystem.

Now, remember that a significant portion of the systemd developers are also kernel developers, and have been since before systemd existed. So it's not unlikely that because of systemd, they see a way that they think the kernel could be improved. And they're contributing to the kernel anyway, so why not?

That said, many people object to the kind of design decisions made in systemd, and don't like that that those kind of decisions are spreading to the rest of the ecosystem. This isn't systemd taking over, this is the fact that certain prolific individuals, who are systemd developers, are also contributing to other projects; naturally making the same kind of decisions.

<comment><USER3> Alternatively, you could call them busy-bodies ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So I'll just say it. I'm switching to FreeBSD. I'm sick of this train wreck. I don't care what they are developing I'm just sick of how they are doing it. I don't want my operating system to have this sort of mid life crisis.

<comment><USER2> I've kind of been thinking the same thing, this feels like a takeover by the freedesktop people.

<comment><USER5> And yet it's not an official announcement, hasn't been discussed on any systemd related mailing lists, has no documentation and merely exists as a git repository.

It's almost as if the programmers were experimenting with ideas that are alternatives to kdbus.

I'm appalled. What were they thinking?

<comment><USER2> You're very right. I let my distrust for freedeskop color my reaction.

<comment><USER5> That's ok. I was too sarcastic in that reply, sorry if I caused offence (I strive to modify my tendencies towards catty comments, but I'm a work in progress - When I see I've done it I'm making it a policy to acknowledge it and apologise).

Could I ask a genuine question? Aside from systemd, why do you distrust freedesktop?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there some high-level document or blog post somewhere that outlines the vision of the systemd developers and why they are building these systems? So far I see a variety of projects (of IMHO varying quality) but no attempt at articulating a vision to tie it all together. What's the goal? What problem is all this stuff solving?

<comment><USER7> Have a look at systemd.conf presentations (and videos [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvq_RgZp3kljp9X8Io9Z1DA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvq_RgZp3kljp9X8Io9Z1DA)). There are various goals there.

My interpretation would be: universal, global interfaces for all system things. Which is not a bad goal in itself.

<comment> vezzy-fnord _Which is not a bad goal in itself._

It's worse than a bad goal. "Universal, global interfaces for all system things" is a goal that is cognitively meaningless.

<comment><USER7> Not sure why cognitively meaningless. To some extent syscalls are a global, universal interface for all system things. They're just very low level, so they carry very little information.

Dbus is an abstraction that allows actions with rich information and context, and makes it possible to define simple interfaces to potentially complex sets of actions. Systemd and related services fulfill those interfaces.

Why do you think that's a bad goal?

<comment> vezzy-fnord "All system things" is a meaningless statement. Syscalls can actually carry quite a _lot_ of information (just look at signal semantics) and they're not "very low level".

The second paragraph is more wind.

I don't think it's a bad goal. _You haven 't even specified a goal._

<comment><USER7> I see what you mean, but I think it's a technicality. There's no good definition that I know of that wouldn't be called either insufficient or scope creep. Can you come up with one that includes interface to date/time, connected devices (with access control), virtual-or-physical screen resolution, packages, system and user services, etc. ? They're not even all administration actions. My best description here is "all system things" even if it's poorly defined - simply because I don't have a better one.

As for syscalls - they can carry a lot of data. That doesn't make it rich, structured information. Sure, everything is just writing/reading bytes at the end of the day. But there's a reason we've got open() function and don't use syscalls directly - rich interfaces are nice. Syscalls are definitely low level (they're defined in the cpu specs, how much more low-level can you get?).

<comment> vezzy-fnord I wouldn't describe it as a technicality, but more of a _carte blanche_ vacuity. What comprises "the system"? Just about everything. Hence "all system things" is really "all everything things". Such underspecified weasel wording is a chief reason for systemd's status at large.

Even your list involves diverse interfaces ranging from real-time kernel primitives to end-user archives (packages), so again, "system things" is more of a justification for perpetual consumption than anything resembling a mission statement or goal.

(Things that merely wrap syscalls would probably be part of a utilities package anyway, a la util-linux.)

<comment><USER7> Yes, it does include diverse interfaces. And you keep saying the idea of common interface to all (system or everything) things is a bad idea, but not why. So again, why is it bad idea to want a common bus that can talk to all of those things and have interfaces that actually describe high-level, meaningful actions on them?

I can agree systemd situation is bad, but I don't think it's because of technical reasons. Leaving systemd out of it, what's bad about the idea that distributions, backend services, and client applications start using a common bus that has an interface for action "The system timezone is now XXX"? (and similar actions for network configuration, printers, sessions, and "all everything things")

<comment> vezzy-fnord _I can agree systemd situation is bad, but I don 't think it's because of technical reasons_

It is: [http://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/10/11/0/](http://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/10/11/0/)

The context of this comment section was about systemd in general, not the BUS1 concept specifically. It's too early to comment on the latter when it's still just a red-black tree with some stub functions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From what is in the github repo, i get the impression that this is not related to a RPC/IPC bus at all. Instead it seems to be a systemd analog for IoT/mobile.

Some quick LKML searching etc brings up bus1 references in relation to ARM and devicetree.

<comment><USER9> It's quite amusing to notice that almost no-one does what you did and actually looks at the original, rather than relying upon someone else, be it some pseudonymous person on the WWW or things like Phoronix, to do the analysis. The systemd people are probably immensely grateful for that, otherwise they'd be having to deal with stuff that would give the cranks a field day like ...

* ... "Kay Sievers is writing a replacement for udev named /usr/bin/org.bus1.devices."

* ... "Kay Sievers is writing a replacement for Dracut init named /usr/bin/org.bus1.rdinit."

* ... "Kay Sievers is writing a replacement for gummiboot that hardcodes support for Microsoft's Boot Manager for Windows." ([https://github.com/bus1/boot-efi/blob/c7f3a8a25acc838677b08d...](https://github.com/bus1/boot-efi/blob/c7f3a8a25acc838677b08d8a7dd4fd979cef9939/src/boot.c#l1050))

* ... "David Herrmann is writing a replacement for kdbus named bus1."

* ... "Kay Sievers is writing a replacement for systemd named /usr/bin/org.bus1.init."

* ... "Lennart Poettering made no comment when asked about Herrmann's bus1 and kmscon, systemd-consoled having been quietly pulled from systemd in July 2015." ([https://plus.google.com/+LennartPoetteringTheOneAndOnly/post...](https://plus.google.com/+LennartPoetteringTheOneAndOnly/posts/8fQ9t9pmUuT))

The simple fact is that it _is_ an IPC mechanism, and it almost certainly indeed is an attempt to come up with a replacement for kdbus, given the latter's withdrawal a while back. It was Herrmann _himself_ who pulled systemd-consoled, and he did so citing the fact that he was working on kdbus. ([https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/747](https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/747)) It's not shocking to find him working on a successor. The mechanism is currently a filesystem like devpts, containing a pseudo-file named 'bus' that client applications open and perform ioctl()s on. The caveat "currently" is because there's no design documentation there, and the thing is far from finished. There's no guarantee that that will be its final form.

The replacement plug-and-play manager, EFI boot loader, and process #1 programs _look_ like the majority of the project because the test infrastructure for _using_ the new bus, essentially a very feature limited bootstrap system, has been written more quickly than the actual kernel IPC subsystem itself has been.

It's fair to say that this is at _roughly_ the same stage of development as SystemXVI is, albeit that SystemXVI _does_ have design doco ([https://github.com/ServiceManager/ServiceManager/blob/master...](https://github.com/ServiceManager/ServiceManager/blob/master/doc/DESIGN.md)).

<comment><USER8> Not sure if i should consider myself praised or lectured.</comment></comment></comment>


(HN Poll Results, 104+ Answers) How busy are you at work on average? - <AUTHOR> https://strawpoll.com/47x15cf1 <comment><AUTHOR> Data breakdown:

[https://imgur.com/qdSltlM](https://imgur.com/qdSltlM)

Looks like a perfect normal distribution. Did not expect that, oddly enough.

Feel free to keep taking the quiz, and we'll see if the answer gets different over time (I will subtract data up to now from future data)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sample size is not really enough to cross-tab, but if there is a trend on seniority, it's that new employees tend to work more or less than the average compared to more senior ones.</comment>


Samsung Launches Galaxy S4 With Baffling, Overproduced Broadway-Style Show - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/14/what-just-happened/

<comment><USER2> This seems somewhat common now. First Qualcomm's Kafkaesque E3 keynote, then the PS4 launch (which is seeming sane now), and now this. What goes through these people's heads when they put these things together? Do they have so little faith in their products that they think they need to outsource these things out to people more clueless than them? Or are all these ideas cooked up by some high up exec that everyone is afraid to defy? Or is it group think? I just don't understand how anyone could watch this ahead of time and think "this is _perfect_ for our launch". Especially because I think the features of the new phone are actually pretty impressive. Just show those... like on a slide or small demo. That's all you need.

<comment><USER3> What was wrong with the PS4 launch? Except for the cool introduction video and a few minutes of the expected PR BS about the "Playstation experience" it was purely ordinary talk and demoes of the new features/games by the people in charge of them. It often got quite geeky at times actually.

I really enjoyed the PS4 launch, I was actually surprised at how little fluff there were. I really don't understand what you disliked with the launch, I think it was a really good example of how launches should be done in the future.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmaxC1V5gNM>

<comment><USER4> A lot of pundits bashed the PS4 launch for not showing the PS4.

I'm skeptical how big a deal it was because the kids I game with online couldn't stop talking about the PS4 that night and not one of them mentioned the "controversy" about not showing the PS4. If I was Sony and I inked a deal to get Blizzard games on my console I'd schedule an event the next week to tell the world about it. Huge coup.

<comment><USER3> Those pundits were uninformed - it was generally expected that the console itself would be revealed later, just like with the PS3.

<comment><USER5> What kind of product launch is that?

<comment><USER6> They revealed the controller -- you know, the way you actually interact with the thing. They revealed some games, and some gameplay footage. They disclosed the specs of the hardware.

I fail to see why it mattered _even a little bit_ if we saw what exciting variety of plastic block the console itself looks like. For the most part, it's meant to stay out of sight!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is ghastly.

Bachelorette party: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=I...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IDXILsX7_QI#t=4722s)

They literally have seven grown women on stage chirping over a calorie counter, eyefucking an actual topless man, making cheesecake jokes, and doing a lush mommy dance number.

<comment><USER8> Samsung is trying really hard to think of new stuff. The group play was acceptable (of use may be once a year) but making different phones part of a surround sound was absolutely ghastly. The only way to show it also has to horrible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lately, these events are a source of press and discussion. Now you've got articles centered around the phone and articles centered around the event. It's marketing.

It's showy, it's exaggerated, it's fun. Although I've preferred their previous events where they focus on the device, this one is being marketed towards being a personal companion, and with that comes a lot of personal demonstrations.

It's not classy, or maybe not as classy as they'd hoped. But it's launched now and people are talking about it. Maybe it wasn't so bad.

<comment><USER7> Now sis. This is a Tony award nominated stage director serving up ninety minutes of missed cues, DOA humor, tortured narratives, miserable dialogue, and energy-sapping bloat.

But whether it was supposed to be delightfully exaggerated or genuinely awful is besides the point: this shit disrespects the customer, pollutes an already diffuse brand message, and draws attention away from the product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's the worst launch show I've ever seen, by far. Corny, tacky, misogynist, and not a single line anyone said sounded natural.

<comment><USER7> "My nails are wet!" "Sticky fingers!" "Sunscreen!" "I really don't want to put down this drink!"

<comment><USER11> > "I really don't want to put down this drink!"

Samsung targeting the problem drinker market there.

Not clear how being so drunk that you can't focus works with their eye tracking software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I liked some of the features of the new Galaxy S4, but this show put me off so much. They were trying SO hard to make it 'cool', but it was getting more and more awkward with every new scene. That's why at some point I just couldn't take any more of their 'humour' and turned it off.

I don't like Galaxy's look but I quite like some of its features and I think they should re-think their next presentation very carefully and try make it look less cheap.

<comment><USER13> I am curious as to what in the Samsung Galaxy S4 looks cheap to you?

<comment> Aco- I think he meant that the launch show looked cheap; which is kind of ironic considering the fact that they booked out Radio City Music Hall...

<comment><USER12> Exactly, the whole presentation looked artificial to me. Like they were forcing themselves to be liked, instead of just being natural.

W.r.t the device - as I said, some nice features but I am not a big fan of plastic phones. It might sound funny, but I like that I can 'feel' my iPhone when I'm holding it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Where do I get a job making stupid crap like this? Obviously no oversight and probably pays better than what I do now.

<comment><USER15> I couldn't help but think this as well. Intentionally bad or not, someone likely got paid an exorbitant amount of money to come up with this, and I'd have done it for half of whatever that amount was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm inclined to believe that they saw the equally ridiculous Qualcomm CES 2013 opening[0] and were inspired by it

[0][http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/8/3850056/qualcomms-insane- ce...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/8/3850056/qualcomms-insane- ces-2013-keynote-pictures-tweets)

</comment><comment><USER4> Not sure why anyone's baffled, "big overproduced skits" has Samsung written all over it. Or have you forgotten about Zoll?

[http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/06/live-from-samsungs- ces-20...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/06/live-from-samsungs- ces-2011-keynote/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I just don't get this. There is no amount of production that is going to make me care about a phone, or any other type of tech, any more than I already do. If anything it makes me want it _less_. Stop trying so hard to make tech "exciting" for an hour.

<comment><USER17> I couldn't agree with you more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Yes, this was cheesy and over the top, but hey, it's Radio City, it's New York, it's theater!

The tongue-in-cheek show might not be everyone's cup of tea but it was a refreshing change from the usual routine.

Also it kept me entertained/interested long enough to learn about some of the new software features and their potential use cases.

<comment><USER19> Change, yes, but refreshing is probably not the word that comes to my mind. To each his own, I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why can't Samsung release one penta-band UMTS version of each GSM phone?

Releasing an international version and several U.S. versions segments the market, slowing down 3rd party ROM development particularly for the U.S. versions. Carrier ROMs are bloated, non-standard android environments, and lag behind the latest version. That situation is unacceptable; no new Samsung Galaxy phones for me.

<comment><USER4> "Why can't Samsung release one penta-band UMTS version of each GSM phone?"

Presumably lack of demand.

"slowing down 3rd party ROM development particularly for the U.S. versions"

Not Samsung's problem.

"Carrier ROMs are bloated, non-standard android environments, and lag behind the latest version."

And there's a distinct class of devices that run stock Android. And in all likelihood this class will continue to be outsold by an order of magnitude by this device and its non-standard carrier ROM that lags behind the latest version.

"That situation is unacceptable"

To a tiny minority.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Samsung execs: "Americans love Mad Men, Two And A Half Men, and reality shows. Turn them into a product announcement presentation."

</comment><comment><USER22> I was completely distracted by the awful dialogue and performances. What a terrible way to show your flagship gadget.

</comment><comment><USER23> This was quite helpful since I base most of my purchase decisions on the entertainment value of the launch event.

</comment><comment><USER24> Bizarre. I was constantly reminded of this old soundgarden video; <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efc7njKAfgo>

</comment><comment><USER25> Oh man, this was the funniest thing I've seen all year. Yes, it was bad. It seemed almost intentionally so. I definitely enjoyed it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Samsung is baffling. No surprise here.

</comment><comment><USER27> No skydiving??

</comment><comment><USER28> Damn, the S4 packs a lot of really cool stuff, as someone who had finally lost the desire to upgrade phones, it made me pause (though really, my Galaxy Nexus with CM10.1 is faster than I need it to be). But this was just WOW-level embarrassing. And TouchWiz is still ugly, especially given how nice stock Android 4.2.2 and even Sense 5 is.</comment>


Skeptism of astrology - <AUTHOR> https://quartzy.qz.com/1108200/why-do-people-read-their-horoscopes/ <comment><USER2> I heard a really good explanation once. Perhaps the time of season can affect your personality?</comment>


No City Hates Its Landlords Like Berlin Does - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-04/no-city-hates-its-landlords-like-berlin-does <comment><USER2> > Cerberus Capital Management, backed by Goldman Sachs, bought Berlin's public > housing association, paying $448 million for 66,700 housing units—about > $6,700 per unit.

Actually it was 2 billion because the deal included debt of 1.5 billion.

A decade later Berlin bought back 6,000 units for 1 billion...

All of that under leftist government.

Berlin is a joke!

<comment><USER3> If they don't have the debt anymore, then that was good for Berlin.

<comment><USER4> I agree with megablast here. It seems like Cerberus did a terrible job, lost money, and the municipality got a great deal. What am I missing?

<comment><USER5> 6,000 =/= 60,000

<comment><USER4> Ugg. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mortgages are harder to get due to the amount banks have historically loaned against the property value, drive in demand and associated increase in property values see that 30-50% deposit being beyond the many. So you will naturally see a rise in the Us vs Them play out, with Landlords being low hanging fruit targets for such angst when the issue is system that has been historically welcome of renting culture and now pensions being seen more as bricks and mortar over anything else. That first step upon the property run is a huge step and it is that, which is always the area needing solutions. But if the people drive that angst at Landlords, they become a low hanging fruit for the Government. So you see solutions to the effects and not the cause.

Germany is not unique in this, it is a growing problem in many parts of the World.

</comment><comment><USER7> When they say 2% owns the other's wealth I guess they were reffering on controlling the rest. Renting it's a form of barrowing on highest interest possible, similar to bank monthly morgage pay. And this is just sick.

</comment><comment><USER8> > For people looking to buy rather than rent, it's at least as bad—in 2017 > alone, property values jumped 20.5%

Are they going to start shaming those that sold for 20% higher?

<comment><USER9> If you only own the property you live in a rise doesn't leave you better off. However if you own multiple properties, like landlords do, you can cash out your unearned gains.

<comment><USER8> If what you say is true then why are homeowners in Berlin selling their homes for 20% higher gains ?

If it's all the same why not sell for the same price they bought it for?

<comment><USER9> No that's not what I said at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://archive.md/E1kvn](https://archive.md/E1kvn)

</comment><comment><USER11> It's a real shame that housing supply is fixed and it's impossible to build more.

</comment><comment><USER12> > And while many factors are at play—most notably, a giant influx of new > residents and a shortage of housing—Berliners tend to see greedy landlords > as the problem.

This is a much better direction to focus their anger than other residents, at least.

There's a lot of NIMBYism in all of us, and in SF that hatred of change has found a lot of people having the newcomers, rather than the landlords that set the prices, or the politicians that set the markets so that landlords have massively growing profits.

<comment><USER13> When will people stop looking for scapegoats and start finding solutions? Needlessly high rents are an economics problem, and there's a lot of evidence that a combination of expanding housing supply and imposing a Land Value Tax would be an actual economic solution. You could have the most evil landlords, corrupt politicians, and aloof newcomers, and an economic solution would still fix the problem. Sometimes I wonder whether nobody cares to try and solve the problem, symbolic political wars being more urgent.

<comment><USER14> Only allow individuals to own, not companies. If you want to let a unit, rent control with rate increases permitted annually that peg to inflation. Mandatory reporting and regulation through the local housing authority.

That's about all you can do if there's no will to build but you don't want corporate or private landlords gouging renters when demand outstrips supply. Life ain't fair, everyone isn't going to be able to live exactly where they want to. Scarcity leads to rationing.

Disclaimer: Landlord who charges reasonable rents and tries to upzone where I operate.

<comment><USER13> You're going to have major problems no matter what when there's demand and no political ability to build. A Land Value Tax can still in this situation put the landlord surplus back into city welfare/projects without raising rents.

<comment><USER14> The tax is unhelpful if it isn't used to increase supply; it's simply government rent seeking instead of landlord rent seeking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Even more radically, tenant groups and thousands of activists are demanding > that large corporate landlords be expelled from the city altogether, their > property expropriated.

Coming soon to San Francisco!

<comment><USER16> That's just going to make everything worse. At least with a corporation there is the possibility of a joint lawsuit making it worth a lawyers time. With small time landlords they can nickle and dime their tenants because it's not worth a lawyer's time to go after $500 here and $1,000 there.

<comment><USER4> You just made me chuckle. At least in SF, Landlords make great lawsuit targets. They have massive assets that are literally unmovable and unhidable. All land/building based financing is highly tracked and easily subpoenable. Just put a lien on the property and payment is pretty much guaranteed. Also damages can be astronomical. I've seen lawsuits end in 500K in damages for a single resident in a single rent controlled unit of a 2 unit building that was illegaly evicted. When you calculate the net present value of the rent control vs. market rent differential, that number is pretty much spot on. Lesson is: don't screw your tenant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> People know leeches when they see them. And what a surprise, the first leech is based in London and using the British Virgin islands to avoid tax!</comment>


About AutoGreens: Fully Automated Robofarm and the Future of Home Appliances - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@VladLunachev/about-autogreens-worlds-first-fully-automated-robofarm-for-home-or-restaurant-and-the-future-of-b18db44042e3 <comment><USER2> I saw a guy doing this with fish underneath.</comment>


Report: Nearly Half Of Detroiters Can't Read - <AUTHOR> http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2011/05/04/report-nearly-half-of-detroiters-cant-read/

<comment><USER2> The comments on that article are depressing at best.

Is this an English-language-only poll? I'd imagine there's a difference in productivity between those who are truly illiterate and those who simply can't read English.

<comment><USER3> Is there a significant amount of non-English speakers in Detroit?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can someone explain to me why this is getting upvotes, and why people think it fits the guidelines.

How is it something that "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." ?? ( <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html> )

How does it match the requirement that submissions "do have to be deeply interesting." ( <http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html> )

Please, help me understand. What is the interest?

Thx.

<comment><USER5> Please fully read the page you linked to :)

"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."

<comment><USER6> I personally think that asking the question lies in a grey area where it is often a complaint couched as a question, sometimes a genuine question that should nevertheless not be asked, but sometimes appropriate. If a post has a lot of votes and a lively discussion, complaining or asking is counterproductive. Flag it and cross your fingers that the moderators will recognize when something is popular but harmful to Hacker News.

If a post is fairly new with little discussion, perhaps patience is a better strategy. The discussion may emerge and you will be able to see for yourself whether the post is an exception to the apparent rules.

Sometimes a post has a lot of upvotes but very little discussion, and the discussion is fairly thin. In that case, the question can be sincere and helpful. After all, if there is very little discussion it's hard to figure out whether to flag it or not, perhaps there is some hidden value to the post.

I'm saying nothing about this post or this question, mind you, just musing about when such a question might be appropriate and sincere.</comment></comment></comment>


Y Combinator New RFS - <AUTHOR> http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/ <comment><USER2> It looks like Feeding the world is no longer a high priority objective for YC, but at least we get financial services and Hollywood 2.0!

<comment><AUTHOR> I never quite got the part about Hollywood 2.0 ... what kinds of new businesses is the RFS referring to? Youtube is already pretty good ... millions of people watch videos and movies online on Youtube and are pretty happy. What kind of new technology can be invented that would surpass Youtube ?</comment></comment>


The Verge Reviews Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Yoga With OLED Display - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/14/13283622/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-yoga-review <comment><USER2> > Both the eraser nub and trackpad buttons feel like they're still here for > legacy reasons to keep ThinkPad customers comfortable, and frankly, I wish > Lenovo would just kill them.

These buttons are essential to many ThinkPad users. It's a defining feature of Thinkpads. The non-ThinkPad Yoga machines do not have them.</comment>


Recommended affordable attorneys to draft an employment contract in California?  - <AUTHOR>

Can anyone recommended an attorney to draft an employment contract in California? (Affordable for a bootstrapped company please) We don't have the luxury to hire some of the top law firms out there. Our goal is to find someone who does a good job and can answer some basic questions/concerns we have. Thanks! <comment><USER2> Employment contract? Like a boiler plate one that could be found on the internet? Or reused from a previous employer?

</comment><comment><USER3> How much are you guys looking to spend?</comment>


Happy Birthday, Apple II (35 years old today) - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/17/happy-birthday-apple-ii/

<comment><USER2> When does hardware enter the public domain? Could a hobbyist already build and sell Apple II clones legally?

</comment><comment><USER3> My first computer (or my family's, at least). Thanks for helping me find a career.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great to see the woz posting!</comment>


EZAudio - An iOS/OS X audio processing and visualization framework - <AUTHOR> http://syedharisali.com/projects/EZAudio/getting-started

<comment><USER2> Really well done. I'm working on an app that needs plotting and have been putting off implementing that feature for fear of the sinkhole it might suck me down. Looks like this will do just the trick. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER3> This is awesome, I've seen this in real life and it's so useful/fast for creating audio visualizations and the examples are excellent to learn from!

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://github.com/syedhali/EZAudio](https://github.com/syedhali/EZAudio)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Glad you guys are enjoying it! @maroonblazer, I'd love to hear how it goes :)</comment>


Who's Using Ada? Real-World Projects Powered by the Ada Programming Language - <AUTHOR> http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~mfeldman/ada-project-summary.html <comment><USER2> A lot of radar systems run on Ada. Its takes a little getting used to, but its a good language.

Ada has a c binding package so it can call down to the OS libraries (networking, shared memory), which is great, but kills some of the niceness of living in an ada world.

When I was trying out GO, I got a little ada flashback for some reason.

The package system was good.

I disliked ada strings though.

When I left the industry, they were looking for alernative languages for new projects. GCC Ada compiler was being considered for maintaining older projects, seemed decent. [http://libre.adacore.com/tools/gnat-gpl- edition/](http://libre.adacore.com/tools/gnat-gpl-edition/)

<comment><USER3> Yep, the Aegis Combat System is almost all in Ada (but simulated and developed mostly in C++ and Matlab)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Combat_System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Combat_System)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Although I've never coded in Ada I have had to read existing code to figure out what it was doing.

Ada struck me as a language that would be a pain to write in(at least it would take a long time) but it was a pleasure to read. Even without an intimate knowledge of the language (I was a C++ guy) I was able to figure it out.

<comment><USER5> Alternative to Ada is often writing Ada in some other language more painfully :( I think it's sad that companies move to restricted C/C++ subset just because there are more people with C/C++ in their resume.

1\. The JSF air vehicle C++ coding standards [http://www.stroustrup.com/JSF- AV-rules.pdf](http://www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV-rules.pdf)

2\. MISRA-C:2004 Guidelines for the use of the C language in critical systems [http://caxapa.ru/thumbs/468328/misra-c-2004.pdf](http://caxapa.ru/thumbs/468328/misra-c-2004.pdf)

3\. MISRA C++:2008 Guidelines for the use of the C++ language in critical systems [http://frey.notk.org/books/MISRA- Cpp-2008.pdf](http://frey.notk.org/books/MISRA-Cpp-2008.pdf)

<comment><USER6> I have been visiting FOSDEM every few years and Ada presence in Europe has been slowly rising.

Just check the archives.

Most likely because for writing fail safe software, it is better to use a language with built in support for safety, than using crutches.

<comment><USER7> That's really encouraging! The C++/Java/Python monoculture coming out of schools suck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would have enjoyed seeing a list like this in university where we had the option to learn Ada for a software engineering course.

Ada was mandated to be used for military applications but became largely irrelevant for commercial applications. It's now considered a white elephant [1] by many.

1: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant)

<comment><USER9> To my knowledge, Ada is used in embedded/realtime systems where reliablity is of the utmost importance. The European Ariane rockets have code written in Ada on board, I think (these are civilian rockets, not military). There is a subset of Ada called Spark that allows - to a degree - automated verification of code.

Not saying I like it or anything like that, but it definitely has its place.

<comment><USER8> For sure. This "Who's Using Ada?" list that was posted gives a good overview for what kind of applications it's used for. You'll see many where lives are on the line (be it for good or bad).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ada is a language that deserves more love.

<comment><USER11> Beside being intimidating and having few syntax curiosity (' as string index operator) it really is a nice language.

<comment><USER12> Hmm? Ada uses the apostrophe for character literals and to introduce attributes. Strings are arrays; indexing uses the same `array[index]` syntax as any other array.

        S: constant String := "Hello";
        H: constant Character := S(1);

<comment><USER11> True, I was thinking about type conversion from String to Character, IIRC you have to use ' operator, something like my_string'first (not sure, I needed it 10 years ago), otherwise my_string(1) gives a String of length one, not the first Character.

<comment><USER13> Depends on how the array is defined. Ada allows you to have any discrete type as your array indices, so to get the first element of an array, you need to use my_string(my_string'first).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ada was used on some of the modules on India's Mars mission: [http://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/1ujcmo/we_are_three_i...](http://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/1ujcmo/we_are_three_isro_scientists_here_to_answer_your/)

</comment><comment><USER15> The attribute mechanism is something a lot of languages would benefit from. Need to know the maximum value of an integer? Just ask the integer type to tell you. No going to a library to look up inscrutable constants.

<comment><USER16> C++:

      numeric_limits<type>::max ()

<comment><USER15> Ada attribute provide a lot more meta information about types and objects than just integer limits.

[http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Attributes](http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Attributes)

Some of these would be methods in modern OO languages but many are unique to Ada.

<comment><USER16> So does C++; both C++ and Ada have traits the other doesn't. Good ideas go around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is certainly an impressive list of projects. Ada seems to be favored for critical software that can't ever fail. I've been considering how to achieve this type of software reliability for more "enterprisey" applications. Formally verifiable languages are certainly intriguing, but would be a hard sell for the managers at the Fortune 100 company where I work.

Reading the wikipedia page for Ada didn't really give much insight into why the language is so heavily favored for applications like avionics software. Built in task based concurrency is certainly nice, but not a game-changer. Can someone more familiar with Ada explain what makes it so popular for high reliability applications?

Or is it a question of culture and tooling rather than the language itself?

<comment><USER2> It has a lot of safety checks built into the runtime, which make it a little slower.

x is and int between 1 and 200.

x gets asigned out of that range, exception is thrown. So we weren't manually checking everything.

Also I think it was mandated as a language for US government contracts, for a variety of reasons.

<comment><USER18> As with asserts in C, you can compile with that turned on or off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wow, I went to GW and learned Ada in CS051. I didn't have much of a point of reference at the time to compare it to other languages, but it was pretty easy to learn and I enjoyed the class.

<comment><USER20> I am class of 05 so my intro class was the last one to use ada. I also remember it being very easy on beginners. At the time I was annoyed the underclassmen got java, but now that I know java, no thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I used Ada on my first coding job - test scripts for Airbus engines back in the mid-90s. Nice to see they're still using Ada, though tbh I don't remember a single thing about the language except for you can't dynamically create objects

<comment><USER22> Ada used to be basis for CS Curriculm at Cal Poly Pomona (Circa '92- '98). Ada teaches good practice. One prominent feature is that there is no implicit casting; Add a float and int, you get a compile error. It's good to know that you have to do exactly what you want and the compiler enforces this.

<comment><USER23> ADA at university - never touched it again. It was ADA 83, and the ADA 95 object extensions looked horrible.

I remember seeing PL/SQL circa Oracle 8i and it looking a lot like ADA.

<comment><USER24> > _I remember seeing PL /SQL circa Oracle 8i and it looking a lot like ADA._

Not a coincidence. The designers of PL/SQL were largely inspired by Ada's basic syntax and structure.

It's not an acronym, by the way, so no need to all-caps it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Nice list. I programmed in Ada for eight months in 1997 when I was on a co-op at Rockwell Collins, working on their simulation testbed for their general aviation flight management systems -- I recognize several of the planes listed in the Commercial Aviation section.

I ended up really enjoying programming in Ada and was unhappy about having to return to C++ when I went back to school that fall. It was a bit more work to write, but it was easy to read and when it compiled it usually did what you expected it to. It's a language that makes it difficult for you to shoot yourself in the foot.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'd love to hear about remote Ada jobs, and not requiring US citizenship...

<comment><USER27> Europe loves it some Ada in the avionics space.

<comment><USER26> Yes, but in those types of organizations remote jobs aren't really encouraged.

<comment><USER28> Though it would be cool if you could SSH into an A320 flight management computer from your apartment :-)

<comment><USER26> Or they could borrow me one for some time... :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> As a college student, is Ada still worth learning for (Canadian) development jobs in critical systems? I'd like to think it would give me an edge coming out of school, but I keep reading that new applications are being written in C/C++.

Edit: In fact, I interned at an avionics company and they're slowly trying to entirely switch to model-based development, using certified software that generates the code for you.

</comment><comment><USER30> I worked on two geosynchronous communication satellites built on Ada (late 1980s using the TLD compiler). Both had a maximum of 48KB of ROM and 16KB of RAM. That included attitude control, command, telemetry, thermal/power management, fault manager, and little OS.

Since then, I've done pretty much nothing but C, but I do miss Ada's features from time to time.

</comment><comment><USER31> Ada is still extremely popular in mission critical software. I know the US military and NASA use it a lot.

</comment><comment><USER32> We used Ada in my software engineering class in 1992 to _try_ to build a system to do route finding on a map and then generate directions. Each build took 40 to 50 minutes on a pretty nice PC at the time. I don't miss those days.

<comment><USER7> Wrong tool for the job. I would do that in Python.

<comment><USER33> Not in 1992 you wouldn't.

This is a strange thing to say without explaining anyway. Would you care to expand on your point? I would expect Ada to run orders of magnitude faster than Python for a task like this.

<comment><USER7> I think that when you are doing exploratory programming and you're not quite sure about what you're doing you should have a language that gets out of the way as much as possible, which Python does. Ada and other bondage languages are for when correctness is most important or you need structure because you know the codebase will become large.

<comment><USER33> > I think that when you are doing exploratory programming and you're not quite > sure about what you're doing you should have a language that gets out of the > way as much as possible, which Python does.

I agree with this, but am not sure it's on point. Every software engineering class I've heard of is about as far as you can get from exploratory programming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I used Ada during my first internship (avionics software). However, the group I was part of was in the middle of phasing out Ada in favor of C/C++. This was around 2010-2012.

<comment><USER35> Similar for me. My first ever programming assignment for a real company was converting an Ada project to C for the Boeing 787.

<comment><USER36> How was your feeling about the C codebase compared to Ada? Did one feel more comprehensible or reliable than the other?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Ada was my first language in college. At JC, our professors were DoD contractors at the nearby Air Force Base. Good times.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is open source relevant in jobs? - <AUTHOR> I've been looking at quite a few jobs and it seems that a lot of companies put open source experience as a requirement. Open source is never mentioned in my home country, but seems to be in a lot of job requirements in Western countries.
If it was to see whether I can code - I've definitely got quite a few projects that people can touch and play with (the perks of being an app developer).
Some companies I work for put in the contract that all code written while employed belongs to the company. So it puts me at a disadvantage when job seeking.
I don't really understand why open source is so big. Is there anything that I'm missing here? <comment><USER2> _" Some companies I work for write the contract that all code written while employed belongs to the company."_

That's why - because it shows evidence of code you produce, are interested in coding on a personal level (as opposed to doing it purely for the paycheck), how you solve problems, how you document code, how well you communicate with others etc.

It does feel like having an active Github is almost a requirement these days - but there are plenty of people who feel this is unfair, see for example -> [http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor- an...](http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor-and-the-oss- community)

<comment><USER3> The link you gave had a good title, but terrible content. You pretty much can stop reading on first paragraph when it says: "A quick glance through the list shows that the overwhelming majority of these users are white men.".

<comment><USER2> I think the content itself is factual and relevant - I'm personally not a fan of the way US-centric identity politics polarise groups of peoples either, but once you get over this aspect the ideas behind it make more sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> They may be looking for developers that are more likely to work unpaid time. Or they might want to know whether you can work on your own without being supervised.

My guess is mere cargo cult.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't really care if you have your open source project. You can just contribute to some project you like/use. This is how open source works.

The most important thing about it is to understand if you are able to dig someone else's code and fix/improve it. This shows a lot about you. It is your code and you have to interact with other (good) people. It is a social experience.

</comment><comment><USER6> Cynical answer: because companies want to see that you'll write code for free, so you'll never ask for a raise or overtime.

The less cynical answer is because working on some open source thing at least exposes your willingness to contribute, look at other peoples' code etc. It can be hard to tell how much someone actually contributed just by looking at a CV.

<comment><USER7> > It can be hard to tell how much someone actually contributed just by looking > at a CV.

While this is true, it can also be hard to tell how much of a person's open- source code was actually written by that person. With the abundance of code available today, it would be relatively trivial for someone to take random code fragments and functions from all around and to assemble them together into a conglomerate. All the person would have to do is basically change the variable and function names, in addition to the syntactic style, to make it all appear as coming from the same person. Sure, this would at least show an awareness of syntax and style, but it certainly would not show the level of programming skill or even necessarily of problem-solving ability. On the other hand, if the person's repo is popular, then there is at least an indication of function and utility.

<comment><USER6> There is also having pulls accepted on open source, e.g. fixing bugs in various libraries and so on - one doesn't need to start a whole OSS project from scratch to contribute.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In my experience, developers with GitHub repos or other work usually are more interested in what they do. For me, that translates to people that are proud of the code they write and more interested in the job rather than someone that just comes in and churns out code without consideration for others or the long term.

<comment><USER9> You should be aware that your bias is ruling out tons of great developers. Defence, finance, biotech, etc. frequently have very restrictive ip agreements with their developers, such that if they do have public repos it will certainly be at best toy examples.

<comment><USER8> We don't rule them out by any means but it is a big plus. If someone demonstrates in an interview that they have an interest (we usually have a brief test we send out via email just to see how they do also) we're totally fine with that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Which is your home country? Because it's the same in mine and the reason is the local market here sucks.

I've applied to many companies that required opensource and just flat-told them that I only have private projects to show. So I have a couple private projects that I can share the repo (ask the previous employer about it) and have not been rejected for this. The reason is they just want to see your code, how you write docs, readmes, commits, tests, schemas etc.

The "all your code are belong to us" clause is just a negative side of a company. Either don't work for them, ask them if you can use their source only to show to other clients, or lie and also work on something else behind their backs that you can show to your next employer.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm in Malaysia. Yeah, the local market sucks here too.

On the flip side, a metric like this has made some people a little too GitHub happy. They would put up private code because they liked the little activity indicators, and commit every 15 minutes of work. But now that I think of it, maybe they were fishing for another job.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you use Virtualbox? - <AUTHOR>

I installed the same Ubuntu that I run on linode on a Virtualbox on my Mac. But I couldn't find out exactly how folks work with Virtualbox.
Do you make VBox fullscreen, and just work completely inside the graphical environment? Or do you edit on the Mac and compile on the VBox? Or you have your VBox only for testing deployment, not development?
The motivation for trying out VBox was this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1998389 <comment><USER2> I pretty much use it in all of the ways specified above:

Sometimes I use it for development: I may need a development environment that I can not set up on my desktop for some random reason.

Other times, I use it to test software on various OS installs. As an example, I recently had the need to test an installer and software on Vista 32/64, XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008. That would've been a pain in the butt for me without VMs. (Handy tip that I use, I often take snapshots of my VMs after I first set them up. This allows me to roll back to a 'fresh' install any time I want.)

Other times, I'm setting up multiple linux boxes to test how I want the multiple machines to interact or to test multi-server deployment without actually having to pay to bring up more servers.

Sometimes I just need to set something up that matches my production environment so that I can test possible changes and see what's going to work and what's going to break.

I have a full dual monitor linux development environment setup on my windows box as well so that I can do my development from there if I need to.

Essentially: Your options are limitless.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a CentOS box that runs a few headless VBox VM's. I use them for development / testing before pushing changes live. I have one of them setup pretty much exactly like our production server.

I do all of that work over ssh. None of the VMs have an X window system installed.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't right now...

There are issues [1] with running VirtualBox mac under the 64bit kernel. Disabling VT-x helps for some people but that precludes you from running a 64bit client.

It's a reported issue [2] but in the meantime you can boot your shiny new i7 MBP into the 32bit kernel.

[1] [http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39368](http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39368) [2] <http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/8474>

</comment><comment><USER5> Check out Vagrant - <http://vagrantup.com>

Quote:

Vagrant is a tool for building and distributing virtualized development environments.

By providing automated creation and provisioning of virtual machines using Oracle's VirtualBox, Vagrant provides the tools to create and configure lightweight, reproducible, and portable virtual environments.

</comment><comment><USER4> For backend work I run virtualbox minimized with a mapped drive on the host where I run my IDE, etc.

For front-end testing I run various windows virtual boxen windowed on the second monitor while my IDE is up on the main monitor. In this case my work files are local on the mac and shared to the Vbox for previewing on Windows (including IE6 sadly).

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm more interested in backend work now. When you say mapped do you mean the "shared folders" via guest additions ?

<comment><USER4> Yes. Setup networking between guest and host, then on the host connect to the share on the guest.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure whether you're doing this on purpose, but just incase: you don't need to set up networking on the guest to have shared folders. Virtualbox has native functionality for this (using the guest additions that the grantparent mentions).

<comment><USER4> Hmm, I guess I didn't know that.

(I've always setup networking anyway since I need HTTP in and out of the guest as well.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I installed it this weekend. I use it to run node on Ubuntu from Win7. I run it fullscreen and use emacs. Works great so far.

<comment><USER8> I do that too. Also, I use it to run ruby / rails because trying to set that up on Win7 sucked too much. Sometimes, a vm is just better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use virtualbox for running Windows, which I sometimes need for testing or when I have to use MS Office for some reason... In that case I make it fullscreen and work in the graphical environment.

To pass files from/to the virtual OS I use a virtualbox shared folder, I have networking inside the box disabled for security reasons.</comment>


Please review our startup Favetop.com - Internet Desktop - <AUTHOR> http://www.favetop.com/

<comment><USER2> Well, the first thing I would ask is why do I need a web desktop? I hardly use the non-web desktop I already have.

Secondly, (and this is based on playing with the site for 5 seconds) what are you providing that my browser's bookmarks bar isn't?

<comment><USER3> On average people visit the same 8 sites over and over. We feel this kind of interface is more efficient, because it's meant to be set as a home page. This way going from site to site only involves clicking the Home button and each site. We also think it fits well with the trend toward touch screens on devices like the iPad.

<comment><USER4> My gut reaction was: why would I bother going here rather than the Top Sites (or equivalent) pane in Safari or Chrome or FF, which shows the sites I visit most and doesn't require me to have _another_ account elsewhere?

Don't get me wrong - I really applaud everyone who gets an idea out there to market, but I just can't see the use-case for this being common enough.

( _Thinks more_ Unless you're going for IE users, perhaps?)

<comment><USER3> The best answer I can give that is we feel a browser based solution is best, because your favorite content can be accessed from any computer.

<comment><USER4> That is a fair point. I guess because I'm a laptop user, I almost entirely use my own machine for the web, rather than a work box and a home box, or access from an internet cafe etc, but there are still plenty of people out there who would benefit. I think adriand's point about it being great for young kids is really strong, too. Best of luck with it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've actually been thinking of building a simple homepage like this for a while for my son, who is two. He has trouble with the bookmarks tab right now (although I just started teaching him to use it, so he'll probably get better quickly!) But I think a homepage with icons would be helpful for him. And I think that spinning it as child-friendly could be a good route for you.

Question: is there a way to eliminate the tabs and just have all of your content, whether it's games, videos, whatever, piled up on one page?

I realize I could answer the question myself, however, I don't really like your privacy policy. If that policy is one you just lifted from somewhere else, you may want to customize it further. I would like to see somewhere in there that you will not transfer my data to third parties.

<comment><USER3> We are looking at giving users customization options under Settings. As heavy Internet users ourselves, we're on the user's side when it comes to privacy. We never monitor user activity or transfer data to third policies. We do need to update our privacy policy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the idea is a great one, just not for this audience. Hackers use the desktop as little as possible, but my mother clutters her desktop with EVERYTHING.

Personally, I think you are on a good path. After using it briefly it felt pretty good. The biggest problem you will have is getting traction (as others have mentioned), and I do not really have any good ideas on how to solve that.

<comment><USER7> I agree with this sentiment. It's difficult to gauge broader market appeal on a site like HN if your app is better suited for the "average" person. We all tend to look at stuff through our developer/hacker/designer/startup lenses and lose sight of the fact that 99% of people will evaluate what you've built in a far different light than this crowd. At your next family reunion, see how many people have heard of Dropbox, Basecamp or Xobni.

My advice to the creator(s): Don't get discouraged. This is a cool idea and most importantly, you've _shipped_ something. Keep going.

<comment><USER3> I also agree, but I still think the HN community is great for getting feedback. It's true that we're not really aimed at hackers. However, a similar site to us AllMyFaves.com just hit 100M page views ([http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6U_mVE_...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6U_mVE_qOVoJ:ns1.allmyfaves.com/index.php+allmyfaves+million&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)), and I doubt HN users would use them either. Thanks for the encouragement!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why do I have to sign up to start using this? I think people would be more likely to try it if they didn't have to cross that barrier.

You should have it so using it on one machine just works and requires no signup, then have an option to add a user/pass at a later stage.

<comment><USER9> agreed. you could use a cookie/ip or something initially to set the user account

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> You are doing a great job of _telling_ me what the site is about, but you should also _show_ how it actually looks/works.

I see that it is a website to save/share stuff and I am not sure whether to sign up or not because I don't know what the actual inner pages are going to look like. Is it as simple as the home page etc or will it get more complicated and difficult to use? There are a lot of sites that does this same thing and why should someone sign up for this site? Some screenshots or video demo would be helpful in this case.

But again, my biggest problem with the site is that I still don't understand what problem it solves.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the helpful feedback. Communicating how our site works in a quick way remains a big challenge for us, and we will certainly keep working to improve that. As for the problem it solves, we think it solves a few, but one example would be the ability to hold on to videos that might be watched more than once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I actually want a new homepage something a bit like this. I currently use either iGoogle (as it has lots of widgets which I can quickly use - e.g. GPS phone locator) or chrome default homepage (I like the big icons showing what the page actually looks like rather than a websites logo - helps you find the site faster).

I will usually only use the homepage when I first open the browser, as after that I can click bookmarks. I want the homepage to probably have a few rss feeds and some big buttons to click on and go to a new site.

Specific to your site: I wont ever use the video, games, photos, music tabs - and would like the choices to remove those tabs. My homepage must have no information that I do not need. I want it to be more streamlined and slick than a skinned rabbit covered in grease. I didnt want most of the default links on the web tab - and removing them individually was a pain as it took so long There is a bit too much space at the top of the page. the distance between the top bar and the search bar and the "tabs" bar should be decreased imo. "Feedback" on bottom of page is misspelt :)

So currently I would choose iGoogle. But I would try it for a while if there were choices on icon sizes, rss feeds, and a few optional widgets e.g. calculators, and there are options to hide all features which I dont want to see in settings.

<comment><USER3> That's great feedback. We may eventually have that kind of customization under Settings. In fact, we've actually discussed exactly those things (and a lot more!), but we wanted to start with a core set of features and evolve from there.

<comment><USER11> Great, Ill keep checking back. thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would certainly use favetop for aggregating videos and music. This feature is just awesome. I agree with others - bookmarks are best for launching links and webapps, specially when you are using ONE computer and only ONE browser.

Well, a question to site owners: do you track my clicks on links?? ;)

<comment><USER3> We don't track individual user activity. We're huge believers in privacy. Profiles and content are also private by default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The site's UI is way to boring. Even if its suppose to be simple. Also being a programmer in my own right, I was looking at the source and using tables with spacers? I mean come on, its 2010.. Also another thing I am noticing is, is every bit of your application all in one directory? I am seeing files like indexg.php, gamesg.php. I may be wrong but that might make it really hard to pick up any more developers or investors who are a little tech savvy. Just my 2 cents. Good luck though.

<comment><USER3> Yes, our own designer complained about that too, but because our app is meant to be used across a wide range of users and computer configurations we opted to go with a more consistent set up, since it's the same from the user perspective. And the scripts make use of includes ;)

<comment><USER13> When you say a more consistent setup, I hope you are not referring to the fact tables are used, because changing the theme for a certain user is MUCH easier to do in css. Okay since you mentioned includes, your obviously a lower end developer. Have you ever heard of OOP or MVC? But I guess if it works, why question it.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I agree, and that may be what we use in the future, but to meet our early goals, which is getting something stable out the door that's the plan we used. My primary objective isn't programming/architecture debates (or prizes) it's simply getting satisfied users. It's like you say, we're focused on what works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I prefer bookmarks, and google is more useful as my homepage.

</comment><comment><USER15> I like it. I use to have something like the web tab that I had made for myself, but this is obviously more complete. I think the delete function should be more obvious (maybe something like how the iphone deletes apps) and when I add sites, it would be nice to see a list of icons for at least the most popular options.

</comment><comment><USER16> While I don't think I'm at all within the target market (as has been discussed elsewhere in the thread), but I had to give you kudos for the way you present it to the user. It very quickly shows you why they should use your service and what they may be able to get out of it. Good job.

</comment><comment><USER17> I tried using an internet wallpaper, <http://fav4.org> and it does this in a prettier way. Additionally, it's engaging and simpler. I still switched back to Safari's homepage and don't think I could be moved away from it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Interesting...

Bookmarklets can help a lot in saving videos, pics, read-later links, etc

</comment><comment><USER19> Why not put everything on one page? I'd rather scroll then click tabs.

<comment><USER3> That had never occurred to us. However, we consider ourselves an Internet Desktop, so like a PC we want to allow users some customization (possibly including their own design themes). Under the Settings we may include that as an option if there is enough demand for it, but we also believe in fast loading pages, so that would be one drawback.

<comment><USER20> "but we also believe in fast loading pages"

Is that for your benefit, or your users? Either way is a good answer, I just think you should know the answer. The word "believe" prompted this comment.

If you have icons 1-10 on tab A, and icons 11-20 on tab B, then tab B loads really, really slow, i.e. never until you click it. So you have fast access to icons 1-10 and really slow access to icons 11-20.

An option in the Settings would (eventually) be good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Was this site coded in 1992? Viewing the source code it sure seems like it..

Spacer images? No thanks Favetop!

<comment><USER22> If you had to view source before you were sure, then it can't be a real problem, can it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If I refresh this page after creating an account it continuously doubles all of the icons on that page (first time one amazon icon, one Facebook icon, one of all the other icons, second time two of each, next time four, etc until it gets ridiculous):

<http://www.favetop.com/index.php?actn=re>

<comment><USER3> That bug is fixed. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Trying to become the starting page. This has been done since the 90s (see <http://www.startpagina.nl/> etc). I don't see the need for it, and I don't see how you'll ever compete against the likes of google, yahoo etc. Not gonna work, sorry.</comment>


Favorite Worst Movies by The Writers - <AUTHOR> http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/of_recent_note/favorite_worst_movies.php <comment><USER2> I got about 1/4 way down this and asked why I was wasting my time on it. No good reason. There is _zero_ value in this.

Save your time, do something entertaining, useful, constructive, or just fun, but don't bother reading this.</comment>


Stacksort – Searches StackOverflow for sorting functions and runs them (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://gkoberger.github.io/stacksort/ <comment><USER2> Hilariously awesome.

I'm curious whether the multiple warnings about running untrusted code in the browser are necessary. I feel like all websites are already untrusted code, and the browser is quite well sandboxed and protected from anything too bad happening. What is the worst case scenario here for the user within the JS ecosystem, under known avenues of attack, not counting an unknown zero day browser exploit?

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of "security expert" warnings in the mass media where every time something happens they tell people effectively the same thing "don't do things unless you know / trust it".

Most people have no clue what they're running and can't possibly take the time to know enough to really have a clue.

<comment><USER4> Trust is fairly worthless as well. Malware devs buy trusted software to turn in to malware so something that was good and trusted for years is now bad with no warning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hey, creator here! I built this a few years ago on a whim, and am surprised how well it still works. Thanks for sharing again :)

(Psst, if you're an engineer and like dev tools, I'm hiring! [https://readme.io/careers](https://readme.io/careers))

<comment> munk-a Is it terrible that I am highly tempted to use this as an API, forcing the value in via headless chrome then printing the page to a PDF and using OCR & regular expressions to extract a sorted list? I'm pretty sure that's an O(1) (ish, not really) which I always heard was the best kind.

<comment><USER6> It's not O(1). You are only calling the API once, but if you put in a larger list the time will increase in accordance to whatever the complexity is of the sorting happening behind the scenes. Calling this O(1) would be like saying qsort is O(1) because you are only calling the function once.

<comment> your-nanny dude.its called a joke

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> this reminds me of the 4chan's sleepsort: for each number $n in the array, spin a thread that sleeps $n and then append $n to the result array.

<comment><USER8> Would the algorithmic runtime of this be O(N)?

<comment><USER9> The O(N log N) best case only applies to comparison sorts. What's described here is not a comparison sort, and could easily be made O(N) with radix sort if the size of the numeric type is constant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is it just me, or do none of them sort this array correctly?

["zebra","apple","banana","5","bapple","banana","banana"]

Correction, the page finally found this algorithm that sorts my array[1]. So I am disappointed with the verifier function on this web page and may need to submit a PR

1 - [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3730510/#3730579](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3730510/#3730579)

<comment><USER11> That conversation about for..in - any JS experts that can say whether modules or other new advances will help with this? Not being able to use the standard functions on primitives because random other code messes with them sounds like pogo sticking in a minefield.

<comment><USER12>
        for (let x of xs)

in more recent versions of JS is how you iterate an array without facing that prototype pollution problem.

See [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Statements/for...of)

<comment><USER11> Good to know, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It only checks that the output is sorted, not that it's a sorted version of the original string.

The first answer that apparently works has a comment stating that it fails with more than 2 duplicates; indeed I tried a list with three 3s and the resulting passing answer only had one of those threes.

<comment><USER14> So a function that always returns an empty list passes the test?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> See also previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5395463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5395463)

</comment><comment><USER15> Wow! I was inspired by this back in 2013 - I hacked a version together that also took a second argument, which was a description of the operation to be done (so it wasn't always "Sort"). Worked surprisingly well.

[https://github.com/jamesjennings/stacksolve](https://github.com/jamesjennings/stacksolve)

I cringe at the code now, but still think the idea is neat.

</comment><comment> 52-6F-62 Wow. Hadn't seen this before. I clicked the button and laughed audibly and loudly at the alert.

</comment><comment><USER16> Relevant Python library ([https://github.com/drathier/stack-overflow- import](https://github.com/drathier/stack-overflow-import)) and previous HN discussion ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12868946](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12868946)).

</comment><comment><USER17> THIS IS WRONG! DON'T DO IT!

Of course, the first thing that I did was to try it in a safe environment. It worked!!! :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Doesn't seem to work. Tried with input ["z","b","a","c","d"] and returns the same ["z","b","a" "c","d"] as the output, using StackOverflow answer 4833835

<comment><USER19> For string sorts, i needed to keep running about 5 or 6 times until a sorted result was found.

<comment><USER18> Ah you're absolutely right, didn't see the "Didn't work? Try the next answer" button

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This project is both Awesome and Awful at the same time. Love it!

</comment><comment><USER20> Pure eval

</comment><comment><USER21> Click the button and PRAY this thing doesn't load any sketchy code

<comment><USER22> I don't think that's so different from normal web browsing. (Normal being javascript enabled, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Some say it's still running bogosort to this day...

</comment><comment><USER24> Wonder how long until this code pops up in some CTF....

</comment><comment><USER25> How does this work? I thought CORS prevents this?

<comment><USER26> [https://api.stackexchange.com/](https://api.stackexchange.com/)

<comment><USER25> ah, I see

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> this should be tagged [2015]

<comment><USER28> [2013], at least: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12137690/javascript- sort...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12137690/javascript-sort-sparse- array-keep-indexes#comment21918994_12137767)

<comment><USER29> An attempt was made, but right now it's at "(2103)". Nice to know xkcd will still be around in the next century!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The worst part about this is that there is an existing thread from 2013 directly on the site linked.

</comment><comment><USER31> This made me squeeee

Well done

</comment><comment> forgot-my-pw More crazy sorting techniques from a recent reddit thread: [https://redd.it/9s9kgn](https://redd.it/9s9kgn)

Highlights:

\- GenghisKhanSort: delete all elements except for the first, repopulate the list with successors of the first element \- HitlerSort: Choose an element in the list you think is the best, then loop through the list removing any element that does not match. \- ThanosSort: delete half the array. The arrays may or not be sorted, but it'll help for future sorting \- TrumpSort O(0): the array is always sorted. Anyone who says otherwise is fake news.</comment>