Yeoman Generator for WordPress + Vagrant + Multi-env - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/genesis/wordpress/ <comment><AUTHOR> OP + author here. I just open-sourced the first of several starter-skeletons my company uses (WordPress, AngularJS, React, ExpressJS, etc.).

The main goal was to standardize the workflow, environments, and deployment of dozens of our sites so both frontend and backend teams could work in tandem as requirements got increasingly complex.

One approach I took that differs from YeoPress & others was to abstract away most of the boilerplate (provisioning, deployment, wp-config nuances) away, so that as features are added & bugs are fixed, a simple `bower update` would resolve most of the problems, rather than having to re-generate the scaffolding.

I've really enjoyed working on it, and it has helped out the team immensely, so I hope open-sourcing it can help others using WordPress that have yet to benefit from Vagrant and other tools.

<comment><USER2> This looks totally amazing. Thank you for doing this and also for documenting it so well! I had to spend a lot of extra time with other Vagrant/WP integration concepts just because a lot of them were very poorly documented. Cheers!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! If you have any opinions, issues, or whatever (I just wrote the docs today =/), open a ticket. I'm pretty active in my other open-source projects and <3 trying new concepts & ideas!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been very happy with all the open sourced WordPress tools coming out..

WP-CLI has been a huge time saver for me.. Use it on dev and production environments

I recently revisited the Roots theme and have been using it on all projects.

About to try Genesis out. I've been having trouble keeping track of dev/production DB's so I'm hoping this will help solve this problem

<comment><AUTHOR> The last time I tried out WP-CLI was, admittedly, ~ year ago, where I believe the limitation was that you administered the WordPress install on the same machine it ran on, rather than administering via ansible, capistrano, or other DevOps tools.

What I've been building instead is likening WordPress development to our other PHP/Node applications, where changing themes, installing plugins, and migrating data is done first locally, prepped for migration (either via a script, or just just deploying the entire DB back out), then released alongside other PRs.

Regarding Roots, I'm impressed with it, but decided to leave Roots, _s, and other themes/frameworks out by default, since the community is largely fragmented (us as well) regarding which is best.

The problem I'm solving next is the automated compilation of assets that's generally handled via Assetic, CodeKit, and other tools, but isn't part of the standard WP workflow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why do you need capistrano.

<comment><USER5> I was curious about that as well, especially given the latest cap news from the developer.

<comment><USER4> I was more interested in why use it alongside with ansible; does it need to be multi-server automation? I thought it was just a toy server for development purpose. ansible seems enough for that kind of job (if it just needs to be a single server - and even for a few additional one that's adequate too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ansible is actually provisioning our 3 different deployment environments:

        $ cd provisioning
        $ ansible-playbook provision -i local
        $ ansible-playbook provision -i staging
        $ ansible-playbook provision -i production

Running `cap {env} genesis:provision` pretty much just runs that script, but has a fail-safe wrapper for the _first time_ you provision a new server, because you will need to provide a username+password. After provisioning, there's a "deploy" user with a private key used for SSH going forward.

Granted, I've only been using Ansible for about a week, but it is definitely better than the bash scripts used before :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow! This is some seriously cool work. Very, very nicely done.

Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER7> I'll have to try this out next time I work with on a new WP project. Don't do it often enough to have my own workflow set.

<comment><AUTHOR> Tweet @ericclemmons or open an issue if you need some help.

As a heads up, here's how we currently use it:

1\. We run `yo genesis-wordpress` on our existing project, and adjust to make sure we can `vagrant up` to work on it locally, then PR it down to `master`. 2\. We have an existing server running on a shared machine ("old"). 3\. We run `cap old genesis:down` to download the old DB & files. 4\. We create 2 new servers: "staging" on our company cloud, and "production" on Rackspace Cloud (NOT Chicago datacenter!) or AWS, then run `cap staging genesis:provision` and `cap production genesis:provision` to install the LAMP + Varnish stack. 5\. Then, we send out `master` via `cap staging deploy` and `cap production deploy`. 6\. Finally, we complete our migration with `cap staging genesis:up` and `cap production genesis:up`.

I don't know how many other people are migrating and destroy/creating sites like we are (when we significantly change our PHP/Varnish setup, we just move cloud servers), so it may be worth creating a couple videos or screenshot guides showing this off.

Being able to `cap old genesis:down` and `cap production genesis:up` to migrate machines is pretty awesome to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice example for the recent trend of "overtooling".

Let's make a science out of running something simple as a Wordpress that runs out of the box everywhere where PHP/MySQL is available.

<comment><USER9> It's more for the integration with Vagrant than Wordpress itself.

<comment><USER8> IMHO WP is not complex enough to have a necessity to develop with it in Vagrant.

That's what I call "overtooling". Keep simple things simple and preserve complex toolchains for complex tasks and environments.

<comment><USER10> > IMHO WP is not complex enough to have a necessity to develop with it in > Vagrant.

I develop static websites in vagrant boxes. Why? I don't want to have any spillover from my development env to the host env. I have no webserver running on the host env, only the system ruby installed, no homebrew, no php other than what came with the box, no database, nothing. Everything I do goes into a containerized env that I can just delete when I'm done. No version conflicts between multiple versions of the same database, no leftovers after cleanup. Once you started working with vagrant boxes and have an appropriate workflow it's just less hassle to spin up a box than not.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Series B – Join or Not Join - <AUTHOR> Hi all
Need some quick advice.
I am currently being offered a role at a Series B startup. Their base is much lower (30% drop) but has an OTE that makes it up to a 12% drop if i hit my targets.
I also get 8k stock options at $1 but i feel like that's just worth very little. They also won't tell me how big the pool is and the percentage of those stocks are.
The role itself would actually be a lateral move but with a wider capacity to build the region out into what I want.
For context, I am currently in a specialised manager position hoping into a more general manager position but with potential to grow into a head role (I am in APAC)
company!
My current company (10k employees), however, is offering to promote me to a lead role at some point as well.
It would be great to get some advice on the stocks component (if this is normal not to reveal) as well as if it's worth hoping to a startup if it's a lateral move. <comment><USER2> At Series B things are more figured out in a company and they should be focused on scaling and growing. So frankly I'd be fairly unlikely to accept 30% below market from a Series B company, however you didn't specify if the base was below market or just below your current comp so hard to judge. You also need to make sure you are comparing apples to apples as far as comp.

Stock options or the like for a Series B company hold a bit more potential value IMO than a seed or A company. However, they are still essentially worthless unless and until the company is acquired or goes public. So you need to evaluate them as such. And a company not telling you the pool size or percentages etc is not being very transparent so I'd expect anything they give you to become so diluted it is worthless and you should negotiate comp as such. Not saying they are a bad company, just don't deceive yourself about the value of options and in a startup transparency around this type of info is pretty critical.

My 2 cents, don't go to a startup as an employee if you are trying to make money. Go to a startup because of the experience and chance to really put your mark on something as well as learn new skills etc. At Series B, that ability is starting to diminish some but still exists, so you have to judge the company and team on if you'd be happy. Just be cautious of low ball offers and promises of riches to come because in all likelihood they won't happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Some really good advice here! It's actually below market rate and I am one of the first employees here in region if I join and I have a feeling they just trying to hire cheap.

I'm trying not to look at the stocks as anything BUT I feel left out in the open because they aren't telling me much about them.

I do want to join for the learning potential but there are a few red flags that I feel like shouldn't be said at the negotiating table such as: \- our offer is good, you're the most expensive hire yet in the region \- i can't tell you the percentage pool / how many existing stocks there are

I will have a good hard think about it - thanks for the advice!

<comment><USER2> Yea the fact they are actively saying they can't/won't tell you pool information is a major red flag. The fact they are trying to lowball you from a market rate when they are Series B is another. I'd pass on this opportunity if I was you. Transparency is critical for a startup, it is part of the reason people are willing to join a ship with so many holes in it and try to plug them up while trying to sail across the ocean. Without transparency a startup becomes a horrible place to be and you will grow to distrust everyone quickly because things will go wrong, there will be issues and if you can't trust you are getting an honest picture of them that's a major problem.

A number of years back I applied to a few startups, I wound up with offers from 3 that I liked, I am still at the one I liked most. Another was a Series B company that is well known and was proud to tell you they were highly profitable (was even covered in the media). They didn't hide option pool information or anything but the pass on them for me was out of one side of their mouth they said we are highly profitable and see no further need to raise more money. Out of the other side, we can't pay market rates cause we are a struggling startup. One of those statements was probably true, but the fact they just wanted to hire me at a massive discount (~40%) was a red flag they would treat people poorly where it suited them all while saying they were an awesome startup. That was an easy pass for me. Actions and words need to match or you are hiding something and if that is on a critical item like compensation or option pool etc I bet they are hiding a ton of stuff from employees and not being honest.

As for someone saying startups not sharing option pool information with lower level employees, don't accept it as normal or valid, it is not. I have heard of what they are saying but it is always a red flag.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've found that it's actually not too uncommon to share pool and percentage details with individuals who are not high up at the startup.

By Series B, they should the budget on head counts figured out enough, so I'd consider pushing back on that base salary a bit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I tried but they cite that they're a startup. It's definitely below market rate by a bit.

They're also citing i'd be the most expensive employee in the region which is kind of alarming considering im not that senior.

<comment><USER2> This is also a red flag. If you are the most expensive employee in the region and a ~30% discount from market that means they have not been lifting people at each raise up to a better salary and there will be a day of reckoning. It also means your salary would likely not change and you'd be stuck there till you left.

Now I say run away don't walk away from this company, too many things are against you here. I know that is easy to say and harder to do, but don't sacrifice yourself for a company that isn't being good stewards of their employees and isn't being honest at the earliest part of your relationship.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've never had an offer where they refused to tell me the pool or percentage. This would be a hard pass. You cannot properly evaluate the offer without this information.

</comment><comment><USER5> "They also won't tell me how big the pool is and the percentage of those stocks are."

That's when you laugh in their face and tell them to F off.</comment>


Chaos Design - <AUTHOR> http://mrmrs.cc/writing/chaos-design/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is a great post, but I wasn't sure what title to put because the original is so long. If any mods can come up with something more suitable, please do.</comment>


15 minutes from Palo Alto to SF via a VTOL Aircraft? - <AUTHOR> https://skypodone.com/ <comment><USER2> It's only 33 miles.

You could build a maglev and 100,000 people could make the trip daily in under 30 minutes.

<comment><USER3> > You could build a maglev and 100,000 people could make the trip daily in > under 30 minutes.

I don't think that's a good comparison. You'll come across as much regulatory battles to make this a reality, and then you'll also have to deal with construction of the actual lines which span several cities' worth. That's more regulation, construction which this region is known for being over-budget and under-delivered, and that's all before NIMBYism rears its ugly head.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Three words:

Air

Traffic

Control</comment>


Introducing the Internet.org App - <AUTHOR> http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/07/introducing-the-internet-org-app/ <comment><USER2> > The Internet.org app will be available first to Airtel subscribers in Zambia > and we'll continue to improve the experience and roll it out to other parts > of the world.

And by coincidence this is how net neutrality as a concept will not be a thing in Zambia going forward.

Screw you, Facebook. Your efforts to lock in the next few billion into an ecosystem controlled by you are utterly despicable. [http://i.imgur.com/5RrWm.png](http://i.imgur.com/5RrWm.png)

If you truly cared about doing something good, how about creating something like standardising a low bandwidth HTTP header? How about just channelling money into actual investments in infrastructure? How about working on multicasting information cheaply out instead of unicasting it to every single locked in member of your ecosystem? Why Wikipedia and not Urban Dictionary, Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg or GitHub?

Please let us know if you're going to be the winners and losers picker in the way I can see from the screenshots of your app so we may, and this may be a tad hyperbolic, prepare your very well deserved destruction. Who exactly elected Mr. Zuckerberg as Mr. "I decide what free (pun intended) speech is"?

<comment><USER3> It's unfortunate that 7 commercial entities have adopted the internet.org brand. When I read the headline, I assumed this was from the Internet Society, but they are [http://www.internetsociety.org](http://www.internetsociety.org) .

Anyone know which non-profit organizations have a governance role in internet.org?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there somewhere to complain about the domain name being an .org as this seems to be the opposite of the internet. Why don't they just give people 200Mb of free data if they really want to promote the internet. A better site name might be corpnet.com lockinnet.com.

<comment><USER5> They're giving people something for free. It's hard to complain about that.

<comment><USER3> 7 corporations get to decide what the word "internet" means or which books/sites are free? What about the other N-7 corporations in the world?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The optimist in me applauds Facebook for the effort to provide basic data access to the developing world.

The pessimist in me wonders if this is simply a brilliant strategy by Facebook to acquire the 4.5 billion people who aren't currently connected without having to compete with others. What's different between this and getting rid of net neutrality aside from side stepping the government entirely and doing it under the premise of helping the world become a better place?

The realist in me guesses that they probably see both sides and consider it a win/win scenario. I mean, wouldn't you?

<comment><USER7> >wouldn't you

No I wouldn't. I've hoped too many times that this kind of monopolist-but- beneficial scheme would work for the best, only to be consistently disappointed that the company behind it will use it only for its own interests when it's in a bad situation. And then everyone wonders "why did we let this happen?" Yeah...

<comment><USER8> Agreed, and questionable integrations like _this_ feel connected to me: [http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/07/30/sprint-tries-a- facebo...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/07/30/sprint-tries-a-facebook- only-wireless-plan/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of my sisters and her husband live in Zambia, where they do public health work. Specifically, he works on malaria[1], and one of the greatest challenges he faces is field data collection. Enabling everyone with a compatible phone to send in data would, I'm sure, be incredibly valuable.

I'm bummed that there aren't any public health tools included in this app. Hopefully they'll consider adding something like that in the future.

[1] Malaria affects almost 1/3 of the country's population annually: [http://www.unicef.org/zambia/5109_8454.html](http://www.unicef.org/zambia/5109_8454.html)

<comment><USER10> FactsForLife is included, doesn't that count as a public health tool? Not sure what you mean specifically, but this appears to at least educate around a lot of health topics. [http://www.factsforlifeglobal.org/](http://www.factsforlifeglobal.org/)

I can see the value of data collection too though, but I think for a person accessing the internet for the first time, they would be more interested in gaining information than sending data about themselves into the void.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I guess it's official, Facebook isn't going anywhere and will continue to become more and more part of our lives. They're getting close to the level of Google (which I do trust with my data because they are transparent about most issues before people start asking them to be).

[http://newsroom.fb.com/pages-directory/](http://newsroom.fb.com/pages- directory/)

[http://newsroom.fb.com/resources-projects/](http://newsroom.fb.com/resources- projects/)

We can avoid Facebook all we want but one of these days there is going to be an app or product that's superior to all competitors and were going to be required to use our Facebook login, for many of us it's already happened.

I wish they would allow us to restrict what information was given to apps, whether or not the apps "required" it. I never login with Facebook but sometimes check the permissions it asks for, all friends, all info, etc are the norm. I don't want any service to have access to my list of friends, photos (that not even friends can see), and any app my friends have can access my information, I just don't trust the apps/services not to misuse the data or to have the data stolen.

I'm starting to trust Facebook a little more, but it's going to take time. I do trust Facebook more than some sites like LinkedIn, but that's not saying much, LinkedIn will never have my approval.

More open-source technologies (and services) and less requirements to "connect your Facebook profile" would go a long way in my opinion. Give users the option to connect Facebook and the adoption rate (and trust level) will be much greater.

<comment><USER12> How can you trust facebook? How a non net-neutral Internet is good for Zambia?

It's just clever marketing from facebook. Nothing else. Creating news costumers _forced_ to use faceboook to keep his numbers high and growing.

Its shady privacy policy and unethical experiments (and don't forget the NSA collaboration) makes of Facebook one of the worst corporations out there.

I invite you to close your account.

<comment><USER11> You're probably right, I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt, they have been trying very hard the past few years to recreate their image and implement privacy controls.

I saw recently one person talking about when you delete your Facebook account it's a true delete rather than a soft-delete, but I'm not sure how true that is, stuff like that goes a long way and matters to me.

<comment><USER13> > I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt

You can't give them that benefit because their company culture was founded on "They trust me — dumb fucks" [0]

[0] [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wait. I don't understand. Why not just give people http?

<comment><USER15> They would get the wrong idea. Access to information should not be free, the internet as it happened to develop was a mistake. We must make sure we don't let the third-world make the same.

<comment><USER16> Meta: For anyone who didn't recognize it at first sight, this is sarcasm. Relevant such even if I and you don't necessarily agree.

(If you are about to downvote parent because he is wrong, read up on sarcasm and count to ten. If you happen to think it was more irrelavant or more out- of-place than most stuff here I can certainly see that, go ahead and downvote : )

PS: This comment really shouldn't be necessary but I have seen examples lately of people failing to not only appreciate well-placed sarcasm but also recognize it, as seen by the fact that they will start arguing how the parent comment is wrong. Sarcasm, well used, is^h^h used to be a very powerful technique because of the way it can expose the stupidity of something.

<comment><USER17> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law)

There are plenty of powerful people seriously arguing that the free internet is a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Welcome to the Internet where you exist only if you beg the powers that be to include you in a list.

This is the first time in my life I see a "country" going from democracy to aristocracy.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's going to take Amazon being added to a list like this before the rest of the Capitalists lose their minds over this.

* Where is the documentation about the methodology for selecting what apps are available?

* Why is Accuweather, a private company, offered top billing over other global wearther forecasting services?

* Why is Google given "Internet Search" billing over Bing or DuckDuckGo? What happens if a company in Zambia wants to create their own search engine? How can they penetrate a market?

I wasn't expecting the closed Internet to ramp up this quickly, but this is absolutely terrifying to me from a consumer and business viewpoint.

</comment><comment><USER20> Net Neutrality issues aside (even though they scare me), it bothers me that they'd produce this in English as only 16% of the population speaks English.[0] A tiny percentage of Zambians claim English as their first language, what about the rest of the people who either don't have access to schools (where English is taught[1]) or don't have the level of comprehension required to navigate.

I would venture a guess that by filtering the numbers of English speakers by those who own mobile phones you'd jack up the percentage of English speakers, still.. this feels like it was designed more as a play to drive new users to sites than to genuinely get good information into the hands of those who need it.

Of course, I can't actually find the app anywhere, so if it were to come out that the app actually includes Bemba or Nyanja localizations.. I'd be taking a different tone. (FWIW, Facebook doesn't appear to support either [2])

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English- sp...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English- speaking_population)

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

[2] [https://www.facebook.com/translations/FacebookLocales.xml](https://www.facebook.com/translations/FacebookLocales.xml)

</comment><comment><USER21> Interesting timing considering Sprint just announced the Facebook plan for $12/month.

And internet.org reeks of imperialism in the worst way.

<comment><USER22> Yep, and all the hypocrisy...

Internet.org — Every one of us. Everywhere. Connected.

When the blatant truth is:

Internet.org — Every one of us. Everywhere. Connected. Through Facebook. Because we need MOAR users! To serve MOAR ads.

<comment><USER21> I don't know. I think its closer to the good ol' East India Company pushing Opium around the world. No one needs Facebook. It's addictive and warps a persons perspective of the world around them and their friends and family.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> My perspective on this as I just said to someone:

It's an opportunity I wouldn't pass on I guess, but this is basically net neutrality in reverse.

When companies start deciding which websites are free and for which you pay the "normal" price, suddenly the normal price is extra.

</open-internet>

\---

So yeah a Facebook app that offers Facebook access for free. How convenient, right? For good measure throw in another few services that look good but are still limited (google search without being able to click any links? Lovely) and we have something that we can present as a good thing to the world.

<comment><USER3> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town)

<comment><USER24> Wow. I feel deceived for thinking this was a good idea.

I mean, it is a good idea... but this link's relevance is troubling.

<comment><USER3> Facebook PR has the analytics benefit of a big database of human emotions. Much opportunity for fine tuning of messages :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's hard to have a clear perspective on this.

Obviously it's again net neutrality, and there are probably a lot of better ways to give access to Internet to people who don't have it. On the other end, I'd like to think it can be really useful to some people.

I regret however that the conditions and the process to be integrated to the app are not clearly stated.

For instance, it should be required that a service is accessible without restriction of any kind, and be interoperable... and Facebook Messenger doesn't meet these requirements.

</comment><comment><USER26> Seems like a throwback to the days of the web portal (ala Yahoo.)

<comment><USER27> yes, like a mixture of:

* original _The Microsoft Network_ (1994-1995) the MSN client that shipped with Win95 (instead of a web browser) that was meant as an alternative to the WWW; or similar limited portal services like America Online, CompuServe that are now obsolete

* portal websites with widgets like Yahoo, AltaVista, MSN (1996+)

* HTML5 web app store (btw. the Mozilla smartphone shown in the video already has an official Mozilla web app store)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't understand why is everyone here crying how evil this is. They are going to provide FREE Internet access to the basic websites and how that is a bad thing?

<comment><USER29> It's not free "internet" access. The "Internet" is the place where I can route arbitrary IP packets to any other host on the net. It is _not_ 7 or 8 sites chosen by God speaking HTTP on port 80 (443 if you're lucky).

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I dont get the included Google Search. If you have limited sites where you can use the data, what's the use of searching the internet?

</comment><comment><USER31> Wow, this is annoying. But, people should have access to the internet, so it's good I suppose. It really looks like someone's trying a new form of censorship. Here's hoping Google brings free speech to people (facebook is the king of sleezily building reputation). Also looks like facebook's trying to get rid of Google.

</comment><comment><USER27> The _internet.org_ website is down: [http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/internet.org.html](http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/internet.org.html)

      500 Internal Server Error

\-- [http://www.internet.org](http://www.internet.org)

<comment><USER32> Site is working here without a problem.

<comment><USER27> Internet.org was down for everyone two hours ago. I checked it also with isitdownrightnow.com and downforeveryoneorjustme.com. Probably the Reddit/Slashdot/HN effect or a DNS cache on their side.

It works fine now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> you want the internet to be widespread? Promote things like long-range wifi and mesh networks.

<comment><USER11> This is a great idea for Facebook! They're in the perfect position to have widespread adoption quickly and the service would be invaluable. Privacy would be key though, they'd have to opensource it and prove to people that it's secure and private.

<comment><USER34> Ideally Facebook would engineer itself out of existence, but I'm not holding my breath.

<comment><USER11> Won't happen, I've been waiting for them to become like MySpace but it just hasn't happened.

Facebook is the best at social media, there's no denying that. I would support them if they would have stayed small, simple, and private, but they kept adding, tracking, Sharing, Liking, Poking, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> What a good way to do some social good whilst also opening up a new userbase that was not previously accessible.

With Facebook and FaceBook Messages both in the available applications, they get a foothold there ahead of their competitors.

<comment><USER36> Ah yes, because the very poor have a good disposable income.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> If they want to privde Internet for everyone, why don't they use their money to fund, for example, DTN research? Ah right, then they couldn't collect every move the internet user makes onlne.

</comment><comment><USER38> "Internet.org is a global partnership between technology leaders, nonprofits, local communities and experts…" - Which nonprofits? Not listed in the founding members.

</comment><comment><USER39> Its nice to see , Indian Telecom giant "Airtel" is one of the partners of internet.org

</comment><comment><USER40> Somalia has fast internet everywhere despite not having had a State for almost 20 years.

Despite?

</comment><comment><USER41> I love how this is posted on facebook.com and not internet.org.

</comment><comment><USER42> First Ebola, now Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER43> this is anti net neutrality

</comment><comment><USER44> It's funny how they describe the app as "providing a set of [...] basic services" and they include Facebook.

Not a basic service at all in my opinion.

(Also there is no Twitter, what a surprise !)

<comment><USER45> communication is a basic service (and human right!)

<comment><USER29> Are you implying that access to Facebook is a human right?</comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Lex – Conversational interfaces for your applications - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/lex/ <comment><USER2> Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13072813](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13072813)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure what the benefit of this is over the alexa voice service api:

[https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa- vo...](https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-voice- service/content/avs-api-overview)

Does anyone know how this differs from alexa voice services? Does this allow you to get away from the stilted "example phrases" of the alexa api and just get a transcript? Judging from the inclusion of "intents" on the faq, it looks like the "example phrase" interface will still be required:

[https://aws.amazon.com/lex/faqs/](https://aws.amazon.com/lex/faqs/)

<comment><USER4> You need intents so whatever code is running Lex knows to do something. Especially for a conversation string.

If you want text to speech or text to text? You'd make a polly utility, or do something like "open dictate" and then just capture everything said after.

That being said the duration is limited too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pricing: [https://aws.amazon.com/lex/pricing/](https://aws.amazon.com/lex/pricing/)

>$0.004 per voice request, and $.00075 per text request.

I don't know what else to compare this to.

</comment><comment><USER6> I see how they went from Alexa to Lex, but does anybody else think the only time they've ever heard of Lex is Lex Luther? Is it a great idea to name a product aimed at developers which is boardering in the AI space after Superman's nemesis?

I'm not going to forget it as a name. Thoughts?

<comment><USER7> I'm thinking it's a play on A(lex)a andlexical analysis[1]. That may be where Alexa got her name.

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

<comment><USER8> I assumed it was specifically from 'a lexer', an homonym.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does it handle only English?

<comment><USER10> Yes, only US English. It's quite unfortunate that the most commonly spoken language on earth - Mandarin - has such poor speech recognition. Using Google Translate or Siri with Mandarin is almost useless. Hopefully people start throwing more resources towards Mandarin speech technology.

<comment><USER9> It also leaves most of Europe uncovered. I can only use Lex for demos there, no commercial services. People want to speak their own language and an English only service will always lose against a native language one. Hopefully they'll add other languages.

Did any non US English native speaker experience Amazon's language recognition? I assume it understands your language easily, but does it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I won't participate and here is why... I want to delay my disintermediation and assimilation a little longer. At some point, soon, Amazon will displace commerce and the merchant class as we know it and I am not ready to let go yet.</comment>


Ask HN: How do sites such as Flipboard scale out their social data aggregators? - <AUTHOR>

There are others such as Friendfeed, etc. which aggregate social data.
The naive explanation is that they have "worker processes" running per service per user which either streams or polls content, but this seems like an expensive proposition (or is it?)
Are they using something else such as the Twitter "site-stream" functionality so that they can multiplex several users as part of one API call?
(Original Question posted on Quora: http://www.quora.com/How-do-sites-such-as-Friendfeed-and-Flipboard-scale-out-their-social-data-aggregators) <comment><USER2> I know this can be tricky. I wrote a Twitter-based keyword filtering tool and subscribed to their garden hose. They say to only use one connection at a time, so I think it may be violating the terms of service to be running more than one stream. Twitter offers larger stream bandwidths, too. Perhaps one stream of all the tweets can be obtained. Even with my one stream connection, I was missing incoming tweets because my local connection was too slow. So, this is a good question. I'm interesting in hearing the answer, too.

<comment><USER3> The firehose is actually a sample of the full amount of data. If you want more coverage you need to use other techniques. One way to do it is to search for a specific word. Constantly...

Here's a poor quality video from TC Disrupt last year which tells you a bit about how to geosearch Twitter to mine information: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QCnPHHCTXg>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not all users are created equal. I might be running 1 process per user for a currently logged in user, but move all scanning for non-logged in users into a low-priority queue.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think the principle (and there are many commercial and open source tools - Jasper is one I believe) is called "event stream processing" (picking meaning out of the firehose), it's big in the financial space of course where they have had these volume problems for a long time.. what do you think about that?

Cheers,

Daniel</comment>


Overcoming Us vs. Them (2017) - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/55/trust/why-your-brain-hates-other-people-rp <comment><USER2> As it has been well-known in the east for thousands of years and well preserved by the Tibetan people, the us vs them mentality arises naturally through the nature of consciousness which grasps at the notion of a non- existent self.

Through ignorance we fail to see reality for what it truly is, ultimately empty, but conventionally existent.

Thus, we reify our perceptions as real, instead of recognizing that all objects are simply names and labels imputed over aggregates and the introduction of the mental afflictions that cause protectionist and selfish thought arise.

First comes the individual, then the small group, then the group of groups, then the nation and so on - all grasping at a sense of self that isn't truly there when thoroughly analyzed.

Every human being on this planet is the same. We all would like to avoid suffering and would like the causes of happiness.

Ridding yourself of the us vs them mentality involves waking up and developing unwavering compassion for other sentient beings. This requires the realization that all sentient beings want to avoid the causes of suffering.

Does this lengthy article mention this ancient and well-developed philosophy? Not a single word on it.

I recommend listening to just some of the conversations the Dalai Lama has conducted with western scientists and researchers:

Mind & Life Session 1: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcgcFbPTwys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcgcFbPTwys)

Mind & Life Session 2: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoAEEAq8idU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoAEEAq8idU)

I highly recommend you read Pumla's book (who appears in the second conversation): "A Human Being Died that Night" which is highly illustrative of the power of compassion for others even in the midst of human rights violations.

<comment><USER3> _Thus, we reify our perceptions as real, instead of recognizing that all objects are simply names and labels imputed over aggregates and the introduction of the mental afflictions that cause protectionist and selfish thought arise._

You're falling for something which I call the falling physicist problem.

A physicist was thrown out of a plane. He is aware of the forces that currently affect him and can even estimate his terminal velocity. Hell, he even knows that the atoms he's made of will be fine, since it would take energies orders of magnitude higher than his kinetic energy to affect them.

Nevertheless he'll go splat just like anyone else put in such a position.

This is why this philosophy isn't really that successful - it doesn't create any incentive to survive and perpetuate it.

Sure, you may have achieved ultimate compassion for your fellow man. Where's the benefit in that?

<comment><USER2> I respect your assessment.

You may think I'm falling into an idealist's dilemma, however, that single statement is speaking on the nature of emptiness of phenomena and how certain thoughts and emotions arise. Objects do not exist inherently and independently. Everything arises from an interdependent network of causality.

The scientist will go splat, but why does he fear death?

I have to lightly refute your point about it not being a successful philosophy, it was very successful for thousands of years in India where it originated and very successful in Tibet and other eastern societies. Western materialism tends to be in direct conflict with Buddhist wisdom.

All beings suffer, compassion is the way out of suffering for the individual and for others. Ask the Tibetan Yogis who were imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese who harbor no resentment toward their captors after release and who say that the greatest danger they felt during their imprisonment was losing compassion toward their captors.

No one ever said it was easy to develop, as can clearly be seen by such stringent resistance to the notion of having compassion for others, even enemies.

<comment><USER4> Buddhism is a religion (along with many other religions) that allows a minority to brainwash a majority in order to exploit them. Those Buddhist temples don't build themselves. You offer them afterlife or an end of suffering and in return they offer their independence of thought and action.

The concept of self is evolutionarily effective. For better or worse, so is the concept of us and them.

<comment><USER2> It's not based on faith and has a rich history of academic development and logistical analysis by trained Nalanda scholars of 4th, 5th, and 6th century India.

Also there is a rich history of independent development and contemplative examination of the nature of reality, consciousness, and mind.

The western mindfulness genre is almost entirely made up of bits and pieces of Buddhist contemplative practice.

I don't expect to convince you that you don't know exactly what you're talking about.

Don't think for a second I'm surprised that most commenters here are pure material realists, part of the fun I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15934183](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15934183)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I posted this to see more discussion about it.

Isn't a strong social identity, something desirable? Doesn't it result in stability and strength? Don't we all seek the belonging sentiment which necessarily implies an Us vs. Them?

On the other hand, it seems that tribal thinking can increase social tension and divisiveness, and makes people more "stupid"/less critical towards their group.

So what is the right balance here?

<comment><USER5> As your sense of "I" diminishes the more compassionate and caring you become. The more emotionally resilient you become and the less harmful your decisions are to yourself and others (including animals). This is the core of Buddhist findings.

Having said that, there are religions and ideologies that tend to become a big part of a person's identity. Then their actions become guided by those ideologies.

<comment><USER6> > As your sense of "I" diminishes the more compassionate and caring you > become.

I am not sure that is always the case. I would think that, for example, the women involved in the Charles Manson murders had a diminished sense of I, but they were not compassionate and caring.

<comment><USER7> I don't see the relevance.

Joining a cult is not the same as diminishing the ego. You don't just supplant your ego with someone else's.

Anyone who loses themselves in a cult of personality is not following the teachings of the Buddhism.

<comment><USER8> People in organizations routinely fail to acknowledge an ignored ego: The Organizational Ego

The whitepapers and salespeople going on and on about their products, services and companies that nobody cares about?

Yeah, that one! The ideologies and demagogues are even "worse". Not that ego is a bad thing, just in isolation..

<comment><USER2> This is so true. I've tried to explain why an organization is the way it is before via cause and effect and some people refuse to believe that there is any sort of subtle force that factors into how organizations turn out.

Even if you point to things like Conway's law they still won't listen sometimes!

The best organizations have compassion for their employees and customers, but it takes right-thinking from the top.

<comment><USER8> It might depend on leadership culture. Most people are unprepared for their first management position, and how can they prepare? You even see natural leaders flounder, when put in the same leadership position and culture. The positions are necessary for the organization, but I believe almost nobody has really cracked the nut generally, just for their little trible. Most impactful thing leaders can do is cooperate and bring teams together, in order to accomplish concrete goals and organization. Project Lead is sort of that, but it needs to be continuous instead of temporary and limited scope.

<comment><USER2> Very true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> From _Yes, Minister_ , I learned the Us/Them aikido exercise of filling in social conjugations:

        I am compassionate.
        You have a strong heart but a weak head.
        They start by trying to love everyone and end up loving no one.

(I am trying to remember a web-published book I read a while ago on defusing authoritarian tendencies. What I remember most strongly was that equal- treatment laws are more effective than one might intellectually believe, not because they are "legislating morality", but because they allow large numbers of in-group members who actually would treat out-group members normally to do so _without_ being subject to retribution by in-group hardliners.)

人之初,性本善?

</comment><comment><USER10> _I posted this to see more discussion about it._

I don't know what you are hoping for here. This is probably not it.

I spent a fair amount of time in therapy in my teens and twenties. I'm quite convinced that a lot of our identity is a mental construct.

Let's take race. What makes someone "Black" or "White"?

It's not their skin color. You can find "Black" Americans and "White" Americans with very similar skin tones.

It's not their blood. The US decided somewhere along the way that people who are 7/8 Caucasian/European ancestry and 1/8 African ancestry are "Black." I have read these same people would be classified as "White" in Brazil.

It's not their culture. Even if a "Black" person gets a good education, etc, they will still be othered by most "Whites."

Anyway, we get taught certain categories and mental models and it winds up being taboo to think too hard about where they come from and what they mean and why they were really created and we live with the legacy of those inherited mental models and then those mental models shape both how we see ourselves and with whom we identify as "Us."

In other primates, those associations will tend to be more rooted in "This group takes care of me and I have positive associations with them and I'm one of them" and "This other group is openly hostile to me and they are my enemies and they are a problem, not an asset to me."

Human culture is more complex than that and it ends up being super hard to find a way out of those traps.

Even if you can find your way out, other people will try to keep pushing you into one of the preexisting categories in their own mind.

So the real question is "How do we find a path forward on getting group think to change?" because lots of people do therapy, sort their crap ...and then find that _other people_ are actively affronted at their failure to fit with existing mental models.

<comment><USER4> Black and white was a competitive construct of us and them. It is that simple. Human culture really isn't more complex than that. It is just strategies and tactics layered atop the same goals animals have.

<comment><USER10> No, in this case it was a simple way of saying "This group of people can be slaves and that group of people cannot be slaves" which is why we get weird demarcations about how you are still "Black" even if you are only 1/8 African: So slave owners could rape their slaves, father children upon them and treat those children as slaves for several generations.

In the US, our weird definitions surrounding "Black" and "White" are a polite euphemism for "People officially marked as someone you can victimize and people officially marked as someone who can do the victimizing."

Which I didn't really want to baldly state because it isn't something Americans really want to hear.

<comment><USER11> I liked your first post, but this one is in line with the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The title is "Why Your Brain Hates Other People" not "Overcoming Us vs. Them".

<comment><USER13> Right - it does appear the browser title is the latter. The subtitle is "And how to make it think differently."

The second paragraph begins to focus on this: "And it can be vastly consequential when people are divided into Us and Them"

So they are both important to this article - why it is this way, and how we can improve upon it, or work around it.</comment></comment>


Should Software Engineers Be Paid to Apply to Jobs? - <AUTHOR> http://insights.dice.com/2016/11/14/should-tech-pros-paid-apply-jobs/ <comment><USER2> No, it suffices to treat them with basic respect. You know, responding to emails in time, calling when you said you would, getting back to them with information about the status by about the time you said you would, not ghosting them, etc. Not asking them to complete carelessly designed take-home projects, or spend their otherwise precious time talking to poorly trained and/or unmotivated interviewers, etc.

Unfortunately many companies don't seem to grasp the importance of even these very simple and basic considerations.</comment>


Vulnerability Research Challenge for Hackers - <AUTHOR> http://www.informationsecuritybuzz.com/new-vulnerability-research-challenge-put-hackers-test/ The Vulnerability Research Challenge is open to all Hackers & InfoSec pros who want to test their skills and see how they rank against the global competition. <comment><USER2> Great idea!</comment>


Santa Barbara Hackerspace: Great Start, Growing Fast - <AUTHOR>

I'm proud to say that Santa Barbara Hackerspace is coming along GREAT!  We now have 30 Google Group members and regularly have 5-10 people chatting on IRC.  Last time I posted here, two months ago, we had a grand total of two members -- the co-founders...  Here's what we're up to.
Projects
Underwater ROV: We've begun constructing an underwater ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) capable of surviving depths of 150 feet. It will house a camera, plankton catching net, and connector for future scientific payloads. Its primary purpose is to collect plankton samples for later analysis of species, population, and other factors.
We're writing a Python script to take the joystick data and feed it to the laptop/netbook which will then send it to an Arduino on-board the ROV. The Arduino will be programmed to read the joystick data and control the motors accordingly, adjusting the orientation of the craft. More ROV info -- http://sbhackerspace.com/wiki/index.php?title=ROV
For other Project info, check out http://sbhackerspace.com/wiki/index.php?title=Projects.
Software-wise, we've got 2 Linux servers up and running. SSH access is granted to all General Meeting attendees, which occur on Saturdays. For more meeting info, check out our calendar at http://calendar.sbhackerspace.com.
Classes
Our two weekly classes are...
1. Intro to Hardware Hacking (meets on Thursdays @ 6:30pm)
2. Ethical Hacking with Linux (meets on Fridays @ 6:30pm)
For more information about each class, see http://sbhackerspace.com/wiki/index.php?title=Classes and the calendar at http://cal.sbhackerspace.com.
Contact Info
0. Blog: http://sbhackerspace.com
1. Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
2. Twitter: http://twitter.com/sbhackerspace
3. Facebook Page: http://fb.sbhackerspace.com
4. Google Group: http://gg.sbhackerspace.com
5. IRC Channel: http://irc.sbhackerspace.com (#sbhackerspace on FreeNode)
We hope to hear from you soon! At least a couple of us are always in IRC so feel free to drop in and say 'hi'. <comment><USER2> Congrats -- that's great progress. Go for it!</comment>