Britain's top prosecutor warns that surveillance technology is creating a police state - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/3230452/Centuries-of-British-freedoms-being-broken-by-security-state-says-Sir-Ken-Macdonald.html

<comment><USER2> Ok, I hate to sum up the UK in one word. But... duh.

The UK really needs another leader like Thatcher, this time not attacking socialism but the whole "using crime to sell surveillance" culture. Go Sir Ken Macdonald!

<comment><USER3> You're right that the UK does need to end the surveillance culture. But to say we need another leader "like Thatcher" is way off the mark, given that the surveillance culture and erosion of civil liberties started under her (and accelerated under Major, Blair, and Brown).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> sometimes the only way to change something, requires that it first gets out of control. its hard to create a revolution against nothing.

</comment><comment><USER5> The editorialized headline made me want to write a comment to the effect of "it's never the technologies we need to fear, but the abuses of the hands they are in"...good thing I read the article and found that was the gist of it.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately it's the combination of new technologies and existing attitudes that are the problem. For example, if you ask the average politician what's an acceptable level of crime, he'll say "none". The average member of the public will say the same. But the only way to achieve this is with omnipresent surveillance. Every electronic conversation will be monitored, there'll be a surveillance camera on every street corner (there's already 1 for every 15 people), people's movements will be tracked using their mobile phone. All cars will have tracker devices, ostensibly for road pricing, but all movements will be logged. Everyone will be forced to carry an RFID-enabled ID card.

All this technology will be sold to the public as protection against terrorists and pedophiles, but will eventually be used against everyone. (For example, local councils have used terrorist legislation to snoop on householders who have allegedly not been putting their rubbish out correctly.)

If it becomes possible to use brain scanners to read people's minds, this will be done too. To start with, to check for terrorists, but later to enforce conformity of thought on the entire population -- for their own good of course. For example, it's illegal not to employ someonre because of their race. Fair enough, you might say. But if a small business owner is a racist they can easily get around this by not employing people they don't want to (they have to be careful not to tell them it's for racial reasons, of course). Now a well-meaning but dim person could suggest that we check that someone wasn't refused employment for racial reasons, by scanning the brain of the employer. So eventually, anyone who thinks for themselves and doesn't just get into the habit of unthinkingly going along with the prevailing intellectual fashions of the day will find themselves in trouble.

All this will happen unless the political climate changes and people accept that tolerating a certain level of crime is better than an omnipresent totalitarian state breathing down their neck all the time.

<comment><USER5> It may be my sociological opiate, but I have more faith in our species to tolerate less tyranny than your post implies. I also think we will see a marked decrease in tolerance in the next few years as more people have 'nothing to lose' and choose freedom over bread.</comment></comment></comment>


On Recent Controversial Events – Bradley M. Kuhn - <AUTHOR> http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html <comment><AUTHOR> This account by itself refutes three popular claims that were circulating a few weeks ago:

\- that RMS's removal was the result of outside agitators, not of long-term free software community members who long believed he had come to be more harm than good for the movement

\- that nobody patiently worked with him to help him understand the impact of his actions, and the real problem here was that he was merely socially awkward but well-intentioned

\- that media attention to RMS's Epstein statements triggered a kneejerk, rash response out of nowhere instead of simply being the final straw on the back of a camel who had been at its limit for years</comment>


Library for Double-Double and Quad-Double Arithmetic (2007) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://web.mit.edu/tabbott/Public/quaddouble-debian/qd-2.3.4-old/docs/qd.pdf <comment><USER2> Reminded me of some code i wrote some time ago. here it is, [https://github.com/voidware/dp](https://github.com/voidware/dp)

</comment><comment><USER3> Surprising to know that so many functions are computed using Newton's method such as Logarithm and inverse trignometry. Sure Newton's method converged quadratically (each iteration doubles the number of usable digits),but I'd thought there might have been more direct methods.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, eh. Especially if those functions are available for doubles already. One could probably use the double-version as a first order approximation.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: If you could build any realistic project today, what would it be? - <AUTHOR> Assuming you had enough resources in terms of google/aws/dropbox credit and free housing/internet. <comment><USER2> Self hosted social networking and email platform that runs on Digital Ocean, OpenStack, etc. Total cost to user is around $5/mo hosting and $1/mo DNS for ad-free privacy-invasion-free Internet.

Ironic that you mention hosting resources, because in my view getting independent from those hosting services is itself the fundamental challenge.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would love to set up a workspace near an academic Institution, targeted towards bootstrapping people interdisciplinary careers. I would love for it to take applicants and then try to match them with contracts.

</comment><comment><USER4> Apply machine learning to the business of healthcare.</comment>


Memoirs of an Ass - <AUTHOR> https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/02/28/memoirs-of-an-ass/ <comment><USER2> Part II of this essay is also great: [https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/03/14/memoirs-of- an...](https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/03/14/memoirs-of-an-ass-part- two/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This review reminded me of "How to Read a Book", specifically the getting more out of it with each reading. It might be hard to fathom with most of today's mediocre fiction, but there's a reason some books are classics and end up on lists of what books someone would take to a desert island.

<comment><USER4> Great book! Adler really changed my perspective quickly in that short read and addressed many problems I've encountered. Imo, it was rather lacking in the techniques for reading fiction, and Nabokov has some excellent insight in this domain in his "Lectures on Literature" series (which I have admittedly only yet read small portions of).

There's an algorithm[0] I stumbled upon that I refer to often that was derived from Adler's book, might as well share it.

0: [https://pastebin.com/wGFMM1pZ](https://pastebin.com/wGFMM1pZ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> this opus should be included in [https://standardebooks.org/](https://standardebooks.org/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Sold. There's an English translation on Project Gutenberg, under the name _The Golden Asse_. I'm going to give it a look.

<comment><USER7> That's the version from 1566. It's readable, but requires some extra effort to parse due to style, antiquated words and antiquated spelling.

<comment><USER8> Is there a known best translation? TFA didn't specify one.

<comment><USER9> [https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/03/14/memoirs-of- an...](https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/03/14/memoirs-of-an-ass-part- two/)

From travisluis' post includes a list of translations and the author's opinions on each.

<comment><USER6> Oooh, Robert Graves did a translation. I may have to dig that up if I get tired of the 1556 version.

<comment><USER10> I've read the Graves translation, and it's excellent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can really recommend the book. It's a lot of fun. Arguably one of the first picaresque novels.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have some trouble understanding so much effort given to reading 8 different translations, and not giving the original text a try. Latin isn't so hard, really.

<comment><USER13> What do you mean when you say a natural language isn't that hard? Surely it depends on which languages you know already.

<comment><USER12> I suppose they know English, which carries many, many words with Latin roots. Sure it's easier if you know Italian, or Spanish or French. Anyway, reading the original text side by side with the translation gives you excellent insights on the meaning and structure, seeing how long a phrase is, what form it is, this sort of things.

<comment><USER13> Recognizing the meaning of individual Latin words does not allow you in general to understand the meaning of a phrase! None of the languages you mentioned have explicit case markings, and mostly rely on word order and prepositions to signal whether nouns are subjects/objects/indirect/etc objects. Latin is starkly not like that, don't you agree? Even if people are coming from a language background with explicit case markings (i.e. German) they're still going to have to know what the endings actually mean, and get used to a different case system.

Anyway it sounds like you're recognizing that you benefit from having a parallel translation into a language in which you are fluent in order to make sense of the meaning... Which is 100% the point of having a translation, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> oops. one of the homepage links points to their dev site [http://theparisreview.tierradev.com/interviews/6806/the- art-...](http://theparisreview.tierradev.com/interviews/6806/the-art-of- poetry-no-100-ishmael-reed)

</comment><comment><USER15> Memoirs of an Arse sounds better. :D</comment>


Ask HN: What will programming look like in 2020? - <AUTHOR> There's a discussion at lambda-the-ultimate.org about how software development would feel and look like in 2020? I found the discussions very interesting.<p>Any thoughts? <comment><USER2> In the web programming world, we will still be trying to shoe horn fully- dessed circa-mid-90s client-server applications into documents-with-scripts- and-sockets. It will be necessary to know at least 17 languages to develop a modern HTML6 application.

Developers who are today children in primary school will be writing 70-character denunciations of node.js, which will be to be as old-fashioned as Ruby on Rails. This link-baiting intellectual dandruff, masquerading as deep thought, will constitute 100% of the HN front page.

Companies that sprung up to simplify Amazon Web Services will themselves become sufficiently complex that a new ecosystem of simplifier-simplifiers will spring up. You will be able to write code that runs at any one of the two dozen layers over cloud providers who layer over two hundred IaaS providers without modification. That's what the sticker will say, anyhow.

Github will have even more completely supplanted sourceforge. Good riddance.

99% of programming will be done in languages which are direct, legal descendants of the languages in which 99% of programming is done today.

</comment><comment><USER3> C# 8 will adopt features that CommonLisp had in 1985, but not yet those that APL had in 1965. And C# programmers will rejoice in how revolutionary that is.

Java will adopt features that C# adopted in 2013. And the Java people will explain that it takes time to get it right, and you shouldn't rush to do anything.

Microsoft will EOL PlatinumDusk, which was the end-all-be-all replacement for GoldenDawn (which itself was the end-all-be-all replacement for SilverLight). This is accompanied by WDE (Widnows Display Elements), which replaces WZR which replaced WPF.

And it will be the year of Linux on the Desktop. (Though, desktops will only account for 10% of web users or "webable device" sales).

</comment><comment><USER4> I think programming in 2020 (a mere 7 years hence) will look jaw-droppingly similar to what it looks like now. It doesn't even look all that different (to me) from what it looked like in the 90's (20 years ago).

7 years ago (2006), what was different? What new techs have come out in that span?

Ruby on Rails had already been out for 18 months, though it hadn't gained its current level of adoption.

Github hadn't been launched until 2008 but the first Git had.

These differences suggest that whatever new technologies will be becoming mainstream have already launched. I submit that if you traveled forward in time 7 years you would not only be able to pick up programming in the media of the time without any review but you'd be hard-pressed to find what had changed.

<comment><USER5> "7 years ago (2006), what was different? What new techs have come out in that span?"

Even though I understand the overall point you are making, we had a few significant changes since 2006. The emergenc of iphone/ipad and the App Store/iOS programming.

<comment><USER4> Fair point. Still, what programming actually looks like for those environments (black monospaced text in large windows) is little changed.

2020 will see some new devices, but we won't be using our voices, LabVIEW- style icons, or a foreign character set to program these devices. I think in a number of ways it's reassuring that so little of programming skill itself is destined for obsolescence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Bigger screens, and possibly augmented/virtual reality will allow looking at larger parts of code. Code will be more modular. Unit testing will be built directly into languages as an intrinsic part, like compiler optimization or GC. Code will generate to a larger extent (think intelisense or code completion, but with better understandings of what you are trying to do.) Also code will self optimize to a larger extent.

touch screens, voice to text, and input methods similar to the Kinect will be used, but not the extent that people expect. Keyboards will still have a big place. Voice is too ambiguous and slow for much of programming, and touch screens and kinect style interactions require you to move too much. However, expect that touch pads will be more popular, and that they will have screens in them.

simple user facing programming languages for different interfaces will be omnipresent, and their lack of unification problematic. Many things will be programmable, and user programmable, and while unification efforts for commonality in how you program your fridge/toaster/tv will exist, they will not be enough to keep things from fragmenting. Voice interaction to program things will not progress as much as they could given the capabilities of voice recognition, simply because of a lack of well formatted connections between devices.

More documentation will be automatically generated by expert systems.

Saving power will be a bigger focus for programs, especially in enterprise. In moble Batteries will still not last as long as you want, though e-ink and better chips will help. concurrency and networking will be very important, with the rise of always on connectivity, and the limits of moore's law.

That's my best guess.

</comment><comment><USER7> On the server side I'm hardly believe that a SOA like architecture will be largely used. I'm biased because I'm the author of an ESB like systems for working with services even simpler: <https://github.com/salboaie/SwarmESB>.

The core concept for SwarmESB I call "swarming" that is a method to compose API's in a distributed system. Swarming can be for SOA's orchestration what REST is for SOAP. Introduction: <http://www.slideshare.net/salboaie/swarms- introduction>

</comment><comment><USER8> That would be interesting to discuss. As we can see we have many Programming Language now and more on the rise, all with a target of making scripting more human friendly and automating most of the functionalities to minimize dev time. I see more of this automation in the future where you can create complex application with just couple of clicks away (I believe we can see many of such now). What do you think?

</comment><comment><USER9> I imagine 2020 to have a boom similar to the one in mobile, but with augmented reality apps.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think my email box will still be in a pain in the ass come 2020.

</comment><comment><USER11> Hopefully, we will all be developing on/for quantum computers.</comment>


Amazon studios - <AUTHOR> http://studios.amazon.com/getting-started <comment><USER2> I'm disappointed in the shallow look people are giving this. You can't just read the marketing copy and take it at face value. Amazon Studios is actually pretty terrible for creatives, as many successful screenwriters et al. have been pointing out for over a year now:

<http://artfulwriter.com/?p=1103>

[http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-captured/posts/the- mornin...](http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-captured/posts/the-morning-read- why-amazon-studios-is-a-very-bad-idea-for-writers)

Since those were written things have improved slightly, but anyone thinking about participating should still have serious reservations:

[http://johnaugust.com/2011/amazon-studios-now-slightly- less-...](http://johnaugust.com/2011/amazon-studios-now-slightly-less- terrible)

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure how I feel about all this spec work that is appearing in writing communities. It's one thing in fields like design or development where the IP could potentially be reused. With work like this that takes months to create, you risk never being able to use this work again once you post it up.

<comment><USER4> Spec work has been part and parcel of the screenwriting world forever.

As have free options. Something everyone tells you not to do and most people end up doing anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So they'll pay you $200,000 for a theatrical release (but regardless of if your movie is chosen, you can't sell your work anywhere else for 18 months because they've got exclusive rights to buy it… _all without giving you a penny_ ), and you only get an extra $400,000 if it makes $60,000,000 at the box office?

It sounds like a cool concept, but sounds like a very lousy deal. Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER6> No, it's a pretty lousy deal. The upside is there's at least a chance your script will get picked, versus Hollywood where there is virtually no chance. So it's a "shitty deal vs no deal" situation.

<comment><USER7> It's basically a tradeoff. You have a higher chance of getting picked, but a much lousier payday if you do. Nevertheless, it might actually be a decent bet for newbies to the screenwriting trade.

As you've mentioned, and as I concur, your odds of getting discovered in Hollywood are somewhere just shy of your odds of getting beamed aboard the Enterprise. So Amazon's system represents a slightly better way to get a calling-card film made out of your script. Nevertheless, it's a much shittier deal for anyone who's had a script sold or made. So this seems like a one-and- done sort of deal. Get discovered on Amazon, then go get an agent in Hollywood, and eventually, make lots more money than through this system.

Amazon's system needs some way to scale up as the writer's career does. Or else it's always going to be stuck as a AAA farm team for Hollywood. That might not be a bad thing; at least it's a toehold in the business. But it's not going to bring down the system anytime soon.

Unless, of course, the entire cost structure of the film industry changes, and Hollywood stops being able to afford higher-end writers' paydays. Which may indeed happen, sooner or later. Hollywood has a cost-side crash on its hands eventually. It's anyone's guess as to when, but it will happen. Revenues can't keep declining, year over year, while talent costs and budgets keep climbing.

<comment><USER2> Your odds are astronomically worse with Amazon, actually, because by submitting to them you grant them an exclusive option on your work. Hollywood works in the opposite way, with studios competing (and, thus, cutting bigger checks) for good scripts. There are hundreds of ways to sell a script in Hollywood. There's only one way to sell a script on Amazon.

So, if your script's been floating around for a year or two and hasn't gotten any traction -- no agent, no options, hasn't made The Black List, hasn't placed in any notable competitions, etc. -- then sure, submit it to Amazon. But the hard truth in that case is that the script is likely just crap.

On a side note: the point of writing a spec isn't necessarily to sell it. Specs are to screenwriters as GitHub is to coders. That said, 2011 was actually a banner year for specs, with at least 109 sold.

<comment><USER8> Well, Hollywood also has a reputation for simply stealing a script if they like it.

<comment><USER2> It's true that this is a common belief among outsiders, but it's not true that it's actually...true.

<comment><USER9> Do you have a better expiation for how often multiple studio's put out near identical movies at the same time?

<comment><USER2> By near identical do you mean, say, _Armageddon_ and _Deep Impact_? Because there's a world of difference between two movies having the same high concept and actually being near identical. Parallel development of premises is bound to happen, particularly with ones as obvious as catastrophic events and casual sex.

It's not even that there are ethical reasons people in Hollywood don't steal scripts. The reasons are practical: if your script is good, it's going to cost me a lot less to pay you for it than it would cost to pay some other more established writer's quote to develop a new script from the same premise.

<comment><USER9> That's a reasonable first approximation. But let's say two studio's both like the script and only one wins the bidding war. What stops the other studio from farming out the 'high concept' to someone else to write an also ran. As far as I can see nothing, so the value of a script is basically limited by what it costs someone else to create the same basic concept. Toss in the fact that scripts tend to mutate after production anyway and the 'we can always steal it' must be at the back of all negotiations.

Which is oddly similar to the buy vs. pirate internal debate I have seen several people go though on hard to find content.

EX: Underworld did not use any of white wolf's IP. There was a negotiation, but in the end the studio 'went in another direction' that just happened to look the same as if they had used their IP.

<comment><USER7> _"the 'we can always steal it' must be at the back of all negotiations."_

With all due respect, this is a big and mostly incorrect leap. If intellectual theft happens in Hollywood, it's typically an exception and not, as you're implying, a general rule. It certainly isn't something studio execs keep in the back of their minds as part of the development process. That's outlandish.

Most studios are extremely frightened of litigation over this very topic. So much so, that when I worked at a TV studio buying scripts, I was not even allowed to _open_ any unsolicited material sent my way. If someone sent me a package, and I didn't recognize the return address, I sent it off to legal, to be returned unopened. About 99% of the scripts and ideas I was pitched came about in meetings with agencies and/or producers, who were also bringing the same material to all of my competitors.

The behaviors you're ascribing to studios seem to be occurring at the producer level. There's a high variance of ethical and professional conduct among production companies and producers, in as much as they're not public companies like the big studios and networks are. They don't have a set rulebook. Most of the more established producers are unlikely to steal material, because it's a terrible long-term business strategy (a producer's reputation is his meal ticket). That said, are there some shady folks on the fringes of the business? Yes. Anyone who says otherwise is being willfully naive. But the idea that people at studios actually calculate theft into their buying or development strategies is patently absurd.

 _"What stops the other studio from farming out the 'high concept' to someone else to write an also ran."_

Three things stopped me from doing that, and stopped my peers from doing that:

1) Personal and professional integrity.

2) Relationships and reputation. (Hollywood is an extremely relationship- driven business. As a development executive, _I_ was worth approximately nothing; what made me relevant to my employers was my network of writers, agents, and producers I could bring to bear for projects. Burning any of these people would have been career suicide).

3) Fear of litigation.

In that order.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am a little concerned that such a democratic creative process will lead to the redditification of motion picture; only kumbaya-style movies that make you warm inside, approved by the hive mind will ever be made, while controversial pieces of works that ask questions or raise issues most people are not prepared to listen to yet will never be realised. Which would be a shame because that's one of the important roles of contemporary art in our society.

<comment><USER11> Well, I'm not a Redditor, but I've seen some of the most controversial topics make it to the top page. Heck, even the whole SOPA debate, which hardly got any traditional media coverage, was king of HN and Reddit these past few weeks. And yesterday I read a great AMA from a former prostitute. Let's see that subject get any traditional media time.

<comment><USER12> The SOPA debate was hardly a controversial topic for HN/Reddit.

Websites like Reddit definitely have great content, but as parent commenter pointed out, this content is necessarily the kind of content that appeals to the average user, and there is no room for outliers.

<comment><USER11> I suppose that's true, but they have liberated topics that would have otherwise been ignored by larger media companies.

I think the Amazon model for deciding is still a better sample of an audience than a bunch of grey-haired men sitting around a board-room table whose first question is "will this be profitable?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Crazy timing. Could be a first step towards the things mentioned in <http://ycombinator.com/rfs9.html>

<comment><USER14> Amazon Studios has been out for at least 4 months previous to the writing.

<comment><USER15> It was launched in the fall of 2010.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for correcting me. Also, we have similar usernames. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Creation (via this studios play) and distribution (via Prime) are making Amazon well positioned in the content wars.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is an interesting experiement.

It's been a long time since I really paid close attention to the movie industry, but I remember that one way money was raised, and risks shared, was in the divvying up of distribution rights (and or options on those rights) between domestic theatrical release, DVD sales, cable TV rights, and rights for same in overseas markets.

Amazon is in an interesting position in this regard, they are positioned to make money on physical and digital distribution to consumers through both individual sales and amazon prime subscriptions. They also make money on the home theater systems people use to consume this stuff. And, of course, they are getting into the eBook publishing business. Controlling the film rights to books gives them even more leverage over holywood.

It wasn't until now that I made the connection between the squeeze Amazon is putting on book publishers, and how much leverage that gives them over Hollywood. Good for amazon, but good for Apple too.

I also note that IMDB is an Amazon property, and that IMDB is both a way for consumers to discover media, but also it has made some headway in helpingsource the skills needed to make movies.

</comment><comment><USER18>
        > What is a test movie?
        > An Amazon Studios test movie should be an inexpensive, full-length movie
        > that tells the whole story of the script in a compelling way, with very
        > good acting and sound.

Somehow, I don't think this will work. "Make a movie, to make a movie" doesn't seem like an attractive offer.

I'm not a filmmaker, but from what I understand, it is much more convenient to send out a script than it is to produce and edit a movie, and then send that out. Going by what's presented in Jordan Mechner's "The Making of Prince of Persia" [1], sending out a script sounds very easy, and very common, and it sounds like the people who receive scripts will actually read them to determine if they're good. It sounds like there is a lot of professional feedback.

I don't see how Amazon Studios is going to improve on that, or even match it. Getting feedback from professionals is very different from getting feedback from Youtube junkies.

[1] <http://jordanmechner.com/category/prince-of-persia/>

<comment><USER17> There is a lot of romance surrounding the movie business. That romance is a lot of the reason there are so many good looking and or talented waiters and waitresses in LA. It may be less visible, but you can be damn sure there are lots of aspiring writers and directors who are attracted by the same romantic notions.

With such a vast oversupply, I would not be surprised if there are plenty of people who are willing to make a movie for the chance to make a Hollywood movie (indeed, a lot of indie shorts and full-length flicks are already attempts at just that).

Or, just look at it through the lens of the tech startup industry. You think people aren't doing small projects on the side, for free, with friends, in the hopes of scoring something bigger?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've always wanted to write the following exposition and climax story.

Two strangers separately receive a note in the mail detailing how the other will die. The notes details the day and date of the strangers' deaths, an approximate location and a vague notion how it will happen. The notes provides small clues of their identities and thus both set out to id each other and prevent their deaths.

Ultimately, though, their quests to save one another ends in tragedy, as they mistakenly kill each other. Sorta you can't fight "Fate," type story.

Well if that sounds like a good idea for a movie or short-film I'd love to see it made

Edit: Offering script ideas (crowd-sourcing scripts) could possibly be a good "kill Hollywood," idea. Where the most popular crowd-sourced scripts get funded thru either KickStarter or Amazon Studios.

<comment><USER20> You might be interested in this book: <http://machineofdeath.net/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Amazon's product introductions are like a mixture of Apple's product videos and Sesame Street

</comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone in the comments actually have experience in working with agencies like CAA & William Morris besides watching Entourage? It is hard to tell the full details & long term prospectives with Amazon studios but Hollywood is about 100x harder to work into compared to any online app or service. An online service you can build & market anywhere and it doesn't matter who you know. Hollywood is exact opposite, you can write it from anywhere but you need to be working in LA and be friends with plenty connected people and work with good agents, lawyers, management, etc.

</comment><comment><USER23> Amazon has got it's fingers in so many pies ... and they all taste so good,

<comment><USER24> Amazon's monopsony in the e-book market scares me.

[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog- static/2011/11/cutting-...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog- static/2011/11/cutting-their-own-throats.html)

<comment><USER25> What? After the price fixing conspiracy from Apple and the Big Six, publishers set eBook prices (via the agency model). That is why eBooks can cost more than paper backs: [http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/01/20/amended_class_...](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/01/20/amended_class_action_complaint_alleges_apple_publishers_engaged_in_price_fixing_conspiracy.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I can't believe there hasn't been a single comment on how ridiculously horrible the introduction video is. I honest to god cannot figure out if this is some absurd conspiracy or joke, but that video looks like it was produced by a middle schooler with an istockphoto account using imovie.

Am I retarded? Is this really a joke? I don't get it...

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm not sure if Amazon Studios represents real democratization of movie- making, or if Primer: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film)> does. Of course cult classics like Primer are few and far between, just like successful startups.

<comment><USER28> How was Primer democratic? It was made the same way every other great low- budget film was made: a talented, single-minded and dedicated director.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Interesting until one reads to this part:

"To that end, we have established a first-look development deal with Warner Bros., the biggest movie studio in Hollywood."

I'll pass. No one should be making _any_ deals with Hollywood anymore.

If this was Amazon's attempt to fund movies for its own distribution, that would be awesome. But it's not.

</comment><comment><USER30> > Get your movie made. The goal of Amazon Studios is to work with Hollywood to > turn the best projects into major feature films.

<comment><USER31> "Work with".. then render unnecessary?

<comment><USER32> We don't need to kill _Hollywood_ necessarily. But more broadly, the Hollywood model. Instead of fighting new models, Hollywood could adapt. In a way "kill" itself. We only talk about killing Hollywood because they have historically refused to change. But if they embrace change, then startups should help them change instead of killing it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Hmm, concentrate power into a single company? And you thought Holywood was bad?

</comment><comment><USER34> Sounds like its designed to feed into the existing system</comment>


Facemash for Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.fitsort.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> though i must say this is the most terribly written site...</comment>


Alien star system buzzed the Sun - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31519875 <comment><USER2> The article links to a paywalled source for the paper "The Closest Known Flyby of a Star to the Solar System" by Mamajek et al. Full text is freely available on arXiv at [1].

[1] [http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.04655](http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.04655)

</comment><comment><USER3> For reference, 0.8 light years is about 50,000 AU. (AU = the distance from the Earth to the Sun.) Pluto is about 49 AU away.

<comment><USER4> It will take a few thousand years for the Voyager, the fastest spacecraft we have ever built, to reach that distance.

<comment><USER5> Nearly 14,000 years (Voyager 1 is moving at 3.6 AU per year).

<comment><USER6> Wow, that's quite some perspective, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Weren't humans alive back 70,000 years ?

I wonder if one of our ancestor then gazed at the sky and saw something or not. Guess we will never know :(

<comment><USER8> Yes, I believe modern humans came about around 200 000 years ago, and around 70 000 years ago were heading out of Africa.

<comment><USER9> Not sure why you're being down voted without comment since you directly answered the parents question with broadly accurate information:

 _Anatomically modern humans first appear in the fossil record in Africa about 195,000 years ago (see Omo remains), and studies of molecular biology give evidence that the approximate time of divergence from the common ancestor of all modern human populations was 200,000 years_ [1]

Migration out of Africa is estimated at around 125000 years ago for _modern_ humans. [2]

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

[2] [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am wondering if we could predict those events, and then launch a space probe similar to Voyager I and II that would be hooked in the alien star's gravity and orbiting around it while it travels in the Milky Way, which would be a some free speed for the space probe to explore space further.

Now, since stars rarely get that closed, I guess it's a bit pointless but I am still curious about it.

<comment><USER11> I wonder if another civilization had this same idea, and dropped a probe off some 70,000 years ago. Or perhaps the probe has yet to arrive, since elsewhere in this thread I see that comets dislodged by the perturbations of the passing stars are yet to arrive at Earth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm starting to wonder if a somewhat similar event could have occurred ~66 million years ago and triggered a series of events leading to the extinction of dinosaurs.

<comment><USER13> That's the basis of the Nemesis hypothesis [1]; that supposedly there's a star that roughly orbits the sun and causes havoc every few miillion years. However, it's been pretty much debunked at this point

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_%28hypothetical_star%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_%28hypothetical_star%29)

<comment><USER14> Was gonna come in here to ask...will this explain Nemesis as not a recurring event but rather a one-time event caused by that trailing brown dwarf (or the star itself) flinging comets all over the place. It would also explain a lot of other crater-rich surfaces dating back to that time...

<comment><USER15> If that's true it'd be hard to identify the responsible star since in a few million years it would be thousands of light years away and difficult to measure precise kinematics of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not only is this super amazing, it has probably the best sub-header I've ever read in a science article: "Grand theft Oort-o?"

</comment><comment><USER17> This reminds me of the story "A Pail of Air" [0] where a "dark star" passes through the inner solar system, and its gravity causes the Earth to be ejected from the Sun's orbit. The story features a family who can only survive by maintaining a fire and constantly fetching pails of frozen Oxygen to heat up to breathe and pressurize their living area.

I thought of it as one of those things that's extremely unlikely to happen, but we'd be screwed if it did.

A little surprising that other start passing through the outer Oort cloud might actually happen semi-regularly, on galactic timescales. Makes the idea sound a little less unlikely, though the inner Solar System seems to have been around for ~5 billion years, and hasn't been disrupted by any star-mass galactic bodies yet.

[0] [http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/0743498747/0743498747___6...](http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/0743498747/0743498747___6.htm)

<comment><USER18> Note that a distant star's ability to "perturb" the inner solar system is basically tidal force: it's the _difference_ in how much the star attracts the Earth vs. the Sun, because if they are pulled by exactly the same acceleration then nothing is changed from the Earth and Sun's viewpoint.

So, the effect is proportional to 1/(distance)^3. I guess anything that zips around at ~10,000 AU would basically have zero effect on the inner solar system. And if we reduce the expected distance, the "target area" gets incredibly small.

I think we're safe for the time being. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> 20 light years per 70000 years in miles per hour = 191604.751 miles per hour, according to google

<comment><USER20> It's travelling at around 80km/s radially according to the paper so that sounds about right. Almost all the velocity is radial, only 3km/s is observed tangential to us.

In perspective, it's only around 4-5 times faster than Voyager 1 or New Horizons.

<comment><USER21> It's also _speeding_ away (no info on how many km/s per year faster it is?). It could've been much slower 70.000 years ago.

<comment><USER22> Since it is moving away from a large body of mass, namely, the day star, it's likely that it has been decelerating over the past 70k years, meaning it would have been moving more quickly when it passed by.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm curious about what, if any, gravitational effects this would've had on the earth? Seems like its a relatively small star and it was so far away that I'm guessing any pull would've been negligible.

<comment><USER24> It is explained in the article:

        > The effect of a passing star on the Oort Cloud is a function of the star's mass, speed and proximity. The worst case scenario for stirring up comets would be a slow-moving, massive star that came close to the Sun.

        > Scholz's star came relatively close, but the binary system (the red dwarf and its brown dwarf companion) has a low mass and it was speeding by. These factors conspired to make its effect on the Oort Cloud very small.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> How visible would this have been in the night sky?

<comment><USER22> As a starting point, the sun's absolute brightness is much higher than this star's, and this star supposedly came within .8 light years of us. That's 50,591 further than Earth is from the sun, which means it would be no brighter than most of the stars you see in the sky... unfortunate, huh :(

<comment><USER22> I meant "50,591 times further".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Someone should run an n-body simulation of the solar system and this star backwards in time to see if it had any perturbative effects on us. What if this star was responsible for ripping Pluto away from a planet or sending Phobos down into the inner solar system to be captured by Mars?

</comment><comment><USER27> How long would it take for Oort objects that are nudged out of their orbit to become comets buzzing or hitting Earth?

Also, if that star system has its own Oort cloud, could some of the objects there have jumped system and become long-term comets?

<comment><USER28> The Nature News article says: "Because Scholz's star is puny and sped by quickly, it would have had a negligible impact on the Oort cloud, Mamajek notes. And any comets that the star might have sent hurtling towards the inner Solar System will not arrive for another few hundred thousand years, says Tremaine."

[http://www.nature.com/news/star-buzzed-solar-system- during-h...](http://www.nature.com/news/star-buzzed-solar-system-during-human- prehistory-1.16958?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews)

<comment><USER27> So the claim that the passage of the star had _negligible_ impact on the Oort cloud (for life on Earth) is an untestable hypothesis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Dealing with asteroids feels plausible.. but how to deal with a star? scary stuff

<comment><USER30> People have given a surprising amount of thought into how you could move a star:

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

<comment><USER29> Very cool, thanks for this!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Possibly the farthest away two things have ever been from each other where the word "buzzed" was used to describe their proximity.

<comment><USER32> I'd wager the word's been used on galactic scales before.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Help me to decide architecture for buidling my startup - <AUTHOR>

I am planning to start my startup and it is kind of social app. Currently I am researching approaches to build my app, but there are too much to consider, so I ask for your help to decide my architecture. (below knowledge is from my research on topic) My main concern is storing data. - Use RDBMS. PostgreSQL, because I need location based features so I may use PostGIS. - use Couchbase or cassandra. Why? because doing activity stream with RDBMS maybe slow due to joins. In NoSQL, most of the time I will not be able to use joins, so I will design denormalized tables for activity streams (maybe I am wrong) Also couchbase seems fast, and it contains memcached inside, s caching layer and scaling layer will be there on install. As far as I understand if you use couchbase you can retrieve data in json, so it will reduce converting data to json in backend app. side, where I am going to use pythn/django. - I need search so I am going to use elastic search, in that case couchbase can be a good fit, since they have a plugin for ES, which may boost development time.
What would you recommend? (I have never created such thing before, so my questions may seem to stupid to you) If you have any suggestion please suggest, maybe I am thinking too much about performance and scaling, maybe I should just stick with PostgreSQL at the beginning. <comment><USER2> TLDR; Couchbase is cool but has some considerations so evaluate, Cassandra is better spoken to by someone with experience there and PostgreSQL is still great if you have a relational dataset -- start with what you know if it works and go from there. \---

There is a huge number of factors that go into it, but I'll give you some opinion. :)

If you know PostgreSQL and how to work with it today (and the others are new to you), stay with it for now until you know it isn't the right tool. Trying to learn a new methodology and tool while also starting a company and trying to gain traction etc isn't always the best way to go. Also, think about when/if you need to hire, how long will it take to find someone with experience in X tool or to train someone on it.

As for Couchbase vs Cassandra vs PostgreSQL. All have their pro's and con's and it will boil down to your use cases, dataset and complete tech stack (i.e. some SDK's are less mature than others)

I have been a huge Couchbase fan and user for a few years now, going back to membase. However, I'll be honest, while our current primary datastore is Couchbase, we are moving away from it because of the amount of time we spend solving issues that just shouldn't be. To get this out of the way, I love CB's scale out ability and performance, it is stupid simple overall and works very well -- Mongo could learn a few things about making the scale out process easier from Couchbase (and I think they are). We also use Couchbase to ElasticSearch, and it works pretty damn well, but again is still maturing. In our recent evaluations we found we can replace ES for 60-70% of why we have to use it simply by moving off Couchbase. That means I can reduce my ES resources, to the 30-40% of use cases where it is needed and save some cash, while still getting the same results and performance.

There are a number of things to consider when using CB as your datastore, and while we are moving away from it, I think it is worth a solid look. However, if you store a lot of documents that are small in size but you want keyed for near instant access, Couchbase can cause you to need far more machine resources than you really should (e.g. it gets expensive fast). This is because every key + meta data (56 bytes for 2.2 I believe) must be stored in your bucket RAM, and once the key+meta-data exceeds 50-60% of the available, your in trouble in a few ways. So if you define the bucket to be 2gb, every key+meta data must fit within roughly 50% of that (1gb). Of course, you can keep scaling up/out to increase that size, but like I said costs start to become a factor here. A fair rebuttal to that is to restructure the data so it is larger values, smaller number of keys. However, now you run into a second issue, while views are awesome we have seen they have quite a way to go to be truly a final solution, and they have diminishing returns if you have too many of them. So then the typical answer is you start merging views and returning larger data sets and doing more and more work on the Couchbase client side (API etc) to filter results. Not saying that is always bad, just something to consider. Couchbase also limits you to no more than 10 buckets per cluster (and in my experience more than 5 and your CPU utilization goes up pretty well, so you need more CPU generally). Which means if you need document segmentation, that is more than just a "type" field on a document, this can quickly become an issue. Lastly, all of our API's are in node.js, and frankly CB's node library has a way to go before it is really ready to work in a high transaction way. We have found that it leaks memory when you have sustained high transaction volumes (this is with node 0.10.22), so we have reverted to writing a lot of larger tasks directly in C to get around it; while I actually enjoy doing that, it is time-consuming and not an efficient use of our bootstrapped resources. I read a lot of what the CB team is doing and I think they are working hard to fix almost every one of my points, so just weigh your entire stack first. And please don't consider this a bash against CB, it is anything but, as I think their technology is pretty damn cool, it just has to fit your use case properly like any technology.

As for Cassandra, I am no where near an expert or even a good novice here, so someone else can give you the good/bad there. I do know from reading that it has grown in favor quite a bit and the redundancy and reliability are quite good. We just evaluated it and felt it would be a good solution, however we had a hard time fitting our use case into it. I fully admit that may be our own limitations more than Cassandra's.

PostgreSQL is great, especially if you have the need for highly relational data. In general, I still would favor an RDBMS if your dataset is highly relational. So this depends more on what your data looks like and how it gets used. Performance is good when designed right, but hard to reach the performance of Couchbase, although everything has a trade off. If I needed the performance in places but my data was highly relational, I might look at using Couchbase in front of the RDBMS as a persistent cache, this makes recovery easier on the DB when there is a fault.

In the end its still all about your use case, dataset, tech stack and what you need it to do.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for great explanation of couchbases disadvantages :), I have read a lot about couchbase and how it is good, but real production is not an ideal, so thanks.

<comment><USER2> Anytime. Good luck with everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Design your stack around where the organization is growing in a business perspective: early stage start-ups are very fast organizations. You have to design your stack in a way, early on, that supports failed assumptions, which means frequently changing requirements at the same leaving enough room to breathe and grow.

Scaling equates to specialization, you specialize in a specific area of your stack because your startup has grown in that direction. In a very early stage, there's not much growth only a period of intense validation, so don't overthink about scale right now.

If you are using PostgreSQL, just stick with it. You can ship things faster and troubleshoot better with stuff you know. In terms of fetching data, you can design it in a way that you actually don't have to do any joins at all. Twitter still uses MySQL up until this very day, they've customized the core engine for their purposes. Point is: don't over-think about storage for now, no one knows right now where your startup will grow into :)

Build and design a pleasurably usable RESTful HTTP API Server with a matching client: in my experience this is very very helpful. At a very early stage, building an API server allows you to pivot relatively quickly. When you have a "proxy" for your database, it's practically developer-UX for fast changing business requirements, and it will avoid "database code hell" ie, random projects doing random things at your database.

Imagine you're building this huge web-app, but the users clearly want and need a mobile equivalent. What if the users want some sort of on-site installation for an enterprise version? Suddenly you're not a B2C startup and you'll be going on B2B.

An API server helps you do tons of things that enables you to ship applications faster and makes your startup very flexible since you can isolate and maintain this very large part of your product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, by the way as an experienced developer what would be your stack if you wanted to start your own. After reading comments here, posts in other places, I am going to stick with Python/Django/PostgreSQL+PostGIS/ElasticSearch and django-tastypie for REST backend, for activity stream maybe django-activity- stream for the beginning, since I am only one member now :), I do not want to reinvent bicycle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't comment on your storage stuff (we've had to develop our own to fit our specific needs), but elastic search is a good option to start out with for search. You can check out the Elasticsearch case studies here: [http://www.elasticsearch.org/case-study/](http://www.elasticsearch.org/case- study/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you tell me yours if possible and what kind of product you are building</comment></comment>


Why Diversity Programs Fail - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail <comment><USER2> It has been a while since google decided to fill my news feed with articles about diversity; I am favorable to diversity but didn't like how it seemed to be a buzzword, a new fashion void of any meaning.

This show that there is a right way and a wrong way to rise diversity and often the right way is to make the work place more functional.</comment>


Does Benford's Law apply to election data? - <AUTHOR> http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/06/does-benfords-law-apply-to-election.html

<comment><USER2> Nate Silver has a nice discussion of Benford's Law as it applies to the Iranian election. [http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/karroubis- unlucky-7s....](http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/karroubis- unlucky-7s.html)

His conclusion is that the data might show irregularities or that it might just be a consequence of how the towns are aggregated before being reported.

</comment><comment><USER3> It is interesting that in all of this analysis the obvious explanation is not explored. That is, perhaps re jiggering election boundaries IS the fraud that makes the UK election results fail Benford's Law. After all, Benford's Law does not indicate HOW fraud occurred, only that there is a good likelihood that some sort of manipulation is going on.</comment>


How can a guy from Western Europe start a life in Russia/Ukraine? - <AUTHOR> I want to find a job in Russia or Ukraine. I have been fascinated about this part of the world since I was 10. It's my dream to live and work there for at least a couple of years of my life.
I'm willing to go to great lengths to reach my goal. This is why I started learning Russian (currently at A2/B1) and have devoted much of my traveling time (about 9 months in total) in Russia/Ukraine. To succeed I think I need a job first. That's why I quit my job (12 years in financial/banking sector) and applied to 30+ relevant vacancies. This has resulted in only one second round interview.
Considering the investment/return ratio it seems nearly impossible to find a job in Russia/Ukraine.
What else can I do? <comment><USER2> It's nearly impossible for Russians and Ukrainians to find a decent job there too, you'll need to work remotely unless you plan on making $3/hr like @Homakov made as a Rails dev in Russia. Get a remote position with your EU citizenship look at boards like jobspresso.co even for just answering support emails.

<comment><USER3> My understanding was that in Kiev a senior dev could easily make ~3000 USD.

<comment><USER2> Could yes, if they had a good network and weren't fired after the probationary period being paid $400-650/mth (avg salary in Ukraine is $200/mth) in order to be replaced by cheap incoming graduate students. Senior software dev at EPAM in Lviv makes $10kUAH/mth to start which is ~$375USD. This is why outfits like Toptal have so many Ukraine/Polish/Russian developers since the lowest wage on Toptal is still at least 2x what they would make domestically.

<comment><USER4> Dunno about Ukraine and Russia, but here in Poland it's standard for senior- ish devs to make $3k-$5k per month. More than that is also possible, but uncommon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Do you have a pile of expat Russian/Ukraine friends? If so, they'd be the first ones to ask. Otherwise, if you live in a US or U.K. metropolitan area, they are pretty easy to find.

Also, have you visited as a tourist already?

<comment><AUTHOR> @danielvf - I have a couple of Russian/Ukrainian friends here which have given me tips and have asked around a bit, but that has not lead to anything yet. Also I know some 'countrymen' working there, but with the same result. Perhaps I need to expand my network further, thank you.

I have spent around 9 months across the whole of Russia and Ukraine of which around 2 months each in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and Kiev.

<comment><USER5> Best of luck to you then!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Have you considered applying to privatbank.ua/ru/work? It's quite a modern big bank, I am assuming it should be interesting to work there.

<comment><AUTHOR> @poushkar: I have considered applying there, but haven't done it yet, because I didn't see any relevant vacancies. Normally the success rate of sending open applications is quite low, but I guess it is worth a try. Thanks for the tip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> few ideas: \- find local dev/IT shops and offer your services as a sales/project manager. With your English and if you have a good network from your financial/banking sector - you should be able to find a good fit. \- it's hard to find a job in Russia even for locals if you don't have network/connections.

what are your skills? What vacancies are you applying?

<comment><AUTHOR> @genbit, thanks for your answer.

You could say I am an expert (valuation and risk wise) in Interest Rate Derivatives and various other (more simple) financial products such as FX, loan/depos, stocks and bonds, etc. I have been responsible for translating the business needs into requirements for IT departments and Financial Engineers.

The roles I had were more informal than what you see in the typical business analyst roles in IT companies. I have also been training colleagues in Front Office, Market Risk and Product Control departments on these valuation and risk topics.

As an IT person you might think this is not real programming :-), but I have built various Excel VBA tools for the department.

Education wise I am educated in Investment Theory & Investment Management. Meaning that I should know how pension funds and asset managers should invest their money in the financial markets.

Also, I have been investing and later on trading on various products in the financial markets since the age of 13!, while I am now in my mid thirties.

I have mainly applied to business analyst, financial analyst, business analyst/project manager, risk analyst, investment analyst roles.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Learn PHP or django? - <AUTHOR>

I primarily work in ops but want to explore some dev work. Is it worth picking up PHP from scratch (I don't know any), or learning how to use django? I'm wondering what is easier.<p>I know a bit of python right now so that could make it better to pick up django, but I'm not quite how sure intertwined they are. AKA. if you have an existing python script, how much would be involved to integrate it with django and display output on a webpage. And as for PHP, I suppose I would like to avoid picking up another language (AKA if I improve my python.. it could help my serverside scripting as well as for web stuff, whereas PHP is only web), but would do it if the barrier to entry is easier/quicker than django. <comment><USER2> PHP is _not_ Web only. You can write CLI tools and server scripts with it. Look at Composer. That is pure PHP.

PHP is a highly marketable skill. WordPress, with their mission to power 50% of the Web, is PHP. Not to mention … the Book of Faces.

There are modern frameworks for PHP like Laravel that play the same role as Django.

But, if you're learning a new language, why not JavaScript? Everything is JS now—server side scripts, full stack Web dev, "Internet of Things." It is well on its way to Total World Domination.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points. And I'm at the point where I can create a site in html/css and bootstrap, but want to start populating the data with dynamic content and interaction with a database etc. Do you think javascript would be a good thing for me to focus on now to achieve those things?

I guess I had plans to look into javascript at some point, but it was primarily going to be for traditional ui manipulation. Do you think it can totally replace what I was going to originally do with php/django?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Let me weigh in here. I've worked with Rails, ported a php application to Django, currently working with Spring MVC and Angular JS.

PHP is a scripting language, Django is a framework. I think you are comparing 2 different things.

If you want to get into web development, there are 2 major concepts/skills you need to get down. First, understanding of MVC, or "MTV"[0], as in Django's case, or whatever other variation of said design pattern (MVP, MVVC, etc..). Second, writing and consuming REST APIs. The frameworks will handle or at least guide you through the rest. CSS, HTML, and JS will help you with the front end, but I think as someone who works in ops, you'd be more comfortable establishing a solid back-end first. You can always bootstrap the front-end.

Personally, I try to stay away from anything PHP based. I don't think anyone in their right mind would start a new project with a PHP stack. Frameworks like Django, Rails, and other JS frameworks are much more mature, in terms of utility, than anything you'll find in PHP.

Since you already have experience with it, it would be fairly easy to work with Django after running through a few tutorials.

IMO if you go the PHP route, you'll get stuck with old technologies, as in your job prospects would involve maintaining legacy php apps. I haven't heard of anyone starting a new project with PHP.

A developer should be concerned with building applications to meet requirements, writing and consuming REST APIs, and implementing features and utility functions around those.

Once you become fairly experienced with one web framework, whether it's Django or Rails, explore another framework. Don't get stuck with a single technology stack. That's the mistake most developers make. They never get out of their comfort zone. Become a polyglot.

Fact of the matter is, some frameworks have better integration with certain tools, because of community support. Learn one framework, then learn another, and keep going.

Personally, Django is one of my favorites, but I also love Rails. Both do certain things better than the other. There's no perfect framework.

Check this book out, it's free if you read it online. It is a really good resource on TDD with Python and Django [http://www.obeythetestinggoat.com/](http://www.obeythetestinggoat.com/)

0\. [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/faq/general/](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/faq/general/)

<comment><USER4> If you do decide to go with php, I would use Laravel which is essentially php on rails.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I worked in ops for several years but never really got passed simple scripts in various languages. Then out of pure frustration with the lack of tools to do my job I decided to dig deeper into Python.

I started off with a project to track Application Outages using Django. It took me three months and a lot of reading but the application is still in use after 3 years with very little maintenance. I have then gone on to use Django and Flask for various one off web apps. Pandas for data analysis and a lot of third-party packages.

During that time I have looked at Javascript(Node stuff), Ruby and Go. Python keeps winning because my brain can understand it and I get things done the fastest in it. You need to find what works for you there will be plus and minus for it all but getting things done is where it matters.

</comment><comment><USER6> What's your end goal?

Picking up PHP will make it very easy for you to find work as a developer, but python will make your soul hurt less.

</comment><comment><USER7> It doesn't really matter what server side language you use. If you like python, absolutely dive into django :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Django</comment>


Three Types of Acquisitions - <AUTHOR> http://cdixon.org/2011/12/10/three-types-of-acquisitions/

<comment><USER2> The 3rd type of acquisition (Business) is a lil generic and should be broken down into a few more parts.

IMHO, in the tech industry, I observed many times that if a company acquires another purely from a business perspective, it is either:

(a) Customer/Market - The acquired company has a huge and highly desirable market share,demographics,etc that the bigger company would like to "acquire". Also sometimes, it is simply to get the "pageviews". I.e. Google acquiring Blogger/Blogspot (community) or the myriad of blogging companies that AOL has acquired (market share).

(b) Expanding - The acquirer would like to expand from their core business and the best way to do this to acquire a company that is the best in the field. I.e. Apple acquires Quattro (advertising), Google acquires Android (mobile).

</comment><comment><USER3>
      > An important component in this calculation
      > is not just the actual cost to build the
      > technology but the opportunity cost of the
      > time it would take them to do so.

I don't think that's what opportunity cost means.

Of course the time to build the technology is part of the actual cost.

The opportunity cost might be the value derived from developing it in-house or acquiring a competitor.

<comment><USER4> Opportunity cost means exactly what he thinks it means. The idea is that it might look cheaper to develop technology in-house, but if it takes longer to build than buy, the company is losing out on sales during the time it's building. It also could be losing out on early-mover advantages. Those reductions in revenue are called the opportunity cost (because the size of the opportunity is smaller).

Factoring in the opportunity cost may make buying a more attractive option. Keeping opportunity cost in mind can help the seller get a much better price than they would if they just considered the acquirer's cost to duplicate heir technology.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, I was thinking of "time" in terms of salary or wages, which are obviously costs.

Now I understand that "time" can also mean time-to-market, and I see how that can turn into an opportunity cost. Thanks!

The former is like "spent time", but the latter is like "lost time".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Talent ... As a rule of thumb, these acquisitions are priced at approximately $1M/engineer_

Of which more than 90% will go to the founders and investors. The engineers being bought for $1M will be lucky to get $100K out of it.

Anybody out there want to justify or at least explain this practice?

<comment><USER6> If that is the case, wouldn't it be easier and better just to pay that money (or even half of it) to the engineers themselves to change employers? It seems more sensical to me that the talent acquisitions make sense primarily when the acquirer wants the _founders_ themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> 4) Buy a company working on something you are, shut it down, and not worry about the potential competition.

<comment><USER8> Microsoft did this for the Kinect: Two companies (3DVision and PrimeSense) both had RGB Depth cameras. They signed a deal with PrimeSense, and then bought 3DV and shut them down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Irrespective of the Hunch/Ebay acquisition, it's nice to see Chris blogging so much again.</comment>


Bees' tiny brains beat computers, study finds - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/24/bees-route-finding-problems <comment><USER2> Without reading the report they refer to, I'll declare in advance ...

What a pile of steaming doo-doo. Give the bees a hard instance of the TSP and watch them flail. Give a computer an instance that the bees "solved" and watch it solve it in less time than it takes a signal to travel from one neuron to another.

Brains are amazing things, bees are amazing critters, but hard instances of NPC problems can't be solved exactly by using these sorts of short-cuts. Soap film gives good solutions, but not necessarily optimal. Simulated annealing gives good solutions, but not necessarily optimal. Randomized shotgun hilll- descending gives good solutions, but not necessarily optimal.

Neural nets, either wetware or software, give good solutions, but not necessarily optimal.

</comment><comment><USER3> It looks like the article isn't even in circulation yet. It's listed on the American Naturalist website as a "Forthcoming Article"

[http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/action/showForthcomingToc?j...](http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/action/showForthcomingToc?journalCode=an)

As a Biology major, and having taking several classes with a nationally recognized neuroscientist with concentration in honeybee brains, articles like this are particularly interesting to me, and I hope to see this study when it comes out.

It is worth noting how rarely news outlets will report correctly on the findings of research - they jump on whatever might make headlines, sometimes even completely contradicting the article in question.

That being said, I think it also inappropriate to say things like _What a pile of steaming doo-doo_ about a study that you haven't read yet. While it is human nature to be skeptical, and yes it might not meet all of the the implications that this news brief summary of an abstract makes, it is important to recognize that there so many things that nature does way better than anything man even comes close to, and that studying the efficiencies of these systems makes for better design and undestanding.

<comment><USER2> I'm sure the article will be fascinating. I'm also sure the bees don't solve the TSP _as computer scientists and mathematicians define it_.

As I say elsewhere, hard instances of the TSP are non-trivial to find, especially in 2D. Random instances are almost always trivial. Further, "good" solutions are trivial to find, even when the exact problem is hard.

I'll bet the bees never solved a hard instance (in the technical, algorithmic complexity sense of "hard"). The hype is going to be way overblown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It all depends on the definition of "solved". I doubt whether the same standards of "solved" were applied to computers as well as to the bees. If one is willing to relax the standards, TSP isnt that hard to solve on computers either. One such old solution is to simulate the dynamics of an elastic band that is attracted to the cities. <http://www.google.com/search?q=elastic+net+tsp>

It is not guranteed to reach the absolute minimum cost, and no point of the band may pass through a city location right away. But more often than not the band stabilizes at a decent solution. Would this be considered a solution of TSP in a computer science sense ? No, it is not even an approximation algorithm. But for practical purposes it may be good enough, and I think thats what the bees care about.

Statistical physics has answers to such problems if the standards are weakened to "solves it to within an _acceptable_ tolerance _most_ of the time". However, both the weasel words, "acceptable" and "most" are necessary. These tools may be applied to other biologically motivated solutions as well.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is this true, or an exaggerated report? Anyone read the paper yet?

No mention of comparison of number nodes TSP which took "the computer" "days" to solve vs Number of nodes,the flowers constituted.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The citation is: _Lihoreau, M., L. Chittka and N. E. Raine (2010). Travel optimization by foraging bumblebees through readjustments of traplines after discovery of new feeding locations. American Naturalist: doi:10.1086/657042._

I've been foraging around trying to get my hands on the report, but to no avail. Maybe someone with better Google-fu can help?

<comment><USER6> One of the authors of this paper, Raine, makes his papers available as PDFs:

[http://www.biology.qmul.ac.uk/research/staff/chittka/chittka...](http://www.biology.qmul.ac.uk/research/staff/chittka/chittkalab/Team/Nigel.html#publications)

The one that you're interested in is listed as "in press" without a PDF yet. He'll probably link it up soon.

You could also try emailing him now at the address on that site. I've had great success email researchers directly and asking for (p)reprints of specific papers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> These "early" studies kind of drive me insane. "Research uncovers that carbon- based life forms more capable than computers when it comes to building protein".

I disregard (except to post a snarky comment apparently) until the downstream studies do something to unlock whatever potential they've uncovered.

</comment><comment><USER8> Solving geometric TSP with ants <http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1068009.1068051>

Maybe there will be a bee-inspired TSP algorithm in the future?

</comment><comment><USER9> Could these bees be solving an NP problem in P time? Could they test that by increasing the number of "cities" and seeing if it takes the bees exponentially longer?

</comment><comment><USER10> My guess is that they are using some sort of biological algorithm of sorts that does NOT scale, but is highly efficient for the typical bee workload.

</comment><comment><USER11> As darwinGod mentions: the number of nodes would be interesting.

Still, bees are marvellous.

</comment><comment><USER9> Can't we map other NP complete problems onto TSP and then have these bees solve them for us?</comment>


Brick – UI Components for Modern Web Apps - <AUTHOR> http://mozilla.github.io/brick/ <comment><USER3> Interesting, although I think the "beta" is quite literal. Seems to lack a bit of polish.

The one I was most interested in was the Date Picker, but locks up Chrome (28) and Safari (6) on my machine. [http://mozilla.github.io/brick/component/datepicker/demo/ind...](http://mozilla.github.io/brick/component/datepicker/demo/index.html)

<comment><USER4> Locks FF Nightly too.

<comment><USER5> Given that the errors and ability to reproduce are so erratic (to the extent that people with the very same browser versions on the same platform are seeing different behavior), I have a feeling the issue may be something like this: [https://github.com/eternicode/bootstrap- datepicker/issues/95...](https://github.com/eternicode/bootstrap- datepicker/issues/95#issuecomment-6292057)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks like these are built on Polymer. ([http://www.polymer- project.org/](http://www.polymer-project.org/)).

<comment><USER7> We're actually not using the Polymer Web Components shim- it attempts to simulate Shadow DOM by overriding DOM Methods(!), which didn't seem necessary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is cool and certainly useful but I have concerns. Forgetting for a moment that this is a shim and imagining that all browsers support this natively, isn't this sort of thing outside the intended purpose of html. Html should describe content not styling and this sort of thing seems ripe for abuse. I thought XML was the markup language for describing custom data. Adding the ability to create your own DOM elements for the purpose of using them as hooks for interactivity and styling seems like something that should be avoided in HTML.

Am I being a too much of a purist or overlooking something here?

<comment><USER5> You're overlooking that the underlying technology - Web Components - <USER2> landing as a standard as we speak in both Firefox and Chrome. The idea that creating custom elements is inherently bad is an urban legend - there is no empirical basis for such a claim. Additionally, you are mixing metaphors, Custom Elements are not meant to describe data, they are meant to create new, active UI components and other useful tags.

<comment><USER9> Well, you could use such tags to describe data directly in the markup. I'll think we'll see two definite camps on that issue. Of course, what's data?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> These are UI elements built on top of (a shim for) the coming standard Web Components.

For another Web Components shim check out polymer-project.org along with a small, opinionated framework leveraging Web Components. Especially look at the awesome Sandbox application allowing you to compose web components :)

</comment><comment><USER11> I think it's fucking awesome and it works like a boss in FF 24 (beta) on OS X. I'm very excited about this project only because standard UI elements are so irritating to make (after having done it hundreds of times) and the alternative libraries (in my opinion) all do too much and too little at the same time.

For everyone complaining about Chrome, I would like to say this is "beta" and "ahahahahaha."

Not to be malicious though! I just have a really shit experience on the web with a lot developers only targeting Chrome/Webkit. Like ScalaTour for instance-- a wretched experience if you're /not/ using Chrome (read unusable).

It's nice to see it go the other way for once! ;-)

</comment><comment><USER12> Calendar looks broken in FF and Chrome here. All I see is:

      21
      21
      21
      21
      21
      21
      21
      21
      21
      21
      21

According to Browsershots it looks like this on many browsers:

[http://browsershots.org/http://mozilla.github.io/brick/compo...](http://browsershots.org/http://mozilla.github.io/brick/component/calendar/demo/index.html)

Same with the datepicker.

Some other stuff also looks broken.

I would much prefer one piece of javascript per component. So if I liked one, I could use it and improve it. Im not so much inclined to use a library of tons of stuff I dont use.

<comment><USER5> Each component is isolated in just the way you describe, the only requirement is the base X-Tag Web Component library.

<comment><USER12> Hmm.. looking around the github repo, I dont understand its structure. Where is the source for the flipbox for example?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> First thing I thought of when I read the name was Designmodo's UI kit "The Bricks" \- [http://designmodo.com/the-bricks- addons/](http://designmodo.com/the-bricks-addons/)

When it comes to search, their kit might eclipse yours...at least for the time being.

</comment><comment><USER14> These are a big step forward compared to today's tangle of plugins! Much smoother and nicer to code.

On IE10 this library has no animations. Is it possible to polyfill your way to decent support with animations at least on IE10?

(I hate IE but a lot of our customers use it)

</comment><comment><USER5> The folks working on the components are going to be incorporating all this feedback and reporting going forward. Everyone is encouraged to file bugs with the repo here: [https://github.com/mozilla/brick/issues](https://github.com/mozilla/brick/issues)

Just an FYI - Mozilla will be employing this highly technical problem resolution strategy to ensure a high level of quality prior to official release: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo3uxqwTxk0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo3uxqwTxk0)

</comment><comment><USER15> The first example (flip widget) already does exactly nothing on Android.

<comment><USER16> Counterpoint: it works perfectly on my Android device (using the standard awesomely-named "Internet" browser).

<comment><USER17> It working for you doesn't change the fact that it's not working for somebody else. It's still broken in at least that one case, and that's enough to raise concern among those of us who want to avoid such failures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We've pushed a stopgap fix to the calendar code to stop it from hanging while we investigate/repro the issue.

</comment><comment><USER18> At first glance, the intent seems quite similar to Google's Polymer project. Hopefully they will interoperate.

</comment><comment><USER19> With this and Polymer, I think the whole idea of software components might actually happen. I cannot wait for this to happen. Having this stuff would be great!

Thanks to the people behind HTML5 for kicking off the innovation.

Thanks to the team that put this together at Mozilla. I went to the demo page and things _just worked_.

</comment><comment><USER20> Ah! It continues Web Components are the most exciting thing on the Web at the moment. I can not wait until this is fully supported in the browser.

There is a lot of great JS frameworks out there that projects DOM etc., but I always fall back to markup as the best way to build a browser based app

</comment><comment><USER21> The date picker actually froze Chrome and slowed everything to a crawl. Way to go Mozilla.

<comment><USER22> Interesting. In Chrome Canary, the polyfilled text input is working fine, but the native date input is freezing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> For those of you reporting crashes in calendar/datepicker, can you please indicate what region you are in (UK, etc)? The issue is most likely caused by non-American date formats, and we are working on a fix.

</comment><comment><USER24> While I understand the desire for custom HTML elements I'm also certain they are going to result in monstrosities.

It's not the tool's fault, in the end. But it is opening up a basket of horrors.

</comment><comment><USER25> Excellent! Didn't know about web components. Are there any big blockers that would prevent libraries like jQuery Mobile moving into this?

</comment><comment><USER26> yeesh, I respect Mozilla for their true open-source-everything-all-the-time philosophy but this is an example where I think it backfires - it's too early! Even if these really are awesome components it's really hard to see past the lack of polish. People are fickle and you only get one chance to make a first impression, it's important that these things look good

<comment><USER27> I dont believe it backfires. People are fickle, you get lots of chances to make a first impression.

I think the key is clarity in your communication, doing a lot of polish on top of unstable software and advertising it as stable causes people to waste time using it, advertising as beta / for early adopters lets the early adopters pick it up and the people who just want it to 'just work' can wait. If you lose a few people who dont understand the benefits still far outweight the negatives.

This is mostly just a disclaimer for people who are waiting to open source their software until 'its ready', its never ready, do it now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The Datepicker Demo bricked my Chrome :-/

</comment><comment><USER29> Unless I am missing it, I think the killer feature for a library like this would be baked-in gesture support.

</comment><comment><USER30> While this is great it doesn't work in Android Webview or "Browser", in chrome its just fine.

</comment><comment><USER31> Doesn't work on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S3, Android Stock Browser).

<comment><USER32> Neither in mine ( opera mini in an iPhone 3). then again, most new things do not :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> What are the building blocks of Brick?? Does it use X-Tags?

<comment><USER33> From the code, I could see that they are built on top of X-Tags

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Doesnt render well on Opera mobile.

<comment><USER35> Does anything?

<comment><USER34> touche.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> calendar crashes on Chrome 28.0.1500.95

</comment><comment><USER37> So does this work on ios or not?</comment>


That Time We Bought a Town – Google Sheets - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GNGzLJl-eXgnS1z_3aAywdlFALyULbOKxslUqkRKc1M/edit#gid=0 <comment><USER2> ... and this time when the auction is only running for another hour and the bid is already up at $1,100,000</comment>


World's first laptop, 25 years old and still running - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2010/10/26/worlds-first-laptop-25-years-old-and-running/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheNextWeb+(The+Next+Web+All+Stories)&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER3> No windows button and a properly placed control key where it should be? The caps lock is relegated to arrows territory? I'M FREAKING SOLD! Where do I get one? xD

<comment><USER4> The keys 'Z' and 'Y' are transposed as well.

<comment><USER5> That's the default German setup.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#QWERTZ>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I still have my Epson HX-20 which predates this by 4 years and is wildly considered to be the first "laptop" computer...

Specs: Dual 8bit Hitachi 6301 at 0.6 MHz, 16 kB RAM, 32 kB CMOS ROM

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epson_HX-20>

</comment><comment><USER7> I had the first full-keyboard portable, the TRS-80 Model 100 which Dad was still using into the 90s. I also had the very first ultralight laptop - <USER2> NEC Ultralite (4lbs, no hard drive, solid-state!) back in '88.

Good times, but you spend a LOT to stay on the bleeding edge. :)

</comment><comment><USER8> _and just like the Macbook Air of today it didn't have a regular Hard Drive_

Just stretching a simile to breaking point there..

</comment><comment><USER9> I've still got one of these in a closet somewhere. I suppose it could be called a laptop, depending on the size of your lap: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Portable>

(edit: on second thought, it most likely requires at least two laps.)

<comment><USER10> Me too. I haven't fired it up in at least a year, but last time I tried it booted up with no problem other than some alarming smoke coming from the air vent. Seeing that customized autoexec.bat float up in ghostly green letters really brought me back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> My dad had a Toshiba T1200, the successor to this one. He still uses it as a serial terminal. On another note, due to its limited built-in storage, he ran command.com through pklite!

<comment><USER12> I remember doing that to loads of com files. That was with a 20mb hdd. You knew every file on the HDD in those days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> 1985? The Model 100 came out in 1983. Mine still works great.

<comment><USER14> Maybe it doesn't count because it doesn't fold closed? :p

That's the one that runs for a day or something on just AA batteries, isn't it?

<comment><USER15> I usually get a month of out of 4 AA's. It's very power efficient...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It really amazes me how far we've come in the last 25 years and how much has remained the same. Here's to the next 25 and making fun of today's technology :)

</comment><comment><USER17> 1991: Toshiba adds the first colour screens to laptops. From here on, portable PCs become more than work-obsessed business tools, and begin to pull double duty as entertainment machines.

[http://toshibalife.com/featured-articles/25-years-laptop- inn...](http://toshibalife.com/featured-articles/25-years-laptop-innovation)

</comment><comment><USER18> " -- and weighed in at a whopping 4.1 Kilograms."

Not bad at all, considering the typical ~3 kg weight of many modern laptops.

</comment><comment><USER19> The first laptop I used in real life was an Acorn A4 in around 1993. When things moved the screen blurred so much it was hard to use, but it did run RISC OS which I liked back then.

</comment><comment><USER20> Everybody knows the GRiD Compass was the first laptop! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_Compass>

<comment><USER21> Sadly, no.

And that was a claim that didn't resist 15 seconds of googling.

There were a couple portables that could be called laptops before the Toshibas. The TRS-80 model 100, its NEC cousin. Even if we are talking of MS- DOS, PC-compatible computers, the Data General One predates this one by quite a bit.

<comment><USER22> And the Osborne 1 predates the DG-1 by 3 years, although it was a CP/M machine (remember THAT?)

<comment><USER21> Of course I remember them. However, an Osborne one is a laptop if you can use it on your lap.

The Epson HX-20 laptop also ran CP/M (as an option, AFAIK).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Somewhat related. I have a 12 year old laptop with a broken CDROM. Is there a way to load a lightweight linux using floppy disks or some other method?

<comment><USER24> If it has a USB port you can use either an external CDROM drive or a USB key drive.

If it has a network port then you can make a network boot floppy quite easily. This just contains enough to get the system booting off of an image retrieved from a TFTP server over the network.

<comment><USER23> So no network port.

I can't figure out a way to tell it to boot from a USB thumb drive. It doesn't list that option in the BIOS.

Would it still let me boot from an external CD ROM even though the BIOS doesn't mention USB? Maybe I could buy one.

Otherwise, any other thoughts?

<comment><USER24> Maybe, it's probably more likely it can boot from a USB CD-ROM than from a USD key. But I have no idea how much more likely.

Otherwise, you could maybe try a PCMCIA network card, assuming the laptop supports that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> my first PC going to college in 1988, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPC_512> 4.7Mhz, 512kb RAM and a floppy drive, it could run a fortran compiler (rather slowly)

Although if you had access to a TV and a power socket at the destination my Sinclair QL was probably a more capable and lighter 'portable'

<comment><USER26> Still got one. :)

It has an awesome design and it can also be seen in some movies (names don't come to mind though, but I've seen them), e.g. painted in some fancy color. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Very nice to see that machine again. I used one of these to write my first application.

</comment><comment><USER28> The price was $1899. That's $3818 adjusted to inflation.</comment>


IPad Sales Outpace Every Prediction - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/19/nobody-predicted-ipad-growth/

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't help but to be unsurprised. Instances of Apple _not_ exceeding predictions are few and far between.

<comment><USER2> Confirmation bias, really. Most of the stuff not predicted on is fairly hum- drum. (Nobody's excited about cinema display forecasts.)

However, I'll admit to laughing at Morris and Gruber when they estimated 8, 9 million as incredibly overblow predictions. (Both my parents and I will be buying one come revision 2.)</comment></comment>


I just gave all my money and possessions to a charity here in San Francisco - <AUTHOR>

  To my brothers and sisters in San Francisco:

  I'm rich
  I just gave all my money and possessions to a charity here in San Francisco
  I'm now poor
  Being rich isn't that great
  I'm choosing instead to be a servant for the public good
  And that is best done poor

  The charity I gave to is a non-profit whose approach is simple
  Give to people in need
  Be it money or resources
  They can pay it back or pay it forward
  Whenever they can at whatever pace
  The non-profit knows they are good for it
  Call it a foundation for a better society
  More details are forthcoming
  They say they are still in stealth mode

  Through the generosity of this new non-profit
  I am going to be allowed to give alms to the poor
  Call it immediate and direct action on homelessness and poverty
  I am only going to support local news
  By announcing giving locally
  My first almsgiving will be announced soon
  It will be $15,000 worth of nonsense I've recently stockpiled
  Because stockpiling is something rich people do

  My almsgiving will start small
  But will increase over time
  Unless the non-profit doesn't like how I give alms
  Hopefully that won't happen and people will join me in my almsgiving
  In whole or in part
  It's going to be so much fun giving away things I don't need
  I don't need things or money
  A job and my basic needs met is sufficient
  This non-profit and my future job will provide me with those

  Love,

  Your future mayor
 <comment><USER2> Dear Mayor,

All your paragraphs are cut in half and impossible to read.

—- A disgruntled constituent

</comment><comment><USER3> lol</comment>


Ask HN: About the application architecture Flux - <AUTHOR>

I recently got the word about Flux from a colleague of mine. It's an application architecture Facebook uses for developing web applications. It's all about single direction data flow where it's easy to predict the changes that happens. To me, it sounds good but trying to find more information about it is not easy... Neither is there any bigger examples on the website.
So do anyone here on HN have any examples of similar architectures that have been used for a longer time, with some testimonials? Or maybe someone already have gone crazy and implemented it already and have some pointers of gotchas.
Some links: From React documentation - https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/flux-overview.html Recent blogpost on React blog - https://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2014/05/06/flux.html <comment><USER2> It's not directly related to Flux, but it's worth thinking about.

Way before we outsourced every project's architecture to this week's framework du jour (only to complain about it later), I worked on many projects with somewhat ad-hoc architectures in an agile-like manner. We knew of MVC, but we didn't necessary reach for it explicitly. Instead, we just tried to extract domain/business logic out of the desktop UI layer as often as we could, and called it good. Instead of constantly worrying about cramming everything into small conceptual boxes, we just wrote code and decoupled what we thought might change.

Flux reminds me of those times because it is far less prescriptive than MVC. There's a certain freedom to just letting the code grow (assuming you prune it as you go), rather than constantly worrying about whether this feature should go in the model/presenter/controller/whatever.

A caveat: I'm almost certain part of the clarity comes from the delivery mechanism being far more conceptually sound than HTML/CSS/JS.

</comment><comment><USER3> There were some comments on this related thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7719957](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7719957)

I wrote a micro framework called Mithril ( [http://lhorie.github.io/mithril](http://lhorie.github.io/mithril) ) that has a similar single-direction-data-flow architecture. Here's a small snippet to illustrate how the flow of data works there:

      //model
      function getFoo() {
        return m.request({url: "/visits", method: "GET"})
      }
      function setFoo() {
        return m.request({url: "/visits", method: "POST"})
      }

      //controller
      function controller() {
        this.foo = getFoo()

        this.save = function() {
          this.foo = setFoo()
        }.bind(this)
      }

      //view
      function view(ctrl) {
        return m("div", {onclick: ctrl.save}, [
          "hello " + ctrl.foo()
        ])
      }

      m.module(document, {controller: controller, view: view})

Basically data goes from `getFoo` in the model to `this.foo`, which is used as `ctrl.foo()` in the view. Firing the `onclick` event on the view triggers a `save` _action_ in the controller, which calls `setFoo` in the model. `setFoo` sends data to `this.foo` which is again used as `ctrl.foo()` in the view, and on goes the M -> V -> C -> M ... cycle. Within the context of the template, the unidirectional flow is seen by the fact that the data just gets consumed as we recursively go down the template tree, without reading stuff back from the template as we go. This is in stark contrast to jQuery, where we typically call a series of methods to read and update arbitrary parts of the DOM in a non-atomic, state-machine kind of way.

Flux uses different nomenclature (e.g. they use the term _stores_ for model- like entities, and the _dispatcher_ is analogous to controller actions that translate a UI event into a command to update data) and some of the implementation details as they relate to React are a little bit different from Mithril (e.g. React has the concept of a _controller-view_ , which is a sort of "root subscriber" in view land, _props_ to pass data down the component tree, etc), but the idea is that application state can be thought of as a monolithic blob of data that mutates atomically as it gets corecursively passed through an MVC-like system, rather than a state machine that gets incrementally tweaked by a bunch of ad-hoc commands.</comment>


GitHub Api: Create, update, and delete individual files - <AUTHOR> http://developer.github.com/changes/2013-05-06-create-update-delete-individual-files/

<comment><USER2> So, does each deletion result in a new commit? How can you just go ahead and delete things from source control hosting?</comment>


Identifying Hate Speech with Bert and CNN - <AUTHOR> https://towardsdatascience.com/identifying-hate-speech-with-bert-and-cnn-b7aa2cddd60d <comment><USER2> Is there a startup that does this?</comment>


Apple made a historic to all iPhones – and you probably didn't even notice - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-ios-103-update-iphone-historic-2017-3 <comment><USER2> Anyone who knows more about iOS care to share their input on this?</comment>