A-Shell: Terminal for iOS - <AUTHOR> https://holzschu.github.io/a-Shell_iOS/ <comment><USER2> This is extremely cool.

Is there any documentation on what shell syntax this supports? I assume it's not running a standard shell like Bash or zsh.

Edit: [https://github.com/holzschu/ios_system/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/holzschu/ios_system/blob/master/README.md) confirms its not running sh, bash, or zsh, and has some additional details on the available commands. I still think it would be nice for this to be more explicit, but the information is out there.

<comment><USER3> Very solid readme.

</comment></comment><comment> 5- LibTerm is very similar (also based on ios_system): [https://libterm.app/](https://libterm.app/)

iSH uses a completely different approach -- it's a custom x86+linux emulator that runs complete unaltered alpine linux userland: [https://ish.app/](https://ish.app/)

<comment><USER4> Yeah I notice that even the websites of LibTerm and A-Shell are almost the same. They use exactly the same icons for some items!

I assume one is a fork of the other?

<comment><USER5> Seems like both use this framework to generate the landing page

[https://github.com/emilbaehr/automatic-app-landing- page](https://github.com/emilbaehr/automatic-app-landing-page)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use iSH, that provides a complete Alpine Linux environment: [https://ish.app](https://ish.app)

A-Shell seems to be very limited and additional packages cannot be installed. What are uses cases for which A-Shell would be a better fit than iSH?

<comment><USER7> It's in the App Store, for one.

<comment><USER8> is that really valid here? i-sh is on testflight, the intersection of cant figure out testflight and can use a terminal must be pretty low.

<comment><USER9> Isn't there an upper limit on the number testflight users?

<comment><USER10> Yes, 10,000. iSH is also distributed as an IPA that you can sign and install.

<comment><USER9> Do you need a paid apple developer account to sign and install it?

<comment><USER11> You can sign it with a free developer account, but I believe that you have to re-sign every 7 days as opposed to every year with a paid developer account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A-Shell looks very promising. If I were still using iOS, I would install it and try it out in a heartbeat.

On Android, I love using Termux ([https://termux.com/](https://termux.com/)).

If I have a computer in my pocket, I should be able to use it as a computer, not merely a consumption device

<comment><USER13> Termux is awesome. Using it even made me order a foldable Bluetooth keyboard, so i always have a dev environment in my pocket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great! I'm glad Apple has changed its rules concerning having an embedded interpreter:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14809096](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14809096)

</comment><comment><USER15> This was fun to try as a little preview of what it'll feel like to have an ARM-based MacBook.

Bummer there's no git¹.

I was curious to try to install Go just to see how far I'd get before being blocked. Was able to download the source tarball and extract it (using curl and tar as 2 separate commands; piping curl into tar didn't work). But then can't execute make.bash because there's no bash.

[1] There's rationale and an alternative described at [https://github.com/holzschu/ios_system#adding-more- commands](https://github.com/holzschu/ios_system#adding-more-commands).

<comment><USER16> If you really want an ARM64 based development platform, why not get a Pinebook? Or something like the NVIDIA Jetson Nano? The philosophy of Apple is to link against their officially provided frameworks/SDKs. It's not meant to be a platform for open development.

<comment><USER17> macOS is still a quite an open platform.

<comment><USER18> The context was ARM64 based platforms. macOS isn't on an ARM64 based platforms (yet?).

<comment><USER17> Ah. My bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> In this app, it appears we are operationally limited to

/private/var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/49F47295-F9D8-4FD7-8F34-redactedxxxx/

The default folder is /private/var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/49F47295-F9D8-4FD7-8F34-redactedxxxx/Documents

I am able to cd / and can see the following folders

/Applications

/bin

/cores

/dev

/Developer

/etc

/Library

/private

/sbin

/System

/tmp

/usr

/var

... but can't cd into any of them. "permission denied".

None of this is a surprise, of course.

<comment><USER19> Odd there is no `which` command; this limits discovery.

`python --version` returns 3.7.1.

`curl --version` returns 7.54.0.

<comment> jagged-chisel help -l

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Terminus is excellent for iOS. [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/termius-ssh- client/id549039908](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/termius-ssh- client/id549039908)

</comment><comment><USER21> This may be a dumb question...

To my knowledge, the reason no "real" terminal exists for iOS is because it violates the App Store rules. It is prohibited to download and execute arbitrary code, with a few exceptions.

One exception is JavaScript, which must be run inside of JavaScript Core [1]. What if someone simulated x86 and Linux _in JavaScript_ and then built a terminal and file system on top of it? Would that be in accordance with the App Store rules (since it would be sandboxed in Apple's JS core)? Would it even be technically feasible? Or too slow for any serious usage?

[1] from the App Store rules:

4.7 HTML5 Games, Bots, etc. Apps may contain or run code that is not embedded in the binary (e.g. HTML5-based games, bots, etc.), as long as code distribution isn't the main purpose of the app, the code is not offered in a store or store-like interface, and provided that the software (1) is free or purchased using in-app purchase; (2) only uses capabilities available in a standard WebKit view (e.g. it must open and run natively in Safari without modifications or additional software); your app must use WebKit and JavaScript Core to run third-party software and should not attempt to extend or expose native platform APIs to third-party software; (3) is offered by developers that have joined the Apple Developer Program and signed the Apple Developer Program License Agreement; (4) does not provide access to real money gaming, lotteries, or charitable donations; (5) adheres to the terms of these App Review Guidelines (e.g. does not include objectionable content); and (6) does not offer digital goods or services for sale. Upon request, you must provide an index of software and metadata available in your app. It must include Apple Developer Program Team IDs for the providers of the software along with a URL which App Review can use to confirm that the software complies with the requirements above.

<comment><USER22> It is not necessary to resort to JavaScript for the emulation, emulation and interpretation are allowed. App Store effectively forbids the usage of JIT (so VMs do not run as fast as one could expect) and running any code that's not included in the package at the time you submit the app for review (with an exception for educational apps).

<comment><USER21> I'm not doubting you, but I don't see where in the App Store rules it forbids JIT, other than the prohibition of running third-party code. Emulation and interpretation are allowed — if the code is first- or second- party.

Educational apps are an interesting exception, but as I quoted in my patent comment, JavaScript is the other major one.

So I wonder if JIT compilation and execution is possible under the rules _in JavaScript_? (Again, is that even feasible?)

<comment><USER22> Generally, JIT requires the ability to execute data (writeable memory pages that contain code). iOS apps need a special system permission (in Apple's terminology — entitlement) to construct such pages. To my knowledge, no apps except for the first-party ones (like Safari) have this permission. Apps can call into one system API that has this JIT capacity (WKWebView). It runs in a separate process and uses IPC to communicate with the app. It has an API that allows the application to execute arbitrary JS code at full speed. Some time ago it lacked support for WebAssembly, but it may have been resolved by now.

So, these are the technical limitations of the platform. Apple chose to implement a number of arbitrary rules on top of that. Well, it's not a democracy, and they are free to do so. There is always a slight chance of having some form of less restricted execution environment in future versions of iOS, mainly due to how much their iPad Pro hardware is overpowered relative to the OS capabilities.

<comment><USER23> This was also discussed here a few months ago by the author of utmapp (Qemu on iOS). In order to get their code to work, they need to effectively run their own code in debugging mode. And yes, this requires the same entitlement as the JS JIT.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22387742](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22387742)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I was considering using lib-tex (the library implementing texlive 2019 for this shell) last week for an iOS app I'm working on that needs to generate basic LaTeX images. It's really impressive, these programs running in A-Shell are modified by renaming their `main()` function and making sure global/static variables are cleaned up so they can run as a separate thread in-process instead of spawning a separate process. I decided to use the more limited KaTeX instead because it sounds like a maintenance nightmare, making sure nothing leaks and updating everything every time a new version comes out...

I wonder if that process can be automated to a point where you could "lib-ize" any C/C++ project (sed replacing malloc/free with something that cleans up when the process "exits", replacing exit/fork/etc, replacing static). I think that would really open up the number of interpreters available on iOS.

</comment><comment><USER25> Is there any way I could use a USB C to DB9 console cable on an iPad Pro with this? I'm thinking this could be a great setup for working in the cramped data center.

<comment><USER26> check into AirConsole. Works great, skip the cable. [https://www.get- console.com/shop/](https://www.get-console.com/shop/) No relation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Why is the download so large I wonder? Almost 650mb app.

<comment><USER28> "includes Python, Lua, JavaScript, C, C++ for programming and TeX (texlive 2019, including LuaTeX) for text processing."

I'm actually surprised it's only about 650 MB. TeX (Live) alone is huge.

<comment><USER27> Lua is rather tiny. JavaScript and the _executor_ for C/C++ (as the compiler compiles to WASM) are mostly Apple frameworks (JavaScript Core). Now Python and Clang are fairly big, but not usually 650mb big, I'd say 200mb is more likely. Now if TeX was included, totally agree, but as sibling comment indicated, it's not.

<comment><USER10> The compiler compiles to LLVM IR.

<comment><USER27> From their own website:

> clang/clang++ _compiles your C /C++ files to webAssembly_ with wasi > included. Executee the resulting files using 'wasm command'. You can also > compile to webAssembly elsewhere and bring the files to your iPad.

<comment><USER10> Oh, oops, I mistook it for libterm, which has a very similar site…

<comment><USER27> I _think_ they both share the same codebase, but not sure if there's a relationship between the two app publishers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I jailbreak several iOS devices just to have terminal many years ago, and it was quite an interesting experience. I always hope Apple could let user access terminal in iOS, at least in developer mode. After all, it's still BSD based just like MacOS, and iPad Pro is so powerful but nowhere to go for a programmer.

Sadly, it seems Apple doesn't really care about this.

<comment><USER30> This app is in the app store, so apple isn't actively blocking this kind of thing anymore, which is an improvement!

<comment><USER29> Indeed! I was just dreaming they could take even more steps :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Doesn't Apple ToS forbid programming (excepting embedded lua etc)? Did that change?

Android 10 is locking down [http://termux.com](http://termux.com), and wifi ipads have higher compute/$. If this works at full speed, I might get one.

<comment><USER32> No, Codea is a full featured Lua IDE for iOS, and there are lots of other programming environments too. What they prohibit is compilation to native code. If you have an interpreter (like lli, in this case), that's fine.

<comment><USER30> That was not always the case. 2017 article about them easing restrictions on this: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/07/apple_relaxes_devel...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/07/apple_relaxes_developer_rules/)

<comment><USER33> Wow, that was a few years back - I'm glad to learn about this change. Quoting (and reformatting for better understanding) below..

\---

On June 5th of this year [2017], the Apple Developer Program License Agreement (which applies to both the iOS and Mac App Stores) was revised to:

3.3.2 ..Interpreted code may be downloaded to an Application but only so long as such code:

(a) does not change the primary purpose of the Application by providing features or functionality that are inconsistent with the intended and advertised purpose of the Application as submitted to the App Store,

(b) does not create a store or storefront for other code or applications, and

(c) does not bypass signing, sandbox, or other security features of the OS.

\---

An Application that is a programming environment intended for use in learning how to program may download and run executable code so long as the following requirements are met:

(i) no more than 80 percent of the Application's viewing area or screen may be taken over with executable code, except as otherwise permitted in the Documentation,

(ii) the Application must present a reasonably conspicuous indicator to the user within the Application to indicate that the user is in a programming environment,

(iii) the Application must not create a store or storefront for other code or applications, and

(iv) the source code provided by the Application must be completely viewable and editable by the user (e.g., no pre-compiled libraries or frameworks may be included with the code downloaded).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It hangs if I run ssh-keygen or ssh-keygen -t ed25519. Tested on a recent ipad pro and iphone x.

<comment><USER35> same here. Is this a bug or can't ssh be used at all?

<comment><USER36> This is a known bug that the author appears to be implementing a fix for: [https://github.com/holzschu/a-shell/issues/14](https://github.com/holzschu/a-shell/issues/14)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Just this morning I realized I had a need for a decent SSH client for iOS, although I don't need something that includes vim, clang, and Lua, Python, and C, though.

That's extreme overkill for my needs -- I'd just like the ability to log in to a few hosts (preferably using public key authentication!) and run various commands just like I normally do in a terminal.

If anyone has any "favorites" they recommend, I'd be interested in hearing about them. I'd prefer something open-source (out of principle) but I'm certainly not opposed to paying a reasonable amount.

<comment><USER38> How about Prompt from Panic? [https://panic.com/prompt/](https://panic.com/prompt/)

<comment><USER19> Unless I'm missing something, Prompt can only connect to other servers.

This connects, in shell mode, to your iOS device.

<comment><USER23> Isn't this more like a sandbox that lets you play in the sandbox with a CLI? I don't think it actually gives you shell access to your iOS device, just a shell interface to its own program (and the other commands it supports).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is very cool, over the years I've been using different apps - iSSH back in 2010/2011 and Terminus lately - to connect to servers over ssh/mosh but having a local working terminal would be great. Is there any way this can update Apple Notes?

And

> "A text-based user interface for a screen-based platform"

Is that a play on "Limitless paper in paperless world" from a Dunder-Mifflin ad?[0]

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIUSPM7xjAk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIUSPM7xjAk)

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm seeing more and more dev tools being developed for mobile

e.g. yesterday on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22968079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22968079)

Seems like there's pent up demand for more hacker stuff on mobile! :) I wonder what this could mean for the direction of the mobile paradigm (move towards fewer walled gardens like app stores please?)

</comment><comment><USER41> I personally love Blink [https://blink.sh/](https://blink.sh/) it provides a great mosh client.

<comment><USER42> Blink is great, but $20 for a terminal you might use occasionally or emergencies is pretty stiff for me personally.

<comment><USER41> It's free and opensource on github (if you register as developer for apple).

Edit: spelling error

<comment><USER42> Registering in the Apple Development program costs $99 (per year) too

<comment><USER43> That is no longer true.

Registering for an account is free. you can get a signing key for testing (i.e. to build and run on your own device) for free also. You only need to pay if you want to publish to the App Store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I can see that this tool in turn leverages ios_system, but neither A-shell nor the ios_system github repository appear to present an exhaustive list of the available commands. This seems like an obvious first step in improving documentation.

<comment><USER45> Invoking "help -l" will give you a full list of available commands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice!!!

What iOS really needs to make this useful though is a way to project to a proper screen and keyboard/mouse configuration. Like Samsung DeX. Kinda hoping this will happen as they are making the iPad Pros more like a computer.

<comment><USER46> iPadOS supports this completely, as long as the application is written with the external screen APIs in mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Link to git repo [https://github.com/holzschu/a-shell](https://github.com/holzschu/a-shell)

</comment><comment><USER48> iSH is another good alternative, with alpine Linux and possibility to install packages. Still in beta though

</comment><comment><USER49> How does this compare to ish? I know ish translates x86 into ARM on iOS. How does this work?

<comment><USER50> It doesn't. It _interprets_ x86. There's a similar project to do this for RISC-V, but it's not on TestFlight. I assume this pick the LLVM IR? It's an interesting question what the optimal IR for this would be, but it would probably be higher level than this, maybe more like WASM or the Zinc (O'Caml IR).

<comment><USER10> The included commands for this are native code. The C compiler produces LLVM IR.

<comment><USER50> I can't parse this, but the facts remain that the only JIT Apple allow is their own. Any other app cannot generate and run native code at runtime. Thus, apps are interpreting the immediate form (for iSH that 32-bit x86 and for A-Shell it's LLVM IR).

iSH is threading, that is, the x86 code is translated into an IR consisting of pointers to the code that executes its interpretation. This is a technique older than FORTH and which may be the best you can do on iOS currently. A-Shell may do the same, I don't know.

EDIT: updated with more details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> This is a great tool.

Love it</comment>


How to setup Clojure from scratch - <AUTHOR> http://programmingzen.com/2010/07/13/how-to-setup-clojure-from-scratch/ <comment><USER2> Of course, you could also just use cljr: <http://github.com/liebke/cljr>

<comment><USER3> ..or leiningen [http://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/master/README.m...](http://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/master/README.md)

<comment><USER4> Leiningen's goals are slightly different than clrj's. Leiningen is more like a Maven type project descriptor/build system whereas cljr is more like an easy_install-esque tool. cljr can be used without creating a project.

<comment><USER5> Yes, but it does have a repl command, and a swank plugin, and I like using it as a virtualenv-type tool even when I'm not working on a project. (And most of the time I am. I find the best way to learn is to attempt to write a real piece of software, and it has the added bonus that I might be able to add something to my portfolio.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What is Clojure performance like? I checked with <http://shootout.alioth.debian.org> and haven't found it there. We're doing some lightweight geometrical computations like figure intersections, etc (queued, not real time) and we built them in JRuby just for fun (JVM is a requirement here) so I'm wondering how would Clojure perform there.

I'm asking here because I don't know a bit of Lisp so I can't just quickly code a benchmark. Thanks!!

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried to convince Isaac to include Clojure in the benchmarks. He will probably include it once Clojure 1.2 (which has implications for performance) is released, provided that all the benchmarks are ready.

Generally speaking, I found the following to be true:

Java < Scala < Clojure < ... < JRuby.

Clojure is relatively fast. It really depends on the program at hand, but in my experience, having to REALLY generalize, it's at least an order of magnitude faster than Ruby/JRuby.

<comment><USER7> Simplistic idiomatic Clojure is much faster than JRuby, but often a bit slower than Java and Scala depending on how much you rely on reflection.

However, if you push it, Clojure can be as fast as anything else on the JVM; it's just a matter of how much time you spend profiling and optimizing. In many cases you can output the exact same bytecode in Clojure that you'd get from a several-times-more-verbose Java program.

An extreme example: <http://meshy.org/2009/12/13/widefinder-2-with- clojure.html>

<comment><USER8> $ time echo '(println "Hello, world!")' | clojure

Clojure 1.0.0-

user=> Hello, world!

nil

user=>

real 0m2.756s

user 0m1.040s

sys 0m0.140s

$ time echo 'print "Hello, world!"' | python

Hello, world!

real 0m0.018s

user 0m0.000s

sys 0m0.010s

Beware the horrible startup time for small programs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Keep it up Antonio! Even though my comment has nothing to do with Clojure, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm very impressed by quality of your average post. You're like Joel Spolsky of Web 2.0 :)

</comment><comment><USER10> Ok, I'm totally a noob with Clojure, but I thought all I had to do was java -jar ~/clojure.jar and I got a REPL. Did something change recently? This seems like an awful lot more work than it should be.

<comment><AUTHOR> java -jar ~/clojure.jar will give you a REPL. It will be a less convenient REPL though. In particular:

* No history support. Try to use the arrow to go back to the previous instruction and you'll be greeted by ^[[A.

* No tab completion.

* No exit function.

* No startup file with your customizations.

* No clojure.contrib automatically in your classhpath.

* No simple way to automatically place a list of jars for a given project in the classpath by simply specifying them in a file.

java -jar ~/clojure.jar will do. But this, I believe, is nicer.

<comment><USER11> You can always exit via (System/exit 0), 0 being the return code.

`java -cp clojure.jar clojure.main` is the preferred method of starting Clojure rather than using -jar, I think.

<comment><AUTHOR> > You can always exit via (System/exit 0), 0 being the return code.

That's how I implement the exit function in the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I knew that HN would have an awesome list of resources on this topic, thanks for the info guys!

</comment><comment><USER13> Is clojure planning to integrate with eclipse? That strikes me as a good way to get new users.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is through Counterclockwise: [http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/clojure/Getting_Started_wi...](http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/clojure/Getting_Started_with_Eclipse_and_Counterclockwise)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14>
        brew install clojure

<comment><USER15> Hm.. Did you read the article? It's written for folks who want to know how everything works and what things are composed of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well, you start from inventing the Universe</comment>


The serverless Internet company - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2007/11/16/the-serverless-internet-company/ <comment><USER2> Maybe I'm reading this article wrong, but it strikes me that Scoble is unaware that lots of sizable startups don't own servers. What's the difference in this case between using ec2 instances and renting servers from a provider like LayeredTech, SoftLayer, ServerBeach, Rackspace, etc.? I understand there's a huge difference if you're bringing up -- and especially down -- ec2 instances in real time as demand changes, but beyond that, it's renting a server for $70 a month. So, for by his definition, Wordpress.com is a server-less company with 300+ servers in three colos.

<comment><USER3> Dreamhost etc.

Ssshhhhh... lets keep the mystery for the suckers that read scoble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We were considering using EC2 & S3 for our upcoming launch, but we did some calculations, and found the minimum cost for 24/7 service comes to about $70 per month not including data or bandwidth charges. Once a site has greater usage and needs to scale, it seems hard to beat, but for the early days it doesn't seem to make financial sense.

<comment><USER5> Not to mention the fact that you have to do a lot of work up front if you want to make the thing work right without taking big risks.

<comment><USER6> Such as...

<comment><USER5> Basically, any storage on the machine itself could go _poof_ from one minute to the next - or at least you have to think of it that way, because once it goes down, it's gone.

Therefore, you need to have some kind of distributed storage architecture, and automated recovery for said system.

For extra points, do the whole thing with no external server with a stable IP.

<comment><USER7> > For extra points, do the whole thing with no external server with a stable > IP.

Should be doable. In principle, ARP over SQS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you're considering "cloud computing", you should also check out Joyent. (<http://www.joyent.com/>) They're different than Amazon EC2, though... rather than just being able to scale up by adding additional virtual servers, your servers are also "burstable" up to the maximum physical capabilities of the physical machines. Pretty cool stuff. I just got an Accelerator for my in- progress Facebook-powered site, so we'll see how it turns out. (By the way, Facebook applications get free entry-level Accelerators...)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm interested in hearing more about this, too. It sounds like the two offerings combined (service plus storage) make for a complete hosted solution. Is this correct? And how are domain services handled? By a third party?

<comment><USER10> EC2 on its own is pretty comparable to a "standard" hosting setup.

This is their "small instance" setup.

1.7 GB of memory, 1 EC2 Compute Unit (1 virtual core with 1 EC2 Compute Unit), 160 GB of instance storage, 32-bit platform

The usual thought is to use dynamic dns to point to a server you have setup in an EC2 instance, so yeah a third party.

However, this isn't really an all or nothing proposition. You can certainly plug and play different components in to complement your existing setup and still save money / increase reliability.

If you have a solid setup, but are exceeding bandwidth limits you can move static files to S3.

Want better testing rigs, you can make EC2 instances for each and just turn them off when you're done.

EC2 and S3 are great tools, but you still have to do the homework to make them fit your needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Has anyone here done this for their web app? I am considering some grid-server space from MT, but if EC2 is good, it seems like it's cheap; is this a viable option?

<comment><USER12> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=56825>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=73791>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If I am not mistaking HotOrNot is also running on Amazon's S3, and they get some serious page views</comment>


Astronomers Find Planet Hotter Than Most Stars - <AUTHOR> https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2017-160 <comment><USER2> It's also losing 10 million kilograms of mass a second. The universe never ceases to be mind boggling large.

<comment><USER3> It has a mass of roughly 10^27 kg (per the article, it is very comparable to Jupiter in mass).

Using a loss of 10 million (or 10^7) kg per second , we can calculate that the planet is losing 10^7 / 10^27 percent of its mass per second:

10^7 / 10^27 = 10^(-20) % = 0.00000 00000 00000 00001 % of its mass per second

If we change the time interval to one year, then we simply multiply the number of seconds in year (32 million, roughly), which moves the leading digit 7 places to the left.

The resulting answer is that the planet is losing 3*10^-13 %, or 0.00000 00000 003 %, of its mass per year =)

<comment><USER4> Is it close enough to the star for relativistic effects to make a difference here?

<comment><USER5> Very slight. Mercury is close enough for very very slight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > KELT-9b is 2.8 times more massive than Jupiter, but only half as dense.

> Because the planet is tidally locked to its star

What does it mean for a gas giant to be tidally locked?

<comment><USER5> It means that if you average together the motion of all of the mass of the planet, it revolves once per orbit around the star. Which is the same as what it means for a rocky planet, if you think about it, it's just a little less obvious.

Another way to think about it is that the gas giant moves such that tidal friction caused by the gravity of the star is minimized... because that's why it's moving like that.

<comment><USER7> Makes me wonder what shape such a planet would take.

<comment><USER8> Very slightly elongated along the axis between itself and the star. Still nearly spherical and the deviation would be essentially ellipsoidal (not egg- shaped).

<comment><USER5> It's probably a bit more exciting than that when you include evaporation and the stellar wind! But yes, an ellipsoid is the basic shape, the tides elongate the planet both towards and away from the star, same as the tides on the Earth caused by the moon.

<comment><USER8> Yep. The original post even speculates the thing might have a comet-tail because of the evaporation.

<comment><USER7> I kind of imagine it looking sort of like a Hersey's Kiss shape :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder how broken our astrophysical models will prove to be once we are more and more effectively able to peer outside our home system. There is a universe of examples out there, and I would find it slightly depressing if all of that complexity could be described by the theories of a swiss patent clerk.

<comment><USER10> Einstein's field equations are a system of extremely nonlinear partial differential equations. Actually using them to compute something is very nontrivial. And of course gravity is but one of the many forces at play here. You still have to account for thermodynamics, chemistry, nuclear physics, and other complicated effects to understand what's going on here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is the sun going to end up being called a "Dwarf Star"?

Also, this means nothing to me: "With a dayside temperature of more than 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit (4,600 Kelvin)"

Where in the atmosphere is this temperature begin measured? The temperature can vary wildly by altitude, latitude, and time of "day". As far as we can tell, as the atmosphere of a planet gets thicker the temperature keeps increasing indefinitely (eg check out fig 1): [http://faculty.washington.edu/dcatling/Robinson2014_0.1bar_T...](http://faculty.washington.edu/dcatling/Robinson2014_0.1bar_Tropopause.pdf)

<comment><USER11> Looking closer:

>"Given the high stellar luminosity and close orbit, the planet receives a large stellar insolation flux (Table 1). As a result, it has an extremely high equilibrium temperature: calculations, assuming zero albedo and perfect heat redistribution, give a value of approximately 4,050 K."[1]

That 4,050 K value is reported as the equilibrium temperature, which I understand to be the output of the Stefan-Boltzmann law:

      T = (I*(1-alpha)/(epsilon*sigma))^.25
      where,
      I       = Incident Flux
      alpha   = albedo
      epsilon = emissivity
      sigma   = SB constant = 5.670373e-8

According to the paper the planet receives 61.1 x10^9 erg/s/cm^2.[1] The solar constant is ~1360 W/m^2.[2] In the same units the planet gets 6.11 x 10^7 W/m^2, which is about 45 thousand times greater than what the earth receives. Anyway, plugging into the SB law I get:

      (6.11e7*(1-0)/(1*5.670373e-8))^.25 = 5729.377 K

So I am certain it is I rather than them with the error. Where did I go wrong?

[1] [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature22392.html)

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

<comment><USER11> I see now, I was calculating the temperature at the subsolar point, they are averaging over a uniformly illuminated sphere.

Since the illuminated side is a disc with area pi x R^2 and the sphere has surface area 4 x pi x R^2 we need to include a factor of 1/4:

      (6.11e7*(1-0)/(4*1*5.670373e-8))^.25 = 4051.281 K

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I just want to know where it is, jeez. Map of the galaxy please! (Assuming it's in this galaxy.)

<comment><USER13> Does the article specify the planet's distance from Earth? I can't seem to find this rather fundamental information.

<comment><USER14> Seems like the article indeed forgets to mention the distance. I guess the nature article[0] has all the information, but since I can't access that one right now I also found a Washington Post article[1], according to which the distance from Earth is about 650 light-years.

[0][https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nat...](https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature22392.html)

[1][https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of- science/wp/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of- science/wp/2017/06/05/the-hottest-planet-ever-discovered-has-an-atmosphere-as- warm-as-a-stars/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Planets: so hot right now.

</comment><comment><USER16> _> He worked on this study while on sabbatical at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California._

While on sabbatical? Wow! That's dedication.

<comment><USER17> Ummm . . . I think you misunderstand the meaning of "sabbatical." It doesn't mean vacation. It means freedom from teaching and administrative duties to give you time to go to another institution, learn new things, and work on interesting problems. This is exactly the sort of thing that I expect an academic on sabbatical to be doing.

<comment><USER4> I wonder why we don't see this in the corporate world more? When we need a change of pace we have to quit one company and start at another one, you'd think it would be in the companies best interest to have people go elsewhere to get their fix and then come back with their old knowledge plus any relevant new knowledge.

<comment><USER18> Apple used to have sabbaticals until 1997 or so (6 paid weeks off every 5 years). Anecdotally, I heard that many employees used the leisure time to look for new jobs, but that may have been due to the turmoils Apple was undergoing in the 1990s.

<comment><USER19> 6 paid weeks off is hardly a sabbatical. For many jobs in the EU you get that many vacation days anyway each year.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


DraftKings going public via reverse merger - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/draftkings-going-public-via-reverse-merger-9fcf2848-c835-4cad-b4a6-0c6cf1941b1f.html <comment><USER2> Sometime in 2010, I met the founder of FanDuel, who did a soft pitch on the company and the upside. I briefly contemplated applying.

A few years later, as the company rose to unicorn status, I was wondering if I should have done so. After the massive fall and the takeover that left the founder CEO with nothing but a lawsuit[1], I am now again padding myself on the back for not pursuing this.

The FanDuel / Draftkings story is now a cautionary tale of taking too much VC money with too little organic/non-purchased growth in my books.

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/fanduel-founders-likely- to-l...](https://www.businessinsider.com/fanduel-founders-likely-to-lose-out- from-paddy-power-acquisition-2018-7)

</comment><comment><USER3> DK / FD have been a mess since the failed merger. Having a competitive duopoly pushed their marketing budgets through the roof and CPA ran miles ahead of per-customer lifetime worth.

This $400 million really isn't much of a lifeline based in their historical burn rates.

As for SBTech, they're really not that interesting, just a platform vendor

As for the valuation, I mean that seems to have come about via rattling pig bones doused in goat blood. A fund that can only just cover the claimed cash injection of the deal, DK had upto 60% wiped off after a $2billion valuation and a tech vendor to some medium size casinos.

</comment><comment><USER4> Online gambling is recently legal in Indiana I guess? So much advertising. Offers of matching $500 credit if I open an account and make one bet. Almost worth just making a few silly bets and then taking out my money, relieving the VCs of a little money?

<comment><USER5> Most, if not all, gambling sites have restrictions such as rollovers that prevent you from doing this.

An example explanation from [https://www.sportsbettingdime.com/guides/bonuses/explained/](https://www.sportsbettingdime.com/guides/bonuses/explained/)

"Understanding rollover with an example might help. Let's say that you deposit $250 to a sportsbook that is offering a 50% bonus with a 5x rollover. This means that you'll have $375 to bet with, but can't withdraw the bonus money until you've placed $1,875 ((250+125)x5) in bets."

<comment><USER4> On pure coin flips, a 5x rollover of a double my initial fund still has a positive EV right? Though it won't be as good as someone without a rollover.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Only IPOs where banks give all the money to the company and try to push shares onto all of our 401ks get respect around here, but more companies should consider public market exposure this way</comment>


Private Data Mining - <AUTHOR> http://en.nullday.de/it-sec/2014/08/18/private-data-mining/

<comment><USER2> post seems to be very old, does it still works?</comment>


A story about Upwork fucking over freelancers in order to upsell their clients - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/MattFnWallace/status/1060659941491363841 <comment><USER2> It looks like the OP is in California. California courts recently ruled that contract workers are presumed to be employees by default of their employing organization, and places the burden of proof on the employing organization to prove they are not [1]. This test is stricter than others previously applied, and among other things, requires the work done by freelancers to be independent of the work normally done by the employing organization.

Since OP was doing freelance marketing work for a marketing organization, California now requires him to be an employee of that organization.

Upwork is acting to comply with California law here. There are civil and now criminal penalties for failing to comply (ie: people can go to jail, including the company improperly classifying freelancers).

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonymarks/2018/05/29/the- califo...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonymarks/2018/05/29/the-california- supreme-court-deals-a-blow-to-independent-contractors/#45cf255a70a1)

<comment><USER3> I agree that this is likely the root cause. Upwork obviously still botched things here, and they need to better communicate what's going on and why. They probably don't want to be transparent about this stuff because it makes their business model (hire contractors through us to do everything!) less attractive for some of their customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's an interesting story, and Upwork definitely screwed up here. But it seems too simplistic to say that Upwork is trying to upsell clients.

As the author mentions toward the end of the story, he was no longer showing up as eligible to freelance because Upwork determined that he might be classified as an employee of the company. It sounds like the company could still request him to work for them, but they would have to do so as an employee, which entails different payroll responsibilities (which Upwork could provide at an extra charge).

But it doesn't sound like Upwork's goal was to upsell the company on these extra charges. First, the company didn't realize that they could still hire him at all. According to the author's friend, who worked at the company, they didn't find out about the employee-hire option until they pressed Upwork for details of why he disappeared from the freelancer section. If Upwork were trying to upsell the company, they wouldn't have disappeared him from the freelancer section — they would have shown a notification saying "you can still hire this person, just upgrade your account!".

My guess is that Upwork was hoping that the company would just hire a different freelancer and wouldn't care much about the transition. Why? Because Upwork's benefit is partly the low cost, and once you add in all of the employee-related stuff, it would be much more expensive to hire through Upwork.

I could be wrong about this, but based on the (relatively thin) facts provided, it seems like this wasn't about upselling. It was about avoiding the risk of employee/contractor misclassification, and hoping the company would hire a different contractor.

<comment><USER4> Or maybe they didn't implement that "feature" properly. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER3> Definitely a possibility! Hanlon's razor at its finest: _Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not the first time I've heard of Upwork fucking over freelancers and I'm sure it won't be the last. Is there any good alternative for freelancers?

</comment><comment><USER6> Unrolled: [https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1060659941491363841.html?...](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1060659941491363841.html?refreshed=yes)</comment>


Show HN: Could Aging Be an Infectious Disease? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@InfinoMe/senescence-links-between-heart-disease-genomics-and-aging-fa78bde773da <comment><AUTHOR> Figured I'd drop this link here. This is a neat pathway, that scientists in different camps have focused on over the years but haven't necessarily tied to aging biology.

What I find fascinating is that it appears viruses have evolved to exploit our own immune systems against us, and this very exploit underlies heart disease, dementia, and even some cancers.

Is there such a thing as a human zero day?

<comment><USER2> Thanks and interesting article. I think we're slowly starting to see that more and more processes (not just diseases) are related to different complex interaction between our immune system and pathogens and or even our own body. I think you may be interested in the concept of trained immunity (the innate immune system is smarter than we currently credit it). [https://www.ru.nl/english/research/prizes- achievements/spino...](https://www.ru.nl/english/research/prizes- achievements/spinoza-prize-winners/more-info/mihai-netea-new-idea-immunology/) Mihai Netea and his department are doing some interesting research :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think this may be implying a value judgement that, as always, evolution doesn't make.</comment>


Show HN: A browser-based PowerPoint alternative - <AUTHOR> http://dashboard.sizle.io/# <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all, this is a project that I built with my co-founder. The idea is that Sizle is a presentation platform that lives in the browser with higher fps animations, millions of images, crm integrations, and a suite of analytics and engagement tools to measure presentation performance.

The primary users of Sizle are marketers, sales reps and founders. Any feedback is much appreciated :)

EDIT: The title links directly to the app, the landing page can be found at www.sizle.io

<comment><USER2> Some good comments here, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21788359](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21788359)</comment></comment>


An elementary proof of Wallis' product formula for Pi - <AUTHOR> http://fermatslibrary.com/s/an-elementary-proof-of-wallis-product-formula-for-pi <comment><USER2> Another elementary proof of this is in Yaglom and Yaglom's delightful "Challenging Mathematical Problems With Elementary Solutions (Volume 2)", which is available as an inexpensive Dover edition [1].

It's problem #147. It asks you to deduce Wallis' formula from the identities that problem #143 asks you to prove. Those are:

sin(pi/2m) sin(2pi/2m) sin(3pi/2m)...sin((m-1)pi/2m) = sqrt(m)/2^(m-1)

sin(pi/4m) sin(3pi/4m) sin(5pi/4m)...sin((2m-1)pi/4m) = sqrt(2)/2^m

There is also a "Challenging Mathematical Problems With Elementary Solutions (Volume 1)", also available as an inexpensive Dover edition and, unlike Volume 2, available as en ebook [2].

Volume I's problems are divided into the following categories: introductory problems; the representation of integers as sums and products; combinatorial problems on the chessboard; geometric problems on combinatorial analysis; problems on the binomial coefficients; problems on computing probabilities; experiments with infinitely many possible outcomes; and experiments with a continuum of possible outcomes.

Volume II's problems are divided into the following categories: points and lines; lattices of points in the plane; topology; a property of the reciprocals of integers; convex polygons; some properties of sequences of integers; distributions of objects; nondecimal counting; polygons with minimal deviation from zero (Tchebychev polynomials); four formulas for pi; the calculation of areas of regions bounded by curves; some remarkable limits; and the theory of primes.

These have some fun and surprising problems. For instance, problem 119 of Volume 2: Let a=1/n be the reciprocal of a positive integer. Let A and B be two points of the plane such that the segment AB has length 1. Prove that every continuous curve joining A to B has a chord parallel to AB and of length a. Show that if a is not the reciprocal of an integer, then there is a continuous curve joining A to B which has no such chord of length a.

After the problems the books provide hints, and after the hints full solutions are provided.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Challenging-Mathematical-Problems- Ele...](https://www.amazon.com/Challenging-Mathematical-Problems-Elementary- Solutions/dp/0486655377/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1467751087&sr=1-1)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/Challenging-Mathematical-Problems- Ele...](https://www.amazon.com/Challenging-Mathematical-Problems-Elementary- Solutions/dp/0486655377/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=EDYH9A9SMH93WR3NW305)</comment>


Google Market Finder - <AUTHOR> https://marketfinder.thinkwithgoogle.com <comment><USER2> I was interested in this website's content and was about to sign up.

Then it pointed me to a google appengine sign up page, which says "Google is not affiliated with the contents of the application or its owners. If you sign in, Google will share your email address with the application but not your password or any other personal information."

That scared me, I thought I was phished.

I checked thinkwithgoogle.com 's whois, it does appear to be a domain owned by google.

then the above message is unnecessary. plus this domain does look like a phishing site.

you should use something like google.com/thinkwithgoogle or thinkwith.google.com

<comment><AUTHOR> You're absolutely right. I should have used the google.com domain. Not sure if it's possible to amend it now</comment></comment>


A Nazi Critic and a Gestapo Spy - <AUTHOR> https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-nazi-critic-and-a-gestapo-spy-a-1266249.html <comment><USER2> This was upper class resistance to the Nazis. The members of the Solf circle were aristocrats and included some members of the former Weimar government. There was other resistance centered in those social circles.

There was, of course, also resistance from groups in the middle and lower classes. One interesting aspect of the heroine of this tale is her piety, a common theme among those groups that crosses the lines of social class. Die Weise Rose was an example of a Catholic resistance group with similar motivations.

The lawyer Helmuth James von Moltke, who warned the diplomat Kiep of this informant's activities, was the great-grandnephew of Moltke the Elder, who won the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars in the 19th century, and grandnephew of Moltke the Younger, who, when he was promoted far beyond his capabilities to Chief of the German General Staff, screwed up von Schlieffen's plan such that the German attack on France at the start of WWI devolved into the trench warfare that disaster became known for, instead of a decisive and quick victory in the west before attacking the Russians in the east.

The Helmuth von Moltke of this story was executed by the Nazis in early 1945.

I think it's always salutary to be reminded who the actual Nazis were and the kinds of things that they did to overcome the contemporary habit of calling political opponents by that name. Godwin's Law wouldn't be a thing if more people studied the actual history involved.

<comment><USER3> > This was upper class resistance to the Nazis.

Even "resistance" seems strong. This was the Nazis murdering people for privately discussing true facts about the state of the war in Italy.

Lest anyone forget, authoritarianism is unimaginably grim.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The book about pre-war Berlin, "In the Garden of Beasts" recounts the experience of American Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd. As ambassador he and his family had many direct encounters with the German government of the time.

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

<comment><USER5> Is that book historical, or historical non-fiction? The latter being where the author embellishes facts for a better narrative.

I'm genuinely asking as I haven't read it and don't know anything about it.

<comment><USER6> It's a non-fiction book pretty much through and through. The author writes with an eye for entertaining narrative and thus you could assume that small parts are embellished a bit for this reason but overall I haven't seen any criticism of the book that claims anything remotely important to be fictional. Martha Dodd (the ambassador's daughter) comes across as particularly foolish. First because she tries to defend the Nazi regime to her friends and then when a bit of light finally dawns on her about its nature, switches over to becoming a useful idiot for the equally vicious soviet regime, working as an NKVD informatn/agent. And based on third party accounts and the old NKVD documents from her informant file, describing her as a useful idiot (stealing a phrase from Lenin) doesn't seem to be far off the mark. One soviet handler's description of her is rather amusing: "She considers herself a Communist and claims to accept the party's program. In reality she is a typical representative of American bohemia, a sexually decayed woman ready to sleep with any handsome man."

Dodd herself met Hitler once through an introduction by a man who at the time was a close friend of the dictator, and her description of him was that he was "excessively gentle and modest in his manners"... Indeed...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I found this fascinating. It's important that first-hand accounts like this are documented.

</comment><comment><USER8> I found it interesting that Gestapo spy became a spy for the Stasi. Funny how that works.

<comment><USER5> Ex-nazis worked for both sides during the Cold War. When you're an occupying army(US/UK, USSR) you look for people who can get stuff done and who know people, and that means hiring the people that have experience doing the work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I found the picture of Paul Reckzeh toward the end of the article haunting. Just an old man peering out of the window, 50 years after his crimes.

On another note, I'm a big fan of Bonhoeffer. I was surprised while reading his biography to see just how few German critics spoke out or tried to organize against Hitler. At the same time, it seems the Allies weren't listening to or cultivating anti-nazi Germans.

</comment><comment><USER10> why is this on HN?

<comment><USER11> Because it's interesting. Please see [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

Interesting historical material is always welcome on Hacker News. It's true that this story includes the words "Nazi" and "Gestapo" in its title; but not all such titles point to uninteresting flamebait, only most of them. Here we're interested in the exceptions to things.

<comment><USER12> "not all such titles point to uninteresting flamebait, only most of them"

Talking about flamebait...

<comment><USER11> I meant it more as a wry aside to keep the readers of tedious moderation comments mildly entertained, but you're right: it's awfully hard to do that and not cross over into being inflammatory to some readers.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Matterwiki, a simple, beautiful, and open source wiki for teams - <AUTHOR> http://matterwiki.com <comment><USER2> Hmm. I'm not sure I'd want to rely on NodeJS for something as important as a wiki, also I see it uses MySQL if you don't want to use SQLite - but does it support PostgreSQL? Also can you use Markdown? Personally I quite like GitLabs built in wiki which while basic is great as you can just clone the simple git repo which is purely markdown files which is lovely to distribute around various machines, you can also gem install gollum on your local machine and have a git version controlled, offline markdown editor interface that can commit back to the central repo.

</comment><comment><USER3> Neat, in need of a wiki for a project. Will check this one out.

As a sidenote, based on the name I originally thought this was an extension or a nephew product to mattermost[1].

[1]: [https://about.mattermost.com/](https://about.mattermost.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Wouldn't an underlying static generator engine be a more suitable approach for this job?</comment>


Silicon Valley's Most Disturbing Obsession - <AUTHOR> http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/10/silicon-valley-ayn-rand-obsession <comment><AUTHOR> _" I remember once overhearing, in a San Francisco coffee shop, a 19-year-old start-up founder callously offer advice to an 18-year-old founder about how to fire an engineer. It makes me wonder, Who are these young entrepreneurs learning from? Who is teaching them that when they press a button on their keyboard, millions, or even billions, of people can be affected, sometimes in terrifying ways?"_

The un-intended consequences of technology. With cars we got drive-ins, TV: tv-dinners, smart phones: distracted people. The street finds its own use for technology.</comment>


Hacker News Considers Banning Valleywag - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/11/hacker-news-considers-banning-valleywag/

<comment><USER2> Paul has created exactly the opposite effect he was hoping for, talk about giving Valleywag free PR.

I'm sure Owen and crew are plotting a year's worth of articles just to ruffle Paul's feathers now.

I guess there's a hidden PR lesson here:

If you don't like someone or something, just ignore them. Or better yet, create a system so the group can collectively tune them out.

Corollary:

If you want to get someone attention, create drama.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's nice to know that Michael Arrington agrees that Valleywag is toxic. And, I also find Michael's tone regarding Hacker News is significant. It's pretty clear that he has tons of respect for the site and what PG is doing with it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't believe in censorship, but I do believe in the community voting. I think the site/system works quite well as it is. If there would be any tweaking it would be to attribute some kind of score to people/sites which will weight give them a handicap score which will work alongside the standard voting algorithm. I don't agree that they should be automatically banned though

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm surprised Valleywag hasn't made a post about their banning. Perhaps they are still too busy complaining about how they were kicked out of the PopSugar- Techcrunch party.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand, why is this a big deal? It must be Friday.

<comment><USER7> Arrington doesn't really like Valleywag. Also, I think he does really like Hacker News. This post represents the synergy of those two personal interests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Three words: _slow news day_.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and see nothing but "valleywag reports on techcrunchs comments on hacker news banning valleywag for too many stories on techcrunchs reporting hacker news considering banning valleywag."

Can't you see this is rapidly becoming one of those death spirals from which we could rapidly collapse into digg like mediocrity. In fact, the feedback from this might be enough to destroy the internet. Our only hope is to ban ban stories about banning valleywag recursively out to some bizarre order of infinity that only cantor understands.</comment>


stickybits has raised $1.6m and is seeking NYC & Bay Area engineers - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2010/05/19/barcode-tagger-stickybits-scores-1-6-m-in-funding/

<comment><AUTHOR> Here are the job descriptions that will probably be of the most interest to HN readers:

senior python engineer: <http://www.stickybits.com/jobs/senior-python- engineer/>

android engineer: <http://www.stickybits.com/jobs/android-engineer/>

VP of engineering: <http://www.stickybits.com/jobs/vp-engineering/>

business manager: <http://www.stickybits.com/jobs/business-manager/>

Lots of exciting features and partnerships in the pipeline, and a chance to collaborate on a daily basis with our awesome co-founders.</comment>