How to Stay Focused When You're Working from Home - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2017/09/how-to-stay-focused-when-youre-working-from-home?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social <comment><USER2> Paired programmining in a skype call is not ideal, but it keeps me on track.</comment>


Does MongoDB 1.3.x (dev) silently lose your data? - <AUTHOR> http://www.korokithakis.net/node/116

<comment><USER2> MongoDB VERY CLEARLY warns you about the limitations of the 32-bit install when you spin it up. When I invoke mongod on my 32-bit development box, I get a nice big message:

      ** NOTE: when using MongoDB 32 bit, you are limited to about 2 gigabytes of data
      **       see http://blog.mongodb.org/post/137788967/32-bit-limitations for more

If you manage to miss that, it's your own fault. Combined with the fact that he was using an unstable development branch, he has absolutely zero room whatsoever to complain. He hit a documented limit and got less-than-friendly behavior on an unstable build of the software. Going nuclear over it is just silly, and makes him look inattentive and/or naive.

<comment><USER3> That seems like a brutal limitation done for non-obvious reasons ... I mean, wtf?

> _makes him look inattentive and/or naive_

Oh I wish you gave me more options. This is not a proper ad hominem.

<comment><USER2> It's a brutal limitation if you're expecting MongoDB to be "MySQL, except with more awesome because it's new and shiny!", sure, but once you read the blog post, it's quite apparent why - memory-mapped files are blisteringly fast, and raw speed at the cost of other features (like relational constraints, transactions, and single-server durability) is a part of the MongoDB setup. If those are acceptable sacrifices, then great, enjoy a wicked fast data store. If they're not, then it's not the tool for you, no matter how much the cool kids chat it up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Title is misleading, he was using the unstable dev branch. There's no evidence here that the stable branch does this.

<comment><USER5> Flagged, but a title change would be acceptable, too.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have updated the title in response to this criticism

<comment><USER5> Thanks! I unflagged it.

Come to think of it, the article is still a good cautionary tale. What it really teaches is:

a) do your research

b) use the production version if you're using code in production, unless you have a really good reason not to and have some safeguards in place

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use MongoDB, collecting just under 200k documents a day for months and I haven't lost any data yet so far that we've found. Sqlite looks pretty speedy though - may try going back to something like that for smaller jobs.

The one thing I found funny is that deleting documents from a database leaves the space allocated and you have to manually run the repair command to reclaim the space, but that requires 100% additional space because it creates a new db and copies the data there.... little bit of a problem since we were already a 99% for the device :-| other than that - been really happy with it.

<comment><USER7> That's not terribly uncommon. PostgreSQL also does not reclaim space from deleted rows until you vacuum. Many hash table implementations also only mark items deleted rather than actually removing them.

<comment><USER8> Although - for further clarification, PostgreSQL doesn't require 2x the total amount of disk to reclaim/reuse space under normal circumstances.

As of version 8.1 (out since 2005), VACUUMing is an automatic function inside the server. (autovacuum)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Er, wow. I don't get the impression he has any idea what's going on.

The title is incredibly misleading, especially given that this is a ~2 month old post.

As of _this_ writing, 1.4.x is the stable branch, with 1.5.x as the unstable.

I should note that I've been running MongoDB in Production since last August. Development, deployment and go Live occurred on a pre-GA 0.9.x version and I never encountered ANY issues. With almost a year of uptime I've had no data loss or anything else.

At the same time I understood I was using an unstable version and was careful to also understand what was going on under the covers.

So here's the REALLY important thing you should understand if you're using MongoDB because it probably has to do with his data "loss":

Data operations in Mongo, viz. insert/update are asynchronous - from both a API client and a disk-persistence standpoint. One of the things that gives you the speed boost you see from MongoDB is this concept.

When your language driver sends new rows, it does NOT by default wait around to see if Mongo saved it correctly. It sends it off, makes sure MongoDB got the data and returns to you. You can force it to wait, and you can ask it for the lastError - but normally you don't wait for a "I got it in correctly" answer.

Additionally, once MongoDB receives it, it goes into memory... it writes to disk lazily, rather than immediately (if you sent 1000 increment commands between the last disk write and the next, it would batch them into a single increment, etc).

Yes, these things can lead to data "loss" - or the appearance thereof. If you're sending in a bad update or insert statement and not checking for errors, data will "disappear" - by which I mean it was bad data and never accepted for write.

</comment><comment><USER10> Using MongoDB was a mistake to begin with even if he didn't select the wrong branch to use. His project isn't about databases, it's about machine learning. For his requirements, he just needs a simple datastore and it sounds like SQLite would have worked fine.

He procrastinated by trying out cool new software (a classic symptom of a project that is not going properly) and lost a lot of time because of the mistaken manner in which he did it.

He should get back on track by focusing on the real meat of his project and use the simplest bitbucket he can find for it.

<comment><USER11> Yes, the fact that MongoDB was losing his data was all his fault because he chose MongoDB. Sound logic.

<comment><USER12> Well, the problem was the unstable branch. The general case larger problem was that he wasn't paying attention to what the hell he was doing.

Oh yeah, hi BJ :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> hasnt for me, so far ... been running three _heavily_ written to mongo installs for more than a month...

<comment><USER14> I hope you have backups and have tested restoring them.

<comment><USER15> Agreed, but that has nothing to do with the use of MongoDB. Any data that "can't be lost" needs to be backed up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It should be noted that this post is over two months old.

</comment><comment><USER17> Wahwahwah. This guy sounds like he has never used open source software before. I have a complex mongodb install in production with no problems. Every time I "bundle install" it breaks something because everything is running edge and the APIs are changing all the time. If you are not competent to deal with that then maybe you shouldn't be playing with shiny new toys.</comment>


Do we need a new heading element in HTML? - <AUTHOR> https://jakearchibald.com/2017/do-we-need-a-new-heading-element/ <comment><USER2> > The suggestion is that <h> would solve this, as browsers would implement it > & do the right thing in terms of the accessibility tree.

> This is a common mistake in standards discussion - a mistake I've made many > times before. You cannot compare the current state of things, beholden to > reality, with a utopian implementation of some currently non-existent thing.

Ugh, yes, this happens so often: something is implemented badly, so we propose to add the same thing again under a different name and with subtle differences, assuming it'll be implemented right this time.

If possible, it's better to try and get the implementations fixed. That may not even require changes to the standard.

<comment><USER3> > > You cannot compare the current state of things, beholden to reality, with > a utopian implementation of some currently non-existent thing.

This feels like a fallacy worthy of a name. Does it have one?

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy) is closest?

<comment><USER4> "A choice between one realistic achievable possibility and another unrealistic solution that could in some way be better" is the definition on Wikipedia. Sounds pretty much spot-on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Heading styles (whether in HTML or word processors) have long been a source of annoyance for me, because they constantly have to be redone.

Current models all follow the top-down approach -- assume you know your top sections when you start (H1), then drill down into H2, H3, etc.

But just as often you want to do bottom-up -- start with a short article with a single heading (H1), then add a sibling section (turn both H1's into H2's, add the "real" H1), then put those both under a larger section (H2's become H3's, H1's turn into H2's, new H1), and so on.

 _Any_ manual choice of heading levels is just dumb, frankly. <h> is a great solution -- I just want to see something similar for word processors as well!

<comment><USER6> You won't have that problem if you use HTML5 sections.

The outline is defined using sections, and you can use all h1s (or at least h1s are scoped to the section, so more easily managed)

<comment><USER7> I would be careful with that approach. I've followed it for a couple of years, but noticed that browser vendors and other tools have not embraced this change.

While it's technically still correct, it might backfire in reality. So maybe this <h>-element would be a welcome addition to the spec.

[https://www.w3.org/wiki/HTML/Usage/Headings/h1only#Heading_s...](https://www.w3.org/wiki/HTML/Usage/Headings/h1only#Heading_semantics_exposed_by_browsers) [http://html5doctor.com/computer-says-no-to-html5-document- ou...](http://html5doctor.com/computer-says-no-to-html5-document-outline/)

<comment><USER8> It looks like that method is now deprecated in HTML 5.1. [https://bitsofco.de/document-outlines-in- html-5-1/](https://bitsofco.de/document-outlines-in-html-5-1/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A good editor can automatically fix <hN> values if needed. But if you're writing an html page, you should already know what you're writing (outline, editing, review, etc). How often are you re-scoping everything?

Any discussion like this needs a Tufte reference:

 _It is also notable that the Feynman lectures (3 volumes) write about all of physics in 1800 pages, using only 2 levels of hierarchical headings: chapters and A-level heads in the text. It also uses the methodology of sentences which then cumulate sequentially into paragraphs, rather than the grunts of bullet points. Undergraduate Caltech physics is very complicated material, but it didn 't require an elaborate hierarchy to organize. A useful decision rule in thinking and showing is "What would Feynman do?"_

[https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg?msg_id=...](https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg?msg_id=0000hB)

<comment><USER10> Indeed. Several times I tried to style the tags h1 through h6 so that they were distinguished while not getting too extreme. So I used a combination of font size, weight, underline, and color. When at last I thought I succeeded, I began to ask myself if it mattered. For what reader could really keep track of six levels of headings in single page anyway?

Several levels of headings, along with bullet points and numbered lists, benefit the writer, while you plan your work. But they are not ideal for the reader. I think the best form for the reader is ironically the well-told yarn: a series of well-composed "sentences which then cumulate sequentially into paragraphs," as the venerable Mr. Tufte says.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I _still_ get SEO 'experts' giving reports on sites I've worked on that claim that skipping from a h1 to a h3 without an intervening h2 will cause lower Google rankings. If this is actually true then I truly despair of this life. But I strongly suspect it's the fact that the SEO community seems to only learn new factoids and never discards old ones.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have no insight, but I'm pretty confident this is nonsense. A lot of sites have broken heading structures - it'd be a mistake to downrank otherwise good results because of this.

<comment><USER12> Remember -- these are the same "SEO experts" that will happily tell you that you need to host every web site on its own IP address, even though a Google employee has said unequivocally (over 10 years ago!) that this has no impact on ranking.

<comment><USER13> I think you'll find the SEO community to be pretty scientific.

Presumably it's Matt Cutts you're referring too - I'm pretty sure he's lied before about optimisations; Google after all don't want people to know all the details to avoid gaming the algos. If shared IP is a strong signal for low quality sites then it's to Google's benefit to avoid confirming that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe I'm mistaken, but weren't the
,
, etc elements defined to be essentially equivalent in HTML5, with the number being there for legacy agents only?

I.e., non-legacy browsers should _already_ ignore the number and only take nested
 elements into account when building the tree and calculating the heading level.

So the following:

Heading

Sub heading

       ...

would be perfectly valid.

<comment><USER15> Not quite. You can do things like this, and the `section > h2` will properly be a subheading of the `section > h1`, which will be a subheading of `article > h1`:

Why Fancy Keyboards Are Great

Fancy keyboards are wonderful. Here's why:

Ergonomics

Not contorting your body into a pretzel is wonderful.

Low-force keys

You can get fancy keyboards with Gateron Clears to make typing easier.

            ...

This sort of thing is handy if your blog software (Jekyll, Hugo, etc.) mechanically pastes the output of a Markdown processor into a space reserved for blog posts. Particularly if you want to use h1 elements in your Markdown source and have things turn out right without rewriting header levels.

Like with a lot of document-markup doodads, there's an automated checker for this sort of thing: [https://gsnedders.html5.org/outliner/](https://gsnedders.html5.org/outliner/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wait. I'm not a HTML/CSS wiz by anyone's stretch of anyone's imagination, but isn't H1 the semantically correct thing to use here?

So using his first example, instead of using
 just use
, and then style it differently (if you want) with .promo>h1?

/me braces for thunderous scorn

edit: oh, I see, that breaks accessibility readers. Well that's unfortunate.

</comment><comment><USER17> > Unfortunately, no browser implements the outline when it comes to the > accessibility tree, meaning screen readers still see an
 as a level 1 > heading no matter how many sections it's within.

> This sucks. The outline was kinda the whole point.

But is the point still _relevant_? Most of the world has essentially ignored semantic markup for decades. How is improving the semantics helping anything if most people don't use it?

(aside: Semantics crusaders remind me of Douglas Adams' character Slartibartfast in "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe". In the book, travel through time to change the outcome of historical events has become so rampant that Slartibartfast joins what is called The Capmain for Real Time in order to preserve the "original" historical record. Nobody pays any attention to him of course, and they just keep on changing history as benefits them.)

<comment><USER18> Sometimes virtue is its own reward.

Its funny that you bring up Slartibartfast's Campaign for Real Time, which was based on the real life Campaign for Real Ale. Sure, CAMRA didn't put an end to awful mass-market lagers: but they _were_ able to keep real ale available, and continue to do so today.

Perhaps those of us who appreciate semantic markup can do the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> >Do we need a new heading element in HTML?

No.

</comment><comment><USER20> This would be a huge improvement. Still it remains somewhat ugly that you can specify a heading anywhere inside a section (not just at the top).

</comment><comment><USER21> Something cool you can do with React is create an intelligent `Heading` component that wires into context to determine where it is at in the tree. It could then adjust it's actual HTML heading element accordingly. So for example, when you have a `Heading` inside another `Heading`, they render to `h2` and `h1` respectively.

</comment><comment><USER22> I like to use
 in exactly this (proposed <h>) fashion, and just pretend
 etc. don't exist. Always have been curious if there are non-obvious drawbacks.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is covered in the article - it isn't represented in the accessibility tree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> ... that thing about the answer to titles ending in question marks.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's the general issue with this? I've heard it before in relation to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines), but that doesn't seem to apply here.

<comment><USER23> Just my opinion, but why do we need an <h> element since we already have 6 of them?

<comment><AUTHOR> Check out the article, it essentially claims we might not.

<comment><USER24> Isn't that the point? Betteridge's Law worked again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, kinda. I think in Betteridge's Law the author intends to suggest the answer is "yes", but uses a question to avoid making a claim, so the real answer is usually "no".

In this case, it's the author's (me) intention to leave the reader thinking the answer is "maybe" or "probably not".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Surprised it wouldn't come with a new attribute, like level, in case you don't trust the browser to autocalc... <h level=1>

<comment><AUTHOR> This kinda already exists [https://www.w3.org/TR/wai- aria/states_and_properties#aria-le...](https://www.w3.org/TR/wai- aria/states_and_properties#aria-level)

<comment><USER25> That's mentioned in the github thread. Would it be, though, the first time changing an aria-whatever attribute would have a visual effect on the page (without specific css)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Huh, good point. I can't find any pseudo-class that's affected by aria.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There is  already. What would be the difference between <h> and  ?

<comment><USER27> header is metadata about the page and other related resources.

This is dealing with the semantic issue of, for example, web components not knowing enough about the context they are in to be able to declare the correct heading tag (h1, h2, h3... etc) as a static tag

<comment><USER28> Nope.

It's already been solved by HTML spec.

Having an H tag it's the same of having the header tag. It doesn't solve any of the problems.

see [http://imgur.com/a/FnLVb](http://imgur.com/a/FnLVb)

<comment><USER29> Doing it like that means:

a) All headers are H1, and styled the same, unless you then start classing up the section and h1 tags accordingly = more complex css than need be.

b) not-so-clever page crawlers won't be able to extract the real H1 header that should title the page content.

<comment><USER28> I was just showing how the DEAFAULT browser's CSS take care of nesting and different importance of H1 tags depending on the context. H1 is already the H you're looking for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> In OpenDocument Format it's <text:h text:outline-level="1"> etc.

</comment><comment><USER31> Correct me if I'm wrong but that's what  is for.

You can use this tag in articles, figcaptions, et al

</comment><comment><USER32> Simply use  or  to let the browser know that your heading is important.

<comment><USER33> I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a joke, or...?

<comment><USER32> Not a joke at all.

It should look like:

My page title

        My page is the best page on this website.

If your heading is a paragraph you should use a
 instead.

That's what we have been doing for ages. I don't see the need for a new tag. HTML5 already add semantic tags. Before, it would have been the same as this snipped I posted but without the  tag. Now that this tag exists there is no confusion at all. Web crawlers should be smart enough to know that the  that that is in a header right next to a title is a heading.

Hell, even <hgroup> has been deprecated because we don't need those tags.

<comment><USER33> But what does that have to do with the original article? The problem it's discussing is the lack of a context-dependent outline algorithm for h1-6 elements in modern browsers.

<comment><USER32> It already does that. If you do :

My website

My section

</section

The second
 will act as a
.

Edit: I think I'm missing the point here. Ignore those posts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> No, we need to be able to create our own custom elements as needed and share them in an ecosystem of components.

<comment><USER35> I think that's what Javascript is for...

<comment><USER36> I thought that's what XSLT was for (All I know about XSLT is that it's a fearsome thing, so maybe I'm wrong).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Been writing HTML for 10+ years and never encountered <h>, really makes you question your understanding haha

<comment><USER33> That's because it's effectively never existed, as it was never implemented in any popular browsers.</comment></comment>


Moon Rock Delights - <AUTHOR> http://www.eeweb.com/rtz/moon-rock-delights

<comment><USER2> You know, it might be completely irrational and unreasonable, but it kinda bothers me that you only ever submit stuff from your own web site, and that so much of it is so completely off-topic for HN.

Do you submit _everything_ on your site? Does it not give you cause for pause that basically nothing ever gets upvoted? You may not care about the (lack of) karma, but it's a strong indication that there's a complete mismatch between the community here and your submissions.

I guess it doesn't matter, but I was just, well, curious.</comment>


Ask HN: Whats the best way to learn Adobe Photoshop? - <AUTHOR> If one was to use it to create prototypes of product designs in 2D <comment><USER2> Follow the guide along with infographics in your solution. including some various paths, you may consider. [https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-way- to-learn-Adobe-Ph...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-way-to-learn- Adobe-Photoshop/answer/Md-Bakhtiar-Uddin-1)

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're going to be creating prototypes, that's above intermediate, so you're looking at a significant investment of time in any case. But Lynda.com videos are helpful, but also look at Jesus Ramierez's videos, Phlearn, or the videos available in Creative Cloud for PS. Photoshop is very powerful and can be used for all sorts of things including video editing. There are so many features that it's easy to get confused if you're trying to just do photo editing, or just do product designs, for example. But I'd recommend diving in and figuring out how to do what your goal is really well and not worrying about the other capabilities until needed or time allows. Of course what it will eventually boil down to is just spending time working in the program. Lots of time.

</comment><comment> open-source-ux There are lots of beginner tutorials on Photoshop on YouTube. You'll also find many courses on subscription sites like lynda.com or skillshare.com.

However, if you are planning to use Photoshop for user interface design, I recommend using a vector tool like Sketch (Mac only) or Affinity Designer (Mac and Windows). Laying out interface elements is much easier in these apps than in Photoshop. Both Sketch and Affinity Designer have features that target UI design.

Although Photoshop has some vector tools, it's strength is in photo editing and digital painting, plus it has a sprawling, clunky interface that is harder to learn than the aforementioned vector tools.

<comment><USER4> Adobe has its own Vector tool in Illustrator.

<comment> open-source-ux The reason I didn't recommend Illustrator is that, like Phostoshop, it is powerful and rich in features but also has a clunky and clumsy interface. It is not as optimised or streamlined for UI design as newer apps such as Sketch or Affinity Designer (IMO).

Illustrator is subscription-based too, unlike Sketch and Affinity Designer. For example, purchasing Sketch gets you one year of updates, but if you don't upgrade or renew after a year you can keep using the version of the app you downloaded. This is different from Adobe's subscription model where the moment you stop paying your monthly or yearly subscription fee, the app stops working.

<comment><USER4> If your job is a professional visual designer, then Sketch and Affinity aren't going to cut it, which are more suited to wire frames than production vector assets (and vice versa, illustrator sucks at wire framing). If you are just a pure interaction designer, then you might be able to get by without an Adobe CS subscription at all.

If you are wire framing, then being vector really has nothing especially to do with it, it's just that this is the default for block and drop style apps. In that way, PowerPoint is vector also, but no one talks about refining Bézier curves with it.

<comment> open-source-ux I disagree. For wireframing, vector tools are essential because of the ease with which you can move and scale elements.

Sketch and Affinity Designer are perfectly capable of exporting production vector assets - Sketch can even export CSS attributes. Sketch in particular has a thriving eco-system of plugins.

An online search quickly reveals a plethora of Sketch templates with pre-made UI elements for all operating systems and platforms: not wireframes, but high fidelity mock-up designs.

<comment><USER4> Sketch is not a serious vector production tool, at least not in the same league as Illustrator. It is proficient at wire framing, hence the name "sketch." There isn't much difference from a wire frame and a mock up in that context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My partner learned Photoshop (and AutoCAD and SketchUp) using Lynda video courses and was very impressed. I'm not a huge fan of learning by video personally but on that sort of situation I think it makes sense!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot guys, I will get started with Lynda seems like a good place to start</comment>


All the Product Reviews Money Can Buy - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/your-money/all-the-product-reviews-money-can-buy.html <comment><USER2> > Many of the reviews arrived in a matter of minutes, and all were left > without comment.

I think the example is misleading. It confirms many people's beliefs that they they can detect fake reviews based on characteristics like length, quality of the writing, etc. But anyone who notices those characteristics, and many people do, could write a much more sophisticated fake review. From what I understand, there are plenty of services that will do that.

</comment><comment><USER3> Has there been any discussion on how to solve these sorts of issues recently? Clearly, going after the people doing them won't always work, as there will always be another platform.

Does a site like amazon only allow people who purchased the product through then leave a review? How about other sites?

<comment><USER4> It is very common for sites to allow non-verified purchasers to leave reviews. Amazon works this way. You'll see reviews on Amazon all the time where people specifically mention that they bought it somewhere else. I've always wondered why someone would leave a legitimate review on Amazon for a product they didn't buy from Amazon. Maybe the answer is that they aren't legitimate though.

Some review software notes when a reviewer is a verified purchaser. I look for that when reading reviews because at least they have the product in question.

<comment><USER5> Sometimes companies would pay (or reimburse) for their "preferred" reviewers to purchase a product off amazon so they can leave favorable reviews as a "verified purchased".

Sometimes the reviewers would be honest and say they are reviewing on behalf of company X. Sometimes not.

Anyways, all of this is a roundabout way of saying that even reviews from verified purchasers may not be 100% honest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I mean it is bad that people can leave fake reviews, but it is even more messed up that amazon can sue these people for essentially breaking their tos.

It is on Amazon to find technical solutions to technical problems like this, not the government.

<comment><USER7> It strikes me as odd to characterize civil suits as "the government". Maybe private enforcement organizations would be harder on fake reviewers ;)

<comment><USER8> We're already finding that arbitration rather than courts to settle disputes puts the public at a much greater disadvantage than corporations. I don't think that's a good thing as corporations already wield much too much power. Arbitration also keeps cases from becoming public knowledge which again, not good for the public.

<comment><USER9> Well, yeah, I don't think it should be surprising that public institutions are sometimes better at serving the public interest. That's sort of the whole point of having them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Everyone still is trying to work around the fact that you can't believe what random unknown people say, either in a bar or on the Internet. There is no solution; just stop believing it.</comment>


Ask HN: What project management software is your team using right now? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Telegram and trello.

</comment><comment><USER3> TFS</comment>


I Need Your Input: I'm Giving Away Free Samples of My Material - <AUTHOR> Hello HN,
In the approximately six (6) humble years of my walking-up the ladder of Online Entrepreneurship and running my Software as a Service (SaaS) Startup (Open e-Mark), I made a few interesting discoveries I'd love to share with you guys:
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Secondly: I discovered that a huge number of those who took the plunge to start a web-based business, soon got frustrated and quit after the first few months of trying, because they "failed to gain traction among users"; which (in my opinion) is the aftermath of not giving users what they want; which yet again (in my opinion) is the aftermath of not really understanding those users and how they interact with one's web-property.
So, I'm giving-away free-samples of a work I'm producing. It's a down-to-earth and practical material which touches on a number of areas, including:
1.For those who currently (or are planning to) monetize their property via Advertising, exposure to the most common Online Ad Jargons; plus how to easily calculate the eCPM of any Ad Campaign (CPA, CPC, or CPM) they allow to run on those properties.
2.Beyond Google Analytics, how to easily identify those portions of a web-property that resonate with your visitors, so you can optimize accordingly to skyrocket your Conversion Rate.
3.How to easily create Funnels on a web-app, blog/website, and guide users into and through such Funnels, in order to achieve marketing-goals; monitoring them as they proceed in the process…and more.
Here's a link to the material: http://selz.co/NyVKK5glB
I'd really love to get your inputs on this. And feel free to ask me any questions. <comment><USER2> > 1.For those who currently (or are planning to) monetize their property via > Advertising, exposure to the most common Online Ad Jargons; plus how to > easily calculate the eCPM of any Ad Campaign (CPA, CPC, or CPM) they allow > to run on those properties.

Wouldn't this be against your opinion of "not giving users what they want"? If you have to advertise, you've already failed. Users who need the product will find it anyway.</comment>


Need help for school project ASP.NET - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/30361278/asp-net-on-mac-osx-build-failed-are-you-missing-an-assembly-reference

<comment><AUTHOR> Need to make a project for school in ASP.NET but I can't do a build on my mac. The deadline is closing up slowly, so I thought maybe I can seek for an answer here.

Thank you, Cheers.</comment>


Controversy over increasing the Bitcoin block size resurfaces - <AUTHOR> https://ihb.io/2015-05-04/news/hard-fork-bitcoin-17003 <comment><USER2> The common issues are kind of funny.

Transaction Fee Death Spiral: Bitcoin is advertised as a way to transfer money at low costs but then you don't want transaction fees as low as possible? Looks to me like you are not interested in a system with low transaction fees but one to maximize your mining profits.

Centralization Death Spiral: The amount of data to keep around depends on the number of transactions, not the block size. The larger block size only ever matters if the smaller block size gets saturated. And then you either increase the block size or you run a system that is constantly overloaded. Higher demand will cause higher fees and may push a couple of transactions that are not worth the costs out but in the long run you will make your users unhappy if their transactions are not executed unless they throw a lot of fees at them. And after all 1 TB per year is not exactly a huge amount of data.

Block Subsidy, Fees, and Blockchain Security: Bitcoin is by its very nature an expensive system. Not sure what the current costs per transactions are but they used to be on the order of $10 per transaction. None of the often mentioned target audiences of Bitcoin - unbanked people in poor areas, people looking for low transaction costs, micro payment services - is willing to pay that once the block reward is gone. Then you face the choice - reduce the hash rate or process more transactions, nothing else we reduce transaction costs. Especially not more efficient and cheaper mining hardware in case you want to maintain the security level because attackers will gain the same advances.

<comment><USER3> >Centralization Death Spiral

Isn't this a non-issue in the long-run due to Moore's law? Even if centralization happens in the short-run as a result of processing expenses, everything is destined to become decentralized as processing power increases.

>Transaction fees

Could someone please explain why transaction fees are deemed necessary?

<comment><USER4> Transaction fees are paid to the miner who solves the block containing your transaction. It's an incentive for the miner to include your transaction in the block. Without fees, your transaction will get processed eventually, but miners tend to put profitable transactions first.

Eventually, the block reward will be very small and transaction fees will be the only profit miners make. So you're basically paying the miners to protect the network by verifying the transactions.

<comment><USER5> > Without fees, your transaction will get processed eventually, but miners > tend to put profitable transactions first.

IIRC this is only because some generous folks run miners willing to process zero-fee transactions in order to clean them up and forgive those who probably made the transaction fee too small in error. What if they decide to stop upgrading their equipment to keep up with the difficulty?

<comment><USER4> There are a few of those, but also the default client behavior boosts the priority of old transactions so they will be processed eventually. I would guess that high-throughput miners responsible for the majority of hashing power would have other priorities though, so the "default" config might cover a minority of hashing power.

Edit: It's the age of the inputs to the transaction, not the age of the transaction itself that counts. But it's possible to just wait until the transaction inputs are old and then the transaction will go through.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I bootstrap an online real-time multi-player game? - <AUTHOR>

A friend and I have been working on a browser-based real-time multi-player game for over a year now. Right from the start, we considered the real-time multi-player aspect of our game to be its biggest strength, given that it is a browser-based game and it does not use Flash or any browser plugins (yes, so it works on Mobile Safari on the iPad too).
Now, the problem we're facing is, boot-strapping the ecosystem within the game. We do not have a single-player mode, because it is a strategy game and we felt that writing a reasonably good AI engine would take a lot of time - we've already been in development for 1.5 years (working part-time on it) and we want to push out what we have ASAP. We've shown it to our friends, everyone says the game is very addictive. BUT, the problem is, to get the full experience of the game, several people (10 at least) need to be playing together in real-time. Achieving that critical mass of people, that initial push, to sustain the multi-player ecosystem is proving to be a challenge.
We tried contacting tech and gaming blogs, etc. We were featured once by a tech blog, but what happened was, though we had a lot of traffic, people visited the site sporadically and none of them got the actual experience of the game. So well, no one came back. (It's a real drag to play the game single-handedly).
Any tips on how to go about boot-strapping our multi-player game? <comment><USER3> Sounds like you've picked the single hardest thing to bootstrap. Games are the hardest software products to make successful. Mmos are the hardest type of game to make successful. It will be hard.

For some reason this George carlin quote springs to mind:

"have you ever tried to start a path? It's hard. You have to hold down the grass by yourself for a while."

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it's so hard!

<comment><USER4> Thats what she said.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just had an extremely hard time connecting to the game. 20 tries or more, but now it's going through.

The game can be fixed to be more playable with few people.

Just have random pixels teleport into the watermark, and don't award anything(or as little as possible) for the teleported pixels. Then, if you have only one player, you basically get a cool effect with pixels rapidly flying into place. With two or more players, the game starts to move along, but the pacing of pixel teleports is controlled by the number of people playing. At 10 players you turn off teleporting and it's all player- controlled. No real AI is necessary, the goal is just to make sure things are happening onscreen and the player has to fight to make a difference at all times. The dullness primarily comes from the screen being static and lifeless, and that is easy to fix.

Also, add particle effects. They help.

<comment><AUTHOR> 20 tries?! That's a lot. Could you let me know what browser/OS combination you were using?

Your idea sounds brilliant. But my concern is, don't you think the teleporting will start to look like cheap AI? I mean, teleported pixels will jump walls of pixels and might evade any strategy the user is trying to adopt. It will essentially break the rules of the game and will give a totally different experience (in the negative sense) of the game. Imagine a strategy game like Age of Empires in which all the AI does it to fly across the map and attack your area directly!

Or is it just me thinking this way?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I just checked the game out, it looks fun. You're saying the user earns points and stuff, but there's so little feedback about the point and xp gains. Maybe you should add little glowy point popups for that.

Go check <http://www.realmofthemadgod.com/> . It is a real time Flash MMO and it does a very good job at displaying user progress.

Also if you want to go "gray" you can code some AI which mimics basic user actions at low frequency and display a higher online user count.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. The link I posted here is actually the lite version of the game: No login, no history of points earned, etc. Adhoc type, to lower the barrier to entry. Once you finish the lite game, you're shown the link to the main game. The rationale being, if the player finished atleast one lite game, he/she will like the main game.

The main game shows points, has badges, levels, more super pixels and lots more.

The problem with AI is, this is a real-time strategy game and we being a two member team, it's going to take us a long time to come up with anything that's good enough to come anywhere close to a real person. And if we have dumb bots playing, new players might mis-construe it as a single-player game with terrible AI!

<comment><USER6> You are preventing the users from making emotional investment in your game by witholding progess feedback. I don't think it is a good idea. Just display big flashy numbers when a user places a square on a tile.

And if you really really want decent AI then maybe you should hire some people, teenagers, kids to play it for a while.

<comment><AUTHOR> Point taken about "preventing the users from making emotional investment in your game by witholding progess feedback".

We do have the points 'on demand' inside the stats tab at the bottom of the screen (more due to technical issues with synchronizing points in real-time). We'll work on putting it up prominently on the front screen. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 1) You might be able to implement sufficiently smart bots that seem like real people. Only use this technique in the beginning, and as soon as you get some real players, kill the bots

2) You can pay a bunch of people far away to play the game for two weeks, and during those two weeks ramp up your real-time presence (as in, actively tweet and hang out in gaming forums and just dedicate yourself to shameless self- promotion)

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. Like I pointed out in another comment, we are a two-member team and getting a bot to play a real-time strategy game, is going to be time- consuming.

2\. Good idea! Do you know anyone who might be interested? Or how I could reach them? Sites like freelancer.com don't exactly fit the picture right?

<comment><USER7> 1\. I don't know anything about the actual gameplay, but I think you are not interpreting this right. I don't mean some highly involved complex AI, I mean just something that picks its moves slightly better than random. These things are perfect for a genetic algorithm, or an ant-colony-like simulation (Look up John Koza's books on how to do this right). Also, if you are a two-member team, and this is your _biggest_ problem (which it sounds like it is - <USER2> have a product and no users!) then you should devote time to it.

2\. I don't know anyone personally, but sounds like what you need to do it go on Elance and find a "virtual backoffice" team, and pay them to recruit local players.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One thing that we are very confident of is that if we were only able to let this 'critical mass' of people know about the game, it would certainly be a big hit and grow exponentially. This conclusion is based on actual feedback about the game from people who we've shown the game to. Everyone unanimously agrees though that getting this critical mass is going to be difficult. Help!

</comment><comment><USER8> Its an interesting game, but I was wondering if you have any monetization plans.

The reason I am asking is because, even though you may be able to make this game very popular, it seems almost impossible to monetize, because there isn't any "virtual goods" to sell. Even advertising doesn't seem like an effective way to monetize this game.

<comment><AUTHOR> The link I posted on this thread is actually the lite version of the game, where the super pixels are limited etc. In the main game, we have levels, more super pixels (virtual goods) which we plan to monetize. But monetization is really not our goal right now. We are looking to first establish our user base and get them to like the game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> AdWords. Use accelerated delivery and scheduling to deliver a bunch of traffic to your site within a one or two hour window. Pick good keywords so the people actually want to play a game. This method won't be super cheap, but it will do what you want. Whether your game will hook them is another question.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the pointer about accelerated delivery in AdWaords. We were also planning to advertise on Facebook, since we get to choose the demographic of the target audience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I should chime in here. I've been bootstrapping a small games business for about a year. My first game Neptune's Pride has seen some success and my second game Blight of the Immortals is due out in January.

I'm on the iPad right now, email me and we can chat off line.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just sent you an email.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Another idea was that we hold competitions within a community eg, a university setting, and give away cool prizes to top teams. This would not only get the word out about the game, but also get us a set of players who will take the extra effort to be good at the game.

</comment><comment><USER10> In these games you can usually level up or something by yourself. And than you do fun stuff with friends. Is there any way of making your character better by things you can do alone?

By the way I'd like to see that game, can I be a beta tester? :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you can earn points, level up, trade points for special powers. We have all those elements in place. But, to earn those points in the first place, you need to play a game, for which we need several people, for it to be fun! And that's our problem.

And sure the game is live at <http://pixza.com/lite>

<comment><USER11> Is it just filling in a grey B with blue boxes? I don't get it.

Maybe you could have smaller levels that two-three people could play which demonstrates the strategy elements. Something that could be completed in a few minutes. Then, as more players are online - let them attempt bigger maps.

<comment><AUTHOR> The "grey B" is what we call the watermark. With each game, your team is assigned a random watermark. And you need to fill it up with blue pixels. The opponent's watermark is hidden from your team's view and vice versa. The team which fills its respective watermark first wins the game. And then there are super pixels which can possibly change the entire course of the game! It's a strategy game.

Here's how an actual game with atleast 4 people per team looks like:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcRKXgy2rg4>

And, we actually had a bigger grid earlier! And then we brought it down to the current size. Any more reduction, and the game will become too easy!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Another idea a friend suggested is to package the game as an iPad app and put it up on the AppStore. That would give us an additional distribution channel and Apple's user review system could benefit a lot. Are my premises and conclusions correct?

</comment><comment><USER12> You should try Amazon Mechanical Turk. Having used it for a huge amount of projects, I find it very effective. Cheap labour > expensive automations usually.

Edit: having seen your game, I don't think it's ready yet. You should have some tutorials, get social integration, and improve the look and feel before trying to get user traction.

<comment><AUTHOR> Um, I posted a link to the lite version of the game here. At the end of the lite version the user is shown a link to the main game which is at <http://pixza.com/league>.

In the main game, we use Twitter's @Anywhere platform. We have a wiki at <http://pixza.com/wiki>. We have tutorials (even video) in there. Do you think we're missing something besides this?

And thanks for the pointer to Amazon Mechanical Turk. Will definitely look into it.

<comment><USER12> Sorry I must've been looking at the lite.

Ignore that part then please.</comment></comment></comment>


Careful, Twitter — remember what happened to MySpace and Digg - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2012/06/30/careful-twitter-remember-what-happened-to-myspace-and-digg/ <comment><USER2> same advice for facebook</comment>


Show HN: Recursive Donations to support Open Source maintainers - <AUTHOR> https://recursive.gives/ <comment><USER2> How do you legally distribute financial contributions? Who will be eligible to receive funding for work on a particular project? Who figures out the tax issues across jurisdictions? How do you become a relevant site representing such projects?

I am not saying it cannot be done. It definitely can, and the more options we have the better. Sites like [https://www.opencollective.com](https://www.opencollective.com) are trying. Github has a bunch of new Sponsorship features. They have the audience.

Sites like [https://www.libaries.io](https://www.libaries.io) and [https://www.repology.org](https://www.repology.org) are building dependency graphs. There are other places which can help to identify the recursive structure you are after.

Fiscal sponsorship entities like [https://www.sfconservancy.org](https://www.sfconservancy.org) and [https://www.techcultivation.org](https://www.techcultivation.org), apache.org etc are trying to tackle some of the issues to legally represent projects (and receive donations for them).

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the links. Very useful. As a company that relies on open-source and wants to donate some (limited) money, we're facing a challenge. How do we easily donate a fixed sum every year/month and make sure it goes to open- source projects we depend on.

I tried [https://backyourstack.com](https://backyourstack.com) and uploaded our Gemfile.lock (rubygems) to try to match it with opencollective projects. It detected 249 dependencies but _zero_ projects that require funding on opencollective :(

Do you have any advice on how to go about it? we really want to contribute back, but it seems like an impossible task right now.

EDIT: btw both www.libraries.io and www.repology.org cannot resolve DNS for me... are they gone?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, exactly that problem do we want to solve! Good to hear that more people want to donate but face this problem.

The links btw are: [https://libraries.io/](https://libraries.io/) and [https://repology.org](https://repology.org)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here:

I know several people and also companies who would like to support Open Source financially, but don't know how to do it in a fair way. Usually, there is just one approach, pick the most important library/project you depend on and donate some money to them. I asked myself if there is a simple method to support more maintainers with one donation, especially those who are further down the dependency chain and, thus, lack visibility. If you want to donate, for example, 100$ to 100 libraries, it is almost impossible to do it easily. You have to investigate for every single project if they accept donations, what platform they use for it, split the money, pay in the worst case 100 times transaction fees (credit card, bank transfer fees), and finally initiate the transactions.

I envision that you can donate on one platform and the donation is transparently and automatically distributed to all maintainers your project depends on. On the contributors' side, this means that even if you are a small library down the dependency chain and don't usually get a lot of visibility, you receive a small amount of the donation. I built a small mock up to demonstrate how it could work ... [https://recursive.gives](https://recursive.gives)

As there are a lot of Open Source enthusiasts here, I would like to know if you think that it can work or if you have any other suggestion to tackle the problem.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why do the devDependencies gets less attention than the "normal" dependencies?

In my case, it does not matter if the dependency was added to "dev" or "normal", because I just compile JavaScript and CSS to a minified version. All dependencies are needed in the build process only.

I would recomment not to differentiate between runtime dependencies and dev dependencies.

<comment><AUTHOR> Usually, your runtime deps are still in your minified version and used during runtime. But in general, it might be a good idea to offer this as an option to the user how the money should be distributed.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why are you still at your current job? - <AUTHOR> I've seen posts lately about large disparities in salary comp even within organizations and unhappiness with current roles/responsibilities (engineering specifically). I was wondering for people who do not feel valued or are not in great environments at their current company: 1. What in your job do you enjoy? (comp, responsibilities, learning, people)
2. What in your job are you missing?
3. Why are you still there even when the job market seems to be extremely healthy right now?
4. What would give you the push to leave?
Feel free to e-mail me answers too if you don't want to post. I'm just curious. <comment><USER2> 1\. It pays the bills. I make more than 97% of people in the US. I'm going to get paid a guaranteed 15% bonus at the end of this year. There ain't no way I'm getting fired from here: I know that this employer really can't afford to fire even mediocre people due to the sky-high cost of replacing them.

2\. The people here are .. mediocre. I'm not learning anything. I'm not 100% sure whether anyone gives half a turd about the project I'm working on. And I have to dress like a damn fool. (Business casual sucks.)

3\. I'm still here because I haven't found anything better just yet. The roof isn't on fire & this job kind of does what it's supposed to do for my family, so I can afford to take the time to find something better. I am actively doing that.

4\. I'll leave once I've found an opportunity that I love. I'll know it when I see it.

<comment><USER3> _And I have to dress like a damn fool. (Business casual sucks.)_

I realize that this wasn't the main point of your post, but I do have some thoughts on this. My first job after college was at a Fortune 500 company that required business casual. I dressed like an idiot. My shirts were too big (and all of the same single-color button-up variety). My pants didn't fit right (and weren't altered to match my actual height). There was no diversity in my outfits.

You don't have to make those same mistakes.

1\. Get the stuff you buy altered to fit you.

2\. Look to the web for basic fashion patterns and advice. This is easier than ever.

3\. Give up and order from Trunk Club or an equivalent service. It's basic fashion for the fashion illiterate.

<comment><USER4> Even well fitting doesn't matter when you feel like you were born to wear hoodies, shorts, and sneakers. I currently work for a startup and that's something I place a lot of value in. I would turn down a job at my current salary + $10k if it required business casual attire every day (of course that implies further cultural differences too).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great questions and sometimes life just works out quirky, but here's my thoughts... 1\. I do not enjoy anything! 2\. I will not miss anything! 3\. Pay is descent and benefits are great! 4\. I would need to just go after my dreams and stop second guessing myself and my abilities!

Great topic!

</comment><comment><USER6> 1\. Some of the people. Half of my team is awesome, the other half mediocre

2\. More money. More responsibilities. More opportunities to learn new things (both technical and "soft skills")

3\. I'm currently looking for something else

4\. Already decided to leave, just waiting to find the right opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hard to find another remote position that pays more but doesn't suck more.

</comment><comment> a-saleh 1\. People, I have some really good colleagues. Then the flexible work hours, nobody really cares if I come in at 6, have a 4 hour lunch break and the finish my work from home, as long as I am able to attend our meetings, and all of those I can do online. I finished my drivers licence this way. Third is the breadth of technologies I get to use.

2\. Better compensation. I know the company I work for is below average in my location/profession. Second, I'd like to see more drive towards quality and less on showing barely running mvp's out of the door.

3\. I have a small child, so I am willing to forgo better pay if I know that nobody will even blink if I suddenly get from my desk at noon that I need to run an errand and don't return. Second reason is, that in a year we will release new mayor version of our produce and I would really like to see it in better state than barely working MVP :)

4\. If my current situation changes, i.e: if my daughter is in kindergarden and wife at work I would exchange the flexible hours for higher pay.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's hard to give up flexibility. I'm single so I don't even need flexibility per say but I'm in a 100% remote situation and it's hard to leave for higher compensation.

would you be interested at all in a service that curates all job boards and e-mails you jobs only if a job matches your criteria (in your case it might be comp, flexibility, and a wide use of different technologies)... if so shoot me an e-mail david at moja dot io. would love to hear your thoughts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > 2\. What in your job are you missing?

There's thought provoking lecture by Richard Hamming on considering your job and career. He asks -

1) What are the most important problems in your field?

2) Are you working on ONE of them?

3) Why NOT?

Timeless advice, applicable to a variety of professions > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw)

</comment><comment><USER9> 1\. The environment is generally positive, love my co-workers and I do a reasonable job as a platform engineer.

2\. Would love to have more input in the direction of certain aspects of the product.

3\. My #1 priority is work-life balance. It is taken care of here.

4\. If work starts becoming tedious (monotony?) and starts eating into my free time / weekends, I would leave right away.

<comment><AUTHOR> Does your company have more product engineer roles that you can shift to?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> 1\. Being remote lets me work varied hours as needed with clients but still have a good work/life balance. My manager and co-workers are all generally good and we get along well. I currently get to lead projects involving Devops, scalability testing, performance, and various other things so work is interesting and challenging.

2\. The size and culture of the company can make us slower to adopt new things. Both human and physical resources are tight.

3\. When I look at new positions, the opportunity there with the risks involved generally don't seem to be better.

4\. If my current manager left, work becomes tedious and micro-controlled, I'd likely be looking actively.

<comment><AUTHOR> As a fellow remote employee with good managers it definitely is tougher for me to risk it and make the jump.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> 1) Some management responsibilities, a good team, pretty good comp 2) Best practices. I want to be able to write automated tests, have architecture documents, good tooling and work with great people. And preferably use a different language other than PHP 3)I've been allowed to work from Europe for months at a time and been given the opportunity to manage a small team. This has been a great opportunity to improve my soft skills, but I feel like my tech skills are rusting away 4) Finding a remote job that pays the equivalent salary or higher. Alternatively, I may leave for a brand name tech company like Google or Facebook where I would work with best practices and great people.

</comment><comment><USER12> 1) I'm stuck. Can't make it at a programming job since my major was not CS.

2) Freelance doesn't really work without a portfolio to gain traction

Horrible situation because money was never an issue to me. I just wanted to pursue my passion. If I was able to remotely work for $20/hr. I would gladly move to a low cost of living country.

<comment><USER13> Are you in the US? If so, not having a CS major shouldn't hold you back too much.

My major was not CS and I am working for a well-known technology company as a software engineer. Feel free to reach out to me privately (email in profile).

<comment><USER12> I have a finance degree and am in the US. I've been self taught for the past few years. I know the basics of programming and its easy for me to learn a new language but proving to tech firms here has proved difficult except for small short term gigs ironing out wordpress issues and writing data mining scripts. Any advice how to break out into the industry would be greatly appreciated.

<comment><USER14> Interviewers normally care about education when they've not got much else to go on. Build something impressive to show them, your proving what your actually capable of, so they don't have to guess capabilities based on your education.

<comment><AUTHOR> As a former teacher with no CS degree and now on my 3rd developer job that I really enjoy I +1 this sentiment. I have some other tips if you need some, e-mail me I'd be happy to help. david at moja dot io</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


CIA Secretly Owned Global Encryption Provider Spied on 100 Foreign Governments - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2020/02/12/cia-secretly-bought-global-encryption-provider-built-backdoors-spied-on-100-foreign-governments/#323824f8580a <comment><USER2> > "Spying between friends, that's just not done,'' Ms Merkel said as she > arrived for a two-day European Union summit where the growing spy scandal > has hijacked the agenda. [https://www.news.com.au/world/german-chancellor- > angela-merke...](https://www.news.com.au/world/german-chancellor-angela- > merkel-says-spying-on-friends-not-done-after-claims-us-tapped-into-her- > mobile-phone/news-story/af9e1d03fa2655e680c99ee3161ce063)

Ahem ...

> The Swiss company that global governments trusted with their most sensitive > of conversations for more than fifty years was actually owned by the U.S. > Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in partnership with the West German BND > intelligence service, according to an investigation based on CIA documents > obtained by the reporters.</comment>


Task Lists in GitHub Flavored Markdown - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1375-task-lists-in-gfm-issues-pulls-comments

<comment><USER2> In related news, I recently saw this:

[https://github.com/vmg/sundown/commit/37728fb2d7137ff7c37d0a...](https://github.com/vmg/sundown/commit/37728fb2d7137ff7c37d0a474cb827a8d6d846d8)

Looks like the proposal to create a formal markdown standard is actually going somewhere.</comment>


Big Android Makers Will Now Push Monthly Security Updates - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/08/google-samsung-lg-roll-regular-android-security-updates/

<comment><USER2> Monthly. My, how nimble! Maybe one day they can aspire to Patch Tuesday heights.</comment>


The changing face of advertising - <AUTHOR> http://www.scmp.com/news/china/money-wealth/article/1853703/changing-faces-whats-not-about-facebooking-living

<comment><USER2> I was wondering why Facebook had an office in China, despite being banned in the Mainland. Then realized it was a sales office[1], catering to marketers trying to reach international audiences.

It is admirable that FB has been able to reach 1 billion UVs in a day, despite being banned in Mainland China.

[1][http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-12/facebook-s...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-12/facebook- said-to-take-steps-to-open-a-china-sales-office)</comment>


Ask HN: best commodity wifi routers? - <AUTHOR>

What are people using for their home (or office) networks?

    Location: Home/Office/etc.
    Coverage area: approx sqft.
    Hardwar: Brand, model, number of APs
    Firmware: OEM, Tomato, DD-WRT, etc.
    Features: WDS, QoS, VPN, etc.
    Comments: Would you recommend this setup? Things you would change?
 <comment><AUTHOR> For Me:

        Location: Home
        Coverage: ~1k sqft
        Hardware: 1 Buffalo Wireless router/ap
        Firmware: ODM, tried DD-WRT with no success (~2years ago)
        Features: Nothing fancy

Comments: I originally bought the Buffalo device on the recommendation of Jeff Atwood but I was never able to get the DD-WRT firmware he was so excited about to work reliably so I fell back to the default firmware which is adequate, so far as it goes.</comment>


Startup Depression Suppression - <AUTHOR> http://blog.weatherby.net/2008/10/depression-supp.html

<comment><USER2> The long view: The basic laws of economics aren't going to suddenly change, as long as a web service provides something people need or want then it should have a shot. The biggest potential change here is that in an economic downturn what people want and need may change drastically. This may be disruptive for existing startups, but it will create a lot of space for new ideas to meet those new needs. Things that are imminently practical like new and better ways to search for jobs, or ways to trade skills or items for other items could have real practical value in a depression. Sites that allow people to group their buying power and purchase a larger quantity of some item at lower prices, or sites that help you find carpool partners or generally make your personal economics more streamlined should enjoy increased success in a depression.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish I had 10 friends. That's what I truly find depressing.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow this added so much to the Calacanis email...guess it proves you only need 10 friends to game Hacker News.</comment>


UK Electronics Store Maplin Goes into Administration - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2018/feb/28/markets-fall-interest-rate-fears-brexit-pound-growth-gdp-business-live?page=with:block-5a9686eee4b04d4554d1f3c5#block-5a9686eee4b04d4554d1f3c5 <comment><USER3> I don't know if this is the case for all Maplin's but my own associations with the brand are exclusively negative, so this is one rare case of a physical shop being outdone by online stores on more far than just price and convenience.

My local Maplin opened shop around the corner from one the oldest, most well- loved independent electronics shops in the area and drove them out of business by virtue of location and size alone. They didn't even bother to undercut them, and their staff were untrained and clueless, they were just a few hundred metres closer to foot traffic and had more shelves to browse, sparing shy customers the awkwardness of having to ask for an item from the back.

I'm actually a little surprised they've done so badly when they seem to have no competition on the street and the margins must surely be enormous given their extortionate pricing.

<comment><USER4> Even with large margins you still need some volume.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not surprising really. I've been into a few of their shops and they always reminded me of the last days of Tandy / Radio Shack: cheap stuff and unhelpful staff. I'm sad for the people who will probably lose their jobs though. Very hard to compete with online suppliers in that space.

My local Maplin is/was the only physical shop in reasonable travelling distance for emergency purchases of things like perfboard or solder. But when they stopped selling even a basic selection of components I switched to ebay and haven't been back there.

<comment><USER6> They should have doubled down on things I can't easily know to get online. connectors, buttons, displays, enclosure, anything I'd like to get my hands on to feel or wouldn't know the name of to even search for.

I thought i'd get some buttons for a control panel, the selection was terrible and what was there was nasty and cheap feeling but cost a lot. Ended up just getting some crimps I needed and those were such poor quality I ended up re- crimping the project next day once amazon turned up.

<comment><USER5> That would be great for you and me, but "normal" people don't need such things and business customers use RS[1] or Farnell. You can't maintain a retail network selling to hackers/makers.

[1] Whose physical shops inexplicably don't even open at the weekend. Grrr.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sad times. I remember going there with my Dad to get all the bits to build a crystal radio - one of my earliest "geeky" memories. I learned to solder on that project - can't have been older than 10 (1994ish). The sales assistant even gave me some advice on winding the tuning coil.

<comment><USER8> I would not say sales assistants in today's Maplin know anything.

<comment><USER5> Anecdote: A few years ago I tried to buy some 555 timer ICs from a local Maplin shop. I knew that they had a basic stock of components in a back-room (not on display), but it took me nearly ten minutes to convince a shop assistant to even look for them, and what to look for. When he finally returned with a tube of ICs, he was amazed that such things existed and insisted on showing his find to some of his colleagues - like he'd discovered some lost relic. Never again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I used to love reading the Maplin catalogues when I was a kid in the late 70s and early 80s - rarely used the shops though - they mostly seemed full of rather tacky electronic toys/gadgets rather than components.

<comment><USER10> They still had a great components section at the back, and some not too bad products. The staff seemed more knowledgeable than your average tech shop as well.

It's a shame :(

<comment><USER9> Yes, I was being a _bit_ harsh there - the components sections were good - <USER2> reason why I did occasionally visit!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Doesn't surprise me at all. Maplin is a terrible store. I haven't been in a while to be honest, but a lot of the stuff they sold there seemed like it was cheap Chinese imports. Their music and hardware sections seemed okay, but not very competitive. The staff like in most large retail stores were useless as well.

I used to work part time in a small independent computer store while I was studying, we sold a lot of the same stuff as Maplin, but we were 100% about the service. We knew people could get stuff cheaper online, but they couldn't get the service. You might know your WIFI doesn't reach the whole of your house, but you might not know what the best solution is. Do you buy a more expensive router, a different brand, a range extender? These are the kinds of things you'd be unlikely to find answers for in Maplin. You might as well just take a guess and buy something cheaper online.

People don't go to stores like Maplin just to buy things anymore. The business model doesn't make sense if you're competing with online retailers. You have to offer the only thing online retailers can't, service and peace of mind.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's a shame but far from unexpected. My local hardware store shutdown about 8 years ago: the sort of place where you asked, expecting a no, "don't suppose you've any toggle switches?" and they passed you a battered cardboard box with 20 different types in then made up the price on the spot.

Didn't discover Maplin really until after that place closed. Useful to have close, but I barely ever visited.

</comment><comment><USER12> The comments here so far about why Maplins has gone into administration miss the point. It's not _just_ about being outmaneuvered by online shops. In their words:

> The business has worked hard over recent months to mitigate a combination of > impacts from [1] sterling devaluation post Brexit, [2] a weak consumer > environment and [3] the withdrawal of credit insurance.

So it's

[1] Brexit having caused the value of the £ to fall (in respect of USD). Gah, Brexit.

[2] Lack of customers. This is probably partly to do with online stores sucking up their custom but also to do with general lack of consumer spending.

[3] Withdrawal of credit insurance. Anyone able to explain this one?

For context its worth adding that Britain's ToysRUs has also just gone into administration too, following their US parent.

<comment><USER13> It's worth bearing in mind that Brexit / value of £ is a handy scapegoat because it takes the heat off the board and executive team.

I worked for a company that anybody would have imagined would have suffered _heavily_ from Brexit but it actually ended up coming out ahead because the benefit of weaker competition getting torched outweighted the negatives of lower aggregate demand.

I'm sure Brexit had _an_ effect, but I'm equally sure it was deliberately exaggerated. I would imagine it was nearly all online competition and their failure to respond that killed them.

3 is probably simply a tacit recognition that their situation is not going to improve and that they are not a good credit risk.

<comment><USER14> The first rule of Brexit Club is that bad things are never the fault of Brexit - but _always_ someone else's fault.

Those damn remoaners talking Britain down, _they_ caused Maplin to fail!

<comment><USER13> Honestly, the only sane contingent on the Brexit<->anti-Brexit spectrum are weak remainers. The rest are either crazies with a near religious fervour (at the extreme ends of the spectrum), those chronically incapable of seeing any point of view other than their own or the easily duped. Some people are all three.

Regardless, the first rule of _executive_ club is to shift the credit and shift the blame - such that you get the credit and somebody (or something) else gets the blame.

<comment><USER15> I think the PM counts as all three by now; today's absurdity is "absolutely committed to dithering" [on the issue of the Irish border] [https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/968828871356403712](https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/968828871356403712)

<comment><USER13> I heard her approach to Brexit described as incompetently executed realpolitik. I think that's an accurate assessment. I don't think the actual outcome matters much to her at all - just staying in power. Also she's getting played. Hence dithering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> RadioShack in the US, dick smith in Aus/NZ, and now maplin. I do wonder if these stores may have survived if they could downsize and stick to what they started doing: electronics supplies and kits?

<comment><USER17> > I do wonder if these stores may have survived if they could downsize and > stick to what they started doing: electronics supplies and kits?

Is this such a large market?

<comment><USER16> I'm honestly not sure. I think it would be a tiny fraction of what they were trying to target, but it does seem to be growing with the whole maker movement. Don't forget he UK has seen some fairly ambitious plans to get electronics into education (see microbit)

The tricky thing as a CEO/chairman would be accepting that you're intentionally downsizing your company to maybe 10% of its size, in an attempt to survive vs staying at 100% and attempting to survive with the same old plan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> That's a shame. I was kind of pleased that they'd managed to make it as long as they did.

Honestly my impression is that they just have far too many stores, most of which are empty most of the time.

<comment><USER19> But also that everything they sell can be bought from Aliexpress at a fraction of the price.

<comment><USER20> I think most people are unaware of that, and also when you buy from Ali you're invariably paying steep customs fees (tax + holding charges).

They were ridiculously expensive for stuff like cables, they were reasonable on common IT kit (wifi extenders, etc.) and sometimes ok on PC components, and often they had some really great offers.

I think a lot of people don't realise quite how broad their catalogue was - they sold disco gear, speaker cables by the metre, all your discrete components and gizmos, plus a bunch of smart home stuff, telephony, etc. And as others said, they had decent staff who could often give good advice.

It's very sad that they've not been able to sustain a place on the High St.

<comment><USER15> > when you buy from Ali you're invariably paying steep customs fees

Are you sure? Whenever I've done it I get parcels which have completely false customs declarations to avoid the fees ("samples", "gifts", zero value declarations etc)

<comment><USER21> Even if you are not caught by customs control, you are under legal obligation to pay the tax yourself(from the real value, not the fake one declared on the parcel). I know vast majority of people don't, but import enough and someone will come knocking on your door one day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The number of times a cable or adaptor from there has saved the day...

</comment><comment><USER23> How they managed to survive this long is more interesting than the fact that they eventually folded

</comment><comment><USER14> The benefits of Brexit... They just keep never starting!</comment>


Ask HN: How does Quora log me in automatically? - <AUTHOR> If I'm logged in-to google, quota logs me in automatically. I can see how it does it technical but isn't this breaking some laws somewhere? <comment><USER2> Probably: [https://developers.google.com/identity/one- tap/web/](https://developers.google.com/identity/one-tap/web/)

Edit: added "probably" because I didn't actually test it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Timely question [https://blog.quora.com/Quora-Security- Update?share=1](https://blog.quora.com/Quora-Security-Update?share=1)</comment>


Secret messages on the web: How to do steganography in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://oakes.github.com/PixelJihad/about.html <comment><USER2> Here is a newly launched service for steganography in images, primarily lolcats:

<http://lolsecurity.se>

<comment><USER3> I love how someone actually did this. drostie replied to my comment several months ago with some great analysis on my off-hand remark about potentially hiding your web traffic through sending lots of steg'd cat pictures: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3575232>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _For extra security, it's good to provide the option of encrypting the message before hiding it in the image._

Doesn't encryption make it easier to detect hidden messages, because it generates a uniform pseudorandom output, something that an image without the hidden message doesn't have?

<comment><USER5> This paper recommends embedding AES using a thresholding algorithm: [http://www.scribd.com/doc/62034623/A-Multi-Layered-Secure- Ro...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/62034623/A-Multi-Layered-Secure-Robust-and- High-Capacity-Image-Steganographic-Algorithm)

This paper is really good at explaining image steganography from a beginner's standpoint: [https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:kWVnLQVjyR0J:...](https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:kWVnLQVjyR0J:martinolivier.com/open/stegoverview.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShqeA3VSpam5rS7capPIrbzk22kTtJBMEBWVtXQ- jSrv6GAT4IX1L0KIzbA_PvhL8_IvJhyLk8LWn3IMK- VZO5Rb-8yMPYEIZa71yZ7HaXsPTdXF69vF6mUS5aE6lJA_YXFYxQO&sig=AHIEtbQg9VAMBeSntkcN- _WClletsaZMpQ&pli=1)

In my opinion, the whole point of embedding a "secret" message in an object is defeated if there's the possibility that the "secret" may be revealed. The math involved in cryptography is much harder to defeat than the art of detecting a structured message layered into an object, so I prefer to just pass a plain-old encrypted message. But if you want to prevent someone even thinking you're passing an encrypted message, embedding that encrypted message in an image or audio can be beneficial. And risking someone finding out the actual secret just because you thought they might be able to tell you're sending one is not worth it.

<comment><USER4> Thank you for the links! Indeed, I was thinking about applying some form of encryption that is harder to distinguish from image data than just AES in standard modes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pretty cool, but I wonder if the author realizes that you can steganographically encode data in any format including HTML and even JS itself.

Bonus points if you can split the steganographic data into multiple domains, where building the original message requires finding and assembling the pieces in the canvas, HTML and JS sections.

Also, I believe there may be blurring techniques you can use to smooth out the dense randomness that is a signature of encryption.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point regarding text-based steganography. I've had a greater interest in hiding within binary files, though, because they tend to be larger and have highly varied contents. Also, it's very common to share images over email and other means, so doing so wouldn't inherently raise suspicion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting, but the obvious weak point is the browser environment itself. How can the code doing the steganography be sure it hasn't been interfered with?

<comment><AUTHOR> Being client side JavaScript, you could save it locally and run it as a file:// URL if that is a concern.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great method! I had ideas about doing something similar (although this technique is rather more advanced than mine) a while back, about being able to show messages based on character read from an HTML page. I wrote a little script for it: <http://sprymedia.co.uk/article/Secret> .

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if a similar technique could be used to detect if a user has stylesheets enabled.

</comment><comment><USER10> Hm, I thought this was about hiding data in JavaScript source code!</comment>


McDonald's Wage For Nuclear Job Shows Some Japan Towns May Fade - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-10/mcdonald-s-wage-for-nuclear-job-shows-some-japan-towns-may-fade.html

<comment><USER2> I live in Japan, have traveled widely throughout the country, and I would disagree with your notion that $11 gets you more in another part of Japan outside of Tokyo. Unlike the U.S., where prices can vary widely when you leave big cities, in Japan prices are pretty much consistent throughout most of the country. The only real cost benefit you get from not living in Tokyo is the occasional cheaper apartment rent.

In general wages in Tokyo for all manner of jobs is quite low, this is in stark contrast to the country's rich, tech-forward image.

<comment><USER3> Having lived in Kyoto for quite a while and going occasionally to Tokyo, I don't completely agree with you...

Restaurants for one are cheaper and better value for money in Kyoto than in Tokyo... The housing situation is also quite different... What doesn't change all that much though are transport prices (although, as soon as you go to a place with only JR and no competition prices are much higher) and every day items... All in all, I think for the same quality of life in Tokyo than in Kyoto, one would need maybe 30-40% more wage...

That said, I agree with you on wages, I was quite surprised at how low the salaries in Japan are. Young employees just don't get paid much no matter their level of education, their productivity or their usefulness to the company... Seniority is the biggest criteria for salary increases (that and being married and having kids).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Of course, $11 in Fukushima-ken likely gets you more than the same in Tokyo. Ignoring this simple fact comes off as dishonest to me.

<comment><USER5> It may be worth mentioning that, while $11/hr apparently is the wage at some McDonalds in Tokyo, the people cleaning up the radioactive stuff are being paid significantly more and rotated in & out to avoid having too much exposure. The article I saw yesterday quoted a wage of a few hundred dollars for a couple hours of work and mentioned people with stopwatches measuring how long they could be safely exposed, in addition to their dosimeters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was skeptical of this, such low wages for a potentially dangerous job. I found this (in Japanese):

<http://job.j-sen.jp/hellowork/job_3373229/>

Indeed it seems not far from the what the article says. It's around 1100 to 1400 yen per hour (around U$14~17/h). It's for general unskilled labor and has no education or skills requirements. Above average pay for the countryside, but still seems low if the job can expose you to above average levels radiation even in normal conditions (the ad was published before the disaster).

</comment><comment><USER7> Lost decades...</comment>