Plato despaired, but he also pointed the way to renewal - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/making-athens-great-again/517791/?single_page=true <comment><AUTHOR> This struck me as a good article with a bad headline, and I wasn't sure how to reword it so I just used part of the subheadline (dek). Open to other suggestions for it.</comment>


Fear of the light: why we need darkness - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/23/why-we-need-darkness-light-pollution-stars <comment><USER2> There are so many of these articles these days. The authors speaks of our obsession with driving back the night via tech. Then they bemoan how people can no longer see the stars. But what about those of us who _naturally_ cannot see stars tech or no? I'm in the pacific northwest, where your lucky if you can see the moon through the clouds during much of the year. I used to live in the middle east, where natural dust often blocked out or blurred the night sky. But it did create amazing sunsets unlike anything I've seen in north america. And if you are in a deep valley or surrounded by trees, both common in much of the world, you aren't going to see much of anything on even the clearest night.

If starlight is so important, at what point should we project images of them onto those evil clouds? True darkness, without seeing the stars, is not an unnatural state of affairs.

</comment><comment><USER3> Two years ago I took a trip to the Atacama desert. My luggage was lost in the flight and the hotel manager was nice enough to let me use their washing machine. I saw a few of the most beatiful natural landscapes I've ever seen down there, but nothing so far has compared to the feeling I had looking up to the sky while picking up my clothes from drying at night. I don't get emotional very easily, but my eyes filled up with water and I had multiple shivers at that moment. I woke up my girlfriend and we stood there like two kids for a long time looking at our galaxy. I'm so glad the company lost my luggage.

<comment><USER4> I think there's a lot to be admired with experiences like these and can't help but feel a sense of tragedy when I know I'll never have these experiences because of my modern lifestyle choices or where I live. I often think I may be missing countless similar experiences because of my rushed city lifestyle. Interesting and something I'd like to try now.

Recently experienced the green northern lights and nothing I say will describe a beautiful and almost spiritual experience. I only suggest you try and see for yourselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The maps of the US lights at night show that there is a line running down the middle of the country. East of that line it is essentially solid light, with little islands here or there of darkness (often large state or national parks). West of that line, it is opposite. Mostly dark, with islands of light at major cities.

What is puzzling is the location of the line. As far as I can see comparing maps, there is no obvious geographical feature that would have halted dense development at that line.

A good map showing this is the light pollution map at DarkSiteFinder.com: [http://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html](http://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html)

The line runs from Winnipeg in Canada, down through Grand Forks and Fargo, then Sioux Falls and Sioux City, then Omaha and Lincoln, then Wichita, then Oklahoma City, then down to Dallas and San Antonio.

I wonder if that line was just where westward expansion had reached before the Gold Rush and the rapid increase in migration to the far west, and afterwards people who would have otherwise went slightly west were instead going far west, and so we ended up with a sparse area in between?

<comment><USER6> It's simpler than that. Dense population dropoff lines up with dropoff in average rainfall: [http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/pcpn/us_precip.gif](http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/pcpn/us_precip.gif)

<comment><USER7> Adjust rainfall for growing season, and it might straighten out the bend in the Dakotas & Minnesota.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/fwalter/AST389/TEXTS/Nightfall.h...](http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/fwalter/AST389/TEXTS/Nightfall.htm)

just in case you haven't, spare your self some time. One of my favorites. No spoilers please.

<comment><USER9> Yep. Great stuff. The full book is worth a read as well

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_short_story_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_\(Asimov_short_story_and_novel\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I went on a backpacking trip a few weeks ago with 2 friends in the White Mountains. We summited Mount Bond at around midnight, 2 days before the new moon. It was such a beautiful experience, I've never seen the Milky Way like that before. Despite being exhausted and still over a mile between us and the campsite we were heading to, without a word we all took off our packs, laid down on the rocks, and spent almost an hour looking at the sky. There's something very humbling about being able to see so clearly how minuscule our place in the universe really is.

</comment><comment><USER11> "It's not just darkness we fear, it's the vastness and loneliness of the universe"

I wonder if this concept can be expanded beyond darkness and noise pollution, to a person's relationship with empty spaces and silence from mankind's activity. Any good books / references would be appreciated.

"Every 2.5 minutes the West loses an area of natural land the size of a football field to human development."

[https://www.disappearingwest.org/](https://www.disappearingwest.org/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I made a trip out last year to see the milky way. I'd never experienced anything like it before and I think we're losing something incredible by not being able to see it.

</comment><comment><USER13> "We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." Plato

</comment><comment><USER14> We also need darkness and the occasional glance to infinity for the health of our eyes. I believe that kids today are just not getting the 'eye exercise' needed for healthy eyes. Everyone seems to be wearing glasses or contact lenses. We are going blind!!!

We have healthcare systems that put kids in glasses at the first available opportunity to correct things, eyes get lazier and more corrective optics is needed. We also have sunglasses for when the sun is out, again, eyes get less exercise. Then, as per this article, we have 24/7 lighting in offices, shops and selected homes. It is not just the stars we are not seeing any more, the sun is not seen either!

I was fortunate to grow up in a rural area with very few streetlights. Also, my childhood bedroom did not have electricity. If I wanted to read late into the night I had to be by the window. In those days it was apparently bad for your eyes to do just that, that was the new 'masturb*tion' as far as eye care was concerned.

I also had to walk or cycle to school. With cycling you do get to exercise your eyes properly, that glance behind and back again in a split second to see what car is going to 'hit you' puts those eye muscles through their paces. Stuck in traffic in the back of an SUV just does not give your eyes the chance to get good.

Nowadays I am amazed that people have the lights on during mid day during mid summer. Such an insult to the glowing thing in the sky! I detest that because I believe that anything short of an unshielded nuclear reactor is just bad for the eyes. Nobody I know sees it that way. My eyes are far from perfect, if I drink a dozen pints of beer I can get double vision, not that I have drunk enough to experience that in decades, uptime of non-blurry sight has been 9 nines for me.

There is also a myth that screens are bad for the eyes. Again I beg to differ. I have been working with screens as intensively as the next programmer to read this thread. However, in the office, if someone needs to read the (IMEI?) serial number on the back of an iphone, I can just read it fine, which is weird when it is a 19 year old asking the favour. (Actually just remembered also grew up with a lack of TV due to reception issues in aforementioned rural area so probably not watched screens as much as most).

Nowadays we have a culture of going to the gym, doing pilates and other such nonsense to compensate for sedentary lives. I say 'we', I mean us white folk in 'first world' countries. We could have gone the other route, just using wheelchairs everywhere, but, some semblance of physical health is an aspirational thing.

Now, eye health... If we could have dark skies for the sake of the children rather than a few anorak wearing boffins then that just might work.

As an aside, one benefit of having quality eyesight is that I can use hi-res screens with text the size that it used to be in books, i.e. small. My colleagues have to have normal resolution screens with text the size of the 'large type' books that public libraries have for old folk. Yet they can be in their early twenties. Quality eyesight with no corrective optics is as important to me as being able to breathe.</comment>


Dell apologises for HTTPS certificate fiasco, provides removal tool - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2015/11/dell-apologizes-for-https-certificate-fiasco-provides-removal-tool/http://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2015/11/dell-apologizes-for-https-certificate-fiasco-provides-removal-tool/ <comment><USER2> This stinks.

<comment><USER3> Anyone who knows enough to create a MitM cert/proxy like this knows enough NOT to. This is way beyond incompetence in my book.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Generate piano music with deep learning - <AUTHOR> https://deepsoundsai.com <comment><USER2> Beautiful: [https://www.deepsoundsai.com/song/tfw0wv](https://www.deepsoundsai.com/song/tfw0wv) \- wish I could somehow tell it to continue this forever :)</comment>


Show HN: Fighting Harmful Coronavirus Disinformation - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone
In times like these it's important to watch out for each other. A great part of that is having access to the right information that can be crucial for everyone's well being.
I'm sure many of you have heard about people advising others through viral social media posts about dubious treatments, involving anything from garlic water to Alex Jones selling a toothpaste that is supposed to cure you. This is all incredibly irresponsible and dangerous for the world community.
I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about this, and decided to put together a Google spreadsheet, which allows anyone to list products, the claims associated with various products and references to such claims.
This way, no one is chosen as the arbitrator of truth, but rather has the ability to back up claims with a reference that either supports or refutes the claim.
You can find the spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i_GSzKB9O7_AAUwMi93D1LgCAkRwI9dD-_81IpLEasA/edit?usp=sharing
Right now anybody can edit the spreadsheet. If it becomes gets popular, I will probably have to limit interaction to comments, in order to mitigate spam.
Stay safe out there,
Fredrik <comment><USER2> I had to lookup one such claim yesterday. Maybe a domain name like 'corona fake news' is still available?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have redirected the domain AlchemyList.com to the spreadsheet, which should make it easy for anyone to pass it on to others.</comment></comment>


BadVPN – Peer-To-peer VPN System, and NCD, a Network Configuration DSL - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ambrop72/badvpn <comment><USER3> Note that NCD is really not far from a general-purpose programming language. You can see some "modern" NCD code of mine here [1] where I use it to control a Sphero robot with a joystick. Well, I admit I added a few more features to NCD while coding that.

Probably the most important feature missing is floating-point math, which I had to outsource to a Python program. Which was possible since NCD does have the facilities to create child processes and communicate with them over pipes. It also has TCP sockets and a higher-level simple RPC mechanism using "NCDValues".

[1] [https://github.com/ambrop72/spherojoy](https://github.com/ambrop72/spherojoy)

</comment><comment><USER4> Why is it called badvpn?

<comment><USER3> (author of BadVPN here; I did not submit this)

No particular reason really, I just needed a name that sounded deviant - I was still a teen back then! Over time I added other software to the repo for convenience (tun2socks, NCD). A name change might in fact be due.

Unfortunately some of the docs got "lost" by the killing of Google Code - <USER2> can still be found in [1]. Currently the project is essentially in maintenance mode, though I'm not opposed to someone contributing new features (especially to NCD, I realy love and still use NCD!).

Note that the software is packaged in a few Linux distros (I know about Gentoo, Arch and NixOS).

[1] [https://github.com/ambrop72/badvpn-googlecode- export/tree/wi...](https://github.com/ambrop72/badvpn-googlecode- export/tree/wiki)</comment></comment>


How to add HN to home screen of iOS and make it launch fullscreen? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I think you perhaps mean a Progressive Web App [https://developer.mozilla.org/enUS/docs/Web/Progressive_web_...](https://developer.mozilla.org/enUS/docs/Web/Progressive_web_apps)

At the minute HN is not a PWA. There are some implementations of HN as a PWA try google :)

Would be cool if HN did this though i agree.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not sure what you mean with launch full-screen, but you can add a shortcut to any website on your home screen using Safari. [https://www.wikihow.tech/Add-a- Link-Button-to-the-Home-Scree...](https://www.wikihow.tech/Add-a-Link-Button- to-the-Home-Screen-of-an-iPhone)</comment>


Use Their Work Free? Artists Say No to Google  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/business/media/15illo.html?_r=1 <comment><USER2> At first I thought this was about Google image search and artists having problems with that but I don't really understand why this is newsworthy. Google called asked and got turned down, seems perfectly reasonable and unobtrusive to me. Now I'm not an artist but if Google called me and asked to feature something I've coded I'd be absolutely thrilled if I was (well I am) an unknown struggling coder.

</comment><comment><USER3> And quite right too - if artists have to keep give their artwork away for free to get exposure (which is what they're usually told is the main benefit of giving their work away for free), who's ever going to pay them?

<comment><USER3> And along the same line, if Google can't afford to pay them, then who can?

<comment><USER4> Google can afford to pay for them. That's the reason the artists are pissed.

It's like a millionaire asking a homeless bum for change, claiming that the "exposure" of being a nice guy will earn the bum a few more donations.

<comment><USER3> > Google can afford to pay for them. That's the reason the artists are pissed.

That was my point, exactly.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


DNA origami - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_origami <comment><USER2> To save you a click, the definition:

"DNA origami is the nanoscale folding of DNA to create non-arbitrary two- and three-dimensional shapes at the nanoscale. The specificity of the interactions between complementary base pairs make DNA a useful construction material, through design of its base sequences. DNA is a well-understood material that is suitable for creating scaffolds that hold other molecules in place or to create structures all on its own.

DNA origami was the cover story of Nature on March 16, 2006. Since then, DNA origami has progressed past an art form and has found a number of applications from drug delivery systems to uses as circuitry in plasmonic devices; however, most applications remain in a concept or testing phase."

<comment><USER3> ... and they will continue to remain in concept or testing phase for the foreseeable future. Which is unfortunate, but a reality of how drugs and drug delivery systems are brought to market.

<comment><USER4> From the secondhand experience of my friends, using DNA nanocages to delivery anything other than really simple cargo hasn't worked very well (all in vitro). Which is good enough, if that's all you want to deliver.

They're really interesting though.

<comment><USER5> Why would the type of cargo matter? If it can deliver simple cargo, can't you stick any type of molecules inside as long as they don't damage the cage?

<comment><USER6> "Hold them in place" is a bit misleading. The molecules in most nanocages generally still react with the nanocage through specifically designed binding sites that actually hold it in place. This means a nanocage is hard to design for nontrivial molecules like folded proteins and it's usually not a perfect cage that completely envelops the target. A lot of stuff is still bound to react with the nanocage and the material inside until it can reach its destination and the cage unfolds.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


AutoCXX: Safely call C++ from Rust with auto generated bindings - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/google/autocxx <comment><USER2> Probably a follow up on this one[0]. Also related to cxx's[1] (mentioned in chromium's original post[2])

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24211691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24211691) [1]: [https://github.com/dtolnay/cxx](https://github.com/dtolnay/cxx) [2]: [https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/memory- safet...](https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/memory-safety/rust- and-c-interoperability)

</comment><comment><USER3> These libraries must contain a list of types which they consider "mostly equivalent" between Rust and C++ in order to facilitate the bridge, e.g. Rust's `Box` and C++'s `unique_ptr`. I would be interested in reading the exhaustive list of the types that are considered equivalent; surely there must be subtle semantic differences to account for.

<comment><USER4> [https://github.com/dtolnay/cxx#builtin- types](https://github.com/dtolnay/cxx#builtin-types)

<comment><USER5> Result<T> -> throw/catch seems surprising and hard to walk back later. Why not use std::expected or a work-alike, and let the caller decide whether to throw an exception?

<comment><USER6> Being a Googler project, I expected this to be a version of cxx that used StatusOr and -fno-exceptions.

<comment><USER7> autoCXX is Google-y, but cxx doesn't appear to be, and enforcing noexcept in a general use tool seems ill-advised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder how it can auto generate safe bindings for C++.

To do that, it would essentially need to literally prove that the C++ code is thread and memory safe, which is an open research problem at Best, and probably impossible since it requires solving the halting problem.

If it can do that, then the actual binding generation would be the most uninteresting part of this work.

<comment><USER9> I read "safely call" as "does not require `unsafe {}` to call". Invariants will still need to be manually upheld to ensure the C++ code will work as expected.

<comment><USER10> The problem with that is that making a function safe means that you guarantee that these invariants are enforced. If you tag a function as safe erroneously you basically throw Rust's safety out of the window.

Given that C++ has no explicit concept of safety it seems like it would be hard to do that automatically as soon as pointers or references are involved.

As a quick example: if you have the following signature in C++:

        int *foo(int &a);

How you automatically generate safe FFI for it?

As a human doing the same task I'd have to ask myself at the very least:

\- Can the return value be NULL?

\- Can the return value alias a?

\- What's the lifetime of the returned value and who owns it?

<comment><USER11> > If you tag a function as safe erroneously you basically throw Rust's safety > out of the window.

You really don't. Rust checks are applied to the code written in Rust. If a developer intentionally marked a dependency as safe then you get exactly what you've asked for.

Sometimes it's unquestionably better to have a working system than not having one just because a pedantic compiler complains about stuff that you can't do nothing about.

<comment><USER12> If an interface can break safe Rust (without that being an implementation bug) then it should not be marked as safe. Breaking safety isn't about the compiler being pedantic, it can break your real world program.

Yes this may mean you sometimes can't create a safe interface to a particular foreign function. However all this means is that calling the function requires an explicit unsafe block and extra care. But that 'unsafe' marker is valuable! It's something that screams "here be dragons".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why not wrap for use with dlopen()?</comment>


Ask HN: Do you have a side project you want to sell? - <AUTHOR> If you have any side projects that you've built and that you no longer have time for, list them here and let's see if others want to buy it from you. <comment><USER2> [http://chatible.io](http://chatible.io) \- FB Messenger bot to chat with people anonymously. 400k+ users, processes anywhere between 500k to 5 million messages per day depending on the day. Completely organic growth and can be easily expanded to other platforms and potentially monetized. It was also accepted into Facebook's FbStart program.

[http://rubeta.com](http://rubeta.com) \- SMS Fundraising platform for small nonprofits. The product was completed recently, and I haven't begun marketing it yet. Easy monetization.

Both products can be easily expanded, but unfortunately I haven't found the time to do so. Contact in bio.

<comment><USER3> So over 1/3 of Messengers total users is on chatible? Edit: I'm retarded

<comment><USER4> Um, Facebook has 1.86 billion monthly active users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Willing to hear and entertain offers for my startup Commando.io which is SaaS ([https://commando.io](https://commando.io)). Profitable, with solid MRR. Looking for 2.5 - 3.5x annual revenue (so offers > 40k and < 100k just for general magnitude). I'm looking to focus my time, energy, and capital on my new startup ([https://elasticbyte.net](https://elasticbyte.net)). Contact info: hello at domain.

<comment><USER6> 2-3x ARR is VERY CHEAP for SAAS tools

<comment><USER7> This is not true. Prices vary widely, and 2-3x is definitely within range of prices you'd see selling through brokers.

The price also depends on the product/company itself: how stable are revenues, what's churn, how diversified are traffic sources, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://freeyourmusic.com](https://freeyourmusic.com)

Offers please send to email@example.com :)

<comment><USER9> Whoa, this is a great tool!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> [http://founderpact.com](http://founderpact.com)

It's not making any revenue so any offer will be considered. It's a tool for helping inexperienced founders avoid common mistakes when starting a business with someone, both legally and in terms of making sure you're on the same page. Did it after getting very burned on a business venture because of this.

Got retweeted by some TechCrunch writer and also got to the frontpage (I think) of ProductHunt a while back. But I never got the time to get the product to where I wanted it to be (pay a $49 fee to get a good legally binding agreement based on the data you provided that you can just download, print and sign, and avoid problems and lawyer fees) nor market it properly (I also think it would be great to partner up with people who organize hackatons etc).

Built in Rails, hosted in DigitalOcean.

Email in profile

</comment><comment><USER11> I would love to sell my portfolio on themeforest. Making about $100k/year in profit (after all expenses e.g. Hosting, support personnel etc...) and has been steadily growing for the last 2-3 years. I am just tired of theme development and want to do something else. I work about 4 hours a week to fix some small bugs from time to time and pretty much that's it. Contact email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER12> [http://imgfave.com](http://imgfave.com) \- YC company. 100k daily pageviews.

[http://backerpass.com](http://backerpass.com) \- Monthly funding platform for artists and creators. ~$200/month currently going to creators.

[http://followfridayapp.com](http://followfridayapp.com) \- Web, iOS, Android. Doesn't work currently because Instagram restricted their API. Could be rebranded into an app focused on selecting your own photos (something like 2016bestnine.com).

[http://facebook.com/youtubesearchbot](http://facebook.com/youtubesearchbot) \- Messenger bot with 25 daily active users. Yeah not a lot, but could be grown if you have another bot to cross-promote with.

Contact info in profile.

<comment><USER13> Does imgfave make any money? Surprised to hear it's a YC company. I remember it.

<comment><USER12> Yup, YC S12. It does, but it's hard to cover CDN costs these days. CDN costs have gone up, mostly due to gifs, and ad rates have fallen over the past few years. Never quite got to the size where I could do direct brand deals for higher CPMs.

<comment><USER14> You are using google cloud storage? That's very expensive (as is cloudfront) since they charge for requests. Try KeyCDN/maxCDN/edgecast (via a reseller) which doesn't charge for requests and with cheaper bandwidth pricing

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm going to repost from the last thread ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12892473](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12892473)):

StartOpz ([http://www.startopz.com](http://www.startopz.com)):

Workday-lite (really lite) for small businesses. Individual components such as time-off tracking and expense reports all have sites on there dedicated to them individually that seem to do well. This covers all of them and could use somebody who has time to dedicate to (content) marketing.

</comment><comment><USER16> [http://www.theoncueapp.com](http://www.theoncueapp.com)

Never knew how to market it

</comment><comment><USER17> [http://draftutility.com/](http://draftutility.com/) \- Daily Fantasy sports research utility that uses visual guides to accurately estimate performances. It also helps simulate lineups that optimize salary cap usage and projected score.

</comment><comment><USER18> I have a cute natural language data analysis tool. It turns sentences into pivot tables.

[http://omrelli.ug/tables/](http://omrelli.ug/tables/)

It really wants to be wrapped up into some sort of product, but I'm not quite sure what :)

<comment><USER19> This is really really cool. What's the backend stack like if you don't mind me asking? I was thinking of implementing something like this for Daily Fantasy Sports stats...kinda like [https://www.statmuse.com](https://www.statmuse.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'd consider selling LiberWriter - [http://www.liberwriter.com](http://www.liberwriter.com) \- to the right person. Built with Rails, makes some money. Contact info in my profile.

</comment><comment><USER21> Designed, built and launched a mobile ICD-10 & ICD-9 iOS app for physicians, clinical staff and medical billers.

For those of you not familiar with ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases) is the standard for diseases, signs and symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social circumstances, and external causes of injury or diseases for purposes of clinical documentation and billing.

Link: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/icd-10-diagnoses-codes- icd-x...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/icd-10-diagnoses-codes- icd-x/id863961123?mt=8)

</comment><comment><USER22> I built a basic YouTube clone in Erlang that I currently only use in my home network. I've often wondered how much I could make if I came up with some flashy logo and name and tried to monetize it.

<comment><USER23> I don't know what infrastructure youtube has, but I work in the same building with another known "youtube clone" from Europe and they are spread on 7-8 floors and have a lot of remote infrastructure. (serious question) How can you realistically compete in this area with a basic youtube clone ? From my point of view, the infrastructure and operational costs dwarf the development costs.

<comment><USER22> The nice thing (at least from my admittedly-fairly-ad-hoc experience) about video processing is that it scales fairly linearly, at least for the basic features.

Things like building a scalable transcoding cluster can be made fairly simple ("just add more boxes") using a decent message-queue service. From there, everything is pretty simple HTTP.

Of course, this is only the very barebones stuff, and covering all of Youtube's features exhaustively would be quite difficult, and requires some good Machine Learning work.

<comment><USER24> I work on data science. I also had an idea around youtube. Want to have a chat?

<comment><USER22> Sure, you can email me at email@example.com (yes, really).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> [http://dev.convos.org/](http://dev.convos.org/) \- anonymous structured conversations for your team

reach out to rolando [at] bandd.co if you're interested

</comment><comment><USER26> I finished my first ever website prototype, nothing special, minimum file processing. But I did not deploy it, I tried first to put the domain on sale on SEDO and they suggest I should sell it for over 10k for it. But I also searched other domain extensions using the same one word, and those are also worth over 10k, so its hard to believe that the domain is really valuable. In a week I got 100 views.

I don't really want to sell, but nor do I have the strength to continue right now. I'm on a break, for as long as I want.

</comment><comment><USER27> [https://www.statsglitch.com](https://www.statsglitch.com) \- SASS, which allow you to detect Google Analytics anomalies, traffic rise / drop and makes beautiful and grouped daily alerts. You can select what exact metrics to track, confidence interval and a few more custom stuff. Successfully used by a few people (including myself), now don't have much time/knowledge in marketing. Email is in my profile or aminas @ domain

</comment><comment><USER28> [http://www.averageweather.io](http://www.averageweather.io)

I've got a database of over 2k locations searched and over 27k days of weather searched.

Must have some advertising value ... ?

Site has been live for ~6months

People seem to love it for wedding planning: [https://www.reddit.com/r/weddingplanning/comments/5y8dwp/web...](https://www.reddit.com/r/weddingplanning/comments/5y8dwp/website_to_get_average_weather_for_your_wedding/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Open to selling [http://quickpages.co](http://quickpages.co) since I haven't had much time lately. Free landing page generator with a lot of potential, launched late last year and currently has 900 users, with about 10 new signups per day on average.

Does not earn anything yet because it is a free service, but for a few more features it would be possible to charge for it. It is made using Laravel.

<comment><USER30> What would you be looking to get for it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'd listen to offers for my WordPress plugins business QuipCode ([http://quipcode.com](http://quipcode.com)). Solid software, OK sales just never marketed it and not sure the best way to do so.

I also have [http://buyindiegames.com](http://buyindiegames.com) right now just a basic blog but I think it has loads of potential for someone with a bit more time.

You can email me at jamie [at] quipcode.com

</comment><comment><USER32> [https://repo0.com/](https://repo0.com/) \- Unlimited Git hosting using your Google Drive account.

Just getting started on marketing.

<comment><USER33> Cool, simple idea.

If you don't mind answering, how many users do you have?

I feel like for making money, you could pitch the solution to Google and ideally get them to buy it.

<comment><USER32> Thanks! Its only recently released and I'm beginning to work on marketing now so the user numbers are really just friends of mine (like less than 50).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> [http://HeadlampTest.com](http://HeadlampTest.com)

"Augmented reality for web testers"

Lets testers & whole teams track their progress, also provides analysis for manager/team to rebalance test efforts. Helps ID holes in manual & automated test scripts.

It's a Google Chrome plugin.

Zero customers. I have too many other projects that I'm pursuing & no time to market it.

Provisional patent filed.

Contact: service at goldcreekgroup dot com

</comment><comment><USER35> [https://snapdrop.net](https://snapdrop.net) had 20k views within first day of launch and 500k in the first year

<comment><USER36> Boy, that landing sure could use additional marketing copy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> [https://teen-quotes.com](https://teen-quotes.com). I never found the time to promote it properly

<comment><USER38> Who can I email about a possible acquisition?

<comment><USER37> email@example.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> [https://uggabooga.com/](https://uggabooga.com/) \- gets about 100-150 views a day. Makes about $200 a month in profit. We sell fashion accessories for men and women. Lots of potential to grow, just not interested anymore. Looking to get 2-4K for it. Email is email@example.com

<comment><USER40> Why is everything $0?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Open to selling my chrome extension Vaux ([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vaux- tab/jjkichgfi...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vaux- tab/jjkichgfihbcfcfhiaolhdjeekbmihdf)) Great reviews, 150+ users. I will also commit to 3 months of development after sale.

</comment><comment><USER42> [https://iconverticons.com/](https://iconverticons.com/) [https://iconverticons.com/online/](https://iconverticons.com/online/)

~3000 DAU

Things are going well, mostly don't have time to maintain the offline OS specific apps right now.

Willing to share revenue numbers if seriously interested.

</comment><comment><USER43> [https://edini.net/](https://edini.net/) \- you can customize different products (mugs, phone cases, puzzles, ...). Its in Slovenian language, but can easily be multilang. I would sell everything (website, inventory, sublimation machine, printer, molds, ..). Build on WordPress+WooCommerce.

</comment><comment><USER44> Yes, but I know it is going to be very difficult to find someone willing to pay as much as I expect for the time I spent developing it (1 year full time + 1 year part time). So, it will be always mine until I decided its time to kill it forever.

[http://apphunt.livae.com/](http://apphunt.livae.com/)

</comment><comment><USER45> [http://choosejarvis.com](http://choosejarvis.com) \-- social media scheduling tool with content recommendations powered by buzzsumo. 1k MRR steady for the past 6 months or so. Written in PHP. Very stable. would sell in a heartbeat for 50k and would consider lower offers.

<comment><USER46> How do you manage to get the posts from Facebook? I thought they shut down their public API - [https://developers.facebook.com/docs/public_feed](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/public_feed)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> [http://easyendorse.com/](http://easyendorse.com/) \- Allows websites to collect & display testimonials; great for companies who have had challenges with Yelp/etc.

No traffic/users; I basically built it and learned that I had no interest in sales/marketing.

Email in profile.

</comment><comment><USER48> [https://SignalBox.ai/](https://SignalBox.ai/)

Reach out and let's chat

<comment><USER49> This has potential... but without a lower price point and the ability to run some free testing against it I think user growth will be severely constrained.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Selling my banner ad network cpmly.com which makes $4,000 in revenue per month and has over 350 users. It gets about 3 mio ad impressions per day/ 90 mio per month. The fixed costs are like $80 per month only for the server. Send me an email for more information: email@example.com

<comment><USER51> You started this in January if I'm not mistaken, right?

<comment><USER50> Yes correct, I have to sell it because of another bigger project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> [https://www.themejuice.it](https://www.themejuice.it) \- Desktop app for local WP development. Been focusing on other projects and have recently shifted away from WP development. Open to entertaining offers. Contact details in profile.

</comment><comment><USER53> [http://takeafive.com](http://takeafive.com) \- Productivity tool that allows you to open a self-destructing tab during breaks. Solid and steady user base. Profitable, but haven't monetized much yet. contact: email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER54> [https://faqt.co](https://faqt.co)

We're closing down on April 30th.

<comment><USER31> Can I ask why you're shutting down? Do you have customers?

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Ecommerce dropship site - [https://www.rusticsportsman.com](https://www.rusticsportsman.com). Profitable. Email info@rusticsportsman and we can chat :)

</comment><comment><USER56> I hope this is ok to post but I would love to buy a project that is hopefully making a little bit of money. My sweet spot is 2k-5k USD per month in profit. I do have some specific requirements in terms of the type of projects. My profile has details.

</comment><comment><USER57> [http://www.companycarpool.com/](http://www.companycarpool.com/) No profit so far but interest from many company, some from fortune 500. Easy to set up. Considering to release it open source

</comment><comment><USER58> 1001tweets, a web app to repeat your tweets to get more clicks. More than 10 paying customers. [http://www.1001tweets.com/](http://www.1001tweets.com/)

You can contact me at hello AT 1001tweets DOT com

</comment><comment><USER59> [https://twee-shirt.me](https://twee-shirt.me)

Print tweets on t-shirts, got bored, built this. Haven't put much marketing into it, but I'm sure someone who does could make some money.

</comment><comment><USER60> Super simple todo list, done nothing with it (except use it). Never marketed it, works quite well though. [https://fivethings.today/](https://fivethings.today/)

</comment><comment><USER51> [https://candymetrics.com](https://candymetrics.com)

Amazon Seller Analytics Software

Haven't really had time to work on it but its a great niche and the backend is solid (built in Laravel).

<comment><USER61> I'm interested. How can I contact you?

<comment><USER51> taphangum[at]me.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> [http://onemodel.org](http://onemodel.org) Details at site. I will hopefully continue but am not currently doing it justice.

</comment><comment><USER63> [http://tweet-a-lot.com/](http://tweet-a-lot.com/) Gamifying twitter for your brand. Good for gigs and music events.

</comment><comment><USER40> [https://www.dealomni.com](https://www.dealomni.com) \- domain and source code $2k

</comment><comment><USER64> WorldOfNovelty.com

Earning 92/mo avg. on flippa for auction rn

</comment><comment><USER65> tixyy.com (site is offline) - an event ticketing platform with multiple viral ticket selling features built in, think mini eventbrite. Ran it for a couple years with real money coming in.</comment>


Ask HN: Do we need a 'New' New Mogul? - <AUTHOR>

I used to love New Mogul content and more importantly, the folks in that community.<p>With nickb gone and the site now sadly functioning as a parking page, would it be worthwhile for me to re-surrect it? Would others interested in business, economics, finance, leadership join? <comment><AUTHOR> I've thrown up a concept of the New Mogul type forum (based on Vanilla Forums) I can setup. Check out:

[http://www.macgregorindustries.com](http://www.macgregorindustries.com)

If I could get the domain name, would this be something we can use?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Cool. I'll investigate.

</comment><comment><USER2> Yes!</comment>


Commander.IO – A Mobile App to Control Robots and Connected Devices - <AUTHOR> http://commander.io/

<comment><USER2> Please don't ask for upvotes. It doesn't work.

[https://twitter.com/hybrid_group/status/537708377095168000](https://twitter.com/hybrid_group/status/537708377095168000)</comment>


ASUS spills jelly beans on why Nexus 7 has no rear camera, cites added cost - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/20/asus-explains-why-nexus-7-has-no-rear-camera-cites-cost/

<comment><USER2> Does anyone else think that taking photos with a tablet is a very clunky experience? I have absolutely no problem with my Nexus 7 having no rear facing camera as I doubt I'd ever use it.</comment>


Google Offers User Location Data to Health Officials Tackling Coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-offers-user-location-data-to-health-officials-tackling-coronavirus-11585893602 <comment><USER2> Canonical page already submitted:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22766840](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22766840)

</comment><comment><USER3> Mirror: [http://archive.md/lRgcU](http://archive.md/lRgcU)</comment>


Human skeleton found on famed Antikythera shipwreck - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/human-skeleton-found-on-famed-antikythera-shipwreck-1.20632 <comment><USER2> I'm a little surprised that there's anything left to find on the wreck! I guess I've really underestimated the difficulty of underwater archaeology--I would think an important site discovered in 1900 would have been scraped clean by now.

</comment><comment><USER3> I want to know more details about a "war dolphin", but the Internet doesn't seem to know about it.

<comment><USER4> I remember that! The ancient Greek dolphin is described pretty well here:

[https://books.google.com/books?id=cauMt9vJLs0C&lpg=PA162&dq=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=cauMt9vJLs0C&lpg=PA162&dq=greek%20dolphin%20weight%20ship%20weapon&pg=PA162#v=onepage&q=dolphin&f=false)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If anyone is interested in reading about Ancient Greek information technology beyond the antikythera device, this is a great post: [http://www.alamut.com/subj/artiface/deadMedia/agoraMuseum.ht...](http://www.alamut.com/subj/artiface/deadMedia/agoraMuseum.html)</comment>


Tesla stock explodes higher again, topping $900 per share - <AUTHOR> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-stock-surge-new-record-topping-900-per-share-150537018.html <comment><USER2> This is a short squeeze. The people that shorted the stock are buying the stock to close their position and forcing the stock up. This has happened with Tesla before. The stock went from the 40s to over 100 in a very short time and never looked back. The stock will find a top and collapse a bit. But the stock price will end up higher than when it started the run. Those that shorted the stock before the run will never get even. Ouch!

<comment><USER3> Would it be worth shorting Tesla now at $900?

<comment><USER4> "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."

<comment><USER5> I feel this comment in my bones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Boris Johnson just announced a ban on petrol and diesel car sales. Probably related to that?

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science- environment-51366123](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51366123)

<comment><USER7> Laying aside Boris Johnson's track record for actually following through on what he says. No political promise longer than the tenure of the politician making the promise can ever be taken seriously. Notably, Johnson's predecessor announced a legal commitment to ending the UK's global warming contributions by 2050... after she ha announced her resignation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is this for real? Or is this bitcoin for 2020?

<comment><USER9> [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-we-know-that-tesla- is-...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-we-know-that-tesla-is-a-bubble- that-is-going-to-pop-2020-02-04)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Tesla will be the Apple of cars.

<comment><USER11> Not sure if that's good or bad

<comment><USER12> It would be bad apple

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> if your the market leader without competition on a large addressable market your valuation can essentially be infinite. But most stock trades are being driven now by low interest rates once interest rates become more sensible , we should see more sanity. but thats only half the story, low interest rates just create insane price pressure , there can be lot of +/\- ve price pressure. The people on wall street have concluded that musk has a very high batting avg , so they are willing to push that price pressure on to the positive side.

<comment><USER14> but, will interest rates ever become more reasonable again? the US fed and the feds across the world seem to be hell-bent on creating very high inflation. even now that we've had 2.1 and 2.4% inflation, apparrently that's not high enough even though they're supposed to keep it at 2.

<comment><USER13> Interest rates can be anything , the important thing is it should keep pace with asset/goods creation. Why do you think we just cant stop having real estate bubbles or governments are unwilling to regulate them. Real estate is a great asset creation machine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Stock clears price threshold" stories are common and not intellectually interesting in their own right, so the threads always turn into generic discussion of the company and that's it. Typically, this doesn't make for a substantive discussion. Worse, it's the hottest/famous companies that generate these stories, so the threads get super repetitive.

For these reasons, stock price stories don't make good HN submissions.

</comment><comment><USER16> Tesla should do a 10:1 stock split. Wait until it gets to 1000 first.

Then, psychologically, it'll appear cheaper, and they'll get more suckers, I mean, buyers, to buy more shares.

</comment><comment><USER17> Fantastic. While I don't care about cars, Elon Musk getting richer will be good for space exploration.

<comment><USER18> So far he didn't do much space exploration, more like space littering

<comment><USER19> If you think space is something that can be littered you might be conflating space with Low Earth Orbit.

The space in the solar system alone is literally quadrillions of times the volume of the entire Earth.

<comment><USER20> The crazy thing about space is we are actually losing access to an in- perceivable number of galaxies due to the expansion of the universe and those galaxies moving outside of our light cone.

Each day we wait to explore the universe, millions of planets effectively cease to exist.

<comment><USER19> This is actually a very good point!

I've not made up my mind about this whole expanding universe thing (whether it's permanent, local, even real) but based on our current understanding it certainly seems that you're right - the world is getting a little bit smaller all the time. Time is of the essence - we need to move fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Insane!

</comment><comment><USER22> How is this relevant to Hacker News?

> _If they 'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic._

<comment><USER23> > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes > more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the > answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

A lot of people here like a) the nerdiness of Tesla, and b) the stock market's reactions to it.

<comment><USER22> In what way does Tesla's stock price gratify intellectual curiosity today?

Does today's change in price materially improve or worsen Tesla's product, ability to manufacture product, and/or cost of Tesla vehicles or feature options?

Should I post to the front page each time Microsoft stock goes up? IBM? Bitcoin? Should I restrict such posts to stock prices that are powers of 2, so that it's intellectually curious when it would not otherwise be?

You haven't made a case that Tesla's share price is intellectually curious in any respect yet, and that's my still-unanswered question to you:

Why is today's share price increase specifically relevant to HN?

<comment><USER24> Valuations should still be important. Given that Tesla has almost doubled in 5 trading days, that should be considered a significant event.

<comment><USER22> Thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


50-beautiful-and-user-friendly-navigation-menus - <AUTHOR> http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/04/50-beautiful-and-user-friendly-navigation-menus/

<comment><USER2> Its from 2009.

The first four links in the article have since been redesigned so cant see the menu noted in the article.

Bah!</comment>


T-Mobile Poland Officially Accepts Bitcoin Top-Ups - <AUTHOR> http://www.t-mobile.pl/pl/dlaciebie/obsluga-klienta/doladuj-konto

<comment><USER2> They are offering a 20% bonus on purchases with BTC. [https://inpay.pl/doladowanie-t-mobile-bitcoin/](https://inpay.pl/doladowanie- t-mobile-bitcoin/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Now that's an advantage.

Screenshot [https://i.imgur.com/hovKLm9.png](https://i.imgur.com/hovKLm9.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Cool. Does anyone have any insight into why T-Mobile Poland in particular might be interested in accepting Bitcoin?

<comment><USER4> I've noticed some international companies (and T-Mobile especially) use Poland as a testing ground for some interesting new solutions. It's a sufficiently large and developed country to provide a credible test sample, but at the same time insignificant enough (compared to Western Europe or US) to be able to write off any losses (financial or PR) in case of failure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bitcoin is more volatile than state currency. Do large institutions that accept it have some kind of hedging strategy?

<comment><USER6> Yep, they convert it all using a payment processor or keep a small percentage, no risk. State currencies are volatile too. Just look at the Euro.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. I would assume most using this strategy have the BTC payments converted to fiat at the time of purchase. Others might opt to keep it as BTC, which is fine and an assumed risk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Belgian Mobile ISP Mobile Vikings has allowed Bitcoin top-ups for a while now :)

[https://mobilevikings.be/en/help/top-up-sim/How-can-I-top- up...](https://mobilevikings.be/en/help/top-up-sim/How-can-I-top-up-my-SIM- card/)</comment>


Jackbot 9000: The robot that generates billion dollar startups - <AUTHOR> http://jackbot9000.com/#

<comment><USER2> Cute, but unfortunately not random: [http://jackbot9000.com/assets/js/jack.js](http://jackbot9000.com/assets/js/jack.js)

There was a random generator awhile back [1], but unfortunately it appears to be dead.

[1] [http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2012/01/06/this-startup- ide...](http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2012/01/06/this-startup-idea- generator-is-a-robust-next-generational-game-changer/)

<comment><USER3> ah, cool! I guess it's all a gamble. (rim shot)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Funny! Reminds me of Buzzword Bingo from back in the early dot-com days.

</comment><comment><USER5> haha mustafa, up to your brilliant schemes again!</comment>


Facebook Falls from Grace, and Investors' Stock Holdings Tumble Too - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/business/facebook-stock.html <comment><USER2> Facebook and many many other tech companies are built on gathering as much data they can on their users.

Should people revolt (hint: they probably won't) tech is in for a world of hurt.

<comment><AUTHOR> No I think the decision makers should take responsibility for harm it has caused and acknowledge the dangers of these platforms and make modifications accordingly.</comment></comment>


Spotify in Early Talks to Buy Sports and Pop-Culture Outlet the Ringer - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/spotify-in-early-talks-to-buy-sports-and-pop-culture-outlet-the-ringer-11579302564 <comment><USER2> Long time reader of Bill Simmons, ever since I read his Book of Basketball. Also listening to many of the Ringer podcasts, they have the best analysis and news coverage of NBA. Great move by Spotify to strenghten their media offerings, kudos to Simmons and the team, it looks like win-win situation.</comment>


It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like 1937 - <AUTHOR> https://seekingalpha.com/article/4134445-beginning-look-lot-like-1937 <comment><USER2> Looks like it might be a good article. Unfortunately, it's five pages long, and it wants me to register to see more than the first page.</comment>


How to Build Hacker News like Reputation System in 30 mins - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/twitter/activerecord-reputation-system/wiki/Hacker-News-Like-a-Reputation-System

<comment><USER2> What interests me is why Twitter made this.</comment>


What's inside a proton? - <AUTHOR> http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/81190/25561 <comment><USER2> _You may have heard that a proton is made from three quarks. Indeed here are several pages that say so. This is a lie — a white lie, but a big one. In fact there are zillions of gluons, antiquarks, and quarks in a proton. The standard shorthand, "the proton is made from two up quarks and one down quark", is really a statement that the proton has two more up quarks than up antiquarks, and one more down quark than down antiquarks. To make the glib shorthand correct you need to add the phrase "plus zillions of gluons and zillions of quark-antiquark pairs." Without this phrase, one's view of the proton is so simplistic that it is not possible to understand the LHC at all._

[http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and- posts/largehadronc...](http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and- posts/largehadroncolliderfaq/whats-a-proton-anyway/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been having discussions about this with my brother about this recently (who is a million times smarter than me) and it's remarkable to me that all throughout school we think of matter at real, solid stuff we see around us while subatomic particles are virtual abstractions used to describe the solid, real stuff. I never could've understood quantum field theory in those days (and still probably don't for the most part), but from what I do understand it's turned my previous "knowledge" upside down - EVERYTHING is made up of fields or pure mathematical structures, even the empty space around us, and it's the matter and particles which we can see and feel that is a virtual abstraction made up of those fields.

<comment><USER4> I recently came to this point of view. What surprised me is how much more natural and organic fields feel to me. Much much closer to our perception of the world than some geometrical abstraction you start with. Almost wish school taught that first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The best answer is from David Z, which is still not the top one.

<comment><USER6> The deleted answer was actually a great point, it was basically a nitpick on the first sentence of David Z's answer.

        A proton is really made of quantum fields.

The problem with this statement is, that a observed object is said to be made of a mathematical abstraction. So in a way, this is saying that a raytracer is made of C. If we look into the ELF binary, we will find shell code, if we look at the computer very closely we will find electrical signals, but we will only find C in the reverse engineered source code. So similarly, the statement should probably read:

        A proton is described as made of quantum fields.

However, it is still important to remind everybody, that the popular analogy of high energy physics, particles which interact much like billiard balls, is a somewhat leaky abstraction. And this question is probably more a expression of this leaking than a question of fundamental physics. If we would make the classical analogy, that a proton is (described as) a stable field configuration, then we would probably not have the question.

<comment><USER7> I think it depends on which philosophical school of though you subscribe to. One could just as well argue that the concept of a "proton" is just a useful abstraction and the quantum field is not just a mathematical tool but a more fundamental model of the underlying reality - that ontologically, the field is what actually exists.

<comment><USER6> Actually I am a Kantian idealist, who experienced QFT calculations. On the other hand, I have no first hand experience of a proton. So yes, I stand corrected.

But empiricism dictates, that the experiment is correct and the theory is just a description of the experiment. And if we discard empiricism, then we can not really talk about physics anymore.

<comment><USER8> I love the idea of someone having "no first hand experience of a proton" :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of my professors was fond of saying, "the proton is a garbage dump," to emphasize the mess of gluons and virtual quarks that you see when you start to probe the proton.

It's also worth noting that the in the LHC, which collides protons, most of the interesting collisions are due to gluons interacting, rather than the quarks.</comment>


Autobahn|JS: implementation of The Web Application Messaging Protocol - <AUTHOR> http://autobahn.ws/js/

<comment><USER2> Very interesting! May be can build a model system based on that. Anyone of you have used that?</comment>


Entrepreneur discusses the difference between ambiguity and risk - <AUTHOR> http://slashstar.com/blogs/tim/archive/2009/04/07/entrepreneurship-ambiguity-and-risk.aspx

<comment><USER2> I totally agree with Tim's thought. I was in the same boat as Tim at Goldman and have started my own company after five years at Goldman.</comment>


Methods for Teaching the Programming Language Smalltalk (1977) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/SSL-77-2_Teaching_Smalltalk.pdf <comment><USER2> This is cool. For those who may have seen Smalltalk before and are wondering where all the colons went in the example code snippets: The language discussed in these articles appears to be Smalltalk-72. Modern Smalltalks are based on Smalltalk-80, which is quite different in some respects.

In particular, modern Smalltalks use call-by-value, while these early Smalltalks used something more like call-by-name. Message arguments were passed in as unevaluated structures and parsed by the method. This allows some syntactic tricks that may look more natural than modern Smalltalk. For example, you could write "size increase by x" rather than the modern "size increaseBy: x" because the "increase" message could check for the presence of the word "by" and ignore it.

So this was kind of like using Lisp macros to define DSLs like the LOOP macro, but it was all evaluated at runtime.

<comment><USER3> Sounds similar to what in Lisp is called a FEXPR. A concept which was widely used in the 70s and what has mostly been replaced by macros. Fexprs get the arguments unevaluated at runtime and then do runtime parsing/transforming/evaluation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone on here program in Smalltalk professionally? Not to get off topic, but I'm curious and would like to know how it stacks up compared to what they did previously.

<comment><USER5> I have been using Smalltalk professionally almost exclusively since 1991. Over the years, I have dabbled with Java, but every time I do, I feel like I am poking myself in the eye with a rusty spoon.

One of my favourite researchers is Capers Jones. He's been researching software productivity for decades. His current company, Namcook Analytics, published a paper on his recent efforts [1]. Tables 14.1, 14.2, and 14.3 are of particular interest, although the whole paper is well worth reading for its own sake.

Some of his previous work seems impossible to find now. internet bit rot. One stands out in my memory. It also compared productivity in various languages, but also included error rates. Smalltalk ranked equally highly in that work, with significantly lower error rates per line of code.

To answer how Smalltalk compares to what I did previously, I have worked professionally using quite a number of languages, including Fortran, C, C++, and assembler (numerous). I would not willingly stop working in Smalltalk. Yes, it is that good.

Most companies using Smalltalk have exceptionally small staffing associated with their Smalltalk application, often having only a handful of developers & DBAs. Most of these businesses seem reluctant to talk about their Smalltalk applications. It doesn't seem to be due to embarrassment, but rather due to a desire to protect their competitive advantage.

[1] [http://namcookanalytics.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/07/Funct...](http://namcookanalytics.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/07/Function-Points-as-a-Universal-Software- Metric2013.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for sharing this! I first read about the "secret sauce" from Paul Graham referring to his use of Lisp with Viaweb, but have been somewhat suspicious. Yes JVM performance & scalability is necessary for some applications like twitter, but surely the industry should see 90% of standard business software is fine in other languages. Is everything really driven that much by market hype? I guess hiring is critical too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you want to learn Smalltalk, there is a MOOC that's just started. [http://files.pharo.org/mooc/](http://files.pharo.org/mooc/). Also Pharo by example is a good book.

<comment><USER7> That looks like a quality resource. But videos are in French :/

<comment><USER2> ... accompanied by English subtitles.

Also, in the actual MOOC, for which you have to register at [https://www.fun- mooc.fr/](https://www.fun-mooc.fr/), the videos are also available dubbed in English. (Except some that are not part of the "actual" course that give tips on how to use the environment.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's a great book for learning modern Smalltalk: "Object-oriented Programming with Smalltalk", by Harald Wertz ([https://www.elsevier.com/books/object-oriented- programming-w...](https://www.elsevier.com/books/object-oriented-programming- with-smalltalk/wertz/978-1-78548-016-4))

Unfortunately - and I really don't understand the author's rationale - it's published by Elsevier. The price is way out of reach for most students.

<comment><USER4> Yea...I told myself after college I would never buy books so expensive ever again. His university might have a contract enforcing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Smalltalk Express is a new Smalltalk that I am developing for web applications. [https://smalltalkexpress.quora.com/](https://smalltalkexpress.quora.com/)

I am working on it full time.

<comment><USER10> It is a bad idea to reuse project names, though since the older Smalltalk Express (freeware version of Smalltalk V/Win) was from back when the web was new there won't be too many search results about it to get in your way:

[http://www.andreadrian.de/smalltalk/09-11-96.htm](http://www.andreadrian.de/smalltalk/09-11-96.htm)</comment></comment>


Google Ventures Bans Investments in NC Until Anti-LGBT Law Is Repealed - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2016/04/01/google-ventures-north-carolina-hb2-ban/ <comment><USER2> They mentioned this on the local news. I figured there'd be more discussion about it here on HN.

I felt Google's decision was really unfair because what if there's a LGBT Founder of a startup who happens to be raised and born in NC, and is wanting out... That investment could help move them to Silicon Valley... Google wouldn't invest in them just because of the state? Feels like they shouldn't discriminate a whole community based on the actions of the few lawmakers. Google seems like a smart company, I really hope they realize what they're doing. I'm really hoping they'd evaluate things case by case instead of just throwing out applications for startups just from being from NC. Maybe have a clause in the agreement that after they invest, the startup must relocate.</comment>


Should You Comment Your Code? - <AUTHOR> http://simpleprogrammer.com/2014/02/13/comment-code/

<comment><USER2> Leaving aside code documentation (aka dockblocks), I can think of dozen of examples where you MUST comment you code..

      - strict order of execution
      - math formulas in the code (or its results)
      - external systems requirements/hacks
      - non-explicit side effects
      - legacy or costly known issues
      - intention of cryptic code
      - design choices (and its tradeoff)
      - ..

This obviously implies you actually care about who will maintain such best

</comment><comment><USER3> Comments are an act of kindness towards the person who will be doing the maintenance on the code you have written. It's doubly kind when that code maintainer is yourself.

</comment><comment><USER4> Commenting code only works if other people who change the code also bother to change the comments

</comment><comment><USER5> If you want to, yes.

If you don't, I feel sorry for whoever has to maintain your code.

</comment><comment><USER6> Rule #1 - Comments lie

<comment><USER5> So can variable and function names, but comments are easier to update.</comment></comment>


Are very simple homepages winning? - <AUTHOR>

Love this article: http://andrewchen.co/the-highest-roi-way-to-increase-signups-make-a-minimal-homepage-guest-post/ on simple homepages and also the negatives comments to the article. I believe Andrew Chen is right. Stop giving away free stuff - make people sign up before they can use your product, unless you don't really care about sign-ups. <comment><USER2> It's a good article and I'm sure if it works for all those major brands it's worth trying. However, it doesn't work for me. I prefer to know more about what a company is, or does, before I sign up. I'll Google them and often not come back. I have way too many emails coming already without more from a site I have to sign up to just to check them out.</comment>


Psychobiome is the gut bacteria that may alter how you think, feel, and act - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/meet-psychobiome-gut-bacteria-may-alter-how-you-think-feel-and-act <comment><USER2> Quarantine is killing me. I really need to stop eating beans...</comment>


Convert 𝚑𝚝𝚖𝚕 to 𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝓾𝓷𝓲𝓬𝓸𝓭𝓮 𝘵𝘦𝘹𝘵 - <AUTHOR> https://www.npmjs.com/package/html2unicode <comment><AUTHOR> This is a small javascript library that I made to convert html to unicode strings that mimic some of the html formatting using only special unicode characters.</comment>


Ask HN: For help: drowned migrant photographs - <AUTHOR> I saw the picture of the drowned migrants in rio grande today and have had a rough afternoon since.
I have two daughter and one is of similar age as one of the victims. As a father I almost cried when I saw the drowned 2 year old daughters hand locked around her drowned father.
I dunno how to process this and need help and hoping this wise community can give some perspective. I dunno what I am going thru but the most saddening questions come to mind. How bad must be life there that people risk such an out come. Why is is hard for people here to see how bad the situation is. What must be the last moments of this desperate father and daughter been like?
After I saw this and walked saw around my office people just working and oblivious to such suffering I could not help but think what kind of world we live in. Why can't this kind of situation be solved?
To distract myself I ask what can I do about this. This leads me to ask the question why can't immigration be solved globally. Would access to education and remote work within a global market where a global currency is be the answer to this ?  Are immigration and such national problems fundamental down sides of the idea of nation which is fundamentally at conflict at diversity (of ideas, people, cultures etc.) May be as nation as idea is fundamentally flawed and smaller but "evolved" tribes where homogeneity thrives but also respect for other tribes to cohabit peacefully are a better answer? What comes after nations anyway. What if there was a no physical country but only virtual tribes which participated in a global market with a global (crypto?) currency. If Elon musk can dream of making humans interplanetary then why can't people dream of solving global problems that affect humanity?
If you made it this far thanks for reading and please help me process this. <comment><USER2> hey there -- i feel very similarly and felt compelled to add my 2c. i had to choke back tears at my desk after reading about this. i have a daughter and she holds me the same way when i put her to sleep as the little girl in that picture. i am extremely saddened that we live in a world where this kind of thing happens.

while i am grateful that we are safe and live in a first world country, that is purely through the luck of being born into that country, and not something most of the world enjoys.

i donated a small amount to RAICES, frankly, to alleviate some of the guilt i felt, as I feel somewhat powerless to make a bigger impact than that. i also make small recurring donations to things like the local diaper bank, sunrisas and others, fwiw.

anyways, my personal 2c is to make the small impact i can through small monetary donations, try to spread the word about these tragedies via social media, and try to work hard in the future so i have more resources in the future to make a bigger impact.

this is just my 2c, but i think we can all make an impact in our own ways, as we all have different circumstances. some can donate time, some money, some actions. imo just spreading the word is powerful, in its own small way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing. I think donations are good way deal with a guilt but I feel more angry ( not at you) at the state of affairs. I dunno why my response is that of anger or something like that.

<comment><USER2> i can only speak from personal experience, but as a parent it is viscerally shocking. i get scared for her safety when my kid walks in a parking lot. for someone to be in a situation like that, with their kid, and for that to happen, it's horrible.

it's easy for us to live our lives and not think about things like this. to think about sports, or work, or binge watch netflix, or scroll through social media feeds.

but when you see something like this, i think it kind of punches you in the face and for those of us in first world countries, takes us out of the bubble. and we feel angry, and sad.

sadly, nothing we can say or do will make a difference for that father and his kid. but i hope i can do my tiny role in making this world a little bit better of a place for the next one, and for my own kid.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Algorithmically generated Heavy Metal headlines - <AUTHOR>

It's been done before, but this one is for metal and hardcore fans
https://twitter.com/RealMetalNews
It is also the first ever project I have done in Python, and the first on my Raspberry Pi. I'm pleased with the result :-) <comment><USER2> As a metalhead, made me chuckle :) Indeed nothing new but fun anyway. What source material did you use?

<comment><AUTHOR> The RSS feeds from various metal news websites, I can email you the full list if you're interested

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: [https://twitter.com/RealMetalNews](https://twitter.com/RealMetalNews)</comment>


Snort - Open source network intrusion prevention and detection system - <AUTHOR> http://www.snort.org/

<comment><USER2> Is there some news about Snort that's not evident from your link? Snort's been around a long time.</comment>


Ask HN: What should a Front-end engineer know? - <AUTHOR>

Let's say a publisher wanted to make a book, and focus on the job of a front-end. What should that book talk about? What do you think the responsibilities of a frontend are?<p>Is the job clearly defined, or is it still something that people disagree on. Is a FE someone who only works on JS, HTML, and CSS, or do they do some kind of server side scripting as well? <comment><USER2> I've hired several front-end engineers in the past that didn't work out, due to a gap in their skill set.

Beyond the technical requirements of cross-browser front-end development using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, a front-end engineer also needs to: \- Know how to use various source control systems. This is huge. You can't ship what you don't commit. \- Know enough about various template languages (for Ruby, PHP, Python, etc.) to wrap your UI around dynamic template code. If you only deliver static pages, someone else has to do all the integration work. \- Be able to do basic image manipulation. Stopping progress because you have to wait to get an image resized doesn't work anymore.

Someone with these skills, by the way, who is efficient, knowledgable about good CSS/JS practices, and can work with a variety of template languages, may be the most in-demand position right now. This is certainly true in the bay area. In fact, if this is you and you're looking for work, drop me a note!

<comment><AUTHOR> Good try, but I am happy where I am at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Mmm...I personally see a distinction between front-end developer and front-end engineer. What you're describing sounds like a FE dev.

A FE Eng. is still a software engineer, which means you ought to be able to pick up any backend language, be it Python, Rails, PHP, or a Java/C++ service. A lot of the time you'd be tasked with bugs/features that require a lot of FE work, and some backend work as well; it's so much more efficient for you to just write the backend handlers, esp. when it's usually a stone's throw away from an ORM layer or a simple SQL call.

I'd also consider knowing something about UI/UX to be a nice bonus. In reality, your UI designer isn't going to provide mocks for every page and every interaction; you're going to have to fill in the gaps, and probably do so without a huge dropoff in quality. At the same time, I usually find myself bringing another perspective from the UI side when talking w/ the designer, and since most places only have one UI guy it's valuable for them to get feedback, even if it's from someone not at the same level.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think, traditionally, front-end has meant html/css/js. With the promise of node, however, and other blending of server and client side technologies, that may not necessarily be the case. Also, beware people who seek to clearly delineate between titles. no jobs are so clearly defined in reality.

If I were to write a book on front end engineering (in addition to the items already mentioned), I would make sure to include the science of UX. Specifically, the analyses done by Jakob Nielson at UseIt.com. I would discuss some psychology, so that your interface and your site objective are aligned. I would also have them learn some copywriting skills (the concepts of landing pages should be well covered).

Also: analytics, social media (so much of it is done through widgets now), user testing.

</comment><comment><USER5> The difference between a dev and an engineer is a bit semantic. I would say an engr has the additional task of being a leader, overseeing the project, and implementing the QA.

That said, no, it's not clearly defined, and there are dozens of not hundreds of different tasks a FED could have a role in. Graphical design, UI, UX, usability, SEO, and multimedia just to name a few.

Probably most critical though, a FED has to really keep up with emerging technologies. HTML5 didn't even exist a few years ago. Ajax is only 6ish years old. Flash is a necessary skill to help with IE's failings. And Flash != Flex != AS3.

[http://clubajax.org/presentation-why-you-need-a-front-end- de...](http://clubajax.org/presentation-why-you-need-a-front-end-developer/)

</comment><comment><USER6> A FE is expected to know enough of the language in the backend that they can integrate a design without having to bother a programmer for help; the various ways to echo content, how to tap into helpers and make your own, etc. Seems rather obvious but a lot of FE people think that if a line is written in Java or Ruby then they aren't responsible for it.

Also important for FE to know their core languages, irrespective of popular abstractions they will probably end up using (JS and jQuery or CoffeeScript, CSS and SASS or LESS, etc.). Again obvious but these days a lot of people working front-end will claim they know JavaScript, when they actually mean they know jQuery and drown when tasked to work on a project not using a library or something else.</comment>


Samsung Satellite Crashes into Family's Backyard - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/gcherald/posts/2607907932601921 <comment><USER2> This is not a satellite, as it was never designed to be placed in orbit. It's a HAPP. A High Altitude Photography Platform, carried by a helium balloon.</comment>


PHP: Bug #52435 ... please pay me my farmville credits - <AUTHOR> http://bugs.php.net/52435

<comment><USER2> this is obviously a mysql bug ;)</comment>


Video: The State of Scala  - <AUTHOR> http://ontwik.com/scala/the-state-of-scala/

<comment><USER2> I've been using Scala full time for about 8 months now, and I've found it to be a very nice language. As someone who has never learned a functional language before, it took a while to get used to some of the language features that are more functionally influenced, but I think my code is the better for it.</comment>


Clients From Hell stories - <AUTHOR> http://clientsfromhell.net/

<comment><USER2> And here's the book: [http://www.amazon.com/Clients-Hell-collection- anonymously-co...](http://www.amazon.com/Clients-Hell-collection-anonymously- contributed-designers/dp/0982473931/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308524230&sr=8-1)</comment>


Booting ISO images from within GRUB2 - <AUTHOR> http://michael-prokop.at/blog/2011/01/07/booting-iso-images-from-within-grub2/

<comment><USER2> If you're a Windows user, you can use EasyBCD to add a bootable ISO to the boot menu by just pointing and clicking: <http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1>

/shameless plug

</comment><comment><USER3> Somewhat related, and also interesting is the possibility to boot a Linux distribution over the net:

<http://boot.kernel.org/>

Adding gpxe to a GRUB menu as an item may prove to be another great way to boot a rescue system. Note that I didn't try this yet (only booting installation media with b.k.org).

<comment><USER4> This service is great but as it does not verify any data so you basically just download data via http and run it as your operating system. Just install a live system on your usb pen and use it or run a live system and setup the network boot environment.

<http://grml.org> for example can create a pxe boot environment from the live system, just run grml-terminalserver and it will start a dhcp/nfs/tftp server and provide all necessary data.

P.S: I am involved with grml so take it with a grain of salt

<comment><USER3> True. However, that should be a motivation to make that service more secure. But it does not make the idea flawed. It's very convenient to be able to boot any distribution just like that, without preparing USB sticks or CDs.

By the way, thank you for your work on grml!

<comment><USER5> I guess it could be made pretty secure with good old code signing. Most distributions already sign their packages, but as this concerns the booting process it could be somewhat more difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is it possible to boot a generic OS (not necessarily linux or windows) from USB by simply loading a live-CD image file?

Use case: one USB drive with custom MBR, one text configuration file and one or more liveCD images. On boot-up, the user selects one of the images and loads that generic OS.

<comment><USER4> For a detailed description what image will boot with the memdisk method see [http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/MEMDISK#INT_13h_acc...](http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/MEMDISK#INT_13h_access:_Not_all_images_will_boot_completely.21)

DOS (MS-DOS, FreeDOS, DR-DOS, ...), Windows 95/98/ME and boot loaders (Syslinux, grub, grub4dos, gujin, gag, mbldr, ...) boots, other operating systems must be aware of the memory mapping.

With SuperGrub2Disk <http://www.supergrubdisk.org/wiki/SuperGRUB2Disk> you just have to add a iso file into a specific folder and it will automatically be added to the bootloader menu. But AFAIK it does currently not support the memdisk solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I recently tried to do something like this to install Debian (already having Ubuntu on this computer) without using a USB drive or blank CD. Didn't succeed. So I'm glad to see this submission; I'll probably try it out in the near future.

<comment><USER4> Try network boot. Setup a pxe environment and you should be good to go.

Another solution is use debootstrap to install Debian or Ubuntu to a plain directory. Be aware that you have to make some adjustments to the system (like installing a bootloader/kernel/adjust fstab etc.) after executing debootstrap. You can also use grml-debootstrap which automatically executes the needed steps to make a system bootable.</comment></comment>


Headed to Mars: A Big Experiment in Tiny Satellites - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/headed-to-mars-a-big-experiment-in-tiny-satellites-1542891601 <comment><AUTHOR> "Rapidly approaching Mars are the two smallest and cheapest spacecraft to ever cross between the planets, in the vanguard of what U.S. and European satellite designers hope one day will be swarms of tiny probes prowling the solar system.

...

NASA's two MarCO CubeSats, as the pair nearing Mars are called, are the first CubeSats to attempt an interplanetary journey. Launched this past May, each one is no bigger than a briefcase, is built from off-the-shelf commercial parts, and cost $18.2 million"</comment>