Busy Times at the World's Largest Polar Bear Prison - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/trouble-in-polar-bear-capital/510839/?single_page=true <comment><AUTHOR> As predicted in a 1993 paper: "Possible Impacts of Climatic Warming on Polar Bears."[1]

[1] [http://arctic.journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/arctic/index.php/ar...](http://arctic.journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic/article/viewFile/1348/1373)</comment>


The most copied StackOverflow snippet of all time is flawed - <AUTHOR> https://programming.guide/worlds-most-copied-so-snippet.html <comment><USER2> Suppose we had an index of snippets, meaning you've parsed them and are able to search isomorphically. So, e.g. variable names are not significant. Some techniques discussed[1].

Then we run that against source repos, we could get update notifications for copypasta'd code.

"In file F at line L, it looks like you used some code from SO at revision R. In revision R', it's been corrected."

[1]: [https://wiki.haskell.org/Hoogle#Theoretical_Foundations](https://wiki.haskell.org/Hoogle#Theoretical_Foundations)

<comment><USER3> We essentially have that, they're stored in NPM, and it's horrible.

It turns out when you can package snippets you use so many you can't possibly keep track and audit them all.

Just look at the Left-pad thing, or the event-stream thing.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean by this? As far as I understand, NPM provides access to packages, not snippets and doesn't as far as I know provide a way to search the code in those packages let alone isomorphically.

<comment><USER3> A lot of npm packages aren't longer than a typical stackoverflow answer, and they get used everywhere, to the point where installing a dozen packages can lead to tens of thousands of sub-packages being installed.

At that point, the packages are essentially "indexed snippets" of code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The simple, readable, loop-based snippet mentioned in the article also works for the edge cases. Sometimes it's better to not be so clever.

<comment><USER6> And the pow and log methods they call run loops anyway. What is wrong with loops anyway?

<comment><USER7> > the pow and log methods they call run loops anyway.

That's actually not true (as somebody mentioned on reddit) [https://github.com/openjdk- mirror/jdk/blob/jdk8u/jdk8u/maste...](https://github.com/openjdk- mirror/jdk/blob/jdk8u/jdk8u/master/src/share/native/java/lang/fdlibm/src/e_log.c)

It is probably slower anyway, but I was surprised to see no loops

<comment><USER8> They kind of cheated because they used a hard-coded polynomial approximation of log(x). So there is an implicit unrolled loop going over A_i*x^i.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is using Math.pow and Math.log (twice) faster than a tight loop that won't run more than six times?

<comment><USER10> No.

You run into the same problem if you are writing something like the C 'itoa' function (integer to ascii); if you want to write the digits out front to back you need to know what divisor to use for the leading digit so you need to either look it up in a table or take the log.

Taking the log is a _lot_ slower than the table lookup, I found that out the hard way.

People convert so many integers to ascii and it is shocking how slow ascii <-> binary numeric conversions are compared to binary numeric operations, so it's not a matter of "premature optimizations".

Now you can write an itoa which generates the digits from back to front and not have to worry about copying the results because you return a pointer to the middle of the result buffer but then memory management gets more complex...

<comment> mark-r You can use a binary search to make the lookup even faster. There's no need to iterate over all possible lengths.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure that you come out ahead with binary search over n=10 given branch prediction issues. You'd have to test it to really know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I feel like this would be a good argument in favour for small scoped packages like we sometimes see on npm. Often enough it turns out that a trivial code snippet like this turns out to be not so trivial after all.

edit:

The point being that you lose all connection with a snippet after you copy+paste it. I can clearly see benefits when you centralize its development, make use of the collective mind to harden it, and get notified about possible updates whenever an edge-case is found.

<comment><USER12> It's a shame that including unit tests makes the snippet non-trivial to copy quite fast.

Rust has a nice solution for this though: tests can also be embedded in documentation comments:

        /// Adds one to the number given.
        ///
        /// # Examples
        ///
        /// ```
        /// let arg = 5;
        /// let answer = my_crate::add_one(arg);
        ///
        /// assert_eq!(6, answer);
        /// ```
        pub fn add_one(x: i32) -> i32 {
            x + 1
        }

From: [https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch14-02-publishing-to- crates-...](https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch14-02-publishing-to-crates- io.html)

More languages could adopt that idea, and a good StackOverflow answer would include those tests in the snippet. StackOverflow might even automatically run the tests and add a passing/failing badge!

<comment><USER13> In python since 1999: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.lang.python/DfzH5...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.lang.python/DfzH5Nrt05E/Yyd3s7fPVxwJ) :-)

(Though not in the stdlib til v2.1, April 2001)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I forget that everything I copy from SO, and everything I post there, is under a CC BY-SA license. That SA is "share-alike" and I don't think people really understand what that means. From Wikipedia's article on it:

"These licences have been described pejoratively as viral licences, because the inclusion of copyleft material in a larger work typically requires the entire work to be made copyleft."

Now how much code uses something copied from SO? And I wonder how copyright even applies to "code snippets"?

<comment><USER15> > And I wonder how copyright even applies to "code snippets"?

The Software Freedom Law Center has a substantial article on copyrightability of code: [https://softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/originality- requi...](https://softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/originality- requirements.html)

The important point here is that there's no minimum length for code to be copyrightable. It simply needs to be original and at least minimally creative. Since at least thousands of other developers have found the snippet to be useful enough to directly borrow rather than writing an equivalent, it sure looks copyrightable to me.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for that link! I found this part especially interesting:

"In particular, the laws stress that it is a programmer's expression of some functionality that may be protected by copyright, and not the functionality itself. If code embodies the only way (or one of very few ways) to express its underlying functionality, that code will be considered unoriginal because the expression is inseparable from the functionality. Similarly, if a program's expression is dictated entirely by practical or technical considerations, or other external constraints, it will also be considered unoriginal."

Sounds like a case that at least some snippets aren't copyrightable.

<comment><USER16> I don't understand how the above principle can distinguish anything, at all.

You could reasonably argue that every piece of code is completely and only expressing functionality, because it's all inherently directing the computer to do stuff. So only comments would be protected.

On the other hand, you could instead argue that every piece of code can be translated into another language, and in fact is, whether interpreted or compiled, so the source code is exclusively expression only as the functionality is never tied to it.

But it doesn't seem to me to make any sense to say that some part or aspect is expression and another is functionality. It's all or nothing.

<comment><USER14> I assume it's like plagiarism, and if you rewrite the code "in your own words" you've copied the functionality but not the individual expression.

Also seems that copyright regarding code and the whole world of copyleft is still a grey area in the courts.

<comment><USER16> That's interesting, comparing it to plagiarism, reminds me of when I was shamed when I was like 8 for rewriting a paragraph from a book in my own words for an essay. At least when I was that age, that was totally considered plagiarism (at least by my parents). It was crushing to find that even though I'd worked _really_ hard on paraphrasing each sentence, it didn't count and I'd missed the whole point.

I wonder what standards colleges and research journals have now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 4.0 with attribution required.

I was just thinking about how everyone ignores the license for the code on SO. The code and way it's used is flawed.

<comment><USER18> For what it's worth, in the common user journey through SO (Google SRP to SO question page, scroll to answers), where does SO ever tell you about the license or the requirements of complying? If they simply rely on people knowing that generally there are licenses and such and they should look into it, then it's hardly a surprise almost no one complies. I've worked with many people, developers and not, who probably couldn't even rattle off a few common licenses.

I'm not a professional developer, but I've copied snippets from SO before. I've always included the answer URL in a comment next to it though. But mostly because if I ever had issues with it, I wanted to know where I got it and on the off chance anyone else looks at my code, I wouldn't want them thinking I wrote code I didn't write.

<comment><USER19> Common misconception: that licenses create requirements and reduce rights.

In legal reality if no license is attached to code you have almost zero rights to copy, use, or distribute it.

So if a casual browser of SO doesn't see any license terms, they should assume that doing almost anything with the code is illegal.

<comment><USER20> It mean the user that asked the question cannot use the code of the answers.

<comment><USER21> No, it doesn't, because it is licenced under CC BY-SA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> One of my favorite functions like this that I found years ago on SO is an extremely efficient bit of code to convert a hex string to byte[] in C#.

It would be fun for someone to make a standard library that consisted of all the highest voted SO utility functions.

<comment><USER23> Would be even better for Microsoft to add the most frequent snippets of code to the CLR!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder what percentage of bugs in general are from people not understanding how floating points work. I think property based testing (QuickCheck) should be used whenever floats are involved. Nobody ever seems to get them right.

<comment><USER25> Would QuickCheck know to try 999999 as input? Most of the possible inputs would give correct results, and those that don't, aren't very 'special', such as 0,1,-1,MAX_INT, and so on.

<comment><USER26> Don't many QuickCheck-inspired libraries have special cases to ensure they generate common numbers like those? I could be misremembering, but I would have sworn I read that in the documentation of the last library I looked at (whose name escapes me).

<comment><USER25> Sorry, I phrased myself poorly - in this case, the inputs that give incorrect output aren't very special, _as opposed to_ 0,1,INT_MAX,...

Although including numbers such as 10^N - 1 isn't out of the question either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What's the cost of reading, correcting, and creating pull requests for 6943 bugs vs `apt-get update && apt-get upgrade`?

<comment><USER28> Your Github account.

You'd be violating the ToS.

<comment><USER29> What part of the Github ToS would that violate?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> To be human comparable, I'd prefer everything in MBs instead.

        ls -l --block-size=M

<comment><USER31> A lot of the gnu coreutils have a -h flag for "human-readable" sizes. Works with sort too, so it'll put 990M before 1.2G

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Its not that flawed though. Showing 1000kb instead of 1mb could be interpreted as a deliberate decision.

<comment><USER33> To me 1000kB would imply that the result was calculated with 1024 as base instead of 1000, which is a wrong assumption.

It should always use the highest relevant prefix to avoid confusion imho.

<comment> mark-r The best way to avoid confusion is for _everybody_ to stop using powers of 2 instead of powers of 10 for K, M, etc. The meanings of Kilo, Mega, etc. were well defined before computers were invented. It was a mistake to steal those terms and use them for something different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> this was as of 2010?

</comment><comment><USER35> Actually, SO's obsession that the answers should contain code ready to copy/paste is flawed. They'd rather give them fish instead of teaching them how to fish.

<comment><USER36> I don't see that obsession, I have given plenty of prose-only answers that are the most popular one for the given question.

<comment> mark-r I've even gotten compliments for giving a prose-only answer instead of code.

<comment><USER35> But those were the users, not the moderators :)

<comment> mark-r On StackOverflow there's not much difference.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: contribute to an idea: teams of unemployed programmers into startups - <AUTHOR>

The underlying thought is this: at any given time there are many unemployed programmers, at all levels from graduate to highly experienced.  These people have alot of underused coding time.
Is there a way to form these folks into startups/teams?
Almost like some sort of "startup in a box" in which developers can join a team, and everyone agrees to a predefined set of rules on equity.
The core idea being that everyone on the team is contributing their time at no charge.
Maybe it would at some level be a bit like online games where people come along and add themselves into a team.
A key part of this is that there is no employer, no recruiter, no ycombinator, no techstars making decisions about who can join a team.  It is up to the team members themselves somehow.
Developers would browse the teams, see who is in them, the technologies being used, and perhaps even some overview of the software idea being built out by the team.  They would choose which teams to join.
Maybe there could be some way that developers could perhaps do some practical coding tasks that actually contribute to the project and therefore prove to the team members that they should be a team member.
There's lots of open questions about this sort of thing, how it could be made to work, if at all.
What's in it for the programmers - that would have to be clear - maybe it's gaining commercial experience working with technologies that they are interested in - maybe it's some sort of equity after certain conditions have been met.
I'm wondering if anyone else thinks this (currently not fully thought out) idea has any merit?
Startups forming spontaneously from unemployed programmers who choose to donate their time, no permission required from anyone - could it work?
I don't want anything from this at all - I've just spent alot of time wondering about all those unemployed programmers and how they could be doing something with that time.
Can anyone else suggest any ideas on how it might be made to work?  I'm looking for comments/ideas that might turn such an idea into something that actually works to get unemployed programmers programming instead of sitting around waiting for an employer to give them a job. <comment><USER2> This describes an open-source project. Since these developers are looking to make money from the project, their goal is to seek widespread adoption (just as a startup would), and then market themselves as (extremely) highly-paid consultants charging top dollar for their expertise in the system they designed.

<comment><AUTHOR> The intended outcome is not open source projects but commercial products/services, companies owned by the developers.

<comment><USER3> I would say then use the same scenario with a bounty system. instead of paying with dollars, offer % of equity for reaching a goal on work done.

this solves the issue of people arguing about fairness of ownership. with a bounty for equity you agreed to your share for your work beforehand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If there was a massive pool of unemployed programmers sitting around, this could be a pretty good idea. Unfortunately I think you have a rather oddly skewed picture of the current state of the job market. Right now there is a huge talent crush for programmers. If somebody has the skill and ambition to be a useful team member in this kind of setup, they are unemployed because they choose to be at this point. You're going to have a very difficult time attracting anything other than leeches and "business guys" looking for free/cheap labor. Think about this: from the perspective of a recently unemployed programmer, why do I want to join your project instead of signing on with one of the dozens of startups currently hiring or just starting something on my own?

All of that being said everything goes through cycles and there probably will come a time in the not too distant future where something like this could do very well. If you can overcome the adoption challenges of today, you'd have something very powerful when the next tech recession comes.

<comment><AUTHOR> >>>"Think about this: from the perspective of a recently unemployed programmer, why do I want to join your project instead of signing on with one of the dozens of startups currently hiring or just starting something on my own?"

Because a project like this would allow a developer to join a team and starting coding. They would not have to go through a recruiter/employer to get the gig. If you are willing to code, then you get to write code. Recruiters/employers and salary are the biggest barriers to working on a commercial software project.

<comment><USER5> It's trivially easy to quit your job and start coding for yourself. I've done it myself. This whole website is pretty much dedicated to that.

The hard part is getting people to pay you money for it, which is what defines "commercial software project". And in my experience, it's harder to get customers to pay you money than employers. Why would a team of previously unemployed be able to sell their services or their code to customers when they can't sell it to employers? And if they do manage to sell it to customers - what distinguishes them from a startup?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Unemployed programmers? Where do you see them?

<comment><AUTHOR> Repeating this reply to anther comment:

I can say for sure that there are very large numbers of unemployed programmers because my day job is as a recruiter - I spend all day receiving resumes from programmers and talking to them about whether or not they are currently employed. Even in my own city there are large numbers of programmers looking for work. Expand that around the world and there's many many more.

Actually the reason I have been thinking about this idea is because I'm acutely aware and reminded daily of how much programming talent is not active due to unemployment.

Many people struggle to get work even though they might be willing and highly talented, for a wide variety of reasons. Consider for example if you are Delphi programmer who wants to make the shift into programming with some more recent technology. It is very hard for such people to get a job because employers are reluctant to take the chance. The Delphi programmer may in fact be incredibly talented and may easily be able to switch technologies, but getting an employer to give them that chance might take 12 months. There are lots of other valid reasons why there are many potentially talented programmers who can't find a job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think you'd be pretty much incorrect that there are programmers sitting around unemployed who are capable of scraping together and making a successful software project, especially considering that when people who are unquestionably at the top of the industry do it they too fail more often than not.

I think what you should do is make a site where employers can post a guaranteed test for hire situation. For instance, an employer would post a job, you would apply to it by signing up for the job. You'd have to do a test project for free, but the catch would be that as long as you could meet certain requirements you'd be guaranteed a job.

I'm not sure if this would work, but it would certainly put the theory that there are a ton of capable programmers sitting around to a test. It's pretty risk free for the employer as long as they are careful with designing the test (and they could even design the test to get something useful out of it to offset their risk).

Just my .02

<comment><USER8> Problem is people can always cheat when you put a test online. So maybe instead of a guaranteed job the applicant can earn a guaranteed phone / face to face interview.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> 1\. define a problem 2\. propose a fix 3\. create a list of tasks which realize the fix 4\. random people interested in the solution accomplish the tasks 5\. problem is fixed, code is released as open source and now anyone can benefit

that is the basics of an open source project, to turn this into a profit generating machine I would suggest a third party which owns the created code/project

with open source the code is given to those who it can help, this option lets a third party sell it

management company gets x% and the rest is split among the devs.

as for deciding % per dev, it should be decided by the impartial 3rd party which is the company doing nothing more then selling the product.

now someone start the 3rd party company, define the % you want for management and then define the market for your services and meet competition of others who do it for less or do it better

</comment><comment><USER9> One of Seth Godin / Scott Adams had a posted that's related to this. The way I look at it is there are people all over the world with diverse skill sets tapping into the internet. There needs to be some sort of collaboration engine where units of work can be posted and exchanged, something similar to <http://www.builditwith.me/>, but on a much grander scale. I can't really think of a way to make this work, but yes, this is a great raw idea and absolutely begs for some more brain cycles to be put into it.

</comment><comment><USER10> I dunno, really. Someone mentioned open source projects. For example, there is a huge shortage of talented Drupal developers. So you are a Delphi programmer? PHP is easy to learn and the Drupal community is superb helpful to those who want to contribute. So come, contribute, everyone is welcome, you do that as a dayjob (8+ hrs a day) you will be known in less than a year that's for sure and get a job.

</comment><comment><USER11> I thought about something like this, but not tied to programmers.

Unemployed people have talents like everybode else and someone should come up with an idea or program to collect, develop and channel those. I can't speak for other countries, but here in germany I see a lot of stuff that could be done if one could mobilize them.

</comment><comment><USER12> Looking for work would be my full time job if I was unemployed.</comment>


GitHub major issues - repos have "lost" commits and site is erroring  - <AUTHOR> http://support.github.com/discussions/repos/5401-something-went-wrong-error-on-walkerledge-zeppelin-private-repo

<comment><USER2> Suggestion for creating a startup:

For private repositories gitolite is really awesome, but I think there should be a company about it. What I mean is that github or some other company should offer hosted gitolite instances, in the following form:

You pay something like price_of_small_linode_instace+price_of_service, to get:

A virtual machine with gitolite up and running, with a good web interface and online documentation. I think that the web interface part is the piece this company should _not_ opensource. With this web interface you can create repositories and users, and modify the gitolite settings in general.

A backup service, in some other different VM and network, so that if something goes wrong with your gitolite VM you can ask a free (and automated) restore, possibly with hour granularity for the latest 24 hours, and less granularity for bigger periods and so forth.

Note that this gives the user virtually infinite repositories... if they don't upload movies to their instance, as there is a lot of space even in a small linode instance for git repositories.

This way this is a "pure product" as there is no need to repair or install manually virtual machines, and the company can focus into evolving the offering, developing a better version of gitolite, of the web interface, and so forth.

p.s. I mentioned linode but can well be ec2 or whatever is better suited for this stuff.

<comment><USER3> What do people _really_ think of this idea? Would _you_ buy it? I have written a web interface for managing git repos called GitHaven (my personal home install is here: <http://git.meyerhome.net:8080/>). It has the usual goodies, private/public repos etc. I have some friend's companies that run it in the cloud already. Do you think it would actually make money i.e. Would you be willing to join me in a startup on it (in boston)? Would it pass the y-combinator test?

<comment><USER4> Probably not. Github is on a path to become the market leader, has a critical mass of customers, and has a business model that harnesses those customers to benefit from network effects. This idea is akin to building a business offering private white-label Stack Overflow clones. Key point: the actual software is not what makes Stack Overflow and Github valuable.

Simpler reaction: Github:FI is already priced at a rounding error for the kinds of companies from which most of the revenue in this space will originate.

<comment><USER3> From the research I have done there are three major types of git server buyers:

1) We are so small that we don't even think twice and buy some private repos on GitHub. (i.e. no market there)

2) We are so big that we can't possibly even fathom the idea of having our code on someone else's server so GitHub.com is out of the question. Sadly GitHub:Fi is per/user and because we are really big that means we have lots of devs so it is too expensive in most cases. (i.e. enterprise sale yuck)

3) For medium sized companies that either have some devs (more then 5) or a ton of repos or large repos they want an alternative to github. Many are slapping up gitolite which while good is a far cry from github.

Like I mentioned I already have found companies that want this solution and they are using GitHaven. The real question is if this market is too small or should I just move on to another project, open source GitHaven and let everyone (who wants to) slap it up as a frontend to their existing gitolite installs?

<comment><USER4> Most products targeted at developers are per-seat priced (or have pricing derived from per-seat pricing); it's how you do value pricing when value scales with the number of developers. Look at how Atlassian does it; that's still effectively per-seat licensing (it requires prospects to think about how many devs they'll have).

You can try to avoid these schemes, but you have to do it _and_ not go out of business.

<comment><USER5> Yeah the per-seat point is really a moot point when it comes to enterprise. ClearCase is $4000 a license and a lot and I mean a lot of large companies use it. I know of a company that is currently spending $2.5 million a year on ClearCase licenses and they really want to get off it but ClearCase is so entrenched/integrated into their work flow that this is not a trivial task. Github is not going to solve this problem for them.

The problem with Github:Fi is the value proposition is extremely weak when it comes to meeting enterprise needs.

\- They have an issue tracker that doesn't support custom fields. This is critical for companies with 500+ developers and/or very diverse product lines.

\- They have a wiki but you can get confluence for $12,000 for the entire company which is more feature rich. It has decent searching.

\- They have blogging but this is of no value in the enterprise world. The majority of employees really don't have the time or care about blogging internally.

\- They have Gist which offers no real value for the same reason why blogging isn't that big of a deal.

When it's all over, their only strong value proposition for the enterprise world is their intuitive push and pull interface. But the problem with this is they are competing directly with free solutions like:

\- gitorious

\- gitolite + internal web interface

\- gerrit

I'm obviously speculating here, but based on how their pricing model changed:

old: 1000 per user (initial purchase) + 200 something a year per user subscription cost

new: 250 per user if less than 25 users and 200 per user if more than 25 users

I think they realized they over estimated their value proposition initially. If Github wants to seriously break into the enterprise world, they are either going to have to lower their per seat cost and/or strengthen their value proposition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just posted to the support page.

"Sorry guys, there was a Javascript error displaying an error when there was none. We've deployed a fix for this and everything should be good to go."

<comment><AUTHOR> This seems to be fixed now - for my repo at least.

The GitHub guy saying it was a "JavaScript display error" is incorrect though. I was pulling a repo and getting an old version.

EDIT: I'm not getting the javaScript display error, but I'm still missing my commit, so I guess these errors are unrelated :/

<comment><USER7> Did you file a support ticket for this? It sounds like an unrelated problem. We can investigate if you let us know what repo is causing the problem. Visit <http://support.github.com> or email firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><AUTHOR> I posted the name of the repo to the thread, and someone else on the thread is confirming the same problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> It turns out that GitHub didn't lose any of my commits. All future readers should ignore my comments on this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is it just me or has guthub's performance and reliability been getting progressively worse over the past month or two? Even putting this issue aside, and the outages, pushing to a private repo takes _minutes_ now, and file lists in the web interface often don't load without a page refresh.

<comment><USER9> At the price and size of Linode instances, it's cheaper and I feel better knowing I'm in control when I run Redmine+Gitosis. When I had my github account and something went wrong, I couldn't just ssh in and fix it. All I could do is wait.

Now, for some people, I can see how waiting is an easier solution. I personally just don't like it.

(of course, this is reffering to private repos. public repos are still king on github)

<comment><USER10> It's amazing to me that you feel more confident in your own abilities to keep a server running than GitHub... you must be a really great sysadmin! The GitHub folks are pretty hardcore!

I, for one, am a positively mediocre sysadmin. And the amount of time I have to spend waiting for GitHub to fix bugs is almost certainly far, far, FAR less than the amount of time I'd spend scrambling (but not waiting!) to fix my own.

This is also how I feel about Heroku.

For whatever reason, I prefer the helplessness I feel while waiting for them to fix stuff to the helplessness I feel when I'm in "OH SHIT MY SERVER IS DOWN AND I DIDN'T EVEN DO ANYTHING AND WHY IS THE DATABASE NOT RESPONDING IT RESPONDS WHEN I QUERY IT MANUALLY AAAUUGGHHH!!!" mode.

Although I do try to keep myself sharp by doing things by hand in other areas of my engineering activities.

<comment><USER11> The beauty os a dvcs is that I have a full copy on my machine as well.

But seriously, if you use git over ssh there is no sys admin work other than running apt-get upgrade

<comment><USER12> There's _always_ sysadmin work.

1) You need to keep current on your security patches.

2) You need to upgrade your OS when it reaches end-of-life.

3) You need to make backups, and more importantly, verify that those backups will actually restore. (For git, this is most critical if you have a large team and dozens of repos.)

You can ignore a server for years, but eventually you'll get compromised or loose a hard drive. (If you use RAID, you'll eventually lose or an entire RAID _array_. Not fun at all, nor cheap.)

<comment><USER13> I'd say "most developers" already have a box running some kind of website where they are doing this anyway, but even if you disagree I think you have to be willing to cede "many", especially given how many people who use GitHub are currently doing Ruby on Rails or node.js work. I'd even go so far as to say that those that currently aren't /should/, as the experience being a sysadmin is important when understanding how other sysadmins will react when they see how your software is deployed, which I guess is another topic of discussion that comes up often here (oft filed under the "Debian vs. Ruby" banner).

(Part of me is wondering if many of the more controversial discussions on this site are between people who have sysadmin experience (and considered it valuable) and people who don't.)

<comment><USER12> _Part of me is wondering if many of the more controversial discussions on this site are between people who have sysadmin experience (and considered it valuable) and people who don't._

I've done a fair bit of sysadmin work over the years, mostly in self-defense, because I want fewer crises when a critical development server eats itself.

Lots of people can figure out how to install Ubuntu, or rent a Linode. But if they don't master upgrades, patches and backups, they'll eventually end up paying a real sysadmin a lot of money at the worst possible moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm still on the fence about that whole cloud thing, personally.

<comment><USER15> Well, here's the beauty of Github--if they lose all my repos I just don't care. Since I've got a copy of my repos locally, there's absolutely nothing they _can_ lose... Worse case if they go completely down for a couple days I can still collaborate using ssh or "git send-email".

This is the only reason I decided to use Github after avoiding Sourceforge and their ilk for the past decade and a half.

<comment><USER16> "This is the only reason I decided to use Github after avoiding Sourceforge and their ilk for the past decade and a half."

But why github? Why not gitorious.org?

If github goes away, I still have my code, but I lose any issues people have filed on the site, and I lose being able to easily check on forks of my projects where people might be doing interesting stuff.

I had been using gitorius.org, but moved to github for all the things other than git that makes one public git host different from another.

<comment><USER17> There is the Github API, so you could backup the non-repository data as well by writing a couple of scripts, if you were so inclined.

<comment><USER16> Right, and I should probably set up something to auto-snag that stuff where it counts, but having to do that is the sort of thing you have to so for any non- git-based site.

It'd be nice of all those related items were also in a repo, easy to pull.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Well luckily you have the entire repository where ever it exists on your dev machines. So I don't expect there would be any data loss. In addition all the commits, tags, trees and files are hashed. The content is hashed, if there is a problem you'd know about it.

</comment><comment><USER19> In future, they keep a very up-to-date status page at

<http://status.github.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> There is nothing useful on that page. The error is in full effect right now.

<comment><USER19> Oops, my bad. I mistakenly thought the 'db error' notice was for today.

I retract the 'very' in my original parent comment, replacing it with 'usually'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It isnt just private repos. I'm seeing it on various public repos on github.

<comment><USER21> Someone had shared a public repo with me on Monday. It started 404ing the next day and I had assumed he took it down. I realize now that it must have been this issue. I just checked for it and it is back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I hope this has nothing to do with the people who hacked sourceforge..

<comment><USER23> Git has full cryptographic history (and data) authentication, so any changes to the history would be easily detectable. And you can sign known-good commits, so that even if you've never pulled before, you can still verify the part of the history that's been signed.

SVN and CVS are missing this key feature, which is why the sf.net hacking is scary.

<comment><USER22> I'm a Git n00b, so thanks for pointing that out! No wonder git has killed off SVN

<comment><USER24> It hasn't yet, but it is making great headway, and I for one can't wait!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Not good.

</comment><comment><USER26> Why can't we have a web interface for GitHub?

I should be push a new release right from my browser.</comment>


James Burke predicted the future in 1973. Now he does it again - <AUTHOR> https://audioboo.fm/boos/1574606-james-burke-predicted-the-future-in-1973-now-he-does-it-again <comment><USER2> Perhaps the most frustrating thing I've heard all day was when Burke said it was OK to collect all the data because it'll be ignored when those who control it are not interested in it.

"They don't care about ME! They only take notice of people when they're connected to an group or event that is being monitored"

Well no shit. Thats like saying a tyrannical government only silences those who oppose them. They don't care about you today, but as soon as you stick your head up everything you've said and all your human connections are immediately tagged. I find that _discomforting_! And what a poor showing from the interviewer not to mention this.

<comment><USER3> Having large amounts of collected data on citizens doesn't create a tyrannical government. Nor is it required for a tyrannical government: the Nazis did horrible things with very primitive technology. In the same vein, the U.S. government has had seventy years to become tyrannical with much more advanced technology, but it has not.

The key to foiling a tyrannical government is to prevent a tyrannical government from being created in the first place though the political process --checks and balances, rule of law, preservation of values, citizen involvement, democratic and fair elections. It is not by employing a few lame technological defenses or prohibiting specific practice X, Y, and Z. Those are useless against any sufficiently motivated government, and, if anything, they create a false sense of security. Government is not as it has, but as it does.

<comment><USER4> I agree that preventing tyranny is not primarily a technological problem. But the abuse of power is not unrelated to how easy it is to abuse either. Technology can make it more difficult to abuse power, more difficult to hide any abuse and hence it makes any checks and balances more effective.

Also, I think we haven't seen all forms of tyranny yet. It is very difficult for a democratically elected government not to enforce something popular they are technically capable of enforcing. Even if there is rule of law and checks and balances there is also a tendency toward ever more detailed control and even prediction of individual behaviour.

I fear that the erosion of individual freedoms is possible even in perfectly good democratic societies if there are no technological barriers to that collective power grab. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" remains true even if that power is legitimate.

And my last point is that breaking the law is necessary for the advancement of the law and our societies. Law is not something that falls from the sky or magically emerges from the moral conscience of wise men and women. It is often the result of conflict. If you give too much power to the enforcers of current law that conflict could become too unequal for society to advance and avoid tyranny.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Half-transcript, half-paraphrasing of the key quotes:

something is going to change within 40 years to change our lives as greatly as the changes since we came from the caves to modern day.

The problem is that, as we try to solve privacy, feeding the world, etc we spend months of time discussing these short term problems in board rooms and parliament whilst labs around the world are working on nanotech

Richard Fynman said that there is "no physical law against creating a personal nanofactory", like a 3d printer, to print anything from basically air, dirt and some Acetylene gas (for added carbon).

Everyone will be able to make anything they need for practically nothing, and this will destroy current economic systems and government.

When nanofactories appear, they will address the problem of scarcity. All our years have been spent constructing organisations and systems to share everything. There will be no need for any social institutions, as they all exist to share things, to address scarsisty.

Why would we still live in massive cities, when we have no more factories, no more need for economies of scale? People will be able to then live by themselves on a mountain using solar panels for power and no need for utilities.

Physical contact between people will happen, but be rarer and and 3d holography will be used to allow this over great distance, to allow you to talk to someone as if they are there, no screen, but if you try to touch them you'll just go through them.

We are going to live through extraordinary times over the next twenty-thirty years!

 _Edit - Further good bits I missed on the first pass:_

In response to "You seem as optimistic as you were in 1970":

* laughs * Well you know what they say about pessimists: They jump out of the window and they're no longer involved.

<comment><USER6> You forgot the last part:

> You seem as optimistic as you were in 1970

> * laughs * Well you know what they say about pessimists: They jump out of > the window and they're no longer involved.

<comment><USER7> Survivorship bias!

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I grew up watching the Connections series on VHS from my local library.

More than a decade later Netflix recommended the DVD set to me based on my preferences—It was like running into an old flame. Watching them as an adult, they are even more amazing than I originally remember.

</comment><comment><USER9> Burke's naivete about the externalities of an out-of-control surveillance apparatus are appalling: ignoring the fact that innocent people do get swept up for happening to match criteria of a secret scoring algorithm is just burying one's head in the sand. Instead, he alludes to a simplistic perspective that the world is a happy-clappy paradise where innocent people have "nothing to hide," and by virtual of volume of communication, shouldn't worry.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6304729](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6304729)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4453659](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4453659)

</comment><comment><USER10> Lots of gold on YouTube [http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesBurkeConnection?feature=wat...](http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesBurkeConnection?feature=watch)

</comment><comment><USER11> The original on BBC : [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b038zhb9](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b038zhb9) see from 44 mins on.

It is the simplest and clearest explanation of _why_ nanotechnology matters and what's happening while we all play with Web 3.0

I can't agree it's all coming to pass as be says, nor in those timescales. But only a few technologies need to pay off and we will see an end to scarcity.

<comment><USER12> We will never see an end to scarcity. It isn't merely a flaw that humans seek power. A society without concentrations of power is a weak society, and weak societies will always be subservient. Concentrations of power means inequality, and there can be no inequality without scarcity. Therefore scarcity is both unavoidable and valuable.

<comment><USER7> Scarcity of what, and over what time scale?

Human time will always be scarce, and it is valuable to each of us. We can also never have enough knowledge, so that is scarce in some senses, though it is a non-exclusionary good. Material goods fluctuate in scarcity, one can look at metals, silks, porcelain, and many other examples of commodities and their products which vary in price by region and era.

<comment><USER13> Interesting that you mention that, I was thinking along similar lines as both yours and the parent comment.

A true knowledge economy is what I would expect as the result of a "nano- factory" revolution. How much you know and what you know could be as valuable in direct terms as how much you earn is today in dollars.

I am sure I have heard this discussed in more detail before. Probably on HN.

Obviously we are several generations removed from such an event as the cultural shift would be profound. I don't think any of us would like it, me included. I always feel dumb so imagine I'd be part of the lower class in this world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yes! I still own all three sets of Connections (I, II, and III) as well as the game.

He is _so_ good at taking ideas from many sources and presenting them, showing how they might fit together or did fit together to create whole new ideas....

</comment><comment><USER15> Fascinating views. The privacy angle is quite in line with what is already happening. With the recent Snowden affair there has been a huge brouhaha about privacy etc. but if you look at "private" information that financial and retail companies already possess you will find that people actually don't care. As long as you get a 0.5% less on your mortgage or credit cards and some 10% discount on purchases, people are more than happy to have companies record every transaction that you make.

I'm not sure on the nanotechnology future that he has laid out though. Specifically, what is the source of energy to transform the air/water/dirt stuff into goods and what is the rational for saying that starting with water/dirt/O2 will be the cheapest route to getting whatever stuff we need. Not convinced on that front.

<comment><USER16> Yeah well retail companies won't just throw you in jail if you disagree with their new "marketing" campaign. There's quite a difference between a company you willingly give information to and a government trying to find out who are possible dissidents and how those dissidents could unseat those in power.

<comment><USER17> I'm not sure - if private companies maintain these databases, wouldn't it be easy for a hypothetical corrupt government to access them?

<comment><USER16> This is absolutely true, however there are alternatives to companies that track you. Go to JCPenny and they don't force you to use a credit card to purchase some shoes. If you use cash, as opposed to a credit card, you won't be added to their database. The difference between a retail store and the government is whether you have the choice of having your information stored in a database. So yes, a government could just up and say "all your base are belong to us" to supplement any information they already have, but there is no opt-out for a government that might already have information on you based on phone calls and your Internet graph.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> He may soon be incorrect about them not being interested in the content of your calls, only "who you speak to". Before long, always-used speech recognition will be plausible, if it isn't already. Yes, imperfect, but more information than just who you're speaking to.

<comment><USER19> It is doable already with the NSA's Utah data center to run existing speech- recognition programs on all U.S. phone conversations. (By my back-of-the- envelope estimate.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> James Burke is brilliant. I uploaded the full Connections series last year (they had already existed on another channel but were split into 10min vids): [http://www.youtube.com/JamesBurkeConnection](http://www.youtube.com/JamesBurkeConnection)

</comment><comment><USER21> Some interesting bits:

Nanotechnology will bring real personal manufacturing at the _molecular_ level giving people the ability to produce nearly anything for virtually nothing. This will result in the destruction of current socioeconomic systems and government as there will be no need for any type of scarcity monitoring or control or labour.

People will trend away from cities, and live in smaller more natural close knit communities. Realistic 3D holographic projections will further enable this.

He attributed the nanotechnology factory idea to the great Richard Feynman.

</comment><comment><USER18> I would expect nano-printers to have the same effect as essentially free digital reproduction had on music, print and video. There'll be free stuff, and stuff you'll pay for. Why do people pay? Partly to be part of a community; partly because (hopefully) it's better if a whole lot of people worked on it to serve your demographic. I don't think it will change the structure of society, but will have pretty similar dynamics to present day internet.

<comment><USER22> Today's internet and the digitization of media have had a _humongous_ effect on the economics of content production.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> There's a very relevant episode of Freakonomics Radio that discusses obsession with predictions and their actual value: [http://www.wnyc.org/articles/freakonomics- podcast/2013/aug/2...](http://www.wnyc.org/articles/freakonomics- podcast/2013/aug/22/folly-prediction-rebroadcast/)

</comment><comment><USER24> I've watched his series Connections about three times over. It's excellent and well worth your time.

</comment><comment><USER25> For a good examination of what kind of society you might get when scarcity is gone and humans can create stuff at the drop of a hat, read Michael Moorcock's 'The Dancers at the End of Time". He doesn't go into details of how they got there or how it all works, but very interesting nonetheless. The main characters seem to settle into some kind of permanent battle to outdo each other with lavish parties and collect people from passing civilisations and time travellers just so they can have someone to talk to.

</comment><comment><USER26> We are already moving to a more and more service base economy though. People still pay in one way or another for movie or television content. Nanofactories won't change that.

<comment><USER7> I would not classify movies and television content as services, but I agree that non-material goods provide real value that nano-factories cannot simply replicate. We will continue to require labor intensive services (, such as plays, restaurants, etc.), and non-exclusionary goods, (i.e. films, designs, concepts).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think he's naive with some basic human behaviours and economics of it all. What he says is 90% true though.

</comment><comment><USER28> Replicator and holodeck?

</comment><comment><USER29> For a man who specializes in foresight, Burke misses the boat on eavesdropping.</comment>


The Time Tim Cook Stood His Ground Against the FBI - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/the-time-tim-cook-stood-his-ground-against-fbi/ <comment><USER2> > The writ "was not a simple request for assistance in a criminal case," > explained Sewell. "It was a forty-two-page pleading by the government that > started out with this litany of the horrible things that had been done in > San Bernardino. And then this... somewhat biased litany of all the times > that Apple had said no to what were portrayed as very reasonable requests. > So this was what, in the law, we call a speaking complaint. It was meant to > from day one tell a story... that would get the public against Apple."

> The team came to the conclusion that the judge's order was a PR move—a very > public arm twisting to pressure Apple into complying with the FBI's > demands—and that it could be serious trouble for the company. Apple "is a > famous, incredibly powerful consumer brand and we are going to be standing > up against the FBI and saying in effect, 'No, we're not going to give you > the thing that you're looking for to try to deal with this terrorist > threat,'" said Sewell.

<comment><USER3> On the contrary, Apple's refusal was a PR move, and this whole article is a submarine. [https://www.wired.com/2016/02/apples-fbi-battle-is- complicat...](https://www.wired.com/2016/02/apples-fbi-battle-is-complicated- heres-whats-really-going-on/) has a better explanation.

What really happened is that Apple loudly proclaimed that they had made it impossible to comply with government data requests and even had a marketing page masquerading as a privacy page explaining that. The FBI asked Apple to put a build on a phone that would allow them to brute force the passcode, leaving the device and the build on Apple's premises the entire time. This showed that Apple's claim was false in practice. Apple quickly removed that marketing page in the wake of the news.

<comment><USER4> > The FBI asked Apple to put a build on a phone that would allow them to brute > force the passcode, leaving the device and the build on Apple's premises the > entire time.

It doesn't matter how well it might be locked down or secured. If the government coerced them into building it, it wouldn't be difficult to go one more step and require apple to hand over the modified OS.

This [1] does a great job of explaining why building a master key is _just_ a bad idea. This is a pandora's box we do not need to open.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPBH1eW28mo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPBH1eW28mo)

<comment><USER3> The master key already exists. It is the key used to sign builds.

Edit: downvotes of easily verifiable facts are causing hn to block me from responding. At the time Apple made the false marketing claims, no passcode was required to install a signed build. Hence, the FBI's request.

The FBI was asking for no more than what Apple could already do, and it was letting Apple control the whole process. The problem was that what Apple could already do disagreed with what Apple told its customers that it could do.

<comment><USER5> Except in the case that the device will not accept the build without the user's passcode, right?

<comment><USER6> Correct. This may not have been perfectly locked down before the secure element, but Apple's _design goal_ has always been that the device hardware prevents even Apple itself from retrieving encrypted data without the passcode, and that passcode should have a strictly limited number of attempts to guess.

Bugs will always be found and it's a mistake to think even the latest iPhone is immune to attack. In particular, the baseband continues to be a large attack surface, and IMO is the vector most likely used by the Saudis to remotely access iPhones on their cellular network.

I'd feel safer if a powered off iPhone did not connect to any network (WiFi, Cell, or USB) after booting until the passcode is entered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why doesn't he stand up to the Saudis? It's quite strange. I know people will say it's about money, but that's a really unsatisfying answer.

</comment><comment><USER8> > From a public relations standpoint, Apple had always been on the side of > privacy advocates and civil libertarians.

Oh give me a break. Apple only cares about American user privacy, and only then because it aligns with their business interests. Where is the oh-so-noble Tim Cook protesting the heinous civil rights and privacy violations in the business they do in China? Nowhere. Apple only cares about user privacy so much as it makes them money - in the US that means resisting the government, and in China it means hopping into bed with Big Daddy Xi.

Edit: For example, Snowden leaked an NSA slide saying that Apple had given in to cooperate with Prism, but Apple denied-denied-denied as soon as the news broke. It was only post-Snowden, when privacy could be monetized, that Apple suddenly started to care.

<comment><USER3> You're downvoted because (ignoring for now the Apple fanboys who can't abide any criticism of Apple) your edit is wrong as explained elsewhere in these comments. Your initial China point is spot on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> While we are on the subject, shall we go over Apple caving in to Prism participation shortly after Jobs death?

Have Tim Cook pulled them out by any chance? Or are they still siphoning off pretty much everything feds want that way despite all their very hard and very public stance against the FBI? It might be not acceptable in court per se, but it does put their "pro-privacy stance" in perspective.

<comment><USER3> Apple didn't "participate in PRISM." The only participants in PRISM are the FBI, the NSA, and government contractors that implemented the PRISM system, as the slides clearly show: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/special/politics/prism-...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/images/prism-slide-7.jpg)

<comment><USER9> PotatA-potatO. They are knowingly leaking.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_\(surveillance_program\)#Media_disclosure_of_PRISM)

(includes your slide in a proper context)

<comment><USER3> No, they knowingly complied with individual users' data requests from the FBI. That is not leaking. You seem to believe PRISM has access to a lot more data than it actually does.

Greenwald, out of an abundance of incompetence, believed that DITU was a device in the companies' datacenters. DITU is a division of the FBI, not a device.

Edit: downvotes are causing hn to prevent me from responding, but the sibling comment from Anechoic is also wrong. That is not what the slide shows. The linked slide shows that PRISM ingested data legally obtained by the FBI.

<comment><USER10> Generally when this debate comes up, folks point to this [0] slide as evidence that Apple was a willing participant when is says no such thing. You are correct that the slide you linked to indicates that the data were flowing through the FBI DITU.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_\(surveillance_program\)#/media/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg)

<comment><USER3> PRISM is a data processing system that ingests data that the FBI already has. There is nothing in that system for Apple to participate in, willingly or unwillingly.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: JobSpade – A daily aggregator of design, development and engineering jobs - <AUTHOR> https://www.jobspade.com <comment><USER2> I like how the job types are colored and show remote openings as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there a way to search by salary?</comment>


On the TTY - <AUTHOR> http://sgt.hootr.club/molten-matter/tty/ <comment><USER2> A bit brief but inspiring. You don't happen to have any code to share?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Not yet, but I'm working on a file browser, and I'm hoping to turn most of its code into a small Ruby library. I used this as starting point: [https://github.com/garybernhardt/selecta](https://github.com/garybernhardt/selecta)</comment></comment>


James Damore sues Google for discrimination - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/8/16863342/james-damore-google-lawsuit-diversity-memo <comment><USER2> Extensive discussion previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16098676](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16098676)

</comment><comment><USER3> Important context: "Harmeet Dhillon," the attorney at the top-left of page one, is the "chairwoman of the Republican Party in San Francisco" [1]. Damore has managed to pawn himself off as a one-act political ploy and fundraising billing for the 2018 midterms. In exchange, he gets an unwinnable case and play a human heatsink for this issue for the rest of his life.

TL; DR If an attorney with political ambitions offers to fight your case for free, you may be paying with something other than currency.

[1] [http://m.sfgate.com/politics/article/Harmeet-Dhillon- Republi...](http://m.sfgate.com/politics/article/Harmeet-Dhillon-Republican- leader-with-S-F-twist-2374454.php)

</comment><comment><USER4> Google can _easily_ prove that they don't discriminate against white men by demonstrating that their workforce is mainly white men. There obviously isn't any discrimination on that part. There is a question of whether or not Google could discriminate against conservatives, but in the case of Damore _they obviously didn 't because they employed him_. He could claim he was fired for political action in the workplace, but that isn't protected speech so Google were not in the wrong about that.

How he can have a case?

[1] See misconception 2 here [https://www.hklaw.com/publications/Hey-Take-It- Outside-Polit...](https://www.hklaw.com/publications/Hey-Take-It-Outside- Politics-in-the-Workplace-10-01-2011/)

<comment><USER5> Your easy proof is completely wrong. There's discrimination against white men if the hiring bar is higher for them. To check this using workforce statistics you'd need to compare the fraction of white men in the workforce to what it would be with the same hiring bar for everyone. Comparing the fraction to the magic number 50% is irrelevant.

<comment><USER6> > To check this using workforce statistics you'd need to compare the fraction > of white men in the workforce to what it would be with the same hiring bar > for everyone.

If there was the same hiring bar for everyone, then wouldn't the a company (such as Google) who has the ability to hire only the best, end up with a distribution which matches the population as a whole?

<comment><USER7> No. You're not dealing with reality.

Reality is that African Americans are not doing well as a segment of the population, for whatever reason.

Reality is that compared to men, women aren't as interested in STEM, for whatever reason.

Reality is that Asian Americans are doing very well in STEM and other fields, for whatever reason.

Removing reasons from the equation, you have to realize that reality will dictate the distribution of the best candidates for these jobs.

 _these are all generalizations. A woman can be more interested and better in STEM than a man, but the left forces us to generalize by gender and race, which ultimately lead to statistics that make people uncomfortable.

_ * I provided no citations for these generalizations for the sake of time, but if anyone disagrees I can provide them.

<comment><USER6> > you have to realize that reality will dictate the distribution of the best > candidates for these jobs

That seems backwards—a company would be better off hiring from demographics that are underperforming versus expected, and then finding a way to get them to perform as well as their innate talent would allow.

<comment><USER7> Why would a company be better off? You never explained that.

A company hires individuals.

If you want someone who is underperforming, why does that underperforming person need to identify as an underperforming intersectional group?

If a black, transgender (was a man, now a post-op woman), lesbian (she likes women), who is a cross dresser (she likes to dress like a man) applies for a job, do you just hire her on the spot because she ticks so many boxes of supposedly marginalized people?

That seems like a bad way to run a business and I would suggest you hire based on qualifications.

<comment><USER6> > If you want someone who is underperforming, why does that underperforming > person need to identify as an underperforming intersectional group?

Because you found a way to identify groups of people who are probably a lot more skilled than your ability to measure qualifications indicates. So you can trust in your measurements, or you can accept that our ability to measure nebulous concepts is weak. Think of it like arbitrage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Someone submitted yesterday a link to the full complaint: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16100834](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16100834)

</comment><comment><USER7> "suggested women may be biologically inferior engineers"

It didn't say that, but let's not let truth get in the way.

<comment><USER9> From the start this article was fraught with inaccuracy and obvious virtue signaling. Not to mention The Verge has attempted to connect Damore to the alt-right on 4chan. This publication cannot be trusted.

<comment><USER10> Better link, with Google-created evidence from Damore's lawyer: [https://twitter.com/mjaeckel/status/950446329603461121](https://twitter.com/mjaeckel/status/950446329603461121)

<comment><USER7> Wow. Thanks for the link.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


TensorFlow Example: Fit a straight line - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jostmey/NakedTensor/blob/master/serial.py <comment><USER2> Can someone explain what on earth the type of 'error' is? It starts off as 0.0 but then gets +='ed with expressions containing tf.Variables, so I assume it turned into some object that is basically function? Why not write it as an actual function? Are they doing automatic differentiation for their gradient descent, or something like that?

(Grumble grumble something about dynamic and/or implicit type systems.)

<comment><USER2> Ok so looking into this a bit more, that's exactly what they're doing. In fact, TensorFlow is linked as an example on the wiki page for automatic differentiation [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_differentiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_differentiation)]

"TensorFlow™ is an open source software library for numerical computation using data flow graphs. Nodes in the graph represent mathematical operations, while the graph edges represent the multidimensional data arrays (tensors) communicated between them." [[https://www.tensorflow.org/](https://www.tensorflow.org/)]

In retrospect the name "Tensor Flow" makes a lot more sense now - I had only ever seen it in the context of machine learning, and assumed it was pretty specific to that domain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Odd mix of (I presume) "bare bones" and "rock bottom" in the title. Alternative might be "Rock Bones"?

<comment><USER4> I think it's a pun on the repo name, "NakedTensor"

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can someone ELI5 this example?

<comment><USER6> This example builds a really simple tensorflow model that is able to predict the result of a function y = f(x) where y = f(x) is a straight line.

The tensorflow example is able to predict the result of this function for any x, without knowing the function itself only by knowing some example points (points for which the model knows both x and y).

This is a "Hello World" in the area of AI, adapted for the tensorflow library.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I just don't see the point of all these simple introductions to some ML topic. If you want to do a good job it is hard. If you need a simple introduction and don't just dig in a persevere with harder stuff you probably aren't going to succeed in whatever ML task you aspire to.

<comment><USER8> I upvoted because I'm quite familiar with ML theory and like to read the latest tweaks, etc. but I've never used a tool like TensorFlow. Papers, blog posts, etc. usually give diagrams and/or fully-fledged code snippets. That's great for the high-level overview, and low-level nitty-gritty, respectively.

Yet minimal code examples like this let me see straight away what TensorFlow programs look like, without having to distinguish between fundamental aspects and snippet-specific ones.

My only remark would be to put a comment at the top something like "Fit a straight line, of the form y=m*x+b".

I guessed that the "m" and "b" variables were referring to these common usages, but was wary of this assumption until line 14.

For all I know, "m" and "b" could be common parameter names for some TensorFlow config or something :)

<comment><USER9> Another suggestion: 'operation' would be better named 'train_step' \-- it's more descriptive and eliminates the need for the comment at the end.

Also, it's best practice and common tensorflow idiom to do:

        init = tf.initialize_all_variables()
        ...
        with tf.Session() as session:
             session.run(init)

Not just for style, but because creating new graph nodes after creating the session requires tearing down and then re-setting-up some of the internal session stuff. It's much faster to move the initialize_all_variables() creation outside of the session.</comment></comment></comment>


Friends May Be the Best Guide Through the Noise - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/technology/04essay.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

<comment><USER2> Is it common for the NYT not to link to sites they talk about? Neither FriendFeed nor Flickr nor Twitter is linked to. The smaller sites could certainly use the link juice.

However, they _have_ linked to sites that everyone knows about: Yahoo and Google.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone here have feeds to share?

<comment><USER4> <http://www.friendfeed.com/kfischer>

it's mostly just the posts from my biology press release blog</comment></comment>


Creation and consumption - <AUTHOR> http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/7/13/creation-and-consumption <comment><USER2> One question is "can PCs move to a tablet form factor faster than Android/iOS tablets can improve?"

The Win8 vision of a tablet PC works OK, but the market has not cleared for these partially because companies like Dell and HP do not want to sell a $100 tablet that replaces a $250 low-end notebook. Thus they make "convertible" devices that seem to be as much about providing an awful touchpad as they are about providing a keyboard. Somehow the message that you can get a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard has not gotten to people.

Apple makes so much money on phones it is going to be hard for them to think about anything else. Other people don't make money on phones.

A charitable interpretation is that Android is where Windows was circa the year 2000; it took Microsoft more than a decade to get a software update process that really works, and between Google and the rest of the ecosystem you cannot count on getting software upgrades at all -- the window of support is even disappointing for Nexus devices, and I remember that horror of installing a new version of Android to watch the performance slow to a crawl because somebody thought I needed full disk encryption.</comment>


Show HN: Building DockNetFiddle Using Docker and .NET Core - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/DaniJG/DockNetFiddle <comment><USER2> Conceptually this is awesome. Do you know of any production apps running on Docker and .NET Core?</comment>


After 10 years ReactOS website has got new design - <AUTHOR> https://www.reactos.org/ <comment><USER2> This is the previous design from 10 years ago:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20060421204854/http://www.reacto...](https://web.archive.org/web/20060421204854/http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html)

It certainly looks dated, but compared to the new design there are a few good things about it:

\- High information density

\- Screenshot at the top

\- Link to legal review and licenses (questions that any enterprise customer would have)

\- No gratuitous animation sequences

I wonder if it would have been possible to update the ReactOS site's design while retaining its informational quality. Just improving the typography and working on the padding between boxes could have made a real difference.

More generally, I wish the tide of web design trends would turn towards information density once again. Edward Tufte, a legend in the field and proponent of visual density, famously called PowerPoint presentations "chart junk" because they spend slide after slide on charts with minimal information in each.

Modern websites willingly do the same, forcing the user to scroll through a dozen screenfuls just to glean some basic information about a product. Animation makes this even worse, because the user has to sit and wait while the site slowly delivers information in animated word-sized chunks.

<comment><USER3> > Animation makes this even worse, because the user has to sit and wait while > the site slowly delivers information in animated word-sized chunks.

This is exactly what pissed me off within the first 3 seconds, that there is no way to see everything they have to say without waiting until the animation goes whole cycle and then waiting some more to make sure I didn't miss anything.

It looks like they took design tips from people optimizing for addictiveness, not usefulness. Hint: you don't need their tips if you are a FOSS project and actually lose money on people spending more time on your site than necessary.

<comment> vicmarcal-ros Hi! You can move through animations thanks to the slider below it. So you can jump to the animation you want to see again.

On the other hand, a home page is just that...the main page any kind of visitors will arrive, from great IT guys (as you) to no-IT guys at all. If you know about the project already it's pretty obvious the level of the info in the home page has been lowered to ease the understanding of the scope of the project. Tell a non-IT guy we're creating an operating system clone aiming NT architecture and they won't catch what is this about at all. All the tech details are waiting you in the new "Developing" section of the site then ;)

<comment><USER3> Frankly, those animations are so simple that they could be replaced with static images (the first one would need a split in two). This way I can choose which one to watch simply by moving my eyeballs or maybe scrolling in case of small screens. Two simple, widely know and efficient interfaces.

Maybe I shouldn't be too harsh, after all it was me who as a teenager hacked this panel displaying information about currently selected file in Windows 98 Explorer to slide in/out during navigation like menus in StarCraft, but c'mon - it's one thing to create such stuff and another to actually really use it. Even I couldn't bear those sliding panels for long :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What bothers me about this site is that the first thing they do is put down Windows, instead of highlighting their own features.

What they say about windows "Closed source, licensed, spy [sic]" may be true, but it doesnt tell me anything about their product. I could as well think "oh, I dont want to be spied upon, lets switch to linux".

Those sliders also did not make it obvious to me that it can run windows server 2003 applications (according to wikipedia).

And please dont override scroll behaviour.

<comment><USER5> It's 'spy-cy'. Get it? They're saying Windows is spyware without actually saying it, by saying it's 'spicy'. 3edgy5me.

<comment><USER6> thats an in-joke that doesn't really work for the vast majority of people.

...it also shows a juvenile level of humour that isn't appropriate for a group that wants to generate trust in an OS.

<comment><USER7> > juvenile

Cringe at their FAQ. I don't want my OS supplier to pretend to be hip. Super weird especially because they aren't a for-profit so it's not even a scheme to get to your money, they are just clueless a bit. Casual approach has to be earned through human contact.

[https://www.reactos.org/joining/faqs](https://www.reactos.org/joining/faqs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All this animated stuff makes the new site really annoying. Does anybody actually like this stuff? Or is it just the developers who want to show off how much Javascript they know?

<comment><USER9> I don't mind the animations but I just can't stand it when websites mess with the scrolling. The page does not behave as I expect when I scroll using the trackpad on my macbook. I don't know how it behaves with a mouse scrollwheel but I assume it feels strange.

There is no universal way to reliably mimic scrolling with javascript. There's too many different browsers and devices, all of them treat scrolling differently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's a template called Porto available for 16$ at themeforest. They also forgot to change some default pictures: [http://themeforest.net/item/porto- responsive-html5-template/...](http://themeforest.net/item/porto-responsive- html5-template/4106987)

<comment><USER11> This doesn't bother me as much — FOSS projects don't need a rockstar designer for their website, do they?

Unless a "designer" "developed" the website for them and they got blindsided, which I'm sure happens more than I care to understand. I've seen it happen at well-funded companies — employees claiming they designed something, management had no idea they didn't really do much work at all, etc.

<comment><USER10> Of course you don't have to reinvent the wheel. I just wanted others to know if they like the design. And maybe they should change the default picture above "following".

BTW I think they did quite well. I especially like the "live activity" box at the footer that shows recent changes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It is a shame they decided to override the default scroll behaviour.

<comment><USER13> Please, please, please don't override scrolling. On OSX with a Trackpad it's unusable.

<comment><USER14> Indeed. This is really bad design

</comment></comment></comment><comment> V-2 A new design, but was it proof-read by someone?

 _" ( a step by step and video guide can be found here)"_ \- nevermind things like the space after the opening paranthesis, let's not be picky... but there is no link.

 _" Here you can find a guide about how to request a position to translate the site, and here an awesome tool created by XXXX"_ \- again, no links, and I have some doubts whether XXXX is an actual person : ) It surely doesn't inspire much trust in a prospective user who is assumed to ask questions such as _" Free and Open-whaaat...?"_ or _" is ReactOS legal?"_.

[https://www.reactos.org/joining/faqs](https://www.reactos.org/joining/faqs)

</comment><comment><USER15> I want to follow their news, but I can't seem to find an RSS feed.

In its place, there's stupid facebook/etc social crap buttons.

</comment><comment><USER16> Great but fails to explain what reactos is and what it's about.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Old version of site to compare

[http://web.archive.org/web/20160207071226/http://www.reactos...](http://web.archive.org/web/20160207071226/http://www.reactos.org/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Why do they override the scroll behaviour?..

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Send them feedback in IRC (webchat.freenode.net #reactos) or forum ([https://www.reactos.org/forum/](https://www.reactos.org/forum/))

</comment><comment><USER18> Since the beginning I had a dream of doing IE compatibility tests with ReactOS but other options showed up and IE lost its relevance in relevant parts of the Internet.

</comment><comment><USER19> Maybe it's time for another redesign…

Site is quite broken on iPad

<comment> vicmarcal-ros Hi! Vicmarcal from ReactOS here. Which issues are you having navigating with the new ReactOS site? I'm using Ipad, and while there is too many work to be done in the responsive area(some bootstrap fixes mainly), I see it working in my Ipad. :)

<comment><USER20> Not completely unrelated, but the scroll-jacking in general is annoying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> nice rip of [http://osticket.com/index.php](http://osticket.com/index.php)

<comment><USER22> No. They're both using the same Wordpress theme ([http://themeforest.net/item/porto-responsive- html5-template/...](http://themeforest.net/item/porto-responsive- html5-template/4106987)).

<comment><USER10> Same theme, but plain HTML the and not a wordpress theme on both pages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think when they will get NTFS support thinks will start to go crazy.

<comment><USER24> ReactOS has made great progress. The last time I tested it I wondered if it could ever be useful. Now it provides an instant desktop with XP compatiblity, variable desktop sizes and flawless network access.

In my opinion XP was the best Windows ever. I think there are many people with legacy PCs who think the same, and who would love to have a XP alternative with real sustainability, even more due to Microsoft's attempt to lock every Win7 user into the privacy-less Win10 ecosystem.

The ReactOS team should consider to make a business of it. There are so many options. Company support, driver development, 3D, better OSX/Linux cooperation, Docker-like applications w/o desktop etc. They could provide a whole new ecosystem around Windows while retaining independency from MS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Holy fuck that scrolljacking, people pls, stop doing this!

</comment><comment><USER26> SCROLL JACKING!!!!

</comment><comment><USER20> The scroll-jacking is strong with this one.</comment>


Faye's story: good practice when prescribing opioids for chronic pain - <AUTHOR> https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/fayes-story-good-practice-when-prescribing-opioids-chronic-pain/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is from NHS Improvement - a bit of the English NHS that's set up to regulate some health trusts, and to support trusts to provide "consistently safe, high quality, compassionate care within local health systems that are financially sustainable".

I'm submitting it because there are frequent discussions on HN about opioids, and this document is written from the perspective of a patient and her preventable, avoidable, death.</comment>


The Y Combinator Experience - <AUTHOR> http://www.defmacro.org/ramblings/yc.html <comment><USER2> I had a friend in college (I'll call Rob) who would shoot hoops, play golf, or play table tennis with anyone at any time. But he would never play anything else. He wouldn't play touch football, softball, bridge, or even shoot a game of pool. I could never understand it until I finally figured it out: he wouldn't play anything unless he knew that he would win. How sad, I thought.

I just realized (to my horror) that years later, I am just like him. I don't push boundaries like I used to. I don't call on that extra customer, volunteer for that project, or apply to programs like yc if I think there is any chance I won't win. There's always a reason: the software is missing too much, the demo sucks, there are 14 other things that have to be done first,... You get the picture.

I never thought of this as "fear of failure". I just got so used to succeeding in everything I did that I didn't want to do anything else where I didn't succeed. I became Rob without even realizing it.

I've got to change this stinkin' thinkin'. A good failure would probably do me good. Or maybe I should just try something I would have never imagined a month ago.

Thanks OP, for the perspective.

<comment><USER3> In my experience it is often the _opposite_ trait that is a problem. Hackers don't want to do something they have already figured out -- they crave the novel.

Solving a problem a second time is much more profitable. A big part of business is focusing on your strengths, rather than your weaknesses. Find out what you do _best_ and market the hell out of it. No product is perfect.

<comment><USER4> _Solving a problem a second time is much more profitable_

This is compatible with the OP's point - hackers often look for _novel solutions_ , not necessarily novel problems.

But the terminology here is very uncertain - problems and solutions interact in very complex ways: the "assembly line" solution solved the "horse shit all over the roads" problem. Google Wave might end up solving the problems which ORM's and databases are solving - that of storing and synchronizing data structures across machines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This entrepreneurship as self-improvement trope is getting downright weird.

<comment><USER6> I think it makes sense when viewed another way. Only a select few, about 3% of this country are wealthy, even though one can create their own wealth here. I think the reason is two-fold. First, it's remarkably rare for a person to actually act on their ambitions. Next, when you consider that the default for startups is failure (as PG wrote), and that even smart people fail, it seems to indicate there is something more the people with self-made success have. If all were not born with these valuable qualities, some likely gained them through conscious self-improvement.

<comment><USER7> "Only a select few, about 3% of this country are wealthy"

Isn't that a tautology?

<comment><USER8> i.e. that the wealthy are only relatively so, and as such are defined as the rightward long tail of the income distribution, and thus are few (by definition).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I learned a long time ago to simply not care what my family and friends think, or how they judge me. After all, none them are entrepreneurs, have studied business, are programmers or hackers, or even understand anything about the startup culture in any sense. So why subject myself to the criticism of a bunch of amateurs? I'm looking to be critiqued by pros like Paul Graham and the YC team. I'm looking to be subject to criticism from those whom have been there, know what they are doing, and can offer me constructive feedback to improve my idea. It would be like going to my barber because I'm having chest pains. Not a bright move. Since all my barber could do, would be to shape me up and make me look good for my next doctor's appointment.

</comment><comment><USER10> Good post. Of course each experience is different, but I'd like to point out that Jessica's business acumen and experience are key, too.

</comment><comment><USER11> Thanks for sharing your experiences. I also really enjoyed your early postings on Lisp and functional programming; at the time, they helped me stay the course towards learning Lisp.

</comment><comment><USER12> Slava (author) echoing similar sentiments earlier in HN

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=781727>

</comment><comment><USER13> If I get the essence of it right YC offers personal counseling to overcome the fear of failure, and if you don't get in you'll have to overcome that fear somehow on your own ?

If this is in response to an earlier discussion on HN what it is exactly that an incubator does for the entrepreneurs that sign up with them then I hope that this is not typical.

An entrepreneur that does not fear failure still has to be born I think, almost all successful people are at some level worried about not succeeding.

You transcend that fear by becoming excellent at what you do and by giving it your 100%. And if you fail, you try again, this time with more experience. Rinse, repeat until you get it right. Almost everybody fails a couple of times before they get it right, the exceptions merely confirm the rule.

And you should get a team of advisors around you, people that you can trust completely, _before_ you start negotiating with any VC or incubator.

After all, you are emotionally involved, you may not see things too clearly and outside advisors can keep your feet on the ground. You will make a better deal that way.

The VC is on the _other_ side of the table during the negotiations phase.

<comment><USER14> _If I get the essence of it right YC offers personal counseling to overcome the fear of failure_

YC offers product and company advice, not "personal counseling". So no, you don't have the essence of it right.

<comment><USER13> > Y Combinator transforms this force from a weight on your shoulders that > keeps you down, to a powerful rocket that propels you to the sky.

<comment><USER14> Your point escapes me. All the OP is saying is that getting into YC made it easier to override his initial fear of failure, after which the process took on a life of its own. The subject of the sentence you quoted is not "The YC partners personally" but "The experience of YC" (cf. the title of the post).

<comment><USER13> I think we are at the edge of my language skills here.

To me it sounds like someone that has just had some kind of epiphany.

If a dutch person would say:

"Y combinator verandert deze kracht van een gewicht op je schouders dat je naar beneden haalt tot een krachtige raket die je de lucht in schiet"

We'd think they might need help. Or at a minimum that they should stop smoking that stuff ;)

<comment><USER14> It never occurred to me that this might be a language problem, but I do find it somehow hilarious to imagine a Dutch person saying that (assuming you've translated the sentence literally). This makes me wonder how, shall we say, zany we must generally appear to the Dutch. It also makes me wonder how many other such misunderstandings are lurking under the surface with continental Europeans who appear (damn you) to have native-speaker-level command of English.

<comment><USER13> I do my best, but there isn't a week that I don't put my foot in my mouth in some form or other.

For instance the 'zany' in the text above I had to look up, and even after looking up it doesn't make much sense to me.

1) a subordinate clown or acrobat in old comedies who mimics ludicrously the tricks of the principal

2) a slavish follower

3) one who acts the buffoon to amuse others

None of the three are a preferred candidate when I do a simple substitution.

<comment><USER14> Zany just means wacky. It's an older word (deriving, I just learned, from commedia dell'arte). I was looking (jokingly) for a euphemism to approximate your implicit category of this-person-is-either-crazy-or-smoking-something.

<comment><USER13> Ok, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I really _loved_ the chapter titled "Transforming the fear of failure".

</comment><comment><USER16> The part I liked was how he pitched to 12 people and then fixed his product to overcome all these objections. But it sort of goes against how Steve Blank prescribes the process of Customer Development.. oh well.

<comment><USER13> Agreed that part is excellent. Whatever you do, do not give up too quickly.</comment></comment>


Google Analytics Blog: What's happening on your site right now? - <AUTHOR> http://analytics.blogspot.com/2011/09/whats-happening-on-your-site-right-now.html <comment><USER2> What's interesting is if Google can offer this to webmasters, then somewhere inside Google they can tell about 90% of how many people are online in the internet and where they are.

Obviously not an exaggeration, it's just a mapreduce query of all that data from every service they own.

I don't have a single google service on my sites but I must be a super-tiny minority.

<comment><USER3> I don't think more than 10% of all sites have analytics installed.

But if you include other services and products like toolbar and adsense, Google can surely see a great deal of what's happening on the Internet.

<comment><USER4> If you browse with Ghostery installed it seems like Google Adsense has _massive_ penetration. Or it might be the sites I browse.

<comment><USER4> Oops I meant Analytics, not Adsense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if people at startups like ChartBeat, mix panel, clicky feel like the market is validated or feel worried. Or just keep focusing on doing a better job than competitors.

<comment><USER6> I've been running W3Counter, a competing web stats service, since before Google Analytics. Before Google bought Urchin, that kind of web stats reporting was something businesses paid for. When Google released Analytics for free, I'm sure more than a few businesses were wiped out. Perception of the space changed forever and now I can't count on 1% of my users to pay for web stats, even for things GA doesn't provide.

Real-time dashboards were one of the features people were willing to pay for. Now Google does that for free as well. There's not much I can do about it. I'm sure Chartbeat and such will still find customers, but I'm sure many that may have been convinced to buy will now settle for Google's free option instead.

I don't think MixPanel's worried about it. They're not solving the same problems as Google Analytics and GA will never be a substitute for that kind of service.

<comment><USER7> Just do it better than Google does. Or target a specific niche. Not easy, I'm sure. But it can be done.

Visual Website Optimizer, Optimizely, and UnBounce all run paid A/B testing sites in spite of Google's presence in the market.

<comment><USER8> The examples provided are not relevant, because chartbeat also saw a hole in Google's offering, and filled it. That is exactly the same as all the sites you mentioned. The only difference is Google is now offering real time analytics.

A counter example would be a service that provided a missing feature for a google product, that was later filled by google, but managed to survive after google launched the feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I use quicklytics on my iPhone to view google analytics. I wonder if the new features will translate to this platform?

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been using GoSquared for this and it has been working really well: <http://www.gosquared.com/> It will be interesting to see how the new Google Analytics features compare. If they offer a GoSquared style API, that would be pretty fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's official -- Chartbeat has Google as its competitor.

</comment><comment><USER12> Does this mean that all reporting will be real-time? Not having to deal with the data lag in GA would be fantastic.

<comment><USER13> No. The real-time reporting is a separate section; this change doesn't mean anything for the data in the regular reporting sections. The data Real Time uses is unfiltered and raw, and only limited dimensions are available: Geographic source, traffic source, pageview name, and maybe one or two more things. I'm sure it'll be built out over time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The part that sucks:

> Real-Time does not support profile filters.

This makes real-time pretty useless for intermediate+ users of GA.

</comment><comment><USER15> WOW! Now THAT's scalability !!</comment>


Ask HN: Software for templated emails? - <AUTHOR> A while ago I gathered email adresses to > 100 tech journalists and bloggers to pitch an iOS app. Each email needed to reference a specific article written by the journalist (relevant leads only) and a generated promo code.
Manually writing each email was off the table, and using something like MailChimp or Mailgun would have been awkward (or impossible), so I wrote Enmasse – an app that creates email compiled from text templates and JSON data.
There's a fancy video example at https://beckman.io/enmasse
Here's the thing: I'm planning on turning this into a web service, but I'd love to hear other ways how people deal with templating emails. Maybe a tool like exists but I just haven't found it yet? Are there specific tools for marketers that I'm unaware of? Someone wrote an excel script...?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Also check out YAML for Gmail (yet another mail merge). There is also a good solution for Thunnderbird.

</comment><comment><USER3> A chrome extension that would pull data from Google Sheets would be nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't thought of integrating with Google Sheets/Drive/Docs! Thanks!</comment></comment>