Introducing FuzzDB - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2013/08/16/introducing-fuzzdb/

<comment><USER2> FuzzDB is a great project that has the potential to improve many existing tools. In the same way Adam suggested in this post, my team uses FuzzDB lists integrated with other tools (Burp Suite, Dirbuster, etc.) in order to use the functionality of those tools with the robust lists that FuzzDB provides.

For those that may not understand how this works: FuzzDB has many lists for many different security checks. A "fuzzer" would dynamically generate these things by basically putting random data into input fields in an attempt to find edge cases (with a security impact) that may not be handled correctly. Instead of generating that data randomly and on-the-fly, FuzzDB uses the most common "win" scenarios for a lot of different tests.

For example, the file Sharepoint.fuzz.txt[1] can easily be fed into any web application assessment tool to find default Sharepoint files. Since FuzzDB is updated more frequently than some older tools (say, nikto), it makes sense to replace old default lists with FuzzDB.

I'm glad that Mozilla is letting Adam publicize the project through their blog; it's a well-known resource in the security industry, but people just learning to conduct assessments of web applications may not know about it.

1: [https://code.google.com/p/fuzzdb/source/browse/trunk/Discove...](https://code.google.com/p/fuzzdb/source/browse/trunk/Discovery/PredictableRes/Sharepoint.fuzz.txt)</comment>


WHY CREDIT DEFLATION IS MORE LIKELY THAN MASS  INFLATION - <AUTHOR> http://libertarianpapers.org/articles/2010/lp-2-43.pdf <comment><USER2> Just because they use small caps in the title of the paper does not mean you need to make the title all caps here...</comment>


Moving Forward Boldly with Kin - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@tedlivingston/moving-forward-boldly-with-kin-ec6290a6453 <comment><AUTHOR> Techcrunch: [https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/23/messaging-app-kik-shuts- do...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/23/messaging-app-kik-shuts-down-as- company-focuses-on-kin-its-cryptocurrency/)</comment>


Quit my job to make this iPad app - <AUTHOR>

I use Soundcloud and Grooveshark, right?  Well I had to swap between apps all the time to listen to my songs and it was annoying.
This app makes use of the APIs from these services to stream music, all within the one app.
Currently we support Spotify, Grooveshark, Soundcloud and iTunes.
Currently iPad only.  Here are some codes, please post if you want more!
http://tokn.co/n3bfdvew
http://tokn.co/0kj27mh2
http://tokn.co/k87s4jk9
http://tokn.co/qwyu6w5v
http://tokn.co/2dgyugap
P.s. What other services would you like to see supported?  Direct link to our site: www.amplifindapp.com <comment><USER2> Hey guys, I'm Matt Brown, one of the 2 programmers on this project. Simon and I met at 2K Marin on Bioshock 2, and met up about 9 months ago to team up on this project. We spent about 9 months working on it, and our budget was around 5k--we're extremely proud of what we were able to do with those constraints and are continuing to improve the app daily.

We love all the music on the web these days, but were frustrated with how bad the music playing experience was--having to constantly switch between websites, so we made Amplifind! We would love to hear your feedback in the comments below!

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice to meet you!!! :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks good, nice to see spotify integration in an app. Though I'm curious as to how you're getting around section 3.3 of the libspotify (assuming its use) terms of use, or if you didn't know about that then I'm here to throw a warning at you...

      3.3 You may not sell the Application, charge Users for
      use of the Application or otherwise derive any income
      from Users' use of the Application, such as through e-commerce
      initiated via the Application or the sale of any advertising,
      sponsorships or promotions on the Application itself.

Not trying to be that guy, but having your spotify streaming access revoked could leave you with some angry customers :)

There are also some smaller clauses in there that may restrict the streaming from multiple providers. These terms don't seem to be based on any kind of logical reason though.

<comment><USER2> It requires Premium spotify membership to make use of those features.

<comment><USER3> If you haven't spoken to spotify about this you might want to double check that, any usage of libspotify requires premium, these terms still apply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> looks nice! similar to my Mac app CloudPlay - [http://cloudplay.fm](http://cloudplay.fm) \- love that you guys have visualizations!

are you aware that spotify and grooveshark require special agreements for commercial use? even rdio forbids any kind of monetization through their API: [https://twitter.com/rdioapi/status/388019290538266624](https://twitter.com/rdioapi/status/388019290538266624)

<comment><USER2> Yes we are aware and have been in communication with all services involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This looks like a great app.

How are you going to make money? How much money do you have in the bank to support yourself?

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice icon! I thought the iTunes app screenshots are a bit dull, they could do a better job of "selling" the app.

</comment><comment><USER7> FYI, all the codes are taken

<comment><USER2> pm me if you want a code, we have a couple more

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Took the first code, am excited to try it out.

Why go iPad first?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question!

Well, part of it was selfishness. We wanted to make a visualizer and the iPhone is not a good platform for that.

Secondly, I had experience with XCode and OpenGL and Cocoa.

As a bonus, we figured that there were more iOS tablets and less piracy, but we could be wrong on that one. :)

<comment><USER8> Makes sense, thanks.

I use iTunes Match and have quite a bit of music on my computer and my phone, so it doesn't often occur to me to listen on my iPad. However, when I do, I exclusively stream, so this might actually be the perfect fit for me. Will let you know when I try it out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also please let me know how long it takes to open when you load.... We have an issue with large library parse times... If you get a blank screen for more than a few seconds please time it and let me know how long it takes. We need to put this initial loading/library prep into a new thread.

<comment><USER8> Good news: loaded in ~2 seconds. Bad news: interface seems to not work at all. (I'm using iPad 2, with iOS 7.0.2)

<comment><AUTHOR> Frozen interface? Nothing worked?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


First weekly project: Looking for the next Andreessen Horowitz - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kevinzhao/looking-for-the-next-andreessen-horowitz-1047d91b2682

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone, this is my first weekly project and I would love to get some feedback from the HN community. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> I think this is a really interesting and fun read, I really like your writing style.

What I'm not entirely sure of is why you are looking for the next A16Z? What is the value of knowing who the next great VC firm is, unless you are able to invest in the firms next fund, which most readers I suspect are not.

I like that you didn't try to force a conclusion, just stated your methods, showed the data and what you'd gleaned from it.

I found the inclusion of T.Rowe Price to be an interesting one as they are a name that I've never come across in the VC world.

It might be interesting in your follow-up to look at what stage VCs invested in the unicorns, as many were late investments, as A16Z was in a few.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi pedalpete, thank you so much for the feedback! Yeah, finding the next A16Z was just for fun. And I agree with you that looking into unicorns would be a great idea.</comment></comment></comment>


GOV.UK launches SSO including verification with online verification - <AUTHOR> https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/introducing-govuk-verify/introducing-govuk-verify

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll kick of the discussion, the existing government gateway system can be a bit troublesome for those with forgotten details and deadline tax returns.

I helped out a collegue today login to their tax return and avoid a £100 fine.

The verification is based upon identity documents (Passport/Driving license), bank transactions (given payment in month X) and other sources of data.</comment>


Quick Reference to Alternative data storages - <AUTHOR> http://themindstorms.blogspot.com/2009/05/quick-reference-to-alternative-data.html While it may probably not be exhaustive, my intention is to provide a quick reference to BASE systems (Basically Available, Soft State, Eventually consistent, as opposed to ACID: Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) that would offer newcomers an overview of the existing projects in the field. <comment><AUTHOR> This is still under work and input from everyone is more than welcome. Please help me fill in the gaps.

<comment><USER2> First of all, as much as I love Tokyo Tyrant and Tokyo Cabinet I have a hard time seeing it as an "alternative" data storage system. It is an incremental improvement over standard hash/b-tree storage libraries like BDB with a standardized network interface.

I think you are going to find it very difficult to create an accurate yardstick with which to measure performance of these various datastores. Once we leave the world of a monolithic RDBM server there are a lot of variables that come into play. If database X is network-bound when distributed across multiple hosts and database Y bottlenecks on disk i/o then you are going to get completely different results for each depending on the hardware and network layout/infrastructure of each test cluster. Each system probably also has a large batch of configuration options that can influence the results depending on how much information about the cluster can be provided to the storage system. Unless you have a dedicated cluster that you intend on running the tests on I would remove this section. A potentially better option would be to just have a table that lists the best-case and worst-case environments for each system. I would much rather know that system X works best when the entirety of the DB fits in RAM and the network link is fast than have some table of psuedo-measurements that do not really provide useful information.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great idea! I'm not sure if there is enough info out there to fill this in, but it's definitely worth trying. I'll update the post with your idea and see what we get. Thanks.</comment></comment></comment>


Fun tech business books - <AUTHOR> http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=1854 <comment><USER2> Soul of a New Machine is one of my all time favourite books - a definite must read for anyone who cares about how technology gets created.

</comment><comment><USER3> If we're talking fun tech books, this is the one for me: [http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Arduino-Getting-Started- Sk...](http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Arduino-Getting-Started- Sketches/dp/0071784225/?_encoding=UTF8&s=books&keywords=Arduino&tag=produc05-20&linkCode=ur2&qid=1356984079&camp=1789&sr=1-1&creative=9325)

</comment><comment><USER4> Big book of hacks! [http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Book-Hacks- Projects/dp/1616283...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Book-Hacks- Projects/dp/1616283998/?_encoding=UTF8&keywords=tech%20books&tag=produc05-20&linkCode=ur2&qid=1356984704&camp=1789&sr=8-1&creative=9325)</comment>


HTC Sues Apple for Patent Infringement - <AUTHOR> http://www.htc.com/www/press.aspx?id=129616&lang=1033

<comment><USER2> I'm glad HTC is doing this. Since the iPhone came out, Apple has developed this smug godlike aura and it's time that someone stood up against them.

<comment><USER3> You realize it's just the patent system doing what it normally does, right?

A sues B, generally to achieve some tangentially-related goal. Then B counter- sues A, to try to shore up their position in the inevitable settlement and cross-licensing deal. All of this, regardless of the relative merits or correct-ness of either side.

About the only time these things diverge from the normal path, is when one side is suing to essentially put another out of business. And that's hardly the case here.

From our position it's as irrational to say HTC is "standing up" to Apple bullying as to say Apple is standing up to Google/HTC "ripping off" their technology.

<comment><USER4> > About the only time these things diverge from the normal path, is when one > side is suing to essentially put another out of business. And that's hardly > the case here.

I'm not so sure about this. By going after the biggest Android manufacturer, youngest and smallest major smartphone manufacturer and a foreign company, It sort of seems that Apple does want to put HTC out of business, at least in this field.

<comment><USER5> Is HTC the biggest Android manufacturer? In the US I think Motorola has sold more phones with Android than anyone else.

I'm guessing Apple didn't sue Motorola because Motorola probably has a patent portfolio in the mobile phone space that is quite scary.

<comment><USER6> Definitely Motorola has a more formidable patent portfolio but HTC has been selling Android phones way before Motorola.

HTC is behind the G1, MyTouch, Sprint Hero, Droid Eris, Nexus One. Moto has Droid and Cliq, and now backflip but only Droid has much traction.

Regardless symbolically HTC is also more symbolically representative of Android, they both produced the first Android phone and Google's own Nexus One. To me it seems like Apple is taking a jab at Android more so than HTC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Gizmodo (<http://gizmodo.com/5537316>) is claiming they've seen the 5 patents which HTC is allegedly suing with.

"Two are related to power management, two are over personalized phone dialers, and one's over a telephone dialer with easy access memory—pretty menial stuff, compared to everything Apple is slamming HTC with."

<comment><USER7> Does it matter how menial the patent claims are? If Apple is indeed infringing, then HTC has the choice to offer a license at whatever cost they want, do they not?

HTC is in the same boat. If HTC is found to have violated any of Apple's patents, Apply too can slam HTC for licensing fees or whatever else.

<comment><USER8> i've been involved in a few of these... it matters because ultimately it could come down to a jury trial and then a judge's decision regarding damages. how 'big' the claims are matters to the real people making the decisions in the courtroom. they're not going to award billions of dollars of damages for a minor claim, for instance, and claims can sometimes be worked around, so often the damage done to the infringed party is what's at stake, plus penalties. (admittedly, this is an oversimplification)

i've sat in a room full of people discussing these issues ad nauseam and i can tell you with 100% confidence that this is like a poker game, the size of the chip stack affects the confidence, timing, positioning, etc, of the players throughout the whole game. if one side has a great set of claims and the other doesn't, it definitely matters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I must admit, I have a morbid curiosity to see what would happen to Apple's stock price if they were ordered to cease selling the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

<comment><USER10> Why the curiosity? You're unsure of what would happen?

<comment><USER9> What, yes, but I'm curious about the degree to which it happens and the aftermath of that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My question: How is any of this (from either side) benefiting the users?

<comment><USER12> It's not, but it's something all companies resort to due to the failure that is the current patent system.

<comment><USER13> I think he's asking because HTC said they were doing this to (among other things) protect their customers

<comment><USER12> All companies will say this, I guess.

In HTC case's, I guess it's because they have to defend themselves. Giving in and wasting money or removing features could be understood as a disservice to their customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is it too much to hope for that there will be a back-room mediating deal where, essentially, both companies drop their existing patent lawsuits and grant one another license to the patents in question? I think that would be better for everybody.

Then they can compete on the merits of their respective products. What a novel idea.

<comment><USER15> If the patents are what HTC says they are then it will probably come down to a cross-licensing situation. I would expect Nokia / Apple to happen the same way. People are adding a little too much drama into this stuff.

<comment><USER16> Yes, what do you mean "too much to hope for"? It would be downright weird if anything _other_ than a cross-licensing deal came out of this. All these suits and countersuits are just the lawyerly version of a threat display:

[http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=...](http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=threat+display&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=HP7qS7WjJMP48AaNoY3PDg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CDsQsAQwAw&start=0&uss=1)

<comment><USER17> I just had this vision of lawyers in courtrooms that do patent litigation sporting mandatory extra-large Baboon style mandibles.

You are absolutely right, that is exactly what it is.

Never even thought of it that way, brilliant insight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As Jason Kincaid of TechCrunch points out: "HTC recently forged an agreement with Microsoft that would 'provides broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for HTC's mobile phones running the Android mobile platform'."

I wonder what role that agreement plays into this suit.

<comment><USER18> I wonder how much money Microsoft is making by providing patent coverage for Linux. They got Amazon to pay up, too. God knows how many companies have been coerced into paying these absurd licensing fees to MS just because they use Linux somewhere. I guess TomTom is an example of what could happen when you don't play ball.

<comment><AUTHOR> From a strategic point of view for Microsoft (and assuming the assertion in the OP is true), why would Microsoft be willing to help HTC (and consequently, Android) considering that Microsoft has a competing platform due for arrival later this year?

<comment><USER19> Who do you think will making those Windows 7 phones?

[http://www.htc.com/www/press.aspx?lang=1033&id=124244](http://www.htc.com/www/press.aspx?lang=1033&id=124244)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Not that they necessarily say that much, but it would still be interesting to see the names of the patents in question.

</comment><comment><USER21> _HTC believes the industry should be driven by healthy competition and innovation that offer consumers the best, most accessible mobile experiences possible," [...] We are taking this action against Apple to protect our intellectual property, our industry partners, and most importantly our customers that use HTC phones."_

Please, stop this bullshit! What you really meant was "we are suing Apple because they sued us", just like Apple sued Nokia because Nokia sued them.

Please forgive my rant, but I just can stand companies telling they believe in healthy competition while they are suing competitors trying to shut off the competition.

<comment><USER22> >Please, stop this bullshit! What you really meant was "we are suing Apple because they sued us"

Which is pretty much exactly what they said.

Your rant is kind of misdirected. HTC's countersuit is basically saying "Frig off Apple and fight us in the market, not in the courts", so yeah they are saying they believe in competition.

<comment><USER23> "We are taking this action against Apple to protect [...] our customers"

<comment><USER24> Well, yeah. Their customers Google, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon want to be able to offer smartphones. With HTC out of the equation, that becomes more difficult. With less options, the price is driven up, making smartphones less accessible to those that might benefit from them.

Without someone to keep Apple in check, the 1984 dystopia would already be upon us.

<comment><USER23> My response was directed at a comment that claimed they said, "we are suing Apple because they sued us". In fact, they said "we're suing Apple to help our customers (etc.)!" which is much different.

Your argument is less direct, and it doesn't interest me so much. Yes, by fighting for their self-preservation (if it is at stake) they help consumers by maintaining competition and/or variety.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Pigeons and Love - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/56/perspective/what-pigeons-teach-us-about-love-rp <comment><USER2> Pigeons and humans share are more similar to each other as you'd think. Facebook has built its like button such that it resembles a famous experiment done with pigeons in 1971. (Yes it sounds awkward and it kinda is)

[http://alter-agency.com/2017/03/23/addicted-to-likes/](http://alter- agency.com/2017/03/23/addicted-to-likes/)

</comment><comment><USER3> this author really wants you to know that they're well read and can reference all those obscure literary gems.

<comment><USER4> Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.</comment></comment>


How Gordon Ramsay saved his Restaurant Empire - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aRE.WJ51Hq2s&pos=11

<comment><AUTHOR> how he did it: -equity infusion of $9M -tax payment extensions from the British gov -cutting corporate staff by 35% -renegotiating rental contracts with the Blackstone Group. -Cutting costs at restaurants (no flowers, using cheaper cuts of meat)

the result? on track to earn $8M in EBITDA by year end.</comment>


"Captain Tushin ... sat down by a bonfire the soldiers had nookd on the road" - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/war-and-peace-gets-nookered/258137/

<comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4045315>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4053359> <\- This has comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4060289></comment>


Who Really Invented the Internet?  - <AUTHOR> http://on.wsj.com/Nqw1xs

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent rejoinder from Michael Hiltzik in the LA Times today:

So, who really did invent the Internet?

[http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-mo-who-invented- int...](http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-mo-who-invented- internet-20120723,0,5052169.story)</comment>


Show HN: A spreadsheet component for React - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/miadwang/sou-react-table <comment><USER2> Nice work! Looks really slick. I don't develop in React, but high quality components like this may sway me.</comment>


Try the A* pathfinding algorithm with HTML5 canvas - <AUTHOR> http://www.matthewtrost.org/projects/astar/ <comment><USER2> One of the heuristics I implemented in my A _, was to link information from the AI back to the routing grid. For example A_ will always pick the shortest route, however this isn't the best route. Imagine you have the AI pinned down in a building and the route finder picks a route out of the building, well it's likely to pick the shortest route (out the front door). So all the player has to do is put the cross hair over the door and keep shooting.

Now sure you could write some code to 'fix' this issue. Or you could let the problem fix itself. If when an AI pawn is killed at a certain point, I added a penalty to the surrounding nodes. This made the route more and more expensive over time, after a short while the AI decided to use the back door and walk around the building.

The important part of this is the player perception. To the player it looks like the AI is flanking the player, and they're like 'woooo cooool', which is the effect you're after.

<comment><USER3> Brilliant!

That seems very similar to real life heuristics, actually...

"Holy crap, that guy in front of me just got blown away!" _runs out the back door_

<comment><USER4> a few other tricks:

\- increase the cost of traversing nodes that are within known enemy firing zones

\- in some circumstances if the destination is unreachable it might be desirable to still compute a "best effort" path to the node that is the minimal heuristic distance from the unreachable destination

<comment><USER3> _\- in some circumstances if the destination is unreachable it might be desirable to still compute a "best effort" path to the node that is the minimal heuristic distance from the unreachable destination_

This is actually very important, especially in RTS games! If you have a unit selected, and he's standing near the edge of a cliff, and you right-click off the edge (intersecting lower-elevation terrian), then the naive Astar algo would make the unit _run away_ from your mouse cursor, because it would search the whole map for a valid way to get there --- however the player very likely wanted to get as close as possible to the edge, e.g. to attack an enemy he spotted.

(In other words, when pathing to different elevations, the the player almost always wants the unit to "run up as close as possible" to the edge, _not_ try to find a valid path all the way around the map.)

It's actually a very tough/interesting problem, because it's probably impossible to "always do what the user intends in every situation" by merely looking at his mouseclicks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As I am currently trying to implement the A* pathfinding algorithm in C++ this is both timely & very cool.

Most interesting is the selectable distance heuristic function (never thought about doing that in my own limited experience) which could mix things up a bit with a pathfinding game AI or similar.

Kudos for sharing this little gem :)

[edit] implementing A* on my own for educational purposes, but here's a good reference implementation in C++ on google code:

<http://code.google.com/p/a-star-algorithm-implementation/>

</comment><comment><USER6> If you are interested in a production quality open source pathfinding library take a look at Recast/Detour. It's used in a number of AAA game titles and is probably one of the most robust implementations out there: <http://code.google.com/p/recastnavigation/>

Full disclosure: the author works with me on Tinkercad, a web based solid CAD.

</comment><comment><USER7> Folks are saying here how choosing a right heuristics is important. That's right but there's another catch:

For something more real (ie. graph containing more edges) A* needs priority queue for openset to extract the node with minimum f() in log time at most; also note such structure needs to delete previously stored entry by _node_ not by f(), which is not something priority queue has by default - another area to fine tune in order to avoid time explosion.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hi, Matthew Trost (author) here. I'm actually a bit mortified that this found its way onto Hacker News, as now my admittedly bush-league JavaScript code is getting the brickbats. :-) In truth, I made it mainly as a practice exercise: code, UI, documentation .... So, please check out the links offered by others here, as many talented folks out there deserve attention for their far-more- sophisticated work!

In any case, I love this discussion. Programming is fun.

<comment><USER9> Hey Matthew, great job on this! I had fun learning this algorithm, too. My implementation is here: [https://github.com/bgrins/javascript- astar/blob/master/astar...](https://github.com/bgrins/javascript- astar/blob/master/astar.js), and I have a demo here: <http://briangrinstead.com/files/astar/>

I have added in a few optimizations: in my first run at it ([https://github.com/bgrins/javascript- astar/blob/master/astar...](https://github.com/bgrins/javascript- astar/blob/master/astar-list.js)) I used a standard array for the open and closed lists, and I found it slowed down quite a bit as the graph size got larger. I switched the implementation to a binary heap, which made it much faster for larger graphs. Try the original demo then the new one at 100x100 to see what I mean :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I recently learned about the A* algorithm from the book Eloquent Javascript. Makes it very easy to understand. <http://eloquentjavascript.net/chapter7.html>

</comment><comment><USER11> Here's a-star I implemented on iPhone/iPad - the actual a-star algorithm wasn't mine, just the game code around it. XCode project on GitHub: [https://github.com/trailbehind/The- World/tree/master/TheWorl...](https://github.com/trailbehind/The- World/tree/master/TheWorld)

<comment><USER5> Outwit the A* pathfinding ninja!

That's really nice, thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There are about a zillion implementations of vanilla A* on the internet. What's particularly interesting about this one? Do you have some cool new heuristic function or some nice insight into how the search works? The as-is version is pretty crappy. I mean, I can't even see the nodes expanded!

<comment><AUTHOR> As far as I can tell there is nothing particularly interesting about this implementation. It's cool because it lets you play with it and because the code is pretty short which makes it easy for anyone unfamiliar with the algorithm to grok how it works. It also has some nice documentation: [http://www.matthewtrost.org/projects/astar/documentation.htm...](http://www.matthewtrost.org/projects/astar/documentation.html)

For the Python programmer here is a very short implementation of A* that someone on Stack Overflow posted: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4159331/python-speed- up-a...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4159331/python-speed-up-an-a-star- pathfinding-algorithm)

<comment><USER12> Actually, I found the documentation reasonably poor. It does a good job of explaining the API but does little to provide a would-be user with any insights into why the search works, how it works or how efficient it is. It doesn't even discuss why (or when) I might choose one of the three given heuristic functions over the others.

i.e. despite its length, it's not actually a very useful document.

<comment><AUTHOR> While I agree that what you listed would be useful to include I think it's important to note that it is documentation of his implementation (what the various parameters are for) and not of how A* works. To that end he did a good job. I especially like the little ideas he throws in under "Extending astar.js." He links to the Wikipedia entry for those who want to know more about how A* works.

<comment><USER12> Suppose the C++ STL documentation, such as it is, linked you to CLRS. Would you regard it as adequate or would you demand more? I don't expect a rigorous academic treatment here but at least _something_ to tell me (a) how efficient the implementation is and (b) why (or when) I might want to use X or Y provided feature over Z. For example: why is the Euclidean heuristic "slow"? Is it a shitty implementation? Is it because it's underestimating the goal distance too much? Another gripe: the author doesn't even tell me what kind of open and closed list implementations are in use!

I don't mean to be a hater but this fails at contributing something novel (which it doesn't), it fails as a learning resource which teaches something interesting (which it doesn't) and it fails as a well documented programming hack (which it isn't).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you are interested in a slightly more step by step visualisation you can try my original implementation: [http://www.oriontransfer.co.nz/learn/a-star- maze-solver/inde...](http://www.oriontransfer.co.nz/learn/a-star-maze- solver/index)

<comment><USER9> I really like that visualization! It would be awesome to see that same visualization side by side with Dijkstra's algorithm (same as astar, but with fixed heuristics) to see how much better it can perform.

<comment><USER13> Thanks - if I get some time I may consider augmenting it - that visualisation was put together as a proof of concept and as my first <canvas> experiment - it needs some more work ^_^.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I had made something similar some time ago, with a few more features (async searches with priorities) and the ability to see what paths are tested:

<http://www.gravytea.com/labs/ariane/>

</comment><comment><USER15> In the back of my mind, I seem to recall that path-finding A * algorithms like these actually aren't quite A * .

IIRC, this is a constrained version of A * under the assumption that the heuristic h() is not only admissible but also monotonic, whereas A * only requires admissibility. The additional monotonicity constraint guarantees that the g() values of previously visited nodes never change, right? Otherwise if you find a better g() path you may have to do a lot of costly book-keeping. I presume the book-keeping is not part of the algorithm on display here.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's so strange, I was just playing with pathfinding algorithms in CoffeeScript this weekend and thought about putting something like this together, but you have beaten me to it :) Really nice work.

<comment><USER17> What is strange is that we don't do things because other folks have already done it and miss a great learning experience :)

<comment><USER16> That's an excellent point! Perhaps I will put something together anyway. Thanks for this :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I made something similar a while back - <http://peterbraden.github.com/maze.html>

It generates a random maze and uses a few different algorithms to find a path through it. Refresh the page to get a new maze.

</comment><comment><USER19> I have a Java implementation at <http://www.stackframe.com/software/PathFinder> which has a similar demo applet.

</comment><comment><USER20> Check out my golang implementation of astar: <https://github.com/humanfromearth/gopathfinding></comment>


Balsamiq Makes 1.6 Million with 70% Profit in 2009 - <AUTHOR> http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2010/01/03/a-look-back-at-2009/

<comment><USER2> Balsamiq has twice as many twitter followers as Facebook 'Fans'. I'm strongly of the opinion that the word 'Fan' and the way it shows up in your Facebook profile makes Facebook pages a lot less useful for businesses. I want to get info about balasamiq, but I am not ready to describe myself as a fan to everyone on my facebook friendslist, considering that I've not used it.

Facebook should allow you to 'friend' a business without having to be a 'fan' of it. I think if they allowed this, facebook interaction between business and normal users would be much higher, considering the much larger facebook userbase.

<comment><USER3> Twitter is useless compared to Facebook. You get a lot more engagement from Facebook.

With twitter your window of opportunity is the 5 seconds that you show up in their feed. With Facebook that time is a lot longer.

You can have 10,000 followers on twitter, but only 20 people will see your announcement, since you'll show up in their feed for 5 seconds.

Anyone who follows a business account on Twitter, is most likely following more than 100 people(and most likely >1000), which means you are one of hundreds of people trying to talk to them

<comment><USER2> I just don't get the utility of twitter for business. I see one great use for twitter, which is what I am using it for right now: Get major influencers to follow you. When you do that, you have a good chance to be republished by one of them, which is great PR.

(That's why I bothered writing two articles recently, trying to raise my twitter 'important people' follower count. It actually works somewhat.)

<comment><USER3> I'll give you an example, I needed to buy some wine as a gift. So I tweeted out to Gary Vaynerchuk what to buy. He tweeted back with a few suggestions. And I got into my car and drove down to Wine Library and bought one of his suggestions.

<comment><USER4> youre from jersey? respect++

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pretty impressive for any company, let alone a bootstrapped one. I'm really glad Peldi still makes these sorts of posts, a lot of times the openness disappears when the money starts coming in.

<comment><USER6> I agree with the idea of openness. But, if that much money started coming in for something I made, I'd feel awkward reporting on the numbers.

<comment><USER7> Not sure if he'd thought it through that far, but it seems like a pretty good and calculated risk that's paying off. The fact that he is as open as he is (though hopefully he knows better than to report numbers that appear worse to the IRS), I think makes his customers want him to succeed that much more.

Broadly, it's a tool that enables others to build their own sites but also their own businesses (and I think entrepreneurs like supporting each other as it helps prove that the rewards do indeed exist). It lets users share, in a sense, in the success to be associated with a product they've used while also being inspired.

Of course, there can be a thin line between sharing and bragging/offending his user base, but I think he treads it quite well.

<comment><USER8> I think they moved HQ to Italy. Would they still have to report to the IRS?

<comment><USER9> We have HQ in Italy but most of our business comes through our US presence, so yes we report to the IRS...AND to the Italian taxman. We're a micro- multinational! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is making me feel really inadequate -- Tarsnap launched publicly only 5 months after Balsamiq, but it's nowhere near Balsamiq in revenues. (Possibly Tarsnap pricing starts at 300 picodollars/month rather than at $79.)

Oh well, humility is good for the soul, right? :-)

<comment><USER11> The Cynic: ask for picodollars and you shall receive picodollars.

Joking aside though, I think that I see something of myself in your marketing. Your web page, for instance, is very plain, which to someone like me is great. But people seem to not like that, for whatever reason. Maybe you should do some A/B testing with a "flashier" (but no flash, please!) version? I would be curious to hear about the results. This is one of those things that irritates me about the world at times: people ought to be looking at your product and its price, rather than fades, drop shadows and the like... but they don't.

Also: he's targeting people used to paying for stuff, whereas lots of Linux and BSD people are, well, kind of stingy. Maybe a bigger push towards Mac would be another idea?

<comment><USER10> I think you're right on both counts. I have a friend who is trying to find a way to make the Tarsnap website look nicer without losing its essential geeky/minimalist character; if/when he comes up with something I'll definitely be doing some testing to see how it compares. That said, I don't think Tarsnap's conversion rate is particularly bad -- I'd say that most important issue is simply getting people to the Tarsnap website in the first place.

Promoting Tarsnap as a solution for OS X runs into the GUI problem: Most OS X users don't have a clue what to do with a command-line interface. Tarsnap will gain a GUI at some point in the future, but of course this is a rather non- trivial amount of code to write...

<comment><USER12> _I have a friend who is trying to find a way to make the Tarsnap website look nicer without losing its essential geeky/minimalist character;_

Maybe you misspoke here, but based on this quote I think your approach could be improved.

1) You went to a friend. Unless this person is an experienced designer of commercial websites, that doesn't sound like the right approach.

2) Your primary concern is preserving the site's "geeky/minimalist character", although that seems to be your Achilles heel. The last time Tarsnap was on news.yc, I made the same incorrect assumption, that this was not really a business, but just a side project of an academic. You and I even talked about that in the comments.

3) You're framing the problem as aesthetics, but it's really about poor communication. Engineers often make the mistake of thinking that visual design = making something look nice. This is like saying a database designer makes data nice.

Just like a database designer sees important patterns to capture, a great producer or designer understands how to drive website visitors to the right understandings and behaviours.

It sounds to me that if you go down the route you descirbe, you'll have all the pain of redoing the site, without solving the more fundamental problems.

<comment><USER10> _You went to a friend. Unless this person is an experienced designer of commercial websites, that doesn't sound like the right approach._

I went to a talented web designer who understands my vision. I think understanding my vision is important -- otherwise I'm likely to pay $$$ only to be presented with a website which I hate and don't want to use.

<comment><USER13> I think what people are trying to tell you is that--with all due respect--your opinion on your website is not worth a damn.

I mean, if you're interested in pageviews, and revenue--and your comments wrt Balsamiq seem to indicate you are--you need to realize that the aesthetic you're looking for is likely costing you customers and hence money.

Nobody's going to fault you if you prefer to make less money and keep your website any way you want, but if you're going to complain about sluggish growth you've gotta realize that your customers' habits and tastes are much more important than your own.

In related news, the demographic you seem to be targeting is quite possibly either unwilling or unable to pay for it; the former because they'd rather hack something up on their own and the latter because they may not be the decision maker for their organization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Don't know how about you, but I find <http://gomockingbird.com> way better and attractive. It doesn't use flash, it has pretty controls and generally a better UI with tiny little details like, say, aligning the elements relatively to each other. But still, since they are profitable (good for them) and make that much money, there's probably a need for such services on the market.

<comment><USER15> Mockups is more than just an app that does mockups. It's integrated with other very important systems.

Smart partnerships and good networking are far more important than a pretty product. (When it comes to revenue)

<comment><USER16> Although I would expect that to be true, It doesn't appear to be. This post doesn't break out profit by specific product, but that last post that did so indicated that the desktop version of the app accounted for 80% of the revenue. That version doesn't really have any of the integration feature of the other versions of Balsamiq.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Always been totally refreshing to read Peldi's blog , amazing amazing what he has achieved and how humble he is about it!

EDIT: I do have one question though, how is your typical work day? With a release every week, thousands of customers to support and a full fledged family - how do you manage to even stay sane ? :-)

<comment><USER9> Hi there. Typical workday is wake up at 7, get my kid ready and take him to school, than back to the office (home) at around 9:30. Work until 6:00pm, then family time again, then put the kid to bed at around 9:30, then work again until 12:00-12:30. It's a lot, but I can take a morning or a night off pretty often. Mariah only works on Balsamiq maybe an hour or two a day, Marco's workday is about 9:30 to 5:30, and Valerie's workday is...actually, I don't really know! It seems like she's always working! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hi there. Just FYI, I'm reading this if you have any questions. Peldi

<comment><USER18> Being Italian myself, I'd like to commend you guys for your job: this kind of entrepreneurship is really rare in Italy and it's great you are contributing with such a fantastic example.

I have just read on your blog < [http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2008/10/14/personal-whats- your-...](http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2008/10/14/personal-whats-your-story- why-start-balsamiq/) > how it all started and I found it so inspirational (maybe just because I am in a similar situation right now?!)

Can I ask you if you ever regretted moving back to Italy? It seems to me you managed to separate the good aspects of life in Italy (Bologna and the family) with the bad ones (taxes and servers, i suppose, are in the US).

<comment><USER9> Ciao crocowhile, we have not regretted moving back to Italy at all so far. Our servers are in the US, taxes are split in both places. HTH!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ok, we just found a sponsor for the Italy Hacker News Meetup ;-)

</comment><comment><USER19> Wow, just fooled around with the mockups tool. VERY impressive and responsive -- like an internet version of Omnigraffle. Well deserved success.

Check it out:

<http://www.balsamiq.com/#>

My only feature request would be for more keyboard shortcuts. My fingers know Omnigraffle like they know Emacs.

(Also: from a technical perspective, looks like this is a Flex app. Very different approach than the 280north guys with their ObjectiveJ approach.)

<comment><USER9> Hi ramanujan, thanks for the kind words.

Try the Desktop version for more keyboard shortcut support: <http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups/desktop#download>

Browsers "eat" so many key combinations :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Awesome! The profitability of your business made my jaw drop to the floor. I guess businesses in other sectors may have to generate more than ten million dollars of revenue just to be par with your bottom line.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think this kind of openness is great. It attracts curious entrepreneurs to the site who might be thinking of hacking together an app and are interested in how other people have succeeded. Those same people might just use Mockups to help them. Great marketing.

</comment><comment><USER22> The most important thing I take away from this: Peldi's success is very inspiring for anybody intending to do their own thing

</comment><comment><USER23> Love the tool, but the price is a bit high for my limited startup wallet :) I especially like the Confluence integration.

</comment><comment><USER24> The #1 result on Google for "mockups"—that is impressive!

They've truly found a great niche and carved it out themselves.

</comment><comment><USER25> Wow. I am completely impressed! As a Flash developer who is getting majorly into Adobe AIR (which Mockups is written in), this is very encouraging. Its kind of sad that Flash and AIR get such a bad rap, but they are great at a set of things like this.

Good luck with 2010.

</comment><comment><USER26> Go you guys! My company uses Balsamiq for mockups, and I was impressed enough that I started using it for personal projects too. I'm happy to see you do well.

</comment><comment><USER27> Why couldn't you be fucked to spare a couple words to tell us what "Balsamiq" was? I have no idea what it is and, I suspect, neither do 99.99% of those who read this headline.

<comment><USER28> That's like someone linking a 37signals blog post and complaining that they don't tell you what 37signals does in every blog post. It's called going to the homepage. And I'd be surprised if the majority of Hacker News didn't know what 37signals is, and likewise with Balsamiq. Peldi's like one of the most active and well-known entrepreneurs here.</comment></comment>


Don't Design Your Emails - <AUTHOR> http://www.gkogan.co/blog/dont-design-emails/?hn=1 <comment><USER2> Great article. Half way through I was thinking "it's not me you have to convince", but then it gave some ammunition to help do the convincing.</comment>


Gotham City Research on Endurance International (Hostgator, Bluehost) - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/gotham-city-research-on-endurance-international-2015-4

<comment><USER2> Anyone know if there is an issue here? I have sites on Hostmonster and am trying to figure out if I need to move them.</comment>


On the Road to Pure Go X11 GUIs - <AUTHOR> https://p.janouch.name/article-xgb.html <comment> c-smile A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Indeed.

So you are at the first mile of that road...

On the second mile you will discover that X11 is just a protocol to present bitmaps on monitor surfaces + plus generator of events coming from some of input devices.

So on the third mile you will decide that you will need system of widgets and you will get a tree of HWND's, GtkWidget* - UI DOM elements tree as an ultimate abstraction.

Somewhere on the way further you will come up with the bright idea that look and feel of those UI bricks in the tree needs to be customizable. So you will try to invent style definition system/language. And CSS will be born again.

As a result, at N-th mile, you will end up with something close to Sciter/Go : [https://github.com/sciter-sdk/go-sciter](https://github.com/sciter-sdk/go- sciter) that already works not only on X11 but on Windows and Mac too.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Or you can stop halfway and be content with it being functional even if it is ugly. I'm pretty fond of Tk.

<comment> c-smile Or Tk, yes, if you prefer buttons a la turrets of _Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger_ and _musik_ of Sabaton.

<comment><USER2> Ttk enables modern widget rendering in Tk for those who can't appreciate the benefits of drawing without pixmaps everywhere. Been available for 10+ years.

<comment><USER3> 10+ years ago Tk was already outdated in what concerns UI design.

Motif widgets on System 7 and Windows NT/2000? No thanks.

<comment><USER4> You missed the part about TTK, which makes TK use modern widgets, hence is nowhere near like "classic" TK and very much native in terms of rendering.

See [https://tkdocs.com/tutorial/widgets.html#button](https://tkdocs.com/tutorial/widgets.html#button)

<comment><USER3> Any GUI developer knows that UI/UX is much more than just rendering the same.

Back when Tk still mattered even the attempt to emulate Win32 L&F was just partially done.

I very much doubt that it has improved.

<comment><USER5> It's not emulation, it's wrapper on top of native ui toolkit. win32 for windows, cocoa for macos.

<comment><USER3> I am speaking about when Tk mattered, around 2000's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Though I do not dare enter the realm you describe, I applaud your quest for a go-based X11 ecosystem and hope you find considerable help from the go community to at least accelerate your vision/model to a proof-of-concept.

You may get the usual off-handed opinions when golang is involved - "Rust ...", "Yeah but Go doesn't ...", etc.

I do wish you had a timestamp of your article for reference in the future.

Cheers

<comment><USER7> > I do wish you had a timestamp of your article for reference in the future.

Well, there are third party HN reply notifiers, sounds like someone should make Remind-Me-HN. Then again, now that I've said that, I suspect there are probably plenty of services that allow you to supply a note and email you at a later date (other than just a calendar app...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > I keep thinking about Wayland. It's really a double-edged sword. Aside from > my pet peeve that it by-design blocks, for inane security reasons, my > favourite feature of sdtui, which is X11 selection stealing, it also offers > no mode that would work over a network—for example, to transfer picture data > you can only use EGL or shared memory.

"it by-design blocks, for inane security reasons" or "for inane security reasons, my favourite feature of sdtui, which is X11 selection stealing". Either way, ik curious what the inane security reasons are. Also, why is blocking bad in Wayland?

It seems like one of the biggest complaints about Wayland is that it doesn't work over a network. Does anyone actually work that way? I've tried it a few times, and every time I tried it it turned out to be unusably slow.

<comment><USER9> Wayland does not support network transparency because you're supposed to use a VNC server. Making the X protocol network-transparent worked because draw commands don't make for much traffic, but today you'd be hard-pressed to find any X application that does not just send entire bitmaps (or rather, OpenGL textures) to the X server. It's similar to how Mac OS moved away from a PostScript-based display architecture, if my knowledge of Mac OS history is to be trusted.

Having said that, I don't know if there are working VNC implementations for Wayland. Due to Wayland's security architecture, a VNC server (or any other thing that grabs screen contents) requires permission from (and thus cooperation with) the compositor.

<comment><USER10> GNOME and KDE have working support for remote desktop. Weston supports RDP. Sway (and other wlroots-based compositors) have been working on protocols to support it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's so interesting to see a sudden surge in desktop GUI frameworks (or at least a sudden surge in interest if not actual new tools). I have been exploring this area for the last few weeks for a new project and have stumbled across the obvious ones like Qt, GTK, WkWidgets, JavaFx (which IMO has so much potential but not much development is being done now) and interesting ones like Juce, Sciter, NanoGUI.

Of course, the elephant in the room is Electron, which in a way showed how much a new take was required in this area but also has a lot of limitations wrt app size, processing power etc.

The one I have been following (or rather waiting eagerly) is Scenic by Boyd Multerer which was incidentally announced / released yesterday after being shown in a very early state last year at ElixirConf. I find the approach of leveraging Elixir and OTP for GUI very interesting and the video should give you a good idea [1]

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QNxLNMq3Uw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QNxLNMq3Uw)

</comment><comment><USER12> > With that out of the way, I've been able to find

Don't forget the quite popular [https://github.com/andlabs/ui](https://github.com/andlabs/ui), albeit missing several needed widgets (but work is active there and the base C lib at [https://github.com/andlabs/libui](https://github.com/andlabs/libui)). Granted uses Cgo but that should not be a deal breaker for interfacing w/ the native OS libs.

<comment><USER13> he mentions that in the previous paragraph:

> First, people have naturally written bindings for Qt, GTK+, _ui_ , ...

<comment><USER12> Ah, I must've missed it initially. Regardless, seems with enough constraints you can justify NIH. Granted the project has merit on its own but not sure why they are so afraid of Cgo when doing native OS interaction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What happend to using native platform controls?

All these toolkits look out of place on any platform.

<comment><USER15> This has always been my feeling. Unless you are a designer and are trying to design a consistent look and feel for your application, why wouldn't you just design for the native look and feel?

<comment><USER16> As more and more apps are web based, this seems like an antiquated notion. Consistency lost, and I doubt it's important any more. Why should "desktop apps" follow those rules at all? Even Apple and Microsoft violate their own rules with their flagship applications.

<comment><USER17> I disagree simply because the push toward electron and the like are rooted more in developer convenience and the corporate drive to turn client developers into a one-size-fits-all dirt cheap bottomless resource than in any kind of user preference.

Also, a big part of an individual's platform preference boils down to things like conventions, look + feel, workflow, etc. By using electron one is tossing these choices made by the user in the garbage bin in favor of whatever the developer feels like supporting or what the designer thinks would be fun to design.

<comment><USER18> > Also, a big part of an individual's platform preference boils down to things > like conventions, look + feel, workflow, etc. By using electron one is > tossing these choices made by the user in the garbage bin in favor of > whatever the developer feels like supporting or what the designer thinks > would be fun to design.

Other multi-platform toolkits do not do better. They all violate platform's conventions. QT, Swing, GTK and co do have their own look and feel and conventions that do not match the platform's they are in, so I don't see how worst the web is in that aspect. Don't single out web techs on that specific aspect.

<comment><USER17> Qt at least tries to feel native (unless you're using Qt Quick) and goes further than the others listed in feeing native. If one cares, it's pretty easy to make a Qt app feel "almost native".

That said, I favor projects that have per-platform true native clients with a platform agnostic core over those that chase the "dream" of write once run everywhere. Transmission is a great example of how well this can work.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, I greatly respect transmission for that design

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I thought X was on its way out?

<comment><USER21> Someone mentioned GTK3's Broadway backend in another comment.

Try this (the two mentioned commands come with the gtk3 package):

\- In one terminal, run 'broadwayd'

\- In another terminal, run 'GDK_BACKEND=broadway BROADWAY_DISPLAY=:0 gtk3-demo'

\- In __your Web browser__ , go to [http://localhost:8080/](http://localhost:8080/)

\- Reattach jaw

<comment><USER19> Oh boy

What could be a real use case for that

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >Ultimately, since I can't go wrong with X and I can go wrong with Wayland, the choice was easy.

Keep in mind that Wayland has been designed by people who've been maintaining X11 for years.

>it also offers no mode that would work over a network

X11 has a huge number of issues when it comes to network transparency. tl;dr is: it's not designed for this, you should use a proper remote desktop protocol instead. More info:

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

>Of that, EGL even requires Mesa and thus Cgo.

That's not true anymore. You can use the DMA-BUF protocol instead of wl_drm. I'm not sure how to export a DMA-BUF without Cgo though… But that's a different issue. If you're going to use the GPU you'll probably need Cgo anyway.

<comment><USER2> > X11 has a huge number of issues when it comes to network transparency. tl;dr > is: it's not designed for this

X is very much designed for network transparency. The modern extensions that sling around pixmaps for every little graphical operation are what isn't. I can still remotely run X11R5 clients thanks to X and its network support.

<comment><USER22> You can, if by "network" you mean low latency LAN. Modern network remoting protocols work over high latency WANs as well, which X11 fundamentally can't do because too much of the protocol requires synchronous round-trips.

<comment><USER2> You can run X over a WAN with the eyecandy turned off. It could be run over a slow modem. The problem lies in everything that was tacked on assuming it would only be used locally.

<comment><USER22> Synchronous round-trips for atoms were there in 1980s' X11.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think it would be much easier just to use Qt or GTK. Otherwise you'll have to write your own widget toolkit, make it cross-platform, solve hundreds of issues (like hotkeys not working in alternative keyboard layouts), this is going to be a titanic work.

<comment><USER24> The goal of the project, apparently, is to make a GUI toolkit in Go with no C/C++ dependencies whatsoever [1]. Of course going that route requires coming to grips with the fact that using a raw display environment requires implementing a lot of stuff like mapping keyboard events to actual text strings.

[1] I guess we're supposed to ignore the fact that the X11 server is a massive C application.

<comment><USER25> But you don't link against the X11 server, you communicate via sockets with it. So the client application has no direct dependency of the X server implementation. Like a web server, the X server could be written in any language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you're looking to program a GUI, you'd be best taking a look at Go's parent AOS/ Active Oberon, and the accompanying GUI (Bluebottle : A Thread-safe Multimedia and GUI Framework for Active Oberon): [http://e-collection.ethbib.ethz.ch/ecol- pool/diss/fulltext/e...](http://e-collection.ethbib.ethz.ch/ecol- pool/diss/fulltext/eth16074.pdf)

Might be best to port this to Go?

</comment><comment><USER27> Why not leverage skia ?

</comment><comment><USER28> > It's an overlooked revolution!

wat?

Go is maybe past peak hype, but it dominates in the cloud/containers space and is massively popular.

I don't like it, but this statement still seems odd.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is one of my frustrations about the Go community - it seems much more enthusiastic than usual to reinvent the wheel in "pure Go" for what feels are abstract ideological reasons, where other languages just wrap existing libraries and call it a day.

I wonder if it's the little things about the experience that add up to that - e.g. the usual approach to statically linking all Go code in a single binary leads to no deployment dependencies, and Go community considers it a good thing; but the moment you start invoking C code, you need to drag the corresponding .so along. Or maybe it's the part where the weird stack structure necessary to enable goroutines also impedes FFI performance, and it's a language that's naturally fast enough for that penalty is noticeable.

Either way, the Go ecosystem feels... deliberately insular, for the lack of better term?

<comment><USER30> " _weird stack structure necessary to enable goroutines also impedes FFI performance_ " is probably the greater part of that equation.

Keeping parameters straight between Cgo and Go is another fine kick in the nuts. That's true with almost every FFI of course, but with FFI from Python to C, there's usually a little performance boost to make up for the pain.

Go however, is fast enough to begin with. FFI is all pain there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Regarding Go:

>Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.

Sorry couldn't resist. I'm a Systems Admin. An old-fart at that. Every single encounter I have had with Go has been a burning pile of unpleasantness. Most recently, the Go-Ethereum client.

So, referring back to the quote; could we just not shoehorn this into everything? It may be fast but it's fragile FWIW.

<comment><USER32> As an old time sysadmin I'd expect you of all people should know better than to make assumptions about a programming language based solely on a small handful applications written in that language.

The ironic thing is what you described ("fast but fragile") better describes the traditional systems languages that are used to build X11 components: C and C++. If I had to describe Go as a systems language I'd say it was the exact opposite: slow but stable. Sadly it's also pretty inflexible for any real low level stuff (in my experience).

<comment><USER33> > Sadly it's also pretty inflexible for any real low level stuff (in my > experience).

Which is what the poster above you meant by fragile. C and C++ rarely break in most spaces, these days. I can take a C library and expect it to build and _just work_ 99% of the time, and I can build something in those languages and expect it to be flexible enough to work most of the time as well.

<comment><USER32> If only that were actually true. I've done a lot of work porting C++ code to various different flavours of Linux and Unix as well as compiling stuff for Linux from working source and it's rare that things will "just work". Granted a lot of time the real pain point is manually having to deal with dependencies (even Go's old $GOPATH solution is better than the stanard C++ approach!). Then you have compiler flags, compile time options, distribution specific patch files, dependencies for the build scripts themselves, etc. And that's before you've even touched on compiler specific variations, language versions and undefined behaviours. There is a reason why the source-orientated repositories like FreeBSD ports, Gentoo's portage and Arch's AUR have wrappers around build scripts and it isn't because things "just work 99% of the time" ;)

Go does have its short comings, I'd be the first to admit that, but the actual reason I started writing Go was because it was far less brittle trying to write portable code than C++ and at the time I was having to do a fair amount of cross compilation on platforms of other CPU architectures as well as different host OSs (Rust wasn't mature at that point, .NET wasn't open source and I've never enjoyed working with Java so I thought I'd give Go a try)

<comment><USER33> really? I find that usually automake systems, despite how disgusting they are to deal with from a developer-standpoint, almost always tend to 'just work' from a user-standpoint.

I can't really speak very much for C++ systems, as I understand the dominant build system for that is CMake, which personally I have found completely abhorrent from a user-perspective. (I once tried to build a 32bit program on a 64bit system, and CMake completely and totally refused to do so! There were no override flag that actually affected the program, and it didn't look as if there was any standard place to inject flags to the compiler, I still have no idea how one goes about doing it, to be quite honest).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cervical cancer vaccine inventor to target herpes - <AUTHOR> http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/cervical-cancer-vaccine-inventor-to-target-herpes-20140203-31wvb.html <comment><USER2> I'm a big fan of Ian Frazer for his breakthrough work in vaccination, and also from that obligatory patriotism that comes from his hailing from my home state in Australia (he's a former Queenslander of the Year).

I'm surprised I've only just noticed the delicious wordplay, that the man who did so much for HPV and now Herpes originally hails from down under.

<comment><USER3> Big shout out goes to his (former) partner as well (Jian Zhou) who was just as much as a boss. But yes, to put it quite simply, he's a boss (and so is his small team).

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ok so like...

"They hope the vaccine will be used both to prevent infection with the herpes type 2 virus, and also to cure it in people who are already infected."

If this is possible, that would be _huge_. Like, amazingly huge. Herpes is one of the most impossible to destroy things, second to only HIV.

If the technique really generalizes, that would be incredible.

<comment><USER5> never ever forget about the flu. Many role of it. So it is probably the third in the list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm never convinced when I see the words "may", "could", "hope(d)", "encouraging", "expected" or "might" in an article about vaccines or alternative power. This one has most of these words.

<comment><USER7> Yep. I mean I know that every great breakthrough starts with a lot of "hmm...could [x] lead to a cure for [y]?", but every time I read about a "breakthrough" I anticipate follow-up articles about how good the trials are going, yet they never seem to materialize. I think we're all from a generation that's probably a little impatient, as well. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Aren't there much more malicious or widespread forms of the herpes virus than HSV-2 that could desperately use a vaccine? I'm thinking of Epstein-Barr or even HSV-1.

I'm sure most people would love to eradicate genital herpes, but it's probably among the least pressing and/or widespread health concerns in the viral family.

<comment><USER9> HSV-1 is far more widespread, but I would struggle to call it "more malicious". It is a rare source of blindness, but for the most part is a fairly benign infection most people don't know they have.

HSV-2 on the other hand, has some serious consequences for congenital infections, and may result in easier acquisition of HIV.

Beyond that, research in HSV-2 should extend to HSV-1 fairly directly. If I had to pick one, I'd go with HSV-2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> An HSV (1/2) vaccine is really important, in that the virus can increase chances for HIV transmission during it's viral shedding phase. Even if HSV is well-controlled by drugs like Acyclovir, lowering the overall risk of HIV transmission would be huge. In addition, HSV, along with HPV is one of those STDs that isn't 100% avoidable even with condom usage, sometimes infecting people who are surprised given that they had always practised 'safe sex' at least by consistently using condoms.

</comment><comment><USER11> I would love to build systems that modeled pathogens and applied monte carlo methods/fuzzing techniques to permuting proteins or other molecules that might render the pathogens harmless within the simulation. One might then use these results to either cure the pathogen else refine the model. Sort of like TDD for biology. I have no idea where to begin with modeling such profoundly complex biological systems, but please let me know if you have any suggestions because I would love to pursue this.

<comment><USER9> Things like this are being done, generally under the umbrella of "Computational Biology" or occasionally "Bioinformatics" (a field which is still sorting out what it is).

Doing it well is going to require a great deal of education.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hope (probably in vain) that it might work on type 1 as well..

</comment><comment><USER13> I read "hippies" and rejoiced. If only...

<comment><USER14> A somewhat serious question on the hippies I want to ask HN (as a non- American): are there any enclaves of hippie culture left in the American culture today? What I'm mostly wondering is if someone who was there with the "hippies" back in the day could identify traces of it in the present-day hacker culture.

edit: elaborated

<comment><USER15> Yes. Berkeley in particular was a hotspot of 1960s hippiedom and later hackerdom (there's a reason it's BSD Unix).

Read about Stewart Brand: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Brand](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Brand)

He was influential in the hippie counterculture, and later one of the early online communities, The WELL ("Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link").

More here: [http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/817415_chap4.html](http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/817415_chap4.html)</comment></comment></comment>


A Titanic Design Blunder - <AUTHOR> http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2010/11/26/a-titanic-design-blunder/

<comment><USER2> That story sounds apocryphal. Why did it come up now?</comment>


Conjunction fallacy - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_fallacy <comment><USER2> I was going to write a blog post about this and why people link violence to mental illness.

We know that people with mental illness are not more violent than the general population and that they're much more likely to be the victim of violent crime than the perpetrators of violent crime, but we still see people insist that mental illness means violent behaviour.

I think that's conjunction fallacy mixed with a bit of confirmation bias.</comment>


Making a brain for my model plane - <AUTHOR> http://story.glass/uav <comment><USER2> This is excellent in every way. Not only building a homemade UAV, but the presentation was spot on.

I expected the page to run badly with all that big content but had no problems.

The images and video add so much and not even a single click required!

<comment><USER3> (Jonny the author here)

Thanks for the kind words! This is primarily a taster article to introduce the UAV project, I intend to write a more technical report and publish the designs/code in due time (and some more videos!).

The presentation uses Story Glass, also a project of mine, which we hope to offer soon as a service. It is an experience, lying in a damp field shooting a video to think about how the text will flow over it!

<comment><USER4> Hmm. A few of the videos were broken for me in Firefox, but worked in Chrome. In particular, the 3D model of the plane (caption "On a real plane these control surfaces are moved by large hydraulic pistons connected to the pilot's control stick."), and the PCB design software ("PCB design is quite fun. You start off by placing the 'footprints' of each of the chips, and then draw in all the connections.").

Ah, looking at it, it appears that these may not have webm variants. You might want to include a static fallback image or something of the sort for videos that you don't have webm variants for; in fact, static fallback images for all of the videos would be good for people who have video disabled, don't have video support, don't have appropriate codec support, or the like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Excellent, I've been waiting for Moore's Law to catch up with what I need to engineer my groundbreaking, innovative personal flight device design. Ever since I learned about the F-16's use of thrust and computing power to enable Relaxed Stability, I've been certain my personal flight device will need the capability to operate in that mode. I'm still trying to secure proper IP protections (I'm an amateur inventor) before prototyping for marketing / capital raising, but this is very relevant. Thanks for sharing and I hope to be in contact eventually regarding potential collaboration. Cheers!

<comment><USER6> What's Moore's Law have to do with this at all? Just trying to understand. This was do-able ten, if not twenty years ago.

The model helicopter guys have been using gyro-stabilized platforms for probably decades. These are cases where the darn thing would be almost impossible to fly without the gyro taking control of various aspects of the aircraft. One of my current helicopters (1.5 meter rotor) can be tuned to go from docile-and-almost-boring to what I would call "tasmanian-devll-mode".

<comment><USER5> I'm thinking the processing power to do calculations that are corresponding to the passenger / payload (which will move somewhat while in flight and be unstable), flight control inputs, and perhaps communications ability within a very small package. My point is while some of the parts have existed, until the Arduino / Pi devices started getting traction, I did not see a viable method for combining the disparate elements into a usable format...at a minimum cost of weight / power.

<comment><USER7> The electronics for something carrying passengers would hopefully be a bit more rugged than an arduino or a raspi. I suspect that you're optimizing for the wrong variables here. Aduino and raspi are _not_ groundbreaking for capabilities or format and inventions are rarely stopped by the price point of the development platform, if anything they are stopped by a lack of market, timing or physics.

<comment><USER5> Single passenger, and initial versions will not be self-powered but rather towed. I already have a very close friend who pokes holes in my ideas and innovations, and I certainly don't expect most people on here to understand the short, medium, and long-term goals of my concept. The innovation is one of physics, I'm simply mentioning the tools with respect to this discussion / item being shared.

Frankly it's actually more of a proof-of-concept for a highly efficient wing design - one that only recently was discovered within the past five years. Hence, even if everybody nipping at my heels thinks it could have been done already / 10 years ago with "off the shelf" parts and such, well, you're wrong. Like I said, I'm very protective of my IP at this point and don't mind fielding this type of criticism, it's just somewhat laughable to me because there's so many disparate concepts being put together that the only person who could be this crazy and innovative is me, because it's one of those inventions that only comes from a unique mind.

There's a lot of criticism on here for the OP because they aren't going into enough detail. I'm guilty of that too. I really don't care if you feel the same, because I like making connections with other big thinkers and dreamers. Critics are a dime a dozen. Liberal arts majors with a lifetime of aviation industry experience? Much more rare.

<comment><USER7> Let's see:

> I certainly don't expect most people on here to understand the short, > medium, and long-term goals of my concept.

Does not expect to be understood by others.

> Like I said, I'm very protective of my IP at this point

Secretive

> it's just somewhat laughable to me because there's so many disparate > concepts being put together that the only person who could be this crazy and > innovative is me, because it's one of those inventions that only comes from > a unique mind.

Self describes as having 'a unique mind'

> Professional Writer, Musician and Intellectual

> The innovation is one of physics

Not schooled in the field in which he's making a 'breakthrough invention'

> Liberal arts majors with a lifetime of aviation industry experience? Much > more rare.

Well, obviously, yes, liberal arts majors tend not to have lifetimes of aviation industry experience.

Beware, you're sounding suspiciously like the majority of all crackpot 'researchers' and 'inventors' who are coming up with new ways to make energy/spacecraft/airplanes/AI etc in their garages. I've been pretty active on an alternative energy forum and there were quite a few people there that exhibited most or even all of the symptoms above, I never saw them produce anything.

Word to the wise: if you're serious then don't bother commenting on HN teasing the world with your invention without a show and tell, chances are that your breakthrough has been looked at many times before and has been discarded for good reasons. If you have found something original then more power to you, in that case just go out and build it, don't talk about it at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks awesome. So far you've replicated what can be done with an off-the-shelf part like this:

[http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__24758__F_TEK_30A_Fixe...](http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__24758__F_TEK_30A_Fixed_Wing_Flight_Stabilization_Controller_w_Self_Leveling_.html)

But you have full control of the programming and have the communications problem solved as well. It would be great to have open hardware to replace some of these parts in-plane just like OpenTX now replaces the software in the ground transmitters:

[http://www.open-tx.org/](http://www.open-tx.org/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I also played with servos and my Arduino a while ago. I had quite fun indeed.

I agree that piloting AR plane is quite difficult. I always end up with a crash [1] and then I spend an hour in repairing it. Keeping it up in the air is doable, landing is just impossible for me ;)

I don't quite understand how stabilisation would allow me a better fight. From what I read in another comment from yours, what you do is "work out the difference between the desired angle (set by the pilot on the ground) and the actual angle (as reported by the IMU algorithm fed by the gyro/accelometer)". Is there anything else involved in the stabilization? I mean, speed is key for maneuvering in air, and moving the flaps is less effective at low speeds, do you take this into account?

Also, why building your own PCB (and having to wait 2 weeks to get it delivered) while there's arduino nano or similars ready to go with in a very small size? I guess you do it just for the hacking fun and learing. BRILLIANT!

[1] [https://vimeo.com/29559991](https://vimeo.com/29559991)

<comment><USER10> Try starting with a simulator, like Phoenix. You plug in your transmitter to your computer's USB and it's like a video game where you're in a field flying whatever model you choose (plane or multirotor). You can change the conditions (increase the wind, for example) and crash all you want without having to make repairs.

Once you feel comfortable in the simulator, start with a big foam flyer like an EasyStar or Bixler. It's easiest if you start with 3 channel (no ailerons) so there's less you have to worry about. Progressively move to smaller and faster planes (first in the simulator, then in the field).

<comment><USER11> For reference, the plane in the article appears to be a Bixler.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, scrolling through that article was really disturbing. I guess I need to get used to this kind of presentation.

<comment><USER13> I felt the same way. I really wish we didn't have to get used to that though. It's like the worst combination of a video and a website, and ends up as something like an annoying guided tour.

<comment><USER14> I thought it was awesome, and it worked perfectly on my 2008 macbook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Awesome.

Is this sort of thing usually done with RC planes? I've been watching a few RC plane videos lately - there seem to be a _lot_ of pilots out there who could benefit from electronics to help land their planes - especially those who've spent a ton of money on really nice setups like this guy: [1]

[1] [http://youtu.be/nQJ3TzSZkpo](http://youtu.be/nQJ3TzSZkpo)

<comment><USER16> Yes, stabilization systems are increasingly common among the so called "ultra micro" models.

I just bought a E-Flite Radian UMX, which is a stabilized and miniaturized (29" wingspan) version of a larger model (the 2M wingspan Parkzone Radian). The stabilization makes it much easier for inexperienced users to fly in gusty conditions. Like the OP's home-built system, it has a rate-sensing gyro system that compensates for any uncommanded movement. The plane flies perfectly straight regardless of wind and updrafts unless you give rudder or elevator inputs.

I am still amazed it was only $80.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hmm, on Firefox 33.0.3 on CentOS 6, it is just a lot of white space with some text interspersed. I'm guessing I'm missing something :-)

That said, the availability and usability of these 9 DOF modules has really made this sort of stuff doable for folks. Opens up a lot of possibilities and for me at least I think it is the single biggest reason the quadcopter market exists :-)

</comment><comment><USER18> Love this kind of presentation! Do you use any external libs or tools to build the page?

</comment><comment><USER19> This is awesome. I want to do this myself. I have a degree in EE, but I've somehow never built anything like this. One issue is how to get the bits. What I mean is where is there a summary of all the bits one might need (like a box of lego), and how to get the pcb made? Also, do you sit with an oscilloscope and debug? Or is it all simulation? What do you use to simulate?

Also, do you employ control theory for the stabilization? Predictive filtering and all that?

<comment><USER3> (Jonny the author here)

I plan to write this up more completely, but here are some more technical details:

Most of the bits (the foam plane, servos, speed controller, radio modules, IMU, barometer and GPS) came from eBay or HobbyKing. I started off with a little USB development board with an Atmel SAM7 on it, and then moved to the PCB and a newer Atmel SAM3 (partly after discovering how cheap prototype PCBs are from ITEAD).

I initially wrote the algorithms in python, using pyserial to talk to the built-in bootloader the chips come with, through which you can manipulate registers and control the peripherals. This made writing and debugging the C much easier. The chip runs TNKernel, a little RTOS, which handles the radio and IMU processes (and soon GPS and barometer).

Control is currently simple proportional control based on the IMU output, but I may add integral and differential terms once I'm more comfortable flying it, to see if can improve stability. It is remarkable how happy it is flying with the relatively crude algorithm it currently uses.

Launching it is still slightly nerve-wracking - you have to throw it quite hard and hope that it is going to go up rather than down. There's also the risk that it'll fly out of radio range and keep on going, but if this happens it automatically cuts the throttle, in theory at least!

<comment><USER20> What's your background? Are you an engineer, or self taught?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Very, very cool.

* How much payload can you put on the vehicle?

* Are you planning on adding some sort of forward scanner / camera to check for safety while flying autonomously? ("Eyes" to accompany the brain)

* How are you using the feedback from the IMU and gyroscope? Does it have a kalman filter? Or are you just looking at the instantaneous IMU data and just reacting to it.

* Where does the stability code reside? You mention a stable platform .. I am curious as to what it is.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wish the project had more internal nit bits. Like algorithms, controller info, and so on. A bit disappointed but have my upvote regardless.

</comment><comment><USER23> Building a drone, or robots is one of my dreams. I mean, as I programmer, I build things all the time. How awesome it would be to code something that ends up moving in the physical realm? Even better if it had some limited form of AI.

But I know nothing about hardware, and very very little about programming a UAV.

<comment><USER24> I'm a programmer who'd never tried electronics till an year ago but have now managed to build a few things - that even involve homemade PCBs and SMD soldering.

1) I started by buying an arduino, a starter kit and some simple sensors and actuators - ultrasonic, gyro, servos, motor driver - on ebay.

2) read Pratt's "Make Electronics" and Wiley's "Electronics for Dummies"

3) started making. Understood theoretical concepts by doing.

4) I regularly watch DIY youtube channels and follow RSS feeds of sites like Instructables and Hackaday.io

5) I'm not yet capable of building a UAV, but I've already built a couple of robots.

It's not really tough, and it's a fantastic side hobby. It's also turned me into a more careful software programmer, constantly double and triple checking everything, because electronic circuits are not as forgiving of mistakes as software.

So I'd say get started right away. It's gonna be fun!

<comment><USER23> I didn't see your reply until today.

Thanks! I'll take a look at those books.

Any good links you could throw my way while we are at it?

<comment><USER24> For purchasing, just search "arduino starter kits" in ebay, adafruit or sparkfun.

For learning, check out :

[1] [https://learn.adafruit.com/category/learn- arduino](https://learn.adafruit.com/category/learn-arduino)

[2] [https://learn.sparkfun.com/start_a_project](https://learn.sparkfun.com/start_a_project)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Have you looked into [http://ardupilot.com/](http://ardupilot.com/) ?

</comment><comment><USER20> This is really cool. I wish he'd have gone into more detail about how he built the rest of the plane - was it purchased off the shelf, or did he build each part himself?

Also, how does the microcontroller pass on the commands to the motors, and how do they carry it out?

I'd love to read this article with x100 details.

</comment><comment><USER26> How do you deal with the feedback loop? How do you avoid over adjusting making the plane go crazy?

<comment><USER27> I don't know about this particular project, but the standard approach is to use a PID controller, which uses the derivative term to control overshooting and oscilations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm dying to see some more details! What model plane, how does your stabilization algorithm work, how is everything placed on/in the plane, how do the ARM microcontroller and the original controller work together, etc!

</comment><comment><USER29> That was interesting.

Layout didnt work so well on my note 3 with chrome, the image sections were pretty flawless but the text parts were a tad difficult to focus onn at times.

Definatly going to look it up on the pc though :-)

</comment><comment><USER30> I love this!

Any advice on finding people to work on projects like this with? I've tried to do electronics projects in the past and get bored when I realize no one cares about it :-(

</comment><comment><USER31> Okay, this is truelly awesome! I would like to know how you connected your ps3 controller through a radio module (without watching the Chinese manuals)....

I'd really appreciate that!

</comment><comment><USER32> Nice capture of a one word domain on the new .glass TLD. Although I was expecting it to have something to do with Google Glass and it didn't.

</comment><comment><USER33> Is it possible to get the components already soldered into your PCB at a reasonable cost? Doing surface mount components seems like a nightmare.

</comment><comment><USER34> Laggy pop-in scrolling, autoplaying sound with no way to disable, yep this article ain't for me.

</comment><comment><USER35> Very cool project and website design!

Which shop did you use to print the PCBs and how much did each of them cost?

</comment><comment><USER36> I can't use the website since Firefox just freezes and I have to kill it manually.

</comment><comment><USER37> Def interested in story.glass. Hopefully open source in its future.

</comment><comment><USER38> interesting - my windows machine throws a blue screen of death to me (tried it 3 times) when I try to open the link with firefox... no problems with IE...

<comment><USER39> Makes FF33 crash on my win7 machine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Super super nice web page design.</comment>


Kim Dotcom's Letter to Hollywood - <AUTHOR> http://hubski.com/pub?id=36748

<comment><USER2> It seems like his case has been terribly mishandled. Those who caused that to happen should have their careers suffer.

But he's arguing that people who produce a product should be ok with him both profiting from that product instead of them.

There my sympathy ends.

He's not arguing "information wants to be free", he's arguing "I should be able to make money from your information."</comment>


Leaving MongoDB and Joining OrientDB - <AUTHOR> http://dataandco.expertly.io/post/113253941965/a-new-adventure-leaving-mongodb-and-joining <comment><USER2> Maybe I'm not too informed but who is this? Looking at his linked in he seems to be a sales person/business development person just moving to a new position.

Is he well known in the big data community and/or built any of the big data tools widely used? Just curious for more background than what sounds like a pretty common occurrence at startups.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm very curious how far OrientDB has made it. I remember using them ~1.5 years ago, and it was plagued with bugs, and data loss issues. Maybe they'll be able to take some of the knowledge from the MongoDB folks, and use it to bolster their storage engine.

<comment><USER4> Tomorrow post - moving from orientdb to someotherdb. Stay tuned folks!

See our magazine - bikeshedding for the inexperienced, on sale now!

<comment><USER5> Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Leaving one of the most successful startups in history isn't easy._

Interesting sentence. Isn't it a bit early to say that MongoDB is "successful"?

<comment><USER7> Overstating their success and awesomeness is just MongoDB's normal mantra. You get used to it.

<comment><USER8> Can these kind of comments stop? Please?

This has been trumpeted pretty much constantly on HN, and even if it's true, does it matter? Is anyone seriously evaluating their database on the basis of marketing copy? I suppose if you do, you can't be surprised if you have a bad time.

<comment><USER9> While an old trope, MongoDB's awesomeness drove a lot of attention to it. To some degree this led to management picking it for awesomeness value (yes, even in stogie enterprises like Insurance or Government Fraud). I think many on HN are partially riding a MEME and partially reacting viscerally to a technically mediocre product getting as far as it had (this is HN after all).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It must be an interesting time for OrientDB.

Aurlieus, the creators of TitanDB was recently acquired by DataStax and promptly dropped support of TitanDB[1]. That's left a bit hole in the market for a genuinely scalable, open source GraphDB (Neo4J has an open source "community edition").

OrientDB is one of the prime candidates left. I'd note that Wikidata recently chose BlazeGraph for their query interface[1], which is an option I'd never heard of before.

[1] [http://www.datastax.com/2015/02/datastax-acquires- aurelius-t...](http://www.datastax.com/2015/02/datastax-acquires-aurelius-the- experts-behind-titandb)

[1] [https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata- tech/2015-Mar...](https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata- tech/2015-March/000740.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting, OrientDB seems to have really grown lately. It is advertising itself in the same way I talk about my own javascript based opensource database project ([http://github.com/amark/gun](http://github.com/amark/gun)), multi-model, relational/document, graph, multi-master, etc. Obviously Orient is much more mature than mine (not production ready or stable). Maybe I should give OrientDB a try, and see if it stands up to its claims!

Great work, keep it up.

<comment><USER12> Thanks. Keep us posted and feel free to reach out if you need help.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, could we talk? Give me an email: email@example.com, I've been talking to the RethinkDB guys, Firebase, Dropbox Datastore, Meteor, etc. Would love to chat with you guys too.

<comment><USER12> Email just sent. Let's talk.

<comment><USER11> huh, haven't gotten it yet. Sorry, could you try: aquiva (AT) g(oogle)Mail dot com? Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not sure this is beneficial advertising for OrientDB

<comment><USER14> Care to elaborate?</comment></comment>


Looking for Volunteer writer for a new and small Medium.com publication - <AUTHOR> If you are already writing about technology on your personal blog, let's write it together.
We are a group of writers on a newly made publication on Medium.com,  we want to write about technology, productivity, self-improvement, travel and business categories.
I am not a good writer, I just want to have some other people to write to gather and also learn from them.
Please make a comment if you like to join us :) <comment><USER2> It might be worthwhile for you to provide a link to either previous articles you've written, or more information about your group.

Also, your auto-description appears to be extremely generic. I'd say every single blog I follow conforms to your description, even though they are vastly different.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. You are right.

I try to write better, actually, I do not have good posts to share here, they were not popular never

Thanks for your comment</comment></comment>


CBS files a copyright claim against themselves - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/flktg/cbs_files_a_copyright_claim_against_themselves_o_o/

<comment><USER2> I just had a surreal experience. I was reading the comments on this article, incredulous that all the obvious humour, meta commentary and novelty account performances were being upmodded so vigorously.

Suddenly I realized I was on reddit and the context all clicked smartly into place.

I was surprised to discover how much I have both a) internalized the respective cultures of HN and reddit, and b) compartmentalized those cultures such that the same comment will evoke a much different emotional reaction from me depending on whether it's on HN or reddit.

I actually felt myself swing from prudish disapproval to sanguine acceptance once I realized where I was looking at the comments. It was unnerving.</comment>