Impact from the deep (2006) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://burro.case.edu/Academics/USNA229/impactfromthedeep.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> This is an excellent article from Scientific American about a proposed mechanism for the End-Permian mass extinction, the largest in Earth's history. The author describes how deoxygenation of the oceans may have allowed hydrogen sulphide, produced by anaerobic bacteria, to spread through the ocean and atmosphere, suffocating oxygen-breathing life and also compromising the ozone layer.

The whole article is thought provoking, but in particular the illustration on page 6 is not to be missed.

In the context of people asking what the worst case for global warming is, this is always what comes to my mind, rather than sea level rise or polar bears. The proposed mechanism is deoxygenation of the oceans due to rising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels, in turn caused by extreme volcanic activity.</comment>


Taco Bell Programming - <AUTHOR> http://teddziuba.com/2010/10/taco-bell-programming.html <comment><USER2> I like the aspect of not jumping on the old 'lets reinvent the wheel again' and 'we need a new tool for an old problem' bandwagon. Sysadmins should not be wasting their ever-shrinking valuable time writing code (that they probably aren't even experienced enough to write well) when they can pick a 'product' like xargs or wget off the shelf and get the job done in a tenth the time. Add to this the fact that modern computers are more than powerful enough to handle complex computing tasks and the cloud is often very costly for the same computing power as you'd find on your desktop and you end up doing it faster and cheaper using a standard Unix workstation and tools.

However, it's a mistake to think this 'taco bell programming' is somehow a good model for actual programming, or even some sysadmin tasks. This should be renamed 'Taco Bell Kludging'. Because that's mostly what we're talking about: using a quick hack/kludge on a command-line to finish a job quickly instead of programming. In terms of actually building a scalable, fault-tolerant solution, _sometimes_ the Unix tools just won't do. Don't shortcut and cut yourself off at the knees just to save time.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm a sysadmin - this is how I think too. It's great for the most part but... there are some problems:

\- If the job isn't split up evenly or with an event queue, you end up preallocating jobs to processes, it's possible that one may take far longer than the rest to finish.

The worst case of this I've run into is Microsoft's EXMerge, which does imports/exports from an Exchange datastore - it can be threaded, but preallocates work by splitting up alphabetically. In one case, a family business, all the heavy users got lumped in one thread because they had the same last name - that thread took 5x longer to run when all other threads had finished.

\- You can run the machine out of some resource (mem/disk/CPU) by spawning a huge number of jobs that hit one subsystem hard. This is tuning dependent, of course.

Also, I'd recommend using make and similar tools for this rather than shell commands like xargs if you're going to seriously script this - those tools are made to run processes in parallel and avoid repeating work. They also tend force you to write intermediate steps to disk which can help in debugging (and can be coded around or put on a ramdisk later if it proves to be a performance issue).

</comment><comment><USER4> One concern I have with this approach is that like all code, it becomes hairier and more complicated over time as it becomes more robust and special cases are handled.

Once bash scripts reach a certain size and complexity, I've found they become quite difficult to follow. I don't know if this is inherently a quality of bash, or of people who tend to write bash, or of my ability to read bash scripts, but I find larger Python, Ruby, etc. programs a lot easier to follow.

On the other hand, even a 300 line shell script is easier to follow than a 10,000 line Java program.

</comment><comment><USER5> Isn't it kind of unfair to compare xargs parallelizing, which as far as I know all happens on the same machine, with cloud-scaled parallelizing through various services?

Sure, it's awesome to use a ready-made tool to get that kind of scalability, but is it really apples/apples?

<comment><USER6> I don't think it's unfair at all. Add split and ssh to the mix and now you're distributed.

"Cloud-scale" just means "more hardware than we own" and seems to me like a step backward in computing, to a time when you paid to time-share a relatively powerful machine. The main appeal of cloud computing is outsourcing the ownership of the machines and responsibilities like configuring, storing, powering, and repairing them.

I am not saying there isn't a use for the cloud computing capacity or the benefits it offers... but I just think that the hype can be distilled down to "you don't have to take care of a bunch of servers" for the average business.

<comment><USER7> Where I work, we've run into a great deal of pain scripting ssh. For a one off job, I'd agree, but if you want something stable over time, well....

I'm not dissing ssh, I just don't think automatically running jobs on remote machines is its sweet spot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For 1-off projects, this is exactly how I approach things.

For projects that need to be stable, used by non-techies, or upgraded over time, I generally go for something a little more robust. You know, like Google does, etc etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> I kind of discover these kinds of recipes myself from time to time, and am always delighted. Is there a good recipe book of practical applications of chained unix commands?

<comment><USER10> Some of the most clever ones seem to hide in the .bash_history files of enlightened sysadmins. That said, there are some good ones at commandlinefu.com as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> fuckin love this guy's writing style!</comment>


Planning – The Core Reason Why Gameplay Feels Good (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2017/05/planning-core-reason-why-gameplay-feels.html <comment><USER3> > This is how the world looks to the average fish:

Fishes don't experience the world at all like humans do, so comparing one sense (visual) and drawing conclusions from there is just anthropomorphism. There's a lot more to detecting their environment than vision: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_systems_in_fish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_systems_in_fish)

<comment><USER4> Yeah, came here to say that. Can't sharks smell blood in the water miles away or something of the like?

<comment><USER5> Sharks can detect very small concentrations of blood in the water. They (and some other fish) can also sense electrical fields; humans have no equivalent for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You need motivation to plan. That motivation comes in the form of simulating life and letting you live it. Without risk reward is paltry. Try playing hold'em without bets, it doesn't work. The game devolves into nothing.

The more open world the game is the more popular it tends to be. It lets people satisfy their own particular motivations.

I spent some time playing Rust recently. That game is downright deserving of a psychological study. It is something else to be out harvesting rocks to build a house and get stripped down and robbed by a pack of astonishingly rude 12 year olds who have fully immersed themselves in a 'lord of the flies' mindset.

</comment><comment><USER7> > Planning doesn't always need to happen in the long term, it can also be very > short term. Take this scene from Super Mario, for instance [...] the player > needs to make a plan in a split second. The important thing to notice here > is that the player doesn't simply react blindly. Even in a stressful > situation, if the game works as it should, the player quickly formulates a > plan and then tries to carry out that plan.

If we're going to call split-second decisions a type of "planning", than I'm not sure what _isn 't_ planning. The article mentions Dear Esther, but that has very little gameplay at all.

Personally, I generally prefer games that prioritize quick decisions and reactions over careful plans. I do enough of the latter in my daily life.

<comment><USER8> > If we're considering split-second decision-making "planning", than I'm not > sure what isn't planning.

Things that don't involve decisions, for example.

If you think planning quickly isn't planning anymore, what do you think it is instead?

<comment><USER7> What type of gameplay _doesn 't_ involve some type of decision-making?

I suppose a pure reaction time test, but of _course_ that's boring. And some rhythm games, maybe, but those are actually a lot fun despite the lack of "planning".

<comment><USER9> >What type of gameplay doesn't involve some type of decision-making?

Games of chance! Sorry, chutes and ladders, candyland, etc. Similarly knowledge games (trivia), or indeed entirely reaction games.

<comment><USER10> Sorry isn't fully a game a chance. You make choices about which pieces to move and some cards give you further options

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My measure of games is the feedback loop. I have a problem with activities that have a long feedback loop, and thus haven't been able to pick up chess. I just couldn't make any inferences when the consequences are half an hour away, and dozens of other choices would mutate the course of the game beyond recognition in the meantime. Have I made the right decision on the fourth move? Who the hell knows anymore!

FPS and racing games sat much better with me because the feedback loop is incredibly tight (and it's back to no when we're talking adjusting suspension in the garage). I guess I was like that fish, but give me instagib railgun, and it's time of split-second decisions for an hour.

The irony, of course, is that I had to get good at making longer-term decisions to be able to apply such examination to myself and see why it's useful in the first place.

Finally, I realized I need to pick big games apart into smaller exercises, to see which choices work and which don't. To make a playground with a shorter feedback loop where I could test my decisions before jumping into the real thing. You know, like a game.

<comment><USER3> > I just couldn't make any inferences when the consequences are half an hour > away,

If you play chess fast it does not take half an hour to see the results of a bad decision. In a few turns you would see things fall apart after a bad move.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I noticed how everyone who can play chess keeps saying that it's perfectly easy, you just move things around and immediately see though space and time, the garden of forking paths is laid out before you in its entirety, and every choice ever becomes clear as air on a winter morning in childhood.

Notably, those who can't really play tend to not feel that way.

<comment><USER8> > immediately see though space and time, the garden of forking paths is laid > out before you in its entirety, and every choice ever becomes clear as air > on a winter morning in childhood

I don't get that from chess, but I do get it from instagib railgun. The problem is, the _other_ player see as clear as a falcon enhanced with some kind of alien nanotechnology, so I get owned, but I still often notice with amazement how many decisions and thoughts fit into a few seconds, it really does feel like time is slowing down by _lot_. I glance at some timer, a bunch of stuff happens, I glance at it again, and think "I can't believe only 4 seconds passed during all this".

<comment><USER11> > it really does feel like time is slowing down by lot

It does! Not only that, but after such a game the brain is working faster, so the feeling persists. No coffee can give that effect, and it's the thing I really miss from my FPS days.

However, videogames aren't necessary for that: other activity that needs you to act way faster than usual works about the same. (That becomes easy to notice when your days consist of the same old stuff...) I guess some people use extreme sports for that, but personally I'll have to find something more forgiving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This really resonated to be true with me, especially about why open-world games feel good.

The images he used in the post were perfect to illustrate this too.

</comment><comment><USER13> I can think of one instance in which this does not seem to hold true - <USER2> Dance Revolution, at least for me, was more about reacting than planning. Once I got to the point where I had to memorize and think ahead to the next steps that were about to show up, I lost interest.

<comment><USER14> I think a more extreme example of this phenomenon is pinball (physical machines). It's great fun as a beginner, because you're mostly reacting to the chaotic movement of the ball, but as you get better you realize playing slowly gets you higher scores. It's usually a good idea to bring the ball to a halt whenever you can. The multiballs that were so fun before turn into ordinary play with backup balls held in reserve. Reaction time becomes less important, and patience and precise ball control become more important. It's rarely a good idea to attempt difficult shots.

I stopped playing once I understood what I'd have to do to get good.

<comment><USER15> >I stopped playing once I understood what I'd have to do to get good.

This is mostly why people stop doing any activity for leisure - when the ideal path to success is a path that feels time consuming and wasteful to pursue. it's why i could never pick up gardening. gardening ideally means dealing with fertilizer and handling pests,both of which i dislike. i realized what i liked was the routine of watering plants - which i satisfy by having a couple of cactuses in the house and a spray bottle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> spiders, planning:

[https://rifters.com/real/2009/01/iterating-towards- bethlehem...](https://rifters.com/real/2009/01/iterating-towards- bethlehem.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> The octopus lives in the environment of the fish but can execute sophisticated plans.</comment>


My book 'Unlearning to Run' is now live - <AUTHOR> http://freeradical.me/2013/03/18/my-book-un-learning-to-run-is-now-live/

<comment><AUTHOR> See Ben Kepes' review here: <http://wp.me/p8KWj-3Uj></comment>


Gawker Stops Publishing After Hacker Attack - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/business/media/13gawker.html?src=twr <comment><USER2> _An affiliated group, Anonymous, gained attention last week for apparently taking down Web sites like MasterCard's in a show of support for WikiLeaks_

Why is Anonymous "affiliated"?

Flagged for being plain disinformation.

EDIT: This article reports that the crackers themselves said they are unrelated with Anonymous:

[http://thenextweb.com/media/2010/12/12/gawker-media-is- compr...](http://thenextweb.com/media/2010/12/12/gawker-media-is-compromised- the-responsible-parties-reach-out-to-tnw/)

EDIT2: Why the downvotes?

<comment><USER3> If you read it in context, they're saying that Anonymous is affiliated with 4chan, not with the hackers:

> The hackers suggested they had chosen Gawker out of

> spite. They said Gawker writers had been critical of the

> online message board 4chan, a chaotic group that mounts

> attacks on Web sites and individuals.

>

> An affiliated group, Anonymous, gained attention last

> week for apparently taking down Web sites like

> MasterCard's in a show of support for WikiLeaks, the

> organization that facilitated the release of secret State

> Department cables.

<comment><USER2> This is at best unclear. It could mean affiliated to the site just mentioned in previous paragraph, 4Chan, or to the group the article is talking about, Gnosis.</comment></comment></comment>


A better way to sign-ins - <AUTHOR> http://seanmonstar.com/post/125352745992/whats-the-password

<comment><AUTHOR> Sean started a discussion on the dev-identity list ([https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev- identity](https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-identity)). I really think this is the best way to do it for both developers as well as provide a better user experience.

It is really not fun trying to integrate 3rd party APIs to handle sign ins.

However, I would love to hear about the possible shortfalls of this approach.</comment>


Give the Gift of a Custom Linux Distro - <AUTHOR> http://cam.ly/blog/2010/12/give-the-gift-of-a-custom-linux-distro/

<comment><USER2> When reading this, all I can think is:

Family members, friends, and co-workers might, at first, give you some strange looks when they take a look at a "YOUR-SANDWHICH" written on one side with a sharpie. This is where you explain that you made a "custom sandwhich" just for them.

How do they try it out? Simple. I recommend that you build your custom sandwhich using your own ingredients, similar to a regular sandwhich . That way, people can eat it, and it won't chmod whatever is already in the fridge. It's a great way for people to try out other sandwhiches whenever they want.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, I personally dislike saying that a custom distro is a "new operating system just for you", but, hey, if Russia [1], China [2] (FreeBSD this time), and North Korea [3] can do it, why not you? (Probably also India and Iran, but I couldn't find solid proof their efforts are Unix-based.)

[1]: <http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/23/1450224>

[2]: [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/chinas-secure-os- kylin-a-...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/chinas-secure-os-kylin-a- threat-to-us-offensive-cyber-capabilities/3385)

[3]: [http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9165758/N._Korea_deve...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9165758/N._Korea_develops_operating_system_with_Windows_like_GUI_Linux_guts)

</comment><comment><USER4> I've never understood why people regard a disc image that installs a custom set of packages from existing repos belonging to an existing distro as an entirely new distro. Does this mean I'm authoring a new distro every time I write a Debian preseed or a RH kickstart?

<comment><USER5> Suse Studio actually lets you do more than that. You can patch any file and also submit your own custom updates to the _distros_ you've created. You can also change the branding.

But I agree, _custom distro_ might be a bit of a stretch. What would you call a *SUSE image that's not SUSE?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just wait until the cam.ly team learns about login screen customization and desktop themes--it'll be like a new disto^3!

<comment><USER5> SUSE Studio already allows for changing the branding.

<comment><USER7> Probably coming soon:

 _Before Cam.ly, I helped to make a web service that makes creating your own linux distro easy: Suse Studio._</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What should happen to your gmail account if you die? - <AUTHOR>

So I've been thinking about death a lot recently and I thought of a question that I don't know anything about. If you die, what happens to your gmail account? By extension, what happens to all your electronic accounts? Normal physical property is handled in probate court, which sorts out your will (if you have one) and the next of kin, etc, etc.
These days more and more of our "property" is digital, what happens to your flickr account or your blog? These could have been a big part of your life when you were alive....
A related question is: What should happen to your digital property? I'm not sure I want my gmail account to be given to anybody? <comment><USER2> This is something I've thought about a lot.

My mom had a disease that involved a great deal of treatment and it wasn't a very common disease so she had found a wonderful support group online. I helped her start a blog (<http://www.jarrett.ws/dale>) and after she lost the battle with the disease I was the one who updated her blog to share the bad news. That is still the latest post on the blog, having left it untouched since then. I make sure to renew the domain and take care of it for her.

The fact is that death and the Internet is still quite nebulous. Companies don't really address it, the law hasn't covered it, etc.

We knew mom's passwords so I didn't have wrangle control or anything, I went into her email accounts and collected any emails or mementos I wanted to keep. I unsubscribed her from mailing lists and discussion groups, generally got her digital life in order.

The idea of handling online property is something I'd even considered bringing to YC as a business concept, but I couldn't find a solid base for it. Even aside from emails, blogs, and such, I had considered the idea of virtual wealth in MMOs and such.

I actually expect Facebook to be the first social network to really begin addressing this issue, as they seem more intent on generating a map of relationships rather than building new ones.

As to answer your question, then it needs to be in your will, as a first step. You can avoid the legal wrangling by putting the info in your will as to your wishes and login/pass.

Once companies begin to accept that they're holding information and property of individuals, then they'll reach an understanding and process for handling deaths and the transfer of this information.

I hope.

</comment><comment><USER3> I can't find the exact case... But I recall reading that a family was able to get the courts to compel Yahoo to hand over their son's account (he'd died in Iraq) -- So there seems to be some precedent. I'm sure there is a lot of other case law around on this already.

Edit: Found the reference: [http://news.cnet.com/Yahoo-releases-e-mail-of- deceased-Marin...](http://news.cnet.com/Yahoo-releases-e-mail-of-deceased- Marine/2100-1038_3-5680025.html) ... According to that article policies vary. e.g. AOL release accounts to next of kin.

<comment><USER4> Wondering how the family proved that the claimed Yahoo account was indeed their son's.

<comment><USER5> He probably sent mails to his family and friends from that account. So all the proof is there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think you should make explicit provision in your will, including instructions on how to access passwords.

Thinking about it, I would be quite tempted to leave my wife a 'to be opened in the event of my death' envelope containing (among other things) the master password to my Mac's Keychain.

</comment><comment><USER7> I sometimes think about my family going through my personal belongings after I die, and learning a lot about who I am that they probably never knew.

I plan on leaving all my information to them (good and bad) so they can not only 'clean up' after I'm gone but also learn more about who I truly was.

/Maybe I should do that 'before' I pass.

</comment><comment><USER4> I thought about death and information in the cloud a few times earlier. There were two problems with handing over the information to the next of kin: 1\. How will the family members prove that the claimed account indeed belongs to the deceased? 2\. Was the account holder OK with passing the information to his kin? When it comes to physical diaries and mail, we know that someone will have access to it after we die. I don't think same applies to digital content. Does the ruling in Yahoo's case mean that the laws in the US dictate handing over information to family members? If so, why has Yahoo not amended its privacy policy to reflect this. I think it's pretty easy for all these service providers to add an option where the account holder can nominate a heir for his information. Options should be: 1\. Details of the chosen heir 2\. Default legal heir 3\. No one should get access to my information.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you do decide to give it to someone, you can use a dead man switch (<http://www.deadmansswitch.net/> is a good example, or write your own) that would email all your account information to someone you trust completely. You could give them instructions (destroy the account, give certain information to next of kin, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting question.

There is opportunity for some one who can do data banking/insurance correctly for the masses. Since a good startup is solving a pain, and death is one of the biggest, this is a relatedly great problem to solve.

The technology obviously exists, but it's another example where legal systems and business models need to catch up.

</comment><comment><USER10> This came up before regarding Adsense and death. In the event of a death, the next of kin has to send off a copy of the Death Certificate of the account holder to Google, and that account can be transferred. I assume this can be done for most online services.

<comment><USER11> Yahoo didn't do it, only after a court ordered them to do it. (<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/25/yahoo_opens_inbox/>)

<comment><USER12> Yahoo's policy is different from GMail's. In GMail's terms it says they will hand over the account to the next of kin if you send them the death certificate, or if you have power of attorney over that person. Yahoo won't give access under any circumstances, although that's obviously over-ridden by the court's decision.

I found out about this was thinking about social media sites and how they're affected by death recently, which I did as a BarCamp talk and wrote up here:

[http://www.paulsilver.co.uk/blog/2008/10/death-and-social- me...](http://www.paulsilver.co.uk/blog/2008/10/death-and-social-media/)

I think there's stuff that should be in web applications that we miss because we don't think about death, i.e. should we have an extra e-mail for the next of kin of a user? (or effective next of kin in this context.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What is the adsense of life ?

<comment><USER7> Got me thinking, imagine you die and people send grieving emails to your family via your Gmail account. Does Google serve ads for funeral homes and related products?

I'm afraid the answer would probably be yes and it makes me sick to think of Google profiting from your passing (the funeral homes, not so much)

<comment><USER14> I remember a lot of people raised this particular point when gmail was first launch and Google responded this is the type of thing they check for to make sure they do not serve any ads. No idea how effective their checks our, but you'd think someone would have made a big stink about if they did.</comment></comment></comment>


Having your smartphone nearby takes a toll on your thinking - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2018/03/having-your-smartphone-nearby-takes-a-toll-on-your-thinking <comment><USER2> > Importantly, all phones had sound alerts and vibration turned off, so the > participants couldn't be interrupted by notifications.

Importantly, this is the flaw in the experiment's design. With notifications enabled, as is the norm, people wouldn't wonder if they are missing notifications and may have done as well regardless.</comment>


PowerShell 7.0 - <AUTHOR> https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/announcing-PowerShell-7-0/ <comment><USER2> I was forced to use Powershell for a project so after years of ignoring I finally learned it. It's actually not that bad and I have even done some stuff on my Mac with Powershell core.

I just wish they made the language nicer and more consistent. There are so many weird quirks around functions, modules, scope and classes that make life pretty difficult in larger code bases. I would love to see something closer to C# (or even TypeScript) that still can use cmdlets easily. The current Powershell language to me feels like a weird hack but not something well designed. Typescript and C# have demonstrated that MS can design good languages.

This leads me to another complaint. MS is cranking out a lot of useful cmdlets that would also be useful for C# programmers but using them from C# is quite painful.

<comment><USER3> I have to say some of the things that I assumed were quirks turn out to be well engineered decisions once I learnt powershell in full.

For example I started appreciating the way output in PS1 works only after using the parallel for each and was floored by how everything fell in place.

Take this from a full time Linux user, if you're not using powershell you're using an inferior shell.

One major downside for cli warriors though- it takes a couple of seconds to start. (at least 6, I don't knoe about 7).

<comment><USER4> The start time is a major disadvantage behind Powershell. It takes 3 seconds to load even if you disable profiles completely versus <1 second for Python, Ruby or Bash.

<comment><USER5> Process creation on Windows has always been _significantly_ slower than Unix. That is why PowerShell is skewed towards "built-ins" vs launched applications. The ramification of that is slower startup times.

Interesting note - it is also the reason why PowerShell was able to adopt the more natural Verb-Noun model for cmd naming. In Unix, this would produce a huge # of files OR and you couldn't do "VERB NOUN" because then you would have to multiplex on the VERB. Unix's "NOUN VERB" is the result.

BTW - VMS DCL stepped on all these rakes which is why it is have VERB/NOUN and half NOUN/VERB. A complete mess.

Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]

<comment><USER3> Would you consider a powershell server process to speed up startup?

<comment> SteveL-MSFT This is an idea we've discussed, but not something we're investing in right now. It could also solve the sudo/elevation problem for cmdlets. However a privileged service would also bring more security concerns.

<comment><USER3> Hey Steve you're doing a great job with PS! Thank you for all the hard work you and your guys are doing. You are also exceptionally responsive on GitHub.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm interested now that PowerShell is cross platform. For someone reasonably fluent in bash/zsh (and Python, etc.) already, could someone give examples of where they might use PowerShell?

[http://nushell.sh/](http://nushell.sh/) is an example of a new (non-POSIX) shell that's trying to be more structured, similar to PowerShell. Thanks to nu's new -c option, it's possible to use nu profitably even if you don't make it your shell. I doubt I'd ever use PowerShell as my system shell on Mac/Linux, but I don't want to close myself off from tools that might be useful for particular tasks or scripts.

<comment><USER7> Automation of tasks in Microsoft products in general, but particularly Office 365.

<comment><USER8> Looking at it, seems like Microsoft mostly intended Powershell integration to be used for admin/IT tasks, rather than end-user task automation. [https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/office365/enterprise/powers...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/office365/enterprise/powershell/why-you-need-to-use-office-365-powershell) Am I off base?

<comment><USER9> I guess you are right. End users should be clicking buttons :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just look at that change log: [https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/blob/master/CHANGEL...](https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/blob/master/CHANGELOG/7.0.md)

Meticulous. And clicking the headers link to comparisons at the tag level: [https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/compare/v7.0.0-prev...](https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/compare/v7.0.0-preview.6...v7.0.0-rc.1)

And the hover link to the left of headers link perfectly to the section: [https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/blob/master/CHANGEL...](https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/blob/master/CHANGELOG/7.0.md#700-rc1 ---2019-12-16)

Sections: Breaking Changes, Engine Updates and Fixes, General Cmdlet Updates and Fixes, Code Cleanup, Tools, Tests, Build and Packaging Improvements, Documentation and Help Content

That's better than what I see in node and python projects.

So much thought and caring. Let's try it:

        > brew cask install powershell
        Updating Homebrew...
        ==> Auto-updated Homebrew!
        Updated 2 taps (homebrew/cask and caskroom/cask).
        ==> Updated Casks
        caskroom/cask/microsoft-edge    homebrew/cask/microsoft-edge
        ==> Downloading ...
        powershell was successfully installed!

        ~ 23s
        > pwsh
        PowerShell 7.0.0
        Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

        https://aka.ms/powershell
        Type 'help' to get help.

        PS /Users/tony>

I'm using Powershell, a C# application, on MacOS, in iTerm2. I'm fine with it. Also, the subsequent bootup of pwsh was faster than the first.

Edit: You can open vim from it. Somehow, it's even detecting my tmuxp (which is in ~/.local/bin). I'm guessing it inherits PATH's from the parent shell?

<comment> SteveL-MSFT Yes, pwsh inherits from parent. However, we've made improvements to use PS7 as a login shell. When used as a login shell, we exec sh on Linux and zsh on macOS to setup the environment, then exec pwsh to inherit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you want to avoid the telemetry, make sure to set the appropriate environment variable (to anything) before running PowerShell for the first time!

On Linux, for example, you'll want to add something like this to your initialization / startup files:

      export POWERSHELL_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT=1

(Even then, I'm not sure that works for the "AppInsights" stuff!)

<comment><USER12> Having to opt-out of telemetry in your shell is revolting. I wasn't even aware it was there. They really need better up-front warnings (or opt-in) for their OS and shell etc. Another nail in the coffin, horrible dark pattern.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Pretty exciting, someone showed me a while back how powershell 6 has a wget command. I look forward to simple things like this

But man,powershell is lightyears ahead of any *nix alternative. In particular, JEA for security and invoke-command (imagine running a block of code in parallel on multiple machines and get results locally) and other common cmdlets like import-csv where on something like bash you do have the capacity to do write a function that does these things but powershell provides these using a consistent interface,much like stdlibs do in application programming languages. After using powershell,using bash felt like trying to use C without it's stdlib. I think it's just windows' way of making up for nor having the equivalent of GNU userland tools like awk,sed and grep.

</comment><comment><USER14> I hope that Microsoft has a long-term plan for Powershell. It started as a simple shell and has evolved into an almost full-fledged programming language.

<comment><USER15> It was (almost? I never played with PS1.0) always a "almost full-fledged programming language".

It's been a CLR front-end for forever. All the way back to PS2.0 you could (if you wish) define and execute an entire WPF GUI in Powershell (see [https://poshgui.com/](https://poshgui.com/)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm not a PowerShell fan by large, but you can tell a whole lot of effort went into this.

And for what ends? Seemingly to make more Microsoft technologies and APIs available on non-Windows platforms.

I genuinely like this part of the "new" Microsoft.

<comment><USER17> I feel like we're in the "extend" phase of embrace-extend-extinguish cycle.

The last step would be creating Microsoft Linux for Developers when enough market penetration has been achieved, and making sure their tooling is hard to maintain in other distributions.

<comment><USER18> People too young to remember the anti-trust days will deny it, but there is no good reason to trust that this isn't Microsoft's long term plan. You'd be a fool to believe Microsoft has the best interests of the open source community at heart.

<comment><USER5> Those youngings probably don't remember what the Germans and Japanese did in the 40's either.

Or the good old day's when Ultrix ran like a racehorse on 4MB of ram (it did BTW!).

We don't do our credibility any favor when we live in the past and don't update our worldview based upon current facts.

Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]

<comment><USER18> Current facts: Microsoft shoves ads into the start menu and file explorer, collects a ton of telemetry, resets application associations during updates, and does its best to hide the ability to setup a local-only account during install in its pay-for operating system.

So forgive me if I'm cynical of your company's current PR efforts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was just trying to get a release candidate of PowerShell 7 working on macOS and Windows yesterday. It was a frustrating experience, because many essential keybindings are broken out of the box on macOS (Terminal.app, iTerm2) and Windows (using the new Windows Terminal). For example: ctrl-space is the usual shortcut to trigger menu completion, doesn't work.

It's not difficult to make custom keybindings once you figure this out, but many people's first encounter with PowerShell is going to be missing some critical UX features. Not a great situation.

[https://github.com/PowerShell/PSReadLine/issues/639](https://github.com/PowerShell/PSReadLine/issues/639) [https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/879](https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/879)

</comment><comment><USER20> Ternary operators and better Get-Error output are very welcome additions, Ive been writing a few infrastructure testing tools in Pester that could possibly be consolidated.

</comment><comment><USER21> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gJgL8a0YGA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gJgL8a0YGA) talk a Microsoft developer in the PowerShell team, did a month or two ago at a hedge fund called Jane Street.

Talking about new changes in PowerShell 7.0 etc.

</comment><comment><USER22> Will this version of powershell ever be baked-in to Windows? My Windows 10 1909 install is currently 5.1.

<comment><USER23> Powershell Core 6.0 wasn't fully backwards compatible. I imagine that full backwards compatibility would be a requirement to replace 5.1.

It looks like Powershell 7 still can't run some 5.1 scripts. Here's a compatibility table: [https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/powershell/scripting/whats-...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/powershell/scripting/whats-new/cmdlet-versions?view=powershell-7)

<comment><USER24> They changed the default path outout of applets like get-childitem. Microsoft employees stated that this would break many older scripts, but it wasn't listed as a breaking change.

It's unlikely to ever reach even generally acceptable levels of compatibility with the built-in version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I like PowerShell in general. But it's very slow. Both the startup time and the responsiveness. Especially when having something like posh-git enabled.

Having a Linux box with Alacritty and fish at home, makes it even more frustrating to start in on Windows and wait seconds to type.

And unfortunately, PS 7.0 is not a lot faster, still noticeable lag in startup.

The good part is .net integration, being able to use standard .net classes in scripts can be really helpful.

</comment><comment><USER26> I used Powershell a lot last year and it is really amazing to be able to script things like Azure Information Protection and use Azure Application Insights for logging..!

(Of course, Microsoft being Microsoft one still needed to install MS Office on the server to use Azure Information Protection on a pdf or even a txt file...)

</comment><comment><USER27> Coming from a bash background, PowerShell is consistently annoying. Here's an example, passing an XML file to a cmdlet:

        Some-Command -Param1 -FileData .\foobar.xml

_Cannot process argument transformation on parameter 'FileData'. Cannot convert value ".\foo.xml" to type "System.Byte[]". Error: "Cannot convert value ".\foo.xml" to type "System.Byte". Error: "Input string was not in a correct format.""_

In bash you would just do:

        somecommand < foobar.xml

Instead you have to create an object and, do a conversion:

        [Byte[]]$Data = Get-Content -Path ".\foobar.xml" -Encoding Byte -ReadCount 0

Then, run the same command using that object instead of the file:

        Some-Command -Param1 -FileData $Data

</comment><comment><USER28> Interestingly, I saw that PowerShell 7.0 was the default level of documentation when I was browsing Microsoft docs yesterday and figured I must've missed the announcement.

I like the pipeline parallelization feature, I wish more languages offered simple semantics like this to just parallelize some basic tasks.

</comment><comment><USER29> I use Powershell daily on novice level (shell only, no scripts).

There are some nice things compared to bash, like tab completion on program arguments. However it is somewhat slow.

What surprises me is that somethings are just awkward & cumbersome, like excluding multiple folders when doing Get-ChildItem.

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15294836/how-can-i- exclu...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15294836/how-can-i-exclude- multiple-folders-using-get-childitem-exclude)

Or escaping arguments with correct quoting. Sometimes I can't get it to work, like searching for strings with weird characters, especially if I need to combine it with git grep.

<comment><USER30> >tab completion on program arguments

Bash has that as well.

This thread is full of praise for PowerShell, but every time I've tried to use it, I've become annoyed with it. For example, to get the size of a folder in Bash, I'd type `du -sh <folder>`. In PowerShell it's some absurd code spaghetti that someone put in a Github repo [1]. No matter what I try to do in PS, I find the syntax ridiculously verbose. Maybe I just don't _get_ it, whatever it is. \ _shrug\_

[1] [https://github.com/gngrninja/PSFolderSize](https://github.com/gngrninja/PSFolderSize)

<comment><USER31> Not sure that's a fair comparison though. `du` isn't built in to bash, afaik; you could just as easily type `du -sh <folder>` in PowerShell.

If you /did/ need to do it without `du` then it would be something like:

`dir <folder> -Recurse | measure -Property Length -Sum`

which is easier to remember than whatever the equivalent bash would be, imo.

<comment><USER30> >Not sure that's a fair comparison though

Maybe not in a technical sense, but I've never encountered Bash without GNU coreutils (or busybox). I'm just comparing how I would solve a problem in a typical *nix environment, compared to a Windows environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Homebrew is the recommended way to install on macOS, but the cask is currently still on 6.2.4.

[https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/powershell](https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/powershell)

<comment><USER32> 3 hours later:

> Current version: 7.0.0

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Does anyone have a good resource / tutorial how to learn powershell as both a scripting language and to be powerful in daily shell life?

<comment><USER34> I'd start here:

[https://www.manning.com/books/learn-windows-powershell- in-a-...](https://www.manning.com/books/learn-windows-powershell-in-a-month- of-lunches-second-edition)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Any chance that there exists an effort to maintain mirror forks of Microsoft open-source projects with telemetry code entirely removed ?

<comment><USER5> There are enough examples of companies doing terrible stuff that concerns are entirely understandable.

Let me take the opportunity to say:

1) YOU ARE NOT OUR PRODUCT! 2) Our goal is to use telemetry to help us make better decisions about what will help our customers (as with with projects, only a subset of users are active in our community feedback process) 3) We are super open about the telemetry (including going through the PowerShell community review process) and publish all the data. More details here: [https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/new-telemetry- in-p...](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/new-telemetry-in- powershell-7-preview-3/)

Here is all the telemetry: [https://aka.ms/psgithubbi](https://aka.ms/psgithubbi)

Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]

<comment><USER35> Thanks for taking the time to address this (And a great thanks for Powershell ! Which regardless of some reservations about its language is a great technology and a major leap forward in terms of soundness and productivity in the IT sphere)

I fully appreciate the importance of telemetry, crash reports etc. for product owners and teams, and am not under the impression that it is currently being abused by msft.

However, as telemetry is a very general functionality and by their nature both company policies and software products are subject to frequent changes and given the many example of abuse by some companies quite comparable to msft in terms of their scope of impact and business incentives I don't think its usefulness overrides the principal concerns regarding the practice of including it enabled by default with distributed products even when disclosed.

Anything that does not require an explicit user action to _enable_ telemetry imo falls short of the desired ethical standard of respect for user agency that should exist in an ecosystem that wishes to foster trust between vendors and users and this goes double for open-source projects.

<comment> SteveL-MSFT Given that PowerShell is Open Source, you can exactly see the telemetry code. Before we added the first bit of telemetry or when we needed to add more, we published RFCs for community feedback disclosing what we were collecting and why. [https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell- RFC/blob/master/5-F...](https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell- RFC/blob/master/5-Final/RFC0016-Census-Telemetry.md) and [https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell- RFC/blob/master/2-D...](https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell- RFC/blob/master/2-Draft-Accepted/RFC0036-AdditionalTelemetry.md). We recognize that some users don't want to send any, which is why we made it simple to disable (completely!). However, opt-in telemetry also means we would receive very little making it not useful. Before any telemetry is added, we also go through an extensive privacy review to ensure no personally identifiable information is included (therefore all our telemetry is anonymous).

<comment><USER35> The average user cannot be assumed or expected to be following powershell blogs or to have gone through the community discussions or to have read the RFCs and definitely not to have individually reviewed the source code, they would just download and run powershell while not being aware that this functionality even exists and be dismayed once they learn about it. In this onboarding scenario the current form does not even satisfy good faith disclosure criteria much less can be said to constitute an informed consent.

A trustworthy way to do this would have been to have the user presented with a prompt upon first interactive run explaining them the importance of the telemetry to msft with a link to relevant documentation and privacy policy and a Y/N selection, anytime the collection logic changes or a new datum is added the consent needs to be renewed, and if it turns out that under those conditions most users choose not to enable it than it will probably be the single most actionable user input msft receives from/about its telemetry practices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> How does using powershell in Linux compare to bash? I imagine one has strengths over the other

<comment><USER37> When you are doing things that operate on unstructured text and files you will probably get a more concise script with bash most of the time. As soon as you do anything beyond that with structured data or complex processing (e.g you fetch a Json from a web api, filter some properties in it with a regex, save the result as xml, send the xml to a program, parse the output using some complex logic,...) then the powershell is way more powerful.

You might say it's more a tool that shines in the cases where you'd already give up on bash and use python or something else instead, because you need some libraries, some structured error handling etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> docker run –it mcr.microsoft.com/powershell:preview</comment>


Ask HN: How would you start marketing your new service? - s-stude Let's say you have built a service and you need to market it now. What would be first steps?<p>Any examples of similar cases would be very appreciated. <comment><AUTHOR> If you're still in development and you don't have a pre-launch page up collecting emails (and explaining the upcoming service/product), you should do that ASAP.

Spend at least 30% of your time getting people to this page (social media, blogging, etc.)

After you launch, you keep the email list growing as best you can by blogging (and promoting those posts anywhere you can), networking,, and trying new things that may or may not work. Find things unique to your business that work well in finding new audience and "double down" on those tactics.

</comment><comment><USER2> Like what the others said, who are your target customers? Where can you market to them directly? Do they hang out on instagram, twitter, facebook, particular subreddits? Find social influencers who have audiences that will benefit from your product.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here is a quick way. Who are your target customers? What would they tweet? What hashtag would they follow? Look for for people who tweet about it in twitter and try to engage in conversation with them.

</comment><comment><USER4> Who are your customers? Or ideal customer personas? That's a great place to start as I think implementation varies heavily.</comment>


CMU Robotics Prof. Breaks Down Robot Scenes from Film and TV (Wired, 20m video) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJO8oks6zZk <comment><USER2> We need robots who look like Chris Atkeson, he is more personable than Santa.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have seen one other entry in this series, where an ER doc breaks down medical scenes from TV and movies.

[https://kottke.org/18/03/a-surgery-resident-analyzes- medical...](https://kottke.org/18/03/a-surgery-resident-analyzes-medical- scenes-from-tv-movies)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SPe82HIf4o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SPe82HIf4o)</comment>


Europe should forget about Green Deal, focus on Coronavirus – Czech PM - <AUTHOR> https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/reuters/europe-should-forget-about-green-deal--focus-on-coronavirus---czech-pm/45621124 <comment><USER2> That would be like ignoring the fire in the attic because the cellar is flooded. Just because something is urgent, it doesn't mean that you can drop important stuff. Pretty stupid in the long run.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Except 1: climate change causes species to A) migrate and B) relative population levels to change, and thus new prey to be selected; both causing species (as viral reservoirs) that rarely interacted before to more frequently interact, promoting opportunities for viruses to jump reservoirs.

Except 2: coal mining (an important source of income for Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary) consumes large amounts of dust masks, something we will need direly to fight the coronacrisis.

</comment><comment><USER3> Talk about missing the point.</comment>


QCon Hangzhou 2011 slides on Clouds and Big Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.beyondlinux.com/blog/2011/10/24/qcon-hangzhou-2011-slides-in-english/ QCon Hangzhou 2011 slides <comment><USER2> The page does not contain the slides of HTML5 and Web sockets by Guillermo Rauch.

However you may get the similar video by Guillermo here:

<http://www.channels.com/episodes/15481425?page=4> [http://blip.tv/file/get/Jsconfeu- GuillermoRauchSocketIOWebSo...](http://blip.tv/file/get/Jsconfeu- GuillermoRauchSocketIOWebSocketsForEveryone287.m4v)</comment>


Attack of the Repo Men - <AUTHOR> http://acme.com/software/thttpd/repo.html <comment><USER2> Shades of "Oklahoma city threatens to call FBI over 'renegade' Linux maker": <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/24/tuttle_centos/> (or Google centos oklahoma)</comment>


The Nobel Prize in Literature 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2014/

<comment><USER2> He's a fantastic author, but beware: most of his books say… nothing? It's about someone, possibly a man, to whom something happened. And he meets someone he used to love at the time. Not sure he still love her. She looks more beautiful now. That's it: I just spoiled the entire plot, in every detail. And there's a house, too. Looks smaller now. I believe that makes it easier to translate (I read them in the original French) but the absolute lack of detail, story line, makes it incredibly either relatable (if you are in that mindset) or frustrating (Whyyy?! Why did she leave him? Or he left? Did he? You can't tell.) I love it - but beware, it's very tacit.

<comment><USER3> reminds me of some of the criticisms against Murakami, who is also pretty international.

<comment><USER4> Read two books by him, both had the same exact plot except for locations. There's a man, loses his cat, loses his wife, loses his job, and then there's something magical that is somehow related to the Manchuria war.

<comment><USER5> The only Murakami novel that has the author lose a cat, his wife and encounter "something magical that is somehow related to the Manchuria war" is The Wind- Up Bird Chronicle. I can only assume you read it twice by mistake.

Several of his novels do feature a man with a cat, and several novels feature distant women. But if I remember correctly, the only other married narrator is the protagonist in South of the Border, West of the Sun, and there is a character in 1Q84 who is married and divorced.

To say that the plots of any of his books have exactly the same plot would be a huge mischaracterization, though. The only two books that are even vaguely similar are Wind-Up and the earlier Dance Dance Dance (the last part of a quadrilogy about the "Sheep Man"); the latter feels a lot like a preliminary sketch for the vastly superior Wind-Up, in particular the fascination about hotel rooms and shared dreams. But the plots are completely different.

<comment><USER6> Kafka by the River is also related to missing cats (killed), ancient wars and something magical. I loved Kafka by the River, but couldn't finish The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

<comment><USER5> Kafka by the Shore. It is very different from Wind-Up Bird even though there are cats in it.

I recommend trying Wind-Up again. The first ~100 pages are difficult to get through at times (the narrator is infuriatingly apathetic), but one you get past that, it's an incredible page turner. I liked Kafka a lot, but Wind-Up is his masterpiece.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Worth reading: Jean-Paul Sarte's reasons for declining the prize when awarded to him in 1964:

[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1964/dec/17/sartre-...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1964/dec/17/sartre- on-the-nobel-prize/)

<comment><USER8> With the recent fluff-up on H.P. Lovecraft and the World Fantasy Awards, that is an interesting read.

I particularly like his first reason:

" _A writer who adopts political, social, or literary positions must act only with the means that are his own—that is, the written word. All the honors he may receive expose his readers to a pressure I do not consider desirable. If I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre it is not the same thing as if I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prizewinner._ "

...especially after Pres. Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for simply not being G.W. Bush.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A heads up that Honeymoon, Missing Person, and Catherine Certitude (a children's book) by Modiano are all available from David R. Godine, Publisher, for those looking for English translation. [0] To the best of my knowledge, English translations of Modiano are actually shamefully rare and these might be the only available editions at the moment.

Disclosure: I'm an intern at Godine.

[0]: [http://www.godine.com/search.asp?search=modiano](http://www.godine.com/search.asp?search=modiano)

<comment><USER4> No ePubs?

<comment><USER9> We don't currently have ebooks available for our Modiano titles unfortunately, though reprints are already being scheduled so it's possible ebooks might be a part of that. I can't personally make any promises. Edit: The office is very much aware of the interest in an ebook edition!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a side note, in Greece, Thessaloniki, there is a building that bears his family name. His family was a prominent part of the local Jew community and in 1922 they built a gallery as part of a building known as the Modiano Market. It's one of the most important sightseeing places in the town partly because most of the shops inside remain as they were when they were built and for many decades served as the main marketplace of the town. There is also a gathering of living family members every two years in the town.

</comment><comment><USER11> Modiano is a genius, one of several fantastic writers coming from France in the last 20 years -- see also Marie Darrieussecq, Sylvie Germain, Camille Laurens, ...

<comment><USER12> Add Pierre Michon to that list. Just finished reading his novella, "Origin of the World" (translated by Wyatt Mason) and am still in awe. The density of thought he is able to pack into his sentences, some of which go on for pages but yet remain wholly comprehensible and focused, is incredible.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the recommendation, on my list!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Another year goes by, and once again the Nobel prize comitee fails to award the prize to Thomas Pynchon. Really. If I was president of the US, I would declare not awarding the prize to Pynchon (or maybe Cormac McCarthy) an act of war and threaten to nuke the hell out of Sweden if Pynchon does not get the prize (just imagine the delicious irony if Barack "Nobel Peace Prize" Obama did that!).

That is not to say that whoever got it this year does not deserve it. But still.

<comment><USER14> Bah, Pynchon can get in line behind Borges.

The Nobel committee is becoming a standing joke. Their general incompetence and overt political bias is even evident in the physics category these days. (Blue LEDs? Really?)

<comment><USER15> What's wrong with Blue LED's?

<comment><USER16> I think he's implying that they awarded it to blue LEDs in order to promote low power consumption/green tech.

<comment><USER14> That's part of it, yes. But on what planet does it make sense to award the prize to the blue LED guys when the original developer of commercially-viable LEDs didn't receive it?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Lost Virtue of Cursive - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-lost-virtue-of-cursive <comment><USER2> I think some of the lamentation about losing cursive romanticizes everything a bit. When people think of cursive, they think of beautiful, Declaration of Independence-like script.

I do my family genealogy, which involves reading lots of censuses and historical documents. For every document with beautiful handwriting, there are hundreds that look like scribbles and that take me a long time to figure out what they were writing. And I learned cursive in school. When I find a document with printed handwriting, I want to go back in time and personally thank the writer.

There is a difference between what some people imagine cursive to be, and what it is in practice. People will always have bad handwriting, and bad printing is easier to read than bad cursive.

See also: Doctor's handwriting

<comment><USER3> When I was in high school, at some point I realized that if I wrote (printed) my notes too fast, I had a lot of trouble reading them later on.

Since then I switched to cursive, and for the most part stuck with it. I doubt others would have an easy time reading my fast cursive (doctor-style scribbles) but at least words have a "shape" I can easily recognize, even if letters are completely deformed.

Meanwhile, my chickenscratch print took so much effort to decipher that it was easier to just look up the info elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://freakonomics.com/podcast/who-needs- handwriting/](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/who-needs-handwriting/) This podcast I believe is pretty objective. Sets up some of the virtues of handwriting, discusses that cursive is faster than print, but shorthand is even faster, and that faster isn't very helpful, so slower is maybe better because it forces reflection, and idea solidification.

personally the argument, our kids can't read the declaration of independence and other historical documents, is just silly. All of these documents are available in a hundred different languages, rendered in any font your heart desires. if our dystopian future hinges on apparently having the original declaration of independence in hand, and the issue is that we are unable to read it because we no longer know cursive, then there are worse things going on. Namely that we are apparently living in a Michael Bay -esque ridiculous coincidence universe.

ahhh watch out for that giant robot car whose ex-con mechanic with a heart of gold used to be an ex cia agent who is the only one who can save us. and his ex-wife's boss is the leader of the bad guys, but maybe is a good guy?

</comment><comment><USER5> AFAIK, cursive is still being taught at (most) schools here in Germany, although most of my peers had abandoned it for print lettering by grade 10.

Actually, when we had out introductory lecture for my university course, the prof strongly urged us to take notes on paper rather than digitally, as the added sensory input of the pen aids the memory. I followed his advice, though probably more because I find paper-based notetaking to be much more efficient than taking notes with a keyboard. (You're much more flexible when writing on paper.)

<comment><USER6> My son just graduated and the same thing is true: he's pretty much abandoned it. He's also stopped using Füllhalter (fountain pens) for which joined-up letters make more sense.

I have tried various electronic techniques over the years and agree that I take much more useful notes by hand.

<comment><USER5> I find fountain pens _so_ much nicer to write with than ballpoints. If I need to write anything longer than a sentence, I would always choose the fountain pen - it's much gentler on your hand, so you don't tire as quickly, and you have a finer degree of control, so your handwriting becomes more legible.

<comment><USER7> Now I'm wanting to draw with one - I very much understand the hand fatigue as I get it as well... Along with tennis elbow. Different pens and paintbrushes have different fatigue rates.

For handwriting, how long did it take you to adjust to it? Is the grip much different?

<comment><USER6> it's not just that the grip is different but you draw (pull) the pen rather than push (pushing, especially with the stiff nibs, causes a skip). You grip a biro much more firmly so that it doesn't move around as you push it. I believe this is why the fountain pen doesn't fatigue you as much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The large issue with cursive is the tools we use.

Back when 'Cursive' was the norm the pens were much different.

I find it harder to write Cursive with a ballpoint vs a fountain/dip/etc pen.

Cursive is easier to make legible when you can vary line thickness.

<comment><USER9> For cursive, the winner is a 0.5 mm mechanical pencil. It doesn't need much pressure, and it doesn't make a blob if you stop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe I am a hold out but I write a lot by hand in my day to day work. I take notes at meetings, when reading documents, and even writing notes to my self. I am also dyslexic. I find that cursive is easier for me to read and write. My print handwriting is sloppy and hard for most people to read. However, my cursive is easier to read. I think this is due to the extra focus that I take when writing in cursive.

Through university, I took all my notes and did all of my hand work, civil engineering major, by hand. I never wanted to carry a laptop with me because it was just extra weight to haul around. Also, to be fair, taking math heavy notes on a laptop would have been hell. Affordable touchscreens/tablets were just coming to market when I was in grad school so...

In the professional world, I run into a lot of people that are amazed I write in cursive. This is probably due to so many engineers using drafting lettering out of conditioning.

</comment><comment><USER11> I miss it as much as I miss writing in Graffiti script on palm OS in the mid 90s. In other words, not much.

If all your PDA (smart phone without the phone, essentially) had is what now counts as a modestly low performance microcontroller, your OCR needs help, so Graffiti had glyphs like a single simple right angle for a letter T, an F is that right angle flipped, etc.

There exists a Graffiti keyboard input for Android, just search for it. I have not used it.

I was brought up in the era of all engineers will use block caps on blueprints and all scientists will use readable block caps in lab notebooks, so the kids were put in tracks by middle school therefore I've not written cursive since 6th grade. Possibly the "future english lit" track students continued to use cursive, I donno.

<comment><USER12> For those who don't know, technical lettering is pretty standardized:

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

> It is used to describe, or provide detailed specifications for, an object. > With the goals of legibility and uniformity, styles are standardized and > lettering ability has little relationship to normal writing ability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Cursive? Meh. Go italic:

[https://www.amazon.com/Italic-Way-Beautiful-Handwriting- Call...](https://www.amazon.com/Italic-Way-Beautiful-Handwriting- Calligraphic/dp/1626540381/)

(Recently back in print!!)

<comment><USER14> I would have liked to see a link to Italic handwriting : /

<comment><USER15> Scroll down and you'll find Italic, Chancery Italic, and Flourished Italic here: [https://imgur.com/a/GezeK](https://imgur.com/a/GezeK)

<comment><USER14> I appreciate it, but without captions or legends, I don't know which is which.

<comment><USER15> While not all of them do, the images I was referring to include the names at the top. Here are some direct links:

Italic: [https://i.imgur.com/ntF1pIU.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/ntF1pIU.jpg)

Flourished Italic: [https://i.imgur.com/d9bQHrn.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/d9bQHrn.jpg)

Chancery Italic: [https://i.imgur.com/oVUy0dv.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/oVUy0dv.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> ...or, "A few traditions whose passing I lament".

In all honesty, though, I do a fair bit of calligraphy (I know, that's not necessarily cursive) and it can be a very soothing and rewarding experience. I suspect it has to do with using a bit of both halves of the brain, whereas keyboarding is likely more mechanical.

<comment><USER17> It does indeed get you to some sort of zen state... it is very relaxing

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Speediness is an curious advantage, because to the contrary I only ever use handwriting when I want to deliberate and think as slowly as I write (doing math, writing short fiction, expanding a dense technical idea to a colleague).

From that perspective cursive is a vice.

</comment><comment><USER19> The hate on cursive seems a peculiar American thing - as is the "it's slower to write" mantra (when you write it correctly your pen moves less vertically - the slower axis - so it's actually significantly faster)

Do schools just suck at teaching it?

<comment><USER20> US cursive looks rather different from the cursive taught in the rest of the world; its dissimilarities with printed words makes it more of a specialized task to read and write. It's much more decorative than fast, IMO.

For example: US cursive 'Q' looks like the number 2. 'Z' is the number 2 with another loop below the line. 'F' and 'T' look like letters you'd see in an illustrated manuscript as the leading letter.

<comment><USER19> That... sounds horrific.

<comment><USER20> Yup. To second Tropo below - the cursive I was taught is the D'Nealian Script:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive#/media/File:Cursive.sv...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive#/media/File:Cursive.svg)

It is not fast, but it does look pretty when written with a steady and constant hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I write cursive on the whiteboard at work. It surprises some to see this ancient practice.

<comment><USER22> Cursive on the whiteboard sounds very intriguing. What does it look like and does anyone ever have any trouble reading it?

<comment><USER23> My understanding is that many teachers still use cursive on whiteboards and chalk boards

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Ability to write in cursive will actually help on the tablets with pen, IPad Pro and Surface. I am using more and more cursive than my usual writing when taking notes on these devices using a pen.

</comment><comment><USER25> My niece and nephew were never taught to read or write cursive and as such my sister reads to them letters my mom wrote them for the holidays. She also read old letters from her own grandmother and grandfather.

So its effectively relegated to the dust bin of history for many people. Are there apps you can use on your phone to photograph and translate it back?

</comment><comment><USER26> If the reasoning behind learning Cursive script is speed of writing - why not go all the way and teach shorthand?

</comment><comment><USER27> Everyone is saying in the comments "I also learned cursive". Are there schools where you do not learn that? In France (and from I can tell - everywhere in Europe) this is the only writing possible. Adults also write in cursive by default.

</comment><comment><USER28> Cursive is awful, with no practical redeeming values. The only reason to learn cursive is if you are a historian who has to delve into primary sources where it was used. If you want to fuss with it, fine, but like calligraphy, it should be an art form, rather than something we waste time teaching universally.

It'd be better if everyone learned mechanical drafting lettering[1]. It's not particularly difficult, and it is clear and unambiguous and everyone can read it with ease.

[1] [http://rvhs-denyer.com/web-back/cad/units&tasks/led- ch-5-let...](http://rvhs-denyer.com/web-back/cad/units&tasks/led- ch-5-lettering/led-lettering-ch-5-text.htm#5.1_Single-Stroke_Lettering_)

<comment><USER26> It's unfortunate that your _opinion_ is being downvoted and refuted with other's _opinions_.

<comment><USER29> In my particular case above, I have concrete evidence it has value. Not really an opinion at all.

Teachers and therapists have independently confirmed it works for my son's case.

<comment><USER26> I appreciate your specific comment with evidence, but it originally was unnecessarily hostile. I see you've edited it to remove that.

Most people replying here are not citing specific examples - just spouting their anecdotes.

<comment><USER29> If one chooses that as a username, I'd figure it was hostile to begin with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Cursive is slower to write and harder to read. Also, people outside the examination and testing system don't used handwriting anymore (except for squiggling their signatures occasionally!)

Although I myself was taught 'joined up' handwriting at school I have chipped away at it over the years to create a more convenient mix of print and cursive.

e.g. the tailed letters ygjq(f) slow down writing considerably if you join them up. Where the nib ends on the right hand side of the letter (i.e. in the direction of the flow of text) then joining is fast e.g. 'c','e'

</comment><comment><USER31> I am teaching my children cursive. It should be learned and used. Stuff that in your core curriculum.

<comment><USER32> Why? Because you miss it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> When I was in second grade (1992) the teacher told us if we didn't learn cursive, we'd never be able to keep up taking notes in college classes. I told her by the time we were in college we'd have computers we could take to class with us.

She scoffed at me.

I definitely got a laptop as a high school graduation gift.

In your face, second-grade-teacher-whose-name-i-dont-remember

<comment><USER34> I went to college before laptops were affordable to college students, so all of my notes were still on paper. I found that I had to write them in manuscript if I wanted to be able to read them later, plus it was faster than writing the cursive anyway.

It always seemed to me that cursive was optimized for quill or fountain pens and was kind of counterproductive if you had a pencil or a ballpoint pen. I found it far too easy for words to devolve into just a bunch of loops with cursive.

<comment><USER35> >>By the time that I had covered two sides of a small piece of stationery, my letters tended to get sloppier, and my right hand was cramping.

>It always seemed to me that cursive was optimized for quill or fountain pens

Definitely agree, cursive felt only marginally nicer to use than printing until I used a fountain pen; with one, it is faster and more physically comfortable (in addition to being more fun and prettier). Anyone here who is still attached to cursive is strongly recommended to buy a cheap fountain pen.

<comment><USER22> Any brand preference? The varieties of "cheap" are many.

<comment><USER6> Start with the Lamy or Pelikan pens that are mandatory in German schools. They have very stiff nibs which won't break if you apply the same pressure you're used to with a byro/ball point or pencil. You can get them in the US. There are fun ones made of wood with brightly colored caps and ends.

Once you are used to them you can use a more expensive (or cheapo) pen with a softer nib. That well let you write both more clearly and much much faster.

Note that a lot of fancy fountain pens are (IMHO) way too heavy and clunky for everyday writing.

I can take notes with a fountain pen way faster than with a byro and the resulting ones are more legible (I have dreadful handwriting). Also I can write this way for hours without cramping which I can't say about a byro since those require more pressure and use push strokes.

If I don't have a fountain pen I have some Stabilo gel pens that are the least crappy alternative. The fountain pen is pretty well adapted to handwriting. I prefer to type but there are many cases where that is an inferior option.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Guilt of the Video Game Millionaires - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/04/the-guilt-of-the-video-game-millionaires.html

<comment><USER2> Previous, very active discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7527685](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7527685)</comment>


Mentia launches: see what content will work best for you on social media - <AUTHOR>

It's free to use. Interesting to find out what you guys think. All feedback very welcome. <3<p>http://getmentia.com <comment><USER2> Why do I need to register? Can you not just let me add social media accounts to an empty dashboard? As a lazy end-user, I need it to be as painless as possible to get up and running with your service, for me to even try it in the first place. That's what Permeate and TweetDeck (before they were acquired) did. Other than that I think the idea is really cool! I'm working on something similar (news feed aggregator).

Also I think this might be better off as a Show HN.</comment>


Canonical Encounters Messy Legal Questions Bringing ZFS to Ubuntu - <AUTHOR> http://thenewstack.io/canonical-encounters-messy-legal-questions-bringing-zfs-ubuntu/ <comment><USER2> "In the end, perhaps what matters is that Ubuntu users should be able to use ZFS without fear of consequences. However, morally they should be aware that ZFS in Ubuntu is a violation in the opinion of many the experts."

I don't trust the author on matters of jurisprudence or technology; I certainly don't on matters of morality.</comment>


What's on Azure right now? - <AUTHOR> http://www.simple-talk.com/community/blogs/robbiet/archive/2011/01/18/98943.aspx

<comment><USER2> We've been using Azure for a few months now working on a .NET REST API and data service to deploy to it. In the end however while we are building it for Azure we may not end up using.

1\. Mediochre deployment story

Honestly, it could be far worse. Azure is deployed by uploading a compiled package via an HTTP(S) REST API. There are PS tools allowing this to be scripted too. In fact, all of Azure can be interacted with via their REST API which is one of the good things they did. Despite this, it is nowhere near as nice as a Heroku deployment or any of the other push deployment PaaS providers.

2\. The SDK isn't all that great

The SDK (now at ver. 1.3) is yet another example of Microsoft's tendency to write nigh untestable APIs (mostly concrete classes, almost no interfaces, etc.). They also apparently don't keep the docs up to date on the latest REST API changes (it was actually suggested that we could use fiddler with their Silverlight management console to figure it out).

3\. Azure storage is neat, but in the end insufficient and SQL Azure is missing key features and is expensive

Personally, I don't think it makes a lot of sense to build most cloud based applications on top SQL, but that is for another debate. In the end we've chosen to run Mongo on a worker role for our storage needs. I really can't wrap my head around how Azure tables could be useful, and blob storage is really just I way to upload files for CDN or provide storage for VHDs.

4\. It's kind of expensive compared to the competition

Not much else to say here, but the only reason I can think of for this is that MS doesn't feel the need to compete with the other PaaS providers, which in turn would imply that the typical developer that utilizes PaaS isn't their target market.

As seems typical for MS, they are targeting the less competent enterprise and business markets and trying to sell them the cloud like it's the next SQL server, offering lots of integration points (painful as they are to use) with existing Microsoft technology (e.g., you can actually use local AD servers to authenticate with Azure).

Bottom line, AFAICT Azure isn't for us.

</comment><comment><USER3> Things might get better thanks to the new Azure Appliances (which are only 6 months old).

I said it when Azure first started: No one wants an abstract cloud. Because it means they're stuck with that platform. If I'm on EC2 I can easily move to rackspace or my own private server. But with Azure I'd have to rewrite the whole darn program.

The Azure Appliance doesn't completely solve that but at least it gives you the ability to move to your own data center. Which in turn should make Azure a little more viable

(Though Amazon's stolen Azure's best trick with beanstalk)

</comment><comment><USER4> We didn't do a thorough analysis, but got the impression we had a few months of fiddling and rewriting various components to everything work on Azure. We would have taken a closer look if we'd been starting from scratch, but we're trying to move an existing app into the cloud.

Also our Plan-B was great--we went to the Rackspace cloud, where we can deploy our app without having to rewrite anything. We're still testing and haven't deployed to clients yet, but so far so good.</comment>


Blogspot.in Sold for $5,999 - <AUTHOR> https://namebio.com/blogspot.in <comment><AUTHOR> fyi this is in reference to Google letting this domain drop, which broke millions of sites: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23767781](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23767781)</comment>


Profile of Shigeru Miyamoto - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/20/101220fa_fact_paumgarten?currentPage=all

<comment><USER2> "Miyamoto said he wants the game players and the developers to have [the feeling of a shared experience called] kyokan: for the players to feel about the game what the developers felt themselves."

This is an excellent piece of advice to keep in mind when developing an interface. An application is certainly a tool, with features X, Y, and Z, but at the same time there are experiences that go along with the usage of those features. Miyamoto likens it to telling a joke or writing a mystery novel: timing is key. You mustn't overwhelm the user with too much information nor leave the user wondering where to go next.

Miyamoto's games are excellent examples of Donald Norman's affordability. In some of his newer games characters may give a long speech to the player via a modal dialog box, but the keywords are highlighted in certain colors to denote that they are either important people, places or actions; and after you have talked to character, walking past him may cause a small non-modal speech bubble to pop up with some small blurb summing up the info given by that character, e.g. "Find the key to unlock my friend!" so that you don't have to go through the longer speech again.

What really sets his games apart from many others is simply the attention to detail and the amount of polish. When once asked about the delay of a certain game he replied, "A delayed game is eventually good, but a bad game will stay bad forever."

</comment><comment><USER3> What fascinates me about Miyamoto is his tendency to allow form to follow function. Whether it's the design of Mario (to maximize visibility), the choice of music to suggest the nature of a stage or the instant recognizability of an enemy (spiny - don't jump on it!), his background in industrial design shines through.</comment>


Will program Ruby for food - <AUTHOR> Nothing to lose, nowhere to go. Starting from zero.
If someone will take me, I`m a good person willing to program for food and shelter. Take this as a social experiment. Able to travel anywhere in the world. Currently in Mexico city. No visa, just passport.<p>I`m proficient in Ruby, Rails, a little of design, picking my way in buddhism. Smart, hard working, fit, likes to cook, good care taker. Willing to learn anything.
Any offers? Come on. Email contact in profile. <comment><USER2> What are you seeking? Are you stable? The reason I ask is people tend to do these kinds of things after a break-up or other major, life-altering events. Have you thought this through? There are other necessities in life aside from 'food and shelter'. With your skills you can make a decent living anywhere in the world.

What's the whole story here?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup I`m stable, been looking to this for since 2005, now is the right time. Of course there are other things besides food & shelter, but those are the things I need to get started anywhere. A little money after proving myself won`t hurt either. As I said, this is a little social experiment. Want to blog about it, how it goes etc. Trying to make it as a digital nomad.

Anyone willing, won`t regret it.

<comment><USER3> would you consider Cyprus? (that small dot between turkey, egypt, and israel)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, why not? I really have a knack for travel. What do you need help with?

<comment><USER3> My goal is to make it easier for people to _be_ online - enable them to create _good enough_ websites and give them the tools to achieve their goals (the actual website is just a means to an end). Like weebly, but better.

I plan to focus first on artists (musicians, djs, photographers, painters and the like) and move from there. This is something that's been on my mind for about 4 years and now I think is the right time to do it.

How does that sound?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You could try to use a website like vworker for finding programming jobs. I use vworker (formerly rentacoder) since 2006, I work only on my spare time on the site (less than 2 hours a day, sometimes even less) and I have a steady revenue from this of about 2k per month.

All you need is knowledge,determination and a good internet connection. It won't be easy to start, my first "job" was a two weeks project for ... 5$. Once you will have a good history on a site like that (I've heard odesk is also a decent choice) you could theoretically charge as you want per hour.

<comment><USER5> How long did it take you to work your way from "two week project for $5" to "$2k a month! work from home! be your own boss! call now!" levels of income?

<comment><USER4> After about one year I was only working on projects for 100$ and more.

One year after that, I was able to name my price and select my clients. At some point I was overwhelmed by the number of projects I was able to take and I've started to charge more.

Currently I take 2 - 4 projects per month usually with old clients. Also I'm not a full time freelancer, I work on average 2 hours per day on these kind of projects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Would you consider staying in México for the same offer? I'm an American in Guadalajara, and getting ready to launch my Rails-based start-up, and would be interested in a trial run.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't think there's much I could do in providing food & shelter, but I do have a rather ok-ish MacBook collecting Dust (Model 2007). Would that help?

<comment><USER8> fellow poor rails programmer from poland here. i can take it if its a burden :]

<comment><USER7> If op has no use for it. I've been wanting to give this macbook away to someone who's in dire need (e.g. broken, stolen, etc.) and is unable to buy a new one due to not having any money.

If that's you, or anyone for that matter, I'll be happy to send it your way.

<comment><USER9> Hi there! Can you please give it to me? I want to start developing iOS stuff but don't have money. ( btw, I'm 15.)

<comment><USER10> Just to check, are you aware that you need to pay $99/year to actually put stuff that you've made onto an iDevice?

It's a lot cheaper than a Macbook, so I'm not saying you're not worthy or anything. It would just be a shame if you get a mac and can't use it for what you intended.

<comment><USER9> Yes. I'm already a developer. I got it when I made an app for a local company on their machines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Depending on someone to give you shelter, food, money, and possibly your work visa would make you rather vulnerable. This might create an unhealthy relationship with your one-man boss/landlord/roommate.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a possibility. I think it's all about relationship management, and talking through it thoroughly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm getting a weird vibe from this. Maybe it's just the indentured servitude feel of it.

</comment><comment><USER13> With all the good-paying ruby jobs out there, all over the world, why would you REALLY prefer to work for free? Why NOT applying for a proper position (or better yet, a telecommute one that would allow u to travel and work from anywhere)?

Just curious...

</comment><comment><USER14> I totally feel you. I coded a portfolio website for about 35$ recently. At least I had a shelter, all i needed was food :) Bad things happen.. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER15> Hah, I remember your name from some Ruby game dev! I am doing Ruby freelancing from somewhere in Taiwan now. Best of luck :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Wow guys, thank you all! Had some very interesting replies in the mail also, I`ll be answering them today and sorting one out. I`ll report back later.

I intend to create a reputation from this, so I can hop around the world lending my expertise while mutual help is given for each other.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hi, I'm based in Singapore. We're building a small team or competent rails developers to take on client projects and are also starting to explore our own startup idea. We're willing to work sth out with you! Email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you're interested!

</comment><comment><USER17> Hi, In the UK, interested in working with you on a few ideas; around 6 months work. Happy for you to work remotelym, If you're interested, email me. email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER18> Do you consider Indonesia as an option? There's a high demand of ruby programmers in Indonesia right now.

<comment><AUTHOR> I consider anywhere I can travel to in the world as an option. I only have a passport though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> You could contact any of these companies.

<http://yfrog.com/nwl3czj>

</comment><comment><USER20> Drop me ya MSN or Skype or Twitter ? Wanna get to know you more! My Skype is zhen.zhi

</comment><comment><USER21> Wanna join a startup? Email me: firstname.lastname@example.com I need a strong Rails guy soon.

</comment><comment> james-fend a possibilty.. email me: firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER22> I'm a php developer @ Nicaragua. Any chances for me?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> why don't you just elance(.com)? or something like it ?

</comment><comment><USER24> Congratulations on your new job !

<comment><USER25> Don't take the down votes on your new account too hard. Generally the HN-crowd prefers that people comment on posts which they've actually read, is all.

(can you finish a sentence with ", is all" like that?)</comment></comment>


Why This 48-Year-Old Woman Is Building Ghana's Biggest Solar Farm - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2018/07/31/ghana-solar-farm-ubi-salma-okonkwo/#1ad05691d246 <comment><USER2> Are age and gender still required to be called out? I believe in gender equality and do not find it extraordinary when a woman does something. I expect all people to be able to accomplish great things regardless of their age or gender.</comment>