Anonymous Seizes Westborro Church Website - <AUTHOR> http://browsershots.org/screenshots/d182f4c25d5ef3a56a25d48eee29e932 <comment><USER2> Anonymous is just upset because someone was trolling harder than them.

</comment><comment><USER3> It was mentioned before that westb church would just log all of the IPs coming in as a chance to sue anon.

Do you think they launched this with a 200.00 throw away acer bought with cash from target using a free hot spot at a local coffee shop?

<comment><USER4> Garage sale hardware, from comp to router to cable modem, was likely used, if not what you suggested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The screenshot shows a link titled "Teamviewer"[1]... would this have been remotely installed by Anonymous or do you think the "church" was already using it?

Recently gave Teamviewer[2] a spin and it was incredibly easy to use, but was a little concerned about the security implications.

[1] [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:downloa...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:downloads.westborobaptistchurch.com)

[2] <http://www.teamviewer.com>

<comment><USER6> we are currently trying out <http://crossloop.com> and we like it so far

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anon shouldn't target Westboro. Don't get me wrong, Westboro probably don't have much love for me, but they aren't that big, and all they do is talk and hold signs.

</comment><comment><USER8> Wasn't there just a note a week ago about how they weren't going to attack the site, as they had better things to do?

<comment><USER9> Anon's left hand never knows what its right hand is doing. Unfortunately Anon has thousands of right hands.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately? Personally I say fortunately, more power to them.

I just wish there was a way Anon could F with wallstreet, those clowns are next in line for a beatdown in my book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Probably unwise.</comment>


Google Cardboard - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/cardboard/ <comment><USER2> It's very cool that they are doing this. But, for anyone who tries it, there's something very important to keep in mind: Low latency is critical to VR! Unfortunately, Android sensors and graphics pipelines have very poor latency. If you try this and get terrible motion sickness, don't dismiss VR as a vomit inducer.

In fact, many people have reported that spending time in VR, and taking a break whenever motion sickness creeps up, actually reduces motion sickness outside of VR. As in, people are saying "After playing in my Rift for a few weeks, I can suddenly read in the car for the first time!"

<comment><USER3> > In fact, many people have reported that spending time in VR, and taking a > break whenever motion sickness creeps up, actually reduces motion sickness > outside of VR. As in, people are saying "After playing in my Rift for a few > weeks, I can suddenly read in the car for the first time!"

Is this because the VR experience is causing your brain to recalibrate your vestibular system [1]?

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

<comment><USER4> More than likely. Our brains are very adaptable, it would appear this is more similar to how people have been "recalibrated" to chronic pain and extreme phobias.

The chronic pain example is that a prolonged duration (about 2 weeks) of being free of pain medications can cause the body to adapt and recognize it's over- interpreting pain.

The extreme phobia was if you had someone with a severe phobia of snakes, you would put them into a room with a few dozen snakes in cages and lock them in until they recalibrate as their body can only stay in panic for so long. However... it isn't the most ethical way as it actually is possible to suffer heart failure from fear.

<comment><USER5> > The chronic pain example is that a prolonged duration (about 2 weeks) of > being free of pain medications can cause the body to adapt and recognize > it's over-interpreting pain.

Yeah, but the pain never really goes away, though. But the time effect is definitely true.

<comment><USER6> I've had two low back surgeries, and I can attest that you simply "get used to it."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems like Google copied this idea:

[http://www.refugio3d.net](http://www.refugio3d.net)

I actually built something similar myself in December 2013 for iPhone, using just some cardboard and a couple of magnifiers I bought in a book shop the same day. It works surprisingly well, and I was really proud of myself.

... Afterwards I discovered Refugio, and I realized it wasn't a new idea at all. Now it is Google's idea.

<comment><USER8> Also, from the same lab (MxR at USC's ICT) where Oculus originated [1]: [http://projects.ict.usc.edu/mxr/diy/fov2go/](http://projects.ict.usc.edu/mxr/diy/fov2go/)

[1] "Spun out of MxR's VR2GO and HMD prototypes, the Oculus Rift is the single most anticipated piece of VR technology to date." [http://projects.ict.usc.edu/mxr/diy/](http://projects.ict.usc.edu/mxr/diy/)

<comment><USER7> Right. I remember seeing those too.

In any case, not really fair if Google gets full credit for this.

If anybody is wondering about the 3D. I build a simple stereo-image OpenGL landscape app, and used the gyroscope of the iPhone 5 to determine view direction.

It is actually really simple, and the lag really isn't that bad.

The biggest problem is that you can't really do anything without a controller.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just tried it; the latency is much higher than the Oculus Rift but it's still enjoyable. The demo app mainly has you flying around various places on Earth, but this comes with an SDK for further development.

I watched some folks in my office put it together and there was a bit of confusion as to how it was supposed to assemble (also reflected in some comments here as well).

The three biggest annoyances of the setup are:

\- Higher latency

\- Uncomfortable on the face (cardboard edges rubbing against skin)

\- Unable to really fine-tune the focus

With the exception of latency, the other problems might be solvable with some more crafting. In particular, it would be good to put some kind of soft rubber grommet around the edges and then use some sort of head strap so you didn't have to hold it all the time.

Verdict: not perfect and certainly not going to be a threat to real hardware, but it _does_ give you enough sense of presence to experiment.

<comment><USER10> > In particular, it would be good to put some kind of soft rubber grommet > around the edges and then use some sort of head strap so you didn't have to > hold it all the time.

Sounds easily fixable with a bit of sugru

<comment><USER11> I hadn't heard of "Sugru" before, so I interpreted this as a phone-typo for "surgery" and was surprised at your dedication to cardboard VR technology :)

<comment><USER12> just sneak your finger in and double tap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is what the Google IO attendees received on their way out of the keynote.

<comment><USER13> That's a huge cutback from everyone getting laptops or phones.

<comment><USER14> They also get a choice of LG or Samsung Android wear device, as well as everyone will get a Moto360 when they ship.

<comment><USER15> I don't really understand why they do that. Isn't there more than enough demand? They don't have to create weird incentives to attract the wrong people! They want people to attend who will actually get the most benefit (knowledge about making things on various Google platforms) from it and benefit Google in turn, not anyone else.

<comment><USER16> From this comment thread, it appears that giving away free stuff can't please everyone. One comment complains that some cardboard isn't good enough, while yours bemoans Google giving away stuff that's too good.

I think the idea is to get devices in the hands of developers; people that will play with it and report bugs or blog about it, people that will code up a little app to see how it works on a watch, and so on. It does create incentives for people that just want free stuff to go to I/O, but it's probably a lot simpler and cheaper for them to just buy it when it's released. If you're not a developer, is a smart watch with no third-party apps that useful to you? Probably not. Being an early adopter is rarely sunshine and rainbows.

<comment><USER17> I wouldn't say that this:

> That's a huge cutback from everyone getting laptops or phones.

is a complaint that "some cardboard isn't good enough." Google has been giving away things like phones and laptops at Google I/O for a few years. I think it's reasonable to say that giving away "only some cardboard" is a huge cutback, without commenting on whether that's a good or bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Got the cardboard demo app to fire up on my Nexus 4 using a magnet. Waving it around the headphone port seems to trigger the 'switch'. Was curious about how it did motion tracking. Seems all the demos use the accelerometer for tracking. Was sort of hoping they worked out how to use the camera for motion tracking. Now all I need is lenses, an nfc chip, laser cutter, and proper weight to strength ratio cardboard!

<comment><USER19> > Was sort of hoping they worked out how to use the camera for motion tracking

See Project Tango.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I like to imagine that Google Cardboard is an internal company joke at the expense of Google Glass.

<comment><USER21> How can this not be some kind of internal sniping?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I did something like this using the open source vnc viewer for android. I had the idea that you could make a 10,000 x 10,000 pixel virtual screen and then use it for programming. You could turn your head and phone would then show a different part of the screen. Also I had it so if you tilted your head left or right it would zoom in or out based on the direction.

It worked well enough, but my phone's resolution was only 1280x800 which is 640x800 per eye. Not enough to really be able to program well.

I just got the quad hd LG G3 though, so I'm going to try it again as soon as I can get a good setup (I'm in hong kong right now so ordering things online is a little tricky). If anyone wants the (hacky) source code, and a brief manual, let me know.

BTW, I just used a hat with cardboard and tape to hold the phone and several pairs of high strength reading glasses worn on top of each other to get the lenses right.

<comment><USER23> I'm sort of interested in the source code, and what you're up to now, but I didn't see an email address in your profile?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Or this little beauty from the game Metal Gear Acid for PSP: [https://greenhillszone.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/solid- eye...](https://greenhillszone.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/solid-eye.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER25> Good lens source (US):

[http://www.surplusshed.com/finder.cfm](http://www.surplusshed.com/finder.cfm)

<comment><USER26> Link is broken. I don't think the finder.cfm link is supposed to be shared. Anyways, I found the correct (I think) lenses on [http://surplusshed.com](http://surplusshed.com) by going to the lens finder link and looking up double convex, 40mm focal length, 25mm diameter lenses. $4.50 each, which is pretty good.

EDIT: The article says to use biconvex lenses, whereas I looked up double convex lenses. The surplus shed website has double convex as a separate search option as biconvex, but wikipedia says they're the same thing? If someone has more knowledge about this I'd really like to know if they're at least "close enough" to use, since I couldn't find any biconvex lenses on the website of the correct parameters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Can someone just make the viewer and sell it online? I'm too lazy.

<comment><USER28> Done... [http://www.dodocase.com/products/google-cardboard-vr- goggle-...](http://www.dodocase.com/products/google-cardboard-vr-goggle- toolkit)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I thought people here might be interested in the precut Google Carboard kit we have for sale, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7947715](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7947715)

</comment><comment><USER29> Somebody should do a Kickstarter to make and ship copies of this kit for $5 or $10.

<comment><USER28> You can order one here...

[http://www.dodocase.com/products/google-cardboard-vr- goggle-...](http://www.dodocase.com/products/google-cardboard-vr-goggle- toolkit)

(full disclaimer, this is my company, we make and ship lots of stuff so this will get delivered, unlike some kickstarter projects)

<comment><USER30> Do you deliver outside the US? [http://www.dodocase.com/pages/shipping-and- returns](http://www.dodocase.com/pages/shipping-and-returns) doesn't seem to say at all. UK here, but people all over the place may want to know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Poppy is this in plastic (plus a lens splitting mirror so you can shoot 3D video as well). [http://www.poppy3d.com/](http://www.poppy3d.com/)

</comment><comment><USER32> Really wish I had an Android phone for this. Sat there fumbling with this cardboard in the lobby for 20 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER33> On my Moto G (which is listed as being 'Partially compatible'), it's nearly impossible to get any of the demos in the app version to respond to the phone's movement. I'm assuming that's down to the lack of gyroscope, which is a bit disappointing.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'd love to see a version of this without the separate eye-holes that assume stereo vision. Ideally, that version would have a separate NFC tag to identify it as such, disabling the stereo rendering but preserving the VR look-around behavior.

</comment><comment><USER35> No take on the VR stuff. I was looking through the instructions and admiring how it seemed so plain and someone thought to do this (build this around your phone). Making the instructions easy for everyone etc.

Usually I hate the pages that use pictures and scroll this way and out of curiosity I grabbed the scrollbar and started up and down and it was awesome. I had expected it to jump between a set of images or something, like the scroll wheel had but it was really fluid.

</comment><comment><USER36> Oh man. Brian May's gonna be pissed. No vertical is safe.

</comment><comment><USER37> Is it April 1st already? Just joking... Cool concept.

</comment><comment><USER38> I wonder if it can be done with a Nexus 7...

Edit: damn spell checker...

</comment><comment><USER39> Where's the code? I see mentions of "open" hardware and software [1,2] but have yet to find any source code.

[1] [https://developers.google.com/cardboard/](https://developers.google.com/cardboard/) [2] [https://developers.google.com/cardboard/overview](https://developers.google.com/cardboard/overview)

</comment><comment><USER40> Ha, I made a thing like this back in 1994 or so out of an old monochrome 640x480 laptop screen, a couple of those plastic fresnel lenses and a whole bunch of glue and cardboard. It worked about as well as you'd expect.

I was totally into the Virtual Reality hype of the day. It's funny to think that 20 years later it might almost be useful. Maybe I'll buy an Oculus Rift to celebrate :-)

</comment><comment><USER41> There are many varieties of OpenDive in Thingiverse __. I am glad there is a chance that this might become a commonly used interface. Looking forward to using libraries that support displaying on it.

__[http://www.thingiverse.com/search/page:1?q=opendive](http://www.thingiverse.com/search/page:1?q=opendive)

</comment><comment><USER42> What is cool: you can also see the 3D image without any aids; just by crossing your eyes while looking at the 2 images. This way you can see the tracking in action.

Their appears a 3th image in the middle which you need to focus on and on both sides a non-depth "ghost" image.

Takes a bit of practice! (Not sure if this is damaging to your eye sight; try at your own risk)

<comment><USER43> I don't think you'll get the right effect, if you cross your eyes your left eye will see the image intended for the right eye (the lenses don't focus on the opposing image). Still seems to give some sense of depth, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> These two steps do not seem to fit..?

[https://gweb-cardboard.appspot.com/img/seq/17.jpg](https://gweb- cardboard.appspot.com/img/seq/17.jpg)

[https://gweb-cardboard.appspot.com/img/seq/18.jpg](https://gweb- cardboard.appspot.com/img/seq/18.jpg)

<comment><USER45> The bottom flap is flipping, revealing the inside face in the second frame. It confused me the second time too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> For those at IO - there is a 10AM session tomorrow about cardboard:

[https://www.google.com/events/io/schedule/session/603fe228-8...](https://www.google.com/events/io/schedule/session/603fe228-89c5-e311-b297-00155d5066d7)

</comment><comment><USER47> Guys has anyone tried using lenses with 50 mm focal length? Does it have to be exactly 45 mm? I measured the distance from the lens area to the screen of the phone and it is 46mm. I was thinking of using 50 mm lenses. Any ideas? Thanks

</comment><comment><USER48> I'm not sure where to buy the lenses in China. Would these work?

[http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=38928988190](http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=38928988190)

<comment><USER49> I wonder if these would work [http://www.aliexpress.com/item/LED-44-5mm- convex-lens-optica...](http://www.aliexpress.com/item/LED-44-5mm-convex-lens- optical-glass-led-lens/581196796.html)

They look close. I need something in Australia.

That thing on tabao looks so geeky, I am not sure which is worse the cardboard or the plastic.:)

<comment><USER48> Yeah, I don't know what the purpose is of the cardboard device on taobao. The logos are for online video services, so maybe it's so you can watch stuff on a small screen but make it feel like you're in a cinema :)

In case it's useful for anyone else:

\- Ring magnet 20mm x 4mm: [http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=23637980267](http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=23637980267)

\- Ring magnet 18mm x 4mm: [http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=17740389918](http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=17740389918)

\- Ceramic magnet 20mm x 3mm: [http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=18786950677](http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=18786950677)

Obviously, I only just ordered these so I have no idea whether these items will turn out to be suitable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The most important thing is that users must have low latency to make the VR work efficiently... This is a very good initiative taken by Google to let users design their own VR.

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

</comment><comment><USER52> I have a problem I try to install it vía Play Store but it says Cardboard demo filme missing :(

Could someone tell me why?

GRACIAS AMIGOOOOS

</comment><comment><USER53> I wonder what the effects this kind of VR stuff has on the health of your eyes.

</comment><comment><USER54> That's the best use of parallax yet.

</comment><comment><USER47> has anyone ordered from knoxlabs.com? they seem to be selling it as well.

</comment><comment><USER55> I am amazed by Google more and more each day.

<comment><USER56> I'm more amazed by the level of vague content-free comments hero-worshipping Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> lenses are $250??

<comment><USER58> They are now listed as unavailable on Amazon in the US. When I looked, the lenses were only about 8 Euros in Europe, so presumably the $250 was some scalliwag attempting to cash in on the Google Cardboard hype.

<comment><USER59> Could be pricing algorithms gone wild, too. For a really extreme example of this, see: [http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358](http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Will code for food?

</comment><comment><USER61> Ouch, my retinas!

</comment><comment><USER62> Someone go make the dream of Anil Dash come true:

[https://twitter.com/anildash/status/312048420720345088](https://twitter.com/anildash/status/312048420720345088)

</comment><comment><USER63> Cue mass papercut epidemic.

</comment><comment><USER64> and by everyone they mean anyone who has bought their phone

</comment><comment><USER65> Or I could just buy a pizza, eat said pizza, and convert the box into this...

<comment><USER66> > Q: Can I use a pizza box for the cardboard? A: Yes. Make sure you order an > extra large.

I'm not sure I'd want to stick my phone into a soaked pizza box though.

<comment><USER59> Well don't use the _bottom_ half....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Google bosses: "Devs! Quick! We need something cute to cover up something we're about to do or may have already done!"

</comment><comment><USER68> my co-worker's sister-in-law got paid $12019 the prior week. she gets paid on the laptop and bought a $391300 house. All she did was get fortunate and put to work the steps uncovered on this web site ,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,, WWW.MAX43.COM</comment>


State of Clojure Survey 2018 Analysis - <AUTHOR> https://danielcompton.net/2018/03/28/clojure-survey-2018 <comment><USER2> a good read. a few points/observations:

* zero mention of the lack of GUI development. seesaw is no longer maintained and javafx support is very spotty

* I have the strong impression it's Clojurescript users of the language that are driving a lot of the feedback, and the javascript culture is very different from the java culture. I would take some of the criticism about elitism and the perception the language/community is fringe or staid or stagnating with a big grain of salt. For example this one:

> Cognitect need to climb a few rungs down the ivory tower and engage with the > community as if it were in fact made up of human beings trying to do their > jobs.

Sounds like a frustrated dev with the presumption the language owes him free support.

* I think the conclusion is spot on. Lots of low hanging fruit that could be addressed without major changes.

I'm very happy with the state of Clojure. As I get older and more experienced I appreciate slow change and a steady hand at the helm to the exhilarating pace and deluge of new tech and new paradigms and the diaspora of blog posts and gists and stackoverflow debugging sessions and brand new developers and their attitude problems (get off my lawn!).

Clojure is solid as a rock.

<comment><USER3> > > Cognitect need to climb a few rungs down the ivory tower and engage with > the community as if it were in fact made up of human beings trying to do > their jobs.

> Sounds like a frustrated dev with the presumption the language owes him free > support.

I don't think that's a fair characterization. The complaint is that Cognitect does not seem open to community contributions. Take for example this comment:

> I painstakingly write a patch and jump through the JIRA hoops; but there it > languishes. The dev team's complete silence is not encouraging. Makes me > feel more of an outsider, less of a part of the community.

There were many in this vein.</comment></comment>


A month of spam statistics - <AUTHOR> http://files.data.timgraham.net.s3.amazonaws.com/tg/blogs/data/wp-content/uploads/amonthofspam.gif

<comment><USER2> Intriguing, and remarkably small. So far this year I have received:

        Date        #Ham  #Spam  Ratio
        2009/01/01   17    1128   66:1
        2009/01/02   16    1215   76:1
        2009/01/03   11     955   87:1
        2009/01/04   16    1268   79:1
        2009/01/05   32    1220   38:1
        2009/01/06   33    1258   38:1
        2009/01/07   11    1232  112:1
        2009/01/08   40    1323   33:1

My Baysian filter (written by me using Paul Graham's essay as a guide) cleans 98.7% - around 15 per day, which means I get to see about half the number of spam as ham, despite getting nearly one spam a minute.</comment>


Founding engineer or Founder/CTO? - <AUTHOR> http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/2555 <comment><USER2> Having been on both sides of the situation a couple times, the distinction is pretty simple for me: do you have a seat on the board?

If you have a board seat, great, you're a real founder/CTO!

If you're not interested in the board seat or you're aware that you don't bring enough to the table to earn it, you're a good candidate for a founding engineer. You should be happy!

If the other founder(s) want you to be a founder/CTO without the board seat, run! They're just using the prestige of the title to pay you less, and will revoke it at the first convenience.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great perspective and a great question to ask yourself: "do I want to have a board seat, with everything that comes with that".

If you don't know what a board seat entails, well then you know what research you have to do.

<comment><USER3> Most people don't understand boards and boards vary by company and over time. Brad Feld, author of the excellent _Venture Deals_ , has another book _Startup Boards: Getting the Most Out of Your Board of Directors_.

[https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Boards-Getting-Board- Director...](https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Boards-Getting-Board- Directors/dp/1118443667/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the recommendation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a current founder and CTO-by-title of a product company ([http://first.io](http://first.io)), I think you're missing one path the founding engineer can take: run Product. Whether that eventually becomes a Chief Product Officer or Head of Product or whatever, the founding engineer often has a very strong sense of where the product needs to go and as the organization grows, they ship less code and instead drive prioritization and teams that execute on the higher-level product vision.

At least, that's what I'm trying to do. We'll see how it goes! :-P

Oh, and I have an awesome VPE already, which is a relief!

<comment><AUTHOR> That's fair. I think that running product takes a lot of customer empathy and you're right, the founding engineer can definitely be the customer advocate. One worry I have would be whether someone in that role would be too interested in the 'how' of building, rather than the 'what' and the 'why' which are so important for product. Hope it works out for you!

Another role I left off was CEO, but that one seems less likely than product.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Oh no! I always meant to host my blog on s3, looks like I didn't do it soon enough.

<comment><USER5> Do yourself one better -- through cloudfront in front of it. S3 has rate limits too :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha, I doubt any blog post I write will need more than s3's default performance of 300/requests per second.

[http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/request- rate-...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/request-rate-perf- considerations.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great post Dan! Especially appreciate the detailed explanation of a founding engineer.

Also gave a +1 to fizx for the note about a board seat. Important for sure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the discussion too--talking with you definitely crystallized some of my thoughts about this topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seems the site is down and Google didn't get a good cache of it :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, here it is:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Xm4Ewpw...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Xm4EwpwUrS8J:www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/2555+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Loved this post! Thanks for taking the time to write it</comment>


25 Body Hacks to Supercharge Yourself - <AUTHOR> http://brainz.org/25-body-hacks/?utm_source=scribol&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=scribol <comment><USER2> Some of these aren't bad. I'd check out Zero to Superhero <http://www.zerotosuperhero.com> for some pretty cool bodyhacks (yes, it's $10 but for 247 pages I found some value there).

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice but I find it troubling to give "bite your tongue" as advice. There are a lot more safer way to incite pain such as pinching your arms. Tongue biting?</comment>


Airlines Urge Passengers to Wear Face Masks - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/airlines-urge-passengers-to-wear-face-masks-11588039204 <comment><USER2> For security, won't one be required to remove the mask? And isn't the act of donning/doffing in itself the most dangerous and critical part in transmission?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.vn/i5FnX](https://archive.vn/i5FnX)</comment>


Are markets all about big companies? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/doc/2007/09/28/go-from-hell/

<comment><USER2> Broken link?

<comment><AUTHOR> _"... broken link ..."_

      Go from hell

      September 28, 2007 in VRM, Past, Journalism

      Why do we continue, in 2007, to believe that
      markets are all about What Big Companies Do?
      Worse, why do we continue to take advertising
      for granted as the primary source of the the Bux
      DeLuxe required to fund technical, social and
      personal progress?

Don't think so. Just checked it and pulled this in. I would be nice if Hacker News had a link checker every once and a while on say a threshold of 2 or 3. But then again high traffic subs would quickly expose this.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I become less arrogant? - <AUTHOR> Through some introspection I've always been aware of the fact that I sometimes act a little cocky or plain arrogant (especially during a technical argument) and I've always hated this side of me.
Recently it was brought up during a chat with some colleagues and all I could do was apologize and tell them I was aware of this personality trait of mine and I would work on it. Plus the recent events involving Linus Torvalds made me think more and more about how this personality trait can be destructive, in the long run.
Other than my personal research I wanted to ask the community here: how can I take my arrogance down a few notches? <comment><USER2> You probably need to remember the proverb, "empty vessels make the most noise". Also the dunning Kruger effect. It is possible that you are way too confident/cocky because you don't know much.

I was cocky when I started out at my first job because I knew latest and greatest. But after working for years and running into people who are way more knowledgeable and smart, I came to know my place. You will too.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this may not be the right forum to ask such a question. There seems to be a lot of arrogance around here, myself included unfortunately. That being said I would suggest you are already on the righteous path by being aware of your short commings and trying to deal with them. Maybe religion, or self help books? "How to win friends and influence people" seems to be a good seller.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion. I was also ambivalent about posting here but I thought that this might be a feeling a lot of other programmers have, similarly to the impostor syndrome. I have that book on my to-read list, will make sure to bump it to the top!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I was a child, I read about Gauss, Abel, and a bunch of people who were good. It killed my braggadocio in the egg.

When I did Judo, I've always sought to fight the best ones (bigger, aggressive, technical). In football too, I always went for the best technical players who can humiliate anyone. The price to pay was to have people laugh when you're thrown in the air.

In my experience, arrogance can come from truly being great at something, but I mostly witnessed it in people who were lacking and trying to protect their ego. The usual advice is to let go of the ego, but maybe instead of "killing your ego", you can "redirect it". Instead of trying to protect your image of competence, you can wire your ego and feed it on the idea that you're diligent. If you tie your ego to the idea you're diligent, you will try to stick to that image of a diligent person.

A diligent person seeks people with different angles to a topic to know everything there is to know about it. You trick yourself into the pursuit of a truth, instead of making it a conflict between two persons.

Arrogance also manifests itself in sarcasm. In a technical dialogue, an arrogant person will often use sarcasm. This is lame. One way to limit this is to think about what you're about to say really hard and weight the amount of information it contains. Is it a snarky remark about how Windows sucks? Is it something you're repeating after reading a blog post? Do you really master what you're talking about? Are you pissing on a language quirk or bottleneck you haven't even reached? Is that really a technically sound argument? How much do I know about this?

One way that helps is to imagine you're not having the argument with the person you're having it with, but the world's most renowned expert on the subject who forgot more about pretty much any topic than you'll probably know. Chances are you won't present the same arguments because you _know_ they are weak and you know that because you know you don't know as much as you think (hopefully). This also helps avoid being a douche and a bully (would I act the same way with a guy who can break me in half? If not, I'm probably being gratuitously disrespectful). Would I act this way with someone who knows more than me? This question will shift the attitude and make it the same: one of curiosity, one of a seeker. It will allow learning and teaching at the same time, with the same ease.

</comment><comment><USER5> One of the things I try to keep in mind is that people have a diverse set of skills and experience. Combine that with the fact that there is usually a dozen ways to solve problems opinions can differ and even be right when viewed from different vantage points.

I'll also throw in that a lot of people when confronted by an idea try to find a fault with it. And feel they've accomplished something by tearing it down. When the correct approach is to try and find what's right about it and fix it's defects as much as possible before judging it.

</comment><comment><USER6> A couple of ideas:

\- Expose yourself to people whom you consider smarter, more talented, or more accomplished than yourself. Ideally in person; you might also read biographies of people who accomplished amazing things.

\- Take up a new hobby as a beginner. At various times as an adult I've tried out karate, piano, improv comedy; all of these have been a good antidote to my own natural arrogance.

</comment><comment><USER7> Good for you for realizing it! Seriously, that is more than many people ever do.

I've struggled with similar issues, and my impression is that arrogance primarily comes from two misjudgments: thinking too highly of myself, or too little of others. The first was reduced as I realized that I too can and do make mistakes. The second gave way the more I learnt to appreciate and value the people I interact with.

I believe that this second aspect is key. Arrogance is offensive because it belittles others. Humility respects and appreciates the other person. Arrogance thinks my knowledge/skills/wealth makes me better than others. Humility sees the good in the other person, their skills and character traits (that may be very different from mine), and values them for it.

Being humble doesn't mean denying what you're good at, that's false humility. It means appreciating people for who they are and what they're good at, and then treating them accordingly.

<comment><USER8> This is good advice, but paradoxically, outward arrogance can also be caused by thinking TOO LITTLE OF ONESELF, so another remedy can be developing confidence in oneself without needing to belittle others.

<comment><USER9> +1. Some people act arrogant and feel like they know it all because they may have insecurity (in my local community: being out of job, failed startup, problems at home, etc). I recently met a couple of folks who were very content with themselves and very humble yet extremely smart. I almost forgot how much people like this can inspire me, discussions with them are very constructive and you feel really good after a conversation.

Be content with yourself. If you're the person with the most knowledge and technical expertise then great, but be humble about other skills that you may not have and that you can still learn from others: teaching, inspiring, helping, making people feel that they're being listened to without being condescending.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was one of the top students of my graduating high school class. I turned down a spiffy scholarship and the opportunity to attend one of the top two unis in my home state.

I did so in part because teachers always held me up as proof that they were excellent teachers and other students could do as well as me if they just tried when there was zero basis for this idea. They were claiming credit for something they didn't do while making me a target of hatred by all the other students.

I'm a social creature and I had no real friends and classmates treated me terribly. My arrogance was the only defence I had in an abusive social setting.

For me, the antidote is an environment of mutual respect where the strengths of individuals are valued and no one is treated badly. Unfortunately, I can only fully achieve this at home. However, even reducing the level of toxic BS elsewhere helps.

Best.

</comment><comment><USER11> Arrogance has a place and time. I enjoy running, so on race day when you need to summon all your strength being arrogant is useful. But it's usually harmful during training where you need to take it easy and listen to your body.

I go to run meets where there are much faster people than me and I struggle to keep up, that is very humbling and keeps my ego in check. Also, going to races and seeing how much better trained other are does that too.

Trying to tie this analogy back into your situation. There's no point in being right all the time at the expense of coming off rude. Save all that arrogance for when it counts and you need to win an argument, say in a meeting or something.

Also, I would say that you are probably missing some growth opportunities by being arrogant. Take a step back and don't worry about being right, but about growing.

<comment><USER7> I think you're missing the point of what arrogance is. Arrogance is not the same as being right and saying so. Arrogance is thinking you're right (whether you are or not is irrelevant), and saying so in a way that demeans others.

Most people don't take offense just because you're smarter than them. But almost everybody takes offense if you behave as if you're better than them, just because you're smarter.

Again, being humble doesn't mean having a bad opinion of yourself, it means having a high opinion of others. It has nothing to do with not saying what you believe to be right just to avoid a confrontation. It has everything to do with respecting the other person and showing them that you do; it means listening to and engaging with them instead of steamrollering them with your "right" solution.

(Who knows, your "right" solution may still profit from their input... Regardless, at the end of the day, you are not only more likely to have a better solution, you will have also have invested into good relationships - and that is worth a lot more.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Recognize that you will ultimately be limiting what you can achieve if you are alienating people. Extrapolate to the whole planet... if everyone acted this way what would the world be like in ten years?

I recommend spending about 30 minutes every evening reflecting on previous discussions/conversations that you have had with people. Also, if you have any cringe-worthy memories in which you behaved in an arrogant manner then these are worth revisiting in order to consider alternatives for better behavior in future scenarios.

</comment><comment><USER13> Pardon my being a contrarian, but consider if it were Steve Jobs or Larry Ellison or Thomas Edison asking this question.

Societal progress sometimes benefits from arrogance. Perhaps it even depends on it on rare occasions.

Maybe you should consider owning and leveraging the arrogance you have by focusing on an entrepreneurial career track, where you can get people to put up with the arrogance.

<comment><USER14> I don't believe the arrogance, per se, of any of these individuals benefited societal progress. In the case of Thomas Edison, his arrogance arguably held societal progress back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What are some actions you qualify as arrogant?

Providing a bit of detail could be helpful in devising a strategy fit for your particular flavor.

</comment><comment><USER16> Meh. Do your colleagues dislike you? If not, then it isn't a problem, other than some way it directly affects the flow of technical work, which you can compensate for. As long as you're putting yourself up and not putting your colleagues down, you're fine.

<comment><USER7> Like/dislike of a person isn't a binary value. I can think of several people who are very dear to me, yet who have some aspect of their character I find terrible to live or work with. Do I like them? Yes, absolutely. Do I want them to change that aspect? Yes, absolutely!

Working to overcome your own arrogance isn't primarily about fixing a technical work-related problem, it's about treating people the way you'd want to be treated.

<comment><USER16> If you're arrogant, you don't really mind if others are, too, so that formula doesn't really work. If you're at work, just keep work conversations moving in a productive direction. Nobody sensible is going to really dislike you if you're arrogant and basically transparent and forthright in personality. I mean, there's the kind of people that go around looking for reasons to categorize people as good and bad, but you shouldn't worry about them. (They're bad!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What really helped me is psychodrama (not sure if that's how it is called elsewhere) and non violent communication (courses available internationally I'm sure). I still tend to be cynical and offensive at times, but it happens less often.

</comment><comment><USER18> Put yourself at the receiving end of some arrogant prick for an extended period of time. You will then discover a myriad of ways to achieve your objectives with being one.

</comment><comment><USER19> Have someone die in your arms and then you'll understand the fragility, fleetingness, and beauty of us all. Once you connect with people on this level, humility seeps in.

<comment><USER20> But please don't manufacturer this situation :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Confidence without Humility tends to Arrogance. Humility without Confidence tends to Humiliation. In your case ? turn up the humility a notch or two. Good Luck

</comment><comment><USER21> Confidence without humility tends to arrogance. Humility without confidence tends to humiliation. In your case ? turn up the humility a notch or two. Good Luck

</comment><comment><USER22> Read biographies. So much to learn from other people who lead a humble life.

</comment><comment><USER23> 7g of mushrooms in a dark room.</comment>


Rackspace Stock Sale Could Be Bellwether - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/rackspace-stock-sale-could-be-bellwether/

<comment><USER2> I hope not. It seemed to me that they're doing it to get liquid fast before cloud computing technology makes traditional hosting companies obsolete.</comment>


Mattermost Raises $20M Series A Funding - <AUTHOR> https://mattermost.com/blog/mattermost-raises-20m-series-a-funding/ <comment><USER2> When I worked at Uber we used this an it was internally called "uChat". I have two things to note about this:

1) When uChat was first rolled out the team who ran the rollout did everything they could to make it seem as though they had created uChat from scratch and that it was an internal tool, even though everyone knew it wasn't. The rollout was comically inefficient and the platform didn't scale at all to Uber's size. The uChat team then tried at an all-hands to talk about what a great job they had done building uChat which was followed by a slew of questions around all of uChat's massive failings such that the CEO started grilling them a bit. It was both embarrassing and strangely funny to watch what was either their total lack of self-awareness or their blatant misrepresentation of everything they had done.

2) When I left Uber in November of last year, uChat was still pretty dysfunctional. I use Slack today in my new role and it's a MASSIVE step up.

<comment><USER3> Hi @h3throw, Mattermost CEO here. I highly appreciate your feedback.

People care a lot about their communication systems and we're continually listening and working to improve.

The $20M Series A helps us more quickly narrow the gap between open source and proprietary solutions.

We want to continue to invest, grow and raise funding so we can relentlessly improve open source options.

I've found that the customers that choose Mattermost have a long term view. They're joining us on the journey that brings more choice to the market. They share the belief that the world can be made safer and more productive through open source technologies.

A $20M Series A may not seem like a lot compared to the $1.2B Slack has raised to date--But it's four times the size of Slack's $5M Series A in 2010: [https://www.crunchbase.com/funding_round/slack-series-a-- 539...](https://www.crunchbase.com/funding_round/slack-series-a--539c502a)

@h3throw, may I beg you for a favor?

So I can learn more about addressing your comment in 2), could you help share one thing we can improve?

<comment><USER4> FYI this comment comes across as very unnatural marketing through 'community engagement', hijacking the top comment. This is HN not some business Bros you can lull to market with 'journey' fluff. Please don't abuse HN.

<comment><USER3> Thanks @jabberthemutt, you might be right on the marketing-y speak for HN.

Basically I was one of the people that started the open source project and I'm trying to find out what the top issues are so we can fix them.

<comment><USER4> The last lines would have sufficed then! ;)

Thanks for your wonderful software BTW!

<comment><USER3> Thanks @jabberthemutt!!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Glad to see them doing well. Working for a company that legally cannot use services that are not self-hosted can be quite a challenge and Mattermost really is a godsend in that regard.

<comment><USER6> We're under no legal requirement but I simply don't trust Slack employees to be good stewards of our data. On a UI/UX basis, Slack and Discord are far superior to Mattermost, so hopefully they can use this funding to close that gap.

<comment><USER7> Probably a good call. Slack trains recommender systems w/ all user data mixed together. Although w/ attempts to preserve privacy... See their paper from recsys '18 Vancouver.

<comment><USER8> Recommeneder for what ?

<comment><USER9> The only recommendations I remember on Slack are for channel participation - accidental suggestions to leave some I don't really read any much, and to join some I may be interested in.

YMMV, but for me that's a very low value feature.

<comment><USER8> The same for me. That's why I was asking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is it really not possible to bootstrap this or raise through debt? Why do you need $20m to compete in this market?

I wish more companies would avoid taking large outside investment, but maybe that's unrealistic.

<comment><USER11> Whats wrong with taking large outside investment if the terms are favorable?

As an extreme example, if I thought my company was worth $40m and someone offered $20m in exchange for 10% of my company I would absolutely take that deal whether or not I needed the money.

The problem might not be that the company is taking a deal when they shouldn't. It very well could be that the investors are overpaying. It's also totally possible that this is a good deal if it helps the company get a bigger slice of the market because they can grow quicker.

<comment><USER10> You'd take that money, and now you have a 200m dollar company, so you need to hire, market and scale like a 200m dollar company. And btw you need to be worth a lot more than 200m next year otherwise your investors (who have significant influence) will be pissed off.

So instead of continuing to deliver for your current customers and users you start chasing bigger things, and if you're lucky it works, if not you fail and your company burns all the cash in a couple of years and files for bankruptcy.

<comment><USER12> You're both right. Whether taking VC capital makes sense is context-dependent. What kind of business is it, and what are the market dynamics? What are your own goals for the business? Etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really hope they make the free version of mattermost a bit more safe to use. Currently, any user can archive the channel and the security is really scary.

</comment><comment><USER14> Does the thing they're trying to to build really cost more than 20M to build?

If so, why? That sum buys a lot of engineering and sales hours.

And if not, why raise so much?

<comment><USER15> Slack is raising a lot more money. Mattermost stands purely as a decent competitor to Slack.

<comment><USER16> Is mattermost the most popular self hosted alternative to slack now? I don't usually hear about rocket chat lately.

<comment><USER15> Yes -- I would think laregely because GitLab include in their instances thus Mattermost is the devlopers/tech persons choice of chat app while Slack seems more suited to general public and GSuite Hangouts will likely become the enterprise option due so many enterprises already paying Google for email services etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm a big fan Mattermost but it really needs to spend this money on:

-making decent mobile apps. I know the current Android one is awful -introducing end to end encryption for conversations

<comment><USER3> Thanks @secfirstmd!

Just curious:

\- Which version of the mobile apps are you using? We've been making significant improvements on Android \- Is your use case for E2E more for enterprise or is it more for online communities (what kind of community)?

Trying to understand more,

<comment><USER17> Hi. So using the version on 18th Jan 2019. I love the tool and deploy and use it a lot but the Android still needs more work.

Regarding E2E. We use Mattermost for online communities. Primarily human rights defenders, aid workers and journalists all over the world. There lives are very clearly at risk in many cases so without E2E for a lot of them we unfortunately cannot use Mattermost as surveillance is an issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is it normal for a startup this old to raise a Series A?

<comment><USER19> "Series A" is just a shorthand. Doesn't mean anything too specific.

<comment><USER20> (Shorthand for first formal vc round.)

B is second...

<comment><USER12> Seed rounds can still be pretty formal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Mattermost gets so many more things right. Switched from Slack in 2018 and never going back.

</comment><comment><USER22> Mattermost is open core and doesn't federate. Matrix.org / riot.im is the better alternative, even if it has taken them a longer time to get to this point.

</comment><comment><USER23> Slack will acquire them

<comment><USER24> I actually think it's more likely Microsoft will acquire them. A strong history of on-prem solutions, mixed reception to their Slack-killer Microsoft Teams, and a newfound mandate to create open and interoperable solutions make it a clear option.

<comment><USER25> As someone who is stuck with Teams at work and uses Slack with a small circle of friends, I'd say Teams is mostly acceptable. If either one were to replace the other in either context, I wouldn't care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> how soon until our ultra-paranoid security team convinces our company we need to switch to this</comment>


Fujitsu Not Pleased With Windows 8 Demand, Either - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20121228/fujitsu-not-pleased-with-windows-8-demand-either/

<comment><USER2> Honestly, I'm surprised there are still as many Windows OEMs as there are right now. The consumer PC market has cratered since the iPad, and Apple's tactic of getting Macs into colleges is paying dividends now those students are moving into their 30s. How many people really _want_ a Windows machine at this point? With Valve's aggressive move into taking PC games off of Windows altogether, I really don't know what market segment is left loyal to the platform.

Samsung might be taking a hit on experiments such as Chromebooks, but my guess is its going to be the OEMs that diversify quickly and focus on quality and not quantity that will stay in the business of selling computational machines to consumers.

Windows 8 is Microsoft's parting gift to the desktop. I'd put money on Windows 9 going Metro only, and perhaps a revival of the NT brand for enterprise buyers to keep the desktop around.

<comment><USER3> _How many people really want a Windows machine at this point?_

You know, it's funny that your id says that you're studying video games and yet you make such a bold statement. Anyone who's into serious gaming wants a Windows machine. Duh!

<comment><USER2> Many people into serious gaming are not necessarily on the PC platform. The other aspect is that the majority of those that are are buying into the Steam ecosystem. As I said in my OP, I expect those players will follow Valve away from Windows to Linux if Valve courts them (and developers) aggressively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How much of this is being driven by issues with Windows 8 versus people simply being content with what they already have? The core 2 duo era killed the buy- a-new-computer-every-2-years thing. I think that, not tablets, is the new reality MS and friends have to realize.

<comment><USER5> That people are no longer purchasing new computers every two years sounds very likely, but I think Microsoft (though not their partners) has realised this already. That's why they've been pushing the new "design language" so hard, to the point of including it on non-tablets where it (arguably) doesn't belong.

At least among the people around me, the money which would previously be spent on a new computer is used to buy a tablet (mainly iPad) instead. While I'm not sure if the way Microsoft is approaching the tablet-market is right, I don't think they're wrong if they're betting on tablets overtaking desktop/laptop computers in a not so distant future.

<comment><USER6> _I don't think they're wrong if they're betting on tablets overtaking desktop/laptop computers in a not so distant future._

Sigh. Yes, when that future includes cerebral neuroimplants, tablets will replace desktop PCs. Until then, that's as ridiculous a notion as believing that tractors will replace steam shovels, or that motorcycles will replace cars.

Touchscreens, and by extension tablets, are not useful for desktop computing. It ranges from amusing to mildly annoying when people in online comment threads believe otherwise, but it's a cause for full-blown market panic when Microsoft executives believe otherwise.

<comment><USER5> "Touchscreens, and by extension tablets, are not useful for desktop computing. It ranges from amusing to mildly annoying when people in online comment threads believe otherwise..."

I can't tell for sure if it's what you are implying, but I don't believe tablets comes close to replacing desktop computers in terms of functionality, nor do I think they should be used for "desktop computing".

However, I believe they have the potential to cover the needs of most people. Saying that tablet-sales will overtake other kinds of devices, and saying that tablets are fully capable of replacing such devices are very different things.

<comment><USER7> Yes. Large numbers of home users use their PC for email, Facebook, browsing/shopping, and maybe skype/Facetime. Tablets are perfectly good for that and easy to use while sitting on the couch. Those users are likely never again buying a standard desktop or laptop.

<comment><USER8> Kids will grow up on iPads and might...perhaps...graduate to macbooks when they go off to college. Then they'll use a PC at work and come home at night to their tablets/devices...

Alas, there will be no one to program these PCs/devices in the future because kids won't grow up with code capable environments (well, maybe they'll be able to code on the web ala Kahn's academy).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been running Win 8 on my home machine since it was available on MSDN. I went through the initial headache and then my old habits were replaced by new ones and I was just as productive again.

But, guess what. I recently realized that the reason I have no problems with the new menu is because I've managed to completely avoid it! For a little background, I'm a C# dev so I use VS 2012. I'm also an avid gamer. But there are times where I won't open the new menu at all for a couple of weeks. I'm not sure how I feel about this...

I'm generally optimistic about things from Microsoft, but this one has me puzzled. I don't think it's a negative thing, it just feels like a feature that's sort of "just there".

Edit - As far as I understand, it is required to use Windows 8 to develop Win 8 apps. So basically its only use so far is a dev sandbox.

<comment><USER10> For the power user -

Windows 7 - press start key and type the name of the program you want to start, get a list of matching apps in the bottom left corner of the screen.

Windows 8 - press start key and type the name of the program you want to start, get a list of matching apps in the middle of the screen.

<comment><USER11> Windows 7 - pin all your most common apps to the dock, and press Win-# (where # is the 1-based index of the app you want in the dock) to launch it.

Windows 8 - ???

<comment><USER10> Exactly. If you think the Windows 8 fullscreen start menu is getting in your way, it means you haven't yet learned how to use Windows 8. For a professional user this should take a matter of days, or even hours/minutes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't doubt Win 8 demand is "weak", but I understand that app store activity for paid apps more than doubled after Christmas. So I suspect that a better measure will be to see where we are in January after all the folks who got new PCs and other Win 8 paraphernalia begin to be counted.

Not to mention, unlike the reaction to Vista, I don't hear folks asking for their machines to be retrograded. IOW a reaction of - I may not hurry up to upgrade, but I'm also not going to go out of my way to avoid it.

Obviously just my .02 on the matter.

<comment><USER13> I haven't piled on the Win8 hate bandwagon in the past, but I'm actually liking it less the more I use it. The start screen, while not as terrible as some say, has not proved useful in any way for non-touch devices and is at best an annoyance. Microsoft have clearly gone out of their way to make it more difficult than before to switch away from the default Bing/IE combo (the latest annoyance is that "Microsoft Update" uses a hardcoded link to IE instead of your default browser, and IE nags you to change your default browser once it's open). For DirectX development Microsoft has downgraded their SDK by adding non-optional integration with Visual Studio and charging money for parts that used to be free (PIX); plus they removed the DX9 debug runtime so it's harder to debug DX9 apps.

If I was going to reinstall Windows right now, I definitely would choose Windows 7 over 8. There's nothing in 8 that's a must-have for desktop use, and there are many things about 8 that are more annoying than 7. Plus, hardware/app compabitility with 8 is still spotty (I've had a lot of problems with Boot Camp).

<comment><USER14> I've been trying to avoid moaning about win8 too because I came pretty late to the party and I get the feeling it's talked out. But like you, I get more annoyed the more I use it . The start screen is tolerable (though I never use it), but I find the "swipe" gesturing and charms bar very irritating. And more irritating still, I find the fact that there's no obvious way to turn them off just obnoxious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I guess my experience is a little unusual. I went to check out and possibly buy one of the new Surface tablets. But next to it was an Asus laptop, about the same size as the tablet, with a touch screen, and a real keyboard. All for $499. A Surface, with the add-on keyboard that seemed a bit flimsy, cost more. The laptop seemed pretty sturdy.

So I bought the laptop. I like having a laptop with the touchscreen interface.

Win8 now includes a pdf reader. But it bizarrely does not remember the last page read, and there's no way to go directly to page 147 without hitting the arrow key 146 times, making it a real pain to read books with it.

That's probably my main complaint with Win8 :-)

</comment><comment><USER16> I haven't touched a Windows 8 machine, but the TV commercials make Windows 8 look foreign and unlike anything I already know how to use.

I view it as a Windows 8 ninja rapidly switching between all sorts of tasks I vaguely understand, and the relationship between the gesture and the computer's response seems hard to follow.

Maybe the OS is really easy to use, but their marketing would make me think twice before buying a Windows 8 machine.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, you feel that way because that's actually how it is. This guy described a lot of the problems with Windows 8 and he is pretty spot on (although he does exaggerate a bit in some cases):

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYet-qf1jo>

<comment><USER17> I haven't watched the whole video but I'm on his first point which is "Control" (or rather the lack of it) which he says is his biggest issue with Windows 8.

His example was that he tried to google how to do something and he was launched into the weather app. His accompanying screenshot was that of the charms bar with search and he typed in the word Barcelona AND selected the third option for him (which is the weather app). He spends the next 40 seconds talking about "goblin farts".

I mean seriously .... what kind of garbage critique is that ?

He is not even close to "being spot on" from the first ten minutes of the video and I doubt I should even bother watching the last ten minutes.</comment></comment></comment>


Hawaii Court Rescinds Permit to Build Thirty Meter Telescope - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/science/space/hawaii-court-rescinds-permit-to-build-thirty-meter-telescope.html <comment><USER2> This site outlines the actions that tmt takes to improve Hawaii and science education in general... 300 jobs. 26 million per year in revenue. 1 million per year just in paying a lease, 800k of which is earmarked to pay for conservation of the mountain. The site was deliberately moved to a suboptimal location so that it would be less visible to people. Includes a statement regarding this HSC hearing.

[http://www.maunakeaandtmt.org](http://www.maunakeaandtmt.org)

I honestly don't see how telescopes are disrespectful to begin with. Stonehenge, the Pyramids, countless other ancient monoliths were astronomical temples... These are literally the temples of the one 'religion' all humanity shares-- the love of space and the stars.

Whatever. Good job random celebrities on twitter who have never even been to Mauna Kea; you've successfully done whatever this is. We will in fact "take [our] toys and play in another sandbox," because some of us actually care about the past and future of humanity as a race and our place in the stars.

<comment><USER3> Just because 'science is good' doesn't mean it gets to trump the normal permitting procedures and rule of law.

<comment><USER2> I don't understand. They haven't been denied a permit, they had the permit. Construction had begun. They were given the go ahead, handshook on a deal with the state of Hawaii-- giving way more than any telescope before. And now, they've been cut off in the middle of full scale production.

It's a bit of a sucker punch because, for eight years, survey planning, software programming, building design, etc. have been underway with this specific site in mind. There are hundreds of people working on this. Tens to hundreds of thousands of man hours are wasted if this decision stands. PhD work on "site predictions for TMT" "Error estimations for TMT" "Optic Performance for TMT" etc. etc. are worthless.

This isn't a back-yard telescope you just prop up anywhere. This is a precision instrument that was designed for this exact spot. The optics designed Mauna Kea atmospheric seeing; the dome designed for Mauna Kea atmospheric temperature, air pressure and turbulence; the survey strategy planned for Mauna Kea weather patterns and sky visibility.

<comment><USER3> Yes they had the permit but it was issued in violation of apparent rules. Appeals to lost investment and appeals to how great science is don't automatically trump this or do you want to live in a world where one government bureaucrat's wrong decision is set in stone?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > In 2005, a court-ordered environmental impact statement concluded that 30 > years of astronomy had had an adverse effect on nature and culture on the > mountain.

Wow, really ? It's like reading some document from the Middle-Ages or something.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure what the disconnect is, this seems like fairly minor language. If you build roads and buildings where there's nothing it's going to have some impact, that's all I read from that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I very much understand the frustration on display here about the setback to science from this decision. But (admitting up front that I don't know a lot about the specific cultural context) I'm surprised by the lack of sympathy being shown for the people who evidently hold this space sacred.

All the (great!) scientific rationale in the world doesn't change the fact that this fits _really_ well into the age-old pattern of Western societies barging in and imposing their will on other cultures. Pretty much every step of the displacement and marginalization of native peoples in history was seen as perfectly justified by the Western societies carrying it out. Now, personally, I'm much happier with the argument "we must seize this unique scientific opportunity" than with "we must seize these natural resources for a profit". But I expect that from the point of view of the native community, the result feels pretty much the same either way. I'm not happy with the pattern in Western history of condoning this sort of imperialism, and I'd very much like us as a society to quit it.

(And for the record, I can't shake the feeling that if it turned out that the Temple Mount in Jerusalem had turned out to be the ideal site for this telescope, most people would not be so immediately dismissive of the voices raised in opposition to building it there. Heck, I even expect there would be more sympathy if the best place for the telescope were a "secular sacred site" like Mount Rushmore: "Don't make Honest Abe wear a flying saucer for a hat!" the nation would cry, and nobody would accuse them of "tribalism".)

<comment><USER6> >this fits really well into the age-old pattern of Western societies barging in and imposing their will on other cultures

>...justified by the Western societies

>...the pattern in Western history

You should try living in the East. A similar scenario in China would _not_ go down the same way. The telescope would go up and there would be very little hand wringing involved in the decision.

<comment><USER5> Fair point: Europe and its descendants don't have anything like a monopoly on imperialism (and China in particular has that history going back a long, _long_ time). I'm presumably focused on European imperialism because it's my heritage, and because Europe's age of imperial expansion has played a particularly widespread role in world history for the past few centuries. And also, because it's the one involved in the conflict in question here.

It's probably worth considering how these attitudes evolve over time, too. I'd guess that a hundred years ago, the U.S. wouldn't have done much hand wringing in this case, either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >>The mountain, however, is also a state-designated conservation district. Opponents of the project have contended that the planned telescope, which at 18 stories high would be the biggest building on the Big Island, represents industrial development and would violate the rules for such zones.

Since when does a research and education institution qualify as "industrial"? All over the US we have schools and universities smack in the middle of residential zones.

<comment><USER8> Since conservation areas and city zoning don't have the same goals and don't follow the same principles, e.g. when it comes to impact of construction. Note that this wasn't even the issue at hand, it seems like the court decision was mostly based on a technicality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Short-sighted tribalism.

</comment><comment><USER10> Can someone clarify to me why they are insisting on building it on that specific mountain where it has been met with resistance from day one?

<comment><USER11> Mauna Kea was in competition with a site in Chile's Atacama desert ( already popular for very large scopes ).

Technically they were both very close but in the end the decision went to Mauna Kea mainly for proximity to other facilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Any astronomers want to weigh in? If the natives are so against it being built, why not build elsewhere?

<comment><USER6> Yeah, just as long as they make sure their permits are in order first... oh wait, that didn't work so well.

<comment><USER13> Well, it would seem that their permits were _not_ "in order" and therein lies the problem.

<comment><USER6> The permits were, but apparently the process for issuing them wasn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> i mean its not like they are building housing up there or something. at least its for science.

</comment><comment><USER15> From 1887 on, foreigners have been stealing from the Hawaiians. Now they're trying to steal Mauna Kea, and with all that money in play, broke their own laws to issue a permit. Thankfully, the Hawaiians have succeeded and have stopped yet one more thing - Mauna Kea - being stolen from them. The people against them have the same attitude as a thief - they want it, so they'll do whatever is needed to steal it.</comment>


Should math professor force students to use $180 textbook, written by his boss? - <AUTHOR> http://www.ocregister.com/articles/bourget-688288-math-book.html <comment><USER2> This is sad and is symptomatic of how broken the education systems are, not just in the US but in many parts of the world.

Going slightly off-topic (or rather accelerating the discussion a bit): I personally feel that fixing these issues in higher education will not be solved by MOOCs or 'democratization' of access to university level education. The change will have to come from industry. Until the current age of connectivity university grades/degrees/certificates etc were the easiest way to gauge a person's abilities and suitability for a job (especially when the person did not have or could not prove, prior experience) and they do act as a filter (unless you live in complete denial about reality). However, I don't think that it needs to be so. I wonder, how can we replace this (admittedly flawed, although working well for the most part) filter of educational qualifications ?

</comment><comment><USER3> It's rather ironic; as I student I don't think I ever had a bad experience when professors selected books OTHER than the latest edition Pearson/McGraw was hawking. It meant that they actually put some effort into the course, rather than just taking the materials from the publisher and making it up at they went along.

</comment><comment><USER4> There's a slight change in emphasis in the title in this shorter version, the professor in this case is trying to fight this scam, but being overrules by the boss who wrote the book. Kudos to him for fighting this.

</comment><comment><USER5> Should he? No. Can he? Evidently.

The ethics here are fetid.</comment>


Move over HTTP it's SMTP's Turn to Shine - <AUTHOR> http://www.benjamincoe.com/post/12753680108/writing-a-secure-smtp-server-in-python

<comment><USER2> The SMTP standard is complicated and crazy. RJBS from Pobox does a good job of scaring anyone thinking of writing an SMTP client or server: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JENdgiAPD6c>

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not going to argue against the fact that email is complicated and scary, I think this relates to the fact that it's been here forever. RFC821 and RFC822 dating from, what, the late 70s?

It's these same facts:

* The protocols have been around forever.

* The protocols have been so widely adopted (2.9 billion, BILLION, email accounts worldwide).

* It's not going anywhere.

That I think make it worth the pain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting article. However, I would have liked if the author would have gone more in-depth on what type of applications could be build on top of SMTP by giving some examples and why SMTP would be more beneficial than e.g. HTTP for those applications.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, I don't mind going into some more detail here:

With attachments.me, we've been looking at using special ephemeral email addresses for categorization:

* You can post to an email address with your company name and a folder in it, and the attachment will automatically be categorized within that folder.

Here's some other ideas:

* Email an image to an email address, with dimensions in the body, the email is stored with an image resized to the given dimensions as an attachment.

* Email an to an email address and have the data show directly on your Tumblr account.

Email is a big part of a lot of people's workflow, and I love the idea of building hooks on top of it -- a good email client is pretty much a given regardless of whether someone is on their smart phone, computer, or whatever.

I still see HTTP as a big part of the equation, but with SMTP services performing more and more interesting actions behind the scenes.</comment></comment>


Rails 5.0.0.rc1 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rails/rails/tree/v5.0.0.rc1 <comment><USER2> It is great to see another milestone is almost done and stable version will be released soon.

Highlights for me will be:

\- Actioncable (real-time communication over websockets)

\- Rails-API is merged into core.

\- Min ruby version is 2.2 (performance improvements via Garbage Collector)

\- Little bit of code cleanup (less code to run)

\- Turbolinks 3 (single-page applications)

\- Evented file system monitor (faster development environment)

I think they have done a great job with the release. Especially removing Celluloid, Redis, and EventMachine as a dependency for ActionCable part.

I only have one small concern about the Turbolinks part. It hasn't been my choice until now for the projects because of the compatibility issues with other libraries. It always felt like the Quicktime player on Mac OS. Sure you can use it but you better off with something else.

But I really want it to be something i can use out of box this time. Partial rendering is not there yet but lets wait and see how it turns ut.

<comment><USER3> First thing I do when creating a new rails project is remove Turbolinks. It subtly breaks other gems all over the place in difficult to discover ways.

<comment><USER4> and spring which causes all types of weird random bugs from old cached code in development

<comment><USER5> You should try it again. It's gotten quite good at automatic reloading. I use it with Rspec and as long as you've got spring-commands-rspec[0] installed, it's never a hassle.

[0] [https://github.com/jonleighton/spring-commands- rspec](https://github.com/jonleighton/spring-commands-rspec)

<comment><USER6> Agreed. I've been using spring for about 1.5 years now and it has saved me huge amounts of time. The only time it hasn't picked up changes was on initializers and the router, which is understandable. I can't imagine developing without spring. I would be restarting rails hundreds of times per day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 40 points and no comments... Can we please discuss this?

I would like to know if this makes Rails worth learning for someone who knows Ruby but doesn't know rails. I have found my ruby knowledge to be less than marketable, and I want to step my game up. What do yall think?

<comment><USER8> I'm a big Python evangelist for reasons lost to history, but even I would recommend learning Ruby on Rails if you want to make yourself marketable. I'm not sure how much of a market there is out there right now for people with Rails experience, but it never hurts to learn something new.

Besides, whether you chose to use Rails, or Sinatra, or move to some other language, as long as you are doing web development you'll be able to apply the concepts learned. So I say go for it!

<comment><USER9> In germany there are like ten rails jobs.

<comment><USER10> Germany is mostly Java or heavy embedded stuff. I mean one of the biggest shop is probably Zalando which uses Java/Scala/Python. And as far as I know otto.de is on the JVM, too.

<comment><USER8> I find interesting how some countries (or rather, the industries in those countries) seem to specialize in certain stacks. Back when I lived in Brazil, Delphi used to be huge there, even though it had already kind of died everywhere else. Argentina seemed to be doing mostly Java. I guess it has to do with the kind of consulting companies that hire the bulk of the software engineers in the country.

It'd be great to get something like the TIOBE index, but split by country, although I guess I'd try to bias it a bit heavier towards commercially developed LOCs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are there anyone that can chime in on the current long-time support story for rails? How much commitment could one expect from the Rails community towards long time software life-cycle? To clarify, if I want to implement a solution (say a web/service portal) now, that I have a reasonable dev budget for, and a commitment to maintain with security updates (and bug fixes) for, say the next 10 years -- is rails 5 likely to be a viable solution?

I always had the impression (possibly false) that the Rails community was very focused on rapid development, but that it had a tendency to leave dead projects on the road-side to fend for themselves -- and that maintaining a project that was a few years old sort of implied massive forward-porting if you wanted to have a semblance of security updates?

Is my impression way off? Is there a "safe path" if one sticks with the Rails core?

<comment><USER12> Curious to this as well. Django had a pretty public and reasonable long term support policy.

However 10 year is a bit much. What did anything look like 10 years ago? I could see 3 or 4 year cycle though.

<comment><USER11> According to wikipedia, Hacker News Launched February 19, 2007; 9 years ago.

[ed: Other things off the top of my head, AFAIK both from the 90s: slashdot.org, webhostingtalk.com, twitter is from 2006 (obviously twitter and slashdot have been pretty much rewritten, not sure about wht.]

<comment><USER12> Rewritten is not the same thing as having to upgrade a library. Even most enterprise apps upgrade the big libraries within 4 or 5 years due to the CVEs that pile up (see struts 1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Super excited to see Rails 5 hitting stability. I've recently built a production Rails API on 5 (the beta -- it's been shockingly stable) including ActionCable, with a React + React-Router frontend, handling a pretty good- sized production load on Heroku + Passenger. AMA if you want a developer's/user's perspective on Rails 5 :)

<comment><USER14> For reference when you say "pretty good-sized load" what are you referring to?

<comment><USER13> Thus far, peak at about 3000 REST requests per minute and 400 simultaneous ActionCable (websocket) connections. We're still scaling up the app, as we just launched it about a week ago, but we haven't yet hit the limits of the platform.

<comment><USER15> How many dynos does it take to serve that up, just out of curiousity?

<comment><USER13> Actually just 1 Performance-M dyno. With Sidekiq for external/resource- intensive requests, and a pretty large pool configured in Passenger.

ETA: It doesn't get as much press, but ActiveJob is one of my favorite parts of Rails 5. It's an agnostic implementation of background jobs -- ActiveRecord : (Postgres, Mysql, etc) :: ActiveJob : (Sidekiq, Resque, etc). Very nice, flexible syntax and it helps make your application platform-agnostic.

Second ETA: As rapind pointed out, ActiveJob has actually been available since Rails 4.2.

<comment><USER16> I think ActiveJob has been in there since 4.1 or 4.2. Agree it's nice to have a standard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For those on the fence about learning Rails it's one of the most in demand frameworks out there. I don't just mean in terms of sheer numbers node but in terms of awesome jobs associated with it.

<comment><USER18> I don't know about where you live but in the UK job market, as measured by Indeed.co.uk, PHP:Rails is 13:1 with only 158 Rails jobs in total, 2/3 of which are in London. That's hardly "one of the most in demand". I say this as someone who dislikes PHP intensely. It's just so frustrating when you've invested so much in learning Ruby & Rails to then find jobs are very thin on the ground.

<comment> jon-wood I don't think job sites are really the best metric for Rails jobs - in my experience no one bothers posting them there because the people who know Rails well aren't trawling job sites for work.

When I was looking for a new job recently I was mostly looking at places like Stack Overflow jobs, along with the London Ruby User Group mailing list which tends to get three or four job postings a week - I haven't looked at a mainstream job site since about 2008.

If you want a better sense of how much work there is add a few years of Rails experience to a Linked In profile and watch the recruiters start circling.

<comment><USER18> Three or four job postings a week? For London? That's encouraging.

<comment> jon-wood There have been points in the last few years when the volume got to the point of people asking to have a list specifically for job postings to prevent other stuff being drowned out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think a more useful link is - [https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/fbdcf5221ad7ea3d40ad0965...](https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/fbdcf5221ad7ea3d40ad09651962fc85d101dd67/actioncable/CHANGELOG.md)

Overall I expect this release to be more lightweight memory wise. This also should first release of Rails that includes ActionCable - [https://github.com/rails/actioncable/tree/archive](https://github.com/rails/actioncable/tree/archive)

</comment><comment><USER20> Aside from the latter having a smaller dev environment and community, what's the status of Rails vs Phoenix (Elixir)? Not trying to start a war (I like both)—just wondering if this release changes things.

<comment><USER21> Phoenix and Elixir are trucking along nicely. Elixir 1.3 is on release candidate, as is Ecto 2.0 and Phoenix 1.2.

The big feature of Phoenix 1.2 is channel presence: [https://dockyard.com/blog/2016/03/25/what-makes-phoenix- pres...](https://dockyard.com/blog/2016/03/25/what-makes-phoenix-presence- special-sneak-peek)

Whats coming in elixir 1.3: [http://tuvistavie.com/2016/elixir-1-3/](http://tuvistavie.com/2016/elixir-1-3/)

Ecto 2.0: [http://blog.plataformatec.com.br/2016/02/ecto-2-0-0-beta-0-i...](http://blog.plataformatec.com.br/2016/02/ecto-2-0-0-beta-0-is- out/)

Other than that the community is growing at a healthy pace. Hex packages have gone from 1000 to over 2000 in the last 6 months.

<comment><USER18> The problem with hex.pm is that it doesn't distinguish Elixir and Erlang packages so the total is a mixture of both which is not very useful.

<comment><USER22> Why is it not useful? You can drop erlang packages straight into Elixir projects without any issue.

<comment><USER18> I meant not useful in terms of gauging the output of the Elixir community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> In case this is the first time you hear of Rails 5 and wonder what's new, this post sums it up: [http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2015/12/18/Rails-5-0-beta1/](http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2015/12/18/Rails-5-0-beta1/)

</comment><comment><USER24> I am pleasantly surprised to see anything Rails or Ruby in the front page of HN again. Most of the time people dont vote on it anymore.

Is Rails 5 any faster then previous version?

</comment><comment><USER25> Any insight on pros and cons of Rails + ActionCable vs. Rails + your own socket.io based node server? I've been getting by with the latter whenever the need arose.

<comment><USER26> Fewer moving parts. ActionCable is stupidly simple to get up and running.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> While I love Rails, I've stepped away from it over the past couple years in favour of smaller frameworks. While it's nice to have a kitchen sink approach when it applies, for SPA's, I found I was using very little of the sink, and the sink often got in the way. Is Rails 5 doing a better job of letting you pick what parts you want, or is it still predominantly focused on an all or nothing approach?

</comment><comment><USER28> Anyone around using it in production? Thoughts?

<comment><USER13> I built a production app recently, Rails 5 (beta -- surprisingly stable) + Heroku + Passenger, separate React + react-router frontend. It's been fantastic so far -- has handled a decently sized production load, including some pretty heavy ActionCable usage, with no problems. There's a few tricks to getting it working on Heroku though; I've been meaning to write a blog post about it but haven't found the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> We are already running [https://slimfaq.com](https://slimfaq.com) in production on RC1 and other than Turbolinks pains it was quite straightforward.

</comment><comment><USER3> Has there been any talk on whether Action Cable will be supported by Heroku?

<comment><USER26> It's supposed to work, but I haven't gotten it to work yet. :-/

<comment><USER30> I have actioncable running on heroku. Let me know if you need help.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> is it true "rails new backend --api" will first prompt and ask "are you sure you don't want to use golang?"

<comment><USER32> Another person with a totally pointless comment. Really tired of people comparing Go and Ruby. You can "Go" away

<comment><USER31> sorry. I wrote it too quickly like I was just chatting with a friend. I mean no disrepect to rails. I just recently learned golang after working for years in rails. The API thing made me go, wow, if didn't need to worry about erb stuff and it was 100% json, I think I'd rather do it in go. But you are right. My comment was just being silly. There's no place for that on hacker news.

<comment> jon-wood For what it's worth I thought it was amusing, in a slightly trolly way ;)

Just to remain slightly on topic, you can't really compare an entire application stack like Rails with a language like Go. Maybe you could do with something lighter like Sinatra.

For me Rails big win isn't that it's high performance (although done right it can handle a decent volume of traffic), but the fact it's configured out of the box. You can be productive on day one, rather than wiring together low level libraries for database access and the like.

Finally having said all that I'm having a really good time with Pliny, Heroku's Ruby API stack, which feels like I imagine Rails might have done if it were built specifically for REST APIs rather than full applications with a UI.

<comment><USER33> > You can be productive on day one, rather than wiring together low level > libraries for database access and the like.

One of my big gripes with Rails is defaulting to ActiveRecord, compared to pretty every alternative (my favourite is Sequel). This is the problem with Rails: You can be productive if you can be productive with its default choices.

But in every project where Rails has been involved that I've worked on, sooner or later people start fighting one of the Rails default choices, and the problem with that is that so many parts are expected to be there by other components they bring in, so even things that are in theory replaceable are in practice tightly coupled.

<comment><USER34> Does using Sequel instead of ActiveRecord cause problems? I understood it can be used pretty much as a drop-in replacement, but I gather that's not quite the case?

<comment><USER33> I believe it has gotten easier. But the problem is not so much Rails itself - Rails has gotten steadily better at reducing coupling. The problem is that Rails on its own is not that interesting - what makes Rails is the ecosystem around it. And a lot of the Rails philosophy (convention over configuration etc.) contributes to an environment where people make a lot of assumptions. Active Record is often one of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Fight project bloat and misguided architectural patterns! Use Meteor and save yourself from all the headaches! Make webdev great again! #neverrails

<comment><USER36> Yeah, going with Mongo was a choice that would really save everyone from headaches.</comment></comment>