Near-Collapse of ZTE May Be China's Sputnik Moment - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/10/technology/china-technology-zte-sputnik-moment.html <comment><USER2> I think history will suggest that the end of Deng Xiaoping's long-term strategy of "hide our capacities and bide our time" around 2015 was too premature to meet the government of China's long-term goals. The moderate amount of international goodwill that existed seems to have completely evaporated and been replaced with significant amounts of suspicion following the events of the past few years in the region.

Because of this, China finds it harder than ever to access US semi-conductor technology through financial means, being blocked from acquiring companies due to national security concerns. Even deals without any immediately obvious problems such as Broadcom/Qualcomm are being blocked.

Additionally, the demographics situation is very severe in China, and made worse by the gender-imbalance among young people caused by the One Child Policy. While Chinese government debt and household debt rates are relatively low, company debts are extremely high. Far too high for a nation without a high per-capita GDP. Interestingly enough, the demographic situation in the US is highly favorable compared to all other advanced economies (it also has a debt problem though)

The demographic situation dovetails into this interesting op-ed piece [1] about offering more green cards to international students -- it argues that even with the high risks of espionage in certain areas, it's well worthwhile for the long-term US economic competitiveness. I submitted this article to HN a few hours ago, but after 10 upvotes it was flagged -- which is unfortunate, I thought it's a very intellectually stimulating topic of discussion that's urgently required in our open, inclusive society. I highly recommend people read the article and think deeply about it.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-04/trump- is-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-04/trump-is-closing- doors-to-world-s-smartest-people)

<comment><USER3> Idk I think US has bigger problems than whether it's semiconductor tech gets stolen. Social media and the news media have created such a dysfunctional environment that I am finding it increasingly hard to believe constructive debate/solutions on anything are possible until the underlying environment producing the dysfunction is cleaned up. If not we are just going to get more and more leaders from both sides propped up purely for skills to pander.

<comment><USER4> > If not we are just going to get more and more leaders from both sides > propped up purely for skills to pander.

While I share some of your concerns about the media, isn't this (just an uncharitable way of stating) the entire purpose of democracy?

<comment><USER5> Democracy assumes constructive attitude towards debate.

Today we are getting _it 's better to be wrong with our side, than right with the opponent_ partisanship instead.

<comment><USER6> Are you sure you just don't disagree with people and can't imagine that they'd disagree with you because you're so obviously right, so they must secretly agree you're correct, but continue with a charade? Otherwise you need to provide some clear citations to how millions of people could _know_ they are wrong but continue with their positions out of spite.

<comment><USER5> It's not only in politics, but also in business, sales, at job, etc. Have you ever witnessed a bubble in opinions in some company, group, etc? Job's RDF was a harmless form of this :)

Many have internalized their position and they won't secretly agree. They won't even realize why they disagree, and won't consider objective facts. Some tiny minority may be aware of that, but many have economic incentive to continue their position, that mortgage won't pay itself after all. Thinking too much about it just makes it harder.

I'm trying to stay in theoretical level and not provide any specific examples except the RDF, because they could be too political/divisive/controversial, and I don't want to argue the specific cases or take sides, but point out to the phenomenon itself.

<comment><USER6> Oh, I completely get what you're saying about the irrational obtuseness of our species. My only point of contention was that it is worse instead of simply more obvious. And my point was that since it is more obvious, things are very likely better. And maybe it just feels worse because all of a sudden, all of our differences are out in the open and we're going through this cathartic jolt of confronting the faults in our long held opinions in a messy, public contentious debate. But actually, issues such as racism, bigotry of gay people, attitudes towards poverty and early access to education, unequal access to justice, have never been more positive. And they've also never been this publicly debated by so many.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> While there couldn't be a better case than ZTE for the Chinese government to muster domestic support for its "Made in China 2025" policy, the Sputnik analogy is actually wrong for China. Sputnik was a national security matter and ZTE is a case about commerce.

China can actually supply most what ZTE needs to build functional telecom products (for example when the Obama administration cut off Intel sales to Chinese supercomputer projects, China went ahead and built the world's then fastest supercomputer with domestic chips anyway), it is just that they won't be competitive enough commercially. If both Huawei and ZTE were denied access to US products the pair could probably survive nicely in a closed Chinese market with somewhat inferior but perfectly functional offerings to Chinese telecoms. As it currently stands ZTE can't survive when its competitors don't suffer the same disadvantage.

This being a commercial matter means the Chinese effort may very well be commercially wasteful even if their defense ministry might appreciate the enhanced capability. Indeed if they could make commercially competitive products in the area there is no reason why they would not have made them already.

The right way to deal with this really is to just treat it as a commercial matter. ZTE would have failed with its resources transferred to a more capable firm. This still could be the effective outcome -- it is hard to imagine how telecoms world around can have confidence in ZTE when the supply could be turned off again over any minor infractions in the next ten years. The fine may be just the price to pay to buy time for a more orderly re-org.

<comment><USER8> > Sputnik was a national security matter and ZTE is a case about commerce.

China views not having full control of semiconductors and operating systems (desktop and smartphone) as a national security matter.

<comment><USER9> And not unreasonably, given the possibility of putting backdoors into these.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> China has an official plan, "Made in China 2025".[1] It's about moving up the value chain. Key areas are semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and aircraft engines.

China is still way behind in wafer fabs, but SIMC is coming along. Wikipedia says they're at 40nm, which is not close to the state of the art, but is good enough for much consumer electronics.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025)

<comment><USER11> They're at 28nm and building 8 core x86 chips that don't look terrible.

[https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/zhaoxin/microarchitectures/wuda...](https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/zhaoxin/microarchitectures/wudaokou)

<comment><USER12> While the article was insightful we cannot think linearly where two superpowers clash.

So I think we are lefting out the chance for a breakthrough. I imagine China could do their own Manhattan project for semiconductors and catch up faster.

<comment><USER11> I mean, they pretty clearly are doing their own Manhattan project for semiconductors, and are currently catching up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Things move too fast for a country to be fully self-sufficient in ALL technologies, unless you either accept being behind, and/or be stuck in trade wars.

Different countries have different "personalities" and thus will shine in some areas and stink in others. You have to think global to be competitive because you cannot do everything on your own.

The US is mostly an integrator of hardware and technology made abroad, for example. US focuses on cutting edge stuff, and "glues together" the parts from abroad to make it. When a product becomes a commodity, it slips offshore and the US then jumps into the Next Big Thing.

This model may not work for China. For one, they depend much more on personal relationships than contracts. Business relationships in the US are more transnational: easy come, easy go. This is well suited to fast-paced change. China's relationship model may struggle against this approach. But that doesn't mean there are not other niches. Germany and Japan do quite well by focusing on perfecting a niche(s) and less on changing quickly.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm surprised nothing has been said about Huawei's HiSilicon Kirin ARM chips. Their latest mobile chips are definitely on par with the best on the market.

Mediatek is also another big player among the chip manufacturer and they make their own-designed chips as well.

<comment><USER15> I don't think either of those companies have their own CPU cores though (they use Cortex).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I found this article pretty educating personally. Somehow, I always assumed/believed microchip tech is very advanced in China, but apparently its quite behind. 90% of the chips are imported according to this.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think this article paints a picture that somehow China is incapable of making semiconductor technology, whereas I think the main problem is that they just focused a bit too much on new technology (internet and software) as opposed to older stuff like processors. That's understandable when you consider that it would be grossly inefficient to reinvent the wheel.

<comment><USER18> Their lack of working semiconductor technology is definitely not the result of any lack of attempts at it on China's part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > In return, the company — once a symbol of China's progress and engineering > know-how — will be allowed to buy the American-made microchips, software and > other tools it needs to survive.

Aren't most mobile device SoC/ASICs made by non-US companies like TSMC and Samsung?

<comment><USER20> The _fabrication_ of SoCs for mobile is mostly at TSMC in Taiwan and Samsung in Korea, but the ownership of the chips is American. TSMC manufactures the die, but it's fair to say that Qualcomm is the one "making" it since they own the IP and do the front and back end design-work. Similarly, you can say Apple makes the iPhone, even though final assembly is done at Foxconn or Wistron.

<comment><USER21> Complete tangent, but in case someone else gets a chuckle out of it: the word "fabrication" means "creation"... but also serves as a synonym for "falsehood", almost an antonym in some contexts. I'm not aware of many words in English that can mean both a thing and its opposite. "Cleave" means to bind together, or to completely separate... Any language geeks out there know of others? Or what such words are called?

<comment><USER22> auto-antonyms.

<comment><USER21> bingo! thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> More funding coming this way for RISC-V

<comment><USER24> And [http://en.c-sky.com/](http://en.c-sky.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Curious how will this workout with Xi's unlimited terms presidency?

<comment><USER26> This will not work, unless Xi resigns with his staff, replacing them with actual competent ones. That would be a miracle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Good article for information and anecdotes but it also rubbed me wrong: smacking a bit of American Exceptionalism.

I am so used to hearing what is basically propaganda in our press about how much better we are than the rest of the world, that now articles like this inspire scepticism.

Our country (USA) does indeed have a lot of advantages with: technology and geographic isolation.

But we also have problems in income inequality and increasing corruption in our political system (Clintons, Trump, etc., etc.)

I really like the 'Sputnik' analogy because just as my country had an 'oh shit' moment when we realized we were behind, I expect the Chinese to go through the expensive and long process of owning the entire stack, micro chips, and up.

<comment><USER8> > I expect the Chinese to go through the expensive and long process of owning > the entire stack, micro chips, and up.

None of America's allies have chosen to "go through the expensive and long process of owning the entire stack" \- America's allies use Windows, Android, Qualcomm, Intel, etc.

If China really does want it's own home-built silicon running it's own written-at-home operating systems, they need decades and they'd just replicate what Microsoft or Google have done to date (and probably less well.) I don't doubt that the CCP do want that independence from American technology, but to truly be independent is really quite an extreme proposition.

<comment><USER28> There's certainly no need to write custom operating systems. China already happily customizes Android and Linux extensively across a wide range of devices. You can see this today just by walking down the street where there are street lights running linux.

As for silicon China doesn't have much choice in the matter. Their dependence on American silicon may in fact be their greatest security risk. It's clear that the US and its allies will weaponize this advantage (see Stuxnet) so anybody relying on these chips is ultimately at their mercy.

<comment><USER29> > Their dependence on American silicon may in fact be their greatest security > risk. It's clear that the US and its allies will weaponize this advantage > (see Stuxnet)

Please elaborate on this point, my understanding is Stuxnet relied purely on software vulnerabilities (to spread and to take control of the centrifuges). I don't think it used any hardware backdoors or anything. If it did, I'd have expected the roar to be _enormous_ , probably several times what we just had with Spectre/Meltdown.

<comment><USER28> The actual attack vector relies upon drivers signed by Taiwanese chip makers. (Taiwan happens yup be a country whose continued existence depends entirely upon the US.) If you depend upon say a Realtek card reader you're vulnerable.

<comment><USER29> > The actual attack vector relies upon drivers signed by Taiwanese chip > makers.

But that's not a hardware attack. IIRC, Stuxnet used driver signing certificates to bypass some _OS-level_ safeguards. It's quite possible that the needed certificates were _stolen_ from a manufacturer that poorly protected them.

When you said:

>> Their dependence on _American silicon_ may in fact be their greatest security risk. [emphasis mine]

The implication is that American silicon itself is backdoored. That may be true, but I don't think Stuxnet is in any way an example.

<comment><USER28> > The implication is that American silicon itself is backdoored.

There was no such implication. Compromising hardware never makes sense unless you can intercept the hardware en route (something the NSA has been known to do [1]).

> It's quite possible that the needed certificates were stolen from a > manufacturer that poorly protected them.

It's also possible that unicorns exist. Considering that certificates have been "stolen" from Taiwanese firms multiple times [2] I'd say it's not irrational to consider the possibility that these firms either are directly or via the Taiwanese government cooperating with US cyberattacks.

All of this indicates that yes, relying on such foreign chipsets is huge security threat. China imports an incredible $200 billion a year in such chips so even putting aside the huge technological attack surface associated with such a dependency the dependency constitutes an immediate economic vulnerability.

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an- nsa...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade- factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/)

[2] [https://www.wired.com/2015/06/foxconn-hack-kaspersky- duqu-2/](https://www.wired.com/2015/06/foxconn-hack-kaspersky-duqu-2/)

<comment><USER29> > I'd say it's not irrational to consider the possibility that these firms > either are directly or via the Taiwanese government cooperating with US > cyberattacks.

But to be totally clear: that's no more than speculation.

It's also not irrational to consider the possibility that there's been _no cooperation_ but that the certificates were _stolen_.

> It's also possible that unicorns exist. Considering that certificates have > been "stolen" from Taiwanese firms multiple times [2]

Malware that uses stolen certificates is less unique than once thought. If a group building a bank trojan can steal certs, I'm sure state intelligence agencies can too.

[https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2017/11/evasi...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2017/11/evasive-code-signed-malware-flourished-before-stuxnet-and- still-does/)

There is also some reason to think their certificates would be _targeted for theft_ , because code signed by those firms would be some of the _least conspicuous_. There are a lot of Taiwanese firms that make a lot of low- profile specialized support silicon that's literally _everywhere_ (Sound, USB, Wifi, etc), and a driver signed by one will arouse less suspicion. Inconspicuousness would be a _high priority_ for a nation-state hacker trying to avoid detection.

The possibility that the Stuxnet and Duqu certs were stolen is speculation too, but it's less inflammatory and more likely in my judgement.

It's also worth noting that getting explicit cooperation from a company to use their certificate would be risky for clandestine nation-state operation, since the more organizations that know about aspects of it, the more likely it will fail. If word got out that a particular code signing cert was shared, a rival actor could focus attention on suspicious code signed by that cert and be more likely to detect it.

>> The implication is that American silicon itself is backdoored.

> There was no such implication. Compromising hardware never makes sense > unless you can intercept the hardware en route (something the NSA has been > known to do [1]).

That's wrong. If the silicon is comprised from the get-go, there's no need for an interception step.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The recent rhetoric of NYTimes around a Trump-administration related issue is always like 'Why A would actually become not-A'.

A professor in physics dept. in University of Science and Technology of China at Hefei has complained that he could not find any student able to solve problems in textbooks, e.g. condensed matter physics, for years. Demography together with education reforms favoring liberal arts has destroyed tomorrow's engineers in China. Salary gaps from IT and financial sectors prohibited talents from entering traditional industries. Investment into the new tech surely helps but is not likely to completely overcome existing shortcomings in traditional materials and manufacturing industry in China.

</comment><comment><USER30> If Chinas leadership was smart they would push for open source commodity ics.

Opensource always wins and they could do a run around the US where old technologies like x86 die and all the experience built around then becomes irrelevant.

<comment><USER31> If it was smart, wouldn't the people who possess the knowledge and talent to turn sand (silicon) into borderline magic (modern nanometer fab) currently be doing that?

They aren't. So they are themselves either 'not very smart' or the contributions from 'open sourcing' is not actually very valuable. I think it's the latter.

<comment><USER30> They were the first movers so they cornered the market with an inferior product. Now that China has no hope of capturing the market to extract rents the next best alternative is to make extracting rents impossible, destroying the business model of the US companies who rely on said rents.

In terms of a trade war this has all the downsides of dumping products on the US firms with none of the downsides to the rest of the economy outside of the very top end of the supply side.

<comment><USER31> 'Inferior product...rent seekers' \- Yeah, that's why the Soviet Union started the silicon revolution, and why the Chinese currently lead the field, right?

They open sourced their fabs, and random farmers on collectives would come home (while starving) and make improvements in fab technology by candlelight.

If only they had you to guide them, with your advanced knowledge of economics, trade and process technology.

<comment><USER30> Every communist nation had a much larger high technology sector than similarly developed capitalist nations.

Unless you want to talk to me about the fabs in Portugal and Mexico in 1990 when compared to the ones in Bulgaria and the USSR you're making my point for me.

<comment><USER31> Yeah that's why engineers from Soviet Societies would scale barbed wire fences at the risk of getting shot to get here!

Communism is great if you like hunger and oppressive stupidity. "But it's never really been tried!" \- No, it has: it is fundamentally incompatible with freedom and/or intellect.

Nobody is buying what you're selling, champagne socialist.

<comment><USER30> Somehow there weren't that many engineers in Guatemala. Plenty of child prostitutes though. I guess capitalism really gives you want you want.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


AudioMass – free, open source, web-based Audio and Waveform editor - <AUTHOR> https://audiomass.co/ <comment><USER2> Hello hackernews!

I am the author! Wow, I can't believe the attention this is getting! Hopefully this proves to be useful as a tool, and not just as a JS demo! :)

The next plans are \- redo drawing library to further improve performance! \- polish a bit some audio plugins (like the paragraphic EQ) since some parts feel a bit off (the limiter, paragraphic eq for example). \- Add some tutorials! Some things might not be straightforward like using Shift + [keys] for shortcuts etc. \- Easier recording mode (like the ability to open a new empty audio project) \- Multitrack mode, for more channels! \- play a bit more with the concept of having different windows that can be in different screens (check out the frequency analyzer under "view")

To answer a few questions, I plan to have a very open license this is just a fun side project for me. but I need to figure out the licenses of some libs I am using first (eg wavesurfer, lzma-wasm) and do proper attribution!

Thanks again!

PS. I wrote this in 2018, and just kept it on my hard disk until recently, so certain features might be slightly different than back then :)

<comment><USER3> Hi, I work at Mozilla doing audio programming for Firefox, I see in your about page that you have issues with the Web Audio API, ping me (same nick a bit everywhere on the web, and also @mozilla.com) and we'll answer any question or fix any issue you have. Lots of things have happened in the audio space on the web since 2018!

In particular, low latency (like native roundtrip latencies, so <10ms easy, but depending on the OS) no-jitter/real-real-time audio programming is now something that developers can do. Lock-free/wait-free programming and SIMD are coming in the next weeks/months.

Very cool project in any case, I'll use it when I need to quickly do very high zoom on wave forms to debug things for Firefox.

<comment><USER4> When can have we web midi (and no not sysex ;)

Sooooo?

<comment><USER5> Seconded, web midi is a big showstopper for Mozilla and should have more priority than the various bells and whistles that Mozilla does seem to prioritize but that ultimately are not part of a browser.

Not being able to use Midi from FireFox means that for a whole raft of possible applications Chrome is the only option, which is a real pity.

Please, please, pretty please, give web midi a higher priority.

<comment><USER6> Curious, what applications need web midi?

<comment><USER7> Most music-related applications wanting to offer generic hardware support and hackability. Midi is an amazing standard. It allows you to hook up a synthesizer from the early 80s to your 2020 laptop (via a midi-capable audio interface) and control almost anything in your modern DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). And if your Web browser has support for it, control a software synth or any application as well.

In addition to just musical instruments, a huge number of different hardware still use midi. I'm personally interested in DJ-world where things like DJ- and light-controllers use midi and therefore are very easily remappable and very hackable (if the sw is built correctly).

I've wanted to build some DJ-related sw myself that would work via browser but the fact that currently only Chrome supports the standard has so far kept me off it. I'd very much like to see Firefox supporting Web midi.

<comment><USER6> Right, I understand what MIDI is for, but usually music software has these real-time requirements on performance and the browser runs javascript, so... What are the applications for web midi? People aren't mixing their music on the browser nowadays, right?

<comment><USER8> Just to throw out an example from a friend's company: online piano lessons. MIDI input in the browser makes it possible for them to tell if you played the correct notes on your keyboard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Author again here! Now that this is finally sunsetting, I feel a bit more comfortable writing some things I 've learnt today!

\- First of all, I am amazed at the suggestions and love this is getting. I have been dog fooding it by using it to quickly edit foley audio from a tascam hand-microphone device, in order to make some cheap sound effects for a game project I am working on. The point is, I thought I was aware of all bugs, and all areas of improvement, and I am humbled to have my mind opened and see how valuable outside perspectives are! It's so easy get tunnel vision and think you know best I guess.

\- Secondly... as I said I wrote this in June 2018, and just... kept it... I guess I was afraid of sharing it to the world, perhaps the audio people would get mad at me for making mistakes with the audio api (like the fade in/fade out being linear). Perhaps the javascript people would make fun of me for just using Vanilla JS.

But if this is impressive in 2020, imagine how impressive it would have been back in 2018! So I guess my point is. Share your work! Do not be afraid to put it out there!

\- If anyone is interested on how it is built, and how the interface complexities are managed, even though it is just plain old school JS that has the reputation of being notoriously difficult to maintain, I would be happy to make a write-up shortly, or perhaps give a talk on it.

\- Third... (hopefully that is ok). If you like AudioMass, and like the way it is built and it performs, perhaps you might enjoy working together with me. We are doing cutting edge computer vision, and well.. some CRUD stuff too! My company is hiring (info in my profile). But please be advised that due to covid-19 things may take longer or may not be fully up to date.

PS. As for license, I will probably choose something like "wtfpl.net". if it can help you learn something, or build something, go ahead! If you noticed, the page doesn't have any tracking (I realy don't know how many visitors came (I also disabled nginx logs)). And of course no ads at all. I 'm just trying to build cool and useful stuff!

<comment><USER9> I love the wtfpl, but I recommend the unlicense over it, esp for something semi-serious like this: [https://unlicense.org/](https://unlicense.org/)

<comment><USER2> Thank you for the suggestion! Unlicense does seem much better and their website has a valid SSL cert, unlike the wtfpl one... So, this is probably the one! Will update the repo later tonight! Cheers!

<comment><USER10> By choosing a rebel license like the WTFPL or Unlicense, you are going to limit your world of potential users and collaborators. There are people that do that deliberately, such as Doug Crockford and the JSON license, but if you're going to do that, you really should do it from a position of expertise.

To maximize the reach of your program, you would be well-served to select one of top-ten or top-twenty popular FOSS licenses. I could provide a list but any list would be biased; just google it.

I have my opinions about which FOSS license I would select, but I'm going to suppress them because I just want to help you ease into the mainstream.

A decent way to choose would be to look at what community you want to be a part of and see what the predominant license choice is within that community.

<comment><USER11> Unlicense is not "a rebel license like the WTFPL".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Was _really_ not expecting to be impressed by this, but it's excellent. The inclusion of a spectrogram is a very nice touch.

The ability to preview EQ changes while the audio is playing back is impresssive, although the x-axis scale on the parametric isn't helpful - everything below 1kHz is squashed into the left-most 10% of the plot.

Some small nitpicks are that it's currently quite fiddly to use the compressor without a gain reduction meter, and my usual bugbear with simpler audio editors: that fade-outs are almost never useful unless you can alter the curve.

But the fact that this is working so smoothly in a browser at all, and in Firefox to boot, is really commendable.

<comment><USER10> It also has my usual bugbear in that fades are calculated linearly rather than logarithmically as humans actually perceive loudness. (Decibels are logarithmic for a reason.)

How come so many apps get this wrong? This is really basic psychoacoustics, _and_ linear fades sound terrible!

> _fade-outs are almost never useful unless you can alter the curve._

I agree, but would like to add that you should be altering a logarithmic curve.

<comment><USER2> You are 100% correct. I guess it's because it's a js developer doing audio, instead of an audio engineer doing js! So I have a lot to learn, most of the plugins have minor issues, but I 'll be focusing in correcting those when I get the chance!

<comment><USER13> I agree with the above posters. Things like normalize as well should also probably have their value expressed as dB as that's kind of the industry norm from what I understand.

I do have to say, this is a super cool tool and I've definitely bookmarked it. I normally use tools like Audacity to quickly record, trim, and normalize audio tracks so this tool fits my use cases very well. Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> We have Photopea ([https://www.photopea.com/](https://www.photopea.com/)) for images, and now we have AudioMass for audio. I love these open source, web based tools that work fantastic. Great job!

<comment><USER15> Wait, Photopea is open source?!

<comment><USER16> [https://github.com/photopea/photopea](https://github.com/photopea/photopea)

<comment><USER15> That's a repo with a Readme and 4 image files for the logo...

<comment><USER16> Yep, that's what I was showing. It's got a GitHub but it's not FOSS

<comment><USER17> Just a link is not really showing. Everyone knows nobody clicks on the links, we demand instant explanations!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wow, that's fantastic... one thing I noticed instantly is that (to me) the UI/UX is so intuitive. I use Audacity a lot, and the UI on that for core operations: zooming, unzooming, trimming, selecting... is so much more clunky (I can never figure out how to "unzoom") - it drives me mad every time.

This one one intuitive and natural. I'd have to evaluate how file system handling worked, but just based on the UI and snappiness - I'd use this over Audacity for any quick-n-dirty audio editing tasks. Really cool!

<comment><USER19> Agreed. Audacity is great for quick audio editing but the selecting/dragging/zooming experience is quite annoying. It would be great to have Ableton's bird-eye view feature, it's super intuitive and really responsive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Works great! Near-native web audio on the horizon ;)

High Performance Web Audio with AudioWorklet in Firefox 76

[https://hacks.mozilla.org/2020/05/high-performance-web- audio...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2020/05/high-performance-web-audio-with- audioworklet-in-firefox/)

<comment><USER21> I wonder if iOS is ever going to catch up, I'm still waiting for them to implement getFloatTimeDomainData(). [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/AnalyserNod...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/AnalyserNode/getFloatTimeDomainData)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is the GitHub repo: [https://github.com/pkalogiros/audiomass](https://github.com/pkalogiros/audiomass) (accessible under the "help" menu)

<comment><USER23> Looks like they haven't added a license yet. I hope they do, if this is intended to be an open source project. [https://github.com/pkalogiros/AudioMass/issues/1](https://github.com/pkalogiros/AudioMass/issues/1)

<comment><USER24> They're telling people to please checkout the repo and have fun, which I think is almost a license in and of itself (of course you are then legally obliged to have fun should you choose to use the license), but explicit is better than implicit in these cases.

<comment><USER25> "Checkout and have fun" does not say anything about redistribution, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It appears the entire app was written with vanilla JS. That's just an observation. I wouldn't have expected that nowadays.

The app is super impressive!

<comment><USER5> That's a huge plus in my book. Frameworks tend to obscure what the application actually does because there is orders of magnitude more framework code than there is application code, and frameworks tend to be very indirect when going about their business with 12 different layers hit for a simple operation.

<comment><USER26> As a counter, if you look at the code, there's a lot of DOM api calls littered throughout which obscure what is going on. This could be relieved by pulling out the DOM manipulation into common constructs that all parts of the app use, but then you're creating your own framework/library and might be better off using a battle tested one.

<comment><USER27> Given how responsive the UI is compared to most modern UIs built in the "battle tested" frameworks & libraries, I suspect the recommendations in this comment are all well and good in theory, but not necessarily reflective of reality in practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Reminds me of the audio editor that shipped with Windows...95? Had some great times with that thing reversing everything in earshot, doing reverse reverb etc etc

edit: this thing [https://i.imgur.com/UXqSteO.png](https://i.imgur.com/UXqSteO.png)

<comment><USER29> Ha, I remember how proud I was when I discovered a "hack" to increase the max recording duration (from 30s to X minutes[⋆]):

1\. record silence

2\. copy paste the recording till you achieve the desired length

3\. start recording from the beginning

On AudioMass and its performance/snappiness: this feels much more smooth than Audacity on my MBP, so I'll give it a shot soon.

⋆ or: whatever the memory limitations of your PC were

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Please forgive me for being self-centered. I _DO_ think AudioMass is great. I'm running it locally and I even contributed by posting a legit issue in github. But here's the self-centered part: The other day I posted a "Show HN" for something web audio related that I wrote and got crickets so I'd like to try again: [https://ctrager.github.io/music_tools](https://ctrager.github.io/music_tools). Especially check out "Pitch Detector". All three tools are standalone single HTML files that don't need a server.

<comment><USER31> These are interesting tools. Pitch detector didn't seem to work too well for me but no doubt my bad singing. You could probably just show both clefs with the relevant clef symbol at the beginning rather than making it an option. For the beat detector, it would be interesting to see average distance from the beat in order to try to improve. It could be a game following a rhythm easily.

Think for HN you probably need a quick demo that will attract more of the large number of people who are not necessarily going to use this tool long term. Give people a hook. Also keep trying, because it's pretty random what gets voted up on any one day. I think with some development and innovation this could be a useful tool. You've also not got any contact info which makes it harder for interested people to get in touch if they like your stuff.

<comment><USER30> I can't really make it work with singing either, but it works well when I play violin. My motivation is just pitch, to give feedback to me playing violin or my wife trying to learn viola.

<comment><USER32> Check out "Intonia", works brilliantly with stringed instruments

<comment><USER30> I had tried it briefly because my favorite youtube violin teacher Beth Blackerby recommended it in one of her videos, and it's great. But, I wanted the experience of coding something myself (I'm retired, hadn't coded in four years, lockdown has made me antsy) and I wanted something that was a standalone single HTML file, and I wanted something that felt easier. So, I ignore the time dimension and paint the notes on the staff the way a player is used to reading them rather than Intonia's interface which looks more technical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> My first thought: add WebRTC voice chat and the ability to record all participants in separate channels... would be awesome for podcast recording!

</comment><comment><USER34> 8/10, very promising. feels like Cooledit/Audition, which was for a long time the best of its class (Pro T Tools is the industry standard but that's based on long years of hardware-lock-in). Allow local instances and add Lua or similar user scripting and you've got a winner. Well done.

</comment><comment><USER35> May I ask, what the sample music is? Sounds like a movie score but Shazam doesn't recognizes it.

<comment><USER2> Haha, it's something I wrote a long time ago (around 10 years back). I wrote it in Cubase and if I recall correctly Symphobia was the primary VST used. I had way more time back then for music than I do now. If you like the piece feel free to grab it (test.mp3 in the github repo). Cheers!

<comment><USER35> Thanks! It's a bummer though: it sounds like a movie I'd like to watch :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I open Audacity about once every 3 months for some random audio editing, this is definitely a better/more intuitive app. Plus web based is awesome for something I use so infrequently. Great Work!

<comment><USER37> Don't knock Audacity, though. Fantastically useful piece of software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Very cool! I tried doing some signal processing stuff back in the day and got absolutely discouraged after discovering how much linear algebra was involved.

I particularly appreciate the ability to preview compression. Compression is probably what I use most when I'm editing audio and having that at my fingertips without loading Audacity or Ableton would be super nice for quick, rough changes.

One thing that I'd really like to see would be a de-essing plugin, or even better a multiband compressor.

</comment><comment><USER39> These are the exact tools I am constantly looking for. Full browser sandbox for no stress "install", local-first, offline-first, so you own your own data - then option for locally encrypted cloud backups. I am almost 100% web now, I use very few installed programs and am constantly trying to get that to zero. One day someone is going to collect all these best-in-class web tools and make a proper chromebook where the user owns their own data.

</comment><comment><USER40> This would make a good Electron app so it can also be used offline by regular people who don't want to or are unable to fuss with command line web servers.

<comment><USER41> Or a progressive web app that can be installed and work offline.

<comment><USER42> It works offline. Click help - Store offline.

Or just click this [https://audiomass.co/index- cache.html](https://audiomass.co/index-cache.html)

I've tested it. Disconnected wifi went to [https://audiomass.co](https://audiomass.co) and it worked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I dabble from time to time with _mixin rekids_ , and am presently trying to find an audio editor for simple cut n paste that _Audacity_. Must support MacOS.

What's is out there? My DuckFu is letting me down in this instance.

I'll give AudioMass a spin over the weekend, and like others have said if it could be a standalone Electron-based app that would probably work, and happy to throw a few antipodean dineros at it.

</comment><comment><USER44> Would be great if there was a VST like standard for audio effect plugins for web, so that many web-based audio apps could use the same plugins.

Saw something like that but for synths - [https://www.webaudiomodules.org/wamsynths/](https://www.webaudiomodules.org/wamsynths/)

<comment><USER2> That's insane! I 'm actually working on a lite-daw for web, so this is extremely interesting to me. However I do not plan to go very far. My angle is that this should be a tool to experiment and try out things with minimal friction, then for any serious work, perhaps users can look into professional solutions. Perhaps also take advantage of the web's collaborative nature and have multiple users share a session!

There are decades of research, feedback loops and work put into tools such as FruityLoops, Cubase, ProTools etc, and the thought of reimplementing parts of it for web is such a daunting task.

<comment><USER44> Multiplayer would be sweet for a web DAW, it rocks in design tools like Figma.

I think you are right, a light DAW would cover 80% of people's needs. And as long as you can export the track as midi and audio bounces, you could always continue it in a native DAW.

I would love to collab if you need UI/UX for this btw? I've worked on audio and DAW stuff for a long time, as well as open source. What's the best way to reach?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Features vs page load time is very impressive.

<comment><USER42> According to the about page, it's 65KB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> It'll be very fun over the years, for whoever is tasked with it, to fix all of the bugs bugs common to audio editors like this.

My favourite one is how, depending on when, resizing the selection while playing with loop enabled can cause the cursor to escape the selection (!). That was the first one I checked for when I opened this up.

</comment><comment><USER47> this brings me back to the days of cool edit pro! (Idk why!) but it is amazing that you can do that in a browser nowadays!

If I were to be super critical my only pet peeve has to do with the style of the menu :P The color (dark on light) seems disconnected from the rest of the app design and those big rounded corners gives the app a little bit of a toy- ish look (My point of reference for "pro" is something like Adobe Audition, Presonus StudioOne, Pro Tools, etc... kind of look) But that is just a personal preference (this is the radius I'm talking about [https://github.com/pkalogiros/AudioMass/blob/master/src/main...](https://github.com/pkalogiros/AudioMass/blob/master/src/main.css#L61))

But the project look awesome! keep it up!

</comment><comment><USER48> Does this load the whole file into memory while it's being worked on? What if you tried to load a file that is too big? I wonder with these more complex productivity web-apps becoming more common, how something like a video editor might work that needs to work on data too large to put in memory.

<comment><USER2> Yes, it is all in memory. I am taking advantage for IndexDB for local drafts. And localstorage for plugin presets. But it does not match the flexibility of being able to create lots of big uncompressed files and cache in the disk while workign on a project.

So everything needs to use lower fidelity settings, or do things like compress WAV files in a lossless way with LZMA since other avenues are too heavy. I am not seeing this becoming something like Audacity or Audition replacement, but a quick tool for modifying audio files on the fly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Very nice! I've recently tried covering some similar ground for a side project ([https://forkjam.com/new](https://forkjam.com/new)) so I have an idea of how much work this is.

I take it you took the approach of using WASM for audio decoders?

</comment><comment><USER50> This is really cool, thanks for sharing!

I'm noticed my CPU fan at full blast and checked my processes (then Chrome task manager), I had left it open an it was using 80-95% CPU in the background.

Tested again, it seems to be the spectrum analyzer (even after I pause playback, or close the analyzer window).

</comment><comment><USER5> This is smack in the path of Audacity, very nice work. Is it possible to load midi synchronized to an audio file? That's a weak point in Audacity, it can't really edit the midi as you go through the audio and for some tasks that would be extremely useful to have.

</comment><comment><USER51> This is awesome. As an avid past user of Cool Edit 2000 and Adobe Edition 1.5, I love this project. Fantastic to see something familiar in a browser. As a bonus it hits me right in the nostalgia. I'll be watching and supporting this!

</comment><comment><USER52> If i could suggest anything it would be a way to make a selection while playing. Like hold down shift, press space bar, and then press space bar again, and it's all selected.

</comment><comment><USER53> Great work!!! I've been wanting to do something like this for a while. I'm glad someone is leveraging the web to build a real open source DAW!

</comment><comment><USER54> This is great! When working with large files, I'd like zoom in/out to be a bit snappier. I'd also like right click -> zoom to selection.

</comment><comment><USER55> Very simple, but clean, works like a charm, perfect set of effect and import/export features. I need to check if it works as a PWA.

Kudos to the creator!

</comment><comment> kube-system When I try to play the sample in Brave I only get sound for a couple of seconds before it goes quiet. In FF it works correctly.

</comment><comment><USER56> I would love the ability to label and extract sections like in audacity! That's the only thing missing from my use case

<comment><USER2> You can extract sections (as mp3 by selecting, and then File > Extract mp3 > current selection). Or File > Save Local Draft (and you can open the selection as a standalone audio project).

Being able to label things with markers and different colors though would be fantastic! It's in the plans, once a bit better audio handling of slices (eg cross-fading, mix-dragging etc) is added!

<comment><USER56> I noticed that and I do think it is nice. I have to extract and transcribe long sequences, so it would be nice to have the audacity label track feature to bookmark/label a bunch of sections and then output them as individual files named by their label along with a .txt. This is audacity's format:

start end label_name

1.02302 2.23193 label_1

You could take it further and have some numeric labeling (audacity doesn't autofill) and that'd be even nicer. This would be super helpful for working with speech processing data. Regardless, keep up the good work!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> It took me a few seconds on how to use this, but once I figured it out, I was like, damn, this is pretty cool!

I wish there was a cli for this

</comment><comment><USER58> Really great project, nice job author, hoping to use it as a starting point/inspiration for some projects of my own.

</comment><comment><USER59> Now slap cloud storage, collaborative editing/highlighting and paid accounts on it - this is impressive software!

<comment><USER60> Soundcloud meets Github!

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> This looks really cool, by the nature of my user name I must greedily request vintage sampler modes. :)

</comment><comment><USER62> Impressive. Back in the day, SoundEdit16 was the thing. I hope they clone or skin it like that

</comment><comment><USER63> Impressive - always amazed at the low-level stuff you can do in browsers nowadays. Nice job.

</comment><comment><USER64> How do I delete a highlighted section? I feel like I am missing something simple.

</comment><comment><USER65> Amazing stuff, thanks for sharing. Works great in my iPhone 6 browser

</comment><comment><USER66> This us great! Kinda reminds me of cool edit pro (two point oooooh)

</comment><comment><USER44> nice, was just looking for a free audio editor and could only find things that look like they're from the 90's (Audacity).

.wav export would be grand!

</comment><comment><USER67> Awesome - kind of reminds me of the Renoise interface!

</comment><comment><USER68> For a second I thought this is a WebAssembly app :)

Nice job!

</comment><comment><USER69> Good job, like to see some good tutorials.

</comment><comment><USER70> The UI is cool looking.

</comment><comment><USER71> Really slick! Love this.

</comment><comment><USER72> Nice spectrum analyzer!

</comment><comment><USER73> thanks!</comment>


Ask HN: What should I do before starting my job in October 2014? - <AUTHOR>

I live in Australia and I got job offer in Silicon Valley, but can only start in October this year due to visa reason.<p>now I want to make use of this 10 months' time in Australia to do something useful. I applied for Google and was rejected, before that I couldn't find a satisfactory job in AU. I have some savings in the bank and can afford to living a few months without income. What would you suggest me to do with this time to make the most out of it? <comment><USER2> I'll walk the apalachian trail, at least a part of it. It's almost 6 months walking. It's hard to have another oportunity like this to do it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Australia</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How did you pick your lawyer or law firm? - <AUTHOR>

(ok, take two on this)
I'm a few months into my startup and need to incorporate and make it all "official".  It's a tech startup (duh), so will be doing founder stock, bringing on employees, raising capital at some point, etc (the usual things that a startup does).
If you have picked, or are going through the process of picking a lawyer or law firm to work with, what criteria did you use or why did you pick the lawyer/firm that you're using?
I realize there will be a bunch of varying opinions about this, but I'd like to hear what other folks have done.  Thanks. <comment><USER2> Here is what I did. I got a recommendation from someone I trust who has run (and sold) a few successful businesses. This was years before I started my current venture. Reached out and ask the attorney to read my employment contracts every few years. It only ever took an hour or two of his time for each one and built trust on both sides. (you would be amazed the stuff in employment contracts btw... it's always worth the couple hundred bucks to have them looked over.)

When my partner and I were hashing out our operating agreement it was an easy call to make and the trust was already established. I guess this is not very helpful to your situation since you are already in it but I'd suggest going to someone you trust and asking for a personal recommendation. Someone with experience like ejain said is a good idea as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have worked in two law firms so I will try to give you some insight.

When you first arrange to meet firm X or Y they will send you a couple of their partners. Trust me when I say you will probably never see these people again unless you try to leave the company you are going for.

At the initial meeting listen to all the information they have to say. Ask them about rates, any similar companies to you, what extras they have to offer (sometimes they will offer you massively reduced rates on other legal matters (moving home, wills, etc)).

After this meeting go away think about what they have said. If you liked the partner arrange meeting two. Arrange this in a local coffee shop. Say you are really interested in going with them but you would like to meet the persons handling your case load. Most firms will be more than happy to do this, (some will cringe).

At meeting two if the person there is not a junior case handler then know they have not sent the person handling your case load. Lawfirms (especially big ones) will not hand a small account to a partner or senior case handler. Again ask questions and see if you get a long with them.

After working in a law firm for a couple of years I can tell you there are two types of case handlers. People you will get along with (these people dont generally have there head up there arse) and people you wont (these people generally think they have the biggest go-nads in the room).

</comment><comment><USER4> I read an article on Techvibes written by a lawyer who is interested in working exclusively with startups and SMEs. His website has an online form for Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions quotes. It was very straightforward - you fill in some information about your startup and that's it. He called the next day and got more details. His pricing is great and he is flexible on payment terms for startups. So that's how I became a client . . . if you are in Canada PM me and I'll send you his info. He does incorporations too - although if again, if you are in Canada you can do a Federal Inc online for $200.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm a startup lawyer at one of the big firms in SV.

My recommendation would be to shop around and find someone that you like working with, and most importantly, ask to meet the junior associate that will be doing most of the work for you. Your ideal fit will be a partner that will help you with the big strategic decisions (because they've seen other startups grow) and a junior associate that is responsive and fun to work with.

</comment><comment><USER6> Knowing that the price of tall buildings typically grows faster than linear we chose the law firm that occupied multiple floors of the tallest building.

<comment><USER7> An interesting approach. It might, however, be optimizing for the wrong thing.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been talking to friends, and one friend who had a startup said they went for the big guns (Wilson Sonsini, Orrick, Fenwick & West, etc) since they thought it would look better to VCs when they went to get their Series A. That's a criteria I hadn't thought of. What do you think of it?

</comment><comment><USER8> Where are you located? If possible, pick a lawyer who is used to working with tech startups. Such lawyers will sometimes do free "office hours", which is a good opportunity for you to "interview" the lawyer.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm in Mountain View, so yeah, i'm in the thick of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have a preference for lawyers with previous Big Firm experience that have graduated to smaller firm or solo-practitioner status. They typically have a mix of major league seasoning and a certain rugged business acumen.

</comment><comment><USER10> If you are in Australia use our service.. lawpath.com.au</comment>


Say hello to the hideous new USB 3.0 cable - <AUTHOR> http://www.androidbeat.com/2013/09/say-hello-hideous-new-usb-3-0-cable-new-smartphone-tablet-will-come

<comment><USER2> A cable plug that includes a strong tactile directional affordance? Oh no!</comment>


Ask HN:  What have you changed your mind about recently? - <AUTHOR> For me, I now believe that hypnosis is a real phenomenon: http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?article_id=218392595 <comment><USER2> Something I read in Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell shocked me into reconsidering my role as a father. I'm not a big fan of that book in general, but I found a pearl in there.

I used to think that I needed to set and enforce hard rules, as if this will teach my kids order. I don't want them to take the easy way out or try to negotiate everything. I thought my approach was a good balance to my wife's, as she doesn't assert much authority.

According to a study mentioned in Outliers, my style of parenting is prevalent among the poorer social class, and it leads to a mindset of resignation. Wealthier parents listen more to their children, negotiate with them, and help them take their place in the adult world rather than just be quiet and follow the rules.

This idea has connected a lot of dots for me, and I think I can be a better father than I have been.

<comment><USER3> Don't be too hard on yourself, and don't go too far in the opposite direction. Kids do want boundaries, and they are happier when they have them. Watching my 8-year-old nephew's behavior bears this out perfectly; when he's given lots of input into plans and opportunity to negotiate, he acts like a demon and ends up melting down and unhappy. When given rules he's a happy angel.

I think the trick is to not open the floor to negotiation. If kids have reasonable objection or points you hadn't considered, they will raise the point and you can modify the rule. If they know that they are "negotiating" just to get their own way and that it won't work, they won't waste the time-- and everyone will be happier.

That's my experience, anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The late Roman empire, thanks to _Theodosius: The Empire at Bay_ :

[http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?bi=0&bx=of...](http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?bi=0&bx=off&ds=30&sortby=17&sts=t&tn=theodosius+empire+at+bay&x=0&y=0)

I used to have very unclear picture of the late empire. Without thinking about it too much, I bought into the pervasive idea (probably due mostly to Gibbon) that the late empire had lost its Roman mojo: that it had become barbarized (what does that mean?) and worn out (why then?). Now I have a higher opinion of the late empire. They lost largely because they faced harder problems. The empire was depopulated, partly no doubt due to epidemics, and the barbarians on the frontiers were a greater threat than they had been in the time of Augustus.

I'm only half way through the book, but it's already the best thing I've read on the period. It would be worth reading for their revisionist view of Adrianople alone.

<comment><USER5> In "Mohammed and Charlemagne" by Henri Pirenne, the whole Mediterranean region after collapse of the Roman empire still enjoyed prosperity. The economy went down after trades in Mediterranean sea decreased due to Muslim Arabs had taken control the area.

<comment><USER4> It's a great book, but the Pirenne thesis has since been pretty thoroughly debunked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Gun control in the U.S.. I used to be more in favor, with the goal of a safer society as well as one less inclined to the isolation of sub-populations.

Now, I'm considering widespread ownership more in terms of a last bulwark against one or another form of totalitarian rule. Perhaps it is a limiting factor against pushing the population too far. You might call this a knee-jerk reaction; nonetheless, it's on my mind.

I still consider most unfortunate the additional, lethal violence that the ready availability of firearms (legal and illegal) seems to cause. The question for me is, is it a -- I hate to use this term -- necessary cost.

I feel a little uncomfortable writing about this, nor do I claim to be especially informed on the topic, but since you asked.

<comment><USER7> About 15 years ago, I was at a state sponsored meeting in Minot ND. A group the state hired was there telling us about risk factors in the community. The group hired was from the west coast and all the research they cited was studies done in low income urban areas. They pointed out guns were a big risk factor. The head of one of the local social service programs took exception to this. He asked how many people in the room owned a gun. With the exception of myself, everyone raised their hands (my parents owned firearms and I never bought one myself). He then started counting upwards and more then half owned over 3 firearms. He felt the study had no relevance to the area. Examine Switzerland for another example of prevalent firearms.

People inclined to do violence to others will do so regardless of the weapons available. Swimming pools are more dangerous to children than firearms in the house. My take has always been that the weakening of one amendment will allow avenues of attack on the others.

<comment><USER8> Switzerland is actually a very bad example to use. The unusally (for Europe) high number of firearms there is because the members of the militia army keep an assault rifle at home. This is rather different from a handgun or a shotgun, and you're not allowed to use them outside military training.

<comment><USER7> In a lot of ways, I think it is a very good example. They have access and advanced training (assault rifles are actually very hard to use). The fact that the citizens obey the law and don't use their weapons for greater crime is telling.

<comment><USER9> Correct. Guns are not the problem, culture is the problem. But if you have a bad culture, firearms can make it worse. But the reverse can also be true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> PHP. It is neither useless nor used only by the contemporary version of AOL proggie coders. For many things, it really makes life easier (e.g. deployment via SCP).

<comment><USER10> I was up voted more than I thought. I just wrote a blog post follow up.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=904018>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Religion. I was born & raised a devout Baptist Christian (and creationist). But in the past 5 months, I've read about 50 books and hundreds of web pages and decided that agnostic atheism [1] and evolution make more sense.

Hopefully I didn't just devolve this into a religion argument...

[1] "Agnostic atheist" == I can't say for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I will live my life on the assumption he is not there.

<comment><USER12> Same here, only the other way. After being an atheist my entire life, I got more interested in religion over the past few months. After listening to dozens of hours worth of podcasts, and reading a few books and academic journal articles, I've decided that there is such a thing as a "primary religious experience." Furthermore, it's pretty clear that while academia can verify that this experience exists, science can't really go much further than that, at least in its current state.

As to whether this experience is caused by contact with god, or the sacred, or whatever, I'd put myself in your same "agnostic atheist" camp. Only I'd say that I'll approach some future experiences on the assumption that God is there. (Not that I'm going to go out and become super religious or anything, but being able to suspend disbelief once and a while is the key to making things fun, whether it's watching Star Wars or reading about Mysticism or whatever.)

That's the real take away I think, that in the same way most people don't like math because they were "mathematically abused" as kids, most people don't like religion because they were religiously abused as kids. When actually learning about religion is kinda fun and intellectually interesting.

<comment><USER13> The feeling of "spirituality" is certainly universal; after all, so many people have it that it would be absurd to call it purely a cultural construct. However, as far as we can tell, the generation of these feelings is not associated with any external sensor, the way that the experience of seeing is connected with your eyeballs. In all probability, the feeling of religiosity is mind-bound phenomena, much like love and awe, and are not capable of detecting any real external phenomena.

On another note...

I'm an atheist, but I wasn't religiously abused as a kid. I just am interested in science. The fantasies of others is considerably less entertaining than understanding the nature of the universe.

<comment><USER12> "In all probability, the feeling of religiosity is mind-bound phenomena, not capable of detecting any real external phenomena."

That's an interesting use of the word probability.

Can you justify that position using arguments qualitatively different than those used to justify the opposite position? (That the full-blown mystic experience is qualitatively different than anything that science has ever explained before or any experience generated from within the body, and thus there is no reason to believe that it's necessarily scientifically explainable or endogenous.)

As I said I'm actually more or less with you, I just see the logic of what the other side is saying.

<comment><USER13> (tl;dr Science can explain these experiences, but people just don't find the explanations satisfying.)

Many folks, religious or not, believe that many powerful experiences (like love or religion) aren't scientifically explainable. However, I think it's because such explanations aren't emotionally satisfying. Such explanations are usually either proximate (i.e. mechanistic) or ultimate (evolutionary.) and people just don't like that.

To use love as an example:

Proximate explanation: When two individuals have different MHC profiles, they are more likely to smell good and be attracted to each other. This attraction can sometimes lead to sex. After orgasm, the hormone vasopressin is released which causes a warm fuzzing feeling in both partners. After repeated instances of sex, there is a learned association of this nice feeling and being with the other person leading them to hang out with each other a lot.

Ultimate explanation: individuals which pair bond, resulting in biparental care, produce offspring which are more likely to survive to the next generation than those which do not.

But no one likes to think about that when they're snuggling up to their mate.

"Religiosity" isn't so cut and dry as love. The proximate explanation of spirituality is fairly well established by science i.e. religious experiences can be induced artificially with drugs (psychobilin) or electrical stimulation of the brain. The ultimate explanation I think is less convincing than for love. Most evolutionary psychologists consider religion a byproduct of adaptive psychological traits, such as superstitiousness (associating negative events with some cause- it's more costly to fail to learn what causes negative events than to associate unrelated events) and agency (a similar explanation- it's adaptive to assume that most things are caused be agents, i.e. a rustle in the leaves is a hungry predator, not the wind. If we assume it's the wind and it isn't, we're in trouble, but not if it's the other way around.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My biggest mental shift recently is an appreciation for ambiguity in language. Three months ago, if someone would have asked me, "Can you gain important topical insights from the ambiguous use of language?" I'd have said, "No, of course not: if you aren't precise in what you discuss, that creates a barrier to communication and makes things more confusing rather than clarifying. Intelligence is, in a large part, the ability to make fine distinctions and precise language helps make those distinctions."

I still see the value in precise language, but I now see it far more as one more tool in my toolbox rather than "THE WAY THINGS MUST BE!" And I've also come to see that my near-totalitarian enforcement of precision was prohibiting me from using other tools.

By analogy: suppose you want to know more about butterflies. Certainly catching them and pinning them to a spreading board is one way to study them: you can measure them exactly, you can count their spots and identify their coloration precisely. But you don't capture all that it is to observe a butterfly that way--you don't comprehend its flight, its movement, its way of being in motion.

Now, clearly I understand that, in a sense, I've only become 'more precise' in my language, willing to 'evoke ambiguity' when precisely necessary. But I can only protest that this fails to understand what I've gained from a willingness to recognize the value of ambiguity.

<comment><USER15> So you've just discovered poetry?

<comment><USER14> I've long appreciated poetry for it's ability to 'get at' the world in ways that I would consider rather precise. Metaphors are not a tool of ambiguity, but rather precision.

Though I haven't read much poetry (nothing that doesn't appear in Harper's or New Yorker): I'll have to go back and re-read some things to see in what ways my interpretation has changed, if at all.

<comment><USER16> I'm partial to Kipling's "If," which should be quite popular among this crowd: [http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Rudyard_Kipling/kipl...](http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Rudyard_Kipling/kipling_if.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I changed my mind on event models in stateless protocols. I used to think, "Oh, that sounds nifty. I bet it works really well, and simplifies the wiring."

Now I think, "Wait, how can an event work in a stateless... Oh, that's just sneaky Microsoft."

Not by choice, rather by circumstance, I have been writing Web Forms apps in ASP.NET for the last year. Took me that long to realize that something about the whole idea just doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER18> I recently came upon MVC, and similary was enlightened re. the events within ASP.NET WebForms. I highly reccomend checking out thier approach: its incredibly flexible from a very low level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've been thinking a lot about happiness, learning, and experiences.

When you get right down to it, we only have a few short years in the sun. 80 years is less than nothing when compared to the age of the earth - let alone the solar system or universe - so it would appear rational to maximize your experiences, knowledge, and relationships because they would seem to lead to an increase in happiness.

One real-world consequence of this thinking is that I've found myself much more likely to consider switching jobs than my risk-averse persona would predict, especially if I see a new offer as a challenging opportunity to improve myself.

</comment><comment><USER20> The best way to implement health care in the United States.

<http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200909/health-care>

<comment><USER16> I enjoy Ezra Klein as a left-perspective, wonky (politically technical, if you're not familiar with the term) writer who has a special focus on the intricacies of health care policy.

<http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/>

<comment><USER21> Trivia note: "wonk" is a fairly new word, having been coined in the last decade or two if I remember correctly.

It used to stand for WithOut Normal Knowledge, meaning people who had a lot of ideas but not much practical experience. I think lately the definition has broadened to mean just intricately technical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Obama. He talked change and kept all the same financial advisers of the prior administrations.

<comment><USER23> What about all those paycuts for bankers though? I can't imagine those happening under Bush or McCain. Or are they just cosmetic (I'm not American and not overly familiar with the details)?

<comment> brown9-2 Cosmetic in that they only affect a handful of banks, and none of the major profit-winners such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't really want to be rich, I'd rather make interesting and fun stuff.

<comment><USER25> Inverse here

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Whether I really belong here. I used to think it was a given, now I'm really not sure. So much stuff I'm interested in gets completely ignored, and I'm pretty sure it's been seen. There's the occasional zinger, but I no longer think I'm a good match for this community.

<comment><USER21> That's an interesting frame to the question -- whether you are a good match for the community.

Wouldn't the question work better the other way around -- Whether the community was a good match for you or not?

You would judge the answer based on how much the community helped you reach your goals. Whereas with the other question you're always looking outward for somebody else to validate you (which seems prone to getting bad feedback!)

<comment><USER26> Being a match is close to symmetrical, but "usefulness" perhaps isn't. I get a great deal from this site and the musings of many of its participants. It's only reasonable that I should try to give something back, but repeatedly things I think are interesting get absolutely no response.

With me getting a great deal out, but the community not getting much back, are we therefore a good match?

Perhaps that's not really the question, but I've come to realise that stuff I think is cool, enlightening or simply interesting, generally get very little response.

Unless people just don't see them.

<comment><USER18> Or they have nothing to add to the discussion/your point.

<comment><USER26> Usually if someone finds something find, interesting or enlightening they'll up-mod it. I don't care about the karma, I care about things being thought interesting enough to be up-mud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Nobel peace prizes. I used to see them as the ultimate award that could be earned and the ultimate award which humanity could bestow on an individual. Now I see them as a powerful and influential political tool.

I think many people came to that conclusion many years ago ... I am a bit slow on the uptake.

<comment><USER27> It would be great if a award, with a substantial prize (upwards of $10 million), was created to be awarded to the person that has done the most for the human race: for peace, heath care, human dignity, human rights and freedom.

Bill Gates .. you listening? ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> NASA and the ability for a government program to be startup-like, as well as my impression that test pilots were selected only for bravado.

I'm reading Carrying The Fire, a book by the Gemini and Apollo astronaut Michael Collins. I was totally caught off-guard about how fast-paced, creative and generally entrepreneurial the early space program was. A common description of their working life was that people on a space mission put in insanely long hours because they were captivated by the long term vision and routinely made fun of other areas of the government where people were just punching the clock.

Even working with otherwise disagreeable folk was tolerated. Collins on learning that he'd have to work with John Young on Gemini 10:

" _...besides, I would have flown by myself or with a kangaroo - I just wanted to fly. All that stuff about crew psychology compatibility is crap. Almost anyone can put up with almost anyone else for a clearly defined period of time in pursuit of a mutual object important to each._ "

Also, I thought test pilots were crazy people with a death wish, probably because of The Right Stuff. Turns out they practice a form of user-centered design and consider themselves as advocates for the end user (pilots in the field). It doesn't surprise me that the current field of HCI was born from the study of airplane cockpits. A joke in the book was about the true story of emergency instructions printed on the inside of a canopy - all the steps after the first one were completely unusable in the context of a real emergency because step #1 was to blast off the canopy.

</comment><comment><USER29> My desire to become a doctor. As a college undergraduate in a biomedical engineering major there's a lot of contact and allure toward that field, but after extensive shadowing experience in the ER I realized that while I undeniably admire those who can become doctors, there is absolutely something missing, for me, in that profession:

The ability to innovate, build, create, explore. An MD's life is more oriented toward dispensing the benefits of knowledge than actively seeking, crafting more.

<comment><USER30> Consider MD/PhD. The MD part of the degree gets you through a ton of doors that would otherwise be closed or incredibly difficult to open (unfortunately). It would also allow you to build products or perform research and actually be on the clinical side of things when it comes to testing (if you care).

<comment><USER29> It is a consideration, but with the 10+ year path it takes to acquire it, I'm a little shaken. At any rate, I'm looking at PhD in neurosciences so it'd be a decent play with an MD if I wanted it later. I'm not certain that this still lets you get MD tuition waived, but that would be excellent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I now believe that C++ is a language worth learning (I haven't yet figured out if it's also worth using for anything dependable).

<comment><USER31> This. Learning to use modern C++ techniques (RAII, shared_ptr, boost, ...) was especially eye-opening for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This year has brought me to the belief that the forth estate is dead and has been replaced by pundits of all shapes and sizes.

You can argue where every news organization fits on the political spectrum (other than they all fit at one of the sides and the middle is an illusion), but I don't think there is any network or newspaper that just prints the facts of the case. Every network has their favorites and calls the other sides "little people" names (e.g. pinko, teabagger). All the networks throw out opinions and call them facts. Heck, making up crap doesn't even seem to phase anyone (e.g. false papers, trucks with explosives on the gas tanks).

Has any network gone through the current draft of the health car bill and told us what's on it? Has any network tried to get all the payouts the gov did as part of the bailout?

<comment><USER9> So true.

For example: <http://consortiumnews.com/2009/102409b.html>

This won't be on the news, yet I bet every American would have a strong opinion (for or against) this practice....but it is not newsworthy. A boy who may (or may not) be floating away in a balloon, however, gets 24x7 coverage.

Whats that saying about something becoming a parody of itself? Thats how I see America today....they have such passionate beliefs about what they are as a people, but their actions are the exact opposite. It's sad...of course, a lot of this has been happening for decades, but what can be pulled off now in the light of day with no public reaction (torture, war crimes, unprecedented financial fraud, etc) is just mind boggling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I recently changed my mind about the quality of the producers and consumers on HN.

<comment><USER33> Can you clarify? You haven't been registered here for long, so I'm curious as to what sort of trends you've noticed that have caused you to change your mind.

<comment><USER32> I've lurked longer than I've trolled. There is a surface appearance of intelligence (thanks to a couple dozen prolific and intelligent participants) but a great deal of unproductive conversations.

Too often, people talk past each other.

Too often, people nitpick like <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=782752>

Too often, edw519 gets upvotes for 'pithy' statements like <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=864709>

Too often, reposts galore, and even worse, from techcrunch: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=743735>

Too much non-contributing irrelevant self-promotion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=kkleiner> <http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=kkleiner>

Too often, votes are based on... zealotry? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=902804> Why would jrockway get downvoted for answering a question as to why OSX didn't merit the Apple Tax for his purposes?

HN is useful for the domain knowledge and experience of some notable fellows, but a lot of the active user base dampens a lot of the remaining signal.

<comment><USER9> Good call on the singularityhub....

<comment><USER34> That one has been reported for a long time but nobody cares much about it.

I used to flag them consistently but I just gave up, so kkleiner wins that round and gets to spam as much as he wants.

Flagging to keep out the spam is a way of doing community service, if the feeling is that it is for nothing or possibly even ignored (PG hinted that people that flag a lot have their flaggings discarded) makes me much less inclined to do that work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Seat belt laws. For years, my inner Libertarian would cringe at the idea that the government could force someone to do something they didn't want to when it was their own life at risk. But then my inner Republican realized that if I were to be at fault in an accident, I would be financially and possibly criminally liable for a much steeper offense if the other party wasn't buckled up.

<comment><USER36> Not to sound harsh, but your logic here epitomizes the stereotype of conservative as uncaring/greedy/self-absorbed. Instead of being concerned that people will _die_ , your reasons for supporting seat belt laws is that it _reduces your liability_. Maybe you actually have some concern for human life, and don't actually intend to leave that impression; if not, it's worth considering how you present your argument, because right away you've alienated anyone who doesn't have a strictly utilitarian (or perhaps libertarian) view of the world.

<comment><USER37> I think maybe you missed something in his post. How is he being uncaring/greedy/self-absorbed by acknowldedging how he is impacted by others' decision to use a seatbelt or not?

He isn't saying people shouldn't wear a seatbelt. He's saying it should be their choice. If someone chooses not to wear their seatbelt, they obviously care more about their own convenience and comfort than their safety and well- being. Why should he (or anyone else) worry about their lives more than they do themselves?

Not to sound harsh, but I think that your logic epitomizes the stereotype of the extreme liberal who thinks it's everyone else's responsibility to support and take care of you. You've alienated anyone who doesn't have a strictly socialist view of the world.

Of course, if you're not alienating someone, then you're probably not thinking things through enough to form a strong opinion. So, good on you for having an opinion either way ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> a-priori I've been reading Steven Pinker's _The Blank Slate_ lately. It has changed my view of the role of consciousness in everyday life. It's also clarified my understanding on various social issues, the relationship with the individual and society, and the evolutionary origins of the emotions.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through.

<comment><USER38> Steven Pinker is amazing. From what I've read from his other articles, books, etc, it's always been enlightening. He also does a beautiful job communicating his ideas.

<comment> a-priori I agree, his writings are eye-opening. I know a bit too much about neuroscience, I think, so sometimes when he ventures that way in _The Blank Slate_ I'm unconvinced, but the core of his arguments always stand.

My first encounter with his works was _The Language Instinct_ , which was required reading for a course I took on psycholinguistics. If that were more recent, I would have mentioned it in my initial post, because that book completely changed my understanding of human language.

<comment><USER38> Some of his writings is how I'm getting my introduction to neuroscience. Also, following stuff like the brain science podcast and reading any popular science books dedicated to it. I'd love to get more in depth, but currently lack direction.

<comment> a-priori Well, if you're looking for a textbook, I suggest _Biopsychology_ by Pinel. It was required reading for two courses I took, and I found it to explain things quite well. Something to watch out for though: he tends to over-simplify things in places, which may lead you to develop overly-rigid mental models. There are exceptions to every rule, and some recent papers may contradict what Pinel says about the functions of some areas of the brain, or show that things are actually more nuanced. It's still a good start.

Once you have a good grasp of the fundamentals, I suggest reading Nature Reviews Neuroscience. They often have excellent review articles that summarize the state of research in a particular area. <http://www.nature.com/nrn/index.html>

If I were to suggest one area to focus your attention on, it would be memory. Memory is a central ability of the mammalian brain, and pretty much every area of the brain is involved in memory somehow. Here are some papers that I've found enlightening:

Gaffan. Against memory systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: … (2002)

Martin and Morris. New life in an old idea: The synaptic plasticity and memory hypothesis revisited. Hippocampus (2002)

Frankland and Bontempi. The organization of recent and remote memories. NATURE REVIEWS NEUROSCIENCE (2005) vol. 6 (2) pp. 119-130

Ross and Eichenbaum. Dynamics of hippocampal and cortical activation during consolidation of a nonspatial memory. Journal of Neuroscience (2006) vol. 26 (18) pp. 4852

Dudai. The Neurobiology of Consolidations, Or, How Stable is the Engram?. Annual Review of Psychology (2004) vol. 55 (1) pp. 51-86

Fischer et al. Recovery of learning and memory is associated with chromatin remodelling. Nature (2007) vol. 447 (7141) pp. 178 (but don't worry too much about the parts that are heavy on the biochemistry).

Rasch et al. Odor cues during slow-wave sleep prompt declarative memory consolidation. Science (2007) vol. 315 (5817) pp. 1426

One thing you may notice is that all of these papers are published in the last decade. That's about the shelf-life of research in this field. Let me know if you can't find these articles online; I have PDF copies of all of them.

Hope that gives you some direction :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I used vim to edit a config file here or there for four years of college. I always hated it. I just couldn't wrap my head around command vs insert mode. Since I never edited more than a few lines at a time, I never really learned it. I thought it was just a stupid idea. Then, about 9 months ago, it clicked. I started loving it. Now, you couldn't pry it from my cold, dead, Python editing fingers. (Although, I still contest that IDEA/Resharper are far superior for Java/C#)

<comment><USER27> did any particular tutorial make it click for you?

<comment><USER39> This in my vimrc helped tons:

      map <down> <nop>
      map <left> <nop>
      map <right> <nop>
      map <up> <nop>

But the big thing that really made it click was just that I used it for real work, not small quick editing tasks. You have to really live in the app for a while before it feels like home.

<comment><USER27> LOL, nice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I changed my mind about Django. In practical usage, it does not save time. Most things are faster, stabler, more portable and easier to outsource than Django. So, gone from being a Django enthusiast to making PHP my main web language and Django for things like admin and cron jobish sort of things.

</comment><comment><USER41> Now that I live there, Colombian food.

</comment><comment><USER42> My political persuasions have changed radically over the last 20 years... And I used to find politics interesting.

</comment><comment><USER43> Hacker News, after reading this thread. I think I'll become a regular.</comment>


Businesses. Please support good quality 2-factor standards, don't roll your own - <AUTHOR> I implore companies, please stop rolling your own two factor solutions and using insecure ones as your only option like SMS text messages. Are you expecting people to install 100 apps for various services to use 2-factor protection? An app for your service, for the next service...? All that development time to reinvent the wheel too.
U2F is an insanely secure, super easy to use, relatively cheap solution for customers to use and you can implement it on your sites in short order. There are standard TOTP code systems that use standard apps on phones and computer programs that people can use.
In this world of insecurity I strongly urge you to stick with known, strong security standards that are accessible to people. Yubikeys along with cheaper U2F alternatives will provide ultimate security for people. <comment><USER2> You do realize that many of the "companies" to which you are directing this will likely _never_ see it here, because they likely don't read HN.

With that said, you are also not viewing the issue holistically. There is an 'incentive' for these companies to roll their own apps. Those same apps. allow them to track, monitor, advertise to, and otherwise monetize their customers and/or their customers metadata. Yes, likely very shady, but also likely allowed by those same customers because the "do you agree to our terms" page up front did include those terms, albeit in dense, small print, legalese, and the customer pressed "agree" or "yes".

So you will also need some argument to convince these same companies to forgo the ready revenue stream they see forming from these apps when trying to convince them to go with an industry standard such as U2F or TOTP.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just find the situation depressing. Most sites have no 2-factor and with the advent of U2F and TOTP, I wish more sites that are offering real services, would offer these standards. I can understand them having their own (maybe) if their app has a larger purpose. For example the gaming system called "Steam". I have no problem using that because a) activating 2-factor (their 2-factor) provides instant access to trades vs waiting 2 weeks and b) the app has other uses that are something I might use when out and about.</comment></comment>


From lunch to acquisition: How Atlassian bought Trello - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/21/how-atlassian-bought-trello/ <comment><USER2> "When we sat down, it was all about the vision and what we wanted to build,"

Blah blah blah. It's all about them benjamins. Who likes atlassian software? Shittiest software I've ever used. They have a shitty version of everything you could want.

Bitbucket, JIRA, HipChat. All suck. RIP Trello.

<comment><USER3> Jira doesn't suck. It is extremely complex, especially if there is a (misguided) desire for agile plugins and such, by Jira on its own is quite usable. You must have not used their competitors to consider it crap.

Jira's default state in many companies is more likely proof of broken processes. Something which no tool can solve.

<comment><USER4> The corollary of Jira being "extremely complex" turns out to be that most Jira instances are not set up optimally - meaning that the experience for a lot of people is "this is crap".

I'm not sure the blame for that can be placed on Atlassian thouh - the problem space they're trying to solve is large, varied, and complex (perhaps _that's_ Atlassian's fault, trying to do too much?) I've yet to come across any alternative to Jira that solves a large subset (or superset) of the problems Jira solves, that isn't equally difficult and resource intensive to set up and customise for a specific company/team. Trello's a great example of a _much_ simpler (and on the surface much less "crap") piece of software, but it falls _way_ short of doing everything a typical Jira shop needs Jira to do... A 5-10 person bike shop building custom bikes? Yeah, Trello will probably crush it. A 10-20 (or50-100) strong dev team working on multiple complex projects? Nah - Trello won't solve all your problems.

Jira can _easily_ suck (and does, way too often). But it's almost certainly a config/training problem rather than a software problem.

<comment><USER5> Change a few words and that becomes a defense of SAP.

The fact is, no software can make everyone happy all the time and the software will suck if it tries to do it. Yet we keep falling into the trap of thinking crap like JIRA and SAP can be customized just right.

<comment><USER4> Sure, and I'd say the same (with a little less personal experience) for SAP, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics and a whole bunch of other "enterprise platform" scale tools. There'll be heaps of poorly thought out and configured installations, and a few much less talked about companies where they got it set up properly and trained the users - who're busy raking in money executing their company business instead of killing productivity and morale fighting with their software...

<comment><USER5> > and a few much less talked about companies where they got it set up properly > and trained the users - who're busy raking in money executing their company > business instead of killing productivity and morale fighting with their > software

I've never seen evidence that these companies exist apart from a few CTO's blabbing on about how great their latest implementation is, even though they never have to deal with the problems.

The only ones it ever works for are those with very generic problems.

<comment><USER4> I _suspect_ this is because you don't move in the same circles as the people who benefit most here.

Spend some time talking to the sales people who's haircuts look like they cost more than you make in a week, or who's suits probably cost more than your car. They're _all_ got finely tuned Salesforce (or equivalent) setups and can probably at any time tell you off the top of their head the number of leads and prospects in their pipeline, the size of their expected deals, their recent conversion rate, the estimated total value of their prospects/leads (and the precise dollar value of their commission and bonus...)

I've seen the same with large logistics operations - the ops/management people know exactly where all their assets are and the schedule of movements compared to the upcoming work requests.

You won't hear these stories at a Ruby On Rails meetup or in a weekend hackathon. It's not part of most tech/IT stories. But it's 100% happening out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Did I miss something or is this a content free article?

Mike fly's from Australia to America. Has chat over meal saying they want to work together. Fly's back to Australia. Agree on a price. Deal done.

What am I supposed to learn from this?

<comment><USER7> You are supposed to learn that content free articles can be good PR. They can make it to hn front page even.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > "When we sat down, it was all about the vision and what we wanted to build," > Pryor said. "The kind of people we hired, the kind of company we wanted to > create."

Soon as I read that line I knew this article wasn't going to be of any worth. Just a PR puff piece.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've always wondered what the Fog Creek people think about this. After all, their little baby got scooped up by their biggest competitor.

Is that good or bad?

<comment><USER10> I just hope they keep the free Trello up and running forever, and it stays simple on the surface at least.

I have this nightmare where one day I open Trello and it looks like Jira.

<comment><USER11> You are not alone in that thought.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If anyone else thinks Atlassian are going to run Trello into the ground, there is an open source alternative that's sprung up called Wekan. [https://wekan.io/](https://wekan.io/)

I haven't used it personally, but it appears to look and work just like Trello!

</comment><comment><USER13> A much better account of an attempted Atlassian acquisition is told by Peldi from Balsamiq. Fascinating story with lots of juicy details about why it didn't happen. AFAIK Peldi tells the story at conferences but asks for it not to be recorded, to respect Atlassian's wishes.

</comment><comment><USER14> Please tell me the restaurant was mad dog.</comment>


Makerbot laying off 100 and closing down all retail stores - <AUTHOR> https://www.makerbot.com/blog/2015/04/17/an-anouncement/ <comment><USER2> In a somewhat related note, I just finished watching Print the Legend ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3557464/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3557464/)) for the first time last week on Netflix. It's a fascinating documentary on 3D printing—and for someone who hadn't been following the 3D printing industry, the twists and turns in the stories of the main players really surprised me. I highly recommend watching it if you haven't.

That said, it's certainly interesting to see this pop up in the news. I'm curious what the general 3D enthusiasts consider the front players in 3D printing right now?

<comment><USER3> For me, LulzBot. I own 3 of their machines (2x AO-101, 1x TAZ 3), and have been printing for two years. A big reason why I support them is because of their support of open source: [https://www.fsf.org/news/lulzbot- taz-3-3d-printer-now-fsf-ce...](https://www.fsf.org/news/lulzbot- taz-3-3d-printer-now-fsf-certified-to-respect-your-freedom)</comment></comment>


Show HN: A dating app that shows you singles in bars and cafés around you - <AUTHOR> https://singlespotapp.com/# <comment><USER2> The dating apps/sites are gamed like crazy, but this one seems to have a different gaming possibility: it could be used to promote bars/clubs (e.g., by arranging for real/fake prospects to appear in the app as being at that venue).</comment>