US committee votes $30,000 increase in minimum salary of H1B visa workers - <AUTHOR> http://www.businesstoday.in/current/world/us-congressional-committee-h1b-visa-holders-minimum-salary-for-h1b-visa-holder/story/264157.html <comment><USER2> Regardless of whether or not you think the bill is a good idea, I don't think the opponents arguments against it quoted make sense.

As long as the new minimum still clears the market and all spaces are still filled (I think they would be), all this bill does is replace the pool of H1-B visas awarded with a higher-paying one.

The quote "It also could disrupt the marketplace, threaten thousands of US jobs, and stifle US innovation" would only make sense if one would expect that lower-paid workers on average contribute more to US innovation, and are less likely to displace Americans. I would predict the opposite, or at least no effect. One might hope that the people companies are willing to pay top dollar for are the higher skilled ones that companies have trouble hiring enough of in the US.

It's interesting that the bill is a half-measure in that it doesn't take the idea to its logical conclusion and eliminate the lottery and sort applications by salary and take the top N, but I imagine that would be politically unpopular.

I think you could possibly argue against this bill perhaps for some kind of fairness reasons, but I think the arguments quoted don't make sense.

<comment><USER3> > eliminate the lottery and sort applications by salary and take the top N

This is _exactly_ what should happen.

<comment><USER4> Why?

<comment><USER5> Consider the Brain Drain argument that is used to explain why poorer countries have a hard time catching and keeping up with already-developed countries.

It's the other side of that.

<comment><USER4> But someone that could provide enormous value in the future, might not qualify today. It is also a harm in the terms of brain drain. There should be very little doubt on the fact that any restriction will harm everyone in that 'ladder of skill'. It particularly harms those who would acquire those skills later on and dont have them today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The headline and lede don't accurately portray proposed changes. You need to go down a few paragraphs to find this:

" The bill prohibits H-1B dependent employers from replacing American workers with H-1B employees, there are no longer any exceptions. It also lengthens the no-layoff policy for H-1B dependent employers and their client companies for as long an H-1B employee works at the company, which means they cannot layoff equivalent US workers.

For H-1B dependent employers to be exempted from the requirement that US workers be recruited first, the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act dramatically increases the salary requirements for H-1B workers. "They must pay the lower of USD 135,000 which is indexed for inflation or the average wage for the occupation in the area of employment, but with a floor of USD 90,000," said a media release issued by the House Judiciary Committee."

This proposed changes would only apply to H1B dependent employers, which are employers with 15% or more of their workforce on H1Bs. Furthermore, there isn't currently and won't be if the proposed language becomes law, any minimum salary for H1B visa workers. Instead the salary mentioned acts as a safe harbor for H1B dependent employers to avoid certain steps they'd otherwise have to take in order to file additional H1B employee petitions beyond the 15% level.

</comment><comment><USER7> > move to harm Indian IT professionals

Title of the story linked-to is quite sensational.

I'm not a fan of the current administration at all, but as a former (Indian) H1-B visa holder myself, I welcome this move. It's clearly aimed at the top 10 H1-B visa abusers, almost all Indian Companies - think Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant Technologies, Wipro, Tech Manhindra etc - who grossly underpay the Indian software engineers and abuse H1-B visa program.

Now these crooks won't be able to file Labor Certificate applications with very low prevailing wages, and I think this will help real startups and software companies everywhere in the US, who can't find top engineers in US for new technologies, hire people from Europe, Asia and other parts of the world who are qualified, and not just from India.

Code-monkey Indians and the companies that try to bring them in on low wages will automatically get filtered out.

<comment><USER8> Also should mention these companies are openly tolerated by the government for their extreme racist hiring policy, violating every conceivable US law, hiring upwards of 98% Indian race only in the United States. But it's alright because it's just "engineers" not important people, right?

<comment><USER5> Racism is defined academically as 'privilege + power,' so if you say "I am an Indian and will only hire Indians," that has historically been just fine. This definition is interpreted as "you need to be White to be racist."

Diversity is mostly just defined as "not White," so majority Indian, Black, etc. companies, are "diverse," they exist, and no one goes after them.

This is why you have those majority-xyz-race companies, but Apple's chief of diversity was fired for saying Whites can also be diverse if they come from diverse backgrounds.

<comment><USER9> If you are an employer such as Tech Mahindra or Tata and only considering Indians for a job, do you not wield power?

<comment><USER5> Yes, of course.

That's why everyone should be treated as equals regardless of race, gender, religion, etc.

This convoluted system of privilege is concerning. Consider a poor White born into an abusive family, in a rural area, with no inheritance. This qualifies as "privileged" under current dogma. They pretend like these kinds of people don't exist.

It's more of a class war being disguised as a race war.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a good thing for just about everyone except for Infosys and Cognizant and the like. I really hate how close the H1B program comes to indentured servitude, feels extremely unfair and imbalanced.

<comment><USER11> One bright spot for workers from Infosys et al that survive this change is that now they can look forward to a 50% raise for their servitude. Compared to most wages in India working for USD90k for a few years under onerous conditions might be palatable (definitely much more so than USD60k).

Added that this bill closes the loopholes for replacing local US workers mean that for a greater number of workers this is a much better situation.

<comment><USER12> The Infosys H1Bs who will survive this change are already getting $70-75k.

<comment><USER11> Good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The mistake with this bill is it assumes that tech workers excluded from the US will just disappear. They won't. They'll set up shop in other countries, and those companies will compete with US companies. It will also encourage larger US companies to set up dev offices in foreign countries.

One way or another, those workers will be competing with US workers regardless.

<comment><USER14> I can see the other replies but you are entirely right . I work for one of the big 4 and the overseas office where I am is growing rapidly . I hear one of our peers is doing the same .

Of course they aren't making too much of a noise about it as they're smart.

These policies are already backfiring.

If that means companies discover that you don't have to be in California to do tech that would be a good thing . Bring on the foolishness I say .

I would like to add that I'm not talking about this policy in particular but the growing sentiment against even skilled immigration.

<comment><USER15> Why is being in California relevant to a minimum that applies across the whole country?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This isn't a minimum in the salary of H1B workers. The current "minimum" is $60k. It is perfectly possible to hire employees on an H1B under that limit, you (as an employer) will simply be under more scrutiny.

It relates to H1Bs that are contracted out to other employers where those H1Bs are at least 15% (slightly higher thresholds for employers with under 51 employees) of an employer's workforce. They are colloquially known as Body Shops. The legislation as it stands allows the DoJ and DoL to investigate/prosecute these employers unless the employee makes a certain minimum salary OR has a masters degree. This is a good thing since it specifically targets the abusers of the H1B program while leaving most employers alone. The minimum salary will go up to $90k and the threshold will go up from 15% to 20%.

<comment><USER15> Are you saying that having a master's degree _removes_ the minimum salary requirement? That seems odd.

<comment><USER16> Yes, it does. It allows body shops to import tons of Indian-educated masters degree holders at $40-50k a year and then bill them out to other companies at much higher rates.

The proposed bill removes this too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This raises a pretty interesting idea: Why don't we cap the number of H1-B slots at N and let companies bid for how much they would pay the employees with the top N bids being accepted?

<comment><USER4> Why doesnt the us just not limit it at all, and stop spending money and resources on playing a lottery game with people's lives.

<comment><USER18> So do you want unlimited immigration?

<comment><USER19> It's not unheard of. Instead of putting a hard limit and playing the random number generator game with peoples' lives, maybe approve visas on a case-by- case basis...?

<comment><USER18> How many cases?

100, 10K, 100K, million?

<comment><USER4> 7 billion if it they want to.

<comment><USER18> If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

<comment><USER4> You'll need to add more meat if you want me to take a bite.

<comment><USER18> Why would I do that, I already know you are trolling

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This, together with the proposed new tax laws for graduate students ([https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/opinion/house-tax-bill- gr...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/opinion/house-tax-bill-graduate- students.html)), will slowly erode the status of the US in tech and science.

Which is fine if you follow history and just accept the rise and fall of empires.

There aren't enough CS grads in the US to fill the demand as education is so crazy expensive. Foreigners have skewed the system since forever, see all the 1st generation founders.

The constant feed of well-educated foreigners to the US is coming to an end. Someone else will collect that talent. Whoever that is will dominate. Tencent passing FB in market value should be a big clue where we're heading.

<comment><USER21> Only now we will start draining engineers worth atleast $90K from other countries. In SV $90K can be considered a starting salary.

<comment><USER22> They will be the same engineers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> More news on this topic - Administration to wipe out work permits for H-1B spouses [http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Trump- administra...](http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Trump- administration-has-plans-to-wipe-out-work-12366124.php)

<comment><USER4> This is terrible!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Despite the headline, this will benefit smarter Indian workers who are currently undercut by the less skilled $60k ones

</comment><comment><USER25> This is a good thing, but mostly because it will help those who went to school in the united states, and struggled to win the H1B lottery during their time under F1 yet are able to command salaries well over the new 90k minimum.

</comment><comment><USER26> Who said Trump doesn't deliver?

There never was a skill shortage. Only a pay shortage.

<comment><USER27> Deliver on a promise to curb foreign competition on American soil and forward a protectionist agenda? I see this move as accomplishing the opposite of the stated goal, or at least being a wash with respect to it. Not that I'm complaining, but I'm sure even a despot would do some things we all nominally agreed with. There can be little doubt that Trump has been slowed in implementing his agenda by a lack of either familiarity or willingness to work with the bureaucracy in Washington.

<comment><USER28> If by "competition" you mean pseudo-moralist corporate agenda designed to suppress wages for engineers and developers.

Wages have been FLAT vs rising inflation for ages, mostly due to labor over- supply.

<comment><USER27> I only see an overall labor shortage in tech fields. I've never heard of even mediocre developers having trouble finding work, except for a brief period in the early 2000s. I think wage suppression is only contributed to in very small part by the oft-exploited labor coming here from overseas on the H1-B and similar programs. I see this as trying to make the program function more according to its stated intention and bring in _skilled_ labor.

<comment><USER29> It's the mediocre developers or developers in areas where the overwhelming majority of the jobs are mediocre that are hurt by this. Generally speaking they're not being replaced with better workers, they're being replaced with cheaper foreign mediocre workers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I wonder what would be the impact these artificially determined salaries.

I would have loved to see some de-regulation in the employment effectively removing the reasons of foreign talent being lock in to a company, thus not having a negotiation power which results in lower salaries.

In my opinion nationality based employment opportunity differences are no different to race or gender based ones.

Don't get me wrong, I actually don't advocate global free movement of labour, I just highly dislike artificial ways like salary caps or employer lock ins to manage it.

</comment><comment><USER31> The original headline is written by someone with an axe to grind, because this change does not hurt Indian IT professionals at all. Restrictions on importing low-cost labor will raise wages for workers in India. The restrictions will also raise wages in the United States for obvious reasons as well.

<comment><USER32> Will it really? I'm not saying you're definitely wrong, but I can also see an argument that fewer Indian IT workers in the USA means that more IT workers will stay in India and look for jobs. More job seekers could drive wages down, even while the Indian companies are getting higher skilled workers.

<comment><USER33> There's a reason they flock over. Millions of engineers can't find jobs in India. Less than 10 percent of graduates are employed because there are too many schools and they pump out low-quality students. Combine this with the fact that there is a very severe shortage of jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Restricts the use of H1B to target more competent - and sought after - talent. It's a good move; import talent when it makes an impact

<comment><USER4> It always makes an impact. These are voluntary arrangements, both parties think they win doing them, even though the processing costs are in the 10k's of thousands!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Regarding the "stifles US innovation" \-- I see many people refuting this. Having the salary cutoff be a hard requirement of the H1B visa most certainly stifles innovation.

There isn't an effective visa that allows a tech innovator to bootstrap a company in the US. I can get my company to ramen profitability with minimal funding, but I cannot sponsor my own visa because my startup coffers can't afford to pay a founder-coder $150,000 salary. If you don't have multiple advanced degrees or a magical track record of successful companies or something, you can't get an O1 visa. You have to waste a bunch of time and money daisy-chaining educational visas and associated work authorization from cheap community colleges until you get your company established. We all know building a sustainable product and company is hard enough without arbitrary obstacle courses to waste your time on.

Having experienced this first-hand, as a cofounder who had to leave the country for 2 years and work remote until we had gained enough recognition and a warchest to justify an O1 visa for me.

I'm not saying the solution is to ignore payscale for H1B's, but until there's a more appropriate visa for an entrepreneur (which by definition has to have simple initial requirements, low cost and reliable success, maybe with down- the-line auditing for extensions), it would be certainly help innovation if the H1-B weren't denied to all the international bootstrapped company founders.

<comment><USER36> Can I ask - what's the motivation to locate yourself in the US while you bootstrap your startup?

Is it that you need the US presence to be closer to customers or partners, establish some type of perceived legitimacy, prepare yourself to bring on investors in the US, or perhaps something else?

<comment><USER35> I have spent a third of my life here now, grew all my professional connections (and closest friendships) here, understand the market spaces here better, and also just like to live here. My company's product primarily targets the US market and distance makes me lose context. My cofounders are American and live here, and while we are remote friendly since we don't even have an office (I mean I did it for two years), I want remote work to be an option, not forced upon me. The bandwidth of in person co-working sessions and convenience of time zones and meeting up with an hour's notice is obvious. But from a personal perspective, that this is where I grew into a professional adult and where I want to continue my career is more than enough reason.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've responded to similar articles in the past. I welcome this motion. Only thing that bothers me is the fact why it was not enforced earlier. I'm a H1B holder and I support this move.

</comment><comment><USER38> [https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house- bill/170](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/170)

So now you can be a high school graduate but if you earn 135k or higher, you are eligible for an H1B? Am I reading that right?

Also, would this affect (say) a postdoc virologist in Ohio trying to get an H1B? Or is this just for programmers in Silicon Valley?

<comment><USER39> if you do the job...you do the job. Market decides

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> As an Indian who had a very high paying job but lost out to the lottery and had to return to India, I welcome this bill. As someone else in this thread mentioned, this bill only gets half the way, they should remove the lottery and pick from the pool sorted by salary. The current combination of limited retraining of unemployed American labor pool and exploited workers by Indian consulting firms is exacerbating the populism and rightly so. I'm not against my fellow countrymen, I'm against the companies and the management that have failed to balance their own activities and abused the system. Indian government doesn't want this to happen of course, as they'll have a pool of unemployed population within the country. This would've been fine if this pool would've been uneducated, but an educated pool that can't find jobs in the market will focus its sights on the government and demand changes. All in all, much needed change that unfortunately had to be delivered as a shock to the system and at the hands of a mostly incompetent president.

</comment><comment><USER41> From my reading I can't tell if this bill is solely limited to tech applications. The usual qualm with this debate is that the H1-B usage extends far beyond tech and while this increase wouldn't really matter for tech workers, it will make a huge impact on other industries/people where 90k isn't the norm as in tech

</comment><comment><USER42> If anything, the US was very indulging with companies like Infosys, that were found deliberately cheating in their applications (e.g: submitting the same applicant multiple times).

Then, some Infosys employees report that they do not receive the minimum H-1B salary in practice, and that they're forced to give their tax return money back to their employer. I do not know if these reports are true, but I think they should be aggressively audited.

To that you need to add that the Infosys business culture, as reported by their own employees, is not the kind of business culture you want to assimilate.

Then, if there are more applicants than spots, naturally the US could rank them and pick the best.

</comment><comment><USER43> I see some folks saying "IT workers don't have a problem finding jobs anyway," but it feels like at least once a week I see articles on ageism in tech come through here.

If this actually makes it through and becomes law, I'm curious about the possible impact on those older workers. Since in some cases it seems like those older workers are back in the job hunt because of companies closing up their in-house IT in favor of outsourced contracts, this seems like it might be directly applicable at least there.

</comment><comment><USER44> As long as H1-B Visa holders cannot change jobs once they get here, they will be underpaid and overworked, and will create distortions in the American labor market. I would say the obvious fix is to untether the H1-B from the Visa holder's employer. Just let people bid for the H1-B's, and give the Visas out to the highest bidders. Preferably many, many more than we give out currently.

<comment><USER45> > As long as H1-B Visa holders cannot change jobs once they get here, they > will be underpaid and overworked

you can change jobs on an h1-b.

<comment><USER44> My impression was this was basically not true, that it is very difficult for an H1-B Visa holder to leave their sponsoring employer. According to Wikipedia, "If a foreign worker in H-1B status quits or is dismissed from the sponsoring employer, the worker must either apply for and be granted a change of status, find another employer (subject to application for adjustment of status and/or change of visa), or leave the United States."

<comment><USER21> If they have a new job offer, it is not difficult to change. I've known quite a few people who interviewed one week and just moved to the new job. Their employer has legal staff to take care of the paperwork.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I graduated from Purdue in Indiana and I'm on an H1B visa. A lot of international students graduating from U.S. universities in the Midwest get jobs in those markets instead of Bay Area/NYC. This basically means no jobs for graduating international students in places like Indiana.

</comment><comment><USER47> It would be better to remove H1b quota, but considering that US voters in aggregate do not want that, replacing lower-paid H1b workers with higher-paid H1b workers is the logical choice. At least it may help to eliminate H1b lottery and make H1b processing more predictable.

</comment><comment><USER48> This move more or less will increase outsourcing or offshore dev centers. And only real high and good quality work is done in US. Long term this may impact US when offshore dev centers slowly catch up.

</comment><comment><USER49> The weird part is that even with higher salary, I wouldn't recommend people to go on h1b. Job flexibility, healthcare, work/life balance all sacrificed in the name of workin in America!

<comment><USER19> This is a blanket statement. You seem to have a very distorted view of the situation. Working on H-1B does not equate any of this automatically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A simple rule change that will appease the nationalistic desires of software engineers while reducing the harm to strong lobby big-shot companies like facebook/google/amazon.

</comment><comment><USER50> I was thinking about taking a job in US many many many times, but I was always deterred by the prospective of becoming a US taxpayer for life and fear of overzealous tax enforcement

<comment><USER21> That concern is really only for US citizens.

<comment><USER50> IRS has a history of going after permanent residents, and even people who came to US for seasonal work

<comment><USER21> But obviously if you came to work in the US, you are subject to their taxes. But and once they leave and all taxes are resolved, they should not be subject to it any further.

<comment><USER50> That is obvious, the thing is that in America a "permanent resident" and "permanent resident for tax purposes" are two different things, and IRS does bestow the second status quite liberally, and once you are deemed a tax resident, it is hard to get rid of that status even long after you left the coutry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I am Canadian and I've worked in tech in the USA for the last 5 years.

I wish they made getting an H1B even harder to get.

<comment><USER52> Can you elaborate on that?

<comment><USER53> Canadians can enter and work on a TN visa, which has similar requirements to an H1-B. However, the number of visas granted is unlimited. They are renewed every time you cross the border, and can be rejected for any reason. They're very temporary and you end up feeling worried crossing the border.

It explicitly does not allow a path to citizenship, so you have to transfer to an H1-B to get a green card. If your intent is to attempt to get a green card, you are in direct violation of a TN visa and can be deported.

Unlike those jammy Australian bastards (they get a visa that looks like an L1! So jealous), spouses cannot work on the TD (visa for partners/dependents of TN holders). This means your partner cannot work if you're on a TN until you first transfer to a H1-B and then transfer again to a green card. For a Canadian, the process is probably 2-3 years to get an H1B, and then another 2 years to get the green card. Reducing the competition for an H1-B will reduce the length of time spent in the first step of this process.

Indians and Chinese people have it much, much worse. The length of time after their green card approval to when they are granted one is quite literally measured in decades.

The inability for spouses to work causes a lot of stress on relationships. Spouses get depressed, angry and feel a complete loss of independence. They no longer have a career nor their "own" money.

<comment><USER54> > spouses cannot work on the TD

If they're canadian, why don't they just get their own TN?

<comment><USER53> Well, my partner's not Canadian, so they can't get a TN. This problem would also affect Canadian partners without university degrees, a good moderate indicator of TN eligibility.

However, the ability for spouses to work also affects all H1-B holders, and they're a much, much larger group for a much longer period of time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> This may boost immigration to Canada which doesn't have an equivalent threshold.

</comment><comment><USER39> Brilliant! If you _really_ need foreign workers because you can't find them in USA, they must so good, so special and deserving way more than $60k.

<comment><USER4> Yes, Brilliant. Take a pool of talent that is available, and make up rules on how to limit it. What a sophisticated thought it is to find novel and different ways to hurt yourself.

<comment><USER39> Oh yeah, let's bring every programmer from India /China in USA at $30k a year so companies pay less US programmers and fire 30+ year old ones.

Bring in the best only, and $90k is a good salary requirement

<comment><USER4> Just to scale your point: do you advocate for, for example, never importing iphones? That they should be made in the U.S?

Because making the iPhones abroad takes jobs from americans and lowers their wages. You wouldnt want 30k a year chinese people taking jobs from Americans would you.

<comment><USER39> iPhone costs, say $800 on average. How much of it is in assembling it ....? USA can and should tax the rest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> The one thing Silicon Valley loves about Trump ;)

<comment><USER57> Why would people in Silicon Valley care about this change? Pretty much every software developer in SV makes over 90k.

<comment><USER58> Exactly. Because they make over 90k, they might now have a chance to hire skilled foreigners under H1B for the same wage.

Instead, the consultancy companies would have to raise their wages by 30k if they wanted to keep on submitting tens of thousands of H1B applications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Set the minimum to 100k at least. Help US grads get started in the field.

</comment><comment><USER60> I have seen companies in DFW hire what seems like 1000's of H1B's and offer to work on their Green cards. These aren't highly skilled jobs, these are jobs that would typically pay more than the 50k that companies are using H1B's so they can pay less. The New Toyota HQ in Plano has more Indians and H1B's than US employees from what I heard. There are many more like them that I won't mention.

India is exporting it's poverty all over the world and taking advantage of the US.

<comment><USER61> You can please just leave out the last line, which is uncivil and violates the guidelines.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER60> I don't feel like I violated any guidelines. I just basically spoke the truth which might be hard for some to accept.

We can't all just close our eyes and let them keep coming here and taking jobs that pay 30%-40% of what a fellow US employee gets payed.

Just look at Sabre Systems, Toyota, etc in the DFW area. There are more Indian employees now on H1B visa's than there are American employees. It's in the 1000's and I'm not kidding all because they can work them like dogs and threaten to fire them at any moment and pay the what a office admin would earn.

How does this benefit the USA other than decreasing labor costs for corporations at the expense of American jobs.

I would like to scrap the whole H1B program all together, it would only be good for American Employees.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: would you use an API for managing ACL? - <AUTHOR>

I find it hard to manage all the roles of an application on every platform and starting a new project I need to rebuild the same ACL over and over again. I looked for a cloud solution but could not find any and I am thinking of building one myself. So my question is would you use such an API, or would it be useful for you or your company? <comment><USER2> have you tried stormpath?

<comment><AUTHOR> no, but I want to take care of user management myself and not store all my app users in the cloud</comment></comment>


Chinese Skype Software Secretly Logs Political Chat Messages - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/chinese-skype-s.html <comment><USER2> All I get is: \</comment><comment>- ERROR

The requested URL could not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve the URL: [http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/chinese- skype-s.htm...](http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/chinese-skype-s.html)

The following error was encountered:

Unable to forward this request at this time. \</comment><comment>-</comment>


YouNoodle Scores: What Startups Can Learn from Wars - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/18/younoodle-scores-what-startups-can-learn-from-wars/

<comment><USER2> I find the browse and search features somewhat lacking. It would be interesting to browse through the startups by certain criteria - what's the point about this one-by-one view?

<comment> puzzle-out To keep you on the site as long as possible bro.

<comment><USER2> Well, they kept for as long as it took me to realize that there is no meaningful search or browse feature. Then I left and can not imagine why I would ever come back...</comment></comment></comment>


Node.js is taking over the Enterprise - Like it or Not - <AUTHOR> http://blog.appfog.com/node-js-is-taking-over-the-enterprise-whether-you-like-it-or-not/

<comment><AUTHOR> The big question remains... will enterprise software companies ruin Node now that it's got all this momentum.

</comment><comment><USER2> > _The question is no longer if Node is enterprise ready. The question now is > the following: what major digital enterprises will end up being the last > hold-outs?_

This is not the question.

The question is:

1) is Node.js type tech good for my particular project (enterprise project or not).

2) is Node.js a well designed example of it's kind of technology?

IMHO the answer question 1 is: rarely (most web apps don't need such tech or only need it for a small part of what they do) and the answer to question 2 is no.

Go is better designed for the same kind of work (evented, million user app with no callback spaghetti and good memory/performance characteristics). Erlang too, and is also more mature. Ditto for Tornado, Play/Scala/Netty, et al.

The cries of triumph for Node being used in the enterprise are meaningless.

For one, it is not. It's only used in the more adventurous part of the enterprise, the one that also adopts lots of other things. In the main, the enterprise goes for .Net/JVM business as usual.

But more importantly, the enterprise has also adopted extremely BS technologies. From CORBA, to ActiveX, to JavaEE, to SOAP, to XML-for- everything. Didn't do the enterprise any good, and the technologies languished eventually any way.

> _But what makes Node special is the Node community, which is not only > incredibly vibrant but also, more important, the only developer community > that was built from day one around asynchronous, event-driven application > logic as a core principle._

That's BS too. You don't need a "community that was built from day one around asynchronous, event-driven application logic as a core principle" if you can run things out in a different thread/goroutine etc.

Only Node needs that because it's a one trick pony and single threaded at that, so a blocking operation kills everything.

Which is bad, because there are tons of useful libs and services that you could use and STILL be asynchronous and event driven, even though they are not.

<comment><USER3> In response to question 1: yes, it often very much is, as the examples that I raise in the article show. It could well be the case that there are better technologies for this kind of thing according to certain metrics, but those technologies don't have anything even remotely approaching the Node community driving them. In open source anything, that is decisive. Erlang is more mature, yes, but the community is small and highly insular. Tornado, Netty, etc. also do non-blocking I/O and the like, but they simply don't have the same inertia behind them. That inertia could be precisely what makes Node stable and acceptable for ever-broader enterprise usage. But overall, my claim is more sociological than technological.</comment></comment>


The full text of SICP from MIT Press - <AUTHOR> http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html

<comment><USER2> Does this have to get posted every week?

<comment><USER3> I actually never knew the link existed. As a Computer Science student, I can't describe how much I appreciate having this book available online. I simply can't afford to shell out $50 dollars for every intriguing and intellectually interesting book that is out there. The benefit I can gain from reading this book is immense, and I am very exciting to be able to work with it.

So yes, I would say it does have to get posted every week :-).

<comment><USER4> We get that the book is immensely valuable, and it's great that it's offered online. But this is something that anyone can find with ~5 min of Google searching.

<comment><USER5> If it occurs to them to do the searching.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If only this textbook was given every student taking "intro to computer science"

<comment><USER7> Go to UC Berkeley.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the entire book, hosted by the publishers (MIT Press). I find it much more convenient to read it here than the scribd PDF or even the hard copy itself because when they reference earlier problems and sections in the book, they usually link to it for easy navigation.

</comment><comment><USER8> I was lucky enough to get a free physical copy of this from work. Well worth the read.</comment>


Geoipify - <AUTHOR> https://geoipify.com/ <comment><USER2> So I guess you can server your customer.  Looks interesting though</comment>


Wikileaks live again. Resolves DNS, moves to Switzerland - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/media/2010/12/03/wikileaks-resolves-dns-moves-to-switzerland/ <comment><USER2> Just FYI, there seems to be several wikileaks.* domain names mirroring or redirecting to the main site, e.g. wikileaks.eu, wikileaks.fi, wikileaks.de, wikileaks.fr, wikileaks.dk.

This is good example why ICANN (or non-national top-level domains generically) should not be under control of a single country.</comment>


Lets make November "Launch an App Month" again, who's with me? - <AUTHOR> A few years ago there was a thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1773398) that challenged people on HN to build and launch an app in November.
Having the shared goal motivated a lot of people to ship and even led to a few successful companies, including Buffer.
I'm suggesting we do the same again this year for those of us who missed out all those years ago.
The aim is to use the month of November to work on your side project/idea, with the goal of having a working application out in the wild by the end of the month. Even better is to challenge yourself to have a paying customer for your product by the end of the month.
If you want to get involved, mention so below. If there's interest, I'll set something like a Slack group up so we call all keep track of each other's project. <comment><USER2> I'm in! [http://www.quotleapp.com](http://www.quotleapp.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> I"m launching my website this month. hopefully, this week, at least to some initial users.

</comment><comment><USER4> Count me in!</comment>


The new WebGL Podcast - The Pilot - <AUTHOR> http://thewebglpodcast.com/

<comment><USER2> Very cool. I think WebGL will be what gets me in to JS and client-side development.

<comment><USER3> Hope so! :) Feel free to let me know if you have specific questions, and if I can flow them into the podcast I will. I'd rather the episodes actually answered peoples' questions than be based on my hunches as to what's interesting or helpful.

<comment><USER2> Well, I know it's a premature worry for a beginner, but I'd be interested in the topic of how different (OS, Browser, GraphicsVendor) permutations stack up in terms of performance and compatibility. Are there any particular sweet spots or laggards?

<comment><USER4> This site is the gold reference: <http://webglstats.com>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Asked @pocketcasts to add it to their list. Enjoying the first episode.

<comment><USER3> Thank you!</comment></comment>


SapphireDb – Open-Source Alternative to Firebase - <AUTHOR> https://sapphire-db.com <comment><USER2> For anyone looking to replace Firebase with plain Postgres, I am went through the same exercise last year an I'm opensourcing the work I did - [https://supabase.io](https://supabase.io)

The hardest part was the real-time functionality. I ended up writing an elixir server that listens to Postgres' built-in replication stream, converts it into JSON, then sends it over websockets.

<comment><USER3> Is it supposed to be self-hosted? Wasn't clear to me after taking a quick look.

<comment><USER2> Yes, it can be. I realise it's not too obvious so I'll add the documentation for self hosting over the next 1 week

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Will keep an eye on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Creator of Redwood here, which is similar in many ways to this and GunDB (hi Mark!). Agreed that we need more projects like this.

Redwood might be better described as a "p2p application platform" than a realtime database, but there's plenty of overlap. It's written in Go, supports HTTPS, Libp2p, and WebRTC transports (and soon, a Cap'n Proto RPC interface). It can also:

\- serve as a Git remote

\- stand in as an application server (you can upload assets directly to it, and they're served over regular HTTPS)

\- execute Lambda-like functions written in Go, Lua, and Javascript that can be installed at any point in a given state tree

Would love some early feedback, and also to discuss similarities and differences with Sapphire's model. I've set up some demos in the "scenarios" folder -- a chat app, a realtime document editor, and a Git integration. Take a look if you're interested:

[https://github.com/brynbellomy/redwood](https://github.com/brynbellomy/redwood)

<comment><USER5> > and soon, a Cap'n Proto RPC interface

This is interesting, and good to hear. Are there still a lot of projects adding capnproto support? It's a great protocol but I've worried it might be dying.

<comment><USER4> Dying? Hm, not to my knowledge. In fact, I saw a highly-commented thread on HN just a couple of weeks ago about Cap'n Proto. What gives you the sense that it's on its way out?

<comment><USER5> Sandstorm Oasis going away and the last time I checked (maybe a year ago?) work seemed to have stopped on getting the protocol implemented in the browser.

<comment><USER6> Hi, I'm the author of Cap'n Proto, and co-founder of Sandstorm.io. When Sandstorm failed, I went to Cloudflare where I'm leading the Cloudflare Workers project. We're using Cap'n Proto (including RPC) pretty heavily there!

That said, it's true that Cap'n Proto relies on its users to contribute improvements to the implementation. We don't currently have a team who can dedicate their time to building out capnp implementations in every language.

At present, within Cloudflare, the heaviest use is C++, with some stuff in Go, Rust, Java, and Lua. Hence, if you look at the C++ implementation you'll see it's been pretty active. At the moment we don't have a JavaScript use case so haven't put effort into that implementation. But given that Workers itself is a JavaScript platform, it seems reasonably likely that we'll end up putting some work into the JavaScript/TypeScript implementation at some point down the road.

<comment><USER5> Glad to hear it! It really would be a shame for such a great protocol to go unused.

That's interesting that you feel Sandstorm failed. I draw inspiration from it on a regular basis for several of my projects. Maybe it was just ahead of its time.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the kind words.

Sandstorm _the company_ definitely failed (ran out of money and couldn't raise more, while having negligible actual revenue). Sandstorm _the open source project_ continues and has actually seen an uptick in development activity lately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you are looking for an open-source replacement of the Firebase Realtime Database, you might also be interested in Icepeak ([https://github.com/channable/icepeak](https://github.com/channable/icepeak)) (full disclosure, I'm one of the authors).

Icepeak was written because we were unsatisfied with the reliability and with the (occasionally) high latency of Firebase, both for pushing updates via HTTP (>1s for some requests) and for receiving updates over websockets.

This was about 3 years ago though, so I hope that Google improved the quality of the service in the mean time.

<comment><USER8> That sounds interesting. Have you compared your service to pouchdb and gun? Is it possible to use icepeak in offline mode and automatically sync when getting online again?

[1] [https://pouchdb.com/](https://pouchdb.com/)

[2] [https://gun.js.org/](https://gun.js.org/)

<comment><USER9> PouchDB looks like the client side library.

Do you still need CouchDB on the backend?

I see from the mailing list it is still a very active project, which surprised me.

<comment><USER8> PouchDB is CouchDB-Protocol implemented in javascript so you can run it wherever there is javascript, not just as a client. If you want to have a backend, you can use any DB that supports that protocol (there are several), which includes using a PouchDB instance run by node.js.

<comment><USER10> Is PouchDB + CouchDB considered an alternative to Firebase?

<comment><USER8> That depends on your use case since Firebase is more than a database. Since CouchDB is from 2005 and Firebase is from 2011, it is in comparison a very mature product and protocol worth trying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In the Stackblitz example the Angular client is connecting directly to the SapphireDB database with credentials stored in the app.module.ts.

Could you build a scalable real world, production application this way?

With no in the middle NodeJS web server handing business logic? Handle all the business logic in the Angular client and just CRUD the objects back to SapphireDB? Essentially just Client--> SapphireDB

Or am I missing something here? I see there's a asp.net configuration, which would be Client--> Server--> SapphireDB

Is there a package or support for connecting a NodeJS server to SapphireDB database?

Also, is this production ready?

<comment><AUTHOR> The credentials you found in the app.module.ts are just credentials to identify the client (not the user). It is just to give an extra layer of security and only allow specific applications access to the server. User authentication is handled through tokens for example.

The architecture looks more like this: Client -> Asp.Net Core server with SapphireDb -> any database server

SapphireDb is not a database. Its more like the connector between database and clients. Because of that there is no package for a NodeJS because it would just be proxy.

Yes I think it is production ready. I'll add a section in the docs describing the criteria this opinion is based on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm a competitor, and I want to applaud this work!

\- SapphireDB is truly Open Source, MIT!

\- There demo worked like a charm!

We could really use more projects like this out there.

Here is a criticism though:

\- It seems currently to only support Angular (?), which is gonna harm its adoption.

My recommendation would be to commit to Svelte, it seems like it will be the "next big thing" in the JS world, and could help drive adoption.

Obviously, this is something we're trying to do as well ([https://gun.eco/docs/Svelte](https://gun.eco/docs/Svelte)). If you're looking for a Firebase alternative, GUN is used in production with 11M+ downloads a month, but is NodeJS based so it won't work for the .NET audience that Sapphire is targeting.

What I think would be cool to add: (from my bias)

\- Support graph data.

\- Work offline / local-first.

Either way, thanks for building & posting about Sapphire, it is nice to see there is still big demand for Open Source Firebase alternatives!

<comment><USER13> Offtopic:

> to commit to Svelte, it seems like it will be the "next big thing" in the JS > world

How long does it usually take? In the JS world? Serious question as I am not in the JS world but reading HN/Reddit I would believe that things change quite fast. Someone told me over 1 year ago Svelte would be the next big thing and I see 'no-one' using it besides some hardcore enthusiasts; it is even hardly ever mentioned here or on Reddit; if it was a the next big thing, I think it would be?

Sorry for being uninformed, I am just curious.

<comment> em-bee the next best thing is hard to predict, as thre sister comment says. it's also not an important measure. the measure that matters is wheter a framework is going to stick around and be supported for the next few years.

to choose a framework look at all that are being used and recommended.

for every recommended framework there are a dozen that remain in obscurity.

that should narrow it down to a dozen or so. look at each and pick on you like the most by whatever metric you prefer. it does't matter.

keep using that same framework as long as you are happy with it.

if you are able to stick with the same framework for a few years you made good choice.

as for svelte, one metric is the stateofjs survey, which lists svelte as one of the top 6 frameworks.

it was added to the survey last year which shows a significant amount of interest. let's see if that is still true next year.

[https://2019.stateofjs.com/front-end- frameworks/](https://2019.stateofjs.com/front-end-frameworks/)

my own choice, aurelia, which i picked a few years ago, is the 3rd most write- in choice. it has a healthy community and active development. and i see no need to change for the forseeable future. it doesn't need to be the next big thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Firebase is a collection of services. This seems to be an alternative to the Firebase Realtime Database specifically

<comment><USER15> This is not even true. Firebase Realtime Database supports offline-first while SapphireDB is just streaming results to the client, like RethinkDB or Meteor.

<comment><AUTHOR> Offline-first is already a planned feature and only missing because of the lack of development capacity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Another open source "realtime" database, which supports joins, has a nice admin interface, sharding, and realtime queries:

[https://rethinkdb.com](https://rethinkdb.com)

It's what mongo should have been from the beginning -- they won the correctness battlew hile mongo won the marketing war.

I should mention that I've had some colleagues run into problems with scaling it so it's not all roses but a database that scales painlessly in every case is AFAIK a fantasy.

</comment><comment><USER17> Need to followup, but angular-only examples... would be nice to see a straight/simple client that can be used with, for example, angular listed...

It is probably out there already.

</comment><comment><USER18> Was building an opensource version cheaper for you than just using firebase? I'm generally curious. I commonly see OS alternatives to paid services but I've never seen why it was made. Is it cheaper to run and maintain your own servers? Are longer outages and downtimes ok for your company? Security vulnerabilities? Maybe these are things you don't care about and that's fine.

It would be nice to see "Use this if.." section.

</comment><comment><USER17> Needs a base npm library, that is not tethered to Angular.

[https://github.com/SapphireDb/SapphireDb/issues/3](https://github.com/SapphireDb/SapphireDb/issues/3)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is planned and will come soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Cool - I'm glad to see more tech similar to Firebase pop up that's self hosted.

The big request would be mobile. I mostly use FB for the web but knowing that I could create a mobile version using the same platform would be great.

</comment><comment><USER20> based on .net core, for what it's worth

<comment><USER21> Which is a bit weird since .NET Core has standardized on the open source SignalR, which is really good. It would make more sense to build on top of that.

<comment><USER22> > SapphireDb should serve as a self hosted alternative to firebase and also > gives you an alternative to SignalR.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is there a self hosted server for auto merge?

<comment><USER24> Hi! What features are you interested in for integrating with auto-merge? If it's OK to ask, what's your use case? Thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> "SapphireDb also supports running in an NLB with multiple instances and scales very good."

In English, when speaking of actions you must say "well" instead of "good", ie. "scales very well". While there are a million weird things about English, this particular mistake is used as a cultural marker of "childish" or "low- intelligence" speech, so you probably want to fix it ASAP.

Also what is an NLB???

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I'll fix it soon.</comment></comment>


Compression of JavaScript programs - <AUTHOR> http://www.bitsnbites.eu/?p=20

<comment><USER2> A document [1] by Ray Cromwell introduces an aid for JS compression, both theory and implementation [2]. The idea is to transform JS code before compression in a way that, while keeping JS semantics, makes is best possible candidate for the popular gzip deflate compression.

\----

[1] [http://timepedia.blogspot.com/2009/08/on-reducing-size-of- co...](http://timepedia.blogspot.com/2009/08/on-reducing-size-of- compressed.html)

[2] [http://code.google.com/p/google-web- toolkit/source/detail?r=...](http://code.google.com/p/google-web- toolkit/source/detail?r=5972)

<comment><USER3> That's a really awesome article--I remember when I first read it that it was both really interesting, well written and useful knowledge.

I thoroughly recommend taking the time to read it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _cough_ your server could serve gzipped stream and the browser would transparently uncompress it.

Sure there are browsers that can't decompress these streams, but your webserver already knows when to send the full (but minified) JS instead. Its all handled automatically.

<comment><USER5> He mentions "small source size" competitions as one of the reasons for doing this and they all count the size of the raw js file, not the size of the gzipped file as sent by the server.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a great process to maximize your JS compression. However, it's important to keep in mind the application. From the jQuery dl page (yes, they use a different compression method):

"The packed versions require non-trivial client-side processing time to uncompress (unpack) the code whereas the minified versions do not."</comment>


Real-times updates on the next coin to be listed on Coinbase - <AUTHOR> https://CoinbaseHunt.com <comment><USER2> Sweet. I like the real-timeness of this :)</comment>


Google hijacking DNS to sabotage projects like Namecoin? - <AUTHOR> http://dot-bit.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1440&p=7706

<comment><USER2> Spoiler: the answer is no. To see the _actual_ rationale, check out the blog post this guy is loudly reacting to:

[https://plus.google.com/+WilliamChanPanda/posts/FKot8mghkok](https://plus.google.com/+WilliamChanPanda/posts/FKot8mghkok)

<comment><AUTHOR> I did, and sections from that blog post were quoted in the link, and the specific rationale was dissected and questioned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are Google "hijacking DNS to sabotage projects like Namecoin?" \- No. I doubt the people working on this give any thought to Namecoin, the user-base overlap is approximately 0%. They're doing this because they think it will improve performance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your reply seems almost identical to pjscott's, to which I already responded (so my response to you is the same): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6949269](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6949269)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whilst I can understand Google's desire to parallelise and accelerate DNS resolution, building their own browser-level resolver is a hairy way to do so.

Several projects have attempted to address this problem before ( C-ARES, and Polipo's internal resolver ) but never managed to achieve critical momentum. Might it not have been worth focusing effort there?

Plus, naturally, there's the temptation to use Google's own public DNS servers instead of adhering to the OS-specified resolution order.

</comment><comment><USER5> When you fear you're a nail, everything looks like a big scary hammer?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, even hammers, the small, non-intimidating kind. ;)

(Please keep the discussion to the merits of the points raised.)

<comment><USER5> I'm happy to do so, of course. In cases where the points actually have merit. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> ...Whether or not the points have any merit, you're welcome to point that out and explain why.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> "Hijacking" was poor word choice. I renamed the thread to "Google implementing its own DNS, implications for Namecoin?"

Questions remain though, as to why Google is doing this. The rationale they've provided just doesn't make much sense in light of alternatives that they know about.

<comment><AUTHOR> I edited the post with the following comment (in bold at the bottom), as I did not notice the timestamp on the post, nor did anyone else bring it to my attention:

 _EDIT (December 22, 2013 1:24PM EST): Actually, I made a mistake in failing to notice the timestamp of the post. It crossed my news feed yesterday, and I mistakenly assumed that it was news. In March of 2012 Google could not have known about DNSNMC specifically, but they could have known about Namecoin and [other DNS projects]([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6950592](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6950592)). Therefore, I take back my accusations against Google, apologize for them, and withhold judgement until I learn what their current-day plans are on this. If anyone knows off the top of their heads whether they are still planning on going in this direction, please comment below!_</comment></comment>


No, you're not bad at math - <AUTHOR> http://creactiviti.com/2018/06/02/no-youre-not-bad-at-math/ <comment><USER2> Well.. you might be. This article just says who to sheet it home to.</comment>


Facebook knew about Snap's struggles months before the public - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/13/facebook-knew-about-snap-struggles-through-app-tracking/ <comment><USER2> This is likely how Zuck will run for President. Using the vast network of Facebook to find, influence, and manipulate voters. IMO Russia couldn't hold a candle to the damage the full force of Facebook could do to our electoral process.</comment>


How to build a $10 passive network tap (10/100 mbit) - <AUTHOR> http://www.securityforrealpeople.com/2014/09/how-to-build-10-network-tap.html

<comment><AUTHOR> When one's profession involves network security, sometimes it helps to capture network communication to analyze. For about $10 in parts, you can easily build a network tap to capture traffic anywhere on your network for analysis or for an IDS.</comment>


Siri Android Clones Are Laughable At Best - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/03/siri-android-clones-are-laughable-at-best/ <comment><USER2> Is this what passes for journalism on TechCrunch these days? Three short paragraphs that are backed with maybe 30 seconds of Internet research?

For those who actually care, Android has had great "Siri"-like apps outside of the built-in voice system for a while now, with Vlingo [1] leading the pack. Asking pretty much any respected Android mailing list / channel / forum will give you Vlingo as the de-facto Siri for Android that we and iOS users have had before Siri even existed. With one exception: the two-way conversation that Siri has right now. That's the nice feature that I hadn't seen before the Siri-buzzword-madness started.

[1] <https://market.android.com/details?id=com.vlingo.client>

</comment><comment><USER3> I think they need to spend more time getting voice recognition software, on all devices including iPhone and Android, to recognise speech across many more regional dialects. I'm from the north west of England and didn't think my "lancyshire" accent was _that_ bad, but I can hardly get Android to recognise _anything_ I say. Maybe it gets it right one in twenty times at best, which makes it unusable. My wife (an Apple fan-girl) has more luck with Siri, but it still gets it wrong enough that you have to stare intently at the screen just to make sure it's not going to phone your Mum by accident.

People with strong accents all over the UK probably find these things unusable. I wonder, is it the same in the US? Do these things only ever get tested in San Francisco? (probably a little unfair, but still...)

</comment><comment><USER4> agree with this completely. i've tried a few and none of them work very well. need something that allows plain language and doesn't require special 'languages' or commands.</comment>


Physical maps of subways systems in Paris, London and other cities - <AUTHOR> http://carto.metro.free.fr/ <comment><USER2> Not just physical, but accurate down to sidings, junctions, signals and platforms.

They are incredible, incredible works

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> In a way, this is a counterpart of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21796266](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21796266)

</comment><comment><USER3> No New York, sadly. Unless I missed it entirely, in which case I'd love to be corrected.</comment>


Drone hacking is becoming child's play - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@swalters/drones-hacking-is-becoming-childs-play-b56843342e36#.syx1djd2x <comment><USER2> The drone that hijacks other drones in mid-air already exists [http://newatlas.com/skyjack-hijacks-other- drones/30055/](http://newatlas.com/skyjack-hijacks-other-drones/30055/)</comment>


Wikipedia's request for comment on a SOPA blackout - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Action

<comment><USER2> that's quite a shame that the link on Jimmy Wales' comment page made it in the top news, but that the real poll does not get the same level of advertisement here :\</comment>


Why Roku's IPO Will Be Worth Watching - <AUTHOR> https://www.valuewalk.com/2017/09/rokus-ipo-will-worth-watching/ <comment><USER2> What amused me most is that the market share of Roku differs A LOT across sources:

(I own a chromecast so I just compare Roku vs Google.)

18% vs 30% [https://www.valuewalk.com/2017/09/rokus-ipo-will-worth- watch...](https://www.valuewalk.com/2017/09/rokus-ipo-will-worth-watching/)

8% vs 16% [http://www.businessinsider.com/roku-hits-a-new-milestone- as-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/roku-hits-a-new-milestone-as-its- market-share-continues-to-soar-2017-7)

36.9% vs 38.9% [http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/roku-apple-tv- chromecas...](http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/roku-apple-tv-chromecast- amazon-fire-tv-market-share-2017-1202506850/)

I can understand these are sensitive numbers and can be difficult to get. But these agencies strived to reach completely different results. How can this be possible?

<comment><USER3> Roku is an _extremely_ US-centric device, to the point that it's almost impossible to set up properly unless you are in the US.

I had to use a proxy and fake a US mailing-address to be allowed to use Spotify (a European service!), from Europe. And I had to try 3-4 times, with different email-addresses, because I had to create new accounts.

This thing took a reasonably seasoned hacker some serious effort to set up. I'm not buying a single device from this company ever again.

Compare that to Chromecasts: You can give those to grandmas and they'll just work.

My guess is if you compare global numbers to US-only numbers you will get _very_ different results, and you will find Roku having almost no marketshare what so ever outside US-borders.

<comment><USER4> I'm in the UK and I haven't experienced those sorts of issues. Maybe I've just been lucky with what I've signed up for, but I think it would be unfortunate to paint a really good product (IMHO) as bad unnecessarily.

The only issue I have is that, in the UK, you can't preload Amazon movies via the web for watching later, but that's an Amazon thing AIUI not Roku.

<comment><USER5> The author might not be from UK (he just said "Europe") so his experience might be completely different from yours.

I've met a fair share of devices who simply refuse to work in continental EU while still demanding registration to US streaming services. Stupid issues like not being able to update Spotify app on Android (due to Play Store geoblocking) while the app demands update (and works after manually applying it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Roku devices are great. For less than $70 I got a box that plays Netflix, Amazon Video, Google Play, Youtube, Hulu, and a lot more that I don't use.

The big selling point for me was the built-in headphone jack on the remote. After the wife, kids go to bed, I can still enjoy a late-night movie without waking anyone up... so long as I don't laugh too loud. (grin)

This is my second Roku device - been using them for about 5 years now. Kids broke the remote on the last one and it was nearly as cheap to buy a whole new device than replace the remote.

<comment><USER7> I got a Xiaomi Mi box and find it similarly amazing. It runs Android TV, which means I can install Kodi, which has been amazing for watching my movie collection, I don't know if Roku supports that.

I used to have a Chromecast but the Mi box is much more convenient.

<comment><USER8> Here's my evolution:

2008 - Eureka LX350HD Really buggy, crashed often, no MKV support, but played most of my library from back in the day

2010 - WDTV Gen 1 Great upgrade from the Eureka, MKV support

2012 - WDTV Live Streaming Gen 3 I still consider this the best media player I've owned, but it got slower over the years as apps improved (got bloated). Supported all video formats, supported all major online services, ability to mount over network, lots of advanced config options, and native playback from local drives via multiple USB ports.

2013 - Apple TV Gen 3 Having to transcode all MKVs / stream them from my Mac Mini was a non-starter, very slow, but I thought I'd give it a try (The WDTV Live could play all formats natively).

2014 - Roku 3 (+ Plex) Eventually the WDTV Live got too slow and firmware updates didn't help. Roku was a huge upgrade for online services, and Roku + Plex made transcoding tolerable (more-so than the Apple TV). Headphone jack in remote was a nice touch, and hidden private channels were fun.

2016 - Xiaomi Mi Box (Official Android TV + Kodi) This is the best media player I've owned since the WDTV. Kodi / SPMC does everything the WDTV could do and so much more. Ability to mount over the network and native playback from local drives means NO MORE TRANSCODING or remote media servers. Although Roku + Plex made transcoding tolerable, native playback (smooth seek / fast forward etc.) can't be beat.

The only negative with official Android TV is limited apps, compared to Android + Chromecast or the older Android boxes. Android TV desperately needs a native Chrome web browser without side loading. The CBC app is great, for anyone in Canada! And Netflix / YouTube runs faster compared to the Roku 3.

Android TV via the Xiaomi Mi Box or NVidia Shield with Kodi currently provides the best overall experience, and most options in terms of playback, apps, and advanced setup options.

<comment><USER7> That echoes my experience. Is Firefox not available for Android TV yet? I don't really use a browser on the TV, so I haven't even tried installing one (not sure if it already comes installed with Chrome).

I know you said "no sideloading", but downloading and installing the Firefox APK right from Mozilla's website should be simple, no?

<comment><USER8> I sideloaded Chrome and Firefox a few months ago using the sideload launcher app ([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.t...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.tv.sideloadlauncher&hl=en)), but the browsers have issues, mostly UI / UX tweaks to make them usable with the onscreen keyboard, Android TV remote etc. without buying a bunch of extra hardware.

The easier work around at the moment is to cast from a laptop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Since other comments have already pointed out some negative aspects of roku, I just wanted to say that I really enjoy my roku. Moreover my parents and non- tech-savvy friends love it. I'm not sure why, but when it comes to roku vs similar products these demographics just seems to 'get it'. I refuse to get cable TV since everything I want to watch can be streamed; but my roommate complained almost every day that he didnt know how to stream, he didnt like the chromecast or PS4 and "why cant we just get cable?!". Unrelenting I picked up a $50 roku premiere hd. For whatever reason, he loves it. He says it feels familiar - whatever that means.

<comment><USER10> The chromecast pairing can be rather unintuitive for a first timer. Hell I always fumble around when I have to set the thing up once a year when I travel to a random ski lodge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Roku's products are in a stage of rot that is very disconcerting.

For example, despite Rdio failing as a company, Roku lacks the ability to map their Rdio button to a different function. This seems to indicate _fundamentally_ bad practices by their engineering department. Similarly, it is possible to quickly hit the search button too fast and cause the entire Roku device to freeze. On top of all of this, there are some channels that seem to be impossible to remove from their devices.

<comment><USER12> Roku apps feel pretty clunky/jerky compared to Chromecast and Apple TV. Feels like a product built in the 2000s.

<comment><USER3> Until recently the Plex-app available for Roku literally looked like something out of the _90s_. I've seen fancier menus on my old Amiga.

The eco-system and its apps are not really built to impress.

<comment><USER12> Makes me wonder: if the Roku was released today, how successful would it be? Seems like they have a huge first mover advantage in that people know it. But now there are lots of big players in the game who can really polish their respective products. I guess this IPO is supposed to help with that, but I feel this just means that there's a challenging road ahead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am still using Chromecast (1st gen) device to cast pretty much every video I can find on my phone. For the video apps without cast option (like Amazon Instant Video for example), I simply cast entire phone (Android system 'Cast' that mirrors screen ) on my TV. This solves fragmentation issue for me as I can cast pretty much everything: YTube, Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now, Amazon Video, CuriosityStream, etc. Works great for me.

<comment><USER7> The nice thing about Android TV boxes (which I think Roku doesn't run) is the remote, so you don't have to use the phone. You can also pause/rewind etc from the remote, which, to me, is more convenient than the phone apps. I made the switch and much prefer it over the Chromecast (mostly for Kodi, though).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have a Roku 3 and don't plan on buying another. They plastered ads all over the home screen.

Luckily I'm in the Apple ecosystem, so I've got a good backup option when this one dies.

<comment><USER15> 4K ATV comes out this month apparently. I'm a FireTV owner (current gen, got it when it came out) and I've been pretty pleased with it. Works with HBO Go, VLC, Kodi, Netflix, Spotify, and Prime. It's the only game in town that will do all of those without jail breaking / messing around a lot with the software. It's not perfect and the dist of Android has some issues, but a ~weekly reboot isn't bad for how often it works well enough. I wish it was more responsible and didn't have issues with the remote disconnecting, I wish the launcher was better, a usable browser would be nice, etc but again it all works with the least amount of hassle vs the other options.

It's currently unavailable on Amazon, and there are rumors of a new one coming soon, which seems very likely to compete with the new ATV even though I've considered Amazon Fire TV and sticks to be ahead of the other offerings for at least a year at this point.

We've come a long way from MythTV / XBMC days. It's an exciting time to be a content consumer, hah.

<comment><USER16> > 4K ATV comes out this month apparently

Any official links I can share with my friend who is an Apple fan? All I came up with in a quick search was the rumor sites.

Thanks in advance for your time.

<comment><USER17> nothing yet but should be announced tomorrow

[https://www.apple.com/apple- events/september-2017/](https://www.apple.com/apple-events/september-2017/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Roku's are great, my elderly mum loves hers as it just works.

Best birthday present I ever gave her (according to her).

</comment><comment><USER19> Well, they make the best set top boxes. They were first for Netflix Instant and are still the best. Even beats Apple TV.</comment>


Effective C: An Introduction to Professional C Programming - <AUTHOR> https://nostarch.com/Effective_C <comment><USER2> I started learning C at the start of this year by going through K&R and Understanding and Using C Pointers. I will likely pick this is up, it looks good and I really like No Starch Press books.

Does anyone have pointers on where to start with actual embedded programming? I have a couple Arduinos and RPis laying around, but I'm wondering if there are more 'real' ways to do it.

<comment><USER3> If you are looking for a full course this one isn't bad: _Embedded Systems Shape the World_ [0] it does hew pretty close to platform specifics (Windows/Keil/TI Launchpad) which can be good for specifics and not good for holistic understanding.

I have had a lot of fun following Ben Eater's[1] projects, which aren't always embedded-specific (sometimes they're TTL, sometimes Arduino) but are excellent for understanding concepts deeply.

I tend to learn best with a specific project that can grow or morph as my interest or experience dictates. You might find something to build with an Arduino, using the toolchain/IDE/libraries, get it working and then start stripping out libraries for your own implementations, or getting a toolchain of your own to cross-compile and flash.

[0]: [http://www.edx.org/course/embedded-systems-shape-the- world-m...](http://www.edx.org/course/embedded-systems-shape-the-world- microcontroller-i)

[1]: [https://eater.net/](https://eater.net/)

<comment><USER4> From a C-veteran perspective, what do you think about type safe (e.g. dependent types such in ATS, or F*/KreMLin, or other DSLs) languages that compile to C, or a subset of C?

How could one get the safety promises that are observed in Rust in C?

Thanks!

<comment><USER5> I'm not the OP you're asking, I'll provide my own answer to the latter question though.

C is a language that doesn't come with many guarantees. I personally like to think of C as a 'higher-level assembler', targeting a virtual machine. I've been led to believe that this figurative description of the language was more common in the past than it is today. I find it a helpful description since it offers an explanation for many of C's design choices. Such as it's weak types and use of pointers. If I'm correct it's also an accurate description of the language's original aims in system development.

Also, Rust isn't the only systems programming language with a focus on safety. Ada has been around for some time now and is a much more mature language and arguably more suited for the job. It has a demonstrable track record of successful use in safety-critical software. Rust is definitely more 'C-like' than Ada, which might make it preferable to many.

<comment><USER4> I see. Thank you very much for your explanation.

I always thought that after so many years, there must be a testing framework, development tools and methodology to give a C developer the safety that his problem requires. What do people use when they are programming critical systems e.g. defense,health,flight control, etc. Problems like Heartbleed et al are not something that can be ignored in the industry.

That is why I wondered about advanced tools I heard about e.g. ATS, Compcert, and so on. As I understand, the model that is used in Rust comes with limitations in regard to program design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Obviously, there's the iconic K&R, which some people don't like for its terseness. I loved it - pure and to the point. However, the second book that made a huge impact on me was "Reusable Data Structures For C" by Roger Sessions. If you internalize these two books you'll be a highly competent C programmer. [https://www.amazon.com/Reusable-Data-Structures-Prentice- hal...](https://www.amazon.com/Reusable-Data-Structures-Prentice-hall- Software/dp/0137790341/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=roger+session&qid=1585637927&rnid=2941120011&s=books&sr=1-3)

</comment><comment><USER7> Can any more experienced C developers give an opinion on the author/contents of this book?

I'm a Python/Julia developer starting to learn C. I have K&R already, and Test Driven Development for Embedded C (Grenning).

I did order 'Modern C' by Gustedt but the publisher never delivered to Waterstones so they had to cancel the order (about 6 months ago, book still unavailable from Waterstones as of today).

<comment> as-j Looking over the contents, it seems expensive for what you get and what not might be the most practical day to day C issues. If you want to use C more effectively, I'd look at a systems programming book for what ever system you prefer. When hiring engineers knowing C isn't the issue, knowing how to code daemons in Unix, how to use sockets, pipes, io, handle signals, etc etc is the issue.

Contents are:

* How to identify and handle undefined behavior in a C program * The range and representations of integers and floating-point values * How integer promotions are performed and how they may affect portability

I think it's incredibly important to understand how numbers on computers work, what are the limits of 32bit and 64bit values and how double/floats play into it.

* The order of evaluation of expressions

Most coding styles avoid ambiguity by just using (enough parentheses) around (important statements).

* Dynamic memory allocation including the use of non-standard functions

Non-standard worries me here. Memory allocation isn't particularly

* The philosophy underlying the use of character types in C Character encodings and types

I'm curious as to what this is covering? Is it system specific?

* How to perform input/output (I/O) with terminals and file systems using C Standard Streams and POSIX file descriptors * The translation phases implemented by the C compiler and the role of the preprocessor * How to test, debug, and analyze C programs

IO is an interesting topic, but I suspect best covered by a systems programming manual. There's several unix books, Stevens being the goto guide historically, and I would go straight to the source instead.

<comment><USER8> These seem like really odd criticisms to level against a book which is clearly not about systems programming. The title itself makes it clear it's an introductory text on the subject of C. And from the overview:

>"You'll learn how to develop correct, portable, professional-quality code and build a foundation for developing security-critical and safety-critical systems."

So the stated aim of the book is to build a "foundation" from which you could then go on to digest and effectively use advanced things like the Stevens book.

<comment> as-j my reply was for montalbano directly. He has K&R which lays a foundation of the language. Maybe you're right and this builds off of that as a #2 type of book, so you could be right there.

Safety-critical and security-critical are interesting for an intro book. I'd like people to be aware, and conscious of of them. Anyways, we could debate this one. It really depends on how paranoid a beginner programmer becomes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's nice to see a good quality effort on a modern C book.

Looking at the current language/job markets outside the center, I feel like we are hitting the same problems as in open source. People add C++ to every C job to have something with the same level of innovations going on as new languages, even if it is about Linux embedded and you wouldn't let a C++ construct near the system.

<comment><USER10> > even if it is about Linux embedded and you wouldn't let a C++ construct near > the system.

I guess all these AVR, STM32 and ESP2866 devices running C++ are to be discarded too ?

<comment><USER9> Yes, and given that an Intel PC is a valid build target for almost every language and we pay were paying by the word in job classifieds, we almost went broke before we realized we had to throw them out too.

But after initial turbulence, life has gotten much simpler (and dare I say quiet) for our HR since we moved to using the stock job profiles shipped with the platforms we buy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Could someone who purchased the early release say how any chapters are currently available? Usually Nostarch bolds the the currently available chapters in the table of contents and this looks like all of them.

<comment><USER11> This book is just about to go to the printer. The book business has been turned upside down by COVID-19. We still offer free ebooks with print books purchased directly from our site but we don't know when we'll be able to ship to our customers directly again.

We'll also be pushing out a promotional offer on this book, likely this coming week so you may want to wait for that. Just trying to keep things on track now that our company is completely remote and physical book stores are closing left and right.

<comment><USER8> Hi, thanks for the follow up. So all of the content listed in the table of content is currently available in the ebook then?

I ask because there's 3 or 4 titles on your "coming soon" page that I'm very interested in but I have limited funds for a purchase. Cheers.

<comment><USER11> The book is in its final stages. We're just making final corrections.

I'm chatting with Robert about whether there's a chapter that he's comfortable releasing now. If not we should have something Monday or Tuesday and the entire book within a week or so. I need to confirm on Monday.

The 30% off coupon listed on the books page is good on the print purchase, which also includes all the ebooks.

<comment><USER12> I hope your choice of Cthulhu doesn't mean reading the book will drive you insane!

<comment><USER11> I believe that was Roberts choice but I love the cover.

<comment><USER12> Oh, I do too. I am a big reader of Lovecraft and books in the same genre.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> (That cover art really made me chuckle.)

<comment><USER14> I think it would be a better fit for a C++ book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What is going on with the sudden profusion of books on C? _21st century C, Modern C, Understanding and Using C Pointers?_

Okay, I realize "profusion" might seem a bit overblown, but honestly, in C world (and in comparison to other languages), this is practically a publishing boom.

Not that I'm complaining; C was my first programming language (back some time in the mid-90s), and it's still my favorite. But I wonder why we're suddenly getting new books on it? The language itself hasn't undergone any substantial changes recently, and if anything, "memory safety" is all the rage -- a thing that C most assuredly is not.

<comment><USER16> Don't jinx it!

If this can get the non-C programmers to learn and understand the usefulness of a simple, minimal and direct language ("modern" languages are just too bloated), it is well worth it.

I have said it before and say it again; C will allow you to program everything from itty-bitty MCUs to honking server machines. It is also the de-facto universal "glue" language and its real-world benefits far outweigh any perceived difficulties.

Bottomline - Every programmer should know C whether you use/like it or not.

<comment><USER17> Glue language aside (which arguably is a lot more true of unices than other platforms), I'd argue Forth might make a better language / minimal environment for learning the low-level parts of a computing system.

It's got interactivity (bundled compiler/interpreter in one system), a large number of implementations (possibly more supported CPUs than C++, but that might be more due to its age), and a Forth system is easier to "pick apart" and learn how its compiler's implemented than a C compiler.

<comment><USER16> May be true. However, my point was that C is everywhere and you just cannot escape it. Knowledge of this one language allows you to program real-world high-level applications to low-level systems (eg. OS/Compilers etc.) and everything in-between.

Given the proliferation of processors everywhere, it is of immeasurable value to a programmer to become familiar with one "universal" language/runtime/toolchain so that he can program literally anything. It simplifies "incidental complexity" (avoids "tower of babel") which is key to getting things done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Encouraging C use is at this point, bordering on malpractice. I understand that the author is a leading authority in "secure C coding". While the ABI doesn't have a lot of affordances, we don't have to keep using the language because of the ABI.

Rather

ZetZ -- Symbolic Verifier and Transpiler to C. [https://github.com/aep/zz](https://github.com/aep/zz) and previous discussions, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22245409](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22245409)

Zig, [https://ziglang.org/](https://ziglang.org/) [https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ziglang](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ziglang)

Rust is more of a C++ competitor, [https://www.rust- lang.org/](https://www.rust-lang.org/)

And Dlang has a regime where it can be used w/o a GC. [https://dlang.org/spec/garbage.html](https://dlang.org/spec/garbage.html)

I left out any language which forces the use of a garbage collector.

</comment><comment><USER19> What's with that captcha?

Tried twice, couldn't solve it.

If you're trying to sell something, make it easy to get my money.

</comment><comment><USER20> if (!(K & R)) { perror("An internal error occurred.\n"); }

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm sorry, $60? I'm all in favor of fair remuneration for an excellent piece of work, but this is really too much. $30 would be much more fair.

(And it doesn't matter if it's a physical book or e-book, the cost of printing nowadays is ca. $1 for each 100 pages.)

<comment><USER22> For 272 pages written by probably the best person to be writing modern C books, from a small publisher who is known for quality books, sixty dollars doesn't sound unreasonable at all

<comment><USER23> Not to be rude to the author but what makes him the best person to be writing modern C books?

<comment><USER24> So it's hard to say that I'm the best person to write a modern C book. A slightly lower bar might be, am I the best person who has actually written a modern C Book?

Resume-wise, I've been writing C code since 1985, and I've been an expert on the C Standards Committee (WG14) since 2004. I've written two prior books on C Programming including "Secure Coding in C and C++" and "The CERT C Coding Standard". I also teach Secure Coding in C for NCC Group [https://www.nccgroup.trust/us/our-services/cyber- security/se...](https://www.nccgroup.trust/us/our-services/cyber- security/security-training/secure-coding/) and I also taught these topics to Computer Science undergraduates and graduate students at CMU for over a decade. So I think I have a good balance of technical skills and communications skills, but you know, pick up a copy and judge for yourself.

<comment><USER25> If I buy a copy of your book, will you abuse your position to get constexpr into C? It would be a big improvement over complex macro magic.

I'll buy an extra copy if you can get 'defer' in there too!

Those two features would really be the bee's knees :)

<comment><USER26> This is an interesting coincidence, because I just started drafting a 'defer' paper. In general, this is not an abuse of my position. I would be happy to collaborate with you (or anyone else in the community) to develop papers and champion them to the committee. They would have to be sensible ideas, which both of yours are too.

<comment><USER25> That's awesome!!! I'm actually really interested in the semantics of how a defer{} statement might work in C. If you have any kind of a draft or anything, I'd get a kick out of reading over it.

Re: developing a paper for constexpr, that's an interesting idea. I hadn't really thought about writing one up myself but it'd be an interesting thing to try out. Can you recommend a good example proposal that I could read? Shoot me an email at nicholas dot clark on the gmail if you ever see this.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Musings on the Current Status of High Energy Physics - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.00101 <comment><USER2> I have a PhD in physics, and left academia for industry (20 years ago).

One of the reasons was that physics today (or at least at that time) was dealing with exotic stuff, away from everyday life. It was not the time of Planck or Curie where within 30 years physics was boiling hot, with key discoveries almost everyday. Just look at the picture from the Solvay confrence where you see names of people you read about in a high school book.

I would hope we are in a stage like in the late XIX century, where everything seemed to be known in physics, with some tiny things still needing an explanation : the Michelson Morley experiment, the uv catastrophe etc.

<comment><USER3> I got out with just an MSc, for pretty much the same reason. You know physics has lost a lot of steam[1] when the perhaps leading theoretical physicist of our time, Leonard Susskind, regularly gives talks about... how he knew Richard Feynman.

Regarding your hope: I very much doubt we'll get to experience the following stage in our lifetime.

1\. It's amazing to think just how much steam: just as an example, you could argue that physicists determined the outcome of WWII, and with it the whole path of civilization.

<comment><USER4> > you could argue that physicists determined the outcome of WWII

If you're referring to the A-bomb, no. Germany was defeated without it, and the Japanese military didn't really care if civilians were turned to ashes.

You could argue that a combination of events ended the Pacific War, including starvation, no fuel, Russians advancing in the north, the destruction of the Japanese navy by the USA, the destruction of the Japanese army in Manchuria/Russian border, plus the A-bomb.

The Japanese Emperor was a world-class marine biologist and understood the A-bomb in general terms, but had very little influence over the military. He did a radio broadcast and survived retaliation from the military, so he does get credit for that.

Hitler and the Japanese military were die-hard end-of-the-world types. Important to realize when dealing with other tyrants. For them, there is no Plan B or surrender.

<comment><USER5> > > you could argue that physicists determined the outcome of WWII If you're > referring to the A-bomb, no. Germany was defeated without it, and the > Japanese military didn't really care if civilians were turned to ashes.

Germany was defeated, but the USSR was on a roll.

Without the A-bomb, there's a decent chance the Soviet Union would've pushed the Anglo-Americans out of the continental Europe.

<comment><USER6> That would have been WWIII.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > the giant resonance mode. In this mode each novel idea, once it appears, > spreads in an explosive manner in the theoretical community, sucking into > itself a majority of active theorists, especially young theorists. > Naturally, alternative lines of thought by and large dry out. Then, before > this given idea bears fruit in the understanding of natural phenomena (due > to the lack of experimental data and the fact that on the theory side > crucial difficult problems are left behind, unsolved), a new novel idea > arrives, the old one is abandoned, and a new majority jumps onto the new > train.

Reminds me of Jamie Zawinski's "CADT Model" of software development. There seems to be a dynamic in many fields where fixing known problems or finishing a project doesn't seem important to many people.

<comment><USER8> sounds like a decent simulated annealing or genetic algorithm search. which seems fine. smart people trying different ideas for a while.

<comment><USER7> I'm in favor of trying many different ideas, _for a while_ , i.e., when a problem is new. But at a certain point you need to address issues that are viewed as critical. In the academic fields that I'm familiar with, I don't see that occur as frequently as people try new ideas that don't obviously address the most critical issues. These new ideas typically do address _some_ issues but they might be regressions in some areas, ignore other important issues, or address the issues they focus on poorly.

In software development you have bug trackers. In scientific research you have review articles. These are useful tools that should be used to guide new work. Otherwise you're not doing simulated annealing or whatnot, you're just doing an inefficient random search.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love reading about high energy physics and this isn't the first account from a high energy theorist which excludes weariness at the lack of progress over the last decades. We can hope that someone has a breakthrough that unlocks a new era of high energy physics. Maybe the neutrino masses hold the key or new symmetries will be found. Maybe a small alteration will make an old idea viable. So many promising ideas have been shot down: Grand Unified Theories looked for proton decays, axions looked for light spontaneously going through solid walls and supersymmetry searched for new particles. Nothing was found.

As an ex-physicist with a more experimental background in condensed matters, the real discussions and theories are way beyond me though. Just look at this paragraph from the article:

"Assume we consider two-dimensional Schwinger model with one massless Dirac fermion of charge 2 [18]. More exactly, in addition to the dynamicalcharge-2 fermion, there is a heavy probe charge-1 fermion whose mass can be viewed as tending to infinity. Next, assume that in this model we compactify the spatial dimension on a circle of circumference L, i.e. impose either periodic or antiperiodic boundary conditions on the fermion fields. Then one can show that this model has two discrete Z2 symmetries – one 0-form and another 1-form. These two global Z2 symmetries have generators which do not commute with each other [18]. Thus, only one of these symmetries can be implemented,the other one must be spontaneously broken. Hence, the ground state is doubly degenerate. In other words, we observe in this example (see Appendix on page 15 and also [17]) the power of the mixed anomalies – the prediction of the projective action of the symmetries and the ground state degeneracy. This is a strong result at strong coupling. Sorry for the pun... After [12, 13, 14] a large number of non-trivial applications has been worked out.Many relevant references can be found in [18, 19]."

My hope is that there will be a revolution in accelerator technology. The LHC is a triumph of collaborative engineering but maybe the next accelerator will be based upon different principles such as wakefield acceleration or miniaturized accelerators. Or we could find different ways of testing high energy physics, more subtle than smashing two particles together!

<comment><USER10> What, you don't even know how to 'compactify the spatial dimension'?

<comment><USER6> You jest, but I've seen the compactification (using periodic boundary condition) mentioned - and explained - in a popular science book about quantum mechanics.

<comment><USER11> Which book? I did a Master's in Physics but a while ago so it'd be nice to read something somewhat technical (but not too much).

<comment><USER6> An intro to QM by A.Zagoskin. It is indeed somewhat more technical than most pop-science books.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does it make sense to build the FCC, when it costs so much money and doesn't necessarily have enough energy to discover any new physics, at 10x the energy of the LHC?

Maybe it makes more sense to start working towards producing microscopic black holes in space, where results about quantum gravity can be gained [1].

[0] [https://www.technologyreview.com/f/612766/cern-wants-to- buil...](https://www.technologyreview.com/f/612766/cern-wants-to-build-a- particle-collider-thats-four-times-bigger-than-the-lhc/)

[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1803](https://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1803) , Are Black Hole Starships Possible</comment>


Announcing Gigpack › Gigs for geeks. Subscription for early access. - <AUTHOR> http://www.gigpack.com/ <comment><USER2> come on ivan can you tell us what it's about without having to email you. Where's the faq?

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh ... these curious people. There is no need to provide your e-mail. It's about "you can", not about "you must" :) it isn't the next elance or guru. It's simple site with gigs.</comment></comment>


Come to SF Python's Holiday Party – Panel on Scalability, and Lightning Talks! - <AUTHOR> https://ti.to/sf-python/bay-area-holiday-party-2019 <comment><USER2> Can't wait! If you are into Python and lives in SF Bay Area, this is probably the coolest meetup/dev gathering to attend.</comment>