Bill Introduced to Re-Legalize Cell Phone Unlocking - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20130307/bill-introduced-to-re-legalize-cell-phone-unlocking

<comment><USER2> Here is the full text of the bill. It fails to address the DMCA at all, and I'm not sure I understand how it would fix the problem. It says that "the agent of such subscribers" should be allowed to unlock any devices, but if the primary way of doing that is illegal as per the DMCA, it's not clear at all what it would actually achieve.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---

A BILL

To require the Federal Communications Commission to direct that wireless providers permit the unlocking of mobile devices.

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the "Wireless Consumer Choice Act". SEC. 2. FCC DIRECTION TO WIRELESS PROVIDERS.

Pursuant to its authorities under title III of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 301 et seq.), the Federal Communications Commission, not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, shall direct providers of commercial mobile services and commercial mobile data services to permit the subscribers of such services, or the agent of such subscribers, to unlock any type of wireless device used to access such services. Nothing in this Act alters, or shall be construed to alter, the terms of any valid contract between a provider and a subscriber.

<comment><USER3> It reads like "you, the provider, should allow subscribers to unlock their device so long as you don't have a current contract with them".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For reference this is S.481 113th. The full text isn't up on THOMAS yet, but when it is this link should work:

[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi- bin/bdquery/D?d113:481:./list/bss/...](http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi- bin/bdquery/D?d113:481:./list/bss/d113SN.lst:):

</comment><comment><USER5> This is still a half measure. Why wouldn't they make cell phone LOCKING illegal?

<comment><USER6> Because it is completely reasonable for providers to give you a locked phone for a price subsidized by a 2 or so year contract. Nothing stops you from buying an unsubsidized, unlocked phone.

<comment><USER7> How is it _at all_ reasonable? Why should the carriers care if I want to sign a 2-year contract, get the iPhone and then use it with another network?

That's how things work in Greece. Carriers have no business messing with phones in any way (putting apps on them, locking them, etc), and they don't. Every single phone in Greece, no matter how long the contract, is stock unlocked from the provider.

<comment><USER8> Because for some people it might actually be worth it to buy a $200 and pay $60+ dollars a month for a more premium service, than $600 and $30+ for a cheaper deal.

Outlawing locking phones would drive phone prices up, I'd think.

<comment><USER9> >Because for some people it might actually be worth it to buy a $200 and pay $60+ dollars a month for a more premium service, than $600 and $30+ for a cheaper deal.

So have an early termination fee that constitutes the amount of the subsidy on the phone.

<comment><USER10> Seriously. This isn't a problem that has ever needed, nor should ever have had, a technological solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> That was fast. Are we in the same country still?

<comment><USER11> Guess they had their minds made up on this one already.

<comment><USER12> I suspect this is a consequence of this not being an existing battleground and there being a small core of people intensely interested enough to help write legislation supported by a broad enough base to convince legislators that they can buy some votes at the polls by supporting this. The only people who will pay attention to it are those who might sign the petition, or the cell phone companies.

Obscure special interest issues are easier to detect constituent consensus and come to agreement on in general.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> As the article states, I don't think I'm in support of this right now. We'd much rather see broader DMCA change, as highlighted at <http://fixthedmca.org>

I'm waiting on someone in DC to forward me the text of the bill. Will post here once I have it.

<comment><USER13> If you're not willing to support a measure that doesn't give you everything you want, you're really not cut out for politics.

I'm actually more in favor of making changes to the law in small patches, because they're less likely to contain bugs.

Monoliths like the 900 pages that is Obamacare -- how can anyone really figure out what the effects will be ahead of time?

<comment><USER9> A much better fix for this is actually _shorter_ than the proposed legislation. All you need is to add one line to DMCA 1201 that says it doesn't apply in the absence of infringement or to tools that have significant uses other than infringement.

<comment><USER14> But that would annoy some groups they don't want to annoy.

Instead, they are doing the smallest and least objectionable thing possible, in an attempt to stunt any legislative momentum around his broader initiative.

This is how the game is played. Now he has to make a move to try to either broaden a political coalition (he has the industry part down) to go further than what the administration explicitly supported, and deal with the silent but definitely existing industry coalition that is opposing it, or accept the smaller "fix" and use it to establish the legitimacy of his advocacy efforts, and save the actual legislative fight for a time when their isn't as much industry opposition.

Despite what folks here may think of congress in general and their intelligence, they are usually quite good at politics, or they would not be playing at this level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder how much money things like this cost to countries. Not that they're not important, but going back and forth on some consumerism laws when there are still education, health and security issues, makes me thing politicians are just wasting tax payers' money all the time.

<comment><USER16> I'd say that figuring out the right thing to do with respect to unlocking cell phones is certainly two and likely more than three orders of magnitude simpler than a useful change in security, health, or education. And I suspect it's just as important as the sort of things the Federal Government (as opposed to state or local) does with respect to education.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > "...to switch carriers"

What about roaming overseas? Anyone know?</comment>


Canopus framework and flight computer software for CubeBug cubesat platform - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/satellogic/canopus

<comment><USER2> The blogs [1][2] have some more information about the signals that were/are(?) sent out by their satellites.

It's awesome that the software is being released under the GPLv3 - is the hardware going to also be open sourced under an appropriate license? With launch costs decreasing, having a standard cubesat platform on which to build experiments could oneday make space-based experimentation commonplace in highschool or engineering-college classrooms!

[1] [http://1.cubebug.org/](http://1.cubebug.org/) [2] [http://2.cubebug.org/](http://2.cubebug.org/)</comment>


Is it ok to refuse to work on a project? - <AUTHOR> I've been working working for a company for about 3 months.
I've been hired to work on backend, but that project is on hold. Lately been doing more and more front end work. Currently I'm told to work on front end implementation for a project that I absolutely not excited about. I asked for something else, but was told all other projects are on hold. I really don't want to be working on this one. Feel pretty stressed and sad. Thinking about quitting.
Have you ever been in situation like this?
Am I just being lazy? <comment><USER2> 3 months in, sorry you gotta dig in and step up or step out. Your first year should shine. You should be impressively getting it done. After that first year if you did a good job then you have earned some pushback points. 3 months in - I'd say you are still way too new unless you have prior experience with the team you are with. It's fair to not like the project but you should have a clear understanding of how it will positively impact the business. Ask your manager to help you by reinforcing what that impact will be and yeah if they have a crap answer we'll the job market is hot so go shopping but keep in mind short hops on a resume do look bad.

</comment><comment><USER3> So you need to consider this a very large equation, and it involves your value to the company compared to their value to you.

So let's look at the right side: their value to you. Do you need the money? Do you have a family to support? Can you find another job quickly in {your city here}, or are you senior and need more time? If you quit, can you coast on savings and credit until you find something else? Do you think it's easier to find a job in your market while employed or unemployed? If you search while working, can you pull it off without tipping off your coworkers?

These things will determine how quickly you can bail and find new work if you decide you don't want this job.

Now let's look at left side. If you say no, can the company replace you quickly? Can the job be handed to the guy in the next cube, marking you as redundant? Do you have some special business knowledge and/or talent that can't be replaced quickly?

(An aside: Remember, ABOVE ALL, that _everyone_ is replaceable given enough money and time so you should be continuously aware of what value your company places on you. That is a career skill you need forever, so learn it quickly. Know when it's time to jump and when it's time to negotiate for better treatment.)

Now compute the two sides out (it's never a perfect equality) and play the scenario in your head. You can certainly say no and the company can fire you on the spot or perhaps slowly work on replacing you without telling you. This is the absolute _worst_ case for you. Being fired makes life a lot harder going forward and takes a long time to recover from.

Perhaps the company is more sympathetic and will reconsider their order and find something different for you to work on.

But don't count on it. Go with the worst-case scenario and think it through. We've all had assignments we don't want to do, it comes with the business. Don't think if you move to a new company it won't happen again. Sometimes you need to excel on sucky gruntwork projects to get trusted with the shiny nice and fun ones, especially if you are young and/or new to the company. Perhaps having extensive experience on the frontend will supremely qualify you for the backend work later.

We used to call this "paying your dues".

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER4> How much of your negative feelings stem from the fact that it is a front end project rather than backend?

I feel there is an unfair stigma against front-end development in most engineering organizations. Without front-ends most backend systems would serve no purpose at all if the end user is a non-engineer customer/client/user. The frontend experience makes or breaks most endeavors. It's of immense business value to have clean, maintainable bug-free front end code.

I frequently see projects of great value stall due to the bottleneck of having too few willing frontend developers to take the project across the finish line and turn a backend system into a usable product.

</comment><comment><USER5> Are they asking you to work on that project permanently for would it be <6 months. If it's short term I would just agree to work on it while letting your manager/whoever know it's not your preference. That way they know you're doing them a favor, and if they try to shaft you again you have a much better argument to refuse: "This is not what I was hired for, and I already worked on my non-preferred project once before." If they shaft you a second time I think it pretty much shows they don't respect or care about you and you can feel fine quitting.

<comment><USER5> Especially at a new job you don't want to show that you're a team player, willing to fill in where needed, etc.

</comment></comment><comment> java-man life is short. you better spend your time on something important. find a better job then quit.

in the mean time learn whatever you can about the new project. you might actually like it.

</comment><comment><USER6> You're not being lazy, you applied to and were hired into a position for back- end development which would indicate that the company had substantial needs for that type of expertise. Poor planning on their part and this could derail your career if you are not careful.

I have been in this situation before, although reversed (hired for front-end and design, tasked with back-end maintenance), and I eventually left the company due to their multiple repeated shell games. The experience has made me much more selective in regards to employment opportunities.

IMHO you should consider that you have been hired into a different job than you applied for, and you should leave the company as quickly as is convenient for you. If that means showing up and getting paid for six months while you find another opportunity then so be it. Luckily since you have only been there three months then your interviewing skills should still be fresh.

</comment><comment><USER7> You could use this as an opportunity to show you are capable to handle anything that is thrown at you. This is a highly valuable skill, way more valuable than your current tech stack. For you personally and the company hiring you.

After you have proven your value then talk to your boss. If things don't change, move on. Surely you'll find something better.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sometimes, you'll end up in a situation where the money does not matter and that work may not teach you something - and it may solely make money for the company.

At that point, you may as well refuse to do that work. Because if you take it, you'll do it without any interest. And it will suck.

</comment><comment><USER9> You need to talk to your manager about this. In depth. Explain how it's affecting your morale. You also need to brush up your resume.

If someone on my team refused an assignment without a damn good reason, I would see that as a major attitude problem.

</comment><comment><USER10> Find a new job, or suck it up and expand your skill-set. If you have less than 15 years of experience, probably not a bad idea to add new skills, just sayin'</comment>


Thoughts on my new USB solar charger business. - <AUTHOR>

Hey everyone.I recently started my own business selling a solar charger. I'm a hiker/camper and I was always looking for a reasonably priced USB solar charger to charge my various gadgets. I couldn't find anything that fits my needs, or my budget so I got started on my own.
Anyways, I have the website set up and I am hoping to make this my primary source of income. I would love to hear what everyone thinks about the product/website and what needs work.
http://thesunleaf.com/products/ipad-solar-charger
Thanks! <comment><USER2> So, you went on Alibaba and sourced 500 solar panels?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, Alibaba has been the source for most of my material. I didn't design it myself. My goal is to make my product affordable, effective, and convenient. Everything I found was so overpriced. I basically wanted to offer a solar charger for campers/hikers that works well with all of their devices and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the Best Non-Apple Web Dev Computer? - <AUTHOR> My last two computers over the last 10 years were both macbook airs and did their job gloriously. I've just bought the new 2018 model with 16GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage for $1,800. I'm a week in and the fans get just as loud as my previous 5.5 year old 2013 model and the chasis gets even hotter when having a video call. The front end camera is terrible quality and all of these seem to be known issues.
My question: what is the best alternative? I've heard the MBP has similar heat issues and the touch bar is a waste imo. I've tried the 2nd gen chrome pixelbook and it worked with ubuntu crouton but it wasn't a great experience. I work with linux servers sometimes but would rather not do too much manual configuration. I do mostly web development with occasional design work in the adobe suite. I'm in the command line a lot (not VIM) but also various IDEs and webcam calls. I am doing more software dev that requires compiling and very occasionally do video editing. I use an iPhone, mostly because iMessage is where my friends live. chrome, vscode, 1password, spotify, slack, keybase, zoom and plex are my most used apps.
TLDR: What machine & OS would be best suited to a long time mac user with medium to high processing requirements and a soft spot for good design but ready to move away from Apple? <comment><USER2> Notorious answer: Try a ThinkPad. Considering your need for the Adobe suite, you probably want to test whether Windows is something for you. However, thinkpads also go great with Linux. I had a t420 in 2011 and a X1 Yoga in 2016, both 1-2kEUR machines and they are great.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think you have a lot of options.

My own preference is to work on a desktop mac and I've not bought a laptop since Apple made the clamshell iBook.

Sucks to hear your report on the macbook though. I feel for you.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm really pleased with the Dell XPS line - and in term of OS I would recommend Fedora or Debian.

<comment><USER5> Another vote for the XPS, I have a 9360 with bare metal Ubuntu.

Works flawlessly and the screen is very nice.</comment></comment>


Why women over 50 can't find jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/women-over-50-face-cant-find-jobs/ <comment><USER2> At first I was taking note of all the nonsense in the article to try to address them, but when I reached "And we all live, including this employer, in a patriarchal society" I just stopped.

</comment><comment><USER3> 3.3 megabyte image right at the top of the article (picture of woman sewing) Size is: 5,206px × 3,471px</comment>


Chris Okasaki's PhD thesis on purely functional data structures (pdf) - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rwh/theses/okasaki.pdf <comment><USER2> Also available in extended dead-tree form: <http://www.amazon.com/Purely- Functional-Structures-Chris-Okasaki/dp/0521663504>

I highly recommend the book if you're implementing or using a functional programming language. There're lots of data structures that aren't mentioned at all in traditional imperative-language textbooks. Some of them even have decent performance.</comment>


The Telephone Tower in Stockholm circa 1890s - <AUTHOR> http://www.vintag.es/2013/09/the-telephone-tower-in-stockholm-ca.html

<comment><USER2> What leads to that design? I mean, why are they going to such expense to keep wire separated? Was insulation prohibitive? Had twisted pairs not been invented yet, making crosstalk too severe on closely bundled wires?

<comment><USER3> That was before high-quality wire insulation was invented. Each subscriber's telephone line had to be physically separate from all the others, because they weren't coated in anything.

[http://scienceray.com/technology/information/open-wire- telep...](http://scienceray.com/technology/information/open-wire-telephone- lines/)

<comment><USER4> I guess the great shift were low cost polymers for insulation. In the early 20th century rubber was very expensive, extracted from trees (in a process much like maple syroup extraction I guess).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Latex- production.jpg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Latex-production.jpg)

<comment><USER3> Actually before that came paper insulated cable: [http://www3.alcatel- lucent.com/bstj/vol12-1933/articles/bstj...](http://www3.alcatel- lucent.com/bstj/vol12-1933/articles/bstj12-1-1.pdf)

These cables had paper pulp insulation around the wires, and a jacket of soft lead around the whole cable. The cable is pressurized with dry air at the central office to drive out water, though flooded lines can still be a problem sometimes.

If you see any dirty-light-grey aerial cable (usually 2-5 cm diameter) in a city, that's probably pulp-insulated lead cable still in service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nowadays.. not so much better in some places: [http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2009/05/cable-blues- tangled-...](http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2009/05/cable-blues-tangled- crazy-wiring-part-6.html)

<comment><USER6> More cablefails [http://www.reddit.com/r/cablefail](http://www.reddit.com/r/cablefail)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Absolutely amazing, and my gut reaction is surprise it lasted so long before inevitably burning up.

Also quite interesting how they integrated it with the city aesthetics of the time, complete with the flags. When viewed from a distance it doesn't look quite as odd as it otherwise might have done had no consideration to that side of things happened.

<comment><USER8> "...and my gut reaction is surprise it lasted so long before inevitably burning up."

The fire started in the building below it, and didn't have anything to do with the structure itself. By 1953 the tower hadn't been used for its original purpose for many decades, with the wires having been removed in favour of underground cables.

The flags, however, were used for various informational purposes, such as indicating how many medals Sweden had received in international competitions for a particular day.

(My main source is this clip, in Swedish: [http://www.svd.se/nyheter/stockholm/mitt- stockholm/7695700_7...](http://www.svd.se/nyheter/stockholm/mitt- stockholm/7695700_7695700.svd))

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The picture with the cars must have been much later than 1890's:

[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gWoq9XFG7Go/UkgDSfJDziI/AAAAAAAAPK...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gWoq9XFG7Go/UkgDSfJDziI/AAAAAAAAPKs/p2ZvGCZg1cQ/s1600/The+%E2%80%9CTelephone+Tower%E2%80%9D+in+Stockholm,+ca.+1890%27s+%287%29.jpg)

The tower was still standing until 1953, so this picture must be from the later years of the tower's life.

<comment><USER10> I'd imagine all but the first two were taken in the later part of it's life as there are not many cables!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Alcatel-Lucent has scanned and put the entire Bell Systems Technical Journal online. There is a lot about research and inventions to try to manage the "outside plant" and how better and better cables were invented.

You can fit all of it on a 16GB SD card for your eBook reader, and you will never be bored again, at least not if you skip some of the calculus :-)

</comment><comment><USER12> I have a hazy recollection of an NK spinning logo still in Stockholm; is that thr logo on this tower, and is the logo still around?

<comment><USER13> NK is "Nordiska Kompaniet", a mall in Stockholm that has been around since early 1900s. The logo (also a clock) is quite a famous landmark in Stockholm. The clock/logo was put on the telephone tower in 1939 being the biggest clock in Europe at it's time with a diameter of 7.6 meters and a weight of 7 tons.

It was removed from the telephone tower in the 50's and put on NK's building instead.

This is the clock today: [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NK_klocka_2013.jpgv](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NK_klocka_2013.jpgv)

<comment><USER14> you put an extra "v" on the link when you were pasting, it should be [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NK_klocka_2013.jpg](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NK_klocka_2013.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of visiting Chile.</comment>


What the iPad Really Means to Developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.pragprog.com/magazines/2010-03/nice-apps-if-you-can-afford-to-write-them <comment><USER2> You don't need a world-class art department to make something people will buy -- you need a clean, usable interface, an original idea that fills a need, and well written code. If you're a one-person shop, you're writing niche applications, anyway. You're not competing directly with Apple, and you most likely don't need any fancy photoshop skills, just the basics... if you're writing an app that requires stunning graphics, then you're either over your head in terms of your project's goals and you need to expand your team to 1+N, or you're already proficient.

edit - and it should go without saying, BUT: don't build another twitter app. Please.

One more edit: this is a good rebuttal to the "awesome design is necessary!!!" school of thought [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/21/iphone-apps- desig...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/21/iphone-apps-design- mistakes-overblown-visuals/)

Overdesign is not good, either.

<comment><USER3> I live in perpetual design envy of most Web 2.0 apps and Mac shareware shops, but my very... unspectacular design has not succeeded in totally dooming me yet. I am agnostic on the truth of this, but I keep hearing everybody and their dog saying that the iPad is made for Real People. I sell to Real People. You don't need to win design awards to sell to Real People.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't buy it.

I already have way too many ideas for apps which aren't lush-graphics-heavy that are still very attractive and functional, as well as breaking new ground.

Besides, the graphics work doesn't have to be full-time on someone's part. Yes, good graphics work is expensive, but it's generally only part-time, compared to the developer's time, if the app is more than eye candy.

So there's plenty of room for the indie.

On the other hand, the $30 bar Apple has set for pro apps like iWork is pretty low ($10 each). I'm hoping that serious indie apps will be able to sell in the $10-15-25 range. But only time will tell.

At least we know it'll be a different equation from the iPhone market.

And, I think PG is fundamentally right: only people who spend time working on the iPad are going to spot the emerging opportunities. It's really a new platform where the possibilities are very hazy, if promising.

<comment><USER5> It's a good way to monetize a website.

Charging you $0.1 to read HN or the NYT or the BBC is hard, selling you a $10 app to read the site on your iWhatever is easier. The app is a trivial wrapper around an xml feed, it's a slightly better user experience than the browser - and I get $10

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think that if I can learn to make nice graphics, anybody can. It's largely just a few Photoshop filters and techniques. My wife is a graphic design major and she is impressed by my UI graphics, even though I could never hope to draw a simple picture of some natural object.

Code still matters a lot when it comes to UIs, though. Motion and interactivity are just as important as the static images found in attractive UIs. For instance, Convert's magnifying-glass effect and Tweetie 2's (now widespread) pull-to-refresh idiom are neat tricks not possible with Photoshop skills alone.

<comment><USER7> Do you have any tips or tutorials that you used to become competent in this?

<comment><USER6> This was on HN a while back, and I thought it was a good summary. It doesn't hold your hand on how to actually achieve the effects but it gets you started:

[http://flyosity.com/tutorial/crafting-subtle-realistic- user-...](http://flyosity.com/tutorial/crafting-subtle-realistic-user- interfaces.php)

<comment><USER7> Great. Thanks!

Over the past year, I've been studying up on drawing, typography and other graphic design stuff. If not to get to proficiency myself, at least to get conversant in the topics so I can properly communicate with people I hire or work with. This will definitely help. Thanks again!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't agree that a talented indie developer can't build an immersive, beautiful iPad app. The problem is that it's not worth the risk of investing the time to build it only to get rejected by Apple. Mac apps do not have this problem.

Maybe the only way to mitigate the risk of the capricious app store gatekeepers is to build enough relationships with Apple to bypass them (like ngmoco seems to do). Maybe that requires being a big(ger) company.

<comment><USER9> Rejections (by which I mean - "we are not putting this on our store") are an imaginary issue. They are so few and far between that you'd be hard pressed to find a developer who had had an app rejected. Also in my experience the "app store gatekeepers" have been far from capricious and in fact rather sensible. And unlike less than a year ago, now Apple are proactive in communicating with developers - detailed information what issues they've found (including things like screenshots and even suggestions how the issue can be solved), follow up ID, contact information (including phone) of a person that can answer any further questions you might have, etc.

In short, if you are reasonable (e.g. not trying to sneak in a porn app or an app that obviously violates Apple's terms) you are practically guaranteed that you'll get your app in the store. And if you are not reasonable being big or close to Apple will likely not help you much.

(By the way, I cannot come up with a single case in which ngmoco might seem to have bypassed the approval process. Do they have a tits app in the store or something?)

<comment><USER10> After 6 months of suggestions to one of my clients, they retroactively decided to flat out forbid 2 party phone call recording apps from the store.

He was flat out rejected. After being suggested to put in-app purchasing in his app.

I'd say "App store reviewers are tired, cranky, varied from one another, pissed off when people dump crap on them, and unwilling to go out on a limb when in doubt", and that accounts for 90% of all the rejections and behavior we see from them.

<comment><USER11> Phone call recording gets into dicey legal ground. I'm aware that 2 party covers most of the situations but it's mess they likely don't want to deal with.

<comment><USER10> Phone call recording with notification is very legal. We could very easily call the second party on the call and play a message before combining the calls that clearly points out the call is being recorded

Either way, they're not liable in the slightest for it.

All of that aside, it doesn't really matter. If you don't want to get into a call recording app, you say that at the beginning when first shown a call recording app. After you've suggested a company do 10k worth of development, then make a policy rejection on something the app has done since day one, you've screwed up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Oh, there will be plenty of opportunities for iPad developers, in > contracting, vertical markets, and corporate development.

The majority of iPhone developers I've personally met make their money from writing and maintaining apps for other companies. The company just needs to go through the iPhone developer application process and pay the annual $99 fee - and no one will ever know (win-win). Yes, they do have their own personal apps and some have done quite well.

Oh, and most of the developers I've met have spouses with a relatively stable full-time job (health insurance and financial risk mitigator)

</comment><comment><USER13> _Apple has a world-class art department to produce this stuff. The indie developer in the garage does not._

That's why it's stupid to try to compete with Apple for things where this matters. Much better to attack niche markets that aren't worth pursuing to players that have the resources to make lavish graphics.

The great thing about the Apple platform over the web is you can get away with creating _fewer_ graphic resources. You can make a nice looking app using native controls. I'm hoping that Cappuccino and Aristo do the same for web apps.

</comment><comment><USER14> Just FYI, next time someone tells you the thick client is dead, hopefully you'll have the good sense to call them a fool on the spot rather than waiting five years for their foolishness to be proven.

</comment><comment><USER15> In reply to the "return of the thick client", I disagree with the notion that desktop apps are going to beat web apps. The reason why the original web API failed is because the hardware was too poor and WebKit was too immature. This is rapidly changing though.

<comment><USER6> I disagree... it's not about desktop vs. web, but rather native code vs. a teetering tower of questionably repurposed abstractions. No matter how fast WebKit becomes, it will still be a browser and will only offer a limited subset of what the hardware can really do. JIT compiling JavaScript engines and the various media specs in HTML 5 help, but there's still such a gulf.

<comment><USER16> <http://www.w3.org/2009/05/DeviceAPICharter>

Google said they will implement all that into WebKit for ChromeOS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I do have to say, I was surprised how easy it was to make passable buttons once I bought fireworks (an Adobe PNG tool ostensibly geared towards web mockups). [I'm a professional iPhone/iPad/Android developer.

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if Flash CS5 will extend the iPhone app compilation to iPads as well? Because all the stuff that he's saying is hard for developers to do (nice visual effects and animations) is dead easy in Flash.

</comment><comment><USER18> Design on mobile platforms is more important than everyday little webapps. There are many mobile apps I'd like to make, but the time of getting it to _look fancy_ is such an unknown that there's an implementation paralysis right from the start.

Anybody can write an article, but few people can can produce a full graphically designed issue of GQ alone.

Check out the the showcase of mobile apps at <http://wellplacedpixels.com/> then honestly ask yourself if you can produce both the application and graphic design of that quality by yourself.

As the song goes: You got to work to feed the soul / But I can't do this all on my own / No, I know, I'm no Superman

</comment><comment><USER16> Yet another device to support?</comment>


Apple likely to buy Netflix, say analysts - <AUTHOR> https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/business/apple-more-likely-to-buy-netflix-say-analysts/articleshow/62326501.cms <comment><USER2> headline: "Apple likely to buy Netflix, say analysts"

content: "According to Citi analysts, Jim Suva and Asiya Merchant, there is a 40 per cent likelihood that Apple will acquire Netflix."

Seems to be a little incongruity here. Doesn't "likely" mean "more likely than not"? If that 40% is a probability, the title belies the content.

Here's a poll that appears to support this:

[http://www.visualcapitalist.com/measuring-perceptions-of- unc...](http://www.visualcapitalist.com/measuring-perceptions-of-uncertainty/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Add netflix growth to apple devices not selling as well as anticipated, and in 5 years the question won't be if apple is a software or hardware company, but if it's a tech or media company.

Funny how starting to go in the media business is often the symptom of something going really bad. I'm thinking of aol 20 years ago, and yahoo a bit more recently, but there's also the infamous vivendi story, as well as altice now ... seems like holiwood glitter contaminates the minds of the weakeaned..

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems unlikely Netflix would sell right now or anytime soon. Their current growth, at least in content, seems to be exponentially increasing; doubt they are anywhere close to their peak.

<comment><USER5> There is still risk involved in that growth, and an Apple purchase might be the exit some investors are looking for. Hard for anyone not at the table to say what the outcome will be.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I agree that there is risk in content production but Netflix is a public company and there is nothing preventing any investor from selling their shares.

Unless you meant something else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hope not. It would be the end of original Netflix content as we've learned to love.

<comment><USER7> It will disney-ify netflix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This doesn't make any sense. Netflix is already available on Apple devices. If Apple wants original content, they can produce it themselves for much less than it would cost to buy Netflix.

Also, IMO, original content is not going to sell more Apple devices if the idea is to restrict original content to Apple devices. The real reason Apple would want original content is to make what is currently their Apple Music offering more compelling to Google Play and Spotify customers.

</comment><comment><USER9> this will probably cause me to cancel my netflix subscription.

</comment><comment><USER10> People love to say Apple should buy various companies but Apple has never made an acquisition for more than a few billion.

</comment><comment><USER11> That would be terrible. Netflix is available on everything. With Apple the service would be greatly platform restricted.

</comment><comment><USER12> I thought either Disney or Sony would buy out Netflix.

I guess Apple needs something for their Apple TV device and iTunes like original content.

</comment><comment><USER13> Yes!!!!! Do it! They should have bought Waze too!</comment>


Ask HN: Columbus HN meetup - <AUTHOR>

Any interest in a Columbus, OH area meetup late March? Very informal, chat, beer, NCAA hoops.
3/24, 6pm @ Brazenhead in Dublin.
Let me know if you plan on attending. Email in my HN profile. Thanks <comment><USER2> I won't be getting sexually assaulted will I?

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds good!!! I'll be there.</comment>


Questions to ask at the end of a technical interview - <AUTHOR> https://smalldata.tech/blog/2017/03/27/questions-to-ask-at-the-end-of-a-technical-interview <comment><USER2> "If you could change one thing about the company, what would you change?"

It takes people off-guard and sometimes you get a really authentic look at the problems in the company. I think people are more willing to be frank with the question because it's asking for their insight, even if it comes at the expense of the company's reputation.

When my future manager told me that he wished the company was "less tribal", I should've listened. The politics between teams was insane.

<comment><USER3> This is a great one and it will also show you how open the communication is within the company. If you get a very guarded answer or one that doesn't ring true, it shows a company that isn't willing to talk about its challenges. If you get a very negative answer, that isn't a good sign either. A good answer is one that should be honest but said constructively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My go-to question is: "What technical problems are you solving right now?"

Usually you get good information that you can deduce a lot from. It's simple, it's polite, it's opens a whole conversation about whatever you want to about next, etc.

</comment><comment><USER5> > _What does your technology stack look like?_

> This allows your to figure out how up-to-date the firm is with technology. > Up-to-date here is entirely your definition :)

What? The question is fine, but not at all for that reason. This question allows you to figure out whether you can provide immediate value, whether it'll present a challenge you wish to embrace, or whether it'll present a challenge you wish not to embrace. It'll also tell you whether you think their stack was chosen based on whether it helps address the problems at hand or based on whether it's the "new hotness" or, as this write-up puts it, "up-to- date"

The obvious corollary would be to ask why that stack was chosen for the products and services the firm offers or for those which you'll be working on.

<comment><USER6> > This allows your to figure out how up-to-date the firm is with technology. > Up-to-date here is entirely your definition :)

It could be that final bit was meant literally:

If your definition of "up to date" is "patched to the latest security levels throughout the stack" \- then that's what your questions should drive towards.

If you care about experiencing the latest toys, then your questions should get you that information instead.

So if it was intended literally (smiley-face instead of winking one...?) , he has a good point.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes it was definitely meant literally!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good questions but frankly not all that original. I get all of these from recruits on a regular basis.

I am more impressed when people ask about overall company direction and current challenges. It demonstrates to me that they're interested in the company as a whole, where it is going, and how they see themselves fitting in and contributing.

<comment><USER7> This just gets me thinking.

Optimizing for originality seems the wrong criteria as an interviewee if you are genuinely trying to feel out the company and what working there might be like.

As an interviewer don't you think it's more telling to see how an interviewer responds to the answers you give? I mean, asking a prepared question is kind of low effort regardless, but using a question to initiate discussion, that shows real engagement.

Dunno. Just thinking out loud here.

<comment><USER3> Fair criticism. Thinking about it more, on a very very general level, I guess that all of the questions in the article ring to me as the type: "What can this company do for me? Does it meet all the criteria of somewhere I want to work?"

The second type of question that I mentioned above is more of the type: "What can I bring to this role and how I can I contribute to this company?"

As an interviewer, if I don't get any of the second type of question it makes me question their passion and ownership a bit.

<comment><USER8> Why does "passion" always come up as a requirement? Isn't enough that the candidate is smart, competent, professional, and motivated? Do they really have to pretend that they have a deep and burning passion for CRUD apps and SQLite? Do they need to profess their love for the accounting web portal they're going to be tasked with maintaining? You're not looking for a spouse, you're looking for an employee.

<comment><USER9> This, 100%. My company is jumping on the 'engaged employee' bandwagon, and it's frankly pretty patronizing. No, I do not give a shit about your marketing app. However, I enjoy my coworkers and the interesting technical problems we're tasked with solving. Just embrace the fact that you're not Google and you can still hire good people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Having been burned more than once, the questions I now ask are:

"Do you conduct regular peer reviews of code and documentation?"

"Do you have a bug tracking system?"

<comment><USER11> _" Do you have a bug tracking system?"_

At one time I would argue that this is a fair question to ask. But in 2017? I'm appalled at the experience you must have had to deem this a valid question in an interview today. Today I'd just assume...and according to you, wrongly so.

Dare I even ask about whether they use source control?

<comment><USER8> I took a job once where they:

1\. Had no bug tracking

2\. Had no source control (the official code was whatever was on one of the engineer's laptops)

3\. Had no dedicated build machines (builds were done on that engineer's laptop)

4\. Had no release process (build that went out was--you guessed it--copied from that engineer's laptop to a CD)

5\. Had no formal QA

6\. Had no documentation (either comments in the code, a spec, or a user manual)

7\. Had no project management or roadmap planning (the CEO would just drop in and said we should do XYZ, and then a few weeks later "is it done yet?")

They thought their software problem was just that they didn't have enough smart engineers. Yea. You have to ask about these basic "hygiene" things.

<comment><USER12> OTOH, if you enjoy being a jack-of-all-trades, look at all the value you can add right out of the gate.

<comment><USER8> Definitely. The job was a terrific learning experience, and I've never had to wear as many hats as I did there. It was excellent experience and I saw it as a once-in-a-lifetime turnaround opportunity. The point is, you need to ask about the basics so you understand what you're getting into.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that it's the attitude of the people whom you would be working with which matters the most in this scenario.

If they were not open to change and improvement then you would be stuck burning CDs as well!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The question I always ask is "do you like working here?" You can immediately tell by their reaction how they feel - if they hesitate that's a bad sign. Obviously this works for any interview, not just technical roles.

<comment><USER14> Depends HUGELY on a person.

I hesitate (i.e. take time to consider) for ALL questions I intend to provide an honest, as opposed to obvious answer.

I hesitate for "Do these jeans make my behind look fat" and I hesitate for "Do you like working here" (and myriad other questions in between).

I want to provide a considered, accurate, detailed and granular answer.

If anything, if they answer with immediate and resounding "Yes!!!", I'd think it was a fake, canned answer rather than one they gave genuine thought to...

<comment><USER13> Honest question: you have to think about whether or not you like your job? I can understand wanting to give consideration to most questions, but that seems like something you should immediately know, and answer emotionally rather than rationally.

<comment><USER9> Some days I love my job, and some days I can't wait to get out of the office. Just because you caught someone on a bad day doesn't mean you've discovered a toxic culture, it just means you're talking to real people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "What's the most fulfilling project you've worked on in the last 6-12 months?"

I like this because "fulfilling" means different things to different people. Some folks would deem the opportunity to work on hard technical challenges as fulfilling, whereas for some it's simply a positive impact on the customer and/or other developers (agnostic of whether the solution was simple or complex.)

This also helps you gauge the quality of problems the team is working on, and how _they_ gauge said problems. With the added dimension of time (i.e. 6-12 months) you get a sense of how recent or old are the projects that they're about to discuss. I wouldn't put much stock in something too recent (ex: something they started 2 weeks ago) but would also be suspicious if they mention projects that are 1yr+ old. More than once in my career have I run into issues when my definition of "fun/fulfilling/cool" was _widely_ different from my boss's. Getting a heads up on this for me is critical when it comes to evaluating which team to join.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have sometimes asked the hiring manager to describe when and why he gave a report a negative review about something. This usually causes a long pause.

It isn't at the end, but a few times I've asked mid-interview for one of the team members to give me feedback as though it were for a peer review.

I've been known to ask what an interviewer's favorite NPR show is. It's great if the interview is at a location I'd have to relocate to and they answer with a show carried locally I've never heard. That's how I learned about "Says You" (which is the correct answer to my question, with points for effort if it's "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" or "Prairie Home Companion").

<comment><USER17> > I have sometimes asked the hiring manager to describe when and why he gave a > report a negative review about something. This usually causes a long pause.

As well it should. First, they do they not want to look bad. Second, the person that they gave the negative review to _may be in the room with you_ (if they do group interviews). Third, even without the first two, there may be legal issues with them telling you the truth. (Even if there are no legal issues, it is almost certainly against HR policy, and rightly so.)

<comment><USER18> If it is ok for managers to ask "Describe a time when you failed", it is fair game for interviewee to ask tough questions.

<comment><USER17> I can answer "describe a time when you failed" without getting sued or fired. So, no, it's not equivalently fair. Ask tough questions, sure. Feel free. _This_ question passes beyond "tough", though, clear to "out of bounds".

<comment><USER16> The questions is easily answered without getting sued or fired. Candidates are asked to describe projects they've worked on. If my question is out of bounds so is that one. After all a candidate might be sued by his employer for divulging too much about the company's internal knowledge.

One doesn't ask "name a person you reviewed negatively," of course. That would be out of bounds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How many toilets per person on this floor?

<comment><USER3> Ha. One of my first startups I worked in was basically a warehouse and the only washroom was just walled off in a big open area. You could hear everyone using it and smells drifted into the main area. It was a non-zero factor in me getting out of there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wasn't this supposed to be questions for the end of the technical interview?

To get a half decent answer on some of these would eat a lot of time. I tend to ask these DURING the interview and like to spend the end of the interview trying to get the know the developer on a personal level to establish how they fit into the culture of the team.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you can somehow weave all this into the interview itself that is excellent.

I have usually found it difficult to steer the conversation towards general items when I'm getting whiteboarded :S

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The question I always ask is "What did you talk about at your last team lunch?" This gives me a sense for what the team's values are; Is it all social? All business? Is there a common thread or interest they were talking about? Were they talking tech or toys or sports? A whole lot of observations you can draw from the anecdote, and most interviewers will expound on team dynamic from that question.

<comment><USER22> That's so random though. If our last team lunch was the Monday after the super bowl, we probably talked about the ridiculous come from behind win, even though we're not a particularly sports-crazed team.

If it was the week after Re-invent, we probably talked about AWS. If it was the week after Switch came out, it was probably about Zelda... If it was the week after a major internal announcement, it was probably about that...

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> My #1 question is to ask the status of the tech department within the company. In particular are is it considered a cost center or a profit center.

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct me if I'm wrong but usually you know where the tech department stands if you look at what the company is doing.

The exceptions would be if the company is looking to pivot to an "e" solution, i.e. from Retailer to eTailer...

<comment><USER23> No, not really. If it's a prominent tech company like Microsoft or Google, sure. If it's an IT department at a retailer or finance firm, then you don't really know. They may hire consultants for everything, they may cut budgets and squeeze hours, they may keep tech out of upper management. I work at a design & tech agency and we do some high-end stuff, but I can already see the direction shifting away from tech and onto design from when I started.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> See also: [http://jvns.ca/blog/2013/12/30/questions-im-asking-in- interv...](http://jvns.ca/blog/2013/12/30/questions-im-asking-in-interviews/)

</comment><comment><USER25> "What has the company done or are doing to keep you here?"

This will get their personal insight on how they see the company. However, I am not too sure if the answer is always 100% truthful.

</comment><comment><USER19> How do you determine how many developers to hire?</comment>


Kindle edition is more expensive than Hardcover for the book - In The Plex - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/Plex-Google-Thinks-Works-Shapes/dp/1416596585

<comment><USER2> When I clicked through, the hardcover edition was priced at $13.98 while the Kindle edition was a dollar less ($12.99). I think that Amazon's prices change pretty frequently, which might explain why you saw a different price at the time you checked.

<comment><USER3> Hardcover is $13.98, Kindle Edition is $16.77

<comment><AUTHOR> For me:

Hardcover: 13.98, Kindle: 14.58

The price is the same during the past few days, I just wonder if Amazon display different price to different users based on their location.</comment></comment></comment>


How I failed and failed some more, but in the end persevered. - <AUTHOR> http://demeulenaer.com/?p=99 <comment><USER2> This article hit home as someone in a similar position, as a student. Always a good kick in the rear. Thanks.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> CACHED LINK: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=nl&outpu...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=nl&output=search&sclient=psy- ab&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fdemeulenaer.com%2F%3Fp%3D99&oq=&aq=&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=4618ac866d2c3978&biw=1440&bih=732&ix=seb&ion=1)

</comment><comment><USER3> Great post, would love to see more people talk about their success with side projects an apps like this.

</comment><comment><USER4> I love to fail, fortunately :)

</comment><comment><USER5> Great post. You repeated your success which is when you really know you've got the hang of it.

The part about working a day job and trying to build something is so true. Things move so slow when you're splitting your time like that. Very inspiring.

</comment><comment><USER6> Great post! Going through a period of depression after a failed startup. It's just want i needed for the extra boost!

</comment><comment><USER7> I remember there already being an app for ventrilo, so I just went off to find it and it turns out they had to pull it: <http://www.ventafone.com/>

Is yours not similar?

<comment><AUTHOR> The reason they got pulled was because they used a GPL lib in their app. (GPL does not comply with the app store terms)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The link doesn't work ?!!

<comment><USER2> cache:<http://demeulenaer.com/?p=99> should do it</comment></comment>


Why I love Common Lisp and hate Java - <AUTHOR> http://kuomarc.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/why-i-love-common-lisp-and-hate-java/ <comment><USER2> ITWARM (if this was a reddit meme)

Scumbag blogger:

Takes Tai-Chi for a couple of months, thinks he is qualified to talk about 'qi'.

Takes university course that touches on Java, dabbles in Lisp, thinks he is qualified to discuss 'failings' of Java

Begs the question: if Lisp is so amazing and Java is so bad, why is Lisp a failure in the marketplace?

\----

Remember that even Lisp's biggest recent (as in, in the ~17 years since Java was released) success (Paul Graham selling his store-thing to Yahoo) was quietly re-written in Java a couple of years later.

If your answer to the success/failure question is that people who use Java are stupid-heads and people who use Lisp are wonderful geniuses, then may I suggest that you haven't solved the dilemma, you've just multiplied the entities by pushing it back a layer.

In any case, nobody cares about Java vs Lisp anyway. All the 'cool kids' in that space (e.g. functional programming on the JVM) are into stuff like Scala and Clojure. To ignore those makes the argument kind of pointless... it is like having an argument between a Dodgers fan and a Patriots fan. The Dodgers fan says the Dodgers are better because they hit more home runs than the Patriots, and the Patriots fan says the Patriots are better because they score more touchdowns.

It's just fundamentally stupid. Whereas if you compared Lisp and Scala, then at least you'd be talking about teams playing the same sport. Yes, it's still going to be as useful as watching a Patriots fan and a Dallas Cowboys fan argue about which is better, but at least the argument isn't based on fundamentallty stupid premises in that case.

<comment><USER3> As someone who has programmed professionally in Java, Scala, and Lisp (including Clojure), I might be qualified to assert that your sports analogy is off the mark. All of these programming languages can be effectively used to solve many of the same problems, though each language may excel at addressing certain kinds of problems better.

For me, programming in a dialect of Lisp is just more fun than programming in the other languages. Java is not fun at all, in comparison. And that's largely due to the fact that it can be difficult in Java to write reusable code. Consequently, you either have to repeat yourself a lot or tie yourself up in knots to figure out a way to not repeat yourself. Repeating oneself is tedious and boring.

On the other hand, static type checking can save you a lot of time debugging. But it can also slow you down. It's probably a net win overall for most problems, but for some problems, it is too restrictive. I find Scala to be a happy medium for most problems, but I often switch to Python for small programs, where the freedom from static typing can make development much easier and faster.

I think the problem with Lisp is that most people just don't "get it". I'm not sure why they don't, but perhaps it's a fact that I just have to accept. On the other hand, I firmly believe that the state of software engineering would be greatly improved if most programmers _did_ get Lisp. I can't say the same thing about Java, however. In Java there isn't really much to get that you wouldn't get by learning any other OO programming language.

<comment><USER4> Came across this while researching Turing's proof that a turing machine can compute anything that is computable†. It's Church, comparing his and Turing's approaches:

> computability by a Turing machine ... has the advantage of making the > identification with effectiveness in the ordinary (not explicitly defined) > sense evident immediately. (1937a: 43.) > <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/church-turing/>

If we see imperative languages (e.g. Java) as descending from Turing machines, and functional languages (e.g. Lisp) as descending from Church's lambda- definability, the same observation seems to apply. It's not that Turing's approach is better, just easier to "get".

† _"computable" meaning "can be computed" (not "computable with a turing machine"). Turing doesn't prove this formally - it's an intuitive appeal, and no exceptions have been found. See section 9, page 249 (page 20 of the pdf)[https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.cs.virginia.ed...](https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Turing_Paper_1936.pdf) _

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This feels like a lot of blog posts I write: the main content is probably there, in the author's head, but not enough of it was put on the paper. What we read instead is a slice of what I have no doubt in my mind to be a fantastic essay.

I have recently begun a love affair with Racket and for a reason I think that the author was ultimately trying to get at: the core syntax of any Lisp is a minimalist tree and the semantics are lambda calculus (and abstract algebra to help motivate types).

An REPL for Java could conceivably be written; AI is language agnostic; and plenty of languages let you eval generated code; but Lisps are a window into computation itself and it's very addicting.

<comment><USER6> BeanShell is basically a Java REPL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any time I see someone complaining about how much effort it is to "just print a string to std out in java" it boggles my mind.

Java was not really designed for ease of use in that way, clearly, and the syntax and vm itself heavily lends it to networked programming.

This post would be better if it was "Why I love Common Lisp" with the half hearted stabs at Java taken out of it.

<comment><USER8> Seriously. I've been doing Java for _years_ and it had been so long since I wrote public static void main etc. that _I_ had to look it up. If you're writing mostly classes to be run straight-up from the command line, you're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER3> I write Java programs that are designed to be run on the command line all the time. Just what is it that I am supposedly doing wrong?

(That's not to say that most of the classes are to be run from the command line, but each CLI program has to have a class with such a method.)

<comment><USER4> Speaking for CLI utilities (not apps in general), startup time is a killer. Python, Ruby, Perl etc are so much faster (despite Java improvements) since they began as "scripting" languages. One solution is to reuse a warmed-up JVM (even faster if also reusing already-loaded classes):

      1. use a Java REPL, like BeanShell or Groovy (or write one).
      2. call a Java server from the CLI

I did (2) for a while, but not worth the saving of a second or so.

BTW: I find "you're doing it wrong" is so unreasoned that best ignored

<comment><USER3> And if you use Spring, then the start up time is even worse! I do wish the JVM had an option that would make it start up instantly, even if it meant that the program would run slower. I wonder if the slow startup time has to do with the JVM having to dig through .jar files to find stuff. I'm also surprised that there isn't a way to cache the machine code generated by the jit so that the machine code doesn't have to regenerated on every run. It seems very strange to me that Java was invented by a Unix company, and yet it seems rather Unix- hostile.

For the stuff that I'm working on, the 1 second startup time is no biggie though. One CLI thing I wrote, for instance, crunched on genomics data for 3 minutes before finishing. By tuning tight loops and the like, I was able to get that down to 15 seconds, but even so, the extra second there is no biggie. Except for when the user uses the "--help" option. That extra second is tedious.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I'm puzzled by them not caching, e.g. they could copy an image of the JVM in its starting state.

Maybe the "unix hostility" is due to platform agnosticism ("run everywhere"), servant of two (or three) masters. e.g. issues in file libraries and AWT. But py/rb/perl manage this OK... so idk.

BTW: bad practice to split up functionality (and loses many benefits of Java), but a performance solution would be a script that handles the "--help", and for anything else starts the JVM.

<comment><USER3> I've actually used that hack for "--help", but I mostly use command line parsing libraries (e.g., JCommander) that generate the usage message for you. The users will just have to put up with the slight delay....

<comment><USER4> Yeah, it's a pain to setup and maintain. Bizarre idea: a source transformer that knows about a CLI parsing library, to detect your usage of it and create the help option in a scripting language - and also provide the packaging (for the scripting language to start the JVM). Like Google's GWT for compiing a Java subset to JavaScript.

Seems a bit of overkill, but I like the idea of a transformation operating above the level of one language...

I suppose the logical conclusion is compilation of arbitrary Java source to a scripting language, according to the performance characteristics required. It's nice that it would retain semantics and be transparent to the user, while rebalancing performance trade-offs.

<comment><USER3> Nooooooooooooo! We've switched largely to Scala! (But we're sill stuck with Java for GWT. :( )

<comment><USER4> Sorry, I don't follow. Doesn't Scala have the same JVM startup delay as Java? Can do the same thing for Scala.

<comment><USER3> Yes, Scala is a JVM language, and all JVM languages that I am aware of have this start-up delay. One of the advantages of the JVM is that many different languages can interoperate easily, but if you do source-to-source translation to a non-JVM language, then the origin languages (e.g., Java) that have this extra support become preferred, and thus discourage the adoption of the better languages. E.g., GWT prevents us from completely migrating to Scala.

It seems as if it would be better to have have a JVM byte code to Python byte code translator, or something like that, if such a thing is possible. But I should think that it would be even better and easier to just have a version of the JVM (or an option on the JVM) that starts up much faster.

If you're happy with just Java, doesn't BeanShell start up more quickly? (I don't know, because I've never used it.)

<comment><USER4> > JVM byte code to Python byte code translator

Yes; or a JVM that starts up faster, and split the code between them in the same way.

I'm assuming there's a fundamental trade-off between startup delay and average speed, or we'd have had an instant option long ago. Um, if the problem is loading etc jars, this mightn't work.

But one could still detect byte-code calls with hard-coded string arguments (for "--help" and text) and compile that to python.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "A year and a half ago, a dear friend of mine send me this link."

pg's "Beating the Averages" is not known widely enough. We must promote it more. We owe it to our friends who toil under inhumane conditions and work with sadistic technologies.

BTW, pg, I'm taking my "Hackers and Painters" to PyCon 2012. Will you have time to write a dedication? That is, if I get the book back from the colleague I lent it to. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER10> Well if the author took the same care in determining that Lisp is better than Java that he did in "confirming the existence" of real life magical powers through Tai-Chi then why wouldn't I listen?

</comment><comment><USER11> I understand that Java is verbose and does not have the same "instant" feedback loop that a language with a fully supported REPL has. But I do not agree with the assertion that Lisp would be a good substitute for Java as the core instruction language in a University course. If people are having trouble getting their head around Java, I think they would struggle with Lisp. Java, in it's simplest form can be written in a very imperative manner. Most people think sequentially, and if you are getting started with programming, writing a simple little program in Java, IMO, is easier than something like Lisp.

I am not saying Java is better, just that it has less cognitive overhead than Lisp.

I studied both Java and Haskell at University and found it much easier to get going with Java than with Haskell (I hacked lots of QBasic - I am getting on a bit - when I was a kid). Actually, I think a language like Ruby or Python would be much better suited for an undergraduate / dual major than Lisp or Java!

<comment><USER12> The authors of How to Design Programs use Lisp (well, Racket/Scheme) and they are some of the most careful and thoughtful CS educators, who are appear to be thinking deeply about CS pedagogy (at least, this is the impression I get from reading some of their papers and some of HtDP). So I wouldn't be so quick to write off Lisp as an intro language over Java.

"I studied both Java and Haskell at University and found it much easier to get going with Java than with Haskell (I hacked lots of QBasic - I am getting on a bit - when I was a kid)."

I think Java is arguably closer to Basic than it is to Haskell, so this isn't really a very fair or representative data point. (I don't claim that non- programming undergrads taking CS 101 would be more successful if started with Haskell instead of Java, although I believe that's not unheard of).

<comment><USER11> Thanks for your comment. I will take a look at the book you recommend.

To be honest, it has been a while since I was an undergraduate!

On a related note - how easy is it to transition from having first learnt how to program in Lisp (or a functional language) to programming in Java or C++? I have seen lots of blog posts about doing it the other way around (Java to Lisp). I would imagine that also requires a cognitive leap ..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The first thing that anyone who doesn't know Java complains about is running a main method, which no one in the Java world does 99% of the time. This is probably the first thing you have to do in a Hello World Java tutorial, but has nothing to do with Java.

There are some poor design choices in Java like no method overriding, mix of primitives and their boxed equivalents, lack of closures, or first class functions, confusing equals semantics, generics verbosity, etc. But main method is just moot.

Also it has nothing to do with superiority of Lisp over Java. Lisp has a different philosophy it's a functional language, while languages like Java, C, Ruby, Python etc are all imperative (see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_programming#Comparis...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_programming#Comparison_to_imperative_programming)). I think a better article would be about the virtues of each style and when to use which.

<comment><USER3> One can program in Lisp in an imperative manner very easily and likewise one can program in Python in a functional manner very easily. The big difference between Lisp and Python (or Ruby) is not the functional nature of Lisp, but rather it's homoiconicity.

Re Java, I write CLI programs in Java all the time. It's fine for that, other than the annoying 1 second startup time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It is too bad your example does not really convey anything interesting about the differences between clisp and Java.

The only thing I get from your essay is that Common Lisp has a REPL, which is sad because clisp is actually fun and interesting, and has a lot of VERY DIFFERENT things going for it.

Size of source code has never been a measure of the power of the language.

<comment><USER15> I agree a "hello world" program is a good place to start learning but a terrible place to start comparing. To be fair, though, to really show the benefits of Lisp style programming you'd have to write something quite a bit longer. Long enough, in fact, you'd have trouble enticing people to read it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> >Lispers like to pick on Java. It makes sense, because Common Lisp has everything that Java lacks.

But Java has a lot of things Common Lisp lacks, too. A GUI package. Network programming. Cryptography. Yes, you get modules for all those things. But having them in the core language means you know they're always available no matter where your code is running.

I like Lisp, even with its painful syntax and poorly named internals (Seriously. "cdr"? "endp"? Was there a Great Keystroke Shortage in the '60s?). But it doesn't have the ecosystem for actually producing a product to anywhere near the extent Java does. There's a _reason_ Java is used so much more widely than Lisp.

In terms of syntax, I like what Rich Hickey did with Clojure. You still have all the Lisp functionality but it's a lot easier to read.

<comment><USER16> > Seriously. "cdr"? "endp"? Was there a Great Keystroke Shortage in the '60s?

Well...yes? When jaw-dropping storage is a 1 MB hard disk, things like function names really do make a difference, especially when they're called so frequently. For the same reason, C89 identifiers are only 6 characters long (and hence the C naming convention of things like "strdup" rather than "duplicateString").

<comment><USER15> Sure, because you can fit six characters in 32 bits. But still... those constraints are no longer with us, and there's a limited amount of historical cruft people learning a language today should have to deal with.

<comment><USER17> How do you fit 6 characters in 32 bits? What encoding / context? BTW, there was a Great Memory Shortage.

<comment><USER15> Something like this:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Radix-50></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tidbit - a node knockout experiment; site visitors help mine bitcoins. - <AUTHOR> http://tidbit.co.in/

<comment><AUTHOR> This a node knockout entrant (not by me) that I found super-fascinating, particularly because of its pitch as a monetization alternative to advertising.

There are a lot of issues the creators haven't addressed yet: opt-in, preventing user experience / performance from suffering, what's the actual amount of money you're making from traffic compared to ad revenue, etc.

But I think the concept has potential, and wanted to show HN.</comment>


RFID tags promise to combat the counterfeiters - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12358919

<comment><USER2> So the intention is to prevent counterfeiting by attaching something to the product that is easily counterfeitable. If this makes sense to you, and your business is _not_ selling RFID components / products, please do enlighten me.</comment>


LinkedIn Acquires Rapportive - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20120207/linkedin-is-acquiring-contacts-start-up-rapportive/?mod=tweet <comment><USER2> This is a great result for the Rapportive team. LinkedIn seems a great fit for their product. It's one of the most useful utilities that I use on a daily basis. Congratulations to the team!

</comment><comment><USER3> Congrats to the Rapportive team! It's by far one of the most useful technologies that I use daily.</comment>


Automatic laundry folding - <AUTHOR> https://www.foldimate.com/ <comment><USER2> The cardboard box solution: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv7y2n0fOhw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv7y2n0fOhw)

The industrial solution: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKgHEz05lqw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKgHEz05lqw)

A black box that just as well can be Searle's chinese room: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7apeh4tjsgI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7apeh4tjsgI)

I think however the wrong thing is optimized here. I don't care about the folding. I do care about the steaming. If I could steam it at home, that would be awesome: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_q- iDj6U3M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_q-iDj6U3M)

<comment><USER3> I've used this for years...no equipment required, the easiest way to fold t-shirts and polos:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbopCuN6TA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbopCuN6TA)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is not very impressive. I want to be able to dump an armload of clothes hot out of the dryer into a hopper and forget about it. Having to sort and hang the clothes on those clips (of which there don't appear to be very many) is more than half the work!

<comment><USER5> Who has time to dump? The only dumping I want to do is the dumping of duty laundry into the laundry input hole.

<comment><USER4> That would be the logical next step: integrated washing, drying, and folding.

<comment><USER6> There's a service for that: domestic worker. Pretty expensive nowadays though.

<comment><USER7> Standard wash and fold service is not that expensive, at least in NYC, and usually they'll pick up and drop off for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the FAQ, (emphasis mine):

> There is _less than a 1% chance_ that FoldiMate will do anything other than > fold your laundry and treat your clothes.

Let's be generous and say that less than 1% means .5% chance. Assuming each clothing fold is an independent event, that means if you fold 20 articles of clothing then you have a 90% chance of not destroying one of them[1].

I like those odds!

[1]: (1 - .005)^20 = 0.90461048

<comment><USER9> "anything other than fold your laundry and treat your clothes." != "destroy clothes"

<comment><USER10> Yeah I'm curious what the compliment of "fold your laundry and treat your clothes" is.

Only thing we can say for sure is that it's "not fold your laundry or not treat your clothes"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is it just me or does this look very sketchy/like vaporware? They start off clipping the shirts into those things and then they flip to a CGI render, suggesting they don't even have a working prototype, and yet they're already accepting "pre-orders." For a startup that was started in 2012 (and the founder is listed as one of the seed investors) this seems like worryingly little progress.

<comment><USER12> Yep. Another crowdsourcing/preordering scam. As I say for other things, if it ever ships, I'll wait for the retail product and pay a bit more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This looks like yet another crowdfunding vaporware. Their demo video is CGI, and the release date is 2017.

<comment><AUTHOR> Crowfunding? Do you see the investors?

<comment><USER13> Pre-selling is still crowdfunding, even with investors. Take a look at Cinder, as an example. They're YC-backed, crowd-funded, and are missing their promised ship date by several months.

<comment><AUTHOR> Like Tesla? :D

<comment><USER13> Not at all like Tesla. There were commercial electric cars in the late 90s before Tesla was even founded. They weren't inventing anything, they were making it cheap enough for mass marketing.

They also didn't need pre-orders to deliver their first cars, and it hasn't been a staple of survival. They're still around because they've raised absurd amounts of VC (over $2B).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yeah, I hang up my clothes, so...

If you want to save a crapton of time on doing laundry, throw out all your socks and buy the same kind. I standardized on UndeR Armor Resistor. Cheap, last about a year, seem to stay in profuction forever. If every household member does that, you never have to play the sock pairing game again.

<comment><USER15> That's a great idea until you get into cases like:

light colored pants with low shoes (you need light socks)

dark colored pants with low shoes (you need dark socks)

running (you need thin socks with no seams)

hiking (you need hiking socks, or at least thicker ones, and probably two pairs that you can wear at the same time, and multiple sets)

cycling (you can use the same ones you use for running, but your generic black socks probably won't do it)

Only a heathen would wear the same socks in all of these circumstances.

<comment><USER14> Matching socks to pants vs to shoes is its own debate, but that's why I picked the socks I did: they are great for exercising, black in color, so go well with jeans and also go well with my black and white Chucks.

I do have several pairs of specialty socks: a pair for dressy occasions, a very thick woolen pair for extreme cold, and a couple of pairs of taller socks for when I need the extra protection. That works just fine because I pull those out roughly three times a year so there is very little matching to do. Obviously, this is not the fashion forward thing to do, but I think for working in a casual setting and meeting friends for a beer once in a while it works just fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It doesn't really take very long to actually fold shirts and pants, most of the time is spent on sorting. I would think in the amount of time it takes you to properly clip a shirt onto the machine, you should easily have folded it yourself.

<comment><USER17> Maybe you don't do laundry for other people in your family. One of my chores was laundry. For a family of 5. As a teenager, it was the pits. Anything to shave 10 mins of my chores would have sounded like a great idea.

<comment><USER18> As was mine. But when I think back, part of the major difficulty wasn't the shirts and pants... it was the underwear and the socks. Those took some time. But even then, this thing costs more than replacing the dryer, and I'd still have had to carry the stuff out to the clothesline and back in the summer.

When I was even younger, however, my mother wanted nearly everything ironed. If you are one of those sorts, the machine would be wonderful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There are already a, proportionally, lot of comments of the sort "this doesn't save _that_ much time" or "folding doesn't take _that_ long".

Then, don't buy it. But to suggest that, in America, land of the Snuggie, The Clapper, Feet Socks, and single serve automatic coffee brewers, come on. There is a place in the market for something that makes doing laundry a little less misserable.

<comment><USER19> > America, land of the Snuggie, The Clapper, Feet Socks, and single serve > automatic coffee brewers, come on.

I think part of the equation is that none of those things cost $750. You could spend tht much on a coffee brewer, but at that point you're getting into some nice espresso machines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> While this is pretty interesting, the machine seems pretty bulky. I also wonder how accurate you have to be with the way you hang up the clothes on those clips. I'm sure if you're a little off the clothes won't last right. The other drawback I notice is that it seems this only folds tops. Pretty pricey and bulky for a one trick pony.

<comment><USER21> I get your point, but consider any household with higher income and you'll see all kinds of specialty appliances. (Central vaccums, wine fridges, warming drawers) so a dedicated folding machine would fit right in.

To your point about tops, if you watch the video I could see it being capable to do pants, you may have to fold them over once when you hang them.

<comment><USER22> Hold up. A wine fridge is not in the same category as this. A wine fridge is a necessity.

<comment><USER23> I concur, wine fridges are totally a necessity!

<comment><USER24> I pity the savages who lack such basics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25>
      > We start with a neat, professionally looking fold
      > * More methods will be available via FoldiMate's "internet store"

That's potentially interesting; are we basically talking about software unlocking of capabilities here, i.e. like Tesla's autopilot?

<comment><USER26> I think they're planning an app store. Got an app for folding dresses?

<comment><USER25> I was thinking something like Folding @ home.

(Sorry, couldn't resist).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If someone could create a machine that actually put the laundry away, we'd get one (or at least covet one) in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, for our family of five, the folding part of the operation really isn't where most of the labor is.

</comment><comment><USER28> I always used 'laundry folding' as a counterexample for fears of automation. This clumsy machine is case is point that pervasive automation is far far far away.

<comment><USER13> It really depends on the task.

Driving seems much more complicated than folding, but driving is nearly solved, while folding is still difficult due to the complexity of recognizing non-standard shapes and figuring out how to manipulate them.

Driving is a huge job market in the US, so the automation apocalypse for low- income Americans is on its way. I'm not sure what else on farms will be automated, but it's certainly being worked on. I imagine fast food a lot of retail is also going to be more automated. One example is grocery stores: they used to have 5-10 cashiers working at a time, and now they have 0-2 (due to self checkout). Grocery delivery will eat into those jobs even more.

<comment><USER28> > but driving is nearly solved, while folding is still difficult due to the > complexity of recognizing non-standard shapes and figuring out how to > manipulate them.

but doesn't driving have even more ambiguity and a million times more complex( not to mention dangerous) than folding laundry ?.Are you saying it has been solved due to economic incentives ?

<comment><USER13> These exact problems have been discussed several times, sometimes in the same article, because of how surprising this is to people. I was really surprised when I first learned it, too.

Here's an example of some discussion: [http://hackaday.com/2016/02/24/the- challenges-of-a-laundry-f...](http://hackaday.com/2016/02/24/the-challenges- of-a-laundry-folding-robot/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> There's also Laundroid announced last year that can supposedly fold your clothes without hanging it first. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7apeh4tjsgI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7apeh4tjsgI)

</comment><comment><USER30> This isn't satire? I thought I'd come to the comments to see comments about it.

It's a real potential product? The WSJ reviews like "I'm going to save up for the FoldiMate! That's what I am waiting for." is REAL?

...

<comment><USER31> According to US government, women spend 16 minutes a day, on average, doing laundry, and men spend 4 minutes on average. That's over a 100 hours a year for women, so yes, there is probably a lot of demand for a technology that makes this faster.

<comment><USER30> I can see this in a commercial setting, but any family/household that wants to drop $600+ dollars on a folding appliance, may be better served with a $30+ / week maid, who also does the folding.

How does one justify $600+ on saving 16 min a day? How does one sell this to any consumer with a >$100,000 income to a household?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> If we solved self driving. It may be possible to place all your clothes on a tote and have a robot pick all your clothes and take them to an automated washing, drying, ironing and folding facility.

<comment><USER33> Before that point, laundry service is a great candidate for automobile trunk pickup and delivery. Just put your stinkables in a trunk box, have them removed at some point in the day, then your clean, folded clothes are delivered to your trunk the next day. It just happens, like a laundry fairy.

The problem right now is that trunk pickup and delivery is not really an expected use case. Cars aren't really designed to support delivery drivers/automation being able to open your trunk and only your trunk, especially without a key.

But it could be something that can be retrofitted decently, thanks to US- mandated inside trunk releases. And at the high end, limited-entry trunk delivery is already being tested in some places: [http://www.wired.com/2015/04/delivery-drivers-can-now- leave-...](http://www.wired.com/2015/04/delivery-drivers-can-now-leave- packages-parked-audi/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> and we are wondering why a lot of Americans are obese. Simple tasks like these help burn a few calories.

<comment><USER35> What?! Do you fold your clothes? It burns about as many calories as watching TV and picking up the remote on commercial breaks...

Folding a week of laundry for 3 people takes about an hour. Reclaiming that time and doing _actual_ exercise instead would work miracles.</comment></comment>


The Google Way of Science. Google's translation of Chinese web pages invalidates Searle's Chinese Room riddle - <AUTHOR> http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/06/the_google_way.php

<comment><USER2> I always saw Searle's Chinese Room as more of an attack on the Turing Test. Here is a room that will pass the test, yet is in no way intelligent.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=230966>

</comment><comment><USER4> Whoosh.

That no "understanding" of Chinese takes place by Google would be Searle's point writ large.

Of course, the point Searle misses is that the phenomenon of "understanding" is just symbol manipulation.</comment>


Ta-Nehisi Coates Revisits the Case for Reparations - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/ta-nehisi-coates-revisits-the-case-for-reparations <comment> core-questions The problem with this is that we lack two fundamental guarantees:

\- Will reparations, whether monetary or through some kind of program, actually improve the state of the community in a sustainable fashion? When the money runs out / the program ends / etc. will the improvement stay? Or, will it be a continual welfare program that can never be safely removed without massive negative impact once everyone is used to the benefits it provides?

\- Will reparations actually solve the societal divide, end the continual accusations of White Privilege and systemic racism, etc. or will those narratives continue unabated, having been rewarded by success in the form of the reparation program itself?

<comment><USER2> Presumably the commission would consider those factors, yes.

As to your first point, Coates gives Chicago as an example of a "less significant reparations program." This includes a permanent change to how they teach history, which he regarded as being crucial.

Another example is a change in criminal-justice policy.

Both of these (I have good reason to believe) would improve the community and be sustainable, yes.

I don't see anything in the essay which can be considered a "continual welfare program", so I don't know what you refer to. The proposed compensations are all "for specific acts" of legalized discrimination.

Your second comment appears needlessly binary. Coates gives an example of Jewish reparations in Israel after the WWII. Those reparations did not solve anti-Semitism. Then again, the narratives did not "continue unabated."

Since neither of your two outcomes happened, if I interpret your argument to mean that those are the only two acceptable outcomes, then are you suggesting that those Jews should not have received reparations? If not, then I don't know how to interpret your question in the context of reparations for slavery and legalized discrimination.</comment></comment>


Ernst Haeckel's Jellyfish - <AUTHOR> https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/ernst-haeckels-jellyfish/ <comment><USER2> I found that Ernst Haeckel illustrations lend themselves perfectly to being used in artistic style transfer. Mainly because of high amount of details at all scales.

Here are some contemporary scientific infographics with Ernst Haeckel style applied: [https://rybakov.com/blog/visualizing_complexity/](https://rybakov.com/blog/visualizing_complexity/)

<comment><USER3> Those are astonishingly good. It's only a pity that there isn't yet a style- transfer type method to create real accurate diagrams.

<comment><USER2> I guess with a bit of masking and applying different styles to different image regions - as well as carefully selecting style images - some accurate yet visually rich diagrams could be created.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is a wonderful documentary about Ernst Haeckel's study of Radiolaria, which I highly recommend. The film is called Proteus: A 19th Century Vision ([https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391407/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391407/)).

</comment><comment><USER5> You can read all of "Kunstformen der Natur" (Artforms of Nature) at the Biodiversity Heritage Library, along with lots of other beautifully illustrated natural science literature.

Even though it's old, this is still useful scientific information, and digitizing it is very helpful to people without access to a 100-year-old zoological library. As you can see from selecting "Show OCR", there's still some work to be done to get the algorithms working on 19th century German blackletter fonts.

[https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/182319#page/89/mode...](https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/182319#page/89/mode/1up)

</comment><comment><USER6> Haeckel's Art Forms of Nature are an astonishing achievement.

High resolution public domain images can be downloaded from the Library of Congress here: [https://www.loc.gov/search/?fa=contributor:giltsch,+adolf](https://www.loc.gov/search/?fa=contributor:giltsch,+adolf)

Unfortunately he was also a terrible racist. The Nazi party not only used his quotes – 'Politics is applied biology' – but also his justifications for the hierarchy of races, nationalism and social Darwinism.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel#Polygenism_and_r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel#Polygenism_and_racial_theory)</comment>


Show HN: Express/discover opinions (More info in the comments) - <AUTHOR> https://ratesome.com <comment><AUTHOR> Forgot to mention that the overall opinion can be 0 (neutral) too.

[https://ratesome.com/topic/Naruto](https://ratesome.com/topic/Naruto)

15 opinions currently, and the overall opinion is 0.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone,

This is not my first attempt to show my product to HN's audience, the previous ones were off the mark, hopefully that's because I hadn't provided any details about it. This time I will.

Ratesome is a mixture of an Q&A platform and a message board. But I like to call it 'Search engine for opinions'. Here are some examples of what it is and how it actually works:

[https://ratesome.com/topic/Buying-a-used-2006-Nissan- Maxima-...](https://ratesome.com/topic/Buying-a-used-2006-Nissan- Maxima-3-5-SL)

A person who wants to buy a used car created this topic asking for opinions... The overall opinion right now is -12 (negative), based on 37 opinions, meaning that people think that's not a great idea to buy the car considering the details provided by the asker.

 __*A newly created topic starts with 0. A positive opinion gives +1, a negative opinion gives -1.

Other topics of this kind:

[https://ratesome.com/topic/Replacing-2012-Macbook-Pro- with-2...](https://ratesome.com/topic/Replacing-2012-Macbook-Pro- with-2017-Macbook-Air) [https://ratesome.com/topic/Check-these-winter- boots-](https://ratesome.com/topic/Check-these-winter-boots-) [https://ratesome.com/topic/name-Ariel-for-a- girl](https://ratesome.com/topic/name-Ariel-for-a-girl)

Here is a different kind of topics, the above mentioned topics are all about something personal of a topic-starter, these ones are of a more general nature:

[https://ratesome.com/topic/Bitcoin](https://ratesome.com/topic/Bitcoin) [https://ratesome.com/topic/Online-dating](https://ratesome.com/topic/Online- dating) [https://ratesome.com/topic/Pizza](https://ratesome.com/topic/Pizza) [https://ratesome.com/topic/Morgan-Freeman](https://ratesome.com/topic/Morgan- Freeman) [https://ratesome.com/topic/rainy- day](https://ratesome.com/topic/rainy-day)

It can give you an idea of what people think on this or that at a glance, no need to read through a countless number of comments.

But as an addition, all topics have a comments section for discussions as well.

That's basically it.

I really hope for your feedback/questions. Thanks.</comment>


Host plants tell insects when to grow longer wings and migrate - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2018-07-host-insects-longer-wings-migrate.html <comment> rolha-capoeira The article is interesting so I don't mean to nitpick, but I find the title disingenuous/misleading to the layperson. Being in a country that has still not completely accepted the concept of natural selection, phrasing like this is counter-productive. The insects have evolved in such a way that their growth is determined by the glucose level of the host plant. This is much simpler to understand, IMO.

<comment><USER2> Completely agree. From the article:

"It's all about the amount of glucose, or sugar, in the plant," Lavine said. "Rice plants with higher glucose levels are older and dying. That increase in glucose causes adolescent brown planthoppers to develop into the long-winged adults. The plant really is telling the insect how to grow."

The last sentence is just bad.

If plants had their way, they'd be telling the insect pests to GTFO from the get-go. The whole point is that plant sugar levels are an inevitable and reliable indicator of host status, with higher [glucose] indicating poor (and deteriorating) host quality. Evolution (in insect pest populations) by natural selection has led to insect populations evolving plastic developmental programs (Stay-or-go, via wing size) in response to that inevitable and reliable signal of deteriorating host quality.

<comment><USER3> I agree with both of you, but I'm not sure if the plants don't want the insect, since this could be a symbiotic relationship and there's some benefit to the plant.

But the conclusion that the plant is "telling" the insect something, rather than the insect adapting to changing conditions seems like a huge stretch. It's not like everytime an oil well dries up Mother Earth is telling us to start looking for other oil wells.

<comment><USER4> I think it actually is pretty common for people to refer to certain natural events as "mother nature" "telling" us something. I think it really just depends on how strict your definition of "tell" is and your take on anthropomorphization. "Tell" might be something only humans can do or it might be more generally any signal from some entity that induces behavior in a living organism.

<comment><USER3> > I think it actually is pretty common for people to refer to certain natural > events as "mother nature" "telling" us something.

True though it should be a shorthand, convenient way of saying it, but I've seen it derail many a discussion when people get hung up on the abstract aspect.

> "Tell" might be something only humans can do or it might be more generally > any signal from some entity that induces behavior in a living organism.

That's where it gets interesting because many times (though definitely not all), many of our communication is biologically or environmentally driven, so it's often tough even among humans what we're truly trying to communicate. It's a fascinating interplay between different parts of ourselves that we're trying to express :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport - 268 mph - <AUTHOR> http://www.roadandtrack.com/future-cars/first/2011-bugatti-veyron-16.4-super-sport <comment><USER2> I think the next step is to make it fly.</comment>