Wisp: Homoiconic JavaScript with clojure syntax, s-expressions and macros - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Gozala/wisp <comment><USER2> Past discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5758578](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5758578)

Current README.md:

 _Project is abandoned_

 _Project maintainer @gozala is no longer able to spend time on this project. ClojureScript managed to overcome JVM dependency, so there is almost no reason to choose wisp over it. Never the less if you feel motivated to carry on the effort and step up as a maintainer contact @gozala._</comment>


Ask HN: What's the best to-do list manager? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for a to-do list manager to help organise my hacking projects a little.
The ideal candidate would have the following features:
1) Multiple lists 2) Nested To-Do's 3) Cloud hosted 4) Android client
Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> You could try building one. Almost every major Javascript framework starts with a Todo list as the Hello World project. Apparently, developers take that Hello World a little further, then start charging for it.

</rant>

</comment><comment><USER3> rememberthemilk.com has all of them except for #2. But it does have tags which might help you organize them instead of nesting.

<comment><USER4> Totally agree here. Remember the Milk is awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Toodledo</comment>


All Covid countries show rapid declines by day 25 - <AUTHOR> This is cumbersome, but click on this link, then click on comments, and find the last comment - starts with Cynthia Gong.  Links inside to models https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2762808/incubation-period-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19-from-publicly-reported <comment><USER2> I think the title meant to be "All Covid patients show rapid declines by day 25". The study looks at China only.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not in Italy. Or Spain. Or the United States.</comment>


Copenhagen Suborbitals open-source private spacerocket will launch in an hour - <AUTHOR> http://raketvenner.dk/launch/

<comment><USER2> Every fact you learn about these guys is more audacious and awesome than the last. Not just a rocket, one carrying a life size dummy. Not land, sea on a floating platform they made themselves. Boat? Nope. Giant hand-made submarine. It's the kind of mad, mad, science I dreamed of as a kid.

The story seems like it should end with "they don't always drink beer, but when they do..."

<comment><USER3> Here's a picture of the rocket and the submarine: [http://i2-images2.tv2net.dk/s/49/20942149-29ce372936dd69adf1...](http://i2-images2.tv2net.dk/s/49/20942149-29ce372936dd69adf1db85431752feb8.jpeg)

The picture was taken in September last year when the first (failed) attempt to launch the rocket was made.

Here's a picture of the succesful launch today: <http://www.bornholmstidende.dk/nonsec/NPIX/2011/6/Launch.jpg>

Video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmGmymAWI4E>

<comment><USER3> Btw., they only used their homemade submarine to tow the rocket platform at the first launch attempt (last September).

This time around they decided to enable the rocket platform to sail on its own: <http://politiken.tv/nyheder/videnskab/article1298751.ece>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Please donate, or become a member of the support organization (it,s 20 dollars a month) if you think this is a cool project.

this is a private noncommercial opensource project, and the whole thing is built on donations and people working in their freetime.

<comment><USER4> Yep, all started by cool guys from Something Awful: [http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=327...](http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3271649)

<comment><USER5> I totally forgot they were goons. These guys could quite possibly be the first goons in history who actually finished a project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Liftoff!

First attempt the auto-sequence didn't start properly, but on a retry they've achieved liftoff. The screams from the mission control feed gave me goosebumps.

<comment><USER7> Yes, that was exciting. Parachutes seems to have failed though the payload looks fine. Anyway, great achievement, congratulations!

<comment><USER6> Yeah, that's unfortunate. Looking at the feed now, it seems that the capsule has 'landed' intact in the sea. It remains to be seen exactly what condition it is in when recovered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There has been successful liftoff and supersonic flight at 16.36 local time.

Congratulations to copenhagen suborbitals.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for submitting this - it was awesome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Found this video of one of the Copenhagen Suborbitals guys giving a talk at TEDxCopenhagen:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua9oGxNNGd0>

<comment><USER9> I love the notion of "I'd rather work with a guy who says 'I don't know anything about it, but let's figure it out'".

That message is amazing, and I've found that has been a huge differentiator between people who are stellar performers vs. people who are mediocre or poor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Inspiring, they've actually _done_ something, on a shoestring, basically hobbyists, that most _national governments_ haven't been able to achieve.

<comment><USER10> I don't think governments haven't been able to achieve it, they haven't wanted to.

If a hobbyist group built a skyscraper in two months on a shoestring budget and it collapsed after a year, it would be a success.

If a national government funded a skyscraper, spent two months on it, and it collapsed after a year, they'd be a laughing stock.

For a volunteer/hobbyist/amateur/donation group, this is enormously progressive and successful; for a national space agency, it wouldn't be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does anybody have a capture of the liftoff for those of us that missed it? :(

<comment><USER3> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmGmymAWI4E>

<comment><USER11> Chilling. Thank you :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Video of the lift-off: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmGmymAWI4E>

</comment><comment><USER12> Adam from Mythbusters gives it thumbs up: <http://ekstrabladet.dk/flash/filmogtv/tv/article1414320.ece> (Danish language article)

</comment><comment><USER13> They're messing with the payload now, which appears to contain a dummy. Is this the platform they're going to send a man to space with?

<comment><USER14> And there appears to be a point-n-shoot camera mounted to its head.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> A different stream at <http://sputnik.tv2.dk/live/?top#event-820>

<comment><USER14> What's with the floating platform? The footage looks like it's from a Bond movie.

<comment><USER8> You mean the floating platform attached to a _submarine_?

<http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/>

I hope someone has told the Russians:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident>

<comment><AUTHOR> Last year they ran into some problems when they called the danish navy and asked 'is it ok with you guys if we tow our 115000 horsepower rocket through danish territorial waters using the largest homebuilt submarine ever built?'

unsurprisingly, the initial answer was that it was not ok. They got it solved though.

<comment><USER16> There seems to have been some negotiation this year also, due to a conflict with a NATO training exercise. In the end they ended up getting permission for a five-day window, according to this Danish article (Google Translate link): [http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&h...](http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpolitiken.dk%2Findland%2FECE1298975%2Fhele- verden-foelger-dansk-rumeventyr%2F)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Photo: <http://www.bornholmstidende.dk/?Id=27155>

</comment><comment><USER18> I just missed it. Is there a replay posted someplace? The linked page is just to the live stream.

aside: why don't any of the "live" video companies offer complete rewind/replay? Why can't I go to the page linked in the OP and watch the whole thing, even though it is no longer "live"?

<comment><USER19> One of the comments says that it's on youtube. There are a few there, but I'm not sure if one is official - none of them really look like it.

That does seem like a feature that would make a lot of sense for live videos to have. Could be that there are patents preventing them, or something like that, because it would make live videos far more valuable.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure there's an official video. The Danish TV station TV 2 filmed the whole thing from their news helicopter, and that is the footage you see on the YouTube link I posted and on [http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/article.php/id-40453154:dansk- rumrak...](http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/article.php/id-40453154:dansk-rumraket- sendt-i-luften.html) (there's a short commercial before the video that can be closed).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The flight in danish news: [http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/article.php/id-40453154:dansk- rumrak...](http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/article.php/id-40453154:dansk-rumraket- sendt-i-luften.html?forside)

</comment><comment><USER21> What is the open source part of this? The sketch books on the website? Or is there some software somewhere as well?

<comment><USER22> I think that a lot of it hasn't been released yet: "We intend to share all our techninal information as much as possible, within the laws of EU-export control. " <http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/mission.php>

<comment><AUTHOR> That's correct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Thanks for the reminder - super-duper appreciated :)

</comment><comment><USER23> That was AWESOME. There is no other word!

<comment><USER23> Replying to my own comment... even the day after this is still just as awesome :)</comment></comment>


Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 out now - <AUTHOR> https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/compute-module-3/ <comment><USER2> In case anybody else had no idea what this is:

The Compute Module is a Raspberry Pi in a more flexible form factor, intended for industrial application.

The compute module contains the guts of a Raspberry Pi (the BCM2835 processor and 512Mbyte of RAM) as well as a 4Gbyte eMMC Flash device (which is the equivalent of the SD card in the Pi). This is all integrated on to a small 67.6x30mm board which fits into a standard DDR2 SODIMM connector (the same type of connector as used for laptop memory). The Flash memory is connected directly to the processor on the board, but the remaining processor interfaces are available to the user via the connector pins. You get the full flexibility of the BCM2835 SoC (which means that many more GPIOs and interfaces are available as compared to the Raspberry Pi), and designing the module into a custom system should be relatively straightforward as we've put all the tricky bits onto the module itself.

source - [https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/compute- module/](https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/compute-module/)

<comment><USER3> Can you give me some example of it's application?

<comment> pi-rat Let's say that you're trying to create a fancy internet radio for mass production. You want to base it on linux. Instead of producing a PCB with a CPU and tons of support circuitry (hard) you can instead include a SODIMM- connector (easy) and plug in a RPI compute module.

You can get away with a _much_ simpler design and lower production tolerances by doing this - enabling you to use less time and use cheaper production techniques.

<comment><USER4> But does this cost-saving scale?

I was always under the assumption that all-in-one minicomputers were for prototyping and hobbyist engineering. I reformat my Pi often for all the little things I want to try.

<comment><USER5> Presumably at a large scale there would be resources available to design and manufacture a completely custom board -- its the low scale applications this unlocks that make it exciting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Rather than releasing this, I wish they had instead ramped up production (or something) of the Pi Zero.

It was supposed to be the "5 dollar Raspberry Pi" \- but instead, due to some reason, you can't get an Pi Zero for $5 - or if you can, you are limited to "one per customer".

It feels similar to what happened a while back with the ATMega328P uC chip - they were being bought up in droves to such an extent that you couldn't get the IC thru Digikey and others (well, the DIP version - the SMT versions were almost totally unaffected).

It seems like something akin to ticket scalpers and the like buying all the tickets in a venue to sell them on to purchasers at a higher price; which is what I have seen on the Pi Zero - lots available on Ebay and other retailers, but for a much higher price than "5 dollars".

So people (apparently) are paying this extra cost, and that is what the "market" sets the price for the board. Even though it was marketed to be the "5 dollar Raspberry Pi" \- it's true market cost is much greater (in some cases, you could only get the board with an extended "kit" of materials - driving the cost up and beyond that of a single bare Raspberry Pi 3).

<comment><USER7> My interpretation: The Raspberry Pi Foundation wanted to be able to point to a product, technically available for $5, as a point of comparison against some of the super-cheap Allwinner boards. I think the margins are probably thinner than the larger Pi hardware, and I don't think they've ever intended to make enough that they'd be available in arbitrary quantities.

<comment><USER8> That's my take exactly. They needed an answer to CHiP and Orange Pi stat. When everything is tabulated, I expect they actually lose a tiny bit on each one. I even suspect they called it the "Zero" because it was going to be sold for BOM+Assembly (thus netting zero).

Its an advertisement. Not a product. Giving them away in a magazine was brilliant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For those who want the TL;DR;

What has changed:

• Double the RAM (now 1GB, up from 512).

• Now uses the BCM2837 processor

• 1MM thicker

• New 'lite' version which will allow you to use your own SD card (no more having to fit everything within the 4GM eMMC)

• Pulls more current and will get hotter (just like the RPi3)

• Version 1 is now being obsoleted

What has stayed the same:

• 1 for 1 pin compatible with the compute module V1

• Same 4GB eMMC for the non lite version

Source: [http://raspberry.piaustralia.com.au/](http://raspberry.piaustralia.com.au/)

<comment><AUTHOR> One thing I didn't see in the connector is ethernet. I've been playing with the idea of building a small cluster and having all machines neatly stacked in a backplane that could act as an ethernet switch (maybe a KVM for HDMI/USB) instead of screwed together with board spacers and cables running around the setup would be awesome.

<comment><USER10> RPi2 had an Ethernet adapter internally connected via USB2. Probably this is not what you want for a cluster anyway.

Many competitively-priced ARM boards with proper Ethernet exist.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, but having a proper ethernet on the edge connector would avoid the need for an RJ-11 and allow integrating a switch on the board hosting the CMs and prevent the usual mess with cables forming around the boards.

At least, that's what I'd hope.

<comment><USER11> The Pi has a single USB OTG interface, and no onboard ethernet. On the regular Pis, that's sent to an on-board hub, which fans it out to the USB sockets and the USB-Ethernet chips. The Compute Module, on the other hand, doesn't include a hub and Ethernet chip, because not every application will need it, and probably more importantly, it can be set to boot off code it receives from a USB host. This is useful in debugging because you can start working on things with a very minimal number of connections, and also so you can rapidly reprogram it without having to reflash for every boot.

In general, the CM has a lot of support for I/O that is just not feasible with the package the regular PI uses. Things like the extra camera and display ports can be useful for computer vision packages, but would make routing on the normal board real difficult. By minimizing the extent of the breakout, they really do make the chip able to be considered in a lot more use cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Speaking of Raspberry Pi, what's the chance that we'll see a Raspberry Pi 4 within a couple of months with higher bandwidth I/O, like USB 3? The RPi 3 is mostly fast enough for most applications, but the slow USB (and ethernet over USB) makes it unsuitable for networking where any kind of bandwidth is required, like a simple NAS using an external harddrive.

I guess it comes down to what kind of chips Broadcomm has at the right price point, anybody here know if it's a possibility?

<comment> Const-me Not going to be terribly efficient.

There's no DMA for USB. Meaning, every IP packet has to go through CPU, and the CPU isn't that powerful.

Some people tested gigabit USB NICs with Pi 3. Different people measured 250-300 mbit/sec, way lower than USB 2.0 limit 480 mbit/sec. I think the CPU was the limiting factor there, not the USB.

<comment><USER12> Doesn't really need to be terribly efficient, good enough will do for the price.

One issue is that there's only one USB port on the board, and the external ports and the ethernet port are connected through a hub. So when you connect an external harddrive and try to transfer data over the network you end up with < 10 MB/s transfer speeds.

If Broadcomm decided to use DMA for their USB that would of course be ideal, but I don't know if they have any suitable products like that.

Of course 4K and h.265 video decoding would be welcome too for a lot of users.

<comment> Const-me Apparently, Raspberry markets their products as affordable but still useful. The features you're asking for are currently way too expensive for that market.

Single-board computers with USB 3.0 and capable of 4K playback are available, but they cost $200 or more: Nvidia Jetson TK1, Inforce 6540, etc.

<comment><USER13> But that just begs the question: does Broadcom have any parts on the shelf such that, if they tweaked them and sold them to the RPi project at cost, they'd fulfill those requirements? Broadcom and the RPi project can do some things in conjunction that Nvidia, for example, cannot.

<comment> Const-me Looks like the answer is yes, this chips are sold for $20: [https://www.broadcom.com/products/broadband/set-top- box/bcm7...](https://www.broadcom.com/products/broadband/set-top-box/bcm7251)

However I'm not much into the hardware design, I only write some embedded software for those things. Might be reasons why it's still too expensive: if the chip requires too many layers in the PCB, too many external components (like RAM), too much electrical power so it needs better PSU and some cooling, and so on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> >The Compute Module 3 will be used in NEC's new range of smart, large-format displays

That's interesting. Upgradable CPUs in a TV? I know it's been done before, but never trivially or cheaply.

<comment><USER15> You don't use these kind of CPU modules for the upgradeability but rather to save time and money - it contains most of the highly integrated components needed in a smart device. You only have to design a mainboard around it, containing the few components you need.

I find it rather curious that they opted to use it in a TV, considering that they probably have to place BGA components on the mainboard anyway, to drive the display. Using CPU modules mostly pay off in simple products (think: a couple of switches, LEDs etc).

<comment><USER16> > I find it rather curious that they opted to use it in a TV

Guess that NEC wants to market itself to the hacker space. Which is a marketing strategy that works for me - I'll be getting one as soon as they're available. I mean, a Smart TV running Debian? That's just plain cool.

<comment> jon-wood I think this isn't really about marketing themselves to the hacker space, and probably more about not having to develop their own processing hardware. Depending how the pins are hooked up you could probably swap the compute module out for a stock one and run Debian, but the core focus will be on NEC being able to provide the software for digital signage alongside the hardware.

<comment><USER17> If that were the sole motivation, I doubt they would leave the raspi accessible as in the picture.

<comment> jon-wood Making it accessible means that they can easily sell upgrades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Their blog post has more info: [https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/compute- module-3-launch/](https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/compute-module-3-launch/)

I posted this link earlier but it didn't attract much interest.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've always been so confused by the smallish amounts of RAM available on rPi's.

Certainly, 1GB is more than enough for many applications. And obviously low cost is a primary requirement.But a rPi with more RAM would open up so many more use cases - databases, Redis instances, various caching applications.

If I'm not mistaken, there are quite a few other single-board computers (Beaglebone, Intel perhaps...) that offer more RAM. However, Raspberry Pis have a long lifecycle and excellent community, which is appealing.

I think this must be a very deliberate decision on their part. It would make sense to me, I guess: their mission is clearly to serve the education and hobbyist markets and that mission would be compromised if they create something that IT departments begin to buy in droves.

<comment><USER20> I just wish they'd put a damn real time clock and watch battery on the thing so it wouldn't lose time. It's like two chips... hell, I'd be happy to buy the battery myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> @HN: Has anyone here used their modules in a product?

<comment><USER21> I have the same question!

I don't really understand where this could be usable and I would rather see the pi foundation use their resources to upgrade and sell more Pi Zeros!

<comment><USER22> Linked through this post is a blogpost about using them in space: [https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/compute-module- cubesats/](https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/compute-module-cubesats/)

The compute module exists due to customer demand - the regular Pi is not so easy to embed in another device.

<comment><USER23> That doesn't seem to be the point of these though. They seem to be intended to use in products (and it's still a bit too expensive and unreliable to make that feasible)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Man would I like a Pinebook arm like device powered by this compute module.

</comment><comment><USER25> It looks like it doesn't have Wi-Fi (?)

<comment><USER26> Indeed, it seems to have neither the combined BT/Wifi IC of the pi3, nor the antenna. I guess there was no way to do it and keep backward compatibility as the original compute module had one of the sdio interfaces brought out to the connector. On the pi3, one of the SDIO interfaces is brought to the wifi IC and the other one to the microSD socket. On this compute module, one is brought to the connector and one to the built-in eMMC storage. Presumably it's possible on the light version with no built-in storage to add a board/module that does wifi (can't add the chip directly because it only has an emmc footprint). Maybe they'll end up doing that later on, have a revision that has onboard wifi but no storage. I don't know how useful that would be though.

<comment><USER27> Unfortunately, there's two SD interfaces on the board, and the one that does eMMC (or the SD card on a normal Pi) can only do storage and can't do SDIO. The 2nd interface is used for the wireless on the Pi 3, but that one's brought out externally on the CM, so you can't really do that.

The answer is to put the wireless on the carrier board for the CM, of course, but that's awkward because of the regulatory requirements on wireless bits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> A little off topic, but any suggestions for which raspberry pi to purchase? This would be my first one and I am very excited about starting some sort of side project with it (using either Go or Python). I see a lot of starter kits on Amazon, but not sure what the difference is between them. Has anyone had any luck with these? Thanks :)

<comment><USER29> CanaKit and Vilros are the ones I see recommended most often. I went with this[0] Vilros one so I could choose my own sd card, and was pretty pleased with it since it had everything else I needed (already had a spare keyboard/mouse etc.)

[0] - [https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01D92SSX6/ref=od_aui_de...](https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01D92SSX6/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Now if only someone provided colo or leased versions of these. I imagine this is a better value prop than most VPS's.

<comment><USER31> Scaleway has a 3 euro/month ARM baremetal (and Intel VPS) offering that is higher end than a raspberry pi 3, at least in terms of ram, network + storage -- didn't check CPU.

[https://www.scaleway.com/pricing/](https://www.scaleway.com/pricing/)

[edit: baremetal arm, not vps arm...]

<comment><USER32> any feedback on using this service?

<comment><USER30> I use it currently. It's mostly good. They have SAN storage, so you are not limited by what's attached to the thing directly and you also get reliability. The control panel is mostly good. The boxes are speedy and bandwidth is good.

The bad: their ARM boxes don't get IPv6. At all. The VPS's get 16 IPv6 addresses, which is really dumb.

The badder: their ARM boxes _and_ their VPS boxes can't be shut down. You can reboot them, or you can save their local state into block storage, which even for a small box takes many hours (up to a day in one instance for me). You also can't force-detach a volume from a box, so if say your box/VPS got borked, but you had a data volume you want to save, you are SOL.

<comment><USER33> Can you at least halt?

<comment><USER30> I don't believe so. They just boot back up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I always wished there was a Psion 5-style palmtop computer that used the compute module as brains.

<comment><USER35> I have too, but I dream for more of an OQO style. I've wondered at some point how difficult it would be to get a quality case created that all the parts could go into.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Does anyone sell a "breakout" board for it that will allow you to power it externally and get access to most of the pins?

<comment><USER37> The announcement post says there are breakout boards available:

> An updated IO breakout board (CMIO3) has also been launched, which will > accept all three models. You can purchase yours from element14 or RS > Components.

<comment><USER36> Oh, wow. How did I miss that before? Cool. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> What kind of gpu does this have?

<comment><USER39> The same one as the Raspberry Pi 3, it uses the same Broadcom SoC.</comment></comment>


Metacat: a computer model of analogy-making and perception (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://science.slc.edu/~jmarshall/metacat/ <comment><USER2> I don't even know where to begin trying to use this for something, but other than that it seems brilliant, and it is not at all surprising that Douglas Hofstadter had some hand in it.

<comment><USER3> Agree. Perhaps, if nothing else, to read some interesting Scheme source code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Metacat is also the name of a Netflix open source project. [https://github.com/Netflix/metacat](https://github.com/Netflix/metacat)</comment>


Ask HN: The WSJ paywall workaround no longer works. Why are their links allowed? - <AUTHOR> https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
The official guidelines only permit paywalls with a viable workaround and the WSJ workarounds have all stopped working for many people, myself included. I'm getting pretty tired of clicking links and getting a headline + 12 words.
Before someone asks, I don't think the WSJ has earned a subscription from me. But that's beside the point - isn't it now in violation of HN's rules? <comment><USER2> A few points: 1) The workaround works for me if I open an incognito chrome window and copy/paste the "web" link from HN. It doesn't work w/o incognito.

2) If the article gets upvotes, then enough people have subscriptions (or workarounds) to warrant a discussion. Let the votes do their job.

If you really don't want to see WSJ articles, install/make a browser extension that does it for you.

<comment> irq-1 > Let the votes do their job.

Voting doesn't work if people are disenfranchised. 20% of HN discussing an article the other 80% can't read will be the end of HN. Maybe if this was a sub-reddit "community" where access to the WSJ was assumed, but HN is a general and open discussion board.

(Also, when politics or people like Taleb Nissam or Paul Krugman are discussed, the voting isn't very informative.)

<comment><USER2> Using "disenfranchised" in this case with made up statistics of 20% and 80% is rather odd.

There are _plenty_ of discussions to participate in here. WSJ make up maybe 1-2 articles on the front page per day? Can someone explain why this matters enough to even consider a banning of content?

For those who don't want to see it: upvote other things!

I'd much rather see a surge in voting non-mainstream media content then for HN to enforce banning. Come on people, we can be better!

[[As a personal aside, I typically don't upvote and rarely read discussions about mainstream press (WSJ, NY times, WashPost,Economist) here. ]]

<comment><USER3> >>There are _plenty_ of discussions to participate in here. WSJ make up maybe 1-2 articles on the front page per day? Can someone explain why this matters enough to even consider a banning of content?

1-2 articles on the front page per day is _a lot_.

To answer your main question though, while I think banning wsj.com would be heavy-handed, I'd be in favor of penalizing the domain so its articles are less likely to reach the front page and stay on it for so long.

I think the reason people are having issue with it is that the topics themselves tend to be interesting, but without access to the article, participating in the discussion becomes difficult. This can be rather frustrating for people.

I know this first-hand because the incognito "trick" used to work for me, but no longer does for some reason. So I find myself effectively blocked out of the conversations.

<comment><USER4> I don't think this is the kind of comment that should be downvoted. I'm in the same boat as enraged_camel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you start an incognito window with a Google News search for the headline and can't access it, use the "Send Feedback" link at the bottom of the search page to let Google know.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why should we discourage articles behind a paywall (with or without a workaround) in the first place? What's so bad about a website that relies on subscriptions instead of ads?

<comment><USER7> The quality of the discussion ends up a lot lower because most people don't read the article?

<comment> rm_-rf_slash This. It's bad enough when people comment after reading no more than the headline (guilty!) but it's much worse when _most_ people are commenting without getting the full picture.

<comment><USER8> Seems the problem is then with user behavior, not the link.

There is no rule that people have to comment on articles they can't read. Seems backwards to forbid interested people from linking to and discussing an article in earnest just to reduce posting from bullshitters.

<comment><USER9> > Seems the problem is then with user behavior, not the link

Perhaps in a sense, but many things that are discouraged by the rules (including paywalled articles without effective workarounds) are discouraged because they are observed to contribute to undesirable user behavior to a degree that responsibility g tomthe individual undesirable behaviors reactively is an inadequate remedy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Back in the day, Google didn't reference links that showed a different page to the bot from what it does to users. the WSJ presence in their search has substantially reduced the utility of Google's results. I do not understand why they allow it.

<comment><USER11> It's likely that the page is not different, just "updated", like if you fixed a spelling error on your blog post after it was indexed. There will be a lag where the index is different from the content but google can re-crawl and get the same content.

I believe the paywall is turned on and off consistently for all clients, probably not violating terms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's a bad user experience if a majority of readers can't actually RTFA.

<comment><USER13> I agree, but I don't think banning links to the WSJ is necessarily the right solution. They're presumably interesting articles that warrant discussion here if people are upvoting them, even if those users are in the minority. When a better (e.g. more accessible) link is found the HN admin frequently replace the original URL.

<comment><USER14> People are upvoting based on the article header, not content (because it's inaccessible).

<comment><USER13> Or they're WSJ subscribers who can read the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just take the original url and put it behind [http://facebook.com/l.php?u=<insert](http://facebook.com/l.php?u=<insert) WSJ URL here>

Confirm the facebook warning about the redirect.

EDIT: Check your local law first. I've just noticed during research using facebook that i don't get the paywall coming from there. This is only a proof of concept, if you want to read WSJ, than you should consider paying for a subscription.

<comment><USER16> Why not just do that for all of the links by default?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just confirmed: doesn't work with Firefox private browsing. Web -> right click -> New Private Window takes me to Google, and clicking the link there takes me to a pay-walled page.

I agree with OP.

</comment><comment><USER18> If anyone on wants to know why paid content isn't welcome on HN just pay me $5 and I'll explain why.

<comment><USER19> Just forward me your bank account number, and I'll directly deposit the $5. Let me know when you've received it, so we can continue discussion. I eagerly await your response.

<comment><USER11> I also have similar information, my bitcoin address: 18ZcPit6NYHqj5rZ6hU2m3rAq8DeWHoEDq

<comment><USER19> Sorry, not familiar with bitcoin.

<comment><USER11> That's not true, you're probably top 20% most sophisticated users:

> I was doing this on the now defunct Cryptsy with the popular alt coins. > Using relatively basic exponential moving average calculations. There just > really wasn't enough volume to be doing it constantly. I was lucky to get a > few trades in a day that made sense. I made money, and lost money. Basically > breaking even. Mostly just a learning exercise. At this point though, all of > the big players are getting their hands in. Not really worth it anymore.

(from "High-Speed Traders Are Taking Over Bitcoin")

pay up :-D

<comment><USER19> Quiet you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If I think only of the WSJ in isolation, the OP's position might seem extreme, but when I consider that the HN front page may be dominated by links to various paywalled sites (because we allow them, right?) I can see how the user experience will quickly become atrocious. As a site centered around voting and discussion, it's important to make access to the content being voted upon and discussed readily accessible to a large fraction of the readers. While it may come to pass that most HN readers will have a WSJ subscription, it will likely never be the case that most HN readers have subscriptions to most submitted paywalled sites. I would support a policy that forbids submissions that require payment to read for this reason.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm with Sir_Cmpwn. No sites with paywalls of any kind should be allowed here. I shouldn't have to go out of my way to get around barriers to get content for free. I'm also realizing I'm having a hard time saying what I mean effectively. If they want a paywall then it should just be a wall. It's awkward and unethical to bypass the wall to get the content for free anyway, yet that is what is expected when those links are allowed on HN. So those links should just not be allowed at all then.

</comment><comment><USER22> Did you email mods about this? What did they say?

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

> Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us > questions about Y Combinator, or to ask or complain about moderation). If > you want to say something to us, please send it to firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><USER23> I did, they ignored my email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't mind seeing paywalled articles on the front page but I feel I must be warned that it is a paywalled link. The same way we are warned when content is a PDF. That way I won't waste my time opening the link. I don't even want to use workarounds. If it is paywalled and/or requires me to disable AdBlock, I don't want to waste my time on it.

</comment><comment><USER25> The WSJ "workaround" has never consistently worked for me.

It works sometimes, but other times it won't work even with a Google Search referrer in an incognito tab.

</comment><comment><USER26> My friend works on WSJ for Dow Jones. Recently, he stumbled upon a query param that you can add to any article link to remove the paywall. It's ridiculous how many things have come up with WSJ to get around what I assume is one of their main sources of revenue besides ads.

<comment><USER27> You can't just say you have a workaround that someone stumbled on that addresses a problem for a huge number of people and then drop the mike and walk off stage. :-)

<comment><USER28> Replace WSJ with Netflix, would you suggest he share the link then? Many of us live of SaaS but complain about it when newspapers do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The Google Search workaround does a perfectly fine job for me.

<comment><USER30> It doesn't work for me any longer (maybe since a few days ago).

<comment><USER31> Seconded. Even articles that pop-up directly in my Google News feed don't display the full article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It worked for me when I switched from https to http, but it may have had to do with the referrer. I do know that it doesn't work with encrypted.google.com, only with vanilla Google.com.

</comment><comment><USER33> Being on mobile I agree. Add-ons aren't a viable fix

</comment><comment><USER34> It's stopped working for me on Firefox using Private windows.

</comment><comment><USER35> There are some days for no good reason I can't get past some paywalls using the HN workaround, when that happens I fall back on [http://archive.is/](http://archive.is/)

<comment><USER36> Yes, archive.is hides the paywall layer above the content. This is the workaround which still works. But how long will it work? WSJ could change the paywall logic at any moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Really baffling that HN management doesn't understand that paywalled links are poison to a discussion site. They're broken links.

</comment><comment><USER38> Yeah, and also get rid of links to software that costs money, because that's free advertising, too!

<comment><USER39> The equivalent in this case would be if you couldn't even know what their software DID without paying for it.

Hacker news is a forum for discussing topics. How can you possible discuss an article you can't read? You can, however, discuss a piece of software based on it's intended purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> confirmed - I can't access via incognito or google search. I did the other week, as if by magic - but it's gotten closer to impossible now for whatever reason.

</comment><comment><USER41> I don't understand the issue. If you don't like sites from a particular publisher, don't visit them.

HN lists the root domain right next to the link.

<comment><USER42> The issue is whether it makes sense to post a paywall link on HN, since only a (probably small) subset of users can access it, if there is no workaround available.

EDIT: It could be argued that the upvote system would take care of that naturally (if only few users are able to access it, few would upvote it), but I can understand why it could be considered an issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I too am disappointed that the Google redirect workaround no longer works. I recently cancelled my WSJ membership as part of an effort to minimize my monthly expenses, so now I am effectively cut off from all their news stories.

IMO it's not a big deal though, as I've turned to Bloomberg for most of my market news. My health has also improved considering that I no longer subject myself to skimming through the WSJ comments section.

</comment><comment><USER44> I flag WSJ links wenever I see them but seems to have no effect.

<comment><USER45> Hopefully by now your flag carries little weight

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> The only thing that works for me now is to Google the first paragraph they let you see (not the headline). Usually the article is available elsewhere. None of the other techniques like incognito mode, copying link, Google referral, blocking Javascript or any combination thereof doesn't work. (Facebook referral still works but it's not easy to find a FB link to a specific article.)</comment>


Ask HN:  Do you prefer to receive HTML or plain text email? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Are the emails targeted toward the tech community or avg consumers? Consumers think IMHO HTML emails are pretty. The tech community would think plain text is better. It all depends on that majority target audience.

</comment><comment><USER3> Plain-text by a significant margin; to the extent that my console mail-client treats HTML as an after-thought.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm not Richard Stallman, so HTML.

</comment><comment><USER5> Plaintext. Always and forever.

</comment><comment><USER6> Plain text. All day long.

</comment><comment><USER7> HTML</comment>


42Floors' PDA: The War For Talent Among Startups Needs A New Approach. - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/27/42floors-pda-the-war-for-talent-among-startups-needs-a-new-approach-heres-why/

<comment><USER2> I'm really curious how stuff like this gets to the top of HN? In my opinion this is simply a publicity stunt surrounding the interest of HN celebrities, and I wonder who thought this was such a good post?

Personally I feel that way too many of the front page threads some YC company posting some blog post about the HN zeitgeist of the week. That or job postings from YC backed companies.

Maybe I'll get downvotes but it seems like some YC companies are trying to game the system and use their sway here to get unwarranted buzz. I know the site is YC run, but personally I would like to see the focus on YC companies de-emphasized a bit here.

</comment><comment><USER3> Re: The War For Talent

Is there a consensus in the industry who the best hackers, designers, and leaders are?

</comment><comment><USER4> Anyone who reads HN knows that 42Floors (I cannot read that name without feeling slightly annoyed at what seems like a 37Signals rip) have been playing the attention card lately -- popular blog post after blog post on contentious, contemporary, pop-topics -- and this is just the latest.

Anyone who misinterprets and describes this as a realistic recruitment strategy is a little naive. It's attention seeking, with the target being secondary.</comment>


Peter Thiel Chased Off Stage by Angry Protestors at UC Berkeley - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-chased-off-stage-by-angry-protestors-at-uc-berkeley-2014-12

<comment><USER2> This is what happens when you beat and tear gas peaceful protesters. Look at the videos of the Berkeley protest and you'll see the police instigating, shoving students, decked out in full riot gear. They were ready to go with tear gas and rubber bullets, before anything untoward happened.

It was absolutely shameful. They are protesting now not just because of some incident thousands of miles away, and not just because of an abstract systemic problem but because of actual injustice witnessed first-hand several days ago. A man has seizure and the police won't allow him medical care. Beating 19-year olds with batons, chucking flash grenades. Hundreds of people arrested.

You think this kind of thing only happens in the south. But it's happening here, and it's scary and disgusting.

<comment><USER3> Peaceful? See "Protesters take to streets of Berkeley for second night running: violence, vandalism of local businesses, looting" [http://www.berkeleyside.com/2014/12/07/ferguson-garner- prote...](http://www.berkeleyside.com/2014/12/07/ferguson-garner-protesters- take-to-streets-of-berkeley-for-second-night-running/)

<comment><USER2> Yes. Peaceful. Until cops started beating people, arresting them and chucking teargas.

The people vandalizing have nothing to do with the protesters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The protesters' reasoning was: Peter works for NSA -> NSA ~ police -> police brutality -> #BlackLivesMatter -> Let's storm Peter Thiel

</comment><comment><USER5> Always thought USA universities have at least some sort of basic security, given the history of shootings.

</comment><comment><USER6> What has Peter Thiel got to do with their protest?

</comment><comment><USER7> Ok interesting, so why were the protestors angry?</comment>


An Amazon patent stops you checking prices online while in a physical store - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/an-amazon-patent-stops-you-checking-prices-online-while-in-a-physical-store-2017-6 <comment><USER2> Remember that a patent is not a license to do something, it is a license to stop others from doing it.

Amazon can use this to prevent physical stores from doing this.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Kind of pointless since I don't use retail stores Wi-Fi and one can easily turn off Wi-Fi even if someone does and use cellular data.

<comment><USER3> I wonder if they will block cell signals?

I've noticed in certain Walmarts my signal won't work no matter where I am - more than likely the thick walls I would assume were blocking the signal not some malicious attempt to stop me from price matching.</comment></comment>


15,000 scientists give catastrophic warning about the fate of the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/letter-to-humanity-warning-climate-change-global-warming-scientists-union-concerned-a8052481.html <comment><USER2>
       >The new notice, written as an open-letter "viewpoint" article, won the support of 15,364 scientists from 184 countries who agreed to offer their names as signatories.

Only 15,364 scientists signed? I was not offered an opportunity to sign; if the opportunity had presented itself, I would have signed. As would many (most) HN readers.</comment>


Portland wants to transform its software culture into an industry - <AUTHOR> http://blog.oregonlive.com/siliconforest/2010/12/portland_wants_to_transform_it.html <comment><USER2> Portland venture capital is picking up (and we've been lucky to be a part of that). An important note is that most of the money isn't coming from Portland and it's not coming in small amounts. Serious investments are coming in from out of state VC firms.

Dedicated entrepreneurs exist and are making a go at it here - and doing quite well.

I'm wary of most of these organizations, but I do have high hopes for the software startup scene here.

</comment><comment><USER3> Make non-compete agreements unenforceable there and I would consider moving there.

Now if you really want a leg up on California, also consider make non-poaching agreements unenforceable.

<comment><USER4> Oregon should also do the "work done after hours is your own" thing that allows Californians to do "startups in their garages". Literally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yeah, this article really doesn't mention too many hard and fast promises but I am optimistic about the Portland seed fund. I got to talk to the two fund managers in charge and they seem to have the right idea about how to bet their chips. We'll see in another month or two if I'm right.

<comment><USER5> By the way, I didn't know that Josh Friedman wanted to be in charge of the Portland Seed Fund. I thought I heard that the whole thing was originally his idea but I could be wrong. Either way, the fund would best be managed by a hands-on Paul Graham type and Josh is probably as good of a fit as we can get out here.

<comment><USER6> It was and you are right he should have been, but it was basically pulled away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's hoping they succeed. Portland would make a great tech center. It certainly has that counter culture attitude. And it's highly livable.

Now they just need the jobs and talent - that's the hard part.

<comment><USER8> There's a reason that some of the best open-source conferences happen in Portland, and it's not just because Linus Torvalds lives nearby. Portland is a remarkably livable city with a fairly deep talent pool.

<comment><USER9> And, they have their own TechCrunch: I believe most writers for ReadWriteWeb are Portland-ers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The problem with Portland is talent seems to be hidden. I haven't explored too much in the time I have been here, but the bits of exposure I have had didn't seem too promising. Contrast that to a larger area like Seattle, or a very talent-dense area like Silicon Valley, and you have the opposite problem of sorting through talent.

Additionally, there are very few resources for people just starting out. There is the Oregon Entrepreneurship Network, but with their fee structure it seems to be more of a business than a resource for a small business. You have to pay annual membership dues, and from there you have to pay entry into their events. Want to go to their monthly pub talk? Yeah, that'll be $30 for non members, and $15 for people already registered with the OEN.

Of course talk is cheap, why not put together something myself? From the few events I have been to, the SNR was poor enough to be intimidating. 2/3 social media consultants, 1/4 looking for a free lunch and the rest as lost as me.

<comment><USER2> There are local tech events happening pretty much every night of the week. <http://calagator.org/> has a good listing. It's to the point where you can't pick a night to do a user group/meetup without it conflicting.

You might want to start there when trying to find talent... though for what it's worth we haven't had a hard time finding talent lately. Lot of competing people away, but that's hardly new or different.

<comment><USER10> I know of the list and have been to a few meetings. When I mentioned I didn't see much going on, I meant there didn't seem to be a cohesive group of entrepreneurs. There are plenty of user groups and other nerdy meetings, but I haven't had luck connecting with other people attempting to get a business off the ground. Yes, PDX has nerds and programmers and people interested in tech, but, it doesn't have many software entrepreneurs to connect with.

<comment><USER11> That's also the impression I got when I spent a couple of months in Portland last year.

Somewhat unrelated, there's a lot of interesting programming language companies around (Galois, Gemstone, and some others I can't remember now). I don't have hard data, but have the impression that that's a lot more than average for other US cities with high-tech sectors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What they call "dogfooding" has a different name when it comes to the relationship between government and business - subsidy.

If shielding local industry from competition is the mayor's idea of creating a new market, Portland's efforts should probably start with getting a better mayor.

<comment><USER13> The mayor was elected by the citizens of Portland and is paid with their tax dollars. One of his primary mandates is to improve the local economy. Why should Portland not use those tax dollars to cultivate its local economy if that is the goal?

I am the CEO of a mid-sized, private company. I need our website updated. Should I be required to put out an RFP to source the work to the lowest bidder? By your logic, if I don't, aren't I "shielding" my internal staff from competition?

<comment><USER14> > Why should Portland not use those tax dollars to cultivate its local economy > if that is the goal?

The goal is a noble thing, but good intentions are not enough. "Sheltered workshop" policies lead either to feeble industries or rent-seeking or both.

<comment><USER13> According to the article, the purpose of the 'dogfooding' is not providing a long term subsidy, but rather "to serve as a proving ground for the technology and a reference customer."

YC provides its portfolio companies with a direct financial subsidy at a time when they are not yet able to stand on their own, and gets other YC connected companies to use their products and serve as reference customers. Is YC "enfeebling" its startups?

<comment><USER14> YC (or any other commercial funding source) does not have a political incentive to keep funding failed or failing companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As someone that tried very hard to raise even a little money in Portland before getting into Ycombinator and ultimately raising 6 million this idea is DOOMED.

We did the Portland Angel Fund (or whatever it's called) American Idol off for start-ups...total joke. The whole industry is dominated by 'service providers' that look to charge start-ups for everything while writing no checks.

They actually asked us to come back and speak at one of their conventions and wanted to charge us almost $400.

There is no follow on capital. There is no entrepreneur culture. I love Portland and Oregon (grew up there, went to OSU), but this is a waste of time and money.

<comment><USER10> Is that the event put on by the Oregon Entrepreneurship Network? I have been very skeptical about all their events (really, to do anything I need to shell out HOW much? To go to a pub and drink a beer even?). I wouldn't say the idea is doomed. Even if it isn't successful, at least it's something in the right direction.

<comment><USER15> You are right to be skeptical.

The reason why i say it is doomed is (i'm not sure it's this plan so i could be jumping the gun) because one of the plans that is being implemented we were interviewed by one of 'LPs' and the info about how the 'funding' works was very sketchy.

It pretty much boiled down to pick 4-6 companies and give them loans that can be called back at roughly anytime and are personally guaranteed.

When we (my partner and I) looking for money in portland and working on our start-up at the same time even giving BrainTree a few thousand bucks as guarantee was out of the question. The idea that any young, early start-up wants loans with personal guarantees makes no sense. If anything just get 5-6 credit cards and max them out to finance it. It's easier.</comment></comment></comment>


Coupons for Overnight Prints. Save on Bcards - <AUTHOR> http://www.retailmenot.com/view/overnightprints.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Just got more bcards and this saved me over $40 on the checkout. Helpful for bootstrapping entrepreneurs.</comment>


Huge Backlog of Ships Waiting to Pass Through the Panama Canal - <AUTHOR> https://gcaptain.com/there-is-a-huge-backlog-of-ships-waiting-to-pass-through-the-panama-canal/ <comment><USER2> The panama canal is not only an engineering marvel but a financial one as well. It can cost up to a quarter million for passage if you are a large container ship (such as a panamax class ship).

One thing that I was surprised was that the lateral drift was not computer controlled. Scary that even a small miscalculation can rip a hole in the ship's hull.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4F867o_U1w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4F867o_U1w)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for that. Funny they say the Kentucky Highway makes it to the Atlantic "without a scratch" after it was bounced off the wall of the locks; you can clearly see the huge smear/scratch on the paint in shots after the collision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's not a lot of ships. More ships are always waiting near Singapore (zoom in):

[http://s3.amazonaws.com/mongabay/indonesia- java/600/java_000...](http://s3.amazonaws.com/mongabay/indonesia- java/600/java_0001.jpg)

Does anyone know why there are so many ships waiting at Singapore? Are they merely idle? Waiting for port access? (if you're not familiar, look where Singapore sits on a map. Every ship between east asia and europe/middle east passes by).

<comment><USER5> Could still be surplus capacity from the post-GFC slump. From 2009:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/business/global/13ship.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/business/global/13ship.html)

> Vessels have flocked to Singapore because it has few storms, excellent ship > repair teams, cheap fuel from its own refinery and, most important, > proximity to Asian ports that might eventually have cargo to ship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you ever get the change, I highly recommend a visit to the canal. The scale is hard to comprehend. Watching container ships pass through is super satisfying from an engineering perspective.

My visit: [http://theroadchoseme.com/the-panama- canal](http://theroadchoseme.com/the-panama-canal)

</comment><comment><USER7> If you are wondering why:

"A statement provided to us Friday from the Panama Canal Authority said that a high level of arrivals during the last in September coincided with schedule dry-chamber maintenance."

<comment><USER8> Scheduled with who? Obviously not their clients, the shipping companies.

Kind of like ebay not considering their 2-hour Sunday "planned maintenance events" to be outages ... for 2 decades.

<comment><USER9> What are the shipping companies going to do, use the Nicaragua Canal?

<comment><USER10> Dock ships on both sides of land. Truck goods from one ship to the other. Or maybe that would also be too expensive?

<comment><USER11> There's a railroad. It can carry about 1,500 containers a day[1]. There are approximately 175,000 containers waiting to transit the canal, based on the 33,500 figure in the linked Wiki page and the 5 day wait.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal_Railway#2001_reco...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal_Railway#2001_reconstruction)

<comment><USER12> Technically Panama's is the first transcontinental railroad, beating the Union Pacific by fourteen years. Panama's was running in 1855 while the line over the Sierra Nevada opened in 1869.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's likely that this is due to corruption in Panama with pressure from Nicaragua and Hong Kong. The official reasons given don't make sense:

> Marine Traffic Control said the backlog is primarily due to weather > conditions, including several days of fog at the canal. But we spoke with a > canal insider, who said that in his decades of experience he has only seen > it like this when there is some other issue going on – not one that's > weather related.

Thus, something is happening behind the scenes that they don't want to talk about.

Maybe there is political pressure from Nicaragua/Hong Kong proponents of the Nicaraguan canal. The biggest reason cited by the WSJ not to build the canal is lack of demand:

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-wants-to-dig-the- nicaragua...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-wants-to-dig-the-nicaragua- canal-1439159390)

It's quite possible that Nicaragua/Hong Kong are putting pressure on Panama to increase the wait times. Perhaps they scheduled the "Dry chamber maintenance" during a high-shipping seasons on purpose:

> A statement provided to us Friday from the Panama Canal Authority said that > a high level of arrivals during the last in September coincided with > schedule dry-chamber maintenance.

<comment><USER14> Why would Panama willingly do anything to encourage the Nicaragua Canal? It poses a huge competitive threat (if it were likely to be built).

<comment><USER15> Unless they were colluding to increase wait times to get the Nicaragua Canal built and then share the profits (unlikely). More likely is Panama isn't doing this to encourage building the Nicaragua Canal but instead is just doing this to increase premium slot prices.

Could Magic Mountain and Knott's Berry Farm run more roller coaster trains and decrease wait times? Sure, but then there wouldn't be as much incentive for people to buy flash/front-of-the-line passes. I'd be willing to bet the waits are at least partially artificially created to support the flash passes as yet another source of revenue.

<comment><USER16> Speaking from experience, The waits at magic mountain in the 80s ran upwards of an hour+, and that was prior to flash/front-of-line passes, so I don't think there is a correlation.

<comment><USER15> An hour wait at Magic Mountain nowadays seems to be the norm moreso than the exception. Have you been there in the summer when X2 has had waits in the 2-3 hour range WITHOUT a Flash Pass? This still occurs and the ride is over 12 years old now. I'd argue it is somewhat due to incomes rising enough to allow more people to attend MM. MM has responded by offering Flash Passes but what I've yet to see is even on the busiest day, running multiple cars at a quick enough clip to minimize wait times. With this kind of demand, they really don't have to minimize wait times since as much as people complain about the times, they still go.

Furthermore, the Flash Pass isn't so much a front-of-the-line pass as it is a bypass-most-of-the-line pass. It still deposits you in the loading/unloading area so you could still hypothetically have a 15-20 minute wait depending on how many riders are already in the loading/unloading area.

Edit: Goliath (built in 2000) still routinely has 1-2 hour waits and might even rival Tatsu for most Flash Passed coaster given that X2 was, up until recently, not even able to be added to the standard Flash Pass unless you upgraded to the Gold or Platinum Flash Passes.

Tell me that doesn't smell like an incentive to increase waits to drive sales of Flash Passes in lieu of outright raising prices to control demand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I still don't understand why anyone building a new canal through Central America would not be trying to maximise the effectiveness of their work by building a sea level canal wide either enough for continuous crossing in both directions or dig two canals and make each one continuous flow in a single direction.

Yes it's a bigger challenge, but these projects are some of the few remaining opportunities in modern economics to say "we expect payback time of two decades" and not get laughed at. No locks no lock maintenance, continuous flow, more ship, more money.

It's also possible to use novel techniques from the last hundred years of progress to "dredge forward" using water itself as an an active tool to wash away all but any hard rock terrain that needs clearing. The rain and loose soils that hurt the first attempt at the Panama Canal could be turned into a positive factor with today's technology.

<comment><USER18> a) You can not escape the need for locks because there is a 8" height difference of the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean. Additionally you have tidal variation.

b) The Panama Canal locks are already in pairs to allow simultaneous bi- directional traffic. They are currently building a third set of larger locks that will increase maximum dimensions of vessels transiting the Panama Canal.

<comment><USER19> Just because there's a height difference with locks, doesn't mean some kind of singularity would develop without them. Either the height difference would disappear, or continuous currents through the canal would maintain it.

In the Panama canal, they benefit from keeping the inland lakes above sea level so that they're deep enough. If they were connected to the sea, they'd lower significantly and even more excavation would be needed to make a path for ships.

There would also be fascinating effects of strong currents through it, sea level changes, fresh water lakes becoming salt water (sorry local people!), and fish migrating.

<comment><USER20> The average difference is 8" but with tides it can be up to 12' and it changes constantly. It'd be really tough for the ships to handle in the confined space especially when eddies form along the edges and with currents changing over a period of hours. A lot of these ships only travel at 10-15 knots and they aren't very maneuverable.

I was recently on a sailboat going through Hell Gate on the East River in NYC. It has about a 6' tidal range. We can motor at 6 knots. When the tide was at peak flood into Long Island Sound we were doing about 1/2 knot over the ground. You can time an East River transit to work around the tides, the Panama Canal is too long for that to work.

(I don't recommend transiting Hell Gate under those conditions, the UN closed the river longer than they said they would and we only managed because there wasn't any wind. We should have anchored and waited a few hours, we would have gotten through almost as quickly.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It never ceases to amuse me that the Panama canal runs from the Atlantic in the west to the Pacific in the east.

<comment><USER22> For the curious - Panama connects North and South America horizontally, thus the Atlantic is to the north of the country and the Pacific is to the south. The canal cuts southeast across the country.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Doubtful that operators of the Panama Canal would be holding up traffic because of the proposed Nicaragua canal. After all construction on that project hasn't even started yet. Furthermore, the new, bigger Panama 3rd set of locks are now being tested, due to open next year.

Doesn't make sense for Panama to slow things down in view of the loss of income, the fees collected are serious money, probably the major income source for the country.

Next year would be a very interesting time to visit the canal re: opening of the new channel. A few years back I was on a cruise that traversed the canal, a highly educational and memorable trip worth doing. The Panamanians we encountered were proud of the Canal expansion project, a significant national achievement, something important to celebrate.</comment>


Hidden features of Python - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/101268/hidden-features-of-python

<comment><USER2> My favorite feature (just released in Python 2.7, already in P3K) are dictionary comprehensions. E.g., you can now do:

        >>> {s: len(s) for s in ["one", "two", "three"]
        {"one": 3, "two": 3, "three": 5}

<comment><USER3> In python land (Django) for the past couple of months and I've been loving it, just thought this was a good excuse to fire up slime. In clojure...

        (defn map-comprehension [f sequence]
              (reduce #(assoc %1 %2 (f %2)) {} sequence))

usage:

        user> (map-comprehension count ["one" "two" "three"])
        {"three" 5, "two" 3, "one" 3}

<comment><USER4> Pre 2.7, you can just give the dict constructor a generator of tuples:

      >>> dict((s, len(s)) for s in ["one", "two", "three"])
      {'three': 5, 'two': 3, 'one': 3}

<comment><USER5> Thank you very much! Lack of simple dict-building had been bothering me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No one mentioned Python's strong typing hidden feature:

        (True + True) == 2

(sorry, one of my few pet-peeves after it bit me one time)

<comment><USER7> Seems fine just so long as (False + False) doesn't equal True.

<comment><USER6> When is it ever desirable? I'm open to it having a use, but I don't see one. The only thing I've gotten from it is mismatched types that made it past some unit tests but blew up in the real world.

<comment><USER7> I was making a glib joke, but to answer your question this is the tradeoff of using a not-so-strongly-typed language. Weakly-typed languages often save you some typing (if you'll forgive the pun) and implicitly convert in ways that can make it difficult to prevent those mistakes.

It's just like Duck Typing- you're trading the need to explicitly specify an interface for the potential dangers of letting your interpreter "know what you mean".

If this is frequently a problem, well... there are a lot of strongly-typed languages out there waiting for you to give them a try.

<comment><USER8> > I was making a glib joke, but to answer your question this is the tradeoff > of using a not-so-strongly-typed language.

Not in this case. In this case it results from:

1\. Python historically not having booleans and using 0 and 1 instead

2\. As a result, `bool` inherits from `int` for compatibility reasons

        >>> issubclass(bool, int)
        True

with False mapping to 0 and True to 1 for compatibility purposes

        >>> int(False), int(True)
        (0, 1)

3\. Add isn't overridden on bool

        >>> bool.__add__
        <slot wrapper '__add__' of 'int' objects>

therefore, when adding two booleans you're really adding two integers.

Most non-strongly-typed languages will not have the following behavior

        >>> "foo" + 3
        Traceback (most recent call last):
          File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
        TypeError: cannot concatenate 'str' and 'int' objects

<comment><USER8> In fact, to expand on the latter part of my comment, "weak typing" is generally understood as implying implicit type coercions or conversions at runtime. PHP and Javascript famously convert between numbers and strings depending on a bunch of factors (and usually the wrong way leading to unreliable results).

In that sense, Python is a very strongly typed language: from the top of my head, the only example of implicit type conversion in Python is the promotion of `int` to `long`, which has been removed from 3.x (all integer types were unified). All other conversions have to be explicit as far as I remember. That makes Python more strongly (but less statically) typed than Java (see the very strange overloading of the `+` operator when any operand is a string, as well as autoboxing since 1.5) and C# (C# allows for implicit type conversions, including in userland, and the cast operator doubles up as an explicit type conversion operator which I find terrible)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> defun-fun The greatest hidden feature of Python (for me) was its standard library. Its sheer size and completeness, I should add.

Yes, I have heard of "batteries included" and all, but after working with Python for a year I still felt that the size of its library has been "hidden" from general programming public.

I love Python.

<comment><USER9> You can add the number of Python implementation to your list of "hidden" features as well: IronPython, CPython, Jython, PyPy, unladen-swallow, Python3 - and all of them are of pretty high quality!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's a bunch of "hidden features of X" on stackoverflow ([http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=%22hidden%20features%22...](http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=%22hidden%20features%22&tab=votes)) if you liked this one

</comment><comment><USER11> python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8080

<comment><USER8> Port is optional and defaults to 8000 too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Chaining comparison operators in Ruby: <http://judofyr.net/posts/chained- comparisons.html>

</comment><comment><USER13> I feel validated that the chaining comparison operators feature is #1 in terms of votes (303 vs #2 at 249 as I write this). Nobody else seems to think it worth mentioning, but chaining comparison operators is a feature I'm really fond of in Lisp/Scheme: <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/cltl/clm/node124.html>

<comment><USER14> I wouldn't say Lisp has chaining of comparisons, only chaining of identical comparisons: a < b < c --> (< a b c), but a < b <= c --> (and (< a b) (<= b c))

<comment><USER13> Still, chaining identical comparisons is a feature I think is cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> python -m smtpd -n -c DebuggingServer localhost:2525

Runs a local SMTP server on port 2525. Very useful for debugging.

</comment><comment><USER16> >Wrap an iterable with enumerate and it will yield the item along with its index.

Now that's a feature I wish I knew about sooner. I've been using:

        for item in a:
    	print a.index(item), item

which has always felt kludgy.

<comment><USER17> Seriously? You must enjoy your O(n^2).

<comment><USER16> The sets I'm working on tend not to tend toward infinity.

<comment><USER18> Yes. But the approach with index only works for actual sets. And if you have actual sets, you might as well use Python's built-in sets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So by "hidden features" they mean "can be found in the first pages of any tutorial"

(Ok, I didn't know about re.DEBUG)

EDIT: I'm not claiming this link is worthless. But I'd call it "great features of python" or simply "features of python"</comment>


QEMU: out-of-bounds memory access issue - <AUTHOR> https://access.redhat.com/blogs/766093/posts/2309211 <comment><USER2> > The sVirt and Seccomp functionalities used to restrict host's QEMU process > privileges and resource access might mitigate the impact of successful > exploitation of this issue.

seccomp is pretty awesome IMO. Would that more software opted in to dropping unneeded system access.

<comment><USER3> I agree in general. But in this case - look at the actual source code:

[https://github.com/qemu/qemu/blob/master/qemu- seccomp.c](https://github.com/qemu/qemu/blob/master/qemu-seccomp.c)

There's also no further refinement of seccomp privileges at runtime, so that list of syscalls is statically whitelisted up front and nothing else is done (search 'seccomp' in the repository). Is there anything I obviously _couldn 't_ achieve with that list of syscalls?

Given the list of what's whitelisted for the whole process, I wouldn't put much stock in it, for now. qemu would probably need some real upgrades and significant work to make this more fine grained and reduce the attack surface using it (both against the kernel and for rogue programs attacking the host qemu instance itself).

<comment><USER2> You're right, I hadn't checked this list. If open() were missing from the list it might be much harder to do damage outside the current VM. It's the most critical one in this whitelist IMO. Many/most of the remaining would have their scope limited to currently open fds/this-process' maps/segments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> We need emulators written in safe languages.

<comment><USER5> I'd love QEMU to move to some safer language. Unfortunately I don't know any which meet the necessary criteria: \- support linux, osx, windows \- mature enough for widespread support in distros \- support at least half a dozen different host cpu architectures \- simply interoperable at a C ABI level so you can move parts of the system to the new language without doing a 100% rewrite

(There are probably other requirements too but that last one is the biggie really.)

<comment><USER6> Which of these is Rust missing?

(Though I should caution that it's not as simple as "just write in a safe language" if you're doing the tricks that QEMU does for speed. That's not to say we shouldn't be moving away from C and C++ in general, however--we should.)

<comment><USER7> last time I deployed a compiler to a machine in a _reliable_ way it took 45 minutes and a lot of document reading.

Rust is not ready for linux yet.

(no, `curl -sSf [https://static.rust-lang.org/rustup.sh](https://static.rust- lang.org/rustup.sh) | sh` does not count)

<comment><USER8> I dunno, 45 minutes doesn't seem that bad for a manual deployment from scratch including documentation reading. The equivalent with gcc would be days of work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So there isn't a patch for this yet it seems?

<comment><USER10> It's fixed in 188.8.131.52: [http://git.qemu.org/?p=qemu.git;a=log;h=refs/tags/v22.214.171.124](http://git.qemu.org/?p=qemu.git;a=log;h=refs/tags/v188.8.131.52)</comment></comment>


Dolly the Sheep creator scientist Keith Campbell dies - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/12/dolly_creator_keith_campbell_dies/ <comment><USER2> Dolly the Sheep (named because she was cloned from the mammary glands of her 'mother' and the scientists were reminded of Dolly Parton's mammary glands) is on display at the National Museum of Scotland: [http://www.nms.ac.uk/our_collections/highlights/dolly_the_sh...](http://www.nms.ac.uk/our_collections/highlights/dolly_the_sheep.aspx)

</comment><comment> Digit-Al Anyone know what he died of? 58 is a very young age to die these days.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can find no report of the details surrounding the passing of Dr. Campbell. From the U. of Nottingham page:

"Professor Campbell is survived by his wife, Kathy Campbell and his two adult daughters, Claire and Lauren Mills.

The funeral has been arranged for 10:30 am on Wednesday 24th October at Bretby Crematorium, Burton Upon Trent, DE15 OQE. If you wish to attend please contact email@example.com "

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> anybody knows if he will be cloned in the future?</comment>


U.S., U.K. Move Closer to Losing Rating, Moody's Says - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=a0a8xAghPS8I <comment><USER2> So this would be the same organization that gave AAA ratings to all of those CDOs a few years back?

</comment><comment><USER3> I wouldn't worry too much about this of considering buying US or UK debt. If they default, those bonds will be the least of your economic problems.

<comment><USER4> what are you saying? To plan for US/UK ratings loss, "diversify into firearms and canned goods?"

<comment><USER5> My vision of the future is a lot more like the past than it is a scifi novel. Hoovervilles are already popping up in some parts of the country. Will we also return to vigilante justice? Hungry people aren't rational.

<comment><USER4> Overstuffed Americans have enough trouble with rationality as it is.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Windows 10 Search Is Broken and Shows Blank Results - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-10-search-is-broken-and-shows-blank-results-how-to-fix/ <comment><USER2> How is this new, Windows Search breaks all the time. What's new to me is that apparently it started sending queries to Bing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Broken today? More like last 4+ years...

<comment><USER4> You beat me to it...I would agree that it has been a very long time since Windows Search was 'not broken' \-- it is a painful sad joke.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What set up do you use to scrape web pages - <AUTHOR>

I am writing code to get URL data and realized because of JS using a regular requests module in python doesn't cut it. I need to actually render the page in a browser engine and get the page from there. Googling did not bring up a fixed/common way to do it. I was wondering this must be something a good number of start ups should be doing, so wanted to pick some brains. Thanks for any suggestions. <comment><USER2> <http://nrabinowitz.github.io/pjscrape/> <http://phantomjs.org/>

if python is not a strict requirement

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe give this a read if you haven't already: [http://blog.databigbang.com/web-scraping-ajax-and- javascript...](http://blog.databigbang.com/web-scraping-ajax-and-javascript- sites/)

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link. I saw that. I was hoping to find something using webkit. I found dryscrape but wasn't sure how popular it is. Also I was trying to find out what the standard practice is. Do people build it to suit their needs so that they can optimize it for scale and performance?

The scraping need seems generic enough to me to create a library or tool similar to dryscrape. The only problem is dryscrape is specifically for linux. I was hoping to to find some cross platform solution so that I can have it on my dev machine before moving it to the linux server.</comment></comment>


How the US Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti and Built Six Homes - <AUTHOR> https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes <comment><USER2> Still better story is about how Hillary Clinton's brother bagged contracts to mine Gold in Haiti after the disaster.</comment>


$32M is ballsy, and I like it, but here's the problem - <AUTHOR> http://b0ing.me/32m-is-ballsy-and-i-like-it-but-heres-the-problem/

<comment><USER2> I really liked your old theme... this one is kind of boring. Just saying.

I agree with the article though, but the thing people tend to forget is that the phone can actually be a desktop computer too... which maybe makes it worth it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope the desktop capability is a big seller too, but so far Microsoft has been unable to sell the "all-in-one" experience at a highly successful level with its phone, and they're much better known and more accessible for most users than Ubuntu.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> They don't have to hit 32M., it's not kickstarter.

They receive everything even it the goal hasn't reached ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> "This campaign will only receive funds if at least $32,000,000 is raised by Wed 21 Aug 11:59PM PT."

<comment><USER3> Thanks, i thought indiegogo had no "time limit" and no goal to be reached.</comment></comment></comment>


Working Hard is overrated - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/working-hard-is-overrated-2009-9

<comment><USER2> Do both, work hard on the right things.

<http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html>

You need to define what you mean by "the right thing."

</comment><comment><USER3> She makes working hard and working on the right thing seem like two exclusive things. It's not a zero-sum game. You can be _working hard on the right thing_ perhaps?</comment>


Tether is currently in the early stages of a bank run - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1051560132235030528 <comment><USER2> This title should be updated to "patio11 thinks Tether is on the early stages of a bank run". The title implies fact, but this is just one persons tweet.

</comment><comment><USER3> As far as I know, there's no way to actually redeem your USDT from Tether itself. How can you have a bank run on a "bank" that doesn't offer withdrawals?

<comment><USER4> Can buy BTC on Bitfinex and sell on a real USD exchange. Explaining the premium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The question is, can the people behind tether buy enough of it at high enough price to bring back price to 1$

</comment><comment><USER6> this format is terrible to read</comment>