Covering Array Tables - <AUTHOR> https://math.nist.gov/coveringarrays/coveringarray.html <comment><USER2> This seems like it reinvents a small subset of design of experiments [doe].

[doe]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_of_experiments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_of_experiments)</comment>


Chinese developers fear the tech war will cost them access to GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://www.abacusnews.com/digital-life/chinese-developers-fear-losing-open-source-tech-trade-war/article/3011463?__twitter_impression=true <comment><USER2> I would think the outrageous antics with the Chinese governmnt directly attacking Github and using attacks with extremely wide reaching effects (using Baidu analytics links as a javascript injection attack) would uh... be more likely to damage access to Github.

But ignoring that, it seems to me like increasingly we're wanting distributed (dare I even say: federated) code forges even outside of China as people realize quite how overly and dangerously centralized their infrastructure and company are over Github.

<comment><USER3> No love (or hate) for China or the US; but from a European perspective it does shock me how much we rely on the USA.

As a bit of a tangent, we recently learned that we couldn't provide service to people living in Crimea, because google cloud block them, because google cloud is beholden to US regulators.

Now, the EU doesn't have any sanctions on Crimea itself (because that would legitimise the annexation), but they have sanctions against Russia instead.

So, we're defacto instituting the will of the US by choosing a US operator- and I think this is true of basically everything we use today. I can't think of a single tech company outside of Spotify that is not owned by the US which is popular in Europe.

Not only do we not "own our data" our digital economy is entirely dependent on the US not being malicious.

<comment><USER4> Well, what in your mind might be the reasons people of talent leave Europe to come to the US to start their tech empires

<comment><USER3> Probably because US companies buy European ones.

See Skype, Nokia, Shazam.

China's doing it too. They bought ARM shortly after Brexit.

I don't doubt that there is a migratory factor, though I don't believe it's primarily due to salary or other compensation as I assume you're inferring- a cornucopia of tech giants is going to attract talent from the world over.

So a consequence of centralisation is more centralisation.

<comment><USER5> I thought SoftBank is Japanese, not Chinese? SoftBank bought ARM, not a Chinese company, otherwise it would be a bit weird for ARM (assuming they're Chinese now) to cut ties with Huewai.

<comment><USER4> Correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is anyone here a dev working in China? Would love to know a bit about what dev culture is like in China, for instance:

What are dev practises like - do people do Agile / Scrum? Is "post-agile" (sorry) scepticism a thing? What about TDD and CI/CD?

How about technologies, do people develop on Linux, are they using git, are american libraries/frameworks big - are people using React etc?

How about things like FP and niche languages - is there much appetite for people experimenting with new tech/languages or are Python/Java the defacto choices for application work and everything else shunned?

Is there a Chinese-equivalent to GitHub - is engineering in China big enough that they can have their own independent OSS culture? (Is companies contributing back to OSS a thing?)

EDIT: to add one last question - are developers seen as feature-factories or is the relationship between product and developers/tech more flat/harmonious than that?

<comment><USER7> I work for Huawei _(Audience gasps)_... but outside China. I can answer some of your questions based on what I've seen.

> What are dev practises like - do people do Agile / Scrum?

Yes. At least what passes for Agile in _enterprises_.

> do people develop on Linux

Yes. Huawei even maintains its own distro called Euler OS.

> are they using git

Yes. SourceSafe, ClearCase and SVN were used by different teams in the past but have now mostly converged on git.

> are american libraries/frameworks big - are people using React etc?

Yes. Although given the nature of the business, teams that can use a shiny new application framework are a bit of a niche.

> How about things like FP and niche languages

Would you consider TTCN-3 to be a sufficiently niche language?

> is there much appetite for people experimenting with new tech/languages

Containerization and micro-services took hold quite quickly.

> are Python/Java the defacto choices

C is probably the most widely used language but then again it's down to the nature of the business. Java and Python are used a fair bit and Go usage is growing fast.

> Is companies contributing back to OSS a thing?

Definitely. Huawei is regularly one of the biggest contributors to the Linux kernel each cycle. Hadoop, Postgres, OpenStack, ONOS etc. see a bit of participation. There are also projects like Apache CarbonData and OpenSDS that are primarily driven by Huawei employees.

<comment><USER8> "Huawei is regularly one of the biggest contributors to the Linux kernel each cycle."

I find that alarming.

<comment><USER7> My colleague contributes to OpenSSL. We have probably already compromised the TLS session you're reading this on. Run. Run for the hills! /s

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is great. The US has effectively (if unwittingly) given the biggest step in history towards actually decentralizing some of the most critical web services away from being under the control of a single government. I legit hope they keep doubling down on this policy, as we all win from this course of action.

<comment><USER10> I hope that the outcome you describe occurs. However, it seems equally likely that a centralised alternative will appear in China, just as there are local Chinese variants of the services Google, FB, et al. provide. Indeed, this would be in the interests of the government, who would then be able to have GitHub without the political ructions that accompany it.

<comment><USER11> As a Chinese developer, my thoughts are:

Using technology/standard/service provided by US based private companies introduce risks. We are not just 'use/steal' these technologies/standard, we also heavily invest, enrich ecosystem, build services on top of them, that means if US government kill it at any time, those investments may lost too.

Based on my experience, Chinese government is so incompetent that it can't create an alternative, or initiate one, at least in the Internet industry, also China have to do business with other countries(other than US), so clearly create a private tech/standard stack is not an option. That means big companies like Huawei/Tencent/Alibaba/Baidu will start/continue to support&invest more in true open technologies, like linux/risk-v, perhaps favor true oss communities rather than google/fb owned oss projects(like android/arm/tensorflow).

Companies in countries other than China and US should also think about this risk, today US is banning Huawei, you may think it's all because China is evil, similar things happened for Japan 2 decades ago, and may still possible for India(if its population and GDP growth rate continues).

<comment><USER12> it's not all black and white like that. Chinese govt has been encouraging violating patents and corporate espionage for decades now. At the same time, it's threatening all its neighbors. The issue is not the population/GDP growth. The issue is that China wants to run the world, and USA doesn't want to give up its mantle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Github has already been blocked by China, albeit briefly. After Chinese bloggers posted 'sensitive' content on the site, Github was blocked for a few days in 2013 until there was a big pushback from developers in China, including Kai Fu Lee, who's well respected by tech and government in China. The outcry forced a backtracking from the government.

I wouldn't recommend this, but if a movement started where developers of highly popular projects started putting political content in their README.md, China would probably revisit the issue and consider blocking again.

<comment><USER14> I'm surprised they haven't since lots of people use GitHub as a blogging platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just like it happened on the past with PGP, this is just yet another step for countries to start thinking about whom they want their tech stacks to depend on.

EDIT: Just imagine this taken to the extreme, OS, programming languages, libraries, any product being developed by US companies.

Today is China, tomorrow who knows.

<comment><USER16> Out of curiosity what happened with PGP?

<comment><USER17> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_investigation)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What is the name of the distributed github? I think it may be based on activitypub.

EDIT: [https://github.com/forgefed/forgefed](https://github.com/forgefed/forgefed)

<comment><USER19> Here's another based on the Secure Scuttlebutt protocol

[https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/applications.html#git- ssb](https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/applications.html#git-ssb)

<comment><USER20> git-ssb is pretty nice, and I'd recommend anyone interested to check it out! The last time I checked it out it suffered from some incompatibility bugs from different parts of the stack, though, which are sadly not unusual with a project with such a large surface area and high code churn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Another recent article about GitHub in China: [https://www.npr.org/2019/04/10/709490855/github-has- become-a...](https://www.npr.org/2019/04/10/709490855/github-has-become-a- haven-for-chinas-censored-internet-users)

</comment><comment><USER22> Lots of languages do use github as centralized dependency service. This is scary.

</comment><comment><USER23> As another data point, I've seen more contribution and feedbacks to [https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug](https://github.com/MichaelMure/git- bug) (distributed bug tracker) than I expected from the chinese community.

</comment><comment><USER24> Interesting considering China blocked them at one point

[https://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/01/21/the-chinese- governmen...](https://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/01/21/the-chinese-government- appears-to-have-completely-blocked-github-via-dns/)

</comment><comment><USER25> "Fears about losing access to GitHub might be overblown. Apache Software Foundation (ASF), another US-based organization that offers open source software, published an announcement on Wednesday saying that open source software and collaboration on open source code are not subject to the EAR."

just that. it says it on the article even.

and honestly, any of the chinese giants now using github would have plenty of resources and probarbly motivation to set up a similar service if worst comes to worst. then people collaborating with chines would just hop over to that as reverse direction should be just fine to collaborate.

<comment><USER4> The concern is losing access to packages and repositories. Sure the code isn't subject to EAR, but their distribution mechanisms sure as shit are (as in, their digital properties).

Worst comes to worse software in China is all built on old/ outdated packages they already have in the country.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> You can't talk about GitHub in China without talking about 996. Github is the only western 'social network' that is allowed to operate in China with strong encryption. That means it's the only place to talk about politically sensitive issues without being censored or harassed.

[https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU](https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU)

</comment><comment><USER27> This seems like a promotion for gitee.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm surprised the great firewall doesn't block github. There are bound to be github pages hosting information on Chinas government actions.

<comment><USER4> Guessing your a bit new to the dev world? They tried in 2013 then developers and companies lost their shit. However in 2015 China did ddos Github for its hosting of tools to circumvent the great firewall. Github was dead for an entire day

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Blocking github would hurt the Chinese government more than it would help it: Unlike facebook, github contains very valuable content.

</comment><comment><USER30> Is this just about Github Enterprise Server? If so, the article doesn't really make that clear, and it seems like a red herring. AFAIK Microsoft does not currently restrict access to Github.com to any country, and they even make a censorship-friendly version of LinkedIn for the PRC.

<comment><USER31> Perhaps, but also a huge number of public OSS projects.

To take an example of a large OSS Project hosted on Github: The Microsoft .NET Core framework[1].

If I want to contribute a code change - their guidelines require me to submit a pull request _on github_.

If I want to submit an issue - their guidelines also require me to log the issue _on github_.

This is not unusual for most OSS projects which use Github as their central collaboration point.

Today that's all A-OK for Chinese devs. The scenario discussed is if the trade-war extends, and either the US or Chinese governments block access to Github for Chinese users.

Now, perhaps it's easy enough for someone to set up a mirror copy of everything in China - but that's going to limit or block collaboration. Bug fixes, changes, issues - they're not going to get across as easily. I can't email a pull request to the .NET CoreFX team saying "Hey, I fixed this".

This is going to lead to fragmentation of popular OSS projects, and will be an overall net-loss for everyone.

[1] [https://github.com/dotnet/corefx](https://github.com/dotnet/corefx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Back when Microsoft aquired github, concerned users created "Teahub" which turned into Codeberg. It's a German non-profit with the website [https://codeberg.org/](https://codeberg.org/)

</comment><comment><USER33> Especially that GitHub can be used as a collaborative wiki. So dangerous if you think about it.

</comment><comment><USER34> The censorship war is more likely to cost them GitHub access since it's been used to bypass state censorship so much lately.

</comment><comment><USER35> What is with that website? It's barely usable on the latest IPad Pro. I wish articles would just stick to HTML.

</comment><comment><USER36> Wait what? How would you lose access to Github? Ain't there a tone of ways to get something from the Internet?

</comment><comment><USER37> Our parents warn us to not stand too close to the tv, never met online people in IRL, and never ride in a stranger's car.

Now we have Oculus, Tinder, and Uber.

I am sure whatever we are worrying now will be as irrelevant.

</comment><comment><USER38> This might be how we enter full scale cyberwarfare.

<comment><USER39> Given how much infrastructure runs on old versions of XP (everywhere), that's a scary thought

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Git and Github are are like philosophically opposed. Git is distributed. Who cares if a hosting server is lost? 5 minutes and you're up on a different server.

<comment><USER41> Tell me, how do you search and collaborate on code that's fully distributed (in the git sense)?

<comment><USER42> Git is not a search / discovery platform. Publish the same git repository to several platforms and you can collaborate in a distributed and decentralized way through each of those platforms.

Nothing stops you from publishing the same project to both github and gitlab.

<comment><USER31> No, but it makes it more difficult.

Why would a project that's already happily working with the Github ecosystem want to also have to support publishing to a platform that doesn't block China? Lots more work on project maintainers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This may be controversial, but that would be one of the few parts of the trade war that I wouldn't mind.

Non-Chinese business must operate with a Chinese partner to do business in the mainland. Many assume that this structure is intended to leak secrets and the Chinese company will end up taking over and competing.

To be a "fair" actor in the global economy, China should allow foreign businesses to operate in the mainland, subject to Chinese law.

<comment><USER44> > Non-Chinese business must operate with a Chinese partner to do business in > the mainland.

That isn't true universally. Certain industries require (required?) JVs, most notably the car industry but also energy resources.

Most industries are free and clear and don't require JVs. Microsoft, for example, has always operated independently in China, nor does Apple. Starbucks started out as a JV but has been getting its own store, especially in 2nd tiers.

<comment><USER45> As of last year, automobile manufacturers don't require joint ventures any more. As time goes on, the number of industries that require joint ventures is decreasing. The joint-venture requirement for automobile parts was removed in 1993, for example.

The thinking of the Chinese government was that as an undeveloped country, Chinese companies had no hope of directly competing against companies from the developed world. Chinese car manufacturers in 1990 would have simply been wiped out by Toyota, Ford, BMV et al. The Chinese government wanted foreign investment, so they created a middle ground, where foreign companies could exploit cheap Chinese labor and gain access to the growing Chinese market, but in which they would have to work with Chinese companies. This sort of policy makes sense for a developing country, which aspires to be more than a platform for cheap labor, but also to develop its own domestic capabilities. It actually follows in the tradition of a theory advanced by Alexander Hamilton, the "infant industry argument."

As know-how at Chinese companies has increased, however, these restrictions have started to make less sense. There are Chinese electric car companies (such as BYD) that can legitimately compete with foreign manufacturers now. As a consequence, JV requirements are also being scaled back.

<comment><USER46> It is basically the standard with all developing countries joining the WTO where by they are allowed and even encourage to do this as an under developed country.

The problem is China is no longer one, or at leats most countries doesn't think it is anymore. And has failed to abide by what they promised when they joined WTO. Or you can blame it on US for letting them joining without clear cut rules and terms in the first place.

<comment><USER44> China has plenty of developing and even in developed countries inside its borders, along with its mostly developed areas. It is kind of difficult to classify a country that is so huge and heterogeneous with respect to development levels.

<comment><USER46> Yes, and surprisingly enough, even in US and many part of Western Europe.

The problem is China has been playing their developing country card for far too long, and if we have to argue a Country with GDP that is either 1st or 2nd by different way of measurement as developing country I think we can agree to disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> The trade war makes no sense to me. My conservative family members are all for free markets without government intervention. Now they're all angry about China. When American jobs went to China, they would have had a heart attack if an American official tried to dictate what these companies could or could not do. They went overseas so shareholders could increase profits. Meanwhile, China propped up so many of its industries, which was well within their rights to develop their country. So how are the Chinese bad guys here?

If anything, corporate America was greedy, and now corporate America feels threatened that China is growing too fast. You threw American workers under the bus and sent the jobs to China, but you were hoping China would stay poor. For all of its huge faults and despite the human rights abuses, the Chinese government can actually get things done as opposed to here with our annual traditions of government shutdown threats and now extended periods of actual shutdowns.

Look at the progress China made since 2000. What was America doing? Greed caused a recession, we've fought endless wars, where one of the chief architects is now head of NSA instead of being in prison. Sure we have more technology, but is the average American better off if you look at wages? We're more divided than ever. The jobs numbers look great in 50 years? Great job! None of those people will be ever able to retire and don't have $500 for an emergency.

<comment><USER48> If you believe that "intellectual property" is a "thing" (as many people do) then you may consider China's behaviour in this area (obtaining trade secrets illicitly, or forcing companies to reveal them as a condition for doing business in China, or breaking copyright law) to be theft and more than enough grounds for sanctions.

Even if you _don 't_ believe in "intellectual property", then you may still believe that a selective (not universal) and one-sided breaking of the relevant international and national IP laws, in favour of one country, is harmful.

In addition to that, there have been allegations (I'm not sure how true they are), that supposedly private Chinese companies have been supported by the Chinese government in ways that break WTO rules.

<comment><USER47> No one is forced to reveal secrets. Play ball with their rules or don't business in China. Our own government forced tech companies to do certain things. Why can't China set its own rules?

Sure I believe in IP. I also think other countries will do as they please when they know they will get away with it. Nation states behave in self interest and can have their own interpretations of what are black and white laws to you or me, especially so when they're in a position of power. Or they can completely disregard international agreements. Case in point - the Iran deal.

<comment><USER49> > _Play ball with their rules or don't business in China._

If you don't manufacture in China, you can't compete with companies that do. As a result, every company is forced to sell out their future 20 years from now so that they don't go under today. Whether you think it's a good idea or not, government intervention is often necessary to coordinate industry-wide strategic things like "don't put poison in milk" and "don't take the sweet but deadly embrace of technology transfer."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> that website has one really annoying ad system. For me, scrolling down the page scrolls down the ads, not the page ... the state of content in 2019 ...

<comment><USER51> The fonts didn't even render for me in iOS safari. Also they prevent the back button from working.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Oh, woes. How people ever managed to develop any software before github?

</comment><comment><USER41> Jesus this scroll-hijacking is an abomination.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is absurd and if github decides this is the case I will delete all my repositories and put them somewhere else.

<comment><USER53> Difficult to imagine that GitHub would make that decision without being forced into it.

<comment><USER54> Depends how eager Microsoft is to "gain access to the Chinese market".

<comment><USER55> And how eager they are to be on good terms with the US government, I suppose.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN Poll: Do you bill for meetings? - <AUTHOR>

This goes out to all the freelancers out there: When you meet with a client, or talk on the phone, do you bill for that time?<p>* I bill, and I let my client know I'm billing for the meeting / call<p>* I bill, and I don't let my client know<p>* I bill, I don't let them know, but I'm pretty sure they know I'm billing<p>* I don't bill<p>* I don't bill, but I wish I would<p>* None of the above <comment><USER3> You can create actual polls by going here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that -- I did that once, and forgot how I did it then..

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> None of the above.

Sometimes I do, if the call is more than 15 minutes or ends up with any sort of actionable items. If it's just a few minute status call, I don't bill for it.

Gentle plug: <http://indieconf.com> \- a conference for web freelancers - <USER2> cover these sorts of topics in greater detail. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> for real meetings, if it is on existing contract I'm working on, I bill accordingly. If it is a meeting to get new work, then it is not billed and an overhead cost of doing (getting) business.

For phone calls, it depends. I have a few clients that I'm working on their project when they call, so the time is already being billed to them.

If it is just a quick question, then I just answer it and not charge.</comment>


Legal tech startup weekend, AirBNB HQ SF 8/15-17 - <AUTHOR> http://legalsf.startupweekend.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> Legal themed variation on startup weekend next weekend. Lots of lawyers, but we could use more hackers. My company, Casetext, is a community sponsor. Come to network, to pitch and develop a nascent idea, or to perhaps connect/find opportunities with one of the many more established legal-tech startups sponsoring the event.

From the press release: The intersection of law and technology presents unique challenges and exciting opportunities for growth and creativity for developers, designers, and legal industry insiders. Recent years have seen a surge of answers to law's need for innovation: e-discovery tools, contract generation apps, law practice management SaaS, virtual firms, and websites are beginning to radically change the way lawyers research, consult and provide legal services. A wide range of possibilities remain for new startups to join companies like LegalZoom and Clio in integrating tech into solutions for consumers, attorneys, businesses, and the government. "Legal technology is only beginning to scratch the surface of its true potential," says Jake Heller, co-founder and CEO of Y Combinator-backed startup Casetext. "Yet technology can have the biggest impact in law where it is most important -- where people's lives, property, and money are often on the line." This potential for meaningful impact – and profit – is also attracting investors to the legal tech space, with investments leaping to $458 million from $66 million in 2012. The average valuation of legal tech companies currently stands at $4.2 million, and analysts expect continued exponential growth. "The legal industry is attractive from an investment standpoint because it's a large market with older technology and great potential for reinvention," explains Robert Siegel, general partner at venture capital firm XSeed Capital and board member for legal analytics platform Lex Machina. "There are plenty of opportunities for development of new technology that can deliver better solutions than what's available today."</comment>


Tech Firms resisting free anti-extremist algorithm - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip8BbOts6tE&feature=youtu.be <comment><USER2> Stop resisting - it's censorship, but it's _free_!</comment>


We put $200k into a site that sucks. Please destroy us with your criticism - <AUTHOR> http://www.listnerd.com <comment><USER4> Oh man, not another "11 sexy girls with star wars tattoos"...

Normally I would follow "if you don't have anything nice to say" but since you literally asked for it:

Your site tries to build a better mousetrap in one of the worst corners of the internet (better means 'worse' in this case). "List sharing" is a known cheap trick for internet marketers who are the bottom of the barrel, exploitative of both original content creators and those prone to being sucked in to mindless content (aka internet junk food).

Maddox has a memorable rant that sums it up better than I can: [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ranker_sucks](http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ranker_sucks)

Your site is not unlike the "reply girls" cancer that devalued youtube, or the fake thumbnails showing cleavage on related videos for everything.

Why would you want to "revolutionize the world of lists"? This doesn't even make sense.

<comment><USER5> I actually really like information / data lists. Obviously that's a far cry from the "11 sexy girls" lists.

I'd be happy to see a revolution in data lists. There are all sorts of occasions I'm looking for the top X in list format and would love to run across it as the top result, in a clean format that loads fast. One site that had a million of those (that are accurate) would earn my bookmark.

I suppose Wolfram Alpha does some of this well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your input!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I call BS. This appears to be a new take on "Show HN"...trying to get attention. The site works, looks OK, and you appear to have users, so it doesn't really suck. If you thought the _concept_ sucked, then you wouldn't have done the site in the first place.

If this were a legit post, I would say this:

I think this is a relatively crowded niche you're in. I'm also sure that you dramatically overspent if you actually spent $200K getting this developed. But it appears that your developers did what you asked them to do...."make me a functional site that does X". So if the end result "sucks" to you (99.9% of your users don't know or care about CSS and other issues mentioned in these comments), then there is only one person to blame.

<comment><USER7> plus one

As pointed out by those who have "made it," they faked it, lied and pulled any trick to get attention and users.

I say don't believe anything on the Internet!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hey! I just want to say, this is awesome and I wish you the best of luck.

I am a Developer and I noticed a few really concerning things in your CSS:

1\. I believe you're committing the greatest CSS Sin: Emulating the DOM structure using nesting. Here is one example: "#site-header.newheader nav>ul>li>a.buttonGreen"

That CSS Selector should not exist like that. You shouldn't be using ids (first) and second this should be be: .buttonGreen {}

It looks like bad Sass or LESS is being used and nesting is being abused. If you'd like more advice on how to fix this I have written many talks.

The reason these selectors are a problem is because of the extremely long paint time. Right now your site takes around 30ms to paint. It should be closer to 10ms.

2\. The CSS classes used are meaningless. Above there's a "buttonGreen" class. However, what if you redesign and that button is now blue? Do you just edit the CSS (like should have to be done) Or do you change your HTML and CSS to reflect a basic styling change? This only hurts you and maintaining your site.

3\. You're loading 2.4 MB of data on your home page. 1 MB of that is images, which is fine, but that means you have 1.3 MB of data loading. The good news is that on mobile almost 100% of what you are loading are images, however, that number is still 2 megabytes. I'd see if there is a way to lower that number.

4\. It is extremely busy. I was really confused when I got to the site. I am not a good designer so I cannot give specific advice, but I'd think "calming" the site would help a lot.

5\. On Chrome Mobile I cannot click the hamburger button. It does nothing.

6\. You need to simplify your creation flow. You have 4 pages right now, it should only be 1.

7\. Your select boxes need a dropdown arrow.

8\. USE NATIVE SELECTS and restyle them using CSS. Use a fallback for IE and IE only!

9\. Mobile functionality is not the same as desktop functionality, this is a big one that needs to be fixed. You should be able to do the EXACT same things on mobile that you can on desktop.

10\. The goal of the site should not be browsing, I don't think. I think it should be about: Creating lists and sharing lists. Browsing should certainly be an option, but make creation and sharing more prominent than browsing.

<comment><USER9> _I believe you 're committing the greatest CSS Sin: Emulating the DOM structure using nesting. Here is one example: "#site-header.newheader nav>ul>li>a.buttonGreen" ... If you'd like more advice on how to fix this I have written many talks._

I didn't know this was an issue until recently and now I'm slowly fixing it on my main project. I'd love your additional advice/pointers!

<comment><USER8> Of course! The idea behind using preprocessors is helping you write CSS more easily. The goal is not to write obfuscated CSS, but rather to write CSS well! What it really enables (imo) is to think of styling in an Object Oriented way. Whenever you're about to write a block of Sass think "What is this thing?". The answer is almost never a "green button" but rather "getting started button". Or something like that. It also helps you to think in terms of inheritance:

The "getting started button" and "buy button" are both interaction buttons. (Similar buttons, but one is green and the other is yellow).

In Sass you represent that this way: 1\. Placeholder %interaction-button class where you outline the fact that it has a border radius, color, and any other shared styling. 2\. A button maker mixin where you put the colors that need to be changed, and any other flags (like has_sub_text: true for the unbold text) and then @extend's the placeholder above. 3\. The classes ".buy-button {}" which include the mixin you made.

<comment><USER10> To clarify, for the `.buy-button` class, is that where one should put super- specific styles like `margin-left: 12px`?

Also, is there a good place I can learn these kind of things? I'm a programmer trying to get better at CSS (SCSS now that we've setup the asset pipeline)—so far I've been reading random A List Apart and The Sass Way articles, but I feel like I could use a more holistic, in-depth understanding of CSS if there's a good book out there for that.

<comment><USER8> To answer your first question, yes that is exactly where you should put your super-specific styles. You want to put your communal styles in your placeholder, styles that all types have but are different in the mixin (background color, etc) and the rest on the class itself.

The best way to get better at Sass is to follow people who are active in the community (which unfortunately is not me). Start with Chris Coyier and Hampton Catlin and work your way from there.

If you don't mind me plugging my own talks, I have a few that are really good at learning Sass:

[https://speakerdeck.com/liamdanger/why-your-sass-is-bad- and-...](https://speakerdeck.com/liamdanger/why-your-sass-is-bad-and-you- should-feel-bad)

[https://speakerdeck.com/liamdanger/what-if-css-was-object- or...](https://speakerdeck.com/liamdanger/what-if-css-was-object-oriented)

[https://speakerdeck.com/benbayard/how-to-raise-a-code- puppy](https://speakerdeck.com/benbayard/how-to-raise-a-code-puppy)

<comment><USER11> I appreciate your advice on this! From what I'm learning from you, it sounds like I'm committing some bad CSS practices myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It lacks the touch of a good designer. Everything seems slightly off... from colors, to fonts, to text placements, to 20 other small touches. It all adds up to an amateurish feel. Some examples:

1\. The colors. Ugh.

2\. The formatting of the content boxes should be more consistent. All pictures should go to the edge and have the same height. Logos should have padding, not stretch to the edge (e.g. YouTube). Even once this is fixed, the different palettes in the different pictures are what's contributing to the clutter. Maybe make all the pictures b&w... not sure. Do you need the chrome for these? Boxes with shading and extra lines is a bit dated. Check out digg.com for a better example of this style. Generally this is the biggest issue.

3\. The "Popular Lists" graphic should be half/half on the area above/below. Right now, just a few pixels lay on the green area. Plus the white is too close to the off-white of the section below. If not for the shadow, I probably wouldn't be able to tell you were going for.

4\. Something looks odd about the font in Chrome. Certain letters seem bold, or somehow "stretched" a few pixels too tall. (e.g. The "E" from E3, the "B" from Best Viral Videos)

5\. The anti-aliasing is inconsistent. Text isn't being anti-aliased at all. The logo is anti-aliasing unnecessarily (at the top/bottom of squared letters). The pictures seem to be low-quality JPEGs which contributes to this issue.

Assuming all the formatting is done via css a good designer should be able to fix most of this in a few days.

<comment><USER13> I doubt that any of this will move the needle in a meaningful way for this site.

</comment></comment><comment> grey-area The content and audience are I suspect far more important than what your site does at this stage, and you should narrow the scope on both of those.

You have what looks like a serviceable site to produce lists (not really a complex challenge). I'm not sure why you think your site sucks? I'm sure you'll get some feedback on styling, content etc (it's not really to my taste, but hey, it's not terrible either), but if you are seeing slow growth, it's probably not because your site tech/design sucks, it's because no-one really deeply wants to make lists in the first place. The idea and marketing is the problem, not the execution.

So, who is the site for, what's the target market/demographic? Who are they making the lists for?

Perhaps instead of targeting everyone, you should narrow your focus, and start targeting a particular market. This sort of site needs either a very specific focus to which the list making and content are tailored - say shopping lists, or it needs a specific demographic.

If you want to make this a social site, perhaps target a demographic like Norwegian teens OR mums if you have experience there, but don't target the entire world from the start.

If you want to make money from shopping, maybe tailor this to just best of lists of products for particular niches and invest in content?

As it is I don't see how lists about _These 7 Things Will Make Any Man Want to Fight for You_ and _Best Tracks in Mario Kart 8_ are going to keep anyone on your site. The content just isn't compelling at all (there are hundreds of existing content farms churning out stuff like this like buzzfeed etc) and it is far too scattershot.

PS Install some caching software prior to posting on HN :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. After reading your comment - and many others - we'll look into narrowing down our niché. We're thinking about video games, movies and TV. That's a pretty defined target audience with a clear need for lists (separating good games from bad, movies, shows, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Escape them inputs, dawg!

www.listnerd.com/lists?letter=</script><script>alert(document.cookie);</script>

<comment><USER15> After seeing this, talking about id selectors in the css seems...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm surprised no one is asking the obvious question: why does this website exist? Why do I care about lists? When would I use this site? Does the world need another Buzzfeed/Upworthy/Viralnova? Sure, as others noted, the CSS has problems, the design looks off, and the UX is potentially confusing. But I don't think your problems are technical. The problem is your concept: you built something the world doesn't need.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Backstory: We run a media company and we've put more than $200k of our own savings into Listnerd - not counting the thousands of work hours we've also invested. It's a list blogging platform / social network centered around top lists. We're growing extremely slow, so after 1.5 years in the grind, we've come to the conclusion that our site sucks. Please help us out by destroying us with your criticism.

<comment><USER17> Checked the site and watched the video.

First of all - when people visit a new site for the first time and see familiar stuff, instead of new and exciting stuff, they tend to leave before they even dig deeper on the site.

The design is fine, the layout is difficult - you should use rectangles of different sizes and backgrounds to make it easier for the visitor to focus on content that are more important, new or viral.

What is dangerous about the assumption that the most popular things are the most written about, are that you ignore new things that MIGHT get traction, what you'd need is a time-machine - list things before they get HOT HOT HOT! So that people who visit the site have a larger reason to do so.

And think about what kind of users you want, the middle-aged people that love lists? Or the lazy teenager who love trends but feel that lists are for shores.

<comment><USER18> Yes, exactly. My impression of this site is like one of those spam portal link farms. Uber-generic and worthless looking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I clicked the Create a list text on your homepage instinctively. That's how people use the web. It should be hyperlinked.

I like the idea of making lists because it speaks to my passion for process. I want to be able to bookmark lists as well as monetize and own my content. If I can run my own ads on the site, then I'm less scared of creating original content through that venue. Your terms of use sucks and is not favorable.

<comment><USER20> Yup, I clicked that green 'Create a list area' at the top several times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> After having a look and reading your interview with marketingstartups[1], it is quite an interesting idea.

It strikes me as an evolved incarnation of Buzzfeed[2] in that the entirety of its content is user-generated, whereas this wasn't the case with Buzzfeed until recently, and even now, I believe user submissions are subject to moderation.

I don't think you should give up yet. I wouldn't. I would start by simplifying the design (sure, it looks nice, but it feels over-ornamented), defining stricter guidelines for posting (e.g. encourage "Top/Best X" type posts in lieu of general free-form lists, and figure out other ways to start driving traffic to it.

I wish you guys the very best and again, don't give up yet.

PS: Please get in touch if you'd like to talk more.

[1] [http://marketingstartups.com/2012/12/18/interview-with- listn...](http://marketingstartups.com/2012/12/18/interview-with-listnerd/) [2] [http://buzzfeed.com](http://buzzfeed.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for your input :)

That's exactly what we're trying to make; a kind of Buzzfeed 2.0, where the "2.0" stands for improved functionality and quality of lists. That's our vision anyway.

I saw your site, looks very cool. Perhaps I could mail you our story?

<comment><USER21> Sure Eric! Shoot me an email: ziyad at buildingof.com and let's do it :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I like the idea but my first impression is that the front page is a tad overwhelming. I didn't actually read the top green pane until after looking at the images, which may say something about how users look at the content.

Perhaps interestingly, my first click was to Browse Top Lists, only to find that Porn Actresses, Page 3 Models and Hentai artists all feature in the top 5 and 4/9 trending lists have the same pink handbag image, even for the Best Web Apps list. You need an adult category which you can hide the NSFW lists in and then not display this to logged out users. As already noted, I think the content is your biggest problem; I may not be your target audience but regardless there's little there to be encouraged to comment on or find inspiration from for new lists.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. We're cleaning up the frontpage now. The lists you talk about are actually the most popular lists in regards to traffic, but yes, I agree - <USER2> should move them to a NSFW category :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is what people spend thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars on. Building a goddamned new LIST site.

Sigh. There. That's your criticism. Shameful.

<comment><AUTHOR> You should never go to Dubai.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The colors and font scream "Barney" (like, the old kids TV show). I think they could work if you desaturated one or both of them a bit and went with a font that was a bit less "fun".

<comment><USER24> Btw just to give a little bit of context, I thought I'd make a small mockup of what I mean: [http://imgur.com/XqkMzUB](http://imgur.com/XqkMzUB)

Basically, desaturated the two header colors a lot (still not perfect, but at least maybe it gives some contrast. I also ripped out the orange buttons and the redundant search box because they were garish and really hard to read. I also tweaked the fonts a little bit.

(Disclaimer: I am not a professional designer, these are just ideas so you can at least see what it would look like in an alternate universe).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Do you use your site? I mean, do you enjoy making and reading lists?

Honest question.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. I really do:

[http://www.listnerd.com/erling.loken.andersen](http://www.listnerd.com/erling.loken.andersen)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Some things I noticed...

The homepage fails HTML validation. 32 Errors, 7 warnings

[http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.listnerd....](http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.listnerd.com%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0)

Homepage isn't being cached (intended?, in fact you have quite a few elements that have no caching set. Run PageSpeed Insights perhaps?

Login Overlay - can't escape to close.

Seems I can create a list without signing up? At least, that's what the button click seems to indicate (I didn't go through the entire process).

None of the "Create a List, Share It, See It" images actually do anything.

Doing a Search on "Select *" resulted in your following page taking 12.06 seconds to process before returning No results found. Searching for "Random" took 10.24 seconds. You have a major bottleneck in your search system.

The blog takes you to a totally different layout. This is jarring.

Homepage returns quickly, but the "Best Tracks in Mario Kart 8" took twice as long to return. If I had to guess, you are fully rebuilding the page each load? If that's true, did you scale that out against the database?

The trending lists block on the bottom of each list page is much larger then the content beside it, consider including fewer items in the list.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for all of this! Duely noted on our todo list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Hey Eric,

I thought Listnerd sounded familiar. You helped me out with SEO last year with your Offer HN, so I'll try to give some useful advice back. Sorry to hear that Listnerd is struggling.

Listnerd doesn't really grab my attention upon first visit. Maybe I'm not the target market but upon opening it up I'm not interested in making a list. Making a list sounds like work. Why should I spend part of my weekend doing work on some random site? I think you haven't demonstrated a value to your visitors.

It also seems to bland to me. It doesn't really differentiate itself from the more established list sites like BuzzFeed. Why should I read ListNerd over BuzzFeed or Reddit? What features, angle, or value does ListNerd bring to the table that those sites do not?

Some nitpicks: You should update your copyright in the footer to 2014, and the gold/yellow color on some buttons doesn't seem to match the rest of the color scheme.

Positives: I like the name. I like the create list process from a ui and design perspective.

Edit: I like the video on the homepage but it is hidden away. Make it more prominent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your input :) We'll look into all of these things, including making the video more prominent!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I rather like it but how the heck did you manage to spend $200K on it? Would you mind opening up about exactly how the money was spent?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure :) We're basicly two founders that have done most of the design and project management of the site. In addition, we've outsourced some design and all of the programming to Ukraine, including the mobile version. The outsourced development itself runs into the 100k's over the stretch of 1.5 years, and in addition, we've done some marketing (40-50k) and had some administrative costs (lawyers, offices, etc.). I don't have an exact sum, but it's anywhere from 190-220k.

<comment><USER29> Hope you don't mind me being frank, but you got screwed. Perhaps there's some complexity that I'm missing here, but this looks like maybe a 200-hour gig, so at 150 USD/hr (you can get real quality talent for that in the US), you'd be looking at 30k. Maybe more if you wanted to put extra time into the mobile experience, but I doubt you'd need more than 40 extra hours for that. Certainly not 100k worth of work here.

EDIT after reading more comments: looks like I did miss a lot of complexity. Still, it's hard to believe all that stuff was necessary. Need more content? Pay some schmuck $7/hr to make content (or outsource on Mechanical Turk, etc). Or stay extra-lean and do it yourself. Admin area? Probably don't need something terribly advanced. Caching? Not unless you're getting a ton of traffic, which it doesn't sound like you are. Wordpress integration? Doesn't sound terribly useful or relevant, but I could be wrong given that I don't know the target market (if there is one?) very well. Maybe you had tens of support emails a day asking for it - but I doubt it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Giving my feedback about the big things I care about:

The biggest problem I see is that you have no HTTPS support for this site. There are very good reasons for having HTTPS even if you aren't transmitting something you would consider "secret". With modern 64-bit processors and session caching, there's really no excuse for not having HTTPS available on every page. That said, you don't even have HTTPS support during login, which means that password information will be completely sniffable. It's not at all clear from the login popup that this will be the case.

Additionally, the actually design degrades nicely with Javascript turned off, which is commendable, but logging in/signing up is still Javascript-only. Ideally you'd want a site that keeps all the functionality that it _can_ have without Javascript with Javascript enabled. It might look slick for people using Javascript, but you really don't need an in-tab popup for login/signup.

</comment><comment><USER31> After clicking around on some of the lists to get a sense of what the intended content is, I think it suffers from a little bit of an identity crisis.

By which I mean that the base, bottom-feeding type lists are already supremely well-covered by every other slideshow/listicle media property (Buzzfeed, the "suggested" stories at the bottom of every news site), so it would probably be difficult to attract any meaningful marketshare.

Whereas the curated lists of items, or recommendations are all things I'd use Pinterest for. Being able to organize and customize the item information seems like it could be a competitive advantage for you (Basically on Pinterest, your options are: Make a board, put pins on it, maybe comment on the individual pins; there's no sense of "ranking").

And it sounds like you're sort of looking at Pinterest's revenue model, but their user growth is kind of crazy, so they might end up sucking up all the air of that particular vertical.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I would be very interested to hear more about the user Listnerd [http://www.listnerd.com/Listnerd#lists](http://www.listnerd.com/Listnerd#lists) and how Listnerd has created 492,988 lists and received 3,072,466 votes!

<comment><USER29> Probably related to the "web scrapers" they spent some of that 200k on.

<comment><USER32> Absolutely, and you cannot build a business upon scraping. Maybe for some seeding, but not to this extend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think it's hard to say why one thing takes off like Reddit, then something else, very similar doesn't. If you have SEO and decent organic traffic and it doesn't take off, look to sell it and move on to another good idea. You shouldn't continue wasting time and money unless you feel you're not wasting it.

A. Why would people post their own lists to your site? What benefit do they have for doing this? No karma, raffle for free...gas or video games, nothing.

B. 4 long steps to create a list? Ok, fair enough. . . but I guess that brings me back to A.

C. You don't provide anything different or beneficial than the current top 'list' sites like pinterest and reddit provide. I think you provide less.

</comment><comment><USER34> For some reason I arrived at the bottom of the page for the homepage and the auxillary pages I clicked to (the technology lists, then the "top webpages" lists).

I didn't realise until reading comments here about clicking the "make list" button; then when I went back and looked I realised I was scrolled to the bottom on page entry. Bizarre, never seen that before, presumably a bug.

[FF30.0 on Ubuntu]

Now looking at the main page I'm trying to click on the big "create a list" element ... but no the button is at the top of the page, you need an arrow pointing to the button and/or to activate the "create a list" element IMO.

</comment><comment><USER35> I clicked a list. It had a list of ten little images. I clicked an image - <USER3> expected a bigger version of that image. I got the same tiny image and some text. I don't need the text; i do need bigger images.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, we'll fix that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> You seem to be resizing the footer in javascript (I haven't looked at the code so could be off base) and sometimes it seems to go a little crazy. When I first scrolled to the bottom there was a huge empty space below the "blog browse about... " stuff. About 800 pixels I would estimate. It seemed to go away when I refreshed and resized the page, but something caused it to happen at least one time, so under the same conditions it will happen again.

In general it looks nice, I agree with most of what other people are saying so I won't elaborate too much.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your input :) We'll look into that footer issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Why the self-deprecating title? You could've said "Show HN: List blogging with Listnerd". This makes me wonder how you spent $200k and why you're so unhappy with the result.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, a good site is supposed to grow, right? At the same time, our site isn't really growing - which makes me think there's something wrong with it, somewhere. I have tremendous respect for the people on Hacker News, and I think we need honest advice from intelligent people. Showing HN usually doesn't muster really, really tough criticism.

<comment><USER38> Technically the site seems just fine. For your $200k I hope it has a robust back-end, as unless I'm missing something, it's functionally simple.

Your mobile interface is good - needs a tiny bit of polish around things like the vote counts being cut off on the "list of lists" view. Your featured lists suck. Greatest presidents? What's the utility, other than "oh look"?

Find a niche and cram yourself in there, saturate it, then look at other verticals. Right now you're putting the onus on the user to find a use for your service. Don't make them think. Give them a use.

Given the extant decent mobile interface, and the general clumsiness/info- overload of the ilk of trip advisor, sculpting for travel lists might be a good niche to push into - best places to eat, stay, see, etc. Cheap to experiment with this and other verticals.

Anyway, that's my $0.02, and fwiw I've steered several startups (from a dev/consult for equity corner) to successful exits - just not my own!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for this input. Your comment - and others - made us rethink our positioning. I think we're going to steer more towards gaming-, movies- and TV-oriented lists from now on; because that is really where the traction is coming from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'll take a different tilt:

Your biggest problem is that you have 4 people listed on your team page yet there are two with the title 'Project Manager'. From what I can tell from playing with the site, it just lets you build 'top 10' style lists and allows people to vote/comment on them. Frankly, this is a weekend project for a good developer or for a better outcome, a good developer/designer pair. What exactly are the project managers doing?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a lot more work to a startup than just design. We have 4 content creators, we do SEO, marketing, customer support, product development, legal and economic issues, bug fixes, etc. If you think Listnerd is a "weekend project", then you're either inexperienced or simply don't see the full picture. Building something like good admin backend can take 1-3 months for a project alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Nice try but all you'll get from HN is a bump on your analytic graphs and I bet not one real user.

Anyhow I wonder how you came into pouring 200k into this idea (or maybe this is a catch number to get HN attention). Did you do any sort of validation prior to that? FYI I'd built this whole site for 5% of that budget

</comment><comment><USER41> Get rid of 'beta' on the site header, there is no need for that and just makes you look cheap. I also dislike ratings on 1-10 scale (instead of 1-5, for example). What's the difference between a 2 and a 3, for example, or 8 and 9? It take too much thought.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! We added 10 stars for granularity, but we'll rethink it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> What's the breakdown for $200k on a site like that? Can you tell us what's the tech stack?

<comment><AUTHOR> Already answered this, just see my previous answers!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> How were you expecting to make money?

<comment><AUTHOR> The business model is divided in two:

1\. affiliate revenue from product sales, tracked via Viglinks.com (usually 6% commision off one sale; and remember, our lists are basicly shopping guides - or well, they should be)

2\. straight up advertising, Google Adsense to begin, then setting up our own sales team (if we succeed, that is)...

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I feel like I could have programmed this site in 40hrs, tops. Let's say someone with a few years experience charged $50/hr, that would be $2,000. You could probably at least halve that hourly rate on odesk if you wanted to.

<comment><USER44> Development doesn't work like this. You are assuming they knew exactly what they wanted in a fair amount of detail up-front.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly.

<comment><USER33> You wasted a lot of time and money...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> 1\. Maybe the lists themselves should be ranked. I'd like to downvote "top 8 tracks in Mario Kart."

2\. The 3-panel header interferes with swipe gestures for page navigation, like, a lot. Try not to break common interactions like that.

</comment><comment><USER46> When the list first loads, it is not visible on the screen but instead pushed down by a large margin. Also I believe many of your hits will come from google searches vs friend shares. Maybe make 100 SOE lists in house.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, what page is this? I'm trying to reproduce the issue, but I can't? (I even installed a slow-loading plugin for Chrome, to mimic a slow browser to see if it was a CSS issue) :)

Also, what is a "SOE list"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I can't decide whether this is trying to be a lightweight meme site, a high quality luxury magazine product review site or some evil spin off of Facebook that my friends are just going to share ads with me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha... That's a great way of viewing it. And that's one of our problems too. Perhaps we're biting off too much? At the same time, sites like Pinterest have success going for a pretty wide market (interiors, fashion, infographics, nature pictures, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> You have a very good page rank and alexa traffic numbers (yes, taken with a grain of salt) so you must be doing something right. Have you been around for awhile, or did you buy an existing, older domain?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, we just work as SEO consultants (to cover costs), and the Alexa traffic numbers are mainly because of this - the SEO traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I think HN is the wrong kind of audience to seek feedback from for your specific site. It appears to be pop-culture/teen culture focused, which you won't find here in HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> To some extent, I agree with you. At the same time, there are a lot of smart people on here, who might be able to give solid advice anyway. And I've gotten lots of really good stuff already, we really have our work cut out for us now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Visually it's pretty ugly, but concept and functionality seem very sound. I liked it against my will, so just give it a makeover and you've likely got a winner.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I think the idea is great - I actually had the same idea last summer and built www.curate.im which ended up getting absolutely nowhere (log in with username 'test' and pw 'test' if you wanna see inside).

In terms of your actual site, the focus seems to be less on the content itself and more on sharing/commenting on things, almost trying to force people to interact with the site. Not a huge fan of the content on there right now either - a lot of it is quite trivial Buzzfeed-esque. This isn't inherently 'bad', but it's just that there are plenty of sites where you can find that kind of content.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for your comments :) A lot of people mention Buzzfeed like it's a bad thing, but I think it should be remembered that we're talking about one of the biggest sites in the world. But, as you say, there are plenty of sites where you can find that kind of content. We might target a niché more specifically from this point on, perhaps doing more gaming-related lists and focusing on that target audience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Nice idea but the design is a little dated. I don't know if that's intentional but people are fickle, and pretty / obvious always wins.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> $200k for that site is a ridiculous considering you could have learned to implement it your self and hired out the design.

</comment><comment><USER54> Brilliant marketing stunt. Take my point.

<comment><AUTHOR> We weren't trying to get marketing, I promise. But we were trying to agitate some of the brightest brains in tech into giving us extremely valid and honest feedback, and we succeeded at that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Why would I want to do this?

<comment><AUTHOR> A lot of people enjoy creating content. Look at Tumblr (blogs), Wordpress.com (blogs), Instagram (pictures), etc. We believe Listnerd could fit in there (lists). I don't know about you though; depends on what you hobby or passion is. That's usually what people make lists about.</comment></comment>


TrueCrypt, the final release, archive - <AUTHOR> https://www.grc.com/misc/truecrypt/truecrypt.htm <comment><USER2> "So, thanks guys . . . we'll take it from here." seems like an understated reaction. More like a huge thank you for 10 years of hard work, with no personal recognition, providing the world with a free, trusted and increasingly useful aid to security and privacy. Whatever path the devs have chosen to take, TrueCrypt users everywhere are very grateful.

</comment><comment><USER3> Note to the devs:

Thank you for your hard and unappreciated work for the last 10 years.

But if you're no longer interested in continuing to devleop TrueCrypt, could you _please_ replace the license on 7.1a with one of the OSI-approved, DFSG- compatible licenses so that other people can keep developing and using TrueCrypt if they want to? I know that you think it's risky to keep using TrueCrypt, but there seem to be plenty of people who are willing to fork over tens of thousands of dollars to discover and fix any security issues.

An email sent to the auditing team and/or a message published on the official website, signed with your usual keys, should suffice.

</comment><comment> B-Con This really doesn't feel satisfying. What about the bizarre way the project was taken down? They really recommend Bitlocker? They literally think you should just grep for "crypt" and use the result for your needs?

I guess I can buy that declaring it insecure because the dev team is no longer maintaining it makes sense.

Assuming this is legit, I wonder if the move toward cloud storage and mobile devices made them feel that they were slipping into a niche need. I disagree (to some extent), but maybe they felt the bulk of their usefulness was behind them.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there any proof that these statements from the devs are legit?

</comment><comment><USER5> They still don't want to explain why they took it down so abruptly, which is strange to say the least for a popular 10 year project.

Also, why didn't they make it easy to continue to project with the license, and why do they keep saying that forking Truecrypt is "harmful"?

<comment><USER6> Perhaps they believe that, without them at the helm, any new people who take up the project won't know the code or crypto well enough, creating new security holes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The writing style in this letter is completely different from that on the TrueCrypt page. If this letter had been posted originally, the whole episode would have been viewed much differently. And why does the author of this letter assure readers that "As far as we know, TrueCrypt is utterly uncrackable", while the TrueCrypt.org page (or rather, the truecrypt.sourceforge.net page to which it redirects) screams (in red at the very top), "WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues"?

EDIT: Sorry - as brazzy and NickSharp kindly point out below, the letter was imagined and written by Steve Gibson. As the HN title at the moment is "One of the TrueCrypt Devs Responded", I missed that.

<comment><USER8> Are you talking about the _imagined_ letter that is, uh, not actually from the Truecrypt devs?

<comment><USER7> Sorry - completely missed that. The title of the HN post at the moment is "One of the TrueCrypt Devs Responded".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If this is what they want I am glad they can move on. I just feel like if there was ever a time to be interested in the project it would be now. Obviously, privacy has always been relevant, but given the microscopic lens everyone is under the problem seems relevant, challenging and exciting. The exact opposite time to walk away.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think the issue really is XP and the 20 year old compiler. It would be insecure to compile on an unpatched OS, and my guess is that they've been unable to get it to work satisfactorily in an updated compiler. Simple as that?

<comment><USER11> Given that the application is open source, wouldn't that reason be easy to verify?</comment></comment>


Food spending in America. Dining out vs buying groceries - <AUTHOR> http://www.bundle.com/article/Food-DrinkDining-OutBundle-Spending-food-drink-America-10578

<comment><USER2> It seems like there could have been much more interesting information extracted from this dataset than they actually got. Instead we're getting gems like the fact that people who make more money wind up spending more money on food, and "the people who are spending the most money on food overall devote more money to dining out". Families with children spend more money on food than single people.

The analysis goes on to ask interesting questions but not answer them. _"how did people in Austin spend $12,447 on food and drink last year, while people in Miami spent half as much? What are they buying in Austin? And what aren't they eating in Miami?"_ Perhaps because Miami has a lot of old people and old people spend a lot less on food than young people? The data exists to figure out whether this would be sufficient to account for it, but they don't bother doing the analysis.

Oh, and the one graph I really wanted to see was "proportion of food budget spent on going out" vs "income" which I suspect might show some interesting behaviour. But the graph wasn't there.

<comment><USER3> they aren't exactly a very serious site

<comment><USER2> I'm not asking them to be serious, I'm just asking them to be interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Brian Wansink, the director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, estimates we make 227 decisions about what to eat every day..."

That doesn't pass the smell test. The only way I can get that number is to devalue "decision" to the point of uselessness; if I decide to each hamburgers for dinner, well, I decided not to eat lasagna and I decided not to eat spaghetti and I decided not to eat at McDonald's and I decided not to eat at Wendy's. Maybe that's not exactly what they did, but I couldn't find an actual description of the methodology, and _j'accuse_.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would like to see this data overlayed with an obesity map.

<comment><USER2> Hmm, to first order I don't see much correlation. Pulling some statistics off Forbes the five fattest cities in America are:

1\. Memphis TN: Obesity rate 34%, food spending $4667 (near bottom)

2\. Birmingham AL: Obesity rate 31.3%, food spending $7109 (slightly above average)

3\. San Antonio TX: Obesity rate 31.1%, food spending missing from list? (Or did I miss it?)

4\. Riverside CA: Obesity rate 30.8%, food spending $5675 (below average)

5\. Detroit MI: Obesity rate 30.1%, food spending $2246 (dead last)

And rounding out the top ten we have a bunch of poorish Southern cities plus San Diego. I didn't bother to look them all up but San Diego has a surprising- to-me-ly small food spending.

OK, so I suppose there's a tendency towards the fattest cities being among the lowest-spending, with Birmingham being a slight outlier. I suspect what we're seeing is just the well-known "poor people are fatter" phenomenon, but complicated by a bunch of factors such as race, age distribution (few old people are fat) and local cuisine (southern and Mexican cuisine are particularly fattening).

I'll repeat what I always say though: poor people aren't fat _because_ they're poor, they're fat _for the same reason_ they're poor -- they're not too bright, have poor impulse control, don't plan ahead, and so forth.

<comment><USER5> >> I'll repeat what I always say though: poor people aren't fat because they're poor, they're fat for the same reason they're poor -- they're not too bright, have poor impulse control, don't plan ahead, and so forth.

I would seriously not go that far to say poor people are not too bright or have poor impulse control. That's judgmental without any data to back it up. Poor people are likely poor because they aren't well educated, or have professional white collar jobs like you and I. Lack of education and access results in lack of awareness. You and I sit in our comfy sofas watching Jamie Oliver give a talk at TED and hence we hail our organic vegetables and our foo-foo healthy lifestyles. You cannot compare this vantage point with the predicament of someone who is struggling to make ends meet. Or someone who grew up in a poor neighborhood.

Lack of money has absolutely nothing to do with "brightness" or impulse control. I grew up in India and know all too well that poor people can be very sharp.

I have seen well-to-do fat people who lack even basic self-control. In fact, much of America is not poor and the obesity epidemic here has nothing to do with income levels. It is the result of a simple fact that fattening, processed stuff is widely available at every corner for dirt cheap prices. And that stuff that tastes good. When a healthy meal costs $12, it is but natural that someone who earns minimum wage goes for the $3 burger at McD.

To disprove your argument, I put forward one simple fact. Majority of the population in developing countries is not fat and they certainly aren't dancing around in money.

I would be interested in running an experiment. What if all organic, fresh, natural, unprocessed food was made dirt cheap and anything that isn't was taxed like hell? So a lb of fresh vegetables and fruits costs $0.50. Unprocessed food is subsidized at 50%. That order of fries, soda, and cheezburger? $15.

What effect would it have on society?

<comment><USER6> _Lack of education and access results in lack of awareness. You and I sit in our comfy sofas watching Jamie Oliver give a talk at TED and hence we hail our organic vegetables and our foo-foo healthy lifestyles. You cannot compare this vantage point with the predicament of someone who is struggling to make ends meet._

You don't need to eat like Jamie Oliver to not be obese. How much "education" does it take to realize that cookies and sugary sodas and sitting on the couch all day will make you fat?

 _It is the result of a simple fact that fattening, processed stuff is widely available at every corner for dirt cheap prices here. Stuff that tastes good._

Absolutely. And I think there's something to Scott Adams's willpower theory. If you have a great job and a nice house and a gorgeous wife and/or mistress, it's not a huge sacrifice to pass on the Twinkie and go jogging. But if you're just barely making ends meet and have no apparent prospects for improvement, it's really hard to turn down short-term gratification.

Making healthy food taste better would do far more to combat obesity than plastering nutritional labels and PSAs everywhere.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any Feedback about Mac OS High Sierra? - <AUTHOR> For typical tasks like programming... Don't use my Mac for image/movie editing, etc. Thanks. <comment><USER2> It's fine, but Apple's software quality is going down while Window's stock seems to be rising. The landscape might be different in 10 years if Apple doesn't start taking things seriously.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have run into problems with the little snitch version, had to reinstall. I am also running into problems in the social accounts, trying to figure out of something happened in the little snitch config. As always they try to push that iCloud full backup, you have to take that out if you don't use it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, I wound up getting a Dell.

32 GB of RAM + 2 GB of GPU, a 1 TB NVMe drive, and a quad-core 3.7 Ghz professor for $1,000 LESS than my half-as-powerful December 2016 Macbook Pro.

Run Fedora on it and haven't looked back.

</comment><comment><USER5> I only use my Mac for programming and browsing and I've noticed no difference. I spent 90% in iTerm and Sublime. I don't use iCloud, iTunes or any of that junk.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's fine, more of the same -- install homebrew.</comment>


REPL? A bit more (and less) than that – Erlang shell - <AUTHOR> http://ferd.ca/repl-a-bit-more-and-less-than-that.html

<comment><USER2> Learning erlang here. I wish I had seen this article before -- I haven't even finished reading it yet and it's already nicely explained some things that confused me for a while before.

For instance, the idea that IO doesn't necessarily go to the node the process is running on. That makes a lot of sense now, because in erlang, you don't want to be too concerned about which node a process is running on.

</comment><comment><USER3> Note that few languages can provide truly Lisp style REPL. For this, the language needs to make no distinction between data and code. You need to be able to generate all language statements dynamically (not string representation of statements that can be then then evaluated, just statements). Erlang does not have this, data and code are different things, so it can't provide Lisp style REPL (The same with Python). Some more info about this: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12253200/what-is-so- power...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12253200/what-is-so-powerful-in- lisps-read-eval-print-loop-how-is-it-different-than-pyt)</comment>


To Power the Future, Carmakers Flip on 48-Volt Systems - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/electric-cars-48-volts.html <comment><USER2> It's too bad that automakers didn't make this change a long time ago.

One thing the article didn't mention is that power losses in a wire are a function of the _square_ of the current. So, let's say one needs to deliver 48 watts to a load. In a 48 V system, that's 1 A of current. Using 12 V, that's 4 A of current.

Power loss is 16x greater at 12 V for same diameter of wire, loss = (4 A * 4 A) * resistance of wire.[1] Therefore, wires are made thicker in 12 V systems to avoid this. That's a lot of extra weight in a car.

Before the nitpickers chime in, I know the above is simplified. But it also clearly explains why long distance power transmission lines run at such high voltages, 230 KV or higher.

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

<comment><USER3> You're not wrong, but you should probably tell the whole story if you're going to post on HN.

Primary Objection: Um, Ohms law gives V=IR. And P=IV. So, P=I^2R. Except that P _ALSO_ can be calculated as P=V^2/R. So, we got squared losses anyway and R should go the other direction. WTF?

The answer is that a copper wire is a distributed system, not a lumped system. So, you derive the power loss from the generated heat across a differential slice of the line and then integrate over the whole length of the line--which gives you Power=RI^2 in the limit (and V->0 for any individual slice as the differential ->0).

It is one of those (un?)fortunate happenstances (like the Bohr hydrogen atom model) where the system in the limit sums to something we already know and leads to a bit of misunderstanding when you confuse two things which appear to be related but really aren't...

<comment><USER4> The _V_ in V^2/R would be the _voltage drop along the wire_ , not the total system voltage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> ju-st > It is diesel's decline, executives and analysts say, that has finally set > the stage for mass electrification. While diesel pollution problems became > notorious with the Volkswagen test-cheating scandal, the subsequent shift to > gasoline is bloating carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, making the next round > of European Union goals harder to meet.

> PSA Group, which had previously seen no need for 48V hybrids, now plans to > introduce them "across the board" in response to diesel's faster-than- > expected decline, the Peugeot maker's programs chief Patrice Lucas told > Reuters.

> "What automakers are finding is they need more than just advanced combustion > engines to reach the fleet average reductions," said Mary Gustanski, > Delphi's engineering boss.

quoted from [http://europe.autonews.com/article/20170923/ANE/170929892/vw...](http://europe.autonews.com/article/20170923/ANE/170929892/vw- psa-volvo-others-adopt-48-volt-mild-hybrids-in-response-to-diesel)

</comment><comment><USER5> This article conflates two things. One: adoption of a 48v standard for powered systems because it's a sweet-spot for efficiency, current draw, systems design. Two: PHEV and the adoption of electric transmission and drive train, which permits a non throttled engine of any form to run at constant high efficiency or not at all and use batteries.

Two things. One story. Cars are becoming like common rail deisel with a unified power model for systems integration and cars are becoming like locomotives which use electric traction for systems efficiency.

<comment><USER6> The 48 V DC "sweet spot" is mostly safety / regulatory. As soon as you get to 50 V, the safety requirements (NEC) change. You can hold on to bare conductors with a 48 V potential across them just fine, even though 120 V AC will kill you and make it hurt the entire time you are dying.

48 V devices can require connections that are inconvenient and large, depending on what you want to power with them. Try running an air conditioner off 48 V and measuring the peak current draw.

[https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/267789/how-s...](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/267789/how- safe-is-48v-dc)

<comment><USER7> > You can hold on to bare conductors with a 48 V potential across them just > fine

Even with wet hands? I was under the assumption the unconditionally safe upper limit was around 24V.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _" But skeptics may wonder why engineers are devoting so much effort to > developing the mild hybrid systems that could be seen as stopgap measures on > the path to a fully electric vehicle fleet."_

Let's do some napkin math.

Assumptions:

1\. Gasoline will never exceed $10/gallon. (assumes eventual plant/algae sourcing/some kind of magic). 1a. Vehicles achieve 50 mpg (2 gallons/ 100 miles) via tricks like 48-volt.

Thus future gasoline MHEV vehicles cost 20 cents/mile to power, so $20 per 100 miles

2\. Batteries get stuck at about $100/kWh. (maybe lithium etc never scales) 2a. Consumers are satisfied with 60 kWh batteries.

Thus BEVs cost $6000 more than comparable MHEVs (napkin math)

4\. Electricity costs $0.20/kWh (assume some surcharge for the charging station). 4a. Your BEV gets 34 kWh / 100 miles (99 MPGe)

Thus to power your BEV costs $6.8 / 100 miles.

5\. The difference between 20 and 6.8 is 13.2 - so you are paying off your battery at $13.2 / 100 miles. 6000/13.2 is about 450

\---

Conclusion: It will take 45,000 miles to pay off your battery, assuming the competition is a 50 mpg vehicle and gasoline is $10/gallon.

Additionally, the initial cost for a BEV is $6000 higher, which is quite significant for entry-level buyers.

\---

With 33 mpg and $5/g you have $15/100 mile, thus a 80-90,000 mile payoff.

With 33 mpg and $3/g you have $9/100 mile, thus 270,000 mile payoff

With 33 mpg and $2/g you have $6/100 mile, and you will never pay off the battery investment.

With 20 mpg and $3/g you also have $15/100 mile = 90,000

\---

Home Solar: add $10,000 to your battery = $16,000

50 mpg and $10/g you have $20/100 mile = 80,000 mile payoff

33 mpg and $ 5/g you have $15/100 mile = 107,000 mile payoff

33 mpg and $ 3/g you have $ 9/100 mile = 179,000 mile payoff

33 mpg and $ 2/g you have $ 6/100 mile = 267,000 mile payoff

20 mpg and $ 3/g you have $15/100 mile = 80,000 mile payoff again

<comment><USER9> >Gasoline will never exceed $10/gallon.

The consequences and repercussions of global warming and climate change plus Nixon era doctrine of interventionalist policy in the interest of maintaining global US oil hegemony have easily put real barrel cost easily above this. Iraq didnt pay for itself twice, after all.

<comment><USER10> Why everyone talks about switching to electric cars while nobody ever mentions electric heating of buildings as environmentally friendly alternative? Because it isn't? Why bother with electricity-saving lightbulbs while EV owners burn the current like there's no tomorrow...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article is kind of weird. The push for 48 volt is mostly about secondary systems that need a lot of power and doesn't have much to do with "mild electric" or whatever it is implying.

The 21 HP direct boost mentioned in the article is going to be for performance rather than running on electric, the vehicle comes with a 1 Kw-h battery (~5 minutes at full output).

<comment><USER12> Whether it's for performance or economy depends on how it's tuned and how the engine is sized relative to the equivalent pure gas car. The attractive things about these mild hybrid systems is that they're cheap, they don't weigh much (so you're not hurting efficiency by hauling around a bunch of batteries and electric motors), and they give you a lot of what a full hybrid (non-plug in) offers.

If you're not plugging in, you don't need a big battery, because the hybrid only needs to store the energy from braking, and then deliver it when the car speeds up again. Even though the motor is only 21hp, it provides a lot of low- end torque, which lets you have good acceleration from a stop. This is something modern efficient gas engines are generally bad at, and the immediate acceleration in a lot of modern cars is even worse because of aggressive upshifting to save fuel. The electric motor papers over this deficiency, so you can be more aggressive about using a smaller engine with less low-end torque. The electric motor is also much more powerful than a normal starter motor, so it allows the car to more aggressively shut off the engine at stop lights and even when coasting, and turn it back on very quickly.

<comment><USER11> I buy what you are saying but that particular gas engine is 330 HP.

<comment><USER13> At one particular RPM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some RV makers (both commercial [0] and DIY [1]) are already on 48V systems for their house batteries. Advantages: lighter wiring, can use a higher- voltage alternator that needs less heat dissipation. Note that the system in the Sprinter van is able to run the air conditioner at 100% duty for 8 hours, then allow the alternator to recharge the battery while continuing to run the A/C unit. Which is really impressive (and should be, for the $200k their RVs cost)

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

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV8fyzOTjsk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV8fyzOTjsk)

</comment><comment><USER15> 48 VDC will be good for amateur radio and car audio. Specifically the power amplifiers for both.

<comment><USER16> Noise from high power motors will be the bane of all operators, even when the car just drives by. However the junk yard will soon be a good place to source 48v generators.

<comment><USER15> I have a Nissan Leaf, but don't operate mobile with it. The AM reception on its radio is fine, which I've heard is a problem in other EVs. Proper EMI mitigation can be done, but these companies may not spend the expense to do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Certainly a nice technology, but I think it is 10 years late. This kind of modernized eletrical design of combustion engined cars which enables mild- hybrids should have been standard 5 years ago. Going forward I cannot see a large future for combustion-engined cars at all - for a few few years, plugin hybrids migth be popular for those, who need a lot of range. But pure electric cars are now coming to the market in numbers. I don't think as stated in the article, that in 2025 only 5% of the vehicles sold will be electric, I would assume that number rather for 2020.

<comment><USER18> 2020 is only 2 years from now, we're nowhere close to that 5% number.

<comment><USER17> We are already at over 1% EVs in several important markets in 2017, and the EV sales numbers almost double every year, so 2020 probably won't see 5%, but should be pretty close to that - at least closer than 2025.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> About a decade ago, wasn't there some interest in moving to 24 volt systems; nothing came of it due to switch failures, IIRC?

<comment><USER13> It's always been 48V. The problem has been a chicken and egg sort of thing. Its expensive to have both 12 and 48, but you can't go full 48 unless you can source all components for that voltage. Suppliers didn't really commit because there were no real customers.

<comment><USER20> How hard is it to put a DC-DC converter between the systems?

<comment><USER13> That's technically and conceptually easy but it costs a lot of money. One approach would be to put a large DC-DC converter on the car and run a 48V bus next to the 12V one. That's a very expensive device, needing to be perhaps a few kilowatts depending which devices are on 48V. It's also a lot of extra wiring, and the need to manage the extra variations in vehicle systems.

A second approach would be to put a DC-DC converter only in the devices that need 12V. But that's asking every supplier to change their design to accommodate 48V and the vehicle manufacturers will bitch about the cost increases. It'll be a moderate increase across a LOT of devices.

I'm working on a product that uses a highly integrated SoC that has all the regulators needed to connect it directly to the 12V line (it'll run on 6-20V or so). It even has an on-board 5V regulator for additional off-chip devices. The best thing for us would be if the same chip existed but could be connected directly to 48V (not sure what the range is on that) but from a silicon standpoint there is a big difference as well. Adding an external regulator would add cost, and invalidate some of the wake-up features and low current standby capabilities of the chip.

There are always "reasons". The only way to make the transition is for someone to make it happen, but again the suppliers who participate may be seeking premium pricing in the beginning because there aren't options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> [http://archive.is/PYZ6G](http://archive.is/PYZ6G)

</comment><comment><USER22> There is a TLDR for this article, but as far as I can tell it cannot be derived from the article itself.

Will someone please explain why 48-volt systems are newly desirable in cars?

<comment><USER23> You want a higher voltage to allow more power without huge cables due to high current. You want low voltage to avoid high-voltage safety issues which increase engineering, assembly, maintenance, and emergency costs.

The 48V system sits right at the boundary where you can deliver enough power for more auxilliary systems and some mild-hybrid techniques including frequent start/stop systems, brief acceleration boost, and regenerative braking. Yet, it's not high enough to require switching to a different electrical wiring safety paradigm.

This is similar to the reason power-over-ethernet runs at the voltage it does, or "low voltage" lighting exists for home applications where consumers are moving fixtures around and interacting with the wiring.

<comment><USER24> From my reading of the article, 48V has been chosen to comfortably fit in under some regulation that defines 60V as "high voltage" which required special (read "more expensive") components.

Keep in mind there's no such thing as a "48V battery" or a "60V battery" if you have hard requirements on those voltages. If they're using lithium polymer batteries, they're rated at 3.7V per cell nominally, but will be at 4.2 or 4.3V when freshly charged - so a 48V lipo battery will probably be 13 cells and 48.1V nominal, but possibly as high as 55.9V fully charged (and one more cell in a 14 cell pack would hit 60.2V fully charged). Even lead acid batteries do the same thing, your 12V battery today is six 2V nominal cells in series, but you'll commonly see 14V when it's fully charged, so four current tech car batteries with a nominal 48V rating will have 56V fully charged.

I don't think there's anything "optimal" about 48V apart from it being as high as you can risk going using available battery technologies without bumping into the 60V "high voltage" regulations when your battery is fully charged.

<comment><USER15> I think it's 50 VDC that is considered HV. Any equipment we buy at work 50 VDC and over requires NRTL (i.e. UL) certification. Also interlocks and safety boxes when working on circuit.

<comment><USER24> I have no actual knowledge here beyond the article itself:

"Why 48 volts? Settling on this level holds the electrical system under the 60-volt safety threshold of what is considered high voltage, where power cables must be orange and special connectors, costing 10 times as much, are required, said Mary Gustanski, chief technical officer of Delphi Technologies."

I wonder if your 50VDC limit is driven by the same "typical peak voltages for common battery chemistry" margin of safety I'm speculating exists?

<comment><USER25> My understanding is that 50-60VDC is approximately the voltage at which electricity will arc through a person's chest (i.e. pass through their heart) if they hold a wire in each hand. That makes it unsafe to handle without special insulating equipment. That doesn't mean that 48V is safe necessarily though. If your hand is wet or even just a little sweaty, you can arc from pinky to thumb at ~48V.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The NSA named one of its top-secret programs Skynet - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/9/8577515/nsa-skynet-program-is-real

<comment><USER2> "Google: Rise of the Machines" @ [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1QB9DW_0kM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1QB9DW_0kM)</comment>


A community-driven source of Language Server Protocol implementations - <AUTHOR> http://langserver.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> Context: the "Language Server Protocol" is what Visual Studio Code uses to provide language features (auto completion, error checking, navigation, etc) via a separate process. More than tying it to VSC, though, Microsoft decided to make it a separate standard that can be implemented by other editors and IDEs. This website lists popular LSP implementations and clients (editors) who support it.</comment>


Should We Rebrand JavaScript? - <AUTHOR> https://kieranpotts.com/rebranding-javascript/ <comment><USER2> Some authors who were uneasy with "JavaScript (tm)" used to use just "Script" but I haven't seen this in a long while.</comment>


Learning to Fly by Crashing - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbHqC8HimoI <comment><AUTHOR> The authors built a physical drone that flew 11,000+ random trajectories - mostly crashing into things. They then trained a neural network with the camera images, and got surprisingly decent obstacle avoidance and exploration out of it.

Paper here: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.05588](https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.05588)</comment>


An Interactive Demonstration of Vector Field Flow, Divergence and Curl - <AUTHOR> http://vf.rohanp.xyz/ <comment><AUTHOR> More information can be found on the github page:

[https://github.com/rohanp/vectorfield](https://github.com/rohanp/vectorfield)

Edit: A really cool one to try is `Math.cos(y), Math.sin(x)` (from the README)</comment>


Games Now Eligible for NEA Funding - <AUTHOR> http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/109835-Games-Now-Legally-Considered-an-Art-Form-in-the-USA

<comment><USER2> I wonder if a lawyer can comment on the implications for the interaction between games and First Amendment case law. Specifically, I'm pretty sure I remember (vaguely) some suit coming down to a game publisher saying "this is speech, you can't censor us" and the judge deciding "it's just a program, yes we can."[0] It strikes me that if the NEA is treating games as a form of art and in the same category as (say) a film or a radio show, it's harder to make the claim that it shouldn't have the same legal protections. (But IANAL, which is why I'm hoping someone else will comment. :)

[0] Prompting the Penny Arcade quote, "If games can't communicate ideas, then why does he care who buys them?"

<comment><USER3> I can't remember any successful attempts at censorship in the US, but not for lack of trying. I think all the claims were overturned for the reasons you state.

The only effective way of censoring a game in the US is for Walmart to threaten not to sell it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _What matters is that the NEA now officially considers video games worthy of artistic merit, which is pretty damn cool._

Since the first I heard of this (apparent) debate, I wondered why artwork, music, and story were all works of art separately, but the three of them together with a form of interaction by a person was not. The consideration of video games as a form of art doesn't seem like a judgement to me, it seems more like a rationalization.

<comment><USER5> If the game is just a delivery mechanism for "art" (like the music or visual design or whatever), then the game itself is not art any more than an art gallery is art. I've always held that games can be art _as games_ and not just as packages of visuals and audio. Because the act of playing the game can be affective. Like when you had to burn the companion cube in Portal. That kind of experience can't be conveyed in other forms of art.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ideas for games that could be considered as for the public good:

      • educational games
          • for public schools
          • to help train government employees at their job
      • games set up in kiosks in parks or playgrounds
      • works that are part game and part interactive art, to be
        put on an otherwise boring street
          • such as buttons along the sidewalk that need to be
            stepped on in a certain rhythm to move a ball on a
            screen across hilly terrain

What else can you think of?

<comment><USER7> Touchscreen walls with collaborative multiplayer (both in the sense that multiple people could be using the touchscreen wall and that it could be networked to other touchscreen walls) drawing programs. Not exactly a game, but it is something I've considered building in the past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here NEA refers to National Endowment for the Arts. Not, as I thought, the venture capital firm...

</comment><comment><USER9> Interaction makes video game the most successful entertainment ever. Of course video game is a kind of arts. Different from other art forms, we can see wisdom of not only the developers but also the players.</comment>


Good Math: A Geek's Guide to the Beauty of Numbers, Logic, and Computation - <AUTHOR> http://pragprog.com/book/mcmath/good-math

<comment><AUTHOR> I stopped math at highschool precalculus, and I've been afraid of it ever since. But I think I can foster a new relationship with math through this book. I am currently reading Quicksilver, and I was sold when I read about Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the Irrational and Transcendental Numbers chapter ([http://media.pragprog.com/titles/mcmath/irrationals.pdf](http://media.pragprog.com/titles/mcmath/irrationals.pdf))</comment>