Show HN: Whaller – create private social networks for your org and community - <AUTHOR> We've built a platform that enables private individuals and organizations to create their custom social network. We deployed a large range of features : you can chat, store your folders in our file boxes (works with Dropbox and Google Drive), assign tasks and display them in a Trello-like Kanban, create a portal for your organization...                                                                                We're trying to gather some feedback in order to improve our service. Here are a few screenshots : http://imgur.com/gallery/EFanm.
<feel free to visit our website at https://whaller.com <comment><USER2> Sounds like the space Ning (ning.com) used to be in. I thought they went belly-up at some point, but it looks like they're now focusing on general website building with added "social features".

</comment><comment><USER3> Just a heads-up, the Integrations text on the English version of your homepage appears to be in French.

Also, what would you say are your main selling points over your competitors (i.e. compared to other private social network platforms)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello, @ZenoArrow ! Thanks for the feedback, we've corrected that mistake. Our main selling point over our competitors is that we're completely customizable. You can either make it a corporate social network that is more user-friendly than Yammer/Chatter/connections.... or you can use it for your daily life (family, friends, students, neigborhood...) and what is great is that we do NEVER sell or share your data and you'll never see any ad on Whaller.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks very nice, it could very well be a game-changer.

Question: how do you achieve real-time. Long polling? Web sockets? Sente?

And, how many users can your system support at the moment?

Thanks! Very interested in the architecture, keep up the good work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi @sova ! Thanks for the feedback. Our system can support 100K useres/sphere. We achieve the real-time through websocket (socket.io)

<comment><USER4> Nice. Please take a look at [https://github.com/uNetworking/uWebSockets](https://github.com/uNetworking/uWebSockets)

There is a drop-in line that can make your socket.io a lot faster, if that's your jam.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You should post it with a direct link.

</comment><comment><USER6> Are these private social networks hosted by you?

It's not immediately clear.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi eps ! Yes they are but the Premium-plus offer allows you to store your data on your own servers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Your integrations section is still in French :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback @Neurocynic. We'll correct that !

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> this would be a great replacement for email since most of my emails are project/team related. love the site and previews. price is great too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks @mapster ! And you don't even need to pay for the premium offer. A big part of our users are happy with the free version. Even when it's free, we do not share your data and do not display ads.

I forgot to mention that our Edu offer is 66% cheaper than the price you see on the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Beautiful landing page.

I hate social networks.

<comment><USER9> It reminds me of Sim City clicking on parts of the grid with the sound effects in the background. I wonder if that was an inspiration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> 0\. If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good 'Show HN'. Show HN guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

1\. To directly submit a link, leave the |text| field empty on the submit page.

2\. Often there is little need to explain why a link was submitted because it is assumed that the person submitting it thought it was helpful or interesting.

3\. But it is ok to add a regular comment after the story appears on the |new| page.

Good luck.

<comment><USER11> Good idea. We've added "Show HN" above.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks guys !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not sure what it is but the screenshots make me feel itchy.

I take it privacy means privacy except from your boss, your company and the Govt.? So far fewer guarantees than with self-hosted FOSS alternatives?</comment>


Animated Content Tabs with CSS3 - <AUTHOR> http://tympanus.net/codrops/2012/04/12/animated-content-tabs-with-css3/ Content tabs are a very common and familiar element in web design, and often their turn out to be pretty useful. So, in this tutorial we are going to implement some simple CSS3 content tabs using radio buttons together with the :chec... <comment><USER2> At the risk if being down-voted into oblivion...

I love me some css, and I love me aesthetics extending beyond function. But the amount of superfluous css posts is getting ridiculous. We all know where to find these tutorials and demos without having to read about them continuously on the front page of HN.

 _Lovely tabs btw_

<comment><USER3> Especially ones like this, where their utility is somewhere between awful & dubious, it's an interesting hack sure, but I don't think I saw the article clarify that it is a terrible idea!

If a developer ever came to me advocating abusing labels/inputs/checked/z-indexes this way for tabs they would have their marching orders pretty quickly!</comment></comment>


What is the state of neural network pruning? - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.03033 <comment><AUTHOR> Model size reduction is incredibly important for getting ML running on people's devices. This paper is an awesome summary of the existing research, and its relative lack of coherence. :)</comment>


The mysterious (and cool) science of icicles - <AUTHOR> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/science/the-mysterious-and-cool-science-of-icicles/article23241318/

<comment><USER2> Even cooler is hoar frost, of which I am a bit of a collector (photos).

[https://www.google.com/search?q=hoar+frost&biw=1324&bih=515&...](https://www.google.com/search?q=hoar+frost&biw=1324&bih=515&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=pxD2VI21Oc6NyAS_lIKICw&sqi=2&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#tbm=isch&q=hoar+frost+window&revid=734315392)</comment>


Kickstarter for Minsky: system dynamics modelling (and sanity?) for economics - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2123355930/minsky-reforming-economics-with-visual-monetary-mo

<comment><AUTHOR> The Economist's "New Model Army" piece [http://www.economist.com/news/finance- and-economics/21569752...](http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and- economics/21569752-efforts-are-under-way-improve-macroeconomic-models-new- model-army) (also mentioned on the Kickstarter page) gives the background to this.</comment>


Termcoin – A Bitcoin wallet for your terminal - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chjj/termcoin

<comment><USER2> Careful using this, I'd personally wait until a proper security audit was done.

For instance, you're getting the user's wallet passphrase at line 1361. Does the passphrase just sit around in memory somewhere, long after the wallet encryption has been kicked off?

[https://github.com/chjj/termcoin/blob/master/bin/termcoin#L1...](https://github.com/chjj/termcoin/blob/master/bin/termcoin#L1361)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a bit tough to deal with this since javascript doesn't offer any real way to zero a string's memory. The way to do this would be to read from stdin directly into a Buffer object (which is malloc'd separately from the v8 allocator) and to buff.fill(0)/memset(buff, 0) once we're done. I'll definitely work on implementing this. Thanks for pointing this out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The underlying terminal parser is friggin' hawt: [https://github.com/chjj/blessed](https://github.com/chjj/blessed)

<comment><USER4> that really is sexy...quite possibly the best UI I have ever seen. brooding dark background and no nonsense colors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Heck yes, I've been looking for something exactly like this. I hate the Qt client, and the others I've played with aren't much better, but this is perfect :)

EDIT: Dumb question, running Mint 16 here, installed the nodejs package through apt, but termcoin looks for "node", not "nodejs". I copied the symlink as "node" and am just installing the npm modules now, but whats up with that?

<comment><USER6> the commandline binary for nodejs is just 'node'

<comment><USER7> Not on debian, where 'node' is used by something else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It looks amazing, and I do dislike the current bitcoin-qt that most of us use.

However, I'll be damned if I install it on my machine for at least a year or two after it's been released and fully verified by everybody in the community who matters.

<comment><USER9> If you're worried about the security then just verify it yourself, don't wait for others to do it for you. It's not like the source isn't available for auditing.

<comment><USER10> We're not all skilled pen testers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting, I've also developed a bitcoin client :) However, mine is completely independent of bitcoin-qt and is meant to be lightweight and snappy. It uses SPV. Here's a screenshot:

[https://i.imgur.com/pRLs1ps](https://i.imgur.com/pRLs1ps)

Let me know if anyone is interested in taking a look.

From my README file:

bitc is a _thin_ SPV bitcoin client.

      - 100% C code,
      - support for linux and mac platforms,
      - console based: uses ncurses,
      - home grown async network i/o stack,
      - home grown poll loop,
      - home grown bitcoin engine,
      - multi-threaded,
      - valgrind clean.

edit: indentation.

<comment><USER12> If you have some kind of email list, please add me "pj at pjbrunet.com"

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Finally something to replace the awful bitcoin-qt. Get the best of both worlds with a "gui" that is in the terminal.

<comment><USER14> Notably, there is as an alternative to this node terminal btc client.

        electrum -g [text | stdio]

The terminal interfaces could use more testing to say the least, but Electrum has been around since 2011. It's written in Python and includes support for CLI based multisignature transactions [1], raw transactions, proxies, and server selection. It was recently added to the Debian official repos.

It's actively used in ecommerce [2], and we've even heard on #electrum freenode of at least one Bitcoin exchange using it on the backend.

Electrum uses a deterministic mnemonic address generation system (soon to be BIP0032 compatible) and the Stratum protocol, which involves running a gateway daemon [3] and bitcoind on the backend, to tackle the large size of the blockchain and rather unwieldy individualized address generation scheme in use by Bitcoin-QT.

[1] [https://gist.github.com/atweiden/7272732](https://gist.github.com/atweiden/7272732)

[2] [http://acceptbit.com/](http://acceptbit.com/)

[2] [https://wordpress.org/plugins/bitcoin-payments-for- woocommer...](https://wordpress.org/plugins/bitcoin-payments-for-woocommerce/)

[3] [https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum- server](https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum-server)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Security sensitive software written in js huh?

</comment><comment><USER16> I've been ready to ditch bitcoin-qt . . . this is fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER17> After seeing the screenshot ([https://raw.github.com/chjj/blessed/master/img/screenshot.pn...](https://raw.github.com/chjj/blessed/master/img/screenshot.png)) I'll be switching to "Welcome to my program" from now on instead of "Hello world!" which is getting really tired. I don't know why I never thought of it. Facepalm.

</comment><comment><USER18> I see e-ink readers, such as the Kindle, being used as a POS system for merchants. Linux installed with this running.

It's awesome because it's super lightweight and can be installed on virtually any device without even having to run an X ui server.

That also means that you don't have to install anything _but_ this bitcoin client on the system, which dramatically lowers the possibility for attacks.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wish this was elaborated: "Ideally I wanted this to have all the capabilities of a full wallet, but that would require, for example, linking to to berkeley db to parse the wallet.dat. I wanted to write this entirely in node."

So it still makes a wallet.dat file but different wallet encryption? I'm a little confused.

<comment><AUTHOR> termcoin uses the bitcoind json-rpc api[1] for (nearly) everything (which means the same wallet.dat file, the same encryption (aes256-cbc), etc.). What I mean to say is, the bitcoind api is a bit limited with regards to how it can manage a wallet.

For example, there is no way to retrieve the "send" addresses from the wallet via the api. The only way to do this is by using bdb to open the file and reading it as a berkeley database. Send address retrieval is the only thing termcoin does not use bitcoind for: termcoin has a "dumb" parser built-in which reads the wallet.dat and searches it for bitcoin addresses, when it finds them, it checks to see that they're valid and also checks them against "receive" addresses.

The bitcoind api is also incapable of re-labeling or deleting addresses (bitcoin-qt itself cannot delete "receive" addresses). A lot of people end up using a tool like pywallet (which links to bdb) to get around this. These are the only two limitations in termcoin's functionality that keep it from being a fully-fledged wallet.

[1] [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Original_Bitcoin_client/API_Calls...](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Original_Bitcoin_client/API_Calls_list)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Great job, this looks really neat.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is better than having to read the docs every time I want to send a few coins...

</comment><comment><USER21> Please report if you lose any coins ;)

</comment><comment><USER22> Javascript was a bad design decision.

</comment><comment><USER23> Looks cool.

</comment><comment><USER24> Finally.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'd prefer CLIcoin

<comment><USER26> I'd prefer coinCli</comment></comment>


God Software - <AUTHOR> http://canadaduane.posterous.com/god-software This is an essay I've been working on that captures some of the thoughts and ideas that my brother and I have developed over time.  It is an analogy between software frameworks and religion. <comment><USER2> This post makes me wish there was a downvote feature.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why is that? Is it just a difference in belief, or is it something else?</comment></comment>


How gRPC improves fault tolerance in distributed systems - <AUTHOR> http://lpan.io/migrating-to-grpc/ <comment><USER2> Good stuff</comment>


Whipupitude Versus Very Serious Perl - <AUTHOR> http://www.modernperlbooks.com/mt/2012/07/whipupitude-versus-very-serious-perl.html

<comment><USER2> In general, this article is in defense of Perl programmers. Although I don't look forward to doing any blessing or hexing again, I'll agree that Perl has merits and can even scale with the right mindset (a masochistic one, jk).

These types of articles remind me of old martial arts films where rival schools try to prove which forms are the best. Rarely does anyone in the movie realize or mention that the road is far less important than the traveler walking upon it. (Insert actual Jeet Kwun Do / Bruce Lee quote)

Nitpicking, but does the writer change audiences two thirds of the way down? At first chromatic is addressing programmers and then apparently flips over to hiring managers or entrepreneurs. Or maybe the audience is just anyone who thinks Perl is only for quick hacks.

Finally, I checked out chromatic's projects page[1]. There are some contributions to larger projects, but I had to chuckle when I looked at the source code for Class::Roles and saw it was a few monolithic lines. Yea, Perl lets you do that, but who wants to read that, especially if you are stuck on a UNIX terminal and for some reason don't have syntax highlighting?

[1] <http://www.wgz.org/chromatic/perl/index.html>

<comment><USER3> I think you'd be better served by looking at his CPAN area [1] where you'll find this ~9 year old module (among others) is nicely formatted and highly readable [2]

[1] <http://search.cpan.org/~chromatic/>

[2] [http://cpansearch.perl.org/src/CHROMATIC/Class- Roles-0.30/li...](http://cpansearch.perl.org/src/CHROMATIC/Class- Roles-0.30/lib/Class/Roles.pm)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Piki, a fresh take on the wiki - <AUTHOR> http://piki.heroku.com/

<comment><USER2> I tried to edit the article entitled "Internal server error" but the controls for contributing to it weren't intuitive enough.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sorry, but this color scheme is unreadable. Contrast is your friend!

And I'd rather not see a bunch of "test" articles with one paragraph or so. Show me some dense, complex content, and maybe I'll grow interested (that and not having it 500 every 30 seconds).

<comment><USER4> I actually love the color scheme. Horses for courses, I suppose.

<comment><USER3> <http://saumya5.brinkster.net/hci/25.pdf>

Sorry, but a Wiki is about content, not looks.

<comment><USER4> I'm not convinced that such a precriptive statement makes sense. You could just as easily say that long-form books are about content, not presentation, yes I know of many books whose typography and presentation have a significant effect.

Perhaps Piki isn't what you think a wiki should be. Congratulations, know we know that semantic shift is alive and well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the cardinal features of a wiki is collaboration. It's unclear from poking around in Piki if it has any way to handle communal editing.

I like the automatically formatting things into headings and subheadings, etc. but couldn't figure out how to make links.

<comment><AUTHOR> I chose to focus on making Piki as useful as possible for smaller wikis written by individual writers. That's untypical of a wiki engine, but I think it's something worth exploring. Mass collaboration is great for some things, but the most original and polished work tends to come from individuals or small teams.

There is currently no collaboration or custom links (though a URL will turn into a link), but I plan to add these features in the future.

<comment><USER6> Congrats! You just reinvented a web page from 1993.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not exactly. Where Piki lacks in collaboration features, I believe it's far ahead of any other wiki engine in terms of user experience, considering the user is someone who wishes to have a place to organize their own thoughts and ideas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like it! Simple and elegant. Throw in a little Markdown syntax for bolding, italics, image embeds, etc., and I think you'd be well on your way to a cool thing.

Like others, I wouldn't mind forking/contributing if you ever decided to make it open source, but I respect it all the same if you don't want to go that route. I would actually love to use this as a small part of an ongoing project where we're thinking of including a small wiki functionality (although it would need to be either open source or something that was able to run on our servers for that, not remotely hosted...)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, that's what I was going for! Piki will never use a markup language, but I plan to add drag-and-drop image embedding and right-click text stylization.

People who seem to take the most interest in this also express desire to use it locally. I'll have to figure out a way to cater to you folks.

<comment><USER8> One can "style" text without a "markup language". For example star text star <\- bold. I went further in <http://simpliwiki.com/SimpliWiki>

<comment><USER9> > One can "style" text without a "markup language". For example star text star > <\- bold.

But that's a markup language. The difference between * text * and <b> text </b> is a matter of syntax, not kind. Also, in most forums like this one, asterisk text asterisk gives _italic text_.

<comment><USER8> It becomes a "markup" language (ala markdown, etc) when the "markups" are removed and replaced by htlm codes. As you noted, in HN, when using stars they get removed and replace by some <i>...</i> stuff.

<comment><USER9> > It becomes a "markup" language (ala markdown, etc) when the "markups" are > removed and replaced by htlm codes.

No. Asterisks that aren't lexical content are markup. HTML tags are also markup, just a different markup. When you replace asterisks with HTML tags, you're translating from one markup to another.

The markup cycle ends when the markup is rendered as styled text that a human recognizes as lexical content. For example, italicized text.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, my explanations were confusing.

The thing is I don't "replace" asteriks with HTLM tags, I keep the asterisks visible.

If star text star displays star text star in bold (ie, not removing the stars, inserting </b> stuff around the whole construct), is it still a "markup language" ?

Let say I process a text file to display it in HTML and the only addition I do is say "quoted content gets italicized". Is that a "markup language", or just some "text embellishment"?

The issue I am trying to address is the learning curve with all the existing markup languages. Without going the "wysiwyg" editing way, that is.

I figured out that if the "marks" are visible in the final result, they get easy to learn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Feedback: Let me see the product before I create an account. I hate it when I have to log in to something before they tell me what it is.

<comment><AUTHOR> I figured that letting people write without an account was not worth the added complexity, especially for a minimum viable product. You are free to look at any of the published wikis; the interface for writing a wiki looks almost exactly the same. I made the sign-up process as painless as possible, in case you ever change your mind.

<comment><USER11> No thanks. No matter how simple you make a sign-up process, it'll always turn people away.

<comment><USER12> That is not a fact.

<comment><USER11> It's not, it's speculation. But it's probably naive to assume it's possible to require information from a user (username, password is about minimal) and not turn at least somebody away.

Also, perhaps not impossible, but I've yet to see it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> True story: Piki was Stipple's original name, some 3+ years ago. I don't remember now why we changed it...

<comment><USER14> Probably because it sounds similar to a slur:

<http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pikey>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really liked that "section" -> "sub section" -> "paragraph" handling. Very unobstrusive. I am yet to study "contenteditable" but I'm glad it lets one designs such mechanisms. Kudos.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm happy that somebody recognized this :) It was a huge pain to mold the contenteditable element into a polished wiki editor, but I'm pretty proud of the results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Server's overloaded already; and something about the stylesheet makes the font appear weirdly garbled on FireFox ESR 10.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about the overload; this is my first web app and I can't afford to use anything above Heroku's free plan. I will look into the garbled text problem. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I went to the 'Learn' page first and then could not find a way to get back to the home page to sign up.

</comment><comment><USER17> Does Piki have a different data model from a "regular" wiki, or is it just the UI?

</comment><comment><USER18> Any plan to make this available to others someway somehow? I've been working on a writing project that would be ideally captured in a wiki, and I've been putting off the idea of writing my own software or deeply customizing other software.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ideally I would like to keep it as a service. Is there anything I could offer other than the server to convince you to use Piki?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> where is the source code?

<comment><USER19> <https://github.com/changs/piki></comment></comment>


Why You Should Care About TikTok - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/opinion/tiktok-sale-trump.html <comment><USER2> This isn't even an article and is more or less a pathetic cry for help.

How is TikTok any different to all other social media platforms for me to even care about it. It is like all the other social networks out there at their peaks and eventually their audience will grow out of it as usual and find something else to replace it.

This piece looks more like last minute squeaking from the NY Times squeak squad to me.</comment>


Every TED talk ever [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9advgMBbdo <comment><USER2> THANK YOU FOR POSTING THE LINK.

<comment><USER3> Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? (Edit: it looks like we've asked you this embarrassingly often already. We ban accounts that ignore these requests and I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please just fix this we'd be grateful.)

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

p.s. Coincidentally, I just deployed a bunch of code changes to try to do away with allcaps titles forever. It turned out to be harder than I thought.

<comment><USER2> Why are you embarrassed by this? Your code changes should be sufficient.

<comment><USER3> It's embarrassing, or ought to be, that we've had to ask you a half-dozen times already to stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News. Continuing to do that will get your account banned, so please stop.

Since most of those comments haven't had to do with allcaps titles, the code changes are not, alas, sufficient.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


OpenID getting more usable, a tiny bit at a time - <AUTHOR> http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9924037-2.html

<comment><USER2> Browser history sniffing to determine the user's IDP will be a big step; is anyone from Clickpass or JainRain listening?

<comment><USER3> Thats interesting. We (Clickpass) are looking at making it easier to choose alternative IDPs. Will see if BHS fits in, although its name suggests privacy violation which it clearly is not :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It looks a lot like what you get with the Clickpass button.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I was wondering if this competes with Clickpass? I want to add OpenID to my app and was contemplating using Clickpass. Does anyone smarter than me have an assessment of the relative strengths or weaknesses?

<comment><USER4> I've gone through the process of implementing OpenID and integrating with Clickpass. I have a clear understanding of what idselector does now, and I have reasonable guesses as to how it and Clickpass will compete going forward. However, I don't have a reliable way of determining if I'm smarter than you. Would you settle for simply more informed than you on this particular issue?

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't consider that settling :-)

<comment><USER4> OK, here's my assessment:

Clickpass and idselector both allow a "one click" login experience for return users. Both let you type in usernames for large OpenID providers to make things friendlier for people who don't want to type URLs.

Clickpass also provides a uniform registration interface. This helps new users tie their OpenIDs to existing accounts, and/or register a new account reusing profile information from previous registrations. This is especially handy if you collect square profile photos.

Idselector most likely does not do anything registration-related, although it potentially could using SREG. As a result it's much easier to implement. If you already support OpenID, just add some code to your login page and you're set. Clickpass requires some real development work.

If the Clickpass login button doesn't already work on sites that haven't done full integration, look for Clickpass to come out with a "lite" version that just works like idselector.

Look for JanRain to do more with registration in the future. I expect sites that use idselector will soon feel that that piece is sorely missing.

<comment><USER5> My goal is to allow the use of OpenID, to minimize as much as possible the DRY violation that is profiles (e.g. keep the minimum amount on my system, make whatever I use the most re-usable and source images, etc. from an already established and reusable location).

So, it sounds like the best path is to either add Clickpass now or wait and see what someone like JanRain does. Making it, ultimately, a matter of style and timing? I use Disqus, so maybe Clickpass gets one extra vote.

Thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Will trade UX advice/services for SEO advice - <AUTHOR>

I am in high need of expert SEO advice on a site I have just launched, and would gladly trade UX advice on any of your sites, or design/front-end services.<p>Please let me know if you're interested. Thanks. <comment><USER2> Hi, I may be able to help, please contact me at aymeric[at]wiselabs.net (and I am interested in some UX advice)</comment>


The Top 20% of Households Pay 88% of Federal Income Taxes - <AUTHOR> https://www.atr.org/top-20-households-pay-88-federal-income-taxes-0 <comment><USER2> Those numbers are meaningless without knowing the % share of income as well. FWIW, it looks like the top 20% take home ~50% of income: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/203247/shares-of- househo...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/203247/shares-of-household- income-of-quintiles-in-the-us/)

88% is obviously more than 50%, but when you figure in fixed living expenses, etc, it's not unreasonable on its face. More information (like the breakdown above 20%) would be helpful, but at the _very_ _least_ you _need_ to know the % of income to even begin to be able to understand the implications of tax revenue distributions. This is the case even if you don't believe in progressive taxation at all!

The fact that _necessary_ information is missing should be a huge warning sign --it was immediately apparent to me that the site had a strong ideological bias because of this omission, before I realized ATR stood for "Americans for Tax Reform", which I then recognized as a very right-leaning advocacy organization that plays fast & loose with facts.</comment>


Ask HN: What should I do with my wildduck.ca domain? - <AUTHOR>

So I saw this question here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4131334 and thought I'd ask HN's thoughts on what comes to your mind when you see Wild Duck.
To me, Wild Duck's an exquisite menu option at a high-class restaurant, the kind of restaurant that gives you the duck's entire CV, it's free-run, corn-fed, good at tennis, wear's a leather jacket, smokes a cigar and it's served on a bed of rice, you know 'cuz it's tired from all that late night partying.
But... what do you think? <comment><USER2> Private/bespoke hunting trips, perhaps? I know that in the southern US at least, private land owners rent out a small cabin to hunters during duck season. I imagine there's a wider market for arranging such things that doesn't depend on knowing a guy who knows a guy.</comment>


Why Doesn't Silicon Valley Hire Black Coders? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-howard-university-coders/ <comment><USER2> _That fall, when Facebook's Williams came to campus with colleagues, the visit didn't go over well. In a meeting with students, one Facebook employee brought up diversity so often that students say they felt uncomfortable—as if she wanted to talk only about the color of their skin and not programming. The event had been advertised as focused on diversity, but students had been eager to talk about jobs_

Is it so damn hard to understand that selecting skilled people based on their physiology rather than their abilities, is extremely offensive and demeaning?

Yes there are many who will say nothing and take the job (a salary is a salary after all) but I don't know if there's a skilled person out there who wouldn't feel disrespected

<comment><USER3> Seeing comments like yours today on this Bloomberg piece is quite reassuring.

I technically count as a "minority" and I have no other way of phrasing this: it is extremely irritating to see companies push for diversity by hiring based on skin colour or gender.

Luckily, I live in a country that strongly opposes these kinds of policies, so I get to feel proud of my ( _very_ modest) achievements in this field.

To see these students and other minorities never being able to experience that feeling makes me quite sad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This kind of made me throw up in my mouth a little.

It's like every smart kid who knows something about computers is chomping at the bit to become a mercenary-in-training for soulless megacorps, and their keepers are every bit as gung-ho on making that happen.

Instead of making overtures to Google and Facebook, they should be making the next big thing that kicks them square in the nuts. If anyone from Howard University is reading this, get started on it. I believe in you.

</comment><comment><USER5> > The slow progress reflects the knottiness of one of Silicon Valley's most > persistent problems: It's too white.

That's not true. Whites are underrepresented at Silicon Valley companies compared to their share of the US population. Asians are massively, massively over represented. Why?

There is no way to answer the question without opening the can of worms that is test scores, IQ, etc. So instead of being honest, the story paints a politically convenient narrative that is not actually true.

<comment><USER6> OK, I'll bite. Maybe it is wrong that SV companies have proportionally more Asians than whites. Not "morally wrong", but wrong in the sense that Asian communities have optimized for certain metrics (tests, school performances, college aspirations) and SV companies have just gone along with what's in the pipeline. Despite the fact that SV has a long history of highly successful companies being started by dropouts and other kinds of "miscreants".

So these SV companies should alter their recruiting process so that their hiring pool isn't basically a mirror of Stanford's application pool. (full disclosure: I'm Asian. I also work at Stanford. I also play no part in Stanford admissions and probably have less clue about it than the average outsider)

That's fair enough. So what's wrong with making an effort to examine the ways that the SV hiring process systematically -- but not intentionally or maliciously -- filters out blacks, Hispanics, and women from engineering positions?

<comment><USER7> > _Maybe it is wrong that SV companies have proportionally more Asians than > whites. Not "morally wrong", but wrong in the sense that Asian communities > have optimized for certain metrics (tests, school performances, college > aspirations) and SV companies have just gone along with what's in the > pipeline._

How is that wrong? Let the other communities optimize for those metrics too.

And if those other communities have a history of systemic oppression, poorly funded school districts, legal bias against them, etc, attempt to fix that too (which would be even more important for the community overall than getting more people from the community to work in some specific industry).

> _Despite the fact that SV has a long history of highly successful companies > being started by dropouts and other kinds of "miscreants"._

That's just a myth based on a few selective cases, which even count people like Zuckerberg with a Stanford education or Bill Gates as "drop-outs" because they didn't finish their degrees.

Besides, a founder can be of any potential background as they are not to answer to anybody else nor do they have to have any specific technical skills (a DB admin position however, or a data science one, does have to have them).

And even then, they are usually from well educated, well connected, and usually well white, backgrounds. I'm not so sure we want to take them as example of with which criteria to hire.

<comment><USER6> Any time there are metrics for success, there is potential for unhealthy incentives to arise in a system, which results in an overall decrease in whatever the metrics were supposed to optimize for. If this is the premise, then having other communities optimize for the metrics is not going to result in a positive outcome for Silicon Valley or society in general.

Test scores were seen as a fairly efficient way to determine academic skill and intelligence. Obedience to school authority is seen as a metric for character. Also, being penalized by school authorities makes it significantly harder to be an active participant/leader in school activities, which is seen as an important metric for well-roundedness, talent, etc.

Imagine how much of SV wouldn't exist today if the prevailing mindset -- in society and among venture capitalists -- was that a good-tier college degree was an important metric for tech workers and entrepreneurs. Not to sound like Peter Thiel here (and admittedly, showing some serious survivor bias here in this line of reasoning) but SV has shown that huge success can be made from folks who didn't go through formal college. Would Steve Jobs and Steve Woz even be taken seriously as entrepreneurs in today's environment, where college degrees are significantly more common than they were in the 60s and 70s?

> _And if those other communities have a history of systemic oppression, > poorly funded school districts, legal bias against them, etc, fix that too._

This has been an ongoing fight for decades. You think SV should wait on political overhaul before making decisions regarding optimization of their workforce>

<comment><USER7> > _but SV has shown that huge success can be made from folks who didn 't go > through formal college_

From all industries I know of, SV is probably the poorest example of that, close to medicine for needing a degree to get anywhere in fancy SV companies.

Commerce, the hospitality, the restaurant business, and tons of others are way ahead in that regard...

Besides, shouldn't we demand more engineering and computer science, and less ad-hoc crap and reinvention of the wheel from self-taught programmers?

More Xerox Park and Bell Labs, and DEC, and SUN, and SGI, and so on, that is, and less "dropout that builds some social BS app"?

<comment><USER6> > _From all industries I know of, SV is probably the poorest example of that, > close to medicine for needing a degree to get anywhere in fancy SV > companies._

You must not be familiar with journalism, which has a long storied history of amazing journalists who never went to college. Today, it is nearly impossible to land any kind of internship without a college degree, or some other extreme qualifications (being very wealthy, or from a very important family). I think it's a function of the commonality of a college degree and the significant reduction of available jobs in journalism.

> _Besides, shouldn 't we demand more engineering and computer science, and > less ad-hoc crap and reinvention of the wheel from self-taught programmers?_

As someone with a CompEng degree myself, I'm not going to argue with you _against_ the benefits of an engineering degree. And I won't make an argument based on the existence of Woz (a college dropout who managed to be a stellar self-taught engineer and programmer). And there are obviously successful SV startups that have been started by people with formal educations, as well as complete disasters from dropouts (e.g. Theranos). But you think the main driver of innovation in SV is coding/engineering aptitude and discipline?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > "Silicon Valley is rife with Stanford and MIT graduates who started coding > during childhood, won programming competitions in their spare time, and > spent their summers interning at startups. At Howard, few of Pratt's > students fit that profile."

> "None had programmed before college."

I think these two quotes answer the headline question.

Specifically, give one group of people a 4+ year head start in the field in addition to engaging in activities that will build confidence for the person when engaging in those activities (e.g., participating in and/or winning programming competitions in high school), is it really a surprise that the less-experienced group is grossly underrepresented in hiring?

To make the above comparison not about race, how well are low-SES white people represented in Silicon Valley? Probably at equally low proportion for similar reasons -- they just don't have the same amount of experience as the highly competitive applicants.

What's the solution? Reach out to underrepresented populations and get them started on programming much earlier. It's expensive and time consuming, but it's totally doable.

<comment><USER2> _Specifically, give one group of people a 4+ year head start in the field in addition to engaging in activities that will build confidence for the person when engaging in those activities (e.g., participating in and /or winning programming competitions in high school), is it really a surprise that the less-experienced group is grossly underrepresented in hiring?_

I think the assumption that to qualify for employment in SV you need to hack full products in your garage, participate in coding/science school competitions and have a MIT/Stanford degree, doesn't hold under scrutiny

<comment><USER8> Agreed. It wasn't my comment -- just a summary of the article. I almost wrote a parenthetical in my original reply to the effect that I doubted the ubiquitousness of the first quote.

That said, I do think that the prior experience is a real issue. Rather than "winning programming competitions"or "hacking full projects in your garage", I do think it's safe to say that the vast majority of the folks who are competitive applicants to AppAmaGooFaceSoft started programming and were exposed directly or indirectly to CS ideas before they entered college. This may have been as simple as making a website for a school club (although frankly it was probably quite a bit more than that), but even actions as small as making a website open the door to a new world -- it is the beginning of the process of exploring new ideas and new problem spaces.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The answer to all of these questions are the same uncomfortable truths that people don't wish to admit:

* Classism

* Racism

* Sexism

* <other>-ism

The problems for the under-represented isn't just the end of the tunnel where people are quick to claim "But <insert minority> is not applying!"... it's the entire tunnel.

It's really hard to be a <insert non-cis white male> in tech. Because at every step there is an obstacle.

Those obstacles may be in your face (racism when you move to an area that is predominantly something else), or subtle things like you not being able to afford to live in SF because your minority doesn't have the implicit network strength of being the average white male and it's hard for you to find a place to live.

The average developer that you may have seen from a minority background has already overcome more obstacles than their peers. But importantly, the vast majority never made it so far. The obstacles reduced their numbers long before.

I look around at those who have made it, and the majority are white males from stable middle-class backgrounds. This stability and security, this confidence that a supportive family gives, this safety that a low-crime area brings, access to materials and space in which to learn, this reinforcement at every step that you are surrounded by "people like you" and that you deserve to be there... is such a huge thing that is taken for granted. If you're a white male in tech, consider whether you could have made it to where you are without all of that. Of course there are lots of individual exceptions (I spent 2.5 years sleeping rough and come from a background of poverty and abuse)... but by and large, this is your privilege and it is also why the numbers for <minority> aren't there.

For those that do make it... support them and help them. They've had it hard and deserve not just what they've achieved but more too.

<comment><USER10> > I look around at those who have made it, and the majority are white males > from stable middle-class backgrounds. This stability and security, this > confidence that a supportive family gives, this safety that a low-crime area > brings, access to materials and space in which to learn, this reinforcement > at every step that you are surrounded by "people like you" and that you > deserve to be there... is such a huge thing that is taken for granted.

You imply that white people are privileged because they're white, yet look at this sentence. It seems to me like poor white people _don't_ go into tech. Couldn't socioeconomic/cultural differences explain the discrepancies and not systemic racism/sexism/-ism?

Just because statistically more white people grow up middle class does _not_ mean that all white people are privileged. Acting like they are is discriminatory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's essential to take such articles with grain of salt, because the "empowering black people" problem exists mostly in US/UK. It's surreal to work in low cost center of American company somewhere in developing contry being paid and treated like shit, then one opens the company's intranet and sees articles like "we empower black Americans!". I couldn't care less. There are awful culture problems in the industry, yes, but they have very litte to do with hiring or not hiring black Americans.

</comment><comment><USER12> Tonnes of kids from great CS programs apply to jobs at Google/Facebook/Pinterest/etc, the reality is that it is difficult to secure a job at these companies straight out of college. Call me ignorant, but I don't think race is the reason why black coders aren't given a chance at these companies. All these companies are looking to "diversify" their workforce (they even have teams focused on this issue!), they are just having trouble finding quality talent within non-represented groups.

</comment><comment><USER13> Because they interview them but they aren't a "cultural fit".

Nothing is more important than protecting "the culture". [https://medium.com/@bchesky/dont-fuck-up-the- culture-597cde9...](https://medium.com/@bchesky/dont-fuck-up-the- culture-597cde9ee9d4)

The article above says that "Culture is simply a shared way of doing something with passion.", but in fact means "same as us: young white/indian/asian boys".

"Culture" is a get out of jail free card that allows anyone to deny a job to anyone at all whilst sounding entirely credible and important.

If you really want diversity then you would require reasons for rejecting any candidate, but you're not allowed to say "they weren't a cultural fit".

<comment><USER14> My experience of "culture fit" is that it's actually used much more often for "can code well but is a jerk" than anything else. Anecdotal though.

<comment><USER4> My field report on "culture fit" would be child of academic or fussy schoolteacher. There's a sort of pedantry in their communication that will take you further than your abilities in academia, yet _really_ rubs everyone else the wrong way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm black myself(although just African not American). Science and technology are my ethos. With that out of the way, I think that a major contributor is the prejudice and stereotypes deriving from both the black & white communities.

</comment><comment><USER16> The same reason they don't like hiring women coders and coders over 30 (because of ageism). They use "culture fit" to shield them from diversity.

I hate to be cynical, though. It's just that I know too much about how tech companies operate. There's no doubt in my mind that there are more black coders working now than there were when I got into this industry, and that's a good thing. They just don't have much visibility now, but I think that too will change. Baby steps...

<comment><USER6> If it makes you feel better, most companies in every industry have similar biases.

<comment><USER11> so those culturally unfit, once on the other side, where do they go?

<comment><USER6> Where do job applicants who don't get hired normally go?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd be curious to see how the proportion of students hired into Google or FB from Howard compares to a normal school (not Stanford or MIT) with a CS program. Out of 30 students in the senior class, only 1 or 2 were hired on full time, which comes to be about 3-6%.

I'm more concerned about whether the other 95% of students are finding technology-related jobs at all. If not, that would be a bigger problem in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER18> >Silicon Valley is rife with Stanford and MIT graduates who started coding during childhood, won programming competitions in their spare time

They've identified the problem.. Maybe fund a program to teach programming to economically disadvantaged kids? in 10 years, those kids will be on a little more level playing field.

</comment><comment><USER19> The US is crazy about race as always. Just hire the most qualified person for the job.

<comment><USER16> You make it sound as if every other Western country with a tech footprint doesn't do the same thing. They do.

<comment><USER20> Not to the same extent.

<comment><USER16> Sounds like a classic form of selection bias to me. Most high tech companies are in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've thought about this a lot. If we're going after the most affected, it's going to be inner city youths. They have a lesser chance of making it through a 4 year, because their support structure isn't there because of historical injustices. K-12's can change their curriculum to focus more on tech for a specific type of application, instead of just "build an app, write node, learn python" generics. Especially if they can turn out talented students before HS graduation. >Microcontrollers >Auto Engine Management Systems >Civil Infrastructure >Utility Infrastructure I know these are by and large not the 'sexy' pie in the sky stuff most 'hot' investors chase, but these are upper- middle class jobs that there is less competition in, and are actually vitally important, meaning they will be around longer than SNAP inc. I think with intensive focus, the people who are placed in these programs, their kids will be completing CS 4 years and competing for 'creative applications in the valley', but the foundations need to be built up first.

</comment><comment><USER22> This article was originally published in 2016, and HN had a lot to say then as well [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10944966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10944966)

</comment><comment><USER23> Because there aren't as many, sadly, and many convince themselves SV is not for them, or they have no chance

<comment><USER24> I don't think anyone fresh out of college could afford to live there, not even in a shared house.

When are the big SV companies doing what's right and creating new offices in other cities where there's talented developers that can't afford to move to / live in SV and/or its shit conditions?

<comment><USER25> Everyone I know who got a job out of college in SV/SF got at least a 100k total comp package (usually more). Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and all of the bigger companies offer ~150k total comp or more to new grads. That said, some start-ups definitely do pay less, but it's not so bad that you can't at least get a room mate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> cup-of-tea I think there is a good reason. I'm not going to say what it is, but it's wrong to hold white people accountable for it.</comment>


Xkcd forums breached, password hashes leaked - <AUTHOR> https://forums.xkcd.com/ <comment><USER2> Can't wait to see the comic this inspires.</comment>


WakeMate Android Demo - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wakemate.com/2010/06/25/wakemate-android-demo/ <comment><USER2> 2 Weeks since I have asked for a refund and was told it would be coming shortly, still nothing. They can't even ship my own money back to me :\</comment>


Ask HN:  What good is a 'non-binding' letter of intent? - <AUTHOR>

I feel like this is something that only moves us entrepreneurs sideways oppose to forward.  Am I wrong?  Should this be exciting news to hear from an investor or is this one of those 'kissing your sister moments'? <comment><USER2> I did one of these with a potential client several years ago. Its absolutely non-binding and served nothing except to make her nervous. My business partner pushed for us to do it so we could have something for a press release. [http://mannea.com/2007/05/21/church-crawford-signs-letter- of...](http://mannea.com/2007/05/21/church-crawford-signs-letter-of-intent- with-muse-isle/)</comment>


Confessions of a CEO: Why I killed a 2M dollar product - <AUTHOR> http://growthlab.com/why-i-killed-a-2-million-dollar-product/ <comment><USER2> "Confessions" is an odd part of the title. The article presents an interesting analysis of churn and why closing a product line with high churn makes sense - it seems like it was a good decision to close it. "Confession" seems to apply that he did something wrong in closing it, when the article suggest that it was the spot on move to do so.</comment>


Khan Academy Opens Its Doors - Carefully - <AUTHOR> http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/11/the-khan-academy-opens-its-virtual-doors-carefully/

<comment><USER2> "But the curation part of this effort is key. Though there will be a "Wild West part that someone can dig through if they're in the mood," he said the designated subjects will be heavily curated"

I am very interested in how they will pull this off. This quote suggests that he'll divide the site into two chunks: curated and uncurated (with overlaps I would assume).

It's a daunting task. I am especially curious how they will select which videos to upload and which to reject (or will they accept anything into the uncurated section?).

I wish Khan the best. Education desperately needs to be disrupted. We are paying way to much for way too little.</comment>


GitHub Actions is my new favorite free programming tool [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.bytesized.xyz/github-actions-tutorial <comment><USER4> I have spent the last two days fighting with these new Github tools. I've been trying to do a simple Hello-World Maven app, built on Github Actions and deployed to Github Packages. It does not work.

Github documentation is a disaster. They leave out critical parts. They don't provide examples. Everything they write is terse, confusing, and incomplete.

They have short little articles on how to do things, and for each sub-task they have a link to docs somewhere else. This would be fine, except the links don't point to anything useful.

To give an example: they say you can use the Github API to talk to Github Packages, but the link goes to their generic GraphQL documentation. They don't point to any reference material on the actual calls to the packages service. If it exists, I can't find it.

If you go to the main page in your account for Github Packages, it says that all you have to do is this:

mvn deploy -Dregistry=[https://maven.pkg.github.com/mycompany](https://maven.pkg.github.com/mycompany) -Dtoken=GH_TOKEN

That is just straight-out wrong. It does not work.

Seriously, Github, you need to fire your documentation team and hire some people who know how to write. Perhaps you should hire people who have actually used your tools to write the docs. Or just provide some freakin' working examples.

<comment><USER5> I am with you on this. It seems to be a new trend: "show users how to do a hello world" which was disregarded in the past... but somehow that turned into "instead of providing real documentation" rather than "in addition to."

It's not just GitHub. There's a language I (and the rest of HN) love that has adopted "story format" for documentation but is missing real, hard technical documentation apart from method-level codedocs. It's nice for building momentum but it leaves you unable to find a central location with an architectural documentation of the system.

<comment><USER6> Someone please tell the Google Cloud Platform teams this. So many hello world examples which reek of, "I was told to write documentation but I really hate writing documentation". I mean this in good faith, I think writing documentation for a product you don't actually use is a miserable experience and I hope they can find a better balance...

Writing documentation also seems to be a task you kick out to your junior developers that you'd rather not give more critical assignments to, which is backwards as can be.

<comment><USER7> If there's one documentation that I hate with my gut, that is GCP documentation. Like wtf is going on there. Just to give you an example of how horrible it is, just check their Vision documentation: [https://cloud.google.com/vision/docs/](https://cloud.google.com/vision/docs/)

They have quick starts, tutorials and how-to-guides. How are even those things conceptually different at all?. And their reference is just a list of their methods like if I knew out of the box how to use your API. Like, what the heck. Just tell me how to talk to your API in simple terms. How hard is it?

"To use the CGP vision API there are two ways to authenticate and connect. 1) REST 2) SDKS" and then just explain to me how to do it simply.

Don't ramble like if this was the fucking Iliad. Go straight to the point and organize your information better.

<comment><USER8> It's possible that I'm jaded by non-existing documentation, but skimming over the docs in your link, this actually looks like an example of _good_ documentation*

The API reference in particular you pointed to has a top-level description + linkable reference to each individual method / resource along with brief description. AND, for older versions, as well as a description of "objects" used in the API. I guess it would have been nice to also have a sandbox playground, like some of their other APIs do, but this one is fairly good?

Just curious, what's an example of great API in your mind?

*(possibly not in-depth enough, but I wouldn't be able to tell as a newbie).

<comment><USER9> In this case, google cloud vision, it seems like the docs are fine. It's the platform that's confusing because it requires too much ceremony to get started.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would hesitate to build on anything that relies on GitHub native tooling. GitHub support is absolutely the worst. Their tools fail in weird ways at times, and without support you will be stuck. For personal/non production apps, fine. But beware of using it as a core part of your infrastructure.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the warning, are there any good tools that integrate with pull request checks that can be self hosted?

We self host nearly everything at work except for github. (And it's VERY difficult for me to get anything that costs money approved regardless of price)

<comment><USER12> Product Manager for GitHub Actions here. You can self-host the GitHub Actions runners. This means that you can run CI/CD workflows on your own hardware, while your source code is hosted on github.com itself. [https://help.github.com/en/actions/automating-your- workflow-...](https://help.github.com/en/actions/automating-your-workflow- with-github-actions/about-self-hosted-runners)

<comment><USER11> We're currently trying to use Github Actions but we've run into a few issues. The first is that when our team members push pull requests from their forked branches it doesn't trigger checks on the pull request. I understand this is for security reasons, but in our case the repository is private and all forks are considered trusted.

The other is that there's currently no way to label specific workers. Because of how our network/firewall is segmented we would like to be able to specify a worker for Staging/Dev/Production separately. The closest thing I found was this [0] pull request from October, but it doesn't add the ability to add custom labels.

Is there any timeline for either of these features (especially the labels)?

[0] [https://github.com/actions/runner/pull/130](https://github.com/actions/runner/pull/130)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Github actions is nice but I think they go to wrong direction. The way they work is you are given an image then you have to use a thing call Github action, which basically just to extract out into YAML to define a certain steps for install any dependencies, execute shell script ...

I don't know why they didn't allow us to use any docker image we want so we don't have to waste time to use actions to install dependencies...Eg, if your app depend on both Go, Ruby, Node at build time you will need:

[https://github.com/actions/setup-go](https://github.com/actions/setup-go) [https://github.com/actions/setup-node](https://github.com/actions/setup-node) [https://github.com/actions/setup-ruby](https://github.com/actions/setup-ruby)

I much prefer CircleCI way

<comment><USER14> > I don't know why they didn't allow us to use any docker image we want

Can you imagine allowing anyone on the internet to run an arbitrary container on your server for free?

<comment><USER15> That is what every CI service in the world is. Docker doesn't intrinsically give you any privileges a shell script doesn't, but there is flexibility to really lock things down (like with gVisor). Of course, a lot of people run the Docker daemon in such a way as to give containers root access, which isn't ideal in a shared environment. There is no mandate to do such a thing, however.

I built an old-style Docker container (i.e., one that runs code like "apt-get install foo") on Github Actions successfully, so I assume Docker works fine. I haven't tried getting root on a build worker, but I imagine they mitigate that in some way. (Perhaps by having a pool of VMs and blowing it up after your build is done.)

I think what the OP is talking about is CI systems whose pipelines are declared by a series of "run this command in this container" instructions. Github Actions doesn't work that way, but you can still run containers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The GitHub Actions Runner has just been open sourced [https://github.com/actions/runner](https://github.com/actions/runner)

<comment><USER17> That's awesome, thanks for the link. I made an AUR package: [https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/github- actions/](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/github-actions/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Maybe it's changed in the last month or two, but last time I looked at GitHub actions I couldn't find a single example of "Build docker container and push to GitHub Packages".

There are a lot of cool examples demo'ing some nifty stuff, but I'd like to see a lot of _very_ basic examples first. The sort of thing anyone could/would copy into their project and use, then later learn how to make it fancy.

</comment><comment><USER19> What's up with so many YouTube video's (including this one) having ALL CAPS titles?! It makes me not want to watch them, although it may be different for the general public for some reason ... ??

<comment><USER20> It's because

YOU WILL NOTICE THIS ONE

in a list of

other normal text

<comment><USER21> I GUESS WE'LL JUST

HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL

EVERY ONE LOOKS LIKE THIS

so then this one

WILL STAND OUT AGAIN?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> We managed to move our iOS CI over to this in a couple of days. Produces multiple independent builds based on branch names, signed with an enterprise profile for testing and QA. These are uploaded and shared via ms app center. It also produces our App Store releases signed and uploaded to the App Store via a regular developer account.

The process was mostly just changing out a Jenkins file to the GitHub yml and sorting a few issues that cropped up.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'd be hesitant to build on GitHub tools that have overlap with anything Microsoft provides. When something similar is introduced to Azure, why keep the subsidiary's internal competition around?

This happened already with VS Code vs. Github's Atom editor whose development has ceased earlier this year. (Not that I ever was a huge fan of Atom, but its discontinuation is a direct result of the Microsoft acquisition.)

<comment><USER24> Github actions is most definitely using Azure build pipelines behind the scenes. Microsoft is smart about boosting revenue figures. Id be shocked if this wasnt the case.

<comment><USER25> I am afraid that Microsoft will kill GitHub stuff in favor of azure stuff, but I think the risk is low because it seems like GitHub's whole purchase was for goodwill.

If I had to bet, I think "azure devops" will go away and GitHub will eat it.

Currently the Actions free tier is cheaper than using azure build pipelines which is kind of weird, but nice for GitHub users. I think it's because GitHub is a limited subset (ie, doesn't need to support Windows IaaS build types) so it may be cheaper to run.

<comment><USER26> I'm convinced their goal is to leverage GitHub to win the cloud wars and that they'll keep porting all of their Azure products onto it until GitHub is the cloud provider.

I bet we'll see a click to deploy button on github for most common web frameworks soon.

Having your git history hooked up to your deployed infrastructure will allow them to do some amazing things around live debugging. (similar to what google is doing with cloud source repositories [https://cloud.google.com/debugger/](https://cloud.google.com/debugger/)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Only thing I don't like about GitHub Actions so far is the YAML structure. e.g.

        name: master-pull-request
        on:
          pull_request:
            branches:
              - <USER2>
        jobs:
          test:
            name: run tests
            runs-on: ubuntu-18.04
            steps:
              - uses: actions/checkout@v1
              - name: Run gradle test
                run: |
                  ./gradlew test

I much prefer Drone CI's YAML:

        kind: pipeline
        name: default
        steps:
          - name: run tests
            image: openjdk:8-jdk-slim # Docker images!
            commands:
            - ./gradlew test

<comment><USER28> GitHub's format is like Drone's "multiple pipelines" feature in a single document instead of separate ones. Drone uses multiple documents that each define a different set of steps while GitHub does that in a single document with separate jobs.

It's just an issue of preference, I suppose, but I prefer GitHub's way of doing things. I find it easier to read and understand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> While it's not perfect, GitHub Actions was pretty straightforward to set up for an open source iOS project I help manage[0].

Most of the actions were pre-existing Makefile targets used during the bootstrap process anyway, so the YAML config was fairly lightweight.

Echoing the other comments in the thread, the docs did feel a bit sparse when I last poked around (this was back when Actions was still in beta).

[0] [https://github.com/birdrides/mockingbird](https://github.com/birdrides/mockingbird)

</comment><comment><USER30> I had to setup CI for a GitHub open source project recently, and decided to give GitHub Actions a try. I have to say it's pretty nice to have the CI directly handled by GH (GitLab has been doing it for years, I know...). I hope it's gonna help some open source projects to easily add CI validations to their PR workflow.

That being said, there was only Ubuntu images for the Linux builds, and I'm not aware of a way to run custom containers at the moment.

<comment><USER31> Most of the Actions are actually custom containers. So to run your own code you can just make an action, which isn't that complex.

<comment><USER12> PM for GitHub Actions here. I wouldn't suggest that you build an action to run a build within a container. We offer container support for workflow runs which should be suitable for this. (Either by specifying the `jobs.<job- id>.container` or by using `docker run ...`)

Actions themselves are meant to support the workflow and distill a set of complex steps into something that can be done in a single workflow command. (For example, download and set up a new version of a Java JDK.) They're meant to be used as steps in many peoples workflows, instead of executing a single workflow.

The actions themselves can be built as either a container, which is self- contained, or as JavaScript. I often recommend the latter, since that will work cross platform (containers only work for people who are using workflows running on Linux).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I really liked GitHub's pipeline description file, but my issue with GH Actions was that the pipeline was slow. The same job running on the cheapest/slowest free-tier available Semaphore runner took half the time than on GitHub. That's with caching, parallelization on GH too.

Otherwise it could be a good product, and I'd really like if I could manage the repos and the CI from one unified place

</comment><comment><USER33> Tried it out a week ago, but the docs weren't too helpful and the build templates I found were buggy.

<comment><USER34> That seems to br the general sentiment in this thread. I hope somebody of power within Github is reading this, or someone that can pass the info along to such a person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Free? We are a paying Org and pushed a few test docker images (built via Actions) to the new Packages (aka GH docker registry) and you have just 2GB really free (well, included in your plan). Then you have to pay extra. We have like 80 accounts, already paying a lot of $$$ to GH and they give you 10000 minutes of free Actions - which is cool - but ONLY 2 freaking gigabytes of storage for free??

</comment><comment><USER36> How do people test GHA before pushing to github? I encountered a tool or two to assist but they require the action to be described with HCL not the newer YAML syntax.

</comment><comment><USER37> Outstanding video ... beginner-friendly, great signal-to-noise ratio, succinct, excellent visuals and a clear voice.

<comment><AUTHOR> hey, thank you so much! I'm super proud of it, been trying to improve every aspect of my vids from scripting/storyboarding, recording, editing, etc - <USER3> think it all really came together well here!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> @mods As far as I understand, this should be tagged as [video].

<comment><USER39> Added. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Russell Kirsch, the inventor of the pixel has passed away - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_A._Kirsch <comment><USER2> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel): The concept of a "picture element" dates to the earliest days of television, for example as "Bildpunkt" (the German word for pixel, literally 'picture point') in the 1888 German patent of Paul Nipkow.

But Russell Kirsch was born in 1929.

<comment><USER2> But that's wrong, too, because the concept is clearly as old as cross-stitch and related forms of embroidery, which go back to the Middle Ages at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Obituary, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/russell- kirs...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/russell-kirsch- computer-scientist-who-scanned-first-digital-image-dies- at-91/2020/08/13/a234a22c-dccd-11ea-b205-ff838e15a9a6_story.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Should be two Ls ("Russell").</comment>


Ask HN: Draconian rules/policies at your current or previous company? - <AUTHOR> Throwaway for obvious reasons.
In the place I work at, we start off the day with a standup meeting from members of different teams at 8:00am, which is a little bit on the earlier side of the day since many employees have 1+ hour commutes. This standup was imposed after many of the team members that participate joined the company (before that, the standard time to arrive was at 9:00am). The meeting is in-office, mandatory.
Any person that arrives even one minute late, gets  50% of their corresponding pay for that day off. Mind you, many of us work 10-12 hours a day and are expected to be available at any time of the day in case someone needs us and even during the weekends (I, for instance, have a mandatory meeting on Saturday and it is expected of me to fix anything that goes wrong with our product during the weekend). We do not get paid extra-time for any of those extra hours that we put. <comment><USER2> I really hate when I read a post about a particular issue with a company and everyone dog-piles on with "find a new job".

Usually, the issue is minor or can probably be resolved with a discussion.

Not in this case. Start applying for new jobs ASAP. The fact that the company is willing to dock your pay by 50% for a on min late arrival signals a god- awful culture. RUN.

<comment><AUTHOR> > The fact that the company is willing to dock your pay by 50% for a on min > late arrival signals a god-awful culture

I brought that up to the CEO/founder and he responded that he's open to proposals. I said that my proposal was to eliminate that policy, but he mentioned that "you cannot replace an idea with a non-idea". Then I mentioned that they should at least reduce it, but he responded that if they reduced it, people would start getting in late (which they rarely did before that policy, and if they did, it was for very justifiable reasons).

<comment><USER3> You should always come with solutions, not just problems. Here is a solution: we move the stand up back to a reasonable time to better retain talent and we immediately stop the half pay dockage and retroactively repay all those affected to not be in violation of labor code, which could constitute serious fines. And I do recommend looking up the code.

<comment><AUTHOR> I liked the way you expressed it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Any person that arrives even one minute late, gets 50% of their > corresponding pay for that day off.

Is that even legal?

<comment><USER5> IANAL, but from what I know if this is happening in the U.S. it isn't legal. Even piece meal pay wouldn't allow for it, and hourly surely doesn't. Salary also doesn't permit this as type of pay docking as you aren't being paid for "hours", but for a position.

Frankly, I'd report it to the wage and labor for whatever state, but my guess is this is outside the US.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks to everyone that has responded so far. I didn't want this post into an advice-seeking conversation, but I really appreciate that you're pointing the red flags. I know that no workplace is perfect, so I just wanted to relate with others that have terrible workplace environments with toxic cultures.

I could go on with the list of things that are definitely off (the gaslighting, the verbal abuses, the fear culture that's been instilled, nano- management, etc.), but that's really not the point.

Also, this is not in the US, but it's also illegal here.

I've started to interview at other companies and will leave soon (and hopefully wiser).

I also think that many of these rules, policies, toxic culture, etc. weren't created in a void, but they were built with one stone a time, all of that subtly disguised in 'the company's mission', or with statements like "less millenialism, more professionalism", and the 'work hard' mentality (that the founders don't even abide to, since they work the least of all, some even have side gigs). I really feel sorry for many of my non-tech co-workers that don't have that many options out there.

</comment><comment><USER6> Dude it's time for you to find a new job. I understand the meeting. Every place I worked either had them or started soon after I started. Programmers tend to get in later and later and eventually production starts to suffer. But losing 50% pay is not acceptable. Also they are monopolizing too much of your time. You can do better and should move on.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'll _try_ to present a different point of view from the other comments. (Whether it applies or not, depends on the actual context within your environment - which only you and the people around you are privy to).

There seems to be some history to this decision (and probably other decisions), as indicated by your comments:

      This standup was imposed after many of the team members that participate joined the company (before that, the standard time to arrive was at 9:00am)

      I brought that up to the CEO/founder and he responded that he's open to proposals. I said that my proposal was to eliminate that policy, but he mentioned that "you cannot replace an idea with a non-idea". Then I mentioned that they should at least reduce it, but he responded that if they reduced it, people would start getting in late (which they rarely did before that policy, and if they did, it was for very justifiable reasons).

I find it hard to believe that simply having new hires would have triggered this change in timing from 9am to 8am. Did someone, _deemed_ senior/important, request this change? Is the standup headed by your founder? Were people constantly late to this standup/meeting?

Further, what is the average/median work-ex of team members in your company? Are people able to work largely independently, or do they essentially need face-time with senior members to be productive?

PS: Try not to internally frame this as an "but flexi-time _should_ be there, it is best for developers" argument. Those are not universal truths. They need to be seen in the context of the business/domain you are in, the maturity of the team, and the culture that the company wants to build/promote.

Context: I'm a founder where I have implemented heavy-handed policies after getting tired of people not adhering to basic work-place protocols ("professionalism"), even after informally pointing out such things multiple times.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for your insightful reply. There's definitely history to that decision. It started with the 8:00am standups because that was the time when all the participants were free (since most arrived at 9:00). The way I see it is that essentially they forced everyone to work for an extra hour, because none of their other duties where reduced.

And while I'm an advocate of being on time, and perhaps use sticks when people are not, 50% off from your daily salary seems excessively harsh. Please take into account that most people have 1+ hour commutes, sometimes even 2+ hour commutes (we live in a city with some of the worst traffic in the world).

> I find it hard to believe that simply having new hires would have triggered > this change in timing from 9am to 8am. Did someone, deemed senior/important, > request this change? Is the standup headed by your founder? Were people > constantly late to this standup/meeting?

Maybe I didn't explain clearly, but this change wasn't because of the new hires. What I meant is that when most of the participants in the meeting joined the company, we joined with the idea of a standard 9-6 job. The late arrivals weren't that big of a deal to impose such policies.

> Further, what is the average/median work-ex of team members in your company? > Are people able to work largely independently, or do they essentially need > face-time with senior members to be productive?

It's a highly operations-driven company, so we need a lot of communication, both us team leaders with our teams, and between team leaders.

> Try not to internally frame this as an "but flexi-time should be there, it > is best for developers" argument. Those are not universal truths. They need > to be seen in the context of the business/domain you are in, the maturity of > the team, and the culture that the company wants to build/promote.

I completely agree with this point. I see value in having those standups. I see value in having them at a specific time. I see value in having them early in the morning. Heck, I even see some value in using sticks if we're not there on time. Perhaps my frustration stems from my personal situation, where I'm constantly pulling 60-70 hour work weeks, plus a mandatory leadership meeting on Saturdays (11am-3pm), plus whatever bug arises at whatever time. The 60-70 hours a week are not mandatory, but it's what's needed to get things done. It just sounds unfair.

> heavy-handed policies after getting tired of people not adhering to basic > work-place protocols ("professionalism"), even after informally pointing out > such things multiple times.

This is a great comment. Would you mind sharing some of the policies that you implemented?

Now, I hold an important position in the company and I'm very close to the founders, so I understand the rationale behind these policies. But I disagree with the outcome.

Now, I'm one of the least affected since my commute is short. But it has forced me to change some habits, like commuting on Uber instead of public transportation (which has significantly increased my expenses). Even when I do arrive late (about once or twice a month), it doesn't affect me financially (I don't live paycheck to paycheck). But I think it's so unfair that it really pisses me off.

My course of action will be to vote with me feet and leave. But I definitely want to get a better sense of what's fair in the workplace and what's not. Which ones are acceptable punishments and which ones are not.

<comment><USER7> Also, please see if you can get (or estimate) the following:

      - absolute pay deductions in a month
      - pay deductions as a percentage of monthly salary bill

My guess is that both these numbers will be miniscule. I don't think the idea is to "steal pay" and make a profit. The underlying motivation is something else, and it has been unfortunately implemented in a very questionable manner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd say: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySO- gryuO-c&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySO- gryuO-c&feature=youtu.be&t=96)

</comment><comment><USER9> Find a new job immediately.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is ridiculous. Tell us what the company is, we as a community need to know so that we can avoid this bs.

Also as others have said, you should start shopping around for a new position.

</comment><comment><USER11> Depending on jurisdiction this company exposes itself to legal liability.

Sounds more like a sweatshop

</comment><comment><USER12> Sounds like a '50% corresponding hours' for a minute late.</comment>


Ask HN: What other sites do you read on a frequent basis? - <AUTHOR>

Similar to HN, what other sites do you visit on a regular basis? <comment><USER2> TechCrunch, Venturebeat, BBC, AlJazeera...but I also get an embarrassing amount of my information from Twitter [hides in shame].

<comment><USER3> aljazeera? the new york times for terrorists? really?

<comment><USER2> Ha! Give it a chance, the quality of the reporting might surprise you [http://america.aljazeera.com/](http://america.aljazeera.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://www.reddit.com/r/programming](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming)

</comment><comment><USER5> [http://www.reddit.com/r/futurology](http://www.reddit.com/r/futurology)

</comment><comment><USER6> I read: aaplnow.com daringfireball.net theverge.com polygon.com

but mostly I find stuff through twitter.

</comment><comment><USER7> [http://www.producthunt.com/](http://www.producthunt.com/)

<comment><USER8> Won't say that I "read" it, but would check the new products by its chrome extension

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Blogs on [http://affbuzz.com](http://affbuzz.com)

</comment><comment><USER10> on a frequent basis, and other than HN:

inbound.org

growthhackers.com

</comment><comment><USER11> unexpected finds at [http://www.newsblur.com/folder/global- blurblogs](http://www.newsblur.com/folder/global-blurblogs)

</comment><comment><USER12> StackOverflow.

</comment><comment><USER13> Nextbigfuture.com

</comment><comment><USER3> slashdot, bruce schneier's blog, null-byte

</comment><comment><USER14> 4chan.

<comment><USER15> This. It is my guilty pleasure. There's no other place in the web where I've wasted as much time time and, at the same time, learned so much.</comment></comment>


High-precision control of printed electronics - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2017-07-high-precision-electronics.html <comment><USER2> Paper at [http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/6/e1700345](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/6/e1700345)</comment>


Almost Everyone at CollegeHumor Lost Their Jobs Today - <AUTHOR> https://www.vulture.com/2020/01/collegehumor-layoffs-sale.html <comment><USER2> Meanwhile, also IAC: [https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/476894-chelsea- clinton-r...](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/476894-chelsea-clinton- reaps-9-million-from-corporate-board-position).

<comment><USER3> Wow - I should say I'm surprised? But It makes sense for scrum to congregate.

<comment><USER2> It's a sad day when such obvious corruption ceases to be surprising.

<comment><USER4> What's the corruption?

<comment><USER2> Quite obviously Chelsea Clinton wasn't paid $9M for her breathtaking business talents. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Funny or Die had an engineering office?

</comment><comment><USER6> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuOBzWF0Aws](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuOBzWF0Aws)

</comment><comment><USER7> Yeesh, who drew the shadow in that logo? The top edge, and the area inside the top of the H is totally wrong.

<comment><USER8> Yeah also the serif of the C has no drop shadow from the arc of the C or the serif itself. But maybe it's graphical humor.</comment></comment>


Source Code Typography - <AUTHOR> http://www.naildrivin5.com/blog/2013/05/17/source-code-typography.html <comment><USER2>
        > This is typeset poorly, insomuch as it does not honor the readability
        > of the content, instead hindering it.
        var x = shape.left()
          , y = shape.right()
          , numSides = shape.sides()
          ;

This typeset is meant for better diffs. When adding a new var declaration, one will find

        + , foo = bar

Instead of

        - numSides = shape.sides();
        + numSides = shape.sides(),
        + foo = bar;</comment>


Open source radio software Airtime released with easy install package - <AUTHOR> http://sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/release/

<comment><USER2> This looks extremely cool, but I almost didn't bother to see what it was all about. A couple of suggestions, strickly speaking from my "cold start" (as in, I've never seen this before) experience with the website:

* The term "Demo" lead me to believe I would be logging in to the tool to try it out, which I wasn't really interested in doing. I was pleasently surprised to find a video there. Maybe consider renaming this to "Demo Video", or even better, "Intro Video", which is more descriptive.

* I'd even consider moving that movie to the home page. I'm sure lots of internet radio broadcasters know who Robert Klajn is, but he's completely unfamiliar to me, and it comes across as name dropping right up front. I'd have felt much better seeing the demo video up front.

* Consider adding a "wide" version of the site template for pages that show video and screenshots so that the media can expand beyond the 850-ish pixels you have in the left column. This would be especially impactful for the screenshots, which I found difficult to see at their current size. Ultimately, I discovered that I could click on the photos and view them on Flickr, but it takes a few clicks.

Overall a very cool product that encourages creation.

<comment><USER3> Note the demo. page includes a link to the actual demo, where one can login & play with the software. I was wielding it a few days ago and it's fantastic :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As someone who used to be a production director, program director, and DJ on a low-power FM radio station, this looks absolutely awesome!

The way we handled playlists and show airtimes was pretty arcane compared to this. We basically used some custom software I had written for our station which included basic scheduling and whatnot, along with Winamp and good old pen-and-paper (this was from 2003-2008, so pretty recent); this looks better by about 1000x. I'm considering getting back in touch with those guys and suggesting they give it a try (I think it'd be worth installing Ubuntu on their computers just to give this a go).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> @bradleyland - thanks for the comments on the site. We've implemented some of those changes already. As @davidandgoliath said, there is a demo on that page - I've removed the video so that's more obvious (and added the video to the initial blogpost).

Encouraged to see the reception here - Airtime is at an exciting and sustained moment of development right now, so plenty more new features in store for the next 12 months, especially with regards to live broadcasting.</comment>


Securely Logging and Tracing HTTP Requests in Go - <AUTHOR> https://zvelo.com/securely-logging-tracing-http-requests-go/ <comment><USER2> I'm the author: feel free to ask me anything!

I think that it's a nice example of Go's composability (i.e., with respect to http.RoundTripper).</comment>


Ask HN: How do you datamine yourself? - <AUTHOR> Hello HN! I was thinking about collecting data about myself and using it to draw conclusions about correlations between my actions, feelings and health.
So far, I was not able to find a good way to track all this data. There seems to be no application I could find that - I can host myself (this data is very sensitive) - can track all properties I want via computer / webinterface / mobile app. - is extensible
Apart from that I was thinking about what kind of data to track. So far I could come up with the following: - data about health and physical activity like sports, step count, walking distance, weight - movement profile - Usage of my digital devices (computer, mobile device): When did I turn it on / off, keystrokes count, display brightness, which apps / websites did I use, meta data about messaging, ...
Most of the data will probably require a lot of effort to track. I would later not only draw conclusions about myself, but could also learn about data science.
I would also be interested if you do something like this and what kind of things you found out!
Thank you! :) <comment><USER2> Your browser history!

Correlate that with a diary, grocery receipts, bank statements etc.

You can export it as a CSV and get some surprising info.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea, thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you want to analyze your data it's crucial that you have as much data as possible, so start right now using applications that are already available and that can export the data they collect via csv, you can always start using a self hosted solution once you find it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have a device in my car that automatically keeps track of every trip. I use it to plan better routes and reduce overall time spent driving.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why don't you just use a service, like Apple/Google Maps that does the planning automatically?</comment></comment>


NASA's Morpheus moon lander crashes and burns - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57490372-76/nasas-morpheus-moon-lander-crashes-and-burns/

<comment><USER2> The crash on an experimental platform from a hardware failure might cause them to reevaluate their claims of this fuel being better? I am honestly disgusted at the article ending in something so ridiculous for the sake of precious fake controversy.</comment>