'Real' programming is an elitist myth - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/databases-coding-real-programming-myth/ <comment><USER2> "I've noticed that when software lets nonprogrammers do programmer things, it makes the programmers nervous. Suddenly they stop smiling indulgently and start talking about what "real programming" is."

The reason it makes programmers nervous is because these tools enable you to do dangerous things without the required knowledge of where your no-code tools should end and yes-code solutions should begin. Most programmers have their horror stories of spreadsheet based solutions that have morphed into an unmaintainable monstrosity containing arcane business knowledge in undecipherable form.

The closest analogy I can think of is plumbing. You don't need a plumber to hook up your lawn sprinkler; You just use your no-plumb hookups and you're done. But I'd be VERY worried if someone decided to use garden hoses to hook up their new bathroom!

Not all tasks require "real programming", and rightly so. But there's a world of difference between what no-code and yes-code solutions can (and should) do. These people are called professionals for a reason.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I strongly agree with this. Much programming is scripting and works wonderfully in context, but is unequal to scale change or considerations of security.

"Real" programming to me always meant well-informed choices, made consciously. Higher risk strategies in real programs are understood risks not missed bugs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1983 take on 'Real' programming: [http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rni/papers/realprg.html](http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rni/papers/realprg.html)</comment>


U.S. Government Profiling Ethnic Chinese Scientists - <AUTHOR> https://concernedscientists.org/2019/06/u-s-government-profiling-ethnic-chinese-scientists/ <comment><AUTHOR> TLDR: Numerous ethnic Chinese scientists that work for U.S. government agencies, American colleges and universities and private industry have been profiled. Many are investigated, lose their jobs, their labs, their staffs, are arrested, tried and most are found "not guilty."</comment>


Help me get my app to Top 100 and I'll donate my $1000 ad budget to Red Cross. - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/city-of-blood-rpg/id881776096?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. I didn't want to blow my app advertising budget on spammy ads, instead I wanted to give it to a worthy charity. So here's my deal to you HN! Help me get this app within rank 100 by downloading it and/or reviewing it. If I reach my goal, I promise I will donate $1000 USD to the Red Cross foundation. That's the deal, and I'm a man of my word.

Here's the link btw [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/city-of-blood- rpg/id88177609...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/city-of-blood- rpg/id881776096?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4)

About the game itself, it's a simple text-RPG similar with some spy-strategy action similar to the "007 / Mission Impossible / Grand Theft Auto / Jason Bourne" style. The story gets pretty deep, and I'd estimate the game would take 2-3 weeks to complete. It is FREE and although there are in-app purchases, they are by no means necessary to complete the game. I poured my heart into making this game and I think it's pretty fun, so I hope you have a blast with it.

Cheers!</comment>


Rossi's Controversial Ni-H Cold Fusion Mechanism Replicated? - <AUTHOR> http://ecatfusion.com/e-cat/one-more-competition-for-e-cat-fusion

<comment><AUTHOR> The original source is this slide deck: [http://www.22passi.it/downloads/coherence2011/Celani%20a%20c...](http://www.22passi.it/downloads/coherence2011/Celani%20a%20coherence2011.zip) where the result is labelled "Very Preliminary" and dated 09/12/2011 (9 Dec, DD/MM european format?).

Another Italian scientist who attended the presentation blogged about it: [http://22passi.blogspot.com/2011/12/roma-14-dicembre- coheren...](http://22passi.blogspot.com/2011/12/roma-14-dicembre- coherence-2011-ii.html)

Both documents are in Italian. An news report in English about this experiment: [http://energycatalyzer3.com/news/top-italian-scientist- claim...](http://energycatalyzer3.com/news/top-italian-scientist-claims-to- have-achieved-nickel-hydrogen-cold-fusion)</comment>


Scientists May Have Just Discovered a Parallel Universe Leaking into Ours - <AUTHOR> https://www.inverse.com/article/7403-scientists-may-have-just-discovered-a-parallel-universe-leaking-into-ours <comment><USER2> This discusses the paper :

Spectral Variations of the Sky: Constraints on Alternate Universes by R. Chary [http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.00126](http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.00126)</comment>


Rent The Backyard (YC S19) wants to put a free tiny house in your backyard - <AUTHOR> https://www.rentthebackyard.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqY-20M_44wIVhbfsCh1SnwxeEAAYASAAEgKA3vD_BwE <comment><USER2> Related discussion when they launched [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20474724](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20474724)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 50% rent they keep, I think this is awesome.</comment>


14nm Atom is more powerful than 6-core AMD Phenom II, 10x today's Atom - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/14nm-atom-is-more-powerful-than-6-core-amd-phenom-ii-10x-todays-atom-20110728/

<comment><USER2> Whoo 10x faster Integer performance... unfortunately the Atom will still be slow in many workloads unless the floating point unit is upgraded and not to mention the in-order execution, Cache and much more.

But that is OK. The 14nm Atom is going to live in exactly the same niches the current atom is, it may have slightly better performance, but at the end of the day if they are looking at beating ARM, they are going to need to really reduce the power consumption of the supporting chipsets.

</comment><comment><USER3> And it will launch in 2015. Is Intel trying to win the war with ARM in the mobile market with _promises_?</comment>


Daniel Ha, Co-Founder of Disqus, talks about the YC experience (and how to get accepted) - <AUTHOR> http://talktech.tv/2008/11/14/interview-with-disqus-part-2-the-y-combinator-experience/

<comment><USER2> I hate stuff being described as prestigious. It's so lazy. It's like telling your girlfriend you like her because she's intelligent and has a nice personality.

<comment><USER3> It can't be that prestigious if they let me in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Am I the only one who is a bit spooked by the way she's holding that binder?

It's not a tanning reflector! You can let go of it!

</comment><comment><USER5> that chick has an annoying voice, makes you cringe when she talks</comment>


Ask HN: Is there way you can covert smartphone to a no contact thermometer? - <AUTHOR> Wondering is there an infrared dongle that can convert your phone to a no contact thermometer to read body temperature? <comment><USER2> Infrared thermometer: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_thermometer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_thermometer)

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

IDK what the standard error is for medical temperature estimation with an e.g. FLIR ONE thermal imaging camera for an Android/iOS device. [https://www.flir.com/applications/home- outdoor/](https://www.flir.com/applications/home-outdoor/)

I'd imagine that sanitization would be crucial for any clinical setting.

(Edit) "Prediction of brain tissue temperature using near-infrared spectroscopy" (2017) Neurophotonics [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5469395/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5469395/)

"Nirs body temperature" [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C43&q=nir...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C43&q=nirs+body+temperature)

"Infrared body temperature" [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C43&q=inf...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C43&q=infrared+body+temperature)

"Infrared thermometer iOS" [https://m.alibaba.com/trade/search?SearchText=infrared%20the...](https://m.alibaba.com/trade/search?SearchText=infrared%20thermometer%20ios)

"Infrared thermometer Android" [https://alibaba.com/trade/search?SearchText=infrared%20therm...](https://alibaba.com/trade/search?SearchText=infrared%20thermometer%20android)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.flir.com/browse/home-amp-outdoor/mobile- accessor...](https://www.flir.com/browse/home-amp-outdoor/mobile-accessories/)

<comment><USER4> I've got one of these and it's really good. The app sometimes get stuck, probably because it gets too much data and my phone is not fast enough.

Cat also sells phones with integrated flir cameras: [https://www.catphones.com/en- us/cat-s61-smartphone/#technica...](https://www.catphones.com/en- us/cat-s61-smartphone/#technical-specs)</comment></comment>


My first Start-Up Chile reimbursement - How the $40K grant works - <AUTHOR> http://emilytoop.com/2012/03/20/my-first-reimbursement-process-an-assessment/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is why you need to have at least $10K in the bank to cover your first 2 months and ongoing upfront payments if you want to participate comfortably in Start-Up Chile.</comment>


Freedom of Speech and the Fallacy of Demanding to Be Heard - <AUTHOR> https://areomagazine.com/2018/04/07/freedom-of-speech-and-the-fallacy-of-demanding-to-be-heard/ <comment><USER2> Of course, to believe in freedom of speech doesn't require you to engage with or listen to anyone. But it seems very coherent to me that, for example, Chomsky, defends freedom of speech and engages with random people emailing him, while SJWs oppose freedom of speech and tell everyone who tries to engage with them that it's not their job to educate them. But I can't put my finger on what the common root here is.</comment>


Show HN: The most satisfying hover effect - <AUTHOR> https://mdbootstrap.com/snippets/jquery/charkiewicz/831872 <comment><USER2> really awesome, I just decided to use it on my website [https://fr33maan.com/](https://fr33maan.com/)</comment>


[OP] the decay of reliable infrastructure - <AUTHOR> https://blog.dijit.sh/op-the-decay-of-reliable-infrastructure <comment><USER2> I have such fond memories of the dedicated server days, when I'd contact customer support to add a hard drive, then contact them again to upgrade the ethernet port speed, then somehow they would increase my port speed without charging me for it, then after that I'd get a 500 error whenever I'd try to create a ticket, then after I reboot the machine I find the partition table got nuked. Then I'd talk to three levels of customer service people before finding the senior guy who looks at the ticket system in the SQL monitor and says "that's interesting."

Then I move to AWS and I get a call from a crack salesperson who says that "people who leave us for AWS always come back" and you know... I haven't gone back.

And that was a reputable hosting company. Back around 2001 I was working with an entrepreneural minded MBA and he would find incredible deal for dedicated servers from companies that would suddenly go out of business or have their suppliers go out of business -- we got fast at restoring from off-site backups so it was ok...

If you need reliabilty, use a virtual machine on an IBM 390.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry you have that experience.

Typically I'm talking on a relatively big scale and I should have mentioned that in that poor excuse of a blog post.

We're a pretty big company, we have our own datacenters our own hardware. And usually when you work with a half-decent server provider you talk directly with a person who has physical access to the machine and the ability to change things like that.

Still- that doesn't discount your experience and if you're at VPS/Startup/Small infra level then cloud is a fine solution to be sure.

My experience of the cloud (amazons in particular) is that instances just "go away" for 8 hours and you cannot contact support, the little service alert says the availaibilty zone is green but you have a little dialog saying "you may experience some issues with your instance".

Which happened to be 8 times in one month.. And I'm sure that no client is big enough for amazon to start giving a solidary fuck about customer service in that regard.</comment></comment>


How to market your website on the cheap, by co-founder of reddit.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/doc/24126/How-to-market-your-website-on-the-cheap-by-cofounder-of-redditcom <comment><USER3> Nice article. But did it really need to be delivered to me via flash? :/

Maybe a youtube video of a camera panning over a printed out copy next? Or perhaps a Doom level file where the pages are texture mapped onto the walls.

<comment><USER4> Also, Websense at work blocks Sribd saying: "ACCESS RESTRICTED - <USER2> categorized as Personal Network Storage"

Can anyone please host the pdf in your server and post a link?

<comment><USER5> <http://indistinct.org/marketing.pdf>

<comment><USER6> I had the same problem, but that url isn't working for me - guess I will have to wait until I get home to read it!!

<comment><USER5> It should be working now, I had some problems this afternoon while trying to upgrade my gems, turns out that gem tries to load the entire tree into memory before operating. On a slice with only 256MB of ram, it sort of demolished everything. Sorry about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> OMG OMG THEY STOLEZ MAH CONTENTZ!

j/k

If you liked reading that, you'll probably like reading my blog, <http://redditAll.com>, in which case, you'd really like my current project, <http://breadpig.com>, unless you're not into pig superhero-led uncorporations -- in which case, what the hell is wrong with you?

<comment><USER8> Just ordered some LOLMagnetz. OMFG awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Second time today I've seen creating fake users suggested as an option for new sites. Is anyone actually doing this?

I know we certainly did it on the social site I used to own. It turned out ok, I guess. It certainly seems sketchy to me now. It seems like you would just want to improve your product until you got a lot of legitimate users, but that might or might not be the best way to go about it.</comment>


Not Zello – the real walkie-talkie on smartphone - <AUTHOR> I made an application for communication with everyone who is nearby (~ 10-15 km). The Internet is used for communication, users nearby are determined by their coordinates.
The goal is to provide a new (old) way of communication that does not require the exchange of contact information
This is a MVP. When the technology is debugged, I will propose using software to organize the work of volunteers near the scene of the incident - for example, next to the scene of an accident <comment><AUTHOR> [https://salute.tech/about](https://salute.tech/about) [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tech.salute.an...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tech.salute.android)</comment>


HN, what are you doing. - <AUTHOR>

This is HN front page at 22:20 GMT, 12.01.2013 : http://i.imgur.com/hM1Lp.png
There is a single (underlined) submission not related to Aaron Swartz. Multiple news site links informing us of his death. Blog posts on the topic. Even worse, old blog posts by him.
The topic is worthy of discussion, but 29 of them? Why? <comment><USER2> Yeah, I hear you but its what the members want to do. On top of that, stuff gets voted up. So, they doubly want to do this. Fair enough, IMHO. Im assuming that for some reason you and I don't know, there is a particular connection or kinship of some sort. Probably a sort of latent thing. It has certainly struck a chord.

Anyway, like most things, everyone will move on. And as shit and crass as this sounds, forget. All this talk of petitions and what not, will amount to nothing, and people will drone back to normal life, condoning those who really don't have their best interests at heart. Oh look, great bloke death. Cry, cry. Then back to: where's the next dollar? Business as usual. That's for me is the worse bit. The insincerity of it all.

Pissed? Hope so.

Now, any one reading this, if you down vote me, be damned sure I am wrong. Be really sure.

Look, if every down vote, or up vote, is a person with an new or slightly more focused desire to put their country right in this guy's memory, then good. Prove this arrogant mouth wrong. Please, prove me wrong.

Just thinking about it, look at all the tributes. Even from the UK I recognise many of the names. Cant you all get together on this? Looks like a powerful or influential group to me.

<comment><USER3> _there is a particular connection or kinship of some sort._

He was in the first batch of Y combinator.

<comment><USER4> That has little to do with majority readers if I had to guess. I suspect most HNers are not affiliated with YC and even though HN and YC are clearly connected, I view HN more like a better startup subreddit. To me, at least, the link matters little to back the reason. Any and all reason of why Aaron is on the front page, bears minor influence because of his association with HN. The part that does, is merely a reflection of being associated with anything people deem an accomplishment

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Think of it as a modern form of online memorial service - and treat it with the due respect. It will be gone by tomorrow. In the meantime, let those who wish to remember, remember. Let those who wish to talk, talk.

</comment><comment><USER6> Honouring someone who deserves it.

I'm not about to blog about it but his work and writing has been valuable to me personally and I'm thankful for it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Actually, I believe web.py is related to Aaron Swartz, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz>

<comment><USER8> Yes, that means 30/30

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Don't complain. Find something worthy of HN to submit.

</comment><comment><USER10> Personally I've been opening all the submissions that point to the big news sites. It's a small impact, but my click is a vote I want more mainstream coverage of the issues behind this.

</comment><comment><USER11> People over-reacting on the Internet. Who would've thought.</comment>


Understanding Git Filter-Branch and the Git Storage Model - <AUTHOR> http://manishearth.github.io/blog/2017/03/05/understanding-git-filter-branch/ <comment><USER2> It's things like these that really get you into understanding the underlying "truth" of things.

Four other examples really come to mind that I've encountered: \- Void pointers and structs in C (what actually are objects?) \- "Curiously recurring template pattern" in C++ (how does template metaprogramming work?) \- Ruby's declarative syntax in class definitions (ex: rail's `has_many`) (what are ruby classes?) \- Monkey-patching instances of Ruby objects (what are Ruby objects?)

It's a similar feeling to those moments when you realize almost everything you've ever interacted with is artificial: other people made the decisions that made that thing this way...

...and different decisions are possible.

<comment><USER3> This is basically about peeling away abstractions. A professor of mine calls this "mechanical sympathy", a term borrowed from I think racing. You don't need to understand how the n-1th abstraction level (the engine, git internals) works to get things done (racing, using git), but man is it very useful to know it anyway.

<comment><USER4> If you are working at level n, then in practice you usually do need to know about n-1 and n-2. E.g. web programmers write HTML and JavaScript but that stuff strongly depends on the basic properties of HTTP and indeed TCP connections.

There is also the phenomenon that the lower level are often more stable and universal than the higher levels. Your languages and APIs might make all kinds of arbitrary decisions, but they must still somehow tackle the same basic issues of resource management, synchronisation -- concerns which bubble up through all the layers.

<comment><USER3> I sort of consider those things to be part of the abstraction level n :)

Understanding some properties of HTTP is a part of the abstraction layer of HTML. It's not a perfect abstraction completely shielding you from HTTP.

<comment><USER5> Argument against considering them the same level of abstraction: HTTP and especially TCP stand on their own to do useful things (e.g. gRPC + every video game ever), so it's not necessary to understand HTML to understand and use HTTP. HTML and JavaScript can just be static files served over file://, even if most modern HTML/JS is delivered over HTTP. If you wrote perfect modern HTML/JS, you might never hit certain aspects of HTTP like 404s or 500s. You might be a DOM wizard but not have a deep understanding of 301s va 302s. You might understand nearly every HTTP header detail but get tripped up on ES6.

None of this is to argue that that a deep understanding of HTTP/TCP doesn't help write better HTML/JS, but they are separate things that can be considered separately.

<comment><USER3> I didn't say I considered http and TCP to be part of the same level, I consider _parts_ of them to be part of the same level (e.g. the basic nature of requests, like the GP was talking about)

Full use of xhr needs some (but not complete) understanding of http and TCP because the abstraction isn't a perfect one, nor is it supposed to be.

However, full understanding of HTTP/TCP can be very helpful, even if not necessary.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What computer stuff should someone learn before learning code? - <AUTHOR>

With all of these posts about whether people should learn to code or not learn to code, I figure I'd see what type of resources exist to teach people who are complete noobs to how to better use their computers.
Assume all someone knows is how to turn on a computer and browse the internet.  I'd like to see what resources exist to help very computer illiterate people how to be more literate.
I'm posting here because the average computer illiterate person can search Google for this stuff, but they won't know enough on how to find good, quality articles/resources that aren't spam or content farms.
Stuff I'm looking for is everything one should learn after having the ability to launch a browser right up until they are at the point they can learn formal programming/coding.
Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> Hi there, I would suggest just getting to know the basics of computer usage can be helpful. Like keyboard shortcuts, or browser shortcuts. Then maybe start getting tools that make you a more efficient worker on a computer (eg.dropbox, evernote, text editors, browser plugins, chat tools, email programs, bookmarking services). Learning these tools will help make your time on a computer more efficient and worthwhile. It will help keep your notes, thoughts, and ideas organized better which are essential traits of any coder. I suggest a site like lifehacker.com's BestOf series for shortcuts, tools, and other general computer related things. Gizmodo.com is another sister site that is part of the Gawker family that will have some decent articles to help you be a better computer-ist. There are tons of other sites out there to help, if you search reddit.com I'm sure they have a couple topics on these things as well.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> You should learn to code and learn other "stuff" related to computer usage (in principle how to use your operating system and a text editor) in the same time. This is how I started. (As a side note, my first programming was Fortran, but this was some time ago ...)

If you are completely new to programming I would recommend following the official Python tutorial:

<http://docs.python.org/py3k/tutorial/index.html>

or reading Zed Shaw - Learn Python the Hard Way (free to read online):

<http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/></comment>