I'm a Coffin Confessor - <AUTHOR> https://www.newsweek.com/coffin-confessor-tell-secrets-beyond-grave-1529381 <comment><USER2> I am on the fence on this.

Culturally, it's my feeling that funerals are not for the dead, they are for the living, and this is a way for the dead to cut into the lives of people who now get to move on.

The "zing" element of it is just a way for someone to be hurtful to people who can never have closure on that...

On the flip side - not everyone is cynical, they may say some of the things they had a hard time saying when they were alive, affirmations that maybe made them uncomfortable, or admitting wrongs that may have been too difficult to do when alive.

I'd hope that a service like this would be thoughtful, and pensive, and think of those who are left behind as a primary focus.

Edit: and this is all possibly moot as it sounds like this person isn't even real (I get that this is speculation, but I'm just sharing it because I agree, this story is questionable): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24427464](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24427464)

Edit 2: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24428153](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24428153)

Pretty good evidence this is actually real, so, yeah, my comment stands though :)

<comment><USER3> >and this is a way for the dead to cut into the lives of people who now get to move on.

this is why I absolutely love this, it has a Diogenic quality. I've always really disliked how churches and funerals lull people with their bog-standard speeches and an hour after the funeral everyone's bickering about the news or who gained ten pounds of weight.

A death is a great opportunity to shock people out of their everyday stupor, and when my grandfather died who was always somewhat of a trickster, he asked to put a recorder into the coffin with a sort of knocking sound that should play when he was lowered into the grave. Obviously everyone completely freaked out and half of the people were mad but I laughed my ass off.

I think this is life affirming and when you can shock some people and have something they ought to be reminded of a funeral's the time to do it, they'll probably remember it for a long time.

<comment><USER2> I don't disagree, and I think if a person does this on their own it's great, I think that as a business, this kind of thing could be pathological involving folks who aren't as awesome as your grandfather, and I assume your family was fully aware of his mischievous nature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One of my first "startups" was basically this as a service in 2006 [1] and the Houston Chronicle did a brief story on it under "Get the Message" in 2007[2].

The idea was basically that anyone could pay to get any message delivered anonymously using our service as a cut out [3].

1\. Client pays UCC to send a message of their choosing

2\. UCC Contractor delivers message and sends proof and any response, back to UCC

3\. UCC sends client the proof and any response

This was pre-smart phone, pre-gig economy, pre-easy payments and was done with me hiring random people off of craigslist as messengers and taking messages from emails.

I think someone could actually turn this into a real service today for really cheap. Probably doesn't scale though.

[1] [https://web.archive.org/web/20071106164225/http://upclosecom...](https://web.archive.org/web/20071106164225/http://upclosecommunication.com/main/UCC- home.asp?p=1)

[2] [https://www.houstonpress.com/news/random-checks-at-the- boliv...](https://www.houstonpress.com/news/random-checks-at-the-bolivar- ferry-up-close-communications-ted-poe-gene-green-and-mac-haik-6540517)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutout_(espionage)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutout_\(espionage\))

<comment><USER5> I made a service ([https://www.deadmansswitch.net](https://www.deadmansswitch.net)) back in 2008 to do the same. You write a few emails to your loved ones, then the service checks up on you every so often. If you never reply, it sends the messages.

Much cheaper than sending someone to crash a funeral, but also much less dramatic.

<comment><USER6> More dramatic if you're ADHD and get excited about finally having a way to tell everyone about all shitty things you've done because your impulse control is shot, so you sign up for it relieved that you'll finally be able to get it all off your chest in a way that doesn't trigger your rejection sensitivity dysphoria only to be absolutely mortified some months later when you're secrets are spilled while you're still alive because you got the email and thought oh yeah I need to reply to that but there are only two times in your mind "now" and "not now" and because it's usually "not now" you put it off subsequently forgetting altogether and then boom.

Well... At least life is never dull.

<comment><USER7> Juesus. Um, just don't sign up for the service in the first place if you're incapable of replying to the check up emails? That seems really obvious. And this is coming from someone severely ADHD. I know I would never be able to keep up with a system like that so I would never sign up for it.

<comment><USER6> You know... I didn't always used to know why I am the way I am. And before I did, I believed I should just be able to do things and never realized just absolutely abysmal my impulse control is, so this is the kind of thing that would catch me out.

These days I know to avoid things like this for the reasons stated.

<comment><USER8> Have you tried medication?

See eg [https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine](https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine)

<comment><USER6> I'm trying it now. Other than making my heart jump out of my chest occasionally I don't really understand what it does. It doesn't seem to actually _do_ anything for or to me. I understand that happens to about 20% of people, so I'm just going to try work my way through the available options to see if anything works.

Used to self-medicate with copious amounts of coke, pepsi and red bull and fast food. Bit of a mixed bag that.

Actually on the subject of secrets and coke, I stole like 200 cans of it from a place that used the honor system. I needed my fix and couldn't stop myself from doing it. Always confused me why I behaved that way and why I couldn't stop. When I got diagnosed a lot of things like that just started to make sense.

<comment><USER9> I was given medication as a kid and this was my experience as well, I'm personally not convinced it helps.

What does help me quite a lot (ordered by effectiveness):

Regular daily exercise (this one is surprisingly effective)

Avoiding certain foods (sugar, red dye)

Having at least some moderately mindful side project (building kits, reconfiguring your wm, working on OSS etc.) I play ukulele, but I would call noodling mindless so be careful with that

Avoiding mindless stuff like YouTube/reddit/HN (heh)

Getting dragged off to actually go do things by eg your girlfriend (I feel bad because I'm usually upset at her when she does this, but I've told her many times that it does actually help me, that must be confusing.)

IMO: if you let yourself be impulsive it puts you in an impulsive mood and makes giving in easier, I'm not saying this stuff is perfect but it's the best I've found.

<comment><USER8> Interesting! Different things work for different people.

Though having said that, exercise and good sleep hygiene are almost universal panaceas for almost any mental or physical problem one might have.

They might not cure you, but they sure help make almost anything at least slightly easier to bear.

I only got diagnosed with ADHD at age 30, and was already doing exercise etc. Some low dose medication really helped me. Including giving me the mental spare capacity to tick off more of the other items on your list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I... don't believe this? Maybe parts of it are based in truth, but the explanation for not doing it as a video feels weak to me. I feel like most people would want him to show a video, not disrupt it himself? It feels like a fantasy.

There's almost nothing online about him other than his interviews, and all of a sudden this week numerous articles about him separately popping up? Something feels a bit off.

It's almost like it's becoming true because it's been printed? He can now go make a show or sell the service to people or whatever, and when people say "is this true?" he can point to all the articles about it as proof. It doesn't matter if it's true anymore, because now there's enough sources that it's fact.

<comment><USER11> I first saw it reported by ABC news (the national broadcaster) by reporters who live and work in the area. That's a strong signal that it's true.

I checked if there was a registered business and there was. Details here: [https://abr.business.gov.au/ABN/View?abn=68196068066](https://abr.business.gov.au/ABN/View?abn=68196068066)

Seems believable to me, when I first read it I thought "Typical Gold Coast!"

<comment><USER10> I believe there's a business registered... in fact, that's the point, right? This is an ad.

The name was changed only a few months ago. Before that, the company name was Freedom from Debt Collectors.

Like I said, I'm sure there's a bit of truth in this. And I'm 100% sure he'll take someone's money to show up at a funeral. I just feel like somethings off in general.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I get a 'fake it until you make it' vibe from this. The stories just seem a bit too "pat", like simplistic morality tales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd think a lot less of the deceased after a display like this. Their best friend may-or-may-not have wanted to sleep with their wife but whatever, leave me out of it. I'm trying to pay my respects and mourn a friend, not get caught up in some love triangle.

Of course the deceased could also have lied for reasons best known to themselves. The 'best mate' is not in the best condition to defend themselves if it turned out the deceased was delusional.

<comment><USER14> Agreed. It just seems like a dick thing to do (assuming the impact is negative).

You're dead. Your opinions don't matter any more. You don't even get the satisfaction of spilling the beans, because, well, you're dead.

Sure, maybe nobody will know your wife cheated on you. But that's ok, because you're dead. Why bring more pain to the living?

Now, if you were have someone crash the funeral to tell your spouse how much you loved them. Great, nice idea.

But the vindictive examples seem like a complete waste of time and only hurt people. Especially putting the gay biker (apparently not everyone knew)). Great friend he turned out to be.

<comment><USER15> This is some wack logic. If I murdered you and stole your car, would you mind if I got away with the crime? What's that, you'd be upset? Doesn't matter, you're dead.

<comment><USER14> This article has nothing (zero) do to with crimes. Not sure why you went off on that tangent.

<comment><USER15> So only crimes are wrong? The coffin confessor does mention that he offers to confess crimes after someone dies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Speaker for the Dead has a much better ring to it.

<comment><USER17> It's already a well known novel[1]. You will have copyright issues.

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

<comment><USER18> > It's already a well known novel[1]. You will have copyright issues.

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

I thought book titles are not subject to copyright?

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.writersdigest.com/.amp/copy...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.writersdigest.com/.amp/copyrights/can- you-copyright-a-title)

<comment><USER19> They can be trademarked, which is why you can't use "Harry Potter" without permission.

<comment><USER20> True, but trademarks need to be registered, and doing so costs money. (Though probably a negligible amount for a publisher, at least if they believe the work will bring in a lot of money.)

That's a bit different from copyright which is automatic and free of charge.

But bringing up both things are good points either way.

Which makes me wonder, what happens if I were to write a book and two months later someone decides to rip off the title for their own book, and my publisher decides to trademark the title of my book? Would the trademark application be rejected because someone else used the same title in the intervening time? And if the trademark application was granted, would my publisher be able to demand that the other author/publisher stopped printing their book under the same title, or would they still be allowed to do so because their titling of the book preceded our trademark?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I found the first few examples very sad. How miserable of a person do you have to be if you've been given a death sentence (illness probably) and spend the little time and energy you have left plotting drama at your own funeral, so that a third party can shame and expose the people who are attending your funeral??

I also think it's unfair of the second example to come out as gay and also name his lover at the funeral. I'm guessing this was a secret because that particular bike club wasn't very open minded, the deceased doesn't care because now he's gone but his lover probably does very much care but now he's burned.

I really hope that if I'm ever in this situation i can focus on being grateful and spend my time on much more positive things as I'm dying rather than revenge beyond the grave.

I also just finished reading Eugene o'kelly's book (chasing daylight) on his last 100 days between when he finds out he has terminal brain cancer and only three months left to live, and how he is doing everything he can to have the beat time of his life while also making it easier for his whole family and friends to deal with his death. Quite a contrast from the story in the article and much much more positive.

<comment><USER22> You make it sound like what you do your last few days matters more than what you and other around you did before.

<comment><USER21> Not necessarily, but think about it: you're given a month left to live. 30 days. Does it make any sense to spend time and energy being bitter and angry, and spend some of that time on people you dislike so that you can get revenge after you're dead (and thus won't even be around to see)? In my opinion, you have to be miserable to even entertain the possibility vs spending all the time you have enjoying yourself and saying goodbye to the people you actually do love.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There was a English politician who committed crimes with a partner, and then feuded with him.

He wrote a book describing their joint activities, and had his son publish it after his passing, so as to embarrass the former friend.

When he died, this politician was greatly respected. After the book came out, it made him seem so crass, petty and vengeful, that his reputation was completely shattered.

It was so bad that another famous man - I think Churchill - said that this was the first case he knew of a man committing suicide posthumously.

If anyone can give names, would appreciate it. But I bet a service like this will offer many more the ability to accidentally destroy themselves after their death.

<comment><USER24> There is a long tradition of political deathbed "conversions." Politicians taking positions opposed to popular opinion or politically structural norms after their political careers are over.

It is craven by definition, but it is what it is. Unspokeness exists because there are pressures. It is naive to think that politicians do not hold opinions that they keep to themselves to some extent. Such is politics. People too, not just politicians.

In a US context (not american, but I guess US politics is our lingua franca) Eisenhower's military-industrial complex speech is the prime example. Even firm "peace candidates" of american politics (then and today) do not generally address the economic aspects of military policy.

Now that we're in the $trn corporation era, there may be eisenhower speeches from former CEOs and such. I'd be curious to hear Jack Dorsey's opinions, once he's removed from direct interest.

So... the desire, the tendency exists. Speaking from the grave has an added romantic element. I think I'm "pro" on this coffin confessions thing. There are certainly downsides, the potential to unload negativity which can never be moderated. But, I think the act of uploading such a confession is likely to have consequences before death. I'd be curious to know how many edits these get, on average.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This article reminded me of some odd traditions surrounding death.

There is apparently a tradition in some cultures, now largely vanished, known as the "sin eater." It goes beyond a religious deathbed confession in that the sin eater hears the worst sins, and takes on the weight of those sins, in return for a fee. It occurred in parts of the UK and India, but died out in the 1800s.

Another is more modern, prompted or resurrected by the science fiction novel Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. The author claimed that people were adapting the ceremony featured in the novel to their own deaths.

(Typing from a phone, hard to share links, sorry)

</comment><comment><USER5> We respect your privacy! That's why we make opting out almost impossible!

[https://imgz.org/iP7y9UFH.png](https://imgz.org/iP7y9UFH.png)

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here, sorry for that. Usually I don't post links that do that, but apparently my adblocker removes that modal automatically so I didn't even realise it was there.

<comment><USER5> Oh it's not your fault, many sites do this, I just hate how disingenuous their "we LOOOOVE your privacy yeees" shtick is.

<comment><USER26> We love your privacy. It's delicious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> For those who do not want the auto play video following them around while they try and read the article: [https://beta.trimread.com/articles/37273](https://beta.trimread.com/articles/37273)

<comment><USER28> skipped the conflict of interest disclosure this time, hm?

<comment><USER27> Sorry, not following?

<comment><USER29> He's the Hacker News Confessor, outing you as the creator of this TrimRead service!

<comment><USER30> Indeed, it is customary to note that you created or run a site if you link to it on HN. Or anywhere, for that matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This reads so good, it almost reads too well. It's an incredible story that, if true, has never been told in thousands of years of literature.

It would be an amazing experience, for both the speaker and the mourners. Looking forward to hearing more about this story.

<comment><USER32> No? I think of at least one 19th Century short story from high school that had aspects of this, less the deceased leaving someone to speak for him, than a friend more or less volunteering. And one could regard it as a slight modification of the will-reading scenes in many Victorian novels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> So much for 'dead men tell no tales'. Personally I don't see the point of this sort of thing. Why hurt people after you're gone? Do it when you're still alive and can share the burden of the truth.

<comment><USER34> The bigger questions is why waste $7,000 on this when that sum could have gone to your heirs?

<comment><USER35> It's their $7000, they can do what they want with it. If they want to leave it to their heirs, no one is stopping them.

But for some people, that is a reasonable sum to know that your "final message" will be delivered at the appropriate time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Just a guess, but I'll bet this being optioned and someone's starting a pass on the screenplay as we speak

<comment><USER37> I hope Vince Gilligan becomes aware of this for this next show after _Better Call Saul_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> > One guy wanted me to put fireworks in his coffin so they went off during a > parade, another guy wanted to be naked, lying on his front and for me to > write "kiss this" on his a __for when he had an open casket viewing.

This reminds me of Swiss kinetic artist Jean Tinguely: his coffin was followed by one of his mechanical sculptures with noisy fireworks and smoke… He was also known as a "party perturbator" [1] (article in German).

Another one of his surprises, a bit unrelated but noteworthy: a "major auto- destructive performance, a work called La Vittoria, in front of Milan Cathedral in 1970. La Vittoria was a 10-metre-high phallus made of papier- mâché, spiked with fireworks, and then set on fire." (I stress that the installation was set up in front of the "Duomo") [2].

[1] [https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13491563.html](https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13491563.html)

[2] [https://www.stedelijk.nl/en/collection/95263-jean- tinguely-l...](https://www.stedelijk.nl/en/collection/95263-jean-tinguely-la- vittoria-milan)

</comment><comment><USER39> Reminds me a bit of Irish wakes[0]. It does sound a bit "too good to be true," but the Australians have exactly this type of humor, so I could believe it.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7g3RuoreRc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7g3RuoreRc) (slightly NSFW -Dropkick Murphy video)

</comment><comment><USER40> Why should I believe some stranger who just walked into the funeral? Why would anyone listen to a gate-crasher? I think this kind of service only works on gullible people.

"I'm here to tell you something that the deceased had a whole lifetime to tell you, but just decided not to."

Sure, stranger. Sure. Whatever.

<comment><USER41> Because the 'stranger' has a voice recording and a signed contract of what he confesses on behalf of the deceased.

<comment><USER40> That's not good enough. That's just pathetic. People should settle their affairs on this side of life, or not at all.

<comment><USER8> Who are we to tell people what they should and should not do?

<comment><USER40> Don't worry. I don't actually have any authority over you. You don't have to do what I say if you don't want to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I have to say some of the comments are hilarious but worth noting I more than most understand the desire to know more and to get to the facts it's in my nature and my job but for those of you who ask why as a PI have exposed myself I'm actually a financial investigator www.freedomfromdebtcollectors.com.au and in Australia we can have a number of businesses registered under the one ABN number. As for those who feel the stories are best taken to the grave I understand but don't shoot the messenger. Like me or loath me I guess you won't forget me. The Coffin Confessor

</comment><comment><USER43> Quoted from the article:

"It's all secure, and when they pass, the next of kin receives the login and that person will get to read the deceased person's confession. I got 8,000 uploads in one week and it's just gone from there. There's some really funny stuff, but I would definitely contact the police if something was posted on the site that I felt was a serious crime that needed to be reported."

If he can read it directly like that, it's not really that secure (or at least private), is it? I understand the law enforcement argument here so I'm not quite sure how I feel about this.

</comment><comment><USER44> This seems to be a great way to tell your relatives and loved ones what a bitter, revengeful person you had been all along, who couldn't even find forgiveness in death. There is also a massive potential for abusing such a service to destroy the lives of people you hated, disliked or were jealous of during your lifetime. Just let the coffin confessor tell some made-up story during your funeral. Who would question the last confession of a dying person?

<comment><USER45> > Who would question the last confession of a dying person?

If you are doing it so would lots of other people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> >People have found out about me from funeral to funeral.

Now that's morbid.

</comment><comment><USER47> This reads like something out of Chuck Palahniuk's book

</comment><comment><USER48> I don't understand. There's no satisfaction in it if you're dead. If you have something to say, surely the best time to do it is when you're still alive? I can't think of anything sadder than knowing you're going to die, wanting to be able to say something — good or bad — to someone important to you, and STILL being unable to do it yourself.

<comment><USER8> > I don't understand. There's no satisfaction in it if you're dead.

Why not? People gain satisfaction from eg knowing that their work will endure after them, or that there offspring will live on etc. Why should this be different?

Of course, whether or not the 'coffin confessor' follows through for any one specific persons funeral doesn't make a different to that specific person: they are dead.

But following through is still essential, because for the next client to get satisfaction out of the service while they are still living requires the 'coffin confessor' to have a reputation for following through.

</comment></comment><comment> jerome-jh Well actually the first use Thomas Edison envisioned for his phonograph, at a time when live music was everywhere, was to record the last words of dying people so they can be replayed at their funerals. A company was setup to provide exactly this but supposedly met no success.

Sorry I have no source to provide but I take it from a reliable (french) broadcast.

</comment><comment><USER49> Wow, a real life Speaker for the Dead. I wonder if he is familiar with Ender Wiggins?

<comment><USER50> How could he not be? I'm a little sad that that question isn't given in this article. A compare/contrast with that would be interesting. (Although maybe he's sick of that question?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> > It's all secure, and when they pass, the next of kin receives the login and > that person will get to read the deceased person's confession. I got 8,000 > uploads in one week and it's just gone from there. There's some really funny > stuff, but I would definitely contact the police if something was posted on > the site that I felt was a serious crime that needed to be reported.

Evidently not that secure then, if he's reading through people's confessions. And worrying when the site explicitly encourages "graphic images, confessions of a crime or something [like] an extra marital affair".

Keep in mind also that it costs $9.99 to upload your confession, with "no guarantees" that the service will actually exist long enough to deliver it.

</comment><comment><USER52> Honestly I'm not sure if this is really very positive. Funerals are for the living. This is for the dead. Seems like it could cause a lot more harm than good, in some cases.

</comment><comment><USER53> > I need to record the conversation and I need a contract signed, because I > need to protect myself.

why not record the guy and play the video at the funeral?

<comment><USER54> It's mentioned in the article "[...]but it could have been edited, turned off or the funeral director may have not allowed it".

I suppose this is a less fragile way of fully executing their client's authentic wishes, with a backup funeral home ready to go if it remains impossible.

<comment><USER53> he could be standing next to the TV that is streaming from his phone... how is that different?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Sometimes people who were more infamous are better remembered because when they die, nobody really wants to hold back on the juicy dirt on them. For example, the details we know about Stalin's private life are enormous because very few people needed to have him preserved in a good light for history except for a handful of true believers.

Maybe this service will help people remember the dead after they die because it will help catalog all their exploits that they would have otherwise have gotten in trouble for had they been alive.

</comment><comment><USER56> Interesting, but I wouldn't want them to do that at my funeral.. maybe a week before or something

</comment><comment><USER57> Glad I'm not the only one here who immediately thought about Speaker for the Dead.

</comment><comment><USER58> I can't help reading the first couple paragraphs in gravelly film noir voice. I'm waiting for the gangster's moll to show up with no one else to turn to.

</comment><comment><USER59> The millennial Speaker for the Dead</comment>


Exploring the world of the Madeleine McCann trolls - <AUTHOR> http://www.hud.ac.uk/news/2017/february/exploringtheworldofthemadeleinemccanntrolls.php <comment><USER2> UNSOLVED: WHAT HAPPENED TO MADELEINE MCCANN? MARKETING EMAILS x

Shakespeare BlackRock <email@example.com> Mar 1 (2 days ago)

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The Play presents arguments and facts that can conclusively prosecute those probable culprits and find out where is Madeleine McCann, at last, if of course, the Files that it is based upon are true. But this takes other kind of Professionals, other kind of expertise and/or scientific techniques.

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Simone (S1m0ne) - hologram concert - "Natural Woman"</comment>


Swift Protobuf Plugin - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/apple/swift-protobuf-plugin <comment><USER2> This is incredible news, protobuffers are an amazing and performant alternative to JSON all swift GRPC based backends for iOS apps would be phenomenal.</comment>


Twitter buys Tweetie - <AUTHOR> http://blog.twitter.com/2010/04/twitter-for-iphone.html <comment><AUTHOR> They don't mention Tweetie for Mac, but I imagine that will become free too. Clearly the Mac client wasn't the focus of the acquisition, but it's also great software in my opinion.

<comment><USER2> I deliberately have not paid for Tweetie for Mac. I love the Fusion Ads. They're incredibly useful and beautiful.

<comment><USER3> You can re-enable ads in preferences if you buy tweetie and want them back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm glad Loren will be joining the team and there will be a Twitter for iPad, but what is the implication for all the 3rd party applications if Twitter has official versions on these platforms?

<comment><USER5> Is it really any different? Consumers will still buy the client that best fits their needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Chirp is going to be ...interesting.</comment>


Go 1.3 Linker Improvements  - <AUTHOR> http://dave.cheney.net/2014/05/22/go-1-3-linker-improvements

<comment><USER2> So on most real world applications, you shave perhaps a second or two off compilation and linking times.

That's great, but... why does Go still have such an abysmal regexp package that is an _order of magnitude slower_ than C and C++?[1]

Why does encoding/json still rely on reflection, making it slow compared to other approaches?[2]

In other words, I guess I feel like there are areas with more bang for the buck. The changes in 1.3 are great (100% precise garbage collection!), but I'm hoping improvements to regexp and encoding/json are somewhere on the roadmap as well.

[1] [http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/performance.php...](http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/performance.php?test=regexdna&sort=elapsed)

[2] [https://journal.paul.querna.org/articles/2014/03/31/ffjson-f...](https://journal.paul.querna.org/articles/2014/03/31/ffjson- faster-json-in-go/)

<comment><USER3> I grant that your questions are probably rhetorical, but I'll take a shot at them anyway.

While I was writing Rust's regex crate, I became very familiar with Russ Cox's work on implementing a regex engine with worst case O(mn) time complexity (m ~ regex and n ~ search text). As far as I know, he has two implementations of these ideas: RE2 (C++) and Go's regexp package. RE2 is extremely sophisticated. It includes a full NFA simulation (known as the "Pike VM") that can find submatches, and it also includes a DFA that avoids repeating work (but cannot find submatches). The DFA is very very fast (and I believe is multithreaded). The NFA simulation isn't as fast and is only used when necessary.

Go's regexp package only includes a full NFA simulation. There is no speedy DFA. My guess is that this is the primary reason why it is slow. (I will, however, note that Go 1.3 will include a reasonably large optimization which introduces a "one-pass" NFA simulation. It's used when it can be proven that the regex will never need to backtrack. Rob Pike posted some benchmarks on golang-dev a while back, and they showed a perf improvement in the regexp package. So they at least seem to be working on things that you care about.)

Speaking from a higher level, I'd say that the raw performance of regexes is probably not a huge priority. Needing wickedly fast regexes seems like a special case to me, in which case, you might just use an existing library to do it via cgo. (And indeed, the benchmark's game includes some Go benchmarks that use the PCRE C library, which has more reasonable performance.)

For more details on how it all works, Russ has written an _amazing_ series of articles on the topic: [http://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/](http://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/)

> Why does encoding/json still rely on reflection, making it slow compared to > other approaches?

Using reflection makes encoding/decoding JSON extraordinarily convenient. I do the same with TOML[1], although admittedly, performance is less of an issue there. My suspicion is that the added complexity for when you need raw speed isn't common enough to be in the standard library. megajson[2] tries to fill this hole, but it's a code generation tool, so you may find that less than ideal.

[1] - [https://github.com/BurntSushi/toml](https://github.com/BurntSushi/toml)

[2] - [https://github.com/benbjohnson/megajson](https://github.com/benbjohnson/megajson)

<comment><USER4> JSON is inherently slow to parse. Even with the code generation of megajson, you can only get 2x performance at best. The megajson package has microbenchmarks for all the individual parsing tasks so you can get an idea of where things are slow. Here's are the benchmarks from my MacBook Pro:

[https://gist.github.com/benbjohnson/6380fab7cac7533115e5](https://gist.github.com/benbjohnson/6380fab7cac7533115e5)

JSON is slow because of (at least) two reasons:

1) Strings are unframed - You have to check every single byte to see if it's a double quote to end the string. Compare this to MessagePack or Protobufs where the encoding states the exact length of the string. Those are faster because you can simply memmove() it.

2) Numbers require base 10 conversion - Numbers in JSON are typically only a couple bytes long. So for every 1 - 10 bytes you have to do an atoi(). You may have to do that a couple hundred thousand times in a megabyte of JSON. Numbers are also unframed so they suffer from the same "check-every-byte" issue as strings.

I feel like the encoding/json package actually does a great job in balancing parsing speed and convenience.

<comment><USER5> 3) JSON's object encoding is very fluffy and redundant. If one has an array of objects each of which all have the same set of keys (a very common use case), the keys must be spelled out each time, with double-quotes and other punctuation around them, for each usage.

There's a result from elementary complexity analysis which many have probably forgotten, which is that the time complexity of an algorithm is lower-bounded by the space complexity, because if an algorithm has a space complexity of O(n^2), it must have at least O(n^2) time complexity because that's how long it takes to even _look_ at O(n^2) space once. Similarly, by being so fluffy, JSON incurs fundamental speed penalties that can not be recovered simply by virtue of being so physically large.

JSON is convenient and quite cross-platform. This carries it to a lot of places, quite justifiably. However, if speed is a concern, JSON is often a poor choice. It is literally impossible, no matter how clever you get, to write a JSON decoder that will be as fast as Protocol Buffers can be, because you can never overcome the fact that the JSON decoder has to look at more bytes. (No matter how cleverly you encode your JSON such that the result is a legal JSON file in the end, with key compression or whatever, other serialization methods can be just as clever, but then don't have JSON restrictions on how bytes are spent.)

<comment><USER6>
      > the time complexity of an algorithm is lower-bounded by
      > the space complexity

Just wanted to say that this is an awesome result that I hadn't considered before. Very cool.

<comment><USER5> It's the rare case of a theoretical result whose theoretical impact is fairly marginal but practical impact is enormous... when you set out to _seriously_ optimize something, you will eventually hit a point where this starts to become a serious consideration. Serialization is a particularly vivid and easy-to-see example, but sooner or later you'll hit it in any serious optimization effort.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stock market rigging is no longer a 'conspiracy theory' - <AUTHOR> http://nypost.com/2015/03/25/us-stock-market-is-just-way-too-riggin-easy/

<comment><USER2> I'm fascinated by exposes of stock market rigging. Michael Lewis's "Flash Boys" was one of the best things I've read about it.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393351599/ref=as_li_tl?ie=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393351599/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0393351599&linkCode=as2&tag=destinyland-20&linkId=ZNBN53KSLPVYMSQA)

This columnist seems to be using the word "rigged" in a much narrower sense (a small discount being given to large purchases of foreign shares). When talking about stock market rigging, this really seems to be just a small part of the larger problem.</comment>


A Daughter's Disability and a Father's Awakening - <AUTHOR> https://www.sapiens.org/culture/down-syndrome-baby/ <comment><USER2> My son was diagnosed with Infantile Spasms when he was six months old. IS is a somewhat rare seizure disorder with those affected at great risk for developmental disabilities and autism. I can relate to the author's initial feelings and I also struggled with what I called "dark thoughts" in the first weeks after his diagnosis. Luckily these thoughts passed fairly quickly. It has been a year since his initial diagnosis, and though there have been struggles and setbacks, he is making progress and is the center of my world in a way that I never knew was possible. The experience is definitely causing me to reevaluate my definition of success and ideas of what constitutes a full life.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have worked with people with Down syndrome in the past, and I must say they are amicable, nice, and with the proper education they can quite compensate for their condition.

That said, I don't know whether they're part of the "intended" human condition. They don't seem to hold any advantage over non-Down people, only disadvantages. If anybody is scared about similar thoughts, consider doing a non-invasive pre-natal test (NIPT) during a pregnancy; it's a test that checks the infant's DNA in mother's blood, and has a great accuracy.

<comment><USER4> > That said, I don't know whether they're part of the "intended" human > condition.

I'm not going to give my full "eugenics is a short-sighted, moronic evolutionary strategy" semi-annual rant at this time, and I want to add the HUGE caveat that I'm only talking about humans as a population of evolving animals, and not as individuals with rights, worthy of moral consideration. That's a whole different can of worms I am not prepared to open.

With that giant caveat, from the standpoint amoral evolution, Down syndrome is the non-fatal duplication of a large number of genes, which can be extremely advantageous long-term, despite short-term disadvantages. The extra copies of the duplicated genes can mutate freely to take on new functions, while one copy maintains the original form and function. Evolution is the process of variation and selection, and while everyone gets hung up on the selection end of things, the variation is also important. You want your population to support as much variation as possible, so that it can explore as much of the evolutionary search space as possible.

So from that evolutionary standpoint, Down syndrome is an "intended" part of the human condition.

<comment><USER5> just because you want down syndrome to be possible, doesn't mean that it makes sense to bring a down syndrome baby to term.

<comment><USER6> Short term/long term; local minima/global minima — of course, now we are developing gene engineering tech we don't need to rely on natural evolution, but before that was invented, the possibility of stuff like that is the only reason we got multiple chromosomes in the first place.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, the point I'm making is not that all mutations are special and natural, which isn't particularly useful: it's that we almost certainly have mutations similar to those that cause Down syndrome in our genetic history, and ancestors who suffered comparable (although presumably different) disadvantages relative to baseline mammals/apes/humans of the day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We have multiple severely handicapped children. One of them was diagnosed with – this is a clinical diagnosis, not a politically incorrect slur – severe retardation early on. This child understands many things but cannot talk, and took 10 years to toilet train (I changed diapers for 16 years altogether). There isn't enough intelligence to hope this child will ever be able to be self-supporting.

Genetic tests reveal no known cause. We knew something was wrong because there was a slight variation in brain ventricle size in utero. In my view, the child has something very close to Angelman's syndrome, which pairs the retardation with a pretty sunny disposition.

I feel overjoyed to have these children and would never have dreamed of aborting them. The only problem is that I am saving not only for our retirement, but for care of the children once we die. It is a little bit stressful in that regard.

<comment><USER8> Thank you for sharing. Perspective.

Wishing you and your children the very best. I can't imagine your stress, but I've little doubt the end result will be that your children will be well taken care of after you're gone because of the work you've done and you're doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love the whole gist of this article, but the author writes like an insufferable prick at times.

> _After genetic testing confirmed the diagnosis, one doctor assured us that > "they're such happy people." They. Them. Those people._

Damn, give the doctor a break. There appears to be no way to talk about people with Down's syndrome as a group without offending this guy's rules.

<comment><USER10> Erm... no?

How is it acceptable in any way to make sweeping statements like that?

> There appears to be no way to talk about people with Down's syndrome as a > group without offending this guy's rule

Yes there is - talk about people with Down's syndrome as you would about _people_. It's also perfectly possible to talk about the often related physical/health/mental conditions that affected people with Down's without making 60's throwbacks such as saying "they are all happy".

It feels like we've come forward leaps and bound on racial equality, but it honestly still feels like a lot people treat those with disabilities as an invisible subclass of inhuman monsters.

Disclaimer: I'm the father of a daughter with Down's

<comment><USER11> The issue is that some genetic disorders do in fact have characteristic expressions from the physical to the mental. I'm not going to comment on Down's Syndrome, but plenty of others do with the most striking being William's Syndrome. It's one thing to dismiss people as happy, another to make a valid clinical observation, and yet another to attempt to find a silver lining in a moment of crisis.

Leaping to judge someone's entire mental landscape by comparison to racism, based on a single statement and possibly poor choice of words is so harsh as to be without value.

<comment><USER10> > The issue is that some genetic disorders do in fact have characteristic > expressions from the physical to the mental

That's not the issue. The issue is thinking it's OK to make ludicrous, stereotypically comments about a huge group of people.

> Leaping to judge someone's entire mental landscape by comparison to racism, > based on a single statement and possibly poor choice of words is so harsh as > to be without value.

I wholeheartedly disagree.

While my comment was in reply to a stereotyping comment, it was aimed at the wider group of people who still today spout such nonsense - I should have made that clearer tho. In particular, the doctor in the OP is a _doctor_ , and should know better than to say such ridiculous things.

I also think the comparison to racism is valid. Many of the discriminating comments against those with disabilities are made out of ignorance. We've come a _long_ way legislating and educating people about race, and it's made an incredible difference (at least in the UK; I realise the situation in the US is complex to say the least), and I think it's high time people stopping thinking it was OK to make comments like "all Down's are happy".

<comment><USER9> It sounds like the hapless doctor was merely trying to offer encouragement. You're ever so slightly twisting his words by inserting an "all" in there, and then trying to make his sentiment somehow culpable, even if in small part, for society's mistreatment of disabled people. That's neither fair nor practical. If even casual, well-meaning platitudes are forced to bear the full scrutiny of _your_ substantial life experiences and associated emotional reflexes, then I fear that anyone who _isn 't_ you is better off just avoiding the topic altogether.

So, dare I ask, how should our apocryphal doctor rephrase his encouragement so as to not run afoul of these rules against sweeping or outdated expressions?

<comment><USER10> > It sounds like the hapless doctor was merely trying to offer encouragement. > You're ever so slightly twisting his words by inserting an "all" in there

From the article:

"they're such happy people."

So no, I'm absolutely not twisting anything - this statement cannot be interpreted as anything other than stereotyping. He obviously meant well, but the fact he would say this shows his own ignorance of people with Down's Syndrome.

This isn't just about _my_ life experiences, it's about the rights of people with disabilities.

The way I see it, you are twisting my offence at your words, in an attempt to justify your discrimination (perhaps to yourself).

<comment><USER9> This is going downhill. You've constructed an impervious emotional barrier wherein people who disagree with you are not only ignorant, but acting in bad faith. Parsing that doctor's four-word verbal buoy in ever greater detail only seems to be feeding your conviction that he, and everyone else who disagrees with you, is covertly prejudiced. This doesn't affect me, and nobody asked my opinion anyway, so believe what you want.

The real risk to you is that you end up alienating people who are otherwise completely on your side (and your daughter's side), and whose help or support you (and she) may benefit from. For no good reason.

I notice you didn't answer my question.

<comment><USER10> > I notice you didn't answer my question

Not directly no: IMO, the doctor should have educated, rather than patronised (however well-meant) - for example, he could have explained how incredibly better outcomes are for those with DS nowadays. (another posted here commented on this too).

> The real risk to you is that you end up alienating people who are otherwise > completely on your side (and your daughter's side), and whose help or > support you (and she) may benefit from. For no good reason.

So, I am normally careful not to do this, and favour educating people over attacking them, precisely because they mean no malice with the stereotypes they help to enforce. Before I became a father, I knew little of DS, or indeed the lives of those with disabilities, and undoubtedly harboured some of the same stereotypes, simply out of ignorance.

I may have let my emotions run away a bit in this thread (sorry, it's been a difficult week...), but I still believe we need to stop thinking it's OK to to enforce false stereotypes of large groups of people. We've made huge progress on gender equality, racial equality, religious equality, sexual equality and gender identity - I think it's time we did some of the same for the rights of people with disabilities.

This is a difficult problem to solve, but I believe a good start would be to better integrate children with disabilities into mainstream schooling. Of course, there are some children that are not going to thrive in mainstream education, and better prosper in a specialised setting - but there is a large group who can thrive in mainstream education with only a minimum of accomodations being made. This would help to make those with disabilities less invisible, and typical kids would learn from a very young age that we are all just people, and not so different.

<comment><USER9> If it were demonstrably true that Down's folks are a happier-than-average lot, would statements like the doctor's still rub you the wrong way? Is it the sweeping nature of such a statement that makes it offensive, as much as falsity?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Surprising - in a good way - to see this article on HN. As the father of a young child with Down syndrome, I've felt everything the author expressed. Getting a prenatal diagnosis was one of the hardest things my wife and I have ever been through. (We did the testing so that we wouldn't bring a child with an unsurvivable genetic condition to term. For us, that would have been needlessly prolonging suffering for multiple individuals.) We were fortunate to do our mourning and grieving over the life we imagined for our unborn baby while he was still unborn. And that's what it really is - mourning the ideas and fantasies we put on our children from before they're born. Actually seeing and holding a baby really changes things.

Don't confuse the inherent (and very real) challenges and risks of Ds with 1) the additional social burden we place on people with that diagnosis and 2) second order effects because we really didn't understand Ds all that well until recently. The author covered social stuff, so I'll mention a second order effect. My go-to example is that some of the speech problems previously thought "characteristic" of Ds turned out to be years of untreated ear infections in ear canals that _are_ characteristically narrow. Once doctors learned to watch Ds kids' ears more closely, the prevalence of those speech problems decreased.

People with this condition can do so much more than we thought 50, 30, or even 10 years ago. Things you think you knew from seeing "those kids" in the separate classroom on the other side of the school aren't true anymore (if they ever really were). My son's life is worth the same as any other child's, and he will be a valuable member of society when he's older. I hope you'll give him a fair chance.

<comment><USER9> > _he will be a valuable member of society when he 's older_

I know you'd agree, he already is a valuable member of society. He's already made you a better person, and everyone you influence in turn.

<comment><USER12> Thank you for saying that. Rereading what I wrote, I did a terrible job expressing what I meant to say. You fixed it for me :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "certain forms of human diversity are stigmatized as undesirable or perceived as burdensome."

I understand the why, but it doesn't make him any less dead wrong. If you told people they were going to wake up the next morning with Down syndrome most of them would put a gun in their mouth. I certainly would, and not because I feared how society would treat me.

This article is just the latest incarnation of the "noble savage" myth; the worship of anything deemed "natural". Well guess what, worms that eat the eyes out of little children are natural too. So is malaria, and cancer, and blindness, and fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva.

The "diversity of human existence" as he calls it has a greater variety of horror than ever imagined by the most bloodthirsty tyrant or tortured writer. We've spent centuries in a war to the knife against that horror and for someone to declare they're on the other side is a stupefying act of denial.

<comment><USER14> Yes, a father learning to love his daughter for who she is, rather than live in a mire of regret over what could've been is a perpetuation of the 'noble savage' myth.

It sounds like you really don't understand the 'why' of the article if that's what you came out of it with.

<comment><USER15> You totally missed the point of his post.

This isn't about living in some state of angst. This is about accepting reality and not maintaining [potentially harmful] delusions about disability to avoid strife.

There are some unpleasant parts of life that we yet cannot change. How one feels about them, regretful or not, is another matter; but ignoring reality is a poor decision in any case.

<comment><USER16> They're not harmful delusions.

By far the biggest harm caused to people with downs is that caused by other people.

People with downs can lead rich and rewarding lives, and facists should stop pushing a genocidal agenda against people with disabilities.

<comment><USER17> > People with downs can lead rich and rewarding lives

Anyone who visits or is in Berlin and likes their theater wild and creative, these people rock so much:

[https://rambazamba-theater.de/](https://rambazamba-theater.de/)

[https://rambazamba-theater.de/programm/](https://rambazamba- theater.de/programm/)

I went there with a kind of patronizing attitude, like, I was prepared to clap politely... but I left feeling very alive and utterly impressed. I know such examples are not representative of the full spectrum of people living with that condition, of course not, but for what it's worth (and that's a lot, to me personally) that theater didn't blow my mind because "it was pretty good for people with Downs syndrome", but because of what they did, because of what it was in and of itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have a 20 months old daughter - who does not have DS. This was very tough read. I used to think of myself as a tough guy, but ever since my daughter was born boy i am the weakest of all.

<comment><USER8> No doubt.

As a friend put it, you go through life with your education and career and name and goals and all the self-important things you wrap yourself in. Then you become a parent and it hits you: "THIS is the reason I exist".

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > Our cultural emphasis on individual achievement is dangerously selfish and > tethered to a value system that degrades entire groups of people who are > stigmatized as existing outside the boundaries of normalcy. But these > boundaries are arbitrary, and the very category of normalcy is a fiction.

This could be said of any systemic discrimination in society, including racism, sexism and others. This is an erasure of their inherent human-ness.

</comment><comment><USER20> We were at a restaurant and a boy with Down syndrome cane and hugged my wife. I was very moved by the love the boy was showing to a complete stranger. He would come back and hug her over and over. I tear up thinking about that experience.

</comment><comment><USER21> This whole article reads like an attempt by the author to convince himself that having Down Syndrome is not bad, not limiting, doesn't make you different. And I understand why - having a child with this syndrome would be incredibly challenging and probably the only way to cope is to restructure your world view so as to "make it OK" \- but there's definitely a strong thread of denial running through it.

<comment><USER22> There's no denial in the article.

It's a father writing about loving his daughter for who she is rather than who he thought she might be.

Later: Even better for the second sentence there, it's a father writing about loving his daughter for who she is rather than _grieving (the loss of)_ who he thought she might be.

<comment><USER23> I usually compare it to other misfortunes most, if not all, of us suffer from. Like then sad fact that we are born without wings or gils.

It can be frustrating at times. But somehow isn't the main theme of our life story.</comment></comment></comment>


Abolish the Food Industry - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/02/abolish-the-food-industry/252502/ <comment><USER2> I believe that people should be free to make their own decisions.

I _do not_ want to live in the kind of authoritarian society the author lusts for. In fact, I _would not._

This article disgusts me to the core.

To those of you who want to be free to produce, build, and create (whether tech startups or something else): If you think that people who claim that human beings need to have their choices made for them, and their freedom limited, are _on your side_ , you are _deadly_ wrong.

These people are not our allies.

<comment><USER3> Clearly people, in aggregate, need to have some choices made for them.

It's not feasible for everyone to be knowledgable enough to know what constitutes acceptable electrical wiring in a home. In such a case isn't it best to have an agency make this choice for us? That is, an agency to say this is the worst wiring job that is acceptable? I'm glad for this.

I'm not talking about the article above. I'm wondering how extreme your position is in regard to your statement

"If you think that people who claim that human beings need to have their choices made for them, and their freedom limited, are on your side, you are deadly wrong."

<comment><USER2> _Clearly people, in aggregate, need to have some choices made for them._

No, I don't think so at all.

And it's critical for people who oppose the "control state" (for lack of a better term) to stand their ground on this point.

Otherwise, they are throwing away the fundamental principle, which is their only intellectual ammunition.

\--

There are lots of trivial applications of this (like electrical wiring). But gettings bogged down in those is missing the forest for the trees.

However, just to prove that the principle still applies, I'll answer your electrical scenario:

If electrical wiring were not highly regulated, best practices and self- regulatory mechanisms would be develped to deal with the situation effectively, _just like any aspect of any industrial activity that is not regulated_.

It is key to recognize the truth of the part in italics. Just think of how commerce and trade work - there are abundant examples.

<comment><USER3> The history of the free market (to the extent that markets can truly be free) shows that your view in italics is not correct.

Regulation has led to clean water standards, electrical wiring standards, safe working environments, etc. In countries where such standards don't exist or are loosely enforced one sees that mechanisms aren't developed to deal with these situations. Just look at China. Companies try to cut corners. They do it whenever they can get away from it. There are examples where companies don't cut corners but there are a plethora of examples to show that enough companies do cut corners that it is needed to have some regulations.

<comment><USER2> _The history of the free market ... shows that your view in italics is not correct._

I completely disagree with your analysis of history (although I'm aware it's the commonly accepted and promulgated one).

Still, a fine technical analysis of history is not needed to see the truth of my point.

Think about the PC revolution, or the Industrial Revolution, for example. Think about how trade and commerce is carried on in aspects thereof that are not highly regulated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do they add sugar to flour, milk and vegetables as well? I do think sugar is seriously bad for you but as ling as you can buy staples you can cook. You can cook, right?

</comment><comment><USER5> While I'm not sympathetic to the tobacco industry, this is a dangerous argument because it depends on some agency's definition of "healthy". The article points to sugar and alcohol as being unhealthy, but what about saturated fat or fluoride? There is plenty of debate on those as well as many other foods and ingredients.

</comment><comment><USER6> I agree with the article, but I can't decide if sugar is should be the catalyzing factor or the plethora of other toxic chemicals they put in food.</comment>


How to Work the Room  - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2007/06/24/how-to-work-the-room/ <comment><USER2> Social strategy for being a host: Introduce EVERYONE to EVERYONE.

If you met someone five minutes ago, introduce them to the person you met three minutes ago. If someone ask: "How do you know Bob?" you answer "I just met him."

You're not lying. You're not pumping anyone's ego. You are merely exchanging people's names and, if you know them quite well, a sentence or two about why they're awesome.

Everyone likes an introduction.

It's a very simple way to come across as a good host.

</comment><comment><USER3> I did improvisational theater for a few years, and it has helped me immensely over the years. It taught me four things:

1) coming up with funny/interesting/smart things to converse about with just about anyone

2) Learning about posture, bodylanguage, eyemovement, etc. 90% of a conversation is nonverbal.

3) Loosen up

4) Being secure in front of people.

I would recommend it to anyone. It's a great learning experience, and hey it's fun!

<comment><USER4> Stand-up comedy works well also. It helped me to get over my fear of speaking to large groups.

<comment><USER5> Do you have to be funny for this to work? ;)

<comment><USER4> It sure helps.

EDIT: Do you know what secondhand embarrassment is? Go to an open mic and you are sure to experience it. I've seen some people who thought they were hilarious and were actually a train wreck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a good article. It reminds me of a talk I saw at SHDH by a guy named Shannon Clark.

My main take-away from his talk was that "networking is about giving", meaning that when you are networking you shouldn't be thinking "how can this person help me?" but "how can I help this person?" - this advice is simple but has had a profound impact on how I approach networking.

I think that this blog post covers a large subset of what I remember of Shannon's talk: [http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2007/10/08/networking- advi...](http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2007/10/08/networking-advice- useful-business-cards-and-other-tips/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Love the contents, hate the title.

Better would have been, "How to Behave Like a Normal Human Being Who Cares About Others, Likes to Have Fun, and Wants to Remain Receptive to Any Benefits That May Come His Way."

But I guess, "How to Work the Room" is sexier.

<comment><USER8> In all honesty, what's wrong with the phrase "work the room"? Is this a phrase that is misapplied to the subject matter? Does this phrase bring up bad connotations? Is this phrase not descriptive enough or too specific for what the person is talking about?

As a non-native speaker, "Working the room" seems like a good abbreviation of "how to behave...". Is there another, shorter, more descriptive phrase you were thinking of?

<comment><USER7> Analyzing, designing, cranking out 8,000 lines of code, testing, and deploying by Tuesday is work.

Spending good time with nice people at an event isn't.

<comment><USER9> It is work if you're like me and instantly hate most of those people, have no interest in listening to their boring conversations, and would rather be doing anything else ;)

"good time" and "nice people" are not phrases I'd use to describe networking events. More important phrases to me are, "free food" and "open bar".

<comment><USER7> how sad

<comment><USER10> Are you saying that you like talking to people who you have nothing in common with?

<comment><USER11> It needs some effort to connect, but you can learn from a lot of people.

(And even if you just brush up your social skills, that can be helpful.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


VSCode tools for JavaScript developers in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/jsmanifest/26-miraculous-vs-code-tools-for-javascript-developers-in-2019-50gg <comment><USER2> funny... I literally just downloaded that for Ubuntu today and made my first Go app... I'm actually considering using it for C and Python as well. I typically use Netbeans for C and Pycharm for Python, but both have a ton of features that I don't use, sometimes slowing me down. I like the sleek feel of VS Code and it has been running flawlessly on Linux. Also a big fan of the Abyss theme.</comment>


How 2 African Tribesmen Make Almost $7000 per Month Online - <AUTHOR> http://afritech.org/2-tribesmen-make-7000-monthly-online.htm

<comment><USER2> Summary: a Harvard student working on her master's thesis talked with some Maasai herders whose livestock was being devastated by Hoof and Mouth Disease. She did some internet searches and found that Big Pharma had attempted but failed to isolate the active ingredient in a traditional native treatment. They tried the traditional native treatment and it worked; now the Maasai herders have a profitable business selling the traditional treatment. The Harvard student is very sexy but will soon be too old to attract a man. One of the Maasai doesn't beat his wives much and she finds him very manly. They are expecting their first child.

I'm sorry, but while the first part is an interesting if unsurprising anecdote, I found the later part downright offensive.

<comment><USER3> Just went back to re-read the story, and it has been updated. The Mills and Boon chapter have been edited out! Where is the dramatic ending!!! OK, I can tone down my sarcasm now..

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The part at the end of the article about Sheri took a strange turn.

<comment><USER5> That was really, really weird and ruined the entire article for me.

<comment><USER6> The dreadful stock photo at the top ruined it for me.

<comment><USER5> If dreadful stock photos were a game over for every article I'd ignore half the internet.

<comment><USER6> This stock photo contains two men with white feathers around their arms. It's not clear why. The whole page looks like spam to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The headline and the contents strongly led me to believe that there would be a paragraph at the end cheerfully informing me that I, too, could make $7000 a month online with no work at all, just enter your credit card number here!

</comment><comment><USER8> A quick search for Jasper Kuria (the author and submitter) on LinkedIn explains the slobbering over Bing -- he was a software engineer at Microsoft.

What a pile of hoof-and-mouth cowpies.

<comment><USER9> The website afritech.org looks like a ripoff of hacker news as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> I asked Paul Graham if I could use the Hacker News stack and he said it was okay since it is open source.

<comment><USER10> Oh, I did not know that either. Do you know where one may find the source ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The big take-away here is normal Internet searches yielded nothing, but she had access to academic journals. In an esoteric journal, she found the cure. This is exactly why I hate paywalls on publicly funded scientific research. Information should be free.

</comment><comment><USER12> Something seems wrong about this. I can't seem to find any other references to Sheri Goldberg. Plus it's the Harvard Kennedy School of _Government_ , not "international studies."

</comment><comment><USER13> Also calling shenanigans. The sentence 'As a graduate student at Harvard she had become familiar with the Bing search engine's advanced capabilities' reeks of marketing.

</comment><comment><USER14> Please tell me this is some trolling by the Onion.

</comment><comment><USER15> this smells a bit fishy, the istock photo and the lame part about liking men who "don't spare the rod" is suspicious

</comment><comment><USER16> The article is also very poorly written and rife with spelling and grammar mistakes.</comment>


Why Inbox Zero Doesn't Solve Anything. - <AUTHOR> http://usersnap.com/blog/inbox-zer

<comment><USER2> Responding to emails seems like a good idea if the response is useful. Email isn't bad in and of itself.</comment>


Nvidia slams Intel: says ARM supercomputer to be more efficient - <AUTHOR> http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4231146/Nvidia-slams-Intel--says-ARM-supercomputer-to-be-more-efficient- <comment><USER2> I thought by "efficient" they would mean "gets the same work done in fewer cycles", but it appears they only meant that it uses less power. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow - this is pretty strong words from ARM

</comment><comment><USER4> WHOA! Nvidia really slammed Intel!!

</comment><comment><USER5> Wow--way to go Nvidia

</comment><comment><USER6> Intel watch out!

</comment><comment><USER7> Serious slam!</comment>


Adding Mercurial support to Gitlab - <AUTHOR> https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/31600#note_96793407 <comment><USER4> I still don't understand why git became so popular in comparison to Mercurial. Mercurial seems like a much more friendly and sane system. I hope adding it to Gitlab will help its popularity.

<comment><USER5> Speaking as someone who used both Git and Mercurial, and who has used both to contribute to projects:

Git's concept of branches as simple names for commits, and the ability to switch branches really easily within _one_ checkout (rather than encouraging the use of multiple working directories) helped hugely. Mercurial grew the ability to do git-style branching later, but git had it from the beginning.

Git has _always_ treated performance as a first-class feature, and that has enabled certain types of workflows that Mercurial makes painful. Git is fast enough that many things don't feel like they take any time at all.

Git integrated first-class support for carefully constructing and reworking a set of patches to be sent by email. Mercurial again eventually grew such support, but early on, it was much more insistent that all branches must be kept around, and by the way are you sure you don't want to push your development branch experiments up to the server and keep them there forever since you haven't merged that head into the mainline?

Even later on, mercurial had more of the functionality people wanted but relegated it to "extensions", while Git shipped it out of the box.

Take a look at [https://walac.github.io/mercurial-for-git- lovers/](https://walac.github.io/mercurial-for-git-lovers/) (from 2015) for just one of many examples.

<comment><USER6> > Git's ... ability to switch branches really easily within one checkout > (rather than encouraging the use of multiple working directories)

As a heavy Mercurial user, but only for the last couple of years, I'm confused by this one. You can just as easily switch between branches (in the Mercurial sense) and bookmarks (which are Mercurial's name for Git-style branches). How did that used to be different?

In fact one of the nice thing about Mercurial is that you can easily switch to _any_ commit and you don't need to choose between a hard reset and a detached head, because you can always make a commit anywhere (multiple heads for the same branch) and it will never get garbage collected (a foreign concept in Mercurial). Mostly this is good because you simply never need to understand what these concepts mean, which it turns out are not fundamental to DVCSs. But also this makes a neater alternative to stash (although stash is also available): just commit your half-finished changes, mark the revision "secret" (which means it won't be included in any push), then switch to another revision. You can always strip or rebase the revision later, so long as you haven't pushed it (admittedly these actions do require extensions, but they're included with all Mercurial installations).

<comment><USER7> Our workflow at work (with Mercurial) revolves heavily around multiple heads for a single branch and relating the commits to a JIRA issue is done by simply putting the issue number in the commit message. So we have (unnamed) feature branches and also no bookmarks for them. You just start from the latest release tag and create new commits. No need to think of a name for the feature branch, or telling the reviewer or issue tracker which bookmark belongs to that issue.

This might be mainly habit and familiarity with a different tool by now, but to me it's simpler than equivalent Git workflows as there's less ceremony involved to start working and there's no fear around accidentally losing commits because they don't belong to a branch (I kinda hate having to go into the Git reflog to find commits that are temporarily lost because they don't belong to a branch).

<comment><USER8> Well that is just about the strangest workflow I've heard of. It sure seems like you are throwing away a lot of the power of the tools to do things manually. Honestly, I don't see the point.

I've used Mercurial from the very beginning, the branches are great and bookmarks are fine. I see no reason why you wouldn't use them.

<comment><USER7> We use both, just not in the way a typical git workflow would use feature branches. Basically those are all anonymous heads on the same branch for us; a workflow that is probably as alien to git users as naming each and every head is to Mercurial users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For a strong contender to "next-gen DVCS", I recommend checking out [https://pijul.org/](https://pijul.org/).

Written in Rust and based on a sound theory of patches. If GitLab actually merges Mercurial, I sincerely hope Pijul is next.

<comment><USER10> Pijul looks very interesting but unfortunately as it stands (and without a huge open source project à la Linux to back it) I can't really imagine it taking over git as it stands. It might be better than git but is it enough an improvement to justify the cost of switching? I'm not sure.

Now if pijul takes inspiration from Fossil and implements things like issue tracking as part of the DCVS then that would be an other story as far as I'm concerned. That would be a pretty radical upgrade from git.

<comment><USER11> > is it enough an improvement to justify the cost of switching?

This is the main question everybody should be asking about potential contenders [0].

For most places, switching would be a huge undertaking. Even if there's an import tool that works flawlessly (big assumption), you now have to potentially re-think all of your secondary tooling [1]. Not just 3rd party tools, either. You have to think about potentially tweaking build pipelines, etc.

Not to mention (re)training people which is very likely orders of magnitude more costly [2].

For any potential tool to overtake git, it will have to provide some pretty extreme benefits. Git originally provided some pretty extreme benefits over SVN and yet there are plenty of places that still can't justify the cost of even making _that_ switch.

[0]: I'm only talking about contenders for large projects and/or business' ecosystems. Use whatever you want on your side projects.

[1]: GitLab adding support for alternatives is a good way to start mitigating this.

[2]: In more ways than just purely financial.

<comment><USER12> Heck there are places that use ClearCase still.

Companies that are at rest tend to stay at rest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Mercurial is much easier to understand and use than git, and _for the most part_ has feature parity with it. The only drawback was the decision to implement it in Python, which makes it very slow for large codebases with gigabytes in binary files. However, I'm given to understand that core performance parts are being re-implemented in C.

<comment><USER14> What's interesting is that Git is fast up until it isn't, and it's written in such a way that fixing performance issues that do pop up is hard (or extend the software when more custom behavior is needed).

That's why Facebook chose to just fix the slow parts of hg[1], rather than fix the slow parts of git, to build a VCS which would scale with its codebase.

[1]: [https://code.fb.com/core-data/scaling-mercurial-at- facebook/](https://code.fb.com/core-data/scaling-mercurial-at-facebook/)

<comment><USER15> > That's why Facebook chose to just fix the slow parts of hg[1], rather than > fix the slow parts of git, to build a VCS which would scale with its > codebase.

On the other hand, Google seems to successfully use Git in the same way.

<comment><USER16> Or Microsoft (Windows is using Git).

<comment><USER17> With extensions to make it bearable for their code size.

<comment><USER16> Just as Facebook does for Hg: [https://bitbucket.org/facebook/hg- experimental](https://bitbucket.org/facebook/hg-experimental)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Hm. My understanding is that the git and mercurial worlds follow different workflows around branching, merging, forking, etc.

Does that cause a huge impedence mismatch in the UI? Or will they converge?

In the same vein, I wounder if it's possible for a single repo/history to be checked out with either tool. You clone with hg, I'll use git. We both merge with patches as a common language.

Disclaimer: only use git

<comment><USER19> bitbucket supports both as well

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> For a self-hosted option please check out RhodeCode has the first-class support of Mercurial, including largefiles, evolve, phases etc.

<comment><USER21> Kallithea is fork of RhodeCode, fully supports Mercurial and Git and is open source: [https://kallithea-scm.org](https://kallithea-scm.org).

<comment><USER20> RhodeCode is open-source too and unfortunately looks like Kallithea is a dead project by now. It didn't have a feature release since 2015, only a few bugfixes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I read a few articles about a new way to work with hg that appeared in the past few years. They were saying that we don't need to have names on every branch. That actually we don't need to name many things and it works much more smoothly. I wonder what is the opinion of hg users here.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wanted to respond to this thread in general as someone who runs a team that uses Mercurial for most of our work.

But first, the proposal above, in my view, isn't core mercurial, which is what most of this discussion is centered around. This is mercurial with evolve + topics, which has differences to what many of you are familiar with.

With evolve + topics, many of the critiques of mercurial go away:

      * Light weight branches for short development
      * Ability to squash / fold - <USER3>
      * Ability to rebase - <USER3>

With this class of features, you get the major product differentiator that git offers (light weight branches that are simple for collaboration). Therefor, if you value some of mercurials core features, and your primary value from git is the light weight branching model, mercurial with evolve + topics starts to look like a real solution for many shops.

That is why this proposal is important and stands out from bitbuckets offering. Bitbucket (For now) only offers first class evolve support (in beta).

With that said, we use mercurial in production for our main repository. We do use evolve + topics for our development and when commits land in production, those commits become "immutable". Topics were very much a game changer for us when we started using them about a year ago. We had previously used bookmarks for collaboration and that situation wasn't really viable.

Like most people reading this here, our development team targets mostly web development. Most of our dev lives in one repo and generally we target a deploy per day, or multiple per day. We aren't "continuous delivery", but we are "effectively" "continuous delivery".

We have a straight forward workflow. We have a Topic per Jira ticket. That Topic gets cut from the head of the branch "default". Developers work in these "feature branch" through the features lifecycle, sometimes these are big things (multiple week - big changes) and sometimes small things (hours or days worth of work). Developers can rebase their work, if they wish, and they can squash, if they wish. I generally discourage the later as I'm a believer more commits the merrier. I'm also not allergic to merging and I don't see the value in a purely linear history, so rebasing isn't as common for us. We also have a single integration branch. When developers are ready, we merge to this branch and the ticket gets advanced to qa. Once the ticket passes qa, we merge to default (therefore advancing the head) and the topic is closed out on its own.

So with the above as a brief overview of our process and workflow, I wanted to also talk about some of the pain points that mercurial has. Some of these aren't necessarily caused by mercurial directly, and some aren't even addressable (ie, if we were to switch to git, we'd have the same problems, or similar)

Pain Points:

      * Tooling kind of sucks. The biggest argument now to use git is less git itself, and more that you are buying into an ecosystem. As an example, we use Buildkite for our CI. Getting this started required some hacking to make it work. Buildkite doesn't "just work" with HG. That's generally the tooling story. We can make some stuff work, but most stuff doesn't "just work".
      * Merges can occasionally still be painful in a collaborative environment when multiple devs are touching the same files and the same line numbers. I think this is an unsolved problem and probably will remain so until the universe cools to absolute zero.
      * Evolve is great and I use it all the time, but some of developers here complain that it isn't as well documented as other pieces of mercurial.

Benefits:

      * In my view, the UI is simpler. Our team is comprised of individuals of varying degrees of technical sophistication. For examples, our designers are not software engineers and don't really need to understand what a DAG is. But they do need to commit directly to our repository, create topics without asking others, and really only ask for help when they did something wrong / got themselves in trouble
      * TortoiseHG. This is a great tool, and most people can get benefit from it. It has some support for topics.
      * All commits are kept for all time. Not everyone finds this valuable. I find this extremely valuable. Evolve handles the mutability question by "hiding" old commits and basically creating new ones.
      * Hg log, which was mentioned before as a burden, in my view is a huge benefit and feature. Most hg commands take a revset.

<comment><USER23> Your comment is criminally low. Every other comment is 'Git vs. Mercurial' and speculation as to why git has "won". Their not useless, but they are uninteresting technically. So, as a git aficionado, I thank you for a detailed analysis of Mercurial and this proposal.

Personally, I've only used Mercurial to check out some projects that use it exclusively (i.e. (previously) Python and Firefox) and to create a toy repo of no significance (to learn its CLI interface).

Just to highlight a couple things from your comment:

> Therefor, if you value some of mercurials core features, and your primary > value from git is the light weight branching model, mercurial with evolve + > topics starts to look like a real solution for many shops.

By far the most annoying thing about going from git to mercurial is the overloaded concept of a 'branch'. I couldn't care less about the continued existence of my one-off, topic branch. TBH, I prefer the git concept of the reference pointer being culled in the process. The (git) branch's existence continues on only in the merge commit message. Although this assumes 1) an actual merge was committed (not rebased), 2) the merge wasn't fast-forwarded (--no-ff), and 3) the default merge message format was used.

> With that said, we use mercurial in production for our main repository. We > do use evolve + topics for our development and when commits land in > production, those commits become "immutable".

> Developers can rebase their work, if they wish, and they can squash, if they > wish. I generally discourage the later as I'm a believer more commits the > merrier. I'm also not allergic to merging and I don't see the value in a > purely linear history, so rebasing isn't as common for us. We also have a > single integration branch. When developers are ready, we merge to this > branch and the ticket gets advanced to qa. Once the ticket passes qa, we > merge to default (therefore advancing the head) and the topic is closed out > on its own.

We use Github. IMO, Github made a HUGE mistake when they added the options to Rebase and Squash in-lieu of the only sane option, Merge. I suspect that a lot of users wanted these options because Github (still) refuses to drop the --no- ff from their Merge strategy. I prefer --no-ff, but I do agree that it does make for an ugly log graph; Unlike most people, I couldn't care less about pretty graphs.) Rebase and Squash shouldn't be considered "Merge" strategies. They're for cleanliness, but only prior to sharing changes. Having them in Github has made the process of figuring out what has (and hasn't) been merged just absolutely atrocious. I'll leave it at that, but needless to say my arguments haven't convinced my peers' desire for pretty graphs.

As far as other user comments, I think the most egregious suggestion has been (paraphrasing):

> Mercurial has (had) better documentation.

Which I think is patently false. Git' manpages are (and always have been) fantastic. git-scm.com has been around for as long as I can remember. If you really want to do so, you can get yourself deep into the git's technical documentation which will teach you everything about the file formats and algorithms that are being used. All of this documentation has been around since git maintenance was handed over to Junio Hamano (circa May, 2005); Long before it's popularity explosion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Off-topic, but I think GitLab has incredible good (fast) marketing. If there's any inconvenience their CEO and his minions are there like in a second.

Are there specific tools for that?

</comment><comment> sras-me Glad to hear this. I hope one day I can go back to Mercurial without the fear of being singled out.

</comment><comment><USER25> Who other than FB albeit customized is using Mercurial in prod?

<comment><USER21> Mozilla.

<comment><USER25> Really?

<comment><USER21> Yes: [https://mozilla-version-control- tools.readthedocs.io/en/late...](https://mozilla-version-control- tools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/hgmozilla/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Nice to see someone finally do this. I love the Gitlab team.

<comment><USER27> as i read it they're not doing it

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's GitLab, not MercurialLab. Hope they realize this and refuse to merge. I really like shared tooling and knowledge, so if Git dominates everywhere, all you have to do is learn git and that's it. It's a significant overhead to learn yet another VCS just because it is a little nicer. I hate wasted efforts.

<comment><USER29> Do you really want a dev environment where there is only one way of doing things?

<comment><USER28> Yes! Absolutely! So I can focus on innovating where it matters (the product I'm developing). It alao would mean those things would be extremely polished (because a lot of people affected and interested to make it good). Also I would not need to learn so much random stuff I don't really care about.

<comment><USER30> In my experience, every time I've encountered someone who has this point of view, what they really mean is "Yes, we should have one way to do it, and it should be the way _I_ like".

The obvious counterpoint to your statement is that if your mentality held sway, we would never have had Git and would still be on SVN.

<comment><USER28> I'm not saying this because of my rigid opinion, but because of productivity. I WISH Mercurial was the one who caught on, because everyone says it's better, more intuitive (oh, and it's written in Python which I absolutely love) but this is not the case, Git won and people should accept that.

To put another way; I HATE git, I LOVE Mercurial, but Git won, it's ubiquitous and Mercurial is not that much better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Oh the irony, phabricator has had mercurial support since day one almost.

<comment><USER32> I evaluated phabricator today for Hg hosting at $DAYJOB. Issues in Maniphest aren't "attached" to a Diffusion repo, so you can't use it as a Gitea/Github- style one-repo-one-project system; it's one-phabricator-one-project-multi- repos. Spaces help a little bit but not really.

Dealbreaker for us - we'd rather retrain staff on hg->git (and lose the amazing TortoiseHg).</comment></comment>


Apps to Build in a Bad Economy - <AUTHOR> http://embought.com/blog/show/17?t=Apps-to-Build-in-a-Bad-Economy

<comment><USER2> Frugality apps are cringeworthy. Thankfully the article finished with "Maybe we should all start working on the "next big thing" that's going to change the world and usher in the new new era of the Web." Absolutely.

<comment><USER3> Couldn't agree more. That said, there's plenty of room for modest plays that aren't the grand slam.</comment></comment>


I'd rather a candidate use a whiteboard - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/Is-it-better-for-a-candidate-to-code-on-a-laptop-or-on-the-whiteboard-in-a-technical-interview/answer/Gayle-Laakmann-McDowell?share=1 <comment><USER2> Typing is 10x faster than handwriting but not drawing / diagramming. Let us use the right tools. I'd be happy to whiteaboard architecture / solution on a high level. Or to live-code with running commentary (we practice that when pair-programming, pair-troubleshooting).

Coding on whitebard is nonsense. Noone "in their right mind" is good at it because noone gets to practice. You won't be able to pick the top performers.

Give the guys a keyboard (w/ their favourite IDE) and a simple coding excercise (codility) and you'll pick the 10x from 0.1x guys easily.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I find this an interesting counter-point to what I generally hear. Of course you don't have access to Google and a syntax checker, etc, and your interviewer knows that. They want to hear you think through a problem.</comment>


Show HN: Type Zebra - Test your fonts in a web browser - <AUTHOR> http://typezebra.com <comment><USER2> Nicely done, I love how easy it is to flick between fonts instantly.

I would second cleverjake's comment that a neat way to see serveral fonts together would be awesome (Especially for a different headline font vs the body copy).

Also, a search for the big list of fonts would be handy too.

Off to a great start though, thanks for sharing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Multiple fonts and search for text is something I'd love myself. I just wanted to release the app quickly.

It will be added in the next version. Pinky promise!

<comment><USER2> Awesome. Can't say a negative word about shipping early! Congrats :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You should add a "gallop" button that randomly changes the font every N seconds (maybe with a slider control to select N).

<comment><AUTHOR> I think any kind of "surprise" is a bad UX. The only exception is image sliders where images change randomly but then they are designed in such a way that it gives away the idea of randomly changing images.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not functional without Flash:

"You don't have a compatible version of Flash installed. Please install latest version of Flash and refresh this page."

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, there was no way to detect fonts on your computer without using Flash.

<comment><USER5> In chrome, I'm not seeing the flash warning message. I'm only seeing an endless "Loading your fonts..." I have click-to-play flash enabled.

Webfontloader[1] uses javascript to detect whether a specific font is available. They use a hack where they change the font of a piece of text and calculate whether the width has changed, indicating the system is using specified font instead of the default serif or san serif. If you had a large list of fonts, you could filter out the ones the user has.

[1] <https://github.com/typekit/webfontloader.git>

<comment><AUTHOR> You'll have to enable flash for the website in order to use it. Since the flash element is hidden you can't click on it to play.

I'll check the library and see if I can use it. Being a JS noob I just patched up whatever I could find. I know there is lot of scope for improvement in code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is pretty awesome. It's nicer than <http://www.google.com/webfonts>

</comment><comment><USER7> Cool tool. The down-arrow seems to jump every-other font on the list. It'd also be good if it automatically loaded the font as you pressed that key to go down the list so you could quickly pan through them all without a lot of clicking.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't even notice that until you mentioned.

I was supposed to add code to change fonts with up and down keys but it was getting a bit complicated for JS noob like me so I dropped it for now.

It'll be added in next version for sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I built something along the same lines a while back that allows you to drag and drop font files into the browser. <http://fontdragr.com>

Also has a bookmarklet so you can test them on your own site.

<comment><USER9> Hey, I am a fan of fontdragr. I also have something along the lines; <http://wordmark.it> . I tried to implement a similar drag and load functionality but never got to finish it. Great work. Congrats and best of luck to typezebra too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Would be more helpful if the fonts on the left sidebar were displayed in their native font (a la Photoshop).

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice suggestion.

I'll have to dig more into the code which detects fonts but I hear you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've been up to my ears in PLT lately, so I did a bit of a double take on the name of the project.

</comment><comment><USER12> An auto-suggest Search at top of list of fonts would be helpful.

<comment><AUTHOR> It will be added soon. You can stay updated by following on twitter: <https://twitter.com/typezebra>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> cool, just what i needed for testing my new website fonts

</comment><comment><USER14> itd be great to preview multiple fonts simultaniously

<comment><AUTHOR> Multiple font panes will be supported in the next version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can't get past "Loading your fonts" on Chrome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you tell me which Chrome version and OS are you using? You can also contact me on email@example.com if you want to send some screenshots.

<comment> angry-hacker Same problem here, Chrome Version 23.0.1271.97 m + Windows 7 64bit.

Edit: Had to enable flash in order to make it work

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, Flash is required to "detect" all the fonts on "your" computer.

All the fonts being displayed are installed on your computer. This app just provides a great way to view those fonts.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


'All wifi networks' are vulnerable to hacking, security expert discovers - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/16/wpa2-wifi-security-vulnerable-hacking-us-government-warns <comment><USER2> not all. quit a few though :F

my main question in this thing: they talk about protocol weakness, yet speak about fixing it via patch / implementation change. Anyone could clarify this perhaps??</comment>