Five-year-olds to learn programming in UK schools - <AUTHOR> http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2280072/fiveyearolds-to-learn-programming-and-algorithms-in-major-computing-curriculum-shakeup

<comment><USER2> Well of course there is no chance that any 5 year old in an ordinary school will learn anything about programming. Just think who will be teaching them - that's right - the normal teachers. How much do they know about programming? - I frankly doubt that many of them know for sure how to spell it (the ms are tricky).

So we take a bunch of people who have proven pretty bad at teaching basics like reading and ask them to teach something like programming - what comes next? Junior school moon shots?

Completely silly!</comment>


Twitter removes Trump campaign tribute to Floyd claiming copyright complaint - <AUTHOR> https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/501270-twitter-removes-trump-campaign-tribute-to-george-floyd-claiming-copyright <comment><USER2> Maybe we'll get some DMCA reform now.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Tribute"

</comment><comment><USER4> I for one am happy to see Twitter not take his crap anymore. He disrupted politics, now they're disrupting him. He's such a crybaby, this is genuinely enjoyable. Had he any sort of professional/presidential tone to him, this would have never happened. He did this to himself.

</comment><comment><USER5> Surely the Trump campaign's response should be to claim that they are not infringing. This should put the video back up, according to DMCA rules. I'm not really familiar with Twitter's DMCA work flow. Do they not allow the user to challenge the claim?

<comment><USER6> They are supposed to allow the user to challenge the claim, and if so, the video can be put back up after 10-14 days, if the complainant doesn't start a lawsuit, if I understand the process correctly.

<comment><USER7> Are you saying Twitter, or Trump, should do something?

<comment><USER6> It'd be up to Trump to contest the DMCA takedown to continue the process. Otherwise, it just stays down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seems like fair use to me.

</comment><comment><USER9> tl;dr

Someone filed a copyright complaint against the video. The complaint is substantiated. The article does not say who did it.

Trump is of course saying how twitter is biased against him where literally twitter must take down that ad due to the DMCA and them being personally held liable if they didn't.

Trump doesn't understand the law, or at least pretends not to.</comment>


The New ECG Apple Watch Could Do More Harm Than Good - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/ecg-apple-watch/ <comment><USER2> Why would someone use an ECG if they're not experiencing any symptoms? I've had an ECG twice in my life - as it turned out both times were a result of panic attacks. But I also have a family history of heart issues. Meanwhile I have a friend who suffers from AFib and this could be an invaluable tool for him.

I guess the bottom line is this isn't a toy, it's a medical device used to provide important diagnostics for potentially serious medical situations. I trust people would treat it as such.</comment>


Ask HN: Who is still using Oracle? - <AUTHOR> I am always astonished to see that Oracle is the third largest software maker by revenue after Microsoft and Google. The thing is, I don't recall ever seeing Oracle databases mentioned in a job post. I only ever see MySQL, Postgres, couple others, or a NoSQL database like Mongo. Never, ever Oracle.<p>But evidently they're still here in force. Who is still using Oracle? <comment><USER2> Have used Oracle for almost 20 years ( also sql server, postgres, mongo, redid, sqlite). The database itself is a great product and has a free and cheapish option. I've worked on major UK utilities, oil and gas and investment banking projects.

Many enterprise companies have multi-million lines of plsql and thousands of db tables. I've migrated some systems away from Oracle to "save money" but it costs a lot to move an entire business to a new platform while they are running in production.

</comment><comment><USER3> Governments, universities, school systems, etc.

When it's other people's money, or if you're swimming in so much cash flow that the occasional six-figure-surprise licensing visit is a rounding error, Oracle is a fantastic choice!

<comment><USER4> I interviewed for a company which made auditing software for government departments. I asked why they chose Oracle and they explained that governments get a hefty discount, so it was actually more cost-effective than the alternatives (e.g. enterprise SQL Server). So the motivation can actually be the opposite!

<comment><USER3> Even at half-price, the cost is still out-of-this-world.

<comment><USER5> For a lot of businesses the Oracle license cost is a rounding error.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Governments, universities, hospitals, banks, insurance companies, any big company where tech is just a utility, not a product (car manufacturers, factories etc).

</comment><comment><USER7> If you support packaged applications, you'll be having an Oracle backend.

Oracle was very clever offering free development licenses to software developers years ago.

This made them the db of choice for people buying a premade solution.

Nowadays it is different because we have a lot of open source DBs available to test for free; but long running monolythical apps won't change easily.

</comment><comment><USER8> Larger enterprise level organizations. It's especialy used in ERP software. In the Higher Education sector two of the most popular ERP solutions are Banner Student and a Peoplesoft application customized for higher ed. Banner runs on Oracle, and Peoplesoft is an Oracle-owned solution.

</comment><comment><USER9> Almost every Bank in the world?

</comment><comment><USER10> Real businesses that are making money.

You don't see them hiring much because they are nursing old systems that are imperfect but not entirely out of control, have low employee turnover, etc.

</comment><comment><USER5> As mentioned big companies use it. Imagine a company with many many years of software development and libraries built on top of Oracle. Not easy to switch.

(Same for perforce)

</comment><comment><USER11> Because no big companies post here. HN is a niche.

</comment><comment><USER12> Not only database, Oracle's ERP is also popular.</comment>


Mingly - gmail plugin - <AUTHOR> http://ming.ly/

<comment><USER2> While I certainly can appreciate that some people will have a use for this, it seems to me that this will "clutter up" GMail resulting in an experience much like what one would get with that browser, _RockMelt_. But at least, it appears that _Ming.ly_ is collapsible.

Note that I have not tested this service myself; this is just the impression I got from the screenshots at that website.</comment>


MeetingMix (YC S08) Gets Your Co-Workers To Cut To The Chase - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/18/meetingmix-plan-meeting-agenda/

<comment><USER2> " _This mode also includes a timer at the top of the screen that helps you keep track of how long you've spent on a given topic so that you don't run over time._ "

Makes me think of _Pardon the Interruption_ on espn (one of my favorite tv shows). Smart idea.

<comment><USER3> Also similar to something Google often does in meetings (according to some article I've read on here). They just project a giant timer on one wall. I can't remember if it's usually timing the meeting as a whole or one section.

<comment><USER4> I prefer the Meeting Ticker: <http://tobytripp.github.com/meeting-ticker/>

<comment><USER5> Someone should make one of these as an iPhone app for people stuck in boring conversations, only it shows an emailable invoice at the end based on the time wasted. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "MeetingMix charges meeting creators $4.95 a month"

I like the pricing which is so low (especially for the app which is aimed at busy corporates for whom probably $5 is worth less the time it takes them to yawn). Shawn, would be interested in your comments on how you arrived at the pricing?

<comment><AUTHOR> We want someone to see this and start using it without worrying about the cost. Before launching we met with managers to understand what prices they're able to expense without needing additional approval. We learned that this wildly varied depending on the company's size though, so we decided to go with the simplest model and price it at the lower end. Hope this helps!

<comment><USER7> I'd suggest rethinking this post-haste, because a) pricing is a signal of quality and you being cheap makes it unlikely any "serious businessman" will use you and b) the true price of your offering is not the amount of money you charge but the hassle I incur getting the charge authorized either by myself or my line manager, and that hassle does not bear anything like a linear relationship to costs at low dollar amounts.

(Dragging my credit card out of my wallet is _far_ more of an annoyance to me than spending $5 a month, and you should see the form I'd have to fill out to get comped for it. I pay for my own hotels when I work overtime because it causes me less stress to pay $60 than it does to babysit a reimbursement request for two to four weeks.)

<comment><USER8> If you were to guesstimate a price of what you would charge per month, what would you choose?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is exactly the technique that the more efficient managers I know use: make people commit to exactly what they want to say and discuss at the meeting beforehand.

<comment><USER10> Me as well. What I don't see is people saying "I want to have great/efficient meetings, but I just don't know how."

Maybe this can make the job slightly easier for people who already run good meetings, but I'm skeptical it's going to convert anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great app. I like the interface, it seems simple and easy to use, and I dont think it'll be too hard to get everyone in my company to use it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Congrats on the launch guys! Getting everyone on the meeting team to buy into using this tool is key. I had pretty good success with using Etherpad for this purpose - found less resistance to using it since it was dead simple.

<comment><USER13> I agree, congrats. Great idea and nice design

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The TC article mentions collaborative editing (creating powerpoints - to be specific) as one of the features they could add. Given that EtherPad is now opensource, MeetingMix can seriously consider adding this feature.</comment>


Microsoft Is Downloading 6GB of Windows 10 Updates Without User's Consent - <AUTHOR> http://www.nextbigwhat.com/microsoft-is-downloading-6gb-of-windows-10-updates-without-users-consent-297/ <comment><USER2> Headline is misleading. They do have consent. This is one reason I don't allow automatic updates.

MS statement: "For individuals who have chosen to receive automatic updates through Windows Update, we help upgradable devices get ready for Windows 10 by downloading the files they'll need if they decide to upgrade."

<comment><USER3> What consent is that if people don't understands the facts, implications, and future consequences of the action. Worse, updates has an common perception to be small security fixes.

Should we call it uninformed consent? tricked consent? non-binding consent?

If we want to use legal terms, is 6G download _ordinarily and reasonably to be contemplated_ by the user?

<comment><USER4> Well take your pick, then. You can have automatic updates and get security/functionality updates, or you can not and not, and an OS upgrade can be reasonably considered under the aegis of system updates.

Y'all have been campaigning for users to be automatically updated, often whether they want to or not (c.f. Windows rebooting overnight causing the loss of any open documents) because having them not be makes everyone demonstrably less safe and users will never update if you ask them to.

You can't have it both ways. Which will it be?

<comment><USER5> You and a _lot_ of other people in this thread seem to be going out of your way to conflate _automatic updates_ (such as security patches), and _upgrading to another product_ (such as Win [78] -> Win 10).

You're trying to tie the concepts together to create false dichotomy, which you use as a rhetorical tactic. This usually involves specifically ignoring the people you're replying to and many other posts in the thread that already answered this subject.

<comment><USER4> The "different product" differentiation is more a marketing one than an objective one. The notable changes between 8/10 are a lot less than, say. 3.1/95.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm extremely disappointed that I had "turned off" my development work PCs automatic updates, however after a few weeks I found the telemetry update (KB3068708) for Windows 7 installed fully without my consent.

I had "Download updates but let me choose whether to install them," selected in Windows Update for this category of update. I did not choose to install this, and I was made aware from a HN thread made a few weeks ago.

The update was visible, at that time, _but not installed._ Now, a few weeks later, the update is on my computer. I believe the update was actually installed during an unrelated security update which I had allowed.

I'm wondering if I'll have to use external scripts of my own or third party to remove the telemetry bug on my computer.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is really infuriating... Microsoft, what the hell?

I really hope steam machines take off (and stay relatively open). As soon as I'm happy with the number of games Linux supports I'm dropping windows like a rock.

<comment><USER8> So... never?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't get the "without consent" part. If you have automatic updates on you consent to them automatically downloading things.

<comment><USER10> It's crazy that Microsoft gets so much heat for trying everything it can to get people to its latest OS. By this time next week, a couple hundred million people will be running iOS 9. Within six months they should have 85-90% of their users on it. This makes it better for Apple, developers, and the users. Windows needs a little more of an "onward" mentality.

<comment><USER11> Microsoft is getting heat for trying everything they can because they're supposed to be "trying everything they _should_ ," instead of violating their user's expectations.

It's great the MS wants everyone on their latest OS. But "latest" doesn't mean "best." Taking away user choice subverts the economic principles that encourage improvement -- that "best" is decided by the consumer, not the producer.

It would be ideal for developers if we all just used one OS. That doesn't mean it's the right thing to do for the customers, the economy, or society.

<comment><USER9> Can't users opt out by disabling automatic updates? Microsoft is basically doing what every other modern software company does but taking heat for it.

<comment><USER12> Arguably all software vendors who sell a product should be prepared to do two things:

1\. continue fixing bugs in their prior products. 2\. create new features in new products.

People who buy something, e.g. an original iPad, no longer get OS updates even though the item was advertised as being safe to use to access content on the internet. This is provably false and while EULA shenanigans provide a fig leaf of propriety, the reality is what was sold was defective and if it's possible to fix it they should.

Opting out of updates means that you don't get fixes. The argument that you agree to these kinds of changes in fundamental behavior because you are receiving new features is B.S. The company sold me a defective product and certain documented behaviors. I'm ok with those behaviors but I want the product to work for the features advertised. I should have to tolerate excessive data collection simply to get a functional product.

<comment><USER9> Just for the record the iPad2 still updates. Though the hardware can barely handle iOS8. It's almost unusable. It seems crazy to think there would not be an end of support for something that old. Maybe Apple doesn't allow updates because they don't want the original iPad to become completely unusable?

<comment><USER12> The old devices become effectively unusable as new bugs are discovered and patches are not created, tested and distributed.

It should be possible to fix bugs without having to add in new features. E.g. I shouldn't need to upgrade to floating icons with a parallax background to get a fix for PDF parsing problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For anyone running Windows 7 or 8.1 that wants to stop the Windows 10 upgrade pop-ups or the download if the PC hasn't already downloaded it, uninstall and hide KB3035583.

</comment><comment><USER14> Holy smoke - this isn't very good.

My parents in NZ only get 1 or 2 GB a month ... this would have cost them a fortune.

Fortunately I switched them to mac last year.

Microsoft : You suck.

<comment><USER15> Yeah but, if unpatched, it would have downloaded more as part of a botnet.

<comment><USER16> Windows 10 is not a "a patch"

<comment><USER4> Windows Update downloads more than "patches". It has been used in the past to distribute standalone tools and service packs.

<comment><USER17> It has never wholesale upgraded the OS to a new major version. Nobody expects it to.

<comment><USER18> And that's a large part of why Windows security has always been terrible. While we may not have expected it, that just means we were pleasantly surprised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Claiming consent because automatic updates are on is really, really a stretch. Strikes me as disingenuous. I'm very surprised they've done this, it just seems so stupid and prone to backfire.

</comment><comment><USER20> In yet another fashion, MS demonstrating its considerable disconnect from and lack of understanding of (and/or apparent will to understand) a significant portion of its "average users".

A lot of people have space and bandwidth limitations. We don't all live it the land of huge capacity and unmetered fiber connections.

</comment><comment><USER21> I wouldn't argue that I haven't given consent if I have "download updates automatically" in my settings.

That being said, Microsoft should use better judgment in terms of checking for available disk space (i.e. don't auto download 6GB worth of updates unless 20GB+ space is available on the drive) and not saturating customer connections since the update is by no means critical (i.e. limit it to 10% of the user's bandwidth)

<comment><USER22> I don't think 20GB is enough to make 6GB a trivial amount. I'd say more like 100GB.

MS needs to prompt when downloading amounts of data over a few hundred megabytes, period. There are still places in the world where a prompt is required even for amounts measured in megabytes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> ISPs with metered subscribers are going to make a killing this month!

<comment><USER4> Isn't there an on-by-default option that causes Windows to behave differently wrt. updates if you're on a metered connection? Still, it's on the user to mark their connection as metered...

<comment><USER24> The "this is a metered connection" toggle will only appear for wireless devices. There is no way to enable it when on a wired network.

Source: Much googling after I found myself on a hotel's low-bandwidth network for a week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So, basically update means upgrade now?

</comment><comment><USER26> I feel sorry for New Zealanders, where the internet is typically metered...

</comment><comment><USER27> What has Microsoft done with user consent?

</comment><comment><USER28> Every week I adjust my (icon bar?) settings to change the "Get Windows 10" application back to "Show only notifications". Windows keeps resetting it to "Show icons and notifications". Perhaps I should file that as a bug report.

</comment><comment><USER29> So why are we allowing Microsoft to get away with it?

<comment><USER30> Why are we allowing any of the corporations, governments, and police departments to get away with any of the stupid shit they continuously do? Mostly because it would take a significant act of power to do anything about it, power which we don't have and even if we do, we do not wish to exercise. The exercising of which would probably cause more problems in the short term than it would solve. Most people will not do anything about such problems.

<comment><USER31> > Mostly because it would take a significant act of power to do anything about > it, power which we don't have and even if we do, we do not wish to exercise.

It starts a step before that - awareness. Most folks aren't aware of the things that are done, and even of those who are only a minor subset consider these things to be a problem.

Lack of motivation to try to make change winnows out most of those who get past the first two problems. The unfortunate truth is that of the small subset who are aware and offended, most simply have higher priorities.

<comment><USER30> > Most folks aren't aware of the things that are done

I totally disagree. With today's media most people are hyper aware, disproportionately, of everything that goes on. Perhaps even desensitized by their over-awareness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Short script to disable that behavior (and telemetry)

[https://gist.github.com/Citillara/3ad19ce3314a0964758f](https://gist.github.com/Citillara/3ad19ce3314a0964758f)

</comment><comment><USER33> It seems Microsoft's position is that if a user has auto-updates on, they have consented to downloading the installer for Windows 10.

<comment><USER34> The default selection is to download and install updates automatically. You'd think they would check for available disk space beforehand though.

<comment><USER35> Is there a reason Windows just lets you run out of disk space? On Linux when I'm downloading something and come close to running out of space the download stops and I get an alert saying I need to delete something.

<comment><USER36> That's the program doing that, not the OS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Anyone know what the "$Windows.~BT" folder is would supposedly be located?

<comment><USER38> in the root of the C:\ drive (it's a hidden directory)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> That's funny, I don't see that on my two Win8 machines.</comment>


My Rails Defaults - <AUTHOR> http://hankstoever.com/posts/5-My-Rails-Defaults?hn=true

<comment><AUTHOR> If you're a Rails developer, I would really take the time to do this. I've wasted so much time in the past just copy and pasting code from old projects, and now that I have everything I need in one `rails new ...` call, I'm happy knowing I have all my favorite libraries ready-to-use.</comment>


CO2 shortage threatens US food and water supply - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/20/carbon-dioxide-shortage-us-food-water-coronavirus <comment><USER2> "The ethanol plants are not closed because of Federal government orders related to COVID-19, but rather by market forces".

Funny! The article is all about how governments are massively distorting the market. US twiddling the ethanol supply. Russia/Saudi Arabia oil shenanigans. Government ordered shutdowns massively reducing demand for fuel.

It's like violence. If it ain't working, we need more (government intervention).</comment>


Ask HN: What would be a better business model for browsers? - <AUTHOR> Mozilla published about $500M in royalties revenue "earned through Firefox web browser search partnerships and distribution deals around the world" [1] in 2016 against ~900M active clients [2]. Which means browsers as a business model currently approximately monetize at around $0.55/user/year.<p>This is done by search engine partnerships, default bookmarks and distribution deals. Is this good or bad? What if you wanted to build a browser around speed, privacy, ad/tracking blocking features?<p>[1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2016/ [2] https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity <comment><USER2> Umm, the brave browser? (which I will never install)</comment>


Tipjoy (YC W08) now allows payments via Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://tipjoys2cents.blogspot.com/2008/12/tip-via-twitter.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm really excited about this because of where we can go with this.

The idea of a "rtip" or tip/retweet is the biggest innovation here. It's exactly how twitter is already used to disperse information, but adds a social gesture with monetary weight. That's pretty powerful. If you like a tweet, just say "rtip $1 @username the awesome tweet".

Lots of sites use Twitter credentials, and this means they can initiate payments. It also makes those payments inherently social, as they are broadcasted - so in ways it is better than an OAuth system. But we're planning that too.

We are also accepted new signups via twitter credentials <http://tipjoy.com/createaccount/platform/twitter/>

We're going to open this up to an API, meaning sites based on twitter credentials can convert their whole user base to tipjoy users. I'm really looking forward to see what can be done with these tools.

<comment><USER2> The potential for this idea is what got me excited the minute I saw your post.

As an aside, I think twitter still needs to release support for OAuth, there are too many sites out there storing twitter credentials in plain text right now. Careful developers should be hashing the passwords with some secret salt so at least their users passwords aren't at risk if someone ever gains access to their db.

These aren't really your issues, but twitter needs to add proper authentication. Anyways -- this is a great from tipjoy -- looking fwd to what comes next.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm sure this wasn't 'inspired' by twitpay.me at all, released and announced here 15 days ago (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=369568>)

<comment><USER4> They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so we at Twitpay are taking it as a compliment.

<comment><USER5> With compliments like that, who needs insults?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Too many "pay words"! I don't know if that's the case but you should really check they aren't part of a casual tweet.

Eg.

"I'm not going to pay @joe $1000 for an old ipod!" or

"Everyone! Give @bob $10 to buy beer".

<comment><AUTHOR> We thought of this. They need to be in the first 3 tokens.

So this would indeed count, "Give @bob $10 to buy beer" but that is clearly a closer to a command.

More importantly, this is an opt-in option, so it would be hard to do it without knowing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Am I the only one who is EXTREMELY skeptical that anyone is going to actually give out money using these applications?

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice feature. I would use this if I frequented Twitter. I have sick friends who would throw money around like that for fun though.

<comment><AUTHOR> You tweet sometimes. They're usually pretty funny, so you should do it more. I'm pretty sure twitter will be closer to an ecosystem of tips, considering everyone is a "blogger" - though some with greater followings.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I log in a few times a week, and read whatever posts are on the first page. That's about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _"... Tipjoy now allows payments via Twitter ..."_

Go Abby & Ivan

</comment><comment><USER10> This is pretty cool. Congrats, TipJoys!

</comment><comment><USER11> "inspired" is probably not the right word. i think directly stolen from twitpay is probably better

<comment><USER12> "Stolen", really? It's business, not super friendly fun time. Competition happens.

<comment><AUTHOR> Tipjoy is all about super friendly fun time. Like at our poker nights. Come by if you're in the Boston area (and a startup hacker/foudner): <http://www.meetup.com/Boston-Startup-Poker/>

<comment><USER13> What if you're not, but would like to be?

<comment><USER14> Come up with a decent concept and team and then get funded by YC.

<comment><USER13> Seems a little involved just to get in on a poker game. :)

<comment><USER4> If you're already in Boston, the startup part is easy. Idea+Incorporation=Instant CEO

He didn't say you had to be part of a _viable_ startup to play.

<comment><AUTHOR> Viable is determined on exit, right?

Anyone reading this is welcome to the game. And if you want an excuse to move to Boston, tipjoy is hiring: <http://tipjoy.com/jobs>

<comment><USER4> Ivan, I assume you saw @tensigma's invitation on Twitter to play poker if you're ever in Atlanta, but I'll mention it here, too. He's not any good, though, so go easy on him.

<comment><AUTHOR> Even people that think they are good are still usually just playing by intuition, like me. I'd love to play. We should set up a network of startup poker games across the country. Poker is the new incubator.

Given this fundraising environment, it might be a good financing strategy too.

<comment><USER4> That was a session at BarCamp Atlanta: Startup funding via poker.

<comment><AUTHOR> Zynga does that, but plays the role of the house.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Alphabet spent more than $1.3B last quarter on 'other bets' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/4/18211177/alphabet-google-earnings-q4-2018-moonshot-other-bets-spending <comment><USER2> I like to think at least once there was a secret group that built cabbage cannons (at scale).</comment>


Clojure Roundup: FlightCaster (YC S09), Crane, Incanter, Leiningen - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/news/2009/12/clojure-crane-incanter-leiningen

<comment><USER2> Leiningen description:

      A build tool for Clojure designed to not set your hair on fire.

Edit: Leiningen works extremely well with Emacs swank-clojure adapter. All you do is "M-x swank-clojure-project" and point to your project that contains your Leiningen project.clj file and it automatically sets all the necessary classpaths for you based on your dependent libraries while bringing up a REPL session.

<comment><USER3> Nice description, from technomancy, who wrote bus-scheme, which accepts contributions, but only if you write them on the bus.

<http://github.com/technomancy/bus-scheme>

:)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Clojure, Crane, Incanter, Leiningen.

Magic music to my ears, I have no idea why.</comment>


NSFW Content Recognition - <AUTHOR> https://developer.clarifai.com/guide/tag#nsfw <comment><USER2> The NSFW part was discussed yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11530304](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11530304) (397 points, 17 hours ago, 124 comments)

But this article has more details about the API and other recognizing models.</comment>


Kryptoradio – A Bitcoin data transmission system - <AUTHOR> http://kryptoradio.koodilehto.fi/ <comment><USER2> This means parking meters, vending machines, laundromats, etc. can receive bitcoin payments without an internet connection. That is actually really cool.

<comment><USER3> Well, only if the transmission is signed & trusted. Otherwise, an attacker could just spoof a payment by transmitting a modified blockchain close to the payment terminal.

Also, things like DVB tuners are not exactly cheap enough to be integrated into many devices (though FM receivers, which may be used in the future, are).

<comment><USER4> >Otherwise, an attacker could just spoof a payment by transmitting a modified blockchain close to the payment terminal.

If the payment terminal used an SPV-like technology, the attacker would have to have a tremendous amount of computing power. This attack is not feasible, especially considering the relatively small reward of fooling an ATM or a parking meter.

<comment><USER5> Today. Parking Meters have a lifecycle of up to 25 years.

<comment><USER6> But since the meter would know the current difficulty level and with the auto- adjustment of difficulty to the amount of hash power in the network, the meter would be just as secure in 25 years as it is today even with incredible advances in hash speeds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Talking about that, Can anyone please transmit wikipedia via long wave radio? It would be interesting in censor states. Hiding wikipedia in tv/movie firmware would also be a possibility.

<comment><USER8> It just moves the thing that gets censored from the website itself to the equipment needed to receive it.

<comment><USER9> Which is infinitely harder for authorities to control.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thats all good and gimmicky but can you tell me: the 1-way connection offers any value to anyone?

<comment><USER11> With a DVB/Radio link to the network one could listen to transactions only to their address. You could think of bitcoin operated gas stations, bitcoin network-hubs in rural areas, micropayments to car-charging stations (all you need is power and a cheap DVB receiver to listen to the address "beacon" for a payment.

Now sending back transactions to the network is not covered, but can be done by using SMS or a small radio link to a local node. A bitcoin transaction is only about 64 bytes (!) so even a DTMF call or SMS should work fine.

A transaction send would look like this (normal TXid, in hex)

      a9d4599e15b53f3eb531608ddb31f48c695c3d0b3538a6bda871e8b34f2f430c

That would be

      76816061505687581068522220805344294890167166251289478281934616246172205973504

in DTMF. Would take about 15 seconds to complete ([http://www.audiocheck.net/audiocheck_dtmf.php](http://www.audiocheck.net/audiocheck_dtmf.php))

<comment><USER12> Why not just send the confirmation back by SMS?

<comment><USER13> The idea is that the payment receiver doesn't need to do it. The payee needs to have some kind of uplink (like a mobile phone, amateur radio, or anything).

There are mobile payment applications already, but they are doing it using centralized service and they need make deals with payment agents. With Kryptoradio it is possible to receive payments without any extra middlemen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Fascinating idea. In the areas that this would work, would it not be simpler to just use a normal cell phones data connection or SMS?

<comment><USER15> Say the blockchain's growing by a gigabyte a month.[1] I don't think SMS can support that much, especially times so many devices. Using a tv signal is more robust - you can support _millions_ of devices, and transient 3G network failures will have less or no effect.

[1] I estimated. [http://blockchain.info/charts/blocks- size](http://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size)

<comment><USER16> But the parking meter (etc.) doesn't need to handle the blockchain at all. It could use the SMS to communicate with a shared parking meter bitcoin transaction server. That said, broadcasting the blockchain is useful.

<comment><USER13> If you stick to centralized solution then that would work nice and might be good enough. However Kryptoradio allows to do it by just listening incoming transactions and blocks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I had a similar idea like this, but using shortwave instead of DVB.

</comment><comment><USER18> Are we going to witness another Clinkle sotry ([http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-story-of- clinkle-2014-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-story-of- clinkle-2014-4))?</comment>


Ask HN: Do you see your team or company becoming remote-first in the new decade? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I see my employer becoming remote-friendly, and remote-first on a team level.

On teams vs companies...

I've been putting together a list of the biggest distributed companies [https://www.amursoftware.com/biggest-distributed- companies](https://www.amursoftware.com/biggest-distributed-companies). What I realized is that big tech companies where some employees are distributed like e.g. Microsoft, Dell probably have a lot more distributed employees in total number than any company on my list. Like by a factor of 10x.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you think the journey for most employers will be to become remote-friendly first before becoming remote-first, rather than jumping straight to remote- first?

That's a very interesting insight and probably brings a lens of reality to actual extent of the movement towards remote. To the end that remote-friendly is the first step towards remote-first (and that the big tech companies already have some employees that are distributed), it'll be interesting to see whether there will be a step-change in the volume/percentage of remote-first roles once any of the big tech companies make the leap...

<comment><USER2> I think it probably happens gradually a lot. And I think many companies will go by team or by function like e.g. support, dev

Companies that want to hire remote or offer it should publish numbers on percent working remotely. Good marketing and helpful for the industry if you think remote work is net good.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular? - <AUTHOR> Taking a look below at price, you can see that 1 bitcoin is worth around $4400 US dollars.
https://www.coindesk.com/price/
I remember a time when they were giving out free bitcoin at hackathons and conferences etc.
For a casual outsider and a passive market speculator, whats going on with bitcoin and maybe the rest of cryptocurrencies, what are they seeing that we can't?
And any clues as to whats with the recent surge in East Asian interest of bitcoin?
https://www.coindesk.com/annyeong-bitcoin-south-korea-canada-changing-crypto-market/
Note that I've tried googling but a lot of the urls are before May 2017 and are trying to explain about Bitcoin's peak at ~$2000 which is not helpful much. <comment><USER2> It's a classic speculative bubble. People are making bets to position themselves for a situation where Bitcoin will be worth a lot in the future, but the valuation is untethered from any intrinsic value.

The surge becomes self-sustaining, in that as news stories of easy wealth spread and more speculators bundle into the market, it fuels more demand from new participants looking to get rich quick. This is not sustainable in the long run, and as soon as the crowd gets spooked all the dumb money will bail out very quickly, leading to a very fast crash.

The Gladwell book "The Tipping Point" is a good read about how ideas and fads take hold in societies. It's more a function of the way information spreads than about any secret knowledge about Bitcoin. Nobody can predict the future, but Bitcoin speculation is an attempt to gamble on it.

There's an investment adage that's something like "When your barista's telling you to invest in something, it's time to get out". Have had a number of non- tech/non-finance friends ask about how to invest money into Bitcoin lately, which is a signal to me that Bitcoin is becoming dangerously overheated.

Take a look at [http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/515b40886bb3f7bd490...](http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/515b40886bb3f7bd49000013-620-/screen%20shot%202013-04-02%20at%204.29.11%20pm.png) from the South China Seas bubble in the 18th Century. The first half of that curve look familiar? Guessing we will see a lot of Newtons in the not so distant future...

(Still, I have some crypto as part of my investment portfolio, about 2% of my net worth... you never know...)

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure if a South China Sea bubble in the 18th century can really be used as a valid comparison here.

We're talking about the rise of a self-contained, decentralised currency _and_ transactional system, all rolled into one. It literally has blatant potential to be a game changer, 100%.

In saying that, I wouldn't be surprised if it all falls apart in the short term.

<comment><USER2> There is a direct and educational correlation that can be drawn between South China Seas, tulip bulbs, stocks in 1929, dotcom stocks, Beanie Babies, subprime housing, Bitcoin, etc.

Time and time again some financial instrument has become unmoored from it's intrinsic value and lax regulation allows speculative money to pour in, some early adopters get rich, the financially naive jump on the bandwagon without understanding the underlying instruments, they get spooked and the entire thing plummets back to it's fundamental value (which may well be zero) leaving some with fortunes and some with nothing. Bubbles appear to be a natural occurrence in a lightly regulated market economy and typically follow a very similar pattern.

I think that Bitcoin can be both a speculative bubble and a potentially world- changing technology. The dotcom bubble is a fine prior example - huge classic speculative bubble, also radically changed how we are all now living.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is anyone else having this feeling (and I'll immediately add the disclaimer that I mean "irrational gut feeling with no factual back-up") that the current cryptocurrency hype is going to end similar to the information superhighway hype of the nineties, with a lot of disappointments, a few big new players, and then a kind of "revival" a decade later where we get it right?

Again, I have no evidence to back this up, I just have a feeling that _spectacular_ mistakes will be made, things will crash and burn when idealism can no longer paper over the parts where naive hopes cannot be reconciled with harsher realities, learn from that, and then get it right the second time around.

EDIT: Note that this is basically a criticism of human nature, not of cryptocurrencies

<comment><USER5> That bitcoin survived MtGoX espectacular crash and kept growing in value after that shows some resilience. I'm not sure other pure financial bubbles survived middle-of-the-way crashes before the final definitive crash.

That said, I believe there will be a lot of disappointments regarding expectations of bitcoin sparking a revolution. My belief is that it will be "only" one more tool among the several financial tools that exist in the world.

<comment><USER4> I had forgotten about MtGoX, good point.

It may be that cryptocurrencies are going through this boom/bust/rise-from- the-ashes cycle on a much shorter timescale. After all, software development is much faster than setting up internet infrastructure and adoption. So what used to take decades to get right might now take years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Plain bubble. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_bubble](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_bubble) Non-speculative use is all but nonexistent. ICOs are a bad excuse whitepaper attached to a tradeable ERC-20 token. There is no actual economic productivity there, just money going into a whirlwind.

I'm getting emails from friends whose retired parents are being targeted by crypto hucksters. My brother sent me an email this morning which was a glaringly obvious scam a friend of his had fallen for and was trying to get him in on.

I thought the bubble was bad a few months ago, right now it's clearly in batshit insane territory. What they're "mining" is the money from normal people who shouldn't be going within a mile of cryptos, and it'll be a bloodbath. The 2017 bubble is so much bigger than the 2013 bubble.

<comment><USER7> Are you saying dotn hodl?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Japan is a huge part of this. Since the government approved btc as a currency, Peach Airlines has started taking bitcoin, huge chains of convenience stores like FamilyMart have been accepting payments in bitcoin, etc.

It's still a tiny portion of total commerce but an absolutely massive jump from previous bitcoin usage.

<comment><USER6> > Since the government approved btc as a currency,

i.e., regulated it in any way at all; specifically, they said exchanges could trade BTC and ETH.

> Peach Airlines has started taking bitcoin,

no, they ran press releases saying they may well by the end of this year probably.

> huge chains of convenience stores like FamilyMart have been accepting > payments in bitcoin, etc.

no, one of their payment processors added a bitcoin option; there's so far no evidence of non-negligible usage.

You're inadvertently parroting speculative bitcoin hype here. The general rule with _all_ bitcoin (and blockchain) media coverage is that there's always much less to it than there appears.

<comment><USER8> > _" You're inadvertently parroting speculative bitcoin hype here. The general > rule with all bitcoin (and blockchain) media coverage is..."_

I was in Japan two weeks ago and saw for myself. I was actually surprised about payments being taken in bitcoin when I heard a customer at a FamilyMart talking about it and double checked with the clerks just to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding.

I may have misunderstood the timing with Peach's support, since I wanted to book in NTD (the currency of my bank account) anyway. That said, exactly none of my comment comes from speculative media coverage. It's literally all from first-hand experience interacting with companies as a customer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think Bitcoin has been growing in popularity since it began, but we first saw mainstream interest in 2013...then interest waned in the wake of the Mt. Gox disaster. Since then, I think the platform and tooling has matured. You've got exchanges like Coinbase that have developed methods of securely storing Bitcoin and have at the same time made it easy for the average person to link to their bank accounts.

I think Ethereum has come up with a novel use case for Blockchain as a distributed computer (as opposed to merely a distributed ledger). And all the alternative cryptos are trying to show that there are use cases for other protocols, too.

So the competition, the tooling, the ecosystem, all of these are exploding right now. There's a lot of money pouring in, developers are getting excited about it...It feels like a new paradigm, distributed apps have some exciting implications. No one knows what this will look like, but it feels a bit like the early dot com era right now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats actually the part I don't understand, one could argue that VR is in a similar or even more advanced stage than Bitcoin/Blockchain in terms of tooling and platforms simply because of the exposure on a day-to-day basis but we've recently seeing VR die down, VR equipment price cuts to encourage sales and HTC looking for a buyer for its Vive.

In fact one bitcoin is worth almost 6 HTC Vives. I'd argue that there was even bigger interest in VR than Bitcoin specifically and yet Bitcoin has emerged the winner recently.

<comment><USER10> That's a weird comparison. VR is largely consumer entertainment at a point in time when we have unlimited amounts of it and it requires hardware that most consumers can't afford and lacks content.

Crypto is an investment that provides yield at a point in time where very little can be found, equity markets are overvalued according to many indicators and an increasingly wealthy population in China is seeking investment opportunities not associated with the Yuan that they can't get in any other form.

Crypto has the potential (however likely you think) to completely redefine the world economy via decentralization. A decentralized, unregulated currency that doesn't require intermediaries and can rapidly transfer and store massive amounts of value with relatively limited transaction fees is unprecedented. VR by comparison is largely a mere iteration on existing entertainment systems right now.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess what you are saying is right, I based my opinions mainly on the companies backing which technology, it seemed like to me that Facebook, HTC, etc. had a better advantage of turning a technology popular than Bitcoin which is more open-source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's, in fact, getting less popular outside of speculation - it's only practical use. Most articles and news are about blockchain technology gaining adoption, not Bitcoin per se, which is obsolete already. What's getting popular is Ethereum, and Ripple which is a far more superior platform with real potential but not as lucrative for speculation.

<comment><USER6> The "Blockchain" hype is totally being carried by the hype in cryptos, though. And it is hype - there's endless hypothetical proposals, and endless bare excuses for an ICO, and endless pilot programmes that IBM's managed to sell someone on, but there's about 0 being put into production use.

<comment><USER12> >> but there's about 0 being put into production use

Daimler for example is currently using Blockchain to manage a 100 million Euro loan [1]. They will still use their old tech (faxes and lots of beaurocracy) in parallel on this deal since is there is much at stake, obviously. But it is a nice experiment that will certainly inspire others, if successful.

[1] [https://www.daimler.com/investors/refinancing/blockchain.htm...](https://www.daimler.com/investors/refinancing/blockchain.html)

<comment><USER6> Literally the subheading on that page:

> Joint pilot project

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Crtl + f "bubble" => 17 matches

Since no one mentioned it yet - deflation.

The total amount of bitcoins is limited. Although the last bitcoin has not yet been mined, the available amount of bitcoin has stabilized, because the bitcoin-mining-process has slowed down and is in parity with the bitcoin-got- lost-process.

</comment><comment><USER14> Coincidentally, there is a recent post on AVC.com (the VC Fred Wilson's blog) about Bitcoin:

[http://avc.com/2017/08/store-of-value-vs-payment- system](http://avc.com/2017/08/store-of-value-vs-payment-system)

Note: I don't have a position or view on this topic either way, just posting it here to see if there are any interesting comments here on it, from which I or others might learn something.

</comment><comment><USER15> What would happen to the long-term legitimacy of the bitcoin market if corrupt state actors started investing heavily in order to hide money laundering?

</comment><comment><USER16> It's the network affect. More people using it, the price rises, more people buy, the price rises more, and on and on.

<comment><AUTHOR> It could be but whats the network effect about? Like I can see a network effect coming out of Facebook for connecting friends, what would bitcoin do thats so powerful, that more people use that the price would rise? Transfer money internationally in a fast and cheap manner?

<comment><USER17> The more people that are willing to accept Bitcoin in exchange for goods and services, the more valuable Bitcoin is.

<comment><USER6> That's been less and less, though.

<comment><USER16> Mainly because of fees. I'd say crypto (as a whole) has had a huge increase in acceptance overall, and with Bitcoin being the easiest to purchase and usually the favored currency to trade alts with, it's natural that it's only grown in popularity.

<comment><USER6> "acceptance" is a weasel word. It's an asset bubble, where the "acceptance" is for the purpose of speculation in the hope of getting rich for free.

Note the actual comment I'm responding to:

> The more people that are willing to accept Bitcoin in exchange for goods and > services, the more valuable Bitcoin is.

Approximately nobody accepts Bitcoin in exchange for goods and services except to buy drugs. Which does count as a use case, but it's a trivial one compared to the speculation; and even drug buyers and sellers are endlessly frustrated by the transaction clogs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I especially like the way the following video explains the long-term vision of why Bitcoin is valuable. Once you understand the long-term vision, and how Bitcoin's fate is still very much up-in-the-air in some respects and still subject to a lot of speculation and possible government interference, it's not hard to understand that such large short-term upsides and downsides are to be expected. The speaker is Andreas Antonopoulos, a particularly eloquent speaker (IMHO) about all things bitcoin: [https://youtu.be/ONvg9SbauMg](https://youtu.be/ONvg9SbauMg)

</comment><comment><USER19> Every day Bitcoin survives proofs that it works.

</comment><comment><USER20> Suddenly?

<comment><AUTHOR> It jumped ~2000 dollars USD in less than 2 months

[https://www.coindesk.com/price/](https://www.coindesk.com/price/)

<comment><USER20> We have seen that story over and over in the last few years. it goes from 1 to 2, then from 2 to 4, etc...

<comment><AUTHOR> Well press all on the timeline below:

[https://www.coindesk.com/price/](https://www.coindesk.com/price/)

and you will see what I mean.

A huge jump in pricing (~3500 USD) in less than 5 months is a jump in popularity no?

Like individually it seems small, but once you realize the market cap, its pretty big. If this was Apple stock price in the same scale of time (Apple's market cap jumps 350% in 5 months, note that Apple stock price has always been less than Bitcoin so it would be even greater if for Apple), people would be running around screaming and asking why Apple stock suddenly became so popular.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> /</comment>


How affordable housing mandates make housing more expensive - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0104-galles-affordable-housing-court-case-20160104-story.html <comment><USER2> Not that this is a major problem with the article, but the Powell and Stringham paper they refer to is from 2004, and can be accessed here. [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1676277](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1676277)

They don't misrepresent it, but it is rather old.

I think it would be relevant to see how these policies have faired over the last 8 years. I suspect that they have done more harm, rather than less through the housing crisis.</comment>


I wonder if marissa mayer wants to sell the company - <AUTHOR> http://uk.businessinsider.com/yahoo-exec-i-wonder-if-marissa-mayer-wants-to-sell-the-company-2015-4?r=US

<comment><USER2> In order to sell Yahoo, she'd have to find a company that:

(1) had enough money to buy Yahoo (the market cap of Yahoo is $40.52B[1])

(2) had a plausible reason to want to buy Yahoo (instead of spending that money on its own business or some other potential acquisitions)

(3) was willing to pay anything close to its current market value (if they offered less than that, it wouldn't be a good deal for Yahoo's shareholders).

I can't think of any such buyer.

[1] [http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=yhoo&ql=1](http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=yhoo&ql=1)

<comment><AUTHOR> Apple.</comment></comment>


FBI Prioritizes Copyright Issues; Not So Concerned About Missing Persons - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100809/17262010563.shtml

<comment><USER2> Sweet, the gov't is finding new and exciting ways to whore itself the highest bidder.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm... That's odd. The general principle in law enforcement is "life over property." Can anyone corroborate or confirm this info?</comment>


Ask HN: What do you use to layout and model your home? - <AUTHOR> I remember seeing on HN a while ago free software that people use to layout and plan out the interior of their home. What do you use? (paid or unpaid) <comment><USER2> A few years ago I used SketchUp to model some house extensions, was pretty useful to model window sunlight and shadowing through the year, and double check draft plans from the builder in terms of layout. It seems to have gone web-only now though, instead of an unpaid desktop program.

<comment><USER3> Seconded, that's what we used for our office.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sketching (2D/3D) with pencil and paper for rough ideas.

As soon as any accuracy is needed, AutoCAD for 2D and/or Blender for 3D. Blender is usually enough, but I'm faster in AutoCAD.

If possible, I try to physically experience the new space or object, using my imagination and any props at hand. For example, I might put masking tape on the floor, following the layout of the drawing, and walk around them pretending they are obstacles.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have used Sweet Home 3D and it's great

[http://www.sweethome3d.com/](http://www.sweethome3d.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> A pencil, a ruler and graph paper.

Tech is usually way more cumbersome to use.

</comment><comment><USER7> interested in how home network in wall</comment>


Nvidia  Launches Patent Suits Focused on Samsung Galaxy Phones, Tablets - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/09/04/nvidia-launches-patent-suits/

<comment><USER2> I knew Nvidia was desperate to enter the mobile market as a real major player but I had no idea they were this desperate.

Their new K1 is actually pretty awesome piece of hardware. So why on earth do they need to resort to underhanded tactics?</comment>


Regex Crossword - <AUTHOR> http://www.regexcrossword.com/ <comment><USER2> How about you save my progress in a cookie?

You might find this hard to believe, but I don't have a Facebook account.

<comment><USER3> Off topic, but god I just wish Facebook would disappear. It's ironic that such a popular company with such a huge valuation would produce an immediate and significant benefit to me if it just disappeared overnight.

<comment><USER4> It begs the question, do you mean Facebook the social network, or Facebook the company? Because there are surely many benefits coming from the company that don't necessarily depend on the social network.

<comment><USER3> It's hard to imagine one existing without the other

<comment><USER4> I think one existing without the other could certainly be the case in the nearish future. Not everything they're doing is tied into the Facebook site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is fantastic work. Many thanks. One request though: please add one or more alternate logins than Facebook.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, this. Especially for something like regexes where a large amount of your users will be more technical, and facebook is becoming less and less popular among technical people.

Personally, I don't have a facebook account and I will not create one just so I can log in on your website. The disability to save my progress also made me give up on trying to progress since it'd just be lost anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My main problem with this is telling the difference between O and 0, the clue O's look more like 0 so I have to copy paste them. (Although I don't think I've had any numbers required for solutions yet).

<comment><USER8> The zeroes have a slash through them on my browser - does yours not have that?

<comment><USER9> Mine too. Although when you've got [0-3] and [^2O13] in the other, it's not too difficult to figure out that contradiction fairly quickly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> These crosswords are NP-hard! D: Here's a short encoding of 3SAT:

Alphabet: [01]

Number of variables: N

Columns: one for each clause, i.e.:

        r/.0...|..1..|....1/

        (-x2 V x3 V x5)

They're disjunctions of three regexps of length N. Each alternative fixes one positional variable to either 0 or 1, and ignores the rest.

Rows: one for each variable, forcing it to be single-valued across the clauses:

        r/0+|1+/

<comment><USER11> Well, that sure cured me of the intuition that these square grid regexp crossword puzzles were inherently easier than the original hexagonal grid version!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nice work overall. That was fun.

Just a heads-up though: There are some typos and grammar mistakes in your explanations, so if you plan to share professionally, you might want to have someone proofread it. Also, your Facebook OAuth window that pops up upon page load is being caught by Chrome's built-in popup blocker. Either way though, I'm always disappointed when Facebook OAuth is the only login method. I get that it's easy to implement, but I can't imagine this is a very security- sensitive app in terms of user-accounts. I would like to save my progress, but it's not worth the risk or analysis required to hook up my Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER13> The ability to rotate was really sweet. Fun challenge, some syntax I wasn't sure about (back referencing) but now probably will remember.

</comment><comment><USER14> Nice, but the answers being phrases ruins it for me, because you start seeing the answers without needed to check the regular expressions.

Really nicely designed though. Clean UI. Wouldn't mind if it was enlarged to use more of the screen real estate (tiny fonts are hard to read). I had fun with this.

<comment><USER15> I thought about this too- the phrases- but, isn't that how normal crossword puzzles are? You can gather clues from the context of surrounding words when doing one of those puzzles.

<comment><USER14> Not really, because rather than using an entire coherent phrase that goes from the top to the bottom of the puzzle, crossword puzzles use discrete and often unrelated words throughout.

<comment><USER11> It's most like a theme clue -- in an American-style crossword you often have 1 to 4 extra-long answers, almost always horizontal, that are related to a theme (they might be puns, or proverbial sayings, or together spell out a longer quote). It's sometimes possible to solve a theme clue in a crossword when you have only a few letters, if you understand the theme well enough.

In this case, the "suddenly solving the whole thing given only 40% or 50% of the letters" effect can be kind of cool, or annoying if you were enjoying the logic puzzle aspect. In the original MIT Mystery Hunt hexagonal regular expression crossword, most of the grid did _not_ spell anything recognizable, so it was clearly a logic puzzle through-and-through. I guess whether people appreciate that depends on whether they were expecting a pure logic puzzle or a combined logic+word puzzle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It would be nice to be switched to the next level automatically.

<comment><USER17> I was also expecting it to advance me automatically to the next level.

A bit of customisation of the default bootstrap look would have been nice too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> In case there is someone out there who never saw MIT's entry into the RegEx competition: [http://rampion.github.io/RegHex/](http://rampion.github.io/RegHex/)

This is the web incarnation of that hexagon puzzle.

<comment><USER11> The MIT puzzle (from the 2013 Mystery Hunt) was called "A Regular Crossword" and its credit says "Dan Gulotta, based on an idea by Palmer Mebane".

(Just so it's not credited to MIT in general; each year's Mystery Hunt is written by a specific puzzle team, and indeed each puzzle is written by specific puzzlers!)

<comment><USER11> This new site is super-awesome and challenging, but a great thing about the hexagonal grid in "A Regular Crossword" was that each hexagon was constrained by _three_ intersecting regular expressions rather than two. That meant that the constraints could be trickier or vaguer in some ways, and comparatively more dependent on the sequence of elements within a regular expression rather than on the process of elimination between two intersecting sets.

<comment><USER11> Elsewhere in this thread, a commenter points out that the square grid regular expression puzzle can encode 3SAT instances, so I was wrong to call these easier than the hexagonal version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I really dislike that patterns using * wildcard required using the letters beforehand. The game requires A* to match a row with zero or more A's, but this is absolutely incorrect, as A* will gladly match ANY string, like QQQQ.

<comment><USER20> That isn't how the Kleene star works.

A* is "the set of all strings over the alphabet {A}, including the empty string ε."

"QQQQ" is not a string over the alphabet {A} because it contains the symbol 'Q', which is not in {A}.

<comment><USER19> I have no idea what you're talking about. My point is more pragmatic the regex /A _/ will match the string "QQQQ" and this tool doesn't take that into account. E.g., I type this into my javascript console:

         /A*/.test('QQQQ');
         > true

Showing that yes, /A_/ does match 'QQQQ'

<comment><USER20> No, it doesn't. It matches the empty string at the beginning of 'QQQQ', not the Qs themselves:

        /A*/.exec('QQQQ')
        [""]

When computer scientists discuss what a regular express does and does not "match", they are saying that strings which are "matched" by a regex are those strings which are members of the regular language defined by the regex. QQQQ is not a string in the language defined by /A* /, so /A* / does not match QQQQ.

If we look at things your way, we would have to say that the regex /A/ matches "AQQQQ". It does not. It matches "A".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Fun! When I saw the title, I was expecting the opposite: a normal cross word with the usual "42 Across (4): It gets things done" style hints, but the answers were valid regex's. Someone make that too!

<comment><USER22> Regular crossword entries (that only have letters in them) are already valid regexen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Pretty cool but I don't feel like I am actually learning regex. I think the explanations/definitions need to be more clear and probably the answers less easy to guess.

</comment><comment><USER17> That was fun (in a really nerdy way)! I'm currently trying to educate one of my team member about regular expressions, this could be a fun way to get him practicing.

</comment><comment><USER24> What's wrong on beginner / 01? :D [http://imgur.com/eJBJYSx](http://imgur.com/eJBJYSx)

<comment><USER25> It's not mentioned explicitly, but the given patterns should match the _entire_ answer, not just part of it. In your screenshot, "O+" means "one or more letters `O`" , it does not mention any `E` s, so OE is not a valid answer.

When you're testing your answers, add explicit start/end anchors and implicit grouping to get better results:

        var r = /^(?:HE|LL|O+)$/;
        console.log("OE".match(r));
        console.log("OO".match(r));

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> So I had a bunch of important stuff to get done today, but now I know what I'll do instead. This is so much fun, well done!

</comment><comment><USER27> I made it to [http://regexcrossword.com/challenges/experienced/puzzles/4](http://regexcrossword.com/challenges/experienced/puzzles/4) before I opted to keep my sanity for the remainder of the day instead of continuing :) very well done. As noted, add non-FB login options!

</comment><comment><USER28> Cool!

I had a lot of fun writing a solver in Haskell for a crossword like this a few months ago. Apologies for the self promotion but here's a link to the article I wrote about it [http://almostobsolete.net/regex- crossword/part1.html](http://almostobsolete.net/regex-crossword/part1.html)

</comment><comment><USER29> This is good homework/quiz stuff if you're teaching people regexes, just to spice things up a little bit.

</comment><comment><USER30> I want to be able to return later, but it's a bit too much to register a Facebook account (which you presumably can't do with a throwaway address?).

I'd be happy to donate more than whatever Facebook pays you for every newly registered account if you would implement a simpler method.

<comment><USER24> How is this too much? FB reg is the simplest way possible online to create an account anywhere.

<comment><USER31> There are lots of people who simply don't want to give anything to FB. You don't have to be one of them but you at least have to recognize them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Wish there were an offline open source version.

With the exception of DHH, do they believe in Open Source in Denmark? (jk)

</comment><comment><USER33> [http://regexcrossword.com/challenges/intermediate/puzzles/5](http://regexcrossword.com/challenges/intermediate/puzzles/5)

Anyone understand what (.)*DO\1 should match?

edit: Okay, I was writting 0 instead of O that's why it wasn't working.

<comment><USER34> . -> any character

(.) -> any character, grouped to reference it, since it's the first group it's referenced as \1

(.)* -> that, 0 or more times

(.)* DO -> any character 0 or more times, followed by DO

(.)* DO\1 -> any character 0 or more times, followed by DO, and the same character as in the beginning

<comment><USER22> By the way, the backreferences make the game non-regular.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> What does it mean when a reg ex ends with a `\1` (backslash 1) as in this example third beginner puzzle? (.)+\1

[http://regexcrossword.com/challenges/beginner/puzzles/3](http://regexcrossword.com/challenges/beginner/puzzles/3)

<comment><USER35> It's a backreference to the first capture group, which is denoted by the first set of parenthesis, e.x.

        (.*)+\1

would match "ABAB", or "ABCABC", etc.

"\2" would match the second capture group, e.x.

        (.*)(.*)\2\1

would match "ABBA", or "AABBBBAA", etc.

<comment><USER32> so in your first example, "AB" was in the capture group and the \1 repeats it?

<comment><USER35> Correct. The following

        (.*)\1+

Would also match "ABABAB", for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I got the solution but didn't understand it for the beginner "naughty" puzzle ... [http://regexcrossword.com/challenges/beginner/puzzles/2](http://regexcrossword.com/challenges/beginner/puzzles/2)

</comment><comment><USER36> I learned regex this way about a year ago. First I went through the tutorials on [http://regexone.com/](http://regexone.com/), then started working the puzzles to burn it in. Really easy and useful once you understand it!

</comment><comment><USER37> This highlights how crossword puzzles are a valuable way to stretch the mind laterally. This is a way to think about regexes that rarely comes up in practice: comparing one regex against another unrelated one.

</comment><comment><USER38> Cool game, it really helped me brush up my regex skills.

I think I found an error in "The Lektor Device": The "I" in "WITH" could also be a "T" from the rules, but only the "I" is accepted.

<comment><USER39> The "I" can't be "T" because the regex on the bottom (.(\sSAI).*) forces it to be "I".

<comment><USER40> No in this case the regex on the bottom only applies the . to the square in question while the \sSAI in question applies to the second square. It seems that it could be a I or a T.

<comment><USER39> (\sSAI) is a group, not a character class. It matches the fixed string " SAI" and stores it in a group. If it were [\sSAI], you'd be correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is fun! I feel like it is also good practice for logic programming too. Combine the regexes and put one or all possible solutions into each cell of the matrix :)

</comment><comment><USER42> No facebook account here either. Would be nice to be able to sign up with email or log in with google.

</comment><comment><USER43> I reluctantly logged in with Facebook and lost all my progress .

</comment><comment><USER44> Closed as soon as I saw the Facebook login needed prompt.

</comment><comment><USER45> Funny, instructive.

Good to practise regular expressions.

</comment><comment><USER46> i don't know how to solve beginner 4? shouldn't you be able to put anything into it?

<comment><USER7>
        * *
        / /

/ isn't a special character and * isn't special when inside a character class

<comment><USER11> Now here's a puzzle where the "post your solutions in ROT13 to avoid spoilers" conventional wisdom wouldn't help!

<comment><USER47> ROT47 solves this exact problem.

<comment><USER11> Wow, thanks for the reference! I had no idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Challenging and impressive.

</comment><comment><USER49> That was pretty fun!

</comment><comment><USER50> "Notice! In order to save your progress you have to login with Facebook."

Yeah, maybe... let me check: NOPE.

<comment><USER51> I really wish Facebook's Anonymous Login would make it out of beta so this wouldn't be an issue: [https://developers.facebook.com/products/anonymous- login/](https://developers.facebook.com/products/anonymous-login/)

<comment><USER52> still facebook will know where you have been. "Anonymous" and "Facebook" do not really fit together ;)

<comment><USER51> They already do. They have Like buttons _everywhere_ on the web.

But Facebook does have a good security track record. This random website does not. I don't trust them with any more information than needed. In this case, that is only a single anonymized token.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Voyager – Kubernetes Ingress Controller Releases v12.0.0-RC.2 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/appscode/voyager/releases/tag/v12.0.0-rc.2 <comment><USER2> Ingress controllers are quite confusing. Here's the general summary:

\- General best practice for Kubernetes clusters is to have a proxy that routes external traffic to internal services

\- This is because Kubernetes provides its own internal network space so each of your internal services aren't directly exposed externally (although you can do this if you like)

\- Kubernetes has a spec for how this is done, the "ingress" spec

\- An ingress controller implements the ingress spec

\- The ingress spec is pretty limited in functionality (basic routing, no support for timeouts, as an example)

So if you just need to do basic routing, any ingress controller is going to do the same thing, more or less.

If you want to do more than that (which is very likely), then you'll want to compare the ingress controllers beyond basic ingress. That's where NGINX vs Envoy Proxy vs Traefik etc come into play as your core data plane proxy, and then how much stuff comes on top of it.

Hope that helps.

(Disclosure: I work on Ambassador, one of the Envoy-based ingress controllers)

Edited: formatting

<comment><USER3> I was about to suggest using something like Ambassador in response to your comment and then saw at the end you are the Ambassador guy. Loved Ambassador as it made the hell of using Ingress go away for me at the time. I'm focused on OpenStack nowadays, but wanted to give you all a shout-out!

<comment><USER4> Likewise, Ambassador solved a ton of problems with ingress that I just didn't want to think about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For anyone trying to wrap their head round the myriad of choices available these days...

[https://medium.com/flant-com/comparing-ingress- controllers-f...](https://medium.com/flant-com/comparing-ingress-controllers- for-kubernetes-9b397483b46b)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is the first I hear about this project. Is anyone using it and able to say something about how it works for them and, in particular, if it works well for bare metal clusters?

I don't see myself using something like this on a public cloud when I could just use an Ingress Controller offered by the cloud provider unless there are very good reasons for it. Which there might be! Which is what I ask for. :)

<comment><USER7> Digitalocean for example doesn't offer a ingress controller for their clusters so I'm currently using the nginx one. Wonder how this compares

<comment><USER8> It spins up a separate HAProxy service for every Ingress resource, which means a separate DO Load Balancer for each.

This simplifies the implementation, but it also means every Ingress object you create costs $10/mo.

I'll stick with nginx-ingress for now, personally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I tried to install an kubernetes ingress but it turned out to be too difficult and so I used the standard service from my cloud. Do you know any good articles about how this macanism works?

<comment><USER10> Not sure what you mean by installing ingress; Kubernetes should now support ingress out of the box using [1], based on OpenShift routes I believe.

[1] [https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/services- networking/ingr...](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/services- networking/ingress/)</comment></comment>


Bitcoin is the world's most dangerous idea - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/04/16/bitcoin-is-the-worlds-most-dangerous-idea/ <comment><USER2> I still think that the idea of us amassing nukes and helping them proliferate is more dangerous. Or the idea that we can abuse the planet ecosystem to infinity.

The problem with bitcoin is that the nation states hold the guns. As the US government showed in the last 10 years - "We upheld the US constitution, unless it prevents us to do something we are set to do" was possible in the nation with most checks and balances on earth. So your protections against thugs beating passwords out of you are much thinner than you expect (and with SWATs so prevalent, they are thinner right now). Worldwide.

If bitcoin becomes dangerous it will be shut down. The only path to success as I can see if US, EU and Japan support it as a weapon to disrupt BRICs economies and other threats.</comment>


NASA to soon end active efforts to restore contact with Opportunity - <AUTHOR> https://spacenews.com/nasa-to-soon-end-active-efforts-to-restore-contact-with-opportunity/ <comment><USER2> What a missed Opportunity

In all seriousness I think it's always a shame when probes, rovers, etc go offline. It's always exciting and wonderful to me when things last vastly longer than their initial mission objectives... but even then it never seems long enough.</comment>


A Conversation with Jane Jacobs - <AUTHOR> http://brickmag.com/conversation-jane-jacobs <comment><USER2> Sorry this is getting lost amidst all the other current flurry.</comment>


The future of notebooks: Ars reviews the 11" MacBook Air  - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2010/11/the-future-of-notebooks-ars-reviews-the-11-macbook-air.ars

<comment><USER2> Just got a 13" Air (128gb SSD, 2gb RAM) and in my limited anecdotal experience it's noticeably peppier in everyday use than my Mini, which has a much faster CPU clock and twice the RAM. Cold startup is much faster, shutdowns are much faster, starting apps that used to be real pigs on my Mini (particularly Firefox and Gimp) is now much faster as well. Oh and file copies, of course. I haven't compared build performance, nor have I done apples-to-apples benchmarks. But overall, roughly speaking, it's a big step up in performance for many common scenarios.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, that's the SSD

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just got an 11" yesterday (1.6GHz, 128GB SSD, 4GB RAM)

First impressions: it feels faster than my ~2 year old 2.x GHz MacBook (with a hard drive and 2GB of RAM). I imagine bumping up the RAM and installing a SSD would change that, but the point is it's not too slow. I certainly don't feel crippled by it.

The screen is great, I don't feel too constrained compared to my MacBook. I could see myself using this as my main dev machine, especially with an external monitor/mouse/keyboard.

The only thing I kind of miss so far is the backlit keyboard, but as I get used to the key locations that will fade.

We'll see how it holds up once I install a bunch of crap. Usually my machines start getting sluggish after a few months for some reason... (I wish there were an app or something that would tell me why. Looking at CPU/RAM usage doesn't seem to help. I want automated tracking of newly installed software + performance metrics correlated)

<comment><USER5> "Usually my machines start getting sluggish after a few months for some reason..."

The Windows effect. Doesn't seem to happen in Linux...

<comment><USER6> I assumes he use mac os x on his macs :)

<comment><USER5> Exactly my point: OS X seems to suffer from the Windows Effect as well.

<comment><USER7> yes. HFS+ suffering from fragmentation. plus bloatware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Having Flash installed can cut battery runtime considerably—as much as 20 > percent in our testing.

Enough said. I've zillion of Safari windows running on multiple Spaces, and when on the road/rail with MacBook, I always disable the Flash plugin altogether. Despite my use of click2flash, HTML5-enabled video on YouTube & Vimeo, I still see "idling" Flash-plugin process continuously taking few percents of CPU, no matter what.

<comment><USER9> I wonder if these are "invisible" Flash apps. I've heard that Click2Flash lets through something like any 1x1 Flash apps because those are almost always just used for Flash cookies and the like. Would be disappointing (though not shocking!) to hear that some of them are poorly written and use CPU even when idle.

<comment><USER10> If Apple's Click2Flash is really letting 1x1 apps through, that kind of kill Safari as a reasonable Firefox alternative in my book.

<comment><USER9> Click2Flash is a 3rd party extension. I just realized the "allow small Flash objects" thing is in the preferences:

[ ] Allow Flash if size is at most _______

On my machine which hasn't been changed from defaults, it says "1x1" but is _not_ checked. So, unless Yaggo has changed their settings, my hypothesis of why they're still seeing Flash is incorrect.

<comment><USER8> Weird. I'm using version 1.6b9 which claims to be most recent but it does not have such an option.

<comment><USER9> I'm on 1.8. It's now a Safari extension - if you're running Safari 5 you can go to the Safari menu then click Safari Extensions Gallery, it's on there. The Click2Flash project page doesn't do a good job of pointing this out!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have a 13" in the mail right now. Been an IBM guy all my life but decided to give this guy a try. I really needed a good comp to use as a ssh client while I'm on the go, and the portability of it all seemed nice. Only thing I'm hesitant about is the proprietary parts that are in the machine. If the RAM goes bad somewhere down the road, I can't simply grab a new stick off of newegg and take a screwdriver to the machine. Somewhat annoyed about that, but I can understand the need to do so in a machine that's trying to cut size as much as this.

<comment><USER12> A Macbook as ssh client? There are cheaper and smaller options out there. I use an Asus eee 901 (and a MiFi router to use one 3g plan for all devices I carry around), it was very cheap and it's been working very well. My macbook has not left my desk since then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> One question which is never answered in these reviews: How long does it take to charge the battery?

My two generation old MBA takes 8 hours to fully charge -- and this is apparently normal. For my use it's not a problem, but it does require some planning to make sure it's got a full battery when taking it out for the day.

<comment><USER14> My 11" Air takes about 90 minutes to charge, but the last 45 of that is going from 90% to full charge. The 13" has a larger battery, so it should take about 30% longer.

<comment><USER13> That is good news!

I thought the 8 hours charge was a fault at first, and so did AppleCare, but eventually it was confirmed as "working as designed."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've tried an 11" Macbook Air and love it. I never felt the iPad was for me, but given my space restrictions when travelling the new MBA seems ideal for me. I'm waiting for Lion to come out to see what that brings to the MBA, but so far the 11" is going to be my next personal laptop, and I'm finally going to retire my 10 year old Sony Vaio SRX-51 (with it's might 128mb of RAM and PIII-850). I somehow doubt my MBA will last as long though.

</comment><comment><USER16> I was dead set on getting one of these, but 2 things stopped me:

1\. Steve mentioned this is the future of the Macbook. Which lead me to think...

2\. Can you imagine what they have in store for the next iteration of the Macbook Pro? Especially the 13 inch?

So, I have decided to hang on to my 13 inch Macbook Pro and wait for the next iteration of the Pro's. I really wish the Air had an ethernet for when at the office and I really enjoyed the backlit keyboard. Otherwise, it seems nearly perfect.

<comment><USER17> I tend to think in a similar way, but I also recognise that since something better is always around the corner I might never buy anything!

<comment><USER10> Given the fact that my 6 year old desktop I never use would serve me just as adequately as "the future of notebooks" for things I _need_ to do, I've always found that attitude to be a useful hedge against needless spending.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I know this has been asked before, but now some of you would have been using your MBAs for a week.

1\. How is the 13" (which is 1440x900) as a primary dev machine?

2\. If you moved from a 15" MBP, do you miss the screen real estate? Was the MBP a 1440x900 one or the higher-res 1680x1050 one?

<comment><USER19> Also, do they get hot ?

<comment><USER20> I had my 13" Macbook Air pegged at 100% CPU usage for a couple hours yesterday. It gets a bit warm, and the single fan spins up noticeably (eventually), but I wouldn't call it hot. I think it'd be comfortable on my lap still.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have a 12.1" Asus UL20A that I bought last December. It isn't as thin as the new Air, of course, but it is a great alternative if you want to spend less and aren't set on a Mac.

<comment><USER22> Acer 1810TZ here. Its 11.6", 5 hours battery life, built-in 3G modem, and I popped in an Intel 80GB SSD. 4GB RAM, and it still cost less in total than the base model Air. It ran Ubuntu perfectly out of the box, including 3G modem, making it better than any other OS in terms of ease of setup..

<comment><USER3> Yours isn't a dual core. The GP's Asus is dual core, but it's about $800 = 1k with a $200 SSD.

FWIW I'm not entirely certain the Air is a good value, & would appreciate a real comparison.

<comment><USER23> The 1810TZ has an SU4100 CPU, which is dual core.

<comment><USER22> Confirmed, its a dual core 1.3ghz

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> As awesome as these are, I'm waiting for the 2nd generation. I simply like to play it safe and have them work out the kinks before making the plunge... most times.

<comment><USER14> That's probably a wise decision. I've been using a maxed-out 11" Air as my main development machine for the past week. I haven't had any issues so far. But I bet Apple will eventually release a version with a smaller bezel and a backlit keyboard.

I definitely think Apple is "cheating" somehow, because this thing boots up in 20 seconds, while my 2Ghz MacBook with the same amount of memory and an Intel X25-M takes 45 seconds to boot. I doubt it takes 25 seconds to check the state of the superdrive.

<comment><USER25>
      > I definitely think Apple is "cheating" somehow

Not necessarily, as the X-25 is on a SATA-2 bus (maxes out at 300MB/s) and the special built-in SSD may be connected to a faster bus (maybe PCIe?).

<comment><USER14> System Profiler says the SSD is on a SATAII bus. The model is APPLE SSD TS128C, which doesn't help me pin down the real manufacturer. If I had to put money on it, I'd say it's a rebranded Samsung SSD, since Apple seems to do that pretty often.

Edit: Apparently I would lose money if I bet on that. :)

<comment><USER23> The macbook air that ifixit took apart had "Toshiba" written both on the assembly and on the individual memory chips. But it's not impossible that they have more than one source of SSDs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Has anyone tried running VirtualBox (or other virtualization software) on the 11" Air? If so what was the experience like?

I'd like to get one, but that question has stayed my hand so far.

I'd like to be able to run a virtualized Ubuntu instance and am wondering what effect the processor speed would have.

I'd spring for the 4GB Ram but there's nothing I can do about the processor speed.

</comment><comment><USER27> It is the first time I have seen a picture of computer taken with soft-focus filter. Mac worship has reached the new heights.

<comment><USER28> Not uncommon with objects of desire. The truly remarkable part is why in 2010 still nobody else is making computers that actually look desirable?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's funny that Apple released a 11" MacBook Air because it seemed to compete directly against it's own iPad. Now it's a tough choice between the two for the average consumer.

<comment><USER30> There's a fairly large price difference still, about $500.

<comment><USER31> I was chatting to the owner of one of the mac reseller stores in Vienna a while back, and the best selling iPad for him was far and away the top-of-the- range 64GB 3G version. The (EU) price difference between that and the 64GB Air is only €200 (€799 vs €999).

Of course they _are_ extremely different machines in practice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Call me an idealogue, but I am not willing to buy any Apple product. I am surprised that so many people who label themselves as open-source activists, or something along those lines, buy Apple's products. As far from "open" as possible.

<comment><USER23> By what measure is Acer, Asus, HP, Toshiba, Sony or Lenovo more "open" than Apple?

<comment><USER32> Well, I am referring more to the Apple's mobile products. On which you cannot get an application (including your's) without Apple's consent, or without paying.</comment></comment></comment>


Newton didn't give second law of motion: research - <AUTHOR> http://www.delhinews.net/index.php/sid/225935167

<comment><USER2> For more background details, see [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton- principia/#NewLawMo...](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton- principia/#NewLawMot) .</comment>


Ask: Should a startup take $50k worth of uncapped convertible note - <AUTHOR>

What are the pros and cons of taking uncapped convertible note for a startup that has not taken any kind of funding <comment><USER2> If you need the money yes, unless the note has some crazy terms.

On the pro side, you've got dry powder and runway from the $50k to keep doing what you're doing. Also you've gotten a vote from at least one investor with real money that you're doing something useful. An uncapped convertable note keeps you out of a lot of messy things like valuation etc.

On the con side, you now have an investor and you're going to need to talk with them and listen when they say things. You run the risk of having a crazy idiot to deal with.

</comment><comment><USER3> There really are no cons. As long as it's an accredited investor and your docs are well written (focus on length of time to repay and amount of discount) Just know the moment you take even $1 from outside investors your clock starts ticking and you must deliver. At <http://geekli.st> our first investors were on a capped note. If you get offered uncapped... take it.

</comment><comment><USER4> _Should a startup take $50k worth of uncapped convertible note?_

Yes, assuming the terms are standard.</comment>


Show HN: RemoteJS – Remote Browser Debugging - <AUTHOR> https://remotejs.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> The most frustrating bug I ever fought only showed up on a remote device. I was working on an AngularJS component, and for some irritatingly-unknown reason, it would not render on a Samsung Android device. One specific device. It just happened to belong to someone really important.

Debugging remote devices sucks because you don't have access to your tools. You can't just open the inspector and dive in–you have to build and deploy custom debugging code. Then do it again with what you missed. And again.

We built RemoteJS to help with this--to help connect easily with troublesome remote browsers with the tooling you'll need to understand what's different there and debug it.

The service is based around the TrackJS agent, with some extensions in place to grab screenshots and execute commands. It establishes a websocket connection to a simplified debugger application, built in React.

Nothing is stored as part of the service, so it's all very inexpensive to run. A few folks might have put us on production sites today, which was a fun load test :)

Thanks for checking it out!

<comment><USER2> Samsung is infamous for messing up android. Apparently Android apps break on Samsung cause they mess with libraries in the OS. Idk why Google lets them get away with that.</comment></comment>