Q&A: Danielle Fong, Chief Scientist, LightSail Energy - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2014/12/31/danielle-fong-lightsail-energy/

<comment><USER2> The part at the end where she is against top-down thinking, and instead promotes bottom-up inductive thinking where you first figure out how to make airplane parts well before tackling the whole aircraft, is a lesson I've learned the hard way an almost unhealthy number of times. She also seems to understand the difference between leadership and management.

Other than that, the 90% figure seems pretty believable to me. If you are playing with containers of gas, you can do stuff that is quite close to the physics textbooks' chapters on thermodynamics. The water is probably so they can get to 750 kwh per tank.

Are there any other processes where the engineered efficiency is that close to ideal? Pumped-storage hydroelectric is close.

<comment><USER3> It says 90% _thermal_ efficiency, which makes me wonder what the electrical efficiency is. Also, "500 hours reliable operation" doesn't look great.

<comment><USER4> Combined heat and power (CHP) might be indicative for that - nevertheless 90% roundtrip what they say on their website is very impressive.

Compressed Air storage has been around for some time and one of the limits is of course the low energy density. They mention 750 kWh modules containerize - how many containers will that be at what pressure - 20 ? 50 ? 100 ? (so that they can still match safety standards while being closer than e.g. 1km to residential areas)

<comment><USER5> Hi there,

This is Danielle Fong -- I'm also a longtime HN'er.

1 container is 750 kWh at 200 bar.

We adhere to the ASME codes which have an impressive set of tests you need to pass -- for example you need to cycle 60000 times in an oven, cycle to 1.5x design pressure with two deep gashes in the outwear walls (40% of the depth of the wall), and survive without bursting a 50 caliber armor piercing round shot from an anti-tank rifle.

You are right that 90% thermal efficiency doesn't account for electrical or mechanical losses.

Unfortunately it is a little confusing and we need to fix that. The gold standard is electrical to electrical efficiency, but we had not optimized or demonstrated that at the time. (We are very close!)

What we _had_ done (2011 - 2012) is demonstrated the thermodynamic, scientific viability of the process. The 90% one-way thermal efficiency compared to what a typical adiabatic process would have of about 65%. The one way efficiency of a typical compressor is further reduced by friction, etc. to about 59%, and still further by electrical losses to about 55%.

At the moment we can achieve a bit above 71% one way in our best runs (including electrical) and are trying to drive to 80% this year -- that's a 50%+ or 64% electric to electric efficiency. We want to be near to 60% across a whole operating cycle.

Note that with 55% one way efficiency from the best previous compressors, that's only about 30% efficiency. So the promise of our tech is that we double efficiency overall for energy storage -- and that's enough to make it viable.

<comment><USER4> Many thanks for the explanations Danielle - this sound like some quite substantial improvements over numbers I know from large scale CHP solutions e.g. Turboden (turboden.eu) that are providing about 19% as gross electric efficiency. They have been building large scale CHP solutions for more than 15 years in Europe but of course they are using turbines and their applications (heat recovery, biomass energy production, Rankine Cycle / ORC) are seemingly quite different from what you're currently working on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The LightSail website has a nice comprehensive overview of how the technology works. Well worth a read: [http://www.lightsail.com/](http://www.lightsail.com/)

Particularly impressive: 90% thermal efficiency.

I want to invest...

</comment><comment><USER7> What I'd like to see a matrix comparing all of the different systems using compression or stored energy via non-battery means.

They mention low cow air storage tanks - comparable to what though?

<comment><USER8> The DOE has some great resources, I can't the one I'm thinking of, but this document:

[http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/12/f5/Grid%20Energy%...](http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/12/f5/Grid%20Energy%20Storage%20December%202013.pdf)

On page 30 has a matrix of the different attributes of different energy storage systems (but unfortunately not cost or capacity).</comment></comment>


Bug causes YAM cryptocurrency to implode two days after launch - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/13/yam_cryptocurrency_bug_governance/ <comment><AUTHOR> > It's not as if cryptocurrency investors couldn't have seen this coming. The > project's GitHub repo states explicitly that there's been no audit of the > code.</comment>


Leiningen 1.1.0 Released - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/1.1.0/NEWS#L3

<comment><USER2> Upvoted for coolest name I recognised off the bat without having to Google it first :)

(I'm assuming this is named for Leiningen Vs The Ants)

</comment><comment><USER3> is there such a task as "lein selfupdate" or something similar?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, "self-install" only updates the lein jar. 1.1.0 added an "upgrade" task that also updates the lein script.

To upgrade to it, you need to download the new script and "self-install": <http://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/raw/stable/bin/lein>

Once you've installed 1.1.0, future upgrades can be done via "lein upgrade".

[edit: clarity]</comment></comment>


An Overview of Ramanujan's Notebooks [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~berndt/articles/aachen.pdf

<comment><USER2> It is unfortunate that Ramanujan passed away at a young age. Had he been alive a few more years, perhaps with the help of Hardy, we may have seen some new mathematical foundations, that enabled him to create between 3000 & 4000 equations that mathematicians even today are struggling to find proofs for.

<comment><USER3> I love learning about people who are incredible outliers. This quote really struck me.

"Paul Erdos has passed on to us Hardy's personal ratings of mathematicians. Suppose that we rate mathematicians on the basis of pure talent on a scale from 0 to 100, Hardy gave himself a score of 25, Littlewood 30, Hilbert 80 and Ramanujan 100" \- Bruce C Berndt

[1] [http://www.imsc.res.in/~rao/ramanujan.html](http://www.imsc.res.in/~rao/ramanujan.html)

<comment><USER4> Here is what I found incredible: he was mediocre even in his Math exams (and failed the rest).

[http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/did-srinivasa- ramanuja...](http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/did-srinivasa-ramanujan- fail-in-math/article6254934.ece)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here is the link to page dedicated to Ramanujan's related content including his notebook in scanned format - [http://www.imsc.res.in/~rao/ramanujan/contentindex.html](http://www.imsc.res.in/~rao/ramanujan/contentindex.html)</comment>


JavaScript: The most Misunderstood Programming Language (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://www.crockford.com/javascript/javascript.html <comment><USER2> Ironically, the author defines the primary aspect of his life's work as the desire to:

> transform JavaScript into a secure language, which is part of my plan to > transform the web into a safe platform for mashups, advertising, and > commerce.

My memory of the early internet business days was that it was specifically advertising and commerce that held back Javascript for about a decade. AOL would not ship a Javascript capable browser because they thought they could monopolize the entire internet by sending "free 100 hours of internet" CDs in the mail and every magazine.

Monopolization of internet technologies was such a good idea that Microsoft then decided to try to do the same thing, and also not implement Javascript properly because they didn't own and charge a license fee for it.

In fact, if memory serves me correctly, the reason for the rise of PHP back in the early internet days was as a server-side rendered replacement for browser scripting was the poor state of Javascript engines. If you take the logic away from the AOLs and Microsofts of the world, then they can't break your complicated, interactive website while bickering with each other by breaking things on purpose. The lure of writing things in PHP was that it spit out raw HTML separately from a browser, and HTML was the only thing everyone agreed on.

In short, Javascript might have gotten along farther, faster than it did, if more people had been more concerned with building a better mousetrap than building "advertising and commerce."</comment>


The Loneliest Whale in the World - <AUTHOR> http://www.good.is/post/the-loneliest-whale-in-the-world/ <comment><USER2> I know some humans with the same problem.</comment>


Watch a phone charge in just 15 minutes thanks to 120W charging - <AUTHOR> https://www.androidauthority.com/vivo-iqoo-120w-charging-1137348/ <comment><USER2> Does this cause more overall wear on a battery compared to a regular charger? In terms of long term battery deterioration.

<comment><USER3> Yes, vastly more. If you want your phone to last longer, trickle charge and don't top off (assuming li-ion). They're happiest between 50% and 80%.</comment></comment>


An intuitive way to format date and time - <AUTHOR> http://golang.org/pkg/time/#Constants

<comment><USER2> The format is intuitive to read, but I always find myself going here <http://golang.org/src/pkg/time/format.go#L50> when I am writing a format string.

It's definitely an improvement over strftime because I need to lookup the escape codes when reading or writing a format string.</comment>


More of a Disruptive Virtual Accelerator Than a Hackathon with $50k Grand Prize - <AUTHOR> http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ethercamps-second-global-hacking-event-kicks-off-november-1579296 <comment><USER2> I've been keeping an eye on this, and a thought occured. The prize money isnt as important as taking part.

"It will be a transformative event for the industry with hundreds of great ideas feeding into groundbreaking teams, all competing and showcasing their work,"

With the list of judges, and their idea behind 'fans', I think this could transform the Ethereum eco-system.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think we need more blockchain application that getting down to reality. It looks like the online hackathon going to the right way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Alex Shelkovnikov, corporate venturing and blockchain lead at Deloitte, and Meni Rosenfeld, founder of Cluster, a hub for disruptive technologies, will both join Lubin on the panel of judges. Each judge will have a portion of votes to award to the camps they favour.

<comment><USER2> This is why taking part could be more important than 'winning'\- If I'm trying to create a peer to peer application, which after all is part of the promise of Blockchain tech, than Jaan Tallinn is a pretty important guy to be aware of your team...

"Jaan Tallinn is an Estonian programmer widely celebrated for writing the peer-to-peer engines of Kazaa and Skype."</comment></comment></comment>


Digital Exile: How I Got Banned for Life from Airbnb (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jacksoncunningham/digital-exile-how-i-got-banned-for-life-from-airbnb-615434c6eeba <comment><USER2> Older thread on same post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17523056](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17523056)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a wake up call. Whether it's Apple App Store, Google (which includes nearly everything else - Play Store, Gmail, Gsuite/Gdocs), Facebook, and even Amazon (in far fewer cases) - the giants can afford to choose a policy that is most financially efficient. The business cost to review each case is simply not worth it financially. Only until a critical mass of angry/banned users exists, there will be no change.

It's unfortunate that it takes posting to HN or Twitter in the hopes that an employee of one of those companies will see it and champion the cause of the user.

</comment><comment><USER4> Airbnb has had problems with people finding out where hosts work, where they have other business etc and leaving offsite reviews for airbnb stays on those platforms.

My question - would you rent out a room in your house for a night if someone starts leaving crappy reviews about you everywhere? Many people would not.

I think Airbnb AND homeowners should carry much more liability for some of the fraud on Airbnb, so I hope to see airbnb paying big penalty bucks in the future.

Airbnb likely dislikes third party reservations, offsite payments and offsite bookings for business reasons as well. I wouldn't be surprised if folks going off-site are asked not to participate on-site - fair or not.

<comment><USER5> I 100% believe the authors side of this charade, and I think the answer to the hypothetical goes something like this:

1\. 90% of Airbnb hosts are not going to run into that problem because they're going to do everything to make it right, so to fear it would be akin to being worried about getting hit by lightening.

2\. 10% of Airbnb hosts are psychotically delusional and create problems, do nothing to fix them, and empowered by Airbnb, leave the only remaining outlet as off-site reviews. These people don't have any business renting property.

So that is to say — the "problem" of off-site reviews is a secondary repercussion of Airbnb letting nearly anyone rent their places, and then not doing enough to prune bad hosts out. It's a fundamental misalignment in their business model to tilt this heavily towards hosts, because hosts have illiquid property in mostly crowded markets (expendable) while customers have extremely liquid capital and lots of choice.

<comment><USER4> Having run into nutty hosts (and before that landlords) would you as a guest feel good if one of those hosts started posting negative reviews about you offsite based on your stay at Airbnb?

Ie, if their only outlet for a guest that "created problems" "did nothing to fix them" was off-site reviews?

I've found folks with the approach of I should be able to slam you publicly react TERRIBLY when they themselves start receiving off-site reviews. And I've found the nutty hosts / nutty guests often have the most _time_ to pursue things like off-site reviews as an "outlet" for their aggression.

I have stopped saying at airbnb when traveling except for big group trips and paying for very premium places because the quality of hosts is problematic as you describe, and airbnb should ABSOLUTELY shut down the false advertising hosts (extra charges after / poorly disclosed "rules", cameras in all the rooms etc). But I do have an outlet, I book a nice room at a hotel - a very predictable experience! And I'm not the only one.

<comment><USER5> I probably wouldn't feel great (and I wouldn't post negatively either), but who's running the business and receiving money and who is spending money? Paying money to get blasted would be a new low yet being a business and getting blasted is kinda a time-honored situation. This actually is kinda aligned with what I'm talking about because the bad owners don't realize they're running a business when they rent their property, and their problems are caused by not caring about what businesses have to care about, which is reputation and value of name.

But yeah overall agreed, esp. about who has the time & energy to go ballistic about these things and the long realization that this is why hotels are a much better place to spend money.

<comment><USER4> I'm less confident that an airbnb "business" might not go off-site to slam customers. We already have regular businesses suing yelp users etc for bad reviews even if factual.

I'm not a huge fan of the hunt people down across the net and in real life to destory them modern approach to problems - even if you as a user claim you need the "outlet".

Someone shows up to your airbnb in Berkeley wearing a trump hat. You're telling me no Berkeley hosts would go slamming these guests as racists online if they could?

Someone shows up down south on vacation with their partner but hasn't yet come out yet as gay - has a bad host interaction with someone bigoted - if airbnb allowed off-site reviews you are sure no one would out this couple?

I get the urge to publicly destroy people, just realize there may be folks with opinions different than yours who may then want to spend time trying to destroy you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > But let's call it like it is. This policy leverages the company's power over > the individual user to a cruel and unprecedented extent.

As a host, when I listed on AirBnB I was completely at their mercy in terms of where I'd show up in the listing ranking and they also had a rule that you can't be a superhost if you decline some percent of bookings - i.e., they decide who you host, not you. After declining a string of suspicious bookings (and having to list at a giveaway price just to be anywhere near the top of the rankings), I decided to just give up completely on the platform. Craigslist is better, where I can at least interview someone.

</comment><comment><USER7> I got blocked from accessing a Gmail account half year ago during a long term stay in another continent and despite knowing the password, answering the security question I'm still not able to access nor recover it as i can't recall the date of creating the account (it's too old to recall exact month/year combo). There is nothing you can do in this situation, nowhere to complain, whole identity tied to the account is gone. I'm losing belief i can access it one day..

Anyway, this was a wake up call and since then I'm in progress of migrating all my services outside big players..

<comment><USER8> They're really going overboard with these security questions. This is why I use ProtonMail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Getting banned, and not getting any explanation from support sucks big times. Hope someone from Airbnb Support reads this and can help out.

</comment><comment><USER10> The truth is that he doesn't know why he was banned. Could have been a bug. Could have been something he did. Could have been the host knows someone at airbnb and got the guest banned. It doesn't really matter. Amazon does the same thing. Google does the same thing. Uber does the same thing. Yeah, people can argue companies can do business with whomever they want and blah blah (blah blah because the argument simply boils down to everything legal is fine) but the reality is that many of these services are essential for some people and we as a society need to start treating them as such. We should require clear explanations from such businesses at the very least. Otherwise, how do we know they are not breaking the law? Maybe they banned the author because they didn't like his ethnicity or gender or some other protected status. I do not see why we should give corporations such rights of refusal when we cannot police them to make sure that the rights are being used properly. I don't understand why we as a society don't make the corporations work for us rather than making us, the people, a slave to the corporation. In theory, we can do either. Reality is another story, of course.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd suggest lawyering up but even banks in the US routinely close peoples accounts without offering any explanation or recourse so it would be surprising if such arbitrariness could be successfully fought in court.

<comment><USER12> More and more businesses are trying (as gets discussed here from time to time) to force you to 'agree' to private arbitration and give up your right to sue, including class actions suits. You might be able to laboriously opt-out, but it hard to just say 'I won't use those services' because it almost universal.

<comment><USER13> I helped my son open up a toy for Christmas. Inside the box was an arbitration agreement. I am wondering how they think that works when I have not signed something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _We're becoming increasingly dependent on a handful of major tech giants to get through our basic daily routine._

Well there's your problem right there.

</comment><comment><USER15> > Moving forward, I question whether these types of suspensions should be > allowed from the tech giants without any oversight or regulation.

There is an industry based on providing short term lodging for people that is subject to oversight and regulation. Businesses operating in this industry are usually called "hotels".

<comment><USER16> And yet hotels can and do permanently ban guests from their property all the time with no recourse, so I'm not sure what your implication is.

[http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25243594/ns/travel- travel_tips/t/h...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25243594/ns/travel- travel_tips/t/hotels-upgrade-their-no-stay-lists/)

<comment><USER17> Just as with cryptocurrencies ("What do you mean my net worth just evaporated and I have no recourse!?"), it's somewhat humorous to witness platform enthusiasts demand the very regulation platforms subverted to grow to what they are today.

Your point stands though; businesses have the right to turn away customers for any reason that isn't discriminatory or class protected.

Perhaps there's a reason to consider regulating certain platforms as utilities once they reach a certain scale? (Not referring to AirBnB in this case)

<comment><USER16> I don't consider myself a platform enthusiast, but I do find myself annoyed at people who call for regulation of tech companies because its trendy.

People are outraged Airbnb can ban you without recourse -- tech must be regulated! Not a peep against hotel giants who can do the same thing

People are outraged that Amazon wants to build an HQ2 in NYC because it'll displace people and must be stopped! Not a peep that it's home to the headquarters of 52 Fortune 500 companies already and grows by tens of thousands of people a year.

People are outraged that Apple paid little in income tax on a huge profit last year and tech must be regulated! Not a peep about Chevron, Delta, or Halliburton.

It's just populism. People know and interact brands like Google, Apple, Airbnb, etc so they're easy targets, and as a result we're going to end up with regulation that narrowly targets that high profile offenders without doing anything to solve the broader root cause issues. California's AB5 is a perfect example -- it's basically meant to target Lyft/Uber/etc and exempts many industries for no reason: hair salons, insurance brokers, real estate agencies, photographers, fishermen, and more. Why? Because they want to specifically target the big bad tech companies without fundamentally fixing the problem of ensuring all workers get a living wage.

<comment><USER17> Even if you think the complaints are due to "trendiness" or "populism", there a more non-tech folks than not. It's plain math (tech is a vocal minority), the regulation will get here eventually (as has happened with Uber, Lyft, AirBnB, and is likely to happen to larger tech firms in the future). As a tech professional, I believe more regulation over tech in general is long overdue. With leverage comes responsibility and oversight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There's no way that companies should be allowed such total and irreversible control, especially if they effectively control so much real estate

<comment><USER11> Airbnb controlls zero real-estate, it's a coordination and payment mechanism, that's all.

<comment><USER19> I believe the word effectively is used in the parent comment to indicate the control is through coordination and payment mechanisms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This isn't about economics. This is about power. We used to understand that power is an incredibly dangerous thing. This country was founded on the principle of diffusing power: no one person should have unilateral authority over the lives of millions of people. Consequently, our government is set up to pit ambitious people against each other and make them accountable to the public. It's worked for hundreds of years.

Why shouldn't we apply the principle of separation of powers to corporations that can harm millions of people? Once a company becomes so large that it becomes an integral part of society (and I think Airbnb now qualifies) it should be subject either to regulation (to diffuse power and make the company accountable to public via the state) or split up (to diffuse power and make the company accountable to the public via the market). Consider it a lifetime achievement prize. The overriding principle here is that no one person should have the amount of power of individual lives that the CEO of an essential monopoly has.

<comment><USER12> >This isn't about economics. This is about power.

What part of economics isn't about power?

<comment><USER20> > What part of economics isn't about power?

Economics is about power in the sense that chemistry is about particle physics. I mean, yeah, sure, that kind of analysis is technically admissible, but it's not _useful_ because there are important emergent phenomena in the higher-level system (economics, chemistry) that become impossibly cumbersome modeled directly in the language of the lower-level system (individual incentives, particle physics).

It's not particularly productive to apply the language of political science to things like Ricardo's examination of land rents. My point is that as companies become very large, the high-level phenomenon start to break down and we need to begin using the lower-level machinery to make sense of the problem in the extreme space. For example, the interior of neutron star is best understood by referencing physical effects directly. Likewise, when an economy has consolidated to the point that we basically have one giant company per economic sector, it starts being more useful to look at the situation through the lens of history and politics than through the lens of pure economics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> For a user in EU it should be possible to work around such ban.

First make a GDPR request to have your data deleted.

After som grace period, register again. If they tell you that you are banned, they show that they have not deleted the data. File a complaint with data protection authorities and have them fined.

Of course the better answer is just not to do any business with shitty companies.

<comment><USER22> This "clever hack" isn't how the GDPR works at all. In the first place, sufficiently pseudonymous data--that is, data that cannot by itself be used to reveal a specific, non-anonymous user--need not be deleted. (Hashing a ban list based on the personal and immutable information required at signup is an example of this, though discarding that information _is_.) Beyond that, the GDPR includes protections for companies against "manifestly unfounded" requests; while one must use this as an affirmative defense, a request to delete the record that that user has been banned from the service is a prime example of such things.

I do wish that software people sometimes bothered to extend a baseline level of competence to other people once in awhile, though. Like--do you think nobody thought of this situation?

<comment><USER19> I guess the hashed ban list is reasonable solution. Actually looking at Airbnb you can register three ways - via FaceBook, Google, or via Email address. Signing via Email requires Email, first name, and birth date. I suppose if someone wanted to beat the ban they could do it at least 3 times.

<comment><USER22> Without even looking I can bet that they require identity and email when you log in via a social provider too.

The better option is likely a set of hashes of various permutations of data, though, with some set of hits prompting for further information (such as an e-mail or a full name match requiring proof of identity before allowing usage).

<comment><USER19> Maybe but given that probably your verification at some point will involve an email account I think you could use GPDR to remove all personal info, and then use a new email address to sign up and get through.

However if they could do something like use your credit card info to identify you and have a hash of that - until you changed bank etc.

At any rate I don't think it is impossible to beat the ban.

<comment><USER22> Of course. It's rarely, if ever, impossible to make a perfect ban on an online services. You just make it sufficiently difficult. Requiring some real hard identification information if a user trips your "maybe" filter is enough effort for the 99.9% case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> awinter-py I like how 'catered eggs benny' is the dispute resolution go-to. The new millennium has really come of age

This will keep happening as long as there's no cheap 3rd-party dispute arbitration. E-commerce has gotten super cheap and transactional but arbitration needs to catch up

<comment><USER23> s/arbitration/ _voluntary_ arbitration/g and you would have my upvote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The point is really company size and/or monopoly. If I don't like my barber's service I go the next one.

But if I don't like Google and don't have an iPhone there there a many things that I cannot do because every business assumes you can run their apps.

If I don't like Airbnb, renting holiday accommodations can be quite limited because many properties are not available on alternative channels.

Boeing has failed badly, but they are considered too big to fail. The problem is not limited to digital services.

I think the only solution is what happened to AT&T decades ago. If a company's market share is too big, they need to be split up by government intervention.

</comment><comment><USER24> Companies with monopoly power[1] shouldn't be able to be people without some appeals process. That said, I don't know what that would look like or if Airbnb even should be subject to it. Other services and hotels are still viable alternatives for most cases.

By contrast, Google banning people is more of a problem due to the wide variety of services they offer. The traditional approach of breaking up large companies seems sufficient if one wanted to address what a problem it is to get banned by them.

[1] With 40% market share as the threshold for possible monopoly scrutiny, like the European Commission suggests.

<comment><USER16> >Companies with monopoly power[1] shouldn't be able to be people without some appeals process.

>Other services and hotels are still viable alternatives for most cases.

[http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25243594/ns/travel- travel_tips/t/h...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25243594/ns/travel- travel_tips/t/hotels-upgrade-their-no-stay-lists/)

Why are you singling out Airbnb and not Hilton, IHG, Marriott, or Hyatt?</comment></comment>


Public wifi - how could it get so bad? (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://stabell.org/2007/10/04/wifi-woes/

<comment><AUTHOR> I was looking for a good discussion of why public wifi is so bad (StackExchange or the like), and came across this article from nearly 7 years ago. Things are still just as bad. I usually use 3G where possible as at least in fixed locations it is reliable, unfortunately this isn't possible everywhere due to cost (e.g. here in the UAE it's around $30/GB).</comment>


Why the Granny Coder decided to make her first iPhone game aged 77 - <AUTHOR> http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/Gelex/feature.asp?c=15588

<comment><USER2> Very original marketing gimmick.

Edit: as if it wasn't obvious enough, check the hands in this video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZATuhCoJLc>

Of course a story like this brings a lot of traffic to pocketgamer. It's not worth to check if it's true.

<comment><USER3> "I have a huge support from my three grandsons. Michal bough me an iPhone as I mentioned, then they gave me a Mac, because I had a Windows PC. One of them is studying IT at university, so he is my adviser sometimes. And all three of them are watching everything I create and give me feedback. They've also made the videos on my blog."

not that that means its not true, but still.

<comment><USER2> She knows how to code a game. She has learnt objective-c, Xcode, the iPhone sdk api and the chipmunk physics library. She also does her own graphics (a blog entry is titled 'How to polish your game', in two parts) with a style that is clearly made by a twentysomething and that would require a very sharp eye.

But she couldn't operate a video camera?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The inevitability of growing old scares me like few other things. My biggest consolation is that I should be able to keep creating no matter how old I get - and unlike other passions, this passion of ours only requires a sound mind, not necessarily a sound body.

I want to be like Marie when I grow up.

<comment><USER5> It's such a relief for those of us who share that fear. I stumbled upon this letter yesterday, it's a complaint that a 98 year old lady wrote to her bank's CEO. (<http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art42630.asp>)

These two ladies are an excellent example that age is not an impediment for doing things (or doing something about things...in the latter case).

<comment><USER6> Hmmm... the Internet seems to have helped develop in me a very strong level of cynicism such that I'd put the chances of this being genuine at < 5%, and the Granny Coder at about 40%

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Oh, man. From the title I thought _why came back in a brand new geriatric form - Why the Granny Coder. It's going to be a long day.

<comment><USER8> <http://www.whythegrannycoder.com> is available if you're interested :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What a lady! This makes me feel ashamed for throwing in the towel with iPhone development simply because the method names were too verbose and hard to remember and the whole deployment profile/signing stuff.. :)

<comment><USER10> The things that annoy professional programmers are very different from the things that annoy "amateur" programmers. (I use quotes because I don't want to imply that this lady is not a good programmer or whatever. Her goals are to create a single fun game in her free time, so the things that annoy her are going to be different than what annoys someone who has to write a new "business app" every month.)

<comment><USER9> That's a great point - I hadn't thought of that. 10 years ago I just put up with and accepted a lot of weird stuff related to programming because I was pretty much a novice and just got on with it. Now I've reached a point where I can question things.. just a bit too much though, it seems!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Inspiring. Another cogent example of how the reasons we give for not wholeheartedly pursuing a project challenge are really just excuses. I look forward to buying and playing her iPhone puzzle game.

<http://grannycoder.blogspot.com/>

<comment><USER12> I must say, I love how she starts her posts with "Hello, kids." I was as first offended, at least until I reconsidered what we look like from her perspective.</comment></comment>


On being "Senior" - <AUTHOR> http://www.galaktor.net/2012/04/on-being-senior.html

<comment><USER2> Age-related words has been used to describe status in a hierarchy for a very long time. It's an euphemism. "The Council of Elders" sounds much better than "The Council of Rich & Powerful". This tradition is in fact much older than most of our words so it's pointless to argue about its semantics. It's very common in classic Latin.

My argument is that since "senior" has been used as "someone having a high status" for thousands of years, it actually means it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Like sokoloff pointed out, I think you are missing my point. I'm arguing that precisely because "senior" implies age-related status, I think many people are using it wrongly. And therefor applying time-related measurements where they are actually looking for expertise.

If by "senior" you are referring to somebody who's been in the industry or on a project for a long time, I would agree.

However I do not agree that that person will automatically make a good teacher, team-lead, consultant, mentor simply because he/she has been around for a while.

Unfortunately I see exactly that happening time and again, and blogs discussing how "senior" they are based on how good they know JavaScript. Hence my post.

Sorry if I was not clear enough in the article, I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to improve it so that it makes the point better.

<comment><USER2> I agree with the rest of your post, I'm just nitpicking here. I wanted to point out that when a professional is described as senior, it has nothing to do with age or how long they've been in the industry, it reflects their status. Assuming a somewhat meritocratic environment, I think "senior" means the same as "expert".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I moved from Junior designer to Art Director within a year of leaving college and getting my first job (doubled my income at the same company) I was put in charge of people who were "Senior" and had been with the company for 15 years+. It's true Senior != Expert. Personality is a big part as well Expert + Introvert != Management.</comment>


Ask HN: AWS users: how does your team connect to your dev/prod VPCs? - <AUTHOR> We've been using OpenVPN to connect our individual laptops to our hosted environments and I'm wondering if there's anything better out there that we're missing. (I'm surprised AWS doesn't have an in-house solution for this.) I'm aware of WireGuard but I'm looking for more of a packaged product like OpenVPN than a bare technology. <comment><USER2> AWS has a hosted OpenVPN solution. It is pretty new and I don't know how full it's functionality is.

We use openvpn as well with our own vpn server running inside the VPC. It has some problems, but we haven't found anything better.</comment>


'Pokémon Go' Has Full Access to Your Google Account (iPhone Users) - <AUTHOR> https://www.searchenginejournal.com/caution-pokemon-go-full-access-google-account/168010/ <comment><USER2> > 12/7/2016 UPDATE: This issue has been resolved and an updated app with less > Google account access is now available in the App Store.

No worries now.

Update 1: I spoke too soon.

After checking the Google Account - Apps Permission page, it looks like mine did still have full access. Yesterday's update did not install automatically.

Installing it manually in the App Store, then restarting the app did not change the scope either.

Logging out and logging back in did ask for the lowered permissions, but did not seem to de-escalate full account access. It also does not seem possible to do this in Google's dashboard (besides revoking entirely... which I'm resisting until knowing that won't make my account inaccessible).

Update 2: Confirmed you can revoke and re-auth without loss of account data.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12081809](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12081809)</comment>


Google discloses YouTube ad revenues of $15.15B - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/03/alphabet-discloses-youtube-cloud-revenues-for-the-first-time.html <comment><USER2> For those expecting bigger numbers, keep in mind, total TV ad revenue in 2018 was around $70B.

We're so used to seeing obscene numbers that $15B may appear small, but it's a huge chunk of the overall ad spend which is $150 billion per year in total.

<comment><USER3>
        overall ad spend which is $150
        billion per year

According to statistica it is $560B:

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/236943/global- advertisin...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/236943/global-advertising- spending/)

Then YouTube would be about 3% of it.

<comment><USER2> Ah, I was only looking at the U.S. market.

The latest figure is $650 billion. Google has 25% of that huge pie. Rather frightening.

[https://www.marketingdive.com/news/ad-spending-growth- will-a...](https://www.marketingdive.com/news/ad-spending-growth-will- accelerate-to-6-worldwide-in-2020-study-says/565925/)

<comment><USER4> There is an interesting possibility that I haven't really seen written about with all of this consolidation and projections that companies will grow larger and larger as technology moves economies toward a winner-take-all model; And that is that when there is little competition in many sectors, there will be little incentive to spend on advertising.

I don't know what their ad spend is, but If AWS was the only player left, they sure wouldn't need to spend anything on advertising.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is huge, fyi Netflix has 20B in revenue.</comment>


Run Kubernetes on top of DC/OS - <AUTHOR> https://mesosphere.com/blog/kubernetes-dcos/ <comment><USER2> I recently reached out to Mesosphere to better understand the value and options available to my company if we switched to Mesos (and thus Mesosphere). We currently run Kubernetes across all major cloud providers and we'd like some help.

I was startled by how dogmatic they are about their pricing model: per node, annually. Our entire business model is running dynamically scaling data pipelines for companies. We spin nodes up and down programmatically based on a pipeline's history and a dozen other factors.

I had a lot of back and forth with them and eventually their CFO and they just could not understand the concept of a "node hour" or anything of the like. Eventually, it was determined if we paid the per-node annual price for our "average" (completely different story, but they calculated this about as wrong as you could have) usage and we went our separate ways.

The product seems really cool but as someone who runs a company that easily spin up thousands of nodes in the middle of the night for (for a grand total of $40/hr on GKE...) this pricing model just seems antiquated. I imagine that all companies will be driving their usage to this practice in due time. I really hope to see the industry change.

<comment><USER3> _> Mesos (and thus Mesosphere)_

Mesos is an open source project. Would you consider any other vendors besides Mesosphere?

<comment><USER4> DC/OS is also open source. What are your concerns with it?

<comment><USER5> Components aren't open source. Still waiting for the new hdfs package to be released see [https://github.com/mesosphere/hdfs- deprecated/blob/master/RE...](https://github.com/mesosphere/hdfs- deprecated/blob/master/README.md)

<comment><USER6> The new package is here: [http://universe.dcos.io/#/package/beta- hdfs/version/latest](http://universe.dcos.io/#/package/beta- hdfs/version/latest)

<comment><USER5> Yes the package is available but as far as I can see not open source yet.

<comment><USER7> Here it is: [https://github.com/mesosphere/dcos- commons/tree/master/frame...](https://github.com/mesosphere/dcos- commons/tree/master/frameworks/hdfs)

<comment><USER5> Excellent. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was confused by this passage:

>"Running Kubernetes on DC/OS allows you to run different types of workloads (more explicitly, both the stateless and stateful components that make up most modern applications) on the same infrastructure."

Can someoene answer - how does Running Kubernetes on top of DC/OS help you run stateful apps on Kubernetes?

Or is the meaning that DC/OS is better for running stateful services and then you can use K8 to run your stateless services?

Its been a while since I've used Mesos, is the path for running stateful services on complete and very compelling now?

Thanks.

<comment><USER9> Currently running stateful apps on a DC/OS cluster + HA DBs. Fairly straight forward to get stateful working now + there are libs to migrate data around to chase your apps/services when/if Mesos/Marathon relocates them (e.g. after a service restart/crash) if you need your data co-located with a managed app/service.

The thing I'm most interested in exploring with K8+DC/OS is having DC/OS manage a couple of K8 instances so we can isolate 'virtual' clusters for various envs/apps. I suppose you could do this already with Marathon (the DC/OS built-in container manager), but we're not. Psyched to benefit from the K8 community + have the underlying DC/OS VM control/management plane.

<comment><USER8> Thanks, can you elaborate on the libs available to "migrate your data around"? Does Mesosphere reschedule your DB to another node that has an equivalent persistent and reserved storage(SSD etc.) volume configured on it?

Are you using Portworx for this?

<comment><USER9> > "can you elaborate on the libs available to 'migrate your data around'? ... > Are you using Portworx for this?"

The tool I had in mind was 'REX- Ray'[[https://mesosphere.github.io/marathon/docs/external- volumes....](https://mesosphere.github.io/marathon/docs/external- volumes.html#specifying-an-external-volume)].

That said, we're not actually doing the 'chasing db' config. Instead we run a HA Neo4j DB deployment as a Marathon service pegged to a handful of nodes each with local persistent volumes allocated to Neo4j. I.e. we can allocate a % of a node's resources to 'static' Neo4j deploys, and then let Marathon dynamically manage any remaining free resources on the nodes. Our other services then use the Marathon service DNS to look up the Neo4j service for read/write.

Portworx looks cool too -- will need to investigate.

Also, the DC/OS documentation is quite good in general if you're looking to dig in on this: [https://dcos.io/docs/1.9/storage/](https://dcos.io/docs/1.9/storage/)

> "Does Mesosphere reschedule your DB to another node that has an equivalent > persistent and reserved storage(SSD etc.) volume configured on it?"

Yes/it can, but in that config you're booting up new/empty storage volumes. Obviously not what you want for many core persistence requirements though great for caches. We'll probably opt for this config near-term for our web- server SSR cache.

<comment><USER10> Michael from Portworx here. Thanks for the shout out. Just for some context, we just announced a partnership with Mesosphere today to help accelerate adoption of DCOS for stateful services [0] in fact. We handle the automation of all the state management mentioned above, not just volume provisioning. Our customers include big companies like GE and Dreamworks but also a lot of smaller companies. You can use PX-Dev[1] for free up to 3 nodes. Would love feedback.

[0] [http://m.marketwired.com/press-release/mesosphere- partners-w...](http://m.marketwired.com/press-release/mesosphere-partners- with-portworx-accelerate-production-deployments-dc-os-enterprise-2232659.htm)

[1] [https://docs.portworx.com](https://docs.portworx.com)

<comment><USER9> Cool -- We're a small operation atm so will take a look at that dev tier. For more context, we also do some block storage off-cluster in GCE.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Could anyone point out the boundary between the open-source Mesos / Marathon stack, and the commercial DC/OS? The official documentation ([https://docs.mesosphere.com/1.9/overview/what-is- dcos/](https://docs.mesosphere.com/1.9/overview/what-is-dcos/)) doesn't make it clear. What capabilities does DC/OS have that are not available in the open-source portion of the stack?

> As a distributed system, DC/OS includes a group of agent nodes that are > coordinated by a group of master nodes. Like other distributed systems, > several of the components running on the master nodes perform leader > election with their peers.

This just sounds like vanilla Mesos masters and slaves. DC/OS "runs on top of" that, but what is it actually doing? Is the DC/OS another service that just enables the Mesos masters to initially discover and replace each other? Could it not be replaced with Zookeeper or Consul? That seems like a small piece of the puzzle, what would make it the one expensive thing, while the rest of the system is free? Is the overall stack actually shareware, rather than a community of independent open-source services?

The reason I am so curious, is because after running a small demo a year ago, the Mesos stack looked really promising. The only thing holding me back from proposing a large scale trial, for comparison to our sprawling Heroku/ECS/EBS setup, was the feeling that I was not understanding a crucial part of the architecture, and not understanding the pricing, if that is even applicable (couldn't find price info anywhere! How do I quantify that part?)

<comment><USER12> As I understand it, DC/OS is essentially a nicer interface for Mesos / Marathon with baked in monitoring, service discovery, security add-ons and a "package" manager-esque framework manager.

DC/OS is actually open source (I think) so I don't think it has any capabilities you could get for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> >"Kubernetes on top of Mesos through DC/OS more closely matches Google's own architecture; where Kubernetes is a service running within VMs that are managed by Google's proprietary Borg platform."

My understanding was that Google runs containers in a VM for security. Mesos uses the Docker container executor not a VM. How does this more closely resemble Google's Borg/VM model?

<comment><USER6> Mesosphere co-founder here.

You're correct in that GCP runs k8s in VMs, DC/OS doesn't. What's similar is that there's a resource manager underneath - Borg for GCP, Mesos for DC/OS. They serve similar purposes like resource management, isolation, and operating the services on top.

<comment><USER8> >"What's similar is that there's a resource manager underneath - Borg for GCP, Mesos for DC/OS."

Maybe I don't fully understand DC/OS then. I was under the impression that DC/OS was simply a distro for Mesosphere. But your comment make me think that either my understanding is incorrect or else DC/OS has become something more than a Mesos distro. Could you elaborate? Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Excellent, was asking about this a while ago [1], looking forward to trying this out on Azure.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14907878](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14907878)</comment>


Check out my startup!  (advice) - <AUTHOR>

http://www.the-collage.com/
Open for criticism - will appreciate everything!
I started this site a few months ago all by myself and Im well aware of my tech skill level so i understand Ill be getting some of those comments "the call to action buttons look like screenshots of CSS buttons?" haha
But I would love to here your POV all around. Thank you so much for your time - it is greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> Sounds like an interesting product. First reaction is that the background is a little crazy and a bit distracting from your content. Might change the background to a light gray.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! K How about now? [http://www.the-collage.com/](http://www.the- collage.com/)

<comment><USER2> Muccccccch better! Much easier to focus on the center content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.the-collage.com/](http://www.the-collage.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> be sure to redirect you bare domain [http://the-collage.com/](http://the- collage.com/) to the [http://www.the-collage.com/](http://www.the- collage.com/) version

<comment><AUTHOR> Done. Thank You!</comment></comment>


Solving a Storage Problem in PostgreSQL Without Adding a Single Byte of Storage - <AUTHOR> https://hakibenita.com/how-we-solved-a-storage-problem-in-postgre-sql-without-adding-a-single-bytes-of-storage <comment><USER2> Very cool!</comment>


MPL – Modular Pipeline Library - <AUTHOR> https://jenkins.io/blog/2019/01/08/mpl-modular-pipeline-library/ <comment><USER2> Is it worth switching from GitLab CI to Jenkins with MPL for a small data engineering team (10 repos, 4 people)?

<comment><USER3> Only if you're unhappy with what you have, and need something that is available in jenkins and not gitlab ci

Me? I'd say no. Switching without specific reason is just busy-work..</comment></comment>


PyBay is the conference you can't afford to miss - <AUTHOR> http://www.pybay.com/#!PyBay-is-a-conference-you-cant-afford-to-miss/t1si1/57ac05d20cf26d54f732572b <comment><AUTHOR> If you are into Python, if you are serious about advancing your technical skills / career, or if you want to promote your ideas to SF Bay Area's finest developers, you won't want to miss [http://pybay.com](http://pybay.com) next weekend (Aug 19-21)

PyBay is a chance for SF Bay Area's Python developers to come together, learn from the best in the software industry, find a mentor, make new friends, and come away with an experience that can only be created by engineers for engineers.</comment>


HP begins selling its Jet Fusion 3D printer - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/article/3071035/emerging-technology/hp-begins-selling-its-jet-fusion-3d-printer-says-its-50-cheaper-10x-faster-than-others.html <comment><USER2> Expected a consumer machine.</comment>


The case against patents (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/10/10/the-case-against-patents/ <comment><AUTHOR> Direct link to paper:

Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, "The Case Against Patents" [https://s3.amazonaws.com/real.stlouisfed.org/wp/2012/2012-03...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/real.stlouisfed.org/wp/2012/2012-035.pdf) (PDF)</comment>


Google Analytics Autotrack - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/googleanalytics/autotrack <comment><USER2> Analytics tracking code is a serious headache. You rarely know upfront what events you'll care about later, it's a pain to setup and maintain, and there's a principal-agent problem where the person implementing tracking (a dev) isn't the one getting value from it (a non-dev).

I think we'll start seeing teams adopt more automated approaches to analytics tracking over time.

Disclaimer: I founded Heap ([https://heapanalytics.com/](https://heapanalytics.com/)) with the idea that manual instrumentation should be the exception, not the norm.

<comment><USER3> Hey MatM. Big fan of Heap right here. In fact, just did a new install for a new project yesterday. Heap definitely makes life much much easier, but when there's a need to collect data from multiple sources, ie not just the website but lets say FB ads, Intercom etc to create a 360-degree customer view, it becomes harder to rely solely on Heap. Now, ordinarily we use Segment and pipe the data to a data warehouse but sending Heap data to a data warehouse is a very pricey option. I wish it wasnt so pricey.

<comment><USER2> Happy to hear that!

Could you email me at email@example.com? We're cooking up some features you might find useful.

<comment><USER3> Email sent (from kam [at] stratagem[.]io

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Weird. I cannot star this repo in github with my ad blocker (u block origin) turned on. Apparently, the star request sends a request to this end point - [https://www.google-analytics.com/collect](https://www.google- analytics.com/collect) which fails, which results in a github error saying "You cannot perform this action at this time".

Everything works fine, when adblocker was turned off in the page. Any ideas on why this behaviour?

<comment><USER5> That request being blocked is fine.

The error is due to the star POST request on Github being blocked. The endpoint in question is [https://github.com/googleanalytics/autotrack/star](https://github.com/googleanalytics/autotrack/star). Your ad blocker uses string matching to block URLs and sees "googleanalytics" (the repository name) in there and blocks it.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the explanation. I'm still taken aback by Github's behaviour to communicate with outside apis for their internal star operation.

<comment><USER6> if you use any kind of 3rd party analytics service you need to communicate with outside api basically every (analytically relevant) action of your user... so it's pretty standard on web and native apps alike

<comment><USER4> If that is the case, why all the other the other repo's star operations is not communicated to google or other analytics platform? My point was, I was blocked from starring only for this repo and not all the other repos. It was not about how analytics works in general for every user action.

<comment><USER6> A sibilling comment was explaining it: basically your ublock (that I use too) is regularly blocking the request to google analytics everywhere, github code doesn't fail in that case, but since the repo contained the "googleanalytics" substring ublock was blocking the request (because it checks for words in the urls that get requested) to the github server thus making the starring function fail.

Other repo do not have "suspicious" strings in their url, so they pass through ublock, while the real google analytics call is blocked and github does not fail. You can check the network tab in the developer tools in chrome around github and see that calls to GA gets blocked and calls to github pass while on that specific page also the call to github fails

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Would love to see a comparison of this and the set up posted last night:

[https://philipwalton.com/articles/the-google-analytics- setup...](https://philipwalton.com/articles/the-google-analytics-setup-i-use- on-every-site-i-build/) (via [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13636884](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13636884))

and the other set up linked from those comments:

[https://github.com/thenextweb/gtm](https://github.com/thenextweb/gtm)

<comment><USER8> As dudus mentions: the GA article posted yesterday includes a recommendation to use this library.

As for a comparison of it vs. the GTM setup used by thenextweb, I briefly explain my thoughts on GTM in another comment here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13648771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13648771)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just from vaguely reading their shorthand documentation (correct me if I'm wrong) but there doesn't seem to be a way to associate this with goals you've set for each event (you'd normally do this within your own code;) which imo means you're going to collect a lot of junk data you don't want.

I guess you could find out how it outputs the event and then set a goal for it, but I doubt it would be pretty and you're still going to get a lot of junk in your real-time view. I hate having to set-up callbacks for outbound links, it's a real pain in the butt (especially if you're having to instruct someone else to place the code,) and sometimes it doesn't fire properly on certain browsers so this would be nice...but it could also be messy (from my quick look.)

I do like that GTM can do -most- of this now, which allows the marketing/PPC/Analytics team(s) to do things on the fly without having to bother me.

<comment><USER8> There is a way.

Every autotrack plugin that sends hits has two configuration options that enable full customization over exactly what fields get sent with each hit.

The options are `fieldsObj` and `hitFilter`: [https://github.com/googleanalytics/autotrack/blob/master/doc...](https://github.com/googleanalytics/autotrack/blob/master/docs/common- options.md#common-options)

<comment><USER9> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Has anyone used this or anything like this? Any notes on the extra js affecting page performance?

<comment><USER11> Have had major issues with reporting using this tool with an "infinite scroll" or single page app type of setup. Serious under-reporting of the history state change.

<comment><USER8> The maxScrollTracker documentation warns against using it with an infinite scroll type of page: [https://github.com/googleanalytics/autotrack/blob/master/doc...](https://github.com/googleanalytics/autotrack/blob/master/docs/plugins/max- scroll-tracker.md#how-it-works)

As for under reporting of history state changes, have you reported a bug? Also, how are measuring to confirm that there is under reporting?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My question is since we have GTM. would it be much easier to just import GTM setting to new site you want to deploy? And it also will be easier to make modification to those "tracker plugin".

<comment><USER8> There are tons of things GTM can't do currently, unless you're willing to write custom code. And if you're writing custom code, I'd personally prefer that code to be in my app, under version control, and running through my test suite rather than in a GUI that can be modified by anyone with GTM access.

Here are a few examples off the top of my head of things you can't do with GTM today (without writing custom code):

\- Tracking when (and how long) the page was in the visible vs hidden state.

\- Tracking anything performance-related.

\- Tracking when DOM elements are visible in the viewport (via IntersectionObserver).

\- Tracking the active media query / breakpoint.

\- Tracking social widget button usage.

\- Tracking the use of service worker

\- Tracking interactions with native web push notifications.

I think GTM is great for marketing websites, but for better understanding how someone is using a complex web app, I think it makes more sense to have that logic in the application code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would LOVE for someone to create a version of this for Segment. It would CHANGE my life!</comment>


Why Don Knuth Doesn't Use Email [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS8qwMna8_o

<comment><USER2> ironically, that is famously written somewhere in a few lines. instead here it is in video, which is the slowest way to communicate simple things (not that i clicked)</comment>


Brazil sets new record for homicides - <AUTHOR> https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/a-devastating-scenario-brazil-sets-new-record-for-homicides-at-63880-deaths/ar-BBLIXQc?OCID=ansmsnnews11 <comment><USER2> Brazilian here. Our criminality numbers are _probably_ higher than the official numbers. The country is huge and diverse, but even the most pacific states and cities are in a bad shape if compared to almost any other country. More than 70% of the deaths are related to gang conflicts.

Drugs are not the only problem. We also have a lot of cargo/truck stealing, street-level robbery, an enormous black market of stolen mobile phones, etc.

We have some affluent startup hubs, there are innovation in e-commerce, payments, banking, HR and many more, but our tech elite is complete out-of- sync with our major problem: violence. Maybe a fresh HN discussion can put some light on the issue.

<comment><USER3> Whats this like for civilians that are not involved?

I hear about the crime in my country, but it seems unreal to me because in my area you'd never know there were dozens of murders last weekend.

Does this affect your life?

<comment><USER4> You never know when you are going to be targeted, so you live in this constant fear. Ask anyone who lives in Brazil what they do if they see two guys in a motorcycle coming their way.

I've been robbed at gun point; I've woken up with someone inside my bedroom stealing my laptop; I've been followed home; The bus from the public transport system I used to take was stopped by criminals and set on fire; and so on.

It used to affect only the life of those living in the metropolitan areas, but now it is spreading.

The main reason why I moved to the US was because I was living in such a state that I was always tense. When I was robbed at gun point I almost got shot because the guy thought I was too calm and suspected I was a cop.

Living in the US I realized how much that was affecting my daily life and how life without worrying feels like.

That's how it affects your life.

<comment><USER5> Where did you live in Brazil? As an American I visit the interior of São Paulo and Belo Horizonte often and have never experienced anything like this, nor does it seem my Brazilian friends live in constant anxiety.

<comment><USER6> I'm from Belo Horizonte now living in Canada... Mostly moved because couldn't take the anxiety of being in fear every single time I had to leave home.

Most people just play the numbers game. I, for example, have been robbed at gunpoint, with a knife, with 4 teenagers threatening to beat me up when I was 14 and I was even "lightning kidnapped" (I don't even know the term in English, but I was put in a car and bandits kept me for 8 hours and drove me around waiting for the banking hours to reset the withdraw money from ATM to take more form my account).

A lot of my friends, though, have never been robbed at all.

In general, we all know we are subject to that, but in the end it is mostly just bad or good luck. Just being in the wrong place in the wrong time.

From all the people I know, those that have never been through this just live life mostly normally. But once you've suffered that at least once, you can never really fully rest again.

The homicides problem on that news is actually not that relevant in that context because, as others have said, it is really concentrated in poor neighborhoods or slums, where the State basically is nonexistent.

For example, in a lot of violent slums, criminals take and sell access to pirated cable TV, energy and water, to the point where the official employees can be made to fix stuff when they go there to try and cut signals. That is how absent the state is in those places.

But when you see homicides numbers like that go up, probably the random crimes to the whole population is going up as well.

<comment><USER7> I had a friend in São Paulo that was mugged twice in the same day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I recently moved to a "bad neighborhood" and was very surprised to learn that there was only one murder here last year, and it was between friends who had stolen something from each other.

There were only around 13,000 murders last year in the US, a number that used to be more like 26,000 during the crack epidemic 30 years ago. US population has increased by 10s of millions since then, but murders continue to drop.

Additonally, 90% of murders occur between people who know each other in some form, be it neighbors or classmates. Being robbed at gunpoint on the street or in your apartment and then shot to death is quite rare, especially if you arent in places like Memphis, Detroit, Chicago, NOLA, Cleveland, St Louis.

The USA certainly isn't perfect but I was thrilled to get a good price on a great apartment in what everyone else calls "the hood". I will take my chances that I won't be the unlucky 1 out of 11,000 people who is shot here every year.

<comment><USER9> I mean, there's more to a "good" or "bad" neighbourhood than how many people die each year. There's all the _other_ types of crime, for instance...

That, and if you want to raise a family, what kind of role models and community surrounds your children is important.

<comment><USER10> On the flip side, it probably helps if good role models are willing to take their chances in establishing their presence in an at risk community. Change has to start somewhere.

<comment><USER9> Sure, that's called gentrification.

<comment><USER11> Reduced crime is one aspect of gentrification, but generally it's a changing demographic as people get priced out of a neighbourhood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Another Brazilian here. I've lived in Australia for 15 years, Brisbane for 5 and Sydney for 10.

I reckon both cities are some of the cleanest safest cities in the world.

I grew up in Rio, left when I was 20. Still to this day I've got the street reflexe. My partner, who's Swedish, finds it mostly amusing, sometimes rude.

For example:

I won't sit with my back to a door or a hallway, corridor etc.

I don't tolerate people walking behind me closer than 5-10 meters, I'll literally turn around and pretend to tie my shoe laces or look at a shop window.

And I think most of all, I can tell immediately if someone is sussing me out, looking for a vulnerability, something of value I'm wearing, etc. I see the eyes, I hear the body language.

All of this from someone who grew up in a middle-upper class neighbourhood in Rio (Ipanema).

I'm wearing an Apple Watch and I've got an iPhone 8 Plus in my pocket atm. I often leave the house with a $2000 dollar Sony a7iii câmera just because I "might see something I want to photograph". My friends in Rio simply wouldn't comprehend...

<comment><USER13> One more Brazilian here to confirm the stereotypes.

I always think photographers are like heroes for the audacity to go out with good cameras in hand all the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Brazil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Brazil)

"Thus, disarmament is effectively happening in Brazil,[12] as are massive gun confiscations,[13] notwithstanding its refusal by Brazilian people (at the referendum of 2005). Some argue that this will increase gun homicides. Other research shows that there is a decrease in firearm deaths correlating with disarmament.[14][15] However, 2012 marked the highest rate of gun deaths in 35 years for Brazil, 8 years after a ban on carrying handguns in public went in to effect,[16] and 2016 saw the worst ever death toll from homicide in Brazil, with 61,619 dead.[17] Only to rise again in 2017 to 63,880 a 3.7 per cent rise from 2016. [18] "

Doesn't seem like the gun laws are working out.

<comment><USER15> They aren't.

Acquiring a firearm legally is a ridiculously bureaucratic process where you must submit to psychological evaluations by the military and "justify" your "need" to own a gun. If you manage to get approved by that long process, your reward is an extremely limited selection of revolvers chambered in weak calibers that you can't carry with you outside your home or place of work. The weapon must be registered in a military database and tied to your name and those soldiers can suddenly decide to drop by and inspect your gear. There is a limit to how much ammunition you can purchase per year, so the only way you can practice with the guns is by making your own rounds. You can't even transport your weapon from place to place without notifying them and acquiring some kind of permit. Alternatively, you can become a gun collector who can own everything but can't legally fire any of the weapons, not even for practice.

Criminals don't care about gun laws. They just purchase weapons from the black market, no background check or psychological evaluations or anything. Burglars used to consider the risks before breaking into a home, but now they're _sure_ they will be unopposed. Drug traffickers are much better armed than the police force that ought to stop them and have become so powerful in their domains they could be considered parallel states, with laws, judges and everything. Ironically, they often stop smaller crimes like robbery from happening because not having a safe environment for people to buy drugs in hurts their profits; photos of graffiti messages warning criminals they'll be killed if they get caught robbing people can be found on the internet. The entire disarmament thing assumes the police will do their jobs and keep people safe, but the police won't even enter these areas because they're outmanned and outgunned. That's why the government felt the need to use the military in order to regain control of Rio de Janeiro. They used _armored vehicles_ to fight against people who are technically citizens of their own country.

Don't ever let the government take your guns away.

<comment><USER16> If the police are refusing to do their job, that sounds like a bigger problem. Professionals trained in firearm usage and gang suppression would be far more effective than a disparate group of individuals owning a non-revolving pistol and shotgun. England doesn't have this problem despite having very restrictive laws.

<comment><USER15> It is a huge problem. I don't fully understand the causes myself but corruption is likely to be part of it. People just don't have what is necessary to do their jobs and this demoralizes them. They start neglecting the problems ("I'm not gonna risk my life for this salary just to arrest some robber who'll probably be released anyway because he's a child") or become corrupt as well ("I'm gonna make some money on the side overlooking criminal activity"). Instead of stopping crime, the authorities seem to develop a state of equilibrium with it.

So it comes down to this: do you trust your government? I don't trust mine. I'd rather they decentralized public security instead so that people can at least try to do what they haven't been doing in decades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Eesh. If all of this is accurate, it is problematic indeed. I wonder how many of these homicides would cease to occur if drugs were made legal in Brazil (I wonder about this worldwide). I've never understood why it's difficult for people to understand the awful incentive structures that making drugs illegal puts into motion.

<comment><USER18> Brazil, like most of South (and now perhaps north too?) America suffers from macho populism. A lot of character politicians with tough messages, empty promises and sadly the population just falls for it every time.

These stats, along with others, is the result of years of populism, corruption and neglect.

<comment><USER19> Let's ignore the fact that the last president was a woman and that this is the direct result of her party disastrous administration. Blame machismo. It always works.

<comment><USER20> Your first point is a good one. However I don't think you can blame one administration with all this mess surely?

<comment><USER21> Crime reduction in 1992 (in the US) is attributed by some to Roe v Wade (1972). It took 20 years. The young people who are dying now (guns deaths hit the young and poor the worst) were born at the end of the 1990s and start of 2000s, which was a period of high unemployment and even famine (300 children died of malnutrition per day in 2001).

<comment><USER20> There is a competing theory to Roe V Wade, lead poisoning. A HN regular is the Mother Jones article, and it makes a compelling argument.

[https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead- exposur...](https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure- gasoline-crime-increase-children-health/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Brazillian here. Living in country of Rio. I avoid going to Rio (capital) as much as possible. Tomorrow I'm visiting family there and the tension increases a bit because of uncertainty. I have watched robberies live, car stealing. Two of my neighbords were shot by a rifle in Rio when crossing "linha vermelha". My wife has been kidnaped once. This year her brother had his car shot 3 times. (He does Uber) My brother was almost hit by a lost bullet recently in Rio downtown, missed by 50cm. I could probably go on listing this sort of things endlessly. People from Rio are used to this and consider it the way life is. It is not like they like or accept violence but don't have the means of doing much about it. Brazil is a puppet state. Not sovereign. The state is dysfunctional. The violence problem can be tracked to state policies. But the state has no will to solve any of it. Just mask it and keep going (nowhere good for civilians). It is an actual goal of state to things to not work. That is the goal, and standard policy. Like the last 5 times tried to contact police for reporting ongoing (live) stealings all failed. Most times couldn't even report. There is a queue of calls that take a long time. And when they answer, they just tell you to mind your business. Now I even don't bother reporting anything. They won't do a thing. They don't care. In fact, they are just FOLLOWING ORDERS.

People are too powerless to influence the state in any meaningful way. At the end of the day the law/state is at the side of criminals. I wish Brazil would change ownership so policy could be changed.

</comment><comment><USER21> Traffic deaths are nearly at the same level (nearly 50k per year) even though statistics only count those who died on the spot. I fear the road more than guns, because most shootings occur in certain regions (mainly poor neighbourhoods) which I can avoid.

</comment><comment><USER18> While still shocking, life in Brazil isn't the kinda Aleppo like bloodshed this article portrays. Majority of victims are young male gang members sucked into the drug turf wars.

<comment><USER23> Correct, and this happens because Brazil is one of the most disgustingly unequal countries in the world. There was a small pause during the leftist governments when there was a noted improvement in social support for the poor, but the recent events have brought even that to an end. The current government is not only corrupt but is completely anti-people. Their plan is to cut the little existing social net, destroy public education, and put everyone who complains under military surveillance.

<comment><USER24> > Their plan is to cut the little existing social net, destroy public > education, and put everyone who complains under military surveillance.

Can you give sources for that affirmations?

<comment><USER25> He cannot because it is not true. Even the leftists (the true-blue ones) admit that left leaning governments have dropped the ball big time regarding security.

As other comments already clarified, 90% of the problem is drug-related, the correct fix would be the decriminalization of them.

<comment><USER24> I know. This is the second time in a couple of weeks that I seem blatant lies about my country here on HN.

<comment><USER26> It's my country too, and I don't recognize any lies in what was linked. Can you link to sources for your claim?

<comment><USER24> I don't see any lies on what was linked as well, but they are not sources for what he said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Another crazy stat: 132 politicians in Mexico murdered since September.

<comment><USER23> Politicians have also been murdered in Brazil. The most known case is municipal representative Marielle from Rio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Fun fact: Brazil has very strict gun control laws.

<comment><USER28> So does England. One has the ability to enforce them, the other doesn't. The point you are implying, that gun laws do nothing, is ridiculous.

<comment><USER29> a) It is a fun fact, and b) I think their point was gun laws do nothing without enforcement

<comment><USER19> If drug prohibition enforcement does not work why would people believe gun enforcement does?

<comment><USER30> Because drugs and guns aren't similar products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Among all the violence in Brazil, homicides happen mainly in drug-related problems: fights over territory are the majority, "punishments" for unpaid debts come second, and robbery (not exactly kill to steal afterwards, more like "I will kill you just to be sure you won't come after me, nor will identify me").

Guns are out of control in criminal hands, while population in general don't even have one at home. So, given that the cost of ammo is low (in black market), killing is used to gain territory or to send messages to drug users with debt or to general population.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm another brazilian here. The crime rate is not as bad as of Venezuela, and >50% of all (ALL) brazilians desires to leave the country.

The problem is simple.

1- It's quite impossible to leave poverty due to state regulations.

2- People are killed by robbers/murderers, or jailed by officers if they try to prepare/defend for themselves.

So both economics and justice are completely distorted towards inhumanity. There's nowhere to go.

That's a sad reality, and it's not a coincidence that Brazil has the strongest world-wide desire for libertarian philosophy, by students/youngsters.

[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=%2Fm%2F0cpvcd](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=%2Fm%2F0cpvcd)

[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=%2Fm%2F052h3](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=%2Fm%2F052h3)

[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=%2Fm%2F01hfv2](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=%2Fm%2F01hfv2)

</comment><comment><USER33> Is that website cutting off the right side of the article text for anybody else?

I tried resizing the window, zooming in and out, and disabling my ad blocker, but the page steadfastly refuses to show the right side of the text. I'm using Chromium and Linux.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm a little surprised that other places with military conflicts (eg. middle east) or paramilitary conflicts (eg. Mexico) aren't higher? Maybe those are counted differently?

<comment><USER11> _Within the broad range of violent deaths, the core element of intentional homicide is the complete liability of the direct perpetrator, which thus excludes killings directly related to war or conflicts, self-inflicted death (suicide), killings due to legal interventions or justifiable killings (such as self-defence), and those deaths caused when the perpetrator was reckless or negligent but did not intend to take a human life (non-intentional homicide)._

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> TFA would feel a bit more complete if it included the phrase "per capita".

</comment><comment><USER36> Is Brazil basically a failed state?

<comment><USER32> no, it's a successful state (people are those who failed).

<comment><USER36> I'm not trying to call Brazil's surely beautiful people out, I'm referring to this concept:

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

<comment><USER32> I used another concept.. imagine people as slaves and state agents (mostly politicians) as slave-owners. Does poor slaves implies slave-owners' failure? Nope.

And this is reality in Brazil. Politicians are wealthy, they are paid well, they create monopolies for corporations (and get benefits from it whereas consumers pay the cost) and they may even be corrupt. Some may get caught, sure, but are replaced by others. But nonetheless, the slaves keep hoping for the "right slave owner".

Thus politicians, politics and the state are extremely successful.

In this perspective, a failing state would be one whose politicians are getting less wealthy, lose intervention power and so on. Strong individuals, weak politics is a failed state. But in this situation people are wealthy (contrary to the concept shown on wikipedia).

Another (somehow related) type of failed state are those whose population emigrates massively, therefore slave-owners have less slaves. Or when a secession occurs, where power get less centralized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Something that never seems to come up in discussions of violence rates in the Americas is our history of colonial domination. The fraction of people who survived the onslaught of Old-World diseases were not equipped to effectively resist the influx of predatory Europeans. That was and is a very violent process. It's not over.

<comment><USER37> > Something that never seems to come up in discussions of violence rates in > the Americas is our history of colonial domination.

because its not relevant to the topic being discussed.

<comment><USER35> You don't think that Brazil today is affected by the Brazil of 200, 400, 500 years ago? You don't think that colonial attitudes persist? You don't think that it would be a different nation had not so many natives been killed or enslaved? You don't think that violence is a self-perpetuating cycle?

How the hell does that work?

<comment><USER37> Its very easy to blame others, its very difficult to accept failure.

Are going to blame colonialism for all the presidential corruption scandals as well?

<comment><USER35> Blame? What is that? Are you making a moral argument? I'm talking about cause and effect, and I mentioned one cause that exists in Brazil but not in e.g. France.

<comment><USER37> Blame - feel or declare that (someone or something) is responsible for a fault or wrong, which is exactly what you are doing.

So colonialism is the cause for the recent presidential corruption scandals?

<comment><USER35> You are the only one talking about presidential corruption. Besides Brazil certainly isn't leading the world on that measure.

<comment><USER37> SO who are you going to blame for the president being corrupt. If the President is corrupt what messages does it send to the ordinary people. Why should they follow the law if the President does not?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you run 'npm install' for your projects, globally or locally? - <AUTHOR> I always end up with some sort of issue. Either things like Babel in a project require a global installation or some other dependencies are just better off installed at the project local level.<p>Is npm just badly designed? <comment><USER2> Babel doesn't require a global installation--it can very easily be called via ./node_modules/.bin/babel.

I avoid global package installation where possible and I think the only global package I have right now is 'n'.</comment>


Is it time for a front end pipeline as a service? - <AUTHOR> http://pipez.io/blog/1-tool-hell.html <comment><USER2> There might be. I share your - and many other people's - feeling that the way we're doing it right now is neither sane or sustainable, nor scalable in the long run.

I'm not entirely sure though you such a service would've to be like to be useful.

Coding for the web today feels a bit like 80s-style hacking 8- or 16-bit home computers to make them do things nobody ever thought they were capable of in the beginning.

In the end we've got to make do with what the large browser vendors provide us with and that is very much the core problem. Their priorities don't always align with those of the people creating web-based solutions. Otherwise we'd have stylable <select> boxes for a long time now.

So, while such a service might indeed be an improvement if done correctly, I'm still wondering if it'd solve the right underlying problem or if it'd just be another attempt at hacking around the actual issues.</comment>


Persistent, Stealthy, Remote-controlled Dedicated Hardware Malware [30c3] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck8bIjAUJgE

<comment><AUTHOR> HN-er cfrantz2 mentioned this talk on today's discussion of the 'Secrets of Intel Management Engine' explaining that it has been cracked: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8815765](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8815765)

The detailed overview of the presentation can be found here: [http://events.ccc.de/congress/2013/Fahrplan/events/5380.html](http://events.ccc.de/congress/2013/Fahrplan/events/5380.html)</comment>