Uber starts self-driving car pickups in Pittsburgh - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/14/1386711/ <comment><USER2> Well, they certainly didn't under-sensor the thing. The big model Velodyne LIDAR, a small LIDAR looking upward, stereo cameras in all directions, and probably some radars.

The big rotating Velodyne thing has got to go. But so far, nobody who claims to have a suitable solid-state 3D LIDAR is actually shipping. Quanergy claimed a solid-state LIDAR suitable for automotive use [1][2] and showed it at CES, but never shipped. Their web site hasn't been updated since 2015. They were aiming at a price point around $100.

Advanced Scientific Concepts has a suitable LIDAR that costs far too much. Space-X uses an ASC unit on the Dragon capsule for docking. ASC announced they were getting into automotive in 2012 but never shipped.[3]

Somebody is going to do this soon. The technology works. It's a cost problem. Once the cost comes down, cars can have multiple LIDARs (at least fore and aft) near the top of the windshield and rear window. This gets rid of all that topside gear.

[1] [http://www.quanergy.com/products/](http://www.quanergy.com/products/) [2] [http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2016/presentation/s6726...](http://on- demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2016/presentation/s6726-louay-eldada-quanergy- systems.pdf) [3] [http://www.advancedscientificconcepts.com/applications/autom...](http://www.advancedscientificconcepts.com/applications/automotive.htm)

<comment><USER3> Since self-driving cars are still a new experience for most people, all of that visible topside gear might give riders a sense of security.

<comment><USER4> I was thinking the exact same thing. It's not a beauty contest as long as Uber is owning the prototype fleet. Plus, I think it will clue in other drivers to: "Dude, that was one of those 'driverless ubers' right?"

<comment><USER5> > It's not a beauty contest

And plenty of taxis in my neck of the woods have rooftop advertising, anyway.

On the other hand, it makes it clear the car is an Uber. Illegal parking and such will be a lot easier to ticket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A few things of interest here.

1) They're basically duplicating the early Google cars with mostly the same sensor suite bolted on top and integrated in the side panels. This is good because it means that unlike Tesla, they're planning for fully autonomous.

2) Since the human driver is still responsible for switching lanes, it looks like this is very early stage testing and data collection.

3) I think it's great that they're taking the approach of giving customers a view of what the car is doing via the back seat tablet, and even encouraging them to share. This is a great way to get people comfortable with the tech.

4) It still saddens me that everyone is keeping their autonomous data proprietary. How much faster could development go if Google let anyone have access to their million+ miles of driving sensor data instead of needing to collect it all from scratch?

<comment><USER7> It's interesting to consider Google's data from another perspective:

> "Uber logs as many miles in 24 minutes as Google's autonomous cars have > logged in their existence," they wrote. "While none of these miles are fully > autonomous today, we just point out the scale of experience that can > accelerate the development of the AI, mapping and learning for autonomous > cars." [1]

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-12/google- ca...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-12/google-car-project- loses-leaders-and-advantage-as-rivals-gain)

<comment><USER8> > Uber logs as many miles in 24 minutes as Google's autonomous cars have > logged in their existence

Hmm… Let's try comparing 24 minutes of miles logged in Google Maps (and Waze) with Uber's data and see where they stand then…

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is the only way i can see Uber can survive in the future.

Its business model was sacrificing someone's income in the middle to be cheaper than ordinary taxis. But with self driving cars, they can minimize the costs without hurting anyone.

Really really smart and huge move at the same time. Whoever pushed this idea in the company deserves a huge credit.

<comment><USER10> But doesn't this business model entirely eliminate someone's income to be cheaper?

Is a total elimination better or worse than a reduction? I don't have an answer, and I see good arguments for each side...

<comment><USER9> Exactly. And that is something we human beings adapt to without noticing it. Telephone operators, newspaper boys, lumberjacks, meter readers have all disapeared. There were thousands of people who earned their life with it but eventually switched to new careers.

This will happen sooner or later and for sure there will be companies and individuals that will be affected by the change, but that is not enough reason to stop the development. And this is not Uber specific topic either. If not Uber, some other company will one day work on this.

<comment><USER11> Do you really think it's fair to say that people who lose their jobs their jobs won't notice?

I hope Uber pay their taxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Using Pittsburgh as a proving ground is a smart move - not just because that happens to be where CMU is located but if you can train a self-driving car to navigate Pittsburgh, you've pretty much trained it to navigate anywhere.

In Pittsburgh you have a haphazard street grid with unconventional and often poorly maintained road conditions, hills with poor visibility, narrow streets, weird unpredictable driver behavior like making left turns in front of oncoming traffic as a light turns green (my friends call this the "pittsburgh left"), every sort of weather condition imaginable including heavy rain snow and ice, etc etc. A self driving car that can navigate Pittsburgh without ever needing driver input is truly autonomous

<comment><USER13> I think it had more to with the first reason than the second -

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/uber-would- like-t...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/uber-would-like-to-buy- your-robotics-department.html)

[https://www.fastcompany.com/3046902/fast-feed/carnegie- mello...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3046902/fast-feed/carnegie-mellon-in-a- crisis-after-uber-poached-40-of-its-researchers)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmofgf-Y3Mc&t=45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmofgf-Y3Mc&t=45)

This is a promotional video produced by Uber. It clearly shows the vehicle illegally entering a crosswalk containing pedestrians. That's not a great start, and not particularly good advertising.

<comment><USER15> I could be wrong, but I don't think that's illegal as long as there's a safe distance between them.

Otherwise, it would be practically impossible to make turns in a city...

<comment><USER16> Nope, it's a violation. In a crosswalk, the pedestrians have the right-of-way, and motorists must wait until they have walked through the area the car wants to turn through to go. Yes, this means that in cities, you often can't turn right until right at the end of the signal, when you can pass behind the pedestrians completing their crossing, but there isn't enough time for any pedestrians to start crossing and claim a right-of-way.

I was always taught that from the moment the pedestrian steps off the curb, you cannot turn in front of them. They have the right-of-way.

<comment><USER17> This is just impossible in some cities, especially when pedestrians are crossing a 5 lane road.

In LA, if you did this you'd cause significant traffic issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I saw a car in San Francisco on Monday that had an Uber label on it. It was an SUV looking thing with sensors and devices all over the outside of it. As others have said, it looked like the early Google self driving cars.

<comment><USER19> While that may not be using autonomous cars outside of Pittsburgh yet I wouldn't be surprised if they are driving some cars around other cities to digitally map them in preparation.

<comment><USER18> Definitely. It seemed like the driver was holding the wheel at the moment I was looking, but that doesn't mean too much.

Interesting times, no doubt!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Since Uber is in very early stages of autonomy i'm assuming this is to prop up their IPO

<comment><USER21> You typically don't go with an expensive ambitious money losing project to prop up an IPO.

<comment><USER22> Worked for Musk! All you need is hype.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It'd be cool if they have more than one "AI driving personality" and users can rate them.

<comment><USER24> Or celebrity personalities. I want Jennifer Lawrence to drive me around and tell me how much she likes eating junk food.

<comment> semi-extrinsic Or if you're going to a _really_ important meeting, you can get Jason Statham.

<comment><USER25> It's a bit surprising we don't have that. People customize ringtones, you'd think they want to pay to customize Siri voices and so on. Maybe the companies in the position to do this (Google/Apple) don't view it as good enough revenue compared to potential harm to brand (looking trashy?).

<comment><USER26> Some in-car navigation systems sell celebrity voice options for their driving directions. My friend had John Cleese.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I do think it's cool that they are letting anybody ride in these. It will help make the transition easier for rolling out this feature if people have already ridden in the cars.

<comment><USER28> From what I've read, it is actually invite-only, loyal Uber customers for now. When Uber makes the transition in 30 years to fully autonomous vehicles, I think people will be feeling swindled that they've had to hear about it for so long while still having a driver the whole time.

<comment><USER29> If it takes that long, there's no way Uber will still be around. They're planning on much sooner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Wonder how much of it will succeed in developing nations, where many roads are not well laid out and most importantly not well mannered.. On the flip side, the jobs of drivers are protected until the AI tech improves to cover complex scenarios or the infrastructure improves drastically, both of which can take decades IMO.

<comment><USER31> Labor is so cheap in developing nations that automated anything is rare. It was not uncommon for venues to over staff by 50%-200% even on slow nights becuase labor is so cheap.

Ever been to a club where security outnumbers customers 5 to 1 or waiters huddle in a corner on a slow night in big groups of 10?

The complex senarios and infrastructure won't take decades. Google's driving car has performed insanely well so far for millions of miles safely.

<comment> semi-extrinsic In Brazil I took some buses out in the countryside where they had an additional employee to collect the fare from passengers entering, sitting just behind the driver who did nothing while the bus was stopped.

<comment> et-al Sometimes it's just about keeping people employed, which gives a person a sense of purpose, and may prevent them from protesting.

<comment><USER31> It's moreso becuase it's 50 cents to $1 an hour or a flat rate fee. Usually the extras also do stuff like security or function as backups labor.

Bartender cancels last minutes? At least one of these 10 muscle head security guys likely knows how to mix drinks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I saw a report on the news this morning that Uber was going to be rolling out similar service in Boston "within the next 3-4 months".

I hope the Farmer's Almanac is wrong, or else we will get an interesting test of how self-driving cars perform in severe ice and snow conditions.

<comment><USER33> Pittsburgh's weather isn't exactly mild. And its roadways are profoundly complex, both due to very steep topography and due to being a city trying to keep up extensive infrastructure after losing half its population.

Examples: [https://goo.gl/maps/gkJNuHFntgv](https://goo.gl/maps/gkJNuHFntgv) [https://goo.gl/maps/F5eTFCnDgV92](https://goo.gl/maps/F5eTFCnDgV92)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I can't find good info on their ridiculous sensor suite.

I read in the spring their lone early prototype had 22 'coffee cup sized' cameras on the vehicle. By my count there are six 8 or 16 channel Lidar pucks positioned around the car not counting the big 64 channel spinning velodyne on top. There are at least 2 radar units, and likely also ultrasonic proximity sensors. Who knows what else, or what kind of compute they're packing in the trunk to manage all that data.

Sensor overkill!

<comment><USER35> looking at the pictures of the cars, I'm starting to realize (fear) these images will be used for data collection as well! The cars are roving 360-degree cameras!

Not that I'm paranoid personally, but these will give the owners a lot of information about peoples' movement patterns, a competitive advantage, an asset. For example, they could tell how many people wait at bus stops and sell that info to municipalities... They could look for trends in fashion on the sidewalks and sell it to clothing companies...

Even if they don't achieve autonomy, just putting cameras any vehicle and re- selling the footage data-miners could be profitable.

<comment><USER36> I'm not looking forward to more business models built on the "let's collect data and sell it to people who hope to profit, probably through advertising" thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Putting together this story and the story about the self-driving car engineer nano degree from Udacity, I am envisioning a future where every self driving car has an accompanying engineer. Much as Steam engines needed an engineer to operate, self driving cars will need Engineers to be monitored.

<comment><USER38> Pretty much defeats the whole purpose for developing the self driving car, no? Why not just have the guy drive then, if you still have to pay him? And now that he needs a degree, he'll probably cost more than a driver. Not to mention, there's likely nothing for him to do once cars are autonomous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I don't understand. Switching lanes is something that even AutoPilot can do. Is Uber deploying a lane-keeping system and calling it an autonomous vehicle?

<comment><USER40> That's step 1. Once people get confortable then you move onto the next step.

Even lane following is not an easy problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> 2 issues I have not seen addressed by this article or others:

1/ interference. Having one lidar-beaming car going down the road works. What happens when there are many? I suppose it just means more illumination, but could there be an interference or "blinding" situation? What about pedestrian/pet eye safety? I sincerely hope that all are being considered now that this self-driving race is on.

2/ if Uber skirts around taxi regulations by being "just" an app that connects independent drivers with riders, how do they justify researching, producing, and deploying these cars with uber employees aboard?

<comment><USER42> 1\. is a solved problem, at least at Project Chauffeur (Google's autonomous driving effort).

I live in Mountain View and see self driving cars every day, often driving next to or past each other.

2\. Long term, it's not clear to me that taxi laws would apply to cars that drive themselves. Short term, re this pilot project w Uber employees in the driver seat: taxi laws are local. Maybe they got permission from the city.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Why can't Uber purchase a fleet of vehicles and let humans drive them? They can still have some auto-pilot functionality.

Let's say at time T=0, a few million Uber cars are parked or on the road. Users enter their travel plans into the app, and also indicate whether they are will to make an extra stop or more, whether they can drive a leg, or whether they desire a solo/express route. Then they either walk out to the parking lot and start driving, or wait to be picked up. So now, everyone in the Uber cars exists on this spectrum:

Express Passenger -> Driver for my leg -> Driver plus a little extra -> Driver plus a lot extra -> Full time Uber driver.

Let the market and scheduling algorithms work out getting people and cars to the right places are the right time. Now I don't need to own a car and we don't need to have highly functional self-driving vehicles.

<comment><USER44> You got pretty good point, wait a year from today, couple of those 5 Driver profiles you mentioned above will be available from Uber . I will take this to next step, By JUNE 2018 when you have 200 miles(battery) Electric cars are on roads (from Nissan, Tesla), Uber offer above all the 5 Driver profiles . At the end of the day Cars will be parked in your drive way ( if you signup ) and you take care of charging overnight( after 11 PM to get electricity at 1/4 cost) in return Uber will give you UBER Milage credits which you can use whenever you /family rides.

These Uber milage credits are especially attractive to many casual drivers ( non Full time) and also good for UBER as they give only Credits(keeping 100% of fare cash) and it also put pressure on FULL time Drivers cut which is 80% today as more CASUAL driver pool is available in this new scheme .

Parking cars on People garage is economical compared on centralized location As it takes extra time to get cars back to neighborhoods where people need morning rides and also Uber saves on Real estate cost . UBER may have some centralized locations for Cars maintenance/repairs etc..

When 100% self-driving is ready by 2020/2021 ( both from Govt. regulation and technology side), All you have is Electric Self-driving Software Powered Cars (ESS Cars) parked all over in your neighborhood people Parking LOTS ( People get Mileage Credit for allowing their parking LOTS) and unlock and drive TO YOU from your mobile Phone .

[Ford says 100% self-driving in 5 years]([http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/16/technology/ford-self- driving...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/16/technology/ford-self-driving-cars- five-years/))

<comment><USER44> Here is some rough figures of Ride Price

some very rough figures: [https://www.quora.com/How-much-will-a-ride-cost-in- a-Google-...](https://www.quora.com/How-much-will-a-ride-cost-in-a-Google- self-driving-car)

\- Personal vehicles cost roughly 60¢/mile to own if you have a car payment, according to AAA -- or 2¢/minute, obviously keeping in mind that you pay for every minute you own the car, regardless of whether you use it.

\- Taxis in NYC and Chicago run about $2.00/mi, or 50¢/min if you're going nowhere in traffic. \- Uber depends on the city, but let's say $1.00/mi, or 20¢/min. Both Uber and traditional taxis have other fees they tack on, as a reminder.

So, the cost will be competitive initially: likely no higher than $1.00/mi or 30¢/min

with it getting as cheap as someone wants it to be for the sake of driving adoption. When you hit critical mass with an autonomous fleet, you could likely see fees below 20¢/minute (minute will likely be the dominant metric) to run a profitable model as we know it today.

With Mass adoption of Electric Autonomous vehicles, if it is offered at 40 cents/mile that that is cheaper than OWNING your own Car

\</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---- 1/ Uber drivers in the U.S. collected an average $13.36 per trip, while Lyft drivers took $12.53 for each ride, according to a new report. [http://time.com/money/3959091/uber-lyft-price-per- trip/](http://time.com/money/3959091/uber-lyft-price-per-trip/)

2/ Uber gets 20% cut of that ride price that is $3

3/ It seems average ride time is 15 minutes

</comment><comment><USER45> I was expecting to hear at least something about [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left) , which is something that I'd find very interesting about autonomous cars.

<comment><USER46> There's a mention of it in the WSJ article today [1], apparently they allow other cars to do the left, but not their own.

[1] [http://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-ubers-new-self-driving- ca...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-ubers-new-self-driving-cars-in- pittsburgh-1473847202)

<comment><USER45> Nice, thanks for the link. That seems like a sensible start.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I live just a bit outside of pittsburgh, but I'm not in town often enough to need an uber. I'm still probably going to head down and try to get picked up by one, though.

</comment><comment><USER48> What It's Like To Ride In A (Nearly) Self-Driving Uber

[http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/09/14/493...](http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/09/14/493823483/self- driving-cars-take-to-the-streets-of-pittsburgh-courtesy-of-uber)

</comment><comment><USER49> If this requires human intervention in case of malfunction that means it needs a sober passenger in control at all times.

I feel like a large amount of users use Uber to avoid driving when they've consumed Alcohol and should not be driving.

I wonder if this is just an interim stage.

</comment><comment><USER50> Is there anything to stop someone stealing a phone then stealing one of these cars?

<comment><USER51> 1) Morality

2) GPS -- they know where the car is it all times

3) There is still a human in it. Once the human is removed, I suspect the car will only work if it has a continuous connection to HQ, and that will give it a constant GPS signal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I'm wondering what the potential will be for increased crime/theft of the automated cars. I'm sure there will be a security fallthrough to track cars that have somehow been overridden off of autopilot.

</comment><comment><USER53> As a college student in Pittsburgh I'd love to try this, anyone know a sure shot way to call one of the self driving ones vs. a standard uber?

<comment><USER54> I know someone who worked at the ATC over the summer, so I asked him. He said there is no sure fire way to get a self driving one. You basically have to get lucky with the time of day and your start and end points being within the zone they are testing. I'm pretty sure the zone is the downtown area and areas near it. But I don't have exact details.

<comment><USER55> From what I heard on NPR this morning, they selected a few thousand users to be in the pilot program and only those users are able to get the self driving. Im guessing they looked at their past route data and user rating to find users to include.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Depending on how this turns out Uber could be worth more than any of the car companies currently.

</comment><comment><USER57> Well, this is amazing. Didn't think we'd see self-driving pickups any time soon. Guess when it finally does go completely automatic.

I do wonder, however, if a crash ends up happening, how will the blame-game go?

</comment><comment><USER58> What happens to the uber drivers over time?

<comment><USER59> The removal of driving jobs from the economy could be the catalyst for adopting basic income.

<comment><USER60> Either it's the catalyst for basic income, or the catalyst for the demise of capitalism and the beginning of the erosion of the fundamental premise of skilled human time being a valuable and scare commodity eventually leading to many very negative scenarios and suffering around the world.

Let's hope it's for basic income...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> > guy

> he

> he'll

> him

<comment><USER62> We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12498644](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12498644) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> > self-driving car

> two drivers in every car

I want to buy dictionaries for every reporter who writes about these issues.</comment>


ASUS PQ321Q UltraHD Review: Living with a 31.5-inch 4K Display - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/7157/asus-pq321q-ultrahd-4k-monitor-review <comment><USER2> People with more money than me: kindly buy lots of these so that further generations are developed and costs come down ASAP.

I am sick of having to choose between screen estate and PPI. Give me my unicorn.

<comment><USER3> This is a 39" 4k2 display for $699:

[http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-Digital-SE39UY04-39-Inch- Ultra/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-Digital-SE39UY04-39-Inch- Ultra/dp/B00DOPGO2G/ref=sr_1_1)

The main downside seems to be that it only has HDMI 1.4, so you only get 30Hz at 3840x2160.

They also have a 50" version for $1,114.

<comment><USER4> The larger the screen, the lower the ppi. Wake me up when someone comes out with a 4k 24" er.

<comment><USER3> The PPI is about 113 in the 39" model. That's not bad.

<comment><USER5> It's not bad, but it's not good either. My ThinkPad display has 141 pixels per inch, and I wish it had a lot higher pixel density than that. Even with my 61-year-old eyes, I can still see the pixels, which tells me they are too big.

Of course people have different taste in displays, so what works for me may be different from what works for you. I just like higher-density displays.

<comment><USER6> It also depends on how far away you sit. With a large desktop display, you can just put it further away.

<comment><USER7> But then your eyes will have to refocus between your screen and your work surface.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Somehow, we grew content with 1080p television. I'm not sure why, the ($20-80k) 4K televisions that I've seen are substantially more impressive than the 1080p counterparts, even at 12 feet away.

Resolution really stalled out on the larger screens, until people realized how nice 'retina' is on the screens that they keep 1 foot away from their face. Smartphones are finally starting to hit resolutions that match the upper limits of the human eye, and people are finally starting to want that on larger screens.

I imagine that once monitors have started to max out the human eye, there's going to be a much larger push for higher resolution TVs. I'm still surprised that TV resolution stalled out for so long, but I think that 4K TV will be the future (eventually). The eye is good enough to see that many pixels.

</comment><comment><USER9> I can only hope that the new Mac Pro is unleashed along with a similarly pixel-rich screen.

</comment><comment><USER10> If you really want to use that resolution fully, then you need a much bigger screen to take advantage of it, otherwise everything will be too small.

If you want to benefit from the "retina" type of sharpness, then Windows should really show it at an effective 1080p resolution, and Windows sucks at doing that. It only enlarges some icons, and that's about it.

<comment><USER5> At only 138 pixels per inch, the PQ321Q is not a high-pixel-density or "retina" display.

For comparison, the ThinkPad W520 I'm writing this on has a 15.6" FHD display with 141 pixels per inch, slightly more dense than the PQ321Q. Windows 8 runs fine on this display and so did Windows 7.

The MacBook Pros with the Retina display have 227 or 220 pixels per inch in the 13" and 15" screens, about 60% higher than the PQ321Q or W520.

The only scaling trick I use on the W520 is to set the logical DPI in Windows to 140% and to use "XP-style scaling" instead of the bitmap stretch scaling used by default for non-DPI-aware apps - to my eyes the old XP scaling looks better for most apps. Most Linux distros I've tried also look fine after some font size adjustments.

If you ran the PQ321Q at 1080p (FHD) resolution, you'd be getting effectively only 69 pixels per inch. It's the same pixel density I'd get if I ran my ThinkPad at 960x540.

There may be issues with driving the sheer number of pixels on the PQ321Q, but the actual pixel density shouldn't be an issue at all.

<comment><USER11> You sit a lot closer to a 15.6" display than a 31" display.

<comment><USER12> I've got 5 people in the office here. 3 with 27" 2560x1440 displays and 2 with laptops. They're all sitting about the same distance away from their monitors.

<comment><USER5> Maybe 27" is just below the size where it starts to get awkward at that distance. In a sibling comment I mentioned how I used a 32" monitor for a week at the same eye distance as my ThinkPad screen, and it didn't feel right because I had to move my head around too much to look at different areas of the screen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sounds great, I also like Retina, but lackings of current HDMI standard are equally discouraging as a 3D session with Samsung monitor against Samsung glasses nowadays. At least until the make it work out of the box, and compatible.

BTW Is there any indication that next HDMI standard will be able to standardize both 4K _and_ 3D, while keeping performance above 60fps?

<comment><USER14> HDMI is for the living room. It has nothing to do in a computer other than for the rare case that you would like to connect a computer to a TV.

Displayport is _vastly_ superior and, unlike HDMI, there is actually some use for >60fps with displayport (something that is wasted on TV content anyway).

<comment><USER15> Unfortunately, DisplayPort is the absolute worst physical connector design I've ever had to use.

<comment><USER14> It's pretty much the same as HDMI but with the added bonus of hooks that keeps it in place? Reducing the main complaint about the HDMI connector.

<comment><USER15> Those hooks have required me three times to extract a partially broken connector from a DisplayPort jack with needlenose pliers. I have never had a HDMI cable loosen.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Uptime monitor and status page powered by GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://upptime.js.org <comment><AUTHOR> This weekend, I built Upptime ([https://upptime.js.org](https://upptime.js.org)), a free and open-source uptime monitoring template repository, with a Svelte-powered status page website.

It uses GitHub Actions to monitor your webpages' availability every 5 minutes and opens a new issue if something is down. You can add incident reports as comments on the issue, and the issue is automatically closed when you site comes back up. It also logs the response time as commit history (four times a day) and generates graphs (once a day). The static site uses the GitHub API to fetch real-time data from the repository.

Essentially, it's entirely GitHub-powered (no servers required), and is a free alternate to uptime monitoring services along with a nice status website. The repository is available at [https://github.com/koj- co/upptime](https://github.com/koj-co/upptime).</comment>


Show HN: Rent my library for $10/book with no due date - <AUTHOR> http://bibliotek.ca <comment><USER2> Interesting, I'm curious about the Netflix model for books, especially if it involved a nice _space_ where you might connect with others, and where you might also make your own library available. Many enjoy reading physical books, but storage is a problem. What would a 'gym for your mind' with a subscription model look like? If you put the best bits of a café, a library, and a gym into a blender, what might come out? BTW, typo in your third slide, 'receive' not 'recieve'.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing that out!

I like where your thoughts are, there is a version of this combination where I live, where most large bookstores will partner with Starbucks and have a cafe in-house. I sometimes buy a coffee just to sit for a while and read.

If I can validate the demand-side, the next step could be to allow users to rent their own libraries to increase the variety available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hmm. Why wouldn't I go to the library and borrow them for free? The max fine for overdue is $5.

Edit: Also, if they are available as e-books, they auto-return so there is no fee at all. One can always re-borrow.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point - None of the books I've uploaded so far are available at any of the libraries in my city. They are either not offered or currently checked out.

For e-books yes, for physical books no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A really quick used book search for the top 3 books resulted:

Sapiens: $12.87

Chaos Monkeys: $6.69

Creativity Inc: $7.50

Not sure why I'd ever pay $10 for a rental.

<comment><USER5> Looks like shipping is free, so there's that.

Also, prices are different if you look on Amazon.ca. (Sapiens: $15.21, Chaos Monkeys: $12.86, Creativity Inc: $17.99) So, assuming that the .ca domain means this is a service that's meant primarily for Canadian users, and the rental fee is CAD$10, that makes it look a bit more attractive.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, it is primarily meant for Canadian users, where the average price for the paperbacks listed is $20-30 including shipping. This is similar to the retail price in-store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Clever way to sell used books for $10 each

</comment><comment><USER7> Would be interesting to do peer 2 peer book exchange and just collect fees :)

BTW you can find some of the books very cheap in new condition...

[http://www.librarist.com/us/book/9781785041273](http://www.librarist.com/us/book/9781785041273)

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you participate in something like that? I have thought about that idea but I wonder about the logistics of that sort of service.

Thanks for the link!</comment></comment>


ICANN gTLDs Reveal Day Live Streaming - <AUTHOR> http://www.icann.org/en/news/press/kits/reveal-day-video-13jun12-en.htm

<comment><USER2> This is just the announcement of the applicants. There are multiple objection and review periods for these applicants to move through. These will /possibly/ be available mid 2013</comment>


Two Celebrities Charged with Unlawfully Touting Coin Offerings - <AUTHOR> https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-268 <comment><USER2> Someone once commented about this, "You shouldn't take investment advice from someone who gets punched in the face for a living."

<comment><USER3> I mean... sure... but then, Mayweather is one of a handful of people who's ever grossed more than $1b in personal earnings, together with Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. And some boxers have done terrifically financially outside of boxing, too, take George Foreman who made a quarter billion dollars off of a grill. The entire reason Mayweather was even asked to promote this thing is because he represents financial success like almost no other athlete on the planet ever has in the history of mankind. It's easy to dismiss him as a guy who gets punched in the face for a living, that's not the issue here.

At the same time I can list hundreds of people who give poor financial advice who have advanced degrees and decades of experience in finance. I mean hell, Mike Tyson is the posterboy for a boxer with some of the highest earnings who ended up bankrupt, and he hired Donald Trump as his financial adviser at one point haha.

In short, I certainly would be less inclined than average to take advice from someone who gets punched in the face for a living, but at the end of the day, you find smart people everyone, and you find treacherous people everywhere, too. I'd rather have an unremarkable advisor than a treacherous one (sadly Mayweather in this case was both, but not because he gets punched in the face for a living).

<comment><USER4> Don't forget Gaius Diocles, the roman charioteer [1]:

"His winnings reportedly totaled 35,863,120 sesterces, allegedly, over $15 billion in today's dollars, an amount which could provide a year's supply of grain to the entire city of Rome, or pay the Roman army at its height for a fifth of a year. Classics professor Peter Struck describes him as "the best paid athlete of all time"."

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

<comment><USER5> interesting. Where do people find this stuff? This will be my "thing i learned today".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good thing it's for ICO's only. Imagine if it were for everything. A third of Instagram would get fined...

<comment><USER7> > Imagine if it were for everything. A third of Instagram would get fined...

It is actually, under a different federal agency for non-securities related advertisements.

The FTC already has ruled that people should at least put #ad on their posts, and has already fined influencers that didn't.

When securities are involved, all you have to do is mention how much you got paid to provide safe harbor from the federal securities regulator, and then to provide safe harbor from private securities litigants all you have to do is mention that you have no licenses and that the payment makes you unobjective. Bury it in line 30 of the Disclaimer. THERE, NOW ITS LEGAL

Currently instagram and some other social media sites don't have a good way to display long disclaimers, but you can get crafty in the stories, or in multi- slide posts.

Unfortunately, when it isn't clear that federal securities laws apply, you don't know if its just an FTC issue, or an SEC issue. So, we're getting there.

<comment><USER8> The FTC is an entirely different authority than the SEC.

<comment><USER7> who did you write that for given that the post you replied to says

> under a different federal agency for non-securities related advertisements.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, missed that. You're right, not a high-value comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's amazing how influential celebs can be even in matters that seem way outside their expertise or career.

<comment><USER10> The thing that blows my mind is how "influencers" will routinely be paid well into the six-figures for sharing a photo of themselves using a product, and apparently that's the most effective way for these brands to use their marketing budget.

<comment><USER11> Marketing departments have a budget and they have to spend it. The connection between A (spending the money) and B (people buying the product) doesn't have to be that well supported. A lot of advertising is just "brand awareness". A company wants their brand the last one you saw when you walk into a grocery store.

<comment><USER12> I suspect this is comparably easy to measure since it's often a single event? I know some YouTube sponsors do so because they see the traffic/sale spike, which lets them estimate the effect.

You may recall some books spiking up the best seller lists because Oprah recommended them.

<comment><USER11> In the case discussed here (celebrities pumping ICOs) it would be easy to manage because they likely have affiliate links or specific urls. Even without those, the ICO could watch incoming traffic over a certain time and see the spike of IG visitors after a post.

In my original comment, I was more referring to advertisement like Tide putting up a billboard. How do they know it works? Well, I'm sure they do market surveys "Have you seen this billboard?" but it's probably full of bias. But in the grand scheme of things, it's just for market awareness as I said. Keep Tide on the minds of consumers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if these payments to celebrities worked?

E.g., did the $100K that Centra Tech gave Floyd Mayweather Jr (according to the article) pay off for them?

</comment><comment><USER14> I have never quite understood the definition of a security. The Wikipedia article doesn't really help, unfortunately.

<comment><USER8> If you use the shorthand "tradable financial instruments sold in anticipation of appreciation or money returns" you won't be far off.

The law in the US makes a sort of essential determination that no reasonable person stakes their livelihood on the appreciation of a pair of exclusive sneakers, which is why Instagram "influencers" aren't generally on shaky legal ground.

<comment><USER15> My nitpick is that "tradable" is non-central to the definition, even though most things that people think of as securities are both tradable in theory and have active markets in them.

A security without an active market in it? Still a security. A security which can't be traded even theoretically? Still a security.

A reason to make this nitpick is that promoters sometimes use "Oh this is just a commercial relationship between business partners and we're locking you into it in all sorts of interesting ways; therefore, we're not offering a security" as an argument. The government takes a dim view of it. (This was a major issue in the fractional orange groves case.)

<comment><USER8> I agree; another colorable shorthand might be "if someone can plausibly claim it's a security, it's probably a security".

I think the important bit for this thread is to distinguish between product endorsement and investment endorsement. The law, of course, sees those as two very different things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> professional boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and music producer Khaled Khaled, known as DJ Khaled

<comment> barrow-rider Obligatory DJ Khaled "You played yourself" quote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What about John McAfee?

<comment><USER18> You can get him to tattoo your ICO on his body. Next level: [https://www.chepicap.com/en/news/5022/mcafee-s-new- skycoin-t...](https://www.chepicap.com/en/news/5022/mcafee-s-new-skycoin- tattoo-sees-the-coin-rise-12-.html)

<comment><USER19> Why would I want to support such a creep though? Booty bumping bath salts with his sixteen year old girlfriend while he plots the murder of his neighbor, then runs away when he realizes his life of crime is a poor choice of his time given the consequences?

<comment><USER20> You'd run away too if you could, if you knew what was good for you.

<comment><USER21> I think wavefunction is implying McAfee shouldn't have committed the crimes in the first place.

<comment><USER20> Sure, and I'm not sure I'd invite McAfee to dinner, but regardless of whether he committed a crime or not I'd be looking for the exits when the law enforcement of many SA countries came looking for me. Even teen-fucking murderers have a sense of self-preservation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Man the SEC takes no prisoners. Everyone fears them. Everyone cuts a deal with them. The SEC always gets it's perp. I wish everyone feared the Law like they do the SEC. I wish the Law could execute like the SEC does. Heck, they even got Martha.

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't understand how someone can get in trouble for promoting imaginary currency.

Can you get in trouble for promoting fake money from Monopoly and trying to convince people that the collectible value of the Monopoly money will increase?

<comment><USER24> > _Can you get in trouble for promoting fake money from Monopoly and trying to > convince people that the collectible value of the Monopoly money will > increase?_

Monopoly money isn't a security. ICO tokens are. Securities laws, including those requiring disclosure of sales incentives, apply to securities.

<comment><USER25> > It's an entity with a value specified by the eminent. If it's a fashion > startup, one token can be equal to one dress or a yearly license of a > software in case of a hi-tech startup. You even can issue tokens of yourself > and a token holder will be able to buy an hour of your work with the token. > You can "tokenize" everything.

From [https://www.google.com.hk/amp/s/cointelegraph.com/ico-101/wh...](https://www.google.com.hk/amp/s/cointelegraph.com/ico-101/what- is-an-ico-token-and-how-does-it-work/amp)

So basically if you top up your namecheap account it will count as a token? Looks like yes, from this definition. Please explain to me why I'm wrong.

<comment><USER26> Like any other thing the SEC would consider a security, it's complicated and technical. The article refers to [https://www.sec.gov/litigation/investreport/34-81207.pdf](https://www.sec.gov/litigation/investreport/34-81207.pdf) as the SEC's basis for considering how "coins" relate to securities.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bash Infinity Framework - <AUTHOR> https://invent.life/project/bash-infinity-framework/ <comment><USER2> I think this is really dangerous. It adds magic to bash scripts, which then makes them really difficult for new users to read and debug. If you like concepts from Java and JavaScript, why not just write shell scripts using a different language altogether? What's the benefit of using bash at all?

This kind of thing is done in other languages all the time, but shell scripts are often doing things that are very important not to screw up.

<comment><USER3> There's no magic here. The code is quite clear, if you wish to review. Moreover, each module is independent, so you can include only the files that you find useful, after reviewing them beforehand. As to why: 1\. For fun, as an exercise. 2\. It does make it more pleasant to write and debug readable Bash scripts.

Obviously — you should always use common sense and choose the programming language to your needs.

<comment><USER4> > choose the programming language to your needs.

What exactly do you mean by this? I would love to have a real language in bash scripts but the examples here do not appeal to me because of the O-O semantics. A simpler language would be nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for posting, ingve. I'm the author of this framework. If you have any questions about it, please ask.</comment>


Critical Points of Differentiation - <AUTHOR> http://mattmaroon.com/2009/09/15/critical-points-of-differentiation/

<comment><AUTHOR> Quote: you have to ask yourself on which points is the product better, and which ones are the ones that really matter, because any business trying to make something that isn't better, in terms of the critical points of differentiation, is really just a charity.</comment>


Lifted On Giant Inner Tubes, An Old Tree Moves In Michigan - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2014/10/26/358965309/lifted-on-giant-inner-tubes-an-old-tree-moves-in-michigan

<comment><USER2> Can you imagine a returning alumni visiting the campus with their family after a decade or so.

"And here kids, is the tree we use to hang out by between classes. It's right next to the building where I, uh... Imagine that, they moved all the buildings."

</comment><comment><USER3> I think we can all agree this was both a huge waste of money, and very cool.

<comment><USER4> Personally I'd rather they just leave the fucking tree where it is. Kind of a sad, not-so-subtle metaphor for the way human progress seems to require messing with the environment.

They couldn't spend a little more money and change their building's design?

<comment><USER5> Not much of UMs campus in that area qualifies as "the environment", it's been city for ~200 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Like all undertakings, this is as cool as it is clever and difficult. In this case, all three are 'very.'

It'd be cooler still if the university did it rather than hiring contractors, perhaps as some sort of dubious research.

</comment><comment><USER7> The image of a tree-being-wheeled makes me think of the 'skroderiders' in Vernor Vinge's _A Fire Upon The Deep_ – a ancient race of sentient trees on wheels.</comment>


How do you sell a 100% remote startup? - <AUTHOR>

When a startup sells to another company, they sell their cash flow, customer/client base, products & services, IP, equipment, and employee contracts, among other things.
But is there a still a general expectation that the employees be working together in the same office, that remote organizations are too 'fragile' to risk purchasing outright?
What problems or disadvantages might companies comprised mainly of remote workforces, like 37 Signals and StackOverflow (not that either would ever sell), incur should they try to sell to another company (since most companies these days are non-remote)? <comment><USER2> You can count on a calculated rejection from your inherited employees in this case. They'll take paychecks from the company that bought them only until they find something suitable to replace that source of cash flow. In my opinion, taking away remote working opportunities is par with taking away medical benefits wholesale. i.e. there are plenty of people that have a job mainly for medical benefits and if they were to be taken away, that person no long has the incentive to stay. same goes with telecommuting: you take away that and, unless you're giving them quite a hefty raise and contributing to their relocation if required, you'll see a very swift exodus once they have their ducks in a row.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, I guess the buying company has to have a plan in place to get their own staff up to speed and able to run the purchased company without the purchased employees.

Have you ever seen a non-remote company purchase a remote one? I'd be curious to hear how that went down from an insiders point of view.

<comment><USER2> Sure, don't want to name the companies involved, however what happened was exactly what i touched upon: those that could afford to leave once remote working ended did so, all the while the time the others were supposed to be working, they were going to job interviews. in the end, the unskilled workers with salaries stayed, the skilled employees who needed to properly make the transition to a paid job left in droves once they did so (within 2 weeks of remote working ending). One person went off and started a company. they shot themselves in the foot for sticking to the notion that one can only do real work in an office setting despite that the company they bought barely had an office presence and did what they couldn't do with quite a larger budget.</comment></comment></comment>


Outsourcing: Get Over It. - <AUTHOR> http://www.thewealthyprogrammer.com/2008/02/outsourcing-get-over-it.html

<comment><USER2> A condensed version...

If you have a family to take care of and you just lost your job to outsourcing, you just need to follow a few simple steps:

* Don't be prejudiced.

* Beat out hundreds of other programmers for a management job or start your own business.

* Be eager about... something.

* Read an economics textbook.

* Dream about traveling the world without having to work much.

* Help someone do... something. The Wealthy Programmer says greed is bad.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow... I haven' seen such pretentious blog in a while. He worked for over 100 companies within last 20 years! Jesus... After those I was expecting no less but a comparison of his code printouts with football fields.

"I become a wealthy programmer, and you can too!".... Yet his 2nd blog post is labeled "How to get promoted to Management" where he basically suggests to start sucking up to your immediate boss.

WTF? Who upmodded this junk?

</comment><comment><USER4> I worked for outsourcing companies in some third world countries for years, and here's my advice: don't outsource your work if you can and you will save a lot of money in the long run.

Or, if you feel you need 50 Java programmers for a single project, you suck anyway, with or without outsourcing.

</comment><comment><USER5> At this point in time I'm not worried about outsourcing, since I probably wouldn't want to do most of the jobs being outsourced _anyway_. I have no desire to write accounting software, etc for Fortune 500 companies for the rest of my life.

I'd much rather work on interesting and creative projects. I don't think outsourcing lends itself well to these types of problems, though that may change in the future.

</comment><comment><USER6> My undergraduate education was in Industrial Engineering. Industrial Engineers are the outsourcers. They have been portrayed memorably as "efficiency experts" in movies such as American Beauty and Office Space. There will always be jobs for Industrial Engineers, until they start outsourcing the outsourcing.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'll try to turn this crazy post into something more usable for this crowd:

From a startup point of view I think outsourcing the development of your core product is very dangerous. You need to be in constant touch with your product and have a direct feedback loop during development. That can be very hard if you outsource.

Setting up a remote team and building up a good relationship with them can be very fruitful however. We've done it too and we consider those people first class colleagues. It does take a lot of effort; lots of Skype calls and visits. But it works very well.

S.</comment>


You Should Write Ugly Code - <AUTHOR> http://redotheweb.com/2013/06/04/you-should-write-ugly-code.html

<comment><USER3> Disagree.

You deliberately call it beautiful code, whereas in reality it is clean code. Clean code is not more expensive to deliver than ugly code. It just requires a better calibre of developer i.e. a developer who can express features in a style which others can understand.

Once you have clean code you can take on features more easily and quickly. You can also change personnel more easily. Most importantly of all you can get better confidence that changes won't introduce side affects.

The problem is there are not many people who can do this.

No-one in their right mind (Fowler, Uncle Bob, included) say code should be beautiful as some kind of vain exercise in style over substance.

<comment><USER4> Absolutely correct. And what clean code leads to is more maintainable and more easily update-able code. Beauty or ugliness is absolutely not a feature. Its a sideline to what clean code is.

Maintainability is totally the high order bit here. And its totally worth getting it right (or at least approximately). Its the anti-thesis to ugly code.

<comment><USER3> That's exactly what I was trying to say: "beautiful code is a byproduct of clean code". Clean code is the important part. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We shouldn't write maintainable code because the idioms might not seem fashionable at some point in the future? Never mind that code is read way more than it's written and that maintenance costs way more than development. Building up massive technical debt is fine in the short term but eventually you'll have to address it and that's going to cripple development on the product. OOP principles aren't a fad, they're fundamental to structuring code in PHP.

The analogy with the furniture is particularly misleading. Would you pay half as much for a chair that occasionally falls over? That takes a long time to get repaired because each of the legs is tightly coupled to one another? I'd rather pay double for the reliable version.

I've worked with a lot of code bases in the past where the developers have had a resentment towards new methodologies and saw people who tried to use new ideas as just trying to show off. It's a disheartening experience to want to use such fashionable concepts as 'objects' only to be told that the way things are done is procedural programming with SQL queries nested in markup like it's 2000 again. In my experience it's been because they've not wanted to invest in learning new things. That's not a good ethos for a programmer. Let's not promote it.

</comment><comment><USER6> This all sounds great, but I've worked in places where this has been the philosophy.

Unless you have somebody in charge who understands the importance of code quality (and why a bad codebase can be a ticking time bomb) you will find it very difficult to budget time/money for the removal of technical debt.

You will often meet the attitude of "well it works now, why waste time rewriting it?" or "sure, do that. But let's clear this milestone first", "oh, priorities have changed we _need_ to add this new feature first".

This usually gets externalized to developers who end up working excess hours firefighting a horrific codebase or implementing a bunch of features twice, once in the clean codebase and once in the dirty one.

I've had times where I worked 8 hours at work and then came home and worked another 6 getting the new codebase in sync to a point where it could be replaced.

And when people start loosing money because shit is falling apart due to a tangled, buggy codebase without proper tests guess who's ass is on the line?

<comment><USER7> Thanks, "Technical debt" is the word here. "Beautiful" might not come close to "valuable" in terms of importance, but "Clean" should come close, because accumulating too much crap makes maintenance & feature addition painful. Uncle Bob's "Clean Code" does a great job at detailing that.

<comment><USER6> How does one define the difference between "Beautiful" and "Clean"?

<comment><USER8> "Beautiful" -> Easy to read, succinct but not so succinct as to obfuscate

"Clean" -> Modular, separates concerns, loosely coupled, not in need of significant refactoring, easy to write unit tests for

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maintainability and technical debt are very real metrics. It is just question of short-term versus long-term investment. This article prefers short-term investment (as many other startups do). I just wish buyers would include code maintenance costs when evaluating start-up.

</comment><comment><USER10> You should definitely write ugly code. People pay me and people like me good money to come in and clean up your mess when adding features becomes an endless exercise in breaking things in unexpected ways for the whole team and productivity plummets.

Relevant blogpost: <http://swizec.com/blog/my-very-own-daily-wtf/swizec/5829>

Relevant website: <http://thedailywtf.com/>

<comment><USER11> They will only pay you to fix their code after they've released their product and are selling it for a profit.

<comment><USER10> Usually it's when they get their first non-seed round of investment and realise their product doesn't let them grow as fast as they'd like.

Products growing through sales can go without proper cleanup for decades. Friends have told me stories of single SQL queries taking upwards of 15 minutes to run (and then being rewritten in SQL+PHP that does the same in 20 seconds)

<comment><USER12> I've seen my share of awful (but trivially optimizable) queries taking forever to run - but can you elaborate on what PHP has to do with it?

<comment><USER10> Just that PHP is considered slow compared to a RDBMS, but is much _much_ quicker when used appropriately.

<comment><USER12> Ah, so you're talking about moving some of the logic from the SQL into code? Yes, that can certainly give a huge boost, no matter what the language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yes yes, "True artists ship". In general though I would say that you can and should strive both for end-user value and overall systems quality.

I agree to a point - the pattern du-jour has little to do with good code. I also agree - to a point - that prototyping should produce results as fast as possible. It's very hard to create something new and novel without rambling prototypes. You need those to feed your intuition on what aspects are critical and what are not.

As a general guideline, though, this is horrible advice. Although it depends on the definition of "ugly". I would pragmatically define beautiful code as something that is as simple as it can be to implement a useful set of end-user functionality, contains only acyclic dependencies, obeys the key-rule of DNRY (do not repeat yourself), is buildable using a single developer action, is preferably automatically deployed ... and so on and so on.

The key metric to beautiful code in my opinion is that the code and it's host system is in every way as simple as it can be. Sometimes you need a few abstraction layers to simplify the total complexity, often you don't.

It's not just the code. It's how it integrates with the rest of the world that matters. The integration points can be productivity multipliers for the organization.

And, as a developer, you can learn all the time. The better systems you build, the better the next system will be (unless it happens to be the second system where you traditionally must try to implement something horribly baroque). You have to be learning constantly to grow as a developer. You have to consciously strive towards simplicity and elegance, because otherwise you will get stuck. If you accept bad code as "good enough" always, I fear you will not grow up to your full potential.

</comment><comment><USER14> > _Would you be willing to buy a piece of furniture twice the normal price > because the craftsman uses the most expensive tools available? And what > would you think of a poor craftsman who, using poor equipment, manages to > create great furniture? Who's the best craftsman of the two?_

The author forgot to mention most likely alternative here: a poor craftsman uses poor equipment to create poor furniture that breaks easily.

</comment><comment><USER15> It is only me who noticed that average level of intelligence of participants is quickly approaching that one of /b/?)

</comment><comment><USER16> The article mentions design patterns, dependency injection, procedural programming, OOP, and all sorts of techniques that aren't categorically "beautiful" or "ugly", so it's really hard to know what point it's making, other than "don't spend time doing work that has no clear benefit."

</comment><comment><USER17> I am currently working in a environment, i.e. computational neuroscience lab, where getting results quickly is the most important thing and nobody really cares about the aesthetics of the code, heck not even about the resulting program (the "product") created by that programming. We therefore do indeed often write "ugly" and somewhat unclean code.

I can assure you that I have been angry about (my own and others) working but ugly code more often than not, because at some point you lose control and then you don't even understand what is going on anymore. Try making another 'quick' modification to the source base then. Oh and don't forget the fun to read some other PhD student's (scientific quick hack) code, who isn't even in the lab anymore.

</comment><comment><USER18> Why shouldn't I take pride in my work?

>When facing an implementation choice, should a developer opt for solution A, which uses ugly code, or for solution B, which is beautiful? That's not the right question: from the end user's perspective, the alternative doesn't make any sense. The user won't look at the code, especially if the product is not good enough to be even tried.

"Let us do our work as well, Both the unseen and the seen;" - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Builders

You can write ugly code that works or you can write beautiful code that works. You can't write beautiful code that doesn't work.

</comment><comment><USER19> This article is attacking a very narrow and superfluous definition of beauty, that I would instead call fashionable. The beauty of a piece of code should depend not so much on how well statements are aligned and consistency of formatting, and more on how easy it is to understand; the complexity of the task in contrast with the simplicity of the program.

That said, I still take issue with criticizing his narrow definition of code beauty. We should be allowed to dote on our code and make it pretty. Even if it doesn't provide tangible value to the customer, it lets us take pleasure in our craft.

</comment><comment><USER20> beautiful code _does_ work in shipping products. This article is just designed to stoke a flamewar. :/

</comment><comment><USER21> I agree with the article because the code many people consider beautiful does not mean easy maintainance.

We want clean and simple code, not anything with convoluted patterns.

</comment><comment><USER22> If you are writing code for aesthetic purposes of course you are doing it wrong. If you are writing code and balancing delivering features with maintainability. A balance that constantly changes. Then I would argue you are doing it right. Sometimes that balance is just deliver for the deadline, nothing else matters. Sometimes it is this needs to be extensible and maintainable because it's a cornerstone of our product.

</comment><comment><USER23> Cannot possibly disagree more.

\- Of course, ugly code is fine for experimening, short-lived code, or code that won't be touched again.

\- But beautiful code makes me enjoy my work, which is _really_ important.

\- It makes lives of other devs better. Devs want more money for working with ugly code (ie. it costs the company money).

\- Ugly code supports the culture that aesthetics is not important.

</comment><comment><USER24> If you still think that design pattern X is fundamentally better than design pattern Y, Z, Carrot, or Potato, you're missing the point. The point is to have something consistent that works. Design patterns reduce the mental load on the maintainer. The point isn't beauty for the sake of beauty, though it does feel nice to have something that is beautiful.

</comment><comment><USER25> > the code they wrote for the sake of beauty is crap.

From my understanding, this is the crux of the article. The problem with this is the misunderstanding of why people employ patterns in programming. It's not for the sake of beauty, but because of sound architectural principles.

Maybe that's how he interprets beauty, but then using the word beauty diminishes why the code was written the way it was written. That beauty is subjective.

The reality is good code and good practices have real measurable value that mere "beauty" does not.

<comment><USER26> In my experience, "good" code and "pretty" code are the same thing - <USER2> similarly for "bad" and "ugly". Of course, when I say "pretty", I mean well laid-out, properly documented, non-spaghetti code. I've spent far too much of my time tearing out thousands of lines of "bad" code that wasn't written in a way to allow for easy changes.

<comment><USER25> My issue is the phrase "sake of beauty." This ignores _why_ this code was written. I'm fine with beautiful code. My issue is the use of the word beautiful in such a way as to imply that beauty was the intent. People don't try to write beautiful code, people try to write good code. That it happens to be "beautiful" is a bonus.

Hopefully my point is clear. I guess it's subtle, but I think a crucial difference.

<comment><USER27> I actually thought the article would be about indention, style, etc.

<comment><USER25> Considering his examples, it's not. It's about architectural quality.

Indentation style is meaningless in this context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > personally think that developers shouldn't care about code beauty, because > that's not their job.

I believe anyone else on your team will waste a lot of time and effort figuring out the spaghetti code you wrote.

Think. Then code.

</comment><comment><USER29> I had a really great post for this topic about the utility of ugliness in language design. Ocaml provides imperative features but makes them ugly, subtly encouraging a functional approach in most cases. Clojure quite brilliantly makes OOP and heavy Java interop possible but very ugly (because the language's ultimate goal is platform-agnosticism) while making idiomatic Clojure beautiful. Making something ugly is often more powerful than saying "don't do that". So ugliness has a real value, and that's what I originally came here to talk about.

Then I read the OP, which had to go and ruin that by being wrong.

First of all, OOP is not "beautiful". Quite the opposite, I find Delegates and Factories and Visitors to be fucking atrocious from an aesthetic perspective. All that stuff is there to make business people think their metaphors apply to code and to give them a sense that they, the "big picture guys", have a chance at understanding what's going on. They don't.

I've taught. I've designed games. So I understand the importance of aesthetics in any replication process. Making something easy to learn, understand, replicate, use, et al actually comes down to aesthetics. Now, it's _a specific kind_ of aesthetic sense you need. You spend more time on convergent creativity (trimming, simplifying) than on divergence (adornments, gargoyles, "neat" advanced features). You should, at least when you start, ship a simple product that people can use rather than a complex one that you (having grown up with the complexity as it emerged) find "beautiful". With that I agree. It's better to write straightforward "boring" code that works than to apply every programming trick in the book (self-modifying code! three-level syntax quoting!) If the dumb thing works, use it. Complexity will happen on its own, so don't go looking for more.

Not paying attention to code aesthetics and simplicity, however, is a recipe for disaster. If your code is going to be read by other people and you write ugly, unmaintainable code, then... well, good luck with that.

I don't really mind the substance of what the OP is saying (focus on solving problems rather than writing code) but the presentation is awful.

<comment><USER8> I feel like functional and non-OOP languages are probably unpopular in the corporate world because when you're using one, there is not really any need to have a business analyst design the application in UML diagrams or Microsoft Visio. Java, on the other hand, is perfect for that, if that's what you're looking for. Java and enterprise software were made for each other.

<comment><USER29> There are two schools of programming that have diverged: low-productivity and high-productivity development. It's not always about language. I know people in the HP world that use traditionally LP languages like Java or C++ for performance reasons. But the horrid mess of a stereotypical JavaJob is the LP development world where, as you said, those horrible Big Designs are created without irony.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> confusing clear code with pretty code is just as wrong as confusing good design with pretty colors

edit: reworded slightly

</comment><comment><USER31> With so vague definitions, this article is uninteresting without a single example.

</comment><comment><USER32> 50% of the product is the code base in which you iterate on and add new features.

</comment><comment><USER33> There's only one true brace...</comment>


Deceptive curcumin offers cautionary tale for chemists - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/deceptive-curcumin-offers-cautionary-tale-for-chemists-1.21269 <comment><USER2> I find this strange as turmeric's been used as topical antibiotic in India since ancient times - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turmeric#Traditional_uses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turmeric#Traditional_uses) \- highly unlikely they were thrown off by false positives in protein binding tests.</comment>


Ask HN: What do you do in your free time? - <AUTHOR> Hi
I have started my career two years back. I am curious what other programmers do in free time? What are some sites or other things you do in free time. Do you do programming or have GitHub communities?
Please advice what should I do in my free time to become a better programmer? <comment><USER2> What's this free time you speak of? ;-) I read on programming on my iPad in bed. Once in a while I'll even program some Python on it, in bed, giving new meaning to the term "embedded programming".

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Before starting something like learning new language or starting new project which is not related to my job I think how it will benefit me and I delay the things and never start it. Can you think same way or can you advice me.

<comment><USER2> I'm probably not a good person to ask on this.

I must confess, I rarely do anything professionally that I don't want to do anyway. In other words, I don't have to "make" myself do something - I do it 'cause I want to. I'm super curious.

That said, I need to learn Javascript for a side project. I don't find learning a JS very interesting in itself _but_ combine it with something that _do_ find interesting (3D graphics, Three.js) and it becomes fun. Sort of like spending time in France and learning French "accidentally".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > work out - weights and running

> write

> read fiction occasionally

> read non-fiction various topics - including HN and Reddit

> help with cooking

> transport kids

> help with homework

> visit elderly parents and help them out a bit

> read a book with my wife - rather she reads aloud to me

> participate in community of faith

> hang out with my family

> watch a bit of TV as I drift off to sleep

</comment><comment><USER4> One of my main "free time" activities (non tech related) is bicycle riding. I do road biking, mountain biking and BMX to varying degrees. I'm also looking to start getting back into trail running with an eye towards eventually running an ultra-marathon.

Otherwise, I spend a lot of time reading, both techie / business related stuff, other non-fiction, and fiction. I read a lot of science / history stuff that isn't strictly tech (for example, I like reading about cosmology and particle physics, and WWI / WWII history).

I'll go to the occasional concert, mostly heavy metal / hard rock stuff of various sorts.

And then I'll throw on Netflix or Amazon Prime here and there and watch a movie or something now and then.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hip-Hop Music Production - Ive been doing it for 15 years, and don't plan on stopping. Development just pays the bills, I want to be in a studio all day/night.

</comment><comment><USER6> After three times that more you'll probably realize that you really need something totally different from computers. It's not to say you'll ditch your work at 5 o'clock, but you'll be glad from time to time to do something that is not computer-problem-solving.

Having that said, I make things (clippad stand, marker tray for whiteboard, detachable box for pencils and ballpens, things like that) out of corrugated cardboard and I'm trying to learn some woodworking. I also read a lot, and I enjoy role-playing games these rare times I have a group and game master.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm a (jr) mechanical engineer by day. One of my hobbies is programming. Nothing special, various small projects to either scratch an itch or learn something I was curious about, though I have contributed thingies to a few small OSS projects (ie 1-line patches for minor bugs).

Other than that, various outdoors activities. Skiing (xc, alpine, bit of touring), bicycling (incl some bike touring), general exploring.

</comment><comment><USER8> My free time is roughly split 50/50 into

Cycle and Swim, Read fiction, Watch documentaries and stay away from screens.

Play with cool technologies, read programming stuff and work on side projects.

I aim for a minimum of 30 minutes exercise every day either swimming, cycling or recently pilates and at least an hour and half away from a screen (not counting a kobo as a screen) usually before bed.

I burnt out badly a while back and I'm determined not to go down that route again, at first I had to force myself away from the computer but now I relish the time.

</comment><comment><USER9> Learning/teaching Argentine Tango.

I would like to use my prior experience as a pilot/flight instructor and mix it with my programming/database skills via drones somehow. The combo of machine learning, (fixed wing?) drones, and infosec have captured my attention.

CTFs are new for me and I'm enjoying stockfighter.io quite a bit.

Continuing my CS self-education in areas because they sound interesting.

</comment><comment><USER10> I realized a while ago that most my interests fall into two categories.

1\. Learning (e.g. studying programming, history, people)

2\. Competing (e.g. FPS/RTS games, martial arts, archery).

</comment><comment><USER11> Watching Periscope. It isn't going to make me a better programmer, but I think it represents the future of something (like all TV in the future will be live, because who wants to watch recorded stuff that already happened and you can't talk to the people in the video?).

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm editing my fist novel. I'm going to learn how to sail this spring.

Pick something that you haven't done. Try it!

</comment><comment><USER13> I suggest something unrelated to programming. Ski, hike, etc. As for me, doing anything physical has generally made me happy about life which in turn has made me a better programmer.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, this. Spend enough time looking at the computer, having something to do that doesn't involve it is good. For me, it's my photography--vintage mechanical cameras and wet darkroom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think I start another new project every chance I get. I get distracted easily...

</comment><comment><USER16> Read book.

</comment><comment><USER17> Wingsuit!</comment>