Ask HN: Should I quit my job if I am not learning? - <AUTHOR> I graduated with a B.S. Computer Science in 2013 and joined a (moderately large) software company in the Bay Area. When I accepted the offer, I was led to believe that I will be working with the company's search/recommendations/data products team - a role that will be a combination of software engineering and applied research (information retrieval, machine learning). But so far, I have been asked to work on things like the company's metrics pipeline and various dashboards etc. I am really frustrated about the fact that I don't get to work on any products/applications - the work is not satisfying and I feel my software engineering skills are eroding.<p>Should I wait for my 1 year cliff or quit immediately or not quit at all? <comment><USER2> Welcome to the industry, you are a professional now. As a freshman in a moderately sized company, the projects you are given are a way for them to assess you. Do them well. Observe what problems are being solved and what aren't? Is there a process that can be improved? Go build it. Satisfying your work is a stepping stone to building expertise and will enable you to demand better tasks. This is based on what I experienced [http://hkelkar.com/2013/01/01/being- craftsman/](http://hkelkar.com/2013/01/01/being-craftsman/). You can always learn on your own, coursera, projects on github etc. If you still think you are not learning, then most certainly move. Good luck!

<comment><USER3> This. A lot of work isn't sexy, and some amount of time will be spent doing tasks like these no matter where you're at.

If you don't prove that you can do these tasks well, we wouldn't trust you with the harder stuff. Another benefit is this gives you a wider understanding of the different parts of the system.

<comment><USER4> I agree that work isn't all sexy. That said, I've also seen places where they don't want you to do harder/more interesting stuff, they just need those boring tasks to be done with. And if you're any good at it, chances are they'll leave them to you. It's much more rewarding to do the required boring unexciting stuff at a place where you take (or know you will take) a part in the bigger picture.

Not saying that you shouldn't stick through because I agree that there is always something to learn, especially at the beginning. That said, look out for opportunities to grow - either inside or outside your company. Don't settle in boredom land.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Its a useful question to ask yourself. But it brings another one up which is "Why are you not learning?" Not to be too flippant here but there is always things around you to learn but besides the latest algorithm, things like development habits, or team interactions, or even project planning. Useful stuff to be sure, and something people often learn in their first job out of school.

That said, if you're not learning and your day is full, then you might try working on ways to free up time in your day (learning to automate things), and if your day isn't full learning other parts of the stack can be fun too. You could always chat with your manager about it, that is part of their job description :-)

<comment><USER6> > You could always chat with your manager about it, that is part of their job > description :-)

It should be pretty obvious. Hell, I'm not even a manager for other departments and I can easily tell when people don't feel motivated or stretched enough mentally to feel like staying with a company.

<comment><USER7> you'd be surprised. a lot of managers don't care about their employees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not learning anything is a very good reason to quit a job. However - there's a ton to learn in metrics pipelines and experiment analysis, and many of the basic skills there are critical for information retrieval and machine learning. Are you actually not learning anything, or are you learning things that you don't realize are important yet?

<comment><USER9> I agree with this. For my first real job we were monkeying around with data and analysis, but we all envied the people who were doing the "high level" strategy i.e. coming up with metrics, and figuring out the direction of the company. It turns out that those "boring" database and statistical analysis skills lead to many many dividends in almost every single job since.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Jeff Bezos had some thoughts on this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwG_qR6XmDQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwG_qR6XmDQ)

Personally, I think you should get out of there before your brain turns to mush and falls out. Other posters are telling you to instead perceive it as a blessing to work on these things that you find mundane and boring, but I strongly disagree. To quote Paul Graham, "If you're worried that your current job is rotting your brain, it probably is."

Don't quit, but start applying/interviewing for a new job. You will need to have a good explanation for why you're looking for a new job so quickly after starting, but that's doable. You're in a pretty strong position if you start interviewing for new jobs before quitting -- at least that makes it clear that you weren't fired, and it'll sound credible when you tell them that you're just not challenged enough by your current job.

<comment><USER11> Grateful for your helpful advice. I was so moved that I blogged about this at my blog, Daily Autodidactic, [http://www.dailyautodidactic.com/post/77180224570/how- using-...](http://www.dailyautodidactic.com/post/77180224570/how-using-regret- helps-with-big-career-life-decisions). Again, thank you for taking the time to help this person and me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If I see a resume from a kid fresh out of college that didn't even last a year in their previous/current job, unless I know the company to be exceptionally crappy I'm gonna assume that kid's a quitter.

<comment><USER13> That's nonsense. There are a lot of reasons that a first (or any) job isn't a fit, and a whole lot of them aren't caused by the employee's negative traits.

Just to name a few: the job description didn't match the actual job, overbearing managers, overbearing coworkers, uninteresting work, a better offer elsewhere, changing interests, or - just like OP - the employee feels like he would grow his talents better elsewhere. I have been in the same situation and employers have understood and respected my decision.

<comment><USER12> Those are exactly the kinds of answers a quitter would give though. "Oh, my managers were overbearing." "Oh, I wasn't interested in the work."

This career's not easy. This career's not always fun. There's strong personalities all over. Sometimes the going gets tough, how do I know this person's going to get going or just get gone?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Be really aware of your attitude. If you are not happy about this and you show it too much, they will not want to work with you as you just became a problem. If you are interviewing, be sure to be positive about this experience no matter what. If you enter a spiral of complain/non satisfaction, you will ruin your chances of getting better tasks or a new job.

<comment><USER15> Upvoting this. Never ever complain about your current job when interviewing for a new job. Always spin it in a positive way. People in the new job won't care about your old job and complaining during an interview looks like sour grapes.

You need positive reasons for making the move (talk up how much you feel the new job will help you and how you can contribute to the company). In fact, if you make it seem like you don't really want to leave your current role you might even get a higher salary than the one posted (provided you can convince them you are a good fit).

<comment><USER12> Try not to complain about your previous jobs or schooling either unless it makes a really really good story (and get confirmation on this from independent sources).

Like, I interview a paerson who dropped out of graduate school or left after a master's, I want to hear things like "I decided academia and I weren't good fits for each other" or "the two-body problem" or even "ain't no faculty jobs, yo", and I don't want to hear "my advisor's a jerk", even if your advisor is such a jerko supremo they get blogged about or something.

EDIT: What I'm trying to get across with these posts is "don't give me a reason to say 'no'."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Quitting sounds like it could be the right choice, modulo some real-life constraints. One of which _might_ be, if it's your very first job, not staying for at least 6 - 12 months. There's some value to putting in those dues, you'll learn for sure what you dislike. But after that...

A lot of people are suggesting to stick it out, learn from what's there, make the best of it, etc. But this advice is lazy at best, and maximizes regret at worst. You see, this could be applied to almost any job, even within software engineering. Because this advice implies that anyone can be fulfilled at any job, it implies to favor the default option of sticking where you ended up, which was made at a time where you had less information and experience. Worse, it may imply that somebody else has authority over your opinion or "tastes", if you will - you ought to like this job, so find something you like there! Because otherwise, your unhappiness is your own damn fault (which it really is, but not the way others mean).

No. Here's what you do. Before you discount it and consider quitting, consider the following:

1) What kind of work would you ideally be doing at this organization that would make you want to stay?

2) Speak with your manager or someone relevant, to figure out what conditions need to be met until you can do the work in 1.

3) Is the path to get there too painful? Pain is relative, and the way to find out is to research other jobs you could be starting in the next month. You can do this on weekends, everyday after work, whatever. It's important, so you'll make time.

I'm trying to advocate that there's nothing wrong with having taste and preferring something else, or simply disliking what you have. But instead of going too far in that direction and just up and leaving, be smart about it and do your homework. At least then you can be more confident that you made the right decision (stay/go) rather than following some blanketed advice based on responses to your limited detail post on your situation.

Hope this helps.

</comment><comment><USER17> When you say you aren't learning, are you referring only to your development as a software engineer, or are you also referring to your skills as an employee?

Learning how to operate in a moderately large company is a skill, and requires you to understand how to assess the value of projects you're working on, how to make them more valuable, and how to find things which would be valuable that you can work on of your own volition.

In general, you'll be asked to demonstrate competence on risk-free projects before you're given the keys to bigger things. Demonstrate excellence on those and then ask for more challenging work.

</comment><comment><USER18> Wait for the cliff and start a side project that will allow you to learn.

<comment><USER19> You took my words exactly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I used to interview applicants for technical jobs at a Wall St bank. Most applicants were straight out of school with a B.S. in ComSci. There was a huge disconnect between what these kids wanted to do and what they would actually do if they got the job-- The work they wanted to do was reserved for the people with Ph.D.s and more work experience. I used to strongly discourage these kids from taking the job. When they did, they were soon very unhappy. They either quit or got themselves fired. The partners didn't care about the high turnover, because there was always a large applicant pool and the work always managed to get done.

If you quit, you can't be sure your next job will be any different.

If you can afford it, go back to school and get a Ph.D. in machine learning or whatever most interests you. That's the only way you can be sure you'll get a job doing the kind of work you like.

</comment><comment><USER21> Ask your manager. Ultimately if they are a good company with good managers, they will want to keep you and make you happy. Otherwise, if they don't do anything, then you already pretty much made up your mind enough to want to question us about it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Do I really want a new job?

Ask yourself the following questions:

Do I know what is expected of me at work?

Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?

At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best everyday?

In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?

Does my supervisor or someone at work seem to care about me as a person?

Is there someone at work who encourages my development?

At work, do my opinions seem to count?

Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?

Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?

Do I have a best friend at work?

In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?

This last year, have I had the opportunity at work to learn and grow?

</comment><comment><USER23> Start looking, the worst thing I did in my 20's was doing the same thing over and over for years. Yes, you can learn on your own and grow - which is a must, but doing interesting things is absolutely important to keep your passion alive. At the same time, make sure that you are communicating your concerns with your manager/ceo and don't put yourself in the position where you become a volatile hire.

I was once told, a squeaking wheel always gets greased.

</comment><comment><USER24> Are they RSUs you can sell on the open market after the cliff or options of a pre-ipo company? The calculus is pretty different in each case.

Money buys flexibility and the ability to take risks with larger payoffs and that is not to be underestimated. How long do you have to go? For me, experiences, especially the bad ones, have been valuable. Learn how to excel in a broken org but don't hang around too long. Finally, always be interviewing. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your input !

"How long do you have to go? For me, experiences, especially the bad ones, have been valuable" \- can you elaborate ? How can I make the most of my time here ?

<comment><USER24> Well, I spent seven years working in IT for financial services. Way too long. I spent a number of years working as a Network Engineer for a consulting firm. Ground out a year doing QA work at Apple. I built mobile games (in 5-10 weeks each) for a buddy of mine and watched his apps go from 100k to 5MM+ installs. Hell, in high school I sanded furniture and bussed tables and there were even lessons there.

I learned things from each experience. Some lesson were way more valuable than they initially seemed. Like how to over communicate and that consulting is about service first and the technology second. That I don't like to work with people that don't care about their job. From the same people I realized it's a marathon and not a sprint. How to build consensus and work with people whose approach you fundamentally disagree with. Why marketing and market fit is really important and that if you build it they won't necessarily come. The importance of seeking out mentors and maintaining relationships. How to time a move to maximized the number of RSUs that vest (or to get more when you are hired - they won't give you a higher salary? Ask for something else they can give you.) or that you can line up a new job and then make them wait until a retention bonus is paid out.

In summary, there is more to this game than just your algorithms and computer code. At the same time, don't let people take advantage, ask for what you want, figure out how to get it or go elsewhere but be smart about it and don't leave money or something else valuable on the table.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm having same problem with you. And I am going to quit my job in 1 week. I hope next job gives me excitement about developing. It was my 6th month in here.

</comment><comment><USER26> Have you talked with your manager? If you don't feel you're being challenged, speak up or find your own challenges (as hvd notes here).

</comment><comment><USER27> Maybe you can convince your manager to tackle this more rationally and let people purposely learn because they do it anyway: They experiment, over- engineer, try the latest hype with their actual moneymaker products, making the work day less dull, upholding self-esteem and preserving skills (market value). It's not professional but people are not robots.

</comment><comment><USER28> Since it's a moderately large company, you should have a good sense for what the cliff is worth.

I would either leave immediately for a company that makes products you want to work on or start my own thing after hitting the cliff.

I made a similar choice recently. My email's in my profile, if you'd like to talk.

</comment><comment><USER29> Exactly what kind of things are you expecting to work on that would satify you, if "metrics pipeline, various dashboards, analysis of online experiments" are not examples of "products" and "applications" ?

<comment><AUTHOR> well, creating metrics to measure product usage, creating dashboards that help summarize and visualize these metrics isn't exactly in the same boat as working on search relevance. Most of the dashboards in my company are created using tools like Tableau or some JS/Python/MySQL. At best I am learning how to hack together some simple web.

<comment><USER30> It helps to realize any problem (ok, most problems) can be interesting if you look for ways to make it interesting. I hacked together some simple web for my company's internal dashboards and they work fine but I have a million ideas for how I can improve them, but I've always got more pressing priorities to worry about. As a result, I never actually have the time to spend on them. If my manager told me "I want you to spend the next two weeks working solely on the dashboards" I could interpret it as shit work (I mean, come on, we all realize dashboards are pretty boring) or an opportunity to get creative.

My job satisfaction has increased greatly with the ability to drop the ego and take an unglamorous task and just do a good job on it.

<comment><USER8> "we all realize dashboards are pretty boring"

Hah, one of my first jobs at Google was to do the dashboards for our feature's dogfood, and my manager had to tell us "I know that engineers love to tweak dashboards and make them look pretty, but please try not to spend too much time on them, we have other important things to do."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'd argue that working with a team is a more valuable tool than any other particular skill.

You can always code the stuff you want as hobbies - I grow my skills on my own, then look for jobs to help me bring that stuff onto my resume.

</comment><comment><USER32> From my experience, if you are considering quitting, you are already planning to do this. If you have the funds to go unemployed for a few months, resign and spend some free time on the things you want to learn.

</comment><comment><USER33> If you ask this today, Im sure tomorrow you won't ask it, but directly quit. Feeling stuck, without no professional development is the main reason to look for something else.

</comment><comment><USER34> quit. I've been through 4 jobs within a year in a half and finally found the job that fits and gives me the challenge and freedoms I want. the beauty about today is we have an opportunity to decide where we go because the demand is ridiculously high. You as a developer, should always strive for a challenge, whether that's at the job or at home doing a personal project, but always strive for happiness in what you do.

</comment><comment><USER35> Try to do everything you can to move into a desired role before jumping ship. I would wait at least one year before you make the move

</comment><comment><USER36> The frustrating thing about learning is you often don't really know what knowledge is useful until years after you acquire it.

</comment><comment><USER37> shoot me an email at aleksey at aleksey dot com with your resume/linkedin profile/whatever - I am hiring for a project where you'll have to handle near real time big (a few TBs/day) data (yes, it's also analytics and not a lot of ML but there are some pretty cool technologies and hard questions to figure out)</comment>


Firefox OS 2.0 starts emerging from its cocoon - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/new-features-and-appearance-for-firefox-os-2-0-emerge/ <comment><USER2> As a huge Mozilla fan, I really do hope that Firefox OS takes off at least in a small way. I hear that the Firefox browser isn't being used so much on Android (people are tending to stick to the default Chrome browser). Mozilla really do need to get into the mobile market.

<comment><USER3> According to the Play Store, mobile Firefox is in the "50,000,000 - 100,000,000" installs category. For a platform where Chrome is the default browser (as opposed to Windows and IE), that ain't too shabby.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fi...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.firefox)

<comment><USER4> Well it'd be good if the HTML5/H264 video player wasn't a piece of crap and it integrated with Android intents etc properly...

<comment><USER5> Would you mind be more precise so we can fix it?

<comment><USER4> Yes:

steps: Open mp4 file in Firefox 28 on Android.

actual behaviour: Shows in tiny partial window inside browser. Content is small, laggy, impossible to control, cannot be made full screen.

expected behaviour: opens with default android media player interface or asks which interface to use as per intents system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm really excited about this. I recently installed Firefox OS 1.4 on my cheapo ZTE Open (it came with 1.0), and the difference is huge. I thought I heard somewhere that they are shooting for 2.0 in July.

Ignore everything this article says about the Geeksphone Revolution, though. Geeksphone has dropped the ball so many times with that device; they seem to be pretty incompetent, to be honest. Some owners have said that the Revolution's build of Firefox OS deviates pretty far from the official one -- who knows if you'll be able to get 2.0 on it easily.

<comment><USER7> So what is the best phone to get with Firefox OS then? Even if that means flashing it yourself? Galaxy S 3 maybe? Nexus 4 or 5?

<comment><USER8> If you are not in a hurry, I would wait for the reference device (codename 'Flame') that will ship in the coming months. It's not as high end as a Nexus 5 but FxOS runs superbly there (it's a dual core with 4.5" screen).

<comment><USER9> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJZZvXzTtCo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJZZvXzTtCo)

<comment><USER10> A little context next time, please.

Link is to a video of Firefox OS running on a Nexus 4.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The mobile ecosystem could really use a platform that is web friendlier. Firefox OS will have web developers becoming mobile developers overnight. That said, I wonder if those developers will understand the performance differences of a desktop vs a mobile device. If they don't, the performance of Firefox OS apps will be awful and Firefox will be blamed by the end user.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm having more and more doubts about mobile operating systems, or perhaps mobile UI paradigms where the user has unlimited freedom.

I just tried, for experiment's sake, a dumbphone (Nokia 515) instead of my high-end large screen Android phone. And somehow I like it, not because of what it can do but mostly because what it cannot, and what kind of shackles it imposes on me.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is there any likelihood that FFOS will ever be more than a niche player? From where I'm sitting it looks like Android & iOS are the big players, Windows Phone is the plucky upstart, and then there's dark horses and complementary products like Tizen and so on. With all of the big brands out there, where does FFOS propose to carve out a niche?

<comment><USER14> They've always said they are aiming to target cheaper less powerful phones. Right now the bulk of the world is using cheap phones probably running Symbian or something similar. Whether they actually will be able to target that group is up for debate, but that's been their (stated) plan.

<comment><USER15> They're serious about it, too. They're getting it to work under 128MB:

[https://wiki.mozilla.org/FirefoxOS/Tarako](https://wiki.mozilla.org/FirefoxOS/Tarako)

<comment><USER8> <disclaimer>I work for mozilla on fxos</disclaimer> And that works really well considering the price point and the hardware. Another benefit of working to make things good on this very low end device is that we made a number of performance improvements that benefit also other devices.

Something important to note compared to android is that android phones in this range are stuck with gingerbread and no official play store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Glad to see Mozilla pushing ahead, putting the Brendan Eich story behind them.

I bought the ZTE Open and am rooting for them.

<comment><USER17> I bought one as well. Can you root mine too, please?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is why PhoneGap is relevant. One codebase, many platforms.

<comment><USER19> ... crappy experience everywhere.

<comment><USER18> There are many apps that have a good UX that use Phone Gap. A good or bad UX has more to do with the programmer. But then...

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

― Upton Sinclair

\---

Edit: I removed by sarcastic response. I sometimes have kneejerk sarcasm to FUD now, since FUD is pretty much BS.

The FUD & BS grows the more unquestioning people become. I believe native vs web is in a context where most people believe native is the _only_ way to have a good UX. I see it as an opportunity to get ahead while the competition is asleep at the wheel. I'm not afraid of saying this because you won't believe me anyways ;-)

I don't know why I'm explaining all of this. I really should just keep my mouth shut.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Would you say that it's ok for it to come out of the closet now that Eich's gone.

</comment><comment><USER21> Copy-and-paste - great. Now how about reply all to MMS?

<comment><USER22> I'll just get my Siemens S65 out of the drawer and do that for you. (Yes, that is a phone from 10 years ago . . .)

Seems continued reinvention of the wheel is popular! In fairness, it seems a great effort but I am not sure millions of OSes is a great idea, particularly not for developer effort.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Accept Bitcoins on your site - <AUTHOR> A friend(@wolever) and I spent the weekend hacking up a small web app which makes it easy for you to sell digital goods for Bitcoins. Once a customer has clicked the "buy" button, we take care of giving them a unique address, monitoring that address for transactions, then securely notifying your website once a minimum number of confirmations have been received. Oh, ya, and then we send you the Bitcoins :)<p>The website is here: BitWillet: http://www.bitwillet.com and there is a demo on the front page.<p>(full disclosure: BitWillet uses the Willet, http://dev.getwillet.com, platform, of which I co-founded) <comment><USER2> A good companion for this would be a browser extension that interfaces with the bitcoin network so interactions could be streamlined. The extension does not need to be a bitcoin miner, simply an interface for your existing account(s).

The usage pattern would follow:

1) Install the extension

2) Configure extension with your bitcoin address(es).

When encountering a site using bitwillet:

1) User clicks "Pay"

2) bitwillet overlay appears with generated bitcoin address to send payment to. bitcoin address is clickable.

3a) Clicking the bitwillet address interfaces with the bitcoin extension to send the payment from your account to the one provided by bitwillet. A "Are you sure?" confirmation should appear before the transaction is complete.

3b) Alternatively, the overlay interfaces directly with the extension and bypasses the need for the user to click the bitwillet address. Confirmation screen should still be used.

4) bitwillet overlay updates its text to tell the user the transaction is in process.

5) When the transaction is complete, the overlay message changes again to inform the user.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a good idea that would take quite a bit more work on our part. We'll discuss it and see what happens! Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That's really great!

Some feedback:

\- "This may take up to 5 minutes." < you might have to explain why \- "What is BitWillet?" open a new tab instead of opening inside the popup

<comment><USER4> Ow, and I thought those 10 seconds it sometimes takes using a credit card was bad.

<comment><AUTHOR> This _may_ take up to 5 minutes due to how the Bitcoin network is implemented. We have to wait for the correct number of confirmations to propagate through the Bitcoin network in order to be able to confirm a BTC transaction has occurred.

Wish we could do it faster, but this is as fast as it gets!

<comment><USER5> Also, I believe that if you've got port forwarding setup correct/your Bitcoin client isn't behind a firewall the confirmations will get out faster because you'll be able to connect to a larger number of peers (eg, without port forwarding setup I usually have ~8 connections, while with port forwarding I get ~100).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm glad you did this. <http://bitcoinservice.co.uk/> has been doing something similar but without the polished look and feel, and higher fees.

The big money in e-goods is with these guys <http://www.clickbank.com>

</comment><comment><USER7> Doesn't work for people using an Apps account:

Oops... you need a Google profile to use this feature. Google Profiles is not available for your organization.

<comment><AUTHOR> I bet your App Admin can set this up for you to allow it access. I don't know 100%, but I'd recommend checking it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Thanks, I will probably use this. I have been thinking about offering bitcoin- paid server colo options.

<comment><USER5> Cool. If you end up using it, we'd love to hear about it (@wolever/@BarbaraEMac).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't get it. How do you make money? Why spend all this time and effort without reward?

<comment><AUTHOR> It won't be free forever.

Once we know how well it works and we've ironed out any bugs, then we'll start charging. Initially we'd rather deal with people who don't trust us because we're free than people who are pissed off because we aren't free and don't work :P

Also, it was a fun project to work on - we had to learn all about the Bitcoin API and host our own daemon!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> clickable: <http://www.bitwillet.com>

</comment><comment><USER11> Sent this to a friend who was just looking for something like this!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Do they have Twitter? I'd love to chat with them about it. Looking for feedback on the project too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Please send 0.001 BTC to 1Gauo5b1X42wGjmpjt4QBDjiaURUPJGaGM.

Please remove . (dot)

</comment><comment><USER13> This is exactly what I needed...Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER14> i support this project :) wish more people started using bitcoin</comment>


64-bit ARM desktop hardware? - <AUTHOR> https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2016/07/25/aarch64-desktop-hardware/ <comment><USER2> This is something I don't understand with any cpu manufacturer which isn't x86. Why don't the manufacturers offer standard pc motherboards tweaked for their corresponding cpu? Since the mid-90ies, they would have made nice Linux platforms. I think, many Linux enthusiasts would be thrilled to run an alternative CPU platform. By offering cheap desktop solutions, they would drive the software base and interest for the more expensive enterprise hardware. Back then it was Sparc - it was still competitive in performance with Intel, later PowerPc, now Arm64.

<comment><USER3> +1 to that. I feel his pain, having been there myself.

Back when DEC Alpha CPUs were still a going concern, I was one of the maintainers of the FreeBSD/alpha port. While DEC shipped their workstations, they were beyond the reach of OSS developers. The first "normal" Alpha board was the API UP1000. It was basically an Alpha 21264 on an AMD motherboard & it was totally awesome. API shipped me one before they were generally available so I could get FreeBSD working on it. I used it as my desktop (running FreeBSD/alpha) for years. Sadly all things Alpha were killed off in favor of Itanium.

Here is the best description I can find of it in ~30 seconds of googling: [http://www.thefreelibrary.com/API+Announces+Program+to+Encou...](http://www.thefreelibrary.com/API+Announces+Program+to+Encourage+ISVs+And+IHVs+To+Develop+Alpha...-a059124753)

<comment><USER4> I fondly remember getting an AXP-PCI 33 board as a teenager, which were (at some point) really affordable [1]. It was my first non-x86 machine.

[1] [http://manx.classiccmp.org/collections/mds-199909/cd1/alpha/...](http://manx.classiccmp.org/collections/mds-199909/cd1/alpha/axpcidgc.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nvidia Shield console? 3GB of RAM, a fancy video card (with support for CUDA), and gigabit ethernet. The guys at Hypriot have even demonstrated a working Docker install [0]

The custom partition layout is kind of wonky, so I'd likely just by the non- PRO version and use USB 3 and an SSD for additional storage. I'd be happier still if Nvidia supported running other distros on it -- I wouldn't even be mad if I could no longer use it for gaming or watching movies.

[0] [http://blog.hypriot.com/post/getting-docker-running-on-a- hig...](http://blog.hypriot.com/post/getting-docker-running-on-a-highend-arm- gaming-console-for-fun-and-profit/)

<comment><USER6> Or the Jetson TX1 dev kit, $599

\- 4GB RAM \- 1GB Ethernet \- 802.11ac wifi \- 16GB eMMC onboard \- m2 slot \- PCIe Gen2 x4 slot \- SATA interface \- USB 2 and USB 3 ports

<[http://www.nvidia.com/object/jetson-tx1-dev- kit.html>](http://www.nvidia.com/object/jetson-tx1-dev-kit.html>)

NVIDIA should really sell a case for it to make it into a NUC-style desktop.

<comment><USER7> Interesting. Honest questions: If I would buy one, can I count on driver updates for at least 3-4 years? And after 3-4 years can I count on having Open Source drivers not much worse than proprietary?

<comment><USER6> Linux kernel 4.5 has quite a lot of changes to support the SoC on the Tegra X1 in the mainline kernel.

[http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1601.2/04595.html](http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1601.2/04595.html)

There is basic GPU support via Nouveau, though for any serious OpenGL/Vulkan/CUDA or video stuff you'd want to use the NVIDIA proprietary drivers, which are very good on Linux.

<comment><USER8> > There is basic GPU support via Nouveau, though for any serious > OpenGL/Vulkan/CUDA or video stuff you'd want to use the NVIDIA proprietary > drivers, which are very good on Linux.

And for how long will NVidia be providing support for the driver?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've felt this same frustration with POWER for what feels like forever. I'd love to build and run a POWER desktop system, but traditionally there hasn't been a readily available, standard form-factor, somewhat inexpensive motherboard that you could just order up from Tyan or whoever. On and off over the years there's been a lot of talk about how this company or that was going to build a standard ATX motherboard for POWER cpu's, but they seem to never materialize, or if they do, they're insanely expensive, or _something_ which keeps the whole idea just out of reach.

This most recent push for openness in the POWER world might actually change that though. Tyan does have a kinda-sorta not-too-expensive POWER8 based server available, and there was a document floating around a while back listing all the companies who were committing to build machines, motherboards, etc. based on POWER8. As I recall, there were a lot of names on the list, which is encouraging.

But still... why can't we hit up NewEgg and order an ATX motherboard, a CPU and some RAM for, say, $1000.00 or less? _sigh_

<comment><USER10> I think nintendo wii has a power cpu and you can run linux on it !

<comment> TD-Linux The big limitation is that you only get 96MB of RAM. But still, it's a pretty reasonable choice if you want a big-endian test system on the cheap.

<comment><USER11> Pretty much all ARM boards will run big endian, although not sure Linux has armeb distros much (NetBSD works).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I got interested in ARM desktop & laptop hardware while I was looking for more open solutions. Remarkably, the only modern hardware that is truly open top- down, including firmware, are cheap Rockchip Chromebooks [1].

I'm also looking forward to POWER offerings, which might be more performant and thus suitable as workstations [2].

[1] [https://libreboot.org/docs/hcl/c201.html](https://libreboot.org/docs/hcl/c201.html)

[2] [https://www.raptorengineering.com/TALOS/prerelease.php](https://www.raptorengineering.com/TALOS/prerelease.php)

<comment><USER13> This is still 32-bit only, but you might be interested in the EOMA68 modular computing hardware campaign on Crowd Supply. [1] Since it's modular, at least we can potentially have a 64-bit computer card later, while re-using the micro-desktop and laptop housing.

[1]: [https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro- desktop](https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop)

<comment> TD-Linux Or the Novena, also on CrowdSupply [1]. It's the closest to a "real" ARM computer as I've found. It has 4GB of RAM, SATA, and all the peripherals you'd expect for a laptop or low profile desktop. I've used it to design PCBs in KiCAD - second generation open hardware :)

Though again, it's only 32bit, and while that works great for most purposes, it still leaves the OP's point valid. (I have one of the early 64-bit 8-core hikey 96boards mentioned, and I'd take the Novena over it any day)

[1] [https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio- kosagi/novena](https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Those who have tried the Odroid C2 will not fail to be impressed by how delightfully close it is to offering a significant desktop experience for a $40 device. It's nearly unbelievable that this tiny, portable device sips powers and can run accelerated videos upto 4k, runs 64 bit Ubuntu Mate and even 720p Youtube on Chromium. And it could be more but for ARM.

The potential for disruption is massive and yet here is ARM dragging its feet with it's increasingly inexplicable and extremely closed nature. Things only work on Android, the GPU especially is a big problem, and given Android runs the Linux kernel I am sure Arm and Google are having a laugh at the point of open source.

Most current mid to high end ARM SOCs and those coming make Intel's pricing and value look extremely questionable. These SOCs are a fraction of the price Intel demands. Enough to raise doubts about the future of the platform beyond high end gaming and GPU use cases. And with Vulcan even that is up in the air.

The iPad Pro benches close the the Macbook. The A72 SOCs are at 1500 single core and 4000-5000 multicore on Geekbench.

This is real. Yet ARM for reasons best known to them either do not see the potential or do not want to pursue it, giving Intel a breather. Now with Softbank acquiring ARM at this critical juncture its anyone's guess where this goes.

</comment><comment><USER15> There's this little desktop box, sold as a development system [1]:

        AMD Opteron A1100 series processor
        4 x 64-bit ARM Cortex A57 Cores
        2 x RDIMM with 8GB DDR4 DRAM
        1 x 1GBase-T Ethernet
        2 x USB 3.0 ports
        2 x SATA 3.0 ports
        1 x 1TB HDD
        $599

(Pre-Order Now – Delivery July) - not good seeing that on July 25th.

No graphics, though. It's really a server board in a desktop package.

There are lots of small boards which are really tablet-type systems-on-a-chip where the connections from the chip were brought out to connectors. (That's what a Raspberry Pi is.) But they don't usually have PCI or SATA interfaces, so disk I/O capability is limited. There are good embedded 32-bit ARM boards, but the embedded world isn't going 64-bit yet.

Everybody seems to assume you're going to cross-compile and remote debug for embedded and server work. QNX doesn't even self-host any more. (I rather liked having a QNX desktop.)

[1] [https://shop.softiron.co.uk/product/overdrive-1000/](https://shop.softiron.co.uk/product/overdrive-1000/)

<comment><USER15> Site now reads "Pre-Order Now – Delivery August". Even less good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What's wrong with the Gigabyte MP30-AR0? [http://b2b.gigabyte.com/products/product- page.aspx?pid=5422#...](http://b2b.gigabyte.com/products/product- page.aspx?pid=5422#ov)

It's sold as a server board in the $1000 range, but seems to fit the bill as far as the points in the blog article are concerned.

<comment><USER17> I've been shopping for a low-power server board, and I absolutely want that one. The problem is, nobody seems to sell it. I can't find any notice that it's been discontinued, but every reseller that google's given me has said that the board is out of stock (I think I found one in Spain, actually, but I'd rather order from somewhere in NA). Do you know where a person can actually buy that board?

<comment><USER18> They are definitely available in the EU. I got one from xcase.co.uk. Note there is a slightly newer variant now (MP30-AR1), although it still uses the X-gene 1.

If I were you I'd wait a bit for the Cavium-based Gigabyte boards. I have pricing for these which unfortunately I'm not permitted to reveal, but it will be very competitive.

The Caviums have lots of cores (48 / socket), but each core is pretty slow, like an Intel Atom. Caviums have tons of fast I/O. The challenge is to make software which can deal with this, since it's quite unlike Intel hardware (few, fast cores, slow I/O).

<comment><USER17> I feel like this might be going off topic, and maybe you can't discuss the specifics anyhow, but do you mean very competitive with the existing AR0/AR1 board pricing? The only Cavium-based systems I'm seeing are the full server machines, and those are listing 3 40Gbps and 4 10Gbps ethernet ports, plus the rest. That board can't possibly come in anywhere near $1000, can it? I'll be keeping my eyes open for sure, but I'm also eager to learn more :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd love a system that fits the form factor of my desktop motherboard but supports an arm chipset.

My main system mother board is a little... strange from the normal. I've build my system around being 100% silent and low power while still having enough juice to run some IDEs and be productive.

My current mobo is from ASRock and has an interesting feature [0]. It's got support to use a laptop charger as a PSU built into the board.

If there was a low power, passive, ARM system for a desktop like this I'd switch. This is just the lowest power and quietest build I could think of currently. (Only problem is no MSATA :()

[0] - [http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/AM1H-ITX/](http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/AM1H-ITX/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Whatever happened to the Acorn RISC PC's from the mid/late 90's?

I remember guys in the UK on USENET with the 'StrongARM...' in their signatures.

<comment><USER21> Acorn seemed to fail to advertise their products outside the education market, which rapidly dried up as education shifted to teaching Microsoft Word on cheap PCs.

The final workstation system was cancelled in 1998 [1], ARM spun off as a separate company, and the remaining part of Acorn made set-top boxes for digital TV. It was then bought by Broadcom. [2]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_(computer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_\(computer\))

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers#1998.E2.80.932...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers#1998.E2.80.932000:_Element_14)

<comment><USER22> When you consider how shit the RM Nimbus was, I refuse to believe Acorn lost on technical merit, or even on price/performance.

<comment><USER18> RM made some truly shockingly bad computers. But they had (have?) very good contacts at high level in government.

<comment><USER23> RM supported PCs, and PCs were what schools wanted. Also, the hardware was only a part of the whole RM infrastructure.

Considering the UK government subsidized the cost of Acorn computers in schools, and considering it got massive amounts of free BBC advertising for the Acorn platform, I think you need more than a conspiracy theory to account for RM's success and Acorn's failure.

<comment><USER22> Not true. In fact Acorn paid the BBC a commission on every machine sold for use of the logo.

And the RM infrastructure was just as shitty as their hardware. If people were desperate for PC compatible, why was everything on the Nimbus non-standard? They even used the 80186 that no-one else did and you had to emulate an 8086 on it to run any third party software!

<comment><USER23> Which bit is not true? It's certainly true that the UK government subsidized the cost of computers in schools, and Acorn got the largest benefit from that scheme.

 _> In fact Acorn paid the BBC a commission on every machine sold for use of the logo._

Citation? How did it compare with the UK government paying half the cost of a BBC B?

The 80186-based Nimbus wasn't PC standard and wasn't particularly good (yes, I did use one), but RM did move to standard PCs.

 _> And the RM infrastructure was just as shitty as their hardware._

In your opinion. But at least it had one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Just out of curiosity, what are the advantages of using ARM on a desktop over a x86-64 architecture for an end-user? Or it is just to enable developers targeting server softwares to buy a less expensive hardware? I can see the advantages of using it on servers and IoT though.

</comment><comment><USER25> There the NVIDIA Jetson TK1 and TX1. An excellent desktop platform IMHO. When the TK1 came out, you could get one free by telling them what you planned to do with it.

Unfortunately they tripled the price from the TK1 ($200) to the TX1 ($600). You can get a TK1 on ebay for ~$150.

This thing is much faster than the million dollar supercomputer I used in college ;)

<comment><USER26> This thing looks pretty nice, but the catch of course, is that you need all the expansion boards as well, so the costs go way up. Plus, there's the whole availability thing .. I'd love to hear from someone who has one and can tell us what its like as a machine.

I'm in the camp of those who would like to have a smart Linux workstation with modern peripherals and not be x86, just for the kicks of it .. so actually, the TX1 seems like it might be a pretty viable investment.

<comment><USER27> I have a TK1; it's perfectly usable as a desktop machine. I don't use it because I don't like Ubuntu and the project I was using it for has finished, but plug a SSD into it and it works a treat.

<comment><USER26> Would you consider selling it, then?

<comment><USER27> Oh, sorry, missed this. Sure. Send me an email to the listed address if you're still interested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Maybe Apple might switch from Intel to ARM for the Mac at some point. They've switched architecture twice before (68k to PowerPC, PowerPC to Intel), they could do it again. I'm sure they'd relish the chance to design their own desktop CPUs, not just ones for mobile devices.

<comment><USER29> more likely that they will retire the whole MacOS line at that point. Not sure if they have alienated enough of the media production market to do so though.

<comment><USER28> Why would ARM be the death of macOS? If it can run on Intel, PowerPC and 68k, what's another processor transition?

And why would that "alienate the media production market"? Apple could build a beefy ARM machine if they needed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> SoftIron have a 'SoftIron 1000' for $599

[http://softiron.co.uk/products/](http://softiron.co.uk/products/)

</comment><comment><USER31> Did ARM ever get a formalized platform? I remember reading that one of the major issues with adoption of ARM was that there wasn't a common platform for the CPU to interface with external devices. It was all custom and proprietary which is fine for embedded systems but not so good for desktops or consumer grade PCs.

Is that no longer the case?

<comment><AUTHOR> It did but only for servers:

[http://www.arm.com/about/newsroom/arm-ecosystem- collaborates...](http://www.arm.com/about/newsroom/arm-ecosystem-collaborates- to-deliver-initial-server-platform-standard.php)

<comment><USER31> So is that perhaps the reason why there has been little adoption or investment from OEMs into producing standardized boards?

<comment><USER18> Yes, sort of. The other problem, shared with 32 bit ARM, is that there are billions of shitty Android chips made each year, and it's very easy to take one of these, slap it into a development board, add a proprietary kernel with random blobs, and sell it for $50.

These crowd out properly designed server hardware, or anything that cares about freedom, upstream Linux, maintainability, virtualization, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> How about the Gigabyte MP30-AR0, apparently actually available to consumers through this one retailer?: [https://www.xcase.co.uk/products/gigabyte- mp30-ar0-with-appl...](https://www.xcase.co.uk/products/gigabyte- mp30-ar0-with-appliedmicro-x-gene1-processor) It seems Richard WM Jones has got RHEL running on it: [https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/03/08/gigabyte- mp30-ar0-flas...](https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2016/03/08/gigabyte- mp30-ar0-flashing-uefi/)

</comment><comment><USER33> Aside from the Overdrive 1000 as already mentioned by others: [http://softiron.co.uk/products/](http://softiron.co.uk/products/), there is the LeMaker Cello forthcoming (which was supposed to have already shipped but...) available for pre-order here: [http://www.lenovator.com/product/103.html](http://www.lenovator.com/product/103.html)

</comment><comment><USER34> Not loading for me, here's the google cache: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FbgwL1...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FbgwL1aC8DcJ:https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2016/07/25/aarch64-desktop- hardware/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

<comment><USER35> Loads fine for me, just a moment ago. Try:

[http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/marcin.juszkiewicz.co...](http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I have a nvidia shield just sitting around (because to be honest it's pretty useless as a console / with android on it), I've been considering looking up to see if it can run Fedora / CentOS's ARM port for some time. This might just be the push over the edge I need...

</comment><comment><USER37> Why not make a 32 core arm chip with an amd pin out so it can fit into existing low cost motherboards ?

</comment><comment><USER38> Just buy Raspberry Pi 3 and you will have 64-bit ARM desktop hardware...

<comment><USER39> The raspberry pi 3 only runs in 32-bit mode right now [1]. There is no 64-bit kernel for it currently.

[1]: [https://www.linux.com/news/raspberry-pi-3-still- essentially-...](https://www.linux.com/news/raspberry-pi-3-still- essentially-32-bit-sbc-now)

<comment><USER38> The raspberry pi 3 runs in 32 and 64 mode. There is no >>LINUX<< 64-bit kernel for it currently...

<comment><USER40> Exactly which OS runs on rpi3 in 64-bit mode? Because Windows 10 and RiscOS ain't it.

<comment><USER38> Author is asking for 64-bit ARM hardware, not software...

<comment><USER40> You, however, were claiming, that rpi3 does run in 64-bit mode, just not with linux:

> The raspberry pi 3 runs in 32 and 64 mode. There is no >>LINUX<< 64-bit > kernel for it currently...

To my knowledge, rpi3 has 64-bit CPU, but _all_ operating systems and bootloaders available run only in 32-bit mode, no exceptions. That means that rpi3 in future theoretically can run in 64-bit mode, but certainly does not today.

<comment><USER41> Pee bootloader runs on the gpu, so that doesnt matter much. Current bootloader can bootstrap ARM in 64bit mode, as is evidenced by freebsd port and [https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=1379...](https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=137963) (all but the gpu works)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


On the Auction Site Swoopo, Paying to Place Each Bid - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/technology/internet/17shop.html <comment><USER2> it's basically a scam, isn't it?

<comment><USER3> Sure looks like it.

I'm not generally a fan of Jeff Atwood, but <http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001196.html> gets this one pretty much right: "about as close to pure, distilled evil in a business plan as I've ever seen".</comment></comment>


Researchers: There are only 4 types of Facebook users - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1026914/the-four-types-of-facebook-users-relationship-builders-window-shoppers-town-criers-and-selfies/ <comment><USER2> >Notably, only 47 subjects were involved in this study, but the authors argue that, because they employed Q methodology, an approach to investigating divergent perspectives on subjective topics using sorting, statistic, and factor analysis, the small sample size is sufficient to reveal solid patterns.

I presume next step would be R or S technology, that will need only 5 people (the 5 co-authors themselves) to attribute statistical evidence to anything related to small groups such as Americans 18 to 32.</comment>


Everything Easy Is Hard Again - <AUTHOR> https://www.frankchimero.com/writing/everything-easy-is-hard-again/ <comment><USER2> > If you go talk to a senior software developer, you'll probably hear them > complain about spaghetti code. This is when code is overwrought, > unorganized, opaque, and snarled with dependencies. I perked up when I heard > the term used for the first time, because, while I can't identify spaghetti > code as a designer, I sure as hell know about spaghetti workflows and > spaghetti toolchains. It feels like we're there now on the web.

This, a thousand times. I think the problem is that the Web doesn't really offer anything like structured programming to compress the pattern of your page. It's as though we're all writing assembler — only it's (at least) three different, incompatible assemblers. And the best tools we have are macro- assemblers.</comment>


I am (unsuccessfully) trying to fund a year of OSS work – where did it go wrong? - <AUTHOR> I am a "niche owner" within a no-longer-booming-yet-very-healthy language ecosystem. 40 days ago I started a crowdfunding drive https://www.tilt.com/tilts/year-of-ribasushi-help-him-focus-on-cpan-for-2016/description specifically targeting my largest corporate users. So far there are only 3 notable corporate pledges - 2 x $6000 and 1 x $2000. Another $8200 came from individual non-corporate donors, contrary to the central idea of the campaign.
With 50 days to go, I am at a loss where did things go wrong. My original thinking:
- By most conservative estimate (1700h/year, a far cry from reality) I am essentially asking for $70/h
- The main library I provide is robust, developed in a very conservative no-hype fashion. Its feature set has no alternatives within its ecosystem, with some features being unique across any similar projects in any language.
- I, as an individual developer, have strong and positive name recognition within the ecosystem
- I know of (and contacted) at least 34 companies having built massive products on top of this library.
Clearly this is not coming together as I expected. I have several courses of action:
- Double down on publicity, despite the already critical mass of engineers across the ecosystem expressing all kinds of thumbs up, goading higher-ups into pledging. The campaign risks turning into a true grass-roots crowdfund obscuring the main point: Too much is at stake business-wise if a sudden drop of quality occurs, while the un-fun grueling work continues solely as "civic duty".
- Exert more pressure on my corporate contacts: This is... difficult. Publishing the text and doing the initial round of "passing the hat" was bad enough. I fear a second time will "overdo it".
- Wait: perhaps various contacts did not have sufficient time to get approvals. If I am wrong - more time is lost.
- Give up early: This is actually the easiest one of all... though I feel I have not exhausted all my options.
What do you think? <comment><USER2> You could add a line after the "$70/h", explaining that your normal tariff is something like "$120/h" or "$150/h", but that you learned that long-term commitment, i.e. work 1,700 h/year, often means a lower tariff, because of job security.

You think that passing the hat once was bad enough and that a second round will overdo it. If Liz and I would have thought that in 1994, we would not have become the first Dutch company making websites, and not getting many of the biggest Dutch companies and institutions. Of course you will do a second round. They might say no, or ignore you, but they might say yes. Make your explanation clearer. Did you go to the top of the companies that you ask for support?

</comment><comment><USER3> Companies are more than willing to pay for software, but there's little incentive when they would otherwise get it for free and you're asking for a charity handout. I'm sorry but that's just reality. If I were you, I'd figure out a way to earn money off of your project, perhaps by going open core and making a premium version with business-friendly features.

I found these blog posts valuable:

[http://www.mikeperham.com/2014/10/01/the-path-to-full- time-o...](http://www.mikeperham.com/2014/10/01/the-path-to-full-time-open- source/)

[http://www.mikeperham.com/2013/10/01/how-to-make-100k-in- oss...](http://www.mikeperham.com/2013/10/01/how-to-make-100k-in-oss-by- working-hard/)

Relatedly, this is why I intentionally didn't make my newest project open source. The project is DataDuck ETL ([http://dataducketl.com/](http://dataducketl.com/)) - if it were open source, companies would have used it for free and I'd be stuck maintaining and supporting them for free. Instead, I've already made five figures off of it, and it has only been out for a few months. I'm calling this "Supported Source" ([http://supportedsource.org/](http://supportedsource.org/)) and I encourage anyone to follow this same business model. In short, the code is publicly available online, and I'm open to collaborating or receiving commits, but companies need to buy a license to use it beyond a free trial. This is not open source, I agree, but it's similar to open source in many ways, and ultimately more sustainable than open source for certain types of projects.

It's probably too late for your project but if you want to make money sustainably from it, I think you're going to have to move away from the charity model and more towards selling licenses with an open core or Supported Source business model. Or just regularly ask for donations and lower your expectations until its better aligned with what you're finding you can make.

</comment><comment><USER4> Be honest. Let others know how much progress has been made and how far it is from the goal.

Consider the alternatives:

       + walk away and let somebody else or nobody else take over.
       + go to work somewhere where maintaining the project
         is part of your ordinary duties.
       + work on it full time even though the funds aren't quite
         what you would wish.

The last requires separating the reasons for working on the project. Part of it may be for the money. Part of it may be because working on the project is just what you do. $70.00 per hour is just a number, and a discounted one. If working on the project makes you happy, then getting bogged down over a number is a road to unhappiness.

My gut tells me that explaining the number as "$70.00 per hour" gives users an excuse to devalue your work. Even though this it's clear that you're offering the "friends and family" rate, if you were halfway to $170 per hour, you'ld be where you want to be.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> The number mentioned is not "for me", but for the sake of (the surprising amount of) peers who commented offline that 120~150k/year is "asking too much" for a practically unique set of expert hands.

But you are right: I am not making the situation that I am "about to walk" clear enough, despite the longish writeup in the campaign body. I'll look into remedying this soon.

Thanks!

<comment><USER4> Burnout is a problem with open source like any other software development modality or career in general. If it is burnout, then the money probably won't make as much difference as might be hoped. Depending on the donors, it may make things worse if donating the money gives them a sense of entitlement to make demands in regard to features or overall direction.

To put it another way, if you're ready to move on, it's probably best to move on.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am a stickler for "maximizing utility", to a fault: [https://twitter.com/ribasushi/status/623869810598768640](https://twitter.com/ribasushi/status/623869810598768640) Given my position there is little else I can _currently_ do that will have the same impact in absolute terms.

So burnout or not - executing this fundraiser as a last-ditch option is kinda... obligatory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To answer these questions, I think you need to be talking to these companies that you think would/should donate. Finding out what they _want_ or _need_ (from you or DBIx::Class et al in the coming year) is most important. Maybe their budgets are frozen until EOY, maybe you need more time to allow for purchasing, or maybe you aren't providing enough tangible benefits to justify bringing this to their management -- all questions you could uncover.

I would say that companies need more tangible benefits here, they can't justify a feel-good purchase price of $6-12k. I don't think you'll get into marketing budgets with an ad buy on your laptop. I know it's not part of the Perl community to create a website for your library, and it likely wouldn't have the impressions needed to attract any marketing interest either way, so maybe that's the wrong angle.

If DBIx::Class et al are integral to these companies, offering more options for support retainers at lower levels might justify the spend for more companies in the middle ground.

Anyways, I don't know the answer here, and I'm going through the same problems myself. I think you need push forward with _all courses_ of action (save giving up early). Widen your pool of possible contributors, talk to those possible contributors you have a relationship with, and give it some time.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think it's unrealistic to expect 2/3 of your corporate users to pitch in $6k to support one of the many OSS projects they use. Not because it's trivial to build or anything, but expecting those kinds of rates is just setting yourself up for failure.

If you really want money from them, figure out what it is they want from your library, maybe they're perfectly happy with how it is, maybe the work you're proposing is completely irrelevant to them.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I think it's unrealistic to expect 2/3 of your corporate users

I didn't phrase myself with sufficient clarity (2000 chars and all): the project itself has an _enormous_ footprint. It is essentially the ORM/SQL- generator of choice in the Perl5 ecosystem.

What I meant by "I know of (and contacted) at least 34 companies" was _the corporate users whose senior engineers and /or CTOs I know personally_.

<comment><USER7> I think you may want to consider focusing more on concrete goals, and what funding will provide to backers.

For example, see [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tomchristie/django- rest...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tomchristie/django-rest- framework-3/description) which is widely used Python library. In that campaign, it is easy to see how much time the author would be able to continue to commit to the project at various funding levels, and specific features they will implement.

Even if the commitment at a certain level is just being able to provide on- going bug fixes, this shows the value to the company rather than backing being presented as a thank-you for previous work.

<comment><USER8> Think I agree with the above actually, making the software goals up front and centre would certainly help the case.

I realise there are a bunch of goals there, but having them nearer the top and with a one line description of what they actually mean in the grand scheme would help a corporate sponsor understand more what they are funding.

For instance, what does '(70%) Proper relationship options/conditions' actually mean. Does is make a performance boost, a productivity boost for my developers, a functionality boost (with functions we actual wan't/need), a stability boost.. or all of the above.

This might be clear to developers, but it's likely not developers who hold the purse strings. If one can point and say, this should make my developers more productive, or.. this 'should' (provided I'm making the most of it) increase the performance of my app is a much more tenable thing to put money into.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Do you have contact information for any of the people using your product? Admittedly I am at a university, not a regular business, but I don't think I could get a donation past the procurement office. If you offer to sell a support package you might do much better. A support contract is something that could get past most purchasing departments.

</comment><comment><USER10> Suprised you got that much from corporates with only a single round. Go again, let them know that the campaign is going pretty well, but that more is needed for you to continue your work (that they rely on).</comment>


Vitamin C levels in patients with SARS-CoV-2-associated ARDS - <AUTHOR> https://ccforum.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13054-020-03249-y <comment><USER2> Its becoming apparent that the people dying from COVID are fundamentally unhealthy in the first place. Its a shame that we are so focused on locking up healthy people and shutting down societies and economies, instead of improving diets and removing pollution from the air.

<comment><USER3> Your conclusion is wrong.

You can live to an old age with common conditions like diabetes, vitamin D deficiency, and subclinical heart issues.

Also, unless you think old age is a curable health issue, shutdowns are still the only way to keep people in that group safe.

> _improving diets and removing pollution from the air_

How does one improve the diets of billions of people in a few days?

Shutdowns are instant. Major overhauls of civilization are not.

<comment><USER4> Actually, his conclusion is correct:

[https://www.wfla.com/community/health/coronavirus/new-cdc- re...](https://www.wfla.com/community/health/coronavirus/new-cdc-report- shows-94-of-covid-19-deaths-in-us-had-underlying-medical-conditions/)

<comment><USER5> I wondered how long it would take you to be sucked in by the narrative that people dying of COVID aren't actually dying of COVID.

Did you know almost nobody died of HIV? The vast, vast bulk of AIDS deaths were due to systemic collapse resulting from unchecked infections that set in when the victim's immune system was destroyed by HIV.

Given that information, would you be okay refraining from treating an HIV infection if you had one? Do you think the time and effort spent stemming the AIDS epidemic was wasted?

<comment><USER4> Didn't you read it was the _Center for Disease Control_ that put this narrative out?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Did they measures vitamin c levels in other people? How do they know their test wasn't broken?

<comment><USER7> Presumably the method for measuring vitamin-c is well established.

I like that their conclusion is 'more information needed' rather than 'deploy all the vitamin-c'. It seems to warrant further study, even if the amount they've done so far has limitations.

<comment><USER6> Commercial labs screw up all the time, particularly if they don't do the test very often.</comment></comment></comment>


A C64 Games Mashup - <AUTHOR> http://level4.jojati.com/c64mashup/ <comment><USER2> So many great memories. I used to play video games a lot from 7 to 15. First C64 and then Amiga. And then started the PC era and I totally lost interest. I didn't find the games and the platform as enjoyable. What kind of games do kids like to play nowadays? is there the same diversity of games as there used to be?

Recently, I was at a museum in New Zealand (I think it was in Dunedin) and they had a C64 there. I was pleased to see a bunch of young kids enjoying playing it! They didn't seem to think it was outdated.

<comment><USER3> Digital distribution has brought back the feeling of the older computer games in a big way. Steam has some titles, but it still puts up some barriers. itch.io [0] is the hotspot for stuff too small to notice these days. Just last night I was linked to a homage to the ICOM adventure games [1] and it was hosted on itch.

Kids don't really seem to care too much about a high fidelity experience. Everything is new and different to them to begin with, so that stuff is just window dressing.

[0] [http://itch.io](http://itch.io) [1] [https://grahfmetal.itch.io/infested](https://grahfmetal.itch.io/infested)

</comment></comment><comment> david-given If you walk too far right, there's some serious full-screen strobe effects. Be aware.

Also, this reminds me inescapably of the sublimely brilliant ROM CHECK FAIL: [http://www.farbs.org/romcheckfail.php](http://www.farbs.org/romcheckfail.php)

<comment><USER4> it's a fairly standard c64 loading screen/border.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ah, my childhood, this is great.

Maniac mansion, world games, pirates!, the last ninja and impossible mission were some of my favorites.

I actually managed to beat impossible mission, and I can't even imagine the amount of time I spent wandering aimlessly in last ninja and pirates! not having a clue where to go or what to do.

Good times.

"Stay a while, stay forever!!!!"

<comment><USER6> You can play it online now. It's a faithful rendition. [http://impossible- mission.krissz.hu/](http://impossible-mission.krissz.hu/)

<comment><USER7> Wow - I can't remember this game (had the amiga not the c64) but the link sure is pretty awesome!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Awesome trip down memory lane.

Can't see any audio files loading, so I'm guessing it's emulating a SID-chip in JavaScript? Great emulation in that case.

Might be the nostalgia talking, but it's surprising how well the SID still sounds.

<comment><USER9> I recently hooked up a C64 to my stereo for the first time. Hearing things through a decent system (instead of my old crappy tube-TV speakers as a kid) - a can't believe how great it sounds: all that huuuuge base wasted on me!

I also am surprised I never noticed as a kid the limitations of only having 3 channels of sound for music AND effects. It's amazing how well it's hidden, but still - long notes abruptly chopped because I decided to shoot at a bad guy, or notes falling out of chords: I never heard this at all when I was younger!

<comment><USER10> If you have a pair of good headphones, try the dolby surround processed versions on this YouTube account. [https://www.youtube.com/user/Kuokka77/playlists](https://www.youtube.com/user/Kuokka77/playlists)

Some are just great, some sound so spacious that I once thought I forgot to connect my headphones and the sound came from somewhere outside.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I recognize and played a lot of them all back in the day. Only things missing are Commando and Ghost & Goblins (I can still hum the tune!).

Amazing what they could do with the SID chip back then. Most PC's and homecomputers in the early 80's had to make do with bleeps and bloops. Literally.

There's a quite a subscene for those interested in SID music. You can find a lot of new C64 cover versions (some by the original musicians) and new work at Chris Abbott's www.c64audio.com. He's done a lot of work in keeping the C64/SID scene alive.

</comment><comment><USER12> Last Ninja endlessly trying to pick up an unpickupable key. Nice touch

</comment><comment><USER13> Miss Druid [https://youtu.be/_RXVgaMybCw](https://youtu.be/_RXVgaMybCw) or was that a european thing?

<comment><USER14> Me too, this was my favourite of the countless Gauntlet clones, given that it added some cool ideas: element magic which affected enemies differently, a sidekick you could conjure, and probably more cool things I can't recall at the moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The C64's sound capability is absolutely boggling for a machine released in 1982. I don't think anything on the market came close for years.

<comment><USER16> I think that exact capability also attracted a lot of great musical talent to it, who used crazy techniques and experimented with it continuously to get new sounds out of that breadbox. It had a sense of evolution where you started with a beeping machine, then a game gets released with such a great soundtrack that you'd simply leave it running just to listen to it (Ninja, Traz, International Karate, Giana Sisters, ...), and then you get a demo that manages to play back the stoning scene of The Life of Brian - all that's still stuck in my head from my C64 days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> First: Seizure warning for anyone walking all the way to the right

Second: Be sure to walk all the way left as well as right

</comment><comment><USER18> This makes me want to play Turrican again, that game was _so good_.

<comment><USER19> Whatever became of Manfred Trenz eh?

<comment><USER18> I used to love reading his little notes at the end credits of those games, nice personal touch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Super Final Fight Gold is a bit more playable!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c1raWrdwFk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c1raWrdwFk)</comment>


Bitcoin faces regulatory crackdown, Bank of England warns - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/mar/02/bitcoin-faces-regulatory-crackdown-bank-england-warns <comment><USER2> The quotes in the article mention anonymity as one of the problems, but all Bitcoin transactions are public. Is it really that difficult to tie people to these transactions?

<comment><USER3> This is the UK government we're talking about, the same government with representatives who think "real people don't need end-to-end encryption" and that "we should get people who understand the necessary hashtags [sic]" to implement back doors.

So more likely than not, the people calling for regulations on bitcoin have little to no understanding of its basic properties.

<comment><USER4> > _So more likely than not, the people calling for regulations on bitcoin have > little to no understanding of its basic properties._

How many on HN would gladly jump at the opportunity to "understand the necessary hashtags", and write the software with skinner box like interfaces for our glorious institutions that we owe our mind and body to in order to protect us from ourselves?

Excluding those of you who already work on these profitable boondoggles of course… ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Title should be "cracking down on Bitcoin exchanges", I don't think they can crack down on Bitcoin proper.

<comment><USER6> That would be difficult indeed, but you could certainly crack down on exchanges, payment processors, miners and generally every company dealing with crypto currencies, including banks. That would greatly cripple their usability.

<comment><USER5> I also think you could move most of that to a Tor onion service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Bitcoin's real trouble is with transaction time and cost. Those are the troubles that will bring it down way faster than any regulation. Once that's fixed, there is no stopping it since there are countries where Bitcoin is welcome. Example: Japan is one of those countries. The exchange rate between fiat currencies and bitcoin will definitely bounce around but 100 years from now someone will be using Bitcoin to make a transaction.

</comment><comment><USER8> Some remarks:

First of all, cryptocurrencies are a new paradigm and a threat to bans so asking Bank of England is like asking taxi drivers their opinion about Uber.

Secondly, regulation means that they are accepted as legal tender, asset or money officially.

Lastly, any country that will try to outright crackdown and ban them is at a very great risk of economic exclusion and being left behind.

</comment><comment><USER9> At current market cap of almost 200b for bitcoin based on [https://www.coingecko.com/en](https://www.coingecko.com/en)

It seems that the market is ignorant against news like this. As we have seen after what some countries had attempted to ban

People will see value in this and try to acquire it. Making it harder to buy may very well put bitcoin a higher price or activity goes underground. Everyone loses

<comment><USER10> Good to see somebody's done the "this is good for Bitcoin" post without intended irony...

There's a tenable argument the UK simply isn't a big enough influence on BTC prices to make much difference and the regulation probably won't go very far, but arguing that making Bitcoins more difficult to acquire, spend or turn into something spendable is going to drive demand for it is just silly.

<comment><USER11> I will be buying the dip. Be greedy when others are cautious.

<comment><USER12> _Be greedy when others are cautious._

Youth really is wasted on the young.

<comment><USER13> It's a paraphrase of Buffet's quote 'Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful'

Not so young.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> More direct quotes and more information on Bloomberg: [https://uk.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/boes- carne...](https://uk.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/boes-carney-calls- for-regulation-to-end-cryptocurrency-anarchy-1062914)

</comment><comment><USER15> If you close the door after the horse, other speculators will see the value of that horse's freedom.

This is a positive feedback loop.

Pyrrhic victory for law, but the banks get their protections codified in law.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is good for Bitcoin.

(such thin skin from the Bitcoin True Believers)

</comment><comment><USER17> Well it's a good thing Bitcoin DNGAF what the state thinks because all Bitcoin actually is, is math and code</comment>


This might be the coolest visualization of evolution ever - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/9/8/12852924/evolution-bacteria-timelapse-video-mega-harvard <comment><USER2> Experimental acceleration of evolution was the plot of the 1964 teleplay, "Wolf 359", which was one of the very best Outer Limits episodes. A scaled- down version of a distant life-bearing planet was constructed in a laboratory safe-room. The passage of millennia of days and nights was simulated by a strobe light blinking at an imperceptibly-fast rate. Evolutionary progress was monitored and photographed through a mini-telescope in the adjoining room. Spoiler alert: it did not end well...

Wolf 359 asks whether evolution, at the grand scale, might be moderated, at least in part, by the mere accumulation of day/night cycles, regardless of their individual and cumulative lengths, like some sort of a cosmic iterator.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_359_(The_Outer_Limits)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_359_\(The_Outer_Limits\))

<comment><USER3> Sounds like it was based on "Microcosmic God" by Theodore Sturgeon.

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

<comment><USER2> Thanks for that tip and link, CarolineW ! I'll add this to my reading list. The wikipedia summary for Microcosmic God is chilling... Outsourcing with a vengeance!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: IPC between multiple Java processes/JVMs with nanosecond latency - <AUTHOR> http://mappedbus.io <comment><USER2> For those looking for a high performance inter-thread library, I've found LMAX's disruptor library has worked quite well: [https://lmax- exchange.github.io/disruptor/](https://lmax-exchange.github.io/disruptor/)

<comment><USER3> The LMAX folks are legit, and any given youtube video by them is likely to be extremely informative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What will the reader do while polling? If they will spin/poll, that will consume CPU resource unnecessarily. If the reader does it frequently the OS will preempt the process and pay the price.

Typically, it takes around 50ns to 80ns to access RAM via north bridge. Most probably the CPU cache is screwing his measurements.

<comment><USER5> In low latency usages you are doing everything in your power to avoid RAM access. Preventing preemption by "wasting" CPU resources is a common technique.

<comment><USER4> the OS scheduler will penalize you if you waste CPU resources.

<comment><USER6> Then penalize the OS scheduler by removing your spinning CPU from its available resources ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any chance this works on Android?

<comment><USER8> So ARMv7 you mean? This is CPU hardware level memory model dependant. Not absolutely sure, didn't look that hard, but I _think_ this doesn't implement ARMv7 memory model correctly, so maybe it doesn't always function right. It _might_ be possible for a message to be committed, but some cache lines containing message bytes still dirty.

This implementation is using sun.misc.unsafe afterall.

Different ARM CPUs implement different memory models. So what applies to one ARM design might not apply to another. ARMv8 is probably easiest to support due to new instructions, load-acquire and store-release.

Again, not sure without further analysis. And no time to do it.

<comment><USER9> Not only ARMv7, but running on Dalvik or ART.

<comment><USER8> CPU memory model and atomics support is what matters here. Dalvik or ART are unlikely to have anything to do with it, as long as they provide access.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Come on, boy, stop joining headline Party!:)

You should make sure you truly understand what's the meaning of the word "latency".

Your story is not unique[1]. The basic concept is: latency != 1/throughput.

I have no interest in your codes. Just from your README, I am sure you make mistakes.

Here, do you ask several questions for you before publishing eye-catching headline? Such as,

1\. what's the cost of one CAS op (and maybe volatile)?

2\. what's the timing accuracy in Java?

3\. what's the latency of one main memory accessing?

4\. ok, more pitfalls in Java, OS and micro-benchmark coming...

if you have basic understanding to question#1-3, you may not claim "20 ns is possible. The best I've gotten with a bare bones optimized test was about 16 ns" yourself.

[1] [http://www.infoq.com/articles/High-Performance-Java-Inter- Th...](http://www.infoq.com/articles/High-Performance-Java-Inter-Thread- Communications/)

<comment><USER8> > Come on, boy, stop joining headline Party!:)

Seriously. Saying things like that make you look really bad - no one will take you seriously.

I got that 16 ns with cache-line aligned carefully tuned assembler. No false sharing. And it most definitely didn't use CAS, but FAA. I used CPU TSC timers.

That said, I'm pretty sure you can achieve close to that in Java as well. 20-40 ns latency between two CPU cores on same socket wouldn't surprise me at all. Throughput can be even higher, if you start to batch messages.

Anyways:

1) Cost of CAS depends on contention. About 15 ns in any case without contention.

2) Timing accuracy on Java... Well not that I really use Java much, but I'd imagine it's exactly same as on C++, if you can access TSC somehow. Nothing prevents from ping-ponging messages between two threads either a few million times -- that way even low resolution timer is more than enough. Yes, 20ish ns latency is doable.

3) Who cares about memory latency, the point is to communicate by cache line sharing. Main memory would defeat that.

4) ?

<comment><USER11> [http://shipilev.net/blog/2014/nanotrusting- nanotime/](http://shipilev.net/blog/2014/nanotrusting-nanotime/) By coincidence, this was reposted today. Findings: nanotime probably has >= 15ns latency, and >= 30 ns granularity.

<comment><USER8> So does 1M ping pongs give me sufficient resolution?

It's not like it makes sense to measure a single transaction, but say, 1M in a chain.

<comment><USER10> Yes, as you are ware that, it is hard to measure the latency correctly especially in your nano-second level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nanosecond? I don't think so... Unless by having nanosecond latency you mean that it has a latency that is representable in nanoseconds... but that's not what it means to me. Tens or hundreds of microseconds I would buy, but not nanosecond.

<comment><USER8> If you busy poll, getting to 50 ns latency from producer to consumer is easy, 20 ns is possible. The best I've gotten with a bare bones optimized test was about 16 ns. You tend to get best results with high frequency dual core CPUs with hyper-threading disabled.

Bigger issue is that the reader needs to busy poll, consuming 100% CPU time on one CPU core. Maybe energy consumption could be reduced by using monitor/mwait - not sure if it's possible from user mode or only in kernel.

Another issues in this implementation is use of compare-and-swap. For this purpose, fetch-and-add (LOCK XADD on x86) would be more efficient. Multiple writer contention is _much_ worse with CAS.

Record size is also fixed, you can't have multiple different message sizes.

Overhead per message is 12 bytes, two ints that can be either 0 or 1 and an int called Metadata. Seeing there's commit and rollback fields, both 1 byte, 2 byte overhead for commit and rollback should have been enough. You're going to get false sharing whether it's an int or a byte.

<comment><USER12> Ugh. Polling? You better have serious throughput to justify that....

<comment><USER13> > You better have serious throughput to justify that....

It is often about latency not just throughput. Although sometimes they go hand in hand. For example you can achieve pretty high throughput if you take the whole network stack outside the kernel and talk directly to the network card.

[http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/...](http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/presentation/dpdk- packet-processing-ia-overview-presentation.pdf)

But I've seen this spin polling done when latency needed to be optimized.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you backup your systems? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Mostly using the application-specific backup tool (pgdump, mongodump, etc) to S3. For system configuration it's all in Chef, so I backup chef.

For a few flat file tools I just tar up the directory and upload that.

Sometimes, I just take AWS volume snapshots. That'll get the whole data or / partition, which also lets me instant restore the machine, or attach the data partition to a newly built machine.

</comment><comment><USER3> I boot into backup cycle:

I have a host running DHCP, TFTP, NFS and Linux containers. Every system I install in my intranet is first created on this host. Its then booted over PXE, to sync itself to disc. The crontab contains a sync back to the NFS server every night. And the server is doing incremental backup of them all using cpio to USB discs.

I have 3 packs backup discs. One where the active is attached, one in the shelf, and one at a neighbor. Those 3 packs rotate every week. I handle backup in my company the same, beside that 2nd storage is carried home by the boss, and 3rd storage is a bank locker.

</comment><comment><USER4> We use a Synology running their proprietary RAID thing, with a hot spare. It's connected to fiber as central backup hub for all machines through read-only BitTorrent Sync. It's also functions as our Git Server. Next to that we have two remote backup sites for the most recent terabytes, and all Mac's have Time Machines running at home...

And of course everyone has a Time Machine as a fallback at home for their production machines.

</comment><comment><USER5> rsnapshot ([http://www.rsnapshot.org/](http://www.rsnapshot.org/)) running on a Linux machine with three 2T WD red's in RAID5 config using md. LVM sitting on top of the RAID5 to allow parceling out space as needed. One of the LVM partitions is the rsnapshot backup tree.

Cron setup on the backup server to take nightly rsnapshots of the machines that get backed up. The only machine that does not get nightly's is my laptop, as it is often hibernating overnight, so it gets periodic pushes when it is not hibernating.

Occasional rsync of the rsnapshot tree to an offsite location.

Of course it helps that I have zero mswin machines.</comment>


David Bowie's collection of Memphis-Milano furniture (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/space-oddity-david-bowies-secret-obsession-with-80s-memphis-design/ <comment><USER2> This style is still alive and well in Milano - on a recent trip to La Rinascente (a shopping mall) I noticed a new edition of the record player listed here. I also noticed no indication of price, and correctly assumed it was out of the sane spectrum - [https://www.brionvega.it/en/products/radiofonografo/radiofon...](https://www.brionvega.it/en/products/radiofonografo/radiofonografo- rr226-o.html)

<comment><USER3> That's awesome! Feel free to post some more links (or mail me), I'm very fascinated by Italian design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Stylistically, it's hard to imagine anything as stereotypically 80s as this collection of furniture and lamps. It's like the early days of 3D rendering in physical form.

<comment><USER5> I was in architecture school in the early 80s, part of the last generation trained to produce only hand-drawn work. Memphis, plus Michael Graves on the buttoned-down side (what do you mean you can't find a caryatid supplier?) and Frank Gehry on the wild side (the chain link fence goes where?), were hugely disruptive, creating imagery that was "so wrong it had to be right" for us noob designers.

That said, two of the most archetypal 80s things I can think of are that weird percussion break in the middle of "Owner of a Lonely Heart", by Yes, and David Byrne's huge suit. Although these are music-related, they were every bit as influential to my cohort.

<comment><USER6> That huge suit found itself in oversized jackets and shirts (all kinds of "tops") in Hollywood. Looking at early pictures of mature stars today, Pitt, Moore, Roberts, etc... shudder...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> These pieces of furniture remind me of all of my childhood clothes. My parents dressed me almost exclusively in Bugle Boy from 1988 to 1995.

I thought I was rid of this nightmare.

<comment> cbm-vic-20 "Excuse me, are those Bugle Boy Jeans you're wearing?"

<comment><USER8> Forgive the tangent:

...

      I once had a pair of bugle boy pants
      and I wore them into a gas station
      and this story has nothing to do with waffles
      but the lady at the gas station said,
      "By any chance are those bugle boy pants you're wearing?"
      and I said "Why yes they are"

      And that's the real story of this song

      You gotta wear pants to get waffles
      You gotta wear pants to get waffles
      they said no shoes, no service
      but if you don't wear pants
      you'll get thrown out on your ass

(From my band's song "Waffles"... no good recordings of it exist though)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The upcoming Sotheby's auction includes a few other items that predate the > movement, like Bowie's red Olivetti from 1969, as well as the full breadth > of Memphis output, from a 1981 "Nefertiti" tea set by Matteo Thun to a 1986 > "Big Sur" sofa by Peter Shire.

The article features a big pic of Peter Shire's iconic sofa.

Peter is one of the original awesome guys of the LA art world. He has kept a studio in Echo Park for years, and he has a holiday open house where you can buy some of his smaller objects. His studio website seems down, but here's his feed: [https://www.instagram.com/petershire/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/petershire/?hl=en), and some pictures from his studio: [http://www.yoshimakino.us/work/artist- visit-2/](http://www.yoshimakino.us/work/artist-visit-2/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Looking at some of Ettore Sottsass' earlier industrial design work he did for Olivetti (e.g. the Valentine typewriter or the Divisumma calculator), and then at his Memphis Milano stuff, it almost seems like he woke up one day a bit bored and decided to go completely nuts from now on.

Not sure it's true bot I recall reading somewhere that the goal with Memphis Milano was to apply the colors and forms of abstract painting to furniture design.

The Carlton bookcase is... quite something.

</comment><comment><USER11> The title was altered from the original article. Unfortunately, the new title features the wrong apostrophe character (a left single quotation mark was used instead of the correct right single quotation mark). So it's »'« instead of »'«.

<comment><USER12> Also, why use directional quotation marks at all? I don't see the need here</comment></comment>


Lightroom App Update Wipes Users' Photos and Presets - <AUTHOR> https://petapixel.com/2020/08/20/lightroom-app-update-wipes-users-photos-and-presets-adobe-says-they-are-not-recoverable/ <comment><USER2> The way I understand this, this only removed data that was not synced to cloud. I assume the files were not synced and they were not backed up anywhere (or there would not be so much fuss).

I can sympathize but, honestly, I think it is a fault of person who thinks they can get away keeping precious data on a single drive/device and then fault anybody and everybody if something happens to it.

Drives do fail but so does the software. Storing data on a single device and single drive is basically saying you put almost no value on that data.

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like a simple check of "does this work after install, do I still have pictures?" would have helped the devs here. Might be worth checking that software works correctly before pushing it out to millions of users.

</comment><comment><USER4> I assume Adobe and Canon were both racing to release this feature to users, but Canon got there first.

<comment><USER5> If I get this correctly Canon only lost pics on their Cloud but Adobe wiped photos stored on devices.

cheers for digital peasants on iOS and let's pray to Adobe goods so we shall be fine

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article doesn't make a lot of sense.

If Lightroom only wiped data that "were not already synced to the cloud", then how did some users lose years worth of data?

<comment><USER7> I guess they never synced to the cloud at all, so they lost all their photos.</comment></comment>


Make the Full Senate Intelligence Committee Torture Report a Federal Record - <AUTHOR> https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-full-senate-intelligence-committee-torture-report-federal-record <comment><USER2> And the CIA/Intelligence community report on Russian influence in the 2016 election.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is one of those web sites / initiatives I don't see the next administration continuing. Not that the current administration seemed particularly influenced by it, but still.</comment>


The Real Reason My Startup Was Successful: Privilege - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/the-real-reason-my-startup-was-successful-privilege-3859b14f4560?source=linkShare-4f382bcd948d-1483744801 <comment><AUTHOR> I sold my company a couple years ago. Just took some time off to have a second baby and did some reflecting on the whirlwind of the past 7 years. This article is the result.

The realization that I would not have been successful without the privilege I was born into and married into was not a total shock to me - I've always been grateful for the opportunities I'm given - but something about the process of writing this really had an impact on me. Enough that I'd like to devote the rest of my career to efforts that level the playing field for potential entrepreneurs a little more. Still working out the details of what that could look like. Open to suggestions.

</comment><comment><USER2> Just refreshed this HN link and would've expected comments.

Thank you for writing it... for those who weren't born immigrants and had to start at zero, it's a good reminder to embrace certain landscape dynamics.</comment>