How People Read Online: New and Old Findings - <AUTHOR> https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-people-read-online/ <comment><USER2> "Lawn-mower pattern" is their new phrase for when people skim content left-to- right, then drop down to the next line and go right-to-left, until they get back to the beginning.

I LOVE this. Why? Because it so perfectly replicates a metaphor from ancient Greece. Some early manuscripts were written the same way. Write the first line left-to-right, then the next line is right-to-left, then flip again.

They called this "Ox-turn" writing (boustrophedonic), because it's like the pattern you make when plowing a field. We don't use oxen much any more, but we do use lawnmowers. So the same phrase comes back!

[http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww- bou1.htm](http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-bou1.htm)

<comment><USER3> Oxen plowing fields is probably also why the canonical acre is a rectangular, not square, measure. (1 furlong x 1 chain)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4>
      Several participants in our study began reading articles
      nearly linearly and completely until they hit a pull
      quote or inline ad. After reaching one of those elements,
      the participants abandoned their reading and fell into
      light scanning.

I never noticed but I do that every time.

<comment><USER5> I dislike pull quotes in magazines for this reason, but I understand their purpose. Online, distracting the reader and messing up the reading-order seems to be the _only_ thing they do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you're interested in visual tracking and reading, you might like the color gradient-based reading tool called BeeLine Reader.[1] It seeks to remediate the same problems as boustrophedon, but does so with color instead of reversed writing.

A study done by CNET and covered in The Atlantic showed that people reading with this color-based technique ended up reading significantly more text than people reading plain black text.[2]

note: I am the founder, and we got our start via a surprisingly successful Show HN post!

1: [http://www.beelinereader.com](http://www.beelinereader.com)

2: [http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/a-bett...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/a-better- way-to-read/482127/)

<comment><USER7> What a neat idea, almost surprised I haven't seen something like it before.

I get that for print it's historically been best to just stick with black text on a white background, but for computer text I feel like this kind of technology should've been able to exist in the 90s.

<comment><USER6> > _I feel like this kind of technology should 've been able to exist in the > 90s._

Matt Ridley, author of How Innovation Works, has talked about the possibility that there have been any notable innovations that 'came too late'.

In particular, he talks about the wheeled suitcase, which at first glance seems to have come decades too late. But he ultimately concludes that the weight that would have been added by metal wheels and enclosures were unnecessary at previous times, when airports were much smaller. As far as I know, he doesn't have any other candidates for technologies that came too late.

But I think that this the BeeLine technology could fit the bill.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this topic needs some explanation for older people that do not believe people that use the web extensively actually read.

Because people scan a page rather than read every word in the order the author thought best does not devalue what is going on.

Say you were interested in WW2 history you could read Stalingrad by Antony Beevor to then become an expert on that aspect of the war. Or you could research the topic online going across many online sources to answer your own questions. This latter approach where no book is read from cover to cover has a lot of merit. However, some older people might call this not reading. To them this would be grazing any old nonsense written online.

We need to challenge these entrenched attitudes. It is totally okay to study online flitting about between content and sources. Reading online is different to reading books and we should not be concerned with how people do this in order to make condescending remarks.

<comment><USER9> I'm curious, what "older people" do you consider that believe that?

Because the "older people" I know that use the web (in their 60's), they actually commit to read the few articles/blogs/news they choose to read.

They are far from heavy users, their web browsing is probably limited to 1-2hours max.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reading this made me feel like the odd one out or something. I'll read an article start to finish, read tables by row and generally do things in a left to right pattern. I ignore sidebars, headers and footers, especially ones that don't scroll and generally read content in a linear order and pick one topic at a time until I finish it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Boustrophedonic mode on Kindle please!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon#/media/File:Bous...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon#/media/File:Boustrophedon.png)

<comment><USER12> wow who designed that page such that closing the fullscreen image goes to the prior page. There is no way to get to the wiki article from that image lol

<comment><USER13> The "X" button correctly returns to the wiki page if it was opened in a new tab / window so there's no prior page to return to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> awinter-py the image for 'pinball pattern' made me briefly nauseous

this is every annoying recirc where I get dragged down the sidebar and then put a piece of paper in front of the monitor to control myself

daily mail-ization, parallel columns

total loss off control

</comment><comment><USER14> Summary:

"Design content that doesn't waste people's time and effort which directs people to only the information they want."</comment>


How the Age of Empires 2 AI Thinks (ft. Promi) (YouTube) - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/-S1CkfzEHSU <comment><USER2> Not sure why this was flagged. It even shows examples of the lisp AI code and interviews the programmer.</comment>


Show HN: My personal website - <AUTHOR> https://bradhall.io <comment><USER2> Overall I think it looks great! Not too much going on and it's easy to read. I'd suggest you experiment with adding more whitespace between different sections and especially between different projects. I'm on mobile, btw.

I saw this post yesterday and learned a lot from it, you might find it helpful as well: [http://blog-en.tilda.cc/articles-website-design- mistakes](http://blog-en.tilda.cc/articles-website-design-mistakes)

</comment><comment><USER3> I like clean, minimal sites. Some suggestions: Try a bigger, more professional like photo. Move the skills to the space above the projects, it facilitates the information flow. Put a link to your email! <\- This is basic.

Overall, it's a good site. Well done.

</comment><comment><USER4> Clean and simple and looks great on mobile. If it didn't say you have a bachelor degree though I would have thought you were a teenager based on the picture, not sure that's a good or bad thing.

</comment><comment><USER5> Its better than my portfolio site, which has absolutely nothing on there right now. Because it all lives in private codepens and private repos :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Hey Brad.

I like the site.

Try adding a bit of padding on the left and right side. When the browser is fullscreen on a laptop, it looks a bit stretched out.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN,

I made a personal website. Any feedback or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

<comment><USER7> Hey,the site is essentially good enough for a personal website. nice work!

I also think [https://splindid.com](https://splindid.com), among your projects, is a neat idea, and you executed it well. are you still actively running it? asking because i checked through the newest feeds and saw the last post was in march this year.

Edit: changed "may" to "march"

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The site is still fully functional, I haven't spent much time promoting it yet, though. I still plan on keeping it up indefinitely and would be thrilled if it got some new users.

Fun fact: the site has a Rick roll feature [https://splindid.com?app=welcome](https://splindid.com?app=welcome)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> * occaisionally

occasionally

<comment><AUTHOR> Yikes, thanks for pointing this out.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Particle simulation with navier stokes equations and synchronized music - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plDwDKIEvxw <comment><USER2> what technologies are you using there?</comment>


Image Scaling using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.flipboard.com/2015/05/scaling-convnets/

<comment><USER2> John Resig used a Convnet to upscale japanese prints, waifu2x

[http://ejohn.org/blog/using-waifu2x-to-upscale-japanese- prin...](http://ejohn.org/blog/using-waifu2x-to-upscale-japanese-prints/)

<comment><USER3> Neat, specializing for Japanese prints must have improved the outcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting stuff! It would certainly benefit from a comparison to other super-resolution techniques, e.g.

Glasner et al. "Super-resolution from a single image" Freeman et al. "Example- based super-resolution"

</comment><comment><USER5> What's intriguing about this is that the output isn't really real. The best place to see this is the bark patterns on the trees in the last 3-way comparison. The output is convincing and yet not quite right. The neural net didn't _know_ , so it _guessed plausibly_. Keep scaling and I bet you'd see Google inceptionism style dream details slipping in.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is very cool! Next in DNN adventures should be a network trained with lots of videos for animating still pictures!

<comment><AUTHOR> You might like this paper. Multi-view Face Detection Using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks : [http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.02766](http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.02766)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'll admit that I skimmed the article but I have the feeling this CNN didn't learn what they intended it to learn. Looking at the examples shown they started with a full resolution image and applied some downsampling algorithm to get the lower resolution to apply their algorithm to. Their algorithm has learned to undo the downsampling that they applied. This doesn't mean it will perform well on images that haven't been downsampled or images that have been downsampled in a different way.

<comment><USER8> This is possibly true, but it's pretty much the only practical way to do this.

If we look at most of the literature around upscaling, this method is used pretty frequently.

For a more comprehensive look at using CNNs for image upscaling, see e.g. [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/kahe/publicati...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/kahe/publications/eccv14srcnn.pdf)

<comment><USER9> There is a more recent version of this paper published here: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1501.00092v3](http://arxiv.org/abs/1501.00092v3)

At Flipboard, we did not have time to do a full comparison of related upscaling research, but we were happy with the low amount of error our CNN achieved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What would have made this article interesting was the examples of different images being scaled.

<comment><USER9> There are several examples in the article that show original, bicubic and DeCNN upscaling side by side for comparison.

<comment><USER11> they arent exactly super convincing, I wouldnt be surprised if something like super2xsai + GS4xHqFilter beat those examples :/

<comment><USER12> waifu2x is based on the same basic principle as this, and it beats the pants off of those algorithms, for the kind of images its best at (waifu2x was designed for, and therefore trained on, anime/manga images)

<comment><USER9> FWIW, waifu2x was inspired by this paper from researchers at Chinese University of Hong Kong and Microsoft Research Asia [http://arxiv.org/abs/1501.00092v3](http://arxiv.org/abs/1501.00092v3)

waifu2x is a great demonstration of this approach applied to a specific domain.

By coincidence, Flipboard's DNN approach was developed around the same time as the MSRA research in summer 2014.

I'm excited to see future research in applying deep learning to generative tasks. Some of the CNN music composition work is quite impressive.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hugh Everett's many worlds interpretation of QM - <AUTHOR> http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/05/hugh-everetts-many-worlds.html

<comment><USER2> I really don't understand what Motl is objecting to. Everett and Greene seem to be saying that the wave function doesn't collapse, and the emergence of classical phenomenon is due to decoherence. Motl seems to be arguing that the wave function doesn't collapse, and that the boundary between classical phenomenon and quantum phenomenon is purely statistical because of decoherence.

The only difference that Greene and Motl seem to have is the idea that the other branches of the wave function count as being real. This seems like a bit of minor distinction (given that both sides are saying that the other worlds cannot be interacted with) to deserve the invective that Motl flings at his opponents.

<comment><USER3> I haven't read Everett so I can't speak on his behalf, but Everett's adherents definitely speak of sharp splitting of classical universes. David Deutsch for example argues unambiguously in favor of many-classical-worlds. So whether or not this is what Everett intended, that is the worldview he has fathered. And it is demonstrably wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ugh.

His insistence that Everettians need to describe a sharp splitting of worlds is like a creationist saying that evolutionists need to describe speciation as sharp splittings.

<comment><USER3> He doesn't insist that they _need_ to describe a sharp splitting of worlds. It is simply a fact that they _do_. And in so doing they are mistaken.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This blog has to be the poster child for Readability.

<https://www.readability.com/articles/c4xdmodo>

</comment><comment><USER5> for those interested, everett's son is an indie rock musician who is (in my ever so humble opinion) talented at writing uplifitng music. check out "blinking lights and other revelations" if you ever need a pick me up.

<comment><USER6> As a long time Eels fan, I cant say that I would call the bulk of his music "uplifting". Blinking lights has a few "happy" songs, but I would hardly call that a feel good album. Great music, but not uplifting. So I both agree and disagree at the same time :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can I connect to a Tor hidden service using curl in php? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15445285/how-can-i- connec...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15445285/how-can-i-connect-to-a- tor-hidden-service-using-curl-in-php)</comment>


Why I don't spend time with Modern C++ anymore - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-dont-spend-time-modern-c-anymore-henrique-bucher-phd <comment><USER2> What does he propose as a replacement for C++? Did I miss that part? IMO, there's currently nothing mainstream that can replace it. Of course, C is just as fast, but has the same expert problem he cites and lacks many of the safety features found in C++. If you need a very fast, relatively safe, mainstream systems language, there's not much else out there.

<comment><USER3> > Today the "Modern Technologist" has to rely on a new set of languages: > Verilog, VHDL.

and

> all sorts of reconfigurable hardware are being deployed in the field. Intel > is currently shipping Xeon CPUs with embedded FPGAs. IOT is going to become > a multi-billion dollar market in the next five years, and it is largely > propelled by little $10 FPGAs that will require an astounding amount of > qualified technologists to program them.

I can't say I disagree (I wrote arachne-pnr [0] last year to learn about exactly these technologies) but I don't know how many people are going to be developing next generation of high performance systems in VHDL and Verilog compared to modern programming languages. I think there is a huge opportunity for tool development in this space.

[0] [https://github.com/cseed/arachne-pnr](https://github.com/cseed/arachne- pnr)

<comment><USER4> Nobody is going to write, say, a Firefox plugin in VHDL.

<comment><USER5> To be fair, nobody is going to write Firefox plugins in C++ anymore either (except maybe with Emscripten/wasm).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can we merge submissions?

This and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11720659](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11720659)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have no idea why this submission got resurrected now, it was submitted several days ago and failed to get any traction. Hope dang can kill it and move the comments to the newer and more active thread.

<comment><USER7> Sorry; I didn't see this until now. I think there were some crossed wires at our end.

In the future it's best to email firstname.lastname@example.com with something like this, because then we're sure to see it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As has always been the case, effective use of modern C++ requires knowing which subset of the language to use and which to avoid.

I agree with the author's criticisms of many C++ features. At the same time, I think that a proper simple, modern subset of C++ exists that is much more productive and safer than C, without sacrificing performance. You can also optimize progressively, for example start with using std::string and std::vector and then replace the stock implementations if they aren't performant on your target architecture. I would not, however, recommend using C++ for GPU kernel code - a mix of C++ for CPU code and C for GPU kernel code works best. It is not ideal, but it's the best toolset available for serious industrial development.

FPGAs are exciting, but they've also been the "next big thing" in general purpose computing forever. Obviously it makes sense to use FPGAs for certain HFT and embedded applications, but that's not the same as general purpose computing which is what C/C++ is for. Not to mention, FPGA compile times can take hours or even days, which pales in comparison to most C++ template overhead.

I would also say that for IOT, I'm not sure why it is obvious that "$10 FPGAs" should dominate. Why not a $2 microcontroller? Embedded devices have been around long before "IOT" became a buzzword, and we can see that microcontrollers, FPGAs, SOCs, and custom ASICs all have a role to play depending on the application.

</comment><comment><USER9> Doesn't Rust look like an excellent answer to the author's issues with C++?

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if the author has similar views about C, which doesn't have many of the problems that he's talking about.

Furthermore, many of his arguments seem to be statements about _all_ high level languages.

</comment><comment><USER11> During my time as a systems programmer, I've gone from C to C++ to C again.

At first, I didn't understand it so I feared it. Then I understood some of it, so I liked it. Finally, I understood most of it, so the mirage dissolved in front of my eyes and I no longer seek it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I totally agree with everything in this article.</comment>


Offer HN: Medical Perspective - <AUTHOR>

I am a first year medical student at UCSF. I really like the community at HN and it's a continuous source of interesting and useful information. I want to contribute however I can. I think that means:
1) I think we need more technically oriented physicians. If anyone is currently or thinking about applying to medical school, send me an email, I'd be happy to give advice or critique your application.
2. If you are interested in starting a project involving medicine, either for physicians and patients, I'd more than happy to give you my take and suggest possible strengths/challenges. This would be based purely non-technical perspective and based on my experience as a physician-in-training. <comment><USER2> Do your professors talk about the state of healthcare in the USA / share their opinions with you?

Could you estimate in rough percentages, if at all: Of your peers in medical school, how many of them are interested in becoming a doctor for purely altruistic reasons? How many defaulted to med school because it is something appropriate for intelligent people and pleases their parents?

<comment><AUTHOR> > Do your professors talk about the state of healthcare in the USA / share > their opinions with you?

Yes, especially healthcare reform. As you can imagine, it's a game-changer and there is significant discussion on how they will be impacted. I think the general conclusion I've gotten is that the situation is still very fluid, and most people in medicine are as confused/uncertain of its effect as most laypoeple.

> Could you estimate in rough percentages, if at all: Of your peers in medical > school, how many of them are interested in becoming a doctor for purely > altruistic reasons?

I think there are a variety of factors and influences that cause an individual to want to become a doctor and most medical students aren't seeking to become martyrs (ie. not purely altruistic). It would be just as simplistic as to say Facebook was founded solely because Zuckerberg wanted create something. While the ability to help people is important factor, the amazing complexity and beauty of the human body, the opportunity to work in a constantly changing, dynamic environment, the ability to apply science, and the respectability of the profession are also motivators. I would say, in many ways and to most med students, these factors outweigh the financial rewards (if that's what you meant by non-altruistic reasons).

> How many defaulted to med school because it is something appropriate for > intelligent people and pleases their parents?

I think that is an incredibly difficult question to answer, but I will try to rationalize my non-answer. It is slightly difficult (no exaggeration :P) to get into medical school – if a person is not motivated or passionate, it is difficult to simply default into medical school. That said, this question goes back to the previous question about motives and incentives. I would say a significant proportion of my classmates have a significant experience with physicians – either as a patient or having relatives who are physicians. Whether having physician parents and that it might "please their parents" is an important factor, I wouldn't know as I did not have that kind of background.

I personally do not think that "defaulting" is a common occurrence because at my school, there is a large proportion of non-traditional applicants who have had previous careers. With classmates ranging from former investment bankers, Olympic swimmers, opera singers, and park rangers, I imagine they methodically thought about the opportunity cost of changing careers. Too bad we don't have many former developers. :) For better or worse, medicine is a desirable profession, and I would venture to guess that a lot of people will at least try or consider a career in medicine. Without then actually developing passion or interest, medicine is a tough path to continue.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful responses, good luck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm a first year med student as well, and there are a few other students/physicians on HN interested in tech; so you're not alone!

Edit: What's your email address?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just added to my profile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can you check our blog (medgadget.com), and let us know what we can do differently? Also, any ideas on how we can attract more clinicians to our website?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! A quick synopsis of my impression:

At first glance, I am not sure what your target audience is. Is the idea to blog about all new ideas related to medicine? I see descriptions of everything ranging from toothbrushes to new imaging modalities. There are tags to sort through the different posts, but not as pronounced or obvious as it could be.

Secondly, what are you trying to achieve by attracting clinicians to your website? My impression is that you are simply looking from traffic (regardless the type), and trying to monetize with ads? Is that correct? Personally, I would say clinicians are slightly more skeptical about new inventions/techniques, and although not disinterested in new findings, would be reluctant to turn to a blogs for such information. This is especially true when it seems like a lot of the posts are rehashes of individual companies PR and there are a lot of ads. I would ask what additional value does the website add or function does it fulfill?

As a general rule of thumb, I think it is easier to attract viewers if there is a sense of community or two-way communication. My guess is that to attract more clinicians, there needs to be more value added. Maybe talk about things that interest physicians (how such a device impacts reimbursement or saves time, interesting cases and how those devices prevented some complication) After a long day at work, I doubt clinicians would be interested in learning about a new one-purpose use device that marginally improves outcomes in a specific population of patients. HN works because it combines technical information with both interesting social commentary and discussion.</comment></comment>


Google Scribe graduates from Labs into Blogger (in Draft) - <AUTHOR> http://scribe.googlelabs.com/

<comment><USER2> This is more of a relocation rather then a graduation, possibly part of the recent smothering of G.labs as a whole.

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/more-wood-behind- fewe...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/more-wood-behind-fewer- arrows.html)

Anyway, I'm happy to see this particular project still alive somehow. It would be interesting to see how many bloggers will use it on a daily basis. My guess is: not many, for a number of reasons.</comment>


The iPhone Is Guaranteed to Last Only One Year, Apple Argues in Court - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/j5geby/the-iphone-is-guaranteed-to-last-only-one-year-apple-argues-in-court <comment><USER2> > Arturo González, the lawyer representing Apple in the case, wrote in the > motion—filed in April and embedded below—that it is "not appropriate for > courts to rewrite the express terms of a warranty simply because of a > consumer's unilateral expectations about a product."

Better translated as "Consumer Rights really shouldn't be a legally enforceable thing".

</comment><comment><USER3> > But in court, Apple argues that it is only responsible for ensuring the > iPhone lasts one year, the default warranty you get when you buy an iPhone

The headline makes it seem like the phones are designed to fail after a year.</comment>


Overwatch's Mei Is Becoming a Symbol of the Hong Kong Resistance - <AUTHOR> https://kotaku.com/overwatchs-mei-is-becoming-a-symbol-of-the-hong-kong-re-1838899963 <comment><USER2> This is a really smart strategy, and probably much more effective than a simple boycott. If the HK supporters do manage to get Overwatch banned by Chinese censors that will send an incredibly strong message to companies that they risk losing their entire China market if they oppose Hong Kong. However, I worry that the censors are smart enough to understand that this is a ploy.

<comment><USER3> > _I worry that the censors are smart enough to understand that this is a > ploy._

If they decide not to ban Overwatch, thinking that this Mei thing is a ploy, HK gets to use a symbol that won't be banned. If they ban Overwatch, they send a message to US companies that complying won't protect them. HK wins either way. The best solution for China would be to instruct Blizzard to release a version of Overwatch that didn't have this character, and if you want my prediction that's what they're going to do.

<comment><USER4> Wouldn't the protesters simply pick another character to march behind?

The funny part is, if you go by the lore and backstories assigned to each character, the majority of them _would_ support Hong Kong. None of them are (written to be) particularly fond of authoritarianism.

Which is just hilarious that Blizzard's own IP would oppose their decision if they were real people.

<comment><USER5> or even outside the Overwatch property.

World of Warcraft is filled with characters that'd side with Hong Kong. Probably the most "symbol worthy" being Thrall from a lore standpoint.

<comment><USER2> Hahaha - the end result would be Blizzard games with only villains

<comment><USER6> Because none of the villains would support a popular uprising if it gave them the chance to take power in the aftermath, of course...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have been reading r/hongkong on reddit for the past few months. The hong kong protest will likely go down as one of the smartest protests ever - use of lazers, memes, bluetooth based messaging, etc.

<comment><USER8> Depends on how it ends, I just can't see any way for them to win. I fear China will just slowly escalate their heavy handedness until nobody is left.

<comment><USER9> That in itself may be considered a victory, depending on how far China is pushed and how they respond. If the rest of the world won't/can't do business with China anymore, that would be bad for China. HK's last ditch objective could end up as goading China into chopping off it's own feet to put down the protestors. A pyrrhic victory for sure, but still a victory in the long run.

<comment><USER10> That's an optimistic world-view. If they put down the protesters violently, I'm not convinced it would really have an impact more than 6 months out. Maybe I'm too cynical, but honestly, there don't really seem to be any negative long-term repercussions for bad actors in today's world.

<comment><USER11> A HK crack down would be flash point which would force the hand of many countries. European nations such as Germany have been trying to avoid taking sides in order to preserve market access. Thus far the CCP have succeeded in gradually degrading free societies ability to speak ill of them. A HK crack down would force all who believe in liberal values to grow a spine.

<comment><USER8> I hope so. I just don't see how relations wouldn't be slowly normalized again within a year. I've seen very few lasting measures for bad actors. Even Russia, which was responsible for the downing of MH17 killing 193 Dutch citizens, is a major trading partner of the Netherlands.

<comment><USER12> This still makes me angry and I don't know what I can do about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> HK should just do the same with Xi and make him a symbol of HK resistance, just like they're doing with Mei.

Maybe Chinese censors will then ban Xi.

<comment><USER14> Haha, clever. I have the same thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Lets hope she doesn't get banned from the game /s

</comment><comment> joe-collins This prompted a thought: did Blizzard take the action they did because China threatened to withdraw its players from the Overwatch League? That would kill entire teams in that esport, and be much more visible than merely losing ordinary players.

<comment><USER16> There's only one Chinese-majority team (which, oddly enough, also has the only Taiwanese player). In total it's probably less than a dozen players.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Incoming subtle nerfs (or buffs to other characters) to shift the meta away from any usage so there's no controversy, no chance of anything Mei being used in a tournament.

<comment><USER14> Internet can easily turn another character to the next symbol XD

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Lot of people don't understand is that it's not Chinese government vs Hong Kong public but Chinese mainland public vs Hong Kong public. The easiest solution for Chinese mainland public would be also create fan art for Mei to claim Hong Kong will always be part of China and fighting against all the rioters in Hong Kong. Billizard wouldn't need to do anything at this point and Mei will become a hero image in mainland China as well.

</comment><comment><USER19> Ignorant westerner here. Is this a recognizable symbol to Hong Kong residents in general, or only to the much smaller gaming subculture (assuming that it is, in fact, much smaller)? I mean, I know e-Sports is much bigger in the east, but is it that much bigger relative to the populace as a whole?

</comment><comment><USER20> This is in fact free publicity for Overwatch. Wouldn't be surprised if there's a boost in sales in the next quarter. I have no problem with it since it's one of the greatest games ever made.

</comment><comment><USER14> Wow, then the internet just take whatever famous symbol in China and turns it to HongKong symbol, China have to ban it all. Haha. First is the Winnie the pool, then Mei, what's next?

</comment><comment><USER21> In all likelihood, Blizzard will probably increase in game moderation to eliminate this kind of messaging.

<comment><USER22> How would that help? Winnie the Pooh could have had all the in-cartoon moderation it wanted and it's still mocking Xi.</comment></comment>


Tesla Model S Suspension Walkaround - <AUTHOR> http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/track-tests/2012-tesla-model-s-signature-performance-suspension-walkaround.html <comment><USER2> Car suspension tuning is a very subtle and difficult black art. It's all about what's happening dynamically in response to transient inputs (go around a corner, hit a bump, etc.).

I believe Lotus does a lot of engineering consulting helping other manufacturers dial in suspensions. I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla had them consult.

Even some of the big car companies have trouble dialing in suspension on their own (I'm looking at you underdamped Japanese cars). European brands tend to be really good at this, and can take the same raw materials that everyone else is working with and create superior setups. Porsche somehow manages to start with the 911 where they stick the engine way out behind the rear axle (high polar moment of inertia, poor front/rear weight distribution) and make it handle beautifully. VW cars also tend to have great suspension tuning. Being able to keep the weight low to the ground in the Tesla contributes to a low center of gravity and I imagine must really help enormously.

Also the body under-tray is beautiful, like something you'd expect to see on a purpose built race car, probably helps a lot with the aerodynamics. I imagine more and more cars will get similar under-trays to improve aerodynamics and fuel efficiency.

It's interesting there is strong anti-dive geometry built into the car, probably to avoid problems with throttle lift oversteer caused by inexperienced drivers. I wonder if the current Model S handling leaves anything to be desired when driven to it's absolute limits and how the car would handle with some of the anti-dive geometry removed. Removing this geometry is a common mod on some cars.

<comment><USER3> "Porsche somehow manages to start with the 911 where they stick the engine way out behind the rear axle (high polar moment of inertia, poor front/rear weight distribution) and make it handle beautifully."

Actually there are some benefits to the arrangement. The high polar moment of inertia actually should make any spin slower to start and easier to catch than a mid engine arrangement. Under hard braking the weight shifts forwards so the weight distribution changes to more balanced than with other arrangements. Under power the weight is over the rear wheels for power out of the corner.

A 911 behaves differently to other cars but I'm not sure the arrangement is actually worse in most dynamic scenarios. Understeer into the corners is the main dynamic weakness when pushed really hard and can be compensated for by trail braking into the corners. I guess you can get into trouble if you go into a corner too fast, panic brake and lose the rear end but if you are used to the set up you can make use of it.

[I've only driven a 1980's 911 so maybe I'm over extrapolating to all rear engined cars and I've never tried a mid engined car. This book is really good at explaining how do get the most out of different weight distributions and has some fun stories (I've got the first edition but it probably isn't much different): [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Porsche-High-performance-Driving- Han...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Porsche-High-performance-Driving-Handbook- Elford/dp/0760327548)]

<comment><USER4> i've owned an NA2 NSX and a 997 911 GT3 and the NSX was much easier to lose control in. it felt unstable in general.

911 grips harder as you turn harder, very strange to get used to but once you 'get it' it feels great. obviously there is a limit but you are not going to hit it on the street in a car like a 911.

i haven't driven any modern mid-engine cars like the R8 or boxster though, i'm sure it's vastly improved from the NSX, which was basically designed in the 80s, so no fault to it. it was a great car. can't wait to see the new one.

right now i drive a performance sedan but my next car will be a "regular" 911, probably a 991 S.

as for the tesla... eh. doesn't give me that "gotta have it" feeling. i still want gasoline and a clutch. call me old fashioned.

i would be interested to know the % of current tesla owners that have ever owned "real" sports cars, not just "sporty" cars. it doesn't strike me as the same crowd.

<comment><USER5> Definitely not the same crowd. It's still a 4 door sedan. They're competing against the Panamera not the GT3.

<comment><USER4> also, my current car is an E63 AMG PP, that's the crowd i was comparing, i.e. me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For comparison the McLaren MP4-12C [1] has probably the most trick setup you'd see this side of a early 90s Williams F1 car [2][3]. Notice on the 12C how the rebound/compression dampers from each corner are cross connected instead of a roll bar, and the z spring at the back to resist high downforce.

Considering the Williams F1 active system was developed for the 1992 season, I'm kinda disappointed that no fully active system has ever hit a production car. The best we've seen is active damping on several cars. Bose had a pretty cool prototype [4], but never hit prod. The neat thing about electromagnetic damper/springs is that they can regen for a EV.

If your unfamiliar with car mechanics, then this is a good serious of short video tutorials [5].

[1] [http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/track- tests/2012-mclaren-...](http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/track- tests/2012-mclaren-mp4-12c-suspension-walkaround.html)

[2] <http://vimeo.com/22195303>

[3] [http://scarbsf1.com/williams_active/WilliamsF1_ACTIVE_SUSPEN...](http://scarbsf1.com/williams_active/WilliamsF1_ACTIVE_SUSPENSION_SYSTEMS.htm)

[4] [http://www.bose.com/controller?url=/automotive/bose_suspensi...](http://www.bose.com/controller?url=/automotive/bose_suspension/index.jsp)

[5] <http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE067A7397E1AF108>

<comment><USER6> Ah, I remember seeing the Bose videos and wondering when it would hit the market. I'm also waiting for those airless spoked tires!

Mercedes and BMW have their own active suspension systems that are standard in the high-end models, not sure if they look as magic as Bose's.

<comment><AUTHOR> Pretty much all systems marketed as 'active' aren't really 'fully active'. Remember from mechanics/Differential Eqns, a suspension system is basically a damped harmonic oscillator. The two main constants are the springing and damping. The majority of cars just have electronically variable dampers. ie the same oem parts from bilstein/dephi/bosch with some silly marketing acronym on like Porsche PASM, MagneRide etc.

Some have variable strength roll bars, but roll bars are really just a 'hack' anyway. Very few have used a variable springing system (Merc ABC). An air suspension can change springing and ride height, but's it's slow.

In addition to low latency damping/springing adjustments/ride height, a fully active system in able to apply force into the suspension so the attitude of each corner is under complete software control, milli by milli. You can have a perfectly smooth ride, but no roll. All current non-active designs are a compromise between sporty and confort (high vs low springing/damping constants, and movements in attitude due to accelerating/braking/downforce/cornering/road surface.

The main problem with fully active is that it uses quite a bit of power and is very complex. Here's some more info [http://www.autozine.org/technical_school/suspension/tech_sus...](http://www.autozine.org/technical_school/suspension/tech_suspension3.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Everybody thinks this is cool, but nobody (myself included) knows enough about car suspensions to comment!

<comment><USER8> I think it's a symptom of "Tesla = auto upvote on HN" syndrome. If this had been "Ford Focus S Suspension Walkaround" (or "Porche 911", for that matter) I doubt we'd be seeing it on the front page.

<comment><USER9> If all of your comments are this impressive, I guess I'm going to have to go with "untog = auto downvote" from now on.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure your comment was all that appropriate.

I think untog's comment is spot on. There are lots of stories that seem to get upvoted for reasons other than their own merit.

Pointing that out in this case is probably appropriate.

<comment><USER11> He should have used a "==" though...

Edit: Oh wait sorry no... I suck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When I look at this, I cannot how complicated it must be to build a world class automobile. Its all the more impressive that this is the first ground up(vs the roadster being an electric Lotus) car from a start up. Impressive indeed!

<comment><USER13> More or less what I was thinking while reading the article. How do you even staff up for something like this? I guess a lot of recruiting in Detroit or something.

<comment><USER14> "Huibert Mees is the Chassis Systems Technical Fellow responsible for the design and engineering of the Model S chassis systems. He joined Tesla from Ford Motor Company, where he was responsible for all the chassis systems and vehicle structure of the Ford GT supercar. Huibert has been working in the automotive industry for over 20 years, and was responsible for the rear suspension design of the Lincoln LS and Jaguar S-type as well as numerous advanced chassis design concepts at Ford."

Both SpaceX and Tesla are largely built on skimming the superstars out of the entrenched players. There are plenty of people that are _really really_ good at their jobs at Boeing, Lockheed, Ford, General Dynamicsm, etc. They are generally underpaid, undervalued, and given little freedom relative to their skillset. But they stick around in those companies because that's where you have to be in order to work on really cool stuff like the Ford GT 40 or a space rocket.

Tesla and SpaceX offer the same cool stuff to work on, without the crappy low- value coworkers that never get fired, legacy systems holding you back, and the opportunity to do things as you believe they should be done.

This is part of why the old companies will have a hard time noncompeting. Not only are SpaceX and Tesla disrupting their business, but Elon Musk is stealing from their top tier talent pool that could defend against disruption.

<comment><USER15> How specifically did he recruit them? Did he just show up at the factory one day? (I'm really interested in the detailed logistical steps of how one starts a brand new car company)

<comment><USER16> If you want to take Tesla as an example for how to start a brand new car company:

1) Spend 6 years at an insanely high burn rate with zero revenue for research and development to create a marketable car

2) Have enough brand loyalty to delay delivery to your high-earning clientele multiple times

3) Hustle Daimler into investing to do payroll at the height of the financial crisis, with Daimler themselves having no money

4) Hustle the DOE into funding your fully electric sedan while having only a taped together basic model to show for it, with your competition (Toyota) being granted billions just to refit a factory

<comment><USER17> 5) design and build and deliver a car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Reading about suspensions reminds me of the inerter (J-damper) [1] used in F1 racing. It was discovered by analogy with electrical circuits; it was the missing mechanical part corresponding to a capacitor.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inerter_(mechanical_networks)>

</comment><comment><USER19> So HN Tesla owners, how happy are you with the car itself, not considering the ideas behind electric cars and what not, just with the car and driving experience and charging, worrying about running out of juice ...?

<comment><USER20> It's fantastic. Best thing I've ever driven, regardless of environmental impact. It's silent and odorless, responds instantly and precisely, and it seats 5 adults + 2 kids comfortably.

A niche benefit: I live in the mountains and it handles going down much better than gas cars, where you have to downshift and use engine braking to avoid burning the brakes. It uses 12 miles of range going up, and gains 4 back going down so the average is close to a flat road of the same distance.

<comment><USER21> 5 adults + 2 kids comfortably? In a car with max 5 seatbelts?

<comment><USER22> It has connection points to fit rear facing child seats in the rear storage compartment. [http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7...](http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7839&stc=1&d=1342467308)

<comment><USER23> 1\. Attach seats

2\. Don't get rear-ended

<comment><USER24> It's almost certainly safer than the late 1960's station wagon we had when I was a child, with the backwards-facing seats in the cargo area. The rear crumple zone on it was everything behind the axle.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siT-SIfOnQw>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Those batteries sure take up a lot of space. I wonder what their physical volume is -- compared to a 15 gallon gasoline tank.

The slide-out brake pads are a neat idea, but I'm wondering why, as the caliper still has to be removed during a brake change to pull off the rotor.

Those aluminum pieces can't be cheap. Neither can the 4-piston brake calipers. Nor the armored underbelly. It's definitely performance-oriented.

<comment><USER26> About 26,472 cubic inches. Fifteen gallons is 3,465 cubic inches. (Taking the wheels off, if the car were rectangular its dimensions would result in around 696,581 cubic inches of volume, so the battery pack takes up about 3.8% of that)

Rotors don't have to be changed as frequently as pads. It's probably a lot easier this way vs dismantling the whole thing.

<comment><USER25> Thanks for that info! So the batteries take up about 9 times as much space as a gas tank?

If you do not replace the rotor when you replace the pads, a machine shop has to grind the rotor, so its surface will be flat to work effectively with the new pads. If you don't, the pads won't make full contact with the rotor, and maintaining the brakes would make them operate _worse_ until they wore in.

<comment><USER27> Brakes in electric cars receive vastly less wear than conventional vehicles, feels like literally an order of magnitude. They really only come into play at all during final stopping and emergency braking. The separate parking brake design on the Tesla is an interesting related detail.

<comment><USER25> Interesting -- so braking system consumables should last ~4 times as long as on a fossil-fueled car?

<comment><USER27> In my experience so far (Prius, 110000 miles) it is more like 5x. And the Prius brakes are tiny things, especailly compared to the huge brakes on the German cars I've owned in the past. The Tesla S is comparable to them in weight and handling, and the brake system looks comparable too. From the testing and reviews we know it has excellent stopping distance, so it looks to me like the best of both worlds. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets 10x the lifetime out of brake pads, depending on driving conditions of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> They have a Model S sans bodywork (just the lower frame, drivetrain, and suspension) at the Tesla Store here at the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. If you get a chance to stop in a Tesla Store, it's definitely worth it to see the intricacies of the suspension.

</comment><comment><USER29> Pretty pictures, but I just like how I can push the buttons on my screen and make the car go up and down. ;)

Actually, when I first read this doc a couple of weeks back, it showed me the reason for something I had noticed. If I have my foot on the brake while changing the suspension level, I've noticed that when I let off the brakes, the wheels shift a bit. Turns out that for the front tires, it doesn't lift and lower straight up and down. There is a bit of horizontal motion as well.

</comment><comment><USER30> First thought was "Tesla have finally built an electric AT-ST!"

<comment><USER31> Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Mars first, _then_ the electric AT-ST.

<comment><USER32> You really need a AT-ST for mars exploration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "21x8.5 inches +40mm" on the wheels. Gotta love the auto industry's ambivalent relationship with the metric system! Too bad they didn't try a little harder, they probably could have expressed one of the dimensions in micro-furlongs.

</comment><comment><USER15> Why is the regenerative braking limited to .25g? Even if they can't charge the battery faster than that, couldn't they dissipate the extra power some other way?

<comment><AUTHOR> Some electric trains actually do this, they dump the energy as heat in a bank of resistors. The motor on a tesla is on the rear axel, but most braking power is dissipated from the front axel due to the weight transfer. The question is if you also had a front axel motor (like the Model X), how much regen could you do. I remember reading somewhere that induction motors don't regen that well at low RPMs, hence you need to supplement with friction brakes. Anyone with a better understanding care to comment; would it be possible to build a car with no friction brakes, just 100% regen? I suppose you could always apply a counter torque to the motor.

<comment><USER34> "would it be possible to build a car with no friction brakes, just 100% regen?"

No. The force provided by regenerative braking is proportional to your speed. Without friction, it would be impossible to reach 0 speed.

<comment><AUTHOR> So the regen force would still exist (?), just it would be really small, and so taking a long time to fully stop. Would it be possible to apply a reverse torque to the electric motor to decelerate faster. For example, I'm thinking about a hypothetical race car that could have no traditional hydraulic braking system to save weight, a large amount unsprung.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'll never look at my Galant VR4's suspension the same again. I knew it was old and bad, but this really drives that point home.

</comment><comment><USER36> Pretty amazing yet totally normal not to see any exhaust system that I'm used to see on every car ;-)

</comment><comment><USER37> Has anyone wrecked one of them yet? I bet trying to get it fixed would be ridiculous.

<comment><USER38> How much would Google self-driving car equipment reduce the time between charges? I imagine that such a system would mean fewer accidents.</comment></comment>


From OmniGraffle Sketch to Actual App - <AUTHOR> http://500px.com/blog/116

<comment><USER2> "It's fairly obvious that a developer made these"

I thought they're pretty decent, considering it was made in Omnigraffle. Looks good for a mockup by a developer!

<comment><USER3> That jumped out to me as well. There are a few spacing issues with the buttons and logo, but that's it.</comment></comment>


Seriously, Stop Sabotaging Your 2012 Goals - <AUTHOR> http://www.dextronet.com/blog/2012/01/seriously-stop-sabotaging-your-2012-goals/

<comment><USER2> This was hard to read, I mean that about the actual readability of the article not the content. Here's my constructive criticism and simple css fixes.

The paragraphs need some line-height, it seems too much like a heavy wall of text, space it out a little.

.entry p {line-height: 1.5em;}

Black on white is hard to read for too long, something slightly less black can help.

.entry p {color: #222222;}

Maybe it's because of the way it renders on a Mac but that font isn't the best for long text. I'd keep it simple and just stick with sans-serif.

.entry p {font-family: sans-serif;}

before: <http://i.imgur.com/JCYTF.png>

after: <http://i.imgur.com/nerMb.png>

just flip between them a few times in separate tabs

Hope I'm not stepping on any toes, just trying to help.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, thanks a bunch! We will certainly improve the CSS as you suggested..</comment></comment>


Summer of Coding - <AUTHOR> http://summerofcoding.net

<comment><USER2> This name clashes with Google Summer of Code, in my opinion. Perhaps you could come up with an alternative?

<comment><USER3> Or, alternatively, be clear that this is not connected to my) Google program. Email me at email@example.com and we can give you some language that other summer of code like programs use.

Then we're actually happy to even highlight your program as one that takes inspiration from us... (assuming your program is good and long lasting...)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What charities do you donate to? - <AUTHOR> Do you have any organizations that you consistently give to? <comment><USER2> GiveDirectly and Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE).

For GiveDirectly or other charities recommended by GiveWell there seems to be a reasonable amount of evidence that they actually create a meaningful benefit for the people participating in their programs. And where that isn't that case at least they try to generate new evidence about what works and what doesn't.

ACE is different in that there's a lot of justified criticism of their methodology and accusations of overinterpreting the data they have. But I hope that given resources and time they can improve on that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I donate to Watsi on a monthly basis and they send me an email with information about where my donation went[0]. I'd like to contribute to Watsi Coverage[1] at some point when they accept donations directly for it.

[0]: [https://watsi.org/monthly](https://watsi.org/monthly) [1]: [https://watsi.org/coverage](https://watsi.org/coverage)

</comment><comment><USER4> I have been donating ShareTheMeal ([https://sharethemeal.org/en/](https://sharethemeal.org/en/)) for more than a year now. The mobile app made it very easy to donate just a few dollars to help children in need.

Also, I had donated to DoctorsWithoutBorders in the past.

Finally, my local charity organization.

</comment><comment><USER5> I donate financially to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and the Nonhuman Rights Project, and time-wise to a local cat shelter. I think the next nonprofits I'll aim to donate to will be the Good Food Institute and Soi Dog Foundation.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am not sure if it is a charity, but I give to Mozilla each year as I use firefox.

I have given to Goodwill

</comment><comment><USER7> EFF. Their work is extremely relevant to those in the tech industry.

<comment><USER8> To everyone

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Uchira children's fund (uchirachildrensfun.wordpress.com)- a small charity run by a genuinely nice guy who does a lot of great work

</comment><comment><USER10> Only religious charities (any religion).

</comment><comment><USER11> Unicef, Greenpeace, Doctors without borders.</comment>


Why no curl 8 - <AUTHOR> http://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2013/03/23/why-no-curl-8/

<comment><USER2> Finally someone who:

1\. Thought through the application/library from the beginning so that new features and changes are binary compatible.

2\. Is considerate of the distribution/repository world we live in, doesn't just say "ain't my problem"

3\. Doesn't just add numbers to do it.

Good work sir, stay strong curl 7

<comment><USER3> Not only that, but libcurl's documentation has some of the best structure I've ever seen.

<comment><USER4> that's just to make up for a ridiculously insane API.

<comment><USER5> What's so insane about it? I ask as I've recently been working with curl for webdav backup scripts and haven't had too many problems beyond fat fingers.

<comment><USER4> it's modeled after Netscape 2.0's view of the web, and not after how HTTP actually works.

It tries to force different protocols like HTTP and FTP into a single API, making for lots of combinations of switches that sometimes do and sometimes do not work together.

I could go on, but it's all stuff like this. It's not a bad API, just very archaic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> this reminds me of the time at Microsoft with Visual Studio 6 where the version comparison was a string compare, but build numbers were julian dates, with 4 digits - 9365 was december 31st, 1999.

so we couldn't go from 9365 to 0001. So we just went to 9366 and so we had 999-366 days to sort out a better version numbering system.

<comment><USER7> Those aren't Julian dates. Julian dates are just a count of days since some epoch, so the day after 9365 would be 9366, then 9367, etc.

<comment><USER8> Took me a lot of head scratching before I realized that the system was just YDDD, where Y is the last digit of the year (in this case, 9) and DDD is the number of days into the year (so 365 is December 31st in normal years).

This is definitely the weirdest example of the Y2K problem I've seen.

<comment><USER6> yep that's it...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Makes sense, thanks for providing meaningful version numbers. I'm looking at you Chrome, and now Firefox :)

<comment><USER10> Honestly I don't have an issue with Firefox/Chrome for the rapid version number increases. A browser is the most updated (or should be) bit of software on your computer. Honestly I don't even think of the version of Firefox or Chrome these days. They are just "Firefox" and "Chrome". This is much better for general users IMHO as it just means they use "Firefox" and not "Firefox 4.1.2" or whatever. A consistent update schedule makes a public version number pointless and it has, at least in my experience, made extension developers better at building extensions that don't break because I have upgraded from version 15 to 16 like we had back in the Firefox v2/3/4 years.

At the end of the day when the version number isn't really known to the end user it makes little difference if you bump up the major version number or the minor.

Also I love how quickly we get new features now. Firefox has improved more in the past year than it did in the past several years before the shift to a 6 week release cycle. It isn't suited to all software I admit but for a browser it is perfect. None of this "This site only works with Firefox XX or Chrome XX". Thank god!

<comment><USER11> > at least in my experience, made extension developers better at building > extensions that don't break because I have upgraded from version 15 to 16 > like we had back in the Firefox v2/3/4 years.

This is more caused by Firefox stopping to break the compatibility all the time. The plugin API in Firefox used to be just the internals, exposed to JS, so everytime something changed, it broke extensions. These days, they stopped doing that quite as often plus they published the Jetpack SDK which promises a stable API at the cost of less possibilities to change the browsers behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The best thing libvirt[1] does is to have a stable API from day 1. Over 7 years and counting. In practice this means a couple of things: We have to be careful and considerate when introducing any new API, since we're going to be maintaining it for a very long time. And although we do deprecate APIs occasionally, we keep them around forever so programs don't need to be "fixed" all at once (or maybe never).

[1] <http://libvirt.org>

</comment><comment><USER13> Curl is good..but as a .NET programmer httpie(<https://github.com/jkbr/httpie>) and Fiddler are suffice to me

<comment><USER14> Httpie should suffice for any, well like they say, human.

<comment><USER15> The post is mainly about the library, not the command-line interface.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm glad they've decided to address this 13 years into v7?

</comment><comment><USER15> This is good. It's very good to have things that just won't break. The successor to curl 7 should probably not be called "curl", just like the successor to JSON, if there is one, should not be called "json".

</comment><comment><USER17> A minor nitpick:

> These distributions only want one version of the lib, so when an ABI bump is > made all the applications that use the lib will be rebuilt and have to be > updated.

This is not true, at least on Archlinux. Currently I have 5 different versions of libpng installed:

local/lib32-libpng 1.5.14-1

local/lib32-libpng12 1.2.50-2

local/lib32-libpng14 1.4.11-2

local/libpng 1.5.14-1

local/libpng12 1.2.50-2

<comment><USER18> As someone who's been in the distribution business a couple of years ago, I can tell that it isn't as well supported in practice.

Imagine for example, a rather classical stack. Let's take KDE cause they are on the top of the news.

we have libpng 1.2.x With headers in include/libpng/. ( This is wrong, very acute of you to notice. ) We link kdelibs to libpng-1.2 ( independent use, inherited link ) We link kicker to libpng-1.2 ( kicker uses some things from libpng as well. Yey )

New version of libpng is installed, 1.4. Breaking ABI but not API in the process! If this version is installed in "include/libpng/" You'll link future versions of kicker against this. This gives the chain:

kdelibs : libpng 1.2.x kicker : libpng 1.2.x libpng 1.4.x Oh, what just happened? You say that the ABI collides at run-time and nothing loads .png files anymore?

So, what if we instead make /include/libpng link to /dev/null, and only explicitly install headers into libpng-1.2 and libpng-1.4? Sure! Lets go that way.

kicker now links properly against 1.2 for both. The krita comes along. Krita wants to use a new fancy feature in libpng 1.5. cool. Let's just link that.

Wait. did we just collide the public API again? Crap.

So, in practice. It doesn't work quite as well as hoped. Function resolving when several libraries provide the same function is. Messy. Especially when they aren't perfectly interchangeable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > These distributions only want one version of the lib, so when an ABI bump is > made all the applications that use the lib will be rebuilt and have to be > updated.

That's... a big deal?

Relative to everything else that goes on in making a distribution, it seems pretty trivial.

<comment><USER20> The problem is that putting together the distribution is "someone else's work", not the work of application software developers. The division of labor has always put everything on the distro maker, and almost none on the developer.

There's no automated pipeline of code -> build -> distro package -> testing happening, because almost everyone is still stuck in the bad old days of "download the tarball and compile it" and if you're really lucky you get a checksum on the tarball.

Ideally, we'd move to some automated means of putting together software. Imagine if there was GitHub/TravisCI style automatic process that spit out packages for Linux/BSD/Solaris/OS X/etc. on every checkin. That's where we need to go.

<comment><USER21> Well, Debian has git-buildpackage, which creates .deb packages from git repositories, and can use the commit log for the package changelog.

The problem is, unless the upstream dev uses Debian, why should he care?

<comment><USER22> Worse is when they do use debian, so they care about debian... but not about any other distribution. (And debian is weird in how it packages some things - when I had a project released as source tarballs, the only people I got emails about failing to build it were debian users).

More modern languages solve this by having their own formats - java/maven is particularly impressive, but python/ruby/node all have their own ways to specify dependencies and package libraries - which not only work crossplatform, but also make it much easier to have compatible or incompatible version bumps.

Maybe it's time for a virtualenv/bundler-like solution for C. Or time to stop using it for anything outside the base OS.

<comment><USER23> And then you get six different package managers on a single system for Ruby, Python, Node, Perl, X and Y?

Also, how would you specify a cross-language dependency, for example from a Python application to a Ruby application to a Ruby library? Should the Python- installer know how to handle "Ruby-dependencies" and what little piece of software to call to install said dependency?

<comment><USER22> >And then you get six different package managers on a single system for Ruby, Python, Node, Perl, X and Y?

I guess it would be better to have a cross-language VM - something that the CLR and the JVM are trying to do. Or it's possible to treat virtualization images (e.g. AMIs) as your execution environment and use a package manager inside that (although there are still no good package managers for C in terms of handling dependencies on conflicting versions of the same libraries). The point is that the "native" system is too inconsistent.

>Also, how would you specify a cross-language dependency, for example from a Python application to a Ruby application to a Ruby library?

I don't think that actually happens; you can only have a dependency where you have a common interface. If you were running the programs in Jython and JRuby you could have such a dependency, but in that case you would be able to use a JVM-oriented package manager for both.

You're right though; there's no reason a package manager _should_ be language- specific. A virtualenv/bundler-like piece of software that managed the installation of libraries in any language would be a very good thing.

<comment><USER23> > I don't think that actually happens; you can only have a dependency where > you have a common interface.

There is always the OS as a common interface. For example, I don't see why some application should not require a mailserver to be installed, i.e. a 'mail' binary to be present, even if said binary might be a native C binary rather than a Python script.

I guess it all depends on what you want to do: If there is little to no interaction/overlap between applications, either because you want to keep them separate anyways[0] or because there is only one application running on a system, deploying a VM for each application makes perfect sense. On the other hand, if I had to install every library required by each application separately for said application[1], my system that currently fits nicely into 6 GB would probably require at least a few gigabytes more, and likely also more RAM.

[0] Because you don't necessarily trust the authors, for example, as appears to be the case with all the Markets/Playstore/insert-fancy-name-here.

[1] This btw already exists, it's called 'static linking'.

<comment><USER24> I'm intrigued by NixOS [1]; it seems like it's designed to solve this exact problem.

[1] <http://nixos.org>

<comment><USER23> Whether it solves that problem appears to depend on your definition of the problem. To me, it appears as if every library required by every application was stored together with said application, and that every version of every library and application ever installed was also stored. That's surely nice if you have large disks, but it is neither going to work for phones nor for (sensibly-priced) SSDs.

I agree, though, that it does look like an interesting project, but also have to admit that I'm quite happy with the state of package management in Debian – including the idea to force everything into the dpkg/APT framework.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I never understood the strictness surrounding version numbering. We've had long discussions at work whether a release should be called 4.2 or 4.1.4. Who cares and why does it matter?

<comment><USER26> It matters because a good versioning system indicates to users what to expect from the release. If version numbers are major.minor.patch, then incrementing the patch number should indicate that you've only fixed bugs and it should be safe to install without risking new bugs. Incrementing the minor number should mean you've made feature changes but everything is backwards compatible. Incrementing the major number should mean you've made major changes that break compatibility.

See <http://semver.org/> for more details.

Edit: others have pointed out that this is more important for libraries and less so for user-facing applications. For user-facing applications I'd recommend two version numbers so you can distinguish between feature releases and bugfix-only releases, which can be a useful indicator to the end user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> What are the reasons not to follow semver today?

<comment><USER28> I'm not sure, but you may be misunderstanding the article. As far as I can tell, they _are_ following semver, and the discussion is about why they would go to extreme measures to maintain the same major version for 13 years an avoid a binary incompatibility. In other words, it's not that they don't recognize the value of semver, but that they are also considering the cost to users of the varying types of version bumps.

<comment><USER27> I think my question is misunderstood also.

I realize they follow semver (at least unofficially), which I think is great. What I want to know is if there any good reasons why others don't do it?</comment></comment></comment>


What's new with Diaspora? - <AUTHOR>

It's been (just over) one year and I haven't heard anything about Diaspora in...well, a while. Jan 31 was the last blog post on their site -- has anyone heard aything outta them from some other news source?<p>Their Github is certainly active still...but it only looks like only two of the "original authors" have committed to it recently. <comment><USER2> I was surprised by how much support they got from the tech community, when often we bitch and moan about "NIH"-syndrome. Diaspora was classic NIH. There were and are dozens of social networking open source projects which were already fairly mature, secure, and had infrastructure. Spending the raised money adding the decentralized/federated aspects which so enthralled the supporters early on would have been a strong approach to take - helping an established community, not reinventing wheels (which seem to have been reinvented rather poorly in some cases), and generally getting much further ahead than they are now.

A primary problem I see with that approach would have been deciding which to use in the first place, which may have been seen as taking a 'kingmaker' attitude towards existing projects ("we're gonna bless you with a lot of money and attention") (though that's probably reading a bit more in to it than it merits).

Also, the decision process would have required a lot of code review of existing projects to determine which ones were solid (well-architected, easy to modify, well-documented, secure, etc). to begin with. This takes a lot of time and effort, though a submissions process or contest could have been set up to help make that more efficient.

Possibly going further, developing a federation model alone, then using the money to work with a variety of the top open source social network projects to integrate in to the newly developed model would have been a possibly stronger approach. They're not limiting things to one project, and the value is more quickly spread around to a multitude of projects, and therefore users, regardless of platform. Not everyone likes or uses Rails, or PHP, or .Net, or Python, or whatever), but everyone can use RSS, OAuth and other common standards.

Diaspora had a chance to have a huge impact on the social networking scene, and blew it. Obviously that's from my perspective. They still have the opp of putting out a nice Rails-based social network, but I don't think (given the current state and pace) it'll ever be much more than that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I got an invite a few months ago and tried it out. It was pretty amazingly rough for how long they'd been working on it. I did check out the source and was... not impressed.

<comment><USER4> > I did check out the source and was... not impressed.

Could you please tell us some of your thoughts in more details?

(I've cloned a repo, read a bit, but as I've never used Ruby/Rails I just couldn't get any opinion on the code quality)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Everyone laughed because they released it way too early without proper security mechanisms in place.

</comment><comment><USER6> I donated immediately, signed up as soon as they went active (even though I don't do social networks), and never went back. I wanted them to succeed, but I think one has to be fairly honest with themselves and acknowledge that Facebook is not likely to go the way of MySpace. I will be surprised if Facebook undergoes the same sort of churn in usership that we traditionally thought was inevitable for all sites and services.

Facebook reached critical mass and now the majority of the people who keep them going are the same majority that don't see what all the fuss about HD is, don't want to buy a computer more than once per decade, are still satisfied with WoW, and think the current console generation is just fine as it is for another five or ten years.

In other words, they are people with minimal demands, needs, and expectations. They're happy with what they have now and aren't likely to move to the next big thing, like the rest of us always have.

Diaspora always had a significant uphill fight. Maybe they can use the project to bootstrap another effort in another arena at some point, but I think this is all a big effort to stand on principal. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Principal is important. It's just that principal isn't going to displace the reigning king. We will never _ever_ see Diaspora Connect fueling the "likes" and "forums" of the web, everywhere you turn. And, unlike other services, social networking is one that really does necessitate a critical mass.

</comment><comment><USER7> I sit next to them at the Pivotal Labs offices. I know their still pounding away, but not sure what they're doing specifically. I'll mention this post to them on Monday.

</comment><comment><USER8> All the process was faulty. Kickstarter is to fund projects but in the case of software the best thing is to show a prototype before being funded.

<comment><USER9> Kickstarter is supposed to fund artistic projects (some of my non-profit startups were rejected for that reason), that's why I surprised to see Diaspora get accepted. They have great intentions and a cool story (NYU students trying to change the world).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Last activity on its Twitter account was a month ago: <http://twitter.com/#!/joindiaspora>

</comment><comment><USER11> Any other similar projects that get more traction maybe? Diaspora has turned out to be a failure, probably we should forget it (oh wait, already done), and move on.

</comment><comment><USER12> I registered on a node out of curiosity but it lacked a lot of features. I am happy with Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER13> At least they have the money...

<comment><USER14> I am sure it was a great chance for those guys to show their competence to their potential employers. If the project had a success, they could show themselves as valuable and desired professionals in the eyes of companies looking for workers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Did they run out of taco money?</comment>


NOAA versus FCC and CTIA on 5G's Impact on Weather Data (WaPo) - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/05/23/head-noaa-says-g-deployment-could-set-weather-forecasts-back-years-wireless-industry-denies-it/ <comment><AUTHOR> I find this interesting but as a non-tech/science person, can't discern the truth on this subject. Help anyone?</comment>


Scott Adams: Backwards Economics? - <AUTHOR> http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/backwards_economics/

<comment><USER3> From experience I can tell you this won't work. Finding good workers is the hardest thing a company does and any plan based on "we can easily go out and find skilled people" is doomed to failure from the start.

When I first started at my current job they had the idea of hiring one person (me) and then using the money they'd use to hire a second person to outsource using sites like scriptlance. I had to over see these freelancers and it didn't go too well for a few reasons:

1\. Most people claim they "have" skills when what they mean is they think they could quickly acquire those skills if you hire them. Which leads to shoddy work.

2\. People with no loyalty to you tend to do poorer quality work which again leads to shoddy work.

3\. Most unemployed people are the lowest quality workers (the ones who were coasting up until the economy turned). That makes it hard to find the actual good people because the signal-to-noise ratio is so out of whack.

<comment><USER4> Are you sure that experience can be extrapolated to the labor market as a whole? I get the feeling that the difference in capabilities from one individual to another is much more pronounced in software development relative to many other fields. It's a testament to how hard software development is. While this idea might not work for something like software startups (or anything that requires extremely skilled labor, like medicine), I don't see why those criticisms would apply to fields that don't take a decade to perfect.

Also, I think it would be difficult to confidently infer that the unemployed tend to be the lowest quality workers. That might be true outside of recessions, but during a time of 10% unemployment, (and much higher if you look beyond the bullshit U-3 indicator) a lot of those people were just at the wrong place at the wrong time, or had jobs in shrinking industries.

<comment><USER5> The little literature that I've seen on this suggests that extremes of ability differences are more the rule than the exception. And if you work with the best, the best improve most readily. Read _First Break all the Rules_ for documented examples with everything from driving trucks safely to data entry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If only we had someone in charge of planning the economy, someone like Scott Adams, then things would be great. He could think of all these great investment projects that private investors for some reason aren't willing to fund.

Gee Scott, I can't believe nobody's thought of that before.

Although, this is eerily similar to what government did do in the mortgage market starting in the mid '90s - funding projects that private investors weren't willing to fund. It did stimulate the housing market for awhile. So maybe Scott is on to something.

<comment><USER7> Communism!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone who thinks that this is a good idea should read <http://www.cypress.com/?rID=34993> and understand it.

For those who don't recognize the name TJ Rogers, read <http://www.paulgraham.com/5founders.html>. The link above is to the article that Paul mentioned in that essay. Unfortunately the link in Paul's essay no longer works.

<comment><USER8> If you've read what Scott wrote, you'll see that it bears little resemblance to what Rodgers says. Scott is explicitly talking about small-scale social organizing and the like, where there isn't a profit business to be made - <USER2> intuition being that the government would come out ahead via taxes.

It's explicitly not about trying to create innovation or build profitable enterprises via top-down funding and political patronage, which is what Rodgers was arguing wouldn't work, and Paul has also said wouldn't work.

Paul also says it right here: <http://www.paulgraham.com/inequality.html> \- governments don't like risk, so they try and manage it away via bureaucracy, which in turn attracts companies that are optimized to gain government grants, rather than customers or profitable businesses.

<comment><USER5> Scott is specifically suggesting that government be the funding source. If government is the funding source, that translates either into government contracts or grants, both of which result in the problems that Rodgers talked about.

This does not mean that government should never fund anything. But it does mean that we should be suspicious of claims that government is better at generating viable or semi-viable businesses on command than the free market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Isn't this basically what FDR did with the Works Progress Administration?

</comment><comment><USER10> _"Suppose the initial investor is the government, and the sorts of businesses are only the types that are good for the country: health, education, and energy."_

And he settled on those three because...? They're the only businesses that are good for the country? They're just a sample three (all of which are still easily debatable)?

And who would make sure that it only suggests things that are "good for the country"? And how would you even detect that? Every special interest group would be at each other's throats over this. Which sounds identical to what we're already lobbying the government for / against. How is this supposed to do better?

I like the reverse-model idea. That has solid merit, and can be implemented at any time by anyone (and I'd be extremely interested in watching it develop). But scrap the government part, it's doomed to become a cesspool of porkbarrel legislation.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've always wondered why there weren't some organizations that look for mass layoffs (whole divisions) and swoop in for a discounted business. Many divisions are individually profitable, but are a poor investment of capital so they have to be jettisoned off. Get enough of they key players to buy in at reduced salary + insurance (oh, the insurance) and you can have a nice, tidy standalone company with reasonable margins, at least in some percentage of the cases.

Yes, I can think of a "dozen reasons why it wouldn't work" off the top of my head, but even if we could cut layoffs by some small % percent, it could have a huge dampening effect on recessions.

</comment><comment><USER12> We have this already: we call it "unemployment insurance".

The government pays you, and you choose what you'd like to do with your time, and the government makes a return on its investment through taxation and the ripple effect. This has been proven to be one of the best ways a government can spend its money when the economy is slumping. The government doesn't even set any limits on what you can do with your time - start any business you wish, not just one in health or energy.

<comment><USER13> Proven? Really? Who proved this? What were their methods?

<comment><USER12> See for example:

[http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/bang-for- your-s...](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/bang-for-your- stimulus-buck/)

There are quite a few papers on the subject. Anyone with any knowledge of economics is familiar with the idea, and people without any knowledge of economics ought not to pretend that they do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The startup world is already on this model as most investors are more likely to bet on people than ideas.

</comment><comment><USER15> How many flaws can you find in this sentence:

 _The reason I suggest government funding is that unlike a private investor, the government can make a huge return on a business that simply breaks even, assuming all of the employees pay income taxes._

</comment><comment><USER16> Interesting article. I like the concept of a supply-side labor market. A few thoughts:

Planned-economy socialism has severe and often fatal imperfections, but it's still better than our corporate oligarchy/ochlocracy, which retains the worst of both worlds between capitalism and socialism. I'd honestly rather live in the world of Scott Adams, where society has the balls to do something about health and energy, than in this doomed, perennially grid-locked corporate mess we've got going on now. We're so hogtied by the legal equivalent of bad legacy code, and our leadership is so gutless, that we can't even get universal healthcare passed.

The optimal solution is somewhere in the middle between the planned economy and free-market capitalism. You need government to prevent corporations from casting a shadow, and to correct for market failures such as widespread unemployment and high housing costs, and to fund public goods that aren't profitable (infrastructure, research) in the short term, and otherwise stay out.</comment>


I am wondering why not all websites enabling this great feature GZIP? - <AUTHOR> http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2009/05/27/i-am-wondering-why-not-all-websites-enabling-this-great.aspx

<comment><USER2> First: The non-linear increase in CPU consumption versus file size is not adequately explained in the benchmarks. I would do my own benchmarks to see if that is really true.

Second…

In the dark old days, there were versions of IE that claimed they could accept various compressed encodings but could not. This forced people on the server side to craft all sorts of strange rules based on the user agent which then broke on various cacheing proxy servers.

If you have tens of thousands of customers you will have some poor sod behind some misbegotten proxy that will fail and call your support line and burn up your man hours. Bandwidth is cheap compared to humans and lost customers.

Personally, I compress nearly everything these days and if someone can't use my sites I don't really care. I have the luxury of telling them to not use broken software. As for CPU use, I tend to cache the compressed results of requests so I don't have to gzip on each request, just on each new one.</comment>