Ask HN: Anyone have a CR-48 they are not using? - <AUTHOR>

An anon account since I did not want to get flamed by those that troll for no good reason...But I am a loyal HN reader, many times a day..
I really wanted to receive a CR-48 so I can move to a more cloud based way of working. I started an NPO and boy what a process this has become. Very involved, but I am learning so much. The NPO deals with getting school supplies to students who's parents cannot afford them otherwise..
I am always on the go. Driving, flying and I lose productivity time because I cannot achieve a workflow that works for me.
My MacBook is great, but no 3G, bigger than I would like, etc.
My iPad 3G helps, but a serious lack of good apps that work for me. An onscreen keyboard is tough and carrying around a blue tooth is not a solution, really it isn't.
I applied for a CR-48 as an NPO but nothing yet and I am going to be spending literally weeks traveling starting next thursday!
Can anyone help me out with a solution? <comment><USER2> I don't want to sound rude but if you can afford a Macbook and an iPad why don't you just buy an ordinary netbook? What's so special about the Google ones?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I think the integration is pretty important, plus built in 3G and Wifi are important. SSD, decent RAM, the list goes on. I really like Google services and a complete workflow would be great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm there are a few net books that have 3G now</comment></comment></comment>


Networking is a key to success for women in the business world - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/22/BU2913LJ4B.DTL

<comment><USER2> Networking is a key to everybody's success, not just women.

Some hackers have a tendency to see success through networking as a lower sort of success.

As in, you weren't smart enough to do something on your own, good thing you had a lot of connections.

But that's a profoundly naive view of the world.

Nothing that you can do/build/write/etc can be:

1\. Easily understood. Almost anyone gets it at first look

2\. Incredibly valuable.

3\. Requires little to no resources.

Only if you have all of the above can you become successful with no connections.

But unless you can make people instantly young again, using nothing but your pocket lint and hand waiving, you will need networking.

<comment><USER3> Dang, beat me to it.</comment></comment>


A simple UI framework for Rust - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cybergeek94/kiss-ui <comment><USER2> Screenshots would be helpful for a project like this.

<comment><USER3> [http://iup.sourceforge.net/en/screenshots.html](http://iup.sourceforge.net/en/screenshots.html)

These are for the widget toolkit this project is based on, rather than from the project proper, but it's better than nothing I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Rather than seeing more GTK bindings or lookalikes I personally am waiting for something like WPF/XAML or JavaFx/FXML to turn up.

Anyone seen any projects like this for rust?

<comment><USER5> It's not like that, but the other non-bindings toolkit that exists is Conrod: [https://github.com/PistonDevelopers/conrod](https://github.com/PistonDevelopers/conrod)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cool, I didn't know about IUP at all! Rust has burned me a bit lately (muh 128-bit arithmetic, no!), but I still have a fair bit of nostalgia for Lua; I have a sneaking suspicion I will look to IUP for some of my planned projects. At the very least, cool project and I learned about another cool thing!

<comment><USER7> IUP is one of the friendliest toolkits to write bindings for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can anyone explain what IUP is and why its needed for this toolkit? Because it seems to me that a UI framework shouldn't come with a dependency on system- specific binaries, but that's just because I don't understand what it is, probably.

<comment><USER9> IUP is a GUI Widget Toolkit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Out of curiosity: why the author tends to write "self" at the end of the methods ?

<comment><USER11> This would be to enable method chaining so you can do stuff like:

        dialog.set_title("blah").set_size_pixels(100, 100);

(note syntax may be out - I am not a Rust expert...)

<comment><USER12> Couldn't one write a chain macro instead ? That way you don't have to rely on the library to return self.

        chain!(dialog, set_title("blah"), set_size_piels(100, 100));

<comment><USER13> Okay, yes, you _could_ do that, but the library itself provides this as its idiomatic way of doing things.

<comment><USER14> The macro is a better solution, since you can't rely on every library doing this kind of thing.

<comment><USER15> Why wouldn't I want to do

dialog.set_title("blah");

dialog.set_size_piels(100, 100);

on two lines?

<comment><USER16> Because functional programming.

<comment><USER17> To expand a bit: Sometimes, instead of thinking about nouns all the time, you want to think about verbs. Instead of saying "mutate this noun by applying verb1" and then "mutate this noun by applying verb2" etc, you are creating a new verb. The new verb is "verb1 then verb2 then...." And then when you have the verb defined, you apply it to your object.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Impressive what people are building in little time with Rust!

</comment><comment><USER19> Cool, but why not build on top of the Servo engine? Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER20> Because it is not web based.

<comment><USER19> Does that matter? I bet the core Servo libraries don't even deal with networking. And using Servo has obvious advantages such as a being a good render engine supporting incremental updates, probably being well-documented, well-tested, and conforming to well-known standards (yes, also used on the web, but does that matter really?)

<comment><USER20> Honestly, it matters. Current web technologies aren't the end game solution for interfaces and, IMO, are pretty horrible to work with for that purpose. (Pretty beaten up topic by now, but lets take a moment to think for a second about vertical centering in HTML+CSS. /sigh </rant>)

Still, my answer was just referring to the fact that this is not using web tech, and thus, not using servo or any other existing browser engine.

<comment><USER21> flexbox + viewport units have made this better.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review our startup (bitloot) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bitloot.com

<comment><USER3> I would be careful using PayPal. Another bounty site - microPledge - <USER2> shut down because using PayPal to hold money in Escrow is against their TOS.

I wrote about it here: [http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/10/09/open-source- fundin...](http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/10/09/open-source-funding-site- micropledge-calls-for-help/)

I'm sure there are a lot of project owners from microPledge looking for a new home, but using PayPal might just lead your down the same path.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is top on our list. We decided it was better to launch and start responding to market feedback immediately than delay launch while we integrated with a (more-reliable) payment provider.

It's good to see this getting such attention here, because it's something we discussed at some length internally as a potentially really big problem, and it validates that we're spending time talking about the right things.

<comment><USER4> Hi, Ben from microPledge here. Hmmm ... it's not that PayPal is an "unreliable" payment provider. We found them to be pretty reliable. It's that we (and you, by the looks) are contradicting their ToS in quite an up-front way. We didn't know this at first (i.e., we didn't read the fine print carefully enough.) It's partly holding money in escrow, and partly collecting money on behalf of other "traders" (the developers).

As soon as they catch a whiff of that, they'll shut your account down, and lock your money in for 6 months.

It's not very pleasant, to put it mildly, and if I were you I'd switch to AlertPay or some other provider ASAP. Sorry to be negative about this ... but I'm commenting so you hopefully _don't_ have to go through what we at microPledge did. :-)

(Edit: Oh, just curious, how much did you know about microPledge before you launched? I wouldn't be surprised either way, and certainly good on you for trying ... but your descriptions of the site on Bitloot sound awfully familiar. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cool.

UI crits: 1) Try browsing without javascript enabled (cough). 2) Try using the back button in any project-specific page. You have to hit it multiple times, quickly, to go back.

<comment><USER6> Seconding these criticisms - they make it very difficult to browse the site. A related problem is that you can't right click links to open them in their own tab from the browse page. All in all a cool idea though (not sure I see the business potential though).

<comment><USER7> > A related problem is that you can't right click links to open them in their > own tab

That is THE most annoying thing a web developer can do to a user if you ask me!

<comment><USER8> Personally I always use CTRL-click for that...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I recommend adding as many ideas as you can and even fund stuff out of your pocket. I click browse and all I see is "test" and "wordobe test"...

</comment><comment><USER10> As a developer, wouldn't it seem odd to do the work up front, and then have a group of people you don't know vote on whether or not you should be paid? I can't imagine that would be very attractive.

<comment><AUTHOR> If they vote no, you can always take the project somewhere else. Contributors are voting on demos or samples, not on the real code. We don't release that until the election passes.

The hope would be, of course, that developers would resolve their differences with the contributors. But if they don't, developers can walk and take their code with them (shareware it, say, or take it to a third party)

<comment> tsetse-fly It's shareware except you've made it much more complicated. What happens if I vote yes and the other contributors vote no or vice-versa? Does the vote need to be 100%? That sounds like a pain in the ass -- I want my software, now.

This is also not very good for the developer. They have to perfect the software to please all the contributors before getting paid. How long until everyone agrees that it's ready? Where am I supposed to take it if I walk? I just wasted all this time writing code, thinking I was going to get paid and now I have to try and sell software that I didn't even come up with the idea for. At least with Rent A Coder, I don't have to please a group of random people.

<comment><AUTHOR> The amount of votes required is definitely not 100%. That would be way too hard for any developer.

Our election algorithm looks at a lot of metrics before deciding whether to pass a project. Our goal is to pass projects that have broad community consensus that they meet the project requirements. We obviously want to fail projects that have obvious stability problems, or that don't do what the proposal says. We're working hard to make it difficult to game the system, and I'd be interested in any thoughts you might have to make things more fair.

<comment> tsetse-fly What happens if I vote 'no' but the project still passes? Do I still have to pay even though I wasn't satisfied?

If a bunch of contributors vote 'no' and pull their money then how do I improve the project and get them onboard again if it's going to be OSS? With shareware, I can improve the product and catch them on the next release.

<comment><AUTHOR> If the project passes, the developer gets paid. If there's some sort of dispute, we can manually arbitrate. Again, our metrics are for broad consensus and having the shipped product match the original proposal. If those two conditions are met, I think in all fairness, the developer should be paid.

Contributors can only pull money if it's been more than 30 days since they made the contribution. After that 30 day holding period, they can walk. We've considered playing with that number, or letting it be variable.

Contributors don't have great incentive to let an election fail; if it does, they don't get any software (other than whatever demo the developer posted). While I'm sure there will be cranky contributors here and there, hopefully we can factor them out to some extent in our election process. At the macro level, people are going to want the project they contributed to released.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why is this going to work where every other open source bounty site has failed?

<comment><AUTHOR> Open source bounty sites are, in my experience, geared toward solving developer problems. It's rare to see non-coders visit an OSS bounty site and create a bounty.

We're geared toward normal people funding the software projects. Normal people don't want to compile sourcecode; we provide developers incentives for distributing binaries. Normal people don't use wiki markup to describe what they want; we let them use a WSIWYG editor.

Normal people also use different platforms (mostly Windows and Mac). Making binaries work across platforms (12 people want Windows, 5 people want Mac, 3 only care about the source...) and giving the developer the tools to field those platforms (Is there demand for a Mac port? Is it worth my time?) is something that hasn't been solved yet by any bounty system I've seen.

<comment> tsetse-fly Who are these "normal people?" Can you give an example of software they would be interested in funding?

I'm having a hard time imagining exactly who you're targeting.

How is this different than microPledge?

<comment><AUTHOR> * College kids who want a good, free game to play at a LAN party

* My mom, who wants a free alternative to MS Word that works well on Windows and is less intimidating than OO (and more powerful than Google Docs)

* People who saw an OSS tool running on their friend's Linux and want a port to their platform

* People who run existing closed-source software that they want to add a feature to, but can't

* People like me who code, but are too busy to learn to hack Platform X just to get Feature Y

I was a long-time mp user. Unfortunately they are no longer operating. As I understand it, their model was more focused on funding (mostly closed) software in an open way. Of course, it's difficult to convince closed-source people that community funding is a good idea, and I think that was one of several challenges they faced before shutting down.

Our focus is completely different. We want to connect people with OSS. A large part of that is money (because money is a strong attractive force). We talk about it a lot, because people start listening when you tell them they're going to get paid. But there are other problems too--search (how do people find OSS projects?), developer time (I have a week--what do I work on?). These problems are far out of bounds of micropledge or other bounty or funding systems.

<comment><USER12> Does your mom know how to write a software specification document?

<comment><USER8> Does _anyone_ know how to write a _meaningful_ sofware specification document?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't like the behavior of the tabs. When I wanted to back to browsing all projects, I clicked on "Browse." That didn't work, so I tried my back button. That didn't work either. Then, several minutes later, I noticed the "Back" link. This was definitely not intuitive.

Also, once I click "Next" when browsing for projects, I see absolutely no way to go back!

</comment><comment><USER14> This strikes me as a market research tool - trying to find out what people want, the needs, the problem to be solved, the pain to address. It's tricky for users to make the connection between problem and solution (hell, it's tricky for _anyone_ \- so why not users?)

Here's my suggestion: target developing knock-offs (copies of existing products). There's a long and glorious tradition of this in open source (linux, gimp, open office, samba, mySQL, etc). It works because users already know they need it, and how to use it, it's already integrated into their behaviour and their other processes and other software - and programmers have a clear specification to work from. This narrowing the kind of project you seek to fund (i.e. a _niche_ ) will help you in many ways, as any business book will recommend (even though narrowing your options seems like a limiting thing...)

But please don't use this to undermine good-guy programmers, who took the risk of working to understand a problem, design a solution and get it accepted - use your bounty powers for good, not evil. That is, use it to break monopolies that are hurting customers in small industries. If they have any sense, the monopolist will back down, and some good will be done (whether the open source product is actually used or not). Sounds like good, heroic fun!

</comment><comment><USER12> So instead of a model built on trust, this is a model based on distrust.

It doesn't feel right to me, for various reasons, starting with the above.

Also it vaguely says that code must be "open source" but this is not a well- defined term. The GPL (just one example of many possible licenses for open source software) requires that GPL-licensed projects have the source code available in the preferred format, an important distinction that is not necessarily present in all open source licenses. A developer could provide an assembler dump of their code, and claim that was open source, and walk away with the payment.

Worse, of course, they could just do a slideware demo, or they could do a demo using Microsoft Word, but claiming that it was software they had written.

Also you claim to be more centered on normal users, but normal users don't know or care about open source. To them, they just want the program. Yes, open source gives them benefits too, but they don't know that, nor do they really want to know.

As a developer, I would feel hesitant about committing much time to a project - it would be huge gamble. On a normal open source project, I could get things started, get the code base maybe 80% done, and then when that last 20% needs to be done (which in reality is actually 80% of the work ;-)) others typically would be pitching in, to the point where I could even walk away and development would continue without me, ensuring my initial work was not wasted, and ensuring the project got done. But with your site, the developer risks that the "normal users" will see any rough edges and deliver a total rejection - binary thumbs down - and I won't get paid. So it forces me to do way more work, and even then, the users can still say no based on some arbitrary whim - "I like the OK button on the left, not the right, this sucks!" - that's just an example; please don't bother trying to debunk it unless you can address the more general point.

All that being said, I could be wrong! It's happened before! I'll be curious to see how it turns out.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nice idea. (Aside: I'm running some experiments on similar themes, the first one is at: <http://inimino.org/pffs/experiment> )

As others have said, the site would benefit greatly from proper use of Web standards and accessibility. Perhaps these problems are due to GWT. What you have is probably good enough to test the idea, so I won't beat this into the ground.

As for the model, I think users are much more likely to fund software that they already know and use. Once software is actually released, it develops a community of users, some of whom may be willing to support it. Asking the small fraction of users with the foresight to anticipate using a program to bear the entire cost of developing it may work for a few cases (e.g. device drivers, or cloning existing software) but there are many other software projects that would have more success if they can rely on donations after they have been written and released.

A model that finds a way for developers to work on credit against donations from future users would be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER16> I couldn't find the info on the site but how do you decide when to release the funds to the developer?

I've developed a similar site in the past but never publicly released it as there was a few flaws in the system that I couldn't work around. I've since moved on but I'm wondering how you managed to get around them.

For my system you got votes based on the amount you contributed. This opened the site up to people pledging just enough to get 51% of the vote then accepting any solution even bad ones.

The other way where the creator of the bounty gets the final say also opens up to people creating popular bounties then claiming them for themselves with no acceptable solution posed.

Outside of automated solutions I suppose you could have staff review each claim manually but I decided against this idea as it just couldn't scale.

Anyhow, curious to read your solutions to these problems.

<comment><AUTHOR> Voting algorithms are hard. If people game Digg and Reddit, you just _know_ they're going to be all over you when there's money involved.

We've got some pretty good metrics that we're looking at. The obvious ones, like number of contributors, voting times, and so on. We also look at activity, and construct minimum spanning trees for various subsets of users as an automated "Someone should look at this" flag. Contribution times and rates are also something we look at.

Probably the biggest single stopgap measure is decidedly low-tech: there's a short delay (a day or so) between project release and release of funds. If any real people at all are downloading the stuff they paid for and it doesn't work, hopefully they'll shoot an e-mail off to us and we'll take a look.

<comment><USER16> The last solution you mentioned was one I ended up implementing but I just wasn't happy enough with the rest of the solution to work out better fraud detection.

One other suggestion for going forward might be to implement none software bounties as well. A large portion of my development was based on the idea of community bounties. Say Bountyville wants their park cleaned up so their kids can play they all chip into a bounty on your site. Receive proposals from companies then choose the best one to do the job. This would help you get more "normal" people involved in the site which might translate into these people discovering the software side of the site as well.

The only difference you need for those are a two stage voting process where by users vote on proposals before the action and also on the result after.

Anyhow, best of luck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> 1st note: before I allowed scripts all I saw was:

Blog | Contact © 2008 Experiment House LLC

Blog and Contact were links, but that was all that was on the screen. Your site isn't that shiny and fancy, so it has no reason to be so dependent on JS.

It's a cool idea though. I could see developing on it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks like a neat idea. Reminds me of <http://www.gimado.com/>, just more targeted. I think these investment sites could be a very lucrative way to raise money for small startup operations.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's been tried before, check out <http://www.micropledge.com> . That site doesn't seem to be active any more.

</comment><comment><USER12> 1\. Have you (the founders) ever contributed to open source projects? It seems to me you are taking the time resources of open source developers for granted. 2\. Is your project (bitloot) open source? 3\. Repository URL?

</comment><comment><USER20> Great idea, what is your marketing plan?

I would suggest finding a few businesses that spend a substantial amount of money every month on proprietary software. Then ask them to support the development of a free and better version by pledging a small amount each.

The supporters can see it as a form of advertising for one. Every company would love to have its name behind a piece of software that has the ability to change the game. They also get to fix a problem and reduce future expenses.

Not only that, this new software will be constantly updated by talented people who are passionated about the problem they are solving and they will not have to pay a penny more for new versions.

<comment><AUTHOR> We've got a couple of companies we're in talks with, but of course we're looking for more. If you can think of any, shoot me an e-mail (in profile).

<comment><USER20> I do not have any from the top of my head, but visit VCs website and search their enterprise portfolio. Once you find a few companies you like, go to their sites and see what the customers they target and email those guys.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> You broke the back button. You should also add a feature to banish the _really_ stupid ideas, like the one where someone wants to configure DosBOX to launch Lemmings automatically.

</comment><comment><USER22> This could be ridiculously awesome... if it actually works.

</comment><comment><USER23> See also 'BountySource': <https://www.bountysource.com/>

(Never used it, don't know much about it, just made a note of it when it first got attention.)

</comment><comment><USER24> I like the idea, even though I'm a bit pessimistic about it kicking off...

A few glitches I noticed:

* The video takes awhile to load, while loading there's a black rectangle. May be use an image while the flash is loading, or bootstrap your flash with a preloader a la youTube.

* The "Help" form is behind the flash video.

* Consider dimming the background when the help form is open. Also, close it when the user clicks anywhere _not_ on the form or presses Esc. ThickBox, GreyBox, LightBox, Uservoice, etc all do that, it's something the users expect.

* As _clay_ suggested add some real content, no one is going to contribute to a test site.

<comment><AUTHOR> On what browser/platform is "Help" rendering behind the flash video?

<comment><USER24> FF3 and Chrome running under Vista x64. Works fine with IE7 though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Tone down the reverb on your demo video!

</comment><comment><USER26> Nice. Very similar to <http://schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html>

Nice to see some implementation of it.

</comment><comment> cool-RR This looks cool!

<comment> tsetse-fly Is this guy a spambot?</comment></comment>


Firefox Mobile = (could be) WOW - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/11/zoom-pan-throw-a-peek-at-what-firefox-mobile-could-be/

<comment><USER2> Competition is good and well; because Firefox hasn't been enthusiastic about it lately (cf. Acid 3), this could be a welcome change.

Not crazy about the UX elements (the touch-"throw" gesture to return to the main menu, for one), but it's, of course, a prototype.</comment>


NTSB Criticizes Apple After Fatal Tesla Autopilot Crash - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2020/02/25/ntsb-apple-employees-distracted-driving/ <comment><USER2> this seems completely unecessary, it's not an employer's job to tell its employees how to drive to work.</comment>


The Most Popular Online Course Teaches You to Learn (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/the-most-popular-online-course-teaches-you-to-learn/ <comment><USER2> Can't believe after scrolling through that there's no link to the course in the article:

[https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to- learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn)

<comment><USER3> For the impatient, the author of the course has a nice handout with 10 tips for good and bad studying: [http://www.barbaraoakley.com/pdf/10rulesofstudying.pdf](http://www.barbaraoakley.com/pdf/10rulesofstudying.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for sharing! Is there anything like Anki out there, but it's a SaaS product and available both on my phone and on the web?

<comment><USER5> I don't quite understand your question.

AnkiWeb: [https://ankiweb.net/about](https://ankiweb.net/about)

Android: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ichi2.anki](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ichi2.anki)

iOS: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ankimobile- flashcards/id3734...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ankimobile- flashcards/id373493387) ($24.99)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My problem with online courses boils down to the "sticking around issue", as I like to call it. You start, you get mildly bored, most of the time you're too drained by work to really feel like you're learning.... aaand you drop it.

What's your solution to that? Enrolling into paid courses only? Approaching courses with a different mindset altogether?

<comment> white-flame A big problem lies from the MOOC end, not the student end, in unnecessarily enforcing a schedule and penalizing those who fall behind. That's a huge detractor to catching up and finishing the course when "life happens".

If I could resume at my own pace, I'd have finished courses that I gave up on.

<comment><USER7> +1. I have found myself completing courses when I can choose my pace. There are times when I am done with project work, and I merrily chomp through a course or some difficult task during the weekend.

I wonder if this schedule is a carry over from how college courses are run. Perhaps there are those who need the discipline of a schedule. It'd have been nice to have a choice between a schedule as well as an "at your pace".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't think measuring completion is a good metric. I don't see the value in a certificate, so I never buy them. I've taken a lot of courses that I haven't fully completed and still got a lot of value out of them. Sometimes I get bored or busy and don't complete them, sometimes I'm only interested in parts, sometimes I don't want to do a pile of homework on a topic that I'm just looking for a refresher on.

I think the Kahn academy model is a much better one where you complete things in much smaller units and can pick up where you left off, but it doesn't really get into more advanced material.

I see people say there's value in completing the course with others, but I value the flexibility.

</comment><comment><USER9> "The Achilles heel of the MOOC phenomena has been that while enrollments have been huge, the number of students who actually complete courses for credit has remained low."

Of course completion is low, there is no cost to signing up so many people will do it on a whim.

The real Achilles heal is certification, for it to be valued employers need to be convinced you aren't cheating and that the assessment is rigorous.

<comment><USER10> Also, I don't care about the entire course. I want the specific information that is relevant to my problem at hand. I'll be the judge of which lectures satisfy what I need.

I find it a shame that MOOCs these days are trying to duplicate the brick and mortar experience, because they really could be offering so much more.

<comment><USER11> I signed up for the course in question - I think it was my first interaction with a MOOC - and lost interest very quickly. Realistically, I need the abbreviated version rather than the intro videos and the opportunity to meet classmates and so on.

Does a MOOC have an interest in creating longer courses that seem like they're worthy of certification, rather than just teaching people quickly and effectively?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I took this course about a year ago and really enjoyed it.

The main things I took away were:

* focused and diffuse thinking - I now take short walks at work if I'm struggling with problems for a bit and often find I come up with an alternative approach when I'm not focusing as tightly

* repetition and recall - I take notes and then create flash cards to force recalling information

Additionally, learning the science behind why you lose information so fast after a cramming session has been helpful too. I really wish I had learned this info before attending college, it could have made a big difference for me.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm currently taking this course for the second time. The first time I enrolled I didn't get around to watching any of the lectures. Luckily, I ran across a reminder email from the course and it just so happened that I had enough free time to re-enroll and complete the first week's lectures. It's really difficult to feel invested when the cost to sign-up is $0. They do try to create a community around the course, but it's so distributed that I wouldn't consider it a cohort in the traditional sense.

<comment><USER14> What's your feedback on it so far? I saw the course a few weeks back and it seemed kind of gimmicky so didn't dive deeper.

<comment><USER15> I finished it a couple of weeks ago, and it's really worthwhile.

It did seem a bit gimmicky and superficial at first, but once the course progresses, you realize that the material itself heavily applies the techniques that they describe in the course (e.g. spaced repetition, visual associations).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Do the hardest thing earliest in the day, when you are fresh.

I do the opposite. I do the easiest things first, so I can concentrate on the harder problems without the easy ones being on my mind.

Also, I just don't work that well in the morning. Later in the day is best for me for my most difficult tasks.

</comment><comment><USER17> I took the course 2 years ago and really enjoyed it. I didn't take a lot of work, yet the content was relevant and good.

<comment><USER18> Do you still remember any of the course?

<comment><USER17> Not that much. I remember the importance of sleep when you're learning (well explained in the course), and also spaced repetition and the importance of recalling the material on your own.

I also remember that the instructors were very good - positive and enthusiastic, and that they explained the concepts very well.

In general, it's hard to remember contents of courses I think. I often try to write a review of the course, either as a blog post, or on one of the review sites (Course Talk or Class Central). The act of deciding what was the most important parts, and expressing it in words go a long way towards remembering better.

Examples of reviews:

[https://henrikwarne.com/2015/10/20/coursera-course-review- so...](https://henrikwarne.com/2015/10/20/coursera-course-review-software- security/)

[https://www.class-central.com/@henrik/reviews](https://www.class- central.com/@henrik/reviews)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The article fails to cover that this course is actually short and simple unlike the other MOOC courses which contributes to the success of this course. Maybe there is a lesson here for other MOOCs which is make your courses more byte sized and simple so people can actually complete them instead of putting your class room course as is online.

</comment><comment><USER20> I looked into this couple weeks ago; how is the course compared to _Mind for Numbers_?

</comment><comment><USER21> Popularity is an odd way to rank online courses. It really only speaks to what is the most universal interest, so it's not terribly surprising that's a course such as this (as opposed to an area of speciality).

</comment><comment><USER22> I looked at the article written by Barbara Oakley which was cited in the current article. [1]

MOOC deniers are asking if they a) adequately satisfy the requirements from education, an important part of which is the actual completion of the course and b) are economically viable.

Let us leave aside the question of whether you decide if it is a good idea whether to gamble at Vegas by talking only to those who hit the jackpot. [6]

Barbara Oakley's defense seems to be:

1\. "Look at how many people can now learn this stuff" [2]

2\. "Look at all the new and amazing things which happen when students can play, pause, rewind and resume the lesson, or when teachers can use all the technologies at their disposal" [3].

3\. To fellow instructors: "Please try a little better. The problem might be the way you teach"

And remember that teaching someone how to learn is not exactly at the same level of rigor or conceptual difficulty [4] of teaching someone calculus. If you have ever seen a screencast of some really dense material [5] from some really smart people and see them struggle to "hold the stack in their head", so to speak, as they present their thoughts in public view, you know the process starts becoming seriously challenging as the subject increases in difficulty. Here are some quotes from Barbara Oakley's articles, which I think are good examples of things which don't scale very well as the material becomes more rigorous.

"Good online courses make students feel professors are speaking directly to them. A teacher's direct focus on the camera translates as personal attention in the videos. Students develop a sense of familiarity; we are often seen as friendly private tutors. It makes us more approachable and "listen-to-able." It's not that we're replacing teachers in a classroom. It's that we serve as additional personalized resources, despite the fact that we're explaining at massive scales. And I should mention that every single video lecture I give in our MOOC is the best lecture on that topic I've ever given in my life."

"Terry and I made "Learning How to Learn" for less than $5,000, and largely in my basement. I had no previous film editing experience—in fact, I could barely click a camera shutter. Much of the moving imagery for the course was created using simple PowerPoint slides. So I would issue a challenge to MOOC critics. Make your own online course. Film the most interesting, most insightful lecture you've ever given in your life. If you don't think your lecture is good enough, reshoot it until you're happy. Make your video available for millions of students around the world, not just the privileged few in your classes. Come up with questions for a quiz on the mistakes you most commonly see in your classes. You will learn more than you know about the outreach and capabilities of MOOCs. More importantly, you will exemplify a wonderful openness for learning to students everywhere."

[1] [http://nautil.us/issue/29/scaling/why-virtual-classes-can- be...](http://nautil.us/issue/29/scaling/why-virtual-classes-can-be-better- than-real-ones)

[2] "She cited a range of groups who are promoting the course from the California State Prison System, federal K-12 teacher certificate programs, as well as refugee camps in Somalia and Sudan, where she asserted that students threatened to overwhelm the meager Internet bandwidth available in those countries." \- from original article

[3] "I would venture to say most MOOC deniers have little experience with creating and teaching online courses. The reality is MOOCs can be artistically and technically fascinating and can have terrific pedagogical advantages. This is particularly true in the fraught area of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), where difficult explanations often cry out for a student to replay a portion of a lecture, or simply to take a pause while comprehension works its way to consciousness. "

[4] For example, I would like to know how the students assessed the satisfactory completion of the material to decide whether they are, indeed, better learners. And then compare it with whether their actual learning rate improved in their future endeavors.

[5] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfoudtpBV68&list=PL4LJlvG_SD...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfoudtpBV68&list=PL4LJlvG_SDpxQAwZYtwfXcQr7kGnl9W93)

Edits: some edits for readability

[6] I mean this in two senses. One, of course, is the choice of subject, among thousands of possible ones - something as meta as "Learning how to learn" has a few built in advantages when it comes to measuring popularity. Two, I don't mean it in the sense of a skill-less person getting the luck of the draw to achieve the desired result. I mean in the sense of how there are bound to be a few jackpot winners in a large enough sample, and studying them is misleading because the takeaway messages are not universally applicable.

<comment><USER23> Yes, a 4 hour seminar on study skills is more of a supplement than a unit of progress toward mastering a subject. So? It fills an import gap for students who didn't learn study skills in traditional school.

Sure, "Most popular MOOC" is a gimmick -- CGPGrey or Veritasium could claim that any of their YouTube videos are the most popular MOOC.

To really evaluate this course, they should compare students who take this course plus other, vs students who only take others. (Which has blindness problems, but it's a start)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think this is a good list to take good course, I'll save it only for take a few.</comment>


Entrepreneurship is risk free: Heads I win, tails I don't lose much - <AUTHOR> http://sameer.madhouse.in/entrepreneurship-is-risk-free-heads-i-win-tails-i-don%e2%80%99t-lose-much/

<comment><USER2> What this doesn't take into account is the fact that 90+% of kids out of college who decide to become entrepreneurs don't get traction, don't network with other CEOs, and aren't getting the respect of people even if they fail. It's like only looking at the failures among companies that have been YC funded, and not looking at all the companies that failed after not even getting funded.

<comment><USER3> Its quite possible a kid leaving college not only fails at the startup, but fails at networking and building contacts, and also fails at learning anything at all.

<comment><USER4> Kids who are interested in learning only become entrepreneurs.The kid is interested in networking but he don't know the way to network.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I am sympathetic to the author's thesis, the discussion is pretty meaningless unless you acknowledge that there is opportunity cost to doing a startup. Sure, you learn a lot and set up good contacts even if your startup fails - but the risk is in what _other_ opportunities you might be missing. It's not sufficient to just be better off than when you started.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a pretty rosy "worst case" scenario. madhouse was acquired; most people would consider that a success. The vast majority of failed startup founders _do not_ get a VP position at their next job.

I suspect that for the vast majority of failed startups, the cost is mostly pride and the lost wages of having a steady job for that 2-3 years. The benefit is whatever experience you gain from that time period - people will judge you based on your skill level and what you've learned.

There's also a much-worse case where people take on $100ks of debt, lose their friends, lose their home, get divorced, and waste 10 years of their life on a venture that was doomed from the start. This outcome is fairly easily avoided by keeping perspective and constantly re-evaluating whether the potential upside merits the risks you're taking, but it does happen to some people.

</comment><comment><USER7> The title of this article contradicts itself and doesn't match the content of the article, which contains an awful lot of "if's" to sustain the words "risk free".

I almost stopped reading after inferring that he believes being the CEO of a startup that your interviewer has never heard of, and for which "traction" probably can't be defined in less than 10 minutes of conversation, is a credential that will improve your chances at another company.

Selling a company is an accomplishment. Usually. (Sometimes that "sale" is a marketing fiction, but, whatever). Most entrepreneurs --- in fact, _most_ of the entrepreneuers that _get traction_ \--- don't manage to sell their companies.

<comment><USER8> I disagree completely, at least for young entrepreneurs.

I started a hosted email company in high-school, and while it never really went anywhere, it was the single greatest thing on my resume.

It made me stand far above most other applicants, proved that I could start and complete something interesting, and gave me a lot of real-world experiences to talk about in an interview, as opposed to the standard "In this database class I took..."

<comment><USER7> By all means start a company instead of playing World of Warcraft, hanging out at Denny's, and going to Fall Out Boy concerts. You're right. Starting a company is basically risk-free when you're in high school (though note that it's _not_ risk free when you're in college; getting a degree would be an incredible pain in the ass for me now, and I traded that opportunity for a startup win in the '90s).

<comment><USER8> There's a lot of free time in college, if you can keep your time organized. It's very possible to (a) get decent grades (GPA 3.3-3.7), (b) learn something in the classes that are interesting, (c) hang out with friends, party like it's 1999, get laid, and (d) work on a "startup" (more like a side-project at this point) for 10-20 hours per week.

If you're effective for those "startup" hours, you can have something to show for it in a year -- maybe a business worth pursuing, maybe just an amazing addition to your resume.

In any case, going to college and working on a startup shouldn't necessarily be exclusionary, unless the startup proves to be successful enough that it makes sense to drop-out or finish your degree remotely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _When your son started this venture he auto promoted himself from SW engineer to the CEO / CXO - A level he may have never achieved or achieved after a very long time period in a regular career with big SW companies_

There is an astronomical difference between being a CEO of a 2-5 man company that barely has any clients (if that much) and a CEO of a large company with a massive number of clients, employees, and large revenues. It's like comparing a "lead" accountant for a 5 person non-profit with a lead accountant that took Google to IPO. To quote Jules from Pulp Fiction, "ain't in the same f#$% ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same f#$% sport."

</comment><comment><USER10> In the Indian context, this article makes much more sense!

Note for instance the opening, "Recently I met with parents of the founder of one of our portfolio companies." :) How many times would PG have met with the parents of a YC founder?

Money during bootstrap phase would be from parents -> A middle-class kid fresh out of college, could be easily supported by his parents for 3-5 years, staying at home, with no additional expenses. Given many parents support grad school, supporting their kids while they're working on a startup would not be a stretch (if they agree with this article or see the fire in their kids).

If the startup goes anywhere but dead, (in a year or so) the founders would have got a reasonable amount of independent mgmt experience, ability to startup and deliver, and exposure to industry far greater than their peers.

Now in India there is a severe lack of middle management capable of independent decision making, project level leadership, and delivery. There is also a shortage of folks who can think at a product and market level, as opposed to a customer/service level. A guy coming out of a startup (even failed) who can demonstrate these skills would be quite better than his peers who may have far more experience in sw development.

If the startup fails within a few months or years, worst case, an MBA may be in store, although it would certainly not be as exciting :)

Many of the guys who are doing this would probably be of upper-class, or upper-middle class, whose families would certainly encourage such risk taking.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you get traction and press attention particularly, then doors and options open up to you. Also if you have a chance to speak at a conference you get a lot of respect, often from people who didn't know who you were previously.

However, getting traction and press attention are the hardest bits. Also, how much of your own money do you lose before quitting?

That said, even if you fail, if you had a job before, the chances are you could at least do the same thing again after.

</comment><comment><USER12> nicely written article.

Still it should be considered that the author is a VC. Hence it's in his utmost interest to portray entrepreneurship as quasi risk-free. The more people decide to start a company, the bigger his choice while selecting a company for funding. Reminds me a bit of 37signals who is kind of doing the same thing, in order to promote their applications.

</comment><comment><USER13> something is missing here, who is paying you when you starting your venture? your saving, angel fund?

</comment><comment><USER14> That's very simple to say after the fact.</comment>


Astronauts enter China's space station [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-37699910?ocid=socialflow_twitter <comment><USER2> China has now done 6 crewed missions to space in the last 3 years. In that time, Russia has had 13 manned missions many of which NASA astronauts have hitched a ride on. NASA is still on the ground since discontinuing the shuttle program in 2011.

<comment><USER3> With so much at stake, is it possible for all nations to play together and strive for the better good when it comes to space exploration?

<comment><USER4> Only in movies. A lot of people (including poliicians deciding about treaties and budgets) do not believe there's really anything at stake, and instead think of space exploration as a _very expensive_ nerd hobby with some possible military applications.

<comment><USER2> And ironically those same people believe their silly little political games on earth are what's really important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Aren't Chinese space travelers called Taikonauts? The title make it sounds like Americans are invading China's space station.

<comment><USER6> I think so... anyways I find stupid the need to differentiate the "space worker(?)" by country of origin. They all do the same awesome thing.

<comment><USER5> The Russians invented the job, yet us Americans decided to go with Astronaut rather than Cosmonaut.

<comment><USER7> And we French people wanted to go with our American friends but didn't want to anger the Russian giant... so we went with our own "spationaute"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think it's fantastic to see another country having the ability to send humans into orbit.

Currently there are only two - Russia and China - so it's great we can all live vicariously through their achievements!

</comment><comment><USER9> Initially read this as "US astronauts enter China's space station". That would have been interesting.

<comment><USER10> Valid confusion. Correct headline would be "Taikonauts enter China's space station"

Cosmonauts = Russian Taikonauts = Chinese Astronauts = Western

<comment><USER11> Can we stop this? It's the modern-day version of the victorian collective noun parlour game, and just as stupid.

<comment><USER12> Then we should stop using the inaccurate "astronaut" and call them all cosmonauts.

<comment><USER13> Astronaut is the original English word. Cosmonaut is a transliteration from the Russian word for astronaut. So if we're speaking English, we should use astronaut regardless of the country they're from. Otherwise we're forced to invent silly new words that nobody understands like taikonaut and what will we call Indian astronauts or whoever's next?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut#Terminology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut#Terminology)

<comment><USER14> The argument is that Astronaut means "sailor of the stars", but "Cosmonaut" means "sailor of the cosmos".

As they're obviously not sailing between stars, but in the cosmos, Cosmonaut is obviously the correct term.

<comment><USER13> Not according to dictionary.com:

"Astro- a combining form with the meaning "pertaining to stars or celestial bodies, or to activities, as spaceflight, taking place outside the earth's atmosphere," used in the formation of compound words:"

It sounds like the Greek(?) meaning has been lost now in English, which is fine since it's a different language. Astronomers still sometimes look at other planets afterall.

<comment><USER14> According to that, literally means figuratively, too.

Sometimes linguistic prescriptivism is necessary to keep a language actually understandable, and to ensure it makes sense, and doesn't just become thousands of independent statements that you have to learn by heart.

<comment><USER15> That ship sailed long ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Are the docks compatible with Soyuz?

<comment><USER17> no.

<comment><USER18> It sounds like there are mixed opinions on that - the Chinese docking system is reportedly a clone of the Russian APAS-89/APAS-95 docking system (which is also in use on the ISS).

So it's possible, but there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer at the moment.

<comment><USER19> I would have thought there would have been a technology transfer amongst the spacefaring nations, so that _just in case_ they could dock with each other.

<comment><USER18> That's basically the history of the APAS docking system [1], which was co- developed by American and Soviet engineers.

So why isn't it universal? As usual, XKCD has a compelling explanation: [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgynous_Peripheral_Attach_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgynous_Peripheral_Attach_System)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> they are not "astronauts", but taïkonauts. The chinese term for going into space. Astronauts are for US. Cosmonauts for Russians. and Spationauts for Europeans.

<comment><USER21> They are astronauts. Your definitions are off

[https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/astronaut](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/astronaut)

[https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cosmonaut](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cosmonaut)

[https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/taikonaut](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/taikonaut)

[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/astronaut](http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/astronaut)

[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cosmonaut](http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/cosmonaut)

[ Merriam-Webster doesn't define Taïkonaut ]

<comment><USER20> Actually, the Russian call their space people "Cosmonauts". "Astronaut" has been chosen by NASA, while the USSR chose "Cosmonaut". But you're right regarding the chinese. They are not called Taikonaut in their own country. But neither "astronaut". link : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut) Check the terminology section.

I just wanted to highligth that only NASA (or English speaker world) call their astronaut "astronaut". In europe, we call them spationauts. And in russia, they call them "cosmonauts".

<comment><USER22> The Russian calls lots of things differently than the Americans do.

Also, nobody in Denmark says spationaut. We say Astronaut, so not all of Europe and not only English speakers.

<comment><USER20> I do hear you, buddy. I'm french, and I do say "Astronaut" when I speaking about space. I'm just stating that in newspaper (not always), they say "spationaut". It's just how it's supposed to be said. But not everyone is following this. And it's ok. I was just highlighting the fact that there is a different name for people going to space regarding the country they are from. That's all.

But yeah, the american word it has probably won in the popular culture and in the day-to-day language.

Sorry. I didn't want to sound like Mr. know it all.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


WiringPi – deprecated - <AUTHOR> http://wiringpi.com/wiringpi-deprecated/ <comment><USER4> First of all, sorry to hear that WiringPi is deprecated, and I would like to thank the author for all the effort he put into this project.

When I read his blog post on his reasoning, I can't help but be reminded of the feud between xscreensaver's author and Debian maintainers. Debian maintainers refused to upgrade the app's version and refused to remove the 'For support contact the author's email' notice. The author's fed up with all the support emails he gets from Debian (outdated) installations' users and put in a message prompt blasting Debian. It was very ugly for both sides.

I think that there can be an extension on GPL that says, if you bundle this library and is not using the latest official version from the author, you are not allowed to include the author's contact information. If you insist on bundling the author's email with your outdated software, then you are in violation of GPL.

As for people stealing his code. Sorry to hear this. I got nothing except to try to contact EFF.

<comment><USER5> _I can 't help but be reminded of the feud between xscreensaver's author and Debian maintainers._

For the curious, the post: [https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/04/i-would-like- debian-to-stop...](https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/04/i-would-like-debian-to- stop-shipping-xscreensaver/)

And the instigatory thread: [https://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=819703](https://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=819703)

<comment><USER6> Because jwz appears to have a very short fuse and at one point in time one or a group of users on HN didn't agree with him (as best as I can remember), referrals from HN are redirected to an image of a testicle.

Here is a wayback machine link to avoid the image:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20190810115358/https://www.jwz.or...](http://web.archive.org/web/20190810115358/https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/04/i-would- like-debian-to-stop-shipping-xscreensaver/)

<comment><USER7> Wow, if you pull shit like that that immediately is 1 point for the other team in whatever beef he had

<comment><USER8> Links on HN were generating huge amounts of negative traffic.

I don't blame him for having a redirect.

<comment><USER9> OK, a redirect, but to a pornographic image?

<comment><USER10> It's a testicle. Not people having graphic sex.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The author owes nobody anything. He's already done enough. If you've given away something for free, don't expect support or anything free in the future. It's literally like taking a gift from someone and then complaining that it doesn't have enough for you to act indignant to people who give things away for free. Don't like it? Don't use it or improve it and contribute back. Want more? Pay them to build it and add it to what's available for everyone as a way to say thanks.

<comment><USER9> As someone who maintains open source software, I sympathize with the author and agree that he doesn't owe users personalized help.

However, he does have to comply with the legal requirements of the license he uses. Personally, I don't use GPL/LGPL licenses, but if I did, I'd be careful to comply with the provisions of the license.

<comment><USER12> > However, he does have to comply with the legal requirements of the license > he uses.

No, the author doesn't. Not really. The license governs the use of people who don't hold the copyright. That's why the author of a project can just turn around and release under a new license.

<comment><USER9> No, that's incorrect. The license governs the conduct of _both_ parties (here, the creator and the users).

Yes, he can release new software under a new license, but any past software he released under a certain license, he has to follow those terms.

If you come to an agreement with another party (like you agree to license a movie, or book to them), you can't just unilaterally cancel that agreement. That's not how contract law works.

<comment><USER7> He can release the software under a completely different license. Even if that is the exact same software. He can remove all downloads of the software from the websites etc. He owns the copyright.

He cannot prevent people who obtained a version of the software under a license from doing what they want with it under the terms of that license.

<comment><USER9> > He cannot prevent people who obtained a version of the software under a > license from doing what they want with it under the terms of that license.

And that includes getting the source code for a binary released under the GPL. That's _exactly_ what was at issue.

<comment><USER7> You're misunderstanding

Author releases software version A under GPL, source code and a binary.

Anyone can do anything they want with A under the terms of the GPL.

Author releases software version B. People cannot force him to release source code just because A was released under GPL.

Even if he says B falls under GPL but hasn't released the source code (yet), people at most can say he did not comply with the terms of the GPL and refuse to treat/use it as such , which means they cannot use or redistribute it since that is not allowed under normal copyright rules. It cannot be used to force the author to release Bs source code.

<comment><USER9> I agree completely with your interpretation of the GPL. However, from my limited understanding, it seems that the situation in question was indeed about a "version A". I'm not suggesting the author can't release a future version under another license, or none at all. Of course he can.

I'm saying, if he releases version A under the GPL, he has to comply with the terms of the GPL for that release.

In any case, I'm no fan of the GPL, so it's no sweat off my back. But I don't understand someone releasing a software version under a certain license and then getting upset because someone asks him/her to abide by the terms of that license.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I haven't used this library but I maintain a couple moderately well-used python libraries and completely sympathize with these frustrations. The absolute worst was a guy who asked for all sorts of changes then, when I had made it clear I was going a different direction, he tried to start a public shaming on Twitter, this site, Reddit, and even the Wikipedia page (since removed at my own request). It was un-believable. He was the cto of a company, too, at least at that time.

It is sad that there are people out there who will try to ruin your day if you don't do what they want. Especially considering the work we put into these libraries.

<comment><USER14> Big fan of peewee (I love the interface and use it more than SQLA). I've reported a few bugs and each time the bug was fixed within at most a day or two, and a release was cut a few days later. As an open source maintainer myself I admire your commitment and productivity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The complaint about leaving the author's email as the support contact reminds me of sqlite having to change their temp file prefix to "etilqs_" because they were getting support calls and abuse for unrelated applications [1]

[1] [https://github.com/mackyle/sqlite/blob/3cf493d/src/os.h#L52-...](https://github.com/mackyle/sqlite/blob/3cf493d/src/os.h#L52-L66)

</comment><comment><USER16> I've used WiringPI, it's a solid library, and - like a lot of people - I'm glad it exists.

But here's a contrarian view - I'm not sure why someone offering a project for free _in the educational space_ would expect users to act like paid professional customers. Or expect them to be non-noob experts who can modify and build the project without hand-holding.

Or assume that email would be a viable line of support for a project with literally tens (hundreds?) of thousands of users.

Or even expect them to be adults.

So while I sympathise with the rage quit, I don't think it's realistic to release code and just expect users to understand - never mind accept - <USER3> terms you set for its use.

All open source projects comes with politics included. You have to have an understanding of the space you're working in, the kinds of users who inhabit it, and the kinds of relationships they're likely to have with them.

You need to know what your support boundaries and support technologies are. And if you work in a space where some of your users are likely to be assholes, you need to have a plan for that - even if it's just knowing that it's fine to ignore them.

Edit: to be clear, I think this is more of a general open licence problem than the failing of this one specific author. Open licences don't encourage authors to define boundaries, or even to understand that boundaries are necessary and terms need to be defined. So it's not quite a surprise that things like this happen.

<comment><USER17> > So while I sympathise with the rage quit, I don't think it's realistic to > release code and just expect users to understand - never mind accept - <USER3> > terms you set for its use.

I think it's perfectly fine to expect users to understand the terms. They downloaded a piece of code for free from a website with no company or support programme other than "hey I hope this is helpful, if you run into any issues I might be able to help over email". If it turns out that the author can't or won't help, accept your loss and fix it yourself, pay someone to fix it for you or wait for another volunteer to fix it.

Alternatively, they bought some kind of product that included the code. If this product breaks, they must go to the company that makes the product, not the author of some library it uses. It's not like you're going to expect some sparkplug manufacturer to come up with a fix for your car when it breaks down, do you?

People who feel entitled to anything when they get something for free are selfish assholes and should not be defended. They know fully well that they don't have any right for support, but they will make demands regardless, hoping that the other party will break and give in.

I agree that you need to have a plan for people like this, but in most cases, that plan is "I'll just drop the project if it becomes too much of a hassle". And in my opinion, that's a fine plan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you read this Gordon, thank you for all you did for so long, it was way more generous than we deserved. I'm sorry for how unappreciative it all turned out, I appreciated your work and you're right you definitely should not put up with that shit. Best of luck =)

</comment><comment><USER19> I have used WiringPi along my side of work and I am thankful to the author for creating and maintaining it, but honestly I don't understand the motivation behind offering a free product with email support.

There are many different people on the Internet with different cultural backgrounds, experience levels and work ethic and unfortunately it's not realistic to expect each of your users to share the same values as you do. Anecdotally, charging a license fee for your library/tool is a very good way to filter out 90% of the unprofessional behavior.

Also if you rely on your free product to promote your consulting business, I would highly recommend creating a community forum where users can advice each other, and maybe offering paid support on top of that. Also using an open- source helpdesk app to semi-automatically send canned replies to commonly repeating inquiries saves a ton of time and keeps the assholes off your back, as long as the canned replies are reasonable and polite.

<comment><USER20> I've been maintaining free software for a while and people have been actively hunting for my email for support, completely ignoring clear guidelines in README and ignoring GitHub issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I also make free software. It's a battle dealing with folks who want both free code AND free work! Making code GPL is both a blessing a curse. Tales lakie this make me stop and double-check my choices

<comment><USER22> It's not just free/libre/open source software that has this issue.

I run an email security SaaS business. It's closed source, but the suite is free of charge to use for personal, non-commercial domains.

We get numerous support requests each day of users on the free tier (who are obviously commercial users btw) that DEMAND us to fix all sorts of email problems for them. They regularly threaten that they will write a bad review on $_SOCIAL_NETWORK if we don't fix their email delivery issues for free. It's frustrating and also exhausting to try to stay professional towards these 'customers'.

Interesting observation: This behavior seems to be culture dependent. I'd say about 90% of our over-demanding free-tier users are from the same region on the planet.

<comment><USER23> As someone who's gone back and forth on licensing for personal projects over the years, tried to engage user communities for said personal projects, and tried to use various open source projects — I totally sympathize with the maintainers. As with a lot of things in life, user engagement is a two-way street. If folks want constructive engagement from the users, there needs to be constructive engagement from the maintainers.

From the user POV it can be very frustrating to use open source projects. Gordon's highlighted some real bottom-of-the-barrel end users and it would be hard to invalidate his experience with a straight face. OTOH some projects are incredibly hostile to users. Projects like Elixir/mix, Electron/VSCode, Thunderbird, and GIMP. How are users supposed to react when the sole maintainer packs up and leaves indefinitely? Or when patches are submitted upstream and the maintainers tell the users to pound sand?

Currently I'm working on a car-related Pi project. I'm not a hardware guy though, so I've done some research and discovered a piece of hardware that looks nearly perfect for my use case. They even have the specific version I'm interested in listed on their store. The only catch is that it's listed as 4-6 weeks out (and has been for a while). Their response? Sorry, we've moved on to something more interesting to us at 3x the price. No the store hasn't been updated (same with their blog and forums). I'm ready to fork over money, but with only sporadic signs of life it's difficult.

<comment><USER24> > How are users supposed to react ...

Answers:

1) fork the project, and do a better job yourself

2) suck it up quietly

<comment><USER23> You've articulated two great reasons why end users generate angry comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Creating or running an open source project can be a thankless task, made worse by the sheer number of entitled jerks who can find you and your project via the Internet.

If you're selling software for pay, at least there's money in your pocket to compensate you for having to deal with the various types of a __*oles in the human race, but without that it can rapidly become a chore to maintain even a small or niche package. That 's why lots of software becomes orphaned.

I salute anyone who has ever had the courage to try to write, maintain, or organize development for open source software.

</comment><comment><USER26> I can empathize with most of this, but I can't say I understand the "last straw" bit. How is there anything wrong with DanielK's request?

<comment><USER27> "Not to be a complete ass" ... but then proceeds to be a complete ass. People love to preface statements that they know are going to be rude.

If you need to preface a statement like that, reword it so you're being polite. The bit in question just as easily could have said "Hey, Thanks for releasing this! Do you know when the source code will be available? Thanks for all you're hard work"

<comment><USER28> I don't think asking the author to comply with the license, or at least enable others to comply with the license, is being a "complete ass".

<comment><USER29> Aside from whether or not he was being an ass, he was incorrect. The license are rights the author grants other people. The author can release binaries without sources or under any license they desire; just because they also release it under the LGPL does not compel them to provide sources when they distribute it.

<comment><USER28> Regardless of the legal situation, it would be very unusual to release something under a GPL-like license without the source, since then no one else could comply with the license since they would be unable to provide the modified source.

I think we can agree that it would not at all be weird to expect that GPL- licensed project would provide the source. Any project with multiple contributors may be legally compelled to do so. Simply _asking_ for it is probably not being a _complete ass_ , even if the author was wrong about the legal ramifications.

At most it could perhaps be "annoying" or a "slight ass". Being a "complete ass" would perhaps be insisting after an initial request was rebuffed or whatever.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Regardless of the legal situation, it would be very unusual to release > something under a GPL-like license without the source, since then no one > else could comply with the license since they would be unable to provide the > modified source.

Each releases of the software can have different licenses. This means that if the author released a new version of the software binary without the source code nor any copyright notices (like Gorden did) it is not yet released under LGPL. So nobody need to comply LGPL until he releases the source code with the license.

Even if the binary is released under LGPL without the source code, although it is odd, people still can comply the License because it is LGPL - people just need to provide a way how to link the new binary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is why I stopped thinking unfriendliness in hacker circles is unwarranted. It's massively frustrating when you get people berating/harassing/stealing from/etc you when the reality is there really isn't a product, just a passion or hobby.

This is why any open software I author comes with the express warranty of "Help: No." If no is misunderstood then any reply will be along the lines of FOAD.

</comment><comment><USER31> Major bummer but I totally understand. Poor guy.

</comment><comment><USER32> Sad to see it go like that.

Yet another example how ungrateful many people are towards free software.

The only difference to piracy, is that not only do they not give back anything, they feel entitled to all kind of requests.

So the result ends always being the same, moving to something else.

<comment><USER33> I wonder what "pirating" your own software to handle the "free trial"/free tier case would be like? Weird thought, uploading your own software in a particular guise to BitTorrent or something, to allow for free usage but change the expectations of the user...

That said, I distinctly remember a number of blog posts over the years where users using obviously pirated versions demanded support, so it seems impossible to avoid entirely haha

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Or just open a ticket on the package and inform the user one "has 'technically' done all one could do given time constraints"?

I get the frustration, but this looks like a case of improper idiot handling that just escalated...

</comment><comment><USER35> Step 1. Person A makes some piece of software under an open source license. (GPL)

Step 2. This piece of software becomes widely used, _primarily since_ it's open source licensed

Step 3. (Modern variation) Person A feels cheated for not getting rich and creates some kind of drama.

This doesn't make any sense at all, to me.

<comment><USER36> Open sourcing something is deciding to share it. It isn't committing to support it or update it or help you make money with it. It's not shocking people get burnt out by constant harassment by entitled people who demand the developer "support them" for free.

<comment><USER35> > Open sourcing something is deciding to share it. It isn't committing to > support it or update it or help you make money with it.

Exactly. This and nothing else. I really don't understand why this is so hard to understand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I read this and still don't understand what is the issue behind the drama. If you don't want to support it, then don't; if someone stole your public domain work, contact the EFF or more realistically just understand it's cost of doing business.

We all get tired at some point and move on, you don't owe anyone anything. And thanks for the library!

<comment><USER38> It's not "public domain work". The "drama" is that the community abused the author, so the author quit providing free labor to the community.</comment></comment>


The Amazon Premium - <AUTHOR> http://calpaterson.com/amazon-premium.html <comment><USER2> Amazon does charge a premium.

I find that premium to be worthwhile once I factor in the cost of my time. My personal web site costs something like $20-$30 per year on Amazon.

In business settings, developer time is maybe $300k per year, and the cost of the sizes of servers mentioned just doesn't matter. If I'm paying for a 2-core 8GB machine, it's pocket change -- anything which keeps people productive at that price point is an obvious spend. If a developer is 0.2% more productive, the AWS premium makes sense.

You'll be that much more productive even on boto. Or better documentation. Or integration. Or having a lot of people you hire already know the stack. Or the reliability of a stack that has worked without problems for a decade now. Or ....

I've been in business settings where hosting costs became (very) significant as we scaled. We got competitive quotes. Amazon gave a discount. It was fine.

Also: While Google's support is junk as the article mentioned (I'd never run a business on the Google cloud), Amazon's is fine.

I'd stay away from many of the newer, proprietary AWS services, which are complex, proprietary, have lock-in, and otherwise aren't generally very good, but I find a basic stack of EC2+RDS+S3+... works really well.

As a footnote, when I tried a "modern" AWS stack (Lambda, CodeStar, DocumentDB, etc.) it seemed to be like stepping on landmines every five minutes. I really like the concept of a serverless stack, but at least Amazon hasn't gotten it right.

<comment><AUTHOR> (OP here) I think that it's a fair point that hosting costs can often be a small part of the total cost of developing and operating an application.

The only extra thing I would add to that is that you can usually use boto with all of the other cloud providers. I believe one of the main aims of openstack (which I understand at least OVH runs) is to make code written against the AWS APIs portable.

Totally agree that many of the proprietary parts of AWS function largely as billing footguns. However I have subsequently been told of AWS lightsail which is another, cheaper, way to buy what is effectively EC2. Strangely people around me rarely mention Lightsail - I suspect that many corporate users don't use it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Book of Programming Examples? - <AUTHOR>

I was curious if anybody knows of a book that's comprised of a collection of well commented code from various languages. Sort of like a collection of short stories, but each 'story' is a snippet of code performing a particular task. Ideally the book would contain examples from various languages such as Java, C, C++, Python, Ruby....<p>Reason why I'm looking for this is I'd like to gain familiarity with other languages in case I ever encounter them. I try an take breaks from the computer an go for walks throughout the day and would love to be able to bring a book with me and I felt like this would be great since I can continue learning but it's something where I can hopefully finish looking over a section each walk or something. Also wouldn't hurt to see how procedures and best practices are carried out in various languages. <comment> Sean-Der I am a big fan of Rosetta Code

Here is an example with a good amount of entries [http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Sorting_algorithms/Quicksort](http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Sorting_algorithms/Quicksort)

</comment><comment><USER2> There used to be lots of cookbook type books like [http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1230000000393](http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1230000000393) if you want longer examples getting annotated source code for open source projects for things like jquery or underscore. Look at github projects also.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Well-commented" doesn't mean explaining how the language works, what the syntax means, what the standard library does, etc. That's what you'd find in the language documentation, textbooks, and tutorials.

Just pick up an introductory book on each language and be sure it has lots of examples.

Honestly, though, I don't think there's any point in becoming familiar with those languages. If you know how to program, you're probably familiar enough to read what's going on...

</comment><comment><USER4> The book _Beautiful Code_ from O'Reilly Associates aims to do that. A glance into the book shows C, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, and Scheme.

</comment><comment><USER5> I like looking at design patterns in various languages, Examples are often short sweet and discrete

[https://github.com/faif/python-patterns](https://github.com/faif/python- patterns)</comment>


Let Robots Teach American Schoolkids - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-17/let-robots-teach-american-schoolkids <comment><USER2> If you have 10000 teachers teaching 10000 classes you have 10000 different view points with a diversity that will allow more complete knowledge and understanding being passed on.

If you have 10000 classes taught by robots programmed by 1 or 2 you have a very limited viewpoint and a large chance of knowledge and experience being lost, and a huge risk of inappropriate manipulation.

<comment><USER3>
      If you have 10000 classes taught by robots

... then you also have 2,000 or so fewer teaching jobs.</comment></comment>


Satoshi Saga Continues: Tulip Trust Trustee Expected to Appear by September 19 - <AUTHOR> https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/satoshi-saga-continues-tulip-trust-trustee-expected-to-appear-by-september-says-joseph-vaughnperling-1462467803 <comment><AUTHOR> This could explain why Craig cannot move the coins, as well as why he is unable to show public proof of ownership of keys which can move the coins, via message signing, as that could result in third parties forcing him to move the coins without full agreement of trustee and beneficiaries.

> _"The Tulip Trading Trust trustee, appointed by Dave Kleiman as of Oct 12nd > 2012. It has been rumored that Craig Wright will need to access Tulip > Trading Trust assets. Trustee acts in the interest of the beneficiary alone > and must defend against undue influence by others. In order to authorize > movements of trust assets the beneficiary must come forward and make a > direct request of the trustee our way–NOT via 3rd party nor any > intermediaries. Any coin movement affecting the trust asset without prior > authorization will be considered a trust violation and invalid irrespective > of any claim of constructive bailment. The Trust alone has control over its > assets. Tampering or manipulating with trust assets by anyone (including the > beneficiary) might have material legal and tax implications. Beneficiaries > are invited to a conference call 12:00 UTC Friday to discuss interests. > Principals only."_</comment>


Dave Thomas *and* Zed Shaw comment on some dude's take on Zed's rant - <AUTHOR> http://www.dennmart.com/2008/01/03/zed-shaw-exposing-the-ghetto/

<comment><USER2> > All I hope is that someone doesnaEURXt read this and think aEURoeWho the > hell is this guy to give an opinion?aEURX I might not be a > aEURXsomebodyaEURX in the Ruby or Rails communities at the moment, but I > would really like to be part of those communities sometimes in the near > future.

That's the problem in a nutshell. No one should think they have to "be someone" in order to write down their ideas and be taken seriously. Just say something intelligent and express yourself clearly.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whatever</comment>


New research a 'breakthrough for large-scale discrete optimization' - <AUTHOR> https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-06/hjap-ae062818.php <comment><USER2> This is specifically talking about submodular function maximization problems. A submodular set function is a function f(S) that takes a set S and returns a "score". The objective is to find the set S with the highest score. The "submodular" property means that f(S) has "diminishing returns", meaning roughly that each new element contributes less to the score as the set S gets bigger. It turns out that this is hard to maximize exactly, but the simplest possible greedy algorithm already achieves an impressive approximation ratio of 1 - 1/e. The downside is that even the fully greedy algorithm is still pretty slow if you need to find a large set S, which is what this paper is addressing with a parallelizable randomized algorithm. (It's not the first such algorithm, but it's apparently much faster than the previous state of the art.)

[disclaimer: not an expert in any of this]

<comment><USER3> Thank you! Your comment is so much better than the two pages of fluff this article is made of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks like it may be this paper:

[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.06355](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.06355)

<comment><USER5> "An Exponential Speedup in Parallel Running Time for Submodular Maximization without Loss in Approximation" [https://www.arxiv- vanity.com/papers/1804.06355/](https://www.arxiv- vanity.com/papers/1804.06355/)

The ACM STOC 2018 conference links to "The Adaptive Complexity of Maximizing a Submodular Function" [http://dl.acm.org/authorize?N651970](http://dl.acm.org/authorize?N651970) [https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/ericbalkanski/files/the- ad...](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/ericbalkanski/files/the-adaptive- complexity-of-maximizing-a-submodular-function.pdf)

A DOI URI would be great, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I see a lot of buzzwords (applications of the algorithm that are just applications of anything) and little description about the actual details of the algorithm, complexity theory, and what type of problems it solves, obviously assuming they didn't turn NP into P.

</comment><comment><USER7> "What if a large class of algorithms used today -- from the algorithms that help us avoid traffic to the algorithms that identify new drug molecules -- worked exponentially faster?" \-- these problems used as example in the opening line are only tangentially related to the problem of submodular maximisation that the paper it is talking about is tackling. I also don't think submodular maximisation is widely used today for identifying new drug molecules or avoiding traffic.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've seen two recent posts that mention 'exponentially faster '. Does this have a precise meaning? I could imagine it to mean making a non-exponential algorithm for a problem which only had exponential ones. Another interpretation could be making an algorithm with 2^n steps where previous ones took 2^(2n) steps making the improvement factor 2^n, but still resulting in an exponential time algorithm. Should we just accept this a la 'literally'.

<comment><USER9> According to this StackExchange answer [https://cs.stackexchange.com/a/50356](https://cs.stackexchange.com/a/50356) the speedup is best expressed as a function relating the two algorithm's run times. So if there's a constant factor of 2, then that's "twice as fast", but if the relationship isn't linear (e.g. 2^(2n) = (2^n)^2 is a quadratic function of 2^n) then the speedup is named correspondingly. So 2^(2n) -> 2^n is quadratic speedup, while 2^n -> n or n -> log n are exponential speedups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Title could also be "Researchers find a better heuristic for a class of exponentially scaling problems."

There's no claim to have changed the complexity class, so"exponentially faster" just means the problem is still exponentially in problem size, but the exponent is smaller.

From the looks of it, though, it is a nice result because it has pretty wide applicability.

<comment><USER11> No, "exponentially faster" means exponentially faster _with exponentially more hardware_. Specifically, N processors can solve a problem of size N in O(log N) wall clock time, where the previous (serial) algorithm used O(N) wall clock time. Most programmers would say "more scalable" or "more parallel" rather than "faster", but the terminology makes sense and is standard in the context of the PRAM model of parallel computation.

I'm not sure, but I doubt this algorithm is "faster" than the previous one on a single processor.

(The article is drivel; I couldn't figure out what they were talking about either, until I looked at the paper)

<comment><USER10> Ah ok, yeah TBH I didn't read the article, but was guessing from the headline this is what they meant since in exponentially scaling problems theres always room at the top (unless explicitly proven otherwise).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I skimmed through because it sounds fairly click-baity... From what I gather, they're claiming to have solved NP-complete problems to some degree with some abstract form algorithm? I'm genuinely interested, if anyone can explain what's going on...

<comment><USER13> Submodular maximization is indeed NP-complete, but we can find approximate solutions in polynomial time. This paper speeds up the parallel running time of the approximation from O(n) to O(log n), meaning that they've found a way to make the algorithm more parallelizable, though you still have to do the same amount of work.

<comment><USER12> Got it! Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Could this (maybe only slightly) push out how long before quantum computers pass traditional?</comment>