Hackers and Designers Summer Academy in Amsterdam - <AUTHOR> http://summer.hackersanddesigners.nl/ <comment><USER2> If you hover over where it says "Bugs", it changed to say "Boobs".

Classy.

<comment><USER3> Have you heard of Amsterdam's red light district? It is a place where you can buy all sorts of narcotics, see prostitutes, and more!

I am assuming that is what they're referring to. That is their culture. How dare you be so politically incorrect, do you have no notion of cultural relativism?

<comment><USER2> I'm assuming you're being sarcastic here, but for clarity, yes I understand the reason that it says "boobs", I don't however think it at all appropriate.

<comment><USER3> I honestly don't think it's a big deal. Don't be so prude!

<comment><USER4> It is not prudish to think this is immature. I like boobs and I like tech conferences. But not at the same time. There is no synergy there.

<comment><USER3> Its not a boob themed hackathon. It's a one-off comment in a shitty funny website.

Yeah it's immature. Its not worth getting upset about though.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bob Lutz: Kiss the good times goodbye - T-A http://www.autonews.com/article/20171105/INDUSTRY_REDESIGNED/171109944/bob-lutz:-kiss-the-good-times-goodbye <comment><AUTHOR> Previous discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15653938](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15653938)

</comment><comment><USER2> The best combustion cars are still ahead of us, just like the best mechanical keyboards, vinyl turntables, and mechanical watches have turned out to be.

The truth is that most of us are commuting around in econoboxes already, desperately searching for some form of distraction in the form of music or podcast. We're not forming some spiritual connection with a machine and the road, we're yelling at the bozo who can't commit to a lane.

There will be better econoboxes for when those are appropriate, and there will be more vehicles that are a better expression of our personality. I'm looking forward to both.

<comment><USER3> I dunno. My IBM Model F is unmatched by anything since. I know they are making them again but haven't tried the new ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Shall we insert Robert Heinlein's rant about the automobile[1]?

> Despite the name "automobile" these vehicles had no autocontrol circuits; > control, such as it was, was exercised second by second for hours on end by > a human being peering out through a small pane of dirty silica glass, and > judging unassisted and often disastrously his own motion and those of other > objects. In almost all cases the operator had no notion of the kinetic > energy stored in his missile and could not have written the basic equation. > Newton's Laws of Motion were to him mysteries as profound as the meaning of > the universe. Nevertheless millions of these mechanical jokes swarmed over > our home planet, dodging each other by inches or failing to dodge.

[1] [https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/162796/looking- for...](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/162796/looking-for-quote- about-the-absurdity-of-people-driving-cars#162802)

<comment><USER5> Only just been introduced to Heinlein. Interesting fellow.

<comment><USER4> Master storyteller. Unfortunately his work has dated because of the advance of technology: he set his wonderful characters and clever plots in "future" worlds that, for example, have no computers -- let alone ubiquitous, wireless communication. So it is sometimes hard to get immersed in his worlds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The thing about autonomous cars that concerns me is that, if they do become mandatory, your ability to travel at all will be mediated by whatever corporation wrote the software and runs the servers. What if they're all hosted with AWS and there's an outage?

Even if you still own your own car, if that's a Google car, you won't go anywhere without Google knowing. And what happens if your account gets shut down?

Free software autonomous cars, anyone?

<comment><USER7> FOSS self driving car systems would be a pretty sensible regulation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow. This is _Bob Lutz_ saying this. _The_ car guy. Exec at GM, Ford, Chrysler, BMW. Into performance and car styling. If he thinks cars are over, the auto industry will listen.

<comment><USER9> It kind of reeks of FUD from a cranky old person though. America has an extremely strong car culture. I don't see the constituency supporting measures that outlaw human-driven vehicles within 20 years. Forcing people to turn in their cars? It's just not gonna happen. It will probably take 40+ years after they've stopped producing vehicles with steering wheels before that even becomes feasible. And then there will be exemptions, the date will get pushed back a few times, etc etc.

Another thing that he and a lot of comments about self-driving cars seem to miss is the roughly 20% of the population that live in rural areas. Penetration in these areas will lag far behind city centers, and the large area to cover would make enforcement of a human-driving ban impractical.

<comment><USER8> Having had an entry in the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005, I can say that rural is easier than urban. Most of the really hard problems in self-driving involve other road users. Driving on an empty road isn't that tough. You need full ground profiling, which many of the urban vehicles now don't have.

(When we did our vehicle, we had way too much of the wrong stuff. We were worrying about having to navigate a field of boulders. Getting high-centered on rugged roads. Nah. In 2005, all you had to do was stay on the road. The 2004 course was actually harder, and nobody made it past 7 miles. CMU's team tried to do 2004 by manual mapping. They had people with workstations and aerial photographs manually plotting a precise route. The vehicle itself was almost blind. This was the result.[1] "At mile 7.4, on switchbacks in a mountainous section, vehicle went off course, got caught on a berm and rubber on the front wheels caught fire, which was quickly extinguished. Vehicle was command-disabled." \-- DARPA" They plowed right into a sheet metal fence, a clearly visible obstacle.

Why hadn't the planners, who had paid for custom aerial photos, known about the fence? Because DARPA didn't want a dumb vehicle that ran on a preplanned track. The officer in charge of the event, a USMC Colonel, had some men out the night before the event placing obstacles, just so that trick wouldn't work.

Anyway, off-road self-driving on bad roads is a solved problem now. Oskosh sells a system to the military for that. They were thinking that the solution to guerrilla IED attacks on convoys was one armored vehicle controlling a convoy of self-driving soft-skinned vehicles. Works, but too much trouble to set up in a combat zone.)

[1] [http://overbot.com/grandchallenge/images/race2004/cmucrash.j...](http://overbot.com/grandchallenge/images/race2004/cmucrash.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The reason shared cars will suck is the same reason shared everything else sucks: nobody respects public/rental property. Your autonomous taxi might have been pissed in by the guy before you. And while I like driving, I don't think it's possible to be _happy_ about this aspect of human behavior.

</comment><comment><USER11> He's right but the timing is off by a factor of 2 or so. 25 to 50 years. I mean have you _seen_ US infrastructure recently?

<comment><USER12> Infrastructure can change quickly. In Boston it looks like it took us about 40 years to move from a streetcar dominated system to an auto dominated one. And that was with two intervening world wars.

<comment><USER13> It wasn't a real natural transition...

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> you can have my human driven automobile when you pry me from it's cold twisted wreckage

<comment><USER13> That can be easily arranged when the Government sends the signal to the automated big rig next to you to change into your lane when you are in it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Everyone's OK with the govt having a full and complete list of where you have spent every minute of every day, who you visited, etc.?

<comment><USER16> Don't see anyone complaining about Uber and Lyft and Google and Apple knowing their whereabouts...

<comment><USER13> I know I accidentally left my phone GPS on when Google tells me I am and that I should take a photo and share it to Google maps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> All of this is hyper-focused on cars. The amount of investment still needed in this space for SEMIs, RVs, extra-wide SEMIs, etc...

I don't think we'll have complete autonomous driving until we have true AI. Sure we'll continue to innovate the standard car, but most everything else will wait.

One of the things I do is drive on roads that have 3-4 inch rocks everywhere (I drive my truck camper to places far away from humans). How do I tell my truck to drive 3 inches forward onto a leveling block so that my RV is more level without a steering wheel, breaks or gas it forward.

RVs specifically have a lifespan of anywhere from 20-40 years - and I'm pretty sure the owners are not going to suddenly stop driving them.

</comment><comment><USER18> Oddly enough I was watching Minority Report earlier and thinking about this. Automatic control with cars that all look alike - with a manual mode for when you are far off the beaten path.

Still, the author is on to something here. There will be no need to own your own car (and plenty of reasons not to) once ubiquitous on demand automatic cars are a thing.

Is it bad that I look forward to this time? Driving is one of my least favorite tasks. Literal years of my life wasted behind the wheel trying to make sure I don't accidentally kill someone when I could be doing other more productive things.

<comment><USER19> I thought more the Wall-e dystopia, which fills me with great sadness.

[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/3/36/John-...](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/3/36/John- wall-e.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140402182827)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There must be a fairly good margin on auto-as-a-service else this guy wouldn't be hocking it.

I just hope they crash less than my smartphone...or smart tv...or smart refrigerator... or...

</comment><comment><USER21> I agree with this 90 year old codger, and that's why Tesla should stay profitless for another 10 years. The real prize is ahead.

</comment><comment><USER22> Picking an issue at random:

>A minority of individuals may elect to have personalized modules sitting at home so they can leave their vacation stuff and the kids' soccer gear in them. They'll still want that convenience.

I think Bob owns a car. I don't right now, but I've owned a car, motorcycle, and bicycle. The storage ability is incredibly undervalued.

<comment><USER23> Or overvalued. It is equivalent to two bigger cupboards. Or a few big luggages.

That is, unless you're driving a pickup truck, actual truck or (sadly) a SUV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Out of curiosity, how many years was the transition between horse and automobile? I would bet this will be the same. I don't think it's driven by technology, I think it's driven by human sociocultural inertia or whatever the right term is to describe when we irrationally latch on to things.

<comment><USER14> less than two decades in the US... although I was just thinking yesterday while driving home that I'd much rather be riding a horse to and from work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The 5-year headline is hyperbole. You can't just take the average persons' second-most-valuable asset, declare that it is worthless, then require an additional fee for them to use your fancy new podmobiles to get to work (on top of still having to pay off the auto loan.) The Economy (tm) won't be able to take it.

Therefore, I think the fancy new railcars cannot become dominant faster than (1 average car-loan period) after becoming available. The only way to make it happen faster is if the AI-tomobiles are free for people who still have car loans or the car companies offer to buy back existing cars for $(exactly what's left on the consumer's loan.)

So the more reasonable estimate is more like:

5-10 years to availability in (those few special cities)

10 years after that to widespread availability

~5-10 years after that to completely eliminate "the automobile as we know it."

Total: 20-30 years. Which includes Bob's "20-years to total conversion" estimate.

Let's remember that the first 4G phone came out circa 2008, and now nearly 10 years later, we still don't have anything close to nationwide 4G coverage.

<comment><USER13> This is exactly what the Government does. It is why it exists, to take from the populous.

[http://www.dot.ca.gov/road_charge/news/](http://www.dot.ca.gov/road_charge/news/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > You will enter your credit card number or your thumbprint or whatever it > will be then.

Here I thought most people had heard of NFC and are going cardless with Android and Apple pay.

<comment><USER27> Covered under : "whatever it will be then" ?

<comment><USER26> But it is already then and most probably with ever connected world that will be the solution. I don't think he is aware of NFC or any form of "Pay" applications out there right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Like hell this will work in the rural areas

<comment><USER29> Man, I feel like I'd found a nation just to have the risky and inefficient wonder of the automobile. The one form of rapid transport which represents freedom and not tyranny.

I hope this guy is wrong, and people collectively decide that the automobile is worth human lives and tremendous waste, for my own selfish vision of the world to remain true.

<comment><USER30> Sitting in traffic, following the same route one follows every day with hundreds of other commuters hardly seems like freedom to me.

<comment><USER31> That's not the only scenario to experience driving.

<comment><USER32> For most of us that is the experience without exception...I live in the DC metro area (Baltimore to be specific), I dread even the slightest need to get into my car because I know it will easily eat up all my time. A 5 minute errand can easily become a 2 hour ordeal because of traffic.

Go anywhere around the beltway and see cars in every side street and back alley (never mind actual roads)..you literally cannot leave your driveway on some of these streets during rush hour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Kiss smooth native scrolling goodbye.

<comment><USER34> Thank the gods for Reader mode

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Also, it is important to consider the ownership of these things now. This scheme that Lutz envisions must be state-owned and controlled. We cannot trust Uber and Lyft, or any other monopolist with it.

<comment><USER36> Can we trust a state more?

Most likely they will be city-/county-owned, in urban areas, with private companies handling long-distance and rural areas.</comment></comment>


Military pushes for emergency robots as skeptics worry about lethal uses - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ready-to-lend-a-hand-or-3-in-the-next-disaster/2015/05/16/2ea78a16-fa6c-11e4-9ef4-1bb7ce3b3fb7_story.html <comment><USER2> Too late to worry about lethal robotic devices that kill indiscriminately - there are already 100,000,000 landmines around the world, killing 4,000 people every year.</comment>


This Malware Is Frighteningly Sophisticated And We Don't Know Who Created It - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/10/this-malware-is-frighteningly-sophisticated-and-we-dont-know-who-created-it/

<comment><USER2> _" It's likely that only national intelligence agencies have the resources to build software of this complexity and sophistication."_

That's a notion that's coming up more often recently. I think there are good reasons to suspect that governments are behind it, but complexity and sophistication are not good enough reasons.

Yes, governments are large organizations that can throw a lot of resources at a problem, but software isn't built like the pyramids of Giza where using more slaves moves more stones in a given a amount of time. A handful of competent people can build very complex and sophisticated software.

<comment><USER3> Speaking of governments, why not large, rogue corporations, ones that are so large that they operate as unelected governments, unaffiliated with any particular country and above all law?

<comment><USER4> I'm amazed at how people are scared of corporations more than governments. Corporations are kept in check because all the money they spend on things are their own money. Now those could be evil things they spend their money on, indeed. But they are limited in resources. They can't print new money or order their customers to pay. Governments can do all of those things and they know that whatever sick shit they do, people will be forced to pay anyway.

<comment><USER2> I can tell you why people are scared of corporations. It's because they transcend nation states and hence democracy. They can pick and choose from different jurisdictions for different purposes. Pay taxes here, use good infrastructure there, conform to environmental standards or labor laws in one country whilst exploiting broken political funding rules in another one.

I can't say this is always bad. Sometimes it helps us avoid authoritarian ideas that various governments subject us to. Sometimes it leads to cheaper goods and services for all of us. But it is definitely scary how large entities controlled by a small wealthy minority wield such disproportionate power.

<comment><USER4> _> It's because they transcend nation states and hence democracy. They can pick and choose from different jurisdictions for different purposes. Pay taxes here, use good infrastructure there, conform to environmental standards or labor laws in one country whilst exploiting broken political funding rules in another one._

None of that I consider to be inherently bad. Democratic states do much worse things, like mass murdering people in wars and imprisoning people for victimless crimes - and all of that states do using money they confiscate from its citizens. Call me when a corporation does anything close to such atrocities.

<comment><USER2> I merely explained why people are scared of corporations. I didn't say that there isn't anything more scary. But if you think that wars haven't been fought over corporate interests or that corporations, organized crime and governments are always completely seperate things you are very mistaken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A careto is a costumed thief character from an ancient pagan ritual in Portugal.

"Caretos are masked young men dressed in suits made of yellow, red, black, blue and green fringe wool quilts, wearing brass, leather or wooden masks and rattles in their belts. ... They appear in groups from every corner of the village running and shouting excitedly, frightening the people and "robbing" all the wineries." [0]

The trojan referred to in this story is known by another name. [1]

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

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mask_(malware)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mask_\(malware\))

</comment><comment><USER6> Personally, I only think a malware is sophisticated based on how it infects (like stuxnet with 4 windows zero-days, and windows update hijacking with fake code signing certificate). Spear phishing seems to be pretty boring. I think Kaspersky is just embarrassed that the malware (they say unsuccessfully) originally exploited Kaspersky AV. Also, anyone can write "complicated" C&C software. There's a lot of bundles you can find online that does most of what's listed.

<comment><USER7> Sometimes I read the comments before the article; seems like this time I saved myself some time. Thanks. :)

<comment><USER8> Apparently the malware used three backdoors, given the reporting that it was in the wild for 7 years I can't help but think they were zero day exploits.

[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/02/mask/](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/02/mask/)

<comment><USER7> OK, that's real news, then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "we don't know who created it" Umm yes catchy headline, but internet criminals usually don't have support help desks or leave contact details.

The Washington Post article reads as FUD written by somebody who has little or no idea what he is writing about. As @yifanly mentions, most of the scary stuff mentioned is available as a premade kit for sale online.</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for feedback on our startup - <AUTHOR>

I am looking for any kind of feedback on my startup, Callr[1]. We have a consulting company and built Callr out of frustration with conference calls and we have been using it for a year. We opened it to the world two months ago and have been getting some traction, but not enough.
Our main problem at the moment is the high bounce rate. The visitors to the site are not converting to signing up for a free service. Would you mind taking a look at the site and let me know if we are explaining the service adequately? Any suggestions on how to improve it?
Thanks for your time.
[1] http://getcallr.com/ <comment><USER2> On the conversion side: The video is too large for my screen, plus I'd rather have image+text explanation than having to watch a video, plus I can't fast forward the video (I have the attention span of a squirrel). On the product side: I wouldn't want to be called automatically, as I might be doing something important that needs another 5 minutes. Just my two cents though.</comment>


Rust 1.5 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rust-lang.org/2015/12/10/Rust-1.5.html <comment><USER2> Congrats to the team!

I recently wrote my first Rust [1] project. Great experience, IMO. I faced a lot of interesting challenges because my use case was a little outside of typical. But I tried to minimize 'unsafe' and I was still satisfied with the results so far.

I know I've only just scratched the surface of the language and I'm looking forward to learning more.

[1] [https://github.com/androm3da/libfaultinj](https://github.com/androm3da/libfaultinj)

<comment><USER3> Just a small remark. You might want to note in your readme why you'd want to use a fault-injection library. I wasn't familiar with the concept, and had to google why you'd want to do that (for testing unexpected errors and the application's handling of those errors).

<comment><USER2> Good suggestion: [https://github.com/androm3da/libfaultinj/commit/9e11fadf6f8b...](https://github.com/androm3da/libfaultinj/commit/9e11fadf6f8ba8b218e8c074417fc640b93055a9)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Congrats first of all!

I love Rust and am using it more and more. I'm very excited for 'cargo watch'. These tools built into the package manager will be so helpful with peoples' first time Rust experience. I think I'm going to say it, Rust has my favorite package management system of any language I've used.

Side Note: I'm also a fan of the 6 week release assembly line Rust has going on. I'm glad that it's staying consistent.

<comment><USER5> I was actually suggesting that the Rust devs delay the release until next week because all the release orchestrators are fully occupied with the bi-annual Mozilla workweek, but it seems that they've managed to pull it off without a hitch. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been excited to try Rust for some time now, but I've been holding off, only because I'm primarily developing web applications and I've heard from a few people that Rust is better suited for other tasks (based on the built-ins, packages, etc.?), despite there being at least a few frameworks out there.

What are your thoughts on this? Have things changed? Is the assumption just dead wrong, and Rust is in fact tremendous for web application development?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have historically been skeptical of Rust as an application-tier language, but my experiments with it as of late have made me reconsider a bit. The largest weakness, imho, is the lack of libraries for various standards and formats: do you really want to implement OAuth yourself? (EDIT: Apparently we do have OAuth now. ha!) The maturity of the Rails ecosystem has spoiled me.

Here's a random fact that I've always found interesting: [https://crates.io/](https://crates.io/) uses Rust on the server. It links to libgit, it does a lot of stuff. It uses about 30 megs of memory, resident, at all times. Coming from Rails, that's... shocking.

<comment><USER7> I have witnessed someone implementing OAuth2 themselves: [https://crates.io/crates/inth-oauth2](https://crates.io/crates/inth-oauth2) I hope they solved the problem permanently, since this is the third crate attempting OAuth2 and the first two are abandoned/incomplete.

<comment><USER8> I don't even know what a "complete" OAuth2 library would be. One that not only deals with the quirks of existing services that use OAuth2, but anticipates all future ones?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I know this seems like a trivial issue, but I've been bothered by the try!() macro for a while. I keep hoping then will adopt the "?" postfix operator to mean the same thing, because it seems to increase readability a lot.

I'm open to other ideas too, but that seemed like the simplest way to get the error handling out of the way.

Ordinarily I try hard not to complain about syntax, but this seems to cause people to use .unwrap() where it's not safe (like a library).

<comment><AUTHOR> There was major movement on the ? syntax last night, actually.

<comment><USER10> Huh, does that reflect in RFCS or something somewhere?

I'm quite pleased by the current solution and am not such a big fan of "?".

<comment><USER9> I'm curious what you do. Do you use try!() extensively, and fine it just fine? Or do you use something else, like .unwrap()?

<comment><USER10> Yep, I just use try!(), with the appropriate From implementations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How are compile times now? The one barrier I had to using Rust for anything large was the awful compile times.

Very happy to see the tooling improvements, though. Great work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, "now" is relative. When did you last try? They've been steadily dropping each release, though this latest one isn't as large as the last few.

<comment><USER11> Apologies, I should have mentioned that. It's been about 9 months.

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure what's considered slow or fast, but I just tried a couple of larger-ish rust projects. All data on a midrange SSD, i7 ~4.4Ghz. Warm disk- cache, so pratcically everything in RAM.

      crates.io backend service:
      # Note the thing pulls down lots of dependencies doing
      # install, so this is after a "cargo build;cargo clean":

      git clone firstname.lastname@example.com:rust-lang/crates.io.git crates.io.git
      cd crates.io.git/
      ./script/init-local-index.sh
      multirust run nightly cargo build --release
      multirust run nightly cargo clean
      # 4 threads, ~100% CPU up to compiling the final cargo.io bit,
      # which takes the longest:
      git diff
      diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
      index cf99b60..02e54fb 100644
      --- a/Cargo.toml
      +++ b/Cargo.toml
      @@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ version = "0.1.0"

      [profile.release]
      opt-level = 2
      +codegen-units = 4

      [lib]
      name = "cargo_registry"

      $ time multirust run nightly cargo build --release
      real    1m29.082s
      user    4m47.276s
      sys     0m6.196s

      # Single threades (default Cargo.toml):
      real    1m41.210s
      user    4m0.376s
      sys     0m5.120s

Servo:

      git clone https://github.com/servo/servo servo.git
      cd servo.git/
      ./mach build --release

(Servo also pulls down lots of dependencies, including a full rust toolchain...)

      ./mach clean
      time ./mach build --release
      Build completed in 791.07s
      real    13m11.874s
      user    40m21.468s
      sys     0m51.304s

At approximately 100% cpu for the first part, either the servo build script makes sure things are parallelized, or the Cargo.toml-settings are set for parallell builds (haven't checked).

And finally, a smaller project:

      git clone https://github.com/Aaronepower/tokei.git
      cd tokei/
      cargo build --release
      cargo clean

      $ time cargo build --release
      real    0m30.354s
      user    0m32.708s
      sys     0m0.444s

According to tokei (which is a blazingly fast cloc tool), there's ~100k cloc of rust in servo, ~7500 cloc of Rust in crates.io (but that doesn't include all the dependencies...).

After doing a clean install of rust stable with multirust, the combined cloc of stuff under ~/.multirust...cargo/src and tokei is ~11.5k cloc of rust, along with ~ 1400 cloc of c++.

<comment><USER13> You should note that "cargo clean" causes dependencies to be rebuilt next build as well; a regular "cargo build" would only re-compile your module and re-link with already-built dependencies, and so should be a fair bit faster.

<comment><USER12> Good point. I did that on purpose in order to do a full rebuild -- but I suppose for the purposes of "is rustc fast", it's actually more interesting to just do a build without clean (although one would have to manually remove the built binary and/or change the code in order to force a rebuild?).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have a small question : I have installed 1.4 through rustup.sh.

What is the clean way to upgrade to 1.5 ? I don't think there is some kind of 'rustup.sh upgrade' Delete 1.4 & reinstall ? Or downloading rustup 1.5 will apply a clean install on the existing one ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Run rustup.sh again, and it will Just Work. (If not, that's a bug.) If you want to have multiple versions installed at the same time, [https://github.com/brson/multirust](https://github.com/brson/multirust) is super cool.

Generally speaking, installation is something we're working on: working with Linux package maintainers, rolling rustup and multirust together and making them work well cross-platform, etc.

<comment><USER15> Any plans to offer official Rust Docker images?

Or is this it? [https://hub.docker.com/r/jimmycuadra/rust/](https://hub.docker.com/r/jimmycuadra/rust/)

<comment><USER16> What benefit would Docker images have over the existing upstream distribution or distro packaging? The Rust compiler doesn't have any particularly complicated dependencies, either installing the binaries directly from rust- lang.org or installing packages from your distro (if your distro has packages yet) should work fine.

Container images are great for daemons with possibly complicated dependency sets that might have conflicting version requirements with other packages and can benefit from isolation from other packages that containerization gives, but seem like a pretty heavyweight solution for just installing a compiler.

<comment><USER17> One benefit: one could install latest version of Rust on any distribution. Debian stable for instance usually lags behind (with good reason, but still...). I imagine it is mostly useful for checking out Rust though, not for normal use.

<comment><USER16> The installer from [https://www.rust-lang.org](https://www.rust-lang.org) works fine on Debian stable. Right now, you can just use the upstream rustup.sh script for platforms that don't yet have it packaged (like Debian stable), or install from your distro for those that do (or use rustup.sh on those as well if you like).

What I'm not seeing is the value of a Docker image. Rust doesn't have much in the way of runtime dependencies, which is where the value of a container generally comes in. I don't know of a platform where Docker image would work but rustup.sh would not.

<comment><USER17> So you think running some script on my machine is preferable to running a container? If I don't like having Rust around, with containers I can just remove it. With script - yeah, maybe, with some digging for correct parameters and assuming it cleans up after itself properly (which is far from trivial).

Packages are of course preferable if available and up-to-date.

<comment><AUTHOR> rustup.sh has an --uninstall flag that should remove everything cleanly.

<comment><USER17> Should. It wouldn't be the first script to have a bug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've been writing small libraries in Rust and calling them from Python. Fantastic pair! Congrats to the Rust team.

</comment><comment><USER19> cargo install is by far the most interesting one in terms of usability. I was wondering how to write deployment instructions for my binary program written in Rust; it's kinda clunky to say "here, open target/release/my_program or copy it to /usr/share/bin"

</comment><comment><USER20> Homebrew's Rust receipt is still at 1.4 :(

[https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/blob/master/Library/For...](https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/blob/master/Library/Formula/rust.rb)

<comment><USER21> This doesn't look like 1.4 but _1.0.0-beta.4_, so much older.

<comment><USER20> I've just updated the link.

It is 1.4 as I've brewed rust few minutes ago.

And you get the point, don't need to picky on the specifics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is this coincident with Go 1.5 release?

<comment><AUTHOR> No. We release every six weeks, period. Any resemblance to other releases, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

<comment><USER23> FYI, Go releases roughly every six months.

From [http://blog.golang.org/go12](http://blog.golang.org/go12), "This new release comes nearly seven months after the release of Go 1.1 in May. We anticipate a comparable interval between future major releases." Go 1.3 and 1.4 took six months, 1.5 eight months.</comment></comment></comment>


Iris smart home platform and related services to shutdown March 31, 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://www.irisbylowes.com/ <comment><USER2> In my book "the cloud" is only an extra source of failure and unreliability, and least when it comes to consumer products.</comment>


Guaranteed Availability Requires Reserving Instances In Specific Zones  - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/12/28/strategy-guaranteed-availability-requires-reserving-instance.html

<comment><USER2> The more Amazon's cloud matures, the more it feels like Google's internal infrastructure did when I worked there.

Sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes it's not... ;-)</comment>


Bitcoin value dives after China banks ban - <AUTHOR> http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2013/12/bitcoin-value-dives-after-china-banks-ban-2013125141919464366.html <comment><USER2> "the virtual currency that has soared in recent months and made fortunes for some, plunged"

Yes, the virtual currency that soared from $100 to $1200 has plunged down to $1000.

<comment><USER3> If there's one thing we learned in the last few months is how volatile BTC is. Reports of such "crashes" are really non-news.

<comment><USER4> For financial assets, the term "crash" has typically meant a drop of 20%. This would apply to the recent bitcoin decline from $1,200+ to sub $1,000.

Edit: 10% drop is considered a "correction". 20% drop is usually a bear market.

<comment><USER5> These fluctuations, however, show that Bitcoin cannot fulfill one of the central functions of currency: Exchange for goods.

How many of these multi-dozen-percent downward fluctuations will it take before those storeowners and shops that take bitcoin stop doing so or start maintaining an insane markup on Bitcoin prices?

<comment><USER6> I just bought a $1000 plane ticket a few days ago for bitcoin. Seems like that's fulfilling the role of a currency.

You should know that you don't actually have to hold bitcoin to accept it as a payment method. Services like Coinbase let you instantly exchange it to cash if you use their merchant tools, so the merchant is actually exposed to zero risk.

<comment><USER5> Ah, that explains it. It would be interesting to know what mechanisms Coinbase et al use to avoid balance sheet fallout by sudden downward fluctuations.

<comment><USER7> They would have to employ some sort of currency risk hedge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_hedge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_hedge)

<comment><USER8> Easier said than done when you don't have an actual currency to hedge against and the complete lack of a functioning options market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Quite poor financial reporting from AJ to be honest. BTC is highly volatile but it has generally stuck around $1,000 for the past couple of weeks, the upward spike to $1,200 was just one of many fluctuations which has once again levelled off at $1,000.

China telling large banks they can't handle BTC will not have any impact on the currency because everyone buying/selling BTC in China weren't using the banks anyway. The "dive" was potentially a slight overreaction to the news from China but it's also a fairly uninteresting fluctuation in a highly volatile resource.

<comment><USER10> If you don't mind me asking...

how are average people in China buying bitcoins without the use of a bank??? How do they get the cash to the seller of the bitcoin I guess is my question?

Do they walk into a brick and mortar "bitcoin store" and make a deposit (with cash)... and then they can trade from that "bitcoin store"? (Provided they accept all the risk).

Is there some other user friendly way this happens that doesn't require the use of cards that flow through financial institutions?

Or is the trade really complex currently and relegated to just "people in the know" so to speak?

Just trying to get an idea of how these new rules would affect the average Chinese.

<comment><USER11> They move their money from their bank to an exchange and then buy bitcoins. The announcement says nothing about not allowing banks to deal with bitcoin exchanges, only that banks can't deal in bitcoin directly.

This "news" (which is really just the official announcement of something announced unofficially a couple weeks ago) changes nothing whatsoever about the status quo.

<comment><USER10> Wait...

can't they just tell the banks that they can't deal with bitcoin businesses in the future???

<comment><USER12> In that case, they would tell it today rather than telling that the public should deal with the Bitcoin's risks themselves, wouldn't they?

<comment><USER10> Just playing Devil's Advocate...

but I wouldn't.

Those transfers to the exchanges from the banks are currently one of the few reliable monitors of this activity.

So I would first put the tech in place to monitor the bitcoin network... then I would say that you can't use banks to get to the exchanges anymore. (Monitoring blockchain changes on that scale is non trivial).

Anyway, if I was serious about impeding bitcoin usage... that would be the order I'd do things in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Premature reporting by aljazeera. There was an even bigger dive a few days ago but it shot back up after hitting 840.

<comment><USER14> There was an even bigger dive a few weeks ago to 300, news channels just didn't have a story, and I'm sure if Snoop Dogg said bitcoin was useless back then, they would have used that... "Bitcoin dive after Snoop Dogg loses faith in the currency..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Bitcoins are seriously worth a thousand dollars now? Now I feel stupid for spending my coin on Humble Bundles.

</comment><comment><USER16> leeoniya's law of bitcoin headlines:

"Any statement about bitcoin's value is outdated by the time it's published."

<comment><USER17> This is true of any market. By the time it hits newsstands, the change has happened. That's why you read charts, not headlines, when trading (if you want to make money, that is).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What most reporting is missing is that the early adopters are cashing out because it is now worthwhile to do so. And the prices keep jumping right back up, due to the late adopters.

Whenever you see a huge crash in a short period of time and a quick gain, expect it to recover. If you see a prolonged slow decline, it's time to abandon ship...

Oh to buy a bunch at 2009 prices...

</comment><comment><USER19> Lol I wouldn't call a £100 drop a dive for bitcoin.

Honestly i expected more but it's already recovering it was more like a minor bump in the road.

<comment><USER20> Working in amounts doesn't tell the whole story. Volatility is easier to understand when expressed in percentages. Have a look at the charts on bitcoinwisdom.com:

[http://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/bitstamp/btcusd](http://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/bitstamp/btcusd)

Explore various intervals (time period). Even at the 1d interval, there are 15% swings. Is this bad, given the qualifier that "it is Bitcoin" after all? That depends on what you expect Bitcoin to be. If you expect to use it as a currency, then yes, it's very bad. If you earned your Bitcoins yesterday, and you have to pay a bill today, then that kind of swing is a big problem. You could end up taking a 15% haircut. If you expect to use it as a speculative investment, then you've got a lot of opportunities for trading.

Both of these are fine, but they're opposing goals. Most economists agree that you want stability in a currency; that is the currency should act as an accounting measure only. It is a means of storing value at as close to NET zero gain/loss as possible, with it's real value being the ability to transact goods indirectly.

I'm not sure what values Bitcoin endeavors to hold, but if we're using duck typing, it looks a lot more like a speculative investment than a currency.

<comment><USER21> ...except you can't buy heroin with penny stocks.

'Platypus typing', maybe?

<comment><USER22> I'm not sure you can buy heroin with Bitcoin anymore either, all the online markets have shut down one way or another last I heard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Are BTC "values" not just hypothetical right now? Does anyone really do heavy trading in BTC-USD?

</comment><comment><USER24> And it bounced right back.</comment>


New Foundry Opened in San Francisco - <AUTHOR> https://www.diamondfoundry.com/blogs/the-foundry-journal/new-foundry-opened-in-san-francisco <comment><AUTHOR> I remember reading about Diamond Foundry on HN via this: [https://qz.com/630512/would-you-propose-with-a-diamond- grown...](https://qz.com/630512/would-you-propose-with-a-diamond-grown-in-a- lab/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Why choose an expensive locale like San Francisco for a _manufacturing_ facility?</comment>


The cheapest way to discover if a startup idea will make money - <AUTHOR> http://maxkle.in/the-cheapest-way-to-discover-if-a-startup-idea-will-make-money

<comment><USER2> Genuinely good advice, but the prose wrapped around it is tedious and over- wrought. I think a lot of people will tl;dr this, so (spoiler alert!) the advice is basically to use Twitter to validate ideas by seeing if you get a follow-back rate of more than 10% from people in your target audience.

<comment><USER3> It's sort of an interesting story. I think it does a good job of setting the tone: guy makes enough money in a short enough amount of time to (he believes) warrant excessive drug use. The payoff is interesting though (the Twitter idea). Most articles about validating startup ideas give really vague guidelines for doing it yourself. This way adds more noise to Twitter but it's easily do-able by anyone with a little free time.

<comment><USER4> Vaguely interesting but completely unrelated. I expected "the secret" to be that this guy dressed in drag and talked up guys at the bar to spill their secrets. Needless to say, I was very disappointed when the "secret" was using Twitter as a testing ground.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Personally, I don't think that twitter is the best measure. Given the amount of noise and the whole follow back culture, you might just end up getting the 1/10 person who ends up following everyone.

I think if you are going to use twitter, have something interesting to say about the area where your startup is based in - that will attract initial early adopters and those who are passionate about the space.

Also, I do feel if you have some JS, CSS knowledge, go out and actually build a landing page - see if people actually sign up to what the product will be (or could be) - that's a much better way to gain traction and email addresses for those who could end up being your early adopters.</comment>


My startup latest project: karatr.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.karatr.com/

<comment><USER2> Hey Okeumeni,

How many 'vertical' search sites is intelliverb going to be launching? Maybe it would be better to provide HN with a list of all the sites, rather than an individual post showing off another one of your sites every day. Particularly as the sites are all the same with the exception of the logo and each serving a different vertical market.

<comment><USER3> "rather than an individual post"

elsewhere it would be called spam

<comment><USER4> here I'd give it a week between posts

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "We designed Karatr to be the place to easily find the finest jewelry and watches."

I typed in "Rolex" and was confronted with a list of Rolex-style watches. That's not the finest choice that I was expecting.

"Karatr is a search engine where you don't just look for a wedding ring; you look for a ring that fit your character as a person by providing details matching your needs. Karatr don't just help you find a good brand watch, you're actually given options to narrow your search to the perfect watch for both your price and style."

Price yes, but I saw nothing about "style" or "character" on my Rolex search.

</comment><comment><USER6> And for Gods sake. Stop that 2.0-naming-bullshit. I -can- spell.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> At Intelliverb we are spending a lot of time on vertical search, karatr.com is our latest piece of work. Any feedback is welcome.</comment>


LLVM Adds Support for ASM Goto with Output Constraints - <AUTHOR> https://reviews.llvm.org/rG50cac248773#change-45lvD9QHW1fo <comment><USER2> I wonder if this helps improve the fidelity of Clang-built Linux.

<comment><USER3> It won't. This is an original feature, absent from GCC. Regular asm goto has been merged a while ago.

I'm wondering what the use case is; asm goto by itself is quite an obscure feature already, so I expect this would be doubly so.

<comment><USER4> Linux would use it for get_user(). The success path returns a value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can someone link me some "llvm4retards"-ish kind of tutorial?

Also which language has best llvm wrapper libraries except cpp/c? would be it possible to do it in c#/go?

<comment><USER6> Retards? No, but I can give you the next best thing. _LLVM for Grad Students._

[https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~asampson/blog/llvm.html](https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~asampson/blog/llvm.html)

<comment><USER7> >Retards?

What was the original message? Seems to be flagged.

<comment><USER8> LLVM guide for stupid people essentially</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: ASP.NET core - <AUTHOR> I am new to .Net can you please provide me good source for learning i want to know all from bottom to top, for example rendering with razor , hosting etc , and yes some road-map :)  for learning web development, and architecture of .net core >2 <comment><USER2> Stick to Microsoft learning resources, they provide much anything you need [https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/aspnet/core/?view=aspnetcor...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/aspnet/core/?view=aspnetcore-2.1)

They also provide tons of great educational video content for example on WebAPI [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIkpVzqLuhA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIkpVzqLuhA)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.amazon.com/Pro-ASP-NET-Core- MVC-2/dp/148423149X/...](https://www.amazon.com/Pro-ASP-NET-Core- MVC-2/dp/148423149X/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=)

</comment><comment><USER4> We dont even use Razor internally. Just learn the API controller side of ASP.net core 2.0 while using a modern frontend stack like Svelte/React as hot reloading is a thing that exists.</comment>


Listening to Ketamine - <AUTHOR> https://www.knowablemagazine.org/article/mind/2019/listening-ketamine <comment><USER2> > _Recent approval of a nasal spray promises to expand access, but much > remains unknown about long-term use and the potential for abuse._

This might surprise everybody, but if it's possible to "abuse" it, somebody will (turns out some humans will do that). I wish we'd stop restricting access to things that could help and improve people's lives because we're worried that somebody might do something with their body that we find morally objectionable.

<comment><USER3> If you're human, you are susceptible to addiction. The prudence prescribers have towards handing out addictive substances might save _you_ from being the person who abuses their medicine.

Much like any other potential side-effect, addiction is a risk that must be heavily weighed and mitigated against. Addiction causes harm, and even death. It isn't a question of personal morals, it's a question of ethics.

This is the same country that has experienced a decade-long opioid epidemic because addiction risks of prescription drugs were intentionally covered up, and in many cases, the drugs themselves were overprescribed.

<comment><USER4> It was a wicked whipsaw. Hordes of new opiate addicts were created, with more addictive compounds than ever before, at unprecedented levels of availability-- and then their access was yanked away, with seemingly little thought to how addicts would react. Curiously, Fentanyl showed up on the black market in huge amounts around this time... and then users from all walks of life started dropping like flies.

Narcan is saving a lot of lives (although it does little or nothing for addiction itself), and kratom looks like a potentially promising way to help addicts stop/reduce their use of harder stuff (if misguided crusaders don't go and ban _that_ everywhere), but everything's a tradeoff and nuance is important. We've got a ton to work on in this area for a long time.

<comment><USER5> > Narcan is saving a lot of lives (although it does little or nothing for > addiction itself)

Nothing whatsoever, and from a bigger picture hurts.

"Ideal" treatment for opiate overdose? Manage respiratory depression/arrest, slowly titrate IM (not nasal) Narcan to keep level of consciousness lower, get to hospital, offer patient treatment options/longer term help.

Blast IN naloxone into someone and they'll almost always AMA (against medical advice) on scene.

\-- paramedic

<comment><USER6> My girlfriend's involuntary treatment providers decided to give her a benzodiazepine addiction, on top of the other non-helpful prescriptions they thought she needed. Initially the benzos helped her "anxiety", but the effect wore off after a month. She ordered heroin from her street pharmacist to get through benzo withdrawal.

I said... "we're not going to do this again." She said it was barely any heroin at all, that she wasn't going to get addicted again, and that she just needed it so she could sleep. Just to show me that it wasn't much she prepared a second shot and injected that too. I don't think she realized that her tolerance had changed and that benzodiazepines increase the potency of opiates.

Then she fell forward, said "I meant to do that", then her face turned blue and she went non-responsive. I called EMS. They revived her with 2x2mg naloxone.

After a few minutes the firefighters decided she was okay. The police officers also decided they didn't need to intervene. She did very well for about 2 weeks: drinking under control, benzodiazepine withdrawal mostly completed, etc.

Narcan/naloxone has much broader effects than just kicking out the opiates from the opioid receptors. The related drug Naltrexone is FDA-approved to help people get their alcohol use under control. I'm not entirely clear on how the anti-opiates help with alcohol use, but I think it has to do with fixing the metabolic problem that is associated with most cases of alcoholism.

You're correct that narcan isn't much of a treatment by itself. But naltrexone is almost the same drug, keeps people sober long enough to get them stabilized, and partially addresses the long-term emotional pain they're actually self-medicating for.

If addicts are helped out of their "cage", narcan/naloxone and naltrexone are very useful tools to support them while they recover.

<comment><USER5> Oh, absolutely. That's definitely a challenging situation, and naltrexone is something to be considered in the longer term help, like you say. It's just not something we administer in EMS, largely for the same reasons, "treat the life threats", in her case respiratory depression/arrest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Coincidentally, I was talking to my neighbor this afternoon about how much ketamine has helped his depression. Apparently he loves the stuff, and each treatment lasts several months.

He did mention, though, that every time you get a dose you basically hallucinate for an hour. But maybe that's fine, if you're into it.

<comment><USER8> For me I guess it would depend on the kind of hallucinations we're talking about. If it's just "reality bending, things seem off" kind of hallucinations that's one thing, but full blown warped reality akin to an acid trip is another. I'd be cool with the former, but I'm terrified of the latter (which is why I've never done any sort of psychedelics).

<comment><USER9> high ketamine doses are much more warped than even high lsd doses. You are unable to move and your consciousness watches a totally different reality. It's quite scary, but it passes... when you come back though normal stresses seem to have passed away and you look at problems differently which is why I think it helps depression. It's like they don't matter so much so don't cause the same mental stresses.

<comment><USER10> Is the psychedelic dose _necessary_ for treatment of depression?

<comment><USER11> Probably not, as far as I have read it is ketamine metabolites that have anti- depressant properties, not the experience itself, which only lasts about 40-60 minutes

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've done ketamine recreationally and haven't been that impressed. Not sure if it's the dosage or my personal reaction to the drug, but it's like a very temporary (30 min max) feeling that is similar to being drunk.

There are better highs IMO.

</comment><comment><USER13> Folks say really really positive things about Ketamine. I wouldn't say I'm an inexperienced psychonaut, yet ketamine scares me. Two close friends told me they have problems "abusing" ketamine. If anyone is able to help shed some light what abusing ket looks like, I'd appreciate it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Pah. The Ketamine Fast Track approval feels a bit like a bad joke. See Scott Alexander's recent blog post here:

[https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/11/ketamine-now-by- prescr...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/11/ketamine-now-by- prescription/)

Really wish they'd have gone for Arketamine. To quote in part from above:

"Another possibility is that everyone made a huge mistake in using left-handed ketamine, and it's right-handed ketamine that holds the magic. Most previous research was done on a racemic mixture (an equal mix of left-handed and right- handed molecules), and at least one study suggests it was the right-handed ketamine that was driving the results. Pharma decided to pursue left-handed ketamine because it was known to have a stronger effect on NMDA receptors, but – surprise! – ketamine probably doesn't work through NMDA after all. So there's a chance that this is just the wrong kind of ketamine – though usually I expect big pharma to be smarter than that, and I would be surprised if this turned out to be it. I don't know if anybody has a right-handed ketamine patent yet."

I don't think that quite covers it, tho. Personally, I suspect Esketamine, as the part of racemic Ketamine that causes hallucinations exhibits an 'antidepressant' effect similar to the one weakly associated with psychedelics, i.e. more by granting new high level psychological insight than via some low level neurological effect - whereas I'd speculate Arketamine causes the documented 'magic' and RAPID next-day antidepressive effect of racemic Ketamine.

Which makes me suspect we'd probably do well doing the same thing done with some other stereoisomeric medications such as for example in the case of Adderall, which has a ratio of Dexamphetamine to Levo Amphetamine of 3:1(viz., 75% Dex, 25% Levo):

Figure out the optimal ratio of the two stereoisomers (to each other) for depression treatment.

</comment><comment><USER15> > Zarate and others are still thrilled to see big pharma investing in > ketamine, after decades of stalled efforts to find new psychiatric drugs. > "As esketamine hits the market, venture capitalists will come up with better > versions and move the field forward," Zarate says.

My doctor prescribes me sublingual ketamine for use at home. What we have now is good enough.

We need doctors like mine that have the courage to prescribe off label.

</comment><comment><USER16> I can't be the only one thinking that solving 'drug problems' with drugs is not the way to go?

Meditation and yoga offer plenty of support for managing stress and in fact depression. But most people want a quick antidote, something that 'burns' the edge off and not fixes it for good.

<comment><USER17> Ketamine is usually prescribed to people with "treatment"-resistant severe depression, and these "treatments" include other types of medication, exercise, and meditation. That aside, often, severely depressed people can't do even the basic things like showering, going to work, or making dinner. Ketamine treatment offers a severely depressed person to bootstrap themselves into a state where they _can_ start doing things that will allow themselves to support themselves.

<comment><USER18> Well said, thank you.

Few seem to understand how debilitating treatment-resistant depression can be. Source: wife's cousin, who when s(he)'s ok, is super smart, capable, and lives a good life. When s(he)'s in the depression hole, s(he)'s nearly comatose. Ketamine has helped greatly in his/her case.

<comment><USER19> Unrelated: Wouldn't "they" have worked fine as a pronoun there (and been less distracting)?

<comment><USER18> Yeah, it would have.

It's just that the ghost of my 5th grade English teacher would have emerged from the mists to point out that "they" is plural, whereas I was referring to an individual. Can't win.

<comment><USER10> Your 5th grade teacher, nor dictionaries, ought be considered authoritative sources of word meanings.

Words mean what people who use them intend them to mean.

But if you want something more authoritative than random-internet-comment, definition three from dictionary.com has you covered:

[https://www.dictionary.com/browse/they](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/they)

 _they

pronoun, possessive their or theirs, objective them.

1 nominative plural of he, she, and it.

2 people in general: They say he's rich.

3 (used with a singular indefinite pronoun or singular noun antecedent in place of the definite masculine he or the definite feminine she ): Whoever is of voting age, whether they are interested in politics or not, should vote. A person may apply only if they are over 21. They have been an actor since childhood._</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Homeless Guy Accepts Programmer's Offer To Learn How To Code - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/homeless-guy-accepts-offer-to-learn-coding-2013-8

<comment><USER5> This is both so wrong and so right that I don't know where to begin to.

Right because I think that the hands on approach works better than throwing money at charity ... wrong because when you are helping a person you should give them what they need and not what they think need and not what you think they need.

And while I do think that this will help the guy it will be mostly because of his celebrity status and some company will snatch him just for marketing purposes it is not optimal solution. I will rant in details later.

Disclaimer - I had two such "pet projects" that brought limited success although not with homeless people.

<comment><AUTHOR> What would you do as a hands-on approach but instead of learning him how to code?

Regarding your two projects - did you write about them online? I'd be interested in reading them.

<comment><USER5> Okay brief summary on the projects:

A friend was long term unemployed and because I knew that he was ok with math offered my co-founder of the startup I was involved with at the time to "hire" him for intensive training. The idea was - he was payed to study and to write unit tests after that for our code. We payed the guy subsitance rate - <USER2> pretty small financial approach and helped him with the studies. So after 3 months of training he was hired on normal rate and pushed towards QA and testing automation. But after that he begun to slack a bit (mostly related to his girlfriend, spend way too much time with her and not enough on self improvement which was part of deal) so he could not keep up and we let him go. This was like a wake up call for him and he got his act together, found his next job on his own and now is making career in very respectable company with above average income as QA.

The second was a bit different - a friend of mine soon after birth found herself single and with the baby soaking up all her income and time she was unable to take care of herself which led her to depression. She was eating junk could not shed the pregnancy , couldn't bring herself to shape and her figure was greatly deformed (according to her). So I offered her a deal - <USER3> buy her all the food she needs (I wanted to see how low carb diets work in women), she does not restrict calories and just tracks every day her weight and progress. So we go to shop every day, upgraded her from starches and sugar to leaner meat, fresh produce and some fruits with the occasional bar of dark chocolate - while she did not lost much weight she is in much better shape, very vigorous now and have better figure than before. Her waist slimmed like crazy. It is ongoing btw.

Now about that project - these guys are not homeless. They are houseless if I can quote George Carlin. What they need in the first place is warm and dry place to stay, a shower, a mean and clean clothes and maybe some help with an addiction. They need that kind of a break to be able to begin turning their lives around. They also need a job. A great part of a person's self worth comes from that. That guy - I wish him all the best btw will still need to find projects and work with his new javascript skills. How exactly will he do it?

Now what I will describe is the minimum needed things for that kind of project to have a chance of happy ending (a guy from the streets to be reintegrated into the society):

1\. First - make it a long term project (6 months) 2\. Provide some kind of shelter and basic food security and broadband - if you are really serious about making technologist out of him 3g or LTE won't be enough 3\. Make him feel worthy about himself as human being - give him tasks that produce value - give him normal linux machine show him the help and make him setup a lamp stack himself, setup his ide etc. Guide him and give him tasks that are of real use to someone - personal site etc. Enroll him in Edx and coursera - <USER4> python edx MIT course is amazing. If he happens to be a decent human being try to create leads for him when the project is over about projects jobs or show him where to look for freelance work. 4\. Also have very detailed and very reasonable schedule and expected milestones and be ready to pivot at any moment - he may not have the chops for programmer but he could be great admin or tester or designer.

I know it is a lot, but I don't think anything less will do and you are just playing games with people's lives.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for detailed answer and writing about your projects. Both are very interesting and were something I had on mind to do someday; that is why I asked to read about them.

Regarding the methodology/steps to help the guy: I do understand your point now and agree with all what you said, except the last bit - I still believe it's better for him to have even that chance than nothing. Even though this experiment might not make him a programmer, he will have a "motivator" in front of him for some time, internet connection and a laptop. This could (and I hope it will) change something in him when the project is over, no matter the end result with JS.

I see outcomes from this project as far from linear; for example: he might use internet to learn about something else he tends to understand easily, discuss that with his "mentor" and possibly end up working in that sphere. He has more chances to do something with that guy, chromebook and JS books than with nothing.

Hope this makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So, this guy is taking homeless guy off the streets and housing him where? Surely, not leaving him in the office with a lot of equipment when you don't now him, not in your own home with the family? and what if he doesn't get housed anywhere? How will he be paid, in the UK you cant earn money without an address, nor have bank accounts etc... I'm sure its the same over your side of the pond?

Also, what stunt is he trying to pull? I agree its helping but morally the wrong way. Should I just go and find a homeless person and tell them that they can get off the streets but they have to be my personal body guard or coder or cleaner - Its not my place to decide that for anybody.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Related articles on Medium (from the guy who offered this):

Part 1: [https://medium.com/architecting-a- life/fee8f3ee97a0](https://medium.com/architecting-a-life/fee8f3ee97a0)

Part 2: [https://medium.com/architecting-a- life/ae059ddffd2e](https://medium.com/architecting-a-life/ae059ddffd2e)

Leo's Facebook page: [https://www.facebook.com/pages/Journeyman/167865816737032](https://www.facebook.com/pages/Journeyman/167865816737032)</comment>


Is there a Hacker News flagging mafia? - <AUTHOR> http://rondam.blogspot.com/2012/01/is-there-hacker-news-flagging-mafia.html

<comment><USER2> The link he claims has been flagged to death with 4 points... has not been flagged to death, and has 6 upvotes. And I see an up arrow for it.

Perhaps the reason there was no up arrow when Ron saw it is that he was one of the people who upvoted it the previous day?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope. I had never seen it before I tried to submit the link and was forwarded to the original submission. Maybe HN auto-upvotes in this case?

<comment><USER3> HN automatically upvotes the original article if you submit a duplicate.</comment></comment></comment>


Order-Preserving Encryption Revisited [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~aboldyre/papers/operev.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Recent password db leaks and considerations around storing HIPPA data in the cloud had me thinking about encrypted data in RDBMs.

Given the limitations that seem apparent, I am wondering more about whether the correct approach is to encrypt/decrypt everything client-side and only store encrypted data. Your client gets hosed at some data point, particular once data size gets big, for some definition of big, since it has to handle all the data munging.</comment>


Show HN: "Did You Mean?" for Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dutc/didyoumean

<comment><USER2> It niggles me that the library is called "Did you mean?" but the error message is "Maybe you meant?". Why is the error message not "Did you mean X?"

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is probably not a good idea. (dutc = Don't Use This Code)

It's horrible that it even works.

It's surprising how well it works when it does work.

It was a great opportunity to solidify some knowledge about low-level (implementation) details.

<comment><USER3> Since you mention thinking there must be a better way in hook.c, you can override the traceback printer:

[https://docs.python.org/3.4/library/sys.html#sys.excepthook](https://docs.python.org/3.4/library/sys.html#sys.excepthook)

I haven't thought through how to access the state needed to make a suggestion though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that was one of the (less-bad) approaches I tried first:

[https://gist.github.com/dutc/3f2c79048d95287be138](https://gist.github.com/dutc/3f2c79048d95287be138)

But you can see it's somewhat limited. And I was curious to actually hook an internal Python call!

By the way, that hook.c comment was wondering whether there might be a nicer (more nearly portable?) way to set-up these assembly sections. Some of this stuff was hacked together, but I have a couple other games I want to play with this gimmick, and I want to make the hooking a bit better.

[https://github.com/dutc/libhook](https://github.com/dutc/libhook)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Someone on GitHub asked "why shouldn't this be used":

[https://github.com/dutc/didyoumean/issues/1](https://github.com/dutc/didyoumean/issues/1)

Here's the answer I gave:

It's not a particularly useful feature in practice. Misspellings resulting in AttributeErrors are generally caught pretty quickly, and this addition to standard error reporting would mostly be useful in interactive settings where the mistake would be obvious.

(Note that linting tools like PyFlakes already do a fairly good job of picking up on NameErrors, which result from using variables that don't exist.)

I have two other approaches to supplement error reporting with spelling suggestions ([https://gist.github.com/dutc/3f2c79048d95287be138](https://gist.github.com/dutc/3f2c79048d95287be138)) that are a little less 'janky.'

What makes this approach particularly offensive are:

\- I implement this by hooking into a C function in the Python interpreter itself, `PyObject_GetAttr`: [https://github.com/dutc/didyoumean/blob/2c9f01d03c1574f93155...](https://github.com/dutc/didyoumean/blob/2c9f01d03c1574f93155df6c6e3b59b914bacf20/src/didyoumean.c#L147)

\- I find the function, unprotect its memory page, then clobber first few assembly instructions with a jump: [https://github.com/dutc/didyoumean/blob/2c9f01d03c1574f93155...](https://github.com/dutc/didyoumean/blob/2c9f01d03c1574f93155df6c6e3b59b914bacf20/src/hook.c#L29)

\- I need to jump to an absolute address, since I don't want to (or can't?) calculate the relative addresses. I don't believe I can do this with a `push` and a `ret` or with a regular `call`, so I use a `jmp` instruction. The `jmp` instruction won't take an absolute address as an immediate value, so I have to use the `%rax` register: [https://github.com/dutc/didyoumean/blob/2c9f01d03c1574f93155...](https://github.com/dutc/didyoumean/blob/2c9f01d03c1574f93155df6c6e3b59b914bacf20/src/hook.c#L12)

\- Since I'm using this register, I have to save & restore its value. In the hooking code, I save its value with a `push %rax`. In order to restore its value, I have to patch the assembly for the hook function to stick a `pop %rax` before any other instructions: [https://github.com/dutc/didyoumean/blob/2c9f01d03c1574f93155...](https://github.com/dutc/didyoumean/blob/2c9f01d03c1574f93155df6c6e3b59b914bacf20/src/hook.c#L50)

\- In order to figure out the candidates for the spelling correction, I need to call `dir` on the object. But `dir` calls`PyObject_GetAttr` internally, and those calls can themselves trigger exceptions. In order to avoid this unbounded recursion, I have to implement a parallel code-path for `dir` by creating a `safe_PyObject_Dir`: [https://github.com/dutc/didyoumean/blob/2c9f01d03c1574f93155...](https://github.com/dutc/didyoumean/blob/2c9f01d03c1574f93155df6c6e3b59b914bacf20/src/safe_PyObject_Dir.c)

\- In some builds of Python, the internal CFunction which provides the Python builtin function `getattr()`, `builtin_getattr`, is compiled without explicit calls to `PyObject_GetAttr`. In order to hook into these `getattr` calls, I need to patch the builtin module. But because someone could have already gotten a handle on `getattr`, I need to directly patch the function: [https://github.com/dutc/didyoumean/blob/2c9f01d03c1574f93155...](https://github.com/dutc/didyoumean/blob/2c9f01d03c1574f93155df6c6e3b59b914bacf20/src/didyoumean.c#L150)

This approach is probably not portable, and it's definitely not a good idea.

However, figuring out all these small problems was a great way to put some low-level knowledge to use!

<comment><USER4> _" In order to avoid this unbounded recursion, I have to implement a parallel code-path for `dir` by creating a `safe_PyObject_Dir`"_

I thought this was intended to not be used. Why then, don't you do the (in)sane thing and set a global flag _" I am calling `dir`; ignore calls to PyObject_GetAttr, please"_, and check that flag in your patch? (if you aren't sure whether a single global flag will do, use a thread-local one, but I think/guess that is overkill, given Python's GIL)

And, by the way, this is how extensions in Mac OS pre Mac OS X did their magic. It got really fun when multiple extensions tried to patch up the same OS call, or when the OS would unpatch your patches. For some OS calls, that would happen when the Finder launched, for others whenever an application launched.

<comment><AUTHOR> Setting a flag is another approach. There's already an extension mechanism for storing arbitrary per-thread state in a dictionary object, accessible via `PyThreadState_GetDict`.

[https://hg.python.org/cpython/file/1d708436831a/Python/pysta...](https://hg.python.org/cpython/file/1d708436831a/Python/pystate.c#l361)

However, implementing the parallel code-path turned out to be easier (just a bit of cut & paste) and a bit saner to debug. `PyObject_Dir` tries to look up a few attributes on the object (`__dir__`, `__bases__`, &c.) which may not exist. There's a high likelihood of multiple AttributeErrors each time through.

Any documentation on Mac OS patches? Would be very curious to learn more about how these worked out in practice!

<comment><USER4> That old MacOS stuff is hard to find on the Internet. One thing I did find that gets a bit close is [http://www.mactech.com/articles/develop/issue_16/Radcliffe_f...](http://www.mactech.com/articles/develop/issue_16/Radcliffe_final.html). Problem is that it likely is a bit hard to follow if you do not know about the stuff. Moreover, it doesn't really show patching itself.

I am fairly sure there is some article about patching in those archives of Develop, but I couldn't find it.

Wikipedia has little, too. [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/INIT](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/INIT) may provide some starting points.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> w-m Didn't I see a question on how to get the object when an AttributeError is thrown on stackoverflow yesterday?

<comment><USER5> You did[1]

[1] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26548094/how-to-get- hold-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26548094/how-to-get-hold-of-the- object-missing-an-attribute)</comment></comment>


Is Mathematics a Science? (2004) - <AUTHOR> http://andrewlias.blogspot.co.uk/2004/08/is-mathematics-science.html <comment><USER2> Wow. The author posted thousands of words, and missed the key difference between mathematics and science.

Science must be empirical -- it must compare its theories with objective reality, in practical tests. If the tests fail, the theory that led to the tests must be abandoned. On that basis, science is falsifiable by reality- test, and any theory, however well-established, may be falsified by new evidence, in perpetuity. There are any number of examples in the history of science where a well-established theory, after prevailing for hundreds of years, was falsified by new evidence.

Link: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory)

Quote: "The strength of a scientific theory is related to the diversity of phenomena it can explain, which is measured by its ability to make falsifiable predictions with respect to those phenomena."

Mathematical conjectures and theorems do not have to be compared to reality, only to other formal axioms and theorems that are part of mathematics -- this means mathematics only requires internal consistency.

On that basis, mathematics is not a science. It is vitally important to science -- without mathematics, much of modern science would collapse. But mathematics is not itself a science.

Before my readers object that this is all too clearly defined, and (as I often hear) philosophers are in disagreement about what science really is, I have to remind people that religious groups would like to teach Creationism in public school science classrooms, but in order to do that, they have to redefine science to suit themselves. The key property of science that keeps religious beliefs out of the classroom are the requirements for empirical tests and falsifiability. Take away these requirements, and we lose any practical, meaningful definition of science.

Science is very clearly defined, and it is not a suitable debating platform for philosophers, or for religious True Believers.</comment>


Show HN: Angular-permission simple access control for your routes in AngularJS - <AUTHOR> https://www.github.com/Narzerus/angular-permission

<comment><USER2> What are common use cases for client-side permissions, given you can't be sure the code won't be tampered with? I could think of adapting the UI based on roles: it's nice to have but not critical. What else?

p.s. thanks for sharing

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here:

Basically in angular-permission you define different validations the current session can pass or not. We are for now calling these 'roles' but im sure that's not the correct word to describe them.

To give you a better example, let's say we have a Session service which handles wether we are logged in or not, also stores information about the user currently logged in. We can define the following 'roles':

'anonymous' -> Session.currentUser is undefined 'admin' -> Session.currentUser.isAdmin is true 'user' -> Session.currentUser is defined

A common use-case would be not allowing the user to enter the signup and login view if we are already logged in. So to do that we would add in the login state a data.permissions object something like this:

permissions: { except: ['anonymous'] redirectTo: 'home' }

This is a fairly common use case of to what a library like this can be useful. Keep in mind it's still in early stage but we're currently using it in a fairly big project and it's saved us tons of lines of code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting, I'll give this a try. I've been searching around for ways to handle angular client-side permissions specifically with ui-router. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here: Awesome, let me know how it works for you and what would you improve.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A Web Audio live-looper using microphone and MIDI input - <AUTHOR> http://codecur.io/us/projects/looper <comment><AUTHOR> This application is intended for live performance, so it uses a few keyboard controls to control the application state. These controls aren't intuitive, so you'll want to read/remap them in the gear-menu. If you're unclear on what live-looping is, or how to use this application specifically, check out the help menu (the big question-mark button) for a brief rundown.

Also note that this application depends on the Web MIDI API, which, AFAIK, is only available in recent versions of Google Chrome. Some features should work in other browsers, such as testing the synthesizers and using microphone input, but if you want the intended experience, you'll need to use Chrome.

Anyways, I hope you alls have fun with this. It was built with Wad.js, a Web Audio framework that I wrote. Check it out on github: [https://github.com/rserota/wad](https://github.com/rserota/wad).

<comment><USER2> Pretty sweet! Love loop recording. The other day I launched my own project that uses WebMIDI, Audio and your great Wad.js: [http://midi.space](http://midi.space)

So, cheers for writing that lib! Looking forward to do more with it than just launching sounds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A friend created this one [http://loopjs.com/](http://loopjs.com/)

<comment><USER2> Wow! Wasn't aware of that, and I thought I skipped through all MIDI/Audio related stuff I could find. A lot to learn from it, it seems. Thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is really cool! Nice work.</comment>


Astronomers complete first international asteroid tracking exercise - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2017-11-astronomers-international-asteroid-tracking.html <comment><USER2> We want to explore the solar system... and there are these marvellous parcels of kinetic energy and expensive rare earth elements whizzing around the place. With built-in radiation shielding, too.

OK, at least one of the bigguns is pointing at Earth. But, you know what they say, every existential threat is an opportunity in disguise! In this case, potentially _unlimited funding_ for the study and development of asteroid harnessing technology. That's _before_ you sell the metals.</comment>


How two Ethereum ERC20 contracts got hacked - <AUTHOR> https://cryptojobslist.com/blog/two-vulnerable-erc20-contracts-deep-dive-beautychain-smartmesh <comment><USER2> Ths situation is quite simple, today developers have no clue how data structures work in memory and this is a typical case of it. Any C developer has knowlidge about this, but if you are floating in space and can see actual memory just as a blue planet far away, this is the result. But I bet someone will say that garbage collector would solve the issue :D :D :D

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it's been quite scary how many novice devs move into space and just copy-paste code. And they charge money for that "expertise". And they actually getting paid…

Also, those who discover those bugs afterwards get paid even more in the end. Sad story.

<comment><USER2> Yep, I don't believe any industry/science deteriorated during years of "usage" as much as IT did, software development came to the point where I am ashamed to say to the people I am a developer. Not becoase of my knowlidge but due to all the garbage that universities through out to the streets. =/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

Yesterday trading on several tokens got halted due to discovered & exploited vulnerabilities in two smart contracts. One of them lost about 90% of its value… and another one lost 26% - $40,000,000 in market cap. in

We wanted to focus more on the technical analysis of the situation to shed some light on common vulnerabilities that still abound.

Would love your feedback, since we got some mixed reviews on whether we did a correct technical judgment of one of the contracts.</comment>


Rumor: Scribd.com running out of money.   - <AUTHOR> http://www.fuckedstartups.com/2008/10/26/rumor-scribdcom-running-out-of-money/

<comment><USER2> I guess it's just a matter of infrastructure cost (big) overshadowing profits (small).

That being said, Scribd does a GENIUS SEO trick that I haven't seen anywhere else. Scribd tracks all search terms that lead to a document, and then embed a link in that document's page with the search term as the anchor text. To see this in action, go to a Scribd document ([http://www.scribd.com/doc/918737/Ruby-on-Rails-Simple- Exampl...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/918737/Ruby-on-Rails-Simple-Examples- Strings)), go to the "Indexing" box in the lower right, and scroll through the list.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm a big fan of Scribd and I've been using it in numerous projects. I really hope they can stay afloat for their own (and my own) sake.</comment>


The Scale of the Universe (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://htwins.net/scale2/

<comment><USER2> I'm always fascinated by this. Here's a few of my favorites:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udAL48P5NJU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udAL48P5NJU)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q)

[http://scaleofuniverse.com/universe- large.jpg](http://scaleofuniverse.com/universe-large.jpg) (large image)

</comment><comment><USER3> Although this has been featured on HN a few times before, I hadn't realised it was put together by a couple 14 year old school kids. Well done them:

[http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/page/scale-universe-cary- mi...](http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/page/scale-universe-cary-michael- huang-california-high-school-15573968)

</comment><comment><USER4> And we are in the middle of this scale. I wonder if there is any significance to that.

<comment><USER5> The significance is that the human is being used as the "measure of all things"

The scale is based on the ratio to the size of a human being (human being = 1 or 10^0), so if we were in the middle that would be why we'd be there, but the Planck Length is 10^-35 and "The Universe" is 10^27 so we aren't actually that close to the middle.

<comment><USER6> That's a 10^-8 difference in scale at the top end, though if we use the size of the human brain instead that's 10^-10 difference in scale. We're certain, however, about the Planck length being the smallest scale but not whether "The Observable Universe" is really the greatest distance. If some of the large scale parameters of physics, e.g. the fine structure constant, vary depending on position, then there could be a mathematical limit to the size of the Universe, which could conceivably be 10^10 times the "Observable Universe".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is such a great demo. I saw this maybe a year ago and was just thinking about it the other day. Huge nebulas larger than the galaxy are completely mystifying.</comment>


Show HN: Simple script to create Nginx Vhosts easily on Linux - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/patrickcurl/ngTool <comment><USER2> You should adjust the syntax to match valet. Would be super comfortable for laravel devs.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll look into that, I'm on arch, so don't use valet much -- but there's a linux derivative of valet that I know of. I've got some elaborate scripts for vagrant that I could put together as well, I prefer a good vagrant setup over homestead simply because there's a lot more I can do, like setup multiple boxes and test out master/slave db setups, etc..</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there a software which improves offer-to-joining ratio? - <AUTHOR> More than 50% of employees tend to drop-off after accepting the joining offer. Is there a software which can improve this ratio? Or how is the current process managed by recruiters and HRs? <comment> Lorenz-Kraft I don't think that there is a software that can do this. We are talking about humans and its probably "human factors" that lead to 50% DropOff.</comment>


Ask HN: (Anyone has written / Hot to write) a functional codebase? - <AUTHOR> Hi Everyone, I am a developer with 2 years of experience in Angular. When I started working I have no idea about OOPS, Functional Programming or Reactive Programming. But as Angular is tightly coupled with RXJS, I get to learn about reactive programming. Initially, I was not adhering to the programming paradigm and was writing kind of spaghetti code. But slowly after watching lots of conference videos, and lots of reading, I get to hold on Reactive Programming and the quote "Everything is a stream" started making sense to me, now I am pretty comfortable in writing almost all my code in Observable and Subjects.
While transitioning to this period I also get to know about what is functional programming and writing pure Observable streams. I understand functional programming up to this mark only.
- Pure Functions - Dot Chaining
That's it. I want to learn more of this stuff but I don't know how to start writing pure code. What to do about state change and side effects. I wanted to learn by taking a look at other people code and if anyone has a better suggestion do let me know.
These are the resources I am already aware of and reading right now.
- Composing Software by Erir Elliott - Mostly Adequate Guide by Dr. Frisby
The thing with books is that they only explain you the concept but it's hard for me to get ideas from the book and directly applying them in the codebase I am writing or in the job.
Please reach out to me, if you can teach me something or provide any guidance. <comment><AUTHOR> If anyone is struggling to understand RXJS and Reactive Programming can reach out to me. I will be happy to help you.</comment>


Show HN: I wrote a nifty perl script for managing projects. Thoughts? - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/d30b64026

<comment><USER2> You should call it "Captain's Log"

I'm not sure I'd ever have a use for it/remember to use it. Fairly elegant idea though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Love it, and thanks!</comment></comment>