Ask HN: Where to find a mentor in my city (or any)? - <AUTHOR>

I live in Los Angeles and would love to meet someone who I could get advice/motivation from in moving forward career wise. I've been in this business two and a half years but seem to be the only one at my company that gets excited like a kid at learning new programming technologies/concepts. The meetups in my neighborhood that I've attended tend to attract very new programmers so not a lot of learning there (although i really enjoy helping them out). Other than "co-workers" and "meetups" I'm not sure of the best place to search. Thanks! <comment><USER2> May I recommend to you UUASC, the Unix Users Association of Southern California, check us out at [http://www.uuasc.org/](http://www.uuasc.org/) We've got a great mailing list, with programmers, sys admins, security types, newbies, greybeards, and really a lot of variety.

There are two chapters, LA and Orange County, and it's been around for a over a decade, maybe two. Really great group, I've learned a lot from the mailing list and the monthly meetings.

I'm based in Burbank myself if you'd like to meetup for lunch sometime.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not sure it will help, but the local universities/colleges that have good programming departments might have faculty who could steer you in the right direction?</comment>


Show HN: A no-nonsense Jekyll theme for sensible blogging - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/amitmerchant1990/reverie <comment><USER2> Immediate first impression: I don't like the font.

So I took a closer look at it and I think the gray is too bright and the font itself... Well, it isn't too bad, but I wouldn't consider it elegant nor readable.

Apart from the font, I like the clean look and minimal layout.

I hope this feedback helps to improve the theme for future versions ;-)

<comment><USER3> Futura is a nice typeface, I would argue, but it's not a very good _body_ typeface. And the commenter who noted that (a) this is specifying the "light" weight rather than the regular weight is correct; that's just not a good choice for body text. The low contrast of #555 text on #FFF background compounds the problem. (That's technically a WCAG Level AAA-compliant contrast ratio, but at 7.45:1, just barely; I like lighter-than-pure-black text on darker-than-pure-white background, but I tend to aim for at least a 12:1 contrast ratio on a site I expect people to be, you know, reading lots of text on.)

That commenter is also right that Futura PT is a commercial, closed-source font, which makes this entire thing rather moot until this is fixed.

Also: if you're going to include custom typefaces, for the love of all that's holy, _please_ include the italic and bold versions of the typeface if they exist and you expect users to use them. Letting browsers make fake bold is bad enough; letting them just slant text to make fake italics is eye-bleeding.

<comment><USER4> What _are_ some good body fonts though? I would prefer stuff that is available on Windows. It's an eternal problem I struggle with, until I throw in the towel and say 'fuck it, let the user decide' and just put 'sans-serif' as the attribute. That, or use Arial.

<comment><USER3> That's always subjective, which isn't a great answer. I never really liked sans serif fonts for body text, but there are a few that have convinced me otherwise -- off the top of my head, Fira Sans, Lato, Open Sans, and Source Sans Pro are all good, and all available on Google Fonts to boot. (If you don't want to have any downloaded fonts, you're kind of stuck with either really lowest common denominator stuff or doing a font stack and being okay with fonts changing a little depending on OS. Calibri and Candara are widely available on Windows, but hit-or-miss on Mac and virtually non-existent on Linux, for instance.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe this will get some downvotes, but I don't get why this is on HN. There are plenty of Jekyll themes out there, does this one stand out in some way?

It is quite elegant though!

<comment><USER6> > does this one stand out in some way

Maybe that's what the bullet points under "Features overview" are for :-)

<comment><USER5> Yes, and I read it, but none of it struck me as being remarkable :-)

Please don't misunderstand, I do not intend to knock the project in any way, it seems excellent, just similar to others that already exist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> \- Google Analytics integration

Built-in spying on users and exposing them to a more or less hostile third- party is worse than nonsense.

\- A home widget to show recent GitHub commit

That _is_ total nonsense for sensible blogging. ;p

</comment><comment><USER8> I also have my own a simple Jekyll theme here focused on using open-source typography: [https://github.com/robenkleene/cyclist](https://github.com/robenkleene/cyclist)

</comment><comment><USER9> As much as I hate kowtowing to google, if you want people to actually find what you write on your blog, you have to worry about implementing proper meta/open graph tags, structured data, dynamic site map, and even AMP support.

I have yet to find a good static site generator theme that actually implements all of the above...and it's a major PITA to have to implement every time.

<comment><USER10> Hey! This is my kind of thing.

Curious what you've tried and why it hasn't worked for you? Especially regarding AMP support: is that a necessary feature for SEO-driven blogging these days?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> OP, please add curated to the project description. I only sensibly blog with curated themes.

</comment><comment><USER12> There are way too many issues with design:

\- Grey reduces contrast for black forecolors, not good for long comfortable reading

\- Font are too squeezed for comfortable reading

\- lines sprouting out from heading are unnecessarily distracting

\- Default always-ON scroll bars are truly ugly

</comment><comment><USER13> First thought: The footer moves up the page when the content isn't long enough. It should be sticky.

</comment><comment><USER14> Why? It's so easy to make a Jekyll site / theme from scratch.

<comment><USER6> Looks like the author put some work in ("...a fork of jekyll-now with some additional features and personal touches which I've implemented to suit my needs for my blog") and they thought others may find it useful. Sometimes that's how open source works; every project doesn't have to be a category- defining framework.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nicely done!

In case people are visiting the discussion looking for more no-nonsense Jekyll theme recommendations, I recently came across this beautiful collection that seems to fit the bill: [https://mademistakes.com/work/jekyll- themes/](https://mademistakes.com/work/jekyll-themes/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Something is making it slow.</comment>


Two Danish minors convicted and fined for "facerape" on Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Andre_sprog/English/2013/02/20/132747.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> The interesting part here was the minors were charged with disturbing the secrecy of corresponding: you are not allowed to intentionally open someone else's physical mail, if personally addressed to that person. The prosecutor claimed this also applied to another person's private Facebook messages.</comment>


Making history with FiSync – Real time bank transfers are here - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dwolla.com/making-history/ <comment><AUTHOR> I think it's naive for Dwolla to think that they have a secure system when it's been untested and will start by being used on a small scale.

While the delay in the current ACH system may not have been a QWERTY type thing in place to prevent some fraud (in other words it existed because of real reasons not to prevent "jammed" keys) a system that operates faster is going to certainly be more of a challenge to get right.

Edit: Specifically I'm not seeing anything on the Dwolla site to back up this statement: "A system that inherently better protects you than before is live"

</comment><comment><USER2> That page and those I found linked from it seemed quite light on details.

Can anyone point me to a white paper or something more in-depth on how they plan to run a full blown competitor to ACH? The legal, technical and security challenges seem quite daunting.

<comment><USER3> I'm still waiting for Dwolla to produce an RFC on this before I even bother looking into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone else find it a little disconcerting that Dwolla would effectively control the direct financial payments market if this did replace ACH?

Obviously, this is what Dwolla wants but the larger banks must be able to see it. They're the masters at playing angles like this. Sure it's free now, but what about when you're a monopoly?

</comment><comment><USER5> Why would anyone trust Dwolla for these transfers when they are not able to even handle the current fraud they get? Using a third party so heavily will just mean you are completely subject to their whims.

How does this system handle chargebacks? What is the incentive for a bank to use this over the well established ACH?

<comment><USER6> > How does this system handle chargebacks?

How does cash handle chargebacks? How can we possibly do so much business with a financial instrument that provides no way to un-pay someone you've already paid?

<comment><USER7> Cash is generally hard to steal in bulk. You can't just get a bunch of numbers from people surreptitiously and then empty their entire life savings in effectively untraceable milliseconds.

<comment><USER6> An absence of chargebacks does not mean "effectively untraceable". Even cash is potentially traceable, and this seems quite a bit more traceable than cash (which represents both a feature and a bug).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The biggest problem I see is that the system does not seem to have any form of two-factor authentication at all.

Here in Europe, where online electronic bank transfers have been commonplace for years, two-factor authentication has been shown to be a must because otherwise levels of fraud become too high.

<comment><USER9> Are you referring to chip-and-pin? It's broken [http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2010/02/11/chip-and- pin-i...](http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2010/02/11/chip-and-pin-is- broken/)

<comment><USER8> No, I am not referring to chip-and-pin, but to two-factor authentication when doing online banking. Chip-and-pin has nothing to do with two-factor authentication and is solely for when the user is present. Two-factor authentication is primarily used when the user is not physically present.

For example, my UK bank makes an automated call to me whenever I am sending money to a new recipient, where I have to confirm that yes, I want to send money to that person or institution.

To send money from my German bank account, I use a special external device (TAN generator) where I sign off on the details of the transaction itself.

<comment><USER9> Oh I see, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The user interface for the transfer seemed to be too confusing and disjointed.

You have to enter the money amount at the top of the left hand column, click a button, and then the other details in a center column. It's not one flow.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is a real significant milestone for a company that's disrupting the financial system.

They talk about replacing ACH but the end result is more than that - it's replacing the ubiquity of credit cards. It'll take years to do but these folks at Dwolla are smart and working with the right people (from Kutcher for investment to the Federal Reserve for compliance to credit unions to serve).

Cheers to Dwolla!</comment>


Get a free copy (No BS) of Ryan Holiday's Bestseller "Growth Hacker Marketing"  - <AUTHOR> This isn't some bullshit ploy to collect emails or aything...
Ryan is speaking at an event I put on and I bought 500 of his latest book in return.  If you don't know, he's the Director of Marketing for American Apparel and he is a WSJ Bestselling Author. Growth Hacker Marketing is the #1 Marketing Book on Amazon - http://amazon.com/Growth-Hacker-Marketing-Advertising-ebook/dp/B00BPDR3JM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378255664&sr=8-1&keywords=growth+hacker+marketing
To get your free copy go to http://livrada.com and enter in one of the pin #'s (starts with "L" - not the serial number) in this Google Doc
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Anb7jJjSg7jMdFJRWVB4MTM2ZnNDcTVzc2pzOVMzelE&usp=sharing
After you use a pin, just delete it off the spreadsheet.
It comes in Kindle, Nook or Google Play format.  Enjoy the book! <comment><USER3> Hi, is something supposed to be happening after i enter my e-mail (using Google Play format)?

The e-mail says: _To redeem your e-book: To begin reading simply go to your library and click "Read" to begin enjoying it on your computer._

Where is this "library"?

Google Books for Android shows nothing. Google Play > My books shows nothing. [http://books.google.com](http://books.google.com) "My Library" shows nothing.

Whatever happened to plain old .pdf?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure on this issue. Email firstname.lastname@example.com and she can help you out and get it fixed. I bought the books but I don't run the e-delivery side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Din't get any email from them but i have signed up with a license key and don't want to do it again cos i don't want to deprive another reader.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's weird. Just use another one. Don't worry about it - <USER2> email@example.com if it doesn't work. She'll fix it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It would be interesting if you share the results after ending the get a free copy campaign.

Thanks for the free copy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. I'll post how many were redeemed. I'm guessing about 100 so far just from glancing at the list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just curious, what kind of event did you put on?

<comment><AUTHOR> Doing an entrepreneur boot camp style event for younger people over 4 weeks with a number of awesome entrepreneurs. When I originally put it out I got a lot of applications and most were older and "traditional business" owners so we decided to restructure the event and I'm going to limit it to younger entrepreneurs which is what I was hoping for initially and who the content was most geared towards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can't redeem in the UK :( (amazon)

<comment><AUTHOR> Email email@example.com to see if she can help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> thanks. I already read his book "Trust me, I'm Lying". Highly recommended.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ya no doubt. Awesome book...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Arigato

<comment><AUTHOR> For sure - enjoy it...it's a good book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Awesome thank you :)

</comment><comment><USER11> Thanks a bunch!

</comment><comment><USER12> Thank you! :)

</comment><comment><USER13> Thank you :)

</comment><comment><USER14> Thank you!!

</comment><comment><USER15> Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER16> Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER17> Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER18> Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER19> thank you ^_^

</comment><comment><USER6> many thanks!</comment>


Show HN: LiveNinja - a video chat marketplace to buy and sell expertise - <AUTHOR> http://www.liveninja.com/

<comment><USER2> Initial thoughts:

Way too much stuff going on. Why are you forcing my scroll to be messed with? Most sites that have *ninja in the name I immediately think of as immature. On /browse/ you have just WAY too much javascript happening. I'm tethering on a 3G connection on a train right now and it took > 30 seconds to load everything.

<comment><USER3> The ninja thing just needs to go away. I'm tired of ninjas not being sneaky asian dudes with swords.

"Yoga Ninja" just does not sound right.

<comment><USER4> Chuck Norris was as good as a ninja as any other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the idea a lot. I worked at a larger company who offered a consumer service like this for a while. We found that most consumers really didn't convert well for the service and we had to pump in lots of marketing to get results. The most popular categories were 'psychics' and 'health'. Basically people who had STDs and were embarrassed and people who wanted their fortunes told. That said, there was a non-trivial amount of cash in those topics...

edit- I forgot programming. That was a big category as students often wanted their homework done for them...

<comment><USER6> Thank you for sharing this info, very valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Feedback: The image gallery type of thing on the search ninjas was neurotic on my machine and I'm running latest Chrome and Ubuntu. By neurotic, I mean that it jumped around quite a bit. Not smooth at all.

Take out "ninja." Yoga ninja? Golf ninja!? I just want a Golf Instructor...

Btw, what company are you going through to get the video chat? Did you do that yourself?

<comment><USER8> they are using TokBox[0], which offers a video chat API for web sites/iOS apps/Android[1]

[0] www.tokbox.com [1] android coming soon, alpha is here: <https://github.com/opentok/opentok-android-sdk>

disclaimer: i work at tokbox

<comment><USER7> Very nice. I have to give you guys a try.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Congrats on launching. The site looks great.

Some feedback:

* On the browse page, you should remove the ninja after the person's expertise. It makes it easier for the expertise to stand out when scanning the experts.

* It wasn't immediately obvious to me that the green circle meant that the ninja was available now--maybe something more obvious if you want people to start a session in an ad hoc fashion vs scheduling a future session.

* It might be useful to show the people an onboarding page with the type of help you could get from these ninjas.

</comment><comment><USER10> The "Browse Ninjas" page has some extremely distorted photos. I am not sure if your tiling is algorithmic or what but it's probably not very appealing from the perspective of the people on that page (or the people seeking them out).

(edit: Firefox 15. Have not tested in Chrome)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! It's a known Firefox issue and we are working to resolve it right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Congrats on launching! I love the idea - this is somewhat similar to clarity.fm.

The site itself is pretty but seems to have some UI issues which are slowing down the site.

</comment><comment><USER12> They need a ninja to fix their page. Not very agile on the JS.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why doesn't the button on the top right have a function?</comment>


How the Gut Affects Mood - <AUTHOR> http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gut-week-gut-brain-axis-can-fixing-my-stomach-fix-me/ <comment><USER3> The research going into the gut these days is going to make for some incredible advancements. A research doctor I respect told me that he suspects we have more connectivity between our stomachs and our brains than anyone really realizes. So much of who we are and what we do is centered around how we take in fuel.

Some good news this week for folks who have GERD, or chronic acid reflux, they discovered the cause: [http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/05/17/researchers- discove...](http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/05/17/researchers-discover- actual-cause-gerd.html)

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure I follow how a cytokine can be a cause.

Cytokines are, generally, cell signalling molecules. In the case of GERD, if I understand the process correctly, these cytokines are instructing the tissue of the esophagus, and associated immune system cells, to initiate the inflammatory response.

Inflammatory responses in mucosal tissues typically include an increase in mucous production, which is the body's attempt to protect the tissue from the refluxed stomach acid.

So it follows that the first tissue changes you should expect to see are inflammation and increase mucous production as the body tries to protect itself from exposure to stomach acid.

This doesn't mean the cytokines _cause_ the inflammation, nor that they _cause_ acid reflux, they're just the cell signalling molecule that initiates the inflammatory response, released in response to increased acidity on the tissue surfaces, released long before gross changes occur as a result of acid damage.

If we give medicines to dampen the cytokine release, or dampen the inflammatory response to the cytokines, thereby reducing the inflammation, that doesn't mean the tissue won't be damaged by the acid reflux - <USER2> anything, down-regulating the normal inflammatory immune response will _worsen_ the damage caused by the acid.

The question is: what is _causing_ the acid reflux?

<comment><USER5> If A results in B being taken as a preventative measure (to stop Q), and then C occurs as a result of that preventative measure, then the causal graph looks like A->B->C.

That is, both A and B can be said to cause C, in the standard counterfactual sense of the word "cause": if you hold everything but X constant, and add more X, and more Y occurs, then X causes Y.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't _do_ B. If Q is worse than C, it's still a good choice. But it does cause C.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article gives a great overview of a fascinating field, and does so fairly responsibly, which is unusual in the popular press.

From the end:

'"Too many large-scale, spurious claims are being made," Dinan said, mostly by people with something to sell. Although we have "very good data" from animal studies, he said, there's nothing that could be described as solid clinical data linking the gut microbiome to depression or anxiety in people.'

This research is super exciting. It's also super new. The technology for sequencing gut bacteria on a large scale has only been around in a real sense for about 10 years, and only been affordable for about 3-5. We'll get there, and almost certainly gut flora matters massively for all sorts of biology, but it's important to temper excitable headlines.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Although we have "very good data" from animal studies...

This is a pretty important thing to keep in mind. There are a lot of studies that I've seen, extending connections to humans from mice [1], even though understanding of the suitability of these mouse models has just recently (or hasn't) been studied [2].

So... "In humans, the data are more limited. Researchers have drawn links between gastrointestinal pathology and psychiatric neurological conditions such as anxiety, depression, autism, schizophrenia and neurodegenerative disorders — but they are just links." [3]

[1] [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867415...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867415003530) [2] [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3427216/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3427216/) [3] [http://www.nature.com/news/the-tantalizing-links-between- gut...](http://www.nature.com/news/the-tantalizing-links-between-gut-microbes- and-the-brain-1.18557)

<comment><USER6> Absolutely. Humans aren't mice. That doesn't mean mouse studies aren't enormously helpful, but it does mean that we should take things with a grain of salt. The complexity of even a mouse is pretty enormous, and humans are that much more confusing.

As for gut to brain transmission, the first thing that comes to mind is being hangry but that's probably a different thing :)

<comment><USER7> Why would human guts be that much more confusing than nice guts?

<comment><USER8> For one, we have twice the number of bacterial species. But it seems more important to me that only 4% of the microbiome is shared between humans and mice.

[http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v33/n10/full/nbt.3353.html](http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v33/n10/full/nbt.3353.html)

<comment><USER7> That second argument does not imply that humans are more confusing than mice, just different.

My reaction was only against the apparently underlying assumption that humans, biologically, are more complex than mice, a remain of the idea that they are more evolved or a biased perspective due to the fact we study them in more detail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This field feels like it's starting to blow up. I'm seeing lots of studies dealing with gut microbiomes. And from talking to a lab developer I know, it seems like this is largely because computing has become super cheap (think AWS), and the tools have become very power and simple to use (think Pandas and Numpy). He was saying that it's become very easy to find patterns in bigger and bigger sets of sequencing data, that previously would have been inscrutable.

It's not necessarily neurological in nature, but one of my favorite papers in the field in the last couple years shows a potential causal relationship between obesity and gut biomes by using artificial sweetener and a fecal transplant in mice.

Paywalled version in nature: [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13793.html)

Unpaywalled version after googling: [http://www.drperlmutter.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/09/Artif...](http://www.drperlmutter.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/09/Artificial-Sweeteners.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER10> Lactobacillus Rhamnosis - supposedly stimulates the nerve in the gut that then triggers GABA production.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21876150](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21876150)

I get it here: [http://www.customprobiotics.com/custom-probiotics-l- rhamnosu...](http://www.customprobiotics.com/custom-probiotics-l- rhamnosus.htm)

<comment><USER11> Interesting.

As I understand the anxiolytic effects, it is all about a proper balance between glutamate and GABA [1].

Some people get really stressed out when they eat too much glutamate- containing foods. So, perhaps probiotics can help address the glutamate too (?)

Note: some warnings here: [2] (some bacteria produce glutamate!)

[1] [http://www.holistichelp.net/blog/how-to-increase-gaba-and- ba...](http://www.holistichelp.net/blog/how-to-increase-gaba-and-balance- glutamate/)

[2] [http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/why- probiot...](http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/why-probiotics- can-be-harmful-amines.4536/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of the most mind-blowing things I learned about when studying psychology was the theory of distributed consciousness. Basically it goes along the lines that though most of our neural matter is in the head (i.e. brain) there are pockets of it here and there throughout the body. For instance in each of the sections of the spine - highly trained movements are coordinated between these. They are signalled by the brain but motor control can happen largely independently.

One thing that stood out is that the highest concentration of this neural matter is in the stomach. Your stomach does have access to _some_ information about the outside world: Bass sounds, orientation, and proprioceptive activities. But it is largely ignorant of the outside world because it doesn't have access to the main senses the way the brain does. This sits nicely with the "gut feel" lore, where your stomach is uneasy about something though your brain says things should be fine. Your stomach can't be fooled by your senses.

</comment><comment><USER13> From the article: "there's nothing that could be described as solid clinical data linking the gut microbiome to depression or anxiety in people"

</comment><comment><USER14> I went to a conference recently where an MD/researcher in this field discussed the latest state of the art findings.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83u-i73ppr8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83u-i73ppr8)

Long story short, the gut-brain axis is a compelling area of study, but based on the fact that nearly all studies have been in murine models coupled with the relative paucity of human trials, the jury in the medical community is still largely out.

</comment><comment><USER15> This would be pretty interesting.Considering I'm studying Psychology a bit, this would really be a field to look at. How does it affect whether a user wants to visit a certain section of a site more or not or how does this ultimately affect the development of the GUi in the long run?

</comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone know any good companies working on technology that identifies and categorizes aspects of the gut microbiome? This is a field I'd be very interested in getting into

</comment><comment><USER17> Remind me of this : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rnq1NpHdmw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rnq1NpHdmw)

</comment><comment><USER18> I clearly have the mood affecting gut. If i have a sinking feeling in my chest (a devastated one), i immediately have a painful reaction in the bowel (or the gut).

</comment><comment><USER19> "No guts, no glory" does take on a new meaning ...

</comment><comment><USER20> Accidentally downvoted you on my phone, sorry.

<comment><USER21> We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11732322](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11732322) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER22> If this was detached, why is it still viewable on the thread?

<comment><USER21> Detached just means we made it be a top-level comment as opposed to a reply to another comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Interesting, this answers my question on the last post. It seems that there's still a while to go before we understand the interaction of probiotics and general health.</comment>


Ask HN: Queryparams have a starting? and then and as seperator..why? - <AUTHOR> Why does the order matter? Wouldn't it be easier to keep it the same? <comment><USER2> > It was Marc Andreessen who suggested our current method based on what he had > already implemented in Mosaic...

[https://eager.io/blog/the-history-of-the-url-path- fragment-q...](https://eager.io/blog/the-history-of-the-url-path-fragment- query-auth/#query-params)

<comment><USER3> > You may have also noticed that cookies follow a similar, but different > format: x=1;y=2 which doesn't actually conflict with HTML character encoding > at all. This idea was not lost on the W3C, who encouraged implementers to > support ; as well as & in query parameters as early as 1995.

I wish the w3c had won that one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think & is a valid character for path names. You probably need the ? to know the query has begun.</comment>


Financial Times 404 Page Economics Humour - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/story/404 <comment><USER2> The Bloomberg 404 page is also pretty funny: [https://www.bloomberg.com/404](https://www.bloomberg.com/404)</comment>


Ask HN: I wish there was a web service that... - <AUTHOR> What was the last thing that you wished you could do but couldn't find a suitable existing solution? <comment><USER2> Something that makes it easy to set up my own transforming proxies using a few simple rules. Like yahoo pipes, but more oriented towards manipulating websites rather than feeds.

<comment><USER3> Could you be a bit more specific on what you mean by "transforming proxies" ?

<comment><USER2> A proxy that would change parts of the page. Specifically I'm thinking something to make the web more useful from my Kindle, so rewrite new-window links into regular ones, replace links to PDFs with google docs, and maybe simplify pages a bit (article mode is pretty good at that to be fair). I guess "instapaper in proxy form" would also solve the problem.

Probably fairly niche, but it was the first thing I could think of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Find local (amateur) vegetable growers so we could swap vegetables. I'm overrun with jalepenos, green peppers and tomatoes... would love to trade them for something else.</comment>


Show HN: ProAnd.Contra, Fast and easy online Pro/Contra opinion polls - <AUTHOR> http://proand.co <comment><USER2> Nice one

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> very nice.......

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! :)</comment></comment>


Pokémon Go shows that Nintendo's franchises are way bigger than its hardware - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/11/12149122/pokemon-go-niantic-nintendo-franchise-hardware <comment><USER2> I love Nintendo and the Wii U but the pricing of Nintendo Wii U games sucks. Years after some of their games have been released they're still $59.99 to buy brand new. Then there's a lack of gaming studios devoted to the Wii U. The Playstation has it's own niche, the X-Box has it's own niche of gaming studios as well. I think Nintendo should invest in a brand new subsidiary that is allowed to "think outside of the Nintendo box" and make new crazy games, while taking full advantage of the Wii U. There is much potential I think with the Wii U and that is what made me buy it, sadly not many have taken advantage, or the companies that do they make their Wii U version too late for it to matter for most. It's like GTA and PC, too late but GTA is a big enough game to still sell plenty. Another thing they should really do is create new franchises, that is something Disney does all the time. Bring a new show, sell as much product for it as they can, rinse and repeat.

<comment><USER3> "There's a lack of gaming studios devoted to the Wii U." There is at least one notable exception to this: Monolith Soft whose Xenoblade series has been a godsend for the JRPG genre.

<comment><USER4> They're part of Nintendo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pokemon is, in my opinion, a uniquely valuable franchise, however, above and beyond anything else Nintendo has in the magazine. You've got multiple generations that have grown up with it, between the games, cards, TV show, merchandising, etc, etc. It distilled the essence of fun, but grindy, rpgs down into an almost perfect form, and wrapped it up in a kid-friendly package (despite the fact that you're really playing what amounts to a Roman _lanista_ or Michael Vick simulator)

I don't think Mario or Zelda or Donkey Kong, or any of the other beaten-to- death Nintendo IP is on the same level.

</comment><comment><USER6> Knowing Nintendo's stubborn management, I wouldn't be super surprised if they just announce that they will make their own Android phone and make Pokemon Go exclusive to it.

<comment><USER7> Niantic was a Google internal startup that was spunoff in late 2015 so it could take $30m investment from Google, Nintendo, and The Pokemon Company (and later a $5m series A)

The takeaway is that Google has a whole lot of skin in the game and really wouldn't allow such an exclusive deal like you might speculate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Microsoft should buy out Nintendo, make its games and franchises available for Xbox & PC, and sell the specialty Nintendo hardware like the WiiMote or that TabletController as accessories. It could also roll Kinect under the Nintendo add-on brand.

<comment><USER9> I'm curious, has anything ever improved as a result of being bought by Microsoft?

<comment><USER10> Depends on how you look at it. With games: Minecraft and Halo didn't get any worse so far. On the business side, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SQL Server, and Analysis Services all got better, often to the point you don't remember them NOT being Microsoft products anymore. Microsoft also created a better Java, they just called it C# (ok, a bit snarky in that last one)

<comment><USER11> Halo might have done well but I mourn the death of all of Bungie's [0] other [1] franchises [2].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_\(video_game\))

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth:_The_Fallen_Lords](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth:_The_Fallen_Lords)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oni_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oni_\(video_game\))

<comment><USER12> Halo is basically an extension of the Marathon storyline. I do miss Myth and Oni though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hardware has predictable margins, if not predictable sales. Software prices tend rapidly to zero.

Am I right in thinking that Pokemon Go is the first Nintendo game to use the "free-to-play" business model, where all sorts of progression is gated behind ongoing coin purchases?

<comment><USER14> It's about their sixth, and they have several more already in the pipeline (including animal crossing and fire emblem titles).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This has been true for at least 10 years but Nintendo could not react to it. Shame that such a huge content company was to get lost in hardware and old biz models when the way forward was very obvious. Netflix does not build netflix boxes (I think).

<comment><USER16> A decade ago this december they shipped the Wii. 101 million units worldwide, easily beating the competition (84 for MS, 80 for Sony).

<comment><USER17> You're comparing Wii with PS3 and Xbox 360, both of which had successful next- gen consoles released in 2013. Wii+WiiU in past 10 years: 113m, PS3+PS4: 124m, Xbox360 + Xbox One: ~94m.

<comment><USER5> Wait, they've only shipped 12m WiiU's? That's... not good...

<comment><USER18> There's no games for that console, and very few new ones are still to come out. I've got a wii u, but I still have the same games I bought in the year of launch - Mario Kart 8, Mario 3D World, Mario Super Mario Bros U - can you see a pattern here? Xenoblade is meant to be good but I don't have time for a 100h+ JRPG, and any other genres are avoiding the WiiU, if you want a first person shooter, a sports game, a racing game, you will go with the competition. Not to mention that non-mario Wii U games just look very poor when compared to PS4/X1.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Abandoned Colony in Greenland: Archaeologists Find Clues to Viking Mystery - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/archaeologists-uncover-clues-to-why-vikings-abandoned-greenland-a-876626.html <comment><USER2> I'm not sure if you can still edit the title, but I recommend you add (2013) to the title as is customary here for older articles.

</comment><comment><USER3> This reminds me of Moscow's efforts for Siberian colonization. They had all kind of programs aimed to settle colonists eastward, but when the central authorities ceased the enticements (or the restrictions) that ensured that the people stayed put, the migration reversed. Entire villages in Siberia vanished because of the same isolation and harsh weather that driven the Norse descendants out of Greenland.</comment>


Every iPhone contains a unique, software-visible serial number - the UDID - <AUTHOR> http://www.pskl.us/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/iPhone-Applications-Privacy-Issues.pdf

<comment><USER2> All networking components have a unique ID also (MAC Addresses), so this feels a bit like scaremongering to me. Developers on any platform can use that relatively safely to presuming individuality, so why's it bothersome that the iPhone has one unqiue ID? (instead of the two MAC addresses (wifi / cellular )

<comment><USER3> A user can replace the default MAC address which the platform read from the hardware. Is that true for an iPhone UDID?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So...if I had somebody else's UDID, what could I do their phone? Scaremongering indeed. _yawns_

P.S. Being an owner of an app review blog, I give my UDID out frequently.

<comment><USER5> If you can match the UUID to a real name and make the user use your app/website frequently, you've pretty much everything to track her/him (add geo if you wish).

He/She cannot escape/opt out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As far as I know each Mac has its own unique serial number (despite from the CPU serial). I wonder how frequent this ID is used in the wild...

<comment><USER5> ioreg -rd1 -c IOPlatformExpertDevice | awk '/IOPlatformUUID/ { split($0, line, "\""); printf("%s\n", line[4]); }'

thanks to [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/933460/unique-hardware- id...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/933460/unique-hardware-id-in-mac- os-x)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Raspberry Pi WiFi extender/router/ad-blocker to filter all DNS traffic - <AUTHOR> https://unop.uk/pi-hole-extended-part-1/ <comment><AUTHOR> Pi-hole® (network-wide tracker/ad blocking) set up as a WiFi repeater/extender. This improves WiFi coverage, allows switching between the unfiltered/filtered connections and forces all traffic through the filter from devices that try to evade it.

Part 2: [https://unop.uk/pi-hole-extended-part-2](https://unop.uk/pi-hole- extended-part-2)</comment>


Xbox One does away with discs in new $249 All-Digital Edition - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/16/xbox-one-does-away-with-discs-in-new-249-all-digital-edition/ <comment><USER2> I'm reminded of the PSP Go.

>"It's about meeting the needs of customers that are digital natives that prefer digital-based media."

It also helps eliminate those annoying first-sale doctrine rights.

I'll keep using physical media, which I have the right to sell and whatnot.

</comment><comment><USER3> The XBOX is a proprietary system, if you take the discs away then you have even less control, as the contents of the 1TB drive can be taken away from you, the discs cant, only your ability to access discs can be interferred with.

This sort of model is why i just use steam and GOG games. I get to keep the game and run/tinker it on my desktop

<comment><USER4> I agree completely. Why they just take everything away so that I don't actually own anything. Just give me a little set top box where the game gets streamed to me and I don't even own the disk my current game is saved on. Oh, wait... yea google and apple are reviving that model as we speak.

Yes, I think GOG is going to be a favorite of more and more people until they just can't make it in the powerless consumer economy.

It will be sometime before the consolidation of computing power becomes distributed again. We always go through cycles. We'll just have to wade this one out.</comment></comment>


A Malware Scam on Upwork - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@emiliesyverson/an-unusually-well-disguised-malware-scam-on-upwork-how-i-almost-got-infected-with-a-keylogger-a638b7c51927#.b137a4j97 <comment><USER2> I also receive scam files from legit contacts' Skype accounts from time to time - maybe after they've suffered a similar attack. Never opening the desktop Skype seems to be a safe-and-easy counteract for now - you can still open all legit files on iPhone, and apps like Google Drive have built-in virus scanners.

<comment><USER3> My own Skype account was hijacked a few months ago, sending spam links to all my contacts. I still don't know how. I use a 1Password generated password specifically for Skype, and Skype doesn't let you see session history so I have no way of knowing when or where the login occurred or on what device, or even if my password _was_ compromised and not some other 3rd party integration breach or something.

Contacting Skype support got terrible service, as I've come to expect.

<comment><USER4> That's very scary. Your system might be compromised. If I were you I would immediately stop using that system, and reset all important passwords from a different and preferably new system. Then perhaps restart the possibly compromised system and log network activity and look for suspicious activty, but that's dangerous.

<comment><USER5> It's normal. I've had multiple friends (all incredibly technically competent people) have their Skype accounts broken in to. I've heard the same story multiple times: no third p as try applications have access, randomized password stored in KeePass/LastPass/1password. We've all done to the conclusion that Skype's infrastructure had some sort of security hole/backdoor.

<comment><USER6> If you have connected Skype and Microsoft Account you can also login with the Microsoft account.

<comment><USER4> And is this a good idea?

<comment><USER6> Just pointing out that even if your Skype password is random, secure and not shared with any other service, somebody could gain access via this mechanism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The attacker sent the victim a PowerShell script over Skype. Not at all unusual.

</comment><comment><USER8> "unusually well-disguised"? Sorry, this is lowest level scam which not even my father would fall for. And I had to rename his Firefox icon to "Internet".</comment>


Call Twitter Friends with One Click Using TweetToCall - <AUTHOR> http://blog.twilio.com/2009/09/call-twitter-friends-with-one-click-using-tweettocall.html

<comment><USER2> I was initially very freaked out/skeptical about this, but the fact that phone numbers are kept anonymous is very interesting to me. I think the anonymity of the system probably fosters a lot more communication than would take place otherwise. Seems like this service opens the door to a lot of conversations that otherwise would never have happened. Very cool.

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of Pockets (<http://pocketsapp.com/>), for short messages and voicemail, which was one of my favorite entries in this year's Rails Rumble.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ooh yes Pockets is awesome, it is built on Twilio as well</comment></comment>


My response to "Women Fed Up With Open Source Community Creeps" - <AUTHOR> http://www.djangrrl.com/view/my-response-women-fed-open-source-community-creeps/ <comment><USER2> a gawker commodity posted something slanted for the sake of getting traffic? i'm shocked.

seriously, at this point ( ok way before this point ), gawker could have the inside dirt on anything and i wouldn't believe it.</comment>


Embeddable Common Lisp - mck- http://ecls.sourceforge.net/

<comment><AUTHOR> He mentions that he will enable "Multithreading on by default" - isn't that a "very hard thing" that only Hotspot does and Python/OCaml can't because of the GIL?

<comment><USER2> Multithreading in Common Lisp runtimes has been pretty common for a while. In ECL in particular, it's been there forever: it was already there at the time of the original 1994 paper announcing ECL ([http://3e8.org/pub/scheme/doc/lisp- pointers/v8i1/p30-attardi...](http://3e8.org/pub/scheme/doc/lisp- pointers/v8i1/p30-attardi.pdf)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice. I wish there was a directory of embedable languages so I could find them when I need them.

<comment><USER4> Not sure there are that many choices. Lua, Tcl, JavaScript are the ones I have used, designed for embedding.

<comment><USER5> Python is fairly good at embeddability too. And at least irssi embeds Perl successfully.</comment></comment></comment>


How to сreate a website? - <AUTHOR> Any suggestions, tips are welcome :)) <comment><USER2> It depends on how complex you want to make it. I like the Big Nerd Ranch and Head First books. Both are very practical and clear. freecodecamp.com and codecademy.com are good places to learn as well. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> what kind? what are you trying to accomplish?

<comment><USER4> I want to make one for my dad's take out restaurant, he makes Sushi and such so kinda just like a little discovery thing that can be linked to from google maps and such.

<comment><USER5> Start on codacademy html and css courses, then javascript, take it from there.</comment></comment></comment>


Cronto Introduces New Visual Transaction Signing Device - <AUTHOR> http://cronto.com/cronto-introduces-new-visual-transaction-signing-device-for-secure-online-banking.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> This, IMO, is how you do two factor correctly (with a device; I still like keys/certs as second factor, too).

Rather than a dumb token which just reports a number to be used in authentication on your main display, this actually puts the relevant transaction info on a secure screen for your review and approval. Otherwise, it's really easy to spoof.

It's also superior to a plug-in USB "HSM-lite" or similar key device (like OneID) because it's a simple hardware device and really easy to verify.

I emailed to figure out how to use this for non-banking authentication. I can think of a lot of applications for which it would be great.</comment>


BrowseCMS - like Drupal, but in Rails - <AUTHOR> http://aac2009.confreaks.com/07-feb-2009-10-00-browsercms-patrick-peak-and-paul-barry.html

<comment><USER2> This should probably be retitled; after playing with it for a bit BrowserCMS is really nothing like Drupal, nor is it meant to be a Drupal clone. Instead, it's a powerful general-purpose CMS that will easily manage both static and dynamic content. If you've looked at Radiant but thought it was too simple, take a look at this.

Grab the source at <http://github.com/browsermedia/browsercms>.

</comment><comment><USER3> Most web design shops which build websites for clients will end up using some form of Content Management System, to allow those clients to maintain the site after launch. BrowserCMS is a solution to our firm's problem, which is wanting the productivity of Rails for building custom websites, but giving clients Web CMS tools to maintain the site after launch.

I'm the product manager for BrowserCMS, so hopefully I can shed some light on the 'whys' behind the project. It is certainly not to clone Drupal in Rails. Drupal is mentioned in the presentation because many developers are familiar with it, so the enviable first question I hear is 'How is BrowserCMS like Drupal?'.

Our intent with BrowserCMS is to provide a client friendly CMS. Making a site maintainable and understandable by non-technical users is the primary goal of the CMS. We also want to allow Rails developers to be able to customize sites. We do have a module system (different than Drupal's), which allows developers to build custom modules (News, Events Calendars, Blog, etc). The dynamic content can be placed by non-technical users on pages. Obviously, it's a new project though (still in Beta), so we are about ~4500 modules behind Drupal here.

Anyway, if folks have more questions, our mailing list is at <http://groups.google.com/group/browsercms>

</comment><comment><USER4> It will take me some time to watch this. Anyone able to summarize right now why this thing is like Drupal?

("It's a CMS" is not enough. The word "CMS" has many meanings. And Drupal is arguably a CMS, but it is a specific _flavor_ of CMS. For example: Does BrowseCMS have a module system reminiscent of Drupal's?)

<comment><AUTHOR> BrowseCMS itself doesn't seem to have a module system, but since it's Rails, you can use any of the existing Rails plugins out there.

<comment><USER4> So here's the thing: Rails plugins are for programmers. I'm no Rails expert, but I've never encountered a Rails plugin that was configurable without using Ruby. (Which is, of course, perfectly in line with Rails design goals and philosophy.)

The majority of Drupal modules are designed to be used without writing a single line of PHP code. (This is not to say that Drupal developers don't end up writing PHP code anyway... or that this design philosophy doesn't often lead to unusable confusion, or that it doesn't entail some big compromises, of which the tendency to have code stored in the _database_ is one of the most annoying. But I have seen quite impressive Drupal sites built by people who refuse to touch PHP. That's a big selling point.)

So, no: This isn't Drupal. But we are getting there!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Drupal works, lets rewrite it in Rails." Other than serving as a thought experiment on a grand scale where is the perceived benefit of trying to implement the feature set of an existing CMS in a slower language? Is this an example of language preference taking to an extreme or are there concrete benefits to this approach?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you've every worked with any large scale Drupal deployments, you'll know that its module system doesn't scale very well in terms of maintainability. You basically end up with thousands of functions in the global namespace with little to no abstractions. Rails and Ruby in general are well known for their syntactic sugar, allowing for more clear and maintainable code.

<comment><USER5> I have worked pretty extensively with Drupal and I don't agree with your assertion that the module system has maintainability issues. Performance issues, absolutely, but it's quite maintainable.</comment></comment></comment>


HackerDojo: Bay Area Hackers Unite - <AUTHOR>

HackerDojo is looking for members!  We've almost got a location finalized and we're looking for hackers to fill the space with.
Project: Create a community center for hackers and thinkers to meet, discuss, learn, and create in the San Francisco Bay Area.
http://hackerdojo.pbwiki.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> We're also looking for corporate sponsorship, so if anyone knows a good person at your company whom I can contact, please send them my way!

It's a community effort and I think there's enough hackers in the Bay Area to make this into a reality. It will also be the only coworking facility in the south bay so hopefully there's hackers out here looking for a cheap office!

<comment><USER2> This sounds great. Maybe, at least in its early days, you should play up the coworking angle, as it's less of an abstract concept, to get anchor members.</comment></comment>


Rsync.net site redesign - <AUTHOR> http://rsync.net/

<comment><USER2> It's really confusing to use even if you just want to look for some basic information, it also comes with the, apparently now obligatory, overwritten scroll behaviour that is a pain to use.

<comment><USER3> This site would be perfect as a plain text website with pertinent information easily available.

It is easy to design simple, textual content that is still aesthetically pleasing; print has been doing it for more than a century.

I dislike this new web design framework junk (especially vertical overlay scrolling) as much as I disliked the Flash abuse of the late 90's early 2000's in the design community (Praystation, True is True, K10K, etc.).

I really want to channel a little Adolf Loos here and say "all ornamentation is bad and useless."

That said, their service is really cool. Prices are pretty good, and I love that I'm not beholden to a web UI for it.

I might just use them for backups for our district.</comment></comment>


Facebook Allows Advertisers to Target Users Based on Offline Spending Habits - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303743604579353262830578966-lMyQjAxMTA0MDMwMDEzNDAyWj

<comment><USER2> "Google is effective when people search for things they already want to buy and then see ads for relevant products. Facebook is better for educating consumers about products they might want to buy in the future."

Funny, this divide probably falls exactly where many people draw the line between "Good" and "Bad" advertising. The former is solving a problem, the latter is convincing you that you have a problem they can solve.

<comment><USER3> I'm not searching for a phone app that lets me call and pay for a livery cab from wherever I am. I'm also not searching for an electric car. Or a vacuuming robot. I didn't even know these things existed until after they did.

It's "bad advertising" to tell me "hey, this thing you don't know to search for is out there"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Personally I've found the lookalike audiences to be much more effective as a targeting strategy to increase conversion rate and volume on Facebook than the Datalogix/Acxiom type data. Perhaps I need to give it another chance. Also, not everyone has access to the data needed to make a good lookalike audience on Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER5> My only issue with this is that it's not expressly stated; Sure, it's probably indirectly stated through the Terms we all agreed to without reading.

<comment><USER6> I don't think they would even need to get your agreement to do this. Getting data from other vendors and matching it to their own doesn't breach any existing privacy laws, is my guess.

<comment><USER7> > _...doesn 't breach any existing privacy laws..._

Maybe not laws, but certainly ethics and/or good practices regarding privacy. It falls under the whole "how we use your data" disclosure, much of which for some companies is just reassurance regarding how they _don 't_ use your data.

For me, when in doubt regarding inclusion, the guiding question should be, "would a reasonable person want to know we're doing this?"

<comment><USER8> You're making the mistake of applying ethical reasoning to soulless greed- heads. It's much simpler: "how much money can we make by doing this" vs. "how much would settling a class action suit cost, times the probability of having to settle."</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A seismically induced onshore surge deposit at the KPg boundary, North Dakota - <AUTHOR> https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/03/27/1817407116 <comment><AUTHOR> This is the first full scientific paper on Tanis, an unprecedented site which preserves hundreds of fish corpses in exceptional condition along with extremely strong indicators that they were killed on the day of the Chixculub impact (most obviously, tektites or glass beads associated with the impact found in their gills). Co-authors include Walter Alvarez and Jan Smit, likely the two leading experts on the K-T event.

The paper and supplement are extremely narrow and are intended to show only that the site was created in a seiche triggered by seismic activity from the impact, and that the preserved animals there died in the event. It leaves very little reason to doubt this conclusion. However the site contains many specimens not included in the paper: previous conference abstracts indicate dinosaur tracks ([https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2016AM/webprogram/Paper284267.htm...](https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2016AM/webprogram/Paper284267.html)) and the burrow of a mammal which was made after the event but filled before the prevalent pollen had a chance to settle ([https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2017AM/webprogram/Paper305627.htm...](https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2017AM/webprogram/Paper305627.html)).

Even the topics discussed in the paper are truly remarkable and there are many firsts such as impact structures formed by tektites raining from the sky. A New Yorker article published on Friday (in apparent violation of the PNAS embargo, although it's not clear to me whether they were subject to it) tosses out mind-blowing details rapid-fire for pages on end. Press articles:

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the- di...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs- died)

[https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/03/29/66-million-year-old- dea...](https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/03/29/66-million-year-old-deathbed- linked-to-dinosaur-killing-meteor)

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/03/fossils-f...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/03/fossils- found-from-day-dinosaurs-died-chicxulub-tanis-cretaceous-extinction)

[https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/astonishment- skeptic...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/astonishment-skepticism- greet-fossils-claimed-record-dinosaur-killing-asteroid-impact)</comment>


Walter Cronkite has just died at 92  - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/17/walter.cronkite.dead/

<comment><USER2> I'm young and not originally from the US so he's a man I know of solely due to reputation. Various people always speaking of him with great esteem. I always (and continue to) wonder(ed) what about him made him so notable.

<comment><USER3> He was called the most trusted man in America. For a long time he was the most famous anchor on television, back when TV was how most people got their news. He had a stalwart reputation, which is rare among anchors (especially compared to the current batch).

<comment><USER2> I'm just trying to figure out why. What did he do to earn such trust? Watching the news reports coming in I'm learning. Sad that it has to come to this but am I correct in saying that the way he reported about the war in Vietnam had a lot to do with it?

<comment><USER4> He was the CBS news anchor when the transition from 15 min to 30 min nightly news occurred in the US (back when there were only three channels to watch), and he held his anchor chair for around two decades. Some of his reputation is due to being the product of the times (e.g. being the face of the most-watched news show during the growth of TV news to become the dominant news source in the country) and some of it was through conscious decisions he made to "tell it like it is." He was the first major news figure to tell the American population that the vietnam war was unwinnable. His distinctive, sonorous voice was also a big help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> hmm so we have a front page news item on HN everytime a celebrity dies. Michael Jackson was a music "hacker", Cronkite was a news "hacker" ...

Hooray for all the future "Celebrity who was really an [X] "hacker" passes away " articles on HN!

<comment><USER6> Will you give it a rest? Someone doesn't have to be a hacker to be worth remembering here, just as stories don't have to be about hacking to be posted here.

<comment><USER5> " Someone doesn't have to be a hacker to be worth remembering here, just as stories don't have to be about hacking to be posted here."

I posted this a while ago, making the same point

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=711362>

In other words, I agree with you, pg ! I am all for intellectually fascinating stories on the HN front page. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Before anyone asks why this is on Hacker News, he was a news reporter hacker.

<comment><USER8> So is everyone who becomes famous in their respective field a "hacker"? What were his innovations? Did he come up with some clever new way of doing the news?

Just because you're good at something doesn't make you a "hacker".

<comment><USER5> "So is everyone who becomes famous in their respective field a "hacker"? "

No, but you see, the death of (US based) celebrities is of great interest to hackers worldwide under the

"On Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. "

guideline, because such deaths are, of course, gratifying to intellectual curiosity.

Strangely enough this bit of the guidelines doesn't seem to be having an effect

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off- topic. "</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Measuring Events with Google Analytics - <AUTHOR> https://www.acksin.com/blog/2016/05/17/measuring-events-wit-google-analytics/ <comment><USER2> It's an interesting idea, but you must understand the limitations of GA. After around 250k events it will start sampling your data. From personal experience, this is very limiting. There's also a not-insignificant delay between the data being sent to GA and extracting it out. From what I could tell, it's also non- deterministic, so you might get some events processed and to show, but others will not show for a while.

To give some context: I created an A/B test framework that (can also) use GA as a backend[0]. However, given this limitation I changed direction and created a backend using AWS Lambda and Redis[1], and also later explored using AWS Lambda with Google BigQuery[2] as a backend.

For small / medium scale, I would still stick to something like Graphite though. You can fit quite a bit of event traffic even on a low-end VPS these days. If you need to scale up, then either a hosted solution like the ones you mentioned, or building something on top of BigQuery (or keen.io) seems like a better approach than relying on GA.

[0] [https://github.com/Alephbet/alephbet](https://github.com/Alephbet/alephbet)

[1] [https://github.com/Alephbet/gimel](https://github.com/Alephbet/gimel)

[2] [http://blog.gingerlime.com/2016/a-scalable-analytics- backend...](http://blog.gingerlime.com/2016/a-scalable-analytics-backend-with- google-bigquery-aws-lambda-and-kinesis/)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is more an experiment for dealing with smaller sites since I don't really have a lot of events to track at the moment. But I agree that the solution you proposed is a better idea.

Would you be interested in submitting your Lambda app to opsZero? [https://www.opszero.com](https://www.opszero.com)

<comment><USER2> Even for smaller sites I think you'd be better off setting a $5 VPS and run graphite or something similar. The delay in getting results from GA alone is a good enough reason not to rely on Analytics for metrics.

Even a very small system can easily generate enough events that it becomes a problem.

Had a look at opszero and couldn't work out why I should submit Gimel there. What would my project gain from being there?</comment></comment></comment>


Three Beautiful Quicksorts (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1031789501179533828Three Beautiful Quicksorts Three Beautiful Quicksorts

<comment><USER2> Broken link:

      We're sorry, but this video may not be available.

      If this video was recently uploaded, it may still be processing.
      If this video is yours, you can check its status.

OK, so here's the correct link: <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1031789501179533828>

And here are some previous submissions:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=243064> (with some discussion)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1714461></comment>


How We Killed the Old Internet - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/how-we-killed-the-old-internet <comment><USER2> Will we see it all crumble away eventually? Rapid iterative innovation has left us plenty of debris.</comment>


Ask HN: Can Vim rival SSMS; if so, what's the setup? - <AUTHOR> I'm switching away from IntelliJ (it's more accurate to say away from the JVM) and the obvious choice is MS-VS + SSMS (I mean only obvious in this situation, due to our infrastructure and sys admin). I'm a contract worker and have no clue what the dev environment or infrastructure will be like at my next job, so I prefer to have a portable and compatable dev environment.
I actually really like MS-VS, and so have thought about trying out their open source offering, but want to have the ability to hack/contribute to it, should I need/want to, and (just personal preference) I prefer not working on MS code in my personal time (no hate, just preference; MS is actually on fire as of late). Regarding SSMS, well, most any DB IDE under $2k, I just find them, not motivating.
Is there some Vim setup that would run the whole spectrum from text editor to diagramming up my schemas? I'd consider Atom solutions, but my experience so far with Atom has left me with the impression that a lot of the non-core tech/plug-ins are half baked. Production ready is one deal breaker feature/must have. That goes for both the current release and the project's release process for future versions.
Last thing worth mentioning, I program applications and DBs, so looking for a solution that lives in both worlds without requiring me to be a mental contortionist. <comment><USER2> IntelliJ is genuinely better and more pleasant to use than what you are trying to do. There is nothing wrong with having a JVM around so you can use your favorite IDE</comment>


Mastering Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> https://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032281.do <comment><USER2> Here's a 40% off discount code: WCYAZ

It brings the price down from $29.99 to $17.99, but also takes away free shipping so YMMV.

And if you're interested in some more details about the book, here an outline that was posted a while ago:

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KKV_VEmGPsPr74rFhhpqmdkF...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KKV_VEmGPsPr74rFhhpqmdkFPuLRh6tSEQvsXdOcoZA)

</comment><comment><USER3> It would be great if they started accepting Bitcoin to buy this book.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've never read an O'Reilly book but have obviously heard of them, are they generally effective at communicating more than general principles?

If I regularly read blog posts and essays written about Bitcoin, would this book be worthwhile? If not, what audience is this book targeting?

<comment><USER5> I'm generally happy with the O'Reilly books I've bought. What they cover depends on the book.

Some, particularly some of the language or OS books, are reference-oriented. Not the kind of thing you'd necessarily read straight through.

Some, the "intro" books, are just what that sounds like. Enough material to get started.

I don't know if I have any O'Reilly books I'd consider "deep", exactly, but I don't think they really aim at that.

In general, my experience is the books are what the titles say they are.

<comment><USER4> Right (and thanks for the response), so I would expect "Mastering Bitcoin" to go in to great detail...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ah, a friendly reminder than in a gold rush it is best to sell shovels.

<comment><USER7> Or, a reminder that if you want change, you have to educate.

Actually, in a gold rush, the very best thing for most individuals is to be among the first to start digging. Profits from shovel selling (and book publishing) are marginal.

<comment><USER8> [http://www.leighdrogen.com/selling-shovels-in-a-gold- rush/](http://www.leighdrogen.com/selling-shovels-in-a-gold-rush/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm really glad Andreas is writing this book, should be a great way for more developers to get involved. Crypto-currencies are unfortunately still a little too arcane and books like these help maturation.

</comment><comment><USER10> Table of contents, possibly out of date but should give you a general idea of what's in it: [http://pastebin.com/w9isSyer](http://pastebin.com/w9isSyer).

</comment><comment><USER11> I have another good title for the second in the series: "Biting Mastercoin"

</comment><comment><USER12> You'd think there would be a bitcoin pay option, but I guess they don't have the option since it's published through o'reilly

</comment><comment><USER13> I went to order. Does $7.50 for the lowest shipping option seem high? Am I just sheltered living in the world of free shipping?

<comment><USER14> $7.50? Try living in New Zealand where the only option is $49.50 shipping: [http://i.imgur.com/PR6V6SN.png](http://i.imgur.com/PR6V6SN.png)

<comment><USER15> You are probably better off with the ebook. They are DRM free so you can print it if you like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Ships via DHL International Express ($49.50)

Uh, no thanks. And there's no cheaper option.

Is it possible to get early access to the ebook?

</comment><comment><USER17> I find it hard to tell what will happen with Bitcoin tomorrow, much less in 5 months... I am under the impression that there's a decent chance that by August, the Bitcoin story will be a great story to write a novel about. I guess there is also the chance that it will evolve and achieve some level of legitimacy. But for that to happen, a lot needs to happen between now and then, and I find it hard to believe that a book announced now will include that part of the story.

I used O'Reilly books extensively 10-25 years ago, but I have found them (and pretty much all other printed technical books) out of date too quickly in the last 5-10 years for them to be useful for technical stuff, and Bitcoin is evolving faster than even most things in the tech world.

</comment><comment><USER18> Are there any Bitcoin for dummies books?

<comment> iso8859-1 no, but what specifically are you looking for? it's on Khan Academy.

<comment><USER18> Oh I was just kidding. I have a background in crypto and I already understand how the system works--It's brilliant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Andreas is the man. One of the best voices in the Bitcoin community. Looking forward to this.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm waiting for _Mastering Dogecoin_.

</comment><comment><USER21> Great, I thought that there would not be a good option but seeing the content and author it's a must have

</comment><comment><USER22> Mastering Dollars...why not?

</comment><comment><USER23> This is an irrelevant comment, but I miss the classic O'Reilly font.

</comment><comment><USER24> why is the ebook is not available for pre-order ? seems strange

</comment><comment><USER25> _If you 're interested in learning more about the technical operation of bitcoin, or if you're building the next great bitcoin killerapp or business, you will find this book essential reading. From the basic use of a bitcoin wallet to buy a cup of coffee, to running a bitcoin marketplace with hundreds of thousands of transactions, or collaboratively building new financial innovations that will transform our understanding of currency and credit, this book will help you engineer money. You're about to unlock the API to a new economy. This book is your key._

I hope this book has a very thorough section on securing your app, because that's probably the biggest problem that you'll face.

<comment><USER26> Andreas is the CSO of Blockchain.info, a site which takes client security seriously enough that they never touch their client's private keys, rather than "handing out IOUs to their users"; maybe we'll see a rise in adoption of this approach.

<comment><USER27> They've had some pretty horrible mistakes with respect to security though (before Andreas' time though, so no reflection on him), and the basic model of a web wallet is inherently broken...

<comment><USER28> 20 rounds of PBKDF2, there's tears in my eyes.

<comment><USER29> what's so wrong with 20 rounds of pbkdf2? I don't know of any attacks that can defeat it in realistic time spans.

<comment><USER28> A KDF is meant to slow down dictionary attacks by introducing a lot of computation. Normal values might be in the hundreds of thousands, even millions to bring the computation time down to less than a few a second on extremely high powered GPUs. 20 rounds has so little impact it's astonishing they even bothered to load the KDF library. Attacking encrypted files like this would be very fast for a motivated person, and when we know there's magic internet money involved there's a lot of motivated people.

<comment><USER29> doing 20 rounds in a browser represents a non-trivial amount of work. that's much better than nothing, as it helps defeat existing rainbow tables. iirc, 1000 rounds will take a

however as you suggest, on the server side, I would expect them to use a much higher 10k or so round count.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, Stories Come Out - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-careers/after-the-sun-microsystems-sets-the-real-stories-come-out#.U4i8_UgJq1E.hackernews <comment><USER2> I had Sun Badge 12386... why do I remember that. (Or my CompuServe account 75460,1375, sigh.)

The area between San Antonio and Shoreline I guess is now mostly Google; before that it was bracketed by Sun and SGI. I know lots of people that basically stayed working in the same set of buildings throughout the last 20 years: different companies, same view. That's soil has grown a lot of wealth.

<comment><USER3> There was a point in my life, having grown up in north-east England, when I thought this Sun-SGI strip sounded like the most wonderful otherworldly place you could possibly be. Sun workstations were the first machines I'd used that had seemed to be really limitless. And while wasting time at work in 1993 or so, I'd read Usenet posts by people like CJ Silverio at SGI that (though often seriously dissatisfied) had a mood that seemed to highlight how far away that world was from the one I'd grown up in.

I pictured Silicon Valley as a real valley, with low orange sunlight picking out the slabs and flat roofs of the research centres, roads winding to the valley floor below, the sea at the end of the valley.

How disappointed I was when I finally visited the place and found an extended grid-plan office park on flat reclaimed land with the odd hill in the distance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For more Sun stories, the "Life in the Boys' Dorm" blog series is a great read. Here's the first post -- there doesn't seem to be a single page aggregating them all:

[http://consultingadultblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/life-in- boys...](http://consultingadultblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/life-in-boys-dorm-my- career-at-sun.html)

<comment><USER5> I'm speechless...

Bob Coe once told me he did not have to interview the candidates for his Administrative Assistant position. I should simply ask each candidate to link her hands behind her head with her elbows pointing forward and walk toward the wall. If her elbows were the first part of her anatomy to touch the wall, she was eliminated from candidacy. All applicants whose breasts touched first, he would interview.

<comment><USER6> Sexism is sometimes its own punishment - with a hiring system like _that_ , how many good candidates do you think were rejected?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Where's the story about the surge of Linux and commodity technology in the late 90's and Sun's big pivot to avoid a slaughter?

Seriously, Sun sold for less than Skype. Internet start-ups with no revenue have sold for more. What happened in Sun's final days is embarrassing.

<comment><USER8> As I understand it, a lot of the failure there was Sun's total lack of interest in direct sales between what you could put on a credit card on their web site and mainframe levels of $$$ (several million). In theory various distributors or VARs and the like were supposed to handle this gap, but I can't count the number of times I read a blog posting by a startup founder who found that didn't work and bemoaned the fact that they have to buy lower quality servers from Dell simply because Dell was actually willing to sell to them.

And of course once such companies got big enough to interest Sun's direct sales people, they were adept at making do with lower quality _and cheaper_ hardware; I'm sure Sun missed out on massive sales before they got desperate and degraded the quality of their designs and what they were shipping, at which point it was game over.

<comment><USER9> SGI's story was somewhat similar. Some really bone-headed decisions were made at a high level, which resulted in the company losing contact entirely with the wide bottom of the market, instead retreating to the narrow top.

It's pretty cool to be able to sell a mega-supercomputer for the price of a small castle once in a while, but it turns out it's not a viable business model long-term.

<comment><USER10> It is, until people can just click a button and buy a bunch of smaller machines with the same aggregate power for less.

Neither SGI nor Sun were boneheaded, per se. They simply missed the signs of the Internet and cheap commodity hardware. Just as MS missed the Internet and Mobile. And I'm sure today's high-flyers are missing something too.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that in an industry moving as fast as ours, the only viable long-term model is to change your model all the time.

<comment><USER11> I'm pretty sure a lot of Sun were boneheaded. I had an IPX at work in the early 90s and the 486/66 I bought for home ran rings around it.

Their off again on again attitude to Solaris on x86 and their closing down of their free C compiler ceded the market to Linux.

Oh and about Java. When they brought in their Coolthreads machines Java ran abysmally without special settings. You would think the Java guys would talk to the Coolthreads guys to get nice settings out of the box. Sun were like three companies in one who didn't talk to each other.

It's not just the hardware made Java perform like crap. Java made Solaris perform like crap too.

        http://www.brendangregg.com/DTrace/smc.html

Java reading a single file 12million times increased the boot time from 10 minutes to 30 minutes!

<comment><USER8> There's a story that the Sun486i, which went as far as a small pre-production batch, was vetoed by the internal SPARC types in part because it was faster than what they were delivering at the time, so the company didn't followup on the wildly popular Sun386i....

On the other hand, you're comparing a 1991 or earlier SPARC chip with the late 1992 486/66\. Weitek offered their own after market clock doubled SPARC POWER µP, although I'm not sure it gained as much as the clock doubled 486.

The Solaris story on x86 was poor, indeed: in 1999 I set up a x86 machine with a removable hard drive so it could run the various operating systems our customers used, Solaris was the only OS we couldn't get running on it (and I first bare metaled a UNIX(TM) system in 1981 (sic) so I don't it was our fault). One or two BSDs including the commercial one, Linux, forget what else, but not Solaris.

Then again, as I note plenty of people were willing to run another OS on Sun x86 hardware, but couldn't buy it.

And echoing your other Java comments, a 2001 project I was involved in, running on SPARC hardware, dropped the idea of using Java because the SPARC implimentation at the time was too buggy.

As for their closing down their free C complier, I myself never found it difficult to get GCC running on a SPARC machine through the '90s. But, yeah, that added a barrier.

<comment><USER11> Re the IPX acknowledged, but I think Sun were still selling them at many times the cost of a 486/66.

Re Sun C and GCC - it's not the difficulty of getting GCC on; its the fact that the whole culture of development started to revolve around GCC rather than Sun C.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was an intern at Sun in menlo park in 2002 for a year. One of the oddest memories was going to a town hall and listening to Jonathan Schwartz (then CTO) answering the question "but how will this make the company any money?"

His answer was that engineers shouldn't concern themselves with how any of their work would make money - that was the job of other people. Even then, it seemed like a recipe for making cool stuff no one would buy.

<comment><USER13> I was at Red Hat's then tiny Asia Pacific office with a couple of ex-Sun sales guys in 2003. The recipe was to walk into all their old customers, replace whatever expensive-yet-underpowered SPARC-based box they were were running with a Xeon box running RHL (then later RHEL), and outperform it.

Sun had great software (shitty stuff, like the old IP stack, got replaced), but their on-again-off-again relationship with Intel screwed them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Isn't that guy on the left in the top photo the guy who doesn't want people on his public beach in NorCal somewhere?

<comment><USER15> Yeah. After conveniently forgetting everything in court, his lobbyists now claim he owns everything out to the tides. He probably owns you and me as well.

[http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/05/28/billionaire-claims- he...](http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/05/28/billionaire-claims-he-owns-the- road-the-beach-and-the-tides/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> >"We should have charged $1 a seat for every Java license" and that would have generated billions in cash annually, perhaps saving the company. "There's a fine line between doing good for the community and doing too good."

Would Java have been as widely adopted if it cost money to use the language?

<comment><USER8> No, and James Gosling's experience with the abject market failure of his NeWS because Sun demanded you to pay "$100,000" vs. X's $0 had a lot to do with the Java team insisting on it being free except "for some specialized versions", i.e. mobile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My fav sun memory from the time hanging out there (I was a student intern also) was playing with the Sun SPOTs. Apart from the "cloud" \- SUN also saw the "internet of things", and had devices that look much like arduinos and RPis, much much before their time.

I dont think the community is that active anymore: [http://www.sunspotworld.com/](http://www.sunspotworld.com/)

</comment><comment><USER18> 1) What could Sun have done differently to monetize Java? Or was there no opportunity?

2) Sun was one of the true pioneers of the cloud, but they couldn't capitalize and lead this next generation of computing. (They should have created AWS, for instance.) Was it due to Christensen's innovator's dilemma, or was there another reason?

<comment><USER19> I have a few theories--I'd love to be corrected.

1\. "Cloud" basically didn't matter until we had widespread broadband internet access. Around the beginning of the 00's, that still wasn't the case for many businesses.

2\. Consumers hadn't really accepted that the 'net was going to be a big deal, because there really wasn't a lot of stuff there yet that put them in contact with it every day--maybe, for younger people, Xanga or LiveJournal, or whatever, but the massive publishing empires you see today hadn't really formed yet.

3\. Sun was very invested in workstation and server hardware, big iron stuff. That core business supported a whole lot of growth, but once Linux and comparatively cheap commodity server hardware became available, that core business got eroded hardcore.

4\. Computers were still pretty weak, as were phones and wireless networking. Technology just wasn't primed for mass adoption yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> To me as a teenager in the late 90s, Sun workstations still had enough prestige that I wanted to get my hands on one. In hindsight it was irrational, but I felt that these "workstations" were _real_ computers, as opposed to mere garden-variety PCs running Windows or even Linux. Then, at my first job in 2000 as a code monkey in a cubicle, I got to use a Sun workstation for some of my work (by then I was the second or third employee to have that particular box). I discovered that a PC running Linux was better in every way... except that I couldn't run Linux at work (Windows NT 4.0 on the PC). So much for the vaunted Sun workstation, at least by that time.

<comment><USER21> If you did extensive floating point or needed lots of fast graphics, or needed lots of RAM or I/O, the Sun workstation was more powerful than a PC running Linux, at least up until 1998. By 2000, it was probably less clear. As I recall, it was typical to pay 15 or 20K for the workstation plus display.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> RIP my Ultrasparc workstation from back in the day (early 00's) running RF and Microwave design software. Computer labs back in EE school in the 90's were 5s and IPC/IPX, with a few 20 with 64MB of RAM for serious electromagnetic computations. I thought it was the cat's meow when I had my own IPX at home I bought for only $200. Now everything is win blows.

Wasn't the stealth bomber's radar cross section optimized on a Sparc 1?

<comment><USER23> A lot of Late 80's and 90's CAD was done on SPARC's. In fact you can still find some shops running old Sun CAD machines since its the only CAD software the Production Manager knows or some strange reason like that.

<comment><USER22> Those old sparcstations ran, and ran, and ran. My IPX outlasted it's battery a couple times, hence programming the mac address COFFEE.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> In the 90s Martin county FL the govt workers all had Sparc5 (and later Ultra 5) workstations on their desks. It was very advanced for govt workers at the time, and so were the management practices, Jumpstarting end-user workstations in place while the worker took a lunch break for example.

Eventually they switched everything to Windows due to widespread demand from users, and from a sysadmin perspective, went back to the dark ages.

</comment><comment><USER25> I've had several Suns over the years (Sun 3/80, Sparc 10, Ultra 10) though I haven't turned one on in ages. In the 90's, Sun workstations were the shit! Until Linux ate their lunch.

</comment><comment><USER26> At my first real admin job I had root on an E6500 machine and really thought I was the shit.

</comment><comment><USER27> At my first real job I got to use a Sparc 20 as my workstation. Fantastic machine.</comment>