Using Dnsmasq for local development on OS X - <AUTHOR> http://passingcuriosity.com/2013/dnsmasq-dev-osx/

<comment><USER2> I use "lvh.me" \- it has a wildcard DNS record to redirect any subdomain to localhost. So I'll use something like "example.com.lvh.me" to test.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wrote - [http://invoker.codemancers.com/](http://invoker.codemancers.com/) for similar use. It provides easy to use `.dev` local domain support and then ability to manage multiple processes via a Procfile or custom ini file.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for this. Procfile support has been a thorn in my side with pow for ages.

Edit: Invoker doesn't seem to support the pow use case -- local configuration, not global. Inspired by the topic, I found [https://github.com/riywo/anypow](https://github.com/riywo/anypow) , which has a wrapper for non-rack applications, and can be used to make pow play nice with Procfiles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been doing this for about a year or so now and its honestly the best solution for local development I've used in my career.

Recently I've started using Vagrant for more complex sites that require custom server software, or are based outside the traditional LAMP stack, but a Dnsmasq based setup on my mac is still my favorite for most sites.

</comment><comment><USER6> For Ruby apps, there's also [http://pow.cx/](http://pow.cx/)

<comment><USER7> I really enjoy using Pow for non-Ruby apps too.

It handles the .dev DNS resolution, and also supports hosting domains that you map through /etc/hosts (ex: foo.company.com if you need to share cookies with a SSO server, but don't want all of company.com directed to your local machine)

It is much easier to configure than Apache vhosts for distributing traffic based on host name:

* symlink to Rack app for Ruby support. Name of symlink becomes hostname

* create a directory and symlink Public for static HTML. Directory name is hostname

* as sibling said, put port # in text file to proxy traffic to another process. File name is hostname

I use Anvil for Mac to do some of my Pow management.

I'm also using Apache to do SSL termination and proxy to Pow, as well as host some other stuff. But Pow is so easy to use for both static sites and proxying to another web server, I prefer it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been experimenting with this lately. I have been using dnsmasq to server up domains in my /etc/hosts file to local virtual machines for testing on different platforms without having to mess around with the hosts file in each virtual machine.

I am about to loop back around to a mobile project and I am hoping I can use it to tests my mobile app interactions with my local development box more easily than I have been able to in the past.

</comment><comment><USER9> Another neat "trick" with dnsmasq is to redirect all the dns request for your domain to your dns provider when you're working with dns records (config needed: server=/example.com/126.96.36.199). Never wait for dns propagation anymore! Beat switching your system's dns to your provider because those could be slow for you, or could not answer domains that aren't in their database.

</comment><comment><USER10> I do something similar with Ubuntu 12.04/14.04 which uses Dnsmasq via the NetworkManager service. These steps help make Dnsmasq a little more useful - reading /etc/hosts and allowing it to listen on your hosts IP address for use in guest VM's

[https://gist.github.com/magnetikonline/6236150](https://gist.github.com/magnetikonline/6236150)

</comment><comment><USER11> Or you could use ettercap to redirect all DNS requests for any device on your local network. That's how I test iPhone, iPad, and Android applications when the services needed don't have DNS entries: [http://joseph.by/post/83414951259/effectively-edit-hosts- fil...](http://joseph.by/post/83414951259/effectively-edit-hosts-file-with- ettercap-on-mac)

</comment><comment><USER12> Great article for highlighting the dnsmasq on OSX idea. I wasn't aware that you could run this there.

On the goal of having unlimited easy to configure real domains that point to locahost, another service of interst is localtest.me [1]. This offers *.localtest.me -> 127.0.0.1

[1]: [http://readme.localtest.me/](http://readme.localtest.me/)

<comment><USER13> This is pretty useful! Maybe a noob question but how does this work offline / slow internet connections? I'm coding on the train pretty frequently and I hate waiting for urls to resolve... I'm guessing it's caching this DNS entry? (why would I otherwise have to run dscacheutil -flushcache...)

<comment><USER12> It has a 1 hour TTL, so assuming you start working before you go offline you might be ok. Fair point though. It could be worth upping that to a day?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> One problem I've been running into: I have a virtual machine (linux running in vmware fusion on osx). I have dev.site.com in /etc/hosts. The vm is set to use a private network on the vm (as I don't want the ip address to change when I switch networks). How can I setup my phone to load dev.site.com and have it work while keeping the private network setup?

<comment><USER15> run an http proxy on your host os and have the phone configured to use that?

<comment><USER14> how does the iphone know to route requests for the private network to the host os?

<comment><USER16> HTTP Proxy in iOS Settings offers three options:

 _Off:_ proxies no HTTP requests.

 _Manual:_ proxies all HTTP requests through a proxy server at the specified host and port.

 _Auto:_ uses JavaScript code hosted on a Web server at a specified (unproxied) URL to determine how HTTP requests get proxied. Assuming your proxy server is at host.example.com:8080, specifying a URL pointing to a file containing

        function FindProxyForURL(url, host) {
            if (shExpMatch(host, "*.vm.example.com")) {
                return "PROXY host.example.com:8080";
            } else {
                return "DIRECT";
            }
        }

should proxy only HTTP requests whose URLs point to hosts in the .vm.example.com subdomain through your proxy server.

Disclaimer: I haven't tested any of this, and everything I know about proxy auto-configuration comes from skimming the Wikipedia page[1] just now.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_auto- config](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_auto-config)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Doesn't do the exact same (you'd have to add a new entry everytime, rather than point *.dev to localhost) but [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/hostadmin/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/hostadmin/) is easier to set up. It'll flush the dns cache everytime its changed.

<comment><USER18> No, you don't have to add a new entry every time, you just set it up and now absolutely.anything.dev points to localhost. When editing /etc/hosts you have to add a line for every hostname.

<comment><USER17> yeah thats what i meant and said.

by using something to edit the hosts file you'd have to edit it every time (can't do wildcards on hosts file, so it needs editing every time)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Well, that's one part of the equation. Are there any guides on what to do after; setting up virtual hosts?

<comment><USER20> I use nginx, which is a great alternative to Apache.

I've never tried it on OSX, but this guide seems to cover dnsmasq + nginx virtualhosts :-)

[http://zaiste.net/2013/03/serving_apps_locally_with_nginx_an...](http://zaiste.net/2013/03/serving_apps_locally_with_nginx_and_pretty_domains/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> [http://dev.sh](http://dev.sh) has a nice auto-setup script for this.

</comment><comment><USER22> Genuinely curious: when & why would I want to use myproject.dev:port over localhost:port?

<comment><USER23> You can't do subdomain.localhost:port, so the idea is to create a DNS server that will resolve .dev as a TLD to 127.0.0.1

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wrote a little post for myself on the same topic, detailing how to get this working on Linux (Ubuntu & variants). [https://coderwall.com/p/6dgpsw](https://coderwall.com/p/6dgpsw)

</comment><comment><USER25> I use virtualhost.sh, which is available via homebrew. Maybe the use case is a bit different, but it seems a heck of a lot easier for most uses.

</comment><comment><USER26> Another neat tool/trick [http://xip.io/](http://xip.io/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Maybe I'm missing something, but…

…how is this different from editing /etc/hosts?

<comment><USER28> /etc/hosts offers no wildcard support. You can teach dnsmasq to route everything under the .dev TLD to localhost, so you can effectively create hostnames (including subdomains) by just using them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> What are the advantages of using an approach like this vs. editing /etc/hosts directly?

<comment><USER30> Two immediate I can think of:

1) You don't have to add new .dev hosts to /etc/hosts repeatedly. Once you're setup, all .dev is local

2) /etc/hosts doesn't support wildcards, so dnsmasq is great with apps that have many or randomized subdomains.</comment></comment>


Beyond Mortality: Older Frail Adults Considering Surgical Intervention - <AUTHOR> https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/article-abstract/2755268 <comment><USER2> What would be useful, and which I don't see in the available abstract, is their measures for determining "frailty". One would like to be able to self- assess frailty, or assess the frailty of an older relative. Or at least, understand what measures one's doctors are using.

<comment><USER3> The actual article references [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/258...](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/2586340)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The full (short) comment is here: [https://sci- hub.tw/https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurg...](https://sci- hub.tw/https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/article-abstract/2755268)

It seems like an interesting topic for discussion, but I'm not sure that this comment itself is the right focal point. Why did others upvote it?

<comment><USER3> Similarly curious.

Seems like the actual article that promoted the linked invited comment is the more substantial artifact [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/275...](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/2755273)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://startingstrength.com/article/barbell_training_is_big...](https://startingstrength.com/article/barbell_training_is_big_medicine)</comment>


A Price for the Thrill of the Auction - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/business/economy/15view.html?_r=1 <comment><USER2> There is a website called <http://www.jingobid.com/> which has much more attractive prices than Swoopoo. I've won a camera for $15 with them.</comment>


MongoDB has filed confidentially for IPO - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/15/database-provider-mongodb-has-filed-confidentially-for-ipo/?ncid=rss <comment><USER2> They've made their share of mistakes, but they've stuck it out and have definitely improved their product over the years. I wish them all the best for their IPO. What would be really good to see As a measure of their business health is an indication of how their cloud business is doing with respect to their enterprise sales business. A healthy cloud business would signal less volatility in the face of high revenue garnered from fickle enterprise sales relationships that have been their bread and butter until the past couple years.

<comment><USER3> Reliability and implementation ideas aside, MongoDB popularized document stores and document stores can sometimes be a good thing (even if there's usually little to no reason to prefer them to plain SQL databases for most applications). So they deserve credit there.

<comment><USER4> Agreed; though the way they did their marketing early on the message they conveyed was that document databases were here to replace RDBMSs. It was extremely dishonest.

<comment><USER5> To be fair to them, it wasn't just them, it was everyone.

<comment><USER6> To be more fair to them, it was just them and the "everyone" you're referring to was a result of a fantastic blatant + guerilla marketing campaign. Or maybe I should say a MEAN success? :)

<comment><USER7> It may seem like that from a certain perspective, but I remember drowning in the hype in 1992. It was going to be the next big thing: everything is going C++; you want objects; why would you store relational tables, when you want objects?; relational databases are just slow, clunky and complicate your code base. The company I was working at even tried it... very briefly :-) Unfortunately, I don't remember what we tried, but there were several around at the time. This stuff wasn't invented by MongoDB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It looks like the NoSQL movement was just a fad and plenty of startups got burned by it and some still stuck with this tech , writing inefficient workarounds for something that comes OTB with the regular SQL databases.

<comment><USER9> I worked with one of the largest ad publishing companies. They wanted to track data about every client served an ad. This generated over 1.2 Terabyte per hour of data when the MySQL master started to max out. We had the largest possible multiple core system. It was going to cost my client $30k to upgrade to SSD drives to get more out of MySQL. Also note we had to store this data on an expensive SAN in order to feed the data at a reasonable rate to MySQL or PostgreSQL.

I had just learned of MongoDB and went to school at 10gen for their sys admin class. I talked to the developer about storing the data in NoSQL using a small sharded cluster on a Friday. Monday morning he asked me to setup a MongoDB cluster. Tuesday we moved over from MySQL. They ended up using much smaller servers, got rid of the 3par and epsilon SAN's and saving tons of money.

My point is there are certain situations where NoSQL is still the answer unless you can cluster your SQL write server. I've moved on from working with Ad publishing clients but, I'm sure there are other places where SQL databases are not adequate.

NoSQL might be or, have been, a fad but, like any tool when used for the right job it works.

<comment><USER10> A production large scale ad. system system that was doing 1.2 TB per hour in writes, was migrated over from MySQL to MongoDB in roughly 24 hour window cool story Bro.

<comment><USER11> Good point. How is it possible to move that much data from SAN to mongo cluster in such a short time window?

<comment><USER10> and rewrite and validate all the code that was accessing MySQL to use MongoDB

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Both Hortonworks & Cloudera are the most similar recent IPOs. Hortonworks is below the offering price, Cloudera has been basically flat. And this is in the context of an insane bull market for tech stocks and the market in general.

So we will see how this turns out. It's been a couple years since they last raised funding so its possible they didn't really have another choice. Chances are if the numbers on the S-1 were truly great they wouldn't have done it confidentially.

<comment><USER13> Do you have any info that companies that don't have great numbers tend to file S-1's confidentially compared to companies with great numbers?

In my experience, companies that can file confidentially will, regardless of their numbers (and I think all companies now have the option to do so).

<comment><USER12> Nutanix, Twilio are two recent ones (IPO'd in 2016). They both were great performers last year.

I don't have the time to dig up all the data and do a comparison of the correlation between returns on companies that used the confidentiality exception vs. companies that didn't, but it would certainly be an interesting analysis.

<comment><USER13> Are you sure Twilio or Nutanix didn't file confidentially before its S-1 was flipped public? I'm actually not sure if there's a way to tell, other than a leak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A side note: MongoDB now dominates the famous framework benchmark in the read benchmarks.

[https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/](https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/)

<comment><USER15> With 1.4% more performance than PostgreSQL, and far less guarantees w.r.t. schema.

Yeah, that's not hard. It's surprising it took them this long.

EDIT: The performance comparison that was linked, and that I was referring to: [http://i.imgur.com/Thk5DlU.png](http://i.imgur.com/Thk5DlU.png)

<comment><USER16> Edit: I'm dumb (and bad at reading words).

I don't believe this assessment is entirely fair -- MongoDB essentially commits every write to a majority quorum of nodes.

Remind me again how many machines a standard Postgres INSERT/UPDATE commits to?

(Disclaimer: I still like Postgres better.)

<comment><USER15> The benchmark measures almost exclusively read performance, so that's not really a question.

Now the real question is why mongodb isn't faster than postgresql in this test. MongoDB gives so many guarantees up just to get more performance, and then looses to PostgreSQL? This is the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals.

<comment><USER16> Oh oops, totally misread "read" as "write" :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> think it is a bad fit and a bad time for an IPO, their market just isnt big enough and their losing a lot of steam as of late.

most importantly in terms of numbers, there is nothing going for them. they arent exactly redhat level in terms of support, nor rackspace level for subscriptions, and nor snapchat level in terms of market reach. this looks like some last effort cash out sort of deal to me. weird to say that its somewhat of a sad outcome for an once promising opensource company.

<comment><USER18> >their market just isnt big enough

the database market is one of the biggest software markets out there, if not the biggest.

>their losing a lot of steam as of late

at least according ot google trends, mongodb is more popular than ever.

>last effort cash out sort of deal to me

they're hiring like crazy and looking to grow a ton in the next year, so I don't think that's the case.

<comment><USER19> >the database market is one of the biggest software markets out there, if not the biggest

They only address a very small subset of the database market.

<comment><USER20> Passing the Jepsen tests mean they'd say they're addressing the larger part of that market, rather than document stores specifically.

(I still think MongoDB, the company, isn't particularly great for the usual reasons re their past behaviour, I'm just imagining what they'd tell their investors)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Congrats. I wish them all the best.

I know MomgoDB is not very favored in HN but if there is one thing Mongo taught us, is that a nice and simple API to access your data makes a world of difference.

</comment><comment><USER22> I have never heard of a confidential IPO, how does this differ from any other IPO that is in the news?

<comment><USER23> Starting with the JOBS Act (in 2012), certain smaller companies under a revenue threshold were allowed to file their initial draft registration statements with the SEC confidentially. It was meant to encourage startups to go public and avoid the public eye while they negotiated their registration statements with the SEC. It all goes public before the IPO.

<comment><USER22> Thanks for this information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wow I had no idea they were a for profit corp, rather than an open source project. And my startup uses mongo. Mind blown! Good for them.

<comment><USER25> There's no reason a for profit company can't ship an open source project. :)

MongoDB _is_ an open source project, and the MongoDB company is a for profit corporation that ships the database and sells support and services related to it.

<comment><USER26> Yes this is true, although what happens when the profit motivated corporation doesn't make profits or loses revenue?

Isn't it more likely that a profit motivated OSS project will lose resources in this case, potentially affecting the product?

<comment><USER27> Check out RethinkDB, a competing product which had exactly this happen earlier this year. I don't follow the project closely, but the Linux Foundation picked up stewardship and development appears to be continuing, if at a reduced pace.

MongoDB is pretty popular, so while it would certainly be disruptive in the short term for the sponsoring company to go out of business, continued community development is all but assured.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Really? I thought the MongoDB fad had gone away, that common sense returned, and people either used proper document stores, or proper relational databases, or graph databases.

<comment><USER29> Could you be a little more specific as to what a proper document store is? Mongodb has impressed me after using it for two years in a highly concurrent and rapidly changing big data production system. It's not without its significant headaches, but I've yet to find a database that is.

<comment><USER28> There are many articles out there on the web, over the last 5 years, addressing the many problems specific to MongoDB. For example:

[http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2013/11/11/why-you-should- never...](http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2013/11/11/why-you-should-never-use- mongodb/)

[http://cryto.net/~joepie91/blog/2015/07/19/why-you-should- ne...](http://cryto.net/~joepie91/blog/2015/07/19/why-you-should-never-ever- ever-use-mongodb/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9912842](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9912842)

[http://developer.olery.com/blog/goodbye-mongodb-hello- postgr...](http://developer.olery.com/blog/goodbye-mongodb-hello-postgresql/)

[https://www.andreas-jung.com/contents/goodbye-mongodb](https://www.andreas- jung.com/contents/goodbye-mongodb)

<comment><USER29> So what do you recommend instead?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is huge -- we haven't actually had that many open source based IPOs!

</comment><comment><USER31> Wow interesting. Anybody have their S-1 filing? Interested to see how their hosted/managed offering Atlas[1] is doing vs support contracts.

[1] [https://www.mongodb.com/cloud/atlas](https://www.mongodb.com/cloud/atlas)

<comment><USER32> No public S1 until up to 15 days before the ipo under the confidential provision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I hope at some point they realize the value in queueing writes versus prioritizing. Maybe I did it wrong but that totally put me off

</comment><comment><USER34> Will be interesting to see if Datastax follows with an IPO of their own.

</comment><comment><USER35> I hope their IPO filing doesn't get lost before it gets synced to disk.

</comment><comment><USER36> Now we know for certain that we are in a bubble

</comment><comment><USER37> Get ready for another SNAP!

<comment><USER38> I don't see why. SNAP hasn't really figured out how to make money and their features were easy to copy (and copy better) in Facebook's properties.

MongoDB is far longer established, has a large enterprise business and likely has a sizable cloud business. These are not "features" you slap onto another product and then simply have users come flooding to you. No, databases are pretty critical pieces of infrastructure.

As long as the business is solid this IPO should work out well, IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Will meet similar fate like Twitter, Snapchat...

<comment><USER40> Perhaps, but wouldn't it make sense to compare them to another software infrastructure company, rather than social networks?

<comment><USER39> I am not comparing them but simply predicting the fate based on overblown expectations that were similar to Twitter and SnapChat.

<comment><USER40> I think it's easy to equate, because in our bubble we hear so much Mongo hype, but to the much larger world, they know as much about Mongo as they do Firebase or New Relic. Also, Mongo the technology has a different set of expectations than Mongo the publicly traded company.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rise of the Robots: Review and Reflection - <AUTHOR> http://www.pl-enthusiast.net/?p=1272 <comment><USER2> "Knowledge worker" jobs may be more at risk than manual labor jobs. Robots are still very poor at dealing with unstructured situations, and progress on fixing that is very slow. Robots mechanically dexterous enough to, say, do a routine plumbing repair job don't exist yet, and the ones that are close are very complex and expensive.

On the other hand, machine learning systems are getting good at a lot of white-collar jobs that used to require human thinking. If you sit at a desk and your inputs and outputs all come in over a wire, be very afraid.

</comment><comment><USER3> Without people working the capitalist system falls apart. I wonder how long it would take before companies are fined for having too many robots.

I don't see the point in companies buying machines to replace humans if ~40% of the population can't afford to live let alone buy whatever they are selling.

<comment><USER4> This is one big reason I'm for unconditional basic income. Its the simplest patch to our current system that solves this problem and removes barriers to innovation and productivity for humans and robots alike. As productivity increases so should basic income and eventually i think it will turn into more of a resource allocation "stamp" than money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I looked at the title and was sure it was referencing the Amiga game, not sure what that says abput me!</comment>


Social Experiment - join something you know nothing about - <AUTHOR> http://www.11kclub.com Just for full disclosure - I am behind this site. The club and it's one exceptional benefit will remain a secret until 31 October. Only apply if you are available on 11 November. There are 11,000 spaces available but we'll decide on who is admitted to the club. This website was created for two reasons: 1. To see if people, in today's world, would join something they know nothing about. 2. To give 11,000 people something for free that will be of genuine benefit to them.
Thanks
Steve <comment><USER2> More clique-crap that will be forgotten before it completes.</comment>


Heads up Apple, the Intel Netbook is unstoppable - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10351387-64.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

<comment><USER2> I don't think Apple will let this segment pass it by. There were mp3 players before the iPod, and smartphones before the iPhone, and they managed to introduce a new spin on an existing idea and make it sexier and more expensive. That's what Apple does best.

I wouldn't be surprised if apple releases something in the near future that is part iPhone, part netbook, part Kindle, part tablet PC, and all Apple. I'm picturing a 7-9" hi-res touchscreen with 3G/4G/WiFi connectivity, a true Mac OS (that still runs iPhone apps), built-in webcam/digital camera, GPS, the works. And because it's Apple, expect to pay a premium for it.</comment>


Out of ideas for SaaS business. This is what I do - <AUTHOR> I've been in many startups as a software engineer. Now I want to start one myself but really want to make a truly valuable product that customer wants. So I start asking anyone who want any particular software-based service to be built. Is this the right approach to get things off the ground? What's the better way to find the idea to thing I'm supposed to be making? <comment><USER2> What are you interested in besides writing software?

The best solutions are not invented by the potential users, but by people who understand a particular space well and clearly identify a problem that they can solve and that the market will generously pay for. AKA "Solving the Hair on Fire Problem".

You might need to broaden your horizons before you embark upon setting up a company. Startups are hard work and many crash and burn. So you want to be getting your direction pretty well defined so that you have a chance at success.

</comment><comment><USER3> So basically you don't have any idea for a company, but you want to create a company just to create a company. Did I get this right?

</comment><comment><USER4> I kind of started with adwords and a landing page and built out from there. First, find something people are searching for in good numbers. build an ad and landing page with a question, 3 benefits and an action button and google analytics. Next, I use wufoo to capture survey type info. Then you can refine the process from there. knowing you have possible customers.

</comment><comment><USER5> Suggested reading: [https://medium.com/the-mission/how-do-you-find-the-right- pat...](https://medium.com/the-mission/how-do-you-find-the-right-path- cc4ae735e1d0#.j521r9p9i)

</comment><comment><USER6> A search engine</comment>


Ask HN: Is there any viable open source alternative to commercial antiviruses? - <AUTHOR> For my personal needs, I now do not use any AV on most of my Win10 computers, but this requires some serious discipline.
For obvious reasons, I can't really do that on users' computers at work and I was wondering if you 'd know any viable open sources alternatives to Defender, Kaspersky, or any other commercial AV with a free tier.
I stumbled upon Armadito but it doesn't really inspire confidence as their website has security issues and no way to download the software. Any Idea? <comment><USER2> I believe avast is free. Defender works quite well out of box

<comment><AUTHOR> Not opensource though. If it's not opensource and it's free, you are the product :)</comment></comment>


How the Video-Game Industry Already Lost Out in the Gun-Control Debate - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/01/how-the-video-game-industry-already-lost-out-in-the-gun-control-debate/267052/

<comment> jack-r-abbit I grew up with the Atari 2600 as my game console. I played the shit out of Pitfall... and never once did I just snap and start swinging from vines over alligator pits. I played the shit out of Frogger... and never once did I just snap and start running around on the freeway or try to cross a stream jumping from log to log. I also used to play Army outside. Of course we just used a stick for a gun. Probably the same stick that was a sword the day before. To this day I have never killed anyone with a real gun or sword. We used to build sand castles in the sand box, and then take turns strategically placing/detonating fire crackers on the other kid's castle to see who could take it. I have never bombed anyone.

I'm not a big gamer these days but it seems like a huge cop-out to try to blame the games for the ills of others. Many, many people play the same games, own the same firearms, have the same history of being abused, are on the same psychoactive drugs, have done any number of things that a few random sickos have done... and yet they have NEVER committed such atrocities. Some times there is no better answer other than: Some people are just fucked in the head.

<comment><USER2> I second that, and also think parenting is a big factor to blame.

<comment><USER3> Not necessarily. Two brothers can be brought up under the same terrible parenting and take radically different paths with their lives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Blaming video games for people shooting other people is like blaming punching bags for people hitting other people. Why don't we outlaw these assault/battery simulators?

If anything it reduces the the urge for someone to do it by redirecting the urge into a simulation, kind of like a punching bag.

Now it seems video games are the punching bags for the gun violence debate instead when most studies show they have the opposite effect.

<comment><USER5> Actually, blaming punching bags for people hitting other people makes way more sense than blaming video games for shootings. One of the primary purposes of punching bags, after all, is to make you better at punching people.

<comment><USER4> I won't argue that video games might make you better using a gun against human targets, it very well could. That is a different argument than it leading to more gun violence.

A punching bag makes you better at punching, it also wears you out and gets the urge to punch someone out on the bag rather than the actual person. You never heard of someone wanting to go hit the punching bag for a little while because they had a bad day at work?

What does the phrase mean when you call something a punching bag that is not actually a punching bag? Think about it, it's all related to redirecting aggression.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How do we know video games aren't partly to blame? To me it seems unlikely they are to blame, but I have no proof. I don't play or create games so I don't have any _direct_ stake in this discussion.

Most arguments I hear from gamers use plausible, and even persuasive, _theories_ on why games wouldn't contribute to mass shootings, but I don't recall hearing any empirical evidence backing them up. And the older I get, the more I find that plausible theories and reality don't match up often enough to be fully convinced.

<comment><USER7> Along those lines you couldn't possible dismiss the wild theory that it was actually toast or breakfast cereal that made them do it.

<comment><USER8> Exactly, there is this joke in german that goes like this: "90% of violent acts are committed within 24 hours of the consumption of bread. Ban bread!" This kind of "logic" is just ridiculous.

<comment><USER9> Now if it were: "after consuming bread, 90% of the time the consumer will commit a violent act within 24 hours", we'd have to worry.

<comment><USER7> It is not "after playing a violent video game, 90% of the time the consumer will commit a violent act within 24 hours" yet people act like that and want to have video games banned...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Firearms, not entertainment, lead to mass shootings, and yet gamers have irrevocably become implicated in the conversation over violence in America._

Ha.

</comment><comment><USER11> Heavy 1st Amendment issues here. Also, interesting court decisions upholding the 1st in the context of video games.

This is clearly political, rather than based on any sound research or data. But if there was hard data, historically the legislatures haven't cared: It looks good to their constituents.

Looks like I'm going to have to give money to the games lobbies now, too.</comment>


Stek.io adopts Hackpad – Free and open source alternatives - <AUTHOR> https://stekpad.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm one of the people behind stekpad.com. Next to this free alternative for hackpad (closing down in 9 days!) we also started maintaining the source code actively and provide a number of open source tools.

Here are the links to all open source repos that were used to create stekpad:

\- [https://github.com/hackpad/hackpad](https://github.com/hackpad/hackpad)

\- [https://github.com/hackpad/docker- hackpad](https://github.com/hackpad/docker-hackpad)

\- [https://github.com/hackpad/Python-Hackpad- API](https://github.com/hackpad/Python-Hackpad-API)

\- [https://github.com/Stek-io/hackpad-email-reader](https://github.com/Stek- io/hackpad-email-reader)

\- [https://github.com/Stek-io/hackpad-migrator](https://github.com/Stek- io/hackpad-migrator)

We could use some help. So if you code in Javascript, Java or Scala and would like to contribute, please let me know!</comment>


Scala-powered companies - <AUTHOR> http://www.scala-lang.org/node/1658

<comment><AUTHOR> I wish they put more generic title instead of "in the Enterprise" :(

</comment><comment><USER2> Lots of companies missing there. I hope this stuff gets updated when the new site is up.</comment>


AT&T, Dish, Comcast all raising cable TV rates to counter cord-cutting - <AUTHOR> https://www.dallasnews.com/business/att/2019/01/04/att-dish-comcast-raising-cable-tv-rates-counter-cord-cutting <comment><USER2> I don't understand this logic "people are leaving our service so lets charge more for it" what? Doesn't that make MORE people want to leave?</comment>


Digital nomads social network - <AUTHOR> http://www.social-nomads.com <comment><USER2> Sell it to me :)

Nothing on the site tells me why i should even consider registering. I am more afraid that the blogs will end up beeing people selling their ebooks and i will be spammed with nofications.

<comment><AUTHOR> I had a great landing page but i removed it because of some bugs, but you are right yes :)

and if they sell stuff i can remove posts or users and if alot of people do it i won't let use blogs for everyone just for a few people. I will add a live chat for them

thanks for the tips

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Tried to signup with Facebook, go the "this app is still in development mode ..."

Nonetheless this could be interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> hmm weird. i don't know what it is. thanks for the tip tough</comment></comment>


Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp Down Globally - <AUTHOR> https://netblocks.org/reports/facebook-whatsapp-instagram-messenger-down-globally-WJBZvWB6 <comment><USER2> Dying to see the postmortem if they decide to publish it. All four went down worldwide almost immediately, doesn't seem like a load-based cascade.</comment>


Ask HN: is there a git-push-heroku for php? - <AUTHOR>

Is there a simple 1-step deploy solution (hosting or just some scripts) for php? Preferably works with ec2? <comment><USER2> This question is funny to me because before Heroku, Rails was universally considered a complete bitch to try and deploy, and PHP was universally considered the easiest system to deploy.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://beanstalkapp.com/>

        Instantly deploy or rollback updates to multiple web
        servers for testing and production releases.

It uploads over SFTP/FTP, so EC2 should be fine

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm building one. gitpush.com. I don't have anything up yet but send me your email and i'll let you know when its done.

</comment><comment><USER5> There is also <http://www.deployhq.com/></comment>


Angel Investing Revealed (Ron Conway interview) - <AUTHOR> http://edcorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1902 <comment><USER2> Anyone else ever have the thought cross their mind that 'Ron Conway' sounds like a porn actor name?

<comment><USER3> I think he would want to go by Long Ron Conway. I wonder what effect that would have on his investing career. I guess any nervous entrepreneur talking to him could just think "hey I've seen this guy naked."

<comment><USER2> Then he would not only feel nervous, but inadequate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think Conway needs to expand his metaphor repertoire a bit. Buzzwords as well - I think I'll be pretty good if I don't hear the phrases "added value" or "ocean's 11 team" for another weeek.

</comment><comment><USER4> I was at this interview. Does anyone else here do ETL at Stanford?

<comment><USER5> Yup. Some great talks in that course. This one is average I think.</comment></comment>


Living life in 25min increments - <AUTHOR> http://swizec.com/blog/living-life-in-25min-increments/swizec/1859

<comment><USER2> I can vouch for this. I recently started doing pomodoro and it has changed my work life completely. I usually find I can get done in 5-6 hours what used to take me 9+. Then I can take off the rest of the day, read HN, play around with other tech or just relax.

Something he didn't mention is having your activity list(stuff you need to do) which you use to make your todo list of items that you think you can finish for the day. From this list you pick the most important item and start working on just that. I was surprised at the razor-like focus you gain from this by just getting that one thing done.

Often, you'll come across other tasks that need finishing while working. Instead of distracting you, you just put them on your activity list for later and keep going.

Another nice thing about this technique that you really should practice is keeping records on the the amount of pomodoros you do each day, the distractions(external or internal) etc. These are then used to gather metrics you can use to analyse and optimise problem areas in your productivity.

</comment><comment><USER3> It sounds like a good technique if you have trouble focusing and feel unmotivated. However it feels like a lousy technique if you are :) When you're in flow-mode you don't want to have some stupid clock disturb your concentration every 25 minutes. You want to look down at your watch and go "whoops, I've spent 6 hours coding"

<comment><USER2> I think people overestimate the value of flow. You need to step out of that state regularly to put on your big-picture hat and access the work you have been doing. Pomodoro is not just about being productive, but being productive at the right thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whatever he's done to his links makes middle clicking open them in the same tab.

(Chrome12/W7)

<comment><USER5> True, not middle click on Firefox, but ctrl+click.

Also, the typography choice is awful <http://i.imgur.com/lNV5U.png>

<comment><USER6> Are you using Windows?

Here's how it looks like on Safari on OS X: <http://i.imgur.com/OaG76.png>

The first thing I though about before I started reading the post were actually how nice the font looked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the pomodoro technique, obviously, because I created an online tool for it, <http://www.pomodorohelper.com>.

The technique has one major advantage over GTD and other systems (and I tried them all...), it is damn simple. You don't even need a tool, just a kitchen timer is enough for the start. The only thing I don't like to do in the standard 25 minutes pomodoro mode is programming. You need the tunnel, and a deep tunnel experience can't be achieved if you are interrupted every 25 minutes. My tip: Try 25 minutes first for two weeks, if you can't get into the tunnel, try 50 minutes, if that doesn't work either, try 1 hour 10 minutes. I found this to be the maximum time I can work fully concentrated. And of course, don't even think about checking your mails, reading HN or watching youtube while in a pomodoro.

</comment><comment><USER8> Actually I have been using a similar technique for the last six months. However 30mins intervals and I only do it on days when I feel tired or unmotivated.

At the end of the period I go for a walk, or on an exercise bike for 5-10 mins. The best part is physically leaving the computer stop the eyes getting tired and drifting into a zombie state of zero productivity.

When I start a session I usually jot down a particular task to work on and review at the end. It does not guarantee productivity, but the short periods with reviews helps keep focus.

<comment><USER9> Exercise is key! It refreshes mind and body. Unlike watching 132 episodes of How I Met Your Mother.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm eager to give this a try.

I'm a bit skeptical of whether it will be suitable if I'm programming all day. Perhaps bumping up the timer a bit would help me to get in the flow.

Has anyone else found this technique helpful?

<comment><AUTHOR> I had the same question a while ago and a few people suggested bumping up the time to 45 minutes.

What I've noticed is that a timed 5 minute break is _extremely short_. It's pretty easy to keep the flow right through ... you can read HN or check which emails need attention with half a brain and keep the other half thinking about the task.

Or just go grab a cup of coffee. That is surely low-key enough not to break your flow right?

I think the keyword is: menial tasks.

<comment><USER11> Or try 5 minutes of nothing. Just sit there but refrain from touching either keyboard or mouse. You can think/daydream/meditate/try to solve the problem you were working on in your head/etc. :D

<comment><USER12> <http://www.donothingfor2minutes.com/> (not mine or anything, just read about it here on HN)

To the Hacker News crowd: good luck!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you trust Mint.com, or have a preferred finance system? - <AUTHOR>

Personal finances are finally getting complex enough that just checking the balance is no longer really suitable to managing my money.  Multiple accounts, automatic payments, and variable incomes are running rampant.
I was looking at Mint.com, but the idea of handing over my credentials to all my financial accounts, plus the privacy concerns has me backing away.  Of course the other option is Quicken, or hacking up my own account management solution.
What do you use, would you trust mint.com, any other recommendations?
Managing multiple books is a plus. <comment><USER2> I tried mint and cancelled, and have moved back to Quickbooks.

1\. People say mint is easy to use, the only easy part is importing all your information, after that I felt your information got lost in all the ads, yes those recommendations for new credit cards, savings accounts, checking accounts are all ads.

2\. I hated the alert system, and really didn't appreciate they would log on to all my accounts daily, it should of been something they did only when I allowed or controllable. Why .. I have an email alert through one of my bank accounts, and could tell every time mint.com logged in and checked my records (which is daily). Which overall reduced security because it could of been someone else and I thought it was just Mint.

3\. Allowing a third party logging into any of your personal accounts, without approval every time, just didn't sit well with me.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use Gnucash (<http://gnucash.org/>) for personal and business accounting. It's a "serious" double-entry accounting system with a nice UI and good documentation.

</comment><comment><USER4> I personally use mint, and love it. This is for a few reasons:

* the product is really good; it's really easy to use, it connects to just about everything, and the alerts/trends system is great * I really like the alerts system; they've given me tax tips and warned me about upcoming payments that I might have otherwise missed * they seem pretty competent from the security side; they have a fair amount of material on their site covering this (e.g. <http://www.mint.com/privacy/security-tech/>)

Obviously mint has a huge incentive to have really strong security; since they have so much of your data they have to comply with stringent security regulations in order to just operate their business, and if mint were to be compromised it would be a huge blow to them. If you think about it, they have a lot more riding on their security than your bank does!

I can understand why other people don't want to give their credentials to mint, but the quality of the product and the fact that they seem pretty clueful makes me not really worry about it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yodlee is highly regarded and has been around longer than Mint. Their primary business is running back end services for banks and financial institutions (Bank of America, Scottrade, E*trade) while offering the personal service for free. They have forums to get more info <http://forum.yodlee.com> <https://moneycenter.yodlee.com>

<comment><USER6> Doesn't Mint just use Yodlee on the backend?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been using <http://www.wesabe.com> for a lot longer than I've known about mint.com

The main reason being that it supported UK banks, while mint.com was turning me away!

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't and won't trust anyone with my credentials. Also there is wesabe.com which allows user to upload the transaction data using a desktop application or Firefox extension. Thought it is still in beta.

<comment><USER9> I'm sure you trust your bank with your credentials. They're just as likely as Mint.com to be hacked.

<comment><USER10> but trusting your bank AND mint with your credentials doubles that risk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I _love_ buxfer.com. One of the things I love about it is that you can choose to keep your credentials local if you choose to.

</comment><comment><USER12> Mint's uses standardized Apis that allow for balance inquries, transaction overviews, etc but NOT to transfer money. They encrypt login details so even if their db gets hacked your exposure is minimal.

In other words I feel comfortable with recommending the platform.</comment>


"Search" on Google Search - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/search?q=search

<comment><USER2> Well, it would be redundant to send a user back to the page he or she just came from, i.e. back to the Google home page.

DDG is similarly self-effacing: [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=search](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=search)</comment>


'Spring forward' to daylight saving time brings surge in deadly crashes - <AUTHOR> https://www.colorado.edu/today/2020/01/30/spring-forward-daylight-saving-time-brings-surge-deadly-crashes <comment><USER2> tl;dr: "... 626.9 (95% CI 339.3 to 914.4) out of 8,958 fatal MVAs in the 5 workdays after DST transition from 1996 to 2017 were attributable to DST, and thus were preventable.

<comment><USER3> I think the better tl;dr is: "Our results support the theory that abolishing time changes completely would improve public health," said Vetter.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is this HN spam bot doing? - <AUTHOR> I just noticed a user, https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=vipbababd, that seems to be taking a random comment in a submission and reposting that comment in the same submission.<p>The user profile contains a link to a stream to an upcoming boxing match. Is this an SEO play? Would this even work for SEO? Or hoping to farm some karma and then sell the account? <comment><USER2> We noticed that a few minutes ago and banned the account and moved the replies back to their rightful parents.

If you guys notice more duplicate comments appearing in threads, will you please let us know? This was a pain to fix manually, so the sooner the better.

<comment><USER3> > will you please let us know?

What's the best way to do that?

<comment><USER4> The contact link in the footer of the website (email@example.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is an example of Parasite SEO. You get a site with high Authority site that you can put some content on (HN/Reddit/Medium/Steemit/GetJar). Then you send a lot (100k+) spammy backlinks and then rank for some difficult terms.

Google doesn't penalise big sites for spammy backlinks compared to a fresh domain, and also with the high authority, it will rank a lot quicker.

A good way to find example of Parasites is to search "Fortnite hack". I can see links from LinkedIn, Steam Workshop and a PDF hosted on a hacked (presumably) website for a roofing company.

<comment><USER2> Can you explain this again in more detail? Not being versed in SEO ways, I want to understand it but don't.

<comment><USER6> The more links your website has from some other websites, the more popular your site is. If these links come from "an authority" (an already popular site, like HN, Reddit, Wikipedia or other main website like that), the more popular your site is.

By "popular" I mean more relevant for Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I doubt it'll work. Looks like there were some legit responses, and then a bunch of spam.

My guess would be someone testing something.

</comment><comment><USER8> Huh, even on Reddit this kind of strategy would be trivially detectable.</comment>


GCC starts move towards implementation in C++ - <AUTHOR> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gcc.devel/114407 <comment><USER2> I find this statement particularly interesting:

 _For example, I think constructors and destructors are pretty easy and hard to misuse._

Now, I am aware that the competence of the average GCC committer probably exceeds that of the average programmer, but still, constructors and destructors are easy to misuse: throwing an exception in the constructor comes to mind, in which case the destructor isn't called. Anything about C++ can be probably misused in the hands of the inexperienced.

Other than that, I think this is a good move, and it'll be interesting to see how this develops. There probably are a lot of (heavy) opinions on this inside the GCC community, and it it'll be interesting to see which directions they choose to go.

<comment><USER3> _throwing an exception in the constructor comes to mind_

I don't know C++ and thus don't know all the different ways to break constructors and destructors, but this particular way will be banned-- exceptions are off-limits.

I kind of think that the worst part of all of this will not be the C++ code that is added to gcc, but the massive bikeshedding that looks to be inevitable at the start.

<comment><USER2> Yes, that would indeed be the case if they compiled with -fno-exceptions, which they just might do indeed, - otherwise, you can still cause exceptions to be thrown without using them yourself (for example, if you're out of memory, 'new Foo ()' causes a std::bad_alloc () exception to be thrown).

And yes, I feel for the people in the GCC community that have to lead the team through this process of coming up with an acceptable policy most people agree with. I'm pretty sure it will be a challenging task with lots of egos colliding.

<comment><USER4> Why wouldn't a compiler just abort if it runs out of memory? A compiler seems to be a short running program -- I wouldn't even bother too much freeing up allocated memory.

<comment><USER5>
        PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
      19087 scschnei  25   0  412m 333m 5480 R  100 16.6   0:07.62 cc1plus

Your C++ compiler would be unusable for some modern C++ programs. You're judging how you expect a compiler to behave based on how you've used them in the past. C++ with heavy template meta-programming (like what I was compiling there) can take an enormous amount of memory and CPU time to finish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yes, they just allowed it. They're not going to rewrite gcc in C++.

But still, why, oh why?

Eventhough C++ allows, in some cases, the possibility to use easier syntax for certain constructs, it's not particularly more expressive language than C. I don't know gcc codebase but if they decided to actually reimplement something in C++, it would take a lot of time just to make it comparable to the current C implementation.

While something like a Haskell/OCaml implementation would probably be too cutting-edge, considering the conservative inertia of such a big project, I wonder why they didn't consider _some_ high-level language better suited for compiler writing.

For a project like gcc, even designing a domain specific compiler-writing- language wouldn't be too far fetched given the limited problem domain and the big yields that a finely targeted language might give.

<comment><USER7> ...because large-scale C projects end up reinventing C++ features in a more complicated, error-prone way.

C++ is much more expressive than C. It can compete on equal terms with other high-level OO languages, it has some functional features and it contains all of C. On the downside, it's difficult to learn and takes much time to become proficient in.

Once you become proficient there's no contest.

<comment><USER8> _because large-scale C projects end up reinventing C++ features in a more complicated, error-prone way_

You are spot on. Here is an excerpt from a blog post on writing a GCC plugin:

 _The GCC AST itself is a curious data structure in that it is an implementation of the polymorphic data type idea in C (next time someone tells you that polymorphism works perfectly in C and they don't need "bloated" C++ for that, show them the GCC AST). The base "handle" for all the AST nodes is the tree pointer type. Because the actual nodes can be of some "extended" types, access to the data stored in the AST nodes is done via macros. All such macros are spelled in capital letters and normally perform two operations: they check that the actual node type is compatible with the request and, if so, they return the data requested._

[http://www.codesynthesis.com/~boris/blog/2010/05/10/parsing-...](http://www.codesynthesis.com/~boris/blog/2010/05/10/parsing- cxx-with-gcc-plugin-part-2/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When I read this stuff, like what to ban, what to allow and so forth, it's impossible for me to avoid thinking that actually C++, Objective-C, and D, are not enough. We are still in a world where a "better C" is needed as the available choices are not good enough.

<comment><USER10> Out of curiosity, how did you lump Objective-C and D into this. I haven't heard of people banning the use features of Objective-C and D like they do with C++.

//well, except where the platform doesn't support the feature (e.g. iPhone::Garbage Collection).

<comment><USER9> I don't think the reasons are the same. C++ is too complex, and while it's true that exploiting advanced features it's possible to do a great deal of things, it's not hard to imagine an object system for C much simpler and still able to achieve most of the benefits.

I think Objective-C is taken alive by the fact that Apple is pushing it forward, IMHO this is already telling enough about it. A few things are nice but it's too verbose, the syntax is not nice, some semantic is tricky (memory management is confusing for newcomers), and I feel in it a strange mix of high level features with other things that are too low level or not well conceived (like @synthesize).

D has other problems (like two different flavors and other stuff related to the fact it's pretty recent) but I think it does not qualify as the "better C" that can really be accepted in short time, as the difference with C is too strong and it's not a strict superset of C.

What I think it's needed is a C with classes without fancy features and with a solid standard library that makes good use of the new OOP stuff. The layer that's enough to avoid to write structures and function pointers to fake objects, just that tiny layer, but done right. Not claiming this is easy at all, but probably there are very little people interested in solving this problem right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This could be really great for GCC if they pick the right subset.

For instance, I could imagine that a GCC that takes advantage of namespaces, overloaded functions, and template functions (notably: not classes, exceptions, or implicit type coersion) to be quite a lot easier to understand than today's deeply preprocessor-dependent GCC.

It's easy to assume that C++ implies OO, but you really don't need to go that way, and you might not want to if you're starting with a project as old and hardened as GCC.

<comment><USER12> I've heard anecdotal reports from a few developers that OS X's IOKit driver framework, and its limited subset of C++, works very well. It's very limited in terms of the language features available, and sounds like it strikes a good balance.

Of course, this is all anecdotal. YMMV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Both C and Lisp will be available as system programming languages." \- From the GNU manifesto

Maybe just implement GCC in Lisp? Or am I just nitpicking?

<comment><USER14> All of the machine descriptions are written in Lisp. See gcc/config/i386.md for an example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> AFAIK gcc is not the best designed program in the world (I just compiled it once, and to me it seemed to be a huge bunch of patches over patches).

At the same time I know C++ enough to consider it extremely error-prone, expecially if not managed correctly!

Put together the two things and ...maybe it's time to have a look to some other compiler. What about TCC? :P

<comment><USER16> ...or LLVM :-P

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Level_Virtual_Machine>

"The Low Level Virtual Machine (LLVM) is a compiler infrastructure, _written in C++_ , which is designed for compile-time, link-time, run-time, and "idle- time" optimization of programs written in arbitrary programming languages. "

<comment><USER10> I am hoping LLVM / clang actually give GCC some competition. I like the direction of using the same code for the compiler in tools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Before we start to actually use C++, we need to determine a set of coding standards that will apply to use of C++ within GCC."

So we have another two months of bike shedding right here.

</comment><comment><USER18> An interesting metric for this is if the resulting code is smaller. Wouldn't we expect that to be the case using a higher-level language?

</comment><comment><USER19> For those who don't know it: <http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/>

Very interesting read about the problems of C++.</comment>


GNU Hurd 0.5, GNU Mach 1.4, GNU MIG 1.4 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/news/2013-09-27.html <comment><USER2> OK, I'll nerd out here for a second.

I knew some of the QNX guys,

work:~ call qnx Dan Hildebrandt (QNX) 613-591-0931 x204 (RIP 1998)

That's me using my phone database. Dan was one of the few people who were allowed to touch the QNX core. It was _tiny_ , it knew that the "micro" in microkernel meant small. The entire kernel fit in a 4K instruction cache. The whole thing. Hello people! Micro means small.

For the people out there that understand operating system design, these guys got it. And they managed to make a distributed kernel that worked. I worked on an 80286 (yup) with ~10 users logged in and working.

I'll give more details if anyone cares.

All that said, please allow me to vent about Mach. I know nothing about hurd.

Mach was CMU project and it was what happens when you let a bunch of people who know nothing about the real world write wack on an OS (and a VM system). It was happening at the same time I was getting a decent education from Uwisc. So it took me a while to catch up.

I caught up after having worked on a Unix port. I learned a lot, as would any of you in the same situation. Practice != theory.

I went back to grad school to get a PhD and ran into a class where they were pushing Mach and I listened for 15 minutes and then I just couldn't take it any more and stood up and said "it doesn't work like that". The prof and I went back and forth for a few minutes and then I took over the class and taught it.

Blah, blah, blah, I haven't really made the case against mach. I have wife and kids waiting on me, I can come back and try and do better. My view of mach is that it added nothing to the body of OS work. BSD did - they added networking. Sun did - they added VM. QNX did - they added a microkernel. Mach - they added marketing in my opinion and nothing else.

<comment><USER3> QNX was beautiful. I worked with it for very little time, but I loved it. Elegant and well-thought. I also share your feelings about Mach.

Please, do continue when you have the time. Cheers!

<comment><USER2> Just a bit before I hustle out of here to coach hockey all day (don't have kids unless you want to do the same :)

So Mach's VM was being done around the same time as the SunOS 4.0 release which had Sun's VM system (that implemented mmap() and friends for the first time) as well as Sun's vnode virtualization of the file system. As a side effect almost all of the buffer cache vs page cache mess went away (for those who don't know in the distant past pages were one thing and file system buffers were another. Ponder that for a minute and tell me what's wrong with it. Hint: bcopy()).

I was reading all those papers from Joe Moran and Rusty Sandberg and Steve Kleiman; I really really wanted to work at Sun, to me it was the Bell Labs of the day, so I was slurping in everything I could find to read and think about.

I read the Mach papers and later had a chance to wander through the source code. The best way I can say it quickly is that with some things you don't get it and you wander around for a while and eventually the fog clears and you see the architecture. Sun's stuff was like that, when it snapped into focus it was a thing of beauty. The Mach stuff never snapped into focus, for me. Maybe someone else can see how awesome it is but all I saw was a mess. Yeah, it worked, but so do a lot of messes. The good stuff is architected in a way that leads you to respect and maintain the architecture.

Gotta run, here is betting Bryan C will find this thread and add to it :)

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Enjoy the hockey games!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord Will wait for an update on Debian GNU/Hurd.

<comment><USER4> The arch hurd team recently posted a message saying they were in stealth mode, very busy with their lives but not idle, I hope this will give them thirst to come back on a new release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm actually curios, is this used in production on a mid/large scale anywhere ?

First hand experiences?

<comment><USER6> If someone answers this in the positive (which I doubt), I'd like to tack on the further question "what was so amazing about this software that made you start using it long enough ago, while it was so far in its very slow to come to fruition infancy, that by the time the software reached 0.5 you already had a large scale deployment" ;P.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why, GNU, Why did you have to make a kernel?

Ok, I get that the GNU has always wanted to make an OS that they can get credit for (GNU/Linux folks, I'm looking at you), but still.

I suppose that they can make the case for making a non-monolithic kernel, but that doesn't seem necessary to me.

I feel like all the years of dev work on HURD could have been better spent on other projects, but it's not my time :(

Thoughts?

<comment><USER8> Not GNU projects but relevant and different kernels / operating systems:

[http://www.barrelfish.org/](http://www.barrelfish.org/)

[https://github.com/xomboverlord/xomb](https://github.com/xomboverlord/xomb)

[http://www.returninfinity.com/baremetal.html](http://www.returninfinity.com/baremetal.html)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeL4](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeL4)

I don't consider any of these to be a waste of time in the least; some move quicker than others but ultimately every one of these projects is advancing the state of the art and we may one day see the fruit of this difficult type of work (building kernels from scratch).

<comment><USER9> Don't forget templeos...as trippy as it is.

<comment><USER10> Absolutely, TempleOS is an amazing piece of work including its programming language (Holy C).

<comment><USER9> Completely agreed. I wonder if it will ever 'leave' his hands, as it really is a nice language, a well thought out C improvement (for the uninitiated - [http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Doc/HolyC.html](http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Doc/HolyC.html) ). I'm very versed with who the creator is, and his personality, but honestly think he may be one of the smartest people in the field. It's a shame more people don't take him seriously(and to their point, I don't always blame them).

<comment><USER11> People tend to not take crazy people seriously. That's kinda sad because the guy is indeed one of the smartest people in the field.

I just hope he gets some help and is able to work his issues out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> never knew this was still in developement, It was a great idea but got little attention against linux like some other projects including Haiku</comment>


Is the HP Way still relevant today? - <AUTHOR> http://theengineeringmanager.com/growth/is-the-hp-way-still-relevant-today/ <comment><USER2> Culture eats strategy for breakfast (unknown author but often attributed to Drucker).

Boards often ignore this wisdom and install people based on their previous job elsewhere, long term inside knowledge in a different role or whatever. When the leader of the company is not standing behind the values and defending them the company starts drifting. People become cynical about what unites them and that uniting includes management up to the CEO - or now divides them. In these cases official company values imho. can even become liability as everyone is constantly reminded of double-speak from the top.

Reading "The HP Way" is a reminder on how much business is about people and the society - often forgotten these days.

</comment><comment><USER3> As someone who worked in the HP company during the Carly, Mark, Leo and Meg eras, I've heard some old timers say much better things about the company.

Even when I started, The HP Way was known and alive at least in some pockets of the company. It was what inspired many to give our best despite the changing environment.

After Carly, things only got worse with Mark Hurd. Cutting costs was the one and only trick he knew.

Now the company remains a tiny piece of its former self, having been split and sold to others in pieces.

Any company that looks up to and wants to emulate The HP Way would be good to be employed in.

<comment><USER4> I worked at HP in the mid nineties and left right when Carly took over. Working at HP was the first real job I ever had (real in that I didn't need other jobs and had health insurance, etc.) The people that I worked with were, for the most part, pretty serious about the company. When I decided to leave there was shock all around. It was the first and only time that co-workers approached me and said things like "Working here is really a career, it's not just another job. You should really think about staying." When I started, most of the people I worked with had been there at least five years and most more then ten. Several had been there their entire careers, starting off in entry- level positions and arcing up into management, then kind of descending into a holding pattern in my department (UX and MPE/iX platform support and management) until retirement.

But even then things were changing. By the time I left I had five managers to whom I directly reported. One of those managers was fired, as far as I could tell, because he didn't agree with the other four; sadly they were the one that made the most sense to me. Certainly that wasn't the HP way. There was suspicion among almost everyone about Carly Fiorina, not so much because she was a women, but because she didn't rise from the HP ranks and likely would be unfamiliar with the "HP way". Even at that late date, the "HP way" was something people talked about even if it was fading away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think something else is missing here, though. HP had _great_ products, so I don't think that you can necessarily do the "HP Way" in a company where the products that the company makes (or their services) are not seen as valuable and/or worthwhile by the employees.

<comment><USER6> The HP calculator story pops up here occasionally. They bet huge on it and it paid off hugely. Every scientist and engineer threw away their slide-rule and bought one for a large chunk of change. The design is still iconic.

<comment><USER7> Marketing had initially estimated the HP-35 would sell 10,000 units. When 25,000 had been sold, _the bug_ was discovered: _2.02_ _ln_ _eˣ_ returned _2_.

Packard's response: "We're going to tell everyone and offer them a replacement. It would be better to never make a dime of profit than to have a product out there with a problem."

They sold 300,000 in the 3 years that model was available.

"It would be better to never make a dime of profit than to have a product out there with a problem" is the _reason_ they made a profit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article links to the HP corporate culture booklet from 1980 written apparently by Hewlett. It's worth reading.

Can't fail to notice how successful a _well-engineered_ company culture might be. The booklet gives pretty rational reasons for things like profit-sharing, stock sharing, company-sponsored medical insurance, management by objective and lack of micro-management, etc, all introduced by HP very early.

<comment><USER9> Reading the HP Way PDF, I was struck that several authors bothered to call out that HP used first/personal names to address fellow employees.

I can't imagine NOT doing so, but obviously ~40 years ago, that was uncommon enough to be noteworthy.

[0] - [http://www.hpalumni.org/HPWayBooklet1980.pdf](http://www.hpalumni.org/HPWayBooklet1980.pdf)

<comment><USER10> They did that even in Germany when I visited there in the 90s. I had never seen this before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Both parts are relevant and recurring.

A small company starts and through unconventional business culture — treating employees better than average, and putting quality over short-term profit — grows exponentially. Then they bring in MBAs to turn things around.

In HP the second phase didn't occur until H & P retired, but SV today likes to move fast and wreck things.

</comment><comment><USER11> Strange article. The author's company does _advertising analytics_. The HP Way was for a company that worked on hard problems and insisted on quality products.

I was once told by an HP employee, pre-collapse, that they did not use the term "bug" internally. They use the term "defect". One does not ship products with defects.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not my company: a company I work for. I don't own it!

Are you implying that companies that don't work on "hard" problems can't be guided by meaningful values?

Also, quite a lot of the things we work on are actually quite tricky, from a computer science point of view...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I read the blogpost and I was wondering what I was missing. Then I looked to the left of the page, and saw it was categorized as 'Growth'. So this is like a little advertisement for Brandwatch?

I'm sorry if I got it all wrong, James.

<comment><USER13> Two sections before 'The HP Way' in an engineering blog.

Section 1 - Linting (sounds like engineering, interested, continue)...

Section 2 - Management (3 paragraphs ending with maligning the President's management style, not interested, tired of it, 41.7% chance of annoying your audience) [https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval- ratings/](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/)

Section 3++ - Didn't read.

<comment><AUTHOR> And that's OK. I don't expect everyone to like what I write. We're all different. There's an audience outside of America too. I don't live there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You know what? I worked at this company like recently and I bet the job wouldn't have been really stupid if this was still a thing

</comment><comment><USER15> Considerably more relevant than what is left of HP-the-company. Every time I use my trusty HP-12C I feel a little sad for what was lost in the slash-and- burn era of Fiorina. Swiss Micros keeping the dream alive!

<comment><USER4> It's easy to blame Carly Fiorina for HP's decline, she was leading the company during the downturn of the 2000s. That said, I don't think it's entirely fair: that was a tough time all around! Many companies went belly-up during the dot- com bust[0], like MCI Worldcom, Gateway, etc.

Looking back, it seems like her decision to double-down on computing hardware (servers, desktops, laptops, printers, etc.) and Intel technology (at the expense of their own, like the tech from Apollo or DEC/Compaq's Alpha) immediately before the dot-com bust were the really disastrous decisions.

It's almost like she didn't know the dot-com bust was right around the corner! :-P

<comment><USER16> I agree with this:

Carly was a terrible leader but she, in a sense, was selected for her known personality by a system that had already gone off the cliff. A number of books came out around that time about the HP board and its internal/external conflicts.

I had a job for a while watching the current HP for technological and business developments and it was like being a gawker at a side show.

<comment><USER15> _Carly was a terrible leader_

That's putting it mildly. In terms of both jobs and shareholder value destroyed, she has a decent shot at the title of "Worst CEO Ever", of any company.

<comment><USER16> No doubts about her solipsistic incompetence. :)

Just as devil's advocate, was she that much worse than the other Dear Leaders of her corporate generation? Mark Hurd, Meg Whitman, Ginni Rometty? Heck, even the older but monstrously odious Jack Welch can fit in this cauldron.

The idea of something like the HP Way is anathema to such people.

<comment><USER15> _was she that much worse than the other Dear Leaders of her corporate generation? Mark Hurd, Meg Whitman, Ginni Rometty?_

Elizabeth Holmes has set the bar to a new low, but Fiorina is right down there with Welch. So much destruction and for what? How many years have those people set the world back?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The HP way died with Carly Fiorina. Her audacity for thinking she could be a viable candidate for presidency after gutting one of the hallowed institutions of Silicon Valley made me very livid every time I saw her on the screen. I hate Trump and think he's ruining our country but Fiorina would have been worse.</comment>


What's Really Going On With Apple, Google, AT&T And The FCC - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/21/the-simple-truth-whats-really-going-on-with-apple-google-att-and-the-fcc/

<comment><USER2> And see, here's a place where an ounce of credibility would really come in handy for TechCrunch. And there you have it. Are these anonymous sources any better than the anonymous sources they had for Last.fm?

<comment><USER3> I don't think that's fair. They certainly have an "ounce" of credibility. This piece struck me as pretty good journalism on something pretty important, and I think it would be good for credibility all round to give them that.

Admittedly, the sources are anonymous, but could one expect otherwise given the material? I also appreciate the piece's directness, which is a refreshing contrast to the mealy-mouthed, there-is-no-truth-only-opposing-opinions cowardice of the MSM. (Of course, if you're going to say outright that someone is lying you had better be sure you are right.)

By the way, was the Techcrunch story on Last.fm definitively discredited? (That's not a troll - I don't follow these things very closely and am sincerely curious.) I was under the impression that it was left in an ambiguous state with both sides insisting they were right.

<comment><USER2> Good journalism? It's sourced entirely anonymously and interleaves editorial commentary and prediction (!) with (supposed) factual reporting.

<comment><USER3> If journalism is what gets practiced in leading newspapers, then being sourced entirely anonymously is now standard practice. As for commentary and prediction, ok, if your definition of journalism doesn't allow for that, we can call this something else. Whatever the genre, this piece has some merit. Give me a reason to believe that your hate-on for TC isn't simply knee-jerk. (I'm not a huge fan of TC, mostly because I find the material boring. But the hardcore anti-TC mentality is puzzling to me. Unless it's like the hipsters who in 1990 were huge Nirvana fans until too many people started liking them, whereupon Nirvana sucked and were sell-outs.)

<comment><USER2> I like In Utero more than I like Bleach.

I stopped being OK with TechCrunch when they went after Blaine Cook personally for Twitter's reliability issues.

I can point out lots of random incidents that have caused me to write off TechCrunch (Last.fm being the most prominent). But those are just symptoms. The disease is replacing the profession of journalism with clowns like Arrington. The pathology that results is "publications" with:

* No sourcing policies

* No retraction policies

* No conflict of interest controls

* No separation between editorial and reporting

You're better off with a Murdoch paper than with TechCrunch. At least the WSJ does great reporting outside the editorial pages. Here you're disputing whether there's a non-knee-jerk reason to dislike TechCrunch, over a story in which Arrington uses anonymous sources to assert that Apple is acting quasi- unlawfully, in part over behavior that Arrington simply doesn't _like_. You couldn't get this published in a column in a mainstream paper.

<comment><USER3> _I stopped being OK with TechCrunch when they went after Blaine Cook personally for Twitter's reliability issues._

I'd forgotten about that. You're right, that was awful.

Edit: I like pop songs. At least Bleach had one.

Edit 2: Did you know that the WSJ is Noam Chomsky's favorite newspaper?

<comment><USER4> Do you have a source for WSJ being Chomsky's favorite newspaper?

And I don't know if there's that much difference between them and the Times (except Editorials, of course) anymore. Both have very few real "reporters" who do even the basics of journalism, such as checking facts and assertions for correctness and not just "he said, she said"...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A very controversial post.

I do get tired of bloggers disputing what _should_ be fact by mixing it with rumors or secondary sources...

[techcrunch quote]: "The first part of Apple's argument, that they never rejected the application, is "a total lie," according to many sources with knowledge of the Google Voice application process." ... "There is overwhelming evidence that Apple did in fact reject the application."

[daringfireball quote]: "Google's initial statement regarding this did not use the word rejected either. Their spokesperson told TechCrunch: "Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store.""

Who is trying to mislead us here? Techcrunch throws unnamed "overwhelming evidence" and unnamed "sources" at my face, while daringfireball talks about Google's "initial" statement. Was there a second or third statement that cleared things up?

Anybody have the facts?

<comment><USER6>
      re⋅ject
      3. to refuse to accept (someone or something);
      source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reject

Seem to me like the "reject"/"not approve" disparity is splitting hairs.

<comment><USER7> I'm not going to claim to know how long Apple should be allowed to "ponder" the Google Voice app, as they said they are doing in their answers to the FCC's questions. Six or eight weeks seems like plenty of time to decide.

However, there _is_ a big difference between an app being still under review and being rejected.

Arrington's language claiming that Apple's answer to the FCC was "a total lie" reminds me of Dick Cheney talking about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There's "overwhelming evidence"? And that's enough for you to accuse Apple of lying to the FCC on TechCrunch? Obviously not all journalists hold themselves to the same standards.

<comment><USER6> There may be a big difference between an app under review and being rejected. There's also a difference between an app being sold in store for months and an app being pulled from the store! Reminder, it was Apple pulling 3 existing Google voice applications that prompted questions to Google about the status of their official app in the first place.

Google's response at the time sounded pretty final: "We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users, for example, by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If Apple was so damned worried about Google controlling so much on their default user experience, maybe they should have thrown Yahoo a bone past just the Weather app. Or given AOL/Mapquest the Maps app. Apple has only itself to blame for giving Google that much control over the default apps, and thus, the default user experience.

<comment><USER9> The stock app is also from Yahoo!(finance). Given that Maps/Youtube are from google,that puts yahoo/google at 2 default apps each.

<comment><USER10> Two words: Push Email

Yes, there's a preset icon for both Yahoo and Gmail but iPhone supported push email for Yahoo mail accounts, still does, and still does not have push email from Google.

To get Yahoo push email working before the 3.0 with "push" for everyone, Apple allowed Yahoo's mail a feature only shared on the iPhone by the MobileMe subscription service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's probably been a change in mindset at Apple over the last 2 years, from seeing Google more as a partner to seeing it more as a competitor. Unless something from Google (like Search/Maps/Youtube) is obviously of big value to most iPhone users, Apple would probably want to keep Google on the outer side of the wall.

</comment><comment><USER12> bias(TechCrunch) == CrunchPad</comment>


The Media's Coverage Of LulzSec Has Been Cowardly and Pathetic - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/26/the-lion-that-squeaked/

<comment><USER2> I found it distasteful that he calls other journalists cowards, when he himself writes this drivel after lulzsec has powered down.

His argument that lulzsec is more dangerous than someone making pipe-bombs seems a little mis-aligned.

His argument that kids do stupid things then comparing it to Columbine is unbelievable. It shows a lack of any intellectual capacity. And equalizes dissent with mass murder.

Again, arguing that lulzsec has dubious moral stand points misaligns the fact that lulzsec is not a coherent group. Nor should have a complete moral system. Their actions clearly show a level of complexity. However, their targets are also dubiously moral.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. He lost me when he quoted, with obvious approval, a source calling LulzSec "terrorists".

<comment><USER4> I think that if you attack and damage entities seemingly at random then its a brand of terrorism. Its not al-queda and its not taking a plane from the sky and yeah terrorism is such a loaded term that we've grown to equate with real evil, but as a method? Its terrorism.

There are other -ism's that could apply as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1.

>blaming individual Arizona officers (and their families) for a state senate law is as wrong-headed as holding a single US army private accountable for the entire Iraq war.

2\. Blaming senators for the law is wrong because they only expressed the will of the people. So who is to blame? As according to rule 1. the people, even the ones who actually performs the evil acts and receive direct material benefits for doing it, can't be blamed.

It is like in Bush's tortures - lawyers said its ok to torture and can't be punished for that, torturers acted based on lawyers advice and can't be punished for that... It is human nature that dropping personal responsibility unleashes all kinds of evil.

</comment><comment><USER6> A better question is why most of it even got covered at all. Script kiddies deface and publish all the time - the only reason the press was covering at all was because it was pushed and packaged in PR friendly ways. Yawn.

<comment><USER7> > A better question is why most of it even got covered at all. Script kiddies > deface and publish all the time.

How many previous groups of script kiddies have published such huge lists of email/password combinations? Note that publishing in an irc channel isn't the same as publishing on twitter, and giving the data away to a much broader audience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> No, Paul Carr is obviously correct, because the current level of personal surveillance and state secrecy is totally normal and has always been this way, and nothing and nobody should be challenging it, and anybody complaining about it must be a total lunatic.

What a hack.

<comment><USER9> It is quite possible to be displeased with the increasing erosion of privacy by both corporate and government entities while also finding most of these hacker groups to be juvenile at best.

Reality isn't black and white.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> They're juvenile because they're juveniles, but all that really means is that this has only just begun.

</comment><comment><USER11> Because lulzsec is comprised of teenagers, it's O.K. for Arizona law enforcement officers to be racist?</comment>


Ask HN: Office Chair for WFH, La-Z-Boy or Hermin Miller? - <AUTHOR> I work from home. I'm a big guy, 300 lbs and 6' 3". I need a comfy chair, I'd really like something with head support. I've worked on a Hermin Miller chair (back when I worked for the Government) and they're nice chairs.
Personally I've looked at buying the La Z Boy Delano Big & Tall Executive and wondered how it compares to the Aeron and if it would be a good purchase.
Craigslist often has Aeron's for $350-500. How good is the La-Z-Boy for sitting 8-10 hours a day? <comment><USER2> Step 1: Loose weight

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> bump</comment>


Why Computer Talents become Computer Hackers - <AUTHOR> http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2013/4/162513-why-computer-talents-become-computer-hackers/fulltext

<comment><USER2> Hacker = Good Cracker = Bad

C'mon, do your research.

EDIT: Okay, I see why you use Hacker that way but I still don't like it.</comment>


Dumb-dumb bullets (anti-ppt) - <AUTHOR> http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2009/07/4061641

<comment><USER2> I eschew powerpoint in favour of a whiteboard, which allows me to engage with the material and the audience, through me, to also engage with the material in a way that a projector doesn't allow. This has the added benefit of allowing me to talk through points, rather than the audience reading and rushing ahead, and (know that notetaking aids memory and application) also makes it clear to the audience that they need to be responsible for notes and can't just 'have me send the slide pack'.

Where I need slides - usually for graphs like stock market trends, which can be hand drawn but at the expense of credibility, I stick to Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 Rule - 10 Slides / (per) 20 Minutes / 30 Point font.

<http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> Are there actually people in the world that can read text at that font size?

<comment><USER4> I have a browser setting that forces a readable font size for all webpages, so I'm not sure what the original size was. What I don't notice on the submitted webpage, but do notice on many others, are Javascript-based navigation devices that don't work (because of overlapping hover targets) if the page is resized. That's about as stupid as PowerPoint.</comment></comment>


Asset: little asset manager for lazy people - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/visionmedia/asset

<comment><USER2> The author describes it as an "asset" manager, but the readme shows only javascript frameworks being used. This looks more like a javascript package manager.

Now if someone can integrate this into a module system that can be used within JavaScript, then the world has become a better place.</comment>


Why Do Many Tweets Begin With A Period? - <AUTHOR> http://minimaxir.com/2013/01/prefixed-period/

<comment><USER2> The reason they begin with a period is because it is a hack/fix to twitter's behaviour which they changed about twelve or so months ago. Before this all these tweets were shown to all your followers.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's still an incredibly stupid and unintuitive hack, though.

<comment><USER2> Why is it incredibly stupid? It is a means to do something which twitter did not want you to, you do not have to use a period yet it has simply become the norm. I remember posting a message to twitter as soon as I was told of the new policy (yet not the work around) and it was tweeted to all my followers. That is what I wanted to do and what I also wanted to show to twitter. The fact is that what twitter introduced was stupid, not the work around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> OP not actually not actually asking a question here.</comment>


Currency Conversion Engine - <AUTHOR> http://ncalculators.com/currency-converter/

<comment><USER2> nice animation on the conversion. Other than that the interface is quite simple and not well finished. You can also google to do currency conversions. For exemple, to convert between us dollars and pounds, search for: 1 USD in GBP</comment>


Lawmakers Say Redacted Pages of 9/11 Report Show Saudi Official Met Hijackers - <AUTHOR> http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2016/04/11/60-minutes-lawmakers-say-redacted-pages-of-911-report-shows-saudi-official-met-hijackers-in-la/ <comment><USER2> Which doesn't support the "truther" narrative in any way, of course.

But adds incremental evidence to the support the observation that there's still a lot we're not being told about how the attacks were orchestrated, and who their financial supporters were.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is super duper off-topic for HN...

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been on HN for a very long time (3207 days) and have seen it ebb and flow over time, but recently I've seen the front page inundated by stories that feel like a dilution of the formerly start-up and technology focussed news stories that were here.

For example: this story, another about a Verizon strike, one about multinational corporations, one about NPR, one about The Guardian evolving, one about Blackwater.

Lots of us read HN from outside the US and do so to read about technology. Any chance we can get back to that?

<comment><USER2> From the guidelines:

 _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._

 _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._

By these criteria, the posted article would seem to be an edge case. I lean toward the "on-topic" side, because it isn't just reporting some routine disaster -- rather it touches (quite deeply, in my view) on the nature of how we really come know about important events that affect our daily lives.

And because this information damn well _should_ have been covered on TV news, around the time it was known to investigators. Why it wasn't is, in my view, certainly a valid question to ask.

<comment><USER3> > 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.

This is about politics. It is off-topic. You can argue how the rules are written, but as they currently stand, this _is_ off-topic, by definition.

<comment><USER5> I think you need to review the definition of the word "most", and then read the section on what is on-topic, as well. When you do, you'll realize that there is no black and white objective line, and that's by design.

<comment><USER3> I'm playing the odds, and using my judgement. Combined, this submission is most certainly not what PG had in mind when he founded HN.

I could be wrong, but I don't see how.

<comment><USER6> You are wrong, because this comes up ALL THE TIME, and the simple answer is that it's not off-topic if enough HN members find it interesting enough to upvote.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google forbids users from reselling, loaning Glass eyewear - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/18/tech/innovation/google-glass-resales/index.html?hpt=hp_t5

<comment><USER2> This is a disturbing trend. Increasingly sale is being redefined as "rent under licensing conditions." It shouldn't say "terms of sale," then.</comment>


Awesome multiplayer FPS Game using WebGL - <AUTHOR> http://apps.playcanvas.com/playcanvas/scifi/latest

<comment><USER2> That runs quite smooth, tho it displays the same problem as most other webgl/html5 games that is driven by the mouse - no mouse lock. Its impossible to play in the browser when after a while, the mouse leaves the browser screen (especially easy if you have dual monitors).

<comment><USER3> In Chrome it uses Mouse-locking to disable the cursor on-screen. It then plays as you would expect.</comment></comment>


SQL Injection in Plain English - <AUTHOR> https://speakerdeck.com/u/normalguy2/p/blind-sql-injection-in-plain-english

<comment><AUTHOR> Best explained SQL injection presentation I ever seen. Need more presentation with illustration like this.</comment>